this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib brought to you in part by -- >> the street.com. founded by jim cramer, the street.com is an independent source for stock market analysis. cramer's action alerts plus service is home to his multimillion dollar portfolio. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr. stocks rebound, the dow snaps a 5-day losing streak as the focus returns to earnings and the financial health of some of america's biggest companies. center of the storm. the central bank of turkey holds an emergency meeting as it tries to support its currency after a sharp decline. we are on the ground in istanbul where tough action is being

taken. state-of-the-union. income inequality. the president takes aim tonight in front of congress. what's causing the widening income gap and what are possible solutions? all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for tuesday, jan 28th. after six losing sessions in a rows dow found much-needed gains after the selloff in emerging market currencies levelled off. a batch of strong earnings reports before the opening bell prompted investors to buy stocks again. today's gains happened despite a surprise drop in december durable goods orders and a big selloff in shares of apple following disappointing earnings late monday. here's a look at the closing numbers. the dow jumped more than 90 points, nasdaq added 14, the s & p up almost 11 points. more now on those earnings

from some big-name companies out before the bell today. that gave investors something to cheer about. morgan brennan has our report. >> reporter: four companies posting fourth quarter earnings that beat wall street's expectations today. starting with pfizer. increased sales of drugs for cancer and arthritis plus cost cutting measures and low tax rate helped the company to beat estimates. while key patent expirations pushed profits down from a year ago, investors are focusing on pfizer's promising pipeline for new drugs. meanwhile, chemicalmaker dupont saw its profit double thanks to demand for pesticide and seeds. the company has been aggressively expanding its agriculture division, offsetting a volatile performance chemicals unit it plans to spin off. dupont is also announcing a stock buy back program. and ford's speeding past expectations thanks to record profits in north america. here's what ford cfo robert shanks had to say about it. >> this was a great year, one of the best in our history as you

pointed out. so many accolades we could talk about. very strong year. and sets us up well for what we're going to do this year with the launch of new products including the new f series for that stronger growth and results in 15 and beyond. >> reporter: ford is planning to introduce 23 new vehicles worldwide in 2014. lastly, american airlines group. the newly created company posting stronger than expected profit and revenue as fares climbed and fuel costs fell. it's the first time american has reported since merging with u.s. airways, a move that helped parent company amr emerge from bankrupt last december. turning attention to tomorrow, the earnings parade will continue with big names like face book, qualcomm and boeing reporting results. here's how shares of those companies finished today. pfizer up 2%, ford down just a fraction higher and biggest

gainer was american airlines up nearly 6%. also after the bell, another dow member reporting a strong fourth quarter. at&t, it earned 53 cents a share. that was 3 cents more than estimates. revenues also came in better than expected. but the number two u.s. mobile provider's wireless subscriber growth fell short of wall street expectations, and that's what investors focused on. yahoo! also out with results after the closing bell. it earned 46 cents a share. that easily topped estimates of 38 cents a share for the fourth quarter. revenues matched forecasts but they were lower than a year ago. one key sore spot display ad sales off nearly 6%. sima moti, what's the one take away you saw in this report? >> reporter: when it comes to yahoo!, the key metric analysts look at is display ad revenue. the amount of money yahoo! makes from selling display ads. that number was down year-over-year. analysts say that probably was

due to rising competition from other internet giants like google. display revenue has been something that ceo has been working on since she became ceo in 2012, but those efforts don't seem to have been paying off this quarter. with that said there were some bright spots in this report. search revenue up 8%. paid collision excluding korea up. changing now to emerging markets, currencies have been under pressure this past week. tonight turkey's central bankers are holding an emergency meeting to prop up the currency after its sharp decline. michelle cabrera joins us now from istanbul with more. michelle, over to you. >> reporter: hey there, susie. extraordinary moves by the turkish central bank tonight. they raised all their major lending rates between 4 and 5%. consider that in the united states when we talk about the federal reserve we talk about moves by the fed as only .25%. an extraordinary move would be .5%.

a hike between 4 and 5% here shows you just how dire the swaying was. the reason foreign central banks raise interest rates they need to keep capital in the country. they want to keep investors and offer them a more attractive interest rate. turkey had to do that in particularly because recent political trouble here has gotten investors very nervous. additionally, because the fed is going to be tape tapering it's believed interest rates in the united states will be going up and investors will be moving capital back to the u.s. so far we have seen the currency stabilize and rise in the wake of the decision. the question now is whether we'll see other emerging market currencies stabilize as well along with turkey. >> michelle, that is a dramatic raise in interest rates as you mentioned. what are the risks economically and politically? >> reporter: well, here in turkey the risks of rising interest rates are that it slows down the economy. the prime minister here in fact

was very against any hike in interest rates. he made that announcement before leaving on an overseas trip. there's even been editorials here in the paper about it. the head of the central bank here was under pressure. he's supposed to be independent but the government hasn't been acting that way. if we see a lot of instability within a lot of the emerging markets, there are much bigger percentages of world gdp than they were 20 years ago. and a lot of u.s. conglomerates get their overseas earnings like this one. >> michelle cabrera reporting. turkey is not the only country facing and making some tough decisions. india's central bank hike interest rates today hoping to keep a lid on rising inflation there. the unexpected .25% rate hike was the third increase over the past five months and sent shares on india's stock markets to a two memorial hospital low. president obama will give his sixth state-of-the-union address tonight.

one of the major topics he'll be addressing, income inequality. we take a look the a the great divide betweens have and have-nots. >> when it comes to inequality, the numbers are stark. incomes from most everyone else barely budged between 1979 and 2010. but income from the top 1% surged by 201%, according to the congressional budget office. numbers that have economist, politicians, and average americans searching for causes and solutions. some researchers contend the multimillion dollar salaries of top ceos come at the expense of the poor and middle class. add on top of that the idea that in the new globalized economy if you have a good idea you profit globally. but if you're low skilled your wages compete globally as well. the right wants lower taxes and less income redistribution and less government. the left argues for a higher minimum wage, more unionization and higher taxes. but there are also key areas of agreement between the two sides. like expanding the earned income

tax credit which provide a credit to the working poor. >> we're taking money from wealthy people to poor people and broadening the tax code. >> there's also consensus to battle inequality we need to expand educational opportunities. everything from keeping teenagers in high school to make vocational and higher education more accessible. >> one of the things that doesn't get much attention is the extent to which the measures you would put in place to raise the growth rate in this country -- we do need that -- are essentially the same as the measures you would do to reduce inequality. >> reporter: both right and left seem to support some form of pro-family policies that keep couples together. either through education or even tax incentives. finally, there is agreement there is not a single silver bullet to solve the inequality problem but it's going to take a variety of programs. for "nightly business report," i'm steve liesman.

>> with more is byron wayne, vice-chairman with blackstone advisory partners. welcome back, brian. great as always to see you. we will get to the markets and emerging markets and fed and all of that. in light of what steve was just talking about, i know you to be one of the most thoughtful guys on wall street. what do you think about income inequality in america, and what do you think if you see it as a problem would be the best way to address it? >> well, steve, i think there are very good job of talking about the fact that you have to have a number of programs. income inequality is caused by globalization, it's caused by technology, it's caused by problems in our educational system. it's caused by cultural problems. the number of kids being raised in a family without two parents. it's caused by the concept of education in the united states where we put everybody in an academic track.

we don't have vocational training. at an early enough age. so there are a lot of changes that would need to be made in order to bring the people who are disadvantaged up the social and economic ladder. >> byron, that is one of the themes that obviously president obama is going to be talking about tonight. but wall street is focused on other issues like tax cuts, lifting this debt ceiling. what does wall street want to hear from the president, and will there be market moving? >> well, if he had growth policies, if he focused on growth, if we had ways to increase demand in this country, we would create more jobs. one of the ways to reduce income inequality is to reduce the unemployment rate. one of the reasons a lot of people don't have rising incomes is there are too many people looking for a job willing to take a job at almost any

compensation level. so i think that is one of the biggest problems we're facing. and there is a lot of demand around the world, but there are a lot of people producing a lot of stuff. so the united states is not the only country manufacturing. we're competing with people all over the world, and many of them are producing quality products at an attractive price. >> do you expect the president to talk much about growth-oriented economic policies? do you think the focus is going to be on such things as raising the minimum wage, health care and so forth? >> well, i think the president is going to be focused on what's practical. so i think he's going to talk about the minimum wage. i think there'll be a round of applause for that. i think he's going to talk about immigration. i don't think he's going to talk about growth policies directly. i don't think he's going to talk about taxes at all. he just raised taxes on the upper brackets for the affordable care act. my view is that increasing taxes

on the wealthy is a nonstarter in the republican congress. >> byron, i want to skip ahead to the fed. as you know, fed policymakers are meeting and going to make an announcement tomorrow. you've said that you're expecting the fed taper to be a nonevent for the stock market. tell us why. >> well, i don't think the fed is going to go forward unless they feel the economy has some momentum. and i think it does. my own view is we're going to grow at better than 3% in 2014. but the durable goods orders that came in today were disappointing. remember, the fed isn't tightening. it's just reducing the amount of expansionary monetary policy. it went from 85 to 75. but 75 billion of bond buying is still an awful lot of bond buying. if they think the economy is losing some of its verve they

won't take another step. if they're confident momentum is increasing they'll go from 75 to 65 and further steps along the way. it's totally dependent on the pace of the economy. the market and the economy and investors weren't ready for it when bernanke first talked about tapering in may of last year. but when he did it in december, the market sloughed it off. i think the market is a little ambivalent now, but i think before the year is out we'll see a lot more tapering. >> you know, your surprises of 2014 a great read. your first one indicates here, you say we experienced a dekinsian market. the first works first as geopolitical problems lead to a sharp correction of more than 10%. then followed by a return in the s & p to a gain of 20%. are we in very quickly, byron, running out of time, are we in that 10% correction phase that you predict? >> i think so. >> well, that's a quick answer.

>> that's the quick answer i can give you. >> byron wayne, thank you very much. have a great evening. >> thank you. >> byron wayne, vice-chairman with blackstone advisory partners. still ahead of the program, apple shares tumble on weak iphone sales and soft revenue guidance but the company is already make its next big bet. sapphires. we'll explain. . global shipments of smart phones topped 1 billion units for the first time everlast year. 1 billion. up 38% from 2012. the research firm idc says smart phones that can bring you e-mail and internet access now make up more than half of all mobile

phone shipments. >> meanwhile, samsung held onto its title as the world's biggest seller of those smart phones. the korean electronic giant sold a record 86 million smartphones in the fourth quarter. that's widening its lead over second place apple which sold 51 million. the biggest growth was in low-end smart phones made by chinese manufacturers. with all those smart phones you need a lot of glass screens. that's where corning comes in, the maker of gorilla glass supplies screens for samsung and apple smart phones as well as for tvs made by sony, lg and lenovo. but corning shares took a hit today. they fell more than 6% after the company warned about price declines for its lcd glass screens. they are under pressure from a rival product called sapphire glass. corning's chief financial officer talked about why his products are better than sapphire glass. >> our job is to make a gorilla product that's better than sapphire. we think sapphire has a number

of weaknesses. number one, it's at least ten times more expensive than gorilla, transmits less light, it's actually heavier than gorilla and thicker. it has better scratch resistance but it can fail when it has any kind of scratch scratches. >> despite that competition corning says it ex plates glass declines to mop raderate later the year. apple could use a little shining up right about now. that's because shares of the company plunged 8% today because of disappointing iphone sales last quarter. we told you about that yesterday. so what is sapphire glass? and why does apple think it's worth investing in? josh lipton has more. >> reporter: forget diamonds, emeralds and pearls. apple thinks the gem to own is sapphire. we don't know the new ways in which apple intends to use sapphire, but we do know it's investing a lot of time and

money in the gemstone. apple signed a nearly $600 million deal with gt advanced technologies to become its producer of sapphire glass. it's filed a patent detailing ways in which sapphire can be secured to various devices. sapphire does have its advantages. it's durable and scratch resistant. here's the big draw back. it's expensive to manufacture and produce. eric voray, an analyst at yolay,a technology research firm, says a layer of sapphire glass for a smartphone costs $17. the equivalent for glass that is simply chemically strengthened is about $4. sapphire glass at its current price point is probably too expensive to use for large screens like ipads. as for iphones, pieeter mystic jeffreys estimates 115 million users will be eligible for upgrades when the iphone 6 launches.

it doesn't appear apple has that much sapphire for the displays. but paul demenza, from a market research firm, says gt advanced technologies does have new manufacturing technologies that could lower the cost of manufacturing sapphire which would allow for greater production to cover all those iphone displays. >> it's conceivable if the process ramps up, and that's a big if because it's a new manufacturing technology. but if it did ramp up, you could get to large numbers and then they would have complete access to that. >> reporter: apple could also keep using sapphire to cover smaller areas of its devices as it does now. such as the camera lens on the iphone 5. there's also speculation that apple could expand into the jewelry business and use sapphire glass for an iwatch. at the end of the day, the real appeal of sapphire glass is that it's a better material. using the gem makes apple's products that much more distinctive from its rivals and

would remind consumers and investors that apple is still the innovator. josh lipton, "nightly business report," silicon valley. v.r. horton stocks soared on news that its profits rose 86% last quarter. that is where we begin tonight's market news. the company says improving housing market conditions helped drive the earnings beat last quarter. shares surged almost 10% today to $23 even. comcast added video customers last quarter for the first time in more than six years. and that helped the cable operator offset a slight profit miss. earnings came in below estimates as its tax rate was higher than expected, but revenue beat comcast the parent of nbr's producer also upped its dividend and buy back program. shares were up more than 1.5% to $53.35. susie? after the bell, electronic arch reported a third quarter profit that topped analyst

estimates but revenue fell short as shoppers spent less on games for older con soles and the industry introduced new devices like x-box 1 and playstation 4. shares sold off in after hours trading. during the regular session, electronic arts rose more than 1.5% to $24.87. j.c. penney took action today to make it more difficult for a hostile takeover. it slashed the threshold on its shareholder rights plan by about half. now activists will need board approval to purchase more than 4.9% of the retailer shares. it also extended this poison pill plan until the year 2017. shares were off more than 1% to $6.42. and activist hedge fund "casablanca" capital disclosed it has a 5.4% stake in cliff natural resources. the company is urging the mining company to spin off its international assets. donald draften ceo says he has other changes in mind.

>> mlp as i said the refinements to that. bottom line you can see a $50 stock on a clear day. this is a no-brainer. the company just lacks the urgency to get this done. we're trying to light a fire. >> all those comments fired up shares by more than 2% to $19.81. and coming up, a deal has been reached on the long-awaited farm bill. what's in it? which programs are cut? and why is this piece of legislation so important to america's economy? congressional anotherers have finally come up with a new farm bill. hampton pearson has more on

what's in the bill, what's out, and how close it is to becoming law. >> the massive five-year farm bill headed to the house floor is a bipartisan compromise nearly three years in the making. it calls for spending almost 100 billion a year with savings of 2.3 billion, including an $800 million a year cut in the food stamp program. and the elimination of 4.5 billion per year in direct subsidies now paid to farmers whether they grow crops or not. with the shift to crop insurance programs, so farmers would have to incur losses before receiving payouts. house agriculture committee chairman frank lucas calls the bill nothing short of a miracle. >> even though raising food is important to every consumer in the united states and around the world, we just had a tough situation. a bad political environment, no money to work with, diversity, half the united states house was in the round for the last farm bill in 2008 so no experience. just the most difficult set of

circumstances. >> reporter: house speaker john boehner has endorsed the compromise but leading conservative groups including the club for wealth are pressuring house republicans to vote no. they argue agriculture is big business that doesn't need to be subsidized by taxpayers. >> this is business like any other business. these are big, sophisticated producers that can measure the risk and can anticipate market conditions and they can supply the need of the american people through food. ag policy does not reflect that. it is an antiquated system based on 100 years ago or 50 years ago that doesn't exist today. >> liberal democrats, meanwhile, say the cuts to food stamps and other parts of the social safety net are still too big. >> vote against this farm bill. do not make hunger worse in america. >> the legislation is comprehensive, buried in the 900-plus pages, definitions on everything from industrial hemp to farm-raised fish, even calls

for more kosher food and the government's emergency food programs. the house is scheduled to vote on the measure on wednesday. it could be close. the timetable for senate action is more uncertain. for "nightly business report," i'm hanson pierson in washington. and finally tonight, a historic move in the world of big money college sports aimed at protecting student athletes. northwestern university's football team is asking to be represented by a labor union. the first time that's ever happened. 30% of team members had to support the move before paperwork was filed at the chicago office of the national labor relations board today. the next step, a formal vote by the whole team supervised by the nlrb. very interesting development there. >> it is interesting. who else is going to sign up? what other schools? or does it fizzle out. we'll see. that's "nightly business report" for tonight. i'm susie gharib. thanks for watching. >> we hope you'll join us tomorrow night. i'm tyler mathisen. have a great evening. again we hope to see you back

here tomorrow. "nightly business report" has been brought to you in part by -- >> the street.com. the street.com is an independent source for stock market analysis. cramer's action alerts plus service is home to his million million portfolio. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr.

>> tonight on revolutionaries. >> no matter how much progress women have made, the world and you know, get ready for the blood truth here, the world is still overwhelmingly run by men. >> cheryl created headlines worldwide with her book urge women to lean in. in this episode of revolutionaries, sheryl sandberg has a wide ranging conversation about her views with her mentor google chairman eric h