. this is "nightly business report," with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by. thestreet.com, featuring stephanie link who shares her investment strategies, stock picks and market insights, the multi-million dollar portfolio she manages with jim cramer. you can learn more at thestreet.com. sharp turn, stocks rally, the federal reserve chair offered an upbeat outlook on the economy, but that soon faded, leaving investors wondering what happened. old news, strategies, traditional companies are cutting to compete with the new guys and their earnings report reveal a lot about the future. the friendly skies, frequent fliers may finally have something to cheer about finding better deals on the flights they

want. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for thursday, may 8th. good evening, everyone, wall street today went from sizzle to fizzle. you may not know it from today's closing numbers but the dow was up triple digitals even hitting an all had-time high before drifting lower, and there are good reasons why investors brought up stocks, another round of solid earnings, first-time job claims down, and more from federal reserve chair janet yellen, in her second day of testimony, yellen promised to keep interest rates, quote, right where they are to boost the economy until both the housing and job market do better. >> our objective in monetary policy is to continue to maintain an accomodative monetary policy for as necessary to see recovery of the labor

market to >(nwith-state. it is hard to know exactly how to characterize it, but what the federal reserve calls maximum employment or we used to call full employment for sure and in many ways we're far from it. the dow rose 32 points but not enough for a new record high, the nasdaq fell 16, the s&p was lower by two points, now over in the bond market, also a volatile day with the yield on the ten-year treasury rate, but on a six-month low. what happened today. stocks started the day strong and ended flat with small caps, again the losers, the day started out well with several positive developments. central bankers like the fed's janet yellen and mario draghi both implied they would keep the rates low, and they reported strong sales for april, and from

the owner of victoria secret. finally, cheetah mobile ended up at about 1%, it was the first tech ipo in a while. but the problem was with the volatile new tech and internet stocks so companies like work day, facebook, and amazon were all positive most of the day then they faded away late in the afternoon. the 2,000 index, a basket of small cap stocks went up to close down a percent, near the lowest of the year. so at no bottom in side, traders expect the volatility in tech to continue. chris gaffney says there are a lot of positives in the market and he expects the major averages to be up 8% or more by the end of the year. he is senior marketing strategist at everbank, good to have you with us.

>> thank you. >> most of our interviews begin with a question, okay, what is your overall outlook and what do you like in the markets? i'll turn it another way, what is your overall outlook and what do you not like in an investment? what do you say avoid in the next 12 months and why? >> right, we believe that the market is on a positive tone and will continue the to strengthen as we go through the year. we certainly had a rocky start to the markets, but in the second half we do expect it to continue to recover. and the recovery actually to pick up some steam. i guess it could be called a little monday morning quarterbacking. but we don't like the tech stocks, still, i know a lot of rotation has already occurred out of those stocks but we still don't trust that sector. >> so how do you feel when you hear the news about ally babe ruth going public, do you tell your clients to stay away from

them? >> we typically don't tell the clients to go into the ipos, they're very difficult and typically they get over-priced on the initial offering so we do tell people to stay away from the tech stocks. we believe the cycles will perform very well as the economy recovers. when you say -- so that assumes you have a fairly sort of optimistic growth outlook for the u.s. economy, number one, when you say cycles, give me some categories or if you prefer some names of companies in the category that you would buy here. >> yeah, consumer derbils are a category, i can't really share names, we don't get stocks specific necessarily. but consumer durables, we think the consumer sector will come back and that is one category that we believe will do well. >> i understand, chris, you also like some of the stocks in the emerging markets, which ones and how much in your portfolio do you advise clients to have of

u.s. and non-u.s. stocks. >> well, we do promote at ever bank wealth management, an ever-diversified portfolio. the markets particularly in brazil stand out to us. we made a switch into brazil earlier in the first quarter and believe it will continue to out-perform going forward. it has great yield differentials and positives in the election coming up. and also the world cup and also the olympics, eventually. >> what do you say to investors who really depend on their portfolios for income and specifically have a lot of bonds in their portfolios? >> well, fixed incomes, we think you should remain allocated in the fixed income. we shorten the duration in the fixed income sector, but you have to have the fixed income sector asset all indication in

your portfolio. i know the utilities were down today, we believe the utilities were a place to get some and also some floating rate notes, some investments that actually will perform well as interest rates rise. >> all right, chris gaffney, thank you very much, chris is with everbank wealth management in st. louis. and janet yellen told lawmakers on capitol hill today one big concern was the slow down in the housing market, what is causing the concern? high prices, and what is driving those prices? >> reporter: home prices are rising so far so fast that at least one thousand local u.s. cities have hit record highs. that has the sellers positively giddy with the value. 40% of sellers surveyed say they are planning on pricing their homes above market value when had they list in the next few months. that is up from 33% at the

beginning of the year. some of them were in northern virginia. >> my wife and myself, we take a lot of pride in our house and we did a lot of upgrades. so we put a lot of money in it. we had a lot of ownership and try to reconcile that with whatever the market is right now was a little bit of back and forth. >> reporter: their agent, jeremy, talked them down to a lower asking price but it wasn't easy. >> when you look at the comps, it is very easy, you can have a price of $70,000 difference for the same house. >> reporter: the prices are due to the volume of cash in the market today. all cash sales reached a record 43% nationwide in the first part of this year. in much of florida and several other cities across the nation more than half of all sales were all cash. >> it is making it harder for an ordinary single family who is getting a mortgage to compete as a buyer.

especially given how constrained inventory is, making it frustrating for buyers. >> reporter: credit is not easing it at all. so in markets where there are fewer investors sellers need to move cautiously. they took the advice and the home sold in one day. >> not having to go through the aggravation of having your house on the market for an extended period of time is worth a certain amount of money. >> reporter: especially when they see their neighbor's house still sitting after a price drop. for nightly business report, i'm diana oleg. and mortgage rates actually hit a new low for this year. freddie mac says the average interest rate now for a 30-year fixed conventional loan fell for 4.12% and that is the lowest since early november. also out today, solid quarterly earnings from freddie mac and fannie mae and even better news from the u.s. treasury. the strong earnings will allow the two government-run mortgage

giants to pay back uncle sam more than $10 billion in combined dividend. and new legislation in the work that would stop so-called corporate tax inversions. that is when a u.s. company reincorporates overseas to avoid paying the higher u.s. corporate tax rates. democratic senator carl levin of michigan is working with other senator senators on a measure that will close a gaping hole in the u.s. tax code that he says would devastate federal tax receipts. the practice came to light recently when pfizer bid to acquire britain's astrazeneca and said it intended to move to the u.k. to take advantage of that company's lower corporate tax rate. still ahead on nbr, how traditional media companies are tra transforming themselves to stay focused in the industry and fend off competition from new arrivals, that is coming up.

earnings out after the bell from cbs, the i-network beat forecasts on earnings per share helped by increased licensing of its shows and higher payments from cable and sat l satellite to carry the channels, but revenue was another story and looked like advertising sales from the entertainment division was a little light last quarter. also, net income fell last quarter but the publisher of the wall street journal still beat estimates as stronger book publishing estimates offset the news in the empire. and companies adapting to new technology and viewer trends to keep customers and shareholders happy.

as companies report earnings, morgan brennan takes a look at changes they're making to stay relevant and profitable. >> the media landscape is changing and fast as traditional giants report earnings, the comments executives are making call into focus key trends that are re-defining the companies' players. starting with over the top services, web-based streaming services that bypass cable tv. new media companies like netflix, amazon, and controversial aerio have fuelled this trend but now others are getting involved. >> we're starting to see services like the one that dish network has proposed with disney that will be a meaningfully cheaper price point and is really targeted at the corn cutter for the first time. you have not seen something like that before, so it is something everybody is watching carefully. >> in addition, at&t is partnering to invest in an ott

service. and verizon recently acquired the intel product on q. >> if you start to see these types of models gain some traction, it almost forces the content providers to embrace them and start to provide their content. so it is a bit like an arms race where once it gains momentum, the arms dealers have to start to play. and the arms dealer news this case are the content provider. >> but content is only one piece's distribution is the other, many companies are looking to consolidate, with the pending merger of comcast mobile a part of. well, speaking about that time warner/comcast deal, in washington today there was a hearing about it. lawmakers from both parties expressed concerns about potential negatives in the proposed $45 billion deal including whether the combined

company would control too much of the company's cable and broad band markets or if smaller programs would ever be able to sell to the cable providers. representatives of comcast argue that the merger could help consumers by slowing the steady rise in cable tv bills. comcast produces this broadcast. also in washington, more than 100 tech companies, big and small ones urged the fcc to scrap its so-called net neutrality plan. google, facebook and twitter were among the companies writing to the federal regulator opposing the plan that would regulate how they manage and charge for traffic on the web. the fcc's proposed plan would let companies like netflix or amazon prime pay service providers a little extra to create new high speed broad band lines to send movies or other content, opponents say customers who use them would have to pay

more for internet service and that it could potentially shut out less affluent-web-based companies. mcdonald's says sales rose in april, that is where we begin, a sales increase in asia helped to offset disappointing sales in europe and flat sales in the u.s. the industry sales are challenging from competition rivals. another fast food company traded lower in today's session, wendy's company surged as the company posted gains from the sale of the company-owned locations, that helped pull down revenues, still, the results beat analysts' estimates, despite that shares fell slightly to $8.30. and higher milk prices at dean foods, they will cut their long-term profit outlook as they

struggle with commodity costs, dean blames the severe weather saying it disrupted the milk deliveries to schools, shares fell to 14.55. and car rentals and airline tickets, the site reported an increase in profits but the company's outlook for the current quarter came in light as they expect bookings to slow down. still, the ceo says he is hopeful for the summer travel season. we remain really optimistic about our growth prospects. obviously, as we become a larger company the law of large numbers is out there. but we like to guide in a conservative manner. manner. we have the world cup coming up, which always affects bookings. but we're very optimistic about next quarter and the summer. >> meanwhile, shares were down more than 2% to $1,100. and barnes and nobles plans to expand its presence on

college campuses. now, the chain has about 700 college campus stores. within the next five years the store will have a thousand campus locations sending shares up more than 2% to $16.04. and barclays cutting 9,000 jobs over the next three years, britain's second largest set up for the european retail operations as it looks to turn itself around and fix its trading his slump. the company ceo explained the shake-up. >> basically we're dividing the bank into two, a core group of four strong businesses that are well positioned in their mcma s mcmanumcmanuarke markets, with good prospects, combining the banking industry in the uk with business. >> the shares popped more than 7% to $17.73.

and toyota posted a record profit, and global sales worth more than $10 million overall. the momentum from a weak yen played a part. and apple sales driven by gains, the banana republic business and old navy store, the retailer also guided first quarter earnings in revenue above the street estimates and shares spiked after hours during the regular session. stock was up a percentage point and there you see the spike afterwards. and general electric, ge aviation is working on its first jet engine made up of parts from 3-d printers. melissa lee got exclusive access to ge's facilities in cincinnati. >> reporter: so how do you turn this into a jet engine part? walk us through?

>> well, we start with a very fine powder and load this material into what we call an additive metal machine. >> and this is effective, this is very, very fine powder but is very heavy. >> what this material is capable of doing is resisting high temperatures. very high strength, so yeah, this is actually metal material just in powder form versus in a plate or bar form. >> reporter: more than 6,000 of ge's jet engines have been ordered by customers like boeing and lockheed martin, by 2016, they will contain a fuel nozzle that is lighter, more efficient and could save companies big bucks. >> the beauty of what we're doing is we take what would have been 20 different components that would have been machine welded together. and now we're growing just one. >> it is about 25% lighter than our previous generation fuel nozzle and that is very key in

the aerospace industry. every pound you take out of an engine or air frame you are talking about hundreds of thousands of fuel savings for the product. >> ge may be on the edge of a new industrial revolution as it makes products faster and more cost-efficient here in the u.s. >> and this is where the magic happens, the laser beam hits the metal powder and consolidates it into a solid component. >> how long does it take for the product to come out? >> when you have a very bulky large part it could take five or six days. but if you have a bunch of very small parts then it could be an overnight build. >> i think there are a lot of people on a plane who think there is a jet engine part where the layers are melted together and they are not really confident it will stay together. >> once we weld the material and it is melted, it is no different

say than a casting or are manufacturing process where metal goes from molten to a solid. >> within the next decade the plane you will fly on will likely have a jet engine that contains these parts, ge says the increase in the printed parts will not take away jobs but will actually create more jobs right here in the u.s. for "nightly business report," i'm melissa lee in cincinnati. fascinating stuff. all right, coming up, something frequent fliers don't always hear about and it could lead to better deals when you book a flight. right after this.

activist/investor david winters is turning up the criticism for coca-cola for what he called an out-plan for the company for what he says takes money from from the shareholders, winter green advisers which owns more than 2 and a half million shares of the giant sent alert to the board urging that the plan approved by the shareholders be scrapped in the interest of good corporate governing. now he also sent the same letter to warren buffet whose berkshire is a corporate shareholder. buffet didn't vote for or against it because winter says he didn't want to embarrass the coke's top brass. buffet was traveling and couldn't be reached. so you order something small and it arrives in a big box and the extra space is filled with air cushions or a ton of those packing peanuts. that may change, starting next year, fedex will not only start charging some shipments by

weight as they do now but also by the size of the boxes. now that may encourage on-line retailers to be a lot more careful about how tightly they pack goods for shipping and delivery to you. well, here is other good news for you for those who wish to cash in their frequent flier miles for a coming trip, they say the reward for the points are at issue. they are becoming more frequent flier friendly. >> reporter: cashing in frequent flier miles has not always been easy, black-out date and other restrictions make redeeming miles challenging. >> i believe it has become more difficult. i think the number of mileage per flight increases. it seems to be less available flights and less directed flights. >> the seats only open up so many. so it is a lot of time that you can't get the times you want to go you really want to go. >> now, cashing in miles for points is easier. the annual survey of frequent

flier award availability on open seats on 72% of the flights checked. that is a slight increase from last year. why the improvement? well, one reason is the popularity of bank-issued credit cards that offer frequent flier miles. they force airlines to free up seats for their own frequent flier miles. >> they are becoming more concerned about competition from the bank-issued travel cards so they want to compete against the travel cards that are issued by banks. and so this is one way for them to do that is so make their programs more attractive. >> larger airlines like delta are doing a better job with frequent flier rewards. now with only 2/3s opened check, they have more seats, all flights could be open for reward travel. >> their programs are younger so they have less accumulated points or mileage balance. so there is less of a reward shortage problem as in too much

demand. >> southwest and air berlin had frequent flier seats open on every flight checked on the survey, followed by virgin australia and jetblue with reward availability. despite the airlines requiring more miles be redeemed for a particular flight, finding the one that fits your schedule can still be tough so staying flexibility to is the key to getting where you want to fly. >> i'm careful, i check around and try to be flexibility with my travel dates. >> phil lebeau. and to look more at the frequent flier miles check, go to our website at nbr.com. and finally, we told you about the big kick-off to the spring art season, it has been a mixed bag. it has been nearly a third of the 71 impressionists and modern art paintings drawing and sculptures up for sale failed to get minimum bids. but one bright spot, a bidding war for the picasso piece pushed

the selling price to more than $31 million which was more than double the pre-sale estimate. >> and that goes so well with the balloon dog. >> the balloon dog, yes, i like that. >> the living room will look great. >> that is "nightly business report" with susie gharib, thank you for joining us. and i'm tyler mathisen, have a great week, we'll see you back here tomorrow. we'll do balloon dogs.

kevin: today on ask this old house, we are going to make some of the most important home improvements we've ever made. my father has parkinson's disease, and about six months ago, he took a fall, but he's at a stage now where we'd like to bring him home. what we need to do is make certain modifications to the house. rick: we're ready to move forward and get your dad home. kevin: and we help a homeowner who was injured in the boston marathon bombing. the problem is with someone with a prosthetic, if they climb the stair, they drag that foot, they can actually trip on that overhang. kevin: that's next on ask this old house. or, on the wall. ready? let's take off.