this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. spring awakening. there's new evidence the economy is improving. and that's one of the reasons why the most powerful woman in america's economy just gave a big hint on interest rates. we have a deal. verizon and its almost 40,000 striking workers have agreed in principle to end the biggest labor strike in years. the doctor really said, there's nothing. there's no medical treatment at >> but ground-breaking surgery gave one mother hope. and her two children their sight. the third part of our "modern medicine" series tonight on "nightly business report" for friday good evening and welcome.

if we learned anything this week, it's that the economy is getting stronger. today we got even more evidence. economic growth at the start of the year wasn't really as bad as initially thought. according to the commerce department, the designation's gross domestic product increased .8%. throw still weak, corporate profits rose and the decline in business inventory investment was less severe. still, the needed proof that the economy is rebounding, well, listen to what federal reserve chair janet yellen said today. >> it's appropriate, and i've said this in the past, i think for the fed to gradually and cautiously increase our overnight interest rate over time. and probably in the coming months such a move would be approp >> she made no mention of overseas concerns, something that has kept the fed on hold in the past. and with that the chance of a june rate hike rose. the markets weren't bothered by

it. the dow jones industrial average gained nearly 45 points to 17,873. the nasdaq added 31. the s&p 500 was up almost 9. for the week all of the major indexes gained 2% or more. so an excellent week for u.s. stocks. can the rally continue? let's ask hank smith, chief investment officer at haverford trust. good to have you with us. ms. yellen said what she said, the markets little perturbed by that or the prospect of higher interest rates. looks like the economy's getting better. is the stock market going to continue to get better? >> yeah, i think the market is getting used to the fact that we're going to get a rate hike this summer. we don't know if it's going to be june or july. if it's -- obviously we have brexit on the 23rd of june before the fed meeting so there's a good chance they might hold off. in that case july would be the month. >> you know, hank, a lot of people think that we might get a spike in volatility or some

market unrest, if you will, depending on which way the brexit vote goes. what do you think of that? >> well, look, i think clearly the market wants to see great britain stay in the eu. if it doesn't, possibly there's the sell-off, i think that would be a buying opportunity for sure, just as every sell-off so far in this 7-year-old bull market has been a wonderful buying opportunity. i don't think it would be any different if we sell off because of brexit. >> over the next few weeks, 12 weeks or so, the summertime -- may, july, july, august -- do you expect the market to trade sideways or move higher? >> we expect the market to gradually move higher in anticipation of better corporate earnings in the second half. comparisons are to be much easier. you don't have the dollar's strength as a head wind that you did last year, you don't have super-low oil as a head wind, those are the two major

impediments to s&p 500 earnings. i think the market is an anticipatory animal. it's going to start looking ahead toward that. and i think a rise in the fed funds rate is going to be a vote of confidence in the economic environment being stronger. >> you kind of took the words out of our mouth. if they raise rates it's a sign they're more confident about the economy. has the market kind of come around to that way of thinking rather than being worried about a rate hike as they were a couple of months ago? >> right, well, and think about five months ago, worried about global recession, the u.s. going into recession. how off was that worry? so i think the other thing we need to take the fed at its word is this is going to be an extraordinarily gradual process. and so i don't think there are going to be any surprises for the market. and -- but the next rate hike i think will be a vote of

confidence in the economic environment that we're in. >> hank, thanks so much for being with us, hank smith with haverford trust, have a good weekend. a tentative deal reached in one of the largest labor strikes in years. verizon's nearly 40,000 workers could be back on the job as soon as next week. the dow component finished up almost 1% and was the top-performing stock today. mary thompson is covering it from the new york stock exchange. >> reporter: the largest strike since 2011 could be coming to a close. labor secretary thomas perez saying that verizon and almost 40,000 workers have reached an agreement in principle on a four-year contract. in a statement he has said he expects the workers to be back on the job next week. verizon said it was pleased with the agreement in principle that will affect over 36,000 of its workers. while a union involved in the strike issued a statement that said striking cwa members have achieved our major goals of improving working families' starts of living, creating good

union jobs in our communities, achieving a first contract for wireless retail store workers. perez said the contract is in the process of being written and that it will go to union members to be ratified. now workers in verizon's wire line unit went on strike on april 13th. they have been working without a contract since august as the two sides were at odds on issues including pension benefits as well as the outsourcing of call center jobs. effects of the strike could be felt in the upcoming may jobs report. it depends how many temporary workers verizon hired to offset the work there's were on strike, and then of course the impact will also be felt when verizon reports its second quarter results in july as its expected to have negative impact on the telecommunications giant's bottom line. for "nightly business report," i'm mary thompson at the new york s in japan the group of seven leaders wrapped up their meeting and pledged to address some of the challenges facing the global economy, calling it an urgent

priority. following the summit, president obama and japan's prime minister abe visited hiroshima, marking the first visit by a sitting u.s. president to one of the two cities hit by atomic bombs at the end of world war ii. >> among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear. and pursue a world without them. >> president obama did not apologize for the u.s. action in world war ii, nor was he expected to. north korea has been linked to the recent string of hack attacks on asian banks. according to semantec, tacks can be traced as far back as october of last year. eamon javers joins us with more. this report connects the north koreans to the $81 million stolen from bangladesh's central bank that you have been reporting on. do we know that for sure?

>> reporter: we don't quite know that for sure despite what's in the report you cited. i've been talking to people familiar with this ongoing investigation. what they've told me is that there is an indication that a hacking entity was inside the bank of bangladesh's servers and that that entity used certain techniques and tactics that are very similar to the hack on sony. that hack was attributed ultimately to the north koreans by the u.s. government. but it's never been clear that the north koreans actually did the sony hack themselves. it's always been a possibility out there that they outsourced that hack to a third party enterprise, some kind of criminal enterprise, somewhere necessarily the world. what we may be seeing here, it's at least possible, is that that third party enterprise is out there doing other stuff as well. so it's very, very murky. and investigators are trying to figure out now exactly who this is. and it's a classic case of a whodunit. >> i assume that none of the money has been recovered but what else have researchers been

able to discover here? >> in addition to the fact that there's this interesting signature, they found that there were several different entities inside the bank of bangladesh's server. so this is a terrifying prospect for global finance. because it's not just the group that actually stole the money that was in there. investigators have found there were several other groups that were in their systems just monitoring all of the activity and watching what was going on, perhaps for intelligence-gathering purposes. and they've also now expanded their investigation to up to a dozen other banks. not clear whether these are central banks or private banks but a dozen other banks with a focus on banks in asia. so it may be that this sort of thing is a lot more previously leapt than we assumed going in. >> eamon javers in washington. >> uncharted territory. a relatively undeveloped field and two siblings and what most

of us take for granted, our vision. part two of our medical series the largest everybody automotive recall got bigger. eight automakers recalled more than 12 million vehicle in the u.s. to replace potentially dangerous air bag inflaters made by the japanese firm takata. that brings the total number of vehicles recalled to nearly 70 million in the u.s. alone. >> the viacom board members could reportedly be replaced very soon by the controlling shareholder sumner redstone who turned 93 today. according to cnbc, there is a possibility that redstone could change the composition of the board of directors by calling a meeting of shareholders and he of course is the controlling one. a spokesperson for redstone said

redstone will act in the best interests of shareholders. hitting the road this weekend? if you are you're likely to stop at a drive-through to pick up food. and you won't be alone. there's been a big uptick in sales of meals that you can get fast. susan lee reports from a rest stop in richfield, new jersey. >> reporte introduce a hot new deal -- >> reporter: the fast too deal is bringing in customers. >> burger king offers more for $4 with 5 for $4. >> reporter: according to a tracking group, combo deals help sell 100 million extra meals so far this year, up 20% from 2015. >> the key thing and why these combo meals have been so successful, i think there's still very much a large percentage of the american population that is really drive ton quick-service restaurants for value. that's a value proposition that works in today's environment. >> reporter: fast food promotions are so popular with

americans that now 1 in every 3 visits are to take advantage of them. >> great deal. if you want to go that route. for one thing everybody's looking for convenience. everybody's looking for the cheap deal nowadays. save money. something quick. >> it tends to be a consumer balancing the cost and what it is they're putting in their mouths. so that tends to be a different price that you end up paying for. >> reporter: that helps drive sales at ma'am donalds which saw a first-quarter increase of over 5%. burger king saw sales jump 4% last month. >> we're slowly moving away from the dollar price point. a lot of the things we've seen are 2 for $2, 4 for $4. that ultimately raises the average check side. so i think that you can start to see these meals proliferate over a longer period of time. i expect to see them out there for some time. >> reporter: it's not just fast food restaurants noticing the bund leg trend. starbucks is offering an $8 power lunch that includes a sandwich, salad, and chips.

tgif debuted a drink and dine offering and that includes an entree and drink for $12. and with the memorial day holiday well under way, you can expect these deals might bring in a few extra folks as they hit the roads. in richfield, new jersey, i'm susan lee for "nightly business report." here's a look at the performance of some fast food stocks over the past year. the fastest-moving has been mcdonald's. best with a 25% gain. young brands which owns taco bell and kfc worst with a decline of 10%. our market monitor tonight is a classic stock picker who's finding opportunity in names he says should be in your portfolio. it's his first market monitor appearance on the program although we have had him to talk about the markets before. john buckingham, chief investment officer at al frank asset management, welcome back. >> thank you. >> given where we see the market, i guess the question is why value? and i know you like dividends. >> right, it's interesting.

where interest rates are, i think that dividends are extremely attractive. i know people are worried about the fed raising rates. if you look at market history the 17 previous fed liftoffs we've had value stocks and dividend-paying stocks have ton really well. value stocks averaging 14% a year over the following one, two, three, five years. so i think it's a mistake to fear the fed. especially when rates would rise because the economy is improving. and of course the economy improving helps corporate profits. >> and higher rates many people believe will help financial stocks and one of your first choices is bb and t corps, a financial and one of the best run of the bunch. >> right. i really think it's a quality name. they've been making acquisitions during the nuclear winter, if you will, for the last six, seven years in the banking space. here you get a dividend yield at 3.6% or so. 3.2%. and you have a p/e around 13. i think it's a classic value name but a quality name that's

really made great acquisitions in my mind and is conservatively run believe it or not. >> next on the list, total sa, integrated oil and gas company. >> right, same story as far as valuation goes. the interesting thing about total is they have a lot of their capital expenditures are behind them. they had a significant spend for six, seven years. and now that spend has been reduced. here again you have a low valuation. generous dividend yield. net of taxes. a yield about 4.5%. i think that's an excellent recipe for success. especially given that the price of oil has rebounded somewhat. we think that earnings are going to accelerate for this company in 2017 and 2018. >> and your third one is one that has been kind of in a lot of investors' dog houses over the last 15 years. but increasingly seems to be performing, cisco. >> right. well, as a value investor, it is interesting that we like cisco.

but cisco, today it's trading at a forward p/e ratio around 12, a dividend yield around 3%. management's sharehold-friendly, buying back stock, rewarding us with the dividend payout. as the global economy rebounds we think that cisco's poised to see earnings start to reaccelerate in terms of growth. so the fascinating thing is pack in 2000, cisco was trading at a ridiculous p/e. even though stock's gone nowhere, today's the time to buy it because now it's a value stock. >> john buckingham with al frank asset management. big lots lifts its earnings outlook for the year in "market focus." the discount retailer saw profit rise 20% for the quarter with results easily topping estimates. revenue and comparable store sales increased and were better than expected. the company announced a quarterly cash dividend of 21 cents a share, nice. shares of big lots up 14% on the

day to 50.95. game stop saw its shares fall after it issued weaker than expected guidance after the bell yesterday. despite the downbeat outlook the video game retailer did manage to topperings estimates and reported sales in line with target. shares down nearly 4%, 28.80. thermal fisher scientific which makes laboratory equipment will acquire microscope technology company fei in a cash deal valued at more than $4 billion. thermal fisher says the merger will immediately bolster earnings. the transaction is expected to be finalized by early next year. shares of therm at fisher up tractionally. fei soared, over 14% higher to 108.13. strong demand for beauty products drove profit and sales higher at alta salon cosmetics and fragrance. the results top the company's forecasts and analyst estimates. alta also lifted sales outlook for the year.

shares surged 9% to 233.15. imagine being told that your two young children would one day go blind and there was little that could be done. that is the story of one family. thanks to some truly amazing genetic therapies, the two children who got such a diagnosis can literally see a bright future. the third part of our series "modern medicine." >> let me see that. >> reporter: caroline and cole carper have been through more than your typical siblings. >> i can't imagine it being any different than the two of them together going through thi they've had to learn braille together, they've had canes together, they've gone to school for the blind together. >> reporter: early in life they were diagnosed with a rare genetic retinal disease, lca, lieber congenital aberosis. >> the doctor said, there's nothing. there's no medical treatments at this time. >> reporter: caroline and cole

were expected eventually to go blind. but their parents found an experimental treatment. two years ago the kids enrolled together in a clinical trial. it was the spark therapeutics, a young biotech company formed out of research from the children's hospital of philadelphia. >> the idea is that we are taking a cracked functional copy of a gene and adding it back into the cells that have dysfunctional or missing copy of that gene or blueprint. >> reporter: it's called gene therapy. it's relatively uncharted territory in medicine. the technology uses a modified virus to deliver a healthy copy of a gene to make up for one that causes disease. scientists have been working on it for decades. but only now are the first gene therapies approaching the market. sparks is among the mother advan advanced. healthy genes are delivered through eye surgery. once in place they're designed to do the work of a normally functioning gene, meaning patients only undergo treatment once. >> we're doing is different. we're actually adding the

blueprint in and the cell then knows how to do the last step which is to make the protein or the enzyme that might be missing. therefore, that is what creates the potential for it to be a long-lasting effect. >> reporter: in trials of 41 patients, the therapy is shown to improve both vision and light sensitivity with no major side effects. caroline and cole were no exception. before their surgeries, both kids had trouble seeing in low light. now, though their vision's not perfect, they say they're noticing big diffe >> good things are to come. >> i went outside, it was snowing. and i was like, oh, i can see the snowflakes! it was really cool. like to actually see something that i've never seen in my life before. >> reporter: spark is one of several companies developing gene therapies, targeting everything from hemophilia to sickle cell disease to other rare disorders. if they're successful it will be a new paradigm for medicine.

fighting genetic disease in just one treatment. >> i thought it was really cool how simple it was and how much it changed my life. >> reporter: for "nightly business report," i'm meg >> to read more about gene therapy and the carpers story head to nbr.com. coming up, turning up the heat. the entrepreneur who followed his gut literally and watched his business grow and grow. tonight's "how i made my millions." it's a holiday weekend bull we'll have a holiday edition of nbr. wednesday the big automakers

release their sales numbers for may. friday we get the economic release of the week, may's employment report. that is what to watch for coming up next week. tonight we meet an entrepreneur who has won 18 prestigious food awards for items like oatmeal cooky butter, masala marinara, hot mustard. he's perhaps best known for turning up the heat on hot sa he's like a money-making mad scientist in the chili pepper world in "how i made my millions." >> reporter: dave hirschcopf might act crazy but it's just one of the wacky ways he promotes his insanely hot. >> that's more than enough. >> reporter: hot sauces. >> agh! >> amazing sauce. they're like, that's insane. that's crazy. i mean, to eat it. >> if you don't swallow it, it never gets bad.

>> reporter: from this blistering base he's built an award-winning, multi-million dollar specialty food brand, dave's gourmet. >> that's warm. >> i'm so glad it happened. i feel very lucky. >> reporter: luck began in the early 1990s when he decided literally to follow his gut. >> california had a lot of taquerias. >> reporter: with the help of $35,000 from family and friends, he opened a place called burrito madness in college park, maryland. dave's biggest complaint? >> we had a lot of drunks coming in to the taqueria. >> reporter: to teach them a lesson dave started spiking their food with homemade hot sauce. >> chilies are great, you can hurt somebody without injuri. >> whoa! >> so it hurts and then 20 minutes they're happy as a clam and laughing about the expe >> reporter: he found success in extracts made from the inside of the pepper. >> just amazing. then you could make the sauce taste all sorts of ways. and with super heat. like a different paradigm for

making hot sauce. >> reportet he spent about $5,000 on bottling, airfare, and a strait jacket and went blazing into the 1993 national fiery food show with his first extract-based product, "insanity sauce." >> the heat was so much greater than what they had already experienced. people were floored. and a couple people were literally, literally floored. the promoter of the show banned us which in the end became a good thing. we got a lot of publicity out of it. >> heard of dave's insanity sauce? >> yeah. >> you're dave? >> yeah. >> hey! >> we'd have stores selling 50 cases a week of sauce. which is mind-blowing. >> reporter: it was enough to make dave sell the restaurant and move to california. but not enough to quit his day job. >> i did the hot sauce as a hobby on the side. but it just got to be too big. >> reporter: in less than a year he'd hired a small staff and was selling sauces full-time.

sales spiked the first four years, reaching roughly $2 million in revenue in 1996. then slowed to a simmer. so in 2001 he started pumping out premium pasta sauces under the dave's gourmet label. by 2009 the company was increasing sales and winning awards. >> there were several reasons why we started to diversify over time. we'd just get bored. we like the new and innovative. that's our dna. >> take it down a bit, it would be better. >> reporter: all this tinkering has annual sales fired up to about $7 million and hirschcopf says he's got more heat up his strait jacketed sleeves. >> big hot sauce companies, they could buy us between lunch and dinner. but i think what we're doing is important still. because we're stretching the limit. >> cheers. >> some like it hot. dave's gourmet products are

carried by target, safeway, whole foods, regional chair chains. he has a line of creamy hot sauces and overnight oats. i wouldn't suggest you eat them together, sue. >> no. >> the hot sauces -- are you a hot food fan? >> i like spicy food but not so spicy that you can't taste the food. >> that you're sweating profusely. >> that does it for us tonight. i'm sue herera. thanks for joining us. >> i'm tyler mathisen. we'll see you here on monday's special edition of "nbr."

♪ it's all right, it's okay ♪ ♪ doesn't really matter if you're old and gray ♪ ♪ it's all right, i say it's okay ♪ ♪ listen to what i say ♪ it's all right, doing fine ♪ ♪ doesn't really matter if the sun don't shine ♪ ♪ it's all right, i say it's okay ♪ ♪ we're gettin' to the end of the day ♪ standing: well played, junior! now give it and go. right wing, right wing. go, go. you all right, son? gerry? i'm okay, granddad. are you sure? good boy, you're playing well. keep it up. come on, son. go in hard, what we spoke about! berk. he's a good little player, your grandson.