captioning sponsored by wpbt >> tom: disappointing earnings from two technology giants weigh on stocks today, but, after the market close, qualcomm and ebay both report strong business. >> reporter: a down day on wall street today, but are the bulls ready to give up the fight? >> tom: and working to put the power of the law in your hands. >> this is basically our associate, and we're the partner. and the associate gathers all the information for us at a cheaper rate, and then they come to the partner, and the partner can give them all the tailored advice they need. >> tom: it's "nightly business report" for wednesday, april 18. this is "nightly business report" with susie gharib and tom hudson.

"nightly business report" is made possible by: >> tom: good evening, and thanks for joining us. susie is off tonight. we begin with earnings from big technology companies. the tech industry has been a source of strong business growth, but lackluster results la night fm i.b.m. and intel bruised investor sentiment, at least for today. the dow industrials, which includes both i.b.m. and intel, was down 82 points, the nasdaq off 11 and the s&p down five. now, as earning season rolls on, after-hours attention turned to

a couple of other technology heavyweights, qualcomm and ebay. we have a pair of analysts to make heads and tails of the numbers. andrew tner and joe magyer, analysts at the motley fool with us tonight. andrew, let's begin with qaulcomm, earnings were pretty decent. but we did see some selling pressure after the closing bell. what did you make of the results first of all? >> i thought largely they were great results, i thought the quarter was outstanding and we saw around 30% top line growth. then the same time what wall street koind of penalized the company for was overblown, the company largelyaround 30% revee growth and a company that has a beautiful business model and a hydrotheory, i think qaulcomm did a great job. >> tom: shares have had a nice run over the past many months.

the rally stalled out though recently and after the close as we mentioned the stock was down in the low 60s. would you be a buyer? >> you know, interestingly enough i think it is attractive at these valuations, especially if the selloff does hold. i don't think lit. but that might have been part of the logic here that qaulcomm was slightly more expense relative to its peers, buat the sametime probably has the most attractive business model in this area between the strong 3 g and 4 g, and also the strong i. p. to licensing they have as well. so there's a reason it's more expensive, it's a great company and it's very attractive. >> tom: in the will 60s you'd be a buyer. let's talk about ebay, joe, with you. some strong auction results, pay pal is usually what ebay is usually thought of these days, earning three cents beer than excted. >> thoseere great results. organic growth was 19% overall and pay pal was 32%, that's an

impressive number but people forget that the auction business is still a growth business for ebay. organic traffic was in the mid teens and that's impressive results, everybody likes to talk about amazon as the big dog in the space and they get a lot of credit, but ebay is a cheap stock and still growing. >> tom: the val is wation is off 4% after the close from today's closing price, in the mid up toer 30s. would you be buyer? >> absolutely,nd i ownhe shes myself. thk they've got a long growth run wave. pay pal is adding a million new users a month, that's a long growth runway and they are doing really well on mobile payments as well, about 7 billion in mobile payment volume this year, which is up 75% year over year, and they're doing really well in big growing markets. >> tom: changes the way you look at ebay, not just an auction marketplace, but an electronic payment system. drew, do youwn any?

>> n don't, maybe on the pullback though, i think it's still attractive. >> tom: taking a look at the technology earnings, andrew tonner and joe magyer. well, in today's market, for every one stock higher price, two were lower. that kind of action fuels questions about the longevity of this year's rally. perhaps volatility is back, or maybe it's just a change in what stocks are leading the market. suzanne pratt reports. >> reporter: there's little doubt about exactly who's been in charge on wall street in the last few months. after all,he mart as measured by the s&p 500 has rallied 29% from its october low to its recent april high. but even though bulls can be persuasive, can they also be unstoppable? strategist scott wren says it depends on what gets in their way. >> it's really going to be tough for me to wildly bullish. moderately bullish, that's what i am now. that's what i think i'm going to be over the course of the next

12 to 24 months. >> reporter: moderate bulls like wren predict the market will continue to get support from an improving u.s. economy and modest growth in corporate profits. market strategist rick bensignor describes himself a bit differently, saying he's bullish long-term, but: >> short-term, questionable. >> reporter: bensignor says the stock market isn't finished correcting. once it is, however, there will be a new upswing. >> we're not looking for a really significant pullback. we're thinking 1,320 on the s&p down to 1,280. that would be our sweet spot to do the bulk of the buying that we would want to do this year if that opportunity came. >> reporter: bensignor believes the bulls will soon be back in charge. why? because he expects investors to shift money out of an unappetizing bond market and put it into stocks. suzanne pratt, "nightly business report," new york. >> tom: while the bears and bulls battle in the stock market, investors continue pouring money into commodity

exchange traded products like gold and oil. after stagnating last year, commodity e.t.f.s grew to more than $189 billion in the first quarter. will rhind is the managing director of e.t.f. securities, a provider of exchange traded funds focused on commodies. so, will, why commodity etf's attracting money when the stock market had such a strong rally in the first quarter? >> well, what we've seen through the first quarter is really a change in sentiment. last quarter of 2011 was all about bearish news, problems in europe, low global growth, and what we've seen this year is primarily driven by the u.s. numbers. a change sentiment, things starting to look aittle better, that is positive news for commodities and typically commodities are one of the first things that lead an economy out of a recession, and we've seen that reflection in the numbers. >> tom: demand for that raw

material by growing economies. gold prices have been interesting, obviously they've been on a tear over the past several years to record highs here, but they've dropped since february, yet more than $3 billion of new money has been invested in gold exchange traded funds. is this money just chasing the performance? >> i think that what we're seeing is still the overall percenge of gold owned by investors actually really relatively small, compared to the allocations to equities and bonds. gold has had a bit of a tough quarter, perhaps not really been able to make up its mind whether it's a risk play, or a safe haven store value play. certainly last year it was more the latter, the store of value type play. this first quarter we've seen the risk asset dominate the space, and risk assets tend to be more of the pro cyclical commodities, gold is more counter cyclical. >> tom: let me ask you about the other category of etfs

that found a lot of money in the last quarter, that was oil, more than a billion dollars moved in. the benchmark oil futures were up by 3.6%, but the u.s. oil fund etf was up less than 3%, and the power shares oil fun, another oil etf was up local 5%. why are you tracking these, these big differences in performance? >> i think one of the fundamental things to bear in mind when you're investing in any commoditi is that the spot price, which a lot of investors look to, is only actually achieveable if you own the underlying commodity. so something like a gold etf, offered by etf securities, tracks the spot price because we actually own the physical gold, backing the particular fund. with oil, with other commodities, that you can't store physically, obviously that is a lot more challenging and indeed not possible to provide in physical for so

the y that you get exposure is in the futures market. the difference between the futures prices that you'll see on the exchange and the return of a fund tend to be the real costs associated with actually trading those futures contracts into market. the prices that you see in the exchange don't reflect that friction al cost and that lies the tracking error or the difference between those two returns. >> tom: or the slippage in this case we saw with oil. will, precte y cing on tonight, will rhind, with etf securities. >> reporter: i'm erika miller in new york. who got hurt more during the recession? men or women? >> tom: more money trouble in the eurozone tonight, but this time it's not greece, it's spain. bad debts held by spanish banks hit a 17-year high, almost $200 billion. that's got everyone nervous that spain may be the next eurozone country in need of a bailout.

as the spain economy sputters, more companies and people are falling behind paying back their loans. in the meantime, european banks are trying sell off more than $2 trillion of assets like risky loans. that has the international monetary fund calling for more oversight. it's worried that if banks sell those assets too fast, it could trigger another global economic crisis. now, there were plenty of sellers of chesapeake energy shares today. the stock fell over 5% as investors reacted to news that c.e.o. aubrey mcclendon borrowed over $1 billion from the company. the loans happened over the past three years, and mcclendon used his personal stakes in the company's oil and natural gas wells as collateral on the loans. he used the money to buy more wells. the company and mcclendon say the loans were private transactions and immaterial to chesapeake. b.p. today released details of a recent settlement over claims from its 2010 gulf of mexico oil spill.

the british oil giant expects to pay $7.8 billion to resolve economic, property and medical claims by more than 100,000 people and businesses. but there's no maximum so the ultimate payout could be higher. this isn't the last of b.p.'s payouts. it still faces tens of billions of dollars of claims from the federal government, gulf states and its drilling partners transocean and halliburton. friday is the two-year anniversary of the explosion and subsequent spill. and we talk with louisiana senator mary landrieu about the changes to her state's economy two years after the b.p. spill. >> tom: if you need more evidence of globalization, just listen to this: an explosion at a chemical plant in germany threatens to put the brakes on the auto industry.

the disaster comes after auto makers have been recovering from supply shortages caused by last year's earthquake and tsunami in japan. diane eastabrook has the details. >> reporter: this time around, the fly in the ointment for the global auto industry is a chemical used in the resin that coats brake and fuel lines. the only company that supplies the chemicalas rocked by an explosion at a german plant late last month. rebecca lindland follows the auto industry for i.h.s. global insight. she says finding a replacement for the chemical could be costly and potentially dangerous. >> because it's used in safety- related supplies like brake lines, there could be future consequences because if anything would happen in the future with the performance of this product in a vehicle, you could have lawsuits, you could have a problem th haunts the manufacturer and supplier for a long time. >> reporter: ford and chrysler say they are monitoring the

situation and at this point are not experiencing any production disruptions. general motors says it's trying to secure existing supplies of the resin to avoid future production glitches. the problem is affecting auto companies worldwide. lindland says the resin shortage is less of a problem in the u.s. now because most dealers here have about a two-and-a-half month supply of vehicles. but it could become a big problem in europe where dealers don't keep big inventories on hand. diane eastabrook, "night business report." >> tom: it was last night's earnings from a couple of tech heavyweights that really weighed on the market today. the s&p 500 spent the entire session in theed trying to

muster some rallies mid-morning and mid-afternoon, but buyers just couldn't overcome the sellers, with the index finishing down a fraction. technology along with financial stocks were the biggest sector losers, off 0.8%. telecom fell 0.5%. lackluster earnings from two tech stocks that are also dow industrial stocks put an end to a two-day rally. i.b.m. sank 3.5%. volume tripled. this is a five-week low. i.b.m.'s disappointing first quarter revenue was the culprit. intel also fell after its earnings. shares dropped almost 2%. volume was heavy in intel shares, too. analysts blame the lack of a big upside surprise from intel for the profit-taking. elsewhere in technology, a couple of disc drive makers were rallying. seagate jumped almost 4%. it was able to raise prices for its disc drives in the last quarter, driving better than expected profits. western digital added 5%, trading just below a 52-week high. now, flooding earlier this year

in thailand hurt disc drive supplies but allowed the companies to charge higher prices. genworth finanal is a li and mortgage insuran comny. due to losses with its mortgage business, it has been looking to sell off assets in order to raise capital. it had hoped to sell stock in its australian mortgage insurance business soon, but those plans are on hold until next year. investors sent shares down under, losing almost a quarter of their value. genworth was going to use some of the money from the australian i.p.o. to buy back shares here in the u.s., but analysts think that will be on hold. american express turned in better than expected results after the closing bell tonight. earnings were seven cents better than estimates amex carholdercontue spendi more moy. shares were down a fraction during the regular session. but they are up 26% over the past year as fewer customers have been late with their payments, and more card use generally means more fees from stores. we continue to see companies buy each other in the business of providing prescription drug

benefits. the latest: sxc health solutions will buy catalyst health solutions as this industry continues seeing fewer and bigger competitors. here are the details on the deal. sxc will pay catalyst $4.1 billion. it's a cash and stock deal, making the combined company the fourth biggest pharmacy benefits manager. the market likes the deal. the buyer, sxc, saw its shares rally more than 11%. the target of the buyout, catalyst, certainly had a catalyst today; shares up 34% to a new high. the top three players are express scripts, which just got the okay two weeks ago for its $29 billion buyout of medco. cvs is number two, and united health is the third largest pharmacy benefits manager. they were down about 1% each. oil prices fell 1.5%, but that didn't bother oil services giant halliburton. a strong first quarter helped ignite a rally. while the company saw its natural gas business drop, it

has been moving rigs to oil wells. the cost of those moves hurt its margins. the stock has been trending lower since july when it traded in the upper $50s. it bounced up about 4.5% today to just over $34 per share. and that's tonight's "market focus." >> tom: if you think your job is safe from technology, this next story could change your mind. the law is bound with traditions, and lawyers can be slow to change the way they practice their profession. but as darren gersh reports, a new generation of technology and lawyers are making dramatic changes. >> reporter: at first, this looks like just another law student learning to make his case. >> fourth amendment issues

present very serious concerns. >> reporter: but the judges here are not just lawyers, they are techie lawyers, experts in how computers are changing the business of being a lawyer. >> i thought the whole point was to displace lawyers. >> reporter: and the students are pitching software applications they've developed, legal apps. >> the "copyright navigator," the g.p.s. to copyright law. >> reporter: the students developed these apps over the last few months for a class at georgetown university law center called technology, innovation and law practice. >> had to gohrough the effort of making a template. >> reporter: same-sex marriage adviser is one of the teams competing to win today's top award: iron tech lawyer. i caught up with them as they were tweaking their app. the program advises same-sex couples about where and how they can get married. follow a careful set of questions, the kind a lawyer would ask, and the program produces a report that either answers the question or can be taken to a real lawyer for more help. >>o you can hit the ground

running and know what situation they're in and know citizenship is the issue to hone in on. >> reporter: but are you going to be competing with a computer to do your job? >> no, because this is our ally. this is basically our associate and we're the partner. and the associate gathers all the information for us at a cheaper rate, and then they come to the partner, and then the partner can give them all the tailored advice they need. >> reporter: now here's the rebuttal: powerful computer programs can now review millions of documents in a few hours. that's work that used to take 100 lawyers a few weeks to do. professor tanina rostain developed the legal tech seminar. she argues technology is most likely to iminate boring, roine legal rk, the kind of stuff lawyers hate to do. what's left is the creative legal work computers can't do. >> they may be paid less on a case by case basis, but they'll be able to represent more people and more people will have access to lawyers. >> reporter: after considering six legal apps, the judges rendered their verdict. >> best iron tech lawyer 2012: we're all very, very impressed

with your app, "the citizen adviser" app. ( applause ) >> reporter: the winni app helps people around the world determine whether or not they are u.s. citizens. the question is not as easy as it sounds. >> the audience that we're targeting through our application and our system are predominantly people who have limited access to u.s. attorneys in the first place. >> reporter: but as law professors like to do, let's end this story with a hypothetical. if computers can do basic legal work, what other jobs will they be able to reshape or replace? darren gersh, "nigthly business report," washington. >> tom: ever since a democratic political consultant said mitt romney's wife "never worked a day iner life," uity between the sexes has returned as a hot topic in the race for the white house. but at its root, it's an economic issue. both men and women suffered big job losses during the great recession, and both are struggling to find jobs in the recovery. but as erika miller explains, important differences remain. >> reporter: call it the new battle of the sexes in the

workplace: each gender claiming to have been more harmed by the recession. so who's right? both. >> men lost more jobs during the recession. but when you look at reports of hardship suffered, women actually reportegrear hardship. they had more hunger, more trouble paying bills, paying their mortgage, their car bills, their gasoline. >> reporter: it also depends on which starting date you use to look at the data. men lost jobs much faster than women early in the recession, but women lost jobs longer and have only recently begun to show gains. and here's a sobering statistic: over the past two years, three out of every four new jobs have gone to men. so what gives? much of the disparity can be explained by the types of jobs men and women tend to hold. >> because women are over- represented in the government sector, that's where most of the job losses have been concentrated for women. and men, on the other hand, don't tend to be employed by the government sector.

>> reporter: men tend to dominate sectors like manufacturing and construction, which get hit first during recessions but also lead recoveries. but occupation isn't the only explanation for why women are having a tougher time finding jobs nowadays. >> men are starting to enter women-dominated sectors such a health and education, and they are starting to compete for those jobs, as well. so that's a new development. >> reporter: and clearly there are social forces as well, like sexism and bias against working mothers. advocates say one way to help more women find good paying jobs is to force employers to adopt family-friendly policies. >> we don't mandate paid sick days. paid vacations aren't mandatory, paid time off, flextime-- they're just... we don't have good policies for balancing work and family. >> reporter: there's one thing women can't blame for trouble finding work, and that's education. women earn more bachelors and masters degrees than men, and

education is a far bigger predictor of employment prospects than gender. erika miller, "nightly business report," new york. >> tom: while we're talking about the impact of the recession, have you looked at your investments lately? tonight's "money file" focuses on making up lost ground. here's donna rosato, senior writer at "money" magazine. >> the financial crisis and sluggish recovery hit your personal finances hard, but there's lots you can do to fight back. you had no choice but the stay put in your job. but with the economy improving, many are looking to fill slots. leverage that extra work you've been taking onto get a good raise or promotion. talk to recruiters about opportunities. you may have opinion playing it safe with real estate too. but if you've been waiting to buy your first home or upgrade to a big place, today's low home prices and mortgage rates are the perfect combination for making a move.

if youe not in t market to sell, consider investing in a rental property to generate extra income now and serve as a future retirement home for you. finally, salaries are expected to rise an average 3% this year, the best year for raises since before the recession. instead of pocketing the extra dough, use it to boost or max out your 401(k). you can't depend on the stock market to turbo charge your retirement savings, but the more you save, the better your retirement prospects. >> tom: housing's on our watch list for tomorrow. we'll get a check on the spring house selling season with march's existing home sales and whether warmer weather has americans in the mood to buy homes. bank of america reports results. we look at the numbers and talk with a law professor who has studied what could happen to b- of-a under the new financial regulations. that's "nightly business report" for wednesday, april 19. good night, everyone. i'm tom hudson. we hope to see all of you again tomorrowight.

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