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tv   Nightly Business Report  PBS  August 19, 2013 4:30pm-5:01pm PDT

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this is nightly business report with tyler matheson and suzy gering. brought to you -- >> sailing through the heart of historic cities and landscapes on a river. you get close to iconic landmarks, to local life, to cultural treasures. viking river cruises. exploring the world in comfort. >> behind closed doors. president obama meets privately with the country's most powerful financial regulators to discuss the new rules that will govern the country's biggest banks. going gangbusters, 900% in nine years to the day. that's how much google has returned since going public. it dominates search, and seizing
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the smartphone market. but is the stock atop of many mutual funds, a good buy for the next nine. attention shoppers, are you willing to give up privacy for a good deal? we have all that and more on this monday, august 19th. good evening, everyone. welcome. his vacation over, president obama got back to work today, and he wasted no time tackling a topic of high interest to investors, not to mention financial services executives. at a closed-door white house meeting he sat down with the nation's top financial regulators to get a progress report on how the government is implementing the dodd/frank law. it covers wall street and the nation's largest banks. john harwood joins us from the white house with details on who attended today's meeting, and why it was necessary. john? >> tyler, it was financial regulators from all across the government, including the federal reserve, cftc, fec,
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comptroller of the currency. the president wanted to sell his economic agenda, only about 40% of the regulations, putting in place the dodd/frank financial regulation reform have been enacted or completed by the regulators. this was a pep rally to try to get them to finish that job. i caught up after the meeting with mary jo white, the chair of the fcc. here is her assessment of this conference. results of the meeting? >> very productive meeting, talking about status and progress under dodd/frank and keep going. >> reporter: what's the most important thing you still have to do? >> we have a number of important things left to do. obviously the volcker rule stands up. >> reporter: this is one part of the president's economic agenda this week. later this week he'll go on the road and press his case for a middle out path to economic growth. he's got to select a new fed chair.
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ben bernanke who attended this meeting, this may be one of the last times he's at the white house. we know that -- we believe that the two front-runners for the b janet yellen and larry summers. we haven't heard from the president yet. we may hear from him pretty soon after labor day, tyler. >> john, it's suzy. you talked about the top priority of dodd/frank. but what else is on this economic agenda that you just referred to? what's the most important thing that he has to get done. >> well, of course, the president's got fiscal standoffs heading up with congress on continuing to fund the government, figuring out what to do about the sequester, whether the burdens of the sequester get rearranged. and also to raise the debt limit so the government can continue to borrow money and keep operating. we had a crisis in the summer of 2011 when congress refused to raise the debt limit. that resulted in a downgrade. the administration believes that a debt crisis is the only thing that could really push this economy into recession. they've got to figure out a path to avoiding that. >> back to dodd/frank, why is
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the regulation writing taking so long? >> very complicated law. i was talking to a veteran. bush administration today, and they said the regulators are taking a lot of flack for this, and the mismatched parts to build a new car and do it fast, not easy to do. >> thanks a lot, john. john harwood reporting from washington. more now on the nation's banks. just today, the federal reserve spelled out new requirements for major banks to go above and beyond regulatory minimums on capital planning levels. a new fed study says most big banks have made progress since the financial crisis on plans to weather another financial shock. some of the stress tests they said run by individual firms may be inadequate. and wants executives to better identify specific risks that their banks face in market downturns. on wall street, it was a milestone kind of day. but not in a good way. for the first time this year, the dow and s&p 500 fell for a
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fourth consecutive session. it was the first such thing since last year. both indexes have traded in nine of the last 11 trading sessions. the dow today closed at lows of the session. it fell 71 points, to 15010. nasdaq down 13 to 1389. the s&p slid to 16.46. stocks were spooked by the usual suspects, namely hand wringing over what the fed will do next and a pesky rise in interest rates. the ten-year treasury hit a high of 2.89%, the highest in two years. it looks as if phillip falcone and capital partners have settled with the securities and exchange commission over the improper use of the firm's money. in a release from the s.e.c., falcone and harbinger have agreed to pay more than $18 million and barred from the
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securities industry for five years. he also has to admit wrongdoing in using $133 million in fund assets to pay his personal taxes. and secretly favoring certain fund customers over others. he said he's pleased to have settled with the fcc. the fcc is also taking a look into hiring practices at jpmorgan chase. it's being investigated for employing children of influential chinese officials to win lucrative new business in that country. a case of mutual back scratching or something worse? >> reporter: in china, it's about who you know more than what you know. it's called gran chi, doing business with a close network of people to avoid deception and minimize risk. where the practice extends to hiring, u.s. regulators are investigating whether jpmorgan and other banks used connections to win business. jpmorgan references, quote, a request from the fcc commission
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seeking information and documents relating to the firm's employment of certain former employees in hong kong, and its business relationships with certain clients. according to "the new york times," the fcc is investigating the hiring process around two people, one the son of a former banking regulator and the daughter of a chinese rail official. the fcc is exploring what role if any the children's employment had in jpmorgan's scoring marqueed business, including work advising deals for the former regulator's private equity firm and a $5 billion ipo in the railway industry. the former s.e.c. attorney jacob frankel said the qualifications for the job will be the key focus. >> if what you're describing is a scenario where i would call it a real hiring, hiring somebody because they have qualifications, then there's a strong argument it's not for the purpose of influencing corruptness. >> reporter: jpmorgan is investigating the matter
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internally and declined to comment. news of the quirly, though, sent jpmorgan shares reeling monday, since such investigations have become costly for the bank. goldman sachs has also engaged in the practice of hiring children of prominent politicians and executives. the jpmorgan is subject to investigations and litigation over two dozen separate issues. it's estimated that legal cost could reach $6.8 billion. far higher than any other bank analysts say. for jpmorgan, the growing legal risk is becoming one big headache. for nightly business report, i'm kayla couchy. news now about jobs right here at home. and it's not good. the labor department reports that jobless rates fell in only eight states in july, and rose in 28 others, compared to the month prior, rates stayed the same in the other 14. last month, nevada has the highest jobless rate of all 50 states. 9.5%. north dakota has the lowest at just 3%. today was deadline day in
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detroit for creditors to file objections to the city's filing for chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, and dozens of creditors did just that. most of the earliest objections came from individual retirees worried about their pensions and benefits. the largest creditors in the case plan to file a joint objection. more violence in egypt today. the death toll is now more than 1,000. since protests against the ousted islamist president mohamed morsi erupted last week. now a court ruled to release another ex-president, mubarak. that could trigger more unrest. here is the latest from cairo. >> reporter: it's been another turbulent 24 hours for egypt. starting off with violence in the northern part of the sinai peninsula where we understand that 25 police were ambushed and executed with a machine gun. three of them remain critically injured. that comes off the back of an attempted prison break, we
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understand from the egyptian ministry of interior, where 36 supporters of president mohamed morsi were killed. the violence is likely to flare further. the discussion about u.s. financial assistance to egypt's military, a tune of $1.3 billion. but here's the drawback. perhaps now the saudi foreign minister making it clear that any threats in terms of cutting assistance would be met with a reaction from saudi arabia. they're happy to fill that gap. in other development, news that before mubarak may be habl to walk free, according to his defense lawyer, experts i talked to said it is unlikely to happen giving the political tensions in this country. for "nightly business report," cairo. >> the unrest in egypt is impacting shares of apache. the oil and natural gas giant has 17% of its net asset value and operations in egypt. shares of apache fell 4.5% today
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following a downgrade from buy to hold because of its exposure to egypt. no comment, though, from apache. still ahead, google's stock has soared since it started trading nine years ago today. but are there other companies that are innovating just as fast that should be on your radar? first, though, a look at how the international markets closed today. targeting teenagers, unveiling university pages. the social networking site for professionals wants to sign up college-bound high school students to connect them with colleges and alumni networks. whether the new strategy makes the grade. >> linkedin has grown to 238
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million members by giving professionals tools to find jobs, learn and network and helping companies recruit employees. today linkedin is targeting a younger demographic, launching university pages, partnering with more than 200 colleges and universities. >> this is something that's very critical for the network. making sure that you're getting accustomed to it at elier ages, on how to think of linkedin as a tool. >> universities are launching pages to help linkedin users to network with other students and graduates. starting on september 12th, linkedin will reach even younger users, removing the 18-year-old age limit and allowing students as young as 14 to research colleges. linkedin is now encouraging the same kind of connecting and communication that facebook enables. linkedin is well positioned to appeal to this generation of
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tech savvy students. raising questions about whether it will eat into facebook's market share. analysts say they're not concerned. that the two companies aren't in direct competition. >> for the foreseeable future, most of the younger demos engagement is still going to be weighted toward facebook. >> reporter: now we'll see whether looking younger opens the door for linkedin to offer other services to the valuable teen demographic. julia boorstin in los angeles. black or white iphones, that may be changing. according to reports in tech crunch and all things d, apple will soon offer the iphone in gold. that touch of gold is expected to be unveiled at company event slated for september 10th. no comment from apple. happy birthday to another tech giant. google, nine years ago today, went public. it started trading at $85 a
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share. if you bought the stock on august 19th, 2004, your investment would be up a stunning 925% to $866 today. jon fortt has more on where the stock may be headed next. >> nine years ago, yahoo! was the most visited site on the web with nearly twice the u.s. traffic of google. apple stock was an on ipod-fueled comeback of $17. facebook was just getting started. then google started by bringing in larry page, offered stock to the public markets for the very first time, at $85 per share. a lot of people thought that was too expensive. >> what a difference nine years makes. yahoo! is now struggling to say relevant. it pinned its hopes on a former google exec. apple stock is higher than it was and facebook is the most visited site on the web, nearly 700 million users touching that service daily. google, still chugging along at
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ten times at $85 the ipo price. it's a very different looking business. it's enormously profitable. it's got youtube for video. it's got motorola. and launched androids and tablets. the most popular operating system in the world. the entire internet feels a chill when they have an outage. >> the funny thing is, 40% of the internet didn't go down, but it feels like that number could have been right, because google is basically the internet for a lot of people right now. think about, you know, you use it for your calendar, your gmail, your phone a lot of the time. at this point, i think it's the infrastructure for basically most of the things that we do in our everyday lives. >> reporter: so, what's next for google as it approaches its ten-year anniversary? it's a major player in a clash of the titans, including apple, samsung, facebook and amazon.
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the companies now known for taking risks, like driverless cars and google glass. in the next year we'll probably see whether google can turn any of these new risks into profitable ventures. but so far, so good. for "nightly business report," i'm jon fortt. >> joining us to talk more on the tech sector is skip ailsworth. manager at the hennessey technology fund. skip, good to have you with us. you heard jon's report about google. you know what it sells for today. it's had a very nice nine-year run. would you buy the stock at this price? >> well, there are many reasons to. it is reasonably priced at the current price. to be specific, yes, i would. >> and what do -- do you think there's any chance nine years from now we'll be talking about google in the same way we talk about yahoo!? naerds, a company that's seen its better days? >> it's hard to predict out to nine years.
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but out of this category of large technology companies we have these days, google is probably one of very few that in nine, ten years will still be a dominant player, and innovative for growth. i'm very positive. they spend a lot of money on research and development and capital expenditures. and that's very good for the growth. >> skip, what about some of the other tech companies? there were once the darlings of wall street, and with every investor and user, whether you're talking microsoft or dell. what's happening with the tech sector? it seems to be limping along these days. >> well, these larger names, microsoft and dell, take those in particular, they tend to be geared to older technology. pcs and windows. so they're like battleships trying to be turned. it's a slow process to get them refocused on things for growth. the innovation part of the example. apple's been a good example, as
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we think apple is going to come out with things, you see the price come back. if we think apple's not going to come out with product in the near future, the price has fallen off. so innovation for these large companies. it is going to move the needle. it takes a lot. and it's very hard for the larger companies to always be innovative. >> so technology basically has been lagging in the group, lagging the s&p 500. as you mentioned, it's a lot of large cap companies like microsoft, intel, dell, hp and even apple until the last couple of weeks that haven't been performing terribly well this year. so take me off the beaten path and tell me some companies that might be a little smaller that i might not have heard of that you like at these prices. >> well, i'd be grad to. one is alliance fiber optic. as a matter of fact, today, it split 2-1. this is a company that concentrates on the optic,
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broadband world. google plays in this world, too. but they deal in the final mile to the house type part of the optic network. and they've had tremendous growth and innovation. another one is metadata. metadata is -- combines cloud data, management, and software, and focuses on the health care industry. managing data for clinical trials, things like this. so many of the smaller names in the technology space that are innovative, and specific product oriented, have had very good growth and has good stock performance. >> right. skip, thank you very much. sorry, we have to leave it there. forgive me for interrupting you. >> no problem. still ahead on the program, tracking your every move. retailers want to know what you like, what you don't, and the
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price you're willing to pay. they're spending big bucks in technology for that inside information. but is it paying off. but first, let's get a check on how commodities, treasuries and currencies performed today. another sign of growing optimism in the housing market. remax holding filed paperwork for an initial public stock offering. in just the past two years, the national real estate agency franchise expanded into china, hong kong and south korea. and hopes to raise $100 million in the ipo. the real estate website agreed to buy street easy for $50 million cash, looking to expand coverage of the new york city housing market. street easy has more than 1
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million unique monthly users in the new york area alone, most of them searching to buy or rent an apartment or home. a trio of small health care deals topped our market focus tonight. medical device maker st. jude is paying more than $300 million for a privately held swiss company which specializes in catheter products. another device maker, cr bart, is acquiring metaphor, this a private company making institutional tubing. shares of st. jude fell slightly to $51.44. cr bard rose half a percent to $112 and change. abbott labs lost a fraction to $34.88. shares of cobalt international energy fell sharply today. the oil and gas exploration company did not find oil in its wells off the gulf of mexico. the company calls the result disappointing, but is still upbeat about other prospects.
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the stock plunged 15% to $24.90. this is the biggest sell-off in two years. intel with the best performer on the dow today, thanks to upgrade from piper jaffray. the firm raised its rating on the stock to neutral to sell and boosted the price target to $22. the analyst expects next year to single digits. the stock rose more than 1% to $22.28. maybe that analyst would like to reconsider its price target since it's already above it. the upscale department store cited disappointing sales and markdowns as a reason for deeper than expected fourth quarter loss. they reached an agreement last month to be bought by canada's hudson bay company. the stock finishing at $15.97. several big retailers have reported disappointing earnings last quarter. but now to boost sales, some retailers are turning to new
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technologies that track customer's shopping choices and spending habits inside their stores. whether watching shoppers is actually paying off at the cash register. >> reporter: the internet generally, and amazon specifically, have changed how consumers shop. the physical retailers are finding new ways to use technology to win some of those customers back. as the biggest retailers go global, offering the same products everywhere, consumers are moving the other direction, wanting customized products. but for a deal. that's where technology comes in. here at custom apparel in new york city, 3-d body scanners like this using lights and sensors take a 200,000 data point image of your body, cutting the cost of a custom suit by more than 50%. tc squared, the company that makes this scanner, said brooks brothers uses it for custom suits in two locations, and victoria secret has five
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scanners to define the bust shape and bra size more accurately for inventory sizing. though not for customization. adidas has piloted a footwear wall in its stores enabling shoppers to render different variations of a shoe, get live twitter feeds about it, and even the back story of the soccer players that sport the shoe. we've seen anywhere from 500% uplift in the london pilot to 143% in germany. that's a great example of a win-win where the customers are getting more customized product. >> reporter: some retailers are hoping to glean insight about consumer behavior from the security camera video captured daily. >> they use it for floor plan operate mization, for evaluating the appeal at various products, for looking at the effectiveness of marketing and merchandising programs or optimize their staffing schedule and schedules
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and how the staff interact with the customers. >> reporter: the instore tracking behavior is no different than monitoring our web shopping behavior. while it still bothers some shoppers, others say it's just the new reality. >> it's like airport scanners. i think you get used to it. >> i don't think much is private. as long as it's not affecting me personally, that's fine. >> reporter: in-store technology is still only in its early stages. so like it or not, consumers should expect to see more of these programs soon. i'm courtney regan. finally tonight, a rare 1967 ferrari was sold at auction this weekend for, how much? $27.5 million. the red ferrari 275 nrt spider may be best known for its role in the 1968 movie the thomas crown affair. and is one of just ten ever built. so no surprise that this one spent the last six years stored in a specially built garage. that's probably why it looks so
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good. the new owner not identified, but the sellers say all proceeds from the sale will go to various charities. >> i understand one reason why it's so unusual and such a good buy is it's from the same owner, the man -- >> the original owner. >> the original owner. that makes it very valuable. that's "nightly business report" for tonight. have a great evening. >> thanks for joining us. having a wonderful evening, everybody. we'll see you back here tomorrow.
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glad to have you with us on this edition of "newsline." it's tuesday, august 20th. i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. ed leeers of ja man and russia will meet face to face on a long standing territorial

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