ment has in store. in today's cover story, a look at the national effort to stop a rising suicide rate. and it begins in the office. we're getting in the zone. the eurozone. what the region's central bank is planning to save itself from further disaster. plus, a lot of positive news for the housing sector. is it finally going to help, and how can investors play this? that's all ahead on today's first business. you're watching first business: financial news, analysis, and today's investment ideas.

i'm bill moller, angela is off. here's the first look for monday september 17th. traders, investors and market- watchers will start this trading day still digesting the fed's stimulus move and fresh data that show an economy still struggling. manufacturing got us out of the recession, but production & output, 2 separate indicators, remain weak. not so fast new york stock exchange. nyse euronext will pay the government a 5 million dollar fine. it violated rules by giving some of its paying customers early access to trading information. no exchange has paid such a penalty. and a sign of the times in europe. for centuries the catholic church has been off- limits to government interference. but things are so bad, the washington post reports governments are chipping away at ancient tax breaks. take spain. the church is one of the country's largest land owners and could be forced to pay nearly 4 billion dollars a year in taxes. let's talk with our trader today. larry levin is the president of trading advantage. larry, all that euphoria from last week, are you still feeling it this monday morning? > > i wouldn't be surprised to see a little bit of a sell-off

this morning. obviously we saw such a big run-up last week, certainly at the end of the last week. so, don't be surprised to see a little bit of a sell-off. but i think you'll find bargain hunters step in there and buy these markets. > > how high can we go? what do you expect for the s&p for example? > > i think if you're looking at the end of the month, 1500 is certainly in play in the s&p. there's an awful lot of traders long, and not a whole lot of reasons to be short if qe3 is going to be extended pretty much indefinitely. > > is this a general lift, or are you seeing some sectors that are looking particularly profitable? how about cyclicals, metals, what are you looking at? > > i'm a big fan of the financials. i've been watching bank stocks for a while, and i think they've helped take the market up with it. so i think that's a situation you've got to watch. something like bank of america trading near $10 on friday. stocks like that that have had pretty big moves over a pretty short period of time,

and they've been fun to watch and fun to trade. > > is europe still the big trigger that could cause all of this to come crashing down again? > > certainly it could, but i don't think that's what's going to happen, and i think the bailouts and the things we did here, they're pretty much copying our exact model, and you're going to get that same kind of situation, you're going to get bailouts, and it's going to be kind of pushed under the rug, and we'll have to see what happens in the future. but i don't see us taking this down any time soon. i think it's more of what we're doing here. > > a lot rioting in the middle east. is that causing traders any concern? > > it really hasn't moved the markets per se. certainly it's something you watch. you see these headlines, and these horrible video stories and things like that. but, as far as moving the stock indexes i trade, it really hasn't, i hate to say. > > all right larry levin of trading advantage. thanks so much. you have a good day. > > you're welcome. the u.s. surgeon general has launched a new effort to deal with the suicide rate that's been rising since the 1990s. it involves a more direct approach and as our cover story explains, encouraging co-workers on the job to look for warning

signs that could lead to self- inflicted injury or worse in the workplace. it's a tough subject to bring up, especially to a co-worker who might well say, 'mind your own business.' but u.s. surgeon general dr. regina benjamin wants people to try. "we used to be afraid to say 'are you considering suicide?' now, it's an important question to ask." suicide is rising in the military. this past july, the army lost 38 soldiers to suicide - an all-time one-month high. "if it seems imminent, like 'yes, i have a plan and i have a gun, call 911." nationwide, more than eight million adults report thoughts of suicide in the past year. 36,000 people die from suicide each year - roughly a hundred people a day. "if you know your friend's on facebook, you can link them to professionals anonymously." the effort to prevent suicide includes an executive order to hire 1600 mental-health workers for the department of veterans' affairs. medicare will now

cover screening for depression and 55 million dollars in federal grants for states and local communities. in the workplace, help may come with the simple act of including a co-worker in an activity. "sometimes, it's easy to only invite 'fun' people, but if you invite the loner, too, you might be helping somebody who's alone and that's when people succeed at suicide." the goal of this renewed effort in suicide prevention - saving 20,000 lives within the next five years. in fact there is an epidemic of stress in the american workplace! a report in the journal neurlogy says on-the-job stress can increase heart disease by 25%. we already know it costs employers hundreds of millions of dollars a year in absenteeism and lower productivity. the report says the easiest thing to do to reverse this is to get smokers to quit. so you know, job

stress is defined by high demands at work or when you don't have enough control over your hours or work conditions. a study shows many seniors have a hard time handling health costs with medicare. a 20-year study from the university of michigan found out-of-pocket healthcare costs averaged $39,000 per year for many medicare recipients. those costs could rise or drop depending on a person's condition. this week is national medicare education week. chris abbott, of united healthcare medicare, tells first business that many misconceptions are made about health costs with medicare. "the most important misconception that i run into is that medicare covers everything and there is strong financial protection. that's not the case, which is why people need to understand how medicare works so they are prepared to make a good choice that protects them financially and gives them the right coverage for their health."

open enrollment for medicare elligables begins oct 15th and ends december 7th. one year ago today, occupy wall street was born. there would be many protests to come. most are peaceful with marches, concerts and assemblies. and to keep it going, ows new york is going to bring in and train activisits from across the country. today in seattle demonstrators will march and cover their mouths with dollar bills, in protest of the supreme court decision that allows corporations to donate unlimited amounts to political candidates. in new york, protestors plan to occupy major intersections in a civil disobedience act called "the people's wall." meanwhile in the markets, kraft out, united health group in. for the first time in 3 years, there is a new name among the 30 dow industrials. at the close of business this friday, kraft foods, which is spinning off its north american grocery business, will be replaced by united health. kraft will be renamed mondelez international after the spin off. the s&p dow jones committee that decides which companies can join the

dow apparently felt the new company's market capitalization and smaller u.s.-generated revenue made it less suitable for the dow average. iphone 5 fever is raging. so get this. at 3 a.m. eastern friday, pre-order sales began. order volume was huge. within an hour, the phone was sold out. at first apple was promising delivery by this friday, but a short time later the delivery date was pushed back a week. everybody figured insane demand, but this may be off the charts for what even apple was expecting. this is by far the largest, fastest iphone debut. in fact, the iphone may even give apple's revamped ipad, expected later this fall, a challenge. "the new ipad is going to have competition from the iphone because the iphone's screen is bigger, while ipad's screen is smaller. not a lot of real estate difference there. i think people may ask themselves,

"for all the things that an iphone can do, do i really need an ipad?" losses from the drought keep growing as farmers deal with insurance claims. farmers filed for more than $1.4 billion in claims as of last week, which could result in record losses. it's due in part to changes from the u.s. department of agriculture's risk management agency. it changed the insurance program that could increase the underwriting losses from the drought. that means smaller premiums for farmers this year for corn and soybeans. but crops aren't yet fully harvested, which make the insurance losses hard to assess. i guess it makes sense. imagine, you're on a big jet, zooming down the runway and, what's that out the window, are those goats? there's a part of chicago's o'hare airport that's tough to mow. so, they may let loose 30 goats out among the jets and fumes to see how they do in keeping the grass and weeds at bay. they'll be outside the security fence, so they

won't be running around on the runways. as odd as this sounds, the next time you're flying in or out of atlanta or san francisco, look closely. they use goats at those two airports as well. coming up, the u.s. stock market bounced on the fed's bond-buying bet, so what has bond buying done for the eurozone? but first, even if the fed move does bring down mortgage rates, you still need a strong credit score. but which score - there are dozens of 'em. we'll sort it out for you, after this in- the-know message.

ñçbñ the all-important credit score. it is simply a measure of your credit worthiness. you know the rules: the higher the number, the better the chances that you'll get a loan and it'll have a good interest rate. but did you know this? there are donzens of credit scores, not just the good ol' fico. i didn't know this. john ulzheimer is a nationally recognized credit expert. he's also the president of smartcredit.com. john, just how many are there, and why? > > you have got literally scores and scores of credit scores. 49 alone are made by fair isaac, the company infamously known for the fico credit score. you have so many credit scores primarily because there are three credit reporting agencies, and each of

the three credit reporting agencies has five different generations of the fico scoring software. so right out of the gate that's 15 different scores. nine of those 15 have different flavors of scores, so you may have a score used by auto lenders, a different score used by bank card issuers, a difference score used by mortgage lenders, and you can start to see that we're multiplying here, and the number adds up to a whopping 49 fico scores. > > so john, are they all within the same ballpark, or can the numbers vary widely? > > that's an excellent question. the number will vary, that's why you have 49 different models. it's going to generate 49 scores. it's very unlikely that they'll all be the same. the good news is that they are going to be in a very tight scale. you should not have any of those scores be plus or minus 15 points different than just your generic fico score. and, even better news for consumers is you don't have to focus specifically on managing 49 different numbers. you really just need to focus on managing one, because solid credit management will transcend every single one of those

stores, and you'll end up with killer scores if you do the right things like paying your bills on time, keeping your balances low on credit cards, and only applying for credit when you really need to. > > is fico still king? is that the one we should be concentrating most on because it's most widely used? > > yes. look, the rumors of fico's demise have been greatly exaggerated. they are by far the king and probably the queen. they have about 90% of the market share when it comes to credit scoring models. the other 10% is being fought over by a variety of different scoring systems. but look, when you go to a lender, you can almost bet the farm that they're going to pull one variation of those 49 different fico scores. > > it's nice to know we don't have to worry about 49 different juggling acts to keep the numbers up. john, thank you so much. > > thanks for having me. i appreciate it. ahead, fixing europe. can it be done without destroying the eurozone? the bullish and bearish outlook, after this.

india's government is now welcoming money from abroad. the country, made up of mostly local, family-owned businesses, is letting loose on some prior restrictions regarding foreign investments. under the new regulation, retailers such as walmart, broadcasters, and airlines will be allowed to open majority-owned businesses in india. india's commerce department says the move will

help with the slowing economy there. the markets are soaring in america. shows you what a little stimulus can do. if only it was as easy to stimulate the economy of the eurozone. but maybe all that bond-buying is doing some good. that was talked about in a 2-day meeting in cyprus that began friday. let's talk with greg hadley. he's president of the bull & bear institute. in regard to what's been going on in europe, are you bullish or bearish? > > you know what, i'm a little bit of both. if you look at it, the ecb, by buying up the short-term notes of basically the pigs, greece- > > that's a key point, though: they're buying the short-term notes. > > it's the short-term notes, which really has been the problem for these countries, is how do they get the short-term financing to continue their governments? they are looking at it, and basically this is a short-term fix on a long-term problem. the structural problems in the eurozone will continue to exist. in fact, right now greece is asking whether or not they should

renegotiate the austerity measures that they agreed to just recently. > > we don't even know what spain is going to do. they're still on the sidelines, even with the rates down, whenever it is, 5.5%. > > exactly. spain is not sure what they're going to do. in fact, we've heard some recent rumblings out of ireland that if greece gets to renegotiate, they wish to renegotiate. so the effect of this will be interesting in the long-term. > > it is interesting simply because it does make sense. if i am bound by what i think is a draconian agreement, vis-a-vis ireland, and i see greece getting off the hook, i want that too. > > exactly. and then what you're doing is you're also removing any sense of fiscal austerity. we know what got the greeks into trouble before. if we give them the credit card again, what's going to happen? of course, the german taxpayers, they're the ones footing this entire bill. as one british politician said, the ecb and draghi, they are going to defend the euro to the last german taxpayer. > > and the german taxpayer, that's the person who says, "i have to work 'til 60-whatever-

it-is. i'm not underwriting the early retirement of the greeks who can take off to the mediterranean at 55." > > exactly. the germans just raised their retirement age to 67. at the same time, the french dropped theirs to 62, and like you said, the greeks can retire in their mid-50s. if you're a german taxpayer, that's not such a good deal. if you're a greek taxpayer, it's a pretty good one. > > greg, my sense is you are kind of bearish. > > i am long-term bearish. i think what you have to do is you have to look at the eurozone. sooner or later today of reckoning is going to come. they're going to have to ask themselves, does it make more sense to spin off greece, to spin off italy? maybe not so much italy, but spain for sure. and you have to ask yourself, is this an underperforming asset that they're going to try to move beyond? > > and underperforming asset. good way to think about it. greg hadley from the bull & bear institute. thanks so much. > > bill, thank you.

chart talk's next. we're gonna look at the possible pending lift in the market for housing stocks.

chart talk is our segment now, and our chart man today is dan deming, managing director at stutland equities. all right dan, we had the fed move of course last week to help housing. moody's has upgraded some home builders. and there will be some data coming up this week that could further help, and that could really affect the market. tell me about the housing sector and what kind of a play you might see here right now. > > right bill. i mean right now you're seeing that's a sector that's very much on fire. if you look at the xhb, the etf on the housing sector, that's up significantly. it's up 10% since september 1st, so you're

seeing a tremendous rally in the housing sector across the board. the home builders, you're seeing a tremendous rally there as well. you look at pulte, it's kind of the star, it's up over 100% year-to-date. but you also look at toll brothers, lennar, those are a couple of other names that are showing significant extension in value over the last six to eight months. so, you're seeing a sector that looks like it's turning, just basically on the stabilization of the housing market itself. not tremendous growth in the housing market, but some stability there. > > that's suggests a lot of this is built on hope and optimism. what's going to give it some real staying power though? > > well, we'll see if it can just continue to kind of work through. like we said, they've got the foreclosure situation they're still contending with. the excess supply seems to be coming out of the market, so that's kind of another catalyst that you've seen this market kind of bubble up significantly from the fact that it looks like the housing market at least has stabilized and possibly turning higher. now if you look in chicago, even last month, we saw an increase in single-

family homes in chicago, a 4.5% price increase. that still was below year-ago levels, but we're seeing the trends across the united states at least looking like the housing pricing is starting to trend higher from the low that we saw about a year ago. > > let me shift over here to the vix, the volatility index. that was somewhat settled last week. do you think it's going to stay tamped down? > > you know what bill, actually last week, it's interesting, we saw it open friday around 13.5 and then firm the rest of the day. moving into the weekend there was definitely some small buyers, some protection going on. but nonetheless, with this backed stuff with the fed, quantitative easing, it looks like you're seeing it come out of this market place with the sense that the fed is going to support the economy and thus the market is going to benefit from that. > > all right. i wish you a good trading day dan. thanks. > > thank you. that's first business for monday. make sure to stay with us all week. we'll have an expert here who will tell us why fall is the best time to buy certain consumer products. from all of us at first business, have a great monday. is he

. we are live in san francisco where another occupied protest is scheduled for today, we will tell you the reason behind it and how it could affect traffic. people are marking the first anniversary, what they are getting ready to do. this morning, students will return to menlo park beachwood

school. it is all starting right here on ktvu channel 2 morning news. this is ktvu channel 2 morning news. good morning, thank you for joining us this monday morning september 17th, i am pam cook, let's check in with steve paulson for the weather. a few high clouds filtered -- filtered in, highs today 50s and 60s coast and bay and now inland, here is sal. traffic is doing well and we are off to a decent start if you are looking at some of these pictures, i will show you traffic is moving well in front of the coliseum and getting to the oakland airport. also this morning, we are looking at the bay bridge, except for one lane here, for the most part, we have a nice drive into the city, le