>> good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. i'm beejal patel. >> and i'm paul eggers. >> today we're talking about the big stories of 2009, certainly one of them was the job picture for millions of americans who are especially facing job losses during this year, it was a very difficult time. >> and the auto industry is one sector that felt the job losses most. we will talk about that coming up a little later. >> and gold was the other big story of 2009, especially with it reaching new highs this year and it was also another historic year for the financial markets. here is angie miles on what seems to be a roller coaster ride for investors. >> the stock market rebounded strongly in 2009 after bottoming out in march, but fears that it could happen again left some investors feeling like putting money under their mattresses might be a good idea. not to worry, there are safe places to hide your money in turbulent times that have nothing to do with box springs. scary times.

october 2008 the dow was around 11,000. by march 2009, it plunged to just above 6,000. no one knows better than traders on the trading floor where the smart money runs for cover in tough times. >> the first thing you see in a real panic is people go to things like treasuries. that is a safe place you can dump an enormous amount of money? >> dominic salvino trades with group one on the floor of the chicago board of options exchange. he has seen the days where the market is riding high and quickly slams down and some investors turn to options. >> options represent insurance. if you are suddenly twice afraid your house is going to burn down, you go out and make sure your insurance is up-to-date. >> and they bought put options to protect their portfolios. >> puts are the options that give you the right to sell an asset at a specified price. >> for example, if you own a stock or etf and the market

drops, you have the right to decide at what level you want to sell rather than riding that stock or etf all the way down to however low it goes, which can sometimes be zero. terrorism, war, or sudden en masse sell-offs in the stock market can cause panc, spending money running for safe havens including treasuries orangeses,, gold, oil. >> when there is times of uncertainty or fear you will see a flight to quality back to the dollar. >> the dehaving a safe portfolio and safe, balanced financial future is a good level of diverse if i indication. >> diversefication. >> have a diverse mix so when one goes down, the others prop up your portfolio. we've been on a relatively calm

trend but this could be the calm before the storm. >> for example, in a hurricane, it gets very bad and all the sudden you're in the eye and everything is calm and stable but you come out back the other side and we still have to come out of this on the other side. >> if you are really worried about your money, money markets are an option guaranteed by the government up to $250,000 and can earn about one to two percent a year. thanks, angie. the downturn in the u.s. dollar and volatility in the market had gold trading at record highs throughout 2009. and it wasn't just traders who moved money into the precious metal. pawnshops that buy scrap jewelry and the refining companies that recycle gold also made a mint. and we took some time in 2009 to get a behind the scenes look 59 what happens when gold jewel vie melted down into gold bars. these days, gold refining companying like this one in the midwest are working to the max. never in recent history have they been busier. >> i have five guys back here

running 10-hour, 12-hour days. >> peter spector has worked in the gold refining business almost a decade. he says workers often come in on the weekends just to open packages full of gold jewelry comes in from customers. a refiner can take in up to 400-pounds of gold a day, everything from necklaces to bracelets and rings. it takes about 25 minutes to moment down all of this stuff into a bar. but the entire process is pretty complicated. when gold jewelry first comes in, they sift through it to make sure it is clean, then it gets poured into a special heating container, which is placed into the furnace. after a half hour the mounted gold gets poured into a mold. finally, when it cools off, you get a gold bar that has to be brushed 06 to remove the debris and then polished. it is this entire process where gold refiners make their money. >> we work on very slim margins. we're one of the most reputable refiners in the country.

>> a one to two percent profit margin, but as long as gold stays at lofty levels, the sheer volume of work they do will mount the bottom line. after packing gold jewelry, individual gold bars add up quickly and eventually they are all melted together bigger bars. this one ways 40-pounds and at today's price it is worth more than $300,000. this gold bar is then sent off to an even bigger refinery. >> after we paid our clients, we comingle that material and then we push it on for refining. take it back to pure and then that goes back into the world as gold jewelry and into plating operations and the mints for bullion and et cetera, and so on down the line. >> gold refiners typically take in gold material from pawnshops, jewelry retailers, even dental labs. they don't work directly with

consumers. peter spector says if you want to sell your gold jewelry if is best to work with a reputable pawnshop and beware of tv advertisements that offer cash in exchange for your gold. often times those can be scams. for now, let's turn to our resident gold trader, ipa epstein of the the linn group talking about the unpredictable year gold has had a h in 2009. what do you make of gold's performance, up 23% this year. >> it is up beautifully. it has had a good correction. it might even correct more and go nowhere for a while. got to remember, the dollar has come off, talking the dollar index, off the 74.5 level, trading in the low 78s. now maybe headed towards 80. and that will put pressure on the gold. but once the dollar peaks out and starts back down, gold will get its legs under it. right now gold has made a short-term top. >> do you have any target on gold say, say for the next three or for mounds. >> i think if the market gets

back over 1227, you target the 1300 level. on the way day down the first target wa the 1300 area and marking down it $25 increments. so the break to 1075, then 1050. if 1050 breaks ground you may go back to the $1,000 an ounce. if you think it is going back to 500, $600 an ounce, no. the second part of 2010 is where the action pick up if the u.s. economy and other world economies pick up. we don't have inflation yet but if you look at christmas shopping and look back at what's been going on, the shelves are not full, there' getting emptier. if you buy goods, i'm hearing delays. i hear the inventories have been kept down and if demand picks um, there will be more inventory, more jobs, more inflation. >> this year, how much of the buying in gold is a speculation and how much is a fundamental underpinning. >> probably the majority.

once you get gold in the news every single day, then the speculate herb comes out. don't misunderstand what i say, when the imf is selling 200 million metric tons and you get a buyer for it there is a lot of gold moving into central governments and they they would -- they they would but the day-to-day speculation is moving them back and forth in the metal market and it was everybody going for the same door at the same time and that why the market dropped over 10%. >> we will keep watching it with ipa epstein with the the linn group. we appreciate it, as always. and 2009 saw one of the highest unemployment rates in years, is the job outlook better for 2010. but first, from bankruptcies to cash for clunkers, a look back at the @@@@@@@@@@@@@@

>> ceo changes, cash for clunkers, billion dollar bailouts and big name brands disappearing, it all happened in the auto industry in 2009. david whiston knows this, set auto industry analyst for morningstar. thank you for being here.

clearly a wild year in 2009. have you seen anything like it ever before. >> no and frankly i hope i never do again. there is really not a word to describe it. you can say turbulent or chaotic. it is a bloodbath of a year. in the united states, sales will be on the lowest level on a per capita basis since the late 950s. >> tell us some factors that contributed to that year in autos. >> it has been building since 2007 with the collapse in the housing market then we had, in the auto industry, i don't think people realized, the recession didn't start with lehman brothers, it happened before that with collapsing consumer confidence with housing going down in '07 in ski auto marks like california and florida. so even throughout '08 you had gas prices just killing detroit in particular which is much more relying on the light truck segment. then lehman happened and all that just just cascaded into 20d

let to massive collapses, each month the sales numbers were horrendous and we're down year to date 24% and the only bright idea was cash for clunkers. >> was that program a big success? can you call cash for clunkers a successful program? >> yes, because it wasn't too long to the point where it is going to pull a ton of 2010 deman in 2009. there probably was a little bit of forward demand, but we finally, because of that program, our first 1999 over yer year increases in about 20 mondays, sales wise. and really we were so desperate for some good news that that was a welcomed sight. plus, all auto makers, even the japanese, were having their inventory levels get to very, very low levels. new vehicle inventory, healthy level is 60 days, toyota got down to 16 days so the cash for clunkers finally forced detroit and the japanese and other plants to ramp up production

which is great for the whole supply chain. >> clearly government intervention with cash for clunkers and the auto industry this past year, is that something you see continuing going forward in. >> as long as general motors and chrysler are owned by the u.s. government, there is going to be more influence from washington than normal. there is always some influence from washington due to environmental regulations but until the government reduces or entirely eliminates their stake in gm and chrysler we will keep seeing more operational, and hopefully we're done with management changes at lease at gm and i don't see anything that fiat, sergio is running that ship now. but things like, for example, what we just saw this week with gm announcing they will run three shifts 24/7 in the kansas city area. that is very hard to do in the auto industry. toyota doesn't even do that all the time. they used to do that certain times to ramp up production in a certain mod sole that move

see -- model so that move seems to be coming from washington. >> and what are bright spots in the last year? would you use hyundai, perhaps? >> the lower volume manufacturers, particularly hyundai and subaru. hyundai i've equated to how toyota came into the united states, initially very, very low quality, but over time it got better and better and got more market share. hyundai is following the same path but they rely on incentives and fleets but they have' had a great year sales wise and their insurance program was a big hit with consumers. >> and looking ahead to 2010, is there a reason for investors to jump into the auto sector right now? >> investment wise, rebound in equities happened in aches 09. some scattered places, the wheel industry heavily relied on the detroit three and they have a balance sheet and generous dividend yield at 4%. >> i hope for a quiet every year

in 2010 for the auto industry for you because i know that kept you very busy into thank you. >> david whiston is the auto industry analyst wind research firm morningstar. still ahead on the show, a look at jobs picture in 2009. what contributed to massive unemploymt rate and also we will take a look at the stories of the (announcer) itchy dry scalp?

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million people have lost their jobs. john challenger ask challenger, gray and christmas is here to talk about it. welcome, john. >> nice to be here. >> talk about the pace of lay offs in the entire course of 2009. the layoffs did ease up significantly and november lost only 11,000 jobs compared to 700,000 in january of '09. what do you make of the pace of the layoffs this year? >> at the beginning of the year we were just at the very bottom of this recession, that period from about october of 2008 until maybe march of 2009 this economy was in a tank and the layoffs ts were the heaviest i've seen in nigh lifetime. but month by month now they have continued to get better. this month, november, was the most positive, much better than expectations, in fact,. >> and even though 2009 was so difficult for jobs and the job market, there were some signs of hoe, especially temporary workers. let's take a look at these numbers. since july, temporary help services employment has raisen

by 117,000. what is the significance of that? >> what is particularly good is the last two months have been very strong for temporary workers and what it says is business owners are now at the point where they're saying we need workers, we've got the orders in the door and we have to bring people on because we're so thinly staffed. they will continue to do that as the economy improves and then when they get to the point they say this is really for real, then they might convert some of those peosle into full timers. >> talk about the strong job sector in 2009, biggest being health care that added 600,000 jobs since the recession in 2007, what is really strong for job creation this year? >> there weren't many but health care, education, core areas like food, we all have to go to the grocery store so food and december count retail held up in this environment into and what where the worse sectors of this year? >> automatictive, really took it on the chin but also banking and finance with all those lows,

wall street cuts were heavy. >> what is some advice you would have for workers in this job market that continue to try and look for jobs? >> you know, you have to stay at it. this beginning of the year period as w come into the new year is one of 9 best times for hiring, companies come in and say we've got new budgets, new plans, and they start to hire so you have to have your search in full gear from day one as the new year becomes upon us. >> and talk about strategies. you don't want to just kind of apply for these jobs on-line, you need to network. >> so important you can't sit in front of your computer and e-mail out resumes and wait for the world to come to you so you have to be engaged going to breakfasts and lunches and seeing colleagues from former companies and being out there really pushing your candidacy. >> great advice as always. thank you so much, john challenger with challenger, gray and christmas. we appreciate it. and coming up next, our picks for the best and worst stories of 2009.

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hot to relax it away. no pain, no mess. >> welcome back to the show, everybody. now we're talking about the stories of 2009 that stood out in our minds. and joining me now to talk about it, angela miles and angie miles. welcome back, guys. paul, start with you. >> bernie madoff is the story of the year, it started in 2008 when he turned himself in but it involved the things like best about financial news, greed and regulators. >> and investors put their money with this man and the dozens of hedge funds that funneled their money to what do you think of them in. >> that is my favorite part of the story and maybe under reported. investors were handing money over to madoff, no due diligence, no checking into what he was putting money into what so ever. >> and investors weren't paying attention either because they

were watching their funds grow every month. at the end of the day they were not diversified. >> very unfortunate there. angie has about you? >> i'm going tiger woods, it didn't shake the markets but it shook up the traders on the trading store. when it broke, we were coming off the dubai world story and nobody cared about that. by monday everybody wanted to talk about tiger woods and it is accenture and gatorade that stepped away but think of the money that is not going to be made on tiger woods because it was such a credibility killer, what happens with the scandal. >> and nike is adam and the about sticking with tiger woods. >> they have to, they built the whole golf brand on them. >> you've got to say the dismal progress in the banking industry when it came to turning the struggling loans into permanent modifications, i've got to say that story kind of disappointed me in 2009. i mean, let's take a look this data here. this chart showing bank of

america only doing 9 permanent mod any indications under the president -- modifications under the president's housing plan in november. this is the largest bank in the united states of america and for them to only do 98 permanent modifications it pales in comparison to aqua financial who did 4,000 permanent mods. pa inpathic, shameful are wordst come to mind. >> when it comes to them helping struggling homeowners -- >> not happening. thank you very much. thank you for joining us for joining us here for our 2009 review. joining us here for our 2009 review. hope huh a you had a grea

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