this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. funded in part by -- the street.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portfolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. economic feast. this shortened holiday week is packed with data. what to expect from several key reports and what the numbers could mean for the markets. and your money. big bull run. a prominent wall street strategist says u.s. stocks are in their sixth year of a 20-year bull market. why is he so optimistic? we'll ask him. >> abrupt change. one of the blue chips united technologies steps down without giving a reason.

leaving investors wondering why. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for monday, november 24th. >> good evening, everyone. more all-time closing highs for the dow and the s&p 500 today and we'll get more on today's market action in just a moment. but we begin with an avalanche of economic data that investors are focusing on stuffed like a turkey into the next two days ahead of the thanksgiving holiday and a shortened day of trading on friday. that data includes the latest on third quarter gdp, home prices for september and consumer confidence for this month. they're all out tomorrow. and on wednesday, we'll get initial jobless claims as well as durable goods orders, personal income and spending and new home sales all for the month of october. steve liesman has more on the big data points worth watching this week. >> reporter: a generous helping of economic data tomorrow and wednesday should give investors plenty to chew on ahead of their holiday meals.

the servings begin with a second look at third quarter gross domestic product and investors will have to digest a slight downgrade to an estimated 3.3% from the originally reported 3 1/2%. weakness overseas, especially in europe, hurt u.s. exporters. that will be offset by slightly better consumption here at home. the data side dishes on tuesday include the home price report expect to rise by 4.8% and consumer confidence, which is seen hitting a new post recession high of 96.5. confidence will be watched closely as investors try and gauge the mood of the consumer heading into the holiday season. and especially to see if lower gas prices lift spending spirits. a second helping of data comes wednesday stuffed with jobless claims and durable goods orders. where economists see a 0.5% decline driven by fallen aircraft orders. but business investment is forecast to rise by a percentage point underpinning economic

optimism. >> you've got growth in employment in the 25 to 34-year-old bracket finally starting to kick in, which could lead to greater household formation, which has been missing in this recovery. you add that to the fixed investment part of the economy capital spending and you see much less fiscal drag. i think you could finally see the overall economy growing at the same pace as the private sector has been over the last couple of years. >> reporter: rounding out the data delicacies will be personal income and spending for october, consumer sentiment and new home sales. after a run of upbeat data for the u.s. the hope is that none of the reports ends up being a turkey and that the forecast of 2.8% growth for the fourth quarter stays on the table. bon appetit. i'm steve liesman. economic giblets from steve liesman. on wall street stock eked out closing highs for the dow and the s&p and the dow transports today all despite low trading volume. hopes that china may further cut

interest rates to boost its economy. along with mergers in the insurance and form suitical industries. the dow added 7, the nasdaq had its biggest one day gain up about 42 points thanks to nearly 2% jump in apple shares and the s&p added about 6. well, it's hard to believe that 2014 will we over in less than six weeks. wall street pros are already coming out with their outlooks for the markets in 2015. dominic chu takes a look at the early trends for the new year. >> reporter: forget about new year's day. it's not even thanksgiving yet and some of wall street's biggest forecasters are already handing out their stock market predictions for 2015. and the general feel so far is bullishness. oppenheimer chief market strategist john stoltz falls into that cam. by the end of next year, the s&p 500 will climb to 2311. that's around 12% higher than current levels.

that's thanks to growth in corporate sales, profits and the overall economy. he believes investors should be buying stocks that have the most exposure to economic improvement. >> we want to be in cyclicals, so we want to be in industrials, technology, we want to be exposed to materials, continue that type of action. getting some exposure to financials. >> reporter: other forecasters are positive but more measured in their expectations. goldman sachs chief u.s. equities strategist is in that category. his target for the s&p 500 is 2100 which is 1 1/2% higher than it is right now. while he believes corporate earnings will continue to grow, the possibility of rising interest rates in the second half of the year could temper stock market gains and positive but lower stock market returns could be the norm in the comes years. >> that's essentially the story, the narrative of the last couple of years. you've had a great rally in the market, that's terrific. looking forward a run of 6%

annualized return over the next five years as a expected return you should anticipate. >> reporter: those are just a couple of the early reads from wall street experts. many more are expected to give their predictions in the next few weeks. remains to be seen whether any will be pessimistic about the year 2015 or if the general consensus is that the bull run continues. for "nightly business report" i'm dominic chu. >> our market guest tonight isn't just bullish about next year but for a lot of years thereafter. he believes the u.s. stock market is just six years into what he says will be a 20-year bull market. he's brian belski, chief investment strategist at bmo capital market. good to have you with us. we applaud anybody who will stick their neck out the way you just have. what gives you the confidence to think that we're in a 20-year bull market? not to say we haven't had them before and particularly most recently in the bond market. >> well, thanks for having us, tyler. i would say, number one, this is

not a new call for us. we've been talking about 20-year sick u lar bull for at least three years. number two, we originally turned bullish on the stock market back in november of 2008. i believe we were one of the very first strategists on wall street to put a double digit percentage return on the s&p 500. however, it took a lot of our wall street brethren to turn bullish over the last few years, now just seems in terms of the prior package, a lot of people are bullish, but i would warn people. not a lot of people are looking out longer term. i call it the over the shoulder stealth bull market. the greatest stealth bull market of my 25-year career. and i think what we've seen to date is not a lot of believability from the longer term perspective. we believe many of our institutional portfolio managers around the world are still managing their portfolios on a quarterly base and not even on an annual basis. they're chasing performance. they're not believing in the trend. and i think the best bull markets according to our work through history especially equities, tyler, come from lost

decades. clearly in america we had a lost decade to start this new millennium and in the '70s, and in the '30s that spawned the great bull market of the mid-40s and '50s. that's what we have going for us. the believability factor remains very low. from a fundamental perspective we remain bullish. >> so let me just ask you a question as to what you just said, brian. believability. i mean, that is an issue not just for the institutional investors but for the individual investors and they may be thinking even more short-term than a couple of months out. where are the fund lows going to come to drive this bull market that you're talking about? >> susie, it's a great question. but let me caution you about one thing that you said. i believe that actually the institutional investors and the retail investor swapped spots. when i learned the business back in the '80s and '90s it was the

institutional retail was shorter term. institutional investors get paid and judged on a quarterly basis with respect to their performance, retail investors are really looking for the longer term trends. many retail investors around north america get spook this year when interest rates actually went down. we think retail investors have yet to commit the capital that we think will help fuel this bull market to go higher. >> but you know, brian, i take all your points. i remember back in the late '90s when valuations were different than they are today, i'll grant you that. a lot of people thought everybody was going to just keep going up. but we seem to have a remarkable way in our global culture of messing up bull markets. sometimes the events can come sort of exonly nusly, 9/11 was nothing we could have anticipated. then the big crisis in '07, '08 and into '09. they can often get derailed very

dramatically. >> the bull market was already over by 9/11, tyler. >> it had peaked the year, true. >> remember, too, it was also brought on a xaps led recession caused by technology. over that lost decade we had two recessions, multiple wars, 9/11. america stopped believing in itself. during that time corporate america became conservative, rebuilt their balance sheets. now corporate america has fueled the most stable earnings in the world. we know what's going on with retail. they're scared. you should never lead any of your emotions by fear -- any of your investments by fear and emotion. they bought bonds and saved cash because they were scared. you should never base your investment decisions on fear, you should base it on fundamentals and u.s. equities look attractive. >> brian, may all our 401(k)s be listening to you. thank you very much. brian belski with bmo capital markets. >> united technologies was one of the biggest decliners in the

dow today. shares fell about 1 1/2% after the industrial giant's ceo suddenly and unexpectedly resigned. mary thompson has more on the unusual move at united technologies. >> reporter: the announcement from united technologies, void of the sugar coatinging that usually accompanies a ceo's departure. louis chenevert retiring immediately and being succeeded by his cfo greg hayes. >> this is a shocker. it was not anything anybody anticipated. >> an industrial giant with businesses ranging from carrier air conditioners to otis elevators to pratt and whitney engines, utc only saying chenevert's departure is unrelated to the firm's financial performance and the transition is part of an established success plan. still, investors didn't know the change was coming and that's unusual for a firm this size as they try to telegraph ceo succession investors are right

to question whether it was personal, personnel or strategic issues that were behind the departure. >> there's something that's being hidden. something hidden from sight. >> a 20-year veteran of the firm, chenevert was seen as capable if not dynamic. and despite concerns about competition in key markets like china, he wasn't dogged by criticism. now his successor is left to respond to unanswered questions at the firm's annual investor day next month. for "nightly business report," i'm mary thompson in new york. and some facts now about united technologies if you're not so familiar with the company. shares are up more than 50% since chenevert took over as chief executive in 2008. it's in the bottom third of dow components. and institutions hold more than 83% of those shares. black rock, vanguard, state street, global advisers, big indexers, big etf companies own the biggest chunks of utx. iran and six world powers

including the u.s. missed a second deadline today to resolve a decade-long dispute over its nuclear program. they extended talks until next june. meanwhile, iran is one of the founding members of opec which meets this thursday in vienna to discuss cutting production levels in order to stop the steady drop in oil prices. but with oil traders expecting no change of production levels by opec, crude prices fell again today. west texas oil down 73 cents a barrel to 75.78, benchmark brent crude off 68 cents closing at 79.68. and in response to reports that opec nations may vote to cut crude production at thursday's meeting, the energy minister from the united arab emirates said today that the cartel would make what he called the appropriate decision regarding production levels. and just ahead of the long thanksgiving day holiday weekend, gas prices are down again. that's good news for the 46 million americans who are expected to hit the road over the next few days.

the lumbard survey said that gas fell to $2.84 a gallon nationwide. that's a fresh four-year low. still ahead, big investors have played a major role in the housing market since the crisis, propping up the market by buying distressed properties. but as they start to cash out, is anyone moving in? are higher interest rates a sure bet in 2015? one top bond investor thinks definite so. jeffrey gundlach said that he

expects the federal reserve will raise benchmark rates next year and the impact on bond yields will be significant. >> the surprise will be how low a level the u.s. yield curve flats at. the fed will raise rates. the message of 2014 has been as the potential for fed rate hikes has increased, the long has done nothing but rally. the yield curve is going to flatten at a level previously thought unthinkable. >> today the yield on the ten-year note fell slightly. now, to a shift to the housing market. the large scale investors who helped prop up the sector during the housing crisis are now moving out. but who's moving in? diana olick has that story. >> reporter: they mopped up the mess of the foreclosure crisis buying distressed properties and hoping to squeeze out big profit by turning them into rentals. large scale institutional sv investors like blackstone,

colony and american homes for rent, but now they're slowing their purchases and letting the little guys in. >> they're slowing down their purchases because they still need to prove that they are able to make a lot of money in this space. to do that, they need to raise rents, they need to see house appreciation specifically in the units they own. that will take a little while. >> reporter: they buy homes, rehabs and sells them to other investors. headquarters in the atlanta area, frost says he's seeing the big investors less frequently on the courthouse steps but the rental trade is still red hot. >> open the bid at $80,000 bill. >> i feel like the fly of the wall of a far bigger movement. and it's really the smaller investors that are driving them. >> reporter: rental demand is still sky high. even with rents rising, we're seeing it in both single-family and multi-family units. that's because potential buyers, especially first-time buyers, are still having trouble getting a mortgage.

>> we can't get mortgages approved, and that's really governing demand. so it's keeping the range of improvement of the market really constrained into a narrow band. >> reporter: at the same time broadening opportunity for investors large, medium and small to take the rental trade to the next level. for "nightly business report" diana olick in washington. for more on the shift in large-scale investors moving out of housing go to nbr.com. we begin market focus with another sizable deal in drug land. biomarin is buying the dutch drug company prosensa in a deal that could be worth more than $800 million. the size of the deal will depend on whether some of prosensa's drugs can get approval. shares of bio marin up to 87.77. prosensa saw its stock surge 62% to 18$18.60. two reinsurers will combine in a deal announced today. renaissance will purchase

bermuda based reinsurer platinum underwriters for almost $2 billion. this is an attempt to generate more business and comb petition. it fell 2 1/2% to 98.76, platinum up 21% to $74.19. merck is buying the rights to an experimental ebola vaccine from new link genetics. as part of the deal merck will have the right to develop and distribute the treatment and any follow-on products derived from that vaccine. with merck involved the drug's development could move at a faster pace. still merck shares fell a little bit today to 49.25. and lockheed martin won a nearly $5 billion government contract and that sent shares up slightly. the deal is with the pentagon to supply an eighth batch of those very pricey f-35 fighters. the stock was 89 cents higher to 188.82.

a big sell-off of shares in trina solar. its quarterly results also missed expectations. shares slumped more than 5% to $10.36. a unit of citicorp must pay a fine for lapses in supervision. the financial industry regulatory authority found that the company failed to adequately supervise its research analysts' interactions with bank clients. the bank neither admitted for denied the charges but consented to the finding. shares rose 1 1/2% to 54.40. renting redbox movies is about to get more expensive. the owner of redbox kiosks, outerwall, is hiking the prices for renting movies and games to help fund improvements in its business as streaming sites are reducing demand for dvds. they'll be $1.50. shares rose by $8 to 71.39.

after the market closed today workday posted a smaller loss than expected for the third quarter on better than expected revenues. the maker of rehumhuman resourc software was in line with street views. shares tumbled initially in after-hours trading. in the regular session shares slipped to 92.49. could disappoints sales of the galaxy smartphone mean heads roll at headquarters? "wall street journal" reports that sales fell 40% short of forecast. samsung is now looking to shake up the executive ranks in its mobile phone division. trying to simplify costs and streamline options for consumers. a new computer virus has been discovered. one of the most sophisticated xam pels of malware ever seen. symantech says it's been used to spy on private companies and governments for the past six years. we're joined with more on all this. a really troubling situation. what is it about this malware

that makes symantech think it was created by a nation state? >> symantech is looking at the level of sophistication of this malware here and the amount of stealthiness that was involved in creating it. it's designed to get into systems and stay in there for a long period of time sending back information to whoever the initial hacker was. and that's why symantech comes to the conclusion that it was a nation state behind the creation of this malware and an english speaking nation state because they found english language words tucked in among the computer code that create this piece of malware. and it's been attacking specific countries, notably russia and saudi arabia, but not the united states and china. that might give you some indication of where this is coming from. >> so you hinted at who's been hit by it. has it mostly been governments that have been hit or have commercial properties been hit as well? >> it's been largely private and

commercial properties as well as telecom and communications. some of this behind the white paper today is that this is a particular computer trojans that designed to monitor communications perhaps for tracking people or finding out what they're talking about on the internet in those particular areas. again, russia and saudi arabia seem to be the focus here of a lot of this malware activity. >> how vulnerable are businesses? and is there anything they can do to protect themselves? >> the old advice applies here. don't click on anything that seems mysterious or a link that somebody sends you that just doesn't quite seem to fit. we very careful particularlymes. that's one of the vectors they say was used here in some cases by the creator of the malware to get into the systems. >> thanks a lot. and coming up on "nightly business report" the job skill that's in high demand and offers a six-figure salary without a four-year degree. you might be surprised by the answer. that story next.

if you're in the market for a new job or maybe a whole new career, you may want to consider becoming a court reporter. the pay is surprisingly good. you may even get to set your own hours. and as jane wells shows us, court reporters are in high demand right now. >> you ready? >> i'm reading my own story about an ebola toy as a court reporter tribes. she said ebola plush toy comes with a rather robust hang tag. all those symbols turn into words and money. the court reporting industry is begging for professionals with a

skill that does not require an expensive four-year degree. jobs go far beyond the courtroom with new mandates for more closed captioning. >> there is going to be a demand and a need for at least 5500 new positions over the next three to five coming years. >> so here we go from the top again. >> margaret ortiz runs the court reporting program at west valley college in saratoga, california. >> many of our students have musical backgrounds. many play the piano. objection, your honor, speculation. >> sustained. >> students include katherine schilling who graduated from smith college but felt herself hitting a salary cap in the corporate world. >> i was watching sons of anarchy on flnetflix. and i love watching with subtitles. captioning by -- da, da, da. you get paid for this? >> gabriella woodson's mom's a

court reporter. >> i love to type and i'm good at being quiet. that's per focht for me. >> court reporters need to type 225 words a minute with at least two voices speaking. those who succeed can often set their own schedules. >> there's a current job opening, permanent job opening for a court reporter in the san francisco courts, and it is starting salary is over $100,000. >> plus benefits? >> plus benefits. >> siri, i'd like to call a witness to stand in this malpractice case to ask him if he left a scalpel inside a patient. >> objection, your honor. >> sustained. >> but will siri eventually remove the need for court reporters? >> i'm sorry, i can't take many words at once. >> not yet. >> back in the 1980s people were asking court reporters can't this be done with a tape recorder? and we're still here. >> still proving the need for the human touch. for "nightly business report" jane wells, los angeles. 225 words a minute. i think maybe i do 50. >> i think most newscasts go at

180 -- i can't talk 220 words a minute. my goodness. >> this job's not for you. >> no. >> that's "nightly business report" for tonight. thanks for watching, i'm susie gharib. >> i'll speak slowly. i'm tyler mathisen. "nightly business report" has been funded in part by -- >> the street.com and action alerts plus wp where jim cramer and stephanie link share market insights. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr.

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