>> i think what we saw out of the g20 meeting is it's a lot easier to win the war than to manage the peace. >> susie: no real decision at that g20 meeting, and worries over raising interest rates in china leads to a down day on wall street. you're watching "nightly business report" for friday, november 12. this is "nightly business report" with susie gharib and tom hudson. ly business report" is made possible by:

this program is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by wpbt >> susie: good evening everyone. my colleague tom hudson is off

tonight. world leaders agreed today to a cooling off period on prickly currency and trade issues. but as that two-day summit in south korea wrapped up, the reaction here on wall street was anything but cool. the dow fell 90 points, the nasdaq tumbled 37 and the s&p 500 off 14 points. investors are concerned about how trade and currency frictions will be resolved and word today that china will raise interest rates to fight off inflation in its economy. erika miller has more on the market pullback and the outlook. >> reporter: the concern about stocks here... actually starts here in the streets of china, where there is a growing for u.s. goods and services. investors are worried china might have to slowdown its economy in order to reduce inflation pressures. market strategist alec young says many multinational companies rely on china to offset slower growth in the u.s. and elsewhere. >> china is now the world's

second largest economy. it's growing at 10% a year. so, by far the biggest driver of the global economic engine. and the s&p 500 is now deriving close to half its sales overseas-- one of the fastest growing pieces of that pie is china. >> reporter: the worries about china come as little progress was made at the meeting of the group of 20 nations in seoul south korea. president obama hoped to pressure china to let the value of its currency rise: >> china spends enormous amounts of money intervening in the market to keep it undervalued. wolfgang coaster koester-- head of the risk management firm fireapps. >> right now, there is just a here with no real direction of how to solve it. >> reporter: that leaves u.s.neg

15%. strategist stephen wood thinks stocks will end the year near current levels. >> we're pretty comfortable for where the markets are right now. they are a little bit above our forecasts. earnings look good. corporate america looks fantastic. earnings are through the roof still. profitability is high. productivity is high. >> reporter: that's all good news, but if the chinese economy slows it would undoubtedly have an impact longer term hurting the u.s. economy and corporate profits. erika miller, "nightly business report," new york. >> susie: here are the stories in tonight's n.b.r. newswheel: as we reported, stock prices were down and so were treasury prices as the federal reserve kicked off a program to buy $600 billion in government securities. that's supposed to drive down long-term interest rates. but prices fell pushing yields sharply higher. the yield on the 10-year

treasury jumped to top banking official has been nominated to oversee fannie mae and freddie joseph smith is president obama's choice to serve as director of the federal housing finance agency. he would have to be confirmed by the senate. whoever gets the job will oversee the agencies as they are about to be restructured by congress. still ahead, how do chicken fingers, ballerinas and piano teachers play a role in the economy? illustrator david gillette explains in tonight's inkonomics. it's no secret tuition costs at public and private universities are rising. on average, students at state schools are paying about 5.5% more than they did last year to take classes. so to save families money, some schools are now letting their students graduate early. anna olson explains. >> reporter: imagine pushing the

fast-forward button on your time at college. that's what some students at pittsburgh's chatham university are doing. they're earning a degree in just three years. >> total room and board, it's about $32,000 that they're saving. >> reporter: interior architecture director lori anthony spearheaded a program last year to lower student costs and make chatham more competitive. even though it's less expensive, she says the degree is just as valuable. >> it is just the right amount of time to give them the skills they need to be successful. >> we repeat things so that students get it, but we have eliminated the redundancies. so it's a very focused course. >> why has it always been four years? i don't know. >> reporter: hannah grey is earning a three-year degree. she spends three extra hours in class each week, and takes an extra month of courses when school lets out in may. >> since i'm paying for this and taking out loans and stuff, financially, time is money.

>> reporter: about 50 mass entirely new programs with more, weekend, and summer classes to help students graduate quicker. but not everyone thinks three- year degrees are a good idea. some worry accelerated programs could mean less time for internships and study abroad. so while skipping a year of college may save money, it still carries a cost. >> you could take beethoven's 9th and you could take out 25% of the notes, but i don't think it would be beethoven's 9th. >> reporter: john burness is interim president at franklin and marshall college. he says a three-year degree might get a student that first job, but not the tools for a lifelong career. >> are you educating the student for when that student is going to be working at age 25? or are you educating that student so that student will be a competent worker at age 30 and

40 and 50? >> reporter: student kayla fekete isn't sure where she wants to work when she's 50, or even 25. but she says the 3-year program is teaching her skills like how to manage her time that will make her an asset to future employers. >> it would show that i'm able to do this and that in a set amount of time, and make them able to see i'd get the job done in a set amount of time. >> reporter: meanwhile anthony is so confident in the program's success she's phasing out the four-year design degree altogether. but she can't speak for schools everywhere. she tells students shopping for colleges to do their homework before agreeing to graduate early. >> i think you need to be very mindful about asking the right questions, and making sure the curriculum is still as strong at the three year offering as it is in the four year offering. >> reporter: anna olson, "nightly business report, pittsburgh," pennsylvania

>> susie: a sea of red ink in the markets today. it was difficult to find stocks in the green. let's take a look in tonight's market focus. it was a tough friday for an already rough week for wall street. the worry list is long: concerns about the global economy; the fed's plans to boost the u.s. economy and now china's overheating economy. the dow traded higher in just

one session this week ending with a net weekly loss of 251 points or more than 2%. the nasdaq was down in three out of five sessions this week for a net loss of 60 points or almost 2.5%. and the s&p 500 also down 2% losing almost 27 points on the week. material and energy stocks led the way down. investors fear weak demand as china considers raising its interest rates. among the decliners in materials: copper producer freeport mac-moran and fertilizer company c.f. industries in the energy sector anadarko representing the selling there. it could have been worse, but intel helped to stem the selling. shares of the dow component rose 2%. the chip giant is boosting its dividend by 15%, that means the quarterly payout climbs to 18 cents a share, up from 16 and that starts in early 2011. also posting gains: dillards--

the big department store. quarterly profits surged 80% on better inventory management. that meant fewer price cuts heading into the holiday season. dillards earned 22-cents a share, much higher than analyst estimates for just a nickel a share. that made dillard's one of the day's best gainers up $2.73 or almost 10%. a different story at fellow retailer j.c. penney. it reported a 63% jump in profits. penney's earned 19 cents a share in q3-- tow cents ahead of estimates on the strength of its exclusive brands like liz claiborne. but penny shares sold off: down over a dollar or nearly 4%. the reason: worries about high merchandise levels and poor profits. homebuilder d.r. horton under pressure on its latest results. it narrowed its fiscal fourth quarter loss to just three cents. a year ago, it lost 74 cents a share.

the stock down 5.5% today on the company's outlook. the c.e.o. says he's not optimistic about the upcoming spring home selling season. speaking of selling, boeing shares continue on a downdraft on worries about its 787 dreamliner and when it will actually begin deliveries. boeing shares down $2.28 or 3.5%. bernstein research cut the aerospace giant from outperform to market perform. investors taking a bite out of wendy's arby's shares as the fast food firm posts results it calls quote, "not satisfactory" the company lost $900,000 in the third quarter. excluding charges, results were breakeven versus a three-cent gain a year ago. results were four cents below analyst estimates. wendy's/arby's down 1.5%: it's pressing activist investor

nelson peltz to say what he plans to do with his stake in the company. he owns nearly a quarter of all wendy's shares. speaking of activist investors, carl icahn, boosting his stake in dynegy to almost 13%. that makes him dynegy's largest shareholder. he says he'll vote against a deal to sell dynegy to the blackstone group. instead, he's offering the company a $2 billion line of credit and that helped the shares move higher. and that's tonight's market focus. installment of "inkonomich

david gillette." david's an emmy-award-winning illustrator and essayist at twin cities public television. tonight, he takes a bite out of the inner workings of the economy. >> hey, everybody, look up in the sky. it's a cartoonist on a continuing expedition to figure out the economy. today a blitz on academia. but first some lunch. suburban buffet, a chicken finger basket and a cherry coke. total cost, $12, multiplied by everybody in the restaurant, and what do you know, another lesson in the fluidity of global markets. all of that lunch money gets beamed up to the appleby's mother ship. after that, who knows. wall street for mortgage bonds, china for internet filtration. it's tough to follow. that's the economy.

a system we participate in, but mostly don't understand. how come the average citizen doesn't understand the economy. by "average citizen" i mean myself. paging academia. >> i always tell my students, the study of economics is not a spectator sport. if you're not engaged in it, if you're not working the problems, and if you're not trying to figure out how various parts of the puzzle work teg, you don't really understand it. >> good point. we need to get engaged. let's be honest, on the fun spectrum, this stuff is about on par with cleaning your gutters. why does it matter? >> because people wouldn't have bought the homes they bought if they really understood mortgage rates. they would not be going into bankruptcy if they understand what they're really paying on credit card debt. and they would save more for retirement and for the important events in their life. >> all right. i get it. we need to pay attention. but at what level?

let's say we all had a ph.d. in economics. what type of world would that be? >> i think it would be a very dull place. i mean, economics actually teaches in order to have a functioning society, we need diversitiy. we need people with different talents and different goals and different aspirations. we need artists and ballet people and piano teachers. we need diversitiy. >> there you go. we even need ballet people. in a diverse economy, there is some room for the "i only know the basics" approach. it is almost like this plane i'm flying. i may not understand how the engine works, but as long as i keep it full of chicken fingers and cherry cokes, we should be able to stay and the air. onward! >> susie: >> susie: it's onward and upward for the world's biggest online retailer. amazon.com is hiring more than 15,000 temporary employees to handle holiday shopping.

most of the jobs will be at the company's shipping facilities including arizona, pennsylvania, and kentucky. amazon says this is a biggest roster of holiday hires than it made last year, but it wouldn'tr the postman is delivering big losses these days. the u.s. postal service said today it lost $8.5 billions for the year ending september 30. that's despite slashing 100,000 jobs and making other cutbacks. increased use of the internet and the recession took a big toll as businesses pared back their mailing lists.

the agency is now at risk of running out of cash, which could jeopardize mail delivery. >> susie: money issues are also behind a no go for plans to build another rail tunnel between new jersey and new york. amtrak says it doesn't want to get involved in the huge project. it was killed last month by new jersey governor chris christie because of its enormous multi- billion dollar pricetag. since then, there have been talks on resurrecting the plan, but so far nothing concrete has come of them.

as we reported the markets sold off this week, but tonight's market monitor is very bullish, saying the technical trends are the most powerful he's seen in th >> thanks, susie. nice to be back. >> susie favoring

industrials, agriculture, technology, energy, and so on. >> susie: and you told me that you're forecasting dow 12,500 over the next six to eight months. so that's 10% from where we are now. you think those sectors draw more side-line investors into the market. that will fuel the next leg of the up trend here. >> susie: let's go down the list of the stocks you're recommending. at the top of the list is c.f.industries. ticker c.f.. it's an agricultural chemical fertilizer.

it was a heavy serl. in today's trading, down 6%. >> as expected, it has been a big mover. the agriculture group has been one of the big parts of the stocks. i think active. we're not choosing the individual stock, but also the sector, too. both look very attract tiff going forward. >> susie: let's look at eaton, it makes industrial products for aerospace. and the

economic recovery will be successful with the fed's efforts. eaton is one of our favorite in that category. >> susie: the next stock you're recommending plays into your technology trend, f-5 network. tell us about that one. ticker symbol f.f.i.v. >> sure. this isocks in the sector look attractive, and they do. we look the stock and the sector and technology generally going forward here. >> susie: and you like energy. and you gave us whiting petroleum. ticker & its

sector. we think this stock looks very favorable in that area. >> susie: thank you very much. any disclosures to make? do you own any of these stocks? >> i don't own them personally, but they're held in aur simply managed accounts or program. >> thank you, susie. >> susie: our market monitor, eugene peroni at advisors alberta american express has declared november 27 as small business saturday. the goal is to encourage people to shop at local small businesses. tonight's commentator favors supporting mom and pop shops in your hometown. he's alfred edmond junior, senior vice president and editor-at-large at black enterprise. >> when new york mayor michael bloomberg and american express ceo kenneth chenault announced this week that new york would be the first city to designate the first saturday after

thanksgiving as small business saturday, i was thrilled. large retailers have counted on black friday to boost year-end sales for decades. more recently, as the popularity of online shopping continues to grow, many of those same retailers have also been major beneficiaries of cyber monday. it makes sense on so many levels to launch an effort specifically aimed at encouraging consumers to spend with small, independent businesses, a key source of new jobs in an economy still in recovery mode. but if we really want it to succeed, and help the businesses and communit be willing to nd services, but do not accept credit cards. one of the fundamentals of our mission at black enterprise is to champion entrepreneurship.

i applaud the creation of small business saturday and urge the entire nation to join new york in making it an annual holiday shopping tradition at least as impactful to our economy as black friday and cyber monday. i'm alfred edmond jr. >> susie: that's "nightly business report" for friday, november 12. i'm susie gharib. have a great weekend everyone. we hope to see all you again next week. "nightly business report" is made possible by: this program was made possible. thank you.

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