for ages publishers have been strong, activision has tripled take two's rallied more than 500 versuselectronic arts the worst house in a good neighborhood for awhile now is up roughly 250% over the same period then quarter day activision's plunge to nearly 51. take two has fallen also ac activision was go to release call of duty four and take two had redemption 2 coming out late last month that's perhaps the most anticipated release since take two's last title grand theft auto 5 still selling well and take two had new releases for nba 2k and one more thing, like i mentioned earlier, electronics arts has been troubled since the summer and some expectation that take two and activision would be able to feast over the carcass in short the future looks bright the only fly in the ointment was the popularity of these battle royale games like fortnite owned by privately held companies as there was a fear they'd eat into sales for many of the big, new releases i always ask strauss zelnick about it he said the more the merrier first obviously there was the marketwide sell-off in early october

the activision mau up. the title you mentioned call of duty black ops four tp thp petition pressed the developer on black ops four performance. have a listen. >> our engagement to date is better than any call of duty content in years and spectator viewing higher than ever before. as a franchise call of duty has generated more revenue than the marvel cinematic universe in the box office and double that of the cumulative box office of "star wars." >> so impressive numbers but this latest call of duty release is so important to the company because of its blackout battle royale mode the answer to fortnite's run away success in october the company said the global sales exceeded half a billion dollars in the first three days but that disappointed investors who wanted more activision plifrd saying they are energy i see eyed by the performance. but fortnite killer, that remains to be seen and it doesn't look like investors are convinced of that yet. >> for more on what the results mean for activision let's get our

. >>> there's a blizzard of troubles hitting activision in this final hour. activision blizzard's newest game is actually selling like hotcakes but that's not making up for the gaping hole left by sales created by destiny 2. not hot enough. activision blizzard giving poor fourth quarter guidance. we remind you, that's the holiday quarter. it's the biggest laggard on the s&p 500, having its worst day in ten years, down 13%. >>> up next, singles day is sunday but will it double alibaba's stock woes? gerri will lities with that sto and more. we are coming right back. the nasdaq still down 127. i aml advisor. when i meet a new client, i start by asking questions like: did you understand all the fees you were paying? was your broker a fiduciary? were you satisfied with the attention you were getting? then i explain that being independent gives our firm the freedom to give our clients the attention they deserve. we can put a plan together that makes sense for them. independence lets us do that. charles schwab is proud to support more independent financial advisors

. >>> shares of activision blizzard are under pressure.he company reporting its third straight quarter of declining active users the call of duty maker did beat forecasts, not enough, though. that stock down 9% you have a stock down nearly 30%, up 20%, and down more than 9% that's volatility. >>> let's turn to retail the world's biggest single one-day shopping event will kick off this weekend it's called singles day. it matters a whole lot to alibaba. let's get out to arjun kharpal who sat down with alibaba's ceo ahead of single day. good work there. what did the ceo of alibaba have to say >> brian, i want to quickly kick off for our european and u.s. viewers who don't know much about singles day, an annual event that happens every year on november 11th. you see alibaba discount massively thousands of products across its platforms from cars to hotel rooms to electronics it started in 2009. that year alibaba had sales of just under $8 million fast forward to 2017, that figure was over $25 billion. daniel zhang has pledged in 2018, the tenth

charles: you do like activision? >> i like activision. up-and-coming. e-sports keep growing.harles: i think a lot of them there will be takeover activity. david, dr. we appreciate it. >>> record amount of money pouring into texas as democrats are determined to turn the state blue. is this the new proxy for all of america, next? ♪ - at athene, we think it's time for the financial world to stop acting the same old way. you need a partner that is willing to break free from conventional thinking. we are a different kind of financial company. we are athene, and we are driven to do more. hi.i just wanted to tell you thdependability award for its midsize car-the chevy malibu. i forgot. chevy also won a j.d. power dependability award for its light-duty truck the chevy silverado. oh, and since the chevy equinox and traverse also won chevy is the only brand to earn the j.d. power dependability award across cars, trucks and suvs-three years in a row. phew. third time's the charm... so, let's talk about conference calls. there's always a certain amount of fumbling. a lot of times it does

activision reported a weaker -- their peer activision reported a weaker side. is hoarding -- hurting ubisoft, down lowest since november. anna: let's remind if you are a bloomberg terminal customer, you can interact with the charts using gtv , the function to use on your bloomberg. you can save the charts for future reference. up next, battle of the charts. this is bloomberg. ♪ anna: welcome back to the market open. we are 53 minutes into the heading day. time for battle of the charts. alex is going head-to-head with dani burger. alex, you can start. alex: brent crude moving to a six-month low and is no better time to talk about crude. what is underpinning this move lower, take a look on the left-hand side. 10 consecutive declines in cpi crude oil, including today, the longest losing streak ever. what has changed? we've had this cocktail of bullish input. opec cutting production, strong global growth, geopolitical risk. take a look at the last few weeks. opec production higher. geopolitical risk deflated by iranian sanctions. this record run is hardly surpr

we also know activision does 4 billion a year in in game sales. these businesses are much more diversified compared to a single title. >> thank you for joining us. with the u.s. market moments away, the close, we are looking at down arrows for u.s. stocks. caroline: this is countdown to the close. scarlet: we are heading to the close. joe weisenthal joins us as he does every day at this time. consumers are feeling just fine. joe: the market continues to be volatile. the data is fine. consumer sentiment coming in better than expected, slightly down from a high level. nothing that reeks of deterioration. we have producer prices today hotter than expected on the headline number. that may give people anxiety if it is seen as diminishing margins or something passed along. caroline: overall we are in the .reen joe: which is kind of amazing. scarlet: things feel like they have calmed down a little bit. looking at a second day of declines. if you look at the sector breakdown, groups doing well are more of the defensive companies. household and personal pr

activision has been a long time.cs versus those who want to stay within the eu and the single market, et cetera. more immediately, do they call the bluff of the prime minister? she has put out and said he want to technion, technion, effectively. that is the decision they need to reach. if they can do that, as chris cook explained, the leadership followed them follows. —— if they want to do that, then do that. never has been held to put a name to that particular challenge. it is still uncertain situation. perhaps the only uncertainty we have at the moment is the deal that we have at the moment, the draft negotiated by theresa may, that is ready at and her european cou nterpa rts ready at and her european counterparts is the only negotiation possible now. this is it, take it or leave it. victoria ? the united states has imposed sanctions on 17 saudis for their alleged role in the murder of the journalist, jamal khashoggi. and a saudi prosecutor has announced he is seeking the death penalty for five people charged with

and then today we got earnings from walt disney and activision.ow let's get an update on what's happening outside the business world. emma chandra has first word news. emma: in southern california, a gunman broke into a country and western bar last night bronx moat grenades and opening fire. he killed 12 people including a-shares deputy. 10 others were wounded. the gunman was found dead inside. authorities have not identified him yet. we have no idea there was a terrorism link to this or not. these are ongoing investigations and that investigation will come out as soon as we are able to determine exactly who the suspect was and what motive he might have had for this horrific event. the shooting took place in thousand oaks, california, 40 miles from downtown los angeles. the president has tweeted he has been briefed on the incident. a critic of the russian investigation is now supervising it. president trump named matt whitaker to be acting attorney general. whitaker is a temporary replacement for jeff sessions, who resigned at the president's requ

julia: activision blizzard coming out with numbers. like it's not looking pretty. fourth-quarter adjusted earnings-per-share estimate was $1.27. the market had been looking for $1.31, so a miss. third quarter ahead of expectations, $.52 eps, estimate $.49. forecast coming down goes who are stock. that is what we are seeing. aftert: down goes yelp third-quarter numbers, topline or bottom line, missing estimates. for$.17, analysts looking already seven cents. $241 million revenue, analysts were looking for $245.5 million, so not getting it done when it comes to what analysts were looking for, tumbling 23%. julia: that is really ugly. joe: i know it is not that insightful. you see some of these smaller tech companies, some on a run. u and others, some nasty stuff happening. julia: how much do earnings matter? how much is all about the forecast? >> in this environment where thele are skittish about turn from fast growth to slower growth, those companies falling short are punished. those it beat by a little bit are not rewarded. scarlet: it is an asymmetric reaction. >>

cements yesterday's move sure, stocks were mixed and we had some doozy quarters tonight from yelp and activision blizzard but when you rally as hard as we did wednesday, you have to see some orderly profit taking, and some reasonable readjustment because not everything should go higher like we did yesterday it shouldn't be that easy. the s&p 500, when it puts money to work, it doesn't distinguish between stocks that should go higher and what shouldn't. that was today's action. lots of people are asking me, is that it, is the correction over? that's not a simple question so first, i want to put it in historical, not hysterical, but historical context this market has been rallies since donald trump was elected president. he procured a gigantic tax cut for many individuals and corporations whatever you think of the guy, the stock market liked him but that switched when the president changed priorities, when he cracked down on our trading partners, for china, and yes, their unfair practices. i argue this had to be done. china was targeting whole american industries for destruction. however, the stoc

. >> disney, drop box tonight and activision, and the fed decision at 2:00.eeting without a press conference so watch closely. let's get over to headquarters and the half >>> i'm scott wopner, after the best day for stocks in three weeks as the market set up for a surge into the end of the year it's 12:00 p.m. noon, it's the halftime report and it's good to have you with us on this thursday afternoon here to debate, joe terranova, josh brown, and our special guest, mario gabelli, the founder and chairman of the gabelli funds, we do begin today where else, stocks, they're mixed following the first post mid term push. only 36 trading days left in the year mr. gabelli, welcome back it's nice to see you again. >> good to see you, somebody knowing i was going to be on the show today said i wa

. >>> look for earnings from discovery communications, activision, blizzard, dropbox and disney disney reports after the closing bell we'll hear from bob iger on "closing bell. and on the economic front, it's all about the fed. a rare thursday election meeting today. we'll get their decision at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. >>> sticking with the fed, jim cramer weighing in on everything from the central bank to the midterm elections last night on "mad money." here's jim's take. >> bottom line, now that the big, bad event is in the rearview mirror we can surge higher like we did today we're still hostage to the federal reserve. even if i think it's more likely that jay powell will see reason and recognize that an expansion is a terrible thing to lay to waste. >> all right jim cramer focal about tl vocald as always. jim has been talking about this idea, ken, that will are underlying signs in the economy that may not show all that much strength is he right and should we be fearful that the fed will raise rates too quickly? >> i think that's always a smart thing to be fearful of bull markets end

first question we're starting to get used to massive cults in market cap when it comes to yelp an activisionyou may have lost me with the question what we had here is yelp, the surprise out of yelp and the reason they lost a third of market cap in a couple of hours is that they added no new advertisers in the quarter this is the first time i've seen this with the company since they started to disclose this metric. we have a change in the type of contracts they're selling to advertisers. it is one of the reasons we were bullish on the stock, did intraquarter survey work that looked constructive so we were surprised by results and so was the market if you can't grow the advertiser business, that means sooner or later you can't grow revenue and the stock should rightfully be cut. we will stick with the buy, but there's no question, it is fundamentally challenged >> jeff, does that speak to when you look at a company like yelp andadvertiser situation there, does that speak to the fact that google and facebook continue to dominate advertising and it is hard for smaller companies to pick up some o

they missed estimates and activision, blizzard, and qualcomm down sharply. nasdaq nasdaq with a bigger way in for the sorts of names down for a third month in a row. if that happens, it will be the first time since 2016. let's take a look at the 10 year yield, we do see a drop down pointing basis points as bonds of that nasdaq falling. does have something to do with the powell put on wednesday. there's a bit of a risk off tone considering bonds are rallying in november. for a third month in a row. in europe, we are approaching this critical weekend which could determine so much going forward. the stoxx 600 down but not that much, a reasonably cautious story. the president is just arriving at the g20 as you can see, walking through. we will wait and see if we get any comments from the president. departurecated on his , we did see him indicating the possibility of some sort of a with the chinese. with the chinese. that certainly set up this meeting is being something that will provide i think an interesting monday morning. it does seem to be and interesting pl

pg and activision. suffering with acquisition. caterpillar being quite volatile with tried but did beat earnings. you have american express had their share, their share price hit a 52-week high on wednesday. they newly announced a dividend given out in february. you have 3m, gains there. move to the dow losers, boeing, goldman sachs, investigations, continuing within the malaysian government. fraud, bribery, all of that information. apple fears after iphone slowdown, heading into december. a lot of factors change the markets going into december. i'm sure you will get into that. back to you, liz. have them on the screen. liz: christina, the cell phone world would be tariffed. president trump has said, if he doesn't get a trade deal with china, then, that might happen. laptops might be open to new tariffs coming out of china. we know apple manufacturers there. how could tomorrow night's meeting affect the stocks you own. how could they affect stocks that at least one "countdown" closer says you should be owning right now. asset mana

. >> disney, drop box tonight and activision, and the fed decision at 2:00. the final meeting without a press conference so watch closely. let's get over to headquarters and the half >>> i'm scott wopner, after the best day for stocks in three weeks as the market set up for a surge into the end of the year it's 12:00 p.m. noon, it's the halftime report and it's good to have you with us on this thursday afternoon here to debate, joe terranova, josh brown, and our special guest, mario gabelli, the founder and chairman of the gabelli funds, we do begin today where else, stocks, they're mixed following the first post mid term push. only 36 trading days left in the year mr. gabelli, welcome back it's nice to see you again. >> good to see you, somebody knowing i was going to be on the show today said i was on on september 121 and they quoted the dow, s&p and the index and they were virtually unchanged. they said you investors are in dull and boring business so what are we going to talk about today? a dull and boring business. >> a lot has happened since then how do

. >> always good having you here >> take two, red redemptions, activision blizzard, time to buy and he six smack >> strauss >> which is different from molson and bud >> have a great night. >> thank you, thank you. nice to meet you thank you. >> thank you for watching. "power lunch" starts now >>> i'm becky quick. stocks tumbling now. apple and tech fueling the declines why one strategy that stood up to the worst market crash since the 1920s could be on the verge of a major comeback. we'll explain straight ahead >>> reimagining ge shares falling below $8, its lowest level since 2009. the new ceo laying out his turnaround plan on cnbc. >>> and the wildfires in california raging on more than 30 dead now, hundreds of people still missing. thousands of structures destroyed, and shares of utility companies there getting slammed. we are live on the ground with th

. >>> shares of activision blizzard are under pressure.he company reporting its third straight quarter of declining monthly active users despite that drop in users the call of duty maker did beat earnings estimates >> a lot of competition in the last quarter you were talking about red dead redemption, right? >> yeah. >> and fortnite. >> a lot of horseback riding >> really? >> yeah. going to small towns outlaws. sheriffs good guys. kind of cool >> apparently it made for tougher competition. >>> news breaking late yesterday from the fda on e-cigarettes a senior official told nbc news that the regulator will ban the flavored cartridges. the flavored products will be available at vaping shops and tobacco shops. the mint flavored e-cigs will be available at gas stations. you guys have talked to fda commissioner scott gottlieb, he threatened to say no sales alt these outlets. >> it's a weird phenomenon people are free, i understand how that works designing a new delivery system for nicotine, which is something you don't -- you're not born cravin

down bay third >> of course it shows that content is king whether you're talking about disney or activisionstocks are not cheap >> we have drop box out with earnings as well josh has those numbers, josh >> yeah. dropbox reporting. it is revenue up 26% to 360.3 million. deferred revenue a touch light at 479 million paying users is better than expecting. she was at $116.97 back to you. >> thanks very much for that we are looking forward to your interview with the ceo who will be joining us. drew houston will be joining us. that's coming up on closing bell >> let's get over to jackie as well i believe we have yelp earnings out. >> that's right. take a look at this chart. it is trading down about 25% that pretty much says it all right now we are looking at a miss on the top line, revenues of 241 million coming in slightly light of 245 million. not sure if it is comparable to the 10 cent estimate that we have here is the problem. weak quarter guidance on revenues also adjusted guidance is below what the expectations were this is analysts looking ahead here they are not necessarily sure they like

activision, blizzard, yelp, thursday and friday, brings people ppi date pb preliminary consumer sentiment watching. >> worldwide exchange at 5:00 a.m. eastern time. >> i love that show. >> it's a great show. >> close to my heart thank you for being here. >> no. >> it was superinteresting anchoring with you. >> thank you for making it easy and the whole team thank you. >> that does it for us here. "fast money" begins now. >> "fast money" starts right now. live from the nasdaq market site over looking new york city's times square traders on the desk tim seymour. karen finerman tonight on fast it's the apple avalanche. there is trouble ahead cat claws back paige shares of the industrials giant soaring 8% this year but the chart master says don't trust the dead cat bounce but we start off with the trade war whiplash after three days of bliss without tropic triple digits in a dramatic day on the stre

the biggest movers percentage wise activision and netflix. qurate retail and monster and twenty-first century fox are some of the names. steep losses facebook, apple amazon all down around 2 to 2.5% tech stocks including apple amazon, google, facebook, netflix all having the biggest negative point impact today. back to you. >> thanks for that crude oil slipped deeper today we have more on what's behind that particular plunge >> good afternoon. >> we finished over $60 a barrel we fell under that level today it is significant from a technical standpoint oil is down for the week, for the week, for the year wiped out all of the gains oils dragging the energy stocks lower too. both in the red. let's take a step back for the second chlgt most of it was a steady climb higher. we started around $60 and got as high as around 75. the last drop wiped everything out. the thought is that the market was rebalancing. producers and everyone was adjusting to find this equalibrium. the u.s. kept steadily pumping here we are again where we started the year, won

today, pot belly and activision. that number is such a huge miss.on't know why they don't announce pot belly >> and yelp. >> can i say the yelp conference call oh my god, it was disarray is what analysts are saying customers did not like changes they made and head wind and technical issues and lower outbound call. technical issues i am going to end it on this in explicable operational head wind it was a nasty call. i could not find anything that was right about it other than they did not say bad things of my restaurants >> 30% decline >> that's unbelievable >> yelp, one point they said they did not have enough sales people they gave a hundred excuses. >> that's worst than zillow. >> it is a lot of people comparing ththe them -- the only one that's going to get to this is john ledger >> elon musk >> everyone says hitter and hitter >> ron barron had nice thing to sthingsto say this morning >> mcquarry says it could be added to the s&p >> hernandez, one of my favorite ceos how about he mix in the country? look at that red, david. that's the heat map. >

nvidia, driven by activision, facebook. the pound a focus. theresa may still in charge.rexit talks with the e.u., and we are seeing buying in treasuries. we did get comments from which clarida. -- rich clarita. taylor: i was looking back on a normalized basis. the stoxx, etf's getting crushed, going back to year off -- off 7% to 9%. scarlet: let's take a deeper dive with our reporters. abigail, what are you watching? abigail: the nasdaq slipping slightly green right now. at the big underperformance, down more than 1% earlier, the bank trade. look at facebook, amazon, netflix, and alphabet, particularly facebook and amazon. i know you were doing a deep dive on facebook and the woes around sheryl sandberg and whether or not she only disclosed the russian influence on the social media platform. really a crisis of confidence. similar to apple, their fourth-quarter guidance was not so strong. all of this may raise the question -- more so around facebook, whether we could see regulation for big tech, something that has been weighing on this sector for some time. now that growt

activision blizzard also down a new game that people seem to hate.n fact there's a campaign to suspend the game. and so that resulted in a down turn. quickly after hours, we have pandora, which is an online radio company, they actually saw a big pop in the stock on a beating of the street on subscriber revenues and a narrowing of the loss that was expected. >> thank you. at l ahead, we'll be back the bloomberg new economy for numb singapore. -- in -- forum in singapore. we'll talk strategy among global tensions. first we'll assess what's happening in the chinese economy. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> welcome back. president xi took a sideswipe at the trump administration's trade policy, using strong language to reject the law of the jungle and winner take all strategy. he stopped short of naming president trump or the u.s. in his speech. our correspondent is at the event in shanghai. did we get anything new on china opening up the markets or eeting u.s. demands? >> we got a little bit of new information about china's place to open up its markets. in fact,

movers today, activision blizzard calling yesterday yelp sinking as revenue was short of estimates dropbox moving higher. the company gave upbeat guidance let's send it to dom with a look at where we stand following this year's rally, until today. >> up tun till toduntil today. four-day winning streak. if you look at the dow industrials, it's been a fairly weaker move to the sessions lows you can see, we've been trending lower for most of the session. now, a hair above where we were at the lows of the day if you take a look for the week, like i said before, a four-day winning streak heading into this right now, and you can generally see a nice move higher trend wise maybe a little bit of a rollover here we'll see if it sticks down 1% in the trade today we'll see if it stays for the week remember, on a year-to-date basis, we are trying to find our direction here we're moving to the upside remember the move lower from the highs? we were losing 10% for the dow overall. we've gotten back around 7% here is this the turnaround we're waiting for? could it be something where at least the bulls tak

>> take two, red redemptions, activision blizzard, time to buy and he has a six smack >> strauss >> which is different from molson and bud >> have a great night. >> thank you, thank you. nice to meet you thank you. >> thank you for watching. "power lunch" starts now >>> i'm becky quick. stocks tumbling now. apple and tech fueling the declines why one strategy that stood up to the worst market crash since the 1920s could be on the verge of a major comeback. we'll explain straight ahead >>> reimagining ge shares falling below $8, its lowest level since 2009. the new ceo laying out his turnaround plan on cnbc. >>> and the wildfires in california raging on more than 30 dead now, hundreds of people still missing. thousands of structures destroyed, and shares of utility companies there getting slammed. we are live on the ground with the very latest. "power lunch" starts right now >> welcome to"power lunch. i'm dominic chu. it's a sell-off on the street in progress the dow and the s&p down 1%. the s&p falling below its 200-day moving average and the nasdaq getting slammed the most, down around 2

gainer, the designer soft wear with expectations earnings and a new bounce that hit new lows like activision which hasn't seen back-to-back gains since the start of the month. facebook is up for a second session, and it's continuing this pattern of being down three days followed by two up days it's been happening all month, but there's still tremendous skepticism about these big momentum stocks and tech stocks in particular. some analysts talk about the fact that tech stocks have -- techs have about 58% revenue exposure globally compared to about 37% for the overall s&p, and then, of course, there are potential issues facing regulation of the likes of facebook and google and amazon's warning about slower growth this quarter. that makes everybody still very skittish video is a great example of how skittish they are. it's reversing the gains from this morning up as much as 4% to start the day. as much as traders are hoping that we're bottoming, they just don't feel like we're there yet. >> sara? >> bertha, thank you for the movers at the nasdaq, jeffrey gundlach talking about today's volatilit

activision blizzard. the videogame maker. they report after the market closes today. down 3.5%.aker take two interactive has raised their guidance for the year. they had blockbuster sales of the new game red, dead redemption to the pop.net news down a bit today, down $4 at $1.21. profits of the soda company including dr pepper at 3%. mcdonald's. another new high now $185 per share. how about that. >> will take the fries everyday. stuart: i'll take a milkshake. i said at the top of the hour, day two of the next two years of the term presidency follows a contentious marathon news conference yesterday where the president took on the media, democrats can even members of his own party. bret baier is next year to stay with us. more "varney" in a moment. hi, i'm joan lunden with a place for mom, the nation's largest senior-living referral service. for the past five years, i've spoken with hundreds of families and visited senior-care communities around the country. and i've got to tell you, today's senior-living communities are better than ever. these days, there are amazing amenities,

press conference or anything on the earnings front, look for quarterly report cards from discovery, activision blizzard, dropbox and disney disney reports after the bell. we'll hear from bob iger on "closing bell." >>> attorney general jeff sessions handing in his rez zig anything th resignation under pressure from the president. with more, eamon javers joins us >> good morning. look at the scene last night at the department of justice as jeff sessions walked out of the building for the last time as now former attorney general. there you see sessions following behind him is the man who will replace him, matthew whitaker that's the tall man there with the bald head and the red tie. whitaker is seen as much more of a trump loyalist than even jeff sessions, who was one of the earliest endorsers of the president during the presidential campaign. whitaker was jeff sessions chief of staff now he will be the acting attorney general as such he takes over responsibility for all matters under investigation by the department including the russia investigation and th counsel's investigation. you saw a pic

look at the video game maker, activision blizzard.fell short and down it goes, 13%. pretty much a similar story at yelp. the review website, down she goes, huge loss. that's a 30% drop. alibaba singles day is sunday. they expect, they forecast that they're going to bring in more money than they did last year. they brought in $25 billion last year. sorry, i made a mistake. ge is not in the dow. i do apologize. that's my mistake. susan: i was looking at my in x index. stuart: alibaba down despite the singles day coming up on sunday. world politics. france's president emanuel macron calling for a new european army to defend against russia, china and, wait for it, the united states, too. president trump heads to paris. he's going there right now to mark events marking the end of world war i. what's he going to say about this? the trump administration also issued new sanctions on russia. this is about russia's actions in crimea. vladimir putin will also be in paris. will the two leaders meet? don't know. >>> here at home, some midterm resu