we'll be talking to bill ackman, he disagrees with andrew's column that calls for a dose of realism for the ceo ron johnson. we'll hear from bill himself a little later this morning. plus ursula burns is a very busy person. xerox holding investor conference today. she's also a part of the business round table calling for action on the fiscal cliff. she's meeting with president obama on this topic tomorrow and was recently elected to exxon's board. she'll be joining you live at 7:00 eastern. joe, i believe you have breaking earnings numbers. >> home depot 63 cents, a nonrecurring item in there of 11 cents a share. due to the previously announced closing of seven stores in china. on an adjusted basis, the company reported earnings of $1.1 billion or 74 crepts a share, 23% above the same period last year and 4 cents above expectations of 70 cents. third quarter results were better than we expected and reflected in part what we believe is the start of a path towards the healing of the housing market according to frank bica who we hopefully have a picture of in his full regale i can't, full

shares have lost nearly half their value, but that's not stopping persian's bill ackman who sits on the company's board from defending jcpenney and its ceo, john johnson, yet again. ackman was on squawk this morning. let's listen. >> what this is is this is the fastest-growing retail start-up of all time, high dollars per square foot, high gross margins. stick with me, low overhead. he's winding down the old jcpenney and using the cash flow from the old jcpenney to fund the growth of this business. >> well, let's welcome in charles graum. he's senior retail analyst at deutsche bank. looks like charles is joining us on the phone. welcome to "halftime." >> thanks for joining me. >> the stock has obviously suffered. wall street seems to have absolutely zero confidence in ron johnson's ability to turn this story around. do you have any confidence? >> not really. not at this point. i mean, i think, you know, the burden of proof is on ron and the team to stabilize sales. i think, you know, it's pretty well known that the fourth quarter is going to be a tough period for him. obviously, it's be

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>> bill ackman sticking by claims for jcpenney's turnaround.ultiyear lows. >> new users continue to flourish. where will zipcar expand to next? we'll get an exclusive interview. a big earnings mover this morning. home depot. shares trading higher after third quarter earnings beat estimates. the senior research analyst has an overweight rating and $70 price target on home depot and also a senior research analyst at jeffries has a hold rating. good to have you with us. >> good morning. >> peter, let's start off with you. they were beginning to talk at the beginning of the conference call about hurricane sandy impact about in line with what we saw with hurricane irene. do you buy that? >> that's a fair assessment. a little beit of benefit in the third quarter. .4% lift to same store sales growth. in the outlook for q-4 not factoring in any benefit from sandy and they say it's too difficult to understand when those sales will come into their stores. they were going into the winter months so repair work could be pushed out to last year. overall a si