cnbc's brian sullivan is here with what's move your their money.hey're closing about a fifth of its name sake stores. >> it's tough. they've got about 889 stores. they say in a few years they're going to taket down to 700 stores. the gap has sort of struggled to find its identity. it also owns banana republic and old navy. they're all down, this at a time, chris, when almost every other retailer is doing well save for just a few. the overall retail sales, which is back to school, were up 1.1%, which is the best number we receive since february. i know there's been a lot of o talk about a so-called double-dip recession. we've been saying it on "street signs," there's unlikely to be one. a little good new on a friday. >>> there's been a lot of backlash for bank of america to charge five bucks a month for debit cards. >> think this is a smackdown on the big banks. community bank in tampa, 17 locations, small banks. here's what they're going. they're going to give you five buck as month if you sign up for a new checking account. they say these debit ca

that's impressive and cnbc's brian sullivan, we digress. thank you so much. >> the senate is set to vote to open debate on the president's $450 billion jobs bill and it faces a steep uphill battle despite a millionaires' tax. i'm joined by correspondent kelly o'donnell. kell, good morning. what are we expecting tomorrow? >> we know the senate won't work as fast as the netflix lady at the speed of light there, but what they want to do is give the opportunity to bring the president's jobs bill to the floor for debate, but it's not one the president wanted to outline himself in the big address to congress. democrats in the senate have been very reluctant, a number of them to go forward with it and they've done their own retooling and theya added the millionaire surtax and that's 5.6% on top of earnings above $1 million and that will be able to do what at least democrats think can be a more sellable way to pay for the president's jobs plan, bringing in enough revenue to cover the cost of the program. the problem is how do you get even a few rep

well, cnbc's brian sullivan has been looking into it. what'd you find out, brian? >> you know, chris, it's an interesting story and one that's not often told, i think, around the job market. listen, we have 14-plus million unemployed people, millions more underemployed, but according to the government, there were 3.2 million open jobs as of the last data point during the summer. this is nothing new. to be fair, the last few years, we've had about this many million, but you think why in the world do we have 3.2 million open jobs and 14 million unemployed? so, we've been digging into that on cnbc. we spoke to a number of companies, both small, medium and large, and many of them point to the same thing. they say lack of skills. we've talked to the ceo of manufacture cummins, of seemens, a german company with thousands of employees here, air power systems, a number of different companies that make stuff here, and they've said we have job openings that we simply can't fill because the people that are coming don't have the skills that we need. in fact, truck drivers. you

brian sullivan has the market wrap. brian?it's kind of a boring day and i mean that in the best possible way. we are in for the best october on record and the best months on record going back to 1974. break out that amc pacer i know you have in the garage. the dow is up and the s&p up fractionally. you know what, nothing wrong with a day like today. a nice ballad of nice and easy to go into the weekend. i'm not complaining. >> does this suggest the confidence on wednesday meeting an agreement with regard to cutting debt from the banks and the greeks not being fearful about default, does that mean that's becoming something more substantive? >> i think it does. if we saw a turn down today, maybe we would reevaluate. we are talking about a plan. nothing has actually been done. they have got an agreement, but no actual transactions have taken place. the good news though and i guess like the 70s again, greece is the word. greece of a different kind, but yeah. we are holding steady and staying alive. i will throw out any 70s referen

. >> brian sullivan, thank you so much. you can see brian on his show "street signs" at 2:00 p.m.ight back to clear the air. shazi: seven years ago, i had this idea. to make baby food the way moms would. happybaby strives to make the best organic baby food. in a business like ours, personal connections are so important. we use our american express open gold card to further those connections. last year we took dozens of trips using membership rewards points to meet with farmers that grow our sweet potatoes and merchants that sell our product. vo: get the card built for business spending. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business. i'm not a line item on a budget. and i'm definitely not a pushover. but i am a voter. so washington... before you even think about cutting my medicare and social security benefits... here's a number you should remember. 50 million. we are 50 million seniors who earned our benefits... and you will be hearing from us... today and on election day. ♪ [ daniel ] my name is daniel northcutt. [ jennifer ] and i'm jennifer northcutt

. ♪ >>> let's go to brian sullivan who joins us now with a cnbc market wrap. brian?ick update, martin, because time is tight. the dow is up triple digits after being negatively briefly in the morning. the turn called by optimism around europe. big eurozone meeting today and they plan to make a plan about a plan. that's what we know. still the optimism is there. also, on cnbc.com, i wrote a piece talking about economic hopium, actually really good economic data today. a lot in the last couple of weeks. there are signs that things are getting a little bit better. maybe that's a factor as well. >> sully, it sounds as though you're up in europe and up here in america. >> you know, a lot of the economic data we got today, hat trick, three pieces all pretty good. a number of big pieces of data coming in, 9.1% unemployment, millions underemployed, that said. some of the data, martin, has been pretty good. we talked about this multi-trillion dollar bazooka they are referring to in europe. listen, still got a lot of problems, but there's been a lot more optimism the last few

. >>> i'm brian sullivan with your cnbc market wrap. stocks gaining ground throughout the day.ones industrial average added 104 points, the s&p 500 up 15, the nasdaq surging nearly 62. believe it or not, we are on pace for the best month for the u.s. stock market in more than a decade, and the best month for the s&p in about 20 years. driving the markets today, some key earnings, a flurry of m&a activity. caterpillar rallied after stronger than expected demand, both here and overseas. fedex says it expects to hire 20,000 more workers this holiday season to deal with an anticipated 12% jump in shipments. maybe a little early happy holidays for fedex. on the downside, netflix just getting crushed after-hours, even though it posted a 49% jump in sales, it lost more than 800,000 subscribers in the third quarter. and really, it was a true m&a monday, cigna buying healthspring for $3.38 billion, origin buying rightnow for $1.5 billion. and mattel buying hit entertainment for $680 million in cash. i guess they just loved barney. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now ba

neither is investing. [ birds chirping ] >>> i'm brian sullivan with your cnbc market wrap and the octoberback on track with a 162-point surge for the dow. the s&p 500 and nasdaq ended up 12. traders with hope about a european solution despite the fact there's no official communique out of brussels. there are reports, however, that the ministers are talking about quadrupling the size of the bailout fund to a cool $1 trillion or possibly more and inviting china to participate. here in america we're still in the thick of earnings season. boeing rallied after meeting expectations. ford shares slumped despite better than expected sales and rising shares. many wanted ford to reinstate its dividend. sprint took a hit despite reporting its smallest loss in a year as well as shedding a relatively low number of subscribers. amazon.com plunged 12.5% after a weaker anticipated holiday season. that's it for market watch, first in business worldwide. now back to "hardball." >>> welcome back to "hardball." rick perry is still running for president clarified his position on the president's citizenship in

sullivan. he's live at cnbc headquarters. brian, how does it look?nshine we're getting, but the jobs number coming in last month up 103,000 jobs. that was above wall street expectations and near the highest estimates. perhaps the better news is that, remember in august we got that big gooseegg, basically net zero jobs created? they recriesed august up to 57,000 jobs added, so the numbers both for september and august coming in better than expected and being revised higher. again, remember that 45,000 striking verizon workers came back online, so that did skew the number a little higher. overall, though, private sector payrolls were, indeed, up. you saw construction rise a bit. we need that. that's good news. one of the negatives, i guess, in the report is that government jobs tended to trend down again, and we're also seeing the u-6. it is not a submarine, it is the underemployed number, people who want a full-time job who are maybe just part-time. that inched up. but overall, guys, not a bad number. the futures for the stock market are looking prett