>> something like caterpillar says, listen, not only can it continue, when caterpillar came out, i haddi pointed. it didn't matter, it frankly didn't matter. it is a little upbeat. but what's really going on here is a belief that 2013 is going to be much, not some, much better than 2012. i've got to tell you what if they had actually done the numbers and raised guidance? i think it's very bullish. >> david, we've also been watching this morning about exxon mobil being back as the world's most valuable company after the trading action on friday pushed apple below it. >> i like it, david. the world seems to make more sense to me when exxon is worth more than apple. >> they've held that position for a lot longer than apple. >> they've got a pretty good business, exxon. they seem to do a lot of things. >> if you want to own a pro rata share, it seems like the world makes more sense. david, where did you go to grade school? >> i went to a school in jackson heights greens. >> not in brooklyn. >> no. >> david, did you ever get beat up and go crying? >> no, i never cried. >> why did you say br

>> look at caterpillar, i didn't see much that i liked in caterpillar.oeing, regarding that stock today, how the battery is taking a smaller share of the story. >> boeing's story is bad. housing, everything housing that i've seen. it's just nonstop. georgia gold up today. pvc piping. raw costs, again, microcosm of america, raw costs, natural gas down. we're flaring more natural gas than ever before. so you get all these different bull markets at once. we're going to hear from dave here. aerospace, bull market. ford and gm, people saying, listen, they may not be that great because of currency. >> we're going to get kay schiller, speaking of housing, tomorrow. and how he's saying, i'm not sure that there is a solid recovery. in other words, i'm not going to predict what prices will do next. interesting. even though they've had a pretty good run here. >> when we talk about housing, we talk about being up, what, 20%, 25% over last year in terms of new homes, we're coming off a historic bottom. it's still not huge numbers in and of themselves. >> i spoke to d

caterpillar up 34% in ten months leading up to that rally. it is actually down 10%. >> well talk more about caterpillar in a second. >> i don't think anyone could have predicted from one month later how low the lows were. >> moving out from under the mattress and into the market, does it mean we are on top? cnbc contributors, i've got in my hand, a mar val ef technology. i will bring up a 15-year chart of the s&p 500 because i want it highlight one number. a number from 2000 and a number from 2007 and that number is 1500. we hit it twice. we failed miserableably both times. and my friends, dan, as you me, we are there again. will it be a triple top collapse after we hit this number? >> i don't think so. and let's not forget one of the tenant in the industry and the past performance is not predictive of future returns. i don't know because we failed in 2008 or close to that in 2000, that this is somehow indicative of a market top we can't get through. each market cycle is different and this cycle is different and there is further upside. >> wh

caterpillar's forecast for this year was very broad but some are optimistic, thinking caterpillar will generate more cash it could use to improve shareholder value. >> really helping their free cash flow situation. >> reporter: one place caterpillar expects to see its business grow is home building. but in december, at least, the number of people signing contracts to buy existing homes fell. so-called pending home sales were down 4.4% last month coming in below expectations. the national association of realtors said pending sales were hurt by a drop in inventory with fewer homes for sale, something it expects to improve as we move into the spring. traders and investors took the opportunity to sell shares of homebuilders, perhaps taking some profits from their rallies over the past year. pulte-group fell 3.3%. lennar shed 2.7%. k.b. home was down 2.4%. your favorite barnes and noble bookstore could disappear. the company said in the next decade it will close as many as one out of three of its current outlets. it plans to close about 20 stores per year for the next 10 years. today, there

caterpillar's forecast for this year was very broad but some are optimistic, thinking caterpillar will generate more cash it could use to improve shareholder value. >> really helping their free cash flow situation. >> reporter: one place caterpillar expects to see its business grow is home building. but in december, at least, the number of people signing contracts to buy existing homes fell. so-called pending home sales were down 4.4% last month, coming in below expectations. the national association of realtors said pending sales were hurt by a drop in inventory, with fewer homes for sale, something it expects to improve as we move into the spring. traders and investors took the opportunity to sell shares of homebuilders, perhaps taking some profits from their rallies over the past year. pulte-group fell 3.3%. lennar shed 2.7%. k.b. home was down 2.4%. your favorite barnes and noble bookstore could disappear. the company said in the next decade it will close as many as one out of three of its current outlets. it plans to close about 20 stores per year for the next 10 years. today, the

caterpillar knows on what durable-goods, it will be a good year.d s&p 500 are within striking distance. >> talking about building a rebuilding yahoo earnings report will be out later on this afternoon. will this be the verdict on whether or not their new ceo is doing what she is brought on to do? >> this will be the first questireport card. and she bought mobile phones for her employees instead work on this, don't worry about the best shot. everyone gushes over her. she is pretty, and smart >> including you? >> including me. unfortunately her husband is a rocket scientist. (laughter) he is a good guy. we'll see what happens with yet later on today but we get the numbers. >> sounds good, see you then. >> before that, you had a chance. route was the no. 1 contender before. >> we'll put it this way, it does not matter. >> 649 a m and looking at the traffic build up at the bay bridge. that is what you figure out on a monday morning. first, here is erica with weather though. >> good morning. the roof cam overlooking the san francisco's skyline. these ar

disappointing profits and caterpillar is a dow stock.g to be when he they open up. a gain of maybe 30 points for the dow industrials where we start trading this monday morning. getting close. and for weeks, we've been talking about apple. losing its cool to samsung, now, the wall street journal has caught on. check out the headline from the journal, came out over the weekend, has apple lost its cool to sam sunk? there's the quote. i've got two big stories for you coming from overseas that we're following for you this morning. i'm sorry, i wanted to go for-- to apple, i'm sorry, i'm confusing everybody here. apple, pre-market, where are we, nicole? >> closed at 439 and change, the wall street journal must be watching "varney & company," they're looking down again. stuart: we've got it. 437 roughly on apple at the open and now i do have the two big stories we're following for you, overseas stories, first off, israeli sources tell the times of london that an explosion last week has extensive damaged iran's photo nuclear facility and used to

because of the worldwide recession, caterpillar announced 22,000 layoffs.other company desperate for the infrastructure portion of the stimulus package. but it's also counting on other stimulus packages in china, south america, and europe... that is, unless they retaliate. >> if we have a "buy america" clause, other countries are going to have a "buy china," "buy europe," "buy brazil" clause, and they're going to discriminate against our exported products. look how thick this blade is. >> wow, this is just a huge hunk of steel. 75% of the steel in caterpillar trucks is american-made. if the company can't sell its earthmovers and mining tractors overseas, it'll buy less steel.r countries look upon it as a hostile act--and we're talking about china and russia... >> we are the largest consumer in the world of chinese-made products. they need us as much as we need them. >> he says the real hostile act is china subsidizing its steel industry. in january 2009, chinese steel plate cost half what american plate cost. dimicco claims that allows china to dump, or sel

oh yeah, a caterpillar hiding in this tent and this caterpillar hides in his tent until he's ready tocond, if they're being eaten they blow up like a balloon, to make it harder for the predator to swallow them. yes, a hog-nose snake! oh, now this snake can get past a toad's defense because a hog-nose has special fangs in the back of its mouth that can pop a blown-up toad, so the snake can swallow it down. oh now, this is a cool snake. martin, over here! yes, a raccoon! that takes us further up the food chain. raccoons are omnivores. that means they eat plants like berries and nuts, and animals like crayfish and snakes including the hog-nose snake. so, we're almost to the top. there are only a few creatures who would ever eat a raccoon. we find one and we've made it. how about a wolf? lynx, maybe. oh, a mountain lion would. one thing's for sure. top predators are usually the hardest to find. a feather! both: of a great-horned owl. there! great-horned owls will eat raccoons. we did it! in record time. oh, yeah, and that is just one north american food chain. food chains and food webs ar

caterpillar reporting in just about 90 minutes' time.ou for tuning into "worldwide exchange" this morning. "squawk box" starts now in the u.s. have a great day. z

i'll go on monday with caterpillar. pretty big deal. dealer stats released today show a little weakness. so we'll see how they do in earnings vs. estimates. after the close might get more attention when yahoo reports. people want to analyze marisa mayer's turn-around the stock under performing this month but up 28% in the last six months. tuesday's interesting because dow component pfizer will be somewhat over shadowed. we get numbers from ford. big deal. and amazon with the latter the revenue number to watch is $22 billion. are they still investing heavily? interestingly enough the street average price target for amazon is 293. only about ten bucks or so up from where they are now. on wednesday a lot of focus on boeing. many dreamliner problems post date the quarter but it will still garner attention. the other is facebook of course. the stock is up 20% this month and now in striking distance of its ipo price. thursday, a lot of volume. not quite the names of the previous three days. u.p.s. in a lot of ways is the key over here. it's a

had a record profits and what wasn't mentioned is that caterpillar also instituted wage freezes for a lot of its blue collar workers so even though they're making record profits it doesn't necessarily trickle down now there is there are expectations that there might be more hiring in the future so that still has yet to play out we don't know what this will look like and so. it might not it might be a positive thing in the future but we still have yet to see it play out that if companies don't hold on to their money as reserves that means that they need to be investing in the economy and hiring more workers and you brought up the. the i'm sorry you brought up that that the points as it were the future and how unemployment can affect profits in the future another thing that could really affect it is the new health care law is a lot of people are saying that these taxes are going to play in effect do you think that there will play as they go fact a slowing down profits well as of now so corporate taxes for obamacare in the fordable care act those don't come into effect until two thousa

boeing and caterpillar, but i didn't.hink jpmorgan, chevron, and disney are my picks in the dow. >> i want to get back to why you didn't chose those in a second. but peter, let's talk about your picks and where the stocks will be in terms of riding this market in the next five to six years. how do you see the broad landscape of the markets and the sectors? >> you know, broad landscape, i think appreciation of 5% to 7% per year plus a 2% yield over the period of time would be very acceptable to me. obviously it's not going to be a straight line. three picks, i would go with companies like proctor and gamble, johnson & johnson and chevron as well. counting on a growing emerging middle class worldwide. personal care products. people are going to be brushing their teeth. they're going to be taking their medicines and more of them will be driving cars over the next six years. i would shy away from the banks. jpmorgan and bank of america. unlike the previous speaker because i think the regular story environment for banks is goi

just ahead, is caterpillar a stock to buy? a trader digs in next in chart talk. ÑçÑçÑnÑmÑñoÑmÑw?, president of keeneonthemarket.com, joins us now for a closer look at caterpillar, with earnings coming out today. happy monday morning to you andrew. > > happy monday to you as well. > is this stock a buy? it is actually down on the year. > > it's down on the year, yes it is. is it a buy? it's hard to say. it's in a nice bull channel from the november lows. it is trading above all its moving averages - the 50-, the 150-, and the 200-day moving average. their earnings should be good. i put on a bull call spread. i don't want to be buying the market up here. we haven't even tested the opening of the year this year. this one is down this year. they had some problems with the chinese company that they bought. maybe an accounting fraud, kind of like an autonomy scandal, in china, so i am long this one through call spreads where i can define my risk vs. reward. there is immediate support on the gap level down at $94. then we have the moving averages away down at $89. so i am long it throug

very busy here for caterpillar. they did have a tough quarter. tough economy.did have a lot of inventory that they try to cut into a little bit. that outlook here seems to be a little bit better. they are on strategy and keeping online. that is good news for caterpillar. right now, the dow is sitting in positive territory. up 11 of the last 12 trading days. and the nasdaq composite higher by two tenths of 1%. that is the latest here on the floor of the exchange. dagen: thank you, nicole. would this fiscal cliff best rdp resolved if bill clinton was in the white house? >> i think we would have fixed this fiscal mess by now. that is not the kind of presidency that we are dealing with right now. dagen: brought their is here with us now. maybe he is just trying to say, hey, i can work with democrats, just not the one that is their. >> this administration is so much not dealing with the issues like deficit and debt. if they were still around, this would not be an issue. he could do with them. he could work with them. he could get it done. just by signaling that, i t

sells. -- a growing it in caterpillar cells.erts say the quarter production method could be very helpful in the event of a pandemic -- quicker production method could be very helpful in the event of a pandemic p. >> that southern snowstorm yesterday's state south of us. it did put down substantial snow in parts of virginia. those are not clouds. that is not being picked up by the satellite imagery. you can see that stripe there. parts of west virginia, around princeton, 15 inches. a couple inches around raleigh, durham. and through central virginia. some spots the lord eastern shore of maryland as well. -- on the lower eeastern shore of maryland as well. that is what occurred with that storm tracking by yesterday. wider amounts as the storm was moving past as. -- leiter amounts as the storm was moving past us. the cold behind the storm kept a high temperature below normal. the low so far has been 32. with the storm leaving us and high pressure moving in, the skies had cleared from southern new england down to the carolinas. temp

caterpillar is fine. >> j.b.ake on new skin. >> so dan lobe is a actually not a fan of multilevel companies and the stock opened down. but it's coming back on the day. we don't have any confirmation there what the position size is. >> joey, the read on travelers? >> it's a name i owned for much of 2012. got shaken out after sandy. excellent report, the insurance companies look strong. they're strong in auto, even in business insurance itself. pricing looks good here. i think this is very favorable also for aig potentially. >> okay. and a big drop for gas clouds. that's right. here's the story that's causing a pretty big stink over europe. people awoke to the unpleasant smell of rotten eggs and sweat. i it's being attributed to a gas leak and now it's spread over 220 miles and has been dubbed the great french stench. >>> all right, coming up on the half, the biggest names in finance and politics are meeting in davos and we have the hottest trade there. you asked for it on twitter. our traders are standing by with

and then there's caterpillar. got the stock flying. but it's almost totally about hope.et will look through the coming weak numbers. the report said the numbers would be weak and said that would happen too. i don't know, i think that could be a tall order. however, though, i said out loud this morning on "squawk on the street" perhaps i'm not hopeful enough. i thought the whole second half story had to hold a belief, hope that things would get better. the stock scorched higher without me and i'm totally steam shovelled. finally there's intel. oh, my how much i like this company. i used to be an intel hawk going to new fabs. now i feel intel's turned into a helpless giant openly questioned for the big capital expenditures. intel knows that the customer's always right but seems to have the wrong customers, certainly not apple or samsung. you sure wouldn't want to own the stock based on the quarter or the conference call. but what did management hang its hat on? how did they entice you into thinking you should own the stock here? because of hope, hope that the second half o

. >> caterpillar up almost two bucks despite problems in accounting in china and inventory in declining production rates, cat is one of the leaders on the dow today. back to "fast money" halftime at hq. >>> carl, thanks so much. welcome to the "halftime report," four hours to go. dow at 1500. here's what we're following at halftime. war and remembrance. >> i appreciate, bill, you called me a great investor. i thank you for that. unfortunately i can't say the same for you. this is not an honest guy that keeps his word and takes advantage of little people? >> what does the icahn/akman battle say about your money and should you follow their lead? at the core, what's driving apple shares down and when is it okay to get in? first top story, the rally, the dow on track for next january, if it really is 14,000, what are the plays you need to make right now? we are trading the action. what is it, joe? where should you be in the market right now? >> let me tell you what i'm doing today. more importantly, it has to be looking forward. we've gotten a lift from earnings, surprise to the upside bett

this morning industrial heavyweight caterpillar kicks things off with earnings before the bell. exxonmobil is on deck after passing a slinging apple on friday. investors will be looking for clues as to how long it will hold on to the title of largest u.s. company by market capitalization. >>> we'll find out the status of yahoo!'s turn around. a slew of economic data out this week will all help determine whether the s&p can stay above that 1500 milestone it crossed on friday for the first time since 2007. then later this week we'll see how many americans landed new jobs last month and whether the unemployment rate dips below the current 7.8%. you may be hearing some buzz about new credit card fees at the cash register thanks to a class action settlement. don't panic. experts don't think many retailers plan to impose that is your charge. gas prices have jumped two sent to an average of $3.34 for a gallon of regular. also on the rise price of a first class postage stamp now up a penny to 46 cents pap new study by the fresh produce association of america show tomatoes could jump up

this morning, caterpillar kicks things off with earnings before the bill. exxon mobil is also on deck. investors will be looking for clues for how long apple will hold on by largest company by market cap. and more on yahoo!'s turnaround after market close today. >>> a slew of economic data out this week will help determine whether the s&p stays above the 1,500 milestone for the first time since 2007. >>> later this week, we'll see how many americans landed new jobs last month and whether the unemployment rate dips below the current 7.8%. >>> you may be hearing buzz about new credit card fees at the cash register thanks to a class action settlement between credit card companies and merchants. don't pack panic, experts don't think many retailers plan to impose that charge. >>> at the pump, gas prices have jumped two cents in the last weeks to $3.34 on average for a gallon of regular. >>> also on the rise, a first-class postage stamp up a penny to 46 cents. >>> a study by the fresh produce association of america shows tomatoes could jump from $2.50 a pound to

caterpillar, industrial machinery company. apple, terrific company. i want it to go down? my charitable trust owns it. yum, restaurant company. and here is the problem. you've got two of the greatest companies in the world. celgene and gilead. i am going to swap out cgln and keep gilead. and you know what we're going to swap? we're going to put in nike. nike. i'm not worried about -- i was worried about chinese overlap for a second. you know, i am worried. that's a mistake. let's put in ross stores. get a retailer in there. a little just kind of mix it up. a little. i have ross stores, stephanie and i think it's going to go up. >> caller: jim, a big gratitude booyah. >> i'm liking that. you're welcome booyah back at you. >> caller: thank you. i started listening to you about a year and a half ago while i was on unemployment, and anyway, here is my top five from my roth ira. apple, aapl. annaly, nly. i'm concerned about that one, and wondering if i shouldn't buy at&t. >> we'll address that. >> caller: okay. southern copper, that's my foreign play and e

we will focus in on caterpillar and bob is back from vacation. thank goodness. down on the floor of the nyse with me. cat coming in, reporting 55% drop in quarterly profits but net income coming in at $697 million, 1.04 a share. shares are up in today's trading session but down about 12% in the year. cat is up about 1 1/3 percent. cat is often thought of as a bell weather. >> it is. >> what is it telling us about specifically in the united states for manufacturing. >> earnings have the potential no grow but it depends on the state of growth. did you see the earnings of caterpillar? 7 to $9? you could drive one of their trucks through that. the reason it is so wide is they specifically said, it is all back-end loaded. depends on global growth in 2013. if we don't get much, you get $7. if we get a lot of global growth, you get $9. >> how much of that is china specific? >> very much. a large part of their sales are good indication is china gdp will grow over 8%. we had a think tank talking about that over the weekend. earnings show signs of bottoming. right now ear

caterpillar and ya lhoo! releas their finances. the dow closed at 13,895, its highest close sin october 31st of 2007. the nasdaq gained 19 points. >>> exxonmobil has once again topped apple as the world's most valuable company. last week apple's stock tumbled more than 14% after the tech giant posted a disappointing profit report. apple first surpassed exxon in the summer of 2011. >>> watch out at checkout if you're using a credit card. some retailers can charge 3% more with credit card purchases. this follows a lawsuit filed in 2005 against mastercard, visa, and other financial institutions. ten states have logged banning to check out fees. >>> maxi foods will reportedly pay up to $30,000 to buy devil dogs, funnybones. hostess announced they were shutting down its business. >>> and han sell & gretel witch hunters cooked up a hot spot. the r-rated action fill raked in $30,000. they plame the cold weather. the supernatural horror film mama came in second and coming in third "silver linings playbook" is up for oscars. >> i heard good

as i mentioned, some of the earnings we're going to be covering, caterpillar of the u.s. will be out with earnings, and it's going to be interesting to see how that plays the game. japan's competitors in japan, namely komutsu and construction machinery. as i said, we're going to start getting erjz out of japan, and kddi, japan's second biggest mobile cell phone user, which carries apple's iphone and ipad as well as softbank as well. ai? >> since the bank of japan decided to deliver mormon taer easing last week, a lot of focus has been on currencies. how are we trading today? >> currencies, we did see quite a bit of volatility last week, but let's look at the earnings right now. look at the dollar/yen. firmly at 90.96 to 98. we did see it touching 90 at one point. euro/yen, 122.44 to 49 as well there. the euro gaining against the yen as well. so that's going to be an interesting factor to see how that plays into today's markets as well. ai? >> what key data can we expect this week other than earnings reports? >> we're going to go through quite a few, but of course the peri

chinese mining company, era mining, which late friday caterpillar came out and said, i think they arey. the question is, and by the way, they said they were multiyear accounting misconduct was found there. so the question is since you have similar controlling people, is there an issue? and by the way, i want to point out, i did contact joy. i did not hear back. >> just a quick aside, the thing about china and our viewers know, i have been bearish on china for a long time. figures keep soaring. you talk about mining, folks, look at something like energy usage. look at other things that don't seem to mesh with the economic top line numbers that we're getting. right? car sales up but gas is up. >> it is that kind of stuff that drives people nuts, not only china but joy globe. >> and given you are talking about potential accounting issues. is there an issue here in i don't know. but pay attention. that's why the stock is moving up earlier today. >> next flix comes out after the bell today. and joining us now on netflix, since the last report, julia, the stock is up nearly 50%. there is a

yes, if you look across, you'll find that caterpillar, names like that, volatility is on the low end. so you look over other names, you're going to find higher volume tilts. don't be fooled by this whole thing. if you have a brought portfolio, you're buying protects right now. if you're in specific names, you have to analyze exactly where they are in charts. and the implied volume tilts. >> the real question is, where is the money coming from? is it out of bonds and into stocks? because that can have a whole different mean for where this market may go. >> first of all, this is etf flows. those tend to be institutional. >> and it's all. mutual funds, etfs, it is money coming into equity-related funds. >> but if you were to categorizes it and then say, okay. mutual funds themselves, you're actually seeing continued outflow out of equity mutual funds, so collect ifrly yes, this is money going into equities. >> not true according to bank of america. >> i will tell you, i work for a mutual fund company, i see the daily flows. there is ten consecutive weeks of mutual funds outflows. that's

finally there's caterpillar, today's high-profile earnings name. i want to play it right up front here. when i saw c.a.t.'s numbers, i blanched. they were weaker than i looked for and the outlook wasn't as bullish as i hoped. nobody cared. they're cutting inventories, things will get better later in the year, stock leaped a couple of bucks. when you get a situation where a company reports a not great number and doesn't get hammered but instead goes higher, you can say, oh, that's ridiculous. however, consider when honeywell reported on friday, the u.s. is starting to grow in low single digits. europe's stabilizing and china is growing at 10%. how can we not simply dismiss c.a.t.'s guidance as conservative and buy the stock? and that's what people do. here's the bottom line, you can read through the positive headlines about retail investors coming back, you can play the knee-jerk contrarian game. oh, so they're back, it must be bad. or you can look at the bigger picture, an evolution of an important republican to stop the economic uncertainty. the p

we hear from caterpillar. we got dealer numberes from this company. they were not good at all. they were distinctly not so hot, reminding me why. we know they had a gigantic acquisition in china. we know estimates are way too high. we even got an upgrade this week that said that. so in this market, that will be how much should we buy? i'm not kidding, how much should we buy on weakness? that is if we get weakness below where caterpillar is already trading. this market loves you. and all great bull markets have that. they all say, well, look, that was bad, but we see a glass half full here. so please pay close attention to cat. we're going to gauge the progress as she brings out value, unloads pieces because it was so poorly managed. the other night on jim cramer at twitter, someone asked why they didn't buy yahoo!. that would be a great idea. you have one darn cheap stock and a chief executive who knows how to take on google which apple has to do because she's from google. tuesday, we get the results from emc. okay? they've downgraded hardware stocks ask technology stocks. i'm

caterpillar, machinery. vm ware, software.ene, drugs, yes, we're going to have to get rid of deere if we keep c.a.t., it's too similar, they do tend to trade together. why don't we be in a tech? let's be in qualcomm, just reported a great number, should satisfy everybody. no, not me, just a second. too much like vmware. let's do -- i've got an idea, let's do home depot, a retailer that has nothing to do with the rest of these stocks and is one i'm buying for my charitable trust actionalertsplus.com. mitch in arizona. mitch? >> boo-yah, jim. >> boo-yah. >> how's it going today? >> been better, thank you. what's up? >> caller: okay. well, i just wanted to thank you and your staff for the great job you guys do. you can't put a price on your entertainment. >> you're terrific, thank you so much. >> these stocks i've had for a couple of years now, i want to see if i am diversified. >> okay. >> caller: we've got plains all-american pipeline, paa. >> yes. >> caller: cvs care mark, cvs, ebay, ebay, american campus communities, acc, and

caterpillar, which is a name adding ten positive dow points. they talked about recent economic times being taught. however, during the back half of 2013 should look better for caterpillar. that is why you are seeing it within up arrow. it adds about ten positive dow points. we have pending home sales that are similar. furniture, paint, everything. home depot. back to you. lori: thank you, nicole. we will talk more about that later. all kind of excitement surrounding the stock market after all the major indexes begin the weekend at and all your heart. let's ask the president of heritage capital. >> good afternoon. i think that 2013 is going to be a frontloaded year. we will see the biggest gains coming earlier in the year. i am much more cautious, for the first time in a while, frankly. we will not continue up every single day. for a while, the trend should be higher. postdocs are certainly buying opportunities. we will set a high point on the dow and the s&p. i think if we start tacking onto the all-time high, i am looking to exit positions. lo

on tuesday morning, we're going to get a test of my hope /no hope thesis and it'll be from caterpillarcause after the bell caterpillar announced a big misconduct problem in china that will cause a huge impairment charge. if you see this stock doesn't come down, well, it's kind of like boeing with the lithium batteries that doesn't go down. then we know perhaps i, a bull, am perhaps too bearish. there's always a bull market somewhere, i promise to try to find it for you right here on "mad money." i'm jim cramer, and i will see you tuesday! >>> good evening, everyone, i'm larry kudlow. let me begin tonight with a simple economic message to my republican friends. if you don't communicate and implement a program of deep spending cuts. . including across the board spending sequester, you risk losing control of the house in the 2014 election. why? well, i know the democrats won't cut spending either, but i also know the conservative base of the republican party will stay home or walk away. and, frankly, coming out of your retreat in williamsburg, virginia, i didn't hear the key message of de

it think caterpillar is interesting. hewlett-packard, we thought we saw copitch lake, we turned out to be right, that stock continues to perform. if you ask me what i'm thinking, without giving it away, i still think this s&p continues higher, i'm with people and karen and with the hash tag smooth to my right. >> four buyers of the market. >> you have to, just to hedge here, the market feels exhausted. there's a lot of market timers that are coming up with a lot of sale signals here. people that are looking at market timing and exhaustion points are saying, we may be exhausted. >> some of the groups that have really been, a powerhouse last year, powerhouse this year, the xlf hitting freak 52-week high. mainly on the strength of the insurance sector. we saw allstate go higher. are you still in xlf? >> i am in specific names. we should talk about, i think it's very name specific right now. we heard from intel last week and saw the reaction there. and then you look at the rest of the chip sector. we've seen positive reactio

microsoft, caterpillar, and google surged yesterday. > > what happened is facebook was talking about what they're building, and they're building a search engine, right? that was the big rumor. and the minute they came out and said they are going to have a search engine, but they are going to have a search engine on facebook to try to give users more time to stay on facebook, what happened to google? google was off to the races. it rallied about $12 when facebook came out with disappointing news. facebook sold off, and what was bad for facebook was good for google, so that one rallied. google is another one with earnings within the next week, so i am going to keep an eye on google for earnings. they disappointed majorly last time on earnings, so it should be interesting to see what happens in that. > good to have you on the show. thanks andrew. > > thank you. members of the house trimmed down the amount of federal assistance included in a bill to help millions affected by superstorm sandy. what may be lost in discussions is that the cuts didn't involve direct aid to the northeast, but

earnings from caterpillar and yahoo!. the dow rose 70 points on friday to 13,895 so we're getting close to 14,000. the nasdaq was up 19. all right. here we go. hostess story. they found a new home. "the wall street journal" reports that mckee foods is set toed by 25 million to 30 million for hostess' brand. it is likely the lead bidder at the drake auction. hostess plans to submit the sale agreement today. back to you guys. >> all right. appreciate it. i never have heard of devil dogs. i have to look those up. >> maybe back east a little bit. all right. >>> let's check the forecast now with meteorologist christina loren. >> you can get them at piggly wiggly. we don't have those around here. 4:44. another great staple of the south. 4:44 this morning. it's chilly out there. not as chilly as it is elsewhere across the nation. we're going to see a really comfortable week when you put things into perspective, it could be bitter cold. we would dodge heavy rain showers. not the case. we have a slight chance for showers as we hea

this morning industrial heavy weight caterpillar tips things off in earnings before the bell. mobil is also on deck. investors will be looking for clues for how long apple will hold on by largest company by market cap. and more on yahoo!'s turnaround after market close today. >>> a slew of economic data out this week will help determine whether the s&p stays above the 1,500 milestone for the first time since 2007. >>> later this week, we'll see jobs last month and whether the unemployment rate dips below the current 7.8%. >>> you may be hearing buzz about new credit card fees at the cash register thanks to a class action settlement between credit card companies and merchants. don't pack panic, experts don't think many retailers plan to impose that charge. >>> at the pump, gas prices have jumped two cents in the last weeks to $3.34 on average for a gallon of regular. >>> also on the rise, a first-class postage stamp up a penny to 46 cents. >>> a study by the fresh produce association of america shows tomatoes could jump from $2.50 a pound to $5 a pound by this spring if a u.s.

there's a caterpillar inside. but when it comes out, it won't be a caterpillar anymore. who could do amazing tricks. maybe they can help us learn magic. can we go cat? please! of course we can! your mother will not mind at all if you do. [laughs] mom! can we go to scoobamareen? some sea creatures are going to help us do magic oh! [laughs] scuba marine? sure why not? we can go! we can go! we can go! we can go! i know! i know! to the thingamajigger! ♪ buckle up! [honk] ♪ flick the jiggermawhizzer! [boing] [honk] [pop] ♪ isn't this fun? yahooooooo! ♪ here we go, go, go, go! on an adventure! ♪ ♪ the thingamajigger is up and away! ♪ ♪ go, go, go, go! on an adventure! ♪ ♪ we're flying with the cat in the hat today! ♪ ♪ we're off to place called scuba marine ♪ ♪ where fish can do tricks like you've never seen! ♪ ♪ here we go, go, go, go! on an adventure! ♪ ♪ go, go, go, go! ♪ ♪ we're here! - yay! sally, pull the subber-e-blubber! (giggles) [ding ding] dive! dive! dive! whoo-hoo wheee! wow! blue fish! and yellow ones! [gasp] cat! what's that? is it a mountain? no it's a coral re

caterpillar is on the move. caterpillar raised its price target to 98 bucks from 90.verizon under pressure. back to you. tracy: thank you, nicole. ash will be here with the numbers at 4:00. ashley: we'll be here with sandra smith. always first run of the season. alcoa, we'll see what they have to say. earning estimates have been cut from back in october like 9% growth. all the way down to 3%. the bar is so low. tracy: that's a good commodity story too. so it is good you have our girl sandra smith with you. ashley: she will be all over it. >>> all right. american small business confidence, well it rose slightly in december but it is still at the second lowest level in nearly two years. this according to a new survey by the national federation of independent business. its chief economist bill dunkelberg joining us. bill, as always, thank you. so what is the biggest concern of small business owners right now? what does the survey show you as far as the biggest fear for business owners right now? >> well, kind of a triple header. obviously sales are not good. so we have 1

caterpillar and yahoo! released their finances today. so far investors like what they see. the dow shot up 70 points on friday to close at 13 895, its highest close since october 31st of 2007. the nasdaq gained 19 points. >>> exxonmobil has once again topped apple as the world's most valuable company. last week apple's stock tumbled more than 14% after the tech giant posted a disappointing profit report. apple first surpassed exxon in the summer of 2011. >>> watch out for checkout fees if you're using a credit card. some retailers can now charge up to 3% more on credit card purchases. this follows a lawsuit filed in 2005 against mastercard, visa, and other financial institutions. ten states have laws banning the checkout fee. >>> hostess is expected to announce a bidder for drake's snack cakes this week. mckee foods will pay to buy $30 thousand to buy devil dogs, funny bones. hostess announced they were shutting down its business. >>> and han sell & gretel witch hunters cooked up a hot spot. at the box office this weekend. the r-rated action fill raked in $19 million. movie

caterpillar, dow chemical and chevron are just a few of them. clayco also oversaw the building of the new busch stadium in st. louis. right now, clayco has a thousand employees - nearly 300 in chicago - a number there that's about to double. in a joint statement, clayco's ceo said "we see chicago as an integeral part of our expansion strategy as we add talent and build clayco into the nation's leading full-service real estate development, architecture, engineering and construction firm." but privatization does have its critics. "how does a citizen hold a private firm accountable for a good that they once received from a government entity?" however, employment search firms were ecstatic. rosemary haefner, human resources vice president at career builder, said, "clayco could have a ripple effect far beyond construction. we see improvement in the sales sector and other ancillary jobs go hand-in-hand with this." manpower called the move "very positive. it reinforces our forecast for an improvement in construction, followed by manufacturing." illinoi

a stock comes off -- look at caterpillar. you know the caterpillar story. i thought it read poorly. you maybe thought the gigantic frog was not so bad. that could be down to 35.70 -- it didn't read well. >> it didn't read well. >> friday night ahead of the holiday -- >> the game plan. >> there's a note on a stock getting play as well. we are short of things to worry about, and long of liquidity, which tends to weaken the resolve of any bear. do you think there are a few things to worry about right now? china coming back? >> look, we have a couple of bad quarters come in. remember, we started strong with earnings, i think. but we found that the next, like ten days, we start recalibrating and saying, maybe things weren't that good. the bank stocks, they were good. and then we got some not-too-good bank earnings last week. retail banks i thought were good. i'm waiting for the semiconductors. intel's quarter was disappointing. it's a mixed picture. but i think intel didn't go down that much. boeing, when they reported, i bet you boeing up side, surprise. i found ge was good. i thought s