thanks to david faber. obviously, a story everyone here is very focused on. we have a big update in the bernie madoff case. a bankruptcy trustee turning up the heat on one of madoff's investors and cnbc's senior correspondent scott cohn is here and has the details. >> i'm feeling comcastic and we'll leave it at that. onto madoff. jeffrey pick hower and his family and friends may have received more than $7 billion from madoff over the years. he says he's a victim. madoff a long-time friend callously betrayed his trust. that came from a motion to dismiss a sued against him by irving picard. he's putting a finer point on the charges. that he knew or should have known he was benefitting from a fraud. the sums received were staggering by any measure. $7.2 billion. nearly $2.5 billion in just the last two years. the accounts were riddled by obvious fraud including backd backdated trades. net worth according to the magazine of $1 billion. he's no stranger to controversy. then there are the charities he set up and their dealings with companies picor effectively contr

all right, we're waiting for david faber to get hooked in, our race reporter. but first, is andrew ross sorkin. thank you for helping us this evening. you've been reporting on this, too. are you hearing the same thing, the next couple of things, the deal is going to be complete? >> i am. but there's a slight disconnect. that is to say depending on which camp you're hearing from, you're hearing something slightly different. you're talking to a ge camp, there's a sense this deal could be done in the next two, three weeks. maybe a month on the outside. i have to say on the comcast camp, there's actually a different view. the percentage of it happening is low. and b, of it happening within that time frame is even lower. so i'm trying to rectify and square that circle. and then there's the third camp, which nobody is talk about, have which vivendi, which really holds the cards. are they going to take this put option or not? i suspect they will. but it's hard to gauge if they are. >> have they said anything publicly? >> they have not fus far. there's a lot of folks a

david faber hoping comcast hopes to reach a deal with nbc universal in the next two to three weeks. sources say the new lease spun off nbc universal would have $9 billion in debt. a deal for the avan di has why yet to be reached. >>> crude prices down 87 cents a barrel, or 1.2% to close the week at $69.95 a barrel. bristol meier squibb say ther experimental drug met its main goal of reducing blood sugar levels in the late stage trials. they could go for approval next year. >>> call it a big day for rio de janeiro. the city celebrating today. the decision to hold the 2016 summer olympics in rio. take a look at the video. they were so thrilled down there. beating out tokyo, madrid, and the favorite, chicago. for many, chicago's elimination was a complete surprise. because without that city, the ioc would be leaving money on the table. cnbc's darren rovell is in chicago to explain. >> that's right, michelle. the olympics is a big business. the ioc's 106 members went with the heart instead of the all-mighty dollars. those bidding for the television rights, i mean, 2014, 2016, the bigges

i'm david faber. just going through goldman sachs' call on the banks this morning.ou know, i'd like to follow some of the research out there when it comes to the banks. certainly we've done that for the last two years. goldman has done a lot of decent work on that in terms of statistics and just things that they have available to look at. but it doesn't mean you necessarily should be following it the advice of any analysts when it comes to buying or selling. use it as yet another tool to help you make your own decisions. that being said this morning, goldman has gotten more positive on the big bainks, citing a number of things including primarily what hey see as an improvement in their earning power. certainly versus the regional banks. they say tangible assets per share are up 29% for large banks versus a 25% decline for the regionals. and preprovision, that is provisions prior to adding to reserves for bad loans, are earnings per asset has increased 7% while it is down 14% for the regional banks. what are we talking about here? well, let's start off with just show

as we got this time yesterday from david faber who brought us a lot yesterday.when i was here yesterday, i have to admit hadn't made a lot of calls. ultimately here yesterday at this time on "squawk box" led me to something i had not previously believed which is simply ge is ready to consider nbc universal and non-core assets of the company and is ready to essentially say good-bye. you can parch words if you want to, after a lot of reporting, speaking to people on all sides of this, it's clear a decision has been made, whatever that decision might be and why it was arrived at that there is a willingness on the part of ge to sell nbc universal and no longer have control of the asset. that is quite significant. of course over time as well, that ownership stake would go down. yesterday we did bring people all the details of exactly what is going on at about 1:00 yesterday. we broke that story. that is where things stand right now. i said many times in my reports, of course, that it's unclear whether any of this is going to happen, despite a high bar here. it is dif

david faber, he's a winner. he's here with a special guest. david? >> thanks a lot, steve., we are following that closely, and i'm happy to say i now have jessica reese cohen with me, longtime media, entertainment analyst now at bank of america, merrill lynch. good afternoon, jessica. >> good afternoon. >> thanks for being here. you know, you wrote a report this morning called "scale without breaking the bank." let's start out with comcast here. given the structure that i've been reporting, at least, that we believe they are working with at this point, do you think under that structure this would be a good deal for comcast? >> yes, absolutely. well, we're always leery of combinations. you never know how they're work out. the structure of the deal is very typical comcasters would say comcastic. it's erie ve creative, a bold move on their part, but essentially, they would, as you have obviously broken the story, and as we understand it they would put up anywhere from $4 billion to $6 billion in cash, no stock, and take control of nbc universal. having said that, we believe th

." >>> sources tell cnbc's david faber that comcast and our parent company, general electric, hope toave a deal within three weeks for the spinoff of nbc universal. the "wall street journal" reports that blackstone group is in talks to buy anheuser-busch imbev's theme parks for about 2.5 to 3 billion dollars. the deal could be announced as soon as next week. that's cnbc.com "news now." first in business worldwide. i'm bertha coombs. "fast money" with melissa lee starts right now. >>> live from the nasdaq marketsite, this is "fast money." i'm melissa lee. worst week since july. the fourth quarter opens with profit taking. should you do the same? these "fast money" traders know when to fold them and when to hold them. let's stay all over this cracking market tonight. a top strategist will tell us why this correction will be shallow and short. and tim, welcome back, will break down brazil's olympic win telling you which south mefrn stocks you should samba with. but first let's get to the word on the street today. i have to tell you i was at the stock exchange prior to the open and it loo

cnbc's david faber saying there is no deal for comcast to buy ge's nbc universal.uite, while we do not normally comment on mr.&a rumors, the report that comcast has a deal to purchase nbc universal is inaccurate. nbc universal did not comment. carl, why was it left to me to read that? >> i don't think there's worries. faber is going to be on at 8:00 eastern. >> he's the guy that we know knows about our company. >>> penske walking away from gm to buy saturn group. penske's board rejected a plan to make cars for the new saturn. >>> cisco buying tandberg, for about $3 billion in cash. and citi has completed the sale of its japanese brokerage. the deal is one more step to shed those noncore assets. >> there are reports this morning that unidentified companies are renault, correct? >> all right. >> are you reporting that or -- >> i read it in one of the papers this morning. i read it some in the papers this morning. >> interesting. >> yeah. >> we've got a ton of data today. >> there was a lot of issue stuff by the way yesterday. two big stories on the economic front, fe

david faber with more on that. david? >> we can call it a big story. of course, there may not be much of a story at all at this point. it's hard to say, scott, where the line between speculation and actual news lies on this. but none the less an internet entertainment gossip site last night started a great deal of speculation about a potential deal in which comcast would buy or take control of nbc universal. that is not the case. there do appear to be talks between comcast and nbc universal and ge. surrounding the sale of stock. ge is preparing for the likely sale of vivendi's 20% stake. something that would take months and months to actually take place. it would be registered for an ipo. but there are any number of other things that can bubble up around that. ge has the right to buy back the stake but it will not be doing so. again, this is all i reported a number of weeks ago. that has set a t. stage for what is building speculation around another potential, which again i talked about at the time which is a sale of the stake to a third party. the pro

i'm david faber. breaking news now for you involving our parent company, ge.e and comcast are in talks about a deal with ge would spin off its nbc universal unit into a new company. the deal under consideration would allow comcast to take 51% economic control of nbc universal through its contributions of content asset such as the e channel, the golf channel, and the group of regional sports networks and the contribution of as much as $7 billion in cash to the new company. the prospected deal is complex and is far from a certainty. under the scenario being contemplated ge would spin nbc universal aloveng withng with a significant amount of debt into a new company. comcast would merge content assets it values at as much as $6 billion along with cash so it would take a 51% ownership stake. ge would control 49%. and as part of the spinoff of nbc universal, it would be able to contribute as much as $12 billion in debt to the spunnoff entity. that according to people familiar with the negotiations. bankers on both sides of this deal tell me nothing is imminent and g

from the new york stock exchange, melissa lee and david faber on set with us.round the horn and talk about this stuff. mark and melissa, you haven't heard what we've been talking about the in the commercial break ahead of this. david, there's been a little debate whether we'd go into this on camera. i don't have a problem talking about it on camera. >> i'd like to hear mark's comments on comcast ge. >> if i knew what you were talking about. >> comcast ge with universal. >> we talked about this friday morning. i think it is an interesting point. i was somewhat surprised to see it not given a bit more press over the weekend. regardless whether the comcast ge deal that we've described a number of times now actually occurs. again, on friday i reported there are hopes they can complete a deal within the next two to three weeks. regardless from what i'm picking up from any number of sources close to ge, close to this deal, ge has made a decision that it is happy to allow control of nbc to pass to another entity. >> which means eventually -- >> i think regardless whet

that deal under consideration was first reported by the brain, our very own david fib faber. take a look at comcast. ge up there. to be fair, comcast is down by a penny after a sharp sell-off yesterday. >> melissa, another big story, thor in international olympic committee will make its choice as to who will host the summer games in 2016. today that announcement is expected around 1:00 p.m. eastern. on the list is tokyo, madrid, rio de janeiro and chicago. president obama went to copenhagen and is on his way back now after pushing for his adopted home city. it's a live picture back in chicago from daily plaza. you can see people starting to gather right there. you can tell which side most of these people are on. clearly they want a chicago victory and the games of 2016. early reminder, meantime, you can watch the 2010 vancouver games and 2012 london games right here on the network of nbc. remember, that ioc decision comes at 1:00 p.m. eastern. watch it right here. >> in case you're thinking that's many years away, i'm sure we will remind you again when the time is approaching