for more on the market and its reaction, let's bring in jim bianco, president of bianco research. jim, thanks for joining us. let's start with the big picture here. the market clearly at the mercy of the fiscal cliff and all the comments coming out on it. are you confident a deal can be done for christmas and how do you see this playing out? >> no, i'm not confident a deal can be done during christmas. the fiscal cliff is the deal. it was the deal to stop the debt ceiling negotiations from last year that created the super-committee which didn't wind up doing anything. i'm not going through all of that terrible history again and both sides are very dug in and i don't think there is going to be a deal. that's where, i hope i'm wrong. i hope they have a deal. i also don't think the markets have been really focusing on this at all until the election. so up until three weeks ago the markets were not discounting anything in terms of the fiscal cliff. and that's why every time john boehner says something or the president says something or harry reid says something we get violent movements

he is in the pits of the cme with jim bianco. rick? >> absolutely. always an interesting guest. you know, if i go back to october 26th when gdp from third quarter had its flash and it was 2%, the market was down close to ten basis points. they weren't satisfied with it even though it was better than everybody thought. so yesterday we get an upgrade to 2.7 and what happens? the market doesn't do anything to the down side reflecting that strength. so i think the market is smart. what do you think? >> i do too. i think there are two things. one the market looked at the internals of that number and it wasn't very good in terms of consumers' consumption. some of the other numbers on investment. it wasn't anything to really get excited about. it was a lot of government spending and a lot of other things. second, i think the market is looking forward at a weak fourth quarter number. >> where is bianco research with regard to estimates for fourth quarter growth? >> we were two before sandy and now well under two with sandy and if we get no fiscal cliff deal or kind of a milk toast deal