cnbc.com's john carney is with us, so is robert frank, our wealth editor.y sales down just a bit from last year at $11 billion despite the decision by many retailers -- maybe because of the decision by many retailers to open their doors on thanksgiving. but is black friday really a good predictor of how the entire holiday season will shake out? what say, john carney? >> i think it is a good predictor, at least macro wise. if a product doesn't sell at all on black friday, that product is doomed. if you're a new tech company, you've come out with a device and nobody wants it on black friday, you're in a lot of trouble. >> is it a predictor in your view, robert? if those numbers were down this year a little bit from last, we don't know really whether it was because some people opened on thursday and some of those friday sales -- that would have been friday got cannibalized into thursday. >> i think can you so caught up in the hour by hour, day by day of this, you miss the larger picture. when i look at luxury sales, i look at wealthier consumers. this is not a

i'm joined now by john carney of cnbc.com, bob pisani.in as warranted there to the press conference that's taking place on the hill. sue is with us. bob, we've been asking some of the senators today whether they are aware of how closely the markets are watching every little twitch, every little statement that comes out of anybody on capitol hill's mouth. >> i think that they are. i hope they'll be more aware after events like today. i noticed jim gorman, ceo of morgan stanley, telling them get to your congressman. we support that idea, the "rise above" pins. not telling anybody to support a specific deal but a deal needs to be made. i think more pressure that's put on them, the more you hear ceos speaking out, more events like this, the better it is going to be. >> it is a little bit bizarre in having people like james gorman and lloyd blankfein telling the federal government to get their house in order. >> that's what i was going to say. a year ago lloyd blankfein was being vilified in "rolling stone" and other publications. and now he's

is it legal or illegal, though, john carney?asy way that the kind of returns "the wall street journal" showed can be accomplished legally. just regularly schedule trades and cancel them whenever there's not bad news coming out of your company. that way, you're never selling after the bad news, and you avoid the losses that comes with selling after bad news. we don't know because i haven't seen all the data that "the wall street journal" used, but i suspect that explains a lot of the abnormal returns they were able to report. >> john, i know one of your theories on this whole thing is there's no law against stopping trading, not trading. i get it. but i have to tell you something. that makes a mockery out of what should be a regular trading plan. >> well, herb, let me put it a different way. isn't it good that when there's bad news coming out about a company that the insiders are actually holding on to their stock? they're not selling out. they're actually holding their stock and waiting for better times. >> actually, if they've

and now many people analyze the reports in detail scrutinizing changes in verbiage shut says this john carney was asking what is the beige book change from moderate to modest growth mean which is why to effectively read the beige book and many other fed statements you must become accustomed to bed speak or measured remarks designed not to reveal much information which former fed chairman alan greenspan was famous for i wouldn't. tax the structure. but in fact said mark. so clever that everyone talks about it now now there isn't any new imperial data or statistics released in the beige book it's mostly a chance for investors to see how the fed thinks and makes conclusions from anecdotal data and surveys but now you know what the beige book is so. let's wrap up with loose change dimitri thank you for being in the hot seat to talk about something that really i think i need to add to my christmas list so we've heard some americans getting a bit nutty about botox remember the mom who gave her eight year old injections. she started giving the injections to keep up with the beauty take all world of

that's john carney's take. if you want to respond to that or anything else you've heard on the program, you know how. e-mail us, you can also tweet that guy. >> $79 million a month. i'm guessing that's over a two-year period? >> i guess it also works out to $400 per voter, if you assume that everyone were to turn out. so for the turnout itself, that would be an even higher tally. >> and we ended up with the status quo for all that money spent. i suppose that's one way of looking at it. >>> we just showed this. european stocks have a mild risk-on view today. there's a view now. of course, the fed won't be changing its policy any time. qe stays in place. a little bit less for the ftse. what about some of those u.s. stocks trading here in europe? financial stocks pretty mixed. citigroup, jp morgan, slight losses for bank america and goldman sachs, but nothing is going to change much as far as financial regulation is concerned. the stray stays the same. financial prices bake that in the cake. ubs and barclays sligh

. >>> time for the power rundown with bob pisani and john carney. good to see you, guys. more signs of the shale revolution and it's changing the globe and the energy landscape after a new report declares the united states will overtake saudi arabia as the world's biggest oil producer possibly by 2017 and be nearly sufficient self-by 2030. personally, i remember the gas lines of the '70s and i cannot believe this is actually going to happenpy i mean it is fantastic, john. >> you don't even have to go back to the '70s to see gas lines. we still have them in brooklyn. >> well, this is true. yes, we do. >> not to put too much of a megtive spin on this but there is a lot of other countries that are oil independent, energy independent, that i don't know we want to imitate. i'm thinking saudi arabia, the soviet union, oil independence isn't everything and you can in fact become dependent on oil in your own economy. we want to watch out -- >> that's interesting. >> but in this case it is a good thing. come on, we both agree. this is all because of shale and tar to a certain exte

>> well, i thought john carney did a great piece yesterday on cnbc.com with matt goat, so kudos to matt and, of course, steve grasso and enos because they called this. when you look at how it has traded after a lock-up -- >> you want to give a shout out to -- >> why not dan nathan, too, because i'll be having dinner with him. hey, dan. i think this one is going to be going higher -- >> i'm offended. >> you're out tonight. i think this goes higher. a great call. especially a month after the lock-up. i think this is going to work out well. >> like you're giving an oscar speech. >> geez. >> billy -- >> i had halle berry here -- >> another message here. the message is that sometimes the most obvious trades don't work. this is the third bite at this apple of lock-up expiring with facebook. if it's that obvious, everybody got there already. >> let's go to brian shactman. he didn't call you out. >> we're sitting over here with our thumbs. i want to take a look at oil. earlier in the day sharon stalked about the israeli strikes on hamas and the spikes in oil. take a look at intraday chart. it's

joining is now, bob pisani and john carney. topic one, sac capital in the spotlight. say could be the most profitable insider trading case in u.s. history. a quarter of a billion dollars! but the is also trying to get a closer look into the notoriously private world of the founder of that hedge fund, steve cohen. bob pisani, your thoughts. >> the point here for the prosecution is they're after plp cohen. so far all they're saying is this beautiful manager, a, who we think is steve cohen certainly authorized trades based on what mr. martomo told him but we don't have any direct evidence that he knew it was based on insider information. i know it is strains credulity to realize he wouldn't have this kind of information but so far i haven't seen it surface. i think we have to wait for more information. >> i want to strain the credulity a little further because i've actually been talking to some people who used to work at sac capital. they said, look, if you got a piece of information you weren't supposed to have, you might put in the trade but you'd never reveal to anybo

michelle and john carney my victims today. investment falling off a cliff. u.s.es cutting investments. f fastest pace since the recession and executives blaming it on the fiscal cliff. michelle, how big a problem is this and does it possibly preface a recession next year? >> it is a huge problem. investment is what drives future growth. if you cut investment, not surprised, steve leisman's been talking about it for a long time because of the fiscal cliff, obviously it leads to lower growth than would you have otherwise than if you had invested. i think it is a very bad sign. >> it is a very bad sign. it means that businesses think that we are going to have slower growth. this is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. they spend less which means people have less income which means that they have less to spend. it is a recipe for a slowdown. part of the reason they're doing it is because fiscal cliff or no fiscal cliff, taxes are going up next year. >> even since you didn't ask, i say yes also, it is a big problem. >>> let's move on to the twinkie. our yahoo! finance q

. >>> time for the run down with cnbc's cindy herman and john carney. "wall street journal" says goldman is expected to slash the number of part mothers just 70 new names this time around, the lowest number of coveted partners since lloyd blank fine took over. john, you called this coldman's great deleveraging. why? >> goldman likes to talk about these people as if they are human capital but they are really human debt. they can make you a lot of money if you are one of the top executive, when times are good. but when times are bad, it actually -- they become giant cost centers. it cost a lot of money for goldman as a firm to have a lot of partners when their business slows down. they need to start cutting back. that is what they are doing. shrink the partners. >> got to pay the debt, right? >> it is an ebb and flow, i don't think anyone can be surprised. at the end of the day, i don't think we feel sorry for goldman sachs new york matter how many vampire, squid or muppet scandals they have, they are still goldman sachs, they comes to your campus, you wa

so is john carney. talk a little bit about the fiscal clif and rising above, the day after the elections we have both democrats and republicans making nice noises at least on resolving the fiscal cliff. have their positions really clanged, john, or is this just the expectable post-election? >> it is the expectable post-election -- bs. there's no way that the republican congress can agree to raise taxes. they will be challenged in the primaries and they will lose an issue to fight the democrats in a general election. that's only a year-and-a-half away. the republican primaries for the house, remember. and the democrats won the presidency by advocating higher taxes. so this was a polarizing election, not a compromise election. they're not going to get together on this. >> the republicans have said they're willing to raise revenues by reform, the tax code. that means cutting loopholes. democrats want to raise taxes by raising -- raise revenues by raising taxes on rich people. that's it. i don't see how the

right now on cnbc.com, john carney has worked out the logistics that tell you what you need to do tot win. not sure guarantee is the word we can use here. nonetheless, say you win the powerball jackpot. how will the fiscal cliff impact you? there are a ton of different factors and scenarios here. this isn't exactly a science but let's just assume you're a single filer who hits the $550 million powerball. you take the lump cash payout of $360 million. assume the current federal tax rate on lotto wings is say 35%. you walk away with about $234 million. not bad. but, if we go over the fiscal cliff, taxes on those wings would spike up $16 million, meaning you'd walk away with a mere $218 million. thanks to our friends at the tax foundation for helping to crunch all of those numbers for us. even if the tax rate was 80%, brian, i would still be in it to win it because you know what? few million dollars? it's worth it. right? for $2? just a little ticket? >> there's two reasons not to buy a ticket. number one, the odds are almost impossible. number two, the winning ticket is right here. . >

john carney piece definitely worth checking out. and another wall street type dennis gartman maintains that people are underestimating romney's likelihood of taking this because the obama turnout just isn't there and romney supporters will be more -- >> and if the latest poll suggests obama will win, there's less incentive for the obama supporters to get out. gasoli . >>> we'll take a short break. still to cork plenty more on the countdown to today's u.s. election. >>> welcome to "worldwide exchange"s. these are your headlines. the campaign speeches, and fund-raisers are over and the race comes down to u.s. voters with more than 120 million expected to show up to the polls. >> european investors are holding off on big moves. equities edging higher. >> and adecco manages to post solid numbers. they see hiring pickup in the u.s. >> you may have thought this day would never come. but here it is. >> the u.s. election day. >> investors around the world are saying we're not doing anything, we're waiting to see what's happening with the re

. >> john carney has a nice tweet.e we should talk about cliff-on, cliff-off, because we have portfolios built on that entirely a scenario. >> you see the indexes moving when it comes to different nuances in terms of the commentary. we don't see the bond market starting to price in that much less growth or more growth or anything like that. it is really more about psychology of the markets at play in realtime. >> on your point of staying flat, as maybe a good sign, we are up off just about four points from the flat line. stick around? "squawk on the street." quick break, don't go with the ability to improve roi through seo all by cob. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm going b-i-g. [ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. go national. go like a pro. [ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. wooohooo....hahaahahaha! oh...there you go. wooohooo....

john. >> mandy, jay carney, the white house press secretary, has just been briefing reporters and indicatedhe white house would veto any bill extending the rates for the top end or tax cuts for the top end earners. this is a reiteration of the position the president's held for some time. remember, after extending those rates at the end of 2010, he indicated he was not going to go beyond 2012. i think this is not a sign that he's not willing to negotiate with republicans because the key point of what the president said this afternoon was he needs more tax revenue from the top end earners, not necessarily tax rates. so this is the case of the president not surrendering his position but also remaining open to the new ideas he said he was going to listen to when he meets with john boehner, mitch mcconnell and democratic leaders in congress next week here at the white house. >> john, thank you very much. we'll have more throughout the rest of the day. >>> we do hear this new bond flick "sky fall" is a really big deal. >>> but first, adjusted for inflation. what is the highest grossing bond flick

in the last few minutes a white house spokesperson jay carney said something important at the afternoon briefing. johnarwood joins us. >> reporter: what jay carney said in briefing the press a moment ago is the issue of social security and long-term solvency, the white house considers on a separate track from fiscal cliff discussions. i have to say although that sounds like a profound statement, i think there's less there that meets the eye. it's a standard democratic talking point to say that because social security has a separate dedicated funding source, that it is not part of the long-term fiscal challenge facing the country. that's not true. the long-term funding source is not adequate to meet social security's obligations. so, whatever the white house's negotiating position at the beginning is, it is going to be part of the fiscal cliff discussions. we'll see what sort of solution gets offered. jay carney is reiterating that democratic talking point. it's the yin and y rachlt ng of these discussions. both sides need to negotiate. and they have to stake out their positions and this is one for the

. >> reporter: carney was also asked, john, about the culture of military leadership if maybe this is widespread or there's a concern that president obama may have carney urge reporters not to extrapolate from this, seeming to say these are two events that you can't read anymore into that than just the fact that these are two separate incidents. >> brianna, obviously the president will be giving a press conference at 1:00, cnn will be following that extensively and there's another press conference making news. nancy pelosi is expected to answer whether she's going to stay in her job. in a city where there aren't that many mysteries, this is a mystery. what are you hearing about what she may say? >> reporter: she was asked about this yesterday by reporters, so she's keeping us guessing. she did have a press conference yesterday with some of the new democrats in the house. she'll speak at 10:00 a.m. this morning. i think this sort of i forms speculation among democratic watchers on the hill that she's probably going to stay, but here's what she said yesterday when asked about it. >> see

carney was on the defense today. he pointed out as he had done yesterday that the president spoke on the phone with senate majority leader harry reid and john boehner over the weekend. and besides carney says, the president has to talk directly to the american people. >> it is vitally important that ordinary americans actively engage in this debate because the outcome of these negotiations and the hopeful product of these negotiations are the product that we hope emerges from these negotiations will profoundly affect their lives. >> so is the president, the missing ingredient to really nailing down a fiscal cliff deal? could he end the drama right now if he stayed put in washington and held a series of face-to-face meetings with reid, mcconnell, boehner, and pelosi instead of his planned meetings this week with small business owners, business leaders and middle class americans, not to mention a trip scheduled for friday to pennsylvania. a state he won by five points in the election, to sell american voters on a tax plan he has very loudly and clearly said he's already sold them on. mark warner is a member of the senate's bipartisan gang of

when asked if secretary geithner had shown up at the office of house speaker john boehner today to begin negotiating, jay carneyner's precise whereabouts. shep. >> shepard: james rosen live at the white house. thanks. worries about the so-called fiscal cliff are not doing much good for our 401(k)s. stocks were down today. the dow lost almost 90. nasdaq fell 9. s & p 500 down 7. analysts say investors are concerned about whether these lawmakers will get together and reach a deal. those worries overshadowed a couple of positive developments. gerri willis is here. we got a report showing that americans are, i don't know, feeling better and so much of this is about how we feel about the economy. >> oh, yeah. that's right. investors may not like it, but consumers love it. their confidence, the highest level in many, many months. still below 90, which is really the point at which you see a really strong and robust economy. but the fact that consumer confidence has been doing so much better, it's very important. now, here is possibly a source of their optimism. 20% of consumers expect more jobs in the next six months

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but jay carney insisted that the president still has highest regard for general john allen. >> the presidentvery highly of general allen and his service to his country as well as the job he's done in afghanistan. >> bill: but the question remains if the white house didn't know and the other questions that jay carney was getting yesterday were about the protocol for the fbi. should the fbi have told the president sooner and jay carney kept saying look, the fbi's got its protocol when it is doing an investigation like this. they followed their protocol and we're not going to demand they change their protocol or whatever. but there are a lot of questions being raised is -- over the fact that the white house was not informed, members of the -- leaders of the intelligence committees in the house and senate were not informed by the fbi. but one fbi agent went to david reichert, a republican congressman from washington state last month in october and then he went to -- because reichert said you ought to talk to the house leadership about this. he goes to eric cantor. so was this -- the fbi at least

in crisis, white house press secretary jay carney says the president has "faith in his military and top commander in afghanistan" despite a new inquiry into john allen. in the last hour, we heard from the white house the reaction to the new investigation into general allen and the scandal still surrounding david petraeus. carney attempted to keep the white house out of the fray. >> he has faith in allen. and i would refer you to the pentagon for the process under way with regards to general allen. the president was certainly surprised when he was informed about the situation regarding general petraeus on thursday. he greatly appreciates general petraeus's remarkable service to his country. but he's not going to make grand decisions about things based on, you know, two situations, two individual cases. he's focused on the missions that the military is tasked with. >> let's look at all that's happened. the pentagon is combing through thousands of pages of documents belonging to john allen. he's denied any wrong doing. a u.s. official tells nbc news that the documents could connect general allen to jill kelley. she's the same woman whose original

yesterday white house press secretary jay carney offered congratulations on john's 64 seasons coachinghem at st. john's college in minnesota where he refused to allow tackling in practice and wouldn't let players practice if they didn't go to class. he did take his team to four national championships. >> john: this is a college football coach who wouldn't let his players -- does he know that college football players subsidize the university and can do whatever they want? >> he had a formula that worked. >> john: how quaint. >> he was very good at what he did. >>> now that we're learning more about socialite jill kelley and her relationship with generals allen and petraeus, another one is being compared to her. you remember tariq salahi who crashed a white house state dinner. politico caught up with him. he said just like when the focus was on him and his then wife when it should have been on white house security, the focus now is on jill kelley when it should be on the c.i.a. and army security brief in benghazi. he said people really love a real housewives of the pentagon headlines. >>

john mcafee is in trouble with the law. see why he's the prime suspect in a murder investigation. megyn: jay carney speaking with the resignation scandal involving general petraeus and what it means for the bipartisan investigation. mr. carney says the president has faith that the acting director at the cia can replace general petraeus at the upcoming hearing. >> it's up to congress to make decisions about who is called to testify. but the president is confident acting drct director morrell is fully capable of representing the cia in the hearings about benghazi. megyn: did you catch carney's press conference? and what was your reaction to that comment. >> it's interesting to watch him. he was reading that particular part of the press conference. i think they are trying to be careful with they say on this matter given the twists and turns we have seen in recent days and the potential legal implications for general petraeus. there are some reports he could be subject to charges, whether military or not we'll see how that develops. the question of who testifies before congress, that's congress' decisi

jay carney said the president has faith in his commanders despite the ongoing questions regarding david petraeus's resignation and a brand new investigation into inappropriate e-mails that general john exchanged with a woman tied to the petraeus resignation. >>> and "time" magazine's jim frederick will join me. roger simon has a scathing article saying petraeus's lapse in judgment. plus bobby jindal says the gop should stop being the stupid party. we'll get reaction. into their work, their name on the door, and their heart into their community. small business saturday is a day to show our support. a day to shop at stores owned by our friends and neighbors. and do our part for the businesses that do so much for us. on november 24th, let's get out and shop small. woman: what do you mean, homeowners insurance doesn't cover floods? [ heart rate increases ] man: a few inches of water caused all this? [ heart rate increases ] woman #2: but i don't even live near the water. what you don't know about flood insurance may shock you -- including the fact that a preferred risk policy starts as low as $129 a year. for an agent, call the number that appears on your screen.

carney, spokesperson during the daily briefing here, said that the president has now spoken with the leaders, the republican leaders of the house and the senate here, you have senator mitch mcconnell and speaker john spoke with the president, over the weekend by phone, about the fiscal cliff. here's what jay carney said. >> forecast to be done, work is continuing to take place, the president spoke with both senator reid and speaker boehner over the weekend as you noted. he'll continue to have outreach with -- as he promised he would with various stake holders, business leaders and others this week. as well as conversations that are ongoing between his staff and folks on the hill. that will continue. we hope to see progress. >> and meeting with the leaders? >> i don't have any scheduling updates, but you stole my thunder a little bit, but, yeah, he spoke with speaker boehner and senator reid over the weekend and, you know, he will meet with them at the appropriate time as well as obviously nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell. so, you know, the process that he began is continuing. we continue to be optimistic that a balanced approach is achievable. >> again, jay carney there moments ago speaking at the

beginning to say i wanted you to talk about general john allen because there has been as we taped this proto a statement by the whitehouse by jay carney the president continues at this time to stand behind general allen well me about the allen aspect of this story. >> i think it's very very different than the aspect of general petraeus. i may be naive but i don't think anything untoward went on between john allen and jill kelly. i've been told by someone very close to general allen that he and his wife were friends with jill kelly and her husband and that absolutely there was no sex. the e-mails that you're talking about and documents and they say there are 20 or 30,000, this person very close to general allen said there were actually hundreds of actual e-mails and they came out with all the ccs to have all these documents. but there were things like hey general allen i saw you on tv today. and he would write back and say thanks, sweetheart, thanks dear. so they may have sounded flirty to someone just reading them but they insist they were just friends. i think general allen has been entanged in this. it's very bad timing. his e-mails

carney said leaving social security alone. >> i have not heard any on concessions. >> obama did come to table on certain things, as did john boehner, unfortunat unfortunatea tea party guys came to the table. neil: that is mark. >> once again year irrelevant. this is the tea party guys fault. this is against mainstream, all of them want big spending, that is what they are looking for, maintaining a big government is in their interest, people cannotment it any more despite electoral results exit polling show people' less deficit, less debt they are worried about long terlong-term financial security. >> they said they would like to raise taxes on 1% of earners. >> they are so evil. >> thank you very much. you might have heard about this you get a blue flu shot every year this time, what if i told you, there is a place, you don't get a flu shot, you loss your job. talk about a real needle in the hype i, after this. -- heine i, after this. so, you actually reward people for staying with you? yep. the longer you stay with us, the more you save. and when you switch from another company to us, we even reward you for the time you spent the

carney said leaving social security alone. >> i have not heard any on concessions. >> obama did come to table on certain things, as did john boehnerunfortunat unfortunatea tea party guys came to the table. neil: that is mark. >> once again year irrelevant. this is the tea party guys fault. this is against mainstream, all of them want big spending, that is what they are looking for, maintaining a big government is in their interest, people cannotment it any more despite electoral results exit polling show people' less deficit, less debt they are worried about long terlong-term financial security. >> they said they would like to raise taxes on 1% of earners. >> they are so evil. >> thank you very much. you might have heard about this you get a blue flu shot every year this time, what if i told you, there is a place, you don't you, there is a place, you don't get a flu with the spark cash card from capital one, sven gets great rewards for his small business! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purche, everday! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on

interestingly enough, i mean john bolton was not confirmed and was a recess appointee and that certainly was a big sticking point with republicans. but chris cizilla, jay carney at the white house briefing has just said basically that this focus on the benghazi comments on sunday television some might call it an obsession seems to me be to misplaced. i'm not sure he wants it to be placed over the state department on why they didn't ask for more security before the events in benghazi. >> andrea, i feel like we're talking as though susan rice has been nominated. certainly the appearance by the three republican senators this morning seemed like a groundwork laying of, as you know, the argument they would make against her confirmation. but she hasn't. we know what we know is that the white house would like her to be secretary of state, is interested in it. we have president obama's very strong defense of had her at his press conference last week. beyond that, we really don't have all that much. i would note something and want to give credit where it is due, mark murray, the deputy political director, pointed it out, saw it on twitter, we focus on ayotte, graham a