he saved merrill lynch.he best investment bankers, and now i would say he's one of the best executives on wall street. liz: it'll happen one day, but james gorman not going anywhere. >> well, no, he's not going anywhere tomorrow. maybe in a year he wants to teach at a university. liz: berkeley will take him. my alma mater. >> i like james. liz: me too. charlie gasparino. check out his article right now on fox business do. closing bell, we're 40 and a third minutes away. new intraday records for the dow and the s&p 500 again today. will they end higher for record closes? we're watching the markets and your money tick by tick. >>> plus, the ceo behind one stock, had you bought it a year ago, you'd be up 30%, more than 30%. it's columbia sportswear, growing so quickly it's opening new stores around the world. its first flagship right here in new york city, but guess what? well, they're making acquisitions of a company called prana which is very hip, charlie, kind of yoga -- >> what does that mean? liz: ceo tim

although we were able to find a solution to merrill lynch and aig, without a willing buyer for lehmanwe had no option. in the weeks after that when the system was breaking down there was a classic run. i got a phone call one morning from a prominent banker. i called him back and said, you have to get that fear out of your voice. don't talk to anyone else in your firm or outside. if they here you it we will be terrible. replace it with anger or whatever you want. as i explained, if you were aware you were scared to death, and it was the people who were not scared you had to worry about the most. the people who were scared were more smart and competent. >> was there anyone who was not scared? >> after lehman, that morning the "wall street journal" editorial page thought it was terrific. they said, thank goodness they did not step in and find the solution. they thought it would be a just, virtuous, excellent imposition of pain on the deserving and have no effect on the rest of us. that was the dominant view of the time. there were a lot of people who thought going into the weekend, too m

permira's sale of an 11% stake to institutional investors managed by merrill lynch.ouseholds in england and wales received a boost today. britain's water regulator published a final determination on pricing. the averagee customer bill fall about 7% next year. united utilities and severn trent are the big two. shares are rising. bank of america merrill lynch said that it could spar some m&a. severn trent up by 3%. interesting times for britain's water utilities. >> thank you very much, mark barton. three top headlines you need to pay attention to. fallen below $60 a barrel, extending this week's losses to almost 10%. the move comes as opec refuses to cut output, defending market share. brent also slid to its lowest price since 2009. the u.s. house of representatives has passed a $1.1 trillion government spending bill. the senate now has two days to pass the legislation. the package has been criticized by democrats because it rolls back some restrictions on banks. stocks in japan rose this morning. the nikkei closing up 114 points. index down more than 3% ahead of elec

x strategy at bank of america merrill lynch. a couple of commentators.hey called the fed statement , do you think this is a fair summary of yesterday's events? thehe message i get from fed yesterday as despite what happened in the markets in the last month, they are continuing to prepare the markets for the fed rate hike next year. many went into the meeting thinking that the fed could continue to be on the side of caution and stop sending concerned about the global of volatility, the crisis in russia. some of the emerging markets at risk but the drop in inflation expectation including in the u.s. focusing on the resilience of u.s. and preparing the market for the first rate hike. place the middle of next year, a little bit later. it will be dated dependent. how quickly will they go? year, one and a .uarter, one and a half they have listened to some of the things on the market. they have changed their range. >> that's true. up until now, they were ignoring the plot saying it does not matter. now it matters because they will start hiking rates. point, we

if you went to merrill lynch today and saw their internal e-mails, you would see some of the same kind of hysterics going on. i don't want to sound too much like i'm defending hollywood, but -- >> it does make you think twice about what you put in print. we will be watching to see what comes out tomorrow. one member of the paypal mafia is going back to his start up roots. gig, next on "bloomberg west." ♪ >> i'm emily chang and this is "bloomberg west." one of the fastest-growing startups in silicon valley today -- it has just hired a new coo for the long track. he is the former ceo of paypal and founder of yammer, which he sold to microsoft for $1.2 billion. why hire him now? efits?d he go to zen i you and i have talked for a long time. retired. have coo?he ceo -- >> this is one of the most exciting companies i have seen. introduced -- he was raving about this company and telling me i have to check it out. parker got me more and more excited about what he was doing. his vision for the company and is unlikeon around it any company i have seen in the last 15 years. >> i know you have bee

if you went to merrill lynch and you saw their internal e-mails, you would see some of the same kind of hysterics going on here. i don't want to sound too much like i am defending hollywood but i feel like i need to do that. >> it makes you think twice about what you put in print. just in case it comes back to haunt you. longtime studio, veteran, and catherine arnold. we will be watching to see what comes out tomorrow. one member of the paypal mafia is going back to his startup roots. we will talk to david sachsen on his new geig. you can watch on bloomberg.com or apple tv or amazon fire tv. >> i'm emily chang in this is "bloomberg west." human resources startup is one of the fastest growing in silicon valley today. they have just hired a new coo with a long track record. sacks, former ceo of paypal and yammer, which he sold to microsoft. joining me now is david sacks himself. we have talked for a long time. it you could have retired and started your own thing. could have been ceo at a lot of faces. -- places. of the mostne exciting companies i have seen in the last 15 or so years. p

fromis francisco blanch bank of america-merrill lynch.up, president obama has an announcement on cuba. and a very believable scam. ♪ >> "market makers welcome back to --welcome back to "market makers." i'm stephanie ruhle and this is joe weisenthal. president obama will be announcing the normalization of relationship with cuba. white house correspondent phil mattingly is here. our chief washington correspondent is in d.c. and on the phone. -- what you think of this? bigs you said, this is news. we have not seen this kind of change toward policy on cuba in 50 years. policy ofery clear sanctioning and restricting cuba, and if in fact, what we hear might happen, this will dramatically change. there will be more economic engagement, more people traveling potentially to cuba, and there will be more opportunities, i believe, for peoplean people -- cuvb to engage the united states. that could create spaces that could ultimately lead to democracy in cuba. >> peter, what is the reaction? criticismction is from both republicans and democrats on cap

let's bring in mcneal curry, from bank of america merrill lynch.hanks very much for joining us today. of course, all eyes on the oil price at the moment. it's been hugely volatile over the last few trading sessions. just settling down a little bit today. what are the next key levels you think will lead to significant moves? >> well, i think the first thing that you have to remember is we've had in a sizable down trend since about june of this year. and by most specifically, momentum incentive to this thing is overextended at levels from which we should see a bounce. until you can get, i'd say, at least above 75 in wti, the trend you have to remain is consistently lower and you have to maintain a bearish buy. so on an anecdotal basis, i would say of the course of the past couple of days, it does seem like the overwhelming sentiment is extraordinarily bearish. where every piece of commentary you see from popular news out t outlets, it's about oil continuing to decline and oftentimes you tend to see markets in general to get that one-sided bounce a bi

jpmorgan, it for citigroup, merrill lynch? >> alex sheet. >-- balance sheet.y are regulated now out of certain sectors that were profitable before, and that is not going to reverse. it may not be fair to say that banks are being turned into utilities, but they are constrained in scope by regulation in a way they weren't before. eurozonek. and the have done the same thing, macro provincial stability and put it right in the central bank, a movement that we've moved away from in the last 20 years or so. the u.s. has taken an interagency group -- approach. >> in europe, it is context specific. both of them are probably right. the ecb is the place. centralized regulation of banks because many of these banks, to savor the national level, they just have to do this. they need the insurance and centralized resolution mechanism. i think for now, the logical place to put that. >> the ecb will be the regulator of last resort anyway. >> and the lender of last resort. >> and it works for the bank of england as well. >> how much do you weigh this withss of our nation, clear

you had a merrill lynch report saying that knocked a bunch of airline stocks that local carriers thate doing well could be the big losers from this because what is going to happen is that the lower price of oil will keep you less efficient operators in business and the higher efficiency operators will not be reaping the benefits of these guys going to the water. neo.e a320 what was that about? >> it still makes sense. is 70%-20%.g bump it does still make sense. if you can operate efficiently out there, you have that competitive advantage. they can be transferred into prices. you become more competitive. the aircraft's story make sense, but it will delay the whole story. maybe the 2016 guidance from some of the local carriers, it was roaring. they are, but it might not be as easy to achieve. it is a double-edged sword. you thought it would be great for the airline sector, but it is not uniform. >> quick on what it means for the ecb. chief economists talking about oil and what it means for them. oil at 65 is better the for europe and oil at 120. oil prices may push below -- >> short-ter

don't put me in the john johnny-come-lately merrill lynch camp. people are raising the price target. you can't play amazon because we don't know what they are doing. now suddenly we say, wait a second. our way to play amazon is fedex and it's going higher. >> you prefer that? >> i prefer my charitable trust buying ups because it's not as bad as people think. ups missed last year's christmas so badly. they did preannounce already. it was horrible. ups is such a great company. i would not bet on them to get it wrong again. >> all right. that's good. that is a nice order of preferences there. there is fedex versus ups. >>> falling oil prices resulting in bad news for russia. the r-word is popping up. also ahead, former best buy ceo brad anderson. take one more look at the premarket. not looking too bad on a tuesday. more "squawk on the street." >>> oil prices back on the decline after rebounding after five-year lows. russia warns it expects its country to fall into recession next year due to falling oil prices and sanctions with ukraine. his populari

he worked for merrill lynch and smith barney. >> he joins us live with year end financial advice to keepn mind. thank you for joining us. to keep it simple, you have three things we could all do with our money. let's start with taxes. what do you suggest? >> the best thank you to do to save money is try to save on your taxes. the best thing you can do, if you are lucky enough to get a bonus this year, defer some of that income until next year. it will reduce your taxable income dollar for dollar. tax deductions will help as well. also, make sure you have your health insurance situation taken care of. the affordable care act has steep penalties. if you have a flexible spending account, make sure you know the policy so you don't lose that money. look, it's the giving season. think about donating to charity especially if you get terrible gifts. instead of holding them and regifting them, get a tax deduction. >> someone's trash is another person's treasure. april 15th will be here before we know it. what about investments? >> this is very important. everybody's ecstatic the dow finished over

today merrill lynch put fed ex on the a-1 steak sauce i love you buy list. that stock was up 25% going in and it gets one more lift to new highs. do you sense the movement in bio tech has run its course? i don't think so. this is terrific time to top fish for regenron up 53% for the year. you want to snare some bio marin or isis up 33%. 53 is down $10 from the high. hope you have agios today when it was down $4 off the jp morgan downgrade before it rallied up. you get that 300 plus return again for the year. talk about top fish. you got to cast. you got to cast all the way up here to get some agios. trying to decide which airline to buy with the decline in jet fuel cost is that something that is your angling game? seems compelling up 63% year to date but not as intriguing. they know better. southwest up 115%. i'm calling that the pick of the litter except i mean it the pick of the trolling and the net. is this all insanity? is this just a case of buy high and sell higher? to a certain degree absolutely. sometimes you have to recognize that this business isn'

and bob johnson is worth more than a billion dollars, then time warner and american express, is merrill lynch one of them, lots of money. have any of them said as numbers of the council, you can count on me? let's all have said you can count on me for my support within this struggle and also my theort to help you find greatest corporate support you can. i am optimistic about what we are going to get. >> why doesn't the federal government pay for the whole thing? isthe federal government encouraging public-private partnership. i think because of the unique nature of this museum, there is that opportunity to bring in a lot of nonfederal money. i think it's important that the federal government does step up and help this museum grow and help this museum people on time. i am comfortable with the notion of the public partnership. >> you have how many employees right now? >> i started with one, i am now at 15. >> where are you physically? >> i am in the office of the old museum of the american indian. >> and your budget will be how much? >> i think my budget is roughly $3 million and each year we d

they didn't put the merrill lynches or bank of america. the small guys where that was 25 percent of their government. i don't think washington thinks about these rules. the pendulum swings so far to the other side. >> these rules hit the smaller firms far harder. they don't have the revenue streams or the deverseification. you highlighted the first thing, tax reform. they'll have to make efforts to cut taxes, otherwise we'll continue to have a stagnant growth because businesses will be reluctant to invest. those are two things. i agree with both. charles: first of all, taxes. president gives that lip service. he always wants something in return. it always seems to be something that would negate what that would be. >> he said, you know what, many people in this room don't want me to cut your taxes. you're going to have to sacrifice stuff first. because unfortunately you're looking at the aha, when that was even said, it was mentioned really quick. and nobody actually pushed him on saying that is the number one reason why, we're not seeing m

when you look at the indian stock market against the price of oil, bank of america, merrill lynch says 99% it's reversely correlated. guys, back to you. >> thank you so much. josh, what i want to know is we're talking about a lot of break even points. i want to know what the break even point is for this six-week rally and whether it's going to bring it down. >> first of all, i don't think the u.s. is the biggest loser. we're actually one of the biggest. there are other governments around the world that are in huge trouble right now. their currencies, stock markets, et cetera. let's focus on your question. overall i'll giving you a best case and worst case. best case scenario. this tends to be really good for the households that needed it most. the people that have not benefitted from the stock market now benefit from much lower prices, and those are the people, scott, that are most likely to spend the money. they're living check to check, week to week. they're not saving. they're going to stores, going to restaurants. i'm thinking this turns out to be good for retail. >> maybe they're

[overlapping speakers >> i had a text message saying that merrill lynch is closed. >> caring about theemployees. >> our boss said get to work. [ laughter ] >> early! >> that's true. >>> in other news this morning, some business owners in the berkeley area spent the night not getting ready for the storm but cleaning up after protestors. [ chanting ] >> a group of about 170 demonstrators stormed wheeler hall on cal campus yesterday protesting a speaker. they stormed out after a few minutes chanting black lives matter. >> check out the damage protestors did in emeryville. this is surveillance video from the 7-eleven. looters smashed into the store jumped the counter and ran off with whatever they could steal. across town, vandals also smashed windows at a hair salon, a bank of america and a cvs. businesses boarded up late last night. police warn of more protests in the coming days. and berkeley police say they have arrested 27 people during the protests over the past few days. and some protestors were arrested last night in oakland. >>> 5:52. we are going to take a live look from lucky dr

at t that weekend lehman and d merrill lynch and aig were all basically at collapse.if they collapsed the system was going to fail and although we were able to find a solution to merrill lynch and aig we, without a willing buyer for lehman we had no good options. i write in the weeks after that when the system was basically breaking down there was a classic run across the system.in i got a phone call one morning from, from this very prominent banker at maybe 6:30 at my desk, i called him right back, you have to get that fear out of your voice. don't talk to anybody else in your firm or outside because if they hear you, it will be, it will be terrible and i say you can replace it with anger whatever you want but you can'te let people hear youpl that way. but as i explain in my book if you were, if you were aware then you were scared to death and it was the people who weren't scared that you had to worry about the most. the people who were scared were the more smart in the competent. >> wasy there anybody who actually wasn't scared? >> yeah. i mean, after lehman, thate

jpmorgan chase and the likes of bank of america, merrill lynch and goldman sachs. heard about from our last guests we heard about jpmorgan. thinking of the consumer is slowing down. catherine, we still have barriers to growth. we have high regulations. i think antibusiness administration in washington. isn't that affecting consumer trend a little bit and development growth? >> i would be surprised if it wasn't. we have a congress that is slow-moving at best and we have a president that is really quite fed up with that congress. you know, they barely managed to get it together to get a budget every time. and i think it is totally reasonable to say political risk is high and there is no reason to think it will be a problem that goes away anytime soon. david: we are going to talk in detail now. one thing speaking the market was the indecision on the $1.1 trillion partial spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown but is a bad budget deal worse than a partial government shutdown? liz, what do you think? >> i think a government shutdown is worse, excuse me a b

the biggest losers on the day so far, microsoft and bank of america on a merrill lynch downgrade. nike shares. a slow and steady decline off session highs you wonder whether or not we get back to unchanged given the kind of action we have seen. >>> tesla is one of the big stocks that we are watching today. bertha coombs is following that and the other movers at the nasdaq. >> sue, it is interesting how we are seeing these moves in relation to energy prices. small cap energy names today have been part of the reason why that we are seeing the russell 2000 up more relatively than the other major indexes. some of the stocks down 60% just during this quarter. is this the bounce that they really need? apple has been trending with the blue chips overall after hitting a fresh six-week low, had bounced and moved the big caps into positive territory. it is fading along with the rest of the overall market. chips are holding on. those are one of the few bright spots when looking at the caps here today. microsoft a loser on the downgrade and seeing the russian telecon and tesla today under $20

cornerstone on demand and tableau software, two names of the big call from bank of america merrill lynchk. two names with a buy. they have a $42 target on cornerstone on demand and 20% upside and they have $100 target on tableau software, ticker data and also implies a 20% upside. folks, there you go. >>> okay. breaking news. the original prosecutor in a big insider trading case is speaking out about today's appeals court ruling that overturned the convictions. u.s. attorney bharara said today's decision by the court of appeals interprets the securities laws in a way that will limit the ability to prosecute people who trade on leaked inside information. the decision affects only a subset of our recent cases and in those cases as in all of our criminal cases we investigated and prosecuted misconduct based on our good-faith assessment and understanding of the facts and the law that existed at the time. end quote. okay. here's the story if you're wondering what that was about. a federal appeals court earlier today overturned the conviction of two former hedge fund managers on insider tradin

stuart: we told you about merrill lynch, it is contagious. wants to spread the wealth socialism style. look who has the story, charlie gasparino. charles: they start counting at. wall street executives make most of their money out of the this, they get paid a nominal salary and a big bonus at the end of the year. in the old days the producers no matter where they were got the most. if the traders made a lot of money they got it, investment bankers may lot of money, this year is a little different, we heard from major firms, for some reason they are becoming -- the guys that talked to obama and obama talked about spreading the wealth, they are spreading wealth and leaving out the bonus pool, bankers who had a good year are subsidizing the traders from what we understand. stuart: do you think this is, we built this as socialism. judge napolitano: that is what president obama said to joe. if i do really well why can't i make the money. the good thing about wall street, if you made money and be paid. and they turned that meritocracy on its life a

sabine schels from bank of america merrill lynch. not easy being green.rkel commits to oiltric cars despite lower price we have been talking about. we discussed this in our new energy sector after the break. ♪ >> good morning. welcome back. let's hold our new energy. angela merkel has been talking about electric cars. hans nichols joins us from berlin. it is a detailed subject. what did she have to say? >> she put a goal, a number. angela merkel talking green cars this morning in berlin. she wants one million of them on the road in germany by 2020. right now, only 27,000 electric cars on the road in germany. quite a ways to go. here's what's in the local press has been saying. her government is considering a 50% tax rebate for companies that buy electric. if you do the math the government will of the, underwriting half a million vehicles. they want to reach a goal by 2030. here is the thing. germany from his auto production actually lags behind electrical vehicles, hybrid vehicles on the road. these are 2013 on what we're looking at. pretty low. germany i

. >> is it so dramatic that merrill lynch, goldman sachs, the f.s.a. and sir martin's england, do they have to rip up all of their instructions on insider trading? >> no, no, but it means that the f.c.c. is going to have to bring more cases and make sure that they're strong, and the case law on this is going set the standard for the future. they're going to have to bring more cases and try to work on this. >> i don't have enough money for insider trade, so i don't know how it works, but help me understand. is this plausible to think you can pass on information with no knowledge whatsoever of how the information or whether it's going to be used. >> well, i mean, it's possible, i guess, but to some extent, if you think about it, you should be cautious as an investor before this. when you get information, you should have some sort of due diligence to know where the information came from. >> i think that gets to the gray line that may be looked at. >> do people innocently pass on information with no plans whatsoever? i'm going tell you about this company,

bank of america merrill lynch analyst says he expects a shakeout but not right away. >> you might getonsolidation. some companies going out of business. all of that is going to lead to a slower rate of growth. the thing that is -- nothing is going to change tomorrow. for the next six months, investment is baked in. 2 years out we might see a shortfall. it will take a little bit of time before that investment comes on. >> he says it will take a little bit of time. investors are placing bets on writing. peak in june, the biggest decliners in the s&p 500 are oil services company's. if you look at the percentage 41%. down 55%, 54%, >> the one company that is not in that group is being taken out. >> that is the other thing going forward, more consolidation. one metric is the debt levels. might be ato ebitda way to discover how healthy or unhealthy some companies are. >> do we say ebitda this early in the morning? >> it is bow tie tuesday. depreciation and amortization, you get ebitda, people toss it around at cartel parties. -- at coctail parties. >> this helps you determine how many years

our guesthouse house is ethan harris, head of the global research at bank of america merrill lynch. - that extent does russia have any bearing on our economics? >> we heard yelling talk about this at the press conference and russia is not that important. this is not like the late 1990's when there is exposure to russia through the financial markets. u.s. banks have very small exposure and russia and people have been asked -- preparing to back away from russia and as yellen suggested trade is only 1% of u.s. -- not material. if the conflict in europe got awful and started to pull down the eurozone again -- you worry about it but only through europe that russia would be important to the u.s.. the last toion of two hours -- for you this is not 1998. >> it's not -- the markets are very nervous we are going to the year-end with liquidity and the banks have less balance sheets to make markets in many products -- some markets are in a volatile mood and the move-in oil is huge. you will have a lot of shifting of investments around that but basically -- nothing big is happening from a u.s. per

. >> how do i square what you are saying with what francisco blanche said merrill lynch, head of commodity if memory serves me correctly, he said we would rebound on the price of oil above 80 to the end of the year. how can i square what he is saying with the analysis you are giving? >> this is where we have a disagreement in the market. i think oil price is going to be between $50 and $60 a barrel for most of 20 1w456789 i think15. i think it is a declining rate of growth here in the u.s. i think the world is going to be surprised as to how good the u.s. oil producers are able to get oil out of the ground next year as they increase efficiency. >> interesting. so just give us some color on that. how much supply do you think will be knocked out by how much. do you think they will be able to reduce costs to keep it? >> we've seen from the eia, the demand forecast drop by about 300,000 barrels a day from $9.5 million to 9.2 billion next year. if you look in the gulf of mexico where we have had a huge amount of infrastructure come online, whether it is the olympus platform or saint jack we are

joe, the interesting question of 2015 starting to see this out there, i think bank of america-merrill lynch saying 2015 the year to buy main street and wall street and thinking about that with meredith whitney over the weekend and made bets on the sort of middle american public if you will that don't appear to be working out. where do you think here the trade lies? is it time with the drop of oil prices and bet ore main street if you will for 2015? >> i think for 2015, make three bets. one, there will be more volatility. second, interest rates will be going up. they've told us that. you want larger company that is have the ability to withstand higher interest rates and third you want to know that you're participating in a global middle market that is are happening everywhere. so i really like still the mega caps because they participate in all three in dollar denominated terms. and they have flexibility. if we see higher volatility you want to be in larger names and so i think you're going to see again the russell which is not done very well this year continue to underperform and i think we

equity market, good for morgan stanley, good for bankamerica meryl because of that last half, the merrill lynche of that business gets brushed aside, dani. i like this one, kelly. bhang america, i don't disagree with steve, walls fargo a safer play for all the reasons, i want beta, like where morgan stanley is like goldman sachs and clearly, i like bankamerica and it's also in my playbook. >> everybody, we will leff loo testify there steve grasso is coming up with the rest of the "fast money" the crew 5:00. you want to stick around and catch their discussion, talking about the price of chicken soaring, by the way, has investors shorting companies like sanderson false, the ceo of sanderson will join them to make his case for the stock. wouldn't want to miss that. >>> straight ahead here, stocks staging another huge rally today. is it justified? famed short seller jim chanos joins me exclusively next. he has made a killing betting against ibm this year, you will want to hear what he has to say. also, nike earnings imminent. we will break document dow components' results as soon as they hit here o

i've talked a lot of investors in high distressed debt, mutual funds like merrill lynch, 30% in the energyre are concerns of the defaults, restructuring, particularly north dakota area and a lot o regional community banks so i think there's concern. i don't know it's across the board but a lot of big lenders are going to be disclosing their exposure. >> please told me nobody sold credit default swaps against these -- >> i'm sure it's there somewhere. >> that's the big issue and compounding those starting with the gambling on these. >> you have heard the comforting words before the crisis, right? >> absolutely. >> were we over leveraged? of course we were. >> the difference is how many people who are unrelated to the trade betting on it. i hope we're not there right now with the regulation we have and to me if there's the level it's more of a concern. >> jeff, it is human nature. we have seen the boom that goes on in the northern plains of this country and the impact it can have on the economy. of course you're going to have money thrown at it. we overdo it every single time. have we overdo

lehman brothers down, merrill lynch down, a.i.g., whatever. it all happened within a matter of days. i called the secretary of the treasury and i say, how can we be helpful? what is going on? and he said, it's terrible. i said, one of the major financial institutions going down? no, it's bigger than that. we're in a serious meltdown. why am i calling you, mr. secretary paulsen? well, the white house wasn't ready for congress to know about this. but you're the speaker -- at the time i was. you're the secretary. i'm telling you. we're in a terrible situation. so they came to my office that night, the speaker's house, house and senate, democrats and republicans. we came together and we heard an appalling meltdown of our financial institution and i said to the chairman of the fed, mr. ben bernanke, who was there. mr. bernanke, what do you think about what the secretary said? and he said, if we do not act immediately, we will not have an economy by monday. we will not have an economy by monday. by the policies that were in place at that time, we we

lehman brothers down, merrill lynch down, a.i.g., whatever. it all happened within a matter of days. i called the secretary of the treasury and i say, how can we be helpful? what is going on? and he said, it's terrible. i said, one of the major financial institutions going down? no, it's bigger than that. we're in a serious meltdown. why am i calling you, mr. secretary paulsen? well, the white house wasn't ready for congress to know about this. but you're the speaker -- at the time i was. you're the secretary. i'm telling you. we're in a terrible situation. so they came to my office that night, the speaker's house, house and senate, democrats and republicans. we came together and we heard an appalling meltdown of our financial institution and i said to the chairman of the fed, mr. ben bernanke, who was there. mr. bernanke, what do you think about what the secretary said? and he said, if we do not act immediately, we will not have an economy by monday. we will not have an economy by monday. by the policies that were in place at that time, we we

she is bank of america's merrill lynch's u.s. economist. you agree with any of these predictions?ree with them. i think it's right it will continue to cool. i think it will remain positive. the areas we've seen most of the cooling this year were those that had the fastest appreciation at the begin og the recovery. so parts of california went from 20%-plus year over year appreciation to 10% or a bit less. housing construction i also think there is further upside. it's a bumpy path higher. >> she said 740,000 new starts. >> it might be a little high in my opinion. i think household formation is the key factor. it's been gradually coming higher. >> what about in the rent versus buy? she said she thought the rental market would cool or at least there wouldn't be more construction. >> i think we'll see more multi-family construction. as household formation will recover, it will be favorable for the rental market. think about where credit conditions are. it's still very tight. think about the lags from people entering the labor market. so i actually think that could be -- maybe single f

and chris wolf, chief investment officer of portfolio solutions for merrill lynch private banking and investment group. i'll start with you, mike, do either one of you worry that we're missing something in the oil story that is bad for financial assets? because i don't know when commodities and financial assets became correlated. it should be -- we think they can move in opposite directions, but here we are worried about stocks because of oil. >> well, first of all, we are never completely dismissing it. there's linkage in anything that happens anywhere in the world today, it matters everywhere. but i want to be careful here, i don't see a decline in oil prices translating to a financial problem. in fact, i see this as i refer to chris' views on this as well, i see this as positive in terms of the impact it has in terms of the u.s. economy and the consumer sector. it doesn't mean winners across the board as the energy patch will be affected by it, and it will impact on the corporate profitability, but this won't be the kind of thing to undermine the financial markets. >> chris, we kno

our guest host this hour from bank of america merrill lynch global research. that's neat.for an hour. >> great to be here. >> today's top story, a santa claus rally. the s&p 500 closing at its 50th new high of the year yesterday. it's like there's been one almost every week. >> you're good. >> the most such finishes since 1995 which was also five years after the bengals last won a playoff game. and do more math and find the index finished at a record 20% of the time at a record 20% of the time in 2014. which is pretty amazing. for anyone we sort of make fun of as apermable for the last years. futures at this hour. there we go. indicated up 39, almost 40 points on the dow. up almost four on the s&p. and over ten on the nasdaq. >>> making headlines at this hour, u.s. officials say that washington was not involved in an outage of several hours for internet service in north korea. the country's internet service has now been restored. there was some speculation that it was retribution for the sony hack attack. but not the case. also a flood of economic data coming today. durabl

merrill, you say they have very ordinary receivers. >> they do. >> russell runs for over 7 yards a care, do you think -- >> i think they'll have somebody like mychal kendricks looking at him, watching him. busher shale lynchhe proverbial load. loves contact. although i think, ukee, that the eagles have enough muscle up front with guys like flesh err cox, and kendricks, benny logan, to slow him down. he doesn't have to go for 130 yards. >> merrill, real quick, shady mccoy, away from the all time eagles record, explain very quickly to new generation, how good will burt montgomery was, compare his style to shady? >> little different. wilbur montgomery cut back runner. shady mccoy i think is -- twit is her stop on a dime, that's what he is, he has all kind of moves, he has a great burst. they're two great backs, there have been four grade ones in the history of the club. van buren, will burt, brian westbrook, shade mick coy. and in the modern era shady might be the best of all. >> turn down the tv sound, let merrill and mike get down sports radio wip, thanks, merrill. >> ill. have a great weekend, ukee. >> you too, my friend, take care. >> bye bye. >> 62:00; still ahead, health alert about the flu vaccine, wh