mike santoli took a look for answers. every bull market needs a good story line. the one that started nearly nine years ago has followed several along the way. you have the depths of the bear market in early 2009. the bullish story was stocks were simply too depressed. as the years went on, the narrative shifted to central banks are supporting the market, the stocks looked cheap, and companies are buying back lots of stock. the happy store has centered around a global economic expansion and deregulation in corporate tax cuts. this combination has helped carry the major indexes to the best year since 2013, with the s&p 500 up 20% and the dow adding more than 25% to come within a whisper of the 25 thousands market. how might the extort shift again? analysts are suggesting the corporate talks cut is but amarket that constantly looks ahead. the benefits will be unevenly shared. te compa the market leaders for -- >> most helped by the tax plan. the theme no next year might be how the markets and the economy can stand the heat generated by a nicely -- tight labor market

mike santoli takes a look. >> reporter: the backers of the corporate tax cut bill about to become law are promising a boost to u.s. economic growth in part by encouraging companies to engage in a bit of rational recklessness. that's not a phrase republicans in congress are using. but the idea of slashing tax rates and allowing companies to deduct the cost of new equipment right away creates strong incentives for companies to ramp up investments in their business, more than eight years into an economic expansion, when otherwise we might be bracing for an eventually slowdown. more money is no doubt a net positive for corporate growth and profits. still, encouraging heavy new rounds of spending by companies that have not found new projects is a bit of a novel experience. some economists are saying the tax cuts, coming with unemployment already low, could be a recipe for inflation and higher interest rates which could offset some of the antid boost to growth and corporate profits. and it remains unclear how muc tax cut will be used toward future investment, how much will show as profit, a

john, see you in about 15. >> any show with mike santoli is a good show. >>> small businesses embracing the if you can't beat them, join them model when it comes to amazon kate is in newark with the story. kate >> that's right. it can be tough for small business owners to compete with amazon, but when the two pair up together, it can be a win for both parties in fact, amazon says that more than half of the items it sells online come from small retailers like j.r. william, which ships luxury goods out of this newark warehouse to be fulfilled by amazon fulfillment by amazon lets businesses have access to prime two-day shipping, but they have to preship to amazon and let the company cover customer service and packaging and shipment the owner of j.r. william says he has little contact with his customers, and he also faces lower rankings on the site if he chooses to fulfill items on his own. >> if you're listing fulfill by merchant on amazon, the chances of you becoming a hot seller is slim to none >> even though they do take a big cut, steve says it can be wel

. >> welcome to 2017 >> that's pretty scary in and of itself clearly, we don't know, mike santoli joinsat the desk, as well we have to hear more reporting out of the courtroom we're starting to get some of that and, i guess, you have to wonder how long a period of uncertainty will be. these are not the kinds of things that are going to necessarily resolve themselves in a day or two in terms of what is certainly an intensifying investigation of russian collusion in the u.s. election >> and going into a weekend. >> yes, you are. >> so you're not going to have the usual on-duty performers that you might expect, so that's going to add to how much will you find out and how much won't you find out >> as art has been suggesting, this air pocket opened up, it's not the market's way of saying it's methodically caming out exactly how this is going to go and place specific probabilities on some kind of, you know, jeopardy to the president or anything like that it's a market that was kind of out on a perch after a very unusual rally yesterday with the dow up more than 300 points, the average stock

joining us at post 9, mike santoli. , what do you make of the latest business round table results? >> it's interesting. i think it's another area where the story of the market and the economy is no longer climbing the wall of worry. the worry has basically given way to optimism and i think a lot of that is probably okay i think we've only been six or eight months where everyone agreed the world is growing and the rest of it another relevant i think you've seen the beginnings of, which is deals. that's a good correlation historically between m & a volumes, bigger strategic deals, and ceo confidence we'll see if that holds true >> mike, how do you square what i interpreted, tell me what you think, as a concern about a drag from labor costs with the idea that this tax package is going to lead companies to voluntarily raise wages and hire more people at the same time hire new people and pay them more if they are concerned about labor costs? >> the links between those two things are probably loose and unquantity fiable, right

welcome to "squawk alley" here with me at post 9, michelle caruso-cabrera, mike santoli carl and sarae the morning off. first up, bitcoin open for trading yesterday on an exchange run by the cboe. heavy traffic causing outages on the cboe website, while the exchange also halted trading temporarily due to extreme volatility what to expect from bitcoin futures after what a wild week for that digital currency. a lot of people thought once this opened up we're going to see it fall because people would be shorting it, but that's not stopped the rise >> it hasn't happened, but it's only been a few hours, so let's see what happens take a look where we are, it's important to point out we're trading at a nice premium to the underlying spot price here 18,000 now over that cash price is 16,700, it's been fluctuating, but you have a good $1,200 premium or so this is what's called the cost of money, the carry, that's tying up money for a month, so it's usually a bit of a premium. whether that's worth the 8% or so, we'll find out two trading halts, but they were part of the product design it's impo

i'm carl quintanilla with mike santoli, morgan brennan is with us at post 9 of the new york stock exchangening us this morning, a former chief digital officer of new york city. great to have you here at post 9. we should mention the president has signed the $1.5 trillion tax bill into law. we will see that in just a few moments on tape playback, so keep that in mind. dow is down 29 bitcoin hitting a record high on sunday from the peak, recent peak at least, bitcoin has lost about $121 billion of its total market value in less than a week, although, mike, you say along with plenty of others that comparing market cap and this instrument to other things isn't necessarily smart. >> just a snapshot, so clearly, you know, you wouldn't want to say that much value was wiped out. you didn't exchange that many dollars for that much now lost, but still a big number, big decline. >> i have to know where you're coming from on bitcoin right now. >> well, it's one of those things people are not sure where things are going, and i just tweeted someone who said everybody's talking about bitcoin the way in t

meantime, joining us on the panel, mike santoli. mike chael block. planning director at equity port tole you mana prt folio manager at tia investments. mike santoli, a sloppy couple days. >> it was. >> now a bit of a recovery son s >> felt like the 2017 stock market vix down below 10.5. tech outperforming basically your routine day for 2017 until recently. a weird little shakeout, rotation from winners into losers which also translates growth into value. now, it's been kind of a gentle getting its legs back under it type of move >> biggest winner in the dow, boeing biggest loser, procter & gamble. the s&p, the biggest winner, edward life sciences, biggest loser, h&r block h&r block said yesterday they do well when there's tax reform, the stock went up 8% the biggest gainer yesterday. >> right. >> today somebody reconsidered that i guess. >> there's always a false notion of simplification thereat never occurs h&r block wins either way. >> no relation >> yeah. >> i forgot about that show of hands. we got this five shot here, anybody buying bitcoin anyb

mike santoli at the new york stock exchange cramer is off today. futures steady as congress passes a short term funding bill bitcoin is cratering this morning and it's the final session before a three-day weekend. look for news dumps, europe is mixed and durable and consumer income a slight miss more data come in an an hour bitcoin down for first week since 2013 as goldman sachs throws its hat into the crypto ring. >> shutdown avoided in washington for now waiting for president trump and go live to d.c. for the latest. >> eric schmit stepping down for his role as executive chairman at alphabet. what that means for the company. >> bitcoin is the lead today extending this week's bearish run hitting a record high on sunday the crypto currency tumbled sharply in asia and wiping out a fourth of the market value in a 24-hour span 12.5 is the price people are looking at for the week you're looking at 30% drawdown as our friend josh brown stepped in. >> doesn't get you back to thanksgiving it was about 8,000 when it really started to lift off in late novem

with me, kelly evans and mike santoli. carl, john

with me, mike santoli, sara and john are off tomorrow is the last trading day of the year.daq is poised to make history. the index poised to make gains for 11 of the 12 months this year for the first time ever some of the stocks leading the charge, well, you know them well don't you, of course, when we're looking at some of them there. these you don't know at all. align technology, vertex mercadolibre, what's that mean, free books, free something free markets not the typical names that we see. >> those are the percentage winners, the ones that essentially doubled this year. if it's one that stands out, it's wynn. it's not a bio tech company that, obviously, had an amazing run. in terms of who added the most market value this year, of course, those familiar names like the f.a.n.g. stocks, apple, as well. >> alibaba up 96% this year. we were talking earlier in the show on "squawk on the street," of course, about the increase of market value at a $440 billion value. >> interesting, tech sector almost 24% for the s&p average waiting for the past ten years, 19.6% that speaks to

mike santoli takes a look. >> reporter: it's the time of year and that moment in a bull market when investorsre asking to lock in gains or let them ride the index is on an eight-point win streak and only revenue in nine straight mondays once since 1980 stocks have begun pricing in the expected windfall from a big corporate tax cut and the economic news has been unusually good for months. the strong 2017 rally has also left many investors portfolios tilted more heavily towards stocks than planned. is it time to trim back or bet the market can deliver further rewards in december and beyond december has a well-earned reputation for generosity in years that most resemble 2017 in terms of performance through november, december has produce gains of around 2% on average. december has never once been the weakest month of any year. which is encouraging given the worst month of 2017 was march when the market was down less than a 0.1%. still for 2018 it makes sense to expect a less smooth ride for stocks even if the bull market carries higher still the tax cut will produce relative winners and losers, a

i'm david faber along with mike santoli and wilfred frost. both jim and carl off today. let's give you a look at futures as we get ready for trading a half hour from now here on this thursday only two days to go before, of course, we begin a new year of trading. you can see, we are looking for a higher open this morning european markets, what were they were they mixed? were they up, you ask? let's take a look. yes, spain and italy, i always like to see the ftse over in the uk, wilfried's home, the only one that is up this morning. >> the big outperformer this month as well. playing catch-up for the year more than any other specific factors. but it's been a good month the rest kind of flat for the month. >> let's take a look at the ten-year yield and of course, oil oil important yesterday. having climbed above that $60 mark for wti you can see it's slightly below. let's call it not much of a move this morning, flat or so and 2.42 on the ten-year note yield. let's get to our road map this morning. in it, it does start with those two trading days that are left for the year

unintended consequences from the massive tax plan it could all play into the market story going forward mike santoli writing about that today and joins us from the stock exchange michael? >> thanks. you're hitting a lot of the points in the conversation one in particular at the core was a corporate tax cut was the centerpiece here and really seems to be the main mover in terms of what it means for the markets. what i was looking at is what i think of as a possibility for rational, recklessness to come out in corporate behavior. if you think about the kind of thesis behind why a lower corporate tax rate and these immediate expensing of capital investments is meant to boost the economy, it's to change corporate behavior in a certain way. here we are eight and a half years into an economic expansion. you have all these companies that have been resistant and sitting on high hurdle rates for new investments, not seeing attractive returns in capital investment and new expansions. now you're saying for tax reasons, for rational reasons, do that now. put more capital at risk the question for the markets is,

with me, kelly evans and mike santoli.l, john, and sara are all off this morning of course, our last trading day of the year. speaking of 2017, it has been a blowout year for technology. the nasdaq gaining roughly 30% the index on pace for its sixth straight positive year in a row, the fifth time since 1980. bertha coombs is at the nasdaq and she has more for us. bertha >> david, as mark twain put it, history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes, and that's certainly true with the nasdaq 100. the big caps up for the ninth straight year in a row, the longest annual streak for the index since the big tech breakout of the 1990s. these four mega caps, you know them, apple, microsoft, amazon, they've made the biggest impact in terms of the upside gains for the s&p 500, overall market, and when you add in alphabet, they actually account for two-thirds of the nasdaq 100's 15-point gain this year microsoft benefiting from its shift to cloud technologies is up for the sixth straight year, that's its best straight winning streak sinc

joining us this morning for more, russell investment chief strategist steven wood and our own mike santolis, good to see you. is this turning into a sell the news phenomenon? >> i don't know. i don't think it's a real sharp sell the news opportunity, necessarily. mostly because i think the effect of the coming tax cuts was mostly kind of one component of this feel good environment. it wasn't so much make or break, this is it, we need this for the market to hold together, but i do think we've built in a lot of good stuff yesterday was interesting, the round number thresholds, not just with the nasdaq index, but the dow hitting 25% year to date, s&p hitting 20%, nasdaq hitting 30% year to date those are some pretty handy little annual returns that you, you know, you wouldn't necessarily walk away from, but you say does it owe me anymore >> right is it sort of a benchmark numbers story here, steven we've had some others suggest this morning that january might turn into selling as people wait to hold those gains until the new year >> well, they are psychologically pleasing numbers, they are ro

quite a morning for news thank you, eamon javers, thank you, art cashin and mike santoli. that's it for "squawk alley." "fast money half time" starts right now. >>> all right. we'll pick it up with our continuing breaking news on these developments welcome to "half time. we begin as i said with the breaking news this hour. your market picture, that sudden selloff on stocks that former national security adviser michael flynn charged today with ply r lying to the fbi is prepared to testify against the president, his campaign over russia this as republicans in the senate try to get to the finish line on their new tax plan all of that impacting your money and the markets. our reporters are standing by in washington to cover all of those developments eamon javers is on the north lawn of the white house once again for us john harwood in d.c. and ylan mui at the capital we begin with eamon. >> within the past few moments we've seen michael flynn departing the federal courthouse at 3rd and constitution streets in washington, d.c a media frenzy there a real scrum as flynn came out

of both peoples will be achieved by my count joins us live from the united nations in new york mike santoli a good terrorist started off by commenting that this was a moment of huge anxiety after the president of the united states decision. yes indeed the united nations has been throughout the day a lot of talk in the corridors about president trumps decision certainly seen by the bulk of members of the united nations that something terribly dangerous and certainly very very. difficult impact on what ever the peace process remains certainly making any renewal of the dormant peace process very difficult indeed the u.n. position as antonio good terrorist made clear is that jerusalem should always be the subject of final status negotiations throughout the decades the u.n. has regarded jerusalem as an international city and most recently just less than two weeks ago the general assembly passed a resolution saying that any israeli action or law in east jerusalem must be regarded as knol and void because it was an occupying power in defiance of the geneva conventions that particular resolution wa

as mike santoli said earlier, december has never been the worst month of year ever in the history ofs years of the stock market do you think this year we could have a december to forget? >> i think given the way that this year's gone, anything is possible i do think, here's what we know, it's not just the u.s. rally it's a global rally. global markets all across the world are now approaching $1 trillion mark. the other thing is bibituated t continuo continuously once the market teaches people how to habituate a behavior, if we get a catalyst to the downside, a small selloff, you may have a rush to the exits to lock in profits for the year and create a snowball effect the most intelligent thing right now, volatility is low, buy insurance, so you're not part of the sweep to the downside should it occur. >> we haven't seen it. we'll see. contrarian call. anything in the charts that suggest that december could stink? >> nothing in the charts what we're seeing very consistent with a healthy mid-cycle bull market, we expect it to continue talking s&p 500, first, the breakout above 2,600 la

i'm david faber along with michelle caruso-cabrera and mike santoli.ne at the new york stock exchange. carl is off today, and sara eisen on maternity leave she had her baby over the weekend. >> congratulations >> excellent >> congrats to her and her husband. don't forget him played a small role. let's take a look at the markets this morning as you can see, we are up on all the major averages, at least right now. with the crude oil also advancing by, let's call it 20.24% let's get to our road map. it does start with that explosion this morning at the port authority bus terminal in new york city. we're going to take you there live and get the latest. >> and a developing story out of southern california. wildfires continuing to spread across the state more evacuations being ordered >> and a big day for bitcoin futures. trading is well under way. price surging more than 20% in the first few hours and triggering two brief circuit breakers details straight ahead >> let's get first straight to the breaking news this morning an explosion going off near new yor

i'm carl quintanilla with john fortt, mike santoli at post 9 of the new york stock exchange. 9, busines

whether or not bitcoin is a buy or a bubble joining us today, cnbc senior markets commentator mike santolitor evan newmark. hi, guys showed the folks who the biggest winners for the week were. boeing had a stellar year, also having a strong week biggest loser was intel. boeing higher by another 5% this week intel lower by a little more than 2%. as for the s&p 500, devita led the week remember, they're getting taken over mattel trailed behind. behind 10%, 11%, davita. what do you make of the market moves this week, mr. santelli? >> the year's trends kind of reasserted themselves over the course of the week that one monday stomachen, we thought it was going to be of a consequence. open en the opened up with a sugar h on monday. now it inched its way back it seems as if just the seasonal strength maybe is going to don'n monday is going to be -- overall, as you guys were talking about, bill, the general backdrop remains undisturbed in terms of the fundamentals and also just the resilience of the tape >> we think we got everything figured at right now, haven't -- taxes making progress -- >> all

. >> maybe -- >> we'll hand it over to mike santoli. >> cosmic take on what this all means. >> i'm thew? >> yes, absolutely >> what it all means, look, i think it's obviously from the ground up, it's a groundswell of retail interests i think it's still okay to ignore it. like, i think it's okay, still, for somebody in the business like steph to say, i'm going to just let this kind of wash -- >> yep. >> -- over me and not feel like i have to figure out what the implications are for my companies or overall market. i don't think it means there's some kind of broad-scale speculative froth that's been building up. it seems very specific to crypto. >> i don't think people are selling stocks to buy bitcoin. that's actually your point, probably, right? >> people selling gold to buy bitco bitcoin. >> it could be, certainly. when they do sell stocks, that will impact my business and what they care about. i'm watching it, it's fascinating for sure i'm not there yet on the investment side. >> on the other hand, i'm also hesitant to kind of make a declaration this is all completely empty, there's n

. >> there's no mike santoli between us. >> i know. it's a christmas miracle at least for me.cited to be here. >> it's not just you, we got john blank on board as well to moderate things a little bit it's great to have you both here topping the dow this week is disney of course, completing that deal for 21st century fox assets. disney up nearly 7% on the week. ibm the laggard down 1.5%. how about the s&p? centurylink which has been so volatile lately led the broad market there's centurylink with a 15% gain this weekend. centene was down about 6%. now the tax bill is said to be released in just about 90 minutes' time. we've within getting news of more republican senators supporting the bill including marco rubio and, yes, bob corker, evan, just in the last hour. >> yeah, yeah. >> what do you make of him coming onboard >> i don't know. probably just wanted to be onboard what was going to pass in any case. >> i think you're right. what's interesting about that, though this idea that, what, even though he's leaving the senate, even though he says his entire career was based on con

i'm david faber look where mike santoli and melissa lee. live at post 9 sara and carl have the day off today. let's get to economic data we have crossing the tape right now. jim has those numbers for us jim. >> hey, david. we have the consumer confidence number came in it came in at 122.1. we expected 128. that was after a fairly blockbuster number last month of 129.5. even that was revised a little lower. so a tiny bit of a disappointment in consumer confidence numbers still very high, hovering near 17-year highs. reaction in the stock market was a tiny bit positive. also pending home sales. we were expecting negative .5. it came in as positive .2. that was after last month we had a 3.5, but that was because we pulled from hurricane related months and kind of front loaded it in those months the reaction is pretty muted stocks are up about 1.5. the ten-year yield is about 2.446, which is where it started. back to you, david >> thank you, jim. >> our road map this morning starts with huge multignashes who are announcing changes to their bott

tailwind of double digit earnings growth, it's likely to be another good year for the stock market >> mike santoli was here yesterday, he made the point that december has never been the worst month of the year. the worst month of the year so far has been a flat month. is that a reason to look at this and think, okay, don't be waiting for the pullback if you're waiting to put money in >> you had the pullback in certain sectors. the year-to-date leaders pulled back dramatically over the last week and a half. there's no evidence that this economy is slowing down or that earnings are terrible. it's not like we're going into a recession. the earnings growth is there you have the tax cuts plus the regulatory framework which is getting better >> the tax cuts look like they're on track i wouldn't bet against it. what happens if it doesn't get passed what would then play out >> i think we would see a correction >> 10% >> you know, maybe 5%, 10% we haven't had a pullback in such a long time if you have a piece of genuinely disappointing news, which is a failure of the tax cut would qualify, that would be a

mike santoli at the new york stock exchange cramer i

i'm david faber along with mike santoli and wilfred frost. both jim and carl off today.f hour from now here on this thursday only two days to go before, of course, we begin a new year of trading. you can see, we are looking for a higher open this morning european markets, what were