phil lebeau reporting. sara? >>> a big day for japan. that giant rally overnight not carrying over into u.s. market. we will talk about the link next. >>> and outside of the "shark tank" and inside the wine bottle. it's an amazing new way to make sure your leftover wine doesn't go bad before its time. ♪ ♪ ♪ where you think you're gonna go ♪ ♪ when your time's all gone? [ male announcer ] live a full life. the new lexus ct hybrid with an epa estimated 42 mpg. the further you go, the more interesting it gets. lease the 2014 ct 200h for $299 a month for 27 months. see your lexus dealer. >>> welcome back to "power lunch." check out shares of jos. a. bank. a letter sent to the board noting its opposition of its recently announced acquisition of eddie bauer, saying it's engaging in desperate tactics in blatant disregard of the best interests of jos. a. bank shareholders. about 2% to the downside today. sara? >>> let's talk japan. stocks there rallied hard today. the nikkei closed up more than 3%. the biggest gainers, the banks, because its cen

phil lebeau joins us now from chicago with more on the investigation and what g.m. executives knew and when they knew it. so phil, fill us in a little bit. how serious is this investigation? and how worried do you think g.m. execs are feeling about all this? >> reporter: it's certainly a concern. they've come out twice and apologized. you'll hear one of their apologies in a little bit. the problem here is the timeline, susie whether there's a recall in the auto industry, the automaker submits a timeline explaining when they knew there would be a problem in a particular vehicle. the timeline goes back to 2004. along the way there are many people saying boy there was more than enough indication that perhaps general motors should have initiated a recall far sooner than at the beginning of t 2014. today general motors put out a second statement regarding the recall of the ignition keys and problems that resulted here essentially saying we are deeply regretful of the events that led to the recall and this investigation as our detailed chronology indicates, we intend to fu

phil lebeau, "nightly business report," carlsbad, california. >>> and coming up on the program, federal insurance co-ops. they were born out of the new health care law. but could taxpayers be left holding the bag if things don't work out as planned? the time part of our health care series is next. >>> the poor condition of some nation's railway is one of the reasons why a massive new white house spending initiative that president obama was in st. paul, minnesota announcing a four-year, $300 billion plan to create jobs by fixing the nation's roads, bridges and rails. >> what companies are saying they intend to hire more people this year, we need to make that decision easier for them. and we can create jobs at the same time. rebuilding our transportation systems, our power grids, our communications networks, all the things that commerce relies on. >> but about half that money relies on ending some federal corporate tax breaks. >>> finally tonight, in an effort to spur competition, the affordable care act provided government loans to launch non-profit ensures known as co-ops that were desi

phil lebeau has more. >> reporter: on a cloudy day in chattanooga, tennessee, workers at the volkswagen plant are starting to clear up their future. voting on whether or not to join the united auto workers union, a move some workers believe will make their plant more competitive. >> we will have an opportunity to voice our concerns and the things that we hope to improve the company. and i think that will work better for us than the current system. >> i want us to have a voice in the global works council. and i want us to be able to bring more products, more cars here to chattanooga. >> reporter: vw's plant in tennessee is a rare opportunity for the uaw to add members after a foreign-brand plant in the southern u.s., something it's never done. over the last 35 years, as foreign automakers like bmw, toyota, and others started building cars in right to work states in the south, their workers have never moved to join the uaw, even though their pay and benefits would have likely increased. meanwhile, as big three plants primarily in the north shut down, uaw membership began to drop. after pe

phil lebeau has the latest on the thousands of cancelations. phil?celations keep mt.ing. the runways of both washington reagan as well as washington dulles, the runways are not expecting incoming or allowing flights to leave. for the time being you see more cancellations in washington. look at number for today. topped 6100 in terms of total number of cancelations today. that is the most since february of 2011 when it was almost 7500 cancelations. we are going to be getting close to that number if these cancelations continue to mount. delta, southwest, express jet, they are experiencing the most cancelations. you look at the individual airlines. 20% of the scheduled flights in the u.s. today have been canceled. that number is pethded to go higher. hubbs not surprisingly along the east coast are seeing the most cancelations. i've gotten this question from a number of people today. one guy walking through o'hare said how come the airline stocks are not under more pressure? look at the last three months. all returns are predicated upon the belief of inve

phil lebeau rejoins us with more detail. phil?he earnings letter this they have just released. first of all, they are expecting their operating margins to hit 28% by the fourth quarter of 2014. also, you were talking about china and the growth there. listen to this statement within the letter. already the beijing store which has only been open a few weeks is the largest and most active tesla retail location in the world. you can't come out any more bullish than they are regarding their prospects in china. remember, they're basically starting from scratch there. so when we get on the conference call, there is no doubt that china and the prospect for growing sales in china will be a major focus of the questions from analysts. >> phil, i'm curious, when they say things like largest and most active, are they give specific metrics they're referring to there? >> no, they are not. again, they're just beginning. they shipped vehicles, they put them on a boat i want to say seven or eight weeks ago. they are just now putting them there. we

phil lebeau, thank you to tom barrack for being with us.re's no one who has transformed the skyline of new york from the very beginning or really defined reality tv and created a clean brand all over the world. anywhere you go in the world when you say trump, you know what it is. >> thank you very, very much. >>> right now it's time for "squawk on the street." ♪ >>> good tuesday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber at the new york stock exchange. got a report card on the housing market, case-shiller index at the bottom of your screen we'll talk about them with robert schiller in a few moments. a bunch of pots boiling, home deem poe earnings, macy's big analyst move on tesla. take a look at futures, ten yearsad

phil lebeau on three big stories. phil, take it away. >> reporter: we have video you have got to see. there is a new high tech way that people are stealing cars here in chicago. it involves a mysterious black box. >>> we will also be talking about a pilot shortage and whether or not it's being overstated by some of the airlines. >>> and there's big news when it comes to sales incentives from ford and gm. don't go anywhere. business insi. at cognizant, we help forward-looking companies run better and run different - to give your customers every reason to keep looking for you. so if you're ready to see opportunities and see them through, we say: let's get to work. because the future belongs to those who challenge the present. ♪ aflac, aflac, aflac! ♪ [ both sigh ] ♪ ugh! ♪ you told me he was good, dude. yeah he stinks at golf. but he was great at getting my claim paid fast. how fast? mine got paid in 4 days. wow. that's awesome. is that legal? big fat no. [ male announcer ] find out how fast aflac can pay you at aflac.co

phil lebeau, thank you very much. >>> let's call this the getaway trade.oast. maybe you're thinking about going somewhere warm. interesting. when we look at our screens this morning, we noticed expedia, a performing stock and priceline has done well. the most priciest stock in the s&p 500 at a cool, what, over $1,100 a share. what's behind the trend? start talking numbers on the names. on the technical, steve cortez, founder of veracruz, and ron, capital markets. ron, i noticed at all of my screens this morning the travel-related names had done well and i joked to the team, maybe everybody wants to guess the heck out of dodge. is there anything to that or something else moving these stocks? >> i think it's something else. i think it's related to the fact that these stocks are the only real growth stocks in the marketplace today. it's a really hard environment for growth overall. the s&p 457b sa500 sales growth. and double digit sales growth. we liked the names based off that and that's one of the reasons the valuations are so high right now. >> ron, when y

joining me is phil lebeau, who covered the story on both sides. can't help but look at the republican opposition on this and corker and haslam, and it seems there was fear of the uaw becoming a political force in tennessee, that that was his primary motivation. but what was the motivation on the side of the uaw to organize? what was the motivation of the 600-plus foal bes who did want the uaw to represent them in talks with volkswagen? >> well, you have to keep in mind that volkswagen has a structure as a corporation that with every one of its facilities around the world, and they've got more than 100, that they have some type of a works council, basically a union, and at each plant, that union is part of the works council, able to communicate with management in terms of, hey, here's what's working at the plant, here's what we can do in the future to improve operations. so volkswagen wants some type of a works council slash union at this facility in chattanooga. for the workers voting for the uaw, they're saying, we need one eventually, the uaw has

phil lebeau has it covered for us. let's start with those auto sales., some people are using that word. the weather this time, although it's used frequently as an excuse in various parts of retail, seems to really have had an effect here. >> i think it's a legitimate excuse. look, there's no way of sugar coating the fact these were ugly numbers from the auto makers, when you look at gm, ford and toyota. they were all down between 6% and 9%. gm down 11.9%. the thing to keep in mind, these numbers were all worse than expected. significantly worse than expected. if you look at where the weakness was, it's the eastern half of the united states. because of these two storm systems that went through at the beginning and the end of the month, look, the central u.s. was down more than 10%. southeast down 1% to 5%, double digit losses in the east. the west coast, however, where we saw relatively nice weather, up at least 10%. so that's what we saw in the month of january, and in fact, when we get the steaales rate number later today, the expectation is the winter

. >>> really up to is mysterious -- phil lebeau. calls of the day and the street making big and bold moves today. traders decide whether it's a buy. >>> make it go with underperforming in the earnings. stock headed for rock bottom. we're going to look at that just ahead. >>> we do begin in the olympic sp spirit today. the u.s. versus the rest of the world. a look at which markets really are the best bet for your money. stocks here are coming off their best week of the year. the nikkei just had its best day since august and even china is now in the black for 2014. where is your best bet right now? bloom and doom author has an idea. here's what he told us on "squawk" this morning. >> i think i've been making the case, to make five to ten years. i will make more money by buying now in emerging economies and in the u.s. having said that, i think it's still too early to make a major commitment to emerging stoemtds. >> he also went tonto say, pete, it's too late to buy the u.s. >> i totally disagree with him. i still think the best place

phil lebeau always behind the wheel in chicago. >> reporter: good news.hink a lot of us were wondering when would auto sales start to rebound and would it happen when the temperatures started to improve. this is data coming to us from j.d. power and lmc automotive. they have been tracking retail auto sales around the country. they found in the first week it was down about 5%, down just under 1% for the first half of the month. clearly some improvement as the weather improved in the second week of the month, and now j.d. power says for all of february, they expect sales to rise above 5%. j.d. power expects the sales rates for the month of february to come in at about 15.7 million. compare that with january, where it was 15.2 million and even more impressive is the fact that transaction prices, what people are actually paying at the dealership, is going to be up above $400 year over year, a little over $29,000 when it's all said and done. look at shares of general motor, look at the slide over the last several months if you go back towards the end of last y

phil lebeau is covering that for you. there are problems at the panama canal and jane wells is on that story. let's take a look. a live shot of the panama canal from the panama canal's own web cam. there's a huge construction project that had to be stopped in the middle due to disputes and cost overruns. the final goal is to make the canal larger to accommodate asian super tankers. jane wells joins us in l.a. you covered the panama canal before. give us the details on what this means for the u.s. as it pertains to imports and exports. >> reporter: well, it's all about location, sue. these plans to get these bigger ships going through the canal by next year to the east coast are now in flux as work has stopped because contractors refuse to keep working after canal authorities balked at paying $1.6 billion in cost overruns. let's look again at that live picture. you see nothing happening. there is hope these talks will resume this week to break the deadlock. by the way, the contractors underbid everyone by $1 billion so gee

phil lebeau joins us with more. are they stronger together? >> reporter: oh, i don't think they're stronger together. i'm not really sure that this is an indication that tesla is interested in selling to apple or apple is interested in buying tesla. when you take a look at this report, the thing to focus on is that you are talking about the head of m & a for apple and elon musk, ceo of tesla, having lunch. lord knows what they might have been discussing. but it's certain that musk meets not only with apple executives but other executives at other tech firms out in the silicon valley. he's talked about it openly in the past because he views tesla being as much of a tech company as it is an auto company. as you take a look at shares of tesla, and yes, a head line like the one we saw over the weekend about this lunch date between musk and the head of m & a from apple will get a lot of people interested. you are looking at a stock right now that's really going to move on what happens after the bell tomorrow. that's when tesla reports its fourth qu

i'm phil lebeau live in carlsbad, cal, where breaking news.me out in 15, 20 minutes but the embargo has been broken around country. we have the consumer reports list of the topics as well as top auto brands from annual auto report. according to consumer reports, these are the top five auto brands. number one, lexus followed by acura, audi, a tie at fourth, subaru and toyota. two big stories in the annual auto report. first of all, ford rated as the second worst brand by consumer reports in their brand report cards. the big problem, in-car connectivity. leading to a number of complaints. we've been talking about this over the last couple of days when it comes to ford and the issues they're having with my ford touch. look at shares of ford going back to 2006 because, remember, when alan mulally came in as ceo, liability issues. he went to consume reports and they started to i'm profmprovim. this is the lowest rating. the other big story in this report, tesla rated as the top overall pick by consumer reports. that's the tesla model s. it rated 99

phil lebeau, "nightly business report", chicago. >>> there could be stormy weather in washington, not from mother nature but lawmakers on capital hill. the deadline to raise the debt ceiling is this friday. jack lou warned today time is running out. with tax refunding starting to go out, his office will run out of extraordinary measures to keep the government open for business by the end of this month if congress doesn't lift the nation's borrowing limit. >> at the beginning of tax filing season, tax refunds result in cash flows that deplete borrowing capacity quickly. we forecast that we're likely to exhaust these measures by the end of the month. >> a temporary suspension of the debt limit was passed by congress last year, but that expires this friday. john harwood joins us now from washington. john, let me just begin by asking you about, you know, how investors are going to respond to all of this stuff going on in washington. up until now, there was a feeling we don't have to worry, there will be a bipartisan agreement and all of that. with this huge sell off going off wall street,

>> phil lebeau live from chicago. >>> pleasure to see this market gaining up 124.th dom chu. >> an even bigger gainer is advanced auto parts surging after the auto parts retailer began posting a better-than-expected fourth quarter profit report driven in part by the addition of 151 new stores over the past year. the company is also guiding estimates for profits in the full year above wall street estimates that stock is up some 67%, sara, over the past year. back over to you. >> all right, dominick chu, thanks very much. >>> up next from droughts to blizzards, this winter's weather has been absolutely brutal. we hear the retail blame the weather for bad sales numbers all the time. but is it really a valid complaint? we'll talk to retail veteran and former martha stewart living ceo charles koppelman about the headwinds they are facing after the break. tdd#: 1-888-648-6021 there are trading opportunities tdd#: 1-888-648-6021 just waiting to be found. tdd#: 1-888-648-6021 at schwab, we're here to help tdd#: 1-888-648-6021 bring what inspires you tdd#: 1-888-648-6021 ou

phil lebeau, "nightly business report," chicago. >> by the way, an interesting comment today about general motors from the automaker's one-time long-time vice-chair bob lutz. he says despite loving g.m. there is another automaker that's turning heads. >> i think by and large they're doing the best product lineup of any manufacturer globally right now in terms of value for the customer. but when you look at who's doing a great job, who's the world's biggest, who's the most profitable, who's expanding everywhere, it's got to be volkswagen. they are just hitting on all cylinders. >> in 2013, toyota was the world's top-selling auto followed by general motors volkswagen was third. >>> shares of green mountain coffee roasters percolating hire today. as we told you last night, coca-cola is taking a 10% stake in green mountain. the folks behind those keurig single serve coffee machines that many people have in their homes. investors are bullish on the partnership on the belief it could be a game changer in the at-home soda making industry. sarah eisen has more. >> reporter: k cups for coke, streit

. >> let's move to chicago now and see what it would mean for the auto industry, phil lebeau covers that making of this report? >> my read is similar to what josh was just talking about. i do not think that elon musk is looking to sell tesla to apple. i do think that elon musk meets not only with executives like the head of m&a from apple but others who are leaders in the tech industry. he also meets on a regular pbass with other ceos in the auto industry. i think more likely the genesis of this meeting wax either the apple m. & a expert getting together with elon musk and when you look at tesla and how much the stock has gone up over the last year about their plans not only for the model x but future models, they'll be building a factory relatively soon, his focus at least for tesla in the foreseeable future is building tesla continuing to build it as an automaker and independent automaker not selling the company. >> phil, does elon musk have access to cheap capital? i mean, does he have all the cash that he needs or could he conceivably need to bring in some cash in some form and have

phil lebeau, how bad is it? >> a record-setting day, kelly. for flight cancellations in the u.s. in more than three years. the total numbers, and these are the numbers within the last 15 minutes from flightaware.com. nearly 6700 flights canceled so far today. more than 5400 delayed. the biggest impact for any single airline, delta. washington-dulles, this is the best video we've seen all day long. most encouraging video. they have reopened one runway. just one so far at dulles. meanwhile, reagan, the runways remain closed. 20% of the flights in the u.s. canceled today. think about that. there are 30,000 every day. we've already seen more than 6,000 cancellations. charlotte-douglas feeling the biggest impact. 81% of its flights canceled today. this year has just been a disaster for the airlines. more than 73,000 flights canceled here in the u.s. that works out to an average of almost 1700 flights canceled every single day. passengers impacted, 4.9 million. in fact, i just got an update. they say it's now 5.6 million americans impacted. bottom l

phil lebeau has that in chicago. good morning. >> good morning.ct strong sales numbers from ford or any of the automakers for the month of january and that's what we're getting from ford. a decline of 7.1% for the month of january. that is slightly weaker than the estimate from edwin's a decline of 6.1%. ford announcing in the sales numbers that the weather impacted sales. i should point out to you, i've talked to a number of dealers and we've talked to automakers, they believe weather did take a significant number of sales off the table because people didn't go into showrooms. but ford down 7.1% for january and two quick notes. nissan, up 11.8%. subaru up 19%. we'll get gm numbers shortly been. >> you. >> weather, weather. >> taking your temperature on cars, they've already said 2014 pretax will be lower than last year. >> right. ford had that big -- i thought that they would cut the loss in europe, and latin america's tough. ford did not have the quarter i wanted to see. but the weather, i mean, look, the weather this week, i just feel for retai

want to get to chicago and phil lebeau has breaking in u.s. on gm. phil?david, we got a big recall being issued by general motors, the company recalling 619,000 m models 2005 to 2007, primarily the chevy cobalt. the recall is due to an ignition switch that may fail to send a signal, a proper signal, to the air bags for those air bags to deploy in the incident of a crash where the air bags should be deployed. general motors recalling 619,000 '05 to '07 models, again, because the ignition switch may not send a signal for the air bags to deploy. we do know there have been some deaths and injuries related with this recall. we'll have more information throughout the day and we'll let you know about it. david, back to you. >> all right, thank you, phil lebeau. >>> coming up a first on cnbc interview with cbs's leslie moonves and we'll ask him for his take on the time warner/comcast cable deals. but carl joins us from sochi with golden nuggets on the winter olympics. "squawk on the street" will be right back. (vo) you are a business pro. seeker of the sublime. yo

fill phil lebeau will have the numbers as soon as they cross. >>> shares of twitter sinking, twitterd revenue beat the street. that was not the problem. investor they are using a key measure of user engagement. twitter down, coffee is up big. coca-cola, buying a 10% stake in green mountain coffee roasters. gmcr for $1.3 billion coke will help launch a new cold drink machine. planned reless for october. if you own gmcr this morning, celebrate, take the day off work. the stock is up 42% right now. 42% from gmcr. herb greenberg, i'm going to rouse him out of bed with a wakeup call. he's been a critic of gmcr. rival soda stream are down 8%. >> the fact that coke will be doing this could change the whole business. they have machines at these places, too, in addition to big soda machines where you get the can. maybe you won't need the can anymore. >> the expectation for the market is this could become even more of a partnership. >> think about the distribution network that gmcr is now gaining. >> right. >> i assume they'll get all of the power of coca-cola's distribution or at least some o

phil lebeau joins us with that story and a special guest on it. >> hey, thank you.xas autodealers association, and bill, you saw that the possibility that tesla may put the new giga factory in texas, and would you like to see that in texas and 6500 jobs there? >> absolutely. it is a great place for any new company to come, and establish a plant. the conditions are prevalent in texas to provide the greatest opportunity for success for tesla or anyone else who wanted to come down. >> and having said that, texas is also one of the few states that does not allow tesla or any au automaker to sell directly to consumers, because you have to sell to a dealership, and that is how tesla's business model works and what about the possibility of a trade, you bring the plant down here, and we will change the laws and allow you the sell your cars directly? >> well, the majority of the states in the country prohibit direct sell big the manufacturer in some way. tesla is going through some loopholes and the state laws and they have gotten licensed in states where it is actually ille

let's bring in phil lebeau with more. are we talking about safety here, phil?mplaints that people who own 2011 model year vehicles have registered with jd power, more than 41,000 people filled out forms saying here's what i don't like about the vehicle i'm driving. these may not necessarily be problems that indicate the car's going to break down or there is imminent safety issues but they are issues for people who bought a 2011 model year vehicles. it is down for the first time in 16 years according to jd power. owner of 3-year-old vehicles in particular complaining about engine issues. especially those who bought four cylinder engines. they are saying they are not performing the way expected. here's the leaders in terms of vehicle reliability. lexus leads the way. lexus for the second straight year is the leader and it has extended its lead followed by mercedes, cadillac, acura and buick. cadillac and buick in the top five, dependability for 3-year-old mods is improving, they really stand out among the big three. all four of the gm brands rated as having fewer

. >>> phil lebeau in chicago as you see, frozenomics affecting practically every sector you it think of. phil is at o'hare around in chicago. 1,500 flights cancelled so far. 3,800 delays. phil, welcome. >> reporter: you know, tyler, just talking about newark. 61% of the flights out of newark today cancelled, but i have good news for you. i've been reporting mounting cancellations all day. one runway, at least one, has reopened at dulles airport in washington. so perhaps we might start to see flights over the next couple of hours there. here are the totals, and they continue to rise throughout the day in terms of flight cancellations and delays. when you look at cancellations, 6,200, more than 6,200 cancelled so far according to flightaware.com. more than 3,700 delayed. the most impacted, delta. 37% of its schedule canceled today. the worst day for airlines cancellations in the united states in three years. the ripple effect, sure feeling it most in the eastern half of the united states, but across the country, out in san francisco, they're noticing the impact of flights cancelled, and

phil lebeau has the latest developments. >> this is a historic vote taking place in chattanooga, tennessee voting on whether they want to join the united autoworkers. they vote through friday night. at least one worker explained to us why he's interested in joining theu aw. >> we don't have a seat at the global works table and we need to have chattanooga there. we need to be there to raise our hand and say we need another car here, bring it to chattanooga, we're ready. >> the stakes could not be bigger for the uaw which has been shut out of the deep south. it's membership peaked at 1.5 million in 1979, dropping down to 355,000 a few years ago. one labor professor says when you look at what's at stake for the uaw, this could be the beginning of a turn. and there you have a shot of volkswagen versus general motors over the last year, actually volkswagen alone. kelly, this vote goes through friday night and for the uaw, big implications if they can actually convince these 1500 members to join the uaw. kelly? >> certainly. stay with us, if you would, joining us in a first on cnbc interview is

this is phil lebeau's fascinating look at the fight between texas and tesla. cars there. they have to go through a dealership. with elon musk coming out and saying, i might build this $5 billion factory there with 65,000 jobs, you might want to rethink that law. and phil did a marvelous job writing it up. yesterday, we talked about good headline words. black swan, is one of those terms. >> my guess is to what piece you're referring to. >> mr. jeff cox gave us a flock of black swans. he says they're circling wall street. an indicator that a lot of guys look at to see whether or not something is too good and people buying cheap protection. it's up right now. everybody is going, jeff, you cracked the 20,000 mark on that already. and my final one for you. nbc is looking at areas where some people are saying, hey, if there's a minimum wage hike, maybe we won't tip as much anymore. and it pits the lower middle class against the working class. a fascinating read. a lot of people reading that. the best part of that is the comments. there's something to enrage everybod

phil lebeau is joining us live from chicago. k has bounced back today in part because of some of the analyst reports out there. sd scott, underlying miss, not as bad as headline appears. here's the headline number and this is why the stock was under pressure earlier today. general motors earning 67 cents a share. 21 cents below what the street was expecting. two ways to look at this. glass half empty, glass half full. on the half empty side, the european operations and the international operations overall. in europe, general motors lost $345 million in the fourth quarter. yes, that's an improvement compared to the same quarter in 2012. but international restructuring in 2014 is going to cost general motors more than a billion dollars. so there's still more work to be done there. on the glass half full side of the equation, north american profits jumped 40% and what we're really noticing, the profits are being driven by stronger pricing on new model, up about $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter. that's why when you take a look at s

phil lebeau speaking with gm's chief financial officer.ng higher, what's going on? >> part of the conference call with ceos and when you look what they said on the conference call no panic. no, hey, things are collapsing around us. it was more a case of we know we had issues in the fourth quarter and believe that the 2014 will be even better. keep in mind, gm eps for the fourth quarter, 21 cents below estimates, blaming that on a higher tax rate and cost of restructuring in europe. fourth quarter revenue, by the way, fell short of estimates. why are some on wall street still bullish about gm after the earnings report? first, a number are saying, the headline miss was overblown. also, when you look at losses in europe, they're down more than 50% in the fourth quarter and for all of 2013. and north america, the profits are surging. here's what mary bara had to say to analysts when asked during the conference call if she plans to tweak or change the direction of gm. >> there's no right or left turn. i think a real opportunity is to accelerate

phil lebeau is, too. what does it mean for the airlines, phil? >> reporter: just look at the map. you can see where this storm is at and where it is headed. it's hitting all of the major hubs. we talked about this over the last couple days. going through atlanta, that's clearly impacting delta. as it moves up the east, you have a number of the major airlines who have hubs in d.c., new york, boston. so far, this storm the havoc it's wreaking is primarily in the south and southeast. atlanta has canceled more than two-thirds of its flights today. charlotte canceled more than half its flights. here are the latest numbers. these will likely continue to grow throughout the day. according to flightaware.com, 3266 flights have been canceled. keep in mind, about 30,000 flights for the entire u.s. in a day, so more than 10% have been canceled. you see the delays, more than 4,000. not surprising that delta has been the most impacted airline. as you take a look at the chart of delta over the last month, i get this question a lot from people, it's been a terrible winter for the airlines. why a

meantime, out to phil lebeau in chicago. with him on a couple of stories most notably and primarily tesla's plan, phil, to take over the auto business. >> well, they'd love that, but they're a long ways from there. they're planning to build a huge gig georgia factory cranking ot battery packs and cells to power 500,000 vehicles. the race is on when it comes to where that gig georgia factory -- where it will -- get to that. willwhere it will be located. four states are finalized. arizona, nevada, new mexico and texas. we'll see soon which gets the location. tesla raising 1.6 billion through convertible notes. that will go towards funding the gig georgia factory. switch from tesla to general motors, which is now under an investigation from the national highway traffic safety administration. looking into how gm handled the recall of 1.3 million ignition keys. remember, those ignition key, faulty key, all the way back to 2003, linked with 13 deaths. gm could be hit with a major fine. more lawsuits. today gm issued a statement sa

here to break it down, phil lebeau, and denny kelly a former pilot. we talked about the 25-year high in terms of flight cancellations. how much is the pilot shortage playing into this? >> i'm not sure the pilot shortage plays into the latest round of cancellations. look, most of this is weather-related, but there is a broader issue here, and that speaks to the fact that you have a number of the regional airlines who are servicing the large main line airlines who are complaining about a lack of pilots out there to hire, and that combined with the fact that they are finding the pilots who they bring in are not really willing to go with the pay that goes along with being a regional airline pilot and more training that is required. you put that altogether, you have got airlines like republic saying we're going to pull back in terms of the number of flights we're going to put out there in terms of servicing the large main line carriers. >> mr. kelly, what can you tell us about what it's like being a pilot? >> well, you know, it's a great job, and it pays w

phil lebeau will join us next.>> and when you think of i-robot, you probably think of robotic vacuum cleaners. did you know they also make robots for the military? we break down that fast growing part of the business coming up later on "the closing bell." stay tuned. announcer: where can an investor be a name and not a number? scottrade. ron: i'm never alone with scottrade. i can always call or stop by my local office. they're nearby and ready to help. so when i have questions, i can talk to someone who knows exactly how i trade. because i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. that's why i'm with scottrade. announcer: ranked highest in investor satisfaction with self-directed services by j.d. power and associates. >>> welcome back. general motors shares were down sharply after the company reported earnings, only to stage a rebound later on in the session today, turning shieligh positive. our phil lebeau has been following this all day. what's going on? >> a lot of people saying the headlines were overblown t

our very own phil lebeau is in chicago where it's a balmy 20 degrees. that a fair thing to point to, the weather, considering not all the automakers did badly. >> i think it is a fair thing to blame it on, mandy. when you take a look at those automakers who are most impacted, they have the heaviest concentration in the eastern half of the u.s. we just received word that the january auto sales rate, 15.24 million vehicles, that compares with the estimate that many on wall street were expecting just of two or three weeks ago of 15.7 million. basically 12.24 on par with where we were last year. look at the sales numbers for the month. they were terrible across the board. if you see where the impact was, it was greatest on the eastern half of the u.s. the central u.s. down more than 10%. eastern half, down 1.9%. and then you see the southeast down anywhere from 1% to 5%. the west coast is the only area where you saw any kind of a growth in auto sales. no surprise, they really didn't have any bad weather on the west, and that's why you saw sales generally ok

phil lebeau assessing the damage for us. hey, phil. >> ugly numbers, kelly.ook at it ugly numbers for the month of january for the auto industry. when you look at the sales pace compare where we came in in january versus the annual sales pace. 15.24 million for the month of january, and there you can see many people saying, well listen, we should have been closer to 15.6 15.7. fell well short of that. sales on the eastern half of the united states were below expectations. on the eastern half of the u.s. and in central u.s. they were down 10% according to ford. that was for the industry. the automakers say the problem is there simply weren't people coming into the show rooms. traffic was down. picked up a little in the middedle month when the storms went away but then it got bad towards the end of the month again. they're not changing guidance when it comes to sales for february or for the first quarter. take a look at these number. i said they were bad. all below expectations. chrysler, even though it was up 8% that was below expectations. stocks, this he too

phil lebeau, we meet again. a long day for both of us. what's changesed in the past 90 minutes to change investors' minds on gm? >> the conference call went a long ways towards reassuring analysts on wall street general motors is not falling off a cliff. the plan remains in place when it comes to restructuring in europe and turning things profitable over there. europe is a big focus for some. we talked about it on "squawk box." what's changing in jurpeurope? keep in mind, losses ofs 3 $$34 million, and $50 million entire year, down about 50% compared to 2012. so when you look at those losses, yes, it's a 14th straight year of losses but they have dropped considerably. also, keep in mind, gm will close a plant in germany this year. they still have restructuring costs but expect to see the benefits of that closure, the job reductions. they expect that to kick in and that's why when you look at shares of gm today, a lot of people are saying, okay. maybe the headline was overblown in terms of people selling it off. >> phil, didn't mean to jum

. >> phil lebeau, thank you. >>> breaking news with scott cohen. over to you. >> a little follow-up, mandy. we told you earlier today about the attorney general eric holder hospitalized after feeling faint and short of breath. we understand he is resting at home according to a justice department spokesman. eric holder is 63 years old. he had fallen ill during a meeting with senior staff this morning. nbc's pete williams says that holder had been feeling under the weather for several days, and that this might be related to that, but eric holder is doing just fine at home. back to you. >> good news for the attorney general. scott, thank you. >>> on deck, the buy dos and buy don'ts of chinese stocks. laying out the best bets for your money. >>> plus, are you ready for today's mystery stock? >> i'm ready. >> are you sure? i didn't tell you who it is. >> i have no idea. >> there is your hint. that picture. >> that's -- >> gomer pyle, suggests the name of this company. >> still in the dark over here. >>> later, why wear and tear on your tires could until

phil lebeau with more on consumer reports' top cars list and a first on cnbc interview with consumer reports. phil, over to you. >> reporter: thank you, sue. this is an important report because it really is the benchmark thisat a lot of peopl use. four major story lines coming out of the latest annual auto report from consumer reports. the big one, tesla model s is the best overall, top overall pick of all cars in the survey. ford falling to second to last among auto brands and chrysler has a big win. for the first time in 16 years, it has a brand that is a top pick. the ram 1500 is the number one pickup in the eyes of consumer reports and non-japanese brands have surged in the latest survey by consumer reports. let's bring in john linkoff from consumer reports. a lot of important stories here. tell us first why you gave a rating of 99 out of 100 for the tesla model s. >> well, the tesla just really impressed us significantly in all aspects of testing, driving. look, it gets 225 miles on a single charge so that's head and shoulders above any electric car out there in comparison. yes,