. >> i'm scott cohn. if you want to understand the real world effects of a weak u.s. dollar, make a run for the border. that's where we are. that's detroit, michigan, behind me. this is windsor, ontario. we're serving of cents on the dollar. >> while business might be improving, the online auction house still faces a pitched battle. where momentum is alive and well. what's up with skype. it's involved in litigation and it's a huge strain on the ebay cycle. >> stocks are higher on earnings news thus far. financials and technology leading the way. we also have a really important s.e.c. vote on regulating the so-called dark pools that are really important to some of the big banks out there including goldman sachs. bob pisani kicks it off. bob. >> interesting day. the big story is some of the financials. wells fargo is the most important stock of the day. they had big loan losses. the company is consisting the consumer loan losses will peak in the first half of 2010 and total credit losses should peak at 2010 overall. with oar trying to get a handle on when they're going

bankruptcy trustee turning up the heat on one of madoff's investors and cnbc's senior correspondent scott cohn is here and has the details. >> i'm feeling comcastic and we'll leave it at that. onto madoff. jeffrey pick hower and his family and friends may have received more than $7 billion from madoff over the years. he says he's a victim. madoff a long-time friend callously betrayed his trust. that came from a motion to dismiss a sued against him by irving picard. he's putting a finer point on the charges. that he knew or should have known he was benefitting from a fraud. the sums received were staggering by any measure. $7.2 billion. nearly $2.5 billion in just the last two years. the accounts were riddled by obvious fraud including backd backdated trades. net worth according to the magazine of $1 billion. he's no stranger to controversy. then there are the charities he set up and their dealings with companies picor effectively controlled. he insists he did nothing wrong. saying picard's allegations don't make sense, but picard has actually upped the ante. he said over the summer that maybe

. >>> i'm scott cohn with your cnbc market wrap. a major sell-off on wall street today. the dow lost 203 points, the biggest decline since the beginning of july. the s&p down 27 points and nasdaq fell almost 65 points, a 3% decline. manufacturing activity did fall unexpectedly in september but the index remained above 50. that means the sector is still expanding after 18 months of declines. >>> a surprise jump in first-time jobless claims bounced fwhoirnlg report showing the pace of planned layoffs is on the decline. and a quarter tally shows federal and local government jobs have seen the biggest cuts since the beginning of the year. second hardest hit was the auto industry. >>> there was some good news today. the housing secretary continues to improve, pending home sales leapt 6 1/2% from august. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now back to "hardball." >>> welcome back to "hardball." president bill clinton gave extraordinary access to a story to taylor branch. hell of a historian. he wrote all about the martin luther king years. during his eight years

. >>> we want to go back to our headquarters, scott cohn with the breaking news desk with news. scott? >> more insight. more on the supreme court's decision not to hear joseph nacchio's appeal, former ceo of quest. the question they were looking at is what constitutes insider trading. nacchio's attorneys were hoping they would get clarification on that. nacchio claimed that some of the things that he -- the supposed material information he had was much more information than any ceo should be required to disclose. he also was appealing whether an expert witness that the defense could have exonerated him should have been allowed to a hear. but the high court not hearing that case. the other ceo case that we are waiting to hear word about is the case of former enron ceo jeffrey skichilling, which the justices considered to hear the case considered last week and we thought we might get a ruling on that today as to whether they would hear that. jeff schilling is appearing on whether what might be considered an esoteric issue here. but pretty important, and that's the question on wheth

scott cohn is outside the federal courthouse in brooklyn for a look at what is at stake. scott?what's at stake with no one higher up the ladder charged with blame. even on wall street few people have heard these names, but right now these two guys have the entire financial crisis on their shoulders, at least as far as the law is concerned. ralph managed those two bear stearns hedge funds that went bust in the fall of 2007 costing investors some $1.5 billion. bear stearns went belly up not too far after that. matthew worked for chiaffi as they managed these funds in the thick of the subprime melt down that they seem to know was going on long before investors did. they knew, it seems, according to the dime, that their funds were in trouble. april 22nd, 2007, in an e-mail matthew rights to ralph that the subprime market looks pretty damn ugly. that's an understatement. he says if the reports are true, i think we should close the funds now. but in a conference call three days later with investors, no sign of any of that. tannin tells investors we're very comfortable with where we ar