nicole joins us from cnbc headquarters. good morning. >> reporter: a very good morning to you. futures are positive this morning. a little bit of carryover from yesterday's wall street gains. stocks are rising of course on upbeat earnings from alcoa and higher commodity prices. we also get data on import prices this morning, and the fed will put out its latest beige book report this afternoon and that could really provide this road map of sorts for the fed's next policy meeting that's coming up in two weeks. the dow rose 34 points on tuesday to 11,671. the nasdaq composite added 9 to 2716. we are watching oil prices very closely this morning here at cnbc. they are holding above $91 a barrel this morning. that's after the operator of the transalaska pipeline finally got government permission to temporarily restart production. this is a big, big teal because there is this 800-mile stretch of pipeline that has been shut down since early saturday because of a link at the pumping station. the aim is to warm things up, prevent ice from building up on the line which could cause even m

jon fortt covers the tech sector for cnbc and is with us tonight from silicon valley in san jose. john, this company is as closely associated as ralph lauren is in the clothing business with its inventor. steve jobs is identified as the guy who says things like the ipad aren't cool enough and need to be improved. so what happens to apple in the event of his absence? >> that is the question, brian. and indeed, jobs leaves the company in capable hands during his absence. tim cook, the chief operating officer, has run this company before. in 2004 jobs was out for pancreas surgery. in 2009 he was out for a liver transplant. and this time cook is taking over again. we don't know how long this time, though. last time they said six months. this time we don't know how long. here's the question. steve jobs is the taste maker at apple. he's proud of the fact that you can fit all of apple's products on one board room table. it's what you leave out, not what you put in. if jobs doesn't come back or doesn't come back quickly, will apple be able to make those very sharp decisions about what to

. >>> now to wall street, cnbc's erin burnett joins us from the new york stock exchange what are investorstoday? >> trying to make it six days in a row of girns the market. disney, one example, a ten-year high this morning. part of the optimism coming from a key jobs survey which showed that we had the biggest one month of job creation in december than we have seen in ten years some, that is adding to the optimism here on wall street w today, the focus will be on retailers whether people getting those jobs are actually spending the money in the stores that will be key, but context, ann is really important we start to say, are we getting took a new all-time high for the market? is the economy getting took where it was before the financial crisis in the answer is not yet. if you look at the dow, we are still 17 1/2% behe low the all-time high we hit in october of 2007. so we are starting but not there yet. >> erin, thank you so much. >>> finally now, a swedish couple on a long-distance ice skating expedition had to be rescued when an ice breaking ship shattered their rink. they were carried

used and the issue festers. well, i wish we could end on a more on the histic -- optimistic note, but please join me in thanking our panelists. >> more, now, from the fdic. this panel, moderated by cnbc's john harwood, examines challenges facing small businesses. this is an hour, 25 minutes. >> we're going to keep this discussion going. we're going to get down in the weeds on some of these issues and figure out what some of the solutions are given the problems with lending and bank standards that we talked about. got a big panel, let me introduce all of them. first of all, don graves, deputy assistant secretary of the u.s. department of treasury. we are, we're keeping some mystery around the panel. they're hiding op -- on the other side of the wall. there's going to be eight of them, so we've got to get chairs for everybody. if i could sing and dance, i would be doing that at the moment. all right, everybody's coming out. don graves, deputy assistant secretary of the treasury. steven submits, associate administrator with the small business administration. rebecca rainy, chairman and ceo of the central bank of to do, anthony lowe from the federal deposit insurance corporation, john harr

cnbc and cnbc.com. good morning, guys. >> good morning. >> so many great questions as we always do. let's get to it. first up we have a viewer joining us on skype. connie fromely panel? >> my question is this. our twins are seniors in high school and will be adending college this fall. they will be taking out stafford loans for as much as they can. my husband and i will be squeezing our budget as much as we can and making up the difference with loans. we know not to take money out of our 401(k), but are we better off to cut back on the amounts that he puts in his 401(k), thus lowering our parent loans, or should we stay at the same rate and take out more in loans? we currently save at a rate of 15% and my husband's 52 and we own our own home. >> all right. connie, great question. i think one a lot of people have nowadays. you don't want your kids to be strapped with big debts already. >> we know the amount of student loans people have exceeds the credit card debt in this country right now. it is a big problem and a really good question and this is actually a viable strategy to think about soft pedalling your contributions for right now for the four years yo