do final trades. murph kick us off first. >> buy unh. >> i like hertz. >> joe. >> i like being long. agrium. >> huntsman the chemical maker like this. >> that does it for us. have great rest of the day. follow me on twitter. "power lunch" picks it up now. >> "halftime" is over. "power lunch" and the second half of the trading day start right now. >> time to celebrate, crack open the bubbly, the s&p 500 above its all-time closing high, just a whisper away from its interday high. how should you play it right now? but all is not great. talking about revenue and red flags. how much do you need to fear. corporate reports today. all that d.c. drama for three-month reprieve, thanks a lot, congress. a temporary deal in place but the outrage is pouring into "power lunch" today from ceos large and small. and the american investor feel like this guy on that surf board, like something sinister

is about to bite us in the assets. sue's out, i'm in, tyler at the nyse. >> all right. great to be with you. futures, of course, this morning a bit of a bleak story, but it's been a pretty good day frankly. certainly for the s&p 500, certainly for the nasdaq compass sit. is wall street worried washington will not get itself together before the next set of deadlines. january 15th to fund the government. february 7th for the debt ceiling. what is the worry here? there's not much if you look at the spx at 1729. i think that's an all-time high interday and the composite look at that, 3856 and that is, what, 140 some points away from 4,000. 90 days away from the government shutdown, maybe another one, 113 for the debt ceiling. the all-time high for the s&p as we said, was 1729 and look, we don't have it on there, but we'll get to it.

1729. the industrials down just 33 points. but a large reason for that is ibm's troubles. it's a high-priced stock and the dow, of course, as bob pointed out, price weighted index. unh down and goldman having trouble. 3 m, boeing, american express those hitting all-time american highs today. the dollar index, gold, take a look at those things and oil just to run you through them, the dollar index a little lower, but gold up $40 at 3% right now and there's volatility, way, way down, calming down big time. let's bring in bob pisani and kenny and our guest from barcelona, ladies and gentlemen. come on forward here. folks from barcelona. a school group. big fans of lie owe flel messy and of equities here. welcome from barcelona. glad to have you here. bob, bring us color for today. hang out. don't go away. >> don't go anywhere. >> this is where it gets good. >> it's a rare day when you see the s&p 500 up a half a percent and the dow is down a quarter

percent. this highlights one of the issue, the dow a price weighted index. when you have ibm down 11 or 12 points, you have 70 points in the dow by itself weighing on it, unh also down about 3 points. >> and newest member goldman sachs under pressure not adding to or sort of adding to negativity. >> the important thing is, it's remarkable the market continues to move up. we've had a lot of concerns about earnings warnings. we had ebay specifically coming out last night saying we're seeing some concerns on the newspaper headlines, we saw a move down in the third quarter in their order they saw, so some of the concerns about the government slowdown are starting to show up in the earnings reports and the issue is, is this going to get to a tipping point where earnings are going to come down, we know they're coming down in the fourth quarter, more than some anticipate. about 9% earnings growth for the fourth quarter. i think the street is fine if it goes to four or five. >> what's been lost in this whole debate over the last

couple weeks, the earnings reports we've gotten. we've seen these companies that have missed on the top line, but no one's been paying attention because everyone was so caught up in what was going on in d.c. now that that's over temporarily, people will start to refocus. >> i came in, thought what am i going to talk about. the politicians, the gifts that keep on going, they're gone. what am i going to talk about? what should we focus on now that has at least temporarily receded or can we not be -- have the luxury of not focusing on washington? >> people will try to start to focus back on the fundamentals and micro data, the earnings reports but the fed is not going anywhere. they talked about october -- >> do that again. >> the fed is not going anywh e anywhere. >> they talked about october, not happening. larry fink came out and said it's at least until 2014, potentially the second quarter of 2014, and so therefore, you know, it's going to be a party in the equities, party in the -- the dollar will get weaker, gold stronger, equities, where will people go.

>> people are dying to buy the market but lower. i call around and say 2 to 5% they want to see it lower. focus on this. earnings guidance gets cautious in the next couple weeks. market dips a little bit lower. down 2, 3, 4%. and you buy. >> stocks going to be higher at the end of the year or lower? >> higher. >> higher. >> higher. >> higher. >> higher. >> they say higher. >> the bulls from barcelona. >> the bulls from barcelona say we're going higher. kenny, great to see you. bob, you. and thank you our guests from barcelona. welcome. melissa? >> tyler, three stocks waving red flags and investors based on quarterly reports released today and yesterday. ibm a two-year low after reporting a 4% drop amid a decline in hardware and emerging markets. hardware hit in china which accounts for about 4% of big blue's business. ibm saying it will be dealing with the impact of china's slowing growth over the next couple quarters. ebay gave a disappointing holiday forecast blaming a weaker u.s. economic environment, the cfo telling

investors that e-commerce has softened and specialty mattress select comfort lowered guidance blaming the u.s. economy. shares of temper and mattress firm also sagging if you will. in sympathy. speaking of waving red flags, china getting aggressive. robert frank will have shocking numbers regarding global luxury goods and chinese buyers but first what does the u.s.'s biggest foreign creditor think of the debt ceiling deal. cnbc's chief international correspondent michele caruso cabrera has china's reaction. >> the chinese are not impressed. >> surprise surprise. >> there's new commentary published by the government control news agency. it says one of many quotes. politicians in washington have done nothing substantial but postponing once again and listen to the wording here, the final bankruptcy of global confidence in the u.s. financial system. additionally a chinese credit rating agency downgraded the u.s. from a my nous to a and the

latest raise of the debt ceiling shows the incapability of improving its solvency improving the basic economic and fiscal elements. the chinese hold nearly $1.3 trillion of u.s. debt only ahead of japan. if they were to sell our debt in large amounts unlikely but not impossible it would cause a sharp rise in our interest rates. another fallout from the debt impasse, president obama canceled remember a key trip to asia to discuss trade and engage directly with the chinese. a very regrettable situation says ian bremer of the uray shah group. >> when obama doesn't show up at the most important asian summit and the chinese are giving speeches and america's allies like the indonesian and vietnamese are sitting there with domestic pressures thinking wow, maybe we shouldn't be following as much of the american model that has a long-term impact. we may be too big to fail. not too big to care. the days of our not caring about what the chinese say have to be put behind us. >> of course what he means there about being too big to fail, if

the chinese were theoretically to sell off our debt and cause a rise in interest rates it would hurt them too. >> the bottom line, no one really pays attention to dagong including the chinese. >> right. >> thank you. china tries to take political advantage of the mess in washington alarm bells are ringing about its economy and the impact on the luxury market. wealth editor robert frank is here with very staggering stats. robert? >> you know, we know that china is really important to luxury good sales but we didn't know just how important until now. a new report from at carney shows that just 2% of china's population consumes one third of the luxury goods. that's a lot of people, around 27 million people, but means that the $270 billion a year luxury industry is highly concentrated on a small segment of one country. two reasons to worry about this 2% number. first, china is not creating wealthy consumers like it used to. the economy is slowing.

they've produced 90,000 million airs over the past year, that compares with 1.7 millionaires in the u.s. france created four times the number of millionaires as china as well as germany. the risk on the crackdown of corruption in china. many gifts are used for politicians but the government is cracking down on officials with luxury life-styles. one government official nicknamed brother watch because he was charged with bribery after web photos surfaced of him wearing a variety of luxury time pieces. a report saying today that the culture of gift giving which fueled so many much that purchases is probably not coming back soon. these risks are already showing up at some of the share price. share prices of louie vuitton, down, due to slow growth in asia and seeing some pressure on tiffany, michael koors and other companies. >> comparison should get easier as the guys are already facing this hit, next year will be easier in terms of the sales.

>> that's the big hope. last year started the slowdown. so -- >> robert, thanks for that. >> to bertha coombs for market flash. hey. >> we're watching gm which is near the highs of the session. global sales rose 4.6% in the first nine months of the year to more than 7.25 million cars and trucks. strong third quarter demand in the u.s. and china were helpful in offsetting declines in europe and south america according to the company. that included a 5.5% increase in third quarter puts. gm ahead of its german rival volkswagen. sales in the first nine months were up about 4.8%. we haven't heard from toyota. tyler? >> thank you very much, bertha. washington has a deal, only lasts about 90 days. about to see a repeat of the fight we just had? well, anybody's guess here. american ceoss are getting a little bit grumpy about the d.c. side show. they're weighing in, next, and we're going to ask what washington has to do to win back

americans' trust and affection. and you think you've got problems. check out this guy. well you can't really see him but you can see his friend there. a great white. is this a metaphor for the american investor. something lurking below. another look at the record-setting s&p index. more "power" in two.

another reason to thing twice before hitting the sun and the surf. take a look at this surf board

off the coast of manhattan beach a few miles south of downtown los angeles. that is a great white shark. it's a baby but already about 8 feet long. sometimes when there's a baby there's a mom or dad shark not too far off as well. watch out. let's send it to bertha coombs for a market flash. >> staying firmly on land at this point. sab miller having a great day. posted better than expected earnings driven by strength of the sales in africa and south america. things are getting better in north america. it is giving a lot of boost to the rest of the brewers today. one of the busiest sectors of the day. melissa. >> bertha coombs, thanks. our congressional leaders kicking the can down the road when it comes to the budget battle in america starting to sound off. >> fed up? >> i am. we need to boot all of the people out and start over in

washington. >> they're not alone. ceos starting to sound off as well. diana olick is live in washington. >> we spoke to willy walker, ceo based walker and dunlap, a finance company, they've done $6 billion in loans this year but walker says last night's deal shows just how out of touch the government is with corporate america. >> at some point the government has got to figure out that all of this crisis to crisis is making it so that ceos of companies are not investing. they're hoarding cash. there is no long-term policy discussion going on whatsoever. so the issues that really need to be, tax reform, pick one, no real debate going on right now because we're caught up in the funding to funding debate. >> walker and dunlap contributed over $63,000 in the 2012 election cycle, the biggest chunk to the republican national committee, if gave to candidate mitt romney, but also to a home state democrat congressman john

delaney. so far walker doesn't see much for his money. >> health care, tax reform, fannie, freddie reform, issues that need real focus and legislation and not getting it. >> all real estate comes down to confidence, both investor and consumer and it is sorely lacking right now. tyler? >> all right. diana olick reporting from washington for us. also from washington, tucked inside that stop gap bill passed by congress last night, billions in spending including an almost $3 billion earmark for senator mitch mcconnell's home state of kentucky. that earmark so incensed fellow senator john mccain he blasted the project as disgusting and ridiculous. politico's ben white compiled a list of some of the items that crept their way in to that bill. ben, welcome back. good to have you with us. what did you find? >> yeah, you mentioned the olmstead lock and dam project. there's a lot of stuff in this bill. that in particular is the biggest one. was at $700 million, somehow in this bill close to $3 billion

for this project and the funny thing about it, nobody wants to claim ownership of how this got in there. the white house says it was congress who wanted it. mcconnell's office says it was the white house who put it in there omar alexander, also benefits tennessee, he says he's responsible for it but a huge boost in that program. other stuff in there, that doesn't have numbers attached to it, but which got funded, joint polar satellite system is one, the geostationary operational environment satellite system, one for raytheon, one for lockheed martin. one thing i found that was hrg interesting is the tethered air row stat radar system, basically a border drone to monitor narco trafficking that was supposed to be unfunded, the obama administration said they didn't want those drones on the border. that came back. so it's funny these things always at the last minute you tend to get a whole bunch of stuff in there that helps out certain members of congress and when they get asked about did they stick it in there, no, that wasn't me. >> that is what we did.

we did call senator mcconnell's office and they said that the senator did not ask for the money, specifically on that particular project we were talking about earlier and to contact senator dianne feinstein of california. lamar alexander of tennessee. senator alexander did send in a statement to us, quote, according to the army corps of engineer, 160 million taxpayer dollars will be wasted because of canceled contracts if this language is not included. senator feinstein and i as chairman and ranking member of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee requested this provision. it has already been approved this year by the house and senate, so says senator lamar alexander in a statement to us. >> what's not in there is any explanation of how we went from $700 million to close to $3 billion. it's one thing to say we got to keep this thing going so these existing contracts don't get canceled but -- and i've asked the white house this question

too, why did the number jump three fold. there are a lot of folks who support the idea of this project thae it's going to help mississippi river traffic, right above the confluence of the ohio and mississippi river but i think americans get frustrated when they see we're raising the debt ceiling and do these things and then tripling spending on a program that nobody figures out exactly why it is we're spending so much on it. we could probably get more answers on that. >> we'll count on you to get them for us. businesses did lose a lot of revenue during the shutdown, so what is it going to take for congress to win back the business leaders who have been really aggrieved through all of this? susan is ceo of ridgewell, the exclusive cater for the house of representatives and it lost more than $200,000 in revenue since the shutdown. susan was with us this week and welcome back. i assume you're relieved the government shutdown is over and some of the events that you might have had on your schedule during those 16, 17 days are

going to be rescheduled. but my question, susan, that we're asking during the day is, is there anything that washington, specifically congress, could do that would win back your admiration, affection, respect for them? >> believe me, i am relieved. this was like a bad reality tv show, so much drama. i'm glad i don't have to watch it anymore. it's really difficult for just kicking -- i hate to keep saying this, everybody is, kicking the can down the road and come january, you know, our clients are going to be saying, hey, i don't want to spend anything in the last quarter because who knows if this is going to happen again in january. so i think they need to get together, they need to do a bipartisan approach to this and get to the real issues and give the confidence back in the american people and small business owners like myself. >> what you would like to see if i can paraphrase and sort of put words in your mouth which i'm paid to do, of course. >> of course. >> you would like some certai y

certainty, the congress, republicans and democrats to come together and make a plan, even if it's not the plan you would choose, having some plan for let's say the next five to ten years, is really what you're after? >> no question. a plan is definitely what we need. it's getting harder and harder for us to make a profit. all of our cost of goods are going up, health care going up. there's so much you can charge for a beef and chicken dinner. it gets out of control. it's just crazy the way our costs have gone up and the unsettlement of the government that we need to focus in on. >> all right. susan thank you very much and continued good luck to you. hope the business bounces back for you. >> thanks, tyler, thanks for having me. >> just in, one more note from washington, the senate clock experts restarting the big senate clock just a short time ago. it had not been maintenanced and wound since the government was shutdown more than two weeks ago. you can't just go in there and wind one like that. it had been stuck at 12:14 for almost two weeks. there with the white gloves, the

gentleman moving it forward there and checking the mechanism of the big senate clock. all is well now, melissa. >> thank goodness, tyler. how well do you think you know your stock broker. how some are finding sneaky ways to keep you in the dark about their customer complaints and we're watching the s&p 500 level flirting with an all-time interday record high. stay tuned. i love having a free checked bag with my united mileageplus explorer card. i've saved $75 in checked bag fees. [ delavane ] priority boarding is really important to us. you can just get on the plane and relax. [ julian ] having a card that doesn't charge you foreign transaction fees saves me a ton of money. [ delavane ] we can go to any country and spend money the way we would in the u.s. when i spend money on this card, i can see brazil in my future. [ anthony ] i use the explorer card to earn miles

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avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today. welcome back to "power lunch." e-commerce today under pressure after ebay had some comments saying that it saw some deceleration in growth in its third quarter and that is impacting some of its competitors. groupon, overtock and amazon. you have to wonder how much the shutdown drama made people just kind of shut down their wallets. >> absolutely. that will be an ongoing theme during earnings season. bertha coombs with that. take a look at this, the s&p 500 sitting near an all-time high today as investors shift their attention from the debt ceiling to fundamentals, earnings. will there be more risk taking and can the market move higher? welcome back joe, global market strategist at jpmorgan funds. >> thank you. >> the mid cap index, small cap

index new record highs in today's session. the s&p 500 flirting with a new interday high. have we just set up for a perfect fourth quarter rally? >> you know, if i take a look at the rally we've had year to date the s&p up 20 something percent the. do i think that momentum in the market is sustainable? unfortunately i don't. but i do think that directionally markets between here and the end of the year continue to move higher. >> substantially higher? what are the catalysts? a change of performance by mutual funds? hedge funds are at the highest level of short interest since the beginning of the year? >> it's on the back of improving fundamentals. a lot of had things. you can talk about the earnings season. today's numbers weren't necessarily spectacular but if you take a look broadly speaking at the earnings season we are seeing decent earnings growth, revenue growth, we're seeing margins remain quite high. i think that's going to be a catalyst. remove something of that uncertainty from washington. now we have kicked the can down the road and, of course, we're going to have to deal with this again. nice to say we put this to bed

and done with it but in the near term it allows inners to focus on the fundamentals. >> take a look at ibm. that's been a major drag on the dow today and what they say in terms of their $1 billion revenue miss, blaming it on the growth markets, ie, china, doesn't that make you concerned or are you thinking this is a company specific problem so we can ignore this data point when we take a look at technology and multi nationals in jen until. >> i don't think we can ignore it. we're seeing this theme play out across technology and by the way we saw this theme play out last quarter as well as you were taking a look at technology companies and many companies highly exposed to revenue across the merging markets given the softness and economic growth we've seen those companies missing. you want to focus your attention to domestically oriented companies and companies that will take advantage of maybe some of the rebounding economic growth we're seeing in europe. >> you like financials which is considered a near sicyclical. when you take a look at the earnings reports from the

financials, driven by cost controls as well as sort of improving credit overall. what is the true organic growth in the financial we've seen so far in your view? >> if you think about the interest rate environment we're seeing in the u.s., everyone's talking about forget about tapering it's not going to happen, not going to happen, in my opinion, it's really a matter of when and not if. i think the fed's trajectory hasn't changed. it's been pushed back a little bit but you are going to see the feds taper and as a result i think interest rates will continue to back up over the next 12 months. you've got a steeper yield curve. it becomes a more profitable environment for financials. as the capital markets continue to improve on the back of improving confidence, i think trading activity and m and a activity will pick you. >> avoid the bond proxies like telecom. thanks for your time. >> joe, of jpmorgan funds. tyler, down to you. >> thank you very much. gold speaking higher a day after washington's temporary debt

deal. prices closing right now. sharon is tracking the information at nynex. >> gold up $40, closing looks like we're going to be above the 1300 level counting down to the end of the session. we have seen gold prices spiking a number of factors, of course, everything that you've been talking about, about what washington has done and how it's the bear minimum, traders are saying. that's one factor they're looking at. short covering here as well. tapering may be put off for a while and we're looking at the dollar because the plunge in the dollar has had a reaction on the opposite side for gold prices. talking about the inverse relationship, look at what's happened to stocks versus gold so far this year. looking at the spy and gld. holdings at a four-year low as we've seen the 20% slide in that largest gold etf. we plight have seen this market that was oversold perhaps some said and maybe we're seeing a little bit of a bounce back but the gld is going to tell you the direction that retail investors

will take gold. back to you. >> sharon, thanks very much. let's check in with bob pisani who's been working the phones and taking notes. what do you got, bob? >> well, ibm obviously is an issue. i want to point out a number of the semiconductors who reported earnings, might have beat, their forecast were poor. this is the thing we've been concerned about, taking down numbers and this is affecting the overall market. cypress semiconductor looked okay on paper but weakness in the global hand seth market, that stock down. fair child semi their forecasts well below consensus, their guidance here. xilinx, concern about the december quarter, growth in the december quarter and all these stocks are trading down 2 or 3% on concerns about the quarter that we're in now, not about the numbers they had been just reporting. meantime a little bit of good news. rates keep coming down, ten-year yield keeps moving down the last few days as you can see that's been a big help to rate

sensitive stocks. home builders, utilities, real estate investment trusts, for example, put them up doing pretty well today, up 1%. in positive territory. i want to note the vix has virtually collapsed in the last few days. we were looking at 19 on the vix just a few days ago to move from 19 to 13.5 is a pretty breathtaking move on the downside and basically means now, of course, is that traders are no longer particularly concerned about the next 30 days. we saw the short-term vix, very vi high, a few days ago, above the longer term vix prices, november, december, january option prices, that has now gone back into a more normal curve at this point. everything has gone back to normal. >> all right. far from normal the s&p 500 a couple points from an all-time interday high, i believe the high is 1729. >> the dow is a few hundred points away. ibm is not helping at all today.

the important thing is i think we're seeing broad support this year, this is not a market that's led by technology stocks, for example, as we saw many years ago. we've had support from health care, for example, which has been particularly strong, we've had reports -- support even from material names that are in there. this has been a broad market advance and every time we get a little bit of a pullback something falls back, like tech or material stocks. pauses in the middle of the year. some other sector -- >> teflon market am i not right? >> even financial markets had pauses, a drag on the dow for a number of years they have now come to the floor. this is the market where you almost, it's not true you can't lose but the fact there is always a new market leader coming forward, whenever materials lag you get the industrials lags, coming else will come up. the reason we're up 20% on the year. even though you get technology stocks the biggest sector of the market and financials, other pieces that keep moving forward that keep things holding you. >> thanks very much.

up town to nasdaq now. sheila dharmarajan is following the big movers there. >> the nasdaq joining in today's market momentum, the nasdaq 100 and composite hitting a fresh 13-year high. bob was talking about the semiconductor stocks taking a hit. there was one notable winner and san disk, biggest winner on the nasdaq 100 after its guidance exceeded estimates. want to mention a company called parker vision, a small cap company we don't talk about a lot but did win a big ruling against qualcomm. a jury found qualcomm did infringe on its patents. back to you. >> to the bond market. rick santelli tracking the action in chicago. >> thanks, tyler. a two-day chart of tens pretty much says everything you need to see. down about 6 basis points and earlier in the session the 5-year and short mary tourties were leading the way, but the ten-year has caught up to some extent. keep in mind, how much of these moves have been due to weight going on in d.c. can be debated

but in treasury's case it wasn't a lot. we had the well worn range of 260 to 265. we're somewhat back in it as you see on the chart to august. dollar index see a two-day chart of that. down boat loads today. much being blamed for what is going on in washington. i personally blame the weak employment reports. the chart reflects the slide that started after the july report which was the weakest in 104,000 in two years, down 5% before we hit the end of september. but we did add another 1% since then. melissa lee, back to you. >> thank you. the power house, we travel to the top real estate markets in america and today hitting charlotte, north carolina. plus, underdog ceo's bank of america brine moynihan bringing the bank back. earnings growing and stock up 25% this year. are these type of ceos better performers. breaking down the talent code straight ahead. [ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance

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auto. brian moynihan has done a terrific job. i think you mention ded $1.6 billion of chargeoffs in the

quarter before the reserve release it sounds like. so that's an annualized rate we'll say of $6.5 billion or something like that of charge offs and now getting down to 70 basis points a year or something in that area and wells was under 50 basis points, so this economy has really come back in that respect. i don't think anybody expected charge offs a few years ago to be as low as they are now. >> well, the classic underdog ceo warren buffett talking about bank of america's brian moynihan, yesterday the bank up 5% over the past year. moynihan taking charge back in 2010. another underdog i guess so to speak is frank blake, ceo of home depot, the home improvement retailer up more than 20% over the past year. mr. blake took charge back in 2007 with it turnaround much in need there, both bringing their companies back from the brink. gordon bestthune former chairman of continental arms and cnbc

chairman, and also eric editor and chief of inc. >> nice to be here, tyler. >> what does it take to be a really good ceo and leader? you had to turn continental around back when it was having its own troubles. what does it take? >> it's like handicapping horses at the race. the dark horse sometimes wins and quite frankly the two men you talked about, were dark horse candidates. i was the darkest of all the dark ones i was by default. being a leader, knowing the business and knowing how to get your people to execute is the whole formula for success. >> would you rather come in as a dark horse, gordon, a little bit underrated or come in with a lot of hoopla, i'm thinking of the gentleman that went to jc penney whose name is leaving me that came in after running apple, he is sort of the antithesis of a

dark horse. >> right. johnson. >> you don't want to get expectations that high. i would rather come in with lower expectations and outperform than vice versa. i think that's the market prefers that too. >> yeah. eric, what did these two gentlemen m moynihan who came in with rather low expectations, wasn't a wall street darling, he wasn't -- he was a lawyer, and frank, what do they have in common? >> one thing they have in common to gordon's point they were both kind of deficient in ka ris na. >> low on the charisma scale. >> diagnosis ka ris na deficiency. but they were good leaders. humility as a lot of people found out is a useful characteristic in a leader. allows you to make it not about yourself, to direct your attention at the people who really count, who are your employees. >> it's not that they didn't make mistakes. mr. moynihan made a couple mistakes, i'm thinking of when he wanted to impose a $5 charge for something that was going to affect -- and he had to reverse that and other things that he

stumbled early. >> he overpromised on dividends and he had a learning curve. and i would say that he learned humility the hard way. but he's brought the company back. he's really got it focused on serving customers. said he's repeated the speech to his staff they serve their customers. >> and frank blake kept it simple returned to the company's retail experience. >> that's right. he cut the company's rapid growth and got back to basics. >> what about that point that eric made about how important humility is in a ceo? >> well, that's true. tyler, there's no formula. i guess we've said that. they say lawyers don't make good ceos, two top guys in the airline business, jeff and richard, both lawyers. there's no formula for success. you just got to know it when you see it. >> all right. gordon, thank you very much. eric, great to see you. >> my pleasure. >> melissa? >> do you trust your stock

broker? how some are finding sneaky ways to hide their negative reviews. plus the power house, we travel to the top real estate markets in america and today we are going to charlotte, north carolina, find out how much home your money buys you there right now.

in today's yahoo! finance question of the day, congress voted to open the government until january 15th and extend the debt ceiling to february 7. what will happen? a 76% say of you will be a mess again in three mopz. 8% say they'll get a deal earlier, 16% say the philosophical divide between the parties will widen. what's coming up on "street signs"? >> top of the hour, tune in. back to work, but because we have to do this all over again in just a few month's time, how do you d.c. proof your portfolio. a couple guests weigh in on that one. ever wonder weight in your etf like a home building etf, herb

greenberg is going to weigh in on why you shouldn't confuse mattresses with housing and lots more. jim cramer on the show as well. join us for "street signs" top of the hour, back to you. >> thank you very much, mandy. time for our power house. we're going to look at the market in charlotte, north carolina. bonny is an agent with wilkinson and associates era power. let's first take a look at the market year to date. the average sales price, 245,000 and change, 10% up over a year ago. median sales price, 184. 12% year over year higher. month's inventory, 3.7, a 39% year over year decline, average days on the market about 87. bonnie, welcome. let me get a quick thought here. did the government slow down slow your business or tangle it? >> a little bit, yes. >> yes, how? >> well, first of all, usda, they couldn't do any loans

there. getting the transcripts back from the irs, slowed down quite a bit. so i think more than anything, i think it was consumer confidence. >> all right. >> in the market. >> consumer confidence and sort of the recordkeeping and logistics of getting a mortgage through the process. to our first listing, 11346 charlotte view drive. asking 224, 900, three bedrooms, two baths, 1700 square feet, why do you like it? >> this is in the valentine area. you know that area, tyler. it's a great popular area. it has two golf courses in the area. you can walk to shopping, restaurants, you have all the amenities you need and you're not too far from town. it's a wonderful place to live. >> and 2500 in taxes. i will not tell you what i pay. second listing, 1126 saratoga

boulevard, taxes just above 2 1u7bz 00, five beds, four baths, this is a big house. >> it's in the union county area, a fabulous location, and it has unbelievable amenities in this subdivision. it even has equest yal riding across the street, your pool, your tennis, your soccer fields, everything that you could think of it has in this community. it's wonderful and this house is absolutely wonderful. >> how far is it from downtown? >> this one would probably from downtown area would be about 35 minutes. >> about 35 minutes. all right. our power house of the week is at 3734 providence manner road. the list price a comparatively low 729, really 730, taxes just under 10 grand, six beds, 5.5 baths, 7,000 square feet. wow, that's a lot of size for 730 grand. >> yes. this is actually very popular

subdivision. providence plantation. and it has a basement home which you know in our area we don't have a lot of basement homes. so this one has a main bedroom on the main level and then it has another living area on the basement level with a second kitchen, it has a totally updated kitchen which is absolutely beautiful. and then the bedrooms and bonus room on the second level. so this one has a nice yard and it is absolutely a beautiful home. >> that looks gorgeous. how far is it from downtown? >> that one would probably be around 20, 25 minutes. >> beautiful. bonnie, thank you very much for being with us. >> you're welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> melissa. >> no wonder our leaders in congress are so dysfunctional. it's easy to get re-elected. do you find yourself unable to resist just one more oreo? count me in that camp because this sucker is going down. in the break, you won't believe what that craving is on par with. a double stuffed power rundown

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welcome back to "power lunch." i'm jackie with a market flash on darden restaurants up more than 2%. nice midday action for this stock today on reports that it's

hired goldman sachs as an adviser related to activist activity by barrington capital, barrington owns 2% of darden's outstanding stock. in a letter that went public today barrington suggesting changes to improve the share price saying if those are implemented darden's stock could be 69 to 76 a share. >> jacki, thank you very much. power rundown time. bob and melissa with me. check out this headline from "the wall street journal" brokers are able to hide some disputes, apparently stock brokers are routinely scrubbing customer complaints from public records according to a study by the public investors arbitration bar association. folks, i gather that many of these instances, bob, are ones in which those brokers have been given permission to scrub the record, am i not right on that. >> i think that's correct. this is a lot like those hedge fund indexes where you get

survivorship bias. bad ones drop out. never really get a true indication of what's going on with a lot of these hedge funds. look, it's ridiculous. what we need is perhaps a yelp for stock brokers, where people can post on-line reviews. it gets crazy, some of them -- >> what a great idea. >> i think that's a great idea. taking a look at how a broker would have something expunged from the record there is a pro. it has to be approved by an arbitrator and confirmed by a judge. are arbitrators truly unbiased if they are approving a lot of these expudngements where we're saying brokers records are looking deceiving. people should keep in mind when taking a look at records from these stock brokers. >> let's move on to another topic and that is the question of how easy it is to win re-election these days. look at this chart. according to open secrets.org, incumbents who won re-election in the u.s. senate have -- has risen from 79% in 2006 to 91% in

2012. look at the house, has remained above 80% since 2006. it is very, very easy to win re-election, mel lisa, and some people think that's one of the problems we've got. >> you know, being the skeptic, i thought to myself, self, does this have to do with the performance of the stock market, does it have to do with voter turnout. i took a look at that period of 2006 through 2012 and there is no correlation which leaves me to believe perhaps people are just going with the flow. they may not be learning about the issues at hand and voting whoever is in office because that is the path of least resistance. >> there is a little bit of that. i hate congress but i don't dislike my congressman. i hate the senate but don't dislike my senator, bob. a lot of let's just call it creative redistricting that goes on that favors the incumbents. >> particularly in the house, where we're seeing some of the effects in this recent battle over the budget. look, i think it's certainly not

true, necessarily, that we've got some of these issues. for example, i think the problem is the cost is extremely high to get into the senate. tens and some cases over $100 million, that's a barrier to entry, prevents a lot of people from mounting effective campaigns. i don't think it's easy to win re-election. there's a lot of inertia in favor of the incumbent part of which is the cost. >> melissa, i know you know we're long on power on "power lunch," we are short on lunch, but we do serve snacks. i know i speak for all of us, time to break out the oreos because oreo cookies may, indeed, may be more addictive than crack. they needed a study. you heard me correctly. a new study from connecticut college ran some tests on lab rats an found eating oreos activated more neurons in the brain's pleasure center than crack crow caocaine and the rat liked to separate and eat this part of them.

should we be surprised. >> not to be a total geek but the way they did the study, threw the rats into a maze and put on one side these guys, oreos, other side rice cakes. which side would you go to. hello? oreo. >> i would go to the rice cakes. i thought they had a thing where you could get the drug and they favored the oreo, bob? >> yeah. look, not to be the geek as well, but high calorie foods are cheap and some of them at least, by this survey, a bit on the addictive side. that has a lot of public policy implications for people who want to figure out ways to eat better. >> these are very, very good, folks. >> thank you, guys. s&p 500 trading around all-time highs. biggest stock winners when we return. have an oreo.

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take a look at the markets. the dow jones industrial average down by about a third of a percent. ibm a heavy weight there. the s&p 500 we're watching 1729.86. that's the intraday record high. the nasdaq close to a 13-year high. russell and small cap indices hitting new all-time highs.

a look at some of the winners here. pea body, sandisk and verizon. very nice gains there. that's it for us at "power lunch." >> i hope you'll come back tomorrow, will you? >> i liked it so much, back tomorrow. >> save some of those oreos for me, will you? >> i will. >> "street signs" will begin right now. the good news is we have a debt deal. the bad news, t minus 90 days until we're back at square one with the same fight ahead and more bad news, we still have the same congress. we're hitting all kinds of stock stories but we want to hear from you. what do politicians need to do to win you back? >> okay. with a deal in the books this is where the markets are standing. small and mid caps are at all-time highs. the s&p 500 has taken out its record close of 1725, and it is really only a few points from