my focus is on the people of new jersey and the job that they gave me. and so all of those considerations are, you know, the kind of hysteria that goes around this because everybody is in that world gets preoccupied with that job. i am not preoccupied with that job. i'll preoccupied with this one. as you can tell, i got plenty to do. so it's not like i got some spare time to spend. yes? because you're rolling your eyes and looking very, you know, d disgruntled that i haven't called on you. i've known brian longer than you. >> you barely talk about a lawsuit. can you elaborate on how you're feel for his role in this and any information that you garnered from him regarding that? you also said that you are one to show emotion. what kinds of emotion? >> i think -- >> in private with -- >> i'm sad. i'm sad. that's the predominant emotion i feel right now, is sadness. sadness that i was betrayed by a

member of my staff. sadness that i had people who i entrusted with important jobs who acted completely inappropriately. sad that that's led the people of new jersey to have less confidence in the people that i have selected, the emotion i've been displaying in private is sad. and as i said earlier, i think in answer to your question, you know, i don't know what this stage is of grief are in exact order but i know anger gets there at some point. i'm sure i'll have that, too. but the fact is right now i'm sad. >>. [ inaudible question ] >> let me clear something up about my childhood friend david wildstein. >> i met him in high school, he's a year older than me. david and i were not friends in high school. we were not even acquaintances in high school. i had a high school in living on the, a three-year high school that had 1800 students in a

three-year high school in the late '70s, early 1980s. i knew david wildstein was. i met david on the tom kaine for governor campaign in 1977. he was a youth volunteer and so was i. really after that time i completely lost touch with david. we didn't travel in the same circles in high school. i was the class president and add leet. i don't know what david was doing during that period of time. and then we reacquainted years later in, i think, 2000, when he was helping bob franks with his senate campaign against jon corzine. we went 23 years without seeing each other. and in the years we did see each other, we passed in the hallways. so i want to clear that up. it doesn't make a difference except that i think some of the stories were written impugn an a emotional relationship and closeness with me and david that doesn't exist.

i know david. you know, i knew that bill baroni wanted to hire david to come to the port authority and i gave my permission to him to do it but that was bill's hire. he asked for permission, i gave my permission for him to hire david. let's be clear about the relationship, okay? and how do i feel about david now? listen, what i read yesterday makes me angry. that's the one bit of anger i felt. that language and that callous indifference in those e-mails from david yesterday are just over the top and outrageous. and should not have been written a or uttered from a person in a position of responsibility like that and those sentiments. that's what i feel about it. >> you said you haven't spoken

to bridget kelly or -- >> i made my -- >> you said -- >> john, i said i haven't spoken to them since i discovered the e-mails. but i spoke to them beforehand. and bridget clearly did not tell me the truth. and bill, you know, what he told me at the time is not contradicted by the e-mails, but the e-mails and the color and character of the e-mails have led me to conclude that i don't have confidence in his judgment any longer and that's why i asked him to move on and he has. so, you know, at this point, there are legislative hearings that are going to come and all the rest and i don't want to get myself in the middle of that. chairman said clearly yesterday that he intends to ask bridget kelly and bill stepien to testify and my gut sense is, john, that it wouldn't be appropriate for me to get in the middle of that because then

there are would be other allegations about those conversations. the smarter thing for me to do is to ask for those two folks who i made terminations regarding their future to move on from there and talk to other folks still in my employ. >> are there other names in your inner circle in those e-mails? names that you see or the like? are you confident that they are, you know, fine? >> i believe -- i believe that i've spoken to every one who was mentioned in the e-mails except for charlie mckenna who is away at a family funeral. and i am confident based on my conversations with them that they had no prior knowledge nor involvement in this situation. there was nobody on my staff who had any knowledge of this issue until after the issue was already done. in the back, yes?

[ inaudible question ] >> it's awful. i've also seen conflicting reports of what the cause of death was, but it doesn't matter. it's awful to hear. again, listen, all i can do is apologize for the conduct of people who worked for me. i can't do anything else. i can't reverse time. if i could, believe me, i would. but i'm just going to apologize. i think that's all you can do. there's really nothing else you can do. david? >> governor, along the lines of doing the job as governor that you have said that you're focused on, regaining the trust of the people of new jersey, a lot of people are upset about this and shocked. the first couple of years you were governor you did a lot of town hall meetings, traveled all over the state, spoke to people. any thought about possibly trying to do something like that

again? >> oh, well, we clearly are a going to do town halls in the second term. we suspended town halls during the campaign because of concern that folks may raise the issue of in the midst of a campaign blurring the line between what was would be a town hall event and what would be a campaign event. during the campaign we made the determination we weren't going to do town hall meetings as the campaign heated up to avoid that concern. and, you know, i certainly had no plans to do it during the transition. i was trying to get through the transition. but we certainly intend to do town hall meetings in the second term. and try to do, you know, hopefully as many as we did in the first term. i enjoy the town hall setting and process. the fact is, david, you know, i think -- i don't believe i've lost the trust of the people of new jersey. i think the people of new jersey are looking to see when mistakes are made, how their leader is going to react. and i believe that when they see me take the action i'm taking today, that they will say,

mistakes were made, governor had nothing to do with that but he's taking responsibility for it and he's made the decisions that need to be made and has promised us he will continue to make those decisions if necessary going forward. michael? >> governor, two questions. do you think david wildstein will go before the transportation committee this afternoon and tell everything that he knows? >> listen. that's between david and his attorney. he's represented by counsel now. i would love to hear the whole story for my own purposes. but i can't, you know, advise them what to do. someone represented by counsel is going to make his own judgment. >> encourage them? >> i just did. i would like to hear the story but i don't want to be in the position of instructing someone to do something because they're represented by council. he and his lawyer will determine what they believe is in their best interest. certainly, you know, hearing the story would be good for everybody. >> governor, who initiated this -- >> i don't know. i don't know. i mean, listen, up to this point

in time, up to the e-mail's release yesterday, it was senator baroni's testimony that mr. wildstein initiated it at his approval, with his approval. now, you know, i don't know, given some of the e-mails that i saw yesterday. but clearly mr. wildstein played a major role in it, whether it was his idea of anyboinitiation senator baroni testified. time will tell. clearly there was knowledge of this action, whatever it was, prior to the beginning of it with bridget kelly. and that was something that i said in direct answer to angie's question a few weeks ago was not the case. that's what we were told after repeated questioning of all the people around here. and i was lied to. and for that, she's been terminated. angie?

>> governor -- >> that's new jersey governor chris christie, press conference that has gone on for more than an hour now. if you want to continue to watch it it is streaming on cnbc.com. again, to recap some of the headlines. the governor saying he was blind sighted, embarrassed, stunned, humiliated, heartbroken, had no knowledge of this alleged plot to close lanes for political retribution. fired his top aide bridget kelly, saying he will go to fort lee to apologize to the play may your there, cutting ties with some of his closest political advisers and will cooperate with any further investigations. let's get back to fred malek, finance chair at the republican association and a prominent gop donor and former pennsylvania governor ed rendell. how did he handle himself? >> if he's telling the truth i thought he did as good a job he could have possibly done. going to fort lee to speak at mayor and the people of fort lee is a brilliant political step. there are a couple of holes in the stories that he told and

what he said. he said he can't control 65,000 state workers. that's obviously correct. but your deputy chief of staff is one of the three or four people closest to you. and my deputy chief of staff when i was governor would never have even contemplated doing something like this without clearing it with me first. the deputy chief of staff sits in close proximity to the chief of staff and in close proximity to the governor. there's no way -- string to think that the deputy chief of staff would have done this on her own. that's number one. number two, there were two people that the governor did agree to hire at the port authority went along with this. it wasn't just one person. and number three, i think the governor made a mistake when he apologized so much and said he was so saddened by the lying. he should have been saddened by the fact that people in his administration created a real danger, a real public safety danger to the people of fort

lee. i think that was a mistake. and fourthly, fourthly, he still sort of sticking to the story that this was a traffic study. well, as one of questions said, governor, is there any way any reasonable person could consider closing lanes during rush hour was part of a traffic study? so i think that he did well but there are some real holes in it. again, my deputy chief of staff would no more have done something like this -- in fact, the governor said he's instructed his people to come to him and i think his exact quote was, come to me when political decisions have to be made. well, it sure as heck was a political decision. it's hard to believe that a deputy chief of staff would have done this without clearance from the governor. >> fred, the way that he characterized the way that this he responded to it before, callous and indifferent regarding his comments about how he personally moved these cones. he said he was misled by his staff but he also responded to some personal criticisms saying that he's not a micromanager, he's not a bully. given what you know about chris

christie, do you think he did a good enough job of cleansing himself from this scandal? >> well, i really do. i think he hit it out of the park. listen, the markedly leader is how you respond in times of adversity, not how well you do when things are going well. he took on this adversity and took on this crisis decisively. he apologized. he took full responsibility. he did not duck responsibility. he acted decisively. that's the mark of leadership. i think he acquitted himself extremely well and i'm proud of what he was able to do today. i feel for him. i feel for the people of new jersey as he does. but i admire chris christie and if anything, it just increases my confidence in his leadership. in terms of his being the bully, let me tell you something. i've been around this man for five years now. i've been in discussions where he's engaged with people on matters of policy and disagreed vehemently with him. he's a good listener. he's a good dialoguer. he is a good person to kick things around with. he is anything but a bully.

he is a consensus builder. he's demonstrated in the state of new jersey and i think he's going to get back to consensus building and run that state in an exemplar fashion as he has the fa past four years. >> thank you for sticking around after this full hour of coverage. let's go to aeamon javers i washington. >> this is out of a washington playbook on how you handal crisis like this. offering a direct forthright apology to the people of new jersey and people hurt by this instance. he also took effective action here. but one of the things i want to flag for you is that on several occasions here christie raised the possibility that there is more to come out here. there's more that he doesn't know. he said that he would help to get that out if he gets any more information. i think that's worth paying some attention to because you can bet that every political reporter in new jersey is going to be on the hunt now for examples of chris christie's administration doing anything that seems political or

bullying in nature. that's the political problem on him on going. if there's a drip drip drip, that's going to be a problem. >> it's going to be a while before we know that for sure, eam eamon. >> in the meantime, let's get back to headquarter, scott wapner and "the halftime." >> dow is down 46 points. a number of big calls on the street today. trading all of it. we'll talk to some of the analysts as well. nike unveiling the new super bull uniforms in this hour. we'll talk to eagle star he sean mccoy. all that coming up. [ bagpipes play ]

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in a little dorm room -- 2713. ♪ this magic moment ♪ the first half are in the books. here are the highlights so far. >> macy's, for example, trades like 11 times earnings. they're going to buy back half the market crap in the next several years. it could be up 40%. >> alcoa tonight are agreeing just now to pay $348 million to settle charges with the s.e.c. and the doj related to charges of bribing foreign government officials. alcoa and subsidiaries had been charge with vile lating the fcpa

before. >> initial jobless claims moved down 15. that's 1, 5,000 from revised 330. >> ford is making money. increasing give dind 25% to 12 1/2 cents a quarter. >> this is expected the goerd was going to do a 25% increase up to 12 cents a share. >> what about twiter? >> okay, twitter, another analyst comes out. this company is becoming a hated company by analysts. >> health care is leading the way. they've been the big winner. health care and financials so far this year. >> and welcome to the "halftime report." starting line yum, stephanie, steven, simon baker, and joe. let's get straight to our game plan for the second half of the day. tough calls from micron to twitter to jcpenney. the traders give their takes. the real mccoy of philadelphia eagles star, he sean mccoy for the super bowl and his favorite to win the big game.

start with the markets, how you should play them with so much important news ahead. earning season just around the corner. how are our pros playing it? stephanie, to you first. i hear that you can holding the least amount of cash you've had in a long time. >> yeah, because the economy is improving. we feel good about that, right? i don't know if they're going to hit the high end of 250 whisper number tomorrow for the nonfarm payroll numbers. jobs are improves if you look at the adf and ism employment series. look at other parts of the xwli. auto sales still strong even though it was a disappointment for the stocks. numbers are very strong. housing continues to hang in even in the face of higher rates. all of that combines into higher rates that i think are going to continue. good for financials. i do think that the international markets also offer some really good value and the monetary policy easing over there in europe and in japan make those markets attractive, too. that's no change. >> joe, are we going to get this correction that everybody seems

to be thinking is coming or not? >> well, i think the clock is running out on the correction. i think everyone is expecting the correction. i think steph is right, we are seeing the anticipation of accelerating growth. we have room to the upside for that. the one area i have cautioned six days into the trading year, what you have to be doing right now, you have to dissect between exposure to emerging markets and exposure here domestically. i'm short eem, which is the emerging markets. emerging markets are what's holding back the s&p. you see it reflected in the sectors, energy underperforming. >> a taper tantrum is being controlled? >> controlling over overall tape. went you look not just in the equity of markets, look into the emergency market currency markets, you're seeing the volatility that we saw back in august again. >> several tough call on the street today including a big one on micron. rb saying downgrade on january 3rd was the wrong call.

raising its price target today bumping estimates up as well. gutsy move if you ask us on the desk. analyst doug freeman is live on the phone. i made my position known on twitter all over the morning that i thought what you did today was a gutsy move because you're admitting that you were wrong just six days ago. how did you change your opinion? >> well, the rating is remaining sector perform. but the timing of the call clearly to put it out in front of this earnings call is where they exceeded our estimates by a material amount. the timing was poor. >> i mean, the company executed far better than even the most bullish of people expected. were you tempted at all to reverse the downgrade in general? >> i still believe that the pricing environment in the deram market is an unnatural state due to a fire that we've experienced and i still think to put new

money to work in the name we should wait for that pricing curve to return. with that said, with the earnings power the company has, clearly they're probably going to weather it from a higher stock price than we petted. >> what would you need to see at this point to reverse this call? >> i think to get long in stock you want to wait until the pricing dynamics in the market return to why would call a little bit more normal pricing dynamics. so post-fire let's wait for them to get their output back online and see what the depand looks like. the downgrade, we did call for zero bit growth in e ram. zero asp change. those are two numbers the company guided to. one thing i tell you, the company never seems to hit the guided numbers. so what type of confidence do we have that zero and zero are the right numbers. fairly low. thanks for having me. >> doug friedman.

tough call as well on jcpenney. upgraded to buy from piper jaffray. welcome back on the "halftime" show. >> thank you. >> you say the reaction the other day was over done. on what basis? >> we think it was overdone because basically what jcpenney said yesterday was, you know, everything is on track. and we are okay. and the market really just wanted more. they wanted more data points in that release and that's not something jcpenney gave them. they didn't give specific same-store sales numbers for the holiday season. they just said customers are please and we reiterate our points of guidance. >> sounds like a good reason to be skeptical. why shouldn't that make something skeptical if they come out and they say they're, quote, unquote, pleased and don't give any numbers to back it up. >> it's very fair. although part of the perspective that we would offer is that jcpenney is not a company anymore that reports monthly sales. they really only started giving

a few press releases of disclosure going back to august when they were going through some really tough times related to concerns about liquidity. we think what we saw yesterday was management weaning the investor group off of meeting those monthly same-store sales and we think they did nitd a position of strintd. we'll see. >> thanks so much for coming on. >> you bet. >> let's trade both of these names on two of these big calls today. jcpenney first. >> so let's cut through, you know, the garbage of the nuances of what they said, what they didn't say. at the end of the day i didn't see a valuation section in her report which i see in every analyst's report that upgrades. even if i did i would say they're losing money this year in '14. they lost money and they're going to lose money next year. why on earth would you want to own this stock at all? life is too short. it's way, way overvalued. i would rather be short than long. >> you're shaking your head in agreement. >> it was glaring in the report

that there was overvaluation. thought it was interesting she's expecting 620 basis points in improvement in growth margin year over year. i think that is very aggressive. who has visibility in that? even macy's can't give you that much visibility and they just reported a great number. >> let's take micron. what do you make of this reversal, at least on the price target and the estimates. the analysts using the words in his report today that we were wrong. >> the words that i used when it was trading $17 and i told some on the desk here that i believe that it was going down. i'm just as surprised as what has micron has done. i think a lot of what his analysis is is still somewhat suspicious and i would argue somewhat flawed. clearly the glide path looks higher for micron, credit pete and mike murphy who called this from the long side. credit david who identified this. >> simon baker, what do you do with the stock? he's still suspicious, obviously.

you can hear the concern in his voice. what do you do? >> well, we've been long on this stock for a while. this is a difficult group in the commodity space to guess ahead of time. it was difficult in the first place. i didn't agree with his thesis when he came on last week in this particular space, if i was going to own a game, it would be qualcomm. >> another big read, that's twitter. another sell rating. there's piling on. i mean, if there was a tackle and sack, you've got everybody on the field jumping on now. >> you almost feel like facebook last year. sell side, went down. hit a low and on the back side. same thing seems to be happening with twitter. it's all about the valuation side. >> day trading. it's ridiculous. they haven't released one earns report yet. >> facebook is at an all-time high today. william blair had a most note about that. facebook stealing back because twitter had a few weeks ago? >> you've got a company making

money. >> real business. >> what would you rather own? facebook, you know, to me, valuation still egregious. twitter, it's even more egregious. pick your poison. >> four trades on four retail stocks making news today. bed, bath and beyond, crushed, cut the guidance as well. >> 44% run last year. never below the 200-day moving average. you cannot ignore this earnings miss. it's lousy. get out of the name if you own it. >> wise, family dollar. lower first quarter profit. cut the outlook as well. shares speak for itself today how the street is viewing it. down 5 1/2%. >> what's behind it is the question to ask. the question is is it lower income retail buyer that's losing the power for discretionary purposes. i don't know. to me the stock is getting in an area where if it falls a little cheaper i would be interested in stepping up. we've seen this movement forward and also with bed, bath, and beyond. >> let's do macy's. hitting all-time high after the

company issued 2014 profit outlook. december same-store sales beat. simon? retail has been slow. people are concerned about it. this stock was up 51% last year and a lot of momentum going this year. one of the big factors was $100 million cost saving. laying off 2,500 people. the big benefit is traffic coming from jcpenney over to macy's. >> costco, it's in the green after holiday same-store sales topped expectations. stephanie, there it is up today. >> this is just a horse, this company. they are just constantly consistently executing and delivering better than expected comps in a very fragile state of the consumer. and i think the 7% drop the shares had from the high doesn't hurt. we're not involved in it in anymore but i think under 115 certainly would take another look. >> let's move back to the broader markets. red day on the street and more down days than up to start this year and yet another investment strategist is saying european stocks now offer your best bet for 2014. randy brown is the co-chief

investment officer at deutsche asset and wealth management. more than a trillion dollars, joins us live now from new york city. randy, welcome to the "halftime show." >> thank you. >> why are you looking away from the united states? >> we think that the u.s. growth will continue to accelerate but we think that europe has turned the corner. so we had negative gdp growth in 2013. we're expecting positive 2014, europe trades at lower multiple than the u.s. eps growth, we'll be in the 10% to 15% range and people are underinvested in europe. so while we like the u.s., we are called this year is that we like european stocks more. >> they're underinvested there maybe because they're less willing to take on the added risk coming with the reward. >> that could be the case. we do think that europe has turned the corner and is on the road to recovery. if you look at the periphery, it's starting to repair itself,

its balance sheets. consumer sentiment is higher. demand is higher. confidence is higher. so there's a different feeling in europe. clearly there's risk to the comp. it's not going to be a one-way trade. so just like in the u.s. stock market, you know, the earlier calls we could see a retracement. europe is not going to be one way. we do expect it to be higher. >> in terms of where it is exactly in europe that we can be investing. clearly manufacturing recovering. two questions, are you seeing the consumer side, services side i improving and is this recovery just specifically isolated to the uk and germany as those indices of 2013 would represent or is it more broad based? >> it's concentrated in the core but it is more broad based. as i said, we are seeing the periphery recover. but the thesis is really on as the euro weakens and we have seen on increase in exports, particularly out of the core.

that will help drive some of the eps. so sectorwise, we think some of the more cyclical sectors like consumer discretionary industrials, even financials in europe, should benefit more than some of the more interest sensitive sectors. >> randy, thank you for coming on. >> thank you. what do we think of his thesis here? >> you've got to be careful when you talk about europe because the percentage of financials in their indices is higher than the u.s. and those have done well. i don't think it's all that cheap pull france is a disaster in the happening. >> the way you could play it, play it through technology stocks. u.s. technology companies, that they've got 30% exposure on average. >> retail over there is continuing to be soft like it has in the u.s. >> trade of the day is a short play that's coming up right after this break. than we're going to talk to a business owner whose work gives him a very unique insooilt sight into the jobs number before it came out. we'll see what he thinks now and

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welcome back. we are monitoring the on going

press conference here of governor chris christie in new jersey in trenton. he is now into an hour and a half into this press conference taking every single question so far that the media has asked him. the governor said he is here to apologize for an incident in which his aides apparently deliberately snarled traffic on the george washington bridge as a part of a political retribution scam against the mayor of fort lee, new jersey. take a listen. >> i come out here today to apologize to the people of new jersey. i apologize to the people of fort lee, and i apologize to the members of the state legislature. i am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team. >> so far, scott, it's been a textbook performance by the new jersey governor who has apologized. he's also said that he fired the

key aide responsible for this as of this morning. haend says he's going to work hard to find out if there's any other information here that needs to come to public light in this situation. a very tense moment for the governor of new jersey who obviously had national political ambitions for 2016 and possible republican presidential candidate. all that hangs in the balance here in terms of how he deal wsz this scandal. and interestingly, guys, we just saw an announcement from the house, they were scheduled to have a press briefing at 12:45. they have pushed that back to 1:15. they will not say that that is necessarily in response to this but it will have the effect of not stepping on the governor's press conference which is being carried live on cable networks across the country. >> thanks so much. 90 minutes and counteding. that news conference with the governor of new jersey goes on. what if there was a way to know tomorrow's jobs number today? most businesses use background checks for any new hires and that's where sterling systems comes in. they are one of the biggest games in town giving ceo a

unique window into the labor market. last month bill's prediction of 223,000 came close. he's back today with his thought on what the numbers are going to be. steve liesman is here, also. you got darn close next time. what do you think is going to happen tomorrow? >> december is a unique month because you only have 11 days of hiring. once december 20th rolls around everybody shuts down. people go on vacation. retailers have hired everybody they need for christmas already. so how the government really creating the numbers are s. a mystery to me. are they looking at november 15th, december 15th, are they adjusting its seasonality? so it's really hard to predict what the number will be. >> toughest month for you? >> toughest month for me in terms of my business out of the year, by far. 30 years in a row, hiring is down 24% in december as compared to november. it's always worse because the

math doesn't work. >> give us a prediction. >> 190, 195 is the prediction for december. >> steve, how does that sound? >> it sounds good. one of the things that's of interest tomorrow to me is whether or not if that number were to come in weak it would change my view of the job market. and the story to me is there's enough good news around that my conclusion on jobs doesn't rest on this jobs report. i'll name a budge of them. the gdp is the first thing. we relatively strong goet and the kind of growth that should generate relatively strong job growth. the isms, the employment indicators are both higher. the nfib report yesterday along with the adp report shows small business getting into the game. that's important. there's been a bifurcation in this economy between large and small business. i'm going to look at tomorrow's number intently. i'm going to be swayed by the numbers and what happens in the unemployment rate and also with the participation rate but it's not the only thing in my --

>> what steve just said is that december's number you really don't pay attention to because it doesn't give you any indication of a trend. it's an anomaly because you're working with half a month. >> well -- >> hold up. i want you to relax tomorrow morning. just ignore the number. >> never relaxed. >> are you seeing jobs across the board? >> jobs across the board. >> small, medium, large, industries? >> everywhere. >> anything standing out to you? >> hospital tallity is fantastic. aviation is fantastic. health care, continues to be a boom and innovation. and there are so many jobs out there. 4 million unfilled jobs out there. it's reallien education problem that we have in our country to fill these jobs because there's not enough qualified people. >> you think that november is going to be revised upward. >> yes. >> significantly. >> yes. >> we got to go. steve, if november is revised strongly upward, and december

surprises, rates are right at 3%. where are rates likely to go as a result and what is the market reaction going to be? >> i think the markets -- i think the ten-year modest pricing in stronger growth already. to me, 3 3/4 is probably the upside on the ten year. i think it's pretty much there where it needs to be for 3%, 3 1/2% growth. >> thanks so much. clarify, the name of your company is sterling info systems not sterling systems. let's go to the market flash desk. >> airlines flying high led by united continental after the airline announced passenger raef knew per available seat mile increased 11 1/2 and 12 1/2% in december. that gain was due to the 1200 flights it canceled because of winter storms that month. fewer flights reduced the airline's capacity and increased unit revenues. same announcement, it expects fourth quarter capacity and traffic to increase by 2 1/2%. other airlines up as well. delta reported better than expected desz revenue last week.

american south werks all to the upsi upside. and this. check out the action in crude oil today. the chart of west texas falling all day long on increasing supplies and announced near session lows. $92 a barrel below. sharon epperson says a lot of concerns about supplies on this side and in europe is helping put the prices to a downside. >> we can take airlines first and then oil. airlines? >> listen to what he said. he said airlines are more profitable despite the storms. used to be they take big write-offs, big losses but yet the numbers keep going up. with crude going down which i think goes to the mid 80s you've got pan seeia in the airlines. keep going. >> six-month low on crude. >> business model has changed for airlines. i agree with steve. i think the thing to look for right now, you have delta and southwest both in the s&p. airline waiting is going to increase. united airlines is going to be the next to go? >> do you have to rethink the way you trade airline it is oil continues to stay? >> i think if it were to go into the mid 80s, yes.

>> positive for the consumer. you've got to look at consumer stocks. coming up, nike unveiling the super bowl collection today. the company's chief designer and a special nfl guest. philly's lesean mccoy joins us next. aflac! aflac! got 'em. ♪ yeah, he's clean, boss. now listen to me, duck. i have an associate that met with, uh, an unfortunate accident. while he's been incapacitated, somebody's been paying him cash. now, is this your doing? aflac? now, if i met with some such accident, would aflac pay me? ♪ nice. this is your stop. [ male announcer ] find out what aflac can do for you and your family... aflac? [ male announcer ] ...at aflac.com.

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well-known now that even pop culture is poking fun. >> why don't we try sears. they've got good stuff. >> nobody has been in sears for decades. >> when i was a boy we always went cloetsz shopping at sears. trust me. they'll have everything i need. >> joe, you've got a trade on here. >> i do. and this is going to be hopfully for me more than a trade. a trnd for 2014. i truly believe shorting sears potentially could be as rewarding as shorting jcpenney was a couple of years ago. six years of continuing declining revenue, continued underinvestment. think about what sears does relative to other stores. macy's, they spend $5 per square foot. home depoerks close to $6. sears only spend $1.50. they underinvested. the stake continues to get cut. i think sears is in big trouble. this has been a theme for the last couple years. the reality is 2014. >> not so fast, stephanie link, our traders are quick but not

always right. in september steph made a bearish call on xom, better known as exxonmobil. let's listen. >> i'm not a fan. i would actually sell the stock. i just don't see any growth. buyback is getting reduced and the stock is not cheap. >> the stock is up about 17% since then. a stock that really had a stealth move last year. not a lot of people sawing it coming. what do you do now? >> i debated joe and i think i won the debate. >> that was from the debate. >> they've done a better job on the cost side. and i think that's going to actually improve in 2014. a little bit better on production but you're still talking about very low, like 1%, 2% kind of production growth. for me to pay this kind of a multiple for 1% to 2% growth, at the same time some of the enp and services companies that have superior growth have gotten hit much more so and those are making more sense. a noble or national oil, i put those on the list rather than chasing up exxon here. >> power lunch follows us.

tyler has a look on what's coming up on that show. ty? >> busy hour. we will take you up the wall of worry that stocks seem to bes a sending. sort of two stairs up, one stair back so far this year. we'll talk about this guy, chris christie, who is still talking, an hour and 45 minutes into a remarkable press conference. we'll talk about his leadership style and whether more ceos and business leaders out to be acting the wake he does, apologizing, standing up, taking questions. and we'll talk to the owner of starbuds, not starbucks, starbuds, marijuana dispensary in california. >> we should throw some money on the table here to see what time that the governor finishes up this news conference. >> over/under on him. >> exactly. ty, thanks. we'll look forward to that in 12 minutes. the super bowl, the world cup, and the sochi winter olympics.

it's a huge year in sports and nike is ready to dress the athletes in a trademark swoosh. philadelphia eagles star running back lesean mccoy will be joined by nike designer, find out how it will impact nike's bottom line. >> then ultimately what made us dir different, not as politics as usual, this is an administration that has never shut down.

oh, the super bowl, the olympics in 2014, important. today nike unveils uniforms for this year's super bowl. joining us, nike's global creative director for football, todd van horn and philadelphia eagles running back, lesean mckoishgs the man they call shady around these parts and certainly down in philly. great to have you on the show. a giant satellite delay. everyone, bear with us on that. todd, tell us about the new uniforms. what will they do for the athletes? >> well, actually, it's a complete system of dress. designed to protect them from the elements and give them all what they need, and just design inside out for their performance at super bowl xlviii. >> are they going to keep players on the field warm? there's been awfully cold weather around here lately, and i don't think anybody wants to see it that cold for the super

bowl, but what happens if it's freezing cold out? >> man. >> oh, yeah. we've got new innovations designed for the full layer with protection layers underneath, to be able to deliver that and new cleats to give them performance on field. even sideline products to keep them warm when off-field. a complete system designed out, new, invotive and delivers inspiration with inspiration from the vince lombardi trophy. >> sounds good there. >> lesean, no bigger eagles fan than jim cramer. i know he wishes he could be here to speak with you. the challenge of these companies is to make uniforms that make you guys warmer and make you faster, but not being so bulked up. how would you grade these uniforms?

>> i like them. i'm a big fan of them. i think just, like you just said, kind of putting everything in perspective of getting the right equipment and the right wear and not bulking you up. i'm going to grade them about an a-plus. i'm a big fan. it's cold, i can wear it and not be as heavy, be light. i would say it's an a-plus. >> for this guy, it's always about speed. we like that. >> i know you'll be diplomatic, lesean, because of colleagues and friend around the league. who's going to play in the super bowl and who's going to twin? win it? >> i would have to say, probably denver and i would say the saints or the 49ers. ah -- 49ers. and i have to go with -- i'm going to go with the 49ers. >> 49ers winning it all. staying with the nfc. >> and i think they'll get it

done. >> guy, great to talk to you. todd, best of luck to you on these new uniforms. find trades are up next. i'm beth... and i'm michelle. and we own the paper cottage. it's a stationery and gifts store. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink. we didn't get into business to spend time managing receipts, that's why we have ink. we like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. so you have time to focus on the things you love. ink from chase. so you can.

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on the back of our conversation about nike, let's trade that group of stocks. i assume everybody's likes nike. >> sports apparel, sales up 25% in the previous quarter. alike adidas. >> anybody that doesn't like nike. >> let them wear sleeves. these guys don't wear sleeves. >> under armour is taking market share away from nike. looking to grow revenues by -- >> are you saying you would choose under armour over nike from a stock spannedpoint? >> have valuation? >> valuation? it's not even close. >> futures up 13%. revenue's up 8%. margens, 165 -- phipps, year

over year. the quarter was absolutely, it was great. i don't -- looking to grow revenue by in two years by $4 billion. >> and i'm looking to be 7'8" and play in the nfl. >> wearable technology. put a chip in a suit. >> they're all doing that. >> nike's best. >> whether nike, adidas, undercarmor, going in to dick's, in to cabelas to -- >> play through the finish line, through footlocker, where you go. they're cheap stock, growing. better numbers. that's when i play. >> nike sponsoring england in the world cup. >> what about lulu? >> on a sponsored u.s. team? >> ask mike -- >> in terms of a beaten down name. >> i do want to buy it at some point. the market to themselves as far

as -- >> wondered will they lower the bar? people are waiting for that. >> final trade. steve? >> tbf, short the 20 year. i can't believe rates aren't higher at this point. >> aetna long. >> and bought usb this morning. >> alcoa. >> that does it for us. not the governor. he's still talking. "power" starts next. thank you very much, scott. the governor of new jersey. that guy, chris christie, some believe the republican front-runner for the white house in 2016 speaks out and speaks and speaks. in the wake of a scandal here in new jersey. just a few miles from us, down in fort lee, old home town. fired an aide for getting back at a democrat who didn't endorse the governor. covering the governor when he comes to fort lee later today to apologize to that mayor. sue, meanwhile, at the new york stock exchange. that's begin with you, scott. the