And we will get to some questions before we wrap up the conversation. Jake the question we are asking is what should congress be doing to respond to the National Unrest and ongoing protest against racial injustice, and why. You can type your answer in the box under the livestream at politico. Com. At the end of the interview we will check out your responses. We will talk about a few things we are watching this week, and number one is the state of Police Reform. We made the point this morning that we could be surprised in the next coming weeks and months that Police Reform could pick up momentum. There are hopeful signs from republicans who believe that congress should ban chokehold, and beef up statutes that allow for to escape liability some of their actions on the beat and force. Frankly, i think a lot of politicians right now have reached a moment where they believe that there has been a National Reckoning on Police Violence and racially targeted Police Violence. I think it will be
We begin with attorney general William Barrs rare public criticism of his boss President Trump. In surprise comments yesterday barr blasted mr. Trump for tweets attacking the j Justice Departments sentencing recommendation for his friend roger stone. Barr said the tweets are making it impossible for him to do his job, adding hes not going to be bullied or influenced by anyone. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham stood by barr saying he has my complete confidence. The comments come after the Justice Department intervened and lowered stones sentencing recommendation. All four prosecutors on the case then stepped down. Naomi ruchim is in new york. Whats the reaction from the white house . Reporter white house officials i pear to be caught offguard by barrs remarks. But the press secretary said the president wasnt bothered by the comments at all and that the president like any american has the right to publicly offer his opinions. Attorney general william barr has a message
Ten points. The nasdaq off by 22. Crude oil prices were up sharply overnight, topping 40 a barrel. First time weve seen that in quite a while. That came after the announcement yesterday of a surprise job in u. S. Inventories. However, wti has turned around since then. Looks like we flipped that contract, too. If you were looking at 40 overnight, were now looking at the may contract. Thats a decline of 7 cents to 37. 69. It will be interesting to see how this new contract plays out. We did see a huge gain in crude oil prices yesterday. The other big mover this morning, currency. The dollar hitting a 17 hch month low against the yen. This came after the minutes from the last months fed meeting suggested that the central bank is unlikely to raise Interest Rates before june. There were a lot in these minutes, but most people are looking at the doves comments after what we heard from janet yellen just last week. Brian . Some corporate stories to talk to you about this morning. Just go right
Crude that was the story yesterday. Look at that. You were just at 50. We were just pushing 50. You saw the latest caseshiller home prices, they were just released at the bottom of the screen. San francisco, denver, portland have the biggest home price gains. Lets get to our road map this morning. Earnings, earnings, earnings. Alibaba higher in premarket after profits and revenue beat expectations. Yahoo goes up when alibaba goes up. Mixed results in from dupont, ford and u. P. S. The cfos of u. P. S. Will be up later in the show to give us more insight. Pfizer, merck, bristolmyers all beating consensus and boosting fullyear guidance. Take a closer look at pfizer. Those were particularly good numbers. Lets start off with alibaba, up sharply in premarket. Posting better than Third Quarter results. Revenue up 32 . Strong growth across the board, particularly in mobile. Yahoo owns stake in alibaba, it will be putting that in a separate company, hence it goes up, almost as much as alibaba
And as the Company Continues to spend heavily on expansion and Product Development and items like it new kindle line, revenue rose 27 also short of forecasts. Am that sons further Quarter Sales outlook is now shy of analyst estimates and amazon shares did fall in late trading yesterday. You can see that on the board there. 221. And Computers Featuring Microsoft Windows 8 hitting store shelves today. The company is opening 32 pop up stores just for the holidays. Its designed to run on a variety of devices. Pcs, lab tops and tablets. We heard from Steve Ballmer about it yesterday. Joe. Fiscal cliff still about two months away, but the combination of scheduled tax hikes and spending cuts may already be impacting the economy. The Washington Post citing a report by the National Association of manufacturers says companies are bracing for the fallout by cutting jobs and delaying big purchases. Government data shows Business Investment stalled in september. The report goes on to say if Congres