years. sears holding surprises with plans to spin off 1,250 stores and sell 11. vivus rocking a premarket trade. more than a double at this point. an fda panel backing their weight loss drug paving the way for potentially final approval. hewlett-packard disappoints, sets the bar even lower for the current quarter. is this the inflection point for the company or is there more trouble ahead? an exclusive with ceo meg whitman in just a few moments. apple meeting with shareholders this afternoon. could it finally announce a dividend? we should note the stock is higher right now. we did want to start off with our pair of retailers in the spotlight this morn ing. target reporting better than expected fourth quarter profits helped by rising sales during the holiday season. discount chain also sees full year earnings exceeding wall street estimates as for sears, the parent of sears and k mart posting a wider than expected fourth quarter loss but plan to spin off 1,250 stores and sell
levels on all the major indices. for that we start with president obama s tax plan. he s expected to propose to cut the tax rate, but with the lower rate would come the we re going to break down which sectors will benefit. christie to buffett says shut up. if the billionaire wants to pay more to the government, he said be my guest, write a check. relief over a bailout disappears. as melissa just told you, and greek stocks the question is what about the credit default swaps? disappointing earnings last night. saying don t chase the 24% rally. what does this mean to hewlett packards? if you re randing stevenson, it means you re going to get a pay chuck. we ll have the details. later the the plan would you believe revenue neutral. it s been out is there for some time. we say ceos say it s unfair given the corporate tax rates where they are happy to go, because they are far lower. i think the problem is as soon as you hear something about taxes, you say forget it. i thi
unemployment, my re-election process. brilliant. you think it s completely bogus. which number? the 28% number. also you re going to start taxing we have talked why can t you go like 25% like the rest of the world. 28 for personal. you re basically going to raise a lot more i have argued in the past, andrew. it s an outlier argument. i have argued that corporation shouldn t pay taxes anyway. shareholders pay taxes, employees pay taxes. we have to compete globally. i think corporations should pay taxes. there are people who made the point that the really competitive globally since all employees pay taxes, since the look that i m making is reflective of the fact that there s an argument among some that no matter what the rate, it will never be low enough and that this is really not about lowering the rate to make the country competitive and raising the right amount of revenue. it s really about lowering the rate. here s the thing. but it is highe
begins right now. i m jackie deangelis at the realtime exchange. today s trade all about good economic news in the united states. the other worries haven t gone away but on the back burner for the moment. here s where we stand right now. take a look at the markets. the dow up by over 100 points. s&p 500 up by 11 points and change. and the nasdaq composite seeing a nearly 31-point gain there. nice green in terms of our markets here. taking the pulse of the markets, the euro, it was improving from earlier levels. it s slightly higher there at 1.3103. nat gas up on a bigger than expected inventory down. and rbob continuing to tick higher as well. third quarter earnings fell on some charges but reported double-digit sales growth. gm higher as well. record profits but earnings missed because of losses in europe. philip lebeau will have more on that in a moment. and a 58% jump in earnings on tap and that is pushing the stock higher by nearly 2.5%. on the downside, amazon getting
after the worst selloff of the year, the road map sees perhaps some more red as moody s says it may cut ratings of 114 financial institutions around the world. adding to the worries, concerns about the greek bailout ahead of a finance ministers meeting on monday. and foreign direct investment in china down again for the third straight month. meantime, the chart on apple raising some eyebrows again today amid more reports about ipad disputes in china. meantime, a big downgrade of amazon over at morgan stanley. gm despite telegraphing a strong quarter just days ago misses expectations, declines to give a forecast for when its european unit will return to profitability. first, though, want to get to this story. fed chairman ben bernanke getting ready to address the fdic s community banking conference. mary tamp son is at that event in arlington, virginia, with details. good morning, mary. good morning to you, carl. in his speech bernanke addresses a number of issues th