Believe that. They did it again and theres no oops attached. The major indexes, all of them, closed higher today than ever before. Youve heard that a lot lately, but heres something you havent. The s p 500 is having its best start to a year since 1987. And not since 1964 has the s p 500 set six consecutive records to begin a year. Investor optimism is high. Here are the happy and not at all fake numbers for the day. The dow advanced 102 points to 25,385. Nasdaq added six. The s p 500 was up four. Now comes the moment of truth. Quarterly profit results. And as bob pisani reports, expectations a. Reporter its been an amazing start to the year. The s p is up six days in a row, about 3 , its best start since 1987. Earnin season is now upon us. Prices and evaluations are at record highs. Its fair to say expectations are also very high. This past quarter has been very unusual. Analysts have been even more optimistic than they usually are. They typically start optimistic and then lower earnings expectatio into the quarter. That didnt happen in the Fourth Quarter. With prices this high, investors are clearly hoping there will be bigger beats than usual and then likely punish numbers with disappointin numbers more than usual. Guidance is also an issue. The companies that gave guidance each quarter, onethird will typically raise guidance, twothirds will lower guidance. Thanks to tax cuts, investors are expecting more companies to raise their guidance than typical. That could be a problem since Many Companies are not entirely sure how much the tax cuts will help their earnings and may be reluctant to say anything this early. Then buybacks and capital expenditures, again, thanks to tax cuts, ve are expecting comp annou some combination of more buybacks or increase capital expenditures. Can the ceos really deliver on these high expectat . A pretty tall order. Their early returns give some cause for optimism. 19 companies from the s p have reported earnings so far. Oracle, carnival, fedex, carmax. Among them the average Earnings Growth has been 18 . Sales have averaged 11 growth. Thats good. Thats well above current expectations, a gain of 11 for earnings and 7 for revenues. Well see what happens from this point on. If the Companies Start pushing buybacks and more capital expenditures, it possibl this rally could just keep on going. For nightly business r m bob pisani at the new york stocexchange so lets pick up where bob left off. Will Earnings Growth fuel the next leg of this wall street rally . Here to discuss that and offer some insight into who may be the winners and losers this earnings season is art hogan, good to see you, art. Thanks so much, its good to be here. Earnings season, what are your expectations . Weve said the bar is very high. And bob really repeated that in his report. What are you going to be looking three things. Either we want to see a continuation, i think bob pointed that up very well, typically during a quarter we start out very optimistic and the average drawdown in estimates is about 4. 2 over the last call it five years, thats been average. Weve drawn down estimates for the Fourth Quarter by. 3 , we really havent lowered the bar. Thats pretty healthy. The second thing you want to look at is, what do Companies Say about guidance . That would be great, 11 earnings on average with 7 Revenue Growth will be terrific, it will look like the last two or threequarters. This is the first time well hear from Corporate America how much their effective tax rates are coming down and what does that mean for earnings in 2018. As much as i think this will be a great Fourth Quarter earnings reporting season, it will be the most confusing and interesting and important guidance season for 2018k accountants will be vy busy trying to figure out what the effective tax rates are heading into next year. I believe you believe, and ive heard an awful lot of people say its going to be a bit of a rough quarter for financials. Thats in the rearview mirror. But the rest of the year Going Forward might be pretty good for financials. Yeah, i couldnt agree with you more, tyler. That comes in three flavors, right . So the tax reform in and of itself is good for financials. The effective tax rate for the financials is in the 30s, that will go down to the 20s, theres a 10 tailwind. Repatriation money, typically financials domestically versus financials internationally, thats a benefit. Rising Interest Rates. The fed raises rates two times this year, theyre thinking of raising rates three times. Were seeing 2. 5 for the first time, and the spreads bet the 2s and the 10s are broadening out. It will be a tailwind heading into 2018, probably the number one sector in terms of how we think tax reform, deregulation affects secto in the next year. You say there are a couple of bumps in the road, possibly on the fundamental side of things. What are they . Well, first and foremost, obviously trading at 19 times. Were pretty fully valued, right . We think that 19 times is probably appropriate in the current environment, with very low Interest Rates and very low inflation. If we do get a surprising uptick come down a little ainly think bit, especially if we see Interest Rates come up. Keep a close eye on inflation, well see the cpi next week. Thats one thing to look out for. Youre watching for a possible governmen shutdown, maybe some korean dialogue that may be a little bit incendiary. Well keep those all in mind, art, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Art hogan. The price of oil rose to its highest level in more than three years. Domestic crude gained 2 to settle at nearly 63 a barrel. Opec and russia keeping supply limits in place to help reduce an oversupply of the commodity. Its expected that u. S. Inventories will fall for an eighth straight week. In washington, president trum pushe for a bipartisan ag on immigration. Speaking during an extended meeting with Congressional Republicans and democrats, the president suggested a twophased approach. Firs a deal for the socalled dreamers and t a comprehensive agreement. I also think after we do daca, and i really do believe we should be successful, we should look in terms of a permanent so and to the whole situation with immigration. A lot of people in this room would agree with that also. Big business will be watching how these talks play out since the issue has always been an important one to the economy. Ylan mui has that part of the story. Reporter as the battle over immigration heats up here in washington, many workers are worried theyll be left out in the cold. Special protectio for the undocumented childre of illegal immigrants, known as dreamers, will expire in march. About 800,000 people will be affected. 91 of them are employed, including at some of the Biggest Companies in america. Da came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant from brazil when she was 11 years old. Since then, shes graduated from college d landed a job as a financial analyst at Johnson Johnson. Her protected status allows her to work legally. Losing it could mean losing her livelihood as well. So shes sharing her story with her companys ceo. Ashington he told me he was keeping my story in mind. And ive tried to raise awareness of these issues at work because im confident that there must be other dreamers in my company. But its very scary to come forward and disclose your status. R Johnson Johnson is part of a Broad Coalition of major corporations that are backing a path to citizenship for workers like daniella. By one estimate, forcing all dreamers to leave the country would cost the u. S. Economy nearly 500 billion a year. How can we help these people gain the appropriate rights in the United States, how can we make sure they can be drivers of the economy . Thats what this is all about. Reporter both republicans and democrats say theyre determined to find a solution. But compromise remains elusive. And daniella vieras American Dream now comes with an expiration date. Were desperate. We dont want to lose our jobs, we dont want to lose our home. We dont want to to go back to someplace weve never known. Reporter for nightly busine im nearly one year after donald trump became president and promised to stop americas growing demand for autos built in mexico, the numbers have not improved to his liking. In fact theyve gotten worse. New data show the number of auto exports to the u. S. Hit a record high in 2017. Phil lebeau has more now on the surge in mexicanmade cars a. Reporter t mexicanmade car and truck is still very much a staple of americas Auto Industry. F veh exported from mexico to the u. S. Jumped over 10 last year. An alltime high of more than 2. 3 million autos. Whats behind the increase . Americas growing appetite for suvs like the chevy equinox, and trucks like the ram 1500 pickup. Through november of last year, fiat chrysler, which builds the ram, and general motors, saw huge spikes of exports from their plants in mexico while ford was down almost 20 . Thats becau builds cars in mexico and their sales are down as more people look to buy bigger vehicles. For president trump, the numbers show that his threats to slap a big border tax on mexicanmade vehicles has had a limited impact. Yes, ford scrapped plans for a final Assembly Plant in mexico after repeated attacks by the president. And several automakers, including the big three, have said theyll invest billions of dollars expanding auto plants here in the u. S. Still, mexicos Auto Industry is only getting stronger. It exported a record 3. 1 million vehicles last year, with three out of four coming north of the border. All of that could change if the Trump Administration follows through on threats to alter or tear you want north American Free trade agreement, a move that could add thousands of dollars in taxes to vehicles built in mexico. But until that happens, gm and other automakers will continue building south of the border. Gm says that the demand for trucks and suvs here in the United States is one reason why it continues building in mexico. The plants here in the u. S. That also build those trucks and suvs are running at capacity. Theres nowhere to build those vehicles that are in demand except to build them in mexico. Chicago. Au, nightly business to read more about mexican car imports, please head to our website,nbr. Com. Separately, the white house today said the president will travel to the World Economic forum in davos later this month. Its a gathering of World Leaders and business executives. Still ahead, connected homes, connected people, and connected cities. It could be a. Apple responds to two of its investors as we reported yesterda Jana Partners callisters urged apple to take a responsible approach to helping parents protect children. Apple said, quote, with todays ios devices parents have the ability to control and restrict apps, websites, movies, songs, and books, as well as cellular data and otherfeatures. Intels ceo says the company will issue updates to all its processors released in the past five years. They will do that before the end of the month. The announcement was made at a conference in las vegas. It follows the disclosure of massive security vulnerabilities in its chips that we told you about last week. Our processors, products, introduced in the past five years, intel expects to issue updates for more than 90 of them within a week. T we believe the performance impact of these updates is highly workload dependent. Those security flaws could theoretically allow malicious programs to steal data including passwords, personal photos and even emails. That was just one of the hot topics discussed at the ces conference in las vegas which gathers a whos who in technology. It also the place where new gadgets and devices are put on display th julia boorstiner reporter the Consumer Electronics show is drawing 170,000 attendees and 4,000 exhibitors. Checking out the latest gadgets and software and listening to big name ceo key notes. The shows organizers, the Consumer Technology association, drawing fire last year for not booking a single female keynote. Responding this year by adding photos of women speaking on big panels to its key notes page including the ceo of a e networks, who is weighing in on the future of tv. Hulu, a year after announcing a streamin tv package, announced it now has 17 million subscribers between its live and on demand offerings, up from 12 million back in may 2016. This has companies from verizon to disney invest in more direct to consumer offerings launched this year. Connected homes, connected cities are happening. Content is one big piece of that future. Another big tech trend here, the exploding category of voice assistance. Amazon, roku and others battling to attract the 17 Million People expected to use these devices by next year. Google is announcing its integrating its assistant in more devices including a car display, and new ways to control your home. What were excited about is a new category of devices called smart displays. This is where you have an assistant who can hear you from a distance, answer you loud, bu somewhat display that when it makes sense, can show you what youre seeing. Reporter a rival is using this rv outside the Convention Center to showcase all the ways amazons voi assistant alexa can be integrated in your home. Roku connect makes it super easy to connect your devices to your tv. Reporter roku looking to make their tv device the center of the home, to make it easier to find, watch, or listen to more content than ever. For nightly business r boeing delivers a Record Number of airplanes. Thats where we begin tonights mark focus. The Aerospace Giant capped off 2017 with 763 deliveries, et cetera most ever in a year, helped by Global Economic growth Strong Airline profits. The company is optimistic on cargo and customer Passenger Trends for this year. It expects Passenger Capacity to increase as much as 6 . Boeings shares soared more than 2 to 318. 43. A stronger than expected Holiday Season led target to raise its Fourth Quarter and full year earnings forecast. The retailer said shoppers had an appetite for a variety of items during the period, pushing sales up nearly 3. 5 . Target initially expected sales to max out at 2 . Shares rose nearly 3 to 69. 14. The clothing chain express said it struggled to get shoppers into its stores during the holiday period and as a result, the company is slashing its earnings and its Sales Outlook for the quarter and the full year. Express shares plunged 20 to 7. 37. Boston scientific reported preliminary results f the year that outpaced expectations. The medical device maker expects earnings for the quarter to fall in line with estimates. Shares of Boston Scientific up 8 on the session to 27. 96. The Lighting CompanyAcuity Brands dropped, weakening profits, below analysts expectation. Shares fell 15 to 157. 95. Cloud computing okami technologies is reportedly working with Morgan Stanley to explore a potential sale. Bloomberg says the company is under pressure from activist elliott managemen and is exploring strategic alternatives. Nordstrom after the bell said rising sales at its offprice Nordstrom Rack brand helped samestore sale pick up during the Holiday Season. The retailer upped the lower end of its full year guidance and now expects net sales to rise more than 4 for fisc. Shares volatile in after hours trading. It is january, so for most of the country, it is cold. But as temperatures drop, a number of stocks tend to heat up. Domi chu has a list of names that have historically been winter winners. Reporter so are there stocks that perform better during the wintertime . We asked our data partners at kenshow to take a look at the ten winters weve just seen. We define winter as the end of november through the end of march each year. Turns out a handful of stocks do quite well during those seasonal times. Home depot, if youre out there buying shovels or snow, salt, anything lik to melt the snow, maybe youre going to home depot. Those shares performed well, up an average of 11 each of the last ten winters. Its a positive trade 80 of the time. Netflix, people talking about hunkering down, Binge Watching your favorite shows online. Those shares of netflix up about 35 on average, positive trade 80 of the time. Netflix obviously has a lot of other things going for it, but that may be part of the story. Auto zone, are you out there buying antifreeze for your car, batteries, scrapers for your windshield . Those shares up about 11 on average, a positive trade 90 of the time. Dominos pizza, because its too cold to go out to eat . That trade is up 24 of the time, on average 90 positive trade for dominos pizza. Vf corp. , the Company Behind brands like timberland boots and north face jackets, that company and that stock on average up 7 during the winter months during the last ten years, a positive trade ten out of the last ten winters. It to all of