Stock market were just enough for the threeajor averages to eke out another record close. Lately investors have been optimistic that Federal Reserve will cut Interest Rates later this month. But in the meantime caution i setting in ahead of earnings season when Corporate America will say how slowing Global Growth and trade uncertainties are impactingbusiness. Today the dow rose just 27 points. Were at 27,359. The nasdaq was up 14. The s p gained a fraction. All of it enough for records. Now, one of the biggest risks to the stock market may come from washington. If the debt ceiling is breached. As you know, the debt ceiling refers to a cap on the total amount of debt that the u. S. Can accumulate. Only congress can raise that ceiling to prevent a default. And once again its tim for lawmakers to act on it. But as ylan mui reports now, a lot has tonet done very little time. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin sai congress are getting closer to a deal to raise the nations borrowing limit. Mnuchin said he has been briefing President Trump daily on this issue. Hes also been in regular contact with House Speaker nancy pelosi as well as minority leader keviny mccar and Senate Majority leader mitch mcconnell. Ideally they would do aye tw package that raises the debt ceiling and also lifts tde l spending cap. I thinka there ieference on both parties to the extent we can agree on the debt ceiling and a budget deal, that that is the firchoice. And i think were getting closer. Reporter treasuryarned it could run out of cash at the beginning of september. And thatsha earlier expected because Corporate Tax receipts in particular have been so unpredictable. Lawmakers are realizing that means they need to vote on this before they go on summer recess. The house departs in just two weeks. E Senate Leaves in early august. Congress doesnt come back until september 9th, after labor day and potentially aftt the d limit deadline. And thats generating urgency in washington to take care o this now. For nightly Business Report im ylan mui in washington. Ed mills joins us nohato handicap happens next on this issue. Hes washington policy analyst at raymond james. Ed, good to see you again. Welcome back. Thank you for having me. What do you think . He ylan saysre working on possibly a twoyear deal. Thats sort of a symbolic or critical time frame, isnt it . Yeah. So i think that no member of Congress Wants to take a tough vote this year and thenave to take another tough vote next year right before the 2020 and so i do think that the base case here is that theres a twoyear deal increasing the budget cap and extending out the debt limit. I think the debt limit ultimately gets extended until march of br2021g it past the next years election, past inauguration, give the new congress, whoevers in the white house, a couple of months to come up with the next deal. s thhat is absolutely going to happen. The fight between now and then is what the stock markets going to trade on. Any more it just seems inevitable it gets raised anyway. It h to be or we default on our debt payments. Take is the give a the meantime . What has to be achieved before the votes can actually come up . If this was on the floor tomoow, it would pass. I think what were really working on right now are those budget caps. Right now congrs is still under the budget control act. This is the bill signed by president obama in th Republican Congress that put automatic cuts to the budge unless congress changed them. Thats about 130li b this year and next year. Just to keep level funding you need toea in those caps by about 250 billion. Republicans areying to crease those caps but they want more military spending than domestic spending. Democrats want moreti dom spending than military snding. Usually how these get resolved is you agree to both increase domestic and military a same amount. We probably will see an increase in these budget caps in the 0 to 500 billiondollar range over the next two years. You have a deal, is bipartisan, it gets signed into law, we move on. All right. We will see what happs. Ed millsith raymond james. Again, thanks for joining us tonight. Thank you. Also in washington there are reports that a shakeup in the president s cabinet could be in the works. Kayla tausche has more on that. Reporter President Trump is considering replacing commerce secretary wilbur ross. According to multiple aides and outside advisers. Commerce department oversees the census wasau and the described by multiple sources as the last major item on rosss todo list. Secretary ross and president tr p have a longstanding friendship. One reason ross has avoided thed prts firing line before. But in his 2 1 2 years running the agency the president has been frustrate by rosss negative press on his finanal disclosures and comments about federal workers Financial Issues during the government sh down. Trump also nixed two deals ross tried to reach with anina. Just last week publicly another onesf roolicy suggestions, putting tariffs on uranium imports. Treasury secretary s mnuchin told reporters ross had played a key role on trade. I have no reason to think secretary ross is doing a good job. Ive never heard anything otherwise. Reporter a representative says rosss work continues and he has shifted the department into a new era. Its unclear who w to replace ross. The woman thats come up in many times is ray washburn. The texas developer who ran the overseas private Investment Corporation until march. Aides and advisers sayrosss depart could come as soon as late summer and his chief of staff is alreadyooking for a new job. For nightly Business Report g m Kayla Tausche in washington. And durat wideranging press conference todayy treas secretary mnuchin also said the Administration Officials had some very serious concerns ove facebooks proposed Digital Currency called the libra. Mnuchin said thathe fear is it could be misused by money launderers and terrorist financiers among others. Facebook has said that it anticipated critical feedback from regulators around the world and that it announced libra a year before its achicipated lao that it could have these kinds of conversations. In fact, david marcus, the head f facebooks cryptocurrency project, is scheduled to testify on capitol hill tomorrow and in prepared testimonye ll say that the Digital Currency will not launch until regulatory concerns are addressed. And there was more talk today about the record fine that facebooks going to reportedly pay over its privacy lapses. As we reported friday, that ea penalty could as high as but the companys challenges are t. T over Julia Boorstin has that story. Reporter 5 billion. Thats the cost of the ftcsit settlementh facebook for violating its commitment to protect consumer privacy. Thats a and its a high end of the expected rain ng. But itstctually not tha meaningful for facebooks bottoi ne. Just about a months worth of revenue. Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeting lets be honest, this is a victory f facebook. Just look to the markets. In the first 15 minutes after the settlement was reported facebooks market value went up by more than 5 billion. Senator Amy Klobuchar saying in a statement, a onetime 5 billion fine for a Company Whose profits are in the tens of billions of dollars a year is not enough to deter facebook and force them to put consumers ivacy before profits. With no indication that the coming ftcl settlement w meaningfully limit facebooks ability to collect and monetize n ta, cowan has a buy rating the stock. I think theres probably a couple more years of this heightened discussion around privacy and antitrust for all of the players. T ultimately we dont think if theres going to be anything material happen, you know, or Material Change in the business. Reporter but some lawmaks say the minimal impact of the ftcs fine gives more urgency to passaw to change facebooks policies and the u. S. Maybe the icy t of facebooks p problems. Over 40 countries have passed regulations targeting social media and fake news over the past three years. And now the eu is in the early stagesf o antitrust investigation and the uk and france are writing new social media laws. Ot but analysts all these issues havent cost facebook its most valuable asset, its users. G they really arent los users over this whole data privacy issue theyve had in the last year and a half. Users are still growing across the globe. You have undermonetized assets and some other optionalitieser they become ecommerce or payments as well. Reporter regulatory scrutiny of facebook continues this week on capitol hill as the head of the crypto Currency Division tify about the Company Investment in that space. For nightly Business Report im Julia Boorstin in los angeles. Time to take ak at some of todays upgrades and downgrades. We begin with shares of geral electric. They were downgraded today to neutral from buy at ubs. The analyst cited thestocks valuation after a 40 runup so far this pryear. E target 11. 50. That stock fell about 1 today to 10. 27. And deere was upgraded to buy from neutral at bank of America Merrill lynch. The analyst cited a strong outlook for the agriculture economy. Price target 185. That stock rose a fractn to 166 even. Still ahead, its been more than two decades since the last majoro a union strike. Some say itsff not o the table this time around. Now to china which overnight posted its slowest growth in 27 years. The worlds second economy grew at a 6. 2 annualized rate in the secd quarter. Economists say the slowdown is u. S. Chinaue to the trade war. Much of the countrys growth occurred in april and early may, helped in part by a tax cut heavy infrastructure spending. American airlines i exteng expanse laigsg cancellat max planes through early november this is the fifth time the carrier has pushed back the time the max would be back on its schedule. The aircraft has been groundeda as you know worldwide since march following two deadly crashes. It is undergoing an upgrade of its Flight Control software but the fixas yet to be approved by either the faa or other international regulators. Separately the journal reported today that the grounding could stretch into next year. Thiseek the United Auto Workers and the big three u. S. T kers are kick off negotiations on a new labor contract and for the first time in well over a decade the talks are likely to be contentious, could lead to a strike, as a matter of fact, shuttingmeown so assembly lines. Phil lebeau has the story. Eporter the ceremonial handshakes marking the start of talks between the United Auto Workers and ford is filled with smiles and plenty of comments about the iortance of working together. Thank you to each and every one of you for what youve done to buildil our industry, to our company, in our case over 116 years. Reporter dont be fooled by the smiles. These uaw talks will be contentious. Particularly around three issues. The tsuaw w to shorten how many years it takes newto membe each higher pay tiers. And they want automakers to hire ry workers. But the biggest stumbling block could be health care costs. Automakers would like Union Members toay more for their Health Insurance benefits. The uaw sees thingsdifferently. Auto profits are close to a rerd high. So the union thinks its members should be rewarded for that success in a new contract. I like to point out andap aud that Ford Motor Company chose a Business Strategy with Great Success that keeps much business in north e erica and thunited states. Very much for that. Reporter its been more than 20 years since the last major uaw strike. While few expect to see qulint picket lines this fall, some issues like ending production at the gm plant in lordstown,o o have the potential to flair up and become major stumbling blocks. Unlike uaw contract talks in the past cade, these negotiations come at a time when the big sree find themselves at a crossroads,nding billions of dollars developing electric and Autonomous Cars while also keeping their Current Assembly lines humming along at a profitable level. Which is why finding labor peace this fall will be crucial. Phillebeau. Nightly Business Report. O. Chicag Consumer Lending helped citigroup top expectations. And thats where well begin tonights market focus, with the bank also saying it was helped by a gain from the ipo of its electronic Trading Platform called trade web. Citigroup is the fthst o closely watched major banks to report its quarterly results. W share down a fraction today to 71. 71. Elsewhere, symantec and broadcom merger talks have reportedly collapsed. Cnbc is reporting the negotiations stalled because of price. Broadcom offered 28. 25 a share. Symantec wanted more. The deal wld have expanded broadcoms growth in the Enterprise Software industry. Symantec fell more than 10 to 22. 84 while broadcom rose more than 1 to 288. 34. Drug maker gilead planssto invever 5 billion to increase itske in biotech firm galapagos. One of my priorits was expand the portfolio at gilead and this collaboration we announced is exactly in line wi what we need its a collaboration with one of the leading biotechn Companies Europe that allows us to collaborate, have significant investments and have an exclusive right to everything that comes out of this innovative ten years. The next gileads shares were up nearly 3 on this news. 68. 07. But galapagos soared more than o 17 170. 76. And youve probably heard. Today marked theinning of amazons fifth annual prime day, which allows theimretailers members to shop online for more than 1 million deals globally. This year the eve will last 48 hours for the first time. Amazon was up araction to 2020. 99. Charles schwab is reportedly in negotiations to acquire usaas brokerage and Wealth Management operations for about 2 billion. The wall street journal says schwab wouel l add about 100 billion of assets from usaa and then help us increase its presence in the Wealth Management business at the same me. The sto was up a fraction today to 40. 30. Then after the bell b. Hunt missed earnings expectat wns but revenu in line. Growth in truck production but a decline in its transcontinental business. Hares initially rose in after hours trading tonight but they did close the regular session down a fraction at 92. 58. And the fda has called it an epidemic. Teen use of ecigarettes has risen dramatically along with concern among their parents. Carl quintanilla looked into that controversial issue ae sp with executives at Market Leader juul labs about the popularity of their product among adolescents. It felt like we were smoking. It was cool. Reporter grace debono is a high schl senior from bloomfield hills, michigan who was 14 when she started vaping. But it didnt become a habit until the start of 2017 when she got her first juul. We w to a gas station, and my friend already bought one from the same gas station. So was like ill just go in and get it for you. But we were 15. She went in. And came out with two jus. twasnt long before grace was addicted. It would abls in my hands. It would always be with me. You know . So i would always hit itecause it was just so easy. Reporter grace was part of an adolescent phenomenon. Between 2017 and 2018 ecigatte use increased by 78 among High School Students and 48 among middle schools. By the end of 2018 more than 3. 5 million American Kids were vaping. Juul is i fraction of the use of vabor products by minors. I think we getth a lot o attention and criticism because we are the biggest prend, the biggest er bu were certainly not the only product out reporter juul is one of thousands of ecigarette products in what is a 9 billion a year industry. S the company s it was created to help cigaretteeimokers kick habit. Since its launch in 2015 juul has captured over 40 of the market and is valued at about 38 billion. It really started taking off just recently, and that caught us by surprise. And then we had to do a lot of catching up. Wd alongh that ramping growth came the unintended consequenc of usage by youth. Reporter can you explain to viewers about the marketing stragy, about campaigns tha appear aimed at young people . Well, we think thats inappropriate. When we launched juul, we had a campaign that was t arguabl kind of lifestyleoriented, too hy, less than six months. It was in the early days of the product introduction. Think it had no impact on sales. Actually, in the year immediately following what juul calls its vaporized campaign its sales grew by nearly 1,000 . It has become the most popular ecigarette among teens. The injection of the eliquid takes place into the pod. Literally by a needle on this wheel . Correct. Reporter this is juuls secret sauce. Kevin burns, brought on as ceo in 2017, gave us a tour of a podfilling plant in wisconsin. The first time juul has let reporters inside a factory. This ones running day and night to crank out some of the 60 million pods juul sells in the u. S. Every month. If we did this tour tod with