Points at 13,113 and nasdaq at 2 plus point, 2988. The s p struggling, down a tiny fraction now at 1412. It could have been worse if not for the better than expected gdp. Investors still worried about the Corporate Outlook and apples disappointing results last night. The looming fiscal cliff and election and on and on. Here to help us in the closing bell exchange, stephanie link and Steve Leesman and peter sh ii shiff will join us as well. 2 3rs is not enough to sustain, putting the unemployed back to work and taking idle factories and putting them back to work. The consumer seems to be hanging in there. The negatives seem to be a big part of it was defense spending, 0. 7 of the 2 was defense spending, although that was a pay back for 3 4 of declines weve had. This needs to turn around to have a good recovery and have this economy firing on all cylinders, thats not been the case and business seems to be holding back. Stephanie, youre blaming the uncertainty over the election, right . You say thats holding back decisionmaking and holding back hiring plans putting money to work . From the investor point of view the market does not like uncertainty. With this election being so close, i think there is definitely money on the sidelines and at least once we get an answer there, we can start to put the pieces to the puzzle on the fiscal cliff together and get a little more confidence. From the corporate side, ive listened to over 50 Companies Report earnings so far and every single one is saying that spending is being held back because of the political situation and macro uncertainties. From apple, it has become the market bell weather recently. You might expect a bigger move in apple today but it didnt happen. It kind of proves theres been a lot of stories that apple is the market and what happens if something happens to market. Its a big company but its a Large Company segment of the international economy. So the rest of the economy is important here. You can have issues in apple and still have a decent market next year. What do you think of the impact on the Broader Market in terms of apple . Its such a big component of averages and its also. It is also sort of the product thats driving sales right now in terms of retail, right . Yeah, i mean, its an important product and the growth rate of apple, its like a Smaller Technology company that is dependent upon innovation and the next product. They are putting out products quickly now which i guess suggested a tougher economy, but by and large, i think that as we see world liquidity helping and europe bot oming next year, when well see in the middle of the year, the story is a lot more than about the General International economy than apple. I think the market will concentrate on deep cycle cal companies that are coming back. Steve liesman, what do you make of the earnings that seem to suggest a slowdown. I think of zeer ox, starting in september they saw ap appreciable slowdown in demand for their products and weve been so light on revenue from so many Big Companies right now. Why now do you think . Whats going on . What weve been talking about, business is holding back and i will say there is one what do you want to say, ace up the sleeve of the earnings which is retail. We havent seen retail yet. Weve seen a few things like coach. Ill ask stephanie about this if you dont mind because thats more her we did have a good retail sales number. That made me think perhaps the retail numbers, we had decent consumer numbers. Retail comes next week . Next couple of weeks. If you look at the Consumer Confidence numbers and auto and look at aerospace and different things, i think that its there are things to be encouraged about, particularly on the margin side. Thats the one thing ive been pleased with so far in earnings is margins and how tightly managed these companies are doing in terms of managing expenses. If raw material costs come down, thats a good thing as well. If you have a little bit of demand, thats still i have to caution. This split between the business sector and Consumer Sector cannot stand. One has to drag the other up or down. Were not going to remain on two different tracks for very long here. We want to bring in peter schiff. Lets talk about how you want to be invested in this market here. Would you be allocating money to stocks . Globally yes and we till xr money in u. S. Stocks but i think the report is weak. Business investments is flat. You have Government Spending rising sharply due to increased debt. Thats not a growing economy as far as im concerned. Thats a contracting economy. And i still think were underreporting inflation in this. Inflation is a bigger factor than the government admits so in an inflation area government you want to own real things but in Natural Resources and precious metals. What would dry the Inflationary Forces if we keep hearing from companies about a decline in demand or a slowdown in the pace of demand for their products and services. Where does the Inflationary Pressure come from other than the fed Monetary Policy . Thats where it comes from. It comes from the fed fighting the market trying to restructure the u. S. Economy. You have u. S. Forces being applied by market which is what the economy needs but the government is resisting that and fed is resistinging that by creating inflation, qe and already stated it will up the ante significantly. Were going to print over a trillion dollars a year and probably more than that because all of this money creation will not grow the economy. It will create inflation and debase the dollar but thats going to make the underlying problems worse. So in terms of the election, do you think that loosens things up . Whats the catalyst to get us out of it . Were going to go deeper into it unfortunately. Even if romney wins, well continue to repeat the same mistakes. Obama is repeating the mistakes much bush and the fed is still there, ben bernanke has been repeating the mistakes of gre greenspan. Jo think we have change until we have a monetary crisis. That is looming on the horizon sometime soon. Folks, thank you for joining us. Well see what happens here as we head into the final hour of trade. Bob insana was driving the market . The fact that apple isnt having the volatility that people thought. We were lower, 1. 5 to the downside but apple is essentially flat on the day on huge volume. North of 30 million shares, thats what driving things today. Theres a lot of talk about the impact of Hurricane Sandy but not a lot on the stock market. Theres been play on roofing and Water Proofing company up a little bit here. Rpm and wr grace do a lot of Water Proofing but i dont see heavy volume. Insurance companies, understandably, some of the ones with exposures, little weak. Travelers and chubb, not big volume in them. Whitewave foods thinkds silk and land o lakes, opened at 19 and has broke the issuance price or fairly early this morning. Thats a little bit disappointing. For the week s p 500 down 1 , all of the damage today this week was done on tuesday. Were essentially unchanged from the close on tuesday. Back to you. A lot of mid week volatility there. Thank you, bob, well check back as news warrants, were heading to the close. We will see. The dow at this point is up 16 points at this hour. A lot more to come on this busy edition of the closing bell. Coming up, pointed questions, is the government using a manipulated Interest Rate thats costing tax mayors untolled millions . The officials sounding the alarm is here. It could be the worst storm in 100 years, the latest on Hurricane Sandy as it barrels towards the northeast. Find out which companies are best prepared to weather the storm. And crumbling city . What really happened in the between the bank ceo and chairman that led to pandits departu departure, the surprising story is still ahead on closing bell. Welcome back, 45 minutes left in todays trading session. The market is higher, dow industrials trying to avoid a third down day. Weve got a pretty good move on the upside of 38 points and industrial average, disappoint of earnings putting drag on sent. This morning as it has for much of the week. Technology stocks among the gainers, off of earlier lows when the tech index went into correction territory. Financial under pressure with the market up broadly speaking. 45 minutes left. Our next guest told officials fz treasury and fed to stop using libor, the Interest Rate in order to protect the taxpayers who fund the t. A. R. P. Program and using it as a bis sasis to charge interest on loans. T. A. R. P. Started in 2008, the government still owns a piece of nearly 300 banks. The government has been paying back taxpayers by selling shares at banks, often at an discount. The libor can be rigged. Joining us now, christy romero. Who is sounding the alarm. Good to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us. Its my pleasure. Through this. How concerned are you about the risk of using libor in the t. A. R. P. Program . Were concerned at a taxpayers who funded the bailout may have been at risk and may continue to be at risk by the manipulation in the interest known known as libor. You had secretary geithner who does not know and you have bernanke saying he cannot say with confidence that libor is reliable as an Interest Rate today and gens ler saying that libor is not currently reliable. You have the united kingdom, Financial Services authority coming out and making similar concerns and saying that libor is broken. Youve got 6 billion in debt in the bailout where the Interest Rate is tied to libor. And we cannot have Interest Rate in the bailout that is broken, that is unreliable and is potentially subject to manipulation. Theres got to be integrity in the program. What is your biggest fear . Speak to the individual taxpayer who you say is put at risk as a result of using libor in this instance . Whats your biggest fear here . So first of all, theres the issue of the dollars and cents, thats what treasury has said they are going to be looking at the impact. But theres a more crucial issue. The dollars are important but the issue comes down to this, t. A. R. P. Is a program that was designed for Financial Stability and to bring back confidence in the financial markets. So you have secretary of the treasury, youve got the chairman of the Federal Reserve, youve got the chairman of the cftc all raising concerns that the libor manipulation actually undermines confidence in the markets. So we cant have a rate in a program that is designed to instill confidence in the market actually undermine confidence in the markets. Now, the treasury and the fed responded and say they dont control the Interest Rate. What about that . I mean, do you hold them responsible . Whats the next step . Lets demisty fi their arguments against doing this. Treasury and Federal Reserve both agree, they share our concerns about the integrity and reliability of t. A. R. P. The first thing theyve said is that they really cant control these are just contracts and the Interest Rate is set. The fact of the matter is, these are not regular contracts. They were emergency contracts with emergency funding. This is the treasury and Federal Reserve who have considerable leverage and lets talk about the need for this amendment to the contract. Theres a significant emergency need here. This is an extraordinary situation and the counterparties to the contracts are managers who are Investment Advisers who formed a partnership with treasury and barrowers and making a profit on this bailout money. And youve got borrowers who got low cost loans. They she all be supportive of having a situation where we can amend the contract to a rate that ultimately doesnt undermine confidence in the markets. What is that rate . What would you tie it to . What would be the alternative to libor in your view . This is important. One of the things that treasury has said, to change to any rate would harm taxpayers and i dont buy that every other rate out there besides libor harms taxpayers. This is what i think needs to happen. They do not to determine the impact of the manipulation on the Interest Rate. What could they do as a start right now . The first thing they could do, they could say, what is the rate that weve been getting on this debt. And they can say, for right now, lets just fix that rate. Lets just have a fixed rate in the contracts, everyone should agree thats not going to harm taxpayers and not going to harm anyone and until we can decide the impact, lets at least remove this idea that it could undermine confidence in the markets. Right, we got you. If youre just tieing it to the rate that they have been using, youre getting the same situation but its not tied to the controversies around libor. Christy, good to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Christy romero, special Inspector General for the t. A. R. P. Program. We have 40 minutes before the closing bell sounds and market is up 30 points on dow industrials. Hurricane sandy, barreling towards the east coast. Americans prepare and weve got home depot and lowes busier than ever. We look at those two franken storm stocks and the chart next. New reports about how citigroup chairman Michael O Neil pushed out Vikram Pandit coming up next p. Mike rowe here at a ford tell me fiona, whos having a big tire event . Your ford dealer. Who has 11 major brands to choose from . Your ford dealer. Whos offering a rebate . Your ford dealer. Who has the low price tire guarantee. Affording peace of mind to anyone who might be in the market for a new set of tires . Your ford dealer. Im beginning to sense a pattern. Buy four select tires, get a 60 rebate. Use the Ford Service Credit credit card, get 60 more. Thats up to 120. Where did you get that sweater vest . Your ford dealer. Atmix of energies. Ve the world needs a broader thats why were supplying natural gas to generate cleaner electricity. That has around 50 fewer co2 emissions than coal. And its also why, with our partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol a biofuel made from renewable sugarcane. A minute, mom lets broaden the Worlds Energy mix. Lets go. Oil prices falling fon the second week and Bertha Coombs has more. Slightly higher on that better than gdp number but the big move is coming in the products and gasoline and in heating oil. And the concern there has to do with hurricane san did, whether that massive storm as it barrels its way up the coast has any impact on refiners. Initially of course ahead of the storm people tend to fill up their gas tanks so that could boost demand for supply and gasolines, already tight if we get refinery outage due to sandy, could see gasoline prices heading back up, which i know you dont like to hear. No, i dont. Get ready, shares of big box retailers home depot and lowes are lower today even though both stores busier than ever as Hurricane Sandy barrels the coast. Lets Start Talking numbers now on the technical sigh. J. C. Ohara is with Phoenix Partners group and joe feldman with the advisory group. Thanks for joining us. Lets talk fundamentals. How much of an impact do the Home Improvement retailers usually see with a major weather event and which do you prefer . Usually when you have a big event, you can get anywhere from 40 to 100 basis point increase which is a pretty significant amount depending on how big the storm is. Depending where on the northeast is where you have more penetration for home depot and south you probably have more penetration for lowes, its looking like the storm will hit more the eastern midatlantic and northern. So probably the storm itself helps home depot a little more. You would buy home depot stock then . Yeah, i think stocks look good for short term and longer term. Near term you could worry about comparisons in the Fourth Quarter and First Quarter but the Housing Market has been improving. Theyve done a lot to improve. Lowes longer term though. How do the stocks look . They both look very good. You have to remember, these storms are still predictions, weathermen were created to make analysis guys look good with our predictions. Because they are so wrong. All the time. Lets look at home depot, we have a longterm chart to 2006. We have a nice rounding base formation, stock already broke above the 2007 highs and never looked back. Its extended but never buy this because of a storm but the whole housing play has a good story behind it. You think because it has such an up trend its going to continue. The momentum is behind it, yes. Lowes . If you dont want to buy an expanded chart like home depot, lowes is a better play for you. However, current prices below the 2007 highs. This actually has further upside potential and more room to run on the upside once it gets above the 2007 highs. Youll be watching to see is it goes above thats correct. Appreciate that fundamental and technical look. Weather channel online for you too maria. We have 35 minutes left in the trading session and the bias is still the upside. Up 38 points on the dow. Well go inside the citi shakeup. New details are emerging about the storm inside citi that led to pandits ouster, it was not pretty. Some are concerned what it means for the banks future down the road.