Citi just initi initiated cover apple. Just now . They didnt have coverage before . Maybe the previous analyst they had a new analyst. Yes, he likes it. Anyway, s p is down almost five points, off its lows at 1404. Fears of the fiscal cliff taking center stage once again, driving stocks lower after last weeks 3 surge. That big gain friday, 172 points. We lost a third of that right now. How can you protect your for portfolio . We have chief washington correspondent john harwood, bill from coors state Capital Advisers who has a review of the new lincoln movie, lee munson and senior economics reporter steve liesman, plus mary thompson. Were going to be here for a while. John, lets start with you. Any signs of progress on the hill . Reporter nothing tangible. We saw it at the initial meeting between the president and congressional leaders. We saw it over the weekend when some republicans again repeated their openness to being willing to raise taxes, which is something that is violated republican orthodoxy. Here is jay carney just a few minutes ago in reaction to those comments. Some of the comments you mentioned are welcome. And they represent what we hope is a difference in tone and approach to these problems and a recognition that a balanced approach to deficit reduction is the right approach. Its the one most beneficial for our economy. Reporter the president s trying to take advantage of that different tone. He talked to Speaker Boehner over the weekend by telephone. And today youve had two business leaders, john engler, tom donahue, in to meet with senior white house officials. Theyre trying to keep this going. Aides on capitol hill tell me no substantive progress in negotiations just yet. Theyre just now getting back to work after thanksgiving. How does that make you feel about the market . Does it make you feel like they have more kumbiya going on in washington, d. C. . Does it make you more willing to invest . Ill tell you what. I saw spielbergs lincoln over the weekend and it was incredible because it reminded me how nothing has changed on capitol hill. I agree with you 150 . In 150 years. Dont you get tired of everybody saying, oh, washington is a mess right now. Its never been this bad. Its always been this bad. You see that in the movie. Well, we had a civil war in the some say its never been worse. Its been worse. Go ahead, bill. Do you think they can pull this off . The one thing it reminds us is you shouldnt bet on anything. We should bet on volatility. We could bet on the doomers and gloomers, y2k and here we go again. The whole name of success is to have a repeatable process on how to deal with investing. Whether its in stocks, bonds, gold, doesnt matter. Have a plan, a strategy, have consistency. Its going to be volatile in every single asset class through the end of january. Lee, you say as an investor, ignore the fiscal cliff, right . Im like bill. You have to have a process. I dont care what theyre doing. Do i care about some of my clients with deductions . Theres a lot of talk about cap deductions. Sure, i am but im not going to change my invest bonds or strategy. We use risk budgeting, Risk Management techniques. Going into next year theres a sense at my firm that we have to squeeze more out of every tactical move we can because of potential tax consequences. I just think that makes you leaner and meaner. If youre a company that struggled over the past couple of years with this anemic growth, 2013 im optimistic and think there will be growth, its not going to be okay. Whatever has been able to survive, you keep an eye on. Mary thompson, weakness in markets today, connected to anything that johns been reporting about the willingness to raise taxes . Coming into it a lot of people were saying, we are overbought going into the end of yesterdays session so they were expecting some kind of pullback anyways today. I would say that was a big part of it. Also some weakness in that there wasnt any progress or any notable progress in the fiscal cliff. Thats contributing to it. But given the strength of last weeks rally, some people said we had to take money off the table coming in today. Slowly this market is still coming off those lows. The dow now down just 58 points at this hour. Steve liesman, while were on it, we talk about the recovery that is slowly under way here. What impact did sandy, the superstorm that hit a few weeks ago here in the northeast and along the eastern seaboard, what impact . You have new data suggesting the impact it had on the economy. You are talking about what could be a manmade disaster. This is a natural disaster. Iar worldwide, one of the companies that gauges the insured losses. Only insured. Doesnt count government. Has significantly increased its estimate to 16 to 22 billion from 7 to 15 billion. Thats a little lower on the upper range but about double. Theyre citing much greater storm damage than originally estimated. And, of course, higher payouts on insured losses. Mayor bloomberg just this afternoon also estimated the losses for new york city alone, Economic Activity and government at 20 billion alone. This may be remember, initially it was estimated at 50 billion event. Maybe its more like 75 billion or 100 billion. Just a warning to investors, theres a lot of data coming up this week thats affected by sandy. If you take a look tomorrow, durable goods could have a sandy effect in it. New home sales thursday, you have jobless claims. Again, a sandy effect in there. And the challenge for those playing the short term is to disaggregate, whats sandy and whats the real economy and after that figure off the fiscal cliff. All of that feeds into what you were saying, bill, expect a lot of volatility. The sandy effect will make it harder to decipher whats going on with the Economic Data. And the Economic Data is going to be skewed by mother nature, by politicians, a lot of things. You need a longer view, more than four weeks whats your view right now . Cautious. But have you to be invested. You cant sit on the sidelines earning zero thinking youre going to accomplish anything. The oneyear treasury at a quarter of a percent doesnt work for me. Theres lots of opportunities out there and it gets back to focus, having a steady hand, ice in your veins and no one to buy. Volatility could be good for an investor with a strong stomach and a strong will. But i think when you say words like cautious, sometimes i agree with bill with what hes saying but i think using a word like cautious overstates it. Have you to go in here, go on the offense and use these dips to start buying. I dont think people need to necessarily be cautious. I think they should be aggressively trying to pick up equity when they can. Maybe that means using the volatility as best you can. I dont think well get the volatility a lot of people are expecting. Dont think well have a big 10 correction before the end of the year where it will be obvious, now i can step in. Thank you very much. Thank you, folks. We have 52 minutes before the closing bell. Right now the Dow Jones Industrial average lower by 59 . Nasdaq slightly higher, five points. Millions of people shopping from home on or work on this cyber monday. Find out which retailers may be ringing up the Biggest Online sales. Holiday shopping has literally gone to the dogs. Unbelievable. Americans spend a whopping 5 billion, yes, with a b on fido and fluffy on the holidays. Well talk to the ceo of petsmrt, robert moran. But cats are getting the short trip thats terrible. Like a zombie, this stock just will not die. 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Millions of americans hit the malls on black friday and millions more, we are told, doing shopping online today. We have full Team Coverage of this cyber monday. Nbcs diana at an amazon Distribution Center, Brian Shactman at a lands end Distribution Center in wisconsin. Well start with Courtney Reagan crunching the cyber numbers. What a weekend it was, surprising most retail catchers on the upside. Comp score says black friday is the biggest shopping day, with more than 1 billion sent. Today expectations are today will leap frog black friday. We have been tracking sales today. Sales have been increasing throughout the day. Up 21 an hour later and now theyre up 24 yearoveryear. And we saw a spike at lunchtime and then we could see another spike occur at consumers made their way home. Multiscreen consumers transitioned to shopping at their desk. Googles updated search query show electronics are leading. Right now nexus, followed by laptop, ipad mini, the kindle fire. If you take a look at all this, amazon is the only retailer left on the list at this point in the day when were talking about top Google Search queries. Thats a cool data point. I think 24 increase is big. Did is a big increase. But its logical, right . Its logical. Theres a secular shift moving towards online. More access, more supply. You can do it on your phone. I would agree. But i would think 10 would be a big number but 24 the overall number matters to the economy, right . Well get into in lighter. Im a skeptic. Lets check in how fast amazons products are moving at amazon with diana at the Distribution Center. Theres an easy way to see whats trending. Go to the amazon. Com website and see their best sellers. Kindle fire is one of the best sellers. Along with levis jeans for mens and the elf on the shelf. We wont have any Sales Numbers yet but today is the biggest day for amazon because today the largest numbers of placed. Thats easy to see. This is the gigantic inbound section at this one Fulfillment Center in phoenix. All along that w trucks. By the end of the day, more than 350,000 items will have been taken off those trucks and put on shelves. Even bigger, more than 500,000 items will have shipped out. Thats all in one day on cyber monday. The team here tells me they expect today to be their best cyber monday ever. Bill and michelle . Holy cow. Thats a big number too. I love those shots. How much does cyber monday mean to the bottom line of retailers . Brian shactman is at a lands end Distribution Center in wisconsin. Reporter you know, michelle, its tough to follow amazon with those numbers but lands end ceo told me directly this is their biggest day of the year and part of their biggest week. By midday they were confident in saying theyre guiding 20 better than last year. Consistent with the numbers courtney had given you. During one hour the website broke a record of 24,000 orders. When all of todays business gets shipped, lands end will surpass last monday cyber tally of 180,000 orders processed. This facility has been busy for the better part of of a week because cyber monday is part of a larger push. The cullmy naction from last wednesday through today, hugely promoted discounts. This tote here usually sells for 25 bucks. They have their doorbuster, virtual doorbuster, for 10. Told out in 33 minutes. The cnbc logo, thats an extra 6 bucks. I can confirm just about everything weve heard anecdotally the shopping season is off to a pretty strong start. Back to you. Big numbers there as well. Thank you very much. Will this cyber monday be the ligest Online Shopping day of the year for a Third Straight year . Which retailers will be the winners and losers . Lets talk about it. Ben arnold of npd, brad thomas from capital markets. Ben, you say all signs point to this being the biggest cyber monday yet. Were hearing big numbers from amazon and lands end anecdotally. Is anybody making money . What about the bottom line with the discounts they offer . Certainly the products are being heavily discounted to drive a lot of the volume, a lot of sales. My reason for being upbeat about cyber monday is that cyber monday has become its own shopping occasion, separate from black friday. Youve now got Cyber Monday Deals going all through the week, walmart, best buy, online retailers are putting an emphasis on it. The one downside to cyber monday as we look at growth Going Forward is cyber monday lasts all week. So, you could be eating turkey on thursday night and take advantage of a cyber monday deal. That makes sales on the actual day of monday a little of rifshg going down. Yeah, they get a little diluted. How are smartphones and tablets changing the way we shop this Holiday Season . We were talking about the huge increase in cyber spending year over year on black friday. I think its so much easier to do it on your tablet and phone right now. Absolutely. They are affecting sales big time, in a huge, huge way. We heard earlier there was a 24 lift over last year for cyber monday. That was just desktop. I expect a huge lift tonight because a lot of people are probably going to be sitting in front of their couch, eating dinner theyll check out the deals on their smartphones and tablets. The impact of the phone and the tablet cant be underestimated because it has completely just made it that much easier to access the internet and to access the sales. Email is the number one way people actually find out about these sales. Theyre seeing it on their first screen. They check out those emails. They go through, complete that transaction. Thats going to be a huge driver of whats going to continue to lift today. Its got to be great impulse buy. On the couch, ipad, email comes through, let me connect. Its instantaneous, at least for girls. I do it, too. Brad, break it down for investors watching. Who are the winners and losers this cyber monday . As we look at our retail coverage, the big thing we look out for is the promotional level. I think the first takeaway here is the promotional levels we saw today and that we saw over the weekend were in line with what we saw last year. So, at this point, nobodys breaking the line. Everybodys holding steady. It does look like were off to a healthy start to the holiday. As you look for winners and losers, we think you want to avoid the 800pound gorilla. Avoid any retailers that compete against amazon. You want to avoid Consumer Electronics base, best buy, office products, retailers, staples, office depot. You want to avoid the competitors to amazon but do you want to buy amazon . Amazons not in our coverage but its the 800pound gorilla. This company has grown with revenue over 30 the last five years despite getting to the size where it will be around a top ten retailer in the u. S. This year. Its a huge Company Growing at a fast pace. As you heard the stories of tablets gaining market share and smartphones becoming a way to shop, were in the early innings of internet taking share from brick and mortar. I know youre not stock pickers, per se, but who do you see out there thats doing a good job of handling cyber retail these days . I dont think theres any question amazon has the winner. It almost doesnt even matter. You asked about profitability and margins. Its almost irrelevant whether theyll have higher margins or not this year because what theyre looking for is market share. Theyre looking for that wallet share. They want to make sure the consumer is spending money with amazon and not with anybody else. And they have other ways to make money, the marketplace. At some point they have to worry about that. But i get your point. Whos a winner and loser when it comes to doing cyber sales well . I dont see any losers. I think most of the retailers are winners. The ones doing particularly well, aside from amazon, are your best buys, walmarts, who are able to integrate cyber monday with the instore promotions, creating a lot of synergy and this idea of the omni channel really taking hold over black friday. Thank you very much. Happy cyber monday. Happy surfing, however you shop. We need another shopping event in america. Thats what we really need, isnt it . Heading toward the close. Theyve been shopping for bargains on wall street. The dow down 63 point. I say just because it was 120. That was the number at the low of the session earlier today. Were well off that number. Many investors left this stock for dead, hence why were showing zombies. Last years Cnbc Christmas party. It has been resurrected. Can you guess what company it is . Find out if you should buy in or just let the stock rest in peace. More and more democrats willing to jump off the fiscal cliff rather than take a deal they dont like . 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