and it is 4:00 on wall street. you know where your money is. hi, everybody. welcome back to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo on the floor of the new york stock exchange. here's what we're following on the close tonight. stocks closed moderately high or wall street. strong retail sales today setting the tone along with consumer sentiment improvementing. president obama praising the house for passing a massive financial reform bill. we have the details. pay czar kenneth feinberg telling us why some exemptions have been made as he moves to limit the pay packages of hundreds of executives. onto the auto sector. a look at how we finished the day on wall street. the dow jones industrial average not at highs first day but close to it. up 67 points at 10472 this friday night on wall street. s&p 500 picked up four points but nasdaq, close but no cigar. in the red for the day. down half of a point at 2190. take a look at the other major averages tonight. we are looking at after the bell tonight, we're looking for new investment ideas. we broke down three stocks on the nasdaq that could be poised to rally and rally big. plus, we'll tell you how you can ride the tech wave in china by targeting certain etfs that could pay off down the road. and then is america facing a confidence crisis. >> we examine some of the prizing results in our exclusive "wealth in america survey." it's all coming up on "closing bell." those stories just a head on the program. first, we get all of the action on wall street with bob pisani on the eye of the floor of of the nyse. >> and november retail sales better than expected. the rally moves up and the stocks don't fall down! i'm excited about it. take a look at the dollar index because it may not know the start of a long-term trend but certainly got a lot of notice on the street today. staying at its highs all throughout the day. any other day in the last few months, what would you have seen? commodity stocks falling down. and most of the rest of the market weak as well. didn't happen here today. look at alcoa, i'm not picking on alcoait's just one of many commodity stockings on the upside. alcoa's particularly strong here today and also some of the big names, for example, like some of the iron ore stocks, all moving to the upside. there's alcoa here and you can see no falling down on the day with the dollar high. alcoa near the highs of the day. how about the retail sales numbers? better than expected. why was it better know that the comp store sales numbers? because it included cyber-monday and some of the electronics retailers that are out there, there is best buy and radioshack having a pretty good day overall. a good week here. best buy, by the way reporting their earnings next week. other big names in the retail space, nordstrom's at a new high. they had very good brand loyalteer, high cost-cutting throughout the year. that stock's doing very well. macy's had a great week, up about 6%. even tiffany's was up 2% here today. how about the airlines stocks, all of them had a terrific week overall. we had very strong commentary in some the airlines during the week here companies like amr, u.s. air, delta -- all had positive comments. look at these moves, you're not seeing a typo there, 14% up in delta. when was the last time that you had seen an airline up in the double-digit areas? a little bit of problems elsewhere, we are moves down in home builders. can't get any traction. hovnanian is one example. down almost 10% just this week and a rough week for ipos. kar auction services, kar, a car auction company went public today. where did the price come in? $12. it traded below $12 at the open. but you could see it sort of flat lined right at $12. for the week, maria. the dow jones industrial average up about 3/4 of a point there. the nasdaq to the downside. the s&p 500 on the flat side. we've been sitting right near 52 week highs for several weeks now. getting tough getting over that 1100 level. >> good stuff, bob. see you later. and go right to the source now to the nasdaq and see how things settled out there. brian shactman with all highlights. >> we lagged down on the s&p 500 today. if we take a looking at the intraday chart it's interest nag we went negative around midday and we crawled back actually into a positive territory around 3:30 p.m. eastern time. but then we just couldn't close the deal here. finished down just a fraction. the worst of the names that stayed on much to things all day long, oracle, ebay, yahoo! -- to name a few. the news out of oracle the "the wall street journal" saying they're going to fight eu in terms of their objections to the java deal and yahoo! got a nice deal from that kaufman's buy. in terms of the chip sector a real drag from the national semis in their guidance. i will bring up intel and marvell. they were down for a good portion of the entire day. and some other names in the red and i want to talk about google for a second because the headlines are very interesting. even though the stock was down a little bit today, one, is the company comes out and says they might be profiting off of youtube very soon. also, they customized their home page in south korea to that local audience and if it does well, it couou be reproduced in other countries around the world. they only have about a 2% market snare south korea burks keep a close eye on how that does if they gain share, it will be repeated. i also want to talk about video game software, npd, the research group came outane said across the board all video game element and including consoles sales down 7.6% year over year in november, and in terms of the software, down 3.1%. they were expecting a gain. the reason why activision/blizzard did well and electronics arts didn't is because they the call of duty, modern warfare did so well, and if they did well, the numbers were still down and then you know that ea sports struggled and i just want to talk on starbucks quickly here as well because they tell the tale when it comes to the flow of prices here. starbucks touched a 52-week high and then pulled back, went negative. and then tried to call -- claw back and finish back here in the highs. so, maria, we had -- even though it wasn't a huge day in terms of where we finished, there was a fair amount of intraday movement. 2249 was that 52-week high. >> brian, thanks very much. more on today's market action right now with only a few weeks left in '09, will the run in equities continue? david kelly, chief market strategy wist jpmorgan funds. and doug sandler, co-funder river investment group. gintelmen, good to have you on the program. welcome. david kelly, what kind of a year-end are you expecting for stocks? >> it should be up. i hate to try to thyme over a few week bus what we're seeing is a strengthening story on the u.s. economy. right now looks to me that we could see 5% gdp growth in real terms for the fourth quarter. >> wow. >> that's some excellent numbers this week. the trade numbers, the retail sales numbers and also the inventory numbers. the first month in 14 months where inventories actually grew in the united states. go from inventories slumping to growing, that adds to the economic growth. so it looks like the economy's accelerating here. on the verge of producing some jobs in the next few months. that'll make it more self-sustaining expansion and i think that that should push stocks higher. >> doug, do you agree if. >> yeah, i agree that things are getting better. i think that the market also though is asking for companies that aren't just you know getting away from the worst-case scenario. that's what kind of drove the market in the last six months. i think in the end what you need now is a company to show some growth and i think that by that token, you're seeing sectors like health care and technology continue rising up while some of the other sectors that simply bounce because they weren't going bankrupt or being nationalized like the banks. those are starting to show leadership to the downside. so i think that market is in transition but we think ultimately higher to the end of the year and maybe through 2010. >> were you surprised that today we actually saw stocks rise as well as the dollar rise? you typically don't see that kind of a change on the same day. they're typically moving in opposite directions. >> certainly departure from the latest trend. i think that could continue for a while. i think a dollar strengthening isn't necessarily a bad thing for u.s. stocks, provided it just doesn't run away. >> david kelly, let's talk a little bit investing in this environment. i do want to be exposed to those vehicles that closely tied to an economy that is perhaps growing 5%, as you said, economic-sensitive stocks. where do you want to invest here? >> yeah that's been working all year, but i think that you stwik that trend. i think that you can stick with technology, materials, consumer discretionary stuff. if this economy and the global economy come back a little faster than people think, i think those sectors will do well. and just in this dollar issue, i think what's anyone going on for the last few months is people are move into the dollar when they are scared and moving out of the dollar when they are more comfortable. it's bane safe haven and this inverse relationship with the stock market but as the global economy moves from sort of fear of a recession or a double-dip recession as it moves to more of a normal expansionary mode i think that linkage, that negative linkage between the dollar and stocks will probably break down anyway. >> all right leave it there. gentlemen, appreciate your time. have a good weekend. take a look at the other business headlines. by a vote of 223 to 202 the house of representatives today approving the biggest changes in financial regulations since the '30s. the bill creating an interagency council to control systemic risk in the economy and establishes a financial consumer watch dog. next, stop the senate with extensive debate expected. we are on it. the obama administration's pay czar will limit cash compensation for dozens of executives at companies that got the biggest bailouts. details coming up along with our interview with kenneth feinberg. and then unexpected retail sales and along with improved consumer sentiment raising hopes for the economy. coming up a host of surprising results from our exclusive "welt in america survey." and then is there a real concern of crisis facing america today coming up next. and later, three stocks ready to move on the nasdaq. we're digging through the numbers. we've found a trio of names. you'll want to know about. somewhere in america, there's a home by the sea powered by the wind on the plains. there's a hospital where technology has a healing touch. there's a factory giving old industries new life. and there's a train that got a whole city moving again. somewhere in america, the toughest questions are answered every day. because somewhere in america, 69,000 people spend every day answering them. siemens. answers. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx welcome back. today investors saw some positive readings on retail sales, business inventories and consumer sentiment but are americans really optimistic about the future? our latest cnbc with the wealth in america report" offers some surprising results about what folks are saying right now about their own situation. cnbc's steve liesman with these results. >> reporter: yeah, they're pretty sobering, maria. some slight gains but cnbc wealth in america survey finding that americans are still downbeat on the economy and are not confident things will improve much in the future. and they also have little faith in our economic leadership. get to that in just a second. 800 respondents finds 93% of the public rating the economy -- some improvement there in those ratings at poor. 10 percentage drop this those. a very slight increase from 4% to 7% in those saying that the economy's excellent or good. but 52% of the public pessimistic about the current state of the economy and for the -- same percentage of a year ago think that the economy will remain the same and only a small gain from 39% to 43% in the percentage that the economy will improve. a big reason for the pessimism is the wage outlook. americans look for their wages to rise just 1.3% over the next year. the smallest amount in the three-year life of our survey. all of this economic pessimism has a political fallout. and our survey picked up trouble for everyone in washington, just 24% of americans expressed confidence in the fed. 19% have faith in the treasury. that's just barely above trust in the federal emergency management agency. 17% have confidence in health companies. and only 1 in 10 americans say they trust wall street. by contrast you could see there 77% of americans say they're confident in the american military. the keys to the survey, jobs, wage gains in increases in home prices. the survey did show americans expect their home prices to decline by just 0.3%, that compares to 1.6% a year ago. the survey suggests improvement there will lead to better attitudes on the economy and even increased spending. maria? >> ah, really amazing numbers. steve, stick with us as we bring in a pair of cnbc contributors here. get their take on it. tony fratto is with us managing director at hamilton place strategies and former white house deputy press secretary greg valier is with us. chief strategist. why are people so negative, tony? >> look, obviously in an economic downturn you're going to have people's confidence in the future and outlook for their present-dayu know, personal finances, you know it will cause tension -- cause tension in their family and it puts them at risk. but you know i think if you look at what a lot of the conversation has been coming from washington over the past year or so, you know there have been some missteps. a little bit of overpromising on the stimulus package. you know a lot of people in washington expecting to see results quickly. we haven't seen them quickly. you know the bashing of wall street that we've seen from all quarters in washington has led to a dimuneition of confidence if n those situations. >> it's a pox on everyone'snous washington. that's both parties. it's obviously wall street. i don't think it's going to go away anytime soon. i would argue it started with weapons of mass destruction. there weren't any weapons of mass destruction. and since then it's been one thing after another. i think that stimulus package was very poorly handled. why they loaded it up with garbage in the house, that just gave the radio talk show hosts fodder. and i think from there on, it just got worse and worse. >> yeah, they set up the president to fail with that stimulus, throwing all of it stuff in there. >> didn't it? >> steve -- yeah, go ahead steve. >> what's really interesting is people are downbeat on the economy. they're not happy about where things are right now and where things are going but they don't want washington to do anything more about it. >> yeah. >> when we asked people what they want done with the extra money from the t.a.r.p.? they said 56 to 33, pay down the deficit. well even when we asked people, hey, will you pay down the deficit even if it means the economy will recover later? they said, yes, pay down the deficit. so really it's a lack of confidence in washington and how they've spent the money. >> that's a great, great point, steve. thank you for making that. because people, aid has become our national conversation. obviously it was part of the international conversation and now average joes are talking about the deficit and it's important to them. >> and although you would have to make the point that the treasury 10-point yield is 3.5. soy not in the interest rates at least right now. >> no but what they do see are these massive numbers that we've never seen before. we've never seen deficits measured in trillions before. i also think for a lot of americans, maria, seems to be a dissidence of what's going on in washington, in terms of how it affects their daily lives. the biggest concern that we see in all of the local polling -- or all of the polling right now is a concern about the economy and jobs. when the conversation in washington is about a massive spending bill on health care that's going to change 1/6 of the economy and climate change, these aren't the things that are foremost on most american's minds. >> there's a disconnect. >> there is a disconnect. >> yep, steve? >> could i ask tony a question. if you were sitting in the treasure before when you report in white house and you saw this 22% of americans have no support in either party, that 30% approve of the economic handling by the democrats and the republicans, how much would you be sweating at that point? and what would you be doing in terms of changing your policies now to do what you just said, which is respond to the conversation going on main street as opposed to the conversation in washington? >> steve, i think that's a great point. and i think that the administrations has tried do that over the last week or so with the jobs summit and the president out speaking about the jobs and the economy, as specific -- as specifically as he can. in fact here, added to it his afghanistan speech talking about domestic economy. so i think that they understand that there is a disconnect in how they're communicating with the american people, and that's one way that they're trying to do it. but i think they're playing catch-up right now also. and for a large portion of the electorate out there, you know the independent voters that swing very big in a lot of elections, it's possibleta they may have lost them already on this question. >> do you think that we're going to see a reaction on election day. >> oh sure. >> do you think that we'll see an impact on the leadership in washington? >> we could ask jon corzine. we've already seen one impact. >> you think that it continues? >> i think that it continues. i would say this though, maria, bernanke didn't get high scores in this poll. either did geithner. i think it would be a miscarriage of "time" magazine's person of the year is not ben bernanke. i think he's had that great a year. >> well, you know me, i've always been very strong on the work that ben has done. i think there's been some legitimate criticism of the fed, both in terms of the lead-up on the financial crisis and maybe on interest rate policy, policy-to-policy rate over the years but ben's done an incredible job in the past 18 months and bringing us out of this financial crisis. >> what about steve's other quo policy? you said that the administration has tried to respond by doing the job summit at a minimum getting the topics that people care about in their faces. but what about actually changing policies? making the deficit reduction more of a priority? pulling in spending, perhaps not allowing the bush tax cuts to expire? do you think that we'll see any of that? >> i think that we're going to see the administration talk about deficits and they're going to have to come forward with a budget in february that shows a credible path to deficit to reduction. it's not, you know -- i think they're recognizing that it resonates with the american people. it's resonating as an issue in conditions, and it's also resonating as an international issue in global bond markets. so they're going to have to present that credible deficit reduction path. >> real quickly, i think one of the problems is this enormous disconnect between us, wall street, washington and the rest of the country. it looks like we're going to have a fourth quarter gdp number well over 4%. that's not appreciated by the public. >> yeah and earlier our guest said 5%. >> could be. >> which is really extraordinary. gentlemen, thank you for your insights. steve liesman, as always, great work. appreciate it. see you later. later on in the cloib"closi bell" why our latest wealth of america report is raising glimmer of hope on the consumer front. look for new names to your portfolio? we've gate trio of nasdaq names that could be poised to pop in the fire future. but first, pay czar, ken feinberg will give us his take on the plans to rein in corporate pay. that interview coming up. you all want to run your businesses more efficiently, so we've brought in a team of experts to help. one suggestion is to make your shipping more efficient with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. shipping's a hassle! weighing every box... actually, with flat rate boxes you don't need to weigh anything under 70 pounds. if it fits, it ships for a low flat rate. call or go online for a free flat rate box shipping kit that includes free boxes and our helpful shipping guide. do it today, and we'll ship it all right to your door for free. ok, but i ship all over the country. you can ship anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. ship international, too. and remember flat rate boxes come in four sizes and shipping starts at just $4.95. call or go online for a free shipping kit with a full supply of free boxes, plus the shipping guide. act now, and you'll get them all delivered right to your business free of charge. priority mail flat rate boxes only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship. call or go online now to get started. welcome back. let's take a look at the other stories that we're following on the closing bell ticker tonight. dow component united technologies. the biggest gain in the blue chip index. earnings will rise 10% next year. strength across all of the company's businesses. take a look at utx tonight, up 2%. a $1.47 higher. also a bright economic outlook for alcoa. jpmorgan raising profit forecasts for alcoa and other metal, mining companies on the expectations that hire prices continuing next year. heavy volume $1.11 higher. oil prices drop below $70 a barrel and the u.s. and japan make progress on an open-skies agreement. you heard earlier from bertha that the entire airline group higher today. delta hot, 15% high or delta air lines. well, pay czar kenneth feinberg unveiling compensation plans for the second tier of executives at companies under his watch. mary thompson sat down with his him and she has all of the details. mary? >> reporter: maria, earlier today at the treasury department, i'm standing right outside it right now here in washington, d.c. feinberg laid out the compensation structures for the 26 to 100 top executivas at four companies under his watch. the quick and dirtot plan, here it is. basically, these executive's total compensation will be made up of about 55% stock. that can't be redeemed at least three years. the cash portion will be about 45% of total compensation. and the cash portion can't exceed $500,000. at least in most cases. less than a dozen executives were granted dispennation and given more cash as part of their total compensation and we asked feinberg why these exceptions were made? >> because these individual companies came to me and said, mr. feinberg, under the law we must remain competitive with our competition and wanted to repay the taxpayer. we ask for a limited exemption in order to make sure that we can keep, keep people on board at our company. >> reporter: now, maria, stock bonuses for these executives will come from a fixed pool of money. an amount to be decide by the companies and then approved by the pay czar. the amount will be determined by either let's say a company's earnings or its revenues. those details are still being work out between the two side. the four companies required to adhere to to this plan. some say may be trying to repay t.a.r.p. too quickly in order to defree of these pay restrictions. though, feinberg told us he doesn't feel it's been harmful. >> in terms of what i'm doing, i don't believe that any of the decisions that i've made with respect to citi or any of the other top companies under my jurisdiction have injured their ability to compete in the marketplace. it's a delicate balance. >> reporter: as for another company under his watch, feinberg says he is open to boosting a cash salary cap imposed on compensation for the new gm ceo. this is what he had to say about that. >> i have made it very clear that if a new ceo is coming in laterally to general motors, we will have to take a long look at the type of compensation package that will be necessary to make sure that gm is competitive. >> reporter: now if you want to see more of my interview with mr. feinberg it will be available on cnbc.com. maria, back to you. >> mary, thanks so much. mary thompson. great stuff there. just ahead three nasdaq stocks poised to move up. deeming numbers of which names could be a good bet for your portfolio. take a look at the business headlines at this hour. the dow closes with a gain of 6/10 of a percent today with the help of strong retail sales in november which set the tone in the market early on. despite a two-month high for the dollar. senate majority leader harry reid saying that china's policy has been destroying the world economy for too many years. in the letter to the president of china he calls for a significant reevaluation of the occurrence nechina. lawyer for former enron ceo jeffrey skilling filed a brief to the supreme court ahead of oral arguments next week. making it illegal for executives to deprive shareholders of their honest services. well today markss one-year anniversary of the arrest of convicted ponzi schemer bernie madoff in which what has been dubbed the skachlt century. one year later the ripple effects are still being felt across wall street. scott cohn with the look at the year that was and beyond. >> reporter: it's amazing that it's been a year, isn't it. >> unbelievable. >> and beyond is the operative phrase today, maria, because on this one-year anniversary we're learn in fact madoff criminal investigation has been just ratcheted up big time. the justice department signalling in court papers filed a short time ago that it is looking at criminal charges against madoff's feeder funds, in the people who run them in particular, three funds run by beverly hills' investor stanley chase, who already faces civil fraud charges from the securities and exchange commission. that word comes one year to the day after we first learned about the scam of the century in bernie madoff became a household name. so to a slightly lesser extent it is his wife ruth who so far has been charged and nor are the madoff's two sons and peter who all worked in the business. madoff's attorney is sorkin and while he does not represent the family members, he told us it is unlikely they will be charged. >> you know somebody asked me the other day, well, why hasn't ruth madoff and peter madoff and his boys been charged? and the short answer is that the u.s. attorney's office and the s.e.c., particularly the u.s. attorney's office, they've been investigating this for a year now and have not brought charges, which leads me to conclude that either they, as mr. madoff said, they didn't do anything wrong or that the u.s. attorney has decided that they didn't do anything wrong. what was floating around initially was, everybody's involved. how could they not be involved? you know these conspiracy theories that everybody's involved. the investigation, as i understand it, is still continuing. and the u.s. attorney's office, if they had sufficient evidence to bring charges, i have no doubt that they would have brought charges. >> bernie madoff of course is in prison in north carolina where sorkin says he is doing okay under the circumstances. madoff's chief financial officer and his outside auditor have both pleaded guilty and are cooperating with authorities. and you can see our entire interview with ira lee sorkin, very interesting stuff. how he first learned about the scandal and cnbc.com and a special rebroadcast of our cnbc documentary "scam of the century: bernie madoff's crime & punishment." tonight at 10:00 p.m. to mark this anniversary. >> terrific interview with mr. sorkin. it may be tough for retailers once again this year but there are also glimmers of hope on the horizon. just ahead some surprising results from our latest "wealth in america survey" that you cannot afford to miss. we'll be right back. >> this week's "money & money report" i'm julia boorstin. new box office record. $10 billion in u.s. ticket sales in year. disney's rolling out "the princess and the frog" to over 3,000 theaters this year. paired with new princes to draw kids through the holidays. adults will be lurched to the theater by "invictus." >> this is our destiny. >> launched tuesday, vevo, universal music, sony and emi and youtube teeming up to offer music videos on the new site hoping to generate new ad revenue from this hullulike option. facebook unveiling new privacy settings askiths 350 million users to decide whether to make their information and comments public. like twitter updates. so they could be included in realtime search results. (announcer) we call it the american renewal. because we believe in the strength of american businesses. ge capital understands what small businesses need to grow and create jobs. today, over 300,000 businesses rely on ge capital for the critical financing they need to help get our economy back on track. the american renewal is happening. right now. well, we're in the homestretch here. the holiday shopping season heading into the homestretch, and there may be a glimmer of hope on the consumer front this year. jane wells with more now on the results of our latest cnbc wealth in the america survey. jane in. >> reporter: maria, this survey is the most bullish yet on holiday consumer sentiment. as people told us they plan to increase their spending this year, 10.5% from last year to just under $780. but inside that number is a tale of two income levels. those making at least $100 grande year are no scrounges. planning to increase spending 54% to almost $1,900. while the scratchetcratchettes $100. last year, 46% of those with incomes topping $100,000 plan to spend at least a grand on the holiday. number has now grown to 53%. and for the first time highly educate and high-income earners say the internet is their number one destination for shopping this year, with 35% of professional managers shopping there, 36% of those with post-graduate degrees and 36% of those making more than $100,000. says the next way for this next group of shopping online is using mobile devices. >> if you think about those h h high-technology adapters or people who adapt technology quickly i think that they tend to more often be in the wealthy income brackets. >> finally for the first time people with children plan to spend less for the holidays than people without kids. the survey shows 57% of parents plan to cut spending on gifts confirmed only 44% of those without children. says parents may be concerned with long-term expenses with children and focused on saving and paying down debt. maria, my kids just want cash which make my shopping very easy this year. >> i bet. jane, thank you. a lot of people out there would like that. well, the travel industry's on edge this holiday season because of those cuts in consumer spending mentioned by jane, from veil resorts, for example. veil is looking better than last. but will enough vacationers hit the slopes this winter to maintain earnings momentum. >> joining me to talk about flais veil resort's ceo rob katz. mr. katz good to have you on the program. >> nice to be here, maria. >> thank you for joining us. what are you expecting from the holidays and into 2010. >> i think that we're really expecting that the economy's picked up a bit, certainly from last year and so people have more confidence as your last segment just noted and we are expecting people to come in greater numbers and spend a little bit more. we're also seeing that the luxury segment, as was just mentioned, probably picking up quicker than the lower parts of the income demographic. so that's what we're expecting as well. >> now you have got advanced lodging bookings down 13% this year, right? and what do you attribute the decline at this moment to? >> well, one of the things that we attribute it to is if you looked at our booking curve, the lowest performing month right now is april and then it gets better in the march, much better february and then better in december. last year at that time before the economic crash happened you had a lot of people who had already booked vacations in march. this year, people are really booking no more than like a month ahead and so that's shortening of the booking curve has created that downward trend in bookings as of today. >> i see. so it's really a change in behavior, the way that people are booking their trips? >> yeah, that's really what we're seeing. one of the good news -- pieces for good news for us is season past sales were up about 10% this year. that represents about 1/3 of our lift ticket revenue. these are people who have already committed to come out and ski with us for the winter. that's up pretty big and while they may have not booked a hotel yet they've made their decision to come out and visit with us and we think that's a great sign. >> what about discounts, have you started to offer discounts, ski and vacation packages? >> absolutely. i think this is actually going to be one of the best travel years because the economy's a little better, the stock market's up, but discounts and the deals are still there. this is probably going to be one of the first years that we have, packages and promotion, not only on lift tickets but on ski school, food during the holidays. we typically don't offer that but through this entire year i would encourage people to take a look because some of the best bargains that you could find. >> i see. so what kind of bargains should people expect? >> well, i think it's -- it depends on what you're looking for. >> we're offering pretty good deals that could get up to 40%, 50% off if you do a lodging and lift ticket package. a number of promise of keystone mountains one of our resorts in colorado about $100 a day to actually stay and go on the mountain and ski. and again that's much, much lower than we've ever seen before. >> i see. when do you see a return of normalcy to the travel industry? i mean clearly this is cyclical. you are seeing stabilization. when would you expect things to really go back to the way it was a couple of years ago? >> well, i think what's going to happen is and we're starting to see little pieces of evidence of this, when people pick up the phone to make their travel reservations and all of a sudden they can't find a room or the location they want or they can't get the date that they want and then all of a sudden they will start book a little bit earlier, they'll be willing to pay a little bit more and we're starting to see evidences of that in -- particularly in vail and beaver creek this year where a number of our lodges are starting to get full over the holiday period. and as that starts to continue, i think that you'll see that across the travel industry, consumer behavior will start to shift again. >> i see. and so are you expecting this change in behavior, though, in terms of booking trips later and looking for value to be a mentality for some time to come even when we do see business returning? >> yeah, i think what you're going to see certainly through this holiday or winter season, i think travel's going to stay with a real focus on bargains. i think waiting till the last minute may not be the best strategy this year, like it was last year. because again more people are picking up the phone and calling. i think as we get into next season and into the end of 2010 and 2011, i think that you may see that trend start to shift again. >> mr. katz, great to have you on the program. we look forward to hearing all about it next time. thanks very much. >> great to be here. >> happy holidays. robert katz the ceo of vail resorts. up next three stock, in the nasdaq that are poised to pop. tell you which names they could be when we come right back. and then cashing in on china, we'll look at the ways that you can ride the global wave and make money by investing in chinese technology companies. ♪ yes, you're lovely... ♪ what do you think? hey, why don't we use our points from chase sapphire and take a break? we can't. sure, we can. the points don't expire... ♪ there is nothing for me... ♪ there's no travel restrictions... we could leave tomorrow. we can't use them for a vacation. you can use the points for just about anything. i know... ♪ the way you look tonight ♪ chase what matters. get your new chase sapphire card at chase.com/sapphire. with annuities from fidelity. turn your savings into income -- guaranteed, and get a retirement "paycheck" for life -- guaranteed. call... to get started, and learn how to secure retirement income that won't go down -- guaranteed. call fidelity at... for details about guaranteed income for life, and change the way you think about your retirement savings. welcome back. now, three nasdaq stocks with the potential to pop over 40% in the next six to 12 month. we went through the nasdaq 100 looking for the stocks now tradingalt biggest discounts to analyst price targets. here's what what we found. number one, aluminum. closing price, 2709. the stock was trading in the low 40s as recently as october. it is now at 2713 as you can see there. one year, 27%. number two, foster wheeler, the construction services company. now the average analyst forecast calls for 43% advance in this stock. projected gain as you see 43%. it's already rallied from the 52-week low of around $13. now sitting at $28 a share. number activision blizzard, it is 42.9% below the average analysts' price target. as you can see, the projected gain, 43%. this stock is off of its 52-week high of $13.14 a share. now at $10.74. you can research these stocks and thousands more at cnbc.com, the site is also listing an entire group of the 20 stocks in the s&p 500 with the biggest potential to drop. you'll want to check out that list as well. well, the international monetary fund expects china to claim the world's highest gdp growth this year and next year, driving the growth the big increase in the country's technology demands. some $54 billion of china's $585 billion sometime muss package was set aside for technology advancements. and they are hoping to tap in to the sector. we're joined in our "etf tracker" segment by the head of claymore securities. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> let's talk about the etf and the potential in the technology sector. >> it's interesting when you look at china, the technology companies in china have done about 2 1/2 times better in terms of performance here in 2009 than the u.s. technology market. so, it's a very dynamic area. certainly a lot of volatility. but when you look at some of the leading technology companies around the world, they're based in china, whether it's baidoo, for example, the google of china, very excited, but it's hard to access the companies and we've brought it here for the investors to do it here in the u.s. >> i see. do you think that the technology sector is going to lead to new innovation in china? we were just in singapore recently and a lot of people on the ground are talking about, sure, china is the manufacturer of products for the world, but soon, and this is when america needs to worry, it's also going to become a leader in design and innovation as well. >> that's right. in the u.s. we talk about don't fight the fed when we invest. in china you say don't fight the state council, and the state council really wants china to be a leader for the next 100 years and they'll do it with technology. that's why the third largest package in their stimulus was for technology advancement earlier this year, that's why they have protectionist measures, not letting many companies outside of china tap that robust consumer market for technological devices. so, i think going forward, you know, china is going to continue to be a big player and don't fight that state council, maria. >> how does your new china eft capture that potential? >> there are 34 companies either listed in hong kong or traded here in the u.s. or in adr-gdr format and eft owns those broad-based applications. so, you own the market. you don't have to take business-specific risks on one company, for example. >> i see. okay. why invest in this eft and not directly in stocks? you must -- some of the names in it must be baidoo, sohoo, a lot of the leading technology companies, so why not just go specific on those names? >> sure, well, it's a lot easier to be in the right sector than the right stock, and many investors have tried to pick the right stock and been disappointed, we think a sector approach is a way to tap the china trend. >> i see. this is your fourth china eft, what more do you have in the pipeline? >> we have several more, a consumer eft and an industrial eft, we've had success with the only chinese real estate eft, and the largest eft of the year launched was by us the first all-chinese eft, yao. we believe this is the china century, we'll take advantage of it with exchange-traded funds. >> what about the idea that we're not actually getting the right numbers out of china? do we believe it is actually 8%? and how do we know that? where's the evidence? >> sure. well, certainly some of the evidence comes in the amount of demand that's happening in china. you can't fake the amount of building. you can't fake the amount of -- of people moving from rural areas to urban areas. the amount of devices that are being manufactured and consumed there. so, the basis of where these numbers come from seems to match where these numbers are. but, certainly, there's going to be challenges going forward and volatility in the chinese markets. there's issues such as their currency valuations that are going to be dealt with, and we think for the long term, investors need to have exposure to china, but certainly in any short-term situation, there's a lot of volatility involved. >> well, always volatility involved, i guess, but you want to make sure that you're investing at the right time as well. do you think this market has gotten ahead of itself? why would i want to be investing now after a huge run-up that we've seen in china already? >> right, we've certainly seen a large run-up in china. a lot of that we think is due to the stimulus package. certainly if investors are looking for the long term, china's great. for the short term, they may want to take more of a hedge position. the nice thing about exchange-traded funds, you can set buy, sell, and limit orders. some etfs you even have options that you can use to hedge. that's a unique advantage perhaps instead of just buying a mutual fund that focuses in on china. >> great stuff here. we appreciate it. thank you so much. >> thanks, maria. >> thanks for joining us, and good luck with the fund. no doubt we see a lot of interest in the china story. we'll see you soon. >> thank you. let's go over to the nasdaq market site and melissa lee is live with a preview of what's coming up at the top of the hour. >> hi there, maria. we'll talk about the best industrial plays. they were the leader in the market. we've also go the latest on dvd kiosk wars, the president of the red buff coming up on the cnbc exclusive, and we've got the best buys for next week, that's when we get you the best advice. >> thank you, melissa. ♪ to pursue the life you want, you need a financial advocate who knows where you want to go. a merrill lynch financial advisor, now with access to the resources of bank of america, can help you diversify, rebalance, imagine, and believe. this restaurant wanted to add onto their benefits package to help attract new employees, they knew exactly who to have at the table. find out more at aflacforbusiness.com aflac! before we go, let's take a look at the day on wall street. it was a mixed market though mostly higher. the dow jones industrial average picked. 65 points to finish the day and the week at 10,471. nasdaq was under some selling pressure. it moved around back and forth pretty much all day and ended negative a fraction at 2190. and the s&p 500 up tonight about four points. you did have strength in the oil group even though oil prices were lower, as were, by the way, gold prices after the big run-up in gold recentpy. the standard & poors up. and have a fantastic weekend. i'll see you monday. "fast money" is up next. good night.