But i have not. Lori i have only seen it on broadway. Stalks off to a tough start. Early numbers point to a tough season. Tracy a nice and shiny fiscal cliff. President obama cut his vacation short. We are tracking where it is headed next. We are expecting negotiations to continue tomorrow. There is talk now that that may not happen. Time to head down to the New York Stock Exchange with Nicole Petallides. Nicole Merry Christmas to everybody. The vix, the fear index, has been to the upside. Whether or not washington will solve the worries about the socalled fiscal cliff approaching quickly. Here is a look at the dow. 13,100 even. Most of the dow components are under pressure. Hewlettpackard doing well and bank of america in the financial round. It really is being laid upon by the retailers. I no adam shapiro will add on to that. There is a look at some movers. Michael cores down over 6 . Tracy i was in the balls this weekend. Lori crowded theater not like i thought it would be. Adam shapiro in the newsroom with the details. I thought it was way busier last year than it was this weekend. No. Here are some numbers. For the period of october to eight and december 24, sales grew. In 2011, sales for that period of time grew 2 . They are using that as an indicator that things will not be as good as we thought going into the Holiday Shopping season. On monday, shopper track indicated and revise their outlook for the Holiday Spending growth from 3. 3 down to 2. 5 . The only holdout is the National Retail federation. It is saying that they still expect growth this Holiday Season to be 4. 1 over the last year. They are sticking to those numbers. One of the reasons spending polls believe we saw a dropoff and had to revise the predictions for the year, superstorm sandy. They do not think it was consumers fear got as much as it was on the drops of the markets in the middle east. Back to you. Lori i think they did more online also. Joining us now is founder and resident of sica wealth management. This is what i am thinking about with this disappointing sales. It is so difficult for the federal government. People are wary of all of the uncertainty. They are keeping their pocketbooks closed during this allimportant spending season. Do you see that as an interesting perspective . I think at this point, here you have this santa claus rally which is a market phenomenon that makes sense until it doesnt. That works until it doesnt. Coming into this season we would have a typical 1. 7 increase in the s p 500. Now, we are dealing with questions that will remain unanswered until january. That uncertainty makes investors anxious. Tracy we have for trading days left. What should we be doing . What should people be doing over the course of the next couple trading days . I think people should really look at their Capital Gains. We are at a point now where Capital Gains is going up. It makes sense to take him and reposition them when we find out what will happen. Lori i have to tell you, i think stocks are the place to be. Stocks, even emerging market stocks, there is a lot of strategy. How would you recommend it . I think equity because bond yields are as low as they are. There is those ocean of liquidity by the fed. It is not going into the bond market. A lot of it is going into the stock market. We have this crucial data january 8. I think if anybody will begin to accumulate bigger positions, you have to really see what will happen with earnings. Lori we are constantly waiting to see what is coming around. It is the uncertainty about the fiscal cliff. It is crazy to think that nobody knows what their tax bill for 2013 will look like right now. At some point you have to say, this is what it is. I only have so many years until i retire. Risk is part of the game. This is what i am willing to invest. What is your best bet . There is no dow that Energy Stocks, to me, we are seeing the spikes in oil prices today. Lori you are basically saying try to raise some cash during this last week. That could be your fine opportunity. Right. You have to think back at what these companies are saved. They are not overly optimistic. They were not doing back flips about the future. Sometimes waiting is the best Investment Strategy that there is. You have to begin to see whether they will begin to grow. Most companies have to face the facts. Most companies are making money because of costcutting. I think we have to really look at ways to just be ready. The best place to be lori lean and mean. Cash is, well, i guess that is why you had a debate. I guess i can hold on for two weeks. I agree. They are lean and mean. Every quarter, they are cutting more and cutting more. Now, we are at the point if they are able to prove that this make sense, they will be able to show that they can grow. This could make or break a great quarter. Corporations dealing with uncertainty really shows that it will either happen now or we will be in for a long call with this. Lori pleasure to have you with us. We will do a check up and see what happens in two weeks. Tracy Holiday Retail sales slumping. Did they do better online . I am guessing, maybe. It is not faster than a speeding bullet. It is a bullet. We will show you chinas longest highspeed train after this break. First, take a look at metals. We are back after this. Two. Lori jeff flock in the pits of this cme. Jeff we have a number of factors running today. I dont think any of them have to do with the fiscal cliff. You can see for your self the volume. There is tumbleweeds going through the pits. I will show you reasons why oil is off today. They all have to do with the middle east. Suspended production with baghdad over prices. Iran, to prices of military exercises. Military exercises starting there today. That makes the oil market very jittery. You can see a little thin here. Everything from wti to brent to gasoline futures to heating oil futures. We have a lot of cold weather coming in. A much more need for heating oil and the like. I didnt hear in that ad room. Trading volume is light. Tracy so cool. Jeff flock, thank you for doing that for us. [talking over each other] lori as we do every 15 minutes, we chuckled the markets. Nicole petallides on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Nicole a lot of down arrows. Zynga is really bucking the trend. It is up 3. 25 . It is of about three pennies. We are hearing potential for gaming in the uk. Lets break it down. There is a oneyear chart beard all Things Digital have been reporting they are close to launching games in the uk. Plus poker, plus casinos. It sounds like a lot of fun. All Things Digital continues to take a look at online games and the potential for zynga doing exactly that in the uk. There is is up 3. 25 right now. Back to you. Lori great. We will see you in a few minutes. The bullet train traveling 186 Miles Per Hour begin regular service. It previously took 20 hours and now it just take eight. In 2009 640 billion is more than 139 u. S. Dollars. Here is to technology. Tracy eight hours is essentially new york to key west. Lori i would go like every friday. A christmas outage left millions of users without users streaming netflix. Shibani joshi with this christmas debacle next. Tracy washington cannot agree on a plan for the fiscal cliff. We go to the Nations Capital after break. Lets take a look at how the dollar is faring against foreign currencies as we head to break. With fidelitys new options platform, weve completely integrated every step of the process, making it easier to try filters and strategies. To get a list of equity option. Evaluate them with our p l calculator. And execute faster with our more intuitive trade ticket. Im greg stevens and i helped create fidelitys options platform. Its one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. Now get 200 free trades when you open an account. Lori the Senate Returns to washington tomorrow. With just five days to address the dreaded fiscal cliff. Peter barnes is live in d. C. With the very latest. Peter everyone looking to leader harry reid and the president for plan c. They were discussing next steps to advert the cliff before the holiday on monday. No update today from the white house. A spokesperson for senator reid is saying nothing to report. No conversations with republicans let. The spokesperson says no outreach from any democrats. We are waiting on Senate Democrats. It looks right now that the cliff remains inside. Lori i heard you talking to Dennis Kneale earlier. The house generally has to post something for three days. Realistically, right, everyone will come back tomorrow, they probably will not have anything by friday. Peter if they do something by friday, the house could vote on something by monday, new years eve. The weekend could count. Absolutely. They can actually do whatever they want. They can vote to waive the rules. Yes, they have this threeday rule for making sure all members can read any legislation, any proposal that comes over from the senate. Under the constitution, the house sets its own rules. Lori these goucher should have centered on tax policy. What is the likelihood plan from senator reed. 100 billion. We are waiting on senator reed. He has said that the Senate Legislation passed back in july, which would extend the bush tax cuts for everyone making under 250,000 a year. That that would be a vehicle for trying to get all of this done. There are a lot of other things out there like that expiring payroll tax cut. It looks like that will not get renewed. A whole pile of things. Lori a pile of what . [ laughter ] i could not resist. It is the day after christmas. Happy new years. Tracy it surely wasnt a Holly Jolly Christmas for netflix users. 27 million without streaming service. Shibani joshi here with the details. Shibani 27 of its 30 million customers did not have service on a knife that is very important for people. They want to watch a movie and not watch a christmas story for the 100th time. There was a blackout on amazon service. They were blocking people from getting access to movies and television shows. It was through numerous devices. There was just no way to get the context. You have to watch television or talk to your family. [talking over each other] shibani we are finding out whose problem it really is. A lot of fingerpointing going on. This is something that has been happening a lot this year. I do not think anybody really notices just yet, unless netflix does something about it. Lori another check in the box for them. By the way, also wanted to point out amazon works a lot of different companies. Instagram, twitter, etc. Lori thank you, shibani. More good news on the housing front. Home prices see the largest increase in two and a half years. Will 2013 be the year of the true housing recovery . Tracy first, lets take a look at some of the winners and losers on the s p 500. Netflix, apparently the investors are liking what happened. Up 2 . We will be right back. Lori one 30 here on the east coast. Dow is down 31 points. It has been 15 minutes since we checked in with nicole on the New York Stock Exchange. She has a big winner. I feel like there is good news and bad news when you talk about research in motion. The big news is a winner past three months it has been running up certainly going into the blackberry 10 launch on january 30th. There is a lot of high hopes. We have seen one of the analysts this morning cutting the price target to the downside. That is something that were watching very closely. Bnp paribas with a neutral rating so no real conviction there. However you can see the stock is up almost 11 and with the back and forth and questions about the blackberry 10 right now a lot of believers out there. Up a buck 13. Nice move. Back to you. Lori nicole, thank you. Tracy that is interesting when it plays out whether the blackberry 10 comes out. Lori im a blackberry deveto. So much easier to type on. Tracy well see. Good news for the housing recovery. Latest caseshiller report shows home prices in the 20city index grew 4. 3 yearoveryear. This is despite a slip one month earlier. Phoenix led cities with 1. 4 gain. Marking the states 1th straight month for growth. California and new york with only two cities with negative annual returns. This mornings caseshiller housing report could be a sure sign housing strength is do we expect it to Gain Momentum in 2013. Day one of the outlook 2013. Here to kick it off, ed pinto from the American Enterprise institute. Ed, lets say for argument sake we go flying off the fiscal cliff. What happens to housing . I think housing to some extent goes off with it. Well end up with a recession and that will dampen homebuyers enthusiasm for buying homes and well see a downtick in house prices and uptick in foreclosures. Tracy that is good news. Lets go glass halffull. They fix this ink it. Fiscal cliff solved. Housing market, what, whats the big thing that you think 2013 will bring . It is the year of rental. Of new construction. What should we expect to see if all goes well in washington . What we should expect to see is a continuation of the recovery which started this past year. You just reported that house prices are up about 4 . Im expecting that house prices in 2013 will be up 3 to 4 . That is actually, a nice solid, steady recovery. You dont want it taking off and having increases of eight, 10, 15 because theyre not sustainable. The best we can hope for is a good solid recovery. Have some real positives. Fundamentals are strong. House prices are down. Affordability is up. Rents, it cost less to own a house than to rent. The downside is weve got the government is continuing to distort the Housing Market and all markets for that matter and that potentially raises some red flags down the road. Actually said that, from your notes, sewing the seeds of future disaster as long as Government Policies remain if place. How do we get out of them at this point . I think the good news for. 2012 that hasnt been reported is that the fees charged by fannie mae and freddie mac are approaching, i say approaching, the level that they actually need to be to support the private sector coming back into this market. Fannie mae and freddie mac have underpriced credit risk for decades, Everybody Knows that. And the fhfa following congress, the regulator for fannie mae and freddie mac have been raising those fees. Were now at a point where were getting close to them being selfsustaining. In 2013 theyre supposed to go up again, probably another 1 5 of a percent. That will put them at a point where the private sector can start coming back in this market. That is important because the federal government has no capital backing the 10 trillion dollar market, absolutely none. Tracy right. Fha is insolvent. We need to bring the private sector back where you will have real money backing this, backing this market. Earning real returns. And thats why its so important having these guarantee fees being raised. Tracy you know, ed, we have run out of time. This is fodder for another day. We have to talk about how well unwind this. To me that will be really ugly, fha, between fannie and freddie and all that. That could take years. It could take years but you have journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Tracy i agree. Ed pinto, thank you very much. Thank you, tracy. Always a pleasure. Happy new year. Tracy happy new year, ed. What a guy. He is so great. He is right, if all goes well it will be great but weve got to get the government out of the Housing Market. All right, i know. 34 tornados hit the south. At this point, why not. So look at these pictures. Looking at them right now. 34 tornados the south while whiteout blizzard conditions hit the midwest for christmas. What do we expect in the northeast . Lori people are piling into u. S. Government debt. Debt downgrade again. This is in the discussions with the whole fiscal cliff debate and you know, people are pushing rates down. Theyre still picking up paper. They still think it is the safest investment with all the uncertainty out there. There is the long bond yielding 2. 93 . Were back after this im Dennis Kneale with your fox business brief. It is another down day for the marquette as washington prepares for another round of fiscal cliff dealing tomorrow. Right now the dow down 33 points at 1,105. The u. S. Government may reportedly expand its mortgage Refinancing Program to include borrowers to include mortgages not backed by freddie mac and fannie mae. The wall street journal reporting that the refi program under consideration could consider underwater borrowers who owe more than theyre worth. That is about 11 million homes. Toyota could overtake General Motors and reclaim the title of the worlds biggest carmaker for 2012. The japanese automaker estimate worldwide sales are up 22 this year from 2011 when a massive earthquake and tsunami and severe floods in thailand disrupted parts supplies and sales. Thats the latest from fox business, giving you the power to profit 34 christmas tornados hit the south. Liz art conditions in the midwest. Wicked weather all wreaking havoc on travelers the day after christmas. More than 450 flights have been canceled, 500 delayed. Not good news. Is it going to improve . Lets head to the Fox Weather Center to check in with maria molina. Maria. Hi, lori and tracy, good to see you. You know what . Depend on where you live whether or not it will be improving. If you live across areas of the south of and midwest you will start to see improvement especially as we head into tomorrow but this storm system is heading into the northeast and well be seeing some significant snowfall accumulations along interior sections of pennsylvania, up new york and into new england with accumulations easily over a foot especially Higher Elevations across that section. Otherwise you just mentioned the tornados we saw across the south.