2015 as it was this year . We have all that and more tonight on nightly Business Report for monday, december 29th. Good evening, everyone. Im susie gharib. Im Bill Griffeth in for tyler mathisen. The price of oil fell to a fresh multiyear low today on expectations that a global glut of crude oil may keep growing into the new year. Now, it didnt start out that way. Oil today actually began the session higher on concerns that unrest in libya could put a cramp on global supplies but by the close of trade, futures had dipped to a new fiveyear low on a swell in supplies. Light sweet crude closed at 53. 61 a barrel and the benchmark brent crude in dlon was down 1. 57 closing at a 5 1 2 year low of 57. 88 a barrel. Jackie deangelis has more on todays wild swings in the price of crude and what could affect Oil Prices Moving forward. Reporter another volatile day for crude prices. We saw a bit of a pop in prices this morning after traders were concerned about reports of clashes in libya around one of the key export termen always but then prices went sharply lower, closing at 53. 61 for west texas intermediate. Thats the lowest close since may of 20009. What this underscores is that geopolitics could still ta prices higher, but the events have to be very significant. This particular one wasnt traders still looking for the same story, which is supply and demand and theyre not worried about Global Supply economics right now. I want to talk about gas prices because as we go lower in crude were seeing retail gas prices decline. 2. 21 the National Average for a gallon of regular according to aaa, down ten cents in a week. And traders say be could go lower from here. Reporting that theyre seeing gas prices under 2. Very strong news for consumers as we head into 2015. Im jackie deangelis. Heres a question. Will low Oil Prices Make some Energy Companies attractive takeovers in to 2015 . Well explore that later. The dow broke its eightsession winning streak but record closes for the s p 500 as well as for the russell 2000 and the dow utilities index. Blue chip stocks were down 15 the nasdaq rose by a fraction and the s p added 2 points. With all the major averages at or near record highs, dominic chu takes a look at the range of stocks that help send the markets to hit new milestones in 2014 and whether the upward trend can continue. Reporter 2014 turned out to be another banner year for u. S. Stocks with large, mid, and smallcap indices all reaching record highs, but it was the sharp move higher in stocks in just the last couple of months that really propelled the market to rarefied air. Since midoctober the s p large cap indeck has risen 12 . The midcap index has risen by nearly 14 in that span and that russells smallcap index has also risen by that same amount. Some think the routing in small caps can continue into 2015. The last stages of this rally will likely be a shift from largecap into small as the investing space becomes smaller and smaller, as the rest of the world appears to perhaps be slowing down and that the u. S. Is the only safe haven left. Reporter Smaller Company stocks are seen as more reliant on the u. S. Economy as opposed to Global Factor so it can be more insulated to foreign instabilities. If Larger Companies are on your Shopping List some of this years outperformers could continue to do so next year. Next year financials in health care probably the two Health Care Sectors that we like. Both are trading at a relative discount when you look at them versus their peer their other sector groups and they do have some favorable momentum. Reporter next year may be the year when just about anything can happen. Well see a little bit of everything. The biggest question for asset allocators u. S. Versus nonu. S. Investment glade versus high yield. Those are the more interesting questions rather than just do stocks go up and down. Reporter so now that 2014 is just about over its time to start looking ahead to 2015 which means taking a hard look at your portfolio and seeing if it still makes sense given risks and potential rewards. For nightly Business Report, im dominic chu. Now not every stock gained this year although it sure seemed like it. Morgan brennan takes a look at some of this years winners and losers. Reporter its been another strong year for stocks. The russell 1000 which includes the Largest Companies traded in the u. S. Has gained more than 12 in 14. The biggest winner skyworks solutions. The chipmaker has risen 150 this year thanks in part to Strong Demand for the apple devices it helps supply. Investors say it was a perfect mix for many of the biggest tech stocks. Intel, nvidia cisco, oracle these are all stocks that we own in the Technology Space did well in 2014. Primarily because they were really undervalued heading into the year. Reporter airlines also had a good year both southwest and American Airlines more than doubled, as fuel costs have fallen and ticket prices have risen on stronger demand. In Pharma Companies including intercept, allergan posted strong returns as well. Helped by attractive dividends. But what about the biggest losers . Energy stocks have been battered and bruised. We actually like Energy Heading into 2015 because the stocks have gotten to be so inexpensive. Reporter oil and Gas Producers including Sandridge Energy and Oasis Petroleum have tumbled dramatically this year. And sea drill have lost more than 70 . Cliff Natural Resources and others had another tough year as well thanks to soft demand. Telecom giant sprint has also plunged as competition for subscrers continues to ramp up in the wireless space. But some of the biggest losers could become next years outperformers. Buckingham for example, like the oil driller ansko, and Chip Companies like ibm. For nightly Business Report im Morgan Brennan at the nasdaq in new york city. Those are some of the big winners and losers of this year but which ones could be the big gainers in 2015 . All week long well be talking with our market monitors about their stock picks. We begin tonight with peter sorantino at huntington asset advisers. Happy holidays. Thank you, susie, happy holidays to you. You heard our story at the top of the program talking about Energy Prices and all the volatility in that space. Your top stock pick is valero which is an oil refiner. Trading at 50 you think it can go up by 20 . Tell us why. Well one of the things that were seeing is because of the supply of cheap crude thats available, especially the low grade crudes coming out of both mexico and out of canada that valeros uniquely positioned. Very few refineries in the country can handle that type of crude. So its sort of a closed market. The collapse in price really allows someone like valero to use very cheap feed stock and because theyre pretty well integrated in both ethanol and the crude refining they can ship blended product all around the world. That creates an opportunity for them to take market share. So even with prices crashing and prices at the pump falling every day, it creates an opportunity where sort of survival of the fittest becomes the rule of the day. And for those properly positioned it creates a great opportunity. A lot of analysts Love Technology still, peter, and often theyre talking about the apples and the twitters of the world, facebook but youre going with an oldschool company, the Software Giant oracle. Why . Well one of the things that we saw this year and its been a recurring theme its got to be getting attention and got to be getting its share of Capital SpendingGoing Forward have been the security breaches. They continue to happen. Theyre becoming financially very risky. If youre in a regulated industry such as Financial Service or utilities this is a real problem and you have to start to address it and there will be an outcry to see that its dealt with. So for the big players who can cover a lot of the needs of a corporation, its a unique business opportunity. And oracle we think is well positioned. They have a habit of moving the company where it needs to be as we saw with their acquisitions over the last really 15 years. They move in a very methodical fashion. So its one of those names that it just keeps going up in your portfolio. You buy it well and it just continues to climb higher. Its a name that we feel pretty confident that we can buy and it will continue to work for us for the foreseeable future. We know that health care storks have been real strong winners in this past year. Youve chosen for the new year a reit managed care company, Senior Housing properties trust. Tell us about why this is attractive to you. One of the things that the Health Care Law changes did was it sort of cleared the mist away and for those who are approaching retirement such a wave with the baby boomers, it created an opportunity for those in the health care especially in the senior care area to begin to you know position themselves where the demographic trends are most favorable and Senior Properties has been one where theyve really done a good job of acquiring properties they managed them well they managed properties for others and the demographic story is an old one, but its still there. We havent really seen much of a change in the Labor Participation rate. So it in fact looks as though a lot of people who left the workforce have no intention of coming back. As such we think that that creates a surge for them in terms of future clientele. Well a lot of interesting things to think about. Thank you so much peter. Peter sorentino at huntington asset advisers. Heading overseas. Athens today, greek stocks fell 4 after the Greek Parliament failed to elect a new president. That forces the government now to call for National Elections early in the new year and stokes fears that a leftwing victory there could look to overhaul its European Union bailout deal. Russias economy is taking some real hits. The ruble currency fell another 7 in value today and russias economy saw its first contraction in five years. Tough western sanctions and a steady slide in oil prices combine to shrink Economic Growth by 0. 5 in november. Still ahead, will shake shacks ipo filing today kick off a big year for initial Public Offerings . If youre hungry for a new place to invest your money, shake shack is warming up the grill for its initial public stock offering. The new york citybased burger chain, which has just 63 outlets right now, filed paperwork to begin shelling shares to the public and the Company Plans to open up more restaurants with the money its raising. Shake shack is not alone. This past year has been a very strong one for initial Public Offerings. So whats the outlook for new Investment Opportunities there in 2015 . Bob pisani takes a look tonight. Reporter ipos were big in 2014 and may even be bigger in 2015. 2014 saw 275 ipos, the most since 406 Companies Went public in 2000 that includes the biggest of all time alibaba. Health care led by biotech and technology where words like Cloud Computing and big data and social media all became common terms in 2014. What about 2015 . The ipo markets simple. Whats happening now. Wall strt wants to take Companies Public that are growing. Where do you find that in 2015 . Technology some of the big names may include uber airbnb pinterest, spotify and thats just in technology. Other potential candidates include first data an Electronic Payments processor, r roku univision, a Spanish Language based Media Company and finally ferrari, a spinoff of chrysler. In consumer business fast casual did well in 2014 so good chance that smashburger may go as well. Cancer therapies of any kind were offered practically every week. Is anything in trouble . With yields potentially rising that makes yieldoriented names like Master Limited partnerships or mlps less attractive. There were plenty of mlps last year mostly in the oil and gas pipeline business. I think the chances that well see less of them is pretty good in 2015. For nightly Business Report, im bob pisani at the new york stock exchange. Mergers and acquisitions had a banner year with a whopping 3. 5 trillion worth of deals. That makes 2014 the best 12 months of deals since 2007. Our guest tonight says this trend could continue in 2015. Hes chairman of the global mna practice at jones day. You know bob, for the longest time nobody wanted to do a deal. Whats changed, whats the conversation in boardrooms that all of a sudden this year and now youre saying next year they have an appetite to do mergers and acquisitions . The basics are really very good. I think what really changed is we didnt have any of the after shocks of the financial crisis for the last 12 to 18 months. We didnt have that u. S. Debt downgrade, rumors of the breakup of the eu any of those things that made people cautious about spending big amounts of money. Ive always taught bob, that when you get a lot of mergers and acquisitions that signals a bottom of sorts. As companies see value, they want to go out and make those acquisitions but weve had five years of a strong market already. Is there still value out there or are they just playing catchup right now and where do you see sectors where well see some mergers . There can be a bottom but one of the things thats helped the market and made the multiples that are made in m a deals really very good is the incredibly low interest costs and the oceans of capital that are available to companies both on their Balance Sheets and, if they have to going outside. Obviously, pharma and health care were huge this year. Telecom was big. And not headline grabbing deals but there are lots of deals in Financial Services. All thats going to continue i think, in 2015 but i also think were going to see a lot in retail maybe in retail there will be a lot of shotgun weddings rather than other kinds of things. Frankly, the change in the dynamic in the oil patches are going to make a lot in energy and were going to continue to see tons of deals in tech. You know bob, we saw a lot of mergers. We saw a lot of what people saw demergers, companies splitting up hewlettpackard, ebay talking about the splits. Will we see more of those . And it seems like a lot of these have been pushed along because of activist investors. Is that a trend you see continuing . Well the overall trebd is towards capital efficiency. And thats really the story of activists today. You know in the old days activists went after, you know basically companies that were kind of not performing very well. Today its really about capital allocation. Are you in two businesses that really dont match up in terms of valuation in the marketplace . So yeah there have been a lot of them. I think theres a lot more to come. There was something announced even today by carl icahn that seemed like a prelude to a breakup, but so called demerger i think there wont be nearly as many but there will be plenty of those as capitalists searching for highest application. And quickly, there were those companies wanting to buy Companies Overseas for tax purposes. But Congress Seems to be closing those loopholes. Does that take away the cachet of mergers . The world is globalized. So m a is globalized. The socalled inversion phenomenon which youre talking about, the treasury tightened down on that a little bit in october. And we havent seen too many of those. I think that was sort of a blip on the screen for the last yea and dont there will be some deals but not a lot. Sounds like you will have a busy year ahead, bob. Thank you so much for coming on the program and happy new year. Same to you. Elsewhere shares of manitowoc popped after carl icahn disclosed a stake in the crane company. Thats where we begin tonights market focus. What activist investor icahn wants to do he feels its undervalued. He has plans to push this company to split into two, separating its crane business from its Food Services business. Recently another activist launched a Similar Campaign to improve manitowoc and shares were up 9 to a high of 22. 79. Googles email Service Gmail has been blocked in china in what may be a government attempt to limit or ban access to Google Services there. The drop in traffic seems to have started on friday. Classa shares of goog many were down 4. 21 to 537. 31. And Caesars Entertainment said about 40 of senior bond holders have backed its Restructuri