To say that. But it rang true in the most recent quarter. The Worlds Largest retailer reported its biggest samestore sales ga in four years and topped both earnings and revenue expectations. It also did something many retailers are struggling to do. It attracted more shoppers to its stores. The company lifted its profit outlook, saying things are looking up for the rest of the year as well. Shares rose 2 , making it the bestperforming dow stock today. Courtney reagan looks at whats going right for walmart. Reporter like target, walmart did beat on earnings. But thats where the comparisons end. Walmarts comparable sales were the strongest in three years in the seventh straight quarter of growing traffic. Targets sales fell for the first time in two years on the lowest traffic level in a year and a half. Walmart raises its full youre forecast while target lowers guidance. Whats t reason for the divergence . Theyve got traffic. If you look at the traffic walmart got, it was very impressive. You had consecutive quarters of traffic increases. The outlook is good. Frankly, they had good category performance. Reporter other pieces of the walmart puzzle are falling into place like the discounters approved marketing, merchandise, lower prices, and overall better store atmosphere. I spoke to walmarts cfo by phone and he attributes the stores performance to basic things, like clean stores, instock inventory and higher morale, higher wages and gas prices. Walmart has a significant grocery business, representing more than half its total sales while targets grocery business is just about 20 of its sales. Groceries bring foot traffic into stores and it has a halo effect that helps lift sales of other products as well. Walmart has been expanding local and organic food offerings and its Pickup Program which it says has been wellreceived by shoppers. The retailer said thursday that its revisiting its strategy with food. On a meeting call, the ceo says walmart doesnt break out specific numbers from electronics but it feels the performance across all categories is very steady, food or general merchandise. That again is different from target, when said electronic comparable sales fell double digits with a third of the drop due to weak sales of apple products. Walmart is feeling pretty good about going into the holidays. Were in better shape, cleaner and better prepared. For nightly business report, m courtney reagan. The quarter however was not as strong for gap. The decline for the year would come in below analysts expectations. Sales were down at Banana Republic as well as at the namesake store gap and were unchanged at old navy despite customers favor value. Shares were volatile in afterhours trading. The Strong Quarter from walmart and Rising Oil Prices were not enough to give stocks a big lift today. So instead, the major indexes just inched higher. Dow rose 23 points. The nasdaq added 11. And the s p 500 was up four. As for oil, prices rose for the sixth straight day to more than 48 a barrel. The head of the new york fed is upbeat on the economy and where the job market is headed. At a briefing with reporters, bill dudley reiterated his stance that job gains remain sturdy and explains why he watches the labor market so closely. At the end of the day, i put less emphasis on the gdp than whats happening in the labor market for a couple of reasons. The market data is i think more reliable. I think we count jobs better than when we add up gdp. Number two, were not targeting gdp growth. Were targeting maximum sustainable employment in the context of price sustainability. He says he sees second half economic growth, whatever the reliability of the print, coming in stronger than the annual growth rate in the First Six Months of the year. The number of americans filing new applications for Unemployment Benefits declined last week. Initial claims for jobless benefits fell 4,000 last week. That report is considered a proxy for layoffs across the country. Housing has been one of the economys bright spots. But there are still substantial pockets of pain. As diana olick reports, a sizable number of borrowers remain underwater on their homes. Repor its hard to believe, but five years after the u. S. Housing recovery began with home prices reaching new peaks in some markets, nearly 6 million borrowers still owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. The socalled negative equity rate is at 12 of all mortgaged homeowners, according to zillow, down from over 30 at the worst of the crisis, and it does fall every quarter. But the numbers are still high. And equally spread across urban and suburban communities. Markets in the west like San Francisco, portland, denver, and dallas have the least borrowers in a negative equity position. Thats due to strong employment and competitive housing markets. But others, like cleveland and detroit, have more bifurcated markets with negative equity downtown and lower in suburban neighborhoods. Detroits urban rate is twice that of its suburban rate. Chicago and las vegas share the dubis honor of carrying the highest number of borrowers carrying more than their homes are worth. Next equity is one of the driving factors of high home prices. Homeowners in this position are unlikely to sell at a loss, so they stay, lowering the number of homes available for sale. Fewer listings means more competition, which drives prices hire. For nightly business report, m diana olick in washington. Still ahead, was a 400 million cash payment to iran tied to the release of a group of american prisoners . Tonight, we have new a new development in the cash payment to iran that we told you about earlier this month. The state Department Today said that the 400 million was tied to the release of the four american citizens. But it may be a little bit more complicated than that. Were following the story from washington. Amon, the state department did have more to say on the matter. What is the latest . Reporter thats right, sue. John kirby, the spokesman for the state department, had this to say today to reporters. He said with concerns that iran may renege on the prisoner release, we of course sought to retain maximum leverage until after american citizens were released. The whole question here is whether or not this was a ransom payment. President obama, speaking back on august 4th, had this to say, that we do not pay ransom for hostages, and that in the course of the this negotiation, the ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues converged right at the same time, sue. So when does leverage cross that line and become something else, something that sounds or feels or looks like ransom . Reporter boy, it is a real semantic debate right now. Republicans on capitol hill are saying, look, if it looks like a duck a it sounds like a duck, then its a duck. The Obama Administration says that its not ransom for this reason, even though the timing was clearly contingent, they would not pay the money until the prisoners were released, until their plane was out of there, its not ransom because this was iranian money to begin with. Remember, the money here came from the iranian government before the revolution back in 1979, was fresozen in the unite states, and the iranians have been trying to get it back for years. That was a separate negotiation on a separate track, the Obama Administration says. I think well hear a lot about that, amon. Thank you so much. Private prison stocks found themselves in the slammer today after the Justice Department said it plans to end use of private prisons for federal inmates, because they are less safe and less effective than those run by the government. That sent shares of corrections corp. Of america and geogroup, two of the largest private prison companies, plun. Reporter the Justice Department says it will end its use of private prisons, meaning their contracts for these controversial faci would not be renewed. But why now . The research has shown that private, forprofit prisons often cut corners on staffing and other basic services, and thats led to negative impacts on safety. So we see very high rates of assaults in these facilities. The decision today is one we believe is very good and encouraging and is in some ways long overdue. Reporter s on the heels of a damaging report released last week by the dojs office of inspecto h found that contract prisons were overall more dangerous and less efficient than comparable bureau of prisons facilities. We found in most key areas, these contract prisons had a higher rate of safety and security incidents. Reporter it seems to be a recurring pattern. In recent years, disturbances in several contract prisons resulted in extensive damage, bodily injury, and even the death of a corrections officer. Reporter he says the bureau of prisons currently uses 14 contract prisons, housing 22,000 federal inmates, costing taxpayers more than 600 million per year. Most inmates classified as low security. The Justice Department calls this the first step in the process of reducing and ultimately ending the use of privately operated prisons. Experts we spoke with said they viewed this as part of a larger trend, pivot be away from mass incarceration. E long term impact remains unclear, especially because most prisons in the United States are operated not by federal but by local and state governments, and of course the next president could reverse the decision as well. For nightly business report. Scott cohn has covered the prison system for years and join us now from san jose, scott, always good to have you join us. We saw the severe reaction in the stock market, but what is the real Impact Likely to be for these companies from your Vantage Point . Sue, it m not be as severe as the stock price would suggest. Its a Material Impact on these companies, make no mistake. Corrections corporation of america, cca, says this is about 7 of its revenue, so about 125 million on a 1. 8 billion a year company. And the government is not totally getting out of the private prison business overnight, theyre phasing these contracts out. There is still business for these companies in a couple of areas. Number one, theyre operating reentry facilities that are the no going away, basically getting prisoners back into the general population, the public. And also immigration detention, which is under department of home land security, thats not going away. And the other things that these companies are doing is getting away from prison management and into real estate. You still have to put 2 million prisoners in above the the federal and state systems somewhere. So these companies can own the real estate while the government can manage and operate the prisons. And i suspect state contracts with these companies are not affected in this either. As dina mentioned there, scott, a new president could have a different view of this entire matter. What have the candidates said if anything about the use of private prisons and the ultimate outcome depend on the elections . Again, not as much as people might think. Theres been a bipartisan push, tyler, for Prison Reform. People have realized weve got 2 million people, more than any other nation in the planet, behind bars. The leader in Prison Reform has been the conservative state of texas, getting people out of prisons and actually deferring building prisons. So there may be some impact, depending on the elections for sure. But there is very much a bipartisan push to change this system. All right, scott. Well leave it there, thank you. Scott cohn in san jose. One of the biggest Investment Managers in the world is where we begin tonights market focus. T. Rowe price alleges a scheme by valiant to use a secret pharmacy network, deceptive pricing and fictitious accounting methods to artificially inflate profits. Valiant shares fell. T. Rowes shares were up a tick. Sales continue to fall at caterpillar. The maker of industrial machines and equipment saw retail sales decline 19 year over year for a threemonth period that ended in july. Things arent expected to improve anytime soon. Last week, caterpillar said low Commodity Prices will continue to weaken demand for its machinery. Shares today off 1 at 83. 38. Portola pharmaceuticals said its application for a drug intended to reverse the effect of blood coagulant has been rejected by the food and drug administration. The agency requested that portola send Additional Information regarding manufacturing. The drug maker said it is committed to working with the fda to secure eventual approval. Shares plummeted. Gannett isnt giving up on its proposed takeover of tronc. Its upped its bid once again for the newspaper publisher former known as tribune publishing. Tron rejected gannetts proposals twice before but is expected to respond to this new offer by the end of the week. Shares of gannett up a penny to 12. 14. Tronc rose 4 . Skippy Peanut Butter and muscle milk products prompted the food maker to raise its guidance for the year. Shares finished up the day 2 , to 37. 05. Harleydavidson will pay 50 million to the u. S. Government to settle claims it sold motorcycle engine devices that violated air pollution standards. The motorcycle maker did not admit to any wrongdoing but said it would buy back and destroy any devices that are still stocked at dealerships. Shares fell more than 1. 5 on the news to 53. 55. When is a death not a death . A joint investigation by cnbc and our partners at nbc new york found that medical companies are classifying thousands of patient fatalities as injuries. And the fda says its okay. Theyre referring to death by another name. But critics say it could mask real health problems. Investigative reporter Chris Glorioso has our s. Were still in shock. Its a neverending nightmare. Ill never forget this as long as i live. He calls me nana. My mama has died. Reporter shes a mother convinced this medical device played a role in her daughters death. Its called the vegas nerve stimulator or vns. Back in 2010, oklahomas shelley willheight thought it was the cure for her epileptic seizures. Its designed to generate small electric shocks that block su seizures but she started feeling ab painful shocks. With vns, youre not supposed to feel anything. It shocked here really bad and almost dropped her to her knees. Reporter she planned to call the doctor on monday. She never made it to monday. Reporter her daughter found her dead on the bathroom floor. Her cause of death, cardiac arrest brought on by a suspected seizure. I dont think well ever get over it. Reporter shelley wasnt the only one complaining about the nerve stimulator. By the time she died, the food and drug admin had received thousands of reports of problems with the device. Some of those reports had a starting discrepancy. I absolutely had to do a double take. There are a lot of reports in there that really made me question the integrity of the reporter. Reporter shes hey former fda consultant who now runs a Company CalledDevice Events which offers a simplified way to search fda data. She scoured safety reports going back to 1996 and found 38 patient deaths reported as injuries or malfunctions. They include five patients who developed fatal pneumonia. But the deaths were labeled as four injuries and one malfunction. In another example, a vns battery depleted with zero years remae patient died. But the event was called an injury. When you saw a report that mentioned a patients death but was categorized as an injury, what duid you think . I was very alarmed. Reporter did you find that deceptive . Yes. Reporter medical device makers are supposed to report any event that reasonably suggests a device may have caused or distributed to a death or serious injury. Despite that, she says companies sometimes downgrade patient deaths arguing the fatalities are unrelated to the product. She says that can throw regulators off the trail of health hazards. The way the fda reviews the reports is in order of importance by the classification thats checked on the form. And so if its an injury or malfunction, it could take them weeks to months to get to reading them. Reporter the company that makes the nerve stimulator said three of those pneumonia deaths were properly reported. And the other two reports were human errors. But the company also conducted an internal review, finding a total of 108 misclassified deaths, some going back to give. The company told us it never purposely manipulated safety data, and those errors comprise less than 1 of the companys safety reports, concluding there have not been any significant misclassifications. But the vegas nerve stimulator is only one device we found with patient deaths listed as something less serious. We looked at five years of fda safety reports and found more than 4,000 patient fatalities all listed as injuries or simple malfunctions. A knee injection patient developed a septic infection and died but the event was listed as an injury. Another patient fell from a safety bed and died on the floor. That was called a simple malfunction. A stent was damaged and stretched. A few hours later, the patient died but it was listed as a malfunction. We asked the fda about those reports and more. A spokesperson said the reports were likely classified correctly. The fda says this is not a problem. What do you say . I think that when you have a lot of patients being injured and a lot of deaths occurring, that its always a problem. Reporter the family of shelley willheight sued the Company WhoseParent Company is publicly traded. But that company has effective immunity from liability suits because the nerve stimulator was approved through the fdas most stringent process. The fda says theyre allowed to classify a parent fatality as an injury if theres not enough evidence to show causality. They say they can spot deaths even if theyre not labeled as deaths. So chris, who is doing the categorizations here . Is it a physician, is it a Company Individual . Reporter that really is one of the major questions here. And the critics would point out, most of the time it is actually the manufacturer that writes these reports and has the