Nearly 20% of employers are firing workers due to health care: NY Fed

Stocks (^DJI, ^GSPC, ^IXIC) are under pressure at the midday mark, with utilities (XLU) leading the way down, with financials (XLF) and consumer discretionary (XLY) the least in the red. Alan Valdes, director of floor operations at Silverbear, joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange.

To discuss the other big stories of the day, Alexis Christoforous is joined by Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman and Thomson Reuters correspondent Bobbi Rebell, author of “How to be a Financial Grownup.”

Google releases the ‘Duo’
Your next video chat may be on a Google App. The app is called “Duo”. Google says it’ll be a much simpler and reliable form of video chatting. We already have Apple’s FaceTime and Microsoft’s Skype, is Google too late to the game at this point?

Rise in health care costs: study
Some chilling assessments are out on the Affordable Care Act. Health care costs went up 8.5% this year and may rise by ten percent more next year, this is according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In what ways can the Affordable Care Act be changed to make it better for Americans?

Harsh truth for brick and mortar stores
A shocking chart from JP Morgan reveals that the average employee of a traditional retailer generates $279,000 per year in gross sales for the store. Meanwhile, the average e-commerce worker generates 4 1/2 times as much. What does this mean for traditional brick and mortar stores?