Greece to step up. Mario draghi says greece must let other countries and study its books. Apple showing up the bells and whistles of its smart watch. Besides texting, email and fitness apps, the watches can receiving phone calls. 10 people are dead after the midair collision of two helicopters in argentina. Three french sports stars are among the victims. They were shooting scenes for a european reality show. Some republican senators being criticized for sending an open letter to iran. Joe biden says it undercuts the president. The president says he is keeping his sights set on getting an agreement. Those are your cap headlines. Desktop headlights. Your top headlines. I want to go straight to hans nichols. He has been following the greek fiscal odyssey. The saga that seems to never end. It seems like too much talk, not enough action. What exactly is on the agenda now . They will be satisfied when they understand the liquidity situation inside greece. Dont call them officials from they will be heading to greece tomorrow to meet with midlevel greek officials to look at what is in the books. What is coming in and what is going out. Just moments ago, we heard from george osborne. He said the greek drama is not over yet. All throughout the day and last night, you heard greek officials eufinance officials saying they lost two weeks of time trying to figure out how they can get the next batch of aid. They will have to follow the rules and make good on their commitments. Finance leaders are not seeing any evidence of that. Betty the germans have been especially vocal about greeces progress. What is the relationship not between greece finance minister in germanys finance minister . Hans a great question to pose to either of those finance ministers. Publicly, they say they enjoy working with each other. Officials needed to head to greece if they are going to take a good look at the books and see what the situation is. Before you can have any sort of deal, you have to agree on a common set of numbers. Right now, they dont even have that. Who is going to be inspecting them . It looks like mario draghi, who was instrumental in taking this jim breaking this jam and making sure auditors and accountants on both sides are talking to each other at least dealing from the same Balance Sheet. Betty hans nichols on the latest in greece. Moving and shaking this morning, prudential insurances boss has been given the top job at Credit Suisse. He will face some big challenges. He told bloomberg the bank has huge potential. It is a Great Institution, phenomenal brand, the people. I have known them as the ceo. There is huge potential there. Betty im a little queasy watching stocks trade as of late. Heading in the red after rebounding yesterday, extending the sixyear bull run. I want to bring back michael reagan. What caused the rebound yesterday . Friday was a bad day. The jobs number came in way stronger than forecast which had everyone worrying that the fed Interest Rate would come in earlier than expected. Rti International Metals got its offer from alcoa. Today is more similar to the story on friday. Richard fisher of the dallas fed , he is not going to vote in the next meeting. What he had to say caught peoples interest. The fed cannot wait to long for these Interest Rates. They run the risk of overshooting on their employment goal and causing unemployment to get artificially low which could cause a recession down the road sometime. Whether or not he has any insight on with the fed will do next, people are paying attention. Betty it is inevitable. What are the other catalysts for the short term . Mike companies have this record amount of cash on their Balance Sheets right now. Will the m a wave continue to go on . Look at qualcomm with a 10 million buyback this year. 10 billion buyback this year. Everyone is wondering what they will signal. Betty what about sectors . Mike Consumer Discretionary is doing well. Cheaper oil is helping. Technology is doing well. Raw Material Companies are doing a lot of that has to do with building materials. Companies like balkan materials. Betty yesterday, we were talking about this sixyear bull run is going to continue and then we had a strategist on who said hang on. We will see a pullback sometime this year. Will we see this pullback before the fed raises Interest Rates . Mike stocks have done pretty well in the runup toward a rate increase. There was a note yesterday looking at similar bull markets. Long extended bull markets. On average, three months outcome of the s p did 3 between three months before until the first rate increase. Small stocks did 6 . There could be some turbulence after that. No reason to believe stocks should start falling ahead of a rate increase. Betty hopefully history is the guide. Thank you so much. One stock we are watching this mornings barnes noble. Riding high ahead of its thirdquarter results. Shares rose more than 4 . The Company Announced an investment in flash notes. Com. Expanding its College Bookstore business which is being spun off into a separate publicly traded Company Later this year. Matt tauzin joins us. How significant is this move . Matt it is part of the whole college play. The marketplace were kids can sell each other their notes and study materials. You are allowed to share notes. It facilitates that. As part of this whole play in the College Business. It will be spun off later this year. Betty what does this say about the been off nook spinoff . Matt they were going to spin it off the Retail Business. Last month, they decided to announce they would spin off the College Business instead and keep nook within the Retail Business. It will stay within retail potentially maybe down the line they could sell about at this point, its about can they reduce the loss in the nook division. Betty they will see how much the losses have shrunk. Matt the bull case on brents novel barnes noble is the new ceo has been able to cut a lot of costs. They partnered with samsung. The Retail Business still makes money. It is still pretty profitable. If you can get rid of the losses from the nook, it makes for a profitable Retail Business. Betty what do we know about how well it has done so far . Matt it is definitely in decline. Not a growing business. The decline has slowed. The growth of ebooks has leveled off. A lot of people still go to bookstores but they are not always buying books. They are drinking coffee. Landlords love to have barnes noble in their struggles strip malls because it draws a lot of traffic. Investors will be looking for what the Retail Business as. If there is a highprofile book like 50 shades of gray betty people spend all day and drink tea and read the book. Those earnings are out at 8 30. One company that was part of the demise of barnes noble, it is amazon. Why amazon itself might be doomed. A hightech fashion ken tim cook convince users that the apple watches worth 10,000 watch is worth 10000 . Betty here is a look at our top story this morning. The dollar trading at a sevenyear high against the yen. Sparked by speculation that the u. S. Is moving closer to an Interest Rate increase. The biggest maker of chips used in mobile phones is buyback 10 billion in shares qualcomm boosting its dividend by 14 . Analysts estimate qualcomms else will rise 3 gain in 2014. Qualcomms sales will rise. Chinese auto sales accelerate in the first two months of 2015 driven by Strong Demand for suvs and minivans. Retail deliveries rose 16 to 3. 5 million in january and february. Sales surged 66 while minivans were up 20 hbo planning to debut its standalone Online Service next month. Apple will be the exclusive partner. It will cost about 14. 99 per month. It will launch april 12, just in time for the fifth season of game of thrones. You better head to your apple store. It will be available exclusively on apple tv for three months. Speaking of apple, we have the apple watch tim cook selling luxury for up to 10,000 bucks. The two of them on stage. Luxury and tech. Scott galloway explains, having an expensive watch signals if you make with me im more likely to take care of your offspring. Hes a marketing professor at nyu. Also with us is stephen who covers all things luxury as well. Are you wearing an expensive watch right now . Define expensive. The answer is probably yes. Betty what is it . Im in a fullblown midlife crisis. I have not found it in five years. Im trying to portray some type of italian masculinity. The feathers you are try to color yourself betty the image but are you buying what tim cook is selling . Whether or not it is successful it signals something important. Apples transformation to a luxury brand is now complete. Betty why would you say the watch completes the picture . The iphone and ipad were luxury items in the first place, right . Apple has become the ultimate self expressive benefit. When you carry an android, it doesnt mean a hell of a lot. You carry in apple, it means you are more educated. When you look at the ios, it is a map of wealth. This has become the ultimate signal of well. Of wealth. The same benefit will extend to the watch. Betty would you agree this completes the whole picture of apple as a luxury brand . It does. This is a whole New Territory for apple. There is a big difference between ipad and an iphone and a 10,000 solid gold watch. Its an entirely New Territory for them. It will have to have some kind of new retail esperance. Experience. Betty you said the big elephant in the room is what happens when that fancy 10,000 watch becomes obsolete . The Technology Inside it becomes obsolete. What happens then . We dont really know we were hoping for explanation from tim cook and we did not get one. It might just sit in a box. It could be a break. That could be a big problem. Whether or not the customer cares it will be a big problem if we have 30 of the worlds gold supply sitting in a drawer every year when the product turns over. It is a big issue. What Luxury Brands have been able to do is convince you that your watch and your brand our stores of value. You can sell it back and pay the rent. 99. 5 of people never sell or recognize the store value concept. See how much emphasis they placed on the band . Which does not need upgrading. I was waiting yesterday to see it there is some way to swap out and update the technology. This could be a perishable product which makes it difficult to be a high end luxury. Betty nobody else knows about store value of watches than asian consumers. They view watches as valuable as buying a car. How big of a market will asia be . I dont know. From the presentation yesterday starting off with images of the great wall and the new Retail Concept in china apple things china is a big market for them. People see a watch as stored value. It is worth more tomorrow then when you purchased it. With the recent problems of the swiss franc and the euro luxury watch brands had to announce price decreases. Which consumers hate. You buy a watch on monday and the Brand Announces tuesday that prices are going down 5 , your asset is devalued overnight. Betty Scott Galloway staying with me. We will be back on amazon. Betty you are watching in the loop. Good morning. Lets cut to the chase because nyus cap galloway likes to do that. Jeff bezos is a genius ceo. A guy who wants to fly to mars oneday. Hes also doomed, according to scott, if you continues his if he continues his or play pure play retail market. Laying out this case, why you say it is doomed. Scott the consumer wants a great multichannel experience. They want products Available Online but also want to be able to go into these flexible warehouses called stores. Stores are still a great shopping experience. Transportation costs up 40 year on year. That is not sustainable, even for amazon. Betty theyre shipping costs are going up 40 year . Scott the cost for today or someday is extraordinarily expensive capital intensive. Even amazon cannot maintain the pace. I said this on surveillance. Pure play ecommerce does not work. Betty were be part what they have found. Strictly being online they were going to disrupt the old brickandmortar stores. They are now finding i need to get to brickandmortar. Is this a concession by them . Scott the secondmost productive retailer. The Ecommerce Companies will be great Multichannel Retailers. Stores are very convenient warehouses. People value convenience overspeed. They rather go into support to pick up a lipstick when they want. Stores and ecommerce Multichannel Retail is where its at. Scott you say macys betty you say macys is one of those getting this right. I look at the fiveyear chart of macys and amazon. I expected to see amazon way outperform macys. Actually, its underperformed macys quite significantly. Scott that is even including amazons incredible run. Amazon is outperformed. Look at the last five years best buy, nordstrom and macys have outperformed amazon look at best buy you order a flatscreen tv from best buy and you live in delray they will fulfill it out of their boca raton store and it will get faster than if you order off amazon. Multichannel retailers are responding with this asset that people thought was a liability but is not. The biggest asset they have, the new black of retail is stores. Betty bring up that chart we have of why Scott Galloway thinks amazon is doomed. Pure play strategy. Number two, delivery costs are unsustainable. Number three uber will disrupt that last Mile Shipping market. Scott we see uber as our private driver. I took a ride in florida and it cost four dollars. I had forgotten to pick up some stuff but the market so i asked the guy to go back and i gave him my list and he got the stuff and brought it back and it was another 13. They are offering something called rush or they will pick up and deliver stuff for you. It is . 90 a mile. That is 7 billion 7 billion miles a year of flexible delivery. They could be the last mile solution. Betty lets bring this chart up. They could by radioshack. They could buy gas stations. They could by the u. S. Post office . Scott it needs a deeppocketed partner and amazon needs a lot of rick and mortar locations. Brick and mortar locations. My favorite is gas stations. The importance of petroleum is declining. The model here is whats happening in britain. You can order groceries and pick it up at your destination. Amazon is going to open Stores Within the next 12 months. Betty gas stations are not in the best locations and sometimes. One near my house has been md for five years. Thank you for joining us. That has been empty for five years. Barnes noble earnings julie hyman has all the details. Julie you were talking about a stabilization in the physical books business. Something barnes noble points out in the quarter with confident sales of 1. 7 . He also points out continued growth in nonbook categories like games and gifts. One of the areas of strength for barnes noble. It beats up this toy department. Shares coming in at . 93. Well below what analysts had been anticipating. Sales did come in ahead of estimates at 1. 96 billion. Analysts have been looking for a decrease of 1 . You talked about the spinoff that will be happening. Nook sales down 50. 6 . They are not manufacturing new ones at this point. We will keep watching this one for you. Betty thank you so much julie. Here is a look at our top stories this morning. A shakeup at a european banking giant. The new chief will be he is currently the head of the british insurer, prudential. Scott it is a Great Institution phenomenal brand great people. I have known them as the ceo. There is huge potential there. Betty they paid huge fines for helping foreign clients abated taxes. Greece is running out of time to solve its debt crisis. Finance ministers want them to step up fiscal reforms. Mario draghi says greece must open its books. Greece could run out of cash before the end of this month. Some republican senators being sharply criticized for sending an open letter to iran this any nuclear deal wont hold up after president obamas term ends. Joe biden says that undercuts the president s efforts to keep iran from Building Nuclear weapons. The president is keeping his sights set on getting an agreement. Sonys playstation for will reach stores in china 10 days from now. Playstation four. A ban on game consoles ended recently. Sony is banking on playstation four to lead the turnaround. The conductor and 54 people hurt when in amtrak truck train struck a tractortrailer. The third serious commuter train crash in less than two months. The plane took off from bound for india. It is on a historic trip. Coming up, lets go shopping. The bid for a good day for the dollar trading at a sevenyear high against the yen. More on that surge, next. And mover that is not a stop over but a crazy one. U. S. Dollar trading against a basket of currencies. Watching in particular versus the yen. The highest since july of 2007. Continuing speculation we will see u. S. Rates move higher that is affecting the currency market as well. Hewlettpackard, we have an upgrade for that stock over ubs to buy some neutral. He says the pullback present a buying opportunity. Hes looking at the some of the parts valuation of the stock. He puts it at 43 a share, above where the stock is today. We are looking at qualcomm. Sitting at 10 million buyback over the next 12 months 10 billion buyback. Increasing dividends by 14 . Looking at Urban Outfitters after earnings came in ahead of estimates. Betty thank you so much. I want to show you some other movers. We are you much unchanged in the free market pretty much unchanged in the free market. Simon property offering 22 billion in cash and stocks. They have been trying to buy the ball operator mall operator. They have refused to engage in discussion. He takes this public. Stephen brown is the manager at American Century real estate fund. They have 10 of their funds invested in simon. Do you want them to get this deal done . It is an interesting transaction and has a lot of appeal to simon because mesa ridge has huge exposure in california and arizona. It would be a great overlay for simons footprint. It is an excellent ball operator. Mall operator. Betty do you think this deal is going to get done . It seems so far that the two dont like each other. If they were going to deal, they would have done the deal. Right. It is a hostile bid for the company. A sizable premium. Also a premium to the company we track. The bid equates into a 4 cap rate, which is attractive. They are genuinely adjusted in the company and they may have to raise their beds bids. By coming to the public, it could put them in play for other potential bidders. Betty who . International Pension Funds or u. S. Ones. They have pulls of capital out there. Pools of capital out there. There is interest in malls in general. Yes trillion pension fund the Australian Pension Fund investing at 4 cap rate. There is interest on the part of international funds. Betty here is why simon needs to buy, not build. The costar group recent analysis developers build 193 miles per decade since the 1960s. Since the beginning of 2010 only nine miles have been built. Only two right now are under construction. Why . The lack of demand on the part of the anchor stores. Most major markets already have a full supply of malls. One moment it opened last year was called University Town center in sarasota, florida. In general, the market is full. In the last six years or so there has been a decline. The shrinking of supply. We supply growth has averaged less than 1 per year. Supply growth is low. The top malls are rising betty rate has gone up 17 last year . Much higher than inflation. Betty simon needs to do in acquisition. They tried general growth and could not get that done. He doesnt. He has a strong Balance Sheet and good internal growth. He has a cost of capital advantage and sees it as a good opportunity. The macerich portfolio is 22 billion. Senior management owns about 3. 5 of the company. If he feels he can get this done without too much initial damage it would be an attractive longterm investment for the company. Betty simon wants to focus on class a properties. They want to get rid of their strip malls. They spun those out last year. Betty great to see you. Thank you so much. Much more ahead. What do investors think of the great gm buyback . The activist investor, harry wilson. The mcdonalds ceo faces more challenges after sales drop again. Can he turn the worlds biggest restaurant chain around . Much more ahead. Betty mom is the word from Hillary Clinton for now. She ignored her email controversy during a form yesterday. Mum is the word from Hillary Clinton for now. She might hold a News Conference to address the email controversy. The baidu ceo says the company may introduce a driverless car later the seer. Later this year. It has been researching the vehicles and working with auto manufacturers. Takeover by twitter. It has purchased periscope, an application for live video streaming. Twitter has owned the app for more than a month. No price was disclosed. Providing information to the Energy Chemical and mining industries. Buying Wood Mackenzie for 2. 8 billion in cash. Burger king cutting soda from its kids meals following similar steps by mcdonalds and wendys. They will include apple juice fatfree milk and lowfat chocolate melt. Chocolate milk. Shares from it tells down a bit in the premarket after yesterdays monthly global sales were the worst in over a decade. February sales down 4 . Steve easterbrook faces more challenges we are joined by vanessa long. Vanessa waong. Mcdonalds is in this position where it is trying to redefine itself. They are picking words like progressive and modern. It is not clear what this means. They have a lot of initiatives going on that might suggest where they are headed more digital marketing, social media campaigns taking questions from their customers and answering any concerns about food safety on twitter. Betty the have taken 4000 questions . Vanessa 40,000 questions since the fall. A lot of it is repetitive. Is your beef real . Are your nuggets real . Betty criticism framed in the form of a question. In the midst of an 18 month turnaround plan. Vanessa they announced they would be taking the next year and a half to regroup, improve their fundamentals, their menus, service of a speed service, speed and try to get things back on track. We have about a year left. So far, their initiatives dont seem to be showing any positive results. It might be early. They are racist them up 36,000 restaurants they are a system of 36,000 restaurants. I dont think we have any indications that mcdonalds is going to diverge significantly. There might be news coming through soon. He has only been the ceo for a couple of weeks now. The things that don thompson was focusing on, such as custom burger pricing, regional rising menus and advertising simplifying menus to get speed and service back up to speed betty we only have a month and a half worth of data. Shake shack ipo a month ago. Bring the chart up. Shake shack coming credible. The stock has doubled. Shake shack incredible. Mcdonalds is generally flat. That is an extreme example of peoples changing tastes. Absolutely. Showit Shows Growing interest from investors. Mcdonalds competitors have a clear you can order a gourmet burger. You can go to chipotle for food that is sustainable. Mcdonalds is ubiquitous. Its a bit harder to turn the ship around when things are not going to well. Betty burgers are in fashion. Everyone wants a good burger. Great to see you. Thank you so much. We will be back in two minutes on in the loop. Betty todays bloomberg big number is 18. 5 million. He cant catch a break after suffering several according to morningstar we are joined by the man who called for gms buyback. Harry wilson weighing in on the future of the carmaker. Betty welcome back. We are 30 minutes away from the opening bell. Features indicate stocks will open lower equities edging lower while the dollar is surging. A u. S. Interest r hike might be around the corner of your greece is running out of time to solve its debt crisis. European finance ministers want greece to step up fiscal reforms. Mario draghi says greece must open its books. Greece could run out of cash before the end of the month. Apple showing up the bells and whistles of its smart watch, the companys first new gadget in five years. The watches can receive a phone calls. Prices range all the way up to 10,000 for a fancy gold one. President obama hopes to ease the pressure on student borrowers. He will announce a plan today. The Education Department will be told to create a website that will get far worse a way to complain about lenders colleges and collection agencies. Barnes noble top estimates in its latest quarter even though revenue fell by 35 million. Sales of the ereader dropped 50 . We are under 30 minutes away from the start of trades. Lets count you down to the open. Bob joining me this morning. Lets start with this story. I will go up to this email from verizon files, my provider. They say we are ditching the Weather Channel. We are going to launch our own local weather service. More users are getting their weather not from television but from apps and online. Dont you think that is the most Important News of the day . It is more than greece, more than apple, the weather. They are right. Very few people switch on the tv and look at it there. I remember when the Weather Channel started. Who cares that much about the weather . You without your phone and the first thing you look at is maybe your messages and then the weather. Betty the Weather Channel has had disputes with other carriers. When a huge storm hits, i turned to the Weather Channel. Bob you do turn to the Weather Channel. But how often . Perhaps with Climate Change we will watch it more often unfortunately. Betty Olivia Sterns is joining us as well. Tim cook introduced a shiny new macbook but the apple watch got all the attention. The first new gadget in five years. Prices range from 349 all the way up to 10,000. Who is getting the gold watch . People are talking about spending 10,000 on an apple watch. People who would spend it on a boat or their house or something. Tim cook give us an update on growth in asia. I am not a smart watch fan but i love this idea of the friction a future with less friction. I love using apple pay. I can start tracking my uber and glance at my email from my wrist. Teenagers get 6000 Text Messages per month. That is exhausting. Not per day . That is a huge utility to not taking her phone out of your pocket. If the apple watches can talk to each other, they dont have to be involved at all. Betty i will always be going like this. How much time do you waste fishing our phone out of your pocket . Betty qualcomm buying back 10 million in shares, increasing its dividend by 14 . Qualcomm sales will rise 3 this year after a 7 gain in 2014. A tech company putting some of its cash to use. Qualcomm sales growth is decelerating. From 2011 to 2013, stock sales growth of 27 . It is now below 10 . The new Samsung Phone is using their own samsung chip. I would like to see them put it into developing new products. Buybacks of shares or dividends is the last resort. We dont know what to do with our money. This brings the intended dividend yield to 2. 6 . Betty it is a positive and negative. What else are you going to do with your money . Still ahead, we are joined by harry wilson, the man behind General Motors 5 billion buyback what investors think of this deal. Betty we have some breaking news. Julie hyman on being capital. Funds advised by being capital are acquiring a Company Called blue coat systems. Bain capital. Funds advised by bain are buying it. 2. 4 billion is the price on this. The company has experienced strong market share and Revenue Growth in its main product line. Buying bluecoat for 2. 4 billion. Betty julie hyman with the breaking news. We continue to count down to the opening bell. Our number fivestory, gms five billion dollars by the program. 5 billion buyback program. Shares rose by 3 . The buyback was accelerated after harry wilson called for it and fight for a board seat. He calls the whole agreement a winwin for the company and for shareholders. Harry joins me this morning. Great to see you. I know why you went silent because you are working on this. You ask for eight and you were happy with five. Harry we are happy with the outcome. It is a winwin outcome for both sides. The buyback was a small portion of what we were focused on. We were not out there touting it. I real focus was how the Company Makes decisions around Capital Allocation. How does the company have a consistent and thoughtful framework . We had a tremendous dialogue with the company they are incredibly engaged an incredibly thoughtful. Betty how long are you talking with them before they made public you were wanting this . Harry not long. We approached them late, frankly. We ended up meeting with them in february. Betty was that the Detroit Auto Show . Harry exactly. Betty i got it. Harry the deadline was february 9. It was a brandnew discussion. We wanted a private dialogue for the company. How to help the company work through these issues. That launched a dialogue with us and them which was very constructive. Betty not all shareholders are happy about this. Some have expressed concern that yes, 5 billion out of a 25 billion cash pile small but these Car Companies only five years ago, jim was in bankruptcy. Gm was in bankruptcy. Why erased that cash cushion . Harry the marketplace does not fully appreciate this. This is a radically different place. The Balance Sheet is much better. They laid out how much cash they had to weather the recession. It is in their presentation from yesterday. Even with that, they can do a 5 billion buyback and commit additional cap for their future and still be well above that threshold. It is not a racing the cushion at all. It is a portion of excess cushion, if you will. Im focused on how to become successful over the longterm. I would never suggest anything to create risk around that. They continue to invest and grow in the future. Betty you engineered the bailout of General Motors. You wanted to make sure the company was position for the longterm. Isnt doing Something Like this isnt this perpetuating that idea that these are shortterm investors getting into gm . Harry if the rationale was to make a shortterm that was not what we were after. We were after having disciplined Capital Allocation. When the market is robust, all companies squander capital. The way to prevent that is to have a disciplined Capital Allocation framework that governs that. The company has been thoughtful about it. It is how do you make them disciplined and successful in the future. Betty are you worried that they would have spent too much money . Harry the question was how do they make decisions. Its not that we disagree with any element of what you are doing but the market does not understand how you think about it. In order for the market to give you credit they need to understand your framework and support it. Part of what mondays announcement was about was explaining that framework in a much more detailed way. It will take some time for investors to understand it and appreciate how important this is for the future. The fact that the stock traded at a significant discount to its peers and historical levels will raise overtime. Betty you were like gm is a great buy. At what point did it turn for you and you suddenly decided this companies underperforming . Harry a couple of things. I was on here in 2011. It has doubled it since that time. Looking at it now, one year ago i said that the companies to be disciplined about how it allocates capital because thats an important part of when the product gross. Grows. I was talking to the cfo about the policies. I raised a number of questions. One of the investors in that group approached me and said we should talk further. Betty what would you say to taxpayers who bailed out gm that this is enriching a bunch of billionaires . Harry it is sending a framework for how the Company Thinks about investing going forward. That is good for investors which include Pension Funds. Its also good for the longterm success of the business to make sure they remain disciplined. Betty you went and bought the screaming buy. This is their perspective. This program weakens gm and will likely delay any potential consideration for an upgrade. Harry snp and fitch came out at the same time and said they were not concerned at all. I cannot begin to speculate on their thought process. When they take their cash balance and factor in Free Cash Flow over the next year and a half, subtract the capital purchase plan, they still have over 20 billion in cash. That is more than enough to weather the 2008 downturn repeat of that. It is incredibly wellcapitalized and that is the part that people are missing. Betty how do you feel about being called an activist investor now . Harry its funny i dont think of myself as an activist investor. I think of myself as a Problem Solver. We work to solve problems. We have worked with advisors and copies and shareholders and unions. Betty you being a Problem Solver throughout your life. Great to see you this morning. We will be back in two minutes on in the loop. Betty lets get back to bringing you the most important stories need to know before the bell. Here we go another company, another autonomous car. Baidu says it may have an economist cartoon market as soon as this year. The company has been researching smartcards, working with auto manufacturers. Sounds a lot like google and apple. Who are the Major ChineseCar Companies . Its never about the technology. We will get there. It is the regulation. You think about drones, they are experiencing with drones in china. Experimenting with drones in china. Betty olivia does not believe in the autonomous car. How about gm getting into the Search Engine business . It is the illusion of having your own chauffeur and you can sit back and read and sleep and get to where you want without being on the train or bus. Or you can take uber. I dont want to write one going 80 miles an hour. Betty they are lawabiding. Betty number three come the clock is ticking again for greece. Following comments by mario draghi saying greece must let representatives examine its books if they are ever going to obtain anymore they have to reveal whats underneath the service. What they have so far put forward is not going to cut it. We will have undercover tax inspectors. That is not really going to do it for the troika. Even if they manage to get growth going, isnt it too late . Isnt the pain too much and the greeks want Something Else . Gdp is coming back in spain. Unemployment is still at 24 . Greece is already running a surplus. I wonder how much the restrictions that the troika has put on the Greek Economy are holding back the growth they need. Betty we have to get our number two story. Credit suisse getting a new ceo. He spoke with bloomberg this morning. It is a Great Institution, phenomenal brand, great people. I have known them as a ceo because we deal with them. There is huge potential there. Betty they have been going through tough times, cutting back. He has been one of the few Global Bank Ceos to make it through the crisis. He weathered the storm of all these regulations and legislation and all these court cases. My question is whether or not he is going to take Credit Suisse on the path ubs has gone down. Sometimes you need somebody with fresh eyes to come in and make the cuts and realign certain businesses that somebody from the inside cannot do. I want to make one other point about this man with an impressive resume. He was a Development Minister in the ivory coast. There was a coup. He lost it. Our gain. Betty welcome back. Most important stories you need to know before the bell. Our number one story. The dollar is trading at a sevenyear high against the yen. Goal also dropped for the seventh day gold also dropped for the seventh day. The question, is this a strength or weakness around the world . A lot of analysts say it is a strength. Winston churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the rest so the dollar is the worst currency except all of the rest. Betty you hear it all the time we are the tallest dwarf they are more right than they were a week ago. Things are turning around. You have to wonder if the stronger dollar change janet yellen thinking. Betty after fridays report you would be crazy to think that the fed does not raise rates at some point this year. Until the next jobless numbers comes up. Betty i want to bring in the investment strategist who sees market moving even higher from here. You settle this debate, what do you think . Dollar strength, or everybody is just weak . You have divergent monetary policy. A tight voluntary monetary policy, you have the bank of japan, and the ecb moving in opposite directions. Several other factors will continue to put upward pressure on the dollar. The 10 year yield there has been a fiveweek rally that has been the biggest rally in 20 years. What does not tell you . Does that tell you . Market sold off and Interest Rates rose and it was a rude awakening for many people, and as a result of that rates will probably back off. Wayne is the fed going to tighten when is the fed going to tighten and a year from now what are rates going to be . It will probably tighten at some point in the third order. Quarter. It all depends on where the data points are going to be. Betty when you see data dependent, even if we got a bad jobs number in the next month the trend has been that we have been averaging 200,000 or more jobs, the jobless rate is going down. Even if we get better numbers is not going to derail a forecast for tightening . One part is managing the labor market. We can see in the data, the labor market is improving. The second part is improving price stability. We are in the goldilocks scenario, not too hot or cold and wages are finally starting to rise. Some point, youre going to see inflation pickup especially if Oil Prices Continue to rise. I think it is too cold. [laughter] we want to bring in sean. You have been debating whether they will raise rates this year because everyone is doing so well or doing so opoor . Everyone is doing so poor. Raise 25 basis points see what the Market Reaction is, and then raise rates from there. It is about understanding what way are positioned in the economy, and then what we are related to the market. Do you think a stronger dollar will decelerate the liftoff of the fat . Fed . No. Were in the sixth inning of a dollar move right now. We have the most of it anyway. It will not have a great impact. What happens when the fed raises rates . Is there going to be any surprise . Are there any surprises that people have been talking about that you might expect with the fed raises rates . Certainly will probably see the curve flattened. Look at what is going on in europe right now where you have the swiss 10 years of a 13 basis points preview h. It is driving a relative value trade, and now everyone has a currency trade on top of it and when you are trading fixed income right now, you are trading sovereign debt, and your trading currency as well. People want to be a long on dollars. With one third of sovereign debt in europe trading, that has released a wall of money to the United States. The real question is, what is going to do to the equity markets. That is what theyre going to what to say. Theyre going to be tempered, theyre going to be measured so the bank of england will come along with them at some point, but a reality is that is not going to be a global raising. The u. S. Is going to lead to the raising of the rates going forward. I think youre going to see the fed raising rights before everyone else, and i would point back you said earlier witches, you have very low Interest Rates around the world and you have higher Interest Rates here in the united days. Will encourage a lot of money moving into the United States. A lot of people worry what is going to happen. Our Interest Rates going to skyrocket you know i do not think so. I think the volatility in the market is going to take up with the fed moving the other direction. I think the bull market continues until you see Interest Rates at a higher level. Over 1 . Yet to have a tenure of over 5 before you see a negative impact on the equity market. Youve to see meaningful inflation to erode corporate profitability before it becomes a problem. The majority of users are below the breakeven rate. Gary shilling disagrees with this. He found that of 2222 oilfield survey, only 1. 6 would have negative cash flow at 40 a barrel, and we are well above that. If it goes below 40, you shut in. Everything comes out to 70 and in the releases as well in the middle east it is well above 100. The reality is, so long as you have oil prices below these levels, you are eating into their budget and theres only so much appetite i think until they have to find a way to balance the budget. Betty thank you for joining us. An exclusive announcement for us coming up. We will be back. Betty we are looking at some pretty deep selling right here at the open. Senior markets correspondent julie hyman has a look at the early action. Courts we are Lumber Liquidators holdings best day of two weeks. The Consumer ProductSafety Commission will be coming out with some time of ype of announcement, but will not be today. 60 minutes had a report on the products, saying they were using improper sourcing, with unsafe levels of her aldehyde in the wood formaldehyde in the wood. Were also looking at casinos right now. The macau casinos are declining. Deutsche bank is the latest to turn bearish on these stocks. It is the latest in a long line of various analysts that have made negative comments about the casinos in macau. The opening of two new Gaming Venues not expected to boost demand. Mark underestimating pressure on the profit margins. Barnes noble the company did come out with earnings. The shares are heading lower because even the sales rebounded earnings per share i saw it i did not think it was correct because its so much below what analysts were anticipating. The average analyst estimate was 1. 41. It looks like the sales rebound is not helping that stock this morning. Betty thank you. Our senior markets correspondent. Setting its sights on the european sports market. A finance arm that is focused on soccer deals. Exclusive news they are breaking right now. The acquisition of football clubs,s aliens, and financing football clubs, stadiums, and financing. Sean matthews, the ceo of Cantor Fitzgerald joins me. Why does this make sense for cantor . If you look what is going on in the marketplace right now, investors are looking for alpha anywhere they can find it. It is very hard to find in this environment. One unique asset is where people look for opportunities. We can become a significant player. It is a different environment in the united dates your trading players, contracts met there are more financing opportunities. Described to me how the soccer market works. The right to trade contracts any way they can. The opportunity for a club to move up in its value and its value to move up and down is substantial. Clubs this will become stronger they want to push his players that will help them get their purchase players that will help them get there. We think we can fill that void. How big of an operation are we talking about . We will get 10 or 12 people and grow from there. It is going to be a very controlled group that is talking to the clubs and looking for opportunities to help them create wealth. Inevitably, we want our investors to do well, we want our clients to do well as well. There is a combination there. Betty is there a possibility you might take that model and bring it back to the United States . It is a little bit different year because the players do not trade as frequently, the stadiums are usually finest through municipalities. We may move in through other businesses rather than our dedicated sports. Betty we are you growing right now . Where you hiring . We think it is a great opportunity. When you look at the World Financial Services are clearly changing and we are in the early innings of that the opportunity for us to get bigger in the fixed income area is t here,. We are growing our equity business every day. Our banking franchise continues to get bigger. We like the position of where we sit, with the volatility coming back which creates a great time for us. It has started to pick up, but has been very spiky, as opposed to a longterm process. That really gets into stockpicking, acids moving in directional bias sassets moving in directional bias. Betty you have been focused on health care. You have hired more bankers on that side. We like the a much greater it is a surreal financing kind of opportunity. They are clearly going to have to raise more money going forward. People who really get in and understand the products and understand what is going on with the company can deliver strong results from both the perspective of the investors and you are helping of the corporation. Betty on a final note on sports, you have been pretty active in the Sports Betting world. Particularly, in las vegas. I think you own one third of that market now. Are you going to ramp up that investments . We are always looking to get bigger where we can. Our daily m. V. P. Site is something that is interesting, it is online in nature. We just talked to tom brady and steve nash, significant players. We are looking to grow. This is a longterm process as opposed to what to do in the next two quarters, and the next three to five years. Betty thank you for being with us. March madness just around the corner, but an undefeated season for one top seed spells bad news for bookies. Betty as i speak you have the dow erasing the gains for the year. The nasdaq also heavily hit as well. I know Stephanie Ruhle is keeping her eye on the market as well during her program. She got to catch up with the Melinda Gates discussing the foundation and Ownership Initiative partnership initiative. Women, particularly mothers recognize the value in vaccinating their children, but that women in america seem to god what deadly diseases can mean for a community to have forgot and what deadly diseases can mean for a community. Stephanie Womens Health has improved exponentially over the past 20 years in part because of the gates foundation. I had to ask her whats in the world does she think about this movement that is uprising of parents who are saying they do not want to vaccinate their kids and not just for the kids at risk, but their entire community . I meet women all over the world who value vaccines. They walked three hours in the heat with a baby on their back to get that vaccination for their child because they know the difference it will make in the community. It is a lifeanddeath emergency rate it is crazy that in the United States were forgotten what those diseases are like and we would allow them to come back because parents do not want to ask in a third children. Stephanie that is what is extraordinary. Women in africa have no access to education, but they are aware of what a lifeanddeath mariotas scenario it is. Betty we have that luxury here to make that choice, even by some, if it is the wrong choice. Stephanie we are there to talk about this no ceilings initiative she has with hillary and chelsea clinton. It is taking the data from the last 20 years, where women are, and what they are going to do next to help us to get to the next level. Betty thank you so much. Beinge sure to get all of that in the next hour. Betty our march madness is just around the corner but there is Just One Team that those with a vested interest are watching. Venice kentucky. They have been undefeated all season long, and that is bad news for bookies who took bets with pretty longg odds. William hill, a sports operator in las vegas, they looked at 50 to one odds that kentucky would go undefeated through the regular season and the tournament. It went all the way down to even money odds. And right now theyre looking at a sixfigure exposure on that bet alone. They are very interested in kentucky losing either in a tournament this week, or in the tournament in the next few weeks. Betty how does the landscape look now . Where people sleep position where are most people positioned . Youre seeing duke in wisconsin at seven to one. There is a huge cap between kentucky and the rest of the field and that is indicative of how the season has laid out in kentucky is 310. The question now for sports fans and for bookies alike is whether or not that is going to continue to the next nine games. Betty hundred they find themselves in that position . They. 200 to one odds they put 2001 odds of kentucky going undefeated, and they lost the third game. They came back and did only 50 to one this year and it has come back to bite them a little bit. Kentucky could have lost three or four times this year, they have been in overtime several times. It is not a foregone conclusion. Anyone who watches march madness knows that crazy things happen and sometimes the best he does not always we the best team does not always win. They can shorten kentucky to the point where anyone who wants to bet kentucky will go elsewhere because there are better odds. Duke or wisconsin, if you want to bet on those schools this is where you do it. If another result happens, they will end up making a little bit more. Betty how big is march madness going to be this year . Huge. Outside of the super bowl, this is the event. There is adding during the day betting during the day because you have games all day. It is not just one events like the super bowl. The biggest two weeks of the calendar. Betty we are down significantly. The dow is almost off 100 points. We have are all of the gains for 2015 we have erased all of the gains for 2015. Tomorrow i will be in florida. The mastic chicas executive the nasdaq chief executive will be joining me from there. Live from bloomberg headquarters in new york, this is market makers, with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle. Stephanie changing of the guard at credit squeeze. The ceo is out, he is being replaced the head of one of britains biggest insurance companies. Erik how low will be euro go . Parity with the dollar. Stephanie no ceilings glass or otherwise. And that is the foundation she runs with her husband bill