Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Best 20161105 : vimarsan

Acquisitions. The fundamental factors are very strong. Juliette some of the best minds in business tell us whats on their minds in a volatile time for markets. It does make economic to allow incremental bureaus to come from outside the cartel. The fed is determined to act if things are normal when they are nowhere near normal. I think we need a statement from the u. K. Government where it stands. Juliette its straight ahead here on bloomberg best. Juliette hello, and welcome, i am juliette saly. This is bloomberg best, the weekly review of the most Important News from Bloomberg Television around the world. Central banks were certainly the focus throughout this week, but on monday, ge stole the headlines with a blockbuster deal to create an energy behemoth. Alix ge agreeing to combine its oil and gas business with baker hughes and a 32 billion deal. The particulars of the deal thats not a typical merger. Ge did not buy all the baker hughes. They did not want to buy all of baker hughes. Ge wanted a piece of baker hughes. When halliburton was trying to buy baker hughes, ge was willing to spend 5 billion to 8 billion to take out the pieces they could get. They do this deal and now they will control a control the company will be third in that Oil Fuel Services space. Ge effectively takes over two thirds of the new company and baker hughes gets one third. Ge gets most of the new positions of the chairmanship and ceo positions and baker hughes gets the vice chairmanship, but it should be noted that baker hughes gets a whopping huge payout, 7. 5 billion. Shares this morning, in premarket trading, at the moment, it looks like the baker hughes shareholders are much happier than ge shareholders. If you are able to play in a much broader array of the oil and gas sector and you couple upstream our domain with ges more midstream, downstream domain. Then you can go to the Customer Community and have a conversation about reducing their dollars per barrel, improving the recovery factors, optimizing production profiles. All of the urgent issues that are facing the customers. Nobody can do that right now. Were looking forward to getting this through the Regulatory Environment as quickly as possible and being able to act as one full stream oil and gas industrial company. Chinas stabilization continued in the Fourth Quarter as the official factory gauge rose to a twoyear high. Pmi jumped to 51. 2. In october, Services Also advanced. Does this quiet the naysayers who say the sustainability of this recovery is in doubt . For now, its definitely a good headline. No doubt about it. Better than expected. Building on the positive escape from deflation that we saw last month as well. Where we start adding caution is on the prices side of thing. This was driven by Higher Commodity Prices and whether or not Higher Commodity Prices will stay high, whether not pmi will stay high, its another story. Right now, Chinese Companies are on better footing than they have been. The question remains how sustainable and durable on the pbr and pmi side things will be. The boj has left policy unchanged while cutting the inflation forecast for the next fiscal year. Governor kuroda does not see the 2 target being met by april 2018, the month his term as head of the central bank ends. How would you describe governor kurodas credibility . Hes not going to get to the inflation targets he has set down in his term. Verye bank has set ambitious targets for inflation for quite some time. If you look at the path of their forecast for inflation versus the streets forecast, it has always been this crocodile gap between the two lines. For some time now, people were sort of not really expecting the banks forecast to be realized, at least in the time horizon the bank was predicting. I think todays announcement does not really come as a huge surprise to anybody. Scarlet Michael Mckee is in washington at the Federal Reserve with the decision. Michael its the least surprising at least interesting fed decision in a long time. No change in rates and networks no explicit signal that any rate increase is imminent. Although, if you are looking at a hint as to future fed actions, the fed adds two words to its formulation from september. The Committee Judges that the case for an increase in the federal funds rate has continued to strengthen. There were two dissents, boston fed president Eric Rosengren voted with the majority this time. What is the take away for you from todays fed meeting . They didnt want to make any waves six days before the election, and they didnt. They didnt change our view that a rate hike is likely. Of note, instead of having three dissents, there were only two. They did choose not to say they would be considering a hike at the next meeting. That was the language they had used a year ago, but they gave enough other hints in the statement that the goal was not to make any waves. Matt theres not a lock for a september hike . I think a rate hike is in the cards for december. Its not a slamdunk. Global developments could factor in, but this is a community that expects it will be hiking in december. Francine breaking news in the last six minutes, the u. K. Must hold a vote in parliament before starting the twoyear countdown to brexit. So ruled a panel of judges, now setting up a constitutional confrontation at the countrys supreme court. We know that will happen between december 5 and december 8. This is significant, we can end up with a situation where its more of a hard brexit then it could have been. Parliament could be settled with this and theresa may could push everything through parliament. Parliament will own the vote to some extent. Francine what does this mean . Mayhem for the markets . More uncertainty added into the mix. Theresa may will have to go provide more information. Its been a bit more provocative in holding theresa may to account. Its a stronger pound story ahead of the bank of england decision. Widely expected to stay on hold, thats exactly how we stay. The bank of england keeping this on change of the vote 90, unanimous on the Asset Purchase Program and unanimous on rates as well. Bank of england saying they have a limited tolerance for above target inflation. There are two stories, the decision of the high court on one hand saying you have to go to parliament before you vote on article 50. And then you have the Monetary Policy Committee Going ahead and how do we hook up these two stories . As a holding pattern. The data has actually improved from the last meeting when they said were probably going to cut. Huge amounts of uncertainty. That decision today has added to that uncertainty. We see a rise in the pound. In some sense, we dont really know whats going to happen. We will do whatever we have to do. Theres a lot of uncertainty in the air. Theyre trying to reassure people that they will do whatever is necessary. The payrolls report for the month of october. Expectations 173, here it is. Erik 161,000 is how many jobs were created in the month of october. Not too hot, not too cold, and the Unemployment Rate dropped to 4. 9 . The big surprise in the jobs report is wage growth. Average Hourly Earnings up 0. 4 for the month of october. And 2. 8 over the previous 12 months. If the fed is looking for one data point in this report to bolster the case for december rate hike, that may very well be it. Wages up, Labor Force Participation down. Are we at maximum employment . I dont think we are at maximum employment. The drop is not significantly against the backdrop of it up half a point in the last six months. Were going to need more evidence to see where participation is going. Demographics are a headwind, given that our population is getting older, thats going to be a headwind for years to come. I think todays report shows that the job market is continuing to heal. Theres more progress that can be made. The 2. 8 wage growth is a sign that we are getting back to full employment. The fact that the Unemployment Rate edged down as a sign that the job right is continued to recover. Juliette still ahead on bloomberg best, frank talk from leaders on oil, banks, and brexit, plus, why was october such a monster month for mergers . And more of the weeks top business stories, including a china spinoff that yum brands believes is going to pay off. The opportunities outweigh the challenges. Juliette this is bloomberg. Juliette this is bloomberg best, im juliette saly. Lets continue the tour with the new york trading debut of young china, the brandnew spin off of it leading u. S. Fast food company. Yum brands, the family behind kfc, pizza hut, and taco bell and just completed a spinoff of its china operations. They began trading as a Second Company on the new york stock exchange. What now does yum brands concentrate on now that the china operations are some elses problem . We are going to be more efficient. All of those will help us grow. Were going to own less than 1000 restaurants by the end of 2018. We become a capital light business thats really focus on growing your units, and thats the area of focus for the organization. What is top of your to do list now that yum china is now a separate entity. Its pretty much what we have done. Next years the 30th year in china. Weve had an unbelievable record of growth. Theres always been challenges along the journey every few years, but overall, the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. Our plan is pretty much what we have had for several years now, which is building a lot of restaurants. We built at least 600 new restaurants every year. And then to grow sales in existing restaurants. The combination will give us a nice growth in business. Dbs is trading lower after buying anz retail and wealth businesses across five asian companies. What we know so far . The five Asian Countries include singapore, hong kong, china, indonesia, taiwan. The deal will add 23 billion singh dollars to his assets, and the lender is gaining momentum for sure. It became the First Singapore bank and First Asian Bank to break into the top five private banks in all the asia pac region. This acquisition it says will cement its leadership position for anz on its part. It will book a loss of 265 million aussie on the sale. What is selling off our are operations that have dragged down its return on equity. Mark lets get to south africa. The rand is surging today. Prosecutors probing charges against the Prime Minister, who says he did not intend to act unlawfully. This is a significant victory in the tugofwar with president jacob zuma. How much of a surprise was this . Antony the announcement comes ahead of and expect a court case on wednesday. Its really lifted the markets quite significant. A lot of talks of the case itself wasnt very strong. This was seen as a way for prosecutors to stop the case. Mark is a going to be more st him from the cabinet now if zuma wants to do that . Antony definitely. If he had charges hanging over his head, it would provide a reason to ask him to step down or step aside for somebody else. Right now, hes not under any charges. Hes recognized as doing a good job with the economy and a good budget last week. Hes doing his best to avoid the country being cut to junk next month. Mark carney says he stays on as governor of bank of england to mid 2019 to help facilitate an orderly transition to exit. Orderly transition to brexit. Tons of speculation about the future, so one more year of this. It doesnt go till 2021 that he was entitled to claim, he said he might do a one point. Its kind of a third way. Its good for may, it provides stability for the bank when the brexit is going to take place. At the time, at 2019, she mightve rued the decision that she did make him stay longer, shes going to have the eu negotiations at the same time as trying to find a skilled successor to mark carney. That successor will inherit the economy she builds during this brexit negotiation. That will certainly be a challenging time. Valeant is under criminal investigation for accounting fraud by the department of justice. This is according to people familiar with the matter. Valeant shares tumbling to as low as 18. 77 right now, off by 5 in threeday. What is the accounting structure here that is so controversial . Some pharmaceutical Companies Use specialty pharmacies to market their drugs. Investigators in congress and elsewhere have said its a way of getting around what would ordinarily be price controls by hmos or benefits managers. By basically steering patients directly onto the branded drug instead of the generic. Can you help us quantify what these kind of investigations mean for valeant . The Biggest Issue was a potential fines. The company has over 30 billion in debt, most of it is due in 2020. They are running a fine line in terms of their expected cash flow and what they can paydown in debt. Any large sum they need to pay is going to severely cut into their covenants, and that could be a risk in the near future. Dropping its bid for ganache, shares her plunging now down 18 on the news. They need to convince shareholders they have a reasonable standalone plan here. Thats really going to be a shortterm obstacle. In order to convince shareholders even though the deal didnt go through, hang with us, we do have a plan moving forward. Gannett can turn its attention to other properties. There are other Newspaper Companies they can look at. Maybe that is where this is going to go this point. In terms of what happens to tronc, i probably would assume theyre going to have to make a case that they are good as a Standalone Company for the time being. The south korean President Park has named a new Prime Minister as she seeks to restore confidence. Prosecutors want an arrest friend thatparks is the center of a scandal. Its unclear right now where she goes from here. She has reshuffled her senior staff, shes getting rid of the finance minister and the Prime Minister. Who does she have left to blame . All against this backdrop of the arrests, at the same time, a much wider issue regarding corruption and scandal. You have all of these wider issues with korean corporate and corruption issues there. Mismanagement issues. The arrest of parks friend leading into other corporate scandals as well. Banks are being search for files, business lobbies are being investigated. Its unclear exactly how far this thing is going. This adds to all the issues facing south korea at the moment. Egypt took the unprecedented step of allowing its currency to trade freely. The country announced a series of sweeping measures to stabilize the economy. This is what its done to the egyptians. This is the one thats more traded. They are trying to negotiate with the imf to have a huge loan. This is a huge deal. Its massive. Education authorities egyptian authorities have been kicking the can down the road, this is the last piece of the puzzle to securing a 12 million loan from the International Monetary fund. This last week they told us it was a matter of weeks more than a matter of months. Carol was it expected would have such a currency move . In the space of five minutes, it went from the the second most extensive emerging market currency to the 13th. It was expected that they would make a move like that. You can see with a 12 month nondeliverable forward is trading under the 17 mark. We already had his evaluation early in the year. Thats your red circle right here. Its the second time they moved. This is the big one, the one they have been signaling whispers in the market. Now its finally come through and we see how investors continue to react in the stock exchange, which continues to be up quite a bit. Juliette welcome back to bloomberg best. Im juliette saly. October was a record month for dealmaking with about 489 billion of mergers and acquisitions announced globally, them most for 12 years topping 471 billion in april of 2007. The partners at jones day advised on at ts billiondollar takeover of time warner. He spoke to bloombergs Jeff Mccracken about whats behind the surge in activity in what may lie ahead. Jeff whats going on . I would think an election would make people slow down and be a little concerned, a little worried, but that doesnt seem like that had any effect at all. The election would have mattered if equity prices had been more volatile. One of the things about this last quarter, its been incredibly stable equity prices, at least for very large companies. In a lot of these big deals typically involve some equity. That has been helpful. The fundamental factors are strong. August and september was light, nothing will approximate the Fourth Quarter of last year, but its very strong with fundamental drivers are still there. Low growth, which is bad for most things, that is how you get growth. Very accommodating cap the very accommodating capital markets. Jeff gen baker hughes, ge is going to own 62 or so of baker hughes. Oil and gas and energy is not a space that has been slow. We were talking about how its a surprise for you that we havent seen more big deals in the oil and gas space. Theres so much capital is needed in the startups and fractures and all the rest of it. Will field services, which is most of what baker hughes is about, thats not challenged from a Balance Sheet. But there are a lot of companies with good assets that have very difficult Balance Sheet situations after the price of oil collapsed. We havent seen any deals in that space. Even though weve seen 100 bankruptcies. Jeff as oil prices stabilized, would you anticipate more deals coming off of that . I think so. In the First Quarter of this year, there were a lot of frackers that went into bankruptcy. I thought the big guys would swoop in and step those assets up. They didnt do it. Theres a lot of theories for that, one of them being even the Bigger Companies were cutting their budgets. Some of them even cut the dividends. Im not going to my board room and say i just laid off all these people to cut my budget, im going to buy this oil field in north dakota. I still think theres going to be a lot of activity in that space. Juliette coming up in bloomberg best, the most compelling interviews. Inside opec, a warning on brexit, and a conversation with peter hancock, the ceo who has been reshaping aig. We are taking greater control over our destiny by doing our own work on the risk. Juliette this is bloomberg. Juliette this is bloomberg best. From juliette saly. The revisit the weeks most interesting interviews. Oil prices fell amid increasing doubts that opec can arrange a deal to cut output in a meeting of producers letter this month. Francisco blanche of bank of America Merrill lynch takes a more confident view. Francisco i think a deal is going to be made. I think there are three parameters they have to watch. First is the economic logic of implementing a deal. It does make economic logic to allow incremental deals to come outside the cartel and push oil in to degradation. The economic logic is impeccable. The second driver saudi arabia. Saudi arabia needs the money. They are in a bit of a tight spot financially, so they want to increase revenues. They need the money now. Weve seen them during the largest bond deal in emerging markets. In the sovereign space ever. They are needing more revenues, for sure. The third thing that drives the cartels internal politics. Theyre not questioning the economic logic or the need of saudi arabia and the willingness to get it done, their questioning internal politics within the cartel. I think you will bridge those. The reason is i think russia is coming as well and that will probably keep the cartel together. I think you will see a deal november 30. Is it time to hike rates . The way i always put it is we dont know when the next u. S. Recession is coming. We dont know when the next aftershock is hitting. The question we should ask is does the fed have the ammunition to deal with it when it comes . And the answer is no. Rates are still close to zero. You cant cut rates any further. It would really help a lot if we had a little bit more inflation so you could cut rates. And saying inflation is coming up on the target, not above it, so were going to raise rates, and they are throwing away the chance. Im not a sailor, but i think its like youre close to shore and youre not going to run aground right now, as you really want to get it little ways away from it before the next storm hits. And the fed is bizarrely determined to act as if things are normal when they are nowhere near normal. You would say dont raise rates this year. Dont raise rates this year, dont raise rates next year, dont fire until you see the whites of inflation size. Of inflations eyes. Lets move on to japan. The latest big step for governor kuroda is we are not specifically targeting monetary base, were going to target the yield curve. Yield curve control. Is this policy going to succeed in raising japanesflation . Im unclear. Its worth trying something. Kuroda has been a much more adventurous determined guy that anyone might have expected. I still think not enough. The problem with japan is it is very different very difficult to raise inflation simply for Monetary Policy when youre already at zero. Tom do need to see a more cogent message from the United Kingdom government . I think we do. We have had a new Prime Minister now for four months. When you think about it, membership in the European Union and the referendum decision to leave the European Union is the biggest single challenge facing United Kingdom arguably since the end of the second world war. We do need to know and have clarity. To give you an example, last week the government apparently gave assurances to the car manufacturer nissan which enabled it to go ahead and develop a new range of cars in the northeast of england. But they want an assurance in relation to the Single Market and the customs union. From what we deduced from that, the government would like to be in the Single Market, and he wants to remain part of the customs union. Does that apply to the Automotive Industry . Oil industry . What about Financial Services industries, where the chancellor has said he wants Financial Services industry to have access. I think we need to spell it out, so we can debate it in this country. We voted to leave by narrow majority. We have to accept that result. We have got to salvage as much as we can so we dont disrupt trade, and we dont damage the longterm Growth Prospects of the country. Can i deduce that nissan is more important than jpmorgan . Mr. Darling nissan happens to be the first through the door number 10 downing street. They have to make a decision in relation to investments. Already, other manufacturers are saying what about us . The big thing here is even if the u. K. Government believes is important to stay in this in the Single Market and the customs union, which i agree with, you got to face the fact where it obligates 28 other Member States and we dont know their position either. What i think is urgently required is a statement from the a government as to where it stands, which ought to be debated in the house of commons in parliament in the u. K. What do you say to shareholders who want less earnings volatility in your stock . The more we can accelerate the disposal of the legacy, the more we focus on Customer Business where we really are adding value to the customers through expertise as much as the Balance Sheets, the more we can stabilize earnings and attempt to control it. Other areas of earnings volatility is on the investment side. We announced a year ago we would reduce our hedge Fund Allocation and we are very much on track to cut in that half. That will also reduce earnings volatility. Erik how else are you shifting your investment portfolio to anticipating changes in Economic Policy and development in Financial Markets . If we start to see a gradual and to quantitative easing and rising rates, that will be beneficial. Weve suffered very much for lower Interest Rates and will benefit as they rise. We dont want that to be the core of our investment strategy. We are focused on having assets that will match the long dated nature of our viability and exploiting the liquidity surplus that we have. Erik besides cutting the hedge Fund Allocation in half, are you doing anything else . We are doing more direct lending. Using the ability to take less liquid assets where we have done our own underwriting, as opposed to having underwritten by someone else. Taking greater control of our destiny by doing our own hallmark on the risk erik you. Have john paulson and carl icahn, share with me some sense of your last conversation with those two people. I think that we have made a decision to involve them in meeting as many of management as possible, to understand the detailed operation of the company. Theres a great deal of alignment on the Strategic Direction we are taking. And even the pace at which we are executing it. We are very pleased with the degree of alignment. Erik have you talked to them about todays earnings . Not yet. Juliette you are watching bloomberg best, im juliette saly. We are now more than halfway through earnings season, and this weeks all reports from a number of prominent companies. We start with facebook. Facebook shares dropping in after hours, the company reporting thirdquarter revenue just over 7 billion, up more than 50 from the same quarter last year, and profit up more than 160 yearoveryear. The sixth straight quarterly revenue beat for facebook, which has increased sales more than 50 over the last four quarters. It doesnt seem to be enough to impress investors as the stock plunged. What do you make of the Stock Performance here . Our expectations are expectations for facebook and unrealistic . Ok cory expectations for a beat on expectations has been high. If the incredible 50 growth for a business at that scale. There was not an acceleration of mobile revenues as percentage of sales. It was hard to find reasons. Emily it remained relatively flat, 84 . That was zero four years ago. Cory its awesome. Any number of statistics you can look at say its a fantastic report. Alibaba sales came out and they Beat Estimates as cloud revenue more than doubled. Profit also topped estimates, a week before single state, singles day were they sell a lot of stuff on alibaba. It looked like they actually did better on earnings and revenues. It is a solid beat across the board. Investors are excited about this in premarket trading. They did not report first day following, they decided they want this to be able metric. They want this to be an annual metric. I think the big story about alibabas earning is that we are not just an ecommerce company. The way to Pay Attention to Cloud Computing and Digital Media as well as other initiatives. David Cloud Computing was one of the headlines, theyve gotten a little bit like amazon. Selina it is still far behind amazon web services, but it is growing very quickly. You are seeing triple digit growth, still a very small proportion. They are really investing in this part of the company. It looks like at this rate of growth and the narrowing losses, he could reach profitability next quarter. Is the tale of two oil companies. On the one hand, bp down more than 2. 5 , the Company Reported a 49 profit decline in the Third Quarter. On the flip side, you have shell, up more than 3. 5 , completely smashed estimates and production is up. The story with shell is the acquisition of bg. Production came on quickly and they were able to turn that into a profit quicker than expected. You are seeing the corresponding valley in the market for that name. Bp, and shell an absolute blowout. Vindication of a deal. Look, you have to member, bg was incredibly richly valued and no one thought they would sell because you have to pay such a premium. They did it with a billion dollars. It is not every day you can beat the market by 1 billion. I imagine that people are looking up and saying strong cash flows, that should protect the dividend to some extent. When you look at the ftse 100, theres not that many contributive dividends. Thats important, not just for the old people. Alix sales of Standard Chartered getting been, overall revenue down 6 and bad loan expense was a record 4 billion for 2015. The reason why we love talking about Standard Chartered is they get 55 of the revenue from asia, middle east, and africa. What did we learn about business they are . This bank is based in london, but he gets the vast majority of its profits in asia. Today, the ceo and other executives were lamenting a low level of global trade and low levels of crossborder investment into their core markets, which are africa, the middle east, and asia. In addition to the headline results from revenue, they are not striking a particularly optimistic outlook, which is why we seeing shares drop so much today. Credit suisse posted as a private profit in the Third Quarter as the ceo continued to cut costs and eliminate jobs. Socgen also seeing revenues. There will be costs to markets. How much . We are functioning below the ceiling, but 15 billion is where he wanted to be and be there quickly. And now with a message to Global Markets is focus on what you do best, which is to serve your clients. 10 will be reached sometime early next year. Thats what shareholders are expecting. Given the cost of capital, its subjective. Quarter after quarter, we are delivering. Stepbystep to meet these targets in the midtime. Shares of qantas have come back from steve early losses after the airline warned from steep early losses after the airline warned firsthalf earnings may fall by 13 . We remember back in august when qantas announced a record profit. What is weighing down the next half . On the surface, it all looks pretty good. The airline is a big beneficiary of cheap fuel prices and their fuel bill has come down by 1. 7 billion. The fuel bill has come down for competitors as well. We are seeing International Revenues down 6. 9 , domestic revenue down 2. 9 . Profit expected between 800 million australia dollars and 850 million, down from 900 million australian dollars. Sonys profit falling off a cliff this quarter, the company posting earnings plus 86 from a year ago. What happened . There were a couple of special charges that led to the decline in the net income line. They are selling the battery business and taking a charge because of that. They had to go through the earthquake and they took a charge because of that as well. Probably more concerning you are seeing a stronger yen that is putting pressure on their operations, particularly on the camera sensor business that has been very successful for them, historically. And also a bit in the games and smartphone business. Thats going to be an issue to watch over the longterm. David time warner out with earnings, raising estimates. Things look pretty good. They really do. Im sure hes happy about that. I think we saw some pretty good strength across the three main businesses for them, the cable networks, hbo, and warner bros. Studio. A solid quarter, this bodes well for the remainder of the year. They took guidance up for profitability as they headed to 2017. It is a beat for cbs. Earnings came in at 1. 05 a share. Analysts were expecting . 98. On the possible merger with viacom, the ceo says a deal could work if structured correctly. Many investors look at the merger of cbs and viacom as really a question of when, not if. It looks imminent right now. Especially since we have the Redstone Family pushing for the deal, as well as this megadeal in the content space with at t and time warner, which really highlights the value of content and scale. Cbs will get that scale, well get that content with viacom. Other headline, ceo cbs radio has been talking for an ipo. Cbs is been trying to reduce its reliance on advertising. Its their way of trimming and slimming their operations and just focusing on tv content. The challenges continue. The Worlds Largest pc maker, lenovos revenue fell for Third Straight quarter after personal computer shipments slid. We are hoping for a recovery in the pc markets. This is reflecting the slump that we have been seeing in the global pc market. Let me break down the numbers for you. Profit did Beat Estimates, but it was mostly because of property sales that lenovo carried out. I was a gain of more than 200 million comments is not the first time they have done this. This is the second consecutive quarter that they have actually had to unload real estate in order to boost their financials. Lenovo acknowledges the challenges they face. When they had financial results, they said that Market Conditions may remain tough in the shortterm. The company is investing to drive longterm profitable growth. Theyre competing with the likes of dell, hp, and lenovos lead over hp in pcs shrank to the smallest since it became the Market Leader back in 2013. Julie it looks like the monthly performance for the past several years with the s p 500, for october, a negative return of 1. 9 . Its the worst month since january, the worst october going back to 2012. Its been a negative month. There are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg and we always enjoy showing your favorites here on Bloomberg Television. Maybe they will become your favorites. Heres another functioning will find useful. It will take you to the quick check of fast insight into timely topics. This weeks quick take examines the ongoing coverage syria. Half a decade of uninterrupted violence, 370,000 deaths, more than 11 Million People displaced from homes. Its like the entire state of ohio. There is no end in sight. Peaceful demonstrations evolved into a fullblown civil war. Its seen the rise of the Islamic State and outside superpowers drawn into the carnage. The result is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. Since 1966, an offshoot of shiite islam has been in power in syria. Despite the fact that they were present just 12 of the population. The sunni Muslim Population is around 60 . The current president took over in 2000 after the death of his father. Cut to 2011 and the arab spring. The world watched an uprising in tunisia and egypt quickly toppled their respective dictators. Inspired, syrians took to the street to protest the rule of bashar al assad. Instead of stepping down, he violently crushed the uprisings. Many protesters armed themselves and the country took on a sectarian nature. Sunnis and the saudis through their backing behind the rebels. Shiites like the iranians gave the report to the regime. The Islamic State used the term well to seize territory and attacked with sides. Then there are major powers like the u. S. And russia. After a poison attack in 2013, the u. S. And russia cooperated to destroy syrias known chemical weapons. In general, the two powers have moved in very Different Directions in the war. The u. S. Is against assad and russia supports them. Both countries are actively fighting inside syria against Islamic State and the al qaeda spinoff in the name of combating terrorism. Russia uses the terrorist tag to bomb other groups, including rebels supported by the u. S. And there are syrian civilians in the middle of all this. Devastated by the fighting and distraction, syrians are fleeing by the millions into neighboring countries. Straining resources and creating a global refugee crisis. Heres the argument. U. S. And russia agree on the need to end the war, but not how. For years, the u. S. Insisted that assad must go, but has softened their stance on the dictator. Russia wants to keep syria sovereign and independent by backing assad. Neither side has had enough of an advantage to get the other to compromise on terms for peace. Or have been willing to do so for the sake of syria. Juliette that was one of many quick takes you can find on the bloomberg, and you can find them on bloomberg. Com. Thats all for bloomberg best, this week. Thank you for watching. Im juliette saly, this is bloomberg. Warren he said, what do i do with this money . I said, investing it is about assigning yourself the right story. I did not want to go to college. I went to omaha, i thought i 175,000. I thought that was all i would need. When you had your first annual meeting, how many showed up at that . Warren well, we had 12, but you had to count my and katie and my uncle fred. David any advice to a young