The first word. Vonnie welcome back. It will be a major fight in washington. To actns are valid not on any Supreme Court nomination by president barack obama. Within weeks, obama is scheduled to name a replacement. , according to mitch mcconnell, shouldnt be filled until we have a new president. George w. Bush is campaigning for his brother, jeb bush. He didnt mention donald trump by name but he said the loudest person in the room is not always the strongest. Swift us angeles, taylor 13 Grammy Awards last night of the year. Um she is the first solo female artist to win that award twice. Awards, thear 15 most for any performer. He won top rap act. Global news, 24 hours a day. I am vonnie quinn. Lets take a look at futures. We are looking at solid gains across the board here after Global Markets rallied yesterday. The u. S. Is playing catchup. We ask a created 831 billion in market cap globally while our markets were closed. The Dow Jones Futures are up. Gaining almost 2 this morning. Take a look at s p futures and see that we have come down a little bit this morning off the high. But we are headed back up as we get closer to the opening bell. Take a look at my bloomberg. Canou use bloomberg, you type this in and then you can click on any of these tabs. The biggest changes in the premarket show the biggest volume. And you will see some big names here. , citigroup, Morgan Stanley they are all showing big gains. He also see oil here. And marathon mobil oil. So banks look like they will help drive the markets today. Also, oil companies. Oil right a look at now and see how nymex crude is doing. Only up to. 2 . 29. 78 a barrel. Brent crude is rising a little bit more. U. S. He dollar here, the dollar index is unchanged so it may not have a huge effect. Lets take a look over the past few days. From 26. 98 upof on the news that russia and saudi arabia is going to freeze their production. If you look, opec go is a function i like to use a lot. We can see that freezing production at these levels are not a cut. We are already at the highest levels that we have been in history. So they are producing 33 Million Barrels a day of oil and it is not a cut. It is not a cut. We will follow oil closely today and see how the correlation with markets holds up. David and that is opec. Matt that is right. Saudi arabia dominates that production. Erik lets dig further into this production freeze. It is agreed to by the russians and the saudis this morning. Blas is with us. Aguess we will start with basic question. How important is this agreement . Is less important than the market wanted. But it is quite significant. It confirms where we were coming from. Ago, saudi arabia and russia were fighting for market shares in Eastern Europe and in china and they were fighting a proxy war in syria. Russianse saudis and got together and have a preliminary agreement. That doesnt resolve the oversupply but it will help. Of opec and russia saying we will let the markets decide the price and we will not do anything about it, now, opec countries have decided to act. It is easy to freeze production when you are at peak production levels. It doesnt selma get big deal at all. Production was going to increase in the next few months. Produced 10. 6y Million Barrels and now they are producing 10. 2 Million Barrels so that does not mean we are going to see a saudi increase. It will trend up in the next pew months. But now that. Take todays agreement as the final agreement. Just take it as what the oil minister said. It is the beginning of a process. And ideally, it is a good announcement. David if you are putting together a cartel, do they have enough people in . What about iran or iraq or the United States . Javier that is the biggest point. Iran is trying to ramp up the nuclear plant. It will be very complicated. Of course, what about the u. S. . North dakota, texas, oklahoma, they will be back into trying to increase production. So yes, i think that opec and russia are maneuvering to bring prices up. But there will be a cap. Reached ata price is 40 or 50, then shale will dip again and saudi markets can do nothing about it. Matt we have a great chart here of Oil Production momentum. A fiercely, this is a fiveyear chart. Over the last year, momentum has been going up and they are producing more and more. The interesting part of this chart is the u. S. Down here, we have the u. S. Production momentum. He have fallen into negative territory. That is so you can see this on the bloomberg in the office at home. Wehave come down so far that are cutting production and you will be interesting to see if we turn around and ramp it up. Prices return to 50 we will see u. S. Production. Matt that is a big if. David that leads me to my final question. When we look back six months from now, is it possible that the best thing to say to the agreement is that it put a floor under oil prices . Javier yes, you are absolutely right. This deal will put a floor because it increases that. Anyone who tries to floor the market needs to know now that opec and other countries are negotiating in secret. It puts a floor in the market and it will be difficult to orchestrate this going forward. It stops the momentum going down. That is what they were trying to do. Goldman sachs was already this continues, we will go into the teens. When the increase the price, that is a big question. Javier blas is coming to us and now we turn to china. We have had a lot of data coming in to us. Nonperforming loans have risen to the highest in a decade. Enda curran joins us now. Talk to us about the credit issue. Enda good morning. It is obviously another negative for chinas economy. Bad,the loads are going they wont want to lend and that is not the situation the government wants to have. Tose banks who are prone steel makers and the call miners in particular, they are getting hurt. The government is trying to get ahead of that curve. They are considering ways to ease the provisions for banks. At the same time, the government is taking steps to get the other economy going here. Theyre looking for ways to introduce infrastructure spending. Moving to feeta here in china since we have come back from the lunar new year. We had the chief yesterday who came out and said that china has a take policy tool kit at its hands and they can do more and they are trying to get the message across. Me, but juste hearing this, theyre reducing the reserves and it seems like they are riding a horse in two different directions. Enda this is the quandary. They have not made a formal decision yet but there are considering easing the provisions on the banks. It should be pointed out that the reserve freight is actually quite high by Global Standards so there is room to ease pressure on the banks. And ultimately, that is what the government wants. They want to fund the Infrastructure Project and have a great rebalancing act which, so far, has been sluggish. Jack it appears that a lot of companies are actually borrowing in you on and paying down foreign debt. That is some indication that what theconcern about currency is going to do. But that does sound like a good thing. Not a bad thing. Enda that is exactly right. It would be a significant liability for chinas economy real estate sector. And what they are doing is borrowing from a bond market which is how it develops and deepens their own bond market. This is a net positive. So all of this is seen as a silver lining. How did bank stocks respond at all . About the potential cut in reserve ratio . Banking team theyre being told you can layoff on the provisions for bad loans and ease up on the provisions. It will get banks back in the economy and get them lending again. So it is considered an overall positive. Bring jack back in the conversation. A shortterm boost by loosening the reserve requirement at a time when rank loans are getting to be a growing problem . Is this is the inevitable . Jack you have to read the numbers more carefully. Loans are going up because they are not ending as much. You have to be a little bit careful. Is this simply what is in the works here . The ntl is high. Nt know if this is david that makes the ratio go out. If the bottom line is not increasing as fast, it will be a hard percentage. Erik we will continue and up next, we look at londons angloamerican plan to shrink dramatically in an effort. Stick with us. Vonnie this is bloomberg. Apollo Global Management has agreed to by adp at 6. 9 billion. There are premiums to fridays Closing Price. They plan to merge theme with the protection one company they already own. Europes biggest car manufacturer is boasting a 19 boost in earnings. Dividend tosed its buy more than analysts had estimated. That is the latest Bloomberg Business flash. Erik now to global go. Today, we are looking at Anglo American, the londonbased minors. It is shrinking. We spoke with Bloomberg Television about the plan. Stripping matter of us back to the core, rebuilding the base and making sure we are fit to go forward in the most positive way we can. And i think we have been making changes over the last 10 years. It is time for a bold step out. We have been working on that strategy over the last couple of years. And in this market, the opportunity is there to reach that. We can make some bold moves. . Re you on a short leash if prices dont stabilize, will you have to put further assets into the field . Will you have to do more than this . We look at all of those issues. Have donehat we today, we have gone ahead of the curve and we have gone back to the core businesses that we think we have got a competitive advantage in. We have leadership positions with great assets in corporate in copper. Are some good assets for sale that will help us reset the Balance Sheet and create a different view. A Different Group for the future. We have gone ahead of the curve and we have needed to that for the past couple of years. We are there and we are there and were making the tough calls. We are making significant improvements. We have a 27 reduction in cost. We are setting the business up for success. Stocks traded down in the past couple of minutes, it is volatile this morning. What message would you try to give to people who are figuring out what your business is worth this morning . Up and down and up and down. Is Anglo American a volatile business right now . I would say that the Mining Industry is a volatile industry. If you focus on diamonds and platinum business and the copper futures the longterm shows that people will see a good story. And that is what will impact people. Thean you 100 rule out rights issue . View, weur point of dont believe we needed because we are generating cash and we have got assets or Capital Expenditures that are starting to fall so we have cash flow improving in 2017. We have identified the right disposals where people will be willing and have demonstrated a willingness to give real cash for the assets. So we are in a good position. We dont need to get the rights issue, it is a selfhelp story at without liquidity we have time to put those pieces in place. Give me the timeshare schedule on this. You talk about having time. How do you measure time . Weeks, months, years . With thewill be broken work that we have outlined in 2016. Clearly put, we generate cash in 2016. We invest in our process by selling assets that we expect to see 3 billion or 4 billion. And within a relatively short amount of time we will be down around 6 billion off the Core Portfolio which, in todays term, would be generating 2. 5 billion. We are in good shape. He timetable has been set up clearly in the conversations. Blue bricks guy johnson speaking with the Anglo American ceo. When we come back, we will so you have spies are finding work. David welcome back to bloomberg. Lets take a look at the top trending stories. Saudi arabia and russia have come to an agreement and bond writers may be led astray by the yield curve. Know that banks have been spending a lot of money to make sure their clients have regulations and that they arent going to get into the legal trouble. Hiring military intelligence veterans, people who have been chasing a terrorist around. Not to prevent a threat from the actually to monitor their own employees. To try to get out a rogue employee in case that could be the next libor manipulator. David with this catch the london whale . That is the hope. If you believe that these problems in the past have been broke and that the management has been unaware of them, which is a point that is debated, if you believe it is truly rogue actors then what the big managements want to know is, when is that happening . We had a story last year about the surveillance tools that are being employed. It is a terrific look at the actual human beings who come from war zones into the banks. Erik what kind of a title do they get these people . Are they taking normal roles but they have the extra thing . It is a security role. We know that banks have long hired Police Veterans and things like that. That provide security for their staff against external threats. The difference now is that they are actually monitoring their own people. So if you work at a bank, i dont know how that makes you feel. Erik another story published on bloomberg that is popular has to do with European Banking and the fact that we are witnessing day by davy the deterioration of the European Bank with stocks and credit. But it is far from over. And a colleague first challenged people to ask, when was the point of no return . Makes the case that it was the moment when stepped in front of shareholders. And got only 60 support. That showed how unhappy the investors are with the banks. Erik how dismal is the outlook . Jack when you have negative Interest Rates, it is very tough. Let may put it that way. Erik jack and christine will stay with us. Back in a moment. The conference call. The ultimate arena for business. Hour after hour of diving deep, touching base, and putting ducks in rows. The only problem with Conference Calls eventually they have to end. Unless you have the comcast business voice mobile app. It lets you switch seamlessly from your desk phone to your mobile with no interruptions. Ive never felt so alive. Make your business phone mobile with voice mobility. Comcast business. Built for business. David a couple of things to check on quickly on bloomberg go, that is trading slightly higher, about a half dollar a barrel after the saudis and russians agreed to freeze on our production at current levels. Freezeot a cut, it is a and the market was anticipating something different, but oil is still trading higher. Lets take a look at equity futures and show you that we will continue the rally after this holiday weekend. Change and300 and now it is pointing to an open in the 200s. Christine harper is here and now joining us, rich camera on. Also tom keene. Tom good to be here. In syria, and a rate i hospital tilde killed at least seven people, eight others are missing. Syrian rebels say russia carried out the attack. Airlinesalaysia jetliner is approaching a milestone, just weeks away from becoming the nations biggest unsolved history unsolved mystery in 80 years. Boeing 747rt of the 777 turned up. Do not just what of indigenous people. He has to the center of an area of trade david tom, you are here with your morning must read. It strikes me as an important one. Tom just out, it will be the reading topic well into march and april as well, it is on growth. Flat Global Growth and this is just one idea. Because it is demographic economics, the one percentage point declining growth rate will lead to , anomic gross growth collapse in the growth rate of the working age population was already underway before the financial crisis and the trend explains a good chunk of persistently disappointing recovery. This is demographics within asia but also comes right over to america as well. David in particular, it was china and it strikes the now the chinese have changed their one child policy, perhaps it perhaps exactly for this reason. D kaplan in the same issue emphasized the ramifications of china and russia versus a better position for the United States. Rich . What do you think about demographics . Ch you talked about it earlier on the show, a little bit about secular stagnation and demographic lay everything and that. 1938 1039 when he published that article first commenting on demographics. Their were absolutely the u. S. In terms of the working population. That is more of a demographics story and all this noise about people leaving the workforce and this sort of thing. Stephanie is there a difference between how population growth that there have to be a birth rate or can there be immigration . Jack the evidence is immigration. Stephanie many europes and not be so upset. It looks like germany really got this as a message, and before they got the want of better education another focus is on training them. Has to come from somewhere. Piece, but ithe focuses more on Global Growth so immigration, unless it is from another planet, it is not help. What would be helpful is growth in china and the end of the one child policy could signify more growth to come. , itcan access this chart shows the death rate which is actually rising in china, but the birth rate has turned around as well. Up can see the slope is now and the one child policy being finished means that china gets to accelerate its fertility rate. You could see more growth rate from their. David coming back to immigration, it does not help global but if you are a country trying to compete, do a little mental exercise, if those undecorated aliens had never come to this country, where would our growth rate have been . Tom it would have been less. In the u. K. A million years ago, the immigration debate in the u. K. Is totally different then the u. S. And if you go to congress or parliament, you hear two different dialogues. Frontk. Is absolutely out on working age population tell us, where we couple