Slack over this. Carson block will join us. General motors cfo Chuck Stephens on the Company Earnings coming up shortly. Payroll this is like friday. It is just under 45 minutes time that we get that decision. In the markets ahead of that decision, futures over in the u. S. Looking at equities in europe, in the u. S. , still positive. A vague lower in europe in the last hour, the dax down by 33 points after a fresh high hours ago. This is the fx market approaching that ecb decision, the euro dollar 113. 12. Earlier on, ugly retail sales from the u. K. , cable did, but now it has come back. We are up on the day by. 3301 . Of 1 . Crude bouncing higher again today by almost. 1 of 1 . Those are some of the market moves. Lets get to matt miller. Matt some company news. American express rising 3 in the premarket. The biggest u. S. Credit card issuer posted a thirdquarter profit that beat analyst estimates. Customers are increasing spending, good news for a company that has been hit recently by a loss of deals. For example, with partners like costco. Lets take a look at mattel. It is down this morning. In the midst of a turnaround, kind of stumbling after the First Quarter loss. The estimated week sales from the flagship rb toys barbie toys. They are losing partnerships with star wars and marvel toys, so take a look at the shares down 6 . In sweden, ericsson is getting crushed after first order sales missed analyst estimates. The stock is down the most it has been in four years. This is a 150 billion company. Not sure everybody realizes in the states how big ericsson is. That andt get past raise their revenue. As a result, the stock getting killed in sweden. David lets talk about volkswagen up about 24 over the last two weeks. A person with direct knowledge in the matters is that the german car company has agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle claims over the emissions scandal. Lets get the latest, joining us live is chris. Tell us how certain is this settlement and where is it and how big is it . Chris it is likely to reach a settlement today. This is the second deadline that volkswagen has faced in the u. S. It is very important for volkswagen. It will be a milestone in their efforts to get out of the crisis, which has dragged on for seven months. Details addedre the hearing in San Francisco in a few hours, but it is going to be a costly settlement. As you mentioned from that stock or today, investors are happy scandal has been dragging on for months. Nobody knows how much it will cost, so we will get more of an idea of how much it will cost in the couple of hours. We have at least 10 billion. It will probably be more. The estimates for the total financial hit for the scandal 30about 30 billion billion euros in total. About 24 tually down since this time last year, so 25 is giving back some of that. The stories that have come out in the last couple of days about mitsubishi, is that also helping the stock higher today . Thing thatone mitsubishis problem shows is that it is not volkswagen alone. Environmental groups said, we told you so, this is a bigger problem than just volkswagen and other carmakers are affected, too. In that sense, it could be help for volkswagen that they are not the only black sheep in the auto industry. But they still have massive problems to get through, so that is what we will see. David what does it cover . Is it just the United States, the government, the penalties, the criminal aspects . Is it what we are hearing is related to the civil suit that is being heard in San Francisco, so there is going to be from what we hear today, there are more costs potentially in terms of fines, criminal penalties, so the 10 billion will basically be dealt out to volkswagen owners, about 600,000 in the u. S. They will be funds set aside for Environmental Impact, future Environmental Impact and past we haveental impact heard that there will be two funds, a californiabased and nationwide fund or the Environmental Impact. That is how the money will be handed out. David thank you. Chris reiter, to our for your help. Jonathan of the decision. About 30et to that in no minutes. Will mario draghi surprised the markets . I will ask that question to peter, head of european strategy and joins me in london. Great to have you at this. The first question, will be surprised the market . The consensus is no, what are you expecting . Peter the caveat of the way big. We had so many Big Decisions with the ecb and i think this is not going to be one of them. They have Just Announced a big package and have not started with it. Yes, quite a few indicated theyre looking at that on the way, but it is just time to rule out another program. Jonathan i think what stands out is the euro at 11310. We opened around 110 last month. We could sit here and pretend it is all about the credit channel and they are not looking at that still. A crucial raise point. When i speak to investors, i am telling them that the one thing that we could get out of today, could, i am saying that deliberately, is the reason why the euro shut up is because draw the effectively closed the door for further interestrate cuts. Afterwards, there is a bit of ambiguity in there and there were a few ecb speakers that stressed in the statement that it still says that current and lower levels. The question for me is, does he take the hartline and says, that is it, we will not do any more overly relaxed that and stress that all lower level bit . If he does that, the euro will move. Vonnie peter, we should remind viewers that the euro shot up , what are the Technical Details we still need to hear about . The drit is not only , that is Corporate Bond buying were details are missing. There are no parameters. There is some great area, some Companies May be on the verge of Investment Grade, some may have been headquartered out of the euro area but included, so it will have an impact on a name by name it. They haved that, a, time, and secondly, if they announce something, it will not make or break the market. What stands out is the bit about Interest Rates. Vonnie do expect Immediate Impact . Peter again . Vonnie do you expect Immediate Impact to sovereign yield current in europe . Peter it is a relatively strong rates, andn interest if that were to come, i think yes, we would get a reaction on the front end of the european curve and on the Exchange Rate as well. Jonathan what is the biggest drive or the european sovereign debt market . You see what is happening in japan with the yield pledging to new debt and europe at the moment, does it go beyond the ecb . At the endis related of the day to the central bank, but i think you are right. Previously, one of the biggest drivers was, how the will ecb put rates and all that stuff. Because he crossed closed that alley, the market is one that i will point out, inflation expectation. Even though the equity market has gone up, it has not really followed and that is one of the is one of thet reasons why they are way they are. That is one of your drivers right there. Jonathan peter, one of the guys i always try to speak to, thank you. Much for joining us this morning. In just over, about 35 minutes, well get that ecb Rate Decision. No big changes expected, but as always, look out for that News Conference that comes 45 minutes later. 8 30 eastern, 1 30 in london. Check of the get a stories making headlines. President obama is wrapping up a trip to saudi arabia by meeting with leaders. They are discussing the security issues, including the fight against islamic states and iran, destabilizing a force. Ecuador will raise taxes to pay for that killer earthquake. The president will use emergency decree powers to boost the sales tax by two Percentage Points for a single year. Businesses will also pay more. Anyone making more than 1000 a month will lose one days pay. Donors,ey, political super pacs and other groups i spent 40 millions on ads and methods to stop donald trump from winning the nomination. He is still the front runner. Among them, job rickets. Global news powered by our journalist and new spirits around the world. Carson block. Up, out with his latest bet. That will be next on bloomberg. Coming up in over 30 minutes, and ecb policy decision. It comes at 12 45 in london, 7 45 a. M. In new york. The important bit will be what comes 45 minutes later, the News Conference. 8 30 a. M. New york, 1 30 p. M. London. That is live on Bloomberg Television. David several beers after they mobile, u. S. Shares have yet to recover. The company has shed almost two thirds of the market value. Carson block joins us now. What have you been spending your time crunching numbers on . Carson we have been looking at the german advertising company. This is a company that had been an out of Home Advertising Company until 2013 when it announced its digital strategy. Since then, it has bought a lot of different businesses. Really a patchwork in the online and digital industries. On theirtook a look website because i just found out myself, and it appears that there is rather dramatic growth. It is at 100 to be did to digital. Carson it is interesting because one of the things they point out is the way it they calculate organic growth, we cannot get the numbers to type. For example, they announced in 2014 that the organic growth in digital was 34 . Using their methodologies and the numbers, we get 2. 2 . David that is because acquisitions . Rather than organic growth . . Carson they changed the formula, so in 2015, they began recruiting from acquisitions, which is counterintuitive. Numbers,alculate these we use their formula and their numbers, and it just does not add or come even close to adding. David we cannot go to the company in advance to ask, but now we are going to ask a response. My question on organic growth is, who cares . It does not appear to be diluted in acquisitions. If theyre making good acquisitions and adding to the earnings per share, why does it matter if it is organic or not . Carson the question is, how do we know they are making good acquisitions and what are they paying . They have paid over 100 Million Euros in cash and they have increased the share count by about one third, so there is a delusion there. What is falling into the bottom line, it is not really clear the quality of that. We have a lot of concerns about the accounting. For example, we think there are certain things they are putting on the Balance Sheet that are better or should be running through the pm doubt and we think that there is really a lot here underneath the surface. David i went to be precise. This is a publicly traded company, publicly reported numbers. Do you suspect would you believe that they are misreporting their numbers . Wouldnt that be a securities violation . Carson it is not my place to judge whether there are violations or not. There are certainly a lot of questions that we have about these numbers, and we did catch what we believe is their auditor making a clear error in the cash flow statements, david how big was it . It was an important error. It has to do with the borrowed numbers. If you look at the year and cash statement, it does not look like the company borrows at all. When you look at it into reporter, their drawing down real amounts of numbers, which indicates the cash flow the business is not necessarily that consistent or that strong. When the auditor prepared or it showingepare zero borrowings at the end of the year, that is misapplication of accounting standards and misleading. David you are a researcher, and you came up with about 2. 5 growth rate or Something Like that as opposed to the 40 they are reporting. What does that mean in terms of overvaluation right now of the capital of stroeer . Carson substantial. This company, especially for europe, has a premium multiple because of the new sky story, where the market believes they are really good at executing this digital strategy, almost everything they buy turns to gold. When we are looking at the numbers, we see that it is definitely not the case. If you have a company that is just running around, possibly willynilly throwing money at acquiring companies, this back at a premium multiple . I dont think so. David matt wanted to jump in. Matt i was looking at the stock, and it is amazing, assumedly that your short call can drive it down just 25 in about half an hour. I see that it starts falling at 644, 6 45, so how do you publish this call and how do traders or the market get a hold of that information . Carson we post the information on their website, so i think it went live around then. To be honest, there is always the technical issue and we try to upload the report. It usually does not take right soy, the murphys law thing, we can never pinpoint exactly when we get the report online. We wanted it to coincide with the coming in the studio and talking with you guys about it. 25 in just 30n minutes time. David as we said in the introduction, you have been at this for a while. You had some very notable successes. There were other things that happened that were not so well. I think the jury is still out on. In your experience, when do you win and when do you lose . What did you learn about when this is successful and it falls short . Carson the answer to that is pretty lengthy. With a American Tower for example, i think there were mistakes we made in the way communicated the thesis. I think that actually had the material outcome on what has happened because the thesis is correct, and we are starting to see more and more people talking about what we said the few years ago, so if anything, we were early on that one. Look, obviously, but to us is successful or success is when the thought declines and stays isthe level which we think fairly valued. I think we get there about 70 of the time. Maybe 50 . It is what it is. You very much. We have reached out to the company and we dont have comments from stroeer. Thank you for joining us. Jon . Jonathan thank you. Fascinating. Up next, we count you down to that ecb decision. Just 24 minutes away and the News Conference that follows. 1. 1320the eurodollar at. Jonathan this is bloomberg. O ahead of the open, counts you down to the ecb. Lets check the scorecard. Futures and European Equity turning out a little bit lower. The euro stronger going into that ecb decision. Lets cross over to matt miller. It gold mayts say rise to as much as 1400 an ounce over the next year, a concerned about the efficacy of the bank policies. I thought this was apropos. Up on most 20 already, it moved to negative rates and now, it appears to be kind of on hold. The expected range from fully on from their notes next year, was 1150 to 1400, keep that in mind. Pimco says not to expect a big ecbct on markets from the today, say mario draghi may backpedal from his march message and indicate rates are still part of the toolbox. And analyst said she recently turned her exposure to italy and spain as valuations are less attractive now. Pimco remains modestly overweight on european peripheral sovereign spent has a preference for the u. S. Given a better Economic Outlook here compared to over there in europe. Finally, he is not an analyst, but he has built a 24 billion fortune, george soros says chinas that field economy resembles the u. S. In 20072008 before the credit markets eased up and spread of global recession. We show this chart yesterday, actually, lets pull up the chart i have. Maybe george soros was watching because he warned investors should be wary of march china growth. Shortly after off the charts, but this is china credit surging and this is what he is concerned about. It is in the terminal g btv 260. Jonathan i am sure george soros is watching. I think you have to try and work out, we are at 56 when you get the amount up before you get it down. We can have that discussion later on. We continue to count you down for the ecb decision, which is just over 15 minutes away. The News Conference is 45 minutes away. Next up, we talked to tom keene about sweden and why that is relevant. Matt breaking earnings news on verizon. Line withare, in estimates. We were looking for one dollar. 5 1. 05. It looks like missing on revenue at 32. 2 billion. We were looking for 32. 5 billion. Im going to continue to take through this statement because they say operating revenues and i am not sure if that will be the overnight number. Eps,e getting g. M. Out, 1. 26. . 13 higher than the highest estimate of all of the analysts we surveyed. To range was about . 90 1. 13. Firstquarter net income, 2 billion, the most they have ever earned. That will be a record for gm without including the big asset sale. Revenue at 33. 52 billion. Gm coming out with a record beatsr on revenue, that by about 2 billion. Let me just go ahead and collect the premarket trade on gm and see if it is actually moving indeed higher right now. About 1. 6 . Cfore going to talk to the Chuck Stephens and ask him what is behind these numbers. It is a fascinating business because not only are they working in europe, they are polling a lot of people so the ecb will be paying attention to Companies Like this. Vonnie matt, thank you so much. We are 15 minutes away from the ecbs Rate Decision. We will bring you the entirety of mario draghi plus News Conference in about an hour from now Mario DraghisNews Conference. Dilma rousseff is coming to new york for a United Nations climate event. She can to the impeachment process against her. She called the process a coup. Republicans give in on part of president obamas emergency request for fending the zika virus. This is according to a repu