Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Market Makers 20150410

Cookbook. Stephanie what a way to start off with a great show and eriks haircut. Erik the top business stories of the day. General electric getting back to its roots. Sawing off the bulk of its finance unit to refocus on the industrial businesses. Ge will sell almost 27 billion dollars of real estate assets and most of it is going to blackstone. Some going to wells fargo. Ge announced the Share Buyback of about 50 billion which would tie apple for the largest of all time. The ceo spoke on a Conference Call earlier. This is an excellent time to sell financial assets. We think the performance in the Australian Consumer value demonstrated our platforms may be worth more outside the company. Erik ge shares up a. 7 five quarters a. 7 a. 75 . If you have not bought the computer for a while, you are not alone. According to Market Research more consumers are turning to smartphones and tablets when they went to go online. Corporate spending helped slow declines and the cycles will be over. Hillary clinton will make it official that she will run for president. Clinton will make the announcement on video before heading to iowa. It does not look like she will face many competitors in the primaries which will begin in february. President obama expected to take another step toward improving relations with cuba. The president is in panama for the summit of the americas. He will have his first opportunity to meet with ralph castro as they work toward restoring diplomatic them diplomatic relations. Cuba must improve its record on human rights. President obama we are committed to supporting human rights in cuba and around the world. I believe engagement is a more powerful resource than isolation. The changes we are making will help improve the lives of cuban people and i believe this new beginning will be good for the United States and the entire monsieur. Erik last night john glasslike, john kerry met with cubas foreign minister and the highest level of meeting between the two countries and more than a halfcentury. Here is something you have not seen in almost two years, Alex Rodriguez hitting a room hitting a home run. He was suspended for using performance enhancing drugs knocked one out of the park last night. He is fifth on the alltime list and new york lost to the taranto blue jays the Toronto Blue Jays. Stephanie welcome back arod. Erik welcome back . Why . Stephanie are you going to punish and forever . Erik yeah. Stephanie if used back on the yankees, he that is our home team and i hope he hits a homerun. If you dont want him to hit a home run, dont let him on the team. Erik again, not my decision. Stephanie he wanted the Toronto Blue Jays to win. It was not my decision, but if he is here, good, hit a home run. Erik rarely does that. I really enjoyed it. Longtime investor david says and get ready for the good times to end. He expects a 20 drop by december. David joins us from dallas texas. John is also here and he sees the s and p rising more than 10 by the end of the year. David, lets start with you since jonathan has a homecourt advantage. What do you think . David really, i have talked about this before. As a bear i tend to be early. We had a horrible market from 2000 22 thousand two. From 2000 322 thousand seven, that that could cut Interest Rates to zero. We enacted housing bubble and we had a 2008 crisis. We have utilized zero Interest Rate policy and the economy rate has not grown that much. We think we are set up for another decline. Stephanie jonathan . Jonathan at the end of the day, the only thing which causes 20 plus decline to the market are recessions. If you look back at the last eight times this happened with the exception of the 1987 crash, as long as we dont have a recession, you will not have a 20 pullback. Yes the fed may be printing money and there could be angst that are wrong and growth is slow, we could put all the things in perfect in the world, but i dont see how the conditions for that recession are in the next to 12 months in front of us. If that is the case, i dont see why you would not want to belong risk in your portfolio. David let me point out a couple things new compared to 2009. First time since 2009, recent Merrill Lynch reports talked about global nominal gdp growth was expected to be down in 2015. Corporate earnings are down. It looks at we have zero growth for gdp growth in the u. S. Europe is slowing down although the markets are out due to quantitative easing. Jonathan david, i am going to agree with you. This year, we will have near zero growth because of the fallen oil prices but i dont know if this is the report you are quoting, but eps should be in the high single digits, even taking currency into account. Gdp in the u. S. Is expected to be the percent. I dont think it will be that strong. I think it will come in weaker. Again, if you are looking at a bear market, the question is are those recessionary conditions are we seeing an overhang of excesses that are in the process of being toppled . If not, i agree with everything you are saying. Those are just not the things based on our work that caused severe pullbacks. That is a we are talking about with the 20 move. David Global Growth is negative since the First Time Since 2009. That is huge. We are at highest levels of cyclically adjusted pes. We really have not cleansed any excess since 2009. Recent mckinsey studies show that we have trillions of dollars in debt globally from 87 trillion in 2000. Debt is a percentage of gdp in every economy and in every economy it has been up since 2007. Jonathan again, i am in total agreement that the world is not a perfect place, but u. S. Total debt to gdp is down substantially. The consumer in the u. S. Has voluntarily the savings rate has been coming up in the u. S. Operations have the lowest level of net debt to equity that we have had ever. Again, not perfect but recession kind of conditions and hard for me to make the case. Erik jonathan, what about valuations . David has not brought up violations. On historic basis, that is pretty high. It may not foretell the kind of 20 drop that david is predicting, but at some point, it cant go on forever, can it . Jonathan at the peak of the internet bubble, you were 24. In the 1970s, you also had multiples hit 20 a number of times. At 16. 5 forward earnings because that is where we are, you are about a. 5 standard deviation above normal. If you look historically, it is not the level that matters. It is the direction it is moving. When you are moving from a multiple of 10 upwards, until you get into the high teens or low 20s, population is not the problem. More important, based on our work of the 50 years, valuations below and being the reasons why the market fell apart. Erik david, the one thing that jonathan did mention which we have to make part of the conversation is quantitative easing. Fight the fed works really well for the bulls for the past several years. The fed may not be quantitative easing any longer, but you have the European Central bank pumping into the market and the bank of japan has doubled down and the bank of england is still out there. The fundamentals have not been to matter have not mattered. David latin america would be the leader if that was the key to prosperity. Where we think global central bankers are one trick ponies only know how to print money and over 6000 years of monetary history, politicians often time do this. They debase currencies. Every currency has ended dimensionally worthless. Stephanie hold on, before it ended up worthless, there is potentially a great amount of money to be made. David it you want to play a greater fool theory, i think that is a risk you gain parried the market can go up a lot longer. Markets can remain irrational longer than sovereign and that is why we are not sure of the market right now, but it is not a game i would like to play. Jonathan in this case, i will agree with david. The market is not up because the fed pushed it up. Interest rates are where they are because we have and to davids point, we have low nominal growth. Economy is low, inflation is low, but what does that low growth and low inflation environment do . It makes the environmental and makes it longer it makes it Economic Cycle longer. What causes markets to fall apart, and that is what we are talking about with the 20 correction argument, is that we are at the very end of the cycle. The yield curve is steeper than normal. We have never had a recession without an averted yield without an inverted yield curve. I think you are going to get an average middle cycle return that will be in the low double digits even in the light of the fact that they are forced to print money because they have nothing else to do. I think it is essential cycle that matters and other Central Banks. Stephanie thank you. Erik coming up next, investor activism hit the big banks. We will talk to someone who calls them and styles themselves the activist analysts. Stephanie plus, he was the man in the middle. Electronic trading controversy. We will be sticking with rod of ueiex. We will be speaking with brad of iex. Stephanie welcome back. I am stephanie rolet Erik Schatzker. Time to bring you uptodate on the top stories of the morning. Jeff lacher says he is still in favor of raising Interest Rates in june. Just like her said imported today that he thinks recent stock figures on the economy will probably only be temporary. Last month, policymakers works with on whether to start raising rates and that was before the weakest jobs report in one year came out last week. Apples new gadget under ceo tim cook is debuting today in eight countries. Crowd in tokyo could not wait to get inside to see the new apple watch. It is not like they were walking home with one. Apple is only taking orders and wont start shipping for another two weeks. It is estimated apple may sell one million watches this weekend and he says the company may spend 8 million may sell 8 million during the fiscal year and generate 4. 4 billion in revenue. Did you see the new movie imitation game . A brought to life breaking the secret code in world war ii. Up for auction then opened will be sold this coming monday and it is expected to bring at least 1 million. Also personal and enigma cipher machine quoting machine that the germans used to code their messages. Those are your top stories of the morning. Remember him from last years best seller on highfrequency training, we will speak to Brad Katsuyama of iex. Hillary clinton will announce sunday that she is in fact running for president and it is snack time on Market Makers. We will be speaking to the ceo of a Snack Bar Company that almost doubled its sales in one year. Sounds pretty kind to me. Erik now that we are in the heart of the proxy season, it is showtime. Mike, last year well, you took an activist approach to the bank. You called out the bank for many things you thought were failing. We talked about other positions where you were taking on banks or you fall they deserve the kind of activist treatment. How is it going . Mike it has been going great. Since when youre go on being on your show, we have had to activist stephanie that is highprofile. Mike we also who is calling for the ceo to be fired. What is interesting is a lot of shed events in terms of having an activist investor on the board of a major thanks. That has never happened before. Erik activists were allergic to banks. Mike you of regulation and. The unknown. Stephanie unknown in in unknown in terms of what could happen or investing . Mike well, what would be the reaction of regulators . Erik anderik two will give you the next leverage alone . Mike you have going to bank for the meetings. I think the root cause of that is the regulators do not trust the investment world to hold directors accountable, so why dont we go to annual meetings . Erik you do. Mike i am the only one so far. But why dont they go to annual meetings to publicly hold directors of major banks accountable . If you dont do that, you have a void under was going to fold that point . Washington d c regulators. Erik the regulators are going to do it for them . With results that we may be would not want to see . Micah yeah, everyone is griping about what they are doing well step up to the plate. You are seeing a couple highprofiles doing that erik the annual meeting is next week. Mike tuesday at 9 00 a. M. Stephanie what is in store . Mike i have a list of questions. Stephanie shocking. Mike the bank of new york missed their 2007 merger targets and 2011 targets. Since the 2007 merger predicated on scale, they have added 10,000 employees. Up to 50,000 people while core earnings have not increased. Who do we hold accountable and what is the bank of new york doing about it . The question is, why does the board continue to support management in the wake of lousy performance over the last could . Stephanie lousy performance in the last decade . Stephanie who is on the board . Erik they are old. Mike over one year ago, they had the exact same makeup as they did in stephanie hold on a second. The board has not changed before the crisis . Mike good news, they have some new directors now. I would not only like to see the ceo chairman answer questions, but other members of the board answer questions. Other banks have allowed directors to answer questions. Lets hear from stephanie be honest. Do you really want them to answer or are you poking fun . Do you think they are qualified to answer questions . Or is this your moment to expose them . Mike i would to hear answers. Ideally, you would have each director in charge of committee give a brief presentation. By the way, you have the cio on the board. Erik ed garden. We are going to run out of time, lets get to bank of america because that is another annual meeting you plan to attend. Mike wow. This is an open invitation. Like you said, Hillary Clinton might announce she is running for president sunday. If elizabeth board wants to run, if Elizabeth Warren wants to run, she can use bank of america as exhibit a. Bank of america promotes the ceo to have the chairman job when they have had issues with the fed. They have had for chief risk officers in the last eight years. Last you, they had a 4 billion regulatory capital misstatement and what do they do . They promote the person to chairman. We intend to go to the bank of america meeting and say why did the ceo also get the chairman job . Erik so you asked that question directly . Mike ryan is the one who wanted the job. Who can you ask that of . Ideally, we would have other directors at bank of america who would answer the question. Otherwise, it looks like an incestuous industry which is poster child for erik bad government. Is poster child for bad government. Erik is that what it is . Mike bank of america has come a long way improving earnings but in this case, promoting the ceo to chairman in the wake of the bad events over the last couple of years, that is a poster child stephanie you dont think bank of america has gone out of the hole at all . they have increased mike still, you need good governance. Erik mike mayo, clsa. We will be back in two minutes. Live from bloomberg headquarters in new york. This is Market Makers, with Erik Schatzker and stephanie ruhle. Erik good morning. You are watching Market Makers. Im Erik Schatzker. Stephanie i am stephanie ruhle. Lets take you to the bulletin. The top business stories of the morning. Blackstone group is on a real estate buying tear. The largest Real Estate Investor is spending more in 14 billion to buy General Electric assets. Most of those our Office Buildings in southern california, seattle, and chicago. It is also buying ges assets in europe and a portfolio of commercial mortgages. In a separate deal, blackstone has agreed to buy xl for about 2 billion. They own a chain of shopping centers. Investors are betting on the proposed deal with intel that it is not dead yet. Earlier this week, the chip maker rejected the offer and shares are up nearly 5 in altera. A sign that altera could be pressured into reconsidering. Computer sales have fallen to the lowest level since 2009. The Market Researcher says they fell more than 5 in the First Quarter and people are using tablets and smartphones more to go online. Plus after a surge lasted corporate spending on pcs has officially tailed off. Hbo has just released its new stand alone streaming service. The Service Called hbo now is available just in time for this sundays season premiere of game of thrones. Ceo Richard Plepler told charlie rose about it. Richard we want since fibers say this is more than worth it. If we provide all kind of possibility on how to get the service board, we think this is multilateral. It is not binary. It is not either you are a streaming service or locked into an old system. Stephanie you can watch all of the interview with Richard Plepler tonight on charlie rose. It is on bloomberg tv at 7 00 eastern. In golf, i hate to say people are not watching bloomberg, but i have a feeling they are watching the masters. They teed off about one hour ago taking a three shot lead into the second round of the masters. The 21yearold kid shot eight under par and 64 at augusta national. There is a fourway tie for second base. Meanwhile, tiger woods is in 40 first place. The fourtime masters winner shot a 73 in the first competitive round. In his first competitive round in two months. Erik the debate on wall street. In the middle of the controversy, Brad Katsuyama who spoke out against things he found unfair in equity markets and looking for a solution. Wanting to give one to clients who started iex. There access trading venue. We want to know how iex is doing now and we asked Brad Katsuyama to come back. Welcome. Why dont we find out. How are they going . Brad katsuyama eggs are going great. Conveniently, we had a record date yesterday where we are month over month and we keep going. Stephanie you hit 1 last year and you have not seen a slowdown . Brad trading is an ecosystem. It is about getting out there and meeting investors and building better relationships. As a product continues to grow they reinforce with data and come back in bigger sizes. Erik for those who dont understand how the equity market works 1 sounds of small. Can you build a business on 1. 25 of equity market volume . Brad we are the large the fourthlargest. We were larger than some of the registered stock exchanges. The volume is growing. You have to start from somewhere and build from somewhere. Right now, we only compete for about 50 of the available market. As we transition into becoming an exchange, that quadruples. We have been fighting with one arm tied behind our back and starting to come free. We are excited. Stephanie you talk about the available market. Just last night, a proposal that some smaller securities should only trade on their primary exchange. That is bad for you. Brad it is a sensible i think it is a sensible thing to say. It is good to see people talking about what is best for the market and not necessarily what is best for their own business model. When you look at the amount of volume contribution for these small stocks, it will be small. The Economic Impact will be negligible. It is a sensible comment and these are the types of conversations that need to be had. Erik you talked about transitioning from an exchange to an alternative trading system. How long will that take . Brad it is a longer process. We are in that process now and the fcc has been engaged. It should happen sometime this year. It is hard to put an exact date on it, but there are many steps that need to be taken and we are in the process. Stephanie how exactly can you become an exchange when your monitor is to slow things down . How do you enter interconnected universe where the competitors are all about speed . It does not seem like it would line up and you have advantage. Brad small is an interesting word. When we are delaying things but they hundred 50 microseconds one millionth of a second. 350 microseconds, one millionth of a second. You can see comments from white saying is there a point when speed is detrimental . Should we think about slowing things down . We have introduced an amount of time that is infinitesimally small it is irrelevant to the majority of participants but critical to certain people that have bought advantages in the market. Erik you have held iex as an alternative to highspeed trading or trading. Do you perceive that anybody else in the market is falling that lead . Because the attorney general of new york state is investigating highspeed trading. There is a high profile investigation that includes the dark pool. Ubs has been censured for violations of concerned with highspeed trading. There is a running investigation by the fcc. Is it resulting in anything that looks a little bit like what you are offering . Brad iex it does look like. It does look like iex. Conditions are improving for trading. The question to ask is how much money is being made from out looking like iex. . When you look at some of the services, there was a price tag for providing these advantages. To look like iex you would be sacrificing revenue and it will be interesting to see who makes those decisions and who doesnt. Stephanie doesnt your dark pool message change . Dont you end up becoming what you have been criticizing . Brad no. When you look at dark trading, that is apportioned exchanges today offered dark types. What is interesting about iex we introduced displayed trading. We saw no degradation in our hated market trading. I think in our market trading. In our hated market trading. Stephanie dont you end up another hidden midpoint . Brad im not sure i understand. Stephanie lockley through how walk me through how it works. Brad you can give your clients the ability to display a trade or display an order whereas in a dark pool, you have the ability to not display that order. Markets can combine those. Dark pulls dark pools dont display but some people want to show quotes to the market and other peoples want to keep orders hidden. It is about finding a marketplace, and it can be done because we are doing it now that combines elements of both. Erik in an interview with our colleague tom keene a couple of weeks ago, he said this whole episode of being famous had taken a big told out of you. Stephanie of course it would. Erik you seem like you are doing ok. Rad yeah, brad yeah, it has changed my life. I think so much of it has been positive. Again, you have got to try and weigh that against everything else. At times it becomes frustrating to read lies and things about you and you try to ignore a lot of that and drive on. We are in this position for a reason. We definitely you the fight we were picking and just given how iex is growing, we picked the right bottle and we are happy to be in it and when we think we will keep winning. Erik come back and keep talking to us. Brad katsuyama, the founder and ceo of iex. Stephanie breaking news on the opm. It may sell its maps is this. Breaking news on nokia. Scarlet they are rallied 3. 5 on reporting. I is the best in two months. Bloomberg has learned that nokia is considering the sale of their maps as this. They want to focus on Wireless Network and improve the debt rating from the current junk status. They compete probably with google, apple, and it has been attracted interest. We had some numbers on the maps is this. 970 Million Euros in revenue last year. Up about 6 from the prior year. The High Water Mark for this business was back in fiscal year of 2012. 1. 1 billion euros. On an operating income of basis, it look like it made money in fiscal year 2014 after posting losses for the previous five years. The number of employees, 6067 versus 4500 back in 2009. This is a business that nolia is looking to sell. Nokia is looking to sell. They are looking to consolidate all efforts on the Wireless Network and improve credit rating. Well keep an eye on the markets. Market makers will be back after this. Stephanie welcome back to Market Makers. Again, the commercial break. It is for me with Erik Schatzker and the guy sitting next to me. We all knew it was coming and now we know when. Hillary clinton will launch her president ial campaign this weekend. A person familiar with her plan says that sunday announcement will not come in your typical big campaign rally. It will be in an online video. Lets bring in bloombergs managing politics editor john heinemann. John and object of your abuse. Stephanie maybe my desire . John too early for that, dont you think . Stephanie its friday. John did you get to sleep last night . Erik go ahead. Stephanie an online message . John we dont really know. We know she will announce on sunday. We know she will do it they will not be a rally, event speech. Until she heads out on the road early next week until iowa. She will declare in the modern way with over social media. Erik why does that make sense to a candidate like Hillary Clinton . Why just john the last thing Hillary Clinton needs is pomp and circumstance. Many people she has a difficult thing. She has to walk a difficult tightrope. She does not win to seem bombastic and big and entitled. On the other hand, she doesnt also want to look like she is taking it for granted. Doing Something Like this, back in 2008 when she ran, she did not announce with a big giant speech. She announced with a video online then. Erik she was ahead of the curve back then. John they want to get her out with the folks and it is almost impossible to arrange a secret announcement for Hillary Clinton because of secret service and all the stuff that would have to happen. To do it in a lowkey way on sunday, they get a little press and publicity and she will be out with the folks early in the week. Stephanie will she be changing her twitter profile picture . It is hillary looking at a blackberry. John i love that picture. It is pretty cool. It has taken on a different unfortunate, different path in light of recent difficulties with her electronic medication systems. It is still pretty cool right . She looks pretty good in that picture. Stephanie pretty good. John i mean, the sunglasses black and white. Erik vanity fair was quote vanity fair aspect to it. Even that we dont know what she was a on sunday, what will be the message . Stephanie im running for president. Erik of course. But there has to be more than that. I did not ask you. [laughter] john sit down, stephanie ruhle. Erik is putting his finger on with his usual degree of alacrity and has put his finger right on the key issue. We do not she has done a million things of public life. She has causes she has championed. Right now today, there is not anyone who can tell you an assistant to play what her rationale for running for president is. Erik why do want the job, in other words . John there are one million possible messages. She has many domestic policies many foreign policies she cares about. How she reads that together in a clear answer seemed thing is the biggest challenge she faces and no one knows how she will do it. I am not in the speculation game, so i will watch and see what it is. Stephanie luckily, she will be doing it in a pretaped online message and she will have a lot of chances to perfect it. John there is a lot of pressure because the truth is for anybody, whether you like Hillary Clinton im a democrat republican whatever, if you ask Elizabeth Warren what her message would be, she could tell you in two sentences. She could throw the Elizabeth Warren message down into ready stephanie yeah, bankers suck. John it would be clear and compelling. You would know what it was. She has not been able to do that so far and if she wants to be president , she has to. Erik there you have it. Stephanie john, thank you. Are you going to make me do this . Erik the 1 . John that was pretty good. Stephanie thank you. What are you doing at 5 00 . I am turning im tuning into all due respect. John im one test nerd. Im one tough nerd. Erik Great Campaign slogan. John it applies to you in a way. Stephanie i wish i was a nerd. I dont have the brainpower. Erik john has the brainpower. Stephanie he has a new haircut. John it looks good on him. Stephanie so true. Can you tell us what is coming up on you where the classes . Erik at work . What about sharing responsibility . We will talk to the ceo of kind snack bars. The filth on these glasses. Stephanie he is speaking literally and not figuratively about my glasses. Stephanie kind things it has found a way to raise the bar. Get it . Kind nutrition bars can be found in more than 150,000 we tell stores and sales have nearly doubled over the last year. Ceo Daniel Lubetzky has a new book about how he lets the company do the kind of thing. Daniel, welcome. 150,000 stores. I used to buy these at starbucks and i lost them for a while. I heard you are getting your groove back. Daniel i talk a lot in the book about the story of i think it is not taking anyone for granted. You have every single account of every single moment. Whether it is a 200 account to a multimillion dollar account and to wake up in the morning and take nothing for granted. Stephanie what is this far . What is this bar . In my eating this instead of the snickers or granola bar . Is it a Health Product or junk food . Daniel it when you are feeling a snack craving or healthy craving, you will do something kind to your body that taste good and you love. It is trying to merge between something delicious and healthful. We try to use common ingredients and all nutrition rich ingredients. Erik do you eat a lot of almonds . Are you concerned about what is happening in california . Daniel absolutely. Not just for company but humanity. These are major challenges we will face. Not just water drought, also beehive collapse, Climate Change and erik oil degradation. Daniel 2 billion people in asia demanding more from the source. We really have a lot erik what do you do as the ceo of this company to change what you can . Daniel we are looking at a group of 10 people that are working and exploring options. There are no options we are not exploit in terms of what can we do to work with society and improve productivity. Erik how much care do you take when you source ingredients . What do you refuse to use . Daniel we can only source of very small fraction of a small the almonds erik that is 5 billion in california a year alone. Daniel resource 10 or 50 of the almonds that are of the highest grade. Stephanie as always grow more expensive and honey becomes more expensive, how can you afford to do this . People may love kind of bars but they wont spend seven dollars for one. Dan are daniel we are trying to deliver the consumers the same thing but finding supplies will eventually be a challenge. Erik one of the reasons you had a falling out with starbucks was because they wanted to buy you. Is that correct . Daniel no. We had many discussions and the fundamental reason was they had a strategy where they wanted to try carrying their own land which their own brand which is something we respect. Erik how did you repair the bridge . Daniel we wanted to show we would be Group Partners and we asked them and they were very responsive and we were blessed to be given the opportunity. Stephanie i want to eat one. Thank you and good luck with your new book. I dont need to say good luck with kind because they are so delicious. Erik Market Makers will be back. Hillary announcing on sunday and we will talk about that. Live from bloomberg headquarters in new york, this is Market Makers with Erik Schatzker and stephanie ruhle. Stephanie general election General Electric getting back to its roots. Erik dont run for president without 1 clinton cruz rubio, paul, they all have a Technology Geek to connect with voters. Stephanie and for foodies we will be speaking medieval meals to the author of the game of thrones cookbook. Erik there really is a cookbook. Stephanie this man actually said this is my jam. I have become contagious. Can you believe he said that . Welcome back to Market Makers. I am stephanie ruhle. Stephanie erik my name is Erik Schatzker. Stephanie how about some news . Erik top is this Top Business News of the morning, the waiting game is over. Hillary clinton said sunday she will make her announcement on video. Richmond fed president jeffrey lacher is in favor of raising Interest Rates in june. He may be in the minority. He said that he thinks recent figures on the economy will be temporary. Last month fed policymakers were split on when to start raising rates and that was before the weakest job report in a year came out last friday. Jeff and out these speeding up his jeff immelt is speeding up his three focus of the company. She agreed to sell almost 27 billion of real estate assets. Ge agreed to sell almost 27 billion of real estate assets. Jeff immelt spoke on a Conference Call this morning. Jeff this is an excellent time to sell financial assets. The australia performance demonstrates platforms might be worth more outside of the company. Erik ge is up seven points, 9 right now. It is the biggest jump 2009, everybody. Ge is having a heck of a day. Nokia might be taking steps to explore the sale of its maps business. They are used in four out of five car navigation systems. To hear Lloyd Blankfein tell it it is Goldman Sachs david versus the rest of wall streets goliath. In his annual letter to shareholders, he said he likes that Goldman Sachs is the little guy on wall street. If you believe that, i have a bridge to sell you. Goldman sachs has less people. Last i checked, it is not the smallest out there. Stephanie the little guy . Come on, lloyd. Erik president obama had guessed he would be ask this question while he was touring the bob marley museum. He said he does not anticipate congress legalizing the substance anytime soon. President obama if there are states that show they are not suddenly a magnet additional crime, that they have a strong of Public Health infrastructure to push against the potential of increased addiction, you know, then it is conceivable that that will spur on a national debate. Erik 23 states have legalized marijuana in one or another. Stephanie more on the ge sale. It is shedding nearly all of its real estate portfolio in a big chunk to blackstone. G use some of the proceeds for a 50 billion stock buyback. Bloombergs rick covers the company. Welcome to Market Makers your first visit. We will be nice. Tell us what ge is doing. Rick they are sharing off most of their finance unit. It is what shareholders have been calling for. It got them into trouble and after that jeff immelt said he would shrink ge capital, and this is directed acceleration. Erik why now . Rick why now . They sold off a couple of units recently including australian finance business and given the interest in that, the price they got, they figured now is a good time. Market conditions are right. Erik ok, devin here comes the problem. If Market Conditions are right if jeff immelt thinks i will get high prices something is wrong with the picture because that is not what blackstone does. Devin the window we got this morning in the New York Times those quote jeff immelt times jeff immelt was interviewed, he said they both saw prices they like. You never know what happened behind closed door. There was a rough negotiation and they probably both got prices they liked. Stephanie that seems crazy to me. I will never forget people do not want to sell to pe firms because of the schmucker factor. If you sell to john gray, he wins, you lose. Does jeff immelt really lose . Devin ge had enough incentive to sell this quickly worked in small, and that might have played a role in the negotiation. Rick there is more to it than the Market Conditions. There is a desire on the part erik they are considered systemically important by banking regulators in the world. Rick exactly. With that comes greater scrutiny from regulators, and the cost that goes along with that. Stephanie hold on except for the fact that that is what blackstone is starting to look like, but the regulars have not noticed yet. You disagree . Erik no, i just saying that is a conversation you have to have with steve schwarzman. It is not all pretty. Ge shares are up 8 , and the covenant will have to pay a boatload of tax on the money bringing they are bringing over from overseas. 4 billion in cash. Nobody should be liking that. What are they in love with, the fact that ges getting out of commercial real estate, not going to be an originator of commercial real estate loans any longer, and it is doing this gargantuan buyback, where if they do 50 billion, it will rival apple for the biggest of all time . Rick it is a huge buyback, a move geared toward satisfying shareholders, with a longterm view. There might be a number of cost now, but they see industrial earnings growing significantly. Erik i was think about who is getting the right price. Stephanie with ms amount of money blackstone has, it is crazy town. Devin you have a 15. 8 billion fund coming online soon. Stephanie they are buying the sears tower. Devin they will be up to 100 million in the next learning earnings report. Erik there is some precedent for the idea that both buyer and seller can feel good about and invest investment. When sam zell sold in the largest real estate transaction, it is hard to imagine sam zell being the schmucker at the table. He felt good about it, and blackstone felt good about it. We know they made a killing. I guess you can winwin. Devin you can winwin, and they can make improvements, and that is probably what theyre going to go for. They have all this money to put to work. Four funds were involved. You know, we talk about Blackstone Stephanie meaning they are splitting this among lps . Devin four. Erik that is my blackstone is the only firm that can do this. Devin the only one. Erik the u. S. Fund they have been doing this for a long time. Stephanie that doesnt make you wonder is blackstone shouldnt people take a look and say are they too big . If one company could only be the possible Company Jeff Immelt would call, that is not an issue . Devin the argument they would make is the assets are spread across many different funds. Erik instead of just talking about blackstone why dont we get ourselves into trouble with larry fink. Blackstone is important, certainly black blackstone our principles. Their money is tied up in the funds. Stephanie Lloyd Blankfein is saying were the little guys here. Devin it is certainly the case that in the alternative Asset Management world they are not speaking to loudly for fear of regulators. Erik they are not depositfunded. That is one big factor. They do not rely on wholesale funding either. To make the deals happen, they have to get leverage. The Balance Sheet the assets that they raise, they are Equity Assets from whoever. Stephanie here is your takeaway size matters. Thank you for joining us. Erik your first tour of Market Makers. Devin banerjee, you are a pro. A come back. Stephanie the first tour for the cyber president. Much of the campaign will be for in social media. Erik look at this 1 graduated in 1971. Stephanie look at that hair. Erik that is all the produces are telling us. You might know more. Tweet your guesses. Stephanie i have to take a picture of this stunt. Erik you can find us. Number, as i always say, a name is not enough. Get clever. Stephanie some color flair tell us something about this handsome devil. Stephanie welcome back to Market Makers. I am stephanie lewitt Erik Schatzker. It is the debut of apples first gadget under ceo tim cook, but if you counted on walking away with one, forget about the apple watch. Crowds cannot wait to get a look at this baby in tokyo, but for now apple is only taking orders and will not stop start shipping for another two weeks. Gene munster estimates apple might no one in watches this week alone might sell one million watches this week alone. A big number. For the first time, you can by hbo as a standalone streaming service. The Service Called hbonow is available just in time for the season premieres networks hit game of thrones. We want subscribers to say this is worth it. If we provide flexibility, we think it is multilateral, not binary. It is not either you are a streaming service or locked into an old ecosystem. Erik you can watch all of the stephanie you can watch all of that interview tonight on charlie rose, at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on bloomberg tv. In northeast japan, about 150 dolphins have beached themselves and become stranded. I hate this story. Dozens of people are trying to save them by pouring seawater over the dolphins bodies. A number of them have died. The coast guard was able to take three of the dolphins that are in good health and release them into the ocean. Three is not a big enough number. Those are your top stories. Coming up, why did linkedin by an Online Education company . That is because the professional Networking Service has big ambitions. And, what happens when fans meet food . You will mean the author of the game of thrones cookbook. Hope you are in the mood for snake. Erik the primaries are almost a year away, but the candidates are waging why battle online. For a closer look at the candidates and tech strategies, lets bring in alec ross, a senior fellow at columbia university. I just said techsavvy senators ted cruz and rand paul. Are they actually tech savvy . Alec i think they are. Stephanie their teams are. Erik that is my question, is it guys like you figuring out how to indicate with voters . Alex i think these guys are pretty sharp. They are young. They both won primaries in kentucky and texas that they were supposed to you supposed to lose. I expect that they are driving this themselves and they will build a solid team around them. Stephanie is the impact of social media changing motor turnout one would think those following are not necessarily people that had been rushing to the voting booth he for. Before. Alec i think social media is playing a role, the technology broadly will play a role in 2016 that we do not understand. Where social media had a breakthrough impact in 2012, in 2016, i think the data will play a much more meaningful role. Take tweeting, facebook posting this that, everything else, and do much more narrow targeting, and figure out what to push to them in their living room. Erik are there some risks . Alec like what . Stephanie like what . Erik the data does not give you all the answers, and as we learned last campaign, it can lead to an epic fail. Stephanie people do not remember the epic fail. Erik mitt romney the last stage. Alec it failed on election day. The Obama Campaign built a beautiful system, 150 that a scientist built it. Mitt romney but something offtheshelf on election day. I have a feeling that none of the republican candidates likely to emerge from the field will make the same mistake mitt romney did. Jeb bush is pretty sharp two. Erik he might make other mistakes. Alec first of all, they are republicans, and i think were the Republican Party is is incontinent on where the American Public is, especially on issues related to women and other things. Taken the technology out of it, you cannot tweet your way into good policies. To the extent that the mechanics of the campaign matter erik so where should Hillary Clinton be spending her time . Lets not dog on the republicans. Lets talk about a candidate that you do know and technologies that you do understand. Alec i think that Hillary Clinton has built a great relationship with Silicon Valley and American Technologies she did not have five or six years ago. She was outperformed by barack obama 2007 and 2008. We know this. It is now why she is not president clinton, going into retirement. What has happened since then is she has learned a lot about technology. She made Internet Freedom a big part of her tenure as we carry of state. She, sort of, gets it. Stephanie she just did not get the whole email thing . Alec i did not set up my own email. I feeling she was not there with the wires figuring stuff out. This email thing i have to tell you when i think about the 100 things that will matter most in this president ial election, i have a feeling that email hygiene is not going to make the top 100. Stephanie email hygiene is a brilliant term. Alec that is how i think of it. Stephanie email hygiene i love it. If 2012 with the twitter election, what will it be in 2016, snapshot . Alec i think it will be big data. It will be the systems built and set of the headquarters to get a level of intelligence about specific voters to more effectively engage them. Right now, there are companies. There are Companies Selling data about you. Scary stuff that has not been applied to elections. Stephanie doesnt the realtime access the candidates are participating in put them at more risk . Alec yes. What you lose is control. The 21st century is a terrible time to be a control freak. Youre going to make mistakes. It is a highly choreographed the highly choreographed appearances by Ronald Reagan with the flag just so, and no mistakes, and maybe he will emerge three days later with another beautifully executed campaign event. It is not happening. Stephanie isnt that what hillary is doing sunday with a pretaped, online announcement . Alec what i hear what bloomberg is reporting, and she is going to head to iowa and New Hampshire and do a series of informal events with real faithful not a lot of pomp and circumstance real people. Not a lot of pomp and circumstance. I think people will make all kinds of mistakes. Erik before we let you run. What will decide the primaries and ultimately the race for the white house use of data, or the use of money . Alec policy between the candidates. I think there will be a torrent of money. The money will probably be a wash. The republicans and the democrats will build really big data systems. Erik you think americans will elect a candidate on the merits . Alec not on the merits, but in terms of who they believe and in terms of policy. Erik that is the merits, the important stuff, as opposed to being snowed by dell. Stephanie thank you for joining us. Alec ross. We will be back with more. Erik it is your book friday everybody. Have a look at this guy. He works in finance. Graduated from high school in richmond, virginia in 1971. Was this man . Erik live from bloomberg headquarters in new york, this is Market Makers, with Erik Schatzker and stephanie ruhle. Stephanie welcome back to Market Makers. I am stephanie ruhle. Erik it is a friday, everybody. We are two hours into the u. S. Trading day or at least the bell rung. Lets take you to scarlet fu to bring you up to see uptodate on what is happening overseas. I noticed spain is spoiling the party. It is green across the same except for the spanish stocks. Scarlet pretty much a recordsetting day across europe with money flowing into european equities and government bonds. The stock 600, the broadest measure of european stocks, at an alltime high. The backdrop, of course, is a europes quantitative easing the effort to buy Government Debt and weaken the currency. It means other Central Banks are cutting euro holdings. The euro weakens to 1. 0611. You also saw there, if we could pull the screen back up, the fiveyear yield on the french Government Debt the yield on the french fiveyear went negative. It is now 0. 00. It was at zero. 04. 0. 04. One stock in the securities as negative yields. We mentioned this earlier gnocchi a is considered nokia is considering a sale of its maps business. That stock gaining one bloomberg reported they want to improve debt rating. You are seeing knockdown effect on some other names like Alcatel Lucent and tomtom. Alcatel lucent getting a boost because there is a german report that Alcatel Lucent is in merger talks with nokia. All of the m a taking place here certainly percolating in europe. Erik will two plus two equal four, or maybe 3. 5. Scarlet six, maybe. Erik that is what i wonder when Legacy Technology companies. With each other. Stephanie linkedin is branching out. They bought an Online Education system for a cool 1. 5 billion dollars, but the grand plan is more ambitious. Cory johnson is having a big week, mark cuban the ceo of lincoln, jeff weiner. Tell us, corey johnson, what is the ultimate vision for the Company Despite walking meetings, which the two of you have in common. Cory except for the walking meetings with me looking freakishly tall next to the normal size jeff weiner. This was a struggling business at almost 10 years old by the time it didnt ipo, but wasnt talking about the did an ipo, but they were talking about the transaction. Facebook gets a lot of attention for the social graph, mapping identities and the relationship of friends and families, and their relationship. He kept about the economic graph that should be the center of linkedins business. Check this out. Jeff at heart, lincoln is about linkedin is about matching members to opportunities. Enhancing your job, a new skill that enables you to be better. We have data on skills members have, and what skills they might need to advance or find a new job. With linda lynda. Com, we have data about the skills, and now a worldclass library in terms of content that enables people to acquire the skills and realizes opportunities. Cory in terms of how that works, people might remember this business from a long time ago. It is not just online videos anymore. I wonder, how do you describe what this business is today . Jeff it is a learning developing business and an Online Learning platform. You have hundreds of thousands of videos, thousands of courses that enable people to acquire skills that they need to be more effective at their jobs, or acquire skills they need to be able to take their career to the next level find that next job. It is both an enterprise business, and a consumeroriented business with his inspection model. It works for individuals. It works for companies that want to invest in their employee this is. A big portion of lynda. Coms Customer Base is universities, professors, and the students of those universities. It is a broad crosssection of folks, and it is increasingly international as well. They are missing content in english, german, french, spanish, and japanese, and we are excited about taking that and expanding the global footprint. Cory you give them helpful guidance about what the business is doing, growing at about 20 . About onethird is the corporate business. Do you see the corporate asset aspect becoming bigger because it will be match with your sales team . Jeff it is growing faster than the consumer base. Both businesses are growing. We think there are very strong synergies with our platform in both segments. With regard to individual members, we think it aligns well with our suspicion model, and we are looking for it to a number of different points of integration, and with regard to the enterprise business, we have tens of thousands of enterprise customers. We have a Global Sales Force with regard to our Talent Solutions business. We think there are exciting opportunities there to grow the business. Cory so, interesting stuff. That was such a quite a fashion change i did like that. It was like bewitched. Stephanie you like that . Cory it was exciting for me. In 2011, the company had 500 million in revenue, and now they are doing 2. 2 billion, terrific growth, and not with a lot of acquisitions. This will add anywhere from 5 to 8 of revenues next year. It is a money making business so next in addition for lincoln. Stephanie did you know lynda before this deal . Cory i had heard a little bit about them back in the day with videos. I think the way they will use it is more web 2. 0 than painting by the numbers. Stephanie you think it is realistic that linkedin can get to the type of scale that jeff weiner wants to . Cory ambition is a good thing. The business is growing. A lot of people on bloomberg and bloomberg west talk about this pieinthesky future, how big they will be a total turnkey Solution Provider of Information Management whatever. If you look at the result linkedin puts up, you see really consistent doubledigit revenue growth. Profitable growth. They take wildfires that seem to work out and lead to free clash fro free cash flow. Stephanie if you look at linkedin and compare it to other big, social media platforms, it is one company that individual companies, hr professionals, all use. Find me a company that actually uses, in a productive way, twitter, or facebook . There are not that many. Cory well, let me throw out the cohorts when we talk about early ipos. I did this back to the start of bloomberg west in 2011. We were talking about linkedin groupon, zynga. How did that work out . Lincoln has been a fantastic company fantastic numbers that found a place in the workforce and new markets. Its help salespeople develop context. They found a new market in the advertising business. It is bringing in 100 million a year when the rest of the worlds face planting. We will see what they do next. Stephanie great having you on. For me, youre pumping up bloomberg west a little too much. We will end this segment. Cory johnson, great having you want. Have a great weekend. Cory you, too. Erik a real fan would not sit down to watch game of thrones with a cheeseburger. No we will show you how they ate back in the day with the author of the game of thrones cookbook. Stephanie ive only seen the show once, but i would say you watch that show with a cocktail, not a burger. Erik definitely not a burger. Stephanie stay with us. Erik the return of hbo epic fantasy series game of thrones this week and will surely satisfied hands sunday, and the companion cookbook the fire and ice might help to fill your belly. Here to help us coauthor chelsea monroecassel who is in boston. What gave you the idea to write the game of thrones cook woke, cookbook, which i should add is endorsed by the man behind the series, george r. R. Martin. Chelsea honestly, i was hungry one night. I am a huge fan of the book series, and of the show, now, so i really wanted to make lemon cake. A brief look online showed there were not any specifically game of thrones recipes for lemon cake, so i think it is sort of sitting that is where it started. Erik game of thrones is fantasy. The recipes are real. I guess the best way to describe them is medieval. Where did you find inspiration for the actual recipes . Chelsea well, it is funny. A lot of them come from historical recipe cookbooks, all the way back to ancient rome but the majority of them are in the middle ages earlyrenaissance period and the internet is a great resource for that now. A lot of them have been digitized, put up online. It is a terrific place to find really cool recipes that have been forgotten. Stephanie heres the thing with medieval cooking the food is not known for actually tasting any good, and while it is an exciting team, and really fun, you want the people eating it, especially if youre putting in all of this effort, to like what they are eating. So, how do you monetize modernize that . Chelsea i find that is actually a misnomer about historical food. Making the recipes, i find it is full of unique and rich spices we do not even use today in modern cooking. So, in a lot of cases i have done the historical version and the modern version but the historical version has a lot to offer. It is often a different flavor profile than a modern recipe. Stephanie hold on are the ingredients hard to get . When i look and i see snake on there erik wild boar is not that hard. Stephanie let me point something out. Erik schatzker went to hawaii three years ago and had wild boar, and he is still talking about it. [laughter] stephanie he is still talking about wild boar. Lets talk about the ingredients. How heartily to get . Snake . They do not have that in my whole foods. Chelsea well, true. A lot of the recipes are fairly approachable. There are a few oddball recipes like the snake and the boar. Venison, you can still find these days pretty easily. All of them are easily substituted. If you cannot find snake, put the sauce on chicken. The sauce is really good. Stephanie where would one get a snake . Erik im thinking chinatown is probably the closest. Chelsea i do not know in new york, but im sure there is some place. Stephanie did you make it . Chelsea i did, yeah. Stephanie yeah, it tasted a little like chicken. I know that is cliche. Stephanie where did you get the snake question mark chelsea snake . Chelsea in cambridge. Stephanie nice. Erik there are people that want to get psyched watching, but really this is just crossover appeal. I have to imagine most of the sales of the books are not people looking for medieval recipes, but people do this really big game of thrones. It is a good strategy, what kind of feedback have you gotten . Chelsea it is kind of cool. I think a lot of people done because they were fans of the show or the book series, but i have gotten amazing feedback that said i made your bread recipe and now my family will not let me my by storebought anymore. We have honey chicken every friday or whatever. It has changed peoples lives. Erik you tried the medieval recipes. What you think it is because you article, now why is it that people have forgot waivers forgot medieval flavors . Culinary experts would talk a cuisine of mixture stuff together to produce flavor that is fairly indistinguishable from the ingredients that went in the first place, unlike the european tradition, which is about promoting the individual distinct ingredients. It is like indian cooking. We love indian food. Why is it that we have lost our flavor for medieval food . Chelsea it probably goes back to the impression people have that medieval food was gross and they used spices to cover up flavors of bad meat, and things. It is not just the case. In the middle ages, spices were extremely expensive. They had to be tracked all the way across a silk robe, in many cases. So, you put a lot of spices on your food to show your guest how rich you are. It was a status symbol. Stephanie dont you remember the Three Wise Men and jesus ringing the spices . Chelsea there you go. Erik thank you for joining us. Chelsea monroecassel is coauthor of a feast of ice and fire the official game of thrones companion cookbook. Stephanie what are you doing sunday night . You have to be doing some thing special. Chelsea a premier party. Erik a feast, i hope. Stephanie i only hope you are wearing customer costumes. Enjoy watching that im sure my partner will be doing the same. Erik she will be watching. She does not want to admit it. Stephanie i will be walking by the tv. Time to bring you uptodate on the top stories of the morning or our producers will kill me. We have nothing personal computer sales this low since 2009. It is not a surprise. A Market Research firm says pc shipments fell more than 5 in the First Quarter. People are using tablets and smartphones more to go online and after a surge last year corporate spending on pcs has tailed off. March sales were talking retail now are higher than expected at gap. They have old maybe to thank for that. Sales were up 14 , much higher than estimate. We have to turn to golf. At the masters, Jordan Spieth has taken up where he left off yesterday at the right old age of 21. He has extended his lead to four shots. After six holes, he is two under par for the day. 10 under for the timid. Two golfers are tied for second. We will be back with more. Sorry, tiger. Stephanie yearbook game time. Finance titan, graduated from a collision school in virginia in 1971. Erik you know more than that. Stephanie he went to load in. People do not know that. They think pittsburgh. Stanley drunken miller. Erik it is small cap feed. Added value. Scarlet it is 56 minutes past the hour. Bloomberg tv is on the markets. I am scarlet fu. On the final trading day of this fairly quiet week, u. S. Stocks are in the green, taking aim at their first threeday winning streak since february. Higher than five of the past six trading days even as volume has been light appeared the u. S. Dollar also gaining, reasserting its strength after last years last week set up. We are joined by jared would jared woodward. We had five days of solid quite trading is, but it felt like it has been three. Jared i think some investors are positioning for more fireworks in the weeks to come and they have been biding their time this week. Scarlet biding their time until we get anecdotal evidence. We get earnings going next week with Johnson Johnson intel, among others, reporting early in the week. What are you looking for to provide a catalyst either to the upside or the downside . Jared expectations have been reduced dramatically. Scarlet especially for energy copies. Jared exactly. That is been a large part. We have seen large flows into smaller stocks that have higher betas most of the time, which means if you see surprises committee will mean more dispersion in equities underline these indexes. It could mean it is the upside for indexes, even if earnings come out ok. Scarlet reduced upside. Ok. You were talking about the collapse in Short Interest in russell 2000 stocks versus, say, Short Interest in big cap stocks. What is the set up right now as we head into earnings season . Jared this is another good reason why a hedge for the shortterm excellent sense right now. With earnings dispersion lower Short Interest in the russell, reduced imply volatility in the russell, compared to historically, combine that with the fact that companies are quite about buybacks ahead of earnings, which has been a big for under the market, and these kinds of catalysts make the risk reward pretty strongly tilted to the downside. Especially if we get in strong retail numbers next week manufacturing after that, we could see expeditions for the fed to get pulled forward. Scarlet what is your trade specific question mark jared specifically . Jared i like trading in the russell. The share i have is buying them a 1. 25 puts spread. Youre getting a threetoone reward for your risk. Scarlet you can see there on the graphic that if the price moves higher your profiting tremendously more, a three to one margin. What is the timeline . Jared the next couple of weeks. I think he earnings and Economic Data in the next two weeks with of a lot more clarity. I look for a reduced downside as we get into the heart of earnings season. Scarlet are you make a call on a longerterm, maybe mediumterm to longterm . Jared i am able. I think we will see better data that weve seen recently, and that is the case for more economic upside, but less upside in markets. Scarlet got it. Jared would, thank you would thank you so much. Money clip is up next on bloomberg television. Adam welcome to money clip, where we tie together the best stories and video on business news. I am pimm fox, and here is the rundown. In text, the demand for apples watch not similar to the demand when the iphone was watched, but demand for the watch is strong. And game of thrones with new distribution. We hear from the chief executive of hbo. In politics, surprise