Far. Looking at so ar this morning we got Economic Data on home prices. The case schiller home price index showing an increase of war than five percent of a weathered is talking about the top 20 cities or more broadly, looking nationally. You can see the three major averages are trading higher, representing a rebound from yesterdays decline. Once again in the green for the full year. We have had a lot of switching back and forth on that front. As the is nearly as high nasdaq today. Seeing a switch from yesterday. Betty while prices are dominating the direction of the trade. Definitely, we are seeing more of an issue with commodities following the trade. This, 2. 3 looking at today. It is helping matters. Myyou look at bloomberg terminal, financials doing the best, followed by commodities. Yesterday, a broadbased decline, and today a broadbased advance. Natural gas is once again powering higher rate it has been on a winning streak on the outlook finally, some colder weather. The local newscasters in new york are asked addicts, they are traveling of state to find the fallen. Of snow that had all of this is feeding back into some of the Energy Stocks as well. We looked at them yesterday declining. Not seeing huge advances in a mobil. Ike exxon betty lets check in on our first word news. Thank you. You can call it a victory lap for the Prime Minister of iraq. He arrived in ramadi a day after the troops liberated it from Islamic State. They say there are still pockets of Islamic State forces in the city. In brussels, Police Arrested two people described as terrorists. Movement tof a prevent attacks during the new years celebration. Russias former finance minister is in talks with Vladimir Putin about returning to a senior government post. Would handle the economic crisis, according to people familiar with that discussion. He has met privately with Vladimir Putin and other top officials, the decision is expected soon. Davidh Prime Minister cameron is defending the way that flood prevention is paid for. He paid a visit to the town of york that was flooded over christmas. Of people were evacuated. David cameron says there is enough money for flood defenses, it must just be spent wisely. And the west african nation where ebola began is now free of the disease. Nearly a fourth of the 11,000 People Killed by ebola lived there. Break spread after starting their two years ago. Back to you. Betty thank you. Much more ahead on bloomberg television. The number one stock picker in the u. S. Made it to the topic betting big on the u. S. Consumer. Max winkler will join us with those details. You are listening to the bloomberg advantage on this tuesday. Im carol massar here with cory johnson. We welcome everybody on bloomberg tv to Bloomberg Radio. The days about Economic News and the market tone as we are 37 minutes into the new training session. Here with us in studio is an Eloise Jackson anna louise jackson. The town was subdued yesterday erms of equity trading. But we had a rally start. We did. And it has continued into this morning. Equities are higher this morning. They are of almost 1 to up almost 1 . We are seeing strength across the board, strength in stocks and energy. Consumer discretionary has been your outperform or this year. We have seen that throughout the year. Even with all the questions about Economic Growth and concern still about the labor market and wage growth, Consumer Discretionary, people have been making choices to spend money. Exactly. I would note that the performance has slowed a little bit. This was the leader of the year, and it still is, but some of the gains have drawn back a little bit recently. But there are still struggling attracting investment. Un fact of the flood the day. Everything in the market reflects the change in the year. Up 8. 1 . O for the bigg deal hedge funds because it means they will take a 20 gain. While the game might be small is the difference between having a lot of money to distribute i am more worried about my 401 k than the Hedge Fund Guy getting paid. [laughter] i am more worried about my retirement. We should talk about energy. Under warmer,n an but we see a volatile trade. Really moved with oil prices, which is not all that surprising. Energy stocks are on track for their worst month in more than i talked toor someone today and he said and a lot of this is due to oil prices, but because it is december people are getting out of the decisions that have not worked this year. The stock market may not know that a new year is coming next week that traders definitely know it. People are getting out of positions before the year closes. You can see that in the specific stocks that have not worked. You can look at an index and see what has performed over the last year and what has not. What jumps out is you have just chesapeake energy, others losing more than 7 over the year. Thats really limited on the upside to a handful of stocks or we have netflix, amazon, activision blizzard, all of over up well over 90 . We were talking about discretionary earlier. Amazon has driven a majority of those gains. On the energy side we have seen the biggest underperformers in energy. It can go both ways. Have done better because of cheaper oil prices. But if you look at the big integrated oil companies, they have had a tough year. Seeing that the oil prices have gone down. You have to separate throughout the market because there are differences in terms of performance. It will be interesting to see if this translates into more job cuts. Another thing were looking at his Home Builders today. It did fairly well. Up about 8 so far in 2015. We did get some housing data today. Home values in 20 u. S. Cities rising at a faster pace in the year ending in october. We are talking about the case schiller index property values. 5. 5 from october of last year. If there is ever an imperfect imbalance [laughter] in new york, san francisco, you 20 , but itme up is not mere and in every other place in the country. What is interesting, in that every yearoveryear increase, 11 gain in san francisco, 12 city saw yearoveryear climbing faster rate than in september. You are seeing gains across the board which is tougher for the firsttime homebuyer. Prices continue to go higher. Yep. [laughter] you can tell this is the week after a holiday. Offumer confidence kicked the broadcast today. Consumer confidence rebounding in the month of december. Americans were out there shopping. Out into say, when i was the stores, they were not overly crowded. They were more crowded the saturday after christmas. It was crazy with everyone having 50 markdowns. I thought it was the opposite. I was out the day after christmas, but i thought it was dead. Maybe different places. What we are seeing is financial results, interesting. Closeushed related, very to christmas. A lot of Online Shopping righting in the days before christmas break and then the day after christmas might have been there secondbiggest sales day of the year. An enormous amount , people flush, willing to spend. I know on tv they are going to play more of this interview, mark farber who publishes the gloom and doom report to speak to those at bloomberg tv. He is recommending treasury use cautions against the start of a recession. That is clashing with janet yellen who says that things are improving and they can raise rates. important because it will determine the slope of the yield curve. It will determine how much rates will go up and when it is going to happen. The data dependency is hard to see what the number will be. In about 15 seconds, anything we are seeing on the market side . One thing i noticed, strategists are much more optimistic. Your listening to bloomberg on radio and tv you are listening to bloomberg on radio and tv. And welcome back to bloomberg markets. It is time for the Bloomberg Business flash. The biggest is the stories in the news right now. Home prices in the u. S. Are up at a faster pace in the year that ended in october. According to the case schiller index, prices in big cities were of higher than in september. We will talknts about the return of the single female homebuyer, who is fueling some of this demand. At thetone will decide end of the week if they will meet carl icahns bid for pep boys. They are both trying to expand their presence in the auto parts sector. The biggest loser in the s p is chesapeake energy. The Natural Gas Company has halted payouts, and cut one out of every six employees. Businessis our flash update. In a pretty dismal stock market this year it has not been good for chesapeake, but what about the others . We have the answers in a latest Bloomberg View piece. It is the head of the fidelity retail portfolio. Using an oldfashioned strategy, that is a bit of a rebuke to a lot of her swashbuckling peers. Take a look inside my terminal. You can see that the closest competitor are select i. T. Bio techfunds and funds. She really made it by being an oldfashioned value investor, right . Yes. Oldfashioned means painstaking research. It means looking at a lot of elements like dividends, cash flow, book value, and so on. Is really, if you like the legacy, of graham and dodd when they were in Columbia University as professors. They were those who gave Warren Buffett much of his inspiration. It is all about research, more than anything else. She is somebody who lives and breathes her company. Buy her own admission she is she with the company that follows, selects, addend avoids. Betty it is interesting because Value Investors look at buffets, tt, but she was not in this in the beginning. Her story begins when she graduated Columbia University. She had a degree in sociology. She was in the Human Resources department at goldman sachs. Assigned to the 401 k plan to th for the firm. Should while she was there should became captivated by the thinking that drives the performance of the plan. She did not have a finance degree so she goes back to columbia, gets an mba, and after getting her degree she winds up at morgan stanley, and then piper jaffray, and then really in the past decade she has been a fidelity. For 13 years or more she has been following these companies. At fidelity she follows retail at apparel and footwear. She is a veteran. Betty clearly she has honed her craft and her skills. How did she come to begin betting on u. S. Consumers . Isnt it Something Like 46 of the companies in her portfolio are dependent upon the American Consumer . Thisat is been a big theme year. That everyooked, part of american expansion has been American Consumer rated has not been all one way, previous expansions, where the tide lifts all boats. It has been uneven to say the least. Traditional brickandmortar Retail Companies have not fared as well this time around as they have in the past, in the previous recessions. Consummate value she has to pick and choose, be very selective. This year, what she did, was she focused by the middle of the year on Six Companies in partake miller. The top of the list is netflix, which we all know winds up betty the number one stock this year, i believe. The number one stock. And amazon. And just to focus on those two , when she looked at netflix she said this is a company that is looking at every kind of opportunity around the world for ecommerce and seizing the day. With amazon she sees a company that perpetual disruptor. The way she looks at it is creating an endless a. L. Of limitless choices for shoppers. Betty there is no real estate to worry about. The lookout or your window every morning, there is an amazon truck showing up somewhere with ox is. His andfeeding t studying this. That is why those two companies are among the six that she focused on. Betty did she stay away from energy . Yes. Betty that brought down all these elementals, right . Males, right . She wasnt buying gas stations. [laughter] different from Warren Buffett thawho went techieway from these sectors. There are many ways to skin a cat. Admission, she is looking at things very carefully over a long span of time. She is a longterm investor. That is a characteristic of fidelity anyway. You will,opposite, if of the big short. It is the opposite of so much of the datadriven investors that focus on volatility. What she is looking at issue would say her out what is output is trying to find longterm value. That is why she ends up where she is. Betty you know these investors and these funds so well. Im curious what you read into fact shethat the has beat out these guys who are characters in the big short, these alpha males. I think what is most compelling about all of this is that there is a harmonic convergence is what she is doing. She is investing in companies that are also investing. She is investing in value. This is all good for the american economy. In contrast to, if you look at the past decade and what we have lived through, so much disruption, so much upheaval, so much destruction, if you will. She is the opposite of that. The opposite of that. It is focusing on things that will get stronger over time. It is going to create more jobs and add more to the american economy. Course, aref responding favorably. Otherwise she would not be at the top of the pile. Betty there are some economists say with theat th fed raising rates, with gas prices falling, the American Consumer will continue into next year. This you for joining me morning. You can read his entire Bloomberg View on the terminal. In the next hour, it is value ways tog, three simple in this market. You can get Business News 24 7 on Bloomberg Radio. Live from bloomberg World Headquarters in midtown manhattan, youre watching bloomberg television. I am betty liu rate lets go to desk. Rket that are bett betty liu. Lets check in with julie hyman at the markets desk. 12 afterres are down they disclosed in a filing that they are the subject of an investigation by the Securities Exchange commission. They say it may have to do with recent unusual market activity. A are company, they do not have any product or revenue, but they are developing treatments for alzheimers. Youou look at the chart, can see the unusual activity that they might be referring to. It couple of months ago you saw a big spike in the shares going into the release of a study it did on its alzheimers treatment. But then they had selling before the study. The study actually set of methods and very end point, and this years stabilized. Unclear what this is about. An eye on keeping this one. This shares are up 728 for the year to date. A pretty incredible and unusual return. And now i want to turn to a company we were talking about yesterday. The shares plunged after an antiviral medicine it was developing a political trial did meet the primary endpoint Clinical Trials did not meet the primary endpoint. The shares are bouncing back from this morning. Nasdaq we talk about the biotech index. We talked about this so much earlier this year when many of these companies were Reuters Group because of pricing practices, because of the volatility in the shares. The nasdaq biotech index this year, for all that volatility, for entering a bear market, and 12 this about year while the s p 500 is little changed. Go figure. Betty resilience. Thank you. Lets continue with the bloomberg first word news. Trump tries to turn enthusiasm into votes. The republican frontrunner told supporters that they want to make america great, show up at the polls. He made a get out to vote. At the start and the end of his speech. Beenuestion has always whether the Trump Supporters will turnout on election day. Near and theg president s motorcade props quick action by the secret service. When the drone operator landed it, he is approached by agents. He said he did not know about the president ial motorcade, and no charges were filed. A Police Officer accused of black teenager is expected to be tried today. Ensued lastests month after showing him shooting the teenager 16 times in six seconds. More protests after a jury failed to indict a white Police Officer for shooting a black boy. There was no way for the officers to know that the gun was not real. The family says they were disappointed by the decision, but not surprised. Day,l news, 24 hours a back to you. Much more ahead. Why 2016 may be the year the single female returned to the homebuying market. We will explain, coming up. You were listening to the bloomberg advantage on Bloomberg Radio. Onwelcome everybody bloomberg tv. We want to talk more about the Holiday Retail season because our next guest says it has gone from missable to mediocre. Johnson is president of Customer Growth partners and he joins us on the phone from connecticut. I understand it is a little snow. It was not a problem during the Holiday Shopping season. That was warm, which could have been problematic for some retailers made it did let people get out there. How would you sum up the Holiday Shopping season . Is started slowly, picked up, dipped in early december, and ended on a high note. Overall, it was not that bad. Sales, we think came in particularly, with the strong sales of the last few days before christmas, and this last week and immediately afte