Indicators. And friday, existing home sales. As for earnings central, watch for reports today from cocacola, medtronic, more weejance cruise lines and others. Then this afternoon, were going to hear from Companies Like herbalife. Ahead of all that activity, lets take a look. Its a mixed bag, plus or minus the flat line either way. Scott, it is a short week, but it is a busy one. Europes activist is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire forest laboratories. Forest value the it up to 25 billion. That stock is up about 18 . And the deal could be announced as early as today. Mine while, hp executives reportedly knew about autonomys Accounting Practices months before a whistleblower flagged them. Youll remember hp said it was a victim for having paid 11. 1 billion for buying autonomy in 2011. But it was accused of overstating revenues before it was sold. They said a report was provided to hp after it bought the british softwaremaker. Hp shares, mean wile, at the close of trading on friday, down slightly, but will move on that news today. Meanwhile, a firm bought by Hank Greenberg says it will buy a multi plan. The deal is valued at 4. 4 billion. Now back over to you. Thank you. And we have mergers, the whole world good things are happening. After last weeks deal, it feels like we have more things coming up. People want to get stuff done. And we have more deal news this morning, which is that barry sternwick is in early talks about selling is his firm to the public. Starwood Capital Group has 34 billion in asset under management. The firm has stakes in hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and shopping malls. Speaking of possible public offerings, online Music Streaming Service spotify is now recruiting a u. S. Financial reporting specialist. This news is adding to lots of speculation that the swedish start up is preparing for a share listing. Reports say the firm could be valued as much as 8 billion. Thats more than like warner music. The people create the content. It is. And the last time spotify raised capital was, i believe, about a year ago. Goldman sachs led that investment. So thats quite a hefty premium. Right. But the artists dont make you know the content versus the king versus the content versus the pipes . We might be heading back to pipes. Kick starter is now urging users to change passwords after announcing it has been hacked. User names, passwords, meali i g mailing addresses and emailing addresses have all been compromised. But the good news, if there is good news, is that the credit card information has not been stolen. But, you know, i dont know if anybody has the same problem, but i basically have one password, maybe two, theres sort of a Third Special one. I do, too. How in the world can any one by the way, theres always sorts of software you can get, put your password in he ever else. But if you chaeng one of your passwords, do you have to go and change the other ones . Here is the trick. Do you want this . I was told what youre supposed to do is come up with your password, dont say what it is. Squawk box123. Yeah. And then lets take its a google thing. You could do gsquawk123. And then if you were on apple, you could do asquawk123. Anyway, people say that interesting. But anyway, this is, by the way, the story of the morning if you buy a mile. Could tesla and apple merge . Not a joke. Completely, at least. The San Francisco chronicle now reporting that teslas ceo elon musk met with apples head of mergers and acquisitions last spring as analysts were suggesting apple acquire the electric carmaker. The reports suggest the meeting was a sign that apple was very interested in tesla. Apple looking at the medical devices business, specifically technology that can predict heart attacks. But i have to say, people say that apple needs an out of the box acquisition. That would be out of the box, slightly crazy. Im not we should say in fairness, im not sure this will a real deal on the table as much as potentially a Partnership Around some of the technology that was going to go in the cars. We have very vague details about this. Okay, yes, apple is the head of m a is teslas ceo met last month, but which came first . Did the Analyst Report come out and tim cook said, hey, maybe i should see what the analyst of elon musk is up to . This came out and then they came out saying, hey, they could be i had conversation with this very senior tesla person probably about a year ago. And i said, so, do you think you could ever be bought by ford or gm or Something Like that. And they said, no, we would never be bought by an automobile company. And i said what kind of company would buy you . They said a tech k company. Maybe thats their ahha moment you to to by about that. But i think apple would be kill you deal with all these investors on your show. Dont you think if apple announced tomorrow they were buying tesla, the stock would go down, not up . A car company. In the big picture, what does it really do for apple . Not much, right . I think its easy to partnership, the stock would go up. And if they were using their cash for Something Like that and it was so definitive and it was a permanent use of cash that people have been ruminating what they were going to do with it for so long is that what you want apple to do with its cash . Theres a lot of other things out there that they could do with companies. I want them to buy sprint or tmobile. I want them to own some of these things for a Showcase Network with whats possible on one of they things. Then i want them to wait five to ten years but andrew, its not about what you want. I know. But the Cellular Service is going to get so good, i think this could be their entree into the home. Maybe they could have taken a shot at netflix, maybe twitter could have been had at some point. Did you binge . Its funny, because all weekend people were talking about people spent all of the lock weekend watching house of cards. No, i did that. Its sad. But it is so good. Nine episodes in, so no one spoil it for me. But it is so good. I like the story, too. I hope we talk about this at some point. Writing a story about what hp knew and when it knew it i guess about autonomy before that deal was made, about some of the accounting issues that were there. The ft with a big article there today, detailing exactly what it says hp might have known to a string of emails. A pretty detailed investigative report here which is pretty interesting and has bigger implications, too. I think for the credibility of some of those who have spoken out publicly. Ask questions about, you know, to meg whitman, what did you know . When did you know it and some of the other examinations at hp. Hp has told a very distinct story for the entire time, that it was misled by autonomy regarding some of this accounting and now maybe other things are going to come to slight here. I also want what jim chanos is thinking as this article comes to light. Its interesting. But to what extent to companies consult auditors, past auditors about past audit reports . They dont and thats their problem. Because if auditors knew about this all along and hp was going to buy 1el 2 billion to buy a company a whole host of other companies passed on, wouldnt you do you blame the auditors, do you blame the board . Do you blame the bankers . To a certain extent, i do blame the bankers. Probably all of the above, but the bankers made, what, 50 million in fees off of this . And nobody decides to look under the hood for more than a second . And then got dropped, but after they got paid. After they got paid. Whats going on in vegas . Las vegas sands has brought its websites back online. A hacking attack forced the company to shut its home pages and other online operations last week. Employee email was targeted in that attack. And the company says its working with investigators to identify who defaced its webb pages and exposed sensitive employee information, including Social Security numbers. Now to the latest on bitcoin, major exchange. Users should soon be able to withdraw funds from their accounts. The japanese based site is the second Biggest Exchange in the world. A halt in withdraws last week left customerers unable to transfer their investments into u. S. Dollars. As a result, the price of the Virtual Currency plunged to below 300 on the mtgox exchange. That compares to a figure of around 650. Now, while you can, if you think this is a are you a bitcoin believer or do you think its a farce . I havent taken a side on this one. I thought the rise was spectacular. I did feel wary about the strength of some of these exchanges. But if you have money in there and you cant withdraw it, thats scary. Your point, you wonder if the fall is going to be as spectacular as the rise that you decided, right . Between the regulatory stuff, people are starting to take a bigger and closer look at exactly what it is. A piece that ran, it was awesome in terms of an explanation. It was the first time i ever ever convinced that the thing could be real. Maybe not at 300 a pop. But his Company Owned that, right . I get that. But theres something to be said. For someone as well known and as dignified as him to have taken an interest i like dignified. Thats a nice work. He watches in the morning. He does. We may get an email from mark this morning. He might be on holiday. Thats how kayla rolls, right . Dignified. Capital d. Theres a lot moving in europe throughout the morning. Time for the Global Markets report. Carolin roth is in london to tell us what is happening. What do you think . Were seeing a bit of red, but nothing to get too worried about. What were seeing in the markets is essentially profit taking. Time to take some profits and, today, we are seeing the markets just off the session lows that we hit earlier on in the session. But i want to show you whats these individual markets are looking like. The xetra dax is off by 0. 1 . The ftse 100 now flat, and the ftse mib, which it seems from outperformance earlier on in the session and over the last week on the back of the political changes in italy is now also dropping by around 4 . We have lots of Economic News out this morning. Zew, the index for investor and analyst confidence was a little mixed. We saw this unexpected drop in the headline number, but the Current Conditions number, that came in slightly better than expected. I want to show you the reaction in the currency markets. We saw the euro dollar moving just off the session highs, but it is still up by 0. 2 . Overall, were seeing a little bit of dollar recovery. Especially against the yen. Up by 0. 4 . Now, no surprise, this came after the boj extended the Lending Program for banks and that makes some investors even more optimistic about further aggressive Monetary Policy easing. Sterling dollar, also one to watch. It is now essentially flat on the day. Just about that 1. 67 level. But we got those Inflation Numbers for the month of january, 1. 9 on the year. This is the first time that cbi fell below the boe anticipation target of 2 since 2009. And its the Australian Dollar just above that 90 on handle, but down slightly on the day. Back over to you. Thanks very much. Coming up, delivering alpha, we get a hedge fund report card. Plus, more snow for the northeast. Its true. Oots storm headed this way. Already started this morning. Its awful out there. Yeah. Its only supposed to be a few inches here in the city. More or less. And thank goodness we dont have to shovel for otherwise. Thats one perk of living in an ant farm light that. But in the burbs, not so lucky. Another economic lesson for those stuk, squawk box is back. [ tires screech ] [ car alarm chirps ] [ male announcer ] we dont just certify our preowned vehicles. We inspect, analyze, and recondition each one, until its nothing short of a genuine certified preowned mercedesbenz for the next new owner. [ car alarm chirps ] hurry in to the mercedesbenz certified preowned sales event. Visit today for exceptional offers. More snow is expected in the new york city area today. When are we going to get a break from all of this . Alex wilson joins us now with the national forecast. Alex, please tell us its sometime soon. I cant take it any more. Temperatures are going to warm up later in the week. That could cause some problems for the snow melt, so youll have to keep that in mind if you live in any of on those areas that are flood prone. Just get that snow away from your home so you dont end up with water around your house or in the basement. Today, we are adding more snow to the picture. We have Winter Weather advisories, winter storm warnings because of those deeper blues, massachusetts, New Hampshire and maine. Snow falling in philadelphia this morning has caused some trouble for the commute. As you know, in the new york city area, the snow is coming down. A morning event for places like new york city. We will see the snow into the afternoon for boston. It has not started there yet. Boston, youll begin to see the snow and it will continue through the day today. The heaviest snow focused up into parts of new england, rain, New Hampshire, massachusetts. And tonight, still heavy snow in portland up towards bangor. So this will be where the main event of this system is. But still, we will be watching for some accumulation. New york city itself looking at the 1 to 3 inches range. Those lower end totals towards philadelphia, 3 to 5 for that deeper blue. Just upstate over into parts of connecticut as you see that 5 to 8 inch zone. Really focused over parts of eastern new england, into massachusetts, around worcester, then 8 to 12 inches near the costal sections of maine including around the portland area. As we head towards the second half of the week were woog go see to see temperatures warm into the 40s and even 50s with the rain showers. So a welcome change, but kooep keep in mind its going to let that snow melt quickly. Thank you for that. We are waiting for that with bated breath, i can tell you. Meanwhile, we want to sit and talk about hedge funds. Joining us now on set is michael pelt, Institutional Investors institutional investor. You guys do this every year. Explain to the viewers how the methodology works. Sure. We go out to investors, foundations, endowments, pension funds, larger events, investors and hedge funds and we ask them to rate their managers. Basically, were looking at the 100 largest hedge funds in the world. From those ratings on eight different attributes, we calculate rankings and we actually give letter grades. So among the attributes, their actual returns, their risk tolerance, compliance right. The key three attributes are alpha generation, the ability to create good risk adjustment returns, Risk Management and alignment of interests. So that being the managers who have skin in the game is a key attribute that investors look for. So the big reveal, number one this year, is Silver Point Capital out of greenwich. Largely distressed, started by some Goldman Sachs alums. They were 21 last year. How did a firm like that make such a big leap . The great thing about a firm like silver point is when times are good, often their strategy credit distress, it provides a nice uncorrelated return to what people are getting in the equity markets. Yes, markets were up 30 last year, at least, you know, the u. S. Equity market was. But for Institutional Investors in particular, theyre not looking theyre looking for uncorrelated returns. Theyre looking for, you know, some defense in case the equity markets go down as they did in january this year. What would be the distinction between if you were to rank them just by performance and then your ranking income to it, how different would it ultimately look . It would be very different. Alpha generation is just one factor that managers are investors are looking at. Really, the Risk Management alignment of interest transparency. The ability to know what people are actually doing. But my question every time i look at this list year to year, the firms change a lot. The rankings change a lot. And im not in the top, though. I would have thought they would be more consistent if it really is about all these other things with the exception of the, you know, alpha generation. Its actually fairley consistent. If you look at the three of the top five firms, elliott, citadel, and adage. They were they all got as last year. They were all in the top ten. They all performed, you know, well year in and year out. To andrews point, though, i would think that the investors, at least, who are giving you their input are putting out if a generation even though you have eight different categories with a much higher waiting than the others. Is that fair to say or no . Certainly it is the highest waiting and those three that i talked about, Risk Management, alignment of interest and alpha generation, those are far and is away the most important. Because if an investor has an issue maybe with infrastructure or some of the other, you know, deals, but the fund outperforms the market, you know theyre going to say they love their guy because they generated so much for them. For sure. People are willing to put up with maybe lousy Investor Relations if theyre getting great alpha generation. But its about risk adjustment and returns. One of the things, if you look at the returns from pretty much every hedge fund last year, nobody did 30 . There was very few. And theres a lot of angst has been spilled over that. Meanwhile, the market, as you mentioned, was up 30 . How did that affect investors in the type of survey and the types of things that were important to them . Did you see a lot of investors xlaping . No. Investors are actually id say some a little disappointed. For the most part, if they could get 10 to 15 a year, regardless of what happens with the equity markets, theyre pretty