Transcripts For BLOOMBERG In The Loop With Betty Liu 20150415

Chief says it is not limited to europe. We are not for endometrial companies that contain u. S. Companies. Companies from the United States play a major role when it comes to these Business Associations with complaints. Betty google has the charges are the result of the four year investigation. Moments ago we got word that the European Central bank is staying the course on Interest Rates. If governing council decided not to change the already low financing rates. The ecb holding their press conference in half an hour. A deal that will create the world no pf finland agrees to buy apoptosis movement of france. More than 16. 5 billion. Note the apostle biggest acquisition ever. The company picks up contracts with the two biggest wireless carriers ever. The pace of Economic Growth in china is the slowest it has been in six years. Gdp expanded in the First Quarter at an annual rate of 7 . New figures all point to a slowdown in chinas economy. Their speculation that the government will take steps to spark more growth. In the plucked congress will get a say in the iran nuclear deal. It looks Like Congress will get a say in the nuclear deal. President obama says he will sign it. The latest version of the bill shortens congressional review time for 60 days from 60 days to 30 days. Those are your top headlines. Europes central bank saying they will keep Interest Rates on hold. Ecb chief mario draghi due to speak in frankfurt. We will monitor those headlines. Anna edwards has been monitoring the ecb from london. All eyes are on the News Conference. Some people are talking about tapering. Their only a month into their programs. What are investors going to be looking for . Anna he wants to tell the story of an improving european economy, perhaps pointing to some of the better data we have seen. But not leave investors with the impression that things are so good that the quantitative easing plan would come to a premature end. We could see plenty of questioning of mario draghi about the conditions for the ending of that quantitative easing plan. The plan is to spend 1. 1 trillion euros buying bonds in the european market. Only six weeks in and we are asking what are the criterion for ending it. The reason for that is there is some confusion between what the criteria are. They talked about continuing until september 2016 or until the ecb sees a sustained adjustment in the part of inflation toward the goal which is just below 2 . If we start to see sustained improvement in those inflation numbers, might that be enough of a criteria to curtail quantitative easing plan earlier. We have seen better data coming through but inflation is still around zero. It bounced up from the low we saw in december. That is about zero. Nothing to get too excited about just yet. Betty it is hard to get excited about what is going on in greece right now. Still such a mess. What do you expect about greece . Anna the focus of the greek conversation is going to take place in latvia at the end of this month. We see the eurozone creditors coming together to talk to greece about their agenda. Can greece deliver sufficient reform to placate the concerns of the creditors . To allow greece to remain in the eurozone . That is where the focus of the conversation is going to take place. The ecb is probably going to stick to doing what it has been doing, extending support to the greek Banking Sector. We have seen in the last days the ecb step up the motto support to greek banks. There will be questions about that suspect about that subject. Betty staying in europe, after four years of scrutiny, the eu accusing google of abusing its dominance of the Search Engine markets. I will get to hans nichols who is tracking the developments. Lots going out a lot is going on outside our borders. What exactly do we know so far about this battle between google and the eu . Hans what we have is a statement of objections. U. S. Tech companies are going to have to start reckoning with the power center in brussels because they have so many concerns. This case is about google. It is about antitrust. It is narrow and broad. Narrow in the sense that they are focusing in mostly on google shopper which is one feature they have on google search. They hinted that it may go on further to Google Travel but to the core search function, they did not necessarily say a lot about that. They are expanding it and they are going to go after an inquiry into the android operating system. That is the bad news for google. The other aspect of this is the commission gave google an opportunity to remedy this. They say you have to have your results with shopper be somewhat comparable to the other results. The fines are significant. It could be up to 1 10 of googles global earnings, 6. 6 euros. A third of their revenue comes from europe. Some of that is me googling myself, but just a small fraction. [laughter] betty like 5 of it. How much of protectionism is at play . Hans by their own admission, European Commission officials have talked about how embarrassed europe has not continued to compete on the tech front. Theyre looking to you regulations to help level the playing field. This is not just about google. This is about facebook, other tech companies. Privacy concerns. Microsoft has had their challenges. This is across the tech spectrum. Lobbyists are going to need to counter. Betty thank you. Hans nichols, our international correspondent. A big deal this morning also happening in europe. No p. M. Buying alcatel in an all stock deal gnocchinokia, buying alcatel. Charlie conan caught up with nok ias ceo. If you look at the longterm in order to be competitive and to be a leader in this field it was important. Otherwise, we are happy with it. They are doing well. The company should provides the portfolio customers will need and want and makes it competitive like nobody else in europe. I see us being number one or number two in every area we choose to compete in. Very innovative company. Betty caroline joins us with more. Any executive in technology is going to lick up this morning, looking at this deal and wondering what that means for their own market. An executive from china to taiwan to here in the u. S. Verizon, cisco. Talk about the impact of that. Caroline absolutely. It is a deal that is changing the landscape of the Telecom Industry because it is creating the worlds Biggest Network equipment maker. It is going to compete. We know that alcatel is strong in ip routing. We make equipment they make equipment to transmit the data. All the music, all the videos you can see on your devices. Very Strong Company that is going to be created from this merger. 16. 6 billion deal. That is the biggest deal weve seen in the industry since 1999. We know that both companies were financially in trouble for the past few years. Alcatel has been struggling. For nokia, it has been rough patches in the past few years. A have a new ceo they have a new ceo who took charge of trying to make this merger happen. They will create a company with more than 100,000 employees. That is going to be bigger in terms of Network Equipment than the other competitor in europe. Betty thank you so much. Caroline conan on the implications of this huge deal. Back on the corporate front in the u. S. , bank of america reported their First Quarter results this morning. It looks like their costs are coming down. Their profit beat estimates. Scarlet fu has more. Scarlet sagging in the premarket. You mentioned have the bank rebounded last quarter. The big driver was the legal cost being a fraction of what they were a year ago. 370 million versus 6 billion last year. Investors are looking at the revenue line. Topline trick more than 5 . They missed analyst estimates by contrast, jpmorgan and wells fargo reported higher revenue. Clearly what is good for jpmorgan may not be good for wells fargo or bank of america. Trading revenue from fixed income and stocks picked up from the sluggish Fourth Quarter but declined 7 versus last year. Sentiment was positive coming into this bank of america earnings report. That might be another reason why it is giving back some of its gains. Betty thank you so much. Scarlet fu on bank of america. Expanding the grand. An interview with the lows Hotels Chairman Jonathan Tisch on taking the regency model worldwide. Betty a look at our top stories. We begin with oil and opec which apparently is not bothered by the Worldwide Supply glut. Opec members including iran and libya, urging the group to support prices. Crude advanced for a fifth day in a row but prices still 45 lower than a year ago. Global layoffs are at 100,000 and are going up. Morgan stanley is still on the block. Ceo james gorman has set the bank is committed to selling this business to cut capital and improve the returns. The bank had a deal in late 2013 to sell the unit but it fell apart because the u. S. Bank Stan Druckenmiller is anticipating surprises. And improving chinese economy, Rising Oil Prices and a handsoff approach to Interest Rates by the fed. He made the prediction in an interview. Druckenmiller does not like the look of the greek debt crisis. The banks do not own greek debt anymore. Draghi has q e. E at his disposal. If there is contagion, he can contain it. I do not get this theory about how greece flushes itself down the toilet and puts itself through misery and everyone else does that to. A more rational response is to go to reform and become more embedded in europe. Betty i thought misery loves company. You can see Stephanie Ruhles interview on Market Makers. Last year, i got a personal tour of one of the storied hotels in new york city. The regency, home of the wall street Power Breakfast. Their im with Jonathan Tisch. Jonathan tisch runs the regency as chairman of lowes hotels. It was a 100 million renovation. The Power Breakfast is going strong and it is going elsewhere. Regency is expanding across the country to start in San Francisco. Jonathan is here with me for his First Television interview since the news broke. Great to see you. Jonathan good morning. Betty i was not taking you into a hotel room. [laughter] jonathan for the whole world to see. Betty you decided to expand . Jonathan we have an active at lowes hotels. Now we have three brands. Were taking the lows regency name and putting it on a hotel we recently purchased in San Francisco. The Mandarin Oriental. The deal closes today. In a couple hours, the Mandarin Oriental comes the Lowes Regency Hotel of San Francisco area of the first time we are taking the regency name and expanding it beyond park avenue. Heart of her thinking has to do with the 100 million spent at the loews regency new york. Travelers who say this is a specime special brand. We think San Francisco is poised to be the second regency hotel. Great location and rooms. It is the top 12 stories of the third highest building in San Francisco. We are going to institute a Power Breakfast in San Francisco. Betty how do you do that . Jonathan it is all about getting the men and women who make the decisions about business deals, who were involved in culture the inner workings of each city and getting them there and making them feel comfortable. Making them feel like they are part of the fabric of what we do as a hotel but the larger fabric of the city. Betty how much are you going to spend on renovating this Mandarin Hotel . Jonathan the rooms were renovated three years ago. We will look at changing up the lobby and the restaurant. We love the restaurant to feel like it is in a lowes hotel. Were using the same design firm which is based in houston. Alone by the name of lauren a woman by the name of lauren. We are going to be using her for San Francisco. The roads were recently done. We will focus the rooms were recently done. We will focus on the lobby. The restaurant. As we speak, there are men and women changing the signs. Betty that is exciting. Jonathan were also expanding the lowes brand. Downtown chicago. 400 rooms right in the heart of chicago. Our fifth hotel is under construction right now. Lowes sapphire falls. That will bring us to 5200 rooms. We have a lifestyle brand we are rolling out called oe. Betty you talk about hotels and the tourism industry. Betty youre watching in the loop. Good morning. I am betty liu. With me this hour is Jonathan Tisch, the chairman of lowes hotels. I know you addressed yesterday in d. C. , the significance of the travel industry to the economy. My take away is, what do you have against farmers . You said the travel industry is a huge growth driver of jobs. The Agricultural Sector employees just 1. 8 Million People but they get their own department. Jonathan i have nothing against farmers. I do not need farmers to take my food. To taint my food. The point of the comparison is that we employ 8 Million People. Theyre responsible for 222 billion of exports. Farming is a 150 billion. Half of americans lived on farms. Today it is 2 . They should be supported. They are very important to our economy and lives. Travel and tourism we still are that vehicle for creating jobs and we are creating good jobs. American, middleclass jobs all over the country. Towards him takes place in all 435 congressional districts. The group that i addressed as we speak on capitol hill meeting with elected officials from all 50 states to talk about our industry. We have a progress. We have greatly improved visa wait times. If youre coming from china or brazil, used to take three or four months. Now is down to four or five days. We are making progress with Border Protection in terms of the experience want to get off the airplane and get through lines quickly. Those are issues betty what is wrong . It sounds a things are going great. Jonathan the companies we compete with spend millions of millions of dollars to get that same traveler. The travel is important to us. They stay with us longer and spend more money. In new york city, 22 of visitors were from International Destinations and were responsible for 50 of the money spent in new york. About 4500 per International Traveler in our country. We need more International Travelers. Where losing out to countries like france and spain. We losing out to countries like canada. These are countries that spend a fortune if youre the head of travel and tourism betty who wants to go to can it wants go to canada instead of new york . Jonathan what other countries have a more defined policy for inbound travel were making progress, our bottom the Obama Administration has been a partner. When so but he comes to this country from another country, they spend money. We are creating Good American jobs. Betty the perception is that the travel industry a lot of the jobs are lowpaying jobs. Kind of like fast food jobs. Jonathan that is not the case. Their first job may be in an entrylevel position but the road to the American Dream can take place in the travel and tourism industry. Often times people move up in a hotel or restaurant. We work closely with the National Restaurant association. People are starting their careers in some form of travel in tourism and theyre getting that are jobs. Theyre moving through the ranks. We can create more good jobs. Betty what exactly do you want . You have 400 plus people talking with lawmakers on the hill. What do you want . Jonathan better understanding of what we do. To not put in policies that will hinder the growth of travel. An area that needs a lot of focus is our infrastructure. Especially compared to other countries where they are spending billions of dollars on new airports roads him a rail systems rail systems. People arrived in kennedy, lax or miami and they cannot get to the Central Business district because the roads and trained are so bad. We need to focus on the Public Private partnerships that can help rebuild our infrastructure. We want parity in terms of issues of shared economy. New ways to book places to stay. We need to have a conversation with elected officials about that. Betty i agree with you on our crumbling infrastructure. Joe biden, calling Laguardia Airport a third world airport. Might the speech be better to the mayors and governors of this country . Jonathan we also need to make sure that the faa is reenacted the act for the faa is reenacted this year. Part of the conversation does take place in the nations capital. Betty great to see you this morning. Jonathan tisch, the chairman of low lowes hotels. Chinas gdp expended expanded in the growth quarter in the First Quarter at 7 . The chinese economy is still one of the Fastest Growing in the world. Their speculation the government will spark growth. The European Central bank is staying the course on Interest Rates. The governing council decided not to change the low refinancing rate. The bank homes this the bank hopes this program will strengthen the regions economy. Google calling antitrust charges off the mark. The European Commission says google favors its own comparisonshopping service above rivals and a new probe to find out if google forces phone and tablet makers to use its software. We are neither for enemy troop and me trio companies that contain u. S. Companies and companys from the United States also play a major role when it comes to these Business Associations who have complaints. Betty google has 10 weeks to answer the accusations. The charges are the result of a fouryear investigation. Apple and samsung are building closer ties. Google acknowledges the Company Started cooperating after dropping all lawsuits against each other outside the u. S. They fight and become friends again. A deal that will create the worlds biggest maker of equipment for mobile phone networks. Tokyo finland nokia finland agreed to buy alcatel. Nokia picks up contracts with arises with verizon and at t. Mario draghi, set to begin his News Conference in frankfurt. Europe central bank this morning keeping Interest Rates on hold. What will he say about greece and other troubles in europe . Much more ahead. Betty three companies about to hit the Public Markets this week. One potential ipo that could be the biggest one you have never heard of. Chinas Largest Online lending platform. Estimated value of over 10 million. Winfax louufax ceo joining us. How big is it in china . The market in china is going to be a multiple of what it is in the u. S. If you look out a couple years it be 10 times or more bigger than what it is in the u. S. Betty that is a factor of the side of the market the size of the market. A lot of needs and china are not being met by traditional banks. Youre a lot more individual you have a lot more individuals in china who need access to funding. The growth rate in china this year is about the gdp growth rate in china this years about 7 . Part of that transition is getting more domestic consumption. Theres a need for a lot more money to go to smes and individuals. Betty people think there is so much hot money and that thanks what are the lending standards for banks when they lend out to companies. That there is a shadow Banking System. Does it need another layer of peertopeer lending that needs to be more regulated . That can be a hotbed of money. The Banking System in china most of what puts out is to large corporations. You look at job in gdp growth it comes from individuals. That is not a part being met by the traditional sector. If you look at the shadow banking the credit risk in that, there is a need for regulation. I think he will see by the end of this year, more concrete measures to say what a bottom lines in terms of what you can and cannot do in this space. It is a balance that has to happen. On the one hand you need direct funding to the economy, on the other hand you have to control the risk. Betty regulators are looking at this. Are you planning on ipoing here . Greg we just completed in a round the couple weeks ago. Were looking for the longer term. I think we would like to see regulation get clear in china before we consider an ipo. I think that there is so Much Development going on in this market in china. It is hard for people to compare directly the u. S. And china. The p2p market in the u. S. Is about institutional investors. In china it is about retail. Betty greg get, the chairman and ceo of lufax. Scarlet fu is monitoring the press conference. There were some protests . Scarlet the News Conference has been adjourned because a protester attacked mario draghi president of the ecb. Apparently he went up to the stage where mario draghi was speaking and attacked him. And looks like he is sitting back down. A live shot of mario draghi. He is now back at the table and smiling so he appears to be ok. Brushing off the dust on the desk and ready to get back to business. He had made some comments but that was broken up cousin a protester broken up because a protester jumped up. Quantitative easing will run until sustained adjustment and inflation. Until inflation picks up. Implementation of quantitative easing he made the point that Credit Demand has picked up drawing from conclusions from the latest Economic Data that has shown that. He says the focus is on importation of policy measures putting pressure on governments to reform their economy. A lot of questions about whether mario draghi would address the issue of when quantitative easing would end even though it is just begun six weeks ago. If there is any indication that he would give a timeline to that, that could cause angst to lend less. Cause banks to lend less. 106. 08 a slight move up in the euro earlier. A disappointing read for the you for new york state. It came back down for the start of Mario Draghis News Conference. The latest headlines are that the measuring best his stance on quantitative easing, helping to improve the inflation picture in the eurozone has not changed. Betty totally bizarre. He was back on the day. Apparently the attacker was protesting, calling ecb dictatorship. Scarlet apparently he was taken off stage in a headlock. We will get those pictures for you. Betty thank you. Scarlet fu on mario draghi, attacked before he sat back down to talk about quantitative easing. Stay with us. Betty we mentioned you have that footage of mario draghi being attacked we would have that footage of mario draghi being attacked. And ecb dictatorship. Betty that is what happened moments ago as the ecb president was starting his press conference. The protester coming up in saying ecb dictatorship. That person was dragged off a few moments ago. We are going to bring you more headlines from the press conference. We wanted to make sure you saw what happened. President obama relenting he will give congress a voice in the iran nuclear deal. The president says he will sign a deal giving congress a say over any deal. Lawmakers in both parties backed the bill. I believe congress should play a role in ensuring that all the details that need to be in place are there and that on behalf of the American People that we ensure that this is something that holds iran accountable. Betty the bill shortens a congressional review period from 60 day to 30. Burr very cells are very says set revenue rose 2. 1 billion. For very reported at 9 gain in comparable sales. As the ceo of Goldman Sachs hank paulson offers his take on doing business with the peoples republic. Peter cook sat down with paulson to talk about the history of the relationship. Henry they are a formidable competitor in addition to being a partner. We will be competing on the one hand and partnering in the other. It is very important for the United States of america to get some important things done. Virtually every major global problem we have is easier to meet if we are working with china. Global growth, Climate Change etc. Peter not every american shares that you that they want to see the United States helping china. They see china as a threat to their own job. You take a different view . Henry yes. I understand that you. What i saved i understand that you. View. What i say to people, that is one of the reasons i wrote this book. We need to recalibrate our relationship with china. China will act in their interest and we need to act in hours. It is in our interest to find areas to work with them because there are many areas where we are not going to get the result we need. Peter what is your assessment of the Obamas Administration the Obama Administrations handling of the relationship . Henry it is been consistent over eight different administrations. I like a group of things theyve done. I like the climate deal. There has been a fair amount that is been done with china. I happen to think in this administration and every administration the tendency is to go from crisis to crisis around the world. If we spent even more time on china to reset that relationship , some of the other crises would be easier to deal with. I also believe that perhaps the most important thing we can do is to take the steps we need to strengthen our own economy. Time after time, people say to me, have they developed a better form of capitalism . Are they going to replace the u. S. As a predominant power . My answer is, we have the strongest economy by far. We do not begin to have the problems they have. Our fate is in our own hands. If we fix our problems, we will be the major global power for a long time. If we do not, we wont. I do not like to see china as a scapegoat. They have Serious Problems also. We should be careful what we wish for, those that say i hope they have problems with their economy. If they have problems, ours will be greater. Betty that was peter cook speaking with the former treasury secretary, hank paulson. Be sure to catch peters interview with jack lew today at four clock p. M. Eastern time on bloomberg television. I want to get back to those pictures you saw a few moments ago. A protester jumped up, interrupting ecb president mario draghi. Chanting ecb dictatorship. It brings home how much not only the world is watching Monetary Policy but also how it affects peoples lives. I want to bring in scarlet fu. I know youve been on top of this news. You and i were remarking, he was interrupted. A pretty dramatic moment. He went back to talking about the economy. Scarlet as if nothing had happened. Betty the euro falls, not because he was attacked but because he said, were going to continue with our bond buying program. Scarlet he did not miss a beat. There were headlines at said he was attacked by a protester and they had adjourned the conference. The woman was wearing a tshirt i believe it was in german. It looked as if it said something about a tater ship. Something about dictatorship. She threw what appeared to be confetti as well. The euro moved on the fact that he was talking about how the biggest of the euro area economy are more balanced and rising further in 2016 and 2017. Betty good on the people around him. Thank you scarlet. Scarlet fu with more on the ecb and some drama we did not expect. We will be back. Betty much more to come including this mornings surprise. Protester interrupting mario job be interrupting Mario Draghis News Conference. Betty welcome back to in the loop. We are 30 minutes away from the opening bell. I want to stay on that story. These things are so straightforward. Mario draghi lets show the footage again getting attacked during the News Conference just about 15 minutes ago. End the ecb dictatorship. Betty so, peter cook is standing by. Our chief washington correspondent. I know you have been to the fed News Conferences. It raises interesting questions. I do know who it was who came to the rescue of mario draghi. I have never thought about it very closely. I would imagine security is a big issue at these events right . Peter it is a reminder why people like mario draghi Economic Policy makers need to have security. Janet yellen has a robust security detail. In washington and at her press conferences you can be sure there is a healthy dose of security. The fed is a very difficult building to access for anyone including the press, at any time of day. During the News Conferences theyre a very strict rules. I will not go through everything. In my experience, this would have been very difficult for someone who was not a working member of the press credentialed and authorized by a News Organization to be able to participate in a press conference like this and to approach mario draghi in this way. Something went wrong with their security protocol and my guess is they will make changes. These people, their jobs are hard enough, much less to worry about their physical safety. You just have to remember what happened to the u. S. Ambassador to south korea a few weeks ago. Betty when fed officials ok, two questions. Have you seen protests before fed meetings around the building . Do you see stuff like that happening . Is it happening more . Peter yes, there have been protests outside the fed. What is much more likely to happen here in washington i have seen it happen with a whole host of people testifying Henry Kissinger the other day on capitol hill when you have a public congressional hearing members of the public are allowed in after a screening. Anyone can wait in line and get access to a congressional hearing. We see these kinds of protests all the time there. This kind of closed setting press conferences difference different. We do see this all the time. This would be an aberration if it were to happen to janet yellen. Betty when janet yellen travels, give me a sense of her security detail. Does she have a lot . Peter i dont want to explain everything about the layers of security that she has, but anyone who has seen her in a public setting can tell that there are certain people who are with her that are not fed economists or staffers, they are security folks. Their responsibility is to be with her 24 7 to ensure her safety. You used to see ben bernanke at Washington Nationals games. Most people did not recognize him. They might have been looking out for the two people with a most of the time maybe more than that. The reality is that these are controversial people making controversial decisions and it is not a huge surprise they get protested. What is a surprise is that somebody could get this close to mario draghi. Betty it has got to be very unsettling. Do you expect that even within the fed now that the next time they hold a News Conference they might change some protocols at all given what we have just seen with what happened with mario draghi . Peter even before the fed, remember what is happening in washington over the next couple of days. The Imf World Bank meetings which have been the scene of many protests in the past. You have international Economic Policy makers coming to washington to talk about some of the very issues mario draghi is talking about and you can be sure they are reassessing their own security for the events this weekend that will play out in washington. There are extra Washington Police on overtime duty through the course of the stocks and my guess is that they will re of these talks and my guess is that they will reassess what is happening. Betty thank you so much. Peter cook, our chief washington correspondent. Just drama with what happened at the press conference. Not the scene we expected at all. We are 30 minutes away from the start of trading. We want to count you down with the top headlines hitting our radar. Alex sherman and the ceo of re def join me this morning. Lets start with number eight. Yahoo taking its hands off the original content throttle. Last year, it acquired two halfhour comedy shows and nbcs show community. Are you sensing in a shift within yahoo toward scripted content . I have been following who for 20 years. They certainly have a lovehate relationship with content. I think they have a slate and they want to see how it does. I think they also think that they are strong in the digital magazine area and they think some of the people who they have are celebrities. Betty you dont think they are celebrities . [laughter] i think this may be an overreaction. I think they are waiting to see how their first round of investments from last year play out to some degree. Yahoo was in an interesting spot. A show like community, which was canceled on nbc after years of low ratings, but it generated a cult following. In many ways, it does seem perfect to be an online tv show. It has a high level of social engagement. It fits into a community, perhaps, of will of people who use the internet and social media. The only question is, is yahoo right for it . Betty maybe it is netflix. Number seven. By the way, i got some good news. Orange is the new black is being renewed for a fourth season. Congratulations. Betty who is happy about that . [laughter] it had to be. It did not really end on a clean break. Betty they are respected expected to have revenue around 1. 6 billion. It is interesting to see how their other hit series have done and what they are doing overseas to grab growth. Short. I expect their growth to continue. They have a huge slate of new programming coming. It will be interesting to see what hbos impact will be. Hbo now Just Launched and they will be a competitor. As you see streaming service become streaming Services Become integrated into the home, it will be interesting to watch. I think it is possible that hbos new streaming product will be good for netflix. The cable subscriber might think , i can get hbo now and netflix. Betty i can split my pie. Exactly. Betty number six. Google and the eu duking it out this morning. The eu is accusing for google the internet giant of abusing its position. They say google favor its own comparisonshopping service over rivals. I feel like this is who is the evil empire . It used to be microsoft and now it is google. [laughter] totally. The eu has been focused on google for a while particularly the search. This is a bit of an escalation from the eu. I know there is a camp of people that worry about the extreme scenario, where maybe google would be forced to break up into two companies or google would decide that it would be best to split. At this juncture, that seems a bit premature to me. It seems like google can still probably go down the road of trying to address some of the eus concerns, pay off a large settlement fine. We will see. It does seem like an escalation of something more extreme. Pretty premature to say that something drastic will occur. Betty this is in the loop. We want to bring you pictures of what happened 45 minutes ago when ecb president mario draghi was speaking at the regularly scheduled News Conference. A protester jumped onto the lectern, threw confetti on him, and was yelling aend the ecb dictatorship. They ended the News Conference temporarily and then he renewed the proceedings and made declarations of inflation rising. Mario draghi not missing a beat as the protester temporarily disrupted the ecb News Conference. The euro did not move on this and mario draghi did not seem phased at all. Scarlet we will find out more about the woman. She had a pocket full of confetti. Betty im not sure what the confetti meant. Really dramatic pictures of what happened at the ecb 45 minutes ago. We continue the countdown to the opening bell. It is time for our deep dive. Avon products. The seller of cosmetic and Beauty Products is exploring the sale of its north american operations. What is going on here . Avon is looking at Strategic Options for its north american unit. They have been struggling for a while. They get most of their business from brazil. Betty why has north america been struggling . It is the doortodoor sales model. One was the last time you opened your door to a woman who wanted to sell makeup when was the last time you open your door to a woman who wanted to sell you make up . Betty thats true. They pride themselves on their reps. Betty does that model work well overseas . It does. Betty avon ladies in china . Yes, they are in china. In other markets, it is trying to get them to wear makeup in different ways. Here it is trying to get them to buy the product. You can walk into said for a mix and match brands, people are not as brand loyal intoa a sephora, mix and match brands, people are not as brandloyal. Betty i want to get back to scarlet. You have news on industrial production. Scarlet it is seeing a bigger than expected drop in the month of march, down 0. 6 . Economists were looking for a decline of 0. 3 . This follows a paltry gain of 0. 1 in the month of february. Empire manufacturing came out 45 minutes ago and that showed a negative read. Once again, this shows how the industrial side of the economy the manufacturing side, is struggling a little bit. There is a soft patch in the first part of this year compared to what seems to be resilience in the Service Industry and consumers overall. We will see how this all plays out, especially as we anticipate the release of the beige book this afternoon. That is the most widely anticipated Economic Data point of the day. That will be insight into how fed policymakers view the economy before the fomc policy meeting later this month. Lets pull up u. S. Stocks right now. Bear with me one second. Actually, that was the wrong chart. Life tv. What can you do . This is futures. They are higher by about 0. 2 to 0. 3 . Betty you are so quick with that. Scarlet i typed the wrong function to begin with. Betty you are just like, whatever, boom, boom boom. We will be back in two minutes on in the loop. Betty this was what happened a few moments ago about 45 minutes ago. Mario draghis press conference interrupted by a protester. End the ecb dictatorship. Betty we will have much more analysis on this. We will find out who the protesters are. I want to get back to bringing you the most important stories you need to know before the bell. Ok, guys. Number four. A bank earnings. Legal costs are coming down. Banks are earned . 27 compared to a loss of five cents. What do you have to say about the Banking Sector . The banks are healthier, but boring these days. Regulators are clamping down on the amount of leverage that companies can put out in transactions. The general picture is that from a corporate standpoint, the banks are doing better. M a activity is booming. The legal costs are more under control. Some of the settlements have finally run their course. There are still a few out there that are pending for some banks. It seems like the Banking Industry is a slowgrowing boring investment. Betty five the way their stocks reflect that. The stocks are traded quite cheaply. What du you have to say about banks . What do you have to say about banks . I moved my mortgage out of bank of america recently. It is a bit of a boring business when banks dont lend money as much anymore. Betty i agree. Number three. The china conundrum. Stocks in china soaring, the shanghai composite index at a sevenyear high. An annual rate of 7 . New figures on output investment, and retail point to a slowdown. You have stocks at a sevenyear high. Economic growth is slowing down. It feels like a recession in china. What gives . This might be the same story. China is becoming a little bit more boring, but may be healthy from an economic standpoint as things slow down a little bit and the economy while slower may be becomes a little bit more open globally. Maybe the next stage for china is going to be one the big behemoth Companies Alibaba 10 tencent, baidu start to expand internationally. Betty i thought it was interesting that 50 of the gdp growth came from consumption the services sector. The chinese love their luxury brands. I am getting really dinged. The gnocchi a nokiaalcatel deal. Nokia agreed to buy alcatel for 16. 6 billion. This is a boon for 5g technology. This is the dawn of the internet of things. Every connected device talking to one another. Our phones talk to one another and we will be driving driverless cars. Together, they will compete much better. Betty we dont have to do anything now. Exactly. My big fear is that there is some General Health concern that comes of years from now that this stuff is not healthy for you. Betty right. A quick check of futures. Futures have settled. Slightly higher. Betty welcome back to in the loop. Alex sherman and the ceo of redef joining me. Our number one story is the world economy. The International Monetary fund released to their Global Growth forecast. Easing Monetary Policy and eight ha a halciving of the oil price should have been the primer for Economic Growth. But things are not looking that great. There are lots of technologies that make using oil more efficient. It gets into the question of is this a new normal . Two economists need to change do economists need to change their models . We may just have to expect certain things to be weaker. Betty what you mean their models might be wrong . They are looking at indicators that may not reflect how the economy is doing . Yeah the empirical reflection from the indicators are incorrect. If oil is trading at x you have a ton of different variables and then there is a analysis. Who knows . Betty i think that the way we have looked at oil prices and the effect on the economy may be has changed from what it has been from what we have thought of before. The lower gas prices certainly have not juiced up consumers like we thought they would. Even for car sales. Thank you so much for joining us, jason. Alex sherman, as well, staying with me. I want to get back to the protest that broke up the ecb News Conference in the last hour. Mario draghi was briefly interrupted after a protester jumped on the table in front of him and disrupted those proceedings. After settling down, he realized he had lost his introductory page of the speech. Mario draghi it would be good if i had my introductory statement with me, otherwise i will have to improvise. Thank you. Betty alright. A little bit of humor from mario draghi after what must of been a scary moment, seeing the protester jump up on his table. I want to get some more insight on this incident. Joining us now is hans nichols. What do we know about who this protester is and what exactly happened here . Hans we know very little about the actual protester, the female who got up and wanted to talk about the tyranny of what she sees as the European Central bank. What is remarkable to me about the incident is that the new ecb headquarters in frankfurt they just moved there, they inaugurated the building in march, they had preliminary events in january. It is a fortress. It is built like any embassy you see abroad. It is like a moat around it. Going through security is as intense as going through security for any president ial white house. Once the security personnel took over, it seems like the handled the situation quickly and professionally. Betty it did, indeed. Almost immediately, people rushed up and escorted or dragged this protester off. Brendan greeley is here with me, as well. I know you spent some time in germany. Brendan stop the betty dictatorship [laughter] peter wait a minute. Betty wait a minute. Brendan youre lucky i did not have real glitter. This was not the protests that happened last month. This was a group of feminist activists. They have done it to president vladimir putin. These are the kind of press protests that they do. They are adopting the ecb dictatorship language, but they are not connected to that same group. That said, it is interesting to get this perspective from over there. Were used to seeing mario draghi as a softy in europe. He is the one provider of any type of monetary or fiscal stimulus in the eurozone. What is fascinating is that there are groups of people on the european left to feel like he has not gone nearly far enough. I am going to talk to the finance minister of germany today. Betty are you going to ask them about this . Brendan not about the glitter bombing, but Erik Schatzker suggested a good question. What is potentially more dangerous is that the european right or the european left . Both are very frustrated with the ecb. We see the ecb as a big softy in europe. Betty hans tell us a little bit more brendan makes a great point about these groups. Some think mario draghi has not gone far enough in his policies. Tell me how policies have played out throughout europe. Give me a sense of the european feeling about the ecb. Hans it is very hard for mario draghi to hit the goldilocks notes. The main question everyone is wondering now that he has started quantitative easing is when is he going to end it . When is he going to start the taper . So, if you are from the european left and you are looking for boogie men, mario draghi seems like an iconic person. It seems that the german finance minister would be higher on the list. Look at the coalition in greece. The leftwing party, who did they join factions with . They join factions with the right wing party. They joined party with a right wing party that has been pretty they have not been as bad as the Neonazi Party but they questioned elements of the holocaust. This idea of left and right coming together at the bottom of a circle is a very real and scary possibility. Brendan is it fair to say that europe is in a race right now . You have the next steps for integration and you have these active movements growing at shocking rates parties that did not exist to her three years ago is it fair to say that there is a race for europe to get reform . Hans it is a nice analogy, but it is true it is like trying to measure planets in a solar system that are too far away. We dont have accurate instruments to measure to see if the ecb and the European Union will be able to solve these problems. Well mustve more accurate equipment to detect how the leftwing and rightwing parties are doing we almost have more accurate equipment to detect how the leftwing and rightwing parties are doing. They may get a handful of seats in the united kingdom. But they will not be a ruling party. Betty hans nichols, thank you. Brendan greeley, are you going to clean this up . Brendan im not. It is a mess i left for you. [laughter] betty who knew things would get so inciting exciting in europe . Right . Steve, lets get back to the u. S. And what is going on here. Ecb president mario draghi has his own ideas of what to do with his bond buying program. We saw the euro dropped. In the u. S. , that means what for us . [laughter] we know what the playbook is. The United States and the Federal Reserve started this quantitative easing and the japanese and the europeans have been given the playbook. I think the europeans and the japanese are going to become a test of the success covetous of thise success we have had here. Institutions want to be positive. They want to have an Interest Rate lever connected back to the machine. I think they are going to become data dependent. Unless something dramatically bad happens between now and september, they will probably go positive. The trajectory for rate hikes becomes more important than when they go positive. I know your team is slightly more bullish on european stocks but with the caveat that you have to hedge the current exposure. That is kind of a tricky thing for a nonpro to do. Is it as simple as buying a nonhedged etf . That is why we talked about talk about actively managed versus professionally managed money. Whether you are a poundbased. It is very tricky. I would say, work with a professional and it should be active management. I think the dollar is really figuring into what is happening in the u. S. I think there is a lot of currency related items that need to be dealt with. Betty ok. That is regardless that is pricing one cent rate hike for this year. Correct. 2550 basis points would be the range in september. It looks to be in the midish single digits. Betty you dont see any pullback . I think the lack of volatility has been most newsworthy. Three years without a major correction. If it were to happen, i think we would have more attractive cross points in the u. S. With earnings season getting underway all of the Energy Companies have reduced their guidance and analysts have reduced estimates accordingly. A lot of the strategists i have read are sort of saying that the beneficiaries of lower oil have not made the corresponding increases in guidance. Are we sort of setting the stage for even bigger than normal beats in earnings coming up . Backed and loaded would be a good way to describe the earnings environment. The drop in energy, it affects the credit markets the bond markets, and it affects the Energy Companies immediately. The benefits globally europe is going to benefit and japan, dramatically almost 100 of its energy is imported. The United States benefits less so. The benefits are backend loaded. We will see a pay off toward the end of the year. Betty thank you so much. Stephen would. Wood. We will be back in two minutes. Much more ahead. Betty Stan Druckenmiller has one of the best track records in the history of investing. He worked for george soros before striking out on his own. He spoke exclusively with Stephanie Ruhle about the near Record Number of buybacks companies are announcing. Stan if you look at what is going on, we have had a tremendous amount of debt growth particularly in the corporate sector. Unfortunately, the productivity of that debt, if it was measurable i would say it is at an alltime low. Why do i say that . Because there is good debt growth and bad debt growth. Good debt growth is when you borrow money and it goes into the real economy, you do capital spending, build businesses. By most calculations, almost 98 of the current debt growth has gone into m a, corporate buybacks by the way, and record prices leverage buyouts. It is growing in Financial Engineering. I cannot prove it, but i would pretty much feel very confident that 1 trillion in buybacks and dividends in the last year and 4 trillion is the forecast this year for m a is a job reducer and an economic reducer. I dont know what they think they are getting out of the 0 rates. Stephanie these are ceos who are worried and know they have to answer to demanding shareholders, possibly activist investors. Larry fink said Companies Need to reinvest and grow and that is not what they are doing. Stan we live in a culture where we go through periods of things being in fashion and things being out of fashion. Right now, listening to activists is in fashion. If you are the fed, you have to take that into account. If what you are getting 40 rates is just a bunch of Financial Engineering rather than demand for rates is just a bunch of Financial Engineering rather than demand you are setting up the possibility of another asset bubble. I want to be very clear. I am not forecasting an asset bubble and investment bust 23 years down the road. What i am saying is that if you are a policymaker, the risk reward is so skewed because the zero Interest Rates are not getting you anything substantial compared to when they went into this stuff 56 years ago. Stephanie it is not the activists you are worried about but that we are following and listening to activists. How do you see that changing . We talk about David Einhorn bill ackman, and carl icahn more than anyone else. Stan i dont see it changing, but it is the myopia of the political structure in our country. Everyone lives for today. No one wants to look 510 years down the road. Until that changes i sure dont see how it is going to change anytime soon you are probably right. Stephanie he is so smart, betty liu, that Stan Druckenmiller. Betty great interview. Stephanie thank you. Betty what else is he like . Stephanie extraordinary track record. Even though he is very negative longterm and is really worried about Interest Rates being low he is making a ton of dough. He likes equities, telecoms airbus in europe. He is positive about Japanese Equities and his bullish about the chinese economy. I pushed him on the property situation in china. He said look at the chinese economy. It is only growing, only getting bigger, only getting better. He is really positive. Betty even at 7 growth. Stephanie he is most concerned about the u. S. And Interest Rates. Get on it. I will have the whole interview on Market Makers. Betty you just all my line. Stephanie those glasses look great on you. Betty thank you. Market makers coanchor Stephanie Ruhle. Catch more of her exclusive interview with stan trunk and miller coming up later on Market Makers stan drunken miller coming up later on Market Makers. We will be back. This has been the dramatic footage we have been showing you all morning long. It broke up the Ecb Press Conference this morning. A protester trumped up trumpedjumped up on the table. The ecb president said he lost his introductory page. Mario draghi it would be good for completing the press conference that i have my introductory statement with me otherwise i will have to improvise thank you. Betty that was some introduction. I want to get some more insight on the incident from somebody who was in the room when the attack happened. Walk us through what happened during those moments. It was a girl, relatively young girl, sitting in the first row, just in front of mario draghi. When he was a few minutes into his introductory statement, she jumped it was quite a surprising leap onto the table she showered him with confetti and started shouting end the ecb dictatorship. Mario draghi was swept aside by security into a side room and the security dealt with the girl and we dont know more for now. The ecb has said they are investigating the disruption but we actually dont know whether the girl has been arrested, whether she has been handed over to police, and any other details. Betty how did she even get into the front row there . That is another question. At the ecb, there is quite strict security to get into the press conference. You need to go through airportlike security checks. You have to be registered for the press conference from a media organization. People need to know your name and who you work for. This is also something that the ecb is investigating. There will be an investigation. It is external security who is at the controls of the building. The guards are charged with exclusively protecting mario draghi. Betty i know we dont want to give too many details, but give me a sense of what kind of security detail that the ecb president has and what kind of security are we talking about it these press conferences . There is a small unit of bodyguards who follow mario draghi everywhere he goes. At the press conference, there are usually four or five people in the room keeping an eye on things. When he travels, sometimes it is a lonely bodyguard flying back home with them. He is the most powerful banker in europe. He does not have a huge security detail, is what you might say. Betty thank you so much for joining us. You were in the room when all of that happened. We have been watching very closely. Thank you so much. That is it for today on in the loop. Tomorrow, we will be speaking with ceo Stephen Schwarzman and blackstones next big deals. What does he think about the markets . And his reaction to stand drunkenm live from bloomberg headquarters in new york. This is Market Makers, with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle. Stephanie calling out to the Federal Reserve. Stan druckenmiller warns that when it comes to Interest Rates, theyre waiting too long. Erik double trouble for google. European regulators say the company has abused the dominance of internet search and they are opening an investigation into android. Stephanie unexpected excitement and the Ecb Press Conference. Mario draghi is interrupted by a screaming protester that demanded the bank and its dictatorship. Erik welcome to Market Makers. I Erik Schatzker. Step