Matt as bitcoin surges, and flips, suddenly everybody is paying attention. It seems to me it ought be outlawed. It does not serve any useful function. I think it is more likely these digital coins move into the mainstream. Bitcoin is undoubtedly a bubble. It is not for me, but there are a lot of things that were not for me in the past and they worked out very well. Matt that is all straight ahead on bloomberg best. Matt hello and welcome. I am matt miller. This is bloomberg best, your weekly review of the most important Business News analysis and interviews from Bloomberg Television around the world. The week began in the midst of the years most critical days for u. S. Retail. The Pivotal Moment between black friday and cyber monday. We are past black friday, and into cyber monday and everybody wants to get a scorecard on how retailers are doing. That is for both brickandmortar and ecommerce. What we did is we looked at the last 10 days before the holiday, that would be thanksgiving and black friday. We saw an unbelievable surge of activity that did not take away from the holiday. We saw spending growing at about 9 in the nine days to 10 days previous to thanksgiving. Over that weekend, thursday, friday and into the weekend very robust sales. The weather had something to do with it. The weather looked good across the u. S. Foot traffic was strong. I think the Consumer Confidence is high right now. We are seeing it across the board, whether it is foot traffic in stores, ecommerce, whether it is mobile. The consumer is ready to have a very positive season. Emily cyber monday will be the Biggest Online shopping day in u. S. History. Deal hunters will hit up the online retailers for 6. 6 billion in sales after black friday spending tops 5 billion for the first time. 51 million americans shop exclusively in stores. 58 million exclusively online. But a greater number, 65 million, indicated they shop across channels. I think it is that channel agnostic customer or multichannel customer that is the most valuable and they actually spent more money. Federal reserve chairman nominee Jerome Powell in the spotlight today for his confirmation hearing. There are no big surprises, although powell did hint about next months rate decision. I will say senator, i think the case for raising Interest Rates at the next meeting is coming together. That is what was expected. They call it a confirmation hearing for a reason and he confirmed what the markets were expecting. At least a rate hike in december. With growth figures and the same next year and his forecasted inflation would come back to the 2 target eventually, you can pretty much read into that that he is on board with the general feeling that the fed will do several rate increases in 2018. A brexit breakthrough, the u. K. And European Union have agreed to an outline deal for what britain will pay when it leaves the block. The irish border is the last major obstacle in the divorce negotiations. What have we learned in terms of the brexit bill . There has been an outline agreement on the divorce bill. This has not been presented to eu leaders yet, and it has not been presented on paper to the eu yet. So the people who need to sign off on this have not actually got their hands on it yet. That will probably happen on monday when theresa may has lunch with yonker in brussels. There has been an agreement on the wording of the commitment of the u. K. Will offer the eu on what the irish border will look like after brexit. The irish are in a bit of a dilemma. They also want talks to move on to trade. They dont really want to hold things up. If the irish Prime Minister goes down in history as the one who allowed ireland to be divided again, will not be good for him. Federal reserve chairman janet yellen will testify before the joint Economic Committee of u. S. Congress. In what will likely be her final appearance as fed chair on capitol hill. Janet yellen i expect that with gradual adjustments in the stands of monetary policy, the stance of monetary policy, the economy will continue to expand and the job market will strengthen somewhat further. Supporting faster growth in wages and incomes. It does seem that janet yellen is pretty pleased with what has happened over four years of her tenure, but there are questions remaining. It was one of the slowest growing recoveries we have seen. Economists say thats what happens after a financial crisis. And she has brought growth up as a she leaves to 3 , the Unemployment Rate of 4. 1 , maybe even lower by the time she leaves office. It is historically low, almost as low as records in the late 1990s, early 2000s. And so, she has a lot to be pleased about in terms of her performance. There would have been no better appointment for the next term than her, but donald trump wanted to make a change so she goes out with her head held high. President trump has nominated economist Marvin Goodfriend to be fed governor. This is trumps third nomination to the fed board as he moves to fill several vacancies. Friend has beene sharply critical of the Federal Reserve under chair janet yellen, saying the impact of quantitative easing was questionable at best. You know, i think one thing that is particularly interesting about Marvin Goodfriend is he is really hard to put into a hawk or dove bucket. The reason is he is pragmatic about a 2 inflation target. He thinks the fed needs to really defend its credibility there. It seems like that holds the both the upside and the downside. He said in the past rates are too low. He has been critical of the yellen fed, but hes an advocate of negative rates in the crisis era. Which has suggested that he is interested in also defending the 2 inflation target when inflation is undershooting. That is more of a dovish stance. That is something to Pay Attention to as we see his candidacy for the governorship go through. Opec and nonopec producers agreed to maintain Oil Production cuts until the end of 2018. The decision was confirmed after talks in vienna. We elected to call it an amendment starting in january 2018 through december 31. So it is going to be basically a oneyear agreement. This is the performance that really opec should have given in may. They were poised, concise, and knew exactly what the market was looking for. They had done their homework. They were able to give with the key metric was. Something we did not do before. They said it is targeting inventories. They went as far as saying 150 million barrels. It is fascinating to see these two heavyweights, sidebyside, russia and saudi arabia sharing what they thought of as a confident outlook for energy in 2018. Some describe it as a bromance. They were trading jokes that is , how jovial mood was in the press conference at the end of a long day. What we got in terms of inclusion with libya and nigeria. Remember, they were exempt in the past. What happens now is not a formal cut or cap, it is locking in a place not to produce beyond 2017 levels, which shows you how opec and nonopec as a group is willing to refine its deal a little bit and push some of these expectations to the upside. A twist in the special counsel Robert Muellers russia investigation. President trumps former National Security adviser Michael Flynn expected to plead guilty to lying to federal agents about communicating with russias ambassador. How does this change the narrative in washington, d. C. . This is a much bigger threat to the president than muellers earlier actions four weeks ago. Because there is one guilty plea already, but that was a lowlevel guy. This is Michael Flynn pleading guilty now. And cooperating. Who is at the center of trumps campaign, the lead contact with russia in december of last year during the transition. So this is a very significant event. Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell says he has the votes to pass the republican tax overhaul. With senator jeff flake of arizona getting to a yes, it brings the count to 50. In the last hour senator Susan Collins saying the Senate Tax Bill will include my salt amendment to allow taxpayers to deduct up to 10,000 for state and local property taxes. She is still likely moving in the direction of a yes at this point has senator mcconnell made clear. The votes appear to be there. They are still trying to win over senator collins. They made some concessions to her, including a state and local Tax Deduction exemption of up to 10,000 in property taxes like the house bill. They are still working on her. Bob corker seems less likely at this point, but they have the votes. Matt still ahead, as we review the week on bloomberg best, the ceo of Credit Suisse likes what he sees with the global economy. And a whole host of distinguished guests tell us what they see in bitcoin. Plus, an exclusive conversation with the cleveland fed president , loretto master. Top business headlines. A couple of juicy mergers to chew on, including a deal in the dining industry. As far as we know can the three offers. Small bumps each time. It looks like 157 was enough. Matt this is bloomberg. Matt this is bloomberg best. Im matt miller. Lets continue our global tour of the weeks top business stories with a remarkable roller coaster ride of bitcoin. Bitcoin has topped 10,000 for the first time. Blink, you miss it. It is taking this years price surge more than tenfold. The largest digital cryptocurrency has risen by more than 50 since october, and the euphoria continues to drive it to new highs. What is driving the price . Are we seeing more participants . More accounts opened . More liquidity . Give me a sense of the size of this market. One phrase ive heard all day long is fear of missing out. It seems like it is really a Virtuous Cycle in bitcoin right now. The higher prices go, the more retail and institutional money is really rushing in. That is really behind the recent rally. There is a sense that bitcoin is getting increasingly accepted in the mainstream. After surging past 11,000 in hours after surging past 11,000 in one day, we are talking about bitcoin, it tumbled almost 20 from the high. And it wiped away almost 2200 of its price in five hours. Do we know why what happened today happened . Several of the exchanges, they had outage was given coinbase and gemini seeing a massive surge in volume. A massive surge in volume. This could be a sign that has not quite grown up yet. U. S. Regulators allowing Bitcoin Futures to trade on the cboe. Three Exchange Operators will offer bitcoin products. It also says the exchange has pledged to help monitor the bitcoin spot market. Bitcoinsa big step in moving into the mainstream of finance. Futures can be purchased by lots of Institutional Investors who would not buy bitcoin itself. Brokers or banks who want to have clients that want to buy it can hedge. On the other side you can go short for the first time with relative ease. Lets look at softbank. They may offer to buy uber shares at a lower price than expected. Sources say they could be at a 30 discount from ubers recent 69 billion valuation. What do you make of this offer price . It is a much more discounted offer price. There is no doubt that this discounted valuation reflects all the turmoil the Ridesharing Company has been going through. We have the recent news of a massive data breach. Obviously the countless loss of lawsuits, clashes with regulators. Even at a 30 discount, the 40 billion valuation is a considerable windfall for the early investors. But the deal is far from done. We do not know what the tender period is, but over the next month or so we are likely to see a cat and mouse game played out because if softbank does not reach a required threshold of shareholders agreeing to sell, the Company Might walk away and it showed willingness to invest in lyft, or they might up the offer. We will not likely see the deal complete until the very end of the tender offer. The media world saw the end of an era when meredith agreed to buy time. The posting brand includes sports illustrated, people, and of course Time Magazine itself. Meredith will pay 18. 50 per share in cash, bringing the total value of the deal to 2. 8 billion. Supported by a 650 million cash infusion from charles and david koch. We have meredith, a magazine publisher, buying another magazine publisher. Is this a rebirth for magazines or are they on their way out . We hear conde nast is even struggling. I think the magazine business continues to be under a lot of pressure. When you take a look at print advertising, it continues to decline to doubledigit rates. Thats the forecast going forward. Meredith has done a good job carving out a stable of properties they cater towards women. Advertisers looking to reach young women can come to meredith and they get a really broad solution. That is what meredith has built their magazine business on. Meredith also own a lot of television stations. The cash flow from tv has supported their magazine business. So meredith is a Stronger Company because of that diversification. I think they hope that diversification will help them buy some time to develop properties. Big deal news this morning. Rourke agreeing to buy Buffalo Wild Wings for 2. 4 billion. Emerson withdrew its bid to buy rockwell automation. Buffalo wild wings, why . They had been wanting to get into this space for a while. They own arbys and a few other restaurant brands. They earlier made a push to buy popeyes chicken and they were beaten to the punch by burger king. They have shown a willingness to expand in the Fried Chicken business. This was a great fit for them. Buffalo is a company that had its own problems going back quite some time now. They had an activist in the stocks, now on the board. They had an outgoing ceo and no obvious replacement. So this was a good time for roarke. They have gotten it over the line, they have made it as far as three offers, small bumps each time and it looks like 157 was enough. Carbon fiber manufacturer down in tokyo 4. 3 . There we go, 4. 4 now. After the company admitting fake data on its products for more than eight years. Earlier this month, we became aware of posts on social media, then we had inquiries from customers. We felt we needed to disclose the facts, rather than have rumors spread further. But we delayed a public announcement until we had all the facts and had explained to our customers. Made in japan, yet another blow. What is happening . They said there are over 130 cases of the falsification, but no safety issues have been raised as of yet. Toray has not disclosed any details on why this came about, but the question is is a valid one. What is happening in corporate japan . A change at the top of the fed. Boris collari to become a partner. I think the stock has had a very good run. Perfection basically priced in. I think the communication from the company suggests that the resignation was abrupt and unexpected. They have had is a Succession Plan that is not pacifying investors. The deputy chief executive will step into his shoes for the moment. Are they big shoes to fill . He knows a lot. He has led the strategy. There is just a sense they are on the back foot. Barclays is warning its Investment Banking staff half of them they get their bonuses cut this year, even if some top performers make it raises. That is coming from people briefed on remarks from the new head of banking investment. They are looking at a cut in the overall size of the pool. That is right. It is not hugely surprising. We have seen consistently bad performance from the European Investment banks. Their revenue at barclays is down 7 . So that is not really a surprise. The new Investment Banking head is trying to injuries trying to introduce is a bit more of a differentiation to use his word and what they are paying their employees. They will take the top 25 and give them a lot more. They have cautioned that the bottom half or bottom quarter should expect their compensation to shrink over time as they try to inject more competitiveness in their Investment Banking division. Months ago, he was asking Credit Suisse shareholders to pitch in billions of francs district in the thanks Capital Buffers. Banks Capital Buffers. Now he is talking about returning cash. He spoke to bloomberg on tuesday about what shareholders have endured. They have been through a lot. Im painfully aware, but i have to dilute my shareholders significantly. There is no way to solve this without massive dilution of shareholders. He has given today and hailed the end of a Restructuring Program which he started just a couple of years ago. He has pointed to better shareholder return in the one or two years. He says all divisions are coming in on target. Stock is up more than 4 to date. Im sure investors are going to be happy with that, and it certainly looks different from a couple of years ago or six month ago when he was asking the same shareholders for cash. Cvs is nearing an agreement to acquire aetna. The price tag more than 65 , billion. This is according to a person familiar with negotiations. It is a deal that could reshape the pharmacy and Health Insurance industry. What this would do is take one of the Biggest Health insurers in