A route. In other news, Orlando Hernandez is calling on the countrys leaders to help ring piece to the divided nation following his election. Several demonstrators have reportedly been killed in clashes with police. South African Media reports that olympian is repealing his prison sentence for the february 2013 murder of his girlfriend. Last month, the court more than doubled calling the initial sixyear term shockingly lenient. Now the earliest it doubleamputee runner will be is 2023. For parole global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 27 hard twice of hundred journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. Julia live, i am julia chat we are 30 minutes from the close of trading in the u. S. Stocks are lower. The european tax overhaul. Joe the question is what did you miss . Texture pope republicans a tax overhaul that would be temporary benefit for individuals and would be good for companies. Strategy,t in jeffries breaks in more revenue than ever before. Why fixed income trading declined. Julia House Republican successfully passed a sweeping tax overhaul today. Paul ryan the as are too twice seven m as or 203. The report is adopted it is adoptive. It is on the table. The gavel goes flying, we did not show you that there. Mitch mcconnell says lawmakers will pass this later this evening. President trump could sign it in as soon as wednesday. Political reporter on capitol hill. Successful here, we heard from paul ryan, kevin brady, all very much enthused about the prospects of the tax plan. It is a done deal as far as they are concerned . It is very much a done deal, i would say. Only one member is expected to be absent, senator john mccain receiving treatment as he battles brain cancer. All other republicans appear to be on board. They seem to comfortably have the votes we are expecting to happen. I am told once they burn out some debate time. Just 12al in the house, republicans voted no. York,the 12 were from new new jersey, or california. The three States Affected by gassing of the Tax Deduction and the centerpiece of the bill. Joe we know it will pass the senate and it will be a big rose garden ceremony. This. Will want to use he finally got Something Big and accomplish in passed and signed, a tool for momentum. Where does the white house go next . They want to pass of the pieces of their agenda. It remains to be seen if taxes are oneoff or if the formula can be rapid replicated on things such as infrastructure or entitlement cuts or welfare and various other things leaders and President Trump want to do. One one bite of the apple passing things without democratic support and a senate per year. It is plausible we return to a place where republicans get the agenda on other items while getting this will through. Thing. A very important not only are the tax cuts in the ofl, but it opens up parts the refuge to oil drilling and smashes the centerpiece of the Affordable Care act. So it is a trio of conservative accomplishments that folks in the Republican Party can be very happy about. Scarlet the president tweeting after news of the passage by the house, congratulations to paul ryan and all the great House Republicans who voted in favor of cutting your tax is. They of course want to get to the rest of the agenda but in the meantime, folks in washington need to make sure they can fund the government past friday. The lights go out at midnight unless they can agree to a piece of legislation to keep it funded. Leaders are eyeing a plan to extend funding basically to get to the holidays. They burn all this time working on taxes. There are still deals that need to be struck and democrats are pushing for parity and increases in defense defense spending. Domestic spending for programs and education and health care and things like that. A lot needs to be worked through and there are democrats who need to be energetic who are energized by the base and are adding that daca is codified as part of any measure. There are options there. I do not want to still the gops thunder here. Tomorrow if we see the bill hit the president s desk, there will be fanfare and they will be slapping themselves on the back. This is a huge feat for them. What about the messaging to people . We keep coming back to the fact that a significant chunk of the American Population police taxes will rise. How important is it to keep reiterating that you may not feel the benefits now but you will is the push toward the midterms . That is where the bill will likely come bite the republicans back. Deeply unpopular in the polls. The American Public has disapproved by a much wider large margin. By large margins, americans believe this is a giveaway to corporations more so than a benefit to the middle class. They believe their taxes are more likely to go up than to go down. It is only chu of a small minority of them. Speaker i was asked moments ago about expiring provisions. There is a 100 billion tax hike baked into the bill and they have every intention of continuing that. Be worse thanwill 1. 5 chilean dollars. Democrats are very very eager to use it as a weapon against republicans in the 2018 election. Individual tax rates will disappear. Is there a lesson politically that republicans ever publicans can takeaway from the effort . Did they do something differently or is it as simple as, it is not that hard to cut peoples taxes . It is mostly the latter. The party of tax cuts. If an all republican majority cannot cut taxes, then what are they good for . This is why people vote republican. This is what they campaign on. It is the heart of what they have been about. The fact that they achieve this is a huge relief to Party Leaders who are terrified of going into an Election Year without any ledges rate of accomplishments. Gearing up to be an interesting 2018. Thank you so much. Coming up, the fcc keeping a close eye. More than 17,000 since they started trading in september of last year. Some alarm bells should have been pretty deafening at that point. This is bloomberg. U. S. Regulators temporarily suspended trading. S comes after the company 17,000 , actually more than that. In under three months, making paper billionaires out of top executives in raising concerns the stock was perhaps being manipulated. Joining us now is andy. At some point, they trained their eye on the company. What is the company . It was created out of a reverse mortgage or merger and a little while ago, you had as ats slagging it potentially risky investment for investors. Stay over that first point. I feel it we should say that and let it sink in. Almost Everything Else seems like superfluous information. Like that is crazy, right . I am not sure about it. Much just checking. 17,000 plus percent. Sayhat point did the fcc that now we have an issue . Findingsgulatory inside the decisions over what they would do with the stock . As my colleague pointed out, the fcc had a couple of things they fly does this behavior. He basically had disclosures that were inadequate. It potentially shady practices going on. Had to halt the stock until early january. Obviously, we all of it this and this is completely insane interdict list. But people in the industry are trying to make things a little more serious and rep double and safe for investors. It pushes to have the etfs of , ifle do not have to go they want exposure, does it look like that will be more likely . That is right. It has been happening for a while. Over 15 potential bitcoin etf popular proposed. Ask for permission to launch an etf here is a big question whether to have a futures product will push the fcc to make the leap and approve the bitcoin related etf. Regulator say the absence of that market is one reason why they did not want to approve the etfs . That is right. They rejected one of the first etfs. They were worried they were also worried about the regulator looking at the underlying bitcoin market. Is one of many steps, especially with reverse mortgage or mergers. Set. T me ask about etf he mentioned the bitcoin etf that there is a mere etf to go along with it, and the short bitcoin etf, which might get just as much interest. Exactly. It is not a question, do people want to short bitcoin, which you can do now through interactive brokers. We do not have a short bitcoin etf just yet. We have not seen those come to market yet. What is next on looking at theto suss out what are keywords people are looking at . Going into the new year, we will closely watch what the future prices do. So we are in the nation stages. He watched Consumer Prices to see what could be next. Looking out for what the fcc might prove in the future, a bitcoin etf. Classes someone looking at a stock like this and saying, hang on a second, lets look at what business actually does is and just ordinary retailers which could be a problem here. One of the quirky aspects is the exchanges for bitcoin itself are not regulated by any central body. For an investor getting involved in owning underlying bitcoin, it is a tricky area. You have to proceed with caution and have a digital wallet and secure it yourself. Those could be some aspects that make a Retail Investor wary. Some people are just jumping in. Julia i just feeling this will end in tears. In other words, buyer beware. For joining us today. Our stock of the hour, there we go, a member of one of the worst performing groups in todaysession, utilities hit by a downgrade in general down graph downdraft overall. We can broaden this out and talk about utilities more broadly. Today. Rperforming there is only one today, it has to do with the companys u. K. Business. Like many utilities, it is attractive because of the dividend case. With 3. 4 for the sector and 1. 9 or so for the s p 500. There is risk for the dividend and there is debate that will affect the stock price. The analyst here is saying debate about the dividend will probably reignite because of high leverage in the u. K. Operations and also there is a midterm regulatory review coming in the u. K. As you know since we have talked about regulation of the point, there is regulation of energy prices. If those prices come down, that will be a problem. If you look at the bloomberg. Are, it gives you an idea this is revenue in the nine states and on the remainder in the u. K. , if you flip it over to net income, it is just a record all the way to the right, the bulk is international. Of its revenue from the u. S. But the profitability appears to be better judging outside of the u. S. In the u. K. Business. Concerning time i guess, if you talk about the economy internally or outside, rising that is really a trick here utilities. If you look at a Utility Group today, the utility etf is having its worst todays so far this year as we have seen rates push up over the past couple of days. Though the companies will likely benefit from the tax cut is what analysts are saying, will that offset for rising rates . They pay thef relatively high dividends. If yields go higher, they become less attractive. Be people consider them to de facto treasuries. Exactly. Treasuries will go up and then the benefit becomes less. They tend to have relatively high debt loads. With rates going up, they have to pay more to service that debt. Buffeted byas been higher rates. If we have another chance to look at the terminal, this is the xo you in white. That is utility etf versus the 10 year yield. You see here a clear inverse relationship. If you pull it out to five years, it is more notable that utilities tend to suffer and vice versa. A Senate Committee has opposed the nomination of the administrations choice to head the bank. Beenor Sherrod Brown has calling on Congress Since earlier today. Worke Export Import Bank means good paying industrial manufacturing jobs, often union jobs with good wages and benefits. For us to continue to turn our back on it is malpractice. Paid sabbatical for making a comeback at bank of america. It has informed employees they will soon be a lot of takeoff and additional six weeks of the year with pay but there is a catch. Employees must have been with the firm for at least 10 years to qualify and can only request time once every five years. Average compensation compensation is now the highest since the financial crisis. They set aside 1. 83 billion aroundorks around to 573,000 one split among the 3500 employees, the most since 2008 but still less than the precrisis average of around 370,000. And that is your business that is your Bloomberg Business flash. Up, time toing bring home the bacon. The chart you cannot miss next. This is bloomberg. Scarlet there have been hardly any equity markets all year long. And not in bitcoin and things with the word cryptocurrencies. So the chart looks at the fiveday price change of wholesale costs for pork bellies, used to make they can. Take a look at the far end. Record see that was a and then there the worst performance all it back to july of 2016. We are in the middle of the holiday season. His the season to eat well and consumers are splurging for pricier cuts to meet and then they will go back to eating bacon. Itthey need to stop calling bitcoin and call it bacon and then it would skyrocket. The senate is set to vote on the tax overhaul. This many times and the stocks were said to outperform versus the s p 500. Smaller stocks benefit from Corporate Tax cuts and deregulation. Ratio, considerably tracking the l. A. , president Donald Trumps approval rating. Ist the president does most talk about the dow and the record highs. Overlay tothat as an show you President TrumpApproval Ratings versus the dow. Too reiterated about the dow little more. Joe maybe he needs to find a new message . Or just use the dow more. Of a poor a sign recession, the old curve . The white and blue lines are from banks and they talk about lending conditions. If this were going down, it would be tightening. They are not. More and more banks say that loosening lending standards to small and large firms. You talk a lot about the Financial Condition flattening in the two tens red. It does not show any signs of getting higher. Scarlet the market closes coming up. Take a look. Stocks are down right now. This is bloomberg. Julia whatd you miss . U. S. Stocks closing lower this afternoon after the house passed sweeping tax overhauls and we await the senate vote later this evening. I am julia chatterley. Scarlet i am scarlet fu. Joe and i am joe weisenthal. If you are tuning in live on twitter, we want to welcome you to our closing bell coverage. Scarlet we begin with our market minutes. Whether you love it or hate it, a historic day for republicans on capitol hill. The first step toward passing tax reform has gone through. The house passed their final version of the tax bill. This is what happened in the stock market. Joe it is tempting to say it is it would be funny if we got a selloff, im using. Julia it is christmas time. Scarlet things are slower than usual. Lets look at individual names moving. Restaurants up almost 7 . Forroni grill filed bankruptcy, ruby tuesday closed locations, forced into the arms of high that equity market. All of her garden all of garden doingve well. 2 ,ival cruz lined up despite the turbulent hurricane season. A bit of a relief for investors. We wanted to add apple. It is not too often you get a downgrade for apple. Downgrading the stock after that iphone x sale. Csx, this stock has been in the news because of the sudden death of hunter harrison. Perhaps not surprising considering his other health conditions. But investors were not prepared for it yesterday when it tumbled 7. 6 . You can see it is up a little today. Joe lets look at the Government Bond market. We saw a meaningful selloff in the rates world. 2. 45 , yield up to increasing the most in almost 12 weeks. This is the story of the day. It is not just adequate sees just equities closed. Not many places to hide in todays market. U. S. Rates moving higher across the board, some steepening,too. Same in europe. Bonds in ireland, france and germany, higher. Talking about looking for the end of qe and wage increases. The mood of the day was not that there were massive selloffs, but on everything, including longterm Government Bonds. Julia it had a holiday, seasonal feel to it. The euro advancing. But it was choppy, lacking in liquidity. Saying, realle are oney, the macro accounts, the sidelines here, a seasonal approach. Sterling relatively unchanged. We have the british Cabinet Meeting to pound out, the brexit meeting. Special treatment for u. K. Banks after the Company Leaves the european bloc. Perhaps the u. K. Government could find a loophole. Founded it by now, someone needs a smacking. [laughter] completing our 100 retracement of the rally off the lows in october. Cashing in the best today rally since 2015. Taking the top job at the African National congress, helping to calm the rand, like no one has since nelson mandela. 048. Ick dive into g btv 8 we looking at the currency trimming more than 1 3 of its implied volatility in the past few days. In 1999, a discovery before the antiapartheid leader retired from public life. There were high hopes in south africa, hope they are not disappointed. Joe finally on commodities, lets look at oil and gold and sugar. Oil up a little bit, gold down a little bit. With the exception of sugar, up 6 . Iner, gainer got its index waited up up. Hter weighted scarlet earnings crossing the wire, macron fiscal numbers crossing the bloomberg. Versuseat 6. 8 billion the consensus estimate. Missing the lowest estimate among the numbers we compiled. Gross margin was higher than 55. 2 . Ated, 55. 4 versus quarter is for next also higher than the consensus estimate. To seven billion. For more on todays market action, the gop passes sweeping tax overhaul. Burns mckinney. Great to see you. When we talk about the tax bill or what will soon be the tax bill, everyone says it is priced in. You point out what started