>> italy's prime minister enrico letta expected to quit today. making my for a new government headed by his chief rival, matteo renzi. >> europe's recovery gains traction. a new connection. paysese online retailer $900 million for an internet messaging app. good morning. you are watching "the pulse."

i am guy johnson. >> i am francine lacqua. also coming up, another setback. we follow the highest that cost the black market site a lot of bitcoins. >> almost balanced -- on this valentine's day, we speak about helping the mega rich find love. >> we are just getting some italian gdp numbers. maybe nothing to write home about. but we are not in a recession. gaining some 0.1%. >> pretty much in line with forecasts. that is the good news. >> the bad news is that we had to revise quite significantly the year on year gdp figure. >> to put it mildly. to q3 gdp figure revised -1.9. that is with the economy contracting 1.8 from a year ago. this is the first quarterly gain since the second quarter of 2011. yay.

>> we will take it. enrico letta says he will resign today. his own party withdrew support for his government. hans nichols joins us live from rome. will enrico letta definitely go through with this? >> that is exactly right. the challenge for matteo renzi this morning will be, how does he heal his party after this fractious dispute? keep the other party at bay? he will be facing a vote of confidence in parliament if he a as expected going to form government at the request of president napolitano. let me hold up a picture, the front page, a berlusconi paper. it says, renzi nominates himself as premier and has berlusconi smiling down there. this is just challenge. how does he move forward as a prime minister who wasn't elected? the mayor of floor as he is, just 39 years old and he has

indicated that he wants to stay in power as a mere through 2018. >> the party urges the start of a new season with a new executive that lasts the entire mandate of this legislature. >> francine come at the end of that speech he thanked letta for his service to the country. that was before letta had officially announced that he was going to resign. quite an interesting turn of events. he will be the third premier without being actually elected. what he needs to do in the next few days is figure out how to get a coalition together. napolitano has indicated there will not be snap elections before the electoral law is dealt with. passed, youif it is could have another round of elections. >> let me pick it up. nfi, those are the lead of ring

to mind. normal for italy. the markets just shrug their shoulders about this. >> it seems like markets are cheering this move. that may be because of a couple reasons. italian investors like renzi. they like the way he is challenging the bureaucracy. international investors may be looking at him and his ability to put through real reforms to the italian economy. there is a sense that the letta government was stock, not going anywhere. if you think the italian economy needs structural reforms, renzi might be your candidate. >> hans, thank you very much indeed. hans nichols in a beautiful looking rome this morning. >> the japanese online retailer rakuten is buying the mobile messaging service viber. it is paying $900 million. let's get to ryan chilcote for more on this story. i was told viber is all about emojis, the smiley's and all of

that. >> they call them stickers sometimes. i saw one you can send today for valentine's day for one pound 50. that is how they generate their revenue. if you are just calling someone who also has the app, you don't pay anything just like with skype. this is how they generate money. the back story is great. the company was set up i a guy in the israeli military who was the chief information officer of the israeli defense forces when he met his associate. these guys set up a company , a filesharing site, it didn't really pan out for them. then they set out -- set up viber on a budget of less than $1 million. like skype, free to call other people that have it. now you can call people that don't have the app so you use money to use it almost like a telephone service.

he was traveling the world and was frustrated with skype. he found it cumbersome and wanted to build on its architecture for the mobile phone which analysts say they have done very successfully. they have more than 200 million users. they run the country out of cyprus but they use developers in places like belarus. aey are going to share in $900 million windfall. why are the japanese paying $900 million for this? >> this is one of the cases where the inquirer says interesting. the billionaire he find this deal, his friends call him mickey. that is the neck and he got back in harvard. stake.a 40% he is the ceo and chairman as well. he is worth more than $9 billion. almost all of that is thanks to the stake in rakuten which is japan's biggest internet retailer. its entire base is within japan.

he is competing with the likes of yahoo! and amazon. he has long wanted to go global. he has been very interested in social media, bought a stake in pinterest. to make the all things internet for people that are using e-commerce sites. >> the numbers you just came out with a minute ago, the number of users, that is a lot of users. >> and they are in 193 countries. it helps them solve that problem. he wants to sell his products through it. he wants to sell games on it. as many users as it has, it is worth pointing out that the competition is no longer skype. has an apt that allows you to do instant messaging that has more than 800 million users. >> so there is competition. it must also have something to

do with the emoji's. they have these photo booths were you can take pictures of the little hearts and eyes on them. >> he has been in the internet's pays for a long time to create content for websites. rex ryan, thank you so much. >> a whole new world that i didn't know you were interested in. >> me and my son. fallingg on, profits amid a write-down. but i know what is going on. jonathan ferro is standing by with details. >> the stock is up primarily because we got a bead on an earnings per share basis. that came in at $2.09. the problem, profit down. more write-downs, the write-down of the value of the mining assets by $1.9 billion. the issues continue. -- heb to take over this

has inherited a lot of problems in brazil. they still haven't completed their iron ore complex. told that the first production could take place in q4 of this year. then you have south africa mining strikes taking center .tage, disrupting production 45%, that is the amount of the company's revenue that comes from the region. 20 of uncertainty right now. >> the south african president delivered the state of the nation speech yesterday. what did he have to say of the strikes? >> he is going to strike a fine balance for the mining committees and the miners themselves. a company like anglo is the biggest private-sector employer in the country. it is heavily exposed to any kind of civil unrest. it to herding cats. it is not energy -- an easy job.

>> jonathan ferro with the latest on anglo america. ,ou see dollar/rand there 10.96. >> heating and i on that. -- keeping an eye on that. germany's largest steel maker says revenues from non-steel business increased as losses from its south america business narrowed. the chief executive says thiessen group is on track for savings in this fiscal year. river levels are expected to rise again. more rain is forecast for today and tomorrow and wins are set to top 80 miles per hour. this is the wettest weather in 250 years. >> a mother winter storm is battering the eastern united states. u.s. flights have been asked. axed. payroll data may be impacted as

well making it difficult for the fed to determine signs of weakness, the weather or the economy taking a turn for the worse. >> coming up, gaining traction. growth beats estimates from germany to france. does this mean the real recovery is finally taking hold? >> we asked deutsche bank that question next. see you in a moment. ♪

>> welcome back.

it is gdp day here in europe. the eurozone numbers at the top of the hour. economists expect a 0.2% expansion. italy just beating estimates. joining us to discuss all this is john merrick, economist at deutsche bank. the question is, is the real recovery finally taking hold? let me ask you a different question. is that true? this is in a recovery, this is bouncing along the bottom. this is growth that doesn't generate any kind of return to anything like normal. this doesn't close the output gap. this doesn't do anything for europe. >> i think it is fair to say. we are basically where we are in terms of trend growth. gap, we already have a will probably stay there for a while. rebound for fragile two reasons. it is still driven by some very

contingent elements. the fact that austerity has slowed down and the eurozone, that israel but it is still dependent on where policy is going. second it is about traction. we saw that with the german figures. it seems that they were supported by very nice improvement in their trade. is the ending of growth in the eurozone really about to roar? no. probably the test for this, the litmus test is going to be credit and whether or not we are starting the next few months clear recovering credit. that would be the sign that in the end we seem to have a little bit of investment fitting in. nonfinancial companies and the credit they are taking, it is not going like that. it is going like that still.

credit availability is a big issue and it is not recovering. >> the flows are still negative. they are less negative than they were a year ago so that is positive. true that we have not seen sign that we have a complete normalization of bank behavior. thatve not yet seen signs on the corporate sector side this.re ok with we are not there yet. that ablem i think is lot of the data we have right is from the end of 2013 and that was disturbed by the looming review. you don't want to be seen as expanding your balance sheet. isyour question, the answer probably, we don't know. we might be seeing in the next

few months and normalization of credit. continue in a wait-and-see attitude. the asset quality review is creating uncertainty. we remain very prudent on the pace at which we could see acceleration in 2014. >> and ok number for france. not bad. >> not bad. >> will q1 go in the opposite direction? it seems like a volatile recovery. let's take the word "recovery" out. we are bouncing along the bottom. a nice little uptick, does that mean q1 is moving in the opposite direction? >> i don't think so. the surveys continue to point to q1. it is not stellar but it is ok. and france, the surprise we see is that everyone is obsessed with the pmi figure. it is a nice harmonized measure.

the pmi has been constantly understating actual gdp growth in france. basically since 2012. if you look at the surveys, it is actually in line, consistent with a very subdued rebound, not great, not stellar but certainly not consistent with stagnation. the kind of figures we saw this usning probably reconciled with the soft data. it remains a little bit of this apprise. if you count all the headwinds, france would do worse. if you count the fact that austerity in france is getting worse in 2013/2014 whereas in the rest of the eurozone, it is getting a bit better, if you count the fact that profitability in the corporate sector continues to be very low. what saves france is simply the fact that it is the best the ecb has.

the monetary stimulus that the ecb has been granting the eurozone is finding its way specifically in france because the banking sector is still functional and because the corporate sector can actually deal with its structural shortcomings. it is not very profitable. by simply taking more debt at a lower interest rate. it is not great but it helps you to bounce along. markets are clearly highly focused on central bank policymaking. is there a mismatch between this morning's numbers and ecb policy? >> it doesn't really help the ecb's headache at the moment because -- it happens. what you have right now is fairly nice theories of positive data on the real economy side of the equation with continuing weakness on what the eb -- ecb has called. actual inflation remains

extremely weak. the ecb has to take a very bold stand in a way. either they consider that we might have the recovery that gradually into 2014 is going to materially improve the gap so that by the end of 20 14, 2015, 2016, we see positive inflationary pressure in the system. or they consider that we are at risk of getting turned into something nasty, having an impact on people's expectations, having an impact on their willingness to take credit. obviously, based on the dataflow they have right now it is very hard for them to decide. the impossibility to decide we had last month -- actually earlier -- came with this idea that we will be able to make a decision. maybe not. >> we believe it. a was a pleasure. thank you very much for joining us.

dominates thetube space for content creators. what about those who don't want to use video? we will talk to the cofounder of a company that might he, the youtube of audio. that story coming up next. ♪

>> welcome back. europe's recovery is looking a

little less fragile. growth has beaten estimates from france and germany. the digital industry is increasing. >> companies xm clout are leading the way. david tweed is with us in berlin. over to you. >> sound clout is going to be one of the companies that does move into the factory once everything is completed. of chief technical officer soundcloud and also one of the founders, thanks for a much for coming in and speaking to us. tell us the concept behind the factory. you are going to be one of the biggest companies moving in. what is it that attracts you about this concept? >> we joined a community of companies here and i think we have sort of been together since then. we are helping each other. here in the factory we are

incarnating the concept, almost sort of a cap. we have renovated it. we're going to have three floors in the building and we are joined by some other companies as well. >> it will be interesting to see what grows out. sound cloud has to be one of the fastest-growing companies. you just received another round of financing. ballpark, it is around $60 million. is that the right sort of area? >> we don't confirms specific numbers. they are joining, we are very happy to have them on board. has put out a fantastic release about why they wanted to invest in you. will soundcloud ruled the digital audio world? they compare you to youtube. how would you say that soundcloud could be compared

with youtube in terms of changing audio? >> i think it is a fair comparison. we have a full spectrum of sound creators from big artists like justin timberlake orlando delray to small bedroom artists producing music. comedians, politicians, radio stations. it is really the whole spectrum. as a listener, you can tune into the whole world. >> eric, thank you very much indeed. alsou look on the website, i have been tweeting, you can see an interview with eric talking about what they are going to focus on with that investment they have had. it is going to be mobile, mobile, mobile. back to you. >> thank you very much indeed. our europe editor david tweed in berlin. we apologize for the poor quality of the sound during that interview. >> it is quite difficult to manage it technically. still to come, another setback for silk road.

the heist that cost the black market site millions of dollars worth of bitcoins. >> you can follow us on twitter. we will see you in a moment. ♪

>> welcome back to "the pulse" live from bloomberg's european headquarters in london. i am francine lacqua. >> i am guy johnson. u.k. construction data breaking. it rises 2% on the month, 3.6% on the year. the u.k. 2013 construction number up 1.3% versus 2012. post-floods,hat, these construction numbers are going to be all over the place. this isdering how much going to be working its way

forward from here. let's find out of the market is reacting to that. let's find out what else is going on. manus cranny at the touch screen with more. >> as well as the weather in this country is going to change everything in terms of construction and production and first quarter numbers, as you have seen in the u.s., dollar-sterling just coming back a little bit. house prices in this country across all 10 regions are at a record. first time buyers are back in the market. there is a great momentum overall in terms of what is happening. let's give you a quick reflection of what is happening in sterling year today. theget a sense of trajectory of this currency on the out right in terms of dollar-sterling. if you want to get what is happening here in europe -- euro-sterling, euro down. euro declining. the momentum in terms of sterling is really quite substantial. if you are a central bank,

you're dealing with currency challenges. if you are mario draghi, you're looking at all the data. not just mario draghi but the whole of the group. the italians pulled one out for the whole of europe. the first growth in two years. germany beat estimates, france beat estimates. the netherlands beat estimates. we are coming off a low base. that is what socgen's meshes was when they were here this morning. this is slow slow growth. it is going to have to be an awful lot worse to get the ecb to act. rhetoric is one thing. action is a completely different agenda. we wait to see what the whole of the european number is. i will break that down with you a little bit later on. shall i give you a look at the u.s. futures? do we have time for that? i am off to get some chocolate croissants. futures are lower. there you go. back to you.

chocolate croissants? >> always. thank you very much indeed. >> that manus cranny. >> it is friday. >> it is time for the bloomberg top headlines. italy's prime minister plans to resign today. enrico letta saw his own democratic party withdraw support. italy's president must now decide whether to appoint a new prime minister or call snap elections. >> japanese online retailer rakuten is buying viber. it is a $900 million for the internet phone service. rakuten's ceo hopes to create a platform for games. viber will provide a distribution channel for the content. >> another setback for silk road, bitcoins worth millions of dollars have reportedly been stolen from the black market site. silk road said hackers exploited a bug in the virtual currency.

>> let's talk more about that story. ryan chilcote joins us now. silk road recently relaunched. it had a few problems before that. >> this is coming to us from techcrunch. for those who don't know silk road, it is a site where you can buy and sell things anonymously which allows you to sell and buy illicit stuff among other things. so say the law enforcement agencies. in any case, they reported that they are a victim of a heist. more than 4000 bitcoins worth about $2 million disappeared this week. that is according to their administrator, a gentleman who calls himself defcon, keeping with the anonymous fame. he said the problem wasn't with their website's defenses. the problem he says is with the protocol of bitcoin itself. anotherite, yet reincarnation of the website will be back after they change the way that money changes

hands. no big problem, he says for the website. of course if you were one of those bitcoin holders and you are out of luck. >> you would be pretty mad. it also has huge problems for the bitcoin market. this is an industry that is, better -- that has come under so much pressure. this goes to show that it is a little bit less reliable than people thought. >> i won't bore everyone with the whole history but this week, this is the second report of a big attack focused on bitcoin. earlier we got one of those denial service attacks on bitcoin exchanges which shut them down and effectively suspended transactions. it was the same problem according to those exchanges to do with the malleability of the protocol of bitcoin. it is an issue. had tothose exchanges suspend its operations. the bitcoin holders got very

upset and went so far as to begin withdrawing their money, protesting outside of their offices in japan. if you look at the price of a bitcoin, the value of a bitcoin today it is now around $600. it has had quite these precipitous falls. all the issues it has seen have been surrounding bitcoin for some time now. >> thank you so much, ryan chilcote with the latest on this point heist. we needt love the way something physical still to hold and show. we show you pictures of people -- >> but it is not the actual bitcoin. it is a virtual currency. i wouldn't feel comfortable. i would rather have something tangible. >> right, like currencies. >> like the lira. >> [laughter] atnow it is time for a look today's hotshots. >> authorities in el salvador have been monitoring a volcanic eruption with radar equipment.

smokingt has admitted a ash column about 500 feet high. psychedelic for a friday morning. >> here is a competition that is not for the faint hearted. in england, thousands braced the extreme winter tough guy race. as well as freezing conditions and plenty of mud, the military style course includes running through fire, crawling under barbed wire and dodging electric cables. this really begs the question, why? championer formula one has announced he will compete in the new fia world rally crossed championship. it has been two years since he last raced. it looks like the 42-year-old is off to a good start. he nearly broke the record on his first time in the car. commercial --

>> they are trying to come up with rules for flying even though thousands of these things are already in the air. megan hughes has more on the unregulated drone boom. >> we are airborne. >> drones have gone mainstream. even phil dunphy has one. from his reald it estate company to spy on his son. real estate is one area where real-life drug use is widespread. drones shoot video of properties, neighborhoods and even home interiors. they are capturing surfers hanging 10 on hawaii's sure. the filmmaker of a documentary boasted about the technology. >> hm -- it can shoot from a few feet off the ground to many feet in the air. >> they are beautiful shots that may also be illegal. the faa does not permit drone

flights for commercial purposes. >> you cannot just acquire one of these vehicles and launch it into the airspace. >> but you can. that is how it works. >> i am saying that the regulation needs to say that. >> we went shopping at a drone dealership in maryland to see how easy it is to get one. >> for the one with the camera, that will be closer to the 1500 to 2000 range. >> can we try it out? all right, we have liftoff. phantombennett says the is flying off the shelves and the sales are legal. how the drains are used is someone else's problem. >> is there anything in here that is going to show me what the faa says i can't do? >> at the moment, this box will not tell you about the faa. >> while the faa is struggling o isrite guidelines, zuccar worried about crashes. >> the drone could bring down a

helicopter. >> the faa hasn't done much to enforce the commercial use ban. it sent 17 notices ordering to people to stop using drones but issued just one fine. faa did order lake made beer to stand down after an online video pitched beer delivery via drone to ice fishermen and minnesota. megan hughes, bloomberg, riverdale, maryland. -- you still don't know how to deal with it. >> you deliver beer with it. >> i guess you are allowed to. >> as we head into break, this is the pulse number, $230. that is how much money men expect their partners to spend on them this valentine's day. i hope my wife is watching. that is according to a study. women on the other hand aren't

quite so demanding. they expect around $40 less and gets. >> men are greedier. we will continue talking love and money later on in "the pulse ." head ofbe live with the an international millionaire matchmaking service. she will share her tips for romance. ♪

>> welcome back. you are watching "the pulse."

to our topt back story, the political turmoil in italy. the prime minister enrico letta plans to step down today. in the last hour, we spoke with one of the country's biggest business leaders. hisgiant eni's ceo shared views on the new italian leadership. politics are less important than they used to be 20 years ago. >> is there an italian discount when you look at your share price? does the fact of being italian with all this political uncertainty, the fact that reforms are difficult to push through, do you think that hurts your share price? i have the impression that somebody in chicago or rio de janeiro decides to sell italy. that sometimes means to sell eni as well.

company which is working not only outside of italy but outside europe as well. i don't see much discount. i think this change has been kind of expected and maybe also some people like the idea of a new leader making the reforms that our country badly needs. >> is he the right man for the job? we don't really know at the moment if he will be able to push through. he has only ever been a mayor. >> true. what i like about the man is that he has the will to do things. he wants to do things quickly, has momentum, is really a guy who wants to reform the country. sometimes to reform the country is not the way to become popular of course. when you want something badly, you are already more than

halfway to get there. >> we also spoke with eni's chief executive about his own company and asked him about maintaining investor confidence amid the difficult oil exploration environment. >> we should be able to generate cash flow in spite of the situation. reallyestors are focusing on cash flow and they want us to show that we can produce cash without increasing investments, producing oil and be able to improve our refining situation which is a real issue all over the world. >> are you concerned that growth for oil is not going to be there? we had a couple of warnings either because of shale gas in the u.s. or because of political situations in china also dropping. are you concerned that there won't be enough demand? >> for the time being, i would say so. demand is good. $108 per barrel

is a good price. we consider this a high price, not a low price. it shows that demand is there. gas is a different story because the shale gas in america could change the perspective in the world. differentialg between prices in the united andes, prices in europe prices in the far east. up. differential has gone this creates tension in the sector. >> should we look at shale gas in europe? >> i think so. i think we have no alternative. i think we can't dream of having an industrial renaissance if we pay energy three times more than america. >> that was the chief executive of italy's largest oil company, eni speaking to us earlier. >> let's get you other company news. which a telecom plans to become

the leader in all of its eastern and central european markets by 2018. the head of european markets outside germany says the company will buy assets and upgrade its network. she promised what she calls a revolution in every country. deutsche telekom blends landline with mobile networks to win customers. >> fiat's ceo says chrysler is not even close to resolving where to build its new minivans. the company is negotiating with the canadian government for loans to help it build factories in the country. marchionne has said the investment may be aliens of dollars and would be the biggest for fiat and chrysler exited bankruptcy in 2009. >> sony's playstation for has retaken the lead in the u.s. videogame console sales market. the xbox one was the december later with over 9000 units sold. its was able to replenish inventory and take a lead. >> coming up, a renewable use for everyday waste.

we speak with a company that is transforming landfill trash into electricity. that is coming up next. ♪

>> welcome back to "the pulse"

live on bloomberg tv and radio, also streaming on your tablet, your phone and bloomberg.com. in today's new energy, level waste production is increasing every year. landfills are one of the biggest producers of the harm phil -- harmful greenhouse gas methane. we have found a way to make landfill rubbish renewable by converting into electricity. here is the managing director of to-tricity. give me a sense of how this works. >> what we are doing is taking the waste after the recyclables have been taken out. there is a waste hierarchy and their is an importance of recycling. what we are doing is recovering residual energy. it is fed into a plasma gasi fier where you control the

oxygen at a tremendously high temperature. rather than burning because you're controlling the oxygen it converts to an energy gas, the energy component. and at thet up moment what we are doing is putting that into internal combustion engine generators and gas turbines. in the future, we are looking to energies come out cells byne fuel converting that into hydrogen. >> how big can this actually become? to me it makes complete sense. this is what we should be looking at. >> it depends. on an individual project basis you are probably talking about a maximum of 350,000 tons a year. there you are talking about let say 53 megawatts of electricity. once you move on to fuel cells, you are probably talking about and access of 60 or 70 watts --

megawatts of electricity. >> i imagine you are talking to investors, potential governments or councils that would be interested in this. where have you gained the most interest? >> the best market for us at the moment is thailand. u.k., we are very keen to get a project. we have a project in planning at the moment. that is just coming to the end of its first stage. good.k. isn't particularly environment for investment was there is not the certainty about what the government subsidies are going to deliver over the long term. that puts investors off. >> so you're basically focusing on thailand because of the subsidies or because there is more of an appetite? >> there is an appetite but the government has got a very clear system of subsidies and place.

you also know what you're going to get. you can actually do a business plan that tells people what their return is going to be in the long-term. that is obviously much more attractive to an investor. >> is this more for remote areas? >> no. we talking about six different projects, a number of which are in bangkok. that is where the waste is. areas of population. >> how much of the cost to do a plant? >> the plant which is being built at the moment, which we ,ad a major part in setting up million foring $350 350,000 tons a year. >> very interesting. we wish you luck. come back and give us an update. john hall, managing director of waste2tricity.

back to you, guy. >> thanks very much indeed. for those listening on bloomberg radio, the first word is up next. for our viewers a second hour of "the pulse is what we have got for you. gdp in europe, the eurozone number breaks at the top of the hour. we will analyze and break down all the figures that are important. stephen major is joining us from hsbc to do all of that. and its valentine's day. matchmaking for millionaires. is going to be joining us. you wouldn't think it would be a big demographic would you? millionaires i can't find love. apparently it is. the youngest person on the books apparently is in their early 20's. we are going to be talking about the economy. we will be talking to david tweed, our europe editor from a site called the factory. you can follow us on twitter.

forget. we will see you all in a couple of minutes' time when the second hour of2 and -- "the pulse" begins. ♪

>> italy's prime minister is expected to quit today, making way for a new government headed by his chief rival, mateo rensee. >> japanese online retailer pays $900 million for the internet messaging app. >> and a black eye for bitcoin. hackers steal millions of dollars worth of the currency from the black market website. >> good morning to our viewers in europe. good evening to those in asia. very warm welcome to those of

you just waking up in the united states. >> this is "the pulse" live from bloomberg's european headquarters in london. also coming up, match making for millionaires. >> on this valentine's day, we're going to speak to a dating agency, and their business is about helping the mega rich find love. >> hard thing to do, i'm told. >> yeah, let's talk about the breaking news we have. .3% in the fourth quarter, from the period before that was slight al head of expectations, but nevertheless, still fairly weak growth being generated by europe in comparison with the united states. >> yeah, the growth is not great, but it is better than expected. that's largely due to france's one percentage point higher than we were expecting. when you do the aggregate number, that's probably why we have the slightly higher number than expected. >> numbers out for france, germany, and italy this morning.

italy's number also revised lower. let's put it all in context and find out what it means. manus cranny joins us now, our arkets editor. the number is ok, certainly not going to set the world on fire, certainly not going to provide mario draghi with information egg didn't know before, and probably not the impetus that the e.c.b. need on the governing kinds, to do something, dare i say, radical, which would rather jump-start or ignite constructive growth in europe. he needs to actually take effect in terms of structural reform. >> the french president? > that's the french president. italy has political nuances we're going to go through, going through the debate about who's going to lead the italy. >> i just think nuances is something you nuance this morning.

>> i could say other things. the e.c.b. themselves, their overall growth, and we are in a spiral. that is a fact. what the e.c.b. will do, are they prepared to do something radical? why don't we just take that off? those are out. they're all out. >> those are forecasts. >> look, is the data enough to make the e.c.b. act, and what could they do? it's a real uplift to growth. the banks have to hold more capital. >> the only thing that the e.c.b. seems to be moving on is higher yields, which despite, you know, some fairly depressing numbers, they're not moving. >> there's also the argument because you have historically low five-year yields in italy and spain, the market is going, oh, we don't need to know

anything. we're not rating the risks. >> credit growth is still moving in the wrong direction, and you still have large parts of this economy which are suffering from, as you say, disinflation. nevertheless, what we are seeing at the moment is you're not getting the kind of -- the story. this is weak enough to do something, but not strong enough for us to say actually we think we may not have to do something. you're kind of in this middle ground. the e.c.b. said by march we're going to have data that's going to tell us what we need to do. this is not it. we're not getting the kind of convincing numbers either way at the moment, so we're ntinuing to see these data releases that are just continuing to leave us in this limbo situation. >> jack lew, the treasury secretary, sometimes what he says about europe can be quite blunt. he has a point when he said countries -- we're all a team. we're all europe. are we all europe? are the 18 countries together?

you tell me. if they are together, then there is a collective responsibility from the healthier countries to assist the weaker. isn't that what 18 countries together is supposed to be? >> well, i guess -- >> that's not where we are. we're not a fiscal union. >> no, but it's more fiscal cliff so will cal. the have nots even in a country, you are the people that are richer don't want to give it up, but that's germany. >> that's a country. >> there's an understanding the whole reason why we have the e.u. and 18 countries together is to create a single european economic bloc, and to that end, i can see where jack lew is coming from, that there is a responsibility to en concerned and help those who are not there. it's a fact of what's written. >> manus, thank you.

manus cranny, he's a little bit punchy. >> what are you talking about? >> now moving on. the italian prime minister, enrico letta, says he will resign today. our international correspondent, hans nichols, joins us live from rome. hans, will enrico letta definitely go through with this? >> yes. there doesn't appear to be any doubt that letta will resign. local press is reporting that he is going to meet with the president at 4:00 p.m. to tender his resignation officially, then renzi -- that's the formality draft. you have to think the functionality of what renzi is going to do to create a new government. he needs to make arrangements both within his party and outside of his party. he needs to have a strategy for how he's going to deal with the berlusconi center right members, what he's going to do in the senate, as well as the lower house, and then also how is he going to make sure that enrico letta isn't trying to undermine him as he puts, renzi, that is, puts forward

the initiatives that he wants to? he's indicated he wants to stay in this parliament until 2018, so no snap elections. next week he will likely face a vote of confidence in parliament. he's expected to pass that, but then after the electoral law, if the electoral law gets through, it may be a tncht environment. you could then see the government collapse, and then see early elections. we were talking to one analyst earlier, and he said it's a matter of statistics, this government will likely fall sooner than most people think. francine, guy? aurp normal for italy. this is something the italian people have gotten used to, and certainly the markets appear to have gotten used to. look, do these two need to maintain a working relationship ? i wonder whether or not that's the case. is letta still important to renzi? how does it work between these two? >> so there are a couple of

things he can do to appease letta. he can potentially make him finance minister. there's speculation about that. one of the things renzi needs to do is form his cabinet. that includes taking a new finance minister. he could also support a potential bid by letta to be president of the european commission in 2014. there's certainly -- the thing about renzi, he's 39, very young, very energetic and ambitious, but does he have the support of his own party. the question is, can he translate that support of his own party into a popular mandate? he's the third prime minister, if he does get the position to be prime minister without being democratically elected. that's really his challenge, finding legitimacy. one way to find legitimacy is to avoid any messy transition problems with letta, so in some ways, now that renzi has ousted letta, rens see in the submissive position because he needs letta on his side to make this transition a successful one.

>> hans, great stuff. thank you very much indeed. hans nichols joining us from sunny rome. >> now let's talk tech. japanese onlean retailer is buying the mobile messaging service for $900 million. let's get to ryan for more on the story. it's a big number. >> rakuten wants to go international. they're the biggest internet retailer in japan, but to get the kind of global scope they want, to get away from the sluggish japanese economy, to reduce their competition with companies like yahoo!, they need to go international. what viber has is a user base of more than 200 million users. they can add to their existing 200 million users they have at at rakuten, and they're in 193 countries. >> talk to me about rakuten. it needs to expand. i don't know a lot about them. they've taken this business

into all kinds of different areas. is eah, so the c.e.o. japan's third richest man. he's worth more than $9 billion, almost all of which comes from his 40% stake that he controls in this internet retailer. the thing is that they just reported profits today. the profits were, but they trailed estimates. one of the things they need to do is get scope. he's been slowly moving into the social media space the last couple of years am he bought a stake in pinterest, and his thing is that you can't just be an internet retail neither old classic sense, you need to provide people with a more interactive experience. for example, the kind of experience you can get if you have a voice-to-voice app, so this is part of that. that gives him a channel to distribute his digital content. it allows, because it's a really popular app in particular with young people, it allows maybe room for a game platform, and it really allows him to get the kind of scale

that i think that he feels that he needs, because if you think about this space, if this app was started by two app developers that initially saw themselves competing with sky, now there are actually a -- competing with skype, now there are actual al lot of players, so there's room for growth in voip, but also a lot of congestion. if you want to succeed, everybody agrees you got to have a lot of users. >> with what we haven't talked about are little characters. >> and that's how you make the money. you have to pay for them. it's not free, but then if you buy a smiley face or people that dance or whatever -- >> exactly. as long as it's user to user, you don't pay anything for the service. if you do call a phone number which you can now do and more directly compete with skype, that's another thing. but as long as it's user to user, it's free. how do they make the money? hey sell the stickers or etomicons. you can send this to somebody.

people do do it. i can't manl i would, but people do send it to one another, and that's good income. >> you're probably not their target audience. >> no, i think they're a bit younger. >> yeah. ryan cchilcot there. >> my kids are obsessed with stickers. anything you can stick a sticker on, they're there. what else is on our radar? yet another winter storm is battering the eastern united states. airline cancellations surge to the highest level since hurricane sandy two years ago. over 7,000 u.s. flights have been cancelled. payroll data gathering may also be impacted, making it difficult for the fed to determine the signs of weakness are due to the weather or an economy that's taking a turn for the worse. >> britain's environment agency says river levels are expected to rise again. more rain is forecast for today and tomorrow. now, winds are set to top 80 miles an hour. this is the wettest weather in 250 years. >> and we've been digging into

as ton martin's recall of nearly 18,000 luxury sport cars. it blames a japanese supplier, but that company denies any business contact with as ton martin. on top of that, it says it only does molds and the car companies make the actual parts. >> i have no idea how my company got involved in this i want. there is absolutely no such thing. we didn't produce these defective accelerator pedals at all. that company has to present evidence if it accuses us. >> there is only one man that can resolve this mystery. >> and that's hans nichols. >> he is our international man of mystery. >> still ahead -- what's on your to-do list? for sequoia, it may have been making an investment in germany. we'll look inside a start-up company, the maker of a popular to-do app.

>> match making for millionaires. we're going to speak to an elite dating agency about helping the mega rich find love. you think you would be a small demographic, millionaire who is can't find love, but it turns out there are a few out there. be ♪

>> welcome back. let's look at the current a markets. this is what we're seeing this morning. we had a series of data releases.

euro dollar, so we touched 137 earlier on. there are plenty of banks out there with targets on this one, despite the data today being a little better than expected, certainly not doing enough to degrade the output gap for the unemployment story that we have here in europe. let's take a look at cable. this is the peculiarity we find ourselves with at the moment when it comes to the british pound. it is once again on the move. we have construction data earlier on for december that was fairly strong. i suspect that's going to be the last clean number we see for a while in the u.k. construction sector as a result of the flooding we're seeing. but 1.6706 is where we are trading. >> now let's get more on g.d.p.'s numbers. this is the head of global fixed income research, thank you so much for come in. so we have these european g.d.p.'s. they're not great, but they're not bad at all. is it going to be uphill from now? >> well, it continues the trend for recent months when, in

fact, we've had upside surprises on the real g.d.p. numbers. and these are important, they're activity data numbers. it was happening through the back end of last year. but at the same time, we're getting down side on inflation, and this is confusing people, because the conventional view of the world is that real .d.p. rises, the gaps close, and inevitably inflation should go up. that's the conventional view. we're seeing something completely different. we're seeing disinflation bordering on deflation at the time when the economic data is picking up. it's good news on the one hand, but what we're seeing elsewhere is not very good. >> it's a scene that traditional theory still holds true. which one of those two sides of the equation is wrong? >> look, the traditional theory probably holds for some sectors nd regions in the world. the reason it's not working is because there's another view. there's the debt overhang view. when you've got too much debt, you have to worry about the paydown. and in real terms, those

repayments are going up because inflation is falling. and that's taking away from future growth, because people aren't able to consume -- companies aren't able to invest because of those repayments going up in real terms. and so we have to weigh the traditional cyclical view of the world against the debt i don't ever hang view. it's the reality that we face. in the last five or six years, growth has been less than anybody expected. and it's probably going to be the same for another five, 10 years as well. >> and then add on to that the risk of deflation, and that's the really scary thing. >> as each month goes by, the chance of deflation has by definition increased, because we've had many consecutive months of disinflation. and in fact, january was a disinflation because month because people were forecasting inflation that wasn't there, didn't come through, because there wasn't any pricing power to pass on the extra charges on the medical side, for example, in italy and france, it's quite clear that there was a down side surprise to inflation

compared to what was expected, and it looks like february is setting up for less inflation as well. so what will it take for the e.c.b. to start responding to this? >> ok, at the moment, the markets are kind of like, oh, we've got renzi taking over in italian politics, just another kind of change of power in italy. yields keep going. if you look at the markets and bunk laxed they are, then how the e.c.b. is going to view the situation, how does it compute? >> every room is having the conversation, because the positions are no bank has the inventory to have it in the past, so nobody wants to take on these stories. there is not a macro story, it's more regulatory one. i guess at some point something could break, and the risk is

building up in the dance. and it's true that in normal times, then we would have had some reaction to the italian politics. but actually nobody wants to take it on. >> because nobody wants to take on the e.c.b., because you're taking on the e.c.b. suspects he spoke around the corner and i'll do whatever it takes, he's lost. >> it's actually very promising because of the previous threat. excuse the acronyms. everyone knows what they are now. these are basically about liquidity and risk premium. but q.e., another acronym, would be something completely different. q.e. would be about merger policy and the deflation threat. so separating these different policies is quite important. but the danger is they all get linked, because if there was some kind of unintended consequence from q.e., which resulted in spreads widening, then that plays into the o.m.t. discussion, and it goes back to

the german court and the e.c.j. i'm full of acronyms, sorry. >> this is europe. n.f.i. is the one for the morning. >> yeah, that's just a reality. if you look at -- you kind of mention that something could break. is there a model where it doesn't break and we say this kind of not great, not bad situation, but deflation really starts taking hold, how this becomes japan. >> something's going to break in a matter of months, because the volatility is quite low compared to where the risk premium is building up, and we analyze things like term premium compared to policy, and this gap is widening, very unusual. this time last year we would have been talking about the italian election, which happened at the end of february, and that election was a big event. yields went up 50 basis points the day after, and the berlusconi effect was critical

for the coming months, so all the way through the summer really. and right now we could have the same thing, because what's happening is really unusual. >> buy or sell 10 years from now? >> well, i would be, for the short term, still long, and i think that just based on the spread and nothing much can happen in the near term. but looking at further out, you wouldn't to want run this into the summer. >> thank you so much for all of that. hsbc's head of global fixed income research with a warning there, something will break at some point. >> coming up -- meet the lady who helps the rich find love, a millionaire match maker joins us in a valentine's day special segment. tune in for that. ♪

>> welcome back to "the pulse." time for a quick stock check. thyssenkrupp, they beat on the numbers. they got a business in america. the loss goes crunch, from 122 millions euros to just under 17 euros. savings on target, and they're moving directly on. anglo american, earnings beat. this is the south african miner. earnings beat 2.7 billion euros. and taking it right down to 1.9 billion in terms of writedowns. market finally taking it on the

chin at anglo american. two stocks on the move. stay with "the pulse," and you can find out all you need to know about love and dating in the new age. ♪

>> welcome back to "the pulse." live from lone dorning i'm francine lacqua. >> and i'm guy johnson. and these are the bloomberg top headlines. >> italy's prime minister plans to resign today. enrico letta saw his own democratic party withdraw its support and turn to his chief rival, matteo renzi, the mayor of florence. italy's president must now decide whether to appoint a new prime minister or call snap elections. also this morning, italy's economy registered its first quarterly growth since 2011. yet another winter storm is

battering the eastern u.s. airline cancellations in the nation surged the most since hurricane sandy two years ago. more than 7,000 u.s. flights have been axed. february payroll data gathering may be impacted as well, making it difficult for the fed to determine if signs of weakness are due to the weather or an economic taking a turn for the worse. and staying on storms, britain's environment agency says river levels are expected to rise again with more rain forecast for today and tomorrow. the commuter towns west of london had a brief respite yesterday after more than two months of downpours. the new storm brings rain and winds expected to top 80 miles per hour. guy, over to you. >> yeah, looking forward to that. now, the investigators of google and apple have just made its first german bet. just last year, they invested $19 million in the software startup.

its task manager program has been rated the best app of 2013 by apple's app store, and our europe editor, david tweed, now reports. >> i'm the chief technology officer for wunderkinder. these are the maker of wunderlist, a productivity tool that helps you manage your life and business. basically everyone writes a list, and that's kind of the idea then. we see the list metaphor as something that's applicable to just about anything, anything up to the get done or need to get done. we take something that has inherent the -- or historically been difficult and complicated, and we make it simple and beautiful for users. we are growing very quickly, have over six million users now. our daily activity is increasing even faster than our user base, so we have very

active engaged users. our users are all over the world, basically anyone can and does use wunnderlist. >> well, david joins us now from berlin in a tech hub called the factory. wunderkinder's chief technical officer. >> i'm happy to be with them. he's got 360,000 twitter followers. it's not bad for a tech geek. he was one of the original contributors to ruby, a computer language which is now used to power up quite a few web sites, including twitter at one stage. thanks very much indeed for coming to talk to us. i want to ask you about, a year ago, you decided to come to berlin. what is it about berlin that attracted you? >> well, as a child of the 1980's, i've always been fascinated by the whole wall

that we're now standing next to. but i actually received an anonymous message from a recruiter about coming to berlin for a c.p.o. job. i love the city. i always have. my wife and i have. it's just international. it feels like it's still growing, which is a beautiful thing. but then i found out that the company that was hiring was the makers of wunderlist, which we were happy users of already, so we kind of said this is the line in an amazing way. they really obviously get product development. they know how to make beautiful products, came over, met the team, and it was even better than i expected. >> let's talk about that, because you received an important investment from sequoia. ou described them as the dream investor. why? >> they're one of the formative investors of our industry. they've invested in a lot of the early successes in the

types of industries that have shaped what we do now. not only that, they're also investors in a couple of companies, other companies that are very similar to us in scope. michael morris, who was our leader investor and the chairman of is he quoir i can't, described us with evernote and drop box as three legs of a stool. so we feel that we go really well together with those two companies. >> it's all about productivity, applications now. you've got $19 million from them. what are you going to do with that money? is it something you really want to try to start to accelerate your growth? >> absolutely. this is our series b, and like most companies that go into a series b, it's all about growth. we've been focusing for the last three years on building what we think is as perfect as possible of a product, simple, beautiful, gets out of people's way and allows them to do what they want to do. what we want to do now is expand the use of that. last year we had apple. we have over six million users.

our ambition is to get to 100 million users over time. >> when i look at that app on my phone, it is very, very simple. how important is that simplicity in terms of the whole product? >> it's maybe the most important feature of the product. in fact, we're working on a jor version, wunderlist 3, that should come out in the next couple of moss. it will essentially add no more users. the only thing added is increased use of speed. >> you've written a book, "the passion of programmer." this is a message about how to market themselves. what's the one point that a programmer should take out of that? >> i guess the main point of the book is that programmers create for themselves a product, and they can think of it that way. they've operate in a business context, and as programmers, we

are tempted to think behalf we do as an art or craft, but we have to make it work in a business context. >> that's the advice for programmers who happen to be watching from chad thomas. guys, back to you in the studio. ted fowler, he should say. >> i was wondering. yes, chad fowler there. he's the chief technical operator. all that money that my dad spent on german school, there you go. i can say the c.e.o. >> finally come good. ok, let's move on. david tweed, thank you very much indeed. another step back, bitcoin's worth millions of dollars, and it was reportedly stolen. they exploited a bug in the currency. ryan joins us now to talk about all of this. they just got back on their feet, some would say. what happened and what went wrong? to do , i mean, this has with silk road 2, one of the numerous successors.

it's pretty resilient, so it's probably not the end of things for them. civil road is a website where you can buy and sell things anonymously, and it's attracted a lot of attention for from law enforcement officials, because that includes things like illicit drugs. earlier they reported that they were the victim of a heist, as you say, more than 4,000 bitcoins, just over $2 million worth of bitcoins at today's value, because it's always changing for bitcoin, and usually going down. those disappeared. the administer came out, a gentleman who calls himself def con and said the problem wasn't with their website defenses, the problem was with bitcoin's protocol and that silk road would be back yet again and another successor as soon as bitcoins ut how change hands. maybe not too much of a problem for silk road, but i think we're starting to see some real issues with bitcoin, if nobody had noticed. exactly n, this is

that bitcoin has come under so much pressure from so many sides, and this just adds to fuel to the critics that say, look, this currency doesn't ake sense. >> this is really what you have to worry about, because you can't just take your money out of the bank machine, right? this is the second time this week that bitcoin, a virtual currency, have been targeted. there are bitcoin exchanges targeted earlier in the week. they suffered what's called a distributed denial of service attack. it's what they call male ability that was attacked. that was the part of their protocol. nd it caused all these problems, including one of the bigger ones in japan. the users of bitcoins there got really upset. they started to pull them out, they even started protesting

outside of their office in japan. and so, you know, it's just yet another sort of symptom of the problems that we've seen with bitcoin, though bitcoin goes on. but the they're reflected in the value of bitcoin, which is now about $600, which is a lot less than it was worth not too long ago. >> ryan there with the very latest on this bitcoin heist. in just 20 minutes, "surveillance" with tom keene, who joins us from new york with a preview. tom, you'll be looking at bitcoin and italy, am i right? >> francine, happy valentine's day. >> oh, i feel so special. thank you, tom. >> it's a trans atlantic valentine for francine lacqua. francine, the fallout from the merger of time warner cable into the larger comcast, boy, is washington pushing back. we'll talk to our peter cook about the merger, but much more importantly, marshall will join us. this is a guy knee deep in the m&a business. you heard martin soro yesterday

on "bloomberg surveillance" talk about all the cheap money out there. we'll talk to marshall sonenshine about the myriad constituencies pushing back against brian roberts this morning. i can tell you there's huge diverse pushback to comcast time warner. as well, we'll look at champagne. it is valentine's day, and francine, we may look at cocoa prices, and i can't remember right now, was there something else on valentine's day? it's a valentine's day extravaganza here at "surveillance." >> i know, so we have a great guest coming up, tom, and, of course, you're our valentine, so this is something you'll have to tune in. this woman basically has match making for only millionaires, and yet you have 50,000 to 60,000 pounds to find your perfect love, mega millionaires, mega love. >> well, i look forward to watching that from a distance, because i'm surely not going to be calling. seriously, they're going to do

a really interesting article about the disruption in the diamond business. this is big news. >> all right, we're looking for that as well. tom, thank you so much. ming up, you told me happy valentine's day, so that would be pretty cute. there we go, we had it. you looked great, tom. now let's take a look at how trending.arkets are >> equity markets not bad, and over the past five days, london and globally equity markets have pulled it back from the brink. e lost about $3 billion in the drop in equity markets. london is up. actually italy is one of the best performers on this map so far this week. it's up over 1%. t's a shocking zone. the autos and cars doing quite

nicely. we've got growth. you'll take growth wherever it comes, depending on what the europe cran central banks do next. sterling, what a cracking run sterling has had. this is the euro declining today and gaining in strength, .8199. it's when you begin to look at dollar sterling, and we're up a third of 1% right now. there you go. touch it gently, it works. we've had the best week, the best week since june of last year. dollar-sterling, the momentum is touching levels we haven't seen since may 2011. construction numbers pretty good relative to what we saw in the g.d.p. report, the momentum behind sterling is the 1.6703. the other day i said 1.70 is where you see it. good old sterling. back to you. >> manus, thank you very much indeed, working our way through the markets. let's get today's valentine's day pulse number.

$230. >> that's how much money men expect their partner to spend on them for valentine's day. that's according to a recent study by chase card services. women, guy, on the other hand, aren't quite as demanding. >> they only expect $190 to be spent on them. that's quite a lot of money. >> yeah, but what the men want. coming up, we'll talk valentines. we'll continue talking love and money. we're live with the head of an international millionaire match making service. she'll share her tips for romance. ♪

>> welcome back to "the pulse" live from london on bloomberg tv. >> on valentine's day. it is certainly valentine's day. we just established it with tom keene if you weren't watching. when it comes to love, sometimes it's a case of more money, more problems. we're joined now by a woman who aims to solve that. the global director of match making service -- it's a match making service to pair the ultrarich who can't find love ith the love of their lives. good morning. good morning. >> good morning. happy valentine's day. >> happy valentine's day. >> yes. >> and you're wearing the right color. >> yes, we spoke to you last year, and your business hasn't grown, so it is difficult for i guess people in general -- >> the numbers.

>> it's difficult to find love, especially if you're a millionaire, is that right? >> not really. >> that's what you're there for. >> exactly. no, everybody can find love, right? and what we offer is a service to give you a little push over the ladder. that's what we do. and yes, there is a price tag with that. but, you know, it's not -- i suppose you pay a certain sum of money, we give you -- it's a key. it's a golden key to finding the people that you might not ordinarily meet in your day-to-day life. >> ok. let's just explain t. i'm a millionaire. i like to play that game for a while. i can't find the love of my life. i'm thinking, how on earth am i going to do this? how does it work? >> ok, so come in, have an interview. we sit down, and we talk about who you are, what you want, the kind of girl you want to meet, everything about you, what you like, what you don't like is

very important, right? then we discuss the logistics, because it's london, europe, or global. because now european membership is on the up and up, because people travel all over europe now to meet each other. it's very easy. you hop on any plane, any train, and you could meet someone in a flash. and what we do is we put you with people that we feel are suitable to what you have described to us. and you just basically you meet them, see how you get on, give me the feedback, and we put that feedback then into the next case. and little by little, we find your perfect girl. >> but are there fears that millionaires that others don't, is she or isn't he after my money? does it come into play, or is it like a dating website, but it's for people that have more money? >> well, it's a personal introduction agency, which means that we meet everybody that come in to see us, because nothing is web based, right? i don't think it's about being a millionaire.

i think that people are more interested in finding someone that care about them and not about their money. you can have a prenup, can't you? >> that's a very good point. >> yeah. i don't know, i mean, it's really unroe man particular, right? >> on valentine's day, you're talking about. the numbers, you were talking about having offices in various parts of europe. >> yes. >> i read the note this morning. you've got a 60% plus pickup in membership. you've now got eight offices in europe. you've got plans for more. did you expect it to get this big this quickly? >> i didn't. and i'm absolutely delighted with the result of the european expansion, because we have had enormous success with our european offices. so we now have seven offices in europe, and we hopefully think that by the end of the year we'll number singapore, hong kong, l.a., and new york. but there's a huge demand for the service. because i think because of -- people are not that into social

-- social media is fine, but i think the whole -- you can just delete the person, can't you, on the online dating, yes. we'll meet you, we'll talk to you, you tell us, and then you know who you're meeting. it's more personal. >> on valentines, a lot of people will have their first date tonight. what are your top picks? i think we have them up. yeah, we have them up. first of all, be natural. >> be natural. >> you have to be natural, be yourself. >> and men should definitely not talk about themselves all night, because a lot of them do. i think there's the nerves. be true to your feelings. don't let money lead to ego. it's quite good. it's always nice to flatter the lady and ask her about her life and herself to make her feel important. right? and take compliments. >> when you even speak to c.e.o.'s, we had the c.e.o. on yesterday and he was saying chris ma, you know, it's flattery, it's thinking you're

the only person in the room. >> well, it's about making somebody feel special, isn't it, and important, and that they count. >> you're very straight. let me ask you a question. security, how much money do you spend on security? the people that come to you probably don't want to have it advertised to a wide audience that they are -- >> looking for love. >> you mean confidentiality. >> yeah, security, confidentiality. is that a big part of your business? >> huge, huge. we never reveal identities. so if i was introducing you to francine, i would say i have this really lovely guy, he's called guy and he works in the media. you have to protect the people. we have contracts. >> i can't hack your system? >> no, no, no. not at all. we don't run our -- we don't run our match making business on software. we don't do it. >> ok. >> do you know what i mean?

it's a very good question, yeah, yeah. >> thank you so much for that. fascinating. mairead molloy. see you in a couple of minutes. ♪

>> welcome back. let's take a look at some of the currencies on the move this morning. this is euro-dollar. it's 1.3694 is where we're currently trading. generally the data has come through a little better than anticipated, certainly from the

eurozone on the front of -- when it comes to g.d.p. nevertheless, as we heard earlier, this summer could prove a crunch point once again for the eurozone. >> now, our international correspondent, hans nichols, joins us to give you what you need to know for the rest of the trading day. hans, italy's prime minister is set to resign today. >> he's set to resign at 4:00 p.m. the more crucial question is, when and how quickly and in what shape does matteo renzi's new cabinet take shape. will he appoint letta as his finance minister? what's it going to look like and will the public abide by the third unelected prime minister in some two years? francine, guy? >> all right, let's talk about what's happening with president obama today, meeting king abdullah. tell us about that meeting. >> he leaves snowy washington. he flies out to california to one of his favorite summit sites. it's where he met the chinese

president last year, squeezed in two rounds of golf this time. will he play golf with abdullah? i don't know how he is on the links. we'll see. >> hans, we certainly will. thank you so much. that's it for "the pulse." keep it right here on bloomberg tv. ♪

>> the pushback begins against the consolidation of cable industry. -- whathires a lobbyist

is in it for scott underwood? scarlet fu has already watched the first episode of "house of cards was quote season two. and diamonds are forever at least on valentines day. i am so cynical, it is sick and terrible. >> happy valentine's day. >> this is "bloomberg surveillance." we are live from world headquarters in new york. it is valentine's day. i'm tom keene. joining me are scarlet fu and adam johnson. adam, happy valentine's day. thank you. give me a brief. what have we got? >> feeling the love. >> happy valentine's day, thank you bit >> time for the morning brief. overnight the euro area economy expanded more than forecast in the final quarter of 2014 -- 2013, easing pressure. and little bit of good news. euro gdp up about 0.2%, and here in the u.s., our gp -- gdp is