alix: it's coming up on 4:00 here in new york. this is the "bloomberg market day" and i'm alix steel. [closing bell ringing] alix: stocks closing with the dow off by about eight points and the nasdaq is in positive territory, up at five, the only brighter spot a mistake. i'm joined now by joe weisenthal.

it was a pretty doll day in the markets, but sectors were actually moving. tech up by .5% and utilities and consumer discretionary down, which was interesting because we had that weaker retail sales report and lots of things lower their. department store sales, car sales, furniture, electronics, that was lower, weighing down the consumer discretionary. joe: it makes sense that consumer discretionary was week because of that load number. we will have to wait longer. there were some bright spots in the retail sales number. i was particularly interested in people going to restaurants and bars. it was a strong number. people don't go out to restaurants and bars unless they are feeling pretty good.

so it is hard for me to believe that with numbers like these and the consumer sentiment numbers we have seen that the consumer is as bad as some of these headline numbers are showing. alix: and we should point out that they are going to eat in restaurants and bars but they are not shopping at grocery stores. we just don't know where they were eating -- was it mcdonald's? joe: it's always tough to extrapolate from one data point. alix: we have shake shack earnings out. julie is watching those. julie: total revenue up 56%. i said this was their first report as a public company -- it is the second. that compares with $34 million that analysts were expecting. comparable sales were up 11 point 7%, which would be much higher than the 5.1% estimated. i'm looking also for the per-share loss figure because the company is still reporting losses.

it actually reported earnings if you exclude items. an unexpected profit, at least unexpected by analysts here. the company said that for the year, it's revenue will be between 161 million dollars and $165 million. a lot of the questions with the company have been about its margins outside the new york city market, so i will see if there is more information on that. alix: in terms of evaluation, is it worth the valuation that it gets? this dovetails with what we were talking about -- consumer sentiment is higher, close to its pre-recession lows. that's not something we have seen in a long time. we are very close to where we were three years ago and seeing that reflected in certain types of names.

joe: it's hard to believe it has been that rough of a start for the year for the consumer. shake shack may not be the best way to mark that. the high-end consumer has done much better than everyone else. it would be dangerous to look at these last few consumer spending numbers and extrapolate a little too much. alix: there was also the weather and all of that. another thing affecting the markets is m&a. that's the latest we have seen and what's curious to me today is that danaher is up. joe: i always thought that was a weird yellow or red flag and you see acquiring companies and their stock is up. but i have seen that much more lately and i've always wondered

whether that's a side we are getting closer to a top. when you see a lot of deal activity and investors acquire so quickly -- in the old days, i always feel like the acquirer always felt. but that's less the case these days. alix: and another thing to point out in terms of sentiment -- the top 1% are spending. the robin hood foundation raising -- i can't even say it -- $101 million. a picasso painting selling for almost $180 million, setting a world record. the 1% is spending cash. joe: this week is a mind blowing a week for ultra rich people splashing out money. there was the record-breaking picasso auction and the next night another massive auction and in the robin hood gala as someone anonymously donated $25 million.

one of my favorite charts is the shares of versus the s&p 500. you can see a great peak in the late 90's right before the housing bubble and then a crash. it's less tight these days but the general theme is when we are in a room and bubble, look at the auction houses and you will see it there. alix: we also want to have another data point for that -- square footage in manhattan real estate is going for more money, over $2000 and climbing. we have some breaking news on cisco -- earnings are out. julie: not too many fireworks year as john chambers appears to turn the reins over to chuck robbins as ceo of the company. their earnings per share coming in a penny ahead of estimates. chambers did give some color around this with and announced his pending departure recently. the company's revenue bang in line with estimates. that represents a rise of 5%.

he makes some comments in the statement here, saying the company is in a strong position, the vision and strategy are working, and he talks about having been honored and proud to have led the company for the past 20 years. not a lot of fireworks coming from these cisco numbers as they prepare for that big transition. also jcpenney has come out in the past few moments. i'm going to call that up while i'm looking at the earnings here. that company has come out with an adjusted loss per share of $.57, a smaller loss than had been anticipated. jcpenney has been trying for several years to turn its business around, ever since the post ron johnson time. comparable sales up 3.4%, almost in line with estimates. it looks like the company is raising its forecast as well, so

waiting for details on what that new forecast will be. slow and steady progress on the part of jcpenney. alix: i want to bring in stephen newman, former ceo of loeman's. boosting its forecast, wanting to get to 6% sales, how do they do that? guest: jcpenney is in their turn around and they are doing a good job of getting their customers who they pissed off to come in and look at them. other people who have to keep going after business every month, every day, every year versus trying to get back the share they lost, it's hard for the gauge how much they are going to increase on a daily, monthly, weekly basis. but their numbers were so bad, they get a pass for this next

year or two. alix: what was interesting is that gross margins incrementally increased, surprising for a retail environment built around low prices. steven: when you see prices that are being advertised, they are not losing money 99.9% of the time. they are putting out the price they negotiated at their margin, so i'm not surprised the margins are good, otherwise they would not be built to pay their rent and pay their advertising. that's all built-in ahead. alix: in terms of who they wind up getting market share, do they steal it from macy's or are they winning back their own customers or are they expanding to new customers?

steven: let's remember they lost billions and billions of dollars in business. those customers went somewhere. they had the benefit for a couple of years of getting, sales and retail sales and getting more money because the customer was going to them. jcpenney's is getting back some of their customers. maybe they will, but time will tell. alix: john butler joining us from princeton on those cisco numbers. you had a few minutes to look through them. julie says no fireworks. what stood out to you? john: it's a relatively in-line quarter for cisco but a good showing. this is a company that not too long ago was actually struggling a bit too really grow that topline. i'm anxious to hear where the strong points were. i think all eyes are going to be

on that management change coming up in july. as we heard not too long ago, john chambers is stepping down as ceo. chuck robbins will be taking his place in my hope is on the call, we may hear a bit about the upcoming transition, but as for the quarter itself, decent topline number, bottom line beat by a penny and it was on strong margins. pricing was good or the product mix was good or both. alix: i also want to point out gross margins -- actually rising to 52.5%. lots of numbers coming outcome a very busy day. and thank you for being here. great perspective to have on jcpenney. "bloomberg market day" will be right back. ♪

alix: welcome back to the "bloomberg market day." i'm alix steel. in philadelphia, a break through for investigators looking into last night's amtrak crash. ntsb investigators have recovered the black rock state recorders and have taken them to amtrak's operating center. the mayor held a press conference earlier. >> what we have to stay focused on is making sure we are searching every car, every inch, every thousands of square feet to find or locate individuals that may have been on that train.

alix: the train was traveling at 100 miles an hour, twice the speed limit. the trains engineer has been treated in question by police. shareholders at dupont rejected an attempt to get on the board. he proposed splitting dupont into two to make more value. tv maker visio could be going public later this year. the company is already interviewing banks. they are known for low price flat panel televisions and have moved into other consumer electronics. they are said to have more than a billion dollars in revenue. president obama may be a step closer to getting the legislature necessary to expedite the approval of trade agreements. both sides have reached an agreement.

mitch mcconnell says the bill will be open to amendments and is requesting votes on the bill tomorrow. bonds are on the mind of every single equity investor in with the selloff resuming, sending 10 year yield even higher. is this fight just getting started? joining me is the global market strategist for jpmorgan fund. the bond route has been on all of our minds. what is your prediction for how long it lasts? guest: i think it is a temporary issue. this is going against the objective the ecb established. they wanted to press the 10 year yield below the rate of

inflation. if you do that, he president to negative territory and that's why if you are a borrower, you go and borrow that money. i think, june 3. it's a critical date. it's the next day of the ecb governing council meeting. this is not a new trend. i think it is a temporary hold back, a correction, but not a reversal of the larger trend. guest: so it's a great light to go buy stocks on the euro stoxx 600? anastasia: that sounds like a dangerous proposition but i would still be optimistic on european equities. no doubt they have to meet certain objectives and have to show earnings growth to follow through the confidence investors have given to european stocks. i would still i and use this opportunity to add to risky assets in europe. alix: in the u.s., with cisco

earnings are out. it does signify how these big tech companies like cisco and microsoft have to change in a industry that is quickly changing. anastasia: john chambers did an interview where he was very optimistic on the sector and i completely understand why. what tech is going through right now is not just the cyclical tail end because companies are using cash flow to upgrade their technology, but it also going through a secular tailwind. we want all things digital and we want it all the time. when you think of a company like cisco, maybe it's boring and has been around for a while. but it is the piping, the infrastructure, so even in the case of cisco and companies that have been around for sometime, there's definitely some interest for investors. alix: you like the big change intact and you like european stocks. anastasia: we talked earlier about retail sales and i think looking at the retail number is underwhelming or even

misleading. but if you start dissecting through the number, one area that stood out for me are audits. if you look through retail sales, what you want to do is go with the earnings flow. autos absolutely have that. think about the business the autos are in. you have a consumer where one place they are willing to spend is on autos. but if you are an auto manufacturer, all of those costs, the oil used for plastic, the iron ore and steel, it all tremendously discounted, so that bodes well for margins for those companies. alix: it's a pleasure to get your perspective. global market strategist at jpmorgan funds.

at shake shack, investors are happy over the company's earnings. this continues the run in the stock that has more than tripled since debuting in january. we will be right back. ♪

alix: welcome back to the "bloomberg market day." shares of delta fell today thanks to -- they will increase their dividend by 15%. matt miller spoke with the president and ceo of qatar airlines. matt: the big news is if you are holding shares, you are going to get some money back. they're boosting their dividend and i spoke with the president this morning and he said they

make eight billion dollars here and they're using it not only to return cash to shareholders but reinvest in their fleet. the other big news today is a story that has been ongoing this year. at one point, u.s. carriers got together and did an investigation. a lot of reporting and found the middle east carriers, the gulf carriers are getting 42 billion dollars in what the u.s. carriers call subsidies from their government owners. of course they are all owned by their local governments. in response, the gulf carriers say we found some wikileaks documents that show you get 155 alien dollars in subsidies since 1914. i asked about that and here was his response. guest: that's totally false. those are investments the u.s. government made in building and the structure and we are taxed on that. we are the most heavily taxed

industry in the country. we pay 20% of our revenues to fund the government, the faa and the investment in infrastructure. that is certainly not true. matt: so he denies those are subsidies. the gulf carriers deny they get subsidies. a take an equity stake and invest in the company they own. the problem is with emirates, they show results and make profits and make money. we are not sure if qatar airlines is actually making money because they don't release the results. i asked if they get a decent return on their investment. guest: we are making very eason returns on our investment, not as much as the american carriers. we are buying new airplanes to fuel our expansion and yes, we don't always have a 100% load factor, but the load factors

that we have with efficient operating cost of other airlines. we are doing very well as an airline. matt: a very interesting response. maybe we will eventually see the numbers, but right now they are not releasing. alix: doesn't this go to show these airlines are competing for a shrinking part of the pie? matt: people are willing to pay money to fly in certain sectors. you may not be willing to pay to fly from here to washington dc and it will be a miserable experience no matter with him you fly, but you are willing to pay money if you are flying to

london or tokyo because you want to have a better experience. the interesting angle here is these guys, and this ties in with your commodities fascination, these guys are doing this so when this region of the world runs out of oil money, they will have a viable industry and they are really dominating on the long haul international flight category. not are they only investing in planes, spending hundreds of millions of dollars with boeing and airbus, but they are spending billions and billions of dollars in their infrastructure. if you put laguardia airport next to an airport in abu dhabi, it would be more embarrassing than it is just to walk into laguardia. alix: what does that say about middle eastern carriers getting into the united states? matt: delta and the u.s. carriers are not going to allow that. that would threaten u.s. jobs and maybe national security, so they will do everything they can to stop it. alix: i like how you brought it back to oil and the whole thing. that wraps it up for "bloomberg market day." i'm alix steel. have a wonderful day, everyone. ♪

announcer: from our studios in new york city this is charlie rose. charlie: tom brokaw is here. he formed part of the big three network news anchors along with dan rather and peter jennings. she continues to report for nbc news as a correspondent. he has also become a special correspondent. journey describes his in 2013.cancer i am pleased to have him back at this table.