one of the top issues they will discuss is the proposed u.s. nuclear deal with iran. saudi's king turned down an invitation. betty: the sound of that's the founder of medical floated, we will hear what he says about his legal struggles. kim kardashian is having success on many fronts, including her own mobile game. we will hear from her coming up. betty: good afternoon. i am here with mark crumpton and let us start with a look at what is moving in the equity markets right now. looks like investors like the economic numbers this morning.

jobless claims coming to a 15 year low. inflation tame. dow up almost 100 points. the s&p up by 1%. nasdaq is flying at 1.2%. mark: we begin with breaking news. let us go to julie hyman. julie: we have now heard directly from the company which says it has not received any kind of offer from this company the earlier put out a statement that says had made a bid for avon. it hasn't been able to confirm ptg exists and neither have we despite putting in calls to numbers on the filing. we called the real estate owner on the address and there is no such tenant that exists there. avon says it has not been able to confirm such an entity exists and it is making these comments in an e-mail statement.

the securities and exchange commission is set to review the legitimacy of the offer as well. that follows unconfirmed filing of the takeover bid. very curious or as betty earlier called it a bizarre situation that we have been monitoring today. one of the reasons it initially seemed to be legitimate is is is something that has been speculated upon for some time that avon would sell itself or perhaps sell its north american business. one of the red flags for this particular offer was that the bid was made at $18.75, 180% higher than avon's close yesterday. to put it in context, it is down 15% over the past year. if you look at the shares, we saw the spike after the filing came out. there were a bunch of halts because of volatility. shares are still up about 3.5%. what is interesting is we saw

this ripple effect throughout other cosmetic companies. they also sparked and then came back down. from revlon to estee lauder, we saw similar action in those shares after the filing came out. going up and then coming right back down. betty: let us hope it doesn't set a president on how to get stocks higher with something like this. [laughter] thank you so much, julie. let us get a look at the other top stories at this hour. the death toll from the amtrak crash is now at 8. investigators plan to talk to the train's engineer. 106 mileswas going per hour, more than double the speed limit, just before it derailed. he remembers reducing his speed before the crash. the fatal crash points out a need for automatic braking systems installed on the tracks. amtrak's ceo says it will be in place before the end of the year.

he also expects full service on the northeast quarter by tuesday. american airlines is making additional fights available between new york and washington in the meantime. mark: five people including an american artist following a taliban attack on a popular guest house and kabul, afghanistan. the attackers held hostages for seven hours before being killed by police. this is the first taliban attack on foreign civilians since they declared the start of the annual spring offensive. in nepal, a u.s. marine helicopter is still missing two days after it disappeared while on an earthquake relief mission. the helicopter was delivering aid in an area hit hard by both the quake that struck last month and the one earlier this week. six marines were on board, along with two people from the ball -- from thnepal. betty: bloomberg news found

repeated examples of pilots of solo jets skipping safety checks, working extremely long hours or overlooking basic hazards. in the last 15 years, there have been five times more fatal accidents on high and turboprops and corporate jets than on commercial passenger planes. that is a look at the top stories at this hour. president obama holding the gulf corporation summit in camp david, maryland. officials from bahrain, kuwait, oman, qatar, saudi arabia, and the uae are there. only qatar and kuwait sent their top leaders. iran.the key issue is many arab states are concerned about the security applications of a possible deal to curb iran's nuclear program. joining us now from washington, william cowan, now the founder of the cowen group. welcome. it is good to see you again. the top issue we have mentioned is iran. what are the concerns that the saudi's in particular have of a

possible nuclear deal with the iranians. william: they are very concerned as they should be. if you look at what iran has been doing over the last decade or two, they have been destabilizing the region. they have been promoting terrorist activities. they are very revolutionary and expressionists -- and expansionists. i have in building up the forces in lebanon. -- they have been building up the forces in lebanon. the have been destabilizing parts of yemen. they are in iraq in a major way now. all of the gulf states have a lot to be concerned about with what iran has been doing in the general region, not just the nuclear issue. this is what they will be conveying to president obama pressure. the nuclear issue is important but it has to be taken into context with what iran is doing

on a conventional or nonconventional basis in terms of terrorist activities. betty: a key to this is going to be saudi arabia and what their response and what they want out of this as well. the king will not be attending, which we have already been discussing for quite some time. what can be done at this summit given that most of the leaders there are not the top officials? most of the leaders who are there are the ones that make decisions involving their national security. example, the one from united arab emirates arab emirates makes decisions pertaining to the security of the uae. he is very important to be there. his brother has been ill for some time so he will be the key person. i don't think we should look at whether it is the head of state that will make the difference.

this deal has already been cut. the gulf countries going there will not modify it to any degree at this point in time. what they are looking for is what are the facts? what is in the black box or the lockbox so to speak? what are we going to do in terms of compensating the gulf state so they can defend themselves? what kind of equipment intelligence sharing is the united states prepared to provide those gulf states because they know what iran will do. the third thing is to look at saudi arabia. i think they will go forward and eventually develop their own nuclear capability to match that of iran. they are there on an information gathering process but they will not change anything at this point. mark: these reports we have been hearing throughout the media including here of tension between the u.s. and saudis, is that being overblown? william: i don't think so. i think there is a real disconnect. not publicly.

as far as the public posture is we are the long-term allies, but privately there is great concern. there is some level of distrust. feel we haveaudis been negotiating behind closed doors and making a deal with iran and looking to iran as a major partner in the future presuming or assuming iran will modify its behavior, which the saudis and others do not believe will be the case. betty: another issue is syria. many people have said the .resident mishandled syria has that undermine his credibility when he is negotiating with the arab states ?i think it is a factor to consider. william: anytime you draw a redline and walk away from it, that causes people to question what your commitment will be.

that was a tipping point in terms of the level of trust or confidence that people have in the u.s. secondly, don't forget about russia. we had secretary kerry meeting with president putin. he must be wearing the grin of a chest higher cap because having destabilize much of ukraine and crimea and supplying aside in syria with weapons, now agreeing to sell missiles to iran and now looking forward to sanctions being lifted. iran gets $150 billion and can buy more russian equipment. secondly, by setting a precedent by reducing sanctions, they say what about me? why are there sanctions on me? mark: we have about 30 seconds left. i have to ask, the level of concern we are seeing in the middle east, is this one of the few times you can remember and your public career where you have arab states and gulf states and the state of israel actually

aligned with concerns about the iranians? william: it is. if there is any good news it is that the gulf states are now starting to measure up to their gcc, the gulf coordination council. they are starting to act on a more regional basis. that's a good thing. it is good that they are now looking at how they can have cooperation to counter that of anticipate will try to expand its influence throughout the region. mark: former u.s. secretary of defense, always a pleasure. thank you for your time. betty: still ahead, will the windy city go the way of motor city? chicago's credit rating has been cut. we look at how the city can avoid falling into bankruptcy. ♪

betty: welcome back. mark: let us go straight to julie hyman with a look at the markets right now. julie: what have to mention what is going on with the s&p 500 right now. on a closing basis, it has surpassed its previous record. in other record for the s&p 500 as it rises about to its highest of the session. we are now up about 9/10 of 1%. of 2118,he row number surpassing the prior closing record that we had. depends on whether we hold steady at these levels today. we should mention we have not surpassed the intraday record. we will keep an eye on that. .95. would be 2120

in terms of what is doing the best today, technology, consumer staples, health care, and materials all helping lead the game. you look at the three major averages, all of them are trading higher. a pretty broad-based game today. mark: thank you so much. chicago is facing a financial storm. the windy city's credit rating has been cut to junk as it faces unfunded engine liabilities. ken rahm emanuel save the city from going bankrupt? joining us from chicago, tim johnson. -- tim jones. $20 billion. mark: how did it get to that point? got to that point by basically deciding not to pay annual pension payments for several years and it just cap building and building. you had the crash in 2008 and

investments took a hit and now they are at $20 million. betty: that is a huge number, tim. is it raising the sort of worries that may be chicago might be heading in the way of bankruptcy?. tim: i don't think there's that much talk about bankruptcy per se but when you put the two cities side-by-side, there are differences visually. chicago is a much more diverse economy. you scratch beneath the surface and see the financial underpinnings and there are some scary analogies to detroit. the issue here is probably not going to be resolved by a bankruptcy filing but by some very hard and difficult decisions to get the city out of this. mark: those decisions will be made by maier rahm emanuel. what does his plan involve?

tim: it is a deal that he worked out last year that bears some similarities to a pension fix that was declared unconstitutional by the illinois supreme court last week for state pensions. there are questions as to what he succeeded in putting together last year will pass constitutional muster. there are people who say it will not, which deepens the city's financial crisis. betty: rahm emanuel was forced into a runoff earlier this year. how much political power does he really have to make some of these bold changes in chicago? tim: you have to get it through city council. some of what he wants to do will require state legislative approval. chicago is not always the most popular player in springfield. it is a complicated stew and it is not just a question of a very widely known and aggressive and

powerful mayor.getting will have to do a lot of salesmanship. mark: will employers have to make their own contributions to requirement? tim: that would be what the mayor will help but the bigger question is how much will chicago taxpayers have to pay? property tax is the biggest revenue generator in the city. it is almost inevitable that there will be a hike in that. it will be a combination of solutions here. it will have to happen. is just a question of when it does and what the proportions are. betty: very different from detroit on the surface. a very beautiful city. thank you so much. except in winter. mark: fascinating story if you want to read it. it is on bloomberg.com.

betty: much more ahead in a moment. ♪

betty: he is the target of the biggest copyright case in history and one of the biggest outlaws. he is a character that is almost larger-than-life himself. on tonight's episode of studio 1.0 -- mark: he will be with emily chang. he talked about his legal struggles, his relationship with fellow tech outlaws including edward snowden, and his views on piracy. here is a sneak peek. emily: do you believe in copyright? >> i believe in copyright but not copyright extremism. extremism is if you are a hollywood studio and you lease your content -- and you release

your content and one country first and then roll it out over a couple of months and expect the internet community and all of these different countries to wait for the relief. they have just launched at netflix here in new zealand. the catalog of content here is roughly 10% of what they offer in the u.s. that is completely unfair. because people don't get that access, they are looking for stuff elsewhere. it is a problem created by the content creators. i am not responsible for the. if they would have an offering that has all content globally available for a fair price on any device, piracy which rank into insignificant -- piracy would shrink into insignificant. if it is illegal and you don't take it down, does not

mean what you are doing is illegal also? >> i have tried everything. we are a small company based in hong kong. we didn't catch up yet with the latest technologies. we are not even given the opportunity to do that. emily: do you think the artists who makes a song or tv show or movie, the videogame creator, do they deserve to be paid? >> absolutely, yes. emily: if they deserve to be paid yet able accessing that content illegally, how do you find a balance? >> where is the problem? i don't see artists starting. emily: because they are making money, that means it is fair that others should be able to access the content illegally? >> no, i don't think that is what i am trying to say. i think everybody should look at it a bit more realistically. all these hollywood moguls are living in mansions bigger than mine. it is the greed dominating this debate. it is not like anybody goes

starving. the movie industry makes more money year after year after year . society that wants to have access to this content, hollywood doesn't want to make it available. i am just a tiny piece in the middle of that. i am not responsible for that. emily: you think the government is trying to make an example out of you? >> absolutely, yes. emily: president obama said piracy is a matter of national security. the stuff that the american people create is our biggest asset, so why should we allow it to be stolen? >> the argument does not include the question why don't we make this great product available to everyone in an easy format? if hollywood had some smart people working for them, they would probably have the biggest internet company on the planet. emily: to me how this rate internet company out of hollywood would

work. >> is quite simple. if you have a content platform that is on but all these different studios combined and they make their product available, the entire catalog, fixedhing, at a monthly fee for everyone to access around the world, they will have the biggest internet success in history. , can understand the dilemma but to make me responsible for that is really outrageous. betty: make sure to catch emily chang's full interview tonight on studio 1.0 at 7:30 p.m. eastern time and pacific. mark: he just used the term outrageous. that mansion is outrageous. betty: his personality is outrageous. whether you agree with what he has done or not, as you were saying, this guy is a marketing genius. mark: fascinating interview. i can't wait to see the whole thing. the way he seems to understand the movements, the way he seems

to understand how things are driving marketing. dotcom what does that tell you,? betty: he was telling us and emily that hollywood missed this whole thing. they could have dominated the world if they had hit on this trend earlier. mark: i think the description is correct. tech's biggest outlaw is correct. betty: i am out. mark: bye. to you tomorrow. coming up next, kim kardashian. we will sit down with the reality tv star next.

[baseball crowd noise] ♪ ♪ [x1 chime] ♪ ♪ [crowd cheers]

oh! i can't believe it! [cheering] hi, grandma! ♪ mark: welcome back. go straight to your top

headlines at this hour. watch out, amazon, here comes wal-mart. the world's largest retailer will offer a $50 a year unlimited shipping service for online customers. it's a challenge to the amazon prime service. walmart said more than a million toys, from clothing to will be available for delivery in three days or less. questions are being raised about the turnaround plan and jcpenney. the struggling retailer reported first-quarter sales growth that missed estimates. the ceo has try to stabilize jcpenney vibrating back promotions and reviving private parents, but the chain has yet to post consistent profits. last night here in new york, christie's held its second night option in two days, the result, the firm sold $1.4 billion worth of art this week, [no audio] $380 million.

wealthy buyers from around the world are putting their excess cash into our. the brickyardat in indianapolis but the driver walked away unhurt. he hit a wall and flipped his car. he was practicing for the indy 500. eves is a three-time winner. will be with us in a moment about the challenges in developing her own mobile game and much more. see why more millenial's are ditching college and heading back to work lace. and why a large percentage of these in the u.s. are dying, and why that could be bad news for -- for the price of some

foods. launched aian has mobile gaming app future heir her, of course. cory johnson is with me. here talking about this game which is a phenomenon, "kim kardashian: hollywood," $90 million in revenue. this game has been a huge success. did you expect that when you got into it? >> you always hope for the best when you put so much time and energy into something. i am definitely pleasantly surprised at the success of the game, but i see how hard the team works to update the game constantly and make all of these changes and try to be current. it makes sense that it is successful in my eyes because i see what happens behind the scenes.

cory: when you were developing -- niccolo.ove, knew we had a game engine that would monetize, we knew that kim would be perfect for it. i knew that it would be not only a groundbreaking partnership for the industry but with her attention to detail on every single element of the game during development, post-development, it brings an authentic transmedia experience to her fans. give me an example of something. look of my the character maybe a dozen times, details on my shoes that were not accurate. i want everything to look as authentic as to how i would wear it. i pay such attention to detail. i will change something numerous times. cory: describe to me what

happens when someone plays the game. play to make it to the a-list of hollywood and you have these fun challenges along the way, photo shoots, going shopping, kind of like what you would assume my life, a celebrities life would be like in hollywood. cory: kim is a mentor for the player. convincing the store to stay open longer, you get more points. >> who you should work with, who you should date. >> we have real life people like my hairstylist, my makeup artist in the game. i try to make it as lifelike as possible. vacation, the on player can go to that same country and city, where the same bikini that i do. it is so simulated to my real life. we spend a lot of time making sure it's accurate. the monetization that you have realize over this is pretty incredible.

the in game purchases. over $90 million? $95 million in gross consumer revenues in the first month. we are celebrating the one-year anniversary of the game next month. 3.3 billion times people have played. >> it is remarkable value for money. if you divide the revenue by those metrics. cory: one of the things you are doing is taking the idea of the game forward to other celebrities. spears,ed up britney looking to more games of that kind, katy perry. when you think of that engine that was created out of the celebrity games, how should they be different? >> i love how are our model has worked. if they could take information from what works and just use toir likeness and flip it

make it authentic to them, i think it would be really successful. i am happy that it has gotten so much attention, to be able to sign on other people interested in the gaming world. it is such a fun experience and i think other people would have such a fun time creating their own game as well. cory: you sign this deal in 2014, amended it last year. >> extended it. cory: and amended it, more money in it. what did you want in the second amendment that you did not get the first time? they have given me so much creative control, so that was not really an issue. i was really very happy with the partnership. we seem to have a really good relationship and communication, so there was not a whole lot that i was demanding more of. just the extension of it made sense. cory: 45% of all in-game

that is included in the revenue as well. there are a handful of people who represent most of those revenues. what do you know about those obsessive kim kardashian fans, or the "kim kardashian: hollywood" fans and are they the same? in everyare whales game, but kim is unique, as she is the first one to create a game like that that is twisting up her real life with again. i think you see probably her most engaged fans overlapping with the most engaged gamers. there is a lot of privacy protection, so we do not know names. we know that her audience is arguably may the most engaged in the social media landscape. that translates well to gaming. cory: i was walking of 6th avenue the other week and never

people sleeping in the barnes & noble and i asked them what you are doing here. they were sleeping and this guy looked up to me and said, we are waiting for kim kardashian. >> i was so excited to meet everyone. i still get so excited when i get a chance to do book signings, get a chance -- today we are doing a big meet and greet when you have the chance contest if you got to a certain level in the game. so you are meeting some of those whales. what we call them in the gaming industry. terminology,e that but i still get super excited to meet everyone. everyone has a different story. i just love that connection with my fans. i think that is why i love social media so much. of social media

and instagram might be the most masterful of anyone. how much do you decide to use to extend your own brand, how much come from you just wanted to be out there? for me, as much as people like to use social media as a marketing tool, and i definitely take advantage of that, but that is not my purpose of instagram. i do all my social media myself. you hear the stories of people that have a team doing it for them. to me, that is not authentic. i want to write what i want to write about, what i want to post about, not what someone else wants me to do. especially on instagram, i try not to promote so much and i get really intimate and share things, whether it is my daughter's ballet class, or one moment and my husband's concerts. i definitely share a lot of my personal life but i also found that people love to see the

behind-the-scenes. when we are doing a videogame and we are creating new content, i prefer to take a picture of what is going on behind the scenes and how we really do business. if i am working on a new fragrance and i have all my ingredients out and we are trying to come up with the new bottle, i like to use that as a focus group and maybe send out a picture and say, which color picture i use? love their genuine feedback. and i really do listen. cory: you have also helped these companies create more value. instagram is more valuable because more people are coming to them. first picturehe of your child, everyone looking to offer you money for that. are you engaging with them because you are giving them this content? >> you think it would happen like that more often but it doesn't. i know kevin over at instagram.

but we don't really talk about ways to monetize things. that is not really a part of our conversations. relationship with twitter, and i love twitter, to interact with people. they gave me some good advice on getting more information out there, instead of just pushing a photo from instagram to twitter. if you do it separately, you get more clicks. that made sense to me. now i do it differently with their input. i have an open relationship with them but you would think you would have more influence, but you really don't. do you feel this is a time where technology has gotten such fantastic links in terms of usage, we have maybe reached a point where we are in a bubble, or the time to take the money off the table when you can?

maybe both of you think about that actually. >> we are perennially undervalued. our stock is cheap compared to anything else in the tech space based on the free cash flow we generate. what is unique for the games, it sheer own social channel, is monetizing it and communicating with people and she has equity upside from it. for me, in my life, how i get things out, i never want to be too overexposed. what does that mean in social media? i live my life on a reality show, so what does that mean? andwant to play it smart just not extend yourself too much, i think. cory: kim kardashian of "kim kardashian: hollywood" and niccolo de masi, thank you. mark: thank you all so much.

bloomberg market day is continuing. the s&p 500 at another record high. ♪

mark: welcome back. let's get straight to a check on the markets. julie hyman is standing by. have a rally going on in the major averages breaking a three-day losing streak. i want to take a closer look at the s&p 500. if it closes where it is right

now, it would be a new record at least on a closing basis. i did mark the intraday record, which is still above that level. 21 25.92 would be the intraday record to be but at least on a closing basis, if we close where we are now, we would close at a record. the three major averages are all higher at the moment. really getting a boost after ass three-day selling period we got some economic data this morning, including wholesale prices that showed the economy is weak enough that that may not have to be aggressive. in recent days, that sentiment has been a boon to stocks. take a look at the dollar. that also reflects that sentiment. the dollar has been trending lower. it has recovered as day has gone on but it is still barely in the red. the longer-term trend has been down. we are also watching some of the company that may get a boost as

the dollar declines. a lot of those that get their sales abroad. to take a few examples, if you look at code: enterprises, ultra yeah, you see they are on the rise today. but it is a broad-based rally. technology is doing the best. consumer staples and health are also doing well. thank you, julie hyman. now let's take a look at the action in asia and europe. let's go to london. >> let's wrap up the session in london. stocks closed on a high. tuesday monday through losing, but we lose that we go higher today. that is the situation with equities. let me take you to the bond board. i was looking at my bloomberg terminal and there you see them moving higher. today we are pretty much let.

the yield on the german 10 year comes in pretty much flat. bonds moving a little bit higher, yields lower. the story all day has been about the weaker dollar, at a four-month low. the euro giving up some of its strength at the end of the day. same story with sterling. fresh 2015 highs against the dollar this morning. we roll over and give up those gains. the story so far over the last 30 days, it has been a story of dollar weakness. sterling strength. dollar weakness, euro strength. but the big story, you look at the forecast from the analysts, medium forecast for euro-dollar, 1.05. the pound against the dollar, 1.49. while the dollar has been showing weakness, the big

bullish rally, the analysts have not capitulated just yet. back to you. >> honda joining his peers, announcing a fresh round of recalls because of this faulty are back issue. in honda's case, 4.9 million cars, taking their own total from when this all started to north of 19 million cars. a second rounder recalls from honda applying to you in the u.s. 19 and a half million acura models. problems with the brakes. an aging population the next big risk? stanley druckenmiller says so. scarlet fu and i will be discussing this, and it may have to do with going to work rather than going to school. scarlet: he is part of the baby boomer generation. you and i are working right now

to pay off their social security . the millenial's below us, after us, they are a big generation as well. as usual, gen x gets screwed again. mark: you are gen x, i am not. cory: you are --scarlet: you are a honorary member. highangers won last night, five. mark: we are not even trying to be neutral. it was nerve-racking. the coach said after the game, it was probably more scary for the fans that for us. it was a total roller coaster, but at the end it was brilliant. what i love about these playoff games, especially after a hard-fought series like this one, is the team's lineup and they shake each other's hands. this is an incredible sport.

my kids play hockey. you have to work really hard and there is a lot of hitting, but at the end of the day, if you can check your opponents and and say job well done, it makes you feel pretty good. imagine if major league baseball did that, or the nfl or nba? mark: it is a good example for younger players. scarlet: so when you become commissioner, that is what you can suggest. mark: we will see you in just a couple of minutes. still on the bloomberg market day, more props and foods. why the massive numbers of these are dying. what this means for food supplies and prices. ♪

mark: u.s. beekeepers report 40% of the be they managed died last year. some major crops rely on bees

for pollination, including almonds. 80% of the world supply is groaning, tornier. have more from washington. we have been hearing this for years, that of these are dying. we don't seem to be running on a fruit, so what's happening? close to a decade that you have seen these elevated annual deaths of honeybees. at first it was a worry that us all eatinge squash and forage for the rest of our lives, but that has not happened. what has happened is some anxiety among pollinators that they cannot get adequate applies for their crops and little higher input costs for their producers, which lowers profit origins and potentially pushes up food prices. mark: is this about pesticides, is that what is causing the problems? >> that is my of the questions. we see a jump in summer debts. in the winterdie as part of the natural order of things and we are seeing more deaths in the summer.

environmentalists say this could have do with things like pesticides, but of course, has spent ake bayer lot of money coming up with these pesticides and they don't want it to go away. we have already seen bands of one class of pesticides in europe, and this is something the industry is watching closely. mark: so what are farmers and beekeepers doing to compensate? >> you are spending more money to replenish your hives. you end up buying more queen beans come it increases your overall production cost. farmers are doing some creative things. in some cases, they are discovering they can get by without honeybees if they can create a better habitat for some of the wild bees in the area. we have an upcoming story on that. the white house data appointed a task force on pollinator issues. how is that going? >> they are expected to report next week.

they will be undressing pesticides as well as other factors including monocultures viruses, really trying to get to the bottom of the problem. mark: so no chance we are running out of fruit then? look like it, but watch the cost and watch the variety. mark: thank you so much. hour, up in the next half we have heard a lot recently about driverless cars, but what about trucks? we will show you one already roaming on the highways of nevada. and the s&p 500 at a record. our coverage continues in just a moment. ♪

it is 11:00 in san francisco and 2:00 a.m. in hong kong. scarlet: where does oil go from here? some of the top investors are

gathering in manhattan. the u.s. senate is moments away from a key vote on trade legislation which would give president obama fast-track authority. we will bring you the headlines as they crush. scarlet: tired of reality television? you are not alone. amazon is giving the cold shoulder to viacom. mark: good afternoon from bloomberg world headquarters in new york. scarlet: let's get you straight to the financial markets. as julie hyman was telling us, s&p 500 currently at 2118 but just shy of its intraday high.