we wrap up the trading day. m&a activity propelling shares here for a second day. the european close starts right now. betty: we are going to take you from new york to london and beyond in the next half hour. mark, kick things off for us. mark: we said earlier that you are a glass half full kind of person and so are european investors. they are choosing to overlook that china adjusted output data and affixed assets investment data and choosing to focus on the best retail sales. i could go on forever. carlsberg shares leading today, vivendi shares slumping after a profit miss. don't forgetg and

the big italian lender that announced plans to cut 18,000 jobs. like many of its peers, it's wanting to improve return and expand its capital budget. there's a lot happening in the european banking space. betty: you've been alluding to this -- the biggest deal of 2013, ab inbev of buying sab miller. how far is the stock below the offer price? do you know that they were priced 44 pounds? the probability of a deal is 60%. you are probably saying how did you come up with that figure? to bloombergding arbitrage functions. there are better

opportunities to make money with other takeovers. there are also huge regulatory risks for this deal. this country -- this company will control half the industries profit. one last astonishing fact, yes, a $107 billion deal, but $75 billion worth of loans to back this acquisition -- that's the biggest corporate loan on record. someone is making a lot of fees out of this. betty: someone is indeed and we will dig deeper and get immersed in this deal in just a few minutes. i know we will have much more fun with this but i want to check in on our first word news with courtney donohoe. courtney: let's start with international news. anye's a move to prevent

more international jet disappearances. set asideve agreed to radio frequencies so airplanes can be tracked high satellite, not just from the ground. planes that are ready to send s to the ground could also send them to space. greece is bracing for a general strike. workers are set to walk off the job to protest more spending cuts and tax hikes. the governing party is backing the walkout. the prime minister has said that to implement the austerity plan as part of a bailout deal. fifauspended president of has been hospitalized after what was called a small breakdown. onse being investigated corruption allegations. he is planning to step down in february. university of missouri police have arrested a suspect accused of making online threats against black students and faculty.

police said he was not near the campus when the arrest was made. theal tension forced president to resign. at arlington national cemetery, president obama honored our nation's veterans, marking veterans day placing a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. today is the 97th anniversary of the end of world war i. that's a look at our first word news. you can get more on these and breaking stories at the new bloomberg.com. betty: a bevy of big headlines from ab inbev buying it closest rival to china us rebalancing u.k. jobhe latest numbers showing unemployment fell the lowest in more than seven years. why are wages softer? money for global investors to talk about today. spend five minutes

talking about more than one of those topics. we had a great guest with an appetite for investing. he's the chief investment officer here and london. he oversees about $44 billion in assets under management. divide betweenhe the offer price, 44 pounds a share, and the share price today. guest: thank you for inviting me. it's very early in the morning. that's great. there has always been an m&a spread but we've had a lot of well-publicized breaks and last year, the big one which hit a large number of m&a and event driven hedge funds roque -- it was supposed to be a done deal. there's a bit less capital in merger arbitrage right now.

60% -- i can understand but i think it reflects the fact that too many high-profile deals are broken. if you are heineken today theselsberg, run by closed families, what are you thinking with this mega-brew leering over you? guest: we tend to own european funds. thinking people are willing to pay high premiums for the drinks business and we are in a great business. goodnk you are in a pretty place. you will feel competitive pressure but generally, reading some of the statements, they are pretty relaxed. carlsberg announced 2000

job cuts. but with this merger hovering ofr them, how do you battle company with almost half the industry profits? they are all huge companies. they see themselves as more nimble. mark: i want to get my partner in crime on this. i know you've got a few things to say. betty: i want to give it from what we saw overnight from china and the softer industrial output numbers. i'm wondering, given that we are seeing softness, but also seeing some good numbers out with retail sales and the shanghai stock exchange has come back since august if maybe china has moderated enough so that the fed has the room to raise interest rates.

guest: i think you have absolutely nailed it. all about thews slowdown on the export side and the investment side. we saw retail sales hold up and that was enough for the market today definitively. fed, i know they mentioned overseas markets, but after the employment report, it would be a huge surprise and we have changed our view. we have been rates low for long and in the big picture, that stands. surprisebe a very big if they did not raise rates. bank of england may be next year. contrast, today's numbers, strong employment whereas in the u.s., that is a big difference. i know it was a six year high in the u.s. whereas in the u.k.,

very subdued. mark: alan sticking his neck on the line -- boe probably next year. he's not being too brave, but we will let him off. betty: thank you. i know mark is going to stay with me and we will talk about the subject that's the topic of the day here -- it is miller time for the maker of budweiser, offering $107 billion, creating -- world largest beer making world's largest beer maker. ♪

mark: welcome back to bloomberg markets live drum london.

it is 15 degrees celsius in london. betty: you are going to start have -- start having me do the math. mark: yesterday, you got it wrong because julie e-mailed me and said it's hotter in new york . actually it's exactly the same temperature. betty: i will have to start doing my math. let's turn to similar important matters -- the bloomberg business flash, a look at some of the biggest stories in the news -- single day was a recordbreaker for alibaba during china has one-day shopping bonanza, alibaba handled more than $13 billion in transactions, beating last year's record. mayrman jack ma says he extend the single day event to the u.s. and u.k.. a strike by the tons of's flight attendant is stranding travelers today. a labor report cleared the way

for them to expand the walkout. more than 900 flights were canceled and labor leaders are fighting back against efforts to restructure so that it can compete with low-cost airlines. walmart workers have successfully lobbied for hire wages. now they want a discount on food. tocould cost the company up $400 million a year. you can get more business news at bloomberg.com. it is the evening time there and i'm sure it's time for a beer after the show. let's get back to the mega-brew deal. mark: what an amazing deal -- after two deadline deferrals, ab inbev formalizing its bid -- before it unwraps all the goodies, the company will have to appease regulators. joining us on is our chief correspondent -- should a

company that controls have the industries profits really be allowed to merge? that's what a lot of antitrust regulators will have to look deeply into over probably the next year. we've seen one big move to get ahead of regulator concerns by selling half of this joint venture in america. that's one move, but they will have to more. >> they are going to have to sell their stake in china -- matthew: that's certainly what a lot of people are talking about. there will be antitrust lawyers and regulators crawling all over every inch of this deal. we have two companies that have agreed to merge, there's a long way to go. is the rush? is it more out of necessity? think it may be a bit

of that. they are quite an acquisitive company, but what is really going on is people are not drinking beer like they used to. arehe extent they are, they drinking craft beer and more wine is around. this is an industry does not really growing and you don't have to be a genius banker to know that when industries stagnate, what you get is stagnation. they have been quite acquisitive, collecting 90 billion dollars in acquisitions. if he gets that done, isn't that it for ab inbev? buthew: you would think so, with these guys, all bets are off. this company is controlled by ownshis same company that three capital, burger king -- their appetite for deals seems limitless.

perhaps in beer there's not anything left to do but maybe it could be going for coca-cola or something like this. mark: where does this leave heineken and carlsberg? asy have been touted targets, but the families are pretty strict. could we see another mega-brew involving those two? matthew: it was very interesting to see carlsberg announcing 2000 job cuts. coincidence, but you do see an effort to get a bit leaner in the face of what's going to be relentless competition. they are looking a bit small. is just a broader and a question -- we've got one of the biggest deals if not the biggest to get done this year. is their appetite for more?

matthew: i think we are seeing anything that can happen happen. the pfizer deal has a long way to go in the last two days. we've heard about norfolk southern and canadian pacific and anadarko in the energy space. this is one of those times when big things are getting done and quite frequently executed. before you go, we need a name. : mega-brew is the name people are using. i have patented that. if you wanted -- what is your best guess question mark -- your best guess? betty: we want to move on and look at what is going on in the

u.s. markets -- coming back from the lows of the session but abigail doolittle has more live from the nasdaq. abigail: stocks have recovered off their ws. ,ne stock bucking the trend shares off more than 6% after a ratings cut to negative from mixed. the firm says additional promotions for their machines failed to increase sales and super market trends are decelerating. it has been a tough year for this stock. if you look at valuations, shares are a deep discount. it's quite a switch from years past and could cause new investors, perhaps value investors to watch the upcoming quarter reported on november 18 rather closely.

another stock slumping, whole foods market. perhaps continued fallout in the wake of its disappointing report last week. one bloomberg analyst pointed to a number of headwinds for the country, including slowing sales growth and narrowing margins as the company tries to shed is expensive image and retrench to a sick retail. -- basic retail. there's a 9% short interest on this stock and it down more than 40% year to date. interesting to watch and see what can turn it around as the year progresses. betty: abigail doolittle live at the nasdaq. what's ahead? mark: is there a contradiction in the days u.k. labor data? wages are backsliding. -- why am i promoting joe's chart?

the battle of the chart is next. ♪

betty: you are watching bloomberg markets, the european close. it's time for our global battle of the charts where we look at some of the most telling chart of the day and what they mean for investors. joe weisenthal joins us in new york and mark barton is still with us in london. both of you guys are still looking at the u.k. chart, we check out this and got fresh labor data from the u.k. and a split message. the unemployment rate continues to plunge but the data has been backsliding a little bit. money is the picture for the bank of england. how much inflation pressure is on mark carney to act? nothing was clarified today. even though wage growth is

clearly slowing, real wages excluding inflation, of which there is none in the u.k., in minus.flation is .1% they are rising at their fastest rate the financial crisis and that is boosting consumer spending and it's one of the reasons why the economy is in pretty good shape. are coming from the international environment rather than the domestic environment. joe: there's a case to be made that the bank of england is there and ready to hike. is there more slack in the u.s. than the u.k.? the u.k. is .5%. joe: we have a much lower labor force participation rate here. mark: i'm going to focus on the ftse 100.

since august half and the ftse has been stuck in a trading range in the last month. in 2015, it's one of the worst performing western european stock markets and it's all down to composition. the worst-performing stocks are energy and mining companies. they account for about 1/5 of the index. why the ftse is underperforming its peers and the s&p 500. what's interesting is if you want to make money in the u.k., forget the ftse and look at the ftse 2k. it's more focused on the domestic economy guys. if you are falling out of love the ftse, the ftse 250 is outshining it because it is domestic focus which comes to

unemployment, wages and slack in the economy. betty: basically the headline number, you have to look at the details. that reminds me of the u.s. where more domestic focused industries are doing better than the ones with global exposure. the ftse 250 has outperformed in a seven of the last 10 years. it is definitely the place to put money. mark barton and joe weisenthal, good battle of the charts here. give us an update on how the european markets have close -- have closed. mark: you have not told us who won the battle of the charts. betty: it's not over. over.ek is not i am still tallying. on friday.an tell us

as i can see, u.s. markets are mixed to lower and european markets initiative high because of m&a and earnings and investors were looking at the china data. here's what i'm watching tomorrow. , the ecb president faces lawmakers hoping for a close on further stimulus. with investores shares sinking the most in three will properlyber fall for a seventh year and europe plus a guest engineering releases this ceo, mr. kaiser. see you tomorrow. have a great day. ♪

alix: it is new and in new york, 5:00 in london, and 1:00 in hong kong. to the: welcome bloomberg markets.

from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, i am scarlet fu. alibaba setting a singles' day $14.3 billion sales record in china. wantso jack ma people around the world to join in. we will hear his prediction for the chinese economy. alix: and can renewables not cap also fuels? heats up in 2016. inbev following up on its new deal. we want to start with a snapshot on today'ti