from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, good afternoon. i am very view. -- betty liu. -- a renewed selloff in crude oil is driving down 1%kets did they are near losses, at least on the nasdaq. china's economy is growing but the growth is slowing down. the weakest quarterly numbers since the heart of the financial crisis. will this speed up the country's transition to a consumer big economy? and spotlight on netflix. the streaming giant opens its books after the bell. can the company delivered another strong quarter of subscriber growth and get cost under control? we are about an hour away from the close of trade. marketso head to the desk, where ramy inocencio has the latest on the selloff.

ramy: we started in turnaround mode from friday to monday. yes only been a slide down and we are at session lows right now. the s&p 500 is down by .6%. dow down by about one third. nasdaq down by more than 1%. interestingly, s&p and the dow are back at five-month lows. nasdaq, we have not seen that low since october 2014. what is to blame? obviously, crude. down 3.7% and right back again at session lows. trading at $20.33. let's take a look at how crude has been impacting the s&p in terms of performance. come into my bloomberg terminal here. basically, the line chart for both.

in the yellow is to be shy crude and the s&p is an white. , thisoday, the seesawing has happened in tandem with the commodity and we are at session lows for both the s&p as well as debbie j.crew. betty: as crude falls, so do energy stocks. ramy: a lot of energy stocks are falling. the me show you might i -- my imap function and the sector health. seven of the 10 s&p sectors are now in the red. when we started the day, all of this was in the green. now just utilities, consumer staples, and telecom are in the green. off of that, let's take a look at some of the major commodities players in terms of oil and gas. all in the red.

conoco phillips down 8.7%. since november 2008. this is the lowest 2005. still down nonetheless on the order of 2 or nearly 3%. betty: ramy inocencio at the markets desk. let's get a check on the news with mark crumpton at the news desk. of the 4 americans released by iran as part of a prisoner swap is speaking publicly. he told reporters outside the u.s. military base in germany he was moved that americans kept his plight in the public eye. >> i don't know and i still don't know. i just know that everyone from the president, the congress, even the iranian officials who were our captors, essentially, were amazed. asked us, "why is it they are

working so hard for you?" i just said that is america and they love their citizens. mark: he said that being thrown out of the iranian airspace was intense and he and fellow prisoners popped champagne after they were sure they left iranian airspace. there are indications that they'll chop though had-- el chapo guzman had business dealings with the mexican actress. she is the woman who arranged a meeting between the drug bust and after sean penn. in the looking into possible money-laundering involving her tequila business but say they don't have what they call legal certainty a crime was committed. then carson has canceled campaign defense for the day, after three volunteers and one staff member were involved in a van crash in iowa. the campaign says the car hit a

patch of ice, flipped over, and was hit by another vehicle. one volunteer was being transported to a trauma center in omaha, nebraska. the other three were hospitalized in iowa. key decisions from the supreme court today. justices agreed to review president obama's controversial immigration plan. a federal appeals court says the president overstepped his deportation of up to 5 million immigrants. the justices agreed to take up a new constitutional challenge to the affordable care law. and the court refused to revise and arkansas law that largely prevented women from getting abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy. .lobal news 24 hours a day from the bloomberg "first word" desk, i am mark crumpton. betty: mark, thank you. market mayhem is showing no signs of stopping even today. atcks gave up early gains the outset and were field by

this global rally as data from china showed growth in line with government targets. but of course, crude oil prices dropped again and bank profits were less than stellar, and stocks slid. is the wild market movement over -- did we overreact to what we have seen? joinedanaging director me earlier this morning from his newport beach, california headquarters. >> i felt last week was an exaggeration, just like august-september was an exaggeration. i think what sparked it was the chinese lower fixings of the currency so the further currency weakening over the turn of the year and a sharp drop in oil prices, and this has led to recession fears for the u.s. and the global economy, but i think these fears are exaggerated. betty: you didn't see the imf taking down the global growth forecast. 3% growth see above

for the world so that is not signaling recession. do we really have a recession risk for this year? joachim: i think what is interesting is that the manufacturing sector in the u.s. and china is in recession, has been for some time. the energy sector in the u.s. is clearly in recession. but the overall economy is holding up fine. if you look at the typical things that would cause a recession, none of them is present. we have no overconsumption. we have no overinvestment. we have no overheating. and we definitely have no overkill from the fed or other central banks. if anything, this hike was the most dovish in its history, and other central banks, like the ecb and potentially the bank of japan, and more using this year. i don't see a recession on the horizon. betty: and the bank of england governor mark carney this morning, fascinating speech, saying that they thought they were poised to raise rates, but

seeing how things have turned out so far, that is not likely to happen. joachim: yes, i think that was another u-turn from carney and he had to react to what is going on in the global economy and particularly inflation. that is the same for the u.k., for europe, for japan, for the u.s. the further drop in oil prices has flattened the inflation profile going forward. i think you will see central banks reacting just as carney reacted. last year he said that the rate hike would come into focus around the turn of this year. that is clearly not the case. now we're talking the turn of next year. betty: which sing credible that it has been delayed that much further now. joachim, it's interesting, we had a guest on just in the last hour, bob michael grimm jpmorgan, and his interpretation ney's comments is a bit of

a criticism on janet yellen. the u.s. and u.k. economy have kind of mirrored each other, they have been on the same growth path, but they don't see any wage pressures. while she has gone ahead and saying "i'm, carney not going to do that, i am looking at the inflation picture, and it doesn't look right to do that." interpretation, maybe a bit of a criticism of janet yellen and what she has done. joachim: well, bob is a good friend of mine, but i don't agree with him on this one. i don't think carney meant to criticize janet yellen. if the fed looked at the situation right now they would come to a similar conclusion havethe risks to outlook risen and particularly that it will take longer for inflation to go back to target. i think we just have to accept that over the past month or two, things have changed, particularly with the inflation outlook, and i think it is normal that some banks --

central banks react to this. there is a global savings glut that is depressing demand and interest rates. oil glut that is depressing inflation. it is normal that central banks react to those two gluts by adding to the money glut, for which they are responsible. betty: and which they are now getting themselves out of. though, thea, interpretation seemed to be that the numbers are not great. better than some of the lowest estimates. but they show there is a slowing chinese economy, and strangely enough, the interpretation was china is going to add more stimulus into the economy. do you subscribe to that? iachim: well, first of all, think you have to look at old china and the new china. when it comes to the hard landing, in the old china it has already happened. manufacturing is in recession. trade has slowed a lot. globally, we are feeling the consequences of the lower

commodity prices. the state owned enterprises in the old economy are under pressure. the hard landing in old china has happened. at the same time, you have a new china in the service sector where growth is doing better. the issue, however, is i think the chinese authorities want to add more stimulus. this is why they've been tightening capital controls .ecently in various ways this sets them up for more monetary easing. the fear is that monetary easing would lead to larger capital outflows. you have to stand against the capital outflows and then you can let more easing. we expect more rate cuts in china and multiple reductions in reserve requirements from the banks. betty: that was the pimco meaging director joining earlier this morning on "bloomberg markets." much more in the next 20 minutes. carl icahn dialing up the pressure on peter hancock.

the activist investor says hancock must offer a jerk drastic -- offer a drastic strategic shift. and china's economy slowing in the weakestpping quarter of growth since the 2009 recession. we will dive a bit deeper into china in just a few moments. as we had to break, here's a look at how the most actively traded stocks are performing today. ♪

betty: good afternoon, and welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i am betty liu. speaking of the markets, let's check on where they are as we are 40 minutes way from the close of trade. the s&p high at the open,

following the global rally around the world -- is that redundant? take a look at the dow, same pathway for the dow as well. just after 2:00 p.m. we turned lower. off by .2%. we are making up some of those losses. the nasdaq, which had been one of the big gainers on a day we are seeing a rally, they are one of the big losers today. tech shares are falling as well. time for the bloomberg "business flash." ceos are turning pessimistic on global economic growth, according to a new survey by pricewaterhousecoopers, which is as 22% of 1400 ceos expect the outlook to improve this year, down from last year. 23% say things will get worse. people comes on the eve of -- comes on the even of the economic forum in dallas, switzerland.

the mobile payments, he saw shares tumble as much as 12%, effectively wiping out most of the gains made over the last two months. just began to decline friday after first aid announced new technology geared towards small businesses which account for the majority of their customers. and the former twitter ceo is revealing his plan for the future, including getting you back in shape. costolo says he is offering software programs aimed at getting users to work out. he will work with startups already in the firm's portfolio. shares of his former company, twitter, they are hitting a new low again today. the stock is in the midst of its worst today dropping nearly six months, down around $10 the ipo of $26. selloff came as twitter experience to a global disruption of its service today.

it is a bloomberg business/update. -- that is your bloomberg business flash update. activist investor carl icahn is for a hancock to go drastic strategic shift for the offeringnstead of excuses for past underperformance -- those are his words. is our us with more bloomberg reported. is anything different from what he said in the past? offrter: last time he was -- urging a three-way split of the company. he didn't offer that today but he said you should strip out to be a property-casualty insurer. three not talk about the pieces aig could be, but he talked about the fact that everything us should be sold or spun and we should make this a monoline company. betty: does it sound like he is

walking away from the initial proposal? sonali: it is a fairly different from the first proposal. we broke a story in november about how paulson's firm also had endorsed -- betty: john paulson. sonali: right -- the initial october letter. both of these people are large investors in aig today. they often rallying the troops and getting investors behind the plan. from day one a lot of people agreed that aig needed to shrink. peter hancock said aig needed to shrink. cell strategy or spin off certain units is more along the lines of people are what rallying. betty: how do shareholders feel about this? do we know? sonali: well, you can see the stocks they has been up. one analyst said today that butt sales are good idea, another thing carl icahn asked for was improved financial reporting as well.

this is a huge black box so we want to see what is behind the lid of this and what can result, gotten rid of, and what kind of values we can get for this. at the end of a depends on what values you get for these assets. betty: that is also what would cause aig to sell or not, if they feel they could get the right prices for the assets. sonali: at the end of the day this is still a id, one of the biggest insurers in the world, and a name carries a lot of weight. i will think anyone wants the assets to sell unless of a price than they deserve. we will see who comes to the table for these assets. the spinoffs are not off the table. that is something that icahn kept in the letter today. metlife last week said they would spin off their life insurance unit. let's see how these things could trade alone. january 26 is when aig holds their investors day. they will unveil their strategy and hopefully answer all those questions and put carl icahn eddie's or -- at ease or at

least at bay. sonali, thank you so much. bloombergs insurance reported. still ahead, the options insight. and another perspective on market volatility come this one from mohammed el-erian, who says there are stark differences between now and the financial crisis. , themed: if anything system today is very strong, and the banks are in better straits. the risk has migrated outside the banking system and gone elsewhere, so the shock now is much more financial volatility, much more lower risk taking, but not payments. this is not 2008. ♪

betty: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i am betty liu. stocks are fading, as you can see, throughout the session. the dow giving back gains of 184 points as the price of crude

pledges to new lows. ramy inocencio has more on how the market is handling all of this. ramy: joining me is the chief investment officer at recon capital partners. always good to speak with you. equities are at their session lows. the vix is trading around the 27 handle or so. what do you make of what is happening today? we're pretty much down. kevin: that has been the tone and tenure for all your -- ramy: all two weeks. kevin: it has been a pretty telling you. one thing to look at is the cboe skew index. ramy: i was looking at this interesting note could tell me more about what this implies. kevin: what it implies is where all the options bets are and are they for outsize moves are just a couple percentage move? people are going into the options market and taking out for outsizets

moves, like 5%, 10%, out of the money. we are near all-time highs. the next, and the index goes from 100, normal returns and distribution, to 150. we are at the 145 level, showing that the options market is anticipating an outsized move one way or the other. ramy: in terms of this move, what sector does it imply any kind of commodity there? kevin: what it is showing is the overall s&p 500 index. what it is lending credence to his vix is a market uncertainty index. ramy: not so much fear. kevin: not fear, just uncertainty. we have not gotten clarity when it comes to china, when it comes to oil, the stronger dollar. still tons of uncertainty throughout that andy options market is anticipating that. ramy: you are focusing in on apple. i've been talking about it today in the markets.

7% down your today, 12% in the past 30 days. what factors are you looking at that make it attractive? kevin: goldman came out with a note saying go along and all the bad news is priced into the stock. what you can do in the options market is by for $85.50 and still have the upside appreciation. if the bad news is really out there, i want to own it at a low level but i want that participation. i will look at $85 strike. i'm going to sell a put, let someone put that to me if they have $85, but they have to came the above three dollars. $105 calls sobuy i have an appreciation of the stock moves to the upside. earnings are coming out next week. that is going to be really telling. tenure i'm looking at earning cycles

and you will participate to the upside but you don't have to buy it unless it has $85. ramy: looking ahead to the earnings, are you hopeful or facing trepidation? kevin: i'm actually hopeful and one of the reasons why is the blackout period. here's is the interesting part about apple. they yield more than the 10-year treasury. they are growing faster than the u.s. government. ramy: we are going to have to leave it there. kevin kelly, always good to speak with you. betty come over to you. betty: still ahead on "bloomberg markets," we will turn the focus on china, which of the weakest quarter of gdp growth in seven years. ♪

bloomberg'sfrom world headquarters in midtown manhattan, you are watching "bloomberg markets." i am betty liu. let's look at the headlines.

mark crumpton has more from the news desk. mark: a new report says the u.s. government budget deficit will rise to 444 billion dollars this year, an increase over previous estimates. much of that can be blamed on tax cuts and spending hikes that congress passed last month. >> since the president took office we have also succeeded in reducing the deficit by about 75%. that is important progress, too. the president wants to build on all of that momentum and he will lay out in his budget proposal how exactly we can do that. mark: the report from the congressional budget office also says that economic growth will be slower than previously forecast. the u.s. supreme court has agreed to review president obama's controversial immigration plan. a federal appeals court said the president overstepped his authority by differing deportation for up to 5 million undocumented immigrants.

the plan is being challenged by texas and 25 other states. the obama administration will have to release documents related to the failed the justice department weapons trafficking program known as operation fast and furious. a federal judge rejected administration claims of executive branch privilege and told her the white house to hand over the documents to a congressional committee. operation fast and furious was intended to lead a law-enforcement to mexican drug cartels utilizing fake purchases to get guns for their organizations. it seems many people still need to step it up when it comes to choosing secure passwords. the fifth annual list of the most popular passwords discovered in data breaches over the past 12 months, passwords like 123456 and, yes, "password," tops the list. list,ars," a newcomer to right does the 25th most

breached password critical news 24 hours a day powered by 2500 journalists in more than 150 new spirit was around the world. betty, back to you. go, mythere you password, mark. [laughter] let's go to abigail doolittle live at the nasdaq with the latest. nasdaq getting hit. the only index in the red. volatility is the big story here at the nasdaq. this morning in the index was up 1%. not long ago it was down 1%. nasdaq .1%, leading the other indexes. it will be interesting to see if they can turn green. the drive has been the buyer tax -- biotech. selling accelerated. the index carved out a fresh bear market low earlier. tech has held a little bit strong but apple is the point in the and the composite index is

causing some of the movement between red and green. the shares of the biggest drag between the composite index at this time. defending thet stock to take it was saying the possibility of the guide down for the march quarter is priced "a defensives stop" in this environment. that was true in 2011 when we saw corrections. not so much in 2008. apple is trying to stay higher than the recent low. one big tech name staying well hire all day is netflix. --irs are up after the bell ubs said the growth concerns going into the quarter especially with the stock down 20% since early december, we will know the results very soon. one thing that is likely is volatility. three out of the last four quarters, net fixed-rate higher quarter, the fourth the october quarter, shares traded down 50% after the report.

betty: abigail, thank you, abigail doolittle. we will go into netflix a little bit in a few moments. first, let's look at china again. china's gdp up in the fourth quarter. that was the weakest quarter since 2009, and the global recession, remember that? 2015 is the weakest for your of growth in 25 years for china. the president of the china facebook questions whether the figures are even still inflated. >> i would say or .5%, maybe 4%. nowhere near the official numbers. much lower than what they are announcing. betty: whatever the true number is, it is putting pressure on the chinese government to address fears of a prolonged slowdown. here to talk about what is next is dan moss bloomberg's executive editor for global economics. at the press conference in china , or the beijing official officials, were releasing these numbers, they were asking pretty tough questions of whether these

numbers were accurate and they said they were. are there really big doubts about this growth? dan: i don'tdan: think there is any question about the direction the economy is heading in. 4%,er way, 5% from 6%, or we are off the 10%-plus levels -- betty: no question about that. dan: well off that could probably the most interesting thing is happening in the mix. remember the great rebalancing everyone called for? it happened. now more than 50% of the economy. betty: that should be good news, right? dan: it is good news. it is putting a floor under the weakness. the, for want of a better term, the old-style stuff, smokestack industries, significant slowdown there. the monthly numbers can which also came out yesterday, were pretty instructive.

retail sales way of an industrial significant down. betty: this rebalancing, is it going to also include more stimulus from the government just to quell everybody's fears? dan: our china economist are predicting rate cuts. they are trying to put a floor under the yuan. a target of fiscal measures probably seems like the way they are going to go. betty: what would that look like? dan: moore breaks for the housing industry, more debt relief to local governments, so they can do infrastructure projects that are very, very specific. full on, no holds barred 2009-style stimulus? probably unlikely. betty: why is that? dan: there are some officials within the government in china who think that this is what gave us the debt overhang -- betty: in the first place. what happens to the chinese currency in the meantime? dan: great question.

it largely depends on what beijing wants to happen. they have narrowed the gap between the offshore and the onshore. where it goes from here, unclear. betty: but do they have the firepower to manage that? dan: they certainly have firepower in the short term. the question is how long do they want to throw these massive reserves they've accumulated? betty: dan, we certainly have been very sensitive in the first few weeks to china and these numbers and their markets. do you expect that is going to continue? or was that just a knee-jerk reaction and maybe some more since ability will come into play? dan: the trend is going to continue. whether or not it is the massive swings we have had since new year is a separate question. one of the big macro plays of this century really has been the china boom. it is a different kind of chinese economy now. that isdustry, exports,

where the weakness is. services is where the strength is. that is a different type of chinese economy. for years officials were saying in these communiqués they wanted a more sustainable rate in china and the rebalancing. well, now we are getting it. so how do we like it? we are not sure. betty: we are not sure about that. when china was growing and it was exporting their way, they still are going onto the same degree because as you say, they are becoming more of the services-oriented -- domestic consumption-fueled economy. doesn't that sort of decouple us a bit more from china's growth prospects? dan: this is one of the great questions. the old-style motto, western companies were pretty heavily leveraged to that. commodities and through stuff that was manufactured there and exported back here. services, it is a little tough to tell him starbucks -- yeah, sure, no problem.

the one on the ground floor of the building in beijing. the rest of it will take a while to figure out. betty: starbucks -- they are still bullish on china could they believe they will be converting lots of tea drinkers to coffee drinkers. much more ahead in the next 20 minutes of "bloomberg markets." is macy's a takeover target? david einhorn's hedge fund has made a new investment in the retailer. darling netflix reports earnings after the close. global expansion to its ever-growing roster of shows, can it keep profits in line with growing sales? another company reporting earnings after the bell, warren buffett favorite, ibm. the software giant has reported 15 straight quarters of zero sales growth. can the ceo turnaround ibm? we will find out more after the bell. ♪

betty: good afternoon, and welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i am betty liu. markets are pretty much mixed. we have come back from the lows of the session to almost flat here -- excuse me, a little bit higher on the s&p. almost flat on the nasdaq. for the dow, up 43 points. time for the business stories -- biggest business stories in the news. the former goldman sachs director is a free man after 19 months of incarceration. the u.s. bureau of prisons confirming his really, says he is free after good behavior.

a person familiar with the matter is that he was released two weeks ago and has been living at his manhattan home. he was jailed for leaking tips to raj rajaratnam. a former university of nebraska star is becoming a director of a company with the blessing of college's most famous fans -- yes, it is warren buffett. he says it is a great responsibility "that i do not take lightly." the company makes networking equipment. a fitness apparel brand exclusively for women is launching athletic a, girls-only line that will produce performance and lifestyle clothing. it will hit stores across the u.s. this summer. overall sales and the women's activewear category increased 20% to $19.6 billion.

and that is your bloomberg business flash update. david einhorn is seeing a bargain in macy's. his hedge fund is making an investment in the department store, believing that macy's is a takeover target. shares of macy's are up sharply today. i point says it is part of a new strategy to deliver better returns for investors. his hedge fund was among the worst performers last year. joining us is simone foxman. david einhorn had a bad year, and now he is betting on a retailer, struggling department store retailer. simone: and one of the things he points out is it is something that jeff smith, the activist manager, pointed out starting in that that the real estate macy's owns is worth about $21 billion, it is estimated. the enterprise value macy's is

currently less than that. even if you say, oh, retailers may the struggling a little bit, you look at the numbers and say, well, they don't own this real estate. betty: so much value there. ok. what exactly is einhorn's proposal? simone: einhorn ceases a couple different ways. one, the company is cheap by all the fundamental metrics. this is a decent value. shares were at 70 over the summer and now just more than half of that. he sees good value in the actual company. recent earnings may be impacted by strong dollar. whether those are sustained. second option is seeing something that could want to taste the real estate value and he says "i don't think management will come round the way jeff smith does, but now you

are talking about a very reasonably priced company, in the high 30's. a private equity firm, real estate investment trust, could come in and say you may not want to monetize the value for we do. shareholders will see that as a positive. betty: how much does he own, exactly come of macy's? simone: he disclosed the position. i don't know the exact number. it is not as much -- i don't think it is much adjustment. betty: what has macy's is said about this? simone: macy's has been resistant to the idea of selling off real estate. that would not allow it the operational flexibility. at the really iconic properties -- you are talking about harold square properties. these are things he probably doesn't want to let go of. not just any mall. these are parts of the country that is in in in existence for a

very long time so i could understand that. betty: seamount, thank you so much. simone foxman, covering david einhorn and hedge fund world. from a stock that is down to one that has been a high flyer, netflix has announced ambitious plans for global expansion at ces. lots of interest as the company reports the earnings after the bell. for more come i want to bring in media analyst geetha ranganathan from princeton. they are aiming to be all over the world. i think china is going to be the big question. .eetha: yes so china, as you said, betty, they are in 190 countries all over the world. up from 60 markets. of course, china is the big wildcard. big opportunity if they are able to get into china because it does have one third of the world's broadband. 200 million broadband households.

it is a huge opportunity for them there. betty: will they be able to accomplish that this year? geetha: only time can tell, betty. ceo reed hastings says they are working with the government. this is a market that is very complex because of the regulatory environment. they are going to be very patient, very deliberate. this is a long-term strategic plan for the company. they said they are working, planning to get it done by the end of the year, but we will have to wait and watch. betty: ok, in the meantime, one thing we have noticed charting the stock is that it is a very volatile mover on earnings days. it goes up or down 10%. and what could be in this report today that could cause a big move like that? geetha: yeah, i mean, exactly, betty, as you said, netflix is a roller coaster. you have to buckle your seat belts here. with netflix come it is not about revenue, it is not about

the earnings report. it is always about subscriber numbers, and whether or not they are able to deliver those subscriber gains both domestically and internationally. now come in the domestic segment, we saw that in the last quarter there was a little bit of a miss. they came in 22% lower than their own guidance. that kind of growth the stock much lower. theyhen internationally ramped up in a lot of european markets. so hopefully internationally, as long as they are able to deliver on their 3.5 million for the fourth quarter, the story should be much be set, intact. domestically, though, there is -- expectations might be slightly muted, though. betty: ok, domestically. so they have got to keep the subscriber growth going. what do they do about costs, though? that keeps rising. geetha: with netflix, the big

thing is the subscribers, and then you have content cost to their streaming obligations of more than $10 billion. they are expecting to spend about $5 billion in content next year. that is, in 2016. as long as they are able to gain subscribers and able to get that scale, they should be in good shape. that said, they have indicated that they will go to the debt markets this year to raise some money before dispersing out all of those content obligations. so that is where it stands right now. betty: all right, thank you so much. geetha ranganathan of bloomberg intelligence on a netflix. much more ahead on "bloomberg markets." the close of trade is moments away. stocks are charging higher. almost halfway to where we were when we started. here's is a look at the s&p today. ♪

betty: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i am betty liu. markets are closing in less than 10 minutes time and it looks like we worked our way back not to the highs of the session. ramy inocencio has the markets check. ramy: what a difference five or 10 minutes make. i went to get a coffee and they are in the green. live tv, folks. betty: you should go get coffee more, ramy. ramy: dow up by .4%. nasdaq had been going a little bit higher. just about flat right here. this has been a very volatile seesaw session. we saw stocks start at around 1% mark pryor, go down as negative, and this is where we are now. a lot of this has to do with what is happening in the commodities sector. let's look at wti crude. still scraping the bottom. down 3.4%. this is that a level not seen

over 2003. 12, 13 years ago. where were you then? such a long time ago this actually happened. oil producers getting a little bit of an impact here to let's look at how the major oil producers are doing. exxon mobil down 1.5%. with that said, these are also all the session lows. probably hit in the past hour or two. let's look at some tech stocks. in particular, apple and twitter making news right now. here.down by about .2% year today, before today, apple was down about 7%, and over the past 30 days, 12% to goldman , the currentple weakness it is seeing, is a buying opportunity. that said, william blair says there are headwinds there. as for twitter, down 6.7 percent. there was an outage that happened that has been resolved. betty: thank you so much, ramy

inocencio there. let's look at another aspect of the markets as the s&p falls, the mind of money available to cover shareholder distribution is starting to get stretched. are we in the midst of dividend cuts? bloomberg is a markets reporter could what are we seeing? dividend payout ratio is an interesting metric. dividends in the past year divided by total earnings. dividends are $43, earnings are projected to about 106. 41%. last time it was that high was 2009 two 2008. basically, an acceleration in that figure when the markets inrted to turn negatively 2008. physically, it showed there is quite a bit of money going out. as opposed to coming in. it starts to make you wonder because companies -- last year

they accounted for more buying power than mutual funds and you have companies buying back shares and enticing -- betty: does this mean by backs are not going to be as much fuel for the market, then? oliver: possibly. people were concerned about what the buybacks would be for dividends. that is going to be further down the road. before that we might see the shareholder-family type things based on what is available at companies themselves. betty: thank you, all of her redneck -- oliver renick. stocks are looking, as we see here, to close higher, except for the nasdaq. still struggling in the red. ♪

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scarlet: we are moments away from the closing bell. i'm alix steel. joe weisenthal is on assignment. [applause]

bell ringing] barely the nasdaq in the red. scarlet: the question is "what'd you miss?" forget about a rate hike in march, one analyst says they are looking for a rate cut instead. scarlet: and we show you the one chart when ceo matters when it comes to china. on a ran andhart oil that will scare the bulls. scarlet: global stocks rallied overnight and it seemed like the u.s. would build off of that momentum. we started off with momentum, but they were unable to hold on. at the s&pu look minis versus oil prices, as oil prices started to give up some of those gains and rollover a bit