david: from bloomberg's world headquarters in new york, i'm david gura. u.s. stocks rallying today, the market shrugging off another slide in tiny stocks -- in chinese stocks. getting a boost from strong earnings reports. did carl icahn get what he wanted from aig? the world's largest insurer promising to turn $25 million to investors. some analysts say the moves don't go far enough. apple reporting earnings after the bell today, shares of the world's most valuable company have fallen 5% this year thanks to concerns over the iphone. will apple be able to put those concerns to rest? ramy inocencio has the latest. ramy: we are just at about session highs right now. the s&p 500 is up by 1.4%.

the dow was up by 1.7%. gains, that's the 13th triple digit gain so far this year. the nasdaq is up by 1.2%. we're definitely seeing the turnaround from monday's selloff , consumer confidence came in earlier this morning at the 10:00 a.m. mark. markets are following what's happening with oil, oil is on the boil, rising. crude is up i 5.13%. oil rallied by 9.5%. it had been down 30% year to date. as of today, it's down by about 14%. in saudi arabia, the kingdom saying they will potentially consider cutbacks in oil supply. the state look at the terminal right now. s&p,t to show you how the

the s&p energy sector, and the vti crude are moving in tandem. at 10:00 a.m., that consumer confidence number came in. oil rose in the green, the s&p 500 energy index also rose. buoyed the s&p index all by itself. everything is all up today. david: interestingly, gold also rally today. rallyyou'd think it was -- you think it would go the way, but remember, while we are seeing a bump in equities, what happened over in asia is still a little bit of a different story. the shanghai composite sank by 6.4% overnight. and that is weighing on investor sentiment. looking at gold futures right now, up by about 1.5%. $1121 an ounce. the dollar index right now, you

can see we were higher over the flat line, but we have since sunk into negative territory's. down by want to -- .2%. david: that's ramy inocencio at the market desk. mark richt and has more from the news desk. -- mark crumpton has more. mark: the economic impacts of dalitzard are between 2.5 -- $2.5 million and $3 billion. the figure represents lost income for hourly workers and spending that was skipped. the death toll is now at least 25 after a bomb attack today in syria. the state-run news agency says a government security checkpoint in the city was targeted. islamic state is claiming responsibility. talks aimed at ending syria's civil war are scheduled to resume friday in geneva. iraq says 40 bodies have been found in a mass grave in ramadi. as the city west of baghdad, recently taken back from islamic state.

the grave contained the bodies of police and civilians, including women and children. mass graves have been found in other areas liberated from islamic state, which has publicized its massacres of shiites and other opponents. san francisco's mayor is requesting a federal investigation into the police shooting of a young black man. he made the request in a letter to attorney general loretta lynch. mario woods died on december 2, five officer shot and killed him after he appeared to raise an eight inch knife and approach an officer. that's according to police. woods's family disputes that account and has filed a lawsuit. a new poll shows donald trump dominating the field of republican president to candidates. in the new cnn national poll, 41% of republican voters surveyed back to trump. senator ted cruz is at 19%. the other candidates are all in several digits. -- in single digits. global news powered by 2400

journalists and within than 150 news bureaus around the world. i'm mark crumpton. off itshe fomc kicks two-day meeting today, no traders surveyed by bloomberg believe they will be any movement on interest rates, and el-erian areamed looking forward to overcome next. importantgoing to be is see how much division there is within the fomc. they were able to get unity. that was unusual in the last year. and i suspect you are going to get a sense now that the hopes were -- the hawks remain hawks in the doves become more dovish. beid: brendan greeley will in d.c. for the fomc. mohamed el-erian what do you anticipate?

>> their worried about their credibility. they're worried about their credibility. it's hard to say how profound that is. that's like a pitcher saying i'd can get my curve to break. what they are really worried about, and some members in the minutes are worried that inflation expectations are no longer anchored. they are actually dropping. this is terrible news. what it means is, we can no longer attribute tribute to the lack of inflation to just the short-term influence of the price of oil. people's attitudes of changed about what inflation is going to be, and i could create the feedback loop that will affect inflation five years down the line. david: we have heard from some numbers of the committee talking about it. from the minutes to actual public speeches, we have them's looking around, looking at market measures of inflation. the five-year treasury breakeven, basically looking at

the market measure of what they think long-term inflation is going to be. a huge dip or sudden dip in the last month. the same with consumer sentiment. william dudley is the new york fed looking at university of michigan measure of consumer perceptions of inflation. consumers always think there is too much inflation, much more than there actually is. let's wildly inaccurate. what's more important is the trend. again, as with the market, the trend is down. so even though core pce, which is what the fed looks at, is stable, the fact the next rotations and move down was definitely causing the worry in the minutes. it separately causing the pause in their speeches. that's when looking for the actual statement we see it tomorrow. david: i want to ask you about mario draghi's speech, a barnburner of the speech. as a speech in germany, really addressing the country. brendan: as i reach the press has really been germany focus. he's given a lot of interviews to german outlets. what he told them was fascinating.

he went back and explained what core inflation is. i don't know if you know this, but there's a separate measure of it. and then he walks them through basically macro 102. basic macroeconomics on why it is that lack of inflation is bad. he's assuming that the room is out of and going to understand this to be a bad thing. se looked at data on why this t effecting german savers less. the same thing he was doing and frank for last week, preparing them for an movement to address the lack of inflation that he is saying. david: a fascinating element of that speech, when you began to talk about the role of central banks, saying essentially it's not up to central bank's to enact or advance reforms. brendan: it's not. this is almost like a branding exercise in a way, all central bankers have to say this. you hear this from janet yellen and ben bernanke. here's what i think i'm going to do. and by the way, if you would enact some structural reform and fiscal reform, that would really help. in the meantime, i'm alone doing

my job. anytime you want indexed to reform, i'm waiting here in frankfurt. thed: i was struck by station he drooped between the economy at home, and abroad. i imagine it's a distinction you will see drawn tomorrow as well. brendan: my favorite quote was lingering concern. the fed have lingering concerns about was happening abroad. the context is now completely different. it's been a month. what we saw in the fall was turbulence in the shanghai composite, stock movements, equity movement. now we are seeing capital outflows, things that are of much greater concern, change in the gdp numbers. if they have lingering concerns then, i would say they might have upgraded to urgent. and i would use the word urgent in the statement. they are absolutely looking abroad, just like europe is. and adjusting note of levity in that speech with him pointing out that despite what we all believe, the european economy is doing ok. we are buying our own things, its sales to china that are

problem. david: brendan greeley, senior economics correspondent covering the fed's decision tomorrow. tune in, scarlet fu will be thatd i tom keene, and will be broadcast on bloomberg tv and radio. coming up in the next 20 minutes, aig announcing a slew of changes this morning in a bid to placate investors like carl icahn, who were agitating for change to the latest moves will far enough. prices rising at the fastest pace since july 2014, but are they rising fast enough to support household wealth by offsetting the drop in stock rises? crude oil rising amid talks in opec and are reconsidering production output. is the deal a long shot without cooperation from the saudi's? the commodities closes coming up on "bloomberg markets." ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i'm david gura. we're looking at the biggest business stories in the news right now. depart for guessing dupont is-expected -- forecasting lower-than-expected earnings. procter & gamble is reporting profit that beat analysts estimates despite coping with the effect of a stronger u.s. dollar. second-quarter results rated by reduced overhead costs. , p&g isa dollar for trying to improve margins and squeezing senses to adjust to the dollars gain. defense contractor lockheed martin is separating its information systems, too great a new business with an enterprise value of $5 billion. lockheed martin will get a $1.8 billion cash payment as part of the deal.

that is your business flash update. markets desk where ramy inocencio has a look at the winners today so far. ramy: big gainers for that matter. i want to go to sprint. it is rallying the most, ever since the ipo back in 2013. in your session high, up by nearly 21%. the reason behind this is because of its q3 earnings. and a bunch of other data points that are really all working together for sprint. for one, subscriptions rose for the fifth month in a row coming in at 500-1000, the estimate was 521, but it seems like investors are shrugging that off. loss thatsted a net was lower-than-expected, $.21 per share versus an estimate of $.26. yesterday it said it was going to cut jobs on the order of 2500 in order to save money there. this is the country's number four wire carrier -- wireless carrier. definitely seeing an upside to all the data. , a bigger double-digit

jump, up by 40%. the reason for this is because the crane maker got a second bid and unsolicited one at that, just overnight for acquisition. a chinese suitor, on the order of $30 per share. you can see its trading just over the $21 mark. it's also after being bought up by a finnish maker earlier. it's definitely one of the big companies that are in demand right now in the construction industry in the u.s.. david: ramy inocencio at the markets desk. big changes that aig following pressure from carl icahn, the insurance giant is taking action. peter hancock outlined a plan to betty liu. we are going to do to make this company more focused and more profitable and

return $25 billion to shareholders, that speaking to all of our shareholders, all of our policyholders, all of our regulars, all our stakeholders. i'm sure we won't satisfy all of them, but we need to deliver a sustainable franchise if we are going to make the right decisions for trading long-term versus short-term great. --id: shares of aig hider are higher. he's doing extensive research and coverage of aig. let me get your reaction to what we heard today. with -- not what carl icahn wanted, is enough to satisfy you? a management has been dealt hard hand, they've been challenged for more than a decade. ever since hank greenberg left. ultimately, the end of saying today was a bunch of a for mental news, generally positive. we don't think they went far enough.

fundamentally, it's a time for action. i think there are a lot of opportunities that management missed. david: labrie turn -- let me return to that number. how feasible is it a company to get to that number? josh: we would've thought double that number was probably doable within a couple of years. i talked to investors today who said this was more or less the base case for with the company would naturally do, mostly just from operating earnings coming out of the business. they've sold couple of divisions, they are planning on selling a couple of small divisions. they're going to be accelerating their cost-cutting a bit. ultimately, what they didn't do was choose to pursue an aggressive path to actually massively simple find a firm, which is taking off the table one of the operational strategies we think would make a ton of sense. they also are clearly focused on defending their status. it's an unusual position to be taking,. carl icahn hates that

designation. josh: the more time i spend in this, that the bigger a deal i think it is. i don't know if it's a strategic distraction or cutting through it all, the amount of capital they have to hold it satisfy the fed -- this is both a strategic challenge and a financial challenge. peter, too it with his credit, mccall. they will talk about how they only have $150 million, of actual direct costs. we think they hold maybe 30% more capital than every other year. and they've adopted a 10% long-term goal in industry than earns mid tomorrow ease. -- are we's. 's.row david: part of the plan today is a spinoff portions of these

modular units. i guess the goal there is to spin them off eventually. how feasible is that in this current market environment? what do you make of that movement? josh: i think if you look at something like ge, you use a lot of different tactics. we've been writing about the company, with its clear that the optimum answer here that solves both the operational challenges that the firm faces as they try to fix these businesses as well andreates financial supercharges the financial return, is to sell most of these businesses to their competitors. --id: peter hancock badging begging for patients. do you think much remains? are: i think people actively debating how much more patients they have with the company. david: josh starling, senior analyst with bernstein. coming up, we get reaction to aig's plan from hank greenberg.

still ahead on "bloomberg markets," home prices in 20 major cities climb for the most since july 2014. ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i'm david gura. home prices climbed by the most since 2014, that's according to new data out today. gains were fueled by solid job growth, low mortgage rates come at a shortage of houses. you may get some sticker shock if you are shopping for a home. you need at least $523,000 to purchase a home in san francisco. $184,000 will help you break into cleveland's upper echelon. joining me is dan humphries with zillow group.

let's talk with the case-shiller numbers. a fairly positive report. nationally, 9.3% gains. an uptick from october, the market is still perking along fine. things,rand scheme of in the historical context, 5% appreciation is very good by historical standards. ago, we weres appreciating 8% to 10% year-to-year, which was too strong. we are concerned about reinflate another housing bubble, which is something we don't need. david: i mentioned san francisco numbers. when you look at how this shakes out regionally, who is doing well? dan: there's a strong tie in with markets that are having good job performance. if you look at like san francisco, seattle, portland, austin, denver, those markets of all doing well in terms home price games and appreciation in the 10% to 12% range. it's also interest engine in those cities are off the charts as well.

renton san francisco are 12%. san jose, about the same, southern california, rent appreciation as well. it's a problem is rental affordability has really become an issue in the u.s.. there is a lack of affordable housing for renters right now. wanted to ask about the narrative that's been perpetuated since the crisis, which is you have a lot of young people who are renting by default, they are unable to my home. , is at playing out continuing to play out the you see young people avoiding buying homes by choice or by necessity? narrative as it was that we try to focus on is the fact that some of the narrative has been the millennials and first-time homebuyers don't want to buy homes. the reality is, we do a lot of they dospecial survey, want to buy homes. these are people who do zip cars at uber's and read their prom dresses, they don't want to own anything. the reality is, when you ask them, aspirational he, they seem more like the 65 years old and

plus generation. their bullish about housing, the think it's important to overall happiness, more so than gen xers and boomers. they came of home buying age in the worst a session -- worst recession since the great depression. they getting married and having kids later. but the oldest millennials are now into their home buying years and they are starting to buy homes. they are making of the biggest among all the demographic cohorts, accounting for the most home sales right now. david: no worry that the american dream is being reconfigured? concern,e is no long-term within millennials are going to be buying homes at the same rate as their older cohorts. there is definitely a change in the types of where they want to live in the types of homes they want to live in. long-term, they're going for affordability, to start looking outside the urban core door. -- core door.

they prefer new urbanist communities become a mixed residential retail, defined town centers, those they like. if they are moving outside, they want to be in a place that looks urban or feel the village, does not feel like a suburb. david: do you values continuing to go up this year? dan: we do. the zillow index, which is quite a large indicator, we have home prices up 4%. we see that slowing down in the next year, we think on prices are going to appreciate about 2% next year. recovery isbut the still going on. david: stan humphries joining us today. the commodity closes coming up next. ♪ . .

david: from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, this is bloomberg markets. let's start with first word news

with mark crumpton from the news desk. mark: islamic state has set up at operations command to plan more terror attacks in europe according to europe poll him of european union's crime-fighting agency. it says i sold once to carry out more attacks similar to the ones in paris that killed 130 people in november. walmart and several global beverage makers have pledged to deliver 175 truckloads of bottled water to flint. the michigan city is dealing ofh a public emergency tainted water. the collected donation will include more than 6 million water bottles. a senate democrat is walking president obama's nominee to head the fda over the agencies approval process for prescription painkillers. ed markey of massachusetts is upset oxycontin was approved for use in kids as young as 11.

bernie sanders expressed concerns over what he described as the doctors close ties to the drug industry. rick perry is joining the campaign of ted cruz in iowa. perry is scheduled to make seven stops with him today. . the longest-serving governor in texas history of twice ran unsuccessfully for president. he announced his endorsement of ted cruz yesterday. news 24 hours a day powered by our 2400 journalists and more than 150 news bureaus around the world. david: commodity markets are closing in new york. starting with gold surging into a two-month high. this has prompted traders to bets on when the fed will raise interest rates again. the minister after of iran said they could cooperate with russia. oil is down about 15% this year.

joining me now is a chief equity billions inith assets. i was looking through the oil news and saw they were going to/ exploratory budget by 40%. it seems like a long series of stories of companies cutting back capital expenditures going forward. guest: i think the market is looking for a signal from the lower 48 new servers. it could be construed as a bullish signs for commodity markets but it's not good for the stock prices at for all of these -- for a lot of these companies. do you see market opportunities in light of what we see happening? guest: we considered -- we continue to see valuation risk. they're still rich valuations relative to future cash flows. you look at continental

resources in particular. but do you see with that company? this speaks to the point we are trying to make with our clients. you have myriad signals from the tenors, one year unsecured bond trading at $.60 on the dollar. on you still have 76 ilion the equity cap, so something does not pencil. cash flows will go toward servicing their debt load interest payments over time, taking available growth capital. , they might need to raise further capital to plug the holes in their balance sheet. david: what did you make of the news that there could be ?ovement with opec and russia is that something that is going

to lead to a diminishment of the overhang we have seen? -- that they'des difficult price to operate in four other producers. --hink the sad news is there's a lot of noise in the market and we are not willing to say that anything meaningful. the saudi's might wait for the next opec meeting before evaluating iran possibility to raise capacity. david: do you see a lot of momentum toward more mergers and acquisitions in this space? guest: not really. risk grows, if you can buy certain assets out of the credit market or potentially

future bankruptcies, i don't know -- the only way you are going to pay a real premium is if you go after the best rock in certain shale basins. in light of the news aret russia and opec, what the particular challenges of exerting that on producers in the u.s.? seems like it would be a lot harder to get reducers on board. one of the things we tried to highlight was the killer efficiency, the ability for these companies to leverage the new efficient technologies they are providing in the space sustainow them to production. continue theirto cash flows and service their debt. take a lot to force the small cap hands out of business.

next 20oming up in the minutes, rick perry is throwing his support behind formal rival ted cruz and joining him on the campaign trail. apple has had a rough start to 2016 amid reports of iphone reduction costs and analysts lowering estimates for sales. can apple still surprise to the upside? and betty liu will speak to hank greenberg about the company's latest plans to restructure. ♪

david: welcome back to bloomberg markets. former texas governor rick perry

has endorsed ted cruz in the presidential primary. p rejoined ted cruz on the campaign trail, calling him a constant conservative. with a week until the iowa caucuses, both parties are scrambling to make their arguments. to the campaign trail in iowa. ,ou were at this rally today what did rick perry have to say? rick perry and ted cruz were in iowa today in a barn. everyone was sitting on hay bales. andas a picturesque picture parry came out for his formal rival -- his former rival. he feels he is someone who in this race -- here is how it boils down -- it looks like it's

coming down to two people -- ted cruz and donald trump. in his mind, there is no question who you wanted to support. david: are we seeing more candidates collecting endorsements as we head into the final week? we see a lot more newspaper endorsements. a lot of these campaigns roll out and the question this year is whether or not endorsements matter. donald trump has gotten some big endorsements. but he says he doesn't really need it. we reached out to the trump campaign and asked for his top three biggest endorsements and he said if endorsements mattered in this race, jeb bush would be winning. let me ask about the

democratic town hall. it felt almost like phil donahue. chris cuomo there with each candidate fielding questions from the audience. talk about how the candidates did. how did they do? officially, they could not call this a debate. there's only a certain number of debates sanctioned by the democratic party. they got 30 minutes and i don't think it really changed any major dynamics in the race. what we saw was the candidates making their closing arguments and they are very different closing arguments. bernie sanders is leaning on this hope, change, optimism message and the ideal of america

he wants to see. hillary clinton is taking a more saying i'mpproach, the only person who can get things done in washington. vote for me because i'm the best proven record and i'm the one who can get what you want accomplished. closinge two different messages and we will see which ones voters like the most. there was someone who questioned hillary clinton about her trustworthiness. she answered forcefully but she seemed eager to not to have to answer. guest: this has always been something hillary clinton has somewhat struggled with. seen ineption we have polling now that this is something hillary clinton is going to be facing more and more in this campaign.

the real struggle for her is her opponent. bernie sanders gets whatever he wants to lean on the fact that he's been talking about these issues since the beginning. , nevernever changed played politics in the same way the clintons have, so this is something that has dogged her. she hasn't figured out how to address this and we will see if she can find her groove over the coming months. david: there was a question about how bernie sanders calls himself a democratic socialist. how did he answer that? quite well. this is something bernie has struggled with and will. i don't know if anybody would be calling him a democratic socialist if he did not use the term himself. but now he has to defend it and explain itge is to

and demystify it because people here socialism and think all sorts of thoughts. and what he tried to do last night was demystify it and say here is what it actually means. he has put himself in this position and just looking at his policies, i don't know if anyone would be calling him this if he hadn't used the term to begin with. david: don't miss "with all due respect" tonight. rick perry is on to talk about his endorsement and the republican campaign. iowa alle live from this week. coverage right here at 5:00 eastern time. time now for the bloomberg business flash and a look at the biggest business news right now. europe's second lowest cost airline is hoping to offset disruptions from the paris shootings and the bombing of the russian jet.

islionaire john paulson pledging to use his personal fortune to backstop his hedge fund. ownson is using his investment as additional the credit line from hsbc. amazon prime reaches more than 1/5 of american adults. prime had 54 million members at the end of last year, meaning nearly half of u.s. households have prime. that is your bloomberg business flash update. and a rallying 300 points broad-based advance with all of the sectors doing into the action. energy, telecom, materials, everything is up across the board. that includes materials. 1.3%.s up by we can see it got a leg up after the consumer confidence number,

but this mirrors what is happening in the materials sector. all three of those are up on the order of nearly 1%. with that said, this is more of a green blip relative to year to date. year to date, this is on pace for its mystic line since september of 2011. let's go to some specific stocks and see what's happening there. freeport mettler and is up nearly 7%. rising on better-than-expected this -- they are also looking to cut their debt pile. mining is up, rising in tandem with old.

that is after asian equities fell and the shanghai composite down overnight. by 4%, rising in tandem. futures up by 1.3%. all major commodities are up including silver, platinum, and palladium. let's look at what is happening with you pond -- up i about .25%, but off of its session highs. fourth-quarter earnings came in a little better than expected. it's full forecast is lower than expected. david: thank you so much. year's bout of market volatility has prompted investors to reconsider expectations of what the federal reserve might do. the fed could delay a rate hike until september.

so far, the data has been very soft. we will get a gdp report on friday. , march is looking less likely than it did several weeks ago, but we don't want to overreact to this. the underlying economy is growing at 2%, so i think the fed is tempted to look to any short-term volatility. >> we are all focused like a laser on janet yellen. but there's a limit to what they can do this time around. how much are they looking to what mario draghi did last week? guest: they will look at the language that he used. janet yellen has always been driven by that idea that inflation is painful and deflation is a killer. i think what they will probably do is try to look through the

volatility. there is no real getting around the fact that inflation is not taking off and that pushes you back out. matt: we were arguing about this earlier. carl is the loudest among us. but the average joe looks at cpi. ,f you talk to the average joe he says prices are higher regardless of what the fed will tell you or what we on bloomberg tv say. 2% when the climb above we are worried about inflation expectations going the other way? we have two economies. we have a service economy and a goods economy. the services economy does have higher inflation rates.

it's a bit more of a longish concept. challenge the fed may face is those indexes can and do to verge. the fed's measure is lagging behind. david: that was the global strategic advisor for pimco. catch a special edition of bloomberg markets tomorrow with my colleague scarlet fu broadcast on bloomberg tv and bloomberg radio starting at 2:00 eastern time. coming up, one of the world's biggest companies releases earnings after the bell today. we will get a preview with emily chang. ♪

david: welcome back to bloomberg markets. apple shares have dropped due in

large parts to concern about slowing iphone demand. iphones are everything to apple right now. they release their results after the bell for their holiday quarter. let's go to emily chang. iphones are so important to this company. revenue coming from the iphone and apple shares are down from the last earnings report. there's a lot of skepticism about can they keep it up? we have been talking about cuts and you have analysts saying the stock could go 50% between now and the next iphone. a lot of the bad news is already priced in. we will be looking at the iphone very closely and find out if the fall in the stock has been justified. among our ways of finding out what might be going on with this company, looking at the

incredibly intricate supply chain apple has. emily: companies like tdk and cirrus logic which gets two thirds of its income from iphones. these are companies that are dependent on apple and the apple ecosystem and we have seen their shares fall. one of the interesting things we have been talking about is can apple, out with another blockbuster product that drives as much revenue as the iphone? there's a lot of skepticism that apple can do that. but before the iphone was released, nobody thought this would happen. i was talking with david patrick uses the watch has some potential to become the product. others say it's not going to be that product anytime soon. going for it this unrivaled ecosystem so many devices are wrapped into. car and applehe music and the itunes store.

increasingly, software and services are telling a bigger part of the apple story. david: i wonder if apple is ?reaking down numbers emily: they have not been breaking down numbers. colorl be asking for any that will shed anymore light on how many more watches they are selling. appler question is is going to continue to be a growth stock? ,or the next several quarters analysts are not expecting more than 5% growth. justthe long-term, it's not going to be an explosively growing stock that it has been in the past. alphabet has been closing in on apple. i believe they are only about $60 billion apart.

apple is still the most valuable company in the world, but the gap is closing. apple earnings coming out after the bell. for more, join emily tonight on bloomberg west. she will be speaking with an analyst. coming up, we will hear from the legendary hank greenberg, a big announcement from aig about a proposal to restructure the company unveiled this morning. he will join us at 3:30 eastern time here on bloomberg markets. the only way to get better is to challenge yourself,

and that's what we're doing at xfinity. we are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. and this includes our commitment to being on time. every time. that's why if we're ever late for an appointment, we'll credit your account $20.

it's our promise to you. we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around. is 3 p.m. in new york. welcome to bloomberg markets.

from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, good afternoon. here is what we are watching at this hour. stocks are in rally, -- rally mode, pumped up by energy. the dow is heading for its biggest gain of the year, flirting with a 300 point rise as fears from a global meltdown are easing at least for today. aig making a pitch as it fights pressure from activists like carl icahn, signaling more domestic chairs and planning to return $25 billion to shareholders. will critics by it? we will ask hank greenberg. the world's most valuable company by market cap recording their results in just about 90 minutes for stop --