david: from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, good afternoon. i'm david gura. struggling for direction today. the s&p 500 swing between gains and losses. the big story is oil, climbing above $33 on a story that russia is willing to discuss with opec. the world health organization raising the alarm on the zika virus which has spread explosively, they say, to 23 countries in the americas. the travel industry is already dealing with the disease. amazon reporting after the bell today. will they get a boost from web services? will the media take a bite out of the margins? first let's go to the markets desk with julie hyman. julie: it has been a day of vacillating between gains and losses. right now, stocks are in the green.

nasdaq has been meeting all day long, but over the course of the day, you see some volatility, a couple of dips, but then turning into recovery. indeed, investors have had a lot to weigh. earnings, economic data, looking ahead to tech earnings, looking ahead to tomorrow's gdp data. if you look on the earnings , the snapshot of the earnings season so far. the is the busiest day of season, we have about a third of companies reporting in the s&p 500. 50% of companies that have beat the estimates on sales. 80% when it comes to earnings. growth, looking at sales for s&p 500 companies, and average decline in stale's -- sales of 1.6%,.

%. david: i imagine investors are still it digesting the numbers we got from facebook. julie: definitely seeing that stock reaction. looking at the euro there, but if you look at facebook -- i can tell you what it has done because we do not have the graphic. facebook shares are up 16% at the moment. they have been bawling of the other technology shares along with it. amazon and google have also been doing well in today's session. if you look at the other movers in other asset classes, oil prices are notable because we have seen the gain in the oil sustain itself even after conflicting reports about whether russia would be meeting with opec producers in the next month to talk about a production cut. i also wanted to point out the move in the dollar and treasuries.

the economic data we got this morning, durable goods coming in below estimates. the dollar is down versus the euro. this is the fourth straight session, the longest losing streak for the dollar against the euro since last september. the 10-year moving lower on that date as well. david: now let's check on the bloomberg first word news with mark crumpton. mark: the world health organization estimates there could be 3 million to 4 million virus in thezika americas over the next year. the estimate is based on previous estimations of infections of dengue fever, which is also carried by mosquitoes. the nominee to be the next american commander in afghanistan says the security situation in the country is deteriorating. johnrmy lieutenant nicholson told lawmakers today that within 90 days of taking

the job, he will do a thorough review of troop levels needed afghanistan. it confirmed, nicholson would succeed retiring general john campbell. a judge has agreed to delay dennis hastert sentencing in a hush money case. his attorneys said the former house speaker nearly died last november. sentencing is now set for november 8. hester and pleaded guilty to breaking banking laws as he sought to pay someone $3.5 million to conceal what prosecutors call prior misconduct. the michigan legislature has approved $20 million in additional funding to address the lead contamination in flint water. the bill now goes to rick snyder who is expected to sign it. meantime on capitol hill, senate democrats are introducing a measure that provides up to $4 million in new federal funding to replace and fix lead contaminated pipes in flint. donald trump is maintaining his big lead among republican primary voters across the nation. according to a new poll, trump

leads with 34%. marco rubio has 14%, and ted cruz is up 12%. no other republican candidate is in double digits. a programming reminder, "with all due respect" is live from des moines, iowa all this week ahead of the iowa caucuses. coverage here on bloomberg television beginning at 5:00 p.m. new york time. david: thank you. let's get back to the big story of the day. oil and whether or not russia is ready to compromise. the russian energy minister willing to meet with opec to coordinate on oil output, but a group of opec delegates said that no talks are planned. russia had stated in the goal of keeping crude production stable even as prices tumbled.

alive?ld we keep hope joining me from london is julian lee. with me in the studio is tracy alloway. there were a number of reports that came out of moscow, suggesting that russia may be prepared to talk about possible .utput cuts with opec countries there was some suggestion that had apparently been made by saudi arabia for an across-the-board 5% cut. that sparked a rally in prices. then we saw more news come out and that, in fact, this 5% cut was something that saudi arabia had suggested at a previous meeting. it does not appear to have been proposed at the previous two meetings, so that means it is at

least one year out of date. various sources within opec said that there were no plans for a meeting in february or any other time before the next opec meeting in june. that there was a certain amount of perhaps hopeful talk coming out of moscow, rather than any real action. at a timeaking place when russian production is well on its way to hitting a new post-soviet record. the numbers that we published earlier today suggest production will average 10.9 million barrels a day this month, more than it has ever produced since the breakup with the soviet union in 1991. david: tracy, how about the rest of the equities markets? stocks are tracking oil, simply.

oil is the big story for all the markets. the interesting thing is we are in the middle of earnings season, so you might expect stocks to be reacting to whether or not a company beats earnings that reactionbut is actually the lowest it's been in 14 years, which is amazing. david: that is counterintuitive. isit is, but the big story oil. there is a question whether stocks should be tracking oil. if we are going to be charitable to markets and assume they are rational beings -- which is a big assumption -- we could say the lower price could be interpreted as foreshadowing recession, and that would be bad for companies. on the other hand, there is a counter argument that says lower prices will boost consumption, which is also good. julian, let me ask you about what you think is unfolding. are we seeing an indirect negotiation, the argument about whether this was on the table, are you optimistic that this could lead to something positive? i'm not terribly optimistic

at the moment. i'm still skeptical that this will lead to any kind of real output cut beyond the natural declined that several producers are expecting to see this year. saudi arabia has very clearly said its policy is designed to crowd out high cost producers. it is just starting to work. we are seeing production declines in a number of higher cost producers. the united states among them. the last thing saudi arabia wants to do right at this moment is throw a lifeline to high-cost producers who are just about to cut back production. i don't think they have any real incentive to cut back. tracy, looming large over all of this is a fear about whether or not there is recession on the horizon. how are you seeing those fears play out? >> it's fair to say they are

mostly playing out in the credit market. we could say stocks are not actually tracking oil but the credit markets, which are tracking oil. you have all of these shale lenders, junk bond issuers, and they could be facing problems it oil continues its slide. that is definitely something seeking over. stocks are following on on credit. credit is right now at a level that could be pricing in, maybe not a massive recession, but certainly at distressed levels david:. david:thank you both so much. coming up in the next hour, the world health organization is sounding the alarm over the explosive spread of the zika virus. it is estimating up to 4 million cases. how the outbreak is already affecting economies in america's. the new york attorney general iss the market for tickets

stacked against you and says he will do something about it. thatd trump loves to boast he is great about tv ratings. tonight he has the chance to prove it. he is holding a competing rally instead of participating in the debate. ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i'm david gura. your bloomberg business flash, a look at some of the biggest news in the stories -- stories in the news right now. michael dell is bullish on the economy. in an interview, he talked about the state of the u.s. economy. the u.s. is relatively ok, as compared with the rest of the world. the digital transformation is on

, companies are trying to figure out how to use all this information. that is definitely a high priority. china is still the second-largest market outside of the u.s.. he is planning to invest $125 billion for u.s. -- chinese suppliers over the next five years. opec says there are no discussions to cut production costs. the next meeting is scheduled to take place in june. now let's go to the markets desk where julie hyman has a check on company movers. julie: health care has been selling off today. this has been one of the big laggards consistently throughout the session. health care is the only session in the red, down by 2%. earnings reports largely are weighing on this group. abbott labs is leading down the large-cap drugmakers, at its

lowest since april 2014. first-quarter profit forecast range trailed analyst estimates. it said it is feeling the impact of a stronger dollar, and that will continue. and its venezuelan business has been struggling. shares are down sharply and it's pulling down some of the other large cap health care shares. eli lilly also out with their numbers, posting a 5% decline in its fourth-quarter profit. biotech, specialty pharma, we also have a selloff. you can see the declines across that group. out witharmaceuticals a disappointing commentary on its conference call, saying analyst estimates for its cystic fibrosis treatment this year are perhaps too optimistic. affecting insurance stocks. anthem shares reacting to that. not any new catalyst today beyond the general struggle that

we are seeing in health care shares. david: thank you. isa, a mosquito-borne virus spreading they supposedly in the americas. there is no cure or vaccine insight. delta airlines said yesterday that it will let customers with tickets to affected regions change destinations or ask for their money back. for the latest, let's bring in drew armstrong. something in brazil for a while. how has it played out there, how has it began to spread? has been present in africa and south east asia for decades. been around so long in these places where the populations have developed immunity. this is something that happens all the time between the direction between human beings and viruses.

this process has been playing out for millennia. but one thing that is happening world,, in the modern this virus has gone to south and central america, where it has never been before. it spreads through mosquitoes, which is some of the best vectors to get disease around. it is infecting people and causing some serious reactions. most people are very mild, but the cdc and who are looking for this link where we are seeing birth defects when pregnant mothers become infected, but they have not nailed down the link. they are seeing a lot of cases where the head can be too small, causing developmental disabilities and harm to the child. delta airlines jetblue also saying that customers can change their point plan. talk about the economic ramifications of this. the recommendations from these international bodies are different, so people are trying to figure out the restrictions. >> we are in new york, it is

about 40 degrees. alreadyf snow and i have a trip planned to brazil for a wedding this year, and costa rica. a lot of americans are doing the same thing, getting out of the cold weather. they are looking at going to a lot of these countries to get some time in the sun, and now they are saying, is this a good idea? there is no vaccine for this virus and i have not built up an immunity. you are seeing this impact the hotel and tourism industries. they don't want to say, go anyway, we are not giving you your money back. that would be a terrible move for the pr. david: you mentioned vaccines. when you look at research in terms of something to combat this, where are we, and where will we need to go? >> we are at the earliest possible stages.

thankfully, there is a ton of science funding around the world in developed countries, and there are people working on these, but often on the back burner. the national institutes of health say they have a vaccine candidate that they have favored and are talking with drug companies about how to partner and test this, get clinical trials done, but this takes years. you have to figure out if it is the right vaccine, if it will work, and then get out and test. you do not want to inoculate people, thinking they are protected, when they are not. is a storye continuing to break, theranos, another twist involving walgreens. >> they say they will suspend any testing that they have with theranos in california. they do most of their work in arizona. that will not stop, but after the government send them a harsh letter saying that they made serious deficiencies at the california lab, walgreens, one of the biggest partners, is pulling back.

yet another blow for theranos after a lot of problems. $9 billion private startup at this point, promised to revolutionize testing, and has run into a bunch of stumbling blocks. you.: thank still ahead, new york's attorney general is putting the ticket industry on notice. will ticketmaster and live nation have to change their game? ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i'm david gura. we are looking at the major indices right now. dow jones up .75%. the s&p up by a similar amount. 1%.nasdaq is almost up

with half of the world's aluminum plants losing money, alcoa says global demand will exceed production. the company is estimating a deficit of 1.2 million metric tons. joining me now is our base metals reporter. they are saying is counter to what a lot of people say about the state of the market. >> it is counter to what many have been saying. -- analystse have are saying that some have a deficit. goldman sachs has 2.8 million ton surplus. mcquarrie has the same thing, 1.7 million tons. , 667,000telligence tons surplus. this is running counter to a lot of people in the market. when you get past the analysts and talk to the traders, the buyers, asking them -- last week i was at a conference in florida, asking, do you think

there is a deficit? many of them said no, we think those are all the surplus side, probably more in line with but the market is. david: what explains the difference? we asked alcoa this. we wanted to be fair, why do you think there is this 1.2 million ton deficit? connectionse have on the ground in china, we know producers in china. we do business in china, we know what is going on in that market. we believe about 3.9 million tons of curtailment's announced in the second half of 2015 will come to full realization in the first quarter. they said they believe on the intelligence that they have on the ground. when we talk about capacity, are they the leader, give us a context of the alumina market and china. >> if china were not in the

market, we would have a deficit in the market. they are such a huge producer and they do smell so much, -- smelt so much, there was general consensus that in 2015 there was a surplus in the market. this goes back to a job situation, a banking situation, a question as to whether or not wouldg more smelters leave regional banks in china with bad debt. if you started closing different ones, would people be losing jobs? this is a part of what everyone is looking at in this market. david: so much of this hinges on a timeline of these closures. what do we know about that? does think the closures will occur, but as you saw in our story, a researcher based in based ond, this is all the fact that people expecting

this deficit spec the curtailment to occur. but we have seen time and again they will bring production back online with the drop of a hat, as he put it. that is what people look at when they say china keeps announcing curtailment, but they turn around pretty quickly, and those curtailment's do not actually occur. thank you. still ahead, new york attorney general putting the ticket industry on notice. ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i'm david gura. let's get a check on the news with mark crumpton. years ago today,

america and suffered one of its most tragic losses. the seven astronauts who died when the shuttle challenger exploded were remembered today at cape canaveral, florida. >> 30 years ago at this moment, we were awaiting the launch of space shuttle challenger. we all remember that cold winter day. at the time, we did not realize there was a lot of debate, do we launch or not launch? unfortunately, we did, and we know what happened, tragedy. services are also being held at the johnson space center in houston and arlington national cemetery. 16 people are dead after multiple suicide bombings in nigeria where 200 schoolgirls were abducted by boko haram almost two years ago. the ap thattells they expect me to pull rise because many people suffered severe burns and are battling for their lives. a japanese news agency says north korea might be getting ready to test a long-range missile. satellite cites new

images. meanwhile, south korean soldiers and u.s. marines are holding winter military exercises today and you're the border with the north. tensions between the two koreas have increased since pyongyang's latest atomic weapons test this month. donald trump is standing by his 'scision to skip tonight republican debate, claiming he has been treated unfairly by fox news. poll shows that trump has a water leak nationally. marco rubio and ted cruz are the only other republican candidates in double digits. "d a programming reminder, with all due respect" is live from des moines, iowa all week ahead of the caucuses. global news 24 hours a day powered by our 2400 journalists in more than 150 news bureaus around the world. david: commodity markets are

closing in new york. let's take a look at some of the biggest movers. gold headed for the biggest monthly gain in a year after the chinese economic slowdown sparked turmoil. the volatility is near the highest since february. looking at oil, jumping today despite news out of opec that says they have no plans to meet with russia to discuss output cost. speaking of hot commodities, the sky should not be the limit when it comes to concert and sports ticket sales, that is what the new york attorney general is saying, after their office wrapped up a three-year investigation. >> the ticket industry is now on notice that our investigations are into doing until all new yorkers can get a fair art david: -- fair deal on tickets. the attorney general is locking investigations into nfl ticketing practices. when did we learn from eric schneiderman today, a report on

ticketing, focusing on the nfl. >> for anyone that has tried to online withtickets ticketmaster, you are learning why you are likely not to get them. the cards are stacked against you, to use his words. a lot of the inventory does not make it down to the public sale. there are fees on top of fees, as i'm sure you know. software thating jumps you in line. which is supposed to be illegal, but it is happening fairly widely. he put together a detailed list of all the ways in which this industry is stacked against the consumer. david: we were talking about the way tickets to the super bowl are apportioned, a lot of them go to special interests, get first pick. >> it is for all of these hot events. is one of them.

any time springsteen come to new york, u2, katy perry, these premium events. it has trickled down through the industry, but when you think about it, tickets do not work like a normal industry. face value prices are sold way below market value, which creates an incentive for people who can get their hands on tickets in underhanded ways to then reap profit on it. it is supposed to protect consumers, but in a lot of ways, does the opposite. david: with regard to changes, he says a lot of it is unfair, is it illegal? >> the report is strong on the issues but a little weaker on how to fix it. he is proposing things that market places can do, like stop hot and other places, proposing partial -- harsher penalties. he wants a deeper look into fees. i think we may see some independent investigations into specific aspects. you mentioned the nfl. sources tell us he has launched

an anti-test probe into the practices, which he finds are a constraint to trade. in the aftermath of this report, which lays out what the industry looks like, we may see more from him in terms of trying to clean it up. david: you brought up how tickets are often sold and then resold. that is outlined in the report. a lot of people say that that practice is unfair, leading to a lot of fraudulent transactions. >> a lot of people would be surprised to know that the ticket that they buy it either does not exist or that the seller has. they are betting that prices will go down closer to the event, which usually happens. but they all hope to buy a cheaper ticket later to fill your order. happened in last year's super bowl, when short-sellers are squeezed and cannot put up the money, you as the consumer are left ticket less, standing in arizona. david: thank you.

up, iranian president hassan rouhani is on a post-sanctions shopping trip in europe. he just signed off on $33 billion in deals with airbus and peugeot. donald trump luz to talk about his tv ratings. tonight he will prove if he is responsible for them. amazon reports earnings after the bell. how big of a boost in cup from its prime service over the holiday season. ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i'm david gura. is continuing to sign some big business deals after the lifting of economic sanctions. withresident met in france

friends law hollande as they placed an order for airbus jetliners worth $27 billion. he also signed a deal with peugeot four an auto plant. is our analyst from stratford. what is iran trying to get from this, what does it want to accomplish? >> there is a lot to do for your on. they have been under sanctions for quite some time. you still have a population of 77 million people, so lots of potential there in terms of the consumer market. in terms of building of infrastructure, it is not exactly starting from scratch but you have a lot of dilapidated infrastructure across the board, not just the energy sector. in retail,telecom, there are a lot of refinements and updates that iran and needs, commercial aviation, overall

consumer retail, a number of industries. this is a time when iranians also prefer european products, so france and italy are obvious choices and where you see a lot of business potential. this is the beginning of the iranian economic recovery. it will be a gradual process. no results overnight. david: you mentioned the preference for european products. how long before americans begin to do business in a similar way with iran? unfortunately, for the most part, american companies will be finishing last in this race for iranian investment, due to the sanctions that remain in place on the u.s. side. a lot of those are codified in legislation that will not be lifted anytime soon. the main impact for these sanctions lifting is the lifting of the secondary sanctions.

now ford companies can do business with iran. there are some exceptions. notably, the aviation industry, boeing is in the game. even as we see airbus find this a deal, iran has a lot that it needs in terms of upgrading its aviation industry and is looking to both airbus and boeing for its supply. when it comes to energy, that is a trickier business. there is some room for subsidiaries of u.s. controlled companies to work with iran, but that is a very complex, legal maze that those companies will have to weave through, if they decide to take the risk. all playings this out in iran, when you look at the lifting of the sanctions? >> it's an interesting time because we have elections in iran coming up in february for the parliament and assembly of experts, which will be selecting the next supreme leader. given this very charged clinical environment, of course there is

a substantial part of the population that is looking at the nuclear deal and its implementation very positively, but you also have a number of more hardline elements. is quitehere the irgc influential in politics. they were one of the main regimeiaries of the setting up front companies and spreading their political economic influence. they do not want to be threatened by outside investment. so i think you still have a lot more to see here in that political competition within where more of that hardline conservative element is that couldk, and cause some more legislative obstacle down the road, once companies are actually in iran and trying to navigate that regulatory environment. david: thank you so much. it has been a busy day in the race for president. iowa caucus goers have a few days left to make up their mind.

today's republican debate may help them out that donald trump says he is not showing up. democrats, bernie sanders and that his fate will depend on high turnout. let's bring in john heilemann in des moines, iowa. let's begin with the republican debate. there is no chance that donald trump is going to show up. >> i would never say that. with donald trump, never say never. you will hear between now and debate time about 1000 people on television and radio and maybe even me say something like, donald trump will or will not do x, y, or z. the truth is, none of us have any idea what he will do. i would venture that donald trump does not even know what he wants to do. it is like peyton manning lining up to the scrimmage deciding that he will call an audible, but not deciding until the defense lines up.

he could end of that the debate stage, at his own event, or he could be at both. none of those would surprise me come tonight. outside of iowa, we tend to pay attention to these debates, on national networks. do the voters in iowa care about what is being said at the debate? there are a lot of voters who are still making up their mind. trump than any other candidate are pretty settled on the notion that they are voting for him. 1's in thedate has ranking system. those are the ones that will be showing up. every campaign is counting those. they are all watching tv, absorbing the news, looking at this debate, just like everyone else, and maybe even more intent the.

what gets said and what information reaches them, all of that does not really matter. david: bernie sanders was at the bloomberg breakfast. we found out he was in good health. what else did he have to say? greaty: one of the strengths about bernie sanders is as a candidate, he is consistent. he joked about that today, that some people criticized him for the things that he has been saying for 30 years. i think that is a great virtue of a candidate, consistency. we have heard a lot of things that are familiar to sanders specifically. assault on the oligarchy, the big banks, and so on. a lot of the things that you have heard from sanders before. interestingly, he was asked about some of the news of the day. there was an editorial that was hard on him and he responded with some outrage, was upset about the idea that the

clinton campaign may be thinking about busing supporters in from out of state for the caucuses. large, this was vintage bernie sanders, saying all the things that he says most of the time. thank you, john heilemann. he will be speaking to rinse pre-bus tonight. reminder, we will be live at the des moines iowa caucuses all week. don't miss there is clear to coverage. energy stocks are leading the gains today. julie hyman has a closer look at today's spider sector report. julie: energy stocks are the best performing group. what you see is a gain in energy stocks from 2.5%, far and away the best performing group. you saw a chart of oil showing what is underlined those gains in energy shares, rising for the third straight session even

after some of the opec producers poured cold water on the russian suggestion that there would be a meeting next month to discuss a production cut. still, oil hanging onto a gain of 3% at the moment. all of this has been good news for oil stocks. , it islook at the xle, up two point 5% today. tracking the moves we are seeing in the stocks. if you look at the big oil companies, they are doing well. exploration and production, or oil services. an interesting note that was highlighted by david wilson earlier today, from julian emmanuel at ubs, the director of u.s. equity strategy and derivatives strategy. what he is saying is that we will start to see the green shoots of stabilization in energy stocks. he is looking at energy versus the standard & poor's 500, comparing it with how tech and health care traded versus the index. over time, when they were

slumping. he is looking at the gap between energy stocks in the s&p 500 and now as it waswide between tech and s&p and health care and s&p in 2000 and 2001 and 1992 in 1993, and wanted got to a certain breath, we started to see it come back again. we have started to see those groups stabilize and rally. he says we could be at that inflection point. david: thank you. coming up, after the bell, amazon releases their earnings. we will get a preview from cory johnson, next. ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg markets." i'm david gura. las vegas may be the boxing capital of the world but there is another fight brewing in nevada i am speaking about a product -- confrontation that

pits elon musk against warren buffett over the battle for the solar energy market. with me now is somebody who wrote about the struggle. we have the story, nevada, a state that has been trying to get solar energy to move to the state. it did exceptionally well, enticing people to get solar power through leases. what happened? interesting story. warren buffett owns the traditional utility, nv be energy. elon musk and his cousins pounded solar city, which allows homeowners to lease panels that the but on their roots. last year we saw a legislative fight in nevada and then a hearing in front of the utilities commission that basically rewrote the rules on who it costs for homeowners want to put solar panels on the roof and connect to the grid.

essentially, solar city was getting special treatment. areolks who are going solar getting a subsidy, that they were not paying their fair share for the upkeep of the grid. regulators cannot with a ruling that largely agreed with that position. as a result, solar city and other companies have said they are going to stop business in the state. david: what does this mean for folks who are using solar city, they are sitting there with the technology and it's not doing anything? from is still generating the sun, but the economics of the arrangement have changed. this is still an ongoing process. one of the radical things that regulators said is that everyone has to play by the same rules. people who made the decision to go solar, leasing these panels for tens of thousands of dollars did so under one economic assumption. now there is a new system.

that whole issue of grandfathering is being looked at again and it's quite possible that over the next several weeks we will get some changes on the matter. david: thank you, noah buhayar. story on solar city and its competitor in nevada. amazon releases their earnings after the close today. cory johnson is live in san francisco. i imagine what most people will be looking at is the success of their prime service. buried alert was on yesterday saying it was a genius move creating prime. is that what most are paying attention to? cory: yes and now, the success of prime will be the biggest part of their revenue. that can give them the opportunity to profit or even lose. they don't give us a ton of details about the financial metrics around prime. we get some good information about shipping, but we don't know what percentage of orders

come from prime, new prime customers. we do not even have the hard numbers on how many subscribers ,here are, or even the cohorts those that are a few years old, if they spend more or less over time. they don't tell us any of that. so we will have to define from their comments the responsibility that prime has on the revenue numbers. what will be much more important for the quarter, in terms of thinking about the future of amazon, is looking at their web services business. these are numbers that are required to be diebold to the sec. those numbers have been shocking in terms of the size of the business, about a billion-dollar run rate, and the profitability, which issomething that really not amazon-like. doing better than 20% operating margins for this big business of theirs. david: you mention cloud computing. one of amazon's rivals is

microsoft, which has a pretty big market share. when you look at that company also announcing today, is cloud computing summit that you will pay close attention to? cory: isn't it funny that write down interstate 90, microsoft is staring at amazon creating a billion-dollar annual business, and now they are struggling to create their azure business, which is nice, until you look down the street. azure business has been an important one for them because it really is their grounding in the cloud, growing fantastically, better than 130% last quarter. that is another thing. same day, same business, competitors in the same state, practically on the same street. we will see if their growth continues to be faster than even that of amazon web services. satya nadella trying to

turn things around. what are some of the things he has not managed to change? ,ory: the culture has changed from a lot of indications, a lot less shooting at each other. there is also a notion that while the pc is important, windows and office remains important, they have a rounder cloud offering, focusing on the things for the future. those were not always as clear during the ballmer administration. he is very focused on the future of computing. keep an eye out on windows, which could be the big surprise. david: cory johnson from san francisco, thank you. more bloomberg markets coming up after the break. ♪

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from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, good afternoon. here's what we are watching at this hour. stocks opening strong, selling off the bed -- selling off a bit . the dow is nearing its 15th triple digit move and 18 sessions. one of the big gainers as facebook, which is helping the nasdaq higher. investors are buying amazon as the e-commerce giant reports earnings after the close. and shares of under armour are often running thanks to huge sales in speakers. can they silence their critics? we are about one hour away from the close of trading today. stocks rising but it has not been a straight path