♪ betty coming up, the stories that shook the week: in business around the world. the fed stands pat while keeping a close eye on nervous markets coul. >> everyone can take a deep breath and stop freaking out. betty: twitter shakes up its ranks and aig rolls out a plan, but will get results. >> i like to see aig regained the strength and stature that it had. i don't see it yet. hitters joineavy

us to talk business and politics. when they make predictions, they swing for the fences. >> jeff bezos will be the richest person in the world within five, seven years. betty: plus the week's most brilliant charts and experts discuss the threats of a u.s. recession. it's all straight ahead on "bloomberg best." betty: i am betty liu. welcome to "bloomberg best." the mostlook at important business news, analysis, and interviews from bloomberg television around the world. market volatility continued this week with investors looking everywhere for signs of stability. but as we take a day-to-day look at the top headlines, the dominant team is change. >> twitter shares are tanking down almost 5% after the company lost for key

members of its executive leadership team. kevin we'll had a product could ask for head of engineering, head of media, and skip shipper, vice president of human resources could what we know and what don't we know? there's also a board shakeup coming. >> we know for sure these people and left twitter and they announced . there is a fifth person this week. we know that there adding to onbers to the board based information from sources. we also know they are getting close to hiring a cmo. >> in any ceo transition, you see this in pretty much every company. the fact is this is twitter. it lives in a public space. they have a bigger glare on them right now. i do not think this is anything unusual. if you look at a regular company, no one would even notice.

>> let's get to the big changes at aig, following pressure from carl icahn, the insurance giants is taking action. joining me is josh, the senior analyst at sanford bernstein, doing research and coverage of aig could let me get your reaction to what we heard today . is it enough to set aside you? >> you have to be sympathetic to management. the company has been challenge for more than a decade now ever since hank greenberg left. end up saying that today was a bunch of incremental news, generally positive we do not . we do not think they went far enough to this is the time for both action and it was a lot of opportunities that management miss. >> let me return to the $25 billion number in dividends and buybacks. how many fees will company get

to that number? >> we would've thought -- number was probably doable and a couple of years. what they didn't do was choose to pursue an aggressive path and massively simplify the firm, which is taking off the table when the operational strategies that would make a ton of sense. they are clearly focused on defending their status position, which ultimately is an unusual position to be taking given that's regulated by the side. >> the rate remains unchanged. the fed would like you to know that they are watching things. they see what you see and everyone can take a deep breath and stop freaking out. here is what they did. they change the description of what they see in the economy. the have been saying that economic activity was expanding at a market pace, but labor markets improve, but economic growth slowed at the end of last year. here's the key language. we are closely monitoring global

economic conditions and financial developments, assessing their applications for the labor markets and inflation and the balance of risks. >> do we have an idea of how ruptures,arket china's fault, are going to affect the outlook at this point, the balance of risks? >> i don't think we know yet. information is coming in every day. the stock market is mainly relevant to the fed for what it does to well and, therefore, for consumption. we are talking a little bit about business investment spending. china is relevant mainly for what it does to the whole world, not china per se. the chinese stock market is as close to the relevant as you can get as far as the fed. delivers its best earnings evers, but shares getting slammed. the company surprised investors by helping earn more profits in the quarter. .arnings per share at a dollar

these numbers are not the kind of profitability that investors might've hoped for at the end of the third quarter. >> that's right. if you look at the stock market, it looks more like ebay come up at the fundamentals are much different. the fundamentals did not produce the same yield it had on the upside on that non-gap operating margin. in the september quarter, they blew the numbers out. they were 16% ahead of analyst expectations. in the december quarter, they were on the top entry the reason why they did not blow it out is that they had higher-than-expected unit growth. there was 26% adjusting for prime day and the september quarter was 24%. the acceleration unit growth dipped margins in the december quarter. >> they made less because they sold in volume? >> right. the increment of units that, the very end are expensive for them to fulfill. they have to put their own would just extort.

that incremental cost of delivering that hurts them. >> this is a great quarter for amazon, but it's not what analysts were expecting. you're starting to see this topsy-turvy, we are going to do a little bit of profit, were going to do a little bit of growth, were going to do a little bit of profit. profit, theywed thought they would go with that profit in amazon never really made that promise. >> we got breaking news the bank of japan has announced its latest pulse of direction. theree 5-4, a slim margin to dump negative interest rates c. they adopted a rate of .1%. they came up with a forecast for gdp for this year -- 1.5%. that looks to be the nominal forecast, 2017 gdp forecast .3%. they also delay the timing of when they think they can reach this 2% inflation target. >> the negative rate thing is the big shot could whck.

why they've done is that corporate japan is sitting on a lot of money. you would think they would spend some of that. >> it's trying to mobilize the cash reserve sitting idle in the economy. it might be bank reserve sitting with the boj or corporate cash reserves. the real surprising thing is they did this. a --there is a risk they pass on lower interest rates coul. japan is a green economy. >> this a lot of spending their possibly. >> it's still has savers. you don't want to harm them. thee are suspicions that boj is running into resistance buying bonds. if you lower deposit rates, and makes it even harder for the boj to try these bonds free from the banks who are holding these bonds and to sell them. it might actually make quantitative easing more difficult. betty: we will have more on

aig's restructuring later. i talk with current ceo peter hancock, but i also sat down with longtime chief executive hank greenberg to find out what he thinks of the new plan. best," on "bloomberg learning from earnings. lots of companies reported this week. highlights and analysis straight ahead. ♪

♪ betty: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i am betty liu. some of the worlds's biggest companies reported quarterly earnings this week. apple,ndup begins with which projected a drop in sales for the first time since 2003. beneath those numbers -- concerns over softening demand in china. bloomberg tv asia took a deeper look. >> they are also affected by the slowdowns broadly speaking in

china. >> a big problem absolute. >> how big a problem is that for apple? >> they are relying more and more on developing markets. china is the second largest market. it's everybody second-largest market, let's be honest, not just apple. we always look to china as being that extra boost. the last quarter, we have the chinese lunar new year. it's a time when people go by new presence for themselves or loved one or lots of companies giveaway presence at that time of year. we think there's kind of austerity going on in china. we know the economy is slowing down of it. there's an anticorruption drive where we do not devote too many money around co. there's also this patriotic nationalistic thing of buying chinese product. that's instead of the western goods. we have seen that coming in from china and the last few years were people are becoming very patriotic to their own goods. add in the economic pressures in

china that we are just starting to see. very stronging compared to the rest of the world, but a slowdown in china is not always news. there are small impacting things. it is the housing cuts for the outlook of this year. it is hard to look at this quarter and what apple is telling us to see really any positive signs this year. if there is an upside, we kind of knew it was coming. crushing and we mean crushing fourth-quarter earnings as the company continues to add revenue from mobile and instagram. revenue was up 5.8 billion dollars up 57% year-over-year. profits up nearly 123% year-over-year. what surprised you most about these numbers? >> i would not say surprised me, but facebook is acting extremely well. the growth in engagement and facebook as they have shifted to mobile.

people, about half of that used facebook every month used it every day. that number has gone up to 65%. that is percent of people he use facebook use it on the phone every month. only 10% use it on the pc. >> what is the biggest challenge? everything looks great. what is the one thing they have to worry about? >> google and facebook could they have this amazing business and facebook and now they are tried to find the next huge business. androidound things like and a bunch of multibillion-dollar businesses. you can see that and facebook's investment. they are using this cash cow that is facebook and advertising network to look at ai and internet.org and virtual reality. it will be interesting to see which of those play out and which of those turn into the big businesses that company hopes it will be. revenue --e europe's visa europe's revenue has hit a revenue record.

plans to discuss is the ceo. live in a world of incredible financial tension at the moment. does that get reflected in to anything that you do? does it have a meaningful impact as to what happens at your company? >> everything impacts consumers. from a statement for cities, we do not really see that. we're just winning over cash. car payments especially for visa are quite convenient for some consumers. they use it more and more and therefore our numbers keep increasing. >> in terms of use of cash, and what it means for monetary policy, sweden is a good example of a country that is quite far away long down the road. who else is close? is awould say that norway cashless society.

to give you an example, i think that the u.k. is getting there. list, look at the contact the huge growth last year was really amazing. one of every citizen transactions that was on facebook's page was on a contact list for visa. it was up 125 a year ago. clearly, there is an evolution of things going on. >> if they win for alibaba this morning. earnings reported up 32% increase in sales and net income that more than doubled. for more, let's bring in paul kedrosky. take us to the alibaba numbers first if you would. inthe alibaba numbers general -- this is an exceedingly complex company. is kindest comparable of a mix of paypal and amazon. you have a merchandising business, a cloud servicing business, entertainment is this

all mixed up under the hood of this giant company called alibaba. the merchandising side of the business came in slightly ahead of expectation. payment stood considerably better and the cloud service size of the business, which is quite a small component to be fair, was up more than 100%. in general, it was a slight beat in terms of analyst consensus, but fairly positive across the board in a very difficult company to pull together in value giving the moving carts -- parts. >> do you want to weigh in? >> alibaba as a public company is a strange thing. the strategy toward the public market seems to be give us your money, but we don't know what to do with it could to come out of the gate with this huge ipo and turn around and say, oh, the market is up, we want to buy that shares shows confusion of what the company wants to be despite of the size and success that they have had in the market they are in. hollywoodys into seemed further rather than thoughtful.

i think it is going to leave the investing community a little bit concerned and confused about what this copy really wants to be when it grows up. >> ¢ shares have slipped after missing earnings estimates for the fourth quarter because of growing demand for high-end smartphones. the income came in at $2.7 billion. heidi is here to go through all the numbers for us could we heard this from apple and now we are hearing this from samsung. >> i do not think anyone is surprised. simpson is particularly optimistic. hasth-quarter net profit net profit down. $2.9 billion under shock that expectation. --s was an unsubscribe to unsurprisingly driven by the mobile division. that saw an incredible decline. 31% decline in operating profit across that division. so not only are they not selling enough of their own high and those new galaxy models

when they were first released, but all this is trickling down. they also have the benefit of better integration. it's also the low end china manufacturing story continuing to lose market share to the xiaomi. we note analysts have criticized him for having to broad of a product range. no focus on the high-end or low-end. there's too much going on and as a result, they are not waiting on either end of that product spectrum. ♪

♪ betty: you are watching "bloomberg best." i am betty liu. as he mentioned earlier, aig unveiled a new strategic plan week.eak -- this it will sell its dealer network, conducting additional public offering of its mortgage insured

unit, and cut costs while returning $25 billion to shareholders in the next two years. will this approach they've off interference from activist investor carl icahn? i asked ceo peter hancock about that plan. iswe laid out this morning what we are going to do over the next two years to make this company more focused, more profitable, and returned $25 billion to shareholders. that speaking to all of our shareholders, all of our policyholders, all of our regulators and stakeholders. i'm sure we will not satisfy all them, but we need to deliver a sustainable franchise if we are going to make the right decisions trading long-term versus short-term and deliver results. betty: why not break up the company? a much more focused company than it was before the financial crisis and we have focused it down to the essence of what can deliver value to our clients. remember -- our business is absorbing the risks of our clients and managing them. to manage those risks, we need

to use that precipitation. critical.ation is if you were to break up the coming, you would lose between $5 billion and $10 billion of diversification benefits at the minimum. that is in the eyes of the raising agencies. >> is that the tax as that you were talking about? >> this is simply respect versification. it has uncertainties balance by the stable cash flows. from a tax perspective, that is for the reason why splitting the company would be very expensive. we would lose approximately $1.3 billion per year in foreign tax credits if we split life in retirement from property-casualty this year or the year after. it is an annual cost that we would incur. instance, our role as a sify, that cost to us is about a 10th of that. the tax benefit is roughly 10 times the cost of being a sify.

that is certainly another reason that the diversification issue is a much greater issue coul. betty: carl icahn and others would say that diversification hasn't worked as a return on equity is lagging behind her peers. how does this new design that you unveiled this morning going to bring you back to double-digit returns on equity? >> what we have done in this disclosure is help people understand our return on equity by dividing it between operating businesses and the legacy businesses. more than a quarter of the company's capital is dedicated to legacy activities. things that have accumulated over decades, who were in the businesses of exiting either through sales are just gradual runoff. that hasn't are a wee between 3% and 5%. by breaking out the operating business, the rou is much more competitive and we have plans to make it much more competitive. these are more meaningful than

looking at the aggregate numbers. betty: hours after speaking with hancock at the new york stock exchange, i sat in this very studio with a man who built aig, hank greenberg. i asked him what he thought about the direction the company is taking. plan?ou think of the with peter about breaking it up into three companies. i think that's a mistake. you say it is too big to manage. it is a fraction of what aig was. it's smaller than the company ran. >> absolutely. maybe by half. betty: the size is not the problem. >> it shouldn't be the problem. it sold off some of its best could itia and others is not as deep in the foreign field as it used to be. countries -- not

just there, but doing business and growing in these countries. nothing like that now. betty: but they are underperforming still? they are particularly underperforming against their peers. do you think today's plan went far enough? >> it's not how far it went only. it's a question of how they will intimate it and whether or not they can execute it. all that remains to be seen. betty: some of the critics have said, including carl icahn, say that you should separate out the life and the pnc. the of that has to do with systemically important designation on aig. why not get rid of that the way metlife did, for instance? >> metlife's a different company. i think that's a mistake. for several reasons. first of all, having both classes of business gives you a better balance. one supports the other when the other is a little soft. is what hancock

said, too. that's his argument. >> it's true. that part i believe is true. if you are running your business as well. in any event, it seems to me that aig should be contesting the designation. they are half the size that they were. so why are they being held to a size that they are no longer at? betty: hank, in your view, is peter the right person for aig? >> he's going to have to prove that he is. until he does, there is a question mark. betty: you're doubtful? >> i hope he does it. i would like to see aig regains some of the strength and statute it had. i don't see it yet. betty: have you talked to carl icahn at all? >> no. betty: you 100% do not agree with anything he outlines for the company? >> it does not make sense.

as a manager of the company, this makes no sense. betty: would you ever have any interest of coming back to aig? >> no. betty: in any capacity? >> i'm busy doing what i'm doing. building a company that's going quite well. i'm building start companies in the insurance field. we are doing quite well. we will continue to cover this aig saga on bloomberg tv. here are some other business stories that caught our attention around the world this week. >> this is a big day for xerox. the company beat fourth-quarter product forecast and announced in his footing into two different companies. one will manage its hardware operations and another that will house its services businesses. what brought you to the stage? what made you decide this was the best thing for your company? this is a big decision. to what extent was it outside factors and what was mr. icon playing in it? >> it's a big decision and our company and it's a decision

driven from analysis of what's happening in the market, around the world, what customers come investors, and quite frankly, our employees are actually driven by. what's been reported is that this was driven by mr. icon. interestingly enough, it was not to the board did its analysis and came to its conclusion without talking to mr. carl icahn at all. fortunately, when we did speak to him. he agreed with the outcome that we reached. on a go forward basis, he will be involved from a perspective when the company splits into two. he will have some governments input into the services business. he will not be engaged with the document technology business or current xerox business. as i said, i'm pleased with the fact that we came out in a place that is strong for the business and happened to align with what mr. carl icahn wanted to do as well. saudi arabia is considering

an ipo of the world's largest oil business, but has ruled out some its reserves. chilcote joins us with the details. little bit of news on the story. what is the latest? >> we heard from the ceo and he is said in the last hour a couple interesting things on price, saying the saudi's are not responsible for low prices. >> we have been hearing from the ceo of aramco. in the last hour, a couple interesting's on price. the saudi's are not responsible for low prices. in the same breath, saying they won't cut production. as for the ipo, he said they are looking at two options, one would be selling a

stake in the parent company. both those options delon the table. he did throw a little bone to international investors saying if there is an ipo, they are looking at listing some of those shares outside. >> the corporate story here, shareholders rubberstamping the fiji taker. the question simmering in the background, is has it paid too much given the 50% slump in the price since the deal was announced last april? >> if oil prices remain with a -- where they are today, shell is going to have to work very hard to make this acquisition function. in all probability, oil prices won't stay where they are. they go down in the short term. in the immediate term, we expect oil prices to go high. it is a long-term deal. things change over to long-term.

if we take a long-term view, and shell is taking a long-term view, they will get this to work. it may be harder in the short-term. betty: there is another merger taking a well-known american company to ireland to lower its tax bill. the walkie based -- milwaukee-based johnson controls is combining with tyco in a multibillion-dollar deal. what this means for both of the companies and also what it means politically. let's bring in joe lovington. why does this make sense? >> it gives johnson control come to sell more. protection, moderate thing, they can add that to their bronze -- broadened their portfolio. from a financial standpoint, there is anemic growth, maybe 1% or 2%. m&a remains red-hot because you can take out cost savings and build growth through cost

savings over the next couple of years. those two items combined with the tax savings out of the inversion of the three main drivers of today's announcement. betty: ford will shut down its operations in japan. >> is about market share? is it about failing to gain sales in indonesia? >> for ford, that contributes to this decision. for last year, and japan sold less than 5000 cars. they did roughly the same amount of sales in indonesia. in indonesia, you have a situation where the market is dominated by the japanese players. ford never put a ton of investment into that market in terms of producing locally. which has some impact. in japan, it is really a matter of struggling to gain market share.

a market that is expected to be in decline going for it. the writing was on the wall for this move report. ?

betty: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i'm betty liu. our review of the week's most interesting conversations start with guy johnson. the interview with the finance minister of greece. >> greece is continuing to sink. we miss this chance collectively. creditors, lenders come a the european union, we miss this great opportunity that we had to

stabilize this and take it off the headlines so you don't have a problem with greece again. >> you are giving it to fix greece? >> god and his angels could not fix greece. >> god and his angels are not as fairly in charge. >> even if the angels were in charge, given the constraints that let's be practical here. can a broken economy like greece the amended by pushing every good and service? can we possibly fathom recovery when businesses, small, medium, and large, were forced in the last couple of months to prepay 100% other tax for 2016 in 2015. that's what you do to a country if you want to crash it. it can

expected to recover. betty: i want to read one excerpt where you discussed the direction whether we can go up or down here. you say, the direction involves restoration of high inclusive growth. the other road is one of even lower growth, persistently high unemployment. there is equal probability of these two very different outcomes. i read all that and i say it is , only a chance for either/or? >> i would love to say that it would be this or that. there isn't enough evidence right now. the key issue for policymakers to realize is that the road we are on right now is going to end. central banks will not follow growth borrow

or borrow growth from the future. either we produce that through a better policy response, or we have to give it all back. it is up to us. why is his current road ending? betty: why is it ending? because it is used. it is run escorts -- its course? >> the predictions and underlying predictions are around us. we are seeing markets become more volatile. we are getting less growth out of the system. we are seeing political moment -- movements become more extreme. wherever you look, the tensions are there. these are typically tensions with a regime that is ending. >> it's been a good year and we have delivered on everything we promise a year ago when we raised capital. >> can you put that categorically to rest heard that you will not raise more capital? >> we will not raise more capital.

this was published by the eba and we gave out a press release before christmas where it is 280 basis points. that is 60 million euros. in september, we committed to be about 11% by 2018. given the capital generation, organic capital generation after , paying dividends, after funding growth, we are comfortable that we can achieve the target of being above 11%. that puts us in a place where we would have a good management buffer against what we believe would be the minimum. >> tell us as you look at the democratic race, what you see. >> i think i was going to be very close. i think that my suspicion is that bernie sanders expectations

have probably risen. i think hillary clinton will be strong and on a uncounted spirit i think she will be strong throughout the state. i think bernie sanders has run a great campaign and has outside strength. what really matters is march 15 is probably separation tuesday. i think bernie sanders would have to win a lot of states up until that point. you have four, ohio, north carolina, it is amazing the big states that are happening that day. it is hard to see a scenario where hillary clinton, even if she stumbles, does not secure a nomination with strength. >> you need investors to believe in your company, in order for you- >> you know what, investors will believe in your company when the trailing fax -- and they have to

trail for a while. whatever reason, you get crump. >> crumped? >> yes, that is the new word. trump and crumbs together. facts will tell. >> unless your amazon and investors believe in you. >> the facts at amazon are astounding. meaning, from the various first hour of the day, what amazon and jeff bezos has said, is we're going to build infrastructure to serve customers. we don't care about anything else. so it is an endless. of investment. i will make you a prediction. jeff bezos will be the richest person in the world within, i don't know, certainly within 5, 7 years. betty: coming up on "bloomberg best,"serious subject. -- serious talk on a serious

subject. could turmoil in the markets be a sign of an upcoming recession? ?

betty: you are watching "bloomberg best." i'm betty liu. good today's market volatility come tomorrow's financial crisis? this week, bloomberg television examined the question, is the u.s. economy recession bound? in a special edition of what you miss -- what you missed. >> you just heard scarlet outlined a profit recession scenario, does it have the potential to lead to an economic recession? >> usually it is the other way around. truthfully, if you took out

energy, you would not see that profit decline. energy is a big plunger here in terms of the decline side. they would tell you, production declines, employment declines, and income declines. human beings are making more money. we have had job growth. even on the manufacturing data, the isn has dropped below 50, or reached 5014 times since 1990. 11 of those times did not become recessions. three times did. 11 beats three, almost to a four to one ratio. and in that sense, if you want to have a negative narrative, it is really easy. >> recession watchers point to weak any factoring for the downturn. today's durable goods report showing the

biggest drop in 10 months. >> the weakness in manufacturing is not widely dispersed. if you look at subgroups, water motor vehicles, appliances, only five of the subcategories are down euro beer. if you're to say manufacturing recession, you have to see and a broad-based way and if that -- that does not appear to be the case right now. >> it is that gap and services and manufacturing. it illustrates just how wide it has been. how long is this kind of cap sustainable? >> look, i think in about three quarters we will be talking about service sector slowdown manufacture recovery. this is one of those things -- >> so you meet in the middle. >> yes, recession is not recession unless it is bill into the labor market.

>> if you look at all the consumer confidence measures, they all seem to be going up and he may question is how long can that last? when my date rollover? >> one of the tricks is you don't need to see it make highs to be in negative of an expensive -- expansive economy. you do not see an economy on the precipice of recession or entering a recession. >> it is great to say that consumer supplements is measured by surveys, but actual and consumer spending. december retail sales were kind of meh. are we going to see what the prospect is for actual spending? >> retail sales are measured in nominal dollars. it looks much more robust. it does not look like it will

take off to the moon. we were not expected to. we also don't see the kind of demand collapse that you would see in real terms on the way to a recession as we have in the past. >> it's easy to write off china as weakness in china, right? at what point, what is the tipping point when china intervenes with the u.n. and it has a negative feedback loop to the u.s.? >> i think it is related to commodities and oil. and of particular, -- and in particular, the question for the u.s. economy is this a high-yield problem? something that will be curtailed to a story or become mainstream or a credit problem? so far, you are seeing the

credit problem being quite contained. i think if that changes, the little piece changes, their something different going on here. it is investment grade credit. that is the problem. >> the problem -- probability of a recession? >> i would say at 40%. >> you're looking at the account deficit as the dollar has strengthened. >> the big inflection point was at the and of 2013. we had a real recovery up to that point. it was very tepid, but it was a recovery. that was a recovery in our current accounts. we actually saw huge benefits from energy because we are no longer importing much energy. certainly in a couple of years we probably won't be importing any. as a practical matter, everything else increase. it increase very substantially over the last year. we are looking at current deficit levels that are equivalent -- that is a big problem. >> i am not saying we will ever have a recession or can't have a

recession. current data does not support the idea of a recession. there is a whole bunch of data that you normally look at that don't support it. there is fear in the markets, and as a result, any piece of information sees a narrative. ?

betty: as we wrap up this edition of "bloomberg best," let's take a look at some of the charts that hold his tory of the week in business. >> take a look at this. and wife here and slightly outlined in pink, is the crude price. i just put the wdi in pink. the blue lines are opec's output. we heard from saudi arabia they're going to continue pumping capital into their wells

are there going to continue to bring oil out of the ground. it climbs because this is the department of energy's outlook for opec. you can see where oil fell in 2009, opec that their output commensurately in a have done that every time there was a real serious drop in the price of oil. except for now. now we see brent coming down to record levels in wti. they continue to pump out more, which district -- which is interesting. that is the reason you have the big fall there i have a surprise element in this chart. that is this green line that looks like a dragon rearing its ugly head over the chart. this green line is saudi arabia's foreign-exchange reserves. there has been a lot of noise made over the kingdom is running out of money. that is hogwash. take a look at this going back 10 years, declines up, up, up. they have a little $100 million -- $100 billion in foreign exchange reserves. they can afford to do this much longer.

>> betty, what is going on with european and u.s. bank stocks? that's the big question i imposing today. because bank fear in europe is the worst performing. this is a year to date chart. any number minus below 100 of course is a negative figure. the stock 600 index -- green line, is down by weight for it -- wait for it -- 15%. that is 183 million euros. only one bank stock has risen this year, betty. i would give so much money if you guess which one. i can't waste time, betty. commercial bankers of the czech republic. european investment banks are being pummeled, betty.

tougher financial regulations and rising costs tied to compliance. the big decline has been italian lenders. for the record, european banks are valued nine times estimated earnings, which is the lowest since the summer. this index has fallen by 11%. the second worst movie -- monthly performance since 1990. last month, investors were bullish on u.s. financials. what has changed? low -- slow economic growth concerns. fear of rate hike concerns. analysts are advising down there

forecast from this industry. by the way, u.s. financials are valued at 12.8 times earnings. the big question is, is it time to buy? betty: that is it for "bloomberg best." remember, you can always get businesses from around the world at bloomberg.com. -- business news from around the world at bloomberg.com. i'm a betty liu. thanks for watching bluebird television. ?

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