. good afternoon, everybody. what we ares watching this hour. a mixed jobs report with a gain in payrolls but wages unexpected lee declining. that's unexpectedly declining. mitt romney continuing his barrage on donald trump, telling bloomberg tv the gop front-runner is on a low road campaign. asking him when he will make an endorsement. first next on becomes the u.s. oil firm in the race for crude. carol: we kick things off with a check on the markets. we have the monthly jobs report.

initially come investors were not so sure. julie: we were looking for direction and the jobs report did not provide it initially. where it took a long time for investors to figure out what to make of the jobs report or there is something else going on driving stocks up. all three averages at their highest of the session. a commodity driven rally here. energy and materials are the two best-performing groups here on the imap. it is a broad-based rally, but those are the two standout groups in today's session. oil and gas prices are both higher today as well. crude oil up 3.6%. natural gas finally seeing a bit of a rebound to that 17 year low. one of the can to beating factors, likely is the jobs report and the idea that there

would be more demand. we also got the baker hughes weekly rig count, falling for the 11th straight week. we will be seeing talks on a production freeze. it is a tail wagging the dog situation here in terms of stocks and commodities in the jobs report. there is the one week chart for crude oil. the third straight weekly gain for oil, the best streak we've seen since last may. tracy: can you tell us more about what's going on with stocks? julie: overall, we've seen a gain on the week as we continue this upward surge that has been going on ever since february 11. this week seeing a 3% gain in the s&p 500, specifically apple has had a big week also. those shares higher for having the biggest weekly gain of the year, up 7%.

the oil stock correlation, the apple broad market correlation is pretty tight as well. 0.8 correlation there. some of the other standouts on my caterpillar up 10%, ford up nearly 10%. international paper having a big week as well. thank you so much, julie. we have mark crumpton with more from the news desk. says hemitt romney would support an effort to deny republican presidential front-runner donald trump the party's nomination at a convention this summer if trump does not have enough delegates to win outright. >> you said you would not vote for donald trump or hillary clinton.

r advisors a that is the most likely outcome. what will you do in the general election if those are your only two choices? >> i would vote for a conservative on the ballot. romney also said he might contribute to super pac efforts attempting to block trump from getting the nomination. you can see that interview tonight on "with all due respect." donald trump has pulled out of the conservative action conference. hisorganization said decision sends a clear message to conservatives. he will be holding a rally in insas followed by one orlando, florida. the big winner of last nights are public and debate was hillary clinton. -- last night's republican

debate was hillary clinton. she posted nine tweets during the event with 10 million retweets. she cannot claim the most new followers. she gained 4000. donald trump picked up 8600. crews in flint michigan are starting to dig up old lead pipes connecting water mains to homes. global news 24 hours a day powered by our 2400 journalists in more than 150 news bureaus around the world. we will return now to report couldbs president obama noted that businesses are not losing result in the face of economic uncertainty. >> today, american businesses are creating jobs at the fastest pace some the 1990's that since

the 1990's. it is showing the kind of strength and durability that makes america's economy right now the envy of the world despite the enormous headwinds it is receiving because of weaknesses in other parts of the world. wages were soft, worker pay dropped for the first time since the end of 2014. does this data helped judge when the fed moves next? is known forter her accurate interpretations of economic events coming getting it right. , you are onthat twitter, you are looking at not as rosy a number. what do you think happened? constance: when we got the number for services, we had a much, much lower jobs component. historically, that has often correlated with lower jobs

growth. if you go out a long time, 10 years, there is a tight correlation, 90%. if you take it to a shorter time frame, it comes down to a 40% correlation. was that number indicative of some problems that were coming or was the ism number indicative of something else? we saw lower wage gains. with had to do in part seasonality. carol: you look at this chart, it is pretty significant. number wasthe isn speaking to the fact that employers have shortages and all sorts of sectors but few sectors are willing to step up and pay more and that is what ism picked

up on. level mother did hire more people. -- they did hire more people. this technicality that we did not have utility workers working overtime because the storms were not as bad. some people have been talking about this calendar issue. in the next jobs report, there is even more pressure to see those wage gains coming through? constance: we've been running at 2.7% year-over-year. i like to look at the six-month averages and there are certain sectors that are seeing more pressure than others. one sector seeing a lot of pressure is retail. you are looking at 3.9%. , it is 6.2% of the

labor force but we are seeing almost 4.8% euro beer gains in .wages in that sector -- year-over-year gains in wages and that sector. basically --e fed they want the market to believe that hikes might come sooner and faster than expected and that means a positive yield curve. carol: interesting to have him say that. we've been watching the function, watching what those fed fund futures are telling us. that is a great function. i love it. it is really sensitive. we see it on a daily basis, it can change dramatically. constance: i'm looking for to rate hikes this year. -- two rate hikes this year.

lot.famous dot p you've heard it in the commentary, people dialing that back. the market was expecting zero this year. a lot of this has to do with heaviness we've seen in the global economy. the other piece of data that came out today was our trade into. we had weaker imports and weaker exports. the global economy is not doing as well as the u.s. we do not want a stronger dollar to give us more headwinds in trade and prices. we are looking at probably to rate hikes this year. the two rate hikes this year. if oil stabilizes -- tracy: thank you so much. constance hunter is chief economist at kpmg. much more on have

jobs and what it means for the wider markets. one strategist thinks we all have one more rate hike this year. still on theomney soapbox blasting donald trump. in a bloomberg interview, coming up. ♪

carol: welcome back to bloomberg markets. it is time for the bloomberg business flash. said to attract bids from private equity firms on that list, kkr, bc partners and --

the company is working with j.p. morgan and guggenheim to sell the business which could fetch $3 billion. decatur asset management will this restructure the company. locator managed $12 billion before the financial crisis. removed the ability to encrypt locally stored data on its fire tablets. customers were not using the service and the company made the switch when they introduced the new fire os five. the change comes as apple squares off against the fbi over access to included iphones. that is your business flash update. tracy: julie hyman has the

latest at the markets desk. steelmakers have been really active today. they been getting a lift ever since the u.s. announced it was going to impose tariffs on steel imports from china. fromrists on imports places like brazil. still --omething steelmakers have been winning four. -- tariffs on imports from places like brazil. been waitingave for this. both makers of more raw steel and the finished product. these companies have had huge gains on the week as well. if you take a look at some of the performance we've seen, u.s.

steel, 65%, a record-setting week for this stock. ak steel up. if you look at the others, you up, alleghenyural up 25%. all of these have seen incredible gains. they have come in the months leading up to this. we've seen a recovery in and commodity related stocks as well. look at the debt of these companies. many of these are distressed, many trade at high yield. of basicn index materials and their performance. the performance for the month of february, this is iron and steel returning 7% on that debt in the month of february. the best performing group of bob -- above mining. we've got consumer not cyclicals

, high yield debt attached to those companies has not performed as well as iron and steelmakers. steel showing its metal. stocks overall are maintaining a three-week rally. s&p 500 climbing from its february lows. for more, we bring in scott from wells fargo. he joins us from st. louis. we had to get your opinion on the jobs report. people saying it is mixed. scott: all it does for me is confirm that we are in a modest growth, modest inflation environment. the hourly earnings, the most important number in that report is not the number of nonfarm payroll jobs, it is the what is the year-over-year change in average hourly earnings.

it was 2.2% in today's report. the fed is paying close attention to that. i would say this report is good, not great. the longontinues string of employment reports that say things are moving forward at a very modest rate, slow rate. we expect further improvement there. going meaningfully higher anytime soon. carol: doesn't make sense with what we've seen in stocks this week? the s&p up 5%. ip up 10%.7%, ford, we've seen enthusiasm in the equity markets. does it make sense with what we've seen in the jobs picture and the rest of the economy? scott: it really does. the two words i would use to

describe this market is confirmation.in and confirmation. what the market was yearning for was a stability. we've seen manufacturing potentially stabilizing, the isn number was better than the one before. huge.ice of oil was there is a line in the sand for oil. if we are below $30, the equity market does not like that. , the stabilize above it equity market does like that. all the macro data we are seeing, the market action, for me -- the markets should be trading higher. i think we will be higher than this at your end. -- year end. tracy: will that be enough to

revive investors fears that we might get another rate hike from the fed? when you see a 2.2 year-over-year change in average hourly earnings, that is not going to do it. that will not make the fed want to hike rates. they will back away from the four hikes this year. the stock market, bond market, currency market in no way, shape or form believes the fed will do four rate hikes this year. the markets are pricing this thing right. our official forecast is they do one in the second half of the year. if we are wrong, it is that they don't do anything. carol: it is the risk trade on for you. consumer discretionary come information technology come

industrials, that is optimistic. clientse don't want our hiding in utilities and things like that. if you believe the recovery here in the u.s. will continue even , continueis slow abroad once again slow, you want to be in those sectors that will benefit from that. industrials, technology, consumer discretionary. they've all done really well in this pattern up. a lot of people would be surprised about industrials but they have outperformed the s&p since july. i don't think that pattern will change. carol: thanks. have a great weekend. ahead, stocks and china posting the biggest weekly gain this year ahead of the government's annual policy meeting where they will preview their plans for helping slowing growth in the country. ♪

carol: welcome back to bloomberg markets. we will turn our focus to china where the national people's congress opens this weekend. tracy: the government intervenes -- heidie stock market has more on the government's plans from beijing. annual of china's pageantry taking place in beijing, policy have a delicate balancing act, looking to try to support midterm growth which has , slowest in 25 years. as you can see behind me, the pollution has returned with a vengeance to beijing. there are environmental and economic risks at the top of their agenda. having overcapacity also means a

loss of jobs. 6 million jobs could be on the line when it comes to state owned enterprises over the next three years alone. we will be watching out for how the policymakers plan to deal with that. we know that in recent months, they've taken a more accommodative stance. the lending has reached record highs. the latest in a long easing these reforms are not going to be easy. it's likebout how taking a knife to one's own flesh. we will be watching out to see how far policymakers are willing to go in terms of sacrificing midterm growth for longer-term economic rebalancing. we will be keeping and i out for any rhetoric on the yu. an -- yuan.

they are trying to manage downward expectations -- this new basket of currencies as a reference. ahead, exxon joins the race to export u.s. crude overseas. is this the sign that u.s. oil experts are finally picking up? -- exports are finally picking up? ♪

hey how's it going, hotcakes? hotcakes. this place has hotcakes. so why aren't they selling like hotcakes? with comcast business internet and wifi pro, they could be. just add a customized message to your wifi pro splash page and you'll reach your customers where their eyes are already - on their devices. order up. it's more than just wifi, it can help grow your business. you don't see that every day. introducing wifi pro, wifi that helps grow your business. comcast business. built for business. carol: this is bloomberg markets.

that started with the first word headlines. says he wouldney support an effort to deny donald trump the party's nomination at the convention in july if trump does not have enough delegates to win outright. he spoke with mark halperin in an interview for "with all due respect." romney says he might contribute to super pac efforts attempting to block trump from getting the nomination and added he may write in a name on the presidential ballot if trump and hillary clinton are the nominees. the u.s. supreme court will hear arguments in the appeal of bob mcdonnell's corruption case on april 27. a jury convicted mcdonnell and doing favors for wealthy executives in exchange for loans and gifts. pillar clinton and bernie sanders are set to attend al sharpton's annual civil rights conference.

that hillary clinton and bernie sanders -- hillary clinton and bernie sanders. angeles mother is a new development in the o.j. simpson saga. authorities testing a knife allegedly found at the property once owned by the nfl star. hadtired police officer received the weapon several years ago. the home was later demolished. it is unclear if the night is linked to the 1994 murders of simpson's ex-wife and her friend. simpson was found not guilty of the murders. to military is starting recruit women for combat jobs, including the navy seals. women could be serving in previously male only positions in the fall.

global news 24 hours a day powered by our 2400 journalists in more than 150 news bureaus around the world. commodity markets closing in new york. let's take a look at today's biggest movers. we start with natural gas, rallying in afternoon trading. not gas has not seen these low prices since the 1990's. it is down 7% this week. as for crude oil, up 4%. the beauty i prices in settling at $35.94 a barrel. -- wti. next guest says beware of a fake rally. crude could be impacted negatively for a lot longer than we think. sarah hunt is the portfolio manager at alpine funds. you are talking about oil being

lower for longer. we just saw exxon doing its first export of u.s. crude. is that the rationale there? sara: the u.s. has been it is not always the right crude for the refining capabilities the u.s. has. haveg them to where they better possibilities for that has been the big thing for them. we've finally got that changed when people were talking about doing it when wti was at a premium to brent. lower for longer does not have to mean it stays down here. the concern has been -- originally, people were looking for a snapback. production is falling in the u.s. but not fast enough. the reason you've seen good moves in the last week or two, production numbers have come down in the u.s. expecting that if that accelerates, you start to see the markets begin to balance. income 101, supply and

demand coming more in line with one another. -- how long in terms of crude oil moving back up? sarah: a lot of questions i don't have a perfect answer to. we have historically high amounts of crude in storage. usually, you can look at the storage span and say we are at the bottom of that, prices are likely to go up. we are above where you've seen it for a very long time. the question is, how fast you work that inventory down and what happens to production in the interim. this a lot of questions about opec and u.s. production. is a lot of questions about opec and u.s. production. you ultimately want to see some balance and not have an immediate turn back on of something -- that is where people are unsure because they

do not know where that supply comes back in. on anyi will seize opportunity to bring in credit. let's talk about credit and oil. you mentioned the shale production. osewhat point are th guys forced into bankruptcy? sarah: look at how much issuance there has been this year. that takes a bit of the pressure off credit. the equity window closes, does that also close the credit window? there are a lot of questions about that and still a lot of questions about the clearing price. that has been the controversy since the production beginning. what is the real shale production cost? where are you finding opportunities?

you have to make investment decisions and allocate assets. sarah: we look for dividends. have much the mps better situation for dividends than the service companies do. when you are in a low crude environment, they will move with the price of oil. the whole group will move if oil goes up considerably. the service cuts will have more of a hard time with the fundamentals catching up. -- the service guys. the other companies will go with the crude price because it makes their assets worth more. on the service side come it takes longer to catch up. carol: thank you. we want to get back to the economy for a moment. withopper sat down bloomberg on the monthly jobs report. >> the report was not the best report in as one

trend that has been improving over the past several months. i would not put too much weight from what we saw today. >> historically in terms of wages my tracked the employment rate -- the average hourly earnings, 3.5%. that is pretty staggering. >> that is the disappointing part. wages should be starting to rise, but they are not. that is what this report shows. the trend is looking like it's moving in the right direction. if we look at all the data combined, it is trending modestly in the right direction. , we dot is not great need several more months of this, but certainly not we are moving that direction -- but certainly, we are moving in that direction.

growth --stent wage can the fed is still stick to its projected path of for rate hikes this year? >> that is a goldilocks report for the markets. the markets did not want the fed to move in march. in fact, we got a good report on the top line. you know the labor market trend is still going the right direction. the good part for the let's not hike messages the wages. this gives the fed yet another excuse not to raise in march. we certainly don't expect them to. we are still moving in a trend like manner which would allow them to move in june. if wages continue and job growth continues back on trend, we could see some more rate hikes in the latter half of the year as well. year, u.s.t of the

gdp versus the unemployed and right. -- unemployment rate. the unemployment rate falling, but gdp also falling. what's going on with that? >> in the short-term, you can have deviations which are not going to -- may not make sense in the short-term. that reflects different dynamics going on in the current business cycle. this has been a lackluster cycle, we have not seen the kind of growth we expect to see in this part of the cycle or this stage in the game. it is uncertainty in the data, which leads to a lot of different opinions. we looked at some people like the data, some people think this suggests we are going into

recession. ands a weak recovery probably still on trend and that is the message we should be looking at. hopperthat was tim speaking earlier on bloomberg tv. coming up, mitt romney talks with mark halperin. why he wants to block donald trump from getting the public and nomination. -- the republican nomination. ♪

tracy: welcome to bloomberg markets. it is a back-and-forth between

the presidential front-runner 'snald trump and the party last nominee mitt romney. romney continued to this battle today, speaking with mark halperin. you said to matt lauer today that he would not vote for donald trump or hillary clinton. you would not vote for donald trump or hillary clinton. that is the most likely outcome, still. what will you do in the general election if those are your only two choices? >> i would vote for a conservative on the ballot. i would write in a name. carol: joining us now is mark halperin. he's been making the rounds today. what do you make of the points he's brought up? >> if the current front runner

is the nominee, he will not vote for him. there is a contrast. you have people like chris christie who have endorsed trump. you have people like marco rubio and ted cruz who say this is a con man and a fraud, but i pledge to support the nominee, so i will. you have mitt romney saying if you is the nominee, i will not vote for him. those are three options that if donald trump continues to the nomination come every prominent republican will face. carol: we have this dynamic going on. did romney say anything about the prospect for a brokered convention? >> he did. there's this debate in the party. say trump does not win big states like florida and ohio and gets a clear -- clearly the most delegates, but not a majority. just a plurality.

is he entitled to the nomination? no one is entitled. specter ofill have can you fight trump and stop him from being the nominee? how would voters react? would it trump supporters feel it was fixed? carol: he's been making the me that het floors seems to be able to say whatever he wants and the momentum continues. do you expect that to continue? mark: he has defied gravity, pan than of a teflon ronald reagan or bill clinton. hope, things like trump's

language. making a joke people thought was wholly inappropriate. trump has not released his tax returns. he says they are under audit. thingsare hoping those reach critical mass. we have 10 days to stop him. overwhelmingly the favorite to be the nominee. carol: fox showing how he flip-flops. do the people who support trump really care? mark: they don't care. he needs more than his supporters to be the nominee. if he keeps his current support committee can be held a short of a majority and then, it gets really interesting. much. thank you so you can catch the full interview

on "with all due respect" at 5:00 p.m. wall street time. tracy: time for the bloomberg business flash. canada pensions and saudi agricultural and livestock investment among the lead bidders for a majority stake in core's unit. they're open to selling stakes in more than one party. no final agreements have been reached. the chairman of bloomberg lp is a senior independent nonexecutive director at glen re. bank of america has generated less revenue this year than the last year according to people with knowledge of the matter. revenue from fixed income trading dropped about 10% from a year earlier. the bank has collected 12% from

equity trading this quarter than last year as well. facebook is taking steps that will raise its british tax bill -- they will quit routing advertising sales of its largest deals through island. -- through ireland. julie: a bid coming up the highs of the session. i wanted to point out the strong movers today. hp enterprises has been one of the big ones today, one of the best-performing stocks in the s&p 500, right now up 14%. make whitman had advocated for a breakup of the company. eg whitman. the company coming up with

earnings that beat estimates which seemed to validate her that mayand a forecast be some analyst estimates as well. those shares rising on that. one going the opposite direction and maker of components chips that go into cameras. shares down 9% after the copy forecast numbers that may come in below analyst estimates. the company made some cautious commentary about go pro reordering levels and visibility in china for ip security demand. asian are block another company down related to its earnings -- h&r block. the company seeing lower client volume and its u.s. offices. wesson following competitors in reporting

earnings that beat estimates and coming up with a forecast, raising its forecast for the full year on continue to strong demand for their products. their shares rising 7%. come, could to california's primary be a make or break moment for donald trump? what the golden state governor thinks come in next. ♪

carol: welcome back, everyone. california governor jerry brown knows a thing or two about running for president. he has done it three times. thernor brown discussed republican presidential race and what donald trump's nomination this weather donald trump's domination is set in stone. else ineverything unpredictable ways. well, but doesn't

have a majority. there's much more to happen. it is very open in california. anybody could win this thing. tracy: emily chang joins us now. you covered quite a bit of ground in that conversation. what struck you most? of hisi was curious thoughts on politics. the fact that the california primary has been discussed as potentially the last chance to alter the course of this election, especially on the republican side. he has not been approached for an endorsement by anyone, which i thought was interesting. the clinton and sanders campaigns have not talked to him. i talked about vp, whether he would be interested in that.

he laughed in my face and said i wanted to be president, not bp. he only has 2.5 years left. as governor. depth into this in more -- we got more in-depth on trump. take a listen. >> the idea that he will build a wall is preposterous. we have such tensions with our closest neighbor, a dumber idea come i cannot imagine. emily: he cannot imagine a dumber idea. quite frankly there. carol: you also talk about terrorism and other issues. you explored a wide range of subjects. emily: i asked him about this apple versus fbi situation. apple is in california. he had not given that specific situation an incredible amount of thought.

terrorism is obviously a threat. what people haven't talked about his nuclear terrorism. the nuclear materials in the world are so widespread and would be so devastating if they were brought to new york or washington or any other state or london or moscow, we have to be defang the terrorists. whether or not you can create encryption that no one can ever look at, that is something i want to give real thought to. emily: not just terrorism, but nuclear terrorism. tracy: fascinating. carol: i love what he had to say about anybody can win this thing. most people say donald trump has it locked up at this point. he is saying we will see what happens.

emily: he doesn't want to say anything that will give trump more ammunition. he does feel hillary clinton is looking pretty strong. a lot of things still have to play out there. the california primary will be a big deal in this race. thank you so much to emily chang. catch studio 1.0 this weekend. emily chang will interview the linkedin ceo. carol: citigroup global head of commodities will be on. he says oil has found its footing but will not see a huge rally. catch that and more on "bloomberg markets" ahead. ♪

>> welcome to bloomberg markets.

from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, i'm bonnie quinn. stocks are losing a bit of steam in the last hour but are still on pace for the third straight weekly gain. the dow crossed 17,000 for the first time in two months while the s&p 500 and dow are on track for a four-day winning streak. the jobs report send some mixed messages to the markets. wage growth slowed. here is chairman of the u.s. council of economic advisers. >> i think this is a good report and you need to look at it in the full context of what we've seen recently. bonnie: china taking more steps to intervene in its stock market. our