♪ juliette: coming up on "bloomberg best," stories that shape the week in business around the world. the bank of japan, the fed, the bank of england all come out with policy decisions. >> the bank has set very ambitious targets for for inflation for quite some time. >> they don't want to make waves before the election. and they didn't. >> there try to reassure people that will do whatever is necessary. juliette: from tech giants to big banks to oil mergers, and media companies, it's another huge week for earnings reports. cory: by any reasonable measure, it's a fantastic quarter. >> seeing triple digit growth. >> is not everyday you can beat the market by $1 billion. juliette: october smashes records for mergers and

acquisitions. >> the fundamental factors are very strong. juliette: some of the best minds in business tell us what's on their minds in a volatile time for markets. >> it does make economic to allow incremental bureaus to come from outside the cartel. >> the fed is determined to act if things are normal when they are nowhere near normal. >> i think we need a statement from the u.k. government where it stands. juliette: it's straight ahead here on "bloomberg best." juliette: hello, and welcome, i am juliette saly. this is "bloomberg best," the weekly review of the most important news from bloomberg television around the world. central banks were certainly the focus throughout this week, but on monday, ge stole the

headlines with a blockbuster deal to create an energy behemoth. alix: ge agreeing to combine its oil and gas business with baker hughes and a $32 billion deal. the particulars of the deal that's not a typical merger. >> ge did not buy all the baker hughes. they did not want to buy all of baker hughes. ge wanted a piece of baker hughes. when halliburton was trying to buy baker hughes, ge was willing to spend $5 billion to $8 billion to take out the pieces they could get. they do this deal and now they will control a control the company will be third in that oil fuel services space. >> ge effectively takes over two thirds of the new company and baker hughes gets one third. ge gets most of the new positions of the chairmanship and ceo positions and baker hughes gets the vice chairmanship, but it should be noted that baker hughes gets a whopping huge payout, $7.5

billion. shares this morning, in premarket trading, at the moment, it looks like the baker hughes shareholders are much happier than ge shareholders. >> if you are able to play in a much broader array of the oil and gas sector and you couple upstream -- our domain with ge's more midstream, downstream domain. then you can go to the customer community and have a conversation about reducing their dollars per barrel, improving the recovery factors, optimizing production profiles. all of the urgent issues that are facing the customers. nobody can do that right now. we're looking forward to getting this through the regulatory environment as quickly as possible and being able to act as one full stream oil and gas industrial company. >> china's stabilization continued in the fourth quarter as the official factory gauge rose to a two-year high.

>> pmi jumped to 51.2. in october, services also advanced. does this quiet the naysayers who say the sustainability of this recovery is in doubt? >> for now, it's definitely a good headline. no doubt about it. better than expected. building on the positive escape from deflation that we saw last month as well. where we start adding caution is on the prices side of thing. this was driven by higher commodity prices and whether or not higher commodity prices will stay high, whether not pmi will stay high, it's another story. right now, chinese companies are on better footing than they have been. the question remains how sustainable and durable on the pbr and pmi side things will be. >> the boj has left policy unchanged while cutting the inflation forecast for the next fiscal year.

governor kuroda does not see the 2% target being met by april 2018, the month his term as head of the central bank ends. >> how would you describe governor kuroda's credibility? he's not going to get to the inflation targets he has set down in his term. verye bank has set ambitious targets for inflation for quite some time. if you look at the path of their forecast for inflation versus the street's forecast, it has always been this crocodile gap between the two lines. for some time now, people were sort of not really expecting the bank's forecast to be realized, at least in the time horizon the bank was predicting. i think today's announcement does not really come as a huge surprise to anybody. scarlet: michael mckee is in washington at the federal reserve with the decision. michael: it's the least surprising at least interesting fed decision in a long time. no change in rates and networks

-- no explicit signal that any rate increase is imminent. although, if you are looking at a hint as to future fed actions, the fed adds two words to its formulation from september. the committee judges that the case for an increase in the federal funds rate has continued to strengthen. there were two dissents, boston fed president eric rosengren voted with the majority this time. >> what is the take away for you from today's fed meeting? >> they didn't want to make any waves six days before the election, and they didn't. they didn't change our view that a rate hike is likely. of note, instead of having three dissents, there were only two. they did choose not to say they would be considering a hike at the next meeting. that was the language they had used a year ago, but they gave enough other hints in the

statement that the goal was not to make any waves. matt: there's not a lock for a september hike? >> i think a rate hike is in the cards for december. it's not a slamdunk. global developments could factor in, but this is a community that expects it will be hiking in december. francine: breaking news in the last six minutes, the u.k. must hold a vote in parliament before starting the two-year countdown to brexit. so ruled a panel of judges, now setting up a constitutional confrontation at the country's supreme court. we know that will happen between december 5 and december 8. this is significant, we can end up with a situation where it's more of a hard brexit then it could have been. >> parliament could be settled with this and theresa may could push everything through parliament. parliament will own the vote to some extent. francine: what does this mean? mayhem for the markets? >> more uncertainty added into

the mix. theresa may will have to go provide more information. it's been a bit more provocative in holding theresa may to account. >> it's a stronger pound story ahead of the bank of england decision. widely expected to stay on hold, that's exactly how we stay. the bank of england keeping this on change of the vote 9-0, unanimous on the asset purchase program and unanimous on rates as well. bank of england saying they have a limited tolerance for above target inflation. >> there are two stories, the decision of the high court on one hand saying you have to go to parliament before you vote on article 50. and then you have the monetary policy committee going ahead and how do we hook up these two stories? >> as a holding pattern.

the data has actually improved from the last meeting when they said we're probably going to cut. huge amounts of uncertainty. that decision today has added to that uncertainty. we see a rise in the pound. in some sense, we don't really know what's going to happen. we will do whatever we have to do. there's a lot of uncertainty in the air. they're trying to reassure people that they will do whatever is necessary. >> the payrolls report for the month of october. expectations 173, here it is. erik: 161,000 is how many jobs were created in the month of october. not too hot, not too cold, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.9%. the big surprise in the jobs report is wage growth. average hourly earnings up 0.4% for the month of october. and 2.8% over the previous 12 months. if the fed is looking for one data point in this report to bolster the case for december

rate hike, that may very well be it. >> wages up, labor force participation down. are we at maximum employment? >> i don't think we are at maximum employment. the drop is not significantly against the backdrop of it up half a point in the last six months. we're going to need more evidence to see where participation is going. demographics are a headwind, given that our population is getting older, that's going to be a headwind for years to come. i think today's report shows that the job market is continuing to heal. there's more progress that can be made. the 2.8% wage growth is a sign that we are getting back to full employment. the fact that the unemployment rate edged down as a sign that the job right is continued to recover. juliette: still ahead on "bloomberg best," frank talk from leaders on oil, banks, and brexit, plus, why was october such a monster month for mergers?

and more of the week's top business stories, including a china spinoff that yum brands believes is going to pay off. >> the opportunities outweigh the challenges. juliette: this is bloomberg. ♪

juliette: this is "bloomberg best," i'm juliette saly. let's continue the tour with the new york trading debut of young china, the brand-new spin off of it leading u.s. fast food company. >> yum! brands, the family behind kfc, pizza hut, and taco bell and just completed a spinoff of its china operations. they began trading as a second company on the new york stock exchange. what now does yum brands

concentrate on now that the china operations are some else's problem? >> we are going to be more efficient. all of those will help us grow. we're going to own less than 1000 restaurants by the end of 2018. we become a capital light business that's really focus on growing your units, and that's the area of focus for the organization. >> what is top of your to do list now that yum china is now a separate entity. >> it's pretty much what we have done. next year's the 30th year in china. we've had an unbelievable record of growth. there's always been challenges along the journey every few years, but overall, the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. our plan is pretty much what we have had for several years now, which is building a lot of restaurants. we built at least 600 new restaurants every year. and then to grow sales in existing restaurants. the combination will give us a nice growth in business. >> dbs is trading lower after buying anz retail and wealth

businesses across five asian companies. what we know so far? >> the five asian countries include singapore, hong kong, china, indonesia, taiwan. the deal will add 23 billion singh dollars to his assets, and the lender is gaining momentum for sure. it became the first singapore bank and first asian bank to break into the top five private banks in all the asia pac region. this acquisition it says will cement its leadership position for anz on its part. it will book a loss of 265 million aussie on the sale. what is selling off our -- are operations that have dragged down its return on equity. mark: let's get to south africa. the rand is surging today. prosecutors probing charges against the prime minister, who says he did not intend to act

unlawfully. this is a significant victory in the tug-of-war with president jacob zuma. how much of a surprise was this? antony: the announcement comes ahead of and expect a court case on wednesday. it's really lifted the markets quite significant. a lot of talks of the case itself wasn't very strong. this was seen as a way for prosecutors to stop the case. mark: is a going to be more st him from the cabinet now if zuma wants to do that? antony: definitely. if he had charges hanging over his head, it would provide a reason to ask him to step down or step aside for somebody else. right now, he's not under any charges. he's recognized as doing a good job with the economy and a good budget last week. he's doing his best to avoid the country being cut to junk next month. >> mark carney says he stays on as governor of bank of england to mid 2019 to help facilitate

an orderly transition to exit. -- orderly transition to brexit. tons of speculation about the future, so one more year of this. >> it doesn't go till 2021 that he was entitled to claim, he said he might do a one point. it's kind of a third way. it's good for may, it provides stability for the bank when the brexit is going to take place. at the time, at 2019, she might've rued the decision that she did make him stay longer, she's going to have the eu negotiations at the same time as trying to find a skilled successor to mark carney. that successor will inherit the economy she builds during this brexit negotiation. that will certainly be a challenging time. >> valeant is under criminal investigation for accounting fraud by the department of justice. this is according to people familiar with the matter.

valeant shares tumbling to as low as $18.77 right now, off by 5% in three-day. >> what is the accounting structure here that is so controversial? >> some pharmaceutical companies use specialty pharmacies to market their drugs. investigators in congress and elsewhere have said it's a way of getting around what would ordinarily be price controls by hmos or benefits managers. by basically steering patients directly onto the branded drug instead of the generic. >> can you help us quantify what these kind of investigations mean for valeant? >> the biggest issue was a potential fines. the company has over $30 billion in debt, most of it is due in 2020. they are running a fine line in terms of their expected cash flow and what they can paydown in debt. any large sum they need to pay is going to severely cut into their covenants, and that could be a risk in the near future.

>> dropping its bid for ganache, shares her plunging now down 18% on the news. >> they need to convince shareholders they have a reasonable standalone plan here. that's really going to be a short-term obstacle. in order to convince shareholders even though the deal didn't go through, hang with us, we do have a plan moving forward. gannett can turn its attention to other properties. there are other newspaper companies they can look at. maybe that is where this is going to go this point. in terms of what happens to tronc, i probably would assume they're going to have to make a case that they are good as a standalone company for the time being. >> the south korean president park has named a new prime minister as she seeks to restore confidence.

prosecutors want an arrest friend thatpark's is the center of a scandal. >> it's unclear right now where she goes from here. she has reshuffled her senior staff, she's getting rid of the finance minister and the prime minister. who does she have left to blame? >> all against this backdrop of the arrests, at the same time, a much wider issue regarding corruption and scandal. >> you have all of these wider issues with korean corporate and corruption issues there. mis-management issues. the arrest of park's friend leading into other corporate scandals as well. banks are being search for files, business lobbies are being investigated.

it's unclear exactly how far this thing is going. this adds to all the issues facing south korea at the moment. >> egypt took the unprecedented step of allowing its currency to trade freely. the country announced a series of sweeping measures to stabilize the economy. this is what it's done to the egyptians. this is the one that's more traded. they are trying to negotiate with the imf to have a huge loan. this is a huge deal. >> it's massive. education authorities -- egyptian authorities have been kicking the can down the road, this is the last piece of the puzzle to securing a $12 million loan from the international monetary fund. this last week they told us it was a matter of weeks more than a matter of months. carol: was it expected would have such a currency move? in the space of five minutes, it went from the the second most extensive emerging market currency to the 13th. >> it was expected that they

would make a move like that. you can see with a 12 month non-deliverable forward is trading under the 17 mark. we already had his evaluation early in the year. that's your red circle right here. it's the second time they moved. this is the big one, the one they have been signaling whispers in the market. now it's finally come through and we see how investors continue to react in the stock exchange, which continues to be up quite a bit. ♪

juliette: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i'm juliette saly. october was a record month for dealmaking with about $489 billion of mergers and acquisitions announced globally, them most for 12 years topping $471 billion in april of 2007.

the partners at jones day advised on at&t's billion-dollar takeover of time warner. he spoke to bloomberg's jeff mccracken about what's behind the surge in activity in what may lie ahead. jeff: what's going on? i would think an election would make people slow down and be a little concerned, a little worried, but that doesn't seem like that had any effect at all. >> the election would have mattered if equity prices had been more volatile. one of the things about this last quarter, it's been incredibly stable equity prices, at least for very large companies. in a lot of these big deals typically involve some equity. that has been helpful. the fundamental factors are strong. august and september was light, nothing will approximate the fourth quarter of last year, but it's very strong with fundamental drivers are still

there. low growth, which is bad for most things, that is how you get growth. very accommodating cap the -- very accommodating capital markets. jeff: gen baker hughes, ge is going to own 62% or so of baker hughes. oil and gas and energy is not a space that has been slow. we were talking about how it's a surprise for you that we haven't seen more big deals in the oil and gas space. >> there's so much capital is needed in the startups and fractures and all the rest of it. will field services, which is most of what baker hughes is about, that's not challenged from a balance sheet. but there are a lot of companies with good assets that have very difficult balance sheet situations after the price of oil collapsed. we haven't seen any deals in that space. even though we've seen 100 bankruptcies. jeff: as oil prices stabilized,

would you anticipate more deals coming off of that? >> i think so. in the first quarter of this year, there were a lot of frackers that went into bankruptcy. i thought the big guys would swoop in and step those assets up. they didn't do it. there's a lot of theories for that, one of them being even the bigger companies were cutting their budgets. some of them even cut the dividends. i'm not going to my board room and say i just laid off all these people to cut my budget, i'm going to buy this oil field in north dakota. i still think there's going to be a lot of activity in that space. juliette: coming up in "bloomberg best," the most compelling interviews. inside opec, a warning on brexit, and a conversation with peter hancock, the ceo who has been reshaping aig. >> we are taking greater control

over our destiny by doing our own work on the risk. juliette: this is bloomberg. ♪

juliette: this is "bloomberg best." from juliette saly. the revisit the week's most interesting interviews. oil prices fell amid increasing doubts that opec can arrange a

deal to cut output in a meeting of producers letter this month. francisco blanche of bank of america merrill lynch takes a more confident view. francisco: i think a deal is going to be made. i think there are three parameters they have to watch. first is the economic logic of implementing a deal. it does make economic logic to allow incremental deals to come outside the cartel and push oil in to degradation. the economic logic is impeccable. the second driver saudi arabia. saudi arabia needs the money. they are in a bit of a tight spot financially, so they want to increase revenues. they need the money now. we've seen them during the largest bond deal in emerging markets. in the sovereign space ever. they are needing more revenues, for sure. the third thing that drives the cartel's internal politics.

they're not questioning the economic logic or the need of saudi arabia and the willingness to get it done, their questioning internal politics within the cartel. i think you will bridge those. the reason is i think russia is coming as well and that will probably keep the cartel together. i think you will see a deal november 30. >> is it time to hike rates? >> the way i always put it is we don't know when the next u.s. recession is coming. we don't know when the next aftershock is hitting. the question we should ask is does the fed have the ammunition to deal with it when it comes? and the answer is no. rates are still close to zero. you can't cut rates any further. it would really help a lot if we had a little bit more inflation so you could cut rates. and saying inflation is coming up on the target, not above it,

so we're going to raise rates, and they are throwing away the chance. i'm not a sailor, but i think it's like you're close to shore and you're not going to run aground right now, as you really want to get it little ways away from it before the next storm hits. and the fed is bizarrely determined to act as if things are normal when they are nowhere near normal. >> you would say don't raise rates this year. >> don't raise rates this year, don't raise rates next year, don't fire until you see the whites of inflation size. -- of inflation's eyes. >> let's move on to japan. the latest big step for governor kuroda is we are not specifically targeting monetary base, we're going to target the yield curve. yield curve control. is this policy going to succeed in raising japanesflation? >> i'm unclear. it's worth trying something. kuroda has been a much more

adventurous determined guy that anyone might have expected. i still think not enough. the problem with japan is it is very different -- very difficult to raise inflation simply for monetary policy when you're already at zero. tom: do need to see a more cogent message from the united kingdom government? >> i think we do. we have had a new prime minister now for four months. when you think about it, membership in the european union and the referendum decision to leave the european union is the biggest single challenge facing united kingdom arguably since the end of the second world war. we do need to know and have clarity. to give you an example, last week the government apparently gave assurances to the car manufacturer nissan which

enabled it to go ahead and develop a new range of cars in the northeast of england. but they want an assurance in relation to the single market and the customs union. from what we deduced from that, the government would like to be in the single market, and he wants to remain part of the customs union. does that apply to the automotive industry? oil industry? what about financial services industries, where the chancellor has said he wants financial services industry to have access. i think we need to spell it out, so we can debate it in this country. we voted to leave by narrow majority. we have to accept that result. we have got to salvage as much as we can so we don't disrupt trade, and we don't damage the long-term growth prospects of the country. >> can i deduce that nissan is more important than jpmorgan? mr. darling: nissan happens to be the first through the door number 10 downing street. they have to make a decision in relation to investments.

already, other manufacturers are saying what about us? the big thing here is even if the u.k. government believes is important to stay in this in the single market and the customs union, which i agree with, you got to face the fact where it obligates 28 other member states and we don't know their position either. what i think is urgently required is a statement from the a government as to where it stands, which ought to be debated in the house of commons in parliament in the u.k. >> what do you say to shareholders who want less earnings volatility in your stock? >> the more we can accelerate the disposal of the legacy, the more we focus on customer business where we really are adding value to the customers through expertise as much as the balance sheets, the more we can stabilize earnings and attempt to control it. other areas of earnings volatility is on the investment side.

we announced a year ago we would reduce our hedge fund allocation and we are very much on track to cut in that half. that will also reduce earnings volatility. erik: how else are you shifting your investment portfolio to anticipating changes in economic policy and development in financial markets? >> if we start to see a gradual and to quantitative easing and rising rates, that will be beneficial. we've suffered very much for lower interest rates and will benefit as they rise. we don't want that to be the core of our investment strategy. we are focused on having assets that will match the long dated nature of our viability and exploiting the liquidity surplus that we have. erik: besides cutting the hedge fund allocation in half, are you doing anything else? >> we are doing more direct lending. using the ability to take less liquid assets where we have done

our own underwriting, as opposed to having underwritten by someone else. taking greater control of our destiny by doing our own hallmark on the risk erik: you . have john paulson and carl icahn, share with me some sense of your last conversation with those two people. >> i think that we have made a decision to involve them in meeting as many of management as possible, to understand the detailed operation of the company. there's a great deal of alignment on the strategic direction we are taking. and even the pace at which we are executing it. we are very pleased with the degree of alignment. erik: have you talked to them about today's earnings? >> not yet. ♪

juliette: you are watching "bloomberg best," i'm juliette saly. we are now more than halfway through earnings season, and

this week's all reports from a number of prominent companies. we start with facebook. >> facebook shares dropping in after hours, the company reporting third-quarter revenue just over $7 billion, up more than 50% from the same quarter last year, and profit up more than 160% year-over-year. the sixth straight quarterly revenue beat for facebook, which has increased sales more than 50% over the last four quarters. it doesn't seem to be enough to impress investors as the stock plunged. what do you make of the stock performance here? our expectations -- are expectations for facebook and unrealistic?ok cory: expectations for a beat on expectations has been high. if the incredible 50% growth for a business at that scale.

there was not an acceleration of mobile revenues as percentage of sales. it was hard to find reasons. emily: it remained relatively flat, 84%. that was zero four years ago. cory: it's awesome. any number of statistics you can look at say it's a fantastic report. >> alibaba sales came out and they beat estimates as cloud revenue more than doubled. profit also topped estimates, a week before single state, -- -- singles day were they sell a lot of stuff on alibaba. it looked like they actually did better on earnings and revenues. >> it is a solid beat across the board. investors are excited about this in premarket trading. they did not report first day following, they decided they want this to be able metric. -- they want this to be an annual metric. i think the big story about alibaba's earning is that we are

not just an e-commerce company. the way to pay attention to cloud computing and digital media as well as other initiatives. david: cloud computing was one of the headlines, they've gotten a little bit like amazon. selina: it is still far behind amazon web services, but it is growing very quickly. you are seeing triple digit growth, still a very small proportion. they are really investing in this part of the company. it looks like at this rate of growth and the narrowing losses, he could reach profitability next quarter. >> is the tale of two oil companies. on the one hand, bp down more than 2.5%, the company reported a 49% profit decline in the third quarter. on the flip side, you have shell, up more than 3.5%, completely smashed estimates and production is up. >> the story with shell is the acquisition of bg.

production came on quickly and they were able to turn that into a profit quicker than expected. you are seeing the corresponding valley in the market for that name. >> bp, and shell an absolute blowout. vindication of a deal. >> look, you have to member, bg was incredibly richly valued and no one thought they would sell because you have to pay such a premium. they did it with a billion dollars. it is not every day you can beat the market by $1 billion. i imagine that people are looking up and saying strong cash flows, that should protect the dividend to some extent. when you look at the ftse 100, there's not that many contributive dividends. that's important, not just for the old people. alix: sales of standard chartered getting been, overall revenue down 6% and bad loan expense was a record $4 billion

for 2015. the reason why we love talking about standard chartered is they get 55% of the revenue from asia, middle east, and africa. what did we learn about business they are? >> this bank is based in london, but he gets the vast majority of its profits in asia. today, the ceo and other executives were lamenting a low level of global trade and low levels of cross-border investment into their core markets, which are africa, the middle east, and asia. in addition to the headline results from revenue, they are not striking a particularly optimistic outlook, which is why we seeing shares drop so much today. >> credit suisse posted as a private profit in the third quarter as the ceo continued to cut costs and eliminate jobs. socgen also seeing revenues. >> there will be costs to

markets. how much? >> we are functioning below the ceiling, but $15 billion is where he wanted to be and be there quickly. and now with a message to global markets is focus on what you do best, which is to serve your clients. >> 10% will be reached sometime early next year. >> that's what shareholders are expecting. given the cost of capital, it's subjective. quarter after quarter, we are delivering. step-by-step to meet these targets in the mid-time. >> shares of qantas have come back from steve early losses after the airline warned -- from steep early losses after the airline warned first-half earnings may fall by 13%. we remember back in august when qantas announced a record profit. what is weighing down the next half?

>> on the surface, it all looks pretty good. the airline is a big beneficiary of cheap fuel prices and their fuel bill has come down by $1.7 billion. the fuel bill has come down for competitors as well. we are seeing international revenues down 6.9%, domestic revenue down 2.9%. profit expected between 800 million australia dollars and $850 million, down from 900 million australian dollars. >> sony's profit falling off a cliff this quarter, the company posting earnings plus 86% from a year ago. what happened? >> there were a couple of special charges that led to the decline in the net income line. they are selling the battery business and taking a charge because of that. they had to go through the

earthquake and they took a charge because of that as well. probably more concerning -- you are seeing a stronger yen that is putting pressure on their operations, particularly on the camera sensor business that has been very successful for them, historically. and also a bit in the game's and smartphone business. that's going to be an issue to watch over the long-term. david: time warner out with earnings, raising estimates. things look pretty good. >> they really do. i'm sure he's happy about that. i think we saw some pretty good strength across the three main businesses for them, the cable networks, hbo, and warner bros. studio. a solid quarter, this bodes well for the remainder of the year. they took guidance up for profitability as they headed to 2017. >> it is a beat for cbs. earnings came in at $1.05 a

share. analysts were expecting $.98. on the possible merger with viacom, the ceo says a deal could work if structured correctly. >> many investors look at the merger of cbs and viacom as really a question of when, not if. it looks imminent right now. especially since we have the redstone family pushing for the deal, as well as this megadeal in the content space with at&t and time warner, which really highlights the value of content and scale. cbs will get that scale, we'll get that content with viacom. >> other headline, ceo -- cbs radio has been talking for an ipo. >> cbs is been trying to reduce its reliance on advertising.

it's their way of trimming and slimming their operations and just focusing on tv content. >> the challenges continue. the world's largest pc maker, lenovo's revenue fell for third straight quarter after personal computer shipments slid. we are hoping for a recovery in the pc markets. >> this is reflecting the slump that we have been seeing in the global pc market. let me break down the numbers for you. profit did beat estimates, but it was mostly because of property sales that lenovo carried out. i was a gain of more than $200 million comments is not the first time they have done this. this is the second consecutive quarter that they have actually had to unload real estate in order to boost their financials. lenovo acknowledges the challenges they face. when they had financial results, they said that market conditions may remain tough in the short-term. the company is investing to drive long-term profitable growth.

they're competing with the likes of dell, hp, and lenovo's lead over hp in pcs shrank to the smallest since it became the market leader back in 2013. ♪

julie: it looks like the monthly performance for the past several years with the s&p 500,

for october, a negative return of 1.9%. it's the worst month since january, the worst october going back to 2012. it's been a negative month. >> there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg and we always enjoy showing your favorites here on bloomberg television. maybe they will become your favorites. here's another functioning will find useful. it will take you to the quick check of fast insight into timely topics. this week's quick take examines the ongoing coverage syria. >> half a decade of uninterrupted violence, 370,000 deaths, more than 11 million people displaced from homes. it's like the entire state of ohio. there is no end in sight. peaceful demonstrations evolved into a full-blown civil war. it's seen the rise of the

islamic state and outside superpowers drawn into the carnage. the result is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. since 1966, an offshoot of shiite islam has been in power in syria. despite the fact that they were present just 12% of the population. the sunni muslim population is around 60%. the current president took over in 2000 after the death of his father. cut to 2011 and the arab spring. the world watched an uprising in tunisia and egypt quickly toppled their respective dictators. inspired, syrians took to the street to protest the rule of bashar al assad. instead of stepping down, he violently crushed the uprisings. many protesters armed themselves and the country took on a

sectarian nature. sunnis and the saudis through their backing behind the rebels. shiites like the iranians gave the report to the regime. the islamic state used the term well to seize territory and attacked with sides. then there are major powers like the u.s. and russia. after a poison attack in 2013, the u.s. and russia cooperated to destroy syria's known chemical weapons. in general, the two powers have moved in very different directions in the war. the u.s. is against assad and russia supports them. both countries are actively fighting inside syria against islamic state and the al qaeda spinoff in the name of combating terrorism. russia uses the terrorist tag to bomb other groups, including rebels supported by the u.s. and there are syrian civilians in the middle of all this. devastated by the fighting and

distraction, syrians are fleeing by the millions into neighboring countries. straining resources and creating a global refugee crisis. here's the argument. u.s. and russia agree on the need to end the war, but not how. for years, the u.s. insisted that assad must go, but has softened their stance on the dictator. russia wants to keep syria sovereign and independent by backing assad. neither side has had enough of an advantage to get the other to compromise on terms for peace. or have been willing to do so for the sake of syria. juliette: that was one of many quick takes you can find on the bloomberg, and you can find them on bloomberg.com. that's all for "bloomberg best," this week. thank you for watching. i'm juliette saly, this is bloomberg.

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warren: he said, what do i do with this money? i said, investing it is about assigning yourself the right story. i did not want to go to college. i went to omaha, i thought -- i $175,000. i thought that was all i would need. >> when you had your first annual meeting, how many showed up at that? warren: well, we had 12, but you had to count my and katie and my uncle fred. david: any advice to a young