housing and urban development, elaine chao, wilbur ross, and south carolina governor nikki haley as ambassador to the united nations. the senate will vote to confirm them. president trump signed presence of memoranda today that continues construction of the decode access pipeline and keystone pipeline. he also had a breakfast the ceos and top executives of the big three u.s. automakers. general motors, ford, fiat chrysler. he promised to cut regulations. fbi director will keep his job. he says president trump asked him to stay on, and he agreed. mr. trump criticized the fbi and justice department for not bringing criminal charges against hillary clinton for her use of a personal email server. michigan officials say flints water system no longer has levels of lead exceeding the federal limit. the 100,000 residents have been

grappling with the water crisis there since 2014. global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i'm alisa parenti. this is bloomberg. " is next. technology caroline: i'm caroline hyde, this is "bloomberg technology." alibaba leads the charge. how the bets on content and the cloud is paying off for china's e-commerce giant. s&p.t highs for the we will break down what stocks are leading the game. the verizon-yahoo! deal is still in play, but now going into overtime. we will look into potential

impacts on the acquisition of the verizon's worst governments report since 2014. alibaba reported better-than-expected quarterly results. the company lifted its yearly sales forecast. ventures are bolstering the giant. dig into the nitty-gritty for us. reporter: it's almost too good to be true. they raised sales forecasts. is thatg interesting the number of active buyers didn't cry too much, less than 10%. a lot of the growth and reasons

why investors are pushing up stock is because of the growth and it's more fledgling businesses. thought triple digit growth in the cloud division and media and visual entertainment business. a lot of talk about how that is the next new growth strategy for alibaba and how they are going to integrate all of these businesses together. digging into some of the bloomberg functions, if you go into analyst recommendations and get into anr on the bloomberg, you see a phenomenal 90% of analysts say by this stock. not one single one says sell. see the price target is way off from where the share prices are currently trading. elaborate on these new big bets that are potentially helping some of the by recommendations. we heard from salina about the entertainment. >> what it comes down to is this.

is a fledgling business, it is growing. if you dig through the numbers, the cloud business is actually rising and staying stable. usually when we see them grow, you get less revenue per user because some of the lower tier users come in and start using. it is staying stable, that is a really good time for alibaba. it is still losing money, so that is not a good sign. but the fact that they are able to keep it stable is very important. on the entertainment side as well, it is losing money, but growing. these are two areas that show alibaba is looking into and can find some success at of their main business, selling products online. in these two areas, they are dragging on earnings, but the fact they are earning shows they have a few more tricks up their sleeve. caroline: salina, what it feels like is that alibaba is morphing into an amazon, taking a few leaves out of their book. what do the executives say about these new businesses? reporter: i think something

people are clicking more details on was this deal with in time. they want to buy out this physical brick and mortar department store. this is part of their vision to transform online retail into some of these e-commerce initiatives. analysts are still skeptical about if it is worth it to spend much on physical retail, but alibaba is all about e-commerce. they are about integrating digital media, using content to draw users, getting people to spend more time on their platforms, and transforming physical retail so that people in brick-and-mortar stores can use their technology to shop better. it is not too different from what amazon is doing. they recently open grocery stores that use very advanced technology and have some physical stores. caroline: i think we heard salina there talking about a little bit of caution out there. the short interest on this particular stock and it is particularly high.

what are the risk factors that might be driving this short interest? >> one of the key ones that salina pointed out is that they use -- is that the user growth is slowing. as a problem for them. they are managing to grow the amount of sales per user. the other thing is that they have a lot of other businesses. they are invested in so many different kinds of businesses, and they are a little bit of a black box. a lot of the shorts are betting that there are problems here, but so far, the shorts have been --ing to shorting the stock have been trying to take shorting the stock have been unsuccessful over the past three years. a lot of people are betting that perhaps there is something to come out of this that will be on the downside, but so far, they haven't been able to make smart money -- to make much money from those short bets. caroline: what about the news earlier about the olympic bet being made by alibaba?

anything more on the direction they are going in terms of globalization? reporter: it is reiterating that this is something that is going to get their global brand out there. it is really important that they can elevate their brand. tim was just talking about some risk factors, but let's not forget a were just but back on the u.s. notorious markets list for being a haven for knockoffs. by sponsoring the olympics, they are now going to have their name associated with the lipid games around the world, and hopefully this can bolster their reputation and help more businesses to sign on to their platform. caroline: another brilliant analysis. thank you. front, someearning profits more than doubled in the last three months of 2016. it was also driven by recovery in its mobile business after the fire prone derrek lee note 7 -- galaxy note 7.

we saw the shares popped up on the back of this due to the buyback. to try to placate the investor base? >> i think it is. there is a large buyback, but only around 10 or 12% of the cash they have. they have a lot more cash they could be given back to shareholders through buybacks or actual dividends. if you look at the actual earnings, year on year, the top didn't change. it came in almost exactly the same. going through the line, we saw the gross margin improve a lot. that is because the seventh dr. side and lcd side did very well so when salesiod, go up, you have better gross margins. if they can go forward into the next few quarters, that is great. i've been skeptical that they could because the earth --

because these are very cyclical businesses, and we need to see something that would drive demand forward for flash memory and lcds, there is that a lot out there in the market in terms of new products that look like they could drive these areas. that would be a real last threat for samsung going into these few quarters. caroline: a bit of a stay of execution if you're looking at the share price. beenabout what has unfolding over the embroiled in a samsung's leader or heir that hasin the scandal consumed the south korean politicians? is there any update in that respect? >> what is amazing is that investors don't seem to be that worried about it. they kind of dismissed it and brushed it off. jay y. lee not -- has not been arrested or put in prison. there are a lot of problems that could be ahead.

today, if you look at the share trading of the shock -- of the stock over the last few weeks, most of the bad news seems to be priced in and some investors are betting this could be a weakness. price-earnings ratio seems to be rising quite high. the galaxy note 7 problem, we found out overnight what was behind that, the badly problem -- the battery problem. i think most of the risk is behind them and they will go towards rebuilding the brand that samsung has. caroline: digging into that particular company. thank you for all your insights today. staying on the earnings beat, s&p raise their targets. the updated outlook came out with the company's fourth-quarter sales, and light

onlines transitioning to -- sap is transitioning to online cloud computing. >> clearly, any enterprise company operating in the global economy is almost always running sap. we would like to think our purpose in the united states will only get stronger because we can help the new president take cost out of the equation and focus on growth. that is why do need global players like sap to be great partners, and we will be. caroline: still to come, president trump's trade agenda will head to washington to hear from the republican senator who said he could curb the powers of the oval office when it comes to terrorists. -- when it comes to tariffs. all episodes bloomberg technology can be streamed on

twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: now for a look at the markets. u.s. stocks rose the most in three weeks. the s&p has an all-time high. large is's editor at here to pour through all the numbers. we are looking at the s&p 500. i think what you see is all caution being front of the wind. we saw in the s&p 500 and in the nasdaq. we see different sectors of the market, these are the sectors of is a lotq, and there

of different utilities. the only thing that didn't go up is in the red here, the health care. those stocks in the nasdaq might be those that aren't the dividend heavy paying ones. certainly the strong move into these technology stocks shows that investors look at this world don't see a lot of risk. caroline: are we seeing any particular flavors that are outperforming? is it based on trump at the moment? we are seeing hints at the way that policy might be forming. thatthink it's the idea tax policy is going to favor these companies and that congress might not stand in the way of some of those things. from the trunken administration thus far is still a lot of talk, but they have a lot to prove. the market is believing that everything is going to be rosy. we will see if everything plays out. caroline: one my favorite other

geek functions is ea. you can see, if you're looking at the s&p 500 thus far, 100% of the big tech players that have earnings so far. >> the nasdaq, as you see, we haven't had a lot of companies report. thus have two companies far. in the s&p 500, it is different. we look at all the companies that are reporting, and to me, this is an analyst report card. this is in showing how a company's are doing, this is showing how poorly the analyst are analyzing. -- analyst have killed early have clearly expected it when it comes to sales. the analysts have gotten it wrong. when it comes to sales, we have seen these companies averaging in with the nasdaq, but with

telecommunications services and i.t., we only have 70 come in report out of the 71. have 17 companies reporting out of the 71. caroline: we will keep 18 i on the analysts. great to have you on. cory johnson running through the numbers. president trump's trade agenda will head to washington. a u.s. republican senator says he can curb the oval office when it comes to tariffs. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: it has first days as president, donald has taken swift action on u.s. prayed -- on u.s. trade policies, withdrawing from the transit partnership. he has also vowed to hit companies that manufacture outside the u.s. and try to sell

within the states with a tariff. senator mike lee, thank you for joining us. you introduced a bill that would give congress control or authority over approving any executive action taken by the president over whether or not to fs or to approve withdrawing from e*trade agreement. why was this necessary -- withdrawing from a trade agreement. why was this necessary? we see a being handed over to the executive branch. reporter: critics say you are trying to take away power from president trump. is that what you're trying to do? at giving power to congress to make laws about

things like tariffs. we have provision in the tariff act of 1930 and the trade act of 1974 that give immense discretion to the executive branch to decide unilaterally to make certain decisions to raise tariffs. that is a policy decision tantamount to making law. this is not the executive branch or the president's fault. reporter: do you agree with president trump's actions on trade policy? >> those policies are still unfolding. it is not entirely clear what actions he wants to take in this area. i concern is a deeper and broader one, brewing since long before we knew who the president would be. this is a question about the people's elected representatives in washington being able to make law, what we are here to do. reporter: we are hearing president trump will announce next week who he will choose to a point to the supreme court.

you were on the short list that he put forth during the campaign. are you interested in becoming a supreme court nominee? have you had in discussions the white house about it? >> -- >> of course i am. i have been watching supreme court arguments since i was 10 years old. i am on her to be considered on the list. regardless of what choice he makes on this, it is going to be a good one. the people on that list are good and we are going to get that person confirmed. i look forward to pushing through that person once he or she has been nominated. reporter: have you had conversations with the white house since election day? >> of course, along with any other issues. we have talked about the issue broadly. reporter: i think caroline has a question. caroline: thank you joining us. i'm going to take it back to technology, if i will. we were talking about trade policies, and it seems as though , at the moment, donald trump is trying to fight cheap labor abroad with trade tariffs, but

it's not the actual threat to jobs. >> i don't think that the government response ability. responsibility. we have to make sure government isn't putting undue burdens on companies. we can at least make sure that we are no longer the country with the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. can make sure we are no longer putting $2 trillion in regulatory compliance costs on americans everything will year. all those costs get passed down to america's poor middle-class, who pay through higher prices, diminished wages, underemployment, and unemployment. there's a lot we can do to increase the competition of american manufacturers and american employers and to get more opportunities to american workers. issues and on those

reducing areas that the government itself has put in place. caroline: i want to get into one of your other key roles. you are on the committee for antitrust policy. there is a definitely argue and grew in between two tech heavyweights, apple and qualcomm. is there a particular view you take on apple suing in terms of its licensing process? >> i'm not getting into that right now. i don't have any interest in commenting on that. reporter: if they offer you the supreme court job, would you accept it? >> of course i would. how serious are we? >> not today. i've not had these conversations today or yesterday. reporter: senator mike lee, we appreciate your time. both yahoo! and verizon reported earnings this week and gave a new timeline of its highly anticipated deal. we will discuss who benefits

from pushing the sale back. you has been delaying that sale to verizon. yahoo! shares to ridley trading a little bit higher. this is bloomberg. ♪

anchor: i'm elisa for anti-, you -- you're watching bloomberg technology.

donald trump's plan to renegotiate the north american free trade agreement was received in mexican with a call to protect tariff free trading. canadian officials are worried about avoiding unintentional damage as the u.s. targets mexico. prime minister justin trudeau says canada will continue to pursue trade agreements worldwide to make sure workers benefit from higher wages driven by export intensive industries. welcomedinisters president trump's decision to greenlight the keystone pipeline. .500el says it has approved west bank settlement homes. the defense minister says the majority of the housing units will be built in blocks where most settlers live and which israel was to keep under its control. french president francois hollande that with leaders of colombia's largest rebel movement today in an area where guerillas will begin turning

over weapons. global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. anti--- i'm elisa plenty -- this is bloomberg. i am joined by paul allen with a look at the markets. >> good morning. to a niced is off start. things looking good on the nikkei. 6/10e expecting gains of of 1% on the afx when we open here in a little under 30 minutes. everyone will be watching bhp billiton. it all up pretty good. 60 million tons for the second quarter.

full-year guidance has been lowered. big piece of data out today. also getting preliminary gdp as south korea that is expected to confirm a slowing economy. i'm paul allen in sydney. more from "bloomberg technology" next. ♪ caroline: this is "bloomberg -- technology."

verizon saw their worst performance since 2011 in tuesday trading after adding --er monthly wire lists monthly wireless customers than expected. they wanted to inform themselves into more than just a phone company. yahoo! is delaying their sale to verizon because it needs more time to be closing conditions after the disclosure of two massive data breaches. has is a look back at what been said on bloomberg television about the deal and yahoo!'s most recent hacking disclosure. >> the yahoo! brand is an excellent brand. the yahoo! team is an excellent team. it fits into the larger strategy that verizon has. >> the transaction isn't just about the strategic future for yahoo!, that also about unlocking value for our shareholders and the remaining equity stakes. this is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. great for the company and

great for show murders. -- for shareholders. >> some of you whose key websites are still value to a a company that is looking to scale their mobile business. it is more of a desktop application. they want to get people on a mobile side. the apps that are coming together represent a very unique opportunity. >> based on where yahoo! was in the last year, it was an inevitable outcome that it was to be sold. caroline: here to discuss verizon's result and its future with or without yahoo! is amy young, who covers telecoms in new york. reporting onrman this deal since day one. on, i read your notes

verizon's numbers, which you called squishy and uninspiring. elaborate for us. the 40 outlook was a little disappointing for investors. gdp plusre looking for and it puts a lot more pressure on them to either get the who or aol and the right direction or perhaps to look for additional growth opportunities in leveraging. caroline: talking about that opportunity, what do we know in terms of the yahoo!-verizon deal? there was talk in december that the price would be reduced or the deal would be put to bed entirely. >> we know at this point that the deal is going to be delayed. it was supposed to close at the end of the first quarter, now it is bumped to the second. verizon is still trying to figure out what exactly the cost hacks plusmous

potential liability down the road of any potential hacks might be. calculation will drive verizon's thinking on how the want to push a potential reduction in price. as with any negotiation, it comes down to leverage. who needs who more? . who would be left pretty desperate if this verizon deal didn't go through. yahoo! would be left pretty -- if theif rising verizon deal didn't go through. they are is still to be determined. almost everyone around the deal tells me the expected the deal will still go forward. amy, you currently have verizon stock at neutral. it is currently at about 50. how much of that is baking in

the yahoo! deal? acquisitions are not in the numbers right now, that is xo and yahoo!. i think there is a lot of pressure for them to get the wireless business in the right direction. some of the things they have talked about is that on a sequential basis, it looks like growth is going to be much better as we had closer to 18. caroline: talking about that wireless business getting on with trump now in position, it seems as though in and a -- seems as though mna might go the way of sprint buying t-mobile. with that be a boom or bust for something like verizon? >> is probably a boom for verizon. i think if t-mobile and sprint were to merge, you would have a four player market go to three, in which case pricing to be

reintroduced into the marketplace, and certainly verizon would be a big winner in that scenario. biggestth -- their competitor, at&t, is about to close on time warner cable. the push here, alex, has been content is king. with that offer our customers a reason to be addicted to the withe, and it has been pairing up with time warner, at&t. are they anticipating more consolidation within the telecom space? >> verizon and at&t operates as a case study for the buddies that fundamentally do the same thing that have gone and very different directions. at&t first acquired directv, a big deal. that on top you add in, it's a $100 billion plus mna into

deals. yahoo! atught aol and about $10 billion. they have done the same thing year after year, but have gone in a very different direction. this verizon take a look at at&t and say a were ahead of us in this? ,e need to make a counter move whether that is something enormous like buying a cable company or trying to buy some more content. or does verizon say we don't agree. ourre content to build mobile advertising platform and devil and content a little bit, but we want to make sure our focus is wireless networks, spectrum, and button -- and finding a way to stimulate revenue. ,-mobile has been an upstart and this has undercut them on price. that has the prize of -- has put verizon in a tough spot. at&t as: amy, you cover

well. their numbers are coming up tomorrow. what should we be looking out for? >> they pre-last week, so i think there is going to be more on what they say on directv and extreme products and how successful that could be -- streaming products and how successful that could be. i spent more on their wireless strategy and of course time warner. caroline: thank you very much. great analysis, as ever. firmrtificial intelligence infinity is considering an ipo att would value the company $2 billion or more. they could go public as soon as this year. coming up, president trump is making good on his pledge to take down his predecessors

prized initiative. obama effort in tech that may be impressed by the -- that may be embraced by the ministration. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: microsoft just scored a major win. the u.s. cannot force the tech giant to turn over customer data . last july, a three-judge panel overturned in 2014 decision or dering them to turn over information. the case could be picked up by

the supreme court. tech has been bracing for a trump presidency, and with many awaiting the possible rollback of price policies to the sector like net neutrality and the h1b that may be portion safe is obama's tech surge. joining us now, bloomberg's head of global technology coverage area he has a great piece out on this. >> there are some early signals, but this was one of the legacies of the obama administration. bringing a bipartisan group of technologists into the government, not just originally hcare.gov, but to bring tech thinking into government. there was a lot of anxiety that

the trump administration might roll that back. we reported this week that some of trump's tech deputies met with the leadership of services like the u.s. digital service kushner,sa, and jared trump's son-in-law and advisor, said anodized -- said a message saying they were on the same page. it is a good sign. caroline: we still don't know about the policies, about net neutrality. could there be optimism taken from the steps about policy? >> it certainly separate from policy. trumpestion is, who will the point to succeed megan smith as cto? can he bring in a group of technologists to keep things going? there are plenty of questions. -- the new fcc chair seems to be against net

neutrality. that is worrying to some and silicon valley. all these issues were silicon valley differs potentially -- differs politically from the ministration. it is fascinating was going on on twitter, which we would dig into any moment. bloomberg reporter being is -- rex is an exceptionally competent executive, understands geopolitics, and knows how to win for his team. does this surprise you? >> that has been his primary key medication method for so long. it was effective for him during the campaign. it is a mouthpiece directly to the people, as he sees it. of course, the masses aren't

quite embracing it, but it allows him to get an unfiltered message out there. i think we tweets, are seeing him and other business leaders take more of a role in the ministration -- in the administration or seed the opportunity to get their priorities past. on both casas outreach sides, and twitter is the venue of choice. talking about how social media has been adopted by donald trump, will it be adopted more right scale -- more widescale by politicians? >> i don't really know. trump is pretty singular in his attention -- in his ability to get attention through a tweet. he tweets impetuously. it's not really in character with other politicians. we also looked at whether this is good for twitter, and frankly, i don't know if it is.

there is a reason why american citizens don't want to watch c-span all day, because its insular. we want things digested. we are not interested in every turn of policy and who is supporting who. dialoguean seem like between insiders, and trump, to some extent, has fostered that. caroline: with elon musk being so close to the ministration, is this something that other silicon valley heads are taking as a positive? >> everyone is following script right now. they are making an offense for new manufacturing centers in the u.s. and new jobs they are creating. we will never know if they follow through. a lot of it is politics. to be athis is going pro-business administration, and business leaders see the opportunity to use that for their baggage. they are being -- to use that for their advantage. they are being pragmatic.

they are trying to get into the power circle. howell getting a direct tweet from elon musk. great to have you. for more on what trump's tweets mean for twitter and democracy, i urge you to catch up on the latest episode of our podcast. you can find new episodes on itunes every tuesday. this wednesday, on bloomberg television, the bloomberg surveillance team will bring an interview with the minister of economics affairs for madrid. he can watch that at 5:30 .astern a.m. in london york and 10:30 a.m. and london. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: the oil industry got a

boost tuesday after u.s. president donald trump advanced --struction of the key line of the keystone xl and a code access pipelines. the menstruation claims it will create jobs and grow the economy. good automation hinder the number of jobs expected question mark -- jobs expected? a combination of more efficient drilling machines and increased automation is reducing the need for human workers. here to talk about this cover ofn is a drilling services for bloomberg news. david, a great piece he's got out on the bloomberg. we are starting to see fewer hands on deck needed. >> it is starting to look that way. part of this is because of lower oil prices. oil companies were forced to pull up pencil and start to look

at the costs and figure out how they can do more with less. what you start to see is a push towards automation. they should start to roll out in more earnest in the near future. you are also seeing rigs that are already existing that can drill faster. they are a lot more efficient in the jobs they are doing. that all means you can do the same amount of output with fewer rigs, so you need less bodies employed. one piece of machinery you have got right now on the rig is called the iron roughneck, and it helps reduce the number of roustabout's. those of the kind of classic, iconic workers in the field that grabbed the big heavy pipe and have to clamp together and connect sections of pipe and put it down. you no longer need as many guys as that.

we are looking at -- sorry? caroline: is there any positive outcome? means is thatf maybe you don't have as many guys in the field, but maybe you start to hire more guys that can watch remotely, that can look at data sheets and spreadsheets and the real-time monitoring. but you don't have as many in the field, but you hire more tech guys in the back office. caroline: and tech girls, hopefully. who is at the forefront of this move? >> you see a lot of service companies. hughes when baker they merged with general electric. they are really trying to put this up big time. their customers like bp are really talking about seeing a piecemeal of automation but the whole system becoming a lot more

automated. then you have the companies that own the rigs themselves. they are trying to roll out more rigs second could cut the number of workers at the jobsite from 20 down to about five. david with the great story from bloomberg news. thank you. a revolvingase of door. the effects of a bigger trend in the tech world bleeding into automakers. ofd has hired the head global social media and marketing from apple. he will be their first chief marketing officer. he will work with their team to define, build, and communicate the automakers brand as it expands into connected technology. that does it for this edition of bloomberg -- the best that does it -- that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology

." follow all previous interviews on twitter. that's all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪ . .

our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." today was a much meeting between the trump administration and the working press. the white house for secretary first official briefing this afternoon. he addressed a range of policy issues as well as the new administration's relationship with the press and intelligence committee. this comes two days after spicer was widely criticized statement in which he disparaged media outlets for what he called deliberately false reporting. joining me now is the white house bureau