politically difficult estimate of its effect on health coverage. a new estimate shows 14 million americans could lose health coverage by next year under the gop plan, putting republicans in a bind with its dire picture of the bill's effects. according to a gop aide, ryan and kevin mccarthy are scheduled to speak with president trump by phone today to discuss the next steps. england k, bank of deputy governor is stepping down. a parliamentary committee said she did not meet the standards required for the role. lawmakers were concerned that she admitted she didn't disclose her brother works at barclays, which the central bank regular she was hired as the chief officer -- chief operating officer in 2013. syria has been described as a torture chamber, the worst man-made disaster the world is

seen since world war ii. speaking in geneva, he said the country has been a place of "savage over an absolute injustice -- savage harbor an absolute injustice." he also said piece is not negotiable in syria. global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. ♪ scarlet: live from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, i'm scarlet fu. joe: i'm joe weisenthal. we are 30 minutes from the close of trading in the u.s. scarlet: stocks and oil sliding ahead of a looming rate increase. joe: the question is, what you miss? scarlet: done deal. the fed all but certain to raise rates by 25 basis points, what

it is the pace of hikes the next three years that is up for grabs. the price of crude continues to slide after saudi arabia said it reversed some production cuts it had made. is the opec deal on the verge of falling apart? european political drama. the netherlands votes tomorrow while the u.k. is triggering departure from the european union. joe: bill ackman has thrown in his valeant investment. julie hyman has more on that. howe: we cannot estimate much he lost on diet but we know it is considerable. by one estimate he invested 4 billion into the stock before it tumbled to it is a heavily shorted stock. wasysts say that if ackman not going to hang on after all this time, there's not much reason to own it. if you look at the longer-term

chart of the valeant, you see the trajectory. he partnered with the company in 2014 to try to make a deal with allergan. that did not ultimately materialize. the companies had various troubles and the shares essentially collapsed. i want to look at the other holdings he still has. you can do this on the bloomberg by going to slng. this reveals the holdings through filings. doesn't tell you options, doesn't tell you what he is shorting, etc. i know it is tricky to read on your screen but his holdings -- we should point out that he does not have many stocks in his portfolio. this has been traditional for ackman, that the holdings are concentrated in just a few high-conviction bets. one of the is qsr, highest holdings according to his filings. it is restaurant brands. it is up 57%. they got into this stock in a

previous iteration when it was wendy's. then it spun off tim hortons, then merged with burger king. in february it announced it would be buying popeyes ticket. it is backed by -- popeye's chicken. it is that by 3g capital and berkshire hathaway is another high-profile investor this has turned out better for ackman that has valeant thus far. chipotle.od bet is the stock has pretty much gone sideways as the company has been volatile, as you can see here, dealing with the food safety scandals plaguing it and trying to come back from that. in this case he has reached an agreement to add four new members to the board. he is pushing for changes to occur at chipotle. these are couple of examples of his various holdings. like anyone come he has had some wins and losses.

joe, it seems like some of these losses have been a little more high-profile for ackman. joe? joe: thanks, julie. for more on exit scenarios, i want to bring in an expert on the subject. fabulous on the delhi is an adjunct professor at columbia fabioss school -- salvodelli is an adjunct professor at columbia business goal. turned into as close as a complete wipeout as you can get. matt levine did a calculation -- he might have lost more than .00% of his total investment how often does something like this happen in the activist world? fabio: for someone like ackman, this is not his first rodeo, having a stock go bad. he is a very disciplined investor. he is old school.

as julie pointed out earlier, a small number of physicians. different from the paulson, who might spread that out over a large number. in the case of ackman, 2 things crushed it. even if he lost a ton of money, there is an element of investment discipline. ebitda ebitda ebitda. the strategy of valeant was relatively simple -- by up companies, incur debt, buy up incuries, and kurt -- debt. all of these things would have to be refinanced and they are perilously close. $1.8 million is a lot of money you have to make it pay bankers every year. when that started to fall apart, the gasoline and the matches -- where he is disciplined is his central thesis that you can roll up companies and raise prices. it fell apart. i think he was disciplined to some degree from even if he is

taking $200 million, roughly what he has on his metro card come out of his trade at this point. he may have lost more than that in total. all the way around, it is -- it is not his first rodeo. he is getting out. scarlet: how do activists usually exit their positions? usually it is not as spectacular a loss as a way is one is perceived. how do they come out of it? the greatt is one of challenges because when you are an activist you are the elephant in the room. you are the hardest one to get back out. end in0% of these things stock sales, just what bill is doing today. actually, the exit of choice is about the one third that gets done through mergers. you want to try to get someone else to take the entire position off of your hands.

we have seen situations where people end up with the so-called successful activist positions but then they cannot get out. you are the last person to get out after everyone else has sold off the division or major structural changes. joe: part of what made bill ackman -- part of what characterized bill ackman's approach in recent years and other managers, too, is these big, showing presentations about their announcements, where they unveiled the traded then walked through this long thesis -- scarlet: hours and hours of powerpoint. joe: it attracts a lot of attention for people, theoretically the people who want to take the opposite side of the trade. do you think that is going to fade a little bit, or do you think -- is that sort of a sound thing to do for an activist? fabio: i think those are 2 different questions. what you are right from a lot of these guys come out like the start of a formula one race, they drop the checkered flag with the big announcement. but in reality, the reason people have to do that is if you

look at the makeup of activist investors activists, professional full-time activists are relatively fat in the number of campaigns. 307 last year, 302 this year. what has been driving the flows are the part-time people, the people who view this as an occasional trade. what we see is much larger numbers of part-time people. by doing those big presentations, you hope to get that wave of people to follow along with you. that has been a large structural change. firms that would never have gotten involved half. blackrock when activist on a stock in hong kong. not full-time activist come but if they follow the investment thesis, you have pretty deep pockets behind you. scarlet: speaking of hong kong, one thing we have noticed is activists taking the approach globally. activists targeted sony, samsung electronics.

this is something we had not seen five or six years ago. fabio: absolutely. we will not say numbers of deals, massive offshore, but the u.k. has been the leading edge of european activism. in fact, they had the first anivist board appointment on ftse 100 company, which had never been done before last year. in japannzo abe welcomes this. he is trying one way or another to drag the system out and make it happen. joe: was just going to ask about that. i note japanese corporates are famously resistant to the sort of thing. do you see evidence that the culture is changing, or is it still just a goal at this point? fabio: two years and years ago we were an investor in the fund beating up on bulldog sauce, and i will never remember or taste bulldog sauce again because it was extraordinarily strange.

you go to the large investors -- this corporate structure is just ripping you off -- and they would be like, yeah, well, they are friends. the cultural reaction will take the investment generation of it but if you sit flat in the stock market long enough, eventually people get frustrated. in asia we have seen there are about 77 activist campaigns, up from 52 last year. we have seen them in china and hong kong exchanges. 456, which istly what we saw in the united states last year. scarlet: we will see if bill ackman sets his sights on an asian company next. thank you so much. coming up, winter snowstorms are lighting a fire under natural gas prices. how the temperatures are hating commodity prices. from new york, this is bloomberg. ♪

what'd you miss? kingdom today after the decided to increase production. in november opec agreed to cut production. why the latest increase its production targets below the agreed-upon number, it may put pressure on opec to extend output cuts beyond june. bloomberg's managing editor for commodities joins us to last week was rough for oil and now the news flow seems to be getting a little bit worse. perhaps saudi arabia not cutting as much as people thought. tina: last week they were very clear that they would not bear the burden of these cuts alone and it was a clear signal to those within opec and countries outside of opec that have agreed to these cuts that they needed

to come through and have full compliance. what we saw today was an increase that scared the market a little bit. shortly thereafter, saudi arabia came out with the increase went into domestic storage -- with a statement that said a lot of increase went into domestic storage. scarlet: so it is still in compliance and then? his saudi arabia still in complaints? -- is saudi arabia still in complaints? tina: saudi arabia is in compliance. the rest of the world has to look at that and say if the saudis are not going to carry me, do i have to do more? scarlet: four others reversed the production cuts they have made? tina: we have people who are not complying. iraq and russia have not been in hearing to the letter of the agreement, more like the spirit of it so far. this puts more pressure on them to do so. and it sends a message to the markets. this gives a

warning that the floor they thought was there may not always be there. joe: looking at the chart on the bloomberg and i think you brought in last time we talked showing this sort of resurgent u.s. production in drilling to the bar chart is the u.s. oil rigs. the yellow chart is crude oil inventory. weakness we are seeing in oil -- is everyone chalking it up to supply? any demand side to the element here? tina: there is a demand side. the president is going to detroit tomorrow and people are talking about him taking off fuel economy standards. that could change the larger forecast in the u.s. that would be a great way to increase demand. that obvious it wouldn't happen in your term. in the near term people look at stockpiles and how they will be gone down. joe: are the automakers eager to have those regulations relaxed?

tina: actually, and it is not just the cars they could been -- absolutely, and it is not just the cars they could be making if you don't have to pay for it, you don't. suv's, there is the demand element as well. if we go back to the idea that saudi arabia is reversing production cuts, does that move give short-term benefits? tina: well, you would think it would help to boost prices, but we've seen the prices come down in response. obviously, they are trying to play hardball with the rest of the markets. the rest of the markets of the markets and the rains terrified and will be looking again later this afternoon for figures on what inventory numbers may look like for the past week. tomorrow we get official numbers but this afternoon we get the numbers,guesstimate which have a spotty record of being true. if we see another record in well inventories, it doesn't really matter what the saudis do. joe: let's talk about the

speculative positioning of traders. more recently they were long in terms of the number of futures ever, or at least in a long time. what do we see lately? tina: they're starting to draw down, and what we've seen in the past two weeks is the first down taken a long time -- joe: that chart right there. tina: you can see it is not dramatic yet, but those figures have come before the saudis spoke. we will get week -- those numbers on friday -- they could look dramatically different and it could show the start of the next this in the market. scarlet: tina davis, thank you so much for joining us. we are going to stick with this theme because the blizzard currently bearing down on the u.s. eastern seaboard has pushed natural gas futures to highs on speculation demand for the heating fuel will surge during the storm and that would shrink the supply glut. stellat as the storm groove,s groove, or her

how does it impact commodity prices? let's bring in a commodity trading advisor with the hedge fund association. let's start with natural gas futures. we are at a pretty late point in the winter here, and we have had a pretty warm february. tell us about the conditions that led to people speculating heavily on natural gas futures. jim: it has been a crazy, volatile winter. perhaps a cold winter -- it is in heaven and we became bearish on natural gas in february. one of the warmest winters on record. we recently saw a 10% rally in natural gas late last week on a that is not going to put a dent in the natural gas supplies this late in the winter. if we have a cool april, which is possible, we could see

natural gas rally again. but he does not bullish necessarily on longer-term natural gas. 2 may have a cool summer and hurricanes next fall. joe: was just going to ask you to expand on that. what is the earlier agreed on the weather for the summer and fall? jim: typically when you look at the warmest winters on record, which february was, and a week nino, you see cooler summer and weaker hurricane season. we may see a cooler spring that will create a short-term spike in natural gas again, but any longer-term change in their fundamentals come with the crude complex in natural gas, is unlikely now. scarlet: in terms of grains, one thing we have noticed as you might see more supply from south

america for commodities like corn. it seems like all the commodities have this supply glut new matter where you look. jim: i've been pretty bearish on list of them. coco has seen a low. weak el niño, we may see promise from africa. a theth america, this is biggest corn crop in history. a year ago we had flooding and wiped out about 15% of the argentina crop and all that excess demand got diverted to the united states and use the big demand market in soybeans last march and april. this year, not as bad a situation. i think the odds of a drought in the midwest this summer is probably less than 25%. the longer-term fundamentals for grains is bearish. scarlet: one commodity and wanted to get her thoughts on his caution. it is not whether--- it is not

weather-related at all. jim: that is based on what is going on in china. certainly in the spring and summer months we see whether margins develop. the biggest move in the last 15 or 20 years is 2010, when cotton ant to over two dollars bale and the price of blue jeans doubled. that was because of problems in pakistan and india and china with a reduction in crops. we will have to monitor that and see what happens in china and the united states. unless we have a major weather disaster, cotton is pretty hard to come by longer-term as we could see an increase in cotton for planting the next three or four months. joe: great stuff. thank you very much, jim roemer, president of best weather. the trump andxt, administration has pursued an aggressive policy of deregulation. how are small business owners

responding? this is bloomberg. ♪

scarlet: i am scarlet fu. what'd you miss? let's consider volatility or lack thereof in equities. vix, note line there, longer below 11. 12 and change. still holding your a 2.5-year low. the blue line here, the second panel, the cboe index and to the european and asian developed markets. yesterday in that yellow square it recorded its biggest-ever now at its lowest since data going all away back to 2008. the third panel, emerging market etf volatility index. volatility coming down there. falling 17% in 2 days. no matter where you look, lots of complacency. joe: at some point volatility

will come back in equities but people have lost a lot of money betting on the bounceback. let's look at one of my favorite surveys, small business optimism survey. they asked one of my favorite questions, which is what is your biggest problem? they asked small business owners what is your biggest problem you're facing -- high taxes, then you can define workers, that you can't get a loan, whatever it is. one of the things they ask is red tape, regulation of problem. small business owners are always complaining about red tape. this is the month over month change. as you can see in this recent month, the number of small businesses complaining about red tape, who say this is the number one problem, had its biggest plunge in all the data we had on bloomberg, going back years and years. donald trump, the new president, hasn't really done anything yet on regulation. a few executive orders but mostly small bore stuff. scarlet: yes promised to look into it. joe: already the biggest drop

we've ever seen of small business owners say it is the biggest problem. scarlet: market closes next. less than four minutes to go before the close. modest losses. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪

>> we are moments away from the closing bell. ?"hat'd ya miss the fed, although certain to raise interest rates tomorrow. scarlet: i'm scarlet fu. joe: we want to welcome you to our closely -- closing bell coverage, every week. scarlet: market minutes, u.s. stocks limping to a close, falling for the day. the s&p 500 losing, the nasdaq down by one third of 1%. the real mover here today as crude oil, moving past $48 per barrel after saudi arabia disclosed production. joe: kind of a quiet day ahead of the fed, oil is where it's at. groups ishe industry where it is as well. the biggest decline in the 11

industry groups. consumer discretionary, you can say, was little changed. a pretty broad decline across the board here for the 11 groups in the s&p 500. taking a look at the xle, the sector spider etf that tracks the energy sector, it's at the lowest since the election. i needed to include valiant, because yesterday pershing square exited its position, at the lowest level since may of 2000. among the movers today, looking at a couple of companies benefiting from m&a speculation and talk. hudson bay, gaining in talks to buy neiman marcus according to "the wall street journal." excuse me, it is lower. neiman marcus had been looking to go public but had shelved that, hudson bay is lower. of course, ruby tuesday, up by 24%. before today the stock was down

46% this year. it had hired ubs to explore strategic options, including a possible sale. western union, up 3.5%. the company may be seen as a takeover target after euro net outbid the financial for money gram. joe: looking at government bonds ahead of tomorrow's fed decision, long-term rates continue to -- actually, down a little bit today to 2.06%. still, this is close to the high end of the range we have seen ahead of this fed decision. i want to look at a one-year chart of 10 year yields, this really shows it, november, the big spike after the election, now we are right there, pretty close to the top of the postelection levels, the highest in a long time. obviously we will see how the fed decision changes the story little bit. scarlet: still can't get past that level, though. joe: 2.3% does seem to be a

ceiling. scarlet: speaking of the fed, we are looking at a dollar that is somewhat higher, but for the most part little changed. up by 3/10 of 3%. -- 1%. economic today showed wholesale inflation rising faster than among therea and major currency pairs, sterling under pressure as the pound the dollar fell to an eight-week low after theresa may was given the go-ahead to trigger brexit. the end, stronger as well against the dollar in the euro. i wanted to highlight the indian rupee. it is the biggest gainer among asian currencies versus the dollar. here you are looking at the dollar versus the rupee. that is the dollar losing its value. the rupee is now at a 16 month high against the currency. a strong showing with the state elections and according to traders, investors are interpreting this to mean that

the election outcome will be an indication that they will return to power in general elections in 2019. joe: the demonetization plans are not causing a problem. finally, let's look at commodities, starting with iron ore, which rallied big. strong industrial data from china last night. begins for iron ore off the back of the data. gold, slipping. as we talked about earlier on in the show, crude -- crude falling again, falling more than people had thought. looking at a one-month chart of oil, that really tells the story . going along just fine, flat, doing nothing, but then a lot of the bottom fell out. those are today's market minutes. we want to take a deep dive into the bloomberg now. joe, you were showing the 10 year treasury yield earlier. shorter maturity is more sensitive to the rate hikes.

looking at the 5-year note, the yield is the top panel there, two .13%, highest since around 2011. according to the rsi, leaving it up so that you can see it better, we are now looking like we are oversold, the 5-year note. anything above 70 would indicate that it's oversold. we got to 69 last week, we've come back to 64. oversold territory, nearing that point, is certainly where we are at. below this redline, 30, a sign that you would want to sell it because it is an all caps off condition. -- overbought condition. joe: people keep wondering when we are going to get that snap back, but it hasn't happened. real quick, this chart was sent -- sent to merk by mark on twitter. normally you would think that a steeper yield curve would be stronger for the dollar, but it

turns out it's totally not the case. the white line is the 530 spread. the blue line, teal line, magenta line -- scarlet: teal. joe: as you can see, it's a significant flattening over the last five years, corresponding with a stronger dollar and much weaker euro. sort of a counterintuitive relationship heading into that fed decision. scarlet: great chart. joe: and all the politics going on. "what'd you miss?" the fed two-day meeting kicked off today, even though snowstorms of war down on d.c. and much of the northeast. they are expected to announce a rate hike, but the question now is -- what is on tap for the rest of the year? are and vince cigna vince- matt boesler and cignarella join us now. what's the number one thing you want to find out? matt: probably it's going to be

to discuss why they felt such a need to hike this month. again, if you go back to two weeks ago, the markets weren't really pricing in a march rate hike. seems like fed officials really came out and try to get the markets onside for that. anything they feel about why they felt such an urgency to go as opposed to waiting june -- waiting until june, that will be an interesting discussion. scarlet: vince, as you look at the dollar, you would think a hawkish fed would mean a stronger dollar, but the dollar has been all over the place. vince: the expectations have built up so quickly, from the beginning of march, big dollar, big long dollar positions were put on rapidly. now we stand to see the actual .vent all of the fireworks of sort of been taken out of the picture a bit. to be big.t is going

it will tell whether or not the dollar trend will extend or fall away. -- scarlet: this is something that joe has mentioned several times, the fed and the market are in sync. broadening out again for 2018, but we will get an update and what the fed projects for the coming year. joe: is there any sort of. projection? projection? matt: some people think that's a possibility. looking at the numbers, you would need quite a few of the committee members to move up to something like four hikes this year to get that medium to move up, so it seems like it might be a tall order, but again that's the big question because it is a matter of -- are they just trying to frontload these so that they have more option audi later in the year? or are they thinking they want to go more times, so they want to get started now and that's

for the markets are, between those two. this is -- joe: this is an interesting chart, they can't seem to get over zero. they were deeply negative earlier in 2013. what is this blue line? what are we looking at here? the blue line is the fed favorite estimate with a track that went pretty well. it's a surprise that we have kind of been floundering around zero for the last three or four years. the question is, now that we are poking up above zero again today , can the markets handle this additional move into positive real rates? or are we going to go back down again? we will see if the fed sends them higher again, like they did in december, and how the market reacts to that. winding down the balance sheet, is that too far

off in the distance? vince: it is a significant point. unwinding when you are the biggest holder of bonds, a lot of people think that this will be a gradual event. my personal experience is that when the biggest guy on the street starts dumping, even if it is in a small way, if the street senses that this is happening and that there will be a liquidation of this huge position, the street is going to try to get in front of that. yields could rise very rapidly, faster than the fed thinks that they can control it. scarlet: it is another way of tightening policy. vince: very much tightening policy. scarlet: vince cignarella, matthew boesler thank you so much. coming up, theresa may is on track to trigger brexit talks by the end of the month, that's her self-imposed deadline. this is bloomberg. ♪

mark: i'm mark crumpton. time now for first word news. the united states is considering increasing financial penalties on chinese companies in response to allegedly growing evidence of beijing pass support for north korea part 11 programs, according to "the wall street journal," citing u.s. and asian officials. deliberations come as the u.s. secretary of state, rex thisrson, travels to asia week to try to unify japan, south korea, and china behind a policy to try to restrict nuclear and ballistic missile launches from pyongyang. theresa may says that the u.k.'s on track to exit the eu on a

timetable that she sent out, but a major sticking point remains, clearly defining the status of nationals in the u.k. she addressed it at the house of commons today. >> we want to ensure that the issue of the status of eu nationals living here in the united kingdom is dealt with at an early stage in negotiations, but we also have the consideration for the u.k. nationals who are living in the european union. she also pledged to formally trigger article 50, kickstarting the process to exit the eu at the end of the month. reversed onehas third of the oil production cuts that it made in january. they come to more than 10 million barrels per day last month, cutting output by more than is required by the cartel's 24 oil producers

agreed to cut production to try to clear the surplus. new york city was spared from the worst of the storm that is hitting the northeastern u.s. the forecast has been downgraded to four to eight inches. fallingty of snow is north and west of new york. parts of new england could get two feet. the wind is blowing up to 60 miles per hour in some areas. airlines have canceled over 5000 flights. global news, 24 hours per day, powered by 2600 journalists and in 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton, this is bloomberg. scarlet: "what'd you miss?" u.k. parliament giving theresa may permission to start wrecks it talks, putting her on track to trigger article 50 by the end of this month. in a speech this morning she laid out the next steps in the process. >> so, we remain on track with the timetable i sent out six months ago. i will return this house before

the end of this month to notify that i have formerly -- formally triggered article 50 and begun the process by which the united kingdom will leave the european union. scarlet: joining us now from london is nina schick. thank you so much for joining us. she has this self-imposed headline for the end of the month, but the timing is critical. not only are there the dutch elections tomorrow, but also a scottish national party conference later on, in a few days. thendeed, i think about date that has been touted is that she will trigger it on march the 27th, which fits in her deadline like she laid out six months ago. but politics is moving quickly and once the starting gun is fired, how the talks go are of course contingent upon domestic politics in the u.k., with scotland particularly coming to mind. national elections in france, germany, and the netherlands, how they play out on the continent, it doesn't change how

they believe the eu, but it just -- does change the context of negotiation. coming to a common position as to what their negotiating position is going to be. only in june or july will be see the beginning of the negotiations. very short timetable, they want to have a complete by october of 2018. of: the first minister scotland said she wanted to have another referendum on scotland leaving the u.k.. or 2019.e end of 2018 in theory that could even be before the brexit negotiations are done. is that a plausible timetable? and does she have the leverage to get a binding vote the way that nina: cameron gave? technically, scotland cannot have a binding referendum without the consent of the british government. the question is whether or not

theresa may will agree to grant in this referendum. if she doesn't give them the referendum, the fear is that she up scottish stroke nationalist sentiment and she is just kicking the can down the road and this is an issue that will reopen. as for the timetable, is undoubtedly true that if she agrees to give scotland a second referendum, she won't agree to give it to them in the timeframe that nicholas sturgeon laid out as her preferred timetable, that is right in the middle of the brexit negotiations and i don't think the government in westminster would want to have two parallel negotiations going on, one with the eu, the second in scotland. on the issue of timing, that might not pedal at all. when david cameron allow the referendum, the u.k. was still part of the you -- eu. how crucial is scotland to that economy now that the u.k. will no longer be part of the eu? nina: undoubtedly, scotland has

closer ties to the rest of the u.k. than it does to the eu, but this is nonetheless an emotional topic. when they were reelected by huge majority in the scottish parliament last year, they stood on the manifesto saying head of the referendum that should ascumstances change, such scotland being dragged out of the eu against its will, they would reserve the right to have , second -- second referendum which is the narrative that sturgeon has seized upon. it's interesting to point out that it was taken on the back foot, when the speech was made yesterday that she would be starting a process to call for a second referendum, but that is really not surprising when you consider the political context and the ultimate goal of independence from the u.k.. economichink that considerations are foremost year. the first got is

referendum, they were technically a member of the eu in good standing. the other countries would be disinclined to allow scotland back in, unless they encourage separatist movement in other countries who want to pull the same ideas, perhaps in spain. if the u.k. is out, with that make the eu more amenable to letting scotland back in? thinktwo things, i don't that the rest of the eu would agree, given that they are going , they would be far more amenable to fast tracking the reentry of scotland into the eu because that is a huge, symbolic win for them is scotland leaves much morewith historical and in-depth ties. this is going to be a hugely, you know, great boost at a time when nationalistic sentiment is running high in the whole

project is in a lot of trouble. joe: the dutch -- scarlet: the dutch election, it seems like a real litmus test. kurt welders is on poor terms with the other dutch political leaders. the other parties have ruled out a tie up. what is the extent of his influence when it comes to the overall functioning of the dutch parliament? to points important out that he is on track to become part of the second largest party, an important indication of the direction of populist and far right anti-islamic, anti-immigrant the continent.s thiswill become a theme year.

on the technical issue as to whether he can become the next leader of the netherlands, it's impossible, because even if you were to win the largest share of seats in parliament, if his party were to do that, none of the other political parties would go to coalition with him. it's still very taboo. while it is a trend that one cannot deny, the rise of far right populism in the eu, on this point they might just be saved by the skin of their teeth. joe: you have been watching the rise of populist parties in europe for a while. the latest was out of the netherlands, poll showing that this seems to be fading, but there is this idea out there that these kinds of parties tend to do better in actual votes than at the polls, they will get to the ballot box in they won't admit to someone that they support them. is this morning out, in your opinion? >> i think so. it's too dangerous to describe -- describe too much weight to

the polls. we have seen it in the u.s., they can be wrong. we could be up for more political upset in europe this year, certainly. joe: great to have you back on the show, nina schick. one sector, making dramatic export gains. we will show you what that is, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

scarlet: i'm scarlet fu. "what'd you miss?" chart functions at the bottom the screen, i want to start with a scene we have seen several times, oversupply in commodities and agriculture. essentially tracks

u.s. corn shipments, grain passing the inspection process. shipments are climbing. there is a line up, since june, or since january, excuse me. you can see that we are at the highest since june, going back to june of 2016. the u.s. sent the most corn for export since june of last year. the thing is, the backdrop year is that you have got rising supplies from south america likely to slow this down a little bit, because brazil and argentina are expected to harness their own record large crops over the next several months, causing competition teed up. at 10 --eason to stay pay attention to the stronger dollar. joe: is there a reason that these industries are represented by senators and those who may not be inclined support a policy of us trade with the world? you've got to wonder how often these -- how these politicians feel about diminished trade like this.

going back to europe for a second, this election is so crazy, there is so much time. the head of the conservative officiallyparty charged for misuse of funds in the race. he hasn't dropped out or anything like that, but are people still wondering, could he, could someone else emerge? this is the person who they thought would replace him as the republican party standardbearer. fun., tiny, but it's so i mean, serious stuff, don't want to make light of it, but it's a very wild election and every day there seems to be new headlines, new twists, and the markets are a great way to assess how people see the race. he's not even running or in the race, anything like that. still ahead, republicans that trump has been critical of raiseicans unwilling to

the debt ceiling. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ mark: i'm mark crumpton, it's time now for first word news. jamie dimon used federal reserve rate increases as a sign of strength in the u.s. economy, although speaking on a business roundtable conference call he said it's more important to have a strong economy than a hike in rates. y is more important than the what. the fed is raising rates -- due to a stronger environment and the stronger environment is more 25ortant than rates going up basis points. mark: he said the costly regulations are the biggest impediment for small businesses.

socialist prime minister of france is withholding his support from his party's nominee in the presidential election. he has said that he won't rack them on the 23rd. one french newspaper said that he made back the independent front runner. thousands of doctors at kenyon public hospitals have agreed to end a 100 they strike for fair pay and overtime compensation. forstrike has been blamed dozens of deaths in the african nation. doctors and union officials signed an agreement today, medical practitioners are expected back to work on friday. doctors to find the threat to fire 5000 doctors if they didn't return to work. global news, 24 hours per day, powered by 2600 journalists and analysts in 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton, this is bloomberg. scarlet: let's get a recap of

today's market action. u.s. stocks slipping before the fed makes a decision on interest rates. they pretty much have made the decision. you can see the dow, losing 44 points. the s&p 500 losing, as did the nasdaq. energy stocks by a long shot, off as crude oil is now $48 per barrel. joe: "what'd you miss?" bloomberg intelligence chief economist, michael mcdonough, coming across fascinating data consumer sentiment survey of the mercy of michigan. an unprecedented 28% of responses provided unsolicited positive commentary about economic policies coming out of d.c.. look at this chart. this is a chart that every time they ask, they didn't even asked people at they liked the news coming out policy wise, it just shot up, they had never seen anything like that. i talked with michael about that data yesterday.

>> it's very surprising. i was digging through the details, like a boring economist does. there's a question regarding optimism and news on economic policy. i noticed that it had gone up. this was the headline figure, which was basically -- all the people saying something favorable versus the people who are not. it had gone to plus two. that was interesting, i'd of deeper, i found that 28% of respondents in february said something positive about the government's economic policy. -- joe: let's back up. this isn't a question they ask people, this is a measurement of people spontaneously saying it? michael: this is the kicker i was trying to save for the end, but this is great, they don't actually try to solicit an answer. they say -- have you heard any

news? they see what people respond. as i said, 28% of respondents said something positive about government economic policy. what's amazing is the record high, since the late 70's, when they have been doing this, is 9%, but the average is 2%. they don't solicit anything other than this open-ended question. history some in volunteer that they heard good news? michael: and it has been climbing since the election. joe: historically, more people complain and say good stuff, right? why the nett is reading is plus two. on the negative side it's up a little bit, but not nearly as much as the people saying positive things. it has been much higher in the past. during the government shut down it went up to 37%. people making negative comments. that point everyone who volunteered something said something negative. michael: and it's not a small

sample size, either. of the interesting things we have seen since the election and even before, there is always demographic divergence in the data. some people are feeling happy about the economy. some people are complaining. sometimes the pelicans are happy, sometimes democrats, what are you saying right now? the status is the same thing. education level, you saw a bit of a bump up following the election terms of people feeling optimistic about government policy, but not nearly as much as you saw with people in high school or with some college. they look at the unemployment rate their. doing better than those without. joe: trump was the winner, in part, because of a certain voters,hic, educated

tipping it away from them. with voters it seems he's connecting? there's something more meaningful to me about this data. he's going to try to pass a controversial fiscal agenda, right? seeing the percentage of positive responses to that agenda could help him pass that through. if the majority of a lot of people say that they feel good about the news they are hearing on the president's economic agenda, it makes it an easier sell to congress, theoretically. but there's a kicker here, too. as i mentioned, the most people to gave negative responses, 37%, that happened during the government shut down. highest levels of negative readings came during the debt ceiling crisis. march 16, the debt ceiling is back. you have this kind of potential perfect storm. getting a rental -- getting a resolution to it soon could be beneficial for the president

trying to push through these ideas. joe: takeaway the controversial stuff, leave the core group of people that put trump and the white house, the policies he's putting forward our political -- politically resonating. michael: certainly. joe: that was my conversation with matthew boesler --michael mcdonough. you have a look at the fed decision tomorrow? time,t: it's decision janet yellen is widely expected to raise the rate this week. let's look at the chart making an increasing your certainty in today's numbers don't lie. fed funds futures have made a dramatic shift over the last couple of weeks on the heels of hawkish commentary from different fed officials. you can see them putting odds of rate increases at 100% tomorrow. convincedatchers are -- convinced that stocks have played a role in pushing them to make this move.

the dow in the s&p 500, as you know, rallied after the u.s. election and it is supported by u.s. economic data, the white line there, on the upside at the fastest rate in five years. the index has been driven mostly by survey and sentiment-based indicators, soft data, less so by hard data. even so, we have been getting improving numbers on that front, pushing the fed closer to a 2% inflation target. the latest jobs report showed wage growth picking up with average hourly growth registering a year on your gain. labor data is solid enough to point to a rate hike from the fed. beyond expected rate increases, they will be organizing the dot plot for future rate increases. the focus will be on the white dots, different fomc member projections and whether they are expected to move for this year or 2018, supporting the increase rather than three.

the medium dots signified by the orange line signify fomc voting members taking a gradual path for rates. starting at 1 p.m. new york time in wednesday we will have full coverage of the fed decision and decision hereen on bloomberg.

joe: "what'd you miss?" the power of the treasury to borrow -- department to borrow expiring.ay its bills republican leaders saying they won't do it as a spending cut bargaining chip, it could be interesting leverage for a president who is having trouble getting democrats to cooperate. our washington reporter joins us now.

anythingt have to pass anytime soon, do they? >> that's true. thatard from steve mnuchin he's going to start taking extraordinary measures starting this week to make sure that the u.s. government fulfills its financial obligations and is not default on its debt. it needs to be raised at some point this year. we heard from the treasury department that they hope that happens sooner rather than later, so they don't have to continue shifting around money and taking extraordinary measures to pay the bills, but it doesn't look like congress or the white house is pushing for a rapid lifting of the debt ceiling. it something that sean spicer says is a few months away. scarlet: it might be a few months away, but the rhetoric have heard from republican leaders in the senate is that it will be an issue. it won't be a repeat of the brinksmanship of 2015. michael: --3 that's right -- toluse: that's right, scarlet.

they want to show that they are the governing party, reassuring americans and the financial markets that there won't be a government shutdown or a default on the u.s. obligations, that they will be able to handle this, get together as republicans, bring some democrats on board and pass this through. they are saying that they are not expecting to see the fight they saw when president obama was in charge and republicans did not want to raise the debt limit without receiving come -- receiving some sugar deal from the president. this speaks to a bigger thing. the party in power never wants to exercise fiscal restraint, the party out of power suddenly gets really concerned about deficits and debts they never cared about when they were in power. the republicans, who unlike say, 2011, when they had control of theress, no one really has power to stop this. no one really has the inclination to, right? toluse: that's true.

we have seen some backbone from republican conservatives on the health care bill in congress where they are not necessarily going along just because the president or leadership supports something. republicans that were part of the house freedom caucus have been against raising the debt limit. one of those members is the president's budget director, so it will be interesting to see how he works with his former colleagues and whether or not he's able to get them on board, but several republicans are concerned about the debt and what don't want to give republicans a bring -- blank check. you are right, the democrats don't really have a lot of power to stop republicans from doing what they want in terms of raising the debt limit. scarlet: you say that it might be too tempting for the president not to hold it over the heads of his political opponents. what has he said about the

democratic willingness and republican stubbornness? toluse: we have several tweaks saying that republicans should use the debt limit as a bargaining chip and there are ways to negotiate democrats going to the bargaining table and it will be interesting to see if he keeps that same philosophy and if he tries to extract concessions from democrats, whether or not he tries to reduce spending or the size of the federal government in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling. right now we have not heard much from the president about it, even as his treasury secretary has raised alarms, saying that the living needs to raise the soonest possible. it will be interesting to see if president trump, who thinks of himself as a deal maker, will use this opportunity to make another deal of congress. scarlet: thank you so much, toluse olorunnip. coming up next, distribution platforms, pipelines, and the

monetization brought by publishers. ben lehrer says yes, he will give us his thoughts on the next big things in media. this is "bloomberg." ♪

scarlet: "what'd you miss?" with beny sat down lehrer. in this excerpt of our conversation, i asked him how tech giants would likely evolve in the future. ben: the big question mark is that i hope it is a when and not

an if, places like facebook become platforms where legitimate scaled monetization happens. google that facebook and are sort of running right at each other right now and if you think about where the next giant pocket of advertising is, neither of them are fully taking and holding, it's television. i think that those platforms, with the dark course of snapchat emerging, creates an ecosystem , ander is more competition i will throw in this real wildcard, amazon and netflix, whether is ultimately more competition. these platforms will create opportunities for us to make real money, not just distribute branded content. not just to get a little bit of nods to itice head

knowledge that we are spending a lot of money on platforms. i believe there is a genuine desire and interest at those places to allow for the best media businesses to invest in the video media, to build real businesses on those platforms. fundamentalof the focuses for the long-term monetization. scarlet: at the core of this, you believe that tv is not dead, despite the obituaries you have written. what does that mean for the traditional -- future of traditional broadcasters and brands? are you surprised you're not seeing more blowups like the ones that happened between the different brands that you run? >> i think you will see many more. scarlet: what has been the holdup so far? ben: for the long time the tv business has been much healthier . every year it's like the year that the other she was going to drop in that it doesn't drop, so i think these businesses need to feel it a little more.

the lightning rod the people are pointing to is espn, it's always been the healthiest tv business. it's clear, now, there's enough of a pattern that it's not going to turn around. which isn't to say that they aren't the most spectacular brand. i worship them as a company. scarlet: they're cutting jobs. ben: it's going to get smaller and not bigger. that's not my opinion, that's a fact. so, in a world where some of the really big companies, you know, the big 8, 10, 12 tv companies, who sit on huge amounts of cash and are still massively profitable businesses, there comes a time, and i believe ancovery investing in us is indicator of that. i think that what nbc has them with buzzfeed is an indicator of

that. even what univision has done, purchasing gawker, is an indicator of that. verizon is an indicator of that. we are seeing the deals get done. we are seeing consolidation happen with time warner and at&t, with yahoo! and aol. i sort of think it's happening. there will be -- google, facebook, snapchat, they are on the edge. as a distribution platforms. eventually comcast purchased nbc. so, when does that happen? i think the answer is, at some point. i'm a little -- i'm not holding my breath for that is much as i am those brands, those platforms first creating monetization for publishers that they don't own,

understanding what that looks like and feels like, over time getting into that business. but, it's not -- it's far from inconceivable, i think, that those guys end up becoming content owners. i don't expect it to happen right now. scarlet: that was part of my discussion with ben lerer. joe: "what'd you miss?" of the newred republican health care plan and it immediately started controversy. >> health reform has lots of components, lots of elements, lots of metrics. many people are insured? how generous is that insurance? how many plans will come forward and for people to choose among?

what is the reaction the states will have to the proposal? how will medicaid and medicare change? there is no one thing that one can look at. nor is there a single comprehensive measure of the overall package. that's what makes it so controversial and so difficult for the american public to understand. as well as for the elected representatives. >> the cbo considers the three major legislation. by virtue of that, it was unable to incorporate macroeconomic effects into the analysis that we got yesterday. how big of an extract or is that? >> under the rules that congress adopted in the last year, major pieces of legislation have to be accompanied by dynamic scoring, as well as static scoring, meaning what will the impact be on the economy and how will that

affect revenues and expenditures in the federal budget? the budget office didn't have for some of the analytical data to do that. should it, it would probably increase the reduction in the that the estimate that they produced yesterday had that said that deficits over the next 337ears would go down billion dollars, which is of course good news. the other side to that good news is that what was good for the federal budget will be bad for state budgets, because a lot of that reduction is associated with an $880 billion reduction in medicaid expenditures to the states. the states are going to have to

come up with that or low income people are going to have to sacrificeeven bigger than the cbo suggested yesterday. scarlet: -- joe: that was the former ceo -- cbo director, earlier today. scarlet: this is bloomberg. ♪

scarlet: "what'd you miss?" u.s. stocks drifting lower on the fomc decision over interest rates. the dow is off by 44 points, 2/10 of 1%. don't miss this, tomorrow we have been talking about it, heading to the polls to elect someone new. in the morning we will be looking at new manufacturing data coming out. scarlet: it's a big drumroll until 2 p.m., the fed decision comes out a 2:00 p.m. but the bloomberg special begins at 1 p.m. eastern time from -- for

reporter: i'm a alisa parenti. you are watching "bloomberg technology." house speaker paul ryan isn't planning major changes to the affordable care act replacement

plan, despite a cbo estimate that 14 million americans could lose health coverage next year. budgete, the white house chief is skeptical about that assessment. he says the cbo was wrong on coverage predictions or obamacare. white house spokesman sean spicer says the president is extremely confident the justice department will produce evidence former president obama had trump tower wiretapped. the gop has asked lawmakers for more time. the house says it has until 20.h the u.s. is considering more penalties on chinese companies in response to allegedly growing evidence of beijing support for north korea's weapons program, according to the wall street journal. the u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson travels to asia this week. meantime, trump met with the crown prince to the saudi throne. it is the highest visit by a royal sense the election. energy transfer pa