♪ >> coming up on bloomberg best, the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. cost chaos inos washington and raise tensions concerns on wall street. >> now i think we are talking about how much he will be able to get past. >> i think we could use less trauma from the white house. >> a hard stop on brexit. china vets paid. >> i think the u.s. will have to join the effort. >> leading investors react. >> the trump trade is coming to an end here.

around witho run your hair on fire. x everyone wants to sing going by -- kumbaya. cash a week of earnings reports. >> there is an opportunity for us to drive m&a. >> it is straight ahead on bloomberg best. hello and welcome. this is bloomberg best, your weekend review of the most important business analysis and interviews on television around the world. markets.l saudi arabia and russia signaled that output cuts are likely to continue.

straight to beijing where the saudi soil minister is. let's take a listen. >> we have come to the conclusion that the agreement needs to be extended, we will not reach the desired inventory level by the end of june and came to thee also conclusion that ending will probably be better at the end of the first quarter of 2018, with a same volume allocations that were included in the december 10th agreement that we entered into december of last year. >> saudi arabia and russia are really making strong statements including a joint statement they will do whatever it takes to get to their long-term goal of reducing global inventories. >> positioning has been cleaned out and the market is healthy. it is able to get a rally, so

this bullish news came as a good -- as a good time on the back of that data showing inventory continued to decline. >> our top story this morning. reaction to reports in the washington post and the new york .imes and wall street journal mcmaster publicly denied them outside the white house. were intelligence sources or methods discussed. >> as i understand the facts, what the washington post is reporting is they specifically talked about a specific threat from the islamic state and identified the city which was important for this purpose in terms of inferring the sources and methods. >> that's right. the mcmaster denial was really a nondenial denial. he was denying something the "washington post" did not actually report. >> we saw about an hour ago a

tweet from the president that says he believes he has the right to do what he did in terms of sharing information with the russians. he says he did it with humanitarian reasons. and to help russia combat terrorism. the white house is scrambling to straighten out their story not -- now that the president has contradicted his national security officials. >> i think we could do with a little less trauma from the white house on a lot of things. so we can focus on our agenda, which is deregulation, tax reform, repealing and replacing obamacare. >> i think it is another example of the president being a loose cannon. sometimes it isn't clear when he is going to shoot for what he is going to shoot. or where he is going to shoot. >> breaking news in washington. "the new york times" reporting president trump asked the fbi director to shut down the federal investigation into trump's former national security advisor, michael flynn. the white house has denied this report. >> the confluence of events, it

-- the idea that he has to pick an fbi candidate and is leaving for europe, couldn't be a more tumultuous time in d.c. and the drumbeat is just going to continue. the white house is denying it happened. it does sound like something donald trump, the real estate magnate might say if one of his employees got a traffic ticket. but he is president. you can't do that. >> the u.s. dollar has fallen day. sick day -- sixth the latest controversy involving president trump. >> i talk about a deep crisis, not a word you want to throw around here. what is your sense of the magnitude of what is happening? >> it is amazing to think that taken in isolation, any one of these things, the emergence of intelligence information, this bombshell development yesterday,

would be almost impossible for the white house to get back on traction and regroup. together, we are dealing with a deepening crisis, even republicans saying the white house is in a spiral, that they cannot seem to get much of it on their own. >> it is not about comey, it is not about trump. this is about the united states of america. this is about our democracy. we must have an independent prosecutor. we need a serious investigation now. >> volatility awakens from a period of dormancy. stocks re-closing at lows with the dow tumbling 300 points. the 10 year yields are lowest since the brexit vote. talk about how this was a risk off moments in the markets and how this is the biggest decline for u.s. stocks since september.

>> what i make up today's action is there has been a change here. some people have said this rally has been holding up nicely and only because of earnings and some better numbers on economic growth around the world. need trump'sidn't new proposals to take the market higher. i don't think that was the case. i think people were saying it is ok if it gets pushed out a but it was ok as long as it came in early 2018. now with this new scandal possibly coming up, that pushes everything further. all of the top we have heard recently has been all about timing. now i think they are talking about how much he will be able to get past. it is a bit of a game changer. >> volatility surging, stock markets declining. thisg to get a handle on latest scandal. the u.s. justice department appointed robert mueller to

oversee the investigation into russia's a legitimately into the 20 16 election as well as possible collusion by trump campaign manager its. the s&p 500 plunging -- plunging the most in ages. markets following the trend. >> robert mueller is a respected figure and enjoys bipartisan support. -- find anyuldn't republican lawmakers really to defend the president after that explosive story. now that there is a special counsel, there is some breathing room. he can try to be the president again. >> i respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt. there is no collusion between myself and my campaign. i can always speak for myself and the russians, zero. treasury secretary steve

mnuchin giving testimony before the banking housing and urban affairs committee of the senate. goal of 3%e that a gdp or higher economic growth is achievable if we make historic reforms to taxes and regulation. >> did you feel we learned anything new about this administration or its plans? >> i'm not sure. the secretary was there a -- very general in most of his remarks. there is a lot of discussion. i think everybody has their own concept of what tax reform would look like. so far, it has been to get everyone around a single plan. especially, given the concerns of blowing up the debt and deficit. >> at the end of a long week, the president is getting out of town, traveling for nine days to five cities in four countries. is the president really setting out now? the initiative on the

foreign-policy front, something he can really do? >> there is no question they have spent a considerable amount of time planning this trip. i will say this president's staff has not shown a tremendous ability at legit sticks. -- logistics. this kind of trip requires intense planning and work. things can go wrong. they better not if he wants to make his message clear. >> voters will decide whether the incumbent will be a second term. or take a more populist term -- turn to the competitor. >> they look at this election in iran. >> in terms of what is at stake, it didn't go well under barack obama. it was a tense relationship and the saudi's and donald trump are looking to revise this. they see a lot of opportunity, a

lot of games that could be make. 10 possible big deals with saudi aramco. that is the state owned oil company. you look at the bigger banks but morgan stanley and jpmorgan. they have a bit of a slice of the cake of what would be the biggest ipo in the history of the kingdom. >> still ahead, more on china's belton road forum. it is a big deal, but will it lead to big deals? despite distractions in d.c., legislators talk to us about tax reform. and investors weigh in on the sudden return of market volatility. more of the week's top headlines, a rash of cyber attacks rattle businesses and governments around the world. >> it brings home how vulnerable the economy is on a global basis. >> this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ julia: this is "bloomberg best." i am julia chatterley. let's continue our global tourism. china hosted a summit to advance its ambitious belt and road initiative. >> more than 60 countries involved in the belton road initiative have issued a joint communique promising to expand trade and investment after the chinese president said the plan is already in full swing. how much progress has beijing made to move this hugely ambitious plan forward? >> what we are getting now is a solidification of some of these parameters around this initiative. still lots of questions that need to be answered. but when you have this this communique was put out by the belton road members who came here. they vowed to continue to push forward with globalization,

trade and investment. we had some details around financing proposals, concerns being voiced by the germans that the bidding process may not be transparent, it may not be fair. the germans are still pushing for more clarity on that. the question is around whether the u.s. is going to participate. they gave their backing to this initiative and 100 day trade deal. >> over the weekend, a global cyber attacks snowballed to infect 200,000 computers and 150 countries. it hit systems ranging from the uk's national health service to the russian ministry of interior. i want to talk about the reach of this. what does that tell you about the actual target and intention behind the attack? >> well i think it reinforces cybersecurity is a very important issue. it reinforces that it is a weapon that can be used in the wrong hands in a way that is bad for global economy.

the breadth of this. there was nothing novel in this attack. it was put together, leveraging a set of things that have been known for quite some time but it was done in such a broad way that it brings home how vulnerable the economy is on a global basis. ♪ >> growth momentum in china may be softening. data from april showing factory output, and retail sales growth slipping from the previous month. what is the takeaway here? >> the numbers are fairly good but they are decelerating from march. march was a real blowout number as we finished the first quarter with higher than expected gdp growth. what you are starting to see, is that that march was the peak. we are seeing a deceleration. retail sales coming in at 10.7%. industrial production 6.5%. we are expecting 7%. march was 7.6%. we were not going to get that. that was the fastest since

december 2014. 6.5%, it is still the highest pace of growth of factory output since march of last year. ♪ >> a rocky decade for aig. but the company is starting to show some signs of stability this year. just in time as the company names a ceo. he succeeds peter hancock who said he would depart. who is brian? >> is a very well-respected leader. one analyst said he is the white knight coming in. >> there might be some ashes on the white knight. >> people are wondering if aig will bring another reserve charge. he said the reserves look reasonable. they also wonder -- aig has had an aggressive capital return plan. people are wondering if that will continue because he's coming in to invest.

unlike carl icahn, who said in 2015 he wanted breakup of the full insured. he said he's not there to break it up. >> ford is cutting its workforce with plans to trim 10% of global workers. while still retaining tech talent. the move is part of an effort to boost profit in a lagging stock price. we know auto sales have been disappointing. they appear to have peaked. is this in response to the slowdown in auto sales? scarlet, autot, sales are turning down after seven years of growth. there is pressure on ford. and its ceo, mark fields. the ford board of directors scheduled extra time to have fields explain his strategy. profits were down 42%. adjusted earnings were. they are going to be down for the year. they wanted to know what fields was going to do to turn things around. now it looks like one of the things he will be doing is putting staff.

guy: lloyd banking group has returned to full private ownership most a decade after it after it wasecade bailed out and u.k. government to the tune of 20.3 billion pounds. should the government have waited? are there more great things to come? if you are a pragmatic shareholder and think things are getting better, hold on for more. >> there is lots more to do but i personally don't think government should be shareholders of banks. this was a bailout which was required, not only from lloyds, but northern rock, at the height of the financial crisis. taxpayer money was used because it was a major crisis. taxpayers money should not be used to bail out banks and taxpayer money has many better uses to it. the government did well in selling their shares. the used a good plan. they sold everyday as part of daily flows. progressively they diversified.

money back, 20.3 billion pounds, and still 900 million pounds more than what was put in the bank. it did the right thing. >> in the u.k., prime minister theresa may has committed her party to a hard brexit. may outlined the manifest today promising voters she would deliver a clean break from the european union and warned no deal with the eu was better than a bad one. >> we believe the european union and take control of our money, take control of our borders, take control of our laws. is theresa may setting out her grand vision for the future. not just what is going to win her the election but the policy she believes in, which are pretty radical in some ways. >> she's trying to appeal to all these people who voted for brexit who feel left out and left behind by globalization, no single market and immigration curbs.

that is one of the big things in this manifesto. she is talking about doubling the levy on how companies higher skilled migrants. >> that is the kind of language that is going to make big corporations, especially, who require global talent to be available, particularly uncomfortable. layout stock, bonds tumbled as the president became embroiled in a new political crisis. briefly halted yesterday, sinking the most since 2008. he denied claims he endorsed the payment of hush money to the former house speaker. in a televised address, declared he would not step down. >> this is the biggest event we have seen in emerging markets for the last six months. brazil was the flag bearer of reform. it was the leader of the pack last year, when emerging markets came back from the dead. if investors get disenchanted with emerging markets because they thought this was a reform

story and reform is dying off, that has an impact as far as korea, as far as russia, as far as south africa because of brazil. his is coming at a bad time for emerging markets. ♪

♪ julia: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i'm julia chatterley. policy conversation in washington was largely diverted by controversy. republicans on capitol hill insist they are moving forward with their economic agenda. bloomberg spoke to several key legislators about the prospect of tax reform. senior washington correspondent kevin sat down with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. kevin: the president is proposing a mass tax cut. there could be some tension on divisions. is there, and what is the

timeline? are you confident we could have comprehensive tax reform by the end of the year? mitch it will have to be revenue : neutral. we have a $20 trillion debt. we added an enormous amount of debt during the obama years. we will have to be revenue neutral. i don't want to put a strict timeline on it. last time it took several years. we certainly want to complete it this congress and make america more competitive. that's what its about. we did not have one year of 3% growth during all of obama. the moste of controversial issues has been the border adjustment tax. i still know a lot of senators -- one are the chances of the border tax? pass: it probably wouldn't the senate, but the way we are trying to go forward is the secretary of the treasury, the speaker and myself are trying to reach an agreement on a proposal that we all agree to start with

and of course, it will star in the house. we haven't reached that agreement yet, but we will at some point. border adjustability is a pretty controversial thing in the senate. -- we will see what is new in the final thing we agree to. up in thet as caught revenue neutrality is other people are. i would rather have this country go forward and take a chance than just sit back and not get anything done. i agree with revenue neutrality as a goal. something we should all try to meet. we are probably going to have to meet that because revenue neutrality attitude around here. >> meeting that goal, there were senators including republicans who expressed skepticism about the border adjustment tax. is it feasible for a border adjustment tax to make it into the senate? >> i have to say i am not sure the one that has been proposed has much of a chance of going

through, but i am open to looking at some way of finding a proposal that people can come behind in a bipartisan way and do, but it is going to be hard in particular area because there are all kinds of trade-offs and taxesd whatever you doing -- tax reform, especially with regard to that. i am very concerned about that and am not sure our citizens aren't going to pay detroit if we do that. to be thought through and something that benefits our country. not foreign countries. ♪ week: more of the compelling conversations straight ahead on bloomberg best. the mobius speaks about belton road initiative. plus, the biggest names in trading sat down with bloomberg at the conference in las vegas. you want to hear what they had to say. >> those companies will be in

deep trouble -- trouble. julia: this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ julia: this is "bloomberg best." i am julia chatterley. this week's belton road in the backed by millions of dollars in public and private investment. will it achieve its ambitious goals? bloomberg television spoke with investors about the programs potential, starting with an exclusive conversation with china national petroleum's chairman. >> cnpc is working on 50 projects in 19 countries within the belt and road framework.

of the 12 projects, we are signing at the summit, some are upgrades of existing projects. some are completely new projects. depending on local resources in different countries, we mainly invest in gas projects, oil operations in africa. >> how do you think the country can mitigate its dependence on overseas energy supplies? >> on one hand, chinese oil and gas companies like us must control -- continued to play the role of back on in domestic oil exploitation. on the other hand, we need to speed up our efforts in collaborating with resource-rich countries to jointly develop assets to replenish our country's ever-growing demand on

oil and gas. in this way, we can balance our heavy reliance on imports with better use of foreign resources. ♪ you concur there is a financial crisis in china? >> there is no question that with all these outflows, it impacts the exchange rate indirectly or directly from that they have the levers to change things and to regulate and make sure money does not go out to -- including quickly -- who do quickly, and they have party begun that effort so that when money goes out, it is targeted and specific. francine: can they displace the u.s. and trump administration as the most global country in the world? or is that far-fetched? >> there is no question the u.s. will be impacted and i believe the u.s. will have to join the one belt, one road program because there is a lot of benefit to be achieved with this program.

the chinese, i think, are going to be very careful not to favor chinese companies unduly, so there is going to be enough for everyone, let's put it that way. francine: who will benefit the most? neighboring countries are africa? central asian at countries, considering where they are coming from, they will get a lot. -- benefit quite a lot. europe will benefit because the europeans will get a piece of the action and trade will increase dramatically as a result of this once the whole program is completed. julia: also this week many of , the most powerful members of the investment community came together in las vegas for the annual salt conference, amid a backdrop of political turmoil in washington. erik schatzker gathered thoughts and insights on the market from some very special guests. >> the trump trade we have embraced and has driven the markets to new highs in equities

is coming to an end. >> the trump trade is coming to an end? >> the roses off the bloom -- >> the bloom is off the rose. >> right, so it may have to be that we need to get through this so we can see whether we get these policy measures. >> is there a new trump trade? >> it would be a retrenchment of where we rally to. that is the risk. how much equities have rallied on this and the confidence and flow of capital in this country. europe, on the other hand, is getting enormous flows of capital at the expense of u.s. equities on a go forward basis. >> really? we haven't seen that yet. we have seen economic recovery in europe, we have seen macron beat her in le pen, but you are saying now equity markets will selloff question mark -- will sell off? >> the equity markets are starting to flow more towards europe because the equities are undervalued.

buy europe, it is undervalued, frontpage, cover page. a 14%n after rallies sustained and double digits in france and germany? >> political situation of brexit aside, the situation has stabilized in europe between macron's election and what we see in germany, so we think it will be a stable place to invest. but i think we will start to see capital flows move a little towards europe as the euro rallies relative to the dollar, on say, this move. and the equity market has rallied so much, european equities are undervalued, so it could be a relative value trade that becomes the "trump trade." >> you gentlemen were expressing surprise at how long it has taken for financial markets to become sensitive to developments in the white house. why? why do you think it has taken so long? mean, everybody wants

to sing kumbaya and to hear the melody keep flowing through. and it happens all the time. you said why did it take so long for the stock market react to the white house, but it is much more than the white house. it is north korea, chinese islands in the south china sea, venezuela, ukraine, the middle east -- there are all these headwinds, and the nyse pretends they don't exist. >> how do you behave as investors? >> i think you stay away from things that don't make sense. if i don't understand something, i am not going to go invest in it because other people are saying it is fine. i want to invest in things i understand. if i feel i'm not getting paid enough for the risk, i will stay away. >> you agree? >> yeah, in our office, probably the most frequent question asked is, are we getting paid for the

risk? we are in the business of taking risk. >> you need to get paid for it. >> you just need to get paid for it come and you need to get paid adequately for it. ♪ >> you allocate to strategy. >> correct. >> as opposed to individual securities? >> that's right. >> i have been asking how the turmoil in the white house that is spilling over into financial markets affects the way they are thinking about investing. does it affect the way you are thinking about investing? >> look, i mean, when you look at the progrowth policies that could come out of washington, you had regulatory reform, tax reform, infrastructure. so our thoughts were you can count on regulatory reform. tax reform, maybe, maybe not. infrastructure, overblown and 2018 at the soonest. where we sit today, we are not terribly concerned yet. obviously, more details to

emerge. it comes back to basics. a good security or theme that could do better if you get tax reform or better outcome if you get infrastructure, that is a good place to be. but still do fine without. >> i see. >> because you step back and it is becoming more apparent that the regulatory branch -- that regulatory relief which the executive branch controls, particularly regional banks, and also energy, you don't need tax reform or infrastructure to do well. >> how much concern have you discerned among the participants at the conference here about what has come out of the white house the last several days, and of course the way markets are reacting to it now? >> yeah, well, i think the starting point is volatility has been extremely low. for some time, there has been tax reforms pushed back, revenue neutral, is it going to be a big fiscal stimulus?

it is very unclear whose plan goes forward. one of the mystery's why volatility remains so low. it is evidence the markets are pushing back further, if not orcounting completely, two three, sorry one or two progrowth reforms. some concern, but not near panic. ♪ >> years ago when the aca was being crafted, obamacare, i remember speaking to one of the staffers who helped to write the bill. she told me something interesting, when i said why is there no single-payer option? she said, oh there will be in five to 10 years. i said, why? she said because of the way obamacare has been crafted, everybody will be paying higher co-pays and deductibles than they are now -- this was back in 2010, and when the public realizes how much this stuff costs because they start paying for it themselves, there will be single-payer, and i've never forgotten that discussion.

i think we may be headed that way. >> speaking of obamacare, is there a trump trade for you in the unwind if you will of obamacare? >> i think one of the factors that will happen with the aca if -- of the aca if it is repealed, under the current house bill, which i expect will be watered there is a senate, raft of companies providing what are called essential health benefits. >> hospitals? >> more like psychiatric, drug addiction centers come all these things were mandated, and now they are looking to water that down as a cost of savings. a number of these companies all their profits explode from 2010 on. those companies will be in deep trouble. >> can we name some of them? >> some of the leverage hospital

companies. we will see p -- people return to using services and not able to pay for them was so bad debt expenses go up, just like the bad old days. i will not name them. your viewers can figure out who they are. ♪

♪ julia: you are watching "bloomberg best." i am julia chatterley. it has been another busy week for corporate earnings reports. investors holding their breath for the results of retailers, and the biggest of them all did not disappoint. >> walmart with momentum against amazon, online sales at the fastest clip in five years. over 2%, e-commerce business killed it, 69% volume up in the last quarter. >> there are a couple of things. a big thing is marketplace.

what walmart has been able to do is add more stuff to their website through third-party retailer sent third-party sellers the way amazon has done. a lot of the old-school metrics that walmart used to be really good at, return on investment, dividends, those kind of investor-friendly things are kind of taking a backseat and we are seeing they are investing in sales growth, so it is big and hard to do both at the same time. >> tencent's investment in blockbusters in gaming is paying off, posting record quarterly sales and profits the top -- that topped estimates. honor of kings drove one billion plus users on wechat. >> we are seeing tencent become this hybrid of facebook, amazon, marvel, and netflix. they beat all estimates for revenue and profit this quarter. most of the growth was bolstered

by their mobile game, specifically honor of kings. that game was the top download and top revenue grossing game in the ios store. in march. analysts are expecting it to make as much as 3 billion yuan in april alone. and probably will contribute more than half of revenue for 2017. >> shares of alibaba falling in thursday's trade despite strong quarterly revenue growth and plans for a $6 billion share buyback. investors focused on the e-commerce giant's quarterly profit, which missed estimates due to a tax bill and investments in cloud computing and digital entertainment. >> the minute the earnings were announced, we saw a huge drop in share price because of this earnings per share miss you mentioned. a big reason was because of the tax hit, investments they had made and that a tax break had since expired.

another area of potential concern is pressure on the margins. alibaba's core e-commerce business is still growing quickly, but are expanding into aries icloud, entertainment, and that is putting pressures on margins. there was hope and bright spots in terms of that revenue and numbers show they are able to squeeze more dollars by getting better content targeting users much better. >> often described as the twitter of china, weibo has now outgrown the moniker in more ways than one. it has a larger market cap than its u.s.. and its labeled earnings report says it has more users as well. this is looking pretty good. >> yeah, absolutely. they have been able to do what twitter has not been able to do, grow its user base at a rapid rate and managing to turn a profit. they have a walled garden in china because of the great

firewall, but there is plenty of competition domestically. they have managed to beat them. >> what does it mean in terms of competition with others like twitter? >> weibo does not have major plans to go overseas at the moment. it is china-focus. you have to ask if that is a future area for them, or at least targeting the growing chinese population outside of china. ♪ >> toshiba releasing delayed earnings, saying it has to sell its flash memory chip unit to stay alive. the company facing legal action over the chip unit itself. what is going on here? it is a company with the venerable history looking challenged. >> toshiba has deep problems primarily because of the troubles in their westinghouse nuclear business. in the process, they are trying to selloff their chip business to fill the black hole with earnings, and they are trying to also figure out what they're

going to do with that westinghouse unit. so over the weekend, we had southern u utility -- utility seven agreed to take control from toshiba, which limits some liabilities toshiba may have as long as they are able to finalize that deal. at the same time, their partner in the chips unit is -- western digital is filing for arbitration to slow down the sale. >> they want a say in terms of who it will be sold to. and you have got to say that, at the end of the day, it is a perfectly valid request if you are a partner. >> the point toshiba would make is that western digital was not its original partner in that joint venture. they became a partner in that joint venture because they bought sandisk, and toshiba did not have any consent rights over the sale, so toshiba is saying you can't argue for rights we never got in the first place and they say that as part of that contract, there were no consent rights in the contract either way. ♪ >> japan's three mega banks are rising today despite forecasting

a fourth straight fall and combined annual profit. it comes as the impact of negative interest rate eases. >> all three banks achieve their full year guidance, down a fraction from a year earlier. the third straight year of andining net income effected profit, the profit forecast for this year also down 4.8% combined. the breakdown of that, too banks are forecasting lower profit, while mitsubishi ufj is forecasting an increase in profit next year from 950 billion from the forecast this year, which was 850 billion. i think the banks are being conservative as they typically do, and that is why they our forecasting profit. god: easyjet -- guy: easyjet a little worse than

expectations, 236 million pounds in the red. is this as bad as it gets, and what is your expectation for the story going forward? >> there were no real surprises in the first half loss. 19 out of 21 years, eject -- easyjet has lost money in the first half of the year. break it down, easter has moved from the first half into the second half, 40 5 million pounds of loss, and the foreign-exchange headwinds is 80 million pounds. so before we started the first half, the market new there was 127 million lost against easyjet. that leaves a very normalized loss in the so not turbulent, first half. very stable, navigating our way knowgh the referendum, we exactly what we will do about that, and what we have said is the second half is that we are holding guidance. >> cisco, the biggest maker of a -- the equipment that runs the internet beat earnings and , revenue estimates, but the stock move down because its sales forecast was cautious. part of the reason why your stock did not do well is because

you said going forward, it is looking a little soft in terms of purchases. are there mergers and acquisitions you could do with all that cash you are holding to can fix that problem? >> we have more than doubled the amount of dollars sitting on our balance sheet from's -- from self earned subscriptions in the last eight quarters, and it was up 87% last quarter, now $4.4 billion, so that transition is moving. we put 500 million on the balance sheet in the last 90 days, so we are accelerating that. technologies we have built internally that are contributed to that balance, we have acquisitions like appdynamics that we close last quarter that will also contribute to that. absolutely there is an opportunity for us to drive and mandate to do it. m&a as well as our own ability to innovate will be the strategy we will deploy going forward. ♪

♪ goia: this is the cpsc function on the bloomberg. it charts oil price and where they see it headed. >> take a look in the bloomberg. it is the curve of the vix. the green line here is what we saw just about a month ago and this orange line is where we are right now. matt: the number of tweets containing the word impeach and trump together has spiked overnight. you can grasp of these things using the nt function on your terminal. >> there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg, and we enjoy showing you are -- our favorites on bloomberg television. maybe they will become your

favorites too. here is another function you might find useful. quic will lead you to quick takes where you can get important concepts and insights to timely topics. here is a quick take for this week. >> japan is the world's senior citizen, birth rates falling and people living longer, meaning japan has a population aging and shrinking fast. now the government is encouraging people to have more babies and industry to use more robots as well as finding ways to bring in more foreign workers. here is the situation. japan's population is forecasted tumble by one third to below 100 million between now and the middle of the century if the current trends continue. over 64-year-olds currently account for a quarter of the population and are expected to reach 38% by 2048. the demographic shift is causing a shortage of workers and starving the economy of labor.

employers are struggling to fill job vacancies. in tokyo alone, to job vacancies -- there are two vacancies for every job applicant. so what is the government doing? prime minister shinzo abe is introducing policies to curb working hours and improve facilities. and improve programs for children and the other day -- elderly. progress has been slow, and it cannot make up the labor shortfall. others, a robot revolution, plan to grow the robotics sector encouraging automation and , everything from factories to medical care. his moves to loosen labor rules have had had some impact, doubling the number of overseas workers, more than one million, in the eight years till but that 2016. is still not enough. here is the argument. an aging population brings dire fiscal implications, including unsustainable debt and contributing to deflation.

yet, the electoral muscle of the elderly, who are far more likely than the young to vote, meaning it is hard for politicians to do more to trim benefits. while the japanese recognize an aging population is a problem, most are wary of immigration. the reason for that is a desire to preserve the countries unique -- country's unique cultural identity and a fear of increasingly ultra low prime rates. according to a united nations report, japan needs to attract 640,000 foreigners a year to maintain its population, yet with other asian countries aging rapidly, experts say japan may struggle to attract the number of foreigners it needs. ♪ julia: that was just one of the many quick takes you can find on the bloomberg. you can also find them at bloomberg.com along with all the latest business news and analysis 24 hours a day. that will be all for "bloomberg best" this week. thank you for watching. i am julia chatterley.

this is bloomberg. ♪ jonathan: from new york city, i

am jonathan ferro. with 30 minutes dedicated to the fixed income, this is "bloomberg real yield." ♪ coming up, the biggest crisis of the trump presidency. investors ask, is the trump trade dead? treasury yields grind down. will the chaos in washington throw it off course? is it a wake-up call for em? markets fray. we start with the big issue. week -- a week of messy