♪ shery: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped a week in business around the world. the u.k. and the e.u. begin talks on brexit, china takes a landmark step in global financial markets. saudi arabia announces a succession shakeup. and oil stumbles into bear markets. >> the sentiment is relatively negative right now. >> there is too much oil in the market. shery: pulling the person strings of economies across the globe, talking about their target and challenges. >> it is not time to tie up monetary policy. >> at the end of year, we will be ready to go into market. >> we think there is space to modernize nafta.

>> we are just not going to be satisfied with 2% growth. shery: and some of wall street's most respected voices offer perspective on investing. >> it makes no sense to buy and etf. >> it's a very attractive moment. >> technology is replacing jobs and technology can also be used to grow jobs. shery: it is all straight ahead on "bloomberg best." ♪ shery: hello, and welcome. i am shery ahn. this is "bloomberg best." your weekly review of the most important business news and analysis and interviews from bloomberg around the world. this week marks the one-year anniversary of the brexit referendum. and on monday, the u.k. and the e.u. finally began talks to

hammer out their divorce. vonnie: brexit talks have finally begun in brussels, amid confusion over what exactly the u.k. government walk from the nicholas -- the divorce. the negotiations start against a backdrop of mounting domestic crisis in the united kingdom. and a public mood shaken by several deadly tragedies. >> the clock is ticking, the window is narrowing. they have decided to go ahead, even though the u.k. position hasn't been re-solidifies, if you will. >> today marks the start of a journey for the united kingdom and for the european union. there is a long way to go, but we are off to a promising start. >> michelle bonnier, he said in a statement after the press conference that he was not in the mood for making any sort of concessions. interestingly, the consequences of the decision are substantial. it does seem that they would try to talk about the positives being the fast tracking of this. early deal is what both of them is seen to be uttering. there were 4.5 million people

who do not know what their rights are in the movement who are living in either in the u.k. or e.u. they need to know their employment looks like and what their residency looks like. >> the bank of england governor mark carney sent the pound lower after saying that it is now the time for a rate hike. >> fragmentation of financial services will result in poorer quality, higher price products for everyone concerned. >> the pound sliding for a second today. 126.21. you can see it on cable. walk us through the various factors causing this selloff in sterling, but also pushing the gilt yield lower. >> mark carney was a big factor today. he pushed back quite dovish against rate hike expectations. that's a big factor for its

sterling in short-term. in the long-term, there is brexit. really, the outcomes of those are really quite unknown at this point. as we all know investors do not , like uncertainty don't like , betting on unknown outcomes. that is something that will hang over investors heads for the next two years at least. >> oil is really the big market mover today. it went below $43 a barrel at one point with the drop today. if you look at where oil has come from its highs on the year that on february 23, it looks like we are now in a bear market for oil. it is down by nearly 21%. >> i do not understand the move today. >> none of us do. [laughter] it started early this morning in london. i would argue it is more technically-driven. we broke some technical barriers. but it represents a broader movement in the price in the sense that the sentiment is relatively negative right now. we look at prices, they retraced

all the gains that they achieved after that opec prodduction cut announcement back in november of last year. we think about opec production, when we think about shale, in the context of that, the shale increases associated with -- withthe recounts -- unts are not worrisome , by themselves. what is worrisome is how does opec regain market share in 2018? the weakness in the time spread -- most people's concern is the negative sentiment. >> it allows us of the fed, that you will raise in the short term and in the long-term it's a different story. >> the analogy is perfect. >> chinese stocks have gained direct entry to msci's benchmark indexes for the first time marking a milestone, a defining , moment here in beijing. -- beijing's efforts to draw international funds to the world's second-largest market. >> we're talking about a small

weighting, about 0.7% is what the a shares will make up. it's part of emerging markets index. in terms of the process, inclusion will start the process in may of 2018. that's the first stage. the second stage will be in august of next year. the hope clear the is that as continued reforms carry out, that is the hope come up more shares will be included overtime. this is something of a carrot and stick approach. >> we end up talking to over 100 institutional investors from all regions of the world. and there was strong support with the proposal that we put in place. actually we were able to get even stronger support to revise it to a larger number. -- a larger number of large caps. >> msci also added saudi arabia to its watchlist, meaning it could get a potential to emerging market status in 2018. give us the real timeline. how quickly could this actually happened? >> it is worth bearing in mind

in the past four or five years, msci reclassified only two emerging markets. we generally say the averages is between three to four years. the most recent inclusion of pakistan was done in a year. the yardstick of the most recent example, pakistan the quickest it would be would , be a year. >> saudi arabia has announced a major change at the top. the king has named his 31-year-old son as crown prince. he is also defense minister and as the chairman of counsel for economic and development affairs is spearheading the vision 2030 fiscal reform program. he replaces his cousin as next in line to the throne. >> what does this mean for saudi arabia's reform efforts? presumably, the new crown prince comes in with a lot of leverage on that front. >> it makes clear that these reforms are here to stay, but there is no danger of it being

reversed or changed anytime soon. you know, in case there was a new king. he is in charge and in control and has more authority and more power in his hands. >> senate republican leaders finally unveiled a closely held plan to replace obamacare this morning. senator mcconnell speaking on the floor having had a conference with republican members, many of whom were seeing the text of this bill for the first time. what did we end up with? >> what he ended up with is similar in many respects to the house's past obamacare replacement bill. it's similar in its structure and cuts medicaid steeply. it makes the more generous and have a bunch of tax cuts. there are differences in terms of the regulations states are able to opt out of. these 10 essential health benefits that the affordable care act requires. the senate version does not

allow insurers to charge people different amounts based on their health status. another key difference, length of the medicare draw down. the senate bill does it over three years in 2020, slower than the house bill. interestingly, starting in 2025, it caps medicaid and moves to a slower rate of growth, which in -- a number of health care experts do not think will not be nearly enough to pay for health care inflation. mcconnell has to get 50 out of 52 members in the senate on board. not going to be easy. >> if you look at the different sectors in a performance today, it is that there is one outstanding moving here, and i -- that will be health care stocks. the health care group, that sub index is at a record high, gaining more than 1% as the senate unveiled its version of the health care overhaul bill. >> what was in the bill that investors reacted positively to? >> the bill lays out a path for health care stability over the next few years. we have a bunch of subsidies

being funded over the next two years. things that you keep people in their insurance over the next two years. longer-term, we see some cuts coming in longer-term. >> prime minister theresa may told e.u. leaders at a summit in brussels that almost all 3 million e.u. citizens living in the u.k. will be able to continue living here after brexit. >> my first impression is -- lower our expectations. >> that was a good beginning. i'm trying to word this very carefully. it was not a breakthrough. >> talk was pretty aggressive, in his slapping down theresa may's proposal. most other leaders said it was not satisfactory and did not go far enough, but i want to stress that this summit isn't about brexit negotiations. this eu summit summit is about doing a whole lot of other things, addressing proposals, russian sanctions, where regulators should be located. although they are discussing

brexit a lot, especially through the press, they are not talking about it really directly to each other. at least as far as the u.k. vs e.u. 27 negotiation would normally go. shery: still to come as we review the week "bloomberg best," the push for tax reform from steven mnuchin. plus, conversations with finance and economy ministers from south korea and greece, portugal, and mexico. and caroline hyde goes one on one with facebook's cheryl sandberg. but up next, more of the weeks top business headlines. investigators deal barclays another legal blow. problemslly misconduct have come to light since the nine years since the financial crisis. shery: this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ shery: this is "bloomberg best". i'm shery ahn. let's continue our global tour of the week's top business stories with legislative elections in france. voters gave a boost to the new party led by president emmanuel macron. >> in france, macron's republic on the move, and its allies have won 350 seats in the national assembly. that is the biggest majority in 15 years. >> it to large majority. 350 seats. out of 577, he will be able to pass reforms in the parliament. however, it is not as big as we expected. there were very tight races in some of the constituencies, especially against the republicans. there are 137 seats in parliament, so they will be able to make your voice heard in parliament. and you have the leader of the

national -- for the third time after failing four times to get a seat at the national assembly. she managed to get one last night. and another leader elected for the first time ever in marseille. >> tesla is said to be close to an agreement to produce vehicles in china. it would allow the electric carmaker to avoid an import tax on the price of vehicles more competitively in the world's largest auto market. how significant is this deal? >> this would be huge. tesla has one auto plant in fremont, california. if they want to become a global automaker and sell 500,000 cars a year by 2018, they will need additional facilities. if their first facility outside of the u.s. is china, that would be a pretty significant development. >> ford is doubling down on china. plans to build iconic small car the focus there for export to the u.s. >> it is a potential timebomb.

the global president for ford is saying, hey, americans by -- buy iphones, they are all made in china. americans are used to buy things made in china. but ford is an iconic american brand. ford is taking a bit of a gamble, but they say they can save up to $1 billion moving the production to china and exporting starting in 2019. >> barclays and four former executive have been charged with committing fraud from qatar. it they say the former ceo and others face charges along with the bank itself. >> this is a culmination of a five-year probe that the fbi has been looking into. the context being that the

apocalyptic time and bailout. they will avoid that, do fundraising. these charges relate to questions around the arrangements they entered into with qatari investments at that time, funds they agreed to pay to receive money. >> that's in the misconduct that has come to light in the nine years of financial crisis. it comes a bad time personally for the ceo as well, under investigation. closing in on a decade after the financial crisis. these issues have still not been sorted for this bank yet. >> uber ceo travis kalanick has stepped down from the company he helped found. after pouring more than $15 billion into the company investors pressured travis , kalanick to step aside. he is still a member of the board and have a lot of voting shares. >> it is interesting. this is something that seemed quite unlikely because of the controlled voting share. what we presume is a different class of shares. we see a lot of startups,

whether it is zynga or groupon. all the way up to google, with a different class of voting shares controlled by the founders. we expect that that is probably what was going on over at uber. travis kalanick wasn't going to leave this company until he was ready. surely, his investors are ready to have him go. but one of the things is something started in 2010, a $5 -- valuation. $65 billionit is fairly amazing. they have brought in a professional class of investors. it's not just people like benchmark capital that made money from the very beginning, but you have investors who came in late who do not want to risk screwing up what has been an amazing thing. >> oil slump worsening, brent falling below $35 a barrel. all concerns about rising supplies. they are negating opec's attempts to drain the global glut. >> it seems that the opec compliance is 100%. but is it too much on the market.

the key factors the u.s. oil. the growth of the u.s. pipe oil is not 100% on what opec expected. opec expected 300,000 to 400,000. you are looking at 800,000 barrels per day growth, higher production from libya, nigeria, pakistan. it is too much oil on the market. they've seen a 700,000 barrels per day cut in opec to bring the prices back to $50 a barrel. >> american airlines saying qatar airways is interested in buying a 10% stake in the company, valued at more than $800 million. america says it didn't solicit the proposed investment. it won't change the airlines' board composition or management. >> the curious thing is these two airlines have been at odds. the u.s. airlines accuse qatar , as well as emirates and other big middle eastern airlines of basically flying the u.s. market

with flights, with generous subsidies from the middle eastern governments. one would wonder if perhaps qatar is trying to quell some of the controversy between the u.s. >> what are the chances that american airlines says no thanks, we don't want you to stay? >> we don't know, but based on previous statements, you would think that is pretty good. american has been one of the leaders in the charge against the middle eastern carriers. >> billionaire warren buffett wrote to the rescue of home capital. berkshire hathaway took a 38.4% stake and about a $1.5 billion u.s. dollars credit line. why would warren buffett taking a stake in this mortgage lender? such a large one? >> the simple answer, you get a price he was interested in. this is out of buffett's playbook.

he said a couple of years ago that berkshire hathaway has become his firm, the 1-800 number in a market crisis. what we are seeing is an example of that strategy. you have seen it time and again. these deals are structured in a way that berkshire hathaway not only earns a high yield on the debt part of the transaction, but often get some sort of equity in the mix as well, which serves as a kicker. you know, if buffett is right and these embattled firms return to investors' greases, they make a lot of money in the process. jonathan: 34 of the largest banks cleared the first round of the federal reserve stress tests, examining their ability to withstand economic shock. tests come next week when the fed will release findings from its competence of capital analysis and review.

those test will be watched by investors as they determine when landis can increase dividends and buyback stocks. go to the banks for me. >> the numbers look good. sigrid packet calculation and looking at the 34 banks covered. they have according to the fed, about of access capital above $500 billion stress levels they are required to keep under a severely adverse scenarios. the big banks i follow jpmorgan's and regional banks, , have about $360 billion of that. a lot of buffers there. obviously that's positive. the means them we see next week, we see how much of that capital is going the fed will allow them to give back to shareholders over the next 12 months. i think it will be a big number. ♪

♪ shery: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i'm shery ahn. this week, caroline hyde spoke exclusively with facebook's chief operating officer sheryl sandberg. their conversation covered a range of topics, including the social networks' responsibility to help businesses create new jobs. >> what we are seeing is more adoption of the mobile platforms. there are 70 million small businesses that are using facebook on a monthly basis. that is our free product and 5 million advertisers. on instagram, we have 8 million profiles. from the very smallest company to the largest company they are , investing in mobile because that is where people are spending their time. caroline: do you feel optimistic about what these undercurrent show you about the global economy in general? are we seeing jobs being created?

re: seeing brands spending money? can you give us a gauge as to what you see out there? >> our goal is to make sure that businesses spend money and get a return. what matters for marketers is when they spent on marketing, it rings a cash register online and off. that is something we are really working on. we also see small businesses playing a very important role in the global economy. the majority of job creation around the world is small businesses. and even the most off-line small business can use the power of technology. when i was last in europe, i went to berlin and got to visit a company called holtz connection, a furniture manufacturer in berlin. that's a very traditional business. the son came into the family business and did not change anything about manufacturing, but started marketing on facebook and through mobile. they grew their business, and now they have opened five more locations, including outside of

germany, creating jobs and growing their business. and so, technology can power innovation both in the core of the business, but can support any business out there. caroline: when people worry eroding jobs, are you seeing the other point of view? >> technology is changing the economy. it is replacing jobs, and technology can be used to grow jobs. it is our responsibility to help small and large businesses all around the world use technology to grow their businesses so they can grow jobs. shery: you can see much more of that exclusive interview at bloomberg.com. and coming up, more conversations with leaders in politics, policy, and the markets. bruce berkowitz has advice for investors who feel that they have to buy today's hottest stocks. >> a couple of problems and it is going to be difficult for

investments to recover over a period of time. shery: this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ >> the world is not these four countries. we have a lot of new destinations we are launching, and we will expedite those lunches, continue to grow. we do not get intimidated. and we will find new markets and there are many markets that are longing for qatar airways to fly into their airports. >> just in the near-term, what effects are you having operationally in terms of running the business? >> it is having a lot of disruptive influence on our network. but we have successfully been mitigating this disruption. we have seen already that there

is an upward trend in the passengers that are starting to now book on qatar airways. the west -- when they think it is a little bit of upheaval they , think that it's a war zone. it's not a war zone, this is an intimidation game by our neighbors. >> that was qatar airways ceo akbar al baker speaking with guy johnson at the paris air show. a veritable parade of war leaders, fiscal and monetary policy, joined bloomberg television for interviews this week. let's start with south korea's finance minister, who sat down exclusively at the conference. >> are you concerned that trump is considering renegotiating the free trade agreement between korea and the u.s.? >> there has been no official request coming from the u.s. government yet. i understand the nafta negotiations are currently underway. as you know, korea is a strong advocate of free trade.

we are concerned with that type of protectionism. there had been evidence that there are mutual benefits enjoyed out of fta. those have been reciprocal so far. >> canada gdp estimate be raised from the current 2.6%? estimatee current gdp be raised from the current 2.6%? >> if the economy continues as it is today, and if the supplementary budget is fully implemented, there's a possibility that the gdp estimates could be higher than what we currently expect. but given that there are also uncertainties such as the u.s. rate hike and international, economic, and financial situations, we still need to be careful about revising of the -- revising up the gdp estimates. >> all in all, i think we are on the road to recovery. the growth rate has been assumed

by the ec, imf, and greek government, which is around 2%. most likely, given to my contacts here in the u.s. there were investors, other people very much interested in greece. it looks like it's achievable and we will meet it. >> when do you think greece might be able to go back to the capital markets with a bond issuance? >> i think the expectation is by the end of the year, either the end of this year or the beginning of the next. as you see, the spreads are dropping dramatically. both in this election year bond and the connecting year bond -- and the 10-year bond. so it would depend on where we are after the program begins. the second-quarter growth rates are out, and the third quarter will be substantially increasing because of tourism and other activities taking place. i believe that at the end of the year we will be ready to go into the markets. >> we look at the ecb every month. we listen to mario draghi about whether they may start tapering

or tightening monetary policies. how much would that affect the portuguese economy when and if they start tapering? >> i think it would effect the portuguese economy as it would affect all other european economies. what we are not seeing is signs of increased inflation to justify the tightening of monetary policy. what we are seeing is that unemployment in europe is still quite high in several countries. i do not think it is time to tighten the monetary policy, and i think it is not the time in portugal to do a strong expansion of fiscal policy, but in europe to unleash austerity which is what is happening, it's a good sign that there's more investors. confidence to investors. also, to pursue it, as you were saying, which is important and good place to create a better place for recovery. we have seen some signs of that in europe, some very positive signs of that already happening

in portugal, so we are leading this recovery out of growth, but i think we will see recovery all over europe, which is going to be also positive for portugal. >> last year, candidate trump and then president-elect trump said about the largest free market trading zone in the world, where it is worth almost $20 trillion, trade has quadrupled since 1994 north american free trade agreement was signed, and he said he would rip it up. he said it was a disaster. is the worst over now? >> we think now, officially the process is modernizing. he said we would renegotiate. if one looks at the americas, reports, the airports, roads, highways electricity, oil and , gas pipelines, the north

american region to which when you look at the infrastructure, it's difficult to identify the borders. one can argue whether that came about because of nafta or rather nafta came about because there in the northamics american region, something special in and of itself. mexico has a lot of free trade agreements. none of them have resulted in the level of integration that north american region has seen. so there's nothing that complements our economies. nafta brought it to life. nafta pull little long, that pulled it along, and it's difficult to argue that was just nafta contingent. there are core dynamics between our economies that make it reasonable for us to trade, to integrate, to have markets. to participate in the global economy as a block.

the largest block in the global economy for the foreseeable future is the north american economic block. we think there is space to modernize nafta so we can do better. many things are happening today that would be natural to include in a regional integration program. either it doesn't exist only to have the economic ability to put this on the table in 1994, and now we do. >> we had a rocky year last year. i think that a lot of the correction that is taking place has been the result of policy actions that have been taken in the monetary side, the foreign-exchange side, the fiscal side. basically, we are going to through dynamics, keep it consistent with the one off week inflation shock. we are expressing some confidence of what we have done

being sufficient, and it will be sufficient for now on until the end next year. it is hard to say. >> right now the volatility in the treasury market and the volatility for the peso by historical standards is right now very low. >> yes. >> is the market optimistic or realistic? >> you would have to ask the market. [laughter] >> i think in general, markets have been acknowledging what we have been doing. in a way, i think that we coincide in many aspects. sometimes markets are too pessimistic, sometimes markets are exuberant. what we need to do is keep a cool head. so that is what we are trying to say.

>> you're not unsettled at the moment by what the markets are doing right now, is that correct? >> yeah, i would not agree. i'm not optimistic. >> u.s. treasury secretary steve mnuchin also sat down with bloomberg television this week at the select usa investment summit outside of washington, d.c. david gora asked him how he is making progress on some key policy initiatives. david is the white house saying : there is a date by which we will have a tax reform proposal? are you speaking with one voice on that issue? >> we've been pretty consistent in saying we are working every week very closely with the house and the senate to have a joint plan when we come out. the idea is to get us all on the same page so when we release the combined plan, it will get past ssed get passed by the

, house and the senate and the president will sign it. it's our focus to get that done this year. it's critical to the economy and we are working every day to get that done. david what's your relationship : like with lawmakers on capitol hill? how have you found that, being new to washington in this job? >> i think we have a good relationship. i think it's a team effort. i think the good news is we understand what we want to do and we want to get growth in this country, we want to have tax reform. that hasn't been done in 30 years. we want to simplify personal taxes, create a middle income tax cut, make business taxes competitive. we have one of the highest tax rates in the world, with worldwide taxes and deferrals, which leads to trillions of dollars left offshore. david you bring up growth. : i'll have to say that is the theme of this conference. i talked to maybe half dozen economists every day. they disagree with projections all of them you have, saying that we can attain 3% to 4% growth. what are you seeing that they are not? >> i want to put this in

perspective. when obama came into office he was projecting over 4% economic growth. we have obviously not have that. we have one of the lowest growth rates in modern history. we just not going to be satisfied with 2% growth. we will work every day in the administration to do everything we possibly can to unlock the economic capital, to create jobs, better wages, and get growth above 3%. >> people in your position have been advisers to the president of taking the new chief of the federal reserve. has the president solicited your advice on who the next fed share -- fed chair should be? >> on financial regulatory positions, gary cohn and i are working closely together in making recommendations to the president. he and i have interviewed all all the people, and have made joint recommendations to the president. >> what do you think constitutes a good fed chair? broadly speaking what you think , you and the president should be looking for in a fed chair this next term? >> we haven't made decisions on the fed chair, whether we will have a new one or not.

we will be working closely together with the president as we consider all the issues. ♪

♪ >> you are watching "bloomberg best." morningstar wants to have bruce berkowitz as its fund manager of the decade, and while it's fund has underperformed in recent years, the investor known for his contrarian approach has a lot to say about the current market environment. he spoke exclusively with erik schatzker about the flood of money going into etf. >> etf investing, to an extent, is a good idea. you know, the idea of being -- you benefit by the growth in the u.s. economy, the u.s. economy improves, the markets improve,

etf's go up in value, and there is a direct correlation. but an etf is only as good as the constituents within the etf. and it doesn't take into account the illogical extremes. there is a point where it makes no sense to buy etf, and general markets are overvalued. they are highly capitalized and part of etf's are overvalued. so it does bother me that a lot of sort of blind decisions have been made, and thinking as being -- is being delegated to a mathematical equation, that everything should average out ok over the long period. but the last time people got caught up in this, they were losing money for -- it took 13, 14, 15 years to recover, and that's not thinking about the valuation of that bottom line.

erik: are we at that point now, where it doesn't make sense to buy an etf because the underlying valuations are too rich? >> it doesn't make sense to me. i'm not a growth investor. i am not a visionary. i am the guy looking to buy a dollar for $.50. if i'm wrong, i get my $.50 back. if i'm right, i'll do a lot better than the dollar over time. erik: when you look at the must-own stocks, facebook, amazon, apple, netflix, google, or some of the other highfliers like tesla or nvidia, what do you see? >> i see companies that are priced for a very, very rosy future. and if it's a great rosy future, people will do well. but a couple of problems, and it's going to be difficult for investors to recover over time.

>> for more insights into the investment landscape, we traveled to to the second annual goldman sachs leveraged finance conference in southern california. a roundup of interviews begins with goldman's chief economist. >> you have five and 30, and this spread is under 100 basis points, the lowest we have seen since 2007. when you look at that spread, how do you interpret that? >> i think the main one is the term premium continues to be very low. i think part of that is fed policy, the holdings of long-term bonds by the federal reserve. obviously over time, probably starting in september, october, that is going to be genetically -- gradually run down, and that is an important factor. the other factor is that the inflation risk premium, which i think accounted for most of the steep curve and high term premium situations of the

1980's, 1990's, that is extremely low at this point. i think that is an important factor, and then maybe a final factor, foreign monetary policy, the fact that the ecb and doj are still running very easy policy, and some are pushing investors in those markets into longer securities that even in the u.s. >> talking about low rates, it was said earlier that low inflation targets contribute to low rates. we have heard from janet yellen, not really mentioning inflation targets, but last week didn't rule it off the table in terms of discussing raising it. what is your thought on that? >> i think if you started from scratch and had to decide between a 2% inflation target and a 3% inflation target, you can make a good case that a 3% inflation target would be better. you could say, it doesn't really add that much to the potential

price setting inefficiencies in the economy. it is not lead to a deterioration in the price signals to a significant degree, but at the same time, it gives you a little bit more leeway to cut rates in the economic downturn situation. so i think you could make that case from scratch whether you would want to go from a 2% target to a 3% target at this point in time, i think it is harder to say. i would be nervous about trying to let the economy overshoot long-term full employment by a lot in order to get inflation up to 3% at this point in time. so i'm not sure it's a great idea now. clearly, it's a question for academic research. i think that was janet yellen's point. >> buyers and sellers. who has the power right now? >> it is a very robust market out there, so most everything coming into the market is

getting priced very tightly, spreads are tight. coming into the year, people would have expected a rising yield environment, a rising rate environment given the fed's behavior, and we have seen easier conditions in the credit market, so it has been a better environment to issue paper and the debt leverage broadly, the leverage finance base -- the market is wide open. i would say issuers are having a very attractive moment here. >> in particular, sectors that have robust demand and issuance versus some that are more close? >> i think the consumer and retail spaces an area where people are more cautious. the amazon-whole foods transaction would be a good example of disruption going across all areas.

but broadly speaking, most of the other areas across the economy are pretty robust. >> i mentioned amazon because goldman was one of the two big banks that supplied the bridge loan for the deal. do you think amazon will offer bonds for the deal? >> i don't want to speculate on what they will do. we left bridge loan for them to finance the transaction come as you can assume there will be a takeout of that bridge loan coming to the marketplace at some point in the near future. great transaction for them and for us. we are really privileged to be part of it. >> do you feel like big deal deals are back with amazon or is this a one-off? >> we have seen actually volumes basically flat year-over-year, today 2017,hat here $1.05olume is about trillion and we are running 15% below the pace of 2015, which was an extra ordinary year in the 2015 was merger business. marked by much more large scale consolidation, whether it was pharma, telecom technology, etc. we haven't really seen as much big deal activity since 2015. if you look at the underlying trends in the merger market,

most of it is being driven by $1 billion-$5 billion transactions. volume and $1 billion-$5 billion transactions is up 35% and , transactions greater than $20 billion are down 40%. we are not seeing big deals happening near any other rate we saw in 2015. ♪

♪ >> this is rrg on the bloomberg, the relative rotation graph. i want to start in the leading quadrant. this is the sectors doing the best. leading the market, and not surprisingly on a day where the nasdaq is outperforming the other index. the technology is far and away the leading sector. >> there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg. we always enjoy showing your favorites on bloomberg television. maybe they will become your

favorites. here is another function you will find it useful. quic , it will take you over quick takes, where you get insight into timely topics. here is a quick take from this week. president trump: everyone is listening to you now. you came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. >> u.s. president donald trump's victory is part of a new wave of populism sweeping through democracies of the world. what differentiates populists from mainstream politicians is a claim that they alone are representative of the will of the people of the whole. that allows them to dismiss any opposition to themselves or policy as an attack on the popular will. modern populists often take this approach as they tap into the backlash against immigration in a globalized economy that many voters feel has left them behind. here is the situation.

unlike most "isms," populism does not lean left to right or the center. from the late radical socialist hugo chavez to marine le pen in france, this is how they connect politics. according to one author, there are three requirements for an politician to be considered populist. one, they make an appeal to the people. trying to break down the system against the despised elite. president trump she will keep a : rigged system in place. i alone can fix it. >> populist also use crises or manufacture them to justify the call for old. and lastly, inflammatory language is used to shock the establishment and prove politician's credentials as one of the people. >> this scum who make the streets unsafe. >> here's the argument. because populists make big promises to shakeup society, they tend to bump up against

democratic checks and balances, in particular the courts in media that were designed to limit what governments can do, then the temptation is to become to declare these institutions part of a conspiracy to bought the people's will. trump: i have a running war with the media, they are among the most dishonest human beings. >> there is a reason why populists emerge. they promise a correction to democracies that seem to have lost their representative power and they offer a fresh start. the challenge remains for mainstream politicians to address widespread economic and cultural fields. otherwise, the draw of populism is not going away anytime soon. >> anything is possible if enough decent people are prepared to stand up against the establishment. thank you very much. shery: that was just one of the many quick takes you can find on the bloomberg. you can also find them on bloomberg.com ,along with the latest business news and analysis 24 hours a day.

that's all for "bloomberg best" this week. thanks for watching. i'm shery ahn, this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ david: what propelled you to want to join this company? brian: i always wanted to work for my dad. david: did he say you start at the bottom and work your way up, or did he say you could start at number two? brian: that is what i wanted to happen. david: did everyone wonders you are ready to be president yet? brian: everybody, including myself. david: have you ever had problems with your cable? brian: sure. david: is it intimidating for the cable repairman to come to your house? >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way. alright. ♪ david: i don't consider myself a journalist. and nobody else would consider myself a joualt.