julie: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. decisive days for central banks. the bank of japan sticks to its guns. the bank of england finally hikes. and the federal reserve will go forward under new leadership. >> i'm committed to making decisions with objectivity, based on the best available evidence. >> i think it would be a mistake to push jay powell around. julie: the gop unveils their long-awaited tax plan. but investigations in washington dampen some of the fanfare. >> they have manafort in the system now and mueller can apply leverage to him. >> companies don't want to do anything to alter the nature of

freedom on their platforms. julie: wall street heavyweights weigh in along with lloyd blankfein on this week's top interviews. >> i can't see that this is the moment you want the most fiscal stimulus in the market. >> the things that can be fixed, but you can't do them by making light suggestions. julie: plus a slew of earnings to sort through with insight from top executives. >> the challenge is coming from search. julie: it's all straight ahead on "bloomberg best." julie: hello, and welcome. i'm julie hyman. this is "bloomberg best," your weekly review of the most important business news, analysis, and interviews from bloomberg television around the world. the week begin with a bombshell as the first charges were revealed in special counsel

robert mueller's investigation of russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. ♪ >> president trump's former campaign manager paul manafort and his one-time business partner rick gates charged in the investigation into russian meddling with the u.s. election. manafort and gates face money, -- money laundering, conspiracy, and tax charges in a 12 count indictment. >> 12 counts is what they've been charged with. conspiracy against the united states, as well as failing to disclose who they are representing, the foreign agents registration office. >> these were all reported events that took place before in the campaign and do not involve his work as campaign chairman. but then again, it does suddenly become a real thing for this white house to have to deal with. >> they also obtained a guilty plea of a former policy advisor george papadopoulos who was a 30-year-old unpaid advisor who

admitted earlier this month in charges unsealed today, a series of overtures by russian officials to the trump campaign. and that is going to be a problem going forward for the trump officials to deal with. >> they have manafort in the system now, and mueller can apply leverage to him and tell him that if he wants to make a deal, if he wants to get out of jail free or a reduced sentence, he better provide information about somebody close to trump or trump himself. this is the way it operates. the domino theory of prosecution. >> the bank of japan has left its massive monetary stimulus program in place as it changes inflation forecast from global peers. the decision was expected, so it's a big focus -- is the big focus here the inflation forecast? >> what is important here is that governor kuroda defended

every aspect of their monetary and stimulus. their super stimulus policies. made it clear that he's sticking with all of them. he says he sees no signs of japanese stocks overheating. he notes that relative to other markets around the world, they looked appropriately valued. and beyond that, again, etf purchases and yield curve control that involves buying bonds to keep that 10-year yield at zero are part of a policy that is aimed at boosting inflation. each part is necessary, and all of those parts are going to be in place as long as it takes to reach 2%. we know the boj has shown flexibility. in october, they pulled back on their etf purchases. the program remains, and kuroda made it clear. he has no sense that it is going to change yet. >> the fed stands pat and fed

funds remain in the range of of 1% to 1.25%. the changes made to the statement are minimal. the fed vice chair for supervision casting his first vote and joins in a unanimous decision. now it is all about who donald trump taps to be the new fed chair. boot >> there is lots of stuff you expect with normalizations after the hurricanes. the real meaningful changes here, the fed dismisses the payroll swoon in september and they upgraded their growth characterization from solid to -- to solid from moderate, which means they are buying into what we've seen on gdp the last couple of quarters. it weighs in the federal rate increase in signal the conviction about rate hikes in 2018. >> the bank of england raising

and>> the bank of england raising rates today for the first time in just over a decade. >> with unemployment at a 42 year low, inflation running above target, and growth just above the lower speed limit, the time has come to ease our foot a little off the accelerator. >> the boe and mark carney seem to be selling this as a movement -- as a removal of stimulus. even though this is the first hike in a decade, it is really him hike in a decade, it is really just reversing the cuts that came after brexit. 7-2 was the vote we got from the mpc. that was slightly more conviction. the consensus was thinking it was going to be 6-3, but you can see from the market reaction, pound sliding. also repricing in terms of expectation of further hikes. the market is interpreting this as a dovish hike. a couple of reasons for that is that one key thing off the statement was something mark carney has said before. markets are underpricing the future rate hike path. that was not in the statement today and also, highlighting the risk from brexit. two signs there that although we got a hike today, it is firmly

dovish. >> a day late but a done deal, house republicans unveiled their long-awaited tax reform plan. >> with this plan, the typical family of four will save $1182 a year on their taxes. >> this is america. this is our opportunity to make tax reform a reality and deliver the most transformational tax cut in a generation. >> the entire battle will be fought on the idea of individual tax cuts rather than corporate tax cuts. behind-the-scenes, lobbyists are working for the corporations, but the taxpayers are the voters. they are the people congress will respond to. democrats will claim a tax giveaway to the rich and republicans will claim this is all for main street. >> there is a lot of political will to get something done. there are potential headwinds in the house, from a lobbying perspective. the small business trade association came out against the bill. it will be very key. if they end up changing that to

a more supportive view. also the senate, the vote in the senate could be very close. president trump: it is my pleasure and my honor to announce my nomination of jerome powell to be the next chairman of the federal reserve. congratulations. [applause] >> i think at the beginning, he will be close to where janet yellen was. he supported the monetary policy actions that janet had undertaken. the gradualist approach is one that is very natural to him. >> i'm committed to making decisions with objectivity based on the best available evidence in the long-standing tradition of monetary policy independence. >> a think it would be a mistake to try to push jay powell around. he is pretty solid. he's been working hard to study. remember, he's been around financial markets and policies

since the early 1990's. and he was, in part, hired by -- for the job, because he represents continuity. it suggests to me he will be his number of his -- it suggests to me he will be has on person. >> president trump emphasized this, he also alluded to his private sector experience. his business acumen. the real world perspective. he is going to have a very unique perspective on financial stability concerns, which seems to be a mounting focus of the fed. with each new high in the stock market. >> clearly, he will be his own kind of fed chair. his business background will be something the most recent chairs have not had. i couldn't be more pleased with this nomination. i think jay powell is going to be an outstanding fed chair. julie: apple out with quarterly earnings, the company forecasting holiday sales that exceeded analyst estimates, suggesting strong demand and if

-- and few supply issues for the iphone x. shares hit records and continue to rise in late trading. >> every quarter, people say there's no way apple can beat expectations. here we are again. it is the end of 2017 and they are doing it again for five straight years. the numbers up year-over-year, reporting revenues of $52.6 billion. iphone sales of 46.5 million units, one million units more than this time a year ago. strong ipad sales. strong other product sales that means an influx of purchases of the new 4k apple tv. the most important number is their guidance. the q1, holiday quarter, the first launch quarter of the iphone x and the iphone 8 and 8plus. that is the most important quarter every year, but this year is especially important. they are forecasting revenues for that quarter and we will find out if this is true at the end of january between $84 billion and $87 billion should

be an all-time quarterly record for the technology company. >> the jobs number, 313 is the estimate, the previous number -33,000. we can now cross over to our economics and policy correspondent. >> mother nature taken away, but she doesn't give back much. 260 1000 jobs created in october. much less than consensus. unemployment. the good news, unemployment falls to 4.1%. that is the lowest since december of 2000. the reason for it, 764,000 people out of the workforce. none of that helped to average hourly earnings. they were unchanged on the month. that brings the annual average down to 2.4% from 2.9%. >> the job number is noisy. still pretty good numbers in there.

we are down to 4.1% unemployment. when you look at the u6 number, down 1.5% for the year, we are bringing a lot of people back into the workforce. that is what president trump said he would do and we are excited. we are not seeing wage growth in the job numbers and that's why we need tax reform. julie: still ahead, as we review the week on "bloomberg best," an exclusive conversation with lloyd blankfein. plus, all the big beats and misses in a whirlwind of earnings reports with spin. up next, more of the week's top business headlines. bitcoin trading moves towards the mainstream. >> on a regulated platform overseen by the commodities trading commission. julie: this is bloomberg. ♪ julie: this is "bloomberg

best." i'm julie hyman. let's continue our global tour of the week's top business stories in washington. representatives of some of the world's largest tech companies were grilled on capitol hill. >> big tech under the microscope today. at this moment, lawyers from facebook, twitter, and google facing questions about russia's use of their networks to meddle in the 2016 election. >> the testimony they prepared was meant to show they were completely on top of this and ready to deal with the next threat. the questions from the senators seem to be poking holes in that. showing they really have very far to go. first of all, before we know the full scope of what is happened, and second of all, before they are prepared to handle future threats. the companies don't want to do anything to alter the nature of freedom on their platform. they say they are going to be proactive and have better tech to look into this. they are going to be cooperating a lot more with the intelligence

community in the future. but so far, we haven't gotten down to the specifics. >> china came out with its latest factory gauge, falling from a five-year high. the bar was set quite high and not quite in line with what we thought it would be. 52, a little bit below that. what is behind this drop? >> readings standup. -- three things jumped out. number one, we saw the drop is really around the medium-sized businesses. they break it down between large, medium, and small. the biggest drop was the medium-sized industries. the big still feeling pretty good. slight slippage there. the inflation stories have really been the most intense. the other thing that jumped out was where the declines came with new orders. china bears might latch onto that. and also, a bit of a pullback in some of the year-on-year effects. in put prices and output prices moderated. it is partly because this reflation story started a year

ago. it will start to look a little bit more moderate. >> softbank's talks to merge sprint, wwhich it owns, with t-mobile u.s. unit it's a serious snag. this deal feels like it's been on and off for years, almost. why is it off-again? >> it seems like they had a gut check moment that this deal was almost about to cross the finish line. and from deutsche telekom's perspective, there is concern about valuation. some concern about the state of a business that has been losing money for years and burning through a lot of cash. and from softbank's side, we won't have control over this anymore. they've been saying all along that they were willing to give up control. they were willing to do a stock

swap at no premium. now they seem to be having cold feet and second thoughts about giving up control. >> the catalan independence and movement is losing steam. the former cattle and president and separatist leader went to brussels where he spoke to reporters. >> this government in relation to politicians true to the government need to guarantee there will be no conflict, no violence. the republic of all can't be built on violence. >> the idea was that they would seek asylum. belgium was one of the few countries where citizens are allowed to seek political asylum. they put that to rest immediately when someone asks. he wants to make his case for an independent catalonia. he seems to be preparing the scene for his party to run in the december 21 elections.

>> mylan was down as much as 8%. it is just off the lows of the session right now. the drug company's president and executive director has become the target of a drug pricing collusion probe. you state attorneys general say they are seeking to sue rocky malik -- sue reggie malik as part of an expanded complaint. >> we have a group of 45 states that have basically said they had this earlier probe of a are had this earlier probe of a number of drug makers. they are expanding and going after the number two executive at mylan. he at mylan. this is different than a lot of the cases we have seen. regional managers, doing to -- doing something they shouldn't. this is a senior executive at one of the world's biggest drug manufacturers. they are alleging widespread collusion on more than a dozen drugmakers and more than a dozen drugs. this is something they are

seriously seeing is hurting american consumers and it is a very big deal. >> the cme getting in on a bitcoin action. in a change of policy, they announced they will introduce the growing futures by the year-end. cryptocurrency jumped to more than six to more than $6,400. >> it will be a regulated platform overseen by the trading commission. it will be under risk controls himit will be under risk controls we have in place. so we have our margin rules are in place. we will have functionality with our electronic systems in place. those are all things that are those are all things that are completely different than the way the crypto's are traded today. >> people are seeing this move by the cme as an indication that initial investors will come into the sector. they have been largely staying on the sidelines because of the risk. with derivatives, they will be able to hedge a little bit of volatility. we might see the etf get approval by the sec.

>> eight people have been killed in a suspected terrorist attack in new york city. the new york governor said the attack mirrored berlin and nice, to name a couple of examples. president trump responded i ordering the deferments of homeland security to start vetting immigrants. how is this going to impact the immigration debate? how will this impact the funding story around that debate as well? >> there is an important deadline coming up for congress, december 8. it is the date to which the government is currently funded. ahead of that, barely a month out, there will need to be a significant debate about how to prevent a shutdown. trump and some republicans have said they want to have money to crackdown on illegal immigration and build a border wall. that was already going to be a fight. yesterday's events added pressure and a degree of urgency. yet another reason why that could be a real showdown in a couple of weeks. ♪ julie: you are watching

"bloomberg best." i'm julie hyman. goldman sachs ceo lloyd blankfein made news with his tweet revealing that the firm might be feeling anxious about london's future as a financial hub. #brexit. on thursday, blankfein sat down with david westin for an exclusive interview. mr. blankfein: we have to remove inmr. blankfein: we have to remove that extra stimulus, reduce the balance sheet, raise rates, and the big test will be to do it in a way that doesn't shock us into a bad position. this is a little bit like moving an unstable, dangerous chemical. you want to treat it carefully. transparency, again, is part of

the implementation remedy to make sure everybody knows what is happening. so there is no sudden, quick, jerky move. but it will take a deft touch to do this. all the while, bracing for the fact that there may be some bubbles that pop in places. money has been cheap for a long time. maybe it's gone someplace it shouldn't have. david: at the same time you are reducing the stimulus, we have a president, a republican in congress who seems bent on increasing fiscal stimulus. we have today the details of the republican tax plan. what does a good tax reform package look like? what does a bad one look like? mr. blankfein: i have been involved in a conference so i have not seen what has come out. going in, i knew there would be stimulus elements to it. i can't say this is the moment where you would want the most

fiscal stimulus in the market when we are kind of mostly full employment, gdp is registered at 3%. i don't know that at the moment you provide the biggest stimulus. but a lot of people and the president think the economy can grow really fast. i'm not taking the other side of it. the economy can grow faster. there are things out there impeding the growth. maybe we could get higher than 3%. or if we sat at 3% and it was just a momentary -- that would be fine. a good plan would be something that -- look. the freest kind of stimulation you could provide to the economy is confidence, peeling away redundant or bad regulation, to be frank. if you repeal all regulation, that would be no good. you need a lot of it. you don't need redundant regulation or regulation were the cost-benefit is out of

whack. were it restricts activity in the name of safety and takes a the name of safety and takes away a lot of growth potential of the extra safety of the economy. and doing that kind of adjustment is kind of free. you're not spending money to achieve it. you are not widening the deficit to achieve it. same thing with confidence and business confidence. those are the things that you really want to see. on the actual expenditure of money, taking less taxes, some more of it we could afford to have. but, not so much of it that we make inflation inevitable down the road. julie: coming up on "bloomberg best," we will plow through a mountain of earnings reports that came out this week including european banks. and we will revisit the most compelling conversations on bloomberg television. bill ackman talked about a proxy battle he's been waging with adp. >> it is a great company, but that is really looking backwards. julie: this is bloomberg. ♪ retail.

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♪ julie: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i'm julie hyman. another week of political noise around the world, and markets continue to keep it mostly in the background, with major indices once again hitting record highs. on bloomberg television, investors are looking at the larger picture. let's look back at some of the week's most interesting interviews, starting with erik schatzker's conversation with citadel securities global head of fixed income currencies and commodities paul hamill. they discussed the impact of impending eu banking rules known as mifid ii. >> it will bring more trading to electronic venues, it will bring more robustness to the market. clearing is a fundamental pillar

that allows customers access to new sources of liquidity. moving away from the old lateral -- bilateral documentation structure. then they can focus on who has the best price, where can i see the best execution for me and my investors? erik: i would like to know what you're hearing from clients. do they understand the timeline on which they will be rolled out and how they will be affected? paul: i don't think is a level of understanding that people would like to have. i think that stems from the challenge that we face. some of the rules are still not clear. we have two months to go. when you and i last spoke -- there were a lot of rules still not clear, and we have seen enormous progress this summer, in particular areas such as the trading mandate and the requirement to provide impartial access. but there are a couple of critical areas that people are watching closely because they have to be resolved before year end. erik: and those are? paul: those are -- and this is almost ironic. transparency is a core pillar. and yet, we have seen, almost by accident, some sort of flawed calculation under the european

rules that would term most swaps illiquid and they are not subject to any kind of transparency or reporting issue. it is the opposite of what we have seen in the u.s. we are aware that is a challenge and we are working closely to try to resolve it. but it is critical that it gets resolved because investors are paying for this. one of the biggest complaints is the cost that these implementations bring. if you get the cost of transparency without the benefits, it will be a long time before it gets fixed. it can be a very bad outcome for investors. erik: what is the business case for hedge funds, given the disappointing returns that some many hedge fund strategies have delivered in recent years? and the taste a growing number of institutional investors seem to have for hedge funds. >> the case i would make for hedge funds starts with risk. which is clients who have been able to build thoughtfully

diversified portfolios of hedge funds can end up with a portfolio that looks like fixed income levels of risk, but different risk. i think the case for hedge funds will be stronger in retrospect after we go through a period of rising rates and get to a place where rates are higher. in a place like this where we have seen low rates, shrinking rates, low dispersion within equities, it's been a challenge. that having been said, i think the fee model for many in hedge funds is broken. and i think the hedge funds in the future, there will be just as much unconstrained investing or less constrained investing than traditional. it will be done in a fashion where fees are more balanced between investors and clients. that is a good thing. erik: what is the right fee model for hedge funds? if it's not 2 and 20. mr. walker: people that do hedge

funds as an asset class -- in my mind, it's a skill class. there are people of radically different skill levels competing in the notion that they all should get paid the same fees from clients is absurd. erik: should it be more outcome driven? mr. walker: i think that would be a constructive place to be. there have been a number of folks that have been leaders on this for, the folks -- the texas teachers have been some of the most aggressive. the one or 30 model is an interesting one. there's no right or wrong answer. anything that generates closer alignment between our folks fundamentally delivering for their clients and are they being compensated at realistic levels? not at the levels that have happened historically, is a good thing. ♪ >> if you look at the indices, the emerging markets index, the u.s. index, japan index, tech is

bigger in emerging markets than even the u.s. and japan, which is quite remarkable. this is because of the incredible impact of the smartphones being sold around the world. 70% of those sales are in emerging markets. david: that's in part because people can afford to buy them. mr. mobius: exactly, you have a phone being lent for $25. it's a loan you can pay off. it's quite remarkable. jonathan: looking at fx markets and you have gone offshore on e.m. look at how e.m. has performed this year. i am sure you get frustrated if we talk about blanket emerging markets, but if you can break it down regionally, we have this terrific outperformance in emerging-market europe. just behind that, the story of asia and that has been happening in lat-am. which region, which group of currencies of those three do you want to get exposure to? mr. mobius: i would probably look at latin america. i think you have seen tremendous

change taking place in argentina, brazil, of course. of course, the brazilian real has reacted, but they still have a long way to go. jonathan: do you need to have blind faith in politicians to actually deliver on what they said they are going to deliver? mr. mobius: given what has happened in brazil, if they can do 10% of what they intend to do, it would be a big revolution. ♪ julie: adp will hold a shareholder meeting on tuesday, and the company's proxy battle with pershing square capital's bill ackman will finally reach the resolution. pershing square is seeking three seats on adp's board. in an interview this week, ackman insisted that getting even one seat would be a huge win. bill: i not seeking to be ceo of am the company. we are seeking to add one to three directors to the board of the company. it will change a minority of the board. it will bring operational experience, things that are not present on the board of

directors. vonnie: if you are so enamored with the company, why not take a position of casually suggest potential changes as opposed to going all out and waging war? mr. ackman: we are not waging war. we have stayed away from ad hominem attacks and accusations of the company that they have made against us. we have focused on the core issues. this is a great company. but that is really looking backwards. the company has fallen behind competitors. it's lost major market share in the enterprise market. this is for companies with 1000 or more employees. other companies have taken away a lot of share from the company. for a company with as much financial resources and strong market position adp has had, to allow this to take away customers that have been with you for a decade or more, it's not a good thing. that is a the second component first. is the company has about 20% margins. they could be 60% higher than where they are now. just basic reorganizing the

structure. this is a company that operates with a very old-fashioned organizational structure. too many layers of management, 130 offices around the country, inefficient procurement. anything from buying office supplies to dealing with suppliers. these are the things that can be fixed. you cannot do them by making light suggestions. the culture of this company is very ingrained. our goal was to meet with the board. convince them of this privately, as in other circumstances, and the board forced us into a proxy contest and that is why we are where we are. ♪

♪ julie: this is "bloomberg best." i'm julie hyman. it has been another busy week for corporate earnings reports. let's get right to our roundup of results, starting in silicon valley with facebook. >> facebook reporting another

quarter of record sales, despite a tough week on capitol hill. revenue rose 47% to more than $10 billion, far above the top range of analysts expectations. mark zuckerberg said facebook is serious about blocking abuse. they are investing so much in security that it will impact our profitability. protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits. >> if you look at the earnings, they had a flawless quarter. expectation was to grow 40% revenue. they came in at 47%. every metric, they beat. plus, monetization avenues for instagram looking stronger for next year. and market demand pretty strong. earnings is not the problem. the problem was the expense guidance in the light of the hearing, in light of the fake news issues they are dealing with and security, they are bolstering expenses aggressively next year. that is were the profit growth slowdown concern is what you see in the market.

>> alibaba was the success story, if you will, capping this year's $250 billion stock rally. just going through some of these numbers, the september quarter revenue grew 61%, beating projections of 50%. >> it was not that extraordinary. it exceeded in the last two quarters by even larger beats against estimates. it is a case of alibaba managing expectations very well. alibaba increased its outcome for the year. in fact, it was really more of an accounting thing where they are now consolidating the logistics business into their earnings, which means the top line at the sales level, it will be plunging at the sales level on the p&l. that really is it. there is nothing really organic about this increase in the outlook for alibaba. there is slowness, a bit of weakness in the other businesses. specifically the entertainment business, the innovation business.

they are not growing that strongly right now for the last two quarters. there are a few areas where it's a little bit cagey. >> samsung electronics, a lot of noise out there. but it has been giving back to investors. quarterly reporting in earnings in chip prices. the world's biggest chipmaker planning to double its dividends next year. >> profits going gang busters despite all the headaches, if you will, in the executive -- >> who needs management? >> who needs management? it was estimated at 10.8 trillion won. operating income becoming ahead of the number you got weeks ago. that is about 12.8 billion u.s. dollars. sales of 62 trillion won. about 55 billion u.s. dollars in

sales. the dividend up 20% from 2016, and they are going to double that again in 2018. also, they are going to more than double or nearly double that. jonathan: hsbc's $100 million bet on asia seems to be paying off. the bank is hosting its largest revenue in asia. this just months before ceo stuart gulliver hands over the reins to john flynn in february of next year. >> the focus of our asian >> the focus of our asian

businesses is continuing to deliver that strong offering of services and products. improving the overall trajectory from here? less europe and more asia? >> it certainly looks that way. i think they get three quarters of their revenue from the asia region now.+++

profits also accelerated, the news coming as the ceo began shifting the bank from trading to focus on the asia pac asset management. he told me he is a little bit

cautious about the future, but overall, he was pretty pleased with his performance. >> it is a tricky situation. there's no good pipeline. the problem is what constraints will win this. a lot of good conversations, but you don't want to pull the trigger because of the uncertainty with the questions they are asking themselves, with the fed, the central banks, and north korea. we are cautious. >> reporting third-quarter results that show 50.2% drop in net income. revenues from fixed income at france's second-biggest bank fell by 28% while equities and prime services revenues dropped by 19%. >> our business has been more impacted by the equities side. because on the fixed income, we are in line with global economies.

in equities, we have been more impacted due to our business links. we have since his more oriented on structural products, which are more sensitive. we have low revenue, -19% in the addition of these two businesses. the current situation of the negotiation between the u.k. and the european union is that it is concerning for us. and if there is no more precise direction on the beginning of next year, i would say the banking industry peers will have to make early decisions in the worst case scenario. >> tesla shares plunging 5% in a pre-market, the company reporting a record quarterly

loss and a massive cash burn. ceo elon musk said production is still held. >> if it is one quarter and they get this back on track and start to sell these cars, which means they bring cash as they deliver them, it would be ok. remember, they have $3.5 billion of cash on hand. it's not like they are in danger of missing a payment or anything like that. but it's really the long-term or the medium-term view on this. on one hand, you want to say this is a one quarter delay, not a big deal. on the other hand, he did compare their production to dante's divine comedy and talking about different players of hell. it might make the investors breathe a little more easy. wpt has cut its revenue growth. the biggest advertiser company has cut its sales forecast for a second time in three months. wtp says revenue growth is expected to be broadly flat this year. >> are the challenges coming

from search and social? broadly, no. are the challenges coming from digital consultants? no, broadly, no. are the challenges coming from a focus on cost, particularly fmcg? the answer is yes. whether it is folks working on a contingency basis to cut cost or activist investors forcing companies that they are investing in or that they are potentially threatening with takeovers. whether they are forcing them to look at costs. we have seen that pressure in 2017 to a degree that we haven't witnessed really since the recession of 2009. >> europe's largest company has reported a 47% rise in third-quarter earnings. and for the year as a whole. it is on track to surpass its u.s. rival on cash flow measure. that hasn't happened in around 20 years.

solid numbers, yes? >> very solid numbers. 40% increase on adjusted net income. cash flow generation on the quarter, $10 billion. $10 billion is enough to cover capex, to cover the dividend. it has been a very strong quarter for the big five companies. they were able to generate enough cash to lead. now with oil, it could look very well for big oil. ♪

♪ >> have a look at where we are here in the equity markets. it shows you the monthly performance of asian equities for the last 30 years. astounding, isn't it? the top row that you see right there, not a single red month, if you will. that is the first time on record this deep into a calendar year that we have not been humbled by a marked decline in equities. 2017 has been weirdly fun for global investors. >> there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg and we always enjoy showing you our favorites on bloomberg television. maybe they will become your favorites. here is another function you might find useful, quic.

that will take you to our quick takes, where you can get fast insight into timely topics. here is a quick take from this week. >> it used to be when a colleague emailed you to say they are working from home, you may not have envisioned the most productive day. maybe he was doing personal chores. maybe he had a bit too much to drink. maybe he was just slacking off. >> what is your dad's job again? >> but telecommuting is legit. currently, over 60% of u.s. companies provide the option. it is often promoted as an extra perk to attract talent and allows companies to consider candidates in different cities or countries. but are remote workers productive workers? here is the situation. even if telecommuting rapidly expands as an option offered by u.s. businesses, a number of early adopters are beginning to second-guess the concept.

when discussions on to looking meeting began in the 1970's, the focus was less on productivity than it was on pollution. an amendment to the clean air act required companies with over 100 people in polluted areas to limit vehicular commutes. it did not take off until the internet. especially when companies noticed an important ancillary benefits, dwindling real estate costs. between 1995 and 2009, ibm reduced its physical space by 78 million square feet. which created at least $200 million in annual savings. but as more and more companies offered employees telecommuting benefits, some of the earliest pioneers have become skeptical. after 20 consecutive quarters of falling revenue, ibm calculated that its remote workers would perform better in close proximity to their colleagues. in 2017, thousands of remote ibm employees received an ultimatum. a move near an ibm office or lose your job. best buy, once lauded for its

approach to flex scheduling, scaled back in 2013, as did yahoo. why the change of heart? here is the argument. the survey said that only 38% of companies in the world group employees by job types. the growing trend is to group employees with various functions into teams. critics of remote work argue this structure requires a level of collaboration that simply cannot be obtained without face-to-face interactions. some losses also suspect that workers abuse remote work benefits to goof off. on the other hand, studies show employees who telecommute are happier. they are also more productive. that might be true for only certain types of workers. the most widely cited study looked at call center employees whose jobs requires little teamwork. telecommuting could narrow the gender pay gap by allowing mothers to balance childcare with work duties. one study found a spouse working from home is given more chores.

while certain aspects of telecommuting can be attractive to workers and businesses, just like anything else in life, everything in moderation. a review of studies concluded that the most successful arrangements include at least some face time in an office. julie: 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. thanks for watching. i'm julie hyman. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ david: you have now had to follow bill gates and steve ballmer, two legendary figures. satya: look, the clear message was don't try to be like us. david: did steve say if you do this well, we will be happy? satya: look, if you do a good job, maybe you will have another job, maybe you will not. david: the result of having empathy made you a better ceo? satya: my pursuit is the growing sense of empathy for people around me. david: do you get a standing ovation for what you have done? satya: no, i get a lot of people asking me, saying, hey, come and fix my computer. [laughter] >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it is