♪ >> welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." julia: we are inside the magazine's headquarters in new york. carol: a special focus on the year ahead. julia: we surf through the data to give you 50 companies that can make the biggest waves in 2018. carol: one-on-one interviews with high-profile newsmakers. julia: and the events that shape policy and decision-making that here. carol: this is "bloomberg next year. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek: the year ahead." ♪ -- next year. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek: the year ahead." ♪ carol: we're here with megan

murphy. it is all about the year ahead. you write about it in your editor's letter. first of all, can you believe we are done with 2017? megan: so much has gone on. so much unexpected has gone on. as you guys know, so much of the attention has been focused on the political year. not just in america and around the world. there are so many things in 2017 that happened that we would not have predicted that for 2018, we will double down and predict more things that may or may not happen. the most interesting thing from what i think about it 2018 is things are better than you think. you may have had an incredibly tough year. regardless of where you stand, we have seen tremendous disruption, tremendous populism, voicing sentiments of parts of this nation, other nations we may not have always liked to see. but underlying, if we look at

where we are going if we look at economic growth as a baseline measure of lifting tides, we are on a rising tide. whether or not people will screw that up is another question. carol: there are a lot of things out there that could. megan: the world is getting better for people and a lot of people at the lowest rungs of our economy. carol: is that what you want readers to walk away with? megan: i want people to think i learned new stuff about stuff i do nothing was happening, about -- i did not think was happening. things that are realistic sooner than i think. electric cars, microchips, different kinds of the building, -- new building, new ways of delivering energy. i want people to take a breath and think, ok, 2018, here we come. we are going to make a difference. 2017 is over and let's focus on what binds us together as human beings and push forward. julia: the year ahead, all the

different challenges we have faced. whether it is central banks or geopolitics. 2018, the most important factor that can drive us forward? megan: when we look at this breakdown it is the trajectory and the ramp is laid for a positive 2018 for economic growth pretty broadly, with the exception of some sectors like latin america in sub-saharan africa. but there are huge challenges. and one thing i think we have all been amazed by and we have talked about it time and time again. geopolitical risk, the immense geopolitical risk we face -- whether it is south america, brazil, brexit, germany, the u.s., mexico, india, has not been the destabilizing force we expected it to be in terms of knocking the economy off course. the underlying fundamentals remain strong. i use even just a little example, labor force participation is back on the rise. even youth unemployment trending.

that being said, 2018 could be the year that geopolitical risk does not us all back. these tensions are real. i find it hard to believe 2018 will go by without some big incident. without something happening. most likely in north korea or asia, possibly in the middle east. those regions are still unstable. what is interesting to see is if we still bet everything on a rising trajectory of growth, or whether there will be something on the geopolitical front that is so destabilizing. julia: that means drastic prices. carol: we have more out there in the global economy from peter. >> we have been complaining for years that we had subpar growth coming from the financial crisis. we did, and the international monetary fund kept having to say it looks like another sluggish year. this year in their forecast which just came out for 2018

they are saying that only did 2017 turn out to be better than we had expected it to be, 2018 will be good as well. by the way, bloomberg's own staff economists concur with that. for the first year in this outlook we used some of their data, their country by country growth forecasts for 2018. bloomberg economics has been building out its set of forecasts. so we said look, let's go with the homebrewed bloomberg economic forecast. julia: one of my favorite lines was even the germans are happy. [laughter] julia: the story of 2018 is how to we manage the synchronous growth we have seen around the world? there are all sorts of elements coming into play here. central banks will be a key theme, the fed, the ecb, japan or china. peter: if you are in the lower

bound which we were for a long time, interest rates could not go lower, it is pretty clear. you just keep rates low. you buy bonds at the long end of the curve and you go ahead and do fiscal policy. you tax cuts, spending. you basically throw all the ammunition at it you can. suddenly when the economy starts to normalize, now you have a two-handed problem. and all the central banks are facing this now. the federal reserve is the furthest along because the u.s. economy is the furthest along in its recovery. you don't want to kill off the recovery by prematurely raising rates. you also don't want to be behind the curve and raise rates too late and allow inflation to kick in. that can be hard. julia: a little bit. peter: we still want more but

the projection is if things keep going the way they are, we will go past that 2% margin. julia: creating a cover image for the year ahead was the job of our creative director. talk to us about the front cover and how you wanted to grab the reader. alexander: we basically wanted to give everyone a feel for a wide range of topics in the issue. what people can expect for the year ahead and what we are looking at now and projecting forward. covers the topics of technology, politics, economics. the full breadth basically. carol: it reminds me of already being inside the magazine, but having read the stories there is so much that will be going on in 2018. alexander: i think we have an idea of what we are looking at. carol: after a busy 2017. get ready, everybody. alexander: we want everybody to know we

are thinking about this. julia: take us through some of the themes. brexit, china, space travel. obviously my favorite. alexander: microchips and the president and the presidency and u.s. politics. carol: what 2018 could me for -- could bring for president trump. julia: plus, why technology companies could have more censorship in china. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ ♪

carol: welcome back. i'm carol massar. julia: and i'm julia chatterly. you can find us online at businessweek.com. in the politics section, a look at what president trump's 2017 may tell us about his 2018. carol: here's matthew philip. matthew: it has been a failure. when you look back at the campaign promises he made, drain the swamp, building the wall, infrastructure, repealing obamacare, getting taxes done. none of those things have been accomplished. this is to say nothing of the russia investigation. so it has been a historic bad first year in the oval office for president trump. when you look back over 200 plus years, you can probably put him in the top three. carol: you highlighted big things like obamacare and infrastructure. i made a list.

pointing on the sir step to get the job done, did he do it? matthew: no, i don't think so. part of this is also the unanswered phone. i have said recently it is a part of this strategy in kind of draining the swamp and limiting the scope and size of government in american business. but -- but but but -- when you don't appoint basic people into jobs to get things done, you are not able to get your policy done to begin with. carol: you are not appointing people, but you have appointed some high-level people who have resigned or left the white house. that can't be part of the plan. matthew: we always knew there would be a learning curve for this president. i don't think we realized how steep it was going to be and how much self-inflicted wounds he would cause himself on a daily basis in terms of messaging, and when you see the press secretary sarah huckabee

sanders have to walk out and kind of fight this battle every day and lose the message. julia: he has created dissent in -- tensions within the gop itself. mcconnell at times. we have seen some high-profile resignations and say they will not be up for reelection. to what extent the those -- do those problems continue on into 2018? these tensions he has created this year? matthew: i think in every extent. the only way to see the second year is look at the past and to know the failures of the first year are going to haunt the second year. especially when it comes down to taxes. they have a ticking clock of thanksgiving where they want to do something on this. but without the establishment wing of the party in congress you will have a hard time doing that. our writer does a great job of walking through a lot of the

problems. you can envision a scenario he -- you can envision a scenario where he gets serious and does some major policy agendas next year, but you struggle to believe that scenario. carol: 2018 is shaping up to be the year china cracks down harder on u.s. tech companies. julia: especially when it comes to censorship. jeff: the regime has already been the most repressive of any in china in the internet era. the states' regulators are already pursuing a much more aggressive crackdown on websites they consider offensive in some way, and for a wide variety including political reasons. this past spring alone, they shuttered about 4000 websites that were representing erroneous views for offending

-- or offending them in some other way. they have also enlisted the country's main internet companies, tencent, alibaba, baidu to help solidify this. carol: they are working with their own companies, the big ones, to help on the crackdown. that is interesting. jeff: and in a bunch of different ways that perhaps would not sound that crazy to someone who is been studying this case closely in the u.s. around the world. nonetheless, it is striking for its level of -- how pervasive it can be. wechat has more than one billion users. when the nobel peace prize winner died this summer in chinese state custody, the first time that has happened to a nobel peace prize winner, the service was flooded with messages about

lu and images of him. wechat basically managed to block all of them in short order, and it's gone down the line to censoring images of winnie the pooh because there are strong comparisons. carol: one thing i loved in this story was a line that said president xi, it is not about him not understanding the power of the internet but understanding how the internet works and that is why he is so careful about control. jeff: absolutely. xi's life was will forged by his -- well forced by his family's victimization by ma o's communist party. he is a control freak about the control of information and who sees what. carol: as we look to 2018 and what it means for the internet and online in china, what should we expect? more of the same? tougher in terms of access to material and content online?

jeff: based on xi's signaling, it seems he is consolidating control for the next five years. internet companies can expect things to get worse before they get better. some companies unlike facebook and google are already making concessions to china. carol: they want to be there. jeff: for any service that was to be responsible to its shareholders and earnings season. it is hard to resist the allure of one billion users when markets are pretty mature. linkedin is starting to censor posts in china. microsoft has begun allowing access to its source code. even apple this year started deleting apps from the chinese store they let users get around the firewall. julia: central-bank leaders get ready to play musical chairs.

carol: in jim coulter tbg tells us what he sees ahead in 2018. julia: this is "bloomberg businessweek: the year ahead." ♪

♪ julia: welcome back. carol: you can also get us on the radio on sirius xm, am 1130 in new york, 1330 in boston, and am 960 in the bay area. julia: and in asia on the

bloomberg radio plus app. carol: 2018 will see a new central bank appointment in the united states and potentially in china, japan and europe. julia: we asked christina lindberg what to expect. christina: we will see three of the world's major central banks begin to withdraw stimulus. actually two. japan continues longer than everyone else. that will be a turning point for investors, for economies, for companies in europe that have received support from the ecb. it is going to be a big inflection point. carol: we are talking about tons and tons of money. cristina: trillions. carol: make it easy within the global economies, and now we are stepping back? cristina: it is the moment everyone has been waiting for. that does not mean we will not see some taper tantrum's we have

seen in the u.s. and europe. there has been a great deal of communication about schedules and the pace of things. in the u.s. we have already started. in october, it was the first month that the fed allowed a portion of bonds on its balance sheet to mature without buying new ones. last week the ecb also is set at its schedule. people that have these parameters and they can sort of try to get their brains adjusted around that. we are going to see a moment in which on a net basis there will be less stimulus going in. that is probably going to have an effect. julia: you say the transparency is as much as they can provide. still lacking. inflation points towards a more great acceleration and set of a retraction of stimulus.

cristina: for investors we have to think about this sort of flood of money. it has bid up stocks and bonds twice to unprecedented levels. now we will see this pullback. what happens then? we talked to an investor who said even though we know it is supposed to happen, it is going to hurt. it has to hurt. that is the measure it is working. and from an economic point of view, the real test will be -- we have gone a decade without knowing whether these economies can stand up on their own. we are taking away their crutches and say walk. that will be the big test. julia: megan murphy has talked about the resilience in 2017 and how optimistic she is about 2018. does the synchronous global growth we are talking about here offset some of the stimulus we

are retracting? can we make that argument. the fundamentals will kick in. hurray! cristina: i think we are in a better position for this happening than the what have -- that we wouldn't have anticipated six months ago. japan looks like it is doing quite well. the latest gdp figures in the u.s. were positive. europe, we see countries like spain have recovered the gdp they lost in the crisis. from that standpoint, yes. but who knows? julia: and the economics section the ceo a private equity firm tpg gives us his thoughts and -- on the global economy and outlooks for inflation. >> he is very optimistic. he says, look, we have over 200 companies around the world with a front row seat. he says the front row seats to the show is going great. in the u.s. things are chugging along. his concern is the market is

chugging along while there is so much uncertainty in terms of politics and social dynamics. he is also scratching his head about inflation. he sees so much inflation and asset prices, but not that underlying cpi, the real inflation measures. he says that is a little concerning as well to see a disconnect. carol: there are lots of players in the private equity space. jim coulter is a big deal. a big firm and they have so many different companies. they are one of the major players. on their website have investments in airbnb, energy, burger king, natural resources, health care. they are a great snapshot. devon: they are a great snapshot. it is interesting to see where they are spending a lot of their time now. much of that is in technology. you mentioned airbnb. they are in uber.

jim talked about these dynamics that are making him excited about technology. it is all about disruption. they are based in san francisco. they have a front row seat for that world, the tech world. they have ingrained themselves in that world. you are seeing dynamics. the big one he is thinking about these days is the shift in consumer spending dollars for from material things to experiences. carol: i used to think this was an empty statement, but we have seen in the spending trends. devon: family have seen tpg put -- and we have seen tpg put their money in this trend. they made investments in things like cirque du soleil in the past year and a half. he said cirque du soleil has the same volume of ticket sales as broadway. you just don't see it because it is not all in one place. another one is the viking river cruises and ocean cruises. he says people are really

spending money on experiences, especially once -- especially ones they can share. julia: social media driven. >> he said concerts and live events are things he did not really understand why they were becoming so valuable, but he sees s and all age groups seeking out experiences they can then share with their friends and contacts. it is fascinating. carol: the biggest national security threat of 2018 according to former cia director general david trias. julia: what it might take for companies to take the threat of hacking seriously enough to make changes. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek: the year ahead." ♪ retail.

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see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit or go to xfinitymobile.com. julia: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm julia chatterly. carol: and i'm carol massar. looking ahead to a potential post-isis world and what to expect in iraq and syria. julia: plus the next hack attack, all of that and more up ahead in "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ julia: this year-ahead edition of "bloomberg businessweek" is

absolutely littered with stunning interviews. one of them, former director of the cia general petraeus. megan: well, yeah. if we look at 2018 as an area -- as a year of possible congregation, political risk he , is an expert to talk about looking at the hot areas, which will be north korea and the middle east. i want to single out his comments on north korea. you know, he backs the trump administration and what they are doing and trying to force china to be the active player reining in north korea. as we know, that has not worked, it has not worked as well as one might have thought until now, and that is because china's biggest fear is that we will see the disintegration of north korea as we know it and reunification of korea. that is their worst fear, that is something they do not want to happen. putting pressure on china potentially becomes better in 2018 because president xi has just come off this congress.

he has been widely thought of as the most powerful chinese leader for decades. he can make real changes in their global outlook and their military outlook. their policy outlook toward north korea. there are a lot of exit the -- eggs in that basket and that is what i am looking at in 2018. carol: was there a part of the world he thought would be the most important? megan: i think north korea but he is also looking at the middle east. one interesting thing that he said is that as far as we have come against isis and the islamic state, we will always confront virtual challenges. it is very hard for us to mobilize against lone wolf attacks. it's very hard for us. they are so sophisticated on the internet now in how they recruit, train. even if you dismantle it in a very traditional military,

physical way, territory, ground, tanks, troops, the virtual war with groups like the islamic state and other groups is almost harder and more powerful in terms of their resistance. i think that is a really important point. carol: let's talk about cyber hacking and cyber warfare. max writes about it, spilling out into our everyday life. megan: max is fantastic about these things. people think about their credit and there bank accounts as a target but really the biggest threat is these mass infrastructure attacks like the kind we have seen in europe and in particular in ukraine, which are believed to be russian orchestrated. things like taking down an entire power grid, the way that they measure medicine for people. serious infrastructure attacks. are we ready for that? we have seen isolated attacks against the grid, but they seemed more exploratory in terms

of what could people do if they tried. when you get a real deal one of people taking out our electrical grid, when you think about trying to take out telecommunications, whether we are prepared for that threat is something that max goes into. >> here is max chapman on that story. max: in fact there were two attacks, one in kiev and one in western ukraine. in both cases, the power went out. that obviously happens all the time in cities in the developed world, the developing world. this was new because we believe that hackers turned the power off. they were able to use a trojan, which is a kind of malware, to break into the ukrainian electric grid and turn off the lights for people that are far removed from the front where the actual fighting was going on, which is actually in the eastern part of the country. that is significant both because it was the first time the hackers have sort of moved into

the physical world in a big way but also as a piece of psychological warfare. because if you are sitting in the capital and you think that the war was far removed from you and everything that you care about and someone reaches all the way to your home and turns off the lights, that is a new feeling and it is a scary feeling. there is reason to believe that in the united states or parts of western europe could be next. which is a terrifying possibility. carol: let's take it from there. you take a look at what it means for cyber hacking in 2018. what are people expecting? max: the thing that people are worried about -- we are seeing in the news every day, the russian discussion around fake news and propaganda, russia has been effective in the united states and ukraine, europe. there is reason to think that there could be an attempted attack or further intrusions on part of our infrastructure.

julie: do we believe the russians were behind the ukrainian attack? to what extent do we believe this was a test case? max: the security company fire eye says that they have found the same code in the united states. there have also been other types of malware and types of things found on other computers in american infrastructure. the sort of working theory is that it is possible that what happened in the ukraine was either a test in terms of trying to see, what exactly would it take to take down an electricity system, or it is a warning shot. to say this is what we are capable of doing. it is interesting that the international community did not move to condemn this, did not do that much, which sends a message to the russians that maybe they should try something bigger.

maybe a bigger attack, maybe in the united states. julia: you are talking about infrastructure. max: you should look at what happened in the ukraine this year. it looked like a ransomware attack, done to steal money. in fact it was to destroy data. in destroying that data, they took down huge swaths of the country. a ukrainian security expert told me that the country ground to a halt when this happened. there are lots of ways were data breaches can spill into the real world. to give you another slightly scary possibility, a group of iranians were charged recently with having broken into a dam near new york city. there has been russian malware found in nuclear plants, basically all over our

infrastructure. and the government has been worrying about this because we have not been doing a great job protecting it, and that is why it is concerning. carol: up next, will the biggest ipo happen next year? julia: what happens to sales when electric cars lose tax incentives? ♪ ♪

julia: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: you can find us online on businessweek.com. julia: and on the mobile app. carol: in the energy section of the year-ahead issue, investors are wondering if 2018 will be of a that they go online. julia: and become the biggest ipo in history. >> 2018 was the target and it looks tight. there are basic questions that remain unanswered, mainly, how much is this thing worth?

the saudi's say $2 trillion, but you put this under a microscope, and analysts say a trillion is more likely. the question is, where are they going to list this thing? they are down to new york or london or hong kong. each one has advantages and problems. you will get the highest valuation in new york, you have all kinds of accounting and regulatory issues. london might be more easy legally. but you worry about the valuation. hong kong, less legal things but a lot less money and capital that will be willing to invest there. julia: what is saudi aramco itself saying? what is the ceo saying about it? >> they are very cagey. they say they are on track for 2018 but when pressed they say it will be up to the shareholders. who are the shareholders? right now, it is the government.

i think that they realize how quickly that they are going. perhaps too fast. this is arguably the most important thing that saudi will do for the next hundred years so they do not want to mess this up. they want to get this right. there's no reason to push it for the sake of getting under the 2018 time horizon. most people think that 2019 is more realistic. julia: getting this done as a -- is a big part of the grander vision for saudi arabia. talk to us about that. there is pressure to get it out into the market. >> vision 2030 is a huge economic revitalization reform plan that, again mohammed bin solomon, who not long ago was the deputy crown prince, meaning he was third in line, now is the crown prince, he is 32 or 33 years old, his nickname is mr. everything. he has purview over the economy, military, security, and obviously politics.

this is his brainchild. you have seen western consulting firms get a piece of this. he wants to push saudi arabia into the modern world. when oil prices crashed in 2014, the tide went out and exposed all kinds of problems inside the saudi economy, which again is basically driven entirely by oil. this is his plan to kind of diversify the economy. the idea is that by selling off even 5%, you raise on the order of $50 billion. even as a small sliver of the company would stand as the most valuable ipo in the history of all ipo's. you take that cash and diversify it, throw into infrastructure projects in america, a big stake in uber. he thinks of himself as the

millennial that he is, really. he is trying to get saudi on the same level as some of its other gulf neighbors, like dubai, where you can drive if you are a woman. that's a problem. for that specific point, we have seen that rolled back recently where women are going to be allowed to drive. he is keenly aware of how saudi is perceived globally as not a place where you necessarily want to put a lot of capital unless you want to invest in crude. he is going to take their economy into the 21st century. carol: in the retail section. julia: u.s. electric car makers are worried about what will happen to sales next year if washington kills a tax incentive. >> it is going well but it is 1% of the market. what you have seen are three car companies selling most of these vehicles.

tesla, the big brand name. they have the model x out there, selling for a lot of money, cool cars. everybody wants a piece of the elon musk brand. investors or consumers even admire it even if they do not buy the cars. nissan and gm have brought out lower-priced cars, particularly for sales in california. -- primarily to meet regulations in california. you have so many sold as a percentage of the overall sales. that is what those vehicles do, the nissan leaf and the chevy bolt. the cars meet regulations and put technology on the road. most of the sales have been tesla, which is by far the biggest player. you are going to see the growth over the next five years because car companies are bringing them to market. getting them sold is another matter. they have captured the imagination of a lot of people, but they have not captured the checkbooks of a lot of consumers.

julia: i am glad that you brought that up. i want to understand how it works in the united states. how much demand is fueled by tax credits from the federal level? how do they work, both for the consumer and the car companies? >> there are a lot of things pushing car companies to sell them and consumers to buy them. on the consumer side, there is a federal tax credit to buy an electric car. $7500. if you get a hybrid, it can drop down to $2500 but that is the money you're looking at. in 11 states, 13 now, there are tax incentives that range from $1000 to $5,000. if you buy an electric car in colorado, you can get $12,500 in government breaks. >> that is a lot. >> that is a lot. carol: that is going to fuel momentum in terms of juicing up sales of e.v.s. of e.v.'s. david: they had quite a bit to

do with the momentum. if you are buying a tesla s, $120,000, that might not make you buy it, although i would argue that somebody who can afford a $120,000 car is good with their money and would take the tax break. to illustrate, georgia had a tax credit of $5,000 a few years ago, and they got rid of it in the summer of 2015 and the month after, they sold fewer than 100. before that they were selling 1400 a month. at the time, the most popular e.v. on the road, the only one of lower-priced, was the nissan leaf. that kind of government incentive on a sticker price of $30,000 or $35,000 makes a big difference for a car like that. carol: up next, jeff koons expands beyond the gallery and into retail.

julia: 50 companies you should be watching next year. ♪ ♪

carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. julia: and i'm julia chatterly. you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm and in new boston, 90 91 fm in washington, d.c., and a.m. 960 in the bay area. carol: and in london and in asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. julia: in the retail section. carol: internationally renowned artist jeff koons talks about his collaboration with louis vuitton. reporter: jeff koons, the superstar global artist whose works have sold at auction for more than $58 million, a record for a living artist.

a form of retail, but recently he has been doing a bit -- going a bit down market. if you call louis vuitton down market. several thousand dollars for a purse. he has been doing collaborations involving leonardo da vinci and so on. monet. carol: they are interesting, aren't they? >> they certainly are. as somebody who goes to art fairs, you see collectors carrying them around. carol: you are going to dig into why he did that, it is a more mass appeal, versus his artwork. or is it? >> that is the question that i have asked him. he maintains that two things are part of the same whole. he is somebody that adamantly does not believe in art for art's sake. he believes in pleasing the viewer and giving the viewer to

feel that they have come away from the experience better in some way. it is less about what he wants to do for himself and more about what he can do for somebody else. with his eye-popping sculptures. i mean, the thing about a jeff koons sculpture is that, like it or hate it, consider it kitsch or high art, it is eye-catching. they are incredibly shiny or colorful or weird or playful or simply massive. he does this 40 foot high sculpture of a dog made out of flowers. i mean, you can say a lot of things about it but you cannot ignore it. right? and i think he -- i mean, he said to me that he tried to take the same approach with his purses. and the collaboration with these verses. he wanted people to look at these things and enjoy them.

and get a sense of art history with them. carol: i feel like he takes the great masters, in terms of artists, and gives them a whimsical play with the bags which is what he does with his art. >> completely. carol: it is just a nice kind of mix there. >> completely. the other fun tidbit which is anecdotal -- he did not say this to me in the interview but there have been photographs his homes in the past and he almost exclusively collects old masters and dutch still lives. this is a private passion that has become more public through his purses. julia: which is quite fascinating. carol: bloomberg intelligence identified the 50 companies worth special attention in 2018. julia: for a whole host of reasons. in some cases it is because they are about to announce significant products or services. in others, it is because they face unusual challenges.

carol: let's get into the retail group. you put gap in there. they have been troubled for a while. >> as our analyst saw, and we looked at this a little more, they really do seem to be in the midst of a turnaround. what they have been challenged by is fast fashion. that is one of the challenges and really trying to speed up their production and getting products onto the floor as quickly as the h&m's of the world. while they are not quite there yet with that degree of speed they are definitely doing that. you see fresh products coming in and styles that shoppers are more interested in. you know how fickle young shoppers can be. something has clicked with that. there is a slight pulling away, we have all seen it, the constant discount. 40% or even 60%.

little by little, not to say that there are not trouble spots, but the gap itself seems to be turning things around. they have a great campaign coming for the holidays that harkens back to musical ad campaigns in the late 90's and early 2000. i think there is some excitement around that. carol: in litigations, we talk about qualcomm. you included qualcomm on this list. this will be a make or break year for them potentially. >> what is unclear is how long this will play out because the litigation is several lawsuits filed by apple against qualcomm. this gets to the chips that qualcomm makes in iphones. counter suit by qualcomm talking about patent infringement, trying to block the sales of iphones in china. it is really messy on all fronts. it has been a drag on qualcomm. that might extend into 2018 and

could be problematic which is why qualcomm is on the list. we certainly see companies with litigation, and that is always a challenge. we tend to see a lot more of those companies in the technology space. whether it is patent issues, licensing issues, a whole range of issues with those kinds of companies. chip companies, handset companies, the blackberry suit that we write about. carol: you did cover everything. entertainment media, chip companies, you also have energy, financial, shippers. you also have pharaceuticals. >> we do. we have interesting ones like spark therapeutics, which does not have a product on the market, but is close to receiving approval from what our analysts say on a therapy that helps with a hereditary retinal disorder. they are expecting that imminently. there is so much promise around

that that this is one that we felt deserved to be on the list. carol: there are so many drug companies, whether it is an orphan drug or a small segment. >> we are seeing it with cancer and small treatments like this one. pharmaceutical is always a big one. typically what you will see with pharmaceuticals unless they are engaged in litigation, they are landing on these lists because these therapies which are quite costly and promising. carol: "bloomberg businessweek" is available on newsstands right now. julia: and online and on our mobile app. i love the edition this week. so many events that took place in 2017 setting us up for a jam-packed 2018. carol: we have to talk about china, what happens to that country in terms of growth going forward. a great look at companies like tesla. a lot to discuss.

julia: and donald trump. what will 2018 bring? more bloomberg television next. ♪ ♪qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

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