interfered in any way in special counsel robert mueller's russia investigation. this as members of the house judiciary committee asked him on conversations with president trump during a sometimes confrontational hearing. whitaker was responding to pastrat questions of his criticism of a probe which donald has repeatedly called a witchhunt. >> i went to be specific about this because it will allay a lot of fears that have existed among this committee, among the legislative branch largely, and

maybe a most the american people. we have followed the special causes regulations to a t. there has been no decision that has required me to take any action. and i have not interfered in any way with the special counsel's investigation. a, smith from georgia called overhearing pointless, saying democrats simply "want to damage the president through a dog and pony show." house leaders kevin mccarthy is expressing optimism on border security funding. he spoke to supporters today at the capital about bipartisan efforts to reach a deal. >> talking to a number of democrats individually, it is amazing how many of them who say that i am for providing more money for barriers. unfortunately, their leadership seems to keep saying no. so we will tell. -- so this weekend, it will tell us about where we are going.

mark: the chairman of the senate appropriations committee says the president appears to be taking a more positive view of capitol hill talks on border security. senator shelby says thursday's session in the oval office was "the most positive meeting i have had in a long time. " mr. trump is undergoing his annual physical today, his second since taking office. last year, the president's personal physician to cleared him to be in excellent health. he said mr. trump quote "has incredibly good genes pure con this year the exam is be overseen by a navy veteran who is now the residence physician. the feud between france and italy could put business at risk. it began when italy's premier, luigi demaio visited with a leader of the yellow vest protest movement near paris. the french president retaliated

by withdrawing his ambassador to italy. the first casualty could be a planned. $10 billion high-speed link between turin and leon. he said this will not go ahead as long as the coalition is in power. global news, 24 hours a day, on air and at tic-toc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ >> from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, this is bloomberg markets: the close. i am lisa abramowicz and for caroline hyde. scarlet: and i am scarlet fu. right now you have stocks still on the downside, although they have come off their lows.

look at energy stocks, the leading laggards here for the well.nd for the week as amazon is something we have been trying to figure out why exactly falling. yes, there are a lot of feuds, whether it is the company versus new york city activists, or the ceo with the national enquirer, but there doesn't seem to be a real reason here. lisa: yes, there is a bid for bonds. on a broader level, if you look at iron ore, it is actually losing some steam also after a really big week. nasdaq almost positive on the day, and that was the iron ore, a little bit down after a 27% gain in 10 sessions. the brazilian company having a lot of issues with its dam. and 30 year yields are also getting the bid, interesting, after an auction of notes earlier this week. scarlet: so it is decidedly

risk-on, with 20 minutes to go before the end of trading. so how are investors positioning themselves? if you look at their etf flows, there are getting more defensive. we look at etf flows to get a sense of how investors view equities. but do they necessarily tell us anything about price action? guest: it is a good point. we do see that the flows, the day after a big selloff or gain in the market, the flows tell us how the people are positioning themselves. what they are telling us is that people are anxious about the market. we had a huge rally in the s&p 500 in a january, yet equity flows did not reflect that. we actually saw outflows from stock etfs. when he saw where people actually putting money to work in the u.s. market, they were looking at minimum volatility and quality. they were trying to play the way.defensive

lisa: how does a value play into this? usually that is considered value, which is defensive. guest: right, it was a quick surprise to me. -- a big surprise to me. value, these are not things that are mispriced by the market, the low price to earnings ratio, they are cheap. when you have a volatile market with more risk coming in, those stocks may not be where you want to be, even though they are cheap. scarlet: that is equities. when you look at the fixed income market, we were talking about the rally in high-yield bonds, it doesn't look like investors are being cautious in fixed income. guest: yes, that is interesting. this change in outlook from the fixed income space. we have seen people pulling money out of short duration bonds and putting them into the longer parts of the curve. very interesting when you see the flows, short and ultrashort have been the place to go.

i have been looking at a short-term etf with a one month to a one month to three-month duration, it had been getting a lot of inflows. that could be a sign that people are putting cash back to work in the market. reviewed are doing that, but on the fixed income side rather than the equity side. it is the one year anniversary of the volatility .vent of last year, vomageddon lisa: people think that bonds lead, but the idea that you have risk-on in credit and a risk-off in equities, you have to wonder what is going on. that etf hasets, gotten lots of flows as well, right? guest: and it is replicated on the equity side as well. whether it is em or fixed income equities, people look at the kind of macro picture and they look at where u.s. and european

growth is, and they say, developed markets aren't looking so good. emerging markets are looking better, particularly with the fed, where it is. lisa: how much is the confusing message from the fed, if it is going to state put, whether it might indicate a weaker macro economic backdrop? rachel: what the flows are telling us is that people are hoping that that is the case on the fixed income side. on the equity side, it could spell the worst for equity markets. people are being cautious. bloomberg's rachel evans, thank you so much for that perspective. up, mattel has earnings that show an uncertain future for the tour industry. investors are not playing around. this is bloomberg. ♪

scarlet: a quick check of the latest headlines. --s gun lot has harsh words this ceo has harsh words. that this french bank is being run to the ground. no comment from socgen. the banks shares fell to a five-year low yesterday and it has plans to shrink its trading business. in germany, shares of wirecard plunged today after there is an investigation into reports about internet payment. they say that they are not investigating wirecard employees over accounting fraud investigations. wirecard has denied the claims. are offices in singapore were searched by authorities. national enquirer says that it 'ill investigate that bezos

claims were substantiated. and that is your business flash update. lisa: now we get to talk about barbie. a mixed bag for the tour industry. mattel is soaring, with its record.day gain on here to explain that and what it means for the future of toys is our own matt townsend, he covers consumers for us here on bloomberg. . what does it tell you about the state of toys today? matt: it is a muddy picture. the toys "r" us liquidation last year was a huge hit to the industry and we're seeing it play out differently with the two biggest players out there. how come he didn't play so much of an impact on walmart or target? matt: it is all part of their revenue, so i do know what the percentage is, but it is not a bit out of their business.

what we saw was that mattel took a bigger hit from the toys "r" us impact last quarter, they got rid of a lot of inventory. .asbro waited to do that so hasbro is getting there medicine this quarter which is whether stock is down. lisa: so there's a good question about the issue of electronics and how kids are using more video games, not playing with many toys as they used to. can we parse out what is popular right now based on these results? what is working? are toys still a thing? matt: toys are still working. there is a new brand called lol surprise? it is a huge hit. lisa: i am too young. is it a boys thing or a gross thing? [laughter] matt: it is from a privately held company. there are still some huge hit

toys, and the despite toys "r" us liquidating last year, retail sales were down only 2%. not a catastrophic decline, despite toys "r" us, which is a five -- $5 billion company, going away. scarlet: is it similar to the retail industry, where it is very hit or miss, or have they not figured out their supply chain and how to keep inventory at the right level? matt: it is a little bit of both. kids are fickle. you have to turn over new consumers -- think about this, every three or four years, he have to win over a bunch of new 3, 4, 5, 6-year-old's, and it is difficult. and there is a lot more competition for kids attention. all the content they consume, netflix, and then there is a mountain of other toys coming as well. lisa: as far as an online presence, and

direct-to-consumer, how much more is that important now given toys -- toys "r" us demise? matt: and they are both trying to develop direct-to-consumer business, it is a small part of their business now but it is something that there are trying to develop it. but it is still a work in progress. scarlet: i don't think parents or kids even think that way, that this is a hasbro toy, or is it a mattel toy. matt: that is a problem. they don't really have branding. where is disney does. lisa: talking about how fickle things can be. things flew through. scarlet: remember the rubber bands shipped like animals? lisa: that was another one. matt: there are all these toys that last a season and then they are gone. it is the fashion industry, that is what they call it. scarlet: for three-year-old kids. lisa: bloomberg consumer reporter, matt townsend, thank

you very much. as ahead to where the close with about 15 minutes to go, that week on aed the strong note and ended on a week note this week. chipmakers are a big reason why. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ >> this is countdown to the close, i am lisa abramowicz in for caroline hyde. scarlet: and i am scarlet fu. joining us at this hour is joe weisenthal. we started the week on a strong note and now we are peering out at the end of the week. joe: not a great close to the week. much moren down earlier in the day, so it is a bit of a bounce. it has been all week, it is felt like there hasn't been a ton of market news.

lisa: even on earnings. everybody is talking about jeff bezos. what have i been watching -- i don't know, jeff bezos. [laughter] lisa: i think when china closes, we don't know what to talk about because evidently, they drive a lot of action. joe: has been the the key question, what will happen? we are trying to get some traction on the growth efforts, so we get a week off from the question. scarlet: and sometimes, they might announce some stimulus measures before the break, but there has been a radio silence out of china. may be that plays into it as well. when we look at industry groups in the s&p 500, there are a lot more gainers to speak of. households and personal products leading the way. we have former names and -- farmer names, and food and beverage, tobacco. on the downside, banks leading the way. 1%, retailersf by

as well. certainly, the toymakers are a big reason why retailers are lower. away yeah, we can get from the barbie references today. scarlet: that gap lower at the open, we have just been coming of our lows and grinding our way higher. here we are come a we are going to end with losses on the day. the nasdaq has managed. to avoid a loss for the week. we are just moments away from the close. let's look at what is going on as we head into the close. beside gets us started. lisa: let's look at electronic arts, this is a shift in gear after we saw the big plunge in shares today. we saw the biggest surge in the company's history, up more than 50%. why russian market looks like we might be a mature compete with the biggest competitor, fort with a new, game, apex legends, which

attracted over 10 million users in the first 72 hours. but if you flip the board and take a look at some of the others in the space, take two and active is up a bit, gamestop has been struggling for a long time, still down as well. ma: it looks like goodyear will finish in a last lace in the s&p 500, it dropped 10% of the opening. it has just bumped along the tarmac all day. the worst performing on the s&p 500. this is even after they preannounced the results last month, so investors knew the bad news was coming. they missed both the top and bottom lines in the fourth quarter. an extreme the optimistic outlook for 2019 is giving the market optimistic. there is really nothing for investors to grab onto. a look at am taking

columbia sportswear. having their best day in three years, up 16%, after they came up with earnings. well above expectations a lot of that was because of tighter inventory management as well as some unseasonably cold weather, that helped them. revenue growth was also up about above analysts expectations. their price target was raised call,032 118, a bullish saying that they have the brand momentum as well as a lot of innovation in the pipeline. and expansion opportunities as well. other analysts are more cautious, one of them basically saying that while results are strong, he is still concerned about a potential slowdown in china. scarlet: thank you so much for that set up. if you look at the s&p 500 in its 11 industry groups, energy is leading losses as well as for the week, not just for the day.

down, this was the s&p 500 -- every dei -- we bring in our cross asset reporter. one analyst thought or was leading the different asset classes. what is your take on the move we have seen in energy stocks? >> i think through december and now, you can get a gauge on how markets are really, by looking at ig spreads, oil, those two elements didn't do very well this week. another factor in there, i don't think you can talk about that without talking about the u.s. dollar. it is kind of sneaky, out of nowhere, this u.s. dollar rally we have had since the fed decision. i think the question to be asking as an investor is, the u.s. real rate differentials

miniver not be getting any bigger, but it is still commending a big lead and it is not catching out -- catching up to the rest of the rod as fast as we may have thought. so the risk for -- there is a risk for assets right now. joe: we have had this recurring theme this week that it has been quiet. even on the down days or the updates, there hasn't been a lot of action. what could jolt us in one direction or other? luke: one analyst has been saying that we are in a no man's land, for the past 10 days. looking for economists that can break this out. one big one is the earnings , for good get some stability in that and give people a little more reason to believe, to be confident about what they will get by year and. and also, a resolution on trade, those were the things he picked as the two things that could lead to a rally. scarlet: everyone has been

much made their peace that we are on this slide. luke: it is a hold up right now and it is harder for them to stop fighting when we are continuously getting headlines about four data. -- four data. data.poor it makes it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. lisa: it was just pointed out to me that real estate investment trusts, which have been on a tear. people have been struggling to figure out why. i don't know if it is about the fed being on par is, but it does seem that a notable move at a time when it is otherwise usually quiet. luke: i think that might be the last place people feel safe, reaching for yields in a big way. if you look at how well high yields have done out of the gate before taking a bit of a step a 15 sessionb's on winning streak in terms of their spread narrowing, real estate

might be one place people feel like they could reach for yields that aren't crowded. lisa: but it is strange, at a time when the united states, no? to me ass strange well, but i guess it does have the combination. duration. where are people positioned now? even with this rebound in risky assets, we haven't seen much steepening of the curve. when you talk to people about the next direction on longer assets, longer dated what are they saying? luke: i think people have been very happy to be in longer dated assets, when you look at etf 3, 7, 10 is basically plus, that have been getting a lot of flows. so that kind of raises the prospect of, ok, where do things go from here? if you decompose the 10 year premium real yield term

break even, a lot of those things are at a pretty low level -- and also,ybe rate volatility, extremely low levels especially at the long and. if you're looking for the potential of a shock to the system, it would seem that the biggestset chop, the one could come from long-term yields sticking up, doing by any kind of price pressures emerging . lisa: with people talking about the potential for disruption, foreign investors are flooding to japan and they have been so far this week, buying bonds with zero coupons, that have effective negative yields. so there is still a search for yields and there is still a super low rate environment will bully that is keeping this in check? luke: and when you talk about the doj trade buying bonds to the expectation the bank of japan will not be able to taper anytime soon and they will have

to keep buying. you look at action around the world, long data debt all over. scarlet: we are 10 seconds away, but the s&p 500, slipping into green. we are closing at session highs. we indexes. kathleen: the dow was the first -- looking at the industry group it changed a lot because out of 11, 7 are in the green, led by consumer staples, tech and utilities. joe: someone was talking about the consistency with late day buying. scarlet: it was in mliv for sure. joe: someone sitting in that

chair made that point. my have been -- might have been scott minard. there was a sign that augured well. scarlet: buy the dip at the very end. let's take a deeper dive into this. i want to look at up emerging-market debt because it is a tale of different reorg -- of different realities. this is a $70 million ishares emerging-market credit etf nominated in dollars. it is declining over the past three sessions. biggest decline in three sessions since september 20. you are shooting to see a fade to a rally that has otherwise been hot. if you flip up the boards, you have not seen that affect flows yet. the total assets in this fund have been on fire. let's check out how much they have grown, $2 billion have flown into this etf less than two months. this fund is now bigger than hyg, the high-yield bond etf,

still growing despite the fact the share price is starting to dip and questions are emerging whether this trade has gone too far, too fast. reporter: global stocks were going for their first down week of the year. and we looked like we were heading back. thelly may have kept us in green. the moves this week have made the january rally seem like a distant memory and it could be more distant for some investors. take a look at this chart here. the two largest s&p 500 tracking etf's some of that is the gray. etf's, that is the gray. they start to divert act in december. the s&p rally faded and investors bought into the etf's. as they rallied again, they started -- putting that money

into other asset classes. as it burned, it may have got too hot. announcer: now could be a good time to take a look at some assessment what is going on. when you look at market breadth we are seeing a soup -- a few signs -- 20% of the s&p hit oversold conditions. that is not something we have seen since last year, january 2018. seems like a small number but when you consider the last time we hit that, it was a long downturn in the market, not the sincerely a sell signal but something to keep -- necessarily a sell signal but something to keep in mind. we had the look at the 200 day moving average flop earlier this week and the russell 2000 is up, stalling where technical technician thought it might. as we move into next week, some of the sentiment indicators,

indicating how investors feel about the market, whether they are big or individual investors, a lot of them are turned bullish . we will see if that continues next week. scarlet: thank you so much. let's ring in -- bring in the global macro strategist. he joins us by phone, and still with us is luke,. -- luke cowa. the nasdaq is in the green, so they continued a streak of weekly advances. even as we see it in the green, you get the sense the rally has peter out. what is -- petered out. what is driving ambivalence to equities after a blockbuster january? >> we lost a lot of momentum right as the s&p tried to bump up against the 200 day moving average. that is concerning. you look at the last five years, the 200 day has been a

significant indicator in terms of support and what was to change. stocks started to move back to the upside. day,unced off of the 200 [indiscernible] for the index. since equities peaked back in september, [indiscernible] last couple of days. joe: we are having technical difficulties on the line. we will try to fix that. we have been talking about the 200 day moving average. everyone is a technician around key support levels. when people talk about charts and look at charts, is there anything else people are discussing or dominating? luke: that line is dominating. i saw people talk about how we were kind of sandwiched in

between a five day doing average and the 200 day, so they expected the choppy sideways week. score one for them. the other thing george pointed out earlier was i don't think they oversold readings like the 14 day are side. i believe of the 14 major etf's they were tracking earlier this week, all of them hit oversold territory, then that night futures started to go down. combined with the 200 day moving average, this is how we get where we are. lisa: there is a question whether the earnings have been good or bad. one thing you have talked about, yay, wehave -- about, have visual -- from your perspective, has the reaction been better as for as the share performance or worse than expected given where we are, mostly what we are seeing across

the board? forge: we have seen modest shares in this season. most companies are coming in closer to revenue. there hasn't been much much -- much movement for revenue. the thing on earnings this season for investors has been guidance. that is ready much how it is. when you see it, shares do well. that is what has been the biggest factor so far. companies that are able to raise guidance and deliver, there are a number of those gray we have seen strong returns. themes isf the common the u.s. is doing fine, but there is no signs of robustness or acceleration around the world, whether in china, europe looking weak because of china. do you see anything on the policy front or data that could change this? george: one thing that is is

regarded by the global analytical community is the fact last year there was a disruptive struck -- disruptive shock to the diesel engines. that kicks in in september and drove a huge spike in sales of cars that would no longer be in august.ll september and october, and then november, sales were week. they were still below where they were since the admissions relations to affect but they started to kick up. the german new order volumes of for auto manufacturing, it is at a record high and rose the most of any time since 1991. that is on a volume basis. sales lagged by two months. by oneion is liking month. we are optimistic around that sector of the european economy. you have issues with global demand generally and china will be a factor as with the united

states, but that story hasn't attention enough as an exogenous shock and moving the other direction. that should help the eurozone. we will get payback and that will lift the overall macro numbers out of europe. in the u.s. we have a lot of data, cpi, ppi, retail sales. maybe before the latest meeting, it would have been more dramatic . we would figure out what does it mean for federal reserve policy? doesn't seem like it will be the market moving one way or the other since the fed is on the pause. if we have a series of really big misses on retail sales data -- it could be market moving. we don't know. there is no way to predict the future. i would say it is still worthwhile for investors to watch these releases, but the

fed is not a data focus as they have been in recent history. we have gotten the message over the last three months that they will be on a pause. i don't think anyone would before junemovement or september. he doesn't mean you won't see a market reaction to the data itself but in terms of the specific path of short-term rates, it looks unlikely that anything will change barring a very large downside or upside. jonathan: i noticed -- lisa: i noticed you were not in your head -- you were nodding your head. tell us a bit more white it is so under the -- why it is under the radar. luke: it is because when you look at the headline figures for the data, they are going down. it took both george and neil orders german factory

still bad, but look at this. it is a leading indicator. in terms of where you think the sentiment is so beaten-down maybe we should start to turn a quarter and you could get the big jump moves and enthusiasm, europe is the poster child for that for a long time. scarlet: what will you be looking for next week as we get ready? is it because we ended on a higher note? we got a boost of at the end of trading, and is that good news overall? equitiesatching u.s. -- it will be interesting as china comes out of the new year break. they have been out all week. another thing is the u.s. dollar and seeing if the recent uptick -- six days in a row out of the fed, seeing if that has legs or doesn't. it doesn't look like the dollar is undervalued and ready to rip, but if it does that will cause a lot of problems across financial

markets. seeing whether we see more stability in the market -- the dollar or not will be interesting. scarlet: the global macro strategist, and luke, thank you. that does it for the closing bell and for me. romaine bostick is stepping in for "what did you miss" where we will look at amazon establishing in europe. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪

♪

lisa: i am lisa abramowicz in for caroline hyde. romaine: i am romaine bostick. lisa: here is a look at how stocks close. they were up after a rocky session earlier in the day. joe: what did you miss? lisa: amazon is reconsidering its plan to establish a second recorders in new york city after facing a -- second headquarters in new york city after a wave of opposition. jeff bezos

representatives of alexandria a ocasio-cortez [indiscernible] send the u.s. into oblivion. noah smith joins us with his take. joe: when it comes to amazon am a some officials in new york are not sure they want the big company to move year. there has been a groundswell of opposition to the new headquarters in long island city, and amazon is reconsidering the location. we welcome a new york state assemblyman who has been an outspoken critic of the amazon headquarters. thank you for joining us. what is the central objection to it? the idea that there are subsidies and stuff offered at all, the nature with which they were agreed to, the fact of they had this public bake-off and got cities to waste time? what is the essential complaint how it was done and how they were lowered? -- lured? >> competing for our attention for amazon to come to our citizens take, while they are extracting data and value at every single corner. all of that combined with the gigantic sham of the deal which the public and officials, none of us had any input or insight

to, $3 billion of taxpayers' money that the governor and they are decided to give away to one of the richest men is what we are objecting to. they don't need any corporate subsidies especially when people have proven there is no correlation between jobs and economic growth and corporate subsidies. that is the reason europe has banned the practice of state aid. 25,000 people coming to new york, long island, you are hearing mortgage brokers and the ,eal estate sellers, the agents flipping out saying, what will we do? we went home and came back and everything has changed. isn't there enough there if amazon doesn't come? >> look at the promises made for other types of development projects in the past. for every giveaway we have promised, there are thousands

promised but never delivered. for amazon to promise 25 dozen jobs and for us to lay out billions of dollars, there is no correlation. they will create jobs regardless of whether we give a dime to that company. that is what people were upset about, and we shouldn't be giving any corporate incentives for a company like amazon. romaine: is the gulf to get amazon not to move here or what -- or to remove the subsidies new york gave them and get them to stay? >> i have been against amazon from the beginning. they are a super monopoly, not good for democracy. i have been a proponent of supporting local economies and communities, putting the money behind small business, not big monopolies. it is not just market, they are controlling the market from retail to the supply chain. it is not a healthy state for

our economy when a monopoly like that gets subsidies. people agree there is something perverse about a company saying they will build a second headquarters, then build offices where there is plenty of development like new york. but this question of tax breaks and incentives, a lot of cities have to use it and that is how they bring businesses. is there a way -- can new york city get rid of that when other states and cities do, will use those tools? >> this is why i have introduced legislation which would end corporate welfare once and for all. in interstate compact with participating states to stop participating rates to the bottom. it is one of the problems we have as a country and wife multinational corporations go from state to state looking for sweetheart deals and creating

this race to the bottom scenario. it only happens in our country. nowhere else do places take advantage. lisa: we appreciate you for being with us, ron kim, thank you. it is something we will continue to discuss going forward. i want to bring breaking news, the financial times reported smith and nephew, a british medical device maker, is holding talks to buy you basic, a maker of medical insurance in spinal injury, which could be worth $3 billion, the largest acquisition by the british group. affording to people who spoke with the times, the terms are unclear as the talks could fall uprt but nuvasive shares are 28% in after-hours. this is bloomberg. ♪

romaine: jeff bezos is acquiring -- accusing the national enquirer of exposing him. he addressed this in a blog post and took aim at the ceo of the magazine's parent company david packer. he pointed out he has previously worked on behalf of president trump. the accusation is igniting a long simmering food -- simmering feud between jeff bezos and donald trump. this is the executive editor at bloomberg opinion. i am not an expert on blackmail but like nailing the world --hest man doesn't seem like blackmailing the world's richest man doesn't seem smart. what is he alleging ami did? >> the national inquirer

published a story about jeff bezos' extramarital affair which included text from someone who stole them. either they got them directly or from a third-party. jeff bezos launched an investigation to see how it occurred. in the course of him investigating ami about how they stole his property, they say we have more property of yours. there is more photos and text and we will release those unless you stop investigating. they doubled down and thought he would go away. he chose not to. the when he explained potential legal jeopardy with what they may or may not have done -- >> following up, whether or not ami engaged in anything criminal is unknown. we don't know. whether thed information they received, text and photos, if they had indy --

any indication they were hacked or stolen. that would raise the level of potential criminal activity, if indeed ami engaged in anything criminal. it would have a problem. they agreed with prosecutors not to engage in criminal activity when it settled the michael cohen, stormy daniels affair. it had been collaborating with its leaders here in new york. the larger question is did president trump play a role because there is a long simmering food -- simmering feud between bezos and trump. is there any evidence as jeff bezos alluded to that president trump himself was involved in this? >> nothing that his significant signified he was involved. he went after amazon obliquely. he was unhappy with amazon's preferential posting rates.

he set up a government agency to , and the rates amazon paid the u.s. postal service decided to check up rates. they said it had nothing to do with the commission the president set up. he has criticized the washington post repeatedly and he has been threatening them on social media. it is not a logical to think he played a role here. the president, michael cohen, ami, colluded during the presidential election to bury stories about his -- trump's liaisons with stormy daniels and others. it happen that people who are sympathetic to trump, they tried to help this information get out because they thought it would in dear him or advanced his agenda. timeframea different because without it was in the best interest. it is possible someone jumped in

and did something that that would be in trump's best interest. we have new york prosecutors involved because they had the previous deal with american media. bezos has his own investigation, and you mentioned he is the world's richest man. he might find a lot of things we didn't know before, and that could be the biggest jeopardy to the trump inner circle because there were a lot of conversations. we had meetings we know about that occurred at trump tower and with david packer. goingi am sure it is not away anytime soon. thank you everybody. pitching democrats are a massive plan to move the u.s. to green energy. now many people are asking how does the government fund it? that will be a sticking point for a lot of issues. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪

i'm all about my bed. this mattress is dangerously comfortable. i love my leesa. people everywhere love their leesa mattresses. and now, for an even more luxurious sleep experience, meet the sapira mattress by leesa. sapira is a hybrid mattress combining performance foam technology with individually wrapped pocket springs. enjoy extreme comfort, minimal motion transfer, and incredible edge support. sapira is the first true luxury hybrid mattress. made in america and shipped to your door in a box. read our reviews, then order online. when your new sapira mattress arrives, try it for 100 nights and love it or get a full refund. order your own sapira luxury hybrid mattress right now to get big savings. order now

and get 15% off your mattress - and free shipping too. just go to buyleesa.com today. you need this bed. mark: i'm mark crumpton with bloomberg's first word news. acting u.s. attorney general matthew whitaker says he has "not interfere in any way" in the special counsel's russia investigation and has not talked to president trump or senior white house officials about it. his comments came today during a sometimes contentious hearing of the democrat led house judiciary committee. >> in your capacity as acting attorney

five minutes is up. i'm here voluntarily. we have agreed to five-minute rounds. mark: whitaker also declined to answer a question about whether special counsel mueller's investigation is a witchhunt at president trump has described it. virginia governor ralph northam is standing firm. the associated press reports he has told his top staff he will not resign over racist photos despite increasing calls for him to do so. many have called on him to step down after the discovery of a photo in his medical school yearbook. the photo showed someone in next to astanding person in a ku klux klan hood and robe. nicolas maduro says international efforts to bring humanitarian aid to venezuela are "a show whose sole purpose is to topple the venezuelan government." speaking at a news conference for the international press and broadcast on state television, president maduro said the

american government is trying to introduce sources of unrest, internal chaos. continued, "we have driven us to the point that libya was taken or that syria was taken to the point of an armed opposition." venezuelan opposition leader addressed university students in caucus and told them supplies would reach citizens despite objections from president maduro. the venezuelan military has barricaded a bridge connecting a country with columbia in an apparent attempt to block the aid. it has become the focus of venezuela's struggle between maduro and guaido, declared presidential powers in late january, accusing maduro of the followingte the election last year widely viewed as a sham. president trump has ordered flags lowered to half staff in memory of john dingell. the proclamation applies to flags at the white house other

public buildings and grounds,, u.s. military posts, a naval station, and all naval vessels. he died thursday at the age of 92. he was the longest-serving member of congress in u.s. history. global news 24 hours a day on air and on tictoc on twitter powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. joe: it is a crypto mystery. ceo,eath of drug cotton, a is raising assets of the security of crypto assets in general. let's bring in andy. weirdest crypto stories in a long time, which is saying something because there are weird was every single day. but there is a reminder that the simple act of holding is not

safe for anyone right now. it is difficult if you want to hold them yourself. if you are relying on a trusted third party, you are relying i trusted third party and only know so much about our security protocol. how much of this in your view is an impediment to adoption and an impediment to this becoming an ethics test? >> i'm broken record on this. these are solvable problems. it is widely an acceptable. it is a catastrophe for the people that were putting money on that exchange. but the end of the day, there are lots of institutions in the andd with sensitive data they just have to have the security policies to make sure they do not lose that, and this was a fairly poorly run institution. i would expect to see less and less of this but it is an important reminder of how carefully you have to be in a statement of money is so easy to transact. joe: and irreversible. other kinds of entities can get hacked, but those can be flipped.

that never happened. >> exactly. bitcoin is a reversible transaction method. -- i s an irreversible transaction method. lisa: you said as the industry matures. this comes as a bad time. we see bitcoin prices falling. general enthusiasm has shifted to a negative perspective when it comes to all caps on assets. how much do you see the industry evolving given a shift? andy: i think it is evolving. we are starting to see larger financial institutions start to play around a little bit. fidelity, allat of these institutions looking at the space and wanting to play in it, that is a meaningful change. but we are in the middle of a cycle. we saw a crash 2014. 2015 was the year of building

before the media started in 26. what we are seeing in 2019 is a lot like 2015, where people will focus on building, build up the infrastructure interest and be able to support desk and trust -- and trust, and be able to support. romaine: trying to get more information on transactions. they are probably doing it for different reasons than maybe what we are talking about today, but i wonder, do we get to a point where crypto can maintain its allure for a lot of the reasons why a lot of people got to it in the first place and have some regulatory oversight that may be protect people from losing everything should something like this happen? andy: that balance is important. in the early days, it will feel smaller and regulators will pay less attention. it sounds early, but we are more than $100 million value market cap. all the regulators have to pay attention into that.what we will find is a medium , where regulators have to do what they need to do to make sure investors are protected and

issuers are protected. we will not avoid that, but also some of the philosophical ideals of crypto will shine through at the end of the day.it is about the happy medium . joe: people talk about this is the year we build at a bubble is over and let's focus on price. what is being built that in your view has any prospect of being used by anyone? andy: there is a big trend of decentralized finance. exciting really movement where finance can be conducted without certain intermediaries. there are places where you can make efficiencies by using this programmatic money, where money can be controlled. you can remove intermediaries and fees and make everything much more efficient. we are seeing production markets start to pick up. joe: british markets? andy: millions of dollars on the market. in his early. better user -- it is early. better user interface.

lisa:joe: thank you's -- thank you so much for being with us. andy we appreciate you coming in,. want to bring you some breaking news that russia was raised to investment grade credit by moody's with an outlook that is stable. the country relies greatly on debt. 2 trillion rubles. let's get a dollar amount here. $35 billion of debt. you can see the ruble is gaining against the dollar here. the dollar losing versus the ruble on this news.russia raised to investment grade by moody's with a stable outlook just now. scarlet: coming up, place for green energy in washington. the economics behind the green new deal ahead. this is bloomberg. ♪

expecting tors are keep working through the weekend to reach a border security compromised, and they think the deal could be complete by monday. one of the people negotiating said the chances of an impact leading to another shutdown is next to nil. >> i think we are going to see a deal made, a deal struck, the government kept open. we are making progress. i'm very pleased. i have been pleased from the inception. i'm pleased right now. lisa: for more, let's bring in and -- eric. thank you for being with us. we have any sense what the deal may look like? >> what he was talking off the house floor, he was hoping to get to billion dollars in border barrier funding. it is looking that could be the range of the final agreement but democrats have not agreed yet. president trump was seeking $5.7

billion for a winter ball. that is the cause of the shutdown. democrats came in with the offer of zero money so it would make sense that they are meeting in the middle. the number of immigration detention beds, help for puerto rico, these are last-minute items. .hey say we are 90% there that is probably about right. they will allow lobbyists to take over before lawmakers can defend and vote on it. this will come out sunday night or monday morning. joe: even if there is an agreement, and nobody knows for sure what trump will do when he sees the agreement. if is minimal amount of money for an actual wall, we might get a lot intense pushback from the fox news crowd. we know how influential they are with the white house. can any agreement that the democrats agreed to really survive and inevitable or likely

onslaught for the people most influential with the president? erik: the president has a way out here.he can declare a national emergency to try to shift more money . up to $7 million he can shift around. there are ways to shift money without declaring a national emergency. there could be checks coming in from violations that can be deposited in one account. that would require an automatic vote in the senate that mitch mcconnell does not want to have. we can see trump agreed to 2 amount for funding and will try this legally dubious way to get even more. that may satisfy the right-wing base. it may work. it will be challenged in court. it might be a win-win situation for him. we will see if he tries that. romaine: if it is a win-win, is there any talk try to do some

budgeting? as it is right now, we will essentially be in a position where we have to renegotiate the budget in some form or another by october, and we still have the debt ceiling issue hanging over us. what are you hearing on capitol hill? erik: there will be a retreat at camp david this week hosted by mick mulvaney. he is bringing in people at john yarmuth, the chairman of the house budget committee. john is looking to do a two-year deal, $126 million in automatic cuts. to shift to find a way that, maybe cut entitlements, some tax increases in order to pay for that. he is hoping to talk about that this retreat. there is the need to raise the debt ceiling coming back into effect on march 1. it could be raised by the summer. hoping to talk about that and that could lead to an agreement. it could foster more goodwill.

joe: reporting from capitol hill, thank you very much. the green new deal resolution from alexandria oak a steal long callingpages for the u.s. to get all of its power from clean sources, retrofit every building in the nation for energy efficiency, and guarantee a job to every american. but the resolution does not mention cost. let's talk about the economics smith,the deal with noah bloomberg opinion columnist in san francisco, who has a column out warning that the green new deal would be incredibly costly from a financial perspective. thank you very much for joining us. i want to ask you about a question in your peach, which is on bloomberg opinion, where you suggestsf this repurposing the economic resources of the nation will not cause any loss in economic efficiency. history and the experience of

other countries suggest efficiency loss? >> china is really the example. i'm talking about more recently, we see a big divergence between the efficiency of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises. state owned enterprises are not terrible like they were in the 1960's but definitely less productive than private enterprises so that would be my numeral example -- number one example. lisa: i thought it interesting that you said there are positive proposals here but if you look under the cover of this proposal, it is not just about being policies, it is also about free education, health care for all, and well-paying jobs. can you talk about how that was sort of put into the mix and might make it more difficult to parse out the exact cost? >> right. this idea is a package deal vote.g an up or down

they sort of put all of their wish lists into one thing and if we do not do that thing, the planet will die, even though most of the items are not about saving the planet. justice,about economic equality, etc. the cost would be about $6.6 trillion a year or more, which is about 35 times the size of .he trump tax-cuts it is three times our current federal tax revenue. this would be an enormous undertaking not similar to anything really done before even with the original new deal. romaine: that is a good point, but when you look at this, i will play devils advocate for a second. point of what they are emphasizing goes beyond the bullet points. they are trying to shift

resources away from what they think are going only to the rich and superrich and potentially shift that to the working class and laborers. i wonder if you see any way that this could potentially have economic benefit, even if the costs are high initially. is there any case to be made for economic benefit in the long-term? noah: i do think some of the pain would have economic benefit. the universal health realty is the would be good for our industry. it would be good for the working class. there is a lot of good stuff in here. there is so much stuff in here. people are debating which of the proposals we should do, and along came the green new deal and said let's do all of them at once and not worry about the cost. advocates for the green new deal would say the climate crisis is so dire and we have so little time that we cannot afford to put forth a proposal whose main consideration is what

is within the bounds of today's political discourse, what is reasonable, what is a broad consensus that we have to put forward to address the scope of the crisis? how big of a crisis do you think climate change is? do you agree that we don't have much time? do you think they are overstating the severity of the problem? noah: they are not overstating the severity of the problem, but there are two problems with the second part of their idea. climate change is a huge problem. in the united states is only 14% of global emissions so even if we sent our global emissions to zero, we barely make a dent in climate change. is the whole world. our focus should really be on things like technology and exports and international deals and things like that. that is point number one. the second point is economic justice, job guarantees, etc. that is not necessary to save the planet. lisa: but to your point, was

there anything in this proposal that would achieve what you are talking about in terms of improving technology and making a dent on a more global scale? couple ofe were a things. the green infrastructure bill that will improve the efficiency of technologies because it will implement them at scale, it will improve the efficiency. that is good. depending on how the switch to green electricity is the, that could improve the technology a lot as we have seen with solar panels getting cheaper. although germany has attempted to do similar things and it did not pan out. there is a lot more that we can do. lisa: we really appreciate you being with us. really interesting column. coming up, podcasts are the music to streaming giant's ears. we will speakwith someone about spotify's big bet on the medium -- we will speak with someone

about spotify's big bet. this is bloomber. ♪

romaine: we are going to talk about the golden age of podcasts. with an ad revenues like of 78% spotify's16 and 2017, fresh deal with it podcast company, it is clear that this industry is here to stay. here now to weigh in his job, the cofounder -- joe, the cofounder of a podcast network. podcasts, we of tend to talk about the ad side of the business. when you saw the deal and what you do, it is more on the production side and this idea you can spin these podcasts off into other media where there is tv shows, books, anything. is this really the secret sauce behind what is driving these deals? >> absolutely. ip generation and the way to with are able

considerable or relatively low overhead essentially incubate ip a sort of made the whole entire industry super valuable. so, yes, we are really proud of that. ad sales, that is awesome. in theireal value is iv generation capabilities -- ip generation capabilities and to be able to be a production house with marketing and sales and ip generation, the whole package, a new age studio. that is where the podcasting offers. that's why people are excited about the medium. joe: we saw the chart in the intro showing the ad revenue is surging. how much is the podcasting business a real hit driven business? a lot of that revenue is being captured by a few mega podcasts that everyone has heard of and everyone else is fighting for the scraps.

or is there room in your room for lots of different players to make healthy profits distributed widely across the industry? >> i think tons of podcasts have tons of opportunity. every podcast caters to a unique audience. podcasts are essentially fan franchises, the developing of fans. when people come to forever. shows, they are so excited to be there.advertisers love working with our forever dog shows whether they are a smaller show or a bigger show. we had 70% between q4 and q1 brand retention on our ad sales. that is incredible. fans are love with the shows. they fall in love with the brands advertise on the shows because they trust those. lisa: do you have a sense of which genres are most popular? iswell, i mean, forever dog a comedy network so i want to say comedy is a huge one, but there is all sorts of popular

ones.people love true crime podcasts , business product tests -- business podcasts. there is something for everybody in podcasting. there is sports, entertainment, tv, and film. we may all kinds of comedy podcasts at forever dog. romaine: when you are looking at the business, is there the ability for other podcast companies, standalone podcast companies, to grow rather than selling themselves off to a larger company like spotify? are we going to see a large publicly traded podcast company? >> you know, i can't predict the future. i don't know about that. but as podcasts continue to evolve, we are hell-bent on the evolution of podcasts. a mobile first medium, so yes, today is all about audio and as exciting, but we are also excited about digital, live extension, television, film. as a podcast network able to do the whole package, the whole thing, maybe.

lisa: thank you so much for being with us. be sure to tune into our weekly podcast "what did you miss this week?" this is bloomberg. ♪

i'm a veteran and the army taught me a lot about commitment. which i apply to my life and my work. at comcast we're commited to delivering the best experience possible, by being on time everytime. and if we are ever late, we'll give you a automatic twenty dollar credit. my name is antonio and i'm a technician at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome.

♪ emily: i'm emily chang. this is "bloomberg technology." hour, thein the next basal islam shall permit amazon's ceo accuses the parent company of blackmail and extortion. an explicit blog post that name drops the saudi government and president trump. plus, the fallout for the federalr ami as prosecutors are now looking at how "the national enquirer" handled the cove