attorney general william barr will release the long-awaited document. the main takeaways for the market. earnings bonanza. s&p delivering 8% sales and 15% earnings growth. numbers from oil players to consumer sales. and german manufacturing pmi disappointing, not enough to counteract the gloom. david: welcome to "bloomberg daybreak." lots of earnings this morning. let's start with blackstone. two things here. assets under management came in under $512 billion, substantially more than thought. they had a big miss in distributive income, but that could be a matter of timing. you can see the stock in premarket has shot up about 3%. alix: in converting -- and converting. david: converting because of the

tax code change. they reduced the corporate tax rate in means they can be included in indexes now. alix: at 8:00 a.m. we will be interviewing steve schwarzman, blackstone chairman and ceo. also take a look at philip morris. that stock down by about 8/10 of 1%. earnings came in line with estimates. revenue was a slight beat. for this guy, it is going to be what they say about the future. near,e increased 3% yard so it is also -- 3% year on year , so it is also about pricing power. -- it should be a good thing for international markets. david: but premarket seems a

little dubious. alix: it is also a risk off kind of day. david: why don't we go to philip morris now? they had a nice beat on earnings-per-share. 09, asame in at $1. opposed to $1.00 projected. they are getting punished a little right now preliminarily in the premarket by about 0.5%. they want to save money on costs. alix: what is this company wind up becoming? i feel like this is the issue for all cigarette companies. how do you deal with the cannabis market, vaping? david: they have a campaign sam we want you to smoke less. it is heat, not burn. electroniche cigarette to take over. alix: in the markets, all of this in a risk off feel on the margins. the nasdaq 100 closed at a record high yesterday, and now

s&p futures priebus completely flat. euro-dollar down -- pretty much completely flat. euro-dollar down 4/10 of 1%. the dollar and the yen are getting that safe haven bid, as well as treasuries and bunds. feels like a bit of a risk off day. we do have a long weekend here in the u.s., the markets closed tomorrow. david: you also wonder about liquidity and have any people will be trading, going to the beach or wherever they go. alix: i want to go to the beach. david: there's only one thing going on in washington, and it has to do with the mueller report. attorney general william barr owes a new comforts -- holds a news conference at 9:30 eastern this morning. welcomehe stage, we kevin cirilli, bloomberg's chief washington correspondent. what are we looking to find out? kevin: we are going to be finding out whether or not there was any evidence of obstruction

of justice. this, of course, the president not being charged with in the report set to be released in just more than two hours. attorney general william barr will hold a press conference in washington at 9:30 eastern time. democrats on capitol hill, who are in recess this week, are already calling for special counsel robert mueller to testify publicly before congress as soon as they return. isorney general william barr already scheduled to testify may 2. nots not just whether or there was any evidence of obstruction of justice, but also potential headline risk for financial institutions, as well as big tech companies. the dni reports of yesteryear specifically named some of those big tech companies, so it will be interesting to see whether or not any companies are named in this report. in terms of the reductions, what we should note is they are going

to be color-coded. there will be explanation given as to why there are reactions. the white house, according to sources, are ready to come out swinging saying there was no evidence of collusion and no additional indictments. david: thank you so much. we will be talking quite a bit today, i suspect. once again, we will have that attorney general barr press conference in about 85 minutes. we will take that live here on bloomberg television. the expected molar report kicks off today's for take -- the expected miller report -- the report kicksler off today's first take. the markets,mes to they've been relatively resilient as it relates to politics. but when you look at this report, it does contain some inherent risk. there are certain risks if we do see companies named in that. we have seen some signs markets

could become more sensitive to politics. we saw this week that health care stocks got absolutely hammered by increasing conversation about medicare for all. obviously trade talks have also been able to weigh on stocks in the past. given we are going into a long weekend, we could see some thin trading. that could mean if we see some political implications, may be more talk about impeachment from the democrats, that could weigh on the markets. alix: our second story is what is happening within the company level, and that goes to earnings. let's go to ea . top line sales, bottom-line earnings. pretty flat currently, but a big uptick, particularly in the first quarter of 2020. are the markets going to forget today in d.c. and earnings and really look at the next year? >> i think they want to. is 2020tion i have is already priced in. are we seeing prices in

valuations looking toward that growth in earnings? i think that's what people are looking at. people are looking past the political turmoil in washington, d.c. the question is how much does that affect cfo confidence in investment. we haven't seen the kind of conviction in investment and trading. last week was a really tough week and trading. i think what you are seeing is investors are rewarding companies for beating estimates, but not by very much. you see very small share gains because so much of it is already priced in. david: when is it going to flow back into equities? rachel: we have started to see that on the etf side. we had a terrible january. but when we started getting into february, that started to trickle back in. people are getting increasingly bullish and stepping back into the mainstream equity market. for a while, people were hanging out in quality stocks and low volatility, but that seems to be giving way to people moving back into growth. you saw the nasdaq rise to a

record yesterday. tech stocks has been doing very well. we saw interesting earnings that will be out next week. the question is how much further can we go on that as people are already seeing those in pricing that in. the nasdaq is already at that high. can we really see much upside as a result? david: in europe we have pmi numbers overnight, and german manufacturing drag down the composite overall. german many factoring pmi's continue to disappoint. there's not much hope there. lisa: here's the question a lot of people have. this?ckward looking is at what point will stimulus in china come in and support those numbers? i think that is the big question. i hear some people, some analysts, say we are bullish on europe because so much bad news has already been priced in and we haven't seen the stimulus trickle out. other people saying the fact you haven't seen a boom from what is going on in china indicates there is some structural problem

in germany that will be harder to fix. it is sort of pick your poison in terms of which side of the debate you want to be on. over -- nestlees delivered solid earnings and has some pricing power for certain areas in europe. rachel: you do see some earnings growth, but the problem is there is this big uncertainty hanging over it. you've got economic data that is negative, brexit hanging over everything, even though we are in easter recess at the moment. there's all of this uncertainty hanging over europe. when it comes to the flows in the etf world, we have seen people tiptoeing back into europe, but that is going away. people are coming back to the u.s. that have a markets very compelling story. when you look at the uncertainty in europe, why bother? take the easy money. alix: thank you both very much. a reminder, for all the charts we used and more, go to gdp go

on determined -- go to g tv on your terminal. evan brown of ubs asset management will be joining us for signals on the global economy. as we had to break, let's take a look at some of those reporting this morning and what is moving. blackstone delivering solid flows, moving almost 10%. this is bloomberg. ♪

happening. what's cutting forecast for global aluminum demand this year, blaming weakness in china.

also posting the first quarterly loss since 2016. nestle reporting the strongest start to a year since 2016. the company says revenue climbing better than expected, 3.4% in the first quarter, pricing rising the most in 10 quarters. authorities are distancing president trump's threats to cut off intelligence over the chinese telecom maker huawei. the president wants germany to keep huawei out of its fifth-generation network because of alleged chinese espionage. that they rely on each other too much for any intelligence flow to be cut off. that is a quick look at your bloomberg business flash. david: thank you. companies haves reported earnings come with more yet to come. taylor: honeywell is one of the

biggest movers and premarket, up about 2%. they are raising their full guidance now anywhere from 3% to growing anywhere from 2% to 5%. seeing 8% organic revenue growth from the aerospace segment, which is getting a big boost from the u.s. international defense business, and looking at marginal expansion above 20%. on the flipside of that, dan their full-year guidance, saying it reflect a toution related ge biofarma. they are looking to incorporate that into their pull for leo and add it to -- their portfolio and add it to their existing products. philip morris and just the last

10 minutes, they are cutting their full-year earnings-per-share guidance to $4.18. as we dig through the press release, a lot of these are one line items. i am going to keep looking through this press release because overall, it looks like if you take those line items out, it is still up more than 1% and operating incomes are up more than 200 basis points on the operating margins, so we will keep sifting through these and keep you posted. alix: thank you so much. overall, come inside the eea go, isthe ea , and this where we are. with us is evan brown of ubs asset management strategy. what if we seen in the numbers

that have come out so far? evan: it is a little early to say so far, but in general the guidance is pretty decent. we are seeing some improvement. the commentary we are hearing from companies is that things were pretty bad in january and february, but we are starting to see an upturn in march. overall i think we are seeing stabilization of the earnings guidance cuts, and that is a positive sign for a forward-looking market. david: we always knew first quarter was going to be week in earnings. if it comes out stronger in the second half, why? is that comparison on taxes? increased demand? evan: it is really a stabilization in global growth. we had a big downturn or deceleration in global growth at the end of last year and coming into this year. now you have the china stimulus, europe slowly stabilizing as well, and the u.s. economy looks a little better than it did.

as the economy improves, the earnings picture should improve as well. david: is europe stabilizing? that's news. the pmi's overnight were not that encouraging. evan: we were a little disappointed with the european pmi's. we would like to be seen the rebound we are seeing in china and emerging asia. you have some lingering political uncertainties. you have brexit and italy and france. if you are looking for some positive signs within the pmi's, german manufacturing, which has been the weak point, showed a little bit of a bounce. that is positive for us. we think that with a lead, those china pmi's are going to ultimately lead to an improvement. david: it is a bounce, but it is contracting. evan: it is below 50, yes. it is about stabilization in europe right now before we can see some kind of genuine upturn. alix: what about the story in terms of margins and the

conversation coming into earnings? you can see margin estimates. you have higher wages, not being able to pass on any kind of pricing power. we learned from nestle that you do have pricing power in north america. what have we learned on margins so far? evan: i think generally, it is company specific. we are looking very carefully at what sectors are showing more pricing powers and margin compression. in general, we don't see wage growth rising fast enough that we think there is a blinking red light that we are seeing significant margin contraction. but the trend is certainly in the direction of rising cost pressures, so that is something we will have to keep an eye on over the course of the year. alix: going forward, what kind of earnings are going to be priced into individual sectors? what is not yet reflected? tech is at a high. evan: tech is at a high.

we come back to growth versus value. there's still value stocks, financials being one example, that are completely unloved. you are actually seeing pretty decent earnings overall, and very low valuations. as you get this improvement in the global economy and what we expect to be a steeping in the yield curve, that is going to lead to a bounce -- a steepening in the yield curve, that is going to lead to a bounce in financials. alix: coming up, deutsche bank talks about a plan b if the plan with commerzbank fails. i should hope so. this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: deutsche bank is said to be working on a plan b to present to investors if talks with commerzbank collapse. bloomberg's matt miller spoke to the representative from deutsche bank's board. >> we completely reject the

merger, and because of this, there is no scenario, no possibility, no conditions under which a merger could be successful. therefore, we are not positioning ourselves on single discussions. we simply reject the merger. we do not believe it can be successful. alix: matt joins us now from earl and. evan -- from berlin. evan brown of ubs asset management still with us. what do they want out of a plan b? matt: they think what a bank , they being a is supervisory buoyed member, that they could -- supervisory board member, that they should continue with their strategy and sibley give it more time. he wants the savings plan to get a little room to breathe and be unlimited. he certainly is against a takeover, no matter what conditions were offered. david: there's talk about a plan b now.

bloomberg has reported there is a plan b. that isn't aplan b problem with this particular supervisory board member's concerns? matthew: i think that is the problem with berlin's concerns. initially this was pushed by the finance ministry, but the rest of the leadership in the capital is very much against a takeover of commerzbank that would result 40,000 job cuts. he thinks this would result in about 40,000 job cuts. there is no plan b that gets around job cuts completely, but christian sewing's cost-cutting plans if this doesn't go through, or an even better cost-cutting plan, still wouldn't involve that many job cuts. you wouldn't see 40,000 jobs fly. that is the reason i think

everyone is so dead set against this takeover. alix: thanks a lot, bloomberg's matt miller. evan, what is the best outlook in europe? evan: looking at european banks that i hold, it is hard to see a more unloved sector in the world right now. we actually think a lot of bad news is already in the price. encouragingt it is that the european central bank is surfing to look at deposit tiering and more stimulative tltro's. as a whole, we think european banks offer decent value here. david: that's as an investment in the stock. what about as a driver of the european economy? we talked about problems there. are they going to be moving forward without cleaning up the banks, the balance sheets, consolidations? evan: over the long-term, if you want to talk about europe being investable, you need to sort out european banking and move forward with reforms. hopefully that means european

parliamentary elections don't take a step back in terms of moving forward on banking union reforms. over the long-term, we need to see that. david: what kind of growth -- alix: what kind of growth do you need to see in the euro zone to justify it not being a value trap? evan: what we want to see is some stabilization. alix: is that enough to want to buy the banks longer-term? evan: i think they are cheap enough that as long as the negativity of growth subsides somewhat and you get trend gettingn europe, you're 1% or a little higher growth. that is given how cheap they are. a decent environment for an index that is so cheaply valued. david: i want to go into politics. we've got a european parliamentary election coming up. it may go more populist, perhaps

more right wing. could that be bad for the economy of the banks? evan: it won't be helpful. we are going to see a rise of populist candidates, but we are seeing it on both sides, from the closer to the right and closer to the left. it is going to be very difficult for parties on both sides to unite to some kind of coalition against european reform. it may slow down the process, but we don't see the process toward reform reversing. alix: evan brown will be sticking with us. coming up, breathing new life america -- into vista oil. this is bloomberg. ♪ xfinity watchathon week has sadly come to an end.

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thanks! just say "watchathon" into your x1 voice remote to upgrade and keep getting more of what you love. alix: this is "bloomberg daybreak." a little bit of a risk off field. the quiddity volume not going to be that high because of a holiday weekend. the nasdaq 100 closing at a record high yesterday.

european stocks higher. so was the dax. nonmanufacturing for the second straight month in a row, weighing on the euro as the dollar and the yen pick up a little bit of safe haven steam here. the spread here 70 basis points, german bund yields at five. crude able to flip into positive territory despite a risk off field. earnings front and center. david: american express had a beat on earnings-per-share. they fell short on revenue. in the premarket thus far, down by 2.3%. american express has a pretty aggressive goal of revenue growth this year of 8% to 10%, but fell short in the first quarter. also a lot of questions about the delta deal they announced, whether they will have to take charges for that because they may have given up some money. alix: we will definitely pay

attention to that stock, along with more earnings coming out as well. outlook come apart j -- limburg ber schlumberger seeing solid demand outlook. i spoke to the ceo. >> we deliver on the promise of our first year. alix: what is the next low hanging fruit to reduce cost

will be to continue working in different models to reduce the completion cost. we are thinking of different models of how we can take that to the next level. we have proof that we have better productivity. alix: how much capital do you think you will have to raise, and what is the timeframe for that? >> for our business, we need to have 65,000 models per day. $300 million of cash. for a company that is going to multiply by five, it is not really a big number. investors asked me why so low. we have a conventional operation. alix: so you have cash flow coming in. guest: we have cash flow coming -- and a management team who we are looking at different options. we have line of credit to raise that capital.

or we can always raise more capital when the market. alix: when is your funding gap? when does that hit? guest: next year we will have the funding gap. that is important. nevertheless, we are prepared for that. alix: who are your investors? managed toa has channel a lot of investors from different parts of the world that want to believe in vaca muerta and our management team. are investors come from pension friends -- pension funds from mexico, investment from canada, the u.s., and europe. a big, broad arrangement of investors. alix: the conversation with permian right now is can independence keep up with big oil companies coming back in with tons of cash and that are less sensitive to oil price fluctuations. what is the conversation when it comes to you versus big oil, and

how can u.s. independence play a part? guest: i think we can keep up. i think it is a model that we will really work on being different. just alieve this is not cash game. i think it is in efficiency game, too. alix: u.s. independence? guest: if they come to argentina, they will add a lot because we need these type of companies. we need for investment -- we need more investment. wave., that is the second sawoftshell and exxon -- we shell and exxon in argentina. we have not seen independents yet. [indiscernible]

capabilities.he i believe sooner or later they will be here. alix: that was part of my conversation with the vista oil and gas ceo. coming up, we will be talking a the head of bpnd downstream. david: that excites you almost as much as argentina does. almost. [laughter] alix: almost. new shipping rules are coming into effect that roughly whole industry. bp talks just about that. david: they do say it is going to be really profound. alix: yes. i explained it to my parents yesterday. it is going to affect everything you buy. then my mom fainted. we are going to get a look at spending and retail sales due at 8:30. mckee, us now is mike economic policy

correspondent, and evan brown of ubs asset management still with us. if you are spending more on gasoline, in theory, some of that money comes out of other spending categories. on a month-to-month basis, it is kind of hard to say this particular thing happened. but as a trend, we may see that with gasoline prices rising and falling, look at the gas station sales because they are reported in dollar volume. the other thing you want to watch is apparel sales. this year, easter is very late. that may shift some sales from march into april, so we won't see them yet. apparel sales maybe weaker than they normally look. david: our version of the lunar new year, right? [laughter] david: tell me about the u.s. consumer and how critical it is to the u.s. economy. we are waiting to see how the economy is really doing after a weak first quarter.

evan: the u.s. consumer is a larger part of the global economy than even china, so it is pretty remarkable. these numbers are really important, but of course, they tend to be somewhat noisy. we look at the overall trend. we see that in general, wages, hours worked, employment is still moving in the right direction. initial jobless claims, which we will also get, are at 50 year lows. oil prices are rising, and that creates some pressure, but interest rates have fallen, and that helps on the housing front. overall, we think the u.s. consumer is in pretty good shape. alix: what are some warning signs we have to watch out for? michael: you basically want to see if that down our the last couple of months starts to reverse itself -- down arrow over the last couple of months starts to reverse itself. do they come back up and stabilize a little bit? yesterday we had the beige book. it said the economy seems to be

evolving exactly as the fed thinks that it had. the previous beige book said economic activity was soft all across the country. now they say a few districts are reporting things are starting to come back up. employment remains tight everywhere. wages are rising a little bit, but there is no inflation pressure. nothing new there. that is basically what their forecast is for the rest of the year. if we get numbers in line with that, it ratifies the no rate increase theory, and everyone goes on about their business. start worrying about the oil tanker shipping rules changing. alix: imo 2020. say it with me. [laughter] david: evan brown and bloomberg's michael mckee, thank you for joining us today. now let's get an update on news outside the business world. to: the public is likely learn more today on what special counsel robert mueller found out about alleged links between russia and the trump campaign.

a redacted version of his almost 400 page report will be released later today. attorney general william barr is holding a news conference before setting that report to congress. democrats say this gives him -- before congress has reddit. -- has read it. north korea is now demanding secretary of state mike pompeo be removed from direct nuclear negotiations between the two countries. pompeo is being accused of making reckless remarks. venezuela has again won the title of world's most miserable economy. for the fifth year in a row, the topping the bloomberg index that looks at inflation and unemployment outlooks. inflation is projected to hit

8,000,000% this year. are singaporest and japan. global news 24 hours a day, on air and at tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i'm uma pemmaraju. this is bloomberg. alix: thank you. pileup in obstacles the deutsche bank/commerzbank merger. suitors line up in case talks fail. we will break that down in wall street beat. take a look at some of the earnings on the move. allied financial coming in pretty strong on earnings, as well as revenue. that stock up 1%, despite the fact it is up 30% year to date. david: used car sales are holding it up, and he charge-offs aren't too bad. alix: and blackstone coming in 8% premarket. we will break that down in the 8:00 hour. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ uma: this is "bloomberg daybreak ." i'm uma pemmaraju. in the next hour, steve schwarzman, blackrock chairman and ceo. stay with us. ♪ uma: this is "bloomberg daybreak ." i'm uma pemmaraju with your bloomberg business flash. pinterest has raised $1.4 billion in its ipo, selling shares at above the market range last night. trading begins today on the new york stock exchange. the offering value is about $1.7 billion. bloomberg has learned

ancestry.com is preparing an ipo to take advantage of growing consumer interest in dna tests, plus investors are hungry for new help in technology stocks. an ipo could take place in the second half of the year. it would be the first cross-border marijuana merger. bloomberg has learned canada's canopy growth is nearing a deal s, whosenchorage holding directors include john boehner and brian mulroney. that is a quick look at your bloomberg business flash. alix: thank you. we turn now to wall street beat. first up, executive shuffle shines light on jp morgan's future. role, lake takes on a new -- the sec eyes the

loan market. more power from congress -- the agency may need more power from congress to investigate risk. david: we have jason kelly to go through those with us. jp morgan, we had the reaction that this talks to secession. your cfo, who is very well , and the woman who was in charge with cards, and put her into the cfo operation that is a lot higher profile. jason: the picture is getting clearer and clearer. last week we saw jamie aside other ceos being asked about secession, whether a woman might succeed any of them. jimmy didn't raise his hand, and there was some confusion. hand,ie didn't raise his and there were some confusion. this is not the first time this

is happened at jp morgan, where they move people around in the senior executive ranks. alix: when will jamie dimon ever retire? jason: ceo forever. i just don't imagine a time when that might happen, unless you have some internal jockeying like with lloyd blankfein at goldman sachs. jason: totally true. the other thing i would say is in the case of both of these executives, it also primes them for a bigger job potentially somewhere else. we seen that happen. david: which has happened at jp morgan. whening about --jason: using about jes staley. alix: our second story is deutsche bank/commerzbank yet again. there is a lineup of banks that want to buy commerzbank, and deutsche bank is still like, we need a plan b. jason: what is really interesting to me is, because i love the story in the bloomberg right now, it essentially says

here is the lineup of people whom you be interested in this. paribas,redit, bnp socgen, santander even. tos is an attractive asset someone, and even more attractive to someone else that it ultimately is to deutsche bank. david: i also noticed there's no line of suitors for deutsche bank. [laughter] david: if any of those come in, what has deutsche bank got left? talking to matt miller earlier, i understand plan b would be a sped up plan a. that doesn't sound very good to me. alix: either way, you have to raise some kind of money if you want to buy something, and you have to cut costs. david: they've been saying that for years. alix: exactly, and it hasn't done anything. -- i haveclear in no clear vision on what they want to do with their investment bank. jason: there's this whole element of the german government is ultimately going to have some

the gout say about both of these things. david: my third story is an sec sayingion coming out and it is time to step in on bank regulation. everyone has said you have to watch these nonbank banks making loans. are they disclosing liquidity the way they should be? jason: one of the biggest questions wall street thinks about and that regulators think about is what to trigger the next financial crisis. this always comes up, the nonbank banks, the shadow banking system, and leverage loans are the tip of the sphere in many ways. you think about property equity and hedge funds. they've all stepped into this area where banks have retreated. alix: rick rieder actually talked about that yesterday. here's what he had to say on the leverage loan market. [no audio] alix: oh, no.

anyway, he did talk about it, i promise. david: he said if you are 100% sure that these private nonbank banks are coming into this space. alix: and guess who has $500 billion now? blackstone. they are a primary example of someone who has stepped in to do a lot of this business. david: and you will be speaking with -- jason: steve schwarzman and just a minute to talk about not just their earnings, their conversion to a corporation. that is news that is catching a lot of attention on wall street. david: they got a lot of flows. jason: exactly. alix: serious cash out there. jason: $511 billion. david: many thanks to bloomberg 's jason kelly. listen to jason on bloomberg radio from 2:00 to 5:00 eastern time. in a few hours, special counsel robert mueller's report will be

released to congress in a compact disc. alix: they still have compact discs? [laughter] avid: a former southern district of new york prosecutor will be joining us. this is bloomberg. ♪

david: attorney general william barr will hold a news conference just about 90 minutes from now tied to the release of the 400 page mueller report. we welcome on the telephone jessica roth, law professor at cardozo law school and former attorney for the southern district of new york. we had this four page summary earlier. this is supposed to be upwards of 400 pages. what should we be looking for in this? jessica: the first thing i will be looking for is what evidence is set forth about russian

interference in the 2016 presidential election. barr's four-page letter quotes mueller as seeing the evidence did not establish conspiracy between the trump campaign and russian government actors. that does not necessarily mean he did not find any evidence of that activity, and leaves open the door to the idea there was coordination between trump associates and russian actors not directly tied to the government. i am going to first be looking for what the evidences on that issue. david: this is an important distinction because there could be cooperation, but it falls short because of the intent. is that correct? jessica: it could be there wasn't sufficient intent. it could be the coordination wasn't sufficient enough to lead up to a charge of conspiracy. it could not make up to the reasonable doubt standard. there are a lot of possibilities, but we are going to be looking for the facts he did find about this give indications. david: what about obstruction of

justice? that is something that we understand for the summary is that he said he would not take a position on one way or the other. jessica: that's right. i will be looking for evidence that does support a charge for obstruction of justice, and what were the individual acts in particular he considered as the basis for such a charge. barr's letter indicates some of those acts have been publicly reported, but some have not. what were each of those acts? for example, the firing of jim comey as fbi director, but what other acts were the basis of consideration for a charge? what were the legal arguments for and against bringing an obstruction charge based on those facts? barr's letter indicates that mueller also set forth the legal arguments for and against. doj policyclude the that a sitting president cannot be indicted? finally, why didn't mueller make

a traditional prosecutorial decision? that has been left unclear. did he indicate that he thought barr should make the decision given the sensitivity on the matter? did he say this was for congress to consider as a matter for possible impeachment? we will really be looking for more details about why mueller inclined to make a decision. david: we should remember this is a report on the entire investigation, which led all sorts of different directions. a lot of other people were indicted. we will probably get information about what led into that and what their connection was to the president and the people close to him. jessica: i expect we will. barr's letter indicated there was a strong narrative component of findings here. initially we thought maybe mueller's report would be very bare-bones. it sounds like what we are getting given the volume of the 400 plus pages is going to be much more extensive than that. one hopes it will draw together the different parts of the investigation. we will be looking for the

reductions, and particularly what color each reduction is. barr has indicated he is going to colorcode the reactions so the public will know the basis for redacting each segment. whatever the color is for ongoing investigations, that is going to be really important. david: i think you're right. jessica ross, thank you so much. we will be talking -- jessica roth, we will be talking to you later. thank you so much. comingess conference is up at 9:30. alix: coming up on the program, steve schwarzman, blackstone chairman and ceo. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ alix: topping $500 billion.

.lackstone grows we talked to ceo steve schwarzman. attorney general william barr will release the long-awaited mueller report. the main takeaways for the market. and open your wallets. u.s. retail sales on deck. a rebound likely as oil and gasoline sales spike higher. has the consumer found its footing, or is the bounce leading? sleeping? -- the bounce fleeting? david: welcome to "bloomberg daybreak." we are getting a report saying the attorney general will address the reduction process and the communications -- the redaction process and the communications between the white house and the justice department. alix: what does the market care about? david: i don't think the markets

will react very much. day just a very thin before the holiday, but if they react, i would think it is not so much as the legality as the atmospherics. i think this is what the white house is most concerned about, that it will read like a tabloid. it will say things that are really unflattering about the president, people around the president, the campaign, and that that will take away from the authority of the presidency. alix: optics, optics, optics. david: which counts in washington. alix: it does. the s&p flipping into causative territory. it was -- into positive territory. it was weaker earlier in the day. a bid coming into the bond market. the dollar and again really gaining safe haven -- and again gaining safe haven steam -- and the yen really gaining safe haven steam. david: blackstone announced their first quarter earnings just over an hour ago. we turn now to bloomberg's jason

kelly with steve schwarzman, blackstone's chairman and ceo. jason: thanks so much. a very busy day. thank you for spending time with us. first quarter earnings come i want to get to the corporation conversion any minute, but let's talk about the results for a second. what jumped out the most about this first quarter? steve: the first quarter had remarkable money gathering. we raised $43 billion in one quarter. beyou analyze that, we would half the size of any other firm in our industry. just in one year. raised $120 billion in the last 12 months. it is it like an out of body experience. when i started the firm back in the middle ages, we worked a year and a half and raised 850 million dollars. forad nothing else to raise

subsequent years until the next fund. jason: what accounts for this continued voracious appetite for these kind of alternative assets? what accounts for it are great returns with what had been historically very little risk. productsportunity type , we have historically made about double the stock market without losses. so why would you not put more money in an asset class like that? now we are expanding the firm to do it globally at different rates of return that meet people's needs. so compared to almost anything else you could do with money, you would do this. he money management industry is evolving into a barbell. you get these very low cost etf's, and there's pressure in the middle for active management

. the other side of the barbell are the alternatives. we are by far the biggest in the world, with the best global brand, and we keep inventing new strategies to go into, and institutions need the return. regular people need the returns as well. it is sort of a golden moment in that sense. jason: when you look across your businesses, real estate, credit, hedge funds, private equity, where do you see the most enthusiasm for investors, and where are you investing the most internally and putting the money to work? stephen: there's a lot of enthusiasm for all of our products. it is quite interesting that everything does out to the point of how much money we want to raise. you can't raise too much money. strategy will hurt your performance. managedss like ours,

for the long term, is geared to provide excellent returns to people. there's a lot of money that once that, and as long as we can keep inventing different strategies -- just in private equity alone, we have a regular private equity business, a core plus type of business, a core business where we invest for 15 orong periods of time, 20 years instead of an average of around five, we have technical opportunities that can invest in different types of investments, sort of shooting 14's, we have a secondary business for private equity which tends to make historically in the 16's -- so we keep doing different types of things. as long as we can offer something, that is just the private equity sector. each one of our sectors has products that meet the demand

where there is opportunity, whether it is buying interest in other firms, whether it is investing in different types of real estate all over the world, whether it is high return real estate, whether it is products sold to retail, were we can give a 10, seven in cash and 11 target for total appreciation. each one of the products is designed for a submarket. jason: let's talk about those individual investors because you want more of them to invest in your stock. you made the decision to convert to a corporation. that caught a lot of people's attention. kkr had done it. you studied it for a while. why now? stephen: by studying it, we learned some interesting facts which probably should have known before.

in the united states there's about $12 billion of assets in the money management business, of which there are mutual funds and index funds. that$4.5 trillion out of $12 trillion can buy us. so we've handicapped ourselves with our corporate form. by changing just the form, we will pick up another $4.5 trillion, doubling the amount of money that can buy our stock. the same type of thing has happened abroad, and that is not in that $12 trillion. we are going to pick up a lot of buying interest there. to the regular investor, this all triggered around receiving something called a k-1, which is a tax form that is very cumbersome, as opposed to a

1099, which people are used to getting. this easier for retail investors in the united states. abilityook around, our to reach a dramatically larger audience, and for people in my position, when we go out to, for example, a mutual fund, we will have a lovely meeting, and two people will say i can buy your stock, and eight portfolio managers say i wish we could, but they just can't do it. jason: they just came for the sandwich. now,en: so the moment is and corporate tax rates are lower in any case. so we think that even though it will increase our taxes a little moreit is worth it they

taxes for the benefit of our shareholders to have much bigger potential audience to buy, and i believe they will. jason: and he stock is obviously relaxing very positively in the premarket, i would imagine based on that news. taking a look at this private/public notion, we are in the year of the unicorn, and yet private companies stay in private longer. you are in the business of both private and public. are we seeing a fundamental shift in the market right now in terms of companies staying private longer? what does that mean for your business? stephen: you don't want to run out of companies to buy. there are less public companies now, dramatically so, then there were two years ago. -- then there were 20 years ago. companies like being private because there's not quarterly earnings. we run our company like it is a public company in terms of doing the right thing, building

long-term culture, making plans for the future, not worrying so much about quarterly earnings. on the other hand, the public ofket gives you a multiple cash flow or earnings that creates a cost of capital that is quite low, particularly with markets where they are now an interest rates where they are. so both forms have their toantages, but being able transform a company in a ,ositive way, hire more people don't worry so much about the short-term. do the right thing for the long-term. that is how we create value. it is why people who manage businesses enjoy being in a private setting. jason: i want to ask you about the u.s. economy. you are a student of it. you have a bunch of portfolio companies that give you a window into how the consumer and ceos are feeling.

where are we in the u.s. economic cycle? stephen: we are pretty close to full employment, so that means there is more money going to consumers. consumers are still confident and active. the tax bill is a real shot in the arm, if you will, for capital equipment with the depreciation schedules. we slowed down a bit from where we were. the current estimate is around 2.5% for u.s. we've got good growth in china on what people were thinking. i was there about three weeks that justng to people reported 6.4%, to the extent those numbers are absolutely accurate. i can tell you from being there that people are not worried the way they were two or three months earlier. jason: are you worried at all

about a u.s. recession in the next year or two? stephen: i haven't been. i was somewhat alone in the fourth quarter. i don't know why there was this huge drumbeat. we didn't see it with our ies in that part of business at blackstone. no ceo thought we were going into a recession. jason: and they remain confident. stephen: they remain confident. it is not as good as it was a year ago, but it has got a good footing at a lower growth level. jason: let's go back to what you said about china. you are a chinese expert. you have created a scholarship there in china. you have a great relationship with the government there. what is your outlook, your prediction on u.s. and china getting together on trade? how close are we? stephen: i think the trade

situation that i've had a little hand in over the last two years has gone through a lot of ups and downs. mostly downs. the argentina meetings with president xi and president trump, it started a new, really serious round. bob lighthizer and steve mnuchin have been regularly having videos, if you will, with the vice premier. they are going over documents themselves like they are fifty-year associates at a law firm. there are a lot of issues to cover, and they are doing a very good job. the basic relationship among the andle is straightforward problem-solving oriented. sure that there will

be an agreement -- jason: soon? stephen: your definition of student would have to be discussed -- of soon would have to be discussed. my thought is within the next six weeks, you will probably have this where it is going to be. it is not going to be an agreement that solves all problems because of china's economic form. it is different, with huge state ownership of certain things and subsidies. there are a variety of issues important to the united states that will be addressed. there's goodwill. china understands it is in their interest longer-term to open their markets and start protecting intellectual property and things of that type.

, butthe wrong continent rome wasn't built in a day. this won't be all done in one deal. that nothing has been done with china for about 70 years, i think this will be a good first step. jason: steve schwarzman, thank you so much for stopping by to see us. we know it is a busy day, and you have other journalists and businessmen to talk to about the news. thank you. see the crack about law associates there? david: fifty-year, -- fifth year. who goes through the all documents -- through the law documents? alix: coming up, we are about 50% for earnings season. consumerook at

discretionary. this is bloomberg. ♪ mberg. ♪

taylor: this is "bloomberg daybreak." mx were waiting for the earnings wereto start at 8 -- amex waiting for their earnings call to start at 8:30. spending on coke products has grown by double digits over the past several years. they've extended their partnership through 2030, so analysts liking that. synchrony financial was the best performer in premarket. they lost the walmart portfolio, but purchased an $8 billion portfolio from paypal. loans that were due past 30 days

rose almost 5%. to ceo continuing to say the balance sheet looks strong. united rentals are a fast performer in the premarket, reaffirming their full-year guidance up about 7%. the ceo is saying, "we are confident in the cycle. the year is unfolding as we expected." alix: thank you. for a broader view, come inside ea . we are looking at about 4% beat for earnings. sales barely changed overall. had a chisholm, fidelity sector strategy, joins us now. who is best positioned? denise: i think we need to focus on the dislocations we saw in the fourth quarter and what we've already discounted. as much as we are really focused on whether or not we will have an earnings recession, meaning we are down on a year-over-year basis, there's a good chance we've already discounted that.

i think the risk reward here, almost regardless of modest beats and misses, is procyclical for financials, technology, consumer discretionary, and materials. second and third quarters sort of the same. in defensive, i think we will see a rebounds in earning estimates. on short-term data, we had a earning estimates come down precipitously over the last three to six months. we are seeing some stabilization and the potential for that turnup. while we might have some sort of interesting earnings recession, i thing that out year estimates might be too low and might need to come up. david: denise chisholm of fidelity is going to stick with us. coming up, honeywell posted sales growth of at least 5% for the seventh straight quarter. more in today's bottom line. this is bloomberg. ♪

david: time now for the bottom

line, where we look at companies worth watching this morning. today it is honeywell. to take us through it, we welcome gordon haskins, senior analyst with a buy rating on honeywell and a price target of $106. we talk about a global manufacturing market slowdown. what happened with honeywell? bigt: honeywell is a very company in automation. they are not really representative of the broader economy. they really beat this morning. it still implies a bit of a it is-half slowing, so not clear the economy is in a trajectory that is going to improve on these results, but overall the results were very good. aerospace was about 10% core growth.

that repeats the core growth they had seen over the past year. that was much better than you would have expected. you would have expected a bit of a slowing naturally, and that really didn't occur. it is a defense company as well, so foreign governments are spending a lot in defense today, and that is coming through in the results. alix: is there a readthrough to other industrials? ohn: process industries like lng, other big chemical operations in asia come are doing very well. that has positive readthrough for the world's biggest process manufacturer, and secondarily rockwell. with respect to warehouse automation, there's other smaller players. honeywell is really the largest u.s. one to play that. alix: come inside the bloomberg. this is the overall look at

industrials. operating margins are the bottom panel, holding up there. the white line is industrials versus s&p sales. denise: for the manufacturing in and of itself is really a good starting point to have. what is interesting is the reason it got there is because relative earnings really lagged substantially over the past year. part of that is because of the global manufacturing contraction. now where the global pmi is, just that contraction territory alone has 71% odds on the forward look for industrials. all of the indicators we are seeing from a credit turn out of turningd the lei's could suggest the pmi's are turning. david: what about china and honeywell? john: we don't have the exact

numbers yet, but they probably held pretty steady. they were pretty weak in the third quarter, owing to what she just said, but they picked up a little bit in the fourth quarter. our view is that we were just in china three weeks ago attending several conferences. it does appear the short cycle economy is probably bottoming. whether it gets a lot better in the short term remains to be seen. gordonohn inch of haskins, thanks very much. denise chisholm of fidelity will be sticking with us. coming up, we are minutes away from march u.s. retail sales data. just how much did i spend? this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: the latest read on retail sales just around the corner. the dax and european stocks higher despite the fact that

pmi's signaling germany's manufacturing sector is not great. -- the german yield at four basis points. the curve continues to flatten in the u.s.. the latest read on u.s. retail sales. auto and gas up .9%. up 1.6%. these are awesome numbers. david: they are very strong. gas revised up from last month. it is more than double what we thought. .9% up. alix: you're welcome, economy. i did my part in march. there is a 1.6 gain. if you backout auto it is 1.2%. strong across-the-board. we like talking about the , auto, gasoline,

anything that might be cyclical also up. david: auto trove it in part but not exclusively. alix: they increased the most since 2017. joining us from his office in your is jpmorgan chief u.s. economist. denise chisholm is still with us. michael, looks like strong numbers. michael: those are good numbers for march. it is looking better with the retail sales number. we also had great auto sales numbers for the month of march. feeling good about momentum heading into the second quarter. also 8:30 we got jobless claims at another 50 year low. the fundamentals for the consumer seem to be setting up as we headed to the second quarter. jobless claims 192

thousand and the survey was 205,000 so was better than the survey. michael: we had the big dow number in december. -- we had the big down number in december. we are probably tracking real spending growth in consumer around one, 1.5 for the first quarter and we are coming out of some of the distortions related to the shutdown and the weakness we saw in financial conditions around the turn of the year. it does look like things are finding their fitting. alix: we are seeing markets moving higher on this news. this brings me to what we are seeing in discretionary. the white line is consumer discretionary performance and the blue line is cash flow, one metric you look at to see where what- what is baked in and should be baked in question mark denise: what is interesting --

what should be baked in? denise: there is a debate on whether this is really negative. what is interesting even if we didn't debate there is real weakness -- even if we debate whether is real weakness our government shutdown, you have a 90% odds of consumer discretionary outperforming out -- after that downturn. it is an expensive sector. odds iting, and the looked at, you are just higher odds buying it when it is expensive versus when it is cheaper which tells me valuation is not a significant headwind from a probability perspective because of the fundamentals. eye on to keep our margins because that is the critical driver for the overall sector. the leading indicators i look at our positive. david: michael, what does this say for the u.s. economy overall? we expected a weak first-quarter

in terms of gdp growth. so much of the economy is driven by the consumer. given all of the headwinds we faced, particularly with the government shutdown, that is pretty good. some of that was an inventory built. that should unwind in the second quarter. we are setting up for pretty good second quarter with another two handle on it. given some of the fears of a few months ago, things are looking reasonably strong. the labor market looks good. housing, we have seen more favorable indicators there, and then the consumer looks to be performing well and all of the fundamentals for the consumer, the labor market and labor income look good. i say we're feeling all right about the economy. david: we spoke with steve schwarzman with blackstone and he reiterated he sees a fair amount of strength in the economy.

this is part of what he had to say. >> no ceo thought we were going into a recession. it is not as good as it was a year ago, but it has a good footing at a lower growth level. david: is that the way see it, and if that is right what does it mean? denise: from the data i have looked at, it means a couple things. we've seen a bifurcation between the economy and earnings but this time we have seen a re-coupling because the turned down in earnings happened at the same time as global economic slowdown. if that is right, earnings might end up higher which could drive cyclical sectors higher. alix: i want to hit on what you mentioned earlier. this is s&p margins estimates. they have been slipping. netflix did have pricing power in the u.s.. what is the consumers appetite to take on price increases?

michael: we have not seen firms able to get much across in the way of pricing power. we saw last week and over the last few months consumer price inflation has been quite soft and we expect to see that in the core pce number next week. meanwhile we are seeing decent growth in labor income. so far, it seems like the pricing power is more in the hands of labor. we expect that to change, but that does seem to be the way the data has been shaking out lately. is that good news in the sense we do not have the pricing power, the fed will not have the urgency to raise rates. denise: it is good news from that perspective. it is tailwind from the federal reserve being on hold. significant on from the market overall during the winter. -- during that period. that pricing power we see in the

cpi, those are the areas where they are having problems getting pricing pressure. now if you look at the multiple revalue during the fourth quarter, consumer staples are not as cheap as they have been. back in the middle of the range. makes thatdowntrend sector in the crosshairs for being negative on the risk reward. david: michael feroli and denise chisholm, thank you very much for being with us. retails for the united states of america for the month of march are strong. if you take out autos and gas, which tend a very, it is a .9% increase. also a slight increase in the negative side last month. the nominal headline number was 1.6% better. as michael pointed out, the jobless claims came in and stronger as well. only 192,000 versus the survey number of 205,000. now we turn to uma pemmaraju with first word news.

uma: the public is likely to learn today what robert mueller found out about links between russia and the trump campaign. a redacted version of his report is being released. attorney general william barr will be holding a press conference before sending the report to congress. democrats are saying that gives them a chance to spin the contents for lawmakers -- before lawmakers and the public have a chance to read it. the u.s. and china are hoping to reach a trade deal in may. bloomberg has learned the plan calls for president trump and president xi design an agreement later in the month. the two economies are trying to ian d a nine-month trade wars. steve mnuchin -- trying to end a nine-month trade war. president trump's energy secretary is preparing to step down. rick perry is finalizing the terms of his departure. his departure is not seen as imminent at the moment. he is a former governor of texas

and a republican who ran for the presidency of the united states. global news 24 hours a day, on air and @tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i am uma pemmaraju. this is bloomberg. alix: thank you so much. i wonder what rick perry is going to do? david: he has already been governor of texas. alix: what will you do after that? a record amount of capital pouring into private equities. we will talk to an investment dealmaker about his new pe shop. this is bloomberg. ♪

uma: this is bloomberg daybreak.

i am uma pemmaraju in the green room. markets, on bloomberg union -- ceo. stay with us for that. this is bloomberg daybreak. i am uma pemmaraju with your bloomberg business flash. --germany, authorities are the president once germany to keep wall way out of the country's fifth generation network because of alleged chinese espionage. german spies say the u.s. and germany rely on each other too much. bloomberg has learned ancestry.com is preparing an ipo. the utah-based company wants to take advantage of growing consumer interest in dna test. investors are hungry for new health and technology stocks. ancestor ipo could take place in the second half of this year.

pinterest has raised 1.4 billion in its ipo. digital -- selling shares above the market rate. trading begins today on the new york stock exchange. that is a quick look at your bloomberg business flash. back to you. alix: thank you. what will the first day ipo deeper pinterest? -- be for pinterest? the lyft experience is not cooling anyone's order. alix: capital market staying open. we get a mineral ipo i will be talking later. david: a lot of money looking for some place to land. alix: speaking up, let's go to the follow the lead. a deep dive into stories making headlines from industry veterans and insiders. today we will look at private equity as big firms continue to raise record amounts of capital. alex navab is a veteran

dealmaker who is now serving up his own private equity shop. also with us, jason kelly, new york -- bloomberg's new york bureau chief. congratulations. what was it like to raise money. tell us about the amount of capital in the space? alex: we have not started raising money yet but the environment for raising private equity is quite good. the reason for that is simple. the private equity industry has delivered great returns, great cash flow for investors, certainly over the last 10 years , which has been a very volatile from joe -- period for investing. investors have shifted capital to the alternative space where they are getting increased returns and within the alternative space in the private equity. i hope and suspect that will continue for a while. i certainly hope if and when we

start fundraising, that that will continue. talk to us about putting together a firm at this moment on wall street. business butitive also a time where you have a lot of people who may want to test their entrepreneurial chops alongside with you. tell us about that process. alex: i am very energized and was very excited to start the firm. this is all about people. we do not make widgets, we do not make pipes. this is all about putting the right team together, forming the right culture. when i started thinking about the vision of the firm and the team, i cast a wide net. started looking at people at different firms, spent a lot of time looking at top talent at a

lot of different organizations. this has been a journey. putting the team together is a real process. jason: you have drawn people from your old job, kkr, carlisle , brand-name shops. you are starting right out of the gate with a philanthropic arm. you hired a director who used to work with bill ackman at pershing square. what is the thinking behind this in terms of the doing good by doing well model? inx: i've always believed addition to generating great returns for our investors, we have an obligation to serve our communities as well. i've always believed glenn kirby as part of my day-to-day responsibility. i want to have a culture -- believed philanthropy is part of my day-to-day responsibility. was partp philanthropy

of my day-to-day mission of the firm. was ang on georgia critical part of our mission. setting philanthropy as well as our investment mandate was important. alix: to drill down into the overall credit market, leveraged loans the topic whether you are looking at wall street big bankers, talking to congress. we have rick rieder from blackrock yesterday. here's what he had to say about the risk and opportunity of leveraged loan markets. is weakerink there credit conditions. we see it in some of the middle market lending. it is over the top. so much money has been raised that is pressing into levels and no covenants and no structure. quite frankly smooth the banks are pulling away, saying if you want that business you can take it. some of it has been overdone.

driving private equities in the lending business for the long term? 100%. alix: what are your thoughts on that? alex: i think private equity will be in the private lending business, because the banks, particularly the larger banks, have withdrawn from that segment of the market life. whether that is an overheated market, i think you need to look at that on a credit by credit basis. is anhumble opinion it over generation to say that entire market is overheated. it is a credit by credit analysis. i would say overall, leverage levels have moved up, not just in the small to medium-sized market, but even the small market -- even in the large market. you need to because she is, not only because of the leverage levels, but because we -- you need to be cautious, not only , butse the leverage levels because of the cycle we are in.

where are we in that dealmaking cycle? are there going to be good deals at the right valuations? people talk about things being expensive. alex: valuations are high. we do need to be quite cautious and we need to be selective. at the late end of the cycle. for that reason we need to be selective and i'm not smart enough to know exactly when, but we are probably a year or two away from a downturn. for all of those reasons this is time to be selected and cautious. there'll be some great opportunities, but it is time to be selective. alix: what is next? alex: right now i'm still putting our team together. alix: what sectors are you saying i will chill down here? alex: we want to look for economic areas that are more

resistant. health care will be an interesting area. areas within technology, particularly software tech enabled. verticals will be interesting. areas within financial technology and financial services will be interesting. those are the areas we are focused on. over time, we will broaden our view, particularly as we move out of a recession. we will have our hands full for the next several years looking at those segments. alix: thanks. alex navab of navab partners and jason kelly, always great to catch up with you. david: march retail sales jumped the most since 2017. taylor riggs is watching those. taylor: let me take a look at what is going on. equities futures rising and a higher dollar index. in bye seeing yields come

two basis points perhaps around the uncertainty around the robert mueller report. you are seeing equity risk on an risk up sectors and you are seeing a little bit of flattening on the yield curve. i want to come to the terminal because we are only 30 points from a record on the s&p 500. 2930 set last september. we are getting close, breaking 2900, but we are not in .verbought territory we are only here at about a 65 level on that rsi. some of the individual movers we are looking at is american express, trying to recover from the lows earlier. they are reaffirmed their full-year view and talking a lot about the delta products giving them a boost. they have extended the partnership through 2030.

another big gainer has increased by $8 million their loan portfolio from paypal. united rentals up about 9%. best performer in premarket saying they are reaffirming their full-year guidance, emphasizing confidence in this cycle. alix: bloomberg's taylor riggs. great breakdown. we are about a half hour away from attorney general william barr's news conference expected to talk about the process of rejecting the report. more on what i am watching. and color coding. this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: here is what i and everyone is going to be watching. william barr expected to release the redacted version of robert mueller's report. kevin cirilli joins us. what we get in half an hour? kevin: we get a redacted version of the report. it will be color-coded for redaction.

we will hearnote from attorney general william and at the 9:30 half-hour then potentially from president trump at the 10:00 hour and formally get this release sometime before noon. david: it is a tough question. will anything surprise us? earlier --his point is this just confirmation biask? kevin: that is a great question. you will hear from chuck schumer and nancy pelosi, who are calling for william barr to testify publicly after the recess. alix: what will matter for the market? kevin: ignore the politics for a second and look at the headline risk to see if any financial institutions are named or any big tech companies. remember that during the dni release of intelligence, there had been big tech names the russians having

used them as propaganda platforms. it will be extinct to see how specific this report with naming specific companies. it will be searchable, so we can search some of the names. balance of power, we are ready to go. alix: full coverage of william barr's news conference at 9:30 a.m. eastern time. what guest will be talking about it on balance of power? david: robert ray, former whitewater investigator. alix: coming up on the open with jonathan ferro, julian emanuel. ♪

jonathan: from new york city for our audience worldwide. i'm jonathan ferro. "the countdown to the open" starts right now. ♪

jonathan: global equity markets resilient despite more disappointing european economic data. stocks getting a lift from u.s. retail sales. signs of a strong u.s. consumer. , washington's main event brought to you by attorney general william barr. it is coming up this hour. a big day in washington, d.c. starting at 9:30, the attorney general holding a news conference ahead of releasing a redacted version of the robert mueller report. 10:30, president trump scheduled to make remarks to members of the wounded warrior project at the white house. 11:00, the report making its way to capitol hill where the summary will be delivered to members of congress. more on that later. we will be bringing you complete coverage of the bar news conference scheduled to start at the bottom of the hour. let's get you the price action.