herbalife saying bill ackman and pershing square manipulated the stock price.he court is saying there is no proof, but either case could be reopened. ahead, voters in iowa head to their caucus sites to pick their presidential preferences. will donald trump cash in on his lead in the polls? we are live from des moines. ♪ david: you are looking at a live a rally for donald trump in cedar rapids. trump is not there yet, but he is making his final pitch to voters in iowa ahead of tonight's caucuses. "bloombergching markets" on bloomberg television. i david gora. the race for the white house has .een leading up to today hillary clinton is leading bernie sanders by 3%, which is in the margin of error. on the republican side, donald trump has a five point advantage over ted cruz. john heilemann joins us from des moines. what is going to make a difference here? when you look at iowa and the past caucuses, what are candidates doing on the closing day to make their case? ,ohn: they are running around trying to get their faces in front of as many voters as they can. they

beating a bill ackman, also moving, herbal life right now.ution with the ftc, if that is even a possibility. stephanie: this is so important this is more than what their sales look like i bill ackman said this company is worth zero. the thousands of hours he had put behind this is a regulatory short. many short-sellers have sat out there and said a regulatory short is a recipe for disaster. you are betting on government action. that is a crazy move. for herbal life to say they are getting close to a resolution with the ftc, that is a very bad sign for mr. and\/\ ackman. are: weight watchers shares down 26.5% in the premarket. david: where was it before opera came in? matt: i will look. it will be clear from the chart went over kman. if you take a look at my bloomberg. you can see, right here around october 16 is win over kman net-net out -- is when opera came in and an ostrich steak. it is a healthy momentary game. that oprah effect caused a big spike up, and now we see that dissipate. it is not just weight watchers, robert latta, that is wha

if you look at bill ackman in valiant, some people say he destroyed the company.sion around activism shareholder toagement really should turn a discussion about short versus long-term. what really is driving a company? short-term performance and long-term performance and what's going to influence that? fundsthe role of index which increasingly are viewed as the longest term shareholders of a company in addition to board and management? that debate should be aired. stephanie: what the you think it should be? -- what do you think it should be? ken: i think it has to find a balance. it was on short-term and i think it will shift back a little bit. you seems that you see some responsible actions taken by index funds and i think that is a good thing. stephanie: i think we have a chart to show how big activist investing has become. matt: we have a chart to show that it is beating other strategies. macro trading strategies in white, global equity hedge funds in yellow and activist investing in blue. even though on this program we show these hedge fund strategies have out

we looked at bill ackman, a lousy year at pershing, down something like 20%. he's down another 10%.elson peltz, interesting, smart guy, down 15%. daniel loeb was down 3%. he's having a better than average year, beating the indexes. what is activist hedge fund? it does more than short the market and make plays. he goes out there and he actively pushes management to change. over the last couple of years, these firms have done very well and scored victories, particularly last year, nelson peltz scored very big victories with dupont and other cases, carl icahn has big victories, if you look at the record now, what market players are starting to see are cracks in the armor or whatever the cliche is, they are seeing them starting, starting right now to underperform and what they say is look for this to continue, this is a hard business to replicate in this type of market, this volatile market, which is much more, right now, this is a trading market. this would, in my view, this market would, if he could manage outside money again, this would favor a steve cohen who likes to trade a lot as

news alert on bill ackman. seema mody has that news. >> pershing square losses accelerate and this follows a 20.5% decline in 2015 so certainly a tough time for bill ackman and his hedge fund and their second biggest holding is valiant pharmaceuticals, and that stock is down about 15% this year. >> seema, thank you. >> again, you heard it right, down 19% this year. >> coming off a terrible last year. >> exactly, exactly. >> that's getting to be a pretty big cumulative hole to dig out of. >> yeah. >> i've got to say. everyone i know, and i don't know bill that well, no one that i know let's bad news run, you know, like water off a duck's back. doesn't bother him. >> and he keeps going, and eventually, you know, he seems to find his way out again and again and again. >> the bigger question is how many other funds are going through the same problem. >> many. >> and there's a lot more funds which means a lot more pressure because a lot of guys can't survive as long as he's surviving. >> there's going to be a lot of

bill ackman says the american dream is fading. you are going to whole foods, getting a new tattoo with your grass fed organic meats. the second hour of funny and company is a few minutes away. ♪ >> wind german on us. stuart: i did. looking for be found. the price of oil up $1.46. trying to get some cooperation around production cost. when resorts. they see growth in las vegas. they see growth in las vegas. the leading stock in the s&p 500. of 10%. back to the price of oil. >> the energy minister saying yesterday in an interview with sky news arabia, the opec countries ready to cut on production. they will not do it. we do not want to lose market share. at the same time, wiping out the smaller producers. a father's rally goes. this is important. it is poised to restrict passport free travel. >> one of the major selling points. twenty-six countries doing away with it. you can travel freely. and the old days, you had to change her money. the bad news is, those people that want to do us harm, may be terrorists among the refugees. trav

you know who owns a stake in bill ackman's company? >> no, who? >> aig.as bill ackman goes down because of valeant, carl icahn does. >> did you read what squaring the circle actually was yesterday? >> i did not. was i supposed to? >> no, someone wrote in. it's an old term where if there were archers in a circle and the horses would sort of rush -- if you made is a square, they'd be less inclined or something. some warfare tactic. you square the circle to make sure you're unable to be attacked. just in case you were wondering. >> i squared a little circle? >> little bit. >> okay. just want to put it all -- >> valeant, what its average cost? do you know? >> i do not know. >> because the high is 265 or so. it's trading at 75. i don't know where it's headed today. actually, that must be reflecting some of the weakness today because 75.95 is where i have it. that's rough, isn't it? >> so he bought at 87.41 -- >> bought more. >> that was on november 20th and november 23rd he had bought more. but he was out of the money at much higher prices earlier on. >> right

companies thatse have come up against hedge fund magnets, in this case, bill ackman.lled this eight pyramid scheme, has a billion dollars short bet against them. the've been in talks with ftc which might end up resolving the investigation. herbalife cautions that this could still have a material effect on the company depending on the outcome of these talks. there's a lot of optimism surrounding that announcement. , those at jcpenney today shares rising after the company's profit and sales topping estimates, they are up by 15%. the ceo's attempt to turn around jcpenney are starting to bear some fruit. same-store sales up 4.1% for the quarter. we are also looking at craft kinds come another stock that has been gaining in the wake of earnings. heinz.kraft carol: coming up, silicon valley versus the government. the continuing battle over privacy. how this case will play out. this is bloomberg markets. ♪ tracy: we do have breaking news from credit squeeze. -- credit suisse. overhaul that is chief executive officer has been working on -- this is according to people with kno

other headlines this morning, a rough start to 2016 for bill ackman.portfolio dropping nearly 19% so far. akman's firm ended 2015 with its largest ever, posting a 40% gain in 2014. tough, tough performance for them this year. still to come, worldwide markets under pressure. and why? we want to hear from you. what are you most concerned about now? yellen? european banks? oil? i was surprised by what's leading. we'll give you results and lots of analysis. cathy's gotten used to the smell of lingering garbage... ...in her kitchen yup, she's gone noseblind. she thinks it smells fine, but her guests smell this. ding, flies, meow febreze air effects heavy duty has up to... ...two times the odor-eliminating power to... ...remove odors you've done noseblind to [inhales] mmm. use febreze air effects, till it's fresh and try febreze small spaces... ...to continuously eliminate up to two times the odors... ...for 30 days febreze small spaces and air effects, two more ways... [inhale + exhale mnemonic] to breathe happy. >>> breaking news. wall street waking up to

bill ackman and pershing square have added 5 million more shares.options9.2 million call . not paying off yet. stephanie: and it does not seem like things are turning around. to hand it over to abigail doolittle who is looking at facebook. >> shares are down sharply as looking at as decision in india around that the trilogy. investors may be using any reason to sell some of these tech stocks in this jittery environment that you are talking about. momentumthat the stock may be reversing. the nasdaq is 2% away from an official bear market. what makes this surprising with facebook, last week, it was one of the only stocks to be up your today. now it is down your today, heading toward its 200-day moving average. the question is whether the buying support will hold or not. next, we will again the value propositions. if another flash crash happened today, would regulators be ready? we will take a look at that next. ♪ matt: welcome back. tomorrow on the show, we will speed to aberdeen asset management ceo martin gilbert. ♪ >> investors are buying apollo ed

. >> and that applies to bill ackman if you're listening out there. >> one thing we were looking at over the break. remember he increased his stake and did call spreads, buying the 130s against it but funding that by selling puts, so he had 70 strike puts. some that went away. they expired last week. >> right. >> let's say that -- >> i'm just saying it's kufious. . >> saying curious with nothing attached to it. so the delta on those means he's getting longer an longer as the stocks go down and the position is getting bigger and when it's going down still hedging in that regard. curious to see what he does for it. for me i am getting a little spooked, we talked about jublia. i've sold our cbs, held it for years. like their story, done a great job, but i'm afraid there's more to it than this. there was the jim chanos story about that as well. i'm out of cvs. >> uninvestable. >> not in the eighth or ninth inning of this. >> looking before when the news crossed at its low and that was 6933, after citron's report that the report shorting valeant's. >> and we had a tradeable bounce. remember t

coming up, it's the billionaire brawl that played out right here on halftime as carl icahn and bill ackmanr herbalife. >> we'll either be proven right or wrong. we shorted the stock. we have not covered our shares. wrote believe there's a real investor that can own the business long-term. we believe it's a pyramid scheme and you can prove that to a degree of certainty. >> i'll tell you one day i think it could be the mother of all short squeezes. >> all right. is a resolution to that long standing battle over this stock, closer? why it's on a tear today and what's likely to really happen next. plus it's the asset that's out performing facebook, amazon, netflix and alphabet this year. should you stick with gold? we'll debate that coming up as well. >> you know herbalife shares today are surging this hour as we learn the governments investigation of that company could finally be coming to a close. the company revealing in it's earnings filing last night that it's in talks with the ftc as a potential resolution. our next guest calls news historic. tim ramey joins us now on the phone. welcome.

bill ackman's pershing square lost $280 million and paulson lost 175 million. meg is here with the latest. what's the take on this s.e.c. investigation? is this sort of a follow-up of the restatement of things they said they were already going to do? >> analysts said this was probably expected given all the news, all the accounting questions and things like that. that really nobody should be surprised that the s.e.c. is looking into this. of course, they were already under investigation by several sources, the southern district of new york, congress, another s.e.c. investigation into something else before this, and so this is yet another one that came out earlier today and really started to surprise people and make them even more nervous. really a good day for valeant and announced that mike pearson was coming back and that should have assuageled a lot of fears saying it's okay to get back on an even keel and all of the news that followed after that made it worse and worse and worse. >> and even on the news that michael pearson was coming back the stock was tra

this stock is a gigantic holding of bill ackman and his per shij square hedge fund.ckman's been having a tough time of late. just today when herb alife a company he's been short for a long time because he thinks it's a pyramid scheme reported a very strong number and said it might soon resolve its issue with the ftc. this stock shot up 9 points or 20% on that news. you can bet that in this rapacious world if valeant gets hit on earnings, driving ackman's position down, you're going to hear chatter that ackman may have to cover, or buy back his short on herbalife. that's right. bad news for valeant may be more good news for herbalife. how twisted is that? we've been fixated on the stocks of companies that offer value because it's been such a good recipe for success so far in 2016. and we get results from not one but two fabulous plays on value on tuesday. dollar tree and ross stores. last summer dollar tree bought family dollar. frankly at first it was a little rocky. that merger, i wasn't so sure. but not anymore. i think now this is a totally winning combination and

bill ackman's bet on pharmaceuticals is taking another hit today, valiant is the reason his fund hasen a massive slice down, the drug maker down another 10.5% after wells fargo issued yet another negative report on valiant. to politics and donald trump, celebration of saturday night's south carolina primary victory. could it be short-lived as the republican candidates zero in on nevada's caucuses tomorrow? or will he win? because right now he's charging higher. we've got a whole new campaign controversy brewing, and this one really doesn't have anything to do with trump. it's between saturday's second and third place finishers, senator marco rubio and ted cruz. this one over a bible, a campaign staffer, and cruz's dad. so we thought let's bring in fox business senior washington correspondent peter barnes to set it all up for us. he's at the ted cruz rally in las vegas. we know there are a whole bunch of issues swirling around, what are the people in the crowd talking about? >> reporter: well, they're waiting to hear from senator cruz who is, right now, not in the room yet. he's being

commission over the probe of its business practices related to accusations made by hedge fund manager bill ackmanthe outcome of the talks uncertain. it bounced significantly today, up 13%. monster beverages' fourth quarter results were much lower than expected. demand for its products remain strong, but the company was hurt by weak foreign currency and inventory shift. do down 7.5%. >> now for today's top trending stories. is jack ma getting into the wine business? the alibaba ceo has reportedly purchased a vineyard and chateau in france. while the price of the purchase was not disclosed, a vineyard and castle on more than 200 acres likely came at a steep price. he's just building this real estate portfolio. he bought the second most expensive home in the world. $193 million. what's being described as a bungalow in hong kong. he bought property in upstate new york. now perhaps a vineyard. but i don't think he drinks wine. >> i don't care about the property part so much, but the wine part. we know the chinese really have a taste for french wine. they also love alibaba. do you think he's going to b

the probe began after allegations from billionaire bill ackman, who said he was shorting herbalife.nding by free -- spending by french businesses picked up in the last three months of the year. housing, consumer confidence, and the pound are all taking a hit from concerned the u.k. will leave the european union. say the home track on referendum will curb housing sales. a measure of british consumer confidence says it has fallen to the lowest level in three years. the pound had its worst week since 2009. tom: caroline hyde, thank you so much. now we digress. megan murphy is in washington, damage from last night possible republican debate. were you surprised by the level of shout fest last night? was surprised they let it extend to that, because the strategy going in for rubio and trump.s to hit there were points you could not hear what anyone was saying. i think in some respects, even though they scored big points, i am not sure who it helps that much in the end. tom: i look at the world coverage -- francine lacqua mentioning the shock and awe of what people observe of america in eur

turns out there is not enough evidence that supporting not one cases, onerminal bill ackman accusingel. down by 1%. this is the first time were they are going to get 18 months of documentary films and tesla down 2.5% right now. cutting their price target to -- to 450.0, >> google will reported fourth-quarter earnings. amazon put up a bad quarter. both of those stocks are down percent -- down 10% year to date. interesting to see where alphabet fits in. analysts are excited to see where this current -- where the first company segmented. so far we have seen lots of surprise and volatility. seems like a lot of that could still be ahead. >> our own abigail doolittle at the nasdaq. when we come home we are going from new york city to puerto rico. details on their plan to cut debt. >> welcome back, i'm here with a little history lesson, green, stocks down across the board. one bright spot. >> welcome back to bloomberg , here is your latest bloomberg business flash. that strengthens the medical diagnostic. hiv, malaria, and other diseases. credit the force for making disney's the most po

now that's got some investment professionals looking for other candidates, the bill ackman trying toke bloomberg to enter the race. ken langone has switched from christie to john kasich but his ties to wall street themselves are a liability. check out this ad. >> i was a banker and proud of it. this is the man that was a managing general partner at lehman brothers when it went down the tubes. >> in congress john cakasich wre billions in lone leading to the financial crisis and he made millions while taxpayers were forced to bail out wall street. >> and where did that ad come from? from the super pac backing chris christie who happens to be ken langone's former candidate. >> our john harwood. thank you so much. if you thought wall street was only backing more conservative candidates, think again. some financial world backing on the democrat he can side. >> those wall street campaign contributions a lightning rod between the two democratic candidates, take a listen to this exchange to get a feel for just how controversial wall street is among democrats. >> i debated then senator obama

before that, bill ackman, had all of us focused last spring. mr. nolte: it was.erent than the biotech space and i think that joe's approach to having a diversified basket, because you do not know which of those will pay off when, but i think we are on the cusp of a immunotherapy, and being in those companies will eradicate and get bit of cancer, probably in our lifetimes, and it will be a huge cost-savings for the health care industry. jon: he will talk about that in a moment. whenever i hear well-performing fund from 2015, i hear the term "stockpicking," but nobody elaborates. at, metrics are you looking which stocks are you going to, and why are you picking them? talk to me about your dashboard. what are you looking for? mr. edelman: well, a lot of the stocks we are in are heavily discounted for the risk the drug won't work, won't be approved -- this sort of thing, won't sell. those are the three things you are trying to answer. does the drug work, which you get answered by phase three clinical trials, will the drug be approved, and finally, will it sell more o

workntrated bets did not out for everyone last year, naming the bill ackman and valeant down.charts. bloomberg --ers of what will are masters of bloomberg cap for us today? matt miller is getting warmed up. david: masters? wow. ♪ k welcome -- jon: welcome back. it is time for battle of the charts. this morning, i have barry alongside me to help me judge. us off.ton will start the returning champ. mark: a few things yesterday, the 1.8 decline yesterday with the dollar big. let's look back on history because in 1981 from january to july, sterling struck against the dollar. you remember in 1992 around that time, sterling stacked 25% in another five month timeframe frame. 2008, in the heights of the global recession, sterling sticking by 25%. it is up 325% over the last 30 years and it has done 15% decline six times over the half year timeframe since 1975. will fall the eu, it to one dollar 1520. that is another follow 20%, -- matt: how much coffee does this guy drink? before he comes on, it is like coffee, amphetamine. stephanie: he does excellent. yesterday, mark was talking abo

in the last month -- it took bill ackman, you know, and david einhorn a year to throw es%.t took me a month. >> is that because of amazon. >> partly amazon. everything else. everything else is going down. >> you're not concerned. if you're fully invested there's not a way to buy additional shares. >> what we do we try to mon. etize the volatility. we try to add to ones that have gone down. >> i assume you're adding to amazon. >> amazon is a 10% position. so i can't say what we're doing but that's a very big position. >> can i ask you a psychological question. on a month like this how you feel and what do you about it. you had tough times before. >> really? yeah. yeah. andrew -- >> there's a lot of viewers who have their own bad months. >> i think my psychology, i think my mom must have dropped me on my head when i was 6 months old. i like lower prices. lower prices tell me i have higher future rates of return. when prices are high i get nervous. when prices are low i feel good. i like a market like this even though it drives people in my crazy. >> you can buy apple for $780

>> bill ackman begged him last week. the question. >> my belief is if hillary clinton is the nominee, bloomberg will see there's not a sufficient market for him and will not jump in. if bernie sanders somehow restarts the enjoy and retakes hillary clinton -- >> it's my fervent -- i actually want him to jump in more than you do. >> by the way, the argue in "morning money" is about that very issue n. that he might ultimately be -- >> we'll all be thin, there won't be any guns and the climate will be healed. >> hey, john, you know, i thought duke, you know, you had one point where you looked -- you know, it was okay, and then louisville came in and just smoked you again. you're just no good this year, i'm sorry. >> you know that was a tough game. i'm proud of my team. they hung in. they had almost nobody. they had an injury during the game. they had guys foul out. and they just didn't quite have enough -- rick pitino is a good coach. he's got a good team. i think when we get myke jones back -- >> i was trying to elude to th