look at centurylink, the old-fashioned wire line telephone company., i kind of like to say i told you so but a few months ago i warned you about centurylink because the ridiculously high dividend wasn't safe. sure enough, last night the company did cut its dividend in half, even as management had stood by that payout in response the stock lost 13% of its value too. >> the house of pain >> for several years now i've been getting calls about the safety of this gargantuan dividend, because centurylink had the largest yield in the s&p 500. emphasize had. last night they slashed down to 1. that's a drastic move. they want to create value in other ways that are better and more sustainable to me that means we can't afford it anymore i'm not happy about this i would have loved to have been proven wrong about centurylink, but there is no way this company could grow and compete with the big boys while still diverting such a huge chunk of its earnings directly to shareholders since i told you to sale the stock has tumbled from 18 to 12. at the time it looked lik

centurylink, shares off 10% after analysts saying the dividend cut to one dollar is tough but necessary. a lot of growth concerns remain about the company.

centurylink will cut its dividend and half and try to get into debt under control, sending the stock up 4%. the poor one of performers. guy: let's switch from games to banks. 600 --leave the stoxx banks leave the stoxx 600 lower. spoke earlier on bloomberg. >> we will continue to be cautious until we see how the revenue environment plays out. it is a volatile outlook is a look at the rest of the year. guy: we are joined by ed robinson from bloomberg news. associate did with stability -- we associate it with stability when it comes to earnings, but when it does not rise, it gets punished. >> it is the nasty fourth-quarter that took the punch out of it. with asia, we did expect more profitand its pretax came in at $3.4 billion. the market was expecting $4.4 billion. vonnie: ed, what happens next? this hsbc take some action? >> today, they tried to strike an upbeat note in the called. ratesited higher interest . they said the first six weeks of the year had been quite promising in global markets and the investment banking business, so they are trying to raise expectations from what this

right before the shutdown there was talk about looking into centurylink over 911 outa ges, and also 911ounty hunters, what was it like for all those weeks and what was allete coming back? -- and what was it like coming back? mr. o'reilly: i came in every day, i worked, but it's an eerie place when there is only a handful of people instead of 1000. i worked hard on the material but new items were not coming because staff was furloughed, most of the staff was furloughed. igarding investigations, don't necessarily get involved early in the process. g on their ownat thei path that the enforcement bureau and i leave them alone and at some point they come forward with a recommendation. toe staffers were allowed work but from my understanding some investigations did halt. i don't think that will have a long-standing impact on those investigations. the staff is professional and will pick up where they left off and we will get two resolutions one way or the other, or some recondite asian that we will be able to to take action on if necessary. -- ore recommendation some recommendation that we wil

centurylink is another stock that's interesting today. calling wherent it owns more than 6%. we also know after reporting earnings thursday, central bank cut its dividend in half. lots to get through in the next couple of hours. guy: over here, european markets stocks generally a little low. if the banks doing damage. bank cometo deutsche most of the main names are lower. the stoxx 600 down three tens of 1%. earlier on we saw the german ---year dipped below, it has we are only rounded to two figures but you continue to see strength in the german bond market. the ecb seems to be starting to alk the talk of maybe taking soft approach to the european economy. saw verysh krona, we soft inflation data out of sweden earlier that had a very big effect generating some significant weakness against a number of pairs. you'll see a similar kind of story. moving higher by around 1%. >> another round of trade talks beginning in washington this week. meet steveo trade -- mnuchin and robert lighthizer thursday and friday. joining us from washington is meredith. will talks this week be any di

didn't quite say what the reason for the change is, but centurylink seems to be having an effect on shares earlier, cisco also reporting that are moving higher as big eat most estimates that wall street had for the company -- as they beat most estimates wall street had. let's talk to our bloomberg intelligence analyst, which in -- wu-jin. moving away to be from the legacy hardware business. how much does that factor into the results this quarter? guest: the long-term story has been the move, the transition to software. software and security, they were the two key drivers in driving results on the quarter and will probably continue to be the drivers in terms of forecast. when you look at software applications, they were up 18% on a year by year basis, security up 20%. one thing on the guidance, i want to caution the audience, i know that they got the gun is from 4% to 6%, that is actually in line with consensus on an adjusting basis, i think the on ansus was on 2% unadjusted basis. so we're looking at third quarter revenue forecast that is in line. on theseto the margins new businesses comp

centurylink rising 4% today. lastly come it dropped 16% -- 16%, butek, it dropped rising today after it is said it is pushing for changes at the company, including adding directors to the board. it also received an upgrade. and another company with an upgrade, this is rising 6.7%. as got in upgrade from citi the team there becomes more bullish on copper. and earnings from walmart today, this is marking the beginning of the end for the earnings season, although we have a number of companies still to report. last week, we heard from mike wilson who said that the s&p 500's profits would turn negative for the first six months of the year, that we could be going toward in earnings recession. this week we heard from buying belsky -- from brian belsky who says that was overblown. david: if at first you do not succeed, senator bernie sanders has announced he will have another run at the presidency after a strong showing last time. we will speak with a senior advisor to his brand-new campaign. that is coming up next. this

centurylink, shares off 10% after analysts saying the dividend cut to one dollar is tough but necessarywth concerns remain about the company. the ceo lowering that leverage target to make sure the balance sheet is in line. david: the stock market goes up and down. the fundamentals of the u.s. economy are strong. the question is for how long. there seems to be a lot of uncertainty but not much agreement. >> we are going to have a recession whether or not we get a u.s.-china deal. recession increasing probability over the next three years. >> i recession risks have declined significantly. >> it is pretty likely. better than even odds we will have a recession. >> i think economic activity will begin to wane on the back half of 2019. by the middle of 2020, we will most likely be in a recession. >> the economy is not ask slow as people -- not as slow as people discounted. recession is not likely to happen by 2020. ,avid: we welcome to new york michelle meyer. michael antonelli is still with us in milwaukee. you can break the tie. michelle: that was a great series of clips there. most people

and that's centurylink ctl. stock's trading at about 13. got crushed because they took their unsustainable dividend payout from $2.16 per share per year down to a buck. so it still yields 8% in a 2% market i like all of the faangs i watch all the stocks i like to see value and those the only compelling value i see right now. >> these stocks going public, uber, lyft, pinterest, does that take away from faang or is there enough for everybody the same investors are buying all these shares >> that is a very interesting question i think that if you end up after reading the perspective and attending the road show for these companies, i think what you may do is take some market share out of your portfolio for some of the faangs and go into those names. because you have the people that seem to be interested and they may think that these are the new growth companies, but i don't think so >> all right, paul, thank you for joining us today good to see you. >> good good to see you. >> paul meeks. >> coming up, what is warren buffett buying ahead of our