sole owner in howard hughes. thoughtful master plan, continual reinvestment of land, buying out our partners, long-term approach, judiciously selling land but not dumping land on the market, and being an appropriate long-term steward. we have a conservative balance sheet. we stopped selling commercial land. when this was owned by others they would sell off land to pay debt service. we stopped land sales and started buying out parts of the mpcs we didn't control because we understood once you get to a certain tipping point the commercial development opportunity becomes large. once you get beyond a certain population you can build vertically. and we control effectively all of the commercial and residential vacant land and we control the zoning. when you own these assets in the later stages of a master plan community you can build enormous value. it's a business with a cycle so you start by selling lots of home builders to bring in a population that creates demand for shopping centers, office buildings. you build th

the howard hughes corporation was the desert inn, the sands, a bunch of others. i know what happens behind the curtain. they don't build those big casinos. have a great time, come to las vegas, enjoy your vacation. like gambling is a little tough. >> the choice between visiting a casino and hoover dam? >> i would do both. we have the best food, the best shopping, great golf courses, great hiking, red rock canyon, we have hoover dam. we have the wonderful weather. unbelievable shows and entertainment. will not tell any topic covered strawberries you might have on the buffet, or whether goalscorer might really be. , have a great time. it is a wonderful list for a vacation and a great place to live. >> they do so much for your time. >> appreciate it. president trump has fired fbi director james comey. "press release reads, president donald trump informed fbi director james comey he has been terminated and removed from office. president trump acted based on the clear recommendation of both deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and attorney general jeff sessions. the

the cover story was about his hopes and dreams for the howard hughes corporation and some saw it, ateast ackman hoped it'd turn into berk sure like cash cow machine for him. the stock's done well. opened it for a long time. you said he's the chairman. if anything, thfrs bill going back to his bread and butter. even though it's not a new investment, it's going back to his roots in real estate. remember, his family was involved in real estate. when he was at the harvard business school, he bought a stock in alexanders, the department store, because of the real estate assets. general growth properties, the mall reit is one of, if not the greatest hedge fund investment of all time pouring in tens of millions and took out $3.7 billion, so if all the turmoil that bill ackman has been involved in the last few years, this is a guy whose going to his bread and butter and back to the real estate roots. >> bill? >> that was the question i was going to ask, scott. we all sort of expect controversy from bill ackman these days after the whole referee between him and carl icahn, but do we see now,

bill ackman is recommending howard hughes to investors.king in new york, he says howard hughes has "a huge start over the past six years," and that this is one of the most opportune times to invest. pershing square is the single largest shareholder of that stock. that is your "bloomberg business flash." joe: i want to bring you some headlines from the investment conference. david einhorn saying pretty negative comments about core laboratories, a company that does petroleum reservoir services to major independent oil and gas producers. he says the company has a 45 potential downside on the stock. it is not a secular growth story. the company is likely to underperform its peers. they are confused about core labs. instantly falling 2.5%. there is little job -- there was ambiguity about his comments, but very negative. 45% downside for petroleum reservoir management company core labs. from new york, this is bloomberg. ♪ scarlet: i am scarlet fu. what'd you miss? everyone talks of the strong earnings season we have had so far and the foundation

the howard hughes corporation up by -- up after bill ackman reiterated the support for the company. he has held shares for six years and is the largest shareholder for howard hughes, a real estate company. this is not a new position for him. we will keep monitoring those headlines to see if there are any other stock or market-moving news coming out of it. scarlet: good stuff. thank you so much. investors news for this merger monday. a tie up betweentwo retail rivals, the making of a tv goliath, and the battle takes another twist. let's bring in alex sherman. let's start with your scoop on the sinclair tribune. a tv goliath in the making. are we done here? alex: we are done initially, but not in the broader world of tv broadcasting deals. it will be interesting to see where we go. sinclair buying tribune. , with this new station, they will on more than 220 tv stations around the country. tribune owns 14 fox affiliates, more than any other local affiliate stations. that is why fox and blackstone potentially interested in a counter bid. they did not end up bidding. the end price is a l

. >> not howard hughes? >> nope. nope. no. hey. pass please. i'm here to fix the elevator.ith the elevator. right. but you want to fix it. right. so who sent you? new guy. what new guy? watson. my analysis of sensor and maintenance data indicates elevator 3 will malfunction in 2 days. there you go. you still need a pass. >>> welcome back to "the halftime report." i'm jackie deangelis. we are looking at cop earp today edging higher after falling to four-month lows and trying to recover from a 5% loss in the last week. that's largely due to manufacturing weakness coming out of china. we can't talk about copper right now without talking about the china theme. how do you see data impacting the metal going forward? >> well, jackie, before we talk about that, let's talk about what copper up to the levels it was at. that was after trump was elected. a trillion dollar stimulus plan. it has pushed back to the wayside with health care and tax reform taking center stage. copper has come off. you mentioned the pmi data out of china. it was terrible, and that added to the slide, too. wh

in the ackman universe have worked of late, restaurant brands, air products, platform, fannie, howard hughest's these spectacular misses that have dominated all of the talk in the media. and elsewhere.. >> what's so interesting about that, and i think part of the reason why they've dominated the attention is because the valiant bet was a very creative bet. with chipotle, it's been bread and butter activism. we haven't seen much in the way of creative structures or scandals or anything like that that would capture the headlines, as well. it's just these investments that have done well are bread and butter long investments. >> and chipotle has done well, obviously, year-to-date. that's helped him from a vet good month of april from what we understand. halftime back in two minutes. ♪ ♪ i'm dr. kelsey mcneely and some day you might be calling me an energy farmer. ♪ energy lives here. the power of the nasdaq market. the power of 100 of the world's top companies. the power of an etf. the power of qqq. the thinking we put in, clients get out. power your client's portfolio at powershares.com/qqq. be

we added to howard hughes, which is actually having their investor day. >> big ackman's pick. >> did you like it before ackman or did he convince you. >> he certainly did not convince me. we don't follow him around. we do think he's right about this one. i did a tour of the south street seaport yesterday. that will be an incredible investment for the company. >> we're going to leave it there. thank you, david, lamar. >>> broad markets are down today but stocks of companies that are seen as particularly benefiting from a trump gop agenda are down even more as investors begin to fear getting any business friendly legislation passed this year may now be over. we built our own trump portfolio. companies in sectors like banking, stras, health care and more. and as a group those stocks are down about, i don't know, 1.5% right now. the big decliners in finance bank of america, goldman sachs, jpmorgan chase. asphalt and road related companies all down. most of them provide aggregates to make roads. u.s. steel down more than 4%. and private presideison operatoe also down significantly. so, me

much of the audience was looking for a big pick from ackman, but he opted instead to talk about howard hughesorporation, which he owned for years. cliff robbins talked about investors bank corp. but there were bears there. david ireinhorn said he was shorting . gundlach createded an account at twitter, and he has already over 1,000 followers. >> what would you say the big takeaway? what was everyone buzzing around in the hallways about afterwards? >> people were surprised by the number of tech picks and tech long picks that there were. you look at the s&p 500, the nasdaq, just consistently going higher. you have these smart hedge fund managers who say here are specific opportunities that we think can still go higher from here. >> all right. we'll have chamath on in a bit. he was on yesterday in the afternoon. >> closing bell. >> asked about -- we always talk about ibm. he was asked about watson. he laughed and said watson is a joke. we talked about how there are people in the valley who think watson is like an "if then" program and a great marketing effort of our time. we'll have a conversati

i wrote computer software in the early '80s and own all the casinos, howard hughes corporation, a bunchof others. i wrote software in the beginning so i know what happens behind the curtain and they don't build those tickets used i shouldn't say come have a great time, come to las vegas to enjoy your vacation, but you know, gambling is a little tough. >> host: between visiting casino at hoover dam? >> guest: i would do both. we have the best food, the best shopping. we have great golf courses, weight hiking in red rock candy. we have hoover dam. it's a wonderful weather. we have unbelievable shows entertainment. we won't tell that your golf score really is. , and have a great time. it's a wonderful place for a vacation and a great place to live. >> host: congresswoman jacky rosen thank you so much free time. >> guest: thank you. appreciate it. >> backslide to the national press club in washington as our coverage of the republican national lawyers association annual policy conference continues, an all-day conference in washington, d.c.. the next discussion on executive branch overreach s

and when did he know it, the fame mouse howard baker line for republicans to see them moved more by their conscious than the political concerns at the moment. >> hughu care about your party and the country. who are you looking to in the republican party? >> well, right now i'm waiting for people to exercise judgment and good common sense over what will be at least a month's long process. in watergate there were two lanes, there was the crime and the cover-up. here there's the collusion and the allegations of obstruction. as to the latter, just on may 3rd, former director comey testified under oath in response to a question from senator hirono that no one had asked him not do anything. that's a paraphrase but it's very close. there simply is no obstruction but it's a big red flair to the trump white house not to do any collusion. "the washington post"ed is a hammer blow and one thing nixon flernd watergate he waited until may 1st, 1973 to fire the four senior people. unfortunately he got wrapped newspaper that but whoever's under investigation ought to be out of the white house next week and i think we can count on the people who are not on the subj