telecoms takeover.iscovers that vodafone may bid for liberty global to create europe's largest telecom company. can oil take the pressure? oil tumbles to the lowest level since 2009 after opec maintains outputs. the oil companies survive slum? and, rubel route. can russia weather the storm?

telecoms takeover. bloomberg discovers that vodafone may bid for liberty global to create europe's largest telecom company. can oil take the pressure? oil tumbles to the lowest level since 2009 after opec maintains outputs. the oil companies survive slum? and, rubel route. can russia weather the storm? welcome to "the pulse" live from bloomberg's european headquarters in london. a big day of news in the telecom space. up anothereing asset. here with more is caroline hyde. this could be the winning offer. >> they have upped it by 5%. it seems to be sitting that private equity companies have been involved as well. , thepatrick drahi billionaire behind altice is over offering. he says, overall, it is related to a 500 million euro extra bid in terms of future revenues. people like patrick drahi's style. 20 years ago, he started altice, now france's biggest cable company. he bolted on and bolted on and now they are a huge player. they like the idea that he wants to get into portugal even more. he is looking

remember, it is that for your and dutch telecom orange andr venture dutch telecom put together.ocusing onabout the future. keep talking about it. what is it? it is offering not only broadband, tv, landline, but also offering mobile on top of that. they will create the biggest player in the whole of the united kingdom by getting its hands on ee. how do they structure this deal? they are paying cash and stock. they don't want to ramp up the debt. it is relatively near that sub investment-grade rating. it is not the most stable in terms of debt ratings. they are not just the highest of the high. they want to keep the debt relatively low. how do they do that? they hand out shares to deutsche telekom. able to telekom will be appoint a member of the board. orange will take a 4% stake in the overall company and get a little more cash. deutsche telekom given a vote of confidence. they say revenues will increase by offering mobile plus the broadband, the tv, the landline. they feel that will keep customer loyalty. people are liking this so far. the big loser is telefonica. 02. own will i

what does this have to do with italian telecoms? it is telephone at -- telecom italia with it. you see that in the share price. owner announced nine-month profits this morning in line with estimates so far. what they are saying about training -- training is interesting. andlook at revenue of december. company is trying to paint a picture of something recovering a bit. it was helping to offset some of the weakness. apparently, it was pretty warm in autumn. >> freezing this morning. here are the top headlines. the u.s. stocks slide the most since october. the demand forecast drops. the nikkei and the shanghai composite drop and japanese equity markets are led by exporters after dropping the most. recovery after a a hitting a low yesterday. yearrowth will fall next to the lowest level since 2003. sayshile, the oil minister the market will correct itself and questioned a need for a production cut. >> oil is having an impact on russia. is as the plunge and oil and western sanctions threaten the currency. against the dollar and 2014. sticking with russia, another method is selling in

--hilly this year in telecom i feel like this year in telecom has been very interesting as well as ther in sort of cable and satellite broadcasting. >> one of the more exciting entrance from it of years. >> what stands out for you the most? >> the convergence of telecom and media industries coming together is probably the most significant thing. these trends are verified by the two big deals that are on the table, one of which you just mentioned, and the other that i don't want to talk about because i am on the board. i think it is an inevitable trend. we need more connectivity, a lot more content. that is what is going to happen in 2015, as well as the continued explosion in mobile. tv everywhere, where people can get their content. initial examples of some of the streaming trends, directv just announced a streaming service for $8 a month for the hispanic community a couple of weeks ago. >> isn't that just a deal of different distribution networks and not content itself? >> i think it's more about a carrier like at&t reacting to some significant customer demands for more video. they a

the telecoms have a way out of this if the price war gets ugly.ing at a temporary situation in terms of the promotional case right now. >> is that where we will see growth coming from? consumers willing to pay money for it or pick up subscribers because of it? >> i think so. we will see wireless video, particularly programming coming over your mobile phone. the connected home and car, all these subscriptions you are getting for new devices in your life, whether it's a tablet or a car or a thermostat in your home or an alarm system come all that adds up for the carriers. that is where their future lies. >> thank you so much for joining us. "street smart"nd is up next. ♪ >> hello and welcome everyone goo. we are going to focus on the trouble brewing yet again in your. "street smart" starts now. first off, here are the top stories we are watching. more evidence wall street is

coming up, how is 2014 the ultimate disruption for telecom businesses?t is ahead for tv providers like comcast, directv and more. that is next on "bloomberg west." ♪ >> time now for bloomberg television on the markets. milestone today for u.s. stocks. the dow and s&p both reached records. the dow reaching 18,000 for the first time ever. energy stocks helping lead the gains. the gdp for the fourth quarter rose up to a 5% annual take since 2003. >> you are watching "bloomberg west." "the interview," the sony film that prompted the hacking of sony pictures, will go on limited release on christmas. small theaters are among those that will be showing the film. sony pulled the film after threats from hackers. one of the most controversial deals in cable, the purchase of comcast. the fcc was flooded with comments to reject the deal. time warner cable just submitted 31,000 additional documents that commissioners need to review. can these tv providers compete in the year ahead and what is the role of telecom in all of this? joining me now is the cofounder and par

this is the choice of words we use when it comes to telecoms. you have to have all four things if you want to win it. it offers television. rather nice soccer rights. it now wants to offer mobile as well. the u.k. is bizarre. we don't often have all four things rolled into one. we like to pick and choose. the way you can make money, the way you can have synergy and stop people moving to rivals is having all four things. is considering teaming up with its old rival, liberty global. remember, they used to battle over assets in germany. he were trying to get their hands on that asset. now they could combine and make $130 billion company. we know the deal hasn't been done yet. they are thinking whether it would work, whether financially it would work. wouldhether regulation allow those juggernauts to come together in this way. >> it is also a question of whether bt would get its hands on 02. it is almost as if the world has come full circle, which is et bt was forced-- by investors. it's not just the u.k. you also have out this -- altus and your ave

after drug he is paying for portugal telecom. paying for portugal telecom. what will they do with the money , after the break. >> billionaire patrick drahi has done his second big deal of the for $7.4uiring telecom billion. this will give more cash for the home market, brazil. drahi agreed to by the french wireless company. -- coutts could fetch a large price. they try to reverse a six-year lossmaking streak. stay with us. . / . >> welcome back to countdown. it is time for a check. the dollar has decided to turn around and traded lower. the yen has risen. there is a bit of a pause in the amazing trajectory. the wall street journal is carrying an article that the fed oil consider dropping a considerable amount of time. the language of rates may change. the market says six months between the dropping out and rates getting higher. the aussie dollar is still down. sincengest losing streak 1979. there you go. targets iron ore prices. australia bank says the aussie by 2016.ll bottom out a lower growth will cut rates in august of next year. that is the checklist. w

pim, currentlyup owned by the telecom italian unit. that is 40% above when they are currently trading at. 40% premiums above the value of tim. hoy will take 25%. hoy just sold off its portuguese units to drum up enough money to get big into brazil. driveand telefonica will -- divide up the rest. but telefonica just bought the broadband operator in brazil and it has to get signed off from the regulators. consolidation is clearly what is wanted. it has beens that so competitive over there. on cell people getting phones this time around. spending billions to improve the network. this is the move many had expected but the key question is, is it enough? what telecoms wants. >> join the conversation on twitter, caroline is @caro linehydetv. we are at -- i'm using the royal we. anna and mark barton. tell if the stories we should be focusing on. rubleer the break, as the remains near its record low will be looking at the market with global crashes. ♪ >> >> welcome back to bloomberg ."urveillance -- "countdown bloomberg now is the russia expert

. >> 2014, the ultimate year of disruption for telecom business. is ahead for tv providers like comcast, directv and more. that is next on "bloomberg west." it is 26 minutes after the hour. that means bloomberg tv is a "on the markets." look at where stocks are trading right now. we have a record for the s&p 500, above 18,000 for the first time in a dow jones industrial average. that is a record as well. the gdp revision this my for the third quarter of an annual rate of 5%, helping propel stocks higher. take a look at individual movers. ertz global h holdings has risen. ♪ make the best entertainment part of your holidays. catch all the hottest handpicked titles on the winter watchlist, only with xfinity from comcast. >> you are watching "bloomberg west." interview," the sony interview that prompted the hacking of sony pictures, will go on limited release on christmas. small theaters are among those that will be showing the film. sony pulled the film after threats from hackers. one of the most controversial deals on cable, the purchase of -- the co

the entire telecom is negative. morgan brennan explains why it's under so much pressure. >> reporter: retailers aren't the only ones risking profits for this holiday reason. wireless doing the same and stocks pay the price. at&t warned steep competition could result in more subscribers leaving its network this quarter. verizon cautioned holiday promotions put short-term pressure on its wireless market sending shares notably lower. veriz verizon's announcement set off warning bells. >> there's a concern on pricing pressure in the marketplace and the potential impact it can have on the overall sector. when you've got sort of one of the industry stalwarts indicating margins are blow anticipated levels for the fourth quarter, that's sort of impacting the overall view and sentiment on the sector today. >> reporter: and competition is fierce. announced price cuts to millions of at&t subscribers coming off contracts this season and leading in subscriber gains. there's another factor as well. capi spending. t mobile tumbled

telecom the weakest sector in the s&p 500.g promotional offers will hit profits. cutting price target from $50 to a prior $54. century link and windstream moving lower. telecom as a sector, among the smallest in the s&p 500. with all the clearly on edge, we turn to the ceo of under armour kevin plank. welcome to "squawk on the street" from midtown manhattan. we'll talk about your partnership with nbc universal which is why you're on today. give us a sense of what you're seeing on the ground. >> hi, sara. carl, simon, it's great to be on again. we live in a bit of a bubble at under armour. there's been a lot of ups and downs in the last five years and we've been able to ride them out. we had a great year. obviously, our company has grown. we reported our fourth consecutive quarter 30% plus growth. i don't know if we are the perfect company to give you the true test of what's happening out there. the consumer is challenged. some of our partners felt that in foot traffic. i think we'll have a positive holiday season. people expec

>> kwaul come is the value technology stock, out of favor telecom stock. we like it for multiple reasons. one is it controls the 3g licensing all over the world. today, you've got an issue in china where china is contesting the licensing. we think that's a short-term blip. once that's resolved, we see the stock probably move the low 70s to about 85 to 90 where we think it should be. >> you have stra tus on your list and this is a company that's a beginning of this year trading at $130 and now around $80. where do you see it going and why should investors put new money in this company? >> stratus is our growth pick. it's volatile, in the 3d additive printing space. there's a lot of competition coming into this area. we think stratus is the leader. growing the 20% top line and earnings growth, high to 20% the next three years. given what you've seen around the industry, we want to be with the leader and the company investing in growing its business, not just usesing financial engineering. >> third choice is google. what's your price target on it and why do y

the areas of trouble including telec telecom. where we've have had pressure worns on higher profit margins. and that is the leading sector declining today. right with banks. we had sciti saying taking a charge in large part to cov cover --. on a quarter over yequarter and year over year basis. banks among the weakers performers. could be the first back to back declines for the dow since october. >> and tech also selling off this morning. as we were mentioning, gopro, netflix, apple and twitter all down so far this morning. and kate rogers is live at the nasdaq with more. >> hey, well the nasdaq down near 1% today after closing in the red yesterday. o'reilly automatic, the parts maker benefitting from the gas prices that continue to fall. accordi that's compared to 3.65 last year. tesla was down 4% yesterday and it is the biggest loser in the nasdaq 100 today. we're also keeping an eye on amazon. it started in the red on reports from the wall street journal of its new bicycle delivery service. also announced a service called make

telecom was big. and not headline grabbing deals but there are lots of deals in financial services. all that's going to continue i think, in 2015 but i also think we're going to see a lot in retail maybe in retail there will be a lot of shotgun weddings rather than other kinds of things. frankly, the change in the dynamic in the oil patches are going to make a lot in energy and we're going to continue to see tons of deals in tech. >> you know bob, we saw a lot of mergers. we saw a lot of what people saw demergers, companies splitting up hewlett-packard, ebay talking about the splits. will we see more of those? and it seems like a lot of these have been pushed along because of activist investors. is that a trend you see continuing? >> well the overall trebd is towards capital efficiency. and that's really the story of activists today. you know in the old days activists went after, you know basically companies that were kind of not performing very well. today it's really about capital allocation. are you in two businesses that really don't match up in terms of valuation in the marketp

i see this as a potential opening for telecom companies to bypass this process and go forward with one that has less protections for naipbds to be able to have a say so i'm worrying a little bit about the flood gate effect of this. you said there's 16,800 poles in the city that the puc is responsible for. i'm just wondering how this particular 70 might be expanded in the future. could you talk about what other companies besides verizon might do with this type of technology? >> yes, we certainly have noticed the community about the fact we're moving forward with this program -- the community of wireless carriers. >> i've never heard them referred to as a community like neighborhoods and others but i understand your point. >> they are a stake holder in the process is all i meant to be saying. >> companies and corporations we're talking about, right? >> these are regulated wireless companies we're talking about, yes. and while we have just two agreements before you today we do expect to be bringing forward more. i think we have perhaps three additional -- two more is this two more that we

. >> bt makes its move starting exclusive talks on a deal for ee now vodafone has called for the telecom regulator to safeguard the bt rival. welcome to "countdown." -- show asn the shoe oil extends its losses, jack osbourne says the move is welcome. >> the fall and oil prices is very -- basically a good thing for the u.k., u.s. and europe. up itsia is ramping economic defenses in the biggest hike since 1998, after the lostl lost 10% -- ruble 10% of its value in one day alone. give us the scale here. >> there are rate hikes and there are rate hikes. the benchmark was 10.5% and it is now 17%. thursday we heard the governor of the central bank said it would raise rates from nine point i percent to 10%. >> many said that wasn't enough. itmany when i'm expecting and looks like she change strategy and nelly got 600 and 50 basis point -- and now we got a 650 basis point rate hike. you to go back to october of 1998 to find that kind of one-day slide in the ruvell. -- ruble. in two dozen 15 the joke was circulating -- hooton will turn 63, oil will hit 63 and the ruble will be 63 to the dollar. i

telecom is way down quickly. >> quickly, laggard, at&t and verizon.ing] dreamworks, penguins of madagascar a loser. >> david: little off the intraday high. came down a bit. not highist of the day, but a triple-digit gain. may sell a little below. that this is another record high today. who would have thought with all of the gyrations ever the market that we would end where we did. one of the good things besides the ultimate high of the dow jones industrial average what is happening with russell 2000. this is not only big guys but small sand middle sized guys doing quite well represented by the russell 2000. we have a busy day for you. "after the bell" starts right now. liz: the number to beat was 17

this could have been a way of luring the telecom shareholders. actually, i don't want to hive off my portuguese assets. i want to get cash right now and they want to stick and my overall interest. along, does get rid of the portuguese assets and focuses on brazil, she no longer wants to be buying into portugal holding company. >> you have got to reach 7 billion. we know qualitative easing. it wasn't going anywhere. >> the numbers just get bigger. caroline hyde with the latest on that portuguese telecom story. one of many we have been talking about. >> join us on twitter. follow danny, follow anna, follow me. tell us what you think about what danny is saying. go one. >> or whatever else. to follow us all on twitter. give us your twitter handle. >> today's company news, very quickly. a $1.2 billion round of equity funding to boost international expansion for uber. that gives the company a $40 billion valuation. and half billion dollars in funding since its debut in 2009. the chief executive says the company is in nature menace growth period and cou

companies will be allowed to export telecoms equipment, agricultural products, and materials for small businesses. the president spoke with abc news. andf you are a cuban exile you saw your family driven from a country you love, you are going to feel strongly and emotionally. there are friends of mine who feel that way. , we wante said to them to see greater freedom. >> marco rubio of florida is the action.ock saying he could hold up the confirmation of an ambassador to cuba and block the mc. stocks in asia and europe are rallying after janet yellen andy fed pledged to be patient. keeping borrowing costs near zero for a "considerable time." the most inrose 2%, more than a year. >> sony's decision to cancel "the interview will not come cheap. sony spent about $80 million to make and market the comedy about a tv crew sent to kill north korea's leader. the actual damage from the hacking will cost sony more than $100 million. 0 millionsony spent $12 to clean up its systems after a hack on playstation. unveiling. a new phone equipped with a keyboard. similar to the funds that made blackberr

it is right that telecoms companies want to get into video bandwidth.of the top companies are using youtube stars to promote their products. >> how does one become a youtube star? is there a recipe? think the recipe is first of all to have a passion. , werdless of what it is will find something. >> it is not going to be me chasing a chicken with shrek, which is what mr. pewdie pie was doing. thank you very much indeed. derek scobies. you can join the conversation on twitter. do you play these games? with shrek chasing the chicken. i know caroline does. are you on twitter, derek? and there i am. what is your favorite youtube superstar? still to come, u.k. stocks in the doldrums. ♪ >> welcome back. time for today's bart chart. why are u.k. stocks in the doldrums? this is the ftse 100 index in 2014. this is the u.k. benchmark stock index. today, it has fallen by 3%. that is its first annual decline since 2011. there have been highs for the ftse in 2014. notably, the place i've settled, the green circle. that was when the index closed at 6878, the highest s

telecom space.ll dive into the sector after the break. ♪ >> welcome back. 8:45, time to talk about the u.k. mobile market. is a shakeup imminent with a deal between bp and either ee or 02? here with more is caroline hyde. could we find out this deal today? everybody was talking about it last week. i was waiting this morning. it did not come. >> it could come as soon as today. i'm looking at this like a marriage at the moment. as the moree beautiful bride. she has far bigger customer base. they also been dating in the past. ee has been selling bt's broadband services and bt is selling some mobile offerings via ee. they have already been getting up the heat. but they've got a difficult family. has orange and digital telecom together. do you want to be negotiating with twop separate players -- two separate players? if orange would get out of the whole deal entirely, deutsche telekom would keep 50% of any deal they strike. , this are looking at o2 is a far easier relationship. one parent, telefonica. te

of talks, iseekend the telecom giant about to snap largestf the u.k.'s wireless carriers?>> welcome back to "countdown." coming up on today's show, and exclusive interview. khailamcorder kospi -- mi talks.ovsky >> there is a 50% chance that putin's empire will be overthrown in 10 years. the likelihood of success in the next decade is about 25%. >> so let's bring you first to our top story from sydney, where hostages are being held in a cafÉ in the heart of the city's financial district. five have now escaped from the scene. t, prime minister tony abbott has just been saying in the last few minutes that the gunman is claiming political motivation. that is the first comment we have had from authorities in australia. what is motivating this siege at the moment? >> absolutely. prime minister abbott did indicate that earlier in the day, that it could have been motivation. the latest we have had is that the gunman has made contact with quite a few media outlets. some of the national television stations and also some of the radio stations. they are all claiming that he has asked

telecoms very much back in the news this morning.refonica and claro planning to make an offer for brazil's second-largest company. the offer would value the company at around $15 billion. caroline hyde joins us with more. this feels like a soap opera. >> another day, another deal. more people getting in on the act. there are four players in brazil. everyone needs consolidation. the market is too competitive. brazil used to be hot and expanding its market, but perhaps those heights are starting to cool down a bit. meanwhile, the government wants them to pile billions into investing. four should become three. three players are going to chop one into bits. tim is the one you talked about. $50 million, that is a 40% premium they are offering the owner who happens to be telecom italia. , claro,fonica are clubbing together to form a group. -- they willer offer $15 billion and oi will take 25%. the rest will be left up to claro and telefonica. this is the way they are forming. they are going towards trying to take tim and/it apart -- and sl

back in the late '90s he got money out of the telecom industry because he was completely against the merger. >> i think he's trying to use the timing of these incidents as well. >> he got these checks from the telecom mergers and then decided to side with them. and the same thing will happen again. >> one thing we can say with certainty is that these companies don't care what the color of your skin is. they don't care what religion you are. if you can produce, they don't care about your sexual orientation, but the bottom line profits. they can higher 99% african-americans and they would get the online and they would do so. they need qualified people and they will go around the world to get them. this is nothing but blackmail. >> here was jesse jackson's first sentence, what it should be. according to government data less than 10% computer science degrees are earned by african-americans. that's a fact. less than a fifth of computer science degrees earned by women, that is a fact. we need to get them to boost computer science degrees to make them higher bowl by silicon valley. he did n

telecom down fractionally. consumer discretionary up 7.5%. industrials higher by 9%. when you take a look at financials and consumer staples both up double digits. infotech up more than 20%. get this, almost a 24% jump for health care year to date. utilities, one of the boring parts of the index up 26% really leading the way. and for 2015 we have rbc very bullish, still saying the s&p will hit some 23.25. morgan stanley says the s&p will hit 2,275. bmo and jp morgan calling for 2,250 in 2015. a full list up and running. go to the market insider page. >> we will do that. let's bring in hugh johnson. good to see you both. happy new year, mr. johnson. if we had this conversation last year we had such a good year in 2013 i know a lot of people were saying we couldn't repeat that again. we had a pretty good year in 2014. what about '15? can we continue the momentum? >> looking back to the beginning of this year i said we couldn't continue 2013 and we didn't. we had a real good year. i forecast up and didn't forecast up as much. i kind of start this year the same way. i say

but one of the intentions to allow more telecom equipment. already based on changes u.s.panies could be doing deals here when it comes to telecom but so far none have because still the cuban government has to figure out where they can attract and make companies want to invest here. they haven't yet. >> and the degree to which cap ex comes back. we'll see. >>> more coming out of hollywood and sony's plans. plus the iea moved markets with lowered forecast for 2015. and just where oil prices are heads. and oracle. awful close to all time high. dow is up 189. back in a minute. >>> we think we can be number one in the cloud. and we will be very quickly. >> bold word on the conference call last night from oracle executive chairman larry ellison. came in at 9.6 billion in revenue. 69 cents non gap eps. and the quarter was really solid. cloud revenue growth was strong, up 45%. that is important to watch. traditional software a little weaker than some expected but hardware also strong. bottom line here i think is that auricle is diversified in a way that you don't wii a wholesale

keep in mind, the obama administration did make changes back in 2009 which would've allowed telecom companies to do deals here, but none have been done yet. and that's because the cuban government itself, the way it sets up foreign direct investment. the way it allows or disallows it. they don't really embrace contracts that make international investors regardless of the country actually want to come here and do a lot of business. there's some foreign direct investment in this country, but most likely from like-minded socialist countries, as well. even after this announcement in policy change. back to you, joy. >> and very quickly, though, if i could ask you, michelle. who are the american industries and businesses that would like to get into cuba? are we talking about the hotel industry, agriculture. in theory, if there is more openness, what american companies are looking to get into that economy? >> all of them, i think. the way i've heard it described by some american companies is they think of it almost like a 51st state. it's so close. it's an hour flight, 90 miles away. there's 12 mill

liz: telecom stock, a favorite trade over the year, took a hit, weighing on dow jones industrials. >>own 4%. at&t down three%. [closing bell ringing] david: we forgot to mention gold but we haven't forgotten. we'll talk about with the cm e-trader in a moment. liz: what a trade was, david. $35 a troy ounce. here we go. looks like s&p is scratching out or at least attempting to scratch out a gain here. david: up, down. liz: these numbers are still settling because trades still have to go through. as we look at gains we do see, the nasdaq was able to hold on to the plus side for most of the session, even adding on to it in the final hour of trade. we started 3:00 p.m. eastern. up 17. now 25. let's get to it. "after the bell" starts right now. david: by the way, again that russell 2000, almost a full two percentage points in the green today. of course it has been beaten down tearily. yesterday was no exception. little bit of a comeback

they relate to telecom investments, dealing with specific ports in cuba. but there is a kind of division of responsibility here. there is, as you say, a pretty bad political mood on capitol hill, which means that some leading republicans say that they will look at blocking funding for the planned u.s. embassy in cuba, and also look at blocking the nomination of a u.s. ambassador to cuba. remember, the republicans themselves are divided. you have the ideologues who oppose any concessions to the regime. they call it appeasement. on the other hand, you have the free marketeers, who want to expand business opportunities in the emerging private sector on cuba. >> there are key democrats opposed to it as well, interestingly. what would it take for a full normalization? cuba being like any other country in the world that the united eights can do business -- united states can do business with. >> congress would have to legally repeal the sanctions. obama can chip away at them, but only congress can fully repeal them. the condition for that total repeal in the 1996

. >>> altice continues its shopping spree snatching up telecoms from brazil in a 7.4 you'euro deal. >>> early numbers from shoppers indicate they did not spend as much as they did last year. >>> welcome to the show. just getting some eurozone pmi data out. this the second reading out for november. the wide numbers come in at 50.1, previous month was 50.6. the forecast was 50.4. it's come in below forecast. this follows the individual readings out from france and germany. germany the headline number coming out at 49.5, retraction territory. the lowest reading for germany in the last 15 months. the eurozone wide number coming in at 50.1. the euro dollar at 124.55. >> italy's final third quarter came in at negative 0.1%. contraction in growth for the third quarter. italy has shrunk or stagnated for the last 13 consecutive quarters. fragile recovery thus far for italy. >>> joining us know is the chief investment officer at tatan investment. the eurozone number below expectations. the german number coming in with retraction. is that a surprise? >> that is a bit of a surprise. i would have

telecom firms will be anxious to set up business in cuba and export equipment.ther changes, banking between the two countries will be resumed. u.s. credit and debit cards will be allowed in cuba, and more companies will be allowed to apply for licenses to do business in cuba. we also know that americans will be able to send more money back to cuba. legal remittances will be changed from $500 every three months to $2000. there are about 2 million cubans or cuban-americans living in the u.s. the money they send back is one of the top contributors to the cuban economy. travel will also become easier. americans will be allowed to bring back $400 worth of cuban goods. cigar aficionados will be interested to get their hands on the previously banned products. it is interesting to know that president obama cannot single-handedly left trade restrictions. he can liberalize trade, but it is up to congress to overturn the embargo. the other business stories we have been following, following the plunging of the ruble. russia says they may take more measures to prop up the cu

the telecom unveiling a new product today. what does that mean for t mobile and rivals like at&t, verizon and sprint. with the dow up 32 points we are back in two. act i. scene 3. open port twenty-two-oh-one-seven on the firewall for customer db access. install version two-point-three of db connector and ensure verbose flag is set in case of problems. (clapping sound) isn't the cloud supposed to make business easier? get the one that can connect to the systems that you already have. today there's a new way to work. and it's made with ibm. ...the getaway vehicle! for all the confidence you need. td ameritrade. you got this. having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pick-up truck slams into your brand new car. one second it wasn't there and the next second... boom! you've had your first accident. now you have to make your first claim. so you talk to your insurance company and... boom! you're blindsided for a second time. they won't give you enough money to replace your brand new car. don't those people know you're alrea

blocking the signal and small pockets have population seen as not profitable enough for the big telecom's providers. the community based internet model is breathing new life into the countryside and that in the end does seem to be most people's idea of a good thing. jonah hull, al jazeera. >> obesity levels continue to rise around the world, scientists in the u.k. are working to reduce our appetite. we have a report from london on what could be a key ingredient. >> our expanding waist lines are now a weighty economic problem, a problem that will cost the u.k. as much as smoking and war. nearly 30% of the world's population is overweight. in 15 years, it will be almost 50%. scientists are working on a food ingredient to suppress appetites. after 24 weeks of eating it, volunteers showed less fat in their stomachs and livers than the control group. >>er we are interested in a molecule produced naturally in the intestines when you eat fiber. if you maximize or produce more in the gut, it leads to positive health outcomes. people wouldn't have to change diet and lifestyle in any way if it coul

we kept our weighting in telecom way over the benchmark of the s&p.i think we're three or four times the weighting. at for the pitt we believed you need to look differently than the benchmark if you want to outperform the benchmark. in this area we were just wrong. telecom underperformed although you got paid for having those stocks. they paid great dividend. david: good for you coming out with the worst. hold on one second. let me go to cheryl first. your first or best. whatever is more notable. cheryl: i have to say i look back at beginning of 2014. i was on air several times saying i don't believe the market would have a stellar year. we had double-digit returns. i was wrong on the overall breadth of the market. what i didn't see coming in 2014 was oil. who would have thought we would see a plummet in oil for 2014. david: i have to give a chance for kim to get back in. kim, your best, what was your best prediction. >> we have a couple. david: very quickly. >> allergan and we don't have a lot of energy but they stayed good. pipelines. kmi. david: pi

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