am mark barton. welcome to bloomberg markets. ♪ vonnie: another huge earnings day, the biggest and this relative earnings and we will monitor the results. breaking economic data in the united states with julie hyman. >> manufacturing index for january 59.1 is the reading and 58.6 was estimated. a slightly lower revision for december. still, we have relatively high numbers for manufacturing. construction spending month over month in december also rising 7/10 of 1%. there is another stronger number on the u.s. economy, in line with what we have seen thus far. your manufacturing continues the expansion at it is close to its

quickest pace since 2004, which i believe was last month. amidst the economic members, we do not see much movement in the stock market, in part because a lot of it is earnings driven as we get big companies reporting. a lot to report after the close of trading today. thettle bit of pause after selling we saw over the prior three sessions, stocks between gains and losses today. to give you a picture of how big of a driver earnings have been to the recent, before the recent gains in stocks. you are looking at the forecast for s&p 500 earnings and white versus s&p himself -- it self and blue. we have seen 2018 per-share earnings estimates climbing by 4.5%, nine times the average monthly pace of the past five years. that has been helping propel the

rally, at least until it stalled this week. --omberg intelligent intelligence says if this pace slows down or reverses, it could provide a number -- another stumbling block for stocks. we have facebook earnings report after the bell yesterday, initially trading lower and swung higher after executives got on the call and said yes, we are seeing a slowdown in time spent on facebook. but it is by design because of changes to the newsfeed. , that company saying that revenue on the one hand in the year ended march will rise 55%-50 6%, but because of spending, operating margins shrunk last quarter. microsoft eats bouncing between gains and losses. on the one hand, the earnings beat estimates, but there are some individual pushes in the report that they are not as positive with micro shift --

microsoft shares trading near a record. we are down for a fourth day, up earlier. ins is after 1.6% rise january, the strongest monthly performance since october. we rose for a second consecutive month. the european stock story is one of a similar magnitude to the german bonds story, bond yields rising. to the highestg level since september of 2015. a burnt -- a big earnings day here and in the u.s. shell bleed by the oil price, a double-edged sword for shell shares. lifting profits to a three-year high and refining traded falling short of estimates with brent crude rising to a three-year high, helping europe's biggest energy company. 2014 whenvel since

oil was at $100 per barrel. the bottom line was better than expected and cash flow the weakest since 2016. about -- u.s. tax cuts for businesses will lose profit this year, offsetting the impact of their significant transformation in decades. sales will slow, it is counting on new drugs to offset revenue losses, the trio of top oncology medicines face competition. daimler shares in the news, down 2.5% with reports of profits that missed estimates in the fourth quarter and rising cost of the mercedes ends division and warned that higher expenses will continue to dampen earnings growth as the luxury carmaker invested in a new lineup of electrified vehicles and they invest 10 billion euros to

produce 10 of electric vehicles, new vehicles, by 2022. bymler shares today down 2.6%. vonnie: thank you. the man who coined the phrase irrational exuberance says investors are at it again, here is what alan greenspan told bloomberg. >> i think there are two bubbles, a stock market bubble, and a bond market bubble. in the end of the day, the bond market bubble will eventually be the critical issue. for the short term, it is not too bad. comments come as stock indexes remain near records, despite a small selloff in recent days. joining us is julian emanuel, chief equity and derivatives strategists at btig. he making a rational

exuberance in his comments or are we looking at both? julian: when he coined the phrase in 1996, the market continued to rally for 3.5 years after a couple of days. in the short-term, we feel there has been a lot of exuberance. not necessarily not rational because earnings estimates have melted up, along with stock prices over the last month, completely driven by taxes and the expectation that growth may be stronger than we think. it is a time to pause, because we are at the most historically overbought level for the market as a whole in 30 years. however, the long-term picture remains positive to us. vonnie: we had a problem at the february,uary, it is not going anywhere, historically, february is a weak month. if we look at history, we may

get very scared. should we be looking at history or may february break historic traditions? julian: there is the old saying, if you ignore the lessons of the past, you are doomed to repeat them. given this historically overbought situation, we want to be mindful that nothing is a straight line higher. for us, it is time to rethink things, particularly the stoxx in the sectors, consumer discretionary really stands out for us where there have been tremendous runs and maybe pull in the rains and look for better places to get more aggressive. --k: can we talk more about what is the julian emanuel definition and how long does it last and what does it mean? history,e see over melt ups and all kinds of assess , and the stock market, it is in

the order of 20%, 25% annualized gains, which we have had. and accelerations, if you look at the january into the peak few days ago, up 7.5%. the averagetimes game we have seen during this entire bull market. it is more than that, it is the sense that, if you think about it, the bull market for the first eight years was characterized as the most hated bull market of all time. that has been banished from the dialogue and there is a lot of enthusiasm. there is an element of emotion in the market. , if you sustain itself look at the nasdaq and the late 1990's, it was a two-year process, bitcoin was a two-month process. our suspicion is, because this is a low volatility cycle, that it is likely to last for perhaps a couple of years.

there are characteristic signs of a melt up. mark: back to your view on consumer discretionary, you have written a piece, is it different, and you know the historical tendencies for the years prior's leader to perform -- underperformed and the first half of the new year and what does that tell us about the next five months? julian: there is a very interesting debate going on right now between this idea that the savings rate has plunged to historically low levels, currently now 2.4%. places where, in the past, discretionary has underperformed versus the notion that there will be a windfall spending because of the new tax laws. our view is that there could well be a windfall spend, but when you look at where discretionary is priced as a whole, it is trading at near all-time high valuations, both in absolute terms, and relative

to the s&p 500. to us, even if you get the spin from taxes, it feels like that is in the price. the group that has done as well as discretionary in a year where there is likely to be a rotation , and we think that area is vulnerable. vonnie: where else, and address the point there may be spending, but may not be consumer, maybe corporate -- may be corporate? julian: the corporate spend side is very characteristic for this stage in the cycle and the initial indications over the last several months, whether you see them anecdotally and headlines, or you see it start to happen, is that we will see corporate spending. that is great for the late cycle type areas, such as the energy sector, which you have seen underspending for a number of years. that is starting to go out. as well as financials. and terms of other places where

we think it is vulnerable, the interest rate cycle has turned. it looks like, if anything, the fed may think that three hikes may not be enough, given the strength of the economy and the weakness in the dollar. that leaves us to think that the other interest rate sector that are sensitive, utilities and consumer staples, will be vulnerable as the year continues. vonnie: we will continue the conversation with julian emanuel , chief equities and derivatives strategists at btig. let's get the first word news. >> another twist and the story of the controversial congressional memo about how the fbi investigated russian meddling in the presidential election. democrats charge house republicans secretly altered the memo and never told them on the white house is reviewing the documents to determine whether it will be released. the fbi said the memo is not

accurate. the number of americans filing for first-time unemployment ,enefits unexpectedly last week initial jobless claims down 1000 two -- 100,000 -- it is a sign of another major shift in the oil global market, for the first time in more than four decades, u.s. oil production has gone above 10 million barrels per day, new production techniques have opened up billions of barrels of oil in shale rock formations, turning the u.s. into an exporter. , manufacturing grew this month at one of the fastest cases on record according to the latest purchasing managers index and the firm market is seen more inflationary pressure. a police raced selling prices by the most in almost seven years, partially because of higher energy costs. global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalist and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. mark: thank you. ahead, shell with its best

profit in three years and investors concerned. we will hear from their chief executive later as shares down 1.4% today. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ mark: live from london, i am mark barton. vonnie: i am vonnie quinn. we are back with julian emanuel from btig. we want to talk about trends and options pricing in a moment because it has been interesting. talk to us about the move higher to the vix and s&p 500 that we saw in january? it was small but relative to what we have been seeing, massive.

julian: the lesson of 2017 is people were trained that the vix could stay under 10 for an extended time. in the mean, over the long-term, more like 19. and s&pre that the vix go higher together and we saw that in mid-january. that tends to tell us is that orre is a fear of movement hedging against movement in either direction. be out oft with both the money puts and out of the money calls becoming historically expensive. we went from fear of missing out on a move to fear of movement to either up or down. in the past, when we see that, the rally continues but one month to two months out, you get a short-term peak in the market, that is for we are looking at. vonnie: alongside this, interest-rate mark -- price and

the possible of a fourth interest rate increase this year or pricing in way more in the third increase. >> there is a reevaluation of what a jerome powell fed will look like. there may have been an impression that him being a businessman, may have led him to leave the economy run hotter. maybe fewer hikes with inflation creeping up north of 2%. given the fact you have this tax stimulus in the pipeline, confidence remains very, very high and the economy looks like, if anything, it could grow north of 3% for a number of quarters this year. maybe there will be more rate hikes than the market is expecting and that maybe something disquieting these types of multiples. mark: how does this fix into the global picture? the biggest thing for

the global picture and it was the driver in 2017, was the weakness in the dollar cleared you wonder if there is a point where there may be sort of a reassessment that the dollar is perhaps too weak. , may put a ceiling on where global stock markets are going because they correlate reasonably well with the u.s.. you have seen weakness in china in recent days. the dollar may become a bigger talking point as the weeks move ahead. mark: does that mean there has been maybe too much complacency, particularly in emerging-market assets, equities? in the emerging market equity space which until recently has been on an upwardly moving trend? >> no doubt, a tear in emerging markets. ,he way to think about it is

you are right near record overbought conditions as well. for us, the cause that refreshes, a pullback would probably be a good thing on the way to higher prices later in the year. vonnie: it depends on the dollar and what is your position on whether the dollar gets weaker and how political maneuvering and policy affects that? julian: it does appear as if the dollar weakness trend is entrenched, looking at the last year. it got to extremes and it would not surprise us if you got an oversold bounce at some point in the next month or two. the question is -- how would international stock markets take that? my suspicion is you would see more volatility. vonnie: julian emanuel, thank you for joining us, from btig. ahead, ray galeano o's why he is increasing

his various bets on italy. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ vonnie: this is bloomberg markets. i am vonnie quinn in new york. mark: from london, i am mark barton. bridgewater associates is betting against italian banks, they have boosted its that's against the italian banking sector since $3 billion as the italian election looms in early march. what is he betting? >> mostly a tie in financial banks -- italian financial banks. the elections in march, although he has been running these bets over the last three months, he

had $1 billion once -- worth of shorts. mark: is this the time to do this when you look at how the italian banking industry has fared? >> if you look at italian indexes, one of the best performers in europe. bank indexes up 14%. some of the bets may be painful for bridgewater but it looks to be a top-down macro call on the country. we will see how it performs over the next couple of months. vonnie: let's put it into context, bridgewater has $160 billion in assets, $3 billion, $4 billion bet, in the context of the 160 billion dollars, one macro bet. bloomberg intelligence suggests is depending on what emerges, banks will be affected because of the asset quality controls,

one coalition will have a certain asset quality control and another coalition will come off with another. what do we know about that? >> that is a work in progress. 217 billions have euros worth of bank debt and there is a pressure on them to reduce that. that pressure will sustain. and will continue for some time. there are some positives. risen,, banks have bridgewater's bets appear to be contrarian. $3 billion is not a huge bet when you look at 160 billion that bridgewater managers. they add leverage to it. the exact market exposure should be much higher than $160 billion. $3 billion is not a massive debt. it is one of their bets did

vonnie: italian banks hold more than just sovereign debt than the of their peers in france or germany, 10% is in italian bonds. shockappens if there is a to the entire economy -- i italian economy, or if the coalition does not impose the types of changes market participants are looking for? does that put italian banks in trouble and is that what bridgwater is betting on? >> a possibility but the market is saying something else. it is widely expected that italy will have a hung parliament. and some of the risks are factored into the market. banks are rising. there is no death we will know in a few months time. mark: how have bridgewater --rts paired over the years fared over the years? >> over the last three months

when they rose the bet from $1 billion to $3 billion, the majority of the shorts have risen and so bridgewater is losing money on the majority of their short positions so far. bets in europe, they have all risen. mark: thank you. wonderful story. vonnie: still ahead, we will speak to the ups cfo following the fourth-quarter earnings. this is bloomberg. ♪ we use our phones and computers the same way these days.

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done, she could score some of the highest scoring tours in history. thanks for listening. i'm lucas shaw. mark: that's one of our highlights from tictoc by bloomberg. live from bloomberg in london, i'm mark. vonnie: and live from world headquarters in new york, i'm vonnie. this is bloomberg markets. u.p.s. is lower. fourkts profits fell short. they are ramping up investments to handle surging ecommerce and increasing its capital expenditures this year to as much as $7 billion from $2.5 billion. some going to aircraft, automation. joining us with more on the company's earnings is

u.p.s.c.f.o. rich peretz. rich, is wall street fun punishing the stock a little bit too much today? rich: when you look at what we announced and what we talked about, we talked about growing our earnings next year above our historical guidance at 20%. during the conversation today we talked about a third of that is the underlying growth of the business and there's benefit from the tax reform. and we're putting those dollars into capital that's going to help to continue to grow. you know, this quarter we grew a $66 billion enterprise by 11%. that was the revenue growth and so we know there's tremendous opportunity out there. we need to invest to make sure because of this opportunity we have the capacity and the capability to keep allowing ourselves to keep growing. many years ago our business grew at g.d.p. today there's so much more opportunity. vonnie: you are getting a boon from the new tax regime. you said you'll use 20% of that on strategic initiatives.

what about the other 80%? why do you need to have the bottom line suffer in the short term when you have all this extra money to play with? rich: well, actually the 80% is coming to the bottom line. we said we will grow our earnings per share by $1.20, and 80 cents to 85 cents is the amount that will fall to the bottom line. again, 80% of the rest we are going to invest in the strategic initiatives so we can keep growing the business and then the cap x makes sense because today we get 100% deduction at time of purchase for the next five years. we're growing business, exports by double digits. so we announced some acquisitions this morning. vonnie: what are your margins, how will this improve to the bottom line and to the strategy? rich: sure. so when you look at overall the whole company, we do see improvement in margin, and each

business unit has a different strategy. if you go back four years ago, our international business, we decided to invest and today we're seeing the benefit of that with improved margins and growth in profit. three years ago we did the same thing in supply chain and they had a record quarter. and right now we're in the second year, so we're mid cycle in the u.s. in doing the exact same thing. so we know we're creating leverage as we put technology in and when we invest in buildings, but we're also excited about what it's going to do for us from a capacity standpoint because our industry grows at much faster than the rest of the economy today. vonnie: right. so what are you targeting in terms of a percentage for margin improvement over the next 12 months? rich: overall our margin improved slightly. it's about 20 to 30 basis points. with revenue growth at the top end of our guidance you will see profit continue to grow strongly. on an earnings per share basis,

someone in the 6% to 7% growth is healthy despite the impact of discount rates because the long end of the curve was flat at the end of the year. we see more expense for pensions than you have historically seen. we are at decades low on the discount rate today. three weeks ago in the middle of december that number would have been substantially higher. the volatility of interest rates really cost additional costs that gets reversed as soon as discount rates go back to their historical range for the other side of the curve. vonnie: all right. let's talk about drivers and personnel. you know, you had a little bit of a problem with teamsters. do you anticipate you are going to see that alleviate in the years to come or will you have to pay your drivers more? rich: our drivers are the most qualified in the industry and we value what they do for us and for our customers. we see as we do well they do well, and one of the things we want to make sure we accomplish in this negotiation that really

doesn't happen for eight months is reward the shareholders, reward the employees and reward the customers. but it also means we have to make sure that we're providing the right service and the type of service our customers expect both with features of service and they do value their driver delivery. we think it's an alignment of goals. we have negotiated with the union for 80 years and we think we will come to a successful conclusion. vonnie: what did you learn from peak season this year, rich? rich: so i think the number one thing was coming out of cyber we saw a 20% increase in volume, and we've done a lot of things to help collaborate with our largest of large customers, the top 100 to 200 customers. what we saw this year was the value and the business was so much larger across the entire base. so we're talking a lot of small and medium-sized customers that historically haven't seen the same kind of surge around

cyberweek. what we do is the national federation of retail had expected somewhere around 3.6% to 4% growth. they actually were 45% higher and over 6.5% growth for retail sales. what that tells us, we have to look at the cyberweek and make some adjustments because it's not just the big guys anymore. it's everybody participating as more people adopt online opportunities for their customers and so we'll be making some adjustments moving forward. vonnie: all right. the stock up 12% over the last 12 months. that's flat this year. thanks for another quarter to u.p.s. c.f.o. rich peretz. mark: vonny great interview. let's get to earnings to some of the largest oil companies. royal dutch shell, improvements in exploration and production, lifting profits to a three-year high. but remine feining and trading fell shortstop.

shell's chief executive spoke to matt in that exclusive interview. >> you have an effect on the different assets that we have on our balance sheets. it's basically an effect of the history, if you like. as a result we had to take an adjustment on our deferred tax assets which basically meant in this quarter and we took it to a $2 billion noncash hedge to our earnings but going forward, of course, it's very positive. in the united states it's the single business investment destination. we invest in the next few years on average, again, $10 billion a year. we are very well exposed to the united states. that investment, of course, is going to be doing well in a much more advantageous tax environment. for us there is a very significant upside to the reduction in corporation tax. matt: let me ask you about the future of shell.

as an oil company you are already calling it a gas and oil company after the century of big oil. what's the next iteration of shell? is it a technology company, power company, chemical company, how do you see it? ben: well, why not all of the above, matt? you're absolutely right. we have over the years we have shifted from an oil rig portfolio to a gas rig portfolio. gas is bigger than oil. reserves even in production. but of course we are just more than oil and gas. we have a very well-performing and fast-growing chemicals business. you see chemicals as a very advantage segment to invest in. we are going to double our chemicals business in the next few years, and i would imagine also through the 20's we will see continued focus on doing so. but also, of course, there is a massive energy transition under

way and we want to be part of the energy transition as well. what we have said, we are going to focus significantly more on what we call new energy that is basically focusing on new types of fuels. think of hydrogen, biofuels, etc., but also focusing more on power. you have seen us making the initial move already in the last quarter. a few more moves already this year. we are going to build up another chain next to oil, gas and petro chemicals. so we will have a much more sort of future-proof portfolio, basically accessing rent that we are currently not accessing enough. mark: bloomberg matt speaking to shell c.e.o. let's check in with katie that has more from new york. katie: thanks, mark. president trump is calling out democrats over daca, the program that keeps young immigrants from being deported. in a tweet he said that

democrats obstructs and does nothing. he is giving congress march 6 to fix daca. and several dathes days at a site between a truck and train carrying dozens of republican members of congress. they won't have a probable cause for several months. one person in the truck was killed. minnesota congressman jason lewis was briefly hospitalized for concussion. india has hit apple and other mobile phone makers with higher tariffs. it will rise from 15% to 20%. that may hurt apple's ability to compete in the fastest growing smartphone market. they have been negotiating with lower tariffs on certain components. and british prime minister teresa may has reopened the brexit fights. she has vowed to extend it until 2021. they said they should stick to the original cutoff date 2019. global news powered more than

2,700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. mark. mark: thank you very much. indeed, right, coming up on "bloomberg markets" tech on deck, apple, all reporting up. what will investors be watching? we'll tell you next. this is bloomberg. ♪

vonnie: live from new york i'm vonnie quinn. mark: and from london i'm mark. this is "bloomberg markets" on bloomberg television. vonnie: tech earnings are continuing with yesterday we heard from facebook and microsoft, both trading higher today after beating out analysts' estimates.

joining us is director of north american research, paul. apple, might it be a disappointing quarter? paul: the stock is trading kind of flat this year versus a stronger market. people are definitely pricing some concerns about the iphone 10, concerns about sales and what that means for the next several quarters that perhaps iphone 10 sales are coming in below expectations. it will be very important for management to give some color about what they per receive to be demand going into the second and third quarters here. vonnie: yes. what is it going to say about taxed on repatriation and what it's going to do with the money? paul: it's going to be obviously a very good story for them. i think it's been a very good story across the board. what we have been hearing from tech companies, obviously they will take advantage of this and then the question is how are they going to allocate the net after-tax proceeds between internal investment and returning cash of shareholders

as well as we've seen companies making payments, one-time payments to their employees as well. vonnie: mark, before you jump in, i want to jump to the screen in bloomberg which always tells us whether a company tends to surprise or not. apple typically surprises to the upside. mark: paul, on amazon, has its earnings been slightly overshadowed by its foray into the headquarter space? paul: yeah, the amazon story, the stock has been up 25% year to date so people are pricing in a very -- a continuation of very strong topline growth out of this company from the core ecommerce business. when people look ater that quarterly earnings on their earnings calls, we are getting up-to-date on what are the noncore businesses they are getting into. last quarter, of course, it was getting into the whole foods and getting into the grocery business and that's a new thing for them. investors will look for more color on that business. most recently as you mentioned, the headquarter vertical with the announcemented they made

with jpmorgan and berkshire hathaway. what type of investments will they make in these invests and how should -- investments and how should investors put in their models? mark: on alphabet report, any takeaways, any read-throughs, follow-throughs from facebook when it comes to advertising? paul: yeah, the advertising story on digital in general is very strong. you know, pushing 20 percent year-over-year in internet advertisement. we know facebook and google take the vast majority of those internet dollars. they are looking for very strong top line and bottom line growth coming out of alphabet. the company's done a much better job over the last couple years really managing their expenses over the operating side as well as the capital expenses to deliver more cash flow for shareholders and i think investors are looking for

that to continue. vonnie: engagement rates. how much will that become a metric that might be followed in the next couple of quarters? it feels like it's only been going higher. now that might be turning. paul: absolutely. when you think of digital advertising, there's two real metrics that they sell to madison avenue and their advertisers. one is the absolute size of the audience being delivered. for somebody like a face boog or google, it's -- facebook or google, it's a billion and a half. the second sen gaugement. how long do they -- the second is engagement. how long do they stay on their site. for google, for alphabet tonight, we will see the number of clicks up north of 20%, 30% in terms of number of clicks. so people on their smartphones are engaging with google, the search engine, and that's what's driving the top line. vonnie: paul sweeney of bloomberg intelligence, thank you for all of that intelligence. still ahead, david under pressure.

♪

vonnie: in new york i'm vonnie quinn. this is "bloomberg markets." hedge fund ran by david einhorn, the worst performance for that fund since october much 2008. we are joined by simone who covers hedge funds for bloomberg news. let's put it into context. it's one month. we also not sure how hedge funds have fared in january but it hasn't been pretty. simone: it hasn't been pretty for green light since 2015 and that's when they lost more than 20% a year. david einhorn has valued this investment strategy. at the same time growth stocks

has been going bonkers. you look at netflicks. that was up 40% last month. and i want to point out that all of -- all of his top disclosed long position actually rose during january. the question is whether that was entirely short or what happened. vonnie: top five or air caps, bright house financial, general motors and gold and as you say they all rose. great compelling argument. if you are an einhorn investor are you worried about the bubble basket? surely they're in that basket until the timing is right for them not to be anymore, right? he'll change things up. simone: if you are an einhorn investor you have to look at his investments since 1996. it has been fantastic in a long-term perspective.

he has been right for a lot of things. people say technology stocks have gone farther than they've should. momentum stocks farther than they've should. yet, we haven't seen that reversal that will make a strategy like this work. i think if you're an investor you have to say, ok. either i am going to get out because this is too much or i am going to stick with it because i really believe in david einhorn, he's a smart guy. i believe long term he'll make a lot of money for me so i'll hold to it. find you, investors are only allowed to leave on a very scheduled basis. it's not like it will be a ton of monthly redemptions after january. vonnie: right, because monthly performance is a tiny indicator. tiply these things -- if you wouldn't -- typically these things -- if you didn't want to be an einhorn investor you would go to the s&p? simone: right. they haven't matched the s&p

performance. partly because the s&p is going wild and it's hard to be hedged in this environment. you have seen a lot of fund managers all of a sudden become really, you know, really given to this rising tide. you know, if that turns around, folks like einhorn stands to benefit. the question is when will that be? when will that happen and how will that look? mark: how did green light fair, simone, relative to the entire industry in 2017? simone: well, they lagged in 2017. i think that's part of the problem. they're probably going to face in terms of investors. we don't -- we're not sure what the extent of investor redemptions has been if at all. look, they lagged. certainly the average hedge fund is about 6%. they were at 1.6%. again, i think if you're an investor in hedge funds you are also looking at longer term

performance. you are looking to be hedged or you shouldn't be in hedge funds. vonnie: our thanks to simone foxman. they declined to comment on the results. but we did have a comment on einhorn back in the middle of january where he was defending his strategy and he doesn't believe value investing. who would? it's clearly out of the -- we are sticking to our strategy. as are many other value investors. mark. mark: vonny it's time for the "bloomberg business flash," a look at some of the biggest business stories in the news right now fourth quarter profit beat estimates for blackstone. the firm's private stakes and its holdings in public companies gained in the last three months. blackstone managed more than $22 billion of insurance assets. it's also ramped up its

infrastructure investing team. united parcel service has put some life into the boeing 747. the world's largest package delivery service has ordered 14 more of the jumbo jets. boeing will keep making the plane into the 2020's. that is your latest "bloomberg business flash." coming up on the european close, we are following stocks. less than 35 minutes away from the end of the session. stocks down for the fourth consecutive day today. stocks down, bond deals rising, core european bond markets today. 35 minutes away from the end of the thursday session. this is bloomberg.

mark: it's 11:00 a.m. in new york. there's 30 minutes left in the trading day in europe today. from bloomberg's european headquarters i'm mark barton. vonnie: and from new york i'm

vonnie quinn. this is the "european close" on bloomberg markets. mark: here are the top stories we're covering from the bloomberg and around the world. the one-day rebound stocks proved to be short lived is in the tech sector spreading ahead of major earnings out today. president trump heads to west virginia for a republican strategy meeting. controversies swells over the potential release of a secret f.b.i. memo. chief executive talks to bloomberg about saying u.s. tax cuts are good for the entire global economy. what's happening to european stocks. we're down. stocks falling for the fourth day after jumping 1.6% in january.