Global business news twenty four hours a day. If Bloomberg dot com, the radio plus mobile app and on your radio. This is a Bloomberg Business Flash Roll Bloomberg World Headquarters. I'm Charlie plot the dial, the SMP nezdak all advancing stocks rising the most in two months. And this update is brought to you by van Eck Vectors e t f s. Expect more from your muni's target tax exempt income by maturity and credit quality, all with low cost ETFs.
Visit Vanek dot com slash Muni van Eck Access the Opportunities. SMP five hundred index now up twenty six points, gaining one point three percent to two thousand seventy four. Nastack up eighty nine to fifty five, a gain of one point nine percent. Down Industrials rallying two hundred seven points to seventeen thousand, seven hundred again there of one point two percent handed down five thirty seconds yield one point
eight five percent. Gold down twenty two seventy ounce to twelve twenty eight, a drop of one point eight percent. And crewed advancing dollar one twenty one point three percent now up sixty two cents seventy Brent crude. By the way, at forty eight sixty six, Brent is up point six percent. I'm Charlie Pellet, and that's a Bloomberg business flash. You're listening to taking stock with pim Box at Dathlene Hayes on Bloomberg Radio. Shares of Best Buy are down more
than seven percent today. This comes after the company reported a current fiscal profit that was below analyst estimates that they're citing disruption in their supply chain after following the earthquake in Japan and Fukushima sorted. Here to tell us a little bit more is Matt Townsend, retail reporter for a Bloomberg News. Matt, thanks for musure come in. Yeah, thanks for having me. Is this the story that just keeps on giving as far as spy in the sort
of never ending turnaround. Yeah, it's been three plus years now. The curren CEO Ubert Jolie came in has a background in the hospitality industry, and um, you know, so far, what they've done is they've cut a lot of costs, They've sold off a lot a lot of their foreign divisions.
They just have Canada Canada in the US basically right now, and investors have like that to a point, but now they're basically saying, Okay, start showing some sales growth or even a path towards sales growth, and so far the company hasn't been able to do that. Um today they reiterated that they expect sales for the year to be basically flat. Yeah, and the same store sales down zero point one, which was smaller than the one point six
projected among the analysts, even people of Best Spot. What is what can they do to achieve more growth and more sales. They're in a very very tough space. Circuit City couldn't make it, you know, Radio Shack couldn't make it. They're like the last standing big brick and mortar store you can go into and look at everything from a printer to a big screen TV. Exactly what can they do? It's tough. I mean, one of the things they rely on is these the electronic industry to create hit products.
So if the iPhone is hot, if some other thing is hot, Best Buy basically, you know, benefits from that. And right now we're in a kind of lag within the product cycle. There's not a lot of things out there that are really hot and grabbing consumers attention. So besides relying on that, um, they've done some things around the margins, uh, making the stories more efficient, um, you know, selling return to merchandise. But at the end of the day, they really really really need for there to be a
nice product cycle. That's what's going to drive sales. Do they also really really need a new CFO because they got one they did. Yeah, that was It's debatable why the stock is down to day. Some of them might be the weak second quarter forecast, but also there's CFO. A woman named Sharon McCollum who came in along with who bears A Lee, the CEO, about three years ago. She had a lot of credibility to the turnaround. She was a retail veteran. She was at William Sanoma, operating
officer at William Sanoma. The analysts who covered her loved her. I mean almost every time I would speak to analyst, they would rave about share. I'm gonna call him. She came out and said, look, we're gonna cut a billion dollars and annualized costs. They did, They backed that up and that was a big proving ground for this turnaround.
And her leaving, you know, has some analysts maybe questioning what's to come next even though the company been over backwards to say her replacement, this woman named Corey Barry been in the company a long time, was grooming buy Sharing to take over. So they're trying to paint it as you know, in a smooth transition. Right now, Where does the stand in terms of buys, holds cells for Best buyes? Anybody real positive? Are most people negative? It's
a lot of people in the middle. What was big today was City Group analyst came out and went back from a bye to a hold. Analyst named Kim McShane is pretty influential in the industry, and she basically cited, you know, concerns about going forward without the CFO UM and you know, just a week overall electronics market, I mean as much hype as Apple and a lot of
these tech companies get. I mean, they haven't really come out with a huge hit product in a couple of years now, Alright, hit products very important if you're in retail. Mattown's and hit story for you today retail reporter for Bloomberg News looking at Best Buy earnings and their cf C E c FO departing well from retail to politics.
Big story breaking the last couple of days. The governor of Virginia, Terry McCall of, a Democrat, of close ties to the Clinton's and a former board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, is now being investigated by federal authorities for perhaps some uh campaign law violations. Joining us to discuss this and tell us where what he thinks it means for Hillary Clinton's Campaign's Mark Halprin, he's the host
of Bloomberg TVs. With all due respect, but you can watch weekdays at five pm Wall Street Time, and of course you can listen on Bloomberg in Washington, d C. So, Mark, this comes out of left field. What exactly is Trey mccullop being accused of and why do you think it's
a bad thing for Hillary Clinton? Well, we don't know exactly what the prosecutors are looking at, but it involves the kind of mix of relationships, fundraising, government access that you often see as run of the middle activity for politicians. It's interesting and notable that this is a democratic justice
department that's looking at a democratic governor. So if the if the two entities were of opposite parties, there would be a instant speculation that this was something political, because there is no more important person in the Clinton's life than Terry mccaull if. He has been their biggest fundraiser
over the years. He has also been a titleless advocate for them within the Democratic Party circles now as governor Virginia used to be the Democratic Party chairman, and Virginia course is a critical state in the election and the presidential election, and Terry mccaulliffe was expected to is expected to spearhead and effort in Virginia for Hillary Clint to keep those electoral votes in the Democratic column. This is
uh a evolving situation. Yeah, the investigation might go nowhere, but it does threaten to engulf Terry mccaulliffe and the kind of accusations that the Clinton's have faced again at co mingling of fundraising, including potentially money from overseas with
relationships that verge into the governmental as well. Uh, Mark Happer, I just want to understand this that Terry mcculliffe is being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department for accepting about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in his for his gubernatorial campaign from companies that are controlled by Wang Wang Yang, the Chinese businessman, is also donated to the Clinton Foundation. Is that the sort of connection that's
gonna lead to the Clinton Foundation. Well, those are the reports of the of the kind of outlaw lines of the um of the of the charges. Most of the news accounts say that this is not something that's targeting the foundation's activities. It's not entirely there with the wrongdoing being looked at. Is is it simply or LEDs wrong doing? Is it simply the prospect that mccaulliff took money from
a foreign entity? Uh? The fundraising rules are are such that, based on his citizenship and the nature of his companies, if the money was made here in the United States, that would be fine. Or is there more to it? Is there more about again a nexus of relationships related to the government, the foundation as well as the private campaign. We just don't know and and and you know, the
presumption of innocence is isn't one element. But there's also the fact that often in the reporting, at this phase of an investigation, and the reports arts gone on for some time, the prosecutors or or agents FBI agents who get frustrated that the cases and moving put things out to try to shake things up. And you don't want to assume that all the things that are being leaked out there are necessarily true, or that just because there's
smoke somewhere, there's necessarily fire. But as a potential problem for certainly for Terry mccafugh and potentially for the Clinton's both symbolic and substantively saying a great development, And again I'll say it comes not from a Republican Justice Department but a Democratic one, suggesting that their motives are prosecutorial and potentially dangerous politically. So how does Hillary Clinton handle is for now? Mark? Does she just avoid the issue?
Will reporters start hounding her about this at her appearances? Well, John Homed and I asked her campaign spokesman last night, Brian Fallon, about it. Uh and subsis simply, well, you vouched for Terry McCall of its integrity. Fallon is himself a former Justice Department spokesman, and it's pretty cautious sectisnas He would not. I suspect Hillary Clinton will eventually be
asked about this, and she'll probably plead ignorance. Terry mccough himself claims until the news accounts he didn't know anything about the investigation, so she can probably as long as there are no indictments, she can probably get away with saying it's an investigation, I don't know anything out, but she's certainly I'm home. A certain will be asked about it the next time reporters get a chance. Mark Senator Bernie Sanders and the Democratic National Committee agreeing to put
some of his supporters on the convention platform committee. It's certainly a step towards unity. It's one of the long list of things that Sanders and his supporters have been looking for to try to move towards a reconciliation. Sanders, at the feet level says that he doesn't want Donald Trump to win. He will if he's not. The nomine
helped Hillary Clinton. But in the meantime, there's a lot of time between now and the final primaries and caucuses and first part of June, and then from there five weeks or so out of the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. The hope for the optimist of the Clinton camp is that moves like this, giving him representation on an important committee for the convention will get him effectively out of
the race. Before the convention. The real danger for her now is that Sanders spends the intervening weeks continuing to agitate against her and and and talking about issues, and uses a convention to make points rather than to unified. Thank you very much. Mark Halpern hosted, with all due respect, Bloomberg Politics weeknights five pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Television and nine and Night one in Washington, d C.