Transcripts For CNBC Worldwide Exchange 20130211

Hello. Welcome to todays,. Im ross westgate. And im kelly evans. Asias main market shut for the Chinese New Year and large parts of the u. S. Struggling with extreme weather. Digging out from nemo, residents and u. S. Businesses hope to resume to normal business after Mother Nature dumped nearly three feet of snow in some areas. And ben afflecks iran hostage drama argo picks up the best film accolade. Daniel daylewis wins best actor. Were up for another week. We might do what they did and share the love around. I read the reports. Were going to talk about it later. There was no one dominant film. I thought it was interesting that argo won best picture . It was a great movie, but best movie . Really . Is that the lincoln only got sometimes theyre quite clued up. The nominations were very similar. Do you think lincoln would do better than it did. Daniel daylewis picked up an award. Help recap for those of us who didnt catch the whole thing or any of it, frankly, but yeah, britains big film night. Now its time for the u. S. In a couple of weeks. Besides that, plenty of other things were looking at today. Another day, another summit in brussels. Well take you to the latest gathering in cypress today. Egypts opposition parties are calling for massive rallies in cairo to mark a second anniversary. And a secelebration of carnivale. Is the party here to stay . Lots of pressure on brazil with the olympics coming up. And well head to knowcovered boston for a look at how airlines are coping after nemo. Barclays is looking at cleaning up the banks image. Anthony jenkins is due to give a speech on tuesday. Others on the closure and other cost cuts say not expecting sun valley to have a major overall. At the same time, the British Parliamentary Commission on banking stands are set to continue. Steven hester is reportedly on track to receive a 780,000 pound bonus despite other executives had their pay clawed back following the libor rigging scandal. James joins us now. Is there any wore to ring out of this lack of a libor issue . If you look at america, in america, they bailed out the banks when they needed to in the moment of crisis and then, at their leisure, are clawing the money back through the legal system. We dont have an efficient legal system for that, so we have to find new things to attack the banks pop. Thats interesting, its the legal system. This time around in america, we saw very few perk walks. Virtually no one seemed to be held culpable. Is anyone being held culpable or is it just an exercise . The officialdome doesnt understand what happened. Its hard to blame someone if you dont know who what happened. It seemed to them to come out of thor. But they spent a lot of money so they really want to get some of that money back for the taxpayer. It turns out they cant sell their shares back. Is the focus on this meeting on libor or is it on rbs generally speaking when its prospects go forward . Growth. What the shareholder cares about is did we pay too much . Can we get any of that money back . If so, at what stage and how quickly . If you get your money back, youre going to have to sell your shares. If that looks like its going to be troublesome, maybe we can get a Dividend Payment only for the taxpayer in the form of fines. And with a look at barclays, as well, what are they offering the new investor or the current investor . Well, theyre visibly pulling out of the tax advisory business, which doesnt mean the tax advisory business will go anywhere. Theyre very visibly pulling out of that. Barclays was the only major bank where had the same management in charge as we had during the crisis and currently now the new guys want to cut themselves off that from. Their Investment Bank unit is picking up advisory deals and you have to somehow steer this path from saying were divorcing ourselves in the future. But recognize that is 50 of the profit and as ubs exits and this but you know, opportunity for barclays is huge. And its the Investment Bank with, not the Wealth Management side people liked more. Barclays is in a tough spot. We have this bizarre circumstance where the authorities, because of the early start of the crisis blew up in america, particularly blew up in securities but they thought it was a securitybased crisis. Our big problem is we have to separate these Investment Banks from these nice normal retail banks. If youre trying to count out the authorities, you look at if youre trying to split and down sooiz Investment Banking, but the reality is Investment Banking is where you can make quite good money and more importantly where you didnt lose. You resize the Investment Banking to look at the retail unit. Put a hundred pence price on it or something, maybe it takes 15, 20 years to sell the whole thing off but at least theres a direct benefit. Anything to these kinds of plans . If you did that, a lot of people would immediately say, oh, ive got the money. I dont know what its worth, but ill just sell it. And of course on what terms do you sell it . I think these ideas, what theyre trying to do is get the perception in peoples minds that it wasnt a total writeoff. Because why he moment, it looks like it might have been a total write jan. James ferguson, stay with us. Now, the horse meat contamination scandal is growing. Yesterday, frozen Food Producer findus nordic said it was so sue french firm comigel. On saturday, both the uk and french governments vowed to punish those responsible. Stephane is in paris following the story for us. Stephane, at fist it seemed to be a story about britain and maybe some snickering across the atlantic or outside of the country. But now its come home to roost. Absolutely there are more than one country involved. Six french retailers have decided to suspend the selling of frozen meat, frozen food containing potentially horse meat instead of beef. Several products have been pulled on the concern that they were mislabeled. The french minister spoke about the large frozen foods market. This might have started last year and generated profits of only 00,000 euros. This is raising not only a problem about horse meat because in france there is no taboo about horse meat, its not fashionable any more to eat horse meat in the country, but it is raising concerns about the traceability and about the food in france. There is a significant immigration within the country. And with the concerns about the efficiency of the control, this is absolutely a problem here in case meat is mislabeled in the final product that you can buy in any markets in the country. Stephane, to your point, what people are worried about isnt just the fact that its horse meat. Its more about these products with these antiinflammatory vet drugs, traces of which can lead to longterm health problems. People start to look at the food chain, if you trace back, it was a French Country and a romanian butcher. Do you expect any knee jerk regulation, any import export controls or anything like that . It shows that the government has limited power to control the chain because it shows there are plenty of companies between the producer and the final retailer. It shows how difficult is it to implement the traceability regulation in the country. So thats the problem. Second problem, its more like a kind of pride in france. If you remember some years ago, french people were pointing the fingers at british people because of the mad cow scandal and the british beef was banned in france for several years. And today, the british people are pointing their fingers at french because because they are unable to prove that their trace system is efficient. But yes, this is a problem. The government says it will increase the control ask call for the weekend all the industry to respect the roost because it was absolutely a necessaried regulation must be respected. Thats what the French Health minister said over the weekend. More finger pointing. Stephane, our man in pair why is, thanks very much. Ross actually, hold that thought. Before we get out to the markets, noble nordisk. Shares down in the range of 15 morning, now about 12 on one of the weakest performers on the stoxx 600, this after the u. S. Said it wanted to look into the potential heart risks from its latest insulin drug, trociba. Potentially announces delays of a couple of years time to get to the market in the u. S. For that drug. At this point, down 11. 6 . Extraordinary. Yeah. Big move down there. Thanks very much, kelly. We are on the down side here in european markets. We had gains on friday. Although we finished down on the week. Right now, you can see around 7 to 3, decliners over advancers. Volume is not exactly sparkling. The ftse right now is up 6 points. Xetra dax down 16. 41 for the ibex, the cac 4, down 0. 09 . Sovereign bond ratings, lets show you where we stand for yields. Lets do the yields and then go on to the asian markets. Spanish yields, 5. 41 . Tenyear italian, 4. 518 . Kind of where we were after the selloff we saw many weeks ago. The sap asx, down 0. 25 . The bombay sensex up 0. 07 . Pretty flat market. The dollar index is up at a onemonth high. Dollar yen, 92. 98, away from that 33month high of 94 that we hit in the middle of last week. Aussie dollar, 1. 0273. Sterling dollar, just around the 1. 57. We were around 1. 56, 1. 57 for most of the last week or so. Thats where we stand ahead of the u. S. Open a little later. Kelly, over to you. Ross, thanks very much for that. Two years after Hosni Mubarak steps down, we ask whats next for the country . Well explore that when we come back. Welcome back to the program. We were just showing you shares of novo nordisk. Down now 11. 8 . The Novo Nordisks chief science officer now saying he hopes for dialogue this week. Says he will not be able to provide requested fda data in 2013 and 2014. Now, natixis has cut novo to neutral. Sanofi shares were up after this open. Still down, ross, about 11. 8 . Support for spains ruling, central right party led by mario rajoy showed a 33 approval rating. He published his tax reports over the weekend in abdomen attempt to silence critics. One of the key items on the agenda today as the euro group meets in brussels, sylvia love is the nightly trips to brussels. I suppose how it averages out almost, sylvia. What do we know about what might happen with cypress . Are we still in the speculative stage . Were very much in the speculative stage. Either about someone taking losses, a sovereign debt restructuring, etcetera, its likely we play the same kind of game were playing with everybody else involved, pushing that so far down the road. At this stage, everything is still up in the open. Obviously, what they try to avoid is precisely what the ft reported as one of the proposals. They want to avoid losses for bondholders. They want to avoid a real debt restructu restructuring. Its a little bit of having your cake and eating it at this stage. The other topics on the agenda, still, banking unit, banking supervisor, we still havent got the law on the table that the summit decided we should have by the end of march. And, of course, on the sidelines, well probably be talking a lot it bit about where the heck somebody thinks the euro should be going or not and what somebody should be doing about it. But certainly cypress on top of the agenda with all the forces in play as weve seen in all the other countries. Sylvia, because of the implications for depositors and bondholders, it makes it clear that if they dont go this route, its going to leave cypress with a debt to gdp ratio with some major structural problems. It would almost imply a knee jerk reaction from a troika group, anyway. The question may come down to whether or not this will be a one off. Absolutely. It does smell of greece in a slightly smaller fish bowl. And with all the mistakes that were made with various greek bailout packages, it looks as though there might not be a very steep learning curve. Whats been discussed in that ft report and other reports floating around, rather do it now, rather have a real debt structuring now, get to a level that is high but just about manageable rather than connecting that proverbial enflora down the road until it cracks, until we were at 150 , 170 where we need one package after another. But weve been to many of these meetings and to the most logical and the most pragmatic things are not always the ones that being done. Thats pretty kindly. Silvia wadhwa, thanks very much. It was two years ago a mass protest caused Hosni Mubarak to step down. The leader of tunisia flet the country later. Mohammed morsi was elected president in june 2012 amid legal challenges and hopes the arab spring would smoothly give stability across the region have been dashed. Just last night, the tunisian president s party quit. What might the next two years hold regarding democracy across the region . Joining us now, david hartwell. Thanks very much for your time. If we could just start with egypt two years on, do you still think things as generally head in the right direction or looking at reports this morning that people are trying to protect their wealth by buying gold, by looking at other measures, maybe the country has to impose capital controls. Is this all potentially unraveling . I think its early to say its unraveling, but it certainly feels as though were approaching another crisis point because the government is clearly struggling to get ahold of both establish some form of legitimacy after the protests ask after the legal challenges that you mentioned lat year. And that is clearly having a major impact on the economy. The guarantees from the allegedly from gulf states have been slow to come through ask that is all. This political situation is so fluid and so dynamic and so difficult to read because we dont know how popular each side is. And the problem is, of course, with while morsi is doing this, hes looking increasingly inee feshtal, a little opportunistic, a little bit naive. In a way, its indicative in the way some of the rulers and the way it has not found things easy, if you like, over the past two years. And the kind of thing that iran has been able to create for a couple of decades now. Other countries across the region are struggling to strike this balance. Turkey was always the reference point. Turkey was always cited during the last two years as the ideal country like egypt to aspire to egypt. There is a very within very powerful like in turkey two or three decades ago. But that hasnt happened. One wonders how long the military will the military doesnt want to step in. That is the overwhelming thing that you get simply because morsi is a legitimate elected leader. Something mubarak could perhaps never claim. So there is a huge reluctant on the part of the military to step in. But the longer the crisis continues and the longer its staggering towards some form of normality, which no one knows what that form of normality will be, the longer the crisis will continues. David hartwell, thank you so much tore that. James, you know, its one of those political outliers still what happens in the middle east and were wondering what happens with oil prices. Brent has been creeping up again. What are the effects of dpeeo politics as it affects the oil region . Its always an issue. People are looking at the oil price situation, particularly americans, with a reasonably relaxed eye because the situation within america is quite benign. But as soon as you start looking outside of america, we have real medium and longterm problems in oil, particularly with the recovery of the cheap high, gate oil. People talk all the time about the peak oil situation, but its a peak in easily discovered on jdz shore high quality oil. Now its increasingly expensive to get oil. You have a trend of increasing cost of extraction with the geopolitical factor and thats keeping prices high. 2 is the spread, ross. People saying it could go wider yesterday. Still to come on the show, stick around, carnavale time in brazil. Instead of checking out partygoers outfits, a lot of eyes are focusing on brazils infrastructure. Can it last . When we come back. Our first full Team Gathering i wanted to call on a few people. Ashley, ashley marshall. Here. Since were often all on the move, ashley suggested we use fedex office to hold packages for us. Great job. [ applause ] thank you. And on a protocol note, id like to talk to tim hill about his tendency to use all caps in emails. [ shouting ] oh im sorry guys. Ah sometimes the caps lock gets stuck on my keyboard. Hey do you wanna get a drink later . [ male announcer ] hold packages at any fedex office location. Parts of the u. S. Are struggling with extreme weather. Novo nordisk shares sliding on the back of a regulatory setback for a key insulin medication. And a charge at barclays . Expecting to cut costs and shut down units, but not announcing a Major Overhaul ahead of a highly anticipated reaction tomorrow. Argo picks up the best film accolades and daniel daylewis takes home the best actor for lincoln. We will be talking about the baftas and what it might mean in this hour. Volume right now is fairly right. Sanofi is up as shares of novo nordisk is down 11 . Mean while, bond yields, all higher this morning. Spain and italy, 5. 42 , 4. 59 respectively. Still not a ton of action there. Despite that one monday where we saw them jump. And maybe we have seen the lows in those yields recently. Well talk about that. Dollar yen, 93. 13. The threemonth high we hit last week was 9 the 4. James ferguson is still with us. Lets pick up on that point. Do you think weve seen recent lows for yields of spain and italy . Well, spain and italy, if you think weve seen the recent lows, then lows and yields. Yeah. If you think weve seen the lows recently, then youre taking a bet, really, on just how desperate they get within europe and just how hard they will basically fudge markets. Thats really what the interventions are. Theyre interventions to high from the price structure what the actual market really believes. And we know its worried about italy and spain and its worried that these countries havent got a solution. Normally the solution was to discount your currency and then see if you could extract some exporting within your country and have a better way of establishing the terms of having your global account. The only other thing you can do is get a traffic from germany who says well only transfer your money if you act like a german. What is it going to be change leadership in etly, change of leadership in spain . Do the politics matter at all . Might it be a different market event . For many, if you come from a legal political back, if youre more from an economic sense like i am, really what were saying here is they didnt think about it when they set it up and this is a deliberate attempt to force a federal europe. But really, europe has to make that binary decision at some point, to fall apart or band together. But if we band together, we have to have the same laws, the same working practices, the same sort of structures so you can satisfy a german factory worker that his deutsch mark, as the were, can go to greece and pay for a greece worker. But the great thing about america, the bloodiest war that man kind has ever seen in order to bring the United States together they had the bloodiest war ever. But at least you have the same language, mobility, all the things that europe doesnt have. James ferguson, thank you. Also coming up on todays show, another day, another summit in brussels. Well take you to the latest gathering of eurozone finance ministers. Talk of currency wars might steal the show. And more wintry weather yet could be on the way. Well go to atlanta for the latest from the weather channel. And how airlines are coping in the aftermath of nemos rage. Plus, millions across the globe celebrating the Lunar New Year yesterday, ushering in the year of the snake. This years fireworks celebration in beijing was muted given the record levels of air pollution. You decided to go to china town this weekend . We thought we would try. Lunar new year is probably not the best day of the year to casually swing by and hope for a spot. No. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of resolvers took to the streets to enjoy parties and parades. Rios carnival alone sets to generate more than 650 million for the local economy, as well as celebrations in 2013 as well as a test of brazils infrastructure ahead of the world cup next year and the Olympic Games in 2016. Joining us for more is mya bandari. Huge infrastructure problem, actually, for brazil with those events. Are they meeting that challenge . Well, i think the key point really to make about things like olympics and the world cup is that they tend to have fairly standard effects, if you like, on the economy. We saw that with the uk, we saw that with china. You have really a temporary fiscal boost in the two quarters in the run up to the event. Then what happens in the actual quarter is a little bit dubious. It depends on, you know, how various consumers and foreigners respond. After that, you actually end up almost xktdly where you began. So, really, i think the way to frame these things in the context of brazil is your perfect temporary fiscal boost. I dont think it tends to be anything more sustained and we dont thinkite likely to be in brazil, either. So a temporary impact, as you say. Meanwhile, of course, with the interesting inflex pont here it seems to be in brazil with their development. I mean, things havent been as good as they were. What happens next . Well, yeah, things havent been as good as they were. Their recovery has been relatively weak. We expect, you know, growth of 0. 9 last year and overall just over 3 this year. Both these numbers are well below trend, although moving in the right direction. And i think, really, the way we tend to think of brazil is it fits into this group of countries thats hurting a little bit because its not gaining from the recovery weve seen in china like a lot of the other asian economies. So, of course, brazil is intensity commodity and china dependent and chinas model ever model of growth is changing from commodities away from domestic demand. That has real implications from brazil where its suffering from the changed dynamics of the chinese Growth Engine. I think theres some very interesting asset indications domestically. They have been cutting rates. Were down at sort of lows. Can they go low . Will they . Im glad you phrased it that way. The local deica is calling for over 200 basis points of hikes before july 2014. We think thats very unlikely. Not least because you have a stronger currency now. So youre having some tightening of monetary conditions in a weak economy already. Actually, on that basis, brazil is one of our favorite em markets to receive rates based on this very unlikely tightening of monetary conditions that the markets are currently looking for. Yeah, okay. So what happens to the currency, then . What happens to the currency . Well, the currency finally broken dollar brazil has finally broken below 2 on a Central Bank Intervention and it stayed below two cents. Our expectation is it probably stays around where it is and that, i think, helps taking out any innationary concerns out of the brazilian economy and allow tess central bank to keep rates on hold and is not hike as some in the markets are currently fearing. So lets just go back to this relationship with china. You still make it a point that even if chinas strengthening, its not going to benefit. Why is that relationship broken down . Well, its not really the relationship between china and brazil thats broken down. I think whats changed is what china is what is helping china grow. And he can what we are seeing and is this shift from an export and Property Investment led growth model to one more reliant on domestic demand. Now, of course, for brazil, it was the commodities access thats key. Its key for its equity markets. And, you know, i think that is the sort of change were seeing in markets. You know, so i think commodities have not mirrored the right weve seen. Some other risky assets in recent months and thats something we expect to stay in 2013 as chinas Growth Engine shifts gears. Mya, quickly, is columbia the new brazil . Is colombia the new brazil . In what way . I guess in the sense of its general economic process specs, maybe appeal to the outside community. And maybe we arent going to call it what would be the brix, but the rics. But are columbias prospects on the way up . Yes, they are, but im not sure i would compare colombia to brazil. Very different markets. But i think colombia anticipation currency does strengthen like brazil and perhaps colombia is more comfortable to let it strengthen more. Great point. Thanks very much, mya. Its interesting because meanwhile, venezuela is in the midst of devaluing its currency. So much for the super strong big valuation. Lots of changes afoot in latin america. And were going to take a look at whats been happening further north in the americas. Residents in the northeastern u. S. Are hoping to get back to their work routines today after digging out from the massive winter storm this weekend. Nemo dumped up to three feet of snow in some areas. President obama has declared connecticut a disaster area, which makes it eligible for federal aid and at least 15 deaths are blamed on the storm. Travel delays are easing. Amtrak says it will have limited services in new york and boston. Its not the typical story you hear about in the u. S. In february as tornados tear through mississippi. Three companies biggest investors have joined southeastern managements objecting to the deal. But the latest edition, 14 now say theyll vote against the buyout. As far as dells stock is concerned in frankfurt, it is still up 2 . Eric schmidt is cashing in. The google claim has filed to sell 42 of his shares in the company. He will sell shares through a regular trading plan spread out over a year to reduce the market impact. Analysts say it could hint at him playing a smaller role in the Company Going forward. Schmidt handed the reigns to larry paige in 2011. Google shares down about 0. 8 . Still up about 11 fers, 12 over the last six months. Different story than major competitor apple. Absolutely. Theres another story regarding google. I think i read wherever the local headquarters of the local airport are lobbying to expand the airport. Its like when walmart went to arkansas and they had to sort of completely redo this little area in arkansas to well with the walmart dealers and suppliers. Well see. President obama is giving his first state of the Union Address tuesday night. Oh, this is annual, isnt it . Hes expected to push his economic agenda. The president will outline spending initiatives for education, manufacturing and infrastructure. Hell head out on a threeday road trip to sell hesitate plan to the public of north carolina, georgia, and illinois. You can speshth him to come out with the democrats plan to stave off the crisis. Also a different name thats potentially going to hit. And a senate panel is expected to drill jack lew about a bonus he received right before the bank got a taxpayer bailout. Despite all the criticism, lew is still expected to be confirmed. And the spanish pound, why one person at least believes its time to sell sterling. And the u. S. Dollar is set to win the war to be the weakest currency. As cnbc. Com, read why its expected to be weak for at least seven years. Whab not the dollar against the pound. And take a minute to look through the slideshow on englands clubs at the top of that league. Tickets going onsale today, by the way, for champion aes league final at wembley in may. Whmt . Do you have any hope of the tickets go on saul this morning on the website. Can you do the rest of the show, then . Yeah. Stick around. The hometown of boston may be buried under three feet of snow, but last night proved golden for ben affleck. Find out why when we come back. Renault has started recalling over 60,000 cars on dodgy fuel sensors. All replacements will be free. This is the second replacement in two months for renault. The company was hoping to gain a foothold in the worlds biggest auto market. As far as the renault stock is concerned, down 1 . Its another thing when you go to your local garage and you go, oh, dodgy fuel issue. Im not sure thats how renault is describing that. Reports of amr and us airways have pushed back meetings to discuss the final details of the deal. Its unclear exactly when boards will meet and reports say Management Issues such as what role amrs ceo tom horton will have are still being worked out. Take a look at those shares today. Usair down better than 2 , so a pretty big hit. Talking about dodgy batteries, boeing plans more flights of its 787 dreamliner this week. The company condutd what it described as an uneventful twohour flight on wednesday. Boeing says the Data Collected was part of the investigation into the battery related events that led to the grounding globally of the 787 last month. Boeing stock res nevertheless down 1. 49 in frankfurt. I think uneventful of any flight of any sort. Thats the kind of description you want. Apple hoping for a big event with its latest device. Its reportedly working on a watch like device that has the features like a smartphone. The wearable device is in the experimental phase. The wall street journal says apple has discussed such a product with foxconn which has been working on technology for wearable devices. Interesting to see this emerge in the next marriage of perhaps retail and technology. Apple shares are up 0. 25 . Any little help after youve been down in the range that they have what size screen do you want on your wrist . The question is how big that piece should be, though. Because Everyone Wants the big screen. Maybe have it going up your wrist like that. Start to go look like a super hero with a claw on the end. And you type it like that. Ive seen that in a film. Ask us about what film weve seen that technology in . Thats right. Before we do, we want to know would you buy such a wristwatch or has the company gone too far . Reach us at cnbc. Com. Tweet us, cnbcwex. What do you do when you i was looking at the letters. Okay. The baftas held last night, but it was american ben affleck that hook home the aware for the best picture. Affleck said he would been awarded a second act after falling out of in hollywood. Mark comos is joining us now with his take. I cant believe that you havent seen skyfall. Everyone in the world has seen skyfall. How have you managed this . I also still have a mrb and am probably the last person in the world. It takes me a little extra time. The best thing about skyfall on , it started off the baftas last night. And you could feel in the room in the applause. It was powerful how pleased people were. In the past, bond movies have been pretty popular, but not awards falter. And it was great to start that evening off with a big win for skyfall. You felt great, its about time, its 50 years looking back over the history of bond and bringing it forward for the next generation. Is there a lot more bond in the pipeline . Oh, i think on the strength of skyfall, i think bond could go on forever. I think the franchise is alive and kicking. The interesting thing about ben affleck was he won best director. Hes won best director at a number of awards ceremonies. Hes not even nominated best director at the oscars. The oscars is seen like the full stop, the final ceremony. It will be interesting to see to the did argo really deserve best picture . Ive seen argo. The look, its obviously subjective. The best film i saw last year was a movie i guarantee you havent seen. Some of the other films had good divided audiences. But the thing with the Ben Affleck Movie was it was a thriller, a comedy, a political story, truth is stranger than fiction, it had all those elements. And its often the case that the movie which doesnt alien ate anyone how about les miserable alien indicating anyone . Not everyone is interested in musicals. I think Les Miserables could cast back to vet a is. As far as lincoln is concerned, some people think its quite heavy going. Its a film thats basically a lengthy parliamentary debate. Its a film which is very worthy, dealing with very difficult subject matter, the abolition of slavery. But argo has a bit of everything. In the nominations, there was a bit of a lead through to the battered division. Is this the way Academy Members might vote . Its always trying to make the ceremony. We have the eu rising starts, the outstanding british film. But in the major categories, clearly people do look to the bafta the way same they would look to the gloelden gloep globes to see how things were going. Argo is seen by everybody as a pack leader. There is a strange absence there on best director. Whoever wins best director will be remembered as having won in the year that the most significant contender wasnt nominated. Why isnt he nominated . Who knows. Who knows. I think we got it right, but who knows why he wasnt. One reason is because what theyve done with the oscars now is increased the best film from five up to ten. Now you have i think its nine nominations this year. Of course youre going to get a mismatch because there arent the same number of films that there were directed. Mark, good to see you. Thanks so much, indeed. Thanks for coming by. Always a very good turn out, as well. I still think Silver Linings with a different name would have done so well. Anyway, the clearing up is occurring after nemo. What impact will this have on retailers . Welcome to worldwide exchange. Im kelly evans. And im ross westgate. These are your headlines from around the global. Dig out from nemo, rents and businesses in the northeastern u. S. Hope to resume to normal. And cashing in, google chairman eric schmidt is set to benefit from more than a 200 million in share fall as he sells a huge chunk of shares in the search giant. Well, these major indexes continue to creep higher, adding a couple of points every time we check in. It did breach the 14,000 level but struggled to hold it. Today at the open, looking to at about 18 points in the dow. The nasdaq and s p 500 both set to opener higher, as well. Take a look at the cnbc ftse global 300, down 0. 40 . But its difficult to call it lunar. Markets across asia close on the back of that. The ftse 100 adding 62. 9 the 2. The cac 40 up 0. 6 ers, boosted by sanofi which is the third best performer this is stoxx 600 this morning after we saw a major setback for rival novo nordisk. Well see if theres a similar attitude, perhaps, selected some in of the bond markets. Yeah. Yields have been slightly higher today across europe. Lets show you whats happening in asia, first of all. The Chinese New Year sorry, we can go back. Thank you very much. Australia down 0. 25 . Bombays sensex just flat off 27 points and in the bombay down 0. 14 . Tenyear eye tilean yields, a little high er. 4. 58 . As far as currency markets are concerned, dollar yen is up at a onemonth high we hit 1. 35 this morning. We hi in the middle of last were. Aussie dollar lower today. Ross, here is a look at whats on the agenda today over in the u. S. Not much by the way of economic data, but reports this week on retail sales, import prices, industrial production, consumer sentiment. Fed vice chairman janet yellen will speak about the slow recovery for u. S. Workers. Its a light day for earnings. Generally speaking, things are slowing down. Look for numbers from insurer lowes. Dun and bradstreet, in a asco, nielsen, annies and is lionsgate. Thats all good. Not much going on in the u. S. Otherwise today and not helped by the fact that so many traders are at home and not able to make it into work. Huge, i couldnt believe it when i saw the amounts of snowfall. Extraordinary. It has a general effect on the kind of positions people want to put on. Yeah. The northeastern u. S. Hoping to get back to their work day routine after digging out from a miss ive winter storm this weekend. Nemo dumped up to three feet of snow in some areas. About 150,000 customers are still without power today, mostly in massachusetts. President obama has declared connecticut a state of emergency room. Local public schedules should be back on service. Laura champagne, thank you for joining us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. We wanted to explore the impact from retail on this storm. Weve raised this issue before, but to what extent is a major storm like this hitting into february start to affect, perhaps, easter season, retail and Shopping Patterns generally speaking . Is there a way to sort of trade this event . This particular weekend is a good weekend if youre going to have a nasty storm. Its after christmas selling season, its after january clearance. Its before tax rebates start showing up, particularly this year, which is a bit more complicated to get your refund. So the timing really wont hurt much of retail. If you wanted to trade it, probably the way to do it would be to own Home Improvement companies because home depot and lowes, im sure, did see a pick up in their sales before this storm. So february being the kind of in between or quieter time as they perhaps get a boost, but does it bring forward demand . Well, apparently stores, for example, are already stocked up in the spring. Theyve cleared the winter goods. Usually its a timing change, though. So for consumable stores. Normally a winter storm, you just dont see it in First Quarter numbers. We had no storms last year, but the three or four years prior to that, we had decent sized storms in the u. S. And its its just not something retailers usually talk about in their Earnings Report the. And how big of a deal is valentines day in terms of holiday spend or getting consumers in the store, maybe getting them to turn around product . I know in this otherwise quiet period, is that becoming more or less relatively important . Valentines day for some of us is not the biggest spending holiday at all. I follow a Company Called limited, which owns victorias secret. Its not a huge month for them, even in february. Its one of their lighter months on the year. So there really isnt that much spending. Perhaps its big for restaurants, but most retailers dont get a significant lift. Yeah. You mentioned about spring. How soon do retailers need the winter to be over . Last year, we basically didnt have a winter in the northeast. So last year, retailers were selling shorts and spring clothing in february, mostly late february, but into march. So retailers who report Monthly Sales probably will want report great numbers for february. Yeah. Its going to be difficult. How would you gauge right now the overall attitude of consumers and their willingness to spend . Ive been surprised during these Fourth Quarter Earnings Reports which are the most important reports of the year how Many Companies in Specialty Retail which i follow are actually missing sales and missing earnings. It has not been a particularly strong reporting season so far. Most of these companies are on a january year and theyre just starting to report and theyre a bit weak. Some of the companies were showing right now, saks, mace as, kohls and target. On the department store, its not a great growth sector. We think that the apparel play is over. Most of those stocks had a phenomenal play last year. Housing, those although those stocks are primed, we think theyre poised for a better move. We really like bed, bath and jan, williams sanoma, thats where were head. Lets get more now from mike bettis from the weather channel. So it looks like people in the northeast are waking up, you know, start to go dig out, trying to get back to normal. What has the impact of this storm been relative to the others weve seen . One of the biggest northeast snowstorms weve ever seen. Finally some of the folks may be coming out of their home to these numbers. A top five snowstorm in hamden, connecticut, were you can taing about snow up through here. But notice weve got more snow thats rolling in this morning. This is relatively light compared to what we had over the weekend and some freezing rain on top of that. Now youre getting that crusty, icy glaze over the snow and temperatures are below freezing. Albany, 30. Boston, 25. Temperatures above freezing in new york. So travelwise, we should be in good shape here. But more snow to go today including as much as half a foot. But another big story were following here, another tornado across the south and moore tornados are likely for us this morning and through the afternoon, severely disrupting travel and commerce across the south. A huge thunderstorm threat and a huge amount of rain coming, as well. The bl has been nasty. And those tornados in the south in february . Mike bettis, from the weather channel, thank you very much. Lets take a look at what utilities are having on commodity prices. Now looking for the reaction today, arbov trading down which isnt unusual given people are having to stay in. Quick look at natural gas, as well. Natural gas, that looks like the Home Heating Oil contract. That is down slidely. It is up better than 2 of the last several days. Not the biggest impact in the world. Crude oil and brent moving upwards for other reasons. Also still to cocome on todays program, opposition is now growing. Well get into this when we come back. With hotwires low prices, i can afford to visit chicago for my first big race and l. A. For my best friends wedding. Because when hotels have unsold rooms, they use hotwire to fill them. So i got my hotels for halfprice men hotwire hotwire. Com [ male announcer ] any technology not moving forward is moving backward. [ engine turns over, tires squeal ] and youll find advanced Safety Technology like an available headsup display on the 2013 lexus gs. Theres no going back. Welcome back to worldwide exchange. These are your headlines. The u. S. East coast digging out from the three feet of snow left in some parts by winter storm nemo. Plus, anthony jengises is expected to lay out the future which could include cost cuts. And investors look for clues from president obama ahead of his key address tomorrow. More of the stories today, barclays chief executive is set to announce the closure of a unit specialized in tax advisories as part of a message to clean up the banks image. Barclays shut down the controversial by profitable Structural Capital markets division. Other than the chose your of the unit, hes not expected to unveil a Major Overhaul. Opposition is growing to dells more than 23 billion buyout. Three of the companys advisers have joined the opposition. Investors now say theyre vote against the buyout. Michael dell owns 16 of the company. Look at shares which spiked on the news there. Up 1. 9 and not perhaps reading into too much into these developments. And eric schmidt is cashing in. Hes set to sell 42 of his stake in the company. In an s. E. C. Filing, google says schmidt will sell shares over the course of a year. It could entertain him playing a smaller role at the company in the future. Schmidt took over from larry paige in 2011. Its hard when you own when your stake is so big, worth so much, if you decide you want to cash out. Its exactly whats been happening with the u. S. Government or the british government. And some of these major banks being bailed out. How do you offload by and if we take a views, well, why does he know . Why cant you do 5 this year, 5 next year . This has had quite a run over the last several years. President obama is expected to push his economic agenda with a continued focus on job creation in the state of the union and will reportedly outline education, manufacturing and infrastructure. Hell head out on a threeday road to trip sell his ideas to the public in north carolina, georgia, and illinois. And interestingly, its going to be floridas i want to say mark sanford who is the South Carolina govern you know what im talking about, who is going to give the accuracy. I really shouldnt be in this business. Whats his face. Which state . Florida. Bush. Carry on. No. Hang on a second. Im rubio. Thank you. Marco rubio. Oh, its monday. All right. A senate panel is expected to grill jack lew on his nomination hearing to be the next treasury secretary. Republicans will ask him about a nearly 1 million he received from citigroup before the bank got a tax bailout. Despite criticism, lew is expected to win the confirmation hearing. Apple. I like the idea of a watch with the features of a smartphone. The wall street journal says apple has discussed such a major project. Anything can be used to test mobile phones. You can probably wear one as a necklace, too. There are all sorts of options. Its like a square bracelet. If its not big, though, it will look so goofy. Like i have one of those shuffles. Its about maybe an inch square, maybe. Or is that complete ly earlir on the show, we asked, would you lie an i watch . It might have some possibilities. Jet tweeted saying an apple iwrist device sounds sick is him lar to an old dick tracy cartoon wrist radiotv device. Maybe it will help them protect margins if theyre moving into lower cost products. John, what did he say . He says hell buy one as long as it has nice features. There you go. Like a face and hands. Keep the responses coming, please. Email us, worldwide cnbc. Com. Tweet us or reach us directly. As many people were upset that i havent seen the latest skyfall movie as much as they are excited about the iwatch. Thats the top of the list, the kelly. Ill move it up. Too late. Next, well be in brussels. Well be there in just a few moments. What are you doing . Work . Work. Cdw configured these Lenovo Thinkpad ultrabooks with intel core i7 processors. So, we can work anywhere. Anywhere . Sure on the beach, in the woods, at the lake. What about on the green . Lets not get ahead of ourselves. Oh more likes. More tweets. So, beginning today, my son brock and his whole team will be our new senior social media strategists. Any questions . Since we make radiator valves wouldnt it be better if we just let fedex help us to expand to new markets . Hmm gotta admit thats better than a few likes. I dont have the door code. Whos that . He won a contest online to be ceo for the day. How am i supposed to run a business here without an office . [ male announcer ] fast, reliable deliveries worldwide. Fedex. [ male announcer ] fast, reliable deliveries worldwide. Today is gonna be an important day for us. You ready . We wanna be our brothers keeper. Whats number two we wanna do . Bring it up to 90 decatherms. How bout ya, joe . Lets go ahead and bring it online. Attention on site, attention on site. Now starting unit nine. Some of the worlds cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of americas biggest cities. Siemens. Answers. Lets take a look at u. S. Futures. The last time we checked in, the dow was set to open about 11 points at the open. Its peared back just a tad. The dow is still trying to climb back towards that 14,000 level, a time, ross, when frankly more people were talking about warning signs in the market. Meanwhile, as far as the european stocks were concerned, and this is where we stand, firmer today. The ibex down 0. 3 . The cac 40, ftse and xetra dax up between 0. 25 and 0. 5 . Dollar index is up, kelly. Thats right. And the dollar yen, adding 0. 5 . So 93. 17. Aussie dollar weaker by about 0. 5 . A lot of trade across asia is quiet or closed for the Lunar New Year. Frances problems have nothing to do with a single curren currency, but down to the problems itself. He said that the core of the french problem lies inside the cup, not in the Foreign Exchange rate. This time last week, the french president called for the rights to curve the euro. And the euro group meeting, which is due to star today in brussels. So sylvia is live there. Its like one meeting blending into another at this stage. But it does seem as though all the rhetoric about currency wars is start to go come to a head. What are you hearing there . Of course, its always been a political issue, always been a political issue for the likes of france. Weve had this famously with sarkozy and trichet. The one called for action on the currency and action on Interest Rates and the other one said, look, were interpret. We make our own policy. Yada, yada, yada. Weve heard this many times prosecute. In terms of decisive action, i would like to put it, if you ever get the chance, to mr. Hollande as to what exactly he expects the ecb to do. Zero Interest Rates tomorrow . Fine. Will that make a difference at the kind of Interest Rate level that we are right now . It probably wouldnt. Weve had the euro coming in at 118 when it was created, going down to 88. Then going up to 1. 56 or where we were more or less in the top. It haecht hasnt really changed the competitiveness scenario. Look at germany. Whether the euro was up or down. So i think this is a bit of a cheap argument to simply say we have to do something about the euro. France as well as germany have a large chunk of their exports inside europe, inside the eurozone and another large chunk now to Southeast Asia or to the far east where it doesnt make savp different in terms of the dollar reference, either. Can they do a lot about it . No. They dont control Interest Rate policies. The ecb said said we havent got an Exchange Rate target. If we had, we wouldnt tell you. So i think its a bit of a smoke screen. But the other topics on the agenda are still the banking union, which are the much hotter topices and dont make for such good headlines. Ross, weve been talking earlier in the show about cypress, about having depositor is take a hit here, about what it means if they do a bail in and a bailout. I think we need to go down there. Still to come on the show, we head to boston within which hasnt been so nice. Well take a look at how it could reshape the industry. Plenty more to come on worldwide exchange. Welcome back to worldwide exchange. Im kelly evans. And im ross westgate. A reminder of your headlines today from around the world digging out from nemo, residents and businesses in the northeastern u. S. Hope to resume a regular schedule as they dig out from up to three feet of snow. And barclays not expecting major changes. And google chairman eric schmidt is selling a huge chunk of shares in the search giant. 13955, thats the levels of the Dow Jones Industrial average. Trying to add 12 or 13 points here at the open on what of course has been a quieter trading session. Also from asia overnight with the Chinese New Year celebration, shutting down some of those markets. The nasdaq and s p 500 pointed higher, 1515 is the level there. The cnbc ftse global 300, even though its had low volumes, weve been generally down about 0. 1 . More action in the last hour or two than we saw earlier. But european markets, we can take a look at what is driving trade there. Up about 0. 7 . The xetra dax now looking to add about 0. 2 . The cac 40 is supported by shares in sanofi, one of the best performers on the stoxx 600 today after its rival novo nordisk was down in the range of 12 after learning the u. S. Wants more evidence on one of its key insulin drugs before it makes a decisions. Rivals are benefiting on that news this morning. The ibex 35 is down 0. 3 . The same trade which helped to lift these bourses is reversing a little bit here in february, ross. Yep. Thats where we stand right now. Ahead of the u. S. Open, what are investors set to do at the beginning of the week . Here is what some guests have told us this morning. Platinum is probably our biggest position right now outside of equities. This, given, driven by loose monetary policies, inflationary pressures. On the loose side of things, auto demand is strong outside of europe. All of those things are driving did manpower. I wouldnt be surprised if we had another hundred bucks down side from here. Thats simply because i think youre now moving into an environment where the banks are coming in better. And i think that brings up the question, then, why do you want to hold gold . You would want to hold something more definitely overbought. But they can go on overbought in a while. That could be 20 from here. I dont know. But clearly, a lot of people have checked in and theyre all in one trade and theyre all talking about the same thing, theyre all writing the same thing. Its a bit worrying in a slightly bigger picture. Plenty of interesting thoughts there to talk about. This day with the Chinese New Year, the snowstorm for the United States. Theres no immediate crisis going on. Its just finding their feet. Really quiet. And i think the cypress story is fascinating. Take a look at some of the details. 0. 2 of total output. But the real question becomes, do you make depositors and bondholders share in the losses . Of course. For everyone else. Keep an eye on that. European markets, its not as if theyre selling off. As we turn to the u. S. Session, usair lines are expected to return to near normal schedule today after nemo forced around 6,000 cancellations over the weekend. Joining now from boston is arthur. Good morning. I understand your driver had to back out the wrong way do i know down your street just for you to get into the studio. Whats it like there . A lot of roads are very difficult to pass through. Theres mountains of snow. Even on the main roads, we seem like weve lost about a lane driving this morning. So pretty bad. How much of an impact has there been on the industry . Its not much. I mean, you look at superstorm sandy, i think to delta it was 35 million. And, you know, its irrelevant to what delta has. And you look at right now what we have, we have one city in boston i mean, we have city, boston, thats been affected, but guys are spooling up and getting back to normal. With superstorm sandy, you had new york that was offline, too. We have some others in the midwest here. And the other thing that, you know, when you guys talk about mergers and consolidations, you have airlines now that have consolidated. Theyre better able to handle disruptions like this and have more options to get the customers to where they want to go. Yeah. And just talking about mergers here, do you think the american and u. S. Have expectations they will finally tie it up this week . I think they will. I think theres been some what america has done recently was the company came out and said there was value, would we have believed on their circumstances. There was value to their equity. I think details like that have to deaddressed by the board. So you have issues dealing with what the splits are going to be in the economics. So i think its telegraphed. Its going to happen. It should happen. And its a good thing. America needs this more than us airways does. Where does that leave the industry, arthur . Well, youll have this consolidation. You have an industry that should start earning on a normalized basis its cost of capital. So nothing excessive or, you know, with big margins or anything like that. But earning its cost of capital. And when you put that in context where the valuations are, thats a powerful thing. And if you back up and look at the Fourth Quarter gdp in the United States, it was negative. You had airlines put up, you know, net earnings. Which is you start thinking about im paperworkal evidence, bad gdp positive earnings on this bad industry, whats going on here. During the consolidation, we were able to do things to earn our costs of capital. We got reports here that theyve pushed back meetings to consider the details of this 11 billion deal. Amr is saying they want to meet in person. Usair directors will only meet after amrs approved mirnlger. Who is going to come out of this well . I didnt hear that last part, but i know doug is the northwest stage, and kirby has done well. I think they can do a great job at American Airlines. And i think thats how it should be. American really hasnt distinguished itself in the past decade in running an operation. They had all these advantages and they withered it away. Where does this leave International Airlines now, as its known . I was lying at aig this morning. People forget i followed this industry for a while. British airways, the most profitable routes in the 90s. What this does for aig is it gives it a vast network and customers on its side a lot of optionlty when visiting Business Travel and Leisure Travel in the United States. Its a big deal. And it was interesting, when American Airlines filed, i was talking to some analysts and some people in the industry over there. They were scared because there was a potential that american could have been split up and delta would have been able to carve up america and we would have you know, where would aig have been inspect its in a great position. It doesnt have to put up any capital to play here. So i think theyre going to be a very good beneficiary of this. Thank you very much for joining us. In other airline news, boeing says it plans more defendant flights of its 787 jet liner this week. The Company Conducted an uneventful twohour flight on saturday. The jet had a crew of 13, including pilots and testing personnel. Boeing says the Data Collected was part of an investigation into battery events that led to the worldwide groupeding of 787 last month. Boeing shares moving lower by 1. 5 in frankfurt trade this morning. Take that every day. Words you want to hear, you want to talk about. Any kind of flight of any sort or any transportation issue. Carnival cruise line ship is adrift off of mexico after an engine fire. A tugboat is planning to toe the ship back to shore on wednesday. The passengers on board will receive a full refund. Stick around. Coming up next, the big cleanup begins today as nemo has made its stormy exit. But what do the skies have in store for the week ahead . Well get you the latest forecast from the weather channel. [ engine turns over ] [ male announcer ] we created the luxury crossover and kept turning the page, writing the next chapter for the rx and lexus. This is the pursuit of perfection. With hotwires low prices, we can afford to take an extra trip this year. First boston. Then san francisco. Hotwire checks the competitions rates every day so they can guarantee their low prices. So our hotels were half price. Hotwire. Hotwire. Com today is gonna be an important day for us. You ready . We wanna be our brothers keeper. Whats number two we wanna do . Bring it up to 90 decatherms. How bout ya, joe . Lets go ahead and bring it online. Attention on site, attention on site. Now starting unit nine. Some of the worlds cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of americas biggest cities. Siemens. Answers. Welcome back to worldwide exchange. The uk pound enjoyed a small lift last week, but be sure to read why one asset manager thinks its time to sell the currency against the dollar. But others say the u. S. Dollar is set to win the war to be the weakest currency. Read on the website why the bank predicts the weak dollar to last for at least seven years. Weak dollar for seven years . Thats the word. Its been fairly weak for the last seven. But not too bad. It would be risk off as it strengthened. Right. So perhaps a good sign about dollar weakening over the next couple of years . Yeah. Its hard to say because theres so many different cross currencies. And you say its your individual ones that matters. More than anything else. Talking about weakness, the worlds biggest insulinmaker, stock down 11. 7 today. They laurchbled a new drug which got approval last year. They thought they would get the same approval from the fda. Theyve actually asked for more information today, additional tests before it would consider approving the new drug. Thats why the stock is down. The firm has said, we dont think its a major problem. It may not impact 20213 earnings. Clearly, the market is taking a different view at the moment. Keep an eye on that. If youre just joining us here on the program this morning, these are your headlines. The u. S. East coast digging out from three feet of snow left by winter storm nemo. Barclays ceo is set to lay out a future which could include cost cuts. And residents in the northeastern u. S. Hope to get back to their work day routine today after digging out from a massive winter storm this weekend. Nemo dumped up to three feet of snow in some areas. Around 150,000 customers are still without power in massachusetts. Joining us is meteorologist jen carfagno. Jen, just give us a wrap right now. What is left of this storm . Well, weve got feet of snow on the ground here. This is the total we saw from ne nemo. Portland saw over 31 inches, nearly 32. Here, our biggest snowstorm on record. This is what were dealing with this morning. A weekend shutdown in boston. Thousands of Flights Canceled across the yeah. Now, this morning, when were supposed to get back on track, were bringing a much different storm into the area. Its bringing the threat for freezing rain there. Winter weather advisories into much of massachusetts, connecticut, up into new england. Now, its all rain out there from d. C. To philadelphia to this, in. No freezing rain advisories there. But the concern is when youve got a couple of feet of snow on the ground and you bring freezing rain on top of it, it could cause a lot of problems. And thats the next round of concern. You have businesses closed today. Schools are cleesed across connecticut, massachusetts, long island because of that snow from naeem mow. This is why. Its orco. Its moving into the northeast today and well get a break for a couple of days. Ross and kelly, thats with well be able to completely clean up from nemo. Thats always the hardest part, jen. Thank you for that. Were coordinating nicely this morning, by the way. The eu has temporarily approved french aid to peugeot citron bank. Take a look at shares up 1. 35 . Were going the take a quick break. When we come back, looking at whether it will be lucky number seven for the dow 500. Were going to preview the trading day coming up when we come back. [ male announcer ] ive seen incredible things. Otherworldly things. But there are some things ive never seen before. This ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. Which is good for business. Because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. Suddenly, faraway places dont seem so. Far away. [ male announcer ] how could a luminous protein in jellyfish, impact Life Expectancy in the u. S. , real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany . At t. Rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. Its just one reason over 75 of our mutual funds beat their 10year lipper average. T. Rowe price. Invest with confidence. Request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. Man these guys are slow. Reminds me of our network before cdw virtualized it. How . Cdw and hp networking implemented a Virtual Application Network that reduces the time to deploy cloud applications from months to minutes. With fewer bottlenecks like this. Finally. Charles client golf. Aim for the lake. Really . Now, eric sch mi dt is cashing in. The google chairman will sell roughly 42 of his stake in the company. In an s. E. C. Filing, google says schmidt will sell shares spread out over a year. Google wouldnt comment on why schmidt is selling. Schmidt did hand over the reigns to cofounder larry paej back in 201 1. Googles stock down about 1 in frankfurt. Apple is reportedly working on a watchlike device that has the features of a smartphone. The wearable device is in the experimental phase. It could be used to make things like mobile payments. It has discussed such a device with foxconn. Earlier on the show, we asked would you buy an iwatch . Phil said he would wait until apple makes a shoe phone. Jeff tweets that it should come up with an app that scans your meat for horse meat. And were just hearing from the major italian wire agency. That the pope, Pope Benedict, is to resign, being quoted on the italian news wire and now in the major italian press, suggesting Pope Benedict is going to resign. We have no idea why. There have been question marks about this in the past. Anything from what has been happening with the vatican paper scandal to potentially his age being an issue. We have unfortunately no information at this point. Im sure as they continues to develop, well have it trickling in. But first to have it reported from the Italian News Agency before anyone can report it. To resign on february the 8th is what dow jones is saying. Thats after lent actually, during lent. Not that the timing of this lentin season has anything to do with it, but its interesting because were in a build up to the incredibly important season. Its that and the way the news came out doesnt suggest so he announced this plan to resign in latin on monday that he would be resigning on february 28th. Were just continuing to bring you the news as we get these flashes through from the news wires. All of them, both dow jones and reuters are quoting as to which is italys news certa. Yeah. The italian news stories are running these stories. We have been asking here, would love to know f wanted to sort of send this into the program whether a pope can zien, whether a hope ever has resigned . It loots liuxurious like the but not sure if anyone has. Weve made it six straight weeks of gains. That hasnt happened for over 40 years. Jack, six weeks of gains for u. S. Markets. Are we going to make it a seventh . First of all, its hard to follow that story, ross. Lets face that. Look, ive been bullish this market. Youve known that. Ive come on this show and ive said that. One of the reasons is weve seen this expanding multiple and more importantly, the bears have misread three important things. A complete break up of europe. China going through a crash landing which did not happen and the third thing is a contraction in earnings which did not materialize. All of that is contributing to put a floor on the prices. What you usually look for is that euphoric top. Were seeing all new highs in the russell and the midcap. The real question is if we get one of those 30, 40year moves, that will be a hint for it to come off. That will continue the momentum and more than likely well see a new alltime high in the s p before the he of the summer. Whats going to be the key for you this week, then . Whats going to stand out in terms of Corporate News or economics . It will be a bit of both. Corporate news, we want to continue to see these earnings surprise people. But more importantly, you start to get these mumblings of a currency war. We need to put that to rest. Youve got the yen right now and the central bank in japan doing what theyre doing. Our central bank doing what theyre doing and, of course, the europeans trying to mold together whatever is the little bits and pieces that they have. Those things are very important. And cash flows are going to be very important. A lot of cash still on the sidelines. Thanks for that. Good to see you, jack. Thats it from worldwide exchange. The vatican confirming Pope Benedict will resign on february 28th. [ male announcer ] this is not my home. There. I said it. They dont have pictures of my kids. They dont have my yoga mat. And still, i feel at home. Could it be the flat screen tv . The not so mini fridge . The different free dinner almost every weeknight . Or maybe, its all of the above. And all the rest. Am i home . Nope. But it almost feels that way. Homewood suites by hilton. Be at home