Relatively mixed loyal shares on track for their worst day in nine months after top line growth misses the mark in the Second Quarter dont miss our interview with jeanpaul agon at 11 30 Central European time. And apple shares jump in afterhours trade after beating expectations and returning to growth in the Third Quarter but iphone sales miss estimates. A bit of a mixed message in the european markets the xetra dax performing relatively well as is the ftse mib in italy the cac 40 in paris and the ftse in london in the red its the thick of earnings season in europe a lot of these numbers being driven by whats going on in those various markets. As we talk about some of the companies that are in focus in the thick of therapyings season, you have major reports from the financi airli airlines airfranceklm up strongly after posting a 15 rise in quarterly operating profit loreal over here in the far right corner for me is trading near the bottom of the index after posting weaker than expected growth in Second Quarter. Lets start with credit sweeuis. They have beaten expectations with the highest quarterly result in four years the lender said they have healthy levels of Client Engagement carolin roth is in zurich where she spoke to the ceo what did he have to tell you its difficult to find a fly in the ointment in Credit Suisses results shares are up 4 , investors clearly rewarding the bank for the performance of the last quarter. Its not always been this easy for the bank its been through three years of painful restructuring. It seems like its now able to enjoy the fruits of that very difficult labor. And Credit Suisse has now been able to hit its return on tangible equity target earlier than the market had been anticipating almost 10 this year that was the target. Thats what they reached it depends on revenues Going Forward and the outlook, like for any other business out there, is difficult given the volatility were seeing, the lack of visibility when it comes to trade wars, brexit, and that is reflected in client confidence, specifically in the banks key profit driver another issue is falling Interest Rates they have fallen a lot already this year. What is it going to do to the net interest market in the Wealth Management business thats a key question we discussed earlier on my bigger question was what are you going to do next youve done the restructuring. Youve done it pretty well the market is rewarding you for this there are some reports out there that he may be interested in the top job at the imf lets see what he had to say potentially only interested in my own job and continuing in my own job thats my number one priority. Look, its been, as you said, tough. I think weve had tough exchanges, not just on a personal level, but just because the situation was tough. Its pleasing for me to see things so much better, to see people smiling around the company. Thats when it gets interesting. People were worried when i arrived because i was not seep as a growth manager. People didnt know i could do a restructuring. Now we need to show growth thats an exciting proposition so he wants no other job than his own. I should come back to the results and point out Global Markets did surprisingly well. Fixed income was up 11 . Equity sales up by 3 . Thats better than some competitors because were still in a very difficult trading environment. Back over to you i will run our viewers through some other bank numbers. Bnp paribas reported a 3 rise in net income which speeded expectations they got a boost from lower retail costs and Strong Performance at its corporate and investing banking unit the capital ratio came in above estimates. As the fed gears up for an Interest Rate cut or what many expect could be a cut, bnp paribas will prepare for a future that involves lower Interest RatesInterest Rates have been low for a while. Thats why we continue our adaptation thats why we stepped up the adaptation in this quarter to make sure were ready in that environment to have a bottom line to grow the ecb clearly sees a need to make lending easier, to stimulate the economy. You posted a 9 rise in Corporate Banking revenue, 8 rise in loans. Is the economic picture in europe not as bad as feared . If you look at what we saw in the Second Quarter of our loan growth, if you look at the retail up 4 , if you look at Corporate Banking, its almost double digit thereses a s a demand we have to see if the ecb will announce if that will taper off a bit. But growth is there. It might be slower, but its there. Thats positive. Thats banking. Lets talk about insurance swiss res net profit fell in the first half of the year but still beat expectations. Claims from the Ethiopian Airlines crash and the grounding of the 737 max pushed up costs as did Severe Weather events the reinsurance giantposted a loss in its commercial Insurance Business carolin roth also had a chance to talk to their leadership. What did they have to say about this environment the cfo of swiss re talked to us a short while ago he said, yeah, its not been the easiest of environments for the reInsurance Business you had a number of man made and natural craatastrophes. The boeing impact is still there. They took a charge of roughly 1 120 million in their pnc business visibility on that perspective is not very great because the planes are still grounded. But apart from that we have the Corporate Solutions business, which has been loss making the company is tackling that theyre working on a turnaround strategy and hoping that business will be back to profitability, back in the black come 2021. But one of the big issues that kept the market busy was swiss res plan to ipo its reassure business the ipo was planned for earlier this month, but it was shelved why . Because of difficult Market Conditions, lack of investor demand, institutional demand and probably that had something to do with the weak performance of some of the other ipos weve seen in the london market. My question to the cfo is what is the plan now . What are you doing next . Will you try to list it again . Could a pe company come to the rescue the plan right now is to run this business. We think its a strong business. It doesnt fit perfectly in our capital model that we have in switzerland. But the asset itself is a strong performing asset i think well wait and see how markets develop. We have no intention of going back for an ipo in 2019, 2020 could be another story well also do whats in the best interest of shareholders weve explained our midterm objective is to deconsolidate that that means moving down from where we are at 75 ownership to below 50 . Its worth pointing out that shelved ipo puts into question the second trench of the Share Buyback program that the Company Announced and started earlier this year. I asked the cfo are you going ahead with that . He said we have not made a decision yet well make that decision come the Third Quarter. Potentially bad news for swiss re investors there back over to you the Swiss National bank posted a jump in first half profit thanks to lower global Interest Rates that spurred an increase in stock markets and helped boost the Central Banks equity assets. The value of Gold Holdings rose as the price of the precious medal got a bump amid the dovish noises from the Central Banks. The u. S. President , donald trump, has again criticized the Federal Reserve ahead of what suspected to be the first rate cut in more than a decade. Trump reiterated his view that the feds leadership made some mistakes in the past the fed move far too early, far too severely, puts us at a disadvantage fortunately i made the economy so strong that nothing will stop us but the fed could have made it a lot easier i would like to see a large cut. I would like to see immediately the quantitative tightening stopped. It should be stopped for them to have done quantitative tightening and also higher Interest Rates simultaneously, i think it was a big mistake. Cnbc spoke to several fed president s in the lead up to todays decision they shared a variety of views on a possible move to ease policy i think were a little tight on the funds rate. Not too much but a little bit tight. The global safe real Interest Rate shortterm is about zero. On the basis of inflation alone, acould feel confident in arguing for a couple of rate cuts before the end of the year. Given that the economy is quite strong, given that i do think that inflation is going to be close to 2 , and given that the growth in the economy is satisfactory, i think thats an environment where you dont have to take a lot of action. We have the global head of investing at blackrock the comments in response to some of those phrases from mr. Trump, rather skeptical from what i could judge. Weve seen expectations for u. S. Rate cuts really move lower the last few months. The fed is expected to cut tonight. Do you expect further cuts down the road at what point could we see Interest Rates increase again . How far out is that . Thats a long way into the future given how volatile things have been over the last nine months we had huge turnaround in expectations in q4, now the consensus is widely towards a cut. For us, where we invest, this is a positive kind of tailwind. We have seen positive moves in gold when you have lower Interest Rates, the opportunities for owning gold declines with Commodity Prices benefiting from this as well, it is an encouraging environment for our funds. So you got gold there at a sixyear high. Pushing what might be the Third Straight month of gains at the moment were july 31st. Im wondering when you look at its performance, is that the safe haven asset all held up to be given the implied volatility in the equity markets, particularly in china and the u. S. I wouldnt say safe haven assets have tohave zero volatility were in a low volatility environment. I think gold has always been a story of wealth for thousands of years. I dent sont see fundamental ch in that. Gold is going to continue to have that role what ive been fascinated by is seeing well established, well regarded investment managers, hedge funds and a reportity ivf products coming out talking about gold were seeing strong flows into physically backed etfs gold prices today are not extraordinarily high relative to the cost of production most Gold Mining Companies are profitable but not making or not as profitable as producers are who are making extraordinary levels of profitability. Were talking about it as a safe haven asset, in terms of real world, what are the forces at play here in terms of supply and in terms of demand for gold . When you think about gold, it has two roles. First, it has the role as a currency, a means of exchange. Thats where you have this safe haven asset quality coming from. Then you have a role as a commodity. When you look at it as a commodity, its all about supply and demand when you look at demand for gold, its healthy demand. Supply is the area that is the driver now weve seen yun underinvestment o gold mines for many, many years due to financing in the gold market, and thats restricted the ability to build new capacity the prospect of future supply replacing supply eaten away every day is not there as well from a supply side point of view we have a Strong Foundation for the gold market. That reduced capex, is that something youve seen elsewhere in commodities that you think will help to support Commodity Prices even if there is a potential downturn in demand i think theres two ways of looking at that. It can be seen as reduced capex. We like to look at it slightly differently. We look at it as capital discipline the Mining Companies, including the gold space, have been much more disciplined in the way they allocate capital for many years now we saw a boom in Capital Expenditure since then youve seen this yun investment into new supply across all commodities, including gold most recently weve seen a high level of transparency by the Mining Companies in terms of Investment Decisions theyre makingpromises to investors that they wont good on the spending splurge they went on before and well see a much more disciplined approach that is likely to increase retur returns but also reduce supply growth last friday we had data out showing the u. S. Economy was down more than 2 in the Second Quarter. Numbers this week showing Consumer Confidence in july rose to the highest level this year investors will be waiting for payroll numbers on friday. Wages are rising higher than core inflation, faster than core inflation. Given all that, when the fed starts talking about it being data dependant, the idea of a cut given that context seems a bit strange to some people would you say thats fair . I think theres an area for debate all parts of the market are an area for debate. What weve seen is this massive shift in expectations around Interest Rates going back to q4 of last year, i think the consensus was for four rate increases in 2019 were in july, we have not had one. Now were looking at the very high probability of a cut in the very nearterm that has been a significant change maybe we start to see expectations of additional cuts have a lower probability than a few months ago i think well continue to see, as data comes through, positive and negative expectations move around in the normal fashion trying to anticipate too much of that is difficult to do with any accuracy you talked about quantitative easing, you talked about the u. S. And fed, ill talk to you about china a few moments if thats okay. First half pretax profit at lloyds fell 7 and missed expectations the bank booked an additional 550 Million Pound charge related to payment protection insurance. The biggest Mortgage Lender predicted further returns for the fullyear and said further charges like the one i mentioned would dampen its ability to boost capital. Assets under management at man group rose 5 in the first half despite outflows of 1. 1 billion pounds adjusted profit rose 3 over the period and beat expectations Man Group Says it entered the second half of the year with good performance fee earning potential. And loreal posted weak growth in the Second Quarter with wavering demand and shifting beauty trends in north america. Julianna tatelbaum joins us with more details on those numbers. Well, as you can see from the share price reaction in loreal investors are disappointed with this update. Sales growth disappointed for the quarter it was weaker than expected driven by the drag in north america. Wins again we saw strength in china, in luxury, but what were seeing at loreal is a real polarization between segments and between regions. Luxury and active cosmetics continue to see strong growth, double digit growth. We are also seeing double digit growth in aipac in china but developed markets continue to lag and divisionally were seeing professional products and Consumer Products continuing to lag. Those are the more mainstream mass market products investors are disappointed in north america. Loreal announced a Share Buyback of 750 Million Euros what is interesting about the buyback is not the size. This is not huge for loreal but its interesting that its coming now when shares are trading near alltime highs, theres concerns in the market around luxury stocks, growth stocks, but loreal making the decision to go ahead with a Share Buyback here questions moving forward today will be around north america and the outlook for that region. Loreal is not the only company in the space to be reporting weaker results we heard from gucci, a slightly different segment here we saw a mess there. A big step down in kering stock last week. Is there something cyclical going on in the north American Market the other question is on china and whether the growth theyre seeing is sustainable and whether loreal is seeing signs of slowdown here ill sit down with jeanpaul agon at 11 30 cet and catch that interview. If you have views on the earnings youve seen this morning, get in touch with us on twitter, streetsignscnbc. Coming up, airbus beat Second Quarter expectations and backs its guidance for the year. More on the planemakers second half challenges after this short break. More, more, more how do you like it, how do you like it more, more, more how do you like it, how do you like it all you can eat is back. How do you like that . Applebees. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. Welcome back to street signs. We have a huge number of corporate earnings across europe this wednesday airfranceklms operating profit rose more than 15