Hello. Welcome to countdown. All. Y good morning to you Vladimir Putin addressing russia today amid the collapse of its currency and a deepening economic crisis. The ruble has rallied since hitting its lowest ever after the central bank step in to say it will help Companies Meet their debt obligations and foreign currencies. Theeaders weighing in on ruble issue. The russian crisis is on the agenda. Obama. President barack will not be helping putins case either. He is said to sign a bill pushing further sanctions on the russian economy. What are his options as he heads onto the world stage this morning . Bloombergs Ryan Chilcote reports. Extraordinaryn several days for russians. Since Vladimir Putin last weighed in on the currency, the ruble has been in freefall down at one point a full 30 since he last spoke. Far from hiding, this commercial advertising putins annual has conference suggests the russian president is ready to take the ruble and the world on. Expect a robust defense of syria, everyation thed crisis, and of course crisis. We have seen him with the record 1000 journalists attending the press conference last year and per usual, Vladimir Putin answered the questions for a full four hours. This year, hes unlikely to do some. Standby. A vladimir the defender. Wellis was well billed, anticipated. What i the big changes if at all . Of sort of deflating peoples expectations, i dont think we will get any big policy changes. Its not really his style to go in front of 1000 journalists and announce big policy initiatives. I think we will get some antiwestern rhetoric and a bit of blaming this currency crisis on the sanctions. To a certain extent, that would be fair. Thats not the only thing going on here. As the economy minister said, its a perfect storm of three big problems. Own, structural, geopolitical, and the falling price of oil. I think we will get some good theater. Four ours is a long time for anyone to speak. Who knows . Weve had incredible moves in markets, not least of which whats happened to the ruble. What are the prospects of capital controls now . An interesting one. The government says there will not be any capital controls, for what its worth. They would say that because you would not want to forecast that in advance. Who knows . Meeting with the head of the central bank, his team, and exporters effectively encouraging to convert their currency from dollars when they sell their oil, whatever it might be, into rubles as quickly as possible and to do it in a synchronized fashion, that is a form of capital control. Wed go to the bank machine and you cannot get dollars out, that might cause more panic than its actually work. Is pretty interesting. You can engage the level of concern when it comes to capital control, when you look at shares of Companies Listed in moscow and out of moscow. Shares fromat these yesterday and you can see that the premium investors are prepared to pay for own londonlisted shares, the premium percentage they are willing to pay over the price of the shares in moscow for shares in the very same company has been subsiding. Oft shows us the month december. The higher you are on the chart, the more concerned people are about capital controls which is why they would be willing to pay more for the same shares in london. People are a bit more less concerned. Although it might be in brussels. At the eu meeting, they will discuss russia. They will discuss the financial turmoil but not financial aid. Its interesting the difference between this one and 1998. The world gave russia 20 billion but they had about 11 billion in reserves. They will also discuss ukraine. Commission say ukraine needs 15 billion new aid on top of the 17 billion they already gave ukraine. Same time,ly, at the president obama has a bill in front of him he says he will sign authorizing new sanctions against russia. Its a bit of a hot potato because the russians have already said they will retaliate. It would involve sending russian arms the exporter and this is the big companiesnational working with Energy Companies. Even still, the russians see it as a hostile move. The penny has not dropped, i guess is one way of putting it. Or the ruble. Brian, thank you. Ryan chilcote. We will be watching the extensive coverage of Vladimir Putins speech from 9 a. M. This morning london time here on bloomberg. Theres been a change of language from the Federal Reserve. The new keyword is patience. The chair of the Federal Reserve has indicated shes in no hurry to raise Interest Rates. Janet yellen says the fed is unlikely to move before the end of april. And so didrose equity markets. Yellen striking a note of caution when it comes to u. S. Jobs. There is room for further improvement with too many people who want jobs being unable to find them, too many working parttime but would prefer whotime work, too many have given up searching for a job but would likely do so if the labor market were stronger. Elsewhere in washington, history being made, ending half a deck half a century of hostility. Beginning to normalize relations with havana. Iny will open an embassy lifting travel and trade which prohibits the import of cuban cigars. Its a oneparty state but so is china and vietnam. We are in a position to have over the course of events when we have an active ambassador there, people to people exchanges. Hello, north korea. We are preparing for this interview. I particularly enjoyed the miley cyrus episode. Very deep. A clip from the movie the interview. That might be as much as you see because sony has told the Christmas Day release. Caroline highend is here with sonys very own hacking drama. This is a fascinating story that continues to unfold. Madee day, a film will be about the making of this film. You could not make this up. Sony pictures entertainment saying it will not be unveiling what was meant to be a comedy. A plot tod to involve didssinate kim jongun who not find this remotely funny. Having to pull the showing of the seth rogen comedy, what has happened is it escalated. Its part cyberattacks bringing down computers but since then, terror attacks have become even. Ore vehement theyre calling themselves guardians of peace and they you should remember the 11th of september. We recommend you keep your thoughts separate unsurprisingly. There are still cinema owners with absolute fears as well. Bey said they will not showing the film. Sony themselves have come out saying they have decided not to move forward with a planned december 25 release. Theres the safety of the employees and the weirder goers. Leaks in terms of angelina jolie, aliases, one thing after another. Back in the summer, Sony Entertainment got the idea that north korea were not pleased him a do things to try to prevent distribution. It was not until november that suddenly we get this brutal crippled thethat entire Sony PicturesComputer System that got drip fed the leaking of details about salaries. Unbelievable statistics about women being paid far less and men. Angelina jolie being abused in email conversations being called a spoiled brat. I think youre being very generous. Do got completely consumed in. I spent looking at gawker and some of the rings being spelled out. Snapchat, deals being done that suddenly become unveiled in Public Knowledge because of relationships at Sony Entertainment. Youcan jesse december 17 can just see december 17 having to pull out exactly. What happens now with the u. S. Government . Do they have a role to play in all of this . We have been reporting for a long time that north korea was likely to be behind it. Sonys own investigation must thought to have been linked groupans of peace to a that has previously done attacks on south korea and some of their banks. Announce as soon as today that north korea is officially behind the cyberattacks according to a person briefed on the fbi probe. Dont really know how to react. How do you retaliate when you cannot point pinpoint . Is already isolated economically. What weapons do we really have against them . The responsibility has been put on them. Now how much responsibility does the u. S. Have to protect their own companies from this . A little bit of breaking news. The board proposes peter foster as the new chairman. Voser is to become the new chairman over at abb. Another willg and not stand again for election there over again. Peter voser bringing key knowledge of the markets as well as an excellent track record as a leader in global organizations. A new chief executive and a new finance chief. The worlds biggest maker of power grids. Follow us on twitter and join the conversation. Let us know what you think of the shows. Manus is back. markbartontv annaedwardsnews. Fed, greece, and more. Soonerguest thinks the political stability is restored in greece, the better. Janet yellen signaling shes in no hurry to raise Interest Rates and borrowing costs staying lower for longer. Lets bring in our guest for this conversation. X strategy at bank of America Merrill lynch. A couple of commentators. They called the fed statement , do you think this is a fair summary of yesterdays events . Thehe message i get from fed yesterday as despite what happened in the markets in the last month, they are continuing to prepare the markets for the fed rate hike next year. Many went into the meeting thinking that the fed could continue to be on the side of caution and stop sending concerned about the global of volatility, the crisis in russia. Some of the emerging markets at risk but the drop in Inflation Expectation including in the u. S. Focusing on the resilience of u. S. And preparing the market for the first rate hike. Place the middle of next year, a little bit later. It will be dated dependent. How quickly will they go . Year, one and a. Uarter, one and a half they have listened to some of the things on the market. They have changed their range. Thats true. Up until now, they were ignoring the plot saying it does not matter. Now it matters because they will start hiking rates. Point, we have to converge with the market expectations. Perhaps this was the meeting of this process. On one hand the message got more hawkish but the doves got more dovish . The fact that we see equities rising, is that because they are theassuming, good news on economy is good news and we can take a rate rise or are Equity Investors saying they are in no hurry and its good . Clearly, the fed will continue taking its time. Theyre looking at the data and they will prefer to hike later than two early. From their point of view, this was risk on. They may not hike rates on all next year. The message that the fed will stay the course and everyone will depend on the u. S. Data. Of genos vamvakidis, head 10 fx strategy. We will talk russia and more. Stay with us. Thanos vamvakidis, head of g10 fx strategy for bank of America Merrill lynch. Hat a couple of days the ruble is down to 60. What an incredible couple days of volatility. Russia has taken various measures to stem the ruble decline. Hasnt managed to stem the decline for now . Has it managed . Still have substantial reserves, more than 400 billion. The way i would approach the crisis, because that is what we have here, we have to see what the triggers are. We have to see what led to the bone before boom before the crisis. Ofsident putin is a source stability and now he is a source of instability. Now oil prices are collapsing. No matter what the domestic authorities do, they cannot change these two factors. From this point of view, i will still be bearish on russia unless they change with respect to u. K. Very obvious capital controls or could they be more subtle . I think they will start gradually. Further intervention might be the first line of defense. If the situation continues, it could go to an extreme. Thanos, when we talk about them is the central bank made yesterday, it strikes me as being something for the markets to delinquent. Using the russian ruble for assets, dont worry. That sort of the problem we had during the financial crunch down of 2007 and 2008. Basically dont worry about any of the default risk that you have . Thats lunacy. They have an enforceable job. Its not an issue of economic fundamentals here. To a large extent it is because of politics and development. Such measures might work in the shortterm term but they have a lot of side effects. Even if we see interventions, the way we approach this would see some measures that could support into the short term. 160 votes in greece for the president ial nominee are not enough. The second vote will take place december 23. Wilson morris get his candidate through or not will samaris get his candidate through . What will help votes in greece is if the government promises early elections and to reform the constitution. Thanos vamvakidis, head of g10 fx strategy at bank of America Merrill lynch, thank you. Greece moving one step closer to early elections. You are looking at a live shot of athens. Stay with us on countdown. You are watching countdown. Time to check in on the Foreign Exchange markets of the Federal Reserve has delivered a change in language. Whats going on . The dollar rose to within 1 10 of 1 . We are trading up over the past few days. The bank of new zealand says longheld. E they are in no hurry to move rates. Is the otherhange aspects of the minutes that we have, the velocity in terms of the index of where they see them going by the end of 2015, lower than the market. The median estimate for where the dollar index will be, a little bit higher than here at 94. Have all emerging markets reacted . Perhaps for the same amount of tanks . Amount of angst . No, changing the wording from considerable time to patients which means no movement until the First Quarter gives everyone a little bit more time and Foreign Exchange markets have a little bit of a spike. The dollar rupee moved and the indonesian rupee coming off levels you have not seen since 1998, dollar down in the rupee up by 0. 7 . The dollar coming around back to flat. Not all bad news but they werent all created equal. Edwards and these are the Bloomberg Top headlines. Vladimir putin getting ready to give his press conference in the midst of the crisis. The economy and International Affairs will be key topics at the conference. Halfuble has lost about its value. The chair of the u. S. Federal reserve has indicated shes in no hurry to raise Interest Rates. The fed is unlikely to move before the end of april. The language from the fed is important. The central bank will be patient on the timing of the first rate increase. President obama ending half a century of hostility between the u. S. And cuba announcing washington will begin normalizing relations with havana. The u. S. Will open an embassy. Nd left some travel sony has canceled plans to release its new movie the interview. It was due to open Christmas Day. It prompted an attack on its computers by a hacking group. North korea is behind the cyber attack according to a person briefed on the investigation. Greece has moved a step closer to early elections. Prime minister and taunus samaras says there will be another vote december 23 followed by another six days later. If he fails on the third attempt, elections will be held. Lets go to our man in athens, elliott gotkine. Good morning to you. Aras getting well short of the 200 he needed only getting 160. Good morning to you, mark. Its hard to see how it could have been much worse for Prime Minister samaras. Baseline support is 155, the number of lawmakers that are in his governing, lycian including his new democracy party. Easily managed to add an. Dditional five to that tally no one expected him to win or come even close to the 20 votes. What they will be watching for is how close within striking distance would he be to the 180 he will man not in the second round on december 23 but in the withinnd crucial striking distance would he be to the 180 number he would meet not in the second round but in the third. Authoring things perhaps such as an early general election anyway. Wing day could be doing is trying to burnish their independent credentials to show that they are not happy being backed into a corner. When push comes to sevenday when push comes to shove, they might lose their jobs and i could concentrate minds and help them vote in favor of Prime Minister samarascandidate for president. Markets do not seem to unnerved by the vote. Only thing still trading at that time was the euro which barely budged. We are half an hour away from getting bond prices for the greek bond and also the stock market as well. We saw the dramatic inclines when we had the shocking announcement about the president ial elections to be brought forward. Barring any surprises or shocks between now and december 29, imagining investors could be waiting to see what happens on december 29 because if the president ial candidate does not get the vote, then there would be a dissolution of parliament and general elections held. Elliott gotkine, thanks. Another update from him next hour. Lets shift gears. One week until christmas. I have not personally started to shop yet. Its top of the earnings season for them or at least their kind of business, photo box group ceo stan laurel. Report people like me who have not sent out their christmas cards, who have not personalized christmas, you are nirvana. Moon pig, photo box. We started a great Christmas Season so far and you still have time to order your cards. Is this christmas bigger, better, wealthier . It feels very strong particularly in the u. K. , i will say. We are growing significant double digits. We have dispatched Something Like 300 80,000 orders a few days ago, so its definitely moving. The genius of the Company Might be in its advertising, stan. Dont sing it. I did during the break. The fact that we all kno