Mark welcome to countdown. Caroline im caroline hyde. Manus one system is testing to eliminate all traffic accidents. We take a sneak peek at the driverless cars. Stick around for that. Caroline breaking news it is a deal. Express will be offered by fedex. It is offering a third premium at 3. 3 in terms of the premium of the sharepoint which is six euros. They are offering eight euros per ordinary share. It is a really interesting deal because it is over two years ago we saw that are for that offer trying to snap up tnt express. That deal unraveled because regulators got involved. They felt they would not be enough competition in next day delivery because it would be owned by ups and dhl. Seemingly, maybe fedex will be able to increase its prevalence in europe. It is a key area of growth for them. They say profitability, they want to boosted by 1. 7 billion. It is part of fred smiths plan to boost profits. Expansion in europe. By buying up tnt express, table be able to do they will be able to do that. An agreement on a recommended all caps off are. Implied the value is 4. 4 billion euros for tnt express. Mark it was nine euros and offer in 2012 so slightly less than the ups offers. Manus they will have to sell because the deal fell apart last time because the challenge in terms of regulation and competition here. We will get the details later. Itll be next year before the deal closes. The first half of 2016. Mark the Australian Dollar spiking as the world bank of us really holds rates of australia holds rates. Lets go to paul. Why did the rba decide to leave rates on hold . Paul the rba decided that rates were appropriate for the time being. There was not a lot of terribly new in that statement they put out. They noted the falling commodity prices. Growth remains below trend. There continues to be capacity in the labor market and economy. There was no compelling reason to push the rba into cutting at this stage. They noted property prices, Residential Property prices particularly in sydney which have spiked 40 in the past three years, that is believed to have stayed thereireir hand. They say they are working with regulators. Nothing in the statement to make a compelling case to the rba to cut this time. Mark what about the next month or two . How likely is the rba to cut in coming months . Paul the easing is still in place. In the statement, they said more easing might be appropriate further ahead, but this is the first time in eight years the traders got it wrong. They were expecting a cut. The economists got it right. 17 of the interviewed economist correctly predicted that they would hold at the current rate. The feeling is it is probably going to be may. 29 of the 30 surveyed think it is coming then. By june i it is unanimous they believe we will have a 2 raise. Mark the daytoday taller chart dollar chart it shows the Australian Dollar rose sharply before the decision was announced. Is that likely to attract the attention of regulators . Paul yes, it is. Regulators are already looking at this. After the march decision, the b australian securities and Exchange Commission was asked to look into these moves. Back in february, 10 seconds before the rba released its decision to cut, the dollar fell. 8 . 37 seconds before the decision last month, it rose half a percent. And this time, some seconds before the decision, the dollar spiked 1. 1 . It does look terribly suspicious. There is really no way to interpret this. Something is going on. It is being investigated and we will see what the result will be. Mark thanks, paul allen. The rba kepts rates unchanged. Manus after jumping on the news that saudi arabia raised its pricing in asia as investors weigh forecast from u. S. Crude supplies. Bloomberg intelligence phillip joins us for a little more of a discussion. It is great to have you with us. Lets work out what is the bigger piece of news. Is it iran and their potential supply as a result of possible deal . Or is it supply coming out of the system in the u. S. . The market was up 6 yesterday. Philip i think the u. S. News is more in the shortterm. The refineries each spring they are in maintenance, that will has nowhere to go. Stockpiles are surging in the u. S. I think it allows some kind of legislation for the u. S. To export more crude oil because they need a safety valve if the oil has nowhere to go in the domestic market. Iran i would say it is very relevant but more in the long term because it will take some time for iran, for Oil Companies to apply their western technology and to rent production back ramp production back up again. It will not be overnight. Caroline remind us of what amount we could see coming from iran in the longer term and what this could add to the supply. Philipp it used to be 9 Million Barrels years ago before the iranian revolution. Years ago, it was 3 million. Now it is near 300,000 barrels. Most estimates say they will not go beyond one Million Barrels by the end of this year. Mark oil has gone as low as 43 in march. It has come as high as 51. The inn economists strategists you talk to philipp there are a lot of moving parts. Saudi arabia bonding oil, the nigerian election spark some insecurity in this region. It is really a very volatile time at the moment. And the bottom is not there yet. Mark that is the call. The bottom is not there yet. Caroline also, cankenya. Philipp they have very promising licensing and prospects. Again, similar to yemen and nigeria, they have insurgencies there. A lot of insecurity. Mark saudi arabia the charging for its oil in asia is narrowing . Philipp that is true. It seems like before they were only going for the market share and now they might have overdone it a little bit and going back into the market with a little bit higher price. Lets see where it goes. Mark thanks philipp. Caroline lets get to iran because they could potentially reenter the oil market. We were discussing Nuclear Talks that left it in agreement last week. The white house says sanctions are still in dispute. We need more information. Lets bring in golna. How has last weeks Nuclear Statement been received in iran . Well, in tehran on friday huge celebrations on the street. Generally among the people, it has been received extremely positively. Many people were waiting for this to happen. There was that feeling of almost a desolation publicly. Politically, there are people that are unhappy with it hardliners in parliament and commentators who havent quite vocal about it and unhappy about the definitions being used in the agreement and the perception that there has been different agreement for statements published by the different parties and that they are not all analogous. There is some tension but the overall, it has received the backing of very important people, including the head of irans security forces. Yesterday, he came out to congratulate the Supreme Leader for the efforts of the Foreign Ministry in securing the pact. That was very important yesterday. Caroline certainly a bit of a surge in trying to convince the rest of the electorate, the population that that this is popular bankthing. Talk to was about us about politics continuing with the turkish president visiting. Molnar he has arrived this morning. It is a visit that has been quiteon the cards for quite a long time. Meantime, we have had saudi airstrikes on yemen and everyone has publicly backed those. Iran is on the other side. That has caused a bit of tension and friction. Mps here in parliament have lobbied to try to get it down in parliament. It is going to be a very interesting visit because they are very extremely important trade partners. There is a huge pile of iranian natural gas in turkey and that relationship is very important for the both of them. It will be overshadowed by the airstrikes in yemen by saudi. Caroline molnar, thank you so much for shining that light. Mark greece promises to pay at least the imf. Assuring imf and Christine Lagarde on sunday that greece will make its 450 million debt payment by tuesday. Hans joins us with the latest. What brought him to washington . Hans it was an unscheduled visit to what sparked some speculation whether or not greece would pay the imf. We dont know why they planned it. We know he gave his assertions assurances that they would make april 9 that 450 million euro payment. They have some 9 billion due to the imf. The calculation could be a little different. A total of 20 billion will be due. They also talked about ways they could improve talks with greeces european creditors. He met with officials from the u. S. Treasury department. They are seeing a deal by april 24. That is what he is telling local papers. April 20 four, that is when eurogroup finance ministers meet. It will be a big meeting and it is getting very close to the deadline. He is talking about a new fivepoint plan. It does include primary surplus of 1. 5 , debt restructuring connected with growth. He is talking about the longerterm. He is talking about new investments from the European Investment bank. He also wants to create a bad bank inside of greece. The also want to see some help from the eu further exporters, for their producers. Remember the context of all this, they have the big payment due april 9. They have to roll over some debt later in the month. Greece is saying march was a good month for tax receipts. That follows after january and february when it did not meet expectations. Mark greece has come up with thiss figure with world war ii reparations from germany. 279 billion euros. How did they come up with this figure . Hans it is 278. 8 billion euros million. They had a special committee in parliament that looked into this last week. The greek accounting offices including things like the rush mark alone from world war ii that was about 450 marks. Now they are calculating it at 10. 3 billion euros in todays present dollars. We look at that figure, 278 billion euros in reparations, that is 40 of germanys gdp. It is being mocked in the press in germany. A tabloid leading the charge. It will only antagonize relations between greece and germany. Mark thanks a lot hans. Manus a bloomberg exclusive it has been confirmed, caroline has the story, tnt express will fall into the fedex family. Give us some of the details. 33 , i think . Caroline exactly. It is an all cash offer. This is fedex looking to get into europe. Buying tnt express, eight euros per share. It was a bloomberg exclusive. The companies have come out and confirmed they are indeed in talks and the offer is eight euros a shoreare. Post mmll likes it. It looks like all are on board in terms of the deal looking pretty good you are looking at the management side of things. They have to convince the shareholders. This is a key pillar to boost the profitability of fedex. The chief executive has been focusing on this. Fred smith in 2012 said fedexs view is the boost profitability by looking at europe. They want to get into european air and ground networks. They want to boost that for fedex which is already the Worlds Largest cargo airline. Data want to focus on airline, but also groundwork. It is an all cash offer. What will be crucial is how you persuade the regulators because this has happened once before. It is a bit of deja vu for tnt express. It was more than two years ago january 2013, deal fell apart for ups to buy tnt express. They were offering a 40 premium. We can look at the real previews of that deal, but the previous nature we saw, the turnaround that tnt express has had to look at. The deal was scrapped back in 2013. Since then four straight years of losses coming on the back of that. Problems in terms of their profitability, in terms of their market value, in terms of their earnings. It has been adverse conditions. They expected 2015 to be a challenging year. Competition in france, United Kingdom driving down pronto prices parcel prices. This is a great way for tnt express to exit to a Better Future and therefore shareholders might like the one third premium being offered over the current market value. More than 4 billion valued at. Mark some top headlines. George osborne will take back claims that his party may families worse off. He said the previous Labour Government imposed taxes on the average household. The two main parties continue to clash on tax bans as the economy has become a key battleground in the campaign. Polls shows the two parties are up ahead head to head in the next months election. Former treasury secretary larry has called for the creation of the Asian InfrastructureInvestment Bank. A turning point for u. S. Economic power. The bank is chinas plan to start in the first and Development Bank in decades. More than 40 countries applied including the u. K. And germany. Samsung shares rose. Chips and displays despite a slump in smartphones. The company is banking on its friday debut of the galaxy s5 model. Mark we discussed comments from the Federal Reserve bank of new york president next. The likely passive sort term Interest Rates is just as important as the timing of liftoff. I does make the pass will be relatively shallow. Manus those were the words the continued low rates from the feds handling the dollar tumbling. For more, lets bring in v alentin mariner. Great to have you with us. It is a hard one to call. Calling it a shallow liftoff. Lockhart is not ready to say the economy is slowing down. He says it could be july or september. Where are we in this debate . Quite a range of views. Stanley fischer highlighting that rates will go up sometime this year. It was quite vague. It highlights a range of views. It is the start of the cycle. I think later this week we will see more indication as to how the fed views it is evolving. Chances are more bets on early rate hikes will be discouraged. Presumably, the dollar might not like it. It feels like a lot of negatives already. Caroline the dollar index up a percent. We are seeing a little bit of a rebounding after a couple of days. Ing Group Already saying buy into this weakness. Would you agree . Valentin it depends. It feels like the dollar is still the largest one out there. You would potentially be doing that fairly cautiously. If anything the dollar because of the rda at the moment. It will be unwound. I think the safest trade would be selling fx volatility. If anything, that uncertainty was introduced some time ago. The dollar is no longer a one bet. That could help fx volatility subsides a some more. Going into the april meeting, and all the way to the june meeting not much is expected to happen in terms of new information. That could help fx volatility to subside. Mark the eurodollar 1. 09 is where we are right now. You are seeing parity. To use your words, it is possibly waiting to happen. Valentin this week, data will confirm the eurozone is indeed experiencing acyclical upturn. We do see investments being delayed. Also hiring from tourist season to support the recovery. All of that helping europe. We have concerns about greece not so much about the 7. 2 bailout Fund Extension they will likely get at some point in the coming weeks. It is really about the sustainability issue which will come in june. That is when the current bailout extension comes to an end. That is when the creditors we really have to decide what do we do from here . Do we provide debt relief or is it asking for more funds . I think that is when the issue about greece could escalate. They could drag the euro lower. Mark valentin stay there. Back with you in a moment. Coming up, the crashproof car. We take a look at bmws latest innovation. Manus you are watching countdonwwn. It is a day in which the aussie dollar the euro so close to the sixyear low before the decision not to cut rates. The economists thought that the reserve bank ino of australia would hold. Twe are getting breaking news on the rupee. The Indian Central Bank leading rates. Here is the rupee. This is dollar rupee. We are seeing this no Real Movement at the moment. No real change. The aussie dollar, the kiwi dollar. Another interesting move. Lets have a look at the aussie dollar. That is not coming up. You are heading back towards parity on that. We will get back to the conversation. He says it is time to sell volatility in the over months. The new york fed governor saying get ready for a shallow liftoff in rates. Dennis at atlanta says he is not ready to conclude the slowdown is underway. He says there is a possibility for a rate hike in july. Any weakness in dollar that you see is an opportunity to consider getting back in. This is over the past 30 days. That will be the view from the most accurate forecaster on Foreign Exchange. Any weakness you have seen is your opportunity to reenter a long position. That would probably translate more so on the eurodollar. There is very much similar opinion which is you continue to see dollar strength, euro weakness. That will morph itself into a parity level by the middle of the year, according to ing. That will probably break parity down to . 95 by the end of the year. Lets check in with the rupee. What you got here is dollar trading higher by 2 10 of 1 . That is a currency that is falling. Caroline thank you. Lets turn to valentine, head of g10 fx research. Australia holding steady. Are you surprised by perhaps this waitandsee approach or is it necessary . Valetntin it is interesting timing. We have a similar response, or cluster response by thats lackluster response by similar response, lackluster response by norway. The way i see it the global Central Banks, including the rba< they are starting to realize the currency war we have been so used to and helpingoping for, will come to an end. Maybe here for a bit longer than expected. A rate cut or a policy measure to drive the currency commodity. If you think of it the rba was saying six months ago, we will cut rates. We will not do much more because we expected to depreciate. The fed is starting to sound a bit worried about the strength of dollar come impact on exports lack of job creation. These are thinking maybe currency wars are here to stay. Maybe the fed will be vague about hiking rates. If you really need your currency lower and you need those rate cuts to keep it under pressure you need to be cautious when delivering those cuts. Fr