Stores to actually buy the product. The ceo jeff sears is joining me in just a few moments, cooking on the stove. Heres a look at our top stories this morning. Investigators searching for the cause of the german wings crash, now focusing on the purpose of personal life of the planes copilot. Police found a sick note in his apartment suggesting he suffered from mental illness. It is believed that he purposely and the plane into amount side taking 129 other people with him to death. They want to know about the copilots emotional state. We have five investigators searched the apartment for clues and why the pilot did the deed. Betty the airline is setting up an assistance aid. Grieving relatives held a religious service near the crash site at the french else. In egyptian Officials Saying an invasion of yemen is in the planning stages. Regional allies are bombing shiite rebels in yemen. The rebels are backed by iran. Egypt and saudi arabia want to send in troops. They want to send Strike Forces with the ok of the arab league. Fights are led to be a war that between iran and saudi arabia. It is driven from the palace by the rebels and fled. The rebels are storming south in a bid to secure their hold on the country. Related to that new forecast light oil analyst showing the wild unpredictability of the oil market. Some barrels going for 90 and other cf 58 price tag. Those analysts were just one dollar part. Oil is off by nearly 2 in the u. S. Despite the escalating battle in yemen to the center of the world oil supplies. Such volatility in those markets. Weakness in china. Its model as fell by nearly 50 last month. The Research Firm said tesla imported 63 luxury cars to china in february. That is 53 more than january, but down from hundreds per month during last years Fourth Quarters. In an interview with the state own chinese media, ceo elon musk says he was misled by the end demands for tesla. A major breaking news story in washington senator harry reid is not going to seek reelection. The nevada democrat confirmed early reports in a video statement. Yes been Senate Majority leader since 2005. Yes been recovering from injuries suffered since exercising in his home. He has done and not going to stand for reelection. Those are your top headlines. Back to the german wings charge and investigation. Investigators receive material that the copilot was suffering from a mental illness. Richard white joins us now from frankfurt with much more on this. Richard, what can you tell us about these medical documents and the sick notes that were found at his house . Richard here is a little bit of a disclaimer. Ive been sitting and waiting for a few minutes. In those minutes the information broke. I have a little no peace. It mentioned mental illness. This is something that dusseldorf prosecutors have release. It shows we need to be very careful with somebody who claim they knew and what investigators are officially releasing. Yes, you are right in saying that we have found a sick note a torn up sick note that shows that he was in a medical treatment and we believe that may have been for medical reasons. Of course, we all want and answer and plausible isolation for why something that is so unthinkable happened and with also that explanation, a guy who is possibly in medical treatment may be for Something Like depression may had problems with his girlfriend those are other reports out there, but unconfirmed from prosecutors feared that would fit the bill. Betty i would agree with you. Information is all over the place. One piece of news is are tracked it, then another. Is retracted, that another. What do we really know officially about Andreas Lubitz . Richard he has been working for one of the half years and started a career. The guys at the sounds that are really young. And sit in the cockpit in the early 20s. He was a bit earlier altar. They may have been a break in his education. It may have been medical treatment. The pieces of proposal are slowly coming together. We have already known that he started medication in 2008 and did not completed until 2008. This education does not last more than about a year. There were probably some issues in that time and news from the prosecutor that we just got may help to explain those gaps in his cv for treatment relations to mental illness. That may explain why he did not complete his courses on time and it may provide a clue for why he may have done what prosecutors at the stage think he has done. Betty voluntarily crash that airplane. Thank you so much. Richard white, our Bloomberg News reported in frankfurt. You will return to the conflict in yemen and the impact on Global Markets. The saudi Led Bombing Campaign is elevating the risks of an obstruction in oil supplies. Yemens neighbor, saudi arabia is one of the worlds busiest shipping lanes. Elliott joins us now. First off tell us about this quarter. How important is the oil trade because it is going to affect the markets . Elliott we have seen oil prices come down a little bit today after the large gains over the past few days. As far as yemen is concerned their number 39 and. 2 of global production. You care about it for two reasons. They support saudi arabia and what is the fourth biggest chip point in the world. We are talking about the gateway which roughly translates to the gateway of anguish or tears because of the emotion that it used to induce to see men trying to go through that part of the world. We have about four defense of global trade. We are talking about 3. 8 Million Barrels of oil a day. A lot coming from the Arabian Peninsula going up the the straight and the suez canal and onto europe. In terms of global trade, we are talking about 7 of maritime trade. Betty given that, what protection is there gekko military protection, to protect the ships in the gulf of aden . Elliott we know that the coalition is blockading the port of aden specifically. But in that area, and we have not heard about it recently, there has been a lot of piracy over the years. At that, the European Naval forces there. They have five ships and one plane deployed in that area off the horn of africa. Theres also the combined Maritime Forces which cooperate with them. In fact, they had somebody in saudi arabia to talk about strengthening their ties in the fields of counterterrorism and piracy. It would not be inconceivable to think that there might be some kind of intelligence sharing. So far, shipping not being disrupted in that area. Betty thank you so much elliott. Turning back on the corporate front. Blackberry is reporting corporate earnings. They sought a surprise fourthquarter profit after increasing the average price of their smartphones. Shares have dropped 14 in the last month. They are now up as you can see almost 4 in the free market. John butler food covers blackberry for me is joining me now. John, are you satisfied with these results like investors are . John i am mixed on the results. They beat on the bottom line. That is the good news. They did a very good job with cost control, but they missed on the top line. They missed in the Device Division was which surprised me because they came out with the blackberry classic in the blackberry passport handsets in december. Their fiscal Quarter Ended in february and they had a full quarter to really work with those devices. That tells me that they didnt do as well as we had hoped. Betty john chen is speaking right now and they have this call going on. Yes saying that the early reports of classic sales are promising. That is one headline coming up. Also, many resellers are picking up their software products. Talk to me john about distribution. John distribution is key for headsets because you are selling them through retail. It is very tough to sell a handset over the web here in the u. S. I do not know why. John chen said that because we cannot get online sales going. It really is about point of sale. It is a high touch business, i think. People really want to touch and feel and learn about it from a salesperson. Betty particularly the blackberries. John getting that distribution is absolutely key. The more you sell, the better off you are. Betty thank you for seeing me this morning. John butler on about blackberry. We speak to the ceo of convert text. They have just done a survey on attitudes toward street in practice. Best speedy practice. And those attitudes are getting better. Full details coming up next. Betty here is a look at our top stories this morning. The u. S. Senate has adjourned up as our following an all nighter. They pushed through a budget plan at 3 30 a. M. This morning. They passed a budget measure on a partyline for. Best partyline vote. It is expected to be a long battle between congress and president over the budget. Leon coopermans mind billiondollar hedge fund has drawn the interest of the federal government. That is what the billionaire told his clients in a letter this week. Cooperman says that firm was subpoenaed by the u. S. Attorneys office in new jersey. It is at an early stage. No one at the firm has been accused of any wrongdoing. U. S. Derivatives regulators in a possible fight with its own workers. Documents show that the commodity futures Trading Division spending more than 40,000 on labor lawyers. This comes after labor workers joined a union and are in current negotiations. As a pivotal time for the agency who is transformed by the 2010 dodd frank act. Questions anre lingering this morning about an explosion at a new york apartment building. A fire nearly wrecked another one. Faulty works may be to blame here. Just an hour before it happened Utility Company inspectors determined that plumbing and gas work there was deficient. Those are your top stories this morning. Still to come perched ceo jeff sears joins us on the copies interactive retail shows room. Showroom. Were going to have a final fourthquarter read on the economy. Fourthquarter gdp numbers are going to be right out at 8 30 a. M. I was exactly one year ago today, Michael Lucas should shook wall street and grab the attention of main street as well. His book focused on the high training. Louis is back on the speaking circuit this week where he maintained that very little has changed. Every new Technology Read some faster traitor. Up until recently, an argument could be made that it was good. Essentially making markets more efficient i making it faster. Going from microseconds to milliseconds, it is not clear if it helps anybody could if it helps anybody. Betty according to a new survey, many people thought like michael lewis. That has now gone down to 57 . What exactly has changed. We are joined by eric goal mouth who conducted that survey. Good to have you this morning. What has changed here . Eric i think a couple changed a couple things have changed here. Volatility is very moderate right now. We have seen a lot of Price Movement lately, but it is in the teens and it is very calm. Markets have gone up. If you are out of the markets, you must have missed 12 return on the s p 500. Theyre working in functioning and people are starting to think. Maybe it is not quite as bad. Betty just because something devastating has happened like a flash crash, does that mean that the markets are not rigged . Eric i would want to separate what i call technical resiliency to what is speculation about the market being rigged. Those are two different discussions. Theres rated concerned about greater concern about technical resiliency. And theres more now than it was. The question about rigging is that people are not sure that that is really true. I think there are definitely Market Structure concerns that people want to adjust. That is having to deal with latency arbitrage and market data and all those things. The house might not be on fire here. Betty we talk to joes elusiv to have written a lot and he said that the speed is not the problem and the structure in the markets appeared to be unfair. I want you to listen to what he said about that. It is been a fragmented market for years. To connect those, that is what the speed advantages come into play. Getting more more distorted . Our point has always been that it is not real liquidity. That is fragmented liquidity. Betty so are the markets distorted . Eric i think they are fragmented. I agree 100 with joe that markets are fragmented. Liquidity is spread out over many venues. The problem is more extreme than that. There are 50 plus pulls out there as well. There is a whole web of pools of liquidity. What people learn to do in one of the changes that they have made in the last years how is my order being handled . That is really the biggest change coming from our survey results over one year over the other. Ok, we are concerned about all these issues in the marketplace and the fragmentation and the information leaks what do we do about it . What theyve done is put the pressure on the brokers and firms like ours to say where is my order going . How are you handling this . Where are you finding liquidity . Betty i know you on the sec advisory planning. Is one of the proposals to make sht firms register with finra . Is that going to adjust this . Eric it is not going to make them register as sht firms, but to track regulators. Some of it is in place already. The rest will be put into place soon. It is to keep them to stitch back the activity in the marketplace to make sure it is not being manipulative if there is an investigation. Im not so sure that is really going to change much. I think the big issue that is going to come up what are we going to do about maker tate . They want to talk about it at this committee and it has been in the news for a while. I think people might want to adjust that fit what do we do about order types . I think those are the issues that will be tackled. Betty great to see you. Thank you so much for stopping by. He would back we will be back in two minutes. Betty youre watching in the loop. Good morning. I am betty liu. We meet another california bright idea on the east coast good let me tell you about this one. This is a company that is poised to do what appliances did like apple did for smartphones. Check out this where you can operate over 30 operable showerheads. It is all about the try before you buy concert. The latest store is the first on the east coast here that will open in my home state of new jersey. The ceo Jeffrey Sears joins us this morning. He was recently near named disruptor of the year by the National Retail federation. It is great to have you here this morning. Why is this concept so different and why hasnt anybody thought about it before . Jeffrey it is a privilege to be here. I cannot speak to why no one has thought of it before, but our view is can we go to the market and disrupt it completely and give the power back to the consumers so they can dream and play with the product and stripe before they buy it and make a great decision on how to have inspired moments in their lives with their family and friends. Betty why appliances . We can only say that ovens can only get so sexy. But what was it about appliances that you said, you know what . Im looking at that and it needs to be disrupted. Jeffery if you think about appliances and you think about love and, right . You can pick about it that way think about it that way or think about it as the thing that makes the view full Chocolate Chip Cookie that smears the babys face that your grandma takes a picture of an half of the rest of your life. It is by the moments. It is about your home. As about living. It is about living. We are so connected to the food network and theres no real connection physically to actually learn and use the product. Betty this whole concept, while very interesting and i would love to be able to go into a store to check out the products myself. It must cost more because you have to have a good show rooms. What are your margins compared to a sears or home depot or lowes where they just know that stuff on the showroom floor and pack it in as tightly as possible . Jeffery if theres one thing that i would like everyone to take away today is three things. One is that we want people to be inspired when they come to the showroom. We have been invited to these luxury centers with support from the Manufacturing Committee and it allows us to have our prices to be the same as anybody else. Betty youre saying garden state called you. Jeffery westfield. Betty westfield, which owns garden state, called you and said come to the showroom. Jeffery it is just a privilege to be there. If you have these ability to us if you have the ability to inspire the customer and empower them. The thing that you do not see is that we install all the appliances that we show and we stand with the customer to the service and warranty. So they are never left alone. Betty do you charge higher prices . Jeffery no, we do not. Most of our products are upi products. It is the investment and financial model. The community allied with our partners allow the inspiration to be free. Betty do you find that you are converting more businesses to sales that other source than other stores because of this concept . Jeffery yes and i can tell you why. When you look at stores, the topography is not the same as walking to the door. It is just a gigantic dissatisfaction machine, meaning that you walk in and you think that you really like what your house looks like and then you start thinking, maybe not. That creates want and desire. That starts the process of dreaming. Betty does that mean that your digital side of the business is not as important because you are, in fact, relying on your customer getting physically into your store versus going online . Jeffery i think we look at the purchases positively. We have done it in reverse. When you come and visit our stores and experience the klein this the kindness and caring of our people, you will see the brickandmortar piece. This year, were getting ready to launch our Fourth Quarter digital strategy, which i cannot speak a lot about but it will be equally important and beautiful as the stores. The experience is different. Betty thank you so much for joining me. Jeffrey sears, the ceo of the retailer pirch. We are just getting breaking gdp numbers. These are final revisions here. 2. 2 is the revised slightly lower on the top number here. Scarlet