Snap sevenday winning streaks. Allianz launches a 3 billion euro Share Buyback after posting bumper profits for the fourth quarter. The cfo outlined the Insurance Firms m a plans earlier on the show. If an acquisition fits our business and our future strategy and we ca can do it, we certain look at it. It is not a must for us. Its a further opportunistic thing. Samsung heir jay y. Lee is arrested as part of a corruption probe, sending political shockwaves through south korea and sending shares in the smartphone maker lower. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back. Good morning. Traveling, that beautiful shot in switzerland yesterday. I did bring back chocolate, i think its gone now. I brought it in at 6 00 this morning, gone at 6 05. Trump getting everybody up and going. The dotcom people cant keep up. Being a journalist on trump these days, effectively youre on 24 hours. You get maybe five hours. Head online and look at the key points from this speech, if you havent already. Well talk more about it in a bit. Want to show you european markets. Lower across the board here in europe. Some smaller markets hanging on to slight gains. By in large down a half p percentage point. It is worth noting we are set to end higher for the second week in a row but far from any record highs on the u. S. Markets. Lets get back to president trump, his nominee for security adviser has turned down the job. Retired vice admiral Robert Harward said the decision was purely personal. Sean spicer confirmed it was due to family and financial concerns. Acting adviser Keith Kellogg and retired general David Petraeus are consider frontrunners to replace michael flynn. And earlier in the day donald trump named Alex Sander Acosta s nominee for u. S. Secretary of labor. Donald trump made that announcement at a press conference. That announcement took about 58 seconds, then he went on to other stuff out of the 80 minutes. Slamming the media. The announcement less than two minutes. He made this announcement at the press conference. His first solo briefing at the white house. That news being overshadowed i had wby his combative comments. Kristen welker reports. Reporter it was a News Conference like no other. I turn on the tv, open the newspapers and i see stories of chaos. Chaos. Yet its the exact opposite. This administration is running like a finetuned machine. Reporter in a fiery hour and 17 minutes, the president touting his accomplishments and larking out, trying to reset after a chaotic start to his presidency. I inherited a mess. Its a mess. The tone is such hatred. Im really not a bad person, by the way. The tone is such i do get good ratings. You have to admit that. The tone is such hatred. Reporter for the first time addressing why he fired his National Security adviser, mike flynn, who misled the Vice President about discussing sanctions with russia. Mike flynn is a fine person. I asked for his resignation. He respectfully gave it. He is a man who there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President pence who is with us today. I was not happy with the way that information was given. Did you direct mike flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian Ambassador prior to your inauguration . No, i didnt. Would you have fired him if it hadnt leaked out . I fired him because of what he said to mike pence. That simple. I didnt direct him, but i would have directed him. Thats his job. Reporter the president repeatedly pressed on whether anyone from his campaign had contact with the russians. We had a very, very good talk. I have nothing to do with russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person i deal with does. Reporter mr. Trump blaming flynns ouster on leakers. Ive called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. Those are criminal leaks. Theyre put out by people either in agencies i think youll see it stopping because now we have our people. Reporter after touting leaks against Hillary Clinton as a candidate i love reading those wikileaks. Reporter today he addressed the irony. Wikileaks, which i had nothing to do with, happens to come out and give theyre not giving out classified information. Nobody mentions that hillary received the questions to the debates. Can you imagine, seriously can you imagine if i received the questions . It would be the electric chair. Reporter the president may have caused more confusion when asked if he believes this latest round of leaks. The leaks are real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. Reporter the president didnt say whether or not he would react to recent provocations from russia, but he insisted that the negative headlines could hurt chances for a russian reset in a jarring response. If we could get along with russia thats a positive thing. The greatest thing i can do is shoot that ship thats 30 miles offshore right out of water. Everyone will say thats so great. Thats not great. Thats not great. Reporter the News Conference started with the president listing what he called successes, creating jobs, starting the process of building a wall, trying to enact an order on extreme vetting. And he listed others. In each of these actions im keeping my promises to the american people. These are Campaign Promises. Reporter the president still wont let the election go. Again boasting about his 304electoral vote win, calling it the biggest electoral victory since ronald reagan, despite the fact that president s obama and george h. W. Bush exceeded him. Why should Americans Trust you . It was a substantial victory. Do you agree with that . Reporter there was a discussion about race and religion. The president asked if he will work with the Congressional Black Caucus to help fix inner cities. Do you want to set up the meeting . No, no, no. Are they friends of yours . No, set up the meeting. Reporter an pressed for the second day in a row of hate crimes directed at the jewish community. Im the least antisemitic person youve seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person. Reporter the president defiant until the very end. We lived in a divided nation, and im going to try, i will do everything within my power to fix that. Andrea nelly is with us from fidelity. Good morning. Good to see you. Everybody is talking about the press conference from yesterday. Any initial comments . Thoughts you want to share with us on that . You guys have a fun job. We do have a fun job. Its hilarious at the moment. If you look at fixed income markets at the moment, despite the news we see in press conferences, it feels like the market is pricing in more of the good news, the Campaign Promises that trump has been boasting about for the last few months. Weve seen quite a lot of good news priced intoyearolds, strong dollar, high Inflation Expectations. The road ahead is not as clear. Theres a lot of things that can go wrong. It wont be as easy as it seems to be priced in at the moment for mr. Trump to get all of these things and promises i spoke to somebody yesterday about how you best manage risk. He was pointing out that you have plenty of reasons why the yield curve should head higher. Among them stronger jobs figures, the economy, the fed hiking rate two, three, four times this year. You have the other part of it, Political Risk and how you play politc Political Risk. Which camp are you in . We feel yields can go higher from here. Yes, you have Inflation Expectations going up. You have a lot of good news priced in for growth. Dont forget high yields in the United States are not necessarily good news, because the interest bill for a lot of americans will be going up soon. May hamper consumption. When it comes to Political Risk, its more about europe these days. Though trump is keeping us on our toes there as well. And the thing about Political Risk, its very difficult to price. We have seen the moves in italian spreads, in french government bonds. There will continue to be volatility in the next few weeks and months until at least the elections are out of the way. Having said that, we are still in the camp that in europe the yields wont go too much higher. Coming back to the u. S. For a little bit, can u. S. Treasuries still perform the role of being a safe haven or do they just reflect the growth dynamics in the u. S. , rising inflation, reflation trade, two or three hikes this year . In terms of whats expected, its interesting to see two to three hikes that the fed expects to deliver are also what the market is pricing in already. There is a lot of scope for this appointment there with the stronger dollar and high yields. To a certain extent they are doing the feds job, tightening financial conditions. Yes, they can work as a safe haven, should we see a flight to quality, particularly if we get a drop in equities or negative move in equities. Its something that we continuously monitor in our portfolios. Eurozone, inflation creeping up. Unemployment is down at nineyear lows. Seeing growth at the highest levels in four to five years. This environment, this ecb should taper. On the other hand we have so much Political Risk on the calendar. Are its hands tied at this point . The ecb is one of those situations, a lot of people would maybe prefer them not to be as engaged, but you cant do much about it. In terms of the inflation profile, a lot of the hopes in the governing council have been using the higher headline inflation that weve seen over the last few months as a reason for which the ecb should taper. Should continue reducing the purchase program. A lot of this is mainly due to technical effects. A year ago, oil was at 25. Today oil is at 50. Mathematically inflation is going up. If you look through it, if you look at the upward pressures are still not there. The ecb as weve seen recently in the latest minutes will look through that. You say the bund situation is not super obvious. Political risk out of italy. Whats the value play heading into some of these elections now . We think that semicorps, french bonds have priced in a lot of uncertainty. The ones you may expect going into the elections. Doesnt mean it wont be a volatile few weeks and months ahead, but if you have mediumterm look at the market, there is value. There is value there. Also, another area we like is all the area around european credit markets, because, again, the ecb is still there supporting the market. Also european corporates have not taken advantage of the lowrate environment to lever up, to increase leverage. For us as fixed income investors its something positive. Andrea, thank you very much for your time. If you cant get enough of president Trumps Press Conference yesterday, head to cnbc. Com to see five of trumps best quotes. Email the show, streetsignseurope cnbc. Com. And you can find us on twitter, streetsignseurope cnbc a and carolincnbc a and louisabojesen. music pla heigh ho heigh ho heigh ho heigh ho its off to work we go heres to all of you early risers, whats up man . Gogetters, and shouldbe sleepers. From all of us at delta, because the ones who truly change the world, are the ones who cant wait to get out in it. Welcome back. Youre still watching street signs. Lets talk earnings. Shares in allianz are trading higher to the tune of 2. 4 after the german insurer announced it will off a Share Buyback plan. Annet annette, what does this mean for acquisition plans and i know theyre interested in generali. Yes, they are interested in j generali, but they have enough flexibility. They were reiterating even though they are buying back some 3 billion euro off their own shares, take a listen of what he had to say in an interview early on with us about acquisitions Going Forward. We have some flexibility also to do acquisitions Going Forward. And therefore i think nobody should be concerned. We have we have Strategic Development clearly in our mind, but also delivering to our shareholders. Youve been cited in two big deals, generali, which would be a split of your assets and intesa sanpaolo, and qb insurance in australia. Both extremely complex deals. In australia you have a number of Pension Funds sitting on the share register and with the generali story, you have to weave through a bunch of assets. Tell us what is attractive about generali first up for you . Look, both companies you mentioned are very well respected peers in our industry. I never talk about transactions. If an acquisition fits our business and our future strategy and we can add it, certainly we are looking at it, but its not a must for us. Its a can. And a further opportunistic thing. Currently the analyst call is ongoing and the ceo is reiterating that they want to do acquisitions in the property and casualty and the Asset Management business. On the question of where they want to do it, its everywhere where they already are strong in markets. So they dont want to enter a new market. They want to expand in markets they already know. Thats one thing Going Forward. Very interesting. Also the hike dividend is interesting for investors, if theyre also promising thats the new floor. This is going to stay at least for the next years. And they are also changing a little bit their payout ratio. They want to have more flexibility for acquisitions Going Forward. Before they had a strict rule to actually pay out a lot of money if they dont find acquisitions which were seeing now. Going forward this will be more flexible. Also something, which is perhaps a new sign that the ceo since last year is confident about acquisitions Going Forward. They want to expand their scope in markets theyre already in. I think we should watch out what happens in australia and possibly also in italy. They might wait a bit and see what happens with the french elections. This is also a major concern for allianz. Back to you. Thank you very much. Stada has received a third takeover offer from an unidentified private equity firm. The new bid for the drugmaker is 58 euros per share, two euros higher than cinvens offer earlier this week. That values stada at 3. 6 billion euros with the Supervisory Board meeting today to discuss a possible deal. Volkswagen delivered nearly half a million vehicles in january, down 5 from the previous year. An executive for the automaker said the decline was solely due to special effects in china and noted positive trends in europe and the u. S. Where deliveries rose by 4 and 17 respectively. And segros fullyear profit fell to 426 Million Pounds from 686 Million Pounds in 2015. The industrial warehouse developer reported higher earnings per share. Lets talk more about european equities with the director of research at wisdom tree. Good morning, victor. What is the case for european equities now. Were seeing so much Political Risk. A lot of money flowing into u. S. Equities. Is there room in investors portfolios for european equities . Sure there is. They offer great value proposition. Their dividend yields compare favorably to the bond yields in europe. The euro has devalued, oil prices, u. S. Dollars tick up. So what is your inflation hedge . Its not buying into long data fixed income. We have seen a significant dislocation in fixed income last year when governments in italy came up with a 50year bond issue, and investors lost a lot of money over the course since the issue was done. I think 16 has been the capital loss on that particular bond. What is your alternative to playing yield . Its the equities. The european equities, especially the dividend pays are insulated from the geopolitical uncertainties surrounding either trump or the elections in europe. Me me ment. Do you go with companies that have exposure oversees for Growth Opportunities . Surely, european equities by default, at least in the large cap space have been exporters by default. If you buy the european equities you dont buy europe. You buy u. S. You buy china. You buy the view on whats the global export condition of european companies. Nothing to do with the domestics of europe. Youre concerned about the domestics of europe, you should be concerned about the bond markets and maybe small capitalization stocks. If you want to play the equity markets by being underweight europe, then the European Equity market is ironically a great pick. Are you concerned about the bond markets . A little bit. The fact that spreads are widening, sort of high quality issues like the french sovereign does suggest that markets are getting more nervous. Theyre getting more nervous because of the longer term implications of the potential Election Results may do to the fabric of the european project. Surely now with Upcoming Elections in my country and the netherlands on the 15th of march, it doesnt matter the outcome, but assume the farright government is the Largest Party but still cannot govern, that sends a signal to farright movements elsewhere in europe that are looking to capitalize on that trend. If that were to happen, then whats more important is what will you do with the dislocation in terms of the fiscal location. Does that translate into the europe r euro . Yes, you may see more volatility in the euro. So as an investor you want to be currency hedged. If the currency deprecates or weakens, you dont want to be exposed to those companies that are dependant on the oil price. So tourism will be affected. Airlines will be more affected. Thank y