Deutsche telekom adds more than 1 million customers in the latest quarter weve been fortunate in the First Quarter again following a good streak of acquisitions last year we extend with a disciplined approach our portfolio weve seen a broader and higher open in europe with the stoxx 600 up over a third of a percent. Taking its lead from more record closes in the u. S. Overnight and a raft of Earnings Results are out today. On the whole broadly positive which has signaled the market opening higher you can see that reflected in the key movers in the markets today. Lets look and see how the individual bourses are shaping up the xetra dax is in the lead, up 0. 75 cac 40 up over a half percent. The ftse 100 up over 0. 40 negative statements out of easyjet, yes, it managed to deliver higher unit revenue, but the issue is that there is overcapacity in the sector and it gave a bearish outlook for whats ahead lets look at which are moving better we have construction and material up around 1 . Chemicals doing well on the back of givaudan results. Lets look at how some of the individual companies are doing today that have released easyjet did manage to deliver positive unit Revenue Growth for the third quarter, their third quarter. They said that was due to the fact that easter fell late this year not so much confidence Going Forward. Abb underperformed with regards to its Second Quarter results. Trading at the lowest point in 3 3 1 2 months this is because they have been unable to pass along commodity strength prices to customers on the other hand, the opposite of that, givaudan, theyre doing well because they did manage to pass on some of these effects from higher prices straight through to customers lets look at deutsche telekom, doing well on the strength of its u. S. Market. If you look at tmobile operations, unexpected growth and customer numbers and a better outlook Going Forward publics, another company doing better on the back of how things were going in north america. The broader picture is more worrying for publics, they have been going through reorg sai reorganizati reorganization, will they get on the digital band wagon quick enough, but they have attempted to leverage all of the work of the individual agencies better which seems to be paying off willem thanks. The european preen centrcentral meet for the First Time SinceMario Draghis hawkish comments last month in sintra there are hints for when the central bank will begin tapering its bond buying program. Annette joins us from frankfurt. Good morning are we expecting more cautiousness from mr. Draghi today then well, good morning. What we probably expect in frankfurt is more a balanced approach to the language you referenced the speech in sintra, that was taken quite wildly by the markets. The ecb was not happy with that what they want to avoid by all means is a taper tantrum scenario here in the eurozone. Perhaps you can see that speech in sintra as a test case how sensitive the markets are. That was quite visible the day with yields spiking in the bond market, the euro jumping thats what they want to avoid today i think the focus will be on the balanced approach while staying on message that the economic recovery is surprisingly strong in the eurozone, and that inflation eventually will get there. Another area of focus is the focus that we need to be persistent and at the same time prudent in order to avoid those volatility in the various markets. That will be the main area mario draghi will try to tackle in a press conference it comes with a tweak in language of course i think the most is that theyre dropping the reference that due to potential enlargement of the qe program, its another sign that we are getting closer to a real withdrawal of the monetary stimulus so its baby stretchepsteps tow exit of the ecb, and then maybe more news on how the qe Program Might Look Like next year. Analysts think the press conference will be in frankfurt when mario draghi and his team will outline the vision for qe in 2018. That will be crucial above all the competition of the qe program will be a big question in 2018 and as well how they sort of envision the reduction in the Asset Purchase Program from january 2018 onwards. Its still up in the air its only september. For now, its widely expected they stay put in terms of language probably a bit more of a balanced approach in order to avoid an unwanted tightening of Monetary Policy conditions in the eurozone with that, back to you thanks, annette thats annette live outside the ecb in frankfurt we bring in Oliver Brennan annette was talking about the composition of what their actions next year will consist of thats the next question i want to ask you, where do you see it going in terms of their dialing back when it comes to corporate versus Public Sector well, we think the announcement will be in september to start the unwind in january. And an average pace of 10 billion per meeting. So the whole program would finish in q3 we dont distinguish between the corporate sector and private and Public Sector. We expect it to be just an average pace of reduction. Oliver, a lot of people after mr. Draghis speech in sintra attempted the Market Reaction as people misunderstanding what he was trying to say. Do you think hes going to be far more careful if its even possible to be more careful when it comes to his choice of language today prudent is the right word the ecb are constantly walking a tightrope. Now, there are 40 basis points more to sell off to 1 which would take out the qe term premium. That needs to occur f it o, if occurs within one or two months, the ecb would be less happy. We would expect the ecb to dial back a bit on comments, but growth is strong, Inflation Expectations are low, the balance risk is still low, we expect they would likely lean on those to justify a slow pace a slow move towards the taper. When people talk about the Market Reaction to draghis speech, a lot of focus is on what happened with the dollar. Are we looking at the wrong metric should we be more focused on the trade weighted euro moved by around 1 versus around 3 move in the euro dollar yes thats fair. The trade weighted moved about 6 this year theres still tightening coming through from that. Looking at bund yields is important as well. All the easing measures has been on yields. They estimate around 150 basis points in total, of which half was down to qe from there we surmise slightly less than half has been on the euro the euro is not weak, its on the strong side, but we should look at range of market indate kay indicators peripheral yields have not moved quite as much since sintra im not sure that makes perfect sense. My understanding was that the ecb was moving ahead with easing, and that it should drive the periphery yields more than bund yields arguably it could. For example, in italy theres a lot of credit premium in the spread between italy and germany due to the risk of the italian election in q1 next year so theres other drivers on the credit side as opposed to the term premium side. When the ecb stops buying these high yielding assets, the yield on french debt may rise more on the bund but the bund is the clearest metric to understand exactly whats happening oliver thank you very much. Oliver brennan from ts lombarb well bring you live coverage of the ecb Rate Decision from london and frankfurt, decision to our live Program Decision time at 13 45 coming up, unilever posted a 3 increase in underlying sales growth will that be enough to secure unilevers future as an independent company . Well hear from the firms ceo after the break. Its a good thing we brought the tablets huh . Yeah, and i can watch the game with directv now. Oh, sorry, most broadcast and sports channels arent included. And you can only stream on two devices at once. This is fun, were having fun. Yeah, we are. No, youre not jimmy. Dont let directv now limit your entertainment. Xfinity gives you more to stream to more screens. Welcome back easyjet shares are trading lower after the airline said it was expecting to see continued pressure on passenger revenues easter gave the Quarterly Results a bit of a bump, but without that the numbers would have been negative the lowcost British Airline raised its profit outlook and filled more seats in the recent quarter and in a per seat basis it improved costs and increased revenues easyjets ceo left earlier this week and the Company Faces uncertainty from brexit. Easyjet is warning that capacity will continue to pressure yields is weighing on the travel sector as a whole with Airline Stocks leading losses this morning. Shares in abb are trading lower after the Company PostedSecond Quarter earnings that fell short of analysts estimates. The Swiss Industrial Company reported quarterly revenues of 8. 8. 45 billion missing forecas. Abb is struggling with an order backlog which totals 23 23. 6 billion. Rising costs in s. A. P. S Cloud Services during the recent quarter pushed down operating profits and they came in below expectations but the German Software firms revenue for the Second Quarter rose 10. 4 beating forecasts s. A. P. Said it expects to meet fullyear targets. Tmobile reported record low customer attrition, helping the wireless carrier beat Second Quarter forecasts. Tmobile said it was considering a Quarterly Dividend as a consequence adding that it was mulling various options. It expressed an option of speaking with sprint in the u. S. About a potential merger. Shares in publics are trading higher after strong Second Quarter earnings. Results for the Second Quarter have been boosted by improved performance in the north american business. The advertising giant rallied with 0. 8 in underlying sales. Net profit rose 1. 6 in the first half with the improvement coming after a broad reorganization of its business unilever shares are trading higher after a reported Second Quarter earnings that were broadly in line with analysts forecasts. The consumer goods giant raised its margin expectations and says it is on track to deliver fullyear underlying sales growth of 3 and 5 . I spoke to unilevers ceo, paul pulman earlier this morning and asked about the strategy to improve the performance after kraft heinzs failed takeover attempt. Were trying to do with a company like unilever, we will not be the only ones to have a longterm Sustainable Growth model. For that, weve been around for 130 years. We also have to invest in sustainability if you run out of fish stock, you wont selfish. If we keep cutting down the forests, we cant live decent lives anymore. We see the world being stressed. More and more demand for sustainable, responsible product. We think thats an important part of our operating model. Any business should be there to serve first and foremost society. Business that may not focus on Share Holders are business that usually dont have a long life, increasingly we can show that by doing the right thing for all of our stakeholders its also the right thing for shareholders these things go hand in hand but in unilever, the story is a longterm compounding growth story. If in 1968 you would have invested 1 pound in unilever, would have over 80 pounds right now if you invested in the Global Wealth index you would only have 17 pounds. Theres a longterm compounding growth story thats an important part of us theres up the doubtedly tension the shortterm of people who are becoming increasingly shorter term and the longer term Business Models that we want to run. Fortunately a big part of the Investor Community has longterm obligations. If you look at pension funds, and we provide that security, 38 years of Dividend Increases, 8 on average these are enormous numbers but i dont deny, as we have seen, that tension exists and you have to deal with that part of the way we dealt with that was a Dividend Increase part of that was a 5 billion Share Buyback of which we have completed now 1. 4 billion. So i do have to walk a fine line i dont deny that. But it is a fine line with a longterm compounding growth model investment base. Thats quite different than some of the other models that are out there. Getting back to results for a second, as you mentioned there was weakness in the margarine business looking through results i see that you note that it is well underway the separation. Do you have any more details to add on that . No, we made the announcement clear. We are working on that, that we have to put separate accounts in place where we have that Business People are working day and night to do that we are talking to other people interested in these businesses we think we can complete the process as it looks now by the end of the year or early First Quarter. In that timing that were working towards. Similarly the duel lial list structure is under review. Thats progressing well its awfully complex the lawyers and tech experts and other people on it we just had a meeting yesterday on it still. We will make a decision by the end of the year on that as well. Theres so many factor the coming in it needs a good discussion lets thrash the results out in more detail robin, thank you for joining us. Good morning. My first take was these were reasonably strong, and a mild miss on organic sales growth but made up for by more optimism around the margin progress what would you say i would say so. Top line was broadly in line with expectations. Margin was a lot better than consensus. I think the call, which just ended not that long ago was focused on how to extrapolate the First Half Results into the full year. They were cautions around 100 basis points guidance. Which is better than the original 80 basis points which they signaled earlier in the year my concern with looking at the results is the focus on pricing. A big reliance on pricing over volume growth is this something they can improve, do you think the company is guiding to an acceleration in the second half in terms of volume growth. Innovations are a way the companies will step up its brand investment, which should put more oomph behind volume growth. Volumes have been a concern for the market on unilever for some time they continue to say theyre outgrowing the end markets, but the end markets are still slow i want to ask a more broad question about sector consolidation. You remember, of course, back in april, Reckitt Benckiser commissioned a review of its foods business, and put that essentially, that business, into play unilever were reportedly looking at it a few days ago, earlier this week, mccormick, the u. S. Spice giant swooped in with a 4 4. 2 billion bid is that putting pressure on unilevers acquisitiondriven Growth Strategy . I think it probably has more repercussions for the potential sale or listing of spreads than it does in terms of acquisitions their acquisitions are more targeted towards personal care and home care. Particularly businesses which are directed towards new channels, like dollar shave club, or in terms of more renewable or easier on the environment such as seventh generation i dont think the food sale will impact their purchasing. Potentially on the disposals let me ask you about the Acquisition Strategy i was interested to see that hourglass made a few moves into the prestige market recently is this a sensible vatgy, strato you think . Loreal has done the same thing and has resulted in investor premium. Is it the right move if you look at the longterm objectives, unilever wants to get to about a billion in turnover, in prestige theyre about half of that now if you look at the growth rates theyre achieving, 15 to 20 in hour glass, living proof at the time its an investment phase. The gross margin on cosmetics and personal care is materially higher it makes sense in the longterm. Let me take another broader question looking at the sector more holistically. Theres been activist pressure, with third point coming after nestle are these investors being too aggressive theres a focus at unilever of having a longterm, sustainable focus for a company . Who is right here . Is there a happy medium to be found . I think there is. If there was a criticism about unilever before, it was arguably two top line focused, not enough margin everyone drew attention to the potential on the margin, but it was slower to materialize. I think 3gs efforts to get the company prodded them to release the information sooner its a fine balance between bottom line growth and top line. European companies have been a bit too slow to deliver on the margin but it is important to keep the longterm Growth Prospects intact as well robert, thank you very much for joining us today he helped us break down unilevers results in more detail. We will take a quick check out World Markets live, our blog which runs throughout the european trading day well be back after this welcome back to street signs. Im willem marx. Im gemma acton these are your headlines can he avoid a taper tantrum . Mario draghi walks a tightrope as the ecb president looks to signal a shift away from easy money without roiling