the headlines from around the globe, here in davos, jean claude trichet says we have challenges ahead with deficit. >> and here in asia, markets head for the biggest monthly drop in almost a year as techs and resources stocks weigh. and i'm mike huckman in the united states. the economy likely grew at the fastest pace in four years in the fourth quarter, but experts say don't start celebrating just yet. >> hello and welcome to today's program. i'm once again here at the annual meeting of the world economic forum in davos. maria will be joining us shortly, as well. we have a great guest list for you today. we'll be joined we the chief executive of bank of america, brian moynihan. we'll talk to christine lagarde, the french finance minister. we'll be joined by lord mannedelson, amongst a whole host of other guests. we'll be joined by the ceo of china mobile. but before all of that, there's plenty we need to bring you to. christine, over to you. >> hey, ross, good to see you in davos. let's do a quick view where asian markets are trading today. we have earnings in the u.s. are failing to disappoint. they hit some of the tech sector stocks here in asia. of course, we have those concerns about greece and portugal and that seems to be weighing on sentiment, as well. the hang seng off 1.1%. the shanghai market closing down below the key 3,000 level. that's going to be a cross psychological level there. the kospi down 2.4%. the bombay sensex one of the markets on the up side by 0.2%. and the australian market is down by more than 2%. as far as the ftse cnbc global 300 index, this is how the picture is looking. inching higher marginally, 4,341. becky, how are the european markets doing today? >> let's take a check. european markets have been trading for just over an hour. higher by about 1% at the moment. the dax higher by 1%. across switserland, markets are rising, by only by 0.3%. mike. >> thanks, becky. good morning. i'm mike huckman in the united states where it is only now three minutes past the hour at 4:00 a.m. new york time. this is how we're expecting markets to open here in the states today. we're looking at a mix of maybe an ever so slightly rally. but barring a huge rally on wall street today, it looks like the dow's six-month winning streak is going to come to an end in january. let's update you now on some of the big news out of the united states today that will be watched closely by markets worldwide, however. u.s. investors will get a look at fourth quarter gdp which can show the economy growing at the fastest pace in nearly four years. gdp will be out at 8:30 new york time with forecast calling for growth of 4.8% versus 272% in the third quarter. the chain-weighted price index is expected to rise 1.3%. at 8:30, we've got fourth quarter employment cost index, which is expected to increase 0.4%. meantime, ben bernanke gets to stay on the job. the senate confirmed the fed chairman for a second four-year term thursday by a 70-30 vote. that may seem like an overwhelming majority, but it's just 14 votes worse than the closest previous vote for a fed chief. 11 democrats and an independent joined 18 republicans in voting against bernanke. president obama hailed the action praising bernanke's, quote, wisdom and steady leadership. let's get back now to davos. we're rejoining ross and maria bartiromo, maybe, as well. >> yeah. maria will be joining us fairly shortly, mike. it's great to have you on the show today. thanks for joining us. look, you were talking about that 5% gdp number for the fourth quarter. in china, that would be seen as a disaster. we'll jump for joy if we could more than that. in china, that would be seen as a disaster. joining us now is a man with more insight going into the domestic economy. wang shanzu is the world's biggest mobile phone operator. of course, you're working in a big market. you've had incredible increase in mobile phone penetration in china. is there any sign of that slowing down? >> i think compared with previous years we will have a slowdown. because in the bigger cities like beijing, shanghai, the penetration of mobile phones is as high as 100%. so most growth is from the rural areas. a slowdown is possible. but we will have growth for the data and information applications. >> and that is a growing part for all mobile phone companies, as well. i also want to get your view on chinese growth. we were talking to zhu ming. we will keep policy fairly accommodating. what's your view of the sustainability of overall china markets and china growth story? >> i think in last year, the growth of what is not only from the capital investment, but also from the consumption. and telecommunications, especially mobile phones are one of the consumer products and we got policies from the government. for example, if they can get about 13% from the government, this year, the government will continue. >> we're talking about government stimulus policies around the globe. if the government withdrew that support, how big of an impact would that have? >> telecommunications, the stimulating policy is helpful about the cost of the very largest demand in rural areas. we think we'll still have further growth. but we hope the government will continue the policy for stimulation. >> mr. whang, this is christine all the way here in asia. i see google ran into problems with censorship regulators in china. what's your stand on censorship when it comes to mobile phone text messages? >> i'm a businessman, so i like to talk about this in the position of businessman. i think every company, if they want to have business in a foreign country, they should abide by regulation locally. and for the internet operator, it is more important. so i don't think there will be a big impact for some internet company because we have many choices. our customers have many choices. for example, we can you'll that and also they can use yahoo! they can use microsoft bing. so i think if google really pulls out of china, they will lose more. >> has google's problems in china changed the way you would launch or sell the google android hand set? >> no. i just met with someone, you know, and enjoy the operating system for mobile phone and china mobile is one of the members of alliance enjoyed. google will continue to support china mobile to enjoy and use the system. thanks very much indeed for joining us. we appreciate your time. becky, we'll give it back to you. >> let's bring you back to what's going on here in london. andy is joining us to bring some of his intelligent and insight -- >> wisdom. >> wisdom, that's what i was looking for. andy, let's talk about the equity market performance so far this year. today it looks like european markets have managed to gain some ground. yesterday's lows for 2010, it's been a pretty tough time so far for equity markets. what are we looking at? >> january is about 5% down, isn't it, on the ftse 100. and really, it's down to the sort of heavyweight sectors, mining in particular. people are concerned now that china is slowing down and as a result, the miners, which form a large chunk of the uk market have been hit. then our banks are allowed to pay anyone, sort of discussions and banking profits have been hit, as well. so the big sector etd in the ftse have had a pretty tough time. small companies are up for january and so it's more a case of people had a good run last year, particularly in december, and it's like any party. it takes the world's look at a hangover. people will be looking at the sort of results coming through and seeing whether companies have replaced cost cutting, which has driven profits by revenue growth. >> okay. andy, thanks very much for that. let's send it back out to da vote and pick up with our next guest in davos. >> becky, maria has joined us. we are going to be talking to a number of guests over the next two hours and one of them right in the sweet spot of financial services. we want to get the landscape on the regulatory environments. we're going to talk to brian moynihan of bank of america, coming up. >> let's do it now. >> let's do it now. >> the new ceo of bank of america is with us. brian, good to have you on the program. >> thank you so much for being here. >> one of the topics of this forum as much as throughout business kwloeblly is this idea that the president came out with president obama two weeks ago to split capital markets and businesses for bureau lending from the banks. how do you feel about that? what's your view on what's to come in terms of financial regulation? >> well, i think our view of financial regulation is our industry. in the spirit of all the people here, we have to be part of the solution and we have to get more involved in dialogue. as to the proposals on a proprietary trading, which are the president's proposals, i think as it does get defined, we think at our institution, we do things for our customers and that's what i think everybody recognizes. the customers need us to mediate in the capital markets, whether they're large companies or small companies. >> so why do you think that there's such, you know, a bright over, you know, getting to the position that we were in last year when lehman brothers went bankrupt and we had that moment in time when the commercial paper market came to a halt. what could be done to ensure that the lending part of the business is safe with depositor's money and banks and financial institutions can still take risks, raise their balance sheets and not bring the entire economy to their knees? >> one, you have to have good risk management and it failed a lot of institutions. secondly, i think we can -- slew the regulations that exist today and enhance those regulations,x make sure that the depositor's money in the funding of the securities firms are separated and they are in our firms and they are in other firms. we can do that so we don't have the implicit crossover and our industries guarantee a deposit money. but i think the idea of not having our $250 billion for our clients across the board is an idea that wouldn't have solved the last problem and won't solve the next. so i think the idea of keeping separation within the institution is fine. but you need all those capabilities. and i just want on a panel with a bunch of our clients that said we need banks to do these same things. our industry will engage. i hope others engage with us and we can get to a place where it makes sense for our customers. >> you're going to be traveling to var why you clients and others throughout the rest of the world. you're new to this job. tell me what the market feels like right now. do you think that the banking skter is well capitalized at this point? and what are you feeling for investors? you've got the market up 60%, 70% from the lows. what's the mentality out there? >> well, i think the banking sector has capitalized itself. turned new rules, we'll have to play into that. bank of america raised a lot of capital. the banking industry is healing. the critical thing, though, is that we talk to companies that employ lots of people. they're still somewhat questioning the need to invest in the demand side and i think the responsibility to us as a participant and economy and across the world all our colleagues is to help keeping moving the economy forward. we're trying to make all the good loans we can and try to provide the capital to these companies. the mood is better than it was three months ago, but it's still pretty sober because unemployment levels are high. we're seeing those things happening, they're more positive and we continue to be optimistic. the real critical issue now is we have to make sure that we keep going up and don't do things to push it down. >> let's hear from mike in the studio. >> thanks, maria. good morning, mr. moynahan. there's been a lot of talk in the states here this week about the government needing, wanting to make big banks smaller. is b of a too big and is that or should that be the government's role? >> bank of america is not too big. we think what we can do is provide incredible things for our customers and our clients, whether they're a consumer or whether they're a corporate client. and i think the government is -- the role the government is trying to play is to make sure that the institutions remain stable through all kinds of prices. and i think that's the absolutely appropriate role for the government to play. big by definition knot the question. it's a question of how you manage your activities and how you manage risk. >> hi. it's andy from schroeder's here. do you think those markets are now functioning as they were or, you know, do you think there's a place, really, for all these isoteric instruments going forward in the banking industry or should we just get back to making life a lot simpler? >> i don't think it will be that binary, in other words, having or not having. i think the idea is everything in moderation. so i think those activities are tremendously important for helping manage risk, buying credit protection for certainly clients is an important part of what we do so we can use use our capital. i don't think there's any biary answer here in terms of having one thing or having cds or not having. the idea is to use them in moderation and use them effectively. and frankly not so store risk kwhb is part of the problem. if you look at the damage done in other institutions, when they start storing risks it's esoteric. >> great to have you on the program today. >> thank you. >> we're going to continue talking on u.s. closing bell, so we look forward to the rest of our interview later today on u.s. closing bell. thanks, brian. >> and don't forget, of course, you can watch all the interviews that we've had so far on cnbc from davos and everywhere else. where else? of course on the website, krn.com. if you've got questions, as well, that you want to get to the guests, and we have a great lineup again today, e-mail us, davos@cnbc.com. we'll try and put some of your questions to the guests that we've got coming up. a little later, we'll be joined by christine lagarde. becky will be joining us and she'll talk to barney frank, as well. and, of course, lord mannedelson, first secretary of state in the uk. plenty of good guests coming up. we're also joined now by another guest, a member of our climate council and the countdown to copenhagen 15, which was such a great disappointment. we have now joined by lars vattenfhor. we heard earlier this week, of course, from the president talking about infrastructure, as well as there's big pressures on energy infrastructure at the moment, as well well. how are we, in the failure of copenhagen and the squeezing budgets, it's all about the budget being squeezed this week in europe in particular. how is that going to impact investment in europe in energy infrastructure? >> well, it's all about investment, you can say. and that i mean energy security. i mean climate change. i mean jobs, i mean growth. clearly, what has happened in copen hague.en or what did not happen in copenhagen means higher uncertainty, less investments and a delay. >> but all this pressure, as well, is on government budgets. you can't open a paper. and we talked to jean claude trichet yesterday, the greek prime minister, alistair darling in the uk, you can't open a paper without the discussion of governments having to get down their budget deficit. how is that going impact? >> i think it's going to impact our industry relatively little. why? >> and that's because we, of course, have a task and that is to provide our customers with energy. this good is very value and if you see the value proposition that we have, it's a very, very good one. that is we can fund that investment through the capital markets. >> you just announced this week you're going to build one of the world's biggest wind farms off the coast of britain. how much more are you going to move into renewables? >> now, we're expounding fantastically into the renewable area. and especially the offshore wind. today, we have an offshort wind in europe of about 25% to 30%. and we will keep that for the foreseeable future. so we are really, really moving in big time into wind and the uk is, of course, is the forefront of that. >> good to talk to you, lars lars. thank you very much for joining us. we appreciate all the work you've done and is will continue to do we hope for that. when we come back, we'll be joined by the canadian finance minister. plenty to talk about with him. and we'll get his view of what it means if we get that good growth number later today out of the u.s. oh, don't forget, i did mention it, but we'll be joined by barney frank, as well, and becky will be joining us for that interview. more to come from here in davos. one of the big focuses is going to be the gdp number we get out of the u.s. what's the sustainability after that? >> let's get a view now from the man who runs prudential. we're joined by the ceo of ntm. thanks very much for joining us. we're going to focus on this u.s. number. what will bring into question is what happens after that and the sustainability of the recovery? what do you think of that particularly for the oecd countries? >> there is a growth of uncertainty. certainly win things have gotten better, so in a way things are under way. but the global imbalances and the imbalances in the u.s. economy are still a source of concern. and it's not clear how quickly they can be resolved and how things are going to weigh on consumption. so i'm still relatively cautious. >> and will that, do you think, weigh from here on in on the international capital markets? we had a great rally in stocks, you know, last year. but i wonder now whether you believe that that is going to be more uncertain, as well. >> i think a lot is going to depend on what happens in the emerging markets. prudential is very much active in asia. that is really our primary area of growth. it served us very well. and the economic growth remains very strong in the region. here in davos, we're meeting officials from a number of key asian countries for us. and the outlook for 2010 is positive. and i am hopeful that if things continue like that, we may have a better outturn in 2010 than we expected. >> andy is in the london studios from schroeders. he has a question for you. could you say what you're thinking now with the uk? every time i read something about prudential, it's all asia. what's your thinking about the uk market? is it just very mature and is it a cash cow or do you actually see growth tints? >> it's effectively very important for prudential, but so is the uk. since they took over, they have been very explicit, that the uk is a core strategy of the group and just allow me to remind you that we have 7 million customers in the uk. so we will not abandon there. and it's a largest story business. we've been operating in the uk for 160 years. after 160 years, we should be able to generate positive cash flows which can be reinvested in fast growing profitable markets. >> i understand half of your profits come from here in my part of the world. i understand you're cutting back on growth in some of the developed markets to focus more on asia. what are some of the opportunities you see here in the region? >> i think theory normus. if you look at what drives our business and our, it's savings rates, demography. risk factors in asia are very, very favorable. the investable savings are forever increasing. to give you an indication, we have doubled three times in asia. so we're now eight times than it used to be ten years ago. and i believe going forward the growth rates are sustainable. as you know very well, christine, in asia, asia is diverse. we're operating in a wide range of economies for korea, taiwan and japan. moving on to the two giants, india and china, the city states of hong kong and singapore, wh