in asia, china's shanghai composite closing 1.6% lower on further concerns about further property tightening measures. >> meanwhile, in europe, positive results in the banking sector lloyd's returning to profit in the first quarter. >> and in the united states, goldman sachs ceo lloyd blankfein is set to answer tough questions about the bank's possible role in the financial crisis. good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are. i'm chloe cho along with ross westgate and nicole lapin. we're looking at a softer picture overall theme, policy uncertainty in china. the shanghai composite is down 2.1%. policy tightening concerns on top of that. reported fund-raising plans by one of the big banks for china construction bank and that weighed on sentiment. the shanghai composite just above 9,200. overall, the rest of the markets, the hang seng under pressure, down 1.5%. north asia was one of the brighter spots, the nikkei managing to close slightly to the top side after companies coming out with positive earnings. australia is taking a bit of catchup after taking yesterday off. and moving on to the cnbc ftse global 300, slightly softer, off 0.3%. good morning, ross. >> hey, chloe. great do you see. we're one hour into the trading day in europe. we're giving back some of the gains we've had over the last two sessions. the xetra dax just hit a session low. basic resources are low on china and banks as a sector are low despite good numbers from lloyd's and deutsche bank returning to profit. the only sector that's really up this morning is utilities. so some slim losses after data gains. nicole, very good morning to you. >> great to see you, as always, ross. it's 4:00 in the morning here in the united states and we're feeling some of that pressure from asia at this hour. the stock market is likely to open lower. dow futures are down about 8 below fair value at this hour. this is after the dow was up just slightly, less than a point yesterday, with financials really under pressure. the sector falling 1.7%. xweldman contributed 3.4% to that. nasdaq futures are basically flat right now and s&p 500 futures are down slightly. but the big focus, of course, is going to be ben bernanke on the hill, as well as goldman execs today. let's continue that conversation with our next guest, actually, our guest host for the hour, mark dukes, kre o of dukes capital partners. mark, there is some talk out there that the fed could extend the period into 2012. do you think that's going to happen? what does the extended period mean to you? >> i tend to think that they will keep a reallyively easy monetary stance to the extent that although we've seen a very positive list from inventory adjustment to final demand in the economy, that the unemployment level is still relatively high and actually, absolutely high and as such, i think that given the job that the major top of mind for the fed, i don't see them actually raising rates any time certainly for this year. i'd be very surprised if they raise at all. and if they do, it will be very minor, towards the end of the year. >> of course, but we will be looking at every word coming out of their mouths today. we will also be focusing it very closely on goldman's testimony. what are you expecting to hear from them? markets are going to be looking at both at the same time. >> well, yeah. clearly, front and center is goldman's situation and to the extent that they're now searching for e-mails and looking for e-mails, that usually doesn't get better, that usually gets worse. but that said, goldman is a first class institution. i don't expect them to disappear any time soon. i suspect they will come out somewhat vindicated, although there will be a lot of reputational repair that needs to compost this. >> mark, just going back to the fed for a second, we've got a note out here from capital economics in london suggesting there is a lot of deflationary pressures in the u.s., which means the fed could stay tap in their mind potentially until 2012. i just wonder if we stay on very low rates for an extended period of time, what growing felony that will continue to have on asset bubbles in your part of asia. how will policy makers have to respond? >> that's a good point. right now, we've seen in yash many of the central banks raising rates to the extent that inflation is starting to creep up, certainly at the agricultural level and some of the key input costs. so to the extent that you get rate differentials, we will see asset bubbles because many of the central banks are reluctant nls thus far to allow their currencies to appreciate. >> thus far because they see china's property curves as a tightening in the region. but you think overall, whether the chinese move on the renminbi is going to be a real decisive factor on risk on/risk off trade. >> ultimately, all of this boilts down to the rmb. >> when is that going to happen? we're getting conflicted comments on that. >> i think the rmb will revalue to kwuj within one quarter to six months. >> but then again, like a 2%, 3%, you hear in china that that is not going to make a difference. >> whether it's 2% or 5%, i don't think that is the point. the point swb it will mitigate to the point that it will revalue their local unit. it will serve as a montana tear way of reducing inflation. it will shift the economy from a more export oriented to consumption based economy and it will mitigate trade war concerns with the u.s. i think it's absolutely likely that will happen, but more importantly, it's a risk on event. at that time, commodity prices will go up, the rest of the region will repeg but revalue their currencies. indonesian rupee is up 15%. malaysian ringett is up 3%. thai baht is strong despite political concerns. we've seen this happening and we think it will continue to happen. >> mark fuchs stays with us for the entire hour. let's get some big stories we're following, though, from around the world for you. we mentioned this just a second ago. goldman sachs ceo lloyd blankfein faces a glare of the congressional spotlight today. the senate permanent subcommittee on investigations holds a hearing at 10:00 in the morning new york time. in prepared remarks, it says goldman didn't bet against clients ahead of the mortgage meltdown and didn't have a massive short against the housing market. the committee makes the opposite case, though, releasing several internal e-mails, detailing what some goldman execs call a big, short strategy. >> for large fees, goldman helped run the conveyor belt that helped run hundreds of millions of dollars of toxic mortgages into the system. >> the e-mails show how some goldman clients complain the firm was putting its interests ahead of theirs after meeting with some customers one goldman employee reported the concern that the company was good at making money for yourself, but not for us. but the employee said the lore of doing business with goldman should keep clients coming back. also, the financial reform bill stumbles a little bit in the senate as republicans unite to prevent debate on the measure. democrats came up short as conservative democrat ben nelson joined the gop to block the bill. the setback isn't permanent as lawmakers on both sides say they're close to an agreement. president obama says he's disappointed. he's speaking about the need, of course, for financial reform on wednesday night in quincy, illinois. president obama kicks off the first meeting today of a special panel he created to try and solve the u.s. budget deficit woes. the 18-member bipartisan commission which convenes at 9:30 in the morning will heard from the white house budget director and peter orzag. the panel will meet once a month. the u.s. deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009, nearly 10%, ross, of gdp. >> thanks, nicole. deutsche bank has posted prenet profits in the first quarter beating expectations. this is also welcome news that it set aside $250 million for bad loans, which is half of what some analysts had forecast. the stock opened up 1%. you can see at the moment, toe, it's just dropped back over 2%. elsewhere, though, in the uk, shares of lloyd's higher after the bank swung to a first quarter profit. not many expected that. lloyd's, of course, is 41% owned by the british government, says that those figures will put it in line to beat for the full year. the bank says the lot on bad debt continues to fall. analysts had expected the bank to return to a profit as soon as this. and high oil and gas prices helped bp surge in its prices, as well. replacement figures ballooned to over $5.6 billion. the earnings came into the company is struggling to contain the oil spill from a fatal accident last week after one of its rigs exploded and sunk in the gulf of mexico. >> well, here in asia, ross, tough talk from a u.s. lawmaker marking that tensions on the u.n. committee remains high. they said china needs to raise the value of its currency by a significant amount or the u.s. will take action. levin says 2% to 3% rise over a year is unsatisfactory. on the flip side, brazil's finance minister saying monday the main cause of global economic imbalance els has a lot to do with the weakness in the dollar and not the renminbi. speaking in an argument in a report published today, it has been called for the yuan to manage strong economic growth, exports and inflationary pressure in the first quarter. the yen remained little change against the dollar today. of course, a quick note, you can bet that the yuan debate will continue to fly during the second round of an annual u.s.-china strategic economic dialogue. the two-day event will be held in beijing on may 24th. that's just about a month from now. ross. >> still to come on the program, diabetes drugmaker novo nordisk will convene today. how will america's new health care plan affect the drug? we'll have more on that later on. more on to come. you're watching cnbc's "worldwide exchange." that is the latest shot from london. great views. views not so good for greece this morning. the cost of insuring greek government debt up for the record high, spreads against german bunch are once again out at a record high. we saw a sharp rise, the yield on the two-year around 13% compared to the 10 year which is near 10%. the 10-year bund year was 3.5%. there is the yield of the 10-year greek note, 9.67%. the two-year is even higher. it's always warning of impending crisis, chloe, if we didn't know that already. >> let's take a quick check on the for ex action at this moment. we've got a little bit of a balancing act going on given that investors don't know what they plan to do. we've got uncertainty in the i'd and also we've got uncertainty in china as overall, dollar/yen pretty much hanging below the 94 handle at 93.81. euro/dollar also just above the 1.33. you've got sterling under a bit of pressure as prospects for a hung parliament seem to be growing. euro/sterling at 0.8674 there. nicole. >> chloe, u.s. investors get the latest snapshot on the housing market today. the february s&p/case shiller home price index is out at 9:00 a.m. new york time. this tracks prices in 20 major metro areas. at 10:00, consumer confidence numbers are released. a pair of dow components, dupont and 3m report results before the bet bell as do ford, ooups, u.s. mining and u.s. steel. after the close, we hear from aflac, broadcom and dreamworks animation. so planes, trains, a little bit of shrek, that doesn't sound like impending gloom to me. >> markets have news of the greek rescue deal. but the euro has moved off recent lows after suggesting that jean-claude tray see will address the parliament on webs to try and convince lawmakers to act to save the debt stricken country. the bundess bank president expressed his confidence in the currency. >> if you look at the perception of the euro, the euro is viewed as a strong currency. we have been able to, for ten years, deliver price stability, for example, germany has delivered in the time before. so there is no credibility problem with the currency. >> that was axel weber. sylvia, mr. papadamous from the icb says the program should be over by early may. but explain to us why germany is dragging its feet and how politics are playing a part. >> we've talked about this before. if angela merkel's party loses that election, she will lose her majority in the upper house, in the bundes lark. like the uk, we have two houses, the lower house, which is the primary parliament where everything gets entered first. then it has to be approved by the bundes part. the other part of the equation is they might have to bring in separation legislation for pushing this through because essentially you're setting budget time aside from that. that, however, could be done swiftly. >> now, is anybody there talking about -- the amount of money we get might help greece for a year or two years. at some point, greece is going to have to have a restructuring and the bank holding debt, which includes a large number of german banks are going to have to take a haircut. >> dare i say, hypo real estate, which is a state-owned bank, one of the biggest creditors of greece in the banking sector is with a limp $10 billion in there. we have to look at that very closely. that was one of the conditions angela merkel set aside yesterday. she said we want the three-year plan of the imf on the table or we don't know about the 45 million or we don't know how much we're talking about. axle weber talked about the hypo real estate sector and he thought probably the greece demand was closer to 80 billion. i think these are the ballpark numbers we're talking about. restructuring, nobody wants to touch that with a pole, but if they can't get around it, that's what they'll have to do. >> as far as european stock markets are concerned, equities could have fell through the greek problem without any problems at all. they've been more focused on the earnings numbers, perhaps as they should. european stock markets, down a little bit today. maybe we don't have that particular board up for you. let's get to anna where earnings are out for bp and good for the sector. >> absolutely, ross. we're going to hear from all the oil majors this week. the ftse 100 is down 0.5%. we have numbers from bp which has resulted in a move downwards in the share price. there are a couple of things going on here. of course, we have the earnings report better than expected by a fairly wide margin, a 135% increase in replacement cost profit. that strips out the volatile influence of inventories. this is, in large part, with the increase to do in the oil price that we've seen. but on the other hand, there is a focus on the damage that was caused by that explosion in the gulf of mexico, the environmental damage and the cost that that is going to incur to fix that. so that is another focus for that company. imperial tobacco is giving us numbers today, another story of beating expectations. a new ceo is at the helm there. the company is talking about an improve b share of emerging markets as being something of a diver. so we'll watch that one with interest. >> meanwhile, lloyd's today beat expectations, state owned bankers come in ahead of time on its profits. >> yeah, absolutely. so ross, you and i and all of the other -- >> 43% of it. >> we do. we're not majority shareholders in this one, but we do stand to gain a little bit as the government gets their money back. anyway, this bank, of course, is made up from lloyd's, tsb and hbos back in january 2009. they're back to profit in the first quarter, much quicker than the markets have been expecting to see a profit. the impairment trends are improving. they're talking about how that is improving generally. but on the international front, just be aware that they're talking about weakness in ireland persisting and that is coming through from their commercial real estate arm. but more good news in general from the uk banking sector. >> anna, thanks for that. another bank, deutsche doing fairly well, patricia, and the numbers, although the stock has turned around. >> a total turn around in terms of the stock performance, ross, that's absolutely right. the stocks were positive, up 1.5%. it is the biggest loser down 2.3% after fabulous numbers, record numbers in the corporate and investment banking side. however, some of the traders you speak to say, but you know what? they're make themselves dependent on that unit and it is that unit that might get some further investigation. perhaps the market didn't take too lightly that some of the businesses are being subpoenaed right now. one capital ratio point to go 11.2% might be a bit of a worry for some of the market players, even though deutsche bank fears that they are feeling very comfortable with this capital ratio going forward. but still, that stock down about 2.3% as we speak, ross. >> we had earnings out from software rge. what do they say? >> these shares are down 6.1%. the top line sales were ahead of expectations, really good number coming through here, 250 million above expectations. but licensing sale, and i think this is something that was worrying the market or is still worrying the market, 61.2% net, all of these a little lower than expectations. but then again, you could call this a very flat taking profits kind of situation because this stock is up -- was up before today's losses about 50% for the last six months. in the last month alone, it's up more than 7.3% and over the last 12 months, more than 90%. so it had a fantastic rally, this stock, but at the moment, it's down about 6% on the back of the results, ross. >> patricia, thanks very much indeed for that. stephane is in paris. stephane, we're getting more debate going around eads and the tanker contract. what's the latest? >> and this is a strike also going on that airbus had started yesterday, unions are calling for 3.5% increase in salaries and after the demonstrations of 10,000 workers last friday, they decided to implement a strike for three days. it started yesterday in france with the production of the airbus 330 and 340. today it's in passing the production of the airbus 320 and tomorrow that will be the production of the airbus 380. the unions are threatening to take further action next week should the management of eads refuses to start some negotiations on salary. for the time being, eads is trading lower. we're down more than 1%, ross. >> and renault, as well, what's going on with them? >> oh, no, we're expecting the company to announce a 25% increase in sales, that will be after the market closed. that's the average forecast if driven by the strong performance the company had so far in france, which is its main domestic market. but of course, the main concern about renault is the outlook for the rest of the year. the company said in several locations that the second half of 2010 would be more difficult as it's the end of the plan in most european countries. also, we watch the companies forecast in terms of cash flow because the numbers for renault are a positive cash flow. but for the time being, we are down 0.9%, which is in line with most of the market. >> still to come on the program -- go ahead. >> still much more to come, ross. we're going to talk about south korea's economy. it is growing much faster than expected. is it time to start removing the country's stimulus measures? keep it right here. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." in asia, sector activity mien means interest rates will probably remain low. >> men while in europe, greek's government debt hits a new 12-year high as germany reiterates its tough start on aid. >> in the united states, a showdown in the senate, lloyd blankfein is set to answer tough questions about the possible role in the financial crisis. >> you're watching cnbc's "worldwide exchange" with chloe cho, nicole lapin and myself, ross westgate. the