The company is cutting exposure to russia. We do not see any reason to write it down but we are reducing our russian activities in the retail space substantially. Central bankers under fire. Janet yellen and mario draghi on the defense as lawmakers on both sides of the pond demand answers over recent actions. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange. Bringing you Business News from around the globe. Welcome to the show. We had german jobless data about three minutes ago. It stayed at a record low in february. The adjusted rate of 6. 5 has come in at the same level it was in january. The unadusted rate down fractionally from 7 to 6. 9 and the jobless number was 3. 017 million. No significant improvement from the already impressive level it was at. The euro not moving too much off the back of that. Lets take a look at stocks on the move. Standard chartered trading higher this morning after the bank announced it is replacing its ceo with ex jp morgan executive. Shares are down around 20 since peter sands took the helm in november of 2006 this is a well respected banker taking the helm here. We all know that peter sands has been under pressure. A lot of investors unhappy with the management of the company. Theres issues about the developed world where they have strong assets. Well how about businesses doing he was the main man at jp morgan in europe. He left that business mostly because people thought he was a rival to jamie diamond. He was then out theed as a potential boss for barclays. That didnt happen. Apparently he declined that offer and set up this alternative Asset Management so the fact that he is going back into traditional banking very interesting. Amazingly good for shareholders. Just in terms of market cap youve seen a couple of hundred Million Pounds being added to the value but hes not the only one. Theres a massive shake up going on all across the board. You have the chief executive of save the children on the board. Huge grandee used to be of the fsa. Was at barclays. Very respected woman. One of the best bankers in london certainly in terms of female representation. So huge overhaul. Definitely a big move. Its up about 1 off of its highs. But still a move to the upside. Thank you for now. We cannot forget this story. Do you remember when some of londons top bankers took their clothes off for charity hast year . Bill winters was among them. Head to our website. We have you covered on that story. Meanwhile the bank of scotland has posted its 7th consecutive net loss. He has sent some instructions as to how he wants the bank to go moving forward. Dont pay. Get the taxpayer money back and dont pay all of these bonuses. You have the chief executive thats waved his 1 million announce for the second year going. If you look at the bonus pool thats come down from about 500 Million Pounds thank you very much and the bank is in much better state than it was. Last year at this time they reported a 9 billion pound loss so we have an attributed loss at the moment but operating profits of 3. 5 billion. They took the massive write down on citizens. This is the biggest bank ipo. They still own 70 of that but well see more of that being disposed of but on the core hes saying look theres still a lot more left to do. We are retrenching. We are leaving about 35 countries. We are going to be focused on the u. K. Its going to mean more job losses. Its going to mean more impairment charges potentially but essentially theres a Good Business there and just on those impairment charges a lot of the positive numbers that we saw today is because you have a whole lot of write backs. All of the things that he we saw hugely benefitted. Go back to 2013 Fourth Quarter and take an impairment charge. So a lot of those assets are looking healthier. Thank you for that recap for now. Joining us is john stubbs. Let us continue quickly on the u. K. Banks because youre very positive on the u. K. Equity market in general. Are the banks included in that. Yeah. We talk about restructuring. Banks are restructuring. Have been for some time. You have recovery. The second half. And then you have capital return. So you have banks. U. K. Banks as well as european banks beginning during a long period of Capital Repair and are now starting to return capital to investors and capital returns being one of the most powerful share price themes in markets so those banks that can restructure, can repair can benefit from recovery and can return capital should do well in share price. But he was saying were going to look at potentially returning to a dividend structure. And have that discussion with them. When you think hes expected to have the dividend all the same. But banks are now dealing with loan demand which still remains elusive and a lack of credit demand. Well look at the health of the Banking Sector to give us an idea of where the economy is in their economic cycle. What would you say about the u. K. . From an Economic Perspective . Yes. Well we have been through this multiyear repair on the banking side. Its still going on. Youre seeing individuals changing chairs because of individuals at banks. Thats happening. Thats part of the repair process. The underlying u. K. Economy has been strong as you know for the last 12 to 18 months. A release of pent up demand and a big reason for that and capital return is so important. Its the cost of money and the level of Interest Rates. When Interest Rates are close to zero the world over or negative in some countries. Investors are crying out for a yield pick up on that sub zero negative Interest Rate. Look at rbs. This is a bank that would benefit the most from any return to normalize Interest Rates because at the moment at those record lows its difficult for banks to earn margin. So i think when you see Interest Rates start to pick up as well theyll be main beneficiaries of that. When were talking about being positive overall on u. K. He equities the ftse 100 is not that u. K. Focused. Most of these big u. K. Banks arent either. Whats the best way for you to play that you have on the u. K. . We have a target on the ftse 100 which is 7,000,700. That hasnt changed and its based on a belief that we get modest earnings kbroeth overgrowth over the next couple of years. They look incredibly cheap related to all the Asset Classes. So our positive view is based on a very strong relative story and a modest improvement in term of the ability of companies broadly to deliver on earnings and tif dends. Dend dividends. We have been talking about the record highs. The dow closed at a record high yesterday. The nasdaq getting close to breaking 5,000 but here in europe were seeing new highs in germany as well as the ftse 100 breaking its 1999 high. Do these milestones mean anything to you . I dont have medals or trophies at home when you get to these milestones but despite hitting index level highs, equities have never ever been cheap cheaper. It is relative to other Asset Classes. U. K. Equities recently hit a 100 year valuation high or low. So attractive relative to guilt yields. So u. K. Equities have never on a dividend yield basis, have never looked this cheap relative to bonds. And that is forcing more and more investors every day to think about whether they should have exposure to fixed income and cash earning them pretty much nothing or shift some exposure toward equity. Why dont you look for dividend rich companies. Interesting if youre pointing out valuations in the u. K. Thats one of the reasons u. S. Investors are looking to diverse identify their portfolios. Valuation itself looks very attractive. Now you also have Central Bank Policy providing the stim you stimulant markets are looking for. You have qe with what are already improving trends from an earnings perspective and flow perspective and Economic Perspective. Its very important to align with liquidity. One way of doing that if youre an International Investor is to own european shares especially continental ones. Lets hit the pause button on this debate. Thank you for now. He sticks with us. As we were just telling you with the nasdaq striking distance of 5,000, is this really a milestone . Does it mean anything to you . Join the conversation on Worldwide Exchange. Twitter and cnbcwx. But before we discuss this into further length lets get a market update. Its been quite strong already. Looks like we were continuing that pause for breath today but we have had a little bit of a jump in the last 16 minutes or so since we got that jobless number coming in at 6. 5 . Same as for january but a record low its maintaining so that lack of it falling is taken positively by markets so the stock 600 is up about a quarter of a percent. Lets have a look now at each european market. As you can see were basically just above flat for each of them but nothing too significant. We did erase those earlier fractional losses we were looking at. Athens is down about 6 . Thats been rallying since the four month bailout extension was agreed. The u. S. Ten year treasury didnt move too much further yesterday after Janet Yellens second day of testimony in front of congress. The net result has been a dovish interpretation of what she said by the bond market. We were above 2 and were now about 1. 95 . Even though many are still interpreting it as leading to a june rate hike as the most likely, the bond market interpretation has been more dovish with yields coming back. Further bond buying today. Further yield compression in germany today. Significantly lower yields again. In the u. K. 1. 69 and the ten year in greece which has been range bound around the 8. 5 is sitting around 9 today. Quick look because we have seen the u. S. Dollar come off as the yields have come down. Weve seen the u. S. Dollar give up a little bit of ground particularly against the likes of sterling yen and aussie dollar. Were looking at 11344 at the moment. The rouble gained about a perkrebt today. Lets get lets get a check in on markets in asia. Dear oh dear what happened to the mighty gunners against monaco . Should we press on swiftly and talk about the markets . The positive leadership is coming from north asia. The nikkei 225 at fresh 15 year highs for the index. Remember the markets liked what they saw with the u. S. Data overnight. They also liked what they heard from janet yellen imlying she is in no rush to raise the fed. There were buying off the stocks and they got a lift that a major Public Pension Fund said they would increase to equities. From 25 to 8 prior. Incidentally goldman had a bullish call. 21,700 for the index by the end of the year. Elsewhere, china stocks another big out performer up by almost 2. 2 at the end of the trading day. So the best percentage rise in three weeks. Insurance, banking and the real estate sectors provided positive leadership. On that note back to you in london. Thank you. Just checking in on what the latest results were. They lost to sheffield united. You have to follow the local side mate. Thank you very much for that update. The less we say about football the better this morning. Agreed. Seema, whats up next. All right. Settle down. Coming up on this show auto makers are moving full speed ahead toward hightech cars but is the push for con neck activity connectivity there. And who is the latest victim of a cyberattack . And could this be as useful as a chocolate teapot. Well be getting to the bottom of that one later on in the show. Stick with us. I really admire my mother. Despite what people said she bought me a sewing machine and she let me play with dolls and that was something that was kind of growing up culturally, it was quite unacceptable and she really dared to let me be different. [thunder and rain] [thunder and rain] [thunder and rain] over 20 million kids everyday in our country lack access to healthy food. For the first time American Kids are slated to live a shorter life span than their parents. Its a problem that we can turn around and change. Revolution foods is a company we started to provide access to healthy affordable, kidinspired chefcrafted food. We looked at what are the aspects of food that will help set up kids for success . Making sure foods are made with high Quality Ingredients and prepared fresh everyday. Our collaboration with citi has helped us really accelerate the expansion of our business in terms of how many communities we can serve. Working with citi has also helped to fuel our innovation process and the speed at which we can bring new products into the grocery stores. We are employing 1,000 people across 27 urban areas and today, serve over 1 million meals a week. Until every kid has built those lifelong eating habits, well keep working. Hes out there. Theres a guy out there whose making a name for himself in a sport where your name and maybe a number are what define you. Somewhere in that pack is a driver that can intimidate the intimidator. A guy that can take the king 7 and make it 8. Heck. Maybe even 9. Make no mistake about it. Theyre out there. I guarantee it. Welcome to the Nascar Xfinity series. A series of tough questions from republican lawmakers that accuse her of pushing the democrats agenda on issues like income inequality. Was there one party pushing the idea of income inequality over the last party in the last election. I believe it is a problem thats not my question. Everyone in this room should be concerned about. But was one party pushing that idea over the other party. I have heard politicians on both sides of the aisle lement rising income inequality. She wasnt the only central banker under fire yesterday. Mario draghi had to explain the ecb decision to stop accepting greek bonds as collateral. No, no agree to transfer the income made by the euro system on the s p portfolio to greece as long as greece complies with the program. So no no. Please sir. Excuse me please. Please respect the chair mr. Draghi. Please. Please. Could i ask you please mr. Draghi please may i just say something. I would ask you to show respect for the chair. I gave you a little extra time. You are disrespectful to mr. Draghi however you disagree with him, let him finish the point please let him finish the point. There are many mr. Speakers to come. Lets get out to julia who is live in athens with all the latest on that situation and the reaction to the heckling in the European Parliament yesterday. That was probably a first for him right now but it gives you a sense of the urgency of the greek people. They have their extension but they have 6 billion euros worth of debt repayments and t bills over the next month. Thats the urgency for the government. The press picked it up and the two side of the debate are coined well. The leftest side is saying the rush is on as far as concerns for the greek government. Hes addressing the Parliament Ten hours he was speaking to the parliament to explain the situation right now and then weve got the most leftest paper or rightest paper saying asphyxiation in 34 days underscoring the need for refinancing. He is under pressure as far as accepting greek bonds into the debate overnight tuesday. They think the more likely scenario is greece is allowed to save on the issues. They have to please the lenders as far as reforms and implementation is concerned. They want to see some sort of humanitarian reform measures put in too. This will allow them to distinguish themselves from the previous government. We have to expect fast action to implemented things that will please the lenders as far as tax evasion and smuggling we heard talked about over the last week or so nothing will upset them as far as its concerned. They realize it. Ignore the noise as far as the party is concerned. He he seemed to pull them into line yesterday and we have to accept fast action on reforms. Im very impressed as you hold up the newspapers. Youve been in athens so long you can now read greek as well. I have friends that help me with that wilfred. I have to say. But im working on it. Thank you as ever for that report from athens. Now lets focus in on the auto sector. In car connectivity is all the rage but a new study from jd power suggests some hightech features are failing. Especially three years after installation. Our auto reporter takes a closer look. The latest vehicle depend blt study is out and looks at the dependability of 3yearold models. It has staggering issues when it comes to in car connectivity. It doesnt work that well for people using their bluetooth. 55 say they have no phone recognition in their vehicle even though they have software designs in the vehicle that should recognize the phone. 31 say they cannot get an automatic connection with their phone as soon as they enter the vehicle. Overall, 2012 molds anddels registered problems in the vehicles. 60 were design related. Were not talking about manufacturing issues as much as design problems in the eyes of consumers. The five most dependable brands according to j. D. Power, lexus followed by buick and a tie between honda and porsche. Theres a real opportunity not only for Tech Companies but the auto makers if they can get it right in terms of connectivity within the vehicle theres a chance to win over customers because every time they have a car thats not working property in terms of phone connectivity they run a real risk of losing that customer. So citys autos team have written extensively about the positive impact of technology in the sector. Joining us is jonathan the European Equity strategist at city group. Talk to us about the opportunity you see in the connected car. The integration of technology in the auto sector. Is that one reason to get bullish on some of these nails . They have written about what they call the car of the future. Were hearing about the risks involved but we think the opportunities, the growth opportunities, especially for the Supplier Companies outweigh some of the emerging risks. Its very powerful support of growth coming out over the next few years but theres also traditional support for the Investment Case for autos that shouldnt be over