Earnings season. Alcoa the First Company out of the gate with mixed results. Specifics in just a minute. But the broader moment set up here perhaps more nerve racking to markets. Thompson reuters predicting the s p 500 profits will contract 4. 4 in the Fourth Quarter. That would mark the Second Straight Quarter of negative Earnings Growth and the fourth straight time Profit Growth declines from the prior period. Ill be watching for any sign of Revenue Growth which is also set to contract this season and of course the outlook is going to be key. What Corporate America has to say about guidance. Absolutely right although the big market story this morning, an Energy Collapse. Prices, lets have a look at them as were trading right now. Wti down a further percent. Brent down about. 3 and both hovering around the 31 level. Overnight a couple of opec members requested an emergency meeting due to the current market conditions. Meantime managed short positions in wti are at a record high. This of course suggest miss traders expect further declines in prices. Analysts are cutting their 2016 oil forecast as wti and brent both drop toward 30 tlrs barrel. Suggesting prices could drop as low as 10. The bank argues that prices are being moved almost entirely by financial flows caused by fluctuates in other asset prices including the dollar and equity markets and sarah i suppose thats the real aspect this year compared to last year is the supply and demand dynamics are loose. Whats interesting is that banks are now getting out in front of each other competitively trying to come out with a more bearish forecast. Just yet as we we were sitting here Morgan Stanley said the 20 per barrel region is realistic and now 10 per barrel. Where were we a year and a half ago . 100 per barrel . And while the fundamentals dont justify this in terms of supply and demand theres a lot of bearish sentiment. The maco headlines are driving things and the dollar is strengthening. City, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs all say 20. A lot of traders are hurting. 10 days ago how many people were saying surely this year cant be like last year. We dropped 20 now theyre going out on a limb. Another 20 down. Extraordinary stuff. I wonder if it marks the sign of a bottom or the pile up of bearish sentiment. The facts that theyre coming out and capitulating. The major drop in oil prices to spark renewed fears that the u. S. Oil industry could be in big trouble already hurting. On cnbc yesterday suggesting half of u. S. Shale Oil Producers could go bankrupt before the crude market reaches equilibrium. Have a listen. Half of the current producers have no right to be in the business where the price forecast even in the recovery is going to be between 50 or 60. They need 70 oil to survive. Thats a bleak forecast. Crude prices stabilizing near 60 but cautions that it could be more than two years before that happens. The spill over continues and Energy Companies continue to get beat up. They closed down 5 . They declined every single day. Theyre down more than 10 for the year so far. Poor performing sector as well in european trade. Lets have a look first up at the u. S. Futures and theres been a bit of a swing around since they opened late last night. And again thats been slightly linked to europe. Europe opened down by 0. 3 and its now up. And thats by 5 or 6 points. Lets have a look at european trade as well. Strong gains now. Almost 2 for the dax and a similar little turn around in early trade as we saw yesterday and really investors citing that bottom feeding type trade following the sharp declines last week. A quick look at the ten year note because its interesting to see the way that responded after last week but we havent seen a huge amount of buying of the bond market despite a huge amount of selling of other risk assets like equities and like oil. So something to continue to bear in mind. Yesterdays contagion out there but maybe not to the full extent that you would see. Maybe because the u. S. Economic data continues to be good to okay from the jobs front and the fed continues to say were on a hiking path and raise rates this year. Is that strong u. S. Economy argument thats outweighing the risk off contagion, the other markets. At least in treasuries. Overnight action, japan was closed the day before for a holiday. Resumed trading last night after a long weekend. Dropped about 2. 7 . Closed at a one year low. No surprise the oil, mining and coal sectors saw the pain. In china overnight stocks ended higher after another volatile session. Before the open the Chinese Central Bank did set the currency. A similar level to yesterdays fix and traders were reporting aggressive offshore intervention to weed out any speculators, calm the currency down which they managed to do overnight. As you can see at the end of the chart there some stabilization in the dollar yuan rate which a lot of people say is why the chinese stock market managed to gain and why theres calm across stock markets today. Japan is playing catch up from yesterday. If we take oil out of the bargain today were set up for a little bit of positivity. Europe is looking good and futures are pointing up. Maybe question focus on earnings and get back to fundamentals for the rest of the week. Lets also have a look at the economic agenda today in the u. S. The National Federation for independent business puts out its monthly Small Business optimism index. Thats followed by monthly job openings and Labor Turnover survey at 10 00 a. M. And Stanley Fisher speaking in paris in the next half an hour while jeff lacquer speaks this afternoon. Railroad operator csx reports earnings after the close. Speaking of, the new dallas fed president says four u. S. Rate hikes are in his words not baked in the cake. Robert kaplan brand new fed president pointing to global stock market volatility says the fed must assess the Economic Data as it unfolds. Not committing to four hikes. Interesting to hear because we havent heard a lot from him. Very outspoken and very hawkish. Kaplan doesnt have a vote though until 2017. Carl icahn is knocking down media reports saying he was buying up time warner shares. The activist says he doesnt own one share and adds that it annoys him that they use him to make profits at the expense of other shareholders. He took a stake in time warner in 2006 and unsuccessfully urged the company to split up so at the moment expected to open around flat. Stocks to watch today. Apollo Global Management is in advanced talks to buy for Profit Education provider apollo education. The price tag at about a billion dollars. The owner of the university of phoenix said it was exploring options. Lululemon raising its forecast on strong holiday forecasts. This is a month after they trimmed the full year revenue expectations. Disney adding nike ceo to its board of directors. This brings the total number of Board Members to 12. Dont forget mark parker having a goodyear. Also set to become the chairman of the board at nike later this year. Right. Interesting to see that disney share price up ahead of the star wars success. Starbucks plans to open 500 stores in china this year. The coffee chain hasnt seen any slow down in the country. This even as other Companies Like kfc have blamed chinas economy for soft results. Japans group is considering acquiring the grolsch and peroni beer brands. They will ease regulatory concerns about their merger. Gold corp. Says theyll have to look for large gold deposits outside of the americas. They could possibly meet the criteria which include low Political Risk and existence of a mining code. Were still 1100 level around there. Its not like its off to the races. Yeah. Earnings season unofficially kicking off with the Fourth Quarter results after the close yesterday. Overall the numbers werent quite as bad as feared but still had warning signs for investors. Landon dowdy joins us with more. Alcoa with a Fourth Quarter loss and 18 drop in revenue due to sharply lower Aluminum Prices excluding items that they dropped 4 cents a share. They have been cutting smelting capacity and rising trade tensions with china and last year said it would close a plant in indiana bringing the u. S. Aluminum output to the lowest level in more than 65 years. Theyre shifting the operations to the more profitable business of making parts for the auto and Aerospace Markets and its signed multibillion dollar contract with boeing and ges aviation unit. Despite weak prices hes still optimistic. We have seen a price decline over the course of the year in aluminum of almost 30 . And alumina of almost 40 . We did everything in our own control. We reshaped the business and look where we are. Were Still Standing and still making a profit. So look at cash, look at activity, all that we have under our own control. Shares slumping 50 over the past year and they were down three quarters of a percent in after hours guys. Thank you. There we go. Were off to a start of earnings. Not quite what everyone was expecting. Well see what the banks say. Coming up, here on Worldwide Exchange, your trade of the day, copper prices down sharply. The list of companies that perform the best and worst when that commodity drops. Plus its a world of worry. Who do you want to hear from . This man. Joining us to talk china, the economic consequences of oil, the global economy. Were also asking today on twitter how low can oil go . Wall street strategists say 20. Some say 10. Wilfred hated this question because it was too open ended but were doing it anyway. Tweet us your answer. I got overruled. Read it on tv as the price of oil drops as we speak. Yesterday hitting briefly in the 30 per barrel range. Were at 3105. Brent 31. 39. Well be right back on cnbc Worldwide Exchange. E clear. But at t. Rowe price, we can help guide your retirement savings. For over 75 years, investors have relied on our disciplined approach to find long term value. So wherever your Retirement Journey takes you, we can help you reach your goals. Call a t. Rowe price retirement specialist or your advisor. To see how we can help make the most of your retirement savings. T. Rowe price. Invest with confidence. Karl, dont you have fryeah, so . Ng over . It stinks in here. Youve got to wash this whole roo are you kidding . Wash it . Lets wash it with febreze. For all the things you cant wash, use. Febreze fabric refresher whoa hey mrs. Webber inhales hey, it smells nice in here and try pluggable febreze. To continuously eliminate odors for. Up to 45 days of freshness pluggable febreze and fabric refresher. [inhale exhale mnemonic]. Two more ways to breathe happy while youre watching this, im hacking your company. Grabbing your data. Stealing your customers secrets. Theres an army of us. Relentlessly unpicking your patchwork of security. Think youll spot us . You havent so far. The next wave of the internet requires the next wave of security. Were ready. Are you . Its gotten squarer. Over the years. Brighter. Bigger. Its gotten thinner. Even curvier. But whats next . For all binge watchers. Movie geeks. Sports freaks. X1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. Lets get you up to speed in the top stories. Falling to 12 year lows. A couple of opec members requested an emergency meeting due to the current market conditions. Lets have a look. Wti up 1. 3 . Bang on 31 as we look at things. Lots of investment banks cutting their forecasts. 10 is possible this year and meantime we also have the uae Energy Minister telling reuters the Market Strategy is work. Im not quite sure about that mr. Energy minister and uae. He expects a significant drop in nonopec production in 2014. Either way Oil Prices Falling sharply. Dont forget to tweet us your forecast for the price of oil. Now to todays trade of the day, another commodity is taking a hit lately and that would be copper. Prices declined since 2009 on worries over demand destruction in china. So our data team crunched the numbers to find out which companies tend to perform best and worst when copper declines so dramatically. Abbott labs, reynolds american, clorox and colgate. The biggest drags, freeport, no surprise there. Console energy, new field exploration and mosaic. For more go to cnbc. Com and check out cnbc pro. Speaking of Global Economic turmoil our next guest predicted the euro zone debt crisis and wrote about the financial crisis in the u. S. And has been seeing for years that china is the next big threat to the global economy. Joining us on the Cnbc Newsline this morning, harvard process for. Good to speak with you. The topic is oil. Can you explain the Global Economic consequences of 30 barrel oil. Its a boost for the advanced companies. Especially europe and japan. Its a big stimulus. But even saudi arabia has become fragile at this point. It probably creates problems in the global economy. But its fast. Would you go as far as to say a global recession given whats happening in china at the first time as whats happening with Global Commodities . The Global Commodities are a signal of whats going on in china. Theyre more like puts a break on it and counters it a little bit. Its hard to know the numbers in china. In some sense the low Commodity Prices are as much of a pressure of whats going on as any of the official numbers. Who seriously believes that the economy fluctuates between 6. 9 and 6. 8 . Growth slowed more than that. We dont know exactly whats going on. Its hard to know how quickly this could reverse. Great to be speaking to you this morning. Lets touch more on that bearishness on china. You have been bearish for quite sometime. Particularly because of the large amount of build up of debt. Has there been anything over the last ten days, the start of this year that has increased your bearishness or is this just now a man f a m a manifestation of thoughts you already had. Obviously the chinese authorities for years thought to manage things well and its less impressive so what if they face a real problem. The stock market fluctuates are not such a huge problem. And everyone always said of course theres a soft landing and there might be but its not that easy to manage. Other emerging markets, other countries dont do it very easily. Especially when you have high debt. And things start slowing down. A lot of projects that were okay suddenly arent. China has a lot of tools. They have a lot of reserves. Theyre willing to socialize a lot of the losses beyond what most countries are willing to do so i certainly wouldnt count them out. At the same time they wildly underrated the slow down in china. The chances that you end up with growth at just four or five percent are certainly much higher than i would say, you know 5 that the markets might have it now. Just touch on geo politics elsewhere, particularly in the middle east. Are markets underpricing that risk in 2016 . I dont know if theyre underpricing it but the situation in saudi arabia is of considerable concern. They is a failed war in yemen. Theres Huge Population growth theyre dealing with. Budget pressures. They normally can be very patient in a long run player but right now theyre kind of hanging on for dear life and thats one of the factors of why theyre pumping out oil so fast. Even talking about selling off some. In china has a lot of reserves saudi arabia has even more but at the same time its very, very difficult to manage. So just very quickly in the interest of time, given everything that we have just laid out the global worries, the Federal Reserve on track to raise rates four times this year, would that be a mistake . Well, you know, if things continue to sink at this rate thats of course not going to happen. I think the fed will hike rates four times this year still. If you look at the u. S. Economy, you know, the pressures are still there. The advanced countries are not doing at a badly. The low oil prices are not bad for europe and japan. Theyre great. Its really the emerging markets getting hammered. China is the big unknown. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Much appreciated. My pleasure. Right. Still to come here on Worldwide Exchange, if you went to sleep early last night for your top sports news, the highlight, alabama defeating clemson to win the College Football playoff title. But first as we head to break, grant johnston joins us from dallas ft. Worth with todays prison travellers forecast. Good morning, grant. The big stiory today is the snow marching through the midwest and the great lakes. We have Winter Weather advisories here spreading from kentucky through indiana through to pennsylvania. Could see 1 to 3 inches of snow. Pittsburgh, cincinnati and cleveland today. That snow eventually pushes farther to the east effecting new york city by evening but expecting minor accumulation there. The southeast meanwhile is nice and mild including the southwest over toward texas. Another rain system coming on shore for the Pacific Northwest and arctic air still locked in place up to the north. Only 2 for a high in minneapolis today. Kansas city at 32. Louisville at 36 with snow showers this morning in the northeast and highs in the 40s for new york city. Los angeles 63. Worldwide exc