Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Im wilfred frost along with seema mody this morning in for sara today. Good morning. Good morning. Lets check in on the global markets. Futures after a day which continued the very recent trend of the nasdaq leading the pack of these three main indices. Yesterday the nasdaq gained around about 0. 3, 0. 4 . S p was flat, the dow declined fractionally. Today all three expected to post gains if the futures are anything to go by. Not big gains. Dow higher by 36 points, s p by 1. Nasdaq by 5. 5 points. Tenyear treasury note continued the trend in terms of yields being lower than where they have been. 2. 387 the yield on the tenyear. We were at 2. 42 at close on friday. Asian equities in focus today. Mildly higher today as we look at what bank of japan governor kuroda has been saying. He and shinzo abe met today to discuss the economy. They did not have detailed talks about president elect trump, but he told abe he felt the u. S. Economy is growing steadily. Kuroda said he received no request from the Prime Minister on economic policy. Lets get to uk construction output rising 1. 5 . Below consensus. Markets are mainly green across europe. Yesterday the ftse 1 00 led the pack, for its 11th positive session in a row. Up 0. 2 this morning. Gaining more in the last couple of minutes because of that slightly softer than expected uk construction data. Oil prices did decline about 2 yesterday. Theyre up 0. 8 today. Still nicely above that 50 a barrel level at 51. 2. The dollar, as i mentioned, has seen strength against the pound once again today. The move accentuated by weaker uk data. 1. 2113. Getting close to a record sixmonth low fourmonth low. Lets have a look at the other currencies. A bit of Dollar Strength against the yen. The euro a bit softer. Bitcoin 4 decline this morning. Gold prices to round things off, it was flat yesterday. Up slightly today. 0. 2 . In terms of the currencies, want to pick up a point on kitt jukes story. Its a huge amount of d differentiation at the start of 2017. Its not as simple to think will the Dollar Strengthen because of the fed or weaken. You have the likes of the turkish lira, mexican peso, sterling. Theres a lot of differentiation. When you think about the u. S. , you have to think about it on a trade weighted basis. Of those three that are the weakest, all have political question marks hovering around them. Theres all sorts of different political factors to price into it. Yesterday turkey was named the most vulnerable emerging market. Its currency hits new lows day by day so far this year. Its the worst performing currency globally, down about 5 . A lot of that having do with political instability there. The uk and mexican economies have their own political question marks. Turning to todays agenda on wall street, a light day for earnings and economic data. The Mortgage Bankers association releases the Mortgage Applications at 7 00 a. M. Kb home reports earnings after the closing bell. The bond king is issuing a warning. Jeff gundlach predicts trouble for equity markets if the yield on the u. S. Tenyear treasury note moves above 3 . In his First Investor webcast, he cautioned after the recent run up in u. S. Stocks. Investors should look to peel off exposure to equities as he expects stocks to reverse, despite the post election rally. He said the bar was so low on trump to the point people were expecting markets would go down 80 and global depression, and now this guy is the wizard of oz, is expectations are high. Theres no magic here. Gundlach cited two major risks, shrinking global trade and the president elects temperament. He sees the tenyear not going below 2 before ending up again. And he sees gdp breaking out of the 2 range. He was skeptical what to do if the economy hits 3 , but eventually the trend has been going lower. Another bond investor, bill gross, saying if the tenyear hits 2. 6 well be in a bear market for the bond market, which is interesting. Just four months ago we were talking about a bull market when it comes to the bond market. Well have to see what happens to that. So many people say the equity one, this at some point, the markets will have to take a breather. We have not seen signs of that especially with the nasdaq hitting new record highs. Theres been a lot of rotation at the start of this year and the couple weeks of last year. Banks pulling back, technology taking a charge. The dow has taken a breather. Weve seen a rotation among indices and sectors. Were not pushing new lihighs or the last month gently. Next week, big banks reporting. Ill be curious to see if they can confirm the rally or if thats when people start to the first ones this week on friday. Today is the day donald trump will give his first News Conference as president elect. Its scheduled for 11 00 a. M. Eastern at trump tower in new york. You can watch the conference here on cnbc at 11 00 a. M. Eastern. The mexican peso has tumbled to historic lows ahead of the conference. Traders avoiding exposure to the currency because of concerns that the president elect could take measures that would weigh on mexicos economy. Specifically on the trade front. Also keep an eye on the chinese yuan amid questions about china, trade. And another question there has been is whether the president elect will label china as a currency manipulator. Keep in mind, the exact opposite of what weve seen from the Chinese Central Bank this year. They stepped in. Theyve been defending the currency, thats resulted in an appreciation of the chinese yuan. I wrote an article yesterday about that, it was about the three ways beijing could retaliate against trumps trade policies, one way is through the currency, using their currency as a weapon. Because we know how much of an impact it can have on global stocks and volatility. In terms of trying to weaken it quicker . Exactly. That could be one way to retaliate to trade protectionism. At the moment theyre trying to do that in a slower fashion to stem capital outflows. Theyll have their own problems if they try do that domestically. True. But they know the impacts globally, and thats one way people say they could use the currency as a way to respond to any type of trade protection. Ill have a read of it because the risk of retaliation for the things like weve been seeing recently is very, very high. We saw it in toyota, him tweeting about domestic companies, they had to pay lip service. With toyota, there was a reaction from the japanese government. Certainly something to watch. The other big political story, reports suggest an intelligence memo contains damaging allegations against president elect trumps relations with russians. Briefings included information that circulated among his points and was passed to u. S. Intelligence agencies. There are is a li the information has not been verified by the u. S. Agencies. There is a claim which says russia has material had could be used to blackmail trump. Trump responded by saying fake news, a total political witch hunt. New this morning, the kremlin says it does not have compromising material on donald trump adding that the report is a fabrication and an attempt to damage u. S. russian relations. Its not been substantiated yet. So i think we should move on. Its had a lot of attention overnight. Until substantiated, it should be ignored. Too quick at the moment for everyone to jump on rumors. Today with the tillerson hearing, that will likely be a topic discussed. And at the press conference at 11 00, im sure he will be asked. Also on the political agenda more key cabinet hearings. The spotlight will be on trumps choice for secretary of state, former exxonmobil ceo, Rex Tillerson. Hell testified a 9 15 eastern. Jeff sessions will return for day two of his hearings. Cia director nominee mike pompeo and transportation secretary elaine chao will also testify. Tillerson is sure to be top of the agenda when he heads to capitol hill. He will call for a cleareyed assessment of the United States relationship with russia. He will say russia today poses a danger but its not unpredictable in advancing its own interests. And exploring areas of collaboration with russia is based on common interests. President obama addressed the nation for the final time as president in an emotional speech in his hometown of click go last night. He touched a wide range of topics, revisiting his achievements and challenges. If i would have told you eight years ago, that america would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history, if i told you we would open up a new chapter with the cuban people, shut down Irans NuclearWeapons Program without firing a shot, take out the mastermind of 9 11, if i had told that you we would win Marriage Equality and secure the right to Health Insurance for another 0 million of our fellow citizens, if i told yall that, you might have said our sights were set a little too high. More of that coming out throughout the show. Still to come, this mornings stocks to watch. First as we head to break, a look at yesterdays top dow gainers. Overall day that was down for the dow. The dow down 0. 16 . Gosh, i shouldnt do that to myself. There were some gainers. Caterpillar tops the list. Were back in a couple minutes. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. If youre just getting up, lets get you up to speed on the market action. The Asian Session was broadly positive. Hong kong and japan in positive territory. Shanghai did decline by 0. 8 . European trade picked up in the last hour or so. It is now broadly positive. Yesterday fractionally positive with the ftse 100 the leader. Another record close. Looks set for its 12th straight day of gains. The pound is softer, again down about a half percent against the u. S. Dollar today because of trade deficit data in particular that has led the pound down another half percent after what has already been a very soft start to 2017 for the british pound. Lets look at what this means for u. S. Futures. Yesterday we continued that havent trend of the nasdaq leading among these three and the dow trailing, the s p was flat. The nasdaq up about 0. 3 . All three up fractionally this morning. In corporate news, shares of volkswagen are trading higher this morning as the company nears a settlement with the u. S. Regulators over its emissions cheating scandal. The auto maker confirming yesterday it reached a draft settlement with the Justice Department and final approval could come today. Volkswagen would plead guilty to criminal misconduct and pay a 4. 3 billion fine. That would raise the total costses the company set aside for the scandal to above 19 billion. Vw would face oversight from an independent monitor for three years. Shares are higher by 2. 5 in todays trade. Authorities say a member of samsungs founding family will be questioned as a suspect in the massive scandal that led to the impeachment of south koreas president. Samsungs vice chairman will be summoned tomorrow by investigators who are investigating whether he bribed a jailed confident to get park favors. Those include a controversial merger in 2015 that was proposed by samsung share holders. Lee and his family were the biggest beneficiaries of the deal. Samsung has had a fantastic last 12 months. Tesla has hired a top Software Engineer from apple to oversee its autopilot selfdriving efforts. Chris latner who worked at apple for a decade is best known for introducing swift, a programming language making it easier for developers to write apps for ios. Teslas autopilot feature had been run on an interim basis by the software chief at spacex. Shares of both stocks in premarket are down right now. Stocks to watch today, ford confirms it will be less profitability this year than in 2016. The company is on track to report 10. 2 billion in pretax adjusted prompt. Ford will be pressured this year as it increases spending ining emerging opportunities. Yunited airlining is raisin its Fourth Quarter forecasts, and boeing will conduct a round of layoffs of engineers as it seeks to cut costs. The cuts include dozens of jobs eligible for voluntary layoffs in california, South Carolina and washington state. More stocks to watch, Veeco Instruments expects Fourth Quarter earnings to come in above analyst forecasts. The Technology Used to make chips and l. E. D. S sees revenues in line with estimates. And Parsley Energy is buying assets in the permian basin. It has a secondary offering of 20 million shares. The stock is down 4. 8 . Shares of village road show fell nearly 3 in australia after 20 people at a theme park owned by the company were trapped on a roller coaster for almost two hours. They were seated in chairs suspended from the track when the ride became stuck. Most were easily rescued, four people could only be reached by a ladder platform. No one was injured that is my biggest fear. I love theme parks, i love roller coasters, but being stuck up there for two hours that cant be fun. Terrifying. At least no injuries. Theres been some more severe tragedies of this nature. Good point. Still to come, the top political stories including Donald Trumps first News Conference as president elect. As we head to break, todays National Forecast from the weather channel. We have some wet weather across parts of the northeast early this morning. That should move out by the afternoon hours. Showers across the ohio river valley down into the Tennessee River valley. Out west, dealing with a deluge across california, another one to two inches on top of what they already had today. Travel delays expected in los angeles as well as san francisco. Blustery conditions along the front range in colorado. And warm air across much of the south. Our temperatures here well above average. A few records could be broken across parts of texas. These are the forecast high temperatures, back into the 70s. A lot of snow melt across the deep south and in the northeast as well. Well have to keep an eye on the potential for flooding over the next couple of days. Happy wednesday. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Futures pointing to a higher open. S p 500 fractionally higher. Dow jones up 25 points. The nasdaq which hit a record high yesterday extending ets gains in the futures market, also calling for a higher open. Keep a close eye on the Biotech Sector which led to the nasdaqs outperformance in yesterdays trade. Look at currencies. In the turkish lira, it continues to hit new record lows against the u. S. Dollar on political instability and the central bank making a move today. But that wasnt enough to shed off those fears around the state of its economy. The turkish lira down about 0. 3 . The euro dollar trade in focus at 1. 05. Analysts still calling for the euro to trade in parity with the u. S. Dollar. The pound at a tenweek low against the dollar. The pound is lower, thats helping the ftse 100 move higher in todays trade. Lets move on to political news. Trumps First Press Conference as president elect set to start at 11 00 a. M. Its also day two of the confirmation hearings where trumps key nominees will be in the hot seat. Tracie potts has more on what to watch. Reporter good morning. At that News Conference, the latest allegations about russian collecting damaging personal information on the president elect, that is likely to come up, even though this was called to focus on how hell divest from his companies. As for the confirmation hearings, Rex Tillerson and elaine chao coming up today. And all of this is happening in washington on a day when president obama returns after giving his final remarks last night in chicago. Struggling to begin amid wild applause i cant do that. Reporter president obama says goodbye to 18,000 supporters and the nation. America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started. Reporter he hit on major accomplishments, the fim and auto bailouts, healthcare, killing osama bin laden. He talked about immigration, climate change, opportunity and race. For if we dont create opportunity for all people, the disaffection and division that has stalled our progress will only sharpen in years to come. Reporter he urged action. If youre disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clip clipboard, get some signatures and run for office yourself. Reporter he got choked up talking about his staff, Vice President biden and the first lady. You made me crowd and you made the country proud. Reporter americas first africanamerican president. Im asking you to believe, not in my ability to bring about change but in yours. Yes, we can. Yes, we did. Yes, we can. Thank you. God bless you. Reporter ending his term the way he began. Of course now washington prepares for a very different type of change with the onset of the trump presidency. That press conference, all eyes will be on today. Thank you very much. Coming up, the top stories and a roundup of the global markets. Stay tuned. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange here on cnbc. Good morning. Washington and wall street todays News Conference by president elect trump tops the agenda. Well talk politics, trade, the economy and more with fred neumann from hsbc. And joebama, why this hashtag is trending this morning. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange on cnbc. Good morning. Warm welcome to Worldwide Exchange on cnbc, im wilfred frost along with seema mody today. Good to be here. Yesterday the nasdaq once again led the way and hit a fresh alltime high. It was up around about 0. 3 , 0. 4 . The s p was flat. The dow declined by a slight margin. 0. 16 . This morning we are expecting positive moves across all the indices, b