>> saudi arabia's oil minister says, don't blame opec or low prices. .he energy market will rebound brent crude is up this morning. a bloomberg exclusive, just days away from turning the eurozone, lithuania's finance minister says, we are ready. >> i think both the eurozone and international markets already see us in the eurozone. that'syed flight, airbus to hand over its big challenger tebowing's dreamliner. it delivers its first a350 the qatar airways. and, maybe coming to a screen

near you. sony considers options for releasing "the interview" as obama describes north korea's hack attack as cyber vandalism. welcome to "countdown." non-opec oil producers are responsible for the plunging oil prices and they are the ones that should cut out, that is the view of two of the oil cartel's biggest producers. morning, oil prices are extending the biggest rally in more than two years. that is after hitting fresh five-year lows last week. elliott gotkine has more. to cutseems to want output unless they absolutely have to. >> that is right, mark. no one wants to be the first ones to blink in this kind of standoff.

neither the members of the oil-producing cartel, or non-opec producers. opec is adamant that it has maintained oil production at 30 million barrels a day for the last two years and the increase in output of 2 million barrels a day that has been taking place is all down to non-opec producers. that is the amount the qatari oil minister says accounts for all of the oversupply in the market. the oil minister from the united arab emirates called non-opec producers irresponsible, and at this meeting of oil ministers still taking place in abu dhabi, he says that other producers ought to stop increasing. the increase is harming the market. particularly harmful for the likes of venezuela that rely on high oil prices, and also for financing the majority of their expenditure. it is harmful for countries like iraq which have had to reduce

spending as a result of the decline in oil price as well. the saudicucumber is oil minister. he expects oil prices to rebound once economic growth gets going again. >> surely it follows that if prices drop, oil output should fall. some producers are shaken out of the market. opec's is the hope from perspective. a lot of that referring to these shale producers in north america squeezing oil from rocks and shale formations. some producers are saying, the drop in the cost of equipment and better technology is more than offsetting the drop in oil prices. although many of them have to borrow a lot of money to invest, they may not be as impacted. it may take a lot more to shake them out of the market than some of the more traditional

producers would hope. >> elliott, thanks a lot. in an exclusive interview with bloomberg, lithuania's finance minister says international markets already see his country as part of the eurozone. lithuania officially joins the zone at the start of january. he says his country's economy is ready for the euro. isi think the problem already prepared. and not only our economy considers itself already one wep from the eurozone, but have seen by the international markets as already being in the eurozone. >> let's switch gears and get to the aviation industry. after unexpected delays, airbus is scheduled to hand over its

latest a350 to qatar airways. caroline connan is on the ground where the much anticipated ceremony will take place. good morning. it is a very important milestone, isn't it? yes, the sun is rising at the moment into loose, on the new a350, the first to be delivered to the large customer, qatar airways. as you mentioned, the delivery was delayed. airline didn't give any details on why the delivery was postponed. it was mostly due to some minor cosmetic details about the interior of the plane, not about technical issues with the plane. of course, this is a milestone for airbus. this program, the a350, has been 10 years in the making. andost between $12 billion

$14 billion to develop. it is a pretty efficient and innovative plane, probably one of the most innovative of the next decade. it is using lightweight composite materials. the wings are made of lightweight carbon fiber. it is allowing the plane to save about 25% of fuel, or more than 10 million liters of fuel every year. of course, qatar airways has ordered 80 of them. it is one of the biggest customers for the a350. airbus has also received orders from other airlines, including total,irlines, delta, in 778 orders from about 41 customers. this is supposed to be the next 787 arrival of the boeing

dreamliner that entered into service in 2011. the ceo of airbus is confident 2500 of sell up to these a350 planes. >> the elephant in the room has to be the a380. is the turbulence around the future of the a380 going to affect the mood today? >> it is possible, mark. of course, even though today is all about the a350, there has been some concern on the a380. the big flagship double-decker, biggest plane on the market from airbus. 10 days ago, when this delivery was delayed, the cfo of airbus raised some concerns about 2018 and whether the a380 might have to be discontinued. the problem is that airbus has had no new orders from passenger

airlines this year for the a380. of course, they have a lot of backlog of orders. they have more than 300 orders for the a380. ough is not -- is en and 2017,ven in 20 16 but not 2018. that is when they have to decide whether to discontinue the program or invest massively to develop more fuel-efficient engines. the biggest customer of the a380, emirates, which has 140, is asking for this new engine. qatar airways has also ordered 10a380's. their fourth a380 is going to be delivered today at the same time of the new a350. they are both going to fly to doha tomorrow.

>> thanks to caroline connan in toulouse. live interviews with these gentlemen, the airbus chief executive and the chief executive of qatar airways. do stay tuned for those massive interviews coming up here on bloomberg. what do you think of the new a350? do you think the a380 will survive? a couple questions we need answered today on bloomberg. tell us what you are focusing on. one thing i'm following on is the woman who gained notoriety during the financial crisis. she started a hedge fund after becoming one of wall street's most famous analysts. she has found it harder to bet on stocks then scrutinize them. her fund is down this year. come, as we approach the end of the year, our next

guest is bullish on equities, especially in europe. ♪

>> time for today's company

news. cashing in on china's stock market boom. a billion dollar selloff. the proceeds will mainly be used haitong's shortselling finance business. -- in the next few years. a 19-month today to low after it rejected a second approach from jeremiah. ferrovial'ssays improved take her offer -- takeover offer continues to undervalue it. inquiring a rival. it is the biggest ever insurance takeover in the market. that is according to the sunday times. point 5 billion pounds deal is expected to trigger a wave of consolidation.

european stocks had their best week for a year last week. , the portfolio manager for j.p. morgan asset management's global income fund. good morning. some great stats, as we said. best week for a year. almost 2.5ays for years. there are some steps within that. what happened? 5% gain over four days. why the sudden rebound? people are realizing that russia isn't going to take the european economy down. the oil price probably looks overvalued. when people take a step back and look at the european stock market, valuations look relatively undemanding. portfolio with a yield of around 5%, which looks

pretty attractive. >> you are thinking equities is the place to be in 2015, why? >> number one, relatively undemanding valuations. we do see a cycle coming through. atticularly, when you look other fixed income type assets, they do look relatively attractive, particularly when you are looking to deliver a reasonable distribution. >> within the european equities space, where should we be looking in 2015? >> one of the things we do in our fund, we don't try to buy the bond properties, the highest dividend yielding stocks. we want to have a spread of stocks which can do quite well. a spread of stocks, really underpinned by attractive valuations. economy,e underlying is it going to justify piling

into the european equities market or not? >> piling in is going to far. people have become overly bearish on the european economy. growth has been slow, but we do see fines here. significant, we have changed our view around the ecb. we do think they will engage in further easing. whether it will be an is a debatable question. we keep going back to those valuations. they look ok. we think the area becomes investable. >> are they going to go full orck and by sovereign debt will they start with corporate debt? >> i think they have to do sovereign debt. draghi was very clear, they have one mandate, that is inflation. i think they will come back to this idea that they have one needle on their comp is, namely inflation.

the next step has to become to native -- has to be quantitative easing. have they been too late? that is a debatable question. i think they have done enough for stability. there is a reason we are buying european stocks for their dividend yields. we are not looking for huge amount of capital growth. 5% dividend yield looks ok. >> what about the u.s. equity market? it has been a great year, the s&p at or near record highs. does that continue? does europe outperform the u.s.? >> that is a very difficult question. we are overweight the u.s. as well as europe. one of our clearest that's across our portfolio is to be overweight developed market equities. we are going back to the growth in the global economy. when we look at the u.s. economic data, it looks pretty good. the fall in the oil prices is a

tax cut for the u.s. consumers. we do see momentum in the european market. the fed will make those first best award raising interest rates next year. we are overweight developed market stocks over emerging markets. we feel comfortable as we look into 2015. >> when will the fed raise rates? >> i think it is june or september. i think the market perhaps is being a little bit sanguine. to my mind, june is not out of the question. there should be some small chance they raise ahead of that. the data is strong, particularly the unemployment data. that is one of the key determinants which will drive the move to a slightly more tight policy. we are looking for small steps. 25 basis point in june, something like that. >> we are going to come back to you in a second. we will ask more about his take on emerging markets stocks.

25% of their strategy is in high yields. that has been a bit of a selloff in high-yield debt in recent months. more on that too. stay with us. ♪

>> welcome back. talib sheikh, portfolio manager at j.p. morgan asset management. what is behind that call? >> you have to split emerging

markets. the old emerging markets are really leveraged off the investments we saw in china. we remain neutral on those. we see no opportunities. you need to counterbalance that by some other areas of the emerging markets. the fall in the oil price, the easing measures we have seen in china, means that some areas of the market can do quite well. put those two together, we remain pretty neutral. funds, we think there can be some attractive dividend yields there but we think it is too early to get aggressively overweight. emerging markets underperformed developed markets significantly. there is a valuation question, but we see relatively few catalysts on the horizon. long does the commodity-related selloff last? >> i have no idea, but we think it continues.

we know that we will see continued weakness in iron ore prices, steel prices, and within our portfolios, we see no reason to get involved yet. >> do you get involved in the oil sector with high yields? that is the sector investors seem to be worrying about as the price of oil declines. >> of course, 20% of the index in the u.s. so extreme weakness last week across that sector. as a top-down investor, you are looking at, can we end up with a liquidity-driven selloff? certainly within our portfolios, around 25% in high yields, we look to get some capital to work with. the bounceback has been too quick. we don't think about oil related weaknesses spreading into a wholesale high-yield route. we think it is probably a little bit early to be aggressively overweight. >> yields are well off record lows of june. >> of course.

we think as we move to 2015, we can put some more capital to work. certainly in an economy where we think it is healing, that can be attractive. the flipside side of a falling oil price, as a multi-asset investor, hopefully have other parts of your portfolio which are poised to benefit from that effective tax cut to the u.s. consumer. >> how does the japanese market feel to you? >> pretty bullish. within the income funds, there is not much yields there. we are overweight japan. victory- mr. abe's means he will be able to push through. the bank of japan remains accommodative. yields continuing to make new lows. that has profound implications for the global economy.

we could probably do quite well if people really think about global -- about bonds in a global context. going to spread out of japan, which ultimately is the whole point of abenomics. >> a year ago, everyone was saying that u.s. yields were going to head in that direction. 2015 will ber proved wrong in a year? >> the duration call. people do still feel nervous about it. there is some value at the back end of the curve. the curves probably flatten, but we believe that yields can be relatively supported here. -- debate in the market is and we would consider ourselves on the side of consensus -- is what is going to happen with the dollar. we are overweight dollars. there is a million and one reasons why we feel that is correct. >> everyone is overweight dollars, overweight u.s.

equities, overweight japan. is that a concern? >> of course. some of the volatility you've seen over the last month or so has been the overextending of consensus trades. we would argue that people are not massively low risk here. you are right, there is a consensus about being overweight u.s. equities. more debate around europe. i would say that these are not dramatically over-risk. >> what is your biggest worry? >> i guess it is europe. have they gone too late? if we do qe, will it be big enough? will it become deflation? loads start to come back to the for? we are not prepared to move into that bearish camp yet. that is one of the biggest worries we have. >> have a great holiday. talib sheikh, portfolio manager

of j.p. morgan asset management. still to come, video for christmas. youtube has a proposition. ♪

>> you are watching "countdown." time for a look at the foreign exchange market. the dollar matching its two senior high against the euro. a day for the u.s., even bigger tomorrow. we have gdp data on europe. those pieces of data could determine the direction of the euro against the dollar. the dollar last week rose to its highest levels since 2009. on that gdp data, expect the economy to expand 4.3% last

quarter. the first estimate was 3.9%. [inaudible] so says the survey. -dollar index spot has gained 12% this year. that is the best performer of 10 developed nation currencies tracked by bloomberg. that is an interesting part. that is a year today chart. u.s. dollar index up by 10%. i mark barton in london. these are the bloomberg top headlines. oil minister is concerned that crude oil prices will correspond with global demand. he told a conference in abu had beent a glut created by a lack of participation with producers outside of opec. prices rose 5% last week.

an exclusive interview with bloomberg, lithuania's finance minister says international markets already see his country as part of the eurozone. lithuania joins the eurozone at the start of january. rimantas sadzius says there will be great advantages to adopting the euro. >> advantages. better competitiveness. better business climate. in the economic region. greece's prime minister has offered a compromise to ensure presidential elections go smoothly. >> after the presidential elections, we can and large the government coalition with

personalities that believe in the european perspective of the country so the next age will find us more united. >> big day for airbus, its first a350 airliner will be handed over to qatar airways. plane is a direct competitor tebowing's dreamliner and has been scheduled for hand over this month. watchmakers are facing the same kind of challenges as other businesses, a volatile global economy and adoption of new technology. bloomberg has an exclusive interview with one of the world's leading watchmakers. >> let's talk about hong kong. it is a city that is renowned around the world for luxury watches. >> yes.

luxury in general. >> what is different that you want us to know about? traditional watchmaking is not so often avant-garde. it is traditional. this is both traditional but avant-garde. >> is all technology part of a history that is about to go away? are watches evolving? apple is coming out with -- >> iwatch. >> now there is a shift. are you going to adapt? are you going to create your own smart watch? >> we are working on it. will most probably come out with a smart watch. >> how will asia factor in this new drive? >> i think asia will really be the market where young people understand, and where young

people want these watches. >> thank you so much, a pleasure to talk with you. >> thank you. >> the festive season has proved a busy time for youtube videos. gift wrapping and holiday makeup tutorials are some of the most popular. i'm joined by the global head of acquisition for europe. caroline is with me as well. i was fascinated to see one of your charts. normally, you see the early christmas fanfare in november. according to your graph, the early inspiration happens at the beginning of september. >> that's right, mark. >> people start looking for inspiration for christmas. i think what people look for in early september, it tends to be the eager elves in the office.

they are ahead of the rest of us. we see a lot of people looking for party venues, venues of previous parties, and information as to what the best party might be. after how does it evolve september? >> we start to see the real christmas lovers appear. they start to look for inspiration for unusual gifts. how do i make my own christmas decorations? how do i get recipes? as you know, you need to have a christmas cake made in october. >> i have to pour a lot of booze on it as caroline told me earlier. >> your job is now seeking out the videos that i'm going to look for. but also, how brands can make the most out of this. give us some ideas of what brands have done.

>> let's take an example of something like grocery retail. most of the retailers are working with youtube to create festive content. what they realize is that more than one third of people will shop somewhere other than their usual supermarket over the christmas period. over a quarter of people will buy higher-priced foods. is theey are looking for youtube stars to create more information for people. whether it is tesco or sings people they want to help feel more festive earlier on and use their products to be able to do so. >> there is a man with no greater presence on youtube pie. pewdie he is swedish. i saw my first ever video. i'm going to give him another go. game. him playing a shrek it is incredible how many

subscribers this guy has. pie has more than 32 million subscribers. that is another category that pops at christmas. andfight between xbox playstation is played out on the store shelves, but also in the games people choose to play. that is driven by people like pie who influence these young children and adults. when he is playing the games that you might not play, you might not understand it. e hase love what pewdie pi to say. it is very credible, very authentic. >> it is quite naughty, not something for my three-year-old son to watch. shreke was saying about or the chicken schreck was running after. we don't have to go there here. it was a bit risque. >> that is keeping people's attention, making it fun. one of the things you are seeing

is the way these stars are turning to put content on. >> they come for one purpose. they may come as a makeup artist and want to teach you how to perfect your smoky eye. what they realize is once they capture the imagination of the audience, they can hold their attention. we see makeup stars become beauty mavens. then we see them become fashion icons. themselves,wing up changing how their lives are going. they want to teach others about what they are doing. >> -- has written this book. revealed.ame was a ghostwriter help to write the book. has it damaged her at all? >> i wouldn't know. if you look at her success, what she's been able to do is connect with an audience that would

never be able to find her otherwise. they've been able to connect with somebody who is a reflection of them. they can connect and have this conversation. when she is creating a video or writing a book, she is meeting -- making a connection with them. about the earnings of telecoms companies all the time, or mobile phone companies. each time, it is video data. that is the way everyone wants to consume things. they want to be doing video. how much more are we watching youtube then we used to? youtubeast year alone, watch time has gone up by 50%. there is a huge amount of growth in terms of how much people are watching. that is a global audience which is more than one billion users. incredible size of audience

consuming ever more video content. it is right that telecoms companies want to get into video bandwidth. some of the top companies are using youtube stars to promote their products. >> how does one become a youtube star? is there a recipe? think the recipe is first of all to have a passion. , werdless of what it is will find something. >> it is not going to be me chasing a chicken with shrek, which is what mr. pewdie pie was doing. thank you very much indeed. derek scobies. you can join the conversation on twitter. do you play these games? with shrek chasing the chicken. i know caroline does. are you on twitter, derek? and there i am.

what is your favorite youtube superstar? still to come, u.k. stocks in the doldrums. ♪

>> welcome back. time for today's bart chart. why are u.k. stocks in the doldrums? this is the ftse 100 index in 2014. this is the u.k. benchmark stock index. today, it has fallen by 3%. that is its first annual decline since 2011. there have been highs for the ftse in 2014. notably, the place i've settled, the green circle. that was when the index closed at 6878, the highest since december 1999, the day the ftse closed at its all-time high of 6930. since then, as you can see very clearly, it has been a volatile ride. the drop in commodities has meant that energy and mining shares have dragged the ftse 100 index down. investors in u.k. stocks among the biggest developed market

losers in 2014. only austria, greece, and portugal have fared worse. withre the ftse's 3% fall gains for the s&p 500, the dax, the ibex, the ftse mib in italy, the nikkei in japan and the hang seng index. it has been a bit of a laggard among global developed market stocks. it is all about oil and gas, and mining companies. shell rio tinto, bhp, these companies make up 20% of the ftse. there are others on top of those. down 45% since june. with commodity prices in general down by 20% since april, that goes along way to explaining why we've seen this decline in the ftse 100.

since the ftse reached that 14-year high in may, bhp billiton has dropped 31%. bg down 28%. anglo american, 27% lower. rio tinto down by 15%. glencore, 9% lower. since thaterformer date, since the may high, was tarlow oil which has lost over half its value in that time. if you are looking for a little ray of light, go there. see that little spike? tradingthe last four days for the ftse. the four trading days through friday, december 19. during that run, the ftse rose by 6%, its best four-dave performance and -- four-day performance in four years. there now.5% from

below that 14-year high on may. on december 15, that low, it was 10% below that may high. the ftse has been recovering. time will tell if the ftse is coming out of its doldrums. lithuania will become the 19th country to adopt to the euro on january 1. we sat down with their finance minister, rimantas sadzius, who says the country is ready. let's get overtime hans nichols in berlin. tell us how this is going to work. is this going to make it easier for lithuania? >> yes, long-term, they should see borrowing costs come down. they need to be concerned about their economy as well. did say that he expects them to rely on domestic demand for raising funds.

they may go to the international market later on in the year. here is what happens in january. you can start training for euros. 3.45 is the cutoff rate. the finance minister is confident his country can manage the transition. have a listen. economies are already prepared for joining the and the -- not only our economy considers itself already one small step from the eurozone, but we have seen that international markets and rating agencies -- another advantage they will have, they will be joining the same currency union with estonia and latvia. those countries have already joined the euro. he did express concern about what is happening with the ruble

in russia. impact, and a weakening of russian currency, is aning of demand objective reason for difficulties in trade relations. of course, we are all in favor of normalizing both political and economic issues associated with all these geopolitical tensions of the last year. expense ofthe violation of international law. , he did dampen growth expectations for 2015. it won't be 3.4%. more in the 2.7% growth. that will be on the upper end of the eurozone, now with 19 countries using the euro.

will be the effect of lithuania joining the euro on the ecb in frankfurt? >> there is going to be a little bit on the governing council, some changes. you take the five biggest economies, they will now share four seats and they will have to rotate. the smallest economies, 14, they will share 11 seats. germany will now skip one every five votes. >> thanks a lot. on the cause our international correspondent in berlin. december 22, big day. have a look at what is happening in spain. big lottery taking place. the outlook for equity markets in europe is a positive one. ftse futures up. we will look ahead to the market open. ♪

>> the fallout of the sony hack attack continues. the fbi announced it was indeed north korea they believe to be behind the attack that prompted sony to cancel the release of "the interview." here with more is caroline hyde. the u.s. is seeking help from china. >> china is north korea's number one trading partner. very few people have access to the internet in north korea. the elite do and some military services.

clearly, they feel they can hopefully find out more if china was indeed to help give some more data on what the practices were. when it comes to this retaliation that obama has teresting in precedent being set. clearly, it is going to be a measured response. what they't decided will work towards helping. they are going to china for help, but also japan, thailand, bolivia. >> regarding this case, our nation is coordinating closely with the united states. we support the measures taken by the and added states in this regard. cyber attacks are a serious problem related to our nation. we strongly criticized the hack. ,> japan is working closely south korea is working closely with the united states. >> are they going to release

this film or not? >> sony is saying they will distribute it. >> thanks, caroline. stay with us. "on the move" is next. we will have a live interview with the airbus chief executive. ♪

>> good morning. welcome. you are watching "on the move." i'm guy johnson standing in for jon ferro in london. we are just moments away from the start of european equities trading. what are we watching? , stocks inight shanghai hitting a four-year high. almost 50% gain in 2014. investors seem to be shrugging off any slowdown concerns. oil definitely a big theme. opec continues to play the blame game. the oil producers pointing the ,inger outside of the bloc saying that while oil is down by

more than 50%, it is others that are responsible. oil down pretty heavily. who can afford to blink last? and, delivery day for airbus. after a series of delays, the company will hand over its new a350 to qatar airways. we are live in toulouse with the airbus ceo in around 30 minutes time. -- that is what we are watching this morning. how are the european equity markets opening this morning? caroline hyde. >> 20 seconds into trading, we are likely to see perhaps the fifth day of gains on the stoxx 600. the ftse up 0.5% already. a bit of festive cheer creeping in. we have risk appetite back on because oil seems to be trading up for a second day. let's check in on brent. up 2.5%.