right here in london, we sit tight as the ftse is just 32 points short of breaking an all-time high. that's what we are watching this morning. futures markets in europe edging a little bit lower. dax futures off by 27 points. expecting a little pullback at the open. manus: the equity map just beginning to show some declines. flat in paris. it is deflation there. glaxo -- wasn't glaxo, smithkline. marconi just went to zero. there is that very prophetic thinking out there. all countries eventually end up near zero. they go bust or they get taken over. bae systems not doing well this morning. you've got astra also declining.

randgold in the first uptick of the day. the complexion is lower. asia, making levels we haven't seen since the year 2000. a couple of individual names. some deals, share buybacks coming through. there is something good in the world when you get a takeover stock that opens up. rexam, being taken over. the stock finished at 559.5. caroline hyde will take you through the details on that. there's suggestion from the brokers that they may have antitrust issues. nestle, one of the biggest food companies in the world. revenue missed the target of 5%. caroline will take you through those numbers shortly. swiss re, they are doing a

buyback. schneider doing a buyback as well netting himself 80%. they have restructuring charges in the united states. the dividend 4.25 swiss franc. they've been doing a share buyback. the stock of 1.12%. rexam now up nearly 6%. dividend is the story there. you've seen a nice up left in nestle and rexam. the dollar it is going to be a dominant discussion. we had hans in from morgan stanley saying it will be down to what janet yellen says. that's live data. she has the unemployment data. the three-month data, the best set of employment in a in 17 years.

in terms of whether she is patient and wants to stay lower for longer, a myriad of issues going on. the dollar is a little bit lower on a dovish fed which identifies the currency as a drag on the u.s. story. this puppy is going higher. back to you. jonathan: thank you very much. the ftse down by about 0.3%. a little bit further from that all-time high. for now, the big news in greece. the european central making life any easier for greece as the new government prepares to submit a loan extension request. the ecb gave greece a small increase in emergency funds. there's a report from a german newspaper that we can also talk about. let's get out to hans nichols. where do you want to start? a busy 12 hours. hans: it is going to be perhaps even busier as this morning progresses.

here is what we know from the newspaper. the ecb may want greece to impose capital controls among but it is important to note that the imposition of capital controls can only come from that country's central bank. cyprus, about two years ago, it was part of a larger 10 billion euro bailout package. that's when capital controls were imposed. by itself, the ecb can't force this on cyprus -- excuse me, on athens. what we will be looking for now is more confirmation, trying to figure out any splits in the ecb. last night, it was pretty clear. there is a separate matter access to emergency liquidity funding. they increased it to 68.3 billion euros. it was a marginal increase, just another 3.3 billion euros in breathing space. that's an indication the ecb is playing hardball. they are not going to provide greece a safety valve.

two developments out of athens yesterday evening. we had some positive news and comments from mr. vara farkas. here's what he said. the application will be written in such a way that it will satisfy the greek side and the president of the eurogroup. one way to read the delay that we have here because they were supposed to submit bids yesterday, is they are trying to find compromise. they are trying to find some way that everyone can be on the same page. however, and this is cutting against a deal when you look at the program that athens was talking about yesterday evening, mr. zebra's speaking to parliament, a couple things in there. the budget surplus down to 1.5% versus 3%. that is acceptable to the eurogroup. but on privatization, they want to roll that back. the eurogroup once the

privatization to continue. on labor market reforms, they are heading in different directions. it comes down on whether or not you can gloss over these terms on this proposal that we are expecting any hour now. then you have to have some official approval. jonathan: i go back to some of the comments we've seen in the international sphere. you could say that greece only makes up 2% of euro zone gdp but the whole world is watching this. u.s. treasury secretary jack lew sounding a warning for both sides in this debate. what did he have to say? hans: he warned varoufakis not to cut it too close. the implications could be disastrous. what is interesting to me about the lew comments is it is almost the other direction from what president obama sent a week ago when angela merkel was visiting. he seemed more sympathetic with the new greek government. now you have lew pressuring them

to go the other way, to have some sort of agreement with their creditors. it seems to me that lew has switched and it is an indication that everyone is getting nervous. jonathan: it seems that way. hans and, thank you for joining us. let's bring in the head of investments across bridge capital. great to have you with us. let's cut through some of the noise and talk about the things we do know. emergency liquidity funding getting closer to the end of the month. no deal. looks like they are coming out of the bailout package. what does it mean for the banking sector in greece? guest: they gave less than the increase and now capital control. i interpret this as ecb saying greece has to put more money to work. the target that greece has to meet is 3% primary surplus.

they are at 1.5%. you cannot meet primary surplus if your banks or your economy is not functioning well. in a matter of saying, greece has to put more money to work by putting capital control and others. greek banks need the support. they were looking for 10 billion. they got only half of that. it means that the working environment for greek banks is difficult. it is going to be very challenging if you are a greek bank. jonathan: the ecb can't impose capital controls on greece. it is not clear that that is the recommendation. they are citing people in ecb circles. there's going to be some interested parties to put the pressure on greece. beyond the banking sector, the agreement or the likelihood of extension for the loan, a lot of people want to write the headline, greece is blinking. that's not what is happening now, is it? guest: i feel there is a lot of posturing going on. i also believe that a deal is in

the interest of both parties. i don't think any greek politician wants to be making a decision that greece goes out of the eurozone. greece goes out of the eurozone only because greeks want to go out of the eurozone. i don't think anyone is going to say they will go out of the eurozone. also remember that the things mr. tsipras wants to do, those are one of the recommendations that the troika is making. i believe there will be a deal. greece cannot get it easy. the ecb and germany are not backing down. jonathan: in terms of investments, you like a trade. what have you been doing in the background? guest: i'm not doing anything in greece. i think there's more a headline view. the portfolio is doing very well. i also recommended long euro-dollar trade at 1.10.

everyone is long dollar. as we saw in the currency minutes last night, the fed is not prepared to raise the rates so quickly. i'm happy with that. jonathan: we will talk about the federal reserve after the break. let's check in on some of our top stock stories. centrica posted a full-year loss of $1.6 billion. the stock down by over 8%. nestle on the move. reported its lowest annual sales growth in five years. the stock does edge higher by about 0.3%. we will speak to the ceo. during this show, we are watching swiss re. the company missed profit estimates and will buy up to one million swiss francs worth of shares. later in this hour, we will speak to the swiss re cfo. a conversation with david call in about 20 minutes.

also, another earning story out of france. we speak with philip lazare. we will ask all about cyber security in a world of contactless money exchanges. that's going to be fascinating. next, we talk about a dovish federal reserve in the u.s. and what it means for markets. the ftse is just short of an all-time high. stay with us. ♪

jonathan: welcome back.

here is how stocks are opening in london. the ftse flirting with all-time highs. the s&p 500 on wall street breaking into record territory. today, japan takes the headlines. the nikkei closes at a 15-year high. dovish fed minutes. fed officials judge that dollar strength and uncertainty in greece have inclined them to keep rates near zero lower. if you didn't get through all those minutes, i don't blame you. bloomberg has tracked the amount of words in the federal reserve minutes over the last number of months. we break through a thousand words. if you got bored reading that, i don't blame you. let's bring in manish singh. the words, it does mean something. they are scared of their own shadow.

they are really struggling to communicate what they want to get across to the market, to investors, to main street. guest: there's a lot of talk. the fed doesn't want to create a wave. they want to stay on the sidelines and keep watching what is happening. the statement was very clear, that the fed would rather risk inflation then start tightening. what if you look at this, almost 35 central banks have eased. by even staying where they are they are actually tightening. i would say it is not a bad minutes. according to my view, i still expect the fed will probably move in september. i don't expect more than 50 basis points increase. jonathan: big question, these comments, they predate that blowout jobs report from january. it paints the picture of a pretty solid labor market in the united states. does that make a difference to

you? guest: it does slightly in the sense that we have congress testimony next week of janet yellen. you will also have numbers from walmart which is a big earnings number. i'm not saying that fed cannot raise in june, but there's a very small probability they will do it. what really surprised me, they talked about the timing of the rate increase moving the markets. the fed is worried about how the markets will react. it is interesting to hear they saycare so much. the strong dollar is also making the fed worried. especially if the earnings are coming from abroad. i would still believe that it is positive, but i'm not so sure about it as a whole doing well. jonathan: two questions here. is the market still more dovish than the fed would like it to be?

and, is the fed encouraging that anyway? guest: i think the market is not as dovish. if you look at the 10-year yield, they lost all of that. it is startling that people are talking about increasing the rate. [indiscernible] the market is really positioning and pricing in tightening, which is not happening now. jonathan: back to the labor market, u.s. wage growth versus the federal reserve benchmark rate. it told us quite a decent story after the hike. pretty tight. the last couple years, it starts to me nothing because rates go nowhere. what is that chart telling you right now? guest: earnings are a good indication of inflation. why is fed going to raise rates? if you are not seeing any increase in hourly rate, then the fed doesn't move. the chart clearly shows that you

might have some false moves. then the fed doesn't want to be the one to move and cut back. i believe there should be -- [indiscernible] jonathan: and you are sticking with september. manish singh sticking with september. we will get minutes from the ecb a little later today. they will be coming out at 12:30 u.k. time. for now, let's check in on centrica shares, down by almost 8%. earnings collapse. uncomfortable difficult trading conditions. we will talk about that company after this short break. ♪

jonathan: welcome back. good morning. one stock in focus this morning, centrica, falling the most since 2008 after the company said it will slash its dividend. it posted a loss on slumping oil and gas prices. let's bring in caroline hyde. walk us through the big headlines coming out of centrica and what is really making life difficult for this company. caroline: double whammy of slumping oil prices and a rather too warm 2014, which meant we didn't need to rack on our heating quite as much. this is the biggest supplier of

energy in the u.k. it owned british gas. suddenly, we are seeing a net loss of one billion pounds. they are having today huge write-downs. right down to the tune of 1.4 billion pounds. you've got nymex crude oil slumping 51% as you see on your screen. this is a company in problems. they brought earnings per share down 28%. the gas prices, but also having to make big cuts not only to capital expenditures they are slashing that by 40%, they are also slashing their dividend by 30%. they say the final dividend will be rebasing by 30%. to add to that, there's a strategic review. this is a new chief executive taking over. mr. khan joining back in january

from bp. he's got so much on his plate. is any of this going to get easier? i don't think so. they've got pressure. the political pressure is going to be ramping up i of the general elections. a lot of these big players, they want to see falling energy prices. that is what has been called on by the labour party, the conservative party the conservatives and liberal democrats wanting to see power prices lower. they all show -- they also want to investigate a competition probe that is going on into themselves and the other suppliers. so many headwinds. now a strategic review. they have to keep our prices low and face a commission. no wonder shares are down 7.5%. jonathan: thanks, caroline.

managed saying -- manish singh still with me. this is becoming a very, very politicized sector as we head into the general election on top of the fact that they are dealing with falling oil prices. there is pressure to pass on the price cuts to consumers. is this a sector you want to be holding? guest: not in the u.k. this is a close election. it will be an election issue. i'm not long u.k. energy stocks. i'm looking at u.s. names. these are the energy stocks that i'm long. jonathan: i look at brent dropping again today. you are long some of the big u.s. names. warren buffett took a headline this week. what is he getting wrong? jonathan: -- guest: what i would say is that they are putting costs -- either

they are cutting down capital expenditures, cutting jobs, and i also believe that oil is pretty much at its bottom now. let's not forget that shale oil is not going away. shale oil is the biggest fallout of the u.s. qe policy. i think that is a very interesting thing to remember in mind. oil services companies will have to respond by keeping constant control. if you look at the capital expenditure of some of these companies, they are huge. start cutting back on that. jonathan: just very quickly, oil, a huge wealth transfer across the world. it is hitting some energy companies. here, it is pretty good for some of these emerging markets. have you been buying any stocks out there? guest: yes, india has its budget

plan next weekend. it is extremely well-positioned. energy is big in india. india's economy is coming around to a positive. jonathan: long india. conviction call from mannish thing. thank you very much for joining us. coming up, we speak to the cfo of swiss re after the reassurance giant cut its dividend. they did announce a sizable share buyback program as well. we will get the thoughts of the chief financial officer. here is a picture of the equity markets in europe. it is about level. look at the ftse, down by 0.5%. creeping away from that record high close back in 1999. we are getting further and further away. the dax coming down as well. will greece go for a deal? will they try to get an extension of the loan agreement?

can they reach a compromise? that's the big question. the athexz stock exchange opens shortly. for now if you want to talk i'm on twitter. ♪

jonathan: welcome back. this is "on the move." 30 minutes into your trading day in europe. this is what the markets are looking like. the ftse 100 down by 33 points. creeping further away from that all-time high. the dax also coming lower down by 77 points. the nikkei in japan took the headlines overnight, closing at its highest level in 15 years. let's get some stock stories to watch with caroline hyde. caroline: focusing on the key movers, a bit of m&a in the air. rexam if you are interested in tin cans, beverage cans being

offered some 17% premium bible corp. in the united states. currently trading up about 3%. many people feeling there could be some concerns with antitrust reviews. maybe they will have to sell off assets. at the moment, trading 4% higher for rexam. many have called it up as much as 16%. keep an eye on centrica, down 8%. the worst fall for this company since 2008. one billion pounds net loss biggest energy supplier in the united kingdom hit with a double whammy. it is too warm and oil prices have slumped by half. difficult situation for the new chief executive to be taking on at the moment. let's look at nestle, just up

about 0.3% on the back of its numbers. the biggest food company. 67 brands. who knew? but they have the slowest growth in five years. they are saying, 2015, we are going to get back to our numbers and margins are going to improve. the underlying numbers are being hit by the foreign exchange numbers. but the main numbers aren't, of course. back to you. jonathan: thank you very much. there's three of the top corporate stories we are watching. one other is swiss re. they lower their dividend after fourth-quarter profit fell on charges related to the restructuring of the u.s. business. joining us now, the swiss re insurance chief financial officer.

great to have you with us. let's start with the earnings. is this a short-term blip given some of the charges related to the u.s. restructuring? [no audio] it appears we've lost connection with david cole of swiss re insurance. fourth-quarter profit missing estimates. we'll bring you back on the line when we can. let's get a market check. the f and sock -- the athens stock exchange opening up. the ftse down in london. we are waiting to see whether we will break that all-time high. there's the ase, up just over 1%. we will have to wait to find out. we will get out of hans nichols when we can. for now, the top stories at bloomberg. greece's government said to be planning a six-month loan extension request to be presented today to reach a deal

with creditors. the request comes a day later than planned according to a government official. yesterday, ecb policymakers raised the amount of urgency -- of emergency funds available to greek banks. the u.s. federal reserve signaled that it is willing to keep interest rate that record lows for more time. fed officials judged dollar strength and uncertainty from greece to ukraine keeping rates near zero for longer. the dollar dropped after central bank minutes were released. in equity markets, the headline in asia, the nikkei crossed a 50-year high today closing at that level for the first time since 2000. stocks rose to the highest level in more than a year. that beat analyst forecasts and was driven by demand from asia and the united states. coming up, we will speak exclusively about cyber security

after a company reported full-year numbers this morning. you don't want to miss that conversation. ♪

jonathan: good morning and welcome back. let's talk swiss re. the company announced a share buyback but lower their dividend after profits fell on charges related to restructuring.

joining us now from zurich, first on bloomberg this morning, the swiss re chief financial officer, david cole. great to have you with us. let's start by talking about the numbers. a miss for the fourth quarter. is that just a short-term blip related to u.s. restructuring charges? david: absolutely. we are happy with the overall results of those discussions. we maintain strong relationships with our clients and delivered a strong improvement in economic outlook for our shareholders. we are comfortable that we have taken positive actions. jonathan: i'm sure they will be very happy to see that share buyback. give me the motive behind that. why not to, why not three? david: first we actually have increased our regular dividend by about 10% this year. for the third year, we will pay a special dividend.

over the last couple years, we've demonstrated exceptional possibility. we haven't been able to fully invest excess capital into the business. we been looking for intelligent ways to return it to our shareholders. under current swiss regulations and tax laws, there is an opportunity for us to use a special account on our balance sheet that allowed us to return capital to our shareholders in a tax-advantaged way. with this year's proposed dividends, we will signal to our shareholders that we will continue to look for intelligent ways to return excess capital to them. henceforth, the proposal to initiate a share buyback program. jonathan: i want to take you back to january, the huge move in the swiss franc after the national bank capitulated on the cap of the swiss franc. we have heard varying impacts on swiss companies. what did it mean for your

business? david: it actually means very little for us. we are a well-diversified insurer. our liabilities and assets are materially matched in various currencies. switzerland itself is a small impact on our business. jonathan: you've seen the moves in the bond markets, yields turning negative all the way to eight years. negative bond yields do they make sense as an investment? what do they mean for the reinsurance business? david: low interest rates are a challenge and prolonged low interest rates are an even greater challenge. negative interest rate are quite a concern. we have to be careful about asset allocation. we have to see whether we can deliver satisfactory returns to our shareholders while maintaining a good quality portfolio.

we watch the interest rate environment. we understand that with the relatively low growth prospects, interest rates are low. we are a long-term investor and we need to continue matching high quality assets with our liabilities. there's no doubt, the lower interest rate environment puts pressure on all investors. jonathan: you've got to deal with the low interest rate environment, tension in greece ukraine, but that all together for me. david: it is a challenging environment. frankly speaking, we are a well-positioned company. we have quite a bit of flexibility. challenging environments don't make it easy. we will continue to focus on providing long-term solutions to our clients. we do have the ability to reallocate capital around the world. we watch these developments closely. we position ourselves to beloit -- to avoid disproportionate

impacts. we have almost nonexistent exposure to greece and the peripherals in europe, and the ukraine. these are areas of concern, but we have to look beyond just this quarter and make sure we continue focusing on our clients. jonathan: as we focus more on your company specifically looking to sell that stake in brandon howard, how is that coming along? david: that's a market rumor that i'm not going to comment on. jonathan: no comment at all? david: no comment at all. jonathan: are you looking to sell any of your assets? david: we are long-term investors. from time to time, we do dispose of assets. if you look at 2014, you will see that we did reduce some of our exposure to the equities market, but that is just part of the normal business approach. there's a very strong business

model that we introduced several years ago. we have a number of different business units to give us access to risk pools around the world. there's nothing i would like to discuss in terms of asset disposals. jonathan: so we assume you will hold onto that 15% stake. david: we shouldn't be responding to market rumors. no comment. jonathan: david, thank you very much. joining us first on bloomberg television this morning. let's talk about cyber security with another company that reported earnings in the last 24 hours. a gang of online hackers reportedly captain ted banks and atms around the world, making off with more than $1 billion. a report came out this week. how does ingenico, a french company which creates tech protect itself against attacks? the company just reported earnings of 20%.

philip lazare, the ceo, joins us now. great to have you with us. talk to me about the security challenges and whether that is a big opportunity for you. philippe: good morning. clearly security is something which is in the dna of our company. we are working on that. [indiscernible] we are bringing some very powerful systems of preventing fraud on the internet for internet payments. jonathan: there's a big buzz in the u.k. that banks are starting to replace the numbers with fingerprint technology. it could take a few years to roll out. how safety you think fingerprint technology is, and what does it mean for your current rollout of terminals? philippe: most of the solutions

that we are putting in our terminal are extremely strong. we don't take any risks. the global idea of fingerprints the only solution which is on the market today -- you compare yourself to yourself. you put your fingerprint within the terminal and then you read it with the smartphone. it is not completely an open system. we believe it is a decent level for the consumers. the rest of the security is coming from the terminal itself. jonathan: apple pay rolled out in the u.s. what impact has the u.s. apple pay launched had on you thus far and what does it mean when it gets rolled out globally? philippe: so far, just keep in mind that "globally" is a word

which is not completely the right one when we speak about the payment industry. the concept is global, but the execution is very local. if you think the reason why apple started with the u.s., it is very simple. they are working with u.s. acquirers. they are working with international schemes people and they are using all the infrastructure. if you want to expand such a solution, you have to deal with the local acquirer, the local ecosystem, the local regulation related to security. it will take time. from the ingenico perspective, it is good news because they are using our terminals and some of our competitors' terminals to deal with the apple pay solution. jonathan: i want to talk about

m&a with you and software versus hardware in your business area -- your business. you spent $1 billion in july 2014 on an online payment services provider. can we expect ingenico to push further into software and away from hardware? philippe: our strategy is based on the fact that we want to cover all the channels. they have shops stores, and they have an e-commerce site and we are working on being able to bring to those people electronic security in each channel. it is clear that we have a strong market position for hardware. we are deploying our solution in something like 140 different countries. we are almost everywhere.

we are number two on the u.s. market. we've decided three or four years ago to move from that your hardware business to something more broad to a broader solution and broader supplier. we have made two acquisitions. the first was a belgium company. the next one is a dutch company with u.s. capitol. it is a big part of our strategy to keep investing in this area. jonathan: have you got your eye on anything right now? philippe: excuse me? jonathan: have you got your eye on any particular companies right now? philippe: no, we don't have any clear targets so far. we are working on -- our m&a people and a lot of external bankers and people they have a lot of ideas for us. we are very cautious in the

choice of our targets. we are not going to launch a new acquisition without making absolutely sure that such an acquisition could fit our strategy. jonathan: finally, there is so much interest in this space right now, driven mainly by the hacking threats and the stories emanating from that. as you look at the space, what are you most excited about? philippe: if you look at the payment industry, there is some good reason to keep on growing for a while. most of the governments are looking for more tax to collect. most of the banks and financial institutions want to get rid of cash. so all that is pushing the age of electronic payment. when we listen to what come

customers are telling us, they don't want to put the transaction in the air with a device that is not designed for that. the question of security is a very serious one and we are working on that. i think that we are very, i would say, serious professionals , good professionals in a business which is a very professional one. there is no room for people with a vague idea of what could be the payment. we put the innovation in the heart of our organization. we have created a department named ingenico labs with people looking at every type of initiative around the payment and we believe that there is no reason for us to be surprised. jonathan: philippe lazare, thank you very much for joining us this morning. here's a picture of the markets for you. equities here in london pulling

away further away from that all-time high. down by 31 points, off by 0.5%. the dax also lower, down by 0.6%. two fed minutes, and will greece apply for that loan extension? there is a new one in the mix. ecb minutes. we will have a preview when "on the move" returns. ♪

jonathan: welcome back. the european central bank. they are going to release minutes of their meetings for the first time ever at 12:30 london time. hans nichols joins us from germany. exciting stuff. we've got a new one in the mix now. hans: this marks a seachange. the ecb will be giving us minutes. they won't give us individual names. there will be some anonymity. the guessing game will be to see what jens weidmann was saying. it couldn't be a more crucial meeting. the first one we get the readout four, january 22, when they made the final decision to go ahead with asset purchases. we didn't actually have a firm vote on that. it will be clear to see where individual members were, who was opposed, what was the number.

i'm excited to read it. i know you are too. it is clearly going to ruin our lunch today. jonathan: i think you hit the nail on the head. i'm not sure how difficult it will be to spot jens weidmann. guy johnson joins us now. got a great chart with the federal reserve and the amount of words in it. are we expecting the ecb to get as busy question not -- as busy? >> i think not. we are still in an evolution here in terms of how this process will work. i think maybe they will give us more, maybe less. jonathan: it is a long road. >> today is a starting point not a finishing point. we will see what happens. i think jens weidmann is going to be the topic of conversation. it will interesting to see how many people are around him as well. to see how isolated he is whether or not he's the center of a group or a minority. jonathan: greece?

>> greece definitely a top story. what is the story with capital controls? where are the greek right now in terms of outflows? we will talk about that. nestle is the other big story as well. we have the ceo of nestle coming up. the smb sector obviously can't be ignored here. they are hedged in terms of their operations. they make a lot of food around the world and have a hedging built into the business. a lot of the r&d is done in switzerland. expensive to do this in switzerland. do i start moving people out of switzerland and think about operating from other bases as well? jonathan: looking forward to that interview. almost it for me on "on the move ." let's check out the ftse. not getting any closer to that all-time high, trading lower. the energy stocks on the ftse

getting dragged lower by brent, getting slammed. if that depresses you, can we bring you a live picture of london? pretty beautiful this morning. if you want to continue the conversation, you can follow me on twitter. ♪ .

>> raining in greek. ecb wants agreed the banks to capitalize controls. a lower for longer. the u.s. federal reserve surprised with village in its to keep interest rates near zero. and the china challenge. sales growth near the low end of his target as it struggles in its second largest market. ♪ >> good morning. welcome to "the pulse." i am guy johnson.