asures as the finance minister raises concerns about money to the ecb. the things we will be watching i am looking at futures market a little higher. dax futures up by 20 points. another week of gains for the german equity benchmark. how are we going to open the week? >> not to be left out of the game. that is the secret. it was the biggest weekly inflow on record. $11 billion into europe. $3 trillion have gone into global equities since the start of the year. profitability for equities, it will give you about 6.4%. that is 11 times what sovereign government bonds will give you. why wouldn't you have equities would be the overall argument. china cut the benchmark rate.

unemployment in italy's still at record levels. european unemployment at record levels, near record levels. the markets are trying to make up their mind. the dax relative to the rest london up by 4/10 of 1%. let's see if the commodities are doing anything. three companies which caught my eye, vivendi delivered the numbers on friday night. the revised the numbers -- they revised the numbers because of an additional charge in regards to mortgage related litigation. morgan stanley settled their mortgage-backed litigation last week. it prompted credit suisse to take this move. they have up their provisions --

upped their provisions for litigation. alcatel-lucent will return this year and be paid cash. the ceo we will talk to him tomorrow. caroline has him on her roster of guests. the bounty -- vivendi is down 4.65%. they plan to return almost 6 billion euros to shareholders. what is interesting is the net income came in at 2 billion. that was 550 a year ago. let's keep an eye on vivendi. that share buyback is not winning through on the stock this morning. >> that's the market open here in london. a flat ftse 100. the miners get a nice open. we have got to look east for the

newest in the mining stocks. the people's bank of china shows its determination to stop the slowdown. the central bank cut borrowing costs for the second time in a little over three months. joining me more is stephen engle. what was behind the latest move? we have seen a series of rate cuts. what is driving this one. >> the slowdown is deepening. the interest rate cuts came as manufacturing is showing further weakness. the inflationary environment is quite be nine. it is disinflation for consumer prices. wholesale prices have been in deflation for a few years already. authorities are looking to stoke some growth ahead of the annual session of parliament that starts later this week.

it's almost a foregone conclusion. he will likely lower the annual growth target to 7% from seven and a half percent but we have seen the last couple years. the economists i have spoken to say the economy will be hard-pressed even to reach that level, 7% this year. more like six and a half to 6.8. traders mostly say it was muted since the cut was already priced in. the yuan slumping to a two-year low as stabilizing the economy seems to have taken president over stabilizing the currency. the easing bias we have seen is going to exacerbate capital outflows we have been seeing from china. >> the rate cuts are telling me one thing about the concern of a slowdown. the pmi is telling me to different eggs. hsbc manufacturing pmi and

expansion. telling me two -- telling me two different things. >> these are two separate surveys. february did show expansion at 50.7. this is a smaller survey of 400 respondents mostly private. it showed contraction in february at 49 .9. below 50 is contraction. that's the second month in a row of contraction after many months of expansion. it tends to be more bullish so when the official pmi goes into contraction there is serious weakness in china. that is something we need to look closely at. whether this is the beginning of a long-term trend.

>> thank you for joining us this morning. that's the latest move in what is shaping up to be the year of easing. another cut for china. we are joined by the global head of equity trading at citigroup. great to have you with us. china joining that club as well. is 2010 turning out to be different outside of europe? wexler think we are sticking with the liquidity story. -- >> i think we are sticking with the liquidity story. a lot of that is a continuation. more cuts are probably going to cut as well. i think chinese authorities are confirming they are committed to manufacturing a slowdown. they are not in a growth mode

just yet. >> you woke up saturday morning. you saw the rate cut. the chinese central bank says this is the start. monetary inflation is pretty much flat. do you agree with what they are saying? >> they are trying to make sure it does not go to quick. they are not arguing they have an easy job ahead of them. they can try to do what they are aiming to do. they are trying to make sure growth does not dip too low. >> the second thing is the miners. what is your outlook for the mining stocks at the moment? what is the outlook for the next

12 months? wexler has been a challenge in euro weakness. they are closely linked. we do find an interesting yield. the bigger the miners, the better the position. do we find them cheap with a potential to perform better? yes. do we see an immediate bullishness materializing in the sector? not necessarily. >> the equity bears are changing the rules for what they want to the bearish about. how much of a concern is china for equities. >> it doesn't seem to be a big driver. one thing is equity performance versus credit performance. when this starts diverting, something starts to catch up.

overall it remains bullish. whether it is liquidity from euro banks and the fact they are getting more fairly priced. >> it is the diffusion index of policy. we are moving back towards levels not seen since 2011. are you expecting more easing than tightening through the rest of the year? >> oblique, yes. interesting to note the fed is not retracting liquid at the yet.

overall, we are seeing easing. we are seeing ongoing amounts of liquidity in the market. from a risk when the view that leaves us pretty bullish on equity markets. >> we are talking about european equity markets after the break. next, could greece see some bailout money? if so, at what cost? we are back in two. stay with us. ♪

>> good morning, and welcome back. reese in focus. eurozone officials may be ready to pay out some remaining aid as early as this month. there is a cat. the nation must agreed to reforms according to the dutch finance minister. hans nichols has been following the greek fiscal saga for the last few months. what is greece have to do to get the cash? >> they need to implement reforms before they go into negotiation. what we have been expecting is negotiation and may be up a lot -- a payout. he suggested they may be able to give it to greece in march a little bit earlier if they

implement reforms. he said, my message is to start the program before the renegotiation is finished. we know that greece has a cash crunch this month. we do not have any clarity on whether they are going to allow greece to issue these bills. over the weekend he hinted they are going to pay the imf but the 6.7 billion they owe the ecb he suggested maybe they would have a debt renegotiation. he is floating the idea. it's unclear where greece is going to get the money to pay and run their new government. >> despite a more optimistic outlook early last week there has been public fighting between greece and european leaders. what is the story? >> we had mr. siegrist -- the

press -- tsipris talking about how they are going to fail. pain is given a lot of grief. last night you had mr. short blood -- scheuble saying they need to sweep under their own house first. it seems we are starting with recriminations and finger-pointing but also real deadlines and no clear way on how you're going to solve these deadlines. we learn about how these talks went down. it is clear mr. tsipris is the negotiator. it's unclear whether officials believe they can trust him. we are in for a turbulent couple weeks. >> not turbulent for the equity

markets. look at equity markets from germany, italy, and france. the ftse in italy up 18% already this year. if the ftse may have closed, and we all went to sleep for the rest of the year that would be the best year since 2009. is it best to boost trough that for some of these indexes? that's we have seen more. it has been rather joyless. we have not seen active inflows. for the most part they have not benefited. in dollar terms it is not as impressive.

in dollar terms you are kind of flat to the u.s. the squeeze has not started. we granted the numbers shown so far are a long way into what we expected from a strategy. we can sometimes overshoot as well. there are some positives on the economic side in europe. the surprise indicators is rallying. gdp expectations are on the low side. >> just to go back to the market, the equity market is doing one thing. i look at the german 10 year. the yield of 3.4%. how much time are you spending

with the bond guys over citigroup? >> more and more. they are not getting what they want out of the asset classes anymore. that is one thing we can provide an offer investors. bonds have bond flows. equities do not. you have to be a bit more careful in how you select names. you try to manufacture the yield using equity and reach yields around three and a half to 4%. it is a compelling argument for investors. >> they haven't bought a single bond yet, yet you have this massive rally. how do you expect it to play out in the bond market? >> i think it will probably close the valuation gaps from the more liquid and safer instruments so if you look at

qe, there has been some pushback in terms of gdp compared to the u.s. or japan. the amount of inventory is also lower. the ecb -- it should start closing valuation gaps. whether they go to corporate buying or not, time will tell. it will be a question of efficiency. if there are capacity issues they will have to change that. that is something that would take months to find out. it's not something we should bank on just now. i think it's not enough to help european markets, and that was part of the goal. >> another reason to buy european equities.

thank you for joining us. coming up, the mobile world conference gets underway in barcelona with samsung showing the latest. we will be back in two. ♪

>> the mobile world congress has just kicked off in barcelona. caroline hyde is standing by with a special guest. over to

you. >> thank you very much i am joined by the president. they are at 2000 exhibitors. how do you stand out? >> this is the new model we just launched. i think it's a great example of what we stand for, which is about offering premium value. our overall platform is about offering great choice for consumers. it delivers on both of those things. a lot of the features we initially developed for our high-end phone. we offer great software features. the equivalent of 150 u.s.. >> that is a pretty cheap price point point relevant to other competitors. who is the target? in the developed world, you

think everyone has a smart phone, but they don't. >> there is a huge opportunity. there are about 5 billion people around the world that don't have a smart phone. they have never been part of the smartphone revolution. it's our view it's really important to get great market to those people. >> what countries may be dominant where you see the most pick up? >> we have grown over 400%. we went about having -- from having no business to selling 3 million units. we are growing pretty aggressively with our strategy. >> this is emerging markets?

>> this is relevant in all markets. the fastest-growing segment in developed markets has been the prepaid no contracts market, and we are very strong. we have huge relevance in places like india, where this tear -- tier of products is very important. >> how many do you have to ship in the first quarter? >> we don't usually break out the numbers by product line, but we expect to sell these by the millions. >> tell me how you expect them to change with the new owner. have you got the backing you need to roll out these products? >> we have been part of lenovo for just over four months. the company really understands global business and has been number one in the pc business for a long time.

it gives much more reach. we just reentered china which is a huge part of our future. >> are there any concerns -- i know lenovo has been hit by the hacking scandal. are you worried about security? we think it is very important for the consumer. >> it is all about getting in the energy market. thank you very much. that was the president of motorola. $150. we will be talking much more

about all the developments a little later. join us for an interview. back to you in the studio. >> 26 minutes into the open. the ftse 100 a little bit higher. the miners gaming. we will talk emerging markets a little later. stay with us. ♪

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quirks good morning and welcome back in the trading day. the ftse 100 is up a third of 1% and it is beating right now in china with the dax up. up another 4/10 of 1% and the focus is on euro data in 20 minutes time. it has all about -- it is all about a murder shaking moscow. a murdered political activist in what has turned out to be the

biggest support for russian opposition in three years. we are joined in moscow for more. what is the latest on the back of the marches? >> we are getting interesting details in the papers with lee paper reporting that the main lead they have at the moment is looking at the involvement of altra nationalists -- ultra nationalists. the people i spoke to yesterday as a march egg knowledge that there was no certainty as to who was behind it and they still blame the climate created by state television in which people like boris were accused of being a fifth column because of the opposition to the war in the

ukraine. >> no certainty as to who is behind it. the big question everyone was asking was what it means for vladimir putin. what does it mean for vladimir putin? >> you look at the reaction to the murder and he is in a state of discomfort. the nature of the crime and the reaction that has provoked international response is embarrassing and it has re-energize the opposition. we spoke to the organizer of the march and he said that it has acted as a catalyst for the protest movement. this is the largest protest since 2011 or 2012 and it took place outside of the kremlin. you heard chance like "vladimir putin, killer."

and it will fizzle out to some degree. there is a core of people who are definitely ready to go out on the street. >> thank you for joining us this morning. a busy few days for emerging markets and other rate cuts from the central bank are underwhelming. if you are charged with following these countries for a living, you did not get much of a weekend. joining us now is the head of asset strategies at ubs. great to have you with us. a busy weekend. let's start with week -- with russia. you knew boris. >> yes. i did some panels with them and he was charismatic on the topic of political repression. he was a humorous character. he said on a panel that we did

about the presidential election in which it was clear that vladimir putin would have -- take over, he said that anybody could become the president of russia in vladimir putin was behind them. meaning, including me. he was a charismatic firebrand and a real character. it is a loss for the opposition and political liberalism in russia. >> what does this mean for russia? >> the markets as very unfortunate as this incident is it does not imply much in the near term. what makes russian assets move is a de-escalation of sanctions. by this event, we are not likely

to see it. or, we need to see a complete change in the support for vladimir putin. his popularity is strong and it will take several quarters of economic hardship before a change in popularity. certainly no sign of that. it has very strong challenges and the key is whether or not the fighting slows down and that is the bigger worry from the asset market perspective. >> it should be quite limited from this. >> i agree that the impact on the financial markets will be the facts on the ground and this below for liberalism in the short-term is not an adverse development from the point of view of development. the clear view is that the danger is that russia is heading

into a direction and economic liberalism is far from dead in russia, even if political liberalism is being squeezed. how long can that continue without further changes in policy that are adverse and make it more resilient? >> outside of what is going on politically, the situation is dire. i look at the china rate cuts and if you guys were to rank the three economies right now, does india come out on top? >> it does. it is not a high bar. you are coming off of a demographic exchanging and property market and heavy

industry and china is going to slow down. and you spoke about the budget earlier. i would describe it as underwhelming and say that the expectations had been toned down before the budget. china had issues and i'm not sure that you can stoke growth. the rate cut is about the chinese running, as opposed to loosening monetary policy and hoping growth will go up. monetary conditions are tightening and china is trying to counter that. this is about trying to limit how far short-term equity squeezes are. >> there is a tension shift in china. one day, it is all great another day, it is all doom.

is this on the fringes, as opposed to the back of china? >> the bigger picture is the enormous growth and leverage that china has to reform and move on and move away from net trade and an investment. that entails slower growth and this is about preventing deflation and all of these things have to be dealt with. the growth rate is slowing down and that does not necessarily entail disaster or crisis. there are a lot of issues that need to be handled. it has a downside for commodity exporters. >> you look at the situation in china and i come back to this question because it never really gets answered. have we seen a boom in china

over the last 5-10 years in the world that ins not finished falling down the elevator shaft? >> you have instances of credit booms and they hardly ended. we have seen few credit booms that have been locally financed and do not have the dollar amount. the dollar liability leads to a sucking sound of markets and currency markets going down with interest rates going up. the only parallel that comes close with per capita income is 1980's japan and that did not end in the same way that spain did. it ended with a long spell of

growth and that is where i think china will grow. you have different levels of income and a different demographic with policy that makes trouble in the medium-term politically. i do not think it is precise. i do not think it comes close to describing what china's issues are today. >> it will drop to lower levels. how low can it go and what does it mean for the politics to keep society in the shape it is in carry-on legitimizing the government. >> the growth rates required are lower than five years ago or 10 years ago. they are different than what they used to be at the peak of

the labor force and the population taking place. from the view of political the stabilization and needing to create 25 million new jobs, that is no longer the case. i completely agree with the characterization that it is not going to turn into a traditional run. having said that, the slow growth will create problems and aggravate china, who can finance this. there will be slower growth. the adjustment needs to be taking place. >> the political stability is employment. and the growth is moving to the sector and all the growth has slowed down tremendously and the

growth continues to move south and it gets hairy. policymakers understand and have seen it nothing short of a miracle. you would expect the growth. >> more rate cuts to come? >> aside from the united states the entire planet is easing with lower inflation in the shop. >> a busy couple of days for emerging markets. coming up, we head back to barcelona. stay tuned for that.

>> the manufacturing data for pmi and euro zone inflation data. out in about 15 minutes.

look out for that. we are going to head back out to our salon or for the meeting with the ceo. caroline. >> indeed, john. it is all about the latest devices. whether it is wearable's or smartphones, all of these devices are on a network on equipment made by the company i'm speaking to. the company that holds the connections. we are talking about consolidation and markets. there are rumors that out the television and no key a are coming together. what can you say? >> they focus on the proliferation of devices and alcatel was it has given the

complete turnaround with us back in the race and focusing on making sure alcatel lucent will be a big winner in the industry. i am focused on achieving my turnaround and making sure it will be one of the biggest inventories in the coming years. >> you need to be looking for acquisition? >> we have a strong organic traction at 15% per year and 15% growth year-over-year. for the first time ever since the merge we have cash flow

pointing at default restructuring and we have resources in order to invest and pay for way for the future. that is what i am focused on. >> will you be positive in 11 months? >> everyone is with that and the resources. we also want to organize innovation. we have to change the lead. >> you cannot say categorically you are not looking at no key a -- nokia. >> i'm focused on delivering the return of up until lucent.

-- how can tell -- alcatel lucent. >> all these connected devices are what we need. we need connectivity. is the flurry of consolidation the way to go in europe? >> i guess so. you have very strong providers that add financial resources in order to protect investors. the aunt the u.s., china, or asia, i truly believe that we really need investment in europe and connectivity is what we need for growth in europe. so investment and consolidation

will add the ability to do that. you have seen the consolidation yesterday. >> how many players doing need across europe? you have two or three of each in each country. when do we see european winners? >> i do not see any reason why we would not have that in the united states or china and the endgame has a european scale in many countries and some smaller players in that area with competition.

they cannot invest and everyone knows collinson -- consolidation and regulation allows that. it is an adjunct memento for regulation in order to let the consolidation play. meanwhile keeping players and competition in the middle of investment in europe. >> where do you see investment in europe picking up the most? >> listening to all of germany and the u.k. with the new consolidation and big plans and italy with telecom italian.

you listen to what the companies have announced and they all say they want to increase investment. the first to claim that was a vodafone and you listen to telecom italia and they all have said we are going to step up and raise the level of investment. >> how much you have currently and where are you aiming? >> more market share. the core network had the biggest player and most operations are going to invest in the premise to really bring this to the houses and we have many

investments to focus the committee on and i said we will play. the good news is that it is coming to us and we are greedy with market share. >> it has been wonderful to speak to you. the ingredient with the market share when it comes to providing the one trillion devices. back to you and the studio. >> and nature of markets after the break.

>> welcome back. that is almost it for on the move. 66 minutes -- 56 minutes into the session. the pulse is coming up. >> we are talking to a ceo about the car sector and i cannot wait for the conversation. it will be fantastic. your cousin is coming up and we will be talking to -- and what they will be doing next with wearables. where do they see the story developing? >> looking forward to it.

that is it for on the move. the picture of the markets as we head to the break. a decent day. deliver late -- ireland delivers the best pmi since 1999.

guy: defying putin. thousands take to the streets of moscow. we will look at the political and investment implications. francine: china stocks close higher after it central-bank cuts the interest rate. guy: and a sneak peek at samsung. bloomberg gets a look at the company's latest smartphone at the mobile world congress. good morning. you are watching "the pulse." i'm guy johnson.