it is thursday, the 22nd of april. welcome to "worldwide exchange." the headlines we're watching today, here in asia, markets tumble for the first time in three days. memory chip hynix escapes the down drop with a strong first kwarter report. >> and we're looking at nestle releasing forecasts and figures. >> and in the united states, president obama makes a final push today for wall street

reform. >> hello and welcome to "worldwide exchange." with christine tan, nicole lapin and myself, ross westgate. we just had data out in the euro zone. the manufacturing pmi growing at its fastest pace since 2006. this is a cording to the composite pmi, 57.3. they were forecast at 56.1. there were 55.the in march and the highest since august 2007 and it marks the eighth month the index for the service sector is above the 50 mark. that's, of course, with contraction from expansion and considerly above the poll consensus. now, the manufacturing sector, which drove a large part of the return to growth last year is also at its fastest pace since the middle of 2006. that has helped push the session high against the dollar. as far as european markets are

concerned, despite the sell-off in asia, this is a piece of data that will help that, as well. up 0.5% for the ftse 100. xetra dax up 0.6% at the moment and a good balance of earnings. so the data at the moment is supporting higher equity prices, christine. >> hey, ross. here in asia, we have profit taking going on. nikkei 225 wsh this particular market down 1.3%. chip-related shares giving back some of those gains we had yesterday. we had toyota in focus yesterday. moody's cutting the, elsewhere in shanghai, the composite, 1.1% lower. we're seeing more measures, fresh measures by the government to cut circulation. that is weighing on the index there. the hang seng down 0.3%.

in south korea, the kospi sliding 0.4%. the bombay sensex rising to the up side, up 1.3%. and the australian market down almost 1%. how is all this impacting the ftse cnbc global 3 hunl index? let's check to see how that is faring in light of what's happening in the equity market. we are waiting for it to come up. just give us a little bit of time so far. nicole, it is one of those things on a thursday morning. what can i say? >> i like to call it a friday eve, christine. it makes it sounds a little better. regardless of the charts, let's take a look at what we're seeing in the united states. lower across the board with dow futures down about 8 below fair value right now. excuse me. they are a little bit lower, actually. so are nasdaq futures and s&p

500 futures. we have about 100 of the s&p 500 companies reportsing already with 85% of those beating earnings expectations. pepsi, nokia, blackstone are some of the one withes we're looking forward to today, christine. >> joining us to talk more about the issues or the day, aaron smith, managing director of europe fund financial. aaron, good to have you with us. we are focused on the earnings coming out from the u.s. right now. we had disappointing profit outlooks. markets are down. one day up, one day down. what is going to get us out of this trading range? >> christine, one day up, one day down, i think that the short-term focus is the problem in the markets. >> basically what we see from a technical standpoint, we don't see any technical information in the markets if you look tt at the rsi or any of the analysis

tools that we have, that there should be a reversal in the market. the market is clearly in an up trend worldwide as equities have a high correlation. we don't expect that to change any time soon as long as the trend is to spend n u.s. as well as by any other major central banks worldwide. >> does that mean that we're in for an earnings recovery, that we're going to see top line growth? >> yeah, it basically does. it basically means that the government, which has financed foolishly, it's come out with a $12 trillion health care package. i don't know where they're getting all this money from and all these ideas that they can continue with credit expansion. but as long as credit is expanding and as long as we're in a free money environment with interest rates near zero, stocks are going to continue to go up and stay in a technical uptrend. as a trend follower at super fund, we would be very wary to

have a stop order in place trailing our position in equities. we think it's important to have a diversified stance, and on the other side of the coin, taking a bearish standpoint from a markets like corn, wheat and a few other commodities, as well. >> just had composite pmis out for the euro zone, better than expected. some good earnings today for nestle. are stock base going to be bros based or not? >> ross, i could tell you whatever you want to hear, but the chart itself does not light.

we don't know when the trend will burst. i can't tell you how far the market will go and when it will reverse. but what i can say is as we are today, we're in a strong uptrend and the position for anybody who has any sense from a secondal standpoint would be wrong. >> aaron, how long does that last, actually? >> i think they're substantial -- well, it lasts until the market realizes that the stimulus that is creating the market going up is completely artificial. i would liken it to staying up lately drinking red bull. it's basically artificial stimulus that's propg up the market. how long can that last? well, if we look at a recent history in the tech bubble whb greenspan stepped in and cut rates aggressively, the market stepped in. that created asset bubbles. there were bubbles everywhere.

now we have an even more aggressive rate cutting stance and an even more aggressive stimulus on top of that. so basically, the trend could go even longer and further, but the question is, when the party is over, what's going to happen? basically, that paper that represents value might be -- >> what's going to happen to main street when that red bull party is over? >> main street gets run over by a truck, because unfortunately, the main street investor doesn't have access to the sophisticated tools that the ults ra high net worth investors and institutional investors have been used for decades. so the average retail investor, you don't have that much ability

to get exposed to hedge funds, alternative investments, more forward thinking innovative strategies that could profit, whether the market is going up or whether the market is going down. so i think that is a huge handicap for the average investor, whereas the institutions, the harvard pension companies of the world, etcetera, they'll continue to have stable returns for their portfolios and the same goes for the ultra high net worth. >> yeah. you say the ultra rich get richer, main street sits back and watches. aaron smith, managing director of super fund financial stays with us for the hour and we'll dig into that more throughout the rest of the next hour. president obama, meanwhile, heads to new york today to push wall street to back his financial reform. he speaks at cooper union college just a few miles from the new york stock exchange at 11:55 in the morning. in an interview with cnbc's john harwood on wednesday, the president says the u.s. needs a

private financial sector and guards against excess on wall street. >> we need to update those rules of the road. not only is that good for the economy, but it's also good for the financial sector because it will rebuild trust and people will have confidence that when they're dealing with banks, when they're dealing with these institutions, that they, in fact, are playing it straight, above board, and they're competing on the basis of who is providing the best services and the best products. >> president obama says the white house had no role in the s.e.c.'s fraud charges against goldman. mary schapiro echos that statement on wednesday. >> so you can say categorically, no wipgs, no heads up in advance, no signal from anyone -- >> categorically. we found out about it on cnbc.

>> he watches the show. lloyd blankfein, meanwhile, goes on attack. the s.e.c.'s charges against the bank and phone calls to clients. one person tells the s.e.c. that blankfein is out to kill them and the s.e.c. suit hurts america. blankfein and other execs will testify on tuesday. the s.e.c. complaint was cited by a german public bank sector byron lb as it cut ties with goldman. democrats plan to seek a key financial reform today. they need 60 votes to block the republican filibuster, which would essentially prevent formal debate from starting on the measure. democrats are targeting monday for a final vote and the congressional office says that the dodd bill would cut the u.s.

deficit by $2 is 1 billion over the next decade. ross. meantime, athens could be preparing to tap the joint eu/imf aid package. the greek prime minister, george papandreou says his country will make a decision soon and he's concerned there will be no more austerity packages later this year for the company. euro control estimates 80% of flights will operate today. but apart from the logistical nightmare, the battle for who picks up the estimated $177 billion tap is starting to rage. >> it slightly depends whether the european industry gets the same kind of help that the american industry got after 9/11. the minister transport in europe has indicated that they will

give the european airline industry help and compensate the industry for the losses. >> meanwhile, on some earnings, new shares in credit suisse, investors were disappointed it didn't fare as well as its u.s. banking peers. just above analyst forecasts, net new money in the private banking unit totaled around $24 billion. >> ross, some earnings to tell you about. hynix semi conductor posted its best quarterly profits in three years. the world's number two memory chipmaker said it saw first quarter operating profits coming in at $721 million compared to its $465 million loss a year earlier. the numbers underlying just how big a comeback chip managers have managed to stage thanks to an improved global economy. it expects a limited supply

growth in the second half. checking hynix shares, gaining grounds towards the late session, up 0.5%, 28,700 koreaon won. japan's economic recovery continues to be driven by its exports, particularly to asia, which shows japanese exporters holding firm, let by shipments of cars, semi conductors and auto parts. exports to asia rose almost 53% in march from a year earlier. but the strength in exports have yet to spill over to japan answers domestic economy with many companies still struggling to deal with the domestic deflation problem. still in asia, ratings agency moody's today slapped toyota motors with a downgrade to aa2 from aa1. moody's says the ratings comes with a negative outlook. the agency says its action

reflects the ongoing low level of profitability at toyota. toyota shares ending down as a result of that moody's downgrade. ross. we thought we would be sharing so many shots of brake pedals. still to come on "worldwide exchange," markets appear to be unphased by the goldman sachs scandal and after the break, find out exactly what stories are moving equity markets.

we're looking at these ongoing negotiations between greece and the eu and imf. it may take a few weeks before they decide whether they're going to tap into that possible pailout funds. as far as treasuries are concerned, drifts sideway these morning, current yield 3.76%. the u.s. will announce jobless claims and home sales reports for march today and traders scrutinize a potentially report breaking treasury announcement up next week, bond auction side

is for 2, 5 and 7-year notes. what about the currency markets, cries teen? >> we are watching, of course, what happens with the equity markets. risk aversion ties closely with how the yen is down. 93.13 to the dollar right now. euro continues to, well, strengthen against the dollar because of the euro zone pmi data coming out just a while ago. 1.3413. sterling/dollar 1.5432 and euro/sterling, 0.8692. nicole. >> highlights on today's calendar in the united states, weekly jobless claims out at 8:30 n new york time, forecast to drop 24,000 to a total of 460,000. at 8:30, we get march ppi producer prices while the core ppi, which strips out food and energy, is seen rising 0.1%. at 10:00 in the morning, we get

the national association of realtors reaching existing home heals. dow component verizon reports before the bell as do the blackstone group, peppilyco, continental airlines and hershey. fifth third, kimberly-clark, marriott and southwest and union pacific before the bell. after the close, we have american express, microsoft, and amazon.com. ross. >> european stock markets are up this morning. a little more after those pmi numbers. a short while ago, the manufacturing output index, 61.3. the highs since 2007. services pmi beat expectations at 69.4. so that's all boosted the stock markets. >> absolutely, ross. this is a house building

business. they say sales volumes have been consistent since march, rather. they haven't seen any drop off in interest given the uncertainty surrounding the election and that is something that some people have been speculating about. net debt levels coming down at this business. they expect the that to be a trend that continues and making the engineering space as one with a nuclear contract with eads. that project could be extended another four years. more generally on the ftse, it is a more positive picture as we go through the session. >> m&a has been confirmed this morning. >> absolutely. deutsche ban is buying areeva, a travel business, a transportation business. it operates trains and buses, including some of the london, the red iconic london bus network. the shares of the price are 775. a lot of this was priced in already. it's not since the middle of

martha we've seen shares trading below the 700 level. they used to be around 540 around the middle of march. so not much of a premium being applied to this. only 10 pence premium compared to yesterday. >> anna, thanks for that. we'll get more on the deutsc deutscheban angle in just a moment. first, carolin, different market reactions? >> mixed market results. let me start with credit suisse, the first european bank to post its first quarter earnings. the results were largely in line with expectation wes a net profit of 271 billion twis francs here. fixed income being a strong contributor. but i guess, you know, ross, investors have become a little bit spoiled. i hope no one will tie that personally. but uninvestors were expecting

another set of blowout figures from credit suisse. they didn't deliver that. they delivered a very good set of figures, but not like its u.s. rivals have shown us in the past couple of days. that's why we're seeing the shares lower. but i want to point out the most positive bid in this set of numbers. that was to net you money. in flows figures of 26 billion swiss francs. that beat expectations. moving on, we had earnings out from nestle, the biggest reproducer in the world, getting quite a bit of support from investors today, up 2.5% today here. nestle surprised the market by posting a stronger bid by the beginning of the quarter. that is at 6.5%, even better than the whisper number here. but i guess, you know, expectations were relatively high, given that its french rival, danone had posted a very good growth number here.

let me also add that nestel had confirmed its full year guidance. on that note, let me send it to patricia in germany. >> we are hitting an inert day session high. the midcap up 0.3%. but the real strength today is with the technology tech stocks up about 1% as we speak. merck, up 2.6% for that health care stock. it got an upgrade to buy from deutsche bank this morgue giving it a boost. commerzbank, 1.4%, even though we have only next week our big earnings season coming through for most of the major stocks out here in germany. we already have the first ones coming through. for example, vision and now vision is a wireless solution company, it's a chinese company being traded here in germany. there's a smaller stock. however, it tells a big story and the big story is not only the fantastic earnings, the best in the company history, but also

in terms of what the entire wireless business is going to look like in china and they have actually increased their sales by 73% for the full year 2009. also, the margins at 24% and net profits increased by 34%. apart from that, we're just getting flashes out from deutsche bank. they're interested in buying aree va, but they're not paying another price should another bid be put on the table. that's frankfurt. over to paris now. >> we have plenty of companies reporting back to fundamentals today. the company said there are initial signs of recovery. therefore, it has decided to increase slightly its guidance for the full year, positive reaction on the market. we're up 4.5% right now.

positive trend also in the advertising sector. posted an 8.1% increase of its revenue for the first quarter, which was way below expectations. the company says that the business conditions are improving. the ceo of publicis raised its guidance for the full year. and they believe that publicis will be able to outperform the market. there's a stronger than expected increase of its full year sales, up 12%. restocking is on the way and the company confirmed its guidance for the full year. the stock is one of the top gainers. remy cointrei awe is up 4.2%. >> every time you say cointreau, i can't help but think of the

old add var. still to come, we'll have the latest on the release of u.s. sales data.

welcome back to "worldwide

exchange." hynix has a strong first quarter report. >> in europe, nestle produced forecast beating figures. >> and in thes united states, president obama makes a final push today for wall street reform in wall street's backyard. you're watching "worldwide exchange" with myself, ross westgate, christine tan and nicole lapin. we're about to get finance numbers out of the uk. the march retail sales up 0.4% on the month, 2.2% on the year. a little weaker than expected. they're up 0.8% on the month and 2.6% on the year. the public sector net borrowing, the high since records began in january 1983, public sector net borrowing, up 23 billion. it was up from a year ago. the public sector net cash requirement up 25.8 billion versus 28.4 a year ago.

the march public sector net borrowing was the highest since records began in january 1993. uk public sector net debt at 62% of gdp. we reround to 1974 because that's the highest since 1974. sterling against the dollar, just ticking down. weaker retail sales are not the best state of the public finances, either. let's get some reaction. joining us is gabriel stein. thanks for joining us. retail sales are a little weaker than expected. we knew public finances were dire. >> yes. households have been wary and that means weak public sector finances and that will continue for some time. and i suppose the important thing is the conclusions, what does this do for sterling and is

for interest rates. sterling weakening. that should be good news, but of course, that in turn depends on what happens in our main export markets and that picture isn't particularly bright. and in terms of interest rates, well, the bank will probably raise bank rates this year, but it will be very po symbolic. >> why would they do that? >> inflation is, after all, it's sticky. and also, i think -- and here they may well be accompanied by the fed and the ecb, simply to show we are at some stage going to move away from interest rates, so a symbolic move, but they've got to be very careful. >> just a little bit of data, the march retail sales says weakness in foot food and fuel cells strengthens in in addition nonfood fuel cells. just to come back to sterling and gilt, the polls suggest

we're going to get more of a hung parliament. sterling and gilt haven't reacted an awful lot. are they being too sanguin? >> probably the latter. i think the markets would react much more negatively if they thought that labor was going to remain in power without needing any support. that seems to be the worst case snasho from a market view. a hung parliament depend on how hung it is, so to speak. how much influence would third parties get, such as the liberal democrats. ultimately, i think we're all waiting to see what do these guys really intend to do with the economy and the problem with that is we won't know for a long time, probably not until after the electric. there's no intrinsic reason why

it would be bad here. >> in the battle of the uglies, between the poupd pound and the euro, who has the better and the worst of the economy? composite pmi has done very, very good. >> they are. and i must say, i'm very puzzled, because it seems at the moment that confidence is running away ahead of the facts on the ground. confidence is, of course, a leading indicator, so it should be somewhat ahead. but at the same time, we have data from germany where the bundes bank that the economy probably contracted in q1 and the ministry of finance says it didn't grow, anyway, and the german budget deficit is massively deteriorating. plus, as an overlay, i think the euro is probably the ugly sister, but it is a neck and neck competition, that's foresure. >> aaron is still with us. this is nicole lapin in the

united states. you're bullish on europe, particularly in the uk. where do you see potential? >> well, i am bullish on a technical standpoint. but my question to gabriel would be as you mentioned, inflation. here in asia, we're seeing they're stepping back into the picture. en flagz rates are going over on 10% into the double dij territory. what would you recommend to investors as a tool? >> well, let me fist say there is a clear difference between on the one hand china and japan where you have positive income gaps and most of the rest of the world where you have negative output gaps and in particular, india is an issue we have, my colleague has been warning for a

very long time about india and inflation and wondered about the complacency of the rbi which finally is changing. where would i suggest investors go? german bunch, french oats, perhaps, in those countries or areas, we will still have substantial disinflationary pressures and i don't think that's factored in. so it does seem to me to be the most interesting and attractive investments at the moment. >> gabriel, this is christine in asia. looking at exports, driven by growth to asia, when is that export-led recovery going to try and get into the weak economy where deflation is clearly still a problem? >> i don't know when that's going to happen, if ever. japan has structurally weak

demand and it seems that there is very little that can get the japanese to get out there and spend and so that leaves them even more dependent on exports. of course, if we are right in our view on china in particular, and that the chinese authorities are going to tighten, and in order to cool the economy, then instead of having japanese export-led growth eventually feeding into stronger domestic demand, you will see a weaker domestic demand combining with weaker exports in sinking the economy again and exacerbating the deflation. >> gabriel, thank you very much for your insight. it's good talking to you. and our guest host, aaron smith from super dd fund financial will continue to stay on with us. coming up on "worldwide exchange," asia's regional banking sector seems primed to benefit from the goldman sachs fallout how? answers when "worldwide exchange" returns.

first, here is a quick look at how gold is trading.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange."

it is 4:40 in the evening in hong kong. we're looking at a shot of the hong kong harbor. 22 degrees celsius. that's the temperature. thunderstorms, we are told, not exactly i'm not seeing any thunderstorm. there's clear skies. winds blowing at southwest, humidity 92 percentage there. here is a quick news update on south korea. the military wleefs with a tore peato fired from a north korean submarine tank sank a ship last month. a news report said on thursday, the news report appears to be the clearest sign yet that seoul blames panjyang. this puts more political pressure on the south korean president, but analysts do not see it triggering a war.

>> on the business side, u.s. president barack obama gets ready to take his financial reform to wall street today. and to talk more about it, joining us is emanuel daniel, president and ceo of the asian banker and our guest host, aaron smith, continues to stay with us. emanuel, let me ask you, this move against goldman is pushed by the u.s. for greater financial regulation. what are the implications here in asia? do you think regulators here in asia are looking to do the same thing? >> everyone is watching what the s.e.c. and the fcc are going to frame the charges. all the legal construct of charges against investment banks have been exhausted. so this will involve a new way of looking at things. there are a number of prospects on the table in asia. the local distributors have not been pursued further because the

regulators and the prosecutors were framing the charges. everyone is looking to see how these charges are going to be framed to see any flow on asia. there there be any questions legal charges taking place in different markets in asia? likely. but everything depends on how tight and credible the charges will be. >> a lot of people are looking at goldman's business in asia and what will happen with the charges in the u.s. to what extent do you think asian banks are going to benefit from the loss of business in asia yap ya? >> this is not a question of dekubling. this st a question of what is the true nature of goldman's business in the rest of the world? the true nature of their business is two-fold. one is trading is brokerage and the other is mergers and acquisitions, basically.

trading a brokerage, a lot of goldman's clients, blue chip, bluer than blue, the chinese government, any number of governments in the region. some of them may wind to distance themselves from goldman while this process is underway. in that period, goldman might lose some business to other investment banks. the profiles in the business, the players in the marketplace and the way independent the trading and brokerage business flows, i don't think that's going to be affected very much. i think the game plan is still more or less the same. goldman will lose a bit of ground on that front. mergers and acquisitions, goldman is still one of the best players in the marketplace. it's a matter of how they show up on being constructed in that sense. >> emanuel, whatever happened to goldman? it's undoubtedly given a wonderful stick to try and beat

the industry. we have the g-20 meeting this weekend and they're going to consider the proposal for two new taxes and this a global tax, and it comes at a time when they can use goldman sachs. there we are. that's the reason we need to do it. so are they going to be implemented? and how damaging would they be for everybody? >> this tax is so bizarre pipt reminds me how much publicity basul two. what they told me is it took two days to put together basul one. so this panel is so complex to even get an agreement across the

board that is -- if anyone suggests how long it will take for them to get it going. firstly, the proposed tax assumes that the cost of the previous crisis was essentially generated by the banks themselves. but if you look at the problems in ireland, greece, government, regulators, the banking industry all played a part. in of being presume tuus, the imf is being too preassume theive. any one player that plays along stands to benefit. thirdly, the nature of the relationship between government of state and the banking industry is so different in

different countries. the take may make sense on developed countries where you want to put it in as a charge up front as a charge of doing business. in some country webs it's a capital cost. in other countries, the government benefits because they own most of the major financial institutions. so to see how that would that will evolve -- >> so it's going to take another ten years. >> possibly. >> interesting sdung discussion. thank you very much for coming in. emanuel daniel and, of course, our guest host is still with us. we're looking at earnings today. hynix semi conductor, the company posting its best quarter in three years w but the comeback has not been easy.

as krpz's kimho kim reports, that strategy will continue to pay off very well this year. >> samsung electronics are now the world's number one and number two chipmakers. but it wasn't always the case. about three years ago, memory chipmakers launched a do or die campaign to increase their share of the market, flooding the sector with product despite the prices. >> korean companies focused on their technologies boosting the chips. whereas their taiwanese rivals just focused on the commodity d-ram, mainly for personal computers. >> it's a strategy that now seems to have been effective. their taiwanese counterparts show to the red in the first quarter of this year, despite signs of economic and

consumption recovery. meanwhile, the technology gap with rival companies is widening. >> this week, samsung electronics began producing the first 20 meter class ram memory chips. what this means is the company is way ahead of its rivals electronically. >> a 20 meter class multi level cell is 50% higher in productivity and 30% faster than a nano meter memory chip. in terms of d-ram technology, samsung and hynix are months ahead of u.s. microtechnology while taiwanese chipmakers are over a year behind mainly due to their bumpy transition. but even amid these encouraging signs, samsung and hynix face challenges. >> in the memory sector, toshiba is quickly catching up. its global market share stayed in the 20% level in 2008, but

soared to the 30% level in just a year. korean companies are particularly concerned that toshiba's partnership with sandisk is beginning to bear fruit. >> the market expects the combined annual operating profit of south korean chipmakers to reach an all-time record of more than $10 billion this year, on the back of very strong demand. but 12 years ahead, samsung electronics plans to spend over $5 billion and hynix $2 billion this year to increase their production and to come up with smaller and faster chips stay ahead of the game. kiho kim, sbs cnbc. >> hynix shares are up in otherwise what was a down market today. >> you know what is interesting is that hynix was mostly in the red for most of today. what's with interesting is that we've had a lot of strong earnings from a number of companies. china's number one copper

producer, they came out with earnings four times more than a year ago and the stock ran down. the reason? expectations are running way too high. copper prices will continue to be on the up swing. hyundai motor, quarterly profits nearly five times more than a year ago. the stock did trade up, but only 0.5% or so. you could argue, concerns about greece, financial reform in the u.s., but i think it's more about what is happening in china. property speculation is tightening. today we had two announcements from not only the chinese, but also the hong kong government, as well. in hong kong, they're boosting prices for homes which are valued more than $2.5 million. this ahead of a big land auction next week. in china, they're tightening rules on the second home ownership. but what defines a second home in china on paper is questionable.

that is why the banks are suffering from a lot of weakness. if you take a look at the mainland bank, the big ones, small ones, all down anywhere between 1% and 5%. in hong kong, property plays are not only the main ones listed in hong kong, the hong kong property counters leasing steam between 1% and 3%, as well. so as china continues to tighten, real estate speculation, some may think maybe this is a good thing because you could have a soft landing towards the year-end. but short-term, this could be a negative for the market and as we talk about this liquidity fueled rally that has been propg up a lot of these markets, it looks like the depressed sentiment could kick in. you know, i mean, if you don't really know, what defines a second home on paper and the banks are scratching themselves and the chinese authorities will automatically throw in another rule and that is what you're seeing one depressed day after another. >> a lot of confusion. >> welcome to china. >> good way to put it.

thank you very much for that, chloe. chloe cho. let's talk about india. ayesha faridi joins us live from mumbai. ayesha, markets are getting a nice pop today. >> indeed. christine, it's been quite a turn around. this is not how we started off in trade. you have seen the markets surge and surge up to almost about 80 odd points. that is where the nifty is currently standing. 291 odd points in the green for the sensex, as well. it's been a remarkable day. not so much by by way of momentum as compared to the front line industries. oil and gas heavy as they're driving this surge up. reliance industries is one counter. the maximum weight for the index, that has cat putted the index to 5,300 plus in trade today. meantime, of course, the bank of india, the banking giant has had a push. tata motors being the other key counter in trade. both of these counters are

posting steady gains anywhere from 4% to 3% apiece. meantime, of course, they're rebalancing their emerging market portfolio. there has been an upgrade that has come in in south korea. this amongst a lot of buzz among the community. good going for now. with that, it's back to you. >> ayesha, thank you very much for that that, ayesha faridi. >> meanwhile, greece is paying something like 8% at the moment to borrow money into the markets. this is amid signs that athens could be preparing to tap the joint eu/imf package. much will depend, of course, on the attitude of german voters and the german parliament. sylvia joins us from frankfurt for more. sylvia, we've seen sort of a switch in german politician attitudes now. they're trying to persuade the german electat, this sh something we must do.

are they going to nibble? >> it is something we must do. what the germans had hoped for and they were playing this bluffing game and waiting game all along, they were hoping that the greece situation would go away before the elections in the beginning of may. they had hoped we had gone past that stage by the time that greece would implode, exploded or cough up some money. that doesn't seem to be the case because the market is going worse, worse and worse again. so they probably have to wake up right now and say, okay, whenever greece comes to us, we have to pay out, which is the case. at the moment, the greeks are saying soon or maybe or whatnot. but in the meantime, the euro spread is widening and widening and the pain is getting increased. and the collector of damage could indeed hit other bond auctions. we've seen that some of the -- maybe not so safe countries are not looking so good in their

auctions and we've seen the 30-year bund auction not going so well and next week we have a 1046 year bund, as well. maybe the germans will realize that it costs them, as well, in their auctions. >> we'll continue to track that. sylvia, thank you. let's get a final thought now from our guest host, aaron smith. aaron, you talked about how long a party would last, you talked about the red bulls and how the stimulus is going to end. give us some investment advice for people out there watching the show. what would you tell them to do with their money? diversify, first of all, so that they can profit when markets are going up or they're going down, and also invest in real assets. that doesn't mean buying shares of bhp or rio tinto.

that means buying real assets, commodities, the likelihood that a kilogram of platinum or gold will buy more dollars in the future is very high. and i think that the big question we're going to have to face going forward is this financial reform bill. when you played the comments from president obama earlier in the hour, i thought my makeup was going to start running. although the passion i certainly admire, if you put that noose around the $610 trillion derivative markets in the world, what is going to happen is a massive amount of volatility and a major lack of liquidity in a lot of markets. >> aaron, we'll have to leave it there. thank you so much, nicole. >> and his makeup is still intact even though he's fooit feisty this morning. they're out to can i also, that's what a goldman official thinks. stay tuned.

welcome to "worldwide exchange." president obama makes a final push today for wall street reform in wall street's backyard. >> and in the meantime, necessarily figures beat the

forecasts. >> and here in asia, toyota can't seem to put a brake on its problems. ratings agency moody's slaps the carmaker with a downgrade. >> great to have you with us here on "worldwide exchange." i'm nicole lapin with christine tan and ross westgate. it is 5:00 in the morning on wall street. welcome to the start of your global trading day. we're expecting markets to open lower across the board. we've just flipped around in the last half hour or so. dow futures are up about 6 above fair value at this hour. >> we've had more earnings out today, which have been better for the likely of necessarily and credit suisse.

we've had very good data in terms of the pmis in europe. they were better than expected. the composite pmis for the euro zone based on the manufacturing and the services side. stocks are up, not quite the best ever for the day. the ftse 100 up 0.4% as well as for the cac 40. xetra dax up 0.7%. smi slightly lower. >> hey, ross, trimming investments in asia, tech webs autos, you name it, they were down today. take a look at the nikkei 225 chip-related stocks down 1.2%. we had standard and -- rather moody's saying it's cutting toyota's credit ratings. the shanghai composite down on measures to curb the property sector down 1.1%. sank same picture after the hong kong government announced extending duties on surging home prices in hong kong, as well. the kospi is down 0.5%.

the bombay sensex is one of the few markets trading to the upside. pretty hot there. and australia is down 1%. as far as the forex market is concerned, ross mentioned the stronger than expected pmi data coming out from the euro zone. 1.3404. dollar/yen remains at 93.5. euro/sterling, 0.8682, ross. >> okay. we had a little bit of news out on the public deficits. if anything, borrowing. although it's the highs since records began, 1946, '47. slightly undershooting the forecast. and the irish finance minister saying they have some euro stats but saying it won't allow them to get to their gdp by 2014. investors continue to worry about whether greece can finance its need.

after a meeting wimf officials, george papandreou said his country will make a decision soon on any aid mechanism. he's concerned that there will be no more austerity measures in greece this year. but as that meeting between the greek and eu and imf officials continue, thousands of civil servants in the country have announced that they would strike as they try and press the government not to agree to further spending cuts. thousands more are expected to march to parliament at mid day to protect against the eu measures. nicole. >> ross, lloyd blankfein goes on attack. he says the government is, quote, out to kill them. the whole thing is a stunt and

the s.e.c. hurts america. blankfine as well as others will testify in front of the senate on tuesday. the traders may be hurting goldman's standings with some investors. also, senate democrats plan to go on the attack today with a bill crafted by chris dodd. they need 60 votes to block a republican filibuster which would prevent formal debate from starting on the measure. the congressional office says the bill would cut the deficit by $21 billion over the next decade. christi christine. >> nicole, driven by asia, the data showed japanese exports in march holding firm, up 43.5% from a year earlier led by shipments of cars, semi

conductors. exports to asia total exports rose almost 53% in march from a year earlier. but the strength in exports have yet to spill into japan's domestic economy. so in japan, ratings agency moody's slapped toyota with a downgrade. moody's says the ratings comes with a negative outlook. the agency says its action reflects the low level of profitability at toyota and it expects to see that continue for an extended period. in check checking toyota shares, ending down 1.43%. this just coming out, fitch ratings agency has come out with depends about japan and fitch. the government is one of the most indead debted in the world.

japan's debt will reach the highest ratio of any sovereign ratings by fitch. nicole. >> still much more to come on the show, happy birthday, earth. but the day of celebration comes as americans are less concerned about environmental issues including time machines. stay with us.

the ittc hit back at criticisms that the agency's landmark 2007 report exaggerated the danger global warming posts of bangladesh. the same report has come under fire for claiming that the himalayan glaciers could melt by 2005 which was medicine t met with widespread skepticism amid the scientific community. this comes on the back of the copenhagen summit, which wasn't all that people had hoped. joining us now, patrick. before we talk about the cap and trade, this ippc situation, not terribly helpful, is it?

>> well, it's not helpful, of course not. but i think this is an ongoing process. the degree of the science seems to be questioned. one comes across sentences and phrases and pieces of the evidence which don't necessarily add up. but the overall picture is undoubted. we have this problem and we need to find ways to deal with this. >> how has that impacted the cap and trading system? has that turned people off it, or not? >> not in europe. europe has delivered on the cap and trade and it's delivering on its promises that it made on the kyoto agreements. cap and trade is in place, we're committed through 2020 here in europe. so the caps that have been set are being achieved and the market mechanisms that help

industry meeting those maps is working and working efficiently. >> we'll turn the volume up so you can hear christine's question for you in singapore? >> hey, patrick, to what extent do you think this is pushing the price towards renewables? >> it's certainly a factor, christine. the more expensive that fossil fuels are, the more attractive alternative becomes. so certainly from a practical point of view, higher oil prices make renewables more attractive. part of what cap and trade is trying to do is create a synthetic advantage to using renewables in the short-term and that's emphasized even more when there's a higher oil price and a high coal price. obviously so much of the power comes from carbon generation and that's largely driven by the coal industry. >> patrick, nicole lapin in the

united states. what do you expect from the u.s. climb change bill that is expected to be revealed on monday, is that a game changer? >> well, it clearly will be a game changer if the movement towards the federal level cap in the u.s. and that's what we all hopes for. i have to say the levels have wavered over the past month. whether it's next week or whether it's in a year's time, cap lass to be put in place and the u.s. has to follow the european example, which has been done so successfully so far. >> patrick burles of the european climate exchange, thank you so much for joining us. and president obama heads to new york today to push wall street to back his plans for financial reform. he speaks at cooper union college a few miles from the stock exchange at 11:50 in the

morning. in an interview, the president says the u.s. need a thriving financial sector and rules to guard against excesses on wall street. we need to update those rules of the road. and if we do so, not only is that good for the economy, not only does it protect consumers and investors, it's also good for the financial sector because it will rebuild trust and people will have confidence that when they're dealing with banks, when they're dealing with these institutions, that they, in fact, are playing it straight, above board, and they're competing on the basis of who is providing the benefit best services and the best products. >> president obama says the white house had no role in the s.e.c.'s fraud charges against goldman sachs. s.e.c. chair mary schapiro echoed that statement on wednesday. there was speculation that the s.e.c. suit was trying to coincide with the administration's push to overhaul the financial sector. >> so you can say categorically, no winks, no heads up in advance --

>> categorically. >> -- no signal from anyone? >> categorically. we found out about it on cnbc. >> let's get a comment from our guest host, khuram chandry. do you buy that, that he didn't know about it until he watched cnbc? >> it's certainly a good plug for you guys, but i think that's just a way of maybe avoiding the question. so what is the question now? what would you like to hear from the president? >> there's a lot of political issues and it's a mrig political vote winner for president obama to act in a particular way to show that he's trying to fight

for main street opinion but really a lot of information won't come out until you actually see the s.e.c. going through and publish more of the details with regard to the goldman case. but certainly for markets, it's confirmation of what we need to see. >> yeah. certainly the results have been very good. this comes at a time when the imf putsd puts a global tax on ahead of the german finance minister's end of the week meeting, as well. what do you see as an ininvestor? >> there's two different aspects here. the short-term trade, the yield curve is steep, the trading sort of investment banking side is making decent returns. and you can see this across the board. europe should follow suit when we see further results from the

european results season. but there is a secular change here and this started as the bubble burst and there are further murps of regulation that will plague the financial industry for some time. >> yeah. as far as the rest of the equities are concerned, others result today in europe, we've got nestle good figures, publicis, good figures. very different sectors. so is there still -- and pmis are strong. is there still going to be a broad based lift if we get further equity gains, or not? >> we're generally of the view that equities grind higher from here. but it's early days in this q1 results season. in europe, you've seen approximately 30 companies report q1 results. of that, 70% have come in with positive surprises. it's far better than we saw in

q4 numbers and it's very much in line with what we saw in the u.s. you're starting to see further earnings upgrades on the back of these numbers. but the key question is what happens after q1? a lot of inventory gains seem to be coming through. we now need to see orders rise past the inventory build. and this is one of the key data points i'd look at for the forthcoming ism survey. we did start to see some signs that inventories were rising faster than orders. traditionally not a good indicator. not just around europe, but around the world, earnings are starting to moderate. that usually provides something where stock markets give up their returns. it's difficult to see some of the gains that were seen in the past six months. >> occur ram, this is christine here.

a lot of questions whether the tech sector is going to lead the recovery. there is a sign the chip sector is indeed recovering. do you like the tech sector? >> you've seen very good results, strong earnings upgrades. there is a top line story. do you find that this story, amongst the cyclicals, seems very best placed? there is lm also m&a news flow coming to this sector. so it seems the better plays than either the materials or the industrial sector. so this would be one of our favorite cyclicals. >> okay. we'll take a pause there. you're going to stick around for a little bit more. still to come on "worldwide exchange," we'll bring you up to speed with where we are on global equity markets. credit suisse and abb is the biggest losers right now. we'll find out what's dragging them down and what is boosting the likes of necessarily and publicis.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." it's 5:22 on the east coast of the united states. you're looking at a live picture of times square where president obama will be speaking just a few miles from times square later this afternoon. meanwhile, markets are likely to open. let's see, we are bouncing

around this morning. lower, the dow futures are down about 30 below fair value at this hour as earnings and a trio of economic reports highlight today's economic calendar. weekly jobless claims are out at 8:30 in the morning new york time, forecast to drop 24,000 to a total of 460,000. also at 8:30, we get march ppi. producer prices are forecast to rise 0.4%, while core ppi is seen rising 0.1%. at 10:00 in the morning, national existing home sales are released forecast to rise to nearly 5.25 million homes. dow component verizon reports before the bell as do blackstone group, peppilyco, continental airlines and hershey, kimberly-clark, railroad operation union pacific, southwest, marriott and fifth third. after the close, we hear from dow components american express,

microsoft as well as amazon.com, ross. >> meanwhile, let's bring you up to speed with where we are on global equities. there were there's plenty going on for switzerland. we just turned negative on these european stock markets. in switzerland, we've got two stocks bad, one with stock good. carolyn has got more in zurich. >> very mixed reaction here, ross. let me start with citi. shares in credit suisse are being sold off heavily here, down 4%. that's bought credit suisse didn't manage to blow analyst expectations as much as its u.s. rivals did. from the swiss national bank, it's been said that credit suisse and ubs are currently too big to fail, but you cannot rule out that the two banks are too big to be rescued. so definitely some interesting comments here. let me move on with nestle, the

world's biggest food producer, up 2.2% here, after the company beat expectations with its organic growth number for the first quarter. that came in at 6.5%, better than the whisper numbers. also the company confirmed its full year guidance. on that note, now over to patricia in frankfurt. >> thanks very much, indeed, carolin. we had some fantastic announcements, especially when it comes to the greek budget deficit being high and voicing some sort of doubts that they will actually get it down from the over 13% to 4% by the end of this year and that dampened a little bit of investor confidence in germany. so the dax right now, 6,224. but the outperformers are the same as about an hour ago. merck, up about 2.2%. kna and s.a.p. doing very well. basf are due to come through with their reports in the next week. on the down side, it is the

finals as well as commerzbank down about 2% to 1%. but we have our own earnings season starting to kick up a little bit. vision came through this morning. it is a tip top wireless chinese koms company here in germany coming through with fantastic numbers. that's frankfurt. over to paris now. >> and in paris, it's been also a very volatile session. so far, we are currently retracing gains on the cac 40 and we're up nearly 0.9%. it's back to fundamentals today as we have plenty of companies reporting. the company posted stronger than expected earnings for the first quarter of the year, up 3.7%. it's actually the first half of the year, the company sees some initial signs of recovery on the market and raised its forecast slightly for the full year. the stock is still in good shape, up more than 3%. also good news in the advertising sector, publicis,

the third largest advertising company posted 8.1% increase in sales for the first quarter, which was much higher than expected as the company is confident about the business conditions and raised its guidance for the global advertising market this year. publicis is up 1.5%. now over to chloe in singapore. >> thank you very much. a pretty depressed session out here in asia. we've got the thai china tightening story, we've got the shanghai closing just below the key 3,000 level today and there could be more tightening measures on the wore rye otherwison and that could take a bit of more money off these asian markets given that they had a pretty strong stellar run over the pa past couple of sessions and the guidance coming from qualcomm and ebay could bring some of the optimism that we've been seeing in the tech

sector. hynix, its best quarterly performance in years, again, supply shortages and the strength of the korean won could be something that could prove to be a headwind. hyundai motors quarterly profits nearly five times a year ago. growth may slow a little bit according to analysts. and the news about the south korean vessel that sank a month ago, that could have an impact on the elections coming up. thank you so much, chloe. still to come, we focus on earth day. we'll be joined by the president of the north bank. stay with us.

lining up to meet their numbers, nestle is beating results and

credit suisse is disappointed. >> here in asia, fitch says japan's government is one of the most indebted in the world and without sustainable recovery the country's debt will continue to rise. great to have you with us here on "worldwide exchange." it's 5:30 in the morning on wall street. we are expecting markets now to open lore across the board with dow futures jumping around in the last hour and a half or so. we're down about 47 below fair value. nasdaq futures also lower, about 14, and s&p 500 futures lower about 7. we're expecting another string of earnings. we're getting a lot of economic data, including jobless claims, ppi numbers, ross. and you guys have been mixed, as well. >> we've swung right around. we were an hour or so ago up 0.75%. we are now down those sort of levels. the ftse 100 is off 0.8%. the xetra dax off 0.7 and cac 40

off 0.9%. banks were firms. right now, we are starting to see a weakness in sectors like banks are down, credit suisse disappointing this morning. so a really mixed sector so far, christine. >> same picture here in asia. profit taking also is the name of the game. disappointing profit outlooks prompting investors to take off the table. coming property speculation. that is weighing on these two particular markets. in south korea, we have hynix clearly in focus. the want posting its best quarterly market in three years. the aussie market is down almost 1%. that is helping to lift the euro

against the dollar right now. it is trading the other way. 1.3362 reversing gains. the dollar/yen, 93 level. sterling/dollar, 1.5424. euro/sterling, 0.8660. nicole. >> and let's continue the conversation with keith wurtz, does still with us, of course, our guest host, khuram chaudhry. >> president obama will be speaking a stone's throw away from wall street. what can he say to bridge wall street and main street today? >> well, it's my view that he's going to say things like we need to re-establish trust in the financial sector. the financial reform act will be

one that will bring about trust in the u.s. it will be good for consumers. those are the kinds of things i think you'll suppress near wall street. he, of course, coming out saying the timing of the goldman says is not likely motivated. what worries you most? is it the idea that jpmorgan and citi could be next? >> that does very much worry us. in fact, the goldman case may look weak to us and it may not one that ultimately goalman wins, but my experience in the market suggests whenever you have a fight going on in the government, that stock is not usually you want to own on your portfolio. we're worried about the obama administration or the s.e.c. itself might further expand that exploration into the other entities, like you say, jpmorgan or some of the other brokerage firms. if that were to be the case as an investor, we would probably

be pulling away from the financial sector because there would be regulatory risk and gives us some type of discomfort. >> that would away short-term trade or something longer than that, keith? >> yeah. i think short-term trade. at this point, we move away from goldman generally speaking because of the headline risks. we think they may prevail in their conflict with the s.e.c. but for the balance of this year, it looks to us to be dead money. >> keith, why do you stand on the earnings picture inspect are we going to see a recovery? >> at least here in the u.s., this is a market that's been fulfilled by expectations. we think it will be a market that's continually driven by the earnings condition here in the u.s. outside the u.s., the earnings picture maybe is a little more mixed and we think that the asian market, the european market, the profit asand pictur

is not quite as strong. for us, our global allocations have been bias. we're tilting towards the u.s. for 2010 because primarily of the fact we're seeing massive expansion here. >> is he right? >> i would echo that point absolutely. we're looking at earnings revisions, you've generally seen data that is topped out for every region in the world. but the u.s. is holding up. and part of that has been the lack of function of a weaker dollar. do you think the strength in the u.s. dollar that we've seen of late transpires into potential weaker earnings? >> it's a good question. it will impact certain sectors of the u.s. economy. but i think over the next 12

months, the u.s. earnings picture will be somewhat driven by the energy sector and by the financial sector and i think the dollar condition is probably not going to have as much of an impact there. >> all right. we're going to have to leave it there for now. keith wurtz stays with us. khuram choudry from bank of america merrill lynch global research stays with us, as well. it's the 40th anniversary of earth day today with various festivities planned all around the globe. it is also a perfect back drop for the u.s. government the highlight one of the pillars of president obama's state of the union address, creating and sustaining clean energy and green jobs. so to talk more about that, joining us live is fred hottsberg, president of the export and import bank of the united states. joining us light, bright and early on the west coast of the united states.

now, the obama administration wants to double exports in the next five years. that was laid out in the state of the union. how do we do that? >> well, we do that to export a lot of american goods and services around the world. the world is rebuilding at a rate we have not seen in decades, perhaps more than ever before, building roads, airports, power generation. so it's gloeg growing at a rapid rate. american economies make the product to fooel fuel that need. >> well, it seems as banks are deleveraging, the small business is the guy that suffers most. that's where the export/import bank really comes in. that's where your role is key. how do we become more of an export driven economy where we're looking at 10% compared to almost about 50% in germany? >> you're correct. we're at about 10.5%. germany is just under 50%. we actually, if you look at the first two months of this career,

january and february, our exports are growing on a compound range of 15% a month. keep that up for the next 58 months, we will have doubled exports in five years. so it is possible and we're actually currently in the very beginning only two months on that track right now. >> and you were the acting head of the small business administration. how does this help jobs? can you connect the dots for me? exports to jobs. >> i'll give you a perfect example. it's 2:30 in the mortgage in california. cold clipper wind technology. this is a company that's headquartered here in california. they make wind turbines in cedar rapids, iowa, and then they're going to ship them to mexico to power a renewable energy plant that will power three walmart stores. that order for that renewable energy plant in mexico adds about 80 jobs to the payroll.

and each time they get orders like that, that's creating additional jobs in their company. >> this is increase teen here in asia. how exactly do you help american businesses increase their competitiveness against countries like china? >> well, we're talking about asia. i was recently in korea, in south korea, and frankly, the solar panels, the solar technology that is preferred in korea is american technology. so listen, price is important. but as with many things in life, price is not the only thing that a business decision is made of. we will never be the lowest cost producer in the world, but we are the highest quality, the most innovative and deliver value per dollar and that's really what buyers are looking for, particularly when you're talking about infrastructure, energy, solar energy, wind energy.

>> and fred, how much do clients need help with financing? you know, do they need it to sort of be persuaded? i've got a lump large up front cost here and the benefit you get back over a long period of time. so how much do you need help with the up front financing? >> well, they do need help. one of the things that we petitioned this year and we're now able to do by worldwide agreement is to do 18-year financing for renewable energy. it was up from 15. we would like to get it as high at 25 years back up 18-year financing makes a lot more projects possible like this project i mentioned from clipper wind technology in mexico. i think that one is going on the to go on 15 years. so with those longer terms and then you have countries like korea that have particularly higher rates for their purchase agreements for solar power. so in korea, for example, you have companies putting solar panels on the roof of their buildings and selling that power

pack to the grid. >> and before we let you go, you came on the network in march and said trade barriers aren't pronounced yet. we want to get a pulse check on you. is that still the case, in your opinion? >> that is still the case. that trade barriers are not a real impediment at this point. it is a fear that many of us are concerned about in terms of the impact of trade barriers and if they can escalate. but right now, i haven't seen that. the export/import bank in the first months of this fiscal year, we're up more than double our financings to over $13.2 billion in the first six months. so we've been very bullish, bullish on renewable energy on many, many projects. >> fred hochberg, president of the export/import bank of the united states, a very happy earth day to you and we are so happy that you joined us bright

and early on the west coast of the united states this morning. thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> and still much more to come. we'll be live in tokyo to find out what dragged tin decks down and we'll get a final stop from our guest host.

and welcome to cnbc's "worldwide exchange" on this thursday. let's cross live to tokyo and check in on the trading day there with asuka kondo. kando-san. >> hi there, christine. the nikkei 225 fell 3% on thursday as investors booked profits following the previous day's surge. and renewed anxiety over greece's debt props problems pushed up the yen which obviously was negative for exporters. shares in toyota took a minor hit from a ratings downgrade by moody's. the u.s. rating firm credits credit rating by one notch matching its lowest ever level saying that the safety issues raised questions about its profitability and pricing power until 2012 at the earliest.

shares in hitachi rose to fresh 11-month highs in rev trading after its u.s. subsidiary announced better than expected profits for the january-march quarter. >> in the political front, a popular foreign minister has submitted a letter of resignation to the main opposition ldp today to form his own party. five other upper house lawmakers plan to join us. an opinion po poll shows him to be one of japan's best-liked politicians. >> christine, thank you for that. ross. >> let's get a final thought from khuram chaudhry. we're looking at what's happening in the debt markets. right now, greek 10-year bond yields up 8.3%.

8%? >> it's a big die vergence. it's quite an interesting point. it tells you the amount of risk attached to sovereign debt in greece. by contrast, you know, you see german yields migrating down. now, if you do get confirmation either from europe or from the imf that there is some type of backing, 8% looks very desirable, but there are not that many people who are willing to take that kind of risk. particularly when germany is seeing its yield head down. there is some question about whether european growth can hold up for this year. >> are there going to be any equities towards generally high yields towards the end of the year? >> i think there is a big concern that as we move into the second half of this year, the profit outlook starts to migrate. the gdp outlook starts to soften. as we start to move into some aspect of the slowdown, the debt worries come to the forefront and you would, then, see the periphery markets in europe,

their yields may remain a lot higher than you'd see the core of europe. >> okay. good to see you today. thanks so much for joining us, churam chaudhry, bank of america/merrill lynch research. we have a smorgasbord of earnings out today. we'll let you know what to expect to get you all up to speed with your trade today. stay with us.

a trio of economic reports to dot today's economic calendar. weekly jobless claims are out at 8:30 this morning forecast to drop to a total of 460,000. at 8:30, we get march ppi, producer prices, estimated to rise 0.4% with core ppi rising 0.1%. at 10:00 a.m., existing home sales for march estimated to rise to 5.25 million homes.

still with us, keith wurtz from fifth third asset management. as we are looking to the slew of earnings coming out today and the economic data, we're watching the goldman case unfold. there was a great piece that really said in the journal that the s.e.c. was looking to wage a war against shorts. and this is what they found. do you think it's actually a war against shorts underneath all of it? >> well, you know, the concerns i have is the fact that the study on goldman sachs went out for 18 months. they released their suit, their civil suit last friday. it was concurrent to the stanford report that came out in terms of how they handled the stanford ponzi scheme in 2008. to us, it looks like the s.e.c. is trying to reassert its reputation in the marketplace. it's been waning over the last three or four years. that's one of the risks that's in the market now. you have an s.e.c. that wants to be assertist and goldman sachs

may be an example of that. >> and, you know, this is coming at the samt time as paulson and we're getting information from shorting the market to longing the market. what do you make of that? >> well, the data points coming out of the marketplace, it's all been positive. there are some cross currents of data. but by and large, as we look at things, the environment for investors looks pretty positive. you have conditions of the u.s. economy moving higher. you've got to inflation condition very subdued, you've got earnings explosive. we're going to see probably one of the best earnings reports or earnings expenses this year that we've seen in two decades. and so for us, it looks like the conditions are favorable and we're going to see continued cross currents. we've had a great rally and when may comes go away and come back in the fall.

it may be influenced by the idea of higher oil prices, higher gasoline prices. those kinds of things might cause a pause in the marketplace for there's nothing big in our eyes to cause a huge retrenchment in the stock market. we think if you have any dips, you buy the dips. >> what could also create a pause in the market is what's going on in washington with the dodd bill. the switch to rd whatter provisions against ache yell investing could potentially stifle innovati nonovation and of $1 million to $253 million and $455 million respect ofly? >> well, we've had a very proactive, aseftive market in the past. one of the reasons we think we have a sluggish employment condition is the idea that managers doctor know what their

future costs will be when they bring on employees. i think the big worry for the markets will become the tax picture in 2011, 2012. the provisions on the tax bush cuts of 2001, 2003 go away. we think there will be a flurry of tax hikes on the horizon. the dividend tax increase, those are going to weigh in the marketplace and that's probably going to be the headache for the markets next year and beyond. but for now, at least, as 2010 unfolds, the economic conditions look pretty favorable for us. >> keith wurtz, we appreciate your time. we appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us. take a quick look at how u.s. markets are likely to open. dow futures are down about 45 below fair value. that's going to do it for the show. i'm nicole lapin in the states. >> i'm ross westgate in europe. >> here in asia, i'm christine tan. thank you very much for your company here on "worldwide exchange."

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good morning. president obama is in a new york state of mind. he's traveling to wall street today really to argue for financial reform earnings in the economy, dow components and data today din