welcome to the program. the headlines today from around the globe. a mixed picture for europe. germany sees its gdp contract in the fourth quarter while france eeks out moderate growth. tokyo stock sold to a six-month high after the end slides annals a combination of good news. the surprise and they vow to help europe. the french bank says it has reached its capital target six monthsarily and beat its profit forecasts. >> in the u.s., investors wait

to see if there will be hints about additional want tay tish easing when they release their minutes from the latest wednesday meeting. welcome to the program. we start off with more gdp out of the eurozone. it's officially in recession. the contraction in the fourth quarter minus.77, worse than expected. it was down minus 0.3 in the previous quarter, down 0.5% on the year is the number. so that won't necessarily cheer anybody up. they've just come off to slightly better than expected numbers out of germany and france. that has continued. france actually didn't cop tract any. up 0.2% on the month versus

forecasts of a contraction. they have cut, of course, their annual forecast from 2012 from 1% to 0.5%. but the italy number will take some focus immediately now because we're going to get the composite euro figures out. they contracted by 5.3% overall. this is the background growth number. of course, for eurozone finance ministers who cancelled the meeting this evening to discuss greece. officials have raised questioning about athens commitment to deepen unpopular austerity measures. pretty steady. where we have seen moves han been there, we'll get to that. julia is in london. do you get the sense that the rhetoric out from the countries

out like germany and netherlands either give us the details or are we going to cut you loose? i'm wondering how much they're actually prepared to follow through on that. >> you know, ross, i do think it's quite interesting that we had the announcement from the euro group around 9:00 and within around 30 minutes we had a greek official from the new democracy party saying they would provide a written agreement that he will follow through on these measures after the election. so i definitely get a sense that one says one thing. another comes back with something else. they're all fighting this out. but what the euro group statement said was that they still need additional pieces of information. the 325 million euros, the spending cuts, we still need details on that. of course, that's not helped by the greek dp d-day ta we saw yesterday, and, of course, these written statements i just mentioned. but whether we get that or not, the written statement to say

that they will follow through, he still said that he wanted to negotiation at the election. so they really do have a serious credibility problem and also the sign of dissension among the european features. the germany economy minister said that that idea had lost much of its horror. we also have just had asmussen saying a deal could be reached by monday. so they all seem to be at different odds and ends. there was also a report this morning they could go ahead on the psi without a bailout being signed. of course, that rate is being question, where are they going to get that $30 billion suite and where are they going to get the money to bail out the banks once they do the writedown. they said if they are heading toward a default scenario, wouldn't that make sense to do it before the ltro at the end of the month when you won't saddle

a collateral. i think that's an interesting question given the negotiation and the backing and to'ing and fro'ing that we're seeing. ross, back to you. >> you take them, don't you, and then you wait and sigh who blenks first, julia. obviously the ecb, they said they would be willing not to make a profit on the greek debt and they'd hand the money back to the countries. any signal whether any of those countries -- has anybody said anything about whether they would be willing to then hand the money back to grease or not? >> you know, it's quite interesting. the germans at least have a tentative deal to get to parliament to sign off on the company. but if you look at finland and the netherlands, as far as i can see, they haven't even got a date in the dial dyery in order to talk about whether they will

happily do that. as far as i can see in terms of the vilk countries, it's still very much in the air. >> we'll catch up with you later. julia is in brussels for us. some news flashes to tell you about, ross, coming from china's pboc, of course. pboc says it will continue to maintain flexibility of the u.n. the exchange rate is coming through. it also says the current inflation expectations still are not stable. interestingly, they also said that house prices have moderated in some areas. we know the pboc, central bank of china has been trying to cool the overly heated popular markets. it seems to suggest it's working to some extent. remember we had them easing the house. that seems to be the topic of the day. what are they going do with the housing sector, the property sector, it will continue to

adjust interest rates. and, of course, it says to maintain reasonable level of total social financing. it also says it can relax inflation. these are some of the things that seem to be coming through right now. some rhetoric, some comments coming out. big news today, of course, russ, as you know, the pboc says it will invest. on that euro note, somehow your heat map looking? >> 8 to 1 outpaces the decline. this after a flat close yesterday. the ftse down 10 points. cac down 8 points. slim points. there we go. currently up just 10 points for the ftse. the xetra dax. still below that, the february high of 133. but trading around the 131 mark 1. 31.60.

euro/yen is still stronger at 103.256789 we saw the dollar yen substantially up. people continue to see orders after the bank of japan's entry yes. as far as the bund markets are concerned, better than expected out of germany. actually not a contraction out of frachbls 10-year bund yields still above 2%. ten year italian bonds sewed off slightly. weaker than expected. minus 0.7%. in the quarter, 5.63%. gilt yields. coming up in a half hour, whether we might get more.

brent, keep your eyes on this. 118.15. there are two pools on the oil marktd, of course. global slowdown and supply disruptions. supply disruptions winning out this morning as we look at sudan. we saw the sudan and also strikes in yemen. those are just adding into other political tensions in the middle easement christine. >> asian forces getting a lift today. yesterday they offered additional easing measures. that lifted sentiment. also commented coming from the pcob. nikkei, 2.63 high. topix, 2.1%. in the news today, comments from the central bank pledging to increase the country's holdings of europe denominated debt but often no details. nonetheless that's lifting sentiment across the region.

the hang seng is up 2.14%. el elsewhere, the taiwan weighted index getting up. the kospi up. australian market, a little bit mix. modest gains. 0 president 3%. and the sensex, 1.8% higher. overall, nice percentage, russ. >> thanks for that, chris. norm, thanks so much for joining us. we adjust spoke to julia earlier. we had a meeting planned. that hasn't sort of happened. we still to be at a standoff over greece. politicians saying we can renegotiate the yield and the feedback from dutch and germans is, look, we're prepared -- they're insinuating they're

willing to let greece default and we're in a better deal for that. how much do they seriously believe they can let greece go? >> i think there has been a real change of mind on the part of germany at the netherlands, possibly finland. at least three countries, i think in the north, taking the view that although they would prefer greece to remain in the eurozone, if greece did leave, it would not be a disaster and they have fire walls in place to look after portugal, which would be next in line. they're getting rather fed up. i believe they believe the portuguese government has an ability to deliver, which they don't see at all in the greek government. and i think patience has worn very thin. i was in berlin just a week before last and i got that impression very clearly. >> so you seriously think they would be proo e pa-- prepared t push the bob in the next four weeks if that's what it came to?

they didn't get what they wanted completely out of greece, they would cut them loose. >> i think they would prefer that greece remain in, and if i had to bet, i would bet that just grease would remain in, but i think it is not impossible in their minds that they're not impressed enough by what the greek government is saying. you know, these measures have to be delivered. there is a greek election coming up. mr. samurai has seemed to sign up for the deal. if he forms part of the government, he will renegotiate that. that doesn't promote a lot of confidence. >> that's our first spot. plenty more to come from lord lamont. plus, we'll get over to stefan and we'll be out at singapore. ross, airbus is leaving

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. french bank bnp pair a bar told its share investors it will pay out. more importantly, stefan, what's going on with their capital ratio and what are they saying about the exposure to greece and the banking sector as a well. >> they will be able to reach the new regulation rules without raising additional cap tachlt it's a come fir nation to what was cede before. also the bank will pay a dividend. they will announced they would scrap the dividend for 2011. the bnp will pay one shafrmt it's a dividend. a significant one. if you look at the numbers for the fourth quarter, they were stronger than expected.

$57 billion at the end of 2011. also there's an impact for greece, the bank took another provision to raise its greek coverage from 60% to 75% of its bond holdings. 567 million euros for that provision. the c.u. in an interview to cnbc spoke about the long-term financing operation from the bnc which it believes is a very good decision. >> it's a smart move from the ecb. it created something new. we've been at the first tender. we'll see what are the conditions for the second part. we'll see. we do not plan to buy any bond

with this or this is not -- as far as we can see the situation, the purpose of this financing tool. >> they said they would not use the profits to buy it from europe. by the way, lit release its earnings tomorrow morning and we're expecting a 78% decline with another provision from greece. >> thanks for that stephane. stick aurchltd he's won the corporate investment banking. deleveraging will hit earnings. joining us is alan depo sew. thanks for joining us. the economy actually didn't shrink in the fourth quarter, but this process of deleveraging, have we only just

recently started for the banging in europe in terms of delever e deleveraging? >> that's correct. the challenge is that most u.n. banks are not deleveraging. the u.n. banks now are taking a chance being freed by the european banks. yes, how mump are they going to be doing it? >> it's going to shrink over the next 12 to 18 months. the impact could be 12% to 15%. of course, this will make a difference to other banks which are not shrinking actually. >> yeah. where are they going to shrink? which businesses are they cutting out? >> mainly financing, wholesale financing, financing to

corporates and mostly u.s. dollar-dominated financing. french banks have restricted access and do the russian behind them. >> stephane? >> good morning alain. stephane in paris. do you thing it could be a danger fehr you look at it. they wart to force the french banks to split their retail banks and banking activity. it's very much in focus. >> the debate over refinancing, you're right, is gaining momentum in france. the thing is so far the french regulator has been very close to the french banks. if the new socialist government takes over in may, maybe they could make things more difficult for french banks nchl this case we believe french banks might

have to raise more capital in order to have buffers to deal with a more complicated situation. >> they will release their earnings tomorrow morning. do you believe the deleveraging process will have more of an impact because it has that division? >> it might be. on the other hand, they have the ability to smooth it. this means taking the bond to 75% is not a way for them to draw the line. >> at the same time, i just want to -- what we're hearing -- we heard yesterday spanish banks borrowed $161 billion from the ecb in january. we now understand that french banks have borrowed from the baerng of france. it's pretty clear the central banks are the only interbank market in europe for this

sector. how do we wean ourselves off or how long will it take to restart normal operating in the bank market? >> what we need to bear in mind is that there is a change in regulation in terms of liquidity. banks will have to provide much more long-term financing compared to what they used to do before. that's why it makes sense for th them. that should be okay. otherwise, you're right. it may be difficult for them to close the gap. >> lord la month, do you see the growth? do we have the right policies to eneighth that? >> i don't think we should assume it.

i think what the ecb has done is buy time. there will be more such devices. we're going have another offer at the end of this month. this buys time. i think by the time we get two, three years, i think we will see that we are beginning to get out of this, the adjustment process, the deleveraging has gone further. you can't deleverage and have growth. i mean people are so unrealistic about lending. borrowing and lending are two sides of the same coin and if people are delearn rajjing. >> i wish politicians would say that in public, they want credit in the economy and they want banks to be responsible. >> exactly. it bubbles on a pin really. >> absolutely. thanks so much for joining us. alain tchibozo. lord lamont sticks around for

plenty more. stephane, thank you as well. well, air blues has launched an investigation on the cracks in their wings. what can you tell us? >> actually that was the high light of today's event. it really saw quite a vigorous defense of. it said this plane is absolutely safe to fly. they have 30 deliveries on schedule and still they're cautious. as they said, christine, they're extending checks for fractures in the a 380 program of the entire fleet. earlier in the day i asked if the a 380 glitches would affect

other airbuses in the program. this is what he had to say. >> we make no compromises. we have a thorough investigation. how we could make these mistakes in the first place and eradicate sources. >> this is a full court press to reassure the public and the investors in the broad market. we also had from the chief operating officer john lee, he trotted out statistics, really trying to confirm the view the confidence in the a380 is intact. a380 lands and takes off somewhere in the world every ten minutes is what he said. he also said there are 69 a380s in service. they're trying to build

confidence. this isn't over by any stretch of the imagination. christine? >> that provide as nice segue into nye my next question. what's the industry saying as the next big steps? >> yes. you're right, christine. almost unanimous opposition across the board to the carbon taxes how most executives are describing it. well, hopefully some sections of the industry are hoping cooler heads will prevail. tony tyler was talking about the broadcast to the industry. it's about 30% of overall aviation profits for the global industry. but they're talking about sitting down with the uniunited nations, regulatory nations and talking this through and possibly suspending this emissions program temporarily while they find a solution to this impasse. christine? >> sri, thank you very much. >> thanks, christine.

okay, thanks for that. we're moments away from the release of the january unemployment data for the uk. that comes ahead of the inflation report from the bank of england. more when we come back.

this is "worldwide exchange." the headlines from around the globe. italy slips into recession in the fourth quarter. germany sees its output contract

but france does manage to eek out some moderate growth. and over here in asia tokyo stocks soar into a six-month sli slide. and they vow to help europe. >> meanwhile bnp pair i bass surges. in the u.s. investors wait to see if there will be hints about additional quantitative easing when they release their midgets from the latest fomc meeting. we have the latest employment numbers out of the uk. the number up 6,900. little bit more people claiming unemployment benefit than the forecast 3,000. the unemployment rate at that measure under 5%. the wider lio jobless total,

2.671 million in the three months of december. here's the key thing. the rate stayed steady at 8.4%. bethought it was going to climb up to 8.5%. the number of those employed rose by 60,000 to just over 29 million. average weekly earnings up 2% annually. that was a little bit stronger than the 1.8%. bonuses are up 2%. that was a little stronger than the plus 1.9%. sterling dollar, it was already down as we wait on the inflation report. e.d.'s ticking a little bit lower. lord lamont still with us. your reaction to that data. employment increasing and the lio number. i mean the unemployment rate didn't shift up. >> no, no. good news.

of course, a fact we might mention, there's a monthly rate where the lio is a three-month average. but it does go along with some very, very definite green shoot indications, some slightly better news coming through. >> you talk about green shoes. it turned into sort of rotten weeds quite quickly. >> yes, indeed. it will be very interesting to see the inflation report. >> what's the expectation? yesterday he said he expects rates to fall 2% by the end of this year, although there's a lot of vagaries to that forecast. is he going to -- is this inflation port going to suggest there could be more room for q.e. or not? >> i think the market may have to scale back its expectations of more q.e. and one -- if read very carefully into the release of the minutes of the previous bank

of england meeting there were some comments that could lead one to believe that the bank did want to see confirmation that inflation was really falling before going ahead with a lot more q.e. we saw some fall yesterday in the figures but i suspect it's not going to be a gung ho suggestion that q.e. -- more q.e.'s coming immediately. >> it doesn't seem to be improving necessarily the flow of credit to anybody, so why continue with it? >> well, it is a difficult judgment but i must say i'm a bit surprised that they're so -- were so clean to have q.e. when for quite a long period of time inflation has been overshooting, they've been saying that it would come down to. have q.e. before it has actually come down seems to me quite a

risky policy because i'm not convinced, as has just been said, that it's going to drop dramatically. we may see oil price strike again because of tensions in the gulf and lots of things happen. i'd like to see the inflation rate really down. i'm not convinced there's a real deflation yet. >> it's not about deflation. we're nowhere near it. >> they tried to get the inflation rate up to the target. but as the inflation rate has not yet come down below target it's rather premature. >> how much of this is about offsetting government austerity? >> well, i do think that would be the right reaction. you know, deleveraging is pound -- bound to be a painfulful process. if you're about to talk a pill, you may be surrounded by sugar. this isn't meant to be easy. >> meanwhile what happens to

gilt? yesterday, of course, we saw moody's. didn't seem to impact gilts very much. >> yes. and this level of indication, that was just the very preliminary warnings of problems ahead. the world is searching for any sort of safe haven. no surprise it didn't have a massive effect on the market. >> just a final word. should the bank of england be swapping policies? some people think the bank of england should be injecting money into the banks. i mean it's not allowed to but they should be doing full qe? >> well, it's slightly full on as the bank would provide enough lid equity necessary for bangs if they were in trouble. on the one hand. on the other, the ecb indulged in q.e. by another name.

it's dressed up so it doesn't look like that. it's been dressed up to not look like q.e. >> does it matter whether we label it q.e. or not? >> it's pratt snormally you havl bank and you have one government that can issue bonds. have municipalities underneath who can go bankrupt as in america or be taken over and have their finances taken over and run by the uk. in the eurozone what you have is one central bank and 17 governments and can issue unlimited amounts of risk-free assets which is not risk-free and this is a nonsensical system. >> yeah. they're still trying to work it out. nick, thank you very much. we'll let you go. we have got the inflation report in what is it -- in about 54 --

53 minutes and counting, christine. you'll be able to listen to that. >> 53. i'm counting. asia markets rising across the board getting a bit of a lift after, of course, the boj yesterday. unexpectedly moved to deliver quantitative easing. that gave a lift to the japanese market. take look at this market. up 2.3. we have the topix up 2.5%. that easing drove it down and lifted the exporters and the banks in this particular market. shanghai market, interestingly up 0.9%. we had comments coming from the bnc governor. it will also maintain basic stability of the u.n. and he said the kurmts inflation expectations are still not stable. so some of the key things to watch for, they're watching the inflation story. of course when it comes to house

prices and they're watching the u.n. exchange rate very closely. the hang seng is up 2.1% on short coveraging after comments coming up from the pboc. thailand index up 1%. the kospi up 1.1%. not as optimistic as we had seen. the sensex up 2%. overall in the region we had another reason why the markets did well. that's because pboc came out and said they were going to invest more in the eurozone. and for more from singapore, tracy can tell us. >> thanks. it was said at a chinese summit that beijing will continue to invest in eurozone government debt. of course his comment came after that. he agreed that china is ready to

play a bigger role in helping europe out of a crisis, and joe said there were encouraging remarking for the eu leaders but he failed to provide any tangible commitments the eurozone crisis. back to you, christine. >> all right. trace yi, thank you for that. we're having problems with the sound bytes. the yen slides on a combination of apparently good news. the pboc's vow to help europe as well. for that story let's go to what's happening over in japan, of course. we'll have the breakdown much later on in the story. let's head to what's happening over in china and talk more about those comments from the china eu summit.

andrew joins us live. good to have you with us. basically when we talk about what's happened, china is going tony vest more in the eurozone, no detail's given. pretty vague. what do you think they're trying to do here? snoop i think they're appearing as. i would expect china's policy in this as in other things to be determined by their perception of china's interest. now china is sitting on 3 president $2 trillion of foreign currency reserves of which a substantial, although we don't know exactly how high the proportion will be in euro assets. so clearly they have an interest in fitting some kind of -- or contributing to a backstop to what's happening in the eurozone. >> but what are they asking out of this? what do they get out of it? what do you think is behind the scenes that we don't quite know

of yet? >> well, i think a -- i should perhaps firstly say some have no insight information in terms of those discussions, but just from the perspective of an outside spectator, i think that it's clearly not in china's interest to see a disruption in the economy from some kind of disorderly outcome in the eurozone. so china as a participant in the ordering of the global economy has an interest in or is a stakeholder in what happens in europe. >> hmm. do you think they're trying to get some bargaining power here when it comes to the u.n. exchange rate or even on some trade agreements? >> no doubt everything is connected. as i've said, i expect china's policy with recollect to the eurozone as in other issues will be determined by the authority's

perception of china's national interest. after all, europe shouldn't expect a free lunch from china. europe is much richer than china still and europe also taken as a single entity. doesn't look too bad. they would attack the sources if the political well was forthcoming so china will no doubt help those who help themselves. >> another topic of debt, andrew. a lot going on with the european debt situation and of course a downgrade on the u.s. what about china's debt? you're from fitch ratings. are there any risks that you're seeing? how secucure is the sovereign rating when it comes to china right now. >> we rate them. clearly that's well supported by the chinese sovereign's balance sheet coming back to the $2.3

trillion worth that i mentioned earlier. last april fitch signed a negative youtd look to the aa minus to the rating essentially motivated by the concerns over our banking system. we also had new information come to light since then on the extent of indebtedness. overall we think china's gross government debt might be 52% of the gdp. but the banks would be the key concern. >> andrew, good to know. thanks for your thoughts. good to know. andrew colquhoun from fitch ratings. we have a breakdown. live from tokyo. >> hi, christine, the surprise monetary easing by the bank of japan yesterday continued to have a positive effect on markets.

is that encouraged sin vesters to snap up exporter share and some market watchers say the unexpected easing became a cue for market speculators to sell the yen and lock in profits. the weaker yen provided much relief. nearly 900 japanese firms have suffered a 30% decline in pretax profits through the nine months through december in part due to the currency strength bull ail pita still out. they plunged to a record low after it said it may not be able to meet its deadlines. >> i talked about kospi hitting a low. samsung electronics closing as a

historic high. we're told why live from seoul. they lost money. this is because of slumping global demand and increased from china. the joint venture which an ail affiliate. they say samsung could be shifting its straightgy to organic l.c.d.s. they're used in high end smartphones and are believed to be the next technology replacing l.c.d.s in televisions. it will be samsung's biggest restructuring ever. back to you. >>nk you very much for that. ross, looking at the heat map,

where are we now? >> in europe we are -- we've got stocked advancing outpacing the economy by 8 to 1. ftse, slim losses off of yesterday. right now up 15 points achlt massive reaction to the employment data. anything slightly better than expected. sterling/dollar up, cac up. italy is now officially in resection after it contracted more than expected in the fourth quarter. as far as euro/dollar is concerned, we're away from the february highs of over 133. slight bit tone in the market tight ranges. the yen has been on the back. you've been hearing about that. euro/yen, 103.37. dollar yen, 78.50. the sterling/dollar had gone up. back down again. we keep our eyes on oil. this is going to be a key wild

factor. this is why they haven't hit their targets because of external factor. but brent trading at 118, nymex is up, relatively speaking. we'll take a short break. still to come, whale watching. we'll look what the big money investors have been buying and specifically how warren buffett has been tweaking his portfolio.

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final thoughts from lord norman lamont. >> what's interesting is stocks have continued to climb high and investors seem to be very sanguine indeed about the negotiations in greece. when push comes to shove, they get the money, we kick the can further down the road, but where does that leave us in terms of the eurozone and its structures and where weather the polgcys dictated be germany are the right one? >> i think it's right. it's interesting the way the market has kept up. i think it's as though it's got crisis fatigue. it's gotten rather bored with this crisis. the world hasn't bended.

it's decided the world sjt going to end immediately, so a little bit of confidence has come back in the market. i think the contradictions in the eurozone long term remain, and what you're seeing in greece, the austerity, the riots, i think, is an extreme version of actually what's going to happen in other peripheral countries as well. italy, portugal, spain, they face a very bleak future, and some public reaction i'd have thought as well. some limited astarty. very draconian policies by any standard. the next set of elections are going to be fascinating. there's going to be warnings of extremism from left and right schl that wh. is that what we have to face?

discontent and extreme views and support on the wings? certainly. i think that is a very worrying thing. i think growth in some countries like holland, one doesn't know what's going to happen in france with the national front there. i think the french election is something that could be quite unsettling in the eurozone because he has said he wants to renegotiate the whole fiscal treaty? is he serious about that? i find that difficult to believe. but that would mean we went back several squares in the crisis and would really be quite a worrying development, i think. >> so the politics have been the wild card of this crisis so far and they still remain so. i mean the reaction has been to do what they can. how much have we separated banks from sort of the sovereign and the politics? >> well, i think that is the real significance of what the

ecb has done. there has been a lot of talk that this was the bank of sovereign debt. i think that's what the markets were looking for. i never believed that they were going to get that from the ecb. but the market wants to believe that that is happening. i don't believe that is actually what is happening. i think there have been some surveys that have indicated that maybe a bit of the money has gone into buying sovereign debt, but i think the real point about the ecb facility is that it has managed to separate the crisis in the banks a bit from the crisis in sovereiglvvereigns an story of the last three years has been one ricochetting from the other. and by buying time, he's managed to separate out the banks. >> the question is whether you believe we've got the politicians at the moment and

the structures to use that time to create a better or better viable eurozone. i mean you've always criticized the construct of it. so do you thing we're going to use the time better to make that construct work better and put in what we need to do that? >> well, there isn't one answer to the problem of the -- it would be far better in my opinion if the euro didn't exist, but leaving that aside, all the emphasis really has been on austerity. i personally thing the more sensible approach would have been to have a larger bailout fund, larger esm. that appears not to be going to happen or it's certainly not going to happen until the fiscal union treaty has got the ink dry on it. but i think the emphasis has been too much on austerity which doesn't mean it won't work in the long run. but it's going to take a long time to work. >> good speech today. thanking for joining us. lord nor man la montd, former uk

chancellor. iran is going to issue a fourth generation of domestic centrifuges. wekeep our eye on that as brent oil trades around 118. it's also time to bring in jackie, which means we're getting closer to the second hour. >> we're watching warren buffett very carefully. he's increased his bets on u.s. blue chips, intel and ibm. according to berkshire hathaway's latest regulatory finding. he's added a new position in libya media and made a near 1 million dollar investment in directv. it pick up shares of general dynamics and took new stake in dialysis. they added provisions in coca-cola and care marek and reduced stakes in kraft.

he's making big bets on technology which has performed very well. i was surprised he was taking his name ouftd j and j and kraft. they've been staples across the board. people like to hold them. i suppose we have to look at all of the holdings in berkshire to get a sense of what he's trying to balance because it's a huge portfolio. >> it is a huge portfolio as you say, which is a key point. his track record isn't bad, though, is it? i suppose that's why people follow. >> yeah. and just with his name. warren buffett is warren buffett. people like to know what he's doing and they like to see what he's making. whether you follow what berkshire is doing, that's another big question. meantime the big economic data keeps. going. we're going to be bringing you highlights from the bank of england's inflation report with mervin king that. will be live. plus, understanding the opportunities in china and

finding bargains in the rubble of the european crisis. plus, we look ahead to what we can expect from the big data points and earnings in the u.s. today, and specifically those fed minutes. and as always keep your e-mails and tweets coming in @jack in @jackiedeangelis at cnbcworldwide. stay with us. stamps.com is the best. i don't have to leave my desk and get up and go to the post office anymore. there's nothing worse than going to the post office and waiting in line. [ male announcer ] with stamps.com, you can buy and print real u.s. postage for all your letters and packages so you'll never have to go to the post office again. they took a post office and sat it on my desk. it doesn't take up any room, i don't have to wait in line and it never closes. [ male announcer ] now you can avoid trips to the post office. go to stamps.com and get a 4-week, no-risk trial.

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good morning and welcome to the show. the headlines from around the globe this morning. here in the united states investors wait to see if there will be hints about additional quantitative easing when the federal reserve releases its latest meetings from the fomc meeting. germany sees its apple contract but france manages to eek out moderate growth. tokyo stocks soar to a six-month high after the yen slides. the pbocs vow to help europe. it's just been confirmed the eurozone did contract in the

fourth quarter but not as much expected. minus.3%. it was expected to be at myinu . minuminus minus.0.4%. it was 1.9% in 2010. patricia is in frankfurt. patricia, it could have been worse sniet could have been worse, and that is the good news today, absolutely right. yes, we slipped into a con trakds in germany in the last quarter of 2011 but it wasn't as bad. down 2.2%. an increase of 2% is again slightly ahead of expectations. 's okay. what did drag was trade. what did trade was consumption but that was more or less expected. the outlook from the analysts on the back of the numbers fairly positive. positive toward the first quarter 200612. so nobody really expected germany to get into a technical

recession such acs italy just did. a few good factors are a lot more. yes, it's a little bit subdued. look at the order data. it's all looking good. look at the sentiment indicators. they're looking good. look at the labor markets. so all in all, they're expecting no drop-off, no recession, growth, around 1% for 2012. consumption to increase and because of cheap money, if you look at the euros or look at the ecb action monies around companies and banks will make use of it and investment is something that is going to continue to drive and perk up for the year 2012. so all in all, i think, ross, numbers were better than expected. the numbers were good and the outlook seems to be coming up as well. >> over in france -- thanks, patricia, we didn't get a con trarksz stephane. that's despite the fact we had industrial output down, consumer

spending down. how did france manage to avoid having negative growth? >> because in the quarter if you look at the three main components of the french gdp, they were all having positive contributions. talking about foreign trade, household investment, it's been clearly noted by the finance minister, the french gdp grew in the fourth quarter. on the four-year the french economy grew by 1.7% which is a deselkt level given the economic environmental in europe. that's definitely good news for nichololas sarkozy. tonight the french president will announce he will run for re-election for president. even if it was organized that way. in case the french dpp would shrink in the first quarter of this year, which is an option,

they would not slip into a recession thanks to the performance in the fourth quarter. that's good news for the last year but quite a good security for sarkozy who will become a kaejts in the next couple of hours. >> yeah. he's going to, isn't he, reannounce his -- it's got to be a tough task for him, isn't it, according to the polls? it's going to be difficult for him. the candidate is still leading the race. we'll watch the elections. first will be on the 22nd of april and the second around the 6th of may, so there's still plenty of time. nicholas sar cody officially opened his twitter account, ross, this morning. guess what? in less than one hour he had 4,000 something followers. that's a lot. >> yes, it is. >> we should run for election. woe would have more followers. >> @rosswestgate is my twitter

accou account. >> and @pedrozzi is mine. thanks for that, stephane. nick joins us for more. nick, what do you think of eurozone going. italy, it is worth pointing out contracted more than expected, minus 0.7% on the quarter. it's officially in recession. greece contract more than execed on the unemployment rate. if you've got it, you're not going to get much out of it. >> i think that's one of the most interesting questions there and away, isn't it, because the conventional growth will grow if do you a lot of it. there have been periods where the economy has been expanhandling fexpanhandl

expanhandliexpanhandl expanhandling -- expanding for on skrus reasons. >> where is that -- this is the bigger question. giev a short-term question about greece. the bigger question is whether the fiscal compact and the plan that's been dictated by the germans is the right one or whether actually it leads up to budgets that can never be met because you're never going to get the growth that's needed to pay the debts down. >> well, that's right. but strange to relate, but an expansion fiscal reaction is the kind of current orthodoxy unless you believe what's being forced in southern europe is designed to make it worse, which, you know, some people do. but that's probably a bit far-fetched. yes, the conventional wisdom is you create conditions like the budget in 1981 where the government gets out of the way and the private sector sort of surges into the space.

>> hey, nick. this is christine. what do you make of news that china is going to in vest in more euro-denominated assets. i mean no details are given so far, but we seem to be getting some support from the chinese to help out when it comes to the eurozone crisis. >> my take on that for china is they're acting the good citizen. it's in everybody's interest, as your previous guests were saying, to see if you can get the ball over the line as far as greece is concern. so i suspect that what's happening here is that china's showing -- willing, showing they're being a goodst extend kind of thing. as for a lot of follow-through in terms of a relatively poor country on a per-capital income basis, spending a lot of money to bail out some quite rich countries, i think that's a stretch. >> that will be a good system. it ought to be interesting to have a viable alternative to the dollar, isn't it? >> yes. but don't you think there's an element to being a good citizen.

>> yeah. i don't know. nick, stick around. plenty more to come from you. meanwhile we were supposed to have a euro group meeting last night. it got canceled. there's a lot of horse trading going on. greece officials have raised questions about athen's commitment to deepen popular austerity measures. julia is in brussels. i think what's key here is most investors, and we've talked about this, when push comes to shove, greece gets enough money to avoid a default. here's the real question, whether politicians in germany, finland, netherlands are now decides that the eurozone is now strong enough to push the button on greece. so have we seen a substantial enough change in mood to say, you know what? if you don't play our tune, we will let you go? >> well, ross, that's certainly the comments we've been hearing

over the last few days. if you put ollie rehn, his comments aside, when he said there will be incalculable consequences, there certainly is. the default scenario's lost much of its horror. yesterday it was said, you know, that it's nothing. people in the eurozone are suggesting that this situation might not be as bad as it is. they say they're parting in some kind of soft default scenario. whether we see a disorderly default, though, still remains a question. obviously this eurozone meeting got pushed back. there are still details to find out. amongst those, of course, the 325 million euros worth of additional spending cuts. locals are saying they were

going to decide. i thought it was going be a problem there. they wanted to see pension cuts. if they don't get that. i think there's still going to be a problem there. we're also waiting, of course, for the confirmation from the coalition leaders that they will agree to this and continue to implement them even after the elections. that, of course, is a question given what we're seeing in the polls. they sort of shift to the left side. in fact, one of the leaders there has openly been discussing of an idea of a move back. so the political situation there is a certain headache for the troika right now and the situation seems to feel like, you know, it's up in the air despite the fact that asmussen said today the conditions will be met for monday. ross, back to you. >> jules, thanks for that. hypoyou don't wait for too long for the eurozone meeting to begin after your week in athens, but we'll see what happens. nick, how much are politicians playing with fire in the negotiating tactics.

can the eurozone withstand greece being let go? a disorderly default or not? >> i think like the lehman brothers collapse, you don't really ever know until drou it but quite clearly it's in a better position to deal with it than it was a couple of years ago. you remember tim geithner had this rather sort of scary phrase talking about the american problem, whether we've got enough foam sprayed on the runway, you know, for an emergency landing-type thing. i think there's definitely -- >> the only foam we've got is the ecb foam in the form of ltr. i didn't see any other foam, is that correct. >> that's correct. that's quite a bit. of course, the banks, the greek banks have reduced their exposure to greece very substantially over that period. you know, there's been a lot of money in, money out by -- through government invention. so that does -- that does represent a safer landing strip than it was before.

>> so then what's on my mind wlrks we can have a greek sort of disorderly default and do it within the euro. that's what i'm trying to feg out woushlgsd that work? >> in theory, yes, but, you know, this thing is moving very quickly as your correspondent was just saying. the politics of sovereign europe are such that like everywhere in euro land, everyone who doesn't believe in the euro barrage, you do create conditions for a rise in political extremism. >> nick, stick around. jackie? >> yeah, ross. of course, with ee going to keep our eye on the euro-zone. coming up if you're looking for investment opportunityings outside of troubled eurozone, we'll take a look at some of the garns and emerging markets. is now the time to buy? in that sector we're going to speak to one analyst who, in

fact, says it is. stay with u. we'll be right back after the break. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers.

good morning. welcome back to the show. it's time for your global market report on "worldwide exchange." looks like it's going to be a higher open if these are any indications. take a look at these figures right now. looks like if the markets were

open the dow would be higher by 77 points, the nasdaq higher by 19 and the s&p 500 higher by 9. this after a mixed trading yesterday. we closed well off the lows but the dow and the nasdaq slightly over the flat line. we saw some strength in materials, rather, excuse me, consumer staples and health care. that were the best performer. of course, the question with all the trouble that we're seeing in the eurozone right nonld a and the questions over greece, why these features are ticking up right now. it's really, really interesting. >> it's based on gains we've got here in europe. pretty slim losses yesterday. right now the ftse 100 up 0.4%. unemployment rate rose but the tail came down from november's peak, so better than we might have expected. xetra dax up 1.2%.

cac cark kwar rant. we continue to see, of course, bond yields cap. ftse up. as far as the euro/dollar is concerned we're not near highs. euro/yen continues to move high. the end weakening across the board today as we continue to feel the impact of bang of japan's announcement yesterday, dollar/yen, 78.50. not far from what we hit yesterday. 78.67. sterling dollar, pretty flat. in just around ten minutes' time. will they signal there's more room for quantitative easing? that's what sterling and gilt traders are looking at. below 2.2%, 2.15% is where wi've

been standing. we're also keeping an eye on what's going on with the owed prices. brent, above. there we are, gilt, 0.1%. btp, 0.2%. brent right now, you can see at 118.13. a number of things going on here. we've got a streak in yemen and syria and sudan as well. sudan's taking 2.4 million barrels. and we've had pipeline explosions in homs, syria, as well. so it really is geopolitical tensions outweighing and supply disruption fears and outweighing weaker economic growth as far as the euro markets are concerned. christine, recap your day. >> well, two things moving markets today. ross, we had the comments that

lifts the market sentiment. that drove sentiment across the region higher. of course, we have the nikkei up 2.6%. a six-month high. that easing drove down the yen which lifted the exporters and financial stocks. in shanghai we had comments after the markets closing. it will continue to maintain prudent monetary policy. it will continue to maintain basic stakt of the chinese currency, the yen. it also said house prices have moderated somewhat in some areas. so those are some of the things coming up in china. inflation, and, of course, the chinese currency. a nice lift there as a result. but more short covering. the taiwan waited index. the kospi up 1.1%. the australian market, a little bit of a mix today. we had some weakness coming in. up minus .3%.

that's it for me. i'll be back tomorrow with news making headlines here in asia. have a great night, christine. coming up in the program, are you looking for investment opportunities? we're going to be joined by a fest who sees a lot of potential, so stay with us. we'll be back after the break. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] offering four distinct driving modes and lexus dynamic handling, the next generation of lexus will not be contained. the all-new 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back. see your lexus dealer.

the merging market equities not off to a bad start in 2012. according to our next guest there's a lot based on cheap evaluations. morgan bernstein. do you say bernstein or bernstein? >> berstein. >> thanks for joining us. china's nearly 30%, 40% of your portfolio. pretty awful performance. why do you thing that is? >> over the last 20 years it's had some of the worst equity market returns among the

markets. there are labor government and strategies that can tap into it and likely be more successful. >> does that mean you're going to trim it? >> no, not necessarily. i think you can still find some opportunities. ultimately any merging market is exposed to china in some way if not directly, indirectly, whether you're look at an iron ore producer. >> the brazilian economy isn't growing terribly fast but a leading bank in the region has very strong profitability, very strong and trades at six times the earnings today. >> i was very taken by a story

if a million-pound dog. did you see this particular thin? a chinese coal mine bought a special type of dog for a nil onpounds and i was wondering if that was perhaps a sign of, you know, a sorry that was well advanced, if you know what i mean. >> the -- i think the luxury goods story in china is well understood whether you're looking at million-pound dogs or handbags. and, in fact, if you look at the pricing for some of the high end consumer companies in china, the valuation looks quite rich to me today. >> do you worry that under the surface, one might be looking at greater speculative bubble? >> within china. >> yes. we've had rapid credit growth and big rises in real estate preess on the square footage basis. we're now looking at chinese real estate and u.s. real estate being the same price. i don't know if that comparison

really means anything, but it kind of got my attention. we've got this very strong confidence in the authorities. we've got a super power nair a tish. >> remember that question. we're going to hold you're the break. we're going to get to mems from our sponsors as they like to say. remember that question. you can answer it in a few moments. jackie, what else is coming up? >> yeah. we're going to look at whether or not the boe is going to stick to the inflax forecast. we're going to bring you the central bank's latest quarterly inflation report live after the break.

good morning and welcome to the show. the federal reserve releases its minutes from the last fomc meeting. a mixed picture today. italy slips into a recession in the fourth quarter. germany sees its output detract and france manages to eek out moderate growth. tokyo stocks soar to a six-month high. the boj's surprise and the boc

is vowing to help europe. okay. welcome to cnbc's "worldwide exchange." if you're just joining us from the united states, a good morning do you. we're getting iuorio inflation report. this is where we think future policy is going go. they're saying now the inflation rate will be below target for a good part of the forecast per d period. this is over the next two years. they talk about the end of 2012. and it's more likely to be below target in 2013. we. sterling edging up slightly. the sudden pace of the decline is incertain.

they're up. the forecast assumed no rate hike before the second quarter of 2014. an unchanged q.e. they remain weak in the near term. nick, your immediate reactions to that? >> well, the -- >> go ahead. >> yeah, sorry. the uk inflation forecast hasn't been the best way to steer the last couple of years since they've ever come remotely close. i mean obviously the good news has been that we're comparing it. that's what's got the headline rate drop as the backdrops out. but what the most likely candidate for spoiling the story is the oil price. >> absolutely. we'll just hand it over to mervin king. we'll stay with and listen in for his opening remarks. >> inflation has already fallen halfway back to the 2% target.

these remain challenging times for the u.n. economy. substantial winds are hampering our recovery and balancing. today's report shows that further prospects as an effect of skperm factors wain and a weak outgrowth adds to the margin of the slack in economy. nevertheless growth is likely to recover. supported by rising incomes and stimulus provided by the asset purchases announced last week. the uns estimates that the economy contracted slightly in the final quarter of 2011. completing a year in which growth disappoints. and the figures released this morning shows that the unemployment rate is now 8.4%. all though it suggests a brighter picture for activity at the beginning of this year, the

fiscal consolidation and tight credit conditions at home and the weakness of our major overseas trading partners are acting as a drag on growth. the underlying need for repair of balance sheets means that the path of recovery is likely to be slow and uncertain. for much of this year there is likely to be a zig dag pattern of alternating positive and negative growth rates reflecting the additional bank holiday for the queen's diamond jubilee so that it will be even harder than usual to interpret the official estimates of growth. the kmiet tees judgment about the outlook for fourth quarter gdp growth is summarized in job one on page six of the report. it's based on to assumptions that the bank follows implied market interest rates and the size of the asset purchase price

remains at $325 billion pounds. the outlook for growth is broadly similar to that in november. weakness in the near term is followed by a recovery to rates of growth to long run averages by the end of the second year of the projection. that recovery is driven by rising real incomes and a pickup from investment at its current low levels. >> that's the governor of the bank of england. the ukers are going to stek with that. it's more likely to be below target no 2013, 2014, assuming no rate hike and unchanged q.e. which suggests this may be room for more q.e. to get -- if they're forecasting rates to be below it and their target is to hit 2%, maybe they're leaving room to add a bit more.

that's clearly why he's saying that. he's heaving the door open. the bank of england have done a good job of reading the growth environmental in the uk. you know, mervin king is consistently recognized for the fragile conditions and has been keen -- put it this way, has been happy to see negative interest rates and get some of the correction of asset prices to happen through -- you know, through a real effect rather than a nominal effect. >> okay. nick, we'll take a pause there. ahead of the u.s. open, european forces have gotten solid gains after slim losses yesterday. down fiechb and ten points. footsie, up a length of 1%. the contaac kwar aunt.

>> setting up the day on wall street, higher as well. let's take a look at our u.s. futures and see how we're poised for trait ride now. the dow would be up by more than 70. the s&p 500 higher by 8.2, and it seems, ross, that investors here are looking for more positive data points and shrugging off the fears about the continuing crisis in grease. but, of course, we're going to be watching what the fomc members had to say about kwablt tayive easing when the minutes from the latest fed meeting are release and that's at 2:00 p.m. eastern time today. investors believe it has provided a leg of support under the u.s. market's current rally. the fed has left the door open for more q.e. and the next program is expected to expand the balance sheet by hundreds of

millions of dollar. joining us now is ryan moomy, still with us our guest host nick carn. the issue is qe3. how likely do you think it is that the fed is going to take that route? >> good morning. we don't thinchs it's necessary for them to boost what they already have done. they continue to buy the united states debt to try to put cash out in the economy and we thing that that's enough. we thing it's time for them to work out their issues by themselves. >> we're in a bullish period right now since the start of the year. we've seen a lot of buying in terms of equities. but you say the markets are due for a correction. >> yes. and that's good for any healthy

market. as i told one of my clients last week, with growth in the stock market, we want a la manz -- or lebaron more so than a corvette. with don't want those sharp ups and downs, we want it to slowly chug along. so a nier term correction is healthy. but long term when i was on, long term, the united states is in a much better position than the rest of the world, and we like the united states, and we're overweight there for if time being. >> okay. and if that's the case and in fact we are positioned better than the rest of the world, why are we seeing weakness in the dollar? >> it has a lot do with the fed buying its own treasuries. it was weak a little over 10 years ago in the early 2000s when a lot of the long-term fiscalness started. if we see them loosen up their

balance sheet a little bit, we're going to see the dollar strengthen, gold come down and crude stabilize. >> let me step in with nick. >> i was wondering, ryan, what your take was was on it. this is one of the dogs that hasn't barked so far. you know, we have a lot of talk about fiscal adjustment. that looks to be serious actions and i was wondering what your take on that was. i would agree with you a lot that it's time for the government -- congress to create a sustainable growth environmental more so than the fed by becominging fiscally responsible, reducing spending, and encouraging a progrowth environmental that would allow the markets to work out our issues versus relying on the

government to inflate it. >> okay. ryan, we'll come back to you. stick around. this is interesting. governor king said no one can prepare for the unforeseeable consequences of a greek defaumt. they won't goo into detail. the greek finance minister says the -- some in the eurozone are playing with fire and they may even want greece outside of eurozone. they're saying we're prepared to let greece have a disorderly default. they say the few remaining issues will be clarified. it got canceled. there's going be instead a conference call at 4:00 london time, 5:00 c.e.t. mervin king is saying we can't fully prepare for unforeseeable

consequences, and the greek finance minister saying we're playing with fire by making those suggestions. it's still as clear as mud, jackie. >> very, very interesting, and, of course, all eyes are going to be be on that call to see how the situation turns out. stay tuned. andrew sorkin is going to be introducing former treasury secretary hank paulson. is the risk worth it? find out more next. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.

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good morning and welcome back to wor"worldwide exchange." it's all meant that they have fallen out of favor with investors but our next guest says the best time to invest in a market sector is when they're extremely biased against it. joining us now to talk more about it is barry sein. you say a lot of these chinese equities are at a reflection point. talk to me about your call. >> first we look at the indices

and we saw the hang sang hong kong bottoming out. we saw them bottom out in december. they've all moved up pretty significantly. that stock is right at a breakout point, ready to move higher and a number of these stocks technically are very, very strong. >> you're looking at it from a technical standpoint less than a fundamental growth standpoint. >> that's right. purely from a technical standpoint. but the theory is it's incorporating all of the market information including fundamentals. so when you look at the chart, you should theory otically get a view of what the fundamentals are saying as well. >> okay. so we've gotten recent indications that the chinese government is working to cushion it and the investors are less worried about that. if that is the case, where are we going to see the growth coming from? >> well, what the charts are

telling us, they very much like the energy stocks. in the report i put out yesterday. china petroleum and chemical is the best performing stock. the trend is moving up pretty nicely. we're seeing cno, which i think you have on your screen. it's broken out of a down trend and is moving up. . so energy are the sectors i'm seeing moving up the strongest. >> okay. >> morgan, let's bring you in on this. what do you thing of the stock picks? >> i think it's a very interesting play among stocks globally generally today. what's interesting is as many have shifted back, not surprisingly it's got first to the most liquid developed adr names. and i think they're likely to benefit more broadly, includes those who dot 'do not have adl

listi i -- adr listings. >> i was wondering if these foreign listings have really delivered to investors, invest they had hoped. gaining the shareholder protection they wouldn't have had at home. but, in fact, some of the biggest blow-ups. >> you look at it. i think the accounting forensics are even more difficult at such a distance at they often tend to use more scrutiny than canada and the united states which may seem counter intuitive. >> barry? >> yeah, think in the developed markets you have a more developed research apparatus and so you're seeing a lot more scrutiny, research, innovative techniques to understand what's going on with these companies and a lot of the short sellers

who have come out and uncovered some of the issues have started out in developed maths like the u.s. >> let's talk about about. you were looking at the visit yesterday. we're looking at fragmented situation in terms of the eurozone. how do these events and how they infold impact what we're going to see in china? >> sure. one of the reasons i put a report out this week, thing that's going to shed renewed light and emphasis on the kmie niece market and chinese stocks and there's talk in the media about a reset between the u.s. and china's relations. if that happens i think they'll look at chinese stocks. i think they're going to like what they see at least technically. in terms of other factors, you mention the weakness in europe. obviously china is very resource dependent. we look at the commodity charts, price level of commodities. it was a bit of a positive for china because it's reducing the

european demand for commodities and that's a major input in terms of what we're seeing. >> when we look at the political situation i want to get a final thought. how do you think the markets are going to react to that? >> i think quite positively. i think the visit went quite well. remember, he's still in the country through the rest of the week in iowa and lax. i think we're gong to see more in the news throughout the country on his visit. >> thank you so much, barry, for joining us. i know it's early in the morning. barry sine of drexel hamilton and of course. we're going to ask if shoppers splashed the cash over the holiday period coming up next.

portugal has been raising a bit of t-bills. . he says that's come down from 4% previously. a bit to cover on that 2.-- sorry -- 10.3, previously 2.8. six-month, the yield, 4.33%. that's come down previously. 2.6. the 12-month one is probably most instructive. they raised 1 president $5 billion. the yield, 4.94. previously 4.986. so not an awful lot changed on the 12th month as far as portugal is concerned. they'll still be in the program for a whiechl they're only prepared to really log on for three-month money but not much more than that, jackie.

>> yeah. thanks for that. meantime warren buffett has increased his bets and added exposure to media coverage. according to berkshire's added filing. they made a $1 billion invest mnlts in directv raising itself stake nearly five-fold. investors have their eyes on the fed at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. the federal reserve will release there latest meetings from the fomc meeting and we have a lot of economic data coming out. at 8:30 we'll get the empire state survey. alt 9:00 the treasure international capital flow data. and we'll be watching for those very closely. we're going to get earnings from retailers abercrombie & fitch and cnbc's parent company comcast as well. ryan mumy of mumy financials.

when we look at earnings, they have been a big part of that. what are we going to see that gives us a hunt? we had the retail consumers yesterday. that left a lit toll be desired. >> yeah. retail sales over the holiday season, they weren't outstanding. they were okay. and i would expect that abercrombie and fifrp's earnings would reflect that, that they'll be around expectations. retail is traditionally a sector that does well after the economy's already off and running and people are spending money. we haven't seen that yet. we receive an increase in savings more so than spending at this point in the recovery. >> all right. let's switch gears for a second and talk about the eurozone crisis and greece specifically. of course, a lot of the headlines coming out saying that greece has totally blown it in terms of securing the next piece of its bailingout in a timely fashion. how focus dodd you think they're

going to be coming out of greece and the conference call with the euro-zone finance ministers? it looks like we're set for a bit of a rally today. >> yes. you know, as i said in october, europe's far behind us as far as monetary policy. and greece has a lots of debt issues that they're not working through. they're not meeting the demands of the other eu countries, so they have a rough road ahead and they need to rope off the greece issue to prevent it from becoming more of a lee man situation that spreads to other countries and monetary systems or greece needs to step up to the table and follow through with what the rest of the eu wants. >> just on that final point, nick, a final word from you, can we rope it off? are the policies right to let it go? are they playing with fire or not? >> they're playing with fire in the sense that the greek finance

minister meant it. but, you know, the three is the joorks there's a lot more foam on the runway. there's got to be a suspicion of it. there's quite a lot of people who are trying to shove greece toward the exit. >> all right. we're going to have to leave it there. thank you so much to our guest this morning, ryan mumy and nick carn. that wraps up world wide exchange. i'm jack can deangelis. >> and i'm ross westgate. we'll see whaps. we hope you have a profitable day. good-bye for now.

the eurozone economy attracting for the first time since december of 2009. a deal in washington, congressional negotiators reaching a tentative payroll tax cut, plus we're preparing for a cnbc exclusive. a live extended interview with former treasury secretary hank paulson. it's wednesday, february 15th, 2012. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome to "squawk box." i'm