welcome to the show. headlines around the globe, a sea of red in europe as election outcomes cast a cloud over the markets. in trance, hollande wins the presidented city promising to challenge germ in on its us a sayity focus and promote growth policies. >> and in greece, voters failing to win a majority in parliament, concerns over a greek exit from

the euro. tokyo leading asia's losses as investors run for the exits following the election results. in europe traders drop riskier assets as fiscal commitments are put in doubt. hello, everybody. welcome to the show "worldwide exchange" is what you're watching here. the day after the big day of elections across europe where we again saw big surprises taking place in greece with regards to who now is running off with the majority of the votes. and on top of that also a change in power in france. what we're looking at is a german heat map. these are the german constituents because of course it's a bank holiday here in the uk, so no trade on the ftse. just two characters trading in positive territory. basf leading the way lower by just over 2.5%. the european markets trading,

xetra dax lower by 1.5%, just an hour into trade. cac 40 on of by 1.5%. ibex down by almost 2% and the swiss market just shy of 1%. we're till sstill seeing sellin across the european banking center. in france lower by 6%. societe generale off by 3%. sao paulo also lower by somewhere in the region of 2%. this is on uncertainty in what's going on in the eurozone and how the future will look, when or not we're faceded with the prospect of a euro breakup if the greek coalition governments can't figure out thousand cooperate. let me show you the euro rates in particular. here we have the euro-dollar behind me flat to just a little

bit lower. we did break true the 1.30 area. dollar-yen flat to a little bit higher. and the dollar swissie, same story there. bond markets, this is where debts interesting at the moment. i was checking the yields. definitely seeing a flight to safety taking place, although just seeing a little bit of selling in the bund. yield pointing lower 1.5%. inverse relationship, it does fool you. safe haven to the bund and ten year treasury. check out the guilts, too. seeing selling off some of the periphery bond markets. in greece you're seeing a jump in the yield there, 22.6%. so once again risk is back in vogue. oil, light crude by a percentage

or so. brent also down by 7.2%. a lot of activity taking place in our markets today. >> here in asia, similar picture, as well. asian markets not looking too pretty because of the election results raising fears about whether the eurozone economies will be able to push through with new austerity measures. of course the weaker jobs data from the u.s. not helping sentiment either. nikkei 225 down 3.8%. of course the yen buying and that in turn hit will the can interest port exporters. property in focus after a report of a suspension on discount on mortgages for first time home buyers. that weight on the shanghai market. hang seng down 2.6%, heavy on concerns about the eurozone of course. exported related stocks took a big hit. elsewhere, south korea a three

month closing low. ship builders falling. risk aversion also in the australian market down 2.2%, the miners got hit as a result, down sharply. and sensex similar picture selling off 1.3%. as you can see, all red across my screens today. >> well, france's new president, francois hollande, has already picked up his first official duty, namely a are trip to berlin. the country's first left wing president in 17 years says he plan it is to renegotiate europe's fiscal compact championed by angela merkel. in his victory speech, the president elect repeated his call for unity about in france. >> the 6th of may should be a great day for our country, a new departure for europe, a new hope pot world. this is the mission you have given me. it is a heavy one. a great one. a beautiful one. i love my country. i love the people of france.

and i want between between us to be a relationship that allows for everything and that is called trust. >> stefane and steve are both in paris digesting the fallout from yesterday's elections. guys, main question is probably how much of a challenge hollande's win is going to present to the european us a tear day plan now. >> i think that and also the confidence the markets will have in hollande and indeed his plans for growth. let's take a step back and see what the country is that he has inherited. it's a country with virtually no growth. 0.7% in 2012. it has some of the most competitive labor are practices in europe. they have a debt for gdp of 89%, a record trade deficit, unemployment 13 year high. so my question is what hollande put on the table for a new dawn

for perhaps? >> he needs to find the resources to finance his program. he will raise taxes, cooperate tax to 55%. he will raise taxes for people earning more than 1 million euros per year. so this is how he will get the resources to finance his program. but honestly the economy will come only in the second time because the first priority will be international relationship because he will go to germany right after the sworn-in ceremony. and then he will travel to washington to meet president obama before going to the grchlt 8 summit and then we will have elections in france and then only will we start to talk about politics. so we're kind of quiet for one month. >> my impression on my second visit to france during this election is actually people didn't necessarily vote for specific policies from hollande, what they did was reject the incumbent, they rejected sarkozy. and that's a powerful force, but

i can't see where the concrete proposes are to get to something that won't get to a balanced e nobody talked about specifics. >> first priority was spending power. but they didn't explain how they would do it. second concern is employment. none explained how they would create jobs. and hollande was careful in the choice of words. when he say he wants to lead the war on finance, he didn't say specifically what i want to do with finance. when he said i want to lower the legal age of retirement to 60, he didn't mention that you needed to work for 41 years before being retired. >> powerful force voting out the incumbent. we'll discuss it in more detail about what the economics are for france and what he can and can't do. we'll do that with the head of research in a couple minutes time. back to you.

>> thank you very much. they'll be with us for the rest of the day. and david, our guest host joining us director from motley, good morning. >> good morning. >> we've got greek elections going sideways some might argue and a big surprise that we didn't see the two main parties heading in to the election coming out with the majority and we have french election showing us a power shift. net/met, what do the changes mean? >> confusion. i think the one word that sums up what's been going on in europe at the moment is confusion. confusion in the sense that i don't think the political leaders know what they want to do because they are so disparate in hair ideas about how to reach a conclusion with regard to the debt crisis in europe. so confusion i think is one of the reasons why investors, traders are leaving the market right now. >> dunk it's going to be a lasting confusion? are we back to square one now, back to thinking about when or

not greece will be pulling out of the eurozone, whether or not we can get the imf deal fulfilled for greece and whether the french mply indications with a lesser time will have a big impact? >> when i look at the debt crisis in europe, i've got three things written on my desk it at the moment. one of them is how are you going to service the debt. the second one is will you default on the debt. and the third one is will you inflate away the debt. we know that it's almost impossible for help to service the debt as we have seen about will these elections because the people are reallying against the austerity measures. so they're not going to service the debt. will they default on the debt? i don't think germany will allow any country to default on the debt, so we're left with option number three and that's the one that's always high on my prior i. they have to try to inflate away the debt somehow. and what they'll try to do, whether they call it long term refinancing operation or quantitative easing, held try to

inflate away the debt without some people noticing. >> we'll come back to that point. greece's future, though, in the eurozone is very much in doubt after the country's two main parties suffered heavy losses in sunday's election. failing to even gain enough support from voters to form a ruling coalition. following the stinging defeat, they have both called for changes to international bailout terms. >> we are ready to take responsibility, to create the government of national salvation with just two goals. that greece remains in the euro and that we amend the terms of the bailout memorandum in order to achieve growth and provide relief to the greek society. >> karl lycarolyn is in athens. a stunning vote and to me the big surprise is that what got pushed to number three. >> it was the worst showing for

its former ruling party in party history, only getting 13.2% of the votes. that makes the outcome extremely uncertain as you said. but i want to pick up on the point, yes, one of the most used words in the election campaign was renegotiation. and it's worth pointing out it this word wasn't only used by the anti-bailout parties, no, it was also used by the two pro bailout parties, namely new democracy and he wants to change the program. this is one of 9 most important points that the new governments will have to agree on going forward. another is how to implement thes austerity measures. remember the coalition government will have to enact 3 billion just in the next couple week. and they will also have to find shall additional 12 billion euros to be cut in 2013 and

2014. this plan must be presented to the troica by the end of june. can the parties agree, it's very difficult to imagine. remember, pasok and the new democracy have been arch rivals for the best part of 30 years. >> carolyn, thanks so much. you'll be with us for the puful day. david, a quote saying i don't think voting for a small part i will make us go bankrupt. we already are. a lot of the smaller parties that came out of nowhere and now have a 7% vote after the elections from almost nothing beforehand. >> and i think what is really happening is they're just grasping at straws. what they're saying is the incumbent parties he moment haven't really done anything for

us, we don't want pain, so let's give it on to somebody else and have a go. let's pass the buck and see if they can come up with a fresh idea. and again i go back to what i'm saying. only three ways that you can attack this debt problem they have. you either service it, when which they don't want, default, which they don't want, and finally, you inflate it away. >> as we look at situations of course in greece and what's happening in france, as a foreign investor looking if to these two scenarios, what does it mean as far as resolving the eurozone debt crisis? >> it's been pushed back for so long already. i don't think they'll come up with any kind of consensus simply he because they cannot agree on the best way forward. you have germany which is a strong industrialized country and it has plenty of money. it's all very well for a country like germany to tell the rest of europe how to run your countries because germany is okay.

so what they need to do is come up with an idea. and like i say, there are only three ways that you can deal with debt. so i think inflating it away is probably the least damaging way for europe to start moving forward. this of course requires the agreement of germany. germany hates inflation, but they have to try to get germany to agree because otherwise these other countries will slowly leave the euro and say bring back our own currencies and we'll do it our own way and then we saw if will asia, vietnam was one of these countries that had to devalue its currency twice before it could get itself back on a level footing again. so i think some of the weaker countries will have to do it the same unless germany will head them inflate away their debt. >> so what time frame are we looking at? do you think one or two countries may leave the eurozone as a result? >> i think they probably have no choice but to leave unless of

course germany is willing to concede and say that we will let you inflate away your debt. inflating away their debt means that germany also has to accept that its inflation has to be a little bit higher. with or not angela merkel can convince her own people that this is the way forward is up to her. whether or not she's strong enough on do so. because the alternative is for the eurozone to break up and i think this is something germany doesn't want either. so therefore i think it's the letter of two evils. >> david, still saying with us. now, the backlash of course is against european austerity looks to continue in italy today as prime minister mario monti faces local elections there. with the nationwide balance scheduled if next year, it will be a key barometer of italian sentiment to a series of taxes and spending cuts. opinion polls are suggesting high levels of abstention are likely. a survey by the swg institute on bring pointed to over 38% of

voters who are either undecided or ready to abstain. now, you are looking at live pictures from moscow at the moment of vladimir putin being sworn in as president of russia, putin reassuming presidency after medvedev. that's taking place as we're talking about it. he's starting a six year term where he's facing growing dissent, some say economic problems still in russia. and there are quite a few political rivalries taking place, as well. but he has already taken the oath with his hand on the russian constitution. this was at a ceremony attended by around 2,000 dignitaries. so live pictures out of moscow as putin is being sworn in once again. now, coming up here on worldwide exchange, we're back in paris where bank stocks have been trading lower following

hollande's victory at the french presidential elections. much more analysis throughout the program. find us on twitter. in paris where bank stocks have

. welcome back. french bank stocks reacting very negatively to the presidential election results. and also worries about greece. stefane and steve still standing by in paris. we're saying the french banking stocks are off quite substantially. the question is also how much confidence of course the public will be having in the new government that's being put this place and what it means for parliamentary elections. >> and i think the market, concerns on french ten year paper trading at 2.848%. i would suggest that is a level which is way lower than we've seen since october last year. and also of course lower than when s&p downgrade aed france at

the start of of the year. let's speak to the head of economic research in asset management. phillip, you were telling me with what has changed now is that growth and jobs has moved to the forefront, deficit reaction has taken a step back. so my question to you is how long can hollande maintain market confidence and low yields on government paper while they have a growth agenda which isn't necessarily funded by any firm commitments? >> the issue is to say we have the european level because the growth issue, the job issue issue, not a spain or italy issue. that's very important. and in that way, you can say to the market, well, you're up with the specific plan to improve growth and jobs. >> but can you grow the economy and you can get lower deficit?

>> at the end, that is the issue. in the u.s., the point is to stay put growth first and then you will have better things so public finance. the issue with hollande is more 9 same. when you have growth, when you have jobs, at the end, your public guy fans is improving. that's the target and the way that the bet made by hollande. >> but if you don't lower the cost of labor, you won't create jobs. >> about but that's why we have to think about the whole thing and we are waiting for what clearly hollande will do. we have a lot of points already, but we have to manage to know exactly what will be -- how

things will be put in time. what will be first. we know that we have large meeting in july and growth and unemployment in france. so it will be very first rendezvous i could say for france. and to now how things will go. hollande will have a meeting with angela merkel, with barack obama, all this will go to improve his strategy and to show to everyone to invest in the market how things will go in france and we will be out of the campaign. and so things will be a little different. >> and this morning announced that the election will not have any impact immediate on their credit rating for france. and still seeds one chance in three it will down gragrade fra this year or next year. >> so it's what they say in last

january when they downgraded france. they say they're watching it. so it doesn't change. and the new president has not changed their mind. >> you've mentioned jobs and growth. tell me one concrete measure that you believe is going to make france as competitive with the rest of europe, let alone the rest of the world. because we know that france and their labor costs are a fifth worse than the eu average. what does france do about competitive position? >> that's a real problem. speaking only about costs is not sufficient. you have to speak about productivity to see how things are going. and in fact when you look at the european situation, you see that there is a large imbalance between germany and the rest of europe. you have france, you have italy, you have spain. and so what we have to check and

what the new government has to negotiate is to rebalance the situation between germany and the rest of europe. and that's a real issue. germany has had a nice -- >> are you saying the germans need to be less competitive? >> no, during the beginning of the euro area, we have a situation where competitiveness in germany improved a lot. because they cut costs. but can he same time, you have higher inflation rate in other part of europe. due to the euro situation. and so this strategy made larger surplus from germany to the others. and probably not sustainable for

euro area. >> we'll have to leave the debate for now, but thank you very much indeed. head of economic research. receive fap oig and i are here throughout the rest of the day. if you're in paris and you want to shoot through the issues with us, come and join us. back to you. >> i'm sure loads will gather around you. in germany, merkel is bracing herself for another possible election defeat as ther party sw the share of the vote shrinking. patricia, we're just just gathering together what all these elections mean today. what does the german one mean? >> it means a little bit more headwind potentially, you're right the way you said it right how. also in the smaller state, because it isn't clear whether the cdu will lose the grape on

the government. it depends on the form of the coalition. there is a neck on neck kind of situation, both much help having now 22 seats which of course means a step down for the cdu. the spd said they are not interested really even though still open, but not really interested in the grand coalition, but they would prefer a danish traffic light. the outcome is still open for that if the three way coalition would happen would actually mean that this is another slap in the face for angela merkel in the last two years she already had three of help. and it would also mean it's not such a positive indication for next week's very crucial election in will german's biggest say the. and that is something that we'll

be watching. >> patricia, thank you very much. coming up next, as asian nations try to fend off inflation while ramping up growth, a look at the challenges in the next half hour of the show. #a#a#a#a#a#a'9#a+=#a#a#a#a#a +g#a

a sea of red in europe as election outcomes cast a cloud over markets with bank stocks leading the way down. in france, hollande wins the presidency promising challenge to germany on its usausterity f. >> and in greece, pasok failing to win a majority in parliament. the anti-bailout left coalition raises concerns over a greek exit from the euro. investors run for the exits following the election results in europe, traders drop riskier assets as fiscal commitments are put into doubt. good morning. if you're just joining us, you are watching "worldwide

exchange" on a day after the big election elections no trade out of the ftse 100. interesting to see we're lower by 1.5% it germany. the cac 40 lower by just over 1%. the ibex lower by 1%. not to ignore pretty big moves taking place in some of the banking shares as you've been seeing. the euro rates, though, the euro-dollar, we br through the crucial 1.30 level. just a little bit lower. not a whole lot. could become interesting once we get further into this and we see what type of coalition governments are attempted to be

formed. the let me show you the bond markets. what we've seen is a real safe haven trade taking place this morning. we've had buying back into the bund, now yields just over 1.5%. back into the u.s. treasury, as well. interesting enough, we're seeing buying in to the ten year french paper yielding 2.8%, but selling in periphery europe, maybe no big surprise, the yield on the ten greek ten year now at 22.8%. so again just moving higher on the ten year in greece and? n. spain. let's talk about the asian markets and just recap what's been going on there. christine. >> risk aversion across the board. doubts about austerity measures in the eurozone. and weaker than expected jobs data in the u.s. so not boost to sentiment.

exporters got hit pretty badly. property in focus on a report that icbc cut a discount for first time home buyers. hang seng off 2.6%, worse fall in six months. we had heavy selling on growing concerns. export related stocks bore the brunt of the selling. kospi down 1.6%, ship builders getting slammed. as a result, the miners were hurt on currents about what's happening in the eurozone. but there is still demand for strong china list willings.

tracey chang is here to tell us about one firm's billion dollar ambitions. >> that's right, let's focus on the bigger picture first. today the shanghai composite escaped the bloody bath, investors are cautious ahead of the release of april's key economic data friday. mainland china markets of course closed the day flat while the hang seng suffered big losses down about 2.6%. the equity market down about 20% so far it year compared to last year. market watchers say still remain strong for companies who have healthy fundamentals. london based jeweler graft diamonds said to take advantage of china's soaring high end consumer market and the company started engaging investor interest for its planned ipo

ahead of the official listing in hong kong likely early june. analysts say successful ipo not only allows graff to raise, but it enables to have a advantage of attractive valuations of the high end retailers. hong kong has become a go-to destination for luxury ip ocos. prada stock has gained 30% since its ipo last june. back to you. >> thank you very much. louisa. just to recap, if you're just joining us on what has been taking place out of greece, what the results actually indicate. so for very long time, for decades, the pass sook party anw democracy party have been dominating. not anymore. we're seeing the left coalition coming in and taking number two place which is a big sur rice.

remember we saw a landslide victory by the pasok party back in 2009. this time only 13%. we saw the left coalition back this 2009 running off with approximately 5%. this time 16.5% plus. so a real shift about what's taking place in in greece. the head of the pasok party saying they've paid the price so far for handling the sovereign debt crisis. you have a whole bunch of small parties here and they're all against the bailout. they seem to be too divided to form an alternative coalition, but they've come along very strongly from what expect aces were heading into this election. will this is a extreme right party, they've gone into this saying that the slavery of an

eu/imf loan agreement is likened to a dictatorship. so that really leads you to see the type of division that we're seeing in greece now. if you follow me over here, i want to show you what we can anticipate over the next couple of months. if this fails then the second largest party is given a coalition option on may the 9th. now, on may the 15th, the issue is whether or not we'll see a caretaker government being asked to form. after a third option, also. so if everything fails, you go back to seeing a caretaker government option. they need parliamentary approval for more than 11 billion euros in extra spending cuts in exchange for more eu/imf aid. let's head back out to carolyn

on the ground in greece. so we've got a really tight time line ahead of us. >> yeah, you mentioned some very important points here. i want to continue the discussion about what these elections mean for the greek economy with the ceo of ef consulting. she's a former board member to the imf. thank you so much for coming to speak to us today. so one of my previous guests actually said that yesterday's vote was a little exaggerated. it was a little emotional. what do you make of yesterday's vote? >> well, greek people are angry of the two pig part is, new democracy and pasok, that have governed for four decades and got the country into this mess. so these two parties do not have enough votes to form a stable coalition. and implement the reform problem. but at the same time, the parliament has become significantly more fragmented

with three new parties in parliament, too far right parties and one left wing party, all of which reject austerity measures and want to either renegotiate or abreogatabrogate. >> surely they must realize that with the tough austerity measures that have driven it this country into one of the deepest recessions that the developed world has seen. do you think against it this backdrop the new coalition will actually have a chance to renegotiate some of the terms? >> first of all, let's make clear that many of the structural reform measures under the program were not implemented. otherwise unemployment would not have reached 21% if the maybe market had become more flexible earlier on. and secondly, recession is inevitable in a country that has been consuming excessively with

borrowed money for decades. having said that, the im it mci signaled it will pot continue disbursements unless the reform program is implemented. if they do disburse, it will be in a special account which is earmarked for debt service. so it will be very difficult for greece to default. >> so what you're implying is that the imf may choose to cancel one of the payments and we know that greece is already behind in terms of paying its bills. what does that mean for "grease"? essentially pushes it on the verge of bankruptcy. >> well, there are already 8 billion euros worth of arrears to suppliers and to exporters waiting for their v.a.t. refunds. and if the disbursements are delayed, this is set to rise and that will just deepen the recession because liquidity in

the economy will become more scarce. but if the government runs out of cash, that will be awake jaup call it for politicians because debt service will continue to be paid, but wages and salaries might not. >> does that essentially mean that if greece is bankruptcy, it will automatically be rejected from the eurozone? >> no, that will not automatically happen. and of course it all depends on how patient greece's creditors are likely to be. if the country's dragged in to a new election, i think there is a clear risk that they will run out of cash. and then whether the eu is willing to provide bridge financing remains to be seen. >> thank you so much for your insights today. it will be a riveting next couple days to see what kind of coalition government can be forred. i'll be back with more updates later in the show. >> thank you very much, carolyn.

appreciate it. we have are fresh evidence of how much japan's government is pressuring the central bank to commit to its and itity deflation promises. the details from the nikkei. >> a senior cabinet official stressed how important it was for the boj to produce visible results by promptly hitting its near term inflation rate of 1%. similar comments were made at the march policy meeting, but the pressure on the bank was turned up a notch in april with the addition of the word promptly. finance ministry official also helped to ratchet up pressure at the meeting. he told the board the government expects that boj to carry out policy vigorously and decisively while deflationary risk lingers on temperature all board members agree that expanding the boj's

asset purchase program has had some positive effects on the financial markets. but some caution against the potential for further debt purchases to be regarded as debt financing. and so destabilize financial markets. the discussion led the board to decide to take additional easing steps at the next meeting on april 27th. so essentially what the minutes tells us is that government pressure to tackle deflation over the warning that by some that printing new money is not the real solution. >> thank you very much for that. while japan tries to shake off deflation, other asian nations are worried about rampant inflation as they seize policy to bolster growth. >> the international monetary fund said that many central banks and countries in asia should be shifting greers and strengthening monetary policies as they continue to see

acceleration and inflation pressures build up. in theory that is good advice, but they're seeing completely different conditions for the first quarter. back in 2010, and into 2011, inflation of course was rather elevated. but thanks to movements by the central banks around the region including the pboc, the rbi and close to singapore, the monetary authority of singapore to tighten monetary policy, we've seen inflation illustrated by this chart behind me come off those lot of i levels to the levels they are right now. however, economists quick to mention that the battle against inflation is not completely won as yet and to complicate matters, the fragile recovery we're seeing in the u.s. and the uk and add to that the economic malaise in europe is really presenting a whole set of policy challenges for a lot of the central banks out here in asia. now, i've used these five countries as examples because about it there ever was a time to juggle the balancing act

between up side risk to inflation and down side growth, these are the five countries facing this predicament and the indication is most acute with china and india. china has used quantitative measures such as the rrr ratio and they are expecting them to cut those rates even further in the first quarter. india has had more of a luxury if position to cut rates largely because of the real interest rate levels are positive in independe india and china than negative. >> thanks, adam. for more we're joined by regional economist at c echlcim research. good to have you with us. with all the new concerns in the eurozone, the new election results coming in, all that putting extra concerns about growth in the eurozone, i suppose inflation in asia is thousand going to take a back seat for central banks as they try to do more to bolster

growth? >> i think that's with a we'll be watching out for not just in asia, but basically the everywhere. it's what's the impact of the growth in the u.s., the uncertain growth in europe, global demand. we have seen signs of recovery on the export side. we can talk asia, malaysia, all the way to china, watching the impact and mine mindful of the high energy costs and high material prices. i think at will this juncture, we're not at a level which will worry the central bank yet, so more than happy to kick things while they see what's the impact on global growth. >> at what level would it start to make central banks worry? what level in the oil price?

>> there's not much one policy can do in terms of the supply disruption because of political tension in the middle east or north asia itself. but if inflation is coming from stronger demand pushing up prices or costs to some extent, growth maybe have been slower, but co-inflation remains high because of higher costs, higher wages. and that's why i think the central bank is more wary. but elsewhere, if it's coming more say from fly disruption, nothing much you can do about the weather on that side. so if it's high inflation because of supply disruption due to whatever reason, little they can do. but if swore demand being strong, yes, they can do especially if global growth returns. >> you're talking about inflation from your end. david, you were talking about inflation at the top of the hour and how we could or should inflate our way out of the debt crisis that we're in. doesn't it worry you when you

hear things like that? >> i think what's happening is all of it is linked together because ultimately what america is doing is it is trying to create inflation in america. the result of that is that the u.s. dollar will start to fall. the moment the u.s. dollar starts to paul, it means raw material prices, whether you talk about oil or commodity prices, they will start to rise. i was looking at the singapore inflation rate, that is around 5% for the moment. and this is quite painful. so what you have is i think the mother of all inflations that we are seeing right now, and it will gradually get worse and worse. >> japan on the other hand suffering from deflation. a small price increase. a little bit. what is japan going to do to boost growth? >> the whole idea really is perhaps with a little inflation,

people will start to consume more and ten growth will start to come back. currency is out of control. we worry about the high yen. supply disruption has led to companies talking about setting up expansion plan elsewhere in indonesia, in thailand, et cetera. so we could see japan being stuck in a bit of a rut in which investment growth slows down, consumption needs to be induced by inflation, but if we're not seeing that, it's only marginal at that point, then nothing will have been resolved as far as japan is concerned. >> okay. we'll leave there it for now. thank you very much for your thoughts. good talking to you today.

cimb research. got that wrong. it's the heat. thanks very much for that. coming up next, we'll talk oil as prieces continue to fall. analysis after the break.

some final thoughts from david. we were talking about inflation ands impact that inflationary environment has. looking at oil, we've moderated it a little bit. still below $100 per barrel now on crude. oil price inflation, are we going to see that coming back again? >> i think we are. what's happening at the moment is that oil prices have come down because traders are a little concerned that maybe there is not going to be enough growth. in the eurozone and also in america, unemployment is quite high. so they're a little bit concerned about that. but i think ultimately oil prices would l. come back and again it is because of the quantitative easing, this credit easing that they have in america. that will start devaluing the dollar. the moment the dollar starts to fall against other currencies, then cameod commodity prices wi

rise. >> and a tweeter writes in and wants to know which sock picks or what type of investments would benefit from a eurozone breakup. >> i would be looking at inflation proving my portfolio. i would be looking at companies that can raise prices without you even noticing. that is a tough trick to perform. but if you have a look at tobacco industry, they can increase prices and it will have no dent whatsoever on the top line sales. food producers are another one. in europe you should be looking at companies like nestle. they can increase prices by a little bit and people won't notice. supermarkets are another one. very defensives. >> david, a pleasure seeing you. thank you very much. enjoy the rest of your bank holiday. we still have an hour to go. jackie joins us from the u.s. so we're a full team to tell was we can expect from there. the futures. >> good morning, ladies.

a quick look at the u.s. futures. looking like it will be a lower open at withis point. front and center this morning, it's all about warren buffett. we'll drill down into everything he said from his health to his wealth and how he might spend his massive cash pile, all of take after the break. stay tuned.

good morning. headlines from around the globe this morning, here in the united states, facebook hits the road. management will start pitching investors on the company's ipo with a lunch date in the big apple. >> election outcomes casting a cloud over you're pea european . hollande promises to challenge germany on austerity focus and promote growth policies. and in greece, new democracy and pasok failing on win the majority raising concerns over a greek exit from the euro. >> warren buffett is on the hunt

on a big acquisition. he says he recently considered paying more than $20 billion for a potential takeover target. >> you're watching worldwi"worl exchange" with christine tan, louisa bis sbojesen and i'm jac deangelis. if the markets were to open now, the dow would be lower by nearly 120, the nasdaq by 30nd at s&p 500 by 13 and change. and it will likely due to some of the pressure that we're seeing in the european markets and the election results out of france as well as greece. >> in-deed, this is what it's all about here in europe. digesting the results both from france and greece. the run up to the french election was very close. the end polls we saw sarkozy trailing mind hollande and

hollande did win yesterday's presidential election coming out on the top with more than 51% of the vote. sarkozy settles with around 48% of the vote. i know we just had at final results through and we've been flashing those on screen for you. the amount of people that didn't vote also quite high, around 20%, just shy of 20%. so hollande's main issues, one is 45% tax on 150,000 euros worth of pay or more and there's a 75% tax bracket on those who earn 1 million euros or more in pay and also looking to clamp down in bonuses. but the president elect repeated his calls for unity now in france. >> translator: the 6th of may shall be a great day for our country, a new departure for europe, a new hope for the world. this is the mission you've given me. it is a heavy one. a great one. a beautiful one. i love my country, i love the people of france, and i want

between us to be a relationship that allows for everything and that is called rust. >> and if you're just joining us this morning, just to recap what we saw out of greece because a stunning vote against austerity, that's really the top line to take away from this. the pasok party, one of the two parties that has been dominating for decades, now pushed in to third place. used to be pasok and new democracy. new democracy with 20% of vote, but left coalition coming in with 16.5% plus. at the last election back in 2009, the left coalition party only had 5% of votes. so you can see a huge shift taking place. a whole bunch of smaller parties all against the eu/imf aid package that has been proposed that has been pushed ahead. new democracy and pasok are the only into parties that still want to continue with this bailout. but they won less than 33% of the bailouts and only -- of the balance, excuse me, and only 150 out of 300 seats.

so you can see it was a very surprising election result out of greece. what we're looking at over the next couple of weeks, could get very sticky because essentially you have three opportunities now for the largest three parties to form coalition governments. then you have the second largest party asked to form a coalition and if that fails, the third largest party is asked. and if all three attempts fail, then you're looking at potentially a caretaker government and they have as to start the process all over again. so new polls could be called approximately three weeks from now if we pail to see a coalition government being formed. fresh elections june 10th and june 30th. but joining us for the next hour as our guest host, michael crofton at philadelphia trust company. michael, one thing is waking up in europe and seeing all of these results the day after the elections and coming to terms with what it means for europe

and how the market reaction will be. how are you waking up to things state side and what's your reading of europe? >> well, our reading of europe is quite simple. for a long time europe has been experimenting with the euro and with a transnational approach to government, with the government is europe wide. what i think we've seen in these elections particularly in greece and definitely in france and even some of the local elections in germany is the fact that the people don't really want to be governed without hair consent. so this is the people saying again you need the consent of the government in order to go along with austerity and some of the plans to bail us out. and i've been an opponent of austerity since it started. it really can't work. a, it's good idea, but you need to replace public spending with private initiative and that was missing wh from day one. so i think a vote against

austerity is really a vote against the sacrifice of the national sovereignty. so i'm not sure it's a bad thing long term. it will be tough for the markets for a couple days, but longer term, i think the people need to be heard. >> so you you just said and correct me if i'm wrong that you've been kind of against the austerity measures from the beginning, that you would rather see groesh initiative. >> right. >> allow do you come out of the debt situations that we're in and also it's been going on for such a long time in the case of greece that they haven't met numbers they've had to meet. and now we're looking at a bailout. if they have to backtrack on this, isn't it even worse as opposed to if they just push ahead with the austerity measures? >> no, i think the missing link here is the euro. the euro was an experiment that in the process of failing. i know everyone in europe believes that the euro is the greatest thing since sliced bread. maybe not everyone. but i think you'll see the euro at least divide at a minimum, if not collapse completely.

greece will exit the euro and go back to the drachma or maybe form a secondary currency unit. >> michael, you're with us for the full hour. accepted us through your comments or questions. but do stay with us because we have live updates throughout the day. mo more analysis coming up. meantime here, warren buffett is playing down concerns about the future of berkshire hathaway after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. that was the central focus of course of a q&a session at berkshire's annual shareholders meeting will weekend. buffett says it's having little effect on his work. he also says he recently

considered making a more than $20 billion acquisition, but it didn't end up happening and he wouldn't name the target. buffett told becky quick he preferred to make a big deal in the future. >> we're doing a lot of you can in acquisitions and i wouldn't be surprised if they totaled $2 billion. we just did one for $350 million or so yesterday or the day before. but what i'd really like to see is something on that $10 billion or $20 billion order happen. >> buffett says he's upbeat about berkshire's prospects. first quarter profits doubled. he said he would shy away from medium or long term government bonds and even though butch at the time owns nearly $12 billion sake in ibm, he's not ready to plunge into other tech giants like apple and google. michael, i'd like to get your comments on the shareholder meeting. your take on berkshire.

>> i think it's a pretty good buy. the companies that they own are doing extremely well. i think his health is a little bit of an issue. his age is an issue,s as well. but he's put it in place i think a pretty good team to take over when he exits one way or another. what's more interesting about his current focus is he's really moving in to the public policy arena, which i think he should stay out of to be honest with you. berkshire hathaway has 80 or 90 portfolio companies and warren buffett is talking about raising taxes on the wealthy. but i assume that every one of those companies has a pretty significant tax department who spends either whole day trying to figure out ways to not spend taxes. so i think tlihere's a little i hypocrisy in his statements.

>> do you think there are more being a way six acquisitions down the line? >> absolutely. he looks at what is the intrinsic value of the company's buying and is he paying less thant in-frin sick value. clearly on almost any metric, u.s. companies are very cheap right now and if you at that time intrinsic value analysis to its logical conclusion, you'll find there are whole companies that will be purchased at compelling valuations and i think that strategy will work particularly with his cash hoard. >> all right. michael, you'll stay with us and we'll get more of your insight throughout the show. meantime warren buffett will weigh in on all of those issues and more when he joins becky quick live from omaha for three hours today on "squawk box" starting at 6:00 a.m. eastern time. so make sure you stay tuned for that. also on the schedule, facebook skiking off its two week ipo road show with a big investor lunch today at the sheraton new york hotel at 116789 chlt 45 a.m. eastern time.

hundreds are expected to listen to management pitch the ipo. now on friday, facebook execs visited the offices of their three lead underwriters rolling out the red carpet replacing the company's frag with one of a blue and white facebook logo. and stay tuned to the show. we'll ask how strong demand will actually be for the bumper facebook float with senior editor at fortune. so make sure you stay with us. >> if you had some hero powers, what would they be? that's the question. still to come, it was the biggest north american box office debut ever. find out how much the avengers took in over the weekend next.

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.

time for your global markets report. let's start in the united states. looking like it will be a lower open if the markets with your to open now, the dow would be lower by 116, the nasdaq lower by 29, and the s&p 500 lower by nearly 14. this after we had a down day for the markets on friday with the dow lower by 168 points for the day, nearly 1.5% for the week. weaker than expected nonfarm payrolls mum, of course that was impacting the markets. and we saw particularly tough day for tech, as well. the nasdaq posting a 68 point

loss and the sector leading losses on the s&p 500, as well. and also interesting to note the s&p and nasdaq posting the worst weekly percentage declines so far in 2012. how is it looking in europe? >> still looking red. the ftse is out of action today. a bank holiday there. these are the better man equities. one player in positive territory. down here you have the worst performing groups, basf lower by 2.5%, ling lower by around 2%. let me show you our european equity markets. xetra dax down by 1.3%. we've moderated some of the earlier losses. cac 40 coming back a bit.

still in negative territory. spanish market as well as the swiss market both trading lower by right around a percent, as well. european banks are in focus. some of the autos being sold off. some of the bigger industrial services companies. the losses have been mid gated over the past hour or so. the euro-dollar rates flat to a little bit lower at the moment. still flirting with the 1.20 level that we did break lieu. we vnlhaven't seen that for a while. dollar-yen flip-flopping as we're looking at a flat trading picture 24.

bund yielding 5.57. buying in the ten year france. selling in spain and selling in greece with the ten year there yielding 2 #.8%. a brief glance at oil, you have light sweet crude lower by 0 ppts 7%. and brent off by a half percent. christine, how is asia? >> we he are thinking about the eurozone, as well. and the markets are all red here in asia. a lot of selling because of concerns about the eurozone and what the new election results mean for austerity measures going forward for the region. bear in mind weaker than expected u.s. jobs data also did not help sentiment he either. japan leading the falls. 2.8% lower. concerns about the eurozone and u.s. all that leading investors to bite japanese yen and that saw the exporters getting hit today over in the country. the shanghai market pretty much flat, property counters were in focus on the report that icbc

has suspended a discount on mortgages for first time home buyers. hang seng off 2.6%, worse fall in six months. australian market off 2.2%. miners getting hit there and sensex off 0.2%. so overall, it's negative session here. that's it for me. we'll be back tomorrow with news here in asia. >> thanks so much. meantime, voting in times of austerity. greece's main party suffers heavy losses while sarkozy is on the way out in france. we're live in paris and athens coming up next. [ male announcer ] this is the at&t network.

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francois hollande is the new president elect after pledging a fight against painful spending cuts. stefane and steve are both this paris. if people are just tuning in state side for an example, what is it that the the french people have been voting for?

>> i don't think holland oig is completely against austerity, but in terms of his list of priority, he wants to see growth and employment at the top of the list and austerity perhaps is the third most important hinge and take ethat is different fro what's coming back from brussels and merkel. so the relationship between merkel, the germans and hollande is key to retaining confidence. despite the fact the markets are selling off today, i would suggest that's a greek issue. you've only got to take a look at the ten year french government paper what is hollande going to do to give reassurance to the markets?

>> he wants to lead the war on guy marngs but he can't do much until perhaps july when he will start reforms for the backing sector. but when he says he would like to bring the age of retirement back to 60 years old, it's gonl to be only for a few number of people. in the end, there are a lot of promises that hollande won't be able to keep because we don't have the money. but especially if he wants to fuel the economic growth, we don't see where the growth will come from. how he will create jobs and perhaps it's the most pressing issue for him. >> i think it's fair to say that a lot of our u.s. audience will hear the word socialist and fear the worst about some left wing agenda which is going to derail the global economy. given what you know about hollande, part of the establishment, how socialist is he? >> he was very left at the beginning of his career. he's now more to the center to be honest.

it will depend also on the choice of the prime minister. there are two options on the table. martina is very left. if she's appointed prime minister, perhaps the market will react negatively. she put in place the 35 hour week in france. and definitely it would be perhaps the most -- not the choice the market would like. if he chooses the head of the socialist group, he's more centrist. >> and one more for our us u.s. audiences. would mitt romney commit to actually wiping out the u.s. deficit by the end of 2017? because that doesn't sound like a very socialist agenda to me because that's what hollande has promised. whether he's good on his promise remains to be seen. >> and add into that pile the uk, you've got a whole bunch of other european economies with a dead to gdp ratio alongside what france has or even higher. guys, thank you very much. gorgeous short with the eiffel tower in the back.

steve indicating it could in fact be more about greece. greece's future very much in doubt after the two main parties suffered heavy losses in sunday's election failing to gain enough support to form a ruling coalition. following the stinging defeat, they've both called for changes now to the international bailout terms. >> a national coalition government with the participation of all the forces without any exceptions would declare one way or another their attitude to the eu. no matter what their position is towards the memorandum and the bailout is a meaningful one. it is meaning pl if ful if we c a common program base that is beneficial and secure. >> and again, carolyn joins us from athens. and just to recap a bit, just assuming that some people might just be waking up now especially state side or joining us in the bank holiday time here in the uk, just recap what's been

taking place in greece. >> this is a clear vote against austerity. let me point out it that more than two-thirds of the vote in yesterday's parliamentary elections went to french parties both left and right which oppose the latest european bailout. the pro bailout parties, the pasok party and the new democracy conservative party, they also were given a main drubbing in these elections. pasok seeing its worst showing in party history. let me just tell you what happens from now on. the coalition or the government now has until may 17th to form a new coalition government. will this they don't succeed, they'll have to form a technocrat government and call new elections most likely in june. and we spoke to a number of analysts and they say the chance of elections taking place is very, very high. let me just also tell you what the biggest risk to investors is

to this point. firstly, there's a big risk of implementation of the austerity measures in line with the bailout package imposed by the eu and imf. because some 3 billion euro misausterity measumis us a t s in austerity measures will have be enacted. spending cuts primarily by the end of june. this will have to be presented to the eu and imf. the second big risk is that of renegotiation of the bailout package. as you mentioned before. and both parties have said that they will want to renegotiate parts of the bailout package. this raises the specter of the imf caing one of its payments for greece, but it also raises the specter of greece having to exit the eurozone. the citigroup this morning raised the chances of greece exiting the euro szone to 50% t 75%. >> carolyn, thank you very much.

jackie. well, still to come on the show, warren buffett says that u.s. banks have liquidity coming out of their ears. but are they really in much better shape? we'll discuss that question next. with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet?

waern buffett is on the hunt eyeing a big acquisition. he says he recently considered paying more than $20 billion for a potential takeover target. >> election outcomes casting a cloud over european markets. hollande winning the presidency promise to go challenge germany on its austerity focus and promoting growth policies. and in greece, voters punishing the big parties. the anti-bailout left coalition scoring big raising concerns over greek exit from the euro. and facebook hits the road. management will start pitching investors on the company's ipo with a lunch date in the big apple. if you're just joining us, let's take a look at the u.s. futures, see how we're setting up for trade on wall street.

looking like we see pressure in the markets coming across from the international markets, a as well. if the markets were to open, the dow would be lower by 106, the nasdaq by 27 and the s&p 500 by 12. this of course after we had a down day for the markets on friday. we saw the worst weekly percentage declines that we've seen in 2012. so going to be interesting to see how some of the you news flow shapes up will week and how our markets do. >> and we're still a little bit on the red side. but we have come off the earlier lows that we were looking at. some of the markets like the ftse mib just off by 0.4%. spanish market off by around a percentage point. cac 40 also having some earlier losses. basic resources up the most by 0.4%. chemicals, real estate and autos three sectors off by around 1%. the banks, though, interesting to look at, smack will in the middle in terms of performance sector wise.

but you can see that we still have looking at some of the banks being sold lower by barclays off by some 2%. ftse trade isn't happening due to bank holiday. but european banks, many lower by right around a percentage point or so. >> and of course we'll continue to watch the european markets. but comparing u.s. banks to their european peerses is like comparing night and day. so says warren buffett at berkshire hathaway's annual shareholder meeting over the weekend. the billionaire investor says u.s. banks have liquidity coming out of their ears are in much better shape than hair european rivals. berkshire hathaway has more than $20 billion invested in american banks including wells fargo and goldman sachs. michael crofton is still with us. let's talk about mr. buffett's statements over the weekend. do you agree that our banks are in much better shape than what we're seeing in terms of the european banks. >> 100%.

our banks are this tremendously good shape. we're also structurally a lot different than european banks. european banks for decades if not longer have really been in bed with the governments. so it's much more difficult situation to extricate them from the sovereign issues than it is here. our banks have had a tremendous a independence. t.a.r.p. took a little of that independence away, but we're back to an independent banking system which will is much better able to adjust to the changing future than the european system which is still intricately tied with the government entities that control them. p so no question about it, our banks are 100% different than the european banks and hair condition will allow them to adjust to an expanding economy when that happens and benefit to a lot greater extent. >> and any concerns at this point still lingering about contagion fears or our exposure to the european banking system at this point? >> about any american bank has

that kind of exposure to the european sovereign situation or even to the european bank situation if one leads to the decline of the other, those should immediately be fired. we've had a long team toed a u.s. j to this, it's the slowest moving rain wreck i've ever seen and if banks haven't gotten their houses in order, that's problematic. jamie dimon has talked about this a lot and he believes we have low exposure and i'll believe him. >> i'm still thinking about the u.s. housing market and how closely the you u.s. housing market is linked to u.s. banks obviously. how would you you describe the health of the u.s. mortgage market at this stage? >> actually when you looked at bank earnings for the last quarter, the two biggest sources of earnings growth or raw dollars was hair mortgage banking businesses and their capital markets businesses. both of those are interest rate dependent as interest rates came down, make you money in both. the mortgage banking business was profitable because of the

refinancing that's taken place. there's been a tremendous amount of refinancing going on other the last couple quarters. our housing market is still very, very weak. but it's bottomed. i believe it's bottomed or it's in the process of bottoming. it will stay on the bottom for quite some time. but i think the foreclosures are going to clear the market and the banks have adjusted their balance sheets to take that into consideration. and i don't believe it's going to be a big drag on banks moving forward. >> we'll leave the bank discussion there, but a lot more coming up from from buffett. he also said that he's looking for acquisition opportunities and that was keen to investors here. speaking to shareholders, he said that he had considered a $22 billion deal recently, but it fell through. and the cash pile nearing $40 billion, buffett says he's still looking for the right deal to spend his money on. >> we're doing a lot of tuck in acquisitions. i wouldn't be surprised if they

totaled $2 billion. we just did one for $350 million or so. and but what i'd really like to see is something on that $10 billion or $20 billion order happen. >> let's get a comments on that from michael, as well. your take on mr. buffett's acquisition strategy. >> he's moved up his acquisitions. he's looking for big game right now. i think that's a pretty good strategy. it puts a lot of money to work and again, valuations are incredibly compelling across the word. this big companies they're actually very compelling. probably at historic levels. so to be looking in that arena now, $20 billion, $30 billion, to have figure maybe the company's looking at maybe trading at $18 billion because there will certainly be a premium. but the valuations and metrics are there. a great idea particularly the type of stuff that he buys, core

basic industries that have motes around them. >> and speaking of some of the core and basic industries, when we talk about tech with warren buffett, he mentioned of course they have their investment in ibm, but looking at companies like apple or google, he's not so convinced. >> i think he's wrong there. i think it's a question of his long term strategy of avoiding them. i think you have to separate tech -- you have to separate software there hardware. certainly in the hardware space, you have types of valuations that he would salivate on get his arms around. so i don't know if i'd count it out right now. look at intel, cisco, emc. some ancillary companies in the same businesses that would be in that raenk. i don't think he would frown at those. >> let's leave it there for the moment. michael will stay with us. and stay tuned because warren buffett will be taking your questions on u.s. "squawk box" for a full three hours. that action is going to kick off at 6:00 a.m. eastern time.

and still to come, facebook kick off its highly anticipated road show in new york today. so how strong will demand be for the biggest tech float ever? more on that next. all energy development comes with some risk,

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facebook kicking off its road show with a big investor lunch today at 11:45 a.m. eastern time. hundreds are expected to listen to management pitch the ipo. on friday, facebook execs visited three lead underwriters, jpmorgan replacing the company's flag with one with the facebook logo. dan, great to have you on the program morning. of course we saw the pricing range set last week. we're looking at $28 to $35 a share. on the high end, a little bit under that $100 billion valuation. what's your take on this? >> two things about it. one, it's a wide range. usually when companies file for an ipo, it's a $3 range. this is a really wide range which makes me think facebook believes it's probably got a lot of room to wiggle and that it could price much higher, could obviously also price lower.other thing that's interesting is when

people keep talking about this just under $100 billion valuation, that's only if you include all the shares options. usually when we talk market cap, it's just outstanding shares. as of today, that would only be $75 billion which is a bit lower than people thought. >> a great point. and also the company kicking off its road show today to kind of sell the ipo to investors. does this one need much selling? >> maybe to some people. i know buffett's later on squawk and he apparently doesn't want to buy. he didn't dismiss the company, but he doesn't want to buy an ipo. that's been a little movement in the past week or two of the folks who said maybe there's too much hype about thisnd at number they point to is the fact that growth has slowed. growth is still ridiculous and the margins are still incredibly high, but some people said why is growth slowing. so possible there could be push back, but in general, no. it's the rope there are so many

underwrite writerwriters on it. >> do you think there's a difference between institutionalen investors uptick of facebook versus the retail clients? >> there's certainly a difference. retail clients will have to buy at the higher price. but i think institutions are still interested. look at the amount of activity on this company in the private secondary markets over the past couple years. the majority of that activity has been institutional and obviously they had different pieces of information than we all had. but there's been a lot of institutional buyers and i still think there will be a big appetite for it. >> this is mike crofton. do you think that the stock is priced for perfection? you look at the pricing and you go back too 1999 when you had a lot of similar metrics in place. granted those incomes didn't have earnings and the types of

margins that facebook has, but what's their next trick, how are will they defend those earnings and continue to grow them at this rate or is this the top of the range for them? >> as you said, defending the margins is the key because taketak that's the the impressive about the facebook, it's the earnings. margins are great. i don't know the answer. i think we should be careful pointing back to '99. i think facebook is more like google in that it's a once in a generation or 59 least once in a tech generation which is probably five year, ten years. it's not one of a big crowd. it really stands alone. it's the biggest one. it's the come he that everybody in the room knows whether you're a retail investor or institution. so i think it's a separate piece. and in terms of metrics, how do you judge facebook. it is a one of a kind company. >> dan, a lot to talk about. but we will have to leave it

there. thank you so much for joining us this morning. meantime in some of the other stories we're following, the us treasuries selling about $5 billion worth of aig stock reducing its sake in the insurer from 70% to 63%. treasury will sell the shares through a public offering at 57% discount to friday's closing price. aig has agreed to buy back about $2 billion of its stock and when we look at how that stock is trading right now -- up to $8 billion. in february, $17 billion tax free deal voching a swap of assets fell apart. taking a look at those shares, you can see that yahoo! is trading higher by 2%, ali baba is lower just under the flat line at this point. and super heros coming to the

rescue at the box office. the avengers smashed the competition and the record books earning $200.3 million in north america this weekend. that's the highest grossing domestic opening of all-time, topping the final harry potter movie which debuted with $169 million. the avengers which teams characters like iron man, thor, the hulk and made $641 million worldwide in just 12 days. it's the first marvel studios released by disney since 2009. >> loving the super heros. if you could choose a super power, what would you choose? >> i don't have any super powers, so let's be very clear about that. if i could choose one, i would probably say maybe to tell the tooth future. what but you? >> i think mine would have to be languages. you walk by somebody and you just wonder what are they talking about. or understanding what animals say. you hear two dogs barking, you you want to know what they're

talking about. but our viewers have been writing in, as well. leo kelly tweets in and says if iron man is a super hero, why is iron woman an order? a really good question. and also control on matter and energy. this enables time travel, teleporting, unlimited life. and solving world hunger and energy needs. so some really good suggestions. keep your tweets coming. if you could choose a super power, which one would you choose? pretty violence stuff there. >> mine seems so simple. all right. coming up next, the future of greece's bailout plan hanging in the balance. we're live in athens for more coming up next. ♪

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carolyn is joining us in athens. a new democracy coming in first place, second place left coalition stealing almost 17% of the votes. led by a 37-year-old, youngest political leader in greece. also calling merkel and saying

they must understand the austerity plans in germany now have been defeated. >> yeah, this is really a very historic vote. voters punish the two big parties and some would-thirds of vote actually went to french parties both left and right which are against the terms of the bail skrout. the problem, though, is that none of the parties actually gain an outright majority in parliament. that means they'll have to form a coalition government and they have until may 17th to do that, but it's going to be quite difficult to find that coalition government. they have to agree on a number of fronts. firstly, who will be prime minister. but for investors out there, will are two big things to worry about. first, the risk of implementation. the imf has already said that it will cancel one of its next payments to greece if the austerity measures are not implemented fully and in time. and second, there eat risk of renegotiation. all the leaders for the parties have already said they didn't want to renegotiate some of the terms of the bailout.

and again that raises the chances of greece going bankrupt and raises the specter of greece being expelled from the eurozone. back over to you. >> carolyn, thank you very much for that. jackie. well, it is a lighter week for economic data here in the united states with reports on the the trade deficit, import prices and wholesale inflation later on in the week. today we'll get march consumer credit at 3:00 p.m. several fed officials also speaking this week topped by ben bernanke on thursday. today richmond fed president jeffrey lacker talks about technology and employment. also numbers from tyson foods and electronic arts. joining us for talk more about the trading day on wall street, chris, great to have you with us. we have the european elections that we're dealing with and that

weaker than expected jobs number friday. what else are you expect to go co ing to come into play today? >> i don't think the hangover from the jobs number will paekt it at all. the effect that we have these greek worries, i think the market priced in france's election. but this greek with the left really coming through and not getting a coalition to continue these austerity measures is really going to hit wis&p hard here in chicago. i believe the fact that we won't be able to hold the 1360 level on the open, there's a really only a base at 1345 before we see a down turn. and remember that we only about 1.5% higher than we were a year ago on the s&p. everyone thinks we've rallied 15% beginning of this year. well, look at where we were at this time this year. and we had about a 20% pull back.

i'm not saying we'll have the the same summer swoon, but expect a 10% pull back especially with us being so bullish for so long, a pull back is in order. >> and still getting also a slew of earnings also coming ultimate, lernlg lyargely bette expected and what's your take on corporate health and as we look forward? >> i think corporate health is good. if you look at about 80% of their earnings are in the s&p and we had about 7.8% gain, almost 8%, that's almost four times what was really priced in to the market. i think that will continue. i really think that the earnings in the third quarter are really going to indicate a true slowdown, but the u.s. despite everything continues to an strong point. look to hose european yields as they climb, look for the s&p to really fall. >> but unemployment still an issue. how much longer before we see those corporates starting to

hire again? >> i think the corporations are continuing to hire, just not at that rate. last year they really did a lot of cost cutting and what we're seeing is just a strong balance book and that really has -- they're hiring smart. so i believe that continued growth will happen on the employment issue. i just don't think the rate that will hold up the rest of the market. so a little bit of a bull pack is something to expect. >> all right. chris, we are will to leave there. we're out of time. and of course thanks to our guest host, michael crofton. thank you so much for joining us. stay tuned to cnbc because warren buffett will be taking your questions on u.s. "squawk box" for a full three hours right after this break. so stay tuned for that. that's it for us.

i'm jackie deangelis with louisa bojesen.

this weekend warren buffett faced tens of thousands of share holders. today he faces "squawk box." this is a special presentation of "squawk box" live from the hollywood diner just outside omaha. good morning. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. and today we have a very special squawk news maker with us, warren buffett. he is berkshire hathaway chairman and ceo and he'll be joining us fors next three hours. he is ready to offer his take on the u.s. ar