after the bell, tipco disappointing. should not impact qlik. salesforce.com, four for one split. there is always a bull market somewhere. i promise to find it here on "mad money." i'm jim cramer and i will see you tomorrow! hello and welcome to "worldwide exchange" on this friday. i'm kelly evans. these are your headlines from around the world. cnbc confirms the cypriot finance minister has left russia

having failed to secure a rescue deal. moscow insists it's not on interested in investing in the state reserves. all this and a continuing coverage on the street the. a confident note on china, rising growth by stimulus and a strong investment outlook for areas like infrastructure. uk oil giant bp announcing an $8 billion buyback after closing the stake in its russian unit tnk bp. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. >> and it's a decline in the ifo german business index for march. a decline that is to a level of 106.7. that's about a point shy of the consensus which has forced a

slight increase to 107.6. so, again, after a day in which the flash pmis yesterday disappointed sharply, we're now seeing softening in its business climate index, as well. looks like the expectations index is a bit shy. 103.6 versus 105. current conditions came in shy of forecasts. we're joined here in studio by antonio pasqual. off the bat here your response to these german indexes? >> sure. after various strong brings over the last two months, we're still looking for a fairly good performance of the german economy throughout the year. actually, we are forecasting a growth from around 2% quarter on quarter. and this is on the back of very strong labor markets. >> 2% growth in which quarter? >> basically on average. >> over the year. >> no. for the full year, i would have

11%. but quarter on quarter, up around 2%. why is that? very strong labor market, very strong export. i think more importantly, we should look at next month's bmis. the u.s. data came very strong. we should see a strong performance in germany on the back of the exports. >> you could make that argument on the pmi in germany and it was surprisingly weak. a deep contraction in the fourth quarter was going to rebound now called into question. >> i think this will be the growth. but you've seen in the labor market, you've seen hard data, actually, a strong performance of the economy. so we -- i think we should not expect a continuous increasing pmi, a continuous increase in ifo business index. i think the big question is the next one, in my opinion, just what they said, the u.s. bring very strong data and that should sell into the german data.

if it doesn't, domestic demand is weaker than we thought. the labor market is very strong. >> and this is the rebalancing that needed to happen in the eurozone economy in order to sustain growth going forward. at a critical time, by the way. antonio will stay with us. sip rooi ree yot lawmaker ves delayed a meeting for this morning. the government has three days left now to raise the almost $6 billion euros to needed to secure an incident ur national bailout. carolin roth is in the cypriot capital. carolin, it looks like there's not going to be this parliamentary session at this point. when can we expect the cypriots to put forward their latest plan? how are they going to come up with 30% of gdp? >> that's a very good question, kelly. first of all, it has been delayed by more than an hour now. we're hearing it could be delayed by another half hour, one hour.

one of the lawmakers was walking into the parliament told me things are looking very, very bad at this point. they're going to be debating and voting on the three bills. the first one is the most contentious one. it's the banking bill. they're talking about winding down cyprus's second biggest banks which is going to be split into a good bank and a bad bank. the second bill is going to be on the called solidarity fund. among other things, this includes the nationalization of pension funds. the third one is a bill on capital controls which would be implemented once things open on tuesday. thou, one question is whether parliamentarians will vote for it. this is a good possibility. but the billion dollar question at this point is whether the troika will be happy with this so-called plan b. now, if comments from the german finance minister and ms. merkel

are any indication, well, they're not very happy with this plan b. some are skeptical. cosmetic changes alone are simply not enough. ms. markel saying germany simply cannot accept a solution under which pension funds assets will be nationalized. >> kelly, this is down to the wide. this is a last ditch attempt, but we only have three days left to find a solution. back over to you. >> carolin, thanks very much for that. it is interesting because cyprus has reached this agreement with the troika. a, because that's what they would like and, b, russia is not going to give them the funds to otherwise raise the money that's needed. a cypriot spokesman has confirmed that the country's finance minister left moscow. steve sedgwick is calling in on the line from moscow.

steve, russia is happy to stand pat while cyprus try toes come up with a solution. >> what we're going to get is an announcement from the european commission and the russian federation. this is looking at a whole host of longer term issue between the european union and is russia. the relationship needs a reboost after disagreements over syria, over trade, over the wto, over human rights and now, of course, most aggressively of cyprus, as well. what i'm fascinated to see -- and i'm in the lockdown, as well, i mention inside the reception house of the russian federation, i'm in a lockdown ahead of that press conference between mr. barroso and mr. medvedev. i want to see how that reboot looks. is it a reboot in name only or is it meaningful? they would prove that it's meaningful by including a solution to the cyprus crisis,

including not only the troika, but the russian federation. that's is where mr. medvedev saying russian interests should have been thought about. mr. barroso saying no of the on governments were talked about friday into saturday a week ago. it's absolutely important to see what comes out of this next press conference to see whether russia and -- see a meaningful future together. despite the fact that xi jinping is due in town later today, it's almost incredible irony that russia appear to be looking east rather than west despite the west being the biggest trading partners at the moment. a whole host of deals expected to be signed in coal, more gas exports from russia to china, as well. it's an amazing time, not just for cypress, but for the whole relationship structure of the west and russia and can china. >> steve, it's a great point and a really, really important one.

again, it's noteworthy, the u.s. treasury secretary's first foreign visit went to beijing. chine chinese's first overseas visit is to moscow. look, at this time when we were talking about greece, last year, 18 months ago, markets seemed to sell off on every comment. what is different this time around? >> that's a very interesting question. i think that the issues are different. first, the ecb is there. whatever it takes. second, there was a strong commitment last year to keep greece inside the monetary union. so nomination rates is an issue. i think that's important. third, there's more europe, no less. there's the step towards the banking union. maybe last position of investors is also a little bit different. the two big periphery countries, italy and spain, the big

sell-off happened already. italy doesn't have much net supply this year. but that is helpful because as much as it's absorbed. and its pain needs to be more or less with the stable government, italy. so i think these four main conditions are different and can explain a little bit of different reaction. >> if you think -- do you think there's a sense for investors that cyprus doesn't matter or that cyprus -- or that they just expect the issue to be solved within the time frame? >> i think the latter. i think that their position will prevail. one of the key issues for on their money and for the company of this merger is that they saved the euro so far. but he wants to hold the european monetary union, not with less number of members. so certainly not before the german election in september. >> but isn't it -- even though she does not want to do that, in

the near term, she has an election to run. an election coming up. and apparently striking this hard line to turn to the germans and say, look, we didn't fund this rescue, this bailout of the russian mafia or something. >> it's true. it's having the intentions first of all to come out as fair, not to put german taxpayers money on before you do a bailin. but at the same time, and more importantly, she wants to keep the euro area safe. it's the crisis in which one country leaves the monetary union is one of her premises and one of her premises of the campaign is to elect strengthening, blowing up for crisis in cyprus will not be helpful to her. there were many mistakes in retrospect. you could say the same for greece, as well. but, you know, it's -- one issue

that will be critical is they would not compromise on money laundering issues. they might come mize a little bit here and there on money, but they will not compromise on money laundering. that will be, in my opinion, a prior action. so before the program starts, they have to be clean shaved on that. >> and we also want to talk italy. antonio will stay with us. let's start with how markets are trading in asia. li sixuan joins us now from singapore. >> hi. thank you, kelly. nice to see you again. most asian markets wrapped up the week in the red amid uncertainty over the cypress situation. japan was the clear underperformer today after yesterday's rally, closing down more than 2%. this after the new boj governor kuroda down expectations of an emergency meeting in his opening press conference. the nikkei lost nearly 2% on the week, biggest weekly fall since

november last year. but the shanghai composite managed to finish marginally higher with cementmakers leading the gains. the cement strengthened paper producers. the hang seng, however, slipped 0.5% today ahead of more earnings reports. petrochina's hong kong listed shares lost 1.4% after a reported bigger than expected 13.3% dip in 2012 net profits. but look at shares of china unicom. it had its best day in four months, up nearly 4% after post onning above expected profits. meanwhile, the kospi finished lower 0.1%. the asx 200 eked out a modest 0.2% gain. india's sensex now trading higher by a modest 0.2%. back to you. >> sixuan, thank you very much

tore that. it was a mixed performance across asia. stocks took it on the chin today. shaping up for a bit of a rebound. the dow looking to add about ten points. there's plenty of auction emanating from european markets. take a look at the european bores ones. the ftse mib in italy down by 0.2%. the xetra dax after that disappointing ifo data following the disappointing pmi data yesterday giving up another 0.3%. the ftse 100 fractionally lower. it is supported by the better performance out of bp this morning. those shares run about 2.5% last check. the company said it would be announcing an $8 billion share buyback after selling its stakes to tnp. here is a look at forex. we've seen the euro/dollar up about 0.1%. 1.2915 is the level there. the dollar/yen, we did see strengthening in the yen overnight. it had its worst weekly performance since november.

the sterling/dollar, adding about 0.1%. after weeks of uncertainty, could italy finally be nearing a deal to form a government? we'll take a look at that. don't go anywhere. acceler-rental. at a hertz expressrent kiosk, you can rent a car without a reservation... and without a line. now that's a fast car. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." these are your headlines. cyprus racing against the clock to secure a bailout after the finance minister leaves moscow without a deal. germany's business confidence falls below forecast necessary march, sending the euro lower. and the oecd strikes an upbeat note on china, but does stress the need for reform. santander, the spanish bank coming out and saying it ames to maintain considerable excess capital along with several other points that the ceo is making at the bank aes shareholder meeting. he says his unit is expecting double difficult growth in the coming year. he says it will maintain a sprint dividend program for 2013, keeping the dividend payment at euro 60 cents per share and targeting an 8% basul physically loaded capital ratio

for 2013. shares there are down about 1%. that's slightly worse than spain's market generally. moving on to italy now, the president says he will today announce his next plan to try to form a government, following last month's inconclusive elections. the president has held two days of talk wes party leaders to try and reach a compromise. pierre bersani was the last to meet with the president and is he's insisting he'll be expected to form the next government since his party has the lower house, but ohm if his party has full control. >> translator: this is our intention, being available to help and find a solution, but not the whatever solution. a government that is not able to make a real change knot the solution. >> antonio garcia pascual is with us from barclay's. is it going to be a better sanny coalition here? >> well, i think right now, bertano is going to play an important role.

in our view, it will buy time to form a grand coalition. i don't think -- we don't think that they want a minority government led by bersani. >> why not? >> because it will travel throughout, will fail to pass bills to parliament and to the senate where they don't have the majority will not last. so we think a soft mandate followed by a grand coalition with a narrow mandate, including to change the electoral law is the most likely venue. >> how pressing is the need to change electoral law so that if there are fresh elections held, there would be a clear outcome the next time? >> i think it's important. it's important because if they set up in a way in which they stable the larger parties, central right and central left, it will make the outcome of

elections more likely to be stable for the next time around. and i think the incentives may be aligned in that respect to play against the pakistan movement. so we think that -- and also it's just needed a 51%. solo it's never easy, we think this time around incentives might be aligned for that change. >> okay. and still italy's market holding up reasonably well ahead of all of this. details on that hopefully out later on today. ahead on the program, oecd's secretary calling for calm over cyprus. do you think the country will leave the eurozone? find outway told cnbc when we come back. impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy.

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standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. welcome back to the program. let's check in on u.s. futures. the dow looking down maybe 7 points at the open, but the nasdaq has slipped negative and this follows a pretty negative tone out of the european trading session. over in asia, it was a little bit mixed picture this morning, though. and china needs renewed reform momentum, at least according to the oecd's latest on the country. the economy will grow 8.5% this year and maybe more on the next.

while praising beijing, he also highlighted the financial sector and urbanization as key areas for reform. eunice yoon can all caught up with secretary general angel lahoria. their conversation quickly switched to cyprus. >> what's happening in cyprus is not indicative of what's happening in the world, not indicative of what's happening in the euro area. in cyprus, there was a peculiar situation. the government could not rescue the banking system. there should have been losses accrued to the critters of the banks who took risk webs but there was a formula where they tried to sort of keep everybody more or less unhappy, but they created a very bad package which, obviously, is proving untenable. they're not going to have to fix

it. >> but how can they fix it? >> well, the eu has given the cypriots up until next monday to come up with an alternative because apparently this package of 6.5% for those below 100,000 and 9.9% to those above is 00,000 was something that was decided by the cypriot authorities. for whatever reason led them to do that, it clearly was a bad idea because if you have the implicit guarantee those that have 100,000, remember, this is not a loss. it's a tax. so theoretically, authorities have the authority to actually collect taxes on whatever. except it is being perceived as an ex appropriation of the savings. so -- but this is cypriot. this is a cyprus problem. don't extend it to the euro. the euro is not in danger

because of what's happening in cyprus. nothing is going to happen to the financial system of the world because of what's happening in cyprus. we haven't had very enlightened series of decisions. since greece. and then we've bumbled a little bit, we've tumbled and is bumbled with spain and italy and now this cypriot thing is going to need a better design. >> so what is the design? what's the reasonable solution? >> well, one of the things is you don't have to affect the people who are below a certain threshold. now they're thinking about 20,000 or 50,000, whatever the threshold is. the conventional threshold used to be 100,000, but it doesn't have to be the case. the question is here. you really have to, you know, critters of the financial system have to take losses. you cannot make it a point.

and this is the biggest moral hazard. if you're going to guarantee that every single bank in europe is always going to come up and be bailed out, then that is a big moral hazard problem because it doesn't matter which bank you put your money in, it doesn't matter whether they're capitalized or not capitalized, whether they have a prudent good management or not. that's just not good. you have to differentiate. and in the case of cyprus, well, somebody has to take a loss and that should be the large critters. >> pretty pointed words there from angel gurria. stick around, tiffany reports full year earnings in just a couple of hours after cutting guidance below expectations. can the company get its shine back? stay tuned.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." if you're just joining us, i'm kelly evans and these are your headlines from around the world. cnbc confirms the cypriot finance minister has left russia having failed to secure a rescue deal. moscow insists they're not interested in investing in the island. meanwhile, ministers were due to debate proposals to save the country's banking system amid continuing protests on the street. and germany's ifo business

survey falls below forecasts as the group warns the eurozone crisis is back in focus. plus, the oecd strikes a confident note on china, with a strong investment outlook for areas like product. . >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. >> as we continue to follow those developments out of cyprus this morning, or lack thereof, let's take a look at markets. we are seeing green arrows here trying to shape up after the sell-off we saw yesterday with the dow down about 90 points. it was one of the worst trading sessions. now looking to add potentially about 13 points at the open. the nasdaq and the s&p are pointed for small gains, too. if you take a look at european markets, you can see it might be an uphill battle. the cnbc ftse global 3 let you know down about 0.1% supported by better event necessary china

and australia overnight. the ftse is supported by better performance of bp shares after that company sold its stake in tnk bp. the xetra dax down 0.2%. what's interesting is not that these indexes are down, but frankly that they're holding up as well as they are given the developments and the fact that people are talking about whether cypress may exit the eurozone and whether the country can come up with that monday deadline to come up with the cash and is meet with the troika to keep maintaining assets for the ecb liquidity so its banking session still functions. how can you make money in these markets? here is what some of our guests have been tulg us this morning. >> and it seems to me that on particularly low euro, but they're certainly not particularly short, not in the way that they were a year ago. and, again, it seems what i would anticipate over the next couple of days, markets will be

weary. i think it does have downside risks. >> can we assume that a solution will be taken and what that solution is? that is who the markets were telling -- it was bright. >> sell cyprus because you think it's going to be made an example of, but buy greece. and i'm talking about some of the old bond that's weren't restructured because they look much more attractive on the basis that cyprus is poor, greece is poor and too much effort has been expanded on whereas cyprus is going to sit there and get made an example

of. >> let's try to recap what's happening down in this tien nigh island nation. cypriot lawmakers have postponed a meeting that was supposed to happen. the government has three days left to security the monies it needs to secure a financial bailout. meanwhile, the euro group issued a statement following its teleconference last night saying it's ready to draft a new proposal, it's ready to ensure the stability of the eurozone as a whole, but cypress's finance minutester does not take part in the call. the finance minister has left moscow and that the only progress on talk with russia ws the extension of the maturity of an existing loan agreement and investors aren't interested in a deal to invest in cypriot gas reserves.

where does that leave us? antonio, if someone wakes up this morning and says, why do i carry about cyprus? why does cyprus matter? what do you say? >> i think cyprus matters because the situation is complex and there could be a risk for even small countries to leave the european monetary union. and that goes against all the rhetorics that merkel has been putting forward, that the whole euro group has been putting forward. remember ek equities was an exception of one of psi event. if there is no shugz here for a second psi event, you could see we are contagion to spain. >> and we should remind people that cyprus has to come up becausely because if it were to borrow the amount of funds it needs to recap its banking system, it would settle the country with a massive amount of debt. the troika, europe, basically wants cyprus to contribute some

of its own funds so it doesn't you increase sovereign debt and have a whole other problem to deal with. 6/billion euros, it's 30% of gdp. given the magnitude of that, cyprus is trying to come up with some creative solutions. carolin roth now joins us on the line. has anyone in cypress come up wi cyprus come up with details to obtain the money? >> they're looking at a number of solutions at this point. given that we're not getting any help from russia at this point, the stakes are very high. in the parliament later on today, lawmakers will be scrambling to find a solution to raise 5.8 billion ur rows. right now, that has been dladz by 1 1/2 hours and is we're hearing it could be delayed well into the afternoon hours. a major sticking point seems to be that banking bill, i.e., the

winding down of cyprus's second biggest bank, splitting into a good bank and a bad bank. secondly, there seems to be some confusion about what the solidarity fund will mean, to what extent it can be valued. currently, they're going to be debating on and voting on capital control bill that would be put in place once banks do reopen on tuesday. in about 25 minutes' time, we know that the governor spokesman is going to be giving a statement to the media and maybe he will give a little more clarity as to what we can expect and where we are in terms of the talks. meanwhile, i'm standing a few feet away from around 1,000 protesters who once again gathered outside the parliament. like yesterday, kelly, these are mainly employees of keybank. this is the bank that they're set to wind down. and they're afraid of losing their jobs, they're afraid of lose their deposits that they

themselves have in the bank and they're afraid of their pensions being nationalized. they're chanting things like today you're going to close our bank. what are you going to be doing to us tomorrow? and they're calling for the central bank governor to step down. so a lot of tensions inside and outside the parliament. >> carolin, thanks very much for that and, again, for giving us a sense of wa is happening on the ground there. carolin roth. antonio, just to come back to this point about how cyprus is going to raise the money, they've tried to float this idea of a solidarity investment fund. the church has offered its assets. is there any way around fundamentally taxing deposits they're taxing the population? >> the obvious ways, when you have 68 billion of deposits and you have a failed institution, maybe that's one venue. but the constraint that you see there is that you have to insure the depositors, but ought to be the last one to be paying for that bill. and that is the problem.

if you are too punitive of the other 100k depositors, then you hit the financial offshore of the environment. the choice should be obvious to the majority, at least to the european monetary union. >> and most people would assume before depositors were ever looked at as a source of cash, it would be the bondholders that got hit. if cyprus has to raise 67 billion and there's only 1.7 billion in bonds to go after, that won't solve the problem. should they still, though, have tried it? >> i think the natural way to proceed is first feed equity, then junior debt and then senior debt and, last, depositors. and that would very last insure the depositors. so yes, indeed. as you rightly pointed out, it's around 11.7 of which the majority is bailin. but the senior debt is just around 300 million, not billion,

for the three largest banks. so it's very, very little. >> and angel gorria in that interview was saying next time or in general, someone has to pay and it should be the critters. nevertheless, antonio has to leave us. thank you for your time. we want to get back out to julia. now that russia has basically said, you know, sorry, no, the pressure is on europe to come up with a solution here. germany seems to be striking still a pretty hard line. what's the answer? >> well, i think all avenues right now are point to go cyp s cyprus. all the messages that we've been getting in the last 24 hours from europe is quite frankly, they're not changing the size of this bailout program. yes, they'll be flexible on the details ultimately, but those details have to come from cyprus. and is i know you were just talking about the funds that they're talking about creating. they're not happy with pension assets being transferred. it has to be a banking sector solution.

i think the real message to s h cyprus here is the model no longer works and they have to address that. one of the things that you find to find out and you have to notice, no one is accusing europe of kicking the can. no one is saying this is an aggressive solution. the question is, do we take this to the wire and do they ultimately back down as we've seen in the past? i know you've been talking about the prospects of cyprus leaving the eurozone. it's interesting we've heard from slovenia, as well, saying we're not a situation like cypr cyprus. if this is a warning for other countries, arguably, they're stepping up and taking note. maybe that will make cyprus step up and say it has to be a solution that comes in domestically. and i think also the message from germany, not only does it have to be a banking solution, but we're fought going to let those big deposit holders get away. cyprus has to work it out.

>> and you have to be xwlem xwlesed by the market's resilient as we head into this back drop. thank you very much. take a look over on the website as the cyprus drama plays out on the international stage and politicians try to find a solution. what's happening on the island itself? we have a selection of striking images with people venting their anger on the streets. also, tiffany is set to release its earnings after if the opening bell. they cited overall slow december sales. we're joined now by stacey woodliff. stacey, it's not just not to talk cyprus for a second. >> tiffany's and cyprus.

>> they're probably not targeting a store there anytime soon. >> exactly. >> what about tiffany's in general. mulbery just came out in britain with a profit warning. shares down 20%. it talked about weakness in the market. >> luxury has been very mixed. so we've seen a deceleration in china. we saw the swiss watch export numbers yesterday that were disappointing. china retail sales were dis appoi appointing. and it's surprising that mulberry is still getting that in. so i think mull bury is an outlooker. from her meds yesterday want which was outstanding. >> and it's almost about winners and losers. to that point, where does tiffany fall? >> tiffany has warned over the last four quarters. when is this going to stop? when are they going to give guidance that's manageable here?

today, we already know the holiday numbers. the comps were flat. on a two-year basis, that was up 4% growth versus a 17 two-year percent growth last quarter. that's a huge deceleration here. the outlook, certainly, i think, will be very conservative. >> what is pricing in the shares at this point? >> well, 2 company, when they gave the holiday update, hold us that they're looking for about a 6% to 9% earnings growth for 2013. at that time, they thought it was a good idea to cut the bar, set it low. but, again, they've warned four times in a row. so it just seems that it's never low enough here. >> what is at this point tiffany doing wrong? is it a company's specific execution problem or is it tough markets? both. first of all, they've mismanaged guidance over several years and, second, there is competitive threats in the market. but i can also it's that

aspirational consumer that used to spend on that solar category. that's been extraordinarily weak over the past several quarters 37. >> and finally, asian demand was supposed to be the saver for retail. is that the story losing its luster? >> i think it is losing its luster. you are seeing the numbers, so there are certain winners like armez and then there are others that, really, it's just not enough to save the rest of the world. >> what about consumers and other emerging markets? if we are seeing a shift in their strength, australia is not an emerging markets. are there others where consumers are expected to be in a better position? >> well, i think the bulk of the sauls are in north america and china and about 11% in europe. we also want to see how the european market is doing, the comps there decelerated. and, again, if you're getting that influx of asian tourism where the product is so much cheaper here, that should help.

that's really the bulk of the sales here is europe, north america and the chinese markets. >> that's a great point. we'll keep an eye out, see how these shares react and what they make out of tiffany today. maybe they'll release the earnings in a blue box. >> stacey wid will i tz, thank you very much for coming by. >> thanks, kelly. straight ahead, the clock is ticking on a deal for dell. we'll take a look at that when we come back. carfirmation.

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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." if you're just tuning in, these are your headlines. cyprus racing against the clock to secure a bailout after the finance minister returnes from russia without a deal. german business confidence falls below forecasts in march, sending the euro lower. and the eocd strike aes confident note on china, but stresses the need for reform. here is a quick look at today's other top stories. it's deadline day for dell. blackstone group is a major contender reportedly in talk toes purchase part or all of the computermaker. dell and is silver lake currently have a $24.5 billion bid on the company. if blackstone does put in an

offer, it would likely team up with another firm. right now, biocompanies have until midnight to put in their bid. now in the u.s., stocks are trying to shake off their worst day in more than three weeks. but even with that setback, major indexes are still on track to close out the week with monthly games. we'll keep an eye on the action and take a look at what could happen in markets when we come back. [ male announcer ] i've seen incredible things. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪

you're looking thou at live pictures. there's our very own steve sedgwick, in fact. well timed. european commission jose

manuelso is holding a press conference with the russian prime minister dimitry medvedev. this conference was well planned ahead of any issues from cyprus. we'll keep an eye on wires for those comments. in the u.s., takes a look at what's on the agenda today, investors are look to shake the sell-off in stocks. this morning, we weigh earnings from jeweler tiffny which posted disappointing holiday season sales. nike came in with better than expected results last night. the dow at the open, still wouldn't do much to rebound tr yesterday's decline. let's get straight out to todd horwitz. todd, markets relatively -- does that change today? >> good morning, kelly. the markets are very near in my opinion the top. we're seeing a lot of flow into

the u.s. dollar, a lot of flow into the bonds. so a lot of the risk is coming off. although we may make tops here, i think we're much closer to the top and i think the risk is to the down side. now what you're seeing is you're seeing a lot of the late money, a lot of the late retail trade, a lot of the fund managers, a lot of people trying to get in before the end of the quart he. i think the market is looking for a reason to go down. cyprus could be the catalyst. the fundamentals i don't think had anything to do with whether we go down or not. the catalyst, you can see there's a lot of people looking every time we get a little bit of panic, we sell hard. and i think that's the direction, that's what the market is looking for is the reason to sell hard and take some profit here. there's been a lot of money made. the big money and the managers are looking to take some profit here. >> people generally are taking positions off for the weekend or do you have a sense kind of of how positioning generally is shaping up? >> i think that you're going to see probably some more profit

taking into the weekend here. i think people are going to be taking up the position. i think you'll see a lot more of the money going to some of the safer asset classes. we are more in a risk off classes right now. >> it's not necessarily the kind of acute risk off greek-like european drama situation that we saw 18 months ago. this seems to be a little bit of a different kind. is it your sense that there's actually, even though this may be a catalyst, a sense of the foundations weakening that were holding this market up? >> yeah, i do think that the foundation is weakening. i think we are much nearer the top now. i think what's happening, when you see at the end, when markets start to make topping action, you're getting the late money in. you're getting the last of the retail, the people that think that they missed this big rally that's been up for four years and 15% since november, you have them now flowing in saying this is my last chance to get in. and typically, from experience, that tells us that when the last dollars start to come in, you

can start to see the industrial stocks are starting to show some weakness. there's a lot of underlying weakness. the internals of the market are start to go weaken, although the tape and the dow is trying to rise here. and is we're up near highs. the underlying stuff in the market is weaker and it looks like there's a greater chance of a sell-off here and a much greater action. >> todd, we'll leave it there because we have plenty else to cover. todd horwitz from the adam mesh trading group. great do you see this morning. we are going to stay on air for uk and european audiences here to follow the latest with regard to what's happening in cyprus and, of course, that joint press conference we were just showing you pictures of. let's take a quick look at market action. dow is still trying to add about 10 points at the open. markets are pretty much sitting pat. we aren't seeing a ton of action. we're still waiting for details out of cypress where we expect in just about five minutes time that we'll actually hear from the government spokesman.

reading a statement to the press which will be distributed to media represents on the spot. so we're waiting to hear word out of cyprus. in the meantime, we'll say good-bye to our u.s. viewers. if you want to follow along with us, flip over to cnbc world and we'll stay on air to bring you those comments for the rest of our viewers.