starbucks is starting to rival -- a bit of a hyperbole -- what warren bust has got going. i cannot wait to get out there. that stock has been on a tier of late. starbucks, seattle, nordstroms. i promise to find it just for you on "mad money." i'm jim cramer and i will see you tomorrow. welcome to "worldwide exchange." i'm julia chatterley. these are your headlines from around the world. the fed could scrap its unemployment threshold as janet yellen prepares to wrap up its two-day meeting. we could see a rate hike this year. china's central bank tells cnbc it's not an emergency talk to bail out a struggling property developer amid hundreds of millions of solid debt. oracle shares drop in after

hours as they miss expectations. currency fluctuations hit numbers. investors like the number of inditech's numbers. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. if you're just tuning in, thanks for joining us here on the show. i'm going to give you a look at ohio the u.s. markets are faring here on "worldwide exchange" ahead of the open today. gains in yesterday's session adding to the gains that we saw in wednesday's. and we're seeing dow futures indicating higher by around 3 points. same story for the nasdaq and for the s&p 500 relatively unchanged as far as this market is concerned. a bit of a drop in sentiment

yesterday as far as the ukrainian crisis is concerned. markets steaming here. the real focus for investors today, of course, is what happens with the fed meeting and yellen, of course, first time in the hot seat tonight. this is the performance for the european markets. coming off some of the gains we saw earlier on in the session, the ftse 100 down by around 0.25%. the basic resources of the construction stocks under pressure. the dax gaining around 0.2%. bench market bucking that trend down 0.2%. and the ftse mib in italy also losing ground by around 0.4%. remember, all these markets are not yet taking back the gains we saw fully in yesterday's session. quick check on the bond markets here ahead of the fed. here we are bouncing around that 2.70% figure. the ten-year gilt, as well.

and on the announcement of the budget, just shy of 2.7%. quick check of the foreign exchange markets, the dollar index is trading at a 4 1/2 month low right now. dollar/yen, interesting one here, too. 101.60 right now. 101.20 is the one-month low as far as that figure is concerned. let's take a look as far as the asian markets. it was a mixed session. li sixuan has all the details in singapore. >> julia, you're right. it's ban choppy day for the japanese market. and the milk 225 opened higher from dipping into negative territory before ending higher by 0.4%. the narrowing trade deficit data helped sentiment thanks to a weaker yen while imports started to ease. shares of am supplier tanked 15%

on its tokyo debut. in china, the shanghai deposit lost just modest. and property stocks came under pressure after reports of a possible default by a small property developer. china's money rates rose amid slowing capital inflows and pressure. the pboc has drained about 22 billion from the markets this week. in hong kong, the hang seng index ended down by just a tad. south korean and australian shares steaded as investors await the fed's discussion. steady revenue growth in asia and north america for samsonite. shares rallied over 9%. meantime, geely auto jumped 31%

and shares soared over 15%. that is a look at the asian markets. back to you, julia. >> great to talk to you this morning. janet yellen will wrap up her first fed meeting today. it will likely change its guidance on future rate guidance, scrapping the 6.5% unemployment threshold. the fed's economic projections are followed at 2:00 p.m. eastern followed by yellen's comments at 2:30 eastern. ken logger says the new fed chair has a difficult balancing act on her hands. >> she certainly has a tough job convincing markets that when they see some inflation as they may, you know, a year from now say that the fed is not going to start moving quickly. that's the big concern as she gives her first press

conference. how does she massage markets? how does she assure them that she intends to stay the course, wait, not tighten quickly so that interest rates don't go up ahead of her, ahead of what she wants. >> in line with that, could the fed consider hiking rates by tend of this year? former fed governor heller said today investors pricing in a rate hike for 2014 could be caught off guard. joining us now is the head of foreign exchange strategy at socgen. good morning. >> good morning. >> do you think inesters will be surprised? >> i doubt it. this federal reserve, for a while now, has been incredibly dovish. the fed funds rate, low inflation for 12 years, and this ever so careful totally $10 billion a month while the

economy recovers. so yes, we would be really surprised, really, really, really surprised if they took away the punch bowl at any time in 2014. >> to bring it back to today, is that the only possible risk perhaps that it's slightly more hawkish than the markets are expecting? if you pull in china, crimea, perhaps the markets could be tripped up today? >> i suppose so. i think we've gotten used to do idea. i think she'll come out and talk dovishly as usual and not be dollar friendly and be pretty market friendly and say the same kind of things as they come with some kind of fuzzy qualitative gooit guidance to replace what they had. but the big change in policy would be anything that makes people move from 2015 as the hikes or in the sense that once they start raising rates, they'll have to raise them faster. i actually think they may -- there's an outside chance

they'll give us some kind of chance to end destination of policy rates possibly lower. but those are the examples we're looking for. >> and we could get an indication of that today? >> $10 billion, nothing else, life goes on. >> great. we're going to come back to this. tune into street signs at 2:00 p.m. eastern. yellen meets the press for the first time as chair half an hour later. central banks are operating a fatally flawed strategy if they focus exclusively on inflation. that was a warning from the bank of england governor mark carney in a speech last night. carney warned that low interest rates can lead to complacency in financial markets. >> the reductionist view of the central bank's role that was adopted around the world was fatally flawed. in particular, it failed to recognize the financial stability is as important and

objective, economic policy, as price stability. >> sticking with the central bank's theme, japan's central bank governor continues to play down rates koroda says t with easing in japan is good for growth long-term. the boj chief has been adamant that next month's sales tax hike will not derail japan's economic upswing. now, financial times reports china's central bank is holding emergency talks over whether to bail out the property headline developer facing bankruptcy. eunice will be joining us later today to talk about this. she's spoken to the pboc and they deny any involvement in this. china is an interesting one here. i'm always interested to ask questions given it's the most opaque central bank in the world. what do you make of the headlines?

>> the chinese have a policy of trying to raise credit in which we get a credit bubble deflation. other central banks haven't been successful in that historically. they want to let some companies fail, but if you're looking dangerous, you have to dial a few ads. they're letting the market go a little bit and pulling it back in. i would be surprised if they came in with a bailout here just because that appears to be canceled to that policy. they have credit conditions amid less credit growth overall through the economy because it's dangerous. and that's not going to work. >> they're not going to come in and bail out here, fine. because you made a comparison with the west. in the west we have failures. that's part of a normal functioning market that businesses go out. >> yes. what you don't want in 2008 is to have too big a credit bubble in the session.

there's an exercise to constrain credit without doing too much. >> but the markets react to one story about the potential failure here pt does the market need to step back and go don't be too sensitive about headlines? >> the central bank needs to take a step back and say let's let the market do some of its work without panicking. yes, financial markets, the markets remember are torn between two different in china. people think the pboc is all seeing and all mighty. others think it's a huge credit bubble, it's going to burst, they're doomed. the reality is in between the two. >> eunice yoon now jans oins us. eunice, i don't know whether you just heard our discussion, but this is part of a reform process, isn't it? allowing some of these businesses to fail.

>> that is what the premier a couple weeks ago said, that the government was willing to see some default, some defaults would be unavoidable. however, the fact that this is going on right now is spooking the markets somewhat, especially in property plays. and basically, this is what's happening. there's a small property developer coming from a city in eastern china. what we know is that they've been trying to raise -- they raised a lot of money through several banks, about $400 million. they've raised money from individual investors and now they're saying they can't pay the money back. now they're saying this is something people are worried about, maybe it wouldn't have been a big concern if it was a different time. but because it is now, when the economy is very much in focus, when investors are concerned about the health of the financial sector, people are concerned about what happens in this case. especially because it's in the property market. a lot of people think the property market has an

overinvested. there are people who are talking about how the property market is so central to economic growth here. so if we started to see several defaults in this sector, what would that mean for the overall economy? in the back drop of all of this is that the government policymakers have been trying to send a message out that they want to constrain credit. so that already is affecting growth and people are worried about what the potentially unintended consequences of this all could be for the economy going forward. julia. >> thanks, eunice. the problem is, now there is one market in china where investors are apparently feeling very bullish. and that is jobs. a dog has been sold in china for reportedly $2 billion. a property developer paid the huge sum for the 1-year-old pupsy seen here on the left at a luxury pet fair. the breeder says the high price is justified by the rarity of the dog which is a pure breed.

i wonder whether that's an indicator in the property market that a developer is paying that much for a dog. anyway, oracle meanwhile says there's a dark cloud on their third quarter earnings. we'll find out what the future holds for the software company coming up after the break. stay with us. stay with us. ♪ [ cellphones beeping ] ♪ [ cellphone rings ] hello?

[ male announcer ] over 12,000 financial advisors. good, good. good. over $700 billion dollars in assets under care. let me just put this away. [ male announcer ] how did edward jones get so big? could you teach our kids that trick? [ male announcer ] by not acting that way. ok, last quarter... [ male announcer ] it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪

let's take a look at today's other top story. toyota has reportedly reached a $1 billion settlement ending a criminal probe over the company's handling of complaints about sudden acceleration in its seco vehicles. the issue gained worldwide attention back in 2009 when a california policeman and his family were killed when his lexus ran off the highway at around 120-mile-per-hour. the justice department found toyota made misleading statements to the public and justice department about safety issues. higher expenses off set a slight increase in revenues for adobe. adobe added more than 400,000 users for its created cloud suite, which includes photo shop and flash software. the company's earnings released about 15 minutes early.

an internal error caused the number to be published on its website. this morning, trading higher by around 0.5%. up around 19% in the last three months. now, oracle's profit and revenue grew in the third quarter, but were below analyst spexpectatio. >> oracle expected an average earnings of share by 7 cents. oracle reported 68 cents on revenue of $9.3 billion. so a miss on the bottom and the top. there has been concern on wall street about oracle's growth prospects. company's user software help manage their businesses, everything from hr to accounting. oracle is now facing increasing competition from rivals such as sales force and work day which are tacking oracle from the cloud, meaning the offer webb-based software sold at descriptions. oracle told investors that sales

from new software licenses or new money oracle is bringing in goes 4% to 2.4 billion. that just missed analyst expectations. josh lipton, cnbc, silicone valley. >> we're going to be digging in those details later on in the show, but for now, have a look at shares at tata consult services in india. the country's top i.t. exports are warning weaker sales. they expect weaker revenue these quarter than in previous. but they're predicting higher growth in 2015. still to come on the show, vladimir putin says he has no entire to move further into ukraine, but does he mean it?

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." quick check of the futures right now. a little higher in the last 20 minutes or so. the s&p is indicating higher by 1.25 points. the nasdaq higher by around 5 points and the dow jones higher by 20 points. that sentiment turning more positive over the last few minutes. as far as the european markets are concerned, the ftse 100 is relatively unchanged, so pulling back some of the losses of the last hour or so.

the german market higher by 0.4%. & the cac 40 is unchanged and the ftse mib is down around 0.25%. the focus today is on yellen and the fed this afternoon. >> ukrainian soldier necessary crimea have been given permission to use weapons. an attack was carried out by troops wearing russian military uniforms. meanwhile, a defiant vladimir putin has addressed crowds in crimea saying crimea is an inseparable part of russia. however, he did say russia has no plans to move farther into ukraine. jim maceda is joining us now.

where are we, jim? >> julia, we shouldn't overstate this, especially on a day when those pro russian defense groups are rate for the process of crimea's annexation to work its course and they're cleaning out the remaining signs of resistance in crimea. and despite promises or more and stronger sanctions by western officials on one side and a warning of countersanctions from russia's foreign minister lavrov on the other side, it is true that both sides are now sending out signals, however weak, that they want to resolve this diplomatically. in the last 24 hours, we've heard from the ukrainian prime minister trying to allay russian fears, saying ukraine has no intention of becoming a member of nato, which, of course, has to be putin's worst nightmare and kiev would disarm its national militias.

we've heard putin speaking directly to ukrainians in his kremlin speech yesterday telling them russia doesn't want to an ex any more ukrainian territory. there are other sides, as well. also, they are still not meeting face-to-face. that's clear. but kiev and moscow are talking to each other, usually via the media or intermediaries and they're getting those end points out on the table. there's a huge gap in those positions. but at least now, they've expressed a contact group or support group, something that will mediate between them. julia, the situation is very volati volatile, but the sense is that putin has what he wants. he has crimea, he has adoration here of russians in his pocket.

analysts tell us they would be surprised to see him rachet up the military pressure at this time. back to you. >> he's got what he wants, but for how long? thank you so much. are we being too complacent about this solution here? >> look, the markets are -- global political issues for russia. everything we hear says that might be right, but it's a one-sided risk. it could get worse. >> russians around the region are talking about it. still to come on the show, will the next biggest ipo since facebook deal another harsh blow to the nasdaq? more on the battle for the surprised alibaba listing, coming up. ng up.

welcome to "worldwide exchange." i'm julia chatterley. the fed's employment threshold has janet yellen prepare toes wrap up the central bank's two-day meeting. one governor says we could see a rate hike this year. china's central bank tells cnbc it is not in bailout struggling property developer which owns hundreds of millions in debt.

inditex says currently fluctuations hit the numbers. and chinese tech giant tencent posted its slowest growth in two years. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. well, we're just waiting for some uk unemployment data this morning. just now coming through. we've got the february benefit claimant count down 34,600. the poll was for down 25. so slightly better than expected. the ilo jobless rate at 7.2% in the three months to january, posit. that's exactly the same as we had last month from the three months to december. employment up 105,000 to 30,192

million in the three months through jan 2 and we have average weekly earnings, 1.4% year on year. slightly better than expected. the poll was for 1.3% increase year on year in the three months. we've also got bank of england minutes out this morning, as well. remember, we're looking to -- discussion as far as the thresholds or raising rates. we've got more indicators now that they're going to be focusing on. they're saying obviously we've got 9 to zero to keep them on hold similar to the last few months. nine to zero for keeping rates unchanged as expected. and mpc members attach different rates to evidence of spare capacity. we're looking for more members to talk about the greater idea of capacity in the economy right now. latest revisions of gdp suggest the data recovery is more balanced. that is the take right now as far as the minutes and the data

is concerned. your thoughts right now on the uk? >> well, the economy's progression in the sense that employment growth is still very solid. there will be one level about even a small pick up in wage growth. but hey, at least they're up a little more quickly than they were. i would have thought a few people will be getting more nervous that the first rate hike comes sooner. there will be a split in the mpc sometime in the next month but the hike before the majority coming through. and in the near term, this is going to be well received by sterling, which will go on banging away at the top end of this range, i would have thought. >> you're a bear, aren't you? >> yeah. i think the economic recovery is lopsided. i think the peak in uk rates will be lower than u.s. rates and i think our current account deficit is way too big at this point in the economic cycle. but i'm not going to get a huge draw on any of those views for several months. >> thank you so much for being here this morning.

kit dukes from socgen. thanks for talking to us. now, the latest press conference on malaysian flight 370 is just getting under way. we will keep our eye on that and bring you any important developments as we hear them. we were just talking about the uk. helia is outside the houses of parliament. we had carney yesterday talking about the risks that remain as far as the uk and the global environment is concerned. we have also had the transformation, people saying it's more hawkish, helia. should we be concerned about similar rate hikes sooner rather than later? >> i think yesterday was no ordinary day for the bank of england. we saw one of the most radical overhauls of the bank in its 320-year history. that's in terms of structure. and you saw a whole new slew of new faces on the mpc, which could means uk voting strategy's more hawkish policy. we have another external member

on the nine-member mpc to appoint. so really, rate watchers are going to be looking at that very closely because we could have much more hawkish policy, interest rates and dissent importantly in the mpc sooner than expected. and as you said, carney not only did this massive reshuffle of the bank, but he also gave this speech where he gave ka lacalam warning about risk taking that we saw before the crisis, before lehman brothers collapsed both in house holds and in the marketplace. so that's got a lot of kind of caps among the pigeons this morning. and to be honest, we're standing here on college green waiting for carney's boss, george osborne, to unveil his budget. but really, the carney carnage has taken precedent. one thing we've seen from the treasury this morning is this

brand new one-pound coin which will be in speculation from 2017. this is in order to make sure that counterfeiting comes down. but this coin has gone from being round to having as many sides almost as the bank of england has new deputy govern governors. i'm not sure if the chancellor can remove that kind of market moving change in terms of the budget, but we'll watch that. back to you, julia. >> thanks so much, helia. we'll catch up with you later on in the show. janet yellen will wrap up her first fed meeting since becoming chairman later today. the fomc will likely change guidance for when it may start raising rates back to that 6.5% unemployment threshold. yellen's news conference will be at 2:30 p.m.

elin joins me now. you're asking the question of whether or not it's possible for the fed to be too transparent at this stage. i think stanley fisher would say absolutely, but what are your thoughts? >> if you try to explain too much, you end up confoousing th situation. there are 18 different indicators that the governor is watching. sometimes more information is actually less information and the fed is starting to realize that, i think. the challenge for the fed this meeting will be to convince the markets that any change in forward guidance is a nonevent. officials are casting this as a change in semantics, not necessarily a change in policy. and while it's true that we're unlikely to see a fed official dramatically change the timing, the expected timing of the liftoff for interest rates, this is going to be the first time in five years that the fed is going to be saying, you know, instead of giving a message of the markets that, hey, interest rates are going to be at zero for a long time, now the fed is starting to see the light at the

end of the tunnel and the fed will have to respect that in the wording of their statements. now, could investors pointing at a rate hike in 2015 be in for a shock? go to cnbc.com to find out why former fed governor robert heller thinks the central bank could act at the turn of the year. foor more, tune into "street signs" later today. let me give you a quick check now on the u.s. futures as we head towards the session. quick check on those right now. we've got the dow futures indicating higher right now by around 9 points. we've got the nasdaq higher by a couple of points and the s&p 500 relatively unchanged right now. for the european markets, coming off another weakness that we saw in the last hour or so, similar story. the ftse 1 is 00, 0.2% lower.

the dax higher by 0.3%. the cac 40 in france and the ftse mib in italy slightly lower. 0.2% to 0.3%. now, the latest press conference on malaysian flight 370 has just been getting under way. we're going to listen into that right now. we're awaiting formal clearance to search the southern corridor. that's the latest from them. malaysian authorities report of the missing plane sighted over the mu the muldese are untrue. so how do you make money in these markets? lisp to what the experts have been telling us this morning. >> they haven't really changed, yet people have gone a little

higher. i feel like longer term short, much comes out of the budget. again, maybe in sterling, the u.s. dollar is short and is essentially, again, cable is a decent shortage. >> i think it's along for the ride in the euro. i think given the amount of growth that has come out of nowhere in the uk, the central bank very quickly, the hawkishness, you saee what gave it that strength. you see a large trade deficit that needs to be worked off. >> if it was difficult for the market to put a value on something with local delivery but massive impact, i think the market is perceiving it as low probability right now.

but it is -- make no mistake, it would be a massive impact here. >> now, we have to take a quick break, but coming up, its once looked like a marriage made in heaven. we'll find out why this iconic u.s. retailer may be left at the altar. stay with us.

markets speculate the fed's unemployment market could be on the chopping block. oracle's profit grows, but misses expectations, sending shares lower after hours. worries of a bailout for chinese troubled developer puts pressure on asian markets. now, let's take a look at today's other top stories. the management shake up at pimco is still making waves. research firm morning star hat cut two of pimco's ratings. this comes two months after pimco announced a key figure, mohamed el-erian would be leaving the firm. morningstar's senior analyst visited the pimco offices

earlier this month and says it is difficult to see how -- would interact with the co-founder, bill gross. meanwhile, el-erian has joined social networking site twitter despite only having just signed up on tuesday, he already has thousands of followers. waiting for the intimate details, no doubt. sh starbucks holds its annual meeting today in seattle. last week, starbucks said the annual iphone app would allow people to leave a virtual tip. could have a shake to pay function which could speed up the payment process. i'd like to see a speed up of the coffee making process, as well. j. crew and fast retailing have been in talk bs about a possible merger.

headquarter has all the details. >> fast retailing, a parent of clothing chain uniglobe is reportedly no longer in talks by j. crew from its private equity owners. the company walked away from the discussion shortly after t"the wall street journal" and others reported last month. the public may have played a role. an ipo is still on the table for j. crew, although the talks of fast retailing could be revived. private equity firms often pursue a dual track process to sell investments. preparing companies for an ipo while seeking bids for an outright purchase. j. crew was taken private when its ceo for $2.8 billion. reports say they hope to fetch upwards of $5 billion. j. crew, which made its name with catalog sales in the 1980s now offers 330 stores. revenues rose 9% in its most

recent -- this year. fast retailing wants to be the largest clothing retailer in the u.s. and in the world. its ceo has set a lofty goal of qu quintupeling revenue. the company has a market cap of backside 37 billion with more than 23,000 employees. in addition to uniglobe, it owns the u.s. brands theory and jay brands. it has more than 1200 stores in asia, but only a handful of stores in the u.s. it expects to open 20 to 30 stores a year. we started out with one uni glow. the stores are pretty big. it takes a while to open up those stores. back to you. chinese giant tencent posted

its slowest growth since 2012. it's the outlook that may have investors worried. a recent crackdown by regulators on the virtual credit card payment systems and online transaction rs are expected to t tencent's financial arm. it did miss forecasts. revenues for new software licenses and cloud based subscriptions are closely watched. oracle says its currency fluctuations were a bigger drag than expected. shares trading lower in after hours. daniel ives, managing director and senior analyst at fdr capital markets joins us now. the market doesn't seem to be convinced that this is a turn around story. you have the numbers at outperform. tell us what your take is here. >> i think it's a tale of two cities.

investors will hang their hat on. but at the end of the day, the software continues to weigh down overall growth and seeks to the top and bottom line miss. this continues to be a turn around and also some positives, but definitely some heavy lifting ahead. >> we saw some of the declines, perhaps, in the hardware bottoming out here. but, again, as you point out, the software still shy of estimates here. how do they sort this out? how do they reshape the business and address what should be a key measure of contributors to profitability here? >> yeah. it will lead to the cloud. i expect through m&a to aggressively build that out. we have 12c, now used by what they've had in over the last six to seven years. that's where the promise is. when you look out in the next 12

to 18 months, i think this kind of rolls to a -- they could prove themselves in the cloud or have a 3% to 4% growth. we need to see consistent execution and there remain aes proven stock to investors that we see this morning. >> if we look at the likes of the worst day of sales, whether or not they're able to increase market share, i know that you think it could be a busy year as far as m&a is concerned, but what about organic growth? >> look, organic growth continues to be the head scratcher here, right? in terms of this execution, just like you said, competition has continued to increase for oracle. again, they used to be the only point on the runway. now there's more competition. that's why we need to see stellar execution, a well-run product cycle, m&a and this

cloud business to become the fuel in the engine. that's the key to success. i think investors are giving a little benefit of the doubt we've seen over the last two or three months. again, given that our cause a mixed bag in terms of earnings, a better guide and there may be fear, this continues to be one over the next three or four quarters they need to prove themselves. if they can talk the talk, they need to walk the walk. >> daniel ives from fbr capital markets, great to talk to you. still to come on the show, it's all in the language. how can yellen modify the fed's forward guidance without shifting market expectations? back to d.c. right after this break.

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of the malaysian flight 370 appears to be wrapping up. here are the latest headlines we see. the pilot and the crew are innocent until proven guilty. there's been a lot of speculation about their involvement. they are saying reports of the missing plane over the maldives are untrue. they are working to retrieve simulator data. so deleted simulator data from the pilot's log, at what point that happened and who can do that, of course. always lots of speculation around this, but we will keep you updated. alibaba is reportedly leaning towards listing on the new york stock exchange instead of the nasdaq, according to the "wall street journal" source ones. cnbc has confirmed the e-commerce giant is holding its kickoff meeting next tuesday with five main banks leading the deal. analysts expect the deal due in

the third quarter will raise $15 billion or more. that's an incredible numbers on this. speculation of the financial times that this deal could reach around $20 billion worth. as we look at an estimate of the fees there, around 2% of the growth proceeds, we're talking a sum of $400 million. and the facebook, 1.1% just to give you some perspective on that. so a nice windfall for some of those banks. $400 million is being speculated in the financial times this morning. now let's have a look at u.s. futures ahead of the markets this morning. while we've got the dow, it's higher by around 8 points right now. we've got the nasdaq higher by just over 2 points and the s&p 500 indicating relatively unchanged at this stage. two sessions of gains, but all the focus today on janet yellen, who will wrap up her first fed meeting since becoming chair head today. the central bank is expected to continue tapering its bond buying program and will likely

change its guidance on future rate rises, scrapping the 6.5% unemployment threshold. now, still with us, elon lily. we were talking about the balancing act that she's got to achieve here by maintain ago hold on as far as the interest rates are concerned. just how does she do that? if perhaps there's set plans, is this a way to achieve this? >> i would caution against reading too much into the dots. it will become more important as the fed becomes more vague in its forward guidance. but remember that there's a survey of all the participants in the fomc, not just the voting members, and they've not waited. so we don't know where janet yellen is in that dot plot and we don't know where some of the outliers in that dot plot. so i would be cautious about reading too much into it. i think the fed is going to be finding that as it is becoming

more vague, the market is going to be trying to demand more information. but the problem is that the fed can't be more specific. it doesn't know what it's going to be doing. the fed has been -- it's been very difficult for the fed to pinpoint the exact moment for interest rates and quite frankly, there's a big debate right now even among the doves on the committee over whether the fed should be overshooting its target for unemployment, whether the fed should be able to tolerate more inflation than it has in the past or whether it should, you know, put the brakes on a little bit earlier in order to make sure the economy doesn't overheat. >> thanks elin. we'll have to wait and see what she says. now, for viewers in asia and the u.s., "squawk box" is coming right up. for viewers in europe, stay tuned to find out what the new pound coin looks like. we'll be previewing right after the break. the break.

the fed decision is just hours away. will janet yellen set off any fireworks in her first conference as fed chair inspect that's the question. and is the white house handing out investment advice when it comes to russia? it sure sounded like they were. it's wednesday, march 19th, 2014. "squawk box" begins right now.

good morning. i'm michelle caruso cabrera. joe and becky are off today. the cfo of cisco, frank calderoni, win tilton, plus changing the world with oil been heir harold hamm, that is over the next three hours. >> are you ready for that? >> joe is away and the cat will play. it's an exciting day. the fed is going to wrap up its two-day policy meeting today. >> do you know what time the fed decision will come down? >> i was waiting for this. 2:00 p.m. eastern time.