hello, you're watching "worldwide exchange," i'm ross westgate. the headlines from around the globe. alstom shares are the top of european equities after the compa company, the french prime minister says the deal is not yet final. bnp paribas. prosecutors plan to file charges for allegedly doing business with sanctions countries.

spain exits deflation, the country also posts its strongest quarter growth in three years. the key inflation figure for the eurozone as a whole due in one hour. plus, brace for impact. we're joined on the show by dr. doom himself, mark farber who says equities are facing a crash this year that could be worse than what we saw in 2008. you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. hello, a warm welcome to the program. mark farber is with us on set. we'll be getting to him fairly shortly. first, alstom shares are soaring higher as they open for their first day of trade since monday. the firm says it is considering a $17 billion effort from general electric for its power

unit that includes $13.5 billion in enterprise value and $3.5 billion in cash. alstom will make a decision by may. it all comes as rival siemens says it needs a month to prepare a bid for the country. where does this leave us exactly? stephan, where does this leave the french government and alstom? >> it will look at the offer from general electric. the prime minister explained that the deal is not done yet and alstom will discuss with the government before making a final decision. the economy minister says that the government wants an equal partnership with alstom. which by the way seems to be

difficult since general electric is seven times bigger than alstom. the government was studying -- for the state to buy a stake in alstom. nevertheless, ross, the view here on the grounded is that it's almost a done deal. alstom will put in place a group of experts to look at the offer from general electric and the experts will give their conclusion at the end of may, in one month. in the meantime, alstom keeps the right to look at any potential offer that would be submitted to the board of the company and it will give siemens access to its financial data to conduct due diligence. general electric on its side claims that it had a good and constructive dialogue with the french government and that its offer will increase net employment around alstom asset in france, that, ross, is probably the key announcement this morning. ge wants to increase jobs at alstom's facilities in france and with that announcement on

the table, perhaps it will get the support from the government because it was a key priority for the french government not to have any job cuts after this announcement. >> okay, stephan, thanks for that. plenty more to come over the next two hours. jeff immelt will be speaking to cnbc later this afternoon as well. here we are just over an hour into trading. we're weighted to the downside, despite the gains from alstom, around about 6 to 3, decliners outpacing advancers. the ftse 100 up over 1%, 69 points higher. today it's fairly even. off 0.4 for the cac current and the ftse mib is down as well. other european countries are moving on earnings reports this

morning. as i say, shell is the outperformer, 4% at the moment, despite a slump in fourth quarter earnings. investors appear to be welcoming an increase in cash flow. pnb paribas, there was a 5% rise in net ref flew -- revenue. it may be hit with a u.s. far, far in excess of the 1.1 billion it set aside last year. >> the quarter clocked in at 1.7 billion bottom line, 5% up versus last quarter. it's basically on the back of top line growth in retail and investment solutions and resilience on the cib front. we have taken a generic

provision of 100 million related to the exceptional uncertainty situation in eastern europe. all that, 1.7 billion, increases the core equity ratio fully loaded to 10.6%. we believe these are solid results and bodies well for the diverse fiction and development going forward. >> daimler trading lower, down nearly 2%, despite more than boosting first quarter profits. finally, bbva, profits down 64% on an annual basis. due in a large part to an unfavorable comparison. we have the growth numbers out of the uk yesterday. gilt yields down 2.7%. were lower in italy and bund yields. last fed we had, we had the

janet yellen comments about rating rising six months after qe. yielding at the moment just below 2.7%. on the currency markets, the euro dollar has been fairly steady. we've come back to this 138 mark. the key figure for the eurozone coming up in just over an hour. we have the latest print of inflati inflation. how much more pressure on the ecb (? the german number did come in lower than expected, 1.1%. though the spanish number was higher. dollar/yen, 1.49. let's get more, though, on reaction in asia to and plenty more. there's only one man to do that, sri jegarajah is with us out of singapore. sri? >> hello there, ross. let me pick up where you left off and talk about jaeb.

the boj, no surprises from a policy perspective. that's probably why we saw a grae of stability in the nikkei 225 at the close. during the session, when the market got that headline, there was going to be no change in monetary policy and no expansion of asset purchases. there was a little bit of disappointment in the market. it did dip into negative territory. more importantly, we got the economic projections released from the bank of japan. the main head lane is that the boj do see the cpi inflation reaching 2% by fiscal 2015. that is on target and it does suggest that it's unlikely that we'll see any further stimulus or any further action from the bank of japan. perhaps it suggests why they were catching a slight bid on that note. some negative headlines coming out of the economic rejects, they did downgrade their economic view for fiscal 2015,

gep forecast coming in at 1.1% from 1.4% forecast in january. overall, it's fairly mixed. the hang seng is the underperformer. quite a heavy bounce of profit taking on the hong kong market after the gains, remember, we saw yesterday. as for the mainland equities market, shanghai composite was choppy today, reflecting fairly mixed earnings reports. these are the markets we'll have to watch this week. tomorrow we'll be getting the official print, cpi, factory activity out of china. it will be interesting to see whether we see further slowdown, further movement below that boom bust figure of 50 and whether the market has priced in this self-induced slowdown is how some are describing this contraction in factory activity. all in all, fairly cautious trading mood. just ahead of that key data coming out from china and also,

of course, all the event risk coming out of the u.s., state side with the fomc, the pc core index, of course, and the all-important payrolls. the big mama of them all. ross, back to you. >> thanks to are that, sri. cautious mood may describe our guest views in a few moments. we'll get to mark farber. just before we do that, the imf says it's now cut its forecast for russian growth for this year down to 0.2%. it was previously 1.3%. it sees further risk to its russian forecast as well. it says the sanctions are hurting the russian economy. more on that. but first as i say, is a market crash just around the corner? mark farber says another financial crisis could hit markets the second half of the year and it could be worse than the one we saw six years ago. it is called the boom, doom and gloom report. >> absolutely. >> the valuations are too rich.

where? >> well, first of all, you know, the markets are very big nowadays. you can have some stocks moving up and others moving down. and what we are seeing is high valuation in the u.s., particularly in social media stocks, biotechnology and as you may have observed, a lot of these companies are already down between 30% and 50%. yelp, twitter, facebook, facebook down only 20% but nevertheless, linked in and netflix and the cloud computing companies are also in some cases down 50%. we had already a big break in the market but we haven't had yet the big break in the overall market. >> some people say we've had a rotation out of the momentum stocks into more traditional. >> yes, utilities, energy and what we've seen over the last three, four months is an accumulation of mining companies.

>> who have underperformed. >> yes. but this is now the big issue. since 2011, some markets already since 2010, some since 2012. especially emerging markets, have grossly underperformed the u.s. we have the u.s. up here and other markets down here. and u.s. and investor, you have to now choose what to buy. i believe it's too late to buy the u.s. stock market. that's by the way, also the view of jerry, who thinks the returns from u.s. stocks will be negative over the next seven years. >> what do you do then if you believe that? >> i think it should be clear to anyone, when prices are low, such as in 1982, for stocks and interest rates are very high on

treasuries, 15%, then the expected returns are also very high. whereas when interest rates are at zero and the ten-year treasury is at 2.68 or 2.7%, the bonds are at 1.5%, even italian bonds are at 3%, what is your expected return over the next ten years? now, i'm not ruling out, there can be a further bond market rally as we had in the last three months since november. long-dated treasury bonds in the u.s. are up 10%. the stock market is flat to down. >> yes. >> so it's possible. but in general, i think individual investors have excessively optimistic expectations about their future returns. >> okay. which needs to come back to a mean or medium, whatever you

say. if you can't buy the u.s. market, what do you buy? >> well, i personally still own emerging market securities in asia, markets like thailand, singapore, malaysia, vietnam. and i made some investments more than a year ago in iraq. because it's very cheap. lots of problems. but the market is very, very inexpensive. and so some markets have corrected meaningfully to the downside, say even after the recent rise india in dollar terms is still down something like 35% from its peak. russia is dirt cheap. i don't think there's a hurry to buy russian stocks. >> no, no. not until we have a little bit more clarity, perhaps. mark, good to have you on the show. you'll stick around. mark farber, publisher of the boom, gloom and doom report.

do you agree with mark? is there potential for a bigger correction? get in touch with us, e-mail worldwide@cnbc.com, @cnbcwex or @rosswestgate. we'll discuss what's next for the social media giant, twitter. to qe or not to qe. that seems to be one of the questions. the figure for eurozone inflation comes out in around 45 minutes. could have a big bearing on what the ecb does or doesn't do. cnbc hits the catwalk. we catch up with super model kate moss to find out about her latest business venture. we needed 30 new hires for our call center.

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>> we see increased penetration of aluminum going into parts of the cars. clearly driven by the need for the oems to meet the fuel efficiency requirements from the public authorities. >> that means that you're building body sheets for the car industry. you have a new aluminum recycling plant as well in germany. where does this leave the aluminum sector now? the prices are almost half in 2008. we have massive overproduction. >> we believe that -- actually we use the word cautiously optimistic now. what we see for the better part of 2014 and also into '14 is that we see aluminum demand outpacing aluminum production for quite some time now, which is a new situation we haven't seen for quite some time. with that being said, i think it is important to note that we do

have a huge inventory and the industry is such that we'll have to come to the market at some point in time. just the fact that production is now lower than demand is a good situation for the industry. >> i suppose this is about demand outside china. how much does china impact, when you talk about demand outside china, talk about demand inside china. >> we believe china will be self-sufficient on primary production. we have said that for quite some time. we believe the industry very much concurs with that. we saw china back within we had the financial crisis quickly adapting to lower demand in their country. one of the important changes we believe is in the raw material site, where we see there's a lack of -- >> you don't have any direct

operations in russia but your join the venture does. i've just seen the imf come out and downgrade their forecast for russian growth. how might what happens there impact your joint venture and the aluminum business? >> well, we believe it will have relatively small consequence on our joint factor. the aluminum industry is such, it is too soon to judge how this will impact industry. >> just finally, you have equipment as i understand from the likes of ge, and alstom. there's a big m&a battle going on for alstom. how do you feel about that? >> we know alstom as a very good and professional supplier of equipment to our energy sector and other parts of our business. we believe that will continue to be the case whether it goes ahead or not. other than that, we really don't

have a viewpoint on this. >> eivind, thanks for joining us, cfo of norsk hydro. apparently alstom, siemens has offered alstom an all trains operation in a deal for the energy unit. alstom will look at rival offers, of course. it seems the siemens offer is trying to trump the ge bid. that sweetened bid, they're saying, look, if we can get the energy unit maybe you can correct an all-train unit with the siemens section. that will be looked at no doubt as well. the united states says it remains ready to act to bring peace to ukraine as long as russia tonights to fan the flames.

the speech in washington secretary of state john kerry said russia could determine to change the security landscape of eastern and central europe and re-asserted america into defending every single piece of nato territory. >> as long as russia decides to continue to fan the flames rather than help to put them out, we stand ready, with our partner partners, to do what is necessary, not to necessarily punish somebody but to find a way forward that restores this process we've worked so hard to honor through the years. >> kerry's comments come as hundreds of pro-russian separatists storm more buildings in eastern ukraine. meanwhile, the eu says it will hold talks with russia and ukraine over gas supplies to the country on friday. these are the latest sanctions against individuals. as i mentioned moments ago, the

imf significantly slashed its forecast for growth in russia this year. it now sees 0.2% from 1.3% previously, citing concerns over the impact of sanctions. joining us with her thoughts, tillia is with us. mark farber is still with us as well. what are your thoughts on the end game, how this actually plays out? does russia just want -- ukraine is not a full part of europe. if it achieves that, is that what his name is. >> russian interest in the whole situation in ukraine is to ensure that ukraine does not join the nato. to slow down integration with the european union and control some sort of control over the european union borders. they believe the test way to achieve these points is to have a long-time leverage over decisionmaking in kiev.

right now they believe the best way to ensure the long-term leverage is federalize the country and essentially weaken the center in kiev, while giving power to what would be the heads of federal states, affecting russia and kiev directly. >> how should the white house or europe respond? what is their game plan, what it should be? >> it should be a value statement. what they are likely to do is to try to calm down the situation in eastern ukraine in order to empower the kiev government to handle the situation on their own. obviously eu's interest is to continue on the path of at least signing and implementing the association agreement for ukraine but what they should be doing is probably not up to me to judge. it is up to kiev to decide what do they want them to do. >> yes. mark, what do you think of this?

>> my view is this, the u.s. and european allies, they have been pushing the envelope forward and forward and forward to encircle both china and russia. there's a point that arrives when these countries say we had enough. this is our territory. this is our sphere of interest. crimea is of prime strategic importance for russia. i suppose if a foreign power went and created trouble in guam, the u.s. would also respond. that's what the russians have done. they don't want ukraine to be part of nato, because nato is basically a method to encircle russia further. >> it's interesting. kerry seems to be implying that ukraine is already part of nato. >> yes. they started implying that it could be eventually. it would be a very long way for ukraine, given the state of its

armed forces to start with. it is a certain level of commitment that the u.s. is willing to share. >> would these latest round of sanctions, what will they do, if anything? >> if the aim is to change the policy in moscow, it's not going to work. it's an expansion of what we have seen so far, inclusion of more corporate entities on the u.s. side, not on the eu side. >> mark would like to buy russia but there's too many risks. >> i would wait until the end of this year to be honest. we'll see a very long electoral calendar in ukraine. >> i agree. i think the market will bottom out and move sidewards. as i said, i have great sympathy for mr. putin. i mean for the americans to go and help the rebels in syria. that's okay. to help the rebels in libya. that's fine. but for russia to safeguard their strategic interests,

that's not okay. >> okay. we'll leave it there. more to come from otilia. thank you. also to come on the show, cnbc is taking to the catwalk as we catch up with supermodel kate moss as she launches her latest collection for top shoppers. here's a sneak peek at why she thinks the line will be successful. >> i love clothes. i love being in the room with the designers, like my stylist and the girls that know about fabrics. i love doing it. so that's why it's true to me. and it's honest. so that's why i think it should be a success. we needed 30 new hires for our call center. i'm spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. [ female announcer ] need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 30 of the web's leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates.

makes my job a lot easier. [ female announcer ] over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter.com/offer2.

you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. >> the headlines from around the globe, alstom shares, the company will review ge's $17 billion offer for its power business. the french prime minister says the deal is not yet final. shares of bnp paribas fall as first quarter numbers disappoint, this as u.s. prosecutors apparently plan to file charges against them for doing business with sanctions companies.

and spain exits deflation as the country also posts its strongest quarter growth in three years. we've got the key eurozone inflation figure coming out in just under 30 minutes. yep. inflation number will be a key market influence on what they may or may not do. yesterday's begans are down, flat for the ftse 100 and xetra dax. the cac current down 0.25 and the ftse may be off 0.4. yield is pretty much where we were. ten-year treasury yields around 2.7%. the bank of japan not adding more fresh stimulus. the euro/dollar, around 1.6880 yesterday was the high for the

euro/dollar on tuesday. what will happen with the referendum vote in scotland? chief secretary of the treasury will launch a fresh attack on the s&p's push for scottish independence today. liberal democrat has criticized the yes campaign in being too optimistic for their assumptions. the weekend poll shows the no vote has fallen to 42%. speaking to our business editor, tom hunter set a currency union between unland and an independent scotland is possible. >> i think it was wrong of treasury and westminster government to say you can't have the currency union.

and because obviously, we can, and it's in the interest of both, as the scottish people vote for independence. they're trying to make a political point. they want us to stay together. that's okay. but let's have great debate. >> have some great debate. helia is in edberg doing just that. are they getting worried? >> i think they are, ross, to be honest. this has become a heated, bitter debate, actually. we have danny alexander, giving a talk about how the scottish government have misled people in scotland about oil revenues, about the currency. you had those comments from tom hunter who commissioned his own report talking about the fact that the uk government lied

basically about scotland not being able to use the pound. there's lots of misinformation going around. as you said, that yes vote is really edging ahead and could become the biggest upset we've seen on the uk political landscape for a long, long, long time. joining me now is michelle thompson for business for scotland, an organization of sme businesses. they're supposed to be the life blood of the economy. why does your organization want independence? what do your members say? >> fundamentally, it's about economics. scotland is a wealthy country. over the past 33 years we have demonstrable proof that the tax rate has been higher than the rest of the uk. >> well, of course you've got comments from the treasury about

imf figures that would show that scotland would have a massive deficit, second highest in developing economies, if it was independent. and business surely doesn't like risk. how could they want something which will cost billions just to set up? >> let's not just look at the cost of independence. let's look at the savings of independence. 60 million a year alone and not sending mps to westminster. that includes 10 million for the courts. there's considerable opportunity around independence. we can do things differently. we can simplify the tax structure, introduce policies that really work for the sme community in scotland. we can increase connectivity by getting rid of airport passenger duty. we can help young families who currently spend about 27% of their income on child care get back into work. that increases the tax take. if you look at this from a business perspective, it's clear from all over membership, over

1,900 in business in scotland, we're very much in favor of taking control and we know factually, not politically, scotland is a wealthy country and can do so much better. >> obviously, danny alexander speaking just now. do you feel westminster has been din ingenuous about presenting the economic truth. >> there's another uk minister telling us that uniquely in scotland's hands, oil is a liability rather than an asset. there are considerable amounts of oil, 15 to 24 billion barrels of oil. it's a finite resource. the price can only go one way. look at the level of investment. scotland's economy is not just based on oil. even with oil taking out, standard & poors secretareports they could have a triple a rating. >> will it be formal, informal,

what would be the best outcome. >> business for scotland believes there will be a currency union. there's about 5 billion pounds worth of trade from england into scotland every month. that's 60 billion every year. let's look at the 40 billion support from scotland's experts in the uk's balance of payments. set aside the politics, there will be a currency union because it's the right thing for scotland. but it's the right thing for the rest the uk as well. >> passionate argument, michelle. thank you very much. ross as you can see, this is a debate that's ignited a huge amount of emotion here in scotland. and, of course, in england. sorry about the noise. but remember what the government have said. you've got to love bomb the scottish and show them you care. >> we do care. thank you for that. mark, scotland can keep the pound in the way ecuador has the dollar. it means you have to have an

awful lot the fiscal discipline. if they do that, they may not be able to borrow as much. >> i this i what helia said is absolutely correct. the uk government has been lying but she's incorrect that it's only the uk government. every government around the world is lying. and the best governments are usually of small countries, like norway, finland, sweden, denmark and switzerland. or lichtenstein. that's manageable. we have today the tendency to create empires and then control everybody. >> all those small countries with the exception of liechtenstein have their own currencies. >> yes, but the currencies look is like this nowadays in the world. everything trades around the u.s. dollar, because if the u.s. dollar is very weak, it means the euro is too strong. then the ecb goes, they say, oh,

the euro is too strong. we also have to print money. the singapore dollar is too strong, they say we also have to print money, otherwise we're not competitive. this is the problem of monetary policies. >> hold that thought. we'll come back to that. let's talk more about alstom shares soaring higher. they're open the first day of trade since monday. the firm considering its $17 billion offer from ge for its power unit that includes $13.5 billion in enterprise value. in a statement, alstom says it will make a decision by the end of may, while siemens wants to make a rival bid but it needs a month to prepare. stephane has more for us. we've seen flashes out that suggests siemens is considering saying, look, if you let us have power, you can make a train company with us. is that how you read it? >> yes, it is, yes, the way we can read it.

siemens is not expected to make a normal offer within a couple of weeks. the company has been given access to the private information of alstom for its due diligence. the question here in paris is about the deal with general electric, is it or not a done deal? the view from analysts that it's not a done deal yet but it's almost there. general electric submitted an offer and alstom will take a month to look at the offer. a panel of experts will look at the terms of the deal and will give its conclusions at the end of may. in the meantime, siemens gets access to the information of alstom and will or not submit an offer to alstom. now on a french political side, it's a bit different. the prime minister said this morning that the deal was not done yet and that alstom would discuss with the french government before making a final decision on the economy minister says this morning that the government would like an equal shape with alstom, not an

absorption, which by the way seems to be impossible, since general electric is about seven times bigger than alstom. they also indicated that the government was studying demand from french unions for the state to buy a stake in alstom. which means that the french economy ministry, some people, including the minister, believes it could be a third option. from ge and siemens, involving the french government. what we've heard from alstom this morning is that the company believes it would be the best deal for its shareholders and its employees. general electric on its side claims that it had a good and constructive dialogue with the french government and promised that it will increase jobs at alstom's facility in france and that probably will -- that could eventually get the support from the government, because job protection is their top priority, ross. >> stephane, thank you for that.

we blacked out when he said job protection was a top priority. later in the day, the ceo of general electric, jeff immelt will be speaking at 9:30 eastern to american colleagues. that's 15.30 cet. that happened to be the timing. wasn't anything planned. don't think there was anything in that. in other corporate news, u.s. prosecutors reportedly plan to file criminal charges against bnp paribas for doing business with countries subject to economic sanctions, including iran and cuba. "the wall street journal" says they've spoken with bnp's departments. regulators could consider banning bnp for clearing currency trades in new york. it could lead to the first guilty plea by bank in decades. bnp which reported a 5% rise has warned it could face a bigger than expected u.s. fine. >> the process is ongoing.

the outcome is uncertain, so it is not to be excluded that the amount of the fine will be for in excess of the provision demand. but that is all we can say at this stage. >> and as i mentioned, bnp posted first quarter numbers with a 5% net rise in income, this despite writedowns on assets exposed to a crisis and loan rises as well in italy. twitter reported a wider first quarter loss today or last night. although the company posted break-even results on an adjusted basis. revenue doubled to $250 million. twitter is still struggling to add users at a faster rate. it had 255 million active monthly users at the end of march. analysts were looking for 257 million. twitter says those users appear to be checking their feeds less frequently than they used to, which is not such a good thing. shares down 10% in after hours.

the ceo will be on "squawk on the street" in a first on cnbc interview at 9:00 a.m. eastern. meanwhile, ebay's first quarter profits were up 11%, beating estimates, thanks to continued growth from paypal. the second quarter outlook is a bit shy of expectations. the firm is taking the unusual move of repatriating as much as $9 billion which would trigger a $3 billion u.s. tax bill. president obama will be pleased. ebay down 4% in after hours. from america to japan, the bank of japan kept its monetary policy on hold by unanimous decision today and it's keeping its stimulus unchanged, too. it appears the bank of japan is doubling down, believing that without any new stimulus measures inflation will track steadily high to its 2% target. that's what it laid out in its semiannual report a few hours ago. the market talk is that japan

was looking weak before we got the sales tax hike on april 1st. industrial production figures rose 0.3% on the month in march and companies are expecting that figure to decline in april by 1.4%. joining us with his view, director of -- international. we had a plunge in business confidence in april. does that show us the mood has soured since the consumption tax hike. >> i don't think so. i think we have to wait until june to see the april to june quarterly figures, you look at the major indices, they're very firm. for example, you forgot to mention, for example, cash labor income that came out today which shows a 0.7% increase versus 0.1% consensus. overtime is up by the highest level in four years.

this is showing you the basic industrial areas is japan is definitely coming back. we'll have to wait until the july, september period to see the m & es coming back. then we'll see the snking into the sme. the companies are coming in with the most conservative numbers. >> is that what the bank of japan is looking for before they add any more stimulus? >> absolutely. i would doubt that they would make any moves until july until we see catastrophic conditions with be like, for example, flight to quality on the currency side. if we see excessive strong yen, that may mitigate the appetite for japanese exporters. yes this be they make a move. but unless we see that, i doubt boj would make further moves into july. >> are you a believer in

abonomics? >> no. you can make a case that japan is not terribly expensive. it was very cheap 1 1/2 years ago when the yen was strong and the market was very depressed and i argued at the time, one way to play yen weakness is to go long shares. and the share market had a big rally. this year, it's been one of the worst performing markets. it's down, i think like 10% or so. i think we have to see very clearly with this inflation in japan, inflation should not be the goal. the goal should be real personal income growth. in other words, if you have real income growth, your standards of living are going up. inflation is all importa inflation, the average household actually suffers and doesn't gain. so i am very, very skeptical

about abonomics. >> i basically agree abonomics itself is very much in question. that said, the market respected this. japan is a big country with a lot of investor interest. it's not going to turn around that easy. so the real reap of benefit to come of the third arrow is beginning to be at earliest next week. that includes for capital increases as well. the rise of base salary are only among multinational enterprises. it's less than half of that. the exporters benefit from weakening yen. we have to see the benefit going into small, medium size enterprise in japan. that's the time the companies will see the profit and will start to raise their pay. that will be later this year. >> how big an if is that? do you think in your mind? >> i think the probability is pretty high this time around.

if it doesn't happen this time around, with investment appetite not coming back in july, september, i don't know when. >> okay. if those things happen, would you then be a buyer of japan again? >> not necessarily. look, i've been going to japan since 1973. i have a great admiration for japan as a country, as a society. it's one of the cleanest countries in the world. it's one of the nicest and polite societies. when an accident happens, there's not immediate looting occurring like in the u.s. and maybe here in the uk. japanese people are very disciplined and very honest. except for the tax payments. but the country isn't going to grow again at 6% to 8%. it's never going to happen. the population is shrinking. what they could do is to let foreign immigrants into the

country and then you suddenly have 10 million indonesians. but japanese society doesn't want it. and i understand very well why not. >> okay. >> we'll leave that there. thank you. nice to see you, as always. we'll get our final thought from mark. more comments as well out of the imf concerning russia. it's now experiencing recession. imf says the net capital outflow is seen at $100 billion. that comes after the earlier cut growth forecast at 2.2% this year. we'll take a short break. still to come, we take a look at the spanish banking sector on mixed earnings from its biggest players. see you in a few moments.

you're watching "worldwide exchange." now, europe's top call, the ecj, the european court of justice has ruled against a british challenge to an e muxt financial transactions tax backed by 11 other country. it says the contested decision does no more than --

>> mark farber still with us, the publisher of the boom, gloom and doom report as well. mark, we talked about how basic resource companies have had a -- they've recently been bought back. a lot of that is down to what's happened with chinese, the marginal change in growth in china and the impact on demand as well. what happens now, do you think? >> basically if you look at the demand from china for metals and commodities in general, there are some exceptions. but say in the metals market, aluminum, zinc and copper, we've gone from 10% of consumption in the year 2000 to now 47%. that growth is incredible. and is not going to be repeated. it's not that the demand from

china will collapse, it's not going to increase as much as before. now, if we look at the chinese economy and we look at export figures and import figures, both published by china but also published by china's major trading partner, south korea, taiwan, hong kong, singapore and so forth, then there's a huge discrepancy. and if we look at the global exports from emerging economies, they're flat. in other words, the growth in the world, the economic growth in the world that was supported between essentially 2000 and about 2007, that is no longer there. because the emerging world isn't growing. the problem with china is, its demand for commodities has a huge impact on brazil,

argentina, australia, on the middle east, on africa. and when that slows down, it doesn't mean a complete disaster, but it means that these countries have less spending power. then they buy less goods from western europe and from the u.s. you have essentially a slowdown in the global economy. >> which is exactly what we've got. mark, more to come from you. eurozone inflation data comes out after the break. will it spur on ecb easing bets or are we going to see an uptick? we'll have that number right after this. the second hour of "worldwide exchange," coming up.

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alstom shares, the company is going to review ge's $17 billion bid for its power business, though the french prime minister says the deal is not yet final. shares of pnb paribas down, despite posting a first quarter numbers that are down. oilmaker shell also in the greene. analyst say first quarter

figures significantly beat expectations despite a near $3 billion euro impairment charge. and the crisis in ukraine continues. the imf warning russia is seeing its own economic crisis. the country has entered a recession. you're watching "worldwide exchange." bringing you business news from around the globe. >> all right. the euro has fallen a bit. the inflation number coming in at 0.7%. the forecast was to be running an annual rate of 0.8%. it was, of course, still an uptick for march is 0.5%. the annual rate of inflation across the 18 countries that share the euro, picking up in april by less than economists had expected.

so that's why the euro has gone below 1.38. it's marking the seventh straight month in which the inflation rate has been below 1%. of course, when the inflation rate fell below that level in october last year, the ecb quickly responded to a cut in its benchmark interest rate. mark farber is still with us, author of gloom, boom and doom report. mark, do you think there's an argument here? we have consistently low inflation prints in the eurozone that the ecb should do more with qe or not. >> well, not in my opinion. because low inflation is actually for most people favorable. let's say if it were to go down, it would boost your income in turn. the low interest rate policy and low inflation you have

essentially also a problem of funding certain things. say an insurance company. zero interest rate on the short-term deposits and very low bond yields. to insure you, what they will have to do, because the future return expectations are low, they'll have to increase your premiums. and in my opinion, if actually the various statistical offices would measure inflation correctly, we would have much higher inflation figures than what we see published by the governments. especially in the u.s. >> we'll get into that in just a few moments. hold that thought about the u.s. here's what we heard from the ecb members who probably agree with what mark is saying. >> an undue tightening of the

policy stance can ab dressed through a variety of more conventional measures. these include a further lowering of the interest rate corridor, including a negative deposit rate. if necessary, the measures could create newly created injections via liquidity operations, including longer term fixed rate operations. >> we have published projections, an inflation rate of 1% for this year. but if these levels continue, that could be put into question and that's what we will be looking into in the near future. >> we want absolutely to see inflation move back within our target. also in case of shock, we wouldn't have the same if it were closer to 2%. it is our baseline scenario that it is going to move in that

direction. if it was not the case, then we'd have to take decisive action to force the path of inflation towards our target. >> what matters to us is not past inflation which we cannot influence. it's the projected inflation, the forecasted inflation rates. inflation data is certainly important but what matters is to what extent data affects our inflation outlook. >> right. that was some comments from ecb members ahead of a meeting we have coming up again next week. meanwhile, yesterday, u.s. equities caught lower at the start later this morning. the dow was up 0.5%, 86 points higher yesterday. currently we're trading 23 points below fair value. the s&p 500 was around 4.5 points above fair value after being up nearly 8, 9 points yesterday.

currently we are trading some 17 points below fair value. as far as bond markets, keep your eye on ten-year treasury yields as we get to the fed. this is where we currently stand at the moment, 2.70%. european equities have been fairly flat. on the currency market, the euro/dollar, 1.38, before the inflation number currently at 1.3816 is where we stand. dollar/yen, fairly unmoved after the bank of japan decided no the to do anything despite an impact from the consumption sales tax hike in the country. let's get more on that asian session. sri is with us out of singapore. sri? >> thanks, ross. just going to pick up on the tap naez mark -- japanese markets. 13,304. the boj, as expected, no surprise on policy front, after that decision. we did get the economic

projections which are quite important. the main takeaway is the headline on inflation. the bank of japan sees cpi reaching 2% within fiscal 2015. so that is on target and no deviation from that target to suggest that they won't have to do more in terms of stimulus action. no urgency for further stimulus or asset purchases. perhaps another reason why we didn't see much reaction in the dollar/yen. the market, though, seemed to be disappointed that there was no hint that more stimulus would be forthcoming. we did see a bit of a dip during the session earlier on into negative territory. the nikkei did make up that lost ground. elsewhere, hang seng was the rank underperformer, down by more than 1.4%. giving up a lot of the gains it made yesterday. quite a bit bout of profit-taking on the market, the

shanghai composite fairly stable. very choppy session really. it was quite mixed all in all, reflecting the diversity in the earnings season as well. watch the greater china markets this week, because we will be getting the official pmi print, manufacturing activity, from beijing tomorrow. that's a big risk that these markets will be watching for, ross. back to you now, sir. >> sri, thank you. have a good evening in singapore. the key market event is the u.s. federal reserve, it's expected to continue its tapering plan as it concludes its two-day policy meeting, despite weak forecast for weak gdp, out at 8:30 eastern. brian reynolds, chief market strategist at rosenblatt securities, with us for the final time today, mark farber, publisher of the gloom, boom and doom report. the fed is meandering its way to

winding down qe by the end of october. all things being equal. is that job done then? and the fact that we don't seem to be worried about it or talking about it a huge amount. >> they pretty much told us they're going to be on a glide path towards ending quantitative easing. that's fine with me. our nation's pensions need to make 7.5% and while we can talk about the fed manipulating rates lower than they otherwise would be, reaching for 7.5%, which is what our pensions are trying to do is crazier than the fed keeping rates at 0. so we think that rates will go up next year, in fact if you look at euro/dollar futures, they've priced in a tightening next year. we know that's coming. we're in the middle of a credit boom because we have tons of cash pouring into our nation's pensions, who have become the dominant investors in the last 25 years. that money is going to get invested in the credit market. we set a record for april. april is not done yet. investors bought 160 billion of

new corporate bonds this month. i think that's going to increase as the year goes on. >> this credit boom will intensify. are we going to get a credit bust? >> eventually. because credit cycles always end and they always end badly. you can go back tune hundreds of years. you can't find a credit boom that ended well. in the next three to four years, i think it's going to intensify. if you look at how pensions are lowering their investment expectations from say, 7.75 to 7.5, within you compound that over 30 years, that means the typical city and town in, say, california, has seen contributions to the pension go up by 1% and 3% of payroll. this year we'll see more of that come into the credit market. and i think that's pretty much on schedule for the next two to three years. >> mark, your views on that? >> well, i think return expectations of 7% for the next ten years are completely unrealistic. we have zero interest rates.

if interest rates go up, then the prices of bonds will decline. so you'll have a capital loss as between july 2012 when the ten-year note bottomed out at the yield of 1.43%. then we went to the end of 2013 to 3%. there were big capital losses. their problem for the fed is they stopped printing money altogether. and we get market interest rates. then say the ten-year will trade at 4% or 5%. the 30-year at 5%, 6%. who knows. and the jumbo mortgages above 7%. that will kill the housing market. it will kill the bond market and believe me, the rise in interest rates from july 2012 to the end of 2013 didn't have a negative impact on stocks.

but if the ten-year goes to 4 3re4% and higher, that will knock down the stock market. what will the feds do? th they'll print more money. >> do you find that panning out. >> i couldn't agree that it's unrealistic to expect 7.5 for ten-years. they're expecting that for 30 years. there's no way that's going to happen. if you look at the way the credit booms operate, when yields go up, they invest more aggressively. my forecast is that yields will go up. that means the meriweather funds will invest more aggressively. just look at apple. rates went up sharply after that, people still have significant losses on their apple bonds. what did they do? they went and bought more apple

bounds. in the interim, after yields went up, they got more aggressive. the old record was 17 billion set by apple a year ago. now the new record is 49 billion set by verizon. my expectation is by the time this credit boom ends in three to four years, we will eclipse that record deal. because the pensions always invest more aggressively after yields go up. it's not until the fed stops tightening that credit cycles end. >> it's a fair point. you've done great research on a lot on the pension funds. brian reynolds from rosenblatt, thank you. and mark farber. >> my pleasure. always nice to see you. >> i always love your collection of tie and shirt. >> thank you. >> he's very mark farber. very good. thank you, mark farber from gloom, boom and doom report. some of the other stories we're following, u.s. prosecutors reportedly plan to file criminal charges against

pnb paribas for doing business with country subject to economic sanctions, including iran and cuba. "the wall street journal" says they've spoken with the banking regulators to make sure a move wouldn't trigger automat deb debatme debatments. regulators would consider banning bnp from clearing currency trades in new york. reporting first quarter numbers, bnp says it could face a bigger than expected u.s. fine. >> the process is ongoing. the outcome is uncertain and so it is not to be excluded that the amount of the fine will be far in excess of the provision demand. but that is all we can say at this stage. >> now, as i mentioned, pnb beat forecasts today with a 5% rise in net income, despite writedowns and assets exposed to the ukraine crisis and rising loan losses in italy.

shell stocks in the green today. this is after first quarter numbers beat analyst forecasts very significantly. cash flow improved in the period. it's the first set of results under shell's new ceo. the stock, as you can see, is up 4%, nearly 5%. now, twitter reported a wider first quarter loss although the company posted break-even results on an adjusted basis. revenue more than doubled, $250 million, beating forecast. twitter is still struggling to add users at a faster rate. it had 255 million active monthly users at the end of march. analysts were looking for 257 million. twitter says those users appear to be checking their feeds less frequently than they used to. shares down 10% in after hours. the twitter ceo dick costolo will be on cnbc at 9:00 eastern.

ebay's first quarter profit rose, beating forecast. revenues jumped 14%, also above estimates. ebay's second quarter outlook is a bit shy of expectations. the firm is taking the unusual move of repatriating much of its cash, which would trigger a $3 billion u.s. tax bill. ebay down 4% in after hours. up next, alstom says it's considering a $17 billion offer from ge. we'll have the latest from outside alstom's hq.

you're watching "worldwide exchange." recap of the headlines, ge offers $17 billion for alstom's power businesses. sending the french conglomerate shares soaring. bnp shares are down after prosecutors apparently plan to file criminal charges against the lender. and the imf says russia's economy has entered a recession. plenty more movement today on the bid for alstom between ge and siemens as well. there is a letter dated april 29th, which was yesterday from siemens to alstom, according to dow jones which reportedly says

they would be prepared to hand over all of the pragues to alstom in a deal where they got control, of course, of the energy part of the business. siemens apparently in this letter say they're disappointed over alstom's lack of quick response. but they're still interested in the alstom energy operations. it seems could raise its offer for the energy operations after it's had time for due diligence. siemens is also prepared to take a minority stake in the new transport company as well. so how does that all go into the mix? it's after, of course, alstom shares up nearly 9% in first half trading since we got at announcement from ge on monday. apparently alstom is considering $17 billion offer from general electric for its power unit which includes $13.5 billion in enterprise value and $3.5 billion in cash. alstom says it's going to make a decision by the end of may. stephane is in paris with all the reaction.

patrick crum, stephane, the ceo of alstom, from what we can understand, he quite likes the ge deal and would quite like to do it. i'm wondering where this leaves the french government and siemens? >> he more than likes it. he says that it's the best offer because they negotiated it with general electric. the view here on the ground, ross, is that it's almost a done deal. it's the view from analysts that we spoke to here in france and now on the french government side. the prime minister and the economy minister wants to believe that the story is not over yet. this morning, the prime minister says that it was not a done deal and also says that alstom would speak to the government before announcing -- before making a final decision. the economy minister still wants to believe there is an alternative option for alstom.

he says this morning that the government was studying a demand from french unions for the state to buy a stake in alstom. the view also on the siemens side is another option is still possible. siemens is ready to raise its offer for alstom. it's still interested in the energy business of the company. general electric on its side, wants to believe it's almost a done deal. this morning, ge said the offer would increase net employment around alstom's asset in france. that's probably the best thing to say from the french government. >> yes. we'll see what happens. stephane for now, thank you. later in the day, jeff immelt will also be speaking to "squawk on the street" at 9:30 eastern, that's 15.30 cet. don't miss out on that. also still to come, twitter shares fall to their lowest level since their debut.

find out what's upsetting investors in the firm's quarterly numbers, next.

u.s. futures right now are suggesting we'll get a lower start on the u.s. equities today, the s&p 500 down 4

points, dow jones down 15, the nasdaq currently down 14 is what the open is. twitter shares down to their lowest level since its debut, down around 11%. this after reporting slower user growth than investors expected in the first quarter. they raised their full-year revenue outlook to 1.25 billion from $1.2 billion. joining us with his thoughts, richard windsor. >> good morning. >> twitter's first quarter was okay but not nearly good enough is what you say. >> that's really the problem here. what market is looking for, the market is looking for an extended period of growth in order to justify the current valuation. what they're getting nervous about is the fact that the user count is still only trekling along in low single digit numbers. the market was looking for somewhere around about 260 million users to be active on

twitter by the end of the quarter. it came in at 255. when you trade at high valuations, the slightest slip causes a huge after-hours correction in the share price. >> what is the reality of twitter compared to what the hopes are? >> yes, the issue is when twitter came to the market, the investors saying great, here comes the next facebook. the reality of the situation is, this is the analysis that radio free mobile does, the actual addressable market for twitter is much, much smaller than the addressable market of facebook. what that means is, unless twitter starts to do things outside of microbloging and gets into other things that people are doing on mobile phones, their ultimate revenue opportunity is going to be that much smaller and, therefore, what you end up with is a much lower valuation than people were arguably hoping for. >> when you say do other things,

what would that be? >> well, let me give you an example. users within they user is on a mobile fon in the u.s. is going to spend about a quarter of his team doing social networking and facebook. the number for twitter is around about 5% or microbloging. now, when you look at the monetization student, it's about how much time are they spending on your service? the monetization tune is the much less. this is why i believe revenues for twitter at the moment will top out round about 2 billion whereas for facebook it will be significantly greater than that. >> richard, thanks for that. always good to see you. richard windsor, founder of radio free mobile. don't forget, you can catch dick costolo on "squawk on the street," a first on cnbc interview. we'll take a short break.

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you're watching "worldwide exchange," i'm ross westgate. the headlines today, alstom shares at the top of european equities. the company's reviewing ge's $17 billion offer for its power business. the french prime minister says the deal's not yet final. twitter shares down to the lowest level since their market debut. slow user growth disappointing. and shares in pnb paribas is down, despite a rise in first quarter earnings. u.s. prosecutors are reportedly planning to file criminal charges against the lender for allegedly doing business with sanctioned countries. and as the crisis in ukraine continues, the imf warns russia saying the country has entered a recession.

you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. and if you just joined us state side, welcome to the start of your global trading day here on cnbc. after the gains we saw yesterday, futures indicating slightly weaker start for u.s. equities. currently, we are some 13, 14 points below fair value. the s&p is around 3.5 points below fair value. the dow finishing up 86 points right now. it's currently called lower by around about 16, 15 points. the ftse cnbc global 300 is down marginally ahead of the u.s. open. european equity markets are fairly flat. shell has been the outperformer. xetra dax is fairly flat. we had the present of inflation

coming out for the eurozone, 0.7%. it was 0.8% in march. it's expected to go up to 0.8%. still a fairly weak. is it weak enough for the ecb to do anything next week? possibly not. the ftse mib is down 0.7%. the what are investors to do as the fed concludes its two-day policy meeting today. here's a recap of some of the thoughts we had on the channel. >> inflation risks aren't going away anytime soon. if the ecb is carrying on, talking about potentially doing something further down the lane, speculation about qe will continue. that's a good environment for peripheral bonds. i think they can continue to do reasonably well. >> some of the names like bp, they're big dividend payers. as a result, what you'll see in

a low yield environment is more funds come into this type of sector. they want to make sure investors are set up. >> the yield is now so much in spain and italy, and meanwhile you can pick up other bonds in the uk corporate bonds yielding 3.7% per annum. i think i'd rather have good old uk corporate bonds close to 4 than european 2.5, 3. some of the other stories we're following, the united states, ready to act to bring peace to ukraine. russia appeared to determine to change the security land escape, kerry says, and reasserted america's commitment to defending every single piece of nato territory. >> as long as russia decides to continue to fan the flames rather than help to put them out, we stand ready with our partners to do what is necessary, not to necessarily

punish somebody but find a way forward that restores this process we worked so hard to honor through the years. >> meanwhile, the imf has significantly slashed its forecast for economic growth in russia. the imf sees growth at 0.2% for this year from 1.3% previously. citing concerns over the impact of sanctions. the imf mission chief to moscow says russia is experiencing recession right now. the organizes warned it sees further risks ahead. now, in corporate news, u.s. prosecutors plan to file criminal charges against bnp paribas for doing business with countries subject to economic sanctions. that includes iran and cuba. "the wall street journal" says they've spoke within pnb's banking regulators to make sure a move wouldn't trigger automatic issues. if the u.s. does file charges,

it could lead to the first guilty plea by a bank in decades. reporting first quarter figures, pnb warned it would face a bigger than expected u.s. fine. >> the process is ongoing. the outcome is uncertain. it's not to be excluded that the amount of the fine will be far in excess of provision demand. that is all we can say at this stage. >> alstom shares are markedly high. you can see right now, up over 9% in the paris market. the french firm says it is considering a $17 billion offer from general electric for its power unit, which includes $13.5 billion in enterprise value and $3.5 billion in cash. in a statement, alstom says it will mack a decision by the end of may. >> and despite speculation that it would file papers last week, maybe as early as easter monday,

investors are awaiting news of alibaba's public offering. speculation is growing that the eventual ipo could top facebook's listing and may be the biggest ever. according to sources, the filing is not likely to come until the end of this week or the beginning of next. meanwhile, eagle alpha is releasing a document. alip alipay's payments of 150 outpaced that of paypal and square. great research and thoughts here on alibaba. look, i suppose the key thing is, when they list, how much of a competitive threat do they become to everybody else in their space back in the united states?

>> it's interesting to look at history. ebay was dominant in the online auction space in china in 2003, 2004. but alibaba group successfully entered the market and became the dominant player five years later. i think they are very competent at what they do. that was seen by taking on ebay. i think they could take on ebay in the states. they are gaining ground on amazon in china with their team product. they could take on amazon back here in the states as well. >> yes. and what's -- that's interesting that they might also take on amazon in the united states. what is the experience of customers using alibaba's businesses? >> we've seen the survey of 450,000 online customers, chinese customers.

and their view is that chowbow, two of alibaba's companies are the best for customer service in china and beating rivals like walmart, like amazon and like uk's bnq. that's impressive. jack ma himself said he puts customers first, employees second and shareholders third. you can see that coming through the customer service scores. >> yes. and you talk about the employees views of their ceos, much higher as well. even though he's -- is that because he's putting them ahead of shareholders? >> we transfer information about employees' views of the ceo of alibaba.com and of chowbow. they're certainly higher than rivals in china. also a lot higher than some of the competitors here in the

state. >> we started off talking about alipay. he transferred alipay from alibaba to a company he controls. is that going to raise governance issues potentially if he does something again? >> i think so. alipay is the largest mobile payment business in the world, starting in 2004. in 2011 he pulled it into his own control. just this week, the company and a fund of jam ma invested in an equivalent of youtube and netflix. it's quite unusual to see its companies and executive chairmans invest in the corporate direct. >> thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> still to come, the nba comes down hard on l.a. clippers only

donald sterling. we'll look at who could potentially swoop in to buy the team, if league owners force sterling to sell. ♪

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swift justice in the nba after a tape of donald sterling was made public. we've been following the action from cnbc hq. what might happen next? >> the swelling public opinion seems to be moving in that direction, ross. the tape secretly recorded by donald sterling's former girlfriend was made public by tmz website on saturday. it took new nba commissioner adam silver three days to conduct an investigation and hand down a pubbishment for the remarks that have been widely renounced. silver is banning sterling for life, including attending games and day-to-day operations. he's also fining sterling, $2.5 million, the maximum allowed under the nba's constitution and will seek him to force him to sell the team if 75% of owners vote for expulsion.

>> we stand together in condemning mr. sterling's views. they simply have no place in the nba. >> several of the team's advertisers have pulled or suspended sponsorship since the tape came to light, including samsung, virgin america, state farm and sprint. sprint's ceo says he applauds the commissioner's action but the company is still evaluating whether to restore its relationship with the clippers. >> we're proud to be a sponsor of the nba. we commend commissioner silver for the leadership that he's shown. we support the league, its players, its fans. so we're still supporting and advertising at the nba level. we haven't decided yet when we will advertise again with the clippers. one of the considerations will be what actually does end up happening with respect to the ownership of the clippers. we like the steps that the commissioner has taken but we

will not begin advertising yet with the clippers. >> sterling is worth an estimated $1.9 billion, making his money in real estate. he bought the clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million. the team is now estimated to be worth upwards of $750 million in a sale. that sparking speculation about who could make a bid. that could include ron burkle and owner of the pittsburgh penguins hockey team, david gaf gaffin. guggenheim partners which bought the los angeles dodgers with nba hall of famer magic johnson is also considered a potential buyer. if math in gets involved, one hollywood star said he'd help out any way he can. >> i unfortunately don't have donald sterling money. if magic wants to put people together, i'll jump in as a super tiny minority partner. >> you would? >> yes.

>> has anybody contacted you? >> of course not. a lot of us are excited to get him out of the nba. >> i mean, who wouldn't want to partner with matt damon? right, ross? i'm just saying. >> in business, yes, absolutely. what would be extraordinary, silver needs 75% of other owners, right, to expel sterling. and the comments suggest he's going to get that easily. that in itself would be a first? >> it would be a first. it would. 75% sounds like a lot. in a situation like this with public opinion the way it is, i wouldn't be at all surprised if that's the way this panel decision comes out. >> thanks for that. you like fashion. we're going to move on to that. fashion lovers waited for hours, hours to be the first to buy the 15th kate moss collection yesterday. the supermodel was at the launch with the topshop boss in london.

tanya breyer got an exclusive with kate. she's with us on set. were you the only person to speak to her? >> yes. kate really talks. you have to know that. she's a successful model, iconic. she just turned 40. she doesn't give interviews. she's actually quite shy and you never hear her speak. actually for the first time we got her to speak. i asked her, you've been offered so many projects, why did she go back into another collection with sir phillip? >> our relationship is really good. i feel confident when i -- when we talk together, we have the same ideas and the same outlook on what's important. >> do you feel the pressure, because people will be wearing your clothes? >> no. i hope they'll be wearing my clothes. >> yes, they are. >> it's not really a pressure.

you know, the pressure was on phillip liking it. when he liked it, that was -- >> okay. great that you managed to speak to her. there's a lot more on that. we can watch it online as well. what does she bring to topshop? why is she so important to sir phillip greene? it's her 15th collection. >> i asked him that. it's that quality of mystique. she doesn't give interviews normally. it's very rare. she has that quality of mystique but also fun as well. and people clamor. i couldn't believe it. hundreds and hundreds of people braving this, just to be first in the door to grab something she's designed. she's quite unique. she's a one off. she still has a huge fan base. sir phillip is very smart in knowing that her popularity translates into consumer buying. >> all right. thanks for that.

plenty more on kate moss's interview with tanya on cnbc.com. still to come, a look ahead to what the fed might say today post its two-day meeting. see you in a few moments. we needed 30 new hires for our call center. i'm spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. [ female announcer ] need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 30 of the web's leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. makes my job a lot easier. [ female announcer ] over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter.com/offer2.

u.s. federal reserve is expected to continue its tapering plans to conclude its two-day policy meeting today. despite forecast for first quarter gdp out at 8:30 eastern. meanwhile, is a market crash just around the corner? mark farber says it may be time to steer clear of u.s. equities. >> since 2011, some markets already since 2010, some since 2012, especially emerging

markets have grossly underperformed the u.s. you have the u.s. up here and other markets down here. and u.s., you have to now choose what to buy. i believe it's too late to buy the u.s. stock market. >> all right. that's the view from mark farber who is with us earlier. joining us now is john kanaly, investment strategist. pick up on that remark from mark. is it too late to buy the u.s. equity market? >> no. i mean, our view for the year is that we still think we'll get a 10% to 15% gain. we've already gotten 2% or 3% or of it. i think if we could all invest on tuesdays we'd all be in better shape. i think it's 15 out of 17 tuesdays have been up this year. but no, we still find value in the u.s. stock market. >> i do like a good random stat like that. 15 out of 17 tuesdays. i have no idea what it means. >> makes no sense but it's true.

>> exactly. we just put it out there. okay. you disagree with mark. we have seen it rotation out of the momentum stocks, you know, back into things like utilities and resource stocks got a bit of a boost after underperforming. does that continue? >> yes, i think it may. we wrote a piece on this a couple of weeks ago. we compared it to 2000. i heard a lot of 2000 talk in the last couple of weeks. the market in 200 of course was way overvalued. i think p/es were on average at about 30. today pes are 13 or 15. certain sector ises are overvalued. those have been punished, especially in the tech sector. that's probably nearing an end. as you get further along into the economic cycle, markets get starved for growth. so i think they'll flock to those cyclical names. >> in all of this, where does the fed come in? we're comfortable. we're on a glide path to finishing qe probably in

october. last month we had these comments from janet yellen about six months after ending qe rates go up. we back pedaled from that. what happens today? >> i think the markets have come to expect with these fomc meetings that don't have a press conference and don't have a new economic forecast to just expect the same as the prior meeting. i think markets today are set up for maybe a slight tweak to the statement, maybe acknowledging the fact that poor weather impacted the first quarter, of course they'll have the first quarter gdp figure when they write the statement. but in terms of the guts of the statement, the tapering, the considerable period, i don't think a whole lot of that will change. i think on the to do list for the federal reserve this year and next is to rework that statement. but i don't think that's going to happen today. >> john, good to see you. thank you for your time today. don't forget, dick costolo is on "squawk on the street" at 9:00 eastern, the ceo of twitter.

that's it for "worldwide exchange." up next, "squawk box." have a profitable day. sfx: bing. >>who's got two hooves and just got a claim status update from geico? this guy, that's who. sfx: bing. and i just got a...oh no, that's mom. sorry. claim status updates. just a tap away on the geico app.

good morning and welcome to "squawk box." alstom accepting an offer from general electric. but maybe the door is open a crack. twitter disappoints and the stock takes a hit. we'll be tweeting about that but they won't be making any money from our tweets. the markets gear up for big data points and a fed decision. it's wednesday, april 30th, 2014. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe

kernen and andrew ross sorkin. our top story, france's alstom says it is backing an offer from general electric for its energy business. ge's offer for alstom's thermal power renewable power and grid businesses totaled $16.9 billion. alstom still left the door open for a competing bid from siemens. the french officials are concerned about keeping jobs in france. siemens reportedly improved its bid for the alstom unit and is waiting for a response. ge's ceo jeff immelt expressed confidence it would go through. alstom's shares are on the move in europe. you'll see they are up another 9.3%. it's been a steady climb since the word about the ge offer first leaked out. you can see right now, the latest trade 29.51. back here at home, ge shares are down by about a penny in premarket trade, 26.75. ge's jeff imlt