hello, good morning and welcome to worldwide exchange. >> here are your headlines from around the world. >> defiance from the greek government ahead of emergency talks in brussels. the finance minister says athens cannot pay back it's debt in the future sending the three year yield above 10% and banking stocks lower. >> hopes of a deal appear slims with european officials admitting it's unlukely rebels will give up recent gains in the region. >> investors give sky the red card. shares tumble after it pays

4.2 billion pounds to show premiere league football but bt hits the back of the net with it's own deal. >> nicely done. heineken shares higher but they may lose fiz this year amid demand in markets. >> we are still battling with our programs. they will be addressed in the long hall. battling against weak demographics in europe. countries are recovering. >> you're watching worldwide exchange. bringing you business news from around the globe. >> let's have a quick look at where the greek bond yields are trading. the two year not the three year, has kbon above 20%. that's at 20.2% with the three year at 18.2%. banking stocks are sharply lower and the athens index is down the

best part of 4%. this comes as the greek finance minister says the greek debt cannot be paid off in the near future. in an interview with german magazine stern he added if a debt can no longer be paid it leads to a hair cut. this ahead of talks with his counter parts and ecb president today. it comes after the greek prime minister won a confidence vote to scrap the country's bailout program last night. let's get out to julia on the ground in brussels ahead of the key finance minister meeting. julia. >> thank you wilfred. riding a wave of popularity at home after getting that confidence vote. it's the finance ministers that are going to try to get through the proposals we talked about. you mentioned one element of this. far more important is what they can get away with in terms of

the surplus. what they're going to do about the humanitarian crisis and how greece is going to continue to finance itself. i talked to someone telling me yesterday pretty low expectations as far as getting result today and when the leaders meet tomorrow. the expectation then focuses on monday and the final deadline for asking for an extension. behind the scenes here the greeks are saying the same thing. they got low expectations too. but ultimately i think what their belief is that the greeks don't care what this is called as far as the program is concerned. if they want to walk away and say we succeeded they don't mind the devil will be in the detail of whether or not they're forced to take any form of austerity. they agree with around 70% of the forms in the old program. 30% they want to scrap. so there's elements here of compromise but we heard comments from the germans coming into

this. saying if greece doesn't accept the final 7 billion from the old program then it's all over. we heard from the bank yesterday saying why should greece be allowed to issue more t-bills as a possible financing measure here? who is going to buy them? the greek banks were taking down around 30% of that. their argument is why would investors want to buy fwrees now? still likely not to be concluded in the next 24 hours. >> the meeting taking place in brussels not the only one today because there's also a meeting between the greek and russian foreign ministers taking place in london. that could add a lot more spice to the conversations. >> well we know this is one element here. what we heard from the defense minister is there's a possible plan b that china or russia could provide financing. we have to draw a line under that. the russian angle here there would have to be a mutually

exclusive element. if the russians weren't involved imf would pull out soon. you have to assume if we're going to a russian solution we're talking about that at some sort down the line. that isn't an option but it does tie into the sanctions idea and we know when this government took over they suggested that they weren't in favor of either the sanctions currently underway but also any future ones but i don't think they would endanger their situation or the feeling right now in berlin or brussels by using their veto as far as sanctions are concerned however much they voice their disapproval but it will be interesting to hear what the two foreign ministers say as far as greece is concerned and the relationship there. back to you. >> thank you. let's discuss more on greece it's fate as well as the fate of the euro zone with mark oswald. it was interesting to see last night, mark he was taking to

switer to express his views. saying we're at a historic turning point and we strive to support a united europe with democracy and solidarity but they wouldn't be threatening to leave. >> it's because we have such a short time line. it is very binary choice they've got. the interesting thing is he was paying plenty of compliments to mrs. merkel as a european leader. there's a willingness to butter each other up. the key is both sides don't need to draw too many red lines because they are quite far apart

apart, but forcing greece out by saying you take what you've got already and we will not negotiate is not going to get anybody anywhere. one has to remember in this situation, this isn't just about finances. this is also geopolitical. that primarily is more the realistic aspect of why they're negotiating with russia rather than from the financial perspective. >> does germany's own strong rhetoric on this issue rest on the belief that they think greece will back down? or do they think the exit will be containable and are either misplaced? >> they are both misplaced. it's actually moralizing is

misplaced. they take this high handed attitude. it's your fault. you need to get yourselves out of it. what's going to tell you how you do it? equally on the other side greece has to understand that you just can't come in and throw all toys out. so there needs to be some bridging here and what we really need is the leaders of one of the other countries to act as mediator. in this case it's very difficult for them to mediate the situation but it would be nice to see other people taking more of a role here in trying to bridge the gap between the two and it's certainly not going to be resolved today. >> but germany continues to take a strong stance. just the morning an ally says the german parliament is less

willing to help greece. so reminiscent of the hard ball germany played when they were talking about the unveiling of quantitative easing. do you think germany will have to concede? >> there will have to be one conceded. the key here related to previous episodes is there's a grouping to the right in germany which has quite a lot of support, the afd, the antieuro party and they're well aware that if they give too much ground to greece a it sets a bad precedent for everybody else struggling to get their budgets and debts under control and secondly it's almost certain to be a vote winner or certainly a polling winner for the afd which is something which, you know we don't need any more of this nationalism, particularly not in germany. >> all right. mark oswald sticks with us. we'll discuss more about the fate of the euro zone as well as a price of oil.

but first, here's a market update. >> so we had a strong day yesterday on hopes we would reach a compromise on the gre rtoc continued to be very divided between the two sides. as we look at the stock 600 at the moment it is flat. it has moved around a little bit either side of flat as we have had about 40 minutes of trade. an hour of trade so far but we're just fractionally above flat at the moment. let's have a look and see where we're looking. ftse 11 bucking the trend. it was down yesterday when continental europe was up. germany also just above flat. france just the other way and athens although we're looking at delays price reactions there is down 3.5%. the banking index in greece once again taking the brunt of the declines. let's look at bond rates and see

what we're looking at. in the u.s. ten year we have been between a 1.8% yield and 2% yield depending on rate from friday's strong jobs print suggesting expectations could be brought a little closer than a week or two ago. the german yield remains very low. .37% and below it's japanese counter part at 1.65% and greece, yields ticking up today as the compromise seems elusive. the most interesting of the last three weeks or so has been the euro and last week -- about a week ago, following a short covering bounce post that qe announcement we did very briefly touch the 115 handle.

we're in between those two levels now. that 113 move over the last week down from the high 114 is really a reflek of the issues we're seeing in greece. just point out the yen as well. just shy of the 120 handle. the rouble strengthening today. let's have a quick look at commodities because we had a strong balance in the oil price since the end of january but a little bit of weakness as well. although we rallied since the end of january we still haven't meaningfully found a bottom because prices are moving around 50.5 on wti and 56.8 on brent. let's look at the top stocks on the move and it's a game of two halves when it comes to the english football television rights. investors cheering bt that's up the best part of 3% but tackling sky for paying a record amount of 4.2 billion pounds to show

premiere league matches. sky is kurnly off 3%. at 9:30 we'll be talking to an analyst and talking to the premiere league executive. off 5.8%. the danish wind turbine maker pays it's first dividend. however a modest 2015 outlook has it lower. the dividend came in below forecast. we'll be speaking to the ceo in a first on cnbc interview in an hour's time. what's coming up next? >> in addition to the interview, coming up on worldwide exchange can innovation deliver for investors? we speak to the author about how to claim a unicorn. a game that tells you how to bring magic and money together. and we speak to the author of a

report suggesting that chinese money is flocking to europe. there you go. cute little sheep there. plus aol prepares to report earnings. we ask if the media giant can pull in ad revenues without any reports of deals. that's coming up next.

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>> i want to get you flashes coming out of reuters. reuters is reporting the russian diplomatic source said on wednesday it was 70% likely that leaders of russia ukraine, france and germany would reach an agreement on the ukraine crisis at talks later in the day. of course today various leaders are meeting to discuss a potential ukraine peace deal and according to this source at reuters 70% likely chance that the leaders of russia ukraine, france, and germany would reach an agreement. this is as intense fighting continues in eastern ukraine ahead of key peace talks in the capital. they denied russian press reports that a cease fire agreement has already been reached. any deal seems unlikely with european officials expressing skepticism that rebels could be

convinced to pull back to earlier positions after recent gains. >> u.s. president barrack obama spoke to his russian counter part in a phone call on tuesday ahead of the peace summit. he warned the costs for russia would rise if it continues to quote, aggressive actions. the pair had agreed upon the need for swift political solution to the internal conflict. >> steve spoke to the russian finance minister at the g-20 meeting in istanbul. he began by asking him if a resolution was needed in ukraine in order for moscow to carry out reforms. listen in. >> absolutely. it says why wait until tomorrow if you can do it today? so now that the oil prices have fallen and according to our forecast the price will remain low for a lengthy period of time we need to use the opportunity to restructure the economy. we've had the dutch disease or syndrome and now that the rouble has weakened we need to swift

from commodity industry and driven economy to manufacturing industries so we need in addition to import substitution which is a pressing task we need to restructure or economy. shifting from commodities and oil toward a different arrangement. >> can you also negate the effect of the rouble decline and double increase bianca passing the dollar by bypassing the dollar. do you hope in more and more relationships that you can bypass the dollar and currency issues and deal directly in the currencies of the ruble and the country that you're dealing with. >> translator: well, indeed and this continues the discussion within g-20. we talk a lot about settlement and national currencies and now that our financial institutions

and corporate agencies have limited access to foreign country sys this countries it seems like a feasible option. some of our neighbors countries, former soviet and current cis member states and now we have to work in such bilateral arrangements and i believe they will be more and more relevant in the future but the rouble has been strengthening lately you know. >> that was the russian finance minister. poroshenko will be briefing the eu summit on thursday. we'll be watching to see what he says. let's talk more about the situation in russia and how it's impacting investor sentiment. it was interesting despite the downturn in russia's economy, declining oil prices the russian equity index up about

26% so far this year. what's the catalyst behind the out performance in russian stocks. >> if you were to look around the world and you looked at bond markets and equity markets and you were to pick something that was totally distressed levels. at the very top of your list would be russia. >> just evaluation. >> it's purely evaluation thing. if we are to reach any form of lasting peace and some of the sanctions come off then you'd have to say that the russian equity market above all and, indeed russian credit assets are completely mispriced. >> isn't that a risky bet though? we were talking to an expert in russia and he was going to say the situation is going to be worse before it's better. they look cheap when the economy could continue to hurt more. does that make sense? >> absolutely. it is a long-term play. if you are going to be buying

into russia it's not a short-term play but if you look at it relative to others people are worried about valuations in the u.s. in most of the major markets. they're looking at beyond yield-- bond yields that give them no income. it's on that relative value basis even though it's actually very risky. the question is as we go forward, is to what extent can russia reposition itself away from relying on europe to more trade with china above all and certainly from the chinese side there seems to be a lot of interest and there's certainly likely to be more and more trade which is done between russia and a lot of other countries including india where the dollar

is sir couplecircumvented. so the need is starting to diminish. >> is putin resting his current strategy on the fact that he doesn't expect western military presence in ukraine and is that unfounded that he believes that? >> i don't think it is. on the western side of the equation the one thing always recognize is russia is a nuclear power and should they push russia too far -- and this is why mrs. merkel is not keen on the idea of sending arms to ukraine apart from the fact that ukraine is fairly lawless in any case. ukraine has always been fairly lawless. why would you want to put more fuel on the fire even if in terms of the current confrontation it might seem to be a way of assisting the current government. in the long run it is more and more risk. >> russian's economy is in crisis.

why isn't there more ground on this dispute. but does putin knonow ukraine's economy is in deeper crisis than russia because therefore it and it's allies are more under pressure to cede ground. >> not only is the economy in collapse, it's not on the point of collapse it's in collapse. it's pretty much as close to bankruptcy as one could think the sort of money that's involved in terms of what might need to be lent is going to be a very very tall order for above all the eu and imf to come up with when there isn't actually any peace. >> thank you very much for joining us today. much appreciated. mark oswald. strategist at adm investor services. now am continues to scale new heights on tuesday. it became the first company to close with a market cap above $700 billion. the world's largest publicly traded company is boosted by record sales of its iphones and

record profit of the latest quarter. tim cook says apple plans to buy $850 million of power from a new california solar plant to cut it's energy bill. it will supply electricity to its offices and 52 stores in the state. first solar up significantly in today's trade off the news up 13%. >> we do want to hear from you. do you think apple can hit the $1 trillion mark after closing above $750 billion in market cap. a milestone for the company. join in here on worldwide exchange. e-mail us at worldwide@cnbc.com. tweet us at cnbcwex. apple hitting a all time high coinciding with tim cook coming out at the golden sacks comments. i think everyone will be surprised about what they will do. the look of this is fantastic. he also gave an example.

tim cook says if i sit for too long it will tap me on the wrist to remind me to get up and move if you haven't moved before an hour. ten minutes before an hour it will tap you. >> i'm not sure i like that. i like being lazy. the last set of result which is are making tim cook's tenure look successful resting on the iphone and will wearables will able to pick up the slack moving forward or does it not really matter. >> apple is stealing samsung in the marketplace. because samsung has not been able to really see that much success. it hasn't really caught on so can apple change that and make wearables a big market category for other companies as well. >> agree. we'll continue to debate on apple throughout the show. where is its market cap headed? e-mail us at worldwide@cnbc.com. still to come here on the show today, the premiere league

scores big with a record auction for its tv rights. we'll discuss after the break.

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negotiations in brussels. athens cannot pay back it's debt in the near future sending the three year and two year yields above 20%. >> intense fighting in eastern ukraine weigh on peace talks and hopes of a deal slim admitting unlikely rebels will give up recent gains in the region. >> investors give sky the red card. shares tumble of athe 4.2 billion pound deal. but bt hits the back of the net with it's own deal. >> heiniken sales higher. it may lose it's fizz amid slowing demand in markets. >> we are still battling with our programs and problems. they will be addressed over the long hall. battling against weak demographics in europe. some countries are recovering.

>> let's look at european markets. lingering concerns continues to be the focal point for investors but despite the negotiations and lack there of between policy makers we're looking at a mixed trading day. the zetra dax down .07%. now a different story for oil because volatility continues. crude up about 15% from the 2010 lows hit on signs of supply. adjustment in today's trade despite the losses we incurred in yesterday's trade. we're looking at a rebound here. light crude up about .8%. brent crude trading at around $56 barrel. >> let's have a quick look at bond markets and the u.s. ten year is close to 2%. following friday's report which was strong imlying that rate rise height be closer than we

thought a few weeks ago. we're also looking at germany .37% and the greek ten year at about 10.7%. a quick look at the euro which is flat against the dollar today but has just hit a seven year low against sterling. the euro has been weak because of concerns. elsewhere you can see the dollar up about .8% against the rouble. i want to bring a quick flash coming out of the eu. they're saying if there is visible failure of ukraine peace talks, further sanctions would be back on the table now moving on sky and bt shelled out 5.1 billion pounds to broadcast premiere league football. shares are up 3% on the news. sky is up 3.5%. that's because sky is paying 83%

more than it did three years ago. it will be forking out 11 million pounds per gain versus bt's 7.6 million. i spoke to the ceo of premiere league and before getting his reaction to the price changes i asked about the digital players that may have been involved in the bidding process. >> it's difficult to predict the future but clearly we can see there's a technological shift going on at some point in the next x number of years and i can't tell you how many there will be a shift in the way people consume anything -- a lot of their entertainment including our entertainment and therefore, yes we did get interest and we were presented to by various types of companies that would distribute in different ways including the over the top internet companies including other people who have different distribution methods and different business models and that's what i'm eluding to. where we did get the whole range. right from one extreme to the other in terms of how they might go about promoting our rights.

how they might go about utilizing our rights and whether that's a prediction of the future, who knows but there's a market shift of how people are consuming entertainment. >> let's look at exactly what the companies just paid and 56% inflation overall. so congratulations on achieving that a very good deal for bt then. >> at the end of the day they have different matches. your calculation is right. i'm not denying your math isn't right but clearly they each have different sorts of matches. not all matches is the same. so your analysis is correct but it doesn't necessarily say everything there is to say about the process. >> just to push further on that sky are paying 70% more per game

than last time. bt paying only 18% more per game than last time. perhaps that reflects the fact that sky were under pressure having lost champion's league coverage. >> those are questions for sky. we look at it overall. we don't analyze it in that way the rules were set some time ago. the broadcasters all knew what the rules were and people have to bid what they think they need to bid to win. >> let's discuss this further. joining us now is a media analyst. thank you for joining us this morning. >> no problem. >> let's touch on the differences that sky and bt paid for similar coverage. has sky overpaid? >> i think they definitely paid a lot larger than what people are expecting. the question mark here is how much of that they can recoop whether it's for the top line or

save cost as well. if you look at the statement they talk about minimizing the impact of the consumer. that would suggest what they were trying to do was drive-thru extra cost savings and recoop the extra cost. we just put through for example over 20% downgrade to our forecasts because what they paid was significantly ahead of expectations. so remains to be seen whether they can mon tiez those rights effectively but it looks as though they paid a significant amount. >> the majority is through cost savings. the cost savings unrelated to the football. they were already there. >> yeah this will be an interesting point. sky already talked about driving through energies. so any extra cost savings will be on top of those. if you take their cost space, it's around 10 billion pouns if you exclude depreciation.

you might think that's a large amount they can play with. bear in mind around 6 million of that has to do with programming or what they pay in terms of direct network cost. there's not much they can do with that. you're looking at the remainder for which they have to play with and they're facing significant competition for bt. that will have an effect on marketing costs. we don't know what will happen with the right which is come up next year. >> how much of an additional cost will be passed on to the subscriber? because i believe sky and bt they don't make money on football coverage prices per say. it's selling customer bundles of channels. >> absolutely. it's going to be tricky for them to pass on the forecast. if you were to look at the change in the rights packages you would be look at sky paying an extra 613 pounds per item. if you look around the cuss me

customers, it's around 60 pounds per item. but if you were to take sky sports subscribers by themselves you'd be looking at around double that figure so you would be asking sky sports customers if they were to push all the increase to pay more than 10 pounds extra per month. the question is how many people would do that? a lot of people would say that's too much. let's look at the alternatives. >> it's interesting to hear him saying some of the over the top providers were part of the bidders that didn't win. how quickly is the way we consume all content but sport in particularly? how quickly is that changing? >> it's changing. probably not as much as we think. >> if you ask people how much tv they consume, either video on demand or delayed, they'll give you 25%. if you actually look at the amount of video they watch there's around 2%. there's always the misconception. having said that you look at

netflix and what they're doing they're tapping into a market that doesn't want the subscription bundle but also wants something extra. so over the next couple of years it's going to become more important. is it necessarily a bigger threat? the jury is still out on that. that's the case if you look at the u.s. market as well. >> just wrapping up your target price on sky is what? >> the target price is 530. we were 850 before this morning and the recommendation is 7. >> thank you very much here. great to have you in. >> all right. moving on spain's state owned airport group has priced it's ipo at 58 euros per share. the top end of its range valuing the group at 8.7 billion euros. stefan is live following the price action in shares. help us understand why there's so much demand for this ipo. is it betting on spain's economic rebound or is it just

about the widespread strength of this airport operator? >> absolutely. it's all about the recovery. the main crisis operation and exchange and perhaps the symbol of recovery for international investors. it's the biggest ipo in europe since 2011 and it's going to be the largest one in spain in almost 8 years. the government decided to put on sale up to 49% of the spanish airport operator including the offer for institutional investors. it was described more than five times and you know seeman when something is well demanded when there's a strong demand the prices go up and that's why the introduction price has been set at the top end of the range. 58 euros per share. is it a good deal?

is it a safe investment? it's a good deal for the spanish government which is going to raise more than 4.3 billion euros for that operation. for investors in the short-term the sky looks bright because of the spanish economic recovery because of the booming spanish tourism sector and because of the low price of oil which is something positive. it's a bit more complicated. first of all, they agreed to freeze the airport taxes for the next decade so the company will have to rely on something else to boost it's earnings. significant and certainty regarding the spanish political outlook. at the end of the year there will be general elections in spain and the extreme left political party could win this election and, in that case it could definitely change the

economic outlook. but still investment bankers believe that it will trigger a new round of ipo in the country as again this is a symbol of the economic recovery. we'll tell you more about that first on cnbc at 12:30 central european time. that will be live from the stock exchange. >> thank you so much. yeah really interesting to see that despite the uncertainty around the upcoming political election. that's not stopping companies from going public on the spanish market. we'll be looking forward to your interview. >> now let's have a look at some of the day's biggest individual movers. heineken in the green. slightly above expectations but it expects growth at a more moderate pace than 2014 which is boosted by the world cup in

expansion for emerging markets. the stock is up 1.5% earlier today. speaking earlier, the heineken ceo talked about exposure to russia. >> russia is not that big that it would put the results of our company into pressure. if we look into last year we had a decline in sales like everybody else in the sector and we could adapt to new reality. >> dsm up sharply higher after reporting profits and sales above analysts. 2015 earnings would be slightly higher year on year. this despite the declines and currency moves. he would consider diversifing outside the u.s.

>> we would look to reduce costs but with all respect i do not control any central bank. nor the swiss one nor the u.s. it is what it is and we deal with it as good as possible. we should remember that we are very competitive with our operations in switzerland. we are competitive and the swiss franc did not help us but we're very competitive. you see in the fourth quarter in some of our operation as work we have showed 7% organic growth in our business. so we hold firmly our market shares there. >> and another stock trading higher is arm up 4% after reported fourth quarter pretax profit of 25% beating analyst forecasts. saw a boost from royalty revenues from its customers and said the 2015 outlook is encouraging. ing is up the best part of 3%.

it reported a pretax profit of 783 million euros. despite this the dutch bank said it would pay a dividend of 12 cents per share. it's the first in seven years. taken well by the market. last november they paid the final installment of the bailout to the dutch government which was issued in 2008. speaking earlier the cfo commented on the pay out. >> delighted to reinstate the dividend earlier. at the end of every year we'll look and see if we can increase it above 4%. we'll look and see what the financial results were. we'll look and see the capital environment for the growth opportunities are.

we look to pay it more than the 40%. >> still to come with the year of the sheep just around the corner we speak to an author of a report suggesting chinese money is flocking to europe. all the details coming up nebs.

in germany a pilot's union called a two-day strike following a long-running dispute over retirement benefits and airline's divisions. let's get the latest from annetta. >> it's just effecting german wings. departing from other airports and then frankfurt, munich or berlin. so flights will be effected but it will only end late friday evening. for now, the cost of the strike are not yet quantifiable. of course a lot depends also on their alternate flight plan which they are currently working on. the reason behind the strikes are the old reasons from last year. there's still disagreement about

early retirement benefits. remember last year pilots went on strike ten times during the course of the year and the reason for the strikes are still here. pilots are still going to keep their retirement benefits and they're saying that's no longer modern in that world where people tend to work longer and also compared to other airlines this is super generous and they want to push the retirement age up to closer to 60 years which pilots don't want. going forward it will be the subject of more strikes. not only german ones but most likely also other hubs might be effected because for now there's no solution on the horizon. with that back to you. >> thank you so much. now switching focus to fun flows. a new report suggests that

chinese investment into europe reached an all time high. there have been 155 separate investments worth $17 billion in 2014. that's double the 2013 figure. now in terms of sector real estate and energy are some of the top. u.k. italy and germany topping the destination list. to talk more, global head of m and a at baker and mckenzie. let's start with the take away of your research. china investment into europe hitting a record high in 2014. what's driving this money into wrurp from into china? >> i don't think it's effected by a current slow down you're seeing a structural shift rather than a phenomenon because there's really double growth opportunities for china. they can acquire product miss

wrurp and then take them back to the home market and generate growth. and then they can globalize that through a european acquisition. >> we're seeing deflation in the euro zone. unemployment at 11.5%. in some areas it's north of 25%. so why is this so much money going into europe? is it just betting on ecb intervention and qe? >> i don't think so. it gives brands to technology and management and expertise and relatively speaking it's a stable environment. >> how much is this driven by what's happening domestically in china? the growth of savings and things like pension funds having to invest their money somewhere and a lot of private equity firms investing abroad. >> that's right.

you're seeing a shift. now you're seeing a move toward private enterprise and financial investors and across a much broader range of industries. >> if we look back at the chart showing the growth we've seen it's hard to extrapolate from it because it jumped an extraordinary amount over the last year or two. can it continue growing at that rate? >> it's bound to if you look at all the policy signals. chinese leadership is on record on supporting foreign investment. there's no reason that should change. >> help us understand how the chinese are investing in the eu. can you explain that? >> yeah you have two types of investments. you have chinese companies buying existing businesses and then you have also got capital investment into new projects so that may be into real estate but it may be into expanding

facilities they own here already. >> thank you for bringing it to us. and now some -- let's switch over to entertainment news. comedian john stewart that gained fame for his satire and politics in the media is leaving his job as host of the daily show later this year. he took over the show in 1999. the news comes after comedy central's other big star left the channel to succeed late night talk show host david letterman that's retiring. no replacement has been named. stewart made the announcement on last night's show. >> 17 years is the longest i have ever in my life held a job by 16 years and 5 months. i don't have any specific plans. got a lot of ideas. i have a lot of things in my

head. i'm going to have dinner on a school night with my family who i have heard from multiple sources are lovely people. >> well watched in the u.s. how popular is he in the u.k.? >> i don't think he has a huge following but he's well respected and really funny. i went to see a show live. >> that's fun. >> he had great energy. he came out and it worked well. >> very cool. let's talk about tech news because it was a big day for apple becoming the first corporate to close with a market cap above $700 billion. do you think apple can hit the $1 trillion mark? joining in on the conversation you can e-mail us at worldwide@cnbc.com. do you think they'll make it? $1 trillion? >> i think they will at some point because it's going to continue growing although i don't think the arbitrary targets matter so much. what's impressive is relative performance, share price, since

tim cook took over. he was criticized very wildly and he's turned things around without even launching a significant new product. it's turning around the core offering. particularly the iphone. >> all eyes on the wearables. also interesting to see tim cook making that announcement that they're investing in a solar farm. it will be enough to solar power 60,000 homes. diverse also the exposure to the energy space. >> are you going to buy a smart watch? >> the jury is still out. i want to test it out and see how it fits. does it fireworks my very fashionable attire that i have. >> very important question seema as well. we wouldn't want our viewers being disappointed by your appearance. not that that is possible of course. >> thank you. nasdaq is one of the out performers in yesterday's trade. take a look at u.s. futures.

the dow down about 28 points. s&p showing a loss of around four points in premarket trade. of course greece continues to be not only a concern here in europe but u.s. investors also watching the negotiations closely. >> absolutely. let's have a look at how they're moving today. they're strong yesterday bizarrely enough and softening today because we're struggling to find the compromise we just had a flash saying that the greek deputy finance minister says there's moves that show a solution in the eu can be found. we'll see if that does indeed happen in the future and of course more on this and an interview after shares in the telecom company trade sharply low. we'll be back in a couple of minutes.

welcome to worldwide exchange. >> here are your headlines from around the world. >> u.s. markets points to a lower open. this ahead of key talks over greece's bailout in brussels with the country's finance minister warning athens cannot pay back it's debt in the near future. >> intense fighting in eastern ukraine weigh on peace talks. any official warns that further sanctions could be back on the table with russia if no agreement is reached. >> apple reaches new heights becoming the member of a very exclusive club as the only company with a market cap above

700 murder in the second degree $7 million. >> he thinks the auto maker is undervalued and that's why he is pushing for a seat on the company's board. >> you're watching worldwide exchange. bringing you business news from around the globe. >> and earnings greece and russia continue to dominate the headlines. another day and it's another new headline out of greece. you wonder if investors should be trading the markets based on every new headline or focus on earnings because at the end of the day that drives stock prices prices. >> well, indeed but we have been quite range bound. if you look at a euro that's a gauge overall for europe of whether this is moving markets or not and so far there's not been that much contagion even though it does move sharply from day-to-day on the headlines

although have to say i cannot believe you did not pick apple. apple is seema's favorite topic. >> i really enjoy reporting on tech and apple given that it's a new milestone, $700 billion it's fascinating to see one company continuing to hit new highs but the question is if the market becomes overly positive on the stock valuation will become a concern. if your taxi driver stalk about apple and the bullishness around the stock there might be reason to be concerned. >> indeed. apple toing apple doing well. >> nasdaq is a big out performer in yesterday's trade. down fractionally in premarket trade. the dow jones down 28 points the nasdaq 100 lifted by apple, mariot leading the gains. taking a look at the ftse index there's a lot for investors to

digest. not just bailout terms but india. we're watching the u.s. secretary of treasury. he begins his visit in media today today. keeping an eye on what's happening in india. weaker data in china is something investors are packing in. it was a positive day indicating that a deal would come together around greece's deadline plan. that debt deadline approaching on february 28th. we're looking at stocks lower across the board but we continue to see a whole lot of volatility in greece's financial markets. the equity index moving significantly lower in today's trade. down about 3.6% and the volatility continues in the greek bond market which you're looking for us as well. >> it's been a yo yo session.

red and green mixing between the two. let's look on to the monday market. it's been the same story over the last couple of weeks for most of the bond market. germany very low. .36 on the tenure. having an effect over the rest of europe. italy, the u.k. spain very low. now the one that isn't low, moving in the opposite direction has been the greek bond yields. the ten year at 10.78%, short erma tourties having higher yields of course. the curve inverted and the two year 20.5. those moves of around half a percent becoming quite regular today as to when the compromise can be found, improves or gets worse. so far that hasn't had a big move on broader europe and

that's highlighted by the markets and the euro touched 114 a week ago but it hasn't moved to anywhere near the same as the greek markets themselves. we're currently looking at a flat day for the euro. 1.13. the yen at 119.8. just weakening a little bit over the last week or two. away from the 117, or 118 we were at for most of january: the oil price recovered significantly from the late january lows but still struggling to find a meaningful flaw. we had a couple of days of weakness. brent is a little bit soft 56 and that's down .7%. >> let's talk more about the u.s. markets and how the investors over there are factored in. we're now joined by andrew berkeley. pleasure to have you on so early in the morning. hope you have your coffee ready

to go. this is going to be fun. i want to talk about how you are factoring in the volatility we're seeing in the greek bond market. we're seeing yields spike to new records. how worried are you about greece spilling over and weighing on investor sentiment in the u.s. where there's a lot to be positive on when you take a look at the economy. >> you put it right. we've been in a tail mate for the last couple of weeks and it goes back to the ecb announcement in mid january. we saw commodity prices stabilize. the oil prices stabilize and importantly nothing has turned the corner. i think greece has been this head wind or overhang in potential improvement and earnings season started to pick up in the u.s. we had a weak first half of the earnings season and in the last week or so we had earnings

report it's not great but it's up from 0% a few weeks ago. everything is slowly improving and if we can get past this greece overhang in the next couple of weeks there's a lot of positive catalyst out there it's around the 2060 or 2070 range. we are unable to push higher and yet again yesterday we push to the upper end of the range. we're not just there yet. >> we got more employment rate data coming later this week. could that in fact put a dampener on the equity markets? could it bring forward expectations again? >> the equity market is more

concerned with growth picking up and the economy continuing to do well. earnings can do well. earnings expectations are incredibly low for the first half of the year because i think there's a general kind of dampening in terms of growth. growth is more positive as opposed to interest rate expectations coming forward. they have been moved to june as a possible for a fed rate hike. we still think that's probably a little bit early but employment trends are more of a positive. market responded pretty positively to it and not delay for the fear of provoking turbulence. ahead of a rate hike you see a rise in volatilities. do you agree with what he had to say? >> yeah i think the fed is in a difficult position where a lot

of the economic data is moving in that direction. even if it's not imminent that inflationary pressures are out there they set this path that they want to move in that direction and have am withdrew in addition and fire power down the road if they need to and get interest rates normalized. they're going to continue on that course. to me yellen and dudly, the vice chair are the two most important voices and they continue to emphasize this idea of patience which is in the language. so we know until the patience wording comes out of the language you're talking two or three meetings out of that before anything happens so the march statement is what a lot of people are keying on now and we have two more employment reports before we get there. that's impossible. >> so you're positive on the u.s. equities but are you more positive on european equities?

>> yeah i mentioned before earnings expectations have gotten negative in the past two months or so. especially in the u.s. we have seen a big down side but in europe we have seen a bit of a relief there where analysts are starting to take their numbers higher. that really started right around the qe announcement in mid january plus a better valuation picture in europe as well. i'm not convinced it's a longer term multiyear event. but for 2015 europe is probably in a better position than the u.s. >> because valuation wise europe is better than the u.s. it's fast nating to see the europe stocks 600 trade at a multiyear high despite the concerns around the economy. clearly as you were pointing out the bet is on qe and how that will stimulate the euro zone. >> yeah and the currency

movements cannot be understated. it's been a dig deal. the dollar strength is hurting u. s. earnings. we've seen it come through in the earnings report and the weaker euros is finally a relief for european exporters and that takes time to play out but you're finally starting to see it come through in the earnings numbers. >> that's been reflected in guidance for the u.s. corporates corporates. pleasure to have you on. thank you. let's get you a run down of what to watch this trading day. the statement which points higher vieds detailed information on u.s. government receipts will be out this afternoon. dallas fed president is speaking before the opening bell pepsico, time warner aol, and we'll hear from cisco, tesla, as well as whole foods. >> let's take a look at today's other top stories. we just had a flash coming out of the greek prime minister that says the government is committed

to implementing reforms greece really needs. this follows a separate flash from the deputy finance minister about 15 minutes agatha said this are already moves that show a solution with the eu can be found. this follows news late yesterday that greek finance minister says greek debt cannot be paid off in the near future. he added if it can no longer be paid it leads to a air cut. that comes after the greek prime minister yesterday easily won a confidence vote to scrap the bailout program. >> the posturing continues today. we had the greek prime minister on twitter overnight. will a europe of democracy and solidarity and values and people give away to terror and

destabilization? still expecting the prospect of a greek exit to allow leeway from other leaders. they're also saying it's over for greece if they don't exspekt the money at the last bailout. it's not an agreement in today or tomorrow's discussions for this to continue on until monday next week but at least ultimately some bridging program to be agreed. what i heard is that they don't mind if the european leaders want to call this an extension of the program. they're not going to expect any more solidarity. we need to understand how greece is going to fund itself in the short-term. what role will the ecb play and will it continue. that's going to help greece pay its debts in the interim and imf payment is the first most pressing issue for the country right now. these talks are going to kick off later today. we have to wait and see just how

long they go on and if indeed despite the extremely low expectations something can come of this meeting. back to you. >> one further flash coming from the greek prime minister saying he will travel to paris to formalize agreement on reforms. we'll bring you more of those when they come. nooufing on an eu official says additional sanctions could be back on the table for russia if no resolution for ukraine's crisis is reached during peace talks. they express skepticism that they could be pulling back after recent gains. >> u.s. president barrack obama spoke to vladimir putin in a phone call yesterday ahead of the peace summit. obama warned putin the cost for russia would rise if it continues it's quote, aggressive actions. the cremlin said the pair agreed upon the need for a swift

political solution to the internal conflict. >> now coming up he's been the most trusted man in the fake news business for more than a decade but now comedian john stewart says it's time to take a break from hosting the daily show. >> it's been the honor of my points higher professional life. i thank you for watching it. for hate watching it. whatever reason you were tuning in for.

implths welcome back . >> welcome back. finance ministers meet to discuss greece's bailout. and further sanctions could be on the table if solutions can't be reached at talks in minsk and apple is the only u.s. company to have a market cap north of 700 $700 billion. >> now let's get back to europe. telenor shares are diply sharply lower. they also offered a cautious outlook for the year ahead. it's trading down 7.7% as we look at things now. joining us on the phone is the

ceo of telenor. thank you for joining us this morning. the markets clearly reacting badly to your earnings and forecasts this morning. and because of guidance why was the guidance taken. >> we are positioning for most of our markets and the heavy sale of smartphones has taken a dive to the margin in fourth quarter and this might be one of them. at the same time we can note it so there's a kind of link here where the telecom operators bring a lot into the markets but the benefits of that are more into the future than the immediate quarter. >> so moving forward there's

been a massive growth as you're eluding to in the use of smartphones and the use of data. going forward how can you make sure that yourselves take some of the slice of the pie rather than those that have taken so much of it so far? >> i think we have a very good story to that question here in norway in 2014. we managed to really mon tiez the data growth in the extent that we have a 10% growth so we have that as a group and we need to take it into the other markets and get that into play. >> talk to us about currency head winds because that's been a big story this earnings season. how has the stronger dollar

impacted your bottom line and how will it impact going forward. >> we don't look to the exchanges because we refer to the organic growth and the organic growth figure was strong. it was above 5% which was higher than all the previous quarters and in nominal terms, it's double that. so we understand the currency figures. >> talk to me about your expansion in the likes of england and malaysia and will that be a similar data story as it has been for you at your home market in norway. >> we already see those trends in particular in thailand and malaysia where it stands roughly in the 50s as oppose to the 80s. so countries in asia will follow.

if we move to pakistan and bangladesh for the same kpi we're around 20% so there's a big potential there and when the economy grows which they do and in particular and smartphones will start to penetrate as prices of smartphone are also coming down to affordable levels levels. >> thank you for joining us this morning. >> next up on worldwide exchange we're talking about the new age of innovation. will it come from google or apple? we'll discuss that next with an innovation expert.

innovation has become a buzz word in corporate america to established multinationals seeking a cultural makeover but does innovation deliver for investors. with us is author of how to kill a unicorn and author of the consulting firm specializing in innovation. let's talk about the big

players. do you think the next stage of innovation will come from google apple, microsoft or is it the start ups in will bring us the latest? >> the reality seema is growth and innovation have become synonymous. it's no longer an either or. the big businesses cannot hope they can buy innovation off the street or other people. it didn't used to be that way. there used to be a lot of easy chess-like moves a company could do to deliver growth. it's all about innovation. it's kind of innovate or don't grow. so we're going to see innovation continue to require new imperative in the bigger organizations and they have got to fear disruption coming along from people they've never heard of. it's going to be all of the above. >> i noticed in your notes you caused disruption which is a by product of innovation.

they then fail. it's the ones that are only mildly disruptive but what do you mean by that? >> we think of disruption as the huge leap to new technology curves and innovators get excited about that. but we realize there's two kinds of disruption that count. there's the disruption of the marketplace and the company you're trying to get that innovation through and you have to look at those through separate lenses. it's the things too disruptive of the company that die on the way so we have to obsess about both types of disruption if we want to create impact. the reality is nine out of ten innovation products companies try today never make the leap because they haven't managed that properly. >> a lot of innovation is stemmed by a market opportunity. give us a good example. some of these case studies that you provide in your book about how they use innovation to

address that. >> sure, you have to unlock an unmet need in the marketplace but you also have to unlock an unsatisfied commercial need and starbucks evenings play in the u.s. for instance is a fascinating case where they realize there's a big group of women looking for a casual cocktail at the end of the afternoon or after dropping kids off at soccer practice but there's a huge business where they have all of these empty stores going very quite once our need for caffeine stops so it's the marrying of a big unmet consumer need and business need that creates business success and too often they obsess about one or the other. >> it's a great topic. thank you for bringing it to us. author of how to kill a unicorn. interesting title. coming up still to come on the show with aol's rekrencent acquisitions help with fourth

quarter growth? and we'll look at futures right now pointing to a lower open despite the rebounds we saw in markets yesterday. greece and russia continue to dominate the headlines. opportunities aren't always obvious. sometimes they just drop in. cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. we enable you to reach global markets and drive forward with broader possibilities.

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greece still the big story. u.s. markets reporting to lower op greece's bailout in brussels with the country's finance minister warning athens cannot pay back it's debt in the near future. >> intense fighting in eastern ukraine weigh on peace talks in minsk. further sairngss could benctions could be on the table. >> apple reaches new height as the only company with a market cap above $700 billion. >> a high profile gm shareholder tells cnbc he thinks the auto maker is under valued. that's why he is pushing for a seat on the company's board. >> you're watching worldwide exchange. bringing you business news from around the globe. >> another day and the focus continues to be on greece russia, and earnings.

futures pointing to a lower open but the nasdaq bucking the trend. up just fractionally in premarket trade. dow jones industry down about 29 points in premarket trade despite the reversal yesterday. the nasdaq being the big out performer. now settling within 1.3% of the respective all time highs. when looking at europe the big discussion has been around greece. remember greece's debt no longer eligible to be used as collateral with the euro group and on the earnings front the focus will be on tesla. the stock is down about 12% over the last six months. for tesla. tim cook unveiling a brand new partnership with first solar. two stocks to watch in the u.s. and here in europe the focus has been on greece and of course volatility conning in the greek financial markets.

take a look at the equity index. down about 3%. greece's finance minister is expected to present a fresh bailout plan today. all eyes on what will be announced. >> thanks. let's have a look at what the greek bond yields are doing as well they have risen over the last session or two. the ten year at 10.9%. an indication is the fact that we had a 13 week treasury bill auction in greece which yielded 2.5% and january 14th a similar auction was 2.15%. it was 1.78 on january 14th. we had other flashes coming out. he is saying that the greek prices produced low fwroeth and high employment and he wants to work with greece on combatting those areas and saying the oecd

will support greece's reform program. this comes from the deputy greek finance minister that said there's already moves that show a solution with the eu is possible. >> now these are live pictures from moscow where the russian foreign minister and greek foreign minister are holding a press conference. the meeting comes amid an emergency finance minister meeting in russia to negotiate a bailout he says he must protect the rights of all who live in ukraine. the foreign minister of russia will also be traveling to minsk as he is right now, to discuss the ukraine peace deal but of course greek foreign minister holding talks with it's russian counter part. speculation is athens might see financing.

greece and the prospect of a ukraine peace deal. >> of course it's very important as well. the separate conversations happening today about the situation in the east of ukraine and whether or not we will see a peace deal there and of course that situation is developing. very important for the future of that issue in the east of ukraine. >> yeah, i have to say i know we discussed this in the first hour of worldwide exchange but the out performance in russian stocks, the index up about 26% so far this year but as analysts have come on the show to say that the situation from their point of view will get worse before it gets better but investors still betting on stocks to move higher. valuation seems to be the reason but is that enough of a reason to get bullish on russia when they're dealing with declining oil prices and sanctions and geo political factors with crew yanukraine.

>> the volumes aren't massive. i don't think there's people diving in with big long-term investment to russia. but it's surprising to see moves when we're looking at the moment on a deal an looking relatively unlikely. if that doesn't happen the prospect of more sanctions. or even being armed by the west. >> the out performance in apple. apple continues to scale to new heights on tuesday. it became the first company to close with a market cap above 700 beside. apple which is the largest publicly traded company has been boosted by sales of its iphones and record profit in the last quarter. tim cook says apple plans to buy $850 million of power from a new california solar firm and apply

electricity to the apple's new silicon valley campus and other offices and 52 stores in the state. take a look at shares up for solar. they did move higher on the back of the news coming out of the tech conference and we want to hear what you have to say about apple. the $700 billion market cap. do you think lit go to $1 trillion? you can join in on the conversation. e-mail us at cnbc.com. >> will it? that's the question. >> listen this is a stock already moving to new heights. it hit an all time high. record profitability as seen in the latest earnings report. the question is will wearables be the next product that can provadpro provide a boost to its profitability. >> you have to look at tim cook's tenure even though investors were worried about his performance he has done a good job recently. >> they plan to cut 6,000 jobs

worldwide. the company expects to let go up to 8% of its work force which includes the 1,000 jobs already cut in the fourth quarter. halliburton is the latest to announce lay offs. bakers hughes is cutting 7,000 jobs. let's take a look at shares of halliburton. they're up .4% in frankfurt. >> sycamore partners is in advance talks to buy u.s. clothing retailer chico's. they're trying to secure debt financing for a deal worth $3 billion. that would make it the largest leverage buyout this year. chioco's jumped around 10% in after hours trade. >> it's snow. the unprecedented snow fall that's smoothering boston is causing such a headache for city authorities that they had to look to their forefathers for

inspiration by dumping it in the city's harbor. with more than 60 inches falling in the last three days alone space is running out to dump snow. it's been piling so high they started to measure it in comparison to the height of local sports stars and we'll get you those in a second. >> i don't understand that. it's not tea, it's snow. >> they were pouring tea into the river? >> we'll ask our producers that. also coming up we go behind the wheel at gm which is coming under fire from shareholders and tesla gets set to report earnings later today. we'll be back in a couple of minutes.

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process critical information and put it in the hands of our defenders. reaching constantly evolving threats before they reach us. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. apple success helping it's suppliers as well. they posted a 25% rise in fourth quarter profit thanks to growing royalty revenues from customers such as apple. remember arm chips power the iphone 6 and shares are up in today's trade up about 4% and over the past year up about 20% wilfred. >> market caps near 700 billion. it's pathetic isn't it? >> a lot of room to go. >> a lot of room to go to catch up with apple.

moving from tech to autos. two important auto stocks in focus today. general motors and tesla for different reasons. for more on both of those stories let's get out to landon standing by at hq. >> let's get to gm. harry wilson says the auto maker hasn't done a good job delivering for shareholders. he was on president obama's task force that saw the bailout in 2009. he says gm is undervalued. earlier on tuesday gm disclosed a letter from wilson that says he plans to nominate himself to the board and push the company to buy back $8 billion in stock. they have been too low to make changes for products. he has teamed up with david tepper who together earn 2.1% stake. he stoke with mary bara last

week about his plans and he says he doesn't think he was aware of the level of shareholder frustration. gm has plans to raise it's dividend by 20% which the board still needs to approve. gm has about $25 billion in cash. >> tesla ceo is threatening to fire overseas executives as weak sales in china cast down on his global expansion plans. he sold 120 cars in china last month well below the targets. he expects sales in china to rival those in u.s. two top china managers left tesla last year and more could lose their jobs. tesla reports fourth quarter and full year results today. investors will be focussing on delivery of the model s. it sold nearly 22,000 through third quarter. it needs to have delivered 11,000 in the fourth quarter to meet it's target.

tesla shares have taken a beating down more than 10%. the stock is up more than 15% over the past year. back over to you. >> landon thank you very much. as ever. now let's have a look at some of the biggest individual movers here in europe today. heineken is trading in the green after raising it's dividend and reporting full year operating profits. slightly above expectations but the dutch brewer expected growth as a more moderate pace than 2014 boosted by the world cup and expansion into emerging markets. speaking to cnbc earlier today they outlined the company's exposure to russia. >> russia is battling but for us russia is not that big that it would put the results of our company into pressure. if we look into last year we had a decline in sales like everybody else in the sector but we have a strong operation which

can adapt to a new reality. >> reporting profits in sales. 2015 earnings would be slightly higher year over year. this despite vitamin e declines and unfavorable currency moves. >> the company's ceo said he would consider diversifying out side the u.s. >> we will look to measures to reduce cost to compensate for currency fluctuates but i do not control any central bank nor the swiss one nor the u. sflt. it is what it is in currencies and we deal with it as good as possible. we are very competitive with our operations in switzerland. we are competitive and the swiss franc did not help us but we are

still very competitive and you see it in the fourth quarter in some of our operations work we have showed 7% organic growth in our business. so we hold firmly our market shares there. >> now also trading higher arm as we told you earlier and also ing which reported pretax profit of 783 million euros missing analyst forecasts due to one off charges but despite this the dutch bank will pay a dividend of 12 cents per share. it's the first company's dividend pay out for seven years. they paid the final installment to the dutch government which was issued during the financial crisis in 2008. the stock is up 3.2% and speaking earlier on the channel the cfo commented on the dividend pay out. >> delighted to reinstate dividend early. we said it's a minimum of 40% and we elaborated a bit further

on that. at the end of every year we'll look and see whether we can increase that dividend of 40%. we'll look and see what the financial results were and what regulates the capital environment for the growth opportunities are and where the regulatory frame work is and blending that all in if we can we look to pay it more than the 40%. >> and before we head to break, here are your headlines at this hour. a show down expected in brussels as finance ministers meet to discuss greece's bailout terms and eu official says further sanctions could be on the table to russia if a solution to ukraine's crisis cannot be reached in talks at minsk and apple becoming the only u.s. company to have a market cap north of 700 beside. $700 billion.

welcome back. let's have a look in on european market which is are trading in the red today. we were about flat earlier but we're now a little bit below there. of course yesterday european indices were relatively strong despite no clear catalyst and of course negotiations between euro zone finance minister in brussels around the greek issue continue until we see a clear compromise of course no real reason to be outright positive on the markets in the short-term. we're just below flat for the u.k. and germany. down half a percent for france and athens down about 3%. what are we looking at on the greek bond market? >> the carnage being seen in the greek bond market. expecting to present that fresh bailout plan to officials including mario draghi. in the interim we're looking at selling greek debt. that's resulting in yields

rising. the year on the ten year at 10.8%. even though the short run yielding 18.2%. joining us now, portfolio manager joins us from new jersey kevin one day the markets are up because of greece and the next day they're down. it begs the question on whether investors should be more focused on earnings because that's what drives stock prices. >> in the short-term it is going to be about greece. it effects how people feel and the trade over the last three or four months has been really very bearish against greece and still the cost of, despite the improvement yesterday. it's very very high. that's going to dominate the headlines at least in the short-term but you're right about earnings. that's what you have to focus on longer term. in the united states it's been

relatively weak. it's really a question of those two forces your short-term view and longer term sue. >> of course as investors continue to watch the situation in greece let's talk about corporate earnings. we heard from 350 companies. revenue growth remains disappointing at about 1%. should we expect a meaningful jump in sales growth despite the currency head winds o out there? the stronger dollar? >> ultimately the revenue is going to track gdp growth and we have a barometer that gives us a sense of what growth rate looks like globally and it has been weakening since august or september. but i'm not surprised to see slippage in the revenue growth rate. hopefully that gets better. we're moving toward policy actions in europe. the united states still looks strong.

emerging markets is looking for a turn. the energy question is a relatively short-term kind of thing and if you get that moving together you could see it pick up through the latter part of the year. >> although if we talk about the valuation of u.s. equities have performance in earnings been good enough to justify those types of valuations. . >> well we're trading at 16.1 times high earnings. it is higher than the average over the last ten years so you could say that stocks are maybe a little bit pricey but not very far ahead of what should be expected. if you also -- if you take -- what i like to do is take the pe the 16.1 times, turn it upside down and create an earnings yield out of it and compare it to the treasury you're looking at a widespread from what you get paid from earnings stocks instead of bonds.

that would suggest relative to bonds, stocks are at least relatively attractive play. >> let's talk about tech. apple grabbing the headlines. an all time high surpassing the 700 beside market cap threshold. how would you trade apple here? >> i don't know. i don't have any specific comment about apple. i would point out it is very very large and exxon mobil and microsoft. both have done okay overtime. i remember when microsoft became the largest company on the planet for example. there was a period of consolidation that followed. i wouldn't be at all surprised just because of the sheer size of am that it goes through a similar type of life cycle process. it's just very big and it's hard to generate the revenue earnings growth to justify significant further advances this year. >> could push shares up to $150.

we'll leave it there. thank you for joining us. >> we'll be back tomorrow.

good morning, the biggest company ever. apple a member of the $700 billion club as it's market cap soaring to new heights. a rash of hack attacks ahead of a key white house summit aimed at improving cyber security. and are heads going to roll at tesla. elon musk to fire executives if sales don't improve in china. squawk box begins right now.

>> welcome in. joe and becky are off today. after 16 at the helm -- 16 years at the helm of the daily show john stewart is retiring. letting the news slip during last night's taping and stewart will remain on the show later this year. this follows the departure of steven colbert and will leave comedy central without a big star. it's coming up at 6:30 eastern time here on squawk. here's the other big stories today. earnings central still producing the hits. this morning we'll get pepsico, time warner aol and after the bell cisco, tesla and whole foods all to report. if global market still focussing on greece. they'll meet with other finance ministers to gattis cuss a possible bridge program.