good morning, everyone, it's wednesday. let's have a quick look at how markets are opening here in europe. the stoxx europe 600 index is expected to open around the flat line. this is after we were down by 1% in yesterday's trading session. oil prices saw a continued drop even though they have recovered in the asia trading session. we're still in the thick of earnings season. and of course big news coming out of barclays.

stoxx europe 600 opening up with a small gain. that fomc meeting. i want to show you what's going on on the sector by sector front. in term of the worst performing sectors. what we're seeing by basic resources. that was one of the worst performing sectors. in fact the shanghai was down by 1.5% or so. banks also down by 0.1% and in terms of the best performers we have telco, autos, food and drinks. i want to show you what the markets are doing. ftse 100 up by 0.2%. the cac 40 up by .3%. the xetra dax is down quite heavily. i'm pretty sure this is yesterday's close.

10,692. the ftse mib is up by 0.7%. okay. barclays came out with news this morning as widely expected. it's confirming daily is to take over from the beginning of december. the investment banking veteran was tipped to take the top job and will be expected to reposition the lender with a focus on corporate and investment banking. shares down by 0.23%. again this had been widely speculated for a number of weeks. shouldn't come as a surprise and shouldn't be a big mover for shares. ubs shares down by 1.3%. he has re-signed from his board position at ubs to focus on the barclays role. he was a member of the hr compensation and risk committees. >> thank you. the news we have been waiting for. volkswagen numbers crossing and the company got close to what the market was anticipating in terms of its first quarterly

loss in more than 15 years. here are the numbers. first up the q 3 operating loss of 3.47 billion euros is what's crossing. volkswagen expects deliveries to customers to remain on a level which we have seen to date with the previous year. persistently challenging market environment. it says revenue for the volkswagen group and it's business areas is expected to increase by up to 4% before the prior year. i might just bring nancy in at this point because you're also chasing these numbers and the initial commentary. the expectation is for 3.26 billion size loss. the numbers coming close. that's got to be positive for investors today. >> the operating loss does appear to be coming in line. we're still awaiting the net loss figure. we'll wait on that. revenue i think you said up about 4%.

that also appears to be on par. reuters is looking for revenue around 54 billion. we'll have to wait until the investor call on additional loss provisions. they set aside 6.5 billion euros. that was expected to make up a big contribution of the operating loss on the quarter. however that is good news given that the brand still continues to see strength in the portion audi segment but we will want to know exactly how the name sake volkswagen brand did. investors will be keen to zero in on that and when this call happens at 11:30 local time a lot of questions over that 6.5 billion loss provision. is it simply the recalls, how much the recall will cost and what they're also petitions for litigation changes as well. >> relating tohe diesel issue is again in the numbers today.

>> i just wonder, you mention the key questions for the call. are many of these going to be unanswered? everyone has those questions nagging us for the last couple of weeks or so. but by the time that the company has clarity we could be in 2016 or maybe even 2017. >> pending of course the outcome of the legal investigations. that's right. we have heard reports that the company is now postponing any further restructuring of the north american division until the legal investigations come through as well. that was another thing investors were hoping to get a better idea of today. how much this would effect north american sales and that was a market that was suffering before this scandal broke. another thing we'll have to be keeping an eye out for, the actual margins as well. volkswagen set out to try to keep margins within the 6% range. that will definitely be something moving the stock as investors hope to see whether or not the company can keep cost down. we know management said they

intend to reduce nonessential investment so we will look to see what that means when it comes to cutting back on investments. the company was in the midst of a multibillion euro cost cutting plan. so where do they go to get some of that when they don't want this to effect any jobs for the time being. >> in terms of margins they say before extra effects. before all the factors that have come to them as part of the diesel scandal, they still expect the margins for between 5.5 and 6.5% and for the car business between 6 and 7% so for now they haven't changed their margin outlook but once again that's a big disclaimer. >> before evaluating exactly what the toll will be. >> but as you said, good news on the surface of things that they have been able to maintain that thus far. >> porsche adjusting guidance on the back of this as well. it now sees it's 2015 profit after tax of 0.8 to 1.8 billion

euros. let's get some other news. gentlemen, do you want to weigh in on this? because the comment from the ceo is that they'll do everything in their power to win back the trust we have loss. do you still think there's question marks for investors around this company? >> i think so. it's about as horrible a reputational hit as you can really imagine for a car company. >> why isn't it showing up today? is it too early? is this a legacy issue that's going to be lurking for the company for the next 12 months. is that why we're not seeing a massive hit had the numbers today? >> we'll have to see how this effects the sale of volkswagen, diesel cars, aren't we? you know how the volkswagen brand itself has been tarnished relative to global competitors versus toyota. that's too early to be able to

assess. that would be my guess. >> the hit that happened because of this crisis? >> no, i agree. it's a branding issue at the end of the day. it's going to take time until we understand fully the impact of that. i mean, prior to this they were the largest auto producer globally. sales have been on the up trend. from an emerging markets perspective. auto sales overall have been robust. so it's an opportunity for some other automotive producers. >> 40% lower year to date is how the company has travelled on the stock market. so down 43% versus a 9% gain on the board of dax. what is considered a blue chip company there's a lot of pain worn on the stock on the back of this and you can see in the share price reaction today you've got a slow build and

perhaps investors are some what relieved that there's not more negativity coming through in the commentary today. >> that's a fair assessment karen and the stock price down about 37% since allegations broke but the other bit of good news is the company continues to be quite confident on china and before the diesel issue came to the forefront it was all about china and concerns the china market would be showing down. we heard the volkswagen brand ceo saying we don't expect this market to bottom out. so that's also a bit of a relief given that you don't have two factors that can promote a slow down in sales. more information could be needed and we could see the stock shift once we get the investor call. >> the sales tax cut helping the small car market for volkswagen and that's been a shield for the company. let's just push on because we have got more coming up from the broader sectors.

heineken in particular. >> it looks like heineken has brewed up a winning strategy as the company posted an 8% growth in consolidated quarterly revenue. heineken cited an increase in booze sales across europe and shares up by 3.7% this morning. a little bit of fizz behind the numbers. meantime, the u.k.'s competition watchdog approved the take over of mobile operator ee. it welcomes the cma decision on the 12.5 billion pound deal. shares in the company also responding quite nicely to that. up by 3.3%. now, let's move on to lloyds. let's see how the share price is doing. no surprise we're down by 4.4%. this is as lloyds reported a 28% jump in third quarter profit. however the banking group has been forced to set aside another 500 million pounds for its payment protection insurance saga. no good news. the total tally is at 13 billion

pounds for the ppi. as expected though, ab inbev and sab miller extended the deadline through the 4th of november. the brewers are seeking more time to raise shareholder support and financing as well as looking at potential regulatory issues. ab inbev off by 0.5%. it just keeps getting worse for statoil. a worse than expected adjusted profit. that prompted it to cut it's capex by $1 billion. the company assuring investors it's dividend policy outlook does remain in place though. but shares under pressure this morning. we're off by 2.5%. shell confirms it is to halt construction in western canada. the oil major says the project, quote, does not rank in it's portfolio at this point in time.

antofagasta cut it's outlook this year. the decrease was due to lower input prices and the weaker peso in the past quarter. off by 3% or so. i want to read this at barclays once again. let's see once again how the share price is doing. we're off by roughly 1%. barclays as you all know has appointed jess staley as the beginning of september. they have been tipped to take the top job and will be expected to reposition the lender with a focus on corporate and investment banking. he also re-signed from his board position in order to focus on the role over at barclays. karen. >> thank you very much. let's get back to our conversation with the ema analyst. we had a lot of tech earnings out overnight. some good. some bad. what do you make of the sector at this point? because it seems very mixed from the tech news. >> that's exactly right. it is mixed.

so the way we approach it is you need to be very selective about the types of companies that you're looking at. so when you look at nane, the larger players, overall numbers seem to be tapering off. growth not as strong. so we had good numbers out of apple. there's a company which we're particularly upbeat on. this is the third largest manufacturer of the credit card machines. e payment terminals and that's something relatively insulated from broader macro themes per say but it's an area growing very similar in business model but trades at cheaper valuations. >> we just had a conversation before about the realities a little bit easier than alibaba because they got the hong kong or the chinese investor on their side verses the u.s. investor who wants results now. >> yeah. i mean, it's a business model that often requires a lot of development spend up front which can depress the short-term

margins but you see the benefits of that down the line and it's done a stellar job of generating income for shareholders. so it's a company that we like. obviously a half a billion subscribers on their network and relatively low number of monetization so there's a number of different avenues in terms of driving ad revenue and games revenue and so on. >> how challenging a stock is that to hold given that we have been through august and september when china was the front and center worry for markets? that we might have a hard landing. growth rates were 7% and challenging. stock market might have been impacting the consumer. i could keep on going at this point. so it must have been a difficult name to hold during all of that. >> absolutely. you just have to hold your conviction and stick to that. it has been more volatile.

you have a valuation underpin. >> are you willing to hold names in the china region at this point? we keep hearing of endeavors to open up the market. investing brokerages that will be pouring money into the stock market as well. do you think it's time for investors to look at some of the beaten up valuations on these names and get back into the chinese space? >> it's a question of, you know, distinguishing between the longer term and the shorter term. obviously if you can take care of the short-term the long-term will take care of itself in a sense. but our take on china is within the very, very big picture you had an enormous growth of capacity. this was an economy investing 45% of gnp in new structures and equipment. that was coinsided with an enormous growth in every category of debt across the

thing and those episodes never ever ended well in the past and we wouldn't be prepared to make an exception for china. now, obviously within that big picture, just as with the crisis on going but it goes through periods of remission at right at the moment we would have thought that china is probably going through one of these periods of remission. >> remission is a good way to use when we're talking about emerging markets overall and it's been problems around the ruble and russia and demand story on the ground there. you're still not that bearish on the emerging markets when i look at your comments that this might still be a place where you can find some value. >> yeah. there are places where you can find value. we still genuinely believe that. you have to distinguish between the broader macro and the bottom up. i full lay agree that from a top down perspective a lot of the markets are quite shaky. particularly between brazil and

russia. >> people we speak to say it's expensive to take out policies against some of the emerging market currencies so you're not protected and you have more down side risk on currencies and all bets are off. >> sure. the currency would have taken care of most of that. so it's a huge factor in the investment process for sure but a lot of these markets are quite cheap so there is some valuation buffer that one has to factor in for currencies or find companies within emerging markets that's on naturally hedged currencies generate hard currency revenues, domestic currency costs. >> let's dive out of the conversation for a moment and get back to the earnings. they have updated guidance for the medium term. the chemicals producer is targeting a return on investment between 13 and 16.5% over the next two years. this after reporting a 39% jump in third quarter net profit. the ceo of the company in the studio. nice to have you back with us.

>> good morning. glad to be here. >> tell us about these numbers you're targeting because double digit is pretty good when you talk about returns. what are you seeing that makes it possible? >> three years ago we launched a clear strategy based on operational excellence making everything better in operation. organic growth and sustainability and we have shown clear progress in achieving the targets we define for 2015. we're on track to deliver those. we have been talking about the next steps and based on the foundation that we built with a component of organic growth. >> many analysts yesterday though said that your sales target for 9 to 11% is actually not that ambitious because you're actually within that field already. does that mean that for the economic backdrop that you're seeing in the operating environment you're a little more cautious? >> what we see in the markets is a clear change from several years ago. several years ago we saw significant growth as many of your previous guests indicated with lackluster developments in

the mature markets and that turned so we see clearly reduced growth over there and even contraction in some of those markets so we do see concerns we didn't see two years ago but the financial ranges we provided as a guidance are a clear improvement of what we have done so far. >> how tough is pricing at the moment? because we're still in this noninflationary and deflationary environment. is it possible to raise prices. >> we are a leading player in specialty chemicals and generally speaking in the area of paints and coatings you can maintain price levels where you have strengths in those markets. on the specialty chemical side you very often see there's more formula related pricing in the industry. >> just sort of within emerging markets particularly, sort of how you see trends there and sort of -- you said obviously developed has been growing

faster to emerging but are there particular areas in emerging markets where you still see some strength? >> we see significant slow down in china in the industrial markets we operate in and we even see contractions in areas such as russia and brazil effecting most of the neighbors in those areas as well. we don't see the recovery in europe that many had of course anticipated. we see the announcement or the feeling of an intended recovery but we don't see it in the business numbers yet. >> i'm curious about the paints market because you have a lot of runaway housing markets. even here in europe or around some of the further northern european countries as you have negative interest rates, free money being handed out almost in the states zero interest rate policy. is there a direct correlation between the housing markets and what you see in your paint sales? >> there's one between house rotations and the paint activity going on. we've seen increased activity primarily in the u.k. and the countries in scandinavia but we

have not seen the increased activity in countries such as france or eastern europe. >> give us a sense on acquisitions because you were such a busy acquirer for awhile now there and now the market thinks you might be looking at the opposite strategy. going in reverse and getting rid of the assets you don't need. is that the right call? >> what we said is we now changed the way we're working in the company. we have come out of a period of significant restructuring and we want to add a component of organic growth, innovation and potentially acquisitions to it and that will allow us to generate growth in the future. >> the picture that you paint for us this morning is one that's very cautious. you're seeing very diverging trends. we have no visibility on when that is going to end. so again this backdrop, is your company always going to be a company that's going to be in restructuring mode? that's what we have known

akzonobel for the last two or three years. can you rule out further cost cutting? >> we have been changing the way we operate our factories. the way we interact with with customers. at this point in time we have a new foundation. we have to earn our right to grow so let's make sure the foundation is right. >> restructuring will still be an on going story. >> it will be a part of every company's story. visibility has reduced. we want to have that built in flexibility to make sure that we can respond to changes in the market. >> just looking at your pe 15 times versus 17 for that of your yields. versus 3.6% in the broader sector. how important is the pay out ratio as you see it? are investors trying to get that cash pay out from you? >> we're very clearly focused on improving our cash flows in the

last number of years and the confidence we have made us decide to increase the interim dividend and we announced that last week. so yes of course investors are look for their returns and we have been able to provide that increase. in all the earnings it's been a challenge if you have tanking currencies it's hard to mitigate against that risk. what do you do and what's the conversation you have when you deal with many of the emerging markets? >> within the company we produce by and large in the areas where we sell. so it gives us an inherent natural hedge to the fluctuate of the currencies. but it does hurt where we have to import raw materials from other areas or where of course we actually cross export. but by and large it's a naturally hedged company. >> so you don't embark on market hedges though. >> we do hedge the cash flow

needs we may have but it's not a significant portion. >> you got enormous fluctuates and you could be missing out on a hedging policy. central banks have been volatile in what they're willing to do. >> it's something that we look at carefully but the natural hedge gives us an inherent protection on the profitability side so only the cross border transactions that we do we actually do hedge. >> i want to stick with currencies for a moment. the ecb signalled more support for the economy in december. does it matter to you as to whether the ecb ramps up qe again or when the fed hikes rates? >> what matters is the economic activity which is underlying reason why they would take such measures. if it results in an increase in activity in europe in our industries it would potentially benefit us as well. the currency impact is one we don't have to manage but our natural hedge protects us. >> always a pleasure speaking with you. thank you for your time. now hsbc is reportedly

moving it's derivative trading book to hong kong from london in response to rising costs on the back of tightening regulations. this is according to reuters. hsbc shares flat in this morning's trading session. i also want t t to shares are doing. british american tobacco with a 6.9% decline. the world's second largest cigarette producers with the failure to spark growth was due to currency fluctuation and a drop in smoking rates. that should be good news but not so much for this company. last but not least eni is off loading a portion of its stake in saipem. the oil group expects to net 5.4 billion euros from that sale and will use the proceeds to invest in it's own exploration projects. >> we're almost out of time but quick call on the middle east. you have been looking at the markets. >> very difficult at the moment. the oil price and the political

situation clearly generates a lot of negative headline risk but again on a medium to long-term view we see opportunities there. there's opportunities in the domestic names, health care, consumer discretionary areas. so valuations are still quite compelling. they're dollar asset assuming that they defend the peg which we think they will and a lot of these are quite high dividend players as well. >> how does investor kind of decide between these regions as an emerging market investor because as we were saying earlier it wasn't long agatha brazil was the country of tomorrow type of thing and now it's a basket case. >> we focus on stocks. we look at the best companies we can find and time this morning. our guest host staying with us this morning. coming up has draghi raised the question on his swedish counter part? the riskbank with comments next.

>> shares reving up in early

trade as the german car maker sticks to its deliveries guidance. >> investing in the future. barclays confirms jes staley as the new ceo. he'll help, quote, reposition the bank. >> the sun is up for heineken as warmer weather in europe and stronger sales in the americas help the brewing giant post better than expected revenue growth in the third quarter and bt, the biggest gainer in london as the u.k. competition watchdog gives the company the green light for its 12.5 billion pound takeover of mobile operator ee. >> the risk bank should be out with the interest rate decision.

they're changing hands at 9.38. but they don't expect the riksbank to move today. it's expected to stay at negative 0.35%. they're not expected to announce a new plan in terms of government bond purchases. the target is expected to remain at around 135 billion swedish crona because swedish inflation has been ticking higher of late and that's been one of the key drivers for easing of the past year or so. the growth of the labor market situations remain robust as well. the swedish central bank, the riksbank kept it's rate unchanged at negative 0.35% in line with expectations. but it has said it will purchase government bonds for further 65 billion swedish croana. so that is a little bit of a surprise given that we were expecting that target to remain unchanged. so they're increasing their bond

purchases by 65 billion swedish krona. the swedish central bank says to safe guard the robustness of the upturn in inflation they have considered it necessary to make monetary policy more expansionary. let's have a quick look at how the euro is trading against the swedish krona. >> that's on the move. >> it is. it's on the move quite a bit. who would have thought that the riksbank is expanding qe given that inflation is look better and as i said before this was one of the key criteria for moving in the first place earlier this year when they made that surprise announcement. >> that tells you something, doesn't it? and as much as central bankers are telling us they have room to further reverse rates into negative territory they're not willing to make much less at this point. >> no and they're considerable

uncertainty. inflation is showing a clear upward trend but you have to wonder what to extent this is just a reaction to what we're expected to see from the ecb because the ecb will likely be more dovish in the month of december. is this just a quid pro quo? >> yes, i think that's right. i don't think they're very reliant on what happens in the rest of euroland and they don't want a big move on the exchange rate against the euro. i think that's what is informing it but point on negative interest rates is that you can't get heavily negative banning cash and it's a politically and administratively pretty high hurdle to clear, isn't it? >> but there's a shackle here because the housing market has been breaking out in some of these countries and we spoke to them saying to us that politicians really have to move and remove some of the tax incentives for owning property because that hasn't been tackled

even though you have very cheap credit these days, there's nothing to stop people bulking up on these assets and creating a bubble. if you have them saying when they can derive income from more lending you know there's a problem because they're worried about bad loans and what that means to the profitability. >> absolutely. this is sweden's own little version of where so many other economies were in the run up to the financial crisis. if you keep your interest rates very low because inflation is very low and you won't stimulate activity but you know the consequence of that is very often a bubble economy of one type or another in the associated credit growth and you can't really steer for both of those -- by both of those at the same time. >> nick, thank you very much for that. the instant analysis is very good because it's one of those i think where you can see the impact of qe and free credit globally and what that's done for one economy. elsewhere on the earnings front it's been a big day. particularly for the auto sector

with volkswagen posting it's quarterly loss in 15 years on the back of at the missions cheating scandal. shares are trading higher as the number comes in line with expectations. they are also struck to the full year guidance. if i was looking at the overall sector, this is one of those opportunities where you can make inroads into market share and if volkswagen isn't seeing an impact on deliveries maybe come p -- competitors won't be eating into it's territory on the back of this scandal. >> there is this issue that several auto makers have this difficulty with meeting emission standards so we're looking at just overall renewed optimism in the auto sector but the key take away here, the reason we're seeing the stock up is that the operating losses did come in line with forecasts and also the guidance is crucial because they did say they expect units for the full year to come in line with the record we saw last year

of 10.14 billion units so that's helping investors at the moment but still we have to keep the focus on the investor call and we'll hear from this new vobceo because questions concerning what the company is doing to cut back on costs. whether or not there will have to be provisions but they plan to cut back on nonessential investments. several analyst investors want to know what that looks like given that the company was already taking on an ambitious cost cutting plan as it is and keep in mind when we look at sales for that unit it was already suffer a bit of a set back in the united states and people want more information on what the plan is for north america moving forward. >> what about the conference call later on today? how many answers can they actually deliver when it comes to litigation? when it comes to the future costs? >> well, you're absolutely right, carolyn. there will be undoubtedly some comments that we're still awaiting the investigation. that lawyers are going through exactly who knew what at the

company because of course that has great bearing on what the legal costs will eventually look like but one thing volkswagen could give more information on will be the details of the recall process because we heard in various comments already that recalls are expected to begin early next year. we're talking about 8 million cars effected just in europe. because there's the software fix but they're now saying there's also the hardware fix for some engines so people want to know what that will cost. >> what u.s. strategy when it seems to be on hold and when you look at the news flow that they plan to overhaul the management are they scared about appointing someone because they don't really know whose fingers were on this device. >> that's part of it. there's also been a lot of

criticism prior to this case and they're looking around moving around it entirely or bringing an outcider in they want to get to the bottom of the situation before that. >> thank you for that. the new ceo has brought forward today's earnings call so you can update her on the emissions scandal as she flies to china. she's among 20 or so as she plans to reinvigorate business ties with beijing. they called this an emergency meeting or emergency trip. why would they do that? >> just because of all the troubles you guys were talking about right now. a lot of people here in the chinese media have been describing merkel's visit here

as an emergency trip because of the problems at vw and the broader slow down that many of germany's car makers are seeing here. >> the car maker sees china as an important market. the country accounted for 2-thirds of vw's net profit in 2014 so you can get a sense of how important it is and at the same time seeing a slow down in sales this year up to september by about 5%. so already the direction is not necessarily positive and we're expecting the ceo to be accompanying her on her visit here. she's going to be traveling with 20 business executives in total and both of those companies are making announcements here just cementing ties and the importance of the relationship between germany and china.

>> thank you for that. now angela merkels trip comes out after an important motion for the german chancellor as she attempts to deal with the crisis in europe. her approval ratings are at a four year low. a lot of people say she has done the right things about being so welcoming to many of the rev you sees but clearly many of her colleagues don't agree with that. should she step down? will she step down as a result of this? >> we're a long way from that. merkel's visit is important because of all the countries in europe. germany is the most exposed. we had the big visit last week with the pomp and circumstance here in the u.k. she needs to keep the german

economy strong and it was only a few weeks ago she was pictured on the cover as mother teresa. >> yes, she wants to run for that fourth term but she simply doesn't have the support. do you think she may not get the chance to run for the fourth term. >> listen, whenever we're faced with these situations where you have a leader with declining approval ratings and compounded by economic slow down risks everybody starts asking these questions but what you have to ask yourself is is there a compelling alternative to merkel and at the moment there isn't and she has steered it to these

three terms. who is going to fill her shoes. we have written about this extensively. the refugee crisis poses a political risk. >> she is also forced to make major compromises. a lot of the german media are writing about the dirty deal with the turkish. is she under a lot of pressure as she needs them to deal with the refugee crisis because that is the first border for many of the refugees coming from syria and iraq for example. is she giving up too much now? >> reviving those ties in my view would be a plus. it's really stagnated the last

several years. >> most people have been running in the opposite direction for the european crisis. >> we have to remember how fluid these dynamics are. the political risks are significant but suddenly grexit starts to look more risky when greece is the main industry point for refugees to have a country like greece that wouldn't be part of it starts to look more risky. >> looks easier. >> i find it hard to believe that merkel's political future would come unstuck because of the migrant crisis. it was her leadership welcomed by the german public. >> i'd be very interested. i know you have written extensively about this. could you just tell whaus the kind of corners of the debate

around merkel and germany's role in europe and how that's effected by the refugee crisis? there's a lot of kind of nazi-type talk and then stuff about this is this kind of german slave labor strategy to import all of these refugees. obviously it's extremely farfetched but what are the corners of the debate in terms of germany's role in europe and how that's effected by the refugee question. >> well, there's the domestic debate which differs from the commentary debate. at its core the european union is the project. at the same time she has to maintain domestic support. the refugee crisis to me brings together so many of the issues

that have been underlying structural risks for europe. they arguably have the most to benefit. of course imfwramigration can b driver of growth. at the same time, what's clear is that it is deeply unpopular with the public. now let's not forget that merkel also saw a boost to her support when she took that leadership position and always what people have and voters have. bailouts are very unpop you tar as well with the german public but they keep getting approved. right? so. >> we're going to go for a quick break but still coming up in the show, with retired neurosurgeon ben carson surging in the iowa polls and donald trump still in the lead nationally there's a

lot of stake in the cnbc republican debate. we preview the big event. that's coming up next.

welcome back. the third republican primary debate gets underway tonight when the top ten candidates face-off at the university of colorado and multiple polls now have ben carson leading among likely iowa republican voters. the latest cbs new york times polls shows the retired neurologist with a four point lead on donald trump. no other candidates are even polling in double digits. support for carson has kw quadrupled since august. so that is a lot of tail wind for mr. carson there.

>> >> absolutely and you can see the final preparations here. also the main stage where the debate will take place later today. all eyes will be on donald trump and ben carson, the two front runners especially after the national poll for the first time in months did show that carson is edging ahead of trump both of them political navises. carson is moving ahead. the debate will focus on the economy. questions will include issues about taxes. about the federal deficit. the three political outciders, trump, carson and carly fiorina are expected to talk about their private sector experience and how that makes them better qualified to deal with the economy and run the country but all the other candidates are either in office and held office

and will argue their experience in government and handling budgets and dealing with legislators will make them the best candidates. all are trying to distinguish themselves among a very crowded field. you mention the ten that polled the highest in recent months will be in the main debate. there will also be a debate earlier with the second tier candidates. much anticipation about the debate this evening which could help define this race. >> thank you very much for that. staying with us, chief global political analyst who has been our guest host. i want to pick up on the lead candidate. the candidate carson is seen as a man that prays quite frequently. don't forget in the previous republican debate we had last time mitt romney had to explain to a lot of people what a mormon was and why they should vote for him.

is religion going to play a part in this debate? >> i'm also thinking about the fact that a remarkable number of americans think that president obama say muslim. so i think that perception plays a role in voter perception but as you know i'm very wary of getting too wrapped up in any candidate at this point. at this stage of the race polls are off by 8% in the final count. so this is, you know, still a very fluid -- >> a couple of things here, personality traits because you're voting for a president but also the amount of money thrown at the campaign. who stands out on those two metrics. >> well at the risk of being a little bit contradictory. think about steve forbes and ross paroe. they had all the money in the world to spend on their campaign. u.s. presidential campaigns are

the most expensive to run in the world and yet money alone doesn't buy you the presidency. >> should we even worry about -- >> money will follow a successful candidate that's looking good anyway. >> we have 19 republican candidates. we're now down to a couple or fewer than that. i don't even think that the line-up that we see tonight is going to be where we are as we get closer to the nominations. >> exactly on that point, just how fickle are u.s. american voters because what we're seeing is that 7 out of 10 say it's too early to say whether they're actually going to stick with the candidate that they have indicated in the polls. it's wide open, isn't it? >> fickle, you know, people we have a year to go and american voters, you know, we talk a lot about risk, what you see in the u.s. is more voters registering as independent and part of what they say drives them to do that is exactly that holding out.

i'm going to choose the candidate that, after carefully weighing is the one that suits me. now in actual fact independents tend to vote very consistently for the same party. >> you must have been fascinated by the tea party that rose up in recent years and republican party and this time around you have to see whether the conservatives carry sway here or whether the candidate gets up and running here. how do you think it's going to play out? if you look at the divisions between major issue of taxization to immigration, gun control, same sex marriage, there's a lot of big ticket items for conservatives to get tied up in. >> one of the things i have been thinking about is i write my year end pieces is whether these terms mean anything, conservative, socially perhaps, economic. a lot of trumps policies are fairly left wing. so populist can be sort of -- i

see a lot of politics. you wouldn't expect to see very well developed policy proposals. huckabee has a policy on tax. but it is xfactor reality tv show. >> it's going to be a very entertaining tv show. even if it's not anything like x-factor. to what extent does mr. trump feel like he needs to up the game today. maybe even be more belligerent in his commentary and be more aggressive. he slipped a little bit in the polls. do you think he will amp up his rhetoric today? >> well, if past is prologue then probably yes. he does tend to get defensive when he is not in front. when he is not in poll position. he has slipped. i do think we should remember that the carson, the polls showing carson is ahead is just one. but i think you need to watch

rubio, kasich and the others. you mention how the republican primary process works. it tends to shred the candidates in it's wake and do a lot of the dirty work for the democrats in that respect. >> what tone can people take? bush and rubio have to use this debate to get the economic message across on employment and jobs. but what would the tone be that would connect with the public at this point several years on from the financial crisis? >> well, nuisance does not appear to be the wait to win, right? nuisanced policy positions are not where it's at. what's interested me looking at the kind of numbers underneath the horse race polling is how american voters of both parties to the tune of 65% say they want a voter that agrees with their views and this is the echo chamber factor. not the smartest or the most capable, right? that's less interesting. >> i'm just looking at some

comments coming from the norway oil fund. they have actually lost 4.9% on their investments in the third quarter or an equivalent of 273 billion norwegian krona. third quarter fixed income investments are up slightly. the real estate investments are up some 3%. the total value of the fund at the end of september, so at roughly 7 trillion norwegian krona so a tough environment for the equity investments. >> that's the case globally. so help us out with this as we come up to year end. where do you want to be investing right now? >> we'll still be in this environment where we have low interest rates. the risk has shifted. the idea of the middle ground would be a muddle through with a normalization of interest rates as one risk and this sort so

china deflation slump as the other risk. i do think we have shifted ground here the normalization of policy has been evacuated at this point even by the feds kind of thing. >> thank you for helping us. thank you for joining us. chief global political analyst at citi. we're hours out from the big debate of course. cnbc will be hosting that live from boulder, colorado. stay tuned for that. i'll see you tomorrow.

good wednesday morning everybody. welcome to worldwide exchange. i'm susan lee. >> i'm wilfred frost. here are your headlines around the world. >> it's all about the tech earnings and not all about the beat though. apple and twitter sink on weak guidance while iphone and ipad shares meet estimates. >> jes staley is unveiled as the new ceo in a you turn away from retail banking focus. >> volkswagen reports the first quarterlss