>> welcome you're watching worldwide exchange. >> these are your headlines from around the world. >> european stocks following the u.s. hire at the biggest volume day in three months as investors position themselves ahead of the fed. >> the auto sector leads the way as sales accelerate 14% in november. vw loses out to gm as it pays the price for the scandal. >> shares plunging 40% after the british software company calls off the takeover deal.

>> u.s. regulators open investigations into junk bond liquidation on rumors some investors knew what was coming. >> good morning, everyone. we are looking at markets that are higher. ftse 100 up by 1.4%. rebounding after yesterday's losses. the cac 40 also up by 2%. we're seeing a little bit of stabilization in oil prices but also a little bit of company specific news. also i want to show you what's going on with the euro dollar because we're seeing the euro dollar at a 7 week high. 11030 crucially above the 110 handle and that's because we're seeing profit taking and the dollar. i guess the dollar is really priced for perfection. for the first time in a decade. u.s. futures looking like this.

we're expecting a higher start to the trading session. s&p 500 seen up by roughly 10 points and the nasdaq up by 28. nancy. >> yeah, we have to keep this rebound we saw in wall street in perspective. it was the biggest volume day in almost three months with 4.6 billion shares traded on the new york stock exchange as investors position themselves ahead of one of the biggest market events of the year. the countdown is underway as we enter day one of the fomc meeting. now steve has exclusive results in the fed survey of some of the nation's top economists, market strategists and money managers. >> a new federal market committee next year. is it more hawkish or dovish than the current one. we ask members of our fed survey. the response is to grade all the members of the fomc on the scale of 0 most dovish to 10 most hawkish. here is the center.

stan fisher the vice chair. they all come in as you move this way you get jon williams and powell on the board of governors. janet yellen t chair of the fomc comes in at 3.7 and then the most dovish member, charlie evans the chicago fed president and got to come all the way over here. and when you look at it you can see the board skews this way and here's the new board that comes in over here. jeff lacker goes away. come in in the center lockhart and williams goes away and charlie evans goes away. bottom line is it is an fomc that skews more hawkish. the index value was 4.3 and goes up to 4.7. still on the dovish side of the

50 line but it's a more hawkish fed that may be more inclined to raise rates next year. >> i wonder if it's telling that the u.s. dollar is at a 7 week low against the euro. i know it's a lot of positions being unwound ahead of the fed. a lot of people said the dollar was going to suffer going into the fed meeting. it was priced for perfection. 76% of the market believes we'll be seeing the first fed hike in a decade tomorrow. >> that's right. that's so much the focus on not are we going to get the lift off but investors are quite cauti s cautious. and the upside we'll see in the green back here but it's interesting. some analysts suggest there's still room for surprise but now we're talking about fomc. >> absolutely and other people argue that maybe the fed is really only going to hike interest rates to be able to cut

them again next year. it wouldn't be the first central bank to be forced to do that. for example we saw the riggs bank starting to do that. even though they didn't do it quite so willingly but it happened before and if we continue to see that earnings per session and oil prices under pressure and also putting pressure on headline inflation maybe that's something that the fed will have to consider as well. >> and oil you mentioned being real well. we'll expect to see that as well. >> do you think the fed should be hiking interest rates when crude is at $35 barrel. >> it's a matter of get it done and get out of the way and get some confidence. >> that's true. if they don't hike tomorrow the market would be panicy because they're like okay what does the fed know? >> we don't know. moving on the state of massachusetts has opened an investigation into third

avenue's unprecedented decision to block investor decisions after it's junk bond fund was liquidated last week. william galvin will appear on power lunch later today. in a statement he said average investors do not expect to be cutoff from trading in an open-end investment company. they also revealed third avenue's actions according to sources cited by the wall street journal. >> meanwhile another victim of the junk bond jitters, a $900 million high yield credit fund liquidated the entire holdings and plans to return that capital to investors. meantime goldman sachs is warning of contagion risk. it's the most exposed with 30% of its fixed income assets and high yield and emerging market bonds but it thinks black rock and affiliated groups have been oversold. head to cnbc.com to read more on the on going story. a lot of fear going into that

fed decision tomorrow. >> investors are asking if the woes at 3rd avenue signal a watershed moment for the high yield debt cycle. take a closer look. >> the corporate bond market is getting more attention than normal. it's high yield debt otherwise known as junk bonds. according today at a from bank of america, merrill inch it's lost it's value year to date. that compares to the more credit worthy investment rate bond. now many traders and investors are focused on one of the big exchange traded funds, etfs that tracks the junk bond market. this is the high yield corporate bond etf. the ticker is hyg. it's the biggest fund of its kind in the u.s. market and it has around $15 billion in net assets. it had a record trading volume amount last week with it's biggest trading day ever just on last friday alone.

according to black rock which manages the fund, around $9.8 billion occurred last week. 4.3 billion of that was just on friday. but the trading activity didn't result in massive sales of underlying bond assets for the net redemptions from the fund. black rock says that only net $560 million of redemptions came as a result of the heavy trading. as for the types of bonds that make up the fund, energy plays 11% of the total portfolio but it's not the biggest part. around half the funds assets are communications, and those types of stocks. so as the story continues to develop and high yield debt junk bond markets, if you will, the extreme trader funds in the space will going to continue to garner a lot of attention because these funds are a way a lot of investors get exposure to junk bonds instead of buying the individual bonds themselves. back to you guys.

>> european credit strategist at jp morgan joins us now. how does european high yield hold out? >> we saw very small outloflows and that's a very similar trend to what we saw in the first quarter where we saw four consecutive weeks of in blows into high yield. so we have seen it in between europe and the u.s. >> are there many high yield funds here in europe that have assets very low in liquidity and low rated.

>> it's about 70 billion euros in assets and most of that is daily liquidity or at least very short-term liquidity. that's something that investors have been mindful of and if you look and speak to investors what they have been doing is moving away from credit markets and taking more positions through liquid products whether it's indices or holding levels of cash. so liquidity is on the mind of investors. >> and one would be the emerging market debt. how concerned are you about further withdrawals? >> well, the em space is only very small percentage of the market that i look at on the european high yield side. it makes up about 7 or 8% of the european high yield market but very concentrated names so we're quite concerned about emerging markets and emerging market growth more broadly. that's going to be the source of volatility for next year. >> when you look at the likes of third avenue being so focused on energy, how much is related to

the drop off in commodities when it comes to the high yield focus in that sector? >> when you look at the u.s. high yield market over 20% is commodity related and although the rest of that t remaining 8% of the market has been fairly week this year t returns minus 5% returns and the very rapid spread has been concentrated in those commodity sectors so you exclude those sectors from the calculations and the high yield market is more or less flat in the u.s. not a great return but not as bad as the headlines would have you believe. >> on the one hand you say that further easing by the ecb is supportive and on the other hand the global concerns coming from the emerging markets and the u.s. high yield sectors. and are we going to be seeing further tightening. >> that's what we saw in our 2016 published a month ago and europe is in a good place with growth returning, easy policy,

low default rates but the global head winds, emerging market growth, u.s. business cycle, u.s. rate uncertainty, we think in the end those are going to dominate. so we do think spreads in europe and high yields will be wider a year from now but returns overall will be positive in the order of 2 or 2.5%. so lower but positive. >> what's the default rate in europe? >> 1.5% now. >> that's way below the historical average? >> it is. the average is 3.5 to 4% through the cycle. default rates tend to be low through 90% of the credit cycle. >> thank you for your time. really appreciate it. european credit strategist at jp morgan. okay we're going to go for a quick break but still to come on the show, auto stocks on a roll. the latest european car sales data and the break down of the best and worst performing auto brands. that's coming up after the short break. don't go away. the flu virus.

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wti crude fell below 35

first time since 2009 and this is the chart for the last seven days. wow, what a decline. in part this is about the disastrous opec meeting and a fairly warm winter so far. so not a lot of demand for that. shares in british engineering software company aveva are trading lower after it terminated a deal with schneider electric. >> let's get out to stefen in paris. why did they call it off? >> it's what they said in a statement this morning. the two companies decided to terminate the deal because of significant challenges that could not be overcome without considerable cost and risk and this was due to july.

550 million pounds. to date a 53.5% stake in aviva. and that explains why the market is this morning. we're up 35% on aveva shares. it's the 2nd worst day ever up 0.5%. >> thank you. shares in dialogue are trading lower in frankfurt after the german chip maker cut it's sales guidance due to softer demand in it's unit. they used mobile phones including apple's iphone. the company is trying to buy

u.s. rival for over $4.5 billion shares. off by 8.3%. >> the recovery in the european auto market remains on track. car sales rose 13.7% in november with u.s. brands reporting their strongest performance. but vw lost market share as it continues to suffer from the emissions scandal. george, thank you for joining us. the results all in all for europe across the board are strong. 27th consecutive month in growth. you have to dig into the vw results here. they're losing market share but it's positive they did manage to get a bit of an increase. >> that's right. so volkswagen shares grew by 3 to 4%. >> but we're looking at the market share prethe diesel crisis. what's interesting there is its

12.2% january through september and 12.2% in november. the brand has the same market share. the year on year share declines as part of the more broader trend we have seen over a longer period of time. >> some what extending a trend already in place but still when you look at their mass market, the likes of fiat, double digit percentage does that suggest that volkswagen will have to engage in the price war. >> that remains to be seen. historically they've had a pricing margin and we expect they'll look to maintain that. we think with diminishing headlines around the diesel scandal the company has con fireworks tense in it's product and will regain share at the moment vw is still losing market share. is it ford for example doing

well or is it the french ones? is it too early to say? >> i think with ford we saw a strong month, sales growth above 20% in europe in november but that was against a weak month in november. it looks like they're dmw and diamler. we also have a comparison to the vw product. >> the european auto market has everything going for it. low oil prices and low interest rates. a really robust cycle of new model launches. very strong economy. what could trip up the european auto market the most? is it a hike in interest rates? is it oil prices? what do you think? >> we're quite bullish on the market and this year we'll go through 14 million units for the first time since 2009 so we're still actually at a very low

level. we don't see any shots on the horizon. we're really talking about a very small difference in the monthly payment, maybe 20 or 30 euros. probably not something that's going to have a huge impact on volume. >> and of course the u.s. has been extremely strong growth. >> and i think that's a view we saw running above 18 million. people saying where's the next leg up but we can hold it around the 18 million year level through 2016. yes rate increases are likely to have pressure on financing contracts but again we need to remember we're still at a very low level in absolute terms versus where rates were in the last cycle. >> one that you repeatedly talked about is the rise of uber

and that could keep many of the first time buyers from purchasing their first car. is that a real threat or more talk than anything else. >> at the molt it's around discussions but one of the things that we have been looking at is demystifying the millennial myths and many things happen later in life for young people today whether it's household formation, marriage, having children, moving to the suburbs and all of this means that the day when you come to buy a car may now be when you're in your mid 30s rather than your early 20s. >> they may never want to move to the suburbs as well. >> true. >> thank you for that. auto analyst. >> and speaking of uber, uber and lyft drivers score a victory. seattle voted 8-0 to allow them

to have the right to unionize and bargain over issues such as pay and working conditions. however the mayor says while he supports the deal he won't sign the deal under concerns of cost and administration burdens. >> h&m missed sales expectations for november and the 4th quarter. they blamed unseasonably mild weather across much of europe. u.s. luxury retailer with the first drop in same store sales in six years. the strong dollar hurts traffic by international tourists at stores in south florida, new york, las vegas and other key markets. it also suffered a black eye when the website crashed on black friday. >> online furniture retailer one kings lane is to lay off 25% of its staff. this is the second time in 18 months the company has attempted

to cut costs falling slowing revenue. >> canadian retailer hudson's bay company is in advanced talks to snap up guilt groupe according to several media reports. a deal may be priced at around $250 million. a sharp fall from the $1 billion valuation secured over three years ago. the deal is not yet finalized and they're set to be considering conversations with other potential bidders. this is just the latest evidence we've seen of private company with valuations above billion dollars of so-called unicorns now either going public or in this case with a buyout with much lower valuation and you have to wonder when you look at the private investors here whether their appetite to chase these billion dollar valuations have waning. >> you would think so. the big one is uber. can uber with a $60 billion or $70 billion market cap in the

private market, can they match that in the public market? only as we see the likes of the really big unicorns like the ubers coming to the market we'll see whether these valuations hold up but it's a telling sign that some of these smaller companies or private companies can't match that in the market but i'm still wondering whether this is an industrial related issue or whether this is really just about valuations because this is a company that's operating in a retail space and retail has been incredibly tough for any company operating in that space. i mean guilt for example they would be management changes. they had to let go of dozens of people earlier this year. is it a company specific issue or really valuation. >> it's a crowded field. whether it's in payment services or another one where people are looking for buyouts because they don't want to go to the markets

and that's in the wearable space as well. but it's interesting trying to follow and i think so much speculation about uber and airbnb moving toward an ipo but i'm not sure if they need it at this stage. >> well, i wouldn't do it. why would you want to go to the public markets if you can fetch that valuation in the private markets and continue to invest those proceeds into growing the business. wasn't it the head of google ventures that complained about this trend of private companies not going to the public markets and delaying it for too long and not giving us the good price discovery. that was quite telling. >> had the liquidity. >> okay. still to come on the show, is donald trump in the most astonishing shape of any presidential candidate ever? that's what his doctor is claiming at least. more on donald trump's medical history after this short break. don't want to miss it.

european stocks follow the u.s. higher as investors position themselves ahead of the fed. >> the auto sector leads the race as sales accelerate nearly 14% in november but vw loses out to american rivals ford and gm as it pays the price for the

diesel scandal. >> badly engineered, shares plunging more than 30% after the british software company call off their take over deal. >> and u.s. regulators open investigations into third avenue's junk bond liquidation on rumors some investors knew what was coming. >> let's get straight to u.k. data. moving out to the u.k. but that was widely expected. i'm also looking for the core cpi number because that should be interesting because it strips out the effect of the plunging oil prices. so core cpi for november was 0.0% on the month of plus 1.2% on the year and that seems to be in line with expectations. so edging back above 0 in the

month of november. 151.62. a little bit of a rise but these numbers are in line with expectations. let's bring in the fund manager at glg. you're focussing on core cpi too. it shouldn't disappoint us and as you look at the cpi, it's not you anemic but to have them work in tandem is quite unique and these are base effects we're going to use and also to some extend we need to discuss is it appropriate that mark carney is the real time data dependent governor of the bank of england because it's clear to us that at a point and time they are quite pow

powerful so you think the boe should be more hawkish than they currently are. >> i do very definitely think the notion is an awful waundone it may be difficult for oil and if the oil price became $60 from a starting point to $40 close to impossible and then with regards to the soft commodity bonds we've seen soft commodities down 10 and i really hope it isn't proven to be into the food war. that would be a great, great shame and they're waiting to find out what the fed does. is that your expectation and if

so how does that play out in the picture here. >> absolutely lift off tomorrow. we now have a situation where deposits outline loans. and maybe raising rates is a progress and very loan based so i don't think we should be incredibly fearful. absolutely we need to reset the value of money because there's so many industries and this is what we're seeing for example. >> speaking of the oil sector, it was the second worst week of the year. ftse was down 4.5% and there's so many concerns about some of the oil companies. the bigger ones about their dividends and smaller ones about potential cash calls. one of the research houses out there says 2016 could be the

year of the cash calls for many of the smaller companies. do you think those fears are overdone as oil prices should stabilize? >> i would say very systemic. now clearly it's going to be interesting to see what investors do and very clearly they further their portfolios. now what do investors do? that's the one thing is the bond market environment versus what is clearly an unbelievably denine bond around this table in regards to what we pay when it

comes to our example. so overwhelmingly there's a very big credit and we just have to navigate quite how bad investors perceive the bond threat to be and that could have shockwaves. >> are you concerned that it could exacerbate the problem? >> i despise the notion. and people's ambition is not to try and i think they got what's coming for me. now our proliferation of retail investors that potentially don't know what they might be earning. that is a concern to me definitely and that's an kps problem. if they were talking about the big systemic risk in high yield

and the path is a pretty strong one. >> henry stay with us. >> sweden's central bank opted nout to push it's main lending rate deeper into that territory. it's said to hold the rate at minus 0.35%. the latest announcement which saw it weaken against the euro eased pressure on central banks to ease policy further. let's get a check on how european markets are fairing at this hour. we did see a rebound in the early hours holding those gains. ftse 100 up almost 2%. this despite on going volatility in commodity markets. xetra dax up 2.4% and the ftse mib up 2.4%. let's get a check on the commodities. huge swings down as much as 5% and recovery closing up higher by more than 1% there.

wti crude at 36.50 so above the $36 a level there. brent crude also higher by nearly 1%. now spot gold, notice it's barely in negative territory but raising concerns ahead of the first, what we expect to be the first fed rate hike coming tomorrow. they raised issues around this. they see gold at 955 by the end of 2016 and they think gold will continue to see fall out from the future fed rate hikes. >> republican front runner donald trump has released a letter from his doctor claiming the candidate's health is astonishingly excellent. if elected mr. trump i can state unequivocally will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. the presidential hopeful released an accompanying statement high heighting how impressed people are by his stamina. the letter questioned his unhealthy diet and refusal to release a medical report.

>> we'll have to see if that comes into the debate tonight because it is the 5th republican debate taking place this evening. the top nine polling candidates will square off on the main stage in las vegas. tracie potts is in washington with more details. it's just about six weeks until we get to iowa. how crucial is this debate tonight, especially for those trailing behind the front runners here. >> so it's important for donald trump because he is still the national front runner. our latheest poll gives him 41%. but he has someone right on his heels. that is ted cruz. ted cruz tonight could have a big night. he's seeing his numbers grow. he's seeing some number one polls in iowa and he and donald trump have sort of taken the gloves off and they're going after each other. so we could see more of that tonight. cruz has done very well. the conservatives and he has been hyperfocused on iowa.

he's focussing on the first state to come up and then marco rubio, he had a rally last night. rubio could stand to gain. he has been a fairly solid number three in a lot of the national polls that we have seen and he's focussing on the number one and the number two so those three seem to be a fairly solid top three to watch. of course the line-up is donald trump center stage. nine people there. we'll see ben carson, dr. ben carson who still when you average all the national polls has strong numbers although he has been slipping badly in our polls. but he will be on stage tonight along with cruz flanking donald trump and chris christie who is back on the main stage and rand paul who got in at the last

minute. >> and what do we know about the actual content of the debate? because it's also the first main debate we've seen since the san bernardino incident. do you expect a heightened focus on national security and terrorism as well. >> if it doesn't come out in the questions it will probably come out in the answers and it's a good point that you bring up because typically we see with the public now what we're seeing in the polls is that the public is much more focused on national security since san bernardino. since paris. so yes, we are likely to see much more of that because what these candidates want to do is show themselves presidential. they want to be able to show the republican base and their supporters that in a crisis like this, i'm the person that you want in the oval office. i'm the person that you want to trust. so absolutely look for more of that. >> all right. thank you, tracy. we'll be up late here in london watching that debate. >> let's see how healthy donald trump really is. whether he'll be jumping on

stage or that sort of thing. >> now expectations are so high we want to see howell he can do. >> and do voters really care? is that the concern at the moment? >> probably not. it's terrorism over donald trump's health. >> i'd like to thank so. >> okay. toshiba is considering slashing several thousand jobs as the company aims to restructure it's consumer electronics businesses. >> yes, toshiba is looking to cut 7,000 jobs in the wake of its accounting scandal. nikkei reported today that the job cuts will be in it's long suffering life style segment which includes appliances and other consumer products. it was left untouched despite being the worst performing division and it accounts for roughly a fifth of group sales but sales were down around 10% for the last physical year and booked an operating loss of over

$900 million. operations will be reduced at one of the factories in tokyo which is also the rnd senor for televisions and personal computers. it might shift toward a brand licensing model for its tv business overseas. the restructuring efforts began in earnest under new management put in place following the accounting scandal. and the final plan is to be announced later this month but the company intends to focus it's resources on generation equipment and the latest commercial air conditioning and other steadier performing infrastructure related businesses. that's all from the nikkei. back to you. >> thank you so much for that. >> well, still to come on the show, it's time for lift off and no, we're not talking about the fed for a change. we report on the latest mission to the international space station which is due to blast off in just around an hour's time. >> and one of the iconic house members of star wars, the force awakens has a special message

for cnbc. take a listen. >> to all the viewers of cnbc i have an important message from a galaxy far, far away, may the force be you, always.

henry dixon is still with us. let's talk about sectors in the u.k. you clearly don't like energy but you like house builders for example, bank of america recently upgraded their house builders. they see more margin upside. why would you agree with them? >> for me the sectors always i do have a huge affinity to the sectors that got themselves into trouble in the last crisis. the human overlay is they're so determined not to heed the mistakes of the past. they're very disciplined and tend to go into this with a lot less leverage. so they have significantly less leverage. specifically with house builders. it's a unique environment we find ourselves in with regards to the cost of sale. the land is something that is falling where as their selling price is rising and you can pick up i would say probably one of

the best operators here on 8 to 9 times earning next year and that's still for us a story that's done well but still an area investors should be looking at. >> and how dependent is this area on the governor's support. we did hear more support for home builders. do you expect the trend to continue and if not, what would that mean for your investment outlook? >> i do. because there's a frustrating event in the housing market that everyone could afford the mortgage and they want to invest that. the governor has clearly been a conservative thing to do is increase home ownership because that's how you win elections. >> what about banks? the recent stress test revealed the u.k. banks are in a healthy

state and some of them, standard chartered for example addressed certain short falls. are we really out of the crisis scenario? >> i think reading mark carney's transcript he is clear there's no longer a problem within our banking system and i think they're fine. it's been really interesting to look at and particularly good catalyst for these banks will be a rate rise and it's now very significant. >> on that note are european banks said to be facing a low rate environment as compared to their u.s. rivals. >> the cross board evaluation is why european banks have a

premium value and i cannot understand. it is a cross board evaluation and i think it's something that investors should arbitrage out. >> your best self-help story in the u.s. >> i think an environment of low growth do look to those companies of recently done deals. i think the threshold is incredibly high. so i would highlight aveva where there's a lot more to come out of that transaction. moving to the 250, i think it's anything to go by and have done a fascinating deal and they may be moving to the small cap ar a arena. it's very interesting and those shares is comfortably below 10. balance sheets are strong and i think there's more good news to come in the form of synergies ahead of expectations. >> thank you for that. fund manager at glg.

>> and aggreko is reported to have withdrawn it's tender to provide power generators for the rio 2016 games. they have not yet commented on why it was out of the energy context. given that the brazilian economy remains stuck in a deep recession. >> amgen is requiring the distribution rights to three drugs from glasco smith kline. they brought in 100 $11 million in combined revenue in 2014. they have acquired the sales rights for the drugs as part of a strategy to improve it's international sales infrastructure. >> it's been a sleepy year for ipos. down 2% from last year's record breaking activity and in no sectors is it more evident than tech. josh lipton filed this report. >> only 28 technology companies entered the u.s. public markets this year and that's compared to 62 last year and 48 the year

before. some of those tech companies that did make a public debut haven't exactly wowed investors. it's barely over it's ipo price of $17. box has been another disappointment. they're down some 7% from the january ipo price of $14. still, box tells us that going public was the right decision and he encourages other start ups to do the same. >> i think if you wait too long you don't necessarily build the right kind of operations. you don't really set yourself up for building a long-term durable public company. you operate on a differ rhythm and with a different type of mind set. >> as we role into 2016 will there be a pick up into tech ipos? they expect there will be.

it's a company that could bet pushed into the public market because private markets may not be as receptive to future financing rounds given the lofty valuation. one big reason for the hack of ipos, capital is readily available. start ups raised more than $47 billion in the first three quarters of this year according to the national venture capital association. but vc's say his colleagues might not be as eager to keep pumping money into start ups if these private companies don't go public and start showing their investors actual cash returns. for cnbc, i'm josh lipton in san francisco. >> all right. the stars came from near and far away monday night for one of the most anticipated hollywood premieres in recent memories. star wars the force awakens held the world debut in los angeles and super fans turn out in force along with an army of storm

troopers and a few special robots you may recognize. cnbc was able to catch up with a few of the people new and old that helped make the film and what the star wars legacy means to them. >> it was like coming back to star wars which is pretty bizarre but kind of great and i was delighted to be back. >> it feels really amazing and like the fact that it's touched so many people blows my mind and the fact that it will continue to is just the best. >> i'm hopeful that people will feel the way i do about the performances in the movie and the work the whole crew has done but i also know that he's right, there is no way to really live up to certain projections and, you know, this better be the best film of all time kind of thing. we're working really hard to make a good movie for you and i hope people like it but certainly i'm aware there's a level of expectation impossible to meet. >> i knew there was global interest in star wars movies.

hadn't been a film out in ten years. hasn't been released in certain parts of the world. so while we had strong instincts about level of interest and what it might do we had no idea and i'll say to you in all honesty standing here tonight, interest in this film worldwide has exceeded those expectations by a lot. >> it might sound odd to the viewers there but neither of us have actually seen any of the star wars movies. we're totally behind the curve. >> this weekend we'll have to do a marathon spree just to get caught up. >> do you start with the old ones or the new ones. >> from the very beginning. >> that's a long weekend. >> clear the schedule. >> roughly $200 million in sales. that's the ballpark figure that analysts are expecting and that would be a pretty good one. i don't know if that would actually break the records but we had one analyst on the show yesterday that said this movie doesn't need to break the records. it will be epic either way. >> even for those that don't go

to see the film from a sheer marketing perspective disney is pulling out all the stops here. >> the toys are doing well i hear. >> i'm sure it will be a hot one for christmas. that's for sure. from the red carpet space world he will become the first britain to serve as an astronaut on the international space station when it blasts off in just over an hour's time. the 43-year-old ex-army major will serve along side a russian and american for the next six months. joining us now is simon foster, space scientist at imperial college. it's a pleasure to have you here. a lot of hype here in the u.k. about major tim peake going to the international space station. can you tell us what the scientists hope to accomplish with this mission? >> well, there's lots of different experiments taking part. one of the ones i'm really excited about is they're going to be using human guinea pig and

lung capacity and how he copes in space. using him as a test subject should we one day go back to the moon and colonize it and they're going to start using astronauts as human guinea pigs to see how their lungs cope in space and also looking at different drugs that they can create that only kind of grow in microgravity on the space station and looking at different materials that could be used back down here on earth. >> and presumably these experimental procedures come at a significant cost here and we heard from nasa that they plan to draw back over the next ten years or so. do they have a future without nasa involved? >> hopefully with the european space agency and also you have the russian space agency and other agencies around the world. obviously this is incredibly

vital. this is the first britain that's gone into space since 1991. and previously britain is mainly focused on satellite and robotic missions and now we're starting to get back into the human space flight area so hopefully with britain's contribution and european space agents contributions even if nasa does pull back there's people in there to plug it. as i say this is vital for science back down here on earth for us to have a presence up there. >> all right. afraid that's all we have time for for now. thank you for joining us. we'll have much more for you taking a look at markets coming up after the short break.

european stocks follow the u.s. higher after the biggest volume day in almost three months as investors position themselves ahead of the fed. >> u.s. regulators open investigations on rumors some investors knew what was coming. >> not seeing the wood from the trees. whitney till is on covers the short position in lumbe lumber liquidators after