tv Worldwide Exchange CNBC December 21, 2015 4:00am-5:01am EST
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i'm carolyn roth. >> european stocks, the stronger dollar continues to take its toll on oil. brent crude hits prices not seen in more than a decade. spanish banking shares drop as investors win the election and fall short of the majority there by opening up the possibility of a left wing coalition taking power.
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ericsson shares have a deal with apple. analysts say it could be worth billions of swedish crohn's. and fifa, football's governing body hands a card to seth blatter. good morning, everyone. it is the second to the last trading week of the year. let's see how we're fairg on this monday morning. almost christmas. yeah. let's see if the markets are feeling christmassy. the stock 600 is up by 0.800. we're close to session highs. it belies one very weak spot and that is spain. we're off by roughly 2.5%. why?
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ibex down by 1.71%. they did win in the general election yesterday but they couldn't hold onto the majority so what we're seeing now is potentially a lot of stability. we'll get out to julia. the cac 40 is up by 0.9%. take a look at the xetra dax, too. up 5.19. now speaking of what's taking place in spain and as seen here, we are off quite a bit as you were just saying. jewett yeah chat terrell ljulia joining us. bring us up to speed with what we need to know from yesterday's election outcome. >> good morning, louisa. the two party political was blown open. the incumbent party did not
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manage to get anywhere near the majority. even if you add in the support of the liberals, they still don't have a majority. that's a problem. what it seems to open the door to is the possibility of a leftist coalition between the socialists and even with those two added they don't have a majority either. then you have to start throwing in the votes of the independents. that's a melting pot as far as future political instability is concerned for a coalition never mind giving a concession to the catalonians who want to break away. there are a few different options here about ultimately what direction the spaniards want to go in. i spoke with the secretary of the party. he hinted at the possibility of the people's party going ahead with a minority government backed in some way by danos and hoping that the other parties abstain in votes. difficult but i guess a possibility. listen to what he had to say. >> i think even know we don't
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have one majority. we just can have, you know, an agreement maybe from the beginning because the budget is already approved so maybe some parties can just have an abstention. >> so they back you. >> and we reach agreements on each law and each bill. >> the crucial question then is will that be acceptable to the second largest party as a result of this election and that's the socialists. i'm at the socialist party. manuel delarosa. great to chat with you. what does this mean for the socialist party? because there's concern out there that you're going to ultimately try to form some coalition with padamos. that's not a coal tlags will work surely. >> the elections were last
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night. the party has not taken yet a position. we are having an executive committee meeting to analyze runs. they have won the elections and according to the constitutional process, they have to try to form a government. we will certainly not support a wholly led government but whatever happens we will act responsibly. it falls under that government. >> so by the metric of not forming any kind of grand coalition, what do socialists consider going into power with the people's party if he stepped down? >> no, i don't think that's a possibility. we have from the beginning ruled out any grand coalition. i don't think that would be good for the democratic system in spain. most of them wouldn't understand that and it wouldn't be in favor
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of the socialist party. whatever has happened, we have ruled out any type of coalition. >> will the socialists stand back and abstain as was mentioned there if the people's party decide to try and rule as a minority government backed by the liberals? would you accept that do you think? >> as i said, it's too early to anticipate. many options are open. they have to start open discussions with various parties to see what types of votes he can get. in principle we will not vote in favor of any of that type of government. options remain open. in any case, we will act responsibly. >> markets afraid of podemos. it's less radical than a year ago but it's still a concern. do you think the socialists could happily work with podemos? >> i don't want to anticipate any event much less before the party has taken a position.
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what i can tell you is from the socialist party i want to give the markets a strong signal of confidence. i mean, we are a party of government. we govern in eight of the regions in spain and markets can be very confident that the socialists decide will give confidence to markets. we are a party firmly anchored within the european family within the european framework and we won't do anything that is not responsible or that leads the country down to a part that we want to avoid. >> what you're saying is basically you're going to put the benefit to the country of the spanish people, the stability of the markets and their perception of spain before any political ambitions. >> we have already done that and we will always do that, yes. political stability is important and the -- the interests of the country is always above the interest of the parties so on that basis we will take our
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positions as we always have. >> manuel de la rosa secretary of the party. early days. we have to wait and see what happens. early days of trying to form a coalition. sticking to politics, brazil's hawk i shall prime minister resigned in latin america's large est economy. he was replaced by the planning minister who analysts see more dovish. since the appointment of barbosa, the real has weakened against the dollar on the back of the news currently at 3.9788. that is close to a three-month low for the brazilian real. news breaking over this past hour. fifa has ban michelle platini.
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it stemmed from payments from fee if a to platini back in 2011. seth blatter is set to hold a press conference at 11:00 a.m. c.e.t. meantime, louisa, i'm looking at interesting comments coming through from reuters. china will keep the fiscal policy in 2016. reuters had a key economic conference. i guess that's where all the commentary is coming from. let me give you a little bit more. china will focus on the supply side structural reforms next year and they will maintain accommodative monetary and fiscal policy. they will cut the tax next year to reduce company's burdens, will increase the budget deficit appropriately in 2016. it all sounds very interesting, partly surprising. what we want to know is what are they going to be doing with the currency because they've lowered
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it for ten days in a row now. are we going to be seeing more devaluation? >> yeah, there's that and whether there will be more direct stimulus that we've seen over the past year. let's look at some of the other asset classes as well. here this morning as said, we're seeing gains across the european equity markets. when it comes to the european equity markets, we're seeing positioning taking place. currently just a little bit of selling here across the ten-year paper with a little bit of a rise happening in yields. we have seen some safe haven demand after this somewhat dovish fed view coming through this past week, but yields just pushing a little bit higher. just checking in on the fx markets. the euro relatively unmoved. still around 1.08 at the moment. 1.0854. the dollar yen a little bit higher, 121.5. the pound against the dollar flat and the aussie dollar against the green back just a little bit off as well. now the price of oil we've been
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seeing these huge moves taking place to the down side. we're still very low all things considered. wti crude, $34 and a bit. brent around $36 or so. brent having hit its lowest level in more than a decade on renewed concerns of oversupply. brent futures heading down to 36 bucks a barrel as said the lowest level since the summer of 2004. so we're really looking at these, this big repositioning happening in oil. there's this worry that we're heading towards a real oil glut. you've got iranian oil supplies coming onto the market this year. opec of course removing their previous ceiling. the saudis not moving to change anything for the time being. >> then you've got other technical factors. you've got the stronger dollar, for example, and it surprisingly rose throughout last week even though we got the fed hike. a lot of people were positioning for a selloff on the dollar on the back of that. what we saw this morning and that's what you alluded to just now, we saw brent below that
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3620 level at 3618 in the asian trading session. that took us below the financial crisis low of 2007. it took us to the 2004 low. we've bounced back above that, 36.33. still down 1.5%. we're down 45% from the highs that we saw this year alone. it is absolutely incredible levels. >> it's almost like a mirror to the rise that we saw, which is, when, a year and a half ago, something like that? >> absolutely. >> where we saw this 40% rise or something. let's try to put this all in perspective for investors. we're joined by ab ambro. no dourt about it, you've got to be focusing in on the commodity markets if you tell your clients what to invest in. what's the verdict? >> yeah, well, obviously the declining oil markets a major
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theme. we shouldn't forget that there are also positive impacts from the lower oil price, primarily for consumers who face lower fuel costs, lower gas costs, but also a lot of chemical companies that have lower empty costs. yes, the oil price continues to decline. that's bad for the energy sector. we don't think it will be real equity markets overall. we are quite positive on markets. we don't expect much movement until the end of this year. investors are more or less now closing their books, digesting the first rate hike by the federal reserve bank and, yeah, we'll see what next year will bring. we think next year will be another good year. it will be a year where we will see economic growth in most geographic areas and we also expect interest rates to stay relatively low. of course, there may be a couple of additional fed rate hikes, but overall interest rate levels will remain low. that will be possibly for equity
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markets. >> you say many clients have already closed their books for 2015. hopefully they're now heading towards the slopes where there isn't a lot of snow. it's been a volatile year for so many investors out there. what do you tell them if they want to steer clear of any sort of volatility going into next year. as we just mentioned, we'll see more fed hikes coming our way. how do you deal with the volatility coming from that, from the oil price and other unforeseen events? >> i mean, we can't avoid volatility. we have to live with that. so, yeah, our advice to clients is often be diversified, be positioned in some of the defensive sectors. they are not that exposed to energy prices or interest rates increases. and in general if you see a strong correction in the markets, we advise our clients to buy so that's the way it works. every time the market drops 10 to 15% provides a buying
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opportunity in these kinds of zblorng go times. >> why is it a good time? >> why? because it's one of the most growing sectors. if you look back and see what the smartphone and computer clouding has done to industries, it's phenomenal. we think that trends will continue, that i.t. will be the disrupting factor in many industries. if you think back five years who had heard of what's it or uber or netflix. in a short time period those companies have been able to, yeah, disrupt industries and we think that will go further. it's not the end of it. >> yeah, i'm a pretty late adapter to all of the above-mentioned. i tend to like other people
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trial and error first and then i'll jump on the bandwagon. you have a couple of stock picks for us. talk us through some of the stocks that you think should be in your i.t. portfolio. >> yeah, i think we should make a distinction between what we call old i.t. and new i.t. we have preference for new i.t. stocks which are more software oriented, show growth. the stocks we particularly like for 2016 are apple, a name that everybody recognizes. we think they will remain successful also in 2016 with growth in emerging markets. they will increasingly focus on services like apple music and apple pay. in these areas you're paying 10, 11 times earnings. we think apple is a good investment. next stalk we like is qualcomm. it's a semiconductor can have listed in the united states. they have a lot of 3 and 4g
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mobile technology. they have patents. we think they will benefit from the further growth in mobile, especially also in emerging markets. that's a name we like as well. and then a name in china we like is stensen. that's known for widgets. it's a messaging service with 500 million subscribers. they're known for online gaming, fast-moving market. if you want to buy something in china, a market that has had a very -- seen a lot of volatility in recent years, but if you want to buy something there, we recommend that. >> thank you very much for your time this morning. happy holidays. merry almost christmas. senior equity research experts at abma amrose.
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>> before we head to break, all because the lady loves kale? one. iconic chocolate brands could be catapulted uncomfortably into the 21st century. cadbury says they've been experimenting with new fillings for the milk trade chocolates including beach jelly, wasabi jelly and how about cakale crea? >> you're not getting me excited. >> they've been part of a series of experiments. they're not set to make their way into chocolate boxes. dave shepherd, the head of product development said, quote, kale is a gamble but ten years ago nobody thought chili chocolates would work for me.
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>> it does work for me but i like ginger chocolate. maybe it's time to get used to that. >> give it a try. >> don't put fruit in chocolate. >> what? we'll talk in ten years. maybe you'll be having that kale chocolate all the time. now this is a really exciting story and it's really broken twitter. during the miss universe pageant sunday night, the host accidentally announced the wrong winner, miss colombia. she was given the crown and sash but the only problem, she was actually the runner up. >> i have to apologize. the first runner up is colombia.
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take your first walk. >> it's a little bit awkward, huh? you wouldn't want to be in either one of their positions in terms of, you know, either the one who's won. >> no, you want to be the winner really. >> you feel bad that somebody else has been smiling and taking the plowers. >> the moderator, the host, steve harvey, he responded it was a very, very honest mistake and will he take responsibility for not reading the winning card correctly. i know that twitter has gone absolutely crazy with the story. if you take a look at the twitter, it's the highest trending story for the last 12 hours or so. is it an honest miss snake is it one that can be excused? i don't know. >> it's funny. it's so popular. it's huge. i love to see a natural miss
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universe pageant where you're not allowed to have any surgeries or any type of like makeup, any type of hair coloring, any of that good stuff. >> would be amazing. >> and see the results. i'd love to see that. for the actual miss universe. still to come here on the show, you don't have to agree, but the countdown to christmas is on. for many employees, this means the long-awaited christmas bonus. will that put a smile on your face though? we look at the map of money and happiness. that's coming up here on this wonderful "worldwide exchange."
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welcome back to the show. just want to bring you the latest on toshiba. the struggling japanese consumer electronics company. it is really struggling in the consumer electronics space. the coo saying an ipo of the chips division is a possibility. he's already received offers for stake in toshiba medical. they could sell the entire stake. this is an offer toshiba says expects $4.5 billion loss for
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the current fiscal year and they may cut up to 6,800 jobs or at least relocate them. very, very big news coming out of toshiba this morning. yeah, on further corporate news. ericsson settled a dispute with apple over patent licensing. they say the ruling could see apple pay between 2 to 6 billion swedish kron to ericsson in mobile licensing payments. ericsson has not officially commented on what it's worth. it's expected to boost ericsson's earnings to $14 billion. comcast is in talks with itv about a possible bid for the firm. that's according to the sunday newspaper which says that comcast could pay as much as 11 billion pounds for the broadcaster. the newspaper says the top executives from comcast which of course the parent company of
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this channel, cnbc, have already met with bosses from itv to discuss that deal. the potential bid could face one big obstacle. itv's execs say they're up 3.5% today. new risks to the diesel engine business. east said he felt, quote, a bit disquiet over the trading conditions. rolls royce's diesel unit is the only division which hasn't faced a downgrade in the last five profit runnings. shares in rolls royce off by almost 35% on the year. so pretty big corporate numbers rounding out the year and happy to see the year gone and start fresh. i guess now the issue is we didn't see that gain in the european equity markets as anticipated given what the ecb is doing. >> actually, though, i think you
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have to be more selective. if you take a look at the ftse mib, that's 1 r up 12%, the dax is up 8%. but then -- but then the ftse down. and the gas and mining sector and you have the ibex down 4% this year and that's compounded again by fears of instability after the general elections yesterday. it's a very mixed picture. >> speaking of that instability, still to come on the show, failure to lock down the majority in the spanish elections leaves a lot of political question marks now. how will the vote impact madrid's road to economic uncertainty? we'll hear more on what's going on in spain. that's up next. ♪ today, we're seeing new technologies make healthcare more personal with patient-centric, digital innovations; from self-monitoring devices that can interpret personal data and enable targeted care, to cloud platforms that invite providers to collaborate with the patients they serve.
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a positive start to the session for european stocks. the stronger dollar continues to take its toll on oil. brent crude hitting levels not seen in more than a decade. spanish banking shares dropping as political uncertainty rattles investors. the ruling party winning the general election but still falling short of a majority opening up the potential of a left wing party taking over. ericsson has inked a deal with apple. it could be worst billions of
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swedish kroens annually. a deal for fifa. an ethic probe into past payments. and let's dig a little deeper into that story. fifa has banned michelle platini and seth blatter from football for eight years and fined them following an ethics probe. it stems from payments to platini. seth blatter is set to hold a press conference at 11:00 a.m. c.e.t. of course, we will be bringing you the highlights of that press conference which will be held at fifa's old headquarters in 30 minutes' time. we will try and bring you that live. spanish banks and other spanish stocks have been trading lower this morning. this after the country's
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political party, they get set to begin the complex process of forming a government after the legal election failed to deliver a clear verdict. the ruling fell short of the 176 seats needed for a majority. in fact, no two parties secured enough seats in order to combine the majority. louis vazquez is the ceo. he joins us. welcome. good morning. >> welcome. >> so no clear victory. it now looks a little bit messy for spain. we're looking at quite a long road in order to see what's going to happen next, whether we're going to see a coalition, new elections. what's the impact in the meantime on business? >> well, obviously it's going to be an uncertainty period. it will be difficult for a lot of minority parties to create a government and probably will see
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a couple of months continue looking to if they are going for a big coalition or try to rule in the minority. >> what do you think the best case outcome is from a business perspective? >> there are obviously three parties that are more modern, socialist party and citizens. it's political for them to create a big coalition. probably the best for companies with the economy in general. >> even if you're facing months of uncertainty, shouldn't the spanish economy given the state that it's in, see 3 plus percent growth, able to withstand that? how worried are you on the impact of the overall economy? >> well, i think we did a great job in the last four years. i think that the economic crisis is almost over. i don't see a real challenge to that. i don't see that we are going to destroy what we have been
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building with a lot in the last three years. obviously uncertainty doesn't play a good role in this field, but it's just two or three months, probably. let's see. i think that they need to look at the interests for the interests of the country when they think about the potential alliances. >> many of the spanish corporates in the stocks, they've been shunned by corp rates as we were talking, louisa and i. the ibex is down. it's been sold off because of worries about latin american exposure. what is your latin american exposure and is there any way that you now want to diversify away from latin america, away from spain because of the different sources of uncertainties that you're seeing there? >> we are in the high growth market. we were working latam but most of our exposure is in mexico. the technology we do travels
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very well. we are obviously focused on growing those. >> is there a sense that maybe your business is more immune to some political or economic troubles because it's such a growing market? people will always want to watch television? they'll always want to go for the new sort of bundles? >> you will expand in europe, latin america and southeast asia. it's a bit more immune to the global. >> it's very interesting to see kind of new trends happening in the political space at the moment and not just here in europe but also in the u.s. we used to have two very kind of traditional left/right parties, a couple of parties in the moderate field in the middle, rather. now we're starting to see a division to that old school way of looking at politics, including in spain. you know, many more parties popping up to the forefront.
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so the leader predomos stating that a new spain has been born, quote, unquote. what kind of a spain do you think that is? what does the future look like for spain? >> well, dealing with the uncertainties that are coming up with the elections, i personally think that this is a result. i think because we have been a champion from one to the other party that we have some reforms that are needed in spanish politics. so the emergence of the newcomers will make the grounds for these reforms to be taken seriously. so probably it's time for the changes. >> thank you very much. happy holidays. >> thank you very much. >> merry christmas, happy new year. enjoy your break and thank you very much. >> thank you. elsewhere, an air france passenger jet carry 459
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passengers was forced to an emergency landing. it was evacuated at mumbassa airport. the device was taken away. it was made of a cardboard box, paper and a timer. several passengers from the flight have been questioned by kenyan skblies now at least 91 people are missing after a mound of construction debris collapsed and buried more than 30 buildings in the chinese city of shenzhen. now the state news agency also reported that a nearby petra gas pipeline exploded although it's not clear if this had any impact on the landslide. they've ordered an official investigation into the disaster which comes four months after the chemical blasts in shenzhen. one person is dead and six are critically injured after a car drove into a crowd of people on the las vegas strip on sunday night. the incident appears to be intentional but they're ruling out terrorism.
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the driver who was arrested apparently drove onto the sidewalk and then went back into the street before going up on the sidewalk again at a different spot and hitting more people. some terrible stories coming out this morning. now back to corporate news. in tech news in particular, another well-known website may be up for sale. the politico reports that mashable could be on the auction block. the ten-year-old social news site could fetch up to $500 million. ten years old. five million? time warner is said to be an early suitor. it's been a big year for media deals. as you know, we've had some big ones back there. back in september axle springer bought a majority stake. in august nbc universal invest the $400 million in buzz feed and in vox media. apple ceo tim cook is dismissing claims by critics
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that the company is avoiding paying taxes on overseas profits. in an interview on cbs's "60 minutes," cook says apple pays more taxes than anyone. the apple is being probed by the eu over sweetheart tax deals and they're calling the company out. cook and other apple executives also talk about future products without giving away many details. >> when we launch a product, we're already working on the next one and possibly even the next next one. and so, yes, we always see things we can do. >> now the apple cfo, phil schiller, he says that the company intentionally pits one product against another and cannibalization is almost by design. japanese corp rates, than sonic and sharp is making news. we have the latest corporate news from japan. i guess the headline really is toshiba, isn't it? >> yes, it is, exactly. yes. toshiba is undergoing large
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scale restructuring following the accounting scandal. it announced today that it will cut 6,800 employees. they held a press conference a short while ago. it confirmed that it will streamline the electronics division. it will cut 6,800 employees. it will close the main r&d division for televisions and washing machines. toshiba will likely face a net loss of over 550 billion en. a record loss for the company. panasonic which faced a slew of restructuring after suffering multiple years of huge losses has announced it will buy majority stake in hussmann for around $1.5 billion. after withdrawing from profitable businesses such as smart phones and televisions,
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panasonic has been shifting to growth areas, especially focusing on b2b markets. gentleman lastly, sharp may be selling its small and large display business to japan display. if the deal goes through it will merge the second and third largest panel makers but sharp is likely to post an operation loss this fiscal year. even if the two join forces, it will still be facing fierce market competition against its korean and taiwanese rivals. that's all from the nikkei. >> thank you very much. we'll see you soon again. thank you. now it's christmas bonus time for a lucky few. how happy do you really get from a pile of zmash the people always say money doesn't make you happy. >> it does to a certain extent. that's what research shows, doesn't it? >> yeah. >> if you go beyond that certain level, it's not going to happen. >> that's the thing. again, people who don't have money, they say, money doesn't make you happy. but perhaps unsurprisingly it
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seems to depend how much you have in the first place. we have this report. we're entering bonus and raise season on wall street. money buys happiness up to a point. the author describes how every marginal dollar matters equally in reducing negative emotions but every dollar means more to those on the lower end of the income scale and less to those on the higher end. the effect of an extra dollar is eight times as large of the 80 percentile compared to the 20th percentile. the impact reduces after $70,000 of household income. it's very low by $160,000 and practically zero by 200,000. another key factor, the increase in money can cause reduced effects of mental illness by improving life quality and satisfaction. there's an additional metric that does keep going up with more money. that's somebody's life evaluation. this money keeps going up as people make more and mother money but it's very sensitive to
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economic status. it's based on comparison from yourself and others. financial bonuses, 1 million bucks seems bad if your neighbor gets 2 million. even if they don't feel any negative emotions in their overall life, they still yearn for more. back to you. but there's also often the more you have, the more you suffer if you lose. >> is that true? i don't think so. no? >> some say that, you know, like -- >> i don't think so. it hurts less, doesn't it? >> it hurts less but you worry more. >> oh. >> if you stand to lose more you worry more. maybe you if you can't afford the 16th yacht. >> that's got to hurt. >> really. still to come on the show, big hopes for big data. we speak to social media firm star count and how it's managed to get another big round. that's up next. much more here on worldwide
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exchange. find us on twitter @carolyncnbc or @louisaboyerson. the flu virus hits big. with aches, chills, and fever, there's no such thing as a little flu. and it needs a big solution: an antiviral. so when the flu hits, call your doctor right away and up the ante with antiviral tamiflu. prescription tamiflu is an antiviral that attacks the flu virus at its source and helps stop it
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they're working to stretch. a brazil onjudge has frozen some assets after ruling that the firm was unable to pay for damage caused by the bursting of a dam at a mine last month. it's part of a mining giant vale. volkswagen's chairman has told the german weekly that a car maker is considering a mandatory rotation of its key executives. the move would limit the amount of time that staff can remain in certain roles. this comes as vw pushes for a principle after attributing the emissions problem to a small group of employees. shell has set a date for a deal on bg group. they'll meet on the 27th and 28th of january to approve the acquisition which is slated to
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be the biggest deal in the energy sector in a decade. data company star count has recently secured a further 5 million pounds in funding from some of its original investors such as sertei lee. starcount helps retailers analyze market and customer data to predict consumer data. we're joined by the coo of starcount edweina dunn. thank you for coming in. you're identifying the trends but do you actually tell them what the plan of action will be or do they have to figure it out themselves? >> well, really a lot of this scale is an understanding what consumers want. and this is really what we did 25 years ago when we started work with tesco. so it's about knowing the customer without imposing too much work on the consumer. so we read it through the data and it's that data that helps us
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get the insight to what they might want and that's the creative aspect. data helps us understand and then it's our opportunity to be relevant. >> for many people, for many businesses it's been a really tough year in terms of retail when we take a look at the u.s. businesses but also here in the u.k. with continued discounting. just give me a sense of what the retail environment looks like right now just leaning on your big data searches. how are we going to fare in 2016? >> well, you know, when we started 25 years ago, people effectively were saying, you know, direct mail, mass customization would never work at that scale, and actually that changed with things like club card because people loved it. when they got things through the mail, they responded really positively. but as you know really well, everyone now is going digital. everybody's using social data but they can't quite work out
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how to make it work commercially. so going online, using social, this is the new form of creativity. and it's really about how do you work out what people want in the future that's really going to be the key to are you successful with retail. >> so the equivalent of kind of cold calling in the advertising world adds pop or before you can do whatever it is you want to do before you have another ad that pops up before that. does that work? do people respond to that positively? >> well, it's a really interesting question because the problem is that, you know, in the old days when people were just sending out direct mail, you remember it was all called junk mail. the reason it was called junk mail was because it was irrelevant. it wasn't something that somebody wanted. the same is happening with digital and social advertising. it's basically clumsily introduced so people get everything. you walk past a pizza shop and someone says, there's a pizza
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here for you at discount, and that's really, really annoying. people are starting to disconnect and say, i don't want to be annoyed by all of this irreally vens, so the key is how do you understand what someone might want? how do you become relevant then? because it's only then that you get the results. >> are you seeing a change in consumer behavior around that and also with regards to how other social media outlets are being used? for an example, pinterest, instagram? are people getting ideas on how to shop there? there's an indirect link. >> all the social platforms work independently. because they are working independently, people are working out which platform works best for what activity. for example, we find that twitter is the best media for understanding who follows who and very importantly not just the active few who tweet but the people who consume. so the people who consume all
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your news feeds and never tweet. and it's that, that quiet watching audience that we try to understand and the purpose of each different platform. >> just getting back to your company news. you just secured 5 million pounds in additional funding in part from former tesco ceo. how difficult was it getting that funding because on the one hand you think there's a lot of competition out there. i mean, on the other hand, big data is such a big buzz word. should be pretty easy to attract the funding, isn't it? >> i think it's an exciting area for most people. i think the advantage we have is we've been in this business now for 30 years so we were doing big data and data sciences before people realized it was a science. you know, people used to throw data away because it was too expensive, but now everybody realizes you can monetize data so it's the new buzz word. but the real art is that most data isn't interesting or
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relevant and it's finding the nuggets of really enlightening useful data that's the critical bit. and i hope that's where experience counts. so we didn't find it too hard but, you know, the challenge is there are a lot of competitors out there so we've got to be very good. >> edwina, thank you for your time. now space x is postponing the launch of its upgraded falcon 9 rocket for tonight for the company that's run by elon musk. they're attempting to land the booster in florida. part of the long-term ambition to reuse the rockets and cut costs. the launch from cape canaveral happened when a rocket failed to deliver cargo to the international space station. how do you train to be santa? can you be santa? well, apparently it's not just a case of putting a pillow under your t-shirt -- >> wait a minute. hang on.
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hang on. >> no, i'm not trying to be santa here. no. no. no. that's not the goal of this exercise. well, you could put a pillow under your shirt and don the red suit. i'm not even wearing red. courtney reagan reports on the business of becoming santa. ♪ santa claus is coming to town ♪ >> reporter: it's the most well-known job in the world, so naturally you have to go to school for it. santa school, that is. >> i've been coming here about 13 years now. >> the most important thing i learned is to be jolly. >> this is the harvard of santa claus schools. >> reporter: the not for profit charles w. howard school in midland, michigan, is the world's oldest but not the only santa school. >> thanks for coming. i'm saying thanks for coming. >> reporter: owners tom and holley valent have experience on their side starting with the school's founder. >> charlie was actually the technical director for the original "miracle on 34th
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street" as far as what santa should be and what he should do. >> reporter: founded in 1937 with a handful of trainees, this year's class numbers 130 students and there's a wait list every year. the school now packs the learnings of st. nick into 45 hours over three days. it's a calling. you know, anybody can put on the red suit and grow a beard but they can't all be santa clauss. >> reporter: let's be clear, these are santa's helpers because everyone knows there's only one santa claus, and his helpers aren't just supporting the man in the big red suit, but an entire economy around the business. santa school starts around$400. a good custom suit can cost around $2500. don't forget the boots, the glove, the beard, a fake one with wig can run $1500 but grooming a real beard costs $100 a month. clients pay santa anywhere from 30 to a couple hundred dollars an hour, but for many it's not about the money.
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>> paid? cookies, milk, all kinds of cookies. it's fantastic. >> reporter: santa brings happiness and hope to children and families but he also brings in traffic and in some cases revenue formals and others like indoor amusement park iplay america. >> i think that maybe 10 to 15% of our holiday business is derived from the fact that we have santa here. >> reporter: santa visits are evolving like here at dream place, which is a production by dream works. it has five rooms with interactive digital screens where kids of all ages can come to make memories with santa, something you can't do online. nora programs runs dream place providing the photographer and santa staff with contracts at many of america's malls employing over 4,000 people this year and the santa business is booming. nora's sales have grown by 50% since 2010. courtney reagan, cnbc. fantastic that you actually
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have santa schools. never thought of that. >> it's only $400. it's not that bad. >> no. and i guess you learn how to be jolly as the guy said. >> but then you only work once a year, don't you, or maybe a couple of weeks a year. >> great job. it's really funny when you think about the history of santa claus, santa, reindeer, snow. how does that mix with bethlehem, a child born in the middle east, right, jesus supposedly? apparently it is a pagan holiday that merged together with what was going on in the middle east because christianity held on to like pagan celebrations elsewhere. >> i don't know that. >> a longer story. we've got 20 seconds. still to come on the show, the grinch that stole christmas. that's how some traders are talking about the oil route. we'll talk more about oil after the break.
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