hi, everybody. good morning. welcome. you're now watching worldwide exchange. i'm louisa bowyer son. these are your headlines. it's make or break time for u.s. markets. traders kick off the final week of the year. sharp shares spiking by more than 8% on the fact that taiwan is looking for a deal. stocks in china falling as the country's biggest industrial company with the prices falling with mining lagging. and a string of fatal storms battered the united states. at least 11 people die after

tornadoes rip through north texas. meanwhile, hundreds of people in the north of england are evacuated after severe flooding. the force is with "star wars." "the force awakens" becomes the fastest film to take $1 billion at the box office reaching the milestone in how long? in just 12 days. 2 billion. are you kidding snee yeah, i know. exactly. group chief economist. we'll be talking plenty more through the session. have you seen "star wars" yet? >> no. neither have i. >> haven't seen any of them? >> neither have i.

big hole in my culture. >> me, too. second person i know who hasn't seen any of them. let's just show you the u.s. futures. we have a couple of hours stog before u.s. markets start trading. slightly lower. keep in mind when looking at the european markets, the ftse is closed. sweden is closed, ireland is closed and the rest of european trading is pretty flat. when it comes to some of the asian markets, we were telling you what happened overnight there. a dip in the markets. current season 1.0976 on the euro dollar. a little bit higher, a trade not a lot. i'd call these relatively muted trades that we're seeing. we have the dollar yen at a two-month low of 120.05 on friday. the dollar lost a little bit of

steam after the fed started its hiking cycle recently. o we don't know. i was mentioning asia a second ago. nikkei, a little bit higher. the other markets trading slightly lower. weaker chinese industrial output data. nikkei heading towards the gains. prime minister abe has been putting it in place quite abruptly. that's seemingly helping out. let's stick to asia. some of the headlines with a sharp rally for sharp shares which have risen by 7%, this on reports that taiwan could pay 300 billion yen for the japanese electronic giant.

the tie up between the two has long been talked about as far back as 2012. chinese industrial profits falling for six months in a row. down 1.4% on the year. this happening after another sharp decline seen from the mining sector. the data was better thanks to car makers and electricity makers joom makers. now on squawk this morning we were asking which stories were big through 2015. the slowdown in china topped the biggest stories according to the associated press. the commodity prices and the end of free money. the vw, the mna mania. apple watch. net neutrality. takata's exploding airbags in there. if you want to join the conversation and let us know what you think some of the bigger stories were for last year and what they will be for

next year, do get involved. find us at e-mail worldwide. we're also on twitter. you saw a second ago, a chief group economist, what do you think some of the bigger trends have been last year and what will be some of them next year? >> on the monetary side we've had the anticipation and confirmation that the ecb was going to do something big. >> yeah. >> the second part, of course, was waiting for the fed. when will they move? eventually they did. and then of course china. china, the main concern is a rebalancing of the economy. there was no word on how far this will go. we're not there yet. >> are they going to be able to rebalance or are we going to see this kind of chinese authority's running after an ee con bring

that are they're having difficulties catching up with its help? it's preventing hard landing. >> concerns has been that there was confirmation of slow down. when is this fk to end? also for the effect, it's had to do with developing commodities. i would join the commodity bear market has been another key element. >> happy holidays, by the way. >> happy holidays. >> did you have a nice christmas? >> zble what did you do? >> with family. >> what did you have for dinner? >> turkey. >> we were discussing what you tend to have over the holidays. >> it was really good.

>> excellent. you mentioned some of the main policies, the bigger policies. i noted that you think that the ecb is behind the curve in how it affected quantitative easing. do you think that it won't be effective? >> it has already been effective in the sense that it did have a big impact in europe. my view is we would not have had to reinforce 2015, the euro would probably be 120. we do not know. i think it's a safe assumption to make that it would be significantly higher than it is today without the detrimental impact we just had which is the extra sector we were developing. in that perspective we can make the claim it has been very

beneficial. at the same time there is a feeling that it came very late in the game. as a consequence, the capacity and to narrow stress significantly was curtailed because markets had been influenced by fed qe and of course there had been anticipation as well. >> but do you think that -- i mean, do they have to do more? i mean, it almost seems like the ecb was very effective in promising to be effective but they didn't have to -- after they said we'll do whatever it takes, then they took that as being fantastically good news. we saw less of a reaction after they actually came through quantitative easing. >> a key element in 2015 which came in the end, we've been used to promise and a delivery which was at the minimum in line with

the promise evening. the most prompsed delivery. there was a promise. market very excited. at the end be of november big promise, it's a new element. it will make investors concerned about mario draghi's power. it's an element which is fairly important if you are looking at 2016 because 2016 you can only hope that inflation will start to show signs towards acceleration towards the yen which would mean additional measures. if there would not be this indication for an acceleration to pick up, you would then have a big debate in markets about,

yes, there is a necessarytiity will there be willingness. it was not as overwhelming as it used to be in the past. that's an element of concern. that is like no -- the same direction. >> i've just jotted down a couple of points in my very scribbly handwriting in what you said. i want to come back and pick up on those points. you're with us for most of the show today. by all means, get involved. it's always nice to have more people around the table, as it were, so i'm not just talking to myself here. fantastic partner to chat to. get involved out there. e-mail zben worldwide @cnbc.com on screen for people like me who can't trer or find us on twitter. now search, rescue, and

recovery crews spent the day picking through demolished homes around dallas counting up the toll of a massive tragedy but on a huge scale. the latest number of damaged homes is around 1400. the area was hit saturday night by a deadly outbreak of tornadoes. nbc's brian moore has the latest. >> reporter: across a huge swath of suburban dallas, residents are struggling to pick up the pieces. survivors but still victims of a monster storm and the massive tornadoes it unleashed. >> we built a house, 28 years. i'm sorry, i don't know what else to say. sorry. >> reporter: at least 20 twisters tore across north texas, killing eight in the community of fard den. the lone star state is still on edge with more waves of severe weather on the way.

most areas are hunkered down for rain and flooding and these areas were paralyzed by snowy roads and threat of whiteout conditions. flooding, rapidly rising waters overwhelmed others. >> it came up very quickly. >> reporter: around kept people going. >> i told them i knew how to swim. i knew it was real. they put us on the life jacket. >> reporter: hope is on the horizon. brian moore, nbc news. now the u.k. government says it's deploying an additional 200 soldiers to areas in northern england impacted by heavy flooding. this as prime minister david cameron vowed to help people in their need. it's too early to estimate

losses caused by the flooding, but ihs economic said it could shave 2.5% off gdp growth. more than 100,000 people have evacuated their home in paragua, uruguay. around 100,000 people have been evacuated. several hundred people have been killed by trees falling. there is no official death toll. more than 100 homes wurburn down along australia's great roads on christmas day. the state's emergency services commissioner warned of more fires to come. and a train carrying roughly 200,000 leets terse of acid has

derailed in as stral yeah after 26 crate cars transporting 1u8 fewer rick acid came off the tracks. police are dealing with the leakage but flooding in the area has also hampered rescue efforts. three train staff are in the hospital with mine beer injuries. still to come here on worldwide exchange, the iraqi army stakes back an isis strong hold. we have more on the military campaign. that's coming up. also, we'll be talking more to our guest host today. get involved. send your questions and comments through. we'll see you after the break. i can tailor a curriculum for each student by cross-referencing aptitude, development, geography... sorry to interrupt. but i just have one question:

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you experience tv. hi, everybody. welcome back. you're still watching world wide exchange. u.s. futures pointing to a slightly lower open. markets getting set to reopen after the holiday break. back to the stores. new survey shows almost half of u.s. consumers will return to the mall as soon as this week. and a record breaker for "star wars." it becomes the fastest movie ever to take in a billion dollars at the box office. well, there doesn't appear to be any weakening in the

force. another strong weekend for "star wars", "the force awakens," which took in an estimated $153.5 million in the u.s. and canada and 546 million in overseas markets. that might not mean a whole lot to you, these numbers, but the film basically has now earned just about $1.1 billion worldwide and that means it's also the fast oes to top $1 billion in just 12 days beating "jurassic world" by one day. "star wars" is boosting the overall box office which earned $300 million in the u.s. and canada this weekend alone. now that christmas has come and gone, it's time apparently to head back to the malls. you panic to get to the mall before christmas. 24 hours later you're back there again. day after christmas can account for 15% of the sales. almost half of the consumers, they plan to shoch more as they

redeem gift cards and make returns. are you returning anything out there? well, around 15% of holiday gifts are returned and that means fraud runs high. retailers estimate 3 1/2% of returns are fraudulent. it will cost them $2.2 billion this year joompt wh. what did the nation's top banks want for christmas? wage inflation, household spending for mr. ka road da. psy what made the lits on cnbc.com. you might not be able to afford to live there. new york city housing prices hit a record with the average price of a co-op or condo topping $1 million for the first time. that's the average price. are you kidding me? brokers, they cite a surge in

closings at expensive new buildings that have been under construction for years. the rest of the market showed modest price gains and slower sales. there are some concerns though as there are fewer foreign buyers and local residents are becoming more price sensitive. now the world's largest containership is calling the port of los angeles home this week. the cma cgm benjamin franklin docked there on saturday. look how big this thing is. crazy. make being its maiden voyage from china. long ger than the empire stadium, wider than an nfl football field and taller than a 20 foot building t. can carry 18,00020 foot containers. 1/3 more than any other ship in l.a. >> how big, i wonder, can the biggest ship become? like 20,000 containers?

60,000? 100 million containers? >> port capacity. >> exactly. a lot can't build inland, they have to build kind of out into the water and do special port stuff like that. anyway, u.s. futures, let's just leave you with a glance at what you guys are looking at. very early in the u.s. it's what, like 5:00 in the morning or even earlier depending what side of the coast you're on. slightly lower. we'll see you just after the break. let's wash it with febreze. for all the things you can't wash, use... ...febreze fabric refresher whoa hey mrs. webber inhales hey, it smells nice in here and try pluggable febreze... ...to continuously eliminate odors for... ...up to 45 days of freshness pluggable febreze and fabric refresher... ...[inhale + exhale mnemonic]... ...two more ways to breathe happy

hi, everybody. welcome back. you're still watching "worldwide exchange." european capitals have been warned by, quote, friendly intelligence services of an attack or bomb attack. the cities have not been named. officials, though, are increasing security measures in vienna. in a statement police said that they were focusing on crowded places. the iraqi army has hailed the first victory over isis by capturing ramadi. they made the final push this past weekend according to a military spokesperson. we were talking also about the ecb. we were talking about what some of the bigger trends might be for next year. you're writing in.

a lively bunch. linda, charles. i want to keep you a bit anonymous. you can find us on worldwide @cnbc.com. you can tweet us directly at louisa bowyer son. diane writes in and says super sure. much appreciated. when you're ready to feature biohacking, micro buy onlies, do it yourself. she has startups she might want to mention there. lots of trends emerging. newer trends. from where you sit in economics, what are you looking at in terms of future trends? things changes in terms of productivity because we are much more advanced than we were ten years ago. how do you see the trend forecasting? >> the big theme and what continues to be very dominant in coming years has been the profound change at this year's

economy. compare that to 2014, 2013. it is really -- >> supply side? >> supply side. >> yeah. >> it's a fundamental shape. we have been used for many years to do the shopping on the internet, et cetera, but you see now in terms of the sharing economy has gathered pace very significantly. and this is of course related to what has been unionization for lack of a better word and this is a challenging issue for economists and the kr0ud at large. >> yeah. >> it's having a beneficial part of spending on households. why? because it is pushing down prices with us allowing them to

have an additional revenue because of air bnb and so on. in the long run, however, the big question is what is it going to do for the supply side. in the long run it can fly back in your face. >> you're still staying with us on the other side of the break. incidentally, the reason we were talking about micro buy onlies, i'm very interested in this area. you have a whole bunch of bacteria in your stomach and they're finding that basically micro biomes, the good bacteria decide your mood and decide how stressed you are and that. there is a link between what you eat and how stressed you are. we'll leave you with how the futures are looking on wall street. we'll be back with "worldwide exchange." bring your family and friends together

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♪ watching in a winter watchlist land, ♪ ♪ watching in a winter watchlist land! ♪ xfinity's winter watchlist. watch now with xfinity on demand- your home for the best entertainment this holiday season. hi, everybody. welcome back. you're still watching "worldwide exchange." i'm louisa bowyer son. happy after holidays and happy before new year. kind of in between. these are your headlines from around the world. it's make or break time for u.s. markets. traders kicking off the week for the final time of the year. europe trading a bit lower following a session in asia. sharp shares fall by 8% and looking for a deal. stocks in china fall overnight as the country's biggest

industrial commodities see profits drop with mining still being the lagging sector. and a string of fatal storms batter the united states. at least 11 people die after tornadoes rip through north texas, meanwhile, hundreds of people north of england are evacuated after severe flooding. and the force is with "star wars." t"the force awakens" becomes th fastest film to take $1 billion at the box office reaching the milestone in just 12 days. hi, everybody. welcome back. all right. let's kick off this next half an hour. glancing at our u.s. futures. the implied open being a couple of points lower. a couple of points lower. that's what we're looking at. it's, what, 5:00 in the morning for you if you're on the east coast, somewhere around there. european equity markets, opening

flat or a little bit lower. you know what, you guys are super awake this morning. john tweets the markets aren't closed today, it's not. i was looking at wrong information there earlier this morning. you're absolutely right. i'm sorry. i almost gave you guys a day off but you're not getting it. get up and get to work in case you were listening. it's not closed. get to work in sweden. the asian markets overnight, we saw a slightly mixed bag. the nikkei hanging on to gains. fourth year of gains. japanese market lifted by others refla reflationary policies. some say on the back of the rebound that we've had in crude. speaking of crude showed commodities, twi crude and brent both a bit lower down by 2%. still sitting around $37 per barrel.

coming back fiercely from the low hit last week of $33.98. that was on brent. the lowest we've had since february of 2009. so it's been a volatile 2015 for commodities. how are commodities going to fare next year. we asked tim dreson. >> certainly in terms of oil prices there's no chance of another 50% drop. that will give a nice uplift to the s&p earnings. more broadly after some stabilization in the commodity prices. now it's starting to show up in terms of lower utility prices. that's part of the thesis why the consumer should be better. >> if you are positiontive on the u.k. are you positive on the ftse 100? does the commodity weighting and oil weighting mean you have to play the u.k. in other ways? >> the u.k. market is a bit of a wild card, more of a holder with the price in commodities. outside of the mining there's

another company that should do well on the back of strong consumer spending. >> specifically within that, what's the view on sterling because it was very resilient over the summer post the u.k. general election results. it's now suffered more significantly, particularly against the dollar as opposed to the euro. where does it go from here? >> we see sterling hovering between the euro and dollar. it will probably run its course. >> that was tim drayson head of economics speaking to cnbc earlier this month. very active this morning. thank you very much for being with us, either worldwide at cnbc.com. or on twitter. we keep floating it. lots of you writing in about the micro buy only story. essentially your gutt has something like 3 kilo of healthy bacteria that we need. or is it three pounds? three pounds or three kilo.

nevertheless, these good bacteria are super important. they're finding these links between how you behave based on the back tear na in your gutt. i'm mentioning this because so many people are writing in. they've done studies with mice where you take the healthy flora of one mouse and you put it into another mouse and you then see it behaving like the first mouse. so they're saying that actually behavior comes from your stomach and not so much from your mind. so we were just talking about this here during the break and you recommended a book that i just want to pass on since it is christmas time. a bit quiet. you said "the hour between dog and wolf." risk taking, gutt feelings, the biology of boom and bust. >> it's a great read. read it a couple of years ago. when you think about people investing in markets, you think it's all driven by economic fundamentals and then a big dose of psychology.

what the book brings as extra information is that the psychology is driven by neuroscience and then is driven by what's happening in your body and mind. it adds an unemotional twist to it. it will not give you the solution on what you have to be long or short, but it is something which has been taken on board in the way na for instance investment management teams have been set up. >> which is why it's so crying happ what you eat. that could impact what you trade. quite literally. >> the only comment i will make, it smacks a bit like we want to control everything. okay, did i eat fish or meat last night? how will it influence how i digest information? a bit tongue in cheek. that's the big issue. and at the end of the day what you will see is that emotion

will still get you up. >> my directors are very clever. how you digest information. how to digest the markets and information and include this. anyway, it's called "the hour between dog and wolf, risk taking, gutt feelings and the biology of boom and bust" written by john coates. let's get back to your other e-mails as well. keep you a bit anonymous. a viewer, ab, what's your guest calling an oil crisis. any credence to $25 per barrel oil per se or lower? happy new year to you? >> $25 barrel oil? i

>> it's good to remember 2008. work out slightly differently. whenever there is a strong trend there is an inclination to push it down to simply extrapolate. the problem we have, of course, is that there is an element of i would say a cartel which is no longer working which is putting a big deal of pressure with any producer anywhere in the world and we know, of course, that a lot of them are being pushed out of the market because their marginal cost was too high. even those who are still producing because they're still making money on it. for the budget to be in balance they're making money on it. it's an element like the clock is ticking. two elements, one is the china factor. if chinese growth slows down and

it stabilizes. that's the fundamental change in the way the kmod si market is being read is one element. the second element is will countries at some point throw in the towel. will they say enough is enough? we need the extra revenue. then we will start to combat production. >> thank you very much for your time this morning. got you going on the micro buy on on biomes as well. the name of the book that you recommend is called "the hour between dog and wolf" written by john coombs. we need to head towards break. there's a news conference after the meeting with the president. you're watching worldwide exchange.

we're on e-mail worldwide @cnbc or on twitter, louisa bowyer son.

hi, everybody. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." now deadly storms struck the midwest in the u.s. they struck the southwest and the south over the weekend. at least 9 tornadoes touched down in north texas killing 11 people and demanding as many --

and damaging as many as 600 homes in the dallas suburb. that's according to the national weather service. meanwhile, blizzard conditions in oklahoma and texas forced major highway closures and officials say that 60,000 oklahoma homes lost power. the governor of new mexico declared a state of emergency after a winter storm dumped up to two feet of snow. now the weather has also forced the cancellation of almost 1500 flights on sunday according to a flight aware.com site. about half of the canceled flights were in dallas which is a major u.s. flight hub. now nbc's edward lawrence joins us with more. edward? >> reporter: this holiday it's been one of the deadliest in recent memory. 43 people have been killed in storms over this christmas period. the last several days there have been tornadoes in the middle part of the country.

latest batch killed 11 people in the dallas area, communities have been declared federal disaster areas. they can get federal assistance. it's not just been tornadoes, there's also been flooding. significant flooding. this has all affected air travel. 1500 flights yesterday canceled. so far this morning, very early this morning, 48 flights at the dallas airport have been canceled. 13 people died in flooding in missouri and illinois. the storms are like what we see in the spring. these are abnormal to come in the winter. they come every once in a while. people in the central part of the country are cleaning up from the tornadoes and flooding. now they're having to deal with the temperatures dropping. there's a band of snow coming in for a lot of the states. reporting in washington, edward lawrence, nbc.

>> edward, thank you very much for that. now, shop till you drop and then get up and shop some more apparently. that's what many retailers, apparently, are hoping consumers are doing. let's head out to landon dowdy at the cnbc headquarters. is that what you're doing as well, landon? >> you better believe it. never enough shopping in december. it's time to get your second wind and head back to the mall for more deals, louisa. a survey finds half of u.s. consumers plan to shop this week, the week after christmas, going to count for up to 15% of retail sales during the holiday season. some will be cashing in gift cards with most spent in person rather than online since shipping costs make cars less valuable. 15% of holiday purchases are returned. experts say you don't have to rush to stores as many have extended store policies.

retailers estimate 3.5% of returns will be fraudulent and it's expected to cost them $2.2 billion this year. fed ex wasn't able to deliver all of its mack cages based on a surge and bad weather. memphis was affected by storms last week but it says drivers worked extra shifts on friday and it opened some offices so customers could pick up packages. fed ex has more than 317 million deliveries between black friday and christmas eve. up 12% from last year. some shipping consultants went to delays where it hands off final delivery to the u.s. post office. only air packages were guaranteed. checking fedex shares in germany up by less than 1%. >> landon, good seeing you. happy holidays. >> to you, too.

>> thank you. you're writing in. one of the biggest factors was the grexit. is that right? how quickly did greece disappear off of our top story list. i mean, we were following greece every single day for how long? four years? then china took over, we saw the central banks taking over. joe writes in and says the important note about "star wars" beating "jurassic world" to $1 billion. "jurassic wars" opens in january. as far as micro biomes, jeff writes in and says, could they be part of the force? you never know. getting back to news. geopolitical news, the iraqi counter terrorism forces in ramadi have raised their flag over the complex seized from the

islamic state. this is accord to go reuters. u.s.-backed forces hailed their first major victory over isis this weekend by capturing the militant group strong hold city to the west of baghdad joompt now the aig ceo is under pressure to boost the profit. hancock is arguing to keep them mostly intact. they say they're struggling to improve on it. another says the plan is unrealistic but time is running out. aig's third quarter results were the worst seen in four years. and as mentioned, there doesn't appear to be any weakening in the force. it was another strong weekend for "star wars", "the force awakens," which took in an estimated $153.5 million in the u.s. and can did i and $546 million in overseas markets.

as i was saying, those figures might not mean a lot to you but the film has sernd $1.1 billion world w50id. it's the fastest to top $1 billion in 12 days, a grossed a $3.5 million in the u.s. and canada. to the e-mail that came through here talking about how china was the difference. joe's e-mail and about when "star wars" opens there on the 9th of january. now back to our headlines. if you're just joining us, u.s. futures pointing to a lower open as markets get set to reopen after the holiday break. back to the stores, a new server shows us almost half of u.s. consumers will return to the mall as soon as this week because they can't get enough of it. a record breaker for "star wars" as it becomes the fastest movie ever to take in a billion dollars at the box office.

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i wouldn't expect aside from any unforeseen news any major or real conviction with price activity. i think we'll go out very

similar to how we've been trading in a very tight saw tooth type pattern, if you will. for the most part we've been teetering around unchanged to slightly positive, low levels. very low conviction level if you will. that's been the case in 2015. while we did see very much sideways type activity start the year off, the summer was kind of plagued with that extreme selloff. if you look at fall we saw very high conviction rally throughout october. it slowed a bit in november and then december has really been just sort of chopped with migration of value in no real trending type pattern. very much kind of one value area being established higher, the next lower, the next higher. saw tooth type pattern. i think this is sort of a direct result of the limited conviction that we've been seeing in the russell relative to the very high conviction type trade and price activity that we saw in terms of the tech sector and the nasdaq. we recently at the beginning of december saw the nasdaq posting

new 2015 highs. the russell has been lagered and the dow and s&ps are stuck in the middle between the two. if you look at some of the other broader based markets, they're low directional. gold after recent ecb activity, the dollar which was for the most part seeing a strong bid come into the market, very range bound and very limited in terms of real directional. so i expect to see more of the same. we're still in holiday mode here now. i think until the beginning of the year at least i think that, you know, there's going to be information coming out as far as retailers. we'll get to see some of the real results, if you will, from the christmas shopping season, yes, but, again, very low conviction trade. there's been energy. there's been wide range but conviction is limited. >> listen, i'm off on holiday after the show and i won't be back until next year. so because i'm not seeing you for the new year then, what's

your new year's resolution? >> oh, i always say to tighten what's loose and loosen what's tight and i think that's just a great way of kind of covering it all, if you will. >> i won't ask what's tightening the loose at the moment. ben, thank you very much for your time. have a good day. i'll see you next year, 2016. president of traders audio.com. we were showing this massive super ship docking in los angeles. writing in saying amaze that go a crew of only 26 runs the entire ship. i'm assuming you're referring to this as opposed to some "star wars" ship. if that's the case, that is pretty amazing. biggest ship ever to port. something like 20,000 containers. it's nuts. anyway, that's it for today's show. i'm louisa bowyer. see you later.

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it's monday, december 28th,

2015, and "squawk box" begins right now. live from new york where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." good morning. welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe. thursday i said happy holidays, not merry christmas. i was not trying to be pc. i do christmas. i know joe had a good christmas. you had a good christmas? >> i did. >> what's that, joe? >> you just can't help yourself. >> i was not trying to be pc. >> you weren't trying, you can't help yourself. >> you don't want to say that anywhere but here. >> as