good morning and welcome to "street signs." i'm nancy hulgrave, and these are your headlines. european shares springing higher this morning as investors play catch up after the long easter weekend. fed chair janet yellen will set the tone following a week of hawkish commentary. a passenger plane en route to cairo is hijacked and forced to land in cyprus. crew and four foreign passengers remain on board. the fbi drops its case against apple as it finds its own way to access the

information on the san bernardino shooter's iphone. but the door stays open to future league clashes. as late as possible. the ceo of uber tells cnbc in an exclusive interview that those hoping for a flotation of the world's most valuable startup will have to wait. >> we have to ultimately find liquidity for all shareholders, but i'm going to make sure it happens as late as possible. >> two years, three years, five years, ten years? >> i mean, i'll keep you posted. i have no idea. good morning and welcome to "street signs." welcome back to business after the long easter holiday. if you are just getting back to work, here's some good news in the equity space. you can see a lot of green on our heat map here as the stoxx europe 600 is pushing higher by about 0.8%. this comes despite a significant dip we saw in stocks going into the four-day weekend.

we'll give you an update on those moves in just a minute. first, i want to bring you up to speed with a story we've been watching all morning. some troubling events. a passenger plane en route to cairo was hijacked this morning and force toddy vert to cyprus. according to egyptair's twitter page, the negotiations resulted in the release of most passengers on board except four passengers and the crew. local state news is reporting the hijacker is an egyptian national. we'll keep you up to date as this story develops. meanwhile, back to the market moves we've been following this morning. just an hour into trade now. green across the board here. we continue to see investors keep an eye to the janet yellen comments due out of the united states today. some fed members coming out saying an april rate hike was still a possibility. so it will be very interesting to see if janet yellen picks up

on that and how dovish she will be. as you can see here, we have the ftse 100 higher by about 0.6%. the dax higher by 0.75%. it was a different story over in the asia session. let's check in on the markets in asia from singapore. >> good morning to you, nancy. one of the shares we've been focused on today has been sharp. this is a share that was up as much as 7% yesterday on speculation they can finally reach that deal with foxcon later this week. today we're seeing it way down, saying the company is expected to post a year-end loss. the nikkei reporting the company will close out the fiscal year ending thursday $1.7 billion in the red. that's a loss largely coming from a slow down in display operations and write downs on production facilities, though sharp has not commented on that. other factors weighing on asian markets today, certainly the

weak data coming out of the u.s. a lot of investors sort of staying on the sidelines, looking to janet yellen's statement expected to come in overnight here in asia. then looking to see when that next rate hike may be. looking over to japan, the nikkei held above that 17,000 mark, but down about 0.2% there. we got a fresh picture of the economy in japan today. it's a bit of very mixed picture there. household spending rose for the first time in six month, but one government official saying that was only because of that extra day we go because of the leap year. jobless rate rose slightly about 3.3%, while retail sales fell below expectations. that tepid data certainly leading to speculation that prime minister abe may delay that sales tax hike that's scheduled. abe coming out and saying he has no plans to delay that hike unless there is another shock along the lines of the lehman

brothers collapse of 2008. >> thanks, akiko. we'll be keeping an eye here to fed chair janet yellen, who's set to deliver a speech at the economic club in new york. stay for cnbc with that one as we take that speech live. joining us now is robin griffiths, chief technical strategist, who said the dow would peak on march 23rd, not just on that date, but just after lunch. robin, a pleasure to have you here. very precise call you made. i hope you had a good lunch before that time. >> exactly. we wouldn't want to ruin lunch. of course, it's when america really opens and starts affecting our markets. >> nevertheless, we did see u.s. markets coming out of the holiday weekend relatively flat yesterday. still, nine days of gains for the dow in the past 11. do you think there's a correction under way here? >> definitely in a bear market now. a normal bear and bull market

cycle fits into one presidential election. you tend to get three good years and one bad one. the last bull market lasted double the normal length of time because of quantitative easing and zero interest rates, et cetera. so we're correcting an exceptionally long bull phase. it's important to point out, it's pimportant to point out, it's not the companies that go wrong, it's the up trend in share prices. as you know, the vast majority of stocks peaked over a year ago, but the index went higher because eight famous californian companies stayed up in the stratosphere. they're slowly dying, basically. >> right. we talk about the big tech giants that led us through a large part of the rally last year. however, some are saying that central bank crutch, if you will, is here to stay, and that is why so much focus will be on janet yellen today. just last week we had at least two fomc members saying, wait a minute, april could still happen. if we get an april rate hike,

what happens? >> well, i think she's tinkering at the edges. once upon a time, people were going for four rate hikes in the coming year. now it might be two. her idea is she's got to get them up in order to have the ability to lower them again next time there's a problem. so i think this is going to be very marginal, in fact. really what's happening is the rating on the stock market got way too high, including f.a.n.g. it was in bubble territory, 24 times earnings. strip out the f.a.n.g., very high-rated stocks, the average u.s. stock is about 17. that's not a bubble, but it's damned expensive. it needs to come down. that's what the bear market is all about. >> of course, that's the view from the equity standpoint. i want to get your thoughts on gold as well. despite this three-day dip we saw in gold prices from last week, still on track for its best quarter since 2007. is there still room to buy gold?

>> yes, indeed. priced in u.s. dollars, the chart looks not as good as in any other currency. but even in u.s. dollars, the four-year correction from almost 2,000 down to almost 1,000 is now almost over. we're on the way up again. at the moment, we don't have a signal that good, but it's definitely the lower end, and it's a good place to park your money. you don't get a return on money in the bank. the fact that gold doesn't give you a return is not a negative anymore. >> but the other view would say there's still no signs of inflation. gold is often viewed as a protection against inflation, so do we really have to wait for inflationary pressures? >> gold hedges other risks than just inflation. deflation is just as good. also, we're moving into a world when it matters when chinese and indians think more than us

westerners, and they love gold. >> very true. and we have to look at the commodities trade here outside of gold. specifically, i want to get your thoughts on the oil price. equities continue to be trading largely correlated to the oil price. what is your view on the ftse 100? >> we've had an incredibly strong rally after a giant fall. it's a bear market rally. my interpretation is the notion that we're not going to go back down and retest the low in the mid-20s is probably wrong. and we would more likely be to spend a long time, a year or more, in a range between about 20 and 30 basically. the charts say, no, forget that. >> range of 20 to 30, you say, but what if we get a deal between opec and non-opec

members? >> you've got to get stability in the middle east, which is a long way off from being delivered. a deal is a deal, but all it requires is one little missile on the wrong part of the oil fields. i think certainly just looking at the chart, i would expect to retest the lows we've just rallied from. the rally was mainly short covering. >> how do you expect that to play out here in europe, specifically the ftse 100? >> we'll be correlated to the u.s. stock market. we're going to go down. the cushion for us is we're cheaper than the u.s. stock market, so we don't have as far to fall. we are a bit expensive, and we've got uncertainty about brexit and about the u.s. election. markets hate uncertainty. so we're going to be negative for the rest of this year. >> to what extent to you think the ftse in particular has already priced in brexit risk? >> if you can see the rally of

the last bull market, i think we're going to retrace at least a half of that bull market. >> at least a half. >> at least a half. >> all right. well, robin, pleasure to have you with us. thank you for joining us. what's your next big date to watch out for? >> well, i'll have to get more data. >> we'll have to schedule you back. maybe after janet yellen speaks today. robin griffiths, chief technical strategist at the ecu group. thank you for joining us. well, get in touch with us nice and early because we want to get your views in, your questions, your comments. get in touch. the show's address is streetsignseurope@cnbc.com. and you can always get in touch with me directly on twitter @nancycnbc. meanwhile, coming up on "street signs," the bidding battle for starwood is raging on. but do we have a winner yet? we will get you the latest on that war after the break. why do so many businesses

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a passenger plane en route to cairo was hijacked this morning and force toddy vert to cyprus. according to egypt air's twitter page, negotiations resulted in the release of most passengers on board, except four foreigners and the crew. now, local state news is reporting the hijacker sr. an egyptian national. we will, of course, keep you up to date as the story develops. i just want to bring you some more updates we're getting from our colleagues at nbc news. they're saying they have not yet established the nationalities of the foreigners that are still being held on board the plane. of course, we'll bring you any information we get on that as soon as it develops. they have also confirmed that the hijacker appears to be an egyptian. the hijacker has not yet made any demands or requests we know

of. we should also tell you that the u.k. ambassador to egypt has reached out to the any of those who are concerned, saying we are speaking with authorities and for any concerned about a u.k. national, you can call a very specific number they have provided. the u.k. ambassador there reaching out. we have a statement from egypt's civil aviation administration as well saying the negotiations with the hijacker concluded, and it appears that under those negotiations, they were able to release most of the passengers. meanwhile, a man has been shot by police after pulling out a weapon on capitol hill, which sent the white house into lockdown. nbc's brian mooar sent this report. >> reporter: frightened tourists and government workers running for their lives. heavily armed officers ready to confront unknown dangers. these were the terrifying moments after shots were fired just after 2:30 p.m. inside the united states capitol visitors

center. police say a man approached the screening check point. >> the individual drew what appeared to be a weapon and pointed it at officers. an officer fired and struck the suspect. >> reporter: the suspect, larry dawson, was wheeled out on a stretcher and taken to a nearby hospital. on a church website, he was listed as a pastor, described by neighbors back home as a nice guy. >> never in my wildest imagination would i have pictured this. >> reporter: but he was no stranger to police in washington, d.c. banned from the capitol after disrupting a house session last october and declaring himself a prophet of god. >> we believe that this is an act of a single person who has frequented the capitol grounds before, and there is no reason to believe that this is anything more than a criminal act. >> reporter: a criminal act and a reminder for a capitol city already on alert. police say dawson's weapon turned out to be a realistic

looking pellet gun, though officers had no way of knowing that at the time. in the wake of terror attacks like brussels, the lack of evidence. nbc's keir simmons has more. >> reporter: a stunning setback for investigators. the only suspect accused of terrorist assassination, murder, in connection with the brussels attacks, freed. belgian media had reported police believed faycal cheffou was the man seen in white. now prosecutors say the evidence against him is not there. more questions for belgian investigators with the clock ticking. >> the belgian authorities are beleaguered. >> reporter: and tonight, the man hunt for this suspect goes on. >> they're going to have to make a greater effort, but it's going to have to be a european wide effort. >> reporter: we showed the video to a belgian analyst and isisics

pert who told us the man in white with his hat and glasses may have intended to escape. >> maybe this guy is just too important to get killed in the attacks. >> reporter: authorities conducting terror raids across europe over the weekend. and today a special service for the victims of the attacks. among the congregation, first responders who treated the injured. prayers but few answers for families increasingly angry. jim kain's daughter lost her husband at the airport. the former u.s. ambassador questioning europe's ability to stop the attacks. >> we know this attack could have been prevented. her husband could still be alive. there was information, intelligence, that we knew these murderers were connected with isis. we know who the enemy is. >> reporter: authorities here acknowledge there was some indication that something was coming, but did not have enough specifics to head it off. meanwhile, plans to reopen the airport have been delayed again.

tuesday marks a week since the attacks. >> and we just want to bring you an update on the egypt airplane en route to cairo from alexandria with a hijacker on board. we're learning from nbc that the hijacking seems to be about a personal matter that involved a woman. that is according to a high-level source telling nbc news. again, we'll bring you any more updates throughout the show. meanwhile, pakistan's prime minister says police will hunt down extremists after a suicide bomb killed more than 70 people on sunday. a taliban splinter group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which targeted christians celebrating easter. speaking in a televise the address, the prime minister said the perpetrators would be brought to justice. >> translator: my brothers and sisters, today again i'm here to renew my commitment that will revenge every drop of blood of our people. we're doing that, and we will not rest until we've accounted for everything to the end.

>> and the united states says the expulsion of isis militants from syria's ancient city of palmyra does not reverse its opposition to syrian president bashar al assad. syria says the city will become a base for operations against isis strongholds. meanwhile, it was a busy day on the m&a front yesterday stateside, even though europe was closed here. a bit of a merger monday with some activity across sectors. chief among them in the hotel industry with the bidding war for starwood heathing up. this as the chinese insurance group anbang raise the its offer to $14 billion. however, there are reports a chinese takeover could face obstacles from local regulators. it follows last week's $13.6 billion bid by marriott. this as deal making around the world slumped by 25% in the

first quarter of 2016. this data comes from deal logic, saying that m&a activity has been hardest hit right here in the u.k. amid uncertainty around the upcoming eu referendum. joining us now is head of m&a at pen merritt gordon. we're talking about a dip in m&a activity, specifically here in the u.k., yet we have this blockbuster merger deal in the works. a merger of equals. yet, a lot of enthusiasm around this, but we're starting to see opposition. how likely is it the deal still goes through? >> i think on a commercial level, this is a very good deal, and it probably ought to go ahead. there is some concern from a financial level that there's no premium. ultimately, it's being branded as a merger of equals. but in this day and age, there is no such thing as a merger of equals. in reality, this is a takeover by deutsche. however, if you look at the

benefits to shareholders here, we're talking about 450 million of cost sinnynergies over three years. total cost to achieve these, about 600 million. that's about 25% of the group's combined ebitda. this suggests an accretive deal for shareholders. you talk about on a political level, some of the rhetoric around this deal that the two sides are trying to put forward is around a furthering of capital markets union across the european space. now, that side i find more rhetoric than actually bringing about a genuine benefit. >> so overall on the financial side of things, something that lse shareholders should be happy about, but we heard the concerns you just touched on, especially on the political side, over fear of losing independence here, giving up too much sovereignty. is that a real threat? >> yes and no. it depends on what you define as a threat. sure, we're going to see a

flagship asset of the u.k., which has been extremely successful, delivering great returns, and making london into one of the world's financial capitals. is this a problem as such? i'm not sure it is. it feeds into the same brexit debate we've been having for the last few months. it is about to heat up even more. is there a genuine benefit from combining two capital markets in frankfurt and london? probably not. the real synergy is around the data side. >> and you mentioned the brexit debate there. the executives of lse and deutsche were quick to come out and say brexit wouldn't impact this deal, but would it pose some risks here? >> i think it does, absolutely. >> and when we talk about the european types here, the environment for m&a in europe is one thing, but we've also seen

the real surge in m&a activity so far this year coming from foreign companies, specifically looking at u.s. firms here. anbang just the latest chinese firm trying to snap up a u.s. hotel group. is this a pattern you expect to continue? >> yes, i think so. at the moment what we're seeing -- in 2015, we saw over 5 trillion in m&a activity. we've had a slightly slower q1 this year, but there are mega deals in there, and it's coming from a broad base of deal types. one of those is the introduction of chinese capital. china's announced more deal by value in q1 this year than in all of 2015. the ability of chinese investors to pay in cash and full is a huge benefit here. this is what's allowing them to make these audacious bids.

marriott's bid for starwood, or its latest bid, was only a quarter in cash and the rest was in marriott stock. they don't have the ability to take on an enormous amount of further debt to sweeten the cash proportion. >> sure. often we talk about cash being viewed as king, if you will, when it comes to the m&a space, yet we already heard marriott hinting, perhaps a warning to starwood, saying, look, this deal still might not go through. they didn't say it specifically, but many said they could be alluding to regulatory concerns. that's something we've seen before. but is it different when we talk about the hotel sector, or should investors still be worried about the regulatory rejections? >> i think there's two sides to this actually. there's u.s. regulators, and then there's the chinese regulators themselves. in order to make cross-border deals, there's a multistage process in acquiring the foreign currency to actually do the deal. this takes a long time, and this has risks attached to it itself. anbang is an insurer as well. there's the regulator looking at

what degree of asset diversification they're getting into themselves. they've already made a number of hotel deals recently. they bought the waldorf astoria and made another acquisition last year. >> we'll have to see how this one plays out. thank you for joining us. still to come here on "street signs," patience is a virtue. uber's ceo tells cnbc investors will have to wait a little longer for an ipo. catch our exclusive interview after this short break.

hijacked and forced to land in cyprus. egypt air says the crew and foreigners remain on board. the fbi drops its case against apple as it finds its own way to access the information on the san

bernardino shooter's u phone. as late as possible. the ceo of uber tells cnbc in an exclusive interview that those hoping for the ipo will have to wait. >> we have to ultimately find liquidity for all shareholders, but i'm going to make sure it happens as late as possible. >> two years, three years, five years, ten years? >> i'll keep you posted. i have no idea. good morning and welcome back to "street signs," and welcome back to work after the long holiday here in europe. wall street was open for trading yesterday, however, but stocks ended basically flat. it was the lowest volume day we've seen so far this year. we've been seeing low volume throughout the last week as well, as investors try to get a better idea of the data picture and ahead of janet yellen's big speech today. as you can see there, green arrows with markets called higher across the board, though

relatively modest gains a the this stage. this is how trade is playing out here in europe. we are seeing strength getting back to the workweek here with the overall stoxx europe 600 up. investo investors continue to watch the move in oil prices, which continues off about more than 1% for brent and wti. weakness in the energy space that had weighed on the ftse 100 in particular. we are getting a rebound. the ftse 100 up about half a percent. meanwhile, we want to bring you up to speed with a developing story we've been watching this morning. that is the passenger plane en route to cairo that was hijacked earlier and forced to divert to cyprus. now, according to egypt air's twitter page, negotiations resulted in the release of most passengers on board except for

foreigners and the crew. we do not have information on the identity of those still on board. we are working to get that to you as soon as possible. a high-level source has told nbc news that the motive seems to be about a, quote, personal matter involving a woman. local state news is reporting the hijacker is an egyptian national. we will keep you up to date throughout the show as this story develops. you can also head online to get the latest developments on cnbc.com. switching focus here, the fbi has dropped its case against apple, saying it has found another way to access the data on the san bernardino shooter's iphone without the company's help. the department of justice has declined to name the third party who cracked the device and said it may not tell apple how it accessed the data. meanwhile, uber investors that are hoping for a speedy ipo

will be disappointed, as the c, oh, s -- ceo says he wants to wait as long as possible. >> the private markets, i mean, you only have to open the financial news on your favorite website and you see that the private markets are incredibly liquid. lots of folks getting hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in investment. there's a lot of money out there looking for the next big thing, looking to invest in technology and innovation. what that means is, well, our competitors around the world are going out there and getting that investment. because of the way our system works, we can't be in a position where, well, we're running a small profitable business, but they're deeply investing and we're not matching that. so our strategy is to make sure that we are raising as much as our competitors are, that our balance sheet is as healthy as

theirs is. and remember, we have lots of competitors all over the world because we're global. but then the second part is to more efficiently spend every dollar. if you do those two things, where you're on even footing from a balance sheet perspective, especially on cash, and you're more effectively spending those dollars on the income statement, then you eventually do well. so that's our strategy as it relates to funding and how we think about things. but what's really been happening over the last six months is we've been watching literally hundreds of cities go profitable. we've just tightened up the operations. things are just -- you know, we're getting good at running profitable cities. of course, you know, maybe in an almost amazonian kind of way w i like to take our profits in some places and invest it in others. that's working out well for us

so far. >> so when does that break even for the business as a whole? >> i mean, look, i don't know. the reason i don't know is because, you know, i'm not yet sure how much investment it will take to get to profitability in china. but i'm optimistic that, you know, within the next couple years, you know, we're going to start seeing chinese cities start to prop up and be profitable. >> so all those sal vatding investment bankers who were hoping for an ipo this year, they should forget about it. >> most definitely. the reason is, look, i'm an entrepreneur. i want to move as fast as i possibly can. i want to build something that endures. we've raised, i don't know, the last 18 months, something like -- somewhere in the neck of

the woods of $10 billion. we're not in need of public capital, if that makes sense. but there also of course is that sort of -- i call it the moral obligation with investors who put money in. they need to see liquidity. of course, we have employees as well who put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make uber successful, and they own equity. so we have to ultimately find liquidity for all shareholders, but i'm going to make sure it happens as late as possible. >> and so what does that mean? two years, three yeerars, five years, ten years? >> i'll keep you posted. i have no idea. >> i'll give you my number. let me know first, because i'd like to hear that. >> fair enough. understood. >> i think it's interesting there's so much capital around at the moment, particularly for technology companies. >> and particularly for

technology companies in china. i mean, there's a lot of money going around right now. >> does it worry you that there's malinvestment taking place? i know a lot of people are worrying about unicorns being overvalued because there's so much liquidity, a lot of it is just going into the wrong kind of innovation. does it bother you? >> well, look, at some point it's gotten to the irrational place. that's a little unfortunate because i think it tweaks -- like, it's hard to run an efficient marketplace when there's too much money floating around. but at the end of the day, it's just the reality. there's a lot of money going after an incredibly huge market. that's -- of course, transportation, that's the industry we're in. there are others as well. when you get into something that

feels like a bubble or at least feels irrational, you still want to build a company that has a strong, disciplined business-building culture. when the irrational comes, you have to find ways to sort of contain it. we spend time on that because it's important that in our cities where, you know, so much of our team is operating in these cities around the world, you know, it's important that right culture, that right business-building culture sort of, you know, pervades all of them. >> well, joining us now around the set is the co-founder of hassle.com. i know through your company and through your involvement you've been a great defender of the sharing economy. now we can talk about the different debate over whether uber is classified within the sharing economy. nevertheless, jeff there talking to the uber ceo about the regulatory risks involved, those uber has faced across the world.

but you've often brought up the point that the sharing economy actually helps bring a part of the employment field above board. explain that. >> absolutely. i think what you find with most of the marketplaces in this space is they're actually bringing things that have happened in a more informal capacity into a formal environment. if you take hassle.com, much of that happens in a black market. we brought it online in a transparent and safe fashion. i think what uber is providing is a flexible way of working, driving for themselves, which is very similar to many cabs, just far more efficient. it's unfortunately got itself a bui bit of a bad name. i think that's really at the heart of why people tend to uber bash. >> growing so quickly, attracting a lot of investment, yet we heard the ceo saying they're in no rush to do an ipo, presumably the private marks are so liquid, they don't need to go

to private markets. is this something similar to what you see with other entrepreneurs, greater reluctance to go to public markets? >> i think you only have to look at the last few handful of ipos to know they haven't been massively successful. and it involves an awful lot of work, an awful lot of stress, just to see your price fall off a cliff. i think anyone looking at the markets right now would want to stay private as long as possible. >> so that's from the founder's perspective. what about the vcs, the private money? is the appetite still there to flood these companies with money and hope that they expands, hope they scale, or do you think that appetite is waning a bit? >> i think it's kind of a middle thing going on here. i think we've got a lot of early money. so anywhere up to a few million. i think once you get kind of over the 20 million and really grow in private equity mode, the money is still there. i think in this middle, this

hump of demonstrating you have an idea and you can scale it, so proving you can scale, raising money for that is becoming increasingly difficult. i think i've definitely seen the market slow down over the last 12 months, especially in europe. i think the feeling is the same in the valley. >> and when we talk about scale, of course there's this big push for the larger players to get into china, as uber was just talking about there. yet here in yooup when we talk about some of the u.k. companies, they have a challenge to start up just across europe. what are those biggest challenges? >> so, i mean, in order for us to compete with, let's say, the u.s. players -- and i'm not saying it's a zero-sum game, but the u.s. has a huge addressable market at the get go across 50 states. for us to have anything comparable, we need the eu and its 500 million consumers and businesses. i think it would be a huge

travesty if we fall out with the eu because -- i mean, i've tried to scale a business across europe. i went to germany and france. it's very, very difficult, even with the agreements we have in place. we need more integration. i fear that's a bad word, but more kind of har monoization of tax codes, of financial services, of starting businesses, of employment laws. what we don't want to do is withdraw because it will seriously hurt particularly the digital businesses for which our part of the economy is meant to be growing. we need to be really, really careful what we decide in june when the referendum comes around. >> is this a view you think is shared amok other founders here in the u.k.? of course, you're chair of the coalition of the digital economy. do you think there's a real concern over the brexit threat? >> huge concern. we did a survey, i think it was

82% to stay in and the remanindr to leave. when you dug into why people want to leave, it came down to two things. sovereignty and red tape. the sovereignty argument is an emotional argument we don't even need to deal with. when you have a conversation with the people at the commission and in europe, what you actually find is they acknowledge the red tape, and they're looking at ways to reduce it, so experiments they can run in a controlled fashion to try and break down those barriers. i think we'd be really rash to pull out at this moment in time. >> and just going back to some viewer experience, hassle.com effectively helping people looking for cleaners, connect with people online. if you can talk about how that employment works, when we talk about the sharing economy, there's still this great question of are they contractors, are they employees, and what are the risks going forward. >> so it was very simple. we used to see everybody in person. we used to conduct an interview,

take a background check. very similar to the way uber recruits. very similar to the way air bnb recruits. i think what i discovered in my three years of running hassle was very much that the pool of freelancers is only growing. it's growing year on year. i think it's gone up something like 15%. so this is like a real part of the economy now. what i'm finding is that the employment model is broken. we need a third way. we need to acknowledge that people are choosing to work flexibly for more than one worker. and this idea of a job for life with a pension and all those benefits, that's not as important to the generations that are coming through now. what's more important is fulfillment and a choice of how they live their life. i think that's what the sharing companies offer so well. as you can tell because they're all making money. >> do you think the government is waking up to this? we did just get some tax breaks. is this an acknowledgment that

policymakers are taking note? >> i think it was a nod to them being a future part in our kind of generation, but i also think he could go further. they were very open to talking, and we have a lot of dialogue with the government about the sharing economy. >> all right. well, thank you for joining us. still to come here on "street signs," you can get on our website to read more about what the uber ceo has to say. that's all on cnbc.com. don't miss that exclusive interview. meanwhile, google is heading back to court in may over a long-running dispute over oracle, which claims google unawfully used its java platform. oracle is seeking $9.3 billion in damages. and google might find itself in more hot water after breaking through china's fire wall, albeit for just a few hours.

users in china were able to access google's search engine before authorities moved to shut down the site around 1:00 a.m. there's more on what prompted the temporary website breach on our website. and yahoo! has set an april 11th deadline for preliminary bids for its web business and asian assets. that's according to "the wall street journal," citing various sources. yahoo! has asked potential bidders for financial details as well as conditions or approvals that would have to be met in order to move the deal forward. telecom giants verizon and publisher inc. are reportedly weighing up offers. facebook has entered a new reality with the release of its oculus headset. >> reporter: facebook's oculus rift is on sale for $600, launching with 30 games and hundreds of thousands of 360-degree movies and photos and other immersive experiences. like this for alands virtual world oculus created to showcase

the creative possibilities. these new types of content expected to be what drives purchases of the headsets. >> we're waiting a bit to see what the killer app is on oculus, whether it's a facebook app itself or perhaps a game or experience we haven't imagined yet. >> reporter: while there are already less expensive devices, today kicks off a competitive high of end headset market. htc's $800 headset is the due out april 5th. sony's was delayed until october. we'll see when apple launches. facebook's rift has a head start, but its market is limited by the fact that most pcs won't work it or with htc's headset until they're fairly new and equipped for hard core gaming. this pc gaming market was worth $23 billion last year, and it's projected that the total augmented virtual reality market

will reach $150 billion for the year 2020. >> we shouldn't get ahead of our expectations in thinking this is going to be under every christmas tree at the holidays. i don't think it's going to be that big, that fast. three to five years, it's massive. >> reporter: and oculus aims to create a new market that goes beyond gaming. >> facebook and mark zuckerberg's intention here is to make those social experiences, combining your social network of friends and family with those experiences, whether it be games or something else. >> reporter: and analysts seem optimistic that facebook will make its $2 billion acquisition of oculus pay off. the question is just how much prices will have to fall before these headsets can really become mainstream. julia boorstin, cnbc business news, los angeles. still to come here on "street signs," it's batman vs. superman smashing the box office, but was the star power strong enough to beat critics?

we'll discuss after this short break.

welcome back to "street signs." facing another impeachment case. the bra jill yan bar association has filed a request, accusing the president of obstructing justice and accounting tricks. amid this turmoil, the minister for tourism has become the first member o to resign from the party. fidel castro has criticized president obama following his visit, saying cuba does not need gifts from the empire. the retired leader wrote that listening to obama could, quote, give anyone a heart attack. former new york banker has been arrested on charges that he defrauded investors of more than $95 million. prosecutors say he scammed

clients into investing millions of dollars in sham private equity investments. he posted a $5 million bail. and warner brothers latest comic book movie has stormed the box office, despite receiving a number of poor reviews "batman v. superman" took an estimated $170 million in north america. that makes it the sixth best weekend opener ever. and let's give you a look at how u.s. futures are set to open today. we did get a basically flat close on wall street yesterday, which was open for trade, despite the extended holiday here in europe. as you can see, all the u.s. markets called to open higher with the dow jones called to open higher by 24 points. the s&p 500 just barely in the green. the nasdaq called higher by about 11 points. for a bit more on the market direction as investors keep an eye to the big comments from janet yellen due later today, let's bring in blair hull, ceo at hull investments.

blair, pleasure to have you with us. thank you for waking up at this early hour in the u.s. i want to discuss the u.s. equity woes we've been seeing and what you expect going forward, given so much of the trade continues to be based on expectations for the central bank. we are gearing up for that announcement speech from yellen later today. so how concerned are you about a less dovish commentary from janet yellen? >> well, i find it interesting what happens with the central bank. we look at these fed meetings, there are eight a year, and every time there does tend to be -- two things i want to talk about. one is what happens right before the meeting. there is a tendency for prices to rise right before the meeting. investors do get paid for assuming risk, not knowing what the fed is going to do. so there is an anomaly that has been recognized in the academic world for some time that prices

do go up just prior to the announcement. as far as i know, there's no academic work that shows there's anything predictable about what the fed's action is at that time. so i think it's overanticipated, and most of the time it's discounted into the market. so whatever they do, it's not -- it's nothing you can predict based upon what their actions will be. >> bearing that view in mind, your etf actually is a way to try to ride out some of the volatility we've seen. despite that massive selloff we saw to the start of the year, we have seen a recovery since mid-february. although t does seem to be petering out somewhat. what are you expecting going forward, let's say for the next quarter ahead? >> our model, which includes about 20 variables, does not like equity returns in the next year. we are actually showing the

market to be about flat. we have a long-term model and a short-term model. i think right now we're like 7% short the market. so we do not like equity returns going into the next year. >> and we are getting closer to the next earnings season here. some suggesting that an earnings recession is on the cards and perhaps it's just another reason why you could view equities as overbought at this stage. do you agree? >> well, we do have a variable in the model, which is a price variable, which looks at price to earnings ratio, price to book, earnings yield, and also something called cape. robert shiller created sicklically adjusted price to earnings ratios. we use a principle components analysis, which consists of our equity -- our value variable. that's gone from being undervalued to now slightly overvalued at these levels.

so we really, from that standpoint, from an earnings standpoint, we look at the market as being fairly valued, but when we take in other considerations, we have a variable called "k" that's consumption, wealth, and income. from wealth and income, for individuals or on an aggregate basis, you should be able to predict how much we will consume. right now, this variable is created by martin le tow at the university of california berkeley in about 2002. right now we have consumers consuming less than they would be anticipated to consume. that is bearish for the market. that variable does get a fairly high weight in our model. >> and that certainly resonates with some of the data we had out yesterday, which really disappointed when it comes to personal consumption behaviors in the u.s. also a downward revision in the prior months. interesting to see what janet yellen has to say about that data point today.

i also want to get your thoughts on the baltic dry index in is something we tend to watch closely when it comes to the movements we've seen in commodity prices. what do you see when it comes to this index specifically? could we be getting a rebound? >> well, we've had the baltic dry index in our model for some time. it seems we have a correlation screening. our model actually is we're very transparent about what we do. it is available on ssrn and will be published shortly. the baltic dry index earlier this year was extremely bearish as we went into this slide in oil. just recently it has come back and is now giving us a slightly bullish signal. but we have to look at all the variables together to see what our expectation will be. but the baltic dry, although it does not have a large weight, it has been consistently in our model. >> all right. well, thank you for walking us through those views.

that's blair hull, ceo at hull investments. and just to recap the events we've been watching this developing story on the egypt airplane that was hijacked. the passenger plane en route to cairo was hijacked early this morning and forced to divert to cyprus. according to egyptair's twitter page, negotiations resulted in the release of most passengers on board, except for foreigners and the crew. a high-level source has hold nbc news the motive seems to be about, quote, a personal matter involving ament who, and the hijacker has requested to speak to a lady who appears to be his ex-wife. negotiators are currently discussing this prospect. well, that's it for today's show. i'm nancy hulgrave with "street signs." "worldwide exchange" is up next. your path to retirement... may not always be clear. but at t. rowe price, we can help guide your retirement savings. for over 75 years, investors have relied on our disciplined approach to find long term value. so wherever your

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good morning. cracked iphone. the f bhi breaks into the san bernardino gunman's iphone without apple's help, ending the government's legal battle for now. yellen to the rescue? investors awaiting comments from the fed chair. and march of the markets. stocks are on pace to break their month-long losing streak despite a continued decline in oil prices. it's tuesday, march 29th, 2016, and "worldwide exchange" begins right now.