tv Street Signs CNBC February 17, 2017 4:00am-5:01am EST
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welcome. you're watching "street signs." i'm louisa bojesen. >> i'm carolin roth. these are your headlines. >> the leaks are real. the news is fake. president trump uses his first solo briefing at the white house to defend his administration and attack the media. >> the leaks are real. you're the one that wrote about them and reported them. the leaks are real. you know what they said. you saw it. the leaks are absolutely real. the news is fake. european stocks edging lower as the s&p 500 and the nasdaq
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snap seven-day winning streaks. allianz launches a 3 billion euro share buyback after posting bumper profits for the fourth quarter. the cfo outlined the insurance firm's m&a plans earlier on the show. >> if an acquisition fits our business and our future strategy and we ca can do it, we certain look at it. it is not a must for us. it's a further opportunistic thing. samsung heir jay y. lee is arrested as part of a corruption probe, sending political shockwaves through south korea and sending shares in the smartphone maker lower. good morning, everybody. welcome back. >> good morning. >> traveling, that beautiful shot in switzerland yesterday. >> i did bring back chocolate, i think it's gone now. i brought it in at 6:00 this
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morning, gone at 6:05. >> trump getting everybody up and going. the dotcom people can't keep up. >> being a journalist on trump these days, effectively you're on 24 hours. you get maybe five hours. >> head online and look at the key points from this speech, if you haven't already. we'll talk more about it in a bit. want to show you european markets. lower across the board here in europe. some smaller markets hanging on to slight gains. by in large down a half p percentage point. >> it is worth noting we are set to end higher for the second week in a row but far from any record highs on the u.s. markets. >> let's get back to president trump, his nominee for security adviser has turned down the job. retired vice admiral robert harward said the decision was
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purely personal. sean spicer confirmed it was due to family and financial concerns. acting adviser keith kellogg and retired general david petraeus are consider front-runners to replace michael flynn. and earlier in the day donald trump named alex sander acosta s nominee for u.s. secretary of labor. donald trump made that announcement at a press conference. that announcement took about 58 seconds, then he went on to other stuff out of the 80 minutes. >> slamming the media. >> the announcement less than two minutes. he made this announcement at the press conference. his first solo briefing at the white house. that news being overshadowed i had wby his combative comments.
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kristen welker reports. >> reporter: it was a news conference like no other. >> i turn on the tv, open the newspapers and i see stories of chaos. chaos. yet it's the exact opposite. this administration is running like a fine-tuned machine. >> reporter: in a fiery hour and 17 minutes, the president touting his accomplishments and larking out, trying to reset after a chaotic start to his presidency. >> i inherited a mess. it's a mess. the tone is such hatred. i'm really not a bad person, by the way. the tone is such -- i do get good ratings. you have to admit that. the tone is such hatred. >> reporter: for the first time addressing why he fired his national security adviser, mike flynn, who misled the vice president about discussing sanctions with russia. >> mike flynn is a fine person. i asked for his resignation. he respectfully gave it. he is a man who --
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there was a certain amount of information given to vice president pence who is with us today. i was not happy with the way that information was given. >> did you direct mike flynn to discuss sanctions with the russian ambassador prior to your inauguration? >> no, i didn't. >> would you have fired him if it hadn't leaked out? >> i fired him because of what he said to mike pence. that simple. i didn't direct him, but i would have directed him. that's his job. >> reporter: the president repeatedly pressed on whether anyone from his campaign had contact with the russians. >> we had a very, very good talk. i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge, no person i deal with does. >> reporter: mr. trump blaming flynn's ouster on leakers. >> i've called the justice department to look into the leaks. those are criminal leaks. they're put out by people either in agencies -- i think you'll see it stopping because now we have our people. >> reporter: after touting leaks against hillary clinton as a candidate -- >> i love reading those wikileaks. >> reporter: -- today he addressed the irony.
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>> wikileaks, which i had nothing to do with, happens to come out and give -- they're not giving out classified information. nobody mentions that hillary received the questions to the debates. can you imagine, seriously -- can you imagine if i received the questions? it would be the electric chair. >> reporter: the president may have caused more confusion when asked if he believes this latest round of leaks. >> the leaks are real. the news is fake because so much of the news is fake. >> reporter: the president didn't say whether or not he would react to recent provocations from russia, but he insisted that the negative headlines could hurt chances for a russian reset in a jarring response. >> if we could get along with russia that's a positive thing. the greatest thing i can do is shoot that ship that's 30 miles offshore right out of water. everyone will say that's so great. that's not great. that's not great. >> reporter: the news conference started with the president listing what he called successes, creating jobs,
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starting the process of building a wall, trying to enact an order on extreme vetting. and he listed others. >> in each of these actions i'm keeping my promises to the american people. these are campaign promises. >> reporter: the president still won't let the election go. again boasting about his 304-electoral vote win, calling it the biggest electoral victory since ronald reagan, despite the fact that presidents obama and george h.w. bush exceeded him. >> why should americans trust you? >> it was a substantial victory. do you agree with that? >> reporter: there was a discussion about race and religion. the president asked if he will work with the congressional black caucus to help fix inner cities. >> do you want to set up the meeting? >> no, no, no. >> are they friends of yours? no, set up the meeting. >> reporter: an pressed for the second day in a row of hate crimes directed at the jewish community. >> i'm the least anti-semitic person you've seen in your entire life. number two, racism, the least racist person.
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>> reporter: the president defiant until the very end. >> we lived in a divided nation, and i'm going to try, i will do everything within my power to fix that. >> andrea nelly is with us from fidelity. good morning. good to see you. everybody is talking about the press conference from yesterday. any initial comments? thoughts you want to share with us on that? >> you guys have a fun job. >> we do have a fun job. it's hilarious at the moment. >> if you look at fixed income markets at the moment, despite the news we see in press conferences, it feels like the market is pricing in more of the good news, the campaign promises that trump has been boasting about for the last few months. we've seen quite a lot of good news priced into-year-olds, strong dollar, high inflation
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expectations. the road ahead is not as clear. there's a lot of things that can go wrong. it won't be as easy as it seems to be priced in at the moment for mr. trump to get all of these things and promises -- >> i spoke to somebody yesterday about how you best manage risk. he was pointing out that you have plenty of reasons why the yield curve should head higher. among them stronger jobs figures, the economy, the fed hiking rate two, three, four times this year. you have the other part of it, political risk and how you play politc political risk. which camp are you in? >> we feel yields can go higher from here. yes, you have inflation expectations going up. you have a lot of good news priced in for growth. don't forget high yields in the united states are not necessarily good news, because the interest bill for a lot of
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americans will be going up soon. may hamper consumption. when it comes to political risk, it's more about europe these days. though trump is keeping us on our toes there as well. and the thing about political risk, it's very difficult to price. we have seen the moves in italian spreads, in french government bonds. there will continue to be volatility in the next few weeks and months until at least the elections are out of the way. having said that, we are still in the camp that in europe the yields won't go too much higher. >> coming back to the u.s. for a little bit, can u.s. treasuries still perform the role of being a safe haven or do they just reflect the growth dynamics in the u.s., rising inflation, reflation trade, two or three hikes this year?
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>> in terms of what's expected, it's interesting to see two to three hikes that the fed expects to deliver are also what the market is pricing in already. there is a lot of scope for this appointment there with the stronger dollar and high yields. to a certain extent they are doing the fed's job, tightening financial conditions. yes, they can work as a safe haven, should we see a flight to quality, particularly if we get a drop in equities or negative move in equities. it's something that we continuously monitor in our portfolios. >> eurozone, inflation creeping up. unemployment is down at nine-year lows. seeing growth at the highest levels in four to five years. this environment, this ecb should taper. on the other hand we have so much political risk on the calendar. are its hands tied at this point? >> the ecb is one of those situations, a lot of people would -- maybe prefer them not to be as engaged, but you can't
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do much about it. in terms of the inflation profile, a lot of the hopes in the governing council have been using the higher headline inflation that we've seen over the last few months as a reason for which the ecb should taper. should continue reducing the purchase program. a lot of this is mainly due to technical effects. a year ago, oil was at $25. today oil is at $50. mathematically inflation is going up. if you look through it, if you look at the upward pressures are still not there. the ecb as we've seen recently in the latest minutes will look through that. >> you say the bund situation is not super obvious. political risk out of italy. what's the value play heading into some of these elections now? >> we think that semicorps,
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french bonds have priced in a lot of uncertainty. the ones you may expect going into the elections. doesn't mean it won't be a volatile few weeks and months ahead, but if you have medium-term look at the market, there is value. there is value there. also, another area we like is all the area around european credit markets, because, again, the ecb is still there supporting the market. also european corporates have not taken advantage of the low-rate environment to lever up, to increase leverage. for us as fixed income investors it's something positive. >> andrea, thank you very much for your time. if you can't get enough of president trump's press conference yesterday, head to cnbc.com to see five of trump's best quotes. e-mail the show, streetsignseurope@cnbc.com. and you can find us on twitter,
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streetsignseurope@cnbc a and @carolincnbc a and @louisabojesen. ♪(music pla) ♪ heigh ho heigh ho ♪ ♪ heigh ho heigh ho it's off to work we go here's to all of you early risers, what's up man? go-getters, and should-be sleepers. from all of us at delta, because the ones who truly change the world, are the ones who can't wait to get out in it.
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welcome back. you're still watching "street signs." let's talk earnings. shares in allianz are trading higher to the tune of 2.4% after the german insurer announced it will off a share buyback plan. annet annette, what does this mean for acquisition plans and i know they're interested in generali. >> yes, they are interested in
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j generali, but they have enough flexibility. they were reiterating even though they are buying back some 3 billion euro off their own shares, take a listen of what he had to say in an interview early on with us about acquisitions going forward. >> we have some flexibility also to do acquisitions going forward. and therefore i think nobody should be concerned. we have -- we have strategic development clearly in our mind, but also delivering to our shareholders. >> you've been cited in two big deals, generali, which would be a split of your assets and intesa sanpaolo, and qb insurance in australia. both extremely complex deals. in australia you have a number of pension funds sitting on the share register and with the generali story, you have to weave through a bunch of assets.
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tell us what is attractive about generali first up for you? >> look, both companies you mentioned are very well respected peers in our industry. i never talk about transactions. if an acquisition fits our business and our future strategy and we can add it, certainly we are looking at it, but it's not a must for us. it's a can. and a further opportunistic thing. currently the analyst call is ongoing and the ceo is reiterating that they want to do acquisitions in the property and casualty and the asset management business. on the question of where they want to do it, it's everywhere where they already are strong in markets. so they don't want to enter a new market. they want to expand in markets they already know. that's one thing going forward. very interesting. also the hike dividend is
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interesting for investors, if they're also promising that's the new floor. this is going to stay at least for the next years. and they are also changing a little bit their payout ratio. they want to have more flexibility for acquisitions going forward. before they had a strict rule to actually pay out a lot of money if they don't find acquisitions which we're seeing now. going forward this will be more flexible. also something, which is perhaps a new sign that the ceo since last year is confident about acquisitions going forward. they want to expand their scope in markets they're already in. i think we should watch out what happens in australia and possibly also in italy. they might wait a bit and see what happens with the french elections. this is also a major concern for allianz. back to you. >> thank you very much. stada has received a third
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takeover offer from an unidentified private equity firm. the new bid for the drugmaker is 58 euros per share, two euros higher than cinven's offer earlier this week. that values stada at 3.6 billion euros with the supervisory board meeting today to discuss a possible deal. volkswagen delivered nearly half a million vehicles in january, down 5% from the previous year. an executive for the automaker said the decline was solely due to special effects in china and noted positive trends in europe and the u.s. where deliveries rose by 4% and 17% respectively. and segro's full-year profit fell to 426 million pounds from 686 million pounds in 2015. the industrial warehouse developer reported higher earnings per share. let's talk more about european equities with the director of research at wisdom tree. good morning, victor. what is the case for european
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equities now. we're seeing so much political risk. a lot of money flowing into u.s. equities. is there room in investors portfolios for european equities? >> sure there is. they offer great value proposition. their dividend yields compare favorably to the bond yields in europe. the euro has devalued, oil prices, u.s. dollars tick up. so what is your inflation hedge? it's not buying into long data fixed income. we have seen a significant dislocation in fixed income last year when governments in italy came up with a 50-year bond issue, and investors lost a lot of money over the course since the issue was done. i think 16% has been the capital loss on that particular bond. what is your alternative to playing yield? it's the equities. the european equities, especially the dividend pays are
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insulated from the geopolitical uncertainties surrounding either trump or the elections in europe. me me ment. >> do you go with companies that have exposure oversees for growth opportunities? >> surely, european equities by default, at least in the large cap space have been exporters by default. if you buy the european equities you don't buy europe. you buy u.s. you buy china. you buy the view on what's the global export condition of european companies. nothing to do with the domestics of europe. you're concerned about the domestics of europe, you should be concerned about the bond markets and maybe small capitalization stocks. if you want to play the equity markets by being underweight europe, then the european equity market is ironically a great pick. >> are you concerned about the bond markets? >> a little bit. the fact that spreads are
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widening, sort of high quality issues like the french sovereign does suggest that markets are getting more nervous. they're getting more nervous because of the longer term implications of the potential election results may do to the fabric of the european project. surely now with upcoming elections in my country and the netherlands on the 15th of march, it doesn't matter the outcome, but assume the far-right government is the largest party but still cannot govern, that sends a signal to far-right movements elsewhere in europe that are looking to capitalize on that trend. if that were to happen, then what's more important is what will you do with the dislocation in terms of the fiscal location. >> does that translate into the europe r
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euro? >> yes, you may see more volatility in the euro. so as an investor you want to be currency hedged. if the currency deprecates or weakens, you don't want to be exposed to those companies that are dependant on the oil price. so tourism will be affected. airlines will be more affected. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. we have to take a quick break. check out world markets live. there's lots of activity on there this morning. it's our blog that runs throughout the european trading day. they have lots of highlights from the trump speech yesterday. we'll see you on the other side of the break. what if you could n things around? what if you could love your numbers? discover once-daily invokana®. it's the #1 prescribed
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welcome back. you're still watching "street signs." i'm carolin roth. >> i'm louisa bojesen. your headlines this morning. >> the leaks are real. the news is fake. president trump uses his first solo briefing at the white house to defend his administration and attack the media. >> the leaks are real. you're the one that wrote about them and reported them. the leaks are real. you know what they said. you saw it. the leaks are absolutely real. the news is fake. allianz launches a 3 billion euro share buyback after posting bumper profits for the fourth quarter. the cfo outlined the insurance firm's m&a plans earlier on the show. >> if an acquisition fits our business and our future strategy
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and we can add it, certainly we are looking at it. it is not a must for us. it's a further opportunistic thing. a generic deal. stada shares rise as a mystery third bidder makes an improved offer. samsung heir jay y. lee is arrested as part of a corruption probe, sending political shockwaves through south korea and sending shares in the smartphone maker lower. all right. welcome back to "street signs." uk retail sales falling again for the month of january. minus 0.3% month on month. that's versus a figure in december of minus 2.1%. the pole hl had been a rise of .
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when looking at a year-on-year basis, plus 3%. the lowest rise year on year since 2013. month on month weaker an year-on-year weaker. excluding fuel, minus 0.2%. they increased prices in fuel and fuel are significant prices in the slowdown. in the three months to january, retail sales first saw a sign of a fall since 2013. >> prices are rising at the fastest since mid 2013. this is as a result of the fall in pound sterling. let's get out to the managing director of consumer retail at william blair, beth picking. is this the first sign that the depreciation of the pound sterling is squeezing the
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budgets of consumers? >> it is a noisy sign. we could have expected currency would have an impact on the number, tourism would have an impact on the number. that bolstered the numbers from last year. >> let's talk about something similar but different. fashion week happened in new york last week. tomorrow it kicks off in london or today even. it's hard to ignore politics at this point in time when we're being inundated with trump's comments. this also featured in fashion week. how so? >> politics, technology and entertainment were the big three themes that came out of new york fashion week. we can expect to see those themes this week in london. it's kicking off today. let's talk about the reason why that happened. outside of us having a better stage to communicate within a unified media, e-commerce world, you can see that through the white bandanna action happening
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through the fashion community. that's not about one nation's politics about a motion about solidarity with all the different pockets of activity. the reason why i think fashion week and fashion in general, the industry has become more of a platform for self-expression in politics as it has been in the past is the shift of how these products have been consumed. if we looked at the front row ten years ago of any of the major shows, we would have seen wholesale buyers procuring products on a seasonally basis to fill stores at a relatively measured pace around the calendar. and as those seats have been replaced by digital hole sawhol or digital retailers, who are placing orders on a much more frequently revolving basis, they are also accompanied by bloggers and opinion leaders, we see the shows as what went from a relatively private industrial
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event to a public event. and the public being invited right in. this has given a platform for self expression not only next season and the trends, but marking at a moment in the time in what we're trying to do with self expression. >> what is the white bandanna movement? >> the white bandanna movement, in many of the shows, and you may see it more in europe because we're closer to the refugee action, some of the models are wearing white bandannas, just to say, look, we understand what we're doing is celebrating a season right now, and marking a moment in time, we also wanted to be cognizant of the fact that there's a lot of noise in the background. >> i understand the digital wholesalers and retailers sitting in the front rows, the real shift in our times. i don't understand the wearable technology. i keep hearing this is huge, it's big, it's coming tomorrow. i don't know anybody who wears
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any type of clothing. >> it may be here now. >> in the watch sense, but not the -- not into your clothes. >> i think it's less integrated. i don't think it's going to be within the textile. some of that is a limitation within textiles. there's been a number of lunches, such as the leaf, the other sensors that you can wear elsewhere on your body. they're moving closer to the textile. as those get smarter, you may see the -- the implant size shrink and come inside of the textile. we're not quite there yet. we are at a point of evolution, it's one of the things we can look forward to. >> it's taking such a long time for the watch to gain traction. >> it's still relatively inaccurate but getting so much better. >> beth, thank you very much for that. appreciate you coming in today. beth pickens from william blair. a quick look at u.s. futures after yesterday we had markets coming off after a couple record highs. the s&p 500 seen off by another
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six points. the dow jones seen off by 48. that was actually the only market that eked out another record close. it was up by ten points yesterday, and the nasdaq seen off by 12 points. heading into a long weekend. three-day weekend. european markets are underwater. the ftse 200 100 is off by 0.2%. allianz is outperforming after its 3 billion euro share buyback. that takes us to the currency markets. the big story in today's trading session is the pound sterling against the u.s. dollar. 1.2413. down by quite a bit on the back of the worse than expected retail sales number. euro/dollar at 106.42. the eurozone finance minister and the imf look to miss next week's deadline for a
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bailout of greece. if the deal deadline is missed, the bailout fight could be postponed by months and become a key topic in the dutch and french elections. donald trump announced alexander acosta as his nominee for u.s. secretary of labor on thursday at his first solo briefing in the white house. he did that in the first 58 seconds, the remaining 77 minutes of the press conference was basically targeting the media. it was overshadowed by these comments because he defended his administration and continued to attack the media. he took umbrage with the press reporting for alleged communication between the trump campaign and allegrussian offic. >> you can talk all you want about russia, fake news, fabricated deal to make up for the loss of the democrats, the press plays right into it. in fact i saw a couple people that were supposedly involved with all of this. they know nothing about it. they weren't in russia.
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they never made a phone call to russia. they never received a phone call. it's all fake news. >> u.s. secretary of state, rex tillerson what had his first face-to-face meeting with sergey lavrov at the g20 sum mitt. the russian foreign minister used the encounter to refute hacking allegations saying the kremlin does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries. hadley is with us from the munich security conference. rex tillerson is not only meeting with the russians but also the chinese, hadley. >> yes, indeed. it's interesting what we will be seeing over the next couple of days. over 25 world leaders, you have 80 secretaries of states, secretaries of foreign ministry an defense ministers meeting on the sidelines of this conference. there's no doubt that sergey lavrov will probably run into u.s. vice president mike pence. angela merkel will be speaking on saturday morning as well as the vice president. the vice president is basically cheer not just on a listening
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tour or trying to shore up relationships with european abili allies but also talking about things happening in the middle east, talking about syria, the fight against the islamic state. there's questions about how russia and the united states can work together in fighting terrorism that would basically mean they would have to do intelligence sharing. we heard from the new secretary of defense, general mike mattis in brussels, he was saying we're far away from that kind of commitment. >> we are not in a position right now to collaborate on a military level. but our political leaders will engage, try to find common ground or a way forward where russia, living up to its commitments will return to a partnership of sorts here with nato. russia is going to have to prove itself first. >> big questions surrounding the russ russia/u.s. relationship, whether it's fighting terrorists or what will happen next in
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terms of asanctions. against this backdrop of european elections, there's concerns about security, the threat of hacking. a lot of answers that european leaders will be looking for from the u.s. vice president and the u.s. secretary of state over the next couple of days in terms of how that relationship will develop going forward. we heard from the new secretary of defense in brussels yesterday. he was essentially saying we expect europeans to pay more for their own security and the u.s. will moderate its commitment to nato in accordance with how much european countries commit. a lot of questions going forward about this relationship. at the end of the day we're hearing from u.s. officials saying that the u.s. vice president is basically there to solidify relationships and make sure europe knows they have the support of the united states. guys? >> hadley, thank you very much for that. the leaders of australia and new zealand gathers for a leader summit. cnbc spoke to new zealand's finance minister, steven joyce, and asked him about the state of global trade amid president
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trump's protectionist rhetoric. >> how do we advance free trade when the u.s. is having a more protectionist approach? for new zealand and australia, we really have benefitted from free and fair trade as i would argue most of the world has. and the question is how do we advance our agenda further? a lot of opportunities for businesses now. for us, showing through the benefits of the korean fda and other fda's that we have been advancing over the last few years. it's a case of talking to other tpp partners. there's 11 countries in tpp that are signed up to proceed with the agreement. there will be a lot to of chat among trade ministers, both prime minister turnbull and prime minister english will be involved to see what the opportunities are to take an asia pacific free trade area
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forward. that's the best guarantee of prosperity for our countries and our region. the samsung group heir jay lee will be indicted tomorrow. this happening after lee was arrested earlier today over his alleged role in a corruption scandal. >> an arrest warrant for jay y. lee has been approved and he's been formally arrested on allegations of bribery, embezzlement and perjury. the courts have issued this warrant citing that new evidence that special prosecutors brought to light gave them reason to approve the custodial arrest warrant. special prosecutors after having the warrant rejected three weeks ago put in this request adding in more charges bringing the total number of charges against jay lee to five. he has refuted all charges during his 15 hours of questioning this week and samsung group has officially said samsung has under no
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circumstance bribed president park seeking something in return. what happens from now? jay lee has been detained at the seoul detention center as of yesterday since the hearings and since the approval of the warrant will remained detained at the detention center until he is proven innocent or summoned by prosecutors, which ever comes first. so far prosecutors are looking to summon jay lee tomorrow. he will remain in prosecutors custody until -- under this warrant for 20 days from today. of course the bigger picture is the political scandal involving president park and her friend and how samsung fits into this picture. this entire process, which includes further questioning, trials, appeals this could take up from a year to as long as 18 months until a verdict. management risk at samsung will be a concern throughout this
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process. but samsung has been very clear about their role and position in this scandal refuting the charging that prosecutors have brought on them. that was the latest out of seoul. back to you. >> we'll go for a quick break. still coming up, snap back. snapchat sets a lower than expected valuation range for its ipo but that's unlikely to dampen interest. details after the break.
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and how the underwriters should sell shares to investors. there are a lot of shares to sell. 200 million to be exact. the company is raising about 72% of those proceeds the rest are going to insiders such as venture backers and the co-founders of the company. snapchat is seeking a lofty valuation. looking at its price to 2016 sales ratio, snapchat is almost 50 times, facebook is 15 times. they're offering non-voting shares. the first time a company has attempted to do that in an ipo. sources say snapchat still thinks investors will buy in. they are highlighting their user engagement. they will stay on the east coast this week, then head to london and return back to the states next week. we'll see if their pitch sticks with investors over the course of their road show. one tech start up watching
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snap's ipo's fortunes is spotify. the music streaming company is delaying plans to go public until 2018 to allow more time to develop a business model. part of that business including soundtrack your brand. it's a spotify-backed start up whose mission is to kill bad background music. the stockholm based company raised $22 million in investment led by boldeton capital. we are pleased to have representatives from both sides here. the founder of soundtrack, your brand. good morning. and we have daniel waterhouse, general pat ner at bold lspartn bolderton. what is your company doing? >> we're taking streaming
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revolution that we come from the consumer side into the business side. and basically revolutionizing background music, doing what spotify did on the consumer side on the business side. >> example of your key customers? mcdonald's? >> we are bringing in new clients every week, local chains, hairdressers, coffee chains. we have global brands coming in every week. >> daniel, what's the rational to come in and back this? this music space is very crowded. you have amazon, apple, google. >> all of those offer experiences for consumers, but not businesses. music in the business environment is important for the mood, ambience. and that's really stuck in the dark ages. a lot of firms will just play
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cds. the soundtrack your brand guys have revolutionized the step forward to bring a whole new wave of experience to those locations. >> $22 million in investment that you closed. what do you want do with that? where do the proceeds go? >> we will keep on developing the product. that's what we swedes do. it's a super advanced product. imagine sitting somewhere in the world controlling thousands of shops from one point of contact. you can control 100 markets from your computer. we are building product, extending that experience and distributing it to new markets. >> why not invest in some competitors out there? there are competitors? >> there are some first generation technology businesses that are doing this that have not kept pace with the experience in the consumer market. ola has a solution so far ahead of everyone else. they also understand this market incredibly well because they've been engarained in the music
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media area for many years. >> do you fear some distribution issues could arise here? >> i don't worry about it. it's a good illustration of the problems that the old players have, and the opportunity for the new players to step in and take that market share. >> looking at some of your past investments, talon in 2016, magic pony, betfair, hugely successful stories what are your hopes for this? >> we believe this business can be a huge true scale business globally. they already have clients all over the world. many of those companies have managed to crack the global markets. the swedes are particularly going to do well in the music world. we're delighted to go on that next adventure. >> spotify needs more time to go to the market what are your plans when it comes to tapping
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the public market? do you like the private markets too much? >> we are only four years old. we only have been live for 18 months. we're fairly early in the game. it took spotify 7 to 10 years to establish global leadership. we're just in the beginning, taking baby steps. we'll stick to this swedish mentality. >> i went to an evening that was -- where the guest speaker was a world master in sound. like he won awards for sound things. including also in the sound of silence, quote unquote. it wasn't direct silence, but just sounds that would increase consumers or make consumers wanted to buy more, increase consumer spending. do you look at stuff like that? >> absolutely. that's the longer vision of what we're doing. the background music market needs disruption. we are that technology disruption. it's an interesting market as such. if you look on a visionary scale, music affects peoples emotions and behaviors.
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it can probably have an effect on your business if you play the right music versus people leaving your shop if you play the wrong business. >> the thought was always tech start ups can't begin in europe because there's a funding gap, they can only prosper in silicon valley. do you see that sentiment shifting because we have seen so many funding rounds in europe. do you think when it comes to investments and maturity of the companies it's a completely different era, if you will? >> yeah. i think the last five or six years europe has flourished as a place with great start ups to grow. there's been an influx of global capital results. that's why you are seeing so many more successes coming out of the europeans. >> and in the cafe and restaurant, why don't i just make a play list with 2 billion songs on my play list, it hits play and it goes.
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i don't have to pay for it. >> that probably works. i think a lot of hair dressers and cafes are doing that, but it's illegal to use consumer services in a public space. you need to have a public performance license. we've licensed the content in order for you to play to your clients and sell more copy. that's step number one. and there's a long story about why the product is better and plays the right music at the right time. >> what would you suggested for cnbc europe as you walk in for the green room? what sort of music? >> oh, that was a hard one. i don't know. maybe some high tempo, 128 beat chance music to get you guys jumping in the morning, get the markets jumping. >> you can put in some disco sounds from the '60s? >> we can after 3:00. >> that's a great idea. appreciate you coming in. >> thanks for having us.
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quick look at european markets, and we are under water today. we are trending lower across the board. the xetra dax is off by 0.4%, despite the fact that allianz is up by more than 3% on the back of the announcement of the share buyback. we have the uk markets under pressure to the tune of of a quarter of a percent. retail sales were underwhelming once again. >> they were in the uk. the u.s. and how we're shaping up for trade, the implied open on the right-hand side of your screen, a couple points lower after a spectacular run with new records being set on all indexes in the states. that's it for today's show, that's it for the week as well. i'm @louisabojeslouisa bojesen. >> i'm carolin roth. "worldwide exchange" is up next.
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good morning. markets and now futures in the red as two out of the three indices snapped their record streak yesterday. fired up. president trump talks everything from russia to regulation to the record rally in a wide ranging news conference. the latest out of washington straight ahead. and mark's manifesto. the facebook chief pens a 6,000 word letter relaying his firm's ambitions to save the world. all that coming up on this friday, february 17, 2017. "worldwide exchange" begins right no
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