. hello. welcome. you're watching "street signs." i'm carolin roth. these are your headlines. unicredit rallies to the top of the stoxx 600 after the italian bank swings back to the black in the first quarter with a net profit of nearly 1 billion euros. the banking boost extends north to france, where credit agricole sees net income rise four-fold on a yearly basis on the back of a surge in trading activity. deutsche post dhl under delivers in early trade as first quarter profit misses expectations. but the group's ceo tells us the

pressure on freight rates remains challenging. >> if the demand is over expectation, then you have a squeeze for a quarter, that will go away. let's look at telekom -- deutsche telekom eking out a beat and telefonica benefiting from currency gains. all right. good morning to you. we have a busy day ahead of us. it's the trifecta day for the b ofshgs boe today. the stoxx 600 is off by 0.2%. not doing much in early trade. a mixed session. this is after we saw a low volatility trade in the u.s.

session. slight improvement in the asian trading session. by in large fairly uninspiring. once again it's all about corporate earnings. let's check out deutsche post, they are trading lower after missing expectations. rising only 1.h4%. the company warned the price environment remains challenging. the ceo said a rise in freight rates continues to prove a headache for the company. >> revenue is very much strong, strongest revenue growth for a while. which shows the economy is strong. we have challenges in one division, where, you know, the rate increases in the freight business has gone up rapidly. volumes are strong as well. that's a catch up between why rates are going up and what you can pass on to customers. the result is a record result in the first quarter.

the best ever in the first quarter and the company is growing rapidly. >> credit agricole shares have given up early gains despite an increase four fold on a yearly basis. revenues rose 24% thanks to higher asset management inflows. let's get back to the banking sector which is giving a bit of a boost to the stoxx 600 this morning. look at unicredit, up more than 4%. they have exceeded expectations with a 907 million euro net profit in the first quarter swinging back from a loss in the fourth quarter. the bank benefited from higher fees and a sharp rise in trading income in the period. that goes to show that the restructuring plan is on track after that monster recapitalization at the end of last year. and need wmediobanca says it co

raise its dividend. it was lifted by higher fees in investment banking and wealth divisions. talking about telecoms, shares are underperforming today. telefon n telefonika rose 4.5% year-on-year thanks to a strength in the real. net debt widened to 48.8 billion euros. and deutsche telekom posted a 7.5% rise in the first quarter. sales were higher in the period partly thanks to a recovery in germany where mobile service revenues grew 1.4%. they also added cust momers at mobile which added to credit shares. bt says they will lower the dividend forever cast for the year ahead after a challenging

year. they also announced plans to restructure its global services unit, in a move that will slash 4,000 jobs and take on a 300 million pound charge. bt reported fourth quarter earnings broadly in line with expectations. a lot of teleco earnings to get through. neil, let's kick things off with bt. the main reason we're buying the stock is for the dividend. if now they're saying it's lower, what is the attraction of the stock? >> that's a good question. i think the term they used was progressive dividend policy, which wetter pret progre interp. investors need the dividend growth. we're now looking at a company which is doing the opposite. the other thing i talked about was basically investment to enhance the customer experience.

we've actually seen from the main rival in the uk, liberty global earlier this week, big issues in terms of promotions being necessary to stem the tide of customers leaving. the only ray of light within the numbers for us was really the performance of the mobile division which had good numbers. but the problem is you have free cash flow which is not growing. there's a poor flow of free cash flow and they have multiple challenges on multiple fronts. we see it as a classic value trap. it looks cheap on a val waegs b valuation basis, but there are better buys. >> bt had massive writedowns. when i last spoke to the ceo of telekom, he said there were no plans to cut the stake what should she do with the stake?

>> i think they made comments before that long-term, ten-year horizon, perhaps market consolidation in europe is necessary, like it has been in the u.s. we have a big issue generally speaking in the european market that is the competition commissioner. she is in place until 2019, and made it clear the focus has to be on better price terms for consumers, which means you're restricted in terms of price hikes. and it means market consolidation is hampered in many respects. they look at the writedown mainly as a financial consideration, but the key thing is they have a prize asset in what's going on in the u.s. market with it mobile, which is being massively disrupted. and you're even seeing t mobile impact the incumbents. >> they're gaining market share in the u.s. do you think the m&a talk will come back to the forefront now that sprint could come back and

make an offer? we know that it mobile u.s. has been talking to the likes of dish. do you see more consolidation going forward? do you think deutsche telekom will want to keep t mobile as a stand-alone unit? >> going back ten years, we had the combination of t mobile combining with att, and they have taken over sprint, becoming clear number three. they have taken over incumbents at verizon. so they have gone from a problem child to a prize asset within the portfolio. we heard from softbank yesterday they would like to combine effectively sprint with t mobile. but now it's a combination that t mobile is in the driving seat of any kind of marketplace. they have great spectrum position, great customer demand. it's a different business. if we look at a big picture

basis in the u.s. space, market consolidation still has to happen. because of disruption. how that plays out is -- it could be an issue for certain companies. we would rather own the high quality ones like t mobile u.s. where m&a's optionality rather than the only investment piece. >> telefonica, thumbs up or down? >> thumbs down. we would rather own in europe the cable companies which have pricing power, such as altice and telenet. >> neil, thank you very much for that. we are going to talk a lot more with you after this short break about snap. shares down some 23%. that is causing a big headache for the company. e-mail the show. streetsignseurope@cnbc.com. let us know what you think of snap. do you think now is the right time to get into that stock or are you already invested? what do you do with your

holdings now? you can follow us on twitter also. tweet me directly, @carolincnbc. coming up, snap shares sink back near the ipo price in extended trade after disappointing earnings. wifi.

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and so you can even take the occasional time out. nooooooo! yes!!! yes, indeed. speed, coverage, control. introducing xfinity xfi. find your awesome and change the way you wifi. welcome back to the show. breaking news on uber. the ridesharing app. according to dow jones, a new court adviser says uber is a transport company, not an information society company. so he appalachi the eu designation could determine how uber is regulated in europe. as an information society company uber would be protected under eu law from disproportionate national rules. the eu adviser opinion on uber is nonbinding but the judges

typically rule in line. let's get reaction. neil and arjun are around the desk. neil? >> this seems to be the latest attempt by the eu authorities to thwart the digital economy progress. and the only subtlety from this is that the lawyers get rich. at the end of the day, the consumer is the decisionmaker in these choices. and the fact is that uber's growth in china are still enjoying significant traction in terms of their demand in terms of consumers. i would expect that actually this will rumble on in the courts for many a time. you mentioned it was nonbinding. i think that's the key focus. we have seen it in the u.s. recently. we had hotel companies complain that priceline and expedia are a monopoly. just farcical. so we have to be careful with reading too much into the headlines. >> arjun, your take? you've been doing work on this.

is it a transport company or it services company? >> uber is saying all we're doing is connecting consumers to drivers. we don't own the cars or infrastructure. all we are is an intermediary. but europe sees it differently. and many national countries see it differently maybe because the transport laws are very old. and there is intense pressure from many of the taxi groups within the countries. we've seen it in london with the black cab against uber. that is driving this. neil is right, this will not go away soon. uber is fighting a war with regulators on many fronts in europe and across the world. so expect these core issues with uber to continue for a long time. >> one of the points you've raised before, neil, is the fact that the eu needs to be careful about not overregulating new disruptive technologies, then the eu will far behind. >> let's look at the telecom industry. with onerous regulation, the

software industry capital is halved. that's because the eu is restrictive on carriers relative to the u.s. marketplace. the carriers are saying allow us to invest to get better returns. we have to get better returns on that profile. you can apply that across multiple industries. another thing to think about, what's really going on. is this more protectionist around the auto industry? in ten years time autonomous vehicles will be a significant piece of the transportation industry. which leads to high utilization of those vehicles. there are other things at play here perhaps in the background. >> let's leave that lehere for moment. the euphoria that accompanied snap's ipo seems to have fizzled out after the first earnings release as a list the company.

the stock down by 23%. the issue was daily active users, 166 million. up 36% on the year, but only 5% on the quarter. that's not enough, is it. >> no, expectations were mass e massively high going into the earnings report. it was a blockbuster ipo. everyone was excited about it. i'm sure as neil will say, daily active users is the key metric. that is the key to scale for snap and other products. if it doesn't meet expectations, if it doesn't keep on growing at such a strong clip, that's going to dampen the investment prospect for this company. >> should we focus that much on the first earnings report post the ipo, because was we saw in the case of facebook and twitter, they fell massively on the trading day after the first set of numbers. is this a right of passage that tech companies have to go through? >> because there's small float,

there's high short issue ratios. things like good old-fashioned profits are an issue for these companies at the start of that life partly because of listing costs. but the fact is social media does focus on the kpis, and that kpi of dau, daily average users is not big enough. within eight months, instagram has basically doubled that daily average user base by replicating instagram stories on snapchat. snapchat doesn't have the scale. >> snap has said we're a camera company. one thing it's done is brought out hardware in the form of spectacles. that's a super early stage business, but when we look at mark zuckerberg at the conference, he was talking about hardware and what augmented reality could do for facebook.

are you convinced by snap's ability to potentially innovate in hardware and that be a significant driver of business? >> i think few companies have managed to innovate in hardware and software. we've seen apple being a rare success story and has super normal margins as a result. facebook is focused on artificial intelligence, driving particularly video. instagram's future, the jury is out on that. snap doesn't have the same level of scale. that's a problem. >> as you said, snap simply doesn't have the scale. does that mean you don't want to invest in the stock? wouldn't you want to jump in now, given that it's been beaten down? is this a good buying opportunity because there's still growth out there or do you say let's leave this aside? we won't dip into this. >> the key motes around the

digital technology, one thing is scale. so we look globally. i look at companies like facebook and ten cent in asia. these are companies with scale. and they are cheaper that snapchat on a variety of valuation metrics. we would not be chasing or buying into snap despite the pullback here. we would rather own the big goliaths, facebook and ten cent. >> thank you very much for that. >> thank you. >> thank you also to arjun kharpal. the latest reaction coming from uber on that story, uber says in reaction to the eu top court opinion that being considered a transportation company would not change the way we are regulated in most eu countries. so, seems like a fairly sanguined reaction. unicredit exceeded expectations with a 907 million

euro net profit in the first quarter swinging back from a loss in the fourth quarter. the bank benefited from higher fees in the period. mediobanca says it could raise its dividend but it would depend on m&a opportunities in the year ahead. this after the bank posted a better than expected profit lifted by fees in investment banking and wealth management. claudia, i want to talk about unicredit more. is this a clear sign that the turnaround strategy after that massive recapitalization is bearing fruit? >> it looks like the market is convinced of that. that stock is continuing to trade higher by over 4%. this is on the heels of the numbers that you mentioned. you remember also for the full year, 2016 the bank lost 11.had billion euros. since a little bit less than a year ago, the new take overof

unicredit, he has put in a plan to reach higher revenues, lower costs and provisions. he worked hard on that and today has said that they do expect that unicredit will be able to reach interest income objective of 10 billion euros as well as tier one above 12%. as far as tier one goes, it rose to 11.45%. it was expected to be lower than that. it's up from 11.15. so the bank has worked a lot in terms of trying to strengthen capital and reduce risk. they also went through a 13 billion capital hike and off-loaded bad loans and will continue to do so. it bodes well this first quarter, especially the fact they beat expectations, so they have been showing month on month that they are on right track to reach objectives. the bank again saying they expect to reach full-year objectives and maybe will beat those if this continues. this morning you're seeing

analysts coming in raising targets. all speaking well of what is going on at unicredit now. this is a much needed sigh of relief for these italian banks after months of big concerns. of course there is concern on how they were getting this income. wealth management divisions have done well. the same has happened for mediobanca. that stock higher today. they came in on revenues and profits that did both expectations. profits increased by 33% to 196 million for nemediobanca. the highest profit in its history. today overall it's good news for the banks. the market overall is not performing well. pretty much flat, but these two banking stocks are doing well. >> claudia, thank you very much for that. let's stick with earnings. henkel stuck with its 2017 guidance after a stronger than expected performance in the

adhesives business helped the company grow organic sales in the first quarter. they also beat on the bottom line. the company's co warned that he expects the volatile market environment to continue this year. and shares in danish shipping and energy conglomerate maersk are trading higher. the stock has now turned around and it is higher to the tune of a half of a per tent. maersk reiterated its full-year guidance on the back of the results. a change to british reserving rates impacted zurich's first quarter net earnings. they saw net profit slump by almost a third missing expectations. zurich's cfo says the company has had a strong start to the year adding it was on course to deliver financial targets. shares off by three quarters of a percent.

and generali posted a the% fall in net profit missing expectations. they booked 42 million euros in impairments due to air italia. generali said it was ready to buy portfolio management assets to help lift group profits and it was targeting 500 billion rur o. euros of assets under management by the end of 2020. before we wrap up this half of the show, let's have a quick look at the market action. we're looking somewhat mixed. the ftse 100 off by 3 points. the xetra dax is not moving much. we're hanging on to the flat line. the cac who is off by 3 points. we will go for a quick break. check out world markets live, or blog which runs throughout the european trading day. we'll be back in two. [vo] when it comes to investing, looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference.

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hello. welcome to "street signs." i'm carolin roth. thee r these a these are your headlines. unicredit rallies to the top of the stoxx 600 after the italian bank swings back to the black in the first quarter with a net profit of nearly 1 billion euros. the banking boost extends north to france, where credit agricole sees net income rise four-fold on a yearly basis on the back of a surge in trading activity.

deutsche post dhl under delivers in early trade as first quarter profit misses expectations but confirms first year targets. but the group's ceo tells us the pressure on freight rates remains challenging. >> if you read the market and then if the demand is over expectation, then you have a squeeze for a quarter, that will go away. bt lowers its dividend forecast, while deutsche telekom ekes out a beat and telefonica benefiting from currency gains. all right. a lot of uk data to get through. let's kick things off with the industrial output number for march falling again as manufacturing weakens. let's just give you the precise number. uk march construction output up by 2.4% year-on-year. the poll was for a print of 2

2.8%. the industrial output rose by 2.1% in the three months versus february, plus 1.4%. that was the last february number. manufacturing up by 0.3% in the three months versus 1.9% in february. so, we are seeing a bit of weakening here. that was to be expected given that we already know the q1 data when it comes to the gdp print for the uk that was disappointing, 0.3%. we are seeing a bit of a negative reaction for sterling/doll sterling/dollar, 1.2916. now down roughly 0.1% on the day after trading flat just before the data came out. moving on, it is super thursday for the bank of england as it releases its quarterly inflation report, minutes and the latest rate decision. gemma acton joins us. it's an awkward meeting because we're going into the uk general

election, we have uncertainty about brexit so what can they really do? >> the uk generally election generally causes uncertainty in the market. given that it seems quite certain the outcome insofar as not a lot of momentum, all the polls show the conservatives with a strong lead, the focus is much more on brexit, and that will drag out for years to come. so, they just got to keep going. i'm john by john raith from ubs. hi, john, thanks for joining us. a lot to of the focus on whether the bank of england will change the growth and inflation forecasts. they seem to be too optimistic in the first quarter, predicting 0.5%. came in at 0.3%. many anticipate them to cut the 2017 outlook. but not necessarily cut their outlook in future years.

are they still being too optimistic? >> we think they are. their forecast is above ours, already for this year and for future years. as you say, first quarter was weaker than they thought. that in itself probably leads the growth number down for this year. at this point they sound reasonably opt meimistic about outlook, and it will take time for them to notice the economy is slowing more meaningfully. at that point they will lower forecasts for future years. >> where is the divergence between what you see and the bank sees. >> the consumer, we would say there's increasing signs the consumer is under pressure, retail sales has been weak. confidence is fading. that's because real earnings have been squeezed hard. the bank of england thinks rates will accelerate, but for us wages won't pick up, inflation will keep picking up.

the consumer will struggle more than the bank are factoring in. as far as companies and investment are concerned, you mentioned the big word out there all the time, brexit. we think the closer we get to the two-year deadline, the more uncertainty builds, and the more investment cools down. >> let's look at it more closely at the labor market. at first glance it seems a confusing peck chore. low unemployment, a pretty tight market. but as you mentioned wage growth is under pressure. is this a conundrum? how do we explain what is going on here? >> it is a bit. you can see the same thing in the u.s., very low in employment rate, wages not doing what they would have done with unemployment around these levels. so it's something that the bank are having to try to work out reasons for they now think the neutral rates of unemployment are lower than they used to think. we think part of the story is companies being more defense ef around what lies ahead. they don't want to give big

waning riswage rises when they're unclear about the outlook it plays into a weaker consumer and weaker businesses. >> let's look at rates what we've seen is a continued downward movement in gilt yields since the end of last year. what is the market doing here? is this justified in terms of what we see with growth and brexit? >> they have fallen to around the levels we thought they would be at this time of year. a lot was about the decline in u.s. treasury yields from late january onwards on a recalibration of the possible reflation theme out there. but gilt yields have fallen further and faster than elsewhere. we think that might be an ongoing story if the uk performs weakly. we're fairly neutral on market yield levels. we think they drift a bit higher, but with the uk struggling they will rise less

quickly. many people are confused about whether we'll see a 6/2 rate hike, 7/1 is or 5/3 if christian forbes is joined by ian mccalferity or michael saunders. will there be an impact on the markets today, sterling and/or rates depending on how this split turns out? >> possibly. i think 7/1 given there's a member missing is the likely outcome. if it was closer than that it would cause an immediate reaction. the press conference starts a half hour after the decision. we think it might be more dovish and that the governor and some of those internal members of the committee will be a bit worried that growth more than halved in the first quarter. we think that plays into the decision and plays into the tone they'll take. if the vote is closer, sterling might initially strengthen a bit, but it might not run far if

the governor sounds more cautious. >> john, thank you very much for your views today. so, looking ahead, looking forward to, as mentioned, not only the decisions and the news that comes out at 12:00, but the press conference where we are keen to see what kind of tone the governor comes out with. they moved from a neutral stance last year to much more of a hawkish stance this year, saying the next rate move will probably be upwards. back to you. >> gemma, thank you very much. of course you can watch the coverage of the bank of england's latest policy announcement live on cnbc from 12:45 cet with myself and gemma. let's look at the european equity markets. we are cautiously higher, but as you can see, based on the percentage moves, not a whole lot of movement. that's in line with the low volatility trade. the dax higher by 7 points. 2 points to the upside for the

ftse 100. the ftse mib is putting in bigger moves based on banking strengths with unicredit putting in a good report card for the first quarter. when it comes to oil prices, they are extending gains from yesterday. wti up 1.3% on the day. and brent crude up by more than 1%. we saw that spike yesterday given the fall in u.s. crude stocks, the biggest draw in inventories in a year. market watchers pointing to the fact that we saw a bigger than expected cut in saudi supplies to asia. maybe that is a sign that the production cut is finally biting. the currency markets, we are seeing the dollar index a bit under pressure this morning, even though it was higher yesterday despite the comey news. it did get a boost from the u.s. yields, which rose to a five-week high. this morning, again, not a whole lot of movement. i want to tell you about the kiwi/dollar. this is an outlier when it comes to the fx action.

this morning down by 1.3%, this as the central bank caught the market off guard retaining a neutral rate bias. euro 1.0881. this after mario draghi was forced to justify the central bank's policy and in particular qe. this after mps in the hague argued that it had hurt pensions in their country. at one point the ecb president had to defend the single currency. >> there's a deeper reason why the euro has benefited all countries, but especially countries that are strong, export oriented with high productivity, and a business favorable legal environment. the euro has protected the single market. most of you are too young to remember the 880s, and the early

'the '90s when we had periodic eevaluations of all countries, and there was a stronger stability there, neither price stability was there nor the better countries which were stronger could see their merit rewarded because they were continuing devaluations robbing them from their merit. >> as you can see, these sort of discussions around monetary policy are usually quite dry. but the parliament was provided with a moment of light relief when an alarm started to go off. take a look. >> exiting from this monetary policy. what is this? >> it's a meeting bell. so when the session has shifted -- >> so it's not my phone. >> every time you mentioned the word qe, it went off. >> i'll tell you, central bankers do have a sense of

humor, especially the dutch. the ecb president got a present at the end of the session from the head of the dutch finance committee. >> i would like to thank you, also we have brought you a small memento, it's unusual that we do that. the first financial crisis, which was heavily studied was the financial crisis here in the netherlands. and it's a memento of that crisis i would like to give you. it's the crisis of the tulip. we hope you look at this tulip in your window. it runs on solar energy, so it's sponsored by the green party. look at this, think of us and this productive discussion. donald trump's tax reform

plans will be on the agenda at the g-7 meetings in bari, italy when the world's biggest economies meet in the italian city over the next couple of days. let's get out to willem marx. protectionism has been taken off the official agenda. >> that's right. it's not something they will officially talk about. but this is baked into their long-term plans for the united states. what steve mnuchin will be talking about in the next couple of days is likely the tax reform plans that the trump administration does have. a lot of his counterparts from canada, japan and europe will seek more clarity on what it is the white house is proposing when it comes to reducing regulatory burden for businesses, potential tax reform when it comes to lowering rates for u.s. businesses, infrastructure spending, all things they say will be crucial for increasing u.s. growth at

the time. what is interesting, of course we had voices like the imf which say they see these policies as a problem, they might stoke inflation and some trade barriers that trump talked about may be a drag on global growth. another european thing that will probably come up under discussion will be greece. the european leaders that will be here will be hoping that some of the recent deals struck with the greeks over tax and pension reforms will be a step in the right direction. steve mnuchin has publicly said he thinks there are outstanding issues when it comes to debt in europe and he thinks more needs to be done especially in greece. >> we do send you to the sunniest place in all of europe an then overcast skies. what's the problem, a cloud over the g-7? >> i think that might be a strong metaphor there. certainly a bit of drizzle here in the port city of bari. the locals told me it's a north african wind that sometimes comes into this part of italy. but clearly some back and forths

here between some of these finance ministers, in particular over trade and certainly over the trump administration. the europeans will be defending their part when it comes to keeping taxes in particular from some of the larger u.s. firms in europe. you may have heard the italians have won a big case against google that allowed them to claw back hundreds of millions of euros in back taxes. and there's that big $13 billion apple case being stuck and litigated in the courts. steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary for the u.s., keen to bring some of those huge technology firms revenues back to the u.s., the earnings so they can be taxed there. that's something that both sides will be disagreeing on slightly i imagine. >> thank you very much for that. some breaking news, spain's high court says they're investigating an accusation of alleged iberdrola price

manipulation. offices were searched on wednesday. shares off by a half of a percent. we will go for a quick break. coming up after this break, after president trump's shock firing of the fbi director, we'll look at the reactions from capitol hill after this short break.

the senate intelligence committee which is investigating possible links between the trump campaign and russia subpoenaed michael flynn. it has ordered him to hand over documents it believes may be relevant to the probe. according to an nbc news report, the committee requested the documents last month but flynn refused unless he was granted immunity. this is the first time the

intelligence committee issued a subpoena since the inquiry into the september 11th terrorist attacks. former fbi director james comey requested more resources for the agency's investigation into russian election interference only days before he was fired. that's according to multiple reports. a justice department spokesperson told nbc news the reports were absolutely false. nbc white house correspondent kristen welker has more on the response from capitol hill. >> reporter: amid mounting outrage on capitol hill tonight, some lawmakers are questioning the country's very foundation. do you see this as a constitutional crisis? >> absolutely. >> this is a stress test of the constitutional democracy. what we're living in right now. >> reporter: and it's not just democrats, an increasing number of republicans are joining the chorus of critical voices. richard burr chairs the senate intelligence committee. >> the timing and reasons for this decision made little sense to me and i haven't heard

anything since last night to clarify it in any way. >> the white house's timing here was less than impeccable. >> i think a lot of us are still puzzled as to the timing. >> reporter: at least seven senate republicans expressed skepticism or outright anger but the senate's top republican is standing by the president. >> today we'll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work being done to not only discover what the russians may have done. >> reporter: house speaker paul ryan also defending mr. trump. >> it is entirely within the president's role and authority to relieve him, and that's what he did. >> reporter: tonight, democrats are demanding the department of justice appoint a special prosecutor to take over the investigation into russia's meddling into the u.s. election, some threatening to try to block trump's pick for the next fbi director until one is appointed. >> i will vote against any confirmation of an fbi director unless there is support for a

special prosecutor. >> reporter: tonight, even the vice president is firing back. >> the president and i remain confident the committees in the house and the senate that are looking into every aspect of issues that arise out of last year's election will be able to do their work. >> reporter: so where does congress go from here? >> congress isn't known for multi tasking ability. as long as the russia cloud remains this dark and this large, it will hang over official washington and make it very difficult to do much governing. mr. trump met with sergey lavrov in the white house, the highest level meeting between trump and the russians since mr. trump took office. andrea mitchell asked lavrov did the timing of the talks at an earlier press event with rex

tillerson. >> does the comey firing cast a shadow over your talks? >> was he fired? >> yes. >> you're kidding. you're kidding. >> all right. that was a very strong response coming from lavrov. allegations of clip mriticalmrit ical politically motivated hacking may have caused across before some elections, but a host of companies are looking to capitalize on cybercrime. shares of checkpoint have jumped 25% as companies bolster cyberdefenses. we are joined by the president of checkpoint. is there any way that government and political parties can actually defend themselves against these sorts of cyberthreats? >> it's a process. there's not one solution to solve the problem. technology controls our life, so it's everywhere. the problem with government, they don't see the same level of

protection they provide to citizens as they do to physical attack. when there's a physical confrontation, there's armies, police, they will go out and solve problems. today government don't have any cybersoldier. >> so you're saying the governments nowadays are underprepared when it comes to cyberattacks, as we saw in the case of france and the dnc? >> we saw very little things because cybsig cyber is undergr attacks, we don't know about them. government starts with regulation, they build more cybersecurity projects and philosophies, but they need to be more practical, create their own system that can block things when they happen. >> practical terms what should the macron camp on dnc have done as soon as they saw that cyberthreat, or at that point is it way too late?

>> it's way too late. this is more of a reaction of things that happen. the most important principle in cyberis the ability to block things before they happen. the fact that somebody penetrated systems, took steps afterwards is a solution, but they need to do things before. >> about 80% to 90% of the attacks are not that sophisticated. many people don't put basic controls they are supposed to put into the system. they don't patch their systems, they have a flat network. they need to change a couple things in behavior to protect them. if they do 20% of what they need, they will get 80% of the security deserved. >> you say enterprise security

is expected to grow 42% annually to $34 billion globally by 2018. we're talking about enterprises here. what about governments? what are the numbers there? >> governments do invest in local places to protect their own network. but besides their own network, they have the whole country. they need to take that approach. that's supposed to be the next step moving from regulation into building systems, protecting critical infrastructure what will happen if form totomorrow there is no electricity, water, transportation. it's happened before. it's happened from brazil to ukraine to others. this is the responsibility for governments to protect the nations, not the enterprise, not the private sector but the public sector. >> are you increasingly getting requests from the government sector to work on this after they realize we need do much more protecting our sectors, is

it not just the enterprise sector contacting you? >> it's mostly the enterprise sectors, but governments build more and more in order to do something there. as you said before, it's a complicated problem. it's a political problem. it's a problem about privacy as well as location and where they'll put the stuff. i think it will be there. it must be there. >> all right. always a pleasure speaking with you. thank you for that. that's it for today's show. i'm carolin roth. "worldwide exchange" is up next. due stay tuned for our ba stay tuned for our bank of england coverage. bye-bye.

snap, crackle, drop. investors wiping out $6 billion after a disappointing earnings report from snap. oil staging a comeback on signs that the u.s. glut is shrinking. and the comey fallout, what he said to his colleagues about his departure. it's thursday, may 11, 2017. "worldwide exchange" begins right now. good morning. we