.. welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche >> i'm willem marx going out with a bang. the ftse 100 strikes a record. donald trump slams china over oil flows to north korea which china's foreign ministry denies japan's softbank succeeds in its bank to buy a 15% stake in uber in a deal that values the ride hailing giant at $48

billions and italians are set to head to the polls italy's government dissolves parliament with a general election set for march 4th good morning it's the last trading session of the year you've been hearing from us the last couple of hours let's see how european equity markets are faring sentiment has shifted a bit to the green. we're seeing stoxx 600 trading stronger on the day now. a zig zag, but around the flat line, up 0.7%. let's look at individual bourses. ftse 100 up 0.1% ftse is at new record highs for the year a big part of that move has been propelled by the mining sector it's at the highest level since

2004 in the ftse the rest of the european indices mixed there. no major moves again, we're talking about xetra dax and the fact it's the outperforming index. let's look at sectors and see which sectors are doing well basic resources, commodities, metals still having a strong session in overnight trading copper, zinc all making new record highs for the last couple of years travel and leisure up 0.4% to the down side insurance and autos struggling a bit the last trading day of the year. u.s. president donald trump is hinting he may take a much tougher line with china if there's not more progress on the north korea problem. he told the "new york times" he's been soft on trade policy with beijing in exchange for support with pyongyang he expressed concern that china is shipping oil into north

korea. trump tweeted that china had been caught red handed adding there will never be a friendly solution to the north korea if this continues to happen china said it would never allow chinese companies to violate u.n. resolutions back in november trump and chinese president xi jinping held a friendly summit in beijing but trump warned about an unfair afraid imbalance between the two countries. u.s. ambassador to china terry br branstad spoke about the issue >> since the wto, china has not confirmed with the market relationship, not only the united states, but the european union and many other european countries around the world concur with that in order to get that market status, they need to make

changes. we're here to advocate and encourage them do that we think that would benefit consumers in china and reduce the trade deficit. that's what we're advocating for. do you feel that the u.s. is losing the soft power war? here we are. we have another vice premiere who told the world that china believes in globalization, china believes in free markets and others are pursuing policies that are in opposition to that it's clear that that finger is pointed at the u.s >> well, i think you have to look beyond the rhetoric at the reality. the reality is we're probably one of the most open and free markets in the world this market is closed in a lot of areas in high technology, in pharmaceuticals, you can name a bunch of them. this market is not open to high-tech companies that we have

that should be -- companies here can compete in the united states, but they don't have the similar opportunity to do that here so we're asking for fairness and reciprocity and open opportunity to compete >> and given some of the more aggressive tactics that geoff was laying out that we're seeing out of the trump administration, how do you think the conversations will continue to go when it comes to north korea and china? >> i want to compliment the chinese for the changes they made in the last three months. they supported both of the resolutions passed by the u.n. security council i believe they're working hard to enforce the sanctions i think there's more that needs to be done oil and these north korean workers that are working in china and other countries, those things need to be addressed. we need to continue to work together we share the conviction that we

need to de-nuclearize the korean peninsula and china and america can play a key role. this is the biggest threat to human kind now, the illegal and aggressive development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles mark williams, the head of asian equities from lion trust joins us we were saying that it's been quite difficult to keep monitoring the exchange of rhetoric between china and the u.s. donald trump's tweets as well. when you think about investing in china, are you concerned about the war of words or exchange of words going on between president trump and chinese authorities? or is it something you can put on the back burner for now and focus on the economic fundamentals >> we always look when we're investing for the long-term fundamentals, and we spent quite a lot of time looking at

potential events that might arise. it seems unlikely that trump will do anything that has a long-term impact on the relationships between the u.s. and china, particularly with trade which is what we're interested in at moment. >> the big theme has been the shift in the model away from an investment model to a consumption model and they succeeded in shifting away from being very commodities guzzler type of economy to one that has a strong middle class consumer do you think that's a trend that will continue? >> yes, very much so if you look at what's happened since the global financial crisis, china doubled the disposable income in real terms for the population that makes a huge change in terms of spending power. we're positive on china. the only way to stay positive on china is if this continues, and xi jinping is clear he does want this trend to continue and he wants to stop the malinvestment,

the bad investment in industries >> as an investor what is the best way to get exposure to that what sectors do you need to buy or which markets do you need to buy to get exposure to the growth of the chinese consumer >> you can do a lot directly with chinese companies we avoid the ones where we see overcapacity, companies like the steel companies, potentially the coal companies and they have done well in the short-term. but over the longer term we think there there will be ongoing need to allow some of those to fail. you target the consumption plays. those can be broad the internet plays have been very significant beyond those there are more simple companies where maybe their component manufacturers or auto parts manufacturers or car manufacturers or even some mobile companies or banks, all of those we think we can find decent long-term value and you

have growth, which is probably going to be double digit in terms of earnings growth >> as access to chinese equities opens up, do you expect more fresh money to come in >> i believe so. i went to a conference towards the end of last year it was the first time in about eight years where no one mentioned the chinese debt issue. i think there's a growing acceptance that china is unlikely to improud in the short-term but it does have growth. you see it around you. you see china now as the largest international tourist revenue creator in the world that's only with 10% of chinese people having passports. that will continue >> can i ask you about the vebet and road initiative? how are you looking to take advantage of the fact there's a huge infrastructure spend about to come in that part of the world? >> there are a couple of

companies, potentially chinese companies directly exposed to that, they're the engineering companies within china beyond that, i would see it more as a positive in general terms i think politically it was a clever statement for china to make it came out saying we're big, we'll do what we want to do, it's we'll get rich and come embrace us, be a part of this. so the chinese, i think, are engaging with the rest of the region then you have the long-term projects, there's about 3$3.5 billion of u.s. spending i'm not sure it's the biggest factor itself in terms of the financial outlay >> one question around that initiative is how do you encourage private investment we have this huge centralized project being largely funded by state banks, how do you get private sector buy-in not just from china but several other countries along the route? >> i think it will be largely

governmentally led i think there will be private sector companies within china. state-owned entities, so not particularly the private investor outside of that, most of the projects will be state driven. for me, the much more important thing is longer term it opens up markets in different areas so the west part of china with the likes of kazakhstan, central asia, there's impact on thailand you saw the first export from the uk directly by train arriving in china last year. i think the private involvement will come at a second stage in terms of increasing trade links. >> more on that in a bit that's mark williams keep us company. it is the last trading day of the year e-mail the show, streetsignseurope@cnbc.com and you can follow us on twitter, streetsignseurope@cnbc or you can tweet us directly. coming up, checkmate

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. welcome back to "street signs. just an update on that horrific fire in new york city where 12 people died and 4 were critically injured after a fire tore into the bronx borough of new york the fire began on the first floor before spreading through several floors the new york mayor called the incident one of the worst losses of life from a fire in many years. the cause of the blaze is under investigation. political instability around the world will be challenging for businesses next year nick allen regional director from controlled risks shared his take for what to watch when he appeared on "squawk box" earlier this month >> a number of things have changed. most governments were fairly

business friendly or keen to encourage investment, things like the wto, no one was ever calling that into question, nafta. we've seen a shift into national politicians driving agenda and for business having to adjust to that so more political volatility in 2018 is what we're looking at. >> how much of that is on the back of change in administration in the u.s. and president trump's protectionist policies that have been critical of china and north korea, saudi arabia, all of this rhetoric coming out of the united states has changed a lot in the past year how much of your risk for 2018 are a function of that >> the u.s. does set the agenda. it's -- you know, it's the most powerful nation on earth leadership matters 2017 the year of trump he has not yet really pushed

through his protectionist policies that is one risk we've highlighted. >> is the iran/saudi situation getting worse? is the and venturism of mds backed by the trump administration, which hasn't yielded much gains for them in many ways, is that getting worse? >> it's pretty bad already >> it is >> i think there's more instability here you have potential leadership change in amman. you have saudi arabia and iran we don't think we'll see a war between those, but the situation in yemen will get worse. you'll see that tension played out in lebanon iraq will be interesting the point about you need to understand how these things will play out in the markets you're operating in >> i will push back a bit. i think iraq is relatively

stable baghdad has for some reason pushed back the peshmerga without bloodletting in the kirkuk region. they have vast tracks of control in the area, it seems to be more stable this year looking on the optimistic side? >> depends on your benchmark for stability. so things in iraq are better, but as you say what will happen with kurdistan they had a referendum which is moving towards independence. the americans are keen that iranian back militias should return home. that won't happen. i remember some recent sayings, the only people interested in the unity of iraq by in large are foreign forces because the iraqi government has an agenda the sunnis have an agend agenda, the kurds have an agenda so yes, it's better but the

fault lines are still there. we are joined still by mark williams we saw a major risk there for 2018 with the escalation of north korea, how does this relationship between the u.s. and china impact that threat >> it's significant. the most important thing is neither the u.s., nor china, nor south korea, want north korea to fail everyone would like it to stay there, but not with nuclear capabilities so it comes down to policy being the most likely thing that escalates things in the region i think china could be a dampener for some of the more volatile rhetoric cha we're seeing at the moment >> they have a great stake in maintaining that status quo, because they have historically been concerned about a huge

influx of refugees if the north kor korean state collapses that's far worse for china than the u.s., isn't it >> yes definitely so they will want to maintain the status quo as to whether or not they are enforcing the embargoes, i believe they have that in mind in terms of they don't want the state to be forced to collapse >> on the subject of korea, south korea, in terms of an investment, i noted in one of your pieces you were saying ctht companies have increased some dividends they're paying out to 3%, and that looks juicy how are you thinking about south korea as an investment play? >> over the last year there's been a significant change politically. so korea historically had a group of family-run businesses,

and my view that always been they didn't really pay much attention to minority shareholders with the impeachment of the person running samsung, with his impeachment and prison sentence, and the first female prime minister of korea, and the replacement with moon, who is a lot less large business centric, we're seeing these changes come down and trickle down to investors. and that opens up a huge number of investments for us. we have 10% there, the largest since we launched our fund wh >> what is the weighting in. >> 40% in china. 16% in taiwan. 10% in thailand. 10% in australia. final question about china

we talked about this briefly earlier. the decision that the u.s. may or may not take about retaliation with trade when you talk about the wto and some threats that the trade tariff wars might have, china has been a real winner the last decade or two. you seem to sympathize with president trump for some of his criticism? >> sadly for one particular reason i think china has been the winner, as you mentioned i think maybe trump will force them to make some changes and open up their economy, which they have done to a minor degree already, but allow international participation in the growth coming from china. that's the only thing i think i agree with trump about they have been massive beneficiaries. people expected china to embrace the way the rest of the world were running things. up to now they haven't >> mark, thank you very much mark williams, head of asian equities at lion trust asset

management. the investigation into the russian meddling into the 2016 presidential election continues. garry kasparov said it amounts to cyberwar and he's not surprised by certain tactics >> i'm tired of repeating i've told you so. for many years i've been pred t predicting that putin would go elsewhere if he could see benefits the whole theory of fake news, that was an invention of russian kgb, then they tried it in europe, eventually they successfully tried it in the united states. it's quite ironic that technology that has been invented in the free world is being used by the enemies of the

free world to undermine the democratic institutions of the free world unless we recognize that we are -- whether we like it or not -- at war, you may call it hybrid war, kgb type war, it's not an open war but a cyberwar we have to come up with response we have to work out a policy of deterrence to make sure that all these abusers, all those who are trying to attack our infrastructure, whether it was fake news or even worse, looking for potential weaknesses in electric grid system, they will pay unbearable price so far there's no political will to make such a strong ultimatum that in will step putin and other malicious players on the world stage the patience of the free world >> should this flat form have done more? should mark zuckerberg at

facebook done more and jack dorsey at twitter? >> absolutely. we know not later than july of 2016, obama had at his desk information about russian interference if u.s. government decided to play a passive role, expecting, i guess, hillary clinton to win any way, so you can hardly blame facebook, twitter, google, other platforms not doing their job. i'm not totally exonerating them, but i think it's time to analyze what's happened and come up with a full story facebook is trying to actually give us the full picture we now understand the scope of russian interference, but it's not about just, you know, saying -- pointing fingers, who did wrong, but it's about the future, about making sure nothing like that can be repeated and also those who responsible will be paying the price. >> coming up on the show, i have

a pop quiz for you which wall street bank reportedly picked the greenfields of ireland as part of its business post-brexit? it's ceo likes to tweet slightly provoking tweets about london. find out after the break what we're talking about. [hawaiian music playing]

welcome back to "street signs. i'm willem marx. >> i'm joumanna bercetche. these are your headlines going out with a bang. the ftse 100 strikes a record. donald trump slams china over oil flows to north korea which china's foreign ministry denies and he hints at a tougher policy after saying he's been soft on trade issues with beijing in return for cooperation on dealings with pyongyang. japan's softbank succeeds in its bid to buy a 15% stake i uber in a deal that values the ride hailing giant at $48 billions and italians are set to head to the polls

italy's president dissolves parliament with a general election set for march 4th all right. checking in on markets on this last trading day of the year, new record highs posted for dow jones yesterday. unfortunately it looks like the last trading day of the year won't be as positive you can see futures are pointing to a slightly soggier open for dow jones, down 30 points or so. just one point really softer for s&p, not that dramatic overall it's been a report year for all of these indices let's look at europe the picture there is weaker. ftse mib is surprisingly quite weak down 0.4% after news that the italian election will be held on march 4th. >> the banking stocks really dragging that down >> banking stocks and

uncertainty as we get into the election looks like the polls are pointing to a hung parliament there. i want to draw your attention to ftse 100, up 1.3% on the day new record highs for the year. that's been led by the miners sub index. the miners are at the highest level since mid 2014 let's flip to bond yields. always fun to look at. as you can see, not much training there either. i was hoping for more action it appears as though things are hovering around the flat line. it has been a big year for fixed income you can see ten-year germany, back to the 42 basis point mark that's been hovering in the 30, 40 basis points range for a while. ten-year italy at 197, just below 2% a lot of focus on how the yields will do heading into the important political year for italy. switching to fx, let's see

the picture there. euro/dollar continues its climb higher hasn't been a great year for the dollar dollar down 10%, the second weakest year since it had in 2003 you're seeing into the end of the year, doesn't seem to be signs of changing there. euro/dollar continues its trend higher sterling as well cable there, strong today up 0.5% some of the dollar weakness is continuing into the last trading day of the year. >> let's stick to the u.s. where powerful politicians are mounting a challenge against the tax package passed last week the new york governor says the u.s. tax code could be unconstitutional he says his concerns center on the treatment of state and local income taxes several states could take a hit because they can no longer deduct all of their state tax

bills. speaking to cnbc, cuomo outlined why he thought the law could face trouble in court. >> you can't use politics just because the majority controls to override the law i'm a democrat i'm in a democratic state. i can't say, republicans pay a higher tax rate. too bad. democrats are in the majority. it violates due process and equal protection >> president trump says tax cuts will drive economic growth and job creation in the u.s. karen spoke to the ceo of intel at the web summit in lisbon. >> i'm not an economist, so i'm not sure i'm the right person to ask, i'm a technologist. i don't believe when you look at technology stocks that people look at government or politics as how they value us they look at the innovation,

products and growth. if you look at it, most of the tech industry, you've seen rev few growth, profit growth, part of that is artificial intelligence, us becoming more and more efficient that's driving our position more than anything. >> would tax changes in the states make a difference to psychology i know you were part of the manufacturing council disbanded, you were the third person to leave that council after it was disbanded after charlottesville. do you think tax reform would change the mood music around the administration >> independent of the administration, tax reform in the u.s. is important. we have one of the highest tax rates. it costs us billions more to manufacture in the u.s. versus overseas and so that change in the tax law would allow us to keep more manufacturing. we kept 75% of our manufacturing in the u.s., we've had to overcome that with efficiency

and tax changes would help us from a cost perspective. >> karen also spoke to the ceo of oracle about the tax overhaul and the possible benefits of bringing offshore cash back to the u.s. >> we're supportive of repatriati repatriation the opportunity to bring our cash back to the u.s. and to invest it is certainly attractive so for that part of tax reform we're supportive >> do you have a plan for investment does some of it go into debt >> it's interesting. because of our cash flow and where our cash actually gets located, you'll find us at times raising debt in the united states because of our inability to access our cash offshore. so the fact that we can actually repatriate money allows us a much more efficient use of cash, but an opportunity to invest it back in various things that we do, whether it's m&a, whether it's investing in new facilities

that we're building, hiring more employees, all of those are attractive uses of our investment cash. >> skeptics say in the past that we've seen money used for share buybacks, dividend payments to shareholders but also the reduction of debt. the tally in the u.s. was 54 billion in debt. when you have interest rates rising, do you think there's a possibility you might use some of the money to reduce debt? >> look at what we've done if we go back to 2010, we had 90,000 employees, today we have 1 43,000 we're hiring we've been adding people to the company. we're building new facilities around the world to put our employees in that are modern facili facilities, investing in new infrastructure, capabilities, building data centers. i hardly think you would think of oracle as a company not taking its cash and investing it back into employees, facilities

and back into its customers. before the break i asked you a question about brexit and a big wall street bank i know you've been on the edge of your seat since i can tell you that it was goldman sachs that picked dublin as an administrative center post-brexit. according to multiple reports, the bank will move a few people in its european asset management business to the irish capital. it previously announced it was leasing new office space in frankfurt that could hold up to 1,000 employees. while reporting from ireland earlier this month, one big winner from brexit was the commercial property sector there. there may not have been many goldman asset management employees going there, maybe 20, but it's part of the drip, drip, drip effect driving up commercial property prices there. i filed a report on the subject about how ongoing brexit talks are impacting local businesses on the country's border with northern ireland let's take a look.

>> reporter: andrew's family has farmed this land for three generations. this is his third decade in the job. his milk yield has increased over time, these days a couple hundred cows produce a million liters a year. his business may be growing but its location creates a special kind of uncertainty. >> the border is not far from here >> no. >> it's a couple miles to ireland's invisible border with the uk dairy herds like this and the processing plants they supply operate seamlessly across that boundary >> sometimes it would go to the ir ireland side, sometimes the northern side, would that be prohibited that would be reflected in the price i get for milk. >> reporter: like many farmers in the region, he's concerned about brexit >> there's a lot of talk about

people saying that we're looking after this, we have this in mind, and the border is important, frictionless border, but until we see what's coming out of it, i'll be nervous >> reporter: the more than 1 billion dollar dairy industry in ireland has grown integrated since the good friday talks, and now the uk needs to offer a concrete solution on the border issue. gabriel darcey runs one of the region's largest dairy businesses it was formed by a merger of separate operations in the north and south. >> agriculture and food is a critical part of the irish economy both north and south it is less so within the united kingdom economy. i don't think this was properly thought out. and it's come now as almost like

an afterthought. >> reporter: his company spent tens of millions of dollars on a new facility in northern ireland. but the wider milk industry sends about 100 trucks a day from farms in the north to plants like this one in the south. >> over the last number of years since the peace process has gotten traction, i think the economy has become a real thing, particularly in the dairy sector and agriculture. you can't see the border people work on both sides of the border >> reporter: right now producers of milk and other agriculture products follow the same rules on both sides of the border but brexit could change that driving up costs and consumer prices another fear for agricultural firms across the divide is losing easy access to the largest respective markets, the eu and the uk. >> what access are we going to have post march 2019 to those markets that we have serviced

for many, many years is it going to be the same or is it going to be more challenging? we need to get clarity business needs clarity fast. >> reporter: but any clarity about the future will need answers about a border that's rooted in a very difficult past. >> it would have been a new board at that stage, and i suppose through the lifetime here, it would have been significant issues in the '50s and '60s, but thankfully those issues have disappeared. how it goes forward, we don't know, but we're certainly nervous about it >> so what's interesting is that was in early december. and then within the next couple of weeks following that the republic of ireland pushed the british government on that border issue they didn't want to have divergence when it comes to

things like milk and agriculture products having one set of standards on one side and another set of standards on the other side would have been a problem, and the british government is a said we will have that alignment. how that will work is the question >> it's a fallback option. speaking of the uk, i spoke to the secretary-general and asked about his outlook for the uk economy >> the uk economy is again also going through a cycle. but that, if you read the news, it would look like the only thing going on in the uk economy is brexit. of course it's not they're doing well on the job front, though perhaps not so well in terms of remunerations and quality of jobs. but the uncertainty that is -- well, that's creating costs. because, as we have seen, a

number of investment decisions are being deferred, if not canceled a number of companies are moving elsewhere or at least partially moving elsewhere and of course this is going to continue in the next few months, couple of years until the exit takes place. most importantly until we know what is the final trade deal, final investment rules, final rules about the movement of people, the movement of capital. so you still have a lot of homework that the negotiators have to go through >> that was the secretary-general of oecb speaking about a month ago we're coming to the end of 2017 it's worth looking at u.s. hedge funds. leslie picker looked at what's in store for the industry next

year >> reporter: new sources of activism, retail investors, and environmental social governance are three key reasons why the outlook for hedge fund activism in 2018 may build upon some ke trends from this year. first, new sources of activism sources in the activism world expect more non-activist investors to use those strategies to push for changes at companies where they have large stakes that comes on the heels of newburgher berman's push at whole foods and d.e. shaw's campaign in eqt earlier this year second, retail investors from arconic, to adp, investors are not afraid of companies with a large retail component they found ways to reach individual investors elliott mailed flashy mini retail devices, an trian placed ads in a local cincinnati newspaper pershing square held video webcasts with live q&a during its fight with adp not all these activists won every seat they sought

their strategies are likely to catch on with other activists in the new year lastly, esg or environmental social and governance investors are demanding activists bring more director nominees that can help diversify the board and make it a force for good all right. coming up, investment in uber goes up a gear as softbank takes a stake. we'll look at that and other big tech news after the break. so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember.

welcome back it's the last trading day of the year if you need a reminder, it says it behind me we thought we would look back at some of the major indices for 2017 behind me is the s&p 500 up 20% i should tell you that the s&p 500 has seen 62 record closes for this year. that's tied for 1964 with the second most ever the record was 77 record closes

in 1995. in terms of sectors that did very well this year, the number one performing sector was technology up 38% year to date consumer discretionary up 22%. on the down side, energy was down 3.4% and telecom is a sector that did struggle this year, down 5% but rebounded quite a bit in the last month. they have been one of the beneficiaries of the tax reform. let's switch to dow. the blue chip and dow is up 25%. also another interesting statistic on dow, half of its gains for the year came in the fourth quarter of this year. so in the last quarter of the year it was up 2,400 points versus 5,000 points for the year 70% of the record closes have happened in this quarter just so you can get some detail on some of the best performing stocks in dow jones, the best performing company is boeing up

90% for this year. caterpillar up 70% some of the worst performing stocks were general electric, down 45% and ibm down 7% so that gives you the picture of dow jones for the year now, f.a.n.g.s, we talked about technology and the fact that tech sector and the s&p has been the best performing sector nasdaq also for the year is up 30%. you can see across the board facebook up 55% this year. amazon up 58%. netflix up 55% alphabet, the parent of google, lagging a bit, up 33%. it has been a stellar year for the f.a.n.g.s. the big question is whether or not that momentum can continue into next year with the increasing amount of regulatory and scrutiny on some of these social media companies of course with respect to google they were hit with an antitrust fine by the eu earlier this

year stellar performance for the technology sector. switching to europe, not as rosie as the picture in the u.s., but stocks eked out an 8% gain for the year. disappointing relative to the u.s. willem >> softbank will own 15% of uber after succeeding in its tender officer that values the ridesharing company at $48 billion, 30% cheaper than the recent valuation of $60 billion. the company says it will use the investment to support technology investments and drive growth apple is apologizing for slowing down older iphones as well as offering cheaper battery replacements and updated software that tracks users power usage. this follows lawsuits and accusations that apple was hindering old phones as a way of pushing consumers to upgrade the company said it would never

intentionally shorten the life of a product adding it slowed down phones with battery problems so they wouldn't shut down unexpectedly. >> as we raise a glass to 2017, we're ending our final show of the year by talking about beer ab imb bshgb inbev is betting o. they will have their largest brewery in the asia pac region >> we've been doing business in china for 30 years pretty much from day one we decided to invest in the high-end of the segment, which at time was not obvious because it was almost nonexistent. we believe with this middle class growing in china, with more value added activity in the economy, that consumers would

have more purchase power and look for brands and experiences in the high end premium and super premium side of the market today we lead both of those segments with budweiser, stella, kro corona, and those brands come in premium. we continue to invest in the high end segment of the market that's growing above the average of the market. that's why i said averages can be deceiving >> you talk about the high end of the market. ab inbev has been focused on pushing forward craft beer as well we've been talking about the growing middle class, but younger consumers who have more money in their pocket, what kind of growth are we expecting in that sector? >> it's interesting you say that what we see around the world, china is no different, younger consumers are looking for experiences more than products for example, a lot of sponsorships we have around the

world in terms of sports, music, arts, it is connecting beer with occasions or consumers value experiences. for example, tomorrowland, the platform we sponsored a global event, we do live streaming around the world in china this year, in june and july when the festival happens in belgium, 74 million consumers watched live, our live stream. world cup next year. budweiser is a global sponsor, next year in russia, again it's going to work well in china because of the time of the games in terms of being in the evening, and again live streaming will be big for us in terms of world cup our brands are connected to arts, sports and things that consumers wanted to experience

consumers today, it's about experience and not only a product. >> speaking of changing tastes, that's not something we're just seeing in china, but in the u.s. as well. you have acquired a lot of craft boo beer companies, but u.s. sales have not necessarily pushed up you had a change at the top in terms of leadership in the u.s. what do you think you need to do to shake up things in the u.s. >> our business is a global business u.s. is important, but our business especially after the integration, we are present in 50 countries around the world. we do business in all continents our global brands including budweiser, our flagship brand. we have budweiser, corona and stella artois. next year is an important year for budweiser because of the fifa world cup, that's normally a year where budweiser does well around the world

today we have growth of budweiser in all countries outside of the u.s >> last trading day of the year. last show of the year. thank you for watching us the last couple of days, we've been doing the "squawk box"/"street signs" combo >> extravaganza. >> will you be looking at the fireworks this weekend >> no, i will be looking at my 2-year-old while my wife goes out and has fun. >> that sounds lovely. so a soggy day today low volume and all of these indices posted record highs as i have gone over many times during the show that's it for today's show i'm joumanna bercetche >> "worldwide exchange" is up next thanks po s for joining us >> have a wonderful new year, bye-bye. looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. it can provide what we call an unlock: a realization that often reveals a better path forward.

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out with the bang. will wall street cap off this record breaking year with another all-time high. your final trading day of 2017 set up ahead. apple apoll jogizes for slog apple iphones. details ahead. and record cold temperatures grip a big part of the nation. "worldwide exchange" begins right now. good morning a warm welcome t