welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche these are your headlines >> european stocks trade in the red but avoid the sharp losses seen in asia the chips are up for dialogue semicon duck ducsemico. revenue jumps 30%. and bayer says a dip in

fourth quarter earnings as crop protection takes a hit on results. and man group rakes in the flows in 2017 seeing a 35% jump in funds under management and helping it swing back to profit. well, it's been a volatile month for stocks around the world with the dow and s&p on pace to break a ten-month winning streak chinese indices sold off sharply in february. the shanghai composite dropped 6% in the month. the csi 300 lost nearly as much in its biggest monthly fall since 2016 you can see greater china stocks extended losses after chinese manufacturing activity hit a 19-month low in february

reviving fears about a slowdown in the world's second largest economy. the beijing manufacturing pmi came in at 51.3. a shutdownies during the lunar new year holiday contributed to the slowing business activity. most of those indices are down 1% china chi speaking to cnbc earlier, michael pettis says president xi jinping's consolidated power should help. >> the proof is in the pudding he spent his first term centralizing power now he will spend the next term implementing reforms we can only tell whether or not he will do it successfully by seeing how he does it. he does have a reasonably good team in place. i'm optimistic that they will be able to take steps in the next

year or two, really to manage the necessary transfers. >> the nikkei down almost 1.5% we had some weak manufacturing data coming out of japan as well the yen strength continues to weigh on that particular index hasn't been a good couple of days as far as the nikkei is concerned. the chinese indices down 1%. hang seng down 1.4%. aussie down 1% the economy may be slowing down just a little bit. let's switch to europe things traded heavier in trading after the powell testimony and we saw a continuation of that

move in asia seeing a sea of red in europe. ftse 100 is down 0.35% xetra dax similar declines cac having a weak day. all of the four indices are not having a good start to the trading day. let's switch to the u.s. you can see that the dow was down more than -- just about 300 points on the trading session. that puts it down at almost 1.2% s&p was also down 1.3% this is on the back of powell's testimony. this was his first testimony as new fed chair. there was some concern that his tone was a bit more hawkish and he is perhaps prepping the market for a more aggressive fed going forward. equities did not react well to that

bond yields sold off about 5 basis points jay powell said the economy is powering forward in his first appearance before congress, he was confident that inflation is on the way to hitting the fed's 2% target and supportive of a gradual rate hiking path he said the fed is carefully watching the impact of tax cuts and more stimulative fiscal policy some investors are pricing in four rate hikes this year rather than the three in the fed's most recent projection. what we've seen is incoming data that suggests a strengthening in the economy. seen continuing strength in the labor market we've seen data that will, in my case, add some confidence my view that that inflation is moving up to target. also seen continued strength around the globe and we've seen fiscal policy become more stimulative. each of us will be taking the developments between the

december meeting into account and writing down our new rate paths as we go into the march meeting. >> powell also took a lot of questions asking for his take on the trump tax cuts >> lower corporate taxes should lead to higher investment. the effect is not easy to estimate, but you would think and studies find it should lead to higher investment higher investment should lead to higher productivity and that should lead to higher wages over time it's hard to say how much that will be. higher productivity is welcome and will be driven by higher investment >> the global chief investment officer from ubs wealth management joins us on the show this morning mark, it appears equities did not react well to powell's comments are you getting nervous with equities just 2% away from all-time highs >> we're not nervous we had been looking more towards

the potential for four hikes based on the strechngth of the economy. we agree with what powell said about the increased strength since the beginning of the year. it looks like this fiscal package, the debt will be stimulative over the next two years. and is going to be almost as important or as important as what they've done on the tax side >> so, putting that all together from a strategy perspective what type of returns are you aiming for? if equities don't like this, fixed income doesn't like this, the dollar doesn't like this, what do you want to own? >> when we look at the overall picture, we still see strong corporate earnings growth. we see strong global growth and while the central banks are dialing back on their quantitative easing, moving towards quantitative tightening,

interest rates are still low that's a stimulative environment. we think we're moving later into the cycle. it's still a good environment for missing assets we are overweight in equities. but as these returns come through, we're looking to add hedges, because we think this is going to be a much more volatile year, as, in fact, investors react to thing like powell's testimony and say wait a minute, it's usually the fed hikes so much that they pull back and cut off the recovery and, you know, when is that going to come. it should be a good year, but it's going to be a more volatile year >> we saw that, of course, in the beginning of this year with that spike in volatility we were talking about the lack of volatility and when it came everyone was surprised i get that impression that more and more people are looking for protection in portfolios drilling into that protection is gold an asset class you would want to own as something that should work out in case the fed

do get more aggressive, fiscal policy meets inflation >> i think this selloff was interesting for people trying to find those hedges in their portfolio. for us gold does have this kind of insurance policy element to it but of course insurance is something that you're willing to pay for in case things go very bad. we don't have an allocation to it in our strategic allocation we think gold is probably going to perform at these levels for the rest of the year another thing that people have been looking to is bitcoin i think there again it's not like bitcoin was negatively correlated to markets. so i think two of the hedges we're looking at is one is the yen, which seems to perform well in selloffs and also something like puts on the s&p 500 >> sounds very reasonable to me.

lawmakers also asked powell about a whole range of trump administration policies, head to cnbc.com to see how he handled the barrage of questions let's switch to europe in a few days time we will be hearing from italian elections and the results of the spd vote. looking at stoxx 600, the composite picture is weaker in line with the individual bourses that we were looking at now. stoxx 600 is 0.2% lower on the session. switching to ftse mib, which is where all of the action is going to be in the next few days, in line with the stoxx 600, trading weaker today actually outperforming its core peers in this trading session so far. we're about one hour in. let's look at currency there's been a lot of focus on the currency not just because of the political back drop, but because of ecb and the march meeting and

the likely steps they are going to make there. you can see euro/dollar is a tad weaker down about a quarter percentage point. holding in at about 122. the big focus will be on ten-year periphery yields. you can see the ten-year is holding in at about 2.07-ish two basis points stronger on the day. that spread tightened versus germany. this tells you there's been somewhat of a bid for fixed income given that equities are trading so heavy mark, i want to talk about italy. i was reading in a note this morning that equities are priced for about 4% to 5% one-day move. euro/dollar priced for a 11% move implied volatility. does that sound about right to you? >> the -- i think what is interesting about the italian election is how difficult it is

to predict for a variety of reasons. they stop polling ahead of time. after the election reforms it's going to be probably much harder for one party to run away with it so we are seeing that there is -- people are pricing in the potential for volatility about this outcome it is important for europe, both of these events. if we get past this italian election with our best case, which is a broad coalition, the market likes and we get through what's going on in germany, then there's a two-year runway where perhaps some meaningful reforms could be made on the european project. so that should be exciting then i've got to say, you know, some -- the joke -- this election is so ripe for jokes. some have said that some of the candidates in this italian election are not qualified to

run for prime minister only one of them is a professional clown >> okay. very good joke thank you for bringing that to the show i want to talk about periphery yields i was talking about the ten-year bond it is currently trading 130 basis points to germany. some say it's lagging the move in spain and france and germany as well. what do you think is the worst case scenario for bdp spreads. at what point do you say i don't want to touch that >> you know, i think it's a variety of factors where the ecb is no longer seen as back stopping the project i think we're very far away from that i think there's a lot of things caught up in the way the spreads move one is the election. italy has been less successful compared to some of these other

regimes in benefiting from this european growth. that's one factor. the other is this is the 67th -- this will be the 67th government in italy 133% debt to gdp so intester devestors are conceu that >> mark, thank you for joining "street signs" this morning. thank you for bringing your jokes to the show as well. right after the break, we will have the latest on the fight for sky as comcast, disney and fox all angle for the best deal for your heart...

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see how you can save by adding xfinity mobile to your internet. plus, save even more when you sign up for internet, tv and voice together. click, call, or visit an xfinity store today. welcome back to "street signs. bayer has reported a dip in fourth quarter earnings as poor performance in consumer products and crop production takes a hit on results the deal with monsanto could close in the second quarter.

shares in dialog semiconductor are trading towards the top of the market as revenues rose to 4$464 million the group said it expects gross margin for be broadly flat itv reported a 5% drop in adjusted full-year core earnings to 842 million pounds. a difficult advertising market hurt results but growth in the network studios business helped. and sticking with the media theme, comcast shares closed the u.s. session sharply lower after the company announced a 22.1 billion pound offer for sky. shares of sky closed the uk session more than 20% higher if the bid succeeds, comcast will expand its presence in europe, adding sky's assets and 23 million subscribers in the uk, germany and italy to the

roster the move challenges rupert murdoch's bid in sky by offerering 12 pound 50 pence per share. stocks of disney also fell 21st century fox says it will have no further comment until a firm offer has been made by comcast i'm happy to say gervais williams joins me to make sense of all of this there's so many moving parts what is it about sky that is making it attractive for overseas players >> sky has about 20 million customers, operates in the uk but also germany, austria, irish position, italian position and also in spain. it's a strong business it's a good business

it's generating more cash flow going forward. >> looking where the sky stock price is trading, up at 1,340. above the bid yesterday at 1,250. do you have a bid on where the finaloffer will get to how high can that stock price go the market is saying they're expecting a more aggressive bid to come in >> there will be synergies for both companies those could amount to $10 billion. so there are some analysts expecting it to get to 15 pounds we don't know if there will be an increased bid comcast has to confirm the existing bid as a first stage. >> you think fox has the bandwidth to enter into that war and outbid, come in with a higher bid >> the ultimate owner is disney. disney's interest will drive this fox will be the current owner but they will pass it on as part of a deal to disney. disney will be the ultimate

driver on whether they want to pay up >> do you see any point where disney may bid on their own? >> there may be a deal with fox where disney have said they will not bid directly >> the regulation aspect british regulators had concerns about the fox/sky tieup. they said it's not necessarily in the public interest do you think comcast coming in would make it much more smooth sailing as far as getting a deal passed >> at the moment, comcast has small operations outside of the u.s. one reason comcast are interested in the bid, they would take their overseas sales of 9% to 25%, that's one of the key reasons they cited when announcing the deal. >> when you look at sky as a business, if you think of it in the context of comcast, how do

you envision sky will contribute to comcast's overall revenues? >> comcast is mainly a cable operator there's universal and more content they can distribute. there's a big tech nological change going on, and they're selling more services. sky have their own technology and they can bring that to the table. >> the bigger picture is these are two giant media conglomerates who are entering the race do you think the trends going forward in this industry will be one of further consolidation are we likely to see more and more of these deals take place >> all of these operators have been under some pressure as a result of the netflix growth, and amazon moving into content as well. that's prompting them all to

look around and make sure content gets around to the largest number of customers. >> thank you very much for joining the show that was gervais williams on the latest with the comcast/sky deal for more on consolidation in the media space, arjun joins us from barcelona. what can you tell us on this topic? >> consolidation has been a big part of the talk that's around the telecoms industry, the network equipment makers who have struggled to make revenues. cisco is a big player on the ground and karen caught up with the cisco ceo. there's been talk about rumors that cisco may make a bid to acquire ericsson karen put that question to the cisco ceo and asked if they were thinking about bidding for ericss ericsson >> we have a partnership with ericsson today we have roughly 175 or 180

customer engagements where we work together to create solutions for customers. we continue to look for areas where we can partner with ericsson or any other manufacturer or company where we can bring incremental value to customers by bringing technologies together. >> you don't need to buy them at this stage >> we don't need to buy anybody todeliver innovation partnerships work well we have our own r & d capabilities we have an active m&a arm. we build strategic partnerships and we leverage all of those >> that was the ceo of cisco saying he doesn't need to tie up with players then karen sat down with the ceo of ericsson to ask him if there was a tieup between cisco and ericsson in the cards.

>> we have said we have the scale to be successful we need to focus our investments, make it priority, and we will be good in network digital services and those are the areas we will succeed in if we do, we are large enough to be a successful company. >> so both say they don't need tieups, but the talk is really about 5g and how that could reinvigorate more traditional players, whether they decide to go it alone or via tieup remains to be scene. back to you. >> i have a question referring to what the ericsson ceo was talking about. how are they balancing investments in this technology versus profitabilities and overall profit margins going forward? the onus is on all of these companies to spend more on the technology side of things. at some point the market may look to punish them for eating into the margins

>> ericsson is a company that has struggled a lot. they are managing this cautious cautiously if you hear the talk about 5g, yes, there's hype about 5g, but a lot of people are taking a more cautious approach saying this is not something you switch the on button on an 5g will be everywhere you have to make sure consumers understand the technology and make sure we bring it into a market in a way that's good for our business and can drive average revenues per user higher over the next few years. i would say caution is a message from a lot of players who are trying to invest but need to keep the markets going through good earnings and profitability. >> excellent, thank you for that for more from the mobile world congress and to find out why the mcafee ceo says ransomeware is today's modern day extortion, head to cnbc.com

i want to draw your attend she to flashes from adidas adidas says it posted sales of more than 20 billion in 2017 expects growth of 15% to 20% and the stock is up 0.6% in trading. coming up, former italian prime minister silvio berlusconi tells us whoe'bainahd t election.ea

welcome to "street signs," i'm joumanna bercetche, these are your headlines >> european stocks trade in the red but avoid the sharp losses seen in asia the chips are up for dialog semiconductor the german firm tops the stoxx 600 after revenue jumps nearly 30% in the fourth quarter. and bayer shares fall as

poor performance in consume procedure duconsumer products and crop production takes a hit. and silvio berlusconi announces his prime minister, with the former leader barred from taking office himself let's look at how u.s. futures are looking to open up seen opening up higher for the dow and s&p after we had the down session in yesterday's trading following on from powell's hawkish testimony it looks like the u.s. equities have taken that in stride and are seen opening higher in trading. in the european markets, you can see ftse 100, xetra dax, all the

main indices are trading in the red. the out-performer is ftse mid-around the flat line the rest down 0.2% or so, 0.3% in the case of the cac we have had a bunch of names dragging down the xetra dax, we spoke about bayer. uk is continuing to be dragged down by those itv results as well as taylor wimpey, down more than 7% in trading that's the picture for equities. foreign exchange this morning, eu euro/dollar trading weaker dollar/yen has been a subject of focus. we had a drop in the nikkei, down 1.7%, some of that pointed back to the strength in yen currency today is another day where that currency pair is actually stronger as far as the yen is concerned. it is beginning to bite a bit. cable around the 1.40 mark former italian prime minister

silvio berlusconi says he is backing antonio tajani as prime minister if his center right block wins the election on march 4th. he said tajani had not yet given the green light for the endorsement. tajani declined to comment on berlusconi's statement let's look at the key players in the italian election first off, we have silvio berlusconi, the former prime minister is arguably the most influential man in italian politic now. his party, forza italia is leading in the polls, but he has been banned from assuming public office due to a previous tax fraud election mateo salvini also promised to fight for the hard working northern italians against the lazy south that's him right here. he represents a more hard line

right ring view than berlusconi and made clear he wants to be the prime minister if the center right coalition wins then we have luigi dimaio, the youngest person in the race for prime minister he was appointed leader of the 5 star movement last year after serving as vice president of italy's lower house. he represents a less radical point of view, and has softened the movement's opposition to europe matteo renzi became italy's youngest ever pm, though staging his own coup in his own party but resigned in 2016 after voters rejected his konsz tu constitutional reform plans in a referendum the latest polls suggest he could be leading the democrat party to the worst performance yet. the more popular figure is current prime minister p paolpaolo

paolo jepaolo jent gentiloni. if a government is not formed, he could be asked to stay until a new government is formed and emma bonino is one of italy's most pro europe political figures. she's fighting for the rights of immigrants and finally sergio matterell is the president of italy currently. he's in power to approve the prime minister he called on all parties to make realistic and concrete proposals for all of italy willem is in sicily and sends

this report. >> the island of sicily and it's ports like the city of palermo have been a crossroads for civilizations, particularly for those traveling across the mediterranean. that's been no more true than in the last seven years when around 750,000 people, migrants, traveled to sicily on their way in to italy an other parts of europe the pressure that brought to bear on public services has had an impact on this country's politics we caught up with some migrants living here in sicily to hear their stories. >> reporter: the working day starts loud and early at this market in palermo's old city center there is often sicily's newest residents earning and spending money. ahead of sunday's election, their presence from beyond italy's borders has polarized the heart of its politics. this man entered italy after a

journey that lasted six months and cost him 3,500 euros >> translator: why did i come here to answer that question, it's first of all to save my life my life wasn't secure. i was in danger. i decided to go somewhere else >> reporter: it's been more than two years since he left his native guinea, but this week din, as he is known to friends, started his own company, manufacturing childrens toys >> translator: i've received my permission to stay here. and there are those who have not received theirs yet and they applied more than two years ago. when i look at it like that, it's better. >> reporter: he lives with several other migrants in a converted hop. his health, home and job rely on his permit to stay in italy. more than 5 million foreign citizens now live in italy according to the latest government figures with most

originating from outside the european union in the last seven years more than 750,000 migrants have crossed the mediterranean to reach sicily's coastline prompting an increasingly divisive debate that has upended italy. this party was found to win intense for northern italy but is campaigning for votes in the deep south, including sicily where sabina is one of its parliamentary candidates sicily has become a big refugee camp, she told me. the mediterranean was a culture of trade, tourism but has become a place where human traffickers bring lots of people and give them false hope. she said italians need a law to block new arrivals to its political opponents, this

has represented the public face of italian racism. alongside its coalition partners it may have a chance of winning majority in this weekend's vote. she said sicilian voters support the plan to deport half a million migrants but for others in the city, that attitude is neither welcoming nor welcome. >> i make no distinction between people being born in palermo and people living in palermo being born in bangladesh, romania, sud sudan. >> this man forced the mafia out of palermo and is now testing his popularity by allowing migrants in. >> they do not speak to the mind of the people. they speak to the stomachs of the team but they are wrong because

believe me, there is no toleran tolerance. the intolerance is in the sick mind of politicians. >> reporter: it's a public rebuke of nativist populism. willem marx, cnbc, palermo, italy. amazon is buying smart doorbell maker ring in a deal that will extend its reach into the kconnective home space. the devices are designed to work with amazon key, which allows delivery personnel into homes with a special key it would be one of the largest acquisitions that amazon has ever done. annette is in berlin where we have been speaking to business

leaders about the future of private equity i believe you have a guest with you? >> yes, thank you very much. we are talking here about the state of the industry, also in 2018 what might happen to the industry given high competition and valuation going up more than ever before. i'm joined by michael lindower from allianz capital partners. good morning what's the big topic for 2018? >> the big topic for 2018 is a difficult question this is a market which is highly priced, we expect this in the absence of macro shocks, geopolitical events. we expect this to stay for 2018, so we pretty much expect the market will probably push on, so it will be a lively market but still high priced with also benign fund-raising environment.

>> let us look at europe obviously allianz capital partners is headquartered in munich where do you see opportunities in europe given that we are also in a very good -- in a very good position in the economic cycle >> if you look at private equity, private equity essentially is not a plaque kro gam macro game but a micro game. we are looking for fund managers to find the right company. i couldn't point, you to a country and say this is more interesting than others, but we're trying to uncover the best opportunities throughout europe. >> is brexit affecting you >> brexit is something to watch. our best case is there is a transition period and a free trade agreement. what will happen is a certain adjustment period for the uk economy, which might or might not have been an impact on what

the velocity of deals in this interim period will be given that we don't think this will be a terminal effect, we keep investing in the uk you can make a point if there is an adjustment period, normally disruption creates opportunity this might be an interesting point for new investments. >> one other political factor is the italian elections, which are just around the corner is that something you're watching >> watching this all the time. it's coming up this weekend on sunday if you look at the policies, they suggest a high share of euro-skeptic voters potentially. we do not think there will be a tectonic shift from the elections or a different sentiment for the italian market i said before we're not trying to pick a market but picking the right companies. it will not be a big change for us in how we see italy >> another factor which might be a topic in 2018 is the rise in

financing costs. is that something you're talking about? you're worried about >> less concern, to be honest. if you think about it, it will rise we expect that interest rates will increase over time. having said this, this are coming from a low base, and these increases are credible steps. we think this should be very manageable for our fund managers >> what -- in terms of deal flow, there has been some interest from chinese investors, also in germany but also elsewhere in europe. do you think that has increased come competition >> there are chinese players who are active, strategic actors, a lot of private equity firms active i'm not sure i would say the competition is increasing, but it's competitive at a high level. >> okay. coming from the strategic buyers, do you feel that at

least the assets you're looking at, that there's also a lot of interest from companies? >> that's the one thing we would look at for our fund managers to find, assets with a strategic value that would cope well in a less highly priced environment for those hopefully there will always be a lot of interest from strategics in the end. >> thank you very much for your time have a good day here >> thanks for having me. >> with that, back to you. there's a lot of interest in topics like china the united states, but also the tax reform in the states is a topic here on the ground obviously it makes it more interesting for players here to invest in the states, back to you. >> thank you very much for that. annette was live at the conference speaking to the global co-head of private equity of allianz capital. the eu's chief brexit negotiator warned the uk that

time is running out on reaching a deal michel barnier said he was ready to meet david davis urgently an agreement on a withdrawal treaty has been targeted for october of this year the eu is set to publish a draft treaty later today we discussed plenty of things on the show today get involved in the conversation the address is streetsignseurope@cnbc.com as ever, tweet us. we are at @streetsignscnbc successful people have one thing in common. they read more. how do they find the time? with audible. audible has the world's largest selection of audiobooks. books like peak performance... and endurance. books that energize and inspire for just $14.95 a month. less than you'd pay for the hardcover. with audible, you get a credit-a-month good for any audiobook. if you don't like it, exchange it any time.

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solvay is expecting slower profit growth in 2018. core profit rose 2.8% to 494 million euros. speaking to us earlier, the ceo explained the changes in the energy related business this year >> what we've seen in a situation where we had high energy costs in a context with

new capacity coming and this, indeed, affected our prices. we had a margin of 27%, so very solid, but we knew that in this business, 2018 would be a challenging year due to this new capacity coming in >> grocery titan delhaize reported growth and hiked its dividend france's accorhotels agreed to spin off some of its properties to investors. the deal is worth 4.4 billion euros and accor says it will help them compete with airbnb and online travel agencies

i will speak to the ceo in a few hours. stay tuned for that. back to the u.s., fed chair jay powell says the economy is powering forward in his first appearance before congress he was confident that inflation is on the way to hitting the fed's 2% target and supportive of a gradual rate hiking path. he also said the fed is carefully watching the tax cuts and more stimulative fiscal policy some investors are pricing in four rate hikes rather than the three seen in the fed's most recent projection, in part because of comments like this one. >> what we've seen is incoming data that suggests a strengthening in the economy continuing strength in the labor market some data that will, in my case, add some confidence to my view that inflation is moving up to target we've also seen continued strength around the globe and we've seen fiscal policy become more stimulative i think each of us is going to

be taking the developments between -- since the december meeting into account and writing down our new rate paths as we go into the march meeting >> i would like to bring in steve litz from t.s. lombard do you think powell is prepping the markets for the dots to move higher at the march meeting? >> absolutely. in my mind he's a refreshing change from janet yellen >> in what sense >> he's verydirect he's not -- doesn't have that academic need to hedge every comment with some other clause and he just is straightforward the economy is strong. >> do you think we're likely to see a more aggressive fed going forward than under powell? >> i think the potential is there. but then again the economy is stronger look, we are sitting here with broad inflation indexes already at 2%. we're sitting with an economy

that's growing at 3% per year, probably down 2.5% in the first quarter. most people including ourselves put trend growth a little under 2% the unemployment rate is at 4% it's hard in this environment to justify a real federal funds rate that's negative the problem with continuing to do that is that you will not only overheat the economy but cause a misallocation in capital which will cause imbalances and imbalances blows up the next recession. you want to avoid that. >> so you are saying it's imperative that the fed start raising rates and move the real fed fund rate to a positive area i want to pick up on ray quarrels' comments he said that perhaps all of this fiscal expansion coming won't necessarily be inflationary. what it does is it boosts the

potential output of the economy, and makes it less likely that they're going to overheat or overshoot when it comes to the output and output gap. what is your interpretation of those comments that's the first time we hear somebody from the fed talking about that >> it is the first time. the fed has been working on a static view of the world, which is that overheating because we're closing this output gap. i think quarles is right it's sympathetic to our own perspective that the output may start to increase. if you understand the real interest rate has been extraordinarily low, and still is low against normalti histori norms, if you do have an increase in growth which is a real increase in growth, that still raises the real interest rate that's a positive story for growth and a positive story for

the equity markets, but it doesn't preclude or doesn't mean that the fed should not -- it says that the fed should be raising the cost of money to reflect economic activity. >> you have two examples of previous administrations who have gone on this spending spree per se one was the supply side tax cuts in the '60s and also the cold war type spending in the '80s. which environment do you think we're in in terms of the impact this will have on inflation and on the dote numbebt numbers goi forward? >> it's two similar periods of time the marked difference between the two is one you're starting with a negative funds rate in real terms in the 1960s the baby bomb was ju baby boom was just starting to get into the work force. that was an inflationary factor.

in the '80s you were beginning a disinflationary period of time that started with the collapse of oil prices and then the opening of the u.s. economy to trade. in other words, a lot of low-cost goods coming in that continued really all the way through to the present day it's not -- it's similar in terms of government action but the output is not necessarily the same >> we have to end it there thank you very much for joining the show that was steve litz from ts lombard saying perhaps we should expect a bit more aggressive fed going forward. that's it for today's show i'm joumanna bercetche "worldwide exchange" is coming up next. ♪

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stocks pushing higher ahead of the gdp. grading powell, who global markets are reacting to the fed chair's first conference. and the deal amazon just made for doorbells it's february 28, 2018 "worldwide exchange" begins now. ♪ good morning very warm welcome to "worldwide exchange" on cnbc. i'm wilfred frost. let's get to the