elliott accuses vivendi of not addressing the issues. the german economy will grow 2.2% in 2018 according to germany's ifo institute which raised its growth forecast from its autumn outlook the group also lifted the forecast for 2019 but said "the air is getting thinner as unused

capacities are shrinking." let's look at the european markets as they open we can see more grown across the board there. the euro as well there the markets, you can see the green on the board, the stoxx 600 is up very, very slightly so far this morning we look atthe individual markets as well, the ftse 100 up 0.5% the cac 40 up more than 0.10%. in italy also a similar story. in germany, down 0.20% you can see what's driving some of those numbers media sector up two-thirds of a percent. if you look at household goods, by far the laggard down two-thirds of a percent. it's been a big day for earnings in europe

nestle has posted stronger than expected sales organic sales growth rose 2.8% in the first quarter, up 1.9% from the final quarter of 2017 the swiss food giant confirmed guidance for 2018. it says it is on track to meet midterm and year-end targets the firm is in the middle of ais more attention on food costs restructuring could be around 700 million swiss francs. unilever has first quarter sales in line with expectations. the consumer goods giant is in the midst of a corporate overhaul and has maintained its full-year outlook. the companies announced a 6 billion euro share buyback program thanks to money it made spinning off its spreads business we're joined by a consumer research analyst from jeffries

martin, who knew i can believe it's not butter would end up in such a share buyback was that expected? >> i think partly expected unilever had given indications that the proviceeds would be recycled the announcement this morning is a positive surprise. >> that's the big question, looking at nestle and danone yesterday, it's all about pricing. the potential squeeze on margins you get with rising commodities and static pricing >> that's the key theme this morning. there is a huge market debate about the pricing model of this industry in the face of amazon and channel shift generally against which we had virtually zero price progression from unilever an nestle this morning.

in unilever's case, 200 to 300 points of cost inflation in the beginning. while these results this morning are technically in line and full-year guidance is unchanged for both unilever and nas estlei is playing to the primal fears on pricing. what can the firms do to calm investors >> in the short-term, relatively little i think the sector valuations will stay under pressure as a result of this i think in the longer term, it's all about realigning portfolios with either products that are more premium priced or products that have more price defensible. both unilever and nestle embarked on that journey, but these are two super tankers that it will take a lot of tugboats to turn around >> looking at unilever where

have they seen good growth and why is that? which categories have done well and why? >> they've seen decent broad based volume growth across much of their categories, particularly personal care and home care particularly in emerging markets nestle have also seen relatively good volume growth the pricing pressures are in north america, that's the consistent picture, brazil which is moving into deflationary cycle, and for unilever, also indonesia and south africa >> you talked about north america. the numbers for u.s. candy not doing well for nestle is that about that continued move, that trend towards healthier lifestyles >> no, i think in nestle's case, it's a result of the fact that the business has been for sale for six to nine months self-admittedly nestle said that cost them in terms of motivation and trade support for the

business i think the recent slowdown in a consequence of the sale of the business but it has to be said that business over its lifetime has not been a high-growth business for nestle and is misaligned with the way trends are evolving in confectionary >> there's good numbers for danone yesterday, they were focused on baby and infant focused products in asia that doesn't seem to be the case in nestle. is that an indication of how competitive that market is >> i think it is, yes. and it also has to do with channel mix in china it's a complex picture danone have aligned themselves more with the indirect channel, which short-term is more growth. nestle has more traditional channels this is on the back of market share movements. >> thank you very much

now, avb chief executive says 2017 was a turbulent transition year and is a thing of the past. his firm reported a net profit last quarter of 5$572 million, that exceeded expectations revenue in the first quarter hit 8$8.6 billion, and beat forecasts. the industrial giant saw its orders grow across the board and operating results improve. speaking to cnbc earlier today, the chief executive also gave his take on the recent ratcheting up of global trade tensions take a listen. >> the long-term outlook on capital spending is positive the industries are coming back we have good discussions on future projects, large scale commitments between now and 2025 in industry some players have come out saying they will invest strongly there are uncertainty on the political side that could have a

dampening effect i hope this will be worked out soon and we can grow in a growing world. schneider electric reported 6.2% organic growth in the first quarter. that's beating market expectations the french electrical equipmentmaker brought in revenues of 5.8 billion euros, helped by strong demand in china. share prices are up 1.8% now novartis shares are trading lower after the swiss drugmaker confirming its full-year targets on the back of a better than expected rise in first quarter sales. resulted were boosted bay wea r er by a weaker u.s. dollar. sales jumped 10% the results were also helped by the recovery in its long ailing eye care unit. there are some concerns for investor there's. procter & gamble will acquire merck's consumer health

unit for 3.4 billion euros the move means p & g will add further vitamin and health products to the existing portfolio. merck makes around $1 billion i annual sales from 10 core brands that it sells in more than 40 markets. it put the unit up for sale last year to focus on the pharma business, particularly prescription drugs procter is due to release its quarterly results later today. feel free to e-mail the show about some of these numbers. the address is streetsignseurope@cnbc.com you can follow us on twitte twitter, @streetsignscnbc or tweet me directly. coming up on the show, the international monetary fund warns global debt is higher than before the financial crisis. stay with us

racing isn't the only and with godaddy, i'm making my ideas real. with godaddy you can get a website to sell online. and it will look good. i made my own way. now it's time to make yours. ♪ everything is working just like it should ♪ you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it.

let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. the imf has issued a warning over growing global dret in t glebl debt stands at $164 trillion that's 225% of global gdp up

from the previous peek of 213% at the height of the financial crisis speaking to joumanna bercetche at the spring meetings in washington, the world bank chief discussed the key risks facing the global economy >> the most important one is to make sure we can sustain growth. we do have to appreciate what the down side to risks may be. first monetary policies, as growth has become so healthy, central banks have taken care of withdrawing stimulus, if they do it carefully, that's not a big risk that is critical and it would be discussed do you remembering the

spring meduring the spring meetin meetings disasters, financial disruptors, they are all coming suddenly, so we have to help countries to be more resilient to this shocks. the third very important determinant is the shift that is happening structurally with technologies changing the way we work relief. and that change requires rethinking what policies countries should pursue. how much attention they should place on investing in people all of this is going to be debated here during the meetings >> of course there's an absence of trust when it comes to things, with president trump saying he wants to discuss unilateral discussions in the future, perhaps that's on the back of many people feeling they missed out on the big growth we see in the world what do you think needs to be

done to restore trust in multilateral institutions, and to help ease inequality differences in the world >> the first action we need to take is recognize where there are shortcomings and address them for example, trade agreements, we look at those that are doing well, they're deep and broad agreements where new attention is given to all topics that can effect fairness. so we have to pursue those lessons, good and bad, in order for fairness to be -- to be dominant secondly we have to recognize there's some myths around what is causing people to be left out. for example, many more jobs are being lost to automation than

lost to redirs bstributional im of trade knowing this is not good enough, unless there's policy action, policies that address inequality of income but more importantly inequality of opportunities, then it will be difficult to build that trust >> china's commerce ministry issued a warning to the u.s. beijing says it is well prepare to handle any fallout from recent trade spats with the trump administration a spokesperson for the commerce ministry said no former trade talks have taken place with the u.s. and it warned that washington would be making a mistake if it was attempting to curb china's economic rise the country's foreign exchange regulator weighed in to say it can limit the impact of trade restrictions on cross border capital flows. by contrast, japanese prime minister shinzo abe and u.s. president donald trump say they have agreed to intensify their

own trade negotiations abe and japan and the u.s. would seek free, fair and reciprocal trade deals. trump stressed any such deal may be balanced. japan is one of several countries facing u.s. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports trump hinted this could change >> the united states has a massive trade deficit with japan. it's anywhere from $69 billion to 1$100 billion a year. we are doing 232 on steel and aluminum, and if we can come to an arrangement on a new deal between the united states and japan, that would certainly be something we would discuss lo aluminum tariffs and steel tariffs. i would look to take them off. right now we have a deficit that's a minimum of $69 billion

a year japan sends us millions and millions of cars, we tax them virtually not at all joining us now live from the nikkei is makiko utsuda. >> yes again, japanese prime minister abe held talks with president trump over two days at his mar-a-lago resort in florida at the joint press conference on wednesday both said they agreed on establishing a new framework for economic talks >> translator: we have agreed to start talks for a free, fair and reciprocal trade deal at this time as for section 232, japanese steel and aluminum would not exert negative influence on the u.s. national security rather it's our position that the quality of japanese products is high. many of those products are difficult to be replaced with and are greatly contributing to the u.s. industries employment >> so abe tried to secure

exemptions for steel and aluminum tariffs that the u.s. imposed on imports in march, but trump said it would not happen unless japan offered concessions on other trade deals talks would aim at balancing the u.s. trade deficit with japan, even at the conference the two sides showed a clear rift on how to address the issue japan wants the u.s. to return to the tpp trade agreement, but president trump reiterated he would not be open to a return if the details of the pact were not renegotiated and abe admitted that the u.s. was more interested in a bilateral deal that's all from the nikkei, back to you >> thank you very much that was makiko utsuda speaking of potential talks with an asian leader, president trump said he would be willing to walk away from unprecedented discussions with north korean leader kim jong-un, that's if he does not think the meeting itself would produce results the white house has pressured pyongyang to give up nuclear

weapons. president trump says he still hopes the summit would be successful following a visit to north korea by his outgoing cia director, mike pompeo. >> reporter: at news conference with japanese prime minister shinzo abe, president trump sounding optimistic weeks ahead of a historic meeting with north korea's kim jong-un. >> we will be doing everything possible to make it a worldwide success. >> reporter: but promising to stay tough on the regime our campaign of maximum pressure will continue until north korea denuclearizes. >> if the meeting, when i'm there is not fruitful, i will respectfully leave the meeting and continue what we're doing or whatever it that we'll continue put something happen.

>> reporter: will he fire special counsel robert mueller and mueller's boss, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein? the president rejecteding media speculation. >> they've been saying i will be getting rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months and they're still here >> reporter: on his relationship with russia. >> there's been nobody tougher on russia than president donald trump. >> reporter: insisting getting along with other countries like russia and north korea is a good thing. we're getting a picture now of where that summit might take place. they're looking for a neutral location, among the top contenders right now are sweden, singapore and switzerland. blayne alexander, nbc news, washington here in europe, italy's former prime minister, silvio berlusconi says he has never ruled out forming a coalition

government with the five star movement but the anti-establishment party has responded to that statement by saying it is willing to govern with the far right liga, but it's not so thrilled about tying itself to the electoral partners of liga, including for za italia. a unity government has been trying to be formed after an inconclusive election last month. and the war of words between elliott and telecom italia reachedreac ed a fevered pitch the latest statements do not remotely relate to issues that affect telecom italia. this after a document published

by vivendi talks about the controlling shareholder. speaking to an italian newspaper, vivendi said the large majority investors support the group's business plan. those reports comeahead of a contentious shareholder meeting in the coming weeks. organic growth for the first quarter rose 1.6% for publicis, ahead of forecasts however the company is said to remain cautious because the market environment remains difficult. sky earnings have risen 10% after adding 38,000 new

customers in the third quarter the company warns it expects the consumer environment to remain challenging and those earnings come amid the news that 21st century fox rejected a bid from comcast due to antitrust concerns sky confirmed it had contact with the u.s. cable giant which owns cnbc and nbc universal. the chief executive said he had no interest of running wpp following the departure of sir martin sorrell. and debenhams reported a 52% drop in first half profit. they are in the middle of a turnaround program aimed at improving existing bricks and mortar stores. coming up, why oil is

rallying and why aud aud wasauda wants higher prices. you could book a flight, hotel, car, and activity all in one place. ♪

welcome back to "street signs. i'm willem marx. read all about it.

a jump in advertising helps publics beet first quarter sales forecasts. a year of transition is behind us says abb as shares are sent higher in zurich. >> markets are better than the previous years all of our markets are either steady or improving. unless the uncertainties of the world prevail, we see a positive numbers for the quarter to come. a weaker dollar and strong heart drug sales help novartis as they confirm the full-year targets. sparks fly over the future of telecom italia. elliott accuses vivendi of failing to remotely address the issues, as the ceo says he has the support of the majority of shareholders

let's check in on the currencies market so far this morning. you can see the euro trading slightly stronger against the u.s. dollar. the dollar itself slightly stronger against the yen the pound weakening against the u.s. dollar. the u.s. dollar and swiss franc pretty much a parity let's look at the markets across europe we can see of those major four indices, the xetra dax is still in the red the cac 40 in paris is down 0.25%. the same in italy. in london the ftse 100 up 0.25 earnings season is heating up in europe publics shares are trading at the top of the stoxx 600 after first quarter earnings beat on a rebound in north america abb also higher after the swiss industrial saw orders increase

across all divisions schneider electric higher after revenues topped forecasts on solid chinese demand to the down side you can seede n h debb debbenham shares are sinking, and unilever shares are under pressure novartis also seeing red novartis confirmed its full-year target observe the back of a better than expected rise in first quarter sales, the results were boosted by a weaker u.s. dollar and a rise in new medicines. sailed jumped to 12$12.7 billio, just ahead of forecasts. sales of its psoriasis drug missed estimates they suggest that medicine could be under increased pressure from competition. looking at uk retail sales that are coming up now across the

wires. they suffered their worst quarter in a year after the snow here in march. they are looking to be down about half of a percent against the last quarter that's a big fall. the biggest since way back in the first quarter of 2017. let's look at u.s. futures this morning a few hours ahead of the market open in new york. you can see that the dow jones, s&p 500 and nasdaq not looking to open significantly higher the dow jones with about 14 points up based on that implied open the nasdaq slightly up the s&p 500 looking flat oil prices returned to levels not seen since late 2014 boosted by reports that saudi arabia would be happy to see crude reach 80 to $100 a barrel.

brent and wti have rallied the report is seen as a sign that the riyadh opec cutting deal will be maintained. hadley joins us with more on this >> good morning. so all eyes this weekend will be in jeddah looking to see whether or not saudi arabia and other sa agreement on keeping these oil prices exactly where they are. saudi arabia and the uae would like to see prices reach $100 a barrel again earlier we spoke to the chairman of invescore, i asked what do you look forward doing in this region in saudi arabia what's exciting to you there and how do you think saudi arabia and the uae will deal with oil prices and that volatility in prices going

forward? let's listen in. >> no one could have seen the meltdown that happened in the oil prices no one could have predicted what happened in the kingdom. so i think they're right in feeling the challenges i think also what happened is every government in the region set itself up for the future seeing no more this region can live on being a one-commodity exporter there's obviously pains in the short-term i think governments in the region need to say, you know, when this is all done, whether oil prices come back or not what have we achieved if they achieved diversified economies, creating jobs, better education, then it has been a

fantastic time >> a lot of pressure there on these gulf governments in mr particular in determining what happens next and moving their economies forward. we talked about the economy's investments in turkey. >> turkey, you know, we have a few companies there. our companies are doing well they're -- most of them are market leaders but like we say, the currency doesn't help them. the politics there is not helping. i think the fundamentals of turkey is good you know, big market, entrepreneurial people, hard working people i hope that they can go beyond this geopolitics, that is really

affecting the economy in not so good way >> that's the executive chairman of invescore we also talked about what happened next politically. president erdogan moving elections forward to june 24th a lot of questions over what that will mean >> those elections being brought forward is to try to preempt any economic concerns that may or may not undercut erdogan's support. thank you very much to hadley in abu dhabi. bhp has cut its iron ore guidance they trimmed the forecast by 2%, to 272 and 274 million tons of iron ore bhp also bumped up copper ore estimations. sticking with metals, alcoa

shares jumped over 4% after the aluminum minor delivered better-than-expected earnings. they beat on the top and bottom line and raised the full-year ebita forecast to 3.5 to 3$3.7 billion. alcoa says it expects demand for aluminum to grow along with an increased metal deficit this year due to delays in projects to expand smelters in china. the imf issued a warning over global growing debt in its latest fiscal monetary report, the fund estimates that global debt stands at 1$164 trillion, 225% of gdp, and that itself is up from the previous peak of 213% back in 2009. that was the height of the financial crisis speaking to cnbc in washington, the imf director of fiscal affairs highlighted the u.s. debt situation in the wake of president trump's tax reforms.

>> the united states is the only country where the public debt to gdp ratio is forecast to go up from 107% of gdp in 2017 to 108% of gdp in 2017, sorry, to 117% in 2023. that is due, as you said, to the spending agreement that has occurred in congress and the tax cuts >> that was the imf director of fiscal affairs the imf lifted its growth forecast for south africa thanks to improved reform prospects over president ramaphosa the south african central bank government says economic sentiment has been improving since ramaphosa took power

wh >> what we have seen since the new political power, consumer confidence has improved, but business also reflected itself in financial markets we saw the currency strengthen so there is positive investor sentiment in south africa, and that, of course, lays a basis for a cyclical recovery. it will still require the policies that have been determined to actually be implemented so that there is a seen >> foreign investment is a big component of the south african economy. i just wonder whether or not

you're seeing more investment, more fdi inflows coming from abroad into the country since this change of leadership. >> fdi takes a bit longer. definitely what we've seen has been that volume investment has been coming into south africa. yes, you want to argue that emerging markets have been benefitting from a resurgence in portfolio flows, but when you looked at south africa, there was a time when south africa seemed to be deviating from the rest of the emerging market universe, and clearly this time this positive idiosyncratic factors underpinned the resurge jens nce of flows into south africa we have also seen credit worthiness has also declined

and there was a change in cabinet composition. we've seen that moody's reconfirmed our investment grade rating and removed the negative outlook that we had and upgraded that to a stable outlook >> formula one teams have given themselves six weeks to agree on new engine rules for the 2021 season the sport's governing body is keen to introduce a similar version. it comes amid sweeping change for the motorsport with a budget cap on racing teams. liberty media looking to reposition the sport and broaden its potential global audience. geoff cutmore caught up with the managing director of commercial operations of formula one to get his thoughts on the racing world so soon after his arrival in

that job >> was like opening a time capsule. i think this business from a commercial standpoint had a fantastic legacy, but a latency as it relates to the business side so there was a massive opportunity. there was really no commercial business when i arrived. there was no head of marketing no head of digital no research. no communications, nothing gave me the opportunity to hire an executive team, which i think i've done. it's a great edit of executives from a broad range of business we had an opportunity to create our own culture. we're off to the races pun intended >> this means you also put the decisionmaking process to a committee. will that slow down the way you roll out the changes you want to make >> we're a global sport. we have over a half billion fans around the world a good balance sheet one individual, i think, in this day and age, it's a very complex thing to manage.

there was no research to support decisions. we're not going to use research to make decisions, but rather to inform decisions here. the proof is in the pudding. last year ratings were up. race attendance was up digital consumption was. television was up. we're the fastest growing sport in social media around the globe. i think our actions and the narrative in the marketplace that we put forth are working. so we're encouraged about what we have done there's a lot of wood to chop in terms of going forward the opportunities are robust >> you can watch more of geoff's interview and hear more about his plans to reposition formula one tonight at 23:00 looking at sterling, it's down more than a few minutes ago. it's weakening against the u.s. dollar as much as a fifth of a percent. that seems to have been driven by those falls in uk retail

sales that were worse than expected let's talk a bit now about facebook the world's largest social network, is it losing face find out more about how facebook could be falling foul of the data rules with its new password tool

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welcome back to "street signs. lloyd blankfein he expects david salomon to succeed him when he steps down from goldman sachs. wilfred frost talked to him about the economy, rising trade tensions and his succession plans at the bank. >> speaking at the u.s./china business summit, hosted by goldman sachs, the chairman and ceo, lloyd blankfein, addressed the rising trade tensions between u.s. and china being optimistic they could improve but stressing how important it was that they did. >> it has to recover we're the two biggest economies in the world there is no -- there's no path forward if we disagree with each

other over the long-term we need to work things out i understand what's trying to be accomplished here. we say guess what, there's been a lot of time. you economy is about the size of our economy, a new day has dawned let's get with it. this is what we're talking about if that's what it is about we should get to the right place. my optimism is premised on the idea that a real aggressive mean-spirited trade war is so bad and the neces necessity of n there. >> i asked blankfein whether he thought rising volatility could

continue for the rest of the year >> conditions where interest rates are zero, yield curves are flat, there's no risk premium, central banks around the world are buying all the risky assets, which then put a damper on volatility, and the opportunities to perform, that's not a natural state. we have not reversed all of that, but we're walking that back and walking to, so at the first indications of a withdrawal from again what is an unnatural state, guess what, the market becomes a bit more volatility people get paid for the risks they're taking our clients are doing better, and we're doing better with them >> blankfein said he felt the u.s. economy was looking awfully good elsewhere in the interview, discussing succession plans at goldman sachs, he confirmed he expected the sole president and coo, david solomon to be his successor. netflix is planning a $1 billion investment push into european content according to

"the financial times," that would be more than double last year's european budget and would mean double the number of european productions the video streaming service announced it now has attracted 125 million subscribers worldwide. amazon has hit more than 100 million prime members. in a letter to shareholders, jeff bezos says amazon music has tens of millions of subscribers. shares in amazon spiked almost 2% in after hours trade last night. for more on bezos' letter to shareholders, ted to cnbc.com. shares in publicis are surging after the french advertising giant beat expectations organic growth rose 1.6%

however the company is said to remain cautious because the market environment remains difficult. the company confirmed it's not seeing a material impact on its business from the issues surrounding facebook ireland's data protection watchdog says facebook's facial recognition technology may not meet strict upcoming european union rules. in 2012 regulators and advocacy groups pressured facebook to close the feature in europe. now facebook must consult the body before reopening facial recognition technology in the european union. we're joined by ken mulvaney thanks for joining us. you previously headed up a biotech firm part of your business is focused on the power of artificial intelligence when it comes to drug discovery when it comes to the two drugs, i understand one is going into

clinical trials, the other slated for clinical trials next year, is there anything concrete you can tell me about pipeline timelines that warrants your $2 billion valuation? >> we have onedrug, which is i phase two clinical development already. >> yeah. >> as well as i think maybe three others that are going into clinical development this year so that's out of a pipeline of about 20 programs. i think to put it in perspective, my last company, as you pointed out, was a biotechnology company. for me to have 20 programs in development as i had just before i sold that company in 2012, it it took me about ten years to build that pipeline. whereas using ai-enabled drug development has allowed me to achieve that in just under three years. >> this is all about doing things more quickly and more cheaply. r & d is such a huge part of healthcare spending especially in pharmaceutical. i wonder, is it realistic that

not only are you going to be faster, but that your drugs are going to be successful one challenge, of course, is that so much of r & d ends in failure elsewhere. is that what you're trying to avoid? >> that's exactly right. in order to truly treat the disease, you have to understand all the elements of it unfortunately despite all the research that we put in, it's fragmented scientists have a relatively small sliver of the information that informs their investment and development decisions along the way. but on the onset of starting this company, it began with a premise, what if you could read everything what if you could read the 25 million publications, scientific publications what if you could read every clinical trial report? what if you could read every database, every chemistry database and genome database and have everything that was ever

written and then reason on top of that with advanced artificial intelligence to determine what is the molecular fingerprint of a particular disease and match that with a patient. it's understanding the cause of the disease, but also who is going to be the most likely responders in a clinical trial for that it's trying to bring down the cost from both angles. >> you want to bring these drugs to market. i wonder what role do you see other big pharma firms having in terms of collaboration will that be necessary every time >> some of the indications that we're looking at now are rare indications. so it will require a sales force far more focused which allows us to make a large impact in that market when looking at diseases that are more pervasive in society, that's where pharma comes into their own. they have the development expertise and the marketing expertise to deliver those to patients >> let's talk about politics a

bit and brexit the loss of an institution like the europeans medicines industry in the uk, do you get the feeling the uk golf. is willing to go to bat for british scientists for british indis you a indust industry, do you think the british government policy is built to support that hub? >> i do. there's a tremendous heritage of scientific innovation here in the uk it certainly has been batting above its weight in that respect. i also note recently that there's a new initiative within government to set up an ai office we certainly welcome that. the uk is one of the leading centers for ai innovation. you see it in toronto. you see it in stamford we're seeing it in the knowledge corner here in london. so there's a tremendous amount of research going into it at the

university level, and investors are beginning to see how important this sector can be pore the uk economy. >> ken, thank you very much for joining us >> my pleasure. >> you can find out more about facebook's facial recognition technology on cnbc.com let's recap some of the big earnings movers in europe. publicis shares are having their best day in a year trading at the top of the stoxx 600 after first quarter earnings beat on a rebound in north america abb higher after an increase in oersd across the division. schneider electric higher almost 2% after solid chinese demand. debenhams shares down 7% unilever under pressure in londonors worry about pricing pressure and novartis seeing red in

zurich let's look at u.s. futures pretty flat right now at this stage. the implied open for s&p 500, dow jones and nasdaq all very slightly dipping into the red there. but still a bit of time to go. that is it for today's show here in london. i'm willem marx. thanks for being with us "worldwide exchange" is up next.

racing isn't the only thing on my mind. and with godaddy, i'm making my ideas real. when i created my businesses, i needed a way to showcase it. ♪ with godaddy you can get a website to sell online. and it will look good. i made my own way. now it's time to make yours. get started at godaddy.com ♪ everything is working, working just like it should ♪

you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party.

it is 5:00 a.m. in virginia. here are the top five things happening now. president trump vowing to intensify trade talks with ja n japan. that's calming global markets this morning. another top nike executive is out this is the sixth high-level departure in a month the faa ordering hundreding of jet engines to be inspected following the southwest airlines jet engine explosion. amazon cracking 100 million prime users worldwide. and p & g buying merck's consumer healthcare business