welcome to "street signs." i'm willem marx. these are your headlines white house chief adviser larry kudlow says president trump is open to a trade deal with china when they meet in argentina on saturday evening and insists the country could turn the page on their differences. >> i want to mention what the president told us a short while ago, that is in his view there's a good possibility that a deal can be made. and that he is open to that.

fed chair jay powell prepares for one of the most important speeches since he took office as president trump piles pressure on the central bank chief and says he is not even a little bit happy with powell's performance. in an nbc news exclusive, the ukraine president warns of a wider war with russia. >> i think president trump has a lot to say to mr. putin. please get out from ukraine. russia is strong enough to survive the toughest measures says vtv president >> it's damaging for russia, but how much it damages i don't know i'm sure with the state of the economy and health sector, i'm

sure the russian financial sector will survive it good morning you can see it's been a slightly positive start so far in the european trading the stoxx 600 is currently higher by around a quarter of a percent. if we look at individual markets, you can see the ftse 100 in london is trading up more than 1%. in germany the xetra dax is up 0.5% in paris, the cac 40 is trading almost 0.30% higher. in italy, the ftse mib higher. you can see technology doing relatively well. bouncing back from earlier in the week after nervousness in the u.s. around that sector. autos trading lower. a lot of news flow around that sector, some news out of the white house in particular of concern to european manufacturers. president trump has said he may slap fresh tariffs on imported

cars according to the german business magazine. it reports trump could impose the levees as soon as next week after this weekend's g20 summit in argentina the white house previously promised not to impose new trade imports on autos while talks are ongoing. trump is open to forging a trade deal with china. that's according to larry kudlow he said a dinner meeting between president trump and axi jinping could be the opportunity to turn the pain on the u.s. trade war but only after trump receives fair treatment >> i want to mention what the president told us a short while ago. that is in his view there's a good possibility that a deal can be made. and that he is open to that. he is open to that but having said that, some

caveats as always. certain conditions have to be met with respect to fairness and reciprocities as we've said many times. for example, issues of intellectual property theft must be solved, forced technology transfers must be solved significant tariffs and nontariff barriers must be solved issues of ownership have to be solved the president will probably reiterate his view we want a world ideally of zero tariffs, zero nontariff barriers, zero subsidies now whether they can get through all that remains to be seen. that's the president's point of view >> president trump has again hit out at jerome powell and said he's not even a little bit happy

with my selection of jay the president told the "washington post" that the fed was way off base and a much bigger problem than china. trump's latest comments represent the latest criticism of the central bank and its recent rate hikes, trump did say he was not concerned about the risk of a recession. investors today will hear from powell himself he will give a speech billed as the most important since becoming fed chair he will address the economic club of new york at 18:00 and market participants will listen for changes to the hawkish tone he previously gave >> on a related note comments from his deputy helped soothe markets overnight. richard clarida said the bank

would continue to hike >> though the real federal funds rate today is just below the range of longer run estimates presented in the september sep, it is much closer to the vicinity of our star than when the fomc started to remove accommodation in december of 2015 how close is a matter of judgment and there is a range of views on the fomc. >> ray hobbs joins us this morning. i wonder should investors be reacting to what president trump says >> it's difficult. not very happy with the fed performance. i think with the job done. my wife said the same to me about my diy efforts last weekend, but i think jay powell has thicker skin than i do some of the dip in activity data

is probably not sufficient to change the course of the fed what we've seen from the yield curve in recent times, yields have come down, but that's totally down to the break even inflation coming down. that's a function of the oil price. the market has not really changed its view i'm not sure the fed will just yet. i think we're on for december and more rate hikes next year. >> i get the feeling that to some extent you feel a lot of the geopolitics that we talk about really doesn't matter in the big picture when it comes to capitalism and future investing. >> it's a good point one thing that's important for investors to remember is what tends to make great stories, stories to keep us all interested and entertained to a certain extent, don't necessa necessarily come top of the investing tree a good example is the trade war. because of its incredible nature

and the news worthiness of it, we may be in danger of exaggerating its importance so far to the world economy if we look at explaining why stock markets have been soft so far this year and why the economy has been more sluggish, probably higher up in the list of concerns is china's most deliberate economic slowdown, a less friendly bond market, a less friendly central bank context, and a few other things besides. trade war is below that. we want to have -- one of the most important things with investment is putting stories in their appropriate context. this is not always easy. this year proved extremely hard. >> you have a conflict between the two largest economies. you're saying the conversation that takes place over in buenos aires this weekend is not that important. >> sorry, you'll have to repeat that >> i was just saying you're essentially saying this conflict between the two largest economies in the world, the

conversation that will take place overnight in buenos aires this weekend between president xi and trump, you're ultimately saying don't listen to what comes out of that. >> yeah. the thing to think about with regards to this, there's two sides to this. the u.s. administration is not of one voice here. you reported just earlier in the program about vice president pence's now infamous apec speech there is a side of the administration who feel the challenge of china is more of an existential that chunature it goes far beyond trade it is looking for unconditional surrender from the chinese, that is unlikely to happen. the other side is looking for a deal there's a deal locatable in our opinion. there's a number of things -- again, the talk from the administration is about ip theft. this idea that the chinese economy is not very open to most businesses in order to access it you have

to go through jv, when you go in through jv, you have to transfer some or all of your ip this is an area where chinese and u.s. interests may be aligned. china is trying to become an innovator in its own right in order to be an innovator what needs to happen is you need to be able to trust that i can have my day in court or my intellectual property will be protected. there is some ip protection in china. as an overseas company investing in china you can't guarantee you will get a fair hearing. that is something that can be agreed upon. it's just the pace of travel on that one that might be interesting to see otherwise you might see china make continued concessions in terms of this trade deficit story. a bit of a red herring, but i think china will want to buy more liquefied natural gas so there is the potential for truce, but a long-term deal

looks more elusive probably. >> one final question then 3 picking up on the idea of intellectual property theft, a lot of that focused on the technology sector. so to spread this out to a broader canvas, is the change we expect to see in technology over the coming years to your mind the biggest potential value creation opportunity whether that happens in the u.s., china or anywhere else >> yeah. if you look at what's going on in the world, what we are seeing is that people are talking obviously about the fourthen industrial revolution, the industrial revolutions beyond that it's happening it's not just limited to the technology sector but all companies and sectors. those not innovating or adopting this new technology fast enough are being left behind quickly. this is the story really with capital markets.

this is the attractive thing about investing. people get caught up in the short-term story of how will i protect what happens with brexit are president trump and xi going to agree on something. in the end, the long-term investment you ask two questions. do i believe that mankind will continue to innovate if the answer is yes, good the second question is do i believe the ticket to access that long-term innovation is reasonably priced? the answer to that is yes, too all you're trying to do is harvest future human innovation. now for both of those questions we think the answer is in the healthy yes camp so we're still advising investors this is a good long-term entry point. the tactical horizon does look trickier earnings growth looks anemic still the price of the ticket looks attractive enough for us to continue to have diversified

portfolios >> thank you for that. investors will look ahead to data today the u.s. government will release its third quarter gdp figures at 2:30 p.m. central european time. the bank of england will post results from its latest stress tests on uk banks as well as an analysis of various brexit scenarios at 5:30 p.m. central european time. coming up next, we'll speak with ubs investment vice chairman catherine cai stay tuned for that. (vo) gopi's found a way to keep her receipts tidy,

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leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. you're looking at live pictures from the royal palace in the heart of the spanish capital, madrid, where the chinese president, xi jinping, is on an official visit. he is being afforded full military honors by the looks of things he also will be speaking to the spanish senate later on today.

that's european tourism by the chinese leader speaking of european tourism, let's talk about some european stocks gsk is up there trading higher by a quarter of a percent. unilever and nestle both trading into the red i wonder why that could be gsk is in talks to sell its indian horlicks business to unilever for $4 billion according to "the financial times. the company has beaten out a rival bid from nestle, but a conflicting report in the times of india says switzerland's nestle could be close to reaching a deal for the horlicks division of gsk. john roundtree joins us this morning. what do we make of the reports that nestle an unilever are dismissed as market rumors >> i think if you look at the strategic sense behind it it

makes sense for all the parties. horlicks is a brand that smithkline beecham had and then gsk ended up with. it's been sitting in the portfolio for a while of dpshgs gsk and doesn't fit with where they're going. >> is it profitable, though? if it's profitable, why get rid of them. >> the profitability of the consumer healthcare part of gsk has been under question for a while. they had ridena which is not strictly consumer healthcare that was sold. horlicks is profitable in india. these are profitable and wall revenue streams for gsk, but gsk is choosing to -- if the rumors are true, is choosing to divest those in exchange for bulking up its balance sheet and spend more on acquisitions in oncology where it is behind the game. >> this is giving up one

profitable stream of revenues, but deciding to take the cash and use it elsewhere >> it looks like that. there's a nice annuity stream for gsk, these old brands, like horlicks it's profitable in india there are some threats around that, but maybe now is the right time to sell it. it is exchanging one type of revenue for another. annuity cash flow for balance sheet strength i think gsk is in a unique position among the pharmas because of its balance sheet it does provide and always has provided a good dividend for shareholders that amounts to about $5 billion a year if you're investing in oncology innovation you have to put billions out there because it is spending its money on dividends it needs to stock up its balance sheet to pay for future innovation. >> you have a brand like horlicks, one imagines that they're not investing in r & d because it is what it is people are buying it for the

taste, at which point you're spending money on marketing, distribution, sales, point of sale when you go back to things like oncology medication you are spending all of that money on r & d, aren't you? is this just a strategic change in direction is this the first example we're seeing of that under the new management >> it's been clear since anna wal markw walmsley came on as ceo. the innovative deal they did with novartis to divest oncology assets in exchange for consumer healthcare, that's where the company was going. the company is clearly moving towards a different direction. it is investing in the future it hired a senior guy to invest in r & d and it's going down that innovation route like most other pharmas other than

following the mantra of volume and emerging markets and global is the way to go >> we'll leave it there. thank you very much for coming in john roundtree there let's check in on asia equities in china have been buoyed by hopes of a trade truce with the u.s earlier today cnbc sat down with the founder of wm motor and asked how the ongoing spat could impact his car business. >> we are focusing in on the chinese market at this moment we are not planning to do anything in the u.s. if some dad y we decide to go to the u.s., we will produce there locally. in our industry there's no way you are building something like that in another country and shipping to the u.s. >> geoff cutmore joins us now

from guangzhou is there a sense of nervousness among executives like that >> definitely. it's clear here whilst we're at a technology conference, willem, the issue that i think is dominating the chat in the corridors is whether there will be a trade deal signed around the g20 or some progress that deescalates the current tariff situation. it's very much square and center part of the conversation taking place here at this east tech west event for cnbc. we have not only been talking to tech c suite we had the opportunity to catch up with shakers and movers in the investment banking field catherine cai is one of those who operates here for ubs.

i asked her how optimistic she is that we will see some progress made at the g20 in argentina. let's listen to what she said. >> this is the most watched summit meeting as far as i can remember everyone hopes there's some detailed outcome, something will come from these two leaders meeting because this meeting will impact the tglobal economy we will have a big impact for the u.s. and china economy so we hope the meeting will come out positively >> it's been a difficult environment. capital markets are very nervous. if we have that positive meeting, do you think we might get a premium back in the market that we might have a positive run for risk assets before the end of the year?

>> yes, but the market will look at in greater detail how they reach the agreement. such as if u.s. will continue to impose the 25% tariffs, or the u.s. is going to get 10% in tariffs. if the u.s. is going to get rid of entire tariffs for china, then that will sen a pd a posite message to the world however if they impose more, not only this 200 billion, plus another 250 billion, that will sen send a very bad message. >> obviously it's been difficult to make money in all asset classes this year. as we look into 2019, people will look beyond the trade story at the fundamentals around earnings and other issues.

do you think that the prospects for 2019 are good or bad at this stage? what advice would you give clients? >> i think opportunity is always there. it doesn't matter the bad markets. i think china still represents a lot of very attractive investment opportunity, in particular in the technology sector i think ai, vr, data, cloud, in this sector china not only the government spends a lot of money individually at private enterprises also they're focussing on developing new technology in all these sectors. that's going to represent a lot of opportunities for the new investment coming in >> a lot of people concerned that private equity an venture capital are pulling back from investing in start-up companies in china

is there a sense that new businesses are being starved of capital or is there money available? >> money is still there. actually a lot of money. but investors will be focused on the valuations, the potential, the business model going to be implemented and also if the company can sustain the competition among all these technology sectors as long as you can prove you can deliver the value and growth, money will be there for you. >> clearly a relatively positive view on the medium to longer-term outlook on china from catherine cai while she's talking about the markets becoming more rational here around technology valuations, i think we also have to circle back and bring the trade story into this. clearly a lot of those private equity companies that are thinking about extending capital

into startups will be watching the uncertainty around this trade story closely before they sign those checks. i think laying that on top of the concern around valuations you have another important reason why, as catherine caa pointed out, why this is one of the most widely watched g20 meetings back to you. >> thank you very much to find out why one early facebook investor thinks expectations need to be reset on returns from venture capital in china, head to cnbc.com. coming up, the ukrainian president warns of a wider war with russia. we cross to moscow to find out how the business community there is reacting to the heightened tensions plaque psoriasis can be relentless. tremfya® is for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. with tremfya®, you can get clearer. and stay clearer. in fact, most patients who saw 90%

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. welcome back to "street signs. i'm willem marx in london, these are your headlines dinner diplomacy white house chief advise

larry kudlow says president trump is open to a trade deal with china when they meet in argentina on saturday evening and insists the countries could turn the page on their differences. >> i want to mention what the president told us a short while ago, that is in his view there's a good possibility that a deal can be made. and that he is open to that. fed chair jerome powel prepares for one of the most important speeches since he took office as president trump piles pressure on the central bank chief and says he is not even a little bit happy with powell's performance. in an nbc news exclusive, the ukrainian president, petro poroshenko, warns of a wider war with russia. >> i think president trump has a lot to say to mr. putin. please get out from ukraine. russia is strong enough to survive the toughest measures

says the vtv president as european nations condition new sanctions on moscow over ukraine. >> it's damaging for russia, but how much it damages i don't know i'm sure with the state of the economy and financial sector, i'm sure the russian financial sector will survive. the ukrainian president, petro poroshenko, has warned of wider war with russia. russia attacked and seized three ukrainian vessels over the weekend. poroshenko said president trump should deliver a personal message to vladimir putin at the g20 meeting in argentina richard engel has more >> reporter: ukrainian president petro poroshenko in kiev tonight didn't mince words, warning of a possible wider war with russia >> we will fight for our democracy and we will fight for our soil russia will pay a huge price if they attack us.

>> reporter: poroshenko says this may have just been the opening shots of a new campaign, when last sunday, russian ships rammed and seized three ukrainian vessels and their crew in 2014, russian forces took over crimea. are we seeing a repeat of the same thing, but instead of taking land, they're trying to take the sea >> you are absolutely right. so, now they want to put control on the whole of sea. this is the real purpose of russia, occupation of the sea. >> reporter: russia says ukrainian sailors entered russian territorial waters, despite warnings after sunday's clash, poroshenko imposed martial law in areas along the russian border. >> to protect our country. this is it. >> reporter: president trump is expected to meet with vladimir putin at the g20 summit, which is coming up very soon what message would you like president trump to deliver to vladimir putin >> please, get out from ukraine. mr. putin. >> reporter: richard engel, nbc news, kiev.

the president of vtb has told cnbc that russia is strong enough to survive the toughest sanctions. he told cnbc that ukraine's behavior had been legal but provided no details about which laws he thought were broken. julianna tatelbaum is in moscow today. she conducted that interview his message seemed to be different than what we're getting out of kiev. >> absolutely. he strongly asserted his view that this is politically driven from the ukraine side noteding that president poroshenko's upcoming elections in march are a key driver as we saw in that clip from the ukraine president, this is a different message to what he has been pushing we have some footage from that interview. let's have a listen.

>> i think it's in the interest of the whole world that russia and america have better relationship it would be unfortunate if it doesn't happen as far as the conference is concerned, you should look for somebody who benefits from this, and actually that's mr. poroshenko, the president of ukraine definitely the idea of his was to postpone elections. it looks like he doesn't perform very well, and creating this tension, additional tension led to the martial law, not as he wanted to, but still situation when he might extend his presidency i think that's our point of view it's very artificial conflict. >> so this is a political move on behalf of the ukrainian president? >> we are sure about this. there is no other reason we live like this for years with ukraine, then a couple months before elections this happens. >> the national bank of ukraine

declared that vtb insolvent yesterday and said the parent company failed to comply with banking law and regulations and made no attempt to make the bank solvent. what do you make of these claims >> they arrested all our assets and stocks in ukraine on the completely false court decision, because mko lshr. kolomuski subd the court case, and all our assets were arrested in these conditions we could not support the bank it's illegal decisions on the part of ukrainian courts and the government, maybe the government somehow supported that >> so really getting two different sides of this story

here from mr. kostin and from the president of the ukraine we are just about to head into the main event, president putin is just taking the stage now where he will be the key speaker in a panel before we head into that, i also had a chance to catch up with the ceo of russia's sovereign wealth fund rdif this morning and he is planning to attend the g20 summit later this week i asked him about the hotly anticipated meeting between president putin and the saudi crown prince along with the saudi oil minister and get his views on what to expect from that meeting >> the opec plus deal is working because we are able to stabilize oil prices, which is good for consumers and for producers. definitely a lot of trust was built through implementation of this agreement and 100% compliance so i think there's nodoubt tha the coordination will continued,

and it will lead to good, positive results to not only saudi and russian economy but for the world economy. big fluctuation in oil prices are not good for predictability of the world economy growth. >> that was the ceo of russia's sovereign wealth fund speaking to us. as i say, the main event of today is just kicking off. president putin taking the stage. plenty on his plate today, the ukraine/russia conflict firmly in focus as well as the declining oil prices and russia's relationship with saudi and the g20 summit coming up later this week. plenty to look out for as president putin takes the stage. we will check in on the u.s. futures ahead of the market open you can see that the s&p 500 looking to open up very, very, very slightly higher the dow jones expected to open up around 50 points higher the nasdaq being called around 14 points higher let's look at the european

markets also as they trade at this point in the morning over here you can see the ftse 100 has fallen back slightly over the last 40 minutes. it's about a tenth of a percent lower. the xetra dax in germany trading slightly higher. in paris the cac 40 has had a bounce 0.17 higher. the ftse mib is down at a quarter of a percent let's also check in on the currency markets you can see the euro is slightly weaker against the u.s. dollar the pound is slightly stronger against the greenback. the dollar and the yen at parity at the moment and the u.s. dollar trading slightly stronger against the swiss franc. british chancellor philip hammond said theresa may's brexit plan is good for the uk economy. nevertheless he told the bbc it would be best for the british economy if the uk stayed in the eu hammond's treasury department

will publish an economic analysis of the long-term effects of brexit under various possible scenarios including theresa may's preferred withdrawal agreement the bank of england will issue a similar comparative report later today. to bring you the latest news out of the saudi energy minister, he has been saying that talks with nigeria are important ahead of the opec meeting next week also saying he's confident 2019 is the year in which the oil market is stable and saying meetings around this time will lead to new conclusions over actions to be taken by the opec membership get in touch with us if you have views about opec, about brexit, about what's going on in moscow and kiev we are on twitte twitter, @streetsignscnbc you can also tweet me directly let's look at some of the highlights so far from the east

tech event >> you can't do something without having impact elsewhere. why? because you don't build things in one place you don't develop or you don't research in one place. it's not the right thing to do it's not the way microsoft decided to do. >> i see the chinese companies for the next couple of years competing over india but not necessarily competing very effectively in the u.s. therefore i see the very best of the best internet companies in the u.s. trying to find pockets or pieces to get a foot in ch a china.

welcome back. donald trump's former campaign manager paul manafort has held secret meetings with julian assange in london according to "the guardian" newspaper it is reported he met several times with mr. assange pete williams has more

from his jail cell police report is saying he never met with julian assange. the guardian says it has no idea what the two men talked about. assange' lawyer says no such meetings happened, total fabrication, and manafort calls the story false saying i have never met julian assange or anyone connected to him. robert mueller said russian government officials used wikileaks to spread e-mails stolen from the clinton campaign manafort is in more legal trouble tonight, accused by muller of failing to cooperate as promised when he pleaded

guilty to charges stemming from his ukraine lobbying prosecutors said he's been lying to the fbi on a variety of subject matters. manafort may be hoping for a presidential pardon, but that won't help if state prosecutors go after him >> he has admitted to bank fraud, loan fraud, money laundering, and tax fraud, and those admissions can be used in a state prosecution for similar crimes. >> reporter: another potential plea deal with mueller's team appears to have fallen apart involving jerome corsi investigators want to know if he helped tip off the trump campaign that wikileaks was going to reveal the stolen democratic e-mails corsi says he told the truth when he denied doing it. >> i'm being forced by the justice department to lie, stay out of prison, i won't do it i refuse i will not lie. >> that was pete williams there. another high-level shakeup could be on the way at deutsche bank the chief regulatory officer and chief executive of the americas branch are reportedly among the top executives slated to leave

according to the "journal. there was concern about constraints on deutsche bank's efforts to prevent final crime. eu antitrust regulators approved deutsche telekoms for tele2's dutch business they said it would not significant change the price or quality of mobile services for dutch customers. the entity would create the third largest telecoms company in the netherlands. and lafarge expects full year sales growth to slow as volatility and business disposals take effect. the leaders of nissan, renault and mitsubishi will meet on thursday since the arrest of carlos ghosn they will discuss the future of that three-way alliance.

makiko utsuda has more details on this. >> yes investigations continue into ghosn's allegations and the focus is whether prosecutors can prove ghosn or his deputy intentionally falsified nissan's annual reports to understate his compensation they are also accused of knowingly misusing money for ghosn's personal use ghosn so far denied any wrong doing for all of these allegations. amid this the heads of nissan, renault and mitsubishi motors are meeting on thursday to discuss the future of the three-firm alliance. the three firms say they wish to maintain the strength of the alliance, but each seems to be seeking different goals. renault owns 43% of nissan shares, and the japanese automaker holds 15% of its

french partner with no voting rights since renault has voting rights at nissan, nissan is looking to rebalance the alliance to a more even relationship given the fact it contributes more to the alliance as far as earnings. but the french economy and finance minister has repeatedly said the government hopes to maintain the status quo and have the head of renault lead the alliance the next major event will be the board meeting on december 17th where ghosn's successor is to be discussed and renault is m preparing to send a new chairman that's all from the nikkei back to you. >> thank you very much ♪ throughout the day cnbc has

been live at the east tech west conference in guangzhou where tech and artificial intelligence have been key themes >> we are usually free to explore certain boundaries for instance, this ai service, we have launched it in china in the last 12 months, it is very well received. the government also encouraged us we have a lot of government bureaus asking us to bring the machine to the bureau to screen for bureau staff >> currently all big data is controlled bienbien -- by indusy giants with blockchain platforms, with the decentralized way people can provide data and with the transparencies of the data usage in the future, so people in the world and in the blockchain

project communities are willing to contribute individual data and then once the data is getting bigger and bigger that could be -- could help the small to medium ai companies to get data jpmorgan was also bullish at the summit >> we are excited about the prospects for technology in china. technological upgrades, new areas such as ai, new vehicles, electronic payments. in these areas china is leading the way globally i would say in the next three to five years, in some of these verticals, you will have a number of unicorns and super unicorns emerging. this should be very, very popular among investors globally >> a group of lawmakers from nine different countries slammed facebook and its ceo, mark

zuckerberg, at a special committee hearing held in london on tuesday zuckerberg was invited to give evidence himself but declined to attend politicians from nine separate governments convened to hear evidence from richard allen. the hearing focused on data privacy and competition issues elizabeth has more this was presumably quite damaging for facebook. >> richard allen admitted yesterday that this does not look good for facebook that mark zuckerberg wasn't there. the company decided to send him as a representative instead of zuckerberg the point of yesterday's hearing was to try to address some of these recent data privacy and fake news reports that have been out in light of the cambridge analytica scandal. nine countries were there. it was a focus on facebook's international operations, not just here in the uk. a lot of what was questioned was what facebook knew at the time the committee obtained some

documents that we believe relate to what mark zuckerberg knew at time a lot of the question related to when those documents will be released take a listen to what richard allen said about that. >> the policy at the moment is once we have confirmed information about any of this kind of attempts at interference, whoever that should be from, once we investigated, once we understand accurately what has occurred, we will publish it. you will know if you've been following the activity of our security team that over the last few months we published several extensive reports describing attempts to create false properties on facebook from both russians and actually more recently from iranian sources. so the united kingdom there was an attempt by a group of iranian operatives to create false information on facebook. we researched that we found the evidence. we published it. >> so richard allen defending

the company's frt oop's effortst comes to the past year these documents could be released in the coming days. it will remain to be seen what facebook knew when >> it's a sergeant of arms, a man dressed like an 18th century gentleman, turned up at the hotel room of a man in possession of those documents. an indication that the man was willing to hand over the documents. i'm intrigued. facebook has been fighting multiple battles, multiple fronts from a pr perspective it doesn't seem to have impacted users much is this an indication of a change in attitude from regulators across the uk, in europe, in the united states, elsewhere that will cause concern amongst other major tech companies? >> we're certainly hearingcreasf

facebook and that's turning into investigations of other companies, too there were several gdpr co complaints it's likely that other countries will follow suit when it comes to trying to hold these tech companies accountable. it's turned into a more of a political issue. >> you have regulators, government officials, lawmakers talking about this more, trying to implement changes, then you also have consumers being more aware of this, whether that's media reporting or the fact that governments are talking about it so you have this cycle between those two stakeholders, and you have big tech companies caught in the middle. >> that's right. the irony of some of this is consumers tend to say they care about data privacy, this is an important issue, but we have not seen a drop off in user numbers

yet. it's unclear if that's something people say it's important, whether or not they're using products altogether, not so clear. >> elizabeth, thank you very much before we go, some live pictures from moscow where vladimir putin is due to speak at the russia calling conference that follows after addresses from other russian business leaders. let's check in on u.s. futures you can see that all three of the major indices are called slightly higher with the dow jones looking to open up 66 points higher. that is it for today's program in london. i'm willem marx. "worldwide exchange" is coming up next. this isn't just any moving day.

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it is 5:00 a.m. in washington here's your top five at 5:00 another powell put-down. the president launching fresh attacks against the fed chief. will powell punch back gm stays in focus. trump threatening to cut electric car subsidies shares of salesforce popping in the premarket. and bitcoin is bouncing back this morning but can it last it's wednesday