♪ welcome to "street signs" i'm joumanna ber shech chi. >> chinese stocks higher as investors eyed the resumption of trade talks in beijing. but another government shutdown looms in washington after negotiations over border security spending stall as democrats and republicans clash over immigration rules italian bank stocks rally after the ecb sets capital

requirements within lender comforts zones and they launch an attack on italy's central bank and regulator. british prime minister rejects calls for the uk to renan a customs union, urging further talks as she attempts to push through her brexit deal well, good morning, everybody. happy monday just want to start off by giving you a recap of some of the action we had overnight in the asian session. japanese markets are closed for holiday. asian equities, chinese equities are back resuming trading obviously after lunar new year sentiment is better playing catch up with some of the price action we had for the week before, but generally speaking there a couple of issues still dominating market activity, one is threats of a potential another u.s. shutdown as talks between the two sides, democrats

and republicans seemingly don't seem to be going anywhere. and if that does appear to be the case, then friday would be the ultimate deadline for that shutdown yet again to come in place. also, concerns about global growth as we discussed last week, continue to play in the narrative. and of course, one thing that we keep an eye on very closely are the on going discussions between the u.s. and china with the march 1 deadline heading into sight the next couple weeks. as you can see, the picture for europe is slightly more europe stock europe 600 opening after weak week last week. 20% of the way through earning seasons through european markets. switch on and see what the picture is green across the board as i said, firmer start for european equities this morning ftse 100 is 1% firmer in trading, 70 points higher. keep an eye on the political

backdrop, brexit talks in brussels half an hour's time we'll get the gdp data and industrial production data as well. from the macro perspective, those are a couple things you want to watch out for the data side xetra dax up 1%. the italian index up more than 300 points, 1.5% firmer today. this despite some of the news over the weekend that the italian government are getting quite critical of the bank of italia senior management have been very vocal for their desire for management changes there overall, a better picture and better tone for trading this morning across the board switching to sectors to see the breakdown every single sector is trading in the green we have banks right up at the top 1.5% in line with some of the price action we're seeing in italian index as well. it's very bank heavy index that

is the ftse mib. some rebound being played out there. basic resources as well up 1.4% and tech up 1.3% again, in line with some of the positive price action we had in chinese equities overnight after lunar new year and right at the bottom we have health care relatively underperforming by about .3%, real estate up two thirds of a percentage point it is a very good start to the trading session for the week in european equities. >> thanks very much for that breakdown, joumanna. one of the big macro stories u.s. china trade talks resume today in beijing with deputies laying the ground work for higher level negotiations on thursday and friday. the talks will focus on intellectual property and will be led by treasury secretary steven mnuchin, robert lighthizer and lu hu china pledged to buy more u.s. goods but with mnuchin admitting there was still a lot of work to

do meanwhile, president trump's florida club could be the site of a trade summit with china's president xi jinping axios's sources said nothing has been decided and a meeting might not happen u.s. tariffs on chinese goods are set to rise 25% on march 1st unless a deal is secured eunice filed this report. >> we should have a clearer idea if a deal is in the cards by march 1st. deputy level officials are meeting today ahead of the main talks later in the week with the bob lighthizer and steven mnuchin. the focus will likely be on whether the chinese make concessions that are important to the u.s so far china hasn't shown any willingness to budge in any meaningful way from the u.s. perspective on these structural issues or embrace an enforcement mechanism to make sure beijing follows through.

if the u.s. delegation feels china is willing to move, webd see a deal or at least incentive to put off tariffs if not, the trump administration could be forced to rethink its approach towards china as well as the tariffs separately, president trump is expected to announce a ban on chinese telecom equipment for all u.s. wireless carriers which could complicate the talks further. this week could become a turning point in the u.s./china trade talks. >> speaking of china, it has posted its lowest lieu mar new year sales record on sales growth on record consumers spent just over a trillion online and in shops and restaurants over last week's holiday. that is 8.5% higher than last year, but it is the slowest increase since records began in 2005 happy to bring in portfolio manager from pine bridge investments who joins us on the show a lot of focus on china with the trade talks with the u.s

it's interesting that all of the contemporaneous data has been very, very weak. disappointing, still growing at a decent level 8.5% but the slowest level since 2005 how much of the bad news do you think is priced in to markets at this point we spend a lot of time talking about the china slowdown, but -- are the markets fairly accounting for that? >> i would definitely agree. i think that a lot of the bad news is well known now and we've seen a very steady ramp up of the stimulus that they've been doing, what, since april/may of last year. so going into the second half, we're expecting some traction to start to come through. i think markets have started to see we're near the trough, the first quarter numbers come through the next couple months or so are still going to get worse and the market may kind of pause as that happens, but we would see that as the potential

buying opportunity. >> so how much of your -- so you just said you see that as a potential buying opportunity, but how much of that is dependent on china authorities actually going ahead with this stimulus and providing more stimulus on the fiscal side even if it's targeted and the monetary side as well via extra liquidity operations and so forth? >> well, they do need to follow through, but i don't think there's any question that they have now recognized the weakness that they themselves created this was a decision taken to actually slow down growth deliberately and it was taken too far a lot of it is a repeater of the 2015/2016 period and there was a lot of skepticism and doubt as to whether they would be willing or able to actually reverse these policies, but they did we're confident they will this time, too. >> now, as joumanna just highlighted a lot of the macro data, retail sales have shows a weakening but we've heard from

some companies that china has been very strong so what do you make of the discrepancy between what the retail sales data is saying and what the companies are saying? >> sure. so we tend to try to tie anogu late what's actually happening on the ground in china rather than relying exclusively on the day tarks there's indirect ways, particularly micro-level data meaning coming from companies themselves from our network on the ground, which do indicate that things were pretty bad but we've probably seen the worst in terms of activity now on the ground of course, the data that comes out with a lag will continue to see weakness coming through. we're fairly well positioned we initiated exposure to chinese equities late last year as well and off to a good start on that front. >> coming back to your point about expecting to see further weakness and near term, is this just about the lag in terms of policy having an impact that it's going to get worse before

it gets better >> definitely. so, there's a typical lag that is associated with this, but this time around what makes it even more slow is that they have not resorted to the previous boom bust, credit-driven investment type of stimulus, it's more consumption focussed, more through things like tax cuts there you have an intermediary in between who has to choose to spend. so that introduces a longer lag. that's what's different this time compared to the previous cycle. >> how much of your bullish outlook is also predicated on a dovish feds and the fact that the feds are slowing down for the time being >> well, we think that the panic we saw towards the end of the year was a result of these two factors was market getting worried about policy errors from the fed being on auto pilot and chinese authorities not doing enough both of those have been unwound now.

we have been in the camp expecting a fed pause for over a year we've seen a very pragmatic fed, flexible, understanding that tools that have been used in the past can potentially give you the wrong signals. therefore that flexibility is crucial. part of the reason why we think we're only mid cycle, not that late in the cycle. >> excellent, mid cycle not late cycle yet. that is hani portfolio manager at pinebridge investments. another big week for uk prime minister theresa may as her brexit deal heads back to the commons. we're live from brussels next. plus, italy's demie owe defends meeting yellow vest protesters adds conditions deteriorate. rebekkah: opioids has taken everything

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♪ welcome back to the program. italy's deputy prime ministers have launched an assault on the bank of italy and market watchdog consub.

the leader described the chiefs of central bank and regulator as, quote, fraudsteres while the five-star movements demayo said he could not, quote, think of confirming the same people back to their positions the two leaders blamed the institutions with ordinary investors incurring losses the minister defended the central bank saying its independence must protected. meanwhile, italy's deputy prime minister has defended meeting with french yellow vest proteste protesters a sign of rising tensions between the two governments. in a statement announcing the decision, the french foreign ministry described demaio as, quote, unacceptable provocation. speaking in milan, he said he didn't mean to offend the french government. >> translator: i'm sorry macron took this as -- but in my opinion, my counterpart as a representative of the italian government is the french

government i'm about to create a paliamentarian group in the european parliament that will not align itself with either the far right movements nor with the european people's party and the party of european socialists therefore, it's only right i should try to put together an attempt to form a federation of political movements that are growing in europe. this doesn't mean it is an insult to france >> and across the channel, the confederation of british industries the cbi has warned the risk of a no-deal brexit has increased. in an interview with sky the cbi director said the uk is now in the, quote, emergency zone the uk is due to leave the u on march 29th now, french finance minister has told cnbc in an exclusive interstlu despite the on going concerning regarding a no deal brexit, the uk's departure from the eu is not the key challenge facing europeans >> the key question is not the brexit the key question is the future

of europe. the key question is how we improve the current daily life of the citizen how do we find more funding for innovation for new technologies? how we build an open industry that would be able to face the american and the chinese industry these are the key questions. and i must confess, brexit is not the key challenge for us the key challenge is to re-enforce the open construction. >> europeans -- granted this isn't necessarily perhaps your biggest challenge, but for theresa may, she's between a rock and a hard place. do you think that europeans should then help her out or at least be open to the idea of it? >> we are not in favor of any reopening of the agreement because it took a lot of time to negotiate that agreement and i think this agreement is

the best agreement we can achieve. so reopening the agreement would lead nowhere and i think it would be like selling new illusions to the british people we have that agreement maybe there is a need for clarifications, and we are open to giving more clarifications to the british citizen, of course but reopening the agreement would lead nowhere >> french finance minister saying that brexit is not the biggest challenge for europe the uk and switzerland will sign a trade agreement later today that will see the two countries continue to trade on preferential terms after brexit. international trade secretary said the deal will support jobs in the uk. and british prime minister theresa may has rejected calls by the opposition labor party to pursue a brexit deal to keep it in the labor union they warned that such an arrangement would prevent

britain from striking its own trade deals. the prime minister tabled concessions on environmental and worker's rights offering to hold a commons vote each time on maintaining existing eu standards. willem is in brussels monitoring the developments on the brexit side of things, but today there's going to be a meeting. what can we expect from this particular meeting, willem >> reporter: well, that's going to be down in strasbourg this evening. and what the british side have said they're looking to do is put forward some proposals, see how they can break the deadlock, try to figure out if there's any possibility of replacement or change to the irish backstop, as we heard from bruno le mar and members of the european commission and other european leaders including the irish prime minister, that's not something they're prepared to discuss at this stage. as the chief negotiator of the europeans will insist upon essentially is that they're looking at the future

relationship, the political declaration a a way of resolving the concerns that some members of the british parliament have so it will be interesting to hear what both sides say at the end of that discussion of course, as we get closer to another deadline on wednesday for theresa may to come back to the house of commons and essentially give an update where she is when it comes to european negotiations on thursday, there will be some kind of a vote inside the house of commons, whether that's to an amendable motion to essentially chart the future course for brexit once again or whether it will be something being specific and concrete from the prime minister about what she has or has not achieved with europeans. >> all right, willem, thank you for breaking it down for us. we look forward to your further updates during the week as well. now, the ecb set capital requirements for a number of italian banks. capital requirement level is unchanged from last year at 10 1/4%.

you can see that the reaction across the board for the italian banking sector this morning has been pretty positive you have bank of bpn up 5% generally the sector is up about 2.5% and giving a boost to european banks in general. let's bring in hani again. what's interesting about the italian banking story today is obviously they're reacting to the capital requirement news out of the ecb, less owners than expectation but we also had a bit of a political angle over the weekend as well with both leaders demaio and salvini really pushing for change there saying that the time has come for management to be reset in those two institutions as an investor, how closely do you watch the language does this concern you when you think about investing in the european banking system or for you is it just more noise and something that will just fall in

the wayside? >> yeah. i think investors should be comforted by the fact that all over the world we're seeing this kind of challenging of central bank independence and in some emerging markets that's getting pushed a lot harder. but from this particular government, i think a lot of it can be thought of as noise we think it's actually quite a positive outcome that would not put more pressure on these banks beyond what is already there the sector overall has priced in a lot of bad news. >> right in the middle of earnings season or only about a fifth of the way through, european banks so far have been quite disappointing. julianna was reporting about the french bank earnings very disappointing lots of restructuring efforts being announced. do you see significant up sides here just simply because expectations have been rated to such a low level the bar is so low for upside surprises.

>> it is in particular because the ecb normalization has just been completely shelved by the market there's no confidence as ath all for them to raise rates meaningfully i think there's potential, as we were talking about china a bit earlier, start to see a recovery from there, that will filter through to europe as well. and things are going to look a lot stronger in the second half of the year and puts the ecb in a position to be able to hike. we think they're very keen to get rates at least out of the negative zone. and that could be a positive surprise for bank earnings. >> now, in terms of the broader sectors and what we've seen through earnings season, it's really been those cyclical sectors that have reported the weakest numbers and the defensive ones have reported strongest growth for the most part in europe in terms of that view that you just stated that it's going to take until really the second half of the year to see any sort of change there, how do you think about defensives versus cyclicals here >> that's really played out to a

large extent i wouldn't be chasing those defensive plays. if anything, we'll use the q1 earnings season coming through as a potential trough and potential buying opportunity for more cyclical exposures. the banks would be part of that. they would actually benefit from a rotation back into cyclicals. >> just in coming back to where consensus stands at the moment in terms of their expectations for the rest of the year, earnings revisions for 2019 have been trending lower, so do you think that we have actually bottomed out in terms of those negative earnings revisions? >> we're in that zone. we've seen the same thing happening even in the u.s. which has obviously got a much higher starting point in terms of growth we've seen those revisions bottom and actually start to turn up. and these things usually you find that europe has a lag to it, but we think it will follow in that direction. a lot of these weaknesses out of europe are transient the auto sector with the regulations that came. is one example of why we think

this weakness which was exacerbated towards the end of the year is going to fade as we move forward. >> so i was reading an interesting note over the weekend saying that actually if you look into the geographic distribution of where the revenues come from in europe, only about half comes from the continent, the rest comes from abroad and there's actually a very high sensitivity to emerging market performance as well. given what we were stalking act at the beginning of the segment, you were saying you have been bullish on china and bullish on emerging markets buying chinese equitis. do you see any upside in european stocks that have eexposure to european markets and china specifically and you playing it that way as well? >> we do see that being a beneficiary of an improvement in china. i would definitely highlight that export channel as a source of weakness and it will be a source of strength going forward. but in terms of valuations are

more attractive way to play more directly rather than europe. >> and just one thing i want to challenge you on, you slipped it in there, you're saying that you're expecting the ecb to hike by the end of 2019 do you really stand by that view given all of the weakness we've seen in the data as of late? the pmi plunging, potentially recession in germany and italy. >> i didn't say i was going to see a hike by 2019, but the key is that rate expectations have now been completely pushed out entirely so, any bringing forward or raising of probability even of the ecb hiking will be a positive driver for european financials. >> and that is the hope, obviously, for european financials in terms of sectors, though n europe what are the sectors that you're focussed on specifically right now? >> well, the to us the domestic

stocks and more of the small caps are where we've been focussing. they were hit hard in the second half of the year have bounced well into this year, but we think that's a segment which is still attractively valued. as long as we avoid recession, those small caps tend to outperform and we have seen that continuing to play and think it will continue. >> excellent thank you for that portfolio manager from pinebridge investments. coming up on the show, egypt's petroleum minister tells cnbc there will be more oil and gas discoveries in the coming years. we'll have more coming up next 300 miles an hour, that's where i feel normal. having an annuity tells me my retirement is protected. learn more at retire your risk dot org.

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launch an attack on italy's central bank and regulator. deutsche post shares pop on report that german economy ministry is set to grant a bigger than expected postage hike. and shares in smith and nephew slip after the british medical device maker reportedly opens talks to buy u.s. firm nuvasive in a $3 billion deal. ♪ getting some macro data coming out of the uk we got the gdp and industrial production numbers i'm going to start with the gdp numbers, though. we have got now the december gdp print has come in at .2% quote unquote. we have the q on q print, .2% q on q in line with the estimate, 1.3% on year and year basis,

1.4% but for the december number, we've actually got a very, very weak print that has come in the fourth quarter has come in at minus 0.4% month on month for the month of december versus expectations of being flat on the month. this is the biggest monthly fall since march, 2016. and pointing to yearly growth of 1% versus 1.4% expectations. so very weakly month to month. i want to stress this is monthly gdp data and not quarterly there will be a bit of seasonality involved there and lot of voltyty now that it comes out on a monthly basis from what you can see the trend towards the end of the year last year in uk was certainly one of a downwards trajectory with this december prints coming in very, very disappointing relative to expectations and is indeed what we heard out of the bank of england last week. don't forget, they lowered their gdp forecast for 2019 to 1.2% the lowest forecast bank of england have come out with since

2009 so they're probably -- this is one of the reasons why they did that just very quickly i want to point to the industrial production numbers as well, also came in at minus .5% on the month, minus . % on the year this is versus forecasts of plus .2% so again, weakness in industrial production numbers as well and beginning to have an impact on the currency julianna will tell us more. >> thanks very much, joumannjoua the pound is trading weaker versus the dollar a step lower after the weak data came out currently down about 40 bases point versus the dollar, under that 129 mark. to put this into contextof wha we saw last week, it was really a week marked by dollar strength we are seeing that continue today. the dollar trading stronger v er versus the euro this morning in addition to that weak data we just heard from the uk, this is feeding into a bigger story

about dollar strength, perhaps some safe haven flows coming into that currency in the wake of more dovish central banks around the world let's look at european markets and get a check on how equities are shaping up this morning, very, very strong start to the day. we are seeing equity markets hold on to those early gains the biggest gainer of the morning is the italian market as we highlighted italian banks are sharply in focus today the overall index ftse mib up 1.4% but it's a picture of positive moves across the board here of course on the back of a strong handover from asia where chinese markets opened for the first time after the lunar new year and u.s. china deputy talks take place in beijing today. now, let's have a look at u.s. futures. last week was an overall flat week, i would say, for the u.s. markets. some volatility intraweek but overall not a huge number of big moves there. looking at the three major indexes there, s&p, dow and

nasdaq a stronger open on the back of that stronger asia session and of course now this strong session taking place here in europe. joumanna ♪ well, global port operated dp world is launching its first hyperloop project in india we are in dubai with more very exciting project what more can you tell us about? >> reporter: yeah, very exciting project just for viewers who perhaps don't know what the hyperloop is, it's a concept where these pods are shot at about 700 miles or over 700 miles an hour, super high speed futuristic transport that's the concept they inked a deal last year with virgin hyperloop one, one of the companies developing this technology for the market. now, this is specifically designed for cargo, not so much passengers some of the other projects around transporting passengers over a great distance. this one specifically for cargo

given dp world's expertise i caught up with ceo of dp world and asked him what his plans are for the hyperloop project. let's listen in to what he has to say. >> hyperloop is interesting idea it's an interesting technology the company we went and bought into has invested over 350 million dollars in tests and in technologies so, we didn't come with an idea. we came to something that's already existing they already have a test track in vegas and they're improving they have developed many technologies for dp world, this is an rnd and i think it's very important as today we had someone who said that the future is really for ideas. the future for any company today is to embrace new ideas and actually many companies today when you look at their markets and look at their business

growing, it's all about innovation how do you embrace the idea? there are so many spin-offs related technology out of hyperloop that they're using we're not at liberty to talk about them but we're using them and it's amazing. >> reporter: it's as to bring hype around these new technologies hyper loop one is just testing it's still in test phase the company itself has had a couple of issues virgin founder richard bronson was the ceo stepped down in october so their still trying to find a replacement chairman. many, many questions as well, how much will it cost? will it scale in a place like india? and of course will it even work? those are big questions that still remain to be answered. it's interesting to see how it develops over the next few years. >> thank you very much for that. very disruptive technology and look forward to seeing the roll

out of hyperloop i would like to try one of those. efficient way to get to the office at least. the fair price for oil is between 60 and $70 a barrel, according to egyptian petroleum minister speaking exclus ufly to cnbc he said opec and nonopec partners are close to reaching that range through their deal to cut production >> this is a good level of foreign direct investment in the oil sector i think it is giving us the level of continuous attraction of more investments. and i think in the coming years we will see more and more investments because we will have more and more opportunities and discoveries. >> you have said that you would like to attract about $10 billion worth of investment this year, but these multinational companies are dealing with a plethora of issues at the moment, slow down in china, a u.s. economy that is at or near

peak cycle, there's concerns about a trade war, concerns about brexit as well are you worried from your standpoint that some of those big-ticket issues in 2019 that global markets seem to be focussed on could potentially crimp investment into the oil and gas sector in egypt this year >> i don't think so because actually what we are talking about is really closed deals we have already done this homework we have arranged with our partners and international oil companies about the projects and how much they're going to spend in each and every project. hence, it has been put into our plans. number two, actually i can tell you that perhaps what's happening globally definitely would impact some of the plans of the international company,

however, as you know, since they're working in different areas and different countries of the globe, so they will prioritize and go to invest where there are the market, where is the stability and where are the future so i think this three conditions exist in egypt so there is a big market there is good stability and there is the future. and the future is not only for the growth only domestically of egypt but also within the east mediterranean. >> any of these negative headlines keeping you up at night, though? do you worry about thestate of the global economy today and how things could potentially play out in the coming years? >> definitely. this is an important question and definitely we are not living alone. it's one world and it's one globe and whatever happening here is affecting there.

so therefore, we definitely have to have our own strategic alternatives as well and fallback positions in any of our plans that we are implementing therefore, we definitely make sure that when we arrange for projects or investment plans with our partners that we close the deeds and we ensure the execution. however, as i say, we make sure also that we have at the same time alternative and fallback positions. sticking to the region, iran is marking the 40th anniversary of the islamic revolution, speaking before crowds into the square, president rouhani said the country would continue to expand its military and missile program and vowed to defeat u.s. sanctions. i'm happy to bring in the head of middle east and north africa

programs thanks very much for joining us on the show today. lots to discuss and lots to unpack it's been 40 years since the seminal event. taking a step back and looking at iran today, it's a rather incongress picture because on the ground there's a lot of economic hardship, the economy is struggling, gdp growth inflation, devaluing currency, but then on the flip side, its political prowess within the region has been growing. how long can you pair the two of those -- well, two of those facts on the ground up with each other? how long can they stay this weak economically but continue to really expand territorially when it comes to their political presence >> yeah, absolute hi iran today i would say is active in more countries outside its borders than ever since the start of the islamic republic, which was 40 years ago but, this is coming at great cost the cost is increasing every year now with newer sanctions, the

iranian country is suffering more than before with the u.s. pulling out of the nuclear agreement, private companies from the west are beginning to get nervous about investing or trading with iran. therefore, we can project that the coming period is going to be tougher on iran, but it's political ambitions have not lessened and that means it needs to find ways to keep to -- to keep being able to fund its engagement abroad this will cause a lot of strain, i think, on it. >> so you raised a lot of interesting issues there one is where is the change going to come from because if we look back again exactly one year ago there were a lot of demonstrations there was an uprising taking place in iran. didn't really lead to anywhere there doesn't seem to be one uniting opposition figure per se so if the change is not going to come from within do you think the big catalyst will therefore necessarily be that the u.s. will continue to apply

sanctions, continue to toot that hard line with iran until some form of political reconsideration takes place and how do you see this playing out? >> i don't see any form of military intervention against iran the second thing we need to think about is iran reached this very ambitious global role after 40 years of pursuing this and this means that rolling this back is going to take a very long time. i think the u.s. recognizes that it knows that the sanctions will take a very long time to result in any real con creed change in iran. >> so what is the breaking point then, do you think, for iran to actually act in response to the u.s. sanctions >> i think the pressure will have to be domestic. no matter how much international pressure is put on iran, the only change can happen domestically and i think the economy plays a big role the owners of big businesses in iran are very influential. the regime in iran wants to keep

them happy if they feel that they have been let down because the economy did not improve has they had been expecting after the signing of the nuclear agreement, then this might cause them to start stirring the situation in iran so i think the economy is indeed the way in. >> wa do you make of europe's position in all of this? because when the u.s. announced they were pulling out of jcpoa, europe didn't really -- weren't on board they took an opposing view to the united states and actually we found out recently that they've constructed ways for european companies to continue trading with iran via back door so to speak. why do you think europe is pursuing a hands off policy also when in the context of global earnings iran has a relatively short, small piece of the pie for these european companies why are they tooting this line then >> it's because they regard the nuclear agreement as being essential for global security. they feel that this is the most crucial thing they can do to

make the situation not deteriorate on the security level. but, as i was saying, despite all the measures that the european countries might engage in to keep kind of the agreement going, it's the private companies themselves that are one by one starting to pull out, regardless of what the eu is doing or eu member states are doing. and i think this is ultimately going to be the trend. >> just talking about, as you said, the ambition to continue expanding politically, building up missile systems, building up their military capabilities, a lot of that obviously works hand in hand with russia. and a lot of the financing has come from russia, but again it's coming at a very interesting time politically for russia itself so how do you see russia in all of this ekwigs with what we know about the u.s., with what we just discussed about europe and given the fact that iran is struggling economically, russia can't continue to provide them

with funding >> well, i mean, a lot of people think that russia and iran are allies forever because they're partnering in syria, but their situation on the ground is not like that at all russia actually sees iran as a competitor it's a convenient ally for the moment, but not forever. their visions for syria are very different. russia wants a strong state in syria, that is loyal to it, where as iran wants to influence from the ground up so, ultimately russia, i feel, is going to let iran down in syria. iran knows that. they know they cannot really rely on russian support forever. plus, russia does not want to be seen in a bipolar political world where it's put in a camp with iran which is going to be eventually a pariah state, according to russia politically and china which is going to swallow russia economically. so we have to watch that space with russia and iran >> if we look ten years down the line, who is going to be the leader in the middle east?

>> that's a very good question and a very difficult question because the traditional leaders are all facing challenges. iran, as we heard, yes, may be engaging in more countries than ever, but this is coming at great cost and it's not sustainable economically saudi arabia was a traditional leader but now facing a lot of pressure after the khashoggi affair egypt already lost its luster. turkey tried for a period of time but now it's facing a lot of pressures who knows small states like qatar will resurrect themselves down the line. >> thank you very much for joining us on the show today the head of middle east and north african at chatham hills. coming up on the show, deja vu in d.c. another government shutdown looms as border deal negotiations between democrats and republicans break down details after the break. stay with us

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after report the company held talks to buy nuvasive in a deal worth over $3 billion. a deal to buy the u.s. firm would be the largest acquisition by the british company. euronext raised its bid to raise around $18 per share the norwegian stock is in a bidding war. the latest deal offers just over $87 billion. he is confident a deal can be completed by the end of june, 2019. other corporate news, germany economy ministry is reported to set higher than expected increase for letter this summer. postage could raise 85 to 90 cents from 80 cents currently set to account for highest costs. >> another story we've been

watching very closely, washington has warned against huawei's growing influence over eastern europe the u.s. fears chinese intelligence could use wauway. they allowed it to build parts of their own network infrastructure meanwhile, talks divert another government shutdown in washington have stalled. a special congressional panel was working to reach a deal by today, but negotiations over border security spending broke down amid democratic demands to limit undocumented immigrations detention. >> reporter: talks between congressional leaders over funding the president's proposed border wall have stalled and for the second time in two months the government faces the possibility of a shutdown. >> you cannot take a shutdown off the table and take 5.7 off

the table. >> reporter: that 5.7 billion was the money the president initially wanted for a border wall house democrats said no. but now the stumbling block is over the number of detention beds immigration officials have access to. the chair of the senate appropriations committee holding firm on security but holding out hope for negotiations. >> the next 24 hours are crucial. we could close some deals but they've got to be good to secure our borders. >> if we stay focussed on getting a deal and we negotiate in good faith, on border security, i think we'll end up with something that can work and keep the government open. >> reporter: the acting white house chief of staff says president trump will build the wall with or without congress. >> once what you probably see is the president say, yeah, okay, then i'll go find the money someplace else. >> reporter: democrats are looking ahead, too, with another candidate entering the 2020 presidential race. >> as the first woman elected to the united states senate from the state of minnesota, to

announce my candidacy for president of the united states. >> reporter: minnesota senator amy klobuchar joining a crowded field of democrats hoping to challenge president trump in 2020 dan shenman, nbc news. >> and shifting topics to the entertainment industry, mexican film roma scooped four awards at last night's bafta's including best film and best director for alfon alfonso, the netflix film act 1970s mexico is among the favorites for next month's oscars in his acceptance speech, he tooked a veiled swipe at president trump's border wall saying, quote, separation and isolation are not a solution to anything elsewhere, period drama the favorite won seven including best actress for olivia coleman. i understand you have been on a bit of a bafta binge over the

weekend. >> oscars binge as well. i said to myself, this is the year i'm going to watch every single movie that's nominated for best picture i've seen most of them roma i watched that over the weekend, very, very tough watch, but i thought what's most interesting about this, this is a netflix movie, netflix production taking on all these hollywood movies, scooped up everything at the awards yesterday. hollywood are getting nervous about the future of content creation netflix stocks we watched closely, up 30% this year. i tweeted yesterday, it was a good night for bafta but also very good night for netflix as well that's my little bit on the awards season. that is it for today's show. i'm joumanna ber chech chi. >> and julianna tatelbaum. "worldwide exchange" is coming up next.

♪ 5:00 a.m. at cnbc global headquarters a in the nation's capitol where the clock is ticking toward another government shutdown. we'll take you live to d.c. with the very latest straight ahead. china remaining front and center high-level trade talks getting under way in beijing. futures are pushing higher this morning investors gearing up for the big week ahead one major hedge fund manager is making big moves out of tech. the details ahead. and history is made at last night's grammy awards. in case you missed it, we'll give you a full recap of the music industry's biggest night all on this monday, february 11st, as "worldwide exchange"