. welcome to "street signs." the company could receive a bid from italy's unicredit if current talks with deutsche bank collapses. they want more time to seal a deal meanwhile, sterling takes higher after british mps delay brexit by just one vote as cross-party talks between prime minister theresa may and op skbligs leader jeremy corbin continue. >> we had a discussion, and there hasn't been as much change

as we expected, but we are continuing to have some discussions tomorrow morning to explore some of the technicals surrounding it and the meeting was useful, but inconclusive in tokyo prosecutors say carlos ghosn was re-arrested on fears he could destroy evidence while lawyers for the embattled former nissan chairman will is strongly appealed his detention. mersk shares hit the market with a wimper. a negative start to the day for european equities with the stock europe 600 currently trading around one-third of a percent lower. we've seen some slightly disappointing german manufacturing data this morning. that might be one of the drivers behind that. in terms of the individual markets, though, you can see where that down side is coming

from most particularly it looks like the ftse 100 down .6%. a bit of a tick up yesterday after it looked like there might be some compromise between theresa may and jeremy corbin. meanwhile, in germany the deutsche bank is trading down almost one-third of a percent. similar story for cac and in italy we're seeing the ftse mib trading half a percent lower as well let's take a look at the individual sectors this morning as well. you can see there is a bit of positivity around utilities, but not a huge amount. the banks talking about unicredit, commerce bank in particular you can see there's down side there. .4% lower. based on what's going on in the gas sector as well, lower by 1 %. the big story this morning, commerce bank shares, they're trading significantly higher up more than 3%. that's after two separate reports that unicredit is considering a multibillion bureau bid for the german lender the financial times and reuters have reported the bank plans to take a large stake in commerce bank if the ongoing merger talks

with deutsche bank fail. unicredit has declined to comment, but reuters has reported that they have disagreed about the pace of those merger discussions the commerce bank wants discussions to be quick while deutsche bank wants to go slow my colleague is on the phone in frankfurt, and anetta, do you know there might be fewer regulatory objections to a commerce bank tie-up with uni-credit as to one with deutsche >> i'm not sure how it stands so many regulatory for commerce bank and deutsche bank merger, because clearly, those who are arguing that they would have a machine oply on the german retail market are clearly wrong because you have to look at how big the savings bank and cooperative banks are in germany, so there wouldn't be dominant player in that market there might be perhaps an investment banking specific niche where there could be a

dominant player, but i guess they wouldn't be big enough to block that merger. the hurdles are somewhere else especially those are the hurdles that are come from the trade union. we have a new round of margins from the trade union calling officially for more money, but also, for not agreeing to let merger between deutsche bank and commerz bank because they would argue it would lead to a job loss of up to 30,000 people in germany. i think that's the main hurdle when we talk about the deutsche bank and commerzbank merger. it depends how much political will we're going to see going ahead from berlin to actually, yeah, back the bang against the union where are we going to see that merger again. >> you're saying essentially authorities not clear whether

they have a preference unions against the idea of an all german tie-up. any indication that shareholderings would prefer a deal the italian bank over that german consolidation >> i mean, in a way it would be fair just to put the assets back because in the end it's the taxpayers' money, and the stake berlin is holding in commerzbank. that's clearly what we're not going to see again, with all that protectionist rhetoric flying around across the world, also berlin is kind of, yeah, has that protectionist of how they want to have a german champion, it seems, a bank which is german-owned because the narrative in berlin, people seem to believe, is that the moment the next downturn is coming any foreign bank will retract from the markets, and then the german retail base will not have enough banking capacity whether that is true or not is up to, yeah, who believes the

story, but that is why they prefer apparently a merger between commerzbank and deutsche bank it clearly was traded out of the fang ministry, and i've been talking to people in frankfurt where they were saying it's a clear berlin footprint all over the place, but it seems that berlin is waking up to all the pressure from the trade union, and that they kind of start to think it might actually be quite a tough one to get through having said that, clearly deutsche bank and commerzbank are talking, and deutsche bank also thinking increasingly that it could make sense, but only with brutal cost-cutting, and that is clearly something perhaps commerzbank doesn't want, and it materializes that though commerzbank was thinking they could do a merger between equals, deutsche bank is clearly playing them more and more as a take-over story, and that is probably why we hear that

matchup defense rhetoric coming out from commerzbank back to you. >> meanwhile, bloomberg is reporting that ubs is considering a possible sale or merger for its asset management business the news agency reports the bank is examining the deutsche bank asset manager, dws, either for a potential tie-up or a combined entity that could be spun off at a later date ubs and dws have declined to comment on that report the ubs ceo sergio talked about the growing pressure for banking consolidation during an interview with my colleague jumana weeks ago >> consolidation may be one part of the solution for over capacity and also in terms of profitable for the industry now. in that respect the q1 and the early part of q2 will probably be a better indicator of the need to do such processes.

fundamentally speaking, there is a need to create critical mass and more efficiencies in the system >> so you wouldn't rule it out then for ubs >> we are looking at what's going on in the marketplace, and, you know, we have always to assess options, but we are also watching what competitors are doing. all european businesses need scale. santander is the number one bank in the euro zone by value, and maybe two or three by assets we have 2% of the deposits of the euro zone. if you then go to the u.s., you know, the big american banks in an economy that's very similar

to ours have much bigger scale this happens across sectors. especially services, right the common services market has to happen soon because 80% of our economy is services, and so it's crucial that wehave bigge companies because scale matters. >> you are one of the larger banks in europe, but if deutsche bank and commerce bank consolidate, that makes them a bigger challenge to you. is there a tie-up? >> scale comes in many ways, and santander has 140 million customers. as i showed today, we have 32 digital customers. that makes us the third biggest bank in the u.s. >> the scale and number of customers and transactions in market shares individually also matters. having said that, again, to be

competitive in europe and also globally, you know, we should all get bigger for us it's very important in a profitable way, right? this is -- this has been the management priority. >> talking there to my colleague yesterday. i'm joined now by jimmy conway, the head of equity trading strategy at citi let's not discuss consolidation per se, but are bank stocks in europe generally undervalued, do you think? >> they're under owned it's not only a region that doesn't enjoy any sponsorship. it's also with regards bank a sector that doesn't enjoy any sponsorship. woef seen record outflows in the etf space. we've seen record outflows in europe, and if you look at the valuation gap between broader europe or just the broader europe versus the banks, the banks have underperformed and record lows relative to the rest of the european markets. when you start to see improving

on the corporate side and a slight change in stocks from the ecb with regard to bank profitability with tiering now in the frame as a discussion, i think there are signs to say that perhaps the up side cannot be yet worth playing for how much blame do you is a sign to the ecb bh it comes to european bank valuations >> i mean, not sure it's a question of blame. they obviously took the measures that they felt were from a monetary policy perspective, but what is interesting is that with acknowledging that perhaps growth is sluggish and growth is visibly slow in europe and, therefore, some in the monetary policies might need to be extended, such that they might need to indicate that rates are going to be lower for longer there is a agree of softening in

the stance that whatever the impact of that on banks might be that perhaps the ecb sees that as a necessary price to pay. this idea of tiering, i think, would be good for the sector because it has priced, increasingly priced the idea that rates can be low for long we moved the forecast from the hike at the end of this year to the hike at the beginning of 2021, for example, which would be bad for bank profitability. the ecb to say, well, we acknowledge that and while we're not in the game of necessarily helping bank stocks to go up, we do need to insure that there is a profitable banking sector in europe >> you talked about the disparity between banks in europe and europe generally. what about the disparity between banks across different countries? not stock-specific, but is there a massive disparity between that, say, germany and italy, and does that matter for investors at the moment? >> there is, but it varies from company to company >> i don't think you can necessarily say that one geography as a whole is trading at premium to others

it tends tore the nature of the bank itself and helps capitalize and perhaps it's exposure to emerging markets, for example, and its growth prospects certainly if you were to compare european banks to, say, you know, the u.s. banks that price to book valuation gap shows you, you know, there is still a big value discount then again, the profitability is very different across the two regions. >> don't go anywhere please stay with us. jimmy conway, head of equity trading strategy at citi a fresh round of u.s.-china trade talks has kicked off in washington d.c white house economic advisor larry kudlow has suggested beijing has begun to soften its stance on some of the previously more entractable issues. my colleague emily tan filed this report from hong kong >> the latest sign of progress and a sign of trade dispute is in washington for the ninth round of trade talks

this comes as white house top economic advisor larry kudlow says talks are making good headway, although they're not there yet. the talks are taking place at the ustr office. here is larry kudlow >> i think the chinese have acknowledged these problems for the first time they were in denial. all of them, all of them, the ip theft, the forced transfer, the lack of ownership, the cyber hacking. before that they wouldn't acknowledge it >> these issues have been heart of the u.s. argument and have never been covered before. kudlow also revealed that hua we ei technologies.

>> a significant amount, i would say. i think that, you know, our global economists have said that trade is currently -- the trade war, i should say, impacting about 20% of global trade. negatively it's interesting to us that increasingly we are seeing the bad data in europe is somewhat in the price and that we're a bit softer this morning, but europe tends to be reacting at a sector level and even at an index level to china data. for example, we have some macrofactors that gives an indication sort of, you know, an x-ray of the market in terms of how it feels about growth and they had their biggest one-day up move in three years nearly on the back of the china pmi. i think if we move to an environment where there is some agree of resolution perhaps by

june, obviously that date seems to be a moving target. in a world where we have chinese growth stabilizing natural inflation targeting and perhaps it will overheat, it's hard not to see that being quite a green light to risk assets even in a context where, you know, global growth might be slowing, and it's worth pointing out that these cycles of growth seem to be becoming quite, you know, much shorter big stockpiling in front of tariffs and then, you know, slowing down as those stockpiles are released and so there is a risk, i think, that if we saw resolution, we could have a couple of quarters of relief growth, as it were, into an environment where we've still got a very, very accommodative merger from the main central bank >> one thing that strikes me when we talk about trade dispute resolution is this move in timetable. how do investors work with that

because you see it again with brexit in a similar way. you see that from the white house that they're willing to allow these talks to drag on they're obviously hoping for positive resolution, but what does that mean for the positioning that people are taking around good or bad news >> yeah, it's very difficult if you are buying -- if you are boig a put option, what would you buy? thank you don't wait for it to expire just before the bad news. i think that people are aware that they are trying to trade something over which it's difficult to get the transparency because it's contingent on personalities and factors that might be hard to model. you look at the performance of defensives over cyclicals. they have chosen -- i need to stay committed i need to be in liquid equities with very defective characteristics. there has been the kind of kinks in volatility, be that in fx or equities do keep rolling every time we

think we've got clarity. so far none of those particular trades is really yielded the deadline keeps being extended i don't think trz a particular technique to try to second guess which it's going to be i think people are avoiding being too long the wrong kind of risk over the particular dates as they arise. >> one final question that are following up when do you think that people who have taken defensive positions in europe would take their foot off the gas on that in terms of what they're watching for from the news development. it's really difficult, isn't it? >> it is i would say that they would like clarity on brexit. i think it's -- i think investors would be wrong in thinking that if we end up in that sort of slightly low probability but high impact scenario of no deal that europe is going to escape from that unscathed. we've already got weakening growth there if you then put these kind of trade barriers that in theory

they come in to force in place, then that's going to be bad for you. they want clarity on brexit. if they see resolution of the deal and the fact that some of the measures that china has already taken with regard to easing, you know, credit impulse, and our fx team thinks that's about with a nine-month lag. we would say in a couple of month's time, q 1, q2, that's what they want to see in order to be more cyclical in terms of european exposure. >> we'll come back to brexit meanwhile, the imf has said that rising trade tensions could threaten global investment growth the imf released new research as part of its april world economic outlook to indicate that the supply chain disruption and market distortion would force up machinery costs, and that, in turn, could damage emerging markets. just to bring you some news on that awful crash in ethiopia a few weeks ago, the transport ministry there in ethiopia has recommended that the aviation

authority should verify that review of flight control system was adequately checked they're saying that flight 302 calls on boeing to review aircraft and probability of that 737 max 8 aircraft also saying that the take-off initially seemed normal. the initial findings more broadly and the crash investigation show that the plane was airworthy. meanwhile, shares have plunged after the company spun off its drilling business. the unit is called the drilling company of 1972. they stood at 570 crowns per share. sid bank said it was trading at an equivalent of 600 danish crowns while it was a subsidiary coming up in the show britain's opposition leader jeremy corbin says cross-party talks were helpful, but inconclusive. we'll have the latest from westminster after this break

welcome back to street signs. british lawmakers have approved legislation that would push prime minister theresa may to seek a brexit delay in a bid to

prevent a no deal scenario if you look at the reaction from sterling on the back of that vote, relatively late last night, you see a slight strengthening against the dollar, but nothing too significant. at least compared to the uptick you can see there from 24 hours ago, and that announcement she made about compromise talks impacted the currency there. in terms of the u.k. opposition party leader jeremy koshen, he said last night after that meeting with theresa may on brexit that it had been "useful but inconclusive." >> i want the government to understand that the house does not support the deal that she's agreed she's got to come up even at this very late stage with something that is acceptable to the house which does move in the direction that i have said. the labour parties wants in order to reach an agreement with the e.u. the dangers of crashing is no deal is very, very serious very serious indeed.

they to be avoided last night the house of commons voted narrowly to push through this legislation to try to stave off no deal. in terms of market participants does the narrowness of those votes have any significance, do you think? >> no. i think the -- as you pointed out, there is a high level of fatigue. the granularity of it is lost on many macroglobal investors anyone particularly looking at gdp. my own reaction is i thought the

ruling out of no deal might have a slightly more positive impact given that it's taking that left tail of no deal somewhat off the table. i think there are still -- as with trade, you know, you need to see there have been so many false dawns that people need to see absolute confirmation. it needs to be enshrined in legislation. the e.u. needs to agree that they will give us an extension people need to understand how the european parliamentary elections would take place in the u.k. once you get all that level of clarity, then i think people can move on. the biggest impact we think it's having with regards to broader european risk is just flows. people acknowledge that you have the widest gap between, you know, u.k. stocks relative to guilt are the cheapest they've been since the 1930s people won't come in and participate in that until they've got that degree of clarity. the potential build-up and the potential catalyst that brexit clarity serves as, particularly for flows, is quite meaningful, and that's probably for us the

biggest impact >> we've talked about timelines a little earlier in the show when it came to trade more specifically, but in terms of brexit, if you are a business, and you are looking at march 29th as a hard deadline and its past, you have had to potentially readjust or already make those decisions how does that aploy to investors in terms of inflexion points on the calendar >> so the ongoing assumption from investors is that no deal has been quite low probability, and you can see that in the way in which gdp vols have lined up. the buying of puts and sterling and calls has richened, but not to the degree where you would expect where people would be pricing that there is definitely an event about to happen i think one of your colleagues was talking about 20% being about the right kind of level. investors, if i'm honest, are really voting with their feet in terms of the timelines they're just simply not engaging until there is a greater degree of clarity, and that is then

what shines through in the valuations particularly that gap between the equities and the market. >> they are voting with their feet, and they're not getting into u.k. equities with any particular sort of eagerness at the moment when you look at a situation like next week, wednesday, wednesday you may not have theresa meeting with her counterparts, she's going to be asking for an extension. she looks like she's going to be mandated for an extension, and she won't necessarily have control of how long that extension is if mr. mcconnell says not, no chance, do traders have enough time, do investors have enough time to reposition if they need to ahead of the hard deadline on the 12th, or do you think they're avoiding situations where they need to reposition? >> it's a bit of oath, but primarily the latter in terms of overall exposure it's interesting that if you look at something like euro stocks volatility in april, there are very few signs that something could go wrong it's trading, you know,

around -- it's trading at low levels, in effect, and we think that, you know, it's broadly cheap enough to own because of all the other risks that there are at the moment, and certainly selling some of your portfolio, replacing it with cheaper calls in case there's something -- in case a mishap does happen, we think that's a good idea no, they won't >> coming up, a fresh twist in the carlos ghosn saga. he is arrested again on fresh charges of financial misconduct. we'll have more details after this break

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welcome back to "street signs. these are your headlines this thursday morning from london commerzbank jumped after it knew it could receive a bid from

unicredit if deutsche talks collapse sterling ticks higher after british mps pass a law that breck it should be delayed by just one vote as cross-party talks between prime minister theresa may and opposition leader jeremy corbin continue. >> we had a discussion, and there hasn't been as much change as i expected, but we are continuing to have some discussions tomorrow morning to explore some of the technical issues surrounding it, and the meeting was useful, but inconclusive in tokyo prosecutors say carlos ghosn was re-arrested on fears he could destroy evidence while lawyers for the embattled former nissan chairman say they will strongly appeal against his detention. a report shows that pilots followed protocol, and boeing take responsibility for the 787

max. in france the cac is trading one-fifth of a percent lower, and the ftse mib down around one-quarter. unicredit shares not necessarily reacting all that well to some of the conversations around potential merger with commerzbank. on the currency markets, you can see that sterling is slightly stronger against the u.s. dollar in parliament lawmakers are very narrowly voting in favor of some legislation that would mandate an extension to brexit

the euro, very, very slightly stronger against the u.s. dollar, and it seems like that's causing dollar weakness. generally, you can see it's weaker against japanese yen and very slightly weaker against the swiss franc. we look at the u.s. futures. the market open on that side of the atlantic just the dow jones looking to open up higher the nasdaq and the s&p 500 both looking for relatively flat open at this stage of proceedings now, the former nissan chairman carlos ghosn, he has been re-arrested on fresh financial misconduct charges in tokyo. at a press conference his lawyer said he plans to appeal ghosn's fourth arrest. he called the move "unexpected." tokyo prosecutors say they have decided to detain the auto boss due to the risk that he may destroy evidence related to his case ghosn has denied any wrong doing. he told the french media, "i am innocent." my colleague has more from hong ko kong >> reporter: arrest number four for ex-nissan chief. the latest arrest is due to

aggravated breach of trust they added, carlos ghosn caused the $5 million financial losses to nissan motors between the period of 2015 and 2018. this comes after some media reports suggested the possibility of the ghosn investigation gaining a new momentum due to his alleged connection to a car dealership in oman. this arrest happening just a week before his planned april 11th press conference that he teased about on twitter earlier this week. mr. ghosn continues to claim innocence. in a statement he said, "i will not be broken. i am innocent of the groundless charges and accusations against me." he was released on march 6th on $9 million bail after more than 100 days in detention. under japanese law he can be detained for 48 hours without bail until the prosecution decides to extend the detention.

i'm sherry containiang in hong g back to you. the electric carmaker struggled with longer transit times to europe and china. the company warned that its net income for the quarter would be negatively effected by the fall in deliveries, but it also reaffirmed its guidance to deliver between 360,000 and 400,000 cars this year tesla founder elan musk could face restrictions over his twitter usage. that's as a lawsuit brought by the securities and exchange commission heads to court later today in new york. the s.e. krchl has requested musk should be held in contempt of court for violating a 2018 settlement through -- gaining preapproval for his fweets that related to the company he founded. musk has denied any wrong doing and his lawyers have accused the s.e.c. of unpress deputied overreach. meanwhile, british lawmakers have approved legislation that would push prime minister

theresa may to seek a brexit delay in a bid to prevent a no deal scenario. u.k. opposition leader jeremy corbin has said that a meeting with theresa may on brexit yesterday was "useful but inconclusive." talks between the two continue today and we looked at sterling already. you can see it has strengthened very slightly over the last 24 hours, but it's pretty much back to where it was after a rather roller coaster week of political news here. >> we can't get a single laurie through the port of dover. others can help to affect that, but we can't

nor can we fundamentally change the economics of a business in scotland that sells to the european union at present on a tari tariff-free basis where its product standard is instantly recognized, so it has frictionless trade with europe if overnight it has to pay a large tariff on those goods, which it will because europe will flip to wto, and forget the -- >> article 24. >> absolutely nonsense >> john wraith is here with us in the studio. mr. carney not mincing his words, though. in contrast to what mervin king said, let's talk about the parliamentary arithmetic we had a vote last night very, very close it showed that parliament narrowly would like to legislate a no deal off the table. we also saw them trying to have

indicative votes where they have preferred alternatives to theresa may's deal it's clearly a very divided parliament it's clearly a very divided country. what, ifanything, resolves that, and what could that mean for businesses >> well, as you say, clearly a very divided parliament, and one where it beats what the prime minister hasn't been able to get her withdrawal agreement now she has felt the need to open up the discussion more widely, and that's obviously caused a lot of ripples and consequences you know, she needs the numbers if a deal is going to go through. she wasn't getting them with her prior approach time was too short for her to push for any significant changes to debt more of her back benches on board >> will the talks reach an accord probably not in truth. they're very far apart as their starting points, for one thing, and then we are back in the realm of indicative votes.

>> where want to businesses in the u.k., investors in the u.k., yourp, and more widely across the world, does a softer brexit that could potentially come out of these conversations between labour and conservative parties here in the u.k., does that have a net benefit impact in the long-term, short-term, medium term >> obviously, it depends on which businesses and investors you're talking about, but i think overall the view would be the less disruptive. this process is the better the more businesses can carry out operating and not having to adjust to new arrangements and in many cases new headwinds the better the problem with all of this remains, though, that it seems that this process is being dragged in a softer direction, albeit the right wing of the tory party might have something to say about that at some point. there's some sort of relative optimism in that, but the difficulty in trying to see where this is ultimately headed

and how long it's going to take to get there means that for now businesses just can't invest, and that's what we're seeing there's a lot of uncertainty and caution around, and it is slowing the economy down the lack of investment, the lack of consumption despite the fact that the labour market is so strong say direct consequence of the brexit uncertainty yes, it's likely a softer brexit looks more likely, but we have no idea about when or how that's going to materialize >> let's say for the sake of argument that a general election somehow solves this deadlock is a conservative government with the majority good news for business compared to a labour government with a majority is that something you can say definitively >> i think in the first instance it will depend on what they do about brexit, what the manifestos say they're going to do about brexit, and it comes back with the lack of certainty, if hypothetically we ended up, for example, with a labour majority government. they have a very different approach to brexit as they're seeing they would need to restart the negotiations essentially with

the e.u., and try and move things in a different direction. at least in the short-term, that uncertainty would persist. more generally, again, it depends on whatsoever businesses we're talking about as to which type of administration they would prefer i think from the sort of financial market's point of view, there is a feeling that the sort of potential fiscal changes that a labour majority government would bring in would mean more borrowing and potentially weakened sterling. that's essential the way the markets tend to react when the perceived probability of an election and who might win it changes, but we would only know that in the fullness of time, and most opinion polls are telling us if we have an election, we're likely to end up with another hung parliament or a minority deposgovernment of se sort >> theresa may is asking for an extension. we've learned from her repeatedly she wants to keep that extension as short as possible parliament as of last night wants to have control over how long that extension is, and, of course, it's up to the europeans as to how long the extents e tension is granted if they do

grant one. you've clearly walked through the implications for business in terms of extended uncertainty and what that means for investment decisions what about for the currency? how does an long extension impact sterling? >> it has conflicting forces in terms of what it means for sterling on one hand trk the sort of potential imminent risk of a disorderly exit goes away. let's say we have a year's extension for the next six months that's all going away. it might trigger a bit of a pick-up in investment and consumption at least for a quarter or two, so that's the sort of good news story for sterling of course, it is only an extension. we haven't resolved anything partly imwill remain deadlocked, and in this extraordinary position where nearly anything they vote on seems to result in, you know, well, as we saw literally yesterday, a dead heat or a very close outcome one way or the other that unpredictability politically and economically remains in place, and this is kind of what we've been seeing up until now, which is why

extraordinarily in which sbraday volatility is treading water and has been for some time coming up on the program harry books its ticket to the french cup final. a roundup of that and other results after this break (client's voice) remember that degree you got in taxation? (danny) of course you don't because you didn't! your job isn't understanding tax code... it's understanding why that... will get him a body like that... move! ...that. your job isn't doing hard work... here. ...it's making her do hard work... ...and getting paid for it. (vo) snap and sort your expenses to save over $4,600 at tax time. (danny) jody... ...it's time to get yours! (vo) quickbooks. backing you.

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the french cup final after a 3-0 win against nont psg will be looking for a fifth consecutive cup win when they take on the final on april 27th. meanwhile, in the premier league manchester city has returned to the top of the table after a 2-0 win over cardiff city. man city currently have just a one-point advantage over rivals liverpool with just six league games remaining until the end of the season

the chairman of the house weighs and means committee, richard neil, said he formally requested six years of trump's personal returns along side tax filings from certain trump businesses neil said the move was "critical to insure accountability and trust in democracy." as you might imagine at the white house, mr. trump dismissed calls for him to release those returns. >> we're under order despite what people said and we're working that out, as i'm always under order it seems ooifl been under order for many years because the numbers are big, and i guess when you have a name, you are audited. until such time as i'm not under audit, i would not be inclined to do that >> special counsel robert mueller's final report on the russia-related investigation could reportedly be more damaging to president trump than initially indicated. the "new york times" reporting that some members of mueller's

team believe that new term william barr undersolved their findings in his four-page summary. meanwhile, democrats on the house judiciary committee in congress voted on wednesday to subpoena the unredacted report from the justice department. former vice president joe biden, meanwhile, has vowed to change his behavior he spoke out in a video message after at least two women accused him of inappropriate contact in recent days. nbc news's andrea mitchell filed this report. >> reporter: tonight his would-be campaign on the line joe biden tweeting this video. >> today i want to talk about gestures of support and encouragement that i have made to women and some men that have made them uncomfortable. >> at home deliberately informal responding after four women said he had physical contact they felt was inappropriate not a sexual advance, but making them uncomfortable >> social norms have begun to change they've shifted. the boundaries of protected

personal space have been reset, and i get it i get it i hear what they're saying >> the two newest accusations in the "new york times" overnight one of them d.j. hill, telling nbc news what she says happened when she met the then vice president at a fundraiser in 2012 >> mr. biden's hand went from my shoulder and started to descend down my back, and it was one of those things where i'm going, oh, okay, this is making me feel uncomfortable. >> nbc news has not verified all of the accounts, but they are already fodder for president trump who has denied accusations of sexual misconduct by multiple women, now mocking biden to republican donors. >> i said, general, come here. give me a kiss i felt like joe biden. >> reporter: 2020 candidates have been piling on. >> i'm glad that people are willing to and have the courage to step up >> i believe him >> notably, biden did not apologize and is not backing down signaling he will be joining the

race >> that was my nbc news colleague andrea mitchell with that report on joe biden meanwhile, the minneapolis fed president neil has ruled out a rate hike from the federal reserve for now. he cited a lack of inflation in the u.s. economy he was speaking in north dakota yesterday, and he said he didn't believe the u.s. economy is overheating, and he reiterated his view that the central bank should not react to "noisy data." he addressed president trump's criticism of the central bank as well and said fed officials do not pay attention to political pressure ian shepherdson, the economist joins us now on the direct line from new castle. ian, thanks for being with us. let me ask you this. how confident are you in the american consumer right now, and what's driving that view >> i'm actually pretty bullish i know we've had weak numbers in the last couple of months, but i think that was inevitable because last year the consumer had a really big kick from the tax cuts and also from the big drop in gas prices in the fourth

quarter. the tax cuts are ancient history now, and gas prices have rebounded substantially. they're seeing a bit of a hit. the transitioning, i think, from a pace that was never going to be sustainable to something that is sustainable and that's probably around 2.5% that's the rate of growth of real incomes, and that's fine because that's what was happening before the says tax cuts it's just that the tax cuts took consumer spending up almost 4% transitioning from 4% to 2.5% is uncomfortable and messy and markets want to extrapolate. they always want to extrapolate. they're looking at this down shift and extrapolating into consumer disaster, and i just don't buy it people have got enough cash, and they're pretty happy, and once the dust settles after this transition, period, i think we'll be back to something that we recognize as normal i'm not worried. >> what are you extrapolating from quite strong auto sales in the u.s. >> well, they were weak the start of the year, but the march numbers, which came out earlier this week, bounced very nicely recovered all the losses that we had in the previous couple of months, and i think that's consistent with this idea that

fundamentally consumers are in quite a good place confidence is high income growth is pretty strong payroll growth, after all, although it's noisy, it's trending at 200,000 a month, and employment is very low i looked at those numbers for the start of the year, and i thought something a bit odd is happening here, but they are noisy, and so the return to form in march, i think, is a pretty good signal for the second quarter. the first quarter will be terrible consumer spending will scrape to 1% if year lucky, but i think by the second quarter, we're looking at probably 2.5% to 3% this is 70% of gdp >> you've talked about skurmds let's talk about businesses. we saw obviously really unhappy set of investors towards the end of last year in terms of the market when you are looking at u.s. businesses now, do you think they are still holding back on expansion plans, on hiring because of some of the uncertainty that's residual from last year? >> i think there's a little bit of that. especially among a small business sector, which is very sensitive to the stock market. really didn't like what happened at the end of last year. the hit to sentiment in the

small business sector has not fully reversed i think i am looking for a pretty rocky first half in manufacturing especially on top of that, that stock market hit, we've got this -- the problem with china, the big slowdown in chinese demand, and the ongoing uncertainty over the trade dispute. manufacturing is kind of a dark place at the moment, but i don't think it's getting any darker. we've had better pmi numbers, or less bad pmi numbers out of china recently, and the u.s. ism, the benchmark manufacturing survey was a bit stronger than expected as well earlier this week maybe there's straws in the wind that we're seeing a bottom now for that manufacturing down shift. let's be clear, that's been a really big part of this market uncertainty and this shift in the fed's position i think markets overweight manufacturing, stuff that people can see and touch is somehow seam seen to be more important than services, but actually the surs is in a economy wro only 12% of gdp is manufacturing. it's quite difficult for a manufacturing down shift to pull the rest of the economy down with it. it's not big enough. it grips the imagination of investors. that's for sure. >> i'm going to ask one quick

question employment numbers out tomorrow. any predictions? >> werk there's a lot of cross currency, but i'm looking for something about 1 6 0. we've had a 300,000 in january and a 20,000 in february something more like the trend seems a reasonable bet for march, but march was quite snowy. that might pull some people out of work for a while temporarily, but i think fundamentally labour demand is still quite strong, and i don't see any big change i don't think the recent noise is anything to worry about sometimes it is just noise that's all i think that's what's happened >> we're going to have to leave it there ian shepherdson. let's take a look at the u.s. futures before we go you can see not a lot of good news ahead of the open there that is it for today's show. i'm willem marks worldwide exchange coming up right now. - my family and i did a fundraiser walk

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two big pieces of breaking news topping your five 5k9 ethiopia just releasing the official finding into what caused last month's deadly boeing plane crash the breaking details straight ahead. also, a major developing story out of japan former nissan chairman carlos ghosn re-arrested. he is facing new charges and could serve up to 20 days in solitary confinement could today be the day that we get a trade deal wrapped up with china? president trump gearing up for a high stakes sitdown with china's top trade negotiator tesla stock under pressure this morning. the company reporting a massiv