that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. [theme music] good morning, and welcome to "street signs. i johanna versecchi. >> here are headlines for your. alibaba shares closed 6% higher in the debut, a vote of confidence for the protests. the european rally takes a pause asinvestors look for clues on the progress of a u.s./china trade deal and top officials from both sides discuss a phase one agreement by phone. a deal is on the way automakers fiat chrysler and psa

are close to sealing a merger agreement, telling employees a final pact is coming within weeks. and shares in the lse group trade higher as shareholders prepare to vote on the $27 billion takeover well, a very good morning and welcome to "street signs." one of our top stories today, alibaba has closed almost 7% higher after its hong kong debut, the largest global listing so far this year the e-commerce giant listed at a price of 176 hong kong dollars to raise $11.2 billion in fresh capital. and as part of the ipo, the chinese company issued 500 million new ordinary shares. emily tan is joining us live from hong kong emily, the largest ipo of 2019, quite a stellar postmarket performance with the stock up almost 7% in trading

how has the reception been overall? >> reporter: you know what, juwana, the newcomer to the market today was the most heavily traded in hong kong with $1.8 billion worth of shares changing hands as you mentioned, the stock closed up more than 6.5%, off the day's highs, but up as much as $189 per share. that's against an issue price of $176 with that, alibaba raising $11.2 billion, making it the world's biggest ipo this year and also helped hong kong become the top on the charts of the ipo funds raised so far this year. now, alibaba listed in new york back in 2015 because the conditions were not right here in hong kong to allow for dual-class shares at the time, so it's now duly listed. one u.s. a.d.s. translates to eight hong kong chairs we heard from chairman daniel

jong in the listing ceremony and he said it was their intention always to come back to the hong kong market and at the ceremony he said hong kong, here we come. >> translator: i especially want to thank hong kong, thank the hong kong stock exchange in the past five years, hong kong's innovation, capital market reform has allowed for what was a regret five years ago to become a reality, to be able to achieve what we said five years ago, that if conditions allow, we will definitely return to hong kong >> alibaba joins the likes of others with dual rights or shares in the hong kong market so there's three of them, and that was made possible by reforms instituted by charles lee, the head of the hong kong stock exchange and he, too, was on site for the listing ceremony and this is what he had to say >> despite the difficulties, despite the challenges that we are going through here in hong

kong, i am also grateful that despite the difficulties and challenges in hong kong, we hear people in hong kong. we people here at the hong kong exchange and at all the institutions that make this great city work, make this financial center work, they have all tried everything we can and they can to make it ready for alibaba to come home and i'm very confident that many other companies similarly situated has been traveling afar, ultimately welcome home. and we will be here ready for them >> with alibaba's listing today, hong kong is now at the top of the leaderboard, $34 billion in ipo funds for this market alone. and now we have overtaken the nasdaq and the nyse. that is the latest from the hong kong stock exchange. back to you guys. >> thank you, emily. we'll still with hong kong because chief executive carrie lam has spoken for the first

time about election results that show prodemocracy candidates win about 90% of the district council seats. she promised they would restart public dialogue when possible. many said the vote was a barometer of opposition to the existing government after six months of increasingly violent protests our colleague terry kang has filed this report. >> the hong kong leader says her government will do a better job. executive carrie lam reiterated her promise to listen humbling and reflect seriously in tuesday's regular press briefing this follows a sweeping victory for pan democrats in district council elections on saturday. she admitted that the election had more political dimensions to it than previous ones and that voters did express their discontent over her government's deficiencies. >> there are people who want to express a view that they can no longer tolerate the violence on the streets. they are, of course, people who

felt that our government has not handled competently the legislative exercise and its aftermath. but as i have said very clearly on the fourth of september, we have officially and formally withdrawn the bill, which was, of course, the source of the social unrest. the next step is to go forward to really, as you put it, to engage the people. >> while she provided no major concessions in today's press event, she added that she had not received any instructions from the central government in china to take responsibility for the defeat for pro establishment candidates this follows beijing's familiar line on monday of backing carrie lam's leadership and criticizing foreign interference in china's internal affairs in the meantime, reuters is reporti ining citing people famr with the matter that china has set up a crisis command center on the hong kong situation on the mainland side of the border

and is considering replacing the chief of china/hong kong liaison office i'm sherry kang for cnbc hong kong. >> we just heard about that idea of changing the liaison officer between the mainland and hong kong we've seen this massive repudiation of pro beijing candidates in these local council elections. do you anticipate major changes to the way the mainland cooperates, operates, controls the government in hong kong? >> well, i think this is on two levels you've got to look at it first of all, there's a question of the change of personnel, and i would have thought the beijing envoys in hong kong have obviously got things very, very wrong throughout this year and replacing them would be a natural management thing for beijing to do. on the other hand, the government has made it very plain in recent weeks that it regards itself as having the

last word on hong kong it's not going to give that up at all how exactly it maneuvers, we will wait and see. and one of the questions, of course, is who carrie lam will speak to, if she wants a wider dialogue. >> talking about carrie lam, her approval rating is about 20% right now. >> yes. >> i mean, is the writing on the wall for her and if there is a replacement, who would likely be her replacement in this environment? >> well, i would just go back from hong kong first of all, i was struck by the lack of support for her, even among people who are very critical of the protests and the pro-democracy things she has no real credibility, i don't think there. on the other hand, when i asked, though, who would replace her, there was a long and deafening silence, because there is almost nobody who would be able to straddle the divide that has grown wider and wider in hong kong >> i just want to bring it back to alibaba as well and the significance of this company listing on the hong kong stock exchange and obviously, it's been in the works for a while, even before

these protests started, but they didn't have to go and list on the hong kong stock exchange right now. alibaba is the largest chinese company. do you think that there is some messaging that's being sent from china to hong kong, via this listing, by saying look, at the end of the day, in order for you to maintain your status as one of the largest and preeminent financial hubs in the world, you still need us and you need our chinese ompanies >> you need chinese companies. you need to maintain that throughput, that bridge, if you like, between china and the rest of the world for hong kong's own good, yes, indeed. but at the same time, alibaba going ahead with it is, indeed, as charles li was saying in your report, that is a sign that business can still operate in hong kong, despite the turmoil on the streets. >> that turmoil -- you know, we heard there from carrie lam talking about the need to engage, the idea that she would

restart dialogue once environment allowed, i think was her language as the levels of violence have increased over the last few weeks and months, how vanishingly small does that opportunity, that window for dialogue, become in your view? >> it's become smaller and smaller, as you rightly imply there. plus the fact that there have been no leaders of the protests with whom the government could speak, if it wanted to now the question becomes whether any of the people elected or the leaders of their parties, elected on sunday, or the leaders of their parties will be able to fulfill that role. otherwise, we're really in a vacuum, which the protests, increasingly violent, have filled. >> one other question, sort of broader picture. chinese leadership to an outsider like me, perhaps like you, is a black box to some extent and so, at a time when you've got these leaked documents about uighurs in jim john, you've got reports that a man in australia has claimed he was involved in interfering in taiwan. you've obviously got this set of

local council elections that repudiate beijing candidates what could possibly be going through the head of president xi, who's obviously also dealing with this trade tension with the u.s. >> i think probably the leadership would regard many of these elements which you just mentioned as containable there, not as being threatening, if you like, for the regime or for the leadership and so, they will continue on their present path, which may be the wrong way to go, but i think they're not going to admit, sorry, we got it all wrong and we're going to change course. >> and what would be the threshold for them to actually resort to ground military intervention, the pla actually going into hong kong here? because as you mentioned, demonstrations are turning more and more violent the hong kong authorities, hong kong police, you mentioned, seem to be cracking down with more and more force and equally from the protesters. so, at what point, at what threshold do you think -- or is it a very high threshold for

military intervention? >> it's a very high threshold because of the reputational, the business, all of the other negative elements which would come out of that and again, being in hong kong, if you go there, the difficulty of sending a foreign military force in to occupy just hong kong island, let alone the new territories, would be absolutely enormous and will continue for a long time there. so, i think military intervention is really very top and would need a really attack by protesters against central government offices, the pla itself and other things, which beijing couldn't ignore. but i think that's a long way down the road as we stand at the moment >> all right sir jonathan, we'll pick up the conversation, talk more about the trade war in our next segment. jonathan fenby, chairman of the china team from ts lombard. one of the other big stories today in europe, fiat chrysler and psa have told staff they will sign a binding merger

agreement in the next few weeks, according to reuters and italian newspapers the reports quote from internal memos which describe how more than 50 people in nine separate working groups are focused on details of a final deal. the tie-up would create the world's fourth largest automaker. so it looks as though this deal is actually going to go ahead. the two together would create the fourth largest automaker in the world, and certainly, it has been in discussion over the last couple months, but it wasn't initially just the psa who are having talks with fiat chrysler. originally there was renault and the prospect of renault/nissan also entered talks with fca, but that seemed to be nipped in the bud by resistance from the french government. >> certainly executives from both firms saying to cnbc over the summer that the french government was the obstacle toll that deal going through, whereas when we first started hearing details about this, again, cnbc reporters hearing from executives at both these companies, they didn't expect those kinds of obstacles

and of course, the french government, we've seen this again and again the last few years, has got involved in the cross-border m&a deals that have involved big, national champions. it's going to be interesting to see whether the regulators, whether the french government at some point get involved and more publicly talk about their views on this. >> world reminding viewers as well that the french government's also has a stake in puget, a 12% stake in psa, a 15% stake in renault, but perhaps the key difference is that renault had the added complication of the existing alliance with nissan that has also come into question as well, given the very weak performances at both of those two automakers over the last couple of months their earnings have really declined relative to the rest of the automaker. but coming back to this deal, analysts out there are pretty positive they see lots of upside for fca stock. you've seen a nice rebound, but mostly fiat chrysler there's big potential for synergies. i was reading a note by

evercore, the research analyst, saying the 3.7 billion synergies the two companies have announced they expect to be on the lower part of estimates. in fact, they could achieve more of that, to the tune of perhaps 2% to 3% of their overall combined revenue so certainly makes a lot of sense from a geographic standpoint as well. >> sticking with m&a, charles schwab will acquire td ameritrade in an all-stock deal, creating a new giant in the brokerage space with some $5 trillion in assets under management it comes, of course, as retail brokers are being put under a lot of pressure from disruptors in that space that offer trading commissions of near 0% so, this, of course, one way that they can try and keep their costs lower. shares in td ameritrade jumped more than 7.5% on the new of the deal that's expected to close in the second half of next year charles schwab, meanwhile, closed more than 2% higher. and one other big deal we've been watching this week. shares of tiffany & co. closed the session more than 6% higher

after reaching a deal with luis vuitton owner lmh for $16.2 billion, marking the french luxury group's biggest acquisition ever lvmh's finance chief said they will take the u.s. jeweler off the public market and will invest directly in its products. in an interview with reuters, the ceo said that tiffany is an american icon which is now going to become a little french, too >> this deal-making activity was a positive signal for wall street yesterday, yet again, new record closes across the three majors, mostly led by tech stocks yesterday nasdaq closing up north of 1%. the positivity in wall street, however, didn't necessarily translate into europe. and you can see behind me, there is quite a lot of red on the heat map, despite a strong start to the week yesterday. we had stoxx 600 end yesterday up north of 1% a strong rebound and again, yet again, the trade-sensitive sectors basic resources had a good start to

the week yesterday, some of the chip makers as well. but overnight sentiment has turned a little bit to the down side remember, we did get some reports out of the world trade monitor signaling there has been a decline in volume of world trade for the month of september. so, despite the optimism of the prospects of a phase one trade deal, looking at the numbers, it does show a deep decline in activity across the board, so that obviously is going to have an impact on companies with exposure to trade. stoxx europe 600 down about 0.2% this morning let's talk about the individual indices to get a further look at the picture, and you can see all of them are trading in the red ftse 100 also on the back foot, trading below 7,400 now, down about 0.1% miners, banks also coming under a bit of pressure. the market is closely watching the polls into the december 12th general election the latest icm poll's showing a narrowing of the differential betweenatory and labor parties

both released their manifestos now. so that's something to watch xetra dax in germany also trading on the back foot, down about 0.3% this is a group we're watching closely. yesterday that stock was down about 6% on broker downgrades. remember, the macro isn't very positive for germany now either. cac down about 0.2%. one of the big movers yesterday in the french index was lvmh it was up 12% on the news of its tiffany acquisition. today a bit more muted, though we're up about 1% only and also, we mentioned renault/psa -- rather, the psa deal if you look at the stocks today, psa is only up about 1%, so a bit of a muted activity overall amongst european indices now, talking about the sectors, right at the bottom we've got travel and leisure down 1.6% again, this is a complete reverse of what we had yesterday. this was the best performing basket, up 2%, now giving back some of those gains, if not all of them. banks also trading slightly on

the back foot. we see a bit of a bid for fixed income overnight obviously, that's very sensitive to what's happening, interest rate markets, autos as i mentioned coming in slightly on the weaker side this morning then up top, defenses, real estate up about 0.2%, then financial services, the exchanges, lots more going on in that space with the overall potential deal activity. we'll be talking more about that on the show. that sector is up almost 0.2%. coming up on the program, hashing it out over the phone. top u.s. and chinese negotiators hold a call to discuss trade as investors continue to look for clues about that u.s./china trade deal i'm a regular in my neighborhood. i'm a regular at my local coffee shop and my local barber shop. when you shop small you help support your community - from after school programs to the arts! so become a regular, more regularly.

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welcome back to "street signs. the federal reserve chair, jerome powell, says the u.s. central bank remains strongly committed to its 2% inflation target it's a signal that rates are unlikely to rise any time soon powell said the fed will not permit a downward drift in inflation but that low expectations make it tougher for

the central bank to prop up the u.s. economy meanwhile, global trade contracted in september, according to new data from the cpb world trade monitor, a reverse to an upward trend in recent months. the u.s. and china had the biggest impact on the figures, as you might imagine, and trade tensions between the two countries negatively impacted the global supply chain. some pretty stark numbers there. meanwhile, top u.s. and chinese trade negotiators held talks over the phone earlier today, according to the chinese commerce ministry. u.s. trade representative lighthizer, steve mnuchin and liu he discussed core issues in a phase one trade deal jonathan fenby with ts lombard speaking of phase one, i think most people forget that the reason talks fell apart earlier this year was over enforcement because the chinese side didn't want to write into law any of these binding commitments.

how will they actually enact enforceability this time around if china still are being reluctant on that front? >> well, and they put off a lot of those kind of thorny issues, too, a potential phase two, which may never, of course, come to pass. i mean, the enforcement is the big issue. we had china saying it will increase penalties for intellectual property infringement, but how is that going to be enforced is it going to be by chinese courts, which the americans might not have much faith in that remains really a black box, an open question. >> actually, i want to ask you about that, because there is announcement on sunday saying that the chinese government were introducing a document to call for the protection of intellectual property. do you see this as a concession, or is it just something, you know, easy that they can throw out there without actually delivering on the enforcement side >> well, until we know exactly what it consists of, and as you say, how it's going to be enforced, we don't really know

there. but it's something that the chinese have talked about for some time now. they see protection of intellectual property for chinese companies as being part of the development of the economy, moving up the technology chain and so on so, it's a concession, but it's something they had in their back pocket already and bring out when they're ready to do so. >> jonathan, we sit here in london, we read statements from the chinese government, we read statements from the white house, we read statements from commerce department, we read analysis from people like you you actually talk to people over there. you have a team working on this. what is this phase one deal going to look like i mean, what's it actually -- you know, give me a list on your fingers of one hand -- what's actually going to change >> it will be agricultural products -- american exports it will be something on intellectual property, for sure. it will be some general words about we want to go on talking and most important from the

chinese point of view, it will be some kind of, how vaguely worded, i don't know -- that's what's being negotiated -- some kind of sign that trump will roll back at least some of the tariffs or not implement them. >> in terms of timeline, is this going to happen this year, or could you just not answer that question right now and if there is to be a secondary phase of agreements, is there any incentive for beijing to make that happen between now and early november next year? >> this is a kind of, one of the longest running soap operas that we've had internationally for some time, so as we've learned over recent months, any kind of timeline is almost impossible to predict. but i think it's quite likely we won't get anything until the early part of next year, and beijing will then take it very, very easy, to put a polite term on it, to move to anything more.

they will be seeing everything next year, obviously, in the context of the u.s. election and how electoral pressures will give them some kind of advantages >> want to ask you about the case of huawei, because the u.s. keep granting exemptions for u.s. companies to keep dealing with huawei. isn't that a perfect illustration of how difficult it actually will be for the u.s. to cut off a u.s. companies from the chinese supply chain and also vice versa? >> absolutely. that's what's -- we've got the trade war, if you like talk about agriculture and other goods, energy, perhaps, and so on then you've got the tech war beside it. and the way that so many american companies are involved with the chinese market, the chinese domestic market, and certainly don't want to give that up, that is a very, very big factor which has been made clear by huawei. >> and doesn't make the situation any easier at all. as you say, longest standing soap opera. >> not at all. >> jonathan fenby for joining

us, chairman of the china team at ts lombard. also coming up on "street signs," christoph boschan joins us to talk about brexit and m&a in the space (vo) the flock blindly falls into formation. flying south for the winter. they never stray from their predetermined path. but this season, a more thrilling journey is calling. defy the laws of human nature. at the season of audi sales event. looking to simplify your skin care routine without sacrificing results? try olay total effects. one dose provides more vitamin b3 than 50 cups of kale and improves 7 key areas of visibly healthy skin. try olay total effects.

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welcome back to "street signs. >> i'm jerooumanna bercetche an these are your headlines. alibaba shares close 6.5% higher in their hong kong debut, a vote of business confidence for the chinese territory and its turbulent politics the european rally takes a pause as investors look for clues on the progress of the u.s./china trade deal, and top officials from both sides discuss a phase one agreement by phone. and a deal could be on the way. automakers fiat chrysler and psa are reportedly close to sealing a merger agreement and have told employees that a final one could happen within weeks. shares of the lse group trade higher as shareholders get ready to vote on a $27 billion

takeover of refinitiv. well, after another positive session for wall street, record highs mostly led by the tech space, overnight we saw sentiment take a nose-dive, somehow. and you can see that in europe the stoxx 600 is trading on the back foot to the tune of 0.25%, and the rest are in the red, with the exception of the ftse 400, inching into the green, trading slightly above that flat line, but yet again, you can say muted activity, and this after yesterday's strong gains of about 1% for the uk index. and of course, all eyes are on those polls into the december 12th general election. xetra dax in germany down about 0.3% and yet again, the activity has been muted compared to other indices in europe on back of the weak macro data. yesterday we had somewhat

disappointing numbers, particularly when it comes to the backlog of orders, so that's been hanging over the german index somewhat, the macro in addition to individual microstories this was a stock that dropped quite a lot yesterday, also industrials under pressure today. and cac also down 0.2% some of the big movies like yesterday lvmh trading on the back foot and all eyes on puget to see whether that stock would react well to news of the potential merger going ahead between psa and fca in coming weeks, according to the reuters report ftse in italy also trading down about 0.1% switching to the currency space, euro continuing to trade sideways but around the 1.1020 mark, slightly firmer versus the u.s. dollar, but again, this range of 1.10-1.11 has been holding up pretty well and we had slightly disappointing pmi numbers last week

that's capping how much the euro can rally from here. the dollar/yen trading just shy of 109, not much movement overnight. and the sterling, slightly softer, again tracking polls into the general election, looks as though the advantage that toys had over labors has come in somewhat with the latest icm poll only pointing to about a nine-point lead, and that's impacted the pound somewhat. so, that is the picture for currencies, quite sideways activity, save for sterling there. let's look at u.s. futures i mentioned, a strong day for tech stocks yesterday, also a lot of deal-making activity, particularly in the financial space. so with charles schwab buying td ameritrade, obviously, that's led to a big bounce in the latter td ameritrade up about 6%. big boost for financials and luxury as well, news yesterday of lvmh buying tiffany but the mood, as i mentioned, is a little bit more negative heading into today's session

we've got all three majors pointing to open up in negative territory. dow about 20 points lower, even though that index is through 28,000 yet again at a records high nasdaq also seen opening up on the back foot. one thing to watch out for later today, we get the u.s. consumer confidence numbers that will be a good litmus test ahead of a big retail week in the u.s. don't forget, it's thanksgiving. we've got black friday coming up as well as some key earnings to watch out for, too all of these will be good signals for the health of u.s. consumer well, shareholders in the london stock exchange will vote today on a proposed $27 billion acquisition of refinitiv the lse says a merger with the data firm will help it enhance trading across regions and currencies the ceo of cqs and former ceo of the lse told our colleagues in the u.s. that exchanges must offer more and more services if they're to compete successfully. >> by 2025, at current rate, we expect that fully 75% of

financial assets globally will be either american owned or chinese owned. and for the infrastructure industry, for the exchange industry, this points inthe direction -- i've been on public record saying that ultimately i think two, maybe three global infrastructure companies, global exchange companies, offering access to capital formation, to intellectual property, indices, data, clearing services, balance sheet services, collateral management on a global scale you cannot compete even regionally today if you don't offer global efficiencies. so, i think that points towards further consolidation. >> that was xavier ro lenklet, e ceo of the lse and christoph boschan is joining us this morning. we've got bme in play as well at the moment do you expect to see more consolidation in your sector

>> well, that is a constant thing under discussion on the european market. you know, our perspective is slightly different because we did pretty well over the recent years. we set up new services we modernized our infrastructure we expanded our data business. we connected new exchanges to our exchange in data network, and last but not least, we managed to grow the ebert margin up over 50%. so we feel well positioned in the market however, this discussion about merging and demerging, by the way, is part of every diligent management, so we also constantly think that through. >> do you worry about being left behind, though, if this wave of consolidation continues? and indeed, it's the methods indices that seem to be pushing ahead most aggressively. and you are another miffed index. >> what hides behind your question is the issue of

scalability of our business. >> right. >> and that is what is on everyone's lips here and actually, that bothers me a little, because i would always approach this question of potential mergers through the eyes of the customer and when you look at the issues, particularly such issues on our exchange, i wouldn't be so sure that they would be better off on a larger exchange. that's simply because of their smaller size >> right. >> they wouldn't simply make it to another national index. and in ours, they receive the full attention and all of the automatic etf replications, at least what our -- >> but christoph, is this about creating scale or is it about cost synergies and basically creating economies of scale and increasing profitability at a time where as a whole the index business model has been coming under pressure >> that is at least the explanation that is provided by the merging parties, yes. >> isn't there a question also, you know, you talk about the need for your customers to keep

things small and manageable and more appropriate to them, but of course, shareholders don't always listen to what the customers want. >> well -- >> of course they do in your role in your job, you see it essentially to argue on behalf of your customers against any offer that might come in is that how you work >> that is exactly the point the obligation of an exchange is a very simple one -- it is providing the issuer with the most possible visibility and the most possible liquidity. >> turning to another subject, the ipo landscape as a whole for europe has been pretty dry this year, but vienna not so much the case why do you think there's been so much activity on the austrian stock exchange >> yeah, true. after this large floating of baba two years ago, we saw actually the most active year in the last decade with three ipo this year only well, i think the austrian

investment story is a very attractive one the vienna exchange as well as austria in general provides access to a very interesting central and eastern european region where growth is still twice as high as it is in invest in europe and the outlook is also quite promising. >> can i ask you about brexit? the conservative government here in the uk and their party released a manifesto on sunday that essentially said a hard no-deal brexit at the end of 2020 is still very much on their agenda if they can't get a trade deal with the eu in the event of a hard brexit, i still cannot understand what happens in terms of the relationship between european shares traded in the uk and british shares traded in the eu. hopefully, you can explain it to me. >> well, the worst-case scenario is already there, and there you

can take the struggle between the union and swiss as a blueprint. >> okay, but with uk, it's vast in comparison. what happens if there's a hard brexit >> absolutely true it's of utmost interest also for us 60% of our auto flow comes from abroad and the vast majority of this originates here in the city. >> but would you actually be willing to provide regulatory approval in that situation because right now you mentioned the example of switzerland there's a problem -- >> that was actually was what our brexit preparation project, which is running for over two years now, was about, providing assistance in this transitioning of the london partners to the continent in setting up their subsidiaries on the continent, we are talking about subsidiaries, not only branches, and helping them keep their mission to life. that's our very, very vital responsibility these days. >> christoph, we'll leave it there and move back to british politics at the moment

christoph boschan, ceo of the vienna stock exchange joining us in london where he is for the day. the lead of the labor has far yewed to seven points, according to the latest icm poll support for boris johnson's conservatives fell one point, while jeremy corbyn's labor party rose two points. the uk will hold a general election in just over a couple weeks, and that will be largely focused for better or worse on brexit. >> well, you're going to have a very busy couple of weeks coming up then. >> looking forward to it if you have views about m&a in the exchange space, get in touch on twitter we're @streetsignscnbc and you can tweet us directly. also coming up on "street signs," will it be ho, ho, ho, or humbug this christmas we preview the crucial holiday retail season. stay with us

experts have called it the world's biggest heist, the most devastating jewelry theft in history.

german authorities investigating this break-in that left nearly hundreds of pieces of jewelry missing. burglars broke into a museum in dresden through a small grate and used an ax to smash a glass case filled with 18th-century pieces experts say it's impossible to calculate the precise value of the items stolen, but estimates put the total at over $1 billion. so far, no arrests have been made and consumer sentiment in germany no relation to that, i should say, is set to pick up in december, according to dfk the forward-looking index shows german shoppers are willing to spend over the holiday season, describing consumer sentiment levels as "highly satisfactory," despite that economic slowdown we talked about so often in the last few months. well, 2018, meanwhile, was the worst u.s. christmas shopping season since the financial crisis, as the crucial retail period heats up, steve liesman filed this report. >> reporter: will it be a bah humbug or a ho, ho, ho holiday

season the consumer looks in good shape to spend, but there remain major questions. the answer is critical now manufacturing capital investment slowdown in the economy means it's up to the consumer to power growth and last year was among the worst christmases since the financial crisis despite upbeat indicators going in, consumers stunned the retail industry last year, registering zero growth in november and a massive 2.3% decline in december analysts blame that on a stock market decline in the week before christmas, fed interest rate hikes and a brewing trade war. this year, consumers with near record low unemployment, high savings rates, decent wage growth and low debt service. >> 80% to 90% of the consumers spend their income, and that depends on employment. so, i think wage growth and employment growth are the keys to consumer spending, and the signals there remain quite

positive >> jack kleinhenz wrote "there is significant economic unease, but current economic data and the recent momentum of the economy show that we can expect a much stronger holiday season than last year." the nrf predicts 4.2% in holiday spending, more than double last year's rate, but there is concern about tariffs, business uncertainty and broader economic slowing, so the optimism is colored by last year's disappointment steve liesman, cnbc business news. meanwhile, calvin klein owner pvh has raised its full-year profit outlook after third-quarter earnings beat estimates. strong european demand for its tommy hilfiger and calvin klein brands boosted results however, the ceo said he expects current geopolitical volatility to remain a headwind the ceo emanuel cherico told cnbc that the group saw strong growth in europe. >> strength of the tommy hilfiger brand overall, it's 2.2

billion euro business there, and our calvin business, which is about half the size, also continue to grow into that so, we've saw, you know, double-digit or top-line growth there. >> but overall, it's been a mixed quarter for u.s. retailers with discounters such as target and t.j. maxx boasting strong performances however, department stores like macy's have come under pressure as consumers opt for value in an increasingly competitive space let's get out to brandon fletcher, senior analyst from bernstein, who joins us down the line thank you very much for waking up so early to speak to us what are the tea leaves out of this earnings season telling you? because as i just said, it has been mixed so far. we had very weak results out of kohl's, the stock down 18% on the day, home depot, jcpenney also weak, but then target completely blew through expectations to the up side. what are these signals telling you so far >> yeah, well, thank you for having me. one of the things that's

remarkable for us is that the strategy differences that cause one retailer to win or lose are still the dominant effect. while it is important to see what consumer attitudes and sentiment are, one of the things that always drives retail is that consumers are deciding which retailer's serving them better and the dominant play thus far has been to find ways that you can have a differentiated price and assortment position. so, what can you do to have a special assortment but at relatively good price. and what target has done brilliantly and others have not, and certainly in some of the apparel spaces, is create their own private label. and private label items are cheaper because they don't have to pay someone else to do the brand and the marketing, but it also provides remarkable value if they get the assortment right, which target does very well with its own team of buyers that are doing what a design shop bop do just from the midwest, as opposed to new york or milan or someplace else, and that's been a very powerful strategy and we think will continue through the holidays. >> and brandon, reading between

the lines, then, what you're saying is it's not as simple as saying that the discounters are doing well and your traditional department stores are not doing as well because it's not just about price competition here, it's also about their logistic capabilities and to your point, target has also transformed their business model over the last year and one of the things that they introduced is same-day shipping, that's benefited them directly because they're shipping directly from stores as opposed to third-party distributors. is that what you'repointingto here, that logistics may play a big difference in how these companies are performing >> yeah, there's definitely a key opponecomponent to in-store logistics. mostly we think about logistics as trucks on the road, and that business hasn't changed a whole lot. what has changed for target and for some others -- we see walmart and kroger working on this as well -- is can you pick the items that people want from the stores, because the vast majority of items that people want are already in the

stores -- the long tail is the long tail for a reason people don't usually want to shop at it often if you can simplify those items and hand it to them -- which turns out pickup is far more dominant than delivery in suburban, which helps target, then you end up with a relatively economic basket importantly, if it's grocery-heavy, which takes a lot of labor for not a lot of dollars, that doesn't work that great. target benefits in a strange way from not being that good at grocery. and so, its economic returns for picking items from store is frankly a lot higher than some of its competitors it doesn't mean that we don't like the other players like walmart or like kroger, because we think they can take share with the same strategy, but department stores and old mom-and-pop grocery stores, which have 20% of the share of grocery in the united states, i don't really understand how they're going to survive too much longer. >> brandon, one quick final question from me as well i wanted to ask you big picture, take a step back has the era of millions of americans going out onto the

streets at this time of year to buy things for friends and family, has it almost ended? >> we do think that kind of the holidays past, the ghosts of holidays past are not going to be with us anymore retailers used to work hard to create event space shopping and they would use price advantage as a reason to get you into the stores, and that's almost entirely shifted we used to have a very clean and crisp notion of what a black friday was but now it doesn't necessarily occur on a friday at all in fact, half of our covered retailers already have some sales of some variety out, and we're not even sure it leads retailers into the black, meaning they used to make profit at this time because of the higher values on the higher price point items, but the markdowns are so severe that we think the retailers are probably bleeding red through most of this period of time and consumers have shifted from an events-based shopping trip, where everybody gets everything in one big trip to picking a

couple of items here and there and choosing the best deals they can from online or from in store, in a true omnichannel way, and that's really changed the holiday's nature. >> brandon, we'll leave it there. thank you for joining us happy thanksgiving brandon fletcher, senior analyst from bernstein. a u.s. federal judge has ruled that former white house counsel don mcgahn must obey a subpoena order from the house of representatives. congressional lawyers have insisted he should testify about president trump's efforts to block an earlier investigation into russia's election interference back in 2016. this latest ruling represents a resounding rejection of trump administration claims that senior officials cannot be compelled to answer questions from congress. nbc news colleague tracie potts is joining us live from washington, d.c. and tracie, why does this ruling matter in the context of the impeachment inquiry and further hearings >> reporter: well, it's huge because not only don mcgahn and the russia investigation, but now others like former national security adviser john bolton and other current and former white house employees have tried to

avoid congressional subpoenas in the impeachment inquiry. but this judge's ruling says, literally, presidents are not kings, and they cannot block individuals like don mcgahn or like john bolton from testifying what she said, though, is that once they are in that seat, they can claim executive privilege to avoid answering certain specific questions that may compromise executive privilege, but they can't just not show up is essentially what she said. now, the justice department is already gearing up to fight this, to ask the judge to either stay, hold her own ruling or ask an appeals court to do so, but this comes, of course, right in the middle of impeachment hearings, which we thought had wrapped up, but now lawmakers have told us that there are others that they want to hear from, and those others may include people who did not show up under congressional subpoena. so they may now have more legal

weight to compel that testimony. >> busy time for you, tracie busy time for people up on the hill generally tracie potts from nbc news, thank you so much for joining us. as the impeachment hearings continue to rumble on in the background, let's take a look at how markets are faring this morning. three major indices opening up slightly in negative territory after another very strong performance yesterday with the tech sector doing very well. and remember, this week is going to be a very big week for the retail space, as we've been discussing on the show it is thanksgiving week, but then we also have some retailers reporting as well. it will be a good litmus test for the u.s. consumer. but that is it for "street signs. i'm joumanna bercetche. >> and i'm willem marx stay with us [♪]

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it is 5:00 a.m. at cnbc global headquarters and here is your "five at 5:00." a regard rally in the stock market rolls on after short stints on the sidelines, the buyers are back in business. helping stocks hit some new record highs, some $56 billion worth of new deals being sealed this week alone. talk about a holiday appetite for some deal-making there more progress on trade talks top officials holding yet another key phone call overnight as the december 15th deadline for tariffs looms. and a baba boom! hong kong-listed shares in the chinese e-commerce giant sgi