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tv   Street Signs  CNBC  November 29, 2019 4:00am-5:00am EST

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it's in my mom's basement. she's moved a couple of times, and it's in her basement. [music playing] good morning happy friday welcome to "street signs." >> these are your headlines. >> european stocks opened lower on the last trading day of november, but the stock 600 is still on pace to log its third positive month in a row. >> meanwhile, the hang seng closes 2% lower as hong kong prepares for another weekend of unrest after thousands participate in a peaceful thanksgiving rally to thank the u.s. for backing anti-government protests retailers get off to a weak
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start on black friday, despite shoppers already splashing out on deals with online u.s. holiday spending expected to top $140 billion and a software deal with japan's top supermarket operator, putting shares on cost for their best day since may 2018 well, good morning, everybody. welcome to "street signs." wall street was closed yesterday for thanksgiving, but asia was negative overnight we had the hang seng drop 2%, the weakest drop in three weeks. that spelled out the tone for europe you see behind me, there is a lot of red on the board. again, a lot of concern building about the possibility of phase one trade talks breaking down. this after president trump signed into legislation a law that supports the hong kong
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protesters, there has been somewhat of a point of contention between the two sides over the last 24 hours or so one of the reasons why we have seen declines in asian equities and as we're seeing now, stoxx 600 trading down the open was weaker. we recovered some ground in the last half an hour or so. so things are moving in the right direction for this last trading day of the month of november for the month, as we're talking about stoxx 600, up 2.8% we'll talk about the month end in a moment. let's talk about sectors, the individual breakdown of how things are looking and individual indices i should say. ftse 100, 7400 is where we're at, we're down 10 points, a tenth of a percentage point weaker worth bearing in mind, we have been talking a lot about the polling and the general elections. we had some weak retail sales numbers, consumer confidence numbers come out of the uk this morning. the weakest level since 20 13.
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something to bear in mind on this heavy shopping day of black friday today xetra dax down, weak german retail sales numbers, down more than 1.5% month on month for the month of october this after being flat the month before we weak macro hanging over the dax. cac 40, air france klm, close to the bottom, down 1.5 percentage points, downgraded to underperform by some brokers in italy, the ftse mib is down .2% negative tone really let's talk about the sectors, jumping the gun earlier, at the top, media up .4, retail up .25. heavy shopping couple of days ahead of us with black friday today, cybermonday on monday, coming up. and already the initial indicators out of the u.s.,
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adobe are pointing to online sales of more than $140 billion. so we'll see whether or not that transpired in the uk as well a topic we will cover in the show in the next 60 minutes. at the bottom, we have basic resources down .5 percentage point, shanghai composite weaker, basic resources down day today. and cyclicals, banks, down .4% moderately negative start to the day for european indices on the last trading day of the month. >> there are more major pro democracy protests planned for the weekend in hong kong after last sunday's local council elections precipitated a brief pause in the months of demonstrations overnight, smaller crowds celebrated president trump's decision to approve a new law designed to protect democratic rights in hong kong. our colleague emily tan has the latest details >> thousands gathered in the
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central business district last night for a thanksgiving rally, giving thanks to washington for the hong kong human rights and democracy act. and president trump signing that bill into law. they were flying the u.s. flag and carrying portraits of president trump and congressmen who supported the legislation. the organizer put the turnout at 100,000 with the police giving a more conservative estimate of 9,600. protesters say the passage of the bill and the district counsel elections are not the endgame and are urging for a continued fight with the hong kong people. it was a largely peaceful rally which ended with a brief confrontation with a man using a laser pointer. china has warned the u.s. of firm countermeasures saying their attempt to interfere is doomed to fail china's foreign ministry has summoned a meeting with u.s. ambassador to china, terry branstad here is the foreign ministry's response to trump's signing the bill into law. >> translator: we remind the u.s. that hong kong is part of china, and hong kong affairs are china's internal affairs, where
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no foreign government or force shall interfere. this act will only further expose the malicious nature of u.s. intentions to the chinese people including our hong kong compatriots and the chinese people will only stand in greater solidarity the u.s.' attempts are bound to fail >> as hong kong enters the 26th weekend of protests, the situation has remained largely peaceful in the past week. and in the leadup to the district council elections last sunday, which saw the pan democrats secure a landslide victory, taking majority in 17 of 18 district councils. i'm emily tan in hong kong, back to you >> talking about the 26th week of protests in hong kong, let's look back at how the hang seng index did for the month of november you see that for the month, it was down 2%, most of it actually happened today
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so the index has been remarkably resilient, despite the demonstrations and the protests that continue to take place in hong kong. you can see that things really flared up a week ago when the university siege happened. the alibaba ipo, initially that stock was up 12% the last couple of trading days. today, down about 2% that's one of the underperforming stocks on the hang seng index. that's a picture for the hang seng shanghai for the month of november, a lot of focus on china in the middle of these trade war and the discussions with the u.s for the month, down equal amounts at the hang seng, 1.9%. the data has been somewhat mixed for china, we had better trade data coming out last month, but that is also underpinned by weaker manufacturing sector, weaker industrial profits and, of course, further concerns
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about whether or not they can get this phase one trade deal over the line. but shanghai composite slightly weaker today, but down 2% for the month of november. that is in strong contrast with global overseas equities the stoxx 600 and the performance for the month, pretty positive. stoxx 600 up 3% for the month of november today we're trading slightly on the back foot, but we saw a big bounce in the last couple of weeks of november. mostly led by cyclicals as it emerged, data somehow appeared to be bottoming, even though at low levels, the pmis are still sub-50 for some major economies for germany in particular. there are signs that things may be stabilizing, especially if there is a trade truce in sight. so that has been the picture for the stoxx 600, quite a good month, and third month in a row that we see the stoxx 600 end the month in positive territory. we're joined by bill denning, the chief investment officer from waiverton
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investment management. thank you for being here i want to ask you, we saw the numbers for europe, good there, we saw the global figures that have been pretty positive for global equities. why are they so positive given that corporate earnings haven't been all that great. >> well, i think some of it is down to policymakers we had the shift in the summit from the fed, so they have been cutting interest rates a lot of people worried they would raise interest rates they have been adding to their balance sheet again, with repo activity and the short-term money market, the ecb firing on all cylinders. a lot of it comes down to policy easing you're right, i don't think the earnings have been there to justify it, and particularly the u.s. market, the valuation has become very extended and on 12 month forward earnings, it is about at 18 times and that is almost certainly too ambitious. i don't necessarily think you should be too bearish here, we're struggling to see what will volt the markets further up from here.
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>> we'll talk about the u.s. in the next segment i want to bring it back to asian market performance hang seng, i was interested in actually, i was doing the wall now, the -- for the month of november was only down 2%, despite all the process and all that happened today r you surprised how resilient that stock market has been? >> we are a little bit surprised. having said that, from what we hear on the ground, the city is getting on with life, some days you had bigger issues than others, days when schools were closed, et cetera. broadly speaking it sounds like it is acting normally. i've lived there for a couple of years. hong kong has overcome lots of things in the past i'm surprised the market hasn't taken a little more of a down trend. it is difficult to see quite how we resolve this. there is a real impasse and what the congress and now president trump in signing legislation around hong kong has done has sort of upped the ante a little
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bit. there used to be a thing where every year the people's republic of china had to get its most favored trading nation mfn was the great buzzword that came up every 12 months. and the market used to get nervous that we wouldn't get china wouldn't get mfn in the days before it joined the trade organization they created something positive for hong kong, a test to see if hong kong is genuinely independent. >> this new legislation, now an annual decision. >> exactly right exactly what i'm referring to. i think that does mean that, you know, that the stakes have been raised here. so i'm slightly surprised the hang seng hasn't been weaker the prc responded to this with some policy easing and you'll probably see more of that. as ever, there is a balancing act between greater levels of liquidity and uncertainty. >> how does this fit in your view into the context of
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u.s./china trade to have this legislation signed by the president this week, you've seen that angry reaction from the chinese authorities, do you manage to separate this as an investor? >> i think you have to, because there is a -- the whole issue around trade and the tariffs, i think on both sides there has got to be a desire to do something about that so there is an argument that says that the introduction of tariffs has had a depressing impact on certain parts of the economy. it had probably -- has had a negative impact in terms -- in terms of the prc's economy in my opinion. so the people's republic of china certainly i think is incentivized to do a deal despite the rhetoric trump needs a deal, he wants to be able to say the chinese have given him something in return for the tariffs, wants to say he'll declare victory and say he's done something great for america here and that's good politics on his part the economics is a bit dodgy, but the politics is very good. and whatever else you think of
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the president, he's proved himself to be a very adept politician over the past four years. the odds are they'll do a deal my own skepticism would be the impact of that deal on the global economy i think it is going to be pretty diminimus. >> want to take you it another market we don't talk about that often, the japanese index, the nikkei i was looking at your chart pack in preparation for the show, there was one table in particular that caught my attention. and that the valuation of the 18 largest real estate companies in japan is less than uber and lyft combined that is a remarkable statistic we just pulled it up for our viewers to look at as well what does that tell you about japanese valuations here and is it a market you want to get exposure to next year? >> i think japan is one of the most interesting markets out there. we think there is an interesting topdown story, so charts like that tell you there is a lot of valuation in japan away from the stock market
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if you are going back to 30 years, there was a period when it was alleged that the land around the imperial palace in tokyo was worth more than the entire state of california we have gone a long way from that i think that chart is just highlighting that as it values in japan are very depressed, look what is happening in corporate japan, you find a lot of companies doing the sorts of things we think tend to be additive to shareholders we have got -- we're significantly overweight japan in our global portfolios >> back to the conversation in a moment bill denning is the chief investment officer at waverton investment manage speaking of japan, the eurozone is now at risk of japanifiction. the company exhibited several similar symptoms, negative rates and the continued extension of quantitative easing. fitch says only further japanifiction could make it more vulnerable to prolonged stagnation, rising government
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debt ratios and downgrades it says greece, italy and portugal -- they are the economies that face the most risk. >> come on, get with it. pc culture coming up on the show, aon unveiled a restructuring for its uk division. we'll have more details for you after this break no matter what i wore, i worried someone might see my bladder leak underwear.
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so, i switched. to always discreet boutique. its shape-hugging threads smooth out the back. so it fits better than depend. and no one notices. always discreet. he borrowed billions donald trump failed as a businessman. and left a trail of bankruptcy and broken promises. he hasn't changed. i started a tiny investment business, and over 27 years, grew it successfully to 36 billion dollars. i'm tom steyer and i approve this message. i'm running for president because unlike other candidates, i can go head to head with donald trump on the economy, and expose him fo what he is: a fraud and a failure.
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welcome back to "street signs. corporate news for you ocado struck a deal. neither company has disclosed the financial details of the deal another company that we're looking at today, a spot of green on the board, aon shares are higher after a million pound restructuring plan for the uk business and power union officials say the overhaul will result in 4,500 job losses, but the german company still raised its outlook for 2019 off
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the back of the group's takeover of energy. our colleague joins us live from frankfurt with more details. any idea why the market reaction has been so positive to this restructuring announcement today? >> well, actually, everybody was waiting for some plan for end power because clearly this unit which they kind of took over together with energy was lost, making the uk market has been a very difficult market for quite some time. last year the uk introduced a price cut which led to already losses, challenging market environment, and so the question was more or less will they keep it, will they restructure it, or will they perhaps even sell it altogether when it came off the management with the energy deal. now we have a clear plan and that is something which most likely is going down quite well with investors
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so by 2022, the business should be profitable once again and generate 100 million pounds in ebid after some substantial investment in smart meter. that's the plan here the medium term, a lot of pain for that unit, up to 4,500 jobs are about to go. at the same time, of course, in eon is lifting its guidance, so that is positive as well they're saying now -- they're seeing adjusted ebitda of 3.1 to 3.3 billion euro for the year. and the adjusted net profit of 1.45 to 1.65 billion euro for that year. so essentially i guess eon as a share has been lagging the general dax environment. so it is only up by not even 4% here to date, where as the dax is up by more than 25%
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it couldn't -- it didn't go that well because clearly it is very defensive stock. but now with that energy deal, which passed regulators in september, they're the big oft infrastructure plan, energy infrastructure in europe and going forward that should be attractive investment also for investors now as their tackling all the problems they're having. with that, back to you. >> thank you so much for the details there. just to bring you some details from an interview involving the british prime minister boris johnson, going on at the moment. the prime minister saying that once again the national health service in the uk is not up for negotiation in trade talks, of course the opposition labor party has been very critical of documents that show conversations between uk trade negotiators and american counterparts that talk about things like drug pricing and the length of time for patents involving pharmaceuticals.
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johnson saying also that he's working on at least a dozen trade deals, the british government is, saying he's not sure quite exactly how many there are, but up and ready, saying some of them have been formalized talks under way with many countries. he says, of course, this is a very key issue for a lot of voters ahead of this december 12th election who are concerned about the possibility of a no deal brexit, that he says he sees no reason to go beyond the transition period deadline that is the end of december 2020 and if trade deals not agreed with the european union by then it would mean the uk leaves on no deal terms. wto terms. a look at the markets in the us us >> it is november 30th, 29th or 30th last trading day of the month. we're looking back at some of the key indices and how they perform for the month of november dow up 4%, second strongest month for this year. remember, back in june actually jumped 7%, but still very, very strong performance year to date
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up about 20% the dow keeps on doing well. of course, this, remember, that at the end of october the fed did cut rates for the third time and we did see a stabilization of the data somewhat in the month of november. that helped spur u.s. indices higher one particular index that outperformed is the nasdaq, tech stocks led the way in november up 5% for the many again, its best month since june, similar to the dow up about 5% that is the picture for u.s. equities in the month of november. >> let's bring back bill denning. let's look at the u.s. markets in particular over the course of this year. we have seen them pretty significantly improve. and yet we have not seen great corporate earnings what are the factors beyond the fed that you think might have been driving these higher? is it about consumer spending what are the things you're looking at. >> a couple things out there one, relative to the rest of the world, the u.s. is looking
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pretty healthy and in terms of the makeup of the market, we had a period couple of months ago when the so-called value stocks started to try and outperform the growth stocks if you look at the -- that's fizzled out and the kind of companies that investors are looking for in low growth world, a lot of them in the u.s that market composition is still letting investors back to north america. and the other thing is that it -- though it is outperforming one of your earlier guests said for ten years, there aren't many people who have been everweigben the united states market it has been an unloved bull market in the u.s. and in that environment, the market keeps surprising so i think those are some of the reasons for it. >> what about the earnings growth outlook we touched on that briefly in the earlier segment. the beginning of 2019, people are looking ahead to this year, expecting high single digit
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growth in eps and the reality has been low single digit if not negative what does it look like for next year and you to think people are overly optimistic? >> i think the numbers on a global level that we look at are basically a complete exact replay, deja vu all over again this time a year ago globally, investors were expecting -- analysts were expecting 9.5% earnings growth for the market globally we have now got that at about minus 1 for 2020 we're at plus 9.7. so i don't think it is going to end up at minus 1 a year from now. i think there have been head winds that may not repeat, china, strength of the u.s. dollar but i do think that, you know, i think the market knows plus ten next year is unlikely. so call it plus five. >> what is interesting, despite that, despite the minus 1%, stock markets are up 20% of the year, reaching record highs. is that because, again, looking at your chart pack, i thought there was another interesting chart, one of the biggest
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drivers of demand is corporate buybacks. >> absolutely. i think that's definitely helped the u.s. i think, don't forget, back in q4, 2018, we had a torrid time, global market down 10% in december from peak to trough so we're coming after a low base that's one of the reasons why the numbers look so good year on year you're right, they -- some of the things that have been supportive in going back to your earlier question, buyback is more supportive in the u.s. market than in other markets, though there is some support in other markets as well, but even in japan there has been some buyback. but corporate balance sheets are healthy, they can carry on doing what they have been doing, which kind of makes sense, to borrow money, buy back stock and shareholders are happy we might get a continuation of that but broadly speaking, you're right, i think without greater conviction about earnings growth next year, we struggle to see why the market should go up a lot from here. >> all right, we'll leave it there, bill denning, thank you
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for joining us bill denning, cio of waverton investment management. coming up on "street signs," the british prime minister boris johnson snubs an election debate focused on climate change. and complains when an ice sculpture is used as his stand-in. protesters gathering in one of europe's largest cities calling for urgent action to combat climate change ahead of the kickoff of the conference next week. it was sophie's big day. by the way, she's the next mozart. as usual we were behind schedule. but sophie's enthusiasm cannot be dampened. not even by a run-away donut. we powered through it in our toyota prius. because a star's got to shine, no matter what. it's unbelievable what you can do in the prius. toyota let's go places.
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welcome back to "street signs. >> these are your headlines. >> european stocks opened lower on the last trading day of the month. but the stoxx 600 is still on pace to log its third positive month in a row >> the hang seng closes 2% lower as hong kong prepares for another weekend of unrest after thousands participate in a peaceful rally to thank the united states for backing anti-government protests >> retailers get off to a weak start on black friday as shoppers begin their buying
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sprees with online u.s. holiday spending expected to top $140 billion. >> and ocado, the online grocer strikes a software deal with japan's top supermarket operator, putting shares on course with their best day since may 2018 well, the handover from asian markets was pretty negative overnight, as we have been talking about, hang seng down 2% in the session its biggest decline in the last three weeks. shanghai negative territory. again, the territory is gearing up for another weekend of protests and, of course, a lot of concern about the prospects of that phase one trade deal so the handover was negative to europe, across the board now, we have the four indices trading in the red. ftse 100 down 6 points, .1 below the flat line.
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we have rebounded somewhat in the last half hour or so, picking up pace here, moving towards positive 7410 where we're at. we were talking about okada, one of the top performers, up 12% after inking a deal with japan's supermarkets carrier but, again, the focus is very much on the general election and the polling ahead of december 12th xetra dax down, weaker numbers out of germany, weak for the month of november, down about 1.7% month to month versus flat the prior month. not a very good sign for the german consumer here and right at the bottom we have some industrials also lagging in line with the underperformance of asian equities. cac 40, one bit of green today on the board, up 1%. and the ftse around the flat line foreign exchange, it is somewhat muted activity sideways.
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euro trading around 110. we're dangerously close to breaking through that to the downside so you want to keep an eye out on that today, as some u.s. investors come back for the trading day. half day of trading in the u.s so watch out for that later. dollar is stronger versus the yen, only by a fraction. then, of course, sterling we're watching closely as well still hanging in around the 129 mark we dipped below that, but with the latest survey that came out, two days ago in the evening, we saw a balance in the pound to 129.30 so hovering around 129, looking for some direction before december 12th. now, i mentioned that u.s. are back today for a half day of trading. and the three majors are looking to open up slightly in negative territory. s&p, dow, nasdaq all seem lower. worth mentioning that dow is up 4% for november. nasdaq up 5% for the month of november so all things being equal, has
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been a strong month for u.s. stock markets. >> well, last night uk prime minister boris johnson skipped a televised debate on climate change and in his place the british broke off the channel for installed an ice sculpture perhaps not surprising, it melted under the studio lights the conservative party sent the former environment minister to stand in for johnson channel 4 news bosses said he could not participate because he's not a party leader. johnson's conservative party has sent a complaint letter to broadcast regulator offcom, they alleged broadcaster displayed political bias opposition leaders could agree that johnson had sought to avoid scrutiny, but they did also argue the best way for the uk to tackle climate change. >> we are one country in the whole world. what britain does on the world stage and in particularly -- particularly at the conference next year. >> i totally agree that the role
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that we play internationally is so important in this but surely you can see that's why it is so important we keep our seat at the european union table because we have led the way in europe on this, europe has led the world, that's how we got the ambitious paris accords through. and turning our back on the european union is turning the back on the best way of fighting the climate emergency. >> this is something we should be trying to find unity and common purpose on. >> protesters are gathering there in rome, you see them, calling for urgent action to combat climate change. they're preparing to meet in spain next week to discuss the issue. monday marks the start of the cop 25 in madrid in europe, the topic of climate change back on top of the political agenda the eu parliament recently declared a climate emergency while the new ecb president christine lagarde said she wants
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the central bank to include climate change policies in the mandate. we're joined by bjorn lomborg. thank you for joining us your book title is quite helpful for our viewers to understand your perspective in all of this. i wondered ahead of this meeting in madrid next week, do you think people are getting the wrong priorities when it comes to climate change? >> well, there is a couple of ways you can see this. climate change is clearly an issue, but we're both tackling it badly and we have been for the last 30 years, that means we're spending lots of resources achieving fairly little for climate and we're also so worried about global warming that there is a real risk that we end up underworrying about many of the other and possibly much more important issues of hunger and disease and obviously lack of nutrition, jobs and corruption and all these other things that most people around the world actually tell us are
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their most important priorities and the ones we can fix the cheapest. >> to you acknowledge it is government and energy firms that are the ones that -- entities can invest in changing the way that we produce and use energy and therefore them that have to take the lead on this? >> well, it has to be a political lead because fundamentally the problem is co2, we don't emit co2 to annoy the environmentalists. it is a byproduct of a prosperous society what we need is to switch away from fossil fuel driven energy towards nonfossil fuel, and that's more costly that's why governments have to intervene. they can do it expensively by what europe has done right now, basically mandating we need to switch a lot right now that's typically fairly costly and has very little impact long-term on the global warming. if you instead focus a lot more on investing in green energy
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r&d, that is make the next generations of green energy so cheap everyone will want to buy them, you saw the problem for europe, but for everyone, and you saw it in a much cheaper way. >> i want to ask about cop 25. we have that coming up next week around 70 countries signed up for the paris climate accords in 2015, 100 cities and yet according to data, more than eight years we will have exhausted our remaining allowance for carbon emissions that's something you've written about immediately. even though countries signed up to the commitments in effect they're not actually doing enough to abide by them. do you think there should be an enforcement mechanism somehow introduced by the u.n. to force countries and cities to stick to the commitments? >> look, we have been trying the climate policy basically making promises that
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have not been kept trying to make them grander or trying to introduce an enforcement mechanism that can only be done if all other countries agree is probably not the way to go. fundamentally the issue here is it is going to be phenomenally costly if we don't innovate much cheaper green energy new zealand just -- the first country in the world not only decided they would go carbon neutral by 2050, but asked for their preeminent economic institute to estimate how much will this cost they found that if everything is done smartly, the cost will be 16% of new zealand's gdp by 2050 and if they do it badly, much more this clearly is not politically sustainable. you can do this for a round of applause right now, but, of course, when the regulations start to bite, you will get opposition as we have seen in france and many other countries. the issue is not to have bigger and bolder proposals, it is to
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have proposals that will actually work in the long-term and that has to be about innovation >> it sounds like you're talking about carrots rather than sticks i wonder on the corporate front, how do you incentivize and how have businesses been incentivized to invest in that green r&d, you talk about volkswagen looking at going emission free by 2050, what has driven them to that point and how can other companies be incentivized to do something similar? >> i want to point out, i'm not necessarily in favor of carrots versus sticks. i'm very much in favor of smart, efficient policy rather than inefficient policy this is going to cost money. but let's try to make it cost less money and be more effective to actually tackle global warming. for companies, the issue is as long as a lot of companies can say, well, we'll do this in 2050 or far away, it is easy to say, it is much harder to do, for some companies that don't
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actually emit very much, it is also very easy in a pr proposal. the reality is, if we have to get carbon neutral in the long run, we will have to have technology that is much cheaper because if we don't, it is going to be impossibly costly for a company and for nations to actually live up to the promises of 2050 and what will happen is when we get close to that, they will just sort of give up, just like we did with the promises in 1992, with the kyoto promises from 1997, and what we are likely seeing right now with most countries actually not living up to their paris promises. >> bjorn, thank you for joining us, president of the copenhagen consensus center. switching over to the uk, consumer confidence remains at a six-year low in november according to a gfk survey. research shows consumers were concerned about brexit and next month's general election
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gfk warns a hung parliament could be very damaging for consumer confidence. and adobe has forecast that online holiday shopping revenue in the united states is forecast to top $140 billion this year. the firm predicts consumers will spend $7.5 billion today alone the national retail federation expects more than 165 million people to shop over the full five-day thanksgiving weekend. cybermonday sales are expected to hit a new record after record let's bring in hugh fletcher at thompson commerce. thank you for joining us let's talk about black friday in the uk and what that's looking like here. is it shaping up to be a good year for you in. >> a massive day today 4 billion pounds online spend we're predicting, up from 3.5. >> and what is the major catalyst, do you think just that more companies are signing on to do black friday, more consumer awareness, more
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competition in the space what is it -- why has this become a big phenomenon right now? >> i think more companies par taking in it, more people wanting to shop online, great deals as well, so people are eager to spend. >> i'm surprised your outlook is so positive. we were just talking about consumer confidence. according to latest numbers in the gfk, confidence is at the lowest level since 2013. there are questions about brexit, the usual upcoming december 12th elections, people are concerned about their wallets, about the trajectory of real income. why are you positive the uk consumer is going to show up today? >> i think you're right. normally the brexit challenges, the impending election would create a load of uncertainty but i think black friday is anomaly. black friday period is a period where customers want to get the best deals, the perfect time to be shopping right in the leadup to christmas payday today as well so great day to be spending. and i think to be honest, things like brexit is really filling
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consumers with a lot of fatigue. they want to get the deals done. they want to purchase for christmas and for once they'll put aside some of the worries about what is going to happen in the future and do some really big spending >> that's one side of the equation, consumers. has your research found that this focus on black friday is actually not great over a slightly longer snapshot because you see lower sales, lower revenues in let's say october and november leading up to this moment >> not necessarily i think what we find is lots of retailers now for them black friday is the absolute biggest peak, as much as 13% of the income comes from black friday itself it is really important they have a great black friday period, that sets them up for the rest of the year. if they don't have a black friday period, it could be a challenging year lady for them. >> peak? so black friday is one peak, a firm like amazon with prime day, alibaba with singles day how do these marquis events,
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these focus days impact both consumer spending over the course of the year and also the revenues for the big retailers >> it changed consumer spending so from what traditionally we used to have around the peaks in boxing day sales, july sales, those are now moved. as you mentioned, amazon prime day huge not only for amazon and other organizations, so i think in the states, 26% increase for other retailers on amazon prime day. black friday the same. amazon accounting for 26% of all online sales through black friday the other retailers in the market having huge days as well. >> do you think consumers are becoming more savvy, though in that false advertising is a real thing. and this is a study that they referenced yesterday, published research showing that only 4 out of 83 products it tracked were cheaper on black friday in the six months before and after. a lot of these deals are looking good on face value, but if you wait a couple of months, you'll get a similar deal and another
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sale. >> i think there are some unscrupulous retailers out there who have not shown the reality of the deals they're offering we would say to all consumers, one of the key things is to be prepared so make sure you do your research in advance. look at what those prices were in the past. there are sights like price runner and camel camel camel which allow you to track the prices be prepared. make sure the deals you're looking at on black friday are real deals >> you have that survey here in the uk this week similar surveys elsewhere including in france. legislation in france introducing a bill that will punish companies for that kind of what they're calling false advertising. do you think there is a role for regulators, a role for government when they see firms making claims that don't really stand up to scrutiny >> i think absolutely, if there are discounts out there in the deals that have been shown and promoted aren't real, absolutely there should be legislation stopping that. they have to take control of spending, make sure they do the research, find out the best
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deals and get some great deals on black friday. >> thank you for coming in appreciate your time hugh fletcher, global ahead of consultancy and innovation at thompson commerce. a lot more coming up on "street signs. hadley standing by live from at be the abu dhabi grand prix. >> right it is day one of the grand prix here the ten year anniversary of abu dhabi's venture into formula 1 here we'll have more on some of the guests we spoke to earlier today including the ceo of mclaren racing and bob johnson, founder of bet that's all coming up
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well, the french president emmanuel macron says he will not apologize for his decision to call nato brain dead after meeting with nato secretary-general there. macron said his remarks should focus members' minds on the issues that confront the military alliance including defense budgets and relations with turkey. at least 45 protesters have been shot dead in iraq by
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security forces after they entered and torched the iranian consulate. t hundreds have been killed and thousands wounded during the uprising iraqis are calling for better living standards and end to corruption as well as growing iranian influence. the retail part of the upcoming saudi aramco ipa has been oversubscribed according to leading managers orders reached $10.2 billion by thursday's deadline. the oil giant is set to sell off 1.5% of the company, that could make it the largest listing in history, valuing at $25 billion. institutional investors have until the 4th of december to place their bids aramco plans to publish the final price the following day, around a week before trading begins ♪
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well, the 2019 formula 1 season enterz the final round today at the circuit in abu dhabi, the tenth year on the elite racing calendar. lewis hamilton has little to play for having already secured the formula 1 title. hadley joins us live from abu dhabi. it seems like a shoo-in for hamilton for people there, is it just a day of glamour and fun and good music to watch out for >> glitz and glam, 60,000 people expected here in abu dhabi over the next three days. this is the tenth anniversary of the start of the abu dhabi grand prix we got helicopters flying overhead, yachts in the harbor behind me. glitz and glam at its finest nobody does excess quite as well as, you know, the gulf states manage to do it. not only are we talking about race days, talking about fans of the f1, also talking about all the business in the network, it
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goes on the sidelines of a race like this one. earlier this morning, we not only had the chance to catch up with the ceo of mclaren racing, but we got a chance to catch up with the founder of black entertainment television, bob johnson. i talked to him about president trump, he gave the president an a plus on the economy and that ignited a three-day media firestorm in the united states surrounding his comments let's listen in to whathe had to say about where president trump stands today >> and you look at consumer confidence, you look at job growth, you look at unemployment for african-americans and women, and you look at wages beginning to show some movement upward, i think you still -- i still stand by that position, absolutely. >> were you surprised by the media storm that came -- that met you? early morning in paris, you had no idea, you were on vacation. >> i thought it was going to be a story that would go into the
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night. i'm not surprised. there is a tendency in the media, both conservative side and liberal side, that if an african-american speaks up in a positive way about something good that the president is doing, that in itself is a story. >> a bit of context on who bob johnson is he's the founder of black entertainment television, someone who since the early '90s has been a major player inside the beltway in terms of the political situation. he's been a consigliere to various presidents, understanding what black america is asking for and looking for in a presidential candidate i asked him whether or not he sees a winner or someone who can take on donald trump in 2020 from the current presidential field and he said, you know, honestly, he's not seeing someone he thinks that can actually win a general election. there isn't a candidate, he said, that is middle ground enough listen to what he had to say about the entry of mike bloomberg into this race
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>> mike is willing to spend a lot of money to -- >> he's going to have to. >> to make the case. more importantly than the money is his narrative as to exactly what he's going to do and how he introduces himself particularly to the african-american community i think he's got to address the stop and frisk issue that was under his leadership when he was mayor of new york city and i think he's got to let the african-american community know that he identifies with their issues, something that he's identified with it to some extent in new york and he's been positive on gun control and climate control and other things like that that benefit all of us. >> so essentially bob johnson saying, this is an election that is president trump's to lose doesn't see anybody right now in the democratic field that he feels can take on the president in 2020, still giving him an a plus on the economy. essentially saying when it comes to president trump's leadership style, he's just such an emotive guy that he was telling me
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earlier, this is his style and unfortunately in terms of kicking the can down the road on any significant issue whether it be foreign policy or domestic policy or the economy, it is really tough to do that when you have such a visceral and emotive man in the white house guys >> sparks up a lot of emotions let's not forget, president trump is gracing us in the uk as well, so we have to watch out for that next week but for now, let's take a quick look at u.s. futures u.s. coming back from a one-day holiday, thanksgiving. and this is a picture for the three majors, all pointing slightly negative, coming off a strong month in november that's it for "street signs" today. >> thanks for watching "worldwide exchange" is coming up next. robinhood believes now is the time to do money.
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it is friday, i'm here at cnbc global headquarters here is your top five at 5:00. putting a rally on hold, maybe stocks looking to end the week on a down note after more record closes futures, they're off 47. no post turkey snooze here numbers already coming in this morning on how much money you probably spent in the last 24 hours. going dark why that photo of that stuffed turkey and your cute nephews you posted on facebook, they had trouble going viral, they had trouble. the cybertruck troll no love for elon musk, grands from pepsi to lego offer their take on tesla's latest creation. it is your question of the

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