and the ongoing legal woes of com makers and tech giants investors had an awful lot to digest. here watching the news from but and of course the latest is always available on our website d w dot com and then i'll frame but and see very sick. little. sleep. carefully. simply. to begin to.

discuss the a. lead. subscribe to the documentary i want to. cut the i. what a wild year a trade war breaks out between the world's top two were khana means fears beginning to grow of a global economic slowdown. the break the chaos continues. and one corporate scandal after the next. white hot juicy burgers could help resolve a u.s. government shutdown. and we get out out crystal ball to

see if the next year is going to be any better or worse could it be the year of the crash. i've been physical and let's do business i was having such a chilled christmas then the stock market roller coaster ride began ever since global equities have been zigzagging towards the end of the year with dizzying volatility u.s. stocks opened higher keeping hope alive for a santa claus rally to spite worries about slowing economic growth the last two sessions have recovered some of the losses from what's been a bruising december germany's main index the dax put in a good showing today but the year as a whole saw an eighteen percent decline markets in asia mostly rose but there's not that much enthusiasm to tell you the truth. these last few days of the year of being typical for twenty eight team is a look back at what turned out to be quite a memorable year for global trade and the markets it was washington that threw the

first punch earlier this year the main trigger was u.s. president trump's decision to impose tariffs on chinese aluminum and steel. we want receptor cool mirror if they charge us we charge them the same thing. beijing reciprocated in what has become a tit for tat trade spat at the trump administration's ambitions for what it calls fair trade also targeted its allies including the e.u. canada and mexico these measures have the e.u. warning of a potential trade war it could escalate. to to a full trade war which would be bad for the whole world we are so interlinked in the global economy the message was clear the whole world would be affected but that didn't stop the trump administration from imposing and threatening more tariffs on its allies and china if they didn't respond to its liking.

meanwhile the e.u. has had its own drama brags that negotiations between london and brussels for an agreement on the terms of britain's exit from the e.u. have been on satisfactory. you know stands by this agreement intends to for a feed through is a certification that is not open for you to fish and we wait for the e.u.'s tough stance and squabbles in westminster have increased the likelihood britain could crash out of the block without a deal in march that would be disastrous for business i. know there. will be uncertainty on bragg's it and the tariff war has weighed on global trade and it has been catastrophic for the markets since january global equity capitalization has lost about seventeen trillion dollars. the stocks europe six hundred which tracks the continent's leading companies in seventeen countries is now set to post its worst year in

a decade the twenty eight thousand dip is said to be the worst year for the index only a pulse financial crisis plunge in two thousand and eight was worse. the worst performers include travel and leisure construction auto and parts and banks. the auto industry was a big bone of contention between washington and brussels the trumpet ministration wants lower terrace for u.s. made cars in the e.u. uncertainty regarding car imports caused investors to flee auto stocks and suing profit warnings by some carmakers did little to change investor sentiment but there's an even bigger loser on the markets the banking sector. apart from the worsening global macro economic outlook amid a trade dispute there was the current sea crisis in turkey and tied a monetary policy in the u.s. . no industry was immune tech giants the world's most highly valued stocks also took

a beating initially it looked like they were the exception. social media firm facebook suffered in the aftermath of the cambridge analytical scandal the revelation that millions of its users had their data harvested and used without their knowledge by cambridge analytical. the work of cambridge and a little is not equivalent to traditional marketing cambridge analytical specialized in just information spreading rumors compromise and propaganda the revelations dealt a blow to facebook's share price but it recovered in the summer which so apple become the first company to reach the market capitalization high of one trillion dollars. also followed a few weeks later it looked like the sector was immune to the market but that changed. the macroeconomic outlook and the trade spot affected tech both amazon and apple are down from their highs and facebook is struggling with another privacy scandal. it has been

a rough year for the markets and while investors may want to put it behind them twenty nineteen is not rosy. well i don't know if business reporters general jim alone and stephen beardsley have had a rough year but it's been a busy year that's for sure a lot of corporate scandals to talk about a lot of german corporate scandals to report on and a lot of german corporate stories that really scandals but really got people angry or frustrated or excited jamil what was your favorite well personally i would like to highlight of the buyer monsanto deal that was of course a sixty billion dollars strong deal that saw the world's biggest seed company merge with alert the world's largest pesticides company so you basically had a single entity controlling sixty percent of the world's proprietary seed supply and corning also a big chunk of a chunk of the market on farm data so that basically has a big impact on who farms aware what a big impact on food supply and i feel that that's something we should all take

seriously at the end of the day we all need to eat exactly and it was the biggest german foreign takeover and one of the biggest topics about time we're talking about food security which is huge not only in places like africa but all around the world stephen is this something. that we haven't reported on this year widely enough that we should have been i think there was actually something earlier this month that was easily overlooked by a lot of other stuff going on especially the braggs a negotiation and that was the eurozone financial reforms that were taken up by that you council what was on the table there were things like a common budget for these one thousand asians that share a common currency but not a common fiscal policy so common budget common finance minister and deposit insurance these were all seen as very important policy additions that can help strengthen the eurozone especially looking back at what happened to greece in two thousand and nine is to be something to shore it up and there was this great window that was seen with the election of across with medical with the ability for this franco german sort of engine to drive this policy change policy change through and

instead what happened was basically they strengthen the bailout fund the european stability mechanism and all the other stuff sort of got pushed as retained old and there is actually a huge debate between northern and southern european nations about sort of what they want the euro zone to look like because that's what happens to boring stories right they become way more interesting but yeah but you know it's so much more closer to europe right and i feel like this is really significant as well exactly we'll see what happens in twenty nineteen jamil we'll get back to you and stephen in a moment firstly to the united states where the partial government shutdown is said to continue into next year over three hundred thousand workers face unpaid leave which is why the owner of a burger joint in washington is trying to do his bit to ease the pain. what juicy burgers with melted cheese could they be beyond the to the current government shutdown the owner of this burger joint in washington d.c. thinks so he's handing out burgers to unpaid government workers with the aim of drawing politicians with the free food. we hope the politicians.

and you can sit over the ice. and have made this thing out and get these people back to work this isn't the first time the burger has handed out free food in a government shutdown during the last one in twenty thirteen the joint gave out fifteen thousand burgers in two weeks that almost put the owner out of business this time around he says he'll take it day by day. back to jenelle and steve and time to look into our crystal ball if you're wondering what this is it's more of a disco ball. like every feeling says about you got it so no dancing guys but some serious analysis ginnell starting with you what are we going to see happen in twenty ninety well there certainly have been a lot of fears and you know the word boom and bust of the phrase boom and bust cycle gets thrown around a lot but it doesn't necessarily have to be an immutable law so few seem to think

that a crash really is imminent even a few more a few more seem to think that a recession is coming but few really agree on where and where on the spectrum economic performance is going to find itself but what people seem clear on is that it's not likely to get better the international monetary fund has already said as early as october that global growth is set to plateau in twenty nineteen so talk of a recession in twenty twenty but twenty nineteen could that be the year of the crash stephen i think it's a bit overstated to say crash right i mean it's a very dramatic term and we've looked at the stock market sort of how volatile it's been recently it makes it easier to talk in terms of crash but what we've seen really is an overheated us economy that's really driven so much global growth maybe to its limit and now we're going to see is those waters receding and i think the real problem with a look at is what does it mean for those who haven't fully recovered from the real crash or the recession of two thousand and eight two thousand and nine that lasted until what doesn't fourteen i mean not everyone is really recovered from that and

now about to go. to be exposed again potentially so i think we are going to see lower growth but probably still growth throughout much of the year but at a time that the european central european central bank and other central banks don't really have the tools to fight a recession or a or a more rapid slowdown i mean they have strengthened certain mechanisms like return of this bailout mechanism the european stability mechanism they have strengthen things they check on the capitalization of banks a little bit more for example but there are still a lot of bad loans that are bad debt that's being held by banks and that is a huge concern you're absolutely right stephen busily thank you very much for gazing into our disco bowl to talk to his answer if you.

can stonewalled by his parents adopted by wolves this isn't the story you know. it's the story of mockery and it's a true more. says a seventy two year old spaniard who you know lives with fellow humans now establishing on his. next morning d.w.i. . warning. lol.

i'm not laughing at the gym well i guess sometimes i am but i stand nothing which is that the germans think feeds into the german culture looking at the stereotype the question that anyone think the future of the country that i don't blame. you don't seem to take it as grandma yeah. it's all that yeah. i'm rachel join me to meet the germans on the w. . post. how did you. discover going to discover it with close. to one hundred years ago the ideal of the bombs more relevant today than they were . to go. to college football. is

a way of shaping such. a. small part documentary starts in january thirteenth on t w. hello and a warm welcome to focus on europe i'm simply some of gonda today we're taking a look back at some of our favorite stories of twenty eighteen and that the people who moved us people who are working to improve their lives and the lives of the people around them here in europe they're fighting in their own way against the spread of aids and the prejudices that come along with the disease for the right to their home.