talking about supply disruption in brent. >> so it goes higher. >> brent's higher. >> brent is higheraying disruption pushes brent more high. >> sorry. you're right. >> and wti continuing to suffer from supply issues. what brian is talking about ultimately there is a supply disruption bid to brent that's existed a long time. the question is what has happened to that bid over the last 18 months when we've had a lot of issues? part is iran and part is other supply. i think that spread goes to 15 bucks by the summer. i agree with brian. i don't know if yemen is going to be that linchpin. no question that brent is what you follow. >> wti and brent move higher, would we continue to see that fit's a brent issue? >> i think you could see both move higher. that spread will move higher. both will be in tandem. i guess the only thing that would change that if that spread would compress is possibly if we decrease or get rid of the export rules here in the u.s. then that spread would compress. so if you have a supply disruption in middle east, which actually causes the u.s. to allow experts of oi

brent higher by 5.60%. nymexwti up by 6.5%. oil surging as saudi arabia and is allies have launched an offensive against shiite rebel targets in yemen. the saudi coalition announced they began bombing overnight. elliott gotkine has all the details. what is the latest and why are thise saudis getting involved now? elliott: even though the shia huttis were in control of the capital, they started marching down towards the port of aden. that would have given them control over yemen's main access to the sesa. it is strategically located for trade and for oil exports, given it is at the exit way to the red sea, and towards the suez canal. is concerned about yemen sliding more into civil war. th instabilitiese owing over and the possibility of an iranian the latest is the saudis happen bombing strategic locations, military bases. there was an air base not far from the airport which until recently was home to u.s. special operations. they evacuated last week. they have attacks the presidential palace according to report. there are many

more than 2% declines on brent and wti.h. >>> quickly focusing in on the worst performer in the dow this morning, that would be dupont. due to nelson peltz issuing yet another letter this morning to the company saying it's unfortunate that dupont has decided not settle the ongoing proxy contest. he adds that his firm trian remains open to realistic solution. david faber and jim cramer spoke to peltz about his battle with dupont in an exclusive interview thursday. here's what he said. >> the most efficient way to get rid of the $2 billion to $4 billion of excess corporate overhead, and it's mathematical and i can show it to you. the most efficient way is to break up the company. but i said that we have an open mind. if management can convince the board, and you've got to convince the entire board that they can achieve the metrics of the stand alone comps, whether it be on sales growth or margin if they can achieve those metrics and keep the company together, we're all ears. >> both sides digging in their heels. another famou

brent understood the technology well enough that that helped his friendship with steve. but it was a friendship bordered by, you know, a journalist source relationship. so steve called him friend, introduced him as his friend. but i think that, you know, brent was uncomfortable with that sometimes. >> it's interesting that on the one hand you have walter isa isaacson who was not close to steve jobs, but who jobs brought in at the end to give extraordinary access. then you have brent who walked a long journey with jobs but jobs kept at arm's length toward the end of his life. how much does that arm's length relationship they had toward the end of jobs' life influence the way brent remembers and expresses about jobs now? >> i think we learned a lot about brent's relationship with steve through the reporting of the book. we came to understand that steve had a close circle of friends. he had apple and his family. those were the three great priorities in his life. if you were outside of that, he would always have those three priorities in mind first. so he decided that he did

he was difficult for brent to work with.e ways, he may have been more difficult for brent's editors to work with. for brent, they talked about things a lot both for stories and outside of stories. they would talk regularly. he was an incredibly difficult person to work with on stories. he was very demanding about photography. he really wanted to be pictured for the cover holding a device because it was all about selling the device. that is when he would give you access. and that was it. he was difficult, but he cared about -- he cared that the look feel, and quality of the stories would be as good as the devices he was trying to sell. cory: that is the journalism inside -- side of that. the company is so interesting to everyone in the world of business who wants to find inspiration from the way steve jobs did thing and have the kind of success apple is having. i wonder when you look at the legend of steve jobs, what are the pieces you think are replicable? >> you know, it is interesting. there are so many books built around

we were quiet here in new york, but if you look at that brent/wti spread -- liz: exactly. >> brent camealmost $3, and we didn't move. and i've been kind of on the fence about how much lower we're going to go, and we've discussed that. i'm looking at $48-$55 to be the range, and after we came off so hard on the brent today, i thought we were going to follow all day, and we didn't. so that's telling me that spread has more room to come in, and unless we settle below $48, i think crude's going to stay where it is. the product, we still have some good support in the products, so, i mean, but watch that brent/wti spread, if that starts to get out of hand, we could see below $48 and work our way lower. you know, with the brent being off the way it was today and we held this there, i'm kind of skeptical about that. liz: okay. keith, one last word about warren buffett. i'm holding the shareholder letter, and even if you don't own berkshire, it is an important statement on american businesses. isn't it? because he owns 80 of them. now nine and a half of which are as big as fortune 500 companies.

brent off 1%. we're looking at 55.3 for brent.nd gold continues to be soft in and around the 1100 to 1200 levels. now the u.k. government declared victory. delivering the final budget he hailed britain as the come backcountry. >> the leader of the opposition confidently predicted we would fail. the shadow chancellor repeated that prediction last week but i can announce this to the house, the hard work and sacrifice of the british people has paid off, the original debt target in my first budget has been met. we will end this parliament with britain's national debt share falling. the sun is starting to shine and we are fixing the roof. >> we will be talking to him shortly in the program. >> another big story apple makes it's debut as a dow component. the iphone maker is replacing at&t that's been in the dow for a century. while apple's inclusion is a nod to the strength of the company's brand it's not likely to be a market moving event. it will be the fifth weighted stock in the dow and as we were discussing before the dow is a pric

brent crude the international gauge also trading at $53.84. the big concern of course has been the oversupply of oil in the markets. that seems to be weighing on oil prices in today's trade. >> thank you. if you didn't know the fed begins a two day meeting today on wednesday afternoon followed by janet yellen's news conference. the central bank is expected to drop the word patient from its statement. the fed will start hiking rates in june reflecting the improving u.s. jobs market. others don't see a hike before september at the earliest. joining us to discuss further is the managing director at hamilton place strategists. very good to see you and good morning to you. patience is a virtue but i have to say i'm getting bored of having to discuss that word in particular. do we focus too much on the rhetoric? should we just be focused on the data which aside from retail sales has been improving? >> i tend to agree on this we do focus a lot on the rhetoric and the wording but i think the fed also does have a communications challenge ahead of them.

in some ways, he may have been more difficult for brent sanders to work with -- brent's editors to work they really talked about things a lot, both for stories and outside of stories, they would talk regularly, but he was an incredibly difficult person to work with on stories. he was very demanding about photography, he always wanted to be pictured for the cover holding a device because it was all about selling the device. that is when he would give you access. that was it. he was difficult, but he also -- he cared that the look and feel and quality of the stories would be as good as the devices that he was trying to sell. cory: that is the journalism side of that. is the company so interesting to everyone in the world of business who wants to find inspiration for the way steve jobs did things and have the kind of success that apple is having in their businesses? when you look at what the legend of steve jobs survives at apple, what are the pieces you think that are replicable? guest: it's interesting, there are so many books built around the idea that you can learn shortcuts to success

the year-end forecast of brent? >> we are expecting at 157 dollars a barrel.ct the spreads to remain wide in the second quarter between brent and the -- there is pressure closer to the end of the second quarter. jonathan: thanks for joining us. we head to the break, 52 minutes into the session. it is the morning of two days of losses. just coming off session highs on the dax. the ftse down .1%. we'll discuss these markets and tell you what to look at for the day ahead. ♪ jonathan: good morning, for those of you listening on bloomberg radio, "the first word is next." "the pulse" is coming up. guy, i'm looking at the markets. 10 week s of gains on the dax. the market showing a little bit of strength. the conviction, a little bit of uncertainty. guy: nothing is a straight line. you'll always get little dips. look at any chart. there are plenty of wiggles on it. i think this week may be one of those wiggles. next week is going to be fascinating. the back end of next week, we start to get into the u.s. payrolls. i think next week could be an interesting week. jonat

for the first part of my subtitle the name brent scowcroft. as a buyer for wanted to examine the brent scowcroft roots. this restricts lineages and back on as member by well-established family. joe pingree brent scowcroft's great-grandfather was one of the captains of the tract part of omaha and another richard ballantine was a captain of a mormon company missionary in india and the founder of the mormon sunday schools. both em pingree were polygamists. a third great-grandfather john scowcroft arrived later by train and founded a successful company of food and dry goods wholesale merchants helped by the fact that a notch of poor for rail rail traffic throughout the west where freight trains had to change engines and passengers had to switch from union pacific to central pacific trains or vice versa traveling east to west. you can't go anywhere without coming to ogden town leaders posted. during prohibition al capone said ogden was too rough for him in. scowcroft's father managed the family business and he was close to his father and mother by

we're down now today, as of friday $54 brent, $44 in the united states. this is a huge shock f o cost structures are going to have to move and change. taxation is going to have to move and change. it's going to be very painful. >> reporter: incredible buzz surrounding this investment conference here in egypt. there are still questions about security. they want to know their money is going to be safe in this country. president sisi saying business is still open. for "nightly business report," i'm hadley gamble. >>> joining us now to talk more about oil is samir samana with wells fargo investment institute. good to have you with us. welcome. we promised at the top of the broadcast that you'll tell us what happens next with the price of oil and what happens after that. so go ahead. >> in the coming months the most we can say is prices will remain volatile. we've obviously seen the low 40s, back up to the low 50s, and then back into the low 40s. it could get into the 30 $35 area because that's where a lot of the producers start to sweat it out especially in t

right now, we're looking at brent and picking brent because that's a better international gauge of what's going on with oil. that's down more than 2% whereas what's traded here west texas intermediate is down three quarters of a percent. what going on now? >> look at wti, a domestic product. i understand the iranians are sitting on oil, they're not alone, there's a lot of oil sitting around a lot of places, especially here. we have -- the issues that drove us down have not been resolved in terms of storage and approaching that limit, and i think you have to start looking at wti as vaguely natural gas. we can't export it. if we get stuck with too much, we have no place to put it at all. we can't ship it to europe, we can't ship it anywhere. i look for wti. we're going to have storage issues and going to keep going lower, and until that's resolved, it's going to be a problem for us and the iranians. >> great, and tomorrow we're getting inventory numbers, tomorrow is the one that matters. we could see the 12th week in a row of records, fascinating stuff. great to see you. good for consumers,

that's karen's point. >> the $110 brent seems ridiculous at this point. >> what about $25 brent? >> exactly. >> some event that nobody can think of is going to derail everything. i get whey they do it. karen makes a fair point. >> in terms of the -- >> u.s. bank corp, they came through this with flying colors again. a stock that pays a 2.5% dividend. probably trades at a premium. they deserve it because they've been the most conservative along the way, usb. >> at this point, i have the most money in bac. i agree with timmy, i'd much rather see a buyback. money and dividenddividends, th out the door. long onlies want that. bac may be on the verge of looking through the credit quality problems. litigation, from last year and hopefully on to a clear path to earnings. >>> now to the move in the euro, fauldi i falling below $1.10 since 2002. mario draghi says the ecb plans to start its asset purchase program on march 9th. our friends crunched the numbers. what we found. when the iuoryea euro trades be and $1.10, the dax trades. average return, .12%. no too much. get this. the nasdaq t

we are trading may brent crude contract now.look at complex, continues to be under pressure here. one of the things people are watching whether the talks with iran bear fruit. also the dynamic on the election in israel if you get a new prime minister there might be more amenable to some treaty with iran the u.s. and others getting a treaty that could bring more oil back on to the market which is not what the mark is looking at. despite weaker dollar for a second day, we are not seeing any carry through in commodities, certainly not in the metals. they're giving back all of their gains from yesterday. >> thank you. we'll talk to you soon. >>> a new valuation for pinterest. shares of rack space up sharply since taylor rhodes became the ceo six months ago. his unique strategy for moving beyond the cloud. >>> having trouble putting two up days together. dow's down 131. back in a moment. the road. it can bring out the worst in people. but the m-class scans for danger... ...corrects for lane drifting... ...and if necessary, it will ev

we have got -- this is brent rising by 3.5%. brent has been rising for five days.st winning streak since june, 2014. jobs. . have a look at this map it shows you the position of yemen. the size. you have the port. if there i s any disruption in terms of the 3.4 million barrels of oil that pass theourough per day. tank is will have to go around the port of africa rather than through that act as into the gulf of aden. that is why you see this i can oil prices. let me show you the nymex crude price. you are seeing volumes go through on nymex crude. trading at 51.30. lines were three times the daily volume. $51.80. nymex up 4%. what you have got is a real spiky move. 17% rally in five days in the price of wti. west texas intermediate. . this is the price of crude let me show you where we are with gold.g . we broke $1200. this is the recap on your nymex. $51 and $.12. -- %51.12. gold. this is the seventh straight day. a whole variety of reasons in regards to the dollar. the dollar has been vacillating. just decided to give a bit in terms of the timing of when the fed wi

brent also rising after a fall in u.s. crude inventories. >> the euro hits a fresh two year low as the qe program kicks in. mario draghi says the market reaction proves the asset purchase plan is working. >> asset purchases are unconventional but they're not unorthodox unorthodox. they are, in fact orthodox and they are in the central banks tool box for a reason. >> stocks in focus, a deal with netflix could be sending it near the top of the european market. >> changing channel reports say uni vision is getting set for an ipo in one of the biggest media deals in years. >> welcome back to the show everyone. let's take a look at futures because we did see a major sell off on wall street. yesterday stocks across the board getting pressured by fears over a potential fed rate hike and strengthening u.s. dollar. nasdaq up 14. s&p 500 up just about 8 points in premarket trade. now the dollar was also in focus. yes, that's right. it wasn't just stock that caught the attention of traders. the euro hit a 12 year low against the doll

brent saw gains at 2.5% as you see there. jackie deangelis h >> reporter: the oil market reacting to geopolitical news today after israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu addressed a potential nuclear deal with iran saying, quote, this is a bad deal a very bad deal. we're better off without it. saw a spike on the wor but then some of the gains when president obama reacted. >> let's wait until there's a deal on the table that iran has agreed to at which point everybody can evaluate. >> reporter: the significance of deal or no deal is iran's oil supply. if we get a deal u.s. could lift sanctions on iran. if oil could flood the market and depress prices further. if we don't get a deal we could see the market work through the supply it already has and prices could slowly rise again. a deadline for the talks is late march. crude managed to settle over $50 a barrel with brent crude over 60. oil prices have been hovering in this range for weeks. what could be some of the short-term catalysts? well to the downside a dollar that con

brent and wti both up the best part of 5%. let's also look at the saudi stock market which is off about .8% as we look at it at the moment. i just want to bring you the latest flash on this situation as well. yemen shut all major seaports due to the escalating conflict coming from local industry sources. reuters is reporting that we're joined now by hadley. just to set the background, what is this about? and the broad coalition. it's not just saudi making the attack. >> we're also hearing that the sudan also took part in this strike. 150,000 troops on the border. yemen has been falling apart for quite sometime. back in january there was a big question about what was going to happen there. we knew it was going to fall apart. we're talking about the soft underbelly of saudi arabia. they have a divide 30% shia and 70% sunni but you also have to remember saudi arabia isn't going to allow a government in the south backed by the iranian regime. >> you were addressing this growing conflict could spread to the eastern province where t

you think that brent has bottomed. >> i do think that brent has bottomed and just in terms of the refining margins, they are pretty strong right now but we're not seeing any real evidence of strong demand itself so i think the margins could get pushed lower. i think what you're seeing in brent relative to wti is just that iraq's back down again and loadings in iraq over -- iraq is now about 700,000 barrels lower than in december so you've tightened up the market momentarily. >> crack spreads seem to be rolling over to me so that's where you get the refiner margin, and crack spreads, that to me seems like a little bit of toppiness for the refiner space, but if you're playing with the integrated names as being your safety bet, why do you think that oil can't crack 50? we've heard ed morse talk about full storage. why can't it crack 50 right now? just the short covering or buys that are rolling out of positions until they get squashed because that can only last so long? >> in an oversupplied market it's difficult to say how low price can go. you probably need to get down into the 20s before y

we thought we found a little bit of a bottom of r50 for wti and $60 for brent. it looks like we might test those but $10 for each. 53.3 for brent. as i said six year lows. gold is also soft at the moment. that's around 3 month lows 1147. back to you. >> wilfred the big story of the day will be on the fed. imf managing director warned emerging markets must be prepared for a rise in u.s. interest rates saying the move could be a surprise with regards to its pace and tiling. now speaking in india, lagarde struck a warning over the impact it could have. >> just as quickly as it's built up can unwind suddenly when such policy is reversed creating as a result significant market volatility. >> in the past when there have been worries that janet yellen would be more hawkish than dovish we did see volatility in emerging market currencies so these markets are vulnerable to any type of fed rate hike given that we have seen the surge in dollar denominated debt. >> they'll be a bit under pressure when we see rates go up but i'm surprised to see the softness over the last few

brent trading shopping to the downside.his following the bounds we had generated by the yemen attacks. 57.98 is where we are trading on that. the nymex contract just north of 50, 2.5% percent. francine: we're back with jason gammell. before the break, we were trying to figure out the short-term implications of a possible more oil coming on from iran. and also these airstrikes in yemen. for the year, you expect a price of 50. what happens after that? jason: we are already starting to see better demand outlooks for china, the united states europe. thatl growth in demand by the fourth quarter starts to influence the market. more importanty, u.s. production is likely to peak in the second quarter. i think we have a much more balanced market by the time we get into 4q, setting up for a decent fundamental rally into 2016. guy: a decent fundamental rally. we are not going back to highs, are we? so, once you get supply and demand back into balance, what is the obvious price? there is an awful lot as torch -- storage needs to be wor

brent at 57.02 and of course we have been highlighting that u.s. dollar strength. that rate factor as reason for u.s. equity weakness. now sri is standing by in singapore for us as ever. over to you. >> very good to see you, sir. let's take a look at these regional markets. i want to focus on the nikkei 225. a very convincing break above the 19,000 handle. you're looking at fresh 15 year highs for the nikkei share average. the stock you were watching today -- this is the manufacturer of industrial robots. now investors were reacting to a report saying they would raise the dividend and consider a stock buy back. this is an index heavy weight so it was responsible for the bulk of the gains on japanese equities. take a step back and look at how the nikkei has performed over the week. up 1.5%. the fifth weekly gain and that is the longest since june. so strong showing for the nikkei. very different picture for some of the other markets. it's been straight. the new zealand benchmark hit another record high. i wanted to highlight the benchmark nse index in india. that is

you're seeing this disconnect with brent also pulling back with the whole macro picture of the fact thatso much oil production. you've got opec staring down u.s. producers, saying no, you back off. you cut back. opec saying they believe u.s. producers will really start cutting back in the second half of the year by year's end. but for now, even as the rig count come -- rate count comes down, production levels continue to rise because a lot of that fracking production is so much more efficient than it used to be. meantime, we're not seeing the break on gasoline that we saw back in 2009. tom tweeted that back in 2009 when we hit these lows for crude, it was below $2 a gallon. but we are still above $2 at $2.20 and change, because those brent prices continue to hold up relatively. back to you. >> interesting. thanks a lot, bertha. bertha coombs this morning. let's check in with rick santelli once again. good morning, rick. >> good morning, carl. in a bypassed era where the economy was either good or bad, but we didn't have all the gps issues regarding how do we discover or handicap if a mat

brent crude 55.15.ending losses ahead of that self-imposed debt line between iran and the six world powers. also the stronger u.s. dollar and today we get api data expected to show another record high for the 12th consecutive week. >> when we thought we hit a bottom. it doesn't seem to be the case. significant downward pressure now when looking at oil prices. it is deadline day for iran. diplomats entered the final sprint and they now have less than 24 hours to come up with a deal on teheran's nuclear program. progress has been made but the u.s. state department says there's just a 50/50 chance a deal can be done. >> iran talks have sparked a domestic battle state side. republican haw makers are angry that an international agreement could bypass congress. the white house looks set to agree to sanctions release. take a listen to the back and forth. >> congress built the sanction structure that brought iran to the table and if the president moves to dismantle it we will have a say. >> when congress passed

we're seeing brent and wti down heavily. by wti off by 1.5%. brent crude losing around 0.9 percent.e increasingly pricing in the probability of a deal between iran and the rest of the world around the nuclear program. that is really their sign for the oil markets. let's check in how markets in asia are doing. >> hi. i want to pick up on the iran story and oil and what ten means in asia. saying we see a framework agreement. a knee jerk reaction to the downside of $5 a barrel in the price of oil. that's good news for asia. and the indian imports are a lot. the rank outperformance shanghai up by more than 2.6%. expectations of further rollout of the modern road initiative benefit the infrastructure stocks. and knicknikkei for the month of february and missed expectations by a very wide margin. doj may have more work to do. elsewhere australia down by 1.25 at the close. >>> air strikes in yemen lead by saudi arabia overnight left 25 people dead and 88 wounded. this according to the health ministry in the controlled area of the nation. meanwhile saudi arabia is still deciding whether to

brent saunders president and ceo of actavis, thank you so much for coming on the show.the hour. thank you. >> thank you, jim. >> go check the conviction buy that goldman sachs put out, it's a terrific note. it makes it very very clear to me that there is so much more ahead. if you valued this stock like bristol myers, you would not believe how high it can go. i'm not even going to share. "mad money" is back after the break. >>> it is time it is time for the "lightning round" on cramer's "mad money." what is that about? that's about rapidfire calls, don't know the caller or the stock ahead of time. when you hear this sound, then the "lightning round" is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? time for the "lightning round" on cramer's "mad money." i'm going to start with jim in florida. jim?! >> caller: hey, jim. congratulations on ten-year anniversary. >> you're quite welcome, thank you. >> caller: and happy st. patrick's day to you. >> definitely, definitely. >> caller: yeah. my question is about zag. >> zag's making a bit of a comeback. i think it's a commodity, but i recogn

the pressure ships to brent. mark: oil is up 11%. what will that mean for opec?ec stays the course. saudi arabia and their gulf arab allies will allow this to continue. they will not actively try to and the supply. mark: how is this making the global supply glut worse? >> the issue is u.s. shale oil. we have seen no impact on shale production. mark: are you surprised by that? the rig count down and there is no slowing in production? >> there is something in today's report which is interesting -- production for the lower 48 states as flat. -- is flat. we are a month or two away from declines in shale oil. the market has been waiting for that but we are about to see it. mark: how does the strong u.s. dollar factor into what we are saying? >> it is a factor -- big picture , more about the oil fundamentals. the dollar is secondary. on any given day, today is a perfect example, it can be a big market mover. it's something we have to keep an eye on. mark: all of this being said what does this mean for the u.s. consumer? >> the u.s. consumer, the end-users will continue

. >> wti around 50, brent crude around 60. wti is up and brent lower this morning.yesterday that saudi arabia's raising prices to asia and the united states. speculation that saudi is trying to show sign that it thinks that demand will improve or trying to spur the price war with the shale players here in the united states. according to reuters, saudi arabia's denying that. uncertainty over a nuclear deal with iran by the end of the month, deadline here looming. traders talking about the comments from the israeli prime minister yesterday to congress and also president obama's response to that. a lot of uncertainty. still very unclear there. 10:30, our inventory data from the department of energy. last night adp a build of 3 million barrels. five-year average is 2 million barrels but traders saying if we see a build it that range we won't get a lot of price action. they want to start to see draw downs to believe we're working through the supply not necessarily going to get that today. but they are watching numbers closely. recall, in the last few weeks we've seen 7 m

some implications of the subtitle, brent scowcroft and the call of national security. i should say that it feels odd to be writing about the high of someone who still participates in politics and till runs his own -- and still runs his own business. he was just in saudi arabia for king abdul that's funeral. there are -- abdullah's funeral. the question becomes do their lives merit this attention however provisional at this stage? here i can unequivocally say, yes. to the first part of my subtitle as a biography i wanted to examining and present scowcroft roots. this research led me to his background as a member of a very well established family. joe pinkery was one of the captains of the mormon companies making the overland trek to what is now part of omaha to the great salt lake basin, another was a missionary in india and the founder of the mormon sunday schools. both were polygamists. a third great grandfather john scowcroft, arrived later by train and founded a very successful company of food and dry goods wholesale merchants. helped by the fact that -- [inaudible]

alix: we've seen oil coming off brent falling for the eighth straight day.lyst saying flows into etf totaled north of $5 billion since july of 2014. they say we will see brent come off a little bit as supplies get better and demand falls off, but this financial aspect is going to be a lot more severe than the actual fundamental dictate. >> you have a lot of speculators, a lot of inventories, a lot of ships full of oil with nowhere to go. look at the spread between wti and brent widening. >> what am i looking at here? the spread is 12. >> it's even worse. a month or two, it was two or three, so it's a massive difference. >> how much of oil is a currency story? does it all come back to the strong dollar? >> there's something else that play because you see monti's like copper fall off. it has to do with weakening growth globally. there's a bloomberg commodity index at its lowest level ever. it is definitely something people are watching. expert they are all trading dollars. >> the great thing about low oil for a company like -- for a country like japan as it al

gold in a little bit of a bind nymex and brent trading lower. premier keqiang's comments about getting involved in the chinese market. black rock saying don't be cruel. get ready for an 8% drop as a the 70 level according to black rock. the dollar is down by 0.4%. taking a breather. wait to see if janet yellen and the fomc is prepared to remove the word "patient." dollar strength, 2 beige book reports so far this year. dollar strength was mentioned six times. you're not seen that number of references to strong dollar in almost 15 years. he said does have international. jenna that bank it is fed week in europe. -- jonathan: it is fed week in europe. qe working. qe apparently will not work for your or at least not for greece. that is the message from the finance minister yanis varoufakis. the country continues to wrangle with creditors as a pays down another charge of debt to the imf today. hans nichols has the details. hans: good morning. mr. varoufakis things quantitative easing is giving us nothing but an equitable and it could be unsustainable

today we had brent crude options expiring, and at one point brent was down about 3% on the session, got a little bit higher after the session expired. you can expect to see the same volatility tomorrow with wti nymex crude. those options expire tomorrow. of course big issue for wti nymex is the fact we are just producing so much more oil. we're down to 2009 prices but we are producing twice as much oil here in the u.s. as we were six years ago following the financial crisis. one of the things that's going to be interesting to watch as we get towards week end, we're going to start trading the may contract, a week from today. you take a look at that crude curve and we're still very much in contango. next month's prices still much higher than this month's. back to you. >> bertha thank you very much. so if oil prices are at lows shouldn't gasoline prices be at least less expensive than they were a couple months ago? that's not what's happening. back on january 26th the weekly average price of gasoline hit its lowest recent levels. the national average was 20$2.04. crude oil was at $45. toda

brent: i don't know that you can really quantify a cost, per se.hink it is the right thing to get on board with rory. his star is only continuing to rise. i think he's poised to continue to do great things in the world of golf. he is one master's win away from competing in a grand slam. cory: we have to jump right now. "bloomberg west" will be back. ♪ cory: you're watching "bloomberg west." i'm cory johnson. the obama admission nation has stopped short of congratulating benjamin netanyahu in his party victory. officials say he will not way in until israel has formed a new government. netanyahu says there are issues that must be addressed immediately. >> we are facing great challenges ahead. i cannot elaborate on all of them but i can say with certainty we have challenges in both diplomacy and security. cory: netanyahu's likud party are formed -- performed better than expected. sweden's central bank cut interest rates deeper into negative territory. the bank lowered the repo rate to a -.25%. the central bank also spent the bond buying program to $2.

at $56 per barrel, brent crude is below break-even prices for many u.s. adversaries. russia iran and venezuela need brent crude oil prices well past $100 per barrel to balance their budgets in 2015. u.s. petroleum product prices have been cut in half in the past eight months mostly because brent crude prices have plummeted by 50% during the same time frame. on monday, brent crude traded at $57 per barrel, that's $58 less than its peak of $115 in june of last year. russia needs brunt to trade around $175 venezuela needs prices to go to $151. russia derives 68% of its current energy earnings from oil exports and around 50% of its annual budget from the oil and gas industry. according to a december 16, 2014 article in "the financial times," the russian ruble lurched toward a financial crisis. it has fallen more than 50% since the start of the year reviving memories of the 1998 crash when russia fell on its rustic death. as much as 75% of iran's revenues. at today's prices, their economies are also in a tailspin. with oil revenues slashed in half, these countries are less

brent crude was a $56. we are back to 50 eight dollars today. to get us started on "bloomberg surveillance," today, this is the rubin dollar, the old trading partners. this is not brought trade weighted. here is the dollar strength down we go, here is the eight, 10 years of weakness. i use this to find the center point. we are now halfway back. are we going to call this the jack lew dollar? "the pulseolivia: probably not. it does look a lot like currency wars. overnight, south korea became of the latest to central bank to cut the rates. this divergence is because of fundamental reasons. the u.s. is going to raise rates for the first time in a decade. this is the story of dollar strength. tom: exactly. olivia: i was struck by comments by jon ferro, he says the reason is because nobody would believe mario draghi would buy negative yields. period that means we need to turn -- tom: that means winning to turn to james foley of rubble bank. gold coming up. olivia has a great segment coming up. we go to jane foley in london. jane, i know it is like dow

brent is key. which nation should we focus on?ome revenue but they have reserves and they like the neuron sweat. they like seeing the russians sweat. for the moment, they are sitting and saying we do not have to do anything area and tom: do they have a phone line that goes in? >> they wield the predominant influence. the problems is opec's together they announced cuts and the salaries feel everyone else cheats. they say we need fellow members and non-opec members to share the burden of cuts if we're going to do it. brendan: we're going to go to stephen schwartzman. he says there are remarkable deals in debt and equity. stephen: when you go into a period of distress, everybody starts freezing. we have relatively little exposure to problems. we are very actively evaluating a lot of situations and our people are not troubled working out problems where other people are. the scale of the energy opportunities is huge. brendan: most of the investments are not in oil. exposure to lower oil prices is limited. another event it will have an

. $11 between brent in europe. important. we had a guest saying american gasoline per galley -- american gasoline per gallon, watch brands. a massive shout out. here is the unemployment rate. janet yellen was talking about. fed december of last year december just past. this is the glide path to a better unemployment rate. the reality is, we have done better. brendan: this is pointing out we are doing -- the problem is, they want to overshoot the best way to hit a target is to overshoot it. there is a lot of pressure to not overshoot and just tap. olivia: any indication on how concerned janet yellen is about causing instability with a rate increase. we heard those concerns from christine lagarde. towe are at the so-called -- rate. the rate of non-accelerating rate of unemployment. that is where we are. there are more dovish members. tom: let's go to washington. the fed meats in the backdrop. where we will be at 2:00 p.m.. peter, what will you be watching for? peter: i will be looking at janet yellen's final four picks. we will

brent crude is down this hour. to the stock markets shares in the european sector have seen a gains. currency is trading up around half a percent. other stories this hour, 28% fall in its 2014 net profit. the italian company blames much of the slide on lower sales. last year's protest shut the city's main roads for 79 days. china telecom will be launching mobile broadband services. it was a busy weekend at the box office for the latest animation "home." the film's protagonist is voiced by re-anna. other voices include steve martin and jennifer lopez. we will end with news of newburgh lambing up its services -- we will end with news of goober car -- uber car ramping up its services. a ride will set users back up to $200 in addition to a seven dollar a minute charge. genie: i wonder if they will have a maserati here. >> it seems a bit excessive. it is time for the press review. genie: mi james has a look at what the papers -- emma james has a look at what the papers say. emma: a downcast image on the front cover. a s

brent 58.1. down 1.8%.a move upwards yesterday. >> the price of oil back on the slide after those sharp gains following the launch of air strikes in yemen by a saudi-lead coalition. the military assault would have only a negligible impact on supply. yemen is a small crude exporter but sits on the bab el-mandeb straight. it struck an air force base five kilometers from the oil field. hadley joins us on set. what does this move tell you? the air strike against the forces tell you about saudi arabia's foreign policy? it's one of the first foreign policy decisions made. >> it does indeed say something about how overt they're going to be in terms of using their military and this is not something we have seen from them in the past and of course the defense minister a young man, he's speaking to a senior member of the audi royal family here in london yesterday and telling me we have a lot of confidence in him. he's young but give him time. i think what's happened in the last couple of days they're closed today but

brent is up 55.3 today. seema back to you. >> wilfred you are looking at live pictures from the french alps where the rescue operation of the crashed germanwings plane is being directed. they'll visit the site later today. they said the first black box retrieved yesterday is damaged but usable. meanwhile germanwings confirmed further flights will be cancelled after some crew members refuse to fly over safety concerns. annetta joins us from outside the aviation station at frankfurt airport with more on this story. >> thank you very much. there's some germanwings crew members that are saying they're not willing to fly but what i have been hearing is not that it's out of safety concerns because it's just for personal matters. they are just shocked that an aircraft of their fleet could essentially explode in the middle of the alp mountains. let me bring you up to speed. they're tweeting they're trying to fly the relatives to the site of the accident of the crash so the relatives have the possibility to mourn on

brent crude up about .7% at $56.30. wti crude at 47.77 up about.7%.de prices now climbed nearly 9% in the past week. have we finally seen a bottom in oil? that's the big question. >> i think impossible to say if we have finally seen the bottom. what i do think have been interesting is oil prices have been responding so much to the u.s. dollar rather than fundamental supply and demand. >> wraeyeah. >> of course we have seen a high level that's seen the sell offs back down to the 6 year lows we saw. they're responding to financial markets in the last two weeks rather than the fundamental supply and demand of the oil industry. >> the kingdom is now pumping about 10 million barrels a day which could indicate an increase over february production. doesn't seem like anyone is cutting oil production. >> exactly. whether we're at the exact bottom or not is hard to say. but if we rewind to that interview we had here ten days or so ago he said we expect a very painful period for a long time to come. maybe we'll see fluctuates in and around 2 or 3 or $5 moves. >>

brent at 58.1. brent up the best part of 1%. back to you. >> the discussion continues around dollar fever as some traders are calling it. what does the stronger dollar mean for multinationals and their bottom line. the euro gaining a bit of ground right now against the u.s. dollar. as you can see sterling right now also doing the same against the u.s. dollar. we'll continue to discuss more about what it means for your portfolio and we want to hear from you on this. are you taking advantage of the weaker euro? join the conversation on worldwide exchange. get in touch with us. e-mail at cnbc.com. tweet us and our personal handles are on the bottom of the screen. >> let's get back to volkswagen which posted record profits in 2014 helped by gains in china. the german auto giant expected to increase production to 5 million vehicles annually by 2019. that's up from 3.7 million currently. >> now those figures could help volkswagen in the race to welcome become the world's number one auto maker. they surpassed general motors to take the

because in the last few hours, brent crude futures jumped as high as $59.71 a barrel.e of about some 6%. 6%. it's coming. although i have to say, it has come down slightly since then a bit. as well as oil the middle east is also the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas from qatar quelsas well as from yemen. but european importers might be concerned as they have to ship it via the gulf of aidan to the suez canal. the waters less than 40 kilometers wide. it's considered a choke point to global oil supplies. its closure right here may force tankers from the persian gulf may force them from not reaching the persian gulf diverting them all the way around the bottom and southern tip of africa. of course, which would add to transit time and cost. now, i'm going to keep this map up here for a minute and go over to an oil analyst. great to have you with us. i'm just keeping this map up showing, if we can come back to the map, because the concern here is not so much about yemen and its role in the energy market, it's that geographical position, right now, can i show

today we're at 44.4 on wti and 53.3 on brent. putin ordered the navy's northern fleet to go full alert for the military exercises in the arctic. meanwhile the world waiting for president putin to reemerge after last week. let's get out live to moscow for the latest. >> reporter: good morning. i guess it's a measure of how critical vladmir putin is to the country. he's not been seen in public since the march 5th meeting has lead to the fevered speculation as to his whereabouts. and of course all sorts of rumors have done the rounds. is a cue taking place or he's out of the country or indeed he retired to the country side nursing a bad back from a slipped disc in a judo injure. nobody really knows. the government and the kremlin are not giving anything away. they've been quiet. there's a meeting scheduled for today that is in the president's dairy and not been cancelled as far as we know with the president of kazakhstan. what we also know is that over the weekend there was a document and the president was seen talking about crimea