keep an eye on alcon and novartis.e talking to an analyst to get his take on whether we should be thinking about this business breaking up or sticking together. ericsson is another company. a new ceo for around six months. numbers haven't disappointed. pretty much all across the board. questionsing to raise about strategy, about whether he has the ability to deliver for this business, whether or not we need a different strategy going forward from here. stock is called sharply lower this morning and on a when your come already down by 5.36%. aboutw ceo in place for six months. flying higher, the fonseca, the german -- lufthansa, looking good and much better placed than it was a year ago. plagued by strikes. another interesting sidebar on this story is we continually get headlines at this point about people tomiciling frankfurt, one of the main operating hubs for lufthansa. it seems marginal but every little bit helps. frankfurt is going to become one of the more frankfurt global financial hubs. look at the stock perform

novartis has lifted the outlook for alcon eye care division after surgical equipment sales bucked the trend of consecutive declines this after a smaller than expected 2% drop, in core net income the ceo joe jiminez said novartis was on the cusp of a growth phase >> we expect a new drug to be approved in october of this year the fda action date is october we will commercialize that we'll file the second indication before the end of this year, which means we will be selling in 18 -- 2018, most likely two indications. the second one being significantly bettigger than the first. i said novartis is about to enter its next growth phase, cart 19 is part of it once we get out of the patent expiration of gleevec at the end of this year, we should begin a growth phase in 2018, 2019, and 2020, cart 19 will be part of that >> how does the sandoz business fit into that? it's a truchunky part of revenu but looks tobling in the u.s. around retail generics declining sales. >> it is true there is a lot of price pressure in the u.s. in the generics industry. those are basically the -- more of the commo

that is amid early signs of a revival of the alcon eyecare division.ive you more options? how committed are you now to spinning off this business versus, say, six month ago? >> i was pleased to see the turn on alcon. in the second quarter, it grew 3%. at the beginning of the year, i said that we are going to undergo a review of the alcon business, everywhere from keeping the business to capital markets exit. and i think what this beginning of the turn does is it improves the options that we have available to us. for example, if we were to do a capital markets exit, we would want to see a number of quarters of consecutive growth. so hopefully, we can continue this momentum and drive additional growth in the back half of 2017 and end at 2018. >> ibm coming out with its numbers. second quarter operating earnings per share of $2.97 does top the consensus estimate of $2.74. revenue, however, falling short of forecasts, $19.29 billion. it was expected to be a drop, and it was a bigger drop. i can't find the last time that ibm booked a revenue gain. >> it has

envoy position, one of the 70 some i see some value in given the famine, the conflict and the region alcon text? >> sure. well, the welfare of our men and women who serve abroad, both foreign service and civil service, is our highest priority. secretary, every staff meeting we have begins with a question, and that is are our people okay abroad. it is his highest priority, it is my highest priority. to address the issues you have raised, we have included in our redesign effort both -- the redesign consists of an executive steering committee of which i chair, and then the five working groups that i described. among them, the working groups would address all of the issues you raised about conditions abroad, allowances, you know, the treatment of our foreign service officers, the support that we provide to them. the most significant aspect of this redesign is this is -- all of the input is coming from our career foreign service and civil service officers. all of the working groups -- there are very few non-career participants. in fact, for the working groups there's only one non-career partici

guest: i was pleased to see the turn on how, -- turn on our alcon. options we have available to us. if we were to do a capital markets exit, we would want to see a number of quarters of consecutive growth. hopefully we can continue this momentum and drive additional growth in the back half of 2017 and into 2018. ♪ anchor: ibm coming out with these numbers, second-quarter operating earnings of $2.97. however, falling short of forecasts, $19.29 billion. it was a bigger drop than expected. time i thed the last and booked a revenue gain. reporter: the company is undergoing a massive transformation into going into emergency technologies. some of those numbers are fairly cloudy. the gross margin expectations were slightly above what they were looking for. i think this is where the big story is, is a lot of the pricing pressure. anchor: how much more cost-saving can they ring out of ibm? reporter: i think that is a good question. if the gross margin doesn't decline, that is something that they focus on. that is an area of focus for investors. ♪ anchor: let'

the budget control act is not the constitution and the 112 congress was not a constitution alcon vengs. we should simply repeal it out right and congress should do its job to set priorities with taxpayer dollars on year-to-year basis. if the republican party, the party that has always stood for strong national defense in an environment where the budget control act has been repealed can't invest more in our defense capabilities, then bad for us. but the budget control act must be repealed. >> what's it going to take to get to that? from where we are today out of this cycle of crs to that repeal, what is it going to take it? >> i believe you probably have the votes right now in the senate to repeal the budget control act. i suspect almost every democrat, if not all of them, would vote to repeal it and at least half of my republican colleagues would vote as well. in the house of representatives, i think opinion is more divided among republicans, but also deficit talks in the house know that history i just laid out. they have no reason to believe we're going to magically adhere to those ca