alex friedman joins us to discuss his monthly newsletter. he oversees $2 trillion in invested assets. great to speak to you. talk to me about your monthly letter. it says investing through uncertainty. when you look at what is happening now it is russia, ukraine and possible counter sanctions. how do you navigate that? >> great to see you, thanks for having me. the normal reaction when there is uncertainty is to go to safe havens. gone up, franc has japanese yen has gone up, gold has gone up. i would start by saying you have to ask yourself is this the beginning of a much bigger issue that russia will drive? if so, that is one calculus. if not, then probably the safe haven flows will reverse. you would not want to be positioned that way. you want to take advantage of what you think are the underlying trends driving the global economy, starting with the recovery in the united states. >> what is your take? it is very difficult to understand how much this can escalate, at what point sanctions really start to bite. if you are invested in russia,

still here with alex friedman from ubs wealth management.g to the close of this first quarter, which has not been great. i mean, the s&p is literally unchanged for this first quarter. what do you see for the next three months in this market? >> well, i think first of all, the geopolitical risk will come down. i think we'll stop talking about russia too much. the china worries will come down. we'll start coming back to the u.s. story of, are we seeing cap-ex accelerate? if so, is that going to drive earnings? i expect we head in that direction. we see ten-year start to move towards 3%, something in that neighborhood. >> i was going so say, how much will fed policy and especially interest rates play into the story of the stock market? logic would suggest that if it was the easy money policy that gave us the big gains we saw the last few years, you would think that as they slowly reverse that, the stock market would reverse itself. do you see that happening? >> yes, it would happen if you don't see earnings acceleration. that's the cap-ex story

. >> i spoke to alex friedman earlier on. everyone around here is saying, why am i not working in tech? facebook is buying something else. >> virtual-reality could become a reality. a funky pair of goggles. they are like ski goggles and they take you to another world. what about going to your doctor? what about having your meeting via virtual-reality goggles. oculus for $2t billion. we could all have virtual reality in our lives. the next step for computing, they say, after mobile. >> this is a glimpse into the future of things to come. a little bit scary. you look at the futures. >> not that scary. >> there is a lot of data out of the u.s. >> equities have got a nice lift. consumer confidence in the states hitting six-month highs. we have had fed speak overnight as well. mr. bullard speaking out of hong kong. you will play us some of that later on in the day. he was trying to bat away janet yellen's comments about when the first hike will come. they say it will be the second half of 2015. ukraine seems to be taking a backsea

. >> i spoke to alex friedman earlier on.ng, why am i not working in tech? facebook is buying something se

alex friedman joins us for the first half of the show.ent officer of ubs global management. jonathan ferro, hans nichols and ryan chilcote are standing by. kick off with you. what are futures doing? >> pretty mixed this morning. the only reaction over in russia. the micex down about 3.5%. that is where the concern is. concerning their version of the beige book. down, that is one of our top stories. hans, you're watching adidas. >> we are looking at adidas, nike. it is an excuse to talk about shoes. it is also an excuse to talk about currency. both companies have had explosive growth outside their home markets. the euro is strong, the dollar is strong, that is hurting profits. that is what we are going to talk about. >> thank you so much. something that a lot of people do have. jon, if you look at the overall on thesea lot of folks new russia sanctions.