i'm geoff cutmore on the cnbc in london. >> all right. ank you, geoff. >>> baseball's all-star lineups are out. sunday's top highlights on the diamond. and tiger is back on the prowl. plus, roger federer makes tennis history at wimbledon. >>> coming up, we'll talk about chances for showers during the morning commute. more of that coming up. you're watching "early today." >>> good morning. if you're just waking up, this is "early today." in sports, after an epic battles against andy roddick, roger federer may have proven why in his sport he should be called the best over. here's nbc's froed roggin with an early look at all your sports headlines. >> reporter: good morning. roger federer for his 15th grand slam title. tied at two sets apiece. fifth set, no easy task for federer. roddick played the best tennis of his career and pushed federer to the brink. but in the end federer came on top. 15th grand slam and sixth wimbledon title. one champion to another, tiger woods hosting and winning his own event. i don't know if that's fair but tiger p

i'm geoff cutmore on the cnbc in london. >> all right. ank you, geoff. >>> baseball's all-star lineups are out. sunday's top highlights on the diamond. and tiger is back on the prowl. plus, roger federer makes tennis history at wimbledon. >>> coming up, we'll talk about chances for showers during the morning commute. or tmof hat coming up. you're watching "early today." of >>> good morning to you. i'm joe krebs. >> and i'm barbara harrison. straight ahead on "news 4 today," another brush with the law for d.c. councilman marion barry. the latest on his recent arrest and the stalking charges he's facing. >> plus, thousands of fans will be picking up their tickets today to attend michael jackson memorial service tomorrow. details about the event that will be broadcast around the world. >> good reason to grab another cup of coffee. why it could be >>> good morning. if you're just waking up, this is "early today." in sports, after an epic battles against andy roddick, roger federer may have proven why in his sport he should be called the best o

for more on that and all your early business headlines we're joined by geoff cutmore from the london ters of cnbc. good morning, geoff. >> reporter: hi, christina. it was the energy stocks that were on the skids really. that's right, it's worries about the economic story that are showing weakness for energy and industrials. we also got a print on nymex on the august contract. at the $62 a barrel level. so continued concerns. we'll be watching al coya very closely for news on just how much money they're making on this environment. the nikkei 225 closing wednesday's session low as investors fret. we were talking about a second stimulus plan, but we know that seems to be bogged down in agreements between the house and the senate in the united states. so that's something else for investors to weigh. ex ceo of aig hank greenburg getting a jury verdict in his verdict. a bankruptcy judge late tuesday ruling a group who claimed they were injured as a result of defective g.m. products may not appeal directly to g.m.'s asset sale. and google is getting into the operating system business for pcs

for more on that and all your early business headlines, we're joined by geoff cutmore from the london headquarters of cnbc. geoff, good morning. >> reporter: hi. good morning to you. in fact, all that positive sentiment pushing the dow up over 2% so we had the best gain for the blue chip since november 5th here. but it's worth bearing in mind we're still 5,000 points off that october 2007 level of over 14,000. the existing home sales number strong. home sales up 3.6%. elsewhere, we had a big of a dampener from some of the corporates. microsoft saying thursday its profit in the last quarter plunged 29% because of weak computer sales. and amazon also putting in a quarterly net profit thursday that fell by 10%. elsewhere, ford a little more upbeat. a huge improvement on the record $8.7 billion loss it reported a year earlier. jobless claims, let's give you the details on that, initial claims for unemployment rose by 40,000. seasonally adjusteded 554,000. up really is beginning to reflect life. even home in march forced to sell their house. we're going to have more recession talk with ben

for more on that and all your early business headlines we're joined by geoff cutmore at the london headquarters of cnbc. good morning to you. >> good morning, dan. that's right. we have stocks mostly lower, i guess. as we saw a drop in the price of oil and investors are starting to ask themselves if that means we're going to see a slackening in demand for basic materials here. the major indexes, well, you're right, they were mixed but off their lows for the day, oil prices tumbling to a five-week low on monday. a trade group has found activity in the services industry rose in june to its best level in nine months. that is an ism survey. they said the service index rose from 44 in may. the best showing since september. a group remitting plaintiffs in car accidents said they would oppose gm's attempts to quickly exit bankruptcy protection arguing hundreds of victims could be hurt by the government-led plan. soft drink and snack grum maker pepsico announced plans to boost investment in russia, planning to but another billion into that country. already signs that it's starting to bite for the retai

for more on that and all your early business headlines we're joined by geoff cutmore of the london headquarters of cnbc. geoff, good morning. >> reporter: hi. good morning to you. it's been a whirl wind 40 days in bankruptcy protection for g.m. now they look set to emerge from it with the seal of some key glands like chevrolet and cadillac to a new company that will be majority owned by the u.s. treasury. big sory for today, of course. as far as the markets are concerned, well, we finished a little flat, just edging higher as investors bought beaten down technology and commodity shares. oil dropping amid concerns a prolonged recession may zap energy demand. even though new jobless claims numbers for benefits fell more than expected last week, dipng below the 600,000 level since early january, the number of americans seeking the safety net points to an economy that is still very weak here. of course retailers, limited glands, gap and abercrombie and fitch reporting worse than expected declines in store sales. aig going through the obama government and asking whether it can pay previously agreed

for more on that and all your early business headlines we're joined by geoff cutmore from the london headquarters of cnbc. good morning, geoff. >> reporter: hi. good morning to you. the side way stretch for equity markets continued through the session yesterday. didn't help the ims with a bit of a mixed outlook. they say the economic story gets better for 2010 than they previously forecast. but they revised down some of the '09 expectations. a bit of a mixed bag there. alcoa came out with a second quarter loss on weak demand. again, though, that was better than the marth had anticipated. that kicks off this earnings season. we're keeping an eye on family dollar. third quarter earnings jumped 36%. at least they're cashing in on the difficult retailing environment here. consumers trimming borrowing in may by $3.2 billion, according to the federal reserve. there were some in the market who anticipated contraion of $9.5 billion. g.m. is shedding more jobs than. the new ceo likely to dispense 4,000 white collar positions, including 450 executive level employees. and the sec also losing the

first to london where we'll check in with geoff cutmore. geoff, good morning to you. >> good morning to you, carl. we have markets maybe a little firmer in the major indices over here in europe. let's show you those boards. only the cac is weaker here. but well, you know, i say firmer. we could probably call that flat, couldn't we, for the sake of argument? bank of france revising second quarter gdp. modest revision, but it's going in the right direction. minus 0.4 for the second quarter against 0.5. so as i say, very modest, but at least in their statement, they say they see stabilization in our trend in france. we're looking out today for a big of news on the credit sector. and there is another story christine will be able to pick on. we're following this developing story about some employees in shanghai apparently need to go be detained. is this to do with the negotiations over iron ore we he ask ourselves. now out to christine in singapore. >> investors taking on a cautious stance and keeping an eye on comment for global japan. talk for

christine tan is in singapore and first to london with geoff cutmore. ood morning, geoff. >> hey, carl. you said it right. the european markets are having trouble getting out of bed this morning. we are in negative territory across the board here and are looking for reasons to go higher. if you look at the story, it tells you the whole story as the drip, drip, drip away from confidence in add's session. we had an announcement from sock gen where they said their secretary quarter net income is expecting it to be less positive. but what we've seen is the dow jones stoxx going down 2.4% on that. and ubs said they have no intention of selling the payne weber business in the united states. christine, on to you in singapore. >> it's a cautious start ahead to the week this week. investors dragged down the resourcing sectors here in asia. in japan, the nikkei 225 fell 1.4%. shippers fell after the battlic exchange main seas rate fell more than 4%. the kospi gained .63%. in hong kong, lackluster trades, a fall in commodity and energy surprises pulled down the han

. >> geoff cutmore, we'll see you bright and early. coming up next on "morning joe," daily beast tina brown, fascinating piece about the nexus of obama's struggle with health care and professor gates story. also mika's must-read opinion pages. can you give us a hint on the must read? >> yeah, i can but i won't. >> watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. >>> i have said i wanted to build a past before i left for august recess. i requested the president to make that commitment. i've also said our members need the time that they need to not only get the bill written but to have plenty of time to review it. we're on schedule either to do it now or to do it whenever. >> all right. time line flipping a little bit there. with us the founder and editor in chief of the dailybeast.com, tina brown. she writes this on the beast, obama's insecure slip. it was baffling enough that one so practiced in media manipulation had suddenly ensured that the next day's radio and tv talkathons would ignore his health care agenda and focus much more enterta

let's turn to geoff cutmore live in london for us. good morning, geoff. >> reporter: good morning to you. well, the bears, they always see something to growl about, don't they? for the time being the market is the story and the gains up over 9,000. it's the fastest rebound since 1975 with 38% higher than where we were in the march low back to november 5th. the big question is, is corporate profitability going to sustain further upside for these markets? microsoft saw revenue fall sharply. some disappointment over vista? maybe. that's an important number to remember and amazon saw profits fall 10%. it's a bit of a mixed picture still as we tried to work our way through this corporate earnings season. if you think you've got problems with 9.6% unemployment in the united states, spare a thought for the spanish. second quarter unemployment number out of spain this morning, 18%. that has got to hurt. back to you guys. >> wow, 18%. that puts it in perspective for you although we're getting close to that in some of our states here. up next, a

standing by, we have geoff cutmore in lobbed, christine tan in asia, lakshman is standing by and we're going to start things off with jegeoff. and the story coming out of europe, is joe right on this, geoff? are you going watching closely? >> hey, out mere on the dog's tail, i can tell you the markets are definitely higher as we've seen them this morning. but you have to keep asking yourself the question, what is it that's pushing the markets forward beyond the fact that we've had some higher closes and people want to believe in the story at the moment? so there is momentum. just because companies have cut aggressively enough, we had some bate points that were not that original curving. spanish unemployment coming in at 17.9% for the second quarter. so that's fairly week. erics son is a want we look to to try to gives some indication of what's going on. and i have to say, you know, it's been a bit patchy across the corporates throughout earnings season so far this morning. christine, let me send it to you in asia. >> geoff, most asian markets closed higher today once given driven by qu

. >> from the futures pits in chicago to the overseas markets now, in london where geoff cutmore has layest out of europe. >> good morning to you. we're in negative territory. it fits the picture you were hearing from your technical analyst, i think, that we've got this the drip, drip, drip sidewayes and lower and as far as the markets are concerned, this is where we stand on the numbers this morning, joe. there are a couple stories out there that are not encouraging people to go out there and buy. carlos scone saying he doesn't see an auto recovery in 2010 at all. two home builders, barettes and retrosaying they will increase construction of homes, but they're only going to build to sell and they're not going to build forward. which is why on this loser's list i think we're going to see on the construction sector people were looking more optimistic. elsewhere, storms brewing in the uk over a murdock newspaper. this is the news of the world and this goes back a couple of years. people were cracked or tapped into by journalists. now we're just following this to see how it unfolds. new