Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Countdown 20150212

And, Credit Suisse beats analyst estimates. We will be speaking to the lenders chief executive in zurich. Hello. Welcome to countdown. A warm welcome to the program this morning. It is a big day for bank earnings. Credit suisse just reported earnings for its Fourth Quarter in 2014. It is proposing a dividend and investors can choose whether to receive it in shares or cash. The banks net income beat analyst estimates at 921 million swiss francs against an estimate of 869 million for the Fourth Quarter. Be sure to stay tuned. We will be hearing from brady dougan on those numbers. Thats coming up just about an hour from now. Another Bank Reporting earnings. Societe generale is reporting fourthquarter earnings for last year. It is frances number two. Profits missed estimates. Revenue in its core consumer markets falling while its capital buffer shrank as well. You income rising to 511 Million Euros from 191 Million Euros a year earlier. Net income has increased but it has missed the 505 to seven 557 Million Euros expected. Economic stagnation in france and a slowdown in russia where it has one of the largest Retail Branch networks have weighed on profit. Profit from french retail net worth fell 15 to 241 Million Euros in the Fourth Quarter. Thats the lowest in two years. The measure of financial strength falling to 10. 1 at the end of december, a drop of 26 basis points from three months earlier. Its russian business posted an 11 million euro loss in the Fourth Quarter, during which that countrys economy suffered from a collapse in oil prices and a plunge in the ruble. It is an increase year on year but still an earnings miss for the Fourth Quarter as frances number two bank. Says he get general mavs says it does not have any exposure to greece. The chief executive has been speaking to caroline connan. He says he is convinced an agreement over greek debt is probable. Globally speaking, on the macroeconomic side, we consider that a positive input. [indiscernible] the new oil price and the very low Interest Rates should create a better dynamic not only in france but in europe. This will be positive also for the banking situation. Yes, we expect slightly better dynamic in terms of revenue this year than last year. How big of an impact could the greek situation have on the european recovery . There is a great interest between the greek country and the european interest. In our view, it is highly probable that there will be it could take a bit of time. It could take some weeks. Probably, we will have an agreement to allow greece to pay the next payment they have due. And on a longerterm, the new agreement. Today, the main part of the greek sovereign debt is owned by europe. It is not really a question for the banking industry. We are convinced that due to this situation, agreement is highly probable. You have exposure to greece, but do you have a contingency plan in place for a greek exit . We have not considered this scenario at all. So there is no contingency plan . We are not considering the scenario at all. The Market Reaction has been a bit anxious. It is not really a big question for the market. That was sosa get generals sociweete generales deputy chief executive talking to caroline connan. Caroline hyde is here. We understand that profits have been under pressure from these mining groups. Rio tinto, second biggest in the world. Copper down on the concerns about chinese demand. Still, we saw underlying profit drop by 8. 8 . That was better than expected. Many felt it would drop up to 12 . Managing to hold a profit and they are giving back money to investors. This is what everyone has been shouting for. They are going to give the 2 billion buyback. They are also upping their dividend. Overall, they are raising their overall payout to investors. They are giving 5. 9 billion back in total for the last year. Dividend up by 12 . 2 billion share buyback. It is about in the middle of what analysts were looking for. Clearly, rio tinto doing much better than jpmorgan had thought. When you are looking at their overall presentation, the focus is so clear. They are trying to repent for their previous years of going out and building up debt. Now, their focus is costs. Reduce costs. Reduce capital expenditure. They are not digging holes in the ground willynilly anymore. They are going to be very specific. They know there is going to be a glut in supply of iron ore. They are trying to just focus on projects that make financial sense. Capital expenditure and debt coming down more than expected. They are also selling assets. 4 billion of divestments. The key ones, cash returns, upping them 64 . What is interesting is who they are fighting right now. They are trying to fight off being an m a target themselves. Is that part of the reason they are returning this cash to shareholders . It is. Keeping the wolves at bay. That is what sam walshs mantra is. Glencore owns mining assets, but also does the trading of commodities. They are looking to pounce, it would seem. They have made an offer for rio tinto back in july. Rio tinto rejected it. Assets, but also does the trading of commodities. Many feel they will come back to the table. If rio can stand by the fact that it is trying to please its own shareholders, rain in capital expenditure, be a savvy miner going forward, it gives glencore less of a reason to try to get in there. It is cutting its own costs to stop being a target itself. Caroline, thank you. More from you later. No deal in brussels as gridlock continues over greece. Euro area governments are delaying tough decisions on the future. Talks between greece and its creditors went into the early hours of the morning, but failed to bridge differences over greeces aid program. Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis told bloomberg the mood of the meeting was positive, but refused to answer our questions about the reality of funding greeces government. I hope it is a positive one. It should reflect the positive attitudes of everyone around the table today. I was impressed by the openness, the understanding of course disagreements, but very civilized disagreements. It was quite clear to me and my colleagues that the intention of everyone was to find common ground. That, to me, is greatly encouraging. Any closer to issuing another 8 billion in tbills . Dont ask me. It is a serious question. Will you have the ability to fund your government . [indiscernible] that was the greek finance minister speaking to hans nichols in brussels. Also in brussels, Tom Mackenzie. He has been up all night tracking the story. What exactly could not be agreed upon at the meeting . Frankly, not very much at all. Last nights meeting came on the back of Yanis Varoufakis whirlwind tour of european capitals where he was trying to drum up support for the new greek governments proposals. He also went into this meeting with a number of principles he described for a new deal. Some of those included debt for financing sustainability. He also wanted the humanitarian crisis in athens addressed and he wanted debt restructuring. His counterpart in the eurozone pretty much didnt budge on any of those last night. Heres the reaction from the eurogroup president after the meeting. We had an intense discussion covering a lot of ground, also making progress, but not enough progress at this point to come to joint conclusions. We will continue our talks on monday. The eurogroup president talking there. He was one of the big players in attendance, along with mario draghi and Christine Lagarde watching from the wings. There were moments of optimism during this meeting, which rallied the euro. There was a point where we thought they would come out with a joint statement on a bailout extension. When varoufakis phoned back to his colleagues in athens, that came back and that joint statement was nixed. This now focuses attention on tonights summit of european leaders. They want to be focusing on russia and terrorism, but greece is back on the agenda for them. It is going to be the first place where merkel and tsipras are going to meet each other. The next big date is next monday , february 16, another eurogroup meeting. Theyve got to do a lot more than just agree to talk. They have to come with something concrete. February 28 is when this current Bailout Program for greece comes to an end. Time is of an essence. Back to you. Tom mackenzie covering that story on greece out of brussels. Lets move our attention to eastern europe. Leaders have gathered in minsk negotiating ukraine peace talks as we speak. The delegates are aiming to enforce the ceasefire agreed upon in september. Talks continuing into their 13th hour. We are following the developments. Ryan has been following the developments. What do we know . They are going to sign something. We dont know who is going to sign it. There has been some talk that it would be signed by just two of the parties. Basically theyve kept a tight lid on negotiations. They are now in their 13th hour. We have a picture of the room where we are expecting the signing. There it is. Independence palace . That is where the russian and ukrainian president s have spent the last 13 hours negotiating. What i understand is that it is in the last half hour some of the russian delegation has gone to meet with some of the militants, if you will, leaders of the fighters in eastern ukraine. They are not officially invited to these talks. Russia is representing their interest and they will presumably return after some kind of agreement. Then, the german and french leaders have to go to the eu for more talks. It sounds like mr. Poroshenko might be joining them. They are still trying to negotiate a peace accord and yet the economy of ukraine needs assistance quite urgently. Absolutely. We are expecting to hear from the managing director of the imf. She is supposed to give a press conference at 8 00 a. M. London time. We dont know for sure, but it is likely that she going to talk about a new deal for ukraine. Ukraine needs about 15 billion of assistance. We heard from the Prime Minister, saying ukraine has about 48 hours to cut a new deal with the imf. Christine lagarde is disposed to doing a deal. There have been lots of talks lots of suggestions that they are getting closer and closer to announcing something. The key will be perhaps not the headline number. Are they going to get all they need . But how fast are they going to get that money . And the currency has been falling. The worlds worst performing currency in 2015 so far. It is extoraordinary. Down 39 yeartodate. The conflict has been going nearly a year now. More than 5000 people have been killed. Nearly 13,000 People Killed according to the united nations. Ryan, thank you very much. Lets look at some of the other stories we are following this morning. President obama has requested new authority from congress to wage a military campaign against islamic state. It would allow limited deployment of Ground Troops but would not include their use in offensive Ground Combat operations. Obama said the Extremist Group presents a threat to the u. S. If left unchecked. Make no mistake. This is a difficult mission. It will remain difficult for some time. Its going to take time to dislodge the terrorists especially from urban areas, but our coalition is on the offensive. Isil is on the defensive and is going to lose. Tesla is down. Stocks fell in extended trading. That is according to a letter to investors posted on the companys website. Tesla missed its delivery goals and slow manufacturing and Severe Weather meant shipments slipped into the third quarter. United Airlines Says it wont honor cheap flights booked as a result of a computer glitch. The airliner blamed a thirdparty Software Company for allowing customers to book flights by putting denmark as their billing country. Is the game up for greece . With no bailout deal on the table, the regions most indebted nation faces some challenges. We discuss that and more on countdown next. Welcome back to countdown. The future for greece is still uncertain. Finance ministers left tough decisions on a bailout the next week. Talks failed to bridge differences on how to keep funds flowing. For more on the fiscal crisis, we are joined by Gabriel Stein. Thank you so much for joining us. Do you have one fixed view on what is going to happen with greece or are you considering many options . I and my colleagues are considering many options. Our main forecast is still there will be some kind of compromise. There will be a deal. It will go down to the wire, but within that, who is going to blink most . Is it the greeks or the germans . I also think there is one big worry which i fear. That is, both sides believe they have the strongest hand and it is up to the other guys to blink and nobody blinks. That is a downside risk. But you are not counting such an eventuality, are you . It would make economic sense for greece. It would be good for the eurozone. Or rather, greece should never have been a member. Today, it would be bad politically for the eurozone. But it is not a main scenario. Its and outcome which, clearly none of the players desire. That doesnt mean it wont happen, just it is far down the line. Is the language used here going to be key . Any kind of agreement will be have to be possible to sell to the people back at home. We saw Prime Minister tsipras posting pictures on twitter of a rally in athens. Many supporters coming out and saying they like the antiausterity status. Theyve got to have something that is sellable back in greece. They do indeed. But theyve already indicated some signs of compromise. They are prepared to accept 70 of the bailout and so on. Once an agreement is reached, assuming that happens, there will be some cosmetics. For instance, the troika is no longer in charge. Theres been talk of bringing in the oecd. But yes, it is probably more important for tsipras to be able to say, we managed to get our key demands. For the germans, the european partners, less of an issue. But ultimately yes, greece will repay is probably an important point even though it is highly unlikely. We are looking at key metrics to see what it is like on the ground. Whether it is greek deposits, the possibility of default by the credit default swap market what about emergency liquidity assistance . The lifeline for greek banks. Could the ecb withdraw e. L. A. . What would happen if it occurred . The last question is really easy. If the ecb were to withdraw the e. L. A. They dont authorize it to continue and you need a two thirds vote. If they do that the greek Economic System collapses unless greeks starts printing its own money. So thats easy. Under what circumstances, this is complicated. The whole point with e. L. A. Is that if everything is going to be all right, it doesnt matter. But if you fear there will be a breakup, then it matters hugely. But it seems to me that for the ecb to come out and say, we are stopping the e. L. A. , that is tantamount to saying, we have taken the decision to throw grease out. That would be too political a move for the ecb to make. They would have to have at least agreed to this before hand. If that were agreed, if the deal was to kick the greeks out, why do it via the ecb . Gabriel, thank you for joining us. Great to get your insight. Should we look at some live pictures from minsk . Russian, ukrainian, french, and german leaders negotiating a ceasefire for ukraine. We are in the 13th hour of talks between the leaders of those four countries. They are trying to negotiate an enforcement of the earlier truce that took place back in september. That seems to be the focus. Russian representatives said before this meeting that this is about the practical implementation of that september accord. That previous accord in september was widely ignored and collapsed in january. We have Petro Poroshenko, Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel, and Vladimir Putin meeting in minsk to try to negotiate. And it could determine if peace takes hold or war breaks out. If the u. S. Or some european allies supply arms to ukraine. There are lots of permutations that rest on the outcome of today. Follow us on twitter. Minsk is one of the trending subjects today. Frances secondbiggest bank societe generale, gave us their earnings earlier. We will hear from the ceo just after this break. Stay with us. A lot to cover this morning on countdown. You are watching countdown. Time for a look at the Foreign Exchange markets. The Australian Dollar. Weve had a key piece of Economic Data in australia unemployment climbing to a 12. 5year high. That is underscoring last wiis decision to cut Interest Rates to a record low. The jobless rate in australia rose 6. 4 from 6. 1 . That was the worst since august 2002. It exceeded the median estimate of 6. 2 from a bloomberg survey. The number of people employed fell by 12,000, led by declines in eastern states. This is the Australian Dollar versus the u. S. Dollar year to date. It has fallen by 6 . It is down to . 76, the lowest point since may 2009. As i said, this data underscores the move by the australian centralbank last week when it unexpectedly ended a 17month pause. It cut rates in an economy that is on track to expand below its potential for six of the last seven years. Its efforts to encourage investment have been hampered by renewed government infighting. The unemployment level climbing to a 12. 5year high. That sending the Australian Dollar to its lowest level against the u. S. Dollar since may 2009. Breaking news. Renault reporting numbers this morning. They are on a hiring spree. They are going to hire 1000 people in france. Looking at the numbers for 2014, operating profit coming in ahead of estimates. 1. 16 billion euros. That is ahead of estimates of 1. 45. They are proposing a dividend of 1. 9 euros per share. In terms of the outlook, they say the global car market will rise 2 in 2015. Their aim is to lift registrations. They are also aiming to lift operating margins in 2015. They are giving details on parts of russian exposure, talking about probably not consolidating after that in 2015. They dont see further after that this year. They are saying that took evaluation of the ruble drop already. A few comments from the cfo coming through. That in relation to renault. There was some concern that guidance might be cautious because of the new products being rolled out. There was an expectation that profits would be higher because vehicle sales were seen as higher. Some interest in what the company will say about foreignexchange markets, that will be key. 6 33 in london. Lets get to our top stories. Tesla is down. The stock fell in extended trading after the electric carmaker reported a fourthquarter loss. That is according to a letter to investors posted on the companys website. Tesla midst its delivery goal and slow manufacturing and Severe Weather meant shipments slipped. Cisco secondquarter results topped estimates, fueling a recovery that began last year. That is according to a company statement. Cisco is rolling out machines that can handle skyrocketing internet traffic and Security Services while relying less on sales and switching equipment. Baidu posted profits that missed analyst estimates. The slide comes despite the 16 rise in net income compared to a year earlier. The owner of chinas largest Search Engine says it boosted spending to attract users to its mobile application. Socgens deputy chief executive has been speaking about the banks exposure to risk in russia. He told caroline connan, the lender has seen an increase in the cost. Globally speaking, our exposure [indiscernible] in 2014, for the full year our operations have been positive. We have had positive earnings in 2014. We observed in the last quarter of last year and increase in risk due to the Macro Economic situation. In terms of capital ratio, we have internal policy of hedging against ruble variations. How often do you talk about russia with the ecb . We are in contact with our new senior supervisor every day on all topics including the russian situation. How often do you talk about russia these days . Every week. Is the ecb asking you Additional Capital requirements the cause of the situation in russia . The total of the group was 10. 1 . It is a requirement of the ecb. The ecb made no observation on that. Do you think the situation will get worse before it gets better . For this year, 2015, we anticipate a difficult macroeconomic situation in russia with the recession and with a higher inflation rate. Globally speaking, we should expect an increase in our cost of risk. As i mentioned earlier this will be [indiscernible] could you exit russia or is this off the table . Our vision is a longterm vision for russia. We are committed on the long term in russian economy. We come from that position. Severin cabannes there speaking to bloombergs caroline connan. In new york, the nasdaq closed near a 15year high. Billionaire investor carl icahn seems to be an apple fan. He raised his anticipated price for the shares. Su keenan has the stock. Up another 2 a day after. The companys market cap topped 7 billion for the first time in history. Apple shareholder and activist investor carl icahn was cheering from the sidelines and put out a lot of messages to that affect as we reported yesterday. The ceo, tim cook, at an Investor Conference in San Francisco said they were not into cash hoarding and they were looking at giving money back. The billionaire who says he owns 6. 5 billion worth of shares raised his estimate for the stock to 216 from what had been a lower estimate and said that hes looking forward to the capital return program. He anticipates a large increase to share repurchases. That could have been one of the reasons we saw apple shares rally. Apple has raised the equivalent of more than 40 billion in debt to help finance dividends and buybacks. The anticipation over what will happen in the next month or two is growing. We also had apple addressing criticisms for worker conditions at suppliers in asia. They are requiring factors to pay recruitment phase for employees instead of settling the costs on the new hires themselves, a practice known as bonded labor. This came out in an audit released by apple today. That was the latest on apple. You can join in the conversation. Anything you want to contribute, you will find us on twitter. We talked to Gabriel Stein earlier. He says that Emergency Assistance would be too political a decision for the ecb to make. Greece is trending. Minsk was trending earlier. We will continue to talk about what is happening in minsk. The top stories on bloomberg this hour tesla is down. The stock falling in extended trading after the electric carmaker reported a loss of . 13 a share. Tesla also missed its delivery goal by 1345 the a calls. Slow manufacturing and Severe Weather meant shipments slipped into the first quarter. Cisco secondquarter results topped estimates with new products fueling a recovery that began last year. Profit was . 53 a share on sales of 11. 9 billion. Cisco is rolling out machines that can handle skyrocketing internet traffic, softwarebased networking tools, and Security Services while relying less on sales of specialized routers. Baidu posted profits that missed analyst estimates in the quarter ending in december. The slide comes despite a 16 rise to 517 million compared to a year earlier. The owner of chinas largest Search Engine said it boosted spending to attract users to mobile applications. Leaders from russia, ukraine germany, and france are gathered in minsk negotiating ukraine peace talks as we speak. The delegates are aiming to enforce the ceasefire that was agreed upon in december in september. Ryan chilcote is here with the latest. We are looking at live pictures from that independence palace in minsk. What do we know . A lot of journalists waiting for these four leaders to emerge from their talks that have been going on for 13 hours. In the last hour, theyve been joined by the leaders of the selfproclaimed republics of the east of the country that are fighting ukrainian troops. Up to now, the ukrainian president has refused to talk to them, fearful that it legitimizes them in this conflict. This is a conflict between ukraine and russia, so president putin is the only appropriate person to talk to. The talks began with the russian president representing the rebels but now the rebels have been brought to the palace. What we are hearing is, they dont need to sign off on the deal. But they have been brought there, and that is interesting. It is entirely possible that the russian delegation insisted the ukrainian president do business with them. I gather, when they entered the palace, it was a carefully choreographed moment. Poroshenko arrived first, that by president lukashenko. Who accused him of killing civilians in the east of the country. Merkel and hollande arrived together and received a bouquet from the belarusian president. This is his big moment in the sun. He is most famously known as being europes last dictator. He presides over a country that feels a lot like the soviet union did in the 1980s. He has complete control ive interviewed him before for him to be giving a bouquet to Angela Merkel, well i guess she was in her diplomatic mode. Belarus has been on the receiving end of sanctions from the European Union at various times. [indiscernible] an hour and a half after the meeting time was to begin. What we dont know for sure is whether he was an hour and a half late or whether his talks were supposed to happen later. The ukrainian president sat down with the german and french leaders in advance. They are perhaps more of a unit in these negotiations. What do we think about the sanctions environment . Many commentators and politicians have talked about how this meeting is key to dictating where we go next on the sanctions situation for russia. One diplomat told us yesterday that a visible failure of these talks, i guess the russian president storms out of the room, nothing gets signed, then when merkel and aland get on a plane we can expect sanctions to be back on the table. Where sanctions stand at the moment is, they were going to expand the blacklist to include more russian and ukrainian nationals fighting ukrainian forces. There were going to expand that list earlier this week, but they delayed that to give peace a chance, if you will. A little bit of an olive branch. It is not that big of a deal. What russia would be concerned about is an expansion of t or three sanctions. Economic sanctions against energy defense. Even if the germans and the french wanted to ratchet up the sanctions, would greece allow them . Greeces foreign minister was in moscow yesterday, meeting with the Russian Foreign minister. He said sanctions havent achieved their goals and cast doubt on the sanctions. When he made his debut the Greek Foreign minister at the first gathering,o oh we have are these live pictures . Thats the moment. He sort of played ball to be fair, the Greek Foreign minister, and he didnt get in the way of new sanctions. He sort of a loud the sanctions that were being prepared to go through. They did take out some of the language that would have allowed for a warning that there would be more restrictive measures. It gives them some leverage in the negotiations with their european counterparts. This prospect of vetoing sanctions gives them some sort of leverage in ongoing discussions. Probably a dangerous one. There is a fine balance. They will be mindful of that. While they can play this card Angela Merkel will be very aware of what they are doing and probably not appreciate it. If she feels it is important to impose sanctions against russia despite the better interest of german business i dont think shes going to let the greeks get in the way. We are watching minsk because we dont have anything concrete yet. The scene will move to brussels. We will have the imf talking in brussels later on as well. It looks as if we might be close to some arrangement. We will talk to ryan more about that later on. Thank you very much. Stay tuned to countdown. We are on twitter of course. When we come back, we will be speaking about industrial businesses that could be heavily impacted by what weve seen in the oil price. Fascinating conversation coming up. Welcome back to countdown. Fourthquarter earnings Beat Estimates from analysts this morning. The company is on track to achieve targets for 2015. Joining us on the phone from amsterdam is the companys ceo. Thank you for joining us. I wonder if we could get to the impact of Lower Oil Prices on your business. How much is the weakness in the oil price helping . The weakness in the oil price will have an impact. The drop in oil price has been so apparent to everybody that the dynamics will need some time to unfold. Customers have noticed certain Oil Price Drops certain Market Segments for us, will show less activities. On the raw material side, we may have some benefits. What kind of percentage of your cost base is affected by the weakness in these Raw Materials such as the oil price . We purchase a significant amount of raw material that is related to oil. We dont purchase a lot of oil itself. They are derived goods that are intermediate products that have oil in it. But it is relevant and we expected it to have an impact. Another thing that could have an impact, the currency markets and any weakness in the euro. Is that helping the business, to export more . We are a naturally hedged business. We produce in the locations where we sell. Where it helps will be in translations into the euro. That is a reversal of what has happened almost two years and a row where the currencies were working against us. On a translational affect, we do expect that they may have a positive effect as well. It sounds as if you dont have to spend much time worrying about where the countries are. Do you worry about any fallout in the euro zone economies from what is taking place in greece at the moment . Do you watch what is happening in these greek negotiations and worry as to the stability of the markets . As a truly global company, you are susceptible to geopolitical events like greece but also the insecurity around the discussion going on in minsk and the reduced growth rates in china. We watch all of that carefully. We do look at europe as an area that we dont expect to generate very Significant Growth. We put all the actions in place to deliver on our targets in 2015. You saw some strike activity at one of your installations in rotterdam in the Fourth Quarter. How much of an impact has that had on the company . Indeed, we had some industrial actions in one of our sites. They have subsequently stopped. An arrangement has been reached. Weve seen a result on Specialty Chemicals in that quarter. Because of approval measures we have instigated, we were able to deliver pretty much the same result despite this type of action. The global macro environment where are you focusing your efforts . Whered you see the best opportunities to weather the storm . When we look at the world, we see an engine that runs on one cylinder when it comes to growth. That is the united states. We see lower growth in south america, lower growth in china quite some significant effects in the russian market. Overall truly we look at a one cylinder engine when it comes to growth, the united states. Doesnt sound very stable. Thank you very much for joining us. Countdown continues in the next hour. Stay with us. Welcome back to countdown. Weve heard earnings from Credit Suisse this morning. They proposed investors choose whether to receive their dividend in shares or in cash for 2014 amid pressure to boost capital. Manus cranny has been speaking to the banks chief executive officer, brady dougan. Lets hear what he had to say. We have a strong operating result in the Fourth Quarter. The business continues to perform consistently, which is good. On capital generation, we had a target 10 . We met 10. 2 . When you look at it, you look at the capital generation capability, it is quite strong. We went from 9. 3 in may to 10. 2 . That is almost a full point in just seven months. Theres a lot of capital generation capability in the business. We felt a Cash Dividend consistent with last year we are offering the option. Do you think a lot of institutions will take the dividend . Youve set new leverage targets. A good year for deleveraging or a tough one . A lot of our institutions do like today the script alternative. It helps to build a little capital as well. We do have a lot of institutions that like that option. We actually reduce over 50 billion of Balance Sheet in the Fourth Quarter. Very Good Progress on continued deleveraging. As you mentioned, set new targets for the end of the year. We are continuing to be ahead of the curve in terms of restructuring, evolving the business. We feel good about our ability to achieve those targets. That will put us at a total swiss leverage ratio of 4. 5 by the end of the year. Theres also the statement here, the board of directors taking a 25 total cut. This is a shift in pay. I understand you are acknowledge and 2014 but do you feel a real shift in terms of how remuneration is going to go . First of all, we had a result in 2014 which is pretty much even with 2013 even with the impact of the settlement. We had a pretty even result including the impact of the settlement, and yet the economic value of our competition was down about 9 . That shows discipline. In terms of the settlement, it was important to get that behind us. The executive board and all the employees at credits we stayed a good job on that. We did feel that it was right to acknowledge the impact on the earnings of that settlement. As a result, the board voluntarily took these reductions in compensation as an acknowledgment of the impact the settlement had on the results. That was the chief executive of Credit Suisse, brady dougan speaking to manus cranny in zurich. We are getting numbers from total, the last of the Big Oil Companies to report. Ryan chilcote has got the details for us. First off, it is a beat. 2. 8 billion versus an expectation of 2. 5 billion. Production right in line with estimates. 2. 2 Million Barrels a day. They are going to cut investment by 10 to 23 billion to 24 billion this year. They are expanding their costcutting program. This is what weve seen at other companies. They are concerned about the oil price. The first thing to go is exploration. They are going to freeze hiring for upstream and refining. The new ceo who has taken over has said that he is going to restructure the business. Theres a lot to do right now if you are the ceo of an oil company. There are a lot of changes to be made. It looks like he has embarked on that task. 61 euro sense which is sacrosanct, the word many have applied to these oil companies. Some people were expecting that would rise to as much as . 64 a share. We didnt get that. Given the backdrop with the oil price perhaps too much to ask for. They are saying they are going to speed up their plan. We knew they were going to do this 10 billion of sales, including a 10 stake in nigerias fields. They are going to frontload the asset sales. We are seeing this at all the oil companies. Get rid of the least efficient assets. Brent is down to 55 a barrel now. Should we change focused talk about what is happening in mask . Are we in the 14th hour of discussion . That is the room. We are waiting for assigning. Our expectation is that we will see the president s of russia and ukraine and the leaders of germany and france emerge from talks and go into that room possibly signing a declaration, possibly giving a joint statement. Thats really important, whether we get a joint statement from them or whether they refuse to do that and each give their own press conference. Thats critical. The other thing to watch is the presence of the rebel leaders. They have joined the talks now. Or at least they are inside the building. We dont know that theyve been involved in the talks yet. They were not allowed to be part of the talks. The ukrainian president considers them illegitimate political leaders. He said he will only talk with the russian president. As far as the ukrainians are concerned, this is a conflict between ukraine and russia. They have invited the germans and french to broker a deal. The fact that these two leaders are there suggests that perhaps maybe the russian president is getting what he wants in getting the ukrainian president to sit down directly with these two guys. Difficult to imagine giving it this has been going on for almost a year. As far as russia is concerned this is an internal conflict in ukraine and they have no participation. They are simply representing these prorussian rebels at the talks. The scene is clearly set in minsk. The drama moves to brussels quickly. We are going to hear from Christine Lagarde and we expect that shes going to announce another imf package, possibly to the tune of 15 billion. Thats what the ukrainian finance minister says ukraine needs. Two things to watch. Do they get the 15 billion . How quickly . Thank you very much. No deal in brussels as gridlock continues over greece. Euro area governments are delaying tough decisions until next week. Talks between greece and its creditors went into the early hours of the morning but failed to bridge differences. Finance minister varoufakis told bloomberg the mood at the meeting was positive but refused to answer our question about the reality of funding greeces government. It should reflect the very positive attitude of everyone around the table today. I was very impressed by the openness of the conversation, the understanding, there were disagreements, but very civilized disagreements. It is quite clear to me and my colleagues that the intention of everyone was to find common ground. That, to me, is greatly encouraging. Any closer to issuing another 8 billion inti bills . Dont ask me. It is so late at night. Will you have the ability to fund your government . You will allow me not to answer in detail. Lets get to Tom Mackenzie who has been up all night in brussels. Good morning. What could be agreed upon at this meeting . Morning, mark. Last week varoufakis said he couldnt agree to disagree with his german counterpart, wolfgang scheidler. Maybe there was some progress when they agreed to disagree. The meeting came on the back of arafat this world way and tour of european capitals. The greeks want an end to the trike of visits to athens. They want the ecb profits from those bond holdings, they want some of those to help this financing as well. They want some form of growth bond or debt restructuring, and also varoufakis came to the table with a number of principles for a new deal, including financial stability, financial sustainability, and an end to the humanitarian crisis in greece. The eurogroup listened politely. But they said, no. Listen to eurogroup president jeroen dijsselbloem. We had an intense discussion covering a lot of ground, also making progress, but not enough progress at this point to come to joint conclusions. We will continue our talks on monday. The focus now shifts to tonight where the european leaders are hosting a summit. They had hoped to focus purely on russia and terrorism. Greece now back on the agenda. Then the focus shifts to monday, when the euro great meets again. They have to make some progress at that meeting. February 28 is the deadline when this current bailout ends for greece. No one wants to get to that point. How did the euro react throughout the night . Mark, we saw the euro pop up a little bit ring the sixour talks. At one point, there were some officials saying that a joint statement was going to the issued. Varoufakis apparently discussed that got back to his colleagues in athens, and they set a firm no. The joint statement would have included the term bailout extension. That is something the greek government has pushed against. That is when the euro popped up. It dropped again. We are approaching the edge of the precipice. What everyone agreed on was, no one wants to go over, but what is going to be done to stop that is very much to play for. Tom, thanks a lot. Tom mackenzie has been up all night. Lets look at some of the other big stories we are following this morning. President obama has requested authority from congress to wage a military campaign against the islamic state. It would allow limited deployment of Ground Troops but would not include their use in enduring defensive Ground Combat operations. Obama says the Extremist Group presents a threat to the u. S. If left unchecked. This is a difficult mission. It will remain difficult for some time. It is going to take time to dislodge these terrorists especially from urban areas. But our coalition is on the offensive. Isil is on the defensive. The captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. 32 people were killed when the ship capsized three years ago. Prosecutors had requested a jail term of more than 26 years for the captain, who had argued he was made a scapegoat for the accident and that his actions saved the lives. United airlines has said it wont honor cheap flights booked as a result of a computer glitch. The airline blamed a Software Error for allowing customers to book flights such as a 76 fare from london to israel by putting denmark as their billing country. United says that the several thousand bookings would be voided. Join the conversation on twitter. The minsk summit is trending today. Leaders reaching agreements in belarus on a draft these plan in the 10month conflict and separatist rebels. Tell us what you are following today. Manus is in zurich. You are looking at live pictures from minsk where the russian, ukrainian, german, and french leaders are negotiating a ceasefire. They are all there in independence palace. Talks are entering their 14th hour. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko is meeting with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, we understand. We will keep you updated throughout the morning. Welcome back. Thought wed have a quick peek at our digital pix. Just a day after apple crossed the 700 billion market cap it climbed another 2. 3 to 124. 88. Its new market cap, 720 7 billion. You can see where this is going. Every day, we are inching closer to the magical 1 trillion. Apple continuing to rise our story by tim higgins. Analysts, tim tells us, and i looked it up and tim is right analysts have a 12 month average target price of 132. The highest target is 165. Yesterday, we closed at 124. Were apple to reach that mark the market value would exceed 960 billion. We are not quite at the barton target. Here are the words of an analyst. He wrote, given apples powerful iphone cycle, a big 4g round in china, and the launch of the apple watch in april, we believe theres is plenty to look forward to at apple during this transformational cycle. And dont mention the law of large numbers, which is misunderstood on wall street. It doesnt mean that apple cant keep growing according to mathematicians. Ive chosen something from our website about netflix. Netflix calls house of cards after a really release after early release. A technical fault inadvertently made season three of house of cards available on wednesday. This is one of their flagship original shows. Kevin spacey won a golden globe. The due date for this is the 27th of february. I have a day booked off work. The official twitter handle for house of cards says this is washington, theres always a leak. How intentional was this . It has gotten them some free publicity. Today, a lender has swung to a profit and announced additional asset reductions. It is proposing investors choose whether to receive their dividend in shares or in cash. Manus has been speaking to the chief executive, brady dougan. We had a strong operating result in the fourth order. The business continues to perform consistently, which is good. On capital generation, we had a target of 10 . We met 10 point 2 , so we exceeded that. If you look at the capital generation capability, it is strong. We went from 9. 3 in may to 10. 2 at the end of the year. That is almost a full point over just seven months. Theres a lot of capital generation capability in the business. We felt a . 70 Cash Dividend consistent with last year, we are offffering the option for a script alternative. Do you think a lot of institution would take the script dividend. Youve got a leverage target. Is it going to be a tough one . A lot of our institutions do like to take the script alternative. It certainly does as well help to build a little capital. But we do have a lot of institutions that like that option. We actually reduced over 50 billion of Balance Sheet in the Fourth Quarter. We made Good Progress on continued deleveraging, set new targets for the end of the year and our view is that we are continuing to be ahead of the curve in terms of restructuring the business, evolving in a way that is more efficient. We feel good about our ability to achieve those targets. That will put us at a total swiss leverage ratio of 4. 5 which is strong. That will keep them happy. The board of directors taking a 25 total remuneration cut. This is a shift in pay. I understand you are probably acknowledging 2014, but do you feel a real shift in terms of how remuneration is going . First of all, we had a result in 2014 which is pretty much even with 2013 even with the impact of the settlement. We had basically a pretty even result including the impact of the settlement. Yet, the economic value for all emes was down about 9 . That shows discipline. The settlement was very important to get behind us. I think the executive board and all the employees did a good job on that. It was tough to work through but we did feel that it was right to acknowledge the impact on the earnings of that settlement, and as a result, the board as well as the executive board voluntarily took these reductions in compensation as an acknowledgment of the impact of the results. Lets talk about the Swiss National bank. What is the bigger impact of the smb removing the cap against the euro . Give me your take on the s p impact . We did want to be very clear about what we thought the impact was. We took our 2014 numbers and mapped these changes on to that and came up with a number of about 300 million adverse impact. We thought that was important. There are a lot of different estimates about what that could be. When we look at it, it is probably the bigger longterm impact is the cost mismatch. Within our private bank, we have all of our expenses in swiss francs and part of the revenues in euros and dollars. That has a longerterm impact. We are mitigating that by continuing some of our efficiency goals. We have some larger goals that we will meet this year. Weve added some additional measures. It is probably the Foreign Exchange issues that are bigger now. The Interest Rate side also presents certain challenges. It is a question of trying to make sure we are treating our customers well. For instance, we are not charging negative Interest Rates on deposits for our Private Banking customers. Larger corporate customers, yes but not Private Banking customers. We are trying to balance the impact. Is there an Inflection Point that forces you to charge negative rates and prepare for more volatility . I think we will have to see that. As you say, there has been a lot of volatility since the smb announcement. Things have traced back white of it from the low points that it got too. We will have to see how that develops over time. If there are further moves, then that may require further measures. At this point, we feel like weve got a good set of measures around a reasonable outcome to expect. One of the things that came out when we were talking to Deutsche Bank is that high yields and leverage areas are the biggest concern in 2015. These are big parts of your business. Would you put that at the higher part of the radar for 2015 . In terms of the markets weve already seen some significant adjustments to the credit markets in the Fourth Quarter. The Fourth Quarter a more difficult market for credit than it has been. It is an important business. I feel like weve got a very high quality business. It could be a business that sees adjustments to credit spreads adjustment to the volumes of business, but i have faith that our business will perform well through that. That was the chief executive of Credit Suisse, brady dougan, speaking to manus cranny in zurich. Lets bring you some live pictures from minsk. We have pictures from the belarusian capital where leaders have gathered to hammer out the details around a peace deal with ukraine. It is now being said that ukraines summit is said to produce a draft Peace Agreement to end that conflict between Government Troops and separatist rebels. According to the new service, negotiations went through the night. Almost 14 hours of talks between putin, poroshenko, Angela Merkel, and Francois Hollande. And the dpa news agency as saying that a ceasefire forms part of the accord being presented to the Ukraine Contact Group which comprises representatives of those countries, and the rebel group and the organization for security and cooperation. It is trending on twitter. This is where you can find us. Tell us what you are following today. Youre watching countdown. Time for a look at the Foreign Exchange market. The u. S. Dollar against aussie dollar. The jobless rate rising to 6. 4 . The worst since august 2002. It exceeded the median estimates. The number of people employed fell by 12,200 led by declines in eastern states. It underscores the reason why we had a cut in Interest Rates from the r. B. A. , the reserve bank of australia early they are month. It cut rates to support the economy that is on track to expand below its potential for six of the last seven years. It is trying to revive business confidence. It is trying to encourage investments. It has been the engine of the australian economy during this miningled boom of the last 10 years. Those measures have been hampered by renewed government infighting. Unemployment 12. 5year high. Aussie dollar, lowest level since may twine. 2009. Getting news coming out of minsk in relation to talks that are ongoing trying to find a peace settlement for what has been happening in the ukraine. The president making comments to reporters. Looks like he is speaking for a couple of seconds saying russia is making unreasonable demands in minsk and so far there is no good news at all to report from the meeting. They are still talking. That was bad news for the ruble. It fell 2. 3 . We have not got an lot of detail out of these talks. Youre seeing the room where we hope the ukrainian and russian president s will come out. You see the ruble. It is actually weakening. It has claude back a little bit some of the losses. Close to 2 . Were waiting for these talks. They are in their 149 hour. Were told by our friends that coffee, tea, sweets and snacks have been served. The rebel leadership were also in the leadership. We dont know what role they are playing in the talks. That is significant. The ukrainian president has ruled out direct talks with the row prussian separatists. Russia has been encouraging demand that the ukrainian president speak with them. That is a way to legit mize russias referendum. The fact that they are there. We dont know whether they are involved in the talks or not. They spent the first 10 or 11 hours down the road at a hotel. One of the officials who has worked on policy for the last year was ferrying notes between the meeting and them. If they get directly involved in the talks, perhaps this is one of the things that the ukrainian president is talking about. The russians making unacceptable demands. The entrance to the palace was carefully chor graphed, wasnt it . By russian speaking journalists. Thats right. When the ukraineon president arrived, a russian speaking journalist shouted out shame on you for killing civilians in the east of the country. When Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande arrived, they got a much warmer reception. President putin showed up an hour and a half late. What is he like . You met him a number of years ago. A former sports instructor. Been in power 1520 years. I last interviewed him september 10, 2001. It was just after one of a string of president ial elections that he has won. My last question to him is what are you saying about these allegations that you death squads running around killing your opponents to which he said all this is europe. Of course that kind of thing doesnt happen in a civilized place like europe. They are too weak anyway to want to get rid of that was my last memory of belarus. Well see what happens. Well keep monitoring those developments. Tesla is down. The stock fell in extended trading after musks car maker had a Fourth Quarter loss. That is according to a letter to investors posted on the companys website. Tesla also missed its delivery goal by 1,345 videocassettes. Vehicles. New products fueling recovery. Profit was 53 cents a share on shares of 11. Billion. They are handling softwarebased networking tools and security ssts. Baidu posted net income at 517 million. They boosted spending to attract users to their mobile application. We have had earnings this morning from kacy thompson. From tomtom. Welcome to countdown. Thank you very much for joining us. Lets talk about the sports watch. I know that is one of the products that you hoping that you can count on into the future, harold. How significant can the sports watch become for tomtom . It is going to be a competitive field, isnt snippet yes. They have been doing well. We doubled revenue last year and plan to double it again this year or at least double it this year. It is interesting for us. It is a welcome source of diversification. It fits well with the brand. Were on the right track then. Youre starting in greece among other countries. Are you concerned about the political situation in greece and the conversations that are taking place between greece and the rest of europe and what this might do to european demand . Does that worry you as a c. E. O. . Well, not because of the market. Instability in the eurozone something we wouldnt welcome. But it is it is interesting times. Well just see what happens. It could have a further impact on the currency. The euro has weakened up until the last couple of weeks or so against the dollar and others. You get around 25 of your revenue from outside of europe. How helpful is a weak euro to a business like yours . It is good for exports and revenue currency. It is bad for the costs that we make in dollars. It is a slight negative for growth going forward. As usual, over time you can compensate that and you can adjust your pricing. So so you know we kind of ok. I dont expect a big impact in 2015. Unless there are further strong movements of course. One of the sectors you supply is the car sector. You supply Mapping Software to calf manufacturers. Have you wrote spoken favorably about where that sector is going ago in 2015 for you. Is it going to be the year where your auto revenues really take off . We have made Good Progress in the awed motive sector. Highly automotive sector. Were in the heart of all of that. We booked a lot of orders in 2014. It is very encouraging for us. We expect that to continue and it will lead to Significant Growth in 2016. It is an important market. Were well positioned and it has grown rapidly. Can i ask you about the share price of tomtom . Looking back at the share price charts . Your shares were around 53 euros. What kind of expectations do you, harold, for how big this business can grow again . What kind of trig kearse put a fire underneath that share price once more . We have had our fair share of difficulties and changes in the market. We have done a lot of hard work behind the scenes dapting your products and tolls to the new world and new realities. We excited that this year is the year where everything starts to grow again. Some of those businesses grow very rapidly. Others are turning the corner. This is for us, a good year to grow. And also to strengthen the foundations for further growth in 2016 and beyond. So we are excited about a new opportunity in our position now. You say this is the year where everything starts to grow again. Do you think share price could really take off then . That is not for me to decide. I cant unless it. We can just build good products and sell them. But growth is good. We see it across the board. We see good opportunities in the midterm as well. So things are looking up for tomtom. Ok, harold. Thank you for joining us today on the phone from amsterdam, the c. E. O. Of tomtom. Right. Join us on twitter. Im just tweeting out annas interview on the weak euro. It is a slight negative for us. We can compensate over time. We have had our fair share of difficulties. Things are looking up. There i am at mark barton tv. Up next, it is bart chart time. Why is the world key trade gauge slumping . Stay with countdown for more on that next. Welcome back to time for todays bart chart. Why is the worlds key trade gauge slumping . This is the baltic dry index. Never done this before on the bart chart. It is a first. Measures shipping costs for commodities, coal, iron other and grains. It goes all the way back to 1985, before anna was born. On wednesday, it fell to a record low. The bottom right of your screen of 553 points which is one point lower than previous record go to the far left hand side of your screen that that small yellow circle was set in july and august 1986. Levels reached in the after math in the 2008 financial crisis. It troughed at 774 points following thats a 9 slide in six months from the middle of 2008 until the end of 2008. That high was when the index was at 9589 points. The reason for the new record a, a fleet glut and signs of slowing demand of cargos to china. On the first point the capacity over the global fleet of ships has expanded 60 in the last five years. China, which of course buys half of the worlds coal and iron ore cargos is forecast to expand this year at the slowest pace since 1990 and the Worlds Largest ship broker, characterson estimates imports of coal fell last year and growth in ironore is slumping as well. They said they anticipate the market can only improve from here. Chartering rises after the chinese new year. An analyst at in oslo concurs and he is pretty confident the market is going to move higher over the course of the year. There you go. It is not every day we do the baltic dry index here on my bart chart. History was made on wednesday, january 11 2015. There we are. 7 46 here in london. Solid Fourth Quarter numbers for Credit Suisse. At the same time, a dividend was announced. That was the surprise part of the relief. Manus cranny has details. Good morning. Good morning. It was a bit of a surprise. The market was expecting a 10 cut. It is about raising capital. The commodity side of the business really missed. You saw fixed income trading down there. The dividend is intact. I think that is a really important part of this story. Also setting out new leverage targets. How do you reduce the overall size of the Balance Sheet . At the moment, the market likes what it hears sand focused on the dividend. We have a strong operating result in the Fourth Quarter. That shows that the business continues to perform consistently and very solidly, which is good. On capital generation, we had a target ott 10 . We were at 10. 2. We exceeded that. If you look at that, it is quite strong. We went from 9. 3 in may after the settlement to 10. 2 at the end of the year. That is almost a full point increase in your capital rashe crow in seven months. There is a lot of cape nblet the business. As a result, we felt consistent with last year. We are offering the option for shareholders to take scrip if they would like but we thought that was the right balance. Do you think a lot of institutions would take the Scrip Dividend . Afford you some flexibility in continuing to build capital . You have set new leverage target. A good year for deleveraging or is it going to be tough . A lot of our institutions like to take the scrip alternative. It helps to build a little capital as well. We do have a lot of institutions that actually like that option. We actually reduced over 5 billion in Balance Sheet in the Fourth Quarter. We made Good Progress in deleveraging. I think our view that were continue tock ahead of the curve in terms of restructuring the business, evolving the business in a way that it is more efficient in terms of using the Balance Sheet. We felt good about our ability to achieve those targets. That will put us at 4. 5 by the end of the year which is a very strong leverage ratio. That will keep them happy. The board of directors taking 25 total remuneration cut. The executive board and the group. This is a shift in pay. I understand youre probably acknowledging 2014. But do you feel a real shift in terms of how remuneration is going to go . This is an interesting statement by you. I think first of all, we had a result in 2014 which is pretty much even with 2013. Even with the impact of the settlement in there. We had basically a pretty even result including the impact of the settlement and yet the economic value of our compensation for all employees was down about 9 . That shows discipline. In terms of the settlement, it was very important to get that behind us. I think actually the executive board did a good job on that. It was a tough period to work through. We did feel that it was right to acknowledge impact on the earnings of that settlement and as a result, as you mentioned, the board, as well as the executive board took these reductions and compensations as an acknowledgment of the impact that they had the settlement had on the results in 2014. I think he addressed the issue to have dividend and the leverage. When it came to the Swiss Nationalback and their angsts, it is about actions, it is about the longterm action. It is about what they have got to do for their commerce at the moment. No further negative rates in the private bank side at the moment. It is about the longterm cost impact and i think that was the message that he put forth. Back to you in the studio. Thank you very much. Manus cranny live on the ground in suric. Zurich. Lets bring in anna armstrong. C. E. O. Of Armstrong Investment managers. Good morning. Before get to why you have been long character 40, shorts dax. Greece new york city deal yet. We now move to next week. It seems as though next weeks finance ministers is the next key date. How are you reading the situation . What does it mean for us from an investment standpoint . Markets just started pricing monetary divergeance in january which was reflective. It was to have a huge boost for the equity markets. That is a greek scenario. It is a big issue because it will have a Systemic Risk on the financial system. First, the new government does not have a mandate to leave the union, which is a very encouraging sign. However they will not give up on their fiscal easing package which is reasonable for a country that is having such a slow growth, that it is in recession and now looking at the impact of possible actions i think is quite important. Holding greek debt. Efsf and i. M. F. And european countries, most of them. Also greek banks are funding emergency loans by e. C. B. Again, private sector would be unaffected. What matters here really and why are yields still very correlated having stable correlations. 4,. 5 corslation what happens if greece actually does leave the system and what will Monetary Unions presenting that case. How greece would deliver in its own right. It is not just the greek debt and the amount of debt that really affects the system but rather the whole over the Monetary Union. If you are worried about the stability of the Monetary Union why do you buy european equities specifically in france . Q. E. By the e. C. B. It should have a positive impact. We have seen the impact zone in markets in other countries u. K. , japan, u. S. Over the following months it will have beneficial impacts on european exporters. Wholl benefit offer the weak euro. We believe the greek scenario will end with a compromise because clearly there is too much a it stake. One of your trades, you have been short crude oil. You seem to have closed no that out at the end of january for an 18 return in dollars. That was clever. Since then oil has been rising. Was there a reason you closed out then . What does your crystal ball tell you . On oil we are looking to introduce a trade and the norwegian kronor. We believe it will have with the currency. That is interesting. If that happens, are we going to stop seeing Central Banks taking their Interest Rates lower and try to devalue their currencies . How many are with no snu are we now . Trying to tackle the deflationary forces. Brought about by the weak oil prices. I believe the whole q. E. Will continue. The only big market that will make a big difference is the u. S. Because in a way they started tightening by ending the q. E. And having in mind the positive unemployment numbers. We can expect Interest Rates rising sometime in june. Actually we are long european equities and short u. S. Equities because of the strong dollar. Shale production. You said you were short in the swiss franc against what . Norwegian kronor. Any trades with the swiss franc . No. We had long dollar and short euro position and well go back to that. We also closed dollar equity position. Thank you very much for joining us. Anna armstrong joining us from Armstrong Investment managers. Jon will presue the bank of englands quarterly Inflation Report with the former Monetary Policy committee member. Stay tuned for that. Good morning and welcome to move. Im Jonathan Ferro at bloombergs European Headquarters in london. Minutes away from the start of european trading. Ukraines bailout. Peace talks continue through the night. The government is considering taking a bailout. Christine lagarde said they are close to agreements to provide funding for battered economy. Eurozone deadlock. They failed to bridge differences over greeces aid program. And the rate debate. The bank of englands Inflation Report is due today. Governor carney will present the forecast for growth and inflation in over two hours time. How close are we do that first rate hike . Euro stocks off by six points. Dax down. 01. Moves in the bond market. Yields in germany lower. Yields on twoyear, a record low. We go more negative than the early moves. Lets get the market open with caroline hide. It is going to be caroline hyde. The mindset in russia trading down. They seem to be being batted out of the park by the russian rebels in the you drained ukrainian president poroshenko putting out statements so far saying the deal seems to be unacceptable. Focus on greece is going to be driving stocks in europe. Basically flat