Europe. The ecb is driving the euro lower. That means production could help rejuvenate european economies. Amazing amount of bonds being bought. European stocks up. European bonds are up as well. Borrowing cost coming down in spain on the 10year. They are coming down for germany as well. 0. 24 . In the first three days of bond buying, 10 billion euros of bonds were bought. Driving down the euro, driving down borrowing costs. Lets check out the euro. We did see it strengthening yesterday, but it is back down against the dollar. We did get a little bit of a waiver yesterday. We saw u. S. Retail sales coming in better than expected. Suddenly, people read gaging what the fed will say next week. Will they start to say, we could be easing sooner than expected . That is what everyone is focusing on. Yesterday everyone saw the dollar fall. Today, different story. Many feel that the u. S. Economy is Strong Enough to see rate hikes as soon as september. That is what more than 50 feel according to the bond market. In europe earnings coming from though italian luxury sector. Salvador ferragamo may have better than expected earnings for 2014. That stock rises. Different story for todds. Down 4 . Not only is profit shy of expectations, but the dividend was cut. We get a twoeuro dividend per share. The ceo sounding confident of revenues and profit. Meanwhile, ubs basically flat. They restated their fourthquarter profit, saying they lowered by 105 Million Euros because they paid a provision of 134 million swiss francs because of their Investment Banking unit. They agreed to settle with u. S. Regulators regarding currency rigging. The final pay rise was upped even more. Back to you. Mark Jonathan Caroline hyde, thank you. Stocks higher across much of europe. The European Equity markets what a run. The dax up for a ninth straight week. The longest winning streak since 1998. Equities performing pretty well in europe as qe kicks off. Greece is back to brussels. Alexis tsipras heading to the city today, sparring between Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Schaeuble continues threatening to widen the greekgerman divide. The greek Prime Minister meets the European Parliament president as well. For more, lets bring in Marcus Bensasson in athens. And hans nichols brings us the german angle from berlin. Marcus, what are we expecting out of the tsipras trip today . Is the bar high, low . Theres nothing particularly concrete. We arent expecting announcements of any breakthrough. But juncker has been seen as an interlocutory between greece and the hardline elements in the eurogroup. It comes after a trip to paris yesterday at the oecd where tsipras has tried to bring on board the oecbs assistance to gain more credibility to the reform proposals that greece is making in the hopes that this review can close by the end of april. Jonathan stay with us. Hans, talk to me about the standoff between varoufakis and schaeuble. They seem to have heated up once again. Hans heated up would be one way to put it. The issue is what mr. Schaeuble said in a press conference on tuesday. What he was saying was, he was commenting on mr. Varoufakis communication energy. Heres what he said. Let me read the quote to you. That he should suddenly be naive in terms of communication. I told him it is quite new to me your cothat has been interpreted by the greek press as being foolishly naive. Hence the formal protests, the increase in tension. In terms of ways out of this, it is not clear how you are going to climb down. The greeks are upset. The germans are saying, we stated the obvious, that mr. Varoufakis likes to talk to the press and for him not to know how he was communicating to the press was naive, but not foolishly naive. Jonathan marcus, that is the distinction the germans are making. Talk to me about how this is being seen in athens. It is kind of a good cup that cop situation. Is that the perception in athens as well . Marcus certainly, a large number of entities have commented and made fun of here as well. On the other hand, it is worth noting when it comes tomorrow focus himself to varoufakis himself, he has been a model of civility in all this. Perhaps we need to step away from the personalization of insults. It is worth noting that he gave an interview on greek tv on wednesday night where the journalists really pushed him hard on this point, really tried to get a rise out of him. The latest incident was one of the things they put in the medley of clips. In the lead up, they mentioned a few incidents. Generally, it plays into this whole feeling that this debate is being personalized on varoufakis, that it is not just about countering what the guy is saying. All of a sudden, the eurogroup it is becoming very clear that a lot of varoufakis counterparts just dont like the guy. He said look, im not he refused to be drawn into a personalized dispute. He said, our relations have been very respectful whenever we speak. Im not going to fall into the trap of bad manners. Give the guy his dues there. Jonathan hans, as marcus says, the personalization of this verbal sparring between these nations, talk to me about how this has been taken in berlin as you hear more from politicians about world war ii reparations. What are the thoughts on the streets of berlin . Hans that hits a sore note and allows the press to conjure up this image of greece spending the germans money. One point on marcus comments. When we had that varoufakis interview on what he said to mr. Schaeuble, saying i dont have the trust of the german people i never enjoyed the trust of the german people, an important part of that was left off. He says, i only enjoy the trust of the greek people. In some ways, mr. Varoufakis is talking about democracy. Everyone has to answer to those voters. Sometimes, can be misinterpreted sometimes those quotes can be misinterpreted. He has been accessible to the press and that apparently may be offending mr. Schaeuble just a little bit, who would like to see a little less varoufakis in public and a little more in private, hammering out details, letting the germans know letting his ministry know how greece intends to satisfy the demands of the Bailout Program so they can get that additional 7. 2 billion euros. Jonathan hans nichols, thank you very much. Marcus bensasson joining us from athens. Political posturing continues. Strip out the noise and we are no closer to a longterm deal for greece. Up next, dr. Doom. He seems positive about europe. Nouriel roubini is being reassured by that man in frankfurt, mario draghi. Very aggressive qe implies that the risks are now reduced and there will be a recovery of the eurozone for the next year or so. Jonathan good morning and welcome back. This is on the move. I caught up with Nouriel Roubini yesterday, a. K. A. Dr. Doom. Maybe it was just the italian sunshine. Roubini was sounding a little less gloomy. Check it out. The ecb has to be aggressive on trying to avoid deflation. Youve gone into negative policy rates. You have to do quantitative easing. Quantitative easing is starting to work. The euro is falling. That increases the competitiveness. The stock market is going higher. Borrowing costs are lower. Over time, there will be a recovery of the eurozone growth. This is an extreme remedy but these are also extreme times. Jonathan a little bit of sunshine from dr. Doom on europes outlook. We have chief Investment Officer at allianz global advisors. She joins us now. Roubini, optimistic. President draghi doing a few victory laps. Should i be worried . Guest shortterm, i think there is a little sentiment towards europe, but the fundamentals are better than theyve been for a wild. We have seen positions fall. It has to do with valuations oil prices, interest rate, and qe as well. However, we were already seeing recovery in europe even before qe. I think the timing of qe has been very clever. I think it is all right. As far as the markets, we have seen quite a lot of this positive sentiment coming from markets already this year. Jonathan i want to take it to your world, the equity space. They have been anything but muted. The ftse has climbed as much as 18 . We have nine weeks of gains on the backs. Can this kind of performance nine weeks of gains on the dax. Can this kind of performance continue . Guest it has been a good start to the year for equity markets. We think there is still a lot of fundamental reasons why that should continue most of them to do with relative evaluation. When you look at bonds, the bond yield falls you have seen, it is very interesting. Dividend yields are higher than starting yields in bonds and youve got potential growth. Where else are you going to put your money . We have to be aware of absolute valuations on this. Money has got to go somewhere. Jonathan you talk about read a nominating an index into the dollar. Look at the pound, the nikkei. The topix denominated in dollars beating the s p 500s. In dollar terms, you are better off in the s p 500. What is the story in japan . Guest two things. One is that the market seems to have picked up a little bit from its own currency. In the past, there was a very strong exit correlation between the yen and the japanese market. It was nearly 11. That seems to have broken down a little bit. That, i think, is to do with some of these microchanges beginning to come through. The second point buybacks and corporate behavior. Weve been looking to see whether you can see any change there. It has been slow happening but it does appear to be something happening. It is a list of stocks which are beginning to grow. Shareholders are thinking about dividends, thinking about buybacks. Jonathan are you adding to positions in japan . Guest we are looking to add to it. Jonathan lucy macdonell is going to stay with us. Coming up, we go to russia. Everybody asking, where is putin . The russian president hasnt been seen since he met with italys renzi two weeks ago. Is there more noise about russia or some real news here . We are live out of moscow in two. Jonathan welcome back. In about two hours, we will get that russian centralbank decision. Will they cut rates again . Our survey says yes. Six hikes last year. A busy period for the russian centralbank. Anna andrea nova joins us now from moscow. How much of a move is expected . Yes, we are just a few short hours away. Economist surveys say about 100 basis points. Economists tend to be conservative. The markets expect more towards 200 basis point cuts. If that doesnt happen, bonds can be disappointed. We dont expect the ruble to be impacted much. I must tell you that the forecasts have been all over the place. Some people expect as low as 1250. It has been a roller coaster with rate decisions since we had an unexpected cut in january. There was an emergency increase. Now markets expect the central bank to unwind the emergency rate hike they had in december. Jonathan i guess it is hard to predict when you see a range that runs into 100 basis points. For russia, the biggest question being asked is, where is putin . Is there any real news in that . Exactly. With all this excitement on the markets, we dont know where our leader is. There is a lot of speculation on russias blogosphere. The official version, his folks person saying his spokesperson saying he is in good health. I think he last was seen at a meeting on march 8. Jonathan anna,. Thank you for joining us this morning. I want to bring back in lucy macdonell for some final thoughts. I remember last year that we would look at european equities and anything with exposure to russia, dont touch it. Things have changed quite a lot. Guest we dont have any direct exposure, but the indirect exposure we have through Companies Like adidas, the feeling is that it is stabilized. The situation is not improving on the ground, but it is not getting that much worse. They think that it is stable. What could change is another big fall in the ruble. But it is a lot better situation. It is not good, but it is more manageable than it was. If youve got indirect exposure there is potential risk. It is not great, but not such a big downfall. Jonathan are you holding adidas . Guest yes. We are thinking we have seen the worst on russia. The valuation looks very attractive. Jonathan for an equity investor, how difficult has it been, or has it been easy, when you strip out the politics between russia, ukraine, and in europe, the emergence of these extreme parties . The equity market hasnt had much impact. Guest this time last year when the invasion of crimea happened that had an impact. That really did change the political dynamics within europe. Russia really moved beyond the pale with that move. I think that changed the way people were thinking in business. You saw that impact on the dax. I think people are getting more used to the status of russia as it is. It is not a great situation, but it no longer has the shock and surprise. Jonathan as you look at europe and strip out the politics, is it easy enough to say that this is just a qe trade until you see something more fundamental here . A lot of people say, great, equities are going higher. Is there more to the story than that . Guest i think there is. There is an underlying improvement in the macro before qe. Valuations were attractive and you had Oil Price Falling as well. All of those things are helpful. Plus, bank lending had been beginning to improve as well. In the shortterm, weve had quite a big trade on it. Jonathan lucy mcdonald, she is optimistic. Nouriel roubini is optimistic. President draghi is optimistic. Up next, a year ago, i sat in a cafe and watched my breakfast skyrocket on rising Commodity Prices. Investors are bearish on breakfast. More on that next. Thank you. Im very happy to be here in brussels to discuss with a very good friend. We start to discuss the problem in greece and we start to discuss the growth agenda. Jonathan good morning. Just getting some head reince from Alexis Tsipras some headlines from Alexis Tsipras speaking in brussels. Tsipras says they started to discuss the substance of the program. He said he had a productive meeting. He needs to tackle youth unemployment. It is running at around 50 and went higher yesterday to 26. 1 for the fourth quarter. There are economic problems in greece. They are still no closer to a longterm deal in terms of greece coming to an agreement with their creditors. For now, 30 minutes into the session in europe, the ftse 100 pretty much dead flat. The dax getting a little bit of a gain, up by 10 points. Nine weeks of gains, the longest winning streak since 1998. A quite remarkable equity rally in europe. It is time to get some of our top stocks stories. Caroline hyde. Caroline iss currently up almost 6 . That is the worlds biggest cleaning company. It is moving. This is a stock that only sold shares for the first time back in march last year. Eqt are selling the last of their stake. They are selling a 19 holding. Many analysts are saying this is a positive because it removes the uncertainty that had been present on the stock since that initial share sale. They knew that the ongoing share sales would continue from some of the big private equity holders of this stock. At last, we see it going into the market. Iss itself will be buying one million of those shares. Up 6 . One of the biggest losers today tods. Dividend didnt live up to expectations. Only two euros per share. Many wanted to see 2. 5. The ceo sounding confident, saying revenue and profit will grow again this year. Jonathan thank you very much. If you remember, 12 months ago, i was in a cafe moaning about how expensive my breakfast was getting. Investors are bullish. Coffee prices were surging. It feels like a distant memory. Today everyone getting bearish about the price of breakfast. A big part of that has to do with one nations currency getting crushed. Brazil, the biggest exporter of coffee, sugar and oranges. Our next guest just got back from brazil. He is head of agricultural analytics at macquarrie. Back from brazil, not just a holiday. The big take away, breakfast could be getting cheaper. The major Agricultural Commodities produced in brazil. The main driver is the fact that most of their production cost is reducing. They are able to supply the world at a cheaper rate. There are still longerterm problems in brazil. Theyve got very heavy indebtedness. There could be issues longerterm. Today, weve got fairly decent weather, good production, and that is likely to lead to a fairly good supply. Jonathan just back from rio, what was your biggest take away . The move in the real and what has been pretty good weather in brazil. Plentiful rainfall for most of the soybean crops and the corn crops, and you combine that with small concerns earlier on with precipitation throughout most of the major sugar and coffee producing regions. That has been dissipating. Jonathan as an agricultural strategist, you have to spend just as much time on farms as you do the Trading Floor and you have to be a meteorologist as well. What is the outlook for the weather . Like with any sort of weather story we know it a couple weeks out. With agriculture, the major cyclicality that we see in prices is because of weather. I think we can be sort of in three months time, but we are watching these patterns. I think 2014 was a very special year. We did see fairly beneficial whether in most regions of the world. The u. S. , europe as well, the former soviet union, and south america as well. Theres certainly some risk. Jonathan when i look at the cost of these foodstuffs, sugar, coffee, orange juice pork. This time last year, flying high. Would you be willing to say this is near a bottom . I think we are getting close to those levels. At the end of the day, we are cutting into the cost. When you have the higher prices, we were sending the signal to the world to expand and produce as much as you can. Now, the farmer of the world is not the greatest responder to that signal. But it is certainly not a positive environment. We are just one weather issue away from a deficit again and higher prices. Certainly, these low prices are not here forever. Jonathan the elephant in the room is the strength of the dollar. The fixed income guys talk more and more with each other. You have to go to the equity space. You are spending much more time with the fx strategists . Currency is also important. Agriculture has a lower impact than other commodities. That is largely down to the fact that the actual consumption is fairly inelastic. If prices change, we tend not to eat less. When prices were lower, you didnt have fewer coffees, you just paid more for it. That instability doesnt change much of the actual consumption. The other effect today is that generally, while the dollar has had a negative impact on prices the drop in freight prices and general Commodity Prices has far outweighed that. Prices end up far lower for the consumer. Jonathan you can paint a pretty ugly picture of the Global Economy through that prism. What is your read across from that . It is becoming far cheaper to be shipping these commodities around the world. More importantly, the general drop in freight prices is making more regions more competitive. We are getting strange furloughs. We are seeing flows of brazilian oranges heading into the u. S. You are also seeing strange flows in the fact that it is cheaper to move from the u. S. To northern brazil than it is to move from southern brazil to northern brazil. These dynamics are changing a few things. No grandiose changes, but some impact on the periphery. Jonathan the price dynamics for the rest of the year. We are telling our audience breakfast is getting cheaper. Aren shoes coffee, which one is going to rebound the most . From the sugar side of things, as long as the weather holds out, weve got some stability. From a coffee standpoint, thats where maybe some of the risks could lie. We have come off a very poor crop. Conditions have improved. Anything could outperform. It could be coffee. Jonathan fascinating stuff. Bearish on breakfast. Thank you for joining us this morning. Coming up, bill ackman. One of the bestperforming hedge funds last year. He is said to be under investigation. We will break down that and the fbi probe into bill ackmans funds after the break. Jonathan good morning. A quick check in on the market. Equities ready flat across much of europe. The ftse 100 in negative territory. The dax stays higher. Nine straight weeks of gains. Sterling hitting a fresh 20month low. Dollar strength back in play. The dollar up against almost every major currency this morning. The german 10year yield higher. It is up one basis point. 0. 2 bits 0. 26 is the yield. Hedge funds really stealing the headlines this morning. Everest capital is said to be closing six of its seven funds in january. The firm had to close the 830 Million Global Fund which was wiped out in less than a day after the Swiss National bank decided to restore the free float of its currency. Clients lost confidence and everest suffered higher levels of reduction. Hedge fund manager stephen calling is ending a positive Stephen Cohen is ending a policy of firing asset managers. The amount of money a manager oversaw if the portfolio declined 5 , and fired them if losses reached 10 . Bill ackmans fund is said to be getting investigated by the fbi. The u. S. Government is investigating possible manipulation of herbalife stocks. Bill ackman has been accusing the company of misleading distributors and misrepresenting sales. That is the story i want to focus on. The unfolding controversy surrounding the stock and bill ackmans funds. Caroline hyde has more. We focus on this periodically. Billionaires fighting over this company that europe never talks about. We know these guys. What is the focus . Caroline we know ackman, sorrows, soros, icahn. This time it is involving the fbi. They are investigating potential manipulation of the stock by bill ackman and his fund Pershing Square capital. They are investigating consultants hired by pershing. The idea is that perhaps they made false statements to regulators about the Business Model that underlies herbalife to push the stock down. So far, we understand the fbi conducted interviews, requested documents. We do know that bill ackman and Pershing Square havent been served with subpoenas. Translated into english, not asked to give evidence. It is important to know that bill ackman and Pershing Square have put a bet against herbalife. Theyve accused them of misleading their distributors misrepresenting sales. Recently, they said, you are an illegal pyramid screen pyramid scheme. They are denying these allegations. The stock has been down about 50 . It also could have been investigations being conducted by the federal trade commission, which is looking into the marketing practices. Jonathan here in europe, we dont care about herbalife. We care about bill ackman. How has he responded . Caroline he can once against are saying, i am transparent. They said in a statement after these reports they are proud of their work over the past two years, exposing what they call her is a food what they call pervasive victimization. They say they welcome any scrutiny of those efforts and they have been transparent about the position, the research, and they have acted lawfully. Of course herbalife has come in saying, we deny ackman has been betting 1 billion against us to hurt our company. For more than two years, orchestrating a false and fabricated attack. The language surrounding this is huge. Youve not only got bill ackman pushing the stock down, you got carl icahn buying up the stock. Youve got george soros upping his stock. This is billionaires squabbling over nutritional values. It is quite phenomenal. This time, u. S. Prosecutors investigating. As yet, we know that bill ackman doesnt have much to worry about. Jonathan highstakes schoolyard Playground Games just got more serious. Be sure to tune into bloomberg at 2 00 p. M. London time. Weve got an interview with bill ackman himself. 46 minutes into the session, this is the equity market picture. The ftse 100 down by almost five points. The dax stays higher. Up by 18 points. We are heading for a ninth straight week of gains on the german equity benchmark. What a rally. Coming up, a win for denmark. Has the countrys centralbank beat the krone speculation . Jonathan good morning. Wait for this. Denmark victorious . The tide of capital pouring into the nation threatening to break the eurokrone peg appears to have stopped. The Central Bank Governor says he hasnt had to intervene in the currency market since the end of last month. Lets bring in peter, our very own denmark expert. What is the latest from the central bank . This might be quite a surprise to quite a few people. Well, at least weve come to a lull in this rate. The danish centralbank has been able to get the message across that they will do whatever they can to protect the danish krone peg to the euro. Theyve been printing money as needed and sold to Foreign Investors to keep the krone from appreciating. So far, successfully. Jonathan when i look at house prices in much of scandinavia, i look at the likes of sweden, i take it back to denmark. The Danish Government said it could intervene if low rates start disrupting the house market. How close is the danish Real Estate Market the overheating . In some parts of the country we might be, particularly copenhagen and a few other major cities. It is not really showing in the statistics. Most of the country are still not seeing any price rises. In some areas, prices have been rising. This is largely anecdotal. Ive seen houses going up in certain areas about 10 to 30 in the last six months. Jonathan what can the government do about it . If you look at sweden and norway you may be able to curb interest maybe regulate your way out of a huge problem. The figure in denmark is split. You have a peripheral part of the country which really needs stimulus and the low rates have come from heaven basically. And you have in copenhagen and places around copenhagen things are moving towards a critical level. So the regulators really have to tread very lightly in order to regulate this. They cant go in an address the bond market in general. There will be some people hurting even though they tried to help the market. Jonathan peter levering, a big thanks for joining us this morning. From the nordics, further south. Central banks still a concern. Greek banks getting more breathing room, but Jens Weidmann warns that emergency liquidity assistance raises concerns about the ecb providing financing. Lets get to hans nichols in berlin for the latest. How much more breathing space to the greek banks get . What does Jens Weidmann have to say about the situation . Hans 600 million is the number. As mr. Weidmann warned, he is concerned about the shape and form that ela is starting to take. There is a low emergency liquidity facility. That means we can cover temporary needs. These conditions have to be met and we also have to respect the other conditions that are given. We cannot allow monetary financing judgment in a situation where the government is unable to tap the market where banks are unable to tap the market. It is my view that our concerns about monetary financing hans 69. 4 billion, that is the new limits. This is just in ela. You add in some other 38 billion they took through normal financing windows. This is a window that was Still Available for them because they can use the paper as collateral on death. On debt . Now, the question is, and mr. Weidmann warns the banks on this, that they shouldnt be loading up on greek debt. They shouldnt be buying these tbills because that could be uncertain debt. You are starting to hear a little more pressure from frankfurt on the health and safety of the greek banks. We will be following this Going Forward and try to get more uptodate on how it closed in february and if there is any appetite to increase the other day when they need next week. Jonathan hans nichols, thank you for joining us. That is almost it for on the move. For our viewers, the pulse is coming up. Lets recap the huge week weve had for markets in europe. Mario draghi and the European Central bank launch the qe offensive. Look at these moves. That is eurodollar on your screen. We dropped below 1. 05 this week. We are still flirting with 12year lows. Heres the picture of the german bond market as we end the week of qe. German bonds, the yield on the 10year has pretty much halved over the last week. Yields are a little higher this morning. 0. 74 right here right now. The twoyear with a negative yield of 0. 24 . Quick check in on the equity markets. The big story, the dax is higher by 0. 1 . On the week, headed for a ninth straight week of gains. The biggest winning streak since 1998. The next pitstop 10 30 u. K. Time. Will they cut rates . Our survey says yes. If you want to continue the conversation, im on twitter. Good luck for the rest of your day. Scarlet tsipras in brussels. Francine Fiat Chrysler says a deal could be done. Probed by the fbi, bill ackmans fund as investigated. We will speak to the billionaire investigator later today. Welcome to the pulse, live from london