Francine lacqua. Text shares are gaining after the u. K. Retailer posted numbers well ahead of analyst estimates. Here with more is caroline hyde. You have got 12 , close to 12 increase in total sales. But with three times ahead of analyst estimates. On the back of that, they are raising their Profit Guidance once again. We are just seeing the winner of what ubs termed a promotional fight. They stayed away. Online they are winning as well. 21 increase in next directory sales. That click and collect is working for them. Exceptional, their online domination. They are handing money back to the investor base, some 300 Million Pounds. This year theyre going to have an excess cash. They are also giving a special dividend for this year. How much did this policy of not discounting help . You might wonder if they dont discount ahead of christmas, are they left with a lot of stock to discount afterwards . That doesnt seem to be the case. You look into the statement and they go, we have got 11 less than usual. They are struggling to find the garment, the netware that they can put on promotion. They did so well in the runup to christmas because they give the consumer the clarity that they werent going to find the jumper they were about to purchase cheaper than next week. You saw that tactic being employed by others, all slashing their prices by some 30 to 50 in the runup to christmas. Profits. It just eroded the employment of non promotions by next has one out compared to its competitors, many saying they stole market share this season. A good christmas if you dig into the statement, this is interesting. Perhaps they are trying to focus in on George Osborne. A are worried about the u. K. Economy still. They are particularly worried about Interest Rates going higher. U. K. Housing really taking off at a real pays at the moment. Interest rates are worrying the leaders over at next. They worry about the impact that will have on the consumer. Wages are rising. They say, there is little to no growth in earnings. We think the economy will steadily improve. I dont see that much rampup in spending. They say, look, the next half of the year will not continue on this amazing fair we have seen. The Fourth Quarter is going to make next year much harder in terms of comparisons. Knitwearthat seasonal did really help them this time around. We see an increase in profits. Shares are up almost 10 . Caroline, thank you. Guy johnson, never seen in seasonal knitwear i am sure. No that i know a man who does. Is he not very far away from us . I think he might be. Someone who would join in with the spirit of things . I have a lovely Christmas Jumper this year. The u. K. Housing market just counted the strongest year since 2006. 2014 maybe another booming year for property prices. Nearly three quarters of people surveyed by halifax expect prices to rise again this year. Jonathan ferro joins us with a wrapup of the mornings data. We have had plenty. We have more to come. 8. 4 , that is how much nationwides says house prices rose since december. We get mortgage approvals expected to increase once more. The big issue in the u. K. Right now is something everybody is talking about, the fear of missing out. Fomo, as they call it. In my age group. This is something happening across all regions, across all age groups. They think if they are not on the housing ladder they are going to be priced out. This is a big issue for this country and it will be through 2014. Were getting to an interesting race right now. Rates are likely to start to rise. Youre going to see that priced into the market. How that affects affordability starts to become quite interesting. You have to project forward two or three years to work out exactly where these people are going to be further down the road. Some says that the government is setting a trap for them. This is a massive issue. From nationwides on earlier talking about affordability. Wereld hope that mortgages affordable with Interest Rates at record lows. What happens when Interest Rates start to rise . A lot of peoples mortgages track the base rate. What happens when that rises . The offices of budget responsibility have done their research. If rates hit 3 by 2018, theectly realistic, say amount of families in debt carol would rise to one million eril would p p34 rise to one million. You would be spending more on your mortgage, more on food, more on energy, probably less on the high street. Less on knitwear. Thank you. There is always room for knitwear apparently. Us move on. Similar kind of area, spains jobless claims rate. Just have the biggest decline ever. David tweed is following the story from berlin. You need to see all this data in context. Take me through this. About these thing numbers, the jobless claims, is that they are unadjusted seasonally. That said, when you get a number as big as 107,000, decrease in jobless claims, you have to sit up and look to see what is going on. It does seem to reflect something that we heard anecdotally about spanish retailers month into ad jobs during december because they have seen that there is actually more Consumer Spending taking place in spain. Wasdquarter gdp growth pushed by Consumer Spending. That is something to watch out for. There is another number that came out today which i think is worth taking a look at as well. That is the cpi, the Inflation Numbers for spain which showed a year on year increase using the eu harmonized method of 0. 3 . , considerably less than the 0. 9 we are seeing across the eurozone. Risingans inflation and is rising at a lower pace. That fits in with the story that the internal devaluation which is taking place in spain, very tough Economic Policy that we are seeing following unit following unit labor costs, slower increases in producer prices. Spain is becoming more competitive. That fits in with a few other bits and pieces we are hearing about like the increase in exports. Also, just yesterday we had the pmi numbers. They showed that spains output rebounded in December December from november. Still, very tentative but it does give us a nice little basis to look at what is happening in 2014 as well. I might add, interesting move in the bond market today. The 10 year yield down to a three and a half year low. The 2year note yield down to a record low. Indeed. Bondpread between spanish yields and german bond yields showing a reaction to some of the data coming out of spain. Ofyou described the signs recovery as tentative. Are they Strong Enough to be attracting significant investment right now . There are people who want to play that investment game. Bill gates was one of them. Stakeober he bought a 6 in fcc. Today, the Financial Times is reporting that george soros has invested in the same companies, but a 3. 1 stake in fcc. This used to be one of the biggest construction groups in spain. And has a market cap now of about 2 billion. It was decimated after the collapse of the spanish Property Market. You have these to investors getting into the spanish Property Market. On top of that, we have heard other stories about the spendingn billionaire one billion euros last month, buying ncg banker would was nationalized. We are hearing more anecdotal evidence about people getting into some spanish properties, spanish companies, even sausage makers in order to get some sort of a grip on some recovery that we might see in the spanish economy. Fact that what we are seeing at the moment is very tentative. David, thank you very much. What else is on our radar . Almost 100 Million People battening down the hatches in the United States. A severe winter storm is tracking the northeast after a foot of snow could come down by this morning, thousands of plates are being canceled and several major expressways have been shut down. A state of emergency has been declared in new jersey. You are looking at live pictures from manhattan. We are live later in the program with the winter storm on travelers and businesses. Walmart says it is adding to any dna tests on food after it discovered some of the donkey meat it sold in china has fox dna and tested samples. Ahmard says the officials of the vendor have been placed and criminal detention. Overcebook is being sowed sued over allegations it shares private data for profit with advertisers and marketers. When users write messages that include web links, facebook scans it, follows the link, searches for information to profile the sender. Still to come, diplomatic tension between russia and the United States may be on the rise. Politics isnt getting in the way of a Major Business partnership between the two countries. We will tell you by why rosneft and exxon are staying close. Welcome back. Youre watching the pulse. So, lets talk about the macro picture and what it means so the credit market. We have seen u. K. Home prices gained momentum and jobless claims falling in spain. Our next guest sees global every recovery gathering pace. The head of Credit Research at legal and general investment management. Broadly a positive outlook for 2014. Does that mean that i am selling every bond i can find . Spanish Government Bonds should do relatively well. Relative to the core Government Bonds. Governmentsal should offer some opportunities. Threatful because the from very buoyant Economic Data on Government Bond markets is probably going to rise over the course of the year. It will be a real challenge for Central Banks to make sure that the rising yields will be an orderly one. Spanish Government Bonds at some point will start to deliver negative as well. Youre time being, if looking for some opportunities, it is probably a good idea to be overweight peripherals. Is 2014 going to be the year we start worrying about inflation . Inflation is not insight as long as Energy Prices remain benign. There is nothing on the horizon which would suggest they would spike up again. As long as Commodity Prices are not going of again either. Where should inflation come from . Rate increases are still hard to come by. In the u. S. , it may change a little. We have some tentative signs of rate rises. Is that going to translate into . Price spiral not in 2014. This represents a benign set up for a matters for Central Banks. They could justify to keep Interest Rates low for longer in the absence of inflationary threats. There is still the potential of deflation in some corners. Therefore, if it wasnt for housing prices going through the roof Interest Rates could stay low for quite some time. In terms of where we sat in the credit cycle, we have had a long run. I have never seen anything like it really. Has that turned . You be putting in the credit . It is difficult to justify an overweight position at this juncture. Spreads have not quite returned to the height of 2005, 2006 but they are not far off. Banks still yielding more than they used to on average. Credit spreads would already be close to alltime lows. If you factor in that corporate , a is likely to increase spilling over from the u. S. To europe and companies also increasing their Capital Spending which is good news for employment but it means that is for leverage, then i dont see why a bullish view on credit spread can be justified. With cash flow is likely to be good as well. Can adjust focus on europe at this point . We have seen lending data out this morning. Lending in europe remains with a minus sign in front of it. What is the ecb going to do this year to spur lending . The economy may start to gather momentum but it is by no means aggressive enough to really solve any of the problems that europe faces. What is the ecb going to do . There isnt that much left the ecb can do with its current toolbox. Buying Government Bonds would not spur lending from banks. So the lt ro is out. It would not necessarily even. Elp banks to lend more our view is not necessarily that banks are funding constrained when it comes to increase in corporate lending. Banks are quite cautious. There areis that tightening credit spreads. That is not the issue. Ist is Holding Banks back the expectation that the asset quality review may expose some residual weakness and any self respecting bank ceo does not want to find his banks name on the list of those banks being earmarked for recapitalization. A possible psychological drag on bank lending which the ecb cannot do very much about. Providing that, liquidity and lower Interest Rates is unlikely to make a difference. Agencies ino these the u. K. To spur lending to infrastructure and elsewhere. Always a pleasure. Glad to see you. Happy start to 2014. Anna, over to you. Thanks. Some of the company news this morning. Bp one a consideration on an appeal sport appeals court. Bp says payments have been approved for businesses for what it calls fictitious losses. Murdochs 20th century fox sold its Minority Stake in star china tv. China Media Capital and star chinas Management Team are buying the holding in the venture. Strategy tof foxs divest businesses in which it cant gain a majority ownership. After a year together, blackberry is parting ways with alicia keys. Failed tonger rekindle demand for the companys smartphones. She came on board as global creative director. Break, it is time for todays pulse number. 3000, the approximate price per metric ton of quinoa. It doubled in price back in 2007. It is popular with the Health Conscious including celebrities like jennifer aniston. It is one of her favorite salad ingredients. Will the cop crop keep going and popularity . Stay with us. Welcome back. Lets get straight to caroline hyde. A bit of a tentative day. He had a mixed bag. Germany greece on the downside. It seems after it a lot yesterday, remember we have the best stock rally since 2009, investors just trying to work out which way the flow is going to go for the next few weeks. Volumes pretty light on the stock front. Keep an eye out on the british pound. Focus on the pound versus the euro as well. We have had stellar numbers out in terms of the u. K. Property market. We are seeing house prices still on the rise, up 8 on the year according to nationwide. We have breaking construction data, mortgage approval set to rise. Keep an eye out on the british pound. Down against the dollar but gaining against the euro. Keep an eye on u. K. Retail. Interestingly, we have Retail Stocks at the best performance today. It is all about next. Up on every single industry group. Consumer services is where it is at. Lets focus in on those particular stocks that are on the move. When youre focusing on next, that is what is dragging the whole market higher. It is dragging mns higher as well. Next up 10 . It is at a record high. Sales, higher, much more than expected. They announced a special dividend and they are now seeing Profit Guidance higher. Was market share in into . Telecom italia almost up 6 . Back to you. Caroline, thank you. Coming up, we look further into the london house price story. Stay with us. Good morning. Welcome back. Youre watching the pulse. I am guy johnson and these are the Bloomberg Top headlines. 100 Million People are battening down the hatches in the United States. A severe winter storm is tracking the northeast. Up to a foot of snow could come down by this morning. Thousands of flights have been canceled and several major expressways have been shut. 2012 payachs raised for its top u. K. Bankers even as declines at its usbased peers. Its top u. K. Employees are earning higher from the previous year. The largest u. S. Banks reported their figures for 2012 this week. Releasedgovernment has data on margaret thatchers government. They show the Prime Minister considered mozilla rising troops against striking coal miners who were getting soviet support. She was told the bank of england and treasury were trying to undermine her policy of letting the pound float. Let me run you through some of the data we have had. Mortgage approval data coming through within the last few minutes. Approvals atrchase data having a marginal impact on the pound. It is popping back up to the earlier levels. 1. 64 is where we are trading. We have seen construction pmi data coming out as well. Anna, lets talk about what is happening. We have seen strong data coming through from nationwide as well. Indy, lets talk about the u. K. Housing market and the Property Market in general. Lets bring in our guest, john neal. He is head of u. K. Research. Take you for coming in to talk to us. Lets talk about this argument about how there is a lack of supply in the u. K. Some people go as far as to say that the government shouldnt have introduced the help to buy scheme but a help to build scheme. The government has said they try to change the planning regulations to make it easier for build new homes. How many more new homes newly need to see being built . Over the past few years, they have been building a little over 100,000 houses per year in england. We are massively under target. This isnt a recent thing, though. If you compare us to any other developed economy, we are well behind in terms of both the number and size of houses we produce. There are no quick fixes i imagine. What are the solutions . It is a complex question. You wouldnt start from here. Isnly an easing of required. That is a huge political challenge. There are so many pressures against that within the system. Where the Housing Demand is strongest is often strongly conservative seats. That is a real problem for the current government, particularly with u. K. On that your step as well. There is concern about building over green fields and so on. In terms of property prices, we have seen strong numbers coming from nationwide, more than numeral eight percent increase in december 2013 compared to december 2012. It is a rate that far outstripped wage growth and general inflation. How sustainable do you think these kind of moves are in u. K. Property prices . I dont think that rate of growth will continue through the whole of next year. I doubt you will see it dropping much however. Put it into context. If you go back to before 2007, you are seeing years of over 10 growth. To talk of a bubble is premature. A lot of that growth is in london and southeast and hasnt spread to the rest of the country. Prices are still well below where they were in 2007. I expect next year to see that rate of growth continue but perhaps at a slightly less strong right. We spoke to nationwide earlier and they were talking about the 29 being in line with longterm averages in terms of the ascended to take home pay being spent on mortgage payments. We are talking about a low interestrate environment. If Interest Rates start to go up in the years ahead, what does that do to the affordability story . Again, that is a complex question. We do expect Interest Rates to go up over the next few years. We also expect the margins between base rates and Mortgage Rates to shrink. The overall effect wont be as strong as the increases in base rate i expect. I am not so concerned about that given that if you look at the cost of the Housing Market as a with veryot of people are we ares seeing a country increasingly polarized. Youre either on or off the letter. There are fewer recent first time buyers. Talk to me about foreign buyer interest. I was fascinated by a conversation where i had assumed that the measures that were recently brought in by george increase taxation levels on foreign buyers of u. K. Property, i assumed that was aimed at the top and top end of the Property Market. It was explained to me that there is a lot of foreign buyer therest much further down property scale. Is that the case in your experience . What are the areas of property that foreign buyers are interested in . I think that can be slightly exaggerated. Ucl of International Interest and that has always been the case. Nothing has really changed. Also seeing alongside that is a lot of overseas interest in new build schemes in london. Particularly from singapore and hong kong. Marketingly on overseas, getting cash buyers overseas. Back to whatt goes you have seen over the past three or four years. It is hard to get financing to get things moving unless they can presell overseas. Countries like hong kong and these areople countries with very low tax rates. People are looking to diversify their investments and there are key nonprofit. On consumerocus markets, commercial property is the bigger part. Are you seeing the same for interesting commercial property . I imagine there is more interesting commercial property for foreign buyers. There is been a huge interest in london from overseas buyers. Huge growth in Pension Savings across the far east in asia. A lot of that is coming to the london market. That isnt a new story. I think the real theme is the increasing internationalization of the london market away from just a few countries who entrusted london is increasingly detached from the rest of the country it seems. You can see signs of overseas investors taking interest in markets. Partly because london has become so expensive. There is a lack of product in london. Yields have become very low for commercial property. You can see demand for space returning. That reassures them to look in those places. Thank you very much. Guy, over to you. Thank story much indeed. Coming up, 2013 was the International Year of quinoa. Where does this socalled superfood go from here . We are going to see whether the trendy health food can keep gaining ground and the impact it has had on those who produce it. Thats story coming up next. \ the pulse welcome back to and welcome back to the pulse. Remi cointreau is on the hunt for a new ceo. Lets find out what is going on. Caroline hyde has all the news. Change again. Only october the first was his first day on the job and after three months he is gone. Reasons, heersonal said to the market at the end of closing play yesterday. Hes going to stay on as a Development Director. He has some assignments he is still responsible for. For the time being it is the chairman that is going to be the interim ceo. He knows the business well. He used to be chief executive previously. There is speculation as to the reason why he has left. There wereying disagreements about how to tackle china. The potential slow down there, was it shipments slowing down in china at of the new year . Maybe that is why the chief executive has stepped down. At the moment, we know it is just for personal reasons and he is staying on in a Development Director role. This further clouds the shares because there is going to the internal distractions. And it is a tough time when it comes to the cognac market. Be considered as part of the story. Exactly. Tenure, weinto his saw a profit warning coming from the cognac maker. Giftgiving inss china. Less left giftgiving gift giving and that means there is less remi martin being handed out. The crackdown is going to hit profits bigtime. They said back in november, expect profits to fall substantially in the double digit area going forward. That has been a well that has been tackled by the chief executive. Shares are off by more than 20 since he took the helm just three months ago. Miggy that play into the decisionmaking here today. It has been hitting the luxury market in general, the slowdown in china. Off 1. 7 , adding to shareholders woes. Is it going to cause further destruction at the top . Carolyn, thank you very much indeed. Now from drink to food, bolivians and peruvians have been eating quinoa for centuries. Thanks to celebrity endorsements from the likes of jennifer aniston, the socalled superfood is in high demand. Quinoa is a seed that packs three times more iron than wheat and helps reduce bad types of cholesterol. Our next guest works on bringing the crop to the west. Ixes the chief executive of group. I give for coming to talk to us. This foodstuff has gone through a transformation from a basic food in south america into a superfood and western markets. How big a story can quinoa become . [indiscernible] many people call it the super grain of the future. It has nutritious characteristics of high fiber and protein. It is not actually new. I think the challenge that we have is to bring what the countries such as bolivia or peru produce to what the west is demanding. Ramping up anything is difficult. Bidifer aniston is going to a high prices and make it look for this to become a mainstream product, you have to go through significant changes in the way it is produced and marketed and transported. All of that requires a huge amount of investment and it cant all happen at the same time. The market is going to z that price crash. How do you take us to the mainstream in a seamless fashion . The only way to do this is to control the full chain of supply. That means control from the itducers and in other words is all about transportation. [indiscernible] today there is over 1000 tons produced in the world. How much of this transforming the economy . The agricultural business of bolivia . Production ch a we are into a multibillion dollar business. It is currently in the million levels. Was reading that this particular food is being used as an ingredient in certain soups. As angs has picked it up ingredient. Starbucks has put in some of their salads. I know that you are keen to try to get a company like mcdonalds to offer it in their menus. Is that still the way to mass market . Something like starbucks is just not big enough . , it order to create a market would we need to do is inundate the population. How can it be done . We dont only intend to reach the market of the west. We intend to make it a commodity that can help produce [indiscernible] is this just a fad in the west . I dont think it is a fad. Noa has a lot of qualities it is just about control. Why should i buy this stuff . In all seriousness, there is a whole series of food chains of established around the world, rice, grains etc. Able to convince people to make the shift . Is the price point issue, the Health Benefit . What is your key message to convince people they should be eating quinoa rather than Something Else . We are talking about a health issue with this product. Kmart is one of the they call it the perfect food quinoa, they call it the perfect food. [indiscernible] how do you convince people . It sounds very straightforward but changing huge amount of infrastructure that have existed for decades if not centuries is not particularly easy. I dont know how to cook it. Educate theo population how to bring this commodity. [indiscernible] we are going to pass to one million production. We need the world to make the market able to absorb this. Otherwise the price is going to drop down. We need to educate the people in general, what is quinoa and what is the benefit and how to cook it. We are planning Different Things for different markets. For some markets we are thinking about precooked quinoa inattentive oatmeal in a type of oatmeal. Thank you very much for joining us. Coming up on the Pulse Clean Energy servers should shares surged last year. As we head into break, a storm is tracking americas northeast. Youre looking at live pictures from the state of massachusetts. We are live in the u. S. Later on bloomberg tv to gauge the disruption to travelers and businesses. Welcome back to the pulse live on Bloomberg Television and radio and also streaming on your tablet, phone and bloomberg. Com. In new energy, we focus on a pickup in clean energy stocks. Shares rose 54 last year rebounding from several years of dismal performance. Joining us is bloombergs new Energy Finance carbon analyst. Thank you very much for coming to talk to us. Put this Strong Performance of 2013 into context of years of less strong context performance. It is nowhere near what it was in 2007. I guess what we can call one 813 is a decent recovery. Shares start recovering not when the news is good necessarily but when it is not getting any worse. It is interesting to see that these chairs performed strongly in 2013 even at a time when new investment in clean energy according to the measures you look at declined for the second year. New guess the reason that Clean Energy Investment has declined is because first of all technology is a lot cheaper. It is a lot cheaper than it was several years ago. Is policyreason uncertainty. In europe it is having a negative affect on new investment in clean energy projects. So we are talking about solar, wind, which are the sectors that did well in 2013 . Solar did well. Solar stocks were up 70 last year. With that said, over the past year and a half, there has been a handful of wellknown solar manufacturers that have gone out of business so the ones that remain look stronger. The sector that is getting everyone excited is smart technologies. Smart grids, electric vehicles and led manufacturers. That peopleeasons are getting excited is that electric vehicles and sales more than doubled in 2013 worldwide. You cant talk about electric vehicles without talking about tesla. That was one of the standout performers. Certainly certainly. It was trading at 193 a share at one point. It had a good year. Estimates for the sales of its model s sedan. What is the outlook for these Clean Energy Companies this year . We see that there is probably going to be continued Strong Performance in the solar market. We see a recovery in the wind market. That is mostly because of the production tax credit in the u. S. Being extended. They also changed the eligibility role for that. Developers have made some kind of financial obligation at the end of last year. They could still build projects that are eligible for the tax credit next year. Excuse me, 2014, this year. We were probably see a strong recovery in that. Also, electric vehicle sales. Thank you very much. Guy, back to you. For those of us those listening, bloomberg the first word is up next. For our fear was, it is a second hour of the pulse. We are going to be talking about next. The numbers surprisingly strong. We will talk to deloitte about the retail scene in general. We will go live to the United States and talk to bloombergs meteorologist about the storm that has hit the east coast, snow falling heavily. Check with your airlines. 100 Million People died down the hatches. A winter storm batting down the hatches. A winter storm in americas northeast. Remy searching for a new ceo, pflanz stepping down after just three months. Retail surging in the u. K. As holiday sales the expectations. Beat expectations. Good morning to our viewers in europe, good evening to those in asia, and a very warm welcome to those just waking up in the u. S. But i suspect it is not very warm this morning. I am guy johnson. Edwards, in for francine lacqua. This is the pulse, in london. A major winter storm hitting the u. S. Is seeingast blizzard conditions, almost 100 Million People being affected. New york city make it up to nine inches of snow. Prettylready coming down hard, even worse in boston, expecting to get 14 inches of snow. That is causing severe travel disruption. Several thousand flights have been canceled and more have been delayed nationwide. Some major expressways in the northeast have been shut down. Officials advising everyone to stay indoors as much as possible. If you had out, dress warmly, temperatures could fall to 23 celsius, a enough to freeze your face. Scarf. Or a live in new york later with a closer look at the impact the storm is having on businesses. Next shares gaining after the retailer posted well ahead of estimates. Caroline hyde is here. Next seems to be one of the winners of the christmas period. Theetting a picture of how retailers have done. On the website, companies had to prices. Next to slash prices. Next is a clear winner, they came out at 7 00 a. M. And adding 800 Million Pounds to their ,arket cap, sales up online sales up. Getting money back to shareholders and raising their fouryear Profit Guidance. Win, win, win. Analysts are saying festive trading has not been the its a has not been the disaster many suggested. John lewis did not discount aggressively, next did not discount aggressively. That seems to be where we are seeing concerns, profitability will be even wrote it. So many shops like river island slashing prices 30 to 50 in the runup to christmas. Going to we are not lower prices until after christmas. When you got your christmas you knewr knitwear, the next time you walk and you are not going to see a tumble in the price you paid. No promotions, a cap profits up. So well they did, they got any stock left to put on sale. Season sale stock down more than 11 compared to last year. A key to success has been the multichannel. And collect. Adding stores on the high street. We want to order online and go into the store and pick up more items. It helped house of fraser, online sales have spikes. Some caution coming through from next. About elements with the u. K. Consumer. They have done well in the Fourth Quarter and say this is not going to continue into the first half of the year. Stellar performance in the Fourth Quarter, they are worried about the u. K. Economy. They say it is starting to grow and get stability but not in terms of wage growth. Inflation. Is behind little to no growth in real wages, we are unlikely to see an increase in Consumer Spending for the rest of the year. The first half is not going to keep up with the Fourth Quarter posture fiesta pace. Setting a tough the Fourth Quarters pace. Pace. S setting a tough maybe George Osborne is listening, they say Interest Rates might go up as house prices surge, that will hamper growth in Consumer Spending and hit retailers down the line. A lot to be happy if you are investing in next, trying not to get too excited. Thank you very much. U. K. Mortgage data showed stronger demand than estimated then in november after the markets have their strongest year since 2006 and the u. K. Jonathan ferro is here. Continued strength. 2014 will be interesting, started off on the front foot. Look at what we had this morning. House price growth at eight. 4 . Mortgage approvals at a sixyear high. Wages are heading nowhere. People are talking about affordability, mortgages are affordable. Where theyith rates are right now. It is about the destination and the journey. Where we are now is not heading to a good place. Many ways of measuring affordability, that is where people talk. A typicalide, anna, mortgage payer for a firsttime buyer is about 29 of takehome pay. What happens if wages do not rise when rates go up . By 2018ok at the obi, if you have rates at 3 , that is very realistic. You can see 1. 1 million families in debt peril. If you look at mortgage approvals, we are over 70,000, a sixyear high for november. That is not good if you look at where mortgages are being approved. That is helping to stimulate of thean to value parts Mortgage Market. If you are taking a 95 mortgage and putting 5 down, what happens if rates go up and prices fall. I like your complicated chancing tool. Some italian there. That is a series of negative spins. There are some positive spins, the u. K. Economy is generating growth. This is providing the construction sector with a boost and the way that it has not seen for the last few years. There are some upsides. Many other finance chiefs around europe would be happy to have these. I agree to some extent. What you saw when the bank of england cut funding for amending for lending for mortgages was a collapse in housing prices. This points to construction numbers being reliant on incentives in this Mortgage Market. You want a Mortgage Market to stand on its own feet, we are not there yet. I am talking about the current journey heading not to a good place. We want to see wages paid up wages pick up. With the likes of next, they are not anticipating that next this year, they think it could be damaging for the u. K. High street. Walmart says it is adding dna tests to food after he discovers a donkey meat in china had fox dna in samples. The officials of the vendor have been placed and criminal detention. Facebook being sued over allegations it shares users data with advertisers. This includes web links. Facebook follows links and searches for information. This violates privacy and is unfair when it comes to competition. Frederic pflanz has resigned as ceo of remi quatrain of intreau, it was the theh worse performer on stoxx 600 last year. , live pictures in the u. S. Later we gauge the distraction to travelers and businesses. Coming up on the pulse, Political Tension between russia and the u. S. Maybe high. Two of the Biggest Companies are teaming up on a business partnership. Rights, snowden, syria, the u. S. And russia do not see eye to eye on very much except when it comes to the pursuit of oil. Ft startd rosne the arcticell in this year. That one well could contain more hydrocarbons then the entire north sea. Talking about that later in the show. Missing out 30 minutes lets take a look at the currency markets. I will include silver. So many people are bearish on the commodities space as we move into 2014. Well we have seen is a pickup in the price of things like gold and silver. As everybody thrown in the can when it comes to the story on these russias metals . We will see. An interesting indicator on these Precious Metals. We will see. An interesting indicator. Cable. Indicators of a rosy Housing Market. 0, strong data646 has boosted the pound to earlier highs. Lets move on. Thisxt shares rallying morning after holiday shares exceeded expectations. We are looking at the health of the Retail Sector for 2014. Our next guest says the declining number of retailers going into administration in the u. K. Signals a recovery. Restructuring Services Partner with deloitte. Is the decline good news or is it just that we have seen so many weaker retailers go bust in the cycle already . We have seen a rebalancing of supply and demand in the last few years. Major retail insolvencies have store closuresnd amongst them, that has rebalance supply, it is not that consumers have more to spend. There are fewer outlets to spend in. Talking about the balance between Distressed Companies and insolvent companies. Is struggling, and solvent may be a sign of insolvency may be a sign of distress. They can be extracted from distress by restructuring or through an insolvency process. Insolvency is typically a sign of distress. On thehave worked closures of a number of big names on the u. K. High street. What problems do you identify when you go in to sort things out . How do they get into trouble . Did they fall out of favor with the consumer or was it something about the way they ran business . Each case is different. If you take blockbuster, there ores, the market had shrunk rapidly. It had been profitable until then. The market disappeared very quickly. We put the company into administration and sold exactly 50 of the stores, 268 stores were sold. What happened to those the purchaser was unable to get them to work and that went into administration again seven months after being sold. That was a business that no longer had a meaningful not hard to see the headwinds now. If you look at other companies that have restructured, they had too many stores. Cut by 50 and seem to be thriving. The numberst break down accurately, but in your sense, how many businesses that we are seeing going through insolvency are brickandmortar and how many are online . In terms of retailers, from the research we have done, i would say fewer than 5 or 6 are dedicated online retailers. The rest of them will have a brickandmortar presence. Wind down an Online Business it can be done more discreetly than bricks and mortar. You do not walk past a shop. You can run it on a parttime basis. Nevertheless, 95 to 5 is an indicative number. What it tells you is that maybe the Online Business you bring up blockbuster. The reason that business disappeared is because people were going online. How much of what you are seeing at the moment in the bricks and mortar businesses that fail is because of the fact that they have not made the shift online . Last year was a watershed, with just a come out with hmv, blockbuster, all of them are still in business apart from blockbuster. That was the challenge for the delivery of the product. An easier methodology of delivering the product. Ofhave had a clearing out that, there are few places you now. Ven rent a dvd with retail and fashion retail, there has been a shift away. Stronger players have survived at the expense of the weaker players. We have seen a shift towards shopping centers. I think the stronger players cant afford to pay higher rent, can afford to pay higher rent and they get a larger footfall. One company has 40 stores, previously they had 190. Online i have an business with a retail footprint as opposed to the reverse. That is the way of the future. Talking about the technology bricks and mortars are going to have to invest and to bring the online experience into their store. Is that something you see businesses investing in . Having access to tablets in the store or apps you can use. You can browse the store and use your app at the same time you are in the store. Is that the way we are moving, combining them . You cannot deny the technology challenges. The information is there, make it easy for the consumer to compare prices and click and collect. John lewis have been hugely successful. The online offering is fantastic. You can choose online and pick it up from the store. Nothing more irritating than ordering something online then realizing someone try to deliver and you were not there. Were going to the store and it is not there. The u. K. Is advanced in terms of the way we shop. What lessons if i am sitting here and i am watching in another part of the world. The u. K. Has made huge leaps. What lessons are going to be learned, are you going to see similar stories happening in other parts of the european retail space . There is a different uptake with technology in different parts of the world. To lead the way. The logistical distance of it easy in this country. You can get things instantaneously. Different countries will have different challenges. Delivery costs are an issue. Thank you for joining us, restructuring partner at deloitte. Winter storms striking americas northeast. Live pictures. We are in new york to gauge destruction. Looking at heathrow, flights to new york have taxied and yet to take off. You can understand why. Welcome back to the pulse, live on Bloomberg Television, radio, and streaming on bloomberg. Com. 2013 was a big year in the world of robotics. About wherea lot robotics are going in 2014. Ryan chilcote reports. From soccer to the classroom, robots gained ground in 2013. Garden Style Research have a robot to help the elderly. Hosted a robot soccer competition. Another robot you can control with your mind. The First Talking robot to be sent to space. Motion sensors put robots in the boxing ring. Yo, israely in tok continue development of military robots. 2014 plans to be mind blowing. It will involve robots treating people with memory loss. Useful for us trying to remember everything that happened last year. Ryan chilcote, bloomberg. Soccer mightying do a better job than me. I am waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger to show up. Anna, thanks. Asias richest man looking for an exit from hong kong. The company is looking to gauge demand starting next week for a listing of its hong kong electricity unit. The company is looking for more than 5 billion in the spinoff. Power assets is controlled by on kong leader le keqing. Opportunities, lets find out. Evon pendleton joins us we think he is going to look at this happening fairly soon. How does this fit into the bigger strategy . Moving away from hong kong. Ng has lived there since 1940 and is looking for opportunities elsewhere. This is the second ipo he is considering. He is following a pattern of doing acquisitions elsewhere, namely in europe. In the past three years, he spent 14. 5 billion here. Hong kong is over and there are better opportunities elsewhere. What else could he sell . Has the retail unit, a big conglomerate looking to do a multibilliondollar ipo. How did he do in 2013 . He is worth 30. 1 billion. He only gained 1. 6 billion, a 6 return. When you look at the billionaires index, they 524ectively gained billion. The wrong assets . He did not see a lot of growth, a little bit of volatility. He did not see big gains. We wish him a prophet will 2014. Thank you very much. Up . Have we got coming a wintry mess stateside. Dont look out the window if you are just waking up. This is what you will see in manhattan, a storm. Commuter chaos, International Chaos being caused. More on that when we come back. Welcome back, you are watching the pulse, live from london. I am guy johnson. I am anna edwards. Of flights have been canceled in the u. S. As the northeast faces blizzard conditions. A foot of snow has fallen in some areas. New York City Schools have been close. Goldman sachs raised 2012 pay for u. K. Bankers even as it lines assets in the u. S. Even as it u. S. Peers decline. That was a 77 rise from the previous year. Reported figures under the u. K. Disclosure rule. Advanced on the an unemployment dropped. Lets get more on that with david tweed. How significant is this data . A very mixed picture emerging. Look at these monthly numbers, jobless claims numbers out of spain. They are not seasonally adjusted. We often gloss over them in favor of the quarterly numbers. That shows a Unemployment Rate of 26 . You cannot ignore that we are seeing a Market Reaction to these numbers out of spain. The 10 year bond yield is down well below 4 , sharply lower. It felt again yesterday after numbers show that spains manufacturing is expanding again after a contraction in november. Look at the twoyear bond yield, that is at a record low. It is worth looking at these numbers to see what is happening. We have had some Inflation Numbers showing that spains inflation is lower than the rest of the euro zone. 0. 9 , not very much. That eternal devaluation story is in place. Seeing that labor market reform from back in 2012, having an effect on unit labor costs. Spain is becoming more competitive, that is why we are seeing exports rising as the economy coming out of recession after two years. It is very tentative at this stage. Lets talk about what this means for the investment climate. Some significant people, significant investors starting to take an interest in spain. Soros, etc. George soros, there was a report today saying that george soros has bought a 3. 1 stake in a building company, a construction company. It is worth about 2 billion euros. It has been decimated since the height of the construction boom. The interesting thing is that is following bill gates. You consider how bill gates has done regaining his number 1 spot as the richest man in the world. He bought a 6 stake in the same company in october. What we aret of seeing, investors going into spain and buying real estate assets. Even some south american billionaires, the venezuelan billionaire juan carlos escetet bank, he bought that last month for one billion euros. What people think might be some sort of recovery in the economy. David tweed joining us from berlin. Markets reacting to the latest data out of the spanish economy . Thettle bit better, some of data coming through. Caroline hyde is at the touchscreen with more. Markets said the bond are doing well. The equities markets are not doing too badly either, up 0. 7 . Up, the periphery doing well. Raising some of the losses on the stoxx 600. In3 had the biggest rally european stocks since 2009. What about growth in china and the u. S. . Question,china under Services Data today disappointed, jogging down the asian benchmarks. Hang seng off asia, letsution in see what that did to currencies. Surging out of the haven trade, yen rallying against the dollar. 104. 4. Money moving into the yen. Se on the reddish pound pound, uphe british against the dollar and the euro. Tear, upces are on a 8 . Retailers have big movers in the u. K. , helping the stoxx 600 dig in. Retail up more than 1 . Likes ofbetween the next, next is the big winner in terms of retailers. Warning that the u. K. Economy could be slowed down if we see Interest Rates rise. Lets focus on what stocks are on the market. We do have next on the up. Nearly 9 higher. Numbers are so they will. Ste able. We are all buying Christmas Jumpers. Online was exceptional according to analysts. Marks and spencer is up 3. 5 . We get their details on christmas on january 9. Have we all been starting to get on the high street, was it not as bad as many were expecting . Some companies have poor performance. Telecom italia up 5. 5 . The reason with its brazilian will its brazilian unit be sold . Telefonica is a key shareholder and is analyzing that. That is according to the spanish paper el sol. Next. Twear helping next year i will have to buy you a sparkly number. Out. Feel i have been left lets get back to one of our major stories. A winter storm in the u. S. , the northeast of the country is seeing blizzard conditions, almost 100 Million People have been affected. Up to york city make it nine inches of snow. Looking at pictures from the roof of our offices in manhattan. Boston also in the frame. Expected to get up to 14 inches of snow. Causing severe travel disruptions, several thousand flights have been canceled. Even more have been delayed, including we are looking at the london flights going out of heathrow by american airlines, iberia, taxiing. They all now say delayed. Nobody going anywhere across the atlantic. We will head across the atlantic via satellite to join tom keene. He has made it into work. That program on in 20 minutes. Surprised to see you, well done. Close to thete office. We had a lot of people that went through this blizzard. A blizzard is a lot of wind. More importantly and what is distinctive is the cold temperatures that have gone with this storm. In centigrade, new york city is 12. Boston and chicago, even colder. 16. Lake placid upstate new york towards canada where they held the olympics in 1980, 23 d egrees. Snow,nd a fair amount of it is bitter cold. That is the real risk to so many on the eastern seaboard. We were discussing how it feels so much warmer here in london for this time of year. Yet it does not stop writing. You get all the snow, we get rain. The kill your data markets, it feels like tuesday peculiar data markets, it feels like tuesday. Today, a weekort from today. With all the holidays, they ofed it back to the 10 january. We have some great guests, we borrowed a lot and just, kit juckes from societe generale. Nick, legendary on coverage of general electric. An update on that industrial juggernaut and jeff immelt. We will have a lot of the weather coverage, it is germane to the new york stock exchange. Bonnie schneider will give us perspective throughout the morning. Thank you very much. A warmup for davos. Get your knitwear sorted. Frosty between president obama and president clinton, not so between the nations biggest oil countries. Exxon aret and working together. Coming up next. Welcome back, you are watching the pulse, live from london on bloomberg tv. The u. S. Argued over human rights and the fate of edward snowden, Energy Companies have found something to agree on. Drilling for arctic oil. Ryan chilcote has been covering this for some time. What are the latest deals exxon . Rosneft and beenxon and rosneft have working together quietly. This year, they will start work on their first arctic well. Exactly . Is it ocean. Art of the arctic it is where the river flows into the ocean. It is separated from the west, the place where the soviets used to dump radioactive waste. This one well, they have been doing seismic work for a couple years. They have found a place where there should be oil or gas. Can get plenty of gas in russia anshul cheaply. Very cheaply. Caras sea is hostile. Why does rosneft need exxon . Exxon has a big balance sheet. It is not cheap to drill in the arctic. Spending moneyn on acquisitions and does not want to spend more. Everything they do with exxon, exxon pays for it. Do they bring skills . Exxon is already drilling not in the arctic, but in deepsea, all over the world. This is new for rosneft. Rosneft giving something to exxon. This is the Worlds Largest publicly traded oil producer. From of 20 barrels come rosneft except for some of the National Oil Companies. Exxon has the output issue, output decline by 1 . Want help to the growing. You want output to be growing. This gives them access to the largest reserves in the world and the prospect of increasing output, something they cannot do with saudi arabia or somebody else. There, the National Oil Companies when it all for themselves. Were are going to watch this space carefully. It could be huge or nothing. Here tois going to be tell us all about that. From russia to remy. Remy cointreau on the hunt for a new ceo. Frederic pflanz stepped down after just three months. Caroline hyde is here. Was the market surprised . Stock is trading a little weaker. Bit surprised, maybe distracted, that is what analysts at bernstein are saying. This could cloud views of shares further. There will be internal wrangling for him to get on board. Just three months into the job, he was cfo and coo before at remy cointreau. Three months in he is stepping down for personal reading personal reasons. He still has some response abilities, but the chairman is taking over as they hunt down any leader. The chairman himself used to be ceo, he knows the business. A distraction and a surprise after three months october the first he started. This stock could not perform well last year, it has been a tough time for the cognac maker. Analysts try to speculate. Maybe there is a relationship to the poor performance of the stock. Dependence of remy cointreau upon china, stock is down 22 since Frederic Pflanz took over. That has been due to a slowdown in giftgiving. Reining back luxury spending by government officials, they had a taste for remy cointreau. Is it that shipments are down ahead of Chinese New Year . Maybe that will put pressure on the ceo, maybe there is a disagreement between the chairman of the ceo and leaders at the top of the company as to why and how they tackle the slowdown in china . That has been speculated by analysts. Personal reasons, some are suggesting other reasons. Peers speculation coming from bernstein. What we know is that chinese slowdown has hampered profitability of this stock. They warned us at the end of november that they are going to see a doubledigit decline in profit in the next year because of the slowdown in chinese drinking of cognac. Luxury spending across the board. Certainly distraction for the stock. Latestline had with the on the drinks business. Some other company news. Rupert murdochs 21st century chinald a stake in star tv, divesting businesses in which it cannot gain majority ownership. Star chinas Management Team are buying the stake. A string of Cyber Attacks over the holidays involving Companies Like snapchat and target show how companies tend to be vulnerable to hacking during this period. Companies tend to avoid changing code at this time and more shoppers are plugging in credit card information. Tempting hackers. Walmart says it is adding dna tests on food and considering legal action after it discovered contaminated donkey meat in china from a local vendor. Walmart withdrew all products from the supplier after it found fox dna and samples of donkey meat. As we had to break, we leave you with a look at pictures coming out of new york. Winter storms hitting the u. S. s northeast seaboard. Having a major impact on this mornings commute. We will bring you the latest on the storm from new york, coming up next. Welcome that, you are watching the pulse. A quick look at the currency markets. A surprise has been a demand for Precious Metals. Silver having a reasonable time. E trading strongly platinum trading strongly. If you like at a chart of gold silver, reasonably minute range. Certainly Precious Metals have been better bids. Auntie ofes notes around about how poorly they perform. Cable. British pound in terms of mortgage approvals and data relating to the construction sector. The two are related and the pound is a better bid against the dollar, 1. 6469. Bonnie schneider is standing by in new york with an update. How bad do things like . We still have blowing and drifting snow, most advisories are still in place. A blizzard warning for parts of coastal areas of new hampshire, maine, and long island, just east of new york city. Reports of heavy snow and strong winds up to 30 miles per hour. That is what makes this storm so dangerous. Createwinds that whiteout conditions. This is a massive storm that has affected approximately over 70 million americans. Is this going to be a short shock or something that carries on for the next few days . It will be over even into the Morning Hours by noon. It is still dark out here in new york city. It is still dangerous to be out and about. It was not a longlasting storm, but it lasted long enough that we are seeing some major snow. It is still snowing in many locations, that is why advisories continue. Where we seeing most disruption . Schools, roads closed and airlines canceling flights. In the northeast from new york city and further north. As well as eastward, seeing many cancellations of flights. Even if anyone is traveling in the u. S. , this will impact you. If your plane is trying to get to you, likely to be delays and cancellations. Airlines are also waiving cancellation fees because the storm is massive. Snowg some of the heavier amounts in eastern massachusetts, where we had areas along cape cod and plymouth seeing over one foot of snow, it is still snowing there. Thank you very much, bonnie schneider. Stay warm in new york. Definitely. My son warm here, nice and warm here. Wet but warm. Not sure that is better. Those storm pictures look quite dramatic. What else do we have to expect . Jonathan ferro. What have we got . 3 bs. Ben bernanke speaks later. He speaks down at the end of the month as chairman of the fomc. Does what he says matter . I think so. Another guy talking is charles plosser. He will get a vote on the fomc. The tour initially thought notoriously hawkish. Taper has begun, it is about momentum and the pace. Blackberry in the news because it has parted ways with alicia keys. Parting ways. She was going to be creative director. Blackberry unveiled their number 10 operating system, harsh on alicia keys. A different skill set. Who would turn around blackberry . Music can then many things. You look at market share of operating systems, i was data, blackberry has 1. 7 of the smartphone market, and joy at and joy at 81 . Poor alicia keys. That is a four the pulse, keep it here on Bloomberg Television. Surveillance is next from new york with tom keene. Pretty grim whether stateside. Pictures of the east coast of the u. S. , plenty of flights being canceled from london to etc. W york, check with your airline before you travel. Here we are. A real blizzard. Stayedlked because i nearby. I was happy to have my big hood that i pulled down below my face. Our weather analyst i was smacked in the face with the cold. Her wind chills the windchills. Bloomberg surveillance. The weather