signs of continued economic recovery, slighted, it needs to be put in the context of the adverse weather that affected many businesses during the month. we'll get more reaction to these businesses in a short period of time. the europe equity markets, i'm not quite sure what's happening there. obviously, that's not right. but anyway, we'll check that out. we're up around 0.25% for the ftse 100, the smi up around 0.3% at the moment. travel and utilities all slightly stronger. any reaction to that? no, it's not. so i'll hand you over to christine for a look at the reaction to that chinese data, christine. >> i will give you that, indeed, ross. in terms of the market reaction, we are seeing most asian markets falling today as this, of course, after china is reporting strong gdp growth for the forty quarter sparking concerns that beijing will start to tighten monetary policy. we know growth grew 10.7% below market expectations, still pretty strong. also, cpi data came in 1.7%. a lot of concerns about monetary tightening in japan. nikkei 225 is up 1.2%. a strong dollar is in focus there. a lot of people are now putting their emphasis on the exporters, which are pulling that market higher. the composite managing to close high, 2. %. the kospi is up marginally, 0.5% and the bombay sensex down 2% and the australian market is offer 0.8%. the ftse cnbc global 300 index, this is how it's looking, down 6 points, 4,563. hi, bertha. good to see you. >> good to see you, christine. we're going to have a busy day here on wall street. we've got, of course, ahead of the open. goldman sachs will be reporting earnings and the investment bank widely expected to post very solid gains this year. one of the things we'll be watching for will be the bonus numbers. we might get the aggregate bonus number, but the details on what the top 30 will be getting not due out until tomorrow according to sources i'm talking to at goldman sachs. and president obama will be outlining new measures he'd like to see for banking regulations. that should come at about 11:45 new york a.m. time. right now, it looks like dow futures are pretty much flat here on the day if these words are working right. nasdaq 100 futures just below fair value. s&p 500 also below, despite very good numbers out of ebay last night. it doesn't seem as though those tech earnings have much of a tailwi tailwind. president obama wants to keep big u.s. banks on a shorter leash, proposing new rules to limit their size and the scope of their activities. the president, scheduled to speak at 11:45 a.m. new york time after meeting with paul volcker. commercial banks would no longer be allowed to engage in proprietary trading, separating them from investment banks. that line was blurred about a decade ago. news of the new rules came sharply after tim geithner had a private dinner wednesday night with some wall street ceos. a few hours before president obama antibiotic announces new bank rules, goldman sachs reports results. analysts are forecasting earnings of $5.20 a share on revenues of $9.7 billion. like jpmorgan and morgan stanley, lower volumes would weigh on results. and employees won't actually learn about their bonuses until next week. in frankfurt at this hour, goldman sachs shares are trading up nearly 1%. >> that will be a big focus today. we've had sales numbers today out of our which beat forecasts. the dutch retailer compensated for what is a fairly fragile consumer spending and higher prices. last month they hit almost south side 10 billion after ahold was hit by the u.s. grocery chain stop and shop. pore tu goal has until 2013 to reduce its deficit to the euro zone's 3% target. but the fund has been warning that drastic measures are still needed to meet the deadlines, portugal's budget will present its draft budget next tuesday. >> we've got lots of data to digest coming up from china today. we've got gdp growth there in the fourth quarter were surging 10.7%, slightly softer than the 10.9% expansion a lot of analysts have been forecasting, but allow china to meet and beat its target for 8%. for all of 2009, the economy grew 8.7%. the country's central bank guided up the yield on three-month bills for the second time this year, which shows beijing is concerned about the pace of bank lending. inflation in xhien na is a key concern after consumer prices showed a bigger than expected increase of 1.9% in september pipt has raised speculation that the peoples bank of china may have more tightening measures up its sleeve. >> when we start looking at various sectors, we knew overheating has reached bubble proportions. so these are no backward looking figures. it's all about tightening, i'm afraid. >> that was jim walker from asianomics. bertha. >> christine, as concern about global warming grows, so does the interest in electric and hybrid cars. which of all these new cars are the greenest? find out in our slideshow. you can find that right on cnbc.com. if you want to weigh in, drop us a note. worldwide@cnbc.com. or drop me a line on twitter, co coomscnbc. coming up on the program, u.s. president barack obama will be announcing new rules for wall street today. before we go into the break, as well, a quick reminder where oil is trading. you're watching cnbc's "worldwide exchange." we're trying to get ben pedley ip for you. let's remind you where fixed income markets are at the moment. just picking up a little bit of equities, slightly stronger today. laterally on wall street putting pressure on despite the strong gdp growth in china. u.s. tresh ary, they've edged down during the asian session today, so the yield on 10-year treasury note is ticking higher, 3.76% at the moment. that's where we stand on that market. currencies have been taking a look at the chinese data. christine -- well, there we go. there's the figures. christine, do you want to talk through them? >> yep. you know, the dollar is getting stronger as a result of that. appreciating against the yen, as you can see, 91.62. euro/dollar, 1.4067. sterling/dollar, 1.6187. euro/sterling, 0.8690. bertha. >> christine, that euro/dollar is at a critical level people are watching today. it will likely set us up for lower equities and more pressure on commodities ahead of weekly inventories for oil. we've got other things on tap, as well. it's one of the busiest days of the week when it comes to reports and earnings results. weekly jobless claims are due out at 8:30 a.m. new york time. at 10:00 a.m., we're going to get december leading indicators, which are expected to have risen 0.7%. also at 10:00, the january philly fed survey will be released. in addition to goldman's earnings before the bell, we're going to hear from the likes of continental and southwest airlines. fifth-third bank and pnc financial. and united health, union pacific and xerox, as well. among the big names reporting after the close, google, american express, amd, burlington northern, santa fe and capital one financial. and the weekly u.s. inventory report is due out at 10:30 a.m. new york time dhad for a day because of the martin luther king holiday. the dow jones survey is calling for oil to be up by 1.9 million barrels, gasoline by 1.3 million and distillates by 200,000. the api numbers yesterday were kind of bullish, so we might see better than expected results this morning, that's at 10:30 a.m. new york time. >> all of that to look forward to. meanwhile, bertha, european stock markets are trying to claw back chunky losses yesterday. stephane is in paris, patricia is in frankfurt and first, bengky is in london. it was a dreadful day wasn't, wasn't it? >> yes. but the gains that we saw first thing this morning have begun to diminish. but still, we're higher. united utilities, shares of that company are up pretty strongly. 4.4% or so for shares of united utilities. this is a british water company. they came out with a statement this morning and told us they are cutting their dividends in order to protect their balance sheet. there have been some restrictions by the regulator on returns, so they're having to cut dividends on that front. however, the cut in dividends was much more mild than many analysts have expected. so this is what wr seeing the shares looking really strong today, trading in line with expectations, as well, over at united utilities. and tullo, another gainer, about 2.8% higher for shares of that company. >> they're having a good week, aren't they? >> a good few months, as well. they've come across several finds and it's made a big difference in the stock, yeah. >> bank and super markets, fairly steady. another super market this morning saying they had a very good christmas, but cautious about the outlook. >> this is what we've heard from many of the retailers. morrison is the company we're talking about at this time. william morrison is one of the big uk super market chains. ross is quite right. sales are up at christmas by 6.5%. but the shares are down by about 1.3%. we have seen there's real caution on the outlook, saying that they're cautious on consumer spending overall, not just for their business, but this consumer spending issue keeps coming back. >> you don't quite know whether they're just being cautious for cautious sake or whether they generally believe their figures are going to suffer. >> i guess the problem is they don't have a great deal of visibility on big issues affecting their business. we don't really know how the v.a.t. increase will affect spenders. it does apply to nonfood items. lots of consumer facing companies are saying that this year people are increasingly worried about how the government the going to fund the public spending issues and that is having a really difficult to determine impact on the consumer sentiment. >> you can see the building signs putting up raising mortgage rates even though there's no change in base rates because they can't compete with national savings. >> we're off about 0.3% in frankfurt. we just had the pmi out today. services sector is not growing as fast, but a big jump up in the manufacturing side. particularly in germany. how has that gone down with investors there? patricia will give us a reaction. >> well, there is no big reaction in terms of share trade, to be honest with you, ross. but it was quite surprising that we have the strength coming through from the manufacturing sector which was above expectations and there we expected a little bit of weakness to kick in. but no, it is the service sector disappointing there. we're getting awfully close to the number of 50, 51.2. expected was the figure around about 53. but at least that index continues to grow in the composite side of things for the sixth consecutive month. people are getting very, very finicky about the details there. we do have uber coming through later on. the tech sector will be in focus. metro, i think it's reacting action bit to what we heard from ahold and the morris news wasn't that bad, either. however, that stock is trading down. but metro up about 1.5%. as rbe and daimler doing fairly well. on the down side, bayer, getting a downgrade tr morning from one of the brokers and the market is reacting there. adidas and merck also showing weakness. we have a bounceback on the technology side of things up about 1%. and i'm hearing about upgrades in utilities, patricia. is that helping the stocks? >> well, they're raising their stock from overweight to xhushl. at the moment, we have a level of 67.9 euros. why am i mentioned this kind of upgrade? it's a piece of news. there's been a lot of discussion in germany where our the utilities, where is the energy sourcing going to go? we have at one side the debate. subsidies being cut for renewable energy. however, brokers are very positive about their strategy, ross. >> patricia, word has it it's your birthday. what is it like being 24? >> a little worse than being 23, actually, but i can handle it. >> okay. you do that. stephane is 21 and he's in paris for us. stephane, we are still wondering what's going on with eads and the a400m. what's happening there? >> it's endless. another round of negotiations will take place today in germany between the clients of the a400m military aircraft and the management of eads and airbus. but a french defense minister would have to pay for most of the extras. yesterday, noted from price water house cooper warned that the management of the company underestimated the real costs and also that the company could absorb the extra development costs, up to 7 of 6 billion euros. obviously, it's not good news for the share price. eads is now one of the biggest decliners. it's down more than 1% on the french market. and once we're talking upgrades and utilities in germany, slightly more upgrades for the utilities in france, stephane. >> eads is facing a new regulation ruling. the country, according to a draft document by the market regulator, the company may have to sell one-third of its electricity production from nuclear plants to its rivals in order to increase the competition in france and eads could help to drop the regulated price of electricity in the company within five years. that was seen as a major obstacle to the competition. we have numbers from remi quantro. the winemaker posted 1.3% drop in sales for the quarter. they say that the third quarter rlts reflects the continuation of the improving trend. believe it or not, ross, people are drinking less champagne and more cognac. i don't know wlauld do, but i would prefer the champagne, probably. >> it's easier. it's an easier drink. it suits more locations and times. i think cognac, there's just a specific window in the die when you want to do that. that's my two cents. >> good consideration. >> stephane, thanks for that. carolin is in switzerland. as i understand, we've had logitech numbers out today. as i understand it, they make more computer mice than anyone in the world? >> yes, they do. they also make things like keyboards and other things. logitech posted numbers for the third quarter. christmas season itself wasn't as good, but for the quarter, we saw an increase in net profit of 41% with a profit of almost $57 million, also posting very strong growth margins of almost 34%. in terms of the outlook for the current quarter, giving us a very encouraging outlook here as the company says they do see double digit growth and expect that margins will continue to improve. >> okay. and we've also got other stories in focus today. novartis has a filing for a multiple sclerosis drug. >> yes. the timing of this was more or less expected. but the interesting thing about it is novartis gave us some very bullish comments saying it expects the drug will meet the u.s. markets as soon as this year and that will obviously give them an edge of merck. they're working on a similar drug here. novartis is saying this has the potential for becoming a blockbuster drug. on the back of this, novartis is trading higher by 0.7%. take a look at switch, higher by more than 0.5%. many brokers coming out and increasing the price target for that company after switch posted better than expected sales for 2009 yesterday. roche being the biggest gainer up by more than 1%, roche gave us positive results for its cancer drug seloda. necessarily up by 1% pulling the market higher, a heavyweight stock here up by almost 1%. with that, i'll send it back over to you. >> carolin, thanks very much indeed. the peripheral countries, greece, portugal and spain. yesterday we were in greece. today guy is in ireland. >> ross, i certainly am. i'm standing outside here in dublin. coming up after the break here on "worldwide exchange," find out what the finance minister had to say about the bond market rises within the euro zone.te this is cnbc's "worldwide exchange." here are the headlines from around the globe. >> here in asia, shanghai shares rebounded slightly despite fears of more tightening measures in china after q4 growth came in at 10.7%. >> in europe, the prime minister expects bond markets to tighten and there's more information about the country's bad bank plan. >> in the u.s., president obama will lay out new rules to reign in big banks. >> hello. you're watching "worldwide exchange" with christine tan, bertha coombs and ross westgate, myself. global equities, a little weaker today. yesterday there was concern about chinese tightening of bank lending that drove us down. european stocks just starting to weaken a little bit while trying to claw back some of yesterday's losses. christine has the latest out of asia. >> i do, indeed. china's economy grew 10.7% in the october to december period, which is the last fourth quarter. so kind of below expectations, but 10.the%. cpi was stronger than expected. 1.9%. all this backing concerns of monetary tightening and that determined sentiment here in asia. the nikkei 225 said focusing on the currency, the japanese yen weakened and the strong dollar. the hang down is down 1.9% on those tightening fears and the shanghai market is managing to close in the upward territory. a lot of people are taking that data to mean, you know what? china's economy is recovering. bombay sensex down 2% and the aussie market is off 0.8%. bertha. >> the big headline in the use today in terms of earnings report will be goldman sachs. later in the morning, we're going to hear from president obama could we be heading back towards the glass needle regulation type environment? at this point, we have dow futures down about 7 points below fair value. >> we just got borrowing figures out of the uk. the december public sector cash requirements 23.6 billion. but it's still a record high for december. public sector net borrowing, 15.7 billion. a little less than the consensus of 13.5. it is still a record high for december. we've got december gross mortgage lending out, as well. that ticked up slightly, 13.7 billion versus the previous 12.1. jack kaillou is joining us now. public borrowing is slightly better than expected, but i suppose, jack, what we're all looking for is much greater detail on government plans to reduce borrowing and deficits. there's a chance we're going to have to lay this out before the election? >> this is clearly a theme for the uk, a global theme about how do exit from here in terms of the fiscal trajectory and, you know, the debate is likely to get heated in the run up of the election. so probably more information on that front and more clarity on that front as to whether this is going to be more on the expenditure side or on the tax side. i think, i mean, historically, when we look at fiscal consolidation, it looks as though the most successful consolidation plan has been through a reduction in expend temperature. so this is clearly something which is going to attract attention from the markets. as i said, it's not only a story from the uk but it's pretty much a story that we will focus on g-7 economies. and also, when looking at huge pressures at the current moment. >> you talk about the euro. let's look at those pmis we got. the services growth is slowing, but the factories absolutely boomed. where does that lead us? >> i think overall, we would say that the recovery is on track as far as the european economy is concerned. there is a bit of a possible on the services side. i wouldn't be surprised if some of the bad weather and the low temperatures might have impacted some of the services like transportation, for example. not reading too much on the decline. and some increase in foreign orders, which typically has been the key driver of the business cycle for europe. and we're seeing increased orders in germany, as well as the rest of the euro which should help support the rest of the manufacturing second sector over the course of the coming months. but it's a very slow-growing recovery. if we're looking in comparison to the china number overnight, china is growing ten times fast er than euoria is concerned. >> and this is christine here. what do you make of the china data data here, 1077% in the fourth quarter. do you think china will hike rates before the fed does? >> we think so, yeah. if you look at the global economy, since it started recovering at the beginning of the last quarter last year, we think about 90% of the growth in the global economy since it started growing again can be explained by asia and that will result into early tightening in asia and including in china. we look for a policy rate hike in the second quarter. >> how much of a rate hike are we looking at? >> we're looking for 50 basis points. we think also we get get -- sorry, about 27 basis points on the official rate, but we look for a 50 basis point hike on the reserve ratios. we've revised up our forecast for china for 10% on the back of stronger than expected numbers. so the worries about additional tightening will remain in the market and the impact that this will have on the china economy, as well. so clearly a focus fof this year will be china and how the policy mix will evolve on the back of very strong economy backdrops. the inflation numbers highlight the need for some tightening. jauk, that makes it interesting. today we're going to get philly fed data and i'm sure a lot of investors will focus on the china market and what we're seeing in the markets. we're seeing the dollar rise to a 4 1/2 month high and that has a lot of people concerned because we're seeing the risk trade come off. so the market it seems is anticipating this tightening and what kind of impact will it have on the economy like the u.s. as the dollar strengthens? >> yeah. the asian population has been concerned about the upswing, there is a huge amount of worry about the fiscal or policy mix in asia. as far as the impact on asian growth, that is less clear cut. we do not find macroeconomic impact, a very clear positive macroeconomic impact. that clearly is a very good story out of the microlevel for companies hugely exposed to asia. but if we aggregate that, we do not find a huge amount of evidence that this is a clear positive. you've got an impact there, it's a negative. so the overall macro positive impact to me is not a very clear -- is not a very clear story. so yes, i think we will have, you know, more worries from the market on that standpoint. as far as the u.s. economy is concerned, we are still of the view that this is a recovery which is taking place and we take comfort from the labor market data, which dpraully is showing signs of improvement with no imminent sign of removal of policy accommodation, either on the fiscal or the monetary side which itself is a positive for the economy. thank you very much for your views. coming up after the break, we will continue to focus on china's double digit growth. we'll talk about china's challenges after this quick break. >> reporter: and from dublin, find out why brian lenihan can't rule out putting more government money into the irish banks. ddd welcome back to "worldwide exchange." it's 5:40 in the evening in hong kong and you're looking at the harbor there in the city there. looks like it's a pretty hazy day. >> yes. but i'm sure it's quite warm in hong kong, unlike near the banks in dublin which is where guy joins us from. guy, we're spending a lot of time this week looking at the peripherals in europe. steve was in greece yesterday and you're in dublin. how different are the situations for the two countries, or not? >> reporter: i think the underlying story is very similar. the response, though, has been very, very different. george has faced a time of pressure over the last few weeks about the greek statistics, about his ability to deliver the kind of cuts that he's been talking about. the irish finance minister has received a lot of praise for his response in december. he delivered quite a big budget, an incredibly austiere budget. the question is, has it won him a lot of friends in the bond market? the question i put to him is whether or not he has received enough from the bond market to reflect the heavy lifting he has done already with the irish economy. >> they can never come in paradox, but they have come in for ireland and they've come in in a difficult international environment. but i think what we have to address is the uncertainty about the domestic irish banking system. we have that fully under control. but we need to remove remaining uncertainties on balance sheets there, identify where the losses are, quantify them and deal with them. >> when do you think you're going to have that done by? do you think you're going to have to put more capital into the irish banks? >> i believe we will if they can't attract investments on the public funds. we are in a strong position to make an element of capital investment in the irish banking system and we can do that. but we need to quantify exactly what our losses are and what capital is required. and i can what we've done that and we've satisfied the markets that we can do that, and i believe we are in a position to do it, then we'll be in a stronger position with the bond market. >> when do you think that will happen? >> that will happen the first half of this year. all that will be drawn together in a response as to exactly what the issues are. do you think you'll have to end up taking majority stakes? >> that may be the case. we haven't ruled it out. our investment in the larger banks was in the form of a preference share and we got a return on the coupon. if that is required, the government will do that. there is a trend worldwide towards higher capital rates, so that is clear from regulatory authorities around the world. again, the question arises as to how slow you build up to that, you know, what period of time you allow yourself to build up to that reserve. but all of that will have to be tackled in the first half of this year, 2010. >> reporter: do you worry that you are taking an enormous risk here with the irish economy? i understand the logic. you hit the deficit hard one brick the rates down, bring the spread down, you reduce the long-term cost of borrowing. but on the other hand, you are reducing probably the only engine of growth at the moment with the the public sector. the private sector at the moment doesn't have enough momentum behind it to produce the kind of growth numbers necessary. yes, but it's a small, open economy. it's crucially dependant on export led growth. our exports have held up well in the current crisis. if you compare irish exports with the other european countries, the declines have been very, very small and the latest purchasing managers show an increase. so we have to sustain that export sector and we will have to sustain domestic enterprise. it's not sustainable as an economic model. a sustainable economic model for ireland has to support the existing export led base, sustain that and work on the indigenous sector, the smaller businesses that feed into that and feed into domestic and some international competition. the biggest difficulty has been the biggest appreciation for sterling. but the indigenous sector has responded and taken very large pay cutes and pay reductions to remaybe competitive in the united kingdom market. >> brian lenihan speaking to me last night. len na hahn has so far one good response to his financial crisis. but as he says, the job is only half done. they still need to sort out exactly what is going to be happening with the bad bank plan and the recap of some of the ireland's largest banks and they have to get the private sector growing again. that will be critical over the next few years. critically, what he hahn done is raise is corporation tax. will that he about enough to encourage investment into ireland and will it be enough to encourage companies to keep growing? the ceo of ryan air will be joining us a little later. for now, christine tan, back over to you. >> thank you very much for that, guy johnson. let's cross live to tokyo now and check in on the trading day with asoak ka kondo. >> hi, christine. the nikkei 225 stock average was 1.2% today. recently underperforming blue chips such as toyota motors, sony and canon were higher on hopes that china will continue to grow. volume users have surged roughly 50% since september. in contrast, pioneer los lost ground after deciding to increase its capital by 20 billion yen through a public offering. meanwhile, few gee fire and marine insurance will issue shares to a unit of aig to strengthen their relationship. aig will boost its stake in fuji to 55% from the current 42% opinion finally, the nikkei has learned that entity dochamo will team with google and microsoft to launch a service in which smart phone applications will be charged as part of calling plans. docomo and its partners seek to challenge apple's online store for the iphone. that was the nikkei business report. back to you, christine. >> thank you very much. right now, let's check in on how the indian market is doing. reema can duke ka joins us live from mumbai. reema. >> hi. it's looking very, very weak out here. today it was very focused in the capital goods space. elan did i has completely disappointed the street and that's practically broken the back of the market. no stock in the nifty is currently trading in the green. all of them are showing huge gams. so that miss is calculated even to the broad ir markets space. another indication that we are seeing, the ratio stands at about one stock on the advancing line to its stocks on the declining side. so the complete -- but the biggest culprit is the capital goods space, elandi is down about 7%, is giving the company and the other good capital goods heavyweights. it's about 6%. although it disappointed on the top line, this opm has come in higher than what we estimated. that came in at about 20%. nevertheless, the stock is seeing a huge cut. a lot of the real estate, even the i.t. banking, mahindra bank, not a bad executive of numbers. today in all this weakness, they, too, are correcting with about 3% to 4%. back to you. >> reema, can you shed more light on what's happening in terms of, you know, what's going on in the whole sector? >> well, i think capital goods is the one which deserves all the attention. the top line, they have reported about 8071. and we were estimating it to come in at over 10,145. even the lowest estimate on the street, it's way lower than the lowest estimate. and more disappointing is they're scaling down the revenue guidance. it stands at about 10% vis-a-vis the 15% that they had earlier indicated. with that, it's back to you. >> reema, thank you very much. ream na tendukah live from mumbai. >> we had a mixed picture here in asia. sentiment very much dictated by the data that came out of china today. look over at south korea. we had gains in a lot of the sector b was but the chinese sensitive shippers and steelermakers were quite weak there. the hong kong developers, especially the ones that have exposure to china were very weak. when you look at chinese data, the concern has been about weak inflation. most are saying that tightening or further tightening is inevitable. yesterday, of course, part of the reason for that, of course, is massive lending. that led into inflation. yesterday we talked about this, the pboc or the regulators clamping down on banks, having a number of them raising the ratio and punishing the bank of china for a lot of that lending. that seems to be a big concern. christine. >> correct me if i am wrong, but did china guide up the three-month yield? >> they did. and that's the second time this year. we're only three weeks into the new year. that shows they're serious about dealing with inflation. but it also shows that the tightening that they've done so far hasn't been working. in terms of the guiden up, the three-month bills are at about 1.408%. the one-year bill, they got it up by about 8 basis points. the other points i'd make, though, is that investment banks now believe that the first interest rate hike could come in the second quarter. but some are suggesting that could come in the first quarter. we've been talking with the yuan a lot. they've been resisting, appreciating the yuan, christine, as you know. but now some are saying that they could relent that, especially if exports are doing well. so something to watch for. >> a lot of things to think about or talk about when it comes to china. thank you for that. let's talk more about china and get some analysis going with our next guest. you seem to think a rate hike is going come in the third quarter. why? >> for three reasons. i think the first one is that the pomsz pomz policy is to control the pace of bank credit growth. the recent measures we have seen by the central bank and others is to prevent lending from growing credit. so i think that's the main policy folks. the second reason is that the rates will really depend on inflation rates. so what is going to happen in the next few months to cpi inflation will be key and our view is that we expect cpi inflation to reach about 3% by middle of this year and, therefore, after that, the pressure for a hike of the market will be very high. >> so from now -- >> we think that -- the other reason is that as you mentioned earlier, the central bank has guided into banks higher and as a result of that, the whole money market rates have increased. that has already played a dampening role in the asset markets. so in light of that, you need the benchmark rates to rise to have an impact on asset markets. >> every time you talk about monetary tightening, shares take a dive. how mindful do you think they are in china about the stock market in china? >> monetary policy is really mainly driven by consideration of growth and inflation. of course, they have concern on asset markets, but that is not about in the day-to-day or week to week volatility. but overall, i think at this point it's really about trying to control inflation risks. >> i have to imagine that they have to be mindful of the actions they take there impacting other stock markets and other economies we've seen this week with the actions that the chinese have taken. the dollar has risen and that's had a big impact on the commodities market and on stocks here in the u.s. are they likely to worry about getting pressure from other countries as they move to tighten in china? >> i think like in any other country, the domestic policy is driven by domestic, economic and financial conditions. and the same applies to china's case. but i also believe that the market has probably, in my view, read too much into the recent actions. i would take a view that the recent actions do not represent, you know, really aggressive tightening, as i mentioned earlier. they are mainly aimed to prevent bank lending the bank too sharply. so the earlier, we have heard the target for this year was a new loan of 7.5 trillion renminbi. the first two weeks for the one trading already. so that suggests it could be easily to be seated by a large margin. so that is the risk and that is what the authorities want to prevent. does that represent a tightening? i don't think so. so i think we should not overstage the size of tightening going into the recent actions. i think the main tightening element that comes from really the hike of the bank interest rates or into the central bank actions and the money market rate interest rates rise. that has dampened the asset market sentiment. >> wensheng, thank you so much. it's good talking to you. we're going for a quick break. coming up next on "worldwide exchange," china's economy wlooefb talking about is finishing 2009 with a flourish with gdp growth again reaching double digits. inflationary moves are on a rise. >> and still to come, we'll be joined by ethan devin with some interesting looks on what the is for the industry. hello and welcome to "worldwide exchange." in the u.s., a few hours after goldman sachs reports earnings, president obama will lay out rules to reign in big banks. >> in europe, it's less than expected. >> and, of course, in asia, we're watching china. shanghai shares rebounding to fears or move tightening measures in the country. >> so nice to have you here with us on was. christine tan in singapore, ross westgate in london and i'm bertha coombs. futures are a little lower. we're going to get an awful lot of data this morning. mid morning we're going to get the philly fed survey. i think those are due out around 8:00 a.m. new york time. we've got futures right now about 11 points below fair value for the dow, nasdaq and s&p 500 below fair value. we seem to have this theme once again. everybody is so worried about the macro issues, so worried about the banks that they are ignoring good earnings from tech titans like ebay last night after the close, not having any impact at all on -- >> actually, generally speaking, the tech numbers have been pretty good, haven't they? it will be interesting to see whether we're creating value in that sector. meanwhile, the european stock markets trading two hours into the day, slightly volatile. marginal gains, i'd say at the moment for european stocks. we still haven't got any real gains as far as the commodity sector is concerned. they're looking at the chinese data and wondering what tightening might mean. health care isn't doing too badly today, christine. >> and the chinese data is helping out the dollar right now. the u.s. dollar has moved higher after strong gdp data coming out of china. >> let's get more on some of that. goldman sachs is reporting today. joining us now, epin devitt. goldman will step up to the plate today, very different than the other banks and what they might work out, sort of the amount of money going to the bonus pot, as well. how are you viewing what banks are saying at the moment and what that means for how much risk appetite maybe your investor should be taking? >> i think it's the strong uptick in transactions as well as trading activity, which is very important. and that is a very good sign that the healthy-like volatility is returning to markets. so i think what we're seeing is a little bit of caution, a little bit of concern that there was borrowing from the year ahead and there isn't that much more clarity than there was at the end of the year. but investors are rather cautious and not willing to load up at this point. however, what we are hearing is that investors are steadily getting disenchanted with the idea of holding cash in any form. >> you have to put it to work, right? >> exactly. there is a strong sign that there is this money trickling in. there hasn't been much action and we think that will start to appear slowly over the year ahead. >> epin, one area, one thing that is probably holding investors back when it comes to investing in financials is the regulatory environment. we've got president obama once again weighing in on regulation of banks today, likely to talk about bringing things back. they're talking about that in europe, as well. how big a headwind is this going to pose for the financial sector? >> i don't think it's going to be as significant as people think. i think there is a lack of clarity at the moment and that is causing trepidation on investors' parts. however, what we have to remember is these banks are the survivors, these are those banks that have consolidated, have groan their market share. there is so much less competition now in the products that they're offering. despite the head winds, there will be some very strong winners, we think, in this group. and investors now need to identify those banks that they think have the strongest franchises, like to diversify business models and our market leaders in certain sectors and those are the ones we think will preva prevail. there is still a recognition of the capitalism prevailing on wall street. >> epin, hi. this is christine. let's switch gears. china's economy grew at a swift pace with strong double digits in the fourth quarter. as a global envisiter, how do you best capitalize on this growth coming from china? >> i think you have to consider an allocation to asia. we're doing a lot of work in the hedge fund arena with us now. we've returned from asia and we're going to be in asia for the full quarter of this year coining deeper due diligence. we think the pool is richer and stronger than it has been in the past. we think investors will increasingly have to give a core allocation to asia and china. we think this is still ultimately a long, bias opportunity. the point is to be exposed to opportunities. >> where is the hedge fund community developing best in asia? >> the two centers are hong kong and singapore, for sure. the cost is much lower there so that the cost basis is much lower there. we are seeing the long shorts, on fixed income and credit like investing developing. and other hedge fund locations. the development pool is a little stronger and those groups have not had a lot of high profile frauds. they've rested very well. they've not grown too much and we think they're very well positioned to benefit from the future growth in the region. >> they're not getting regulations shoved at them, so yeah, i can tell that. and you're sticking around. plenty more to come. guy has been in ireland, epin's home country. it's been one of the worst affected by the financial crisis. it's taken drastic meaeas and how is it performing now and is it enough to make companies keep investing in the country? on cnbc.com now, our own guy johnson is in ireland and asks the country's finance minister how he plans to tackle the busting bulging deficit. check out that. plus, nouriel roubini says china's tightening is essential. and u.s. president barack obama is set to announce measures to cut excessive risk taking as he has a focus on proprietary trading. all that and much more on cnbc.com. >> welcome back to "worldwide exchange." let's do a quick check on gold and oil right now. gold really standing above $1110.an ounce. briefly trimming gains now from strong data from china. trying to send the dollar higher. of course, we know dollar and gold is correlated. in terms of oil, that strong data is sending oil higher. that is it's moving higher. and brent is flat, as well. $76.07. here is what the iran chamber of commerce had to say. >> i have seen other countries also talking to me about trying other currencies, as well. so i think that the trend is going into that direction. when we get there, nobody knows. >> and that was the president of the iran chamber of commerce industries in line speaking to us from the asian financial forum in hong kong. ross. >> meanwhile, global equities were struggling a little bit today with the losses we had yesterday. we'll bring you up to speed starting off with becky in london. >> pretty limited at this stage of the ftse 100, at least. the gains we had first thing this morning have rather petered out. we have some big gainers, overall. united utility he up by over 4% at sth taj of the day. they had a statement this morning in which they told us they feel be cutting dividends in order to preserve their balance sheet from restrictions that regulators placed on the returns. however, it had not cut by as much as analysts had expected. no further disposals needed there, either. tullow oil is higher by 1.5%. we've had a run of gains, really. the company reporting another major oil discovery in garna. that is helping. >> we are just bouncing off yesterday's session lows, becky, so we're not too bad in germany. up 3 % after pmi was a little bits on the softish side. metro, the top gainer, getting support from henkle. on the down side, still, bayer, daimler. siemens got a big order from china for their railway system and that is a deal valued at about 450 million euros. thyssenkrupp is not extending their losses. we had an agm and the first flash is there. they're confirming at least the year 2010. however, the crisis is not over as far as that steelmaker is concerned. over to stephane. >> eads in paris is trading lower. it's the biggest of this country. eads would like the clients of the aircraft to pay more for the plane in order to compensate the extra development of costs. a report from price waterhouse cooper says the management of eads was partly responsible for the extra cost and that the company would absorb up to 6 billion euros in extra costs. the sales, strong sales of cognac offset partially the decline of the sales on that period. in a statement, they said that the third quarter reflects the continuation of the improving tren for the full year it's targeting a slight organic growth in current operating profit, but the stock is still trading lower. it's now down 1.3%. ross. saijal, over to you. >> thanks very much. when you look at japan basically ignoring those tightening fears in china, a lot of pick up in those export stocks mainly because of the expectations on the back of growth in china's economy. so very strong performance for sony, up 4%. honda up 1.7%. even the banking stocks were fairly strong. as far as south korea goes, the kospi close up about 0.5%. we did see some weakness in some of those steel-related stocks. posco down 1.1%. warren buffett says he doesn't plan to buy additional shares in posco. hong kong developers, especially the ones exposed to china, very weak. you saw the hang seng index down. h shares off by 277%. ross, over to you. >> thank you very much indeed for that. we're continuing our special coverage from ireland. guy has been there today. one of the key questions is, is the irish government doing enough to keep investors investing in the country? >> that is the question. we heard from brian lenny hahn this morning. let's get the corporate side of the story. 3450ikal o'leary, the ceo of ryan air. thanks for taking the time to come and see you us. you have some air traffic controllers on strike. >> they're a bunch of overpaid, underworked public servants one they're typical of the problem in ireland. for the last tep years, the government has been conceding to every demand these lunatics have been making. and if you look at what's happened in the irish economy in the last month, the private sector has responded very well to the recessions. there's been pay cuts, a lot of productivity gains, a lot of efficiency gains. you look at ryan air, i think the savings will be transferred into our earnings here in the next several years. we had a bunch of air traffic controllers yesterday earning 160 grand a year at a time of negative inflation looking for a 6% pay increase. and the government, instead of coming out and telling them to go back to work yesterday, were sitting on their hands looking for talks or looking for machinery. use the bloody law. they were about to arrest guards, the police here, a month ago because they were threatening to go on strike. if you don't want to work for 160,000 a year or you want a 6% pay increase, go and we'll get the people who will do the job. ronald reagan sacked all the air traffic controllers in the u.s. in the early '80s when they went on strike. we should do that here. sadly in ireland, we have very few politicians that have either leadership or spine. >> internationally, though, he seems to have gotten the thumbs up over the last few weeks. the december budget did cut quite a significant amount of the public bill. how would you rate his performance? >> in fairness to brian lenihan, i think you have to give him a 7 or 8 out of ten. there's a concern, however, that the government may have gotten there by accident. they were about to give the public sector unions another 12 days holiday aes year and buy them off yet again. and i think until the irish government comes out and says social partnership, this naughty scheme whereby the excuse mes have been running the country is over and they're going to stand up for public sector workers, then i think the government deserves about 3 out of 10. brian len in a any hahn, 7 or 8 out of ten. the rest of the gooft, certainly the transport minister, i wouldn't give him zero out of ten. he was missing during the snow about two weeks ago and he went missing yesterday as well when the three airports shut down. we should have a no strike clause in the contract of all these public workers. what are the politicians doing about it? nothing as usual. >> reporter: brian lenihan, the finance minister and we would like to thank mr. o'leary for telling us like it is. >> it's so hard to tell what he thinks. >> reporter: it's difficult to get into his mind. >> very interesting interview. we've got lots more interesting stuff to come. still ahead, nokia is in london for a major for the smart phone. stay tuned for more. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." it's just about 5:22 in new york's times square where it is clear this morning. but they're expecting heavy rains again in southern california. it never rains there, but when it does, as the song goes, it pours. let's get a look at how u.s. markets are set to open. futures have been a little lower. we have a very hot number on inflation and gdp growth in china, which has sparked concerns about quicker tightening there. we've got futures right now down about 7 points. of course, the big headline today is going to be goldman sachs reporting ahead of the open. it's the busiest day of the week when it comes to economic reports and earnings results. weekly jobless claims due out at 8:30 a.m. new york time. they're forecast to fall. at 10:00, we're going to get december leading indicators. also at 10:00, the january philly fed survey will be released and in addition, we're going to heard from continental and southwest airlines, fifth third bank, pnb financial, burlington northern and after the bell, we'll hear from google and american express. on top of that, the weekly u.s. inventories will be due out this morning delayed by a day because of the martin luther king holiday. we are speccing to see a rise of crude by nearly 2 million barrels and gasoline. we got bullish numbers from the industry after the close yesterday. that could be a nice prequol. ross. >> nokia has just unveiled a new version of its application for its smart phone. what is the thinking behind that? joining us now is nokia's executive vice president. thank you for joining us. you have just gate crashed the world that's been occupied by garmin and tomtom because you'll unable your devices for walking and cars. why do you want to get into this space? those guys are very good at what they do. why do you think you can do it better? >> that's precisely why we were doing it. they are better. they are changing platform of the technology. our acquisition a few years ago and the development of the technology that we are now introducing, i.e. hybrid technology that allows both on and offflight experience on these devices to be the same and the presentation being based on the graphics rather than bit maps making it extremely lightweight for the netbooks -- >> am i going to put my nokia device next to me by the staerlg wheel and get voice direction about where i'm going? is that what i'm going -- is that how it works? >> yeah. so everything that you do today with standard personal navigation device can now be done with this device. but a lot more than that. besides that, it will give you pedestrian navigation with voice guidance giving you the different shortcuts, go through buildings, etcetera, where you can find voice where you are walking. the whole landscape of what is happening with these handhelds is changing. google having a similar application that they're offering and encroaching on your turf, producing a phone now. and then we've got these tablets coming out. where do you see things heading? and as a phonemaker, do you know now have to consider adding content and doing other things to compete more directly with apple and google? >> yeah. of course, we are the pioneer when it comes to the smart computer devices that are the smart phones and today have a significant lead in terms of over everyone else in terms of the market share we have there. but the actual market is turning from pure devices and services market into a combination of solutions. and what we are now doing with the navigation is we are introducing a completely new technology and a platform not only for nokia to prosper, but also for the developers to develop their applications and in this way introducing a completely new ecosystem utilizing location information. >> do you yourself want to get into developing more applications? is that some road that you want to travel by? >> yeah. there are certain applications that nokia is developing but as such, this is a platform for anybody who was taking the standard application into places and our map layer technology to do it. but most importantly, this is creating new services and making the millions of people who have our smart phones out there in the market already today and moving forward be able to enjoy navigation and other locations services globally, not only in one or two markets. >> here it's like a regional basis, where are you seeing the most growth at the moment? are you seeing a lot of growth in china, especially in asia and china and the high end of some of the applications? >> the smart phone is a very global phenomena. so i would not like to single out any region in particular. we are seeing that the whole concept of the mobile phone is evolving and it's starting to be more and more computer like. >> what are you working on next? what is the next exciting thing you're working on? >> well, our long-term vision is very much to make internet change, to become context sensitive. location is one of the most important contexts, but so are also the social networks that people are using in the internet today. so, for example, here we are now integrating already today the technology that we will allow people who are members of facebook community, for example, to post their exact location in today's update, giving pictures and others from the places that they are in. >> thank you very much for your views. good talking to you. that was the executive vice president of nokia. >> thank you. coming up, goldman sachs earnings are due out today, but the mystery still remains over how big its bonus pool will be. >> and those earnings will come as president obama plans to unveil tougher measures to reign in bank risk. more to come. this is "worldwide exchange." the headlines from around the globe. in the u.s., goldman sachs reports fourth quarter results and president obama will lay out new rules to reign in banks. >> in europe, british borrowing hit record highs in dice, but it's less than expected. >> and in asia, shanghai shares rebounded slightly, despite fears of more tightening measures in china after fourth quarter growth came in at 10.7%. >> hello and welcome to "worldwide exchange." if you're just joining us here in the u.s., a very busy morning so far and a very busy morning ahead. jeff is crossing the wires in the next couple of minutes. the eu has just cleared oracle's acquisition of sun unanimously. goldman waiting for earnings ahead of the open. president obama is slated to talk about bank regulations. futures at this point continue to be about 7 points above fair value as far as the dow. nasdaq futures not getting any boost at all really from ebay's numbers which looked pretty good. again, ross, the eu clearing the oracle buy of sun java. >> yeah, which is good news for them. european stock markets, we're struggling a bit now. the ftse 100 has gone back to the flat line. the xetra dax not much better, up 0.9%. we were a little firmer. we start off this morning about 0.7%. we haven't been able to kick off the sectors that are down. plenty going on in the currency markets, christine. >> indeed, ross. the strong gdp and inflation data benefiting the u.s. dollar sending it higher across the board there. the euro continues to remain under pressure because of the debt situation in greece and sterling under a little pressure after the uk public finance is dead. dollar/yen, 91.66. euro/dollar, 1.4055. sterling/dollar, 176166. and euro/sterling, 0.8694. bertha. the president is slated to speak at 11:45 a.m. new york time after meeting with adviser and former fed chairman paul volcker. commercial banks would no longer be allowed to engage in proprietary trading under the propose yag, separating them from investment banks. that line was blurred a decade ago by the reveal of glass steagall. news of the rules came shortly after treasury secretary tim geithner had a private dinner last night with some wall street ceos. at the moment, we've got epin deafit. she's been our co-host this hour. epin, folks will be looking at goldman sachs today. they'll be debating what is going to be going on there with the bonuses. but again, we have the obama administration weighing in on regulating the banks. is this something that is going to continue to cast a shadow of uncertainty over this sector? >> i think it is. but as i said before, there is going to be a differentiation between the banks and the winners and losers. what is interesting is the suggestion of constraining the proprietary trading. this is something we're seeing in the hedge fund seconder as being very relevant. the largest hedge funds have not been the so-called hedge funds the media like to speed about. massive amounts of trading capital at stake and large amounts of leverage being applied to that. and that has been the source of a lot of the volatility in markets that we saw over recent years. now that that has been removed, especially if the investment banks proprietary trading. if xhushlt banks are going to be regulated, we think that will open up more of the hedge funds and less of the private regulated sectors in the space. >> let's bring in richard sparks now, who thinks communications are good. he's a senior equity analyst at slave's research. and i want to put that question to you. would this hamper the big banks if they had to separate their proprietary trading? >> well, i think that is a very important area to take the top line income down to the bottom line for profit. so if there was a separation, i think it could make a difference and now you have to value the country specifically with respect to the banking separations separate from those proprietary trading separations. >> richard, since goldman had a well attended conference here in lobbed this week for a lot of their clients, they were unbelievably bullish on global equities. they said load up, buy, keeping buying, they're bullish on chinese growth. would you follow that? i also wonder if there is a dcht at goldman's that might be speculating on that advice. >> i'm not going to speculate on that. you mentioned goldman who is saying buy with both hands. but what you see, really, overall, if you look at the sentiment in the market is that this rally is really not being believed very much. there are a lot of skeptics. you'll see this rally is not being bought into wholesale. in our view, that means that that is an early innings rally, so to speak. we're probably still in the disbelief stage on our way to the exceptions stage, but that is nowhere near the top. so i would agree, at least with goldman, that it's not a bad time to be buying here. >> and richard, the issue about this rally that has people so skeptical is the fact that it's been liquidity driven. and when you see people worried about tightening, they're buying back that position and taking the risk trade off. should we be concerned that china is the first to move here? >> this is the first time that china has taken steps to cool their economy. so i don't know what that is the one that will result in the slowdown that creates a worldwide problem. i would say that there are those skeptics out there, and i mentioned them earlier, that have problems with the foundation that the rally has been build upon. i would make it a much simmerer aurm that the stability that is the supposed problem with this market is actually a good thing with respect to there being a lot of money, a lot of cash on the sidelines that still needs to be put to work. as the market continues higher, there will be more believers stepping in. they will kind of throw in the towel, if you will, on their skeptical stance. and they'll begin to put money in the markets. that liquidity will build on itself and help to continue the rally. >> if this is not a continuation of the disbelief stage and the strength of the dollar is a sign that there are fundamental underpinnings coming into the economy, the correlation is breaking down between the dollar and risk trades. whereas the dollar wag falling asterisk appetite was rising. what i see happening now is the dollar strengthening in the underpinnings of the economy improves and perhaps some of the momentum is coming out of the rally, but similarly, there is going to be i think more reflection of fundamentals and perhaps the u.s. economy is in a better state than investors had thought and that is why the dollar is strengthening at this stage. would you believe in that thesis? >> i think the way this will play out is that the dollar will strengthen on the expectation that the economy is in a state of recovery, that we're out of the woods with respect to all of the things that have occurred over the past few years and now we're building on the steady recovery that we're going to have. then the fed will be expected to raise interest rates and that will help the dollar. but if everything goes sort of according to planned and it happens slowly and methodically, then it shouldn't be too disruptive for the equity markets even if the fed signals that they're going to raise interest rates and the dollar starts to rise a bit. >> all right. a strong economy, strong dollar. what a novel idea. ethan and richard, you both stay with us for the receipt of the half hour. great discussion. we will return to this. we have much more to come here on the program. it's a slippery slope. cold, hard realities setting in as more closures potentially hang over a key winter olympic venue. more details in a moment. what are you doing...? 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yep, even the rental. what if i'm stuck at the office? if you can't come to us, we'll come to you in one of our immediate response vehicles! what if mother won't let me drive? then you probably wouldn't have had an accident in the first place. and we're walkin'! and we're walkin'... making it all a bit easier -- now that's progressive! call or click today. welcome back to cnbc's "worldwide exchange." here are some of the top stories we're watching from around the world. ebay's fourth quarter profit soared thanks to the sales of skype. ebay expects sales growth of 9% to 10% this year. that's above analyst forecasts. the coffee chain tripled its same sales growth since 2008. starbuck sess benefiting from sales of its via instant coffee brand. in frankfurt at this hour, ebay shares are up better, about 4.3% and starbucks up better than 6%. and the which is ler ski resort, the site of next month's olympicic downhill course could be auctioned off during the game, possibly as a skier races down the mountain. unbelievable, but true. interwest missed debt payments last month. a foreclosure notice was posted in local papers with an auction scheduled february 19th. i don't know if it will interfere with any of the medals awards. it will be business as usual during the game. unbelievable, ross, huh? >> yeah. i was just looking at this picture. it's getting itchy. >> my knees are hurting looking at those pictures. >> that's the difference. british public borrowing is lightly less than expected in december, but it still hit a record high for the month. the office of financial sa activities equates to over around 60% of gdp, the highest since records began back in 1974. christine, she wasn't even thought of by her parents. >> just a twinkle in my mother's eye. yeah. so not. let's get more news on data coming out from china today. we have gdp growth there in the fourth quarter surging 1077%. that was slightly softer than the 10.9% expansion. analysts have forecast. but allow china to meet and beat its full year target of 8%. for the whole of 2009, the economy grew 8.7 mers. meanwhile, the country's central bank guided up a yield on its three-month bills for the second time this year, which shows na beijing is concerned about the pace of bank lending. >> okay. let's get final thoughts from aoiffin divot. the clients and funds you're putting money into, let's talk about your risk appetite from here. are you taking goldman's vie or are you hedging yourself a bit more? >> well, i think we've got full circle in a year. investors never want to touch another equity again, debt was providing very good rates of return. >> and it delivered, corporate credit delivered, right? >> absolutely. and now that those credit spreads have closed completely, we're looking too equities. it has to be that diversification has to be a priority. i think it's responsible for any financial institution to be wholeheartedly bullish on any sector. this is been as we said before, winners and loser. >> what about property and private equity? >> property is still a lost, forgotten child at this point. and it is far from -- it's looking at stre trong fundamentals. private equity, we think the jury is out. there is a valuation that is still very murky. there's a lot of pain to be worked through in the part of portfolio companies. the leverage isn't there, which is essentially the engine of their returns. so -- and the secondary market has come to nothing. there has been a lot of talk, not a great deal of action. so from an investors standpoint, this is not my second due in private equities. commodities, we think, very strong. i think it's, again, irresponsible to refer to the china stimulus plan as unleashing a monster. i think there have been stimulus plans all of which have work. what isn't productive is watching the chinese government lean against this bubble. it's very important not to allow it to become a monster. differentiation and diversification. same, business as usual. >> aoifinn, thanks for that. >> thank you. bertha. >> coming up next, we will run the gamut looking at earnings from a to g. we'll look at earnings from am ex to goldman. we'll get weekly jobless claims forecast to fall from 4,000 to 440k. then at 10:00, we're going to get december leading indicators, expected to have risen about 0.7%. and the philly fed survey is expected to be released around 10:00 a.m., as well. goldman sachs will be the big report ahead of the open. we're going to hear from continental, southwest airlines, fifth third bank, pnc financial, united health and xerox. after the close, we have big names, as well, including google, american express and amd in burlington northern santa fe and capital one financial. the weekly u.s. inventory report will be out today, as well. 10:30 a.m. new york time for the oil numbers. dow jones survey calling for a rise of nearly 2 million barrels when it comes to oil and gasoline expected to rise. the api numbers last night were bearish. we'll get the numbers on natural gas. that usually comes, then, at 11:00, a little delayed, as well. rich afterward sparks is still with us. he's the senior equities analyst at slaif's investment research. i hope you're going to have an extra cup of coffee for all that data this morning. but i have to think that the goldman report will be the big headline that you're going to watch this morning. >> i have to agree. that is going to be one of the news events of the day and it's going to be interesting to see, dig into their numbers and see where the profits are coming from. we talked earlier in the segment about proprietary trading and the profits generated there. that is going to be an interesting area to see whether they were able to generate the profits that they expected in that particular part of their company. >> and richard, one of the things that's been interesting is we've gotten fairly good profits from the technology companies. last week, intel, ibm, ebay last night and the market doesn't seem to be focusing in on that. is there just too much distraction right now to really focus in on earnings? >> well, it's still very early in the earnings season. and each of these companies, although they're important, make up only a small percentage of all the technology companies. now, slaif's, we are bullish on technology. technology has led us off of the march bottom and we think that technology is going to be the area that will continue to drive the market. earnings season is going to be important because the earnings are going to -- the expectations are going to have to be exceeded in order for those companies to be rewarded in the marketplace. but we believe that by and large, after the earnings season is over, the collective earnings for technology should be very good and that should help the markets. >> richard, christine here. in my neck of the woods, how closely are you watching as strong growth comes from china because it is starting to have some impact on the dollar. >> yes, it is. but it's not really a new story. i mean, china's growth has been very significant for a good, long time now. and they are continuing to take steps to try to reign that in and control the growth. i also think that is a good thing. i know that yesterday the markets got hit a little bit on the news that they were taking steps to curb growth. but i believe that the market wants something that is a little more predictable, a little more slow and steady over the long-term than a economy that may be growing out of control and may be subject to the boom and bust cycle that we've seen in other markets over the years. so i don't think that is such a bad idea. and i think china's path is probably the correct one at this point. >> richard, we're going to leave it on that note. thank you so much for hanging in with us, richard sparks coming to us live from cincinnati, senior equities analyst at slave's investment research. before we leave you, let's take a quick look at the futures. among the headlines crossing this morning, the eu has unanimously approved oracle's purchase of sun. watch that. we'll see if that helps. it doesn't seem to be helping nasdaq futures at this hour, ross. that's it for us. i'm bertha coombs here in the u.s. >> i'm ross westgate here in europe. >> and here in asia, i'm christine tan. thanks for your company here on "worldwide exchange." good morning. changing the rules of the game, president obama is going to unveil plans for those new bank restrictions today. china challenged the country's economic growth accelerating the nearly 11% last quarter. new indications today of tighter monetary policy. earnings on center stage again. goldman tops this morning's reports as "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ >> good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and carl quintanilla. topping our headlines this morning, president obama today will unveil plans four giving the government new power toes limit the size and scope of large banks. he wants to limit their ability to engage in high risk trades. for many, the plans may recall depressionary curbs on banks. a senior administration officials tells our own john harwood that it will include limits specifically on proprietary trading. the president will make a public statement at 11:40 eastern time this morning. this comes after a meeting with paul volcker. the former fed chair who now heads mr. obama's economic advisory board favors curbing big financial firms. we talked about new regulations and the president's proposed bank tax with warren buffett yesterday. >> the banks are the ones that, you know, particularly, i've just named a few. they've paid it back with huge interest. the government has made a lot of money on that. to say that they should be paying for the fact that the government lost or may lose a lot of money in fannie and freddie and perhaps with the auto companies, it doesn't make any sense to me. >> he laid out his thoughts on where we've been with this overall, he said the same thing that you've been talking about, joe, for a while. >> i was saying it tongue and cheek a little bit, are we going to tax barney frank, are we going to tax the members of congress? a lot of people, you know, you can blame the bankers, but there's plenty of blame to go around. at least the bankers did pay back the t.a.r.p. with interest. >> and if you want to figure out who got the most out of it, you'd have to go pretty far down the line. >> right. the s&p 500, what is the last s&p company that didn't benefit from the -- not all of them were responsible, maybe, to the extent to some of the banks were -- >> there's frame a tax to help the banks pay for the natural government put that is in place. if you're too big, you're going to get saved. >> that's anned why, too. >> i spok