Transcripts For CNBC Worldwide Exchange 20121220

Assets by another 120 billion. Boj says it will discuss raising its inflation target next month. Tech stocks fall in europe after ericsson unveils a swedish crown writout related to its loss chip venture. Reports say the intercontinental call is in talks to buy euro next. And vows to continue the current governments battle against japanese territorial claims. Japans central bank has decided to extend its Asset Purchase Program to 120 billion. It will review the banks stance on price stability next month. Abe has been putting pressure on the boj to raise its inflation target to 2 as part of efforts to fight deflation. For more on the fallout or the impact here, lets talk to luca from asia pacific. You look like youre in mourning here, but it sounds like the bank of japan has delivered pretty much what the market was looking for the. Yes. It was delivered in order to be seen as losing independence after the campaign, very Aggressive Campaign from the ldp party on the bank of japan independence. Actually, what the only policy they didnt really try, according to ldp, was being extremely aggressive, not as or much more aggressive than what theyve been in the past on the monetary side. Not that sure as far as im concerned if this is the right approach. So giving more money to the system and washing out the system with more money. But this is what has been decided and probably its good if you look at the perspective of japanese economy in the next two quarters. Luca, before we get into those prospects, i want to circle back to those policies. Sure cow was policy is up sometime next year. And after a Political Campaign that saw so much receipt rif about central bank policy, what kind of policy is he trying to see here . Does he want to be the guy who takes the tough stance against that rhetoric or sdupt to be the guy who boosts major efforts against the japanese economy . Obviously, he has been pushed. There is no question about this. He has been pushed to act and he preannounced that at the next meeting theyre going to discuss the inflation target, which was one of the work hars of the ldp during this electoral campaign. So no question that he has been pushed to make this quite aggressive statements today, this morning. Hover, the fact that he did it ahead of any effective political pressure from the new Administration Means that he wants to be seen pass one who has launched this ahead of any kind of political pressure. And i think hesitate legacy is going to be one of kind of moderate monetary policy, quantitative easing policy guy pushed at the end by a very aggressive stance on the winning Political Party in the last elections. Luca, do you expect to hear from him or from the boj generally about major new initiatives . That is 2 inflation target or something in that range Going Forward or theside size of its Asset Purchase Program or is it going to take a changeover at the top, new leadership coming in for those changes to take place . I think, you know, preannouncing that theyre going to review the inflation target also gives an indication, more than 50 50 indication that its going to change the target, especially if you couple this with the very bad forecast of the bank of japan on the japanese economy. Clearly, it is an indication that bank of japan is strongly considering changing this target and it would be surprised if no changes ensues. If no change ensues, then you would have political pressure saying we said that bank of japan was inadequate from the ldp and thereby, we have to do something for their independence. So there is no question that this preannouncement means something and there is more than a 50 chance theyre going to change their inflation target next month. Luca, stay with us. We want to bring you major news out of neighboring korea. South korea has chosen its first ever female president. Cheri kay has all the news. How significant is the election of miss park . Well, i mean, shes really made history, set to become south koreas first woman president. It was a very tight race, a very polarized election with park winning 51. 5 of the votes. But in the end, south korea made a choice that means more hope of economic recovery. Scenes of joy as the v in south koreas president ial poll. This election is your victory. This is a victory brought by the peoples hope for overcoming crisis and economic recovery 37. The daughter of a former military leader will take Office Next Year as the countrys first female president , challenging syria types in a country traditionally ruled by men in suits. She will be tasked with getting the slowing economy back on track at a time when growth rates have risen to a meager 2 now. But she will need to do it in a way that appeases young voters who are calling for more balanced Income Distribution when Companies Like samsung and hyundai have sales equivalent to about a fifth of national output. I think it will be a little bit pro condmrom rat, pro business. And at the bottom level, reach out to smes to create a balanced approach to the 2 is e century. Park made her position clear, saying she will engage the north korean leadership and give the country aid, but not before it gives up its Nuclear Weapons program. Considering north korea murdered her mother and tried to kill her father a few times with an iron fist for 18 years. She was forced to grow up quickly during her time in office after her mother was killed by a north korean gunman serving as her father aes and on the first day as the president s elect, park promises to put a top priority on national security, pointing to north koreas rocket as grave a security reality and calls for, quote, to correct the perception of history possibly targeting japan and for its militaristic past pap geopolitical reality that shes facing on the first day. Stay right there. I want to bring luca back into this situation. Weve just heard about politics playing an Important Role here. But what about south koreas economy . This has some of the worlds biggest, most important manufacturers. Its currency has been rising. Where do we go from here . You know, if you look at the political programs, there were not many differences. In your segment that you ran earlier, its been mentioned that this administration can be a little bit more proactive on policy. But thats very, very tiny. And tell you the truth, the economic side, there were no meaningful differences between the two candidates. One thing, however, that i want to point out, because in my opinion is that a prelude thats happening with many countries in the region, voters are favoring a stronger president , stronger Government Spending, which means stronger taxes, higher taxes. And this can be a turning point for the economies in the region in which Government Spending has been always very, very subdued. Its around 15 to 25 of gdp whereas in European Countries, for example, or in advanced countries, this percentage is quite higher than that. So this is something that i want to point out because its something that i think will become important not only for korea, but for the region as a whole. How do you think she will approach her campaign pledges for economic politicalization . Thats tough. Korea is a country that continues to depend heavily on exports. So you cannot really do domestic policy that is completely pro growth. We know that the Exchange Rate does not count as many as in the past because many of the companies had their position. And so maneuvering the Exchange Rate would not work as much as it did in the past. So its very, very difficult for korea to have domestic policy that is pro growth, which is effective on the gdp number. So in order for korea to have growth, it is the same. The economy is not totally protected by weakness in exporting markets, especially considering the fact that one of the policies that will be continued by this administration is one of the leveraging of the sector that is heavily indebted and probably will subtract to growth in the next few quarters. That sounds like a familiar problem to those of us in the west. Luca, stay with us. Now lets check in on markets in asia and see how theyre trading. Good morning, kelly. It was a bit of a negative, too, from wall street. Concerns of the fiscal cliff negotiations are stalled. Thats why you are seeing red on this board. The nikkei 225, we had that big boj decision that investors were eagerly awaiting. The governor shirakawa basically saying that he was going to look at the inflation target down the road. Seen by some as not being enough, so the nikkei pulled back about 1. 2 . Keep in mind that this index has been on a roll, up nearly 16 in the last five weeks, so perhaps a pause was due. We have the dollar yen drifting downwards after that decision, but still close to those 20month highs. The kospi which everyone was just talking about gained about. 3 after korea elected its first female president. She is seen as market friendly and business friendly. Also, this market was closed yesterday, so it did have a little bit of catching up to do. We had the greater Chinese Markets gaining. It was another volatile session for the shanghai composite. The banks were under some pressure in the session in both markets, the major mainland banks. Concerns that their growth wont be as wont be as big next year, could be in the Single Digits versus the double digits. And, kelly, there has been some talks. Some people have linked the performance, the inaction in chinese equities to doomsday tomorrow. You know, the chinese investors are a superstitious bunch. Did i edre, thanks very much. Italian sales out falling for the fourth consecutive month, markets shrugging it off. Roughly split between decliners and advancers today. Take a look at the major bourses, earlier this morning, especially after we saw losses coming out of the wall street session overnight, we did see pressure on futures. Now were seeing the ftse mib, giving up a little bit of ground, but only down slightly. This certainly will be an area of focus as we get into trade. Xetra dax fractionally lower. The ftse 100 is trying to stay in the green. Its at a level of 5964. Ericsson out with news that it will report a writedown in the Fourth Quarter and take 1. 2 billion charge related to its loss making violent venture with a chipmaker. Of course, st microhas 50 of this joint venture. Ericsson is exploring Strategic Options for the future of this joint venture, which requires significant amount of capital next year. Alcatel, the french government says its looking to try to have the France Telecom company buy assets from alcatel which, of course, burning cash is struggling if the french government is able to arrange this, by the way, it wont make a huge hit. It will amount to 100 million, with an m, or so dollars. Maybe 100, 150 million dollars. Those shares, nonetheless, they have been beaten down, about 3 higher in trade this morning. Quick check on the bond space. Today we are seeing a give back after the rally we saw yesterday. Yields, though, roughly unchanged from levels we saw just 24 horse ago. 5. 3 and about 4. 4 respectively there. And well get into more on stability. Forex, the euro dollar has been in focus, giving its strength over the last couple of trading sessions. Today, largely unchanged. 1. 3228 is the level there. Dollar yen is in focus. Its giving back about. 6 . The bank of japan came out with more quantitative easing, perhaps talking about a higher inflation target Going Forward. Coming up on todays program, well head out to new york and take a look at housing figures in the u. S. It looks like the real estate sector may be moving on up. Here in london, will be picture be so optimistic . Mortgage and retail figures out later this morning should give us an indication. Plus, in a global exclusive, cnbcs Geoff Cutmore speaks with alex ushmanov on his return on facebook, and his outlook for the xwloeshl economy. Welcome back to the program. Its been a busy year. After 12 months of uneven growth, the prospects for 2013 look equally uncertain. Billionaire investor and russias wealthiest man Alisher Usmanov told cnbcs Geoff Cutmore that rebalance of growth is need. 2013 will be a year where we need to search for solutions. There is a big discussion going on about the state of the Global Economy. Everyone is involved in that debate, in that discussion about wa to do. Governments, Central Banks, economists, businessmen, scholars. So as far as im concerned, what really worried me and what i think is the real cause of the uncertainty is the enormous disparity that exists between the various monetary and other derivatives on the one hand and the global gdp. The derivatives, surpass many, many times the global gdp. There is too much of that. A mechanism needs to be found to reduce this disparity, minimize it. This is the cause of the instability, the volatility, of stagnation and sometimes even political crisis. So some mechanism to get out of this disparity will need to be found. And so what im hoping is that in 2013, the Central Banks of the United States, europe, and china will find a solution to at stop the growth of that disparity. Because i believe its not right there is such a big gap between these derivatives and the actual products. So would a resolution of the fiscal cliff in the United States mean that america stops running up debt, would that be a positive step towards resolving that problem, even though it could be a drag on growth in the u. S. Economy . Translator do not regard myself as a highly educated economist. From where i am, i watch the debate and i see, for example, some economists such as the Nobel Laureate paul goodman believe this could be counterproductive because too many action of this type could damage one of the important factors of the u. S. Economy. On the other hand, unless there is some limit to the growth of u. S. Debt, particularly with respect to debt as related to gdp, this could serve in the end badly if there was no limit to it. After all, the u. S. Economy still accounts for about onethird of the Global Economy. So this cannot continue because the burden of u. S. Debt is beginning to be felt in other countries where there is a u. S. Dollar, where u. S. Dollar is used for various purposes. So the fiscal cliff well, what can i say is we certainly dont want to this to be a cliff, we want this to be a bridge, less energy costs sarts in particular of the use of shale gas and Energy Efficiency and the trend that is emerging in more investment and production. So i think this is up to the federal reserve, the president , the senate to work this out. But i definitely wish them success because this economy still play aes defining role in the Global Economy. From your answers, you sound pessimistic on better growth in 2013. Is that correct . I dont consider myself to be a pessimist. I am a realist. My realistic assessment is that the trend that has evolved in the Global Economy in the past few years, that is to say the trend of Slower Growth and in some cases stagnation, this cannot be changed in just one year. We will not have a break through towards very high growth in just one year. Also, of course, the european financial crisis is something whose consequences will continue to be felt. Naturally in europe, i think Slower Growth will continue. Also in china, we cannot expect there will be an endless process of very high growth based entirely on their exports. This exportled growth will have to be supplemented by domestic growth that should be driven by investments and growth and infrastructure in particular. The sector is where the rate of growth is different, but given these factors, that will determine, define the situation next year. I believe that next year could become a step towards higher growth, but probably not a leap. Probably not a break through. Meanwhile, the russian president Vladimir Putin has been addressing a crowd of over 1,000 journalists at his first annual press Conference Since his reelection in may. T hes saying the russian economy should see growth of 3. 7 this year despite of the impact of the eurozone crisis, a poor harvest and industrial output. Putin hails russias Unemployment Rate of 5. 4 as one of the best among the worlds developed economies. He expects russia to post a trade surplus of around 200 billion this year and is making a variety of other comments, as well. Interesting because his last press conference in 2008 ran something in the range of four hours. Were an hour into this one. Well see how it goes. In india, the parliament is about ready to wrap up its monthlong session. Shareen raises questions for us live from new did he hli. We started with a big bang, could be ending here on a wimper. No, actually, its the opposite. We started with a wimper and were end, a bang because it a stormy start to the session of parliament and there was a lot of angst on whether any business could get done. Fortunately, business has been aikt be inked and this is perhaps the best session of parliament weve had in over two years in india. Let me run you through the legislative session we have seen. Several bills have been passed. The controversial one has been pushed to both houses of parliament as the minister of india say policy is now cut in stone and people like walmart can start investing in india. That was one big ticket item. Weve seen the amendment voting passed which paved the way for the central bank in india to start issuing new bank licenses. Corporate houses in india are lining up and looking at the possibility of being able to get into the banking business. So thats another big ticket item thats been taken care of. Outside of that, weve seen the company bill of india. This is a bill and an act. A law that goes back 56 years and was in need of dire review and amendments. That has now been passed by one house of parliament. We hope that it will be passed by the other house of parliament this evening. So a lot of work has been done. The budget session is going to be a challenge one because the finance minister is going to have to bring the fiscal dif set down to 5. 3 . Shareen, thanks very much. Straight ahead on the program, tis the season to be shopping. According to retailers, they want you to think that way. Retail data is out as soon as were back. Dont go anywhere. I always wait until the last minute. Can i still ship a gift in time for christmas . Yeah, sure you can. Great. Wheres your gift . Uh. Whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. Ship Fedex Express december 22nd [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. For christmas delivery. Welcome back to the program. Retails sales are out for november. Household sales are driven by the tablet computer sales. The headlines figure was unchange on the month. That was expected. That is in contrast with the gain of. 3 . It was up 0. 9 on the year versus 0. 5 . Sales were softer, up. 1 versus. 4 . Lets get a quick thought on this from luca sipilo. It sounds like if it werent for the ipad, the uk sales figures would be extraordinarily weak. Yes. Although, you know, for the uk economy, the Consumer Sector is not the weakest point. I think what is interesting about the uk economy in the last six months is this quite stronger than expected growth. If you look at the gdp number. But a very worrisome trend. So a liberal market that remains very, very firm with respect to other similar economic weakness. And i think that is what we really have to solve on the uk economy to know if this relativerelativ relatively soft, but also, i mean, rather encouraging if you look at other European Countries numbers. I think we will have to wait until well into next year to understand if this is going to have a longlasting consequences on the uk economy and also on the Consumer Sector. Its too early to say. You mentioned its not necessarily the consumer where were looking at the gauge of growth in the uk. But we see the employment figures be relatively strong even at a time when gdp generally is weak. Whats the disconnect between what were seeing in the employment accounts and what these figures would see in the household sector. As i said, its not that bad. Look at what is happening in other countries in europe where retail sales have been much more under pressure than what we are in the uk. I wouldnt say that those figures are completely negative. And i think they are much more in line with what has been happening in the labor market. This is exactly the point i was making before. There is this huge disconnection between gdp and economic strength as a whole. This is obviously a means of dropping volatility. We have to understand why labor market is so resilient in a context of global weakness and european weakness and then we will have a new perspective. But those figures that were seeing today are not that weak, especially if you put them in the context of europe. Luca, chief economist for asia pacific at natixis, hell stay with us. Japans central bank has boosted its Asset Purchase Program by another 120 million. The boj will discuss raising its inflation target next month. Tech stocks are falling in europe after ericsson unveils a swedin crown writedown in the last quarter related to its major venture. Reports say the international connegligent exchange is in talk toes buy nike for about 8 billion. And the newly elected south korean president vows tough love on north korea and territorial claims. European markets, pretty mixed this morning and not Much Movement overall. The other bourses plat. The bond space, similar story. Were seeing yields consistent with where we were yesterday. That gilt in the uk, keeping an eye on it, it is falling a little bit. 1. 95 after a soft set of uk retail sales figures. Spain, italy, moving higher, but not too much of a move there. 5. 3 . And 4. 4 for italy. Now, forex rates, the euro dollar and the yen has been in focus still in the last several trading sessions and that continues today. 1. 3230 is the level. The yen, though, is giving back about. 5 after the bank of japans quantitative easing plans, pretty much flecting a buy the rumor, sell the fact move. Now, House Republicans plan to bring their tax bill to a floor vote today. This as tensions over the white house over the fiscal cliff have started to rise. Its unclear what the bill, known as plan b, will look like. House Speaker John Boehner has reportedly added spending cuts to convince members it will be worth the vote. President obama has threatened to veto the bill. The president says hes puzzled by whats holding up budget talkes and that House Republicans should stop trying to score a point against him. Take the deal. You know, they will be able to claim that they have worked with me over the last two years to reduce the deficit more than any other deficit reduction package, that we will have stabilized it for ten years. That is a significant achievement for them. They should be proud of it. But they keep on finding ways to say no as opposed to finding ways to say yes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell says he believes a deal could be reached by the end of the week. How much of an impact will the fiscal cliff have on businesses . Cnbc caught up with Martin Sorrell and asked him what hes expecting coming 2013. It toughened up as we started the year. We started with a budget revenue of 4 . Having done 4 in the first quarter, we were feeling relatively optimistic and we said it would be better than the 4 . From then on, it started to sort of go down. We had 3 growth like for like excludeing currency and acquisitions. Interestingly, we had a weak quarter and we got into the stage of quarteritis. Which is instead of looking at calendar years, almost looking at quarters. Mohamed elerian from pimco said he was worried about the Third Quarter reporting season because there was a finite about about what companies could do from the top and they had to focus on the top line. So in october, however, we saw a bit of a recovery from q3. And our flash figures were 2 , 2. 5 in october. We have not told the market what we did in november, but it was better than october. And so weve ended up, you know, towards the end of november, after november, up by 3 , a little bit more than 3 , actually. Yeah. And december, we have to wait and see. Because we get another attack he of quarteritis, so you have to be very careful. Any lessons to be learned at all . Is anything to go going to be next year than what it was . Caution prevails. We have these gray swans, the unknown unknowns. We dont know whats going to happen. But the known unknowns are clearly the eurozone were talking about, which will muddle through. China ma had soft landing. Brics had a soft landing. The third area is in the middle east which you know a lot about, what happens in gaza, what happens in syria, what happens in egypt and who will have predicted the events were seeing with morsi in egypt now . So theres all those uncertainties and israelis and Iranian Nuclear installations, who knows. So thats really unpredictable. And the final one is what were waiting to hear about in december 31st which is the u. S. Fiscal cliff deficit and debt. Ironically or paradoxically, companies have got 2 trillion of cash in u. S. Based multi nationals sitting on their Balance Sheets relatively unleveraged. The fiscal cliff, the u. S. Being a big and important market for you, as well, how much of an impact do you think that not resolving the fiscal cliff quickly is going to have on business . Well, i was in washington. Theres a conference there that Robert Thompson organized. This was about two months ago. It was depressing because every expert that came in said they werent going to resolve it. Now were getting more positive news. I there was silence and then boehner came out and started talking about plan b. But even if that plan goes through, the sort of plan that people are talking about, it will still have a sort of repressive effect. I think the most significant thing was happening was in the last few days, mark carney and his comments about inflation or lack of inflation targeting is what abes ascendancy or reascendancy means in japan, what bernanke said in terms of looking at inflation and not monitoring inflation quite so closely are all bullish for the equity market, all bullish for the economy, you know, the printing money inflationary way out of the difficulties that we have may not be good, totally good news in the longterm, but as long as inflation is contained to a certain level, it may be okay. Martin sorrell talking about louisa bowyerson. Now back to japan. A tie up between one of japans banks and mexico. Another major crossborder deal. Hi. Japans missby see Banking Corporation has concluded arranging a Financing Deal of 3 billion to build a petrochemical plant in mexico. The deal is the banks ever. Britains biggest bank, hsbc, Bank Santander and International Finance corporation are among them. It is layer for a Japanese Bank to lead such a large, financial deal especially when there isnt any local corporate or government involvement. This project could mark a milestone for Japanese Banks in their attempt to create a bigger presence in the global market. The plant will be built by braskan and mexicos group odessa. Its due to start operations by 2015. Thats all from nikkei business report. Back to you, kelly. Thanks very much for that. Now, plans for the london and moscow listings suffered a blow this year when Goldman Sachs withdrew as a lead individualser on the ipo of alleged Corporate Governance issues. In a cnbc global exclusive, Geoff Cutmore asked Alisher Usmanov if events in october hurt his relationships. Translator i have always respected lloyd blankfein. Goldman sachs is a company with which we are working with, the company that i control is working with. That is to say, i believe we will continue to work with gold pan sacks in the future. There is no doubt in my mind about that. What happened at that time is there were certain procedures that exist in Goldman Sachs. Lloyd is the leader of a huge Financial Organization that have certain procedures. So given those procedures, they felt that they needed, at the time of os restructuring, our assets, they needed to make certain verifications, certain clarifications and we for our part felt that we couldnt wait. We didnt want to wait. Therefore, we said you either accept our plan and our schedule or we will proceed without you. Well move on. And its not a question of Goldman Sachs rejecting us or us rejecting them, we just decided to proceed to move on. They wanted more time to consider certain papers, certain documents. We said, well, we will move forward and proceed to work with all the other banks we were involved with. So we moved on. I wrote to Michael Sherwood at the time. There is absolutely no bad blood as far as Goldman Sachs is concerned. We really Goldman Sachs. Actually, this is the company that gave me the initial training, as early as 1997 when i started as a Financial Investor and im very grateful to them for what they did. And i have a good friend in peter sutherland. Every company has a certain procedure. Business ves their rules. What happened isnt some kind of tragedy and well definitely continue to work with Goldman Sachs. My followup question is, you dont feel any personal animosity towards lloyd blankfein, as far as youre concerned, then, this was just a question of timing . Translator well, i believe that one must not have such a feeling as animosity. Its a bad feeling. Certainly not toward the great financier banker lloyd blankfein. As i said and im sure ill say again, im sure we will continue working with him. Usmanov has been dogged by rumors surround iing investment around organized crime. He was asked why its difficult to shake off these rumors. Its a difficult question for me because people seem to think im hunger emotion against people who are misleading in newspaper about any life and my business. But i ignore this. Because during my life, i think its very interesting for newspaper to make this negative sensation. And, of course, now i am considered more interesting. I explain how possible its difficult in my life. Which i am seeing in my life. You can postpone this with success and keep yourself in any condition which put you and you can keep your humanity, your conscio conscious. And why this is not interesting anybody, i also surprise. But menacing coming from people who are jealous. It is normal because jealousy is very, very strong feeling. No less than love. I prefer love. I love everybody who creates this informations because i dont want to think about these people. I keep this energy for something good. This is my principal. I continue my business and standard which gives me possibilities to have company on the Stock Exchange and the good level and the clear direct and clean business achieve. So this is really an opportunity for you to answer those critics, i think, and make it very clear that the allegations of connections between you and your partners who organized crime are just wrong. I can tell this on the koran, on the court. I am honest man. I am honest businessman. And first of all, i have who cannot educate somebody criminal. But in life, you must keep yourself you must to everybody. So it must hurt you when people write these things about you. Nothing. In your answer, biggest argument so you just ignore. Of course. You ignore the comments. Of course. Now, our british viewers certainly now that mr. Usmanov is the second largest shareholder of the Football Club arsenal. He told geoff he is ready to do whatever is necessary to help the team, even buying all the shares. Will that solve the problem . For more, head to krn. Com for more on that. And still ahead on the program, is markets prepare to ring in the new year, well have a couple calls for you after the break. U. S. Authorities have charged two former ubs investors. Tom hayes and roger darren have been charged after a criminal complaint was made in court and it is the first time traders have been investigated in the scandal. Meantime, u. S. Prosecutors have indicted three swiss bankers accused of conspireing with americans clients to conceal more than 420 million from the irs in offshore accounts. All three of these individuals are advisers with an unknown bank. The bank does not have offices in the u. S. And take a look at shares of ericsson. They are trading lower in stockholm, the worlds Biggest Telecom equipmentmaker announces a 1. 2 billion writedown on its joint venture against ericsson. Ericsson shares are down on news that there is a reduction in the market value of the business jointly owned with st microand ericssons ceo is saying he would insist that the unit continues to exist or he will prefer that the unit continue to exist, but he has now drawn a line in the sand. Now lets get more on the view for the outlook on 2013 from julian gallow. Julian, good morning and, you know, assuming were all still here after tomorrow, just what might the world look like come january . Well, we perform the detailed assessment of the outlook for next career. And we look at it in terms of headwinds versus tailwinds. Now if youre thinking about head whippeds, the most obvious one is the fiscal one and that is going to be losing large. The Fiscal Consolidation at the oecd level next year is lickly to be similar to what its been this year which is about 1 of gdp with increasingly, the focus being on the United States as much as on europe. But at the same time, by 2014, the degree of the physical headwinds should be abating. Another important headwind has been deleveraging in the quiet sector and thats associated with the Bank Balancing sheet, the restructuring. There, we see some chance of that particular headwind is going to be fading as we go through next year. Its still going to be quite potent there in places like spain. But overall, as the western economies, its likely to be a lesser force than it has been in the last couple of years. We also then have to consider what id call the tailwinds. Most obvious about those is the monetary stimulus. We just had the news out today from the bank of japan. Its looking to get its purchases up to 101 trillion yep by tend of next year, up from 67 trillion yen at the moment. Thats a vast expansion as we share with japanese gdp going from 14 to 21 from the end of this year t to end of next year. As well, we think the fed will be very aggressive by 85 billion dollars of securities a month until june and then it will fade out to substantial pace a month. So theres quite a lot of monetary stimulus coming there from the fed and the bank of japan particularly. That should be a positive environment for financial assets. Financial assets, as well, being helped by the governance and the structural economic reform that are emerging by the way europe is taking more steps to fix its problems. I think we can be a bit less worried about greece next year than we can be this year, for example, as well as in spain the government is considering a variety of reform efforts. Indeed, despite the exchange in governments we had this year, its the french deposit. When we look at it in aggregate, i think the tailwinds are starting to overcome the headwinds. The headwinds are still going to be there. The fiscal one is very important. There are still going to be risks on the european side. Theres still the geopolitics which, of course, we cant ignore here. But in aggregate, i think those tailwinds are starting to get more traction and thats particularly becoming true in the u. S. Housing market. Whats interesting to that point is that were coming to a year where even some of those concern are going away. Central banks are starting to get extraordinarily accommodative. I wonder if their measures havent been too back end loaded. Certainly when you look at japan, it has pursued cycles earlier and had more impact. What about the sense ta whether its the fed, whether its the bank of japan, the kind of Balance Sheet expansion that were going to see next year is more than weve seen in the last couple of years. Well, i think its a very good point, kelly. I think that actually your putting your finger on a major issue chb be out next year which is maybe the Central Banks could be overdoing things. The kind of Balance Sheet expansion im talking about, 7 gdp in the case of japan for the boj next year, 5 of gdp in the case of the fed next year, this is extraordinary. And, yet, we are seeing u. S. Unemployment coming down. In fact, weve seen relatively low and stable unemployment in the case of japan, as well. And so the markets may get more anxious about inflation. I would certainly think investors do need to think still about inflation protection because that will be the cause, ultimately. Well come back and follow on that with you. Julian callow from barclays. Very much appreciate it. Thank you. It may be our last day on earth and thank you for spending it here on worldwide exchange. If mayan predictions are correct, tomorrow is the day of the apocalypse. If youre skeptical, you may want to head to the French Village of bugaras as its the only place predicted to survive the siege. No extraordinary measures there to be found. How are you preparing . Let us know here on worldwide exchange. Email us. Worldwide cnbc. Com. Come back and enjoy us for the rest of the program. Dap will be here at the top of the hour. I always wait until the last minute. Can i still ship a gift in time for christmas . Yeah, sure you can. Great. Wheres your gift . Uh. Whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. Ship Fedex Express ember 22nd for christmas delivery. Welcome to worldwide exchange. Im kelly evans. Japans Central Banks boosts its Asset Purchase Program by 120 billion. This, the third move to ease policy since august. The boj will discuss raising its inflation target next month. A major market merger is in the works. Reports say the intercontinental change is in talks to buy nike. And house Speaker John Boehner is bringing his plan b to a tax vote today. President obama threatens a veto. Well, dont necessarily be fooled by the color here, because if you take fair value into account, we can have a positive open for the major bourses in the u. S. This, of course, on reeves who ignited concerns over the fiscal cliff. The Dow Jones Industrial average is poised higher by 30 points. Nasdaq and s p, as well. Yesterday followed two earlier back to back trading sessions. Its clear that attention will be on this issue through the end of the year. And lets take a look at the Major Trading patterns overnight. The cnbc ftse global 300 is down about. 1 for that generally muted activity extend to go europe and asia. We can take a check of the bourses, which were roughly unchanged this morning. The ftse mib down about. 5 in italy. The ibex down about. 3 . The ftse here in britain is continuing to try and buck the trend. All the more interesting given that uk retail sales for november missed the headlines quite a bit. Now, lets check in on the bond wall. Well get a look well flip ahead actually to forex. The dollar yen has been one in focus, down about. 5 after the bank of japans move, kind of a buy the rumor, sell the fact mood in markets today. The euro dollar, firmer, 1. 3230. I think we can show the bond wall quickly, this, of course, being the important arbiter of what we like to call the european union. Italy and pain are seeing a bit of a selloff. About 4. 4 on italy and 5. 2 for spain. I mentioned what was happening with japan. The bank of japan concluded its twoday policy meeting. For plenty more on whats happening in asia and japan, lets get straight out to diedra. It was a lot of buy on the rumor, sell on the stock. After the bojs decision, we did see the nikkei 225 drift downwards, about 1. 2 . Analysts say investors are asking what is the longterm plan for this market . It has run up nearly 16 in the last six weeks, five weeks, rather. So taking a bit of a breather and investors reassessing what longterm growth in japan is going to look like and the implications of that boj decision. The boj, of course, releasing an additional 10 trillion yen in monetary stimulus. So thats what we are looking at in japan. In korea, a different story. We had some upside. This market was closed yesterday when these indexes gained. More importantly, the president ial election, korea yesterday elected its first female president seen as market and business friendly. Ta gave the market a boost. The greater Chinese Markets continued to be volatile today, particularly the shanghai composite. It was in the red for most of the day. Happening second, as well, in hong kong. It was hsbc providing support for this market. Generally, the tone wasnt all that great in either of these markets. This was largely on the back of the chinese banks. The big four. To get their Balance Sheets in order for tougher regulations next year. The shanghai composite has rallied about 9 since the beginning of december, but really, its not enough to pull it out of the plays of the one of the worst performing indexes in asia. It is still on track for a third year of losses, a threeyear bear market in china while growth has been, what, over 8 . Pretty amazing there. Lets move on to australia. We did see some gains. The s p asx 200 hovering near its sevenmonth high. The miners gave up some gains today, but we did see some positively and this is despite wayne swan, treasurerer, saying they are likely to deliver a Budget Surplus tore this year. The asx 200 still moving up. The asx in india still down by a quarter of a percent. A mixed bag here. Thank you very much this morning. Now lets check in on markets we did check in with markets on asia. Now were going to talk about a big deal news. Cnbcs david faber reports a deal could be announced today. Ice would pay about 33 billion for nyse, and thats about a 7 premium to wednesdays closing price. The move comes nearly two years after ice and nasdaq teamed up to buy the new york Stock Exchange for 11 billion. They were competing at the time against a bid from germanys deutsche bores. Both of those offers ran up against tremendous scrutiny for u. S. And eu regulators. The euro nyse shares shot up 20 . How republicans plan to bring their tax bill to a vote today as tensions over fiscal cliff rise. Its still unclear what the plan b will look like. President obama says he will veto the bill, which has raced tax rates for people making more than 1 million a year. The president says hes puzzled by whats holding up talks and that House Republicans should, quote, stop trying to score a point against hem. Take the deal. You know, they will be able to claim that they have worked with me over the last two years to reduce the deficit more than any other deaf sigz reduction package, that we will have stabilized it for ten years. That is a significant achievement for them. She should be proud of it. But they continue to find ways to say no as opposed to saying yes. Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell says theres still time to reach a deal by the end of the week. Dan joins us now. Dan, Mitch Mcconnell says it will happen by the end of the week. What say you . Well, it better happen by tend of the week because were running out of time. But John Boehners plan b doesnt raise all that much money. Ite a couple of hundred billion. And if youre talking about a, quote, meaningful deficit reduction package, plan b is not going to do it. This bill is not going to go anywhere, correct . No. It doesnt look like the speaker has the house and the vote right now. There is a bit of politics here. But at the same time, you know, my personal feeling is i think john boehner is somewhat right here about the president s position that its not really balanced. Its weighted more towards tax increases. And if theres one thing we know, throughout history, its successful packages tend to be about three to one spending tax increases. Whats being proposed so far doesnt meet that criteria. But, dan, these are historic times. If were talking about economies, particularly the u. S. Needing fiscal support. Well, i disagree. I think history is relevant. Its generally relevant. And what we do know is that when you impose one of these austerity packages thats weighted too much towards tax increases and not spending or promise on her adjustments in the form of lets say entitlements, it tends to be a bigger drag on your near term growth than if you weighted it more towards spending programs. The populous tends to see spending reductions as more i dont know what the word is, but more believable. Tax increase are just not nearly as good. History is quite clear. Its certainly the case that longterm entitlement reform needs to happen to shore up Investor Confidence in the u. S. But in the near term, its interesting because spending cuts is why markets are worried about the concerns of the fiscal cliff. Guys in the United States like ezra cline who wanted to rebrand the austerity cliff, theres something to that. Again, im not so forceful in believing that near term spending cuts may be the weight on which this package is built. I dont think that aggregate demand in the United States is low today because people are worried about medicare 50 years from now. But in the context of this package, thats whats going to make it successful, fixing the medium to longer term deficit package while trying to some degree to support demand in the near term. Last word quickly, then the prospects for 2013 if we put something together inspect. Well, the bias is obviously to the upside for the economy, modest to the upside for risk assets. But that depends on your starting point. If this goes wrong, your starting point will be lower than if it goes right. Stay right there. We want to take a quick look at whats on the agenda for the u. S. Weekly jobless claims out at 8 30 eastern, expected to rise 18,000 to 3611,000. Well get the final estimate of Third Quarter gdp. Growth is expected to rise 279 from the previous estimate of 277. Well get existing home sales figures out. Its been a busy week for u. S. Housing data. Tuesday, the National Association Home Builders says its Confidence Index reached the highest level in more than six years. Still, theyre on track for their best year in four years. And next week, well get more measures on pricing including the caseshiller report. Speaking of shiller, dan greenhouse is still with us. Robert shiller is out there saying hes not so sure this is the start of a lasting meaningful recovery in housing. But 2012 has been an extraordinary year. Have we put in the bottom here, dan . Well, we think so. And farby frit me to disagree on national tv with robert chiller who i think is obviously one of the smartest economists to be around today. But we believe that the recovery is durable, so long as nothing gets in the way. And thats a huf caveat. If theres a spike in interest rates, if theres a meaningful change in support, then theres going to away problem. For instance, if something happened on the mortgage interest detectiduction here in United States, that would away major weight on demand. But if you look at the performance of the Home Builders and the s p 500, they, of course, have led the discretionary Consumer Sector higher. Thats because in addition to the macro numbers, the micronumbers, the Balance Sheets have improved, as well. If you look at housing sales, auto sales, you would think the u. S. Economy is firing on all cylinders. Well, sure. One of the problems with the u. S. Economy is the wet blanks, if you will, that the government is putting on on the economy. And that might be good in the five or ten doctor and youre seeing this in the uk. That might be good in five years and ten years and 20 years, but in the near term, its the weight on growth. But the housing sector is growing. Its going to be a did you mean double digit contributor to gdp this year. It should be a double digit contributor to growth next year. Housing formation is over a million. Assuming nothing gets in the way, we think this is going to continue. Dan greenhouse, fighting illness there and up with us at 5 00 in the morning, dan, we really appreciate it. Straight ahead on the program, well talk to one guest who thinks 2012 may have been the peak year for austerity in the eurozone. Wa does that mean for 2013 . Well ask when we come back. [ male announcer ] this december, remember what starts with adding a friend. Could end with adding a close friend. The lexus december to remember sales event is on. This is the pursuit of perfection. You are watching worldwide exchange. The boj increases asset purchases for the third time since august. Reports embrace a potential reports emerge of a potential 8 billion takeover of nyse by euro continent i cant tellal change. And brinkmanship continues as president obama threatens to veto John Boehners plan b for the fiscal cliff. 2013 will have opportunities for invest everies to exploit, but may require a change in mindset in order to find them. Thats at least what virginey says. Where do you see opportunity . I think 2013 is a year of the rocky path to normalization. I think were leaving near death experience behind us. And in that rocky path to normalization, one of the key things is to see if we can see a normalization of the relationship of fixed income with equities. And i think that might well happen in 2013. I see the u. S. Continuing to heal and to do well. Clearly, we have to go through that fiscal cliff issue and we may very well go over the cliff and be you know, for a few days. But after that, i think well have an agreement. China clearly has bottomed. And i think with the new leadership in place, well have much more talk about urbanization and the restructuring that will continue to take place there and so that leaves us with europe. And europe is not doing well. We all know that. But i think europe has stopped deteriorating. So if we look at the pmi numbers, for example, theyre still really bad, but they have stopped going down and some of the numbers increased even though theyre still well below 50. All of this together means that i think its going to be a very interesting year for equities that will make money in equities this year. Virginie, if theres any good news for investors, maybe they can focus on fundamentals or looking at some particular companies, you know, is it a stock pickers market, that kind of thing. But we have major electrics. Especially just mentioned europe, we have german elections, we have whats going on in italy. Is it going to still be about politics or is it a market that will overcome that . I think clearly if near death is behind us, this election will have an impact, but not as much as with this waiting on the markets in the past couple of years. Clearly with italy coming up quite soon, find out if were going to have somebody against reform or for reform. As weve seen in the Banking Union and the announcement that weve seen recently happening in march 14, we have a slowdown i would say in europe in terms of drastic measures until we have passed the german election. All this said, i think if the environment is as i described it, you know, with a lot of quantitative easing, we now have japan chipping in some more, the u. S. With the 85 billion a month that was announced more recently, i think that should help investors reconnect with fundamentals and hopefully go through those elections in a much more i would say mature or savvy way than when we were in the near death experience environment that weve been in for a long time now. Okay. Thanks. You get all these Central Banks doing this buying, its somewhat circul circular. In any case, today might be our last day on earth if mayan predictions are correct. Tomorrow is the day of the apocalypse. There are plenty of end of the world parties. If youre skeptical, head to the French Village of bugarah as its the only place predicted to survive the siege. Ironically, mayan descendants are continuing on with life as normal. How will be proceed with the end of the world . We hope its by watching us here on worldwide exchange. Email us, tweet us. Ross westgate will be back tomorrow if the world doesnt end. Stick around. To south korea, the incoming president says she wants warmer ties, but it has to be on her terms. Plenty more when we come back. I always wait until the last minute. Can i still ship a gift in time for christmas . Yeah, sure you can. Great. Wheres your gift . Uh. Whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. Ship Fedex Express [ maby december 22nd break from the holiday stress. For christmas delivery. South koreas president elect park geunhye wants it known that shes not willing to make concessions with the north. She says she wants to pursue further relations. Only if the north abandon its nuclear program. Why should they take her seriously . Sherry kang explains. Scenes of victory and celebration after park geunhye won the president ial elections. This election is your victory. This is a victory brought by the peoples hope for overcoming crisis and economic recovery. The daughter of a former military leader will take Office Next Year as the countrys first female president. Challenging serious heights in a country traditionally ruled by men in suits. She will be tasked with getting the slowing economy back on track at a time when growth rates have knowed from an average of 5. 5 over the past 50 years to a meager 2 now. But she will need to do it in a way that appeases young voters who are calling for more balance Income Distribution when Companies Like samsung and hyundai have sales equivalent to about. 5 of national output. I think it will be a little more pro conglomerate and probusiness which may not be that bad for the economy offer all and reap out to smes to create balanced growth for the 21st century. The diplomatic maneuvering skills are expected to be put to the test. Park made her position clear, saying she will engage the north korean leadership and give the country aid, but not before it gives up its Nuclear Weapons program. Syria and north korea murdered her mother, tried to kill her father a few times, i dont expect her to be that much different from the incumbent, especially with the hard Line Administration in barack obama and washington, d. C. Parks return to the president ial blue house next february will be bittersweet and comes more than three decades after the assassination of her father, former president and dictator park geunhye who ruled south korea with an iron fist for 18 years. She was forced to grow up quickly during his time in office after her mother was killed by a pro north korean gunman serving as her fathers first lady. Now, more than three decades later, her task is no less daunting as she works to balance the countrys expectations with the economic and political realities at hand. Also want to mention as we take a look at the Market Reaction in korea to the news of her president ial win, the kospi is just below 2,000. A story on cnbc. Com explains south koreas park now made a pledge that she will get the benchmark to the 3,000 mark during her term. That, of course, will be a jump of about 50 . Its a fascinating story. Check out plenty more at cnbc. Com. Now, sticking with north asia, japans central bank has decided to expand its Asset Purchase Program by another 120 billion to 1. 2 trillion. Policymakers will review the bank aes stance on price stability next month. His comments are seen as an attempt to placate the incoming Prime Minister shinzo abe. Abe has been trying to raise funds to fight deflation. And still ahead on the program, rising Domestic Energy production on the economy over the coming decades. Stay with us. Welcome back to worldwide exchange. Im kelly evans and these are your headlines from around the world. The fight over the fiscal cliff is growing. House Speaker John Boehner is bringing his plan b to a vote today. President obama is threatening a veto. The boj will discuss raising its inflation target next month. A major market merger is in the works. Reports say the Intercontinental Exchange is in talks to buy nyse euro nex for about 8 billion. Futures are trying to alley this morning. Take fair value into account. The Dow Jones Industrial average is trying to raise about 14 billion from the open. European markets started out weaker than we climbed back towards unchanged. Now theyre weaker again. The ibex, 35 among the underperformers there. It, of course, had been leading the rally. The ftse 1100 is trying to buck the trend, this despite the fact that it released a set of relatively weak resail sales figures for november. In the u. S. , House Republicans and tensions over the fiscal cliff continue to rise. Its unknown what plan b looks like. House Speaker John Boehner has reportedly adding spending cuts. President obama says hell veto the bill which will raise tax rates for those making more than 1 million a year. The president says House Republicans should stop trying to score points against him. Take the deal. You know, they will be able to claim that they have worked with me over the last two years to reduce the deficit more than any other deficit reduction package, that we will have stabilized it for ten years. That is a significant achievement for them. They should be proud of it. But they keep on finding ways to say no as opposed to finding ways to say yes. Senate minority leader Mitch Mcdonnell says there is still time to resolve the budget stalemate with the white house and believes a deal could be reached by the end of the week. Investors are looking for a slight upward revision to u. S. Gdp when the Commerce Department will release figures ahead of the opening bell today. The dow jones forecast suggests it was raced 2. 8 compared to the previous estimate of 2. 7 . Drew, this looks to be a pretty Strong Performance in the Third Quarter for the u. S. Economy. Can we keep it up . Probably not. I mean, Fourth Quarter is tracking around 1 . The first half of next year doesnt look all that great. Were counting on the second half of next year. Once the fiscal cliff gets resolved, we think there will be more momentum on the hiring front. Hiring will lead to further consumption gains and that will encourage terms to invest. Thats how we get the virtual cycle started. A reminder, perhaps, of whats at stake here if there isnt some agreement reached about the fiscal cliff. Whats your baseline view on that . Well, we think some agreement is going to get reached, but i do think, you know, its very important that we get something close to a simpsonbowls type ratio twend spending cuts and tax increases. Tax increases are much more of a drag on the economy than spending cuts are. Particularly the way the spending cuts will be structured, which will be back dated. Thats what the u. S. Has going for it. As long as theyre credible, we can actually take get the benefit of having put our fiscal house in order without actually having put our fiscal house in order immediately. Its a bit like if i gave my son credit for cleaning his room if he was going to do it six hours from now. But at the same time, a lot of households not having been through Something Like that before, would that not away confidence shock . I dont think it would be a confidence shock. I think if you get the tax increases, theres Movement Towards reducing the budget deficit. Place those tax increases on people who can best afford them not because its the right thing to do or whatever, but because theyre going to simply reduce their savings rate. So youre not going to impact consumption the same way. Thats the trick of it, the tax increase to show that youre serious. The spending cuts show youre longterm serious. Without a longterm serious decline in spending of a multiple of whatever theyre going to do in taxes, nothing they do is going to work and we can all just chalk it up as a big failure. Certainly business investment, the weakness of it, at least, has been a focus here. Does this have to do with the cliff, in your view . Is there Something Else going on . Well, we hope it has to do with the cliff. If it doesnt have something to do with the cliff, we have bigger problems and were seeing something we havent seen before. Capital spending is very weak and its either fiscal cliff is causing people to be more cautious or alternatively, firms are trying to restructure their cost basis more towards the variable cost labordriven environment which means more temporary workers, less investment in the future, less productivity gains in the future and a lower growth rate in the future. That is the worst case scenario. We all better hope its the fiscal cliff causing some of these people to hold back. We better be hopeful about a shale revolution as policymakers are looking for ways to boost the recovery. Real gdp growth by 0. 5 annually just over the next half decade. Drew, its interesting because weve had some Energy Analysts coming on and saying to us they dont expect to see much of an impact for infrastructure reasons from the shale revolution right away. Why do you think this could be so significant . What we have done is looked at the industries that will benefit the most. There is an infrastructure issue. Building up the infrastructure is part of what were expecting will cause the growth and my colleagues, morely harris has done the heavy lifting on this work. If you look at the industries most affecteded, its mainly chemicals, petrochemicals, etcetera. Were seeing some discussion of moving plants on shore from those. So those plants will have to be built. The infrastructure around them will have to be built. There is a huge amount of infrastructure that has to go into it and then we create a lot of jobs. Those jobs create other jobs. So we looked at the total impact of everything involved and not just one facet. Does there have to be a lot of infrastructure building . Obviously. Because if you went to the places where the natural gas is, you would be lucky if you can find a place to eat. But at the same point, building up that infrastructure is going to add to our growth rate right now. So we do think its going to be significant. And thats just the pure economic effect, let alone the geopolitical effects, etcetera, of moving towards a more independent u. S. Energy stance. Maybe we can solve the fiscal cliff, too, if we agree to spend all the money on building out the shale infrastructure. Well, i mean, the Keystone Pipeline was an example of that. Theres lots of things that have to be done to get it going again. Theres lots of things that the government can do to encourage that. And if the government is going to spend money, they might as well spend it on encouraging a dorgy resource. Thats a pretty good investment for the future as opposed to a lot of other things. All right. Drew mattes, economist at ubs joining us this morning ahead of those gdp futures. Good Third Quarter, questions still loom for 2013 and for the current period. Stick around. Coming one b well find out why Alisher Usmanov feels facebook has yet to be understood. His comments when we come back. [ male announcer ] this december, remember you can stay in and share something. Or you can get out there and actually share something. The lexus december to remember sales event is on. This is the pursuit of perfection. U. P. S. Will be working overtime to get the christmas presents delivered on time. The company says today is its busiest shipping day of the year with around 28 million packages to be moved. Today is the last day people can ship without having to pay overnight fees to get gifts to arrive before christmas. A winter storm thats dumped a foot of snow in the rockies is moving into the midwest, prompting blizzard warning across many states. The storm stretches to oklahoma moving towards chicago possibly threatening Christmas Travel plans for many flyers and drivers. For more on where the storm is headed and what its impact may be, Reynolds Wolf joins us now from the weather channel. Reynolds, hi. Can you give our viewers a sense of the major areas affected here. And its the timing of this storm, coming at about the worst possible time for package deliverers. Youre vutly right about that. It left the rocky mvents and is moving its way to the east. It will continue that direction and rate of movement. Its affecting the great lakes clear down to the gulf of mexico. Although snow is a big component, weve had tornado warnings in parts of the southeast. Lets focus on the snow for now. They have whiteout conditions in parts of wisconsin, even into iowa where im telling you the snow is so incredible and the winds are so strong, it is just blinding at this point. They do expect additiconditions improve later on today, but for now, it is brutal. How much snow is going to impact this part of the world . Some parts of the Central Plains could see 3 to 6 of. Back towards wisconsin, 12 inches or even more in a few plac places. Chicago could see 3 to 6. Thats pimly for the northern suburbs. In the city itself, id say near 2 inch of snowfall. Northern michigan, he could see fairly significant snow, some places up to a foot or so. But that snow, that system which means so much to millions of americans is going to drive its way eastward, bringing rain, strong storms ahead of it and what you can expect point by point. Eastern third of the country, pretty quiet, at least along the coast. Its the ohio valley, mid Mississippi Valley where you can have snow and rain. Lets wrap it up and send it back to you. Perfect. Reynolds wolf, if youre just joiningous worldwide exchange, these are your headlines. The boj increases asset purchases for the on ferd time since august. It could be announced today. Brinksmanship continues as president obama threatens to veto John Boehners plan b for the fiscal cliff. And russias richest man, Alisher Usmanov was one of a group of early facebook investors who achieved spectacular returns. Geoff cutmore asked mr. Usmanov just what prompted him to make that investment in the first place. What i saw in facebook from the start was an attractive investment opportunity. I believed i could make a good profit from facebook. From the start, i thought facebook was a global phenomenon, a phenomenon of enormous impact for the economy and the businesses. I think its unprecedented. So when the shares grew actually 100 , i believe i thought it would have been a mistake not to have taken advantage of that major growth for me as an investor. So i sold some of those shares that belonged to me personally and those that belonged to companies i control. We still hold onethird of those shares in both mf companies and my controlled companies. And we are waiting for the next surge. We believe the company could be even more successful because this is a company that has faith in its prospects, faith in its creator mark zuckerberg. I believe this is something that is untapped and not fully understood. The potential for facebook isnt even fully understood by the company and its manager. We believe it has a great future. But those shares are locked up till may when the lock up expires will be sell the position . We will see. So let me ask you, were you aengry by the way the ipo was managed . Youve made a good profit, but the shares have declined in value for most investors since then. The art of Financial Investments is to buy at the right time at the right price. We are happy with what we did. We did buy at the right time at the right price. We sold some and we are happy. As for others, its not my custom, its in the my principle to judge others. Mr. Usmanov is the second largest shareholder of soccer club arsenal and he told geoff hes ready to take control and buy the remaining shares. Head to cnbc. Com for plenty more on that story, including his view of the controversial sale of robin van persie. Russias putin is carrying on a multi hour long briefly of about a thousand journalists. Now hes making comments about ukraine calling it a strategic error by the countrys refusal to leave its gas transport system to russia and to the eu. He says the existence of future viability in ukraines Gas Transportation system is questionable. We know these have been long running and well continue to follow his press coverage and bring you more details. Also coming up, our next guest says the market is going to do what the market is going to do and the fiscal cliff may not be that much of a stumbling block to higher returns. Well be right back. I always wait until the last minute. Can i still ship a gift in time for christmas . Yeah, sure you can. Great. Wheres your gift . Uh. Whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. Ship Fedex Express by december 22nd for christmas delivery. The 37 premium to wednesdays closing price. The deal would reportedly be onethird in cash and the move comes nearly two years after ice and nasdaq teamed up to buy the eu euronext. Both offered ran up against scrutiny for u. S. And eu regulators. The u. S. Patent office says a patent that helped apple win a 1 billion in damages against samsung is invalid. 9 it distinguishes between single and multi touch gestures on the ipad. Apple is likely to appeal the patent ruling. Apple shares are adding aboabou about. 2 in frankfurt trade. Samsung down. 8 on korean trade today. Google has struck a deal to sell motorola cable top business to a eer is. Google has been more focused on revamping the companys struggling mobile unit. Take a look at google trade. Bernie madoffs younger brother will be sentenced today for his role in the multibillion dollar ponzi scheme. Peter was a chief Compliance Officer at the firm. He pleaded guilty in june to several charges, including security fraud and falsifying records. He faces up to a year in prison. Although letters from dozens of friends and family members and business acquaintances were filed earlier this week asking the judge for leniency. European markets are mixed. Adding about 10 despite weaker retail sales figures. It will note a jump in tablet sales around the holidays. For the most part, the rest are flat to slightly lower. And lets take a look at whats on the agenda today in the u. S. Weekly jobless claims are out at 8 30 a. M. Eastern. At 8 30, we get the final estimate of Third Quarter gdp revised up a notch to 2. 9 . At 10 00, its existing home sales are seen up about 2 to an annual rate of 4. 9 million. At 10 00, well get the fully fed for october and other leading indicators. As for earnings, well get earnings from conagri foods, nike, darden and research in motion. U. S. Futures are trying to rebound today. If you take fair value into account there by nearly 40 points for the dow, nasdaq and s p 500 higher, too. For more on what to expect today, Michael Crofton is president and ceo of the philadelphia trucking company. Michael, what are we keeping an eye out for today . Obviously, well be watching washington pretty closely. Boehner will bring his plan b to the floor today and the president has promised a veto, so that should be kind of exciting. Kind of exciting, i guess, or kind of frustrating if youre sick of following these negotiations hoping for a deal. There arent many days left in the year. No, absolutely not. And i actually think well probably go over the cliff briefly. Its more of a slope than a cliff if you look at what happens when we pass the yearend numbers. But i think longer term, thats probably going to be good because it will lead us to a much more comprehensive and reform minded solution. A shortterm solution is not what the market wants. The market wants a longterm solution. If we go over the cliff, there will be a selloff, but it will be short lived as there will be a lot of investors to pick the bottom. I think youre the third guest if a row to tell us were going over the which i have. That sounds like its quickly becoming a consensus view. Yeah, i think so. And i think the market is telling us that, as well. Theres been a lot to worry about this year from the market. You cant fight the fed. You cant fight the fact that corporate Balance Sheets are strong. Then the fiscal cliff comes along and the market continues to power forward. At the end of the day, the market knows that it will eventually be solved and any delay in solution that may cause a selloff, again, is going to be a great opportunity to buy companies that have done a lot to fortify their Balance Sheets and i think 13 will get a pivotal year. That said, we still face a significant hurdle in the fist part of the year when we hit the debt ceiling. This it would seem or any sort of threat of huge payments, a huge problem for the economy. No one is really talking about it, no one is really focused on it. Is that because they expect a negotiation of that issue with the cliff resolution . And i wonder if thats misguided. I think it is misguided because i think they are separate negotiations. The president has indicated that he would like power over the debt ceiling. I dont know how he can do that constitutionally and i think there would be a huge Court Challenge if he made some sort of a unilateral move to seize that power so that the debt ceiling negotiations are probably going to be even more important than the fiscal cliff negotiations. No one thinks were going over the fiscal cliff for long. No one thinks theyre going to let the economy grind to a halt. But the debt ceiling is a different issue. They can dig in on that because particular think republicans will need to show their bona fidety in front of the midterm elections coming the year after next. Michael, finally, youre in philadelphia. Maybe you can tell us what the philly fed will say today. I think the philly fed will say that the economy is showing signs of recovery, but still needs a little bit of help. I think thats going to be the modum apperandi for the next 18 months. Which is why i think housing and the employment can begin to improve because the banks are going to be stuck. Theyre going to begin to have to lend. Credit is going to have to start being extended and that will help the economy move more democratically into next year. Michael crofton, president and ceo of the philadelphia company, thank you so much. If you werent aware, tomorrow is the end of the world. There are plenty of parties celebrating the end of the world. But for those that are truly concerned, head to the French Village of bugaras. I dont know if i said that right. Its the only place predicted to survive the siege. No decendentses of the mayans are concerned. It doesnt appear theyre taking it too seriously. Jeff has tweeted in to say hope you and ross still have leftover twinkies. They are sure to survive the end of the world. That is for sure. We were stockpiling them just in case. And ross will be back here tomorrow. Thank you very much for tuning in. Good morning. Among our top stories, nyse and euro next merger talks. The deal could be announced as early as today. Fiscal cliff negotiations and brinkmanship, republicans set to vote today on extending tax cuts for those making ls