President obama finishing an address to the nation just moments ago announcing the normalization of relations with cuba and it has some far flung effects. John harwood is live in washington with some of the details on that for us. The president reversing a policy that was set in place 50 years ago during the time of john f. Kennedy. This is another indication that this president meant it when he said he was going to make big changes in office. This is something he can do with the stroke of his pen. Here is the president. Though the policy has been rooted in the best of intentions no other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions and it has had little effect beyond providing the cuban government with rationale on restrictions. Today cuba is still governed by the castros. Neither the american nor cuban people are well served by a ridged policy rooted in events that took place before most of us were born. Reporter now, the president cannot with this action lift the embargo. That is emb
Speak the language in a statement and remove a considerable time frame. The statement and an updated forecast is due out at 2 00 p. M. Eastern today. A half hour later, chair janet yellen will field questions from the media. Beyond the fed, the ruble and oil. The russian currency dropping about 60 against the dollar this year. Cnbcs Geoff Cutmore has made its way to moscow and will join us there in just a minute. He is looking at russias move to sell the currency. As for oil, worries about a surprise pressure in prices, france is now down nearly 20 since opec decided to keep rates steady late last month. Add all these stories together and we have a very jittery market. The dow has shouldered triple gains and losses in the session. The blue chip index swinging 700 points yesterday alone. The dow, nasdaq and the s p closing at their lowest levels since the understand of october. Just a little after 6 00 a. M. Is how we stand right now. The futures look like they are headed up. But as we
Markets, unpressure this morning, due to the escalating situation in ukraine. Monthly increases in consumer income and spending not making a dent. Warren buffett says hes not discouraged about the markets today or in the future. Citing slow but steady economic improvement. Find out what else hes thinking about. Apple rolling out Carplay Technology with mercedes and ferrari . Futures pointing to a sharply lower open, thanks to ongoing instability in ukraine and russia. This, despite monthly increases in both consumer income and spending. Jim, we knew monday was going to be interesting all weekend long. This is not the kind of thing you prefer to focus on but its whats on the table. We got lucky. We had one of the most amazing three hours ive ever seen on our network where Warren Buffett really just basically laid out the cards at the annual letter, also fantastic. But his take away was my takeaway, this is business as usual. Talking about buying something in london, too, was more impact