Are. Its been a big week for Central Banks well round up the weeks events with our Business Editor simonjack. Spending on halloween is expected to hit a record 9. 1bn in the us this year. Today we want to know is it scary how much people are spending . Just use the hashtag bbcbizlive. Hello and welcome to business live. Thursday was a huge day for Technology Company results. Four of the big global tech giants reported their latest earnings. Alphabet googles Parent Company, microsoft and twitter all posted their key numbers. But lets start with a look at amazon. The retailer reported revenues of almost 41 billion in the three months between july and september. Thats a jump of 34 over the same period last year. But profits were virtually unchanged since last year. Thats because this is often the quarter when amazon chooses to pile a bunch of money into its own projects like tech gadgets, streaming video and warehouses. The company has operated on this model for years and it seems to have served it well. In fact, analysts now estimate that amazon will command about a3. 5 of all commercial online sales this year thats nearly half of all the stuff sold online. Quite a staggering figure. James collier, co founder of the data monetisation firm prism, is here. Rachel was talking about the absolute dominance that amazon has online. What is interesting is the move into bricks and Mortar Retail with the acquisition of whole foods. Given they have been doing the online thing so well do you think it was a sensible decision . Amazon have been diverse in other areas, media, video, bricks and mortar is a natural transition as they bring off line data into the online world. Alphabets are also doing very, very well, the Parent Company of google. What are the reasons for that . Where is the growth coming from . Lodged its coming from an increase in the volume of clicks. Advertising is really the big story for alphabet, but they have seen growth in other areas, other bets are starting to come through. Google Cloud Services have seen an increase and it represents 5 of market share. Have seen an increase and it represents 596 of market share. Lets talk about microsoft, often seen as the grandfather of tech, but they have reinvented themselves under the chief executive and it is all about the cloud . They set themselves a ha rd the cloud . They set themselves a hard goal of 20 billion from Cloud Services. They achieved that this quarter and now they have transitioned. If you look five years ago it was 5 of the business, now it is 20 . That includes services from 360, the cat marked office suite, all the way through to the enterprise package. The other thing we keep hearing about is how much they are interested and investing in Artificial Intelligence and the internet of things, home connected devices. Right, again, it is all about information. The internet of things is about your fridge being connected to the internet, it is about your car and self driving things, a is driving a lot of that and it helps businesses make better decisions. For Companies Like microsoft and amazon, where they have huge infrastructure to support ai, it is a massive area of interest. Self driving cars, moon shots, it is a big topic for them. Going back to alphabet and google, the increasing clicks is partly what has given them the increased revenue, but what countries are willing to pay for those clicks has declined significantly. What can they do to combat that . They are doing deals, so there is a plan for siri to be the surge of choice. But it cost them a huge amount of money. They have something called tac, traffic acquisition costs, and that has gone up significantly. The cost per click has gone down by 20 . It isa per click has gone down by 20 . It is a transition to mobile, so it is where they start to compete with Services Like amazon, and how they bring in things like google home, which they are investing in massively which is going to transition that back up. Lets take a look at some of the other stories making the news. Royal bank of scotland has settled a us criminal investigation that accused its traders of lying to clients over investments between 2008 and 2013. The Us Department ofjustice said rbs will pay 41 million under the non prosecution agreement. Rbs said it self reported the issue to the us authorities. Toymaker mattel is suspending its Quarterly Dividend after being hit by the bankruptcy of its largest retailer toys r us. Mattel shares fell after the Company Announced losses of over 600 million in its latest results. The California Based Company was also hurt by weak demand for products like barbie, hot wheels and thomas friends. Strong pickup truck and suv sales in the us boosted fords bottom line. The carmaker saw profits jump 60 compared to the same period last year when it faced a recall. However, it still faces an uphill battle in china, where sales have been have been lower. More revelations about japanese companies. Nissan reportedly carrying out faulty checks on vehicles sold in japan since 1979. And reports subaru carried out illegal inspections on its vehicles. Leisha santorelli is in singapore. What more can you tell us about the latest reports about subaru . Well, rachel, shares in subaru took a tumble on these reports that an certified technicians were allowed to conduct a vital vehicle inspections at one of the factories north of tokyo. If confirmed, subaru might have to conduct a major recall. 0ne might have to conduct a major recall. One report put it at about 300,000 cars. Subaru is scheduled to hold a press conference at 8am gmt. If the situation sounds familiar, it is. Subaru is facing the same problem that nissan admitted to. Bloomberg is reporting that nissans certification scandal might have stretched back to 1979, nearly 110 yea rs. Stretched back to 1979, nearly 110 years. It was actually because of nissans for the inspection process that Japans Transport Ministry ordered all domestic car makers to conduct internal investigations. That is why we are seeing these revelations and reports coming out about subaru facing the same problem. 0k, thank you for the update. Lets see how the markets have been going on. We have the australian all ordinaries up. A court has ruled that the deputy pm Barnaby Joyce and four other politicians were wrongly elected because they held dual citizenship. Spinnaker that has stripped the government of the one seat majority. In hong kong, you can see that stocks were up overnight, inspired by strength and wall street. You can see the dowjones up after strong earnings figures. And what about europe yesterday the European Central bank said they will extend their Stimulus Programme although they will start the cut the levels of bond buying from january. And weve got the Spanish Stock Exchange up the ibex because today the Spanish Senate may approve the take over of catalonias institutions and police, barcelona could respond by declaring independence. Lets go to wall street. On friday we will see just how fast the us economy grew in the last three months. In the previous quarter, between april and june, the us economy grew 3. 1 . For this quarter, however, many are expecting to see a bit of a slowdown and estimate that gross domestic product, or gdp, will be coming in at about 2. 5 . Two Oil Companies will be reporting earnings on friday. Exxon mobile, the Worlds Largest publicly traded oil producer, is expected to show a rise in profit, while cost cutting is likely to help chevron also report a jump in profit for the quarter. Finally, the pharmaceutical giant merck will be reporting earnings. Investors will be on the lookout for information on the sales of its cancer drug keytruda. Updates on a Cyber Security attack that merck said last quarter would likely impact its profits will also be of interest. Joining us is james bevan, chief Investment Officer at ccla Investment Management the last time we had growth figures, pretty robust, 3. 1 . What do we think this time . Definitely a slow number, the feds own numbers suggest 2. 7. There are some people expecting a higher number on the back of hurricane interest, leading to faster car sales. Better numbers coming out of china, International Dimension is as well. At the top of the programme we were talking about the programme we were talking about the tech titans. Fascinating stuff how dependent is wall street on the big tech stocks . Very dependent. They have been the principal driver of Market Progress to date. It is not surprising because the numbers are sparkling and people are really betting on the long term future. There are Companies Like twitter who are yet to report a profit. Just looking at President Trump and his plans for tax reforms in the us, what impact could it have on Tech Companies . In his Election Campaign we heard a lot about him saying he wa nted we heard a lot about him saying he wanted to reduce tax for the Big Tech Company is to bring profits back to the us. Do you think that could still happen . Absolutely. There is a bi location of issues for trump on Tech Companies. He would dearly love to see the money off shored backs the backed the united states, providing the push for growth. The second issue is at what point does he get bored of these Companies Really driving the shape of the us economy . Think he has real reservations that amazon, example, in purchasing wholefoods was more about getting market share than driving profit. I suppose that is the other concern, traders and investors will lose patience with the promised tax reforms. They had been promised them for a long time. They cleared a hurdle in the last day or so. The hope must be that there isnt a Market Correction before the tax changes come in . |j think a correction would be fine. A descent into a bear market would be a different proposition and we are a long way from that. We are a long way from having a us recession. As perverse as it might seem, if we got a rapid growth, followed by a clamp down by the Federal Reserve, if professor taylor were to become chairman, the market would be uncomfortable. We will delve into that with simon jeff later uncomfortable. We will delve into that with simonjeff later in the programme. Thanks for coming in. Lots of speculation over wholl be the next fed chair and well get some more from our Business Editor simonjack as he wraps up the weeks biggest economic stories. Youre with business live from bbc news. Iag, the Parent Company of British Airways, has reported passenger and cargo Revenue Growth today. Passenger revenue rose by 1. 6 to £5. 15 billion betweenjuly and september while cargo grew by 7. 9 to £213 million. 0ur economics correspondent, andrew walker, joins us now from our Business Newsroom. How have they managed to achieve these figures . Well, it is a striking performance. In one sense they managed quite an increase in profits for the first nine months of the year of 11 . That goes up to 1. 9 billion euros, and as you indicated a significant part of that is down to what has been going on on the revenue side. Passenger numbers were up. They took an extra 2. 5 Million People in that period, just over 80 million passengers all told. There was actually a slight fall in the weight of cargo that they took. They seem weight of cargo that they took. They seem to have taken it further and they actually increased revenue from that as well. The company says that there were particularly strong performances on the passenger side in east asia, latin america, especially latin america, and the caribbean, although they say that the biggest markets, europe and north america, also did well with British Airways in particular making good sales of some of its premium fa res, good sales of some of its premium fares, Business Class and so fourth. What about the cost . The movements have been in the right direction from the company perspective. Total costs down by 1. 8 . Fuel in particular is down by 8. 4 . This is reflecting what is going on in markets. There is also hedging activity going on which does tend to dampen the impact that market moves have on the cost that airlines faced. But overall, encouraging performance and cost side as well. You know when you look at hotel rooms online, you get that message saying that six other people are trying to book a . The authorities are looking into that to see if youre getting the best deal or not. They are worried about the clarity and accuracy of information given to consumers. If you think youre not getting the best deal, you may not be, and you can read more on that on oui be, and you can read more on that on our website. Youre watching business live. Our top story 0nline retailer amazon leads a barrage of tech earnings. Its sales were up 34 in july to september, while googles Parent Company alphabet also reported bumper sales for the period. Now, its been a big week for Central Banks with speculation about who will be the next head of the fed. While in europe, the ecb indicated itll start slowing down key bond buying stimulus measures and theres been movement on trumps tax policy. Simonjack is our Business Editor and joins us now. Thanks for coming in. Good morning. Lets start with the new head of the Federal Reserve who do we think it will be . Janet yellen, the incumbent, her term expires in february. She has been comfortable with unconventional Monetary Policy, quantitative easing. The big task for the next person will be reversing some of that. Donald trump was critical of her in his Election Campaign. Having said that, last week, he said she was to rhetoric. He said the stock market was going fine and warmed up to her. The two front runners are john fine and warmed up to her. The two front runners arejohn taylor, an academic from stanford university. A hawk, meaning he likes to put upminster Interest Rates faster than other people put up Interest Rates. The other candidate has talked about easing the stress tests that have been put on the banks. That chimes with donald trump. Whoever gets the job, it will be interesting because they have two reverse the biggest Monetary Policy experiment of all time, when the Federal Reserve bot 4. 5 trillion worth of assets. Bought 4. 5 trillion worth of assets. Worth of assets. Bought 4. 5 trillion worth of assetslj worth of assets. Bought 4. 5 trillion worth of assets. I lose track of how long we have been talking about the promised tax reforms. Finally, some progress . They seem to be inching towards it, passing a bill last week which got it to the next stage. Everyone agrees in the us that Corporate Tax is too high, 35 in the us, whereas it is only 20 in the uk. The big debate is about how you pay for it. A lot of people are saying, we could ta ke a lot of people are saying, we could take away some pension relief, reduce the tax thresholds, so you would raise some money from them. Some people worry that that is a tax on the middle classes, not what donald trump promise. The question eve ryo ne donald trump promise. The question everyone agrees on is donald trump promise. The question everyone agrees on is that it should happen, it is how it should be paid for. The Ronald Reagan economics that donald trump is talking about, the bet is that economy grows faster, so the tax take goes up, even though you reduce the rate. Talking about the Corporate Tax rate, we were discussing it with james bevan in relation to the big Tech Companies who have had results in the last 24 hours. Do you think they would bring their money home if they would bring their money home if the rate was reduced . It is more about the money that is already sloshing over there. Apple has 250 million sloshing around in various places. The boss of apple has said he would be happy to bring it back. There are a lot of people who think that companies will buy back their own shares and reduce the number of slices of the pie so that each shareholder gets a bit richer. People say that is not Real Investment in the economy. Jamie diamond, the boss ofjp morgan, says evenif diamond, the boss ofjp morgan, says even if they do use it for share buy backs, so what . Its all money and money coming back to the us. I dont think we are there yet, but that flood of cash coming back to the us would have a big effect on the us would have a big effect on the dollar. It would be an interesting thing