Was the third negative week. On the s p 500, down. 10 . Second negative week in a row for the u. S. Markets. We continue to see the strength in the boards with wall street fading. We bounced over. 10 . The decent appetite moving on to the poboard. The slippage in the basket of media names. You have Universal Music Group and ung at the bottom of the chart. That stock down more than 1 . The travel and leisure basket at the bottom. Te telcos reversing. Vodafone is weaker at the start. The chemicals basket are giving back territory. Real estate is below the flat line. We push higher. Banks with 1. 7 bounce for the italian lender. 1. 5 pop for the commerce maker. We have retail out pacing industrial. Household goods up. 25 . We have autos with strength. All trading higher. Oil and gas also seeing a further improvement and technology with the top position and modest uptick in europe. Lets take stock with the ftse 100 this morning at 7,731. We are trading above the 7 threshold. Descent bounce of. 90 . It is edging into the green this morning trying to track behind the likes of the french market. Comfortable territory this morning which is upten points to thew year on a positive note with res anticipated. Retail sales up 5 . The fastest rate in two years. We are seeing modest n rio tint. Similar stages for bhp. Luxury players this morning. A mixed basket. We have kering up. A slight fade on hermes. To the autos basket which is mostly green, volkswagen is up. 70 to renault at. 7 . The bank of japan started the twoday policy meeting over speculation that the first rate hike could be delivered in 17 years and exit negative rates. Local reports suggest tightening is likely to be announced tomorrow with Goldman Sachs expecting a hike at this meeting rather than april. Apple is using the gemini a. I. Tool for the iphone. This is according to a report in bloomberg which says the two companies are in discussions to let the google a. I. Models power the features on its ios. Apple had similar negotiations with openai. Lets get to david roach, strategist at independent ext strategy. What do you make of how bullish the sentiment has been around some of the macro, but the a. I. Story . Well, i would say first of all you have to remember that europe is out of fund from the United States for years. There are worse things you could say about europe at the beginning of this year. It became evidence that any sort of moderate news would be good news. Whereas the u. S. Has optimism, including around the a. I. Story. Of course, if you look at shares like nvidia, itis expensive by my standards. In europe, you can buy into technology at more modest rates. You have a lot of solid stocks like in the granola grouping which mirror a lot of the good performance criteria like heavy reinvestment of profits made which has empowered u. S. Corporations to maintain such high growth rates. It is evident we are bouncing from the u. S. To europe is taking place. My guess it has further to go. David, some would say to your point it looks like the air is getting a bit thin on the mag seven and some of the stocks within that. When you look at the tech counters you are speaking about, on this side of the pond, where exactly do you feature . They dont give you the growth that you get stateside. No, you dont. You are not paying the same pe ratio. You see, there is an enormous problem about concentration. When you go to the u. S. And look at what is driving the market or what has been driving the market, you will find the big tech stocks, the a. I. Stocks like nvidia and those stocks are responsible for the growth. Nvidia is responsible for 20 of the growth in the u. S. Market this year and a lot of it last year. The concentration of the performance in the United States is a risk factor. Therefore, i am prepared to buy less dramatically good stocks in europe as a way of diversifying that risk. I think it is what you are seeing really is a diversification of the concentration risk in the u. S. Market which is leading to flows into other markets which may be more stately or elderly or boring, but contain stocks that do the right things. David, your views with the stocks appand valuations are different. You had a piece the last couple weeks saying the ecb hasnt killed the golden goose. Has it . I think yes. The golden goose is the european economy. Of course, it is not particularly golden, but it is a goose. The way i look at that, at the heart of europe, still with the greatest concentration of gdp lies germany. I dont believe that despite the rise of Service Industries and Even Technology industries in other European Countries that you can get away from germany. Germany has got two problems. First of all, by sucking up to russia. It thooked itself on cheap energy. That has gone away. The other end of thescale is merkel who spent her last days ins ofs office sucking up the t chinese to maintain german Machine Tools and automobiles in china. That is going away. You have germany with a structural problem with the dependence on the Manufacturing Sectors. That is something the ecb cannot take use account. It is a regional government. What it is doing is it actually on top of the ecb Interest Rates is adding structural weakness to europe. That has to come through. What the ecb fears is the rather high rate at 5 plus of wages and salaries in germany and in europe and the full employment will spillover into inflation generated by producers passing those salary increases on in terms of price increases. I dont think thats going to happen. The economic environment is too weak. The other thing that would support the thesis on stocks is not the european economy hestro, but the Interest Rates will fall more. David, by that logic, europe needs these rate cuts quicker and first ahead of the United States. With that be your sense . Precisely. That is exactly what im saying. Said in a more succinct form. The consumer story in the United States is carrying a lot of the load from the u. S. Does that begin to wane a little bit . Seeing the pressures and that will force the hand of the fed . Well, i dont think it will force the hand of the fed. I think the fed is quite happy to see the consumer slowdown because any risk to inflation or risk of inflation in the u. S. Would stem to excessive exuberance. Also, the economy would pick up quickly and wages and salaries would cause another inflationary problem. I dont think this is a huge threat to the consumer because, one, it looks like the consumer is actually so rich in terms of asset prices that it may not havethe excess savings given to it by the government during covid, but it has a lot of asset prices. W wages and salaries in europe is within the range of 2 inflation, frankly and they are enough because of falling inflation to provide real purchasing power to the consumer which would also continue to keep him on track. Im less worried about the u. S. Consumer than you might draw the conclusion from the recent confidence. David, i want to ask about the bank of japan which is getting interesting for markets and our strategist was saying it is finally airborne at this stage. What do you make for the bank of japan and the ability to hike rates soon . I think whether it does this month or next month, i dont care. You have the wage settlements at 5. 3 . That is less for Small Companies at 4 . Nevertheless, well above the benchmark of 3. 6 or so which have to be breached. That baseline would be breached for Monetary Policy to be put on normal footing. Those conditions are satisfied. You could argue the bank of japan should wait and see if the wage bonanza would be spent or saved. I dont think it will. I believe that the bank of japan would start to exit the super loose Monetary Policy in terms of the negative Interest Rates, which i expect to go to zero or. 1 which is still negliativ in real terms by the fact that the consumer is not that strong and they will also exit yield curve control which will mean the tenyear jgb will go to 1. 5 . Now the question is does that torpedo the equity market . I think not for the reason you said. It is the golden arrow which has come home to roost which is the reason to own Japanese Equities is because governance has improved so much and shareholder returns are prioritized. Im not as enthusiastic about them by Japanese Equities as i was a year or two years ago. Fascinating point that some of the wage hikes could be saved rather than spent. David, i want to push on to the chinese economy. We had better data for the first two months of the Industrial Production and on retail. You have been consistently bearish on chinwhchina. Does this change your view . Not really. China cannot use the Manufacturing Sector to get back on track as regards with growth because the Manufacturing Sector depends on International Trade for that growth and the world is united against letting china gain market share in international markets. I think this is a result of stimulus going to the wrong places. China is already in a def defladeflation s economy. The output is indicative of that excess capacity used in the inflationary manner. We got 5 which was expected and built into the cake. It does point to what we need to see for china to get back on track and us to be interested. That is confidence. Thats the missing economic driver. If you do not get confidence in domestic demand growth in Service Industry growth and in the individual households to invest in housing again, then china is going to be on a very low growth trajectory. Probably around 3 really. They stated the 5 figure, but that is an idea, really. David, thank you very much for joining us this morning. David roche. We will take you to tesla. Shares are higher in premarket trade after the ev maker will raise prices on a number of cars in a number of countries. Tesla cut prices across many vehicles over the past year and the stock has taken a hit with the latest lender to cut the price target from 190 to 220 previously. You see the movement 2 today. The germany Insurance Company hannover re increased the dividend. The stock fell in session today. It posted a net income of 1. 8 billion euro. It did better than expected. I want to take you to haleon. We have a fall of 2 in the stock prices. Pfizer is set to cut its stake in the Consumer Healthcare giant. It is down 24 from 32 . It is worth 2 billion pounds accordingto the friday closing price. Im not sure this is big news with a lot of flags raised with pfizer and the ownership of the stake of haleon. And shares of logitechs cfo is leaving for a new Career Opportunity with that stock down 6 in the early opening. Coming up on the show, russian president Vladimir Putin securing a landslide victory in the election. Well have more for you after the break. Hi, im jason and ive lost 202 pounds on golo. So when i first started golo, i was expecting to lose around 40 pounds and then i just kept losing weight, and moving and moving and moving in a better direction. With golo and release, youre gonna lose the weight. My name is Ashley Cortez and im the founder of the stay Beautiful Foundation when i started in 2016 i would go to the post office and literally fill out each persons name on a label and now with shipstation we are shipping 500 beauty boxes a month it takes less than 5 minutes for me to get all of my labels and get beauty in the hands of women who are battling cancer so much quicker shipstation the 1 choice of Online Sellers go to shipstation. 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Giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport. Russias Vladimir Putin secured a landsliede in the president ial election with 99 of ballots counted. According to the central election commission. The win puts putin on track to become the longest serving russian leader for more than 200 years. Keir joins us from moscow. Not that he needed it, keir, but could the president then use this election to kind of embolden his steps when it comes to the attacks on ukraine . Reporter thats right, arabile. We are just hearing from the Russian Electoral Commission which says it is a 77 turnout in the election. That, too, would be a record in recent russian history of the russian elections, of course. That is something that will be questioned by many people around the world because what we did see through the weekend were protests. We saw arson attacks on polling stations and dye poured into ballot boxes and drone strikes blamed on the ukrainians through the country and just before he died, Alexi Navalny called on people to come to the polling station at midday and stand there silently. We did see that taking place. There were pockets of resistance and signs of resistance despite the official results. After the election, president putin arrived at a News Conference with a spring in his step. We were there and we were the First InternationalNews Organization to ask him a question as he won six more years in power. Take a listen. Mr. President , journalists spent this election in prison. Boris, who opposes your war in ukraine, wasnt allowed to stand against you. Alexi navalny died in one of your prisons during your campaign. Mr. President , is this what you call democracy . Translator for sure, that is what this is all about. There were not enough votes to proceed to the public election. As for mr. Navalny, he has perished. That is always a sad event. We had other instances where other people died in prison. Has nothing like that happened in the United States . It has happened. Not just once. By the way, this will be unexpected, but several days before mr. Navalny perished, i was told by some people that there is an idea to exchange mr. Navalny for some people in prison in western countries. Believe it or not, the person talking to me hardly finish ed their sentence when i said i agree. We will exchange him to never come back. Let him stay there. Thats it. Unfortunately, the thing that happened happened. Such things happen and you cant do anything about it. That is life. If you want to learn my opinion on whether our elections are democratic or not, i consider them democratic. Vice versa. In some countries, for example, in your country, you can use administrative resources to attack a president ial candidate, including the courts. Is that democratic . We have no preference for any candidate in the United States. We will work with the u. S. Voters trust. The use of the resources and court system is laughable and a shame for the u. S. Across the world to talk about your democratic system. I have all grounds to see we have no democrat iscy in some election campaigns. The u. S. Included. The ball is in your court. Reporter that confirmation from mr. Putin that he agreed to have navalny released from prison before he died making news around the world. There will be many around the world skeptical of that from mr. Putin as he embarks on the new term in power. Keir, whats Global Reaction been on this . Reporter there is plenty of it today. We recently heard china congratulating president putin. Many of the countries you expect. Venezuelas maduro saying putin won over western i mperialism. President erdogan of tur wkey wl congratulate him. Democracies around the world will question this election profoundly and whether it is free and fair, including the biden administration. Many european governments. Japan saying i would like to refrain from commenting on elections. Having said that, russia conducted socalled president ial elections in the illegally annexed regions of ukraine. Violation of international law. A split screen of the countries expected to congratulation russia and the many others not doing that. Nbc news keir simmons. Thank you. Coming up, we will have annette joining us for the general manager of the business for international sector. Stay with us. Thats right after the break. Er up and running. I was printing out labels and saving money. Shipstation saves us so much time. It makes it really easy and seamless. Pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and its ready to go. Our costs for shipping were cut in half. Just like that. Shipstation. The 1 choice of Online Sellers. 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