tourism group's full-year core earnings growth gives the shares a boost in early trade. the gamble doesn't pay off for uk betting firms as the stocks sell off on a report that mps will demand stricter controls over certain betting machines. >> good morning, everybody. welcome. we're being told today is the most important day of all time for the ecb. >> it's always the most important day. >> exactly. european equity markets gearing up for the most important ecb meeting with a slightly higher attitude. up by a quarter percentage point on stoxx 600. asia gaining overnight. a wall street rally. europe higher for the fourth straight day in a row. looking at the main european equity markets with the main europe europeans trading in positive territory. somewhere in the region of a half percent or so. the sectors, just briefly showing you what's going on. media, autos and telecoms trading higher. oil and gas, insurance, healthcare all a bit lower. people are talking about there's some doubts about the outputs talked about by opec. money has been coming out of the actual price, though it's trading around $50, $53 a ball r barrel. >> a majority of analysts expect a six-month extension to the bond buying program at the current pace of 80 billion euros per month. let's get out to anetta covering this story for us in frankfurt. will they hint at tapering or not? >> that's exactly the case. i think the biggest elephant in the room is the tapering, perhaps also italy. according to analysts we are not going to hear a lot about tapering today. the maximum we could hear is a reduction of the monthly purchase to 60 billion euros, that's where the quantitative easing program once started in terms of volume, then to see a longer extension instead. but that's a minority view, perhaps not likely because it will confuse the markets. so communication-wise the ecb will not go down that road. so the topic is extension, how much per month and in terms of how long. secondly, it will be the tweaks to the program. i think the action on the markets will be depending on whether they actually will cut the deposit rate floor or buy into majorities which are less than two years time. that is what some analysts are expecting. that might move the bond markets perhaps a little bit. the third big topic, of course, is the inflation and gdp forecasts. new staff projections from the ecb which will give them more reasoning or more reason to expand. >> all right. i'll just jump right in there. she is there, she's live. we will be back out with her very soon again. covering everything from frankfurt, of course we have you fully covered. the ecb rate decision today from 13:30 cet. look how happy we look there. >> we do look happy and very young. i'm a bit older now. i'm glad they still use that photo of me. >> we all are. matteo renzi formally resigned as prime minister after his stinging defeat on the referendum on sunday. he said he will consult with the political parties on the path forward. the general election will be held in 2018, leaders from the five-star movement and the northern league have called for it to be held earlier. moodys has changed its outlook for italy to negative from stable. while affirming the country's rating at baa2. the credit agency warned the no victory in the constitutional referendum could diminish the prospect for reform citing slow and halting progress on economic and fiscal reform in italy. moody's also expressed concern that italy could be prone to infoi unforeseen shocks. >> italy asked the ecb for more time to rescue banco monte dei paschi. they are demanding until the 20th of january . according to the financial times, bmps wrote that political upheaval in italy made it impossible to go ahead with the rescue plan until a new government is in place. the newspaper also reports that italy would blame the ecb if it was forced to bail out bmps. let's get out to the global head of fixed income currency strategy at danske bank. to what expect is the ecb going to acknowledge the problematic situation around the italian banking sector and italian politics? >> i think you're right to point that out. i think what we are going to see from the ecb is that they will be dovish, because they are clearly concerned about political risk the european union is facing next year. importantly also because of economic data. if you look at the forecast for core inflation and wage growth, they are too high. that's the reason they'll be dovish. we think they'll extend and that's how the markets should see it. we should see a slightly lower euro after this session, especially when they announce they will extend qe and revising down the inflation and wage forecast. >> if you say it is too early to taper, that's also the majority view in the markets, why has the eurozone been creeping higher? they must be pricing something in. >> the big thing in markets is the expectation that u.s. growth will be much, much higher next year because of the fiscal stimulus. i think you are perfectly right. eventually they will have to taper, and we have to remember that markets sell off ahead of that. we will see that again this time. it should be remembered that i think that's a very, very big difference between u.s. and europe, where we have a clear inflation scene in u.s., and we don't have that in europe. we think they could extend more than one time, perhaps two times. >> thomas, good morning. if we have 80 billion euros for six months in terms of the asset purr classing program versus, say, 60 billion for nine months, ultimately it's not tapering because net-net you buy more bonds in the long run. do we need to differentiate between tapering in the t traditional sense of the word and this extension, yet it's not tapering when you look at the total bonds bought? >> it's a very good question. let's say they come out and say we'll buy 60 billion per month, but instead in nine months. i think that will be seen as tapering. as long as they say they will buy less per month, that will be seen as tapering. the euro will bounce on that. i don't think it's likely. i think given the -- you could say political uncertainty in europe and most importantly the inflation outlook, they will extend with the current pace, 80 billion per month. >> why would they do anything today? part of me thinks that mario draghi doesn't want to risk premature tapering. they have time on their side, for the time being, given the political uncertainty, markets are relatively unstable. why not just wait until the other side of the year and see what happens? >> yeah. i think they have to come out. the current qe program runs off march next year. they feel they need to do something. to say something about whether they'll extend that. that's what they'll do today. i also think they may be relatively flexible in terms of what they will do in terms of technical restrictions. they may just say we'll be flexible. but i think they'll announce today an extension of the qe program, simply because core inflation data will not be in line with what they're expecting. >> i don't think there's a possibility that they just say we'll run at least through the end of march 2017, so thereby they leave the door open but don't give us anything concrete? >> i don't think they would run that risk. i think they will be aware of the european yields, that's not what they need yet, that would lead to a much higher euro. i think they feel they have to come out with an extension today. >> thomas, i want your thoughts on how to trade the euro/dollar, currently at 1.0790. at the start of this week, we were at the 1.05 level. there's still a lot of political risk here in europe. on the other hand there will be tapering at some point. what do you do with euro/dollar? >> i think that the way i see it, euro/dollar, yes, there are lots of concerns about policies in europe, but normally it doesn't have a huge impact on markets as long as you don't have concern about the whole european market. you don't have that. the way to play euro is sell ahead of 1.10. the broad range of 1.05 and 1.15 holds. one could scale in here 1.0860, i think the balance of risk heading into the ecb today and the fed next week is for a slightly stronger dollar and of course we've seen a position reduction over the last week or so. it's not going to be a big move. it is a range between the short-term range, 105 and 110. i don't think that will break. maybe you can go below 1.05, but not a lot. a lot of that trump expectation has been priced in. >> you say another top trade for 2017 is the safe havens, the japanese yen? why? >> i think so. i think the most important trade of the year, or the most important call of the year for the whole of 2017, that is is the dollar going to be much stronger or not? we're in the camp of we don't buy that trump will drive a much stronger dollar. the key difference compared to -- if you look at the first reagan period, where the dollar was also very strong, the fed in our view this time won't be that hawkish. the big story for 2017, i think we will see a bit more dollar strength, but it will be buy the ro room, there will be a time next year that the market will be disappointed by the u.s. growth and that the fed will be concerned with the dollar if it strengthens too much. >> thomas, share a couple other thoughts with regards to -- you have four themes, nine trades and a wild card. what are some other main things you would pull out? >> some other things, we are leerily looki clearly looking at what's going on in terms of european politics, that's something to keep a close eye on. we need to keep a close eye on how this trump victory is going to play out. as i said, i do think at some point next year there will be a disappointment because i think the market has probably become too bullish on looking for u.s. growth. even above 3% next year potentially. that's not going to happen. it will also take time before that stimulus hits the u.s. economy. so you can say that. some of the broad themes we are looking at. that being said, we're looking at a global growth, which is looking better, and we have to remember that looked better before you had that trump victory. it's not driven by trump, it's driven by the global business side heading higher. it's about finding views, trades in line with that and not getting called into the consensus view which is very much strong dollar across the board. you will see a lot of that on the short-term, but not really a trade for 2017 as a whole. >> thank you very much for being with us. thomas harr. >> thank you. we'd love to hear from you. e-mail the show. the address is streetsignseurope@cnbc. we're also on twitter. >> at @carolincnbc and at @louisabojesen. coming up, strength in numbers, we'll talk china's trade figures after this short break. welcome back to "street signs." japan's third quarter gdp came in weaker than expected as companies ran down inventories and capital expenditure dried up. let's look at how the asian markets responded on the back of this. they did look quite perky. >> yeah. there's a disconnect between that disappointing data from q3 gdp, the revised data there out of japan. look at the nikkei, it hit a high for 2016, above 18,765 handle with the nikkei 225 up 1.5%. but q3 gdp was revised lower to 1.83%, when there had been expectation of a rise of 2.2%. that's because capex and inventories dried up. the yen strengthened during the asian session, yet the nikkei kept riding higher. let's look at the nifty. its erasing losses from yesterday after the rbi surprise about keeping rates on hold. today financials are gaining, as we're seeing the nifty up by 1.7%. this is after the rbi said yesterday that it would end its requirement for banks to park their excess liquidity from the demonetization drive from the central banks. so they're pulling that requirement off the table. now financials are leading the way. we got some better than expected trade data out of china. but that didn't impact the shanghai composite which ended down 0.2% it did have a positive effect on the asx 200, with iron ore, big miners, coal miners as well, asx up 1.2%. iron ore imports up 13.8% for the month of november. some of the highest volumes we've seen so far. back to you. >> thank you very much. you lead us nicely on to this chinese data. as mentioned, they reported an upbeat trade figure with both exports and imports beating forecasts in china bulk commodities, trading well on the back of strong resource imports. asian stocks got a boost from china's figures. fred newman from hsbc joins us. good to have you with us. what's behind this improvement in the latest batch of chinese data? >> well, particularly on the import side, it is partly the increase in commodity prices. remember, we had a big rally in commodity prices over the course of the month. that shows up in the import numbers. in addition to that, make no mistake, there's a genuine increase in demand in china. still largely construction based sucking in goods. on the export side, a pick up of shipments to the u.s. and europe. but shipments to emerging markets weak from china. >> we read into the data as saying that a modest recovery still is on track for developmedeveloped markets. >> the strength is coming or strengths, quote unquote, out of g3 markets, europe, the u.s., to some extent japan. the question is how long can this be sustained? on the one hand you have protectionist impulses that might emerge next year. on the other hand, all of this might be short-term noise coming through an electronics mini cycle. as soon as that wears off, you could again see a weakening of exports. we don't read too much into the better export number. we think the takeaway is a stronger import number, giving us a better read on the chinese economy. >> once again, cutting back to the export numbers, how much of that is down to the weakness of the yuan that we've seen in the last month versus the u.s. dollar in particular? i guess what we saw in the fx reserves number is they're walking a fine balance, a tightrope between managing the fx reserves but also keeping the yuan stable. >> that's right. the yuan has been the weakest currency over the last 12 months in asia. that gives chinese exporters competitiveness. so perhaps not a surprise to see some stabilization exports. but that means they're taking market share away from others. so that's a reflection of global demand starting to improve, but also reshuffling of the decks within asia. china's currency depreciation is putting pressure on other asian exporters. we shouldn't forget that. currency weakness does play a role here. >> do you think that there will be a preempttive response by chinese officials against what we could be seeing under trump? any sort of protectionist policies? >> not at first strike. our assessment is that the chinese would sort of watch exactly how things evolve. we have to probably be a bit more careful to separate twitter fiction from real facts that is what policies will be applied. so they will be cautiously looking at what actually happens. starting a preempttive action would probably just sort of cause a reaction. you don't want to start with that particular game. so, waiting and seeing what happens will be sort of the -- wit are what asian trade officials are doing at this point. >> fred, thank you very much. all right. let's get you caught up on some of the corporate news. national grid sold a 61% stake in its uk gas business to a consortium of businesses led by macquar macquarie. the company plans to return 4 billion pounds to shareholders thanks to proceeds of the deal. and what's happening with glencore? >> glencore and qatar sovereign wealth fund have taken a 20% stake in the russian i'm giant rosneft. the sale is part of the russian government's efforts to privatize some of the state assets to help to bolster the company's finances. the agreement marks a return to dealmaking for glencore which has focused on selling assets to pay down debts in recent years. and if means glencore is trying to get a one-up in the market. >> ericsson raised its 2016 cost estimates to between 5.5 and 6.5 korona. in the midst of a tough market, the company announced in october that it would be cutting 3,000 positions in sweden. william hill is trading low their morning, down by 8.5%. that's ahead of a report from mps demanding stricter controls on betting machines. the fixed odds betting terminals group will publish the findings of their six-month inquiry and will say there's a case to cut the maximum stake of 100 pounds per spin, and set it at 2 pounds. quite a drop. here's a company close to your heart, you're sporty. stuff like that. >> you are. >> sports direct reported a 57% hit to its first half profit. the company had a tough year after coming under fire for the treatment of its workers. the sports retailer announced that underlying profits before tax fell to 71.6 million pounds in the 26 weeks to the 23rd of october. the company's founder and ceo, mike ashley, said the last six months have been "tough for our people and performance." the company announced it intends to pause the share buyback program until further notice. travel group tui reported a 12.5% rise in core earnings for the year in line with forecasts. core underlined profit for the quarter at just under 1 billion euros. tui estimated profit to rise by 10% for the 2017/2018 financial year. and lululemon, stocks soared after the canadian athleisure retailer reported third quarter earnings which beat across the board. the company, which has struggled with supply chain issues in the past, said it is seeing improvements in that area of the business. fourth quarter got off to a rocky start, but they expect strong sales over the holiday season. once you're in athleisure type stuff, you can't get out of it. so comfortable. >> it is. >> are you wearing your athleisure pants again? >> no i'm not. >> okay. >> mulberry has had a loss in the first half. the luxury retailer said tourist spending in london helped offset softer domestic demand, but mulberry warned the global and uk outlook has become more uncertain. >> you know they're making business clothes with stretch. >> are they really? >> yeah. >> i did not know that. that's brand-new information and i need to get on top of that. >> especially for men. making suits that are wearability. >> cozy. >> exactly. >> you can do a tree pose or whatever. >> that, too. during your break. we do need to take a short break. check out world markets live. it runs throughout the trading day. it's our blog. you'll find a lot on there. we're also on twitter, @carolincnbc or at @louisabojesen. back in a second. welcome back to the show. yes, you're still watching "street signs." i'm carolin roth. >> i'm louisa bojesen. your headlines today. the ecb prepares to set out the next steps in its qe program as policymakers decide whether it's time to extend the central bank's massive bond buying plan. italy provides a distraction with rome demanding more time to rescue monte dei paschi, as former prime minister matteo renzi officially resigns following the failure of his referendum. tui travels higher as the tourism group's full-year core earnings growth gives the shares a boost in early trade. a gamble not paying off for william hill, on reports that eps will demand stricter controls on betting machines. good morning, everyone. if you're just tuning in, let's have a quick look at u.s. futures. the trump rally is a month old, and there's no sign of it stopping. yesterday we saw the dow, s&p and transports closing at an all-time high. stocks surging more than 1%. this morning looking more timid. the s&p 500 seen off by two points. the dow jones set to fall by nine. the nasdaq seen just fractionally higher to the tune of one point. want to show you what's going on in the european session. we are higher for the fourth straight day. this week we're on track for gains of 2.7%. looks like we're heading for the best week since july. the xetra dax is up by 0.2%. we are seeing tempering of the gains in france and the uk. the ftse 100 is close to the flat line. the cac 40 seeing a drop of one point. there is some caution ahead of that ecb meeting later today. that brings us to the euro/dollar, we are higher, 1.0793. want to tell you about the aussie deller, 0.7494. up by 0.2%. maybe a reaction to the chinese import and export data. when it comes to the yield picture, we saw yields in the u.s. dropping yesterday that meant the dollar was losing a bit of steam. we don't have the ten-year. no just the two-year. the rate sensitive yields here. and for germany still negative territory. down by a negative 0.66%. by in large we've seen some dropping of the yields in europe and in anticipation of the ecb. >> let's continue the conversation with regards to the ecb. it is expected to unveil an extension to its quantitative easing program. the majority of analysts polled anticipate an extension to the bond buying program at the current pace of 80 billion euros per month. anetta joins us from frankfurt. >> this meeting will be the meeting which will determine how monetary policy will look like in the next months. we should expect some substantial news flow from that meeting. an extension of the program. i think the question is the run rate. how much bonds they will purchase per month if they want to stick to 80 billion euros as the majority of economists are expecting, or whether they will reduce that amount. that could be seen as a first sign of tapering. though this is still a minority view. let's talk about the banking industry. the banking industry, at least they argue, is one of the biggest victims of the low interest rate or negative interest rate environment currently in place. the german banks are facing a low profitability right now. i'm joined by the managing director of bane and company in germany. thank you very much for joining us. good morning. we're talking about what the ecb policy means for the banking industry in germany, also the eurozone. what do you think? >> the low interest rate environment, i think we continue. i would expect exactly like you just said, an extension of the current program. for those low interest rates in combination with regulation and digitalization are the key challenges that we currently see a threat for all european banks. i must say the german banks are particularly hard hit. with significant effect on profitability. >> i think there was one ceo, i think it was the ceo of credit suisse who was saying that the european banks are not investable. would you say that as well? >> i would tend to disagree. because we see valuation levels that might be interesting. some banks trade at 0.3 of book value, or 0.4. but what was crystal clear is that the tough environment will remain. our recent report shows for german banks a profitability which is really low. so 2% after tax. given not enough cost base and the remaining environment, that will also continue to be on the low level. >> what do you think, will we see more cost cuts coming up for the banking industry in germany? will we see more job cuts as well? the industry is still too big? >> we definitely think so. we foresee a necessary cost reduction of up to 30% for the german banking sector, not from today to tomorrow, but over the next ten years. that will obviously also mean job reductions. >> do you think cost cuts will be the only mean to make the banking sector more profitable? or what is your advice to your clients? >> there's much more to be done. cost is a point, it needs to be tackled more radically than in the past. there is definitely a discussion on business models on the table. we think they need to be more focused. they need to be worked out more explicitly. and last but not least there's a fragmented market. you said they should be more focused. you are also saying the universal bank, as they call it, like a bank doing everything everywhere is not the future, right? >> not saying this. we think there is a place for a focused universal bank. but this universal bank needs to look at what segments to focus on and what steps of value change to focus on. there is also a question of partnering, outsourcing, those levers need to be tackled. >> let's compare the banks in germany or europe to the banks in the united states. the banks in the states seem to do better, though the interest rates are as low as they are in the eurozone. why is that? what have they done better? >> first, banks after the lehman crisis have been recapitalized much quicker than any other market. the large structural advantage is the huge domestic market that offers opportunities for scale and respective cost advantages. on top of that there's a dramatic difference on the earnings side. the american banks have much higher commission income than we see in comparison to german banks. german banks are at 73% of the income interest based. the u.s. competitors have some 60 60%. >> thank you very much. >> pleasure. >> so, another interesting ecb day. another day where probably german banks will step out afterwards, say this low interest rate environment is destroying our business model. and, of course, looking at the profitabilities as we were just talking about, they have a point here. back to you. >> thank you for now. of course we'll be checking in on you here later on because we have you all covered. the ecb rate decision is happening today from 13:30 cet. we'll get questions from that press conference. >> let's get another voice on this, charlie diebel joined us around the desk. from an economic point of view, the eurozone doesn't need more easing, more qe. we have an inflation of 0.6%, not close to 2%, but it is moving up. unemployment is in single digits and growth is improving, too. >> it's true. things are moving in the right direction, but the reality is if they were to withdraw or stop accommodation now, they don't really have confidence that they've really engrained this sort of steady but low inflationary environment. so, as far as they're concerned, they need to do more. their policy assumption is they'll only hit their target if they do do more. yeah, clearly the 2019 forecast that we get today are important. that's going to dictate to some extent how aggressive or not they choose to be. >> they still have to address the scarcity issue of the bonds they are buying. how will they do that? some people talk about watering down the deposit rate floor to 0.4%. what options do they have? >> that's one option. also this sort of self-imposed limit of how much one issue they can buy at 33%, they can easily increase that to 50%. it's very easy for them to change. the back up in yields has made their life easier in that more bonds are not trading through the deposit floor. >> do you think it is the most important ecb meeting in months? could they leave the door open? if need be we'll go through at least march of 017. >> i think they have to say something. they queued the market up that they'll say something. if they say we won't say anything until january or we'll wait and see that would put doubts in the markets mind. you would get an adverse reaction. the question is do they stick at 80 billion and six months, or try to signal, yeah, we are cognizant of the better data that's starting to come through. yes there are still risks, what we'll do is step back the pace slightly and go longer. step back to 60 billion but go for nine months. >> how much further do you think bonds can rally on this notion that we could be getting stimulus? >> the only stance is that bonds have not rallied for the past few months. >> just a bit of repositioning. >> the key flash point will be the periphery. if they continue with the 80 billion a month pace, probably a positive thing. the banking sector and the election uncertainty we have next year, but at the same time, if they do step back the pace, they're still buying 60 billion a month. it's a lot of bonds. if that happens, i don't think there will be much damage to the market. coming up, trump's latest picks who has made the cut to join the president-elect's cabinet. find out after the short break. and the holiday season is all about giving. that's what's happening here at sohn conference in london where investment manager also give their time and a top trading theme that they've been holding on for a number of months. all the proceeds will go towards the cure of pediatric cancer. stay here on "street signs." we'll tell you more after the break. >> walmart announced plans to invest $1.3 billion in mexico in a move that could put the u.s. retailer on collision course with donald trump. the three-year investment will expand local infrastructure and create 10,000 permanent jobs. mexico's president said it is a sign of confidence in latin america's second biggest economy. walmart specified the deal will not result in any jobs being moved from the u.s. >> becomes super cheap to make things in mexico. donald trump criticized chuck jones, president of the local chapter of united steel workers, saying no wonder companies flee country. this after the union official accused trump of lying about the number of jobs saved in blocking carrier mexico's move. responding to trump's tweet jones told cnbc late wednesday people got false hope that he saved 1,100 jobs when that's not the truth. he completely left out the truth it was only 800 jobs. >> president-elect trump named scott pruitt as his pick for the environmental protection agency. hallie jackson has more. >> reporter: with the transition clock ticking, more picks for the president-elect. including, as head of the epa, the man who's currently suing it over power plant emissions regulations. scott pruitt has been picked to lead that agency, with pushback from those who fear he will roll back president obama's climate chan change. transition sources say retired general john kelly will be tapped to head homeland security. he spent four decades in the marine corps. his son, who also served in the military, was killed in 2010 in afghanistan. to lead the small business administration, former wwe head linda mcmahon. >> you're right. he is scared. >> reporter: though trump's wrestle mania days are long behind him, mcmahon was an early supporter of his campaign. all of it adding to an administration filled with multibillionaries and millionaires. >> i know about isis than the generals do. believe me. >> reporter: now he's relying on them to fill key roles, three so far with more in the mix. president bush had four. president obama five. both men have been named "time" magazine's person of the year. and today, so was trump. four months after calling his candidacy a meltdown, then total meltdown, now calling him president of the divided states of america. on the today show, trump pressed on why he's now sharing he sold all his stocks this summer. >> i don't think it's pro appropriate for me to be owning stocks when i'm making feels for this country. that maybe will effect one company positively and the other negatively. >> in london the sohn conference is taking place it calls on some of the world's top investors to offer expertise to raise funds for research and treatment of pediatric cancer and other childhood diseases. karen, a lot of focus on research this week. >> indeed. you were at this event last year. it's a huge event. a lot of investors have been looking for a trading theme. many of the big investment managers have been saving their tips for this conference. the proceeds go to a good cause. joining me is evan sohn, co-founder of the sohn conference foundation. exciting you're back in london. this has been a great market rally. a lot of investors looking for an isolated idea that they can get their money behind and make something out of the trade for 2017. how key is it that many investors are saving their ideas for your conference today? >> incredible and inspirational. this whole conference story started through inspiration of colleagues of my brothers. it moved into london five years ago. this is our fifth year in london as people were inspired by what we do in new york. it's a combination of great speakers, financial leaders coming with their best idea. they have 15 minutes to present their best idea to a great audience. here we have a sold out crowd as well. >> just 15 minutes. even if they are -- >> 15-minute clock. there's actually a clock that counts down. you get 15 minutes, towards the end you get a red light. that's been the format that we've taken from new york. we have eight cities that we expanded to. we are in mumbai and sydney. across four continents. it's really exciting. >> how hard has it been to get people to come to the conference? you've had politics in the united states with donald trump being elected. the italian referendum creating uncertainty in europe. how difficult of an environment has it been to bring the conference together? >> people always watch the conference. i always get called the next day, hey, i saw the conference. i say i didn't see you there. i read dabout it on the twitter feeds, so people have been attending the conference without physically being there for years. people like to use it as an opportunity to come to the event, see and be a part of the experience. there's one thing to read about the idea online, and another to see the person, network with the colleagues and peers and incredibility speakers. that's a self-fulfilling pro prophecy along the way. >> since 1995 you have raised 60 million pounds. how much more are you intending to raise? what is the goal? >> it's been a great challenge over the last 21 years we've been doing it we've been expanding through inspiring other people to really set up a similar conference. we've been expanding the sohn brand from a conference series around the world. always looking for more exciting places to go. afternoon audience, finlt professionals, great speakers. and our ability to do great work. there really is that combination of coming together to learn financial ideas and do great work. >> let's talk about that great work. you mentioned your late brother, the inspiration behind donating a lot of the funds towards pediatric cancer. how successful has the money donated been? what sort of results have you had? >> fantastic question. in london we've done work with organizations, others in europe. we launched last year one of the first ever scientific -- with the new york academy of sciences, an international symposium on pediatric cancer. that was the first of its kind, we hosted that in new york. we are real exciteded that the 2018 conference that the new york academy of sciences will be held in london. our first expansion of that conference series will be in london as well. that's exciting. bringing together not just -- if we bring together in our financial conference the top minds in finance, the new york academy of science brings together the top minds in pediatric cancer. i attended last year's evend. it was an incredible event to watch these brilliant scientific minds come together and challenge each other to cure these terrible diseases. >> thank you very much for joining us this morning and to discuss the conference. best of luck for the day ahead. evan sohn joining us kosh. i will speak to bob bishop later today, he had earlier said that china will be growing on the back of commodities. so, we will be talking to him about his next calls, what exactly his focus of attention is on. it's ecb day, so we'll talk about those events as they transpire. let me toss it back to you. >> thank you very much. i like the 15-minute format. >> yeah. >> present your -- >> like speed dating. >> it is. european markets, slightly mixed at the moment ahead of the ecb decision. full coverage of that. we'll be right back in two hours or so? >> yeah. >> and actually we are at three-month highs for the european indices. a quick peek at u.s. futures. the s&p 500 seen off by two points. dow jones could shed six or so. the nasdaq seems slightly higher. we have you covered on the ecb rate decision today. tune in at 13:30 cet. that's it for today's show. good morning. charging ahead, the post election rally lifts stocks to new heights. all hitting record highs. today's test for the markets. traders await a crucial ecb meeting that will determine the fate of the central bank's bond buying stimulus plan. and trump takes on union bosses in his latest twitter attack. it's december 8, 2016, and "worldwide exchange" begins right now. ♪

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