secretary steve mnuchin arrives for another round of talks in italy. i understand there s an ambitious tax reform program in the united states, we re watching closely on what is good for the united states and what would be learned by other countries about tax reform. donald trump calls fired fbi director james comey a grandstanding showboat as he tells nbc exclusively his rational for sacking him earlier this week. you said i accepted their recommendations. you had already made the decision. i was going to fire regardless. good morning, everyone. it s friday. glad you re with us once again. we have another packed show for you. let s kick things off with our top story. vivendi announced plans to buy a 60% stake in advertising group halves have ff s ha havas for 2.4 billion euros. the step marks another milestone in vivendi chairman vincent bollore s plans to build another media powerhouse. shares of vivendi are up 5.71%. karen has been following the story all morning
days, brexit, and global banking. this is bloomberg surveillance . i m francine lacqua in paris. mark barton is in london. i m here at the j.p. morgan global markets conference and we have some great guests lineup. where going to speak to alain minc. we also have jean-claude trichet , former president of the ecb, and we also speak to the publicis ceo. we are the focus on france. i know there s a lot going on in the markets. tell us about it, mark. mark: counting down to the culmination of that meeting. stocks are falling for the second day in europe. i ve looked at the last 10 days. they are down for seven days in 10. europe s benchmark 0.2% lower. the euro is up against the dollar. earlier it was falling. ahead rebounded slightly of that ecb meeting. i think the data point to watch today is the u.s. 10-year yield. 2.58%. the yield rising for the ninth day. that is the longest stretch since 2012. we re hovering around 2.58%, highest level since december. gross, 2.6% is the
welcome to countdown. back to our top story. eu leaders have given the european commission a week to draft a new round of sanctions against russia as the conflict deteriorates. worried the situation could get worse. i think we are close to the point of no return. the point of no return is full-scale war. let s get more of this. ryan chilcote has been reporting on russia for 20 years. that s a long time. it is. are getting really busy. we heard the ukrainian president. we also heard from the russian president yesterday in what i think was a very meaningful sayingew he gave affectively there should be talks for state had four eastern ukraine. you pointed out earlier a spokesman said this is not the russian president saying eastern ukraine should be independent. it will certainly unnerve kiev, and it certainly has a lot of people concerned putin s aim is to create a land bridge from russia proper to crimea to another state. it is putting pressure on kiev. exactly,
today. we had some substantial moves in fx. janet yellen, she has moved markets. it is still a big focus for equity markets as well. let s get a first look. futures shrugging off those geopolitical concerns. they are isolated on russia at the moment. the ftse 100 up about 0.1%. the dax pretty much dead flat. boring on the equity benchmarks in europe. china confirms what we already knew. a slowdown in china. the currency having its worst week in 20 years. that is what everybody is talking about. euro/dollar, 1.3768. look at this. euro is having its worst week since january. down 1% against the dollar. nothing to do with the ecb. they may well be very thankful for janet yellen s words. was it a slip? did she mean to say that a considerable amount of time means six months after qe ends? four fed speakers look out for every single word they say. that is their opportunity to backtrack from janet yellen s words. that is your number one focus today. thank you so much, jonathan f
europe very good evening to our viewers in asia and good morning to those just waking up in the united states. i m guy johnson. and i m francine lacqua. coming up, how do you revitalize a century-old brand? francine has gone inside fendi. we have another exclusive interview for viewers in europe. the american ambassador to the u.k. joins us to talk about the crisis in the ukraine. russia says it is are paring retaliatory sanctions against the west after the eu and united states rod and their list of targets. we have all the angles covered on this story. jonathan ferro is on the market reaction. ryan, let s kick it off with you. russian lawmakers are in the final stages of pushing ahead with annexing crimea. that is exactly right. i ve been looking at some of the sanctions which target individuals. going through some of the personalities affected by the e eu and u.s. list. starting with the billionaire brothers are tidy arkady. his companies alone were worth abou