[David Haffenreffer, Cnn Anchor:] At this hour, the European stock markets are looking somewhat mixed, but for the most part moving sideways on this Friday morning.
[Deborah Marchini, Cnn Anchor:] Philip Coggan is markets editor of the "Financial Times" and joins us now from the "FT"'s London newsroom with a read on what exactly is going on.
[Philip Coggan, Markets Editor, "financial Times":] We're getting a bit confused by you guys, Wednesday you were down a lot, Thursday you were up a lot, you know, just let us know what's going on and then we can decide which way to move ourselves. We got a bit of a rise in the CAC in Paris, a bit of a rise in the FTSE in London, and the Dax in Frankfurt is down a little, but nothing substantial. I'm sure they're all still waiting for the latest U.S. economic data to see how Wall Street opens this afternoon, and of course, for the big Federal Reserve decision on Tuesday. Now, on the currencies, the euro is sorry, yes?
[Marchini:] That's OK, that was my next question, it looks as though the currencies have stabilized a bit, the pound is back over $1.51, and the euro is holding above 90 cents.
[Coggan:] Yes, that's right, I think there was a sudden big fall in the pound after the Bank of England indicated the interest rates weren't likely to rise, but it's a bit of a catch-22 because the reason the bank said interest rates wouldn't have to rise was because the pound was too strong. So if the pound falls enough, then they'll have to put interest rates up again. So there's a bit a floor under the pound, probably, it can't fall too far.
[Haffenreffer:] I understand there's a lot of corporate news out on this Friday as well?
[Coggan:] Yes. The British are coming, the British are coming. WPP, which was originally a company that made supermarket trollies, it's on the shopping trail again, it's going to buy Young & Rubicam, they've been talking on and off for a while, and they seem to be agreeing to a deal at $53 a share. The other big deal is the Terra Networks, which is Europe's second-biggest Internet service provider, and it's big in Latin America, Mexico and Brazil, that's in talks with Lycos, and that, of course, would create a huge company. At the moment, it is just alliance talks, but the Spanish newspaper that had the story said it could lead to a merger, so you might see some action in Lycos shares when Wall Street opens. And the other corporate development that we are waiting for a lot in the U.K. here is, of course, Ford is going to make a full announcement about its Dagenham plant in the U.K., a lot of concern about job losses, but it sounds as if Ford is going to sort of sweeten the pill a little bit by stepping up the production of diesels at Dagenham and that will create some new jobs to offset the big job losses there.
[Marchini:] All right, Philip Coggan of the "Financial Times," great to have you with us this morning. Thanks for the update.