01/02/2017 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Sally Bundock

The war of words worsens between the US and European Union -

so what does this mean for trade between the world's two

Live from London, that's our top story on Wednesday,

In a growing rift between Brussels and Washington,

the head of the European Council says the new US administration

is "in the same category of threat as radical Islam".

We assess the fallout and what this means for businesses on both sides.

Seven is the magic number for Apple - the tech giant reverses its sales

slump thanks to its latest iPhone reporting its highest

And the markets in Europe navigate their way through the diplomatic

spat and assess the latest earnings news from some of the worlds

We'll talk you through the winners and the losers.

Now, is a five-day working week essential to make it to the top?

Later in the programme we'll be speaking to Bibi Hilton.

She's a high-flying advertising boss who's just been named on this year's

Computerised hedge funds have joined the ranks of the top performers

We want to know would you trust your cash with man or a machine?

Just put your cash in a tin under the bed! No, that's not my advice by

the way. That's just what some people are doing with it at the

moment! BP The US Army has been ordered

to allow the construction of the final section

of a controversial major oil It's a project supported

by President Trump and that perhaps reflects his support for fossil

fuels which is just one of a growing number of differences

with the European Union. A growing transatlantic

divide is emerging. The president of the European

Council says the new government in Washington is one of the biggest

threats facing Europe. In a letter to EU leaders

Donald Tusk told them to "use the change in the trade strategy

of the US to the EU's advantage" saying Washington's protectionist

outlook was a chance to look Meanwhile President Trump's top

trade adviser said Germany is using a "grossly undervalued"

euro to "exploit" the US The claims were rejected by

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. The United States remains the single

biggest economy in the world, it is worth more than

$18 trillion in 2015. The European Union's is second

and closing the gap. $16.3 trillion is the combined

worth of it's 28 members. There also appear to be divides

on immigration policy, energy, So can the world really afford

for these two economic Paul Ivan is an analyst

at the European Policy Centre Paul, are they going to fall out? It

is looking seriously politically for the moment. It was quite surprising

to see such a strong language, I saw the letter of President Tusk and it

is a sign that things are pretty bad if we got to this point. From a

trade point of view, I think we don't have yet the sort of decision

that would seriously affect the trade relations, but the messages

certainly don't look good at the moment. The American administration

does have a point, doesn't it? Germany has done very well by being

the strong unit surrounded by weak economies and making the most of the

weak euro, over the decades really? Well, we all know that actually

Germany doesn't really like the current policies of the ECB and has

opposed the policies for a while. The ECB is an independent body. It

is also I would say, this way of looking at the individual member

states and let's sacred sizing individual member states and not

looking at the whole union, at the whole eurozone is not really helpful

in terms of by lateral relations. What about the trade deals that

exist at the moment? TTIP which doesn't exist, but could exist.

That's dead in the water, isn't it? If that's dead in the water, what

are the chances of doing the deals elsewhere? Turning your back as it

were on the United States? Well, certainly as the United States

become more protectionist, the EU will be forced to making deals with

other parts of the world. How easy is that going to be? Well, the EU

would remain a very big economy. You just mentioned there are a lot of

other countries in the world and big economy in the world which are

interested in trading with the EU, to trade in better conditions and to

trade more. I think the US is certainly going to miss this as it's

pulling out even from treaties that it or treaties negotiated such as

the TTIP. Thank you very much indeed.

Now let's talk Apple. After three-quarters in a row

of falling revenues, High demand for the iPhone 7 boosted

the tech giant and it reported its highest

ever quarterly revenues. In the last three months of the year

the firm sold 78.3 million iPhones - Sales in China fell almost 12%

to just over $16 billion. China has proved to be a difficult

market with many homegrown rivals Dave Lee says that Apple

was given a boost by strong They had a good holiday season,

higher than expected actually and the move to remove the head phone

jack from the iPhone proved to be a safe one despite many people being

suspicious that was a good idea. That worked out well, but Apple are

now saying for the rest of the year, don't expect huge sales in

comparison because they think many people will be holding off for the

next iPhone which isn't due until September. So it was a downbeat

forecast for the rest of the year, but they will be pleased to reverse

as you say, to reverse that trend of losing growth there across last

year. So a good result for them today, but they are being quite

tentative about the future. That was Dave Lee there.

In India an important day. Our correspondent is in Delhi. It can

tell us how it has affected the economy. Yes, I mean the Finance

Minister here called it a disruptive reform. One which caused problems,

but long-term benefits in a Budget speech that many people are calling

largely populist, he a lot for rural areas, trying to fin jobs and

boosting farmers' incomes and insurance and a lot on the

agriculture sector, the State elections are coming up, but

corporate India who I was watching the Budget with were disappointed.

They expected tax to come down. Many here are fearing that while

countries around the world are reducing the corporate tax, inviting

more investors in, India has not shown signs of it and therefore,

they worry that investment from India could actually flee abroad.

OK, thank you very much. Let's look at markets across Asia.

Hong Kong open today. It has been closed for a long weekend to

celebrate the Chinese New Year. Mainland China, the markets are

closed for this week. We saw upside for Japan which is interesting given

the yen is strong versus the dollar. However, the dollar has stabilised

in terms of its recent slide. Let's look at Europe. All headed

upwards. As far as markets are concerned, globally, there is one

story there and that's what's going to happen in Washington later today

at the Federal Reserve. And Samira Hussain has

the details about what's ahead The Federal Reserve ends its two day

policy meeting on Wednesday and they are expected to leave interest rates

as is. After all, this is their as is. After all, this is their

first policy meeting since President Trump has taken office. The Fed is

likely waiting for greater clarity on the president's economic

policies. Social media giant Facebook will be reporting earnings

and for the past few quarters Facebook's mobile ad sales have been

soaring, boosting its overall growth, but back in November,

Facebook warned that ad growth may slow. Also reporting earnings on

Wednesday is Metlife, the largest life insurer in the US. Now, higher

investment income will boost profits for the company. In fact, in 2017,

Metleave and other life insurers are expected to see continued benefits

from rising interest rates and lower corporate taxes under president

Donald Trump's administration. Let's talk about the Federal

Reserve. The State's interest rates are going up and Europe's are

staying down. Well, that was its story and Janet Yelland is in the

middle of the political debate because some are wondering if the

new president will try and replace her, but she's there at the moment.

The message coming out of the United States is hawkish. They have raised

interest rates towards the end of last year and people are assuming

that trend will continue this year. We will see another maybe

three-quarter point increases in interest rates this year. The

interesting thing, that's not set into a US context. That really sets

the policy tone for the rest of the world. That doesn't mean to say that

other central banks are going to follow, but the door has been opened

and I think it's quite likely that the Bank of England for instance

towards the end of this year maybe contemplating the first increase for

a very, very long while and it's even possible that just with a

little bit of a time lag that the European Central Bank will be moving

in the same direction. Of course, we're all looking at the same sort

of things and that's rising inflationary pressure. We've got the

Bank of England meeting tomorrow. So we've got the Fed today, but also,

you know, while the Central Bankers are meeting with their teams and

making decisions on the cost of borrowing, all these companies are

reporting their earnings. What picture are we getting? I think

we're getting a reasonably positive picture out of companies and out of

the so-called macrosignals at the moment and people are obviously

worried for instance in the UK about the impact that Brexit will have,

but the real economy has done far better than you were being told on

your programme six months ago and the United States is picking up

momentum at the moment. That's clear. It's going to grow faster

this year than last year and even the European Union, it is an under

achiever, but growth in the European Union is going to be a little bit

faster in the coming year than it was last year. So a better

background for companies and their reporting season will be, I think,

quite reasonable. Richard, thank you very much.

I managed to do that whole interview without talking about Trump. Did we?

We didn't mention his name once! Is a five-day working week essential

to make it to the top? Later in the programme we'll be

speaking to Bibi Hilton. She's a high-fliyng advertising

boss who has just been named on this year's

Part Time Power list. You're with Business

Live from BBC News. It's all change at the top

of telecoms giant Talk Talk. Dido Harding is stepping down

after seven years in the job. She's being replaced

by Charles Dunstan who founded the business and will become

Executive chairman. Theo Leggett is in

the Business newsroom. Let's have analysis of what Dido has

achieved? Well, she has been in the post for seven years, Jamie. For a

lot of that time she was seen as a solid leader for the company. A safe

pair of hands, but there was one tremendous blot on her record which

I'm sure you can remember. That was in October 2015 when the company had

to admit that it had been the victim of a massive data breach. Initially

it thought four million customers might have had their information

stolen, but the figure was lower, it was about 160,000 customers. Some of

whom lost financial information as well. Now, the company has recovered

from that reasonably well. Its revenues have remained strong, but

that was a tremendous blow to customer confidence and it was also

a very big blow to the reputation of Dido Harding because it happened on

her watch and at the time executives at TalkTalk didn't know their

systems were vulnerable and didn't know that the information had gone

missing. So what do we know about the new team that's taking over in

May? Well, there is Tristia Harrison. And Sir Charles done ston

it was the founder of TalkTalk. He founded Carphone Warehouse and he

will come in as executive chairman so he will be a guiding pair of

hands for the business if you like and as a result of that, he's going

to be stepping down from a similar role at Dixon's Car Phone. Investors

at TalkTalk seem to be welcoming it. TalkTalk's shares were sharply up

this morning. Thanks a lot, Theo. Dido Harding was a guest on Business

Live not long ago. Cross-country commuters to save

hundreds of pounds. This is dear to my heart, the hours I spend online

trying to bring down the price of a trip of a cross-country trip when

you're trying to do singles and returns, they're going to bundle

them together and reduce the price which looks like it's a good idea.

Well, it's a good idea for me! Our top story: The new US

administration poses the same category of threat

to the European Union That's the startling claim

made by the President Meanwhile, Donald Trump is pushing

ahead with his plans to build a controversial new oil pipeline

in North Dakota. The US President has previously

voiced his support for the country's fossil fuel industry amid criticism

from international There is a lot going on when it

comes to Mr Trump. Let's move on. Working part time is something that

has traditionally been First, the part-time world

is expanding fast and, second, it's reaching the upper levels

of management in some Not surprisingly it's

been driven by women, many of them returning to work

after having had children. So, across the European Union,

in 2015 only 9% of working-aged That compares with almost

a third of all women. In the United States,

more people generally work Including almost 36%

of working age men. And the equivalent figure

for women is just over 64%. Our next guest knows a thing or two

about the benefits and challenges She's Bibi Hilton, Managing Director

of media agency Golin. She's on this year's Power Part Time

list that celebrates the UK's most Welcome. Thank you. You start. Tell

us your story. You either managing director of a very successful

advertising agency based in London. You did not start out part-time, but

you are now part-time. Explain how you got to hear and wide. I was

promoted to the managing director wrote about two years ago on

maternity leave. When I returned I wanted to make sure I kept that

balance in my new role as a mother and my new role as an MD and I moved

to working four day weeks, so I do not work on Friday. You got to that

level working full-time. Could you get further working full-time? You

get off the promotion ladder and you stay there because you are not in

the group for promotion. In our business that is something we are

trying to change. It comes down to job design. We are working hard to

make sure that flexibility is part of the roles that we create. Two

thirds of our leadership team, some of which are men, all work flexibly

as well. In a company like yours, small and nimble, your staff is very

important. You want to retain really good staff because they are the ones

who bring in the client and revenue. I can understand why as a company

that would be important. Is it a cultural thing you are generating

that is not seen elsewhere? That is the problem. We are people centric

business. Is important. The flexibility and the desire of people

to work more flexibly is a growing trend. Businesses in any sector will

need to make those cultural changes to adapt. I do not think it will go

away. Is it a luxury or is it good for business? That has been

criticism in the past, that it is apparent. But we have put this at

the heart of our culture and we have seen benefits. We have seen

retention go up. Keeping the staff there. We have seen more people

actively coming to want to work for us, and it has helped keep our

recruitment costs down. If you are the only people doing it, you stay

in that job because you realise you cannot go anywhere else to get that

perk, if it is a perk. It is not a perk, it is a different way of

working and it is reflective of the changing nature of the workplace.

What we have tried to do is change our culture and change the way we

structure our teams, the way we manage resources to counteract that.

I work part-time, you work part-time, so we are all part here,

but you do not work on the days you are not at work and that is very

important. How do you do that as the managing director of a big company

based in London with a lot of staff? Are you not tempted to get on your

phone on a Friday and have the odd conference call. You have to be

really disciplined and I work hard to be disciplined. I want to have

that day with my daughter, it is important for me. Because 10% of my

team work flexibly I want to set a good example and I want them to know

that when they do not work they are not expected to reply to e-mail. We

work hard to respect that time off. Shall we move on? You start this

time. Saudi Arabia's Oil minister has told

the BBC that supply and demand could balance out as early

as July this year. He said it would happen

because of the historic agremment that members of the OPEC oil

producers cartel stuck with non-members at

the end of last year. That deal was aimed

at increasing the price of oil. Khalid al-Falih was speaking

to our Chief International Saudi Arabia has always produced in

these parts to market demand. In the last two years our marketing

strategy is to sell to long-term customers who request shipments for

the next month to be scheduled. So, come July our assumption markets

will be balanced. The agreement at that time is to seize the ceilings

that will be lifted and Saudi Arabia will be responsive rather than

What other business stories has the media been

Richard Jeffrey, chief economist at the investment firm

Cazenove Capital Management is joining us again to discuss.

Man and machine. It is about the computer is taking over the world.

This is the list of the top 20. Are you surprised to hear this? There

are certain markets which favoured different styles of investment. Over

the last year it has been quite difficult to be active because the

market has done quite unpredictable things. It reacted very

unpredictably in the way people did not expect after the Brexit vote. It

reacted after the presidential election and that makes it difficult

for managers. The computer driven software which runs some of these

funds, so-called algorithms, were slightly more successful. You could

just follow the FTSE? You would not need an algorithm? They have always

outperformed? The markets tend to underperform the indices because of

costs. Algorithms give you a steady performance, but there are certain

market environment in which they will underachieve and they will

underachieve the best fund managers who have an active view and to

anticipate future movements rather than the second to second movements

they are thinking about a few months ahead. We asked you at the beginning

of the programme do you trust a man or a machine with your money in the

light of that story. Rees is saying market machines have an upper hand

in stable arenas. You are saying in the markets we have had in the last

few months perhaps the machine had the upper hand. I think it did. It

is because markets were so unpredictable because their

behaviour was difficult to anticipate. Ian says robots are not

likely to come back from the pub drunk in the afternoon. Another one,

the machine is the man's slave and my money goes to the man definitely.

Personally I feel the same way because I want to know that somebody

is thinking about the investment decisions on my behalf. It is

generally men who caused most of the financial collapses over the last

four handed years, isn't it? Not machines. There is always a good

woman behind a man! There's talk about card, will bear robots soon be

picking your shopping? Possibly in the future replacing thousands of

staff who currently pick the fruit and veg and pack it away and then it

goes on to the delivery van. You have said it is a threat to jobs. I

am told that when the wheel was invented that the climate then was

that would be a massive effect two jobs because, we have been carrying

things and now we do not have to. I do not think it will affect jobs. I

think some of the more menial activities will disappear, but there

will be more value added jobs. Let's hope you are right. That is all we

have got time for today. Had you for your company.

I am back tomorrow. And so am I. See you then.

A windy end to the week, potentially stormy on Friday because of deep

areas of low pressure moving in of the