Wordwide Exchange

Jeremy Grant, editor of the FT Trading Room, told CNBC, "I do have some sympathy for Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext they do compete globally and increasingly with exchanges around the world, the problem here is the conflict between anti-trust policy and industrial policy and the two often don't meet."

Richard Harris, chief executive of Port Shelter Investment, told CNBC, "although we had a little bit of stimulus with what the ECB did before Christmas it looks as if a lot of that hasn't gone into extra lending so I am not too surprised about the bank figures."

Bill Spiropoulos, CEO of CoreStates Capital Advisor, told CNBC, "I think you have to take a look back and say since October when markets bottomed when everyone was so fearful we have had a 22 to 23 percent move up and we had a great January, I think the momentum is the best we have seen since last April."

James Pethokoukis, editor of the enterprise blog at the American Enterprise Institute and Krystal Ball, democratic strategist and fmr candidate for congress in Virginia, joined CNBC to discuss the Florida primary.

John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo, told CNBC, " one of the questions of both Greece and Portugal is where is the growth that is going to generate the revenues to pay these bills? Growth is the number one issue as far as most Americans would percieve it."

Glen Wood, partner and head of sales at Ji Asia, told CNBC, "there are a lot of things happening in Japan that I think investors have to keep their eye on, in particular the reconstruction effors, there is a lot of money flowing into the region, the other thing is the political situation in Japan."

David Owen, chief european economist at Jefferies International, told CNBC, "I think the big picture for the euro zone is that from macro perspective it is now back in a recession and the IMF was warning that particularly Italy and Spain could be in a fairly deep recession in the first half of this year."

Alessandro Giansanti, Senior Rates Strategist at ING, told CNBC, "we have seen in the past months that peripheral spreads have showed substantial tightening especially in the front end of the curve, what is still a bit missing especially in Italy is that the long-term yields are still quite high."

Jim Rogers, CEO and chairman of Roger Holdings, told CNBC, "Finance is going to be a terrible place to be for the next ten or fifteen years, all these guys getting MBA's are making a terrible mistake because there is not going to be much money in finance. I am glad the guy in RBS didn't get his bonus because it seems to me he was just doing what he was paid to do."

Darren Sinden, senior sales trader at Silverwind Securities, told CNBC, "I can't honestly remember the last time Philips produced anything but bad news we can look back even to the time pre the credit crunch in 2008, Philips has been a perennial disappointment."

No country will exit the euro zone this year but a solution to the debt crisis remains elusive, Jim Rogers, CEO and Chairman at Rogers Holdings, told CNBC.

Wolfgang Schauble, German finance minister, Francois Baroin French finance minister, Luis de Guindos, Spanish economy minister and Olli Rehn, European monetary affairs commissioner, took part in a discussion on the future of the euro zone chaired by Maria Bartiromo