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RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: And we are 60 minutes from the close of play on Wall Street, down just seven points on the Dow. But you could see, it's been a choppy sort of day. Bearing in mind, the bond market is closed. I'll go into that later. It gives you an idea why it might have been quieter than otherwise. But the market is slightly down. Those are the markets and these are the reasons why. The Queen's Speech kicks off a crucial week for Brexit. Leaders in Brussels are still saying a deal is possible. Steve Mnuchin says the hard part is still to come with the U.S.-China trade agreement. I guess the hard part is actually what is the agreement? And payment declined. Libra is losing corporate backers by the hour. Tonight. I'm live London on Monday, it is October the 14th. I'm Richard Quest, and of course, I mean business. Good evening to you. Yes, the bell was a little bit wonky this evening. They you are. Let's put it back into some good voice. Tonight a new session of Parliament begins in Britain and the challenge for the Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains the same. Now time is almost out. A decisive week began with Queen Elizabeth ceremonially opening Parliament. Her speech, which of course is written by the government outlined the government's agenda and made it clear that top priority is leaving the European Union and the deadline remains October the 31st.</s>ELIZABETH II, QUEEN OF UNITED KINGDOM: My government's priority has always been to secure the United Kingdom's limbs departure from the European Union on the 31st of October. My government intends to work towards a new partnership with the European Union based on free trade and friendly cooperation.</s>QUEST: Now it is Ministers continuing to say they can agree a deal with the E.U., the Prime Minister has reiterated his pledge to get Brexit done.</s>BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Mr. Speaker, I concur entirely with my, Honorable friend. If there could be one thing more divisive, more toxic than the first referendum, it will be a second referendum. Let's get Brexit done.</s>QUEST: How and when the U.K. leaves could well be decided by the weekend. And this is why I look at the map, I look at the diary, I should say of the week ahead. On Tuesday, we could get their first official response from the E.U. officials to Britain's latest Brexit proposals as the General Affairs Council meets. Negotiations in Brussels will continue. On Thursday, that two-day Summit begins where European leaders get the chance to approve or reject Britain's plans and if they reject it, what happens next? Following that the spotlight is back at Westminster for a Saturday session of Parliament. That's the first as the Falkland Islands War Invasion of 1982. If there's no Brexit deal or no deal gets parliamentary approval, a law, the Benn Act requires Boris Johnson to ask for a delay, for an extension, for it to be put off until next January. Leaders in Brussels are showing some optimism at a meeting of Foreign Ministers, Ireland's Simon Coveney said the Irish border issue could be solved although he admitted, an agreement is certainly not in the bag.</s>SIMON COVENEY, IRISH FOREIGN MINISTER: The message I would give is that we need to be cautious. This is not an easy job. We spent three years trying to get an agreement between the two sides that have made progress the different times, but certainly the last number of months have been difficult. So I think, you know, as my Taoiseach has said, a deal is possible, and it's possible this month, maybe even possible this week. But we're not there yet.</s>QUEST: Now, David Herszenhorn, Chief Brussels Correspondent for POLITICO, he joins me now in Brussels. So what's your feeling? Deal? No deal? How close are they?</s>DAVID HERSZENHORN, CHIEF BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Oh, well, Richard, I think you'll like this. These negotiators, they mean business, they really mean business. They're working very hard to cut a deal before this European Council Leaders' Summit. It's unclear they'll get there, as you heard Simon Coveney, the Foreign Minister of Ireland say, but they're leaving open the possibility that they just might be able to pull a last trick.</s>QUEST: I mean, it all works on the basis of how likely is there that there's something that the rest of us haven't thought of or come up with. All you really end up with is some very complicated machinations from the British.</s>HERSZENHORN: Well, there's no question, E.U. negotiators have long told us that they looked at every border on Earth trying to figure out is there a way to more effectively manage the Ireland Northern Ireland border after Brexit. Now we know they're zeroing in on two issues, keep these C's in mind: Consent - how to give people in Northern Ireland some say over what will happen. And the last piece being Customs. And this is crucial for the E.U., where they're insisting that the E.U. single market has to be protected. And that probably means Northern Ireland staying in a similar customs regime with the E.U. in the event that no free trade deal is reached. This is the crux of it.</s>QUEST: Okay, so the ability to cobble to the third C - cobble. The ability to cobble together something from this. I mean essentially, it's just going to get you into the transitional period. So it's got to pass the E.U. It's got to pass the Northern Ireland DUP. It's got to pass the Irish and it's got to pass the British. I'm making it sound very easily. But if they don't, then at the Summit in Brussels, where you are, what will happen?</s>HERSZENHORN: Well, if they don't have a deal at that point, and it may be that they're close to a deal, but they still need a delay, because this is technically a very difficult thing to do. But by law in the U.K., Boris Johnson is required, if he doesn't have a deal by the time of this Summit to come forward and ask for an extension. Now that can be complicated for many reasons, not the least of which he promised Brexit, October 31st, do or die. And inevitably, if it hasn't happened on November 1st, some of his opponents will say, hey, man, you're still alive. What happened? You must have lied to us.</s>QUEST: All right. But going back to after the Summit. Let's say they don't get a deal. Is it likely that they just all go home on Friday, having no deal and waiting to see what happens under the Benn Act on Saturday? Or is it likely they will come up with -- you know, actually at the Summit offer the Prime Minister some form of technical extension, dressing it up, however nakedly with a fig leaf, that there is something worth talking about.</s>HERSZENHORN: Well, Richard, at POLITICO, what we are hearing and we're of course talking to people about this not just in Brussels but also in Paris and Berlin and other key European capitals is that there will be serious pressure, especially from the French President Emmanuel Macron to show that there is a real reason for a delay if another extension is granted -- something substantive. That to his mind means either a British National Election or a second referendum. You heard Boris Johnson already saying that that would be disastrous. He doesn't like the idea of a second referendum. He may have no choice but to go into a National Election. Certainly, there are some folks in the E.U. who see them as having nothing to lose from another election taking place. Perhaps a government that's more friendly comes into power. In any event, I don't think there's any way for us to know where they'll be at the end of that Summit. If there's no deal. They will be waiting to see does Boris Johnson come forward with an extension? How long of an extension will he request? If it's under the Benn Act, it is put forward January 30th as a date. The E.U. absolutely does not have to agree with that date. They could push it out further, even as far as the end of the envisioned transition period. That's December 31st of 2020. We really just don't know, and of course, there will be some back and forth. How long should an extension be? Back six months ago, it was Macron pushing for a short extension saying there had to be pressure on. He was almost alone in that. He succeeded and we see how they're up against this crunch again, almost at Halloween.</s>QUEST: My bet with you is though, whatever does happen, it is going to be a very late night and you and I will be drinking coffee in that dreadful room until the small hours of the morning. If not, having -- I'll buy you breakfast. If we're still going by then, I'll buy you breakfast.</s>HERSZENHORN: Then, I need to see you.</s>QUEST: Good to see you. Thank you. To the markets, U.S. market is a flat day. The Dow has more or less unchanged. There's all sorts of reasons why. I can give you 1,001 reason today, not the least of which is the bond market is closed. So it's a quiet-ish day. But I think if you look at trade, investors as a doubting last week's announcement that a limited trade deal has been done. Reports that China wants more talks before it will sign off. The President says without offering any evidence that China has already begun buying more agriculture, as it has agreed to do so. China hasn't confirmed that. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said if China doesn't sign the deal, Washington could still increase tariffs as planned in December. The way he puts it, the two sides have reached an agreement. It's merely just a question of dotting I's crossing T's and putting it to bed.</s>STEVE MNUCHIN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: There is a phase one deal. We have an agreement in principle, this is like when you buy a building, you've reached an agreement to buy a building and now you've got to negotiate the contract. There's execution work to be done on the document, but this document is substantially done. We've made a lot of progress and our expectation is this will be concluded and signed by Chile.</s>QUEST: Now, in China the one word not being used is deal. The editor of the state-run newspaper says there is strong will, now what does that mean? Is there any difference? Well, the trade discussions in the state media are confining themselves to progress and results. And there's like Carla Hills who are used to looking at this sort of stuff say that that is significant that the word deal is not being used.</s>QUEST: William Smead is the CEO of Smead Capital. He joins me now. Good to see you, sir. And thank you for joining. The market -- the market doesn't know whether it expects a deal or not. It really doesn't.</s>WILLIAM SMEAD, CEO, SMEAD CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: No, that's right. But, you know, a lot of people think that the market is there to tell you something, or we're supposed to read tea leaves provided by the market. In the United States stock market, the most important facts are that the last 10 years, economic growth was relatively anemic, especially coming off a deep recession and the evidence is not there yet that the underlying economy led by the aging of the largest demographic group, millennials will take over from the technology wizards who have provided all the excitement in the stock market the last 10 years.</s>QUEST: But you are of the view that this demographic shift slow as it will be because it happens just bit by bit by bit by bit, will eventually create a fundamental difference in spending patterns that will change the landscape.</s>SMEAD: Well, there's millions of people turning 30 every year, it's not bit by bit. It's a huge group of people that congregated in the coastal cities when they were single for high paying jobs. And now they're getting married and having children and what everyone doesn't realize is whether it was the E.U. or whether it was the Fed in the United States, we just created a huge amount of liquidity, massive trillions of dollars of liquidity, but the velocity of money declined on a steep slope. So in other words, the money wasn't being used. It's like a game of Monopoly. It's the bank that has got loads of money in it, but if you never use it, it doesn't do anything. So therefore, when these 90 million millennials, the largest adult population group buy houses and vans and live their life, the demand for money will cause the multiplier effect as we learned in macroeconomics to explode. And we are very possibly in that transition right now. You're starting to see it in home sales, you're starting to see it -- it's almost like these -- this last leg of lower interest rates kind of kicked things into gear.</s>QUEST: So this -- the next moves that will be -- that will take place. Most people seem to think we might get one more notch down on interest rates, but there are those who sort of believe of course, that there's no need to because, you know, banks aren't lending the money they've already got even though bank reserves are down.</s>SMEAD: Yes, well, the banks are way over capitalized. So that's from the CCAR, right? The restrictions the Fed put on them. So what's going to happen is whatever profit they make in a year is not needed by the bank. So it's going to go to two places, buying back stock and raising dividends. And historically, the large money center banks paid 50 percent of their profits out in dividends. And for example, Bank of America is way below that, so that just means dividend growth at high levels for as far as the eyes can see. And I can tell you, I went to a play last night in London and greedy bankers are still being vilified in entertainment and in pulpits around the world.</s>QUEST: You feel at home here, don't you? It's raining. You're from Seattle.</s>SMEAD: I do feel at home.</s>QUEST: We've got plenty of rain for you.</s>SMEAD: Yes, plenty of it.</s>QUEST: They'll be plenty more when you get home. Now, good to see you, sir.</s>SMEAD: Thank you for having us.</s>QUEST: Thank you very much.</s>SMEAD: Yes.</s>QUEST: As we continue tonight, Donald Trump tries to confront the growing crisis on the Turkey-Syria border. The U.S. Congress is forging ahead with a sanctions bill. Reactions to Turkey's offensive from Washington to the Middle East in just a moment.