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tv   Bloomberg Daybreak Australia  Bloomberg  February 21, 2024 6:00pm-7:00pm EST

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haidi: welcome to daybreak australia. markets have just come online. paul: we are counting down to asia's major trading opens. nvidia predicts another massive sales gain as it sees ai reaching its tipping point. shares soar in extended trading. haidi: china bans major firms from selling equity holdings at the open and close of each trading day. paul: qantas's first half profit falls executives still racing to rebuild the carrier's reputation. haidi: europe crossing the bloomberg pretty southeast -- singapore-based lender coming in with expectations slightly better than expected -- we are also getting total income at 3.41 billion dollars more or
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less on par with expectations. they see double-digit feed growth in 2024, total income positive growth in the year as well. credit calls at the lower end of 30. when it comes to commentary around the outlook they are optimistic about the potential in the asean market. looks uncertain in the near term. the bonus will be about 6000 employees across the group. we have been expecting somewhat higher fourth-quarter profit to be reported by united overseas bank. some from cutter cards as well as the wealth operations. we are seeing that declined when it comes to lending margins. we had expectations when it comes to overall strong earnings for 2023. we've seen record fee income growth for the bank which had a
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takeover of citi's retail businesses and that will be contributing somewhat to margin and lending. we are getting a few more breakdowns of the numbers. fourth-quarter wealth management fees coming in at 151 million sing dollars. we will be hearing more on those numbers oh as well as the forecast and guidance a bit later at 11:45 hong kong time. paul: let's look at how we are doing it is part of the world. we just opened trade in australia. the staggered open means it is hard to get a read on things. a couple of earnings announcements we are keeping an eye on. we are waiting for fortescue metals to begin trading. and it has just begun trading. higher by one third of 1%. first-half net income 3.3 4 billion aussie dollars, up 41%. revenue was a miss.
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fortescue maintaining expected costs around production guidance as well. waiting on qantas to begin trading also. qantas out with first-half numbers. pretax profit was down 13%. fears have been easing as things have been getting back to normal after the pandemic. there was strong growth. fuel costs also up less than expected. there was not any interim dividend from qantas. the airline saying it is planning an additional buyback of up to 400 million. a couple stocks to keep an eye on. elsewhere let's take a look at nikkei futures. is today the day we break that 1989 record? it might be. chip stocks could have a big day off the bank of -- back of nvidia earnings. the yen still hovering around the 150 level.
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not a huge amount of movement in oil prices. seems to be searching for a catalyst. haidi: the catalyst in terms of broader market direction we are either watching the japan record high potentially increased or nvidia earnings. the latter has not disappointed. we are seeing about .5% higher when it comes to s&p futures for nasdaq futures poised for quite a pop. we saw a lag. perhaps now we can see u.s. equity investors trickling through asia breathing a sigh of relief when it comes to the continuation of the ai sales boon. nvidia surging after delivering an eye-popping sales forecast. adding some fresh momentum to this stock rally that has made it the world's most valuable chip maker. revenue coming in at about $24 billion. we had expectations of about 29 point $9 billion on average.
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sailing past wall street estimates. all of this is setting up for some buoyancy when it comes to ai-related stocks. taking a look at dow futures, little softer. also watching what happens when it comes to the treasury market given the latest fed minutes of the latest gathering show most officials are more cautious about the risk of cutting too soon as opposed to the risk of holding too high for too long. let's get back to the nvidia earnings. mandeep singh joins us now. what was most meaningful out of these numbers for you? mandeep: look, with nvidia you expect a beat and raise in the magnitude was probably slightly lower than the prior two quarters. but still phenomenal print and
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it comes to the data center business. a couple of interesting data points they gave. one around the china exposures. that have reduced from 20% to mid single digits. despite that we had a solid data center revenue growth and guide. interesting is the big question mark. they say they have a 40% exposure to inferencing. clearly there is a sigh of relief as well as expectations they can continue this momentum for a while. paul: and the cloud business has gone from basically nothing a couple years ago to a very important sector now. tell us about the performance there. mandeep: look, their largest customers are still high risk. about 50% of data sales from nvidia comes from hyper scalars
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buying chips. so far these companies, the likes of meta, microsoft, google, they are spending almost all of their incremental capex on nvidia chips. to the point that each of these customers make about 5% of nvidia's data center revenue. clearly there is concentration but there is no alternative to nvidia's chips in terms of training of large language models. so again, a continuation of the trend have seen the past two quarters. haidi: does china remain an interesting market? because we know they have had to scale down capabilities and some of their products to be able to get around some export rules. is that weighing on what could be even better outlook? mandeep: with china, everyone kind of expected the revenue contribution to go down. but what they got it to suggests that it will not go down below
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the mid single digit exposure. and that, again, is better than expected because everyone is expecting that revenue to go down in the near term. somehow they have worked through the regulations and restrictions imposed and have been able to configure their chips in a way where they still have a meaningful 5% exposure to the china market. the other thing to keep in mind is the supply side. the supply side seems to be easing and that is good news because there is more demand than supply for nvidia chips. so at least in the interim they can satisfy more customers who want their gp chips. haidi: senior technology analyst mandeep singh taking a look at nvidia. the big market story of the day. the other big driver, the latest fed minutes showing most officials remain more concerned about the risk of cutting rates to soon than keeping them high for too long.
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>> in fed policy, there's risk on both sides. you would not want to attach a zero probability if inflation moves up, which they don't expect, we don't expect. but they think they are done and they are probably done. haidi: let's get some implications when it comes to markets with our next guest. jahangir aka is the head of official institution for managing director at neuberger berman joining us from our singapore studio. it is this kind of push and pull we see in the dynamic in the markets. do you feel like investors have adequately repriced to a point that is sensible, expectations of fed easing, given that the signal we get from fed speakers is one of precaution? jahangir: good morning. thank you for having me.
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i don't think they do. i think the messaging changed around the summer of last year where it went from this belief that somehow this was going to be transitory inflation, two it was sticky inflation, and rates were going to stay up there for a little bit longer. so clients have been slow, you could argue, or they expected the rates to come off quicker. you saw bridging finance instruments be put in place. they planned for rates to state these levels for a short time and then ride through it. so strategies are having to adjust now now that they are believing rates will stay here for longer. so it has taken a little bit longer and had an effect on transmission. but that was because the messaging from central banks around the world was quite different up until about august last year. haidi: what is the biggest risk for you then? is it a central bank misstep at this late in the cycle or is it
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something else? obviously the geopolitical and domestic situation could be troubling too. jahangir: i think there are many factors that point to that. i think we have seen wage growth coming through. we have seen geopolitical issues that has started to drive it. we have seen risk to inflation particularly from europe from the issues around the red sea. there are a number of external factors that are going on that continue to drive inflation for a little bit longer. the messaging is getting a lot clearer. people are saying we are not going to respond. we want to see inflation down sustainably before you make a call. because i don't think they want to give shocks to the market. so the clients are a bit more cautious. which is probably better that way than it has been last year. paul: do you think to some degree the markets have been
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other the bit guilty of selective hearing and hearing what they want to hear? if we look back at some fed remarks, lake jay powell formally said we are likely near the peak. you could say it is possible we are not. could you look back at fed remarks and say there has kinda been a hawkish bias all along? jahangir: i think they probably wanted to keep the market a little optimistic as they tightened and raised rates. but then they realized that optimism was keeping too much liquidity flowing. and so a little bit of the messaging changed. so i would say there is a bit of both and markets continue to be optimistic right now until recently that somehow rates would come off really quickly. now people are starting to realize they would probably state longer. even then it was let's push
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another quarter and month rather than let's look at the structural data. it is interesting to watch. paul: if you are faced with a choice between fixed income or equities, does this make your choice of the bit easier? -- choice a little bit easier? jahangir: absolutely. equities themselves are fully priced across most markets. we are seeing that activity with a lot of our clients that where you see in environment where valuations are full on the indexes that people move away from passive towards active because you are going to get that idiosyncratic return stream. and then fixed income across the border. at the end of the day, for well over a decade we have been getting zero and now we are earning five. it is a great starting point. we are seeing a lot of flows
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from the fixed income market. seeing a lot of activity driving towards particularly towards the investment grade space which is an area we are very focused at. and we have seen good opportunity in european high-yield strategies where there is a nice pickup in quality and spreads as well. that is quite an attractive opportunity for many clients. haidi: i want to take you quickly through some asian markets you prefer a pretty japan and india. do you feel valuations look a little bit rich? where would you be positioning in those markets this year? jahangir: we have liked japan for a while. there has been an increased amount of momentum to japan over the last 12 months for obvious reasons. but we saw structural changes starting to come through into the market three to five years ago. we see those things continuing to play out. again, there is really good engagement, good opportunity.
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our japan equity team are working very closely with corporate spear we are seeing really good engagement so we like that and continue to support the japanese story. there are two stories in india. india's growth domestically is doing incredibly well but there is also a money flow story. if you are in emerging-market investor and you have an allocation to make you are getting more and more twitchy about china. you have to allocate that capital somewhere. so there is a relative value flow of money that needs to go somewhere from china within that e.m. banned and it flows towards india which of course is another large global opportunity. there is a combination of good domestic both story but on a relative money flow story as well towards india. haidi: obviously in the and japan have been the proxies for the alternatives to china throughout the course of last year. you talk about the three d's of
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debt, deflation, demographics for china. does that mean you avoid that market entirely? jahangir: i don't think you can void it entirely because it is too big to avoid. we are talking the second largest bond market in the world. this is a significant market. and it has global impacts across the different sectors. but it is in a difficult place at the moment. we have been following, as everyone has, the real estate challenges it has to get through. so i think we want to see how policy ends up addressing some of the concerns that are out there. but it is not a market that people are adding to at the moment in terms of their positions. so i think it remains to be seen in maybe investors around the world are cautiously watching it. not many have decided this is at the bottom and i'm going to start moving capital in china. it is not there yet. people need a lot more clarity
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before they start moving capital that quick. paul: jahangir aka, head of official institutions and managing director at neuberger berman. thank you so much for joining us. still to come, we look ahead to the bank of korea decision, and why bloomberg economics expects a hawkish old. first, china bands net selling in the first and last 30 minutes of the trading day. we will have the details on that scoop next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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paul: china is taking more forceful measures to boost confidence in his stock markets. sources say the csrc under direction of its new chairman has banned major institutional investors from selling holdings at the open and close of each trading day. for more on this let's bring in our chief north asia
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correspondent stephen engle. what is the aim here? stephen: the aim is to restore confidence and put discipline into the regulatory body of the csrc, the market regulator. and as you said, the new disciplinarian, the new sheriff in town was announced before the lunar new year holiday. came up with some strategies on how to crack down on what the csrc has repeatedly said was malicious activity in shortselling and the like. so what we have seen of course is the csi 300 pain for the past seven sessions including before and after the lunar new year holiday. the hang seng index in hong kong has been up five of six sessions. you dragged out the chart back to 2021 when the market was at a peak. you are still seeing the csi 300 down 40% from the february peak of 2021, and the hang seng index is down 47%, losing about half of its value over that time.
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again, there is a need according to the regulator to add not only confidence to the market, but discipline as well. and that is where he comes in because he is known as a disciplinarian and a hardliner enforcing the rules. what we are hearing from sources is in addition to all the other piecemeal steps that the regulator has taken, which has not done a lot to make a sustainable recovery. now we are seeing perhaps the most forceful move by the regulator. again, they are banning major institutional investors from reducing equity holdings at the open, within the 30 minutes after the opening and within 30 minutes of before the close of each trading dates. basically they said the order was recently delivered to major asset managers and the proprietary trading desks at brokerages. essentially, upends the popular strategies used by hedge funds and other institutional
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investors. let's keep in mind, this would probably make it easier for the state directed funds that we have seen the national team mobilize to boost stock sentiment. perhaps it would make it easier for those state funds to change sentimental at least cement sentiment at the end of the trading day. what we have seen throughout this week is this crackdown on quantitative trading. one sold a combined $357 million in shares within one minute monday after markets opened. regulators in the exchanges came in very quickly and were very forceful, essentially freezing accounts for three days there for quote, disrupting normal trading order. again, there is more forceful efforts right now to put a floor on the drop of the market. we have seen it to pop a little bit. and also restore confidence and discipline. haidi: more forceful efforts to
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try and boost confidence in the private sector, which we know play a big part in the broader economic slowdown after the clampdowns. stephen: private sector is absolutely critical in china. it creates about 60% of national gdp, 80% of urban jobs. and it has been absolutely obliterated. confidence has been obliterated through covid zero as business dried up, and also of course there were allegations that banks would give preferential treatment to state owned enterprises at the expense of sme's and confidence was absolutely battered. even before the jack ma incident in 2020 with a crack down on big tech platforms. online gaming, online education and the like. so the private sector is really where the confidence is waning. what we are hearing through a cctv state media report is that
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essentially they are drafting a new law. perhaps that will be discussed further at the national people's congress which begins in less than two weeks in beijing. basically they want to protect property rights of small to medium-sized enterprises in the private sector and guarantee the interest of entrepreneurs and manage missed payments for sme's. essentially state media saying the law aims to ensure that policy implementation is stable and consistent and motivate businesses to innovate, which is something that has not happened through these last three years or so. and state owned enterprises and private companies are treated equally. last thing i will say, back in july the government issued a 31 point land to boost the private sector. it has not really worked or has not been implemented in a way that would allow it to work. haidi: stephen engle there with the latest out of beijing. much more to come on daybreak australia. this is bloomberg. ♪
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paul: let's take a quick look at how we are trading on fx markets at the moment. dollar spot index going sideways right now. the yen still parked above the 150 level. we have heard from the fed in the minutes of the previous meeting, the higher for longer narrative really starting to bear down a little bit. we have also heard from fed speaker michelle bowman saying the time to cut is certainly not now. a little bit of pushback on this easing narrative. this is bloomberg. ♪ when i was your age, we never had anything like this. what? wifi? wifi that works all over the house, even the basement. the basement. so i can finally throw that party... and invite shannon barnes. dream do come true.
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xfinity gives you reliable wifi with wall-to-wall coverage on all your devices, even when everyone is online. maybe we'll even get married one day. i wonder what i will be doing? probably still living here with mom and dad. fast reliable speeds right where you need them. that's wall-to-wall wifi on the xfinity 10g network.
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haidi: take a look at qantas,
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trading up but off session highs. upside of about 2%. still, that is the first gain of five sessions. its first half profits declined as airfares pal in the immediate aftermath of the post-covid travel boom. caringly, -- you might not feel like airfares are cheap, but apparently a 10% fall. >> let's look at the results. there is good news and bad news for qantas. the good news is the drop just beat estimates but the bad news is it is a 13% drop in profits year on year. and the new ceo saying these are good, positive early signs, saying the airline has done a lot of work and listened to feedback from customers. today's results shine a light on the tight rope she is walking trying to restore the brand to what it was and keeping shareholders happy. they used to big profits.
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to that extent they announced a 400 million dollars share buyback this morning, announcing new initiatives like fright credits for employees and faster wi-fi there are still a lot of work to be done if they are going to get this brand back to where it was. paul: qantas also announced a new chair. what is the significance of this , particularly in terms of representation of the brand? karen: yesterday they announced an interesting choice, a industry veteran here in austria. he used to be the chairman of a leading telco. he has a huge task ahead of him it in terms of turning around the reputation that has been shredded. qantas was one of australia's most venerated brands much arrested for decades. in recent years they have had a lot of ups and downs. they have been sued, accused of price gouging, they have been shredded by customers who say they are taking advantage of a
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cost-of-living crisis. they have a lot of work ahead of them, especially with virgin thinking about a listing. they are going to have to turn this around and the pressure will fall on hudson. paul: karen leigh looking at the qantas earnings and some other developments we are tracking. boeing is ousting the had a bit 737 max program after a midair blowout on an alaskan airlines jet. he steps down immediately after almost 18 years with the firm. he will be replaced by katie ringold. boeing is creating a new push in with companywide oversight of quality measures. management changes are the first undertaken since the incident on january 5. new zealand is warning it may raise ticket prices to cover rising costs. the carrier reporting at 38% slump in interim earnings and forecasted even worst second half. the firm says inflationary pressures have driven up non-fuel operating costs over the past four years and new
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zealand is facing intense competition on international routes and engine maintenance issues. haidi: we will have more on new zealand's plans in a few hours when we are speaking as closely to its ceo. you can catch that at 2:00 p.m. in sydney or 11:00 a.m. in hong kong. paul: let's take a look at how nvidia is doing after hours right now. we have gotten used to the story. up nearly 8% in after-hours trading after another very impressive set of numbers. for more on this let's get to daniel newman, ceo at futurum group. some of those key takeaways, first-half net income. where are we for nvidia, $22 billion in revenue, more than triple what we saw a year ago. superlatives continue to abound. what were the key takeaways for you today? daniel: i don't know if there was a number that would be good enough for everyone. it was one of those situations
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where nvidia, there was so much expectations a separate i joked that this was nvidia day. it was the cpi number last year. now it is all about what does nvidia do. you saw there was pressure on the company. the only result that would be acceptable was not only a beat, but a substantial beat and guidance upbeat. people are beginning to wonder how many consecutive quarters can this company continue to run with triple digit revenue growth and high triple digit earnings growth. but it seems each quarter they continue to surprise. paul: yeah. you would think that in an industry this lucrative, surely competition has got to be on the way. how much longer do you think nvidia can keep ruling this space? daniel: in 2020, i said nvidia it would be the next trillion dollar company. in 2022, i called out about $140 a share that this would be a massive winner because of the ai
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tailwind. now it is starting to look a little too good and you are seeing the pressure. intel had its ifs day today. there's big dollars flowing in. making big commitments to do ai or different silicon chips with intel. and then of course even sam altman, who had this $5 trillion or $7 trillion number, has not necessarily pointed to nvidia and said this is the company. you have amd putting pressure on the company, a 4$ billion forecast. you have chips coming from aws of, microsoft, google, oracle, meta is building its own. but at the same time the lead is sticky. the company got out in front, 98% plus of the data gpu market. i think it can last longer but i think there is a consensus in the industry to put some
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competitive pressure back on nvidia. haidi: obviously the near term growth story remains unchanged and very buoyant. but listen to what we heard from jensen about the ability to give guidance from here. >> we guide one quarter at a time. but fundamentally the conditions are excellent for continued growth. calendar 2024 to calendar 202 5 and beyond. and let me tell you why. we're at the beginning of two industrywide transitions. haidi: you have already mentioned some of the challenges in terms of competition and in terms of customers in housing, some capability. and then there is china. it is a big geopolitical year. nvidia already has to stick -- has to scale down capabilities to get around some rules. does further tightening when it comes to u.s.-china regulations
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and restrictions in this field potentially threaten the long-term outlook for a company like nvidia? daniel: i think if you listen to what jensen was saying, how i would reflect on that is he was suggesting the overall tailwinds behind ai are so substantial. think about sam altman suggesting $7 trillion that it would require to meet the demand for chips. so china is always an important market. if you are looking at showing continued year-over-year growth i think what he is saying is you can count on nvidia being able to accomplish that. if china gets lost it is a mid double digits business for nvidia per it if china seeks out and is able to compete on its own that is a risk factor. but there is so much demand outside of china right now that you are probably looking at more than four quarters out before that china impact really starts to meaningfully deteriorate the conditions. you also saw the supply chain improvements talking about
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moving from 11 months on lead time to three to four months. if he is saying demand is staying steady, that is a really bullish signal. that is something i was worried about coming into it. overall there are a number of outside factors. competition, china. but the overall growth of ai seems to be outweighing all of it, opening the door for more competition. but i do think growth is going to slow. haidi: do you like intel more? daniel: i don't think more is the right answer but the current valuation, i like intel as a foundry. i think the west is looking for a dependable foundry partner. i think the validation that came today that microsoft is going to work posting with intel, nvidia is likely going to be doing packaging deals. intel has two sides. it has process technology, the advanced chips it designs and manufactures as intel, and that it has the foundry.
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i am really interested in the foundry business because we need more capacity in the west. we put too much risk on having everything manufactured at the leading edge in taiwan. haidi: the other thing you talk about is, i suppose, the nature of how investors process the lower of large numbers. you talked about four more quarters of this extraordinary level of growth for nvidia before the china equation comes in. how much longer do we see this exuberance when it comes to the market sentiment side of things? daniel: the market is heavily rotated on a few different names right now and you saw how sensitive people market got just going into this quarter. i think nvidia, mostly through its post-print earnings and this jump, is only getting back to where it was a few days ago. i think the whole market is almost dependent on nvidia.
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last quarter was the microsoft google day and then there was the amazon, meta day, amazon meta apple day. then all the suspense build up for today. basically i think there are a few more quarters of what i would call clear air. these competitors are going to enter the space and put pressure on margin. the cloud providers like aws and microsoft are going to want to lead with their chips when it makes sense and continue to try and build chips that are more and more optimize for their customer's needs because they can vertically integrate and increase margins. everyone really appreciates what jensen and nvidia are doing. they just also want optionality. it is just like when -- people worry. they wanted options. i think we are quickly heading in that direction here. haidi: daniel newman, ceo at futurum group. you can get more on those nvidia
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numbers, market reaction, all the big stories you need to know in today's edition of daybreakers terminal subscribers can get that at dayb and on the bloomberg anywhere app where you can customize your settings so you just get the news on the industries and assets that matter to you. this is bloomberg. ♪
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haidi: prime ministers from g20 countries are gathering in rio de janeiro. the meeting is the first time the world's top diplomats are meeting in person since he hamas attack on israel. it also comes after brazil's president da silva recently compared israel's actions in gaza to the genocide during world war ii. michael heath joins us now. this is proving to be a very divisive g20. we were talking yesterday about the idea that maybe they would not have this on the agenda at all. what are we hearing? we had a reaction from germany. michael: germany obviously spoke very strongly on it. ever since world war ii germany has made a point of always standing by israel's side. it's such an incendiary thing to say. however you look at what israel did, the holocaust -- i think the german prime minister said it right, it's a unique event. it's a-historical to try and
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lump that together. brazil hosting is surprising too, because it is a drop in the rock there. beyond that you have secretary of state blinken and the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov who will be in the same room. we're just coming up to two years since russia invaded ukraine. we have the death of alexei navalny. we are expecting further u.s. sanctions are going to be announced against russia tomorrow. the g20 was aimed to not only develop countries but important emerging economies, etc. paul: to your point, it was originally meant to have a focus on financial and economic cooperation. is there an opportunity to get back to the brief? michael: there is an argument for that.
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there are a lot of things going on. obviously the whole idea of the synchronicity we had with rate hikes and whether that starts to work the other way as well. there are a lot of economic issues going on in the world that they can discuss. the problem is this is so emotive and there is a great deal of attention for economic fallout from that. everyone is looking at geopolitics now. so to exclude it is to not deal with the elephant in the room as well. haidi: michael heath there. looking up some other political stories, the u.k. government is said to be considering restricting some arms exports to israel if it launches an offensive on the palestinian city of rafah or obstructs aid trucks from entering gaza. a vote on the conflict triggered chaos in the u.k. house of commons, with refusing to cast votes. it was triggered after a shift that was seen by some as favoring the labour party.
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>> i have tried to do what i thought was the right thing for all sides of this house. it is regrettable, and i apologize. the decision that did not end up in the place. haidi: ukraine is near an agreement with the international monetary fund to get the next $900 million disbursement from is $15.6 billion loan. kyiv is expected to seal the deal as soon as thursday. this would boost the nation's war chest against russia as its aid from the u.s. continues to be tied up in congress. media reports say clashes between farmers and police in india have left one protester dead. farmers resumed their march to new delhi wednesday after talks with the government failed to end an impasse over demands for guaranteed crop prices. they have been stopped by authorities at the border. paul: the bank of korea is expected to deliver its latest policy decision in the next
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hour. the central bank will probably stay in a hawkish holding pattern, keeping the base rate at 3.5%. bloomberg career economist joins us now from seoul. tell us why we are expecting that hawkish hold. >> two important factors. one is inflation. we have seen inflation cooling and in january it was faster than anticipated. but still higher than the 2% target. then there are some reasons for the b.o.k. to be concerned about by challenging the inflation five. i think that in south korea the risks of a wage price expectations is fairly limited. even though the last mile can be bumpier because of the
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supply-side factor. rising oil prices due to heightened geopolitical risks will be very important. and volatile prices due to weather conditions is also important. another important factor for the b.o.k. monetary policy is the fast monetary policy which is a key driver of global financial conditions. there is glowing risks that the timing of the fed rate cut and the pace will be delayed in the pace will be slower than anticipated. recently the possibility was raised that the next move of the fed would be a rate hike, not a rate cut. so these are two reasons important for the b.o.k.'s monetary policy to remain hawkish for now and move cautiously and wait and see the evolution of inflation and how
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the fed will do. haidi: there was a monetary policy change as well. there are said to be two more in the coming months. is this going to affect the direction of how policy is set? hyosung: i can't hear you. haidi: i am not sure if you can hear me, but do you think the changes on the board are going to impact the way that policy direction goes from here? all right. seems like we have lost hyosung kwon there. of course we will be bringing you the bank of korea decision as soon as a colossus -- as it crosses the bloomberg. in the meantime you can dive
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into any securities with the bloomberg functions we talk about. you can join in on the conversation by sending us instant messages during our shows. this is for bloomberg subscribers only at tv . this is bloomberg. ♪
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>> i think the world has got its
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supply chain much better in shape and calming that down has reduced inflation and has more enabled growth. so i think the world from that perspective is in a better place now having covid somewhat further away from now than a year ago. paul: that was the ceo of the world's biggest iron ore miner rio tinto, speaking to bloomberg about the state of global supply chains. let's take a look at how rio tinto is doing in the australian session. a little bit of weakness, off by 1.9%. rio did report after the close in australia yesterday, profits slipping 12%. still playing a decent dividend of $2.58 a share. australian listed shares following the london listed shares lower. fortescue metals is a pure play iron ore stock performing very nicely in the early going,
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better by almost 2.9%. first-half net income, $3.34 billion, a beat. revenue enderle missed but fortescue maintaining its expectation around costs of $18 to $19 per metric ton. an interim dividend of $1.08. contras, no dividend from the airline. profit was down 13% a year. that was a beat as well. shares doing reasonably well, better by 1.6%. qantas planning an additional buyback above 400 million. we heard qantas ogo -- also getting a new chair as it attempts to build back its reputation, which has taken a beating over the past couple years. later on thursday you can catch our interview with the fortescue ceo. he will be joining tom mackenzie in london to talk about the firm's latest earnings and the outlook as well. that will be happening today at
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5:30 p.m. sydney time. haidi: the other big story we are watching his continued reaction as we see asia waking up to very solid nvidia numbers. nvidia surging in late trading, delivering yet another eye-popping sales forecast. what we are seeing when it comes to positioning in u.s. futures, the nasdaq 100 seeing a pop of 1%. this is the fresh momentum that this cautious market was needing in the stock rally. we expect to see that play out when it comes to other asian markets coming online. watching treasuries as well. the other part of the u.s. market story is passing through those fomc meeting minutes. noting the risk of inflation process stalling and the fact most fed officials see the risk more of cutting rates to quickly rather than the risk of holding rates too high. we're seeing some soul searching
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and reigning in of the fed cut expectations. nvidia still up by about 1% as it as to a streak of expectations being not just met, but quite shattered. of course as our guests have been saying, potentially the law of diminishing returns and big numbers start to play in. of course chip stocks will be front and center as trade opens in korea and japan in about 4.5 minutes. some of those will be disk a, and sk hynix will be on the radar. we also have the bank of korea decision. that is usually out at some point towards the end of the next hour. no change expected as the inflation fight continues to be top of mind for the b.o.k. watching support for the won though if we have the b.o.k. sticking to the higher rates. this is bloomberg. ♪
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haidi: we are counting down to asia's major market opens. fresh momentum expected to be injected into the equity rally, particularly when it comes to some ai, chip, amtek sensitive markets. japan and korea among them. it is all down to, i should say, happy nvidia day. this is going to provide more momentum into this market rally. paul: it does start to feel a little bit like we should have some cupcakes, or maybe a public holiday so everyone can absorb the enormity of what we heard. predicting another impressive blowout number for the current quarter of 24 billion. the expect -- also potentially a bank of korea decision. haidi: exports have been strong when it comes to korea largely on account of chip exports. let's take a look at the open. paul: all right.

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