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haidi: welcome to "daybreak: australia." i am haidi stroud-watts in sydney where markets have just come online. annabelle: i am annabelle droulers in hong kong and we are counting down to asia's major trading opens. the top stories this hour, asia is set for a week open ahead of key u.s. inflation numbers. fed officials empathizing data will drive the pace of interest rate cuts. haidi: earnings in focus in late u.s. trade, paramount still swollen even as streaming subscribers beat the street. snowflake melting down after its forecast missed estimates. annabelle: plus, bitcoin tik-tokking $60,000, as etf- driven demand triggers a bull run. haidi: all right, let's get you to the start of trading this thursday session as we get that staggered just creeping online when it comes to sydney stocks.

seeing a bit of a flat start to trading. looking at the bit of a retreat bringing set up in the asian equity session. both treasuries and the dollar strengthening ahead of the key inflation metric expert on thursday, one of the biggest data points to what in terms of how much this will continue to impact repricing around fed expectations and when the ez will ultimately come. in australia we are watching the commentary from australian treasurer jim chalmers. he is not ruling out that the economy eventually shrunk last quarter. he said fourth quarter gdp numbers were likely quite weak. economists expecting about 0.2% of a rise in the data do out on wednesday. but there are concerns the australia economy weekend significantly --weakened significantly in the final months of 2023. that plays into the expectations

of rba rate increases. remember, the inflation reading we had yesterday, the cpi reading was softer the next rotation. the aussie dollar is trading sideways, 64.9 six cents, despite the strand we see in the u.s. dollar. when it comes to japan, this is the picture as we look at the start of trading in tokyo. we have about 0.1 percent higher. pretty flat at the moment as we get into the start of trading in the jgb market. we are watching for that auction of 2-year government bonds in the auctioneer. the dollar-yen, we are expecting more verbal jawboning from policymakers there. kiwi stocks a bit on the back foot after that rbnz decision yesterday. annabelle: and as you said, it is this waiting game we have for the key u.s. inflation print

coming up in about 24 hours. here is the picture for u.s. futures as they come online. a bit of weakness creeping in, similar to what we had in the intraday session. traders are reading that key u.s. inflation print. ahead of that we had the revision downward to u.s. gdp at the end of last year, but that data is kind of seen as pretty much uneventful by a lot of investors in the market. still, this core pce reading could highlight the very bumpy path that the fed faces to achieving its 2% target. what else are we tracking the session? you can see bitcoin, we have been tracking it over the course of this week, past the $60,000 mark. earlier it touched $64,000 in the u.s. session. it is that supply-demand dynamic. . more demand, investors parlayed into the spot bitcoin etf's.

so that is the trading set up in this session today. but it is really that focus on the fed that we are also tracking this session. what we have been hearing them fed officials. haidi: inflation and fedspeak. as you said, officials had been out in force repeating that the pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming economic data, suggesting the path to lower borrowing costs will look different to previous easing cycles. >> back in december my colleagues and i put out projections or forecast, and the median was for three rate cuts year in 2024. we are data-dependent. we are going to watch the data. a sign of success to me is with inflation coming down and the economy so strong, we are thinking about doing that, i would say, later this year. >> carefully assess the evolving data and outlook.

i do want to see more evidence of that sustained trajectory, and consistent with projections from fomc participants, i do believe it will be appropriate to begin easing policy later this year. and when that happens, a methodical forward-looking approach to gradually reducing rates, should provide the necessary flexibility. annabelle: let's get more reaction on that with carol schleif cio at bmo family office. i am interested we have had bone markets digesting this feeling or thought that the fed would be staying higher through the end of the year. equity markets both have had a huge run-up perhaps more driven by earnings. do you think the fed narrative has been fully digested at this point in time carol: let's hope so because the fed has given us that narrative for a long period of time and have been very consistent in the messaging

saying higher-for-longer, no rush to cut. and both of the group in terms of fomc meetings and chairman powell afterwards and all the individual governors have been telling us over and over again that higher-for-longer was going to be necessary, number one, and that number two, the path to 2%, getting to their target number was not going to be a straight line down. we are definitely seeing that in the data. annabelle: given that we are also seeing in the data, do you think it is possible the economic resiliency of seeing, that this no landing scenario also comes into focus? carol: indefinitely does because we have not seen a slowing or a vast pullback. our expectation this year had been we would -- we would see more slowing than you have. the pce has not come yet, but the cpi and the ppi out last week were a bit harder.

consumer spending has been stronger, employment has stayed stronger. so i think we have seen quite a bit of that already. haidi: carol, how much are you watching for over elevation when it comes to the tech rally? people suggest that this is only the start of it on the back of those nvidia numbers. do you think there is a bit too much faith in this narrative now? carol: it's important to separate out what is going on in the economy itself, as opposed to the market. markets like to take a story, discount it back, and get very exuberant about it in the short run when, even on the upside, it's not necessarily a straight line. but the artificial intelligence buildout, the buildout of our infrastructure in the united states and the industrialization, all the

investment going on in infrastructure, green grid, battery technology, semiconductor technology, that has the capacity to build a lasting, a longer than 81 or two quarter boost to the economy. but the market is going to be variable around that. some consolidation is coming off especially after the exuberance of the last two months of last year into the early part of this year. some absorption of those numbers would not be undue, nor wouldn't throw off that longer-term trajectory. annabelle: wall street does really want some evidence of the ai in margins, they want to see some sort of profitability coming through from ai. i am wondering how patient you think investors will be whilst companies start to roll out and integrate ai into their product

offerings. carol: unfortunately wall street does not have a very good record on being patient on these things. they will expect to see that productivity and margin improvement instantaneously and that is not necessarily going to come, particularly if you start parsing through some of the earnings announcements we just saw, especially the big-tech companies that are investing in data centers and in the infrastructure, they are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a quarter to put that up. and like we know, anytime you institute new processes, new technologies, it takes a period of time. so being able to absorb that potential margin flattening, or potentially a marginal reduction for some time will be necessary. but the short-term trading mentality of wall street will not be conducive up. but then again it offers opportunity when you get pullbacks, it offers opportunity for those who can adopt an

intermediate or long-term mindset. haidi: what do you like in japan at the moment? carol: we actually like the broad japanese -- there are several different ways we are playing the japanese market in particular. we are buying the market. it is interesting because when you look at the indices in japan, they are much more technology-heavy like the u.s. than say the european markets. so that bouys the markets. so there is also some actively managed funds we are able to invest for our clients that take different industries and stuff inside japan. but the overall market is still poised for continued gains, we think, the intermediate long-term. haidi: one of your themes is that re-industrialization of the u.s. government. i wonder how the geopolitical risk asset plays into that.

are there any meaningful changes we might see if there is a change in government after november? carol: there is a risk in the margin. but, again, many of the laws that have been put in place that have tax incentives, that have shovels already dug in the ground, it's going to be hard to reduce that. but there are chances that the margin if the projects are well- permitted, well funded. there is risks depending on the outcome of november. there is some potential risk at the margins. but we don't think it is going to offset the trend that is there because there are very many fundamental reasons for companies to want to movement of such anklets are. we saw many lessons during the pandemic. whether or not we learned them at the government level, we certainly did at the business level and there is a lot of

decision-making going on the would get a boost with some government aid. it will likely continue to play out. haidi: carol, others great to chat with you, carol schleif, cio at bmo family office. coming up, interview with the rbnz governor, after their decision to hold rates steady, we will get his outlook when it comes the economy, some of the risks of the inflation outlook. will be joining us at 11:15 a.m. suny time, 8:15 if you are watching in hong kong. bitcoin surging past $60,000 for the first time in two years as demand widens. we will take a closer look at the rally, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

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annabelle: taking a look at the price of bitcoin here. it has surpassed the 60,000 mark. no trading at the highest level in the last two years, up 3% so far, in the sunshine today. the dynamics around bitcoin, some of the things pretty well understood at this point, we have the spot-bitcoin etf filings been approved and they started treating.

then you have leverage starting to creep back into the market after several years of dry spells. let's bring in our bloomberg crypto and de-fi reporter. i mentioned the spot-bitcoin etfs, there is leverage, but what is of the biggest impact at this point in time? >> thank you for having me today. i think the story of bitcoin can be simply explained by supply and demand issue. we have huge demand coming from bitcoin etfs. on the supply side, i think there is not enough bitcoins available for sale at the moment. i saw the numbers, there is at least 70% of total bitcoin supply has now been moved -- has not been moved over a year, so that is a surprising fact that

there is not much supply in bitcoin. haidi: the big question is the sustainability of this rally, right, do you think the drivers are strong enough for it to continue? muyao: as far as what i can see based on everything we heard from traders and investors, it is likely that bitcoin may hit a new all-time high in the near future which will be very unique , because in the past if you look at bitcoin's previous all-time highs, it usually happens after bitcoin --. this time around i think the market is predicting that it will happen ahead of the bitcoin -- event. annabelle: as you said, we have the bitcoin halving ahead. what are we expecting out of that? muyao: historically speaking, bitcoin halving is the reward for mining new

bitcoin. it reduces the rate at which new bitcoins are created and enter into circulation. in the past, bitcoin has been moved higher in the past. but because we have this new event of the bitcoin etfs creating huge demand for this asset, therefore we are seeing bitcoin prices going crazy even ahead of the halving event. annabelle: i am curious what you are seeing in terms of liquidity on exchanges, traditional crypto exchange's. given this amount of flows into the bitcoin etf's, one of the concerns to the etfs to learned was that it would take them away from exchanges. are we seeing that taking place? muyao: usually people say that liquidity in the crypto market has improved much. but the great metric

is the funding rate of crypto exchange's and it shows a lot of leverage in the market. to some degree, it is indicating that there is just not enough cash in the crypto market itself. so i don't think the etf flows have carried out their impact into the crypto market itself yet. haidi: bloomberg's muyao shen there. and you can get a roundup of all the stories you need to know to get your day going on this edition of "daybreak." terminal subscribers, go to dayb . it is also available on mobile, in the bloomberg anywhere app. you can also customize the settings as well for the news on the industries and assets that you care about. this is bloomberg. ♪

haidi: take a look at one of the stocks we are watching as we get into the after hours. paramount is up by about 0.4%. we saw paramount global, the parent of the likes of cbs, mtv and other networks, saying fourth-quarter sales fell 6%, accounting for shrinking advertising across traditional tv channels. but streaming subscribers did rise. the revenue coming in below analyst expectations. still, better-than-expected earnings of four cents a share with some exclusions. wall street more or less forecasting a breakeven quarter. let's bring in our senior media analyst from bloomberg intelligence. what jumped out of you in these numbers? geetha: it was a bit of a mixed bag for paramount. the tv numbers were worse than feared, tv ad sales were down

15% in the fourth quarter. it's a function of not just macro challenges in the advertising market and a lot of linear tv struggles as more people migrate away from traditional tv to streaming, but he also had the effect of the hollywood strikes. there was less content for most of these networks and that, again, pushes people away from traditional tv-watching. on the positive side, that streaming metrics -- the streaming metrics were better. we'll better-than-expected subscriber gains for their platform paramount plus. but this is a key metric most investors are focused on, the streaming profitability numbers. paramount doesn't have streaming profits, it is really losses. so it is how much they were able to moderate their losses and they did a good job at that. more importantly, they give some guidance for hitting streaming profitability in 2025,

and that can be seen as a bright spot. annabelle: on the flipside, i am curious if you have more people streaming, we also saw that paramount's namesake film studio struggled as well. did that play across into that? geetha: it definitely did. less movies. we did see the film studio kind of takes quite a big hit both in terms of theatrical, they didn't have a lot of content out there, as well as in terms of home entertainment revenue. look out going into 2024, again, those kinds of strikes are going to have an impact on the contents made for this year. there's not a lot of product out there. their biggest movie this year, mission impossible, actually got pushed out, to 2025 the contents made is looking a bit late. -- the content slate is looking

a bit slight. annabelle: paramount has been weighing office for the company. you've written in the past about research looking at the questions looming on its valuation. geetha: yes, the thing that paramount is yes, you are right, in terms of all the m&a rumors, they have been swirling for almost 2, 3 months. those exit options for paramount seem to be dwindling day-by-day. yesterday we had some news that other media players in that space such as warner bros. discovery, no longer interested in the deal with paramount. we have had some other offers but potentially not for the whole company, may be only for the studio part of it. in terms of valuation, we had one offer from byron allen which was for the entire company, which was i think valuing the company at about $30 billion enterprise value.

that is pretty much in line with the kind of way we are thinking about the company from a valuation perspective. but right now, if you look at paramount valuation multiples versus them of its peers, the company is actually trading 50% higher than its peers. that is not based on fundamentals, it is based on the prospect of m&a and if something doesn't happen quickly, those multiples will compress. annabelle: that was our bloomberg intelligence senior media analyst geetha ranganathan there. other corporate stories we are following today, morgan stanley says rolex sales last year topped $10 billion for the first time as the swiss brand gained market share. rolex produced 1.2 million watches, with sales rising 11%. the market share in its segment stands at just over 30%, a level morgan stanley describes as unprecedented. nvidia insiders sold about $80 million worth of stock after the

chipmaker's earnings beat sound shares to a fresh record. according to washington service, insiders unloaded the most stock since september. the latest results from nvidia topped analyst expectations while also delivering another strong revenue forecast. microsoft is investigating reports that it's chatbot from co-pilot is generating responses users: disturbing and sometimes harmful. the chatbot was introduced as a way to weave ai into a range of products and services. some users have tried to fool co-pilot into generating the responses. we will have more to come on "daybreak: australia." 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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haidi: you are looking at the afternoon parliament in canberra there where the philippines president is set to issue a rare address to australia's parliament, to highlight how the two nations plan to deepen their ties. prime minister albanese speaking at the moment. these are defense and economic ties, all against the backdrop of china's growing military presence or footprint in the region. we are expecting greater detail from marcos, jr. on his strategy on the partnership with australia as well as his vision for the country. he is the first philippine leader to address a joint setting of parliament in canberra. he says he wants to serve as a bridge to connect the two nations. we have seen that moves to strengthen ties with additional security partners under marcos,

including with the u.s. and austria against the face of intensifying pressure from beijing in that south china sea region. speaking of china, focus when it comes to china's tech sector. baidu's stock fell. it highlighted the growing costs of trading and developing ai to fend off competitors. the results followed his appointed numbers out of alibaba, another sign at private sector is following -- running out of steam. let's bring in our guest. brandon ahearn. it has been a trying few years for the private sector particularly across text. it looks like perhaps with the federalization of the moves in alibaba, that we were starting to turn a corner. let's talk about baidu first. is this the expenditure investors are willing to tolerate with the opportunities of ai? brendan: chinese equities have

been eviscerated as an arca class. considerable underperformance relative to particularly suck u.s. equities has really weighed on investor sentiment. a lot of the assets have moved out of the region into india and japan but particularly to the u.s. and u.s. technology. i think baidu's results missed revenue by 16 basis points and the stock was down nearly 8%. suggested aps -- adjusted eps beat, and they made progress on ai in terms of revenue generated. incremental, but certainly a start. . in general, i think it is more indicative of a lack of interest in chinese equities today. haidi: i suppose that's the big question, what meaningfully revised sentiment. is that something that significantly boosts the chinese

consumer, is it a way out of the property sector malaise? what do investors want to see because so far, policy measures have been unimpressive to them. brendan: yes, we have not seen the proverbial policy bazooka. ultimately, consumers want to make money and capital flows where it is treated best. i think there is an effort to repair some of that, trust that has been a change in the tenor and thrown out of beijing to foreign investors and foreign corporations, an effort to stabilize the mainland market. investors want to make money and certainly, buybacks, dividends and more ipo's whether it is ant financial 4:00 p.m.-daughter duo's spin, if investors are making money, they are willing to put out a lot. but at the moment, we have seen a small rebound over the last 10 days.

i think hopefully that little trend does continues, that if make money in china, more money will flow back in. annabelle: what do you think then, in terms of china's tech sector, what do you want to be betting at this point in time. do you want to still focus on the big private names, wei du, alibaba, tencent, jd.com, or do you want to move into more state-backed firms instead? brendan: there is an argument certainly, in the short run, that mainland, state owned enterprises are beneficiaries of state intervention, other members of the national team buying chinese equity etfs. at the same time, foreign investors will always gravitate to the growth sectors. consumer discretionary, technology, communications.

the names that they can resonate with. it is easier to say baidu, google, alibaba, amazon. i think investors will always gravitate to these growth names as opposed to this little, no growth sectors despite high dividend yields. annabelle: in terms of the geopolitical overlay into all of this, what are we expecting from china and from the likes of nvidia, who have been re-gearing some of their chips to meet the demand from china? brendan: the chinese, export-driven manufacturing, that requires chips for not necessarily domestic use, but part of that export driven manufacturing. so i think there is a move from the biden administration. corporate america does have a say in u.s. laws and in

washington, d.c. not unlike apple or nike or boeing which have very high revenue exposure to china. the u.s. government will go out of their way to hurt those companies. there is a lot of bark in terms of media, but not necessarily out of -- a lot of bite. even with president trump, there's a lot of talk about tariffs but we all know that walmart paid that tariff bill. chinese companies didn't. it was passed on to u.s. consumers. so it is good political tv fodder, but economically, it hasn't really hurt china in an overly prescriptive way, at least boesler. annabelle: brendan ahern, ceo at coinshares. -- ceo at krane funds. bloomberg seized the

semiconductor! such a market doubling in the next eight years. a handful of chipmakers are that dominate key technologies. let's get more from our asia ability analyst, masahiro wakasugi. how will the chipmaking market changed by 2032? >> we analyze the chipmaking equipment market in 20 32 could almost double from 2023, because chipmakers will aggressively invest and chip capex, chipmaking equipment market will be almost doubling because chipmakers will almost double their capex in order to expand production capacity and, therefore, next generation chips. if we based our upside scenario

analysis, we could have -- the market could be almost 2.5x larger in 2030 to compare two 2030 three. now we are seeing very sterling demand from artificial intelligence chips. i think the chipmaking market will be pretty interesting and a promising market going forward. haidi: what about the competitive landscape? masahiro: yes, we think that the competitive landscape for chipmaking equipment suppliers should continue to be quite favorable. it's a pretty interesting market. if we look at the specific products,, for example, it dominates around 90% of market share. if you look at the tokyo electron developer market, it dominates 90%.

i think the chipmaking tools market will have a favorable competitive landscape and this means that they can generate quite high operating profit margins, say, in 2030 to, we think that including asml, or tokyo electron or kra, they will generate 40% operating margin because of this competitive landscape. haidi: bloomberg intelligence asia-pacific technology analyst, masahiro wakasugi there. bloomberg is also at the wto ministerial conference in abu dhabi. you can catch our conversation with the u.s. trade representative katherine tai thursday on "bloomberg surveillance." more ahead on "daybreak: australia." this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ the future is not just going to happen.

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you don't have to worry about things like changing tax rates or filing returns. avalarahhh ahhh annabelle: hong kong's real estate sector is facing an uphill battle, even after the government's most forceful attempt yet to revive the market. authorities have eased homebuyer levies and mortgage lending restrictions as part of sweeping measures to revive the financial

hub. our china editor joins us now, jill dices. we saw development shares showing that marketwatchers were surprised by that. but it -- will it be the cure for the problems of the real estate sector? joe: at this point to the problems with the hong kong property market were so severe. these measures were introduced in the aftermath of the gfc. the idea was at the time, interest rates were plunging and they needed to cool form by argument down. but this has not happened. hong kong is still the world's least affordable housing market. at the same time, it is leading to home property curbs to be removed. they were not expecting something this severe. but when you have interest rates as high as they are remaining in

hong kong right now, it is difficult to see how this leads to ultimately a longer-term improvement within the local property market. what investors are looking out for is whether you see any short-term gains. they will look to see what happens with future property sales that come into the market, but it is not clear that this will lead to any long-term stability within the hong kong housing market. haidi: how strong is a correlation between whether or not we see a sustained pickup in the chinese economy, when you talk about the malaise across the property sector, tourism, retail slow down a result, is that really the crux of wonderful see a recovery in hong kong? jill: i think you nailed it. at this point are the economy is incredibly tied to what is happening in the broader chinese economy. we saw this during the pandemic in particular. obviously hong kong had a lot of its own issues, it isolate

itself from the rest of the world during the pandemic, but also the slowdown in growth within china's economy feeds into the broader concerns. right now, hong kong is trying to deal with a bunch of other headwinds, tourism in particular is a massive issue, we have seen a big drop-off in the last several years. it's budget announced yesterday, it includes some measures towards a pickup again, but it remains to be seen how that will play into it. when you have a lack of visitors from mainland china in particular, a major key source of tourism revenue for hong kong , because of some of these broader issues with china's eroded wealth within the middle class, it will be difficult for hong kong to actually see a meaningful turnaround. we have seen them forecast growth around 3.2% over the next several years, we will see without that comes into fruition for hong kong. haidi: our china economy editor jill disis.

you can see an insiders guide to the many and the people shaking of the finance in our new hong kong edition newsletter. you can find it at bloomberg.com/newsletters. philippines president ferdinand marcos, jr. is addressing a full parliament session in australia. >> it does become crucial for us now to envision the shape, the breadth and the depth of our strategic partnership and how it must move forward as we weather the storms of global volatility. haidi: for more analysis on this, bloomberg's government reporter joins us now. we have seen a strengthening of these traditional alliances with the likes of australia and, of course, the u.s. as well, under marcos. is there a sense of urgency to build these relationships in light of the threat of beijing? >> definitely for sure. and marcus's speech is affected

to center around that. that is one of the aspects he highlighted in the early part of his beach. he said that the security of australia in the philippines are very much intertwined. so in the face of so much tension and, especially in the south china the that we are seeing, marcos is affected to provide more detail into how much dip -- to further deepen security ties with austria. another aspect is he also wants to try to bolster economic ties with australia. he is aware that security ties, or the security relationship between the two countries should also come with the deepening of economic relationships. it would also seek to detail ways of how to improve trade and investment ties between the two nations.

annabelle: on that point, as you say, we have seen canberra trying to boost relationships with countries in southeast asia, we have seen the philippines looking to strengthen ties with traditional security partners, but how have those, in the practical sense, how have those expanded relations played out over the last year or so? andreo: australian authorities have elevated their ties of what they call a strategic partnership. in concrete terms, we have seen the philippines and austria conduct joint maritime patrols in the south china sea. this is a big step, because it shows how interconnected their military is. there are also efforts for australian soldiers to join the military drills in the philippines. also, australia has pledged to support the philippines coast guard which is in the forefront

of recent clashes in the south china sea with beijing's vessels. australia has pledged to support the philippine coast guard in terms of growth and having more awareness in south china sea. these are just a few steps we have seen being taken by the two countries in the past year. we expect this to be stepped up, to be bolstered, with elevations of ties between the two countries. haidi: bloomberg government reporter, andrea calonzo there in manila. some of the stories we're following, u.s. congressional leaders have reached a deal to avoid a partial government shutdown. it cleared the way for speaker mike johnson to allow a vote before a saturday deadline. republican leaders are backing the deal despite backlash risk from conservatives demanding a

new immigration restrictions. republican mitch mcconnell will step down as his party's leader of the senate after the november election. the 82-year-old has been in the chamber since 1985, leading republican connectors for more than 17 years. his departure sets up a fierce succession battle set to be driven by loyalty to donald trump. >> i have been honored to represent our state and do the important work of our country. but further time remains for the time remaining, i am no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues would remember my name. it is time for the next generation. haidi: in new york appeals court denied donald trump's request to temporarily delay payment of the state's $451 million verdict against him, even after the

former president said he might be forced to sell properties to cover the judgment. separately the u.s. supreme court said it will on a trump's bid for immunity from criminal prosecution. trump has been pushing to delay any new trials until after the november presidential election. annabelle: just bringing our viewers attention to some data coming out. we have industrial production numbers dropping from japan. on the year on your level, the number is a bit better than what had been expected. we were foreseeing a drop here of 1.6% is what the survey had suggested. it has come in at a contraction of 1.5%. what is playing into the numbers over the course of january is auto production, there was a period when we had a temporary production halt by a toyota subsidiary, hatsumoto, over a safety scandal so those

production issues could have played into the figures. but contraction of 1.5%, better than what economists had been expecting. on the month, would it actually see it going past the estimate, a contraction of 7.5%. the survey reading had been 6.8% contraction. that is the industrial production side. our bloomberg economics team, it is worth noting, they are saying we could expect production to pick up over the course of february because daihatsu has resumed operations, we got the news yesterday, and we are seeing better demand for japanese cars abroad as well, play into the semiconductor cycle that is also used in production -- boosting production. we are seeing retail sales year on the year. it was better than what economists were expecting. year-on-year, up 2.3%. the survey had been for 2%. month-on-month, as well, gains

of 0.8%. the survey had been for 0.5%. it points to those figures that yes, perhaps japan is enough technical recession but still, we are seeing stronger data points coming through. we will have more head on "daybreak: australia." this is bloomberg. ♪

annabelle: taking a look at crypto prices. bitcoin pushing up to that $64,000 mark that it nearly touched overnight. really the focus of bitcoin in the past few sessions given the rapid ascent we are seeing. what is driving it? what triggered it was that spot-bitcoin etf's, we are seeing demand for the. it also comes down to the supply demand dynamics of the sector as a whole, because given the move into those etfs you are seeing a lot of demand for the tokens and that is outstripping the supply of new coins being created in the mining process. you also have leveraged reentering the crypto market. . we have not seen that for several years in the digital asset space, certainly

a dry spell. the question always with these rallies is how permanent are they? and haidi: we were talking earlier about how much of fundamentals have changed when it comes to this asset class. we are 11% away from a record high for bitcoin. how quickly things have turned in this recent ronald bullishness, -- recent run of bullishness, if you will. the dollar is pretty flat at the moment. we had seen some robust dollar gains ahead of the key inflation data, the fed highlighting the scrutiny of eco-data. a bit of weakness for the q. kiwi. speaking of which, our interview with rbnz governor adrian orr just coming up next.

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annabelle: this is a straily there." we are counting down to asia's major trading options -- this is "daybreak: australia." we will be tracking down japanese equities closely because we are in the risk of the nikkei 225 crossing the 4000 other marks. haidi: bitcoin is also 10% or 11 cents away from an all-time record. we are watching the inflation number out of the u.s.. watching for fedspeak. more scrutiny over eco-data. that print is going to be critical. annabelle: absolutely. really that countdown to the core pce reading and the bumpy path to achieving the 2% inflation target, the focus of investors as well. but we have a focus on japan and south korea the start of trade. taking a look at the nikkei 225, pretty flat at the