>> this is daybreak asia counting down to asia's major trading opens. direction is set in weakness creeping through in tech stocks. can valuations be justified? haidi: setting up for super tuesday, no big surprises. seeing quite a bit of caution in the markets. annabelle: the wall street session, we saw a pullback in tech and a correlation between japan and the u.s..

nikkei 225 coming online. we are below 40 k. tech is the sector we are tracking because we had ample under pressure. tracking the yen around 150. any speculation for a policy shift is something we are looking at we are seeing japan's biggest bank positioning for a rate lift off. watching plans quite closely. let's look at korea. we had numbers out in the last hour. greeting picked up then there was a holiday coming into this

because we saw higher food prices, higher transport costs because of the core reading when you strip out food and energy. our economics team is saying we will not see a shift until the second half of the year i mentioned china woes. the drop in fine sales has played into apple prices. you can see weakness, a reflection of a company that takes revenue from apple. haidi: is tech leading declines in australia, a couple of big names and a couple of cuts.

broad retreat with the market close to highs. downside pressure in sydney, jp numbers are due today. growth flatlined and there are concerns that could be negative even more sluggish growth. watching treasuries. caution as we get australian debt following, yield curve shifting lower yields following. quite a lot going on.

quick look when it comes to what we are seeing. holding study after a two day drop. signs that stockpiles are building. let's get analysis from the head of anz. a lot of disappointment. your forecast is for .2%, are they overshooting? >> not surprised by 5%. they need this to double gdp. what needs to have been is to back up stimulus measures and

more targeted stimulus. ambitious, but not out of reach. need consumers to spend. if they get the confidence to come back in, that will go some way. haidi: people are worried that they do not have the stimulus to back it up. do they do direct payments? >> that is why they are targeting stock market this year. they are trying to turn things around and they will try to spur a rally to improve consumer confidence.

stock market has rally you need economic fundamentals, so we are watching the first they use. we need a bill over. spending was encouraging but we need to see that be sustained. haidi: the risk of a spiral, is that they are? >> we have seen deflation but eventually you rebound. china is facing negative inflation due to factors around prices but we can move out of this. >> that was focus on the budget

target at 3%, but when you look at special issuance, does the picture look different? >> there has always been more spending outside of the central government. constraints around what local governments can do, so they will have to get creative. to get more spending done. we have to recognize there will be no big stimulus. spending will be targeted and they have to rely on more funding toward property

developers to make sure the sector can get going. there will be a need for further monetary policy. haidi: mentions of capital markets, that signals interest policymakers have in equities apart from signaling. >> there have been attempts to put a floor to the equity market and get it up. they probably feel no need to address it. the commitment is there and we are starting to see inflows back

into china. we could see a self-sustaining rally in equities in the near term. we need fundamentals to show improvement. haidi: they spent time discussing balance of debt and this is a structural slow down so perhaps more pain? does that mean markets like india that are earlier in their trajectory that continue to take outflows? >> other parts of a chignon and india are attracting investment flows. taking away from china has been

ongoing for a few years. a lot of changes in chinese companies themselves, the chinese companies are investing outside of china in meaningful ways. that will benefit the region and you will see shifts in trade and supply flows. haidi: pleasure to have you here. that of research at anz. polls begin closing, the race for the white house hits high gear. this is bloomberg. ♪ thanks to avalara, we can calculate sales tax automatically. avalarahhhhhh what if tax rates change? ahhhhhh filing sales tax returns? ahhhhhh business license guidance? ahhhhhh -cross-border sales? -ahhhhhh

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♪ annabelle: the biggest day so far in the u.s. election calendar with millions of americans choosing their preferred candidate. on spring in jodi schneider. it seems like we will set up for the november rematch that no one even want between joe biden and donald trump.

super tuesday not as super. >> a lot of people think it was more super when they had more choices but joe biden is going to sweep a victory and on the republican side, we expect nikki haley may win one or perhaps two if very lucky. 870 four delegates are up for grabs. 36% of the number you need to get the republican nomination. trump is on his way. he will not get there tonight, but he could come very close. a lot of people are saying it feels like a general election even though it is only march.

these men are expected to do very well and the question for nikki haley is will she stay in the race and why? she is not holding a public party to watch results tonight. just a small gathering with staffers. haidi: one next for nikki haley? pollsters are saying if she does well it will have to start early in the night. what are the expectations? >> her best chance would be in vermont and maine, maybe virginia where you have independent voters and people

are more likely to accept her brand and criticism of donald trump, a large part of her campaign. she does not do well why would she stay in the race? she said she will stay through super tuesday, will stay in as long as there is a path. if she does not do well tonight and cannot catch up, what is the path? you'd expect to hear from her in the next few days about the future and the big question, would she endorsed trump? she signed a pledge to support the nominee to be on the debate stage, but she's made it seem like she may not still support the republican nominee is it is trump.

haidi: interesting point because it seems like she has burned some bridges. what is it that nikki haley is doing? setting up to be second in line encase legal issues prevent trump from being president? or the other option could be looking at 2028. >> both of those things are likely true. she decided to jump into the race, got momentum, donors saw her as an alternative to donald trump. she could not blunt his steamroller. the only one that she one was

the district of columbia. it is hard as the experts say, at some point you have to win. she may be thinking of looking at 28. a large part of her campaign has been saying we need a new generation of leadership. an 80-year-old and 70-year-old is not what people want. she could have a good chance in 2028. we will find out more about what she wants to do and what she is likely to do in the next few weeks. it will be hard for her to stay in. she's losing donors and their spending their money on house and senate races.

haidi: jodi schneider. stay with us with our special coverage of super tuesday with joe mathieu and kailey leinz at 10 a.m. in hong kong, one in sydney. other developments, the u.k. chancellor jeremy hunt told bbc his budget will temper hopes for tax cuts. hunt is set to cut by one percentage point in a bid to give his party a boost. hunt and the prime minister are weighing how far they can go with the tax cuts. israel is selling $8 billion of bonds, the biggest sale on record and first transaction since the war with hamas began. the government launched an offering and the sale reeled in

34 billion dollars of investor demand. get a roundup of stories to get your day going. you can find it on dayb on your terminals and the bloomberg anywhere app. customize settings so you just get the news that you care about. this is bloomberg. ♪ wealth-changing question -- are you keeping as much of your investment gains as possible?

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♪ >> apple is facing an antitrust penalty for shutting out streaming rivals. competition chief mark told us about the landmark regulation coming into force on thursday.

>> the messaging is doomed not do this, stop what you're doing, don't do anything that would have this effect. illegal abuse has been ongoing which makes it impossible for customers to choose if they want to pay the fee or want to go to a website and have a cheaper price and that consumer choice has not been enabled. >> what is your priority? what actions will immediately address this? >> reports will have to be filed, what have we done to comply and then we have workshops on each gatekeeper for

third parties to say it does it work? and then if we have a suspicion of noncompliance we will open cases based on where do we have the most noncompliance. so that we can throw resources and where we have the most obvious benefits. >> what are the things that concern you? >> it is important to have more than one app store, because if you don't like one shop, you go to another one. there are multiple app stores for parents toward their children, for gamers, numbers of things. the environment is not disabled

to make that unattractive. dma is specific about things when it comes to a fee structure to enable people to use these benefits. haidi: that was european commission executive vice president speaking to bloomberg. breaking news, super tuesday is upon us and we got 15 states choosing who they want to enter into the presidential race. virginia is holding primaries today. for republicans the choices been between donald trump, nikki haley and other candidates. networks are calling the race in

favor of donald trump with nbc putting the figure at 63% and nikki haley trailing with 35%. live pictures of the trump headquarters in palm beach. as we said, 15 states chose to they want to enter the race in a drawnout out contest. looking to be a rematch between joe biden and donald trump and not something a lot of voters wanted to see. not look at our markets are faring because we are seeing broad weakness. we've got the nikkei in the kospi. we are watching the tech story. the find that apple was facing on anti-competition rules.

overnight woes deepened because there was concern around shipments to china. reporting that iphone sales fell nearly 25% and you're seeing a big drop. 75% of sales from apple, that is the state of play. apple, amd and tesla where the big names we were looking at. >> other developments we are watching, citigroup ceo says she is streamlining the bank and it's going faster than expected. she said citigroup will not repeat mistakes. they are quoting -- cutting 20,000 jobs.

robert miller is disbanding an investment team in hong kong based sales advisors will wind down handing their portfolio to external firms including blackstone. bloomberg learned that the largest pension fund is looking for a chief investment officer. the list of four candidates includes jonathan grable. the fund has had four cios since 2009. coming up, the center for strategic studies joins us to d

annabelle: thinning australian gdp in line with expectations when it comes to 0.2 percent. there had been some concerns that they could be a lead or negative prints. 0.2%, euro nearing number in line with expectations. concerning when it comes to the slow down in spending and sentiment. households where impacted by the cost of living crisis given the muted levels of spending the busiest months of the year. not much of a reaction with the aussie dollar.

and a lot of dollar pairs have been quiet with u.s. dollar trading range bound. potential for further sluggish growth in the coming months. not just consumers, but also residential construction was a track. bloomberg economics suspect in higher interest rates will dampen households and property construction. a down day, particularly in tech here when it comes to what we are seeing for equities. yield curve falling what we are seeing. getting news when it comes to developments on super tuesday. virginia has been called for donald trump, he's winning the

north carolina primary. north carolina just closing. that was a swing state and now they're calling it for donald trump. virginia was called, a state that was contentious because we saw unusual developments there. vermont being called for president biden. republican primary called for president trump. as we watch developments, cross currents point two caution for traders. annabelle: on valuations for tech stocks, they set the tone because we saw a pullback in

tech. apple, tesla are some names we were tracking but this is the set up. broad weakness. you've got the nikkei tracking back down from the 40,000 level. the korean market is one to watch. lg slumping or than 5%. you seeing i.t. stocks among big laggards. were tracking china because yesterday we had the npc and an ambitious growth target. we saw the market looking muted. investor saying this was in line with what they expected but we saw a drop in tech stocks. hang seng really declining.

haidi: around 5% was more ambitious than investors expected given how challenging it was to meet that target. more headwinds in 2024 so the question is how beijing wants to meet these goals. shuli ren is joining us now and it's difficult because they wanted to convey confidence, but they need to back it up with fiscal stimulus. no indication of that. >> that's right, so what we are seeing is basically a carbon copy of numbers from last year, even though economic conditions have changed. the government sees cpi to reach around 3% even though china is

slipping to deflation. economists were hoping that the beijing will pick up its fiscal deficit using the fiscal power to boost the economy because we have seen central bank rate cuts have not worked. still, 3%, very anemic. china's deficit can hit 6.6% this year, but it is nothing compared to what we are seeing in the u.s.. during the pandemic we saw double digit deficit. people are asking how can you reach the same growth target even though economic conditions have worsened? annabelle: you finished your column saying it's clearer than ever that the communist party is walking away from its people quite a strong statement. what is behind that?

>> this was always a rubberstamp congress but this time it is ridiculous. people are making fun of the economic targets like inflation. and they're not doing a press briefing. it is a break from a 30 year tradition. people wanted to have a real chance to interact with top politicians and even those chances are being thrown away. china's press briefings were assigned of opening up to the world and now it is closing itself to the world. annabelle: that was shuli ren and let's bring in the senior advisory for chinese business.

it is clearer than ever that the chinese communist party is walking away from its people. do you agree? >> isla called us the shrinking congress to the extent that the npc was ever a forum for transparency. she is right. the very short speech that li qiang gave. lack of a press conference, a thin agenda. china's standing committee given the right to modify the state secrets law. npc gets to modify a law about the organization of the state council. not a lot of news and speaks to

how much more important the party is compared to the national people's congress or other parts of the government. haidi: a lot of numbers are similar to what we've seen, carbon copies of previous reports, so is it that the communist party is not grasping the situation or something else at play? there has been extra obscurity added as well. >> if you read the government work report, from a basic perspective, this was a difficult challenge, maybe they could expand the deficit, but

that is not the problem. this is a confidence problem and they hand at that, but nowhere near enough. what people want to see is that the party feels people's pain, understands challenges and the solution is not more spending. it is empowering chinese people in cities in the countryside. the residency system was not mentioned. nothing was mentioned that will be about transferring wealth to chinese households and that is what needs to be done to raise confidence in order for people to take the npc more seriously. haidi: that goes back to the very little we are hearing from

him because his predecessors had warmer communications with the outside world. does that indicate that this is xi jinping wanting to have the highest public profile and every other leaders taking a backseat? >> it could be. li qiang is a reasonable bureaucrat, but he cannot get his picture on the front page of the paper in the should be the one week where he gets attention. his predecessor was a very able official. it is sad that china is not showing more homage because of his passing and what he meant. so yes, it is just one person

that if the attention and the npc and its 2977 deputies are going to be faceless participants in this program. haidi: that's interesting because the narrative is that they were sidelined. is the taking away of prominence from the role of premier something that naturally followed what we saw happen today? >> is part and parcel. xi jinping is the chairman of everything. domestic and foreign policy, the military. no one else is going to edge in on him. they want this session to be over and done with and they can go back to what is important. we're wondering will chinese

leadership announce a third plan to put a broader framing on these policies to try to reassure people? they are not looking at the npc as a source of leadership, announcing the third plenum would help address that. haidi: always good to have your views, senior advisor at csi, scott kennedy. morgan stanley is seeing more volatility as beijing's growth failed to excite investors. let's get more from jeannie. it is the 5% target seen as too ambitious if it does not come along with stimulus. investors are not confident. jeannie: yes, exactly.

there is still caution, skepticism after the targets were outlined. in china, the market was disappointed. the bright side was government bonds, which came bigger than expected, but apart from that the rest of the targets are in line with expectations and investors are saying to achieve the target will take a lot of efforts. investors are disappointed at the lack of concrete measures, so we've seen a heavy pressure in hong kong. it was supposed to be on the back of state funds support on bigger blue chips in on short equities, but in general,

investors are dominated by disappointing targets from the top leadership. haidi: that seems to put pressure on the national team to prop up sentiment. how long do you think they can continue to do that? jeannie: it is not surprising to see the national team step out to prop up local markets. at meetings in the past, for example, for offshore markets, there's not really much they can do and even with national team support, we only see banks in the asian market gain. most stocks being other sectors

in hong kong were falling. it is just giving investors comfort that there is still buying power in the market that can make shares have more support. annabelle: that was jeannie and you can watch us live the past interviews on tv . this is for bloomberg subscribers. check it out. ♪

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♪ haidi: apple's iphone sales plunge in china, raising concern. let's bring in bloomberg technology editor to tell us about the story. is it about the competition? >> smartphone demand in china has been weak. the slowdown is disproportionately hitting apple.

part of that is budget phones taking market share but while ways sales are 64%. ever since they showcased their devices, there has been a wave of homegrown china made components. this is data from the first six weeks of the year, but it lends credence to the narrative. annabelle: how does that set us up over the long-term? >> it is a shift. ample has rolled out discounts on their web store, online

resellers are cutting prices, so we need to see if this is a temporary blip, if the discounts make a difference. a thing to remember is apple has immense resources and is ramping up investment in ai. the main factor in the chinese market is whether huawei is able to keep up the momentum and deliver at gail, sourcing components it needs given constraints as the u.s. china rivalry accelerates. haidi: that was are tech editor joining us and let's shift to another tech story, alibaba, spearheading their second major a ideal. sources say it is leading a

financing round for start up many banks. let's get more from peter elstrom. we know alibaba are has been on the hunt. peter: we are seeing alibaba get aggressive as you mentioned, investing $600 million to bring the valuation up to $2.5 billion. a start up a lot of momentum. this is the second deal alibaba has cut. they led the largest funding for an a startup. a $1 billion deal this year. they're getting aggressive on ai and seating outside startups to help the effort. it is the microsoft strategy.

microsoft is funding openai in chatgpt. haidi: kelly, has been through a tough time. is the tide turning? i find it interesting that the cyberspace administration published a piece. the whole nation approach, the big bump for spending in tech. our companies going to see more fervent government support? peter: good point. alibaba got beat up a few years back when the government went after them, but they had been one of the most aggressive investors, seating the chinese ecosystem and controlling a big chunk of it. so seldom pullback in dealmaking and it looks like they're getting encouragement in areas that are important to the

government. we will see more deals. tencent is being more aggressive, investing in ai, senior not seeing dealmaking that alibaba is doing. maybe alibaba is a step behind, but they are getting aggressive in dealmaking. annabelle: how does that set up the internal competition space when baidu was seen as the number one in the race? peter: china is a market apart because the chinese government will not allow foreign companies, you have a free playing field for domestic competitors and we will not get openai or microsoft. there is internal competition and baidu has been seen as ahead.

alibaba is a step behind and do not forget the parent of tiktok. they have data, ai capabilities, they have been quietly making aggressive moves. haidi: that was peter elstrom. more ahead, this is bloomberg. ♪ okay y'all we got ten orders coming in... big orders! starting a business is never easy, but starting it eight months pregnant... that's a different story.

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♪ annabelle: taking a look at u.s. futures, flat. tracking jay powell leader on in the super tuesday effect. primaries are taking place with trump winning north carolina and virginia. joe biden winning democratic contests in iowa, virginia and for mont. more coverage with joe mathieu and kailey leinz at 10 a.m. in hong kong, 1:00 p.m. sydney. that is it. our market coverage continues as we look ahead to the start of trade in china. ♪ (impressed) ay i like it! who wants to come see the future?! get your business online in minutes with godaddy airo

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>> we are a half an hour away from the opening bell, hong kong