hong kong and 1:00 p.m. in sydney. welcome to "bloomberg markets: asia." i'm paul allen. asian stocks stroke of positive cues from wall street as a double whammy of u.s. inflation data and the fed decision keeps traders on edge. china's consumer prices rose in may, holding above zero for a fourth month. factory gate prices still stuck in deflation. and the ruby on watch after a record, closing low against the dollar. we will take a look at how the currency's agnes impacts inflation and rvr policy. first up, let's look at our markets -- and how markets are tracking around the region. april: we are seeing risk off mostly as part of the world as investors shrug off a positive u.s. session amid lower u.s. yields and a strong treasury option for 10-year notes that saw the highest bid to cover ratio since rate hikes began. the kospi is a bit of an ally today boosted by apple suppliers

after the u.s. tech giant's record, a bit of a delayed response to its ai event. hang seng is leading to clients in the region. we are keeping a watch on it as well because yesterday it closed at six-we close, a bit of recovery on the offshore you on that is hovering near the weakest level so far this year. we did get data out of china. let's take you there where the consumer price gains are sitting above zero, but they came in lower than estimates. on the ppi front, it shows that factory deflation narrowing come of as our colleagues point out, this is due to base effect. the take away is that demand is still weak domestically in china. we are also keeping an eye out on those uscp cpi numbers, and they come right smack in the middle of a two-day policy meeting from the federal reserve . disappointing numbers almost

surely going to cause investors to pay her back rate cut expectations, especially in the wake of last week's blowout jobs reports -- almost surely going to cause investors to pair back -- pare back rate cut expectations. paul: let's bring in the ceo of ecosystem advisory. it seems almost counterintuitive, doesn't it? what is your rationale? >> very simple, actually. for the last 12 months, we have heard is yes, they are cutting, no, they are not cutting, based on inflation numbers that are completely trend-less. my advice is since it will be bullish when interest rates are

coming down, and since there is no way we will be able to predict that, you will miss the big oomph when interest rates are finally cut. it has been a nerve-racking overall experience. in between, there is something else you can be making money out of, and that is since i don't expect anything will happen to interest rates between now and christmas, you have six months of very high yields. use them, and if you are long on u.s. government bonds, when interest rates are cut, prices will go up. it is straightforward, realistic stuff. mickey mouse 101 investment, but i think it works. paul: i want to come back to some of your calls a little bit later, but to reinforce your point, we do have a chart on the bloomberg which indicates the market is now pricing in just one and a half cuts this year. to your point, it's not that

long ago that we were expecting 5, 6 fairly aggressive easing cycle. now we've got the cbr numbers out of the u.s.. while the fed meeting is in progress. do you expect further repricing if the cpi ends up being sticky? what are the chances of that happening? >> actually, nothing is going to happen. for example, the cpe, which is the favorite one of the fed, has actually been accelerating and increasing faster, and the cpi, which is not really the one we want, if you simply take the number three, which is the wrong number. we want a number two. and then you look at the decimals, they are completely all over the place. in the first four months of the year, it has been 3.1, 3.5. never mind falling below the three. remember, the fed is gunning for 2%. my advice again is to my

clients, whatever is the cpr number tomorrow, please ignore it. we will need at least three or more consistently falling cpi numbers, and we are not getting them at all. for the fed begins to say we are sort of getting there, their new 2% is 3%. it shows that the trend is falling, and that is what we want. paul: there's another big macro event on the horizon, the u.s. presidential election. regardless of who wins, what do you expect in terms of fiscal policy, and could we see inflation making a comeback in 2025? >> both are going to increase the fiscal deficit.

unfortunately, trump is going to hit the events button much harder than biden would be. for example, if it is true he really means 60% increase on all imports -- 60% tariff on all imports from china, this is what i mean by a big event. of course, increases mean access always passed on to consumer, and therefore that would be bad for inflation. straightaway, if trump does what he says he will do and gets elected, the immediate impact will not only be inflation expectations but also cpi growing. paul: you mentioned you like bonds. i wonder where you think yields are headed after this fed meeting is done and dusted. when the fed to start easing and some of the disappointments we have talked about of the past six months, where do you see the

s&p by year end? >> i'm reluctant to say flat. rather than give you an actual number. it has been doing quite well throughout the year, but remember, with a lot of moaning and gnashing of teeth, so it has not been an easy ride. i do not think we are going to keep the elections with no increases, new movements in interest rates, and we make very well get a surprise election with an economic agenda which is both untested and to some extent, while. therefore, i'm not going to be equally happy that the s&p, we are not going to give up some of the gains. paul: how are you trading around that election risk?

>> making a list of what i should or should not by if any of the two are elected. for example, if biden is elected, that is relatively negative for anything that has to do with the commodity sector, oil, mining, and the big power companies because he has a climate focus. trump has said he will move away from the cop 15 and the united nations agreement on climate, so that is going to be bullish for the carbon sector. unfortunately, i have two extremes. in other words, i will tell you if you are going to by energy, by it if you really think trump will get elected. if not, do not buy it. i have both a negative and positive catalog. i do not really have a balance whereby trump gets elected or biting that's elected, then that is going to be very good for the equities. it's going to be quite mixed

because my list contains as many don't buy and do buy again, whether any of them is a winner. please, from now on, load up on equities. whichever happens to be the winner. paul: you do like defense stocks. does not apply to whoever becomes the winner as well? are you trying to tell us something about your outlook for geopolitics? >> absolutely. i'm very aware i'm asking people to buy into companies that use goods from companies that kill people. that's what it is, it is blood, but morality aside, ukraine war

is not going to the end. we have no idea what is going to happen with gaza and all major and minor economies in the g20 beginning to spend as if there is no tomorrow, and that is good for defense. is it sad to say, but this is an almost guaranteed by --buy trump or biden is elected. more money on defense goods, absolutely. paul: you mentioned ukraine. if we step back from that and look at the chinese economy more broadly, we have had another set of rather tepid cpi numbers in the last little while. consumer confidence is not that good. what is your view of the chinese economy going forward? >> an economy which has been growing at about 5%, it is a

duplex of deflationary processes. look at this -- it seems to be doing what the rest of the world is begging to do, and that is to have very low inflation and high growth. tilde -- ta da. they actually have it. these guys are not going to do badly. however -- that is a big however. this is not reflected on the stock index, which is absolutely correct and true because stock index does not necessarily reflect gdp growth. we know that. they reflect a combination of

expectations, policies, politics, and of course, in the case of china, the unnerving fact that the property sector just will not go away. my favorite index of property, the prices of newly built properties in 70 major cities in china has been going down, negatively shrinking for the last -- take a deep breath -- two years. how do i reconcile that with 5% growth? the answer is yes, you have an economy which is growing quite strong we come up with the pricing of goods answer is not. is that a good thing? is that a bad thing? as long as it does not affect massively expectations when it comes to investment, then i would say the chinese have got it both ways.

paul: are you impressed by the equity market in terms of being impressed enough to buy? because it's very cheap at the moment. >> by the chinese equity market would be a strong buy when there is clear evidence the prices in the property sector have stopped falling, and this has not happened. authorities have had a lot of issues. taking simply the informational aspect, it is upsetting for chinese authorities that the gdp economy is doing very well, but the equities are not. the reason is primarily expectation, and they are related through deflation.

we appear not to be able to have it both ways when it comes to buying the equity market in china. the cpi is not growing negatively. the one that is is bpi. paul: we are unfortunately out of time, but you so much for joining us. still to come this hour, we will be speaking with the ceo of the u.s. national retail federation about opportunities in the retail sector in asia and beyond and preview india's upcoming data releases with quant eco-research. this is bloomberg. ♪

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paul: let's take a look at how we are doing here in australia.

off about .5%. most sectors in negative territory. it is just the energy sector that is performing well. that is up by about 1.2%. we have a bit of a bounce in the oil price as well. the aussie dollar holding, and we are see are not a great deal of change in yields, either. we are coming down to the bank of reserve -- reserve bank of australia meeting that is next week. concerns about stagflation in australia's economy despite stubborn inflation. >> we do have a remarkably resilient labor market still, and that is one of the big differences here. we will learn more about our labor market tomorrow when we get our labor force data. we have had slower growth, but we have had inflation moderating to almost half what it was two years ago. more than half what it was --

less than half what it was at its peak, so we have moderating inflation, a resilient labor market. we have relatively weak growth, and in all the circumstances, it was important in our budget that we carefully collaborated our fiscal settings to respond to those economic conditions and economic challenges. i'm confident but not complacent that we can achieve a soft landing on that narrow runway that our reserve bank governor has described. >> it will be a busy weekend with the chinese premier's visit. >> this is an incredibly important economic relationship for australia. premier league's visit -- premier li's visit will be an opportunity to continue to engage, to continue to stabilize the relationship, which has no shortage of challenges and complexities. it can be a complex relationship to manage, but what we have shown, i think, in the last two years is that by engaging, by

standing up for our interests when it is necessary to do so but also looking for ways to engage and stabilize the relationship, there can be good economic dividends from that. we are very pleased to see. almost all of the trade restrictions have been lifted over the past couple of years. that is important for our industries and exporters. we recognize and understand how important that economic relationship is an premier li's visit will be an opportunity to strengthen that. >> we are closely watching developments when it comes to the economic recovery -- what we hope is an economic recovery. do you think the property sector is at least out of structural levels of darkness we have seen, and do you think that translates to still longer-term demand for australian commodities? >> certainly we have acknowledged and understood and some of the weakness in the chinese economy in recent times, recent quarters. that will not fix itself

overnight. even with some of the interventions by authorities. we are still seeing some underlying weakness in the chinese economy, and that does impact our commodity prices and our economy more broadly, so we watch that very closely. paul: the australian treasurer speaking exclusively with bloomberg's haidi stroud-watts. plenty more ahead. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪♪

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paul: the hong kong insider trading case against segantil capital management and its founder is being transferred to a higher court. what can you tell us about what happened today?

>> the defendants had appeared in person in court today. we just saw them walk out of the courthouse separately about half an hour ago. it was a very short hearing. the court is going to move this case up to the district court on july 2 at 10:15 am what is significant is about -- what is significant about this is the district court will be able to hand out longer sentences of up to seven years, which is higher than what a magistrate court can hand out. that is still lower than the maximum penalty for insider trading, though. the maximum penalty is 10 years in prison. the two defendants had not entered a plea the last time they. -- the last time they appeared in court in early may. this time, they are extending bail on the same conditions, which was $1 million for simon sandler and $500,000 for daniel larocca. the two defendants interesting

word -- interestingly were not sitting together in court. there's not a lot we can report today because there was no trial and no verdict. we will have to wait until the next hearing to see what happens. paul: no verdict, obviously, but do we get any more details on the charges that we heard from the hearing today? >> yeah, we did. there were a lot more details disclosed in the court documents. segantil had apparently traded over -- they had sold more than 1.5 million shares that they already owned back in june 2017. typically, they had also sold about 130,000 shares ahead of a block trade that was carried out in june 2017. in total, they had sold over $1 million worth of shares through their own trading account as

well as through ubs securities. they had gotten an insider tip from mn who was working for bank of america's merrill lynch back in 2017, but merrill lynch was not named in the court document, so the arguments around the case will center on how much information was shared before the block trade, if they knew of the scale of the block trade, if they had actors on this nonpublic market moving information. according to our bloomberg terminal data, we did the unusual price movements on shares ahead of the block trade in june 2017. in the two days ahead of the trade, shares had fallen by 3% per day and on the day of the block trade, it had plummeted 13% and in all, and had lost nearly 30% of its share value in six consecutive days of trading. paul: let's look at some of the

news we are getting out of china at the moment. suction -- socgen got a call turning positive on chinese stocks for the first time since december 2022, citing positive policy momentum, improvement in earnings outlook as well. it says it does still prefer offshore and large stocks. still to come, the ceo of the u.s. national retail federation will join us and share their outlook for the global retail sector and discuss key risks for the industry as well. that is up

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you coming? reach out to a friend about their mental health. seize the awkward. it's totally worth it. paul: welcome back. we have markets in china just on their way to lunch. it's another down day for chinese equities. we have the csi 300 off by a

shade under .2%. we did have rather weak cpi/ppi read out of china a little bit earlier. we will discuss that in more detail in a moment. keeping an eye on the yuan as well, that is continuing to close in on some of the weakest levels that we have seen this year. aside from cpi/ppi out of china, we had an inflation print out of japan also. >> we are anticipating the u.s. inflation numbers later today, but we got those japan producer price numbers in the morning. this is, to be clear, not a number that typically is a market mover, but this is boj week, so it is worth highlighting that we saw the ppi rising at the fastest clip in nine months. it came in harder than expected

and showed a rise in the cost of import materials. it seems to suggest how the week yen is adding to inflationary pressures in japan. let's also keep in mind that this is the first print where the successful wage result negotiations were actually reflected. it seems to be adding to the case for the boj to tighten in support of the japanese currency. that is what we are seeing data-wise. let's take a look at what we are seeing in the fx space because i think the dollar-again -- dollar-yen is not being helped by these expectations of boj tightening in the week. it is really that either we are keeping an eye out for u.s. inflation numbers as well as the fed. we have a decision to from the bank of thailand. it is expected to keep things unchanged, defiant pressure from the government to ease, and that should be supportive of the thai baht, keeping an eye on the rupee as well.

pulling away from the fresh record low that we saw it hit just yesterday, it is moving away from the 83.5 seven level, and as we keep an eye out on u.s. data, we also are watching out for how the offshore yuan is faring. a bit of recovery today even against the backdrop of that china data. paul: thanks very much. china's consumer prices edging higher in may. factory cake prices, though, remaining stuck in deflation as they have been since hundred 22. let's get more with bloomberg economist eric hsu. what is your take on these numbers and more broadly, the health of the chinese economy? eric: i think it is basically meeting our expectations. the cpi is statistically out of deflation but still very weak. just barely above the euro. if you look at details, the most positive contribution is from

food prices. outside food, the core inflation was even weaker than last month, so it is a clear signal that other than food, probably the underlying demand in the china economy is still very weak. statistically, we are out of deflation, but it does not mean that deflationary pressure is gone, so we still need more positive support to revive the demand in china. paul: let's talk about factory cake prices. they are stuck in deflation. we have any signs suggesting there might be a turnaround in this? >> probably in the second half of the year, we will continue to see some -- the narrowing of the inflation, and in the final quarter, we might see some positive reading on ppi, so it is somewhat related to the low base last year, but if global prices seymour valley, that will contribute more to the -- if global prices see more rally,

that will contribute more to bringing prices back under inflation. paul: from lipstick to lottery tickets, what have these items got in common? eric: lottery sales in china pick up very fast after pandemic, especially last year, but kind of puzzling because before the pandemic, lottery sales used to grow together with income, but obviously, after the pandemic, the people in china saw slow income growth, so that makes us think that probably there is a consumer preference shift in lottery sales. especially when we think that the players of lottery are probably shifting to those younger, more educated population who are frustrated by the job and income outlook, so that probably explains why the low confidence in china is driving lottery sales.

interestingly, we also see marriage rates, so if we use that as a proxy for young people's confidence for the future, we see those provinces who see faster lottery growth also see lower marriage rates at the same time, suggesting probably low confidence among young people is driving those observations we see from china right now. paul: let's take a look ahead to the u.s. cpi print. our next guest says the pressure will be on services, which makes up a large part of the consumer index. let's bring in the president and ceo of the u.s. national retail federation, the world's largest retail trade association. thanks so much for joining us. i want to kickoff with that u.s. cpi number. it is being closely watched by traders at the moment. just wondering what your outlook

is for inflation and how that could potentially impact u.s. consumer behavior. >> good afternoon and happy to be with you to talk about this. as we are here in singapore this week for your own event. we could talk about that later, too. first of all, the fed is meeting this week. no one expects the fed to do anything beyond what we are all doing, which is watch the data. the fed is not going to raise rates or lower rates this week. we are all watching cpi. you know the fed watches more closely the pce numbers in the u.s. those don't come out for almost three more weeks, until june 28. the thing we will see in cpi is that because 70% of cpi is composed of services indicators, that is why it has been running pretty hot. in the u.s. economy, that is where all the inflation is. goods inflation has been flat to

negative, so there's not much room for goods inflation to adjust any further than it already has, and it's really on the services side that we have to see how we can bring that down, and in the face of that, to your question, consumers continue to be pretty resilient. consumers are out shopping, spending. they are engaged in commerce, and that is primarily because employment numbers are very solid and very healthy and because wage gains continue to outpace inflation in the u.s. for the average u.s. worker. as long as people are employed in the u.s., as long as their wages exceed inflation, they will continue to shop. they are not very happy about inflation. we know that very clearly, that consumers all feel the pain of inflation, but at the moment, we have seen maybe a little moderation, but not much softening in consumer behavior.

paul: the consumer has been surprisingly resilient, but of course, high inflation means rates are higher for longer. are any of your members finding rates particularly burdensome? how is it affecting the bricks and mortar retail stores? >> i think what you see in the u.s. is a continued accelerated and more pronounced bifurcation of income levels behaving differently. at higher income levels, those consumers are still engaged in travel and tourism and hospitality, engaged with luxury brands, shopping and traveling, whereas the average u.s. household that has got maybe a $60,000 a year annual income is finding it much more challenging because energy prices are higher, because rent and housing prices are higher.

things on the services side are really driving price increases. retailers especially in the supermarkets face are really delivering great value right now and are delivering lower prices than even over the last couple of years. however, it is clear that some households in the u.s. have much more pressure than others because their monthly income does not go as far as it used to. they are paying more for housing, fervent, for other services -- more for auto insurance and then more for energy prices, for gasoline and other energy costs. that is creating real pressure on those lower income and average income households and higher income households in relative terms are still behaving reasonably aggressively. paul: economic data aside, i want to talk about some of the political risk as well.

a lot of goods available in the u.s. come from china. as the current tension between the u.s. and china affecting business at all? i'm thinking particularly in terms around forced labor, copyright theft, pollution, and other issues. >> those are all critically important issues for retailers and our members and other businesses in the u.s. are very attuned to that because it impacts their business. it is certainly the right thing to do to be addressing those issues and identifying suppliers and supply chains and partners in these markets to ensure there is great transparency and there is adherence to the rule of law and respect for people's human rights. those things i think are all happening, and because retailers are in a consumer-facing business, so customers are paying great attention to this. as a result, retailers do as well. i would say in spite of the

tensions that exist at the political level, you see when business leaders from this region and from the u.s. make visits to asia, to china, to the mainland, it is still an incredibly important market, both as a consumer market as well as a market for sourcing and supply. it's too big a market not to be engaged with, so you continue to see ceo's make the visits, make the trip, make the investment, and on the supply chain side in particular, there are some goods that because of the availability of natural resources and the sophistication of the production facilities, that is much as you see diversification in the supply chain, some elements of the supply chain, some particular products will continue to be manufactured in china no matter what because it is cost effective to do that because it would be too burdensome to make a move. i think in the u.s., we are trying to balance both of those

things. politically, there is great concern about the relationship and maintaining stability. economically, there is a recognition that china is an essential partner and will continue to be in the foreseeable future. paul: a lot of online products get shipped to the u.s. from china in small packages in this way, getting around tariffs. do you think there needs to be some policy in this area to address that? >> in the u.s., there is a rule called the minimus rule, which permits the importation of goods with a value below $800 without the imposition of taxes or tariffs. that rule made sense when it was implemented. it creates an environment now where there is an incentive for manufacturers and suppliers and retailers outside the u.s. to send things in to the u.s. and shipped direct to consumers and avoid paying the tax. you have retailers in the u.s.

that are not able to do that because they are selling through stores and other u.s.-based distribution points and subject to taxes and tariffs, so there needs to be some leveling, some consistency created. it is challenging because you can continue to reach the threshold from 800 u.s. dollars. you almost cannot get it low enough to avoid the importation of some goods, and i think one of the reasons we have seen this is we have seen manufacturers get so good at this outside the u.s. and because supply chains are so efficient, so that clearly needs work. there is not an easy solution, but we are certainly getting into conversations with everyone to try to find one. paul: quickly because we are nearly out of time, but before we let you go, you are joining us from singapore. i'm wondering if you are seeing any opportunities in the asia-pacific? >> we are.

it is the fastest growing market, the most diverse market. we have tens of millions of consumers here and potential customers, so this is a great place for the nrf to be hosting an event, convening hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of attendees this week. we actually sold out and will be back again next year june 3 to 5, so we are excited for the partnership and look back -- look forward to being back again next year and many years in the future. paul: good stuff. matthew shea, president and ceo of national retail federation. thank you for joining us. still to come, we will preview eddie's economic releases and hear why they think core inflation could -- india's economic releases and hear why they think core inflation could trend higher in the next few months. this is bloomberg. ♪

paul: all right, welcome back. you are watching the india focus just in time for the opening of trading in india. looks like a mostly risk-on day in the early going. we have most of the major indexes of nearby about .20 5%. keeping a close eye on the rupee at the bottom of your screen, just reversing away from those record lows. this is the greenback, but we will be watching that very closely today. also watching closely, india will be reducing data on

inflation, industrial production, and trade this week. bloomberg economics expect inflation to hold steady with costs continuing to be the driver -- with fed costs continuing to be the driver. we will get those cpi numbers in a few hours' time. expected to edge up just did a basis points to 4.85%, but inflation, like in many countries, still proving sticky. what is keeping it elevated in india? >> yes, this evening's print in india later today. what keeps consumer inflation pretty much range bound, our own consent is much higher than consensus. essentially being driven, as you rightly pointed out, by food prices. we have had not a great monsoon season last year. this year, the monsoon season is expected to be much better.

it has been a timely arrival. food prices have been elevated through most of the last six months, driving headline inflation. this evening, what we could see is a repetition of the same story. core inflation is cutting off fuel and prices remains low around 3%, it is essentially food prices driven by perishables, which are actually driving the headline cpi high up. this could prevail over the next two to three months, we believe, but thereafter, with the monsoon coverage over the entire subcontinent, we expect prices to cool off, and mostly converge closer to 4.5% for the year. paul: the growth story in india still looks very strong, but we have industrial production expected to slow a little bit in april. is there anything in this number that concerns you?

>> actually, the left sidedness in terms of the details of industrial production. over the last 10 to 11 years, we actually recorded one of the best numbers in terms of industrial production growth if you leave out the covid distortions, but having said that, there has been an unevenness in growth. investment-related industrial production pushed the headline closer to around 5% or thereabouts, but importantly, the larger concern emanates from the consumption-related entity's within the consumption basket. those worry us. we do see softness persisting. so long as we have lower employment growth, the monsoon impact yet to be felt in the

country, i think we could continue to see the same story repeated over the next two or three months, but a lot depends on the budget that will be announced by the new elected government in the month of july, and we hope to see some traction coming therein later on in terms of giving a better balance in the industrial production story. paul: let's talk a little bit about the budget because the finance minister being reappointed, so there is some continuity, some certainty for markets. do you anticipate any surprises in the budget or particularly around taxation? >> i would not really think that the final budget would be anything dramatically different from what was presented in february as an interim budget. perhaps internally, we could see small adjustments towards allocation of expenditures,

nearing more towards the verbal economy, towards the less privileged population. there could be higher allocations to that. if you look at broad headline numbers in terms of fiscal consolidation, in terms of tax collections, remember, india's tax brilliancy has been steadily improving. the overall economic momentum has been supporting tax collections. add to that the recent very strong surprise number on the central bank's dividend to the government, almost double market expectations. it provides a fair bit of cushion to the government to engage in some repeat of the expenditure numbers, but we do believe that overall, the fiscal consolidation number of 5.1% gdp

would probably be maintained in the final budget to be presented around mid july. paul: just as you are speaking, we do see the india repeat tracking -- the indian rupee tracking near record lows. just wondering what your thoughts are on that. >> is a great question because a lot of market participants are expecting the rupee to appreciate in the course of the next 10 to 12 months. we are in the contrarian camp. we believe that the rupee has a depreciating bias. not essentially because of the fundamentals because on our external account, india is not expected to do any worse. in fact, we are going to be perhaps posting a very manageable current account gap of about 1% of gdp, extremely

manageable given the kind of flows that we anticipate in india to come. having said, it would be more governed by monetary policies across the globe. how india would respond to that, we expect the rvr to start easing policy rates by october, not earlier -- we expect are b.i. -- we expect the rbi to start easing rates by october, not earlier. paul: we are out of time. thank you for joining us. let's get a quick update out of pakistan because the government there will be unveiling its postelection budget later on wednesday. they're expected to outline targets for tax revenue growth, possible tax changes, the fiscal deficit as well. more to come. this is bloomberg. ♪ avalarahhh

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paul: here are some of the top stories we are watching from the corporate space. bytedance said to be slashing about 450,000 jobs at its indonesian arm, the first cuts since combining its tiktok shop with a local bible. cuts are set to start as soon as this month amid signals bytedance is seeking to reduce costs after january's one point $5 billion deal. oracle surged in extended trading after posting bookings

well of expert -- well ahead of expectations. it bodes well for oracle's efforts to compete in cloud computing the firm also sees revenue growth increasing by double digits in the current fiscal year, fueled by stronger ai demand. we will be watching the bangkok thailand rate decision in the coming -- the bank of thailand rate decision in the coming hours. most bloomberg economics expect the bank to hold off on a cut, keeping the rate at a record high. this comes amid growing uncertainty in the country as well as intense pressure from the government to cut rates. that is it from "bloomberg markets: asia." "horizons middle east & africa" up next this is bloomberg. ♪ all your employees be well on their way to their financial goals. that's the value of ownership.

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