emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." next hour,n the while bitcoin has fallen off of the radar for many market watchers, demand is ticking up. we will tell you why. plus, walmart reports his best colder -- holiday quarter in a decade. we will check in on the health of the retailer and the outlook for slip cart. youtube announces new guidelines for users with one-time

warnings. will the rules be enough to avoid intervention from regulators? to the top story, is bitcoin back? the cryptocurrency is approaching $4000 for the first time since the start of the year. the boost comes after last week's announcement that jpmorgan has developed a prototype coin that it wants to use to speed up payments between corporate customers. with a boost last? two discussed we are joined by -- -- joined by spencer. is bitcoin back? has been way overdue for a bear market bounds. it is still working off of the bear market in oversold conditions. if you look at the major indicators. these have been synonymous with bottoms in the past. they show the market is far away

from a typical bottom you would normally see emily: spencer, -- c. emily: spencer, i presume you would disagree? >> it has never left. it has always been here. are we going to see all-time highs? probably not yet. for now, the interest in the space has not seated with the price. emily: do you think it has hit bottom? >> i think now's a good time to buy. is it the absolute bottom? i'm not sure. bottomed? bitcoin >> it would be nice if it is a bottom, but it's unlikely. it has been trading between two 3100 and 4100 and is doing the same thing as last year. bitcoin to me is more like digital gold. i think it is expensive, but the rest of the space has more gleaning to do. emily: spencer, what has been

the in venture -- investor interest? spencer: it is not slumped at all in terms of entrepreneurial activity. we see more and more companies coming in every day and higher-quality entrepreneurs. thinking about bitcoin as an asset in this forecast -- vortex of a macro environment with rising debt levels at an all-time high, money printing, tension between nationalism and globalism, and the notion of ism.sdictional >> a lot of people are looking at institutions. i think institutions might look at the going as a proxy for digital gold. the institutions that might buy gold might diversify portfolios with bitcoin. the rest of the cryptocurrencies. they still trade like speculative digital assets.

that is far away, but that is where you have to differentiate the difference. bitcoin is attractive. i still -- gold is a more attractive investment and bitcoin at its current level. emily: spencer, where do you think the demand is going? spencer: there are three main buckets of demand. the first is the passage of time. every day bitcoin is live, it goes from scary and unknown to trusted and proven. the second bucket of demand is from central bank institutions which value it as a non-sovereign digital asset with scarcity. the third major bucket is tech demand. this is demand for bitcoin as programmable money. bitcoin is a platform anyone can build on top of. the othert are indicators you are watching, mike. perhaps indicators that might show a bear market comes to an end? mike: this is where i like the dichotomy with spencer. i look at it as a market sky and

not a technology guy. network value to transactional ratio is still very high. address is used, they are at levels below the 2017 low, which was around 900. these indicators need to pick up. in the past, they have been leading indicators. looking at things like volatility, it is way too high for a bitcoin bottom. bulletin of the two needs to get 15, maybe 25%. emily: i have a chart that shows .he bounce we saw what are catalysts that could end the bear market or help the get tofully recover and where you want to see it? spencer: anything could set the tinderbox off. to go back to my earlier

comment, we need more time to pass the the get to where you want to see it? -- pass between the bull market of 2017 and where we are today. it could be anything like over the weekend, cambridge put out a report that said institutions, it is time to allocate crypto. that probably means less than 1% of your portfolio, but in terms of pensions, it is a sizable amount. emily: what do we know about what jpmorgan is doing with this going and if other banks will follow? spencer: the key reason bitcoin did somethingan significant because it adds more supply to the space, and is -- what ise space the trend in the space? that is what jpmorgan is focusing on. it is competition for ripple. if you look at the most successful going -- coin, it is tether. that is what the space needs.

it needs to become more stable. -- what areother the coins to watch and stop watching? thiser: jpmorgan's coin, is internet. you want to focus on open networks anyone can build on top of. i would not suggest people go much further down the spectrum. btc and east. emily: not ripple? spencer: maybe down the line. emily: always good to have you on the show. thank you both. the trump administration's soaring rhetoric last year about creating a space force finally drifted down to earth. under a new directive signed by trump in the white house, the space force would be part of the air force and not an independent branch of the u.s. military. trump directed the pentagon to a u.s. based command

post for troops during war, which the military has been working on since last year. space related headlines crossing the terminal. spacex and its rival will split six military space launches at , and the air force announced results of the latest competition between the national security launch providers. we will continue to follow that story. posted strong sales growth over the holiday quarter as it pushes into e-commerce. where it stands in competition with amazon, that is next. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. listen on the bloomberg app, bloomberg.com, and, in the u.s., sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪ . ♪

emily: some good news for retail. walmart brushed off the disappointing december sales tuesday with its best holiday quarter in a decade. their fourth-quarter u.s. comparable sales beat expectations while e-commerce sales rose 43% in the fourth quarter. all the company takes on amazon, and bush new online sales, it is weighing on margins. to discuss is andrew in chicago and sara hall zach in d.c.. how did walmart avoid a week december? >> i think they showed strength in a couple of key categories. one was toys. the expanded their assortment by 40% and knew this was the first

christmas without toys "r" us. they wanted to claim the market share. the other element is groceries. walmart has been investing in grocery delivery and collecting grocery. this is an area where they have an advantage and that was another source of strength for them on the digital front. emily: walmart has a redesigned website and went after toys are us buyers, what in particular do you think helps walmart close the deal? andrew: i think they are firing on all cylinders across every channel. brick has been strong. they've invested in their store experience bringing consumers back online. the headline was 43% growth. were a lot of other retailers faltered late in the season, well, butmazon is walmart in particular, was able

to get the last-minute sales because of their strong on the channel. -- omnichannel. emily: let's talk about the landscape. i have a chart that compares the market caps on walmart and amazon. amazon is blue, much higher market cap than walmart, but when you look at revenue, all march brings in more revenue. when you look at profit, amazon's profits dwarf walmart. ,t shows interesting conflicting trends at play. how do investors see this story, sarah? sarah: i think they see walmart is finding its niche. growth is slowing down, it remains the leader with $.50 of every dollar spent online going to amazon. that is tough to compete with, but walmart is trying to find its niche. not only with programs like click and collect, but by

building a galaxy of other businesses where they can get a different type of customer. this is why it's bought bear bare necessities. it is trying to focus on a customer who perhaps would not shop at walmart under other circumstances. walmart is trying to build this brand that meets customers in different places, which is unique compared to amazon. emily: is walmart even online going to be able to squeeze the profit amazon is squeezing from its customers? andrew: a big part of amazon's growth is their profitability, it's comes from adjacent businesses with aws and their fast-growing advertising businesses. those have a different margin profile. question is, walmart's

core retail business is moving in the right direction, but will they be able to layer on more business lines? they talked about the advertising business. i think they wield a ton of potential there. amazon has a big head start, but there is something there to watch if they can lay on a much more profitable business, leveraging the enormity of customer data they have at their disposal. emily: sarah, how is the grocery battle shaping up? walmart's leader, but amazon is in that territory. other grocery chains are doing more deliveries as well. sarah: walmart has really strong geographic coverage. 70% ofid something like the u.s. population is covered by their pickup services now. for the delivery service, it's in the 30% range. that a strong coverage. when you compare what amazon is working with, whole foods only has 400 stores compared to the thousands of walmart stores. that is an advantage for walmart.

the dynamics are changing. , which is a major competitive force, has struck a deal with oconto where cotto's itscato will bring technology over to the states to help kroger ramp up its game. this is a fast changing landscape. it is so little penetrated. inserting categories are 30 to 40% online, grocery is 2% online. it's anybody's game. emily: the ceo of walmart is saying the online sales strength is weighing on gross margin. how do they intend to combat that? right now, a lot of where that is coming from his slip cart. in the near term, slip cards will be a drag on those margins, but that is a long-term play.

india is this massive market. everyone is hoping it becomes the next china as an e-commerce market. it is about how that plays out over the next five to 10 years. near-term, they will have to incur some of that hit, but it is smart, strategically. cart -- flip slip was hotly contested. how well is that acquisition going? sarah: what everyone was watching for today was we learned about these new e-commerce regulations going into effect in india which create challenges for both walmart and amazon as foreign participants in that market. we heard the ceo say on the call that market is to its appointed -- walmart is disappointed with the regulations and will have to work within them. it's noteworthy they did not adjust the guidance.

they issued annual guidance in october and not to revise it today. that's a clue to us that, while they will have work to adapt to -- worked to adapt to the market, this is a long-term play. zach -- hah hall lzack and andrew, thank you for weighing in. the race for 5g is in full swing. qualcomm is vying to make sure it's chips are at the center of this next gen tech. we will discuss, next. "bloomberg technology" is livestreaming on twitter. check us out @technology, and be sure to follow our global news network, @tictoc, on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a u.s. congressional panel asked facebook for a staff briefing on its privacy policy after a complaint to regulators claimed some users may have had their health data exposed, directly appealing to mark zuckerberg. the complaint claims some information shared in a closed facebook group was accessible to people not in those groups. qualcomm is introducing its second check to connect to the new generation of high-speed data transfers. increasing competitions and they hope a new chip will of what it disappointing repeat of the 4g -- avoid disappointing

-- avoiding the disappointing repeat of 4g chips. >> they really want these services to come very quickly. --y believe if you look at what qualcomm has been doing -- emily: how does that stack up against competitors? is the closest competitor, and they will have 5g chipt five -- this year. that's their first when the second qualcomm chip is coming along. , ithere are no networks doesn't matter how good the chip is. rollouts in terms of --n cities and they are

there are usually debates in this -- emily: what about customers? we report apple not be integrating technology this year. who knows about next year? >> it's a good question. qualcomm and apple are far from the best of friends. apple is no longer using qualcomm chips. qualcomm sees this as an opportunity to put pressure on apple's sales. where is apple right now? apple will rely on the brand and rely upon their existing user base. emily: samsung has the big impact this week -- big unpack this week. will samsung the apple to the punch? >> samsung is tightly contacted --is a customer of qualcomm tightly connected customer of qualcomm. emily: when do you expect we

will see 5g truly hitting the mainstream? >> that's a good question. you have to look at what the carriers are doing. if there's one thing to listen to, the phone and chipmakers, you have to listen to verizon and the china mobile. when they start to set targets that they will have to meet, they will have to sell to the stock market. things will really happen. emily: huawei is in the midst of a huge controversy and you have the united states government banning them from u.s. networks and european countries banning them from their networks. where do they stand in the 5g race? >> if we focus on europe, which is what the story was about, if are -- you are reliant on these companies like huawei to do your engineering for you.

if one of your biggest partners can't work with you anymore, or you have second thoughts about working with them, that could mean a lot of more.rollouts might cost emily: i know you will be charging the race to 5g for all of us. thank you for stopping by. up, from infamy to internet giant, how japan's holding one from $14 billion in debt to a serious challenge for alibaba. titan wants to make investing in managed portfolios more accessible and is using educational content to encourage the next generation. this is bloomberg. ♪ on. this is bloomberg. ♪ i'm a veteran

and the army taught me a lot about commitment. which i apply to my life and my work. at comcast we're commited to delivering the best experience possible, by being on time everytime. and if we are ever late, we'll give you a automatic twenty dollar credit. my name is antonio and i'm a technician at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome.

♪ mrs. bloomberg technology global link where we join bloomberg daybreak: australia to bring you the latest in global tech news. i'm emily chang in san francisco with haidi stroud-watts in sydney and sherry and in new york. let's get a look at the top tech stories to start. shery: china has largely abandoned an obama era hacking truce. attacks appeared to be in 2015, butollowing the 20 have ramped up due ttrump's war with beijing. the targets included a telecommunication systems in u.s. and asia.

looking to buy amazon's chinese import business. the initial deal may be swap.ted via as share it's an e-commerce leader in selling imported goods in china. 10% ofplanning to cut its senior managers. the cuts targeted at the v.p. level and the company grapples with slowing customer spending. the slowest rise on record. those are the top global tech stories we are watching. emily: thank you. imagine an internet company that owns tech comparable to the following -- linked in, eharmony, zillow and more. chances are if there was an american company with assets like that under one roof, you would know its name. but if you have never heard of it, you are probably not alone. the japanese tech giant owns a

compilation of apps, portals and more. attracting the most consumers in the world by 2030. to discuss, we are joined by a professor at harvard business school. she joins us now from cambridge, massachusetts. recruit owns u.s. names like toped, glass door, japan's dining portal for example. give us a little history on this company and how it got to where it is today. sandra: the story about recruit actually really starts with a scandal. this is a scandal of massive proportions. the company was founded in 1960. around the mid-1980's, its ceo gave shares above stock that was about to go public in its subsidiary to about 70

government officials and high-ranking executives. news of this scandal broke in 1988 and it was a sensation. it caused the resignation of the japanese prime minister and his entire cabinet. it brought down another 150 people. it is still in the schoolbooks in japan. the first thing that someone says when you say recruit is, oh, the scandal. this is how the company had a coming-of-age moment that was unlike that of most other companies. the first thing you should know about recruit is it has been trusted, lost trust and learned how to regain trust. 2019, you continue to hear about these government issues, transparency issues. i'm wondering how they were able to get past what sounds like a

pretty much existential crisis for the company. thera: what happened was employees actually thought the company had about six months of life after the scandal broke. but they decided if anybody was going to save the company, it was going to be them. they went to all of their customers and they basically told their customers, look, our founder did this.we were not involved . we will continue to try to serve you the way we had in the past and they were very convincing. they were very convinced they could still run a good business and a loss very few customers. so, that was the beginning of a sense of belief in themselves. they went through a period of enormous debt when the japanese asset bubble broke. they also managed to pay that off as recently as 2006. this is a company that has learned that on the one hand, it can really do bad things, but it

can really be humble and curious and extremely confident in its ability to handle typical situations. that is the spirit they bring to everything they do now. emily: what is the strategy today? they also own a real estate portal, providing direct loans to businesses based on daily traffic. how does this all fit together? sandra: they have a three segment -- three segment in the business. all of their i.t. businesses that are very involved with artificial intelligence and matching platforms for jobs. then, they've got one that is in the middle where those businesses would be. those are the ribbon model. this is a model that says they want to create both for the consumer and the client who is paying the money to try to match the consumer. then, there is the third business which is the staffing

business for both permanent and temporary staff. i have always had this mix in the company of being interested in trying to help people largely around education and finding jobs. they have been rolling out from there. haidi: what can we expect in terms of global ambitions, expansion ambitions? sandra: so, the company is on record as saying they want to have the most users by 2030, which is a pretty big ambition for anyone to say. i actually think from an ethical standpoint, it puts them on sort of a safer path to growth than saying they have a sales timesion to be x, y, z the number of dollars they are making right now, because this is something they pretty much had to satisfy customers if they are going to go after this kind of a way of getting bigger. that is what their goal is.

like any company, there will be some challenges along the way. haidi: so great to have you with us, sandra sucher, professor at harvard is the school joining us. stick with us. much more ahead. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: manus portfolios and hedge funds have traditionally been limited to wealthy investors. a startup wants to change that. it chooses the best 20 stocks based on data from the most procedures hedge funds, allowing anyone to invest with just a 1% fee. and one-year-old, it raise $2.5 million from backers such as joe montana and paul graham. now it wants to get millennials

into the game with a large of a no social -- new social feed. joining us to discuss is the co-ceo, clayton gardner. differentiate titan from other apps out there. clayton: titan actively manage user capital and a portfolio of stocks. teamtantly, our research works behind the scenes to deliver insight. when you think about the investing landscape today, you have the do-it-yourself trading apps that leaves the user to fend for themselves. you have set it and forget it passage solutions which essentially -- set and forget passage solutions divorce the investor from the polio where the investor is not -- the portfolio where the investor is not learning. and then you have hedge funds that are inaccessible. in a nutshell, you can think

of titan as the modern portfolio manager in your pocket at an affordable price that keeps you in the loop. emily: what kind of customers are you targeting? clayton: our target customer today is the new courier professional. someone who -- new career professional. someone wants to engage in the markets but does not have the experience, time or resources to do so. these are investors that don't want to manage the portfolio themselves, but also don't want to be divorced from the portfolio and sit on the sidelines in a low-cost etf. emily: talk to us about some of the newer features and what you think really sets you apart from some of the other options out there. clayton: i think today's announcement of our home feed is an exciting step forward. the way we think about the investing world is people need to be better connected with how they are actually investing. you think about the solutions today. not many managed solutions

available for retail investors. mutual funds is the only one accessible to the 97% of americans that are uncredited. i think the way we think about experience needs to work is you need to bring the content, the actual information that is driving portfolios. you need to tie it to how the investor actually invest. s. through traditional brokers, you cannot do that. passive products like index funds, they are invested in vanilla products so it is hard to get under the covers to explain what is going on. i think you need to tie those two together to really deliver an experience people want. emily: what is the ratio of a.i. to humans, because there is increasing concern that technology would be able to do this job and you will necessarily need humans to do it? clayton: it is an interesting consideration. our view on the future is active

management in particular will be some combination, a hybrid between machines, intelligence, software and human's. s. i think machines are really good st automating the menial task that humans are maybe a little slower at. humans have a sense of judgment, especially when it comes to investment for the long-term. it is really hard for machines to model. that is why you have seen investors in active space with really impressive track records that are still doing things by the books, investing in a lot of these quantitative funds. we see the future as a hybrid between the two. emily: clayton gardner, we will keep our eye on you. still ahead, twitter is intensifying its efforts to combat disinformation in political ads by unveiling a new policy. what is different this time? we will discuss, next. ♪

emily: tesla's revenue ramped up last year as model thre3 producn problems resolved. the netherlands became the company's number three market worldwide. china saw sales drop. tesla began to ship model 3's to europe and china this month. twitter is taking steps to keep russia and other groups from meddling with european union elections in may. it plans on introducing extra check and will publish more information around political ads. the eu warrant tech companies to step up efforts to combat misinformation. what exactly is twitter doing differently? sarah: twitter will do what

it rolled out in the u.s. last year which is more of a transparent archive for political ads. in the u.s., this is something facebook and google have already done with mixed results. there is lack of transparency in terms of the verification process. people get verified as political advertisers even though they aren't, but at least it is a step in the right direction. what twitter is doing is basically what the honest ad s act, one of the big proposals by congresspeople this year, to get there to be a similar level of transparency in digital ads as there are for ads in tv and radio. emily: how is this different from what twitter has done in the past? sarah: they are expanding it. now they have expanded it to the u.k. facebook is rolling this out around the world ahead of various elections. they say they will have it worldwide in the summer. it looks like there was going to be a standard across facebook,

google and twitter for political ads going forward. emily: talk to us about where facebook stands. sarah: facebook, in the u.k. especially, is in trouble. we have seen a lot of talk from regulators, especially the digital energy and commerce committee in the u.k., saying that facebook has been acting like -- it has no regard for the law. they are trying to do with what people's privacy things that extend beyond their expectations. a major report over the weekend called them digital gangsters. there is serious reckoning happening there. you also have a possible fine coming from the fcc that could run into the billions. german regulators cracking down as well. facebook is an regulatory hot water around the world and moves like this on the part of facebook, on the part of google and twitter can help them stave off even more criticism. emily: you want to ask you about

a facebook story we mentioned earlier which is a consumer complaint about facebook groups. congress is inquiring about this directly to mark zuckerberg. sarah: there was a letter that came out today from the congressional committee, the same one that interrogated mark itkerberg, asking why was that these people were joining these private facebook groups to discuss their personal medical conditions, and having that information be used by facebook in its advertising algorithm to allow advertisers to target those people based on the medical conditions. it is a huge breach of what people expect facebook to be collecting from that. arguing a couple of weeks ago, we think about privacy in terms of facebook giving information to others, but what we really need to be thinking about is information facebook itself collects about us and the way

they do it beyond what we would expect. in a private group, you would expect facebook is not keeping track about the fact you are talking about a very private disease. emily: there is a difference between what people expect and what facebook does, and what facebook may tell you. is it something that is ok according to facebook's terms of service? sarah: they are tracking all of facebook.ity on even if you spent a little more time on one post than another post, if yo even if you don't click like on it, they are still looking at your behavior and trying to glean information from it. i think it really does go beyond what people expect. they have the ability to follow you around websites they don't own, apps they don't own. all of this serves to enhance their advertising algorithm. some of it may not be necessarily facebook employees knowing things about you, but it

feeds into the system that can then target you with an ad that serves medicine based on the group you joined. emily: what does congress want to know from mark zuckerberg? sarah: they are demanding a hearing. they want facebook to explain what happened here and how this works and whether that loophole has been closed. we have not heard a response from facebook on this today, but it is another example of this drumbeat we will continue to hear this year of regulators calling out facebook for going beyond consumer expectations in how they administer their product. emily: sarah frier, thank you so much for that update. one we will continue to follow. twitter is not the only platform changing up its policies. starting february 25, youtube channels will get one-time warnings the first time they post content that crosses the line. no penalties except for removal

of the content. for me, we will bring in -- more, we will bring in lucas shaw. how are the policies changing? lucas: the warning at first this something new. it used to be the first mistake, you would get a first strike which would penalize you. now, because creators have complained the community guidelines are unclear, they will get a one-time morning that allows them -- warning that allows them to figure it out. that is good news for the creators that are upset about it. it does not solve the big picture problems which means the guidelines on youtube have not made a lot of sense. emily: youtube is saying with the new guidelines, they will make a better effort to be more transparent and give you information when they pull content down. there is only one penalty that will be standardized across all issues, not different penalties for different kinds of violations, correct? lucas: yeah. you ttube has also adjusted the

punishment for each strike. you get a warning the first time. if you do something again, a first strike. that strike lasts for 90 days. if you have another video that infringes, you get another strike which leads to a steeper punishment. the third strike, your channel gets taken down. it used to be the punishments for those strikes varied with the type of channel you were. emily: youtube started making changes to the algorithm to reduce recommendations of things like conspiracy. theories, which ranges from the earth is flat, 9/11 conspiracy theories to parkland students were crisis actors. how is that impacting engagement on the platform? lucas: engagement across the platform, i have not seen a dramatic change. what it does is it tends to impact individual creators or pockets of creators because

youtube has to ingest so much video every second. most of that is still handled with algorithms. they will dedicate human resources on problems that are causing them headaches at the moment, but by and large, things are still handled by computers. you will see the algorithms flag certain types of videos more often. all of a sudden, someone that had these videos that had all of these ads gets shut off. then youtube changes that, not reall realizing it will affect another video on the platform. youtube is always having to solve a problem from behind. because it is such a large company, it takes so long to implement these problems, they solve a problem from six or nine months ago. emily: who are the main targets here? super prominent youtube stars like logan paul who violated policy by posting a video of someone's suicide. who made racist had

comments. is that the problem or less prominent users? lucas: i think youtube is definitely guarding against those high-profile problems. they also want to look after the smaller creators. all sorts of inappropriate videos. youtube does not want them on their site. it does not please advertisers. but, i think mostly they are trying to come up with a policy that is consistent, that will mitigate the complaint of their creators, and make it look as if they have a system that is more equitable and more reasonable. and to use their own word, more transparent. emily: lucas shaw for us in l.a. thank you for bringing us those updates. we will watch to see how it impacts the platform. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. tune in this wednesday. we will talk about the news coming out of the samsung event.

we are of course livestreaming on twitter. check us out @technology and follow our global news network tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

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haidi: very good morning. i'm haidi stroud-watts in sydney. shery: good evening from new york, i'm shery ahn. sophie: i'm sophie kamaruddin in hong kong. welcome to daybreak asia. ♪ haidi: our top stories this wednesday -- trade talks resume in washington with the u.s. calling for a stable yuan as part of any potential trade deal. u.s. stocks rising. the s&p 500 gaining for a sixth