the markets largely flat though we're seeing a little bit of a recovery. [bell sounding it looks like the dow jones is going to finish roughly flat on the day and the nasdaq up roughly 0.3% to 0.4%. the russell 2000 finishing higher by 0.6%. we mentioned oil hovering around in new yorkarrel trading. when we talk about volume here as we head towards a three-day weekend in the u.s., this was incredibly low volume. traded acrossares the major markets in the u.s. we've been averaging about 13 billion for the past four months or so.

definitely a day where some folks have stepped away from their terminals and moved on to this weekend. mentioning,you were the bond markets closed already. worth noting that all the major indexes including the russell 2000 closing at their highs of the session. they've managed to close out the week with gains. the nasdaq up 3.4% over the past five days. we still have met with us. matt, we heard from central thisrs, jay powell, and at point the fed seems content to sit on its hands and wait to see how things shake out as its programs continue to provide liquidity to the markets. what kind of comments from the fed could spark alarm in investors going forward? we are about to enter a slower

season. i know everyone is stuck at home, but if today's trading was any indication, we are probably going to see a lot of people not participate as much. what kind of commentary from the fed could set people off in a bad way? things theyf the said are a little bit concerning. presidente boston fed talking about how he thinks the economy is going to have a tough time bouncing back. he was talking about the unemployment rate being around 11%. that is tough for an economy that is dependent on the consumer. the worstis saying, is going to take place in april and may. that is fine, but is it going to bounceback? we have a v-shaped recovery for

a short time, but it is going to level out at a low level. happens and they continue to talk about this, it could cause the market to take a hit. , in the past, fed they solved the problems of both the market and the economy because those problems were financial in nature. around, liquidity help the markets, but it can't fix the economic problem because the economic problem is a health care one. i guess the last thing i would say is, the one thing we've learned over the last 12 years, the fed, they are more market dependent than they are data-dependent. they are probably going to wait for the market to go back down before they step in and in a major way. romaine: i'm curious what your thoughts are on the fiscal side

of this equation, whether we will see more stimulus, more cooperation in congress to do something more than has already been done to support the economy. course, what they will do and what they should do can be very different things, but i guess the thing that concerns me the most is they need a shift. the continued handouts. i totally understand why we did it the first time around. we are making a bridge so people get through the next few months. but as people realize the economy is going to have a tough time bouncing back, fiscal policy needs to go to things that will give us sustained income, create jobs, not just a free handout. recurringstainable payouts. in other words, income.

we've been talking about infrastructure for 25 years. a big infrastructure bill isn't going to solve the entire problem, but it could give people jobs. i hope they will focus more on that. i'm not hearing a lot in that area, but people are going to have a tough time getting their jobs back. scarlet: we started off talking about china. i want to end with talking about china. we are ending the day on a high note. but if on sunday night asia opens with deep losses and we see another day of weakness in rattling and the saber between china and the u.s. worsens overnight and over the long weekend, what does that mean for the u.s. markets? is that something that could take us down or do you expect the same pattern to emerge, a weaker open, but we overcome

that because of optimism? know even though we all the economy is going to improve, fairly dramatically, it is going to be tough to get back to where it was in 2019. at some point, i guess it would be tuesday for us, but monday in some other markets, there may be delayed reaction. had ournd of like, we own reaction to the coronavirus. i think this is a very serious issue and it is something we need to watch very carefully. we need to be very concerned about it. scarlet: matt, really appreciate you joining us today. have a great long weekend. that does it for the closing bell. "what'd you miss?" is up next where we will continue the conversation on china, looking at the npc policy meeting with eurasia group research strategy and operations head meredith

sumter. this is bloomberg. ♪

romaine: broadcasting live from new york, i am romaine bostick alongside scarlet fu and this is "what'd you miss?" scarlet: let's get you a snapshot of how u.s. stocks ended the day. it was a light trading day. nevertheless, u.s. stocks managing to erase early losses and close at session highs.

after swinging between gains and losses, the indexes end the week higher by about -- percent. one thing that caused some distress is what is going on in china. upendeding pandemic has the most important political event of the year, the national people's congress. beijing,erway in bringing delegates from across china. let's take a look at the challenges ahead. >> the annual two sessions of the national people's congress typically bring together 5000 party members over at least 10 days. this time, onlookers expect a different format after the convention was postponed amid the coronavirus outbreak. reports suggest both meetings could run shorter. the number of delegates may also be reduced. we could see strict hygiene

measures. change,agenda may including a shifting focus on the economy, heading for its worst performance since the days of chairman mouth. the customary target for gdp could be abandoned in favor of a more ambiguous goal. stimulus measures will be another focus. the pboc pledged more powerful monetary policies while the government may further support sectors. the ongoing unrest in hong kong will be in the spotlight, with beijing going for a greater role in supervising its politics. the u.s. is delaying its report in the lead up as the white house awaits further commentary from china on the origins and management of the virus. with global calls for an independent inquiry, this congress will be watched

especially closely. scarlet: geopolitics will be in the spotlight as beijing confirms that it would effectively bypass hong kong's legislature to implement legislation for the city. joining us now to discuss that and the national people's congress overall is meredith sumpter, eurasia group head of research strategy. so good to see you. thanks for taking the time to speak with us. clearly there's a lot on the agenda for china's leadership. we mentioned hong kong. we mentioned economic growth targets. what will you be looking at as potentially the most important policy announcement? meredith: i think what we are watching for has largely been confirmed by the reading of the work report by the premier today, essentially, beijing is opting for maximum flexibility

amid an uncertain outlook. not aw that there was release of a gdp growth target for this year. instead, we expect that beijing is going to focus on employment and related indicators. really, beijing's economic goals for this year are broadly consistent with our expectations. we don't think that chinese leaders are focused on a large stimulus. more sothey are focused on stabilizing the economy and achieving a reasonable level of growth rather than a sharp rebound in growth. romaine: when you put all this together, what is the ultimate ambition coming out of this people's congress this year? in the past, we tended to hear things that were much more global and grand in nature with regards to china's reach. this year it seems a little more

inward looking. china, while it is still one of the first economies to emerge from lockdown, to a greater extent than other economies have been able to, you still have a government that is trying to put a floor under the economy. recognizing there are a great ,any challenges on the horizon as they are watching global considerably, again, they are trying to put a floor under that economy so it gives policymakers as much flexibility as possible to adjust to these shifting circumstances. scarlet: what is your read on whether xi jinping has come out stronger or weaker from the coronavirus pandemic? there's a lot of domestic anger at him and leadership overall

for the way china covered up the , certainly the officials in hubei province were to blame, but it felt like for the most part china wanted to brush it under the carpet. what is your read on that? meredith: we don't see any alternative to xi jinping at this point. even though there has been criticism about the way china has handled the pandemic, we do think there is relative political stability in beijing. delivering forn the chinese people. that largely explains the focus on employment and poverty alleviation even in this challenging environment, rather than trying to make some kind of targeted growth number two direct the localities and investments. xi jinping has to deliver

domestically in a very challenging environment at the same time that you have a more assertive chinese external policy that is not necessarily winning china friends despite its diplomacy efforts. i am a little curious about that. when you look at the pressure they've been putting on hong kong and taiwan, i guess this sort of made sense pre-covid-19, but given the economic out turn -- downturn, the fact that they seem to be putting more emphasis on those issues seems a little out of sync. i'm wondering how they square the circle. meredith: the work report on the one hand reiterated support for the phase one trade deal with the united states, which we still place about a 60%

probability that we expect to continue to get more intense this year, still a 60% probability that the phase one trade deal stays intact because of the political incentives in both washington and beijing. at the same time, there is a warning to washington and taipei by dropping the traditional language around a peaceful reunification with taiwan. that language on top of the decision to press ahead with hong kong, it captures the challenges of the u.s.-china relationship, growing tensions over geopolitical flashpoints even as the sides try to keep that phase one deal intact. scarlet: what do you expect to happen in hong kong with beijing moving forward with this national security law? there's a lot of concern it is going to reignite those violent street protests.

how does beijing respond? this has been quite a week for those of us watching china and u.s., china, hong kong relations. aheadg's decision to move with this national security law, bypassing that legislature, spells the end of that one country, two systems framework. we think it is likely to trigger mass protests in the territory as well as a sharp reaction from washington. the trump administration is due to issue a report to congress that assesses hong kong's .utonomy from china but while a determination that hong kong is insufficiently autonomous does not carry an automatic penalty, there is a significant risk that the u.s.

imposes sanctions for mainland or hong kong officials. we do think that we are expecting the democracy protesters in hong kong to make another stand. a lot of it will depend on the timing of when this will be considered and pushed through. it could be as early as june. it could be along the lines of july or august as well. to the: with regard international response, is this a situation where the u.s. is on its own with regards to the pressure it tries to exert on beijing or is there a possibility that we would see more coordinated response by the major countries out there? meredith: this is a really hard one. this gets to the politics of how

beijing is using this moment to try to press ahead with its objectives for hong kong with minimal external pressure. this is a case of beijing taking advantage of a pandemic when all these other countries are distracted by domestic concerns and considerations to push through this controversial legislation. washingtonng to see move on its own. you might see some actions by other democracies who are looking to put pressure on china to show signs of displeasure. beijing is essentially making the gamble that these other countries are too distracted to be able to mount a sufficient pushback that would stop beijing or hong kong from moving ahead with this law. really major

changes going on. we have to leave it there. we appreciate you joining us today. ofedith sumpter, head research strategy and operations at eurasia group. coming up on this program, with millions of parents working from home and millions more out of work, we are going to talk about childcare providers. this is bloomberg. ♪

romaine: welcome back. cities and states across the u.s. attempt to restart their economies. lack of childcare could be the wildcard. shelley covers technology for us

here at bloomberg and she wrote a story about this that provided a relatively illuminating look at some of the challenges. let's start off with what every parent seems to already know. if you don't have schools and day care centers and other childcare facilities, it is kind of hard to get back to work. >> for a long time, we kind of ignored the fact that workers have families and the pandemic has brought that into focus. even as states and cities start to reopen, some are not reopening childcare services, and even if they do, a lot of parents don't feel safe. women have been impacted by this, the burden has predominantlyomen more. women end up being in a

similar situation as before covid-19, having to do a lot of the housework and watching of the children while balancing that with their work from home situation. give us a read into what that means in terms of the gender balance of the workforce overall as we slowly reopen the economy. already women have been disproportionately affected. that,ou add on top of mothers are spending about 65 hours per week on childcare on health care duties, or 15 hours more per week than fathers. since women earn about 80% of men's wages, they become the lamb in these families. if you think about, somebody has

to be with the kids, you are going to probably look to the person who makes less money. that has become the women. also, more women are opting to take leave or quit altogether. women aremeans is going to be part of the workforce. made up halfmen the workforce. the fear is that this is going to erase all those gains. is all hope lost here? are there alternatives out there other than the traditional day care system that women and families can rely on? up -- you this ends are seeing people who have these

that has become very popular among rich people. but not everybody can afford that. endede to one woman who up taking leave. andwas a single mother someone needs to stay home with her kids. you are seeing some companies taking a lead. pandemic has announced related parental leave. companies that are saying, we get this. still arest majority not really changing their policies to offer more flexibility for parents. scarlet: as hillary clinton said, it takes a village. villagee don't have the resources to draw on right now.

from new york, this is bloomberg. ♪ staying connected your way is easier than ever.

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romaine: welcome back. you are watching "what'd you miss?" i want to talk about what is going on in emerging markets, specifically with brazil. financial assets over there going through a lot of tremendous losses in value and many say latin's largest economy and fastest growing virus hotspot won't see a respite anytime soon. joining us now, alene a. great to have you. let's start with a general sense of brazil, who have seen a lot of losses, but some folks think this could be an opportunity to

buy. what are you hearing? is a delicate moment. lows,prices are at record not everyone is encouraged to buy right now. this is a combination of factors. brazil became a hotspot for the virus right when a crisis had blown up. spiraling, a cases health system that is increasingly overloaded, a government that has lost to health minister, and an investigation for trying to interfere with federal police. investors are saying that there are too many negative drivers to ignore, but prices at a record low can be seen as an opportunity. scarlet: but it might just be a value trap. andmentioned the government

we've had health minister is dismissed. president bolsonaro promised all kinds of things to his constituents. how much of that is a possibility now? the agenda that everyone expected this year, this has disappointed investors a lot. lawmakers in the government are focusing on the crisis right now , the coronavirus, and also the political infighting because of social isolation measures. plans, theall the good ones were put on hold. brazil became a hotspot for the virus and we don't know yet when the peak will come. when you look at brazil's economy, it has been through challenges before and has always bounced back enough

to satisfy some investors. when you look at the economic landscape, does it offer a little bit of hope that maybe the downturn will be relatively short-lived? anyone is think expecting a very strong rebound. one of the problems in brazil is that the fiscal situation was very delicate. brazil was trying to do a lot of reforms. now, without the reforms and more spending to fight the virus, this became deteriorated. the we are hearing is consensus that brazil gdp will contract this year, but we have which- from j.p. morgan expects a 7% contraction.

the outlook is gloomy so far. scarlet: what about on the monetary side? the central bank has been cutting interest rates to stimulate growth. that doesn't help things like the real. >> exactly. the real is already the worst-performing currency in the world this year. in the last meeting, the central bank delivered a more aggressive rate cut. it planned another one for june for the economy. low andt a new record this will continue to be a drag for the currency. all right, aline, bloomberg emerging markets reporter, really appreciate it. let's get a check now on the bloomberg first word news. president trump is calling for houses of worship across the

nation to open immediately. the president says churches, synagogues, and mosques are essential places and directed the cdc to issue guidelines for reopening. trump says he will override governors that try to keep houses of worship closed. wrayirector christopher orders an investigation into possible misconduct with regard to michael flynn. the fbi says the review will examine whether any employees engaged in misconduct. the justice department moved earlier this month to dismiss the criminal case against flynn, who had pled guilty to lying to the fbi. secretary of state mike pompeo is condemning china's effort to take over legislation in hong kong. pompeo called it a death knell for the high degree of autonomy that beijing has promised. he called for beijing to reconsider the move and warned of unspecified u.s. response.

india is reporting a jump in coronavirus cases. more than 6000 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. india now has more than 118,000 cases. has eased its lockdown to restart economic activity. global news, 24 hours a day, on-air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. coming up next, on this program, the end of libor approaching. there is a frantic search for the next -- [indiscernible] we are going to talk to richard sandor, chairman and ceo of the american financial exchange, one of the godfathers of the futures industry. this is bloomberg. ♪

worket: with the pandemic across all industries has shifted to the home. with the ceo of b.n.p. paribas usa about how bankers continue to serve their clients from home and when he anticipates they may be able to return to the office. >> we have 95% of our staff working from home and the bank is open for business, moving for speed, serving clients. we are planning a lot of consistency and focus. you should expect it to be gradual. first we will get staff

back on premises. as the pandemic evolves, we will do it following state guidelines and policy. their feedback is important to us. i see three concerns coming from them. the first is around commuting. the second is around testing. the third one is social distancing once back on premises. banks havethe other been looking at things like setting up a temporary office in the suburbs. for example, only bringing back capacity to 25%. can you give us specifics? model will have their own criteria in terms of timing. paribas,ates to b.n.p.

i don't expect more than 15% back on premises. there is no absolute pressure or urgency to get back on premises. the bank is functioning very effectively. had you told me we would be operating successfully with 95% of staff working from home, i would have been hard-pressed to believe you. >> no kidding. i'm with you on that. i wonder how that comes out on the other end. structurally, are you looking at a smaller rental space, smaller office space? less people permanently in the office space? think -- >> i think you are highlighting another important point, which is what kind of structural changes we might be

experiencing. i think working from home is a trend to last. there's going to be collateral consequences. i do believe that companies will review their real estate footprint in very dense urban areas. we are going to be reviewing business. i see all the structural changes coming from my clients this time. for economies, for independence, ratell as the unemployment is increasing to job creation. is good insight to get from your clients. i know you are head of the usa, but you are going to have insight into the rest of the

world as well. do you get a read into which region is poised to recover the fastest? >> being a global bank, we have a view on asia, europe, and the u.s., but i am bridging eurozone and u.s. here. see it is probably going to be a slower recovery than we would have probably hoped for. contractions see a around 6%. eurozone around 8%. we were just listening to the usa ceo of b.n.p. paribas. topic thatturn to a could seem a little arcane, but important for everyone out there. it is about the benchmark interest rates that govern the value of trillions of dollars of securities and the fact that

they may be getting new life. central banks are finding few alternatives. our next guest has an alternative benchmark that he's been selling for quite some time. richard sandor is chairman and ceo of the american financial exchange, probably best known for helping to create some of the treasury derivatives contracts that we depend on now in this day and age. so great to have you. i want to start off, for some of the folks that maybe don't understand libor and all these other acronyms, explain exactly why this set of interest rates is important to a functioning financial system. critical macroeconomic role because things that we do every day, mortgages, credit

cards, corporate loans, all are tied to a particular benchmark. in the past, it has been libor, but libor has been tainted. it will be phased out by the end of 2021. and because it was not based on real transactions, there's been a number of alternatives that have come up in the united states and the u.k. and around the world. libor, you mentioned it was tainted. there was a scandal there. the other option that was floated around out there was some sort of secure lending rate , that that was what we were supposed to transition to. what are you proposing? sofor is one rate that

is risk-free. it is a repo rate essentially. rate. are a risk on overnight, unsecured lending by 5000 banks that don't have collateral. sofor is great for the big banks. meribor is great for the community banks. they live as complements for each other. scarlet: how do you see this moving forward? what will be the use of libor in the financial system going forward if we are coming up with alternatives? richard: i think that we have to thisstand, and you know better than anybody, i've been in this for four plus decades

and i've never encountered an asset class that doesn't have choice. texas,rent crude, west there more stock indexes than there are stocks. in the same for fixed income. russell, s&p, dow, icelandic fixed income. so the world of benchmarks will be seen as a choice. large banks may be able to fund based on sofor. some of them may want to use ameribor. some of the medium-sized banks will fund based on ameribor. israel -- it is really no different than an asset manager looking at down. libor was the anomaly. that is what i believe has led

to trouble. it was the only rate, and therefore subject to systemic risk. economists don't agree on an awful lot. and they don't forecast well necessarily. they don't get a lot of things right. but i think few would disagree that there are two important things. one is choice and the second is diversification. beliefur unambiguous that this brave new world of interest rate benchmarks will be one marked by choice. better for the consumer, better for the corporate's, better for the lenders, transparent, , one that isket independently certified, and which the fed recognizes that that is important. romaine: i am curious.

when we talk about why may be the fed sort of haven't embraced or moved completely away from libor just yet, there was some concern after the liquidity crisis or the breakdown that we saw in the markets back in march. there's this concern that because you don't necessarily have anything at the ready, that if the fed, the boe, some of the other banks basically revert back to what they know, how do you convince them they should move ahead to 2021 with these alternatives? richard: i think the fca this week, the financial conduct authority, made it clear that at the end of 2021, they will stop requiring panel banks. when the central bank, heads of the u.k. and the u.s., are in favor of alternatives to move away, i think it happens.

, it is a and then hollywood movie. like michael douglas and glenn close in fatal attraction. they drown her in the bathtub and everybody relaxes and then all of a sudden she pops out of the bathtub with a knife. sudden libor of a is dead, it is drowned, now it comes out of the bathtub with a knife. it is like friday the 13th. it is just the last kick of a dinosaur that is fading away. i think that is a good thing. want transparent regulated policies. our bank, shamelessly i will credible processed a amount of ppp loans, a

breakthrough liquidity on the exchange. it is very important to democratic capitalism to have a regulated, transparent market. romaine: richard, so great to have you on. i wish we could talk to you for the rest of the afternoon. you've accomplished a lot. we talk about financial futures, treasuries, what you've done in the mortgage-backed securities market, now trying to tackle the issue of these organized benchmark interest rates. ceoard sandor, chairman and of the american financial exchange. we will be back in a moment. this is bloomberg. ♪

romaine: welcome back. you are watching "what'd you miss?" , soas been a long week let's close it out with joe weisenthal. he's normally a cohost of the

show. what have you been watching? joe: vigorously, what is with the government, it used to be in my view the number one story, and today we got unemployment rates broken down by state. they tell us about where the first real wave of layoffs occurred. the state that has the highest unemployment rate also had the highest jump. nevada, 22.8% unemployment rate there. it is not surprising when you consider how much of that economy was tourism and service-based. it is basically the dominant industry, people coming to gamble or other live events. surprisingly, that labor market was really crushed. hawaii, 22.3%. you are looking at an economy

with a huge share of labor markets in tourism and services, hotels, and so forth. that sort of tells you very clearly where this earthquake really hit. scarlet: and as different economies start to reopen, it will be a long time before those can get back to normal. will berrifying numbers sticking around for a while. interesting because one of the questions that we had is, how deep are the layoffs going to spread? will they spread to people who are making more, who are working from home? if you look at where the unemployment rate hasn't surged very much, connecticut, less than 8%, minnesota, nebraska, these are not states that one typically associates with a

booming services and tourist trade. we will see. it will be interesting to watch those. is expectation is that may worse than april for most states. , aaw one estimate today project by some researchers expecting the national rate to get to 25%. it will be interesting to look at the geographic distribution when that data comes out for may. scarlet: brace yourselves for worse numbers ahead. joe weisenthal, great to speak with you as always. what are you going to be doing down in texas? joe: probably the same as i've been doing every day now for about two months, nothing. scarlet: all right. enjoy it. joe weisenthal on the phone with us from texas. reminder, by the way, to subscribe to our weekly podcast

on itunes. you will find our best content each friday. plenty to do over the long weekend. that does it for "what'd you miss?" nextberg technology is up in the united states. have a great long weekend. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome to "bloomberg technology." i am taylor riggs in for emily chang. stocks ending mostly in the green today with tech continuing to outperform. the nasdaq ended the week up more than 3% and is now up almost 4% for the year. all of it comes on optimism about all 50 states being partially reopened for the memorial day weekend. stocks