anchor: good morning and welcome to "bloomberg daybreak: australia." anchor 2: good evening from new york. the top stories. asia markets are set to open with declines as investors wait for the latest economic update from china.

dollar is steady in early trading. anchor: a data dump from beijing with retail sales showing the strength of china's post virus recovery. unprecedented security in washington ahead of joe biden's inauguration as he prepares immediate executive action on the pandemic and the economy. anchor 2: we kick off this monday session and asia. -- in asia. sophie: we are seeing kiwi stocks edge higher. after global stocks declined on friday. we expect china's economic data activity this week. the pboc may ease the liquidity support that has been in place. i had of that, it had been hovering at 6.48.

there could be a slight discount suggesting a bullish tendency. the dollar is seeing some stability. the greenback did cap its first back-to-back gain since september. and fund managers -- 36% of them are still favoring the weaker dollar trade. and about one third of the respondents say it is still too early to call where -- when the dollar decline may occur. we are going to wait to see as the biden administration can deliver on that front. >> we will get more details on that this week. we are counting down to the inauguration this week. he will be sworn in on wednesday and is due to call for unity in the wake of the capital attack. he has indicated a 10 day blitz

of executive actions to reverse some of his predecessor's most contentious policies. how likely is it that joe biden will get the kind of unity he has been repeatedly calling for? especially as we get to some visuals of what is happening in washington where you are right now. >> it is very tough since the wounds are quite raw and the partisanship in washington has not gone away. even after the events at the capital last week -- there is still heavy partisanship. we know that president trump is not coming to the and of his successor which is the first -- we know that president trump is not coming to the inauguration of his successor.

you remember president trump's inaugural speech was very dark and bleak. biden will be the opposite of that. he will be trying to uplift. beyond the core of hard-core supporters for president trump, i think there may be a receptive audience to that. anchor: we are expecting executive actions. about a dozen on inauguration day a loan. how much of that will be undoing what president trump has done? >> presidents more and more have used executive actions in their administration. they are not necessarily binding. they can be reversed. some of president trump's most contentious policies including the exit from the paris climate deal. some of those will be unwound by joe biden. and the framework is to take on

four overlapping crises. the coronavirus, the economy and then climate change and a reckoning over racial equality. there will be a number of orders and actions along those lines but it is also likely to be a 100 day mask mandate. and extending some very useful and popular programs related to rental relief and student loan relief. it sounds like they will roll them out kind of slowly so that people can pay attention to each individual item. anchor: joining us from washington, ros with some of the key decisions that incoming president joe biden will have to

make. his stance on china inc. will likely have long-term consequences for both sides. tom mackenzie is in beijing. we have seen really aggressive action coming from president trump. in his last few days in office against president trump. >> after the u.s. election, we had washington officials flagging to reporters that they would be looking to lock in the biden administration into a tougher stance on china. white frankly, they delivered the latest company to be hit on friday. it outsold apple. it is now on the list of the companies that they say have links to the chinese military. that will have to see investors

in the u.s. divest from. all it has been a flurry of actions. we have seen smic on the list of groups. we have seen the concern and confusion that has caused many investors. what it does is put in position a number of actions against some of china's leading companies that the biden administration will have to deal with. they will have to walk back some of the actions which some investors hope for. they could lead them in place or they could make them more rigid. they could put some of these companies on the commerce list which would cut them off from key u.s. technology and software. one advisor to five u.s.

presidents says -- on a number of fronts, xi and those in china will not walk away from leadership in the economy and technology. there are some areas though where they could be compromised. -- there are some areas where there could be compromised. health care and environment. in terms of how it will be removed by the biden administration, he says it is not likely to happen in short order. anchor: we are expecting a data dump from china today. what will it show us in terms of the -- in terms of the continued recovery? tom: china continues to be the leading global economy in terms of its recovery from covid. it rose about 2.1%.

the full 2020 picture, you are looking at growth of 2.1%. bloomberg economics are even more positive. exports have been strong. the manufacturing and trading partners of china have remained robust despite the fact that the pandemic is still raging very aggressively in the u.s. and europe. a potential downside going forward -- you have had a very cold winter in china and energy shortages. these may be potential areas that could drag somewhat and are worth flagging. and a number of cities in one province have been locked down again because of a cluster of covid. the virus remains in china something of a challenge. another data point is retail sales because the consumer has

not take into full gear yet. retail sales and industrial production are all seen as coming in higher for december. anchor: tom mackenzie with a preview of those numbers in beijing. we will get plenty more analysis ahead. we will be speaking to several guests on daybreak asia. let's take a look at the first word headlines. global coronavirus cases are approaching 95 million with deaths now topping 2 million. as they'll has granted approval of the emergency use of the astrazeneca vaccine. the u.k. government says it is considering all possible measures to rein in covid after

recording 1200 related deaths five days in a row. singapore will require all inbound travelers to take a test upon arrival. and citizens and permanent residents returning from the u.k. and south africa will be told to self isolate at home for seven days in addition to the 14 days in a government facility. india has launched the world's biggest vaccination efforts. an estimated one at a 65,000 people were given a vaccine on the first day of the weekend as part of an and precious -- ambitious plan. moody warned people should take a shot and ignore anti-vaccine propaganda. alexi navalny has been arrested on his return to moscow. he flew home from berlin and was

detained by police as soon as he left the plane. his flight was moved to the main airport in moscow. and a monitoring group says 37 people were arrested. those are your first word headlines. shery: u.s. bank earnings roll on this week after rough starts on friday. charles lieberman tells us what to expect from the likes of goldman and bank of america. the market outlook from njp association incorporated, brian vendig speaks to us on bi so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america.

but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business.

>> we will finish the job of getting a total of $2000 in cash relief come extended uninsurance

employment, his stork investments in infrastructure and manufacturing, research and development. 18 million americans are currently on unemployment benefits. while they look for work, they can count on these checks to continue to be there and i am asking congress to continue to do its part by funding rental assistance. haidi: some of the highlights from jordan -- from joe biden's relief plan. let's get more on the impact of all of this from brian vendig. great to have you with us. we have already heard from goldman sachs economists. 6.6% from 6.4%. when it comes to the market, where do you expect to see the biggest changes? brian: we are constructive on the outlook as a firm for the global economy as well as the financial markets. we have an expectation of gdp

growth to reach levels we have not seen since 2005 in the u.s. with the biden administration and its proposal, additional relief measures as well as the really focus on improving the efficiency and appointment of vaccines will help provide that bridge. you can see that economic recovery which we expect to see happen. shery: where do you expect to see that in the markets play out? goldman sachs talks about a large spike in disposable income. should we expect retail stocks to do better? brian: that is a great point. when you look at what happened last year in the economy, it was really concentrated in a few sectors. as we think about a broadening global economic recovery and domestic as well, there are opportunities for other sectors to participate and other areas of the economy to be positively

impacted. we are focused on the global recovery through industrials and basic materials as the ability to provide either the raw materials needed to support the infrastructure spending or the basic material sector or when you think about the industrials and the aggregate demand improving around the world for goods and services. likewise, that is where the infrastructure is with transportation and logistics. i see this broadening out occurring. haidi: we have seen emerging markets which have been looking to really benefit from a wiki dollars -- from a weaker dollar. is this a temporary affect? does it depend on the

effectiveness of the global vaccine rollout? and whether the dollar returns to being a haven? brian: there is a combination of things occurring. when you think about the potential for additional relief to be passed, it will add additional gas to the balance sheet. as a result, when you see it coupled with the vaccine rollout, we still believe the dollar has a chance to weaken which should favor em equities as well as international equities. since 1988, when you have a weakening dollar, e.m. has outperformed international equities. haidi: what about china? they are a big part of that em basket. are there still opportunities there? are you worried about the level of leverage we are seeing? brian: when you look at the overall construct of em equity,

we believe based on ratios, most countries look very attractive with the exception of india, taiwan, and china. last year, china had a robust performance but it is tied 1-1 due to the parabolic increase in social financing or shadow activities and adding liquidity to the markets. as we look forward, we still see robust opportunities for chinese equities however, in the second half of the year, if that liquidity is pulled back, there are opportunities in other areas outside of china. shery: when you look at emerging markets outside of china, how much of a differentiating factor is it how effectively governments rollout vaccines? brian: the global economy, this

is a health care crisis that caused the economy to pull back. there is a 1-1 ratio that we see that as virus numbers pick up in the short-term, we expect softer economic data. but as the efficiency of the vaccine rollout happens coupled with the fact that we still have more therapies and vaccines being researched right now and we expect more to calm which should help lessen the blow in the short-term and support this global economic recovery. haidi: brian, great to have you with us. ryan vented. paul blackstone says u.s. a economy is already in great shape setting up the country for a strong second half. he says he sees nominal growth at 6% and an unemployment rate at 5% this year. >> the risk would be that if not

enough people get the vaccine and we cannot return to normal where people feel they have herd immunity. that is the risk. but if we achieve it, i think the economy already is doing better than i would've expected. i think we can have good growth this year starting in the second half. but already, we are about halfway back in terms of employment and three quarters of the way back in terms of income. and household net worth is at an all-time high. the economy is in great shape. all we have to do is feel that we won't get sick if we resume our normal lives. and the vaccines will provide the mechanism for that. >> nearly a million people still

filing initial jobless claims into last week. do you really feel we are getting back there labor market wise? and when will we be below five percent again particularly for women and minorities? >> women and minorities are the hardest hit. once we get the vaccines widely disseminated, i think we will return back to normal. but right now, there has been a surge of cases and a limited number of vaccinations and that is a one t -- 1-2 punch that really slows things down. >> i want to focus and this may be a canadian bias but your productions on oil and energy stocks is a bullish one. >> if the economy recovers, people start driving again.

the industrial part of the economy resumes. select a bit he -- full activity . we start flying again and traveling again and theaters oh in and sports events take place. the demand for energy well escalate significantly. the energy view is based totally on getting back to normal sometime in the second half. >> there has been a lot of discussion about the various shapes of the economic recovery. you said the second half as long as we get those vaccines -- what kind of economic recovery do you see? >> i think real growth is going to be 4%. nominal growth will be 6%. the unemployment rate can get down to 5%.

my view is the economy is already doing pretty well even with the virus escalating. and not everyone act to work. a lot of people are still working remotely. once we get vaccinated broadly, i think the economy could roar back. shery: you can get a roundup of the stories that you need to know to get your day going, bloomberg subprime -- bloomberg subscribers. this is bloomberg. ♪ so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america.

but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business.

haidi: here's a quick check of the latest headlines. starbucks has temporarily closed

most of its outlets in new york city without a reason. the company says the closures, midst possible concerns of protests in the city. several dozen manhattan cafés were closed on sunday. amazon -- more than $180 million. it is weighing a possible ipo this year possibly around april. the new funding puts it on par with sainsbury and others. emirates is a spending services to the three largest cities in australia for operational reasons. the last flight to those cities will be on thursday. they have not said when flights may resume. up next, the australian open is set to go ahead even though

dozens of players arriving from overseas are in a 14 day quarantine. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> you are watching op -- you are watching "daybreak: australia." thousands of national guard troops in washington, d.c., head of joe biden's inauguration. officials say they have uncovered evidence including armed insurgents and bomb plots. about a dozen executive order is expected on inauguration day. goldman sachs is raising its outlook for the u.s. economy

this year on biden's nearly $2 trillion relief plan. investors now expect growth that 6.6% in 2021, 0.2% faster than thought. the upgrade is based on biden and the democratic-controlled congress being able to deliver higher aid. financial secretary paul chan says he sees more business closures and layoffs after the lunar new year holiday if covid-19 is not brought under control. the latest numbers are due tuesday. the rate in october was highest since january, 2005. the death toll from the weekend death toll in indonesia has risen above 50 with more bodies discovered in the rubble. the tremor hit friday.

thousands had to be moved to safety with buildings badly damaged. rescue operations were hampered by a power blackout and mobile phone failure. global news 24 hours a day on air and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm karina mitchell. this is bloomberg. ♪ haidi: anthony fauci says president-elect joe biden's promise of delivering 100 million coronavirus vaccine shots in his first 100 days is absolutely a doable thing. this comes as the number of coronavirus deaths in the u.s. nears 400,000. as we look to this grim milestone, just give us an update of the virus situation and major hotspots. >> the big moment, the sad moment, is crossing over 400,000 in the u.s.

it will probably happen on tuesday, the day before joe biden is sworn in. it should be a member that the 400,000 deaths in the u.s. is double the next country, brazil, and president-elect biden's chief of staff said today that he expects it may go up to about half a million before the end of february. shery: in the meantime, some are stepping up claims that the virus originated in a wuhan lab. how substantive are these allegations? >> we don't know because they are not releasing the evidence. they say they have evidence that there were workers in a lab in wuhan who were sick in fall of 2019, and that was covered up. so, that raised the fact that china has made it difficult for

world health organization investigators to go and have a look to trace the origin of the virus. what exactly they are doing, what their access is, we don't know. i do not want to give any credence to this because i don't have any idea. but, there are some legitimate commentators out there who are saying this is entirely possible that it could have happened. we will see, if the trump administration releases its evidence. but that is what they are saying. haidi: of course, we are continuing to closely monitor any reports of new reactions to the vaccines. we are getting some concern about reactions to the pfizer vaccine in norway. >> this has created a lot of upset around the world. up to 32 or 33 people, norway

has reported, have died after receiving their first dose of the pfizer vaccine. they are being very careful to say, these were people over 75, many over 80, many terminally ill patients that might not have lived that long anyway. but, it is a concern. it is not a small number. places like australia and other places are asking norway to give as much information as possible. as well as pfizer. haidi: we are staying with the virus. next month's australian open in melbourne, the tennis tournament will go ahead as planned. paul allen has the latest. 72 players now in isolation, unable to train ahead of the open. there's been a lot of public discourse.

what are the organizers saying? paul: there will be a meeting in just a few minutes time. the director says this is a tough situation, but trying to make it as fair as possible, but the tournament will go ahead. there are more than 1000 players and officials coming. everyone has to quarantine. we had a third flight arrive on sunday that included a passenger that returned a positive test. everybody on those flights has to go into isolation. that is 72 players now affected. they cannot leave their rooms and they cannot train. they are being provided with exercise equipment. many are posting tweets of them hitting tennis balls against their mattresses propped up against walls. they are saying that this is not fair. they will only have a few days to train after effectively

sitting on a couch for two weeks. their complaints have hit a strong word -- a strong nerve with australians who are stranded overseas, so there are hurt feelings all around, i would say. shery: concerns over the pfizer vaccine in norway. australia is supposed to get millions of doses as well. >> 10 million doses are supposed to be coming to australia. this is just part of the vaccination program here. the government, very keen to seek more information from norway with those elderly and frail patients, 13 of those dying. the other part of the rollout is the astrazeneca vaccine, which can be made locally, but it is less effective in clinical trials. there has been some debate here about whether australia can achieve herd immunity down that

path. the chief medical officer has been determining the rolloff. -- determining the rollout. they are going to go as planned at this stage. haidi: sticky closer look at the new covid-19 variants being reported around the world. johns hopkins director of health spoke to bloomberg about the new strains and how efficient vaccines are against them. >> multiple lineages of coronavirus that we are calling variants. there is the u.k. variant, which most people have heard about. south africa, brazil, japan, and various other places. most of the time, these virus lineages come to our attention because they have changes in the surface protein either because they make that more efficient at infecting cells, or in some

cases, antibodies can bind to that part. so, what we are really now focusing on is understanding how frequently these viruses are occurring in the population, and how much of an effect does these one or two changes in the protein have on the vaccine-induced responses? so far, the data looks good. the vaccine seems to recognize all of these variants as they come up. but this is an ongoing research question that many laboratories are keeping track of. haidi: when you look at some of the logistical concerns about disturbing the vaccine, how much progress has the u.s. done over the last two weeks? >> it is important to note that the high-priority populations in the u.s., those elderly living in residence facilities as well as health-care workers, those are difficult populations to

immunize. i just got my second shot of my vaccine yesterday. there was a staff of 12-20 health-care workers running the vaccination. that is a lot of people to pull away from a hospital that is really pushing its limits in terms of caring for covid-19 patients. the rollout initially was slow. i am very hopeful that now that vaccine production appears to be continuously increasing, that as we move into the general population, there will be much more efficient ways of getting these vaccines into people's arms. if vaccine in the freezer does not do anything. i would add that it needs to get into people's arms at the schedule that has been approved by the fda here in the u.s. for maximum benefit. haidi: when you look at some of overall, the concerns, how important is it that we have

vaccines such as the j and j, which is one-shot. does that help? or is there just to much more logistics coming? does it help with the doses? >> any vaccine will help with the doses. even though we are increasing the amount of vaccines we are doing each week, we still need to increase that level by a great degree to obtain a great number of people vaccinated by the end of the summer. a goal i have always thought about is the end of the summer because we would like to have a large percentage of the population immunized before we enter the fall season. we also how horrific the fall season was, now into the winter in terms of covid-19 cases as people move inside, places where there is more contact. we want to do with the vaccine program is make sure by the end of the summer, we have a high

percentage of people vaccinated. new vaccines will allow us to move into different populations. different storage conditions, different numbers of doses. all of those can be handled by our health care information systems. those vaccines will help us broaden the scope and get to all segments of the population so that we can be really comprehensive in terms of who is getting immunized against covid-19. haidi: that was a johns hopkins school of public health professor. that school is supported by michael bloomberg, who is founder of bloomberg lp and bloomberg philanthropy. coming up next, bank earnings roll on. we are told what to expect as we get numbers out of goldman sachs and banc of america this week. this is bloomberg. ♪

haidi: time for morning calls with sophie in hong kong. we just saw the first weekly gain when it comes to the dollar since september. what is the read on where it is headed? >> we are seeing some stability for the greenback ahead of joe biden's inauguration. mark chandler thinks that pressure continuing for the dollar into this week. the medium-term outlook does remain bearish. over at goldman, the risks to the consensus for dollar

weakness, they are very much in focus given optimism over u.s. growth. factors like the vaccine, the fed funds rate sooner than expected would help the safe haven dollar appreciate. goldman sticking with our call for broad weakness. continuing to stay long on the aussie versus the greenback within g10 and recommending they stay long. the indian rupee, given that exposures to risk and commodity upsides would likely upside the drag. haidi: taking a look at hong kong, more officials from the city being sanctioned by the u.s. government. are you taking a look at the potential impact we could see on capital flows? >> the politics in the city with concerns around security law.

capital outlook may risk -- may reach $36 billion, with residents expecting to leave the city for the united kingdom. estimating the outflows at such a scale could push the hong kong dollar away from the long end, noting that the impact they be limited by more chinese companies listed here in hong kong and that could keep the hong kong dollar close to 75 despite immigration. haidi: u.s. banks starting the week on a down note. shares on friday, pretty muted outlooks and warnings about the u.s. economy. we hear from bank of america, goldman sachs, and morgan stanley. our next guest remains committed to the bank. charles lieberman is the cofounder and ceo of advisors capital and management and owns all of the above plus other.

i want to start out with this chart that really takes a look at how we have seen u.s. banks at the forefront of this value rotation trade. we take a look at a global strength indicator, very much in overbought territory. the recent selloff, is this a short-term pullback? do you still find value when you look at these metrics? charles: absolutely. you're are absolutely correct, the banks have done extremely well. i think that is why they sold off on friday. the reports were not bad. in fact, they were reasonably promising. all of the banks traded pretty attractive multiples, price-to-book, price-earnings. city is trading under 10 times earnings for 2021. they are trading at roughly a 25% discount to book. that is a pretty substantial discount.

it makes the stock really, really cheap. dividends are likely to start increasing as soon as the fed takes its foot off the brake for them. they were already allowed to start buying back shares. some of the companies will be buying back significant amount of shares once they are permitted. so i think the value is there. juliette: is that why you prefer city and wells over the rest? i know you like a a lot of the other big names as well. charles: we like the whole sector and pretty much a lot of the large banks because they have a competitive advantage compared to smaller institutions. the smaller banks will have to consolidate, to get scale in order to compete effectively with the large banks. city and wells both traded discounts to book as well as discounts to tangible book. we think those are the most attractive.

bank of america and j.p. morgan are both very good holdings as well. shery: you are looking at market levels. where do some of the fundamentals, felt -- wells fargo, given their scandals, windows that play in? charles: in the case of wells fargo, management has said that they are looking to reduce costs by roughly $8 billion. more than $8 billion. that is massive. that will take a couple of years to fully play out. but it will be a great tailwind for the stock. they are limited in their ability to put assets on the ballot sheet. they have an asset cap and limits in terms of what they can pay out as dividends. we expect all of that to change. over the coming year, it is likely the fed will take the limits off the rest of the games as well.

these earnings might get pops across the board. depressed earnings for 2020 but for 2021, we should see a significant bounce back and or of a bounce in 2022. we are buying these things at cheap valuations according to current earnings. shery: when it comes to the economy coming back, what is your expectation in terms of what the final stimulus package will look like, and what will that do to the banking industry? charles: i think there is no chance that biden gets a trillion nine that he would like. there are parts of that package that are clearly on acceptable to the republicans, will turn them away, and my suspicion is that he put them in there to satisfy his left-wing democrats and also to have bargaining

chips to be able to negotiate with the republicans to get support for his package. so, i think the ultimate package is considerably smaller, probably no more than half of what he initially proposed. that should easily come on top of the 800 or 900 billion that was passed just recently, that should easily help the economy bridge the weakness over the next quarter or two until the economy really opens up as the vaccines become more widespread and the economy starts to get unleashed. haidi: how does the potential passing of an outsized impact allow for more treasury bills to come on the market? charles: that i think is a concern. but also, keep in mind that some of the deficit is going to come down pretty sharply because of

course a lot of that spending is one time. so the increase in on employment insurance company payments to households, whether it is $1200 or $2000, all of those amounts are one-time expenditures. the budget deficit was enormous for 2020. it is likely to come down in 2021. i don't think we are going to see multiple rounds of stimulus. i think that, again, biden's proposal is going to get scaled back. the deficit will actually come down significantly in 2021. the amount of debt outstanding is still high but there is a lot of appetite for american debt both internationally as well as domestically. i don't think interest rates will be under significant upward pressure until we see a stronger economy and we start seeing

inflation pick up. that is still further down the road. shery: charles lieberman, great having you on. cio and cofounder of advisors capital management. be sure to tune in to bloomberg radio to hear more from the days big newsmakers and get in-depth analysis. now broadcasting live from our studio in hong kong. listen via the app, bloomberg radio.com. stay with us. ♪

haidi: quick check of the latest business flash headlines this hour. the boss of the fringe messaging service parler has gone into hiding saying he has faced death threats. it had gone silent after apple and google pulled it from their app stores and -- and amazon pulled its web hosting privileges. canadian convenience store operator is said to have dropped its plans for ray $20 billion merger with a french supermarket in the face of strong opposition from the french government. we are told the decision game -- the decision came after executives flew to paris. let's get it over to sophie with some stocks she is watching. >> we are watching australian retailers including jb hi-fi on

the back of some trading updates. miners from sydney with a merger in the works for the gold sector. an agreement to buy a small arrival. the deal is expected to be completed next month, pending approval of the supreme court of western australia. we are keeping an eye on balkan energy, the company releasing a steady -- lithium assets and germany are the biggest in europe and it can produce battery grade lithium without carbon emissions. also keeping an eye on qbe, its latest updates, saying that the total covid-19 related costs for 2020 estimated at 655 million u.s. dollars. shery: we will be watching the market open in sydney and watching what happens in china as we expect gdp numbers out

later this morning. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪

haidi: very good morning. we are counting down to asia's major market opens. shery: welcome to "daybreak: asia." investors await the latest economic update from china. the dollar is steady in order -- in early trading.

the japanese prime minister prepares for his f