francine: the 2021 outlook darkens. new covid variants, crippling lockdowns chase -- away. deutsche bank conducting an internal probe. davos goes -- xi jinping makes first public

comments on the biden administration. this is bloomberg surveillance. i'm francine lacqua in london. the focus firmly on the markets, not only on the euro-dollar, but also getting some january german business confidence index coming in. a little bit worse than expected. investors are focusing on the prospect of additional fiscal stimulus but also support the federal reserve policy can put in place. we have quite a lot of tech earning reports. treasury yields edging higher. let's get the first word news. >> the u.k. is warning the coronavirus vaccines may be less effective against new variations of the disease. matt hancock says talk border

controls are needed to stop all the virus coming into the country. the uk's conducting trials of the vaccine on the new mutations of the virus. it has already inoculated more than 5 million people. protests have erupted across russia demanding the release of alexey navalny. tens of thousands gathered at dozens of cities. according to monitors, at last -- at least 3500 people have been arrested. the world is witnessing the greatest rise in inequality on record. the poor are likely to feel the effects of the pandemic for years but the megarich have already bounced back. it is calling on countries to address the disparity including reforming taxation and canceling debt of developing countries. global news 24 hours a day on air and at bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries.

i'm leigh-ann gerrans, this is bloomberg. francine: for the markets, the focus is in d.c. on stimulus talks and the fed meeting. earnings across the global give us a picture of how companies are doing. joining us now to talk about this is mark. good afternoon because you are based in singapore. what is the market looking at right now? mark: the biggest issue is the biden stimulus package and how water down or delayed that will be until it's delivered. based on a tweet from bernie sanders on how the budget reconciliation is. we can expect to be quite optimistic on what the package will be. i think we are not worried about

any politics, more about the view of the economy. if they sound too positive that might be more of a negative market. francine: overall, how does the market look at some of these additional lockdowns. how they look at some of the fact are behind vaccine scheduling? mark: on the vaccine versus virus narrative there's a very different perspective depending on which part of the world you're in and what kind of personal anecdotes are sharing about this. they are quite surprised the resilience of the market.

how the vaccine distribution has gone badly, a lot of pickups. the new variant will overwhelm. and then other people are focused on we are about to get maybe the j&j one approved. we continue to get more vaccine delivered every day. probably before the end of this month or around then we will have a great psychological tipping point where more people will receive the first dose of vaccine than have ever had covid-19. investors are torn on this issue. my summary is this probably a little excess optimism, but i'm not sure there's enough to really derail markets. we have a serious risk off option. not just because a week or so ago. francine: what's your take on some of the earnings.

tech earnings will give us an idea on which certain market participants could latch on. mark: obviously tech will be a big one. it's more likely to be a risk off catalyst than a positive one. i am quite constructive about what the underlying narrative will be. they still want to chase assets. however earnings will apply to upward momentum. expectations were superhigh. even if they continue to be really good overall, it's not going to change that narrative much. however if there is sudden negative surprise or negative shock, that could be a catalyst risk on period. francine: mark from our live

team with some great coverage. i urge everyone to go out and check our live blog. coming up we speak to mario, the chief executive of -- insurance. we talked course about climate change as well coming up next. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪

francine: this is bloomberg surveillance. i'm francine lacqua in london.

the world economic forum is being held virtually. this time last year we spoke to mario on the impact of climate change and the insurance industry in the outlook for 2020. clearly 2020 was an unprecedented year with a lot of changes. joining us now i'm delighted is mario, the chief executive officer of zurich insurance group. thank you so much for joining us. a different type of interview then we did last year where we talked about it without realizing the impact and how big it would become. how do you see the economic recovery going forward given all the unknowns about lockdowns and vaccinations and how many businesses will go under? mario: we are optimistic about this year we think economies will get stronger, of the u.s. especially, but europe will also

follow the recovery of the u.s. markets. we think the vaccines over time together with the prevention measures will lead to the economies in a stronger second half and so we expect a much better 2021 compared with the challenges of 2020. francine: do you believe this recovery will be both a global recovery and a green recovery? mario: i think it will be a global recovery in 2021 and i think then 2022 we need to probably expect to see a slowdown after it. there has been massive amount of support injected into america, into europe and asia.

harder to see sustaining itself in 2022. but 2021 will have a benefit. francine: we have a new u.s. administration. mario: it is extremely promising and reassuring to see the u.s. rejoin the paris agreement. the appointment of john kerry is the climates are is incredibly promising. we will get over this pandemic, climate is something we will need to put the same efforts we used to fight the pandemic and the pandemic has taught us a big

lesson about how effective we can be if we work together. we need to do the same on climate now. francine: the high court decision in the u.k. about the relationship between insurance companies and some clients related to covid-19, how does it change the future relationship. -- relationship between businesses and insurance companies during this pandemic? does this change your outlook? >> is open to the risks of viruses spreading quickly. we been knowing the pandemic will come and there will be the next one.

they're very concerned about the risks. megan also provoke some very bad consequences. we have to work together, public and private. this is what we have been saying from the beginning. private companies cannot resolve this neither financially or socially. when you have cooperation in the global events. francine: how will you deal with people who don't want to be vaccinated? how the life insurance companies do with policyholders. mario: that's a very difficult question. in my country of switzerland not

everybody wants to have the vaccine. to respond to these or to explain, i think it's also understandable that people have anxiety and hesitations. the only cure against this pandemic is with vaccines. and in these cases, even more evidence than before we need to be vaccinated. i don't think it's really something we can take actions on. we have been trying to have customers -- help customers as much as we could. even if they are scared of getting the vaccines. it is really something that the government that have to address.

francine: give me a sense of what you are expecting in the next six months and 12 months. we talked to about the interview -- in the interview about what you are expecting. mario: from the financial markets standpoint we expect the markets to be stronger in h2 than in each one. i think it will have the impact of the infections and the vaccines picking up slowly. the second half of the year will be much better, much stronger for the economies and we expect gdp growth to accelerate. for us the priority this year is to manage the hardening of the rates especially in commercial

insurance. the beginning of this year has been equally strong and that's an opportunity for us. >> where do you see the interest rate path going? i know you talked about negative rates or real burden on financial companies. how do you see that progressing in the next one or two years. if we stay lower for longer, how do we adapt? mario: there could be movements that we expect this year, there could be some movement on the interest rates and deals. but the focus we have is low for long, which means the business needs to be tightly organized for that.

almost 80% of what we do as protection business, which does not have any guarantee embedded. and the rest is unit linked business which does not have a guarantee. the guarantee business does not have in life. altogether, i think we expect this to continue for quite a number of years. francine: do you see a real difference in what region will recover first? do you see a discrepancy between europe and asia and can europe catch up depending on vaccine acceleration? can the u.s. catch up if they get a handle on the pandemic in terms of economic recovery that follows? >> i think europe especially has to speed up on providing the

vaccines. the vaccination plan in europe is behind what it is in asia and the u.s.. that is a competitive risk to be late. in terms of the financial support, europe has been incredibly decisive. i've never seen it before. now i think the opportunity to use this to also support the green economy plan which is for us, the most important decision europe has taken over the past years. we will be very keen to support that. francine: thank you so much as always for joining us, mario grieco -- mario greco. coming up we will have more on the pandemic. france may face another lock within days.

reports say they are concerned about the u.k. variant of the virus. this is bloomberg. ♪ is bloomberg. ♪

francine: economics, finance, politics. this is bloomberg surveillance. let's get to the business flash. >> -- global has topped the world had fun -- hedge fund.

it reached $127 billion last year. human traders racked up record profits. tiger global generated 10.4 billion d forents after fees. millennium management came a close second. deutsche bank is probing the sales of certain investment banking products. it follows a report of a profit-sharing scheme that sold people risky investments they did not understand. the paper reports the bank is investigating a broad pattern of misconduct rather than an isolated incident. deutsche bank says it cannot commit until the probe is -- cannot comment until the probe is finished. long-term opportunities from the pandemic. the dutch health care firm with sales up 3% last year and the coronavirus driving a long-term

shift towards virtual care, boosting demand for its equipment. >> in the supply chain, shipping costs are currently much elevated over the past. these are things we need to cope with. we are always looking for our own transformation and we were able to reach her productivity targets despite some of these headwinds. >> that is your bloomberg business flash. francine: as we mentioned, the world economic forum is looking different this year. it will see world leaders avert -- meet virtually. today at 1:00 p.m. london time, they speak to john micklethwait about the expected response to the covid-19 crisis. peter grauer speaks -- discussed

delivering social justice in the economy. the event begins with a keynote speech from xi jinping. you can follow that full coverage right here if you are a bloomberg terminal user. coming up, we speak -- we talk a little bit about working from home and the pandemic and how it will change the banking industry. this is bloomberg. ♪

francine: economics, finance, politics. this is "bloomberg surveillance." i'm francine lacqua, here in london. let's get --

leigh-ann: braving clashes with riot police and freezing temperatures, tens of thousands gathered in dozens of cities. according to monitors at the -- at least 3.5 thousand people have been arrested. the ecu is calling for them to be freed. according to newspaper jvd, there are concerns that a new wave of infections of the more contagious variant could spiral out of control. president macron could announce new restrictions on wednesday, and they could come before the end of the week. the trump administration's top environmental lawyer allegedly worked with the president to try to cast doubts on the election results. the new york times is reporting he was planning to oust the acting attorney general and lend legal support to lawsuits

challenging the balance. he disputes these allegations. global news 24 hours a day, on air and at bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries, i'm leigh-ann gerrans. this is bloomberg. francine? francine: xi jinping is set to speak at the davos agenda later today. the chinese president's address, his first since joe biden enter the white house, and could set the turn between the world -- could set the tone between the world's biggest economies. also lined up to speak at the world economics forms online gathering -- join us to talk about this, is -- as always, thank you so much for joining us. it is much more comfortable than sitting in the snow in freezing temperatures as we have in the past. if we talk about the banking sector and exactly what we have lived through in the last 12

months, standard chartered started this hybrid working from home model. how is it working? >> it is working very, very well. we bank in about 60 countries throughout the world, and we had that with different local conditions. at one point we had more than 80% of our staff working from home. thanks to technology, thanks to the excellent adaptability of our workforce and the human resource practices that we have put in place, that has really worked very well. it has been critical in allowing us operational resilience that we have just completed. francine: given the difficult year, how is the restructuring at the bank going? are there many more jobs that will go? >> we are undergoing a

structural transformation for quite a long time as a result of that, andy a lot of small rules are made redundant. this is a casas that is not new. it is something that has gone on and both continue in the future. but it is not related to the pandemic. francine: when you look overall at different regions and the speed at which they are growing again or the speed at which they have been able to get back on their feet, what does it mean for asia versus the u.s.? is asia so far ahead that it would be difficult to catch up? jose: asia, particularly emerging asia led by china, has been at the forefront of the global economic recovery we expect to see strengthening as the year advances. i think that puts asia, particularly asia-pacific, in an excellent position. if you look back -- emerging asia, excluding japan, has been

contributing more than 60% of global growth over the past decade. this is something which i think is likely to continue going forward, even if advanced economies are said to recover. -- are set to recover. the key contribution will continue. francine: how are you expecting the u.s. president, joe biden, to do with china, and does that change the environment for business? jose: i think that once -- one should expect a lot of continuity in a sense in the u.s.-china relations. the rivalry will continue, but the form in which this rivalry will be administered will be different. with more of a multilateral still approach and a more predictable approach on the part of the united states, and i think that is going to bring more stability to the relationship. the united states under biden is not going to get easier on

china, but i think it is going to try to bring china to the table, together with u.s. allies, to discuss things which are very important. one advantage of this approach is that we are going to see much less scope for accidents and misunderstandings. and i think this is very important for the world, even if the rivalry relationship will continue. this stability will be very good. francine: how concerned are you about recent developments in hong kong? jose: hong kong will continue to be a very important international financial center. they -- there are tensions there, but we have been very supportive of hong kong related to business, and what we hope is that coal could be there for

their medium-term and that we will benefit from it. francine: give me a sense about the dividend payment you're looking for in 2021 compared to last year? jose: we will abide by the concerns -- the constraints that have been set by our home regulator, the prudential regulatory authority in the united kingdom, so we will consider this board shortly, and we will do as much as we can. my intention on the board is to do as much as we can given these constraints in order to assume the distribution of returns to shareholders that was interrupted last year. because of the covid crisis. francine: there has also been speculation about a succession plan for your chief executive. can you update us on that? jose: sufficient plans are good

governance in any organization, and we have had be a you plans before i came in for the chief executive of the bank. let me tell you that he is fully focused on executing the strategy, and bill winters has said that he is willing to see the strategy through, and he is very passionate about that banking. we are delighted with him. there is nothing else than that. francine: i know we are jumping around a lot. my have little time and many, many questions. maybe talk to us a little bit about brexit. how has that been going so far? what are the most opposite -- what are the most obvious problems you have been seeing? jose: brexit is difficult for both the u.k. and the european union. the good thing is that there was an agreement on a deal. unfortunately, that is something which does not encompass the

financial sector, and we will have very important things going for -- one of the important things going forward is going to be a kind of agreement with the u.k. and the e.u. -- will it be able to achieve it in order to smooth things out? i have always been a proponent of keeping a very close relationship between the united kingdom and the european union, even after brexit. as close as possible. but i can also understand that there may be some areas on the financial side where the u.k. may want to seek divergence. there is divergence in some areas. i think it is important to be as close as possible in many other domains. that is the support from both sides. francine: has brexit had an impact on your business yet? jose: not really because we react with a lot of anticipation to brexit, and already for quite

some time we have been operating our bank in frankfurt, and the first half of 2019. so this has allowed us to provide continuity of service, to our clients, and therefore we have been operating things quite smoothly. francine: maybe if we finish the interview by me asking what kind of recovery you are expecting -- i know it is very difficult to see a vaccination, the rollout, different countries going at different speeds. but are you more optimistic about when he 21 in terms of help and kind of general economic recovery than you were two months ago? jose: well, i think we had discovered some realities and difficulties in the process of vaccination, also in new ways of the virus. so there is this race between

the virus and the vaccines, which is going on. and i do hope that the vaccines will prevail over the virus. but this is not going to be immediate. air are going to be bumps on the road, and certainly i see a current year divided into two halves from an economic point of view. the first half because of the health uncertainties is going to lead to an economic situation which may be not too dissimilar from the one we saw in the last quarter of last year. but then as the year advances and vaccination prevails over the virus, i hope that in the second half we can see a return to confidence, more private spending, and therefore to have a stronger economy. so overall i am cautiously optimistic that we will have a better 2020, both in terms of health and the economy, but the beginning is not as easy as we had anticipated about two months

ago. francine: thank you so much, jose vinals. as the public -- as the global health crisis seems to show no signs of easing, how can we make progress in diversity and it will opportunity? that is coming up shortly, and this is bloomberg. ♪

francine: economics, finance, politics. this is "bloomberg surveillance." i'm francine lacqua, here in london. now let's get straight to the

bloomberg business with leigh-ann gerrans. leigh-ann: deutsche bank is probing the sales of certain investment banking products. it follows a report in the financial times about profit sharing schemes that sold people risky investments they did not understand. the paper reports the bank is investigating a broad pattern of misconduct rather than an isolated incident. deutsche bank says it cannot comment until the probe is finished. hsbc seo is -- hsbc's seo is answering questions about the lender's freezing of accounts of long -- of hong kong activists. one person was contacted by the panel and was providing them details. hsbc has declined to comment. and the de facto leader jay whiteley has decided not to appeal against his prison sentence, putting him behind bars for the next 18 months.

it marks an end to the long-running corruption scandal them with lee accused of taking bribes to win support for his succession at samsung. he faces a murder trial over two samsung units. that is your bloomberg business flash. francine: the rankings are in for the top hedge funds of 2020. lch investments has published estimates, saying the fund has reached $27 billion last year. there is dani burger. dani: it was a very strong year for hedge funds. the big theme we have seen, this big dispersion in returns. if you pick the right stocks, you can do extreme the well. but many stocks did poorly at the same time. the best fund out of all of them for 2020 was tiger global, bringing in $10.4 billion according to lch estimates. them have millennium, world pine

capital, and viking, all of them getting more than $7 billion in for the entirety of the year. one of the things we immediately noticed when looking through these rankings is that one of the stalwarts of the industry is missing, and that is renaissance technology. they struggle. it was the year of the human, and this is part of the reason why. these are factor correlations, and they are the highest in at least two decades. end other words, things like value, foment them, growth -- these things are -- momentum, value, growth -- these things are starting to move. it did disappear this year. not only was it the year of big gains, but for most people who had big gains, francine, they were humans. francine: thank you so much, dani burger with the latest on the machines versus the humans. we are getting breaking news about vaccines out of hong kong. we understand through hong kong

that hong kong authorities have now authorized the pfizer-biontech vaccine for -- the pfizer-biontech vaccine. the public health crisis shows no signs of easing. how can we make progress on quality -- on equality in 2021? our interview is next, and this is bloomberg. ♪

francine: economics, finance, politics. this is "bloomberg surveillance." i'm francine lacqua, here in london. let's focus on the business of equality. france is reported to be set to go back into lockdown within days and concerns of a new infection from the more contagious variant of the coronavirus. with the global and i can my crisis, how can countries ensure progress is here on improving diversity and for the of opportunity. joining us now is the french minister for gender equality and diversity and equal opportunities. we are absolutely delighted to have you on today with such important work. i know you have done a lot of work on transparency, you have been trying to advance the cause not only for equality for women,

but for all minorities. give me a sense about how much more of a setback the pandemic is for some of the efforts you have put in place. >> good morning. it is really a pleasure to me being with you this morning. you know, what we are leading around the world -- 2020 has turned the world upside down, and exposed women to terrible situations, but it has also emphasized the inequalities across the world. we are seeing vulnerable people in very difficult situations, and president macron has come at the beginning of his mandate, decided to have the women's gender equality at the core of his mandate, and thanks to these decisions, we have been able to work on many reforms in the past three years, and these reforms,

who were made to improve gender equality, happens to be very, very important in these -- in this pandemic situation. we have had a very holistic approach. we have spoken about security come about justice, but health, and the thing is, when you're in such terrible moments, you know that the rights of the most vulnerable people can be a very bad situation, and that is the reason why i am currently working very hard on protecting women's health, protecting their position on the economic market, but also working on discrimination that is currently increasing everywhere in the world. francine: minister, when you look at some of the things that you have seen in place, indices to see the difference between men and women in the workplace, there are a lot of businesses and a lot of unions in france that oppose quotas.

how can you convince them that the error necessary -- that they are necessary to change? elisabeth: six months ago before my nomination, i was the vice president of -- and i have been in this world, so i can definitely speak not only to -- but to all the people who are not seeing the reason why it is so important to push the low and push this to make it happen, and it is not only just to be sitting at the table with the men and to say here imf the table, but it is because every single decision taken today has to include men and women, simply because women are 52% of the global population, and every strategic decision that is taken is impacting their lives, and there is no reason why they should not have a voice. you know, this week we are celebrating the second anniversary of the french vote for him minimum quota of women,

and this law has significantly changed the situation in the country, but only at the board level, but if we want to see our country improving in gender equality, if we want to see our country making the most of all of the talent it has, i want to say that that talent has no gender, it has no sexual orientation, it has no origin. whoever you are, you can have a seat at the table. and knowing the size -- yeah? francine: i also want to talk about something that is really important that it is not only men and women, but france seems to be much more ambitious and have a transparence for diversity so that there is more diversity racially. elisabeth: that is exactly what i am currently working on. france is a country that puts human rights at the center of

everything it does, and we have all the core values to make these things happen. now everybody knows that in times of politics or economic crisis, you see all of these inequalities based also on ethnicity or origin, and that is the reason why i am currently working on a diversity index that will be given to companies so they can understand or they can have a picture, a true picture of how diverse their companies are. because giving people the possibility to study and the possibility to have access to the good employment are the two very basic and fundamental things we can do for every single citizen in our country. so this index will be a good tool for public or private companies to measure their diversity and put in place at the human resources level, but

but also at the top level of the company, to give them a true, concrete picture of how they are behaving so they can put in place the right training, the right hiring approach, and so on and so forth. francine: minister, thank you so much. we will have to come back to talk about these very important issues. elizabeth morena. we will also be speaking with the french finance minister later today. maybe some of the conversation will touch on these important subject we talked about. 5:00 p.m. london time. we will have plenty more at the world economic forum virtual davos. this is bloomberg. ♪

francine: the outlook darkens. the world bank downgrades its growth forecast as new cobit variance chase optimism away. deutsche bank says it is conducting an internal blowback to a report that it -- after an internal report. xi jinping makes its first public reports in a -- xi jinping makes its -- his first public remarks. welcome to bloomberg surveillance. i am francine lacqua in london, tom keene in new york. there is a lot going on. we would listen to christine lagarde, we will listen to the chinese and the french presidents and piece things together. it is also a snow day here in london, so we spend a lot of time with snowball fights. it feels like we are in a snowball fight situation with countries saying we are doing the vaccine better than you guys are at the border, and we will have to see exactly