grand jury on the brink of getting eight years of the tax returns and other financial records. they rejected his bid to keep the information private. the investigation looms as one of mr. trump's august legal threats. angela merkel trying to lay out a plan for a cautious reopening of the country. berg has learned that her party leadership has been told the next steps will have to be done step -- smartly. rules for private gatherings, restaurants, and facilities eased today. stores remained close. the united states is prepared to return to the iran nuclear deal if they show strict compliance. speaking of the one conference on disarmament, the secretary of state laid out a u.s. wish list about many issues, including the proliferation of weapons of mass

instruction. it is a new sign of washington's ambition to revive the deal as tehran appears to be backing away. nuclear power hasn't been working at one of its reactors hasn't been working and did not record data after an earthquake hit. that raises questions if they have improved after a massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed much of the plant. a 7.3 quake struck the region. global news 24 hours a day, online and at quicktake on bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg.

>> it is 1:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 a.m. in hong kong. i'm matt miller. welcome to bloomberg markets. tech equities in the red today as commodities rally. investors pricing in a growth. we are joined to discuss what is next. plus discovery stock sores after posting strong data on the newly launched streaming service. we will talk to the cfo and the premier of bermuda joins us to talk about tourism and how that country and island nation is utilizing crypto currency let's look at the markets.

a mixed trade here. you can see asset classes we are watching outside of equities, because you have the dow up a little and the s&p down. crude oil off the top, it really all commodities are fascinating. copper as well. both putting up. -- putting up gains. bitcoin dropping down to 52,000 dollars. elon musk, if you are awake, he tweeted out bitcoin is looking expensive and as a result, the digital currency or commodity as you prefer to see it is down $3700. we have the 210 spread. risen to the highest we have seen since 2014 and rates rising

is what is behind the story of the pause the equity reality has taken. i want to get to ben emons. you talk about financial conditions and rates are a big piece of that. financial conditions have tightened over the past two weeks. why? ben: it is a function of rates affecting the equity market. you see a drawdown not just in the united states but also in europe. not yet to alarming but showing rising rates to the next level will probably get through financial conditions. matt: why do we see rates rising when we don't see that much of a

pickup in inflation? ben: several things are happening. we are going to make back where we came from and the equity market did that along time ago. the thing here is something like 30 basis points away from the point we started a year ago. my guess is we will go back to that level. as vaccines are rolled out the hospitalization rates have been plummeting. it signals the market wants to look forward and what does this mean for economy and policy. it has slowed the rates to where they came from. matt: we do see inflation in certain areas. i wonder what you take from the price increases we have seen in

copper, the price increases we have seen in crude, even as supply comes back online in texas, we see the price rising almost 3%. ben: that crude dynamic is interesting. supply back quick online. my guess is the crude market is pricing the usual inflation trade. you see it in the financials index as well as the copper index on the s&p. strength of that not just in the u.s. but globally. that does mean we should see inflation rising, but as you look over the last number of weeks, it doesn't speak to the surge in inflation where we get out of control inflation. it seems to get more back to the averages worry came from.

inflation is here. the bce numbers that come out will be closely watched. my guess is the bond market will move towards the 2% inflation rate or a bit higher. matt: do you think we are getting the idea herd immunity is closer than we may have thought? do you think the market has yet to price that in or has already priced that in? i keep wondering if we are too expensive for the idea of herd immunity in april, which has become popular lately. ben: there is an interesting article that has that study. it is interesting you mentioned it because we are seeing hospitalization rates plummeting around the globe. there is something happening with the pandemic that maybe we are in the stages of herd immunity more than we realize

and then we get vaccinations rolled out on top of that. looking at the equity index, it has really broken out from last year. it is showing those parts of the economy shut down for a year are coming back to life. i think that has a lot to do with the pricing. i think the market is looking at normalcy this year, at least to the extent we haven't seen over the year. a lot of sectors reopening. matt: i wonder what you think about the possibility that europe is lagging the u.s.. does that concern you as an investor or a temporary annoyance those of us who live here? ben: it would be an annoyance if you live there.

it is more happening but we have to acknowledge that europe is in a bit of a different situation with the vaccination rollout and must -- and much more deflation than we had. it makes me optimistic that the whole inflation idea we have been through the last number of months is yet to show up in europe more meaningfully. i think europe is just behind but the stimulus we do here is much larger than what they do in europe. that will keep the difference between the two economies in growth. matt: a pleasure to have you on. we didn't get to talk about the probability of a fed hike. but i think that is far enough away that when we get you on next we can talk about it.

ben emons talking about reflation. a merger, cciv, we will give you the latest. this is bloomberg. ♪ [ sigh ] not gonna happen. that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. my name is ken. how may i help you? hi, i'm calling about kohler's walk-in bath. excellent! happy to help. huh? hold one moment please... [ finger snaps ] hmm. ♪ ♪ the kohler walk-in bath features an extra-wide opening and a low step-in at three inches, which is 25 to 60% lower than some leading competitors. the bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. are you seeing this? the kohler walk-in bath comes with fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohler-certified installer.

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matt: this is bloomberg markets. i'm matt miller in berlin. time for hyperdrive, the hot trend coming public is doing it by a spac. listed motors might be the next multimillion dollar company.

berg's ed ludlow -- bloomberg's ed ludlow is here to talk about this company. let's talk about the valuation. cciv already trading at a $13 billion valuation until you think about lucid's biggest rival, tesla. ed: it is because of the investor run-up. it is said that lucid could be valued around $50, reflective -- $15 billion. lucid has a proven battery pack and can give an estimated range of 500 miles on a single charge. you have a lot of -- they have a lot of former tesla personnel. they have a factory almost up and running in arizona. a lot of different companies have been through this route.

they are a lot further ahead in bringing a car to the market in the second course of the year. matt: who are the other players now? tesla is an obvious one, although they have not refreshed the model s in quite a while. you have volkswagen and ford coming online, the old incumbent automakers with some electric offerings. audi has a cool suv. i think of reviewing and -- ri veon. ed: they raised $8 billion from big-name investors. they could be eyeing an ipo at some point in 2020. in north america, what they are bringing as they plan a battery pickup truck in june. when you look at what is out

there from tesla, they have been sedans and hatchbacks. the hatchback is not popular in north america but the pickup truck is. they have a car coming sooner rather than later and it is more in line with what americans like by, which are large suvs and pickup trucks. matt: and rivian's truck was featured on the program. i have noticed lately that commodities related to electric cars have been soaring. copper, we talk about it all the time, but 10 is important for soldering and has gone -- but tin is important for soldering and has gone up. you think this is driven by the ev craze? ed: one is markets.

for tin, it is about soldering. they have firmer wires and complicated modems and semiconductors. there is research into using tin to adjust the chemistry of lithium ion cells. that is not commercialized. the battery pack accounts up to 40% for the cost of making and ev. there's constant adjustment between those in the game between lithium, cobalt, manganese they are using. all of these minerals come online and you have to secure. analysts say you have a great plan, where are you going to get your materials from and what is the supply chain? at the end of the day, they plan

large volumes in the battery pack is at the center of that. matt:ed, always great to get some time with you, our superstar reporter covering the ev and spac for us. joe biden on the cuff of passing his $1.9 trillion economic covid stimulus wreckage, what democrats -- stimulus package, and what democrats are working are worried about is the next bill. they want to spend more than $2 trillion on infrastructure in more money on things to bring the jobs back from manufacturing. donald trump talked about it but did not spend money to do it. now you have a bunch of big

american corporations helping to lobby for this bill. u.s. steel, cleveland cliffs, because their materials will be used if we have this and caterpillar would be a huge beneficiary. >> if you want to get a lot of eight out the door, you have to get people through the six or seven months of a pandemic and we need to have the economy poised to have a fast come back once it can. >> i would rather see us investing money that expands the economy's capacity than simply making transfer payments. >> i was hoping there would be a strong recovery. there is every reason to believe it will, especially if biden's recovery rescue plan gets enacted. >> spending generously is not competing with a longer run

investment program it is a precondition for the longer run investment program. we need to get people back to work and through this with minimal damage. matt: this is bloomberg. i am matt miller. ♪

matt: welcome back to bloomberg markets. as the popularity of cryptocurrency rises, continues to rise, bermuda is getting into the action and planning to a comprehensive trip to payment service that uses a digitalized version of the digital dollar. joining me to talk about that and the recovery of the covid crisis is david burt.

let me talk to you about your experience during the crisis and what your recovery is looking like right now. david: we benefit from a very robust regime. how we use technology is completely anonymous. we are using technology plus a good resumes we can keep this normal for the most part. matt: enter vaccine access, do you get it through the u.k.? david: we do certainly. we want to vaccinate one third of our population by next month and we have enough vaccines to do that. as of last week we were the top

three nations -- we were one of the top three nations. we will be able to have 40,000 doses administered for a population of just over 60,000 by the end of next month. matt: what is the recovery -- why is the recovery in the tourism sector so important for bermuda? are flights coming in with tourists who are able to move around freely? david: absolutely, bermuda is open for business and for tourists. visitors are coming. we see a new trend of executives. people want to still travel want to make sure they are doing it in a safe way. these are looking at bermuda. they are doing it on private planes and chartering and we

continue to encourage that. we are also looking forward to a very good closing year. we are getting new flights and different gateways this year. in the u.s., we are getting clouds to charlotte. -- we are getting flights to charlotte. we are looking for more this year than last year. we were also looking at not having to quarantine when you travel if they are vaccinated. matt: talk to me about your cryptocurrency pilot program. you are early trying to pull this off and you have done it for a couple of years.

how is it working? david: it is working great. we have more companies coming into the system and we are looking to make sure we go ahead and demonstrate to the world what you can do by using a well-designed cryptocurrency ecosystem. the strategy has been focusing on the things that are going to matter. we are trying to skip the central bank currencies. we are going to pilot initiatives here in bermuda and use it for government payments and inside of the local economy and you can see how well you can interact. one of our global companies will be launching a coin with the bermuda government. there is another company that will be doing that as well. we are offering high-yield

products to all persons around the world using the bermuda company and more companies are coming in. we are pleased the rest of the world is catching up to where we have been for a while. matt: thanks very much for your time. fascinating stuff. i look forward to seeing how the stimulus project goes. they did burt talking to us there. this is bloomberg. ♪

mark: president biden picking up where donald trump left off at

the world trade organization. the american delegation was backing the jump administration's designation to label hong kong exports as made in china. the biden administration will block new members from joining the appellate body. both moves could undermine the international trading system. british prime minister boris johnson will open stores and outdoor hospitality in mid april. he set out steps to carefully reopen the country, warning there would need to be at least five weeks between each to judge the impact on infections and deaths. >> non-essential retail will open as personal care, including hairdressers and nail salons. indoor facilities such as jim's -- gyms will also open.

mark: the prime minister is facing pressure to move faster after the u.k. economy endured its worst recession in more than 300 years. the european union imposed sanctions in 19 more officials in venezuela, accused of undermining democracy or rights abuses. they noted the interior -- the deteriorating situations in venezuela since the elections. venezuela is mired in a deep economic crisis. in indonesia, thousands evacuated due to flooding. 28,000 residents are affected. homes are covered with as much as eight feet of water in are without power. seasonal rains and high tides have caused landslides and widespread flooding. global news 24 hours a day, online and at quicktake on bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries.

i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. >> i am amanda lang. matt: i am matt miller. here are the top stories we are following from around the world. positioning for reflation, fixed commodities picked for a short recovery out of the pandemic. plus, discovery surges with shares hitting new highs as the company pushes into streaming

and announces it is on its way to 12 million subscribers. we will speak to the ceo gunnar , wiedenfels >> we will bring you up on the covid vaccinations. we are hearing a lot of positive news on the covid front. amanda: and that does set countries apart. still a negative tone in canada. that may be driving prices and that is the yield on the 10 year. it is expected we would see it. today we are seeing it taking the wind out of growth stocks, tech among the biggest decliners and utilities are the ones suffering. financials are strong. big tech names moving lower,

microsoft, apple, tesla. disney is up almost five. the reflation and re-opening trade is alive and well. crude oil continuing its march higher and that is one commodity. copper at a nine year high. lumbar sitting record highs last week. one place that we watch to see just how investors are playing is the etf space. it has been a good way to do it because some of the specific producer stock names are lagging in commodity prices. eric: etf's track commodities are divided into two camps. there are ones that hold gold and silver. there are ones that hold futures. for people who could use teachers, they tend to do that on their -- who could use

futures, they tend to do that on their own. it can get complicated. i am looking where the flows are going, most going to equities. these are the kinds you would buy just to bet on commodities going forward and not a gold play. this would be all the other commodities. dbc is another one with it. that is what we have seen. also the copper, doubled in the past couple of months. this will hold the first couple months of copper futures. matt: i wonder if etf's are the best way to buy these commodities. i noticed when i was looking for

a bitcoin etf last week, there wasn't one, of course, but coin shares has an etp exchange rate of products -- you buy it and they hold it for you. is there something similar for commodities that you could track more closely the actual value of the stock price? eric: you can hold the gold in a vault. for things like, just pretend this would be shipped to your house and you want to store it in your back yard, usually the answer is no like coin and oil. that is why there is a cost. we tell people these are trading tools.

that said, they can work well. you look at oil etf's are copper etf's, if there is a nice move up in the spot price, the ones that hold the futures closest will move on the stock price. over time, they will erode. they are trading tools and lots of people don't want to deal with the futures market. the commodity etf's that hold futures are small. they are not like the equity and the bond area. matt: thanks very much for joining us. a quick tutorial there. he is covering the sector for us. coming up we will speak to the cfo of discovery about the company's push into streaming and shares hit a record high after fourth quarter results.

gunnar wiedenfels joins us next. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is "bloomberg markets." i am matt miller alongside a manda lang. we are going to talk about a company boosting survivors a lot by going to a streaming model in television. are you much of a consumer of tv or do you just anchor it? amanda: i am. i have not cut the cord. my question about the streaming services is how many can we have? at the moment, i am up to six

because there are various demographics in my house that have to be met. but you need it for some things, news and sports. matt: i think you are probably right. if i still lived stateside, i would need it for football but since i live in a country that plays soccer for fun, i don't need to watch at all. gunnar may disagree with me. . i will assume you might be a soccer fan. putting that aside, amanda still hasn't cut the cord and is worried there are too many to subscribe to. i can understand that. i have gone completely cable free so i don't mind having 10 or 12 apps that i pay for on a monthly basis. gunnar: thank you for having me. it is a great question here at

our answer to it is you can have both. the thing that characterizes discovery plus is that in relation to the focused streaming services out there, it describes the relationship we have as a company balancing the direct consumer business with the attractive traditional business that we are 100% committed to at the same time. what we have reported on this morning and from the outlook we have given, we believe the combination of the two will put us as a company and the position to achieve long-term, sustainable revenue and we are really excited about it. amanda: one of the big mysteries and you may have insight into your competitors is whether people are overpaying for the content they are delivering. so far it has been about new subscriber growth. at some point, are we overpaying

for content in this business? gunnar: i think what you see is there is more content available right now than ever before, which from a consumer perspective is great. for us, the comfortable position is we don't have to participate in a war. we have an efficient content model and we have always had that model and we are producing $3 billion with of content every year and flooding it in the u.s., on our tv everywhere platforms internationally, and on pay-tv, and out on a global direct consumer platform. that has always been one of our key strengths. what we have seen so far with the people who have prescribed is they are coming in and they are liking what they are seeing. 93% of our shows, 55,000

episodes have already been watched by discovery plus consumers. we are very happy because that model is very efficient for us and that is why we are investing more rather than less. matt: how difficult is it to navigate international waters in this business? i subscribe to the motor trend -- i subscribed to the motor trend app hoping to see the top year new program, only to find it doesn't stream in germany, which not only made me automatically cancel my prescription but made me mad. how do you deal with that? gunnar: the thing is, you picked the one show that is a licensed -- i shouldn't say one, but we have a couple, but what differentiates us is the vast majority of our content, both of

90% of what we have, is ours. it is exclusively for discovery and we have total rights, which allows us to exploit that across the platforms because you want to avoid those situations you are just describing. we have been building an enormous trove of content over years. what excites me is these are early signals that people are going into that treasure trove and watching the content. amanda: give us a sense of what you are looking for on the ad revenue front and total revenue side as you look ahead. it was expected there would be some bumps but are you expecting a big rebound in 2021? gunnar: what we are seeing so far from the markets is that it is is robust -- is that it is

robust. we have had improvement in the fourth quarter in the u.s. and internationally. some of the your markets are up. we are seeing that trend into q1 , specifically on the u.s. side, we had great upfront markets looking at healthy demand, pricing, etc. all of that being said, i am not in a position to come up with a smart view on the entire cadence of the year. you would assume starting in q2 and the second half of the market there should be some positivity, but it is too early to say. matt: how many people are staying home watching television? i watched more tv than i have in the last 20 or will that continue? gunnar: i hope it does.

we have seen that arguably mostly in the beginning of the pandemic when people started to get used to the lockdown situations. our content has been resonating extremely well because it comes across as realistic and authentic and that has been a great helper. it is one of the reasons why we have had -- ever since the beginning of the pandemic. one thing we are hearing from advertisers is they are super excited about the fact that we now have the discovery plus product because it delivers additional incremental reach, which is something this market has been looking for given so much of the on-demand viewership is happening at free. -- ad free. we are seeing positivity because we are delivering that and it has been in demand and is -- has

very attractive pricing. that has been a tailwind for us. amanda: great to have you with us. gunnar wiedenfels , the cfo of discovery. coming up next, we will check in with john's hopkins bloomberg school of health about the vaccine rollout and what we can learn from the u.k. this is bloomberg. ♪

amanda: this is "bloomberg markets." i am amanda lang alongside matt miller. the numbers of coronavirus cases are falling globally. regardless of what is happening in the countries, we are seeing a decline in it is raising speculation that we are hitting

the so-called elusive herd immunity that there is enough out there that we are seeing a natural decline. matt: some countries like the u.s. have had really an incredible success at developing, producing, and injecting vaccines. well over 60 million injections have been executed in the u.s. there is a large percentage, at least relative to what we see here in europe and there in canada, of people who have gotten both shots and as a result, some people are saying we could reach -- one person from the john's hopkins school of medicine, we could reach herd immunity by april. amanda: and so let's double check that the fact and how optimistic we should feel. dr. ruth faden as a bioethics professor at the john's hopkins bloomberg school

of health . how optimistic should we feel? i know that america is doing a good job of vaccinating as well as the u.k. dr. faden: i am cautiously over mystic overall but not because we are going to hit the herd immunity threshold anytime soon. i am feeling optimistic and how we are doing with the vaccines and how we will pick up dramatically over the next couple of months. i am feeling optimistic about the summer months. the warmer weather is coming. that is helpful. and we might, maybe have a much better summer in the northern hemisphere that we had last year. matt: have you seen steven soderbergh's

contagion, a story about spread and matt damon is the star and he was born immune to the disease. a colleague of yours writes in the wall street journal that may be 55% of americans have a natural immunity that another 2/3 have already gotten the virus and are therefore inoculated, in a sense. what do you think about this? dr. faden: i think with the doctor was saying, and i would have to go back, but i think what he was saying is by natural immunity, he meant people who had been infected and acquired the virus. i don't think there is any evidence to suggest that large numbers of people are somehow, like in contagion, born impervious to the virus. imf the expert here, but i don't

know of any evidence to that. -- i am not the expert here, but i don't know of any evidence to that. matt: what about the fact that the statement was that two thirds have had it? i think that is a lot? dr. faden: i think that is the rosie is possible scenario with everything clicking -- rosiest scenario with everything clicking. we don't know how global whatever natural immunity results it is or how long it lasts. we don't know how strong it will be or how protective it will be, not only against the same variant that the person was infected with and also new variants. we are watching very carefully

this phenomenon of reinfection come of people being infected once and then getting infected again months later we have to be cautious in what we know. amanda: we only have about 30 seconds, does that mean when you say cautiously optimistic, the think the economies like in the u.s. would back to normal come to the summer? dr. faden: that is a must -- a much better question than the guests you typically have your show. but i will predict in the summer we will see local economies in resort areas doing well and just being cautiously optimistic, i wouldn't make a business on this, but there is reason for optimism in areas desperately in need of income coming in for the precious summer months.

and in the fall, i am hopeful we will have kids fully and completely in school and once they are in school, other things will happen as well. restaurants open with greater capacity and bars and so on. matt: certainly the school aspect is really keen. i am sure you would agree that it will be good for kids, certainly the mental and physical health to get them back out in the schools and you want to do that when it is safe. ruth faden from the john hopkins school of medicine. it has been a pleasure. i look forward to doing it again tomorrow. this is bloomberg.♪

>> and mark crumpton with bloomberg's first word news. a three-day forum focusing on the fight against covid-19

opened today with a focus on getting vaccine confidence