we'll give you a super easy refund. we'll even cover the return shipping. this is a limited time offer, so go to aerotrainer.com to get the body you want with aerotrainer. >> good morning. from bloomberg's european haurk it's 6:00 a.m. in london. i'm ann marie, this is "day break europe" and here's what you need to know. stocks trade downside. a two-year option and testimony from jay powell and janet yellen on the docket. angela merkel puts germany into a hard easter lockdown amid a surge in covid cases. she calls the sevenuation,

quote, very serious. and we hear about a large homecoming as china's largest search firm debuts in hong kong. march 23, 2021. we are one year on from the u.k. lockdown and the coronavirus is evident that europe is still struggling with it, what happened, overnight in germany, angela merkel imposing a strict easter lockdown. you can see say cross the exquestion wiity market. the nazz tack which closed up 1%, tested well yesterday. did see a drop in the 10-year yield. across the futures board we are lower. euro there are holding on to 119. that going to be a big focus today in term of what's going on with germany. another month of pretty severe lockdown. first, detailsover night as well of president biden's infrastructure plan including

the price tag. a tentative $3 trillion. and that will likely face resistance as soon as today because today we have treasury secretary janet yellen and fed chair jerome powell entering the political arena. they'll face two days of congressional hearings over the economic policy response to the covid-19 crisis. joining us to break this down is danny burger. this comes less than two weeks since we have a $.9 trillion relief bill. yellen and powell are likely to face a tough crowd especially from the g.o.p., aren't they? >> oh, yeah. a lot of criticism from republicans. democrats looking to confirm what they've done is helping to support the economy. now jerome powell we know is likely to try to stay away from the politics, keep his head down, not get pressured into saying anything he doesn't want to otherwise say. his message from his prepared marks is very much still of one of keeping rates and policy accommodated and at the same time really looking not to move

until we get that full employment picture. yellen on the other hand full tilt support behind biden and his plan. not surprising at all. also advocating for more spending likely paid by higher taxes. one point of tension that will be interesting to listen for, yellen said she expecting full employment as soon as next year. full employment, does that mean more inflation? does that mean maybe moving on interest rates sooner than perhaps even powell sees? ann marie: if we have full employment why are we not thinking abraising rates yet? dani, a lot of criticism from republicans on higher debt. this is the same schtick we hear between the two parties. how are they likely to respond to that argument? danny: yellen made her position very clear saying the u.s. can handle higher debt. dani: when it comes to powell he's basically put off

addressing it. saying we need full employment, we need tax revenue rolling. in economy needs to be improving. this enwe can address the debt picture. for now not a topic of discussion. ann marie: joining us is martin, who saze we remain bearish on bond with 2% on bonds by easter and elevated probability of 3% by this summer. i believe it was on this show a month ago that made that call. let's start since we have your call on the 1046 year up. what are you expecting, are you expecting high demand this week from the deluge of treasury auctions we're going to see? martin: we have to be careful because on the demand side, significant inflows from institution investors with the bond crash we have seen, will bring in positive flows and then

we have this road bump with the third wave risk in europe which will also just bring in some positive flows as well. so we can easily have a short-term tick up here in bonds but that will give another opportunity to sell them because q2 we expect to be very, very solid economic dynamics. ann marie: i know -- what do you expect pr the j&y show jay powell and janet yellen speaking. what do you expect since this is going to be highly partisan. martin: yes, well, first of all it's good news, the -- it's different than the american rescue plan which was the $1.9 trillion package that was also

bipartisan, had no republican votes at all in either the house or senate. the next one, it will be very different. first of all it's called the american recovery plan. it'll probably only get through the senate, probably later this year. and even though the size of it is much larger at $3 trillion. the funding of it will be very different. you remember the last administration cut the corporate tax, the new administration is all about hibing the corporate tax from 21% to 28%. we've seen recently that the u.k. announced two weeks ago that they're going to increase corporate tax from 19% to 25%. in two year's time. there'll also be a digital tax, potentially aand potentially a couple of gains tax. and the u.k. has increased threshold on income tax. so you can see that in future fiscal package, the funding of those will not just be in the u.s. bond market.

it will also be a tax issue. and that will make it a little bit more difficult to say that it will be bipartisan. late they are year we may see some republicans with those tax hikes actually improving -- approving those packages. ann marie: how do you gear up for this? going into the second half of the year? martin: if we look at vaccines, for instance. half a billion vaccines have been distributed in the first quarter of this year. that is going to double in q2 to one billion. the second half of this year, we're probably going to see three billion vaccines distributed. so we're getting a significant doubling or tripling of vaccine distribution and europe is going to see the same thing. this runaway third wave at the moment with infections doubling across germany, france initially. we're going to see accelerated vaccine distribution.

and that's really the key to unlock these economies. is to get that vaccine distribution done. the second factories are going to get significant fiscal impulse. u.k. and u.s. have fiscal policy almost 10% of g.d.p. europe is half that level. i expect in germany and france initially we'll see significantly larger fiscal impulses. we saw that on friday, we'll potentially see it with germany and france they need that fiscal, very positive, for economies, vaccine, very positive for economies. and narrowing with these economies reupping at a later stage in the year. ann marie: we'll talk more about what's going on in germany in faw moments, but let's get a recap of other news. hey, lawyer rasm lawyer ramplet

a shooting at the colorado supermarket yesterday killed 10 people including a police officer. a suspect has been arrested but no details have been revealed including a potential motive. according to a.p. it's the seventh mass killing in the u. to -- in the u.s. this year. that follows a shooting last week that left eight people dead in the atlanta area. the u.s., u.k. and canada are joining the e.u. in imposing sanctions on china. the actions are over alleged human rights abuses against uighurs. they're largely symbolic and unlikely to impact china's economy or behavior. beijing is retaliating with its own sanctions, adding the move by the west harms china's sovereignty is and is in the base opped facts. israel heading to the polls for its fourth election in two years. the previous three failed to provide a clear winner while israel has welcomed the pandemic better than many other countries, risks still remain. unemployment is at 18% of the

national budget hasn't been updated since march, 2019. global news 24 hours a day on air and at bloomberg quick take powered by more than 2,00 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries, this bloomberg. ann marie? ann marie: just ahead, angela merkel imposes a hard lockdown for easter. we'll head to berlin next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> we will rule nothing out. i give the british people a simple instruction. you must stay at home. i today left after a week in which the n.h.s. save midlife.

we are past the peak of this disease. from the 15th of june, we intend to allow all other nonessential retail, ranging from department stores to small, independent shops, to reopen. >> -- to reopen. >> today we can say that our long national hibernation is beginning to come to an end. the government will introduce new restrictions in england. the virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst case scenario from thursday until the start of december, you must stay at home. we must therefore go into a national lockdown which is tough enough to contain this variant. that means the government is once again instructing you to stay at home. we want this lockdown to be the last. i take all responsibility for everything the government did and of course we mourn the loss

of every single coronavirus victim. annmarie: the words of prime min ter boris johnson as the pandemic evolved. today marks one year since the u.k. entered its first lockdown. germany today is set to enter a radical easter lockdown to try to reverse a third wave of covid-19 infection. angela merkel answer -- announced the measures after ending marathon talks with leader just after 2:00 amber lynn time. take a listen. >> i have already talked about the dangers of the mutation and as we are in a very obvious exponential growth period, i have to say that unfortunately, we will have to make use of this emergency break. annmarie: joining us now from berlin is aggie can trell. germany is doubling down on lockdown measures that were previously expected to be easing at this point.

what brought about this reversal change in policy? >> early in march germany was among the e.u. nations optimistcally laying out reopening strategies. since then the infection rate has almost doubled in the country. yesterday's meeting that had originally been planned to discuss further easing turned into a meeting about keeping the numbers under control and not overwhelming the country's intensive care facilities. these new measures are intended to extend shop closures over the easter holidays and limit private gatherings and ban public ones. the spike in new infections compounded by the slovak seen rollout is a pretty discouraging sign for the country six months away from a crucial election in which a pandemic-weary population might be frustrated with merkel's own christian democrats in the polls. annmarie: we saw that in the most reg yool -- regional election. thanks for the update.

martin malone is still with us. they predicted a sharp contradiction in the first three months of 2021. things not looking good for europe. you want to remain exposed to the continent, where doesn't to hide in europe? martin: i think first of all in the current situation we have to look through this road bump and if we look at the situation, if you combine u.s. and u.k. delivering two million vaccines on a weekly basis, europe is delivering six. so we've got to trip or quadruple the level of vaccine distribution in europe. that's in the three troubled countries there, germany, france and italy, where infections have doubled in the last five weeks on the new variants. but having a hard lockdown for a

week, the public can term the third wave but they have to concentrate on the vaccine distribution. that's one key link that they've obviously had trouble on. but i would be more optmyic in april, may, and june that they'll get this done. therefore, the opportunity here of equity markets having some trouble in the next week or two in europe is a good opportunity to purchase your you're peen equities. particularly some of the value sectors like financials. annmarie: you think this is a buy opportunity. you mentioned the vaccines, merkel also last night saying the e.u. should not impose a general vaccine expert ban. another thing we learned yesterday was the e.c.b. boosting their pace of purchases. do you think what they're doing is enough? martin: i think they could be a lot more aggressive if it's needed.

literally they have to work hand in glove with the overall fiscal side even though they're independent. just in the first quarter of this year they expanded the balance sheet by 130 billion euros. during 2020, we had normally quarters were where it was expanded by 600 billion. there's significant upside to expand here but also one big advantage that europe has is the interest rate structure in europe is significantly different than the u.s. so they do have that advantage. and even just small amounts of fine by the e.c.b. will cap the interest rate, the 10-year interest rate levels across europe which is very good news. annmarie: martin malone, thank you for joining us this tuesday morning. just ahead on "day break" the $66 billion comeback. china's biggest intermet search firm debuts in hong kong. our exclusive interview with the

founder next. this is bloomberg. ♪

annmarie: 6 clp 20 in the city of london, good morning, this is "daybreak europe," it's a $66 billion comeback for china's largest search firm. the biggest return home by a u.s. traded chinese company since j.d. -- jd.com last year. we caught up with baidu's founder for an exclusive interview. take a listen. >> i think it's quite straightforward, baidu is facing beijing, we want those in the same time zone can have a better

opportunity to grow with us. and you know, there were u.s. -china tensions for the past few years. i think the u.s. also has these kinds of concerns. although we're not that concerned about delisting. but i think having another exchange for the stock is overall good for the investors and also good for people around the china area to really share our growth. >> of course you're not the only ones, we've had abee baba and others -- >> quite a few companies. >> seems like a bit of a hedging strategy. was that part of the calculation? >> it was but i would say more importantly, it's how we get more exposure to the asia base, how do we let the chinese investors to really share the baidu growth story.

we always wanted to list domestically. hong kong is obviously a choice. after evaluating all kinds of possibilities, for listings, it turns out hong kong is probably the best for us at this time. >> are you happy with the a.d.r.'s? have there been discussions about delisting from the u.s.? >> we always thought that was a very small possibility. but we fully understand some of the investors were kind of concerned about that. >> you raised more than $3 billion u.s. what is the priority for putting that money to work then? >> bai dumbings is pretty much based in china. we learned our revenue mostly in -- not in u.s. dollars. when we do investments or acquisitions a lot of times we need to use u.s. dollars.

raising money in u.s. dollars could help us to expand our business quickly. either through accusation or investment. i think in a lot of cases would use that flexibility. >> what are the growth prospects for the business looking like heading into the rest of the year? >> you know this year we have an easily comp because of covid, so this year the -- they will have a good growth rate. more importantly the new businesses, a.i. cloud or intelligent gliding, it's grown fast but it's to a point that the scale is not that small. at the the metrics can start to feel, oh it's less than 14% of revenue. the base, current revenue base

becomes larger, the growth rate becomes higher. i think people were impressed by that. annmarie: baidu founder robert li speaking to us exclusively. let's go to tom mckenzie who conducted that interview. you're on the ground in beijing. excited to see someone out and about reporting. how much success has baidu had in reorienting the business? tom: this is really the first chapter in what could be, could be, as preity significant comeback story for a company that had been up there with the likes of aelee baba and tencent as one of the most important in china. but it fell by the wayside in the last few years where its share price flatline and investors were looking elsewhere for growth. it has seen share price increases of about 200%.

some of its investments in artificial intelligence, chips, semiconductors is now starting to pay off. in the last quarter they saw double digit growth for their smart hardware, their smart services. also their cloud part of the business as well. notched double digit growth. they're seeing optimism there. they are also tying up with one of the biggest carmakers here in china. the owner of volvo, by the way. they're hoping, robert li told me, they expect to produce their own electric vehicle, smart car, within three years to take on the livings tesla. they have their semiconductor unit, pretty timely given the squeeze that we have seen in that demand for chips globally. they're going to be releasing their own chips into the mark. you look at the stock price reaction, it suggests they have a long way to convince investors. annmarie: what head winds does this company still face and have to overcome? tom: they're facing increased

competition for the search part of the business which still accounts for about 70% of revenue. competition from the livings the company that owns tiktok, and then regulatory headwinds. you could see the lives ali baba hit very badly by those, the crackdown by officials and regulators. robert li doesn't see it as a target on his back. he thinks the crackdown on tech monopolies will be beneficial for competition. clearly that's a headwind potential ifly for this company. annmarie: tom mckenzie on the ground there with the interview with baidu's chief executive officer. just ahead, the lira tumbles, what's in store for the fourth central bank governor in less than two years? that conversation next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ annmarie: good morning. from bloomberg's european headquarters, 6:30 p.m. in london -- a.m. in london. this is "bloomberg daybreak: europe." stocks traded to the downside i had a key event stateside. testimony from jerome powell and janet yellen are on the docket. chancellor merkel puts germany into a hard eastern lockdown amid a surge in covid cases. she cause the situation "very

serious." we hear from baidu's ceo on a big homecoming as china's largest internet search firm debuts in hong kong. very good morning to you. 90 minutes away from the start of european equity cash equity trading. march 23, 2021, 1 year on from the u.k. lockdown. europe still struggles with the coronavirus and we saw the overnight with angela merkel just after 2:30 a.m. local time putting germany into a hard easter lockdown. we have a picture of equities across the board extending losses into the red. msci asia-pacific down nearly 0.8%. the nasdaq not continuing the pace today. we do have as well alongside u.s. equity futures lower. a lot of attention will turn to the treasury market today. tender yield this morning, 1.66%

-- 10 year yield this morning, 1.66%. also overnight, we got details of president biden's infrastructure plan, including the price tag, a tentative $3 trillion on the hills of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package. this would definitely be in focus in washington, d.c. today because we have the duo, jay powell and janet yellen, testifying before the house financial services committee at noon local time. that will be a big driver of the financial markets. every asset class in turkey tumbled after the dismissal of the central bank chief. one of the sharpest selloffs in years triggered circuit breakers in turkish stocks. president erdogan's decision to fire naci agbal has sparked speculation that the country will once again start using interest rates. joining us now is simon quijano-evans, chief economist at gemcorp capital. thanks so much for joining us. let's start there. do you think the next meeting

will mean rate cuts now for turkey? simon: to be quite honest, if you ask any analyst out there, they were so surprised by everything last week. it was a big surprise because the assumption was that president erdogan has given the blessing for the rate hike, another assumption that was obviously wrong. we all got it wrong. looking ahead, could we have a rate cut? yes, we could. why? turkish real rates on a forward looking bases are about 7% out. why should it be this high if the basic balance, the current account plus the fdi is only around 2% to 3% of gdp. annmarie: we saw investors dump the lira, as well as stocks, especially domestically focused banking stocks. how does the new governor gain

investor confidence? simon: calmed down expectations, markets, and gain the confidence of the local electorate as to where the inflation is going and you could cut interest rates. there is no reason why you cannot cut interest rates from these levels. the second thing is obviously getting market confidence for investors, both local investors, because let's not forget that turkish investors' population are the most savvy investors out there as far as the turkish lira is concerned. annmarie: the turkish lira this morning, 7.9116, inching towards 8 yet again. where do you see the lira settling after all this? simon: if i had a crystal ball, i would tell you. we did see a classic overshoot.

the 15% that we saw monday morning was a classic overshoot when you see a peg being released to the currency. i think the overshoot was very strong and way too much. that was the surprise affect, given that everybody had expected erdogan to be on board with the rate hike. looking ahead, we could see a calming. -- we could see it coming. annmarie: i want to ask you one question about turkey and what it means for the rest of the emerging markets. is this idiosyncratic to turkey or do you think we could see risks of contagion to other places in e.m.? simon: very good point. with the fed massaging the word of policy over the next 6-12 months and possibly even starting tapering in the second half of this year, indicating that it's going to taper, it

will be very tough for central banks in emerging markets. emerging-market central banks are always at the receiving end of this. we've seen big rate hikes in turkey among brazil. we've seen rate hikes in russia. we will see this happen over the next three to six months. the big challenge in the short-term are the very low base effects from oil prices last year. we got 200% year on year increase in oil prices in march and food prices, about 25% year on year increase. all of this hits emerging markets disproportionately. the idiosyncratic elements is the politics. politics everywhere, as we have seen in the last 12 months, is not ideal. annmarie: you mentioned brazil and russia joining with the rate hike. third, we have mexico. many expect mexico to actually remain on hold. that would be quite a divergence from the rest of e.m. and dovish. what does this mean for the peso? does this end its reign on

potential carry trade? simon: the one who would benefit the most outside of the u.s. would be mexico, given they are so tied into the u.s. economy and given there are a lot of -- going back him. the central bank and authorities need to play cautiously. you don't want to over hike interest rates. but at the same time, you have to follow what is going on with the fed. they will be closely watching what mr. powell has to say to congress. could we have a hike? could be possible but i don't think it will happen just yet. they will be following the fed much closer than others. annmarie: i want to ask you, how important is the dot plot to the e.m. market? simon: oh, very important. i mean, let's face it, mr. powell said that the dot plot is an assessment of all the fed members and presidents as to where they see the rates going in the future.

the move i think, had we had two more dots higher in looking for a rate hike, the median dot would have been for a rate hike at the end of 2023. this may slightly approach, but we see the fed starting to taper may be at the end of this year. the dot plot and the tapering question and more the wording are most important for emerging markets. it is the semantics. everybody has may 2013 with the taper tantrum well in their memories. annmarie: that's right. jay powell definitely on that board in 2013. for sure he does as well. i want to end on the covid situation across emerging markets. i look at the numbers of brazil this morning, very scary, topping 12 million cases. when you look at e.m. in general, at what point do you think they are going to get to the levels that we are seeing with the vaccine rollout like we see in the u.k. and the united

states? simon: honestly, this is a disaster. the g20 should have taken care of this a long time ago. you should have had production facilities all around the road to produce these vaccines, under license if you like. this should have been the approach to emerging markets as well. emerging markets must be looking at the dispute between the ek and eu about the vaccines with the great perplexion. the world needs to move on and we need to see this accelerate. this is about the future of the world. it's not just about the future of individual countries in so-called a devout markets -- in so-called developed markets. if you look at the production numbers of pfizer, moderna and astrazeneca, then we still need about 3 billion doses of vaccine to be produced this year to herd immunize the world 100%. annmarie: thank you so much for joining us. chief economist at gemcorp

capital. now, i want to get to your first word news with laura wright. >> germany is going back into a harder locked down over easter to try to reverse the third wave of the pandemic. chancellor angela merkel and state leaders agreed to the restrictions after more than 11 hours of talk. under the plan, germans will be asked to stay at home with public meetings banned. most stores will be closed for five days with food shops being allowed to reopen before others. a shooting at the colorado supermarket yesterday killed 10 people, including a police officer. a suspect has been arrested but no details have been revealed, including a potential motive. according to ap, it is the seventh mass killing in the u.s. this year. it follows a shooting last week that left eight people dead in the atlanta area. the u.k. and eu are edging closer to a diplomatic solution to their spat over the astrazeneca vaccine. they want to avoid an escalation

that could see exports to the u.k. blocked from astrazeneca's plants in the netherlands. bloomberg sources tell us the ideas to share the factory's output, as the eu feels they both have valid claims. global news 24 hours a day, on-air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. annmarie: laura wright, thank you. now to the debate over returning to work. we got the take of credit suisse's asia-pacific ceo, who spoke exclusively to haslinda. take a listen to what he had to say. >> when it comes to our investment banking, clearly, the human interaction is very critical, especially for credit suisse. we really cater to the large corporates, entrepreneurs, where a lot of the discussion needs to be in person. we are really encouraging our staff obviously to work from home. at the same time, we also want

them to be meeting the demands, -- meeting with the clients, meeting with themselves, coming up with the best ideas, you really need to meet in person. the execution can be done at home, zoom and that. i think for every company, it's on to be different. >> what is the right balance? we heard perhaps 60% in the office, 40% at home. how are you looking at it? >> for us, it's too early to assign a percentage. i do think that we will see obviously significant percentage working from home. and at the same time, i think we will also have to figure out, what is the right balance? it will depend on the clients. we are a very client focused firm. it is very important that we understand what the client needs. and i think a lot of our clients

-- for us, the good thing for credit suisse, we do have the ability to adapt. we have a lot of flexibility in the way that we manage our business here. i would like to make that decision and kind of adjustment as we go and as we see economies open up slowly, how clients react to it and so on. >> we talk about a changed environment and that includes the investment landscape as well. front and center is rising yields. what are you telling your investors? what questions are you receiving on that end? >> yes, the back end, obviously, the longer yields have been rising. i think that's a good sign. we have seen some of the predictions on the growth for this year. i think the u.s. is now 6.5%, one of the fastest in history, at least in recent history, coming back from quite a big dip last year. i do think that, you know, that

inflation will start picking up again a bit. one-time inflation because there was adjustment at lower pace. >> what are you looking at? >> our economies have their own numbers -- economists have their own numbers. i will leave them to put up with the right number, the right production. we advise our clients, obviously, be mindful of a lot of the dynamics happening in the market today and the changes. obviously, stock market valuations are at all-time highs in many places. at the same time, you will have i think a quite strong recovery in the second half in many economies around the world. we're working closely with our clients to obviously adjuster the portfolio and views and the investments on their own kind of

at the bank as well. annmarie: haslinda amin speaking exclusively to credit suisse's asia pacific ceo. bloomberg tv is the exclusive media partner at the credit suisse asian investment conference. the u.k. and u.s. joined the eu with sanctions on beijing over the treatment of the weaker -- uighurs. we talk geopolitics next. looking a little bit bright out there but ftse 100 futures down 0.6%. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ annmarie: good morning. this is "bloomberg daybreak: europe." i am annmarie hordern in london. the united states, united kingdom, and canada have joined the european union, imposing sanctions over china over alleged human rights abuses on the uighurs.

china immediately fired back with sanctions, saying the union threatened china sovereignty and interest. how serious are these sanctions by the eu and others on china? >> as you mentioned, we have had that collective action against china over alleged human rights abuses in its western region. it is the uighur muslim population. it is largely symbolic. it will hit those individuals but not in any way disrupt the trade and business of of the province. it certainly does not touch anyone in president xi jinping's inner circle. we have seen china react with anger. they are summoning um browsers and that -- eu ambassadors. china certainly does not like to be -- on human rights.

it is a sensitive spot for them. these sanctions are not going to alter its behavior. countries are quite weary of course of taking action that could hurt them themselves economically. trade investment is too high with china to risk it. what you are seeing is rather symbolic actions instead. annmarie: what, if any, are the ways in which countries can still seek to cooperate with china? you mentioned that testing meeting last week and now on the heels of that, we have these sanctions. where do you see cooperation happening? >> interestingly, both sides are pushing on the climate front. use china's state media out after that state meeti -- alaska meeting talking about the ambitions for climate change. china has its own ambitious goals on emissions. john kerry is going to take part in a climate summit hosted -- cohosted by china today.

it does not plan to talk one-on-one with chinese counterpart. kerry is taking the line that they can separate that off from the other issues in the relationship, but can you really? can you be in a very front state on things like trade and tech and human rights and work together on climate? there is some concern in washington that it might complicate those matters. annmarie: this reminds me of the obama administration's diplomacy tactic of buckets. rosalind mathieson, international government executive editor, thanks for joining us on the geopolitical front. just ahead, israel's fourth parliamentary election in two years. an annual report from the bank of france, two of the things you need to watch out for. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪

annmarie: good morning. this is "bloomberg daybreak: europe." bloomberg sources tell us microsoft is in talks to acquire discord, a videogame chat community for more than $10 billion, but no deal is imminent as the company may decide to go public instead. let's get more on this. vlad, what would a discord acquisition mean for microsoft's various business lines, such as gaming and cloud infrastructure? >> it would be almost a perfect acquisition for both of those lines. those are really important for microsoft. it has shown itself willing to spend big money already. it spent 7.5 billion dollars to require a game publishing company with established franchises. microsoft really wants to build out its xbox game past subscription package and discord works really nicely because it has more than 100 million users already. it is a community built around gaming.

those people can be funneled directly to. game past. . discord has relied on google's cloud infrastructure for the longest time. if microsoft can position all those users to microsoft station, that's another win. annmarie: what about discord? do they need to sell right now? or do they see a positive and eager market ahead of them? what's their timeline? >> they raised funding at the end of last year at a $7 billion valuation. i do not think they are running out of cash anytime soon. much like zoom, their user numbers skyrocketed because of the pandemic last year. they see themselves in an ideal position, situation to test the market. i imagine $10 billion might even be a low figure for them and they might look for much more than that. annmarie: discord has more than 100 million monthly users. is $10 billion a bargain price?

is that enough or do you think they want a notch higher? >> i think they are aiming higher. we have heard from sources that they have had discussions with epic games and amazon. amazon owns twitch. twitch and discord already have an integration. there are competitors to microsoft, as we have said, as we have reported, there is not an imminent deal. there is a good chance that discord might indeed does the market. maybe they even go for the s pac option, that's also on the table. annmarie:a spac never far from the conversation these days. thank you so much for joining us. let's take a quick look at some of the events we are watching today. israel goes to the polls for the fourth parliamentary elections in two years. it comes on the back of the country's successful vaccination campaign. the ecb's -- speaks at the

presentation of the bank's annual report. over in the united states, the duo are going to be speaking, fed chair jerome powell and treasury secretary janet yellen are set to appear before the house financial services committee. that will start at 4:00 p.m. u.k. time. you do not want to miss that. everybody is meant to be focused on the. finally, gamestop, gme reports fourth-quarter earnings. shares are up over 930%, that's right, year to date, following the meme stock mania. let's take a look at where we trade this morning. a busy day to watch. we want to take a look at what the markets are pointing to. we had a pretty positive result last night out of wall street, but that has fallen flat this morning. asia-pacific equities down, as well as nasdaq. futures this morning down nearly 0.4% and european equity futures as well not looking

like they are going to bode any well. we are seeing a little bit of a drawdown. euro-dollar this morning, 1.90. germany will be in focus today as they struggle with the overnight restrictions we have heard about. a live shot in new york. the east coast and focus at 4:00 p.m. with jay powell and janet yellen. this is bloomberg. ♪

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♪ >> welcome to bloomberg markets: the european open. i'm anna edwards. mark cudmore joins us in singapore to take us through all the market action. the cash trade is less than an hour away. the german chancellor angela merkel puts europe's biggest economy into a hard easter lockdown amid a surge in cases. find its next big bill