>> good morning and welcome to daybreak austria. >> i am shery on. the top stories. mixed economic data keeps investors on edge about the taper timeline. paul: china makes an unprecedented move in the global

oil market. aging tapping into reserves for the first time to lower prices. shery: president biden widening vaccine mandates. federal please could face fines if they don't comply. we are seeing u.s. futures muted at the open, after the s&p 500 fell for a fourth consecutive section -- session. despite the fact we got some encouraging data. jobless claims falling are the most since june to a pandemic low. we had chinese adrs fall for a second session on regulatory concerns. wti extending declines after falling by the most in three weeks, given that china news, tapping the crude reserves. chinese tech and gaming firms we saw during the new york session. we saw tencent and alibaba

falling by more than 2%. we have more details about regulators meeting with gaming companies. not to mention news overnight that they would slow down approval of new games. that was a sharp blow to that rebound we saw for chinese adrs. rebounding 20% in three weeks. really, it is about inflation. we had news from kraft times, nestle that they would hike prices. we are seeing the u.s. and europe, indices surpassing chinese numbers. despite the fact we got those high ppi numbers overnight. the ecb coming out with a plan to slow down the pace of on the buying. they're forecasting their inflation numbers to undershooting their target so, they will continue with bond buying purchases until at least

march of 2022 or later if needed. paul: you mentioned that move in the oil price. china, grappling with not only increasing prices of oil but other energy inputs. gas, coal, causing electricity shortages. that is the first time we have seen them tap that 220 million strategic reserve. the fact that it did so publicly, it usually leaves these releases on the qt. they were suggesting to move that price. we saw prices for west texas dip. let us and should -- let us ehealth far those price tips are. -- see how far. shery: we will see those supply chain disruptions because of covid the president spoke a few minutes ago. really, touting and telling the

people of the u.s., the 80 million unvaccinated americans to get vaccinated. he has called on governors, private employers to require staff to get vaccinated. all in all, expanding those vaccine ornaments around the country. -- requirements. paul: it is accelerating in x -- in australia. we have 44% of the population vaccinated. that is given the state government confidence to lift restrictions on october 18. it is not exactly freedom day but a lot of freedoms will return. cafes, restaurants, gymnasiums, hairdressers, some limitations on capacity but it is a start. it will help the economic picture here. shery: let us see if that helps the market sentiment. sophie, what are you seeing? sophie: tgif. mixed bag in asia after a two

day selloff in the region led by china and korea in tact. amid regulatory woes. in sydney, we could see them call back from losses. even after we subbase metals rally without pulling of the chart. we saw aluminum prices in london climb to a 13 year height which narrowed competitiveness to copper which will correct three year, averaging $7,500 the first quarter of next year. that picture, that can make it tougher for consumers were seeking substitutions for cost pressures that showed up in china's higher ppi for august. switching out the chart, we have seen stocks sputtered. that will not put a debt in global market cap which topped trillions of dollars this month. as we have that stimulus support come through. you have jp flow ski saying that investors will shift from being

liquidity driven, to earnings driven into the to do over expansion, especially as asia begins to ease lockdowns. shery: monetary policy will play a part when it comes to market direction. ecb slowing its pandemic wants. their president says it is definitely not tapering. kathleen hays is here with a recap. if they are not tapering, what is it doing? anchor: very good question. they put this in their official statement today. of course, she was asked about this at the press conference. people were expecting tapering. the economy is doing better but listen to what she said. >> favorable financing conditions can be maintained with a moderately lower case of net asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchasing program then in the previous two quarters.

it is not tapering. what we are doing is recalibrating cap, which is the pandemic emergency purchased program. -- pepp. anchor: they will maintain the program overall part 185 trillion bonds says on the table through march 22. the recovery is doing better. it does not -- need as much help. it is a threat to global recovery and europe. it is interesting that lady is not tapering as a turn of phrase from pocket thatcher when she said the lady is not turning. paul: let us move to central bank on your side of the atlantic. two federal reserve presidents are selling their investments. what is going on? anchor: there was an outcry.

people wondering why people at the federal reserve are allowed to not just have investments but investments that they actually trade. it was reported first by the wall street journal and picked up by bloomberg and others. we learned that rob kaplan said -- had more than one dozen of million-dollar last active trades so far this year president of the bonds said he wants about commercial real estate and the risk there and potential overheating. what happened today is that each of them said they will sell these two avoid any sense of conflict of interest. anything they did was within ethics, rules, transparent, everyone knew about it. but, it raises questions of if

it is appropriate, whether insider information or not, it is being in a position to influence the economy and buying stocks the same time. i don't think the story is over yet. paul: let us get some more on oil reaction today. on president intervention by china. su keenan has more on this story. we note this will ease inflation. tell us more about what we are seeing in markets? reporter: their questioning if this will do the job that china is looking to do and whether it signals the country's vulnerability on the financial market what we do know is that it impacts prices, in the immediate term. we saw west texas traded here in new york, by the most in almost three weeks. we are seeing a slight rebound in asia trading. but again, many are saying that

the weight of the extra oil causing the decline. if we go into bloomberg, we can see more dramatically that it has had an impact. in a late message, chinese government said they had tapped the oil reserves and have been amassing a lot of oil to use the pressure of rising raw material prices. it did not offer further details if you look at the prices, you see that dramatic recovery from a year ago. the difference between the tenant reserves and u.s. reserves is that they are use in cases of emergency or war to replenish supply destroyed by a hurricane but china appears to be issuing a statement. it is a pretty clear move.

it -- shery: what are we expecting from china next? reporter: there will not be another option as analysts are closely watching. without details, you cannot be sure. china had released almost 20 million over the summer. and the potential sale will not surpass the 10-15,000,000 barrels range. inflation, not just tied to oil in china. they are seeing a huge surge in coal, aluminum prices, it reached a 13 year high. we have a chart of the one year gains. they are fairly dramatic. look at natural gas. it has more than doubled. when you look at the other raw materials, you can see how china is concerned. they are the most dependent on

oil in that they are the largest importer. a lot of people are closely watching this. shery: we got the latest on oils and china strategic moves. joe biden will order executive branch employees, federal contractors and millions of health care workers to be vaccinated against covid. he directed his administration to come up with rules to mandate large companies to require shots or testing. >> some of the biggest companies are requiring this. american airlines, disney, tysons food, and even fox news. the bottom line is we will protect vaccinated workers from under coworkers. shery: let me understand us. the white house doesn't necessarily have the authority to mandate vaccinations nationally. how will they work with this

patchwork of requirements? reporter: the administration does have the right to call the shots for federal employees. that is what he is doing so for the executive branch. for private employers, he wants them to mandate vaccines or require employees to get tested weekly. that is putting more weight behind previous mandates and saying that you should pick up and do this. you have seen them who have already installed some sort of vaccine mandate. now that we have this added bush, we will see more of it coming and you will see them coming off the ground and becoming less hesitant. paul: has vaccination hit a ceiling in the u.s.? are the president's words going to push through that? reporter: he is fed up. you can sense frustration in his speech. he is running out of patience. their 80 million americans who

have chosen not to get the vaccine. he is turning to more aggressive rules to get them off the board. but see how that works out. according to some surveys, 15% of americans will not get it. they don't want to do it. it is a matter of getting those people off the fence and do so. he is selling mandates with employers is one of the goals. paul: let us get to vonnie quinn with the first word headlines. vonnie: goldman sachs is dropping social distancing rules in the london office and returning to benzene next week. an internal memo seen by bloomberg says half of the workers are already in the office each day. it will retain mask wearing in common areas and a mandatory testing program. ending this will encourage support of local restaurants. a new report has found that

australia's early virus curbs shielded from a higher death toll. early measures including travel bans, physical distancing, and height testing rates help them escape the worst of covid-19. government health officials say this cap deaths to about 900 last year. janet yellen says she is pleased with the progress congress is making to strengthen international tax rules. she is urging implementation of a global agreement governing levies for multinationals. democrats are pushing for it. it is part of the massive $3.5 trillion tax and social spending package. about 200 foreigners flew out of afghanistan tuesday on a commercial flight from kabul's airport is the first large-scale departure since they ended their withdrawal at the end of last month. the qatar airway flights marked a significant rocky coordination

between the u.s. and new telemann leadership. 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. i am vonnie quinn impaired this is bloomberg. shery: we will take a look at china's videogame crackdown as they shed $60 billion in combined value. we will discuss it with our guest. we will get insight on markets, this is bloomberg. ♪

>> after the deep and sharp downturn in economic activity last year, we have seen strong growth. challenges abound. >> as the data comes in as i expect it to, it will be

appropriate for us to begin the process of scaling back our asset purchases this year. >> the longer we make these purchases for longer than necessary, i think it may actually make it so we have less flexibility down the road. shery: some of the latest on the taper timeline and as that debate continues, our next guest will perform well during inflations will be better than expected. mobile normalization is important. let us bring in our guest. where do we go to get all of that? >> that is a great question. i would say it is the biggest question out there. the thing we are seeing right now is you got to diversify your equities on a global basis. i'm pointing out the fact that everybody is in love with those market darlings.

we are conditioning our clients to go and where we are tactically moving at this time is into those real assets. real estate, infrastructure, not evaluations that reflect the fact that they have not come back from covid in the same way but also, diversifying debt. away from those run-of-the-mill treasuries, operates, but bringing structured finance and holding those high quality municipal bonds. shery: when it comes to ns equities, the chart is showing how the u.s. has out perform them all. how can you go abroad without being vulnerable to the downside that china is providing right now. , especially when we see no bottom there? >> the common prosperity agenda will bring additional volatility to the spectrum outside the u.s.

if we stretch any graph tracking u.s. versus non-u.s., we will see waves of outperformance. evaluations appear so stretch that a short term play outside the u.s. is not a smart food -- move. over the long term, what will look reason we placed -- price, that is where we take on incremental risk. looking more specifically at buying strong companies, not countries. that is a theme in the u.s. and outside right now. paul: if you get long term in china, how do you apply that approach when you don't know what regulators will target next? >> we draw a lot of parallels to what is going on today with the antitrust issues we have seen google for example, experience in europe over the last 5-7 years.

while we cannot predict what will go from one day to the next, it is a different animal in those regards. we have not given up on the fact that china will have a leadership spot on the global economic table for a long time. paul: when you consider inflation, you take it serious enough to look at hedges right now? >> we have not gone into the space of the traditional hedges. as we get into the investor themselves who have changed, we are seeing inflation as one of those risks that may or may not be transitory, depending on the areas we look at. we have seen energy rebound. lumber was a great specific case of when certain items came to clarity or open themselves up in a post-covid world. it fixed itself. question i think now is as we see rent moratorium cease, when we see student loan holidays, on

up limit benefits and also, how will that impact inflation? does it free up these issues we have with employment in the u.s.? does that in fact -- impact supply chains in a positive way? paul: thank you so much for joining us. you can get a roundup of the stories you need to know to get your days going in today's addition of daybreak. subscribers can go on their terminals. it is also available on mobile on the app. this is bloomberg. ♪

shery: with a broad rally in base metals today, there is a second day to see the best say in two weeks.

aluminum also at a 13 year high. not only because we see that political turmoil in guinea but because copper has risen to record highs this year. buyers need cheaper alternatives like aluminum to make their products. japan's dicom industry will replace half of the copper in their units by 2025. nickel at the highest. a component of ev batteries. it has all to do with inflation, commodity prices surging, getting prices higher, we got inflation numbers from brazil and mexico, inflation soaring there as well. paul: that is right. your question about a central base can do anything about this as inflation rates rise. very few people in latin america have access to bank accounts. it is a large informal economy.

not a lot of people spike living in the housing markets. an open question is what can central banks do? shery: monetary policy tools, very restrictive when you have an economy that is very much off the books. paul: let us get a quick check of the latest business flash headlines. ever grant has received the green light to reset terms of its debt and has contacted banks and trusts to -- trust they got the approval after it missed payments on some loans. the borrowing totaled 111 billion by the end of december with half of it ready to get paid in less than a year. we are told they received queries from the stock exchange about the structure, including user trust set up in 2019. they announce a sale of 2 billion in adrs.

some analysts say it reflects changes in the hong kong lifting process. we have more to come. including a discussion on the ever grand story. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> you are watching "daybreak australia." i am vonnie quinn with the first word headlines. investors honed in on china's decision to open up crude reserves must signaling it will not shy away from intervening in markets lower domestic prices. beijing says it released oil from its strategic reserves to alleviate pressure from rising raw materials costs. food prices rose after a u.s. report saying production fell by the most on record to hurricane ida. the european central bank slowed the pace of its bond buying program slightly and what

president christine lagarde insisted was a recalibration that does not herald a wind down in stimulus. the bank will conduct purchases at a moderately lower pace and roughly -- a month citing the economic rebound. officials left rates on hold and raised forecasts for growth and inflation to 5% and 2.2% respectively. hong kong authorities have formally prosecuted seven organizers of the yearly vigil to commemorate the 1989 tiananmen square massacre. according to a post on the facebook page, seven are facing charges including subversion of state power. hong kong police say they froze 280 thousand dollars of the organization's assets. the united nations says it was the subject of a cyber in april. cybersecurity firm says the hackers appear to have gotten in by purchasing the u.n. employee's stolen username and

password on the dark web. the u.n. said the attackers were successful in reaching parts of the infrastructure and further attacks have been detected that are linked to the earlier breach. russia and belarus agreed to deeper economic ties following a meeting between president vladimir putin and alexander lukashenko at the kremlin. the two neighbors linked in a so-called union state agreed to tighter economic policy. russia agreed to provide $630 million in loans and said it will continue to provide de la rue's with deeply discounted natural gas. global news, 24 hours a day, on air and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i am vonnie quinn. this is bloomberg. shery: take a look at futures across markets in asia. we are seeing kiwi stocks right now muted in early trading, up .3%. this after we saw some downside pressure earlier in the week. sydney futures pointing higher,

.3%. the aussie dollar at a near one week low against the u.s. dollar. it has been under pressure all week because of the are b.i. sticking with cautious taper plans. chicago nikkei futures and seoul kospi futures under pressure. more firms scrapping return to office plans. microsoft will not reopen offices by october 4, saying it can no longer give a firm date for returning to work because the pandemic is too unpredictable. for more, let's bring in our tech reporter. what are they saying? spencer: basically, you summed it up. we had various tech companies including microsoft continuously moving the date of returning to the office back, further back, further back. what microsoft is it saying now, which is similar to a move apple made earlier, is we will -- we will give you 30 days notice to let workers know they will have a transition period so they will

not get a call in the middle of the night telling them to come to work tomorrow but they basically cannot predict when they are going to expect employees to return to the office more regularly. haidi: -- >> this idea of returning to the office keeps getting pushed back. what are other companies doing? spencer: microsoft and apple are just saying we will stay tuned and provide this transition area period once we have a firm date, so they are kind of in this holding pattern. you have companies like amazon and facebook that pushed it back to january. google was up for october, so again, the dates just keep getting pushed back to the point that they don't seem to have as much meaning anymore. shery: anything unique about tech companies that makes this issue more difficult than other industries? spencer: that is a good question. tech in particular because the market is so competitive that a

lot of employers are feeling pressure to walk very softly in demanding that their employees return to the office because they are afraid that folks who do not want to return to the office will simply find another job elsewhere that allows them to continue working remotely. on the other side, microsoft was surprised it conducted a survey and found most of their employees, nearly half of them were hoping to return to the officer or four times a week once the pandemic subsides, so there are are definitely workers who would like to get back to the office. >> technology reporter spencer soper there. australia's most popular state is planning to lift stay-at-home orders in some regional communities as early as tomorrow. it comes as new south wales unveiled a roadmap to unveil sydney's 11 week lockdown. let's get more from our sydney bureau chief. what will be relaxed and when? >> yes, well, the government

gave us that roadmap yesterday which basically, once we get a 70% of the population over 60 in double vaccinated, when we hit the milestone, we will get a lot more creative so they are anticipating that will happen in late october and then we look forward to resuming some form of normal life. you can go to the pub, you can have people to your house. you will be able to live a bit more freely than we have in the last seven weeks. shery: how coherent is the reopening plan across australia and among different dates -- states? spencer: we are really a country -- >> we are really a country divided at the moment. second most populous city of melbourne. they have been in lockdown for several weeks with another covert outbreak whereas the rest of the country is living relatively free of covid, a very free life, and they are very much committed to the covid zero policy so they are very reluctant to sort of allow domestic travel to resume or anything like that that would

allow normal life to go further. paul: ainsley chandler there. we track the biggest vaccination campaign in history with 5.5 billion doses given across 183 countries so far. you can check out bloomberg's vaccine tracker on the bloomberg terminal and on bloomberg.com. still to come, as china's crackdown continues, we will discuss if we are closer to being game over in china gaming with the founder and president of -- partners. this is bloomberg. ♪

vonnie: you are watching "daybreak australia." time for morning calls ahead of the asian trading day. aluminum saw prices rally to a 13 year high. the global commodities team have upgraded their already optimistic forecast for the metal as they see a transition from a cyclical to a structural full market. the metal will average more than $3000 in 2022 as it calculated we will see that global deficit widened to 1.1 million tons this year. switching out the board, we have seen the yuan trading in a calm range over the last few weeks. at bank of america, this is

masking a rising premium. the yield gets narrowed against the u.s. so he expects unfolding monetary stimulus to push dollar china to 6.55 by the end of this quarter and 6.60 by the end of this year. outflows triggered by escalating defaults. at bloomberg intelligence, they said they could hold their nerve potentially as china's current account surplus could offer structural support to tolerate the text driven selloff -- tech driven selloff. paul: traders rushed to dump chinese tech stocks as beijing moved to temporarily slow down new online game approvals as tencent shedding more than $60 billion in value on the move by the chinese authorities. let's get some analysis on what this means for companies and consumers. lisa cosmas hanson is the founder and president of niko partners, the market research and consulting firm that covers the asian games market. lisa, i want to start by asking

whether this crackdown is even workable? you can set up fake accounts, get a vpn, numerous ways to get around it, aren't there? lisa: there are lots of ways to get around this and i think it's important to note that this is not a law, meaning the citizens themselves are not the ones at risk as much. they are being asked to adhere to this policy. it is the game companies being told they must put in the technology to ensure that only of age gamers come 18 plus, are able to play at the hours -- any hour they want. whereas the zero to 17 must adhere to friday, saturday, sunday, from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. paul: how serious is this problem of gaming addiction in china? and is there a problem? is it worth all the social engineering that is in volunteer and the stripping of aliens of dollars in value from these tech companies?

lisa: i'm sure there's lots of things going on. if we learn about how often kids are playing games globally, one could argue that they play too much. i have two teenagers. sometimes, they play too much. overall, i don't think that china has anymore of a problem with that than the rest of the world if you are looking at a comparatively. i also think that china's education system is very rigid so the kids are in school and have to study a lot. the available time for them to play games is not as plentiful as it is for adults overall. so i am not sure about the addition but there are rumors that perhaps kids grades are slipping on average or, you know, different items are in focus for youth in china than they used to be and perhaps that is worrying for government officials. shery: gaming addiction and that focus seems very interesting to me. but have seen this focus not

only just now, but in the past few years already, so the restrictions have been there. what impact will this have on these companies with these added restrictions? lisa: you know, i was fascinated by this as well because there has been a limitation of 13.5 hours per week essentially, 1.5 hours on a weekday and three hours on each day of the weekend or holidays already and that has been in place for a couple years now. this is a very severe reduction to just three hours, and i think it is quite interesting to identify the hours that have been designated, it :00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., friday, saturday, sunday, which is not a reasonable time of day for a seven-year-old to go online and play a very benign game, and that seven-year-old is likely not becoming addicted at age seven. i do think that there's stuff that makes me scratch my head. what is happening? how it will impact the game

companies is not in the immediate term, certainly not because the age of gamers who generate the most revenue is over 18. but what is going to happen in the out years, in the five-year forecast period? if the gamers actually stop playing games and don't go through the loopholes of a vpn or registering with their parents account or their older siblings account, they slide off, enjoying games to the extent that they have already. if that were to happen -- and let me caution you to say that i don't think it will -- but if that were to happen, then there would be trouble for the game companies in the future. i think the main area of worry is going to be in e-sports, where the kids really do have to immerse themselves in the game and treated like any other sport. shery: e-sports has been one aspect where i thought beijing was rather positive on. what happens to that and the

billions of dollars of revenue that could have been made in that industry? lisa: i think they still are quite bullish. in fact, i think the many government leaders have been stating that the game industry in china is solid and they still are very behind it and supportive of it. so i think this is something that's -- reduce the amount of time youth are playing games. what will happen to e-sports is either the gamers will not -- two things could happen. one is they could spend all their time on streaming video, watching people play e-sports, and then really get excited to play when they have the time to do it, or they might say this is not for me anymore. and then the training for young e-sports athletes is just not going to be possible. we were watching -- there are certain very high-level tournaments or multinational sporting events where e-sports will be a medaled event.

will they have to limit the teams if they include gamers under 18? to be truthful, i don't know -- i don't know how many teams have gamers right now in china that are under 18, but the ones training might be limited in their opportunities. paul: lisa, can you imagine any companies that might benefit from this crackdown? lisa: i think the streaming video companies are going to benefit from this crackdown because the gamers who really enjoy playing also enjoy watching, and those two go hand-in-hand, and i think that when we see that the gamers are not able to spend enough time as they want playing the games themselves, they will be watching others do that. so i do think that that will be a beneficiary. shery: niko partners founder and president lisa cosmas hanson, thank you very much, with her insights into gaming across china. be sure to tune into bloomberg radio to hear more from the

day's big newsmakers and get in-depth analysis from the daybreak team. now broadcasting live from our studio in hong kong. listen via the app, radio plus, or bloombergradio.com. plenty more ahead. stay with us. ♪

paul: let's take a look now at the day ahead for australia and

new zealand. economic data out of new zealand includes august card spending and net migration. -- car spending and net migration. this is of course the month where the country went into lockdown after a fresh outbreak of coronavirus. surgeons have used outside of the major city, auckland. we are keeping and i on bhp and rio. macquarie group intends to make hybrid work permanent for its u.s. staff, shery. shery: anchor selling $1.5 billion worth of smartphone accessories and other consumer electronics products a year. bloomberg's chief north asia correspondence stephen engle spoke with the ceo and ask him about the challenges he is facing with the chip shortage. >> the shortage of chips is likely going to continue into mid of next year which has had

and will continue to have impact our production itself. and also -- so we do not only produce in china. we have manufacturers in other countries as well. these are largely affected, so we love part of the manufacturing capabilities as well. even when the products are made and when they are actually about to be transported to the rest of the world -- so we are seeing skyrocketing shipping fees -- >> given these headwinds you have been talking about, does that accelerate or decelerate the company's sort of switch to tap into the domestic consumption story in china? steven: where most successful in markets with a gdp that is actually over $10,000. so actually, you know, for the

past few years, china's gdp has dropped supply and we are seeing the demand reaching from more of a price driven versus into innovation driven. so with this sort of changing market condition, i think it's really becoming a market that we should succeed in. stephen: over the next five years, how much of the revenue contribution would come from china? steven: what we hope is to drive it up 20%. it won't be like a period of 35 years -- three to five years. stephen: you focus on r&d quite a bit and have advanced charterers and other home products, but how are you going to differentiate in the china market that is pretty saturated with the kind of products you make? steven: we don't want to be a me

better ran, making slightly better products. we hope to be an innovation driven company and customers come to us not just for a slightly better product, but for a truly innovative product and thought behind that. so it's a challenge. it's a journey that, you know, we need to take, but that is something we are heading towards steadily. stephen: when you do have established names like bose, jbl, or other brands that are known at this level, and then there's everyone else, is there a particular brand that you model yourself after? steven: probably a company like procter & gamble. maybe a little bit surprising, but they have a portfolio brand fact is very professional and innovative. if you are able to just, you know, again, have the right people to actually build categories. individually by themselves -- it

could be something different. again, it's something we kept thinking and we will keep exploring as well. stephen: so what other areas do you see yourself diversifying into? are there opportunities in certain product segments that you are really looking at in the next few years? steven: we hope to open up that platform to entrepreneurs over the world to just join up and build categories that they want to build. let's say japan wants to build -- i do now -- -- i do not know, a robot or something like that? stephen: how has anker been impacted by the tension? let's not ignore the elephant in the room, the rising tension between china and the united states. steven: we hope for anker to become an international company. they are not only made in china. they are made in vietnam and

other parts of the world. it's designed in the rest of the world. paul: stephen engle with anker ceo steven yang. let's get a quick check of the latest business flash headlines. saudi aramco -- the fuel becomes increasingly crucial to growing its chemicals business. sources say aramco will create two new divisions. state run energy firm has been developing its gas field and is said to consider opening up a $110 billion project to fund investors. ford is quitting and shutting factories taking a 2 billion-dollar restructuring charge as manufacturing of vehicles will stop immediately. 4000 employees will be affected. plants will shut next year. the ceo said he will no longer for capital into marginal markets that provide little or no return. bloomberg has been told apple

has appointed one of its top executives to oversee the car project after the previous leader left for ford. and adobe veteran joined apple to run the software group for the company's smartwatch. sources say he will replace dunfield as a manager in charge -- dou field as the manager in charge. -- battling with roku and google. amazon will offer two lines of tv. it's already one of the largest players in the connected tv industry and sold more than 100 million fire tv devices. shery: take a look at the markets right now. we are seeing kiwi stocks gaining ground and rebounding from lower levels in the week come up .2%. we are also seeing asx 200 futures gaining ground after falling for two consecutive sessions. we will continue to see the pressure on the aussie dollar against the u.s. dollar given the rba's cautious taper plan.

we are seeing nikkei futures under pressure, continuing to extend declines after seeing its worst day in almost three weeks, the first time it actually fell in nine sessions and the japanese yen holding at around the 109 level. it has been trading at a really narrow range. we are watching for any headlines on the virus given that prime ministers suga extended the virus emergency there -- prime minister suga extended the virus emergency there. kospi pressures after a two-week low. we continue to see off flows from overseas funds. people really concerned about the fed taper, not to mention china's crackdown on the tech sector as well, which is one of the elements that sent u.s. stocks lower in the new york session. that is it for "daybreak australia." "daybreak asia" is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

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paul: hello and welcome to "daybreak asia." i am paul allen in sydney. sophie: i am sophie kamaruddin in hong kong, counting down to asia's major market opens. shery: good evening. i'm shery ahn. our top stories this hour. asian traders assess a bout of weakness on signs of a slowdown in the pandemic recovery. the ecb is set to slow the pace of its bond buying.