>> a very good morning and welcome to "bloomberg daybreak: australia." we are counting down to asia's major market opens. >> good morning. top stories this hour. new covid variant causes countries across the globe to ramp up restrictions while south africa indicates symptoms from the new variant have been mild. >> investors dumped everything

from stocks to commodities last week. >> opec-plus is expected to take a cautious stance as they meet this week. >> omicron remains top of mind for investors but we are seeing some signs of a little pause in the frenzy panic he had from the friday session. some of this has been on the account of the positive news flow over the weekend. the south african president saying they have seen signs of this variant across all provinces. dr. anthony fauci saying it is likely more transmissible. we are also seeing signs of some of these curbs returning to asian countries including australia where there is a band from nine african countries was announced this weekend. >> let's take a look at how deep and fast was black friday. the s&p 500 losing 2.3 part --

2.3%. a big rally in bonds. the 10 year bonds dropping -- basis points. the fed will not speed up its taper. in terms of the middle east, they carry the ball in terms of selling off shares. down 4.5% on the allshare index. dubai was down 5.5 percent, its biggest loss since march of last year. saudi arabia down 4%. u.s. crude fell more than 10% on friday. below $70 for the first time since september. >> when it comes to fx, volumes are light at this trading our for some of these pairs but it does feel like we will not see the sign of the panic we saw last week. this is what we are seeing in terms of weakness. the aussie dollar gaining on the back of a bit of weakness in the u.s. dollar.

the euro holding steady at this point. and the epicenter of the omicron crisis, the south african rand is seeing some stability where we have seen a little strengthening in early trade. >> let's take a look at the equity session ahead. that is the other part of the market we will continue to watch . this is the last trade. sydney down 1.4%. futures for japan still looking pretty weak, down 4.4 percent. kospi futures also a bit of weakness. we will be watching to see if there is divergence between the currency markets and equity sentiment. >> as stocks look in the red column, you can expect bonds to look better across the board. australia's three year note at .856. this is a time for bonds.

people are leaving stocks and looking for havens and safety. this is something we will probably see continuing today. the who urging caution after experts from south africa say symptoms linked to the new strain have been mild. let's get more clarity from our editor, ian fisher. stephen engle as well as paul allen. we are going to go first to you, ian, what is the latest? ian: the latest is they are still waiting to see exactly what the characters -- characteristics of the variant are. two experts from south africa including the first doctor to detect it says the symptoms are mild. flulike symptoms. rapid fatigue and pulse. the who said, hold on a minute, we do not know that it is

showing any signs of being a different strain so not much clarity. >> what are we seeing as a reaction in asia given what we learned from delta? time is of the essence in terms of putting in travel restrictions. stephen: i think there will be an abundance of caution this monday morning. as the news trickles out and we get indications of how vera lent this particular variant is. already, some of these countries have the tightest restrictions including china which is essentially closed to the world. japan has raised its virus alert to the highest level. it will also be doing more screening and testing of those returning from travel. the prime minister of singapore saying in a sunday speech yesterday that they may have to consider rolling back some of the easing measures. singapore has already indicated in the last few months that it

is learning to live with the virus. the prime minister says he is confident to find a way to live with the virus and safely resume all things we love to do but they might have to rollback some of those relaxations of curbs. thailand, philippines, new zealand, and india all indicating they are reviewing flights coming in from africa. philippines, new zealand, and tylan have band flights from at least 6-9 african nations right now. in an abundance of caution. india's prime minister asking officials to resume -- to review plans to ease international travel flights to and from india. i was supposed to start december 15. india showing that caution as well. >> a lot of calls over the weekend for quick action from the australian government especially as we get towards christmas and potentially a full

reopening of some of our states. paul: december 1 was a deadline for reopening borders for students and migrant workers. that is now thrown into question. the cabinet is likely to be convened today or tomorrow. this is to discuss how to deal with this going forward. there are three confirmed cases in australia. two arrived on saturday. along with 260 fellow travelers on that flight. arrivals band from nine african countries. on the bright side, there are signs that the illness is not particularly severe and all still you has 86% nationwide fully vaccinated coverage. >> moderna saying its new vaccine for omicron may be ready

in early 2022. what is the latest? >> two things. there is a question of looking at the exact sequencing of omicron and deciding if a vaccine is needed. that is what people are betting on right now. but the other part is that a lot of health experts think it is entirely possible that the vaccines we have will provide enough protection so it may not be necessary to create new vaccines. there is a lot of waiting period this is really new. we just don't know. >> but is our chief north asia correspondent stephen engle in hong kong, ian fisher joining us from new york and here in sydney, paul with all aspects of this new variant. as asia opens for a fresh week of trading. let's get to vonnie quinn. >> profit growth at china's

industrial firms rebounded for a second month driven by mining and manufacturing of raw materials. industrial profit climbed 24.6%. in october from a year earlier. lou mary economic said the acceleration last month was boosted by the surge in factory great prices and the recovery in output from power shortage woes. president biden says americans will see prices at the pump fall but it will take time. he tweeted the message after the u.s. and other nations announced they would release millions of barrels of reserves. opec-plus will be meeting this week to decide whether to go ahead with its plan for a january supply increase. the australian prime minister is proposing new legislation that would force new social media firms -- under the laws, people who believe they have been defamed could get a court order forcing companies to disclose

who is behind the post. if companies refuse, they would have to pay defamation costs. social media companies are not considered publishers of material and are not held responsible. 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. >> coming up, we will get more insight on the week ahead as central bankers and opec assess the impact of the new covid strain. and shane oliver joins us next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> entering a bit risk off day. >> this unwelcome news --

>> i can quite understand why financial markets are worried. >> on the back of thanksgiving. >> some of the investors will take some risk off the table. >> the time it takes to analyze the virus. >> every major nation should start dealing with this as if it is an issue just for their nation. it is not. >> the delay rather than a fundamental derailment. >> this is not the first covid, this new strain we are seeing -- >> we should not imagine the all is lost. it is not. >> some of our earlier guests commenting as the new variant roiled markets. investors will have an early opportunity to see how policymakers respond to these

new variant fears. opec-plus will face the impact of the new variant. the emergency crude reserves after oil's black friday crash. and we have a big u.s. jobs report. chinese pmi, gdp data in asia and inflation ratings that are key across europe. >> speaking of the payrolls report, a solid print could have sealed the deal for a foster fed taper in december. this new variant may change the calculations. investors -- pushing back the timing of the first fed hike to september from june. a similar story in the u.k. and across europe. the prospect of a travel restrictions mean policymakers are going to have to think twice before pulling back on support as many thought the bank of

england would be on the verge of doing very soon. and that is your week ahead. >> let's talk a little bit more about what we are looking ahead to this week. let's bring in the head of investment strategist, shane oliver. how does this variant color the expectations for the data points we are watching keenly for the week ahead? shane: i think it adds a high degree of uncertainty. new variants, including this one, is a reason for concern throwing uncertainty in the mix. i think we were looking on track for a pretty good recovery. this raises the question mark about that but by the same token, it is early days yet. markets have reacted very quickly. perhaps quicker than they did in the case of the delta variant and that is partly because the information came out very quickly. what we do know does not

necessarily derail things if the variant is more transmissible but the symptoms are milder and not so deadly, that could be good news. it could be a sign that the virus is mutating in a way that makes it less harmful such as cold and flu. they could go down a path that is not so negative and this could be a buying opportunity. at this stage, it is too early. that is why you're are seeing that knee-jerk selloff reaction in financial markets and it will be a couple of weeks before we get any clear understanding of how this will impact central banks. >> it will be a while before we get answers to those questions on account of waiting for the data. is this a good excuse for some of the selling given the rich evaluations and pricing we see and the existing risk of inflation and tighter on a cherry policy? shane: that is true. the s&p 500 was up 25% year to

date. big gains there. we have had some pullbacks along the way but they have all been pretty mild pure the market was vulnerable to a correction. i thought we would get a deeper one in september. it turned out not to be the case. it the lead from strong profits. but the market was vulnerable. going forward, of course, we do come into a seasonally stronger period as we go into december and january. i expect this is just a correction. if it turns out ok with the new variant, that it is not so deadly and the vaccines do work, you could see a rebound by year-end and it could still go lower in the interim. >> in the u.s., a stunning bond rally -- when you see the 10 year note dropped 16 basis points. rafael bostick who was with us

about a week ago said he was open to the faster taper and he said, guess what? he is still open to a faster taper in an interview with fox news on friday. could this be a bit of a head fake for bond bowls if suddenly -- bond bulls if suddenly the fed does not pull back? shane: it could be. i suspect though that the fed, if it does not pull back, it would be against a backdrop where the new variant proves not to be a serious threat. if it does turn out to be a severe threat, i think the fed will have to pull back. i think bostick is saying that we don't know but delta did not derail things dramatically, it did not stop the inflation problems. if that is the case with omicron , we could continue down this path to the taper.

it could be a head fake. the rally in the bonds on friday could be a head fake. and i suspect that is likely to be the case than the alternative where bonds start a massive decline in yields. >> let's take a quick listen to what rafael bostick had to say so we can set up our viewers. this is significant. he knew what was going on and he still had this to say. >> i am open to accelerating the pace of our slow down in purchases. for me, it is all in play as reasonable alternatives for when we might stop our purchases if the economy's momentum continues as it has in the last several months. >> the federal reserve watches omicron and it starts moving into its taper faster or slower

and stocks continue to rally. you said you see buying opportunities potentially. if you are buying, what is it? shane: you would be selling all the ones that sold off on friday. travel and leisure in particular. they could see a huge rebound out of that is. and you would be selling the stay-at-home stocks which rallied on friday. those would be the cyclicals you would favor. and you would still have an eye on the inflation threat. it is not gone away. you would be favoring cyclicals that provide a potential haven against inflation. >> shane, how much volume do you expect to see when it comes to de-risking with these travel and leisure reopening stocks? i we gone ahead of ourselves here? shane: it is possible. we have seen a knee-jerk reaction. we did not see the same

knee-jerk reaction to delta or alpha or beta when they came along. perhaps the markets are more sensitive. and the health authorities are acting a lot more quickly. the overreaction could be over -- it is too early to say. it is possible that markets got ahead of themselves. vaccines -- viruses like to mutate. if they mutations allow the virus to survive, then they have to be milder, maybe that is what is happening here but that view is not getting a lot of airplay at present. at the moment, it is shoe first and ask questions later. there is potentially an opportunity but it is still a little too early to start buying

off that opportunity unless you want to average in. >> amp capital investors head of investment strategy, shane all over with us. let's take a look at how we are setting up as far as markets are concerned. new zealand is trading. we are seeing some downside when it comes to the trading day in the cash session. 1.1 percent lower. look at volumes. a dark blue is the 20 day moving average. the blue dotted line above is the projection as to where we will end up for the day. you can see from the one line that things are falling. substantially markedly higher volumes trading suggesting there potentially is quite a bit of pent-up enthusiasm from traders to sell today. we are also seeing the fx looking stable at least at this early indicative hour.

we will continue to bring the latest moves after asia wakes up after friday's market turmoil. much more to come on "bloomberg daybreak: australia." this is bloomberg. ♪

>> a quick check of the latest business headlines. the operator of india's leading digital payment service says losses widened last quarter as a company struggle to make money off transactions got slow during the pandemic. it posted a loss of 63 million dollars in the quarter ending in september. this was its first earnings report since it pulled off the biggest ipo just days ago. the outlook for a food delivery business after reporting the

steepest quarterly loss since 2018. the company was weighed down by right -- by beijing's eglin torrey pines and increasing competition from alibaba. the ceo is overhauling the business to focus on new drivers as well as investing in autonomous vehicles and drone delivery. shares slumped on friday after it missed quarterly estimates as new coronavirus outbreaks and consumer spending. shanghai-based online retailer posted users were below analyst expectations. the company however saw a second quarter of profits at $250 million versus the forecast. >> let's take a look at how we are setting up for the asian open. we are seeing downward pressure when it comes to new zealand stocks. we showed you earlier that we do see significant pent-up volumes

when it comes to trading to the downside for kiwi stocks. this is where we are at when it comes to the downside pressure as far as japanese futures. fx is looking pretty stable. the yen holding steady. we did see stabilization when it comes to the south african rand as well as a broader recovery across some of the commodity currencies including the aussie dollar. a lot of the fx action we see at this stage are light volumes and indicative. we could see a turnaround when it comes to the proper session over the next couple of hours. it looks like still quite a bit of caution when it comes to equities. this follows on the market turmoil we saw on friday. over the weekend, there was some positive news and it comes to the new variant. suggesting that perhaps some of the symptoms we see an existing cases are fairly mild. it was a bit of a boost with vaccine makers saying they could

potentially get an omicron effective vaccine by early next year. you can get a roundup of the stories you need to know on today's edition of daybreak on your terminals and on every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities.

vonnie: you were watching "bloomberg daybreak: australia." rep. griffith: turnabout is industrial firms rebounded for a second move driven by companies and sectors including mining and manufacturing of raw materials. industrial profit climbed to $120 billion in october. bloomberg economics as the acceleration was boosted by a surge in prices and recovery in output from the country's power shortage woes. president biden says americans will see prices at the pump fall but it will take time.

he tweeted the message out to the west end of nations including china, japan, india, and u.k. announced they would release reserves. opec will be meeting this week to decide whether to go ahead with its july increase. a prime minister is imposing new legislation that would force social media firms to reveal the identities of anonymous trolls. under the laws people who believe that they have been defamed could get a court order forcing companies to disclose who is behind the post. if companies refuse they would have to pay defamation costs. currently social media companies are not considered of a material on their platforms and they are not held responsible. global news 24 hours a day, on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am vonnie quinn. this is bloomberg. kathleen: let's move on to breaking news from anthony fauci , he is now saying it will take two weeks for information on omicron as he briefs president

biden who was about to give an update on the variance -- variant and earlier anthony fauci saying omicron is likely to become contagious -- more contagious than the previous variant calling it a clarion call. there is so much uncertainty about what it is and what it is going to do. let's get more on the mood across markets amid concerns. our markets reported joins us on the line. you were very busy on friday when stocks were falling 2.5% on the s&p 500. what is your sense now of what is going to happen as u.s. markets open on monday? >> you had a volatile session on friday. it was the friday after the

thanksgiving holiday, so that exacerbated market reaction you would see on friday anyway, but it is worth noting as new markets open up, the middle east is a great example, they are digesting the news and that might not be indicative of what is happening tomorrow. you are seeing the fx market calm down. retail buying is extremely high. the company saw the biggest net retail buy of u.s. stocks on record. this is something to keep in mind, this is the environment traders are going into. it is worth mentioning on the year basis you have not really had a major correction, a 10% decline in stocks or anything like that. you have these shallow pullbacks . if you start to see risk off mood there is likely to be a defensive trade, so if we see stocks in the green tomorrow it

is more likely to be led by big tech. haidi: talk us through other rotations, right? it seems like some of the themes had already gotten started given to of infections and inflation concerns we have seen across parts of europe. >> this is going to be a continuation of the market mood going into the thanksgiving holiday. the best example is in oil prices, the fact that you are seeing inflation at a multi-decade high. when you start to see the divergence it usually means there is something going on in the oil market. oil since the release was announced as been dropping about eight dollars and digesting the news of the covid lockdown. this is something that predicted what you will see in the other markets, and you got friday as a

result. haidi: our bloomberg markets reported with the latest. we would get more with oil and opec-plus, moving to meetings to give its committee or time to evaluate the impact of the latest coronavirus train after oil prices suffered one of the largest ever one day plunges on friday. we are joined by a bloomberg reporter. we are hearing from anthony fauci that it will be a couple of weeks before we get data about this variant and the outlook in terms of what we are dealing with here. opec+ was already leaning toward pausing on their planned output given strategic releases we heard last week. >> we saw dramatic moves in oil price on friday, but there are a number of caveats to add to that, obviously with the thanksgiving holiday. liquidity was not great and the market dropped key technical

levels, which accelerated the move. there were also options activity when the market started to get momentum on the downside, which accelerated those losses. wti down, brent lost. you can point to announcements earlier in the week but the main cause was fears over omicron, what that might mean for the economy. before we get some clarity, and we are waiting for anthony fauci, until we get some clarity on how serious that strain is at the market will be uncertain. kathleen: in two weeks we may know how serious it is going to get but opec as to make up its mind this week. it is clear it was going to boost output by 400,000 barrels. will it pull back or give a more cautious outlook, making people realize this may be it for now?

>> it is a tough question to answer right now, to be honest. if they look at those price moves we saw on friday, there is definitely going to be pressure to reign back the hike. russia and the emirates are keen to boost production so they might want to stay the course. saudis will hold the key as to whether they progress with that. given the fears over the new variance -- variant and with addition of strategic reserves that might tip them over the edge into pausing for a little bit on that decision to move ahead. hard to say right now. we need to see the market in the next couple of days and that is what opec will be watching closely to see if volatility does die down in the next couple of days. kathleen: thank you so much.

moving on to australia, institutional investors fearful of high inflation should ditch bonds and shift their money into real assets such as infrastructure and property. that is the finding of one of the country's largest institutional fund managers. let's discuss qic's recommendations with its chief economist. all of this back and forth market volatility, it is going to last a while, but inflation forces in your mind are pretty much in play now, they are here to stay in that is what you are arguing that investors should be looking for this kind of hedge, correct? >> we do think that the inflation risk is certainly still present and we have to wait to see how omicron pans out , but the situation we are looking to test is the robustness in a range of

scenarios, two of which are inflationary scenarios but also included that -- in that is the emergence of another variant we did not think would come so quickly but we did a situation that looks at a situation something like omicron that is the economy going back into reverse. what we find real assets are actually robust along a number of scenarios including the state nation scenario. kathleen: you single out the infrastructure asset class benefiting most from assets that are regulated, which tend to be the utility subsector among others. is that the top of your list? >> the key assets, the key territories you are looking for in an inflationary world are

ones where cash flows are tied either to cpi through regulatory requirements or the group releases or ties of cash flows to inflation, and of course regulating infrastructure has a it all of those criteria. the other thing about infrastructure assets, selected infrastructure assets, assets that are not so tied to economic activity, that way you are protected in an inflationary environment, also a stagflation environment where growth has fallen. those utilities tend to have local relation to economic activity. finally, you went assets whose capital structure is -- risk.

that can happen to regulated assets or can occur if you hedge or take risk faced debt. haidi: are you finding the psychology of playing along as well? it feels like there is no alternative trade has been prevailing. is it tough to get investors to change their minds about what sort of assets they have as potential? >> one of the assets we find is a good edge or good inclusion in the portfolio to mitigate the impact of higher inflation is real estate, retail real estate. what we find about retail real estate is what they are leasing, tenant leases are connected to cpi and also to sales revenue. we find that some sections of

retail real estate that are reliant more on consumer expenditure are less volatile in terms of their dependence on discretionary expenditure and hence economic activity. there is an example of an asset that is a good inclusion in the portfolio and a hedge against inflation. haidi: what is the availability of infrastructure investment opportunities in australia? >> infrastructure opportunities in australia are emerging quickly. there is a strong push among state governments in particular but also the federal government to bring infrastructure assets into play. as across the world, generally speaking there are state and federal governments somewhat

under pressure. state governments are more open to third-party capital participation for traditional infrastructure assets, so we have got a good pipeline of infrastructure assets coming on board in australia relative to many parts of the world. kathleen: how much does this depend upon this inflationary environment being strong particularly in australia? we have the rba governor saying he does not think there will be much of an issue in australia? is he ok in a moderate inflationary environment? >> the key to it working is having a staying period of inflation. it does not have to be incredibly high but sustained for a period of time.

where interest rates lag and catch up. in that world, these assets provide a good protection the overall portfolio, i should say. we find for example a sustained stagflationary period can generate an additional five percentage points of return. it does not have to be huge spikes. it can be maintained at moderately high levels. haidi: matthew peter joining us, we appreciate your time, and tune into bloomberg green and get in-depth analysis from the daybreak team. we are broadcasting live from hong kong. lots more ahead.

this is bloomberg. ♪

haidi: this is what we are seeing at the start of trading in asia, asian stocks look to reassess after friday's stock market turmoil, relative calm when it comes to fx trading but equities look like for the downside.

we are seeing higher trading volumes as well suggesting pent up demand for selling could carry through as other markets, like this morning, sidney futures done by 1.5%, sx falling -- asx falling the most in two months. we are seeing stabilization in the aussie and kiwi as well as arise when it comes to bonds as well in response to concerns over the new variant. chicago nikkei futures, 4.5% lower in further downside there. we are hearing from anthony fauci saying it will take two weeks for more information on omicron when it comes to efficacy with regard to existing vaccines, etc. let's get new insight on the omicron threat. we were talking last week about how it did not feel like this reopening, international borders being flung open felt real.

is this a symbol that this is not going to be the last variation? >> i think that is very much the case. if you think about this on the perspective of the virus every human being on earth as a laboratory for cooking up mutations. most of those mutations will fail and not be of interest to us, but occasionally there will be one of these variants of concern. in rich countries now we are very highly vaccinated, only 53% of the population of the world has at even a single dose of covid-19 vaccine, so that means the number of laboratories that covid has is still pretty large, it is not decreasing as fast as we would like it too. in south africa only 24% of the population is fully vaccinated at this point. we need to increase the availability of vaccines around the world to stop this from happening.

kathleen: it seems like there may be more of a push for that to start happening? >> i think this is certainly a reminder, the very high rates of vaccination we have had in developed countries have given us a false sense of comfort. as anthony fauci said we do not yet know how omicron will affect people, we do not know enough. this is a strong reminder that it is in everybody's self interest, including in rich countries, to actually increase vaccine equity is we possibly can. the disruption we are seeing right now we would not be seeing if we were were affected -- effective in suppressing the ability of covid to come up with new variants. kathleen: the longer this last, so far the cases are mild. is there a point at which the world has to realize this is

endemic and vaccines, immunity will ultimately deal with this problem? >> in many ways we have reached this point and we have seen that with other pandemics. cholera in the 19th century with this extremely high death rate that killed half of the people infected. since the 1930's, 1950's vari ants are milder. it still kills people but it does not cause this to the breakdown you saw during the cholera pandemic. that is one that we could see for covid. we do not know what path it is going to take. it will improve our odds as best as possible we need to keep on the suppression as much as we can with vaccines, antivirals, whatever tools we have. haidi: this is a whole no one is safe until everyone is safe kind

of narrative. 7% of africans are fully vaccinated against covid. does this means establishments like covax have failed? >> it has not performed as we would've hoped. if you look at the vaccine capacity, the covid vaccine capacity we had 20 months ago, it was zero. now we are at a point where we have rolled out a billion doses around the world, but the capacity was at least one billion doses, and capacity is not a law of nature. it derives from the legal and institutional set up. we get the vaccine capacity we legislate for. this is a reminder we can try a lot harder, we can do what we have done with previous pandemics, polio, smallpox and get better results. haidi: david there with the

latest. you can get a roundup of stories on today's edition of daybreak. subscribe on your terminals. it is all about omicron. customers are setting so you get the news on the industries and assets that matter to you. this is bloomberg. ♪

kathleen: let's take a look at what is going on in currency markets, our team noting currency market quotations -- if currency market quotations or anything to go by investors are not acting like they are caught in the throes of panic surrounding the omicron variant, the yen down a little lower than the dollar, aussie dollar one change -- unchanged. the euro barely moving. the south african currency got really beaten up on friday, at the epicenter of the market focus on the currency of the variant, may be a sign traders are somewhat optimistic after positive news over the weekend about this latest variant not

being so severe, essentially mild cases so far. let's get a check of business flash headlines. goldman sachs staff in the asia-pacific will claim a one-time subsidy of up to $5,000 to cover cost from a hotel mandatory orienting state. goldman is the third global bank to introduce a program for staff impacted by hong kong's strict policies. the covid zero strategy is making it harder for banks to retain top talent in the region. every -- evergrande's german has cut is stake in the company since it -- for the first time since it went public, reducing his holdings along with those of his wife to 60% from 77%. it is how it is in is attempting to liquidate access to stave off

default. we will watch trading kick off in tokyo after a ceo announced he is retiring following criticism from japan's banking regulator over a series of systems which is this year. the financial services industry said at the bank did not pay enough attention to risk within its computer system. haidi: let's get a check on the markets and how we are shaping up with the start of trading in sydney, declines in new zealand, 1.1%, significant volumes being seen in trading and kiwi stocks to the outside -- the downside. australian stocks fell the most in two months on the friday session. while we see stabilization when it comes to fx trading side of things we are seeing demand, the

flight safety as we see on rallies playing out across the aussie as well as kiwi stocks rising on omicron fears as well. that is coming up next. this is bloomberg. ♪

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haidi: very good morning. we are counting down to the market open. kathleen: our top stories this hour. countries ramp up covid restrictions. while south africa signals symptoms have been mild, the who urges caution. the exchange market shows signs of stability but the equity