mostly in vaccinated people who experience mild illnesses with only one hospitalization and no deaths reported so far. that is from the centers for disease 75% of the 43 confirmed cases of omicron are in those that are fully vaccinated. a mouse bite is at the center of an investigation into a possible new covid-19 outbreak in taiwan, after a worker at a research institute was confirmed as the island's first local case in more than a month. the health minister said the worker tested positive after being bitten twice by an infected lab mouse but that further investigation is needed to determine whether the bites were the source. president biden has assured the ukrainian president voldymyr

zelensky of support in a standup against russia. he also told nato allies that they had not made any concessions during his recent video call with russian president vladimir putin. it is a legal blow to a man who has spent almost a decade fighting attempt to remove him from britain. judges in the u.k. have granted a u.s. request to extradite julian assange. he has been in prison or the ecuadorian embassies since 2012. the u.s. government charged him with espionage for his role in releasing classified documents. assange can appeal the ruling. global news 24 hours a day, on-air, and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. ♪

amanda: i'm amanda lang. welcome to bloomberg markets. matt: i'm matt miller. we welcome both our bloomberg and bnn bloomberg audiences. here are the top stories we are following for you from around the world. uscp is climbing at the fastest rate in nearly 40 years, showing inflation is not slowing down. that puts even more pressure on the fed as its decision comes next week. the ongoing supply chain issues leading to that inflation continue to add to price pressures. we go live to the port of los angeles for the latest with ed ludlow. and hedge funds are said to be entangled in a criminal investigation by the u.s. department of justice into shortselling as it pries into their financial relationship with researchers when setting up their bets. all that and more, coming up.

amanda: interesting reaction across stock, slightly mixed picture but overall positive. weakness in energies and financials for the broad s&p 500. leadership from the techs and the subgroups that make up tech. broadcom, costco moving sharply higher after their quarter outlook. you are seeing some willing volume. the 10-year back at 1.47. we had been watching for market reaction to u.s. inflation. we got consumer prices up at a pace not seen since some people were wearing as it washed jeans back in 1982. 6.8% is the level. but because it was expected, perhaps, another note.

wages are not keeping up with the headline. we can talk about prices going up, but on a real adjusted inflation basis, wages are down. that will hurt the economy if that does not play a bit of catch-up that is one piece of this we have to keep our eyes on. matt: i would say you have to pick your time period. wages are beating inflation. over the last 12 months it is different. over the last five years, 10 years, it is different. and i also want to say, and i'm sorry to have to tell you this, but people are wearing acid washed jeans again. they are wearing them in the mom jeans cut, and they are even paying extra money to have the rips put in before they buy them. it is disturbing but true. amanda: when i was 12 in 1982, i was not allowed acid washed jeans. i misted them then, and i will

now. matt: respect to your parents. amanda: one of the factors that we continue to watch, supply chain constraints, and what that does to pricing. one place that is central to all of that is los angeles. ed ludlow is there. we know that there is still a backlog there. what are you seeing at the ports? ed: some of those jeans may be in one of the containers over my shoulder. the data shows that things are still bad here. more than 95 ships not just in the port complex, but even further out into the pacific ocean. they are waiting an average three weeks to get a berth to unload. when they get here, they are faced with a labor shortage of truckers. there are not enough to take them onto the next stage of the

supply chain, even though for many months, the port has been running 24/7. earlier this morning i spoke to the executive director director of the port who said containers sitting idle is down 60% since october, when they started to introduce penalties or fines if containers were sat for a certain period of time. but demand is still so elevated, they are dealing with record levels of inventory coming in. but because of that bottleneck, the supply is tight on the other side, which gives price inflation. container rates are also a consideration. we are down 25% from levels but still 10 times what they were in december 2019 before the pandemic. those are higher input costs. the readthrough to corporate america, who absorbs that cost? do you pass that on to the

consumer, or do you take a hit to the bottom line? all big question going into 2022. matt: we may continue to see inflation. one of the problems that you see there, when you talk about people working on the ships, unloading the ships, or driving the stuff away, there are just not enough employees. part of the reason is probably that people don't feel like working for wages that they see as low, especially in places like that where life is so expensive. what is the labor answer that you get from people like seroka, who run the portobello i? ed: i like what you said earlier about the wage data. you cannot just look at one month, you have to extrapolate out. when the pandemic hit, there was not this demand here. these people had nothing to do, other than the truck drivers. they moved to other industries.

now it is difficult to get them back. on the longshoreman side, this is a dangerous job. there is a union contract situation that will start next year. also the threat of omicron. a lot of these bottlenecks were caused by key workers here catching covid, being out of work, or dealing with the restrictions put in place to stop the spread of covid-19. it is really a multitude of factors. the question everyone asks is, if we need more money to fix the problem, where will it come from? matt: ed, thanks very much. on the ground at the port of los angeles covering this story, speaking to executives and digging into the supply chain issue. let's get into it with oscar de bok, global supply chain ceo at dhl, the largest logistics provider in the world.

oscar, how do you see this playing out? we have already seen a huge inflation print today, but it doesn't look like it will come down anytime soon, because you are still shipping as much as you can. oscar: absolutely. to respond to the earlier point, during this season, we had to hire about 15,000 people. we have been able to do so because we did plan ahead of this. at the same time, we had to double our automation. because of that, we have been able to be on par with orders as we speak. it is also about planning ahead, knowing what will,. on the other hand, i agree, the labor cost increase is there. we are seeing that as well.

about 15% in some cases. that is definitely happening. another point i want to make. in my view, the supply chain disruption we are seeing at the moment is not a one time thing. with the growth of e-commerce, supply chains are organized differently. you have major jumps at the end of the supply chain. that is the end consumer. all the stores, wholesalers, distributors that used to be in between are now less, and that is why you get disruptions in the supply chain. that doesn't go away. customers need to plan differently in the future to be able to cope with this. amanda: that suggests that you will also need to plan differently. are you adjusting your thinking and how you manage your business as a result of your customers changing theirs? oscar: there are a few elements.

we are investing in real estate to make sure that we have facilities, fulfillment centers to the customer. that is one element. we started to invest heavily in robotics to make sure that we can solve problems with not just people but automation at the same time. and we make sure that we train people in a different way so that they can stay with the company. those three elements together are important. on top of that, even more important, is the capability of analytics. we have invested heavily to make sure that we can forecast for the customers what will come, plan accordingly, invest. that will be more important in the world to come. matt: what are you doing in terms of hiring in a seasonally adjusted way? i am sure that you get a ton of

holiday workers lined up, but in terms of your growth over the next year, three years, do you need to add a lot of headcount? oscar: we do. two years ago, we started eight resourcing centers spread out over the u.s. which are specialized in not only finding people, but also using things anymore digitized way, and at the same time, we use them as training centers. we train them accordingly and then get them into our organization. at the same time, we invest in collaborative robotics. we cannot solve it all with hiring people. that also helps to stem the tide -- standardize the process more. we can get people into our operations easier. we can also easily move people between operations, which is important, to cope with

flexibility. different sectors have different seasonality's. we can deal with that because of the scale and size we have. having 40,000 people in the u.s. alone, spread out all over the u.s., you are able to cope with the various fluctuations for the customers. amanda: where you are seeing higher prices, whether that is labor cost, fuel, air travel or for your trucks, is a significant cost. what are you able to pass on? oscar: we sit down together with our customers to do that, when we talk about labor cost increases. also, customers understand this has to be passed on because we need to get those people in. we have worked together with our customers to find efficiency improvements, optimize their supply chains, make them more flexible. we used analytics to restructure

the supply chains so that we could reduce cost in the way that it is organized to cope with the cost increases that we see today in the market. matt: we are looking at cost increases especially since the pandemic. i am sure you are not familiar with exact pricing at dhl, but how much does it cost to ship a large box now, compared to december 2019? what kind of growth have you seen? oscar: it depends a little bit on the weight and where it is coming from. matt: let's say a porsche 911 bought in berlin, being shipped to new york. oscar: at this moment, it will be about twice the cost. matt: twice the cost. that is pretty much what i figured.

skirt, great to have your insight. thanks for joining us. oscar de bok is the dhl supply chain mobile ceo. he has a difficult job and it will probably get more difficult over the next few weeks, but he hoped -- we hope he has a great year. lululemon slums as much as 3%, even as the company reported better-than-expected earnings. we will discuss the maker of yoga pants, and our stock of the hour. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i'm matt miller. with amanda lang.

bitcoin remains on pace for its fourth consecutive weekly decline. it has long been touted as an inflation hedge. it has been bouncing around the $50,000 level since the flash crash saw a tumble of 21%. but it is pretty silly to look at something over a four-week period, especially something that you consider an inflation hedge. i often spoke to a famed investor, and he held 5% to 10% of his portfolio in gold as just that, an inflation hedge. if he had held it in bitcoin instead, he would have done much better than just hedging against inflation. he is a billionaire but he would be a multibillionaire. amanda: it doesn't actually make sense to think of bitcoin as an inflation hedge. people think of bitcoin as a gold proxy. gold was an inflation hedge.

it is worth what the next guy is willing to pay for it. it has no intrinsic value, gold did. i think we have to stop calling it that. it will not help you if inflation goes haywire. probably the opposite. matt: during times of weird, crazy inflation in south african nations, or in south american nations, you see those people buy bitcoin with their money as an inflation hedge because of the scarcity. amanda: that doesn't make it an inflation hedge. matt: if any of them held onto it, they have made more money, even in those lunatic inflation situations. amanda: the fact that it made money in those periods doesn't make it logically a head against

inflation. i think we do it a disservice calling at that because you have to have some store of value in order to hold against inflation. matt: why would gold be an inflation hedge? amanda: gold was the backing of fiat currency, has historical value. i agree, you can argue it shouldn't have been, but it was once the literal backing of fiat. bitcoin has no store value. it is worth what the next person will pay for bitcoin. matt: as is gold. amanda: probably true, but there are other uses for gold. there are some similarities. maybe gold is not an inflation hedge anymore either. matt: i think they use it in space capsules, teeth. amanda: jewelry. matt: let's put a pin in this, we can have a beer after the show and discuss further. theoretically, it should not be an inflation hedge, although practically it has been.

lululemon has been ticking lower after a new covid variant could cut into athleisure sales. kriti gupta is looking at those results. >> on top of that, you are seeing them suffer in terms of its outlook for its mirror unit. last year, the ceo saying the increase and vaccinations will help people to go out. they were expecting 100 $70 million in revenue from the mirror. in 2021, the estimate now is being cut in half when it comes to those revenues. the good news is that unit only made up about 3% of revenues, which brings me to where they are getting their other sales. slight decline in e-commerce. in-store sales up 3%, so you are seeing that reopening trade. like most companies, it is dealing with higher freight

costs cutting into profits. that is something reflected in shares, down four out of the last five weeks. amanda: coming up next, and expansive probe into shortselling. a look at why the department of justice is targeting hedge funds. stay with us.

amanda: a bloomberg news scoop has revealed the u.s. justice department has launched an expansive criminal investigation into shortselling from hedge funds research firms. for that, we have should ali bassett -- sonali basak. >> and expansive probe by the doj looking at any financial relationships that may exist with hedge funds and research firms involving shortselling.

were there any financial relationships, any positioning done in the run-up to the research published by these firms? some of these prominent firms and stocks are being treated -- traded include bank of california, some of the firms involved in this were anson funds. they have not yet commented to bloomberg. matt: thanks very much. looking forward to your continued coverage of this. for amanda lang, i'm matt miller. this is bloomberg. ♪

mark: but word is. the united states supreme court

ruled texas abortion a biters -- providers can sue but allowing the law to remain in effect. the fifth u.s. circuit appeals has twice voted to allow enforcement of the ban and would renew the decision. the u.s. chamber of commerce is against bidens build back better plan. the business lobby released its statement after the consumer price index came out saying that congress should not add any more fuel to the inflationary fire. meanwhile, a group of 56 economists signed a letter urging lawmakers to act quickly saying it would cut cost for childcare, health care, and education. the u.s. senate has passed legislation creating a fast-track to raising the nation's debt ceiling and avoiding a default. that gives the democratic

majority