>> good morning from bloomberg's european headquarters. i'm dani burger alongside manus cranny live in dubai. this is bloomberg daybreak europe. this is what you need to know. manus: reassessing risk. biden says the u.s. wasn't and hasn't verified all pullback of russian troops.

inflation in focus. chinese price pressures ease as traders and the boe. we look ahead to the u.k. cpi. plus, republicans block the votes on biden's pick for the fed. we get the minutes later today. what do you do in lockdown? organic revenue up 12.2%. a little tipple never killed anybody. organic revenue of 12.2%. the devon and per share -- doesn't everybody have a tipple in lockdown? dani: you have to. it's a stressful time. heineken wants us out and having fun. it's important for them to see that sales growth of people going to the bars.

they volume did beat estimates. 4.6%, 4.5% was the estimate. the full year revenue coming in above expectations. 21.9 billion euros. manus: don't miss the interview. we have the ceo joining the team at 8:00. he can answer the questions on margin, drinking, our habits, and what a zero covid policy means in asia. i have alliteration for you. diplomacy, de-escalation speculation boosted sentiment but a lack of verification. the bond market, the fx market, everybody had a palpable sigh of relief. we came down on what bank of america did and their view on risk. the most underweight since 2006 on tech stocks. dani: while you are looking at the bank of america survey, i'm looking at the yield curve, specifically the two-year to

tens. the spread is tiny right now. we are 10 basis points away from inverting and you know how it goes. this historically means recession is on the way. we are going to be in an election cycle then and it's going to be important for politicians. manus: absolutely. that's the critical point. don't say we don't read our whatsapp in the middle of the night. we never sleep. oil continues to debate where to go with the biggest one-day loss. there's no verification of the pullback. we get back nearly 4% yesterday. iron ore is off its knees as we speculate about easing policy in china. the dollar is up. the yen rolls over. just let me know which direction

i should be offered in the morning. how are your stocks? how are your stocks? dani: we are a little dour over here, at least in the land of u.s. equities. we had a rally yesterday. a fantastic alliteration to start your morning. no verification and we have a hot ppi coming in for the u.s. yesterday. yet again, you have tech under pressure. europe is doing better. we are up about 0.5% when it comes to euro stoxx 50 futures. for the moment, the geopolitics not weighing on european equities. let's take into the story further. president biden's warning that russia might yet attack ukraine even after putin's overtures for more diplomacy. here's what the leaders had to say. >> the united states is prepared no matter what happens. we are ready with diplomacy, engaging in diplomacy with russia. improving stability, security in europe as a whole.

we are ready to respond decisively to russian attacks on ukraine. that is still very much a possibility. >> concerning whether we wanted or not, of course not. that's why we put forward proposals about the negotiation process. we didn't receive a substantial constructive response after the proposals made by us. manus: that was one mighty press conference. maria tadeo is in brussels. what is the current state of the tensions? when you listen to that press conference, it sounded as if they were both desperately trying to get onto this offramp. maria: you know, the two of them stood together. vladimir putin is a german speaker and schulz is also a german speaker. there was a connection over the language and they both said, our generation has made it clear that we don't want to see war in europe. vladimir putin asked that

question, are you going to trigger a war in europe? he responded, that is not what we are aiming for. we do have security concerns when it comes to russia. a key point here is that russia is doing what it said it was going to do you which is once the military drills were complete, they would return to base. here's the reality. the allies are saying, not so fast. we won't believe it until we see it. we've seen these tactics before. we want to be able to prove this and do it independently. that's proof that it's not there yet. all we have is a video released by the russians that shows tanks returning to russia. when you look at nato, they say they want to verify this. when they look at their own intel, there is still positioning of military weapons that could point or lead to an attack.

today is wednesday. as you know, this is national unity day that the ukrainian president has called for to show to the world that ukraine is standing for peace. dani: thank you very much. maria tadeo keeping us up-to-date on all things ukraine and russia. china, inflation eased in january. food and energy price we can. the data should give beijing more leeway to store up its slowing economy ahead of the key leadership meeting this year. let's bring in james mike or. unlike basically everywhere else, we are seeing inflation in china come down. i thought we were talking about higher commodity prices. what is starting to ease the inflationary story? >> one of the big drops has been food prices. the big drop you saw in january was a 42% fall in the price of pork which is the most important

meet in the chinese diet. it's a big portion of the basket. meat prices were elevated last year because the african swine fever which devastated pork stocks -- hog stocks. those have come back. now we are back to a glut of pork in the market which is driving down food prices and the overall inflation. you saw a fall of industrial good prices in january. iron, coal. they all came down from their highs last year. that's driving down producer price inflation as well. those things combined mean cheaper goods for consumers but also for industrial companies and the broader corporate sector. manus: it's going to give the pboc the extra breath that they need when they look at policy. that's the very latest on that inflation data.

as they say, gave the stocks in china a bump. in hong kong, all based around the prospect of easing tensions, lower inflation. juliette saly put it in singapore. juliette: i'm showing this risk on session we are seeing across asian equities. most of the sectors moving higher. a lot of the momentum coming through in the tech players, all helping to lift the regional benchmark index today. easing tensions giving a little bit more of an alleviation over the supply chain crunch, the likes of concerns about palladium as well. let's have a look in terms of some of this but difficult -- the specific stock movers. easing policy coming through on that inflation figure. they are warning that they are looking to prop up the weaklings and the economy. china's market up by one third of 1%.

the tech players lifting the likes of the hang seng and the weaker young. the korean won in there. that was a laggard in terms of asian fx yesterday. it's a front runner today. south korea adding the most amount of jobs since 2000. a record number of covid cases but also there's a likelihood that you could see some alleviation of some of those social distancing measures. this is seen as a proxy for those easing ukraine's tensions. the korean won is outperforming in the session. dani: great round up. in the u.s., republicans on the senate banking votes on president joe biden's five picks for the federal reserve. the move was part of a dispute over a nomination for vice chair for supervision at the central bank. let's get more with bruce einhorn. bruce, this is one nomination that they are trying to block. in doing so, they are holding up all five. what is the thinking behind the gop's move?

bruce: it does prevent votes on all five including chairman jay powell. sarah boone raskin was a member of the fed board during the obama biden administration. she was also a deputy treasury secretary in those years. also worth noting, her husband is jamie raskin's who was lead manager of the second impeachment trial of former president trump. the congressman is also a prominent member of the january 5 -- january 6 committee investigating things. what republicans have said is that they've objected -- they have concerns that she hasn't adequately addressed questions regarding to her role as a member of the fintech company. they have expressed concerns about her past comments calling on the fed to do more to address climate change. it's a 50-50 senate. republicans have a lot of power. the democrats do have the

majority thanks to harris's tie-breaking vote. it is possible that the democrats could force this through. they would have to have rule changes that would require a separate vote to do. at the moment, they don't have their 50th senator because the senator from new mexico is currently recovering from a stroke. he has said himself that he's doing very well and will be back at work. it will be a few weeks. there are limits to what the democrats can do to stop the republicans from obstructing this. manus: ok. let's see how they go with the votes. coming up on the show, we are going to talk more about the de-escalation risk that we are seeing across yesterday's markets. that's coming up right here on bloomberg. ♪

juliette: the president of china has called for hong kong officials to take all necessary measures to get the city's virus outbreak under control. less room to deviate from chive -- china's covid zero policy. carrie lam said she had no plans for a citywide lockdown. prince andrew has agreed to settle a lawsuit in which he was accused of sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl introduced to him by jeffrey epstein. court documents show that prince andrew will make a substantial donation to the charity of his accuser and declare that he never meant to malign her character. andrew has consistently denied the accusations. airbnb are shares jumped in extended trading after a reported fourth quarter revenue and profit that beat estimates.

travel disruptions caused by omicron. the company says people are staying for longer with almost half the number of nights booked in the fourth quarter. global news 24 hours a day on air and at bloomberg quicktake, powered by 2700 journalists and analysts in 120 countries. this is bloomberg. manus: -- dani: thanks so much. as manus was mentioning, the prospect of easing russia ukraine tensions. we discussed geopolitics with our guest next. this is bloomberg. ♪

dani: welcome back. speculation that geopolitical tensions could be easing are one

of the main themes and markets with haven assets giving way to risk. traders are optimistic that russia is withdrawing its forces the president biden says in invasion is still possible. manus: meanwhile, the latest inflation data from the u.s. shows it is still running hot. new york area manufacturing found supply condition still fraught. in china, inflation has eased in january. the pboc with a little bit of room to shore up the economy. let's get to wouter sturkenboom. great to have you with us. when i look at the world, there is only -- take away all the noise. in splendid isolation, the fed is traveling in this direction and the pboc is going in this direction. what does that do to the flow of money? good morning. wouter: that's a really good

question. clearly, what we are seeing here is a market that is recalibrating to these different trajectories for the u.s. and china. you are right. we are seeing the pboc provide more support to the underlying economic recovery which is necessary, considering the slow down. the fed is struggling to contain mostly the inflationary side of things. particularly focused on the expectation side. that's the part where they want to send a strong signal that they take the current trend seriously. in terms of the flow of money, we've seen a reversal year to date. last year, the emerging-market assets lagged behind. this year, we are seeing them do better because of that transition from the fed to the pboc. perhaps, that is the most important impact for now. whether that will have legs will depend on the strength of the actual economic recovery in the earnings side of things.

that's why we still have a bit of doubt that china will outpace the u.s. in 2022. dani: this is the issue that i have. some degree, markets seem confused. you have a lot of volatility continuing to push to new highs. breakevens are still subdued. we are pricing and 6.5 rate hikes this year. is it really that we have that white of a range of potential outcomes? is this is a mark -- is this a market that is prone to overreaction? wouter: we think it's more of the latter. what we know historically is that the markets tend to overestimate the amount of fed tightening that will actually occur. we've seen the same from the fed itself. they tend to overestimate how much tightening they will actually do. that means when we look at the current rate hikes being priced in, that looks a little open now. the fed could hike. six to seven times means every meeting before march.

that's almost a worst-case scenario from an interest-rate perspective. manus: everybody said a lot of that last year and they were all desperately wrong. let's hope that we are all wrong on the show and that it's not seven hikes. 30 year mortgage has gone up by 50% in two months. i leave that thought with you. 50%. 50% rise in mortgage in the united states of america. what does that do? wouter: it's impactful. i'm always very careful because it always looks bigger than it is. manus: there's an entire generation that has never paid a mortgage over 1.5%. wouter: that's true. this will impact the strength of the u.s. housing market. we've seen price increases level often u.s. housing. that should provide at least one source of alleviating a little bit of concern that one of the

sources of house price increases in terms of inflationary pressures, that's going to be alleviated a little bit because of that channel. at the same time, we are still facing a huge housing shortage in the u.s.. it's going to take time for those new houses to be delivered this year. they will hit the market by the end of the year. that will hopefully put another source of downward pressure on house prices. the mortgage rates combined will alleviate the impact of house price increases on the encrypt -- inflationary picture. dani: you have a 50% increases. that's fine. what about the mass of the spread between the twos and the tens? we are at 10 basis points. if we invert, is it a recession coming? is this indicator still working? wouter: what i think it's telling us -- if you look at the

forward rates versus the curve rates, there's a gap that we take seriously. the gap is a little bit bigger. that said, more room to maneuver still. it is very true that even then, the curve is sending a very clear signal from the market to the fed that they shouldn't go too fast. they shouldn't start with 50 basis points and keep on going for the rest of the year. that would be seen by the market as a recessionary signal. markets would tighten financial conditions. the fed would have to backtrack quickly. i think it's a clear signal from the markets that the fed needs to hike but doesn't need to go too fast because that's not going to be conducive to a continuation of the economic recovery that we are currently experiencing. dani: some firepower still left with the bond vigilantes. he will stick around with us.

coming up, we look at prices in the oil market as investors assess the russia ukraine tensions. this is bloomberg. ♪ loomberg. ♪

dani: welcome back to bloomberg daybreak: europe. i'm dani burger in london with manus cranny in dubai. it's been a volatile run for oil. i want to show you what the price did yesterday. it plunged nearly two standard deviations with investors starting to price out some of the geopolitical risk. does it have further to fall or is the path of least resistance higher? let's get back to wouter sturkenboom. is the path of recent visit -- least resistance higher oil prices? wouter: certainly from a risk

perspective, we take the ukraine russia situation very seriously. we have to be humble in assessing the risk around that situation and how it's going to impact energy prices. we have felt that energy prices have reflected downside risk to that situation. energy prices are a bit elevated relative to where they would be if they were priced on the fundamentals. that means if the current easing of tensions continues, we think they should be coming down a bit more. that should hopefully help on the inflationary side as well. manus: the one market that moved a dramatic yesterday was the natural gas futures for europe. our conversation, they worry about recession. is it automatic if a recession comes to europe? does it delay the ecb in the path? what is the most logical thing to happen for markets on an

escalation and potential conflict? that is nobody's base case at this juncture. wouter: exactly. we've moved from where people are really concerned about an escalation to hopefully diplomacy working, tensions easing, and the market can come down to more fundamental levels. is there a risk of recession at $100 oil? would that put europe into recession? we don't think so. we still have to recognize that energy is about 3% of gdp in europe. it would be a headwind. it would slow down economic recovery but it wouldn't push the region into recession, we think. manus: thank you so much for being with us. that is wouter sturkenboom. context for their energy comes let's was in europe. china's consumer inflation slowed more than expected last month.

what does that mean for the central banks policy? the path of least resistance for pboc. this is bloomberg. ♪

is.

♪ >> good morning, i'm manus cranny with dani burger. these are the stories that set your agenda. dani: president biden said it hasn't verified a pullback of russian troops. inflation in focus. chinese price pressure ease as traders. we look ahead to uk c.p.i.

expected to stay at a 30-year high. plus, stalled. republicans block votes on bind's pick for the fed. it is manus here. that's dani and manus if case you didn't know. perhaps the market is overreacting to everything it sees. but is it overreaction or is it just a lack of liquidity? we have this in the g.t.v. chart, volatility in the front end is spiking. likewise the bloomberg volatility for government secures which is in blue is on the rise as well. manus: yeah, and that's moving away from fair value pricing. if there is a depth charge in the bond market. they are in smelling danes of an inversion. and an 18-month side when we typically have it.

you are in election fever in the united states of america. so quite a toxic mix. but he's talking about saying us to, he thinks, the rates market, the short end has gone a little bit too far, a little bit too aggressive for him. will they ever get to the five rate hikes? dani? dani: it's definitely a difficult situation. we know the dems are fighting this picture of inflation. let's get to the u.s. market speaking of which we are look agent stocks after outperforming yesterday a relief after we had lines of coming out from russia media saying that troops are pulling back. manus, as you've been saying, we're looking for verification of that story. until then tech stocks underperform but you're outperforming a half of a percent, manus. manus: ok. bank of america the most underweight since 2006. we'll talk more about that i'm sure as the morning goes on.

oil tank, we just kicked off with a chart on that by almost two standard deviations. iron ore up by 3%. tanked by 12% yesterday. the dollar rises. yen goes slightly lower. this is close on natural gas europe yesterday. so the reason i put that up there, well if there is diplomacy and a de-escalation, will you see a bigger drop in that natural gas complex to europe coming through in today's trades? we can debate that as we see the market open up later on. all eyes are now on china. how will the officials management the slowing down economy? both have more than expected in january. speak of the g-20 panel. the center bank stands ready to support the economy. >> they'll keep our monthly policy flexible and proper and

increase support for key areas and weak links in the economy. dani: joining us now is iris pang. thanks for joining us this morning. cooling inflation. how much leeway does this give policymakers? >> if china does not have any inflation risk and -- and inflation number for example c.p.i. is very low at .9% year on year. and that's because of the facts on pop prices falling more than 50% year on year and on p.p.i., it is high. still high even though it is lower than previous months it's now at 9.1% year on year due to high coal prices.

coal supply has been actually limited because other countries in the world supply in china are also limited in -- in coal. so they are -- they have actually strength the supply to china that it will improve. manus: iris, good morning. good have you withs on a lively and timely debate. china does not have -- there you go. there's the char the p.p.i. and the c.p.i. in terms of china and the -- iris, what i want to know is when you come out of a post covid zero covid world in china, will that ignite an inflation problem because we are in a contrite and artificial environment at the moment? so what happens when you come off zero covid, is there a risk of an inflation problem? iris: it is not. actually zero covid or dynamic

clearing policy actually limits inflation because consumer demand should be less than no covid environment. so or -- or no zero covid measure environment. so this is not inflationary the central bank is easing because of the weak -- washington than expected economy. so how can we have inflation under this situation? it's -- it's not that. dani: so iris -- iris: yep? dani: so you're saying there's no pentapody hand once we have zero covid? >> no, it's not like that. dynamic clearing, it means that the lockdown is only in small area that found covid cases.

so we have no pentapody hand. >> this suspect the same dynamic we've seen in the west. manus: absolutely i know you didn't quite like it when i said could they have rising inflation, lower growth? it's a concept the world has had in the past which does happen from time to time. what will the pboc do this year? >> they're going to cut interest rates. one year and also loan prime rates. and it will be a front loader in the first of the year and it's a possibility that it could be cut according to what yi had said in

the g-20. so it's still possible. but less likely than the targeted triple r which is a pinpoint to the weak link of the economy. >> iris, i kind of want to work this for the global economy. you have reduced price pressures which means manufactures don't need to pass on higher costs to their customers. does this help ease the global inflationary picture, iris? iris: i would say that not really. for example, in july, back in july, we have cases expand in sen geng port. and that led to temporary suspension for two weeks. and this increased the supply

chain disruption and therefore the delivery cost and therefore the freight rate actually gone up. so this kind of increase in cost passing on to the u.s. or european consumers will continue because we don't know whether there will be another case at the end of the port in china. manus: so iris as the pboc cut the fed hikes, there's a great debate on what happens to the dollar and what happens to the wan. what does that do to the yu as n. >> the capital inflow into china

because from last year, many global indi says including china -- indices including china and they have to buy on shore asset mainland china shore assets to -- to -- to follow the index. therefore, it is a strong influence are the second half -- manus: does the yuan break six? with the cutting pboc, does the yuan break six? actually once in a while i forecasted 5.8. but i changed that. it's not now. your question is very good. it's not now. [laughter] so i'm not looking for that this year because the chinese government has stated a few times that they don't -- they said that the yuan should not be

too strong. they didn't say how they will manage it not be too strong. we have to remember that the exchange rate system a managed meaning that the pboc has the tools to stop this appreciation. dani: well, iris you shot down manus's dream. but it was a good question. iris, thank you so much for joining us. greater chief economist at ing. let's get to juliet. high, just. >> president biden says a russian astack a possibility. but that diplomacy should continue. earlier, vladimir putin had three hours of talk in moscow. allies respond cautiously that some troops have pulled back.

russia has repeated denied that an incursion is planned. senate republicans have blocked biden's nominee for sarah for vice chair for supervision. raskin hasn't adequately addressed questions of her role as an officer of a think tank company. biden should find more mainstream nominees. the chief executive of goldman sachs the culture remains an important part of the identity as workers continue to return to the office the workplace is valuable for the development of the employees in their 20's who make up about half of it. shares have tumbled after it recorded bookings that missed estimates in the fourth quarter reflecting a retreat. the company saw much of its growth come from companys in asia.

latin america and europe. more than half of road blocks user base is now over age 13. global news 24 hours a day on air and on bloomberg quicktake powered by more than 100 journalists and analysts. this is bloomberg, manus. manus: thank you very much. juliet in singapore. coming up, before the midterm elections democrats are tackling to tackle inflation. the story on bloomberg bloomberg .

♪ >> it's daybreak here, manus cranny in dubai. dani burger in london. congressional democrats grappling with surging inflation. they're lining up the costs. but they have nine months be the midterm election.

the majority leader says his party is focused on bringing costs down. let's go to bruce ironhorn. this is by going to the polls ps with a strong story, isn't it in the face of rising prices and gas at the pump. talk to me through -- >> yes, and there's the -- so yeah, the other thing to consider there's also the possibility of the ukraine crisis driving up oil prices, gas prices even higher. so that's another thing that is complicating things for the democrats as they try to figure out a way to convince voters that they're dealing with the inflation problem. so one thing that the democrats are trying to do in the senate is they're going to be introducing package of -- of bills that they say would help address the problem, for instance they're going introduce a bill that would provide a gas tax holiday for the year. there's an 18 cents per gal so

suspending that for a year would make a big impact in the wallet of a lot offer americans. and they would reduce the price of insulin. reduce the price of prescription drugs, childcare. one senator tammy baldwin, democrat from wisconsin said she expects as many of a dozen of these kind of boils be introduced in the next few weeks. >> bruce, simply, can they pass? >> good question, right? it's a 50/50. senate -- the democrats have a majority simply because they have the tiebreaking vote which vice president harris. there is the filibuster which we've talked about many times in the past. and the filibuster, of course, comes into play again here because the democrats would need to get that's 10 republicans onboard to get some of these bills through if they go through normal order.

there's the possibilities that they can use this process called reconciliation that's complicated and as we saw the efforts to build back better bill through the senate last year that's by no means a slam dunk. it is going to be a big challenge. it could be a matter of the democrats just being on record having votes on this so they have something that they can show to voters saying here's what we're for. >> so the question is when they go to the mid terms, i mean, we've debated this through the morning. the risk is this. you have the risk of a recession. if you look at all the data in the bond market, that's a very, very real risk. you then have real mortgage costs rising. interest rates rising. gas pumps rising. i mean, are people ready in that preelection of the preelection mode for the mid terms? bruce: yeah, the scenario you just described clearly is not a good one for democrats heading

into the midterm elections. and there are quite a few democrats in so-called purple states, these are battleground states that are therefore trying to get in the lead in some of these -- with some of these messaging bills that we just described. so for instance, there's raphael warnock from georgia. mark kelly from arizona. both of them won their seats in the 2020 election. they're embattled for the mid terms coming up. so we're going to see action from senators like that trying to that's make a statement to voters that they're doing their best. they're trying to address some of these problems. >> all right. bruce, thank you very much. a great randup there on all things d.c. and the inflationary impact. that's bloomberg's bruce eihorn. we take you here to the uk. a third year high. we have data coming up this morning. we're going preview that for you next. this is is bloomberg.

♪ dani: welcome back to bloomberg daybreak. i'm dani burger with manny cranny. for more, we're joined by our uk economy reporter lizy. set the backdrop for us. what are we expected? and what does this mean for the b.o.e. >> i know the upside surprise, an economists expect 5.4% in january. then surely the bank of english hawks are going to have to push for more aggressive tightening in march. four of the nine members wanted a hike in the last meeting so

if today beats expectations in markets very likely to see 50 basis points in march. and that would be followed up by more hikes later in the year bank of english sees inflation peaking at 7.25% in april that's when the taxes appear energy numbers -- and the energy numbers rise as well. the labor market is tight. but it's not translating into real wage growth because of this cost of living crisis. >> ok. let's see what the risk is as we go in for the currency mark into next month's meeting. lizy burden with the very latest on the b.o.e. let's take a look at the events of today. it will be geo politics. defense ministers in brussels to discuss the ukraine crisis. 10:00 a.m. we're going to get that. and we will probably expect to see that sector and in 2021 a

relatively robust footing despite the soaring energy cost. dani? dani: we'll get canada c. perform i., at 7:00 a closely watched one. are they also behind the curve? then we get if omc minutes that may provide the clues on inflation. and tech giants earnings. i mean, that sets up perfectly for what we're looking in futures today. we are looking at u.s. nasdaq futures underperforming today. has tech lost? they have the lowest exposure since 2006. >> yeah, i mean, look, i think to a certain extent, everybody is trying to get out ahead of the potential five rate hikes in the mark. let's have a look at the survey in the first instance. that's the growth to value, isn't it? but what's more interesting is

the shift against the bullishness taking a knock. equity allocation 31% from 55%. double nickel in january. i think that's the most bigger more telling backdrop to risk. somebody needs to call ray dalio who think that most people think cash is not trash. they are moving into cash because it is a volatile market which helps provide opportunities. so you want that on the sideline to deploy. but of course, much of that volatility is also due to this derth of liquidity talk about these outside moves that are difficult to get a handle on. >> that lack of depth and liquidity in the bond market -- 20 basis points for the biggest move since twine. you see those kind of extreme moves. the fed put the survey, the bank of america survey goes back to talk about where is the fed put?

it's at 3700. the market closed at 4400 on friday. goldman is at 4900 at the end of the year this fed put is being re-evaluated on a constant basis. dani: it's not dead, manus. it's maybe lower than it has been in the past? but i do go back to this thing of maybe it's not just equities. maybe it's also credit to put into motion the fed put in but it has started to widen. >> look, if those spreads popup, you know what, less of us, more of the market. dani: let's do it. manus: did you ever think i would say less of us. [laughter] absolutely. more markets. tune in for markets and you. here it is. stocks 50 getting a little bit of a bind. the december escalation speculation, but we need verification. dani: verification.

just want to point out the bottom there. that's the close of natural gas plummeting 12%. does that move happen even further as we con to assess the geo political outlook? that is for manus and me. this is bloomberg. .

♪ >> good morning, welcome to bloomberg markets europe. i'm anna edwards. our managing editor joins us from singapore to take us through all of the market action. here are your top headlines. the threat remains. president biden says the u.s. has not verified a pullback of russian troops. but the prospect of reduced tension over ukraine boost stocks. chinese inflation slows both at the factory gate and the