forces urgently. he addressed south korea's parliament today. >> we need air systems, aircraft, tanks and other armaments and ammunition. you have it. when it comes to survival in a war aimed at the complete conquest of the people, it is necessary. the supply of weapons must be reviewed and take whatever is necessary to help. mark: he has also called for the european union and others to embargo russian oil and gas. the austrian chancellor became the first european union leader to sit with vladimir putin in moscow since the start of the war. the chancellor as president putin to end the war and told the russian leader that those

responsible for the potential were crimes are under investigation in ukraine will be held responsible. he also reportedly told mr. putin that sanctions will stay in place and will be tightened as long as people are dying in ukraine. french president emmanuel macron is on the campaign trail after winning the first round in the countries presidential election. he spent several hours talking to voters in northern france, signaling a change in strategy at he tries to extend his lead over his conant ahead of the runoff vote. his focus on the ukrainian war sparked the schism that he was nothing voters and prioritizing foreign affairs over domestic ones. u.s. drivers are getting a break at the pump with gasoline prices falling for two straight weeks after hitting a record high in early march. aaa says the average cost of a gallon of gas across the united states fell to $4.11 this week.

the last time prices fell for this length of time was in september of 2020. the biden administration's decision to order the largest oil release in the history of its reserves helped cool prices. global news, 24 hours a day, on air and on bloomberg take, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries.i am mark crumpton, this is bloomberg. jon: welcome to bloomberg. matt: tech leads losses with the tenure climbing to 275 for the first time since the beginning of 2019. french president micro -- emmanuel macron goes in a charm

offensive as he prepares to take on his far right candidate we discussed with the future of french politics means after the war in ukraine and elon musk ditches the twitter board of directors, leaving the door open for further stock purchases but also helping them out with regulators. we will discuss that in our stock of the hour. jon: let's get a quick update on the major averages on this monday. in the equity market, there is plenty happening in technology with the nasdaq off 1.5%. we continue to see the selloff of more than 1%. is the sixth time in the last nine sessions. gas prices with consumers perhaps getting a break but the concerns out of china have weighed on energy stocks. we have seen red on the equity screen in north america trading. the 10 year yield, the market

watching the 10 year treasury yield getting above 2.75% since 2019. we are embarking on what many believe will be the fastest rate hike cycle we have seen since the 1990's. we are heading ready for a bank of canada decision as well so rate hikes in many markets are front and center. matt: rate hikes to fight inflation and that coming as may the economy slows. take a look at this real yields chart. the 10 year chart is 278.58 which continues to climb. we have seen some steepening since the inversion but this may be problematic for economic growth. jon: absolutely, we mentioned the french elections where president and the nationalist opponent are headed for a runoff in two weeks. the former ec be president --

ccd president said with a le penn win could meet for europe. >> she understood it was a winner. she is not at all pro european. jon: let's get more perspective from the managing partner at g plus economics. and lena. you raised a point in one of your pieces about, outside what sandro bankers will do, the issue of higher energy prices will not be going away certainly in europe and at a time where there is a need for lots of coordination among european leaders, how does this election figure into the road ahead? >> times of economic hardship tend to produce political

earthquakes. it seems that france's in that position at the moment. the margin between president macron and his nationalist opponent is the benchmark for social liberalism among the major economies. more than 50% want a populist agenda for candidates that have an anti-euro philosophy pro labor and this is not just a french issue. it's a european issue. france is the second largest economy in europe and one of the biggest eu spenders in nato.

this will have a huge knock on effect. matt: it's clear that marine le pen does not hide the fact that she is a populist. she wants to appeal to that voter that may be a populist leader can solve inflation problems but is that a possibility? in the u.s., president biden blamed the rising prices on the pump on putin. is there anything leaders can do about this inflation? >> yes but nothing in the short term. there is no easy solution. key thing is that if europe is having its brexit moment, this is a confidence vote. it's not a similar to what we saw in the u.s.. it's a decade of stagnation and it means that europe is now heading for another shock from

the were in ukraine and the shock is directly on living standards. and through a contraction in the economic forecast monetary and otherwise. that a time when the economy slowing down. french workers are feeling the pain and they are more than for paired to cast a protest vote. we may not get political earthquakes in france but i think the direction over the last five years for the last decade has been toward more populism. that's an issue that's not just a concern in france. we have seen a chain reaction between declining living standards and political populism take place before. what europe has to do is to

address structural issues that have been raised by the war in ukraine based on russian energy but also embracing -- a long-term growth pattern. it will impact your long-term. jon: matt mentioned the united states and we are talking in north america about this rate hiking cycle. when it comes to ecb strategy, is flexibility the keyword of 2022? >> the ecb is under pressure to abandon negative rates. european inflation is at record highs. the critical thing is to distinguish between the demand wage driven inflation and the

supply shock of higher global commodity prices. if the ecb were to embrace a normalization path, it will mean that with energy prices 40% higher over the past year, the way ahead is to contract demand. in other words, to exacerbate what will already be a second recession in europe from high energy costs on the consumer balance sheet and on companies abilities to hire and reward employees. matt: especially if european governments decide to take a stand against vladimir putin and his russian invasion and stop paying him for oil and gas. we will have to leave it there but great to have you on.

thanks for joining us. you can read her column today on oping terminal. 11 musk -- elon musk is -- leave the door open to twitter and that's our stock of the hour. this is bluebird. ♪ -- this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. it is time for our stock of the hour. elon musk has turned down a board seat at twitter, raising speculation over what's next. i think probably nobody knows. let's ask kriti: when the headlines came out that he wasn't going to join the board, twitter shares dropped in the remark it as much is 5% this morning. the idea is we will not have elon musk to make twitter more profitable with the many ideas he's been leading for full then

you saw this complete reversal. matt: it was a narrative change. maybe he's not taking the board change in order to buy the company. kriti: the stock skyrocketed now you're looking at 3% gains. even when the news was that he was not joining the board, twitter shares had risen 27%. he might be looking at an active stake as well as his passive state. the issue is what this means when it comes to filings and the sec specifically. one of the conditions of the board seat was that if he took the board seat, he could not give up 14.9% of his stake. the idea here is that if he's on the board, maybe he's looking for a full acquisition or more shares. matt: let me throw this one out

there. do you think elon musk has this planned out? . jon: he moves fast and furious so i would say no step when you talk about an influential investor, many times, we start speculating around things like stock buybacks or changes to the management team. in this case, to have someone who is using the product and knows about creating product, it feels a little different. it's creating tension inside the company which is led by a product person. kriti: he did this with tesla as well. he said it would hit certain record deliveries and was the new up-and-coming carmaker and one of the questions from the sec is if you keep creating these expectations and then it doesn't manifest, how much of that is legal?

he comes up with tweets and says things like for the 10 biggest twitter followers, they aren't actually tweeting that much it a lot of attention. we will see if he can make a difference when it comes to the twitter bottom line. how far away as it from 420? matt: these are important numbers for elon musk and to his followers. that's our stock of the hour. we will talk about china's largest covid outbreak in two years and it continues to spread despite lockdowns and is causing controversy on both sides of the ocean. that's next, this is bloomberg. . ♪

jon: this is bloomberg markets.

china is dealing with us largest covid outbreak in two years well they grapple with the impact lockdowns are having on the economy so let's get more perspective from an associate professor of epidemiology. thanks for being with us. we are seeing the economic impact in the markets but can you remind us what has led to this rise in cases we are seeing in china? >> the bottom line with the virus that even with vaccinations which is in horton, the virus can still spread. the vaccines are designed to keep us out of the hospital and out of the morgue. when this starts to spread, out pacing measures in china. matt: is that true elsewhere as well? are we starting to see outbreaks in europe and the u.s. that are

out of reach of our testing regimen? >> what we are seeing is that the virus moves quickly. it's circulating in the vaccine is keeping hospitals low for many groups. we have to dissect that more and look by age group and we want to see older adults vaccinated but also boosted to keep them out of the hospital. that's really how we control the troop number of cases. that is continuing to be a goalpost that we are not seeing because the virus works so quickly. if we can keep people out of the hospital, that's a big win. matt: that was one of the biggest problems throughout the pandemic. we were testing and throwing tons of money at this on a

federal and state level and now we are not. now the government is ending programs to fund it testing so most people in the u.s. at least, if they want to know whether they are positive will have two either pay for a test themselves outside or get an in-home test and that's not this is early reported. >> that's correct so here in the united states, as we start to see the scaling back of our testing availability, is a worrisome thing. we want to see the test results, we want people to have immediate access to the test so we understand where the virus is going and what it's doing because we also know that over time, the population level and unity will wax and wane. we really do need testing as an indicator to understand how much

covid-19 is being transmitted. it's a key indicator but not the only one but with out it, we are at a disadvantage and we are just making it. the number of true cases through testing is a definite underestimate of what's going on. jon: just to build on what you were saying, the ability to to text future waves, what will you be watching for if some of the testing is waning now? >> what we are watching for is a predictive lens. wastewater surveillance is one of her best. it doesn't tell us key populations that may be more impacted. it's a huge population we are testing but it can help us get ready and then what we need are access to tests and a good way to report those in-home results

so when cases are occurring, we know where the virus is going and we want to be able to stop virus before it starts putting people in the hospital which we are not seeing now stop we are seeing low hospitalizations right now but that may change as immunity changes. it's something we want to keep an eye on. matt: are we prepared if there is a really bad variant that surges back as we all suffer from covid fatigue? >> not without federal action. we will need to have more funding in place to move weekly and right now, that is not the case. we are not more prepared for another variant. matt: i hate to end on that note but thanks for joining us. hopefully, the federal

government is listening. i think the rate story is front and center and we continue to see the 10 year trade at the highest level since the beginning of 2019. 2.7839. we see stocks down in toronto four/10 of 1%. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> keeping you up to date, here is the first word. president biden and a new prime minister held a candid

discussion today about how to counter the fallout from russia's invasion of ukraine. the meeting was warm and productive and said the united states stands ready to help indian -- and yet diversify imports which would make it less reliant on russia. the virtual meeting got underway. >> the united states and india are going to keep close consultation on how to manage the destabilizing effects of these war and -- of this war and i'm looking for to these discussions. are consultation and dialogue are key to ensuring the u.s. -indian relationship continues to grow deeper and stronger. >> tensions between the united states and india have risen over prime minister modi's reluctance to criticize of vladimir putin's