dani: good morning. this is "bloomberg daybreak: europe". i'm dani burger in london, these are the stories that set your agenda. the imf phrases is global growth outlook for the first time in a year, u.s. resilience and chinese reopening fuel demand. a hedge fund warns that ballooning debts are poised to wreak havoc rivaling the great depression. ubs be. ats. it announces an $8 billion buyback. we speak shortly to the ceo. let's get to the details on these numbers. a $5 billion buyback, stronger net interest income, higher rates benefiting them. fourth quarter net income at 1.5 $6 billion, the estimate had been below 1.3, total revenue,

all of those figures beating. what was weaker, asset management, their trading business, equity sales and trading was a sizable miss, the figure came in at $883 million, asset management revenue pretax was weaker than expected. we are seeing this across banks, that interest income allowing them that hefty $5 billion worth of buybacks. let's get to swedbank, those earning sending the tape, net interest income is a beat as well. the estimate had been below 9.5. net income is also a beat. now swedbank stayed below their nominal cost cap that they said two years ago according to this earnings release. costs are very highly focused in

this environment. we should note that they have increased their credit impairments. swedbank is dealing with the housing crisis in the nordic region. perhaps that accounts for the credit impairments they are taking on. they say their liquidity position is strong. they have decided on adding on to risk exposure amounts. again, this all has to do with the housing crisis. we're going to be speaking with the swedbank ceo, he is joining us just after 7:00 a.m. london time. while we are talking about banks and earnings, unicredit earnings right now as well. they are boosting their 2022 investment returns to 5.2 5 billion euros. they had seen 3.8 billion euros in 2021. their fourth-quarter net income also doubling more than estimates, the estimate had been

one billion euros, coming in at 2.5 billion euros. all these banks we are hearing from our strong, underneath the surface perhaps more mixed. something that is not mixed its risk sentiment this morning, it is decisively down following a down day in equities yesterday. the mood has soured as we head into a fed meeting read warnings abound, be it on earnings, the overall market environment. a tinderbox timebomb says one hedge fund. we did see tech selloff decisively yesterday. we saw samsung dropping out of today's session, concern about chipmakers. oil is at its lowest in about three weeks. is demand of concern? china had been boosting higher. 10-year yields little changed, higher by one basis point, trading in a solid range given that we are about to have a whole host of central bank decisions. let's get to our other top stories with reporters from around the world. james maker is looking at the

latest imf report and china data. joining us to talk about chips is debbie wu in taipei. and pr sunday has an update on adani. and we will have reactions to ubs earnings from our specialist in bloomberg intelligence. the international monetary fund its global economic outlook for the first time in a year, thanks in no small part to china, where pmi data this morning showed manufacturing and services expanded for the first time in four months in january. joining us now is bloomberg's james mayger in beijing. it wasn't long ago that the world bank downgraded their outlook for 2023, this is different now from the imf, why? james: the last two months, china has done a complete 180 on the policy that said it would continue, the covid zero policy. in november, everyone expect that to continue for a long

time. then in early december, they did the hard return and the country has completely reopened. it seems everyone has had a covid, and the expert in in february is a big pickup in economic activity and consumption demand which has been suppressed especially over the last two years by covid zero. so the expectation is has become out of the new your holiday, you will see a big pickup in private spending, household spending, and even flow-through to the housing market, but that is less certain. that will lead to higher demand both domestically, but also both imports for energy, commodities. hopefully, if that does all happen, it will drive higher global growth. dani: it so fascinating to see china being the event that potentially changes the economic picture for also the u.s. and europe. it's not necessarily just about the fed and ecb now.

we also had pmi data, china's january economic data didn't show that big jump we were expecting. james: there was a big jump. the comparison is january from december. december was still very depressed, and everyone seemed to have had covid, so factories where we went traveling around to different areas, they had closed early partly because of the holiday and because a lot of workers had covid and were recovering. december was very depressed, january was a holiday but companies are much more bullish. even though a lot of factories are still closed, companies seem much more bullish about their outlook. you see that reflected in the numbers. the question is whether that follows through to february and march. if we see real economic data that shows a real jump in activity and retail sales, industrial output, then you will

start to really trust that there is an economic rebound happening. the per luminary numbers we have had show that it is starting to happen. dani: we will wait for that confirmation, james, thank you so much. now to the u.s. and the biden administration is considering a full ban on huawei from u.s. tech suppliers. that would be a notable escalation since former president trump place limits on imports from the chinese tech company four years ago. for more, let's get to debbie wu who is in taipei. if this ban happens, chipmakers like qualcomm will likely be directly impacted, but what about those on the periphery? debbie: for american suppliers who supply chips to hallway, they will take a modest hit

because they have been unable to provide huawei with most of their products since the trump sanction that kind 2020. -- back in 2020. companies like intel will lose sales but it will not have major impact on overall performance. on the other hand, for hua wei, this could be a blow to ambitions over technology abroad to emerging markets. hauwei depends on foreign suppliers or products for pc's and smartphones. being unable to get chips from american suppliers would mean it's sales would shrink. dani: that's bloomberg's debbie we were in taipei. abu dhabi's international holding company is investing $400 million in the adani follow on sale. it is a vote of confidence in

the business empire that has lost around $70 billion in market value since a short seller accused it of fraud. our reporter is in room -- mu mbai, and saw last sale, we were supposed to see the bid for demand, is there any sign of that? pr: the demand at this point of time is on the retail side. yesterday evening, it was a surprise undercutting. they believe in the unknown he story -- adani story. it is a vote of confidence. there are three large ones, one which was successfully close on 25 january. there is the retail book, it continues to be very poor, very weak, but the main book will be

filled with high-growth value investors. we will see more response to save india's largest follow-on shares. dani: thank you very much. we have seen adani drop off of the list of the world's top 10 richest people in all of this. let's get back to the banking story. as we were discussing, ubs has announced a share buyback of more than $5 billion after reporting fourth-quarter profit that beat estimates. let's bring in allison williams, senior analyst for global investment banks and asset managers, so great to have you on european hours, ubs this monster buyback they are putting into the market, how are investors going to receive this latest slate of earnings? >> they will be happy with ubs's earnings, or they should be,

especially in the context of what we have seen with u.s. peers. one of the key differentiators at ubs's cost control. they were able to -- they are executing on their program, that is upping their overall profitability despite an environment that we know is difficult. the buyback that you mentioned, it is a little better than investors were expecting. it follows a 5.5 billion buyback for 2022. and that payout is really at the higher end of their peers. finally, the wealth flows, we saw the headlines but they had flows across regions, that is a strong indicator for their key business. dani: i wonder what you make of the mix of business, things like investment banking.

we are looking at global investment bank performance right now. but investment banking not being as strong at ubs, trading not coming in as strong is something we have seen at other banks as well. how much of this shift is permanent for banks? we are in an environment where capturing revenue in that business will be much harder. >> ubs investment bank is different from its peers in the sense that they are more focused on the equity side of the business. 2022 was a year for non-equiti es. but historically if you look, equities were down last year, but they are still within an historically healthy range. i think the wealth business, which is really the focus for ubs, also faces pressures, but the flows were very good. the other positive thing is positive net interest income

guidance. this was another area where a lot of big u.s. banks disappointed. morgan stanley was another big wealth manager that actually broke away from the pack, and now we are seeing a positive trend for ubs as well in terms of giving positive guidance going into the first quarter after net interest income really helps there -- helped there fourth-quarter and that will be well received by investors. dani: allison williams, bloomberg's intelligence senior analyst. we will continue to get more analysis from ubs, and what to expect from bank earnings. speaking of which, we will hear from the ubs eol hammers at 7:00 a.m. u.k. time, 3:00 p.m. in hong kong. let's take a look at other things we are watching out for. 11:30 a.m. in the u.k., exxon mobil will report its earnings. a short time later at 1:30

p.m. we will get insight into wages in the u.s. with an update on the employment cost index. then at 3:00 p.m., consumer confidence numbers. and pfizer will report fourth-quarter earnings and give guidance later today, all before the u.s. open. coming up, tinderbox timebomb. a warning from the hedge fund advised by the author of black swan, we will bring more on our exclusive interview, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

dani: welcome back to "bloomberg daybreak: europe". i'm dani burger in london. it has been a roaring start to the year, especially when it comes to the most speculative names but we are getting more warnings. the latest from mike wilson, who said better price action in stocks has convinced many investors they are missing something, compelling them to participate more actively. but he says it is a reflection of the january season, a tough end to a brutal year, but the earnings season will prove to be worse. and investors are forgetting the criminal rule of don't fight the fed. joining us now is dan zwirn, ceo and cio of arena investors. you have been warning about the speculative nature of the market

for some time. some of that has come in, but what do you make of the start to the year where we have started to see names like tesla loosen? more speculative names shall we say roaring back. dan: it is a false positive. markets are experiencing transactions on the ground. there is a lot more fear out there. people are expecting at the grassroots level more inflation for a longer period, and higher rates for a longer period than the bond and stock markets are predicting. manus: to that point, we have seen inflation figures in spain yesterday higher than expected. australia earlier this month, higher-than-expected. around the world, inflation is moving in a straight line. tapley started to price inflation's peak too quickly? dan: in the business world, we are doing everything we can to raise prices in the context of expenses moving up in materials

and labor across the board. i don't see an end in sight. ultimately, the markets don't really view the monetary authorities is truly credible given their action since q. week -- qe, too, and there is a lot to improve their. dani: are you listening to powell who says we will hike and hold it there? dan: i hope he continues to hike. dani: but will he, is the question? dan: i have been taught over the last decade not to be monetary authorities as having the will to not buckle to political pressure. dani: so what are you pricing in? what are you doing two things that had seen it inflated asset values? sophie: and the more tradable products across leveraged structure and real estate finance, you haven't seen actual levels come down. volumes are low and virtually no sources of intermediation because wall street marketmakers

have stepped back really since the gse. dani: is it a frozen market then? dan: not yet. i actually think one of their material tale risks is something i can -- akin to what we saw in august where ultimately there is some sort of capitulation, particularly given the number of asset liability mismatched products that are out there among investors. dani: what could be that catalyst that tips us into that territory? dan: we never know what that thing is. it will surprise us. there are plenty of geopolitical possibilities. things like the weather. europe experienced a really -- had your experience a heavy winter, we could be talking about a different ballgame. dani: there is the idea that consumer saving is still there, folks are still willing to go out and buy things, but i am

looking at tesla cutting prices and ford has gone the same for their evs, even videogame makers, it is feeling industry-wide. last year, companies could defend margins and keep prices higher, does that story change this year? dan: and a lot of those instances, with consumer-facing businesses you saw people who were beneficiaries of covered relief, and that is running out, you are seeing consumer del iquencies increase markedly. dani: dour dan, what do like in this market? dan: i like cheap volatility, we are increasing our hedges. dani: vix? dan: things like the vix are difficult because through the implicit premium they take all the opportunity out of it. there is a lot more structured

transactions necessary to take advantage of those things. at the same time, we are focused on a barbell. on one side, there are really busted assets that have leaked out of various institutions, insurance companies and banks. on the other, there are conventional banks in original issuance across corporate and real estate finance that are wider and more interesting than they have been in a while. because last decade, they have been substantially underpriced by basically bloated non-bank financiers. dani: we will call you after the next round of volatility and see how you are feeling, that is dan zwirn, ceo of arena investors. france braces for another round of strikes, could the industrial action plunge the nation into recession? this is bloomberg. ♪

dani: welcome back to "bloomberg daybreak: europe". i'm dani burger in london. let's get the first word news with simone foxman in doha. simone: analysis by bloomberg economics has found briggs it is costing the u.k. economy 100 billion pounds a year, 4% of gdp. three years after leaving the eu, research found effects spending everything from research investment to the ability to hire workers. the imf forecasts the u.k. will be the only g-7 economy to shrink this year, with growth remaining sluggish in 2024. the u.s. is considering cutting huawei off from all american suppliers, including intel and qualcomm. sources tell bloomberg, there

are suspected ties to beijing and the chinese military. under the trump administration, business was restricted but not entirely banned. the international monetary fund has raised its global economic growth outlook for the first time in a year. it now sees gdp expanding 2.9% in 2023, 0.2 percentage points more than in its october forecast. the imf says resilient u.s. spending and china's reopening will help buttress demand. a bomb attack on a mosque has killed more than 70 in northwest pakistan, leaving 150 others wounded. the blast happened during afternoon players close to peschel are -- peshawar's police headquarters. it is the worst such attack in seven months. 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'm simone foxman and this is bloomberg. dani: as we bring you to the half-hour, let's take a look at your markets. it is a tough start to your tuesday trading morning, that follows a tough end to a monday market in the u.s. everything from equities to some of those commodity-based currencies getting hit this morning. those associated with growth are also under pressure this morning. is at the start of a new bear market trend, or is it just a little profit-taking before a very busy macro week? we will bring you plenty of euro-area economic data ahead of the ecb policy decision on hi, i'm katie, i've lost 110 pounds on golo in just over a year. i was a diet soda addict, and i needed to have a diet soda every morning as my eye-opener. with the release, the cravings are gone. golo worked for me when i thought nothing would work for me. the first few weeks were really astonishing how quickly and how easily it came off,

how much better i felt, what a change it made so fast. i feel like anything is possible after accomplishing what i've done with golo.

dani: good morning.

this is "bloomberg daybreak: europe". i'm dani burger in london and these are the stories that set your agenda. return to growth, the imf raises its global economic outlook for the first time in a year, as resilient u.s. spending and china's reopening fuel demand. tinderbox timebomb, a hedge fund advised by "black swan" author nassim taleb warns ballooning debts are poised to wreak havoc. ubs soars as it announces a $5 billion share buyback, we speak shortly to the ceo ralph hamers. french gdp coming in for a beat, it grew 0.1% quarter over quarter, the estimate had been unchanged but here is the rub, in december, consumer spending fell 5.6% year-over-year, the

estimate had been 4.2% of the clients. gdp might have beat in france, but in germany it was weaker, we will get to more of that shortly with maria tadeo. quick rap of the market, it is ugly in asia trading, samsung earnings disappointed, those shares moving down as much as 3.5% today. the msci asia-pacific is down 1%. tech yesterday in the u.s. had its worst day in a month, it had been a strong january, does that give in considering we have a whole host of tech earnings this week? all those big cap tech stocks will be reporting, so maybe taking profit off the table beforehand. u.s. 10 basically unchanged. but nymex crude trading at a three week low, or concerns about demand coming back to the fore? we have a whole lot of economic data being released today all ahead of the ecb's policy

decision on thursday. we just got that gdp reading from france. we will also get inflation and italian gdp. joining us to discuss is our european correspondent maria tadeo in brussels who is going to frankfurt for the ecb meeting. take us through these french numbers because on a headline basis it looks mixed, a beat, but mixed? >> the french economy beat expectations, they were expecting no growth in the final quarter of the year. we see that was 0.1% in q4 but it marks a deceleration compared to the previous quarter, and you see a big hit to consumer spending for december. dani, this is a huge idea purchasing power, this continuous decline, and of course, to me, once you have looked at the numbers for the

year 2022, it is all about the future. the forward-looking indicators, and we know that emmanuel macron is pushing hard to get pension reform off the ground. but that means social tension and strikes, there were strikes last month. today, we're going to see more. the question is how much impact will this have on the french economy? when the french finance minister bruno le maire spoke to francine lacqua in davos, he said the foundation is resilient. the impact will be marginal but of course, the jury is out on that one. in about an hour's time we will get inflation for france, that is it for the second largest economy in the euro area. dani: and in your home country, inflation was higher than expected, when we look at this data how does that impact the ecb rate decision? maria: we had spain. this was something i did for two years of my life. i was an economy reporter and

that was a data point i followed religiously, it has a special place in my heart, you had acceleration of inflation in spain in january. we will find out what happens in france, and we will get data from italy. the german data we will not get. they had quote a technical problem, and we will see it next week. so after that decision from that european central bank. thursday, it is clear the market is looking for a 50 basis points hike, but the interesting point will be the press conference. what type of language, what signal come march? are we going to see continuation of 50 basis point hikes down the road from here? dani: maria tadeo brushing off the cobwebs of that old eg o-breaking news muscle memory, thanks for showing off your skills for us. that's our europe correspondent

who will stay on top of all of that data and the ecb decision. bloomberg's oliver crook is at a ford manufacturing site in cologne. oliver, there has been a lot of news out of ford. perhaps price cuts when it comes to ev but it is having to navigate this very difficult environment, so what is ford doing? how does it fit into the broader economic picture? oliver: as you say, i am right outside this ford factory, it is a massive site in cologne and really serves as a symbol for what is going on in the brought manufacturing sector. they are converting this site which produces combustion engine cars into ev's, those first production cars will roll off the assembly line by the end of this year, by the end of 2030 they want every car in this lot behind me to be an ev. they are dumping $2 billion into this, i spoke to the head of the

electrification effort here in europe, he had a positive note to strike on inflation. >> in general, when it comes to semiconductors, we see the challenges of the last year have you eased, so supply is picking up. we see costs coming down, maybe not to normal levels, energy costs are still higher than a couple years ago but overall the cost pressure is coming back from the challenges maybe half a year ago. oliver: so some of these prices are still elevated but at a headline level, that is trickling down to the manufacturing sector with prices coming down slightly. dani: as we were just saying, they have cut the price of their mustang mach e, tesla has also cut prices of their electric vehicles. what does this tell us about the transition and the demand for this type of car? oliver: it tells you a lot about competition.

as you mentioned, tesla has cut prices on some of their models. ford is forced to do that in response. the mach e competes directly with the tesla model y, and tesla has a much more comfortable margin then legacy automakers, but it sees them catching up and sees that it has room to cut on the margin. it is competition for market share, but also for very specific parts of the electric supply chain. batteries, and chips, both of which are not in high supply but in huge demand for creating ev. i spoke to martin about that at all the things that go into building these cars, and he said if europe wants to achieve ev goals, it needs to be proactive. >> the most important thing is not to react to anything going on in the world or anything else, but have a european comprehensive scheme to support this massive transition. because we need investments everywhere, in charging

infrastructure, production of electric vehicles, production of ev components, all the way down to the processing of raw materials. oliver: some of that productivity on display this week, when you had olaf scholz in argentina and chile, both huge lithium producers where he is looking to produce in the new economy going forward. dani: thanks much for donning us. let's get you some of our other top corporate stories with simone foxman in doha. simone: samsung's quarterly profit has tumbled due to a sharp drop in demand for semiconductors, as it warmed of continued weakness in key businesses. profits from its chips segment plunged 97% as the industry struggles with a historic slump in memory prices. samsung warned chip recovery will only begin in the second half of the year, while

smartphone demand will likely contract in 2023. twitter has made its first interest payment on the $12.5 billion in debt that elon musk used to take become a private last year. it paid a group of seven banks led by morgan stanley, which became stuck with the debt. the first coupon is estimated to cost twitter roughly $300 million. u.s. federal appeals court has ruled that johnson & johnson cannot use bankruptcy to resolve more than 40,000 cancer lawsuits over its baby powder. the company had put it specially created unit under court protection to block juries around the country from hearing lawsuits. the new ruling means j&j will likely need to defend itself against the claims. that's your bloomberg business flash. dani: simone, thank you so much. now up next, we are going to get more on those samsung numbers.

it still is planning on spending big, despite major challenges in the chips sector. this is bloomberg. ♪

dani: it's "bloomberg daybreak: europe". i'm dani burger in london. let's get more on the tech story. samsung had earnings, it still plans to spend big, but there are major challenges in the chips sector, those reflecting in a profit hit at samsung which shot its share price drop 3.6 percent today after falling 2% yesterday. all this comes ahead of a big week for earnings for the tech sector, we are going to get apple, meta, amazon, among others. a lot of potential risk events. someone who analyzes it all is sophie lund-yates, lead equity

analyst at hargreaves lansdown. thanks much for joining us. meta, amazon, apple, three very different businesses. what do you like the most heading into earnings season? sophie: certainly a really busy week for us here. as usual, i have to talk about apple's resilience. as much as i think we can't rule out contraction overall because people's incomes are under serious threat, i think it's brand, and the fact that it is making huge efforts to produce more entry-level products means it could surprise on the upside. obviously, that is famous last words, but i have a lot of faith, particularly in the long term case for apple, even in these tough conditions. dani: it's interesting because if you look at what happened to the big tech story last year, it was really all about rate risk.

the higher rates go, the more concerned we were about big tech, the more it sold off and past winners did poorly, will that finally change as we talk about a peak in rates? do we move back to actually earnings are the most important catalyst for these tech companies? sophie: yes, absolutely, there is a bit of both going on. we know that the market is incredibly sensitive to the idea that the fed hike that is expected to come through this week, we have seen some wall street jitters. certainly, it is a consideration for these companies. but you are right, we know the market is forward-looking. and it is expecting to see a long-term shift and recovery in a lot of these areas. that's why we are seeing the rally we have seen so far, particularly in nasdaq at the beginning of this year. interest rate risk still in front of mind.

the markets will want any unexpected surprises. but the eyes are on the future and we have a path out of this now. we have seen the imf's global growth outlook upgraded, so the path is there, and the market is pricing that in four a full recovery. dani: in the meantime though, we see a tech sector that is struggling to adjust after they hired, they spent money and who a lot during covid. and perhaps realizing that growth is no longer sustainable. i was really taken by bank of america's analyst who wrote that they are still bloated, by about 20%, even after all those layoffs. and it is sales that boost margins, not cost-cutting, it will not boost margins. how are you thinking about this tech project of laying off people and trying to cut costs? does it move the needle in making these firms more

attractive? sophie: in certain cases, yes it does. particularly when you look at amazon, the level of expansion they underwent during covid and just afterwards, and the demand is not there to meet that expansion which means by the rules of operating leverage that margins are under relay significant pressure. they have got to trim some fat, that was the right call. same case in meta, those layoffs are absolutely the right thing to have done. the market reacted positively. so you're right to say cost-cutting is very much a short-term solution. we need proof of long-term demand for the services these companies are offering, that is where margin growth will come from. short-term, yes, these were arguably the correct steps to take, but it is certainly not a cure for the. serious underlying question marks for these companies. dani: what about chipmakers, i

know they are not a monolith, do you like chipmakers especially when we see some consumer-facing chipmakers facing lower demand? sophie: it is such an enormous industry. a lot of the chipmakers, none of them are created equal, they are going after different areas of the market. there is no denying that a consumer-facing chipmakers like intel, who is very exposed to pcs, samsung as well, they are in quite a bit of trouble in the short term. what i think is interesting to point out is that overall, the market for chipmakers is quite positive. we're seeing continued upwards trajectory, and the market is expecting total recovery. but along the way, we will see some difficult situations play out.

dani: but can these companies defend margins like last year? can they continue to have higher prices? sophie: some pricing power has been eroded. but not all the way, which means they are in a little bit of resilience, it will not be a total derailment of pricing power, but it is a slightly more challenging environment. but it is worth keeping in mind that when you look at some supply-chain pressures, they are really easing when we look at the reopening of china and the latest manufacturing data. that should feed into their ability to service demand. really, a mixed bag, but certainly some pricing power exists but it has been eroded a bit. dani: thank you for sending us up for this very busy week, sophie lund-yates, lead equity

analyst at hargreaves lansdown. we are going to get amazon, apple and meta as well this week in terms of earnings. to the europe story. france bracing for more strikes and protests today against the government's pension reforms. disruptions are expected to be of a similar magnitude to the strike earlier this month with transport, education, energy and many sectors affected. if the protests last, what will they do to france's economy? bloomberg's caroline connan has more. >> the french economy has staved off recession, but these kind of protests could derail the outlook for europe's second-largest economy. president emmanuel macron's plan to overhaul the pension system and raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 has angered millions of french people across the country. this strikes have impacted

public transport, also schools, hospitals, oil refineries and even electricity production. the danger for the government is that this comes on top of a possible rebound of inflation in france. the government's support to compensate for energy inflation will be adjusted next month, with gas and electricity prices set to rise by 15% in france. but the french finance minister has tried to play down the economic impact of the strikes. >> we have a high level of investment. we have very low inflation, so i am deeply convinced that france is doing well and the french economy is doing well. i don't think the strikes will hurt the financial economy. >> according to france's institute of statistics, the last big strikes in the fourth quarter of 2019, caused a dip of 0.1 percent in gdp. putting a marginal break on france's growth. more than two thirds of the french are currently opposed to

the reform. dani: bloomberg's caroline connan there. coming up, a big bank beat, and $5 billion of five banks, try saying that 10 times fast. ubs banks offer more than alliteration, and some producers who are trying to trip me up. we will have more on that next. this is bloomberg. ♪

dani: welcome back to "bloomberg daybreak: europe". i'm dani burger in london. let's get you set up for your trading day and take a look at key things we are watching out for. 11:30 a.m., exxon mobil will report earnings. a short time later at 1:30 p.m. in the u.k., we will get wages and salaries in the u.s. with an update on the employment cost index. and the u.s. data doesn't stop there, at 3:00 p.m., consumer confidence numbers. and pfizer scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings and give annual guidance later today before the u.s. markets open. i've got to say, the earnings picture has been one of concern. mike wilson of morgan stanley warning that margin pressure is alive, and it is well, peak inflation is not necessarily good for corporates as they have

had to cut costs. we have talked about how tesla and ford have cut prices on their evs. we are looking at the msci asia pacific picking up the negative baton from the u.s., falling more than 1%. meanwhile, u.s. 10-year yields are little changed, trading in range as we await central-bank decisions. nymex crude reflecting some of the dour mood, trading at its lowest level in about three weeks. all the commodity currencies are also getting hit today. it's been a strong start to the year when it comes to speculative assets, more risky demand-driven assets, so you are seeing some of that come in this morning, but it does not undo the strong month it has been. ubs fourth-quarter earnings came in ahead of expectations. net income was $6.5 billion. it's wealth management unit saw a 35% rise in interest income.

all of that meant the swiss lender could announce more than $5 billion in share buybacks this year. allison williams, our senior analyst has been pouring over the numbers. these came in about an hour ago, what is your take? allison: there is a lot of bright spots in these results. in learning seasons, where there are a lot of disappointments elsewhere, ubs coming in with capital return for next year better than expected. it looks like they could have a payout. keep in mind, wealth management is the crown jewel business for ubs, and one of the best businesses you can buy financial services from a fundamental standpoint.

their flow is very strong. across region, one has to wonder if there is some benefit from weakness at credit suisse. keep in mind, credit suisse had pretty sizable outflows in october. things may have steadied cents. net interest income has been a strong story for u.s. peers, but what is positive for ubs is that guidance going forward is strong. we saw this also at morgan stanley, but it was disappointing at a lot of other u.s. banks. that is a key positive. the investment banker ubs a little on the weaker side. it's not as important for them. but i would point to the mix of business. unlike all of their global peers, they tend to be more skewed to the equity side of the business. it's been a weaker business in the quarter and the year. dani: to that point, and we are

unfortunately running out of time, what does this tell us about for example, deutsche bank earnings later this week? >> there is not much read to deutsche bank just because we will be looking for strong fixed income. we do see very weak investment banking fees, that is something we will see at deutsche bank. for deutsche, we will be looking for strong interest income trading, net interest income how did it shape up last year, what is the outlook coming into the first quarter? and cost control, that was an area where ubs is executing, and deutsche bank we expect to come out of the restructuring looking better. dani: thank you for staying up late for us. allison williams, bloomberg intelligence senior analyst for global investment banks and asset managers, 2:00 a.m. there in new york, thank you so much.

just to recap. we are going to get deutsche bank earnings thursday. perhaps a limited readthrough, but for ubs, strong numbers coming through. fourth-quarter profit beat expectations. what all of this means is a big old catalyst for a likely stock rally this morning, a buyback of more than $5 billion of shares. it is all about rising net interest income. they had a slump in trading fees, investment banking was weak, like u.s. peers. so we are seeing these segments helping them achieve buybacks. the ubs chief executive ralph hamers spoke with manus cranny about the bank's performance and the planned share buyback. >> we had a good share of numbers on the buyback side and the net inflows side.