let's get to work. ready? okay. good morning welcome to "street signs." i'm julianna tatelbaum with joumanna bercetche these are your headlines rising commodity prices strain china's recovery as the world's second largest economy struggles ahead of expectations. and the stoxx 600 as the deliveroo with a price hike.

and uk regulators give them more time to work on the mo morrison's offer. and a massive 288% rise in second quarter earnings. oil accelerates losses amid fears of the drop in demand. welcome to "street signs." happy monday let's kickoff with a look at markets and how they're trading. a fairly muted start little bit of green on the board for italian and swiss markets. up .40%. cac 40 is above the flat line. a couple of data points in focus

this morning nothing major relative to last week in explicit drivers now bracing for a winding down of earnings season on the data front, the chinese factory price data prrising 9%. and german trade data. exports risen more than expected in june. putting it into context, global equities off all-time highs. cyclicals led the rally. stoxx 600 rallied off to a muted start turning to individual movers this morning a couple of moves where we would give you a look at the individual stocks. pandora up 3.2%. and here in the uk, coming under

a decent amount of selling pressure deliveroo on the news of the rival with a 5% stake in the company. joumanna you mentioned chinese inflation. let's get into detail there, julianna many factories deal with rising prices for raw stematerials and supply chain disruption. forecast rising 1% from a year ago. we filed this report >> reporter: factory prices hitting the 9% multi-year high again signals up stream price pressure as commodity prices remained high. authorities have been trying to rein unreasonable price hikes to pass on to the chinese consumer.

the sticker shock is limited eased to 1% year over year in july pork significantly influences this headline number non-food prices rose largely thanks to summer holiday. we also had trade data out of china over the weekend which showed exports and imports losing steam in july exports grew 19.3% year on year. still strong double digit growth, but below june's 32% gain this was the favorable low base effect started to fade chinese exporters started to grapple with the chip shortage and supply chain bottlenecks the concern is a resurge of cases on the mainland which may threaten the outlook as cities

have been locked down. import growth lost momentum in july slowing to 28% year on year there are some concerns the path of the virus could impact domestic demand which is weighing on imports in the coming months. in singapore, i'm sam badas. back to you. and increased by over $94$99 940,000 in july. there are 1 million more job openings in the country than looking for work restrictions continue to ease across the country the strong rating has pushed the dollar to a four-month high against the euro as a hedge against the taper announcement from the fed president biden hailed the numbers lauding the over 4 million jobs created since he

took office. >> our economy is far from complete and will have ups and downs along the way as we continue to battle the delta surge of covid, but what is indisputable now is this, the biden plan is working. the biden plan produces reports and the biden plan is moving the country forward. german experts moving ahead of expectations in june. seasonally adjusted was 3.3% per month. imports beat expectations. let's welcome the first guest to the program. taj parek. thank you for joining us this morning. let's kickoff talking about the inflation outlook. it is a focal point for economies around the world we got fresh comments from the

ecb. the leader warned the fed could pick up faster than expected is this new information on markets? what is your take on the comments >> i didn't think that is necessarily new information when we are looking at the data we see inflation picking up above 2% target mark we look at the price pressure and the output data coming from the pmi, we see there is significant price pressure building that's coming from a number of sources. you have firstly the supply constraint issues with the manufacturing sector and you also have the reopening inflation that we're seeing. this is largely a continuation of this transitory and inflation number should be picking up above the 2% mark. the pbigger question is what

happens further out in 2022 and 2023 >> looking to 2022 and 2023, a lot of the issues on the supply side are expected to prove transitory how dire do you think the labor situation is in the eurozone we are seeing issues with obtaining staffing looking longer term. would you suggest looking through this >> well, the later markets have looked strong. we see vacancies picking up. again, employment intentions are quite high i think the big question is what happens when many of these across the eurozone are wound down which is what we expect in q4 there might be some pick up here in the unemployment data you know, in terms of how that plays out and impacts inflation, we are not seeing the shortages or translated into higher wage

packets. i think the current period, you know, it is something that many are looking through at the moment and shouldn't be causing many inflationary issues >> taj, i like to turn to the economic outlook here. for the last month or so, people have been warning about the downside risk emanating from the delta variant. if you look at the data set from the last couple weeks, uk is an example. cases have gone up hospitalization rates are still very, very low there's been no impact whatsoever on business activity. if anything, the july pmi numbers are strong maybe not prior months, but holding in there would you say some of the risks surrounding the delta variant as far as the economy is concerned can be put behind us at this point? >> well, i think we saw in july,

those delta variant numbers picking up across the eurozone there was this concern now the key question really is whether you can have a pick up in cases and then, you know, the challenge to the economy is if there is a pick up of restrictions it seems as you mentioned because there is a break in the linkage between cases and hospitalizations, that it looks like a number of governments across the euro hezone are decin not to go back into the restrictions that we saw at the height of the pandemic that means we should still see the continuation of retail activity picking up. we know the activity numbers are also close to the pre-pandemic levels i would not say the risk is entirely behind us.ilizistabili. this is certainly not something

to derail the recovery which is building momentum from q2. >> you talk about the recovery building momentum. i'm curious to hear your views from the credit rating agency. what is your issue over credit and the coming 12-to-18 months there is a lot of talk of withdrawal of policy support for corporations that have been reliant on the assistance. is it your expectation that we will tick a lot higher in terms of default rates or have companies surprised the upside and how they are managing balance sheets and deleveraging the last couple months >> when we look at the eurozone as a whole, we see that build. the pmi came out level businesses across the eurozone are expecting orders to remain strong they do see good business flow

even if we are seeing this support disappearing, it is slowly winding down at a time when the economy is picking back up and compensating for that drop off in government support then don't forget further out, we will see the next generation eu money coming in across the eurozone which would provide some uplift. you know, this is certainly filtering to the business consumer and data as well. >> taj, let's wrap up talking about the outlook for china and what it means for europe specifically it feels as the risks to the china's near term economic outlook have been building goldman sachs slashed the growth outlook for china. how are you thinking about it? do you think markets are braced for potential down side coming from china in the coming months? >> we are looking at the eurozone and ties to china and it being an important export

market and integrated into the supply chain there is a bit of a down side risk to whatever happens in china. we know china is a big player on the global market. i think investors generally have been looking at the chinese economy. it is important to remember that we have been seeing high growth figures from china and looking at the base where it was lost during the pandemic. it is natural to see a winding down in the growth rates and to some extent, some overreaction when you look at the numbers certainly, we might be seeing companies growth normalizing and that could pose a downside risk to global trade prospects. >> taj, we'll leave it there thank you this morning director of economics at fitch a $1 trillion infrastructure bill backed by president biden is edging closer to passage

after clearing the senate vote on sunday. 19 democrats joined the colleagues following the amendments and debate time final passage of the bill is expected as early as today or tomorrow before sent to the house of representatives the latest report from the u.n. government panel on climate change warns global temperatures rising at a faster pace and the environment is seeing unprecedented change a sharp reduction in emissions would see global temperatures stabilize within the next 20 to 30 years the report comes as greece and turkey are battling forest fires and northern california sees the second largest wildfire on record. we will take a break coming up on the show, we break

down saudi arabia results as the oil giant looks to ramp up capacity we'll have more next

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welcome back to "street signs. bytedance revived ipo plans after working to address chinese concerns from regulators it is looking to list in hong kong by 2022 bytedance decision to shelf the listing brought on good will from the authorities alibaba shares are under pressure the tech giant fired several staff and launched an investigation after a woman's account of assault by her boss originally posted to the company's intranet was widely shared online. beijing's crackdown on tech giants knocked $87 billion off the net worth off the top leaders since the start of july. regulators revealed alibaba and

meituan and said it is set to slap meituan with a $1 billion fine. and in an interview with cnbc, alice wang, gave her take on the crackdowns. >> it is important to see china went through the digital revolution in about 40 years a process which took the west over 400 years so, in china, there's a lot of regulation that needs to catch up this is happening globally the concerns of data privacy and anti-trust and sexual harassment these are all global concerns.

what china is doing with tech companies, i think, is going to anticipate more regulation globally turning to corporate news. renault will manufacture hybrid vehicles in asia it well use geely technology and supply chains. it will see the two carmakers push the geely cars. deliveroo shares atop of the stoxx 600. an announcement of delivery hero has taken a 5.9% stake in the company. and the deadline exttended for the counter retail offer for

morrison's t cd&r had until today to make a fresh bid. and philip morris has 10% higher stake in vectura this is the second round of the bidding war which kicked off in may. vectura develops asthma drugs. and elliott management is reporting a stake in sse elliott and sse deliclined to comment on the report. sse runs wind farms and electricity networks and faced spe speculation over being broken up

or sold. julianna, you said it was a muted start for equities not the case for energy markets. let's look at the oil market is behavior today brent and wti are down 3.5%. not a good start to the week the stronger dollar is having an impact here. also reports from china with respect to covid restrictions now being applied and the impact that is going to have on demand. definitely keep an eye on the energy space we had results from raramco it looks to process up to 13 million barrels per day. state oil giant reported a 288% surge in income in the second quarter. dan joins us with more dan, question about this

announcement from aramco to produce more what does this tie into the opec agreement last month vis-a-vis all of the opec members start to increase propduction now? >> it is a really good point, joumanna when you look at the production from saudi arabia, it decided to cut with other opec members to stabilize the market last year separate from that, aramco has been investing in many years to build out the production capacity on the earnings call yesterday, that is something we heard again from the ceo looking to prioritize and building up the production capacity and paying down debt in the environment while also staying flexible to take advantage of opportunities that will emerge in the future as we continue to see the global economy opening up and the oil price recovery and trajectory improve. what was fascinating about the

numbers were the scale of them out of q2, reporting net income up 300%. $25.5 billion in the quarter also net income up 100% in the first half more than 100%, i should say, $47.2 billion. cash flow income doubled the question is what are they going to do with the stellar earnings we have seen others in the sector such as bp and chevron and shell prioritizing buybacks and building dividends for the investors who stuck with the companies through the declines last year, aramco is choosing to take a different tract we asked the ceo about the likelihood of a dividend on the earnings call yesterday. he said that dividend payment is

up for review, but no decision has been made. he is optimistic of what oil will look like for the rest of this year and start of 202 >> we continue to recover from the challenges of the pandemic we have demonstrated our resilience and agility in the face of once in a lifetime disruption, we stayed the course and believe our hard work has paid off. >> saudi aramco have the tailwind of higher oil prices and they got the pipeline sale that happened in the second quarter. at the same time, a bond issuance which helped to raise money to cover the cost of that dividend it will be interesting now to focus on what saudi aramco does with the capital management structure. the saudi prince salman suggested more shares will be

issued the company did not comment on that during the earnings call. at the same time, also interesting to see what aramco does with the industry leading profits about how they navigate the energy transition and the investment in the renewables something investors in the space are looking at now and casting a closer eye of scrutiny over the industry back over to you. >> dan, thank you so much for your reporting and joining us this morning. coming up on "street signs." france's covid health pass comes into question. we will bring you the details next

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welcome back to "street signs. i'm joumanna bercetche along with julianna tatelbaum. the second largest economy sees

factory prices rise 9% ahead of expectations. >> delivery hero with the i investment of the delivery firm. and more time to work on the mo morrisons offer further adding the bidding war. and renault and geely looking to prop up sales in the world's largest auto market. we're about an hour into the trading session. we're in for a mixed start this morning. we have green on the board the swiss index up .50%. in italy, ftse mib up a percent.

and muted for german, british and spanish markets. earnings season winding down a thin week for data after non-farm payrolls came out in the u.s. stronger than expected. u.s. inflation reports and consumer prices and producer prices coming through this week. investors looking for clues that may give us insight into the trajectory of the federal reserve. turning to foreign explaining currencies the stronger dollar has been the key story to watch as joumanna pointed out, the stronger dollar is having an impact on oil prices with the price of crude pulling back. the euro is holding steady against the dollar the pound trading lighter at

1.3859 let's see how wall street is poised to open a negative start to trade. dow at a 100 point drop at the open muted start, but red, nevertheless, for the s&p and nasdaq let's put it in context. strong week for u.s. equities last week. the s&p and nasdaq gaining 1% a pi piece. joumanna the health pass for access to public spaces including restaurants and caves comes into effect today tens of thousands of people protested against the measure for the fourth week in a row let's get to charlotte this is the fourth week people are demonstrating. is there any impact on the government proceeding with the plans to rollout the health pass or is it complete at this point?

>> the government is sticking to the plan no doubt they are keeping an eye on the situation these measures were announced by emmanuel macron in july. this is rolled out to public areas. you will have that pass or recent negative test or full vaccination orrecovery from infection. that is to boost vaccination vaccination in france was slowing down and the country was seeing cases rising. a fourth wave due to the delta variant. in the effort to boost vaccination, president macron announced the health pass. it was rolled out in museums and cinemas and theme parks for example. it is necessary to go to other places like restaurants and travel by plane, train or coaches. this measure had been voted by parliament and debated over

several days it had the highest judicial body approve it after asking for a few tweaks in france we have seen protests over the past two weekend and number of people protesting over the past three weeks has been growing to 377,000 this week which is unusual for august people protesting from the far right and far left and un-vaxxed. looking at the public opinion. it is in favor of the health pass a huge boost in vaccinations since the announcement from president macron almost 80% of all adults have had at least one dose of the vaccine. the french government will keep an eye on this this is different with public

opinion in favor of the protest. in this case, it is not the case so far, but it is interesting if this is going to impact candidate macron he dealt with social unrest before we will keep an eye on his campaign in the weeks ahead. september, will be the test if this protest or if it fizzled out. it will be in place until middle november joumanna >> really interesting. you have to say that distinction with the protests and the earlier protest and the public support is behind the covid health passport at this point. charlotte, thank you for bringing us the latest from france. turning to germany where the social democratic party has tied with the greens for a second place in the latest federal

election poll. this could open up a path for the so-called traffic light coalition with the spd and green and business friendly free democrats. the center right, cdu/csu alliance is atop of the polls, but popularity is on the decline again and doesn't have enough support to rule alone. tricky to navigate german politics we have carson with us great to have you with us. it seems since the devastating plot over the last month have come into focus that the political narrative in germany shifted away from how to deal with the pandemic to how to deal with climate change. you think would be a gift for the greens party that hasn't actually quite transpired why have they not been able to seize on the momentum around the narrative behind climate change? >> i think there are several problems here.

one is the issues the greens had with the lead candidate and certain issue with her campaign and plagiarism and the other story weighing on her campaign which distracted a lot of potential contents of the campaign that is one factor the other factor is you look at the three other parties, the social democrats and greens and the issues on the planet issue they sound pretty much the same. it remains the fact it is centrist consensus even on a new topic such as climate right now continues in german politics. it makes it difficult for a challenger party to set itself apart from the others. >> we were speaking to our german colleague on friday the polls of 40% to 50% of the

public said they were not excited to vote for the candidates why is there such apathy in the election and what will this mean for september and turnout? >> that is the $1 million question we have seven weeks to go. that is almost an eternity in democratic politics. let's see how it plays out in terms of the dcandidates, yo have to look at the candidates and he only became a lead candidate after a bruising in-fight with the christian alliance you have scholz for the social democrats. he is really the frontrunner, but the personal popularity

doesn't seem to spur from the social democrats or not enough so far and as we know in germany in the end this is not a personality election it is an election of parties who needs to form coalitions if you look at the trials of the lead candidates, that explains why we are not seeing enthusiasm around any of the three so far. >> karsen, i want to come back to the greens because clearly they are still in good standing among their core constituents. the question seems to be can they appeal to those beyond the core electorate? what is your take there? >> and i think we have two interesting dynamics you were saying the climate issue is very important for voters across the board and ac across the traditional green con

the stituancy. there is an issue all three parties don't talk as much as they do the climate. the future of the health care and pensions and migration we know from public opinion surveys, these are issues that german voters care about i think moving beyond the climate issue and talking about the other issues that would perhaps be an opportunity for all three major parties. as i said before, in the end, the reflectx from the german politics at the center, people care about climate change and that's all we hear about so far. >> it is really interesting dynamic you outlined do you see that happening between now and september? a shift away from climate change to the other issues or could they reach the third week in september and not have actually touched on the things a lot of voters care about? a lot of the other topics. >> anything is possible. in terms of sign posts to watch,

we have seen some attempts to talk about cultural issues with some negative campaigning directed against others. the liberal conservative question on the culture issues that is something that was brought up let's see how that goes with voters and the outside events the migration question for ins instance if the situation in belarus continues and the arrivals from the mediterranean. that could lead an impact on the agenda without any party talking about that that is something we would keep an eye on. for now, remaining in the driver's seat and you hear a lot about the climate conversation and they all sound the same on that issue

>> let's not forget eight years ago the greens party were polling at 20% when it came to people voting, the turnout was low and they ended up with 8% points. question on what your baseline scenario is at the beginning of the segment. we outlined the fragmented scene. cdu/csu are still leading, but not enough to clinch the outright majority. what will german politics look like at the end of september >> they were looking for the first time of combination of three parties. greens and cdu/csu and together with the center right liberals as long yas you don't have enouh for two parties, you have a third one. they can design to join the

center right or center left coalition. they are not like coarse liberals in france that could mean cdu/csu with the greens if you look at the polls, this should be the baseline scenario. >> karsen, thank you for joining us. turning back to deal news. we got fresh lines on the british inhaler maker. vectura with the bid to 4 billion pounds that's the context now the takeover panel for the vectura group updated us on the auction procedure. it will commence at 5:00 p.m. on

tuesday, august 10th the established auction procedure and determined day 46 shall be tomorrow. each of the vetura and philip morris agreed to the terms of the auction. the board of vectura feels appropriate to withdrawal the carlisle offer and not state intention to recommend the philip morris offer. they will make an announcement after the end of auction a full out bidding war on our hands here for vectura tomorrow 5:00 p.m the auction procedure will commence. still ahead on "street signs. could cryptocurrency traders be about to foot the bill for the biden administration infrastructure plan? we'll discuss next

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hathaway rebounded with the profit jumping 21% year on year. berkshire's businesses from energy to auto insurance benefitted from the easing of coronavirus restrictions the investment company warned the long-term effects of the pandemic cannot be quote reasonably estimatesd yet. berkshire bought its own stock with $6 billion of buybacks in the second quarter. lawmakers are split on the tax on cryptocurrency transactions the issue is the factor of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. the biden administration reports that requirements would bring $28 billion into the treasury's coffers. let's look at key crypto we have bitcoin up 0.4%. ethereum down 0.4%

let's bring in the chief strategy over from coinfare. i want to kick off with your take on the new s.e.c. chair said last week getting a huge amount of attention suggesting that the crypto market is the wild west and we need more protection for investors how significant were his comments and what kind of action should investors be bracing for from regulators when it comes to key crypto >> great to be on. thanks for having me today it's clearly a big week in the crypto ecosystem on monday, we had gensler comments the current s.e.c. chair as we know, the last end of the week and weekend, we had the infrastructure bill on the floor of the senate which includes cryptocurrency tax provisions. going to gensler, i think his speech was not unexpected.

gensler is trying to be pro market regulation despite being a former goldman sachs partner crypto is not the wild west. they are monitored by agencies in the united states youand abrd for several years now. some of the things in the crypto currency ecosystem what i feelt is it is a commodity. the s.e.c. is trying to establish mandate and the way gensler positioned his take as the s.e.c. should have oversight overall cryptocurrency it sounded like a plea for more money and resources and authority to regulate. we will see what happens and the response >> you raise an interesting point. it is not clear who exactly should have oversight over

cryptocurrency because it crosses so many barriers it is requires a knowledge of computer science and the markets. a clear gap in understanding from many investors and potential regulators how should we think about bridging that gap to get more people educated to understand how the cryptos work >> this is something that we have been working on at coinshare and across the industry i have been in the industry for seven years. in the seven years, i have seen the significant amount of time in washington, d.c. and other parts of the world with different regulators i think it is a function of time this technology is still very new. it is just in the last 18 months the investment community has really started to understand bitcoin. we see this reflected in the interest in bitcoin and bitcoin-related products and

cryptocurrency-related funds and assets i think it is a twofold thing. it is a function of time and also a function of the overall maturity of the industry and ability to engage with regulators through the different bills. at the end of theday, this activity that is happening in the united states really shows how important crypto is becoming as part of the economy in the united states and globally over 46 million americans hold bitcoin. that is 15% of the population. this isn't going anywhere. i really think the events of the last week highlight how important it is for politicians and regulators to get educated and engage and develop a policy stance on this really important asset class and this really fundamental and foundational technology >> certainly the focus is there and just turning back to gary gensler's speech

everyone was watching it closely to see what type of approach he is going to take with cryptocurrency one thing he emphasized is investor protection. i just wonder how you're thinking about derivatives trading going forward and the context of investor protection you hear some exchange lowering the amount of margin used on the platform that is not going far enough to limit the amount of derivative trading that has come to fruition over the last couple years. how do you see that trending, especially given the renewed focus on protecting investors from getting involved in currencies they don't necessarily have the sophistication to get involved with >> sure. our belief has been and my belief has always been investors of all types, including retail investors, are increasingly interested in investing. investor protection is an

antiquated concept investors can access all sorts of products and derivatives. they can gamble on the lottery and lose all of the capital. if we are talking about protection, this is not really about protection this is about oversight and market integrity i think the challenge is cryptocurrency is different from standard capital markets cryptocurrency operate on markets that exist 24/7/365. trading billions of volume a day. it is very difficult for these types of markets to be compatible with the jurisdiction based and venue based regulation we have seen over the last century. i think the challenge for regulators is trying to understand the new paradigm and ultimately, i do believe, the ability of investors to parse what they want to participate in requires the platforms they access and investors want access to

different investment opportunities. we are seeing this not just in crypto, but across the board with increased retail participation and markets of all types. at coinshares, we thought to take crypto assets and fit through traditional through exchange data products today, there is $5 billion on the platform across a variety of etfs and etps. i think it is not necessarily so much about keeping investors from engaging with crypto, about it is about ensuring a harmony framework for the markets which are different to fit within the standard approach that simply are not ready for the new technolog technology. >> thank you for joining us. chief strategy officer from coinshares. let's look at oil with a

difficult morning. str wti is down 4% to $65 a barrel turning to u.s. futures. wall street is poised to open after the record run last week dow set to open 90 points higher not as steep as ten minutes ago. nasdaq in positive territory according to these futures we are in for a muted start, but the momentum is becoming a little bit mover pre positive. that's it for today. i'm julianna tatelbaum along with joumanna bercetche. "worldwide exchange" is coming your way next.

do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. as someone who resembles someone else... i appreciate that liberty mutual knows everyone's unique. that's why they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. [ nautical horn blows ]

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it is 5:00 a.m. in new york. here is your top five at 5:00 on monday covid cases surging in america again. pockets of the nation racing to catch up with vaccinations one head of the major union is backing mandatory vaccinations for members. and in washington, the senate with rare weekend sessions as it pushing forward the $1 trillion infrastructure bill more votes ahead this week. devastation in