well, up, james athey as of aberdeen standard investments.es athey on the state of the markets, and the new neutral dollar strategy. this is bloomberg. good morning. ♪ ♪ this is bloomberg surveillance. this is what we are looking at in terms of the markets. the market is more quiet than yesterday. a lot of the focus is on politics and what happens in the final 8 days of the trump presidency. to talk about the markets and treasuries and much more on negative rates after comments from the ubs chair is james athey, aberdeen standard investment director. how problematic are treasury yields? fed,: if you listen to the not problematic at all. i have been surprised as to how relaxed they seem, how complacent they seem. we know from history, they don't always have a perfect understanding of how financial markets operate. for me, cheerleading from the givennes is a risky game how fragile the situation is. of course you see the mechanical recovery in gdp but stimulus is required to get to this point which i don't think anybody would suggest is sustaina

james athey of aberdeen standard.lix: you are looking at president biden in the oval office with the treasury secretary, janet yellen. let's listen to their take on the economy. president biden: -- future job prospects that they have no choice but to stay home and take care of their children. billions of people are out of work, unemployed. future millions are held back for no good reason other than our failure to act. the choice could not be clearer. we have learned from past crises that the risk is not doing too much. the risk is not doing enough. this is a time to act. -- over a million people applied for unemployment insurance last week. that is far more than in the worst week of the great recession. and economists agree that if there is not more help many more people will lose their small businesses, the roofs over their heads, and the ability to feed their families. we need to help those people before the virus is brought under control. the president's american rescue plan will help millions of people make it to

james athey is with aberdeen standard. he has given us wonderful perspective across assets as well.ow have you already rewritten your 2021 outlook? james: good morning, tom. thankfully, i haven't had to just yet. there's obviously a very strong market consensus coming into this year that we would see a happy market environment, with everything risk facing and cyclical performing extremely well, and possibly a steady but low volatility and in no way rising treasury yields in steepening of the curve. you mentioned citi. i think they are up there with one of the bigger moves they are forecasting, but it is all part of the same market environment of risk on. yesterday happened, and already i can imagine that some people might be sweating a little about their 2021 calls. we have been cautious and defensive and circumspect about the economic outlook, certainly for the first half of the year, so nothing that happened yesterday would change that the. -- tom:ackrock has blackrock has taken a victory , withter a 2020 everyone's returns mixed in. they mentioned a barbell strategy, and i would

matt: coming up, we will speak with stephanie kelly could we just spoke with james athey on the market. we will talk to stephanie about the biden administration plan to deal with china. this is bloomberg. ♪ matt: from berlin, this is "bloomberg markets." with the trump administration watching china for the past four years, many wonder whether the incoming biden administration will be as tough. joining us now to discuss this and also the rowing income inequality -- growing income inequality is stephanie kelly, from aberdeen standard investments. i guess it is not just important because of martin luther king day but we see the results of the wealth gap in the civil -- and the civil disruptions around the world. you think that is part of the problem and do think it is getting worse because of the pandemic? stephanie: there's no question that the pandemic has worsened it. we know people in lower skilled jobs and people from minorities have been much worse hit by the unemployment elements in the u.s. and elsewhere and we know it will continue to be an issue even as the economy recovers. you