westpac raised 6 billion in the period. the equity ratio now 10.5%. but if we take a look at this chart you'll see that the markets are none too impressed by the banks at the moment. bearish bit up 41% since the start of the year and have proved to be a wise bid indeed if we look at today westpac now up about 4% although that is an improvement on earlier losses, angie. >> let's move on to tomorrow. big day on tuesday in australia. not only is opinion split on whether the bavenlg will ease or not. the treasurer going to hand down his first budget did you he doesn't have much to offer in the way of election sweeteners. >> no he doesn't. in fact quite the opposite. the real question is how big is that dead layne going to be? right now the expectation is around about $35 billion worth. if you remember two years ago, having done his first budget joe was using words like budget emergency and budget repair and came down with a very tough document. a couple years later he was gone. we have the opposite situation now where if you're going to label any criticis

westpac shares fell in sydney.y gauge shows it is stabilizing. 51.4.cturing pmi came in any number above 50 indicates conditions are improving. powered by over 400 journalists and 150 bureaus around the world, this is bloomberg news. we have got further breaking news headlines coming out of the hughesrton and baker ending their merger. it is now being commented by the doj saying that it is a victory for the u.s. economy. lorettaorney general lynch says there is no merger toobig for challenges -- big for challenges. read the writing on the wall not only from antitrust doj, butrs and the also in europe. agreementd up their and halliburton now have to pay $3.5 billion in two baker hughes. shaping up to be a horrible start to may. david is watching this. david: it was a low for the nikkei 225. we barely into the trading session. moment, 16,088. , have a looknt out at this. is a measure on how much protection there is of the market. a big spike there. 15%. 31.75. we have been talking about this all morning but i cannot

westpac has been aggressively capital raising as have all of the major banks in australia. over the period. and it's the drag on all of this though was really bad debt. bad debts rising to the highest in six years. charges $667 million. nd they were just four large exposures which westpac declined to identify alone worth $250 million in impairments. the c.e.o. says it's not part of some broader malaise. >> if we look at the portfolio over all, stress levels are essentially stable. we don't see a broad based deterioration in credit quality. if anything the opposite as companies are using low interest rates to pay down debt. >> brian hartser saying it is just a few pockets of stress and over all he is pretty optimistic about the australian economy, rish. rishaad: it does seem many investors didn't really share that optimism. i guess this is also reflected in aussie banks generally speaking as well. sure bets on the rise there as well certainly. >> that's right. they've hit a tough year have the australian banks over the past 12 months and yet we take a look at this chart and

and westpac -- dividend. a lot of movers coming through in the region.have a look at hutchison. the coveted ticket is one hk on the weekend. right. for 02.etoed a bid let's have a look at all of this. this is the second time in two months li ka-shing has entered setbacks. was a hardliner ruling coming out of the eu, rejected by the eu commissioners and the regulators. the deal was to merge hutchinson three with o2 to create the largest mobile carrier in the u.k. but with the commissioner of competition said, she said that the u.k. is very competitive. prices are among the lowest in the region. if this takeover had gone ahead, this would have changed for the worse. originally, the eu agree to reduce the number of operators to three if these merging companies had actually allowed some space for some of these rifles because the u.k. is very vibrant with virtual operators that don't really have a wireless system. broadband., u.k. what happened was that c.k. hutchinson did that today offered some capacity but the commissioners and regulators realized that thi

westpac banking shares will be interesting to watch in australia after the regulator released more detailsprobe into the bank, accusing it of attempting to fix the bank bill swap rate. this is australia's equivalent of libor. denies the allegations. also out today, the reserve bank of australia minutes for the previous meeting. we will be looking for some more clues as to where we might be going in the future. i am paul allen for bloomberg tv in sydney, australia. ♪ amazon is upping the ante, planning to roll out privately-labeled goods across our range of categories, like perishable foods and household items like laundry detergent. these plans have been in the works for several years and could appear on the site by the beginning of june. under brand names like happy belly and mama bear. how big could this business be for amazon, and what does it mean for the competition? i'm joined by our editor at large cory john. mark, i will start with you. have you heard anything about this, and how big of a business could this become? mark: it has been building up for a few years. they had something

westpac in sydney falling almost 4%.disappointing start to the bank earnings season in australia. there was some buying in gold stocks the yen is still below that -- or surging past that 107 handle. a little weaker at the moment. we have seen the yen up 13% against the dollar so far. no wonder such widespread selling in japan today. guy: thank you very much indeed. that 13% movies unlucky for some. let's talk about the broader picture with central banks. it is labor day. we don't celebrate capital day. capital has been the dominant feature over the last few years. labor has suffered. marcel, joining us from berlin. if i look at the world right now, and i look at what is about to happen, the fact that qe is running out of steam, and my an idiot, an absolute idiot, if i think that saving money from here on in is a good idea? because savings are going to suffer. marcel: absolutely. low interest rates have been here for some time. many central banks have indicated that rates will stay low for much longer than they anticipate