speculators and hoarders. haslinda: plus, we will talk exclusively to the ceo of the leading health manufacturer about how the surge in virus cases in taiwan is affecting their bottom line. yvonne: taking a look at asian equities here today, we are looking at a fourth day of gains. it has been quite marginal but again, those fed officials, this course continued to play down inflation fears and that seems to be what is stabilizing these markets here once again. you are seeing the hang seng and the shanghai composite -- nifty futures also in the green. it seems like it's easing inflation fears and adding to further gains here or people to buy on these dips. wanting key things in southeast asia. gdp numbers coming out of singapore to maintain growth or cast unchanged at 4% to 6%.

we also have trade data coming out later on as well. we are watching when it comes to the weaker fixed today, that is moving the dollar china trade. we are around the 2018 lows right now. the pboc is downplaying the narrative that they are countering this rise in commodity prices with a strengthening yuan. it seems like with commodities as well, mixed messages from what we heard from that premiere in china. iron ore in singapore, down 1%. bar futures slightly lower. copper has been shrugging off regulatory concerns in the market and you see bitcoin as well. you did see elon musk tilting the cryptocurrency higher overnight with a series of tweets. around 38,000. we will talk a little more about

the fed, too. three top fed officials have pushed back against the threat that a spike could become a lasting trend at the u.s. economy reopens had let's bring in kathleen hays with more -- reopens. let's bring in kathleen hays with more. kathleen: certainly, this is the fed's party line, you might say, their standard operating procedure. we are not worried about inflation. we are not going to have to respond to it, certainly not now. will brainard -- her point was that if we are expecting price pressures right now, there was a supply bottlenecks. economies reopen. this is happening. it will not last and it's not going to boost inflation expectations. here is what she said. >> if we saw some development pushing inflation up, i would not expect that to get indicted

in the ongoing inflation rate. if we did see inflation that moves persistently and maturely above our goal in a manner that threatens to have some impact on the long-term inflation expectations, we have the tools and experience to gently guide inflation back down to target and no one should doubt our commitment to do so. kathleen: but failed bostick -- raphael bostic speaking today. people spending more money has been a lot faster than the response in supply and that's why we are seeing price pressures building. this will not be enduring. jim bullard saying it will be temporary and some of it will feed through to inflation expectations. let's look at the chart to get to the other side of the story. if you look at the bloomberg chart, what you will see is the white line showing the pce year-over-year, key measure now

up, clearly rising. the important line to focus on is the yellow line, market breakevens. it is clearly moving higher. it is the blue line. university of michigan has been doing a survey for decades. they ask people about inflation expectations. you are seeing a big jump in expectations for inflation five years out. that number is up to 3.1% from 2.1%. a lot of fed officials, that's one of their most favorite measures of expectations. it has moved higher, is moving higher. this team of fed officials would say, of course they are up because prices are up now but they will come down and that is the question the market has to grapple with and that is why all the upcoming numbers on inflation are going to be watched closely. yvonne: no matter -- haslinda: no matter what happens overnight, kathleen hays. let's bring in our guest

receives inflationary pressures as contained and temporary. the chief portfolio strategist at state street global advisors joins us from boston. using concerns about inflation overnight but still, not enough to see the s&p really breakout. it has been hovering at current levels and it seems like it's looking for a catalyst. >> i think it is looking for a catalyst which we thought frankly that the earnings season was really very strong, very good, and that should give the market a bit of a jolt to move up as you start looking at it and what else will drive markets on a global basis. the signs are all there as the covid reopening starts spreading out from the u.s. to other parts of the world, as we start being eurozone reopen and downstream,

we have the same experience with south asia as well. that should give investors more home that this is not just a u.s. story where u.s. growth is above trend. you will see above trend growth for some periods of time and the rest of the world. that might give markets a second advantage as you move through. >> at this point in time, rake evens have also dropped. what does it say to you? how do we read this? >> i put down that they will be temporary. the direction likes to be a lot more erratic. when you talk about transitory effects, is that a quarter, a

month, six months? that part gets a bit more difficult to balance. we are telling investors we do take view that this is going to be contained and it should fall down but investors should also think about building in some hedges in their asset allocation mix to provide cover against any of these scenarios where it might spike more than what the market is expecting today. yvonne: are those hedges still in the commodities space? we have been watching this unstoppable rally. how do you square that with what we are hearing out of china? >> i think that the chinese cooldown is getting absolved in the prices. we think that commodities is going to be the right hedge to have. the one thing you will have to balance is pressure from china but still, as your editor was

talking about just a few minutes ago, there is still too much pent-up demand when he lays that out against the extremely high savings rate. eurozone above trend growth plays out. the european recovery funded play. the commodities prices -- let's not forget that firms writ large have been a lot more disciplined in terms of creating new supply. given that, i think we are looking at not just a short period but also a long period where you are going to see concerns of supply. yvonne: i'm watching the csi 300 in china. a little bit more momentum in this market. we have pretty much been range bound. you mentioned china as a key part of an investor 2021 portfolio.

what is behind that sort of call? >> we made that call actually earlier in the year. i think our case was based on a few factors. it will be a bigger part of both bond and equity portfolios. the other thing strongly at play is given the fact that chinese policy is behaving differently, it's a real good diversifying portfolio. as we continue seeing ongoing sanctions and stress occurring between china and europe were china and the u.s., on the one hand, it is concerning, bound the other hand, investors need to be dipping in the u.s. and europe and one toe in the other

market because that's where the future build is going to be. that's where digitization has moved in china. it's remarkable. investors need to be invested in that to take advantage of those efforts. those arguments and the diversification is what gets us into china on that basis. haslinda: speaking of china and the yuan, we are seeing the weaker yuan fixed today. is there a sense that perhaps the pboc is concerned about you on strength -- yuan strength? >> you have seen a significant -- returning. it's a bit more stable. i don't think i sense too much of a concern at this stage but as you start seeing pressure with the u.s. demand, i think you could see them pressurized again to make sure the exports stay very attractive. whether this has enough demand,

i don't see that as a huge concern. yvonne: thank you for joining us from state street global advisors. first word news with vonnie quinn in new york. hey. vonnie: thanks. the european union agreed to new sanctions on belarus after the fourth version of orion or passenger jet and the arrest of a journalist on board. these include banning airlines from airspace and airports. further sanctions targeting lukashenko and his associates are also being imposed. russia is backing its allies following belarus's explanation of it actions. >> this outrageous behavior needs a strong answer. therefore, the european council decided that there will be an additional sanctions on individuals that are involved in the hijacking but this time also on businesses and economic entities that are financing this regime. vonnie: international efforts at

reviving the nuclear accord are intensifying. president xi jinping told hassan rouhani in a phone call that -- nuclear issues. antony blinken said a deal is a priority. iran agreed to extend an agreement by one month, for continued surveillance of its installations. china is pushing back against a wall street journal report. the paper says the trio worked at the wuhan institute of virology. china's foreign ministry says the report is not true and accused the u.s. of hyping up a lab leak area. the lab in the city has previously denied claims of workers getting sick. 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 am vonnie quinn. this is bloomberg.

haslinda: we will have more on the fallout from the pandemic later on "bloomberg markets: asia." we will talk to a food manufacturer about how they are managing the surge in virus cases in taiwan. yvonne: why ray dalio says he prefers bitcoin to bond. this is bloomberg. ♪

yvonne: china's commodity markets may be hearing mixed messages from the government just hours after regulators stepped up their fight against soaring prices. li keqiang urged further strengthening of commodities imports. our senior editor for energy and commodities is talking us

through what has been going on with the rhetoric. do you think china's efforts to control prices are likely going to be successful? >> it looks like they have been successful as far as this morning was concerned. they are down a bit. but a lot of the things i'm seeing suggests that this is just a pause rather than a halt in the rally. haslinda: li made a trip to the southern port. what is the latest? jason: what has happened here is that premier li visited the sport and the message he wanted to give was he wanted to make sure that china's ability to import commodities was all well and good because china wants to ensure that it has ample supply so i think that he's checking on the logistics of that and making

sure that it has correct stories and all that kind of thing. china wants to increase his imports. that was something that was going to come to pass and have the counter affect because it would raise international prices and make prices more expensive so i don't think it has the intention to do that. haslinda: jason rogers in shanghai. we are also watching bitcoin as we always do. cryptocurrencies -- elon musk toyed with prices, talking about their energy usage. a commentary on china's securities says bitcoin mining is against china's rule of becoming neutral. joanna is in singapore.

let's start with that meeting. take us through what came out of that. >> when musk tweeted that he was no longer enamored with it because of the energy, he did say we need to find a way to make it less consumptive of fossil fuels. he did not say i'm out forever. he did say let's see about this and of course, bitcoin was already rising when the news about this meeting came out but it looks like they have put together a bitcoin mining group and some of this might be sort of face-saving, trying to do damage control by the miners but it looks like they are going to try to report how they use renewables and where they use renewables. it might be making the industry a bit more transparent and thinking about it a little bit more. there's so many miners all around the world this looks like

it's just one part of them and maybe some of the bigger ones so you have a ton of mining in china that is possibly not doing this at this point and you have all sorts of other places that might not, but it looks like it is a start. >> you have to wonder who to blame and causing so much volatility. is it elon musk? is it china cracking down on the industry as well? let's talk about the regulatory front. let's talk about china's concerns about bitcoin environmental impact. >> there was an article just yesterday saying that china is really concerned about that environmental impact of bitcoin mining. in the past week, they said a number of things about it. people within the mining industry or in crypto generally are watching china to see what they are trying to do about crypto overall. if those miners in china could show that they are doing a

little bit more in terms of renewables, that might make the government a little happier as well so it could good for them, too. yvonne: joanna lassiter joining us with the latest on bitcoin. sticking with the cryptocurrency, ray dalio says he is bullish on the outlook but does see an essential threat ahead. take a listen. >> i think bitcoins greatest risk is its success. because as it becomes more -- right now, it is not such a big deal. and fighting it is more of a big deal. and that is it. it is not that big of a deal. as it becomes a bigger deal and more of a threat, people want to sell their bonds and they want to buy bitcoin.

and they want to do that in a bigger way like buying gold or something in a bigger way and then there is more transaction. they lose control over that and that is an existential risk. so yes, that is connected. the more we create savings in it , the more you might say i ran out of bitcoin. -- i would rather have bitcoin than a bond. and the more that happens, then it goes into bitcoin and does not go into credit and they lose control of it so that is a risk. haslinda: ray dalio said he had some bitcoin. if you are a bloomberg subscriber, you can catch up with all of our interviews by using our interactive function,

tv go. you can also join the conversation by sending instant messages to our team during our live shows. check it out. this is bloomberg. ♪

haslinda: here are the latest business flash headlines. forever 21, brooks brothers, and others are said to be considering going public as soon as this year. we are told the company could seek a valuation of $10 billion but plans are not final and the size and scope of any deal could change. the portfolio includes more than 30 brands and was valued at $4000 and 2019.

blockchain and digital currency platforms more than doubled in valuation after raising 61 million dollars from investors including the global ventures. a source tells us the company was valued at $500 million in the funding round. the ceo called the fresh funding rocket fuel and said she is eyeing a traditional ipo as soon as this year but did not rule out -- a $16 billion etf is set for a monster this week in favor of value shares. wells fargo says that cracks momentum sector etf will see 68% of its portfolio holdings change. the rebalancing is due for -- and they see it pushing the weighting of financial stocks to one third from less than 2% currently with tech sliding from 40% to 17%.

haslinda: let's take a look at -- yvonne: let's take a look at markets. the csi 300 seeing momentum. mostly, boosted by the likes of others. you see the csi 300 up 1.7 5%. taiwan up more than 1% as well so we are seeing a rebound in taipei your today. 285 points higher. taking a look at the rest of the region, southeast asia in focus. we have a decision later on today. nifty futures are up .6% and we are focusing on some movers as well. they aim to help achieve its sales goal of 200 billion yuan, which is lifting the stock up some 4%. this is bytedance's rival and slumping near record lows after posing the net loss. analysts cutting the price target and education stocks in china falling for a second day. regulation concerns from beijing

and country garden as well, $2 billion in a share placement and convertible bond sale. plenty more to come. this is bloomberg. ♪

vonnie: it is 10:29 p.m. in new york. president joe biden is sending secretary of state antony blinken to the middle east this week to help firm up the

cease-fire between israel and palestinian spirit -- and palestinians. in a statement, president biden said the visit would reinforce ironclad ties with israel and rebuild lesions with palestinians. u.s. senator elizabeth warren is proposing to triple the budget. she wants to remove the agency from the approval process. the treasury department says added enforcement could capture an additional $700 billion in taxes. a petition calling for the resignation of south korea's financial services regulator over plans to tax cryptocurrency gains has collected more than 200,000 signatures. the regulators said the government had no obligation to protect crypto investors.

the president wants to impose a 20% tax next year on annual gains of more than $220,000. singapore is trying -- singapore's airport will reportedly impose stricter measures at terminals. the airport will separate staff handling ingoing and outgoing travelers in separate zones. a airport virus cluster had grown to 108 cases as of sunday. 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 am vonnie quinn. this is bloomberg. yvonne: taiwan has been reporting a steady increase in covid-19 cases over the last few days. the territory is being squeezed by a resurgent coronavirus on one side and grappling with a year-long drought. let's discuss all of this and

more with andrew tseng, ceo and chairman of great king. april -- grape king. a pleasure to have you on the show. taiwan is dealing with covid, power outages and drought conditions. how is the business adjusting to this? andrew t.: it has been a challenging time for us especially with covid because taiwan did quite well before. to be honest, we as a company have been -- have been preparing for a possible outbreak here in taiwan. we set up a team. we are able to separate manufacturing from our office workers and also manufacturing

itself. we are focusing on ensuring that all of the customer orders are dispatched perfectly. at the moment, we are feeling quite uncertain. yvonne: you mentioned on the manufacturing side that you have two factories in taiwan. tell us about how things are working operationally. his production affected in any way given the split teams you are using? and what about the power outages --do you have to ration power? andrew t.: the power outage for us is ok. the power shortage has happened in the last week so it has not affected our business. on the covid side, at the moment, there is a minimum impact on the business.

we set up manufacturing workers on different floors and different production lines. we are hoping that in the unlikely event of an employee being affected, we can isolate the incident because of our different production floors and production lines. so, at this moment, we are ok and we are following the restrictions from the government. we don't want the office workers -- they are isolated and working from home or on a rotational asis. so, everything is ok. we are watching the news every day and hopefully, we will not go to a complete lockdown in taiwan. yvonne: grape king is one of the a few health-food companies in taiwan where you do have the capability to produce your own

raw materials. has the drought impacted that in any way? andrew t.: it has actually helped our business because i think people are worried and uncertain and they are panicking. these last few weeks, our sales have been quite good. we have also seen a change in customer behavior in taiwan. our sales are supported by telemarketing. we call our customers. we suggest supplements to use. actually, it has helped our business do better. haslinda: andro, wellness has become a lifestyle because of the pandemic. give us a sense of the growth you are anticipating. can you continue to believe on the numbers you have so far?

31 market share in terms of probiotics. andrew t.: i think for this moment it depends on how the situation is going to be. hopefully, taiwan will not go into lockdown. from this trend, we do believe we make be able to go to double digit growth. grape king consists of three different units. we have one in china, shanghai. at the moment, our business is doing well in taiwan. in china, it is doing well as well. hopefully, this year, we will go up to 10%-15% in total. haslinda: the pandemic has also accelerated e-commerce. have you accelerated your

investments to make sure that your online sales and services can compensate for any slow down? andrew t.: yes, we have noticed -- two years ago, our physical sales team did better than the virtual sales team. virtual sales team like e-commerce and telemarketing since last year with this whole situation, things changed. at the moment, 60%, 70% sales are down -- are up in virtual channels. so people do not go out. last weekend, taiwan went to the level three alert. people are still buying online and buying our products. we do heavily focus on virtual channels. yvonne: overall, what do you

think the recovery will look like in taiwan? how long do you think this will last? do you see this as a 1-2 month lip? -- blip? andrew t.: i think less than one month. we have the sars experience. last week, i did not go out at all. i looked out my window and there was hardly anyone in the street. people are quite obedient and actually, they are scared. they will follow the government direction to stay home and wear a mask if you have to go out. i believe they will get control within a month. i am very positive of the situation in taiwan. yvonne: you have seen strong sales in taiwan towards late

last year. do you expect the outbreak to impact your sales in any way? and what trends are you seeing in light of the pandemic given that people are more health conscious out there? andrew t.: we notice more distance clinics. we feel people are more careful about their health. they need a strong immune system to fight in this situation. globally, we get more clients from southeast asia, america, and europe. they just have to go to our website or email us for more information to see if we can design some health supplements for them.

i think this covid situation is actually bringing people more health awareness and it will help the society. haslinda: andrew tseng, thank you for being with us today. let's do a quick check of the markets. gains across the board. it is a risk on and all sectors are in positive territory. the csi 300 index up about 2% right now. we saw that bounce in wall street last night led by tech. crypto bubble fears pushed aside at least for today. taking a look at where crypto currencies are right now. it going down but a theory him in the opposite direction -- but ethereum in the opposite direction.

copper rebounding shrugging off china's efforts to stem soaring commodity prices. china cannot do that much when it comes to copper. crude up 0.2%. $66.17 right now. the u.s. says americans should avoid traveling to japan with the tokyo olympics less than two months away. we will examine the impact next. keep it here. this is bloomberg. ♪is is bloomberg. ♪

haslinda: the u.s. is advising its citizens against traveling to japan. a fresh blow to a country struggling to convince its own public and the international community that it is ready for the tokyo olympics. our health care reporter, michelle cortez joins us. can an athlete safely compete in japan? and why is the state department warning americans from traveling to japan with the olympics less than two months away? >> we are hearing that the olympics did not have anything to do with this decision. u.s. has been warning people more about the risk of coronavirus in areas countries.

japan was not originally on the list. the country has done a good job of keeping coronavirus under control. that is why we are seeing that warning now. it is not specific to the olympics. it is alerting americans that there is a resurgence of the virus and japan. they are taking a risk going there. the question about whether athletes can compete safely -- if they have been vaccinated which is not required for the olympics though athletes are getting vaccinated which would protect them as well as keeping their distance and wearing a mask and making sure they stay with their circles. yvonne: what is the latest in terms of possibly not allowing spectators to the games?

has there been an update on that front? >> we are expecting a decision on that in the next couple of weeks. -- in the next couple of days. no foreign spectators. but people locally were expecting to be able to come. when you are competing, you want spectators there beyond the television cameras. the decision has not come given the fact that there are outbreaks occurring and they are not under control. it would be a hard decision to make at this moment. they could also push it off for a while. we are seeing vaccinations increase in japan and we expect that to get better. although still below 4%. and focused mainly on the elderly population. we will have to see how that turns out. yvonne: michelle cortez, our

health care reporter with the latest from japan and what is going on there with the olympics. let's focus more on india. bloomberg intelligence still sees a gradual economic recovery in 2022 despite the crippling covert crisis. let's get more from our analyst with the latest. first, tell us more of the differences. what is the impact of this wave? and how is it different from what we saw last year? >> there are a few things that are different from the last wave. what is better this time around is there is better operations continuity. they know better how to operate in lockdown conditions. they have streamlined conditions. and secondly, on the equity side, this may be treated as a known. but this time around, we expect

the demand slump to be bigger than the supply-side issue and potentially a deeper impact than last time because this particular wave is more widespread than last year and it is impacting smaller towns. production tends to be undermined. i think this will impact india. haslinda: talk to us about the sectors likely to be impacted the most. how will they get impacted? >> our team expects the usual suspects. they will feel this in the first quarter. we expect it to bump in the second half. we also flagged a few sectors

which are beyond domestic companies. for example, metals. india has a have her demand chair. sentiment -- also, australia and indonesian miners may suffer. yvonne: let's bring it back to your expertise which is asian financials. growth is an issue. an economic slowdown poses the biggest risk to banks because of loan defaults. >> that has been the key earnings driver for banks in the last two years. the latest financials recorded were very strong suggesting the larger private banks are quite prepared to defend their earnings from defaults.

restructured loans were under 2%. the banks have prepared. the defaults they faced last year were quite low. and lower than anticipated. this is positive for us. the collection efficiency is still at 95%, 96%. we expected retail to be harmed because of the covid surge. but only 3% or 4%. the banks seem quite well-positioned for now. haslinda: thank you so much. our reporter from bloomberg intelligence in singapore.

still to come, south korea's minister of oceans and fisheries says drones and artificial intelligence will be deployed to track illegal fishing including chinese trawlers. this is bloomberg. ♪

yvonne: chinese fishing is increasing security risk near south korea's tends nautical border. according to the minister of oceans and fisheries. he said korea would deploy advanced technology including drones to crack down on illegal trawling. >> illegal fishing as a matter that could risk the national pride of a country. all countries must take it seriously. if one gets designated as an illegal or unregulated fishing country, the fishing industry suffers from a tremendous pain as it would bring in export restrictions. if you follow short-term profits, you are bound to lose more in the end. i am aware of voices calling for a coalition to respond against chinese boats conducting illegal fishing. that i think it is ultimately china's problem. we may express our condemnation

and adopt policies but in the end, i believe china will have to do something about it. >> what exactly are you doing to reach your goal of common neutrality by 2050? >> we are trying to decarbonize our industries. our goal is to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. to elaborate further, we are trying to supply eco-friendly vessels such as low carbon lng vessels and we want to change the structure of our fishing industry to one with less carbon fueled by hydrogen and ammonia. haslinda: the south korean minister of oceans and fisheries. let's do a quick check of the headlines. shares tumble after the bytedance reported a decline in livestreaming. despite quarterly revenue

dropping, sales from its livestreaming business fell almost three times faster than the year earlier. sales and marketing expenses surged to roughly 69 percent of revenue while spending on r&d tripled. singapore's richest property family says the government may step in property curbs if home prices continue to rise. shares -- the president made the comment at an annual shareholders meeting. this is the first time a developer has weighed in on the issue. india's renault nissan is caught in a legal issue after workers on the factory floor threatened to stop. they are challenging and exemption granted to others from local lockdown rules. the company says it is taking all necessary precautions including reducing the number of

shifts and maintains they need to keep the factory running to meet export orders. chinese ev maker said there was a surge after their monthly output would double. it believes it can roll out 20,000 cars every month. nio said the monthly maximum would be 10,000 units. yvonne: take a look at monthly markets. chinese equity markets edging higher. csi 300 topping 200 for that benchmark. taiwan also continuing up more than 200 60 points. the hang seng is also up 1.2 percent. looking at commodities. given the mixed messaging from china, with the premier's comments talking about strengthening imports of commodities which is helping the asset class today. take a look at steel.

rebar is up zero pipe are present. aluminum is up 1.6%. palm oil is up 1.6%. bitcoin seeing a little pressure. we continue to check these markets. we will have morgan stanley's andrew stone joining us next. this is bloomberg. ♪

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