This is Bloomberg Markets middle east. Im yousef gamal eldin. What a week we have had off the back of the fed decision, and a dozen Central Banks around the world. Here is how the u. S. Equity session closed off. The s p index, dow jones, nasdaq. This is on optimism about the proposed u. S. Tax overhaul. Theres also a lot more volatility, 74 higher volumes than the daily average. Theres another event feeding into this, quadruple switching. It happens every quarter, futures and options on indices and individual shares. Then the bloomberg dollar index, a story of a stronger dollar, up. 4 , a major move, a fresh session highend the fifth day of gains. The u. S. Dollar gaining compared to all of its peers save for the kiwi dollar, which led weekly gains. Lets crossover in show you the other key Asset Classes, relatively. U. S. 10 year uninspiring. Gold, up. 3 . But look, the reality is you have traders dumping bullish bets at the fastest pace in five months. Do people care about the dollar . That is another conversation for later in the program. Brent crude, downside pressure. Data out from the bakers use index, working regs drilling for crude following this week, bringing the total to 747. Opec al arguably catching a break, dollarrand as we look ahead with the anc, that is showing quite a bit of movement. The rand story is important. I will highlight for you how important it was, moving as much as 2. 6 , highest in more than two months. Lets now check in on first word headlines from around the world. Heres deathly humphrey. Thei in south africa, Ruling African NationalCongress Vote for its next leader. The contest to succeed jacob zuma is a two horse race between the Deputy President and zumas exwife. He has called for senior members of eyeing for the top post to consider including opponents in the new leadership. The regulators that allowed Bitcoin Futures to happen is now warning, buyer beware. The u. S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a statement detailing the risk from curren currency virtue trading. At the launching last week, Bitcoin Futures were also trading later today. Times isork reporting that the Saudi Crown Prince mohammad bin salman was behind the purchase of the worlds most expensive home in 2014. It was sold to a mystery buyer for more than 300 million two years ago. The newspaper claims to have identified the person. Linkeddi prince was recently to 450 million in a da vinci painting. And the latest Star Wars Film is on track for the secondBiggest Box Office on record. Estimates are 1. 48 million, according to disney. That would make it just the second film the past 100 billion in a single day, behind its predecessor. Global news, 24 hours a day, powered by over 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Im deathly humphrey. This is bloomberg. Yousef thank you. President trump says the u. S. Economy is going to start to rock when the republican rewrite of the tax code comes out. The bill was posted on friday after gaining support from two key republican senators. Now there is a vote for the middle of next week. Trump is closing in on his first major legislative victory. The dollar climbed on the news, u. S. Equities hitting fresh highs, investors anticipate a trickledown effect it will have on businesses on the back of lower Corporate Tax rates. Lets get more context on the story. We are joined by the founder and chief economist for lighthouse research. Thank you both for being on the program. Lets start with you, on this big victory, arguably, the first big legislative win for donald trump. How much of a real impact is it going to have on assets across the board . Its actually very interesting. When he was elected, he saw a big rally in the neglected smaller caps and domestically oriented stocks, at the expense of the leaders, the usual big cap tech companies. Now we havent seen that. The market is really not expecting that much this because there is no talk at all anymore about the word infrastructure, that doesnt exist anymore. And the policy itself is not that stimulating either. If you look at the tax cut, the Corporate Tax cut, essentially, when you cut taxes from 35 to 20 on corporate revenues at a time when Interest Rates are historically low and people do not use low Interest Rates to invest other peoples money, why would they invest their own money . Yousef that is the key point. We just had a graphic up that showed key winners like autos, pharmaceuticals, asset managers. There are a few who stand to gain from these tax cuts quite explicitly. We put up on a chart quite explicitly whats going on with this administration. Thats the donald trump Approval Rating versus disapproval. Look how it has inched up ever so slightly. It toch of a surprise was you that he might be able to pull this through before the end of the year . A lot of people had written this off. It is his first legislative victory since taking office, the first one in a year, not a big surprise, and tax cuts are generally an easy sell within the u. S. Congress. That chart is quite surprising to me, that he has such a high disApproval Rating, because if you look at the labor market, that is quite tight at the moment, Consumer Confidence and Business Confidence is hitting decade highs. Obviously we know all the troubles with the twitter feed and the lack of legislative progress on other issues, but in terms of 2018, what impact is this tax cut going to have on our outlook . I agree, i dont think it will have much of an impact. Justin wilson wrote in a bloomberg column about the potential impact. He writes the current proposal would reduce revenue for the government by an average of 178 billion per year,. 9 of gdp over the next four years. 1 of gdp in 2021. Last week we had quite a few people on this show who were arguing that the tax cuts would be dollar negative. Offwe have a dollar rally the back of the tax cut proposals, and people will say it is dollar positive. If demand is not going to pick up that much, as i suspect, then it is not going to be tremendously dollar positive. I would suspect that the dollar, and right now there is quite some stability, the major Central Banks have their quads i normalizing monetary policy, i do not expect fiscal policy to have a major impact anymore on the dollar. Yousef where do you see the trajectory of the u. S. Dollar . It has had a really tough time, only recently wasnt able to pare losses. I wouldnt get too bogged down in shortterm moves. I think the broader picture, the main question we need to ask, is how is the said in 2018 going to respond to any possible tax cuts and stimulus. This isnt an economy that needs a whole lot of stimulus. We are getting a new fed governor, a lot of the regional president s will be rotating as well, a slightly more hawkish tone to the fed board of governors. Theres a lot of uncertainty. In one sense, i do by the opinion that these tax cuts can prove positive for the dollar. If that leads to a slightly pricing yousef thats the key point. How was the fed going to respond . You look at the commentary coming from the likes of the Federal Reserve bank of chicago president charles evans, he was one of the dissenters, and he is dissension came because he was not convinced with the low inflation expectations. How much of a theme will that be . How convinced are you that inflation is going to pick up . Well, i think theres a doubt getting into the fomc is quite meaningful. Dissidents,en two mrs. Yellen saying we do not understand the forces of inflation. Eurodollar,ok, the euro has appreciated enormously, but the real effect of Exchange Rate on the euro is still below average, which means that the euro can appreciate without dampening too much growth in the eurozone. At the same time, the fed is ig its doubts, and we do not expect this Major Movement that we have seen in 2017 in any direction, because that was due to the ecb catching up with normalization. Yousef we will get more into the other banks later on in the program. 4 , 5 , is that possible . Not a chance. [laughter] yousef you are sticking around. Heres whats coming up. We will talk about calls for unity. The South African amc prepares to vote for its new leader, and president summa is urging the party to pull together. Mike pence was due to visit the middle east this week, but his visit is set to be overshadowed by the Jerusalem Decision. It could bring a lot of movement of these trades. This is bloomberg. Yousef this is Bloomberg Markets middle east, im yousef gamal eldin. Here are how some of the equity markets closed up. A dramatic week for a lot of these indices on a five day basis. These are yeartodate numbers, actually. Qatar down 20 , but the key story to tell is we saw Significant Movement in qatari stocks, up over 2 on the back of the budget announcement that the impact from the gulf crisis is not as significant as suspected. Antiment was not boosted, and saudi budget decision later on in the week. Ingmar properties dragged down stocks. We will get more into the key themes, but lets check in on the latest business check headlines with deadly humphrey. Desley Hunter Harrison has died. Just days after taking a medical leave of absence for his firm csx, harrison, who had turned around three oil carriers in his five decade career, was hired in march. He was in the midst of attempting to overhaul the firm, which included layoffs and cost cuts. Csx plunged on friday on the news he had taken leave. Uber has been accused of spying, bribing, and hacking as part of alphabets lawsuit against it. It was written by an attorney representing a former security employee, who has since retracted some of the claims. The allegation range from spying on competitors, regulators, and taxi union members, to writing foreign officials and illegal wiretapping. Bob iger has told bloomberg that the move to why a chunk of 21st century fox will face a lot of regulatory scrutiny. The deal will need approval from u. S. Antitrust officials, as the acquisition would make it the number one studio, with more than one third of the market. It would also put Regional Sports networks under the same scrutiny as espn. We think this will get a lot of scrutiny from regulatory agencies worldwide and will take some time, but we think the proposition here is very proconsumer. Desley and that is your Bloomberg Business flash. Yousef . Yousef thank you. Lets talk about u. S. Vice president mike pence, who has a middle east tour coming up that has been pushed back, partly to keep him in washington in case his tiebreaking vote is needed to pass the tax legislation in the senate, but also because there is anger, major anger, over trumps decision to recognize jerusalem as israels capital. Some leaders even canceling their meetings with him. He arrives in cairo on tuesday. Lets get back to our guests for the program, from White House Research and abu dhabi commercial bank. Jeanpaul, lets start with you. Investigators are keeping a close eye on whats happening with this jerusalem story and the response from arab leaders, and that could escalate tensions. We have the other major story coming out that the saudis and are trying to carve a new pass. New path. Which one is more of a risk from where you were standing in terms of potential implications for a wider escalation . To the honest, i dont to be honest, i dont think the Jerusalem Decision is going to have much of an impact on the region. There are sporadic losses we have seen, a slight deterioration in relations between some of these governments and u. S. Interests, but that will not be anything lasting, definitely if those are the two options. The ongoing war in yemen is a lot more of a risk to the region, not just in terms of security, but with the increased military expenditure that has been in the budget for the past couple years. All of this just goes to show that 2017 really highlighted how Political Risk was making a resurgence in the gcc. Dont forget about the ongoing blockade of qatar. These are things investors have not traditionally looked at. We are aware of the phenomenon across the middle east, but not locally. Yousef a local group put out a report over the weekend, pointing out that yemen is the riskiest flashpoint at a time when flash points are at a critical level. That is something to watch out for. Luciano, in terms of investment flows, what do you recommend to clients, given what we have seen in geopolitical volatility, which are elevated and which have not been traditionally part of the consideration when people put money to work . Yeah. Id actually say that maybe the geoPolitical Risks are overstated. I think that investors are really looking at what is going to happen in saudi arabia. In saudi arabia, reform processes have started that are momentous, not only economically, but also the political reform process. The king in the crown prince are now at the point of no return. They have to continue pursuing this. I think investors will look very carefully at how those reforms go. I think that maybe what has derailed local equity markets more than the geopolitics have been the rumors a couple months ago that aramco might not have been floated on the National Exchange or might have been sold to a sovereign wealth fund. I think what people are really looking at is happening in saudi arabia. Remember, geoPolitical Risk in this region should come down when the oil price is at an historically not so high level. Yousef thats the theory, for sure. Wenpaul, in terms of talked about how this is going to affect investment flows. We have Big Investments tonight. Last week we have a mini stimulus package that makes a big difference for most traders. When are we going to hear are we going to hear more relaxation of the stringent austerity measures to kick growth back into gear . I think so. I think the budget is due to be released tomorrow, and this is the biggest event for the gcc. It will set the tone for 2018, and it is one of the reasons i am a bit more optimistic on this region then i have been, just because when it comes down to it, what drives activity in the nonoil parts of the economy is government spending. Its as simple as that. To the extent of loosening, i think it is unclear. That showst in q3 the fiscal stance is becoming a bit more accommodative. What i will be looking for in particular, rather than a breakdown of sectors in terms of health care and education, i want to see how much cash will be put into the hands of saudis. Thats over 50 of government spending, that is what matters and what drives consumption. Yousef we will take a quick break from this discussion, but you are both staying on the program. Heres whats coming up on Bloomberg Markets middle east. We are joined by curry moussa. We will break down their strategy in the key moves they are making. This is bloomberg. Yousef the ft hermas, one of the largest investment banks, are reviewing how they approach equity deals outside the middle east. Today they are announcing that vortex, one of the leading renewable platforms, has sold 45 of its stake to the second largest pension fund, worth 67. 5 million. Lets get more on this with karim moussa, head of private equity and Asset Management. Welcome. I want to get straight into the new thinking that is driving your latest moves. Whats next on your list . How much money do you have . Talk us through your ambitions. Let me correct you quickly, 67 million pounds. Much larger. Yousef absolutely, yes. Lets take a step back and explain what we have done with the vortex platform so far. Over the past few years we have invested 1. 3 billion euros in very specific Asset Classes in europe, renewable energy, wind and solar. We are chasing yielding assets in europe with regulatory environments. We invested today in portugal, spain, france, belgium, and the u. K. This specific deal will happen in january this year, applying 365 megawatts with our own balance sheets, underwriting 50 of the deal. Now we have syndicated that deal. Yousef how much more money do you have for deals and 2018 . Fresh year, fresh budget. The way we invested is different than the private equity market. We looked at the way vortex works, it is a platform. What we do is we keep 5 of the equity on our own balance sheet, and 95 handed out. The classic lined pool fund structure, where investors this is a platform that gives us access to investors, so they can decide what to invest in. If they want to sit on their board, they can do it. If they want to be passive, they can be passive. The plans to invest another 400 million in this space in the next year. We are also focusing on a few other things. Yousef are there any other exits on the cards . I take that as a yes. [laughter] nyes, maybe. Were planning on a few interesting strategic exits at the moment, but we will be looking. Yousef any priorities in terms of countries and industries . In vortex, we are focused on europe. One of the things we would like to continue doing is go out. Wed look at italy, or at the arabian markets. We are also looking at other markets selectively, australia, mexico, or brazil, etc. In our part of the world, and from a renewable space, jordan is interesting. We invested there in 2013. Obviously, a very fiber market. It has come into play again, and it is our home country. Yousef karim, good to see you. Thank you for coming on. The head of private he equity Asset Management for efg hermes. The race to choose the next leader of south africas ruling party. The race is on. We will have the latest, next. We will also get into some of the other trades. This is bloomberg. Yousef it is a 30 a. M. In dubai, just before midnight in new york, 90 minutes away from the market open. We spoke about the u. S. Dollar close and the progress being made with the taxcut program. Also looking ahead to a european open after a close that was lower after comments from the ecb and concerns about inflation. Lets check in on the first word headlines from around the world. Heres haslinda. Haslinda President Trump says the u. S. Economy is going to start to rock when the republican rewrite of the tax code is finished. They can passhope the bill after gaining three votes from key republicans who threatened to oppose it. Now with both planned by next week, trump is closing in on his first major legislative victory. Climbed on thet news and s p 500 hit a fresh alltime high. The regulator that allowed Bitcoin Futures to happen is now warning, buyer beware. The u. S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a statement on friday detailing the risks of Virtual Currency trading and urged investors to educate themselves before buying into an asset class that has surged more than 1700 this year. After launching on the Exchange Next Week last week, Bitcoin Futures will also begin trading on the cme later today. The New York Times is reporting that the Saudi Crown Prince was behind the purchase of the socalled worlds most expensive home in 2015. Louis xiv was sold to a mystery buyer three years ago. Now the newspaper claims to identify the person as bin salman. The saudi prince was linked recently to the 450 million purchase of a da vinci painting. The latest Star Wars Film is on track to post the second Biggest Box Office one day taking on record. Jedi werethe last estimated at 104. 8 Million Dollars on friday, the second film the past 100 million in a single day, behind its predecessor the force awakens. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Im does lee humphrey. Im does lee humphries. Back to you. Yousef lets talk about south africa and the ruling party. The anc is expected to announce its lacks its next leader later today. Ahead of the conference to pick the successor and possibly the next president , zuma called for unity. The former cabinet minister is also the president s exwife. The contest is expected to be a close one. Lets get back into the conversation with the founder and chief economist for lighthouse research. And the head of Investment Strategy at abu dhabi commercial bank. John paul, let me begin with you. We saw quite a few big moves with the South African rand. We will get to that in the second. I want to begin with the political story of a divided amc. We have rarely seen this scale of division. What are you expecting from the deliberations . Cant is the market going to get what it is betting for, which is a win for rama bosa . I think the market is betting ohsa becauser ramap jacob zumas next wife exwife is a lot less business friendly. I think if you dig into mr. s policies, they are not necessarily business friendly. He has a lot of support from calming a. This is the anc, after all, that we are talking about. Even though we have seen division, it is almost guaranteed they are going to be winning the next election even though the South African economy, we are looking at growth of under 2 for the entire year. Moodys is prepared to downgraded into junk category. Things are not going well with south africa. The economy is basically a classicrging emergingmarket story, when Commodity Prices are high that masks weakness on the policy front. I dont see that changing under either leadership. Yousef lets take a look at this chart, the oneweek relativity for the the oneweek volatility for the South African rand. It jumps to the highest in years. Is south africa going to be able to escape a downgrade early next year . Ramaphosaa bosa that really the solution to the economic and Business Sales . This solution would probably be to take the anc out of power. Ra i think itm is natural when a party has been in power for as long as it hasaphoa, it tends to lose sight with the need to undertake policies that can attract more foreign investment. This is probably good for south africa longterm if it does cause a few divisions and if it says the focus of policymakers on boosting growth and employment and not simply the tried and tested method that has been traditional and south africa cash handouts and Public Sector employment. That is not a solution. That is going to get them downgraded. Yousef one of the people who would disagree is south africas minister of human settlements, who is also on the ticket for this and see event. Lets take a quick listen to what she has to say. We can show the world that whoever wins, we have got our hearts set on making sure we deal with the economy. He has laid out a 10 point plan. We are running an economy where we are not creating jobs and it is not creating it is not growing at the rate we wanted to grow. Those are elements of the top of his mind. I suspect that immediately after the conference, we will be having a conference to understand from the various stakeholders, the private sector and other people, what they expect out of the new government. South africa is one of the big stories in the emerging market space. As you look at the story coming out of south africa and some of the other major developments from china, argentina, what should we be looking out for into the new week . What is on the top of your radar . Is it really south africa or is there a trade we are missing . For south africa, i agree with john paul. Itunately, it is a not is not a matter of too much cash handouts. There are lingering doubts they anuld go in a zimbabwe direction with property transfer of lands and minds, rather than too much cash handouts. I think emerging markets as a concept has become very difficult. It is not homogenous anymore. If you look at brazil and mexico, you can see that there are concrete electoral risks of populist, antiestablishment figures taking power. Then again, if you look at russia and indonesia, india, you see very reasonable macroeconomic fundamentals. Russia in particular, they cut rates and that was sort of a surprise, but it testifies to their Macro Economic strengths. They have Public Finance under control, a good trade surplus now. I think there are really good stories in the emerging market space. It is just you have really to discriminate and you will lose women it much more in 2018 than 2017. This ties back into being selective about emerging markets and a local story out of dubai. The person is asking on your take on the dubai fiscal year 2018 budget and how do you see a similar move in that capital and what kind of growth could it trigger, that expansionary budget announcement . By capital, you may not would be you mean abu dhabi . Abu dhabi needs to stimulate its economy much more than dubai. Dubai has growth rates in excess of 3 , tremendously benefiting from international growth. Is still maintaining a fiscal deficit of 5 . How much more stimulus can there be . That is already very stimulated. Deposits have gone up in the Banking System in the uae, so liquidity is there, too. I think what the region is really looking at is how the reform will progress over the next year in saudi arabia. In particular, how will they tackle the aramco i repeat myself how is that going to determine investments by foreigners enjoying ventures foreigners in joint ventures. I think of saudi arabia gives indication that it sticks in the right direction, i think the uae will just go with it. The uae is saudi arabia plus. It has a much better situation. It is dependent on what happens in saudi arabia. Yousef would you tend to agree with that . We are seeing a soft spot in property. Some of the investors im speaking to are quite anxious about whether the Property Market is as resilient as some people say. In terms of the broader Economic Growth picture, what is your top line . I agree with luciano that a rising tide lifts all boats. What happens in saudi arabia is crucial for the uae in general, dubai in particular. We get positive spillovers through trade channels and investment channels. In terms of dubais Residential Real Estate market, i dont see trends changing in 2018. I think this is an issue of supply. You have to look at population growth as well. People continue to forecast for the dubai population growth of 5 . Jo i think that is way too high. Hn if you are not having population growth to me that in the Residential Real Estate market, i think that will see prices coming down. It is not necessarily a uniformly negative picture in terms of its impact on the broader economy. Since homeownership rates are quite low in this country, i think a lot of people that work here are going to benefit from lower rents. It is going to act as a boost to their real wages next year. Yousef what about your top emerging market call . That remains india. We have stuck to india for quite some time and we still believe it is true, it might underperform a little in 2018 because of the Global Growth and it is a more insulated economy. That is why we also like russia. Yousef we will get into more of your key calls. They are sticking around. We are just getting warmed up. That is the exciting part of this program. We will talk about golf equities, underperforming. , willil prices picking up next year be substantially different . Will break it down for you. This is bloomberg. Yousef we talked about the rally we are seeing in u. S. Equities, fresh record highs in the friday close. How does this set the scene in terms of what we heard from the fed and ecb and other Central Banks, what we can expect going into 2018 . Interesting notes and comments from the chief u. S. Equity strategist mike wilson, who talks about what we can expect in terms of volatility. He goes on to say this is a direct quote that we are going to get more dispersion in earnings estimates and economic data, not quite secret has, and going to get not quite synchronous and get the fed tightening policy. A very clear statement from the folks at Morgan Stanley. Lets see what else we can expect from the rest of the world. Still with us, luciana land jeanpaul luciano and john paul. Jeanpaul, as you hear comments from Morgan Stanley and volatility, are we in for a rougher ride as we going to uncharted territory in 2018 with a lot of these macro and micro economic variables . I dont think the outlook for i think the outlook for 20 is positive and will filter through to a stronger outlook for the middle east and north africa. This region is benefiting from a sweet spot where we have Oil Prices Rising above 60, 65 a barrel. That is giving governments more confidence to undertake fiscal stimulus. We are also not seeing any aggressive tightening out of the u. S. Fed, so that is important for the gcc currencies because rates are rising across this region. That will have an impact on economies. This region is going to benefit from higher oil prices, fiscal stimulus, stronger Global Growth momentum, stronger global trade. 2018 is shaping up to be a much better year than the past. Yousef that sounds very positive. We put up a chart for our clients to get perspective on what has been going on with u. S. Equities. Weekly changes in u. S. Stocks. It tells the story of 2017, doesnt it . Luciano, in terms of global Asset Management, you told us you were bullish on india, quite positive on russia. What will be your key risks, the ones to avoid . Would the u. S. Be one of them . Look at those valuations. I think the description that paul gave of the Global Economy was positive. I would say was quite exhaustive, too. I would say continuing growth in the United States is a key ingredient. It makes sense and other developed markets it makes sense in this late phase of the market that european equities, Japanese Equities would do better, the reality is that if a correction comes, u. S. Equities even if they have higher valuations would correct less. There is no reason to think the u. S. Economy, blue chips in particular a very narrow market that the u. S. Equity markets are not going to do good. It seems to me impossible they are going to do bad if other equities globally do well. I am not so negative about the outlook in the u. S. I would say if there was one line i found the line that said it all, the positive line of the fed, is what they said was bullish but not hawkish. That is where sort of the , wherecks thing pops up you think if you dont believe too much in it as i just said, they have the lowest bet on a correction. You will still have more reduction than european equities. Yousef where does that leave us with the european story, john paul . We have the uncertainty with brexit, but we also have the ecbs comments over the weekend. We did see european equities lower in contrast to the global peers. Is the european story in terms of equities running out of speed . I think it is steady as she goes across the globe. For so many years recently, we have been talking about crisis risks in europe, whether italy, greece, or the u. K. The u. K. And brexit, i dont see that having much of an impact on the global picture or the outlook for the eurozone iler either, where confidence is still up in key markets. Germany, unemployment is trending lower. In the eurozone in 2018, not as good as the u. S. But still fairly solid. Yousef trade in europe for you, luciano . I know you feel strongly with some of those calls. If you like europe right now, you should be in the dax index. They are the most cyclically exposed. I would be out of the other industries where you have more banks and utilities. Yousef we will leave it there, thank you very much. Iano and john paul jeanpaul from lighthouse research. We will talk about bitcoin. Hims time to shine . We speak to the cofounder of that cryptocurrency next. This is bloomberg. Yousef bitcoin is gaining attention with its giant gains, but it is not the only cryptocurrency on a tear. Ethereum head an alltime high this week, the secondlargest Digital Currency behind bitcoin. Joseph lubin is the cofounder. He spoke to us. The knowledge of our world is very exciting. We are not enormous proponents of the bitcoin cryptocurrency. We are happy to see it succeed and breakthrough. The bitcoin application is just the first application on a blockchain. We at ethereum have built a decentralized application platform on a generalpurpose global world computer blockchain and we are excited about the many applications beyond bitcoin. How about in english . What is the difference between what you have and what you are arguing is more superior . Bitcoin is the first application built on the blockchain technology, which is a trustful infrastructure. The Bitcoin Blockchain was not capable of supporting fully expressive decentralized applications, so we built a blockchain system, ethereum, to be the foundation of a decentralized world wide web, where we will be able to have any application that a developer dreams of that is not hosted on single servers but just posted everywhere. Just for our clients who want to get a snapshot of the cryptocurrency world, you can check out this chart on the bloomberg. There are prices of bitcoin, ther, and the futures contract for bitcoin as well. If ethereum is a platform, a technology, sounds like an improvement of what bitcoin offered, talk about what solution it provides . Whether it is on the public chain or private implementation, any situation that requires a infrastructure, so if you are a consortium, if you are an accounting application we built 1 that can be used on the public blockchain by a charity to track all incoming and outgoing payments, so it is reputable, transparent. A lot of people like that idea. They adhere to that philosophy and we have seen a lot of these initial coin offerings. You have been vocal about icos being perhaps not kosher, kind of fraudulent. Why is that . I think that is a slight mischaracterization. Some token launches are excellent and represent highquality projects. We have been involved in doing some of those. We have issued tokenized security to find an independent film. We have issued tokens that we believe our utility tokens that would not be characterized by the fcc as securities. Those represent consumer access tokens. They represent tokens that can be used like an Amazon Web Service credit for using services on a platform. Can these two things exist Going Forward . Lets go forward five years, light years in technology. Can they exist together . The blockchain being built and the uses talked about right now and your platform, which you are saying has got far broader uses Going Forward . And the digital tokens in currencies, a piece of that, too. Can they exist . Can both bitcoin and ethereum exist . Bitcoin is one early application of the blockchain technology. It is being picked up right now as a 2. 0 value, so it has got an early feel to it. But ether can be a more programmable money. We can see that as a crypto fuel because it powers programs on the world computer. You are incredibly diplomatic, but you keep saying they are the early stage. What we normally see in technology is the early stage ones die out. Is that what you are saying . I am not saying that bitcoin is going to die, but it is very early stages for these technologies. We are going to see lots of different projects, pioneer lots of new pioneer lots of new techniques. The ethereum project has been agile and its cooperation of new techniques. We already have tremendous Network Effect and talent behind us, not just the Ethereum Foundation for Many Companies helping to build the technology. You just need more recognition, you are saying. They had first mover advantage by scale and scope. I would say ethereum is far in advance of bitcoin right now. If you look at it as an 30x them, ethereum has number of developers of the next blockchain system. When you are building an ecosystem, the only thing that matters is developers. Yousef interesting thoughts on the evolution of cryptocurrency. Speaking of evolution, we are keeping an eye out for the futures market. Jump into bloomberg with me on the future of bitcoin. C bell introduced Bitcoin Futures last week. That has caused the gap to narrow. The premium has declined from a high of 13 to just 2. 5 . With this cme around the corner, that could add to that pressure. I will show you some of the key trades as you prepare for your trading day. We have got this one reportedly exiting one of their investments in lebanon according to the daily star. Im looking at realtime insights. Is trading at an unusually high 42 discount compared to an average of 30 discount over the past two years. To the other thing to watch out for is out of saudi arabia. A new vicechairman. It is the secondlargest Telecom Carrier in saudi arabia. Some closing thoughts on this story out of saudi arabia, someone has resigned from the board for personal reasons without providing any further details. The saudi budget is going to be on the minds of traders. That is all we have for this edition of Bloomberg Markets. We will be live at the same time tomorrow. This is bloomberg. Jonathan from j. P. Morgans Asset Management trading floor, im jonathan ferro. With 30 minutes dedicated to fixed income, this is bloomberg real yield. Jonathan goldilocks dominating 2018 again. Central banks say yes, predicting highgrowth and low inflation. Tax negotiators hours away from a congressional compromise. An uneasy calm hangs over treasuries. And is this the year credit fails to match a massive rally in equity . We begin with the big issue, highgrowth and low inflation in 2018. Janet yellen real gdp growth is