The week began with the news that 11 princes had been arrested in saudi arabia for staging a sit in. The royal family members were protesting the governments decision to stop paying their electricity and water bills. Tracy alloway got reaction and more on the story. We dont know a lot of details about this. What we know from reports, as you said, they are protesting payment of utility bills. What clearly shows, it shows there is rising discontent within the ruling family after that crackdown. Obviously, there is grumbling. What happened is that, according to the reports, the king decided to take action, swift action. The report says they were sent to prison, not to the ritz. There was harsher treatment. The lack of details, the main thing it shows is that there is more discontent within the royal family. Are we going to see more of this . That is a question to follow. Tracy there is another story taking place in saudi arabia right now. The authorities saying they will spend billions to help their citizens offset the impact of that value added tax as well as rising fuel costs. More handouts for saudi citizens. It seems like whenever they try to instill a little bit of austerity, they start rolling it back. That is a Huge Development of whether you agree with these measures or not, obviously these measures are progrowth. They show also, they raise questions about the coherence of the policy. About the resolution to actually move ahead with needed but painful measures. This is not the first time we see saudi authorities rollback decisions. Last year, it it happened with the government salaries. We saw them switching the dates for the balancing of the budget. With the subsidies. Now, there will be questions over, are they going to follow through with these measures to change the composition of the economy and public finances . Tracy what does this say about the links between the saudi royal regime and handouts . And Government Support . If you look at the saudi press agency, they are reporting king salman said he reinstituted these handouts after Prince Mohammed came to him and explained to him that this was hurting some people. It seems like there remains these political linkages between government subsidies. It shows this social contract, the handout in exchange for political loyalty, is really difficult to change. They needed to come out with a reason to explain why this happened. Obviously, they knew. It is difficult to imagine they did not know that these decisions will have an impact on citizens. To reverse these decisions a few days after the introduction of that, to say, we will pay that for you. Ok, youre unhappy about the rising prices, we will give you 1000 riyals and month. 1000 riyals a month. These measures are for a year. Next year, we will go back to business as usual. As we have seen, there is a pattern. Who knows . Next year, if people protest, will they still go back to business as usual . Or will they say, we are going to give you more money for another year until you figure it out . Tracy one more question before i bring in our guest from the next couple of conversations, but how closely do you think saudi arabia was watching that social unrest we saw in iraq . Parts of which were caused by similar things, such as the fuel subsidies . I am sure they were watching them closely because of the political rivalry between the two. You see saudi media pay paying a lot of attention to what is happening and put the spotlight on what is happening. You could argue, i dont know, but you could argue that they saw lets not face the same situation. Obviously, protests in saudi are almost unheard of. We saw people online, grilling ministers on tv, which is a rare event. Tracy except by royal family members. Thats true. Tracy hold that thought. Lets bring in John Holcombe of the founder of white house research. We have this reinstitution of government subsidies in one form or another. Does this amount to fiscal stimulus for saudi arabia and would you expect to see an economic based off the back of this . It does in a sense, but as a as he said, it is offsetting the pact of the ata which is part of the austerity drive. The broader picture from the takeaway, the main story from what has happened over the past 48 hours, it is not the deterioration to the budget that will result. It is not to the marginal uptick in consumption that will result from the handouts. It is the fact that this is the this is a government that is cautious about implementing any measures that might be perceived as painful to saudi households. You asked him, are the saudis watching the protest in iran . They might be. The big mistake people make when looking at this region is they think because there are not competitive elections, that governments are not attuned to the impact of their policies have on saudi citizens. I think this one step forward, one step back policy that they have been doing for the past couple of years highlights how they are monitoring the situation. Tracy following the latest duo of headlines, on the one hand, you have the handouts coming back. On the other hand, members of the royal family getting arrested because of protesting. How are you viewing their commitment to reform when weighed against the social contract . Jeanpaul reform is a difficult topic when talking about saudi arabia. When we are looking ahead to the next five years, the reforms that will take place are going to be those that do not impact saudi consumers. The number one priority of the Saudi Administration is to take care of its citizens. The reforms that are taking place, they can result in further state handouts. But they can also result in the saudi state leaning on the private sector to take up some of the slack. We have seen a couple of Key Industries that have been targeted for employment by saudi nationals, such as health care, tourism, insurance sales. Companies in the private sector, in those sectors, will be forced to take on saudi nationals at the expense of their employees. That will raise the cost. I want to ask you a question. To what extent interestingly, after the royal decrees, there were officials coming up on twitter urging private Sector Companies to follow suit. And some companies were complying, basically with the cost of an allowance. Do you think this will affect the private sector . What is the magnitude, the impact, on Economic Growth we will see in 2018 because of this . Tracy does the private sector pick up the slack . Jeanpaul the fact they are leaning on the private sector to hand out cash to their employees highlights the broader reform picture of saudi arabia. This is not purely a technocratic administration whose number one goal is to boost productivity of a saudi economy. I do not see a lot of the reform measures that we have seen in the past 18 months necessarily leading to this uber productive saudi economy. The economy is fundamentally going to be restructured. Will it be restructured for the better and for longterm productivity . No, i dont think so. Looking ahead, if you want to assess the growth outlook, the only thing you need to be concerned about in saudi arabia is Government Spending. That is what drives Economic Growth in this region. That is what drives activity in the nonoil sector. We are seeing a coordinated fiscal stimulus. That is going to filter through to growth. Is it going to be back to levels we saw in 2011, 2012 . Probably not. It will probably be in the low single digits. 2017 marked the trough. Yousef up next on the best of Bloomberg Markets middle east, the rule changes they are bringing in as they look to spur Foreign Investment in the kingdom. This is bloomberg. Yousef welcome back to the best of Bloomberg Markets middle east. Lets return to saudi arabia in the nations market regulator, they announced the series of new rules aimed at making it easier for Foreign Investment in the kingdom. The chairman spoke exclusively to bloombergs mark barton. The changes in the regime that were just released today are actually the third version and the most significant change in the licensing regime for Foreign Investors. Our hope is that this new release makes the process of investing in saudi for Foreign Investors easier than it has ever been over the previous two versions, by making the qualification more and more an embedded part of the process, rather than a separate process that was long and may have been document heavy. Mark do you have a target for how many investors, how much inflows is expected . You have a date on what numbers you are expecting by that date . Mohammed the new regulations that have been issued today are going to be enforced two weeks from now. We have already started to see, because of the deregulation of many facets in the saudi capital markets, and increasing amount markets, an increasing amount of investor registration with the existing regime. One of the things we have seen is that more than 20 of qfii investors have been licensed in the last month to month and a half of all qfiis that have been licensed. We are looking for that pace of licensing to accelerate even further with the additional deregulation of the qfii regime. Mark ownership shares by foreigners is roughly low. Are you thinking of any further measures to boost that . Mohammed well, there still are a few projects being planned and launched soon by our colleagues in the exchange. One of them, which is the most notable improvement that many investors have been looking for is a change to the independent custody model, which helps a lot of International Investors deal with independent custodians, which has been a requirement for most International Investors. And the other significant change is a planned introduction of an omnibus model for investors who manage multiple accounts, to make the process of buying and selling securities a lot easier and more streamlined. Mark has the recent Corruption Purge hindered inflows at all . Mohammed so, after the original announcements were made, there was an initial period where there was a cooling off of foreign investor interest. After it stabilized and after news from the local policymakers came out with respect to the progress that was being made, we started to see a stabilization and a reversal in terms of additional inflows starting to come back into the country. I think that has continued the continued in the most recent period. Mark i must ask you about aramco. The government changed that status of aramco, essentially that signal will press ahead with of the ipo. Do you intend to amend rule to fit the offering in any way . Mohammed so, we have been using the opportunity of the listing of saudi aramco as well as a significant privatization plans of the saudi government as a litmus test for the saudi regulations in terms of their readiness and capability. What we have found is that, in almost all cases, our regulations have passed with flying colors. There were a few opportunities for improvement, which we actually just rereleased recently, like a rerelease of modified and amended offering of security regulations. With that, we believe our regulations are fully enforced to accept and accommodate and offering a listing as large as saudi aramco. Mark is there anything else you can do to speed up the process . Mohammed i think, from our standpoint, we are fully ready. Generally, as is the case in most privatizations and most floatation, the filing of an ipo perspective with a regulator is usually the last step in the process. We have been in constant discussions with our colleagues in saudi aramco, as well as their Financial Advisors to clarify questions they have. And we are awaiting a prospectus to be filed soon. Mark how soon do you think that prospectus will be filed . Mohammed i think that is a question that is better responded to by the company and its Financial Advisors. Yousef that was the Saudi Capital Market Authority chairman speaking to bloombergs mark barton. Up next, oil hits a threeyear high as u. S. Stockpiles plunge. Why is iran worried about prices going up . That is next. This is bloomberg. Yousef oil hits a more than three year high this week as u. S. Industry data signaled crude stockpiles plunged by 11. 2 Million Barrels last week. The eighth straight week of declines. Irans oil minister warned opec was risking overheating the market, as prices above 60 a barrel would help to rival the shale industry. I asked whether it was strange that an opec country was now complaining about prices getting too high. I am not sure why the Iranian Oil Minister is making such a statement now, but i am sure opec would be comfortable with us having that oil price. We have said before in the show that the risk was more to the upside, which i think is the case now. Where it goes from here, i always try to refrain from predicting oil prices, but i think more or less, if i look at my markets, that is healthy for the markets. Yousef the chief Economist Says we will see 55 to 65 an oil barrel in 2018. E put up a chart in terms of the rebalancing of those stockpiles, which has been the aim, very close to the fiveyear average for nonus crude inventories. Are we going to see opec come in 2018, or are they going to recalibrate to try and prevent oil from going too high . Ahmed they will try to prevent it going too high. At the same time, balance it and keep it where it is now. The level between 65 and 70 is actually not a bad level. It is a good level for these governments and these countries. Yousef in terms of how Higher Oil Price feeds into what you are telling clients, we talked about saudi arabia. Lets start off with egypt. How does that fit into europe for 2018 . Ahmed the effect will not be huge. The reform story in egypt will undermine the effect from oil price. You can argue that Commodity Prices will go up. That will affect the egyptian budget. I dont think it will. Egypt remains the reform story, that is quite cheap compared to other markets. You can see it in the performance of the market. One other important thing happening in gb happening in egypt is they are coming back to the market and looking at age up that is what you see banks like an International Bank doing well. You also have a lot of ipo pipelines. It is quite big. You have a lot of listings. You still have way more to come this year. You are adding depth to the market. It is getting more interesting for clients. Yousef some of the other highlights in the markets as we speak, we have Dubai Exchange allowing the regulated shorts selling stocks. A thin market. How important is that business for the domestic story in the uae . Now you can actually say, i am going to go short on x or y. Ahmed the regulation is an important development. The regulation allowing it is an important development. It is something we have been asking for for a long time. We havent seen these markets, like in this region, dealing with short selling before. Dealing with regulated shortselling. It is a big question mark for me. I would like to see more. Yousef other highlights, we spoke about qatar. How do you position yourself there . Is it a positioning around a market that is oversold, or is it positioning around a possible resolution of the gulf crisis . Ahmed i will always say i have no idea about the resolution of the gulf crisis, because i do not see anything that has changed for it to be resolved. On the asset prices, they are cheap in qatar. It is looking attractive. When it goes to a foreign investor and you try to push qatar, the Political Risk outweighs the cheap asset prices. We are in a stance of staying away from the market, but definitely asset prices are cheaper. That is why we have seen investors taking up stocks recently. Yousef as an investor about the rising bond yields. Lets assume mr. Gross is correct with his outlook, that this is the beginning of a bear market and bonds. How is this going to hit some of the countries and is part of the world . Does it change anything for you . You are more of an equities person. Ahmed i dont think that changes much. If we are talking about a collapse in the s p 500, we are talking about the equity market, i will tell you to follow Global Markets at the end of the day. No, im not concerned. Yousef and how that would impact the dollar strengthening or weakening substantially . Ahmed i dont think it is a huge issue. The moves in the dollar are never going to be significant enough to affect these markets negatively. Yousef closing thoughts on one top trade in mina right now that i can make of returns on . Ahmed i will give you the saudi consumers. Yousef any specific companies . You are not worried about what is happening with . Ahmed we have seen it happen with other companies as well. The stock recovered from the negative news. You always have noise. I have to look at the fundamentals away from all of this. Yousef up next on best of Bloomberg Markets middle east, are gulf states about to go on a debt raising spree . Bank of America Merrill lynch thinks so. We discuss their latest report next. This is bloomberg. Yousef welcome back to the best of Bloomberg Markets middle east. Gulf states can embark on a debt raising spree in 2018 worth up to 50 billion. That is according to a bank of America Merrill lynch report that came out this week which forecasted saudi arabia taking the lion share of issuances. I got more with our middle east finance reporter matthew martin. We had a massive amount of issuance coming out of sovereigns last year. This year, it looks like we will be seeing that again. Talking about 20 billion out of the saudi, 8. 5 from oman, another 10 billion from qatar. If you think about the likes of abu dhabi coming out, maybe seeing kuwait, that is going to be a very busy timeline for this very busy pipeline for this year. It looks like it will be another bumpy year for fixed income in the middle east. Yousef you talk about how bonds have perform. There is a lot of demand for middle east and gcc paper. In terms of who is going to come to markets first, because ultimately the fed is raising rates. Environments might not be as conducive. Who is going to jump the gun . Matthew the roadshow has started. Them on will be the first one out of the track. Following that, we have already reported qatar is close to making decisions around issuance. We should see the qataris coming soon. Saudi arabia, they also have a big budget deficit. Needs to be filled, so we should see the saudis come quickly. As we say, abu dhabi is it is a likely contender. It is going to keep things busy. Yousef we talked about the sovereign space. There is also quite a bit of demand in terms of corporate paper. How is that likely to fare . Based on the conversations you have had . You spent a lot of time on the story. How is that likely to fare . Matthew last year, i think corporate issuance probably disappointed a lot of people. We had around 25 billion worth. Sorry, 35 billion worth coming out of the corporates and banks. It was very much the sovereign story last year. This year, i think we will probably see the corporate will be more pressured now to come out. The banks are not lending the way they used to. Rates are low. That gives a conducive environment for corporates to come out. We will see a lot more corporate paper issued this year. Banks need to diversify their source of funding. They will want to capitalize on low rates while they can. It is the same story for the corporate sector. Yousef what is the biggest risk that the fixed income space faces in 2018 . With the feedback you have been getting and investors. Matthew they need to get out before we see more fed Interest Rates start to come up. Also, the other big thing to be watching in this region is the geopolitical yousef exactly. The landscape has shifted. Matthew exactly. There is a lot of risk. We have the qatar situation going on. We have weak sovereigns in the shape of the rain and oman. They have a lot of debt rented. If you look at them on deficit, if you look oman deficit, the qatar deficit, another 8 billion, the saudi deficit, it is this huge amount of money needs to be printed. All of these transfers going around the gcc with saudis sending money to oman, there is a big geoPolitical Risk. Yousef excellent work. Great having you on the program. Matthew martin, our bloomberg middle east finance reporter. Lets widen out the conversation. Nabil, as you listen to some of the ideas for 2018 and fixed income, as much as we talk about possible surprised and upset surprise, could we see a possible downside surprise when it comes to sovereign bonds at this point of the world . Matthew pointed out to key risks. Ongoing tensions with iran. A lot has happened since the issue bonanza of 2017. Nabil of course. There is loss there is lots of fiscal income to the bond market. Raising Interest Rates, increasing geopolitical tensions. I think if oil prices pickup, people will use down. Yousef if oil is high, we forget about everything else. Nabil you have more money to spend and can cover up for a long period of time. The problem with the region is we have a problem in every single thing. We have a problem with oil, strong dollar, we have a problem with Interest Rates, we have a problem with the geopolitical situation and now the iran situation made it even more difficult. Yousef given how bullish you were on saudi equities, now you are sounding bearish on the regional macro picture from a trading standpoint. Nabil no. What i would say is you have good stock picks or you can go across the markets or by the index. This is a time where you have to look at every Single Company on its own and is it effective. Yousef are the sovereigns going to be able to get the kind of yields they got in 2017 . Nabil i think they are going to have to pay more this year, because everybody is anticipating three increases from the fed. We will probably go on the same route. There will be more pressure. The servicing of that will keep even going forward. I assume, the current bondholders that pay lower coupons will take a hit unless they wait for maturity. Yousef where does that leave us with crude oil . We have additional gains. Bloombergs julian lee writes, anybody expecting the opec, nonopec deal to fall apart says you are likely to be wrong. They have their act together, is the point he makes. Where do you see oil going in 2018, and what is the key upside or Downside Risk . Has the rally gun too far . We are in territory. Who would have made those calls four weeks ago, eight weeks ago . Nabil many were expecting oil to stablize in the range of 60s. The most important thing for oil is to stabilize somewhere, to forecast the regional budgets. If it keeps going volatile up and down, you will have a problem with a deficit. It will affect the bond market. If oil stabilizes, which i think it will stabilize, whatever opec and nonopec do is one thing. It is a supply and demand. If you cut the supplies, you are selling less. Its not like you are making more money, you are making your product more valuable. You were not caching it in. Preparing ctive should i be preparing for escalation of tensions between iran and saudi arabia. Nabil most likely. I think it started with iran. I dont think they are handling it the way they should handle it. Yousef how could that set off a repositioning of Asset Classes . Is that priced into middle eastern equities . Is that priced into oil . Is that creeping back into the trade . Nabil lets look back at egypt when this happened. It happened in 2010. 2011, sorry. The revolution. We have two or three great years after that in the region. Iran could put us back for a few months or a year, and it will create more interest. Then they will have a few good years after that. The region has been a war zone since god knows when. This is not something new. Go back to the gulf war down to , syria, egypt, yemen, it looks like iran is going to be another turbulent issue in the region. Yousef coming up on best of Bloomberg Markets middle east, as saudi aramco prepares for its ipo, we asked whether it is being touted for its evaluations are realistic . This is bloomberg. Yousef welcome back to the best of Bloomberg Markets middle east. Lets return to the story out of saudi arabia where bloomberg was told the state owned Oil Giant Aramco was set to appoint banks to help manage its ipo. Some of the lenders are tentatively valuing the company at between 1 trillion and 1. 5 trillion. I asked whether those estimates were realistic. I think those are the estimates that the oil price at the moment is helping boost of those estimates, give confidence that the aramco deal is making progress and is likely to go ahead sometime this year. Whether it is 2018 or 2019 remains to be seen. The details are being fleshed out. Yousef the rally we saw in oil, those kinds of numbers dont seem as outlandish as they were if we take a look at where oil was six months ago. Some of the other mechanics of the saudi aramco ipo, which could be the biggest ipo in recent history, there are questions that remain around where they will list. How do you see this playing out . Obviously, it is difficult to tell at this point. Will it be a list be a local listing, listing in new york, london, what is your impression . Tim i think the attempts to encourage in cities and conjecture about local and even maybe in asia as well. I think there is a lot to be decided. I think clarity about that is one of the big issues. We dont really have a firm handle on where it will be listed at this stage. Yousef it is a lot to digest. There have been more reforms in saudi arabia than probably recent history combined. The latest one being women allowed to go and watch football matches, we have had women being allowed to drive in the summer of 2018. That is the expected date. You have got ongoing reforms domestically in terms of the capital markets, the latest budget announcement. Tie it together for us. How does that make you feel about the saudi story in 2018 . There are some saying that saudis are doing a uturn on their fiscal commitments. Tim i think the fiscal position is different. Fiscal reform is slowing down a little bit. As revenues are being boosted by the oil price. The budget deficit is looking likely to fall in 2018 from 2017. The fiscal position looks in better shape because of oil prices. That is allowing the government to loosen the reins and expend and increase spending. That means the focus may be less on the fiscal side and more on the structural reforms. The kind of things he mentioned in terms of some of a cultural issues, social issues, and also maybe looking at productivity. And also revenue in relation to what we talked about aramco and privatization. Yousef the other story you have been excited about is coming out of egypt. We have a new president ial election timeline that will be held in march. Some of the prospective candidates, one of them pulled out. You take a look at where egypt in government bonds are trading. We put this on our charts, g btv 5052. Egyptian debts yielding north of 16 . You compare that to nigeria, how sustainable are those kind of yields for the egyptian story . Tim i think it is a good story at the start of the year where you have growth picking up, finally, after a few years of difficulty. We have that in terms of actual gdp numbers, also tmi data, the inflation picture starting to turn around. The central bank has been cautious about Interest Rates, passing on the possibility of lowering rates in december. I think we are looking for a cut in rates in the first quarter. Perhaps slower than what the markets have been hoping for. Over time, i think some of these yields look attractive. The inflows into egypt will perhaps start to have an impact. Yousef we have spoken a lot about saudi arabia. Where are the other pockets of opportunity in the region . I asked the head of equities at a bank. We see a Good Opportunity in kuwait. That is a market we like. We have an overweight exposure to kuwait. There are a number of things that are panning out for kuwait. It will likely be over two stages. Beginning this year already. The large caps moving higher as investors position themselves for the trade. We also see Government Spending coming through nicely in kuwait, retail purchasing power remains high. Actually, the liquidity Banking Sector remains one of the most over provisioned, if not the most over provisioned Banking Sector within the gcc. Widening out to qatar, i think qatar has been the worst performing market in the gcc for 2017. That is on the back of this. There is a price to everything. At some point, the dividend yields will look more attractive. Yousef that is what we saw a rally in this week. Ali exactly. We are beginning to see that. My problem with qatar is visibility. Although optically it looks cheap now, are they going to get cheaper from here . Are they going to get pricier from here . How is the Business Model evolving . Yousef whether that will lead to the opec nonopec members. There is more incentive to do that. Here at the region, it will also possibly slow down what was before a strong incentive to reform which was a lower oil , price. With oil back to 70 and more gains to come, could this be a Downside Risk for the gcc . Ali i disagree. I think it is more like, lets take advantage of this window. I think there is a understanding that oil prices will not stay high for too long. Or the era of 120 a barrel are gone. Is this the new equilibrium level, that is yet to be tested. What it does immediately is improve investor sentiment. It puts a lot of our fiscal from a fiscal point of view, gc governments in extremely good health, or that it reduces their deficits in a big way. Which puts them in a relatively good place, allows them to raise more debt, perhaps expedite some of the expenditure that would otherwise would have taken longer for it to come. Again, to push those reforms. People are becoming wiser at where the money is being spent. The reforms that have been announced, they want to see progress. A lot of the governments here, this is the chance for them to make it. Yousef up next, dubai is famous for its high property prices. Are they set for a fall in 2018 . We hear from the real estate specialists who think they are. This is bloomberg. Yousef Dubai Residential property prices and rents are set to fall in 2018 as losses of high paying jobs and dwindling Household Incomes boost vacancies across the city. That is according to a firm specializing in real estate in the region. Tracy alloway got more with a managing director. Tracy the first thing to the first thing to understand is what actually happened over the last year. That will impact what happens over the next year. What happened in 2017, or at least the first nine months of the year is that it was stable in the back of the expectation that there was going to be a recovery in this year. It was never our view that that was going to happen. But that expectation kept prices stable when they actually needed to come down more. We have seen that in the last quarter of the year restart and prices dipped about almost 3 , 2. 8 in the last quarter of the year for apartments. What we need to see is that continue through 2018. We see prices continuing to soft and in the next year. Tracy what about the office space . Are you seeing pressures there . Jesse certainly. It is a slightly bifurcated story. For the 1 of the supply that is international a grade single owner assets, it is stable. It has been relatively stable over the last year. Tracy so no Big Companies looking to retreat just yet . Jesse not really. It is more about the absorption of the overhang of the stratus supply that has existed since 2008. Tracy i thought it was interesting going through your 2017 report, you said retail will be the hardest hit sector in the coming five to 10 years. Explain your thinking there. Jesse one of the common things we hear in the market is at the is that the Retail Supply expansion is justified through tourist numbers. There is some truth to that. When you actually look at the detailed supply figures, the story becomes a little extreme. Right now, our 20172018 will be the year of an Inflection Point where we move from equilibrium to disequilibrium. It is about the supply expansion. It is far too ambitious over the next 10 years, with very large scale projects announced but not yet launched. Depending on how many get realized, most likely 20 vacancies by 2025, but even up to 70 at some of these massive projects go forward. Tracy there are a few megaprojects going around. How much does vat hit the Retail Sector . Jesse it will hit all sectors, essentially. It will hit the Retail Sector and it has been hard hit over the last year, as retailers are struggling with revenues. Tracy it is interesting, this reliance on the strength of tourism that you mentioned. How big an input does that into input is that into the uae economy . Do you see the uae attempting to reduce their reliance on that . Jesse no, i think they are doubling down on that. To some extent, there is wisdom in that. Dubai was built as a city to which we move people and things. Everyone seems to want to do it now. Tracy we have saudi arabia building. Can everyone be a dubai . Jesse no. There is only one, in my opinion. Its a global hub. Im accused of being negative and a bit of a skeptic, but i think it plays a special role, but also as a front door to africa. Yousef thats it for this best of Bloomberg Markets middle east. We have a busy week ahead in the region. We will be right here for the start of the trading week in the gulf. That is sunday morning at 8 00 a. M. Im yousef gamal eldin. Do join me then. This is bloomberg. Jonathan from new york city, to our viewers worldwide, im jonathan ferro. With 30 minutes dedicated to fixed income, this is real yield. Jonathan coming up, core inflation accelerates, twoyear treasuries jump 2 for the First Time Since 2008. Some of the worlds most wellknown investors say this might be it. The bull market in bonds is over. Credit investors are not showing any nerves. Junk bonds with the largest inflows in over a year. We begin with a big issue, a shakeup in the global bond market. This will be a jagged period, the first quarter