On infrastructure . Is it a different day tomorrow because of what happened tonight . No. And that they bloomberg do a story was morning there are so many problems they have to solve. Taking on infrastructure is just not going to happen in this congress. A really angry Democratic Party sitting on their hands even for policies they agree with will make for a very difficult to know more three weeks. How can they sit on their hands when the streamers are going to get deported by what . March five . Dancere is this little going on, democrats do not want to sign on to trump plus immigration plan, they will not set on 20, and they have to figure out how who is going to get blamed for it. At the human level, i think it is disgraceful. The first thing congress should do is put partisanship aside and not make the dreamer legislation some kind of Immigration Reform. They should take care of these kids that have not done anything wrong. Some people say a narrow bill. You hear both democrats and republicans say lets take care of the streamers and take care of the broader Immigration Reform later down the road. Is that reasonable . I think it is still entirely possible the deadline gets extended past march and there is a legal question how to do it. If congress decides that rather than the president doing it by executive order could be the way that happens. This fight is going to get fought. Im not sure it will get resolved by march 5. For the president and republicans in congress, it may not behoove them to keep that date. The problem is this is screwing on the screwing up. Egotiations on caps i dont think democrats want to close down the government. The question is can we park immigration, maybe agree to disagree to have it later i do not know if they will get the permanent solution you cannot get a permanent solution without really bold security measures, without alienating the Republican Base. The Republican Base does not want to give citizenship or make a permanent solution to dreamers, but steve is right we need to do something about the dreamers. Byt president obama did walking with from negotiations that thought was equally disgraceful because he kept it in a state of permanent unease never quite sure when the law is going to in. We need to do with this but we also need to deal with a spending bill which is really jeopardizing our national security. Can thetion is democrats get off their hands and find a way to negotiate . I dont know if they can because i think they are afraid of their own Political Base that despises President Trump so much. Lets go back to, as marty said earlier, the bloomberg audience. Want to bring in our colleague who reports on the economy. Do a little fact checking. How accurate was with the president had his sights with the beginning of the speech about how great the economy was going, how great the job market was, how great the stock market is . Its really hard for him not to talk about the rosy economy. It has been an incredible run. One of the things we noted, and he was really close in a lot of his data. For example, he said unemployment is at a 45year low. He was close. Jobless claims did hit close to a 45year low in the second week of january. Unfortunately, this was didnt was incredibly volatile because of the holiday period, so there was that caveat. As well, when you look at the unemployment rate, this is the lowest in 17 years, but one thing he took credit for that he talked about was wage growth. If you talk to any economist this, they will tell you is the black box, why wages are not increasing in line with where jobs are. Any economist will tell you if you call them up even today probably that we are not seeing that rate creeping up, that 2. 2 in the current expansion is just not up to speed. One other aspect i am wondering about his job participation. When the president came in, he said he would judge himself on the labor market was job participation. Have they really made substantial progress with respect to that . Is hard to say if their policies have made any impact right now in the data. You mentioned things he talked about in his speech, the tax plan creating wages, wage growth and creating jobs. This is not something we have seen yet. In terms of participation rates, you talk to factories and manufacturers i talked to a factory owner last week who said he is actually struggling to has workers because there been so much hiring a because the pool of workers is shrinking so much. There are a lot of people right now who are hiring, and a smaller pool of people to choose from. Thats probably why he brought it up. It is a check mark, right . Thank you for that. We will get some final thoughts from our panel right here, and i will probably go to you first, john, as our republican. This is really your night. The president speaking, success . All that he that you hoped it would be . I thought the president gave a great speech, hit all the murky had a hit. I wish it was a little bit shorter. I do think he hit all the high marks, and the best thing about it was it put the democrats on the defensive, made them look like sourpuss is sourpusses when they sit on their hands. Where the biggest things you see in polymers, people want government to work. If democrats are going to be some nakedly partisan, it is going to hurt them. The president did not look to me, at least, score any own goals. He did not damage himself. 6 00 usually does that is in the morning when he starts tweeting. But he did not tonight. If you are a democrat, this is not a win necessarily. He did look president ial. He made some points. I was reminded a little bit watching democrats tonight of republicans with obama would give a state of the union because you saw the same polarization. There is poison in this town right now and you can see it in the response of democrats. I am not condoning it, but it is clearly present. I think the president did as well as he could. He had a pretty good speech, and a lot of great stories. Things that were difficult for democrats and everybody in america not to apply because out, these were heroic stories that these people were the victims of. They were hero it stories, and that was a great thing for him. On the policy stuff, it was a speech aimed right at his base and not at reaching across the aisle, and i dont think he did anything to win any democrats over, and hes not any closer to 60 votes in the senate on anything. In terms of moving forward legislatively or in terms of policy, i did not see it. The president said he really wanted to try to go more bipartisan. Do you think he achieved that tonight . I think he achieved it tonight for an hour and 17 minutes. If you are john kelly, if you are the president paschi locations team, you think if he just went out there and did that every day, they would be in an entirely different game and would be much more appealing to the center of america, but as we talked about earlier, he often ends up being his own worst enemy because it becomes personal. It becomes about defending himself and belittling his rivals. The longer he can keep a performance like tonight in play in the public eye, the more successful a year he can have, but it is still a difficult midterm year. Polling is against him, democrats are committed to fighting and he has already lost a lot of americans. As steve says, lets wait until 6 00 tomorrow morning and wait for the tweet, right . You have watched quite a few have i. The unions, as go to the question about the poison in the town. I was just going to mention that. Usually, in my youth and my news career, the state of the union is a moment of historic bipartisanship where both aisles are rising on the themes that unite america and the site of democrats not standing for this person, not shaking his hand is disturbing. I think that in the American Public is what really disheartened them about government, that they cannot get together and actually get things done. Sounds exactly right. Thank you so much to our panel. Very special panel. This has been live coverage of President Trump cause first state of the Union Address on bloomberg tv and radio. From washington, im david westin and this is bloomberg. Top story President Trump has delivered his first state of the Union Address, largely dispensing with his bidemark antagonism in a for bipartisanship. He portrayed his administration is looking to build a safe, strong, proud america. This in fact is our new american moment. There has never been a better time to start living the american dream. To every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you been or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in america, then you can dream anything. You can be anything, and together, we can achieve absolutely anything. Are some key moves across asset classes. Let me run you through what caught my attention in the last two hours as that speech got under way. An asian equity session that was off to a thursday of losses and we are now seeing a stronger rebound. Wti still under pressure. You see Industry Data showing u. S. Crude stockpiles expended for the First Time Since november. The bloomberg dollar index has been weakening. Currently down. 1 . U. S. Equity futures on the other currentlyng higher,. 3 higher. Lets get more on the story with alex cap a, visiting senior fellow. Thanks for coming on the show. Is this a reaction to a more conciliatory donald trump . I think he was more conciliatory in town. He did check all the boxes for his base in terms of immigration, the economy, tax reform, etc. , but i think the overall environment in remains sojust bitterly divided. You can see that from just the reactions from the democrats in the chambers, sitting on their hands, did not shake remains hid when he came in, so it really is still, i think, overall the environment is not very good in washington. Would you say were some of the more controversial points he made, especially when it comes to trade and Foreign Policy . Lets be honest, a lot of them were holding their breath, worried there would be more protectionism, more of this america first, but we did not get as much as some would have feared. There was not so much of that, but he did make very fair andference to reciprocal trade, and he specifically mentions intellectual property, and that is clearly directed at the chinese, so, you know, he did talk about pursuing bilaterals. He did not mention specifically by name, but, yeah, there was nothing really inflammatory. There were no bombshells he dropped, but he stayed on message pretty much. Just looking at the transcript of the speech, infrastructure, of course, one of the more potent themes of that conversation. Give us more context as to how likely it is we will see progress being made on that. We heard a big announcement on Infrastructure Projects when he. Ame into office initially with the kind of tension you just pointed out that exists in congress and across the isle, is there any chance any of this will get done this year or even next . You know, thats a very interesting question. He did mention the Infrastructure Projects would be a combination of state and local as well as federal money. He emphasized there would be private businesses also heavily involved, and that brings with it a great deal of controversy, you guessed it, right along party lines. Democrats are more suspicious of more private investment and involvement, you know, with big business locally as opposed to getting funding directly from the feds. I think it is a positive environment overall for the economy. Everything he touched on you talked about tax reform, that was good. He talked about low unemployment. Despite the political division, the markets are going gangbusters. Again, its very difficult to predict anything with this administration, and i think the going to bere is different state by municipality. There are a few things he did not mention, and im looking at points along the lines of the ongoing special investigation possible collusion with russia, the issue of the national debt, how he will pay for a lot of these projects. Weston out to you in terms of the missing link in what was otherwise a quite diversified speech . Covered justd, he about everything. If there was a missing link, he did not say much about russia. He did name them, interestingly enough, as an adversary, potential adversary along with the chinese, but in terms of discussing further sanctions, in terms of discussing national security, when it comes to intervention in our political not mention that. He did mention afghanistan briefly. Afghanistan is our nations longest running war in history, and things are not going particularly well there right now. We are seeing flareups of violence. The government in afghanistan is not managing the situation well. Did not go there in that speech. Again, coming back to the original point of this partisanship in washington, thats not going anywhere. That is going to remain a reality for everything. Going forward. And looking at some realtime andistics on the speech, trump, again, projecting a much more selfless tone. He used the word weed more than 100 times and only said the about 13 times that he the 100 word we or times. What could be a tailwind as you look at all this . It could be longterm issues around the budget deficit. You know, there clearly is a disconnect. We could be having a sugar high right now in the markets with, as i mentioned, the tax reform and the promises of. Nfrastructure longerterm, and there are budget hawks in the Republican Party that feel this way, that the budget deficit could come back to bite the government further down the road. Thanks for coming on the program. Live on the situation with the donald trump speech. Lets get you up to speed as well briefly with some of the mark would equity action. We had reaction from to bypass biggest bank in talks to acquire a whollyowned circus unit. We did see some positive patches. We have at the conversation coming on later in the program as well with one of the heavyweights, and also qatar, so quite a bit of downside with commercial bank, one of the few standouts. It has been a mixed picture for asian equities this wednesday, following another selloff in the united states. It has been a bit of a rebound in the last couple of hours. This is the handoff. Suffered its biggest twothis license september 2016. The Dow Jones Industrial average tumbled more than 360 points. Investors are taking maybe a little bit of profit here as the month draws to a close, or are they . Sfter one of the best january on record. . At is your sense is this part of a wider correction . Those calling for a higher vix, now it is starting to kick in, isnt it . Absolutely. I think there is a little bit of cash being taken off the table. As you said, it has been an incredible january. There are a lot of risks this week. When just past there, the state of the union without any drama at all. We have the fed coming up, labor poured out of the u. S. , and i have been many things happening, so after a great january, it makes sense to take some money off the table. The Broader Technology Sector globally, it is the single biggest component of the s p 500, so troubles are a little bit worrying for the sentiment there. On the other hand, this is just a correction in a very strong fundamental rally for global stocks. The three pillars remain very strong. Growth is very good. Earnings continue to surprise on the upside and liquidity is still abundant, so even though this correction may last a little bit longer, it probably is only that a correction in a bull market, not a change of trend. Shiftsaw quite a bit of a as the speech got under way, and it was for the rebound in asian equities, a weakening dollar, ares p 500 futures, which still higher. How has the speech, in your view, possibly helped Market Sentiment . It was not as combative as some of the previous speeches or has as people have come to know the u. S. President. I think that is absolutely it. The novelty from this speech was that there was no novelty. Trump, surprisingly, managed to go through the whole process without any drama at all, no controversy, and we have become used to the fact that he might stir up some kind of media reaction, either on a Positive Side or controversial side. Instead, this was a very bland speech, and he did not tackle any of the major issues with substance, so the market breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing to react to or trade off, and that was probably the biggest news. We also have some interesting activity when it comes to the boj market, the other important aspect of the Market Action as we speak. It is a quite clear signal, isnt it, coming from the boj . The boj have been very consistent this month. The meeting last week, they made very clear they are not opposed to tightening. Their bond action this morning really rated that message. It should not be ignored. They emphasize again that qe is not going away any time fast, and that was followed up by the deputy governor, kind of reemphasizing the importance of qe and why it has been a good program. The boj have been very dovish, very consistent about message. The flipside is the market has been consistently ignoring them and yet has been strengthening and not really care about what the boj has done. Eventually, this will come to a head where traders are pressuring the boj that they should be tightening and the boj is making clear they have no interest in tightening any time soon, and i think that will come to a head later this year. Ultimately, i think the boj will win, but we will see. Good to see you this morning. The inside line and the realtime context to the speech and beyond. Lets get you some breaking lines from the governor speaking of parliament. Key takeaway, the boj has no plan to issue a Digital Currency at the moment. They are also saying that careful consideration is needed for issuing digital money. We will see if any further lines come and. On the other hand, the other big story out of asia has been around samsung. It is soaring on record profit and news of a stock split. Our Asian Technology editor joins us now on the story. What stands out for you in that final Earnings Report . Have you had time to check out the numbers in more detail . Yes, a lot to digest this morning. We had record profit. The stock split, and of course, we crunched some of the numbers and found out that samsungs Chip Division now makes more revenue than intel, its biggest rival, so theres a lot of sort of good news coming out, and to some extent, it has overshadowed what is going on with the heir apparent to the samsung empire, who has actually been jailed for corruption, but overall, the numbers show a company throwing off cash and kind of chugging along, especially after an eventful year last year. And looking at how analysts are positioned on this. What is going to drive earnings for this business this year . What is going to be the next catalyst . Yeah, well, the flagship phone, the next galaxy will be coming out, but also samsung is more mindful of sort of the low to mid market. India is an attractive place to cell phones right now, so, obviously, that is one market they are going to want to go into, and, of course, as a component supplier, they are going to rely on demand from apple for not only chips but also displays used in the iphone x and top models, so theres a lot of pull in terms of both samsungs finished products of those components, and that is also making up for what we know , denting atr yuan least some of the money that samsung can bring back home. How is the scandal being factored in here . Next week, we will see a verdict in his appeal. As we all know, he was jailed last year for corruption related scandalh wider national. We have had arguments since then the length of the sentence. Prosecutors are actually asking for more. He is obviously asking for less. The story will shift next week to that, but for now, i think investors like what they see in the numbers today. Thank you for that insight. Lets get you a bit of a preview of what is up next. Were just getting warmed up. The ceo of a shopping multi at that has just released fullyear earnings. Again, keeping a close eye on what is happening in markets. In asia and equity session stronger, u. S. Dollar still weaker. Where are these markets going to go . We will break it down for you was well later on the program. This is bloomberg. It is 11 30 p. M. The state of the union speech over. You see a reaction in the bloomberg dollar index, lower. U. S. At what he futures have crept higher. For 10th of 1 . S p 500 futures, no big moves in u. S. Tenure moves. The asian equity section is off to a stronger start. But check in on the first word headlines from around the world. President trump has delivered his first state of the union speech, telling congress and the rest of the world that this is a new american moment. Presidency with prosperity and that anyone with a dream can realize it. He hailed last years tax cuts that is helping the u. S. Can peak anyone, anywhere. President trump we slashed the allness tax rate from 35 the way down to 21 . American companies can compete and win against anyone else, anywhere in the world. Samsung shares have surged after news of a 501 stocks. Record earnings on robust demand memory ship for the eye iphone x. It rose 11 billion, in mind with estimates compiled by bloomberg. U. K. Prime minister theresa may insist she is not a quitter. That comes amidst calls she is going to resign and that members of her own party are plotting to resign she told reporters on the flight to beijing that she is a servant of her country. She has a longterm job to be done. The Prime Minister expects the nations economies economy to attorney connor by 2020. They are facing a wave of protests over Living Standards that have been slow to improve since 2011. The government is working to reduce spending and introduce social measures to meet the concerns of antidust dirty demonstrators. Antiausterity demonstrators. Successfulnot really in the economic level. The challenge now is not the help to but how can we create jobs . This is the number one challenge for us. News, 20 four hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. Lets go over to Juliette Saly at the board. Liette asian stocks are those two sessions of losses. A lot of markets have started the day in the red starting to turn around. By oneision is higher point 7 . That is the biggest jump since november, 2016. Ra was talking about that stock split coming through on samsung. It is looking very strong, up by 1 . Late trade reversing losses from yesterday. This the csi 300 up by 1 . Pmi out of china was a miss when you looked at the actual factory gauge, falling too in eightmonth low in january. The log the nonmanufacturing pmi was stronger than what the market was looking for. We spoke on Bloomberg Radio and y thatd this increasingl analysts are looking at because they are showing movement in chinas economy. People have been talking about how the dollar has been falling. President trump failed to mention that strong dollar policy. Asian currencies are getting a good wake up. New zealand is up 7 10 of 1 . Watching the india rupee ahead of the budget out of india. When you look at these stocks in detail here in asia, there are a lot of Korean Companies rising. Samsung electronics up by 5. 5 . Chair worldwide doing quite well. Its growth from its overseas help. Ss is to they have dragged the index down over the last couple of sessions. China ever grown is down in the hong kong session. That is a stock that rose by 458 over the course of last year. Leadingyers are really the gains in the region. A little rebound coming through from some of these players that have been falling off over the past sessions. Energy stocks under pressure with real estate plays. It is a bit of a brighter day here across the asian markets. Yousef very much so. Lets cross over to one of the big corporate in this part of the world. The regions leading Shopping Mall and leisure company, they put out for your earnings for 2017. 32. 2 32. 2 terms billion terms durhams. Group ceo. Ed by the welcome back to the program. Great to see you. What has been so challenging and will it remain a challenge in 2018 . I think the question is what has not been challenging and 2017 . We are very happy with the performance of performance of 2017. Ave seen we have seen good growth in good resilience. Year ofeen a volatility, as we know. I think one of the most witnessedthings has devaluations, the impact of devaluations in egypt. And 8 grown around 40 for some time. In reality, when we look at the performance in markets and currencies, we are doing very well. We had to take in the impact of the devaluations. Youef what growth do expect for the next year . Are you making adjustments because of challenges that do exist in the region that you operate . Alain that icontent you as think 2018 is going to be a good year. We have seen, in the region, a lot of changes that have been put in place by big markets. , a lot ofdi arabia the forms have been activated, which is good news. This will have an impact on business performances. We have witnessed the instability of the region being in iraq, or elsewhere. All of the things we would expect to be behind us. It would allow us to plan 2018. Yousef you have a great thing are on the pulse for Consumer Confidence and consuming spending powers and general trend. How much damage was done with the introduction of b. A. T. , and where do you see Consumer Confidence and spending going from here . In dubai and saudi arabia, for example. We have seen damage on Consumer Confidence and spending. We have managed it quite well. Very well thought pricing. We have taken in as much as possible of the impact and that has had a very good impact. Yousef talked to me about your expansion ideas for the next few months and the next few years. Any new markets that you are considering . We will continue in the region. There are a lot of opportunities across the region. On the Shopping Mall side, we are due to develop in saudi eu, in the uv, be it and abu dhabi as well as in egypt. Our Retail Business continues to span in the region. He is ahead with the opening up to cinemasi market and so on and so forth. We are excited about what lies ahead. Yousef you have quite a bit of financial muscle. You have not shied away from investing and making a few acquisitions. Is there anything on your radar. I know you are always considering things to come. Alain everything. Arabia we did the negotiation in bahrain on the cinema front. We continue to look at opportunities is a rise in the market. We will announce them when they come. Yousef will you be more aggressive and acquisitions . Alain we will be the same. Risks thatterms of exist, we just heard the state of the union from President Donald Trump and he did not weaker a stronger or dollar, what does that do to your business and your bottom line, ultimately. Do you prefer the weakening, probably not because it reduces Consumer Spending power. Alain we have seen the impact of the dollar in the past year. I think the region has taking taken a number of things. Now there is a kind of come back with prices. I think President Trump has been delivering, both in davos and the state of the union, a different kind of speech that we were used to. It is lester maddox. There is something to less dramatic. There is something to materialize. Yousef could you give us more. Alain Market Conditions are optimistic. Yousef will that change from last year . Alain no. Yousef what would you say are you worried about . Is it geopolitics flaring up further . Geopolitics, of course, we have seen that in 2017. Yousef it has been a tough year for geopolitics to we have missiles flying over riyadh. Alain geopolitics have been in i would say unexpected from time to time. We know how to deal with volatility, so there is nothing new. The gcc crisis was nothing that was expected, but we are dealing with it and taking it in. , and where weant are optimistic, what is happening in saudi arabia is coming together and we are this. Ng to see egypt is a very important part. Yousef what is the highlight outside of the gulf . Alain there will be the president ial election in egypt. Egypt is back on the right track. We just hope that things will continue in the right direction. Yousef anymore appetites to push forward into africa . Wein we are in kenya and have plans to push in neighboring countries. East africa is important for us to push into. Yousef the world is your oyster. Thank you for coming on. He is the group cdo of majid al futtaim. We get engaged on how saudi consumers are holding up what the chairman of marketing who Sells Everything from stationary to engineering supplies. This is bloomberg. Yousef this is bloomberg we will middle east get you a check of the business headlines. Things are set to be delaying key Software Updates for quality issues. A usually rolls out a major ios update each year. Some upgrades are likely to be held back until 2019. Bloomberg sources said the u. S. Is investigating whether apple violated laws with that Software Update that slowed older iphone models. 55 ofone is buying financial risk unit. A deal that values business at 20 billion. The Group Includes the pension Plan Investment board in singapore. Bloomberg lp, the Parent Company of Bloomberg News competes with Thomson Reuters in providing news, data and information and the financial industry. The chairman of bloomberg lp is a nonexecutive director. Three of americas most recognizable business figures are teaming up. Jeff bezos is joining forces with warren buffett. Healthompanies aim to care companies. The three firms say they plan to set up a new independent company that is free from profit making. Health care stocks sunk on the news. That is your bloomberg business. Lets get more reaction to the state of the union speech and turned to commodities. Infrastructure was a key theme of the conversation. Oil has been declining for a third consecutive day. We had Industry Data that shows u. S. Crude stocks expending for the First Time Since november. On the other hand, you have this expectation that any further traction on infrastructure could feed into the rally. We saw key moves in some of the metals off the back of that anticipation of something more tangible. Lets bring in mario. Good to see you. Pull up a chart just to lay the groundwork as to how some of these oddities have fared. For old andthis is copper. We have pulled this back all the way to september 2016. At the time, candidate trump when President Trump came into office. With the rally that we have seen, given that a lot of the infrastructure rhetoric was sent out to the market in terms of signal, how much is priced in . Mario penalty killer is much left in there. I do not think there is much left in there. Still where is there stall for some interesting gain . Bullish aboutvery commodities. It is the one asset class has not been bottling. Bullish, welly believe Precious Metals have a way to go in 2018. For wti, or the initial reports that we are getting is that the stockpiles are for the first time increasing. Are we at a turnaround with the u. S. Energy . We heard it in President Donald Trumps speech. Do opec and nonopec need to do more now . Mario they have done all they can. It has been a good last three months for oil, but had but it has been overpriced. The medium came down to 69. Wti also failed 1. 3. , once theays said price of oil goes above 58, immediately the shells oil shales oil comes out of the ground. Yousef we had a few people on the show throughout the weekend year who maintain that this is a part of a historical change, to move away from the u. S. Dollar, a realization that u. S. 10 year yield is not a proper way of getting a pricing metric. D you agree with that and is there still further downside to the dollar tree . Mario we do believe. Of runs toe a couple make the price go a little higher. I do believe that in the end, it will be a bearish year for the dollar. I think china would love to paid part of it. Peg part of it. Yousef the fed raising rates. Mario that is correct. The rest of the world considering the dollar is overpriced, but you see the euro the fiscal conservatism of germany is driving the euro. You see the japanese yen. The think of japan is think that they will not taper off qe, but their actions seem to be a little different. You see the yen rallying. They had one of the best moments overnight. You cannot cut taxes everywhere youect you cannot cannot be unconservative fiscally and expect your currency to remain strong. Yousef what is your top call at the moment . Is that across the space, evening emerging markets even of merging markets . Mario emerging markets do suffer for anything that happens politically. That is why we are going for the majors. I do believe that the yen and the gdp by the two biggest calls. Yousef lovely talking to you this morning. Bank. The head of saxo but get the story out of saudi arabia. Came through. A remember the marketing in saudi arabia is the largest officesupply for electronics. They have been expending further. They plan to open six showrooms. The news comes as they release their profits. The beat expectations. For making the time. I want to kick off with some of your thoughts for the quarters ahead as we all continue to digest the latest earnings release. Somethink whenever challenges and positive things. Headwindly have some and in terms of labor energy costs. Hand there may be cities that came through the cost. A sharp increase of woman joining the workforce. We think this will help to improve the wallet of the consumer. Extent do yout expect the purchasing power of women to improve in 2018 . You say it will offset some of the vat impact. Muhammed i do believe so. There is a sharp increase in Women Joining the workforce. This is probably a big part that will end up with spending. We hope to put some of that in our basket. We think this is very positive and helpful for us. We had six more stories this year. Thats more than 10 . The vat and initial government driven fiscal policy drove a lot of consumers away or weakened Consumer Spending levels. That theydget announced recently, how quickly do you expect Consumer Spending to turn around . Will they show up at jarir stores more frequently . Will they spend more . Expect that. Do a lot of it will be discretionary spending. We think it will probably help the of the challenges in vat. We think it will be very helpful for us. Quantifyy difficult to it will be very positive. Had a veryr hand we strong last year. Growink we will probably single digits. How is the Ecommerce Development coming along . Are you seeing more upside there, what is a contributing to your bottom line . Is about right now it by ecommerce, which is substantial compared to last year. Working to increase it and we think we can reach 4 in three years. Areef higher oil prices, they a source of optimism for the coming months for you . Believe 70 a barrel is good . Should it stay at that level . There will be some they willntages where spend more, as well as public markets. Typically people react positively and feel the impact. We hope this will be very helpful for us this year. Absolutely. Yousef what will be the toughest part of the upcoming two or three quarters as you get to grips with a government that is changing policy very rapidly . It is a bullet train of reforms and sometimes that is difficult to keep up with. Muhammed this is a challenge, but we are hopeful that this will be digested in the coming few months. I think people will come back to moreing, as well as challenges in the wallet. We think many things are coming to be helped for this year. Especially in addition to the oil prices. Yousef we will leave it there. Thank you for making the time. Chairman of jarir marketing. What else to expect in terms of earnings. An interesting place for analysts to come out with their figures for financial markets, and saudi cement. We might get in indication of how cells have been progressing. We have euro area january inflation. You do not want to forget that the fed will begin deliberations on the rate decisions. We got the uks starting a threeday china visit. We want to show you how asiapacific index is trading, still higher and holding onto gains. The asian equity session was off to a weaker day weaker start. It has turned around with momentum coming through with the speech of President Donald Trump. Ymex still done the 10th of 1 . The s p 500 futures currently called 3 10 of 1 higher. We have u. S. 10 year yield, that is premuch unchanged as we speak. There is a busy day of earnings in the united states. We are expecting to hear from the tech heavyweights. The key variable, apple remains unanswered at this point, to what extent they would need to revise the outlook for the iphone x sales. That is all we have for this addiction addition of Bloomberg Markets middle east. Technology is next. This is bloomberg. 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