Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Countdown 20150413

The general election. Mark welcome to countdown. Manus as miliband prepares to unveil his manifest with a pledge to lower the budget deficit, every year we look to this week in politics and the bloomberg debate. Caroline to export engine in the worlds secondlargest economy is suffering. Lets head straight to hong kong. Yvonne has the latest. 14 decline, a big miss. Yvonne it is definitely a nosedive, economists were expecting an eight point gain but those overseas shipments falling close to 15 . That was also a miss. Economists expecting 10 in the fall. That makes the trade surplus at 3 billion. Compare that to february when we saw 60 billion in trade surplus. There is that falling commodity price which is driving down the value of the imports, instead of an actual fall. The currency one thing to take a look at. The stronger yen. Compare that to the chinese goods may be looking relatively more expensive compared to their counterparts and they may start to see that big impact on chinese export numbers. Also, the Global Recovery is a little lackluster. Even with the bright spot, we are seeing some recent week data coming out. That demand from the u. S. Is still not helping china in terms of boosting those export numbers. Policy are seeing quite a big these march export numbers could be the last straw here. Caroline what about the equity market [no audio] yvonne a little bit of a post Party Hangover we are seeing this weekend now. It is pretty natural to see volatility after we have seen some numbers and some oldtime highs here. Is there more potential to see more upside . Analysts say potentially so. We have some new numbers coming from japan. Those machinery orders are flipping a 10th of a percent from february. Slightly better than what economists were expecting. Mark hillary has made official. If successful she will be the first female commander in chief. Hans nichols, what is hillary hoping to do by getting in the race this early . Hans and speculation and formally start a campaign. She really wants to reintroduce herself. When you look at the fanatic structure, or challenge thematic structure, her issue will be to reintroduce herself to the voters. She will say i am in it, to win it. Hillary clinton i am running for president. Americans have fought their way back from tough Economic Times but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Every day americans need a champion, and i want to be that champion. Hans hillary has a number of advantages. One is money. It is expected that she and her affiliates will raise 2. 5 billion to spend. The other is that she is familiar with the issues. She will not get tripped up and will not make many rookie policy mistakes. The other great advantage is she does not have a serious riemer a challenge. No one has primary challenge. Republicans will be cutting up like a knife fight and all of the internal divisions will be exposed. Hillary can coast through that. Now at the same time her challenge is how to she differentiate from the president she served. How do she make herself different george w. Bush did it in 1998 when he did under ronald reagan. It is doable, but challenging. Mark what are the disadvantages if any for not having a serious challenger . Hans one is that she invites one. Everyone likes the idea of a two person race. Senator Elizabeth Warren or Vice President joe biden could get in. The other big disadvantage is that hillary is seeing this as more of a coronation and not a primary process. I am suspect of the idea of not having a challenger. When you look at the democrats who have lost, they have always been challenged by someone from the left. Democrats have not held the white house for more than two terms since 1944. Democrats have always had this problem of how do they keep the left wing at bay and continued to move to the center. If hillary does not have a serious challenge that makes the task a lot easier and she can spend the next 17 months when i say 17 i mean lunar months. It is a Long Campaign and she can spend it defining herself and moving to the center while republicans cut each other up. Manus nothing to fear from labour. That is the message. Ed miliband prepares to unlevel unveil labours manifest. An exclusive interview he doubts it would deter wealthy foreigners from coming to britain. Firstly, i want to clarify that dom non dom rule makes no difference to me or my family. It is all well taken care of. As i mentioned earlier, i like to analyze things when someone issues a statement or someone where the worlds attention is drawn. Firstly i would like to complement emily for coming up with this right idea. Which gives hope to him. Again, i have met him personally he is very sensible and a person with death depth. He has fire in his belly, each and everyone who wants to come to the election and disappointed candidate to become the leader wants to be there. At the time of the election everyone tries to see, what are the points or issues which can make the vote swing. Once he or she is in the chair they start analyzing that london is a beautiful city you have a good Financial Center. It is easy to do business, you have beautiful parks and beautiful restaurants each and everyone in the world whether a taxi driver or barber or rich man or poor man his divine or is come to live here. Do you think that mr. Miliband with all of his wisdom would like this to disappear . You think he doesnt know about it . A statement has come how he is going to implement it is going to be seen. Knowing whatever i know about him, i am sure that the way i am looking at it to see that the importance always remains, he will also think carefully and get it analyzed properly by his experts. Manus you can catch the full interview online from 9 00 a. M. In london. Caroline lets check some of our other top stories. Jordan spieth in the second youngest champion of the masters tournament. His 18 under part total gave him a four shot victory and matched tigers record. Foreign ministers from russia, ukraine, germany met in berlin to discuss the fragile ceasefire agreement. Both ukraine and russia accuse each other of violating the accord. Experts say easing economic sanctions depends on full compliance. The u. K. Canceler chancellor George Osborne laid out the plan to ease the threshold. Conservative report is basic human instinct to provide for your children and we believe the home that you paid for to belong to you and your family not the taxman. We will take family homes out of the inheritance tax. We will increase the threshold to one Million Pounds so that only millionaires pay inheritance tax. We dont think it is a priority to give tax relief on inheritance tax. We think if your home is worth more than 2 Million Pounds you should start to pay a mansion tax. They would want to give those people inheritance tax relief. It is a polar opposite. It is becoming clearer and they were as we get to the election how the tories are helping a few people and we want everybody to be better off. Caroline and Wolfgang Porsche has thrown his support behind the volkswagen chief executive. After he was publicly criticized by porsches cousin and a vw chairman. He told their spiegel der s piegel that he was keeping distant. He said they were his private opinions and that fax had not been coordinated with the establishment. Greece continues to wrangle with the euro area creditors over the terms that were released. Officials hope to do a deal ahead of the eurogroup meeting and greece is due to roll over 1. 4 billion euros in treasury bills. Mark the dollar broke its three run losing run. Mark lets talk fx markets. The head of the effects strategy at the Canadian Imperial Bank of commerce. The bloomberg dollar index rose. It is below the alltime high. Is the dollar trajectory up once again . Guest weve seen a lot of negative economic surprises and clearly that payroll miss on good friday was an idea of that. We now getting back to the scenario. Where getting back to enter a assumption that the u. S. Economy is performing better as we look at q2 rather than q1. In looking elsewhere there are number of caveats suggesting the other currency will do rather well. Caroline what is that mean for other assets that are more appetizing for u. S. Companies . It looks as though europe and m a looks cheaper. Guess boy guest all of a sudden, he start to get in this scenario we have Interest Rates hitting lows and attraction in certain Asset Classes and that makes m a look that much more appealing. You say we have money on the Balance Sheets not earning a great deal. All of a sudden, it becomes much more interesting and much more dynamic to look at utilization funds. Manus lets talk the consequences of the strong dollar. You are still in the bearish camp. Greece will be back in the spotlight this week. Guest i am not part of the parity cap. We have been bearish on the euro for a considerable time. We have a lot of negativity already priced into the euro. The scenario is once you start to get to that Interest Rate hike it begs the question, how fast and how far are we going to go. You could see rates moving the other way very quickly. On the euro side, the Economic Indicators are looking better how be at from a low base albeit from a low base. Unless you assume we will see some been tremendously wrong, i think the downsides are relatively limited. What chances do you put at qe not running its course as in not being needed . Guest as the data is improved those scenarios will be increasingly discussed. We get toward the end of the year and we are still seeing an improvement and perhaps we can see the ecb taking their foot off the accelerator. One of those points we have been making his we have that diversion of Balance Sheets and that the virgins is going to narrow as we ecb buying bonds. And as we see the virgins divergence, is going to narrow as we see ecb buying bonds. Manus when do 10 year boones go to zero . That must bolster the parity cap discussion. Guess the boy it does increase the magnitude. We are still seeing the legacy of the decisionmaking as we have seen in that is continuing to compress yields in the eurozone particularly in germany as an obvious cap to that. I dont think that implies directly a rush to parity. Manus will take a quick break here. The head of fx strategy at the Canadian Bank of imperial commerce. Stay with us. Caroline still with us is jeremy stretch, head of fx at cibc. Strategize the china move today. We are seeing effects on all the commodity related currencies. Is it downward trajectory . Guest we have been arguing that the Australian Dollar should fall for a considerable period. Most likely next one and another cut to come after that. One thing to be careful of is the impact of the hong kong story because there seems to be a substantial shift which may has to do with the previous over invoicing. We need to be a little bit cautious in terms of looking at the headline stories. But the impact will continue to play out through the commodity space with iron ore and coal prices being integral to the space. The story is still a weaker aussie. Manus we have seen traders reverse their position on oil last week. If oil is beginning to base out, how would that play out in the commodity currency. Guess the boy if oil does guess the boy guest there are ongoing issues on the supply side which can cause rebound on the oil price. If that does come through i think that does provide some support. There are still risks in terms of the growth scenario. We will see how they strategize that grade it is one of the stories when you think when you see the headline, there is a legacy that even what we know about the political risk, the International Investors are slowly getting on board the trend. That were extended and we will see the load get tested. Mark jeremy stretch, head of fx strategy at the cmc. Manus welcome back to countdown. As a retail sales are due out in the United States of america where with the dollar head next . The momentum in the dollar is one of relief. Up over two point 5 2. 5 . Both pimco and other say it is time to sell treasury. Central banks are underway in the market is structurally short dollars. That is what the bloomberg story is saying this morning that the market has room to go. We are. 8 away from record highs in the dollar. Morgan stanley says you will get hikes by the end of this year and sales of mortgagebacked securities. 1. 5 Percentage Points higher in dollar rates next year. That is the dollar story set to trade higher. We are down 1. 25 . Chinese exports fall nearly 15 but the imports are down by 12 . Iron ore at a price of 30. In 2015 they are saying it will trade down to 45. Aussie dollar is under pressure vicariously as a result of the china story. Pimco says it is not a slamdunk it is the path of least resistance and is still one of their conviction trades to short the aussie dollardollar. You have the dollar higher and yen lower. You see these rates out of the bank of japan when they are saying get ready for zero or negative insulation data. With that in mind, what comes next from the bank of japan. You have the ecb with the pedal to the metal so to speak. 120. 45, i am seeing calls for 120. 43. Mark top stories on bloomberg, equities in hong kong continued to gain after sustaining the biggest rally worldwide last week. The spike comes as the chinese mainland investors use the crossborder Exchange Link to hunt for bargains. Stan druckenmiller said there are troubles looming in the u. S. [inaudible] at 9 00 him tonight new york time. Hans keeping himself quote at a distance. Martin winterkorn is the ceo of the volkswagen group. They have had record sales and are close to eclipsing toyota but sales in the u. S. Have been sluggish and that could be why at least some on the board are upset. Writing to the rescue of him is the cousin here is what he had to say in a Statement Released he said porsche is also on the board and when you look at how it is broken down, the porsche side has two seats in the pf side has three seats. There are 20 seats on the board and 10 are held by the workers council. Mr. Winter corn appears vendor corn appears mr. Win tercorn appears to have the backing of the council. They have had remarkable success with their luxury brand but their profitability in 2014 they had a 2. 5 operating profit. Their goal is to get that to 6 . They sold a lot of vehicles and have had a lot of growth, the question is, where is their profitability. It has been a good quarter in terms of Stock Performance but now we have this internal turmoil and we will see how it sorts out him a but it is a remarkable story. Remarkable and a family affair. Lets turn to a competition for power closer to home. The u. K. Election campaign gets serious this week. Up first is the labour party. Anna edwards has all the developments. What is ironic here is it looks as if they will focus on the fiscal deficit. Anna over the weekend and today seeing both of these Historic Party stepping into each others territory. Today we get the launch of the manifesto from the labour party and today they will be talking about fiscal responsibility and pledging to lower the deficit. Every year they want to run a surplus on that measure by 2020 and they will cast doubt on the longterm economic planner and the commitments David Cameron is making. And indeed they continued to say that the funding for these pledges will come from a stronger u. K. Economy so Nothing Specific tapped in terms of where that is coming from. We will also hear from the labour party about a change in the carried interest rules from private equity companies, hedge funds a run stamp doc. All of those things we have heard before but we might get more detail. And it is a busy week. The manifesto launch is due tomorrow and wednesday that liberal democrats and ukip step up. Mark reminds us of the big news flow as we approach this big week. Anna are we closer to working out who will win the election . Doesnt seem so. We are asking whether the polls have finally started to move in favor of labor if i look at the poll of polls they put labor at maybe one point ahead or two points ahead but it is not substantial. I like the comment from populist over the weekend theyre locked in the marginal areas of sampling. It is not as if we can say anything conclusive. The big news is from the conservatives around the inheritance tax. We have some comments from George Osborne and this is how he defended that. Osborne conservative support the basic instinct to provide for your children and we believe that your home that you paid for should belong to you and your family. It will take family homes out of inheritance tax and will increase the rush holt to one Million Pounds so that only millionaires pay the inheritance tax. Anna we have more detail behind the liberal democrat deficit plan. They want to hold that middle ground between what the tories are doing and what labor is doing. They have eight out of the Northern Irish seats in westminster. And they say they could work within the party caroline a busy week and yet still all of the inconclusive polls and what strain this puts on the economy. We saw the british pound starting to feel some weakness. Anna and when we hear from u. K. Businesses they focus on that. Of how long it will take to form a government and that seems to be crucial. A great bloomberg piece by mark gilbert talks about just the start of seeing these tensions expressed in the market, you mentioned the pound against the dollar. Mark gilbert finds evidence in the guilt market and the equity market we are seeing a little bit of underperformance because in part of the u. K. Election it is hard to detach what is going on with quantitative easing on the european continent. It is hard to draw conclusions one way or the other but i thought one thing was really important to remember, as we see the manifestos launch and as we see promise after promise it occurs to me that this year, unlike any other we seem to be heading for some sort of Coalition Conversation at least vote by vote negotiations between the parties so to some extent they can almost put anything in these manifestoes and then who knows what gets lost on the cutting room floor because all of those conversations will take place behind closed doors. Well have to see what comes out. It is a busy week for the parties and a busy week at bloomberg. Tomorrow i will be quizzing Political Parties on their promises on tax and the economy before allies live audience. We will have it live on Bloomberg Television from 8 30 a. M. And then at 11 00 thursday we will be broadcasting a special debate that broadcasts the impact of the election on the city of london. Geithner will speak to a special panel. If you one of the audience for that latter event when we recorded wednesday afternoon than please sign up at Bloomberg Live. Com for both of those debates and be sure to get involved and tweet us any of your comments at all. You can watch on Bloomberg Live stream. I hope you had a pen and paper. Manus that tag was trending last week. I was reading the emails and you made into twitter. Anna number seven in the u. K. That was during guys debate on europe. Mark thank you anna. You can find more on that story on bloomberg. Com as ever. Let us know what you think of the show and tell us the stories that you want to hear. Caroline is at Caroline Hyde tv. There is manus, back from paris after no sleep. Manus coming up bloomberg sits down with the British Indian billionaire. He tells us what he would do to strengthen the u. K. Relationship. Manus top stories this hour Foreign Ministers from russia, ukraine france and germany meet in berlin to distrust the fragile ceasefire agreement as both the ukraine and russia accused each other of violating the accords. U. K. Leaders say easing economic sanctions depends on full compliance. George osborne laid out the conservative partys plan to ease the tax threshold. The basic human instinct to some provide for your children and we believe that the home that you paid for should belong to you and your family so we will take family homes out of inheritance tax. So that only millionaires pay inheritance tax. Manus on the same program the deputy leader criticized the conservative plan. We dont think it is a priority to give tax relief on inheritance tax, we think if your home is worth more than 2 Million Pounds you should start to pay a mansion tax. They would give people with more than 2 Million Pounds inheritance tax relief. It is becoming clearer and clearer as we get to the election how the tories are helping a few people and we want everybody to be better off. Manus markets in greece and cyprus are closed today. Greece continues to wrangle with euro area creditors over the terms that would released the last round of bailout. Officials hope to do a deal ahead of the meeting and greece is due to rollover 1. 4 billion euros of treasury bills tomorrow. Caroline the billionaire tells bloomberg that the government has changed the face of india. In an exclusive interview he asked if the u. K. Needs to do what it needs to do to improve its relationship. This is a question that i have been talking to the authorities here we have some plus points which are not being leveraged to have a better political as well as economic relation. In my view britain has a chance to be number one in europe and india for historic reasons the laws in british law and the language is common most of the indians speak english but do not speak german. But what has been lost is today britain is no more having an edge in manufacturing no more edge in engineering or technology but we have good conservancies. We can provide Good Services but more than that, you have 1. 6 Million People of Indian Origin who they call nonresident indians in india and here they are known as British Indians. They have the maximum knowledge of doing business in india they have not been leveraged. Caroline you can catch all of that exclusive interview in the polls today. Mark just over 23 days to go until the election of the u. K. And pollsters say the outcome is anyones guess. Lets get more with peter huntington, a good morning to you. Your latest Employment Index is well above the longterm trend in the hiring intentions are as you say at skyhigh lows. Will it continue with the uncertainty surrounding the next month election. One of the most extraordinary things of the last years has been the way through the downturn or the recession, u. K. Businesses did not shed labor in the way one would expect. As the economy kicked back into recovery and tensions gone way ahead of gdp growth. We are seeing extraordinary growth of the number of people in work and we are pretty much at record levels. Caroline but productivity is a concern in what is flatlining is the productivity of everyone at work. Guest so as hiring has gone ahead of the ability of the economy to achieve we are seeing a real enormous fall in productivity and only very slow graph growth since then. At the moment, u. K. Productivity which is the key variable that economists look at is basically the same as it was in 2007. Manus we just heard from one of the two brothers talking that britain potential in india and has the potential to be the number one player and here you said the British Government has the ability to really build a midsized company. It is the german midsized companies. We have some great worldclass large corporates in the u. K. And there is no day doubt that there is innovation. But perhaps you can argue that the u. K. Has never managed to match and theyve never really got going. Mark coming back to productivity, what can policymakers do to solve this productivity puzzle . Guest it is very interesting. If you look at the history of the situation, since the government came to power in 79, right up to the global threat the u. K. Did a fantastic job of catching up with competitors so by 2007 we are pretty much up there with germany and france and a little bit behind the usa but we have done a fantastic job. Now we have slipped back a long way. We are level with canada and only really had of japan. I guess, there are two components, the first is skills and the productivity of the workforce i think most of us would agree that the english Education System is still pretty poor. It produces some great graduates but some very poor quality people who are not skilled enough for the global economy. That whole education is a very important one. Well agree that they have had a really good go and you would agree that labor before that certainly saw education is a big priority and did what they could to improve it. That is got to be a big priority. But the second issue, something that seems to be an intractable problem. The u. K. Has a poor record of investment and a poor record of r d. That may be because of the impact of the Global Financial crisis. So encouraging investment and Encouraging Research and development is something that has to be a priority for any government. Investment is all sorts of things and perhaps the big missed opportunity of the last few years is investment in infrastructure. We had this period where it wouldve been cheap to build and when the government could have borrowed more than it has but obviously it borrowed a lot. It will be very interesting to see the attention given to infrastructure because that is a real change to the that the government could make. Manus great to get your input there. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Peter harrington. We have just over an hour to go but at this moment it is time to ring the bell on digital. Mark Jordan Spieth, 21 years old and he won the masters by four strokes. He tied tiger woodss record for the lowest score in the event in history. He finished four strokes strokes ahead of justin rose. The second youngest winner of the masters ever. Woods was five months younger when he first won in 1997 and totaled 28 ernies, he broke the tournament record of 25 set by mickelson in 2001 and pockets a cool 1. 8 million and that lovely green jacket. Caroline i have an interesting one because who knew if you are a Flower Company this is suddenly the hot trend taking over china, get in internet financing and get in to peertopeer lending. We have shanghaibased Airlines Getting in on the game shoemakers getting in on the game and the government is granting all sorts of licensees. Peertopeer is a bubble in the making. Manus i have gone for oil. Speculators boosting long bets by 30 the biggest jump since 2010. Long bets are on a ninemonth high and short bets are in a 21 drop in Goldman Sachs says it could be the refiners. Mark countdown continues in the next hour. We will be speaking to the Vice President of the European Commissioner. Mark china loses steam, the x slow adding concerns over growth ahead of the gdp figures. Manus hillary makes it official. The former secretary of state announces she is running in the 2016 race for the white house. Caroline vw trouble, a war of worlds words as the chairman is picked pitted against the ceo. Nothing to fear from labor, in an exclusive interview, he says he would not be worried about an ed miliband victory in the general election. Welcome to countdown. Manus it is a big week for politics as miliband prepares to unveil his labor manifesto today with a pledge to narrow the budget deficit every year. We look ahead to a week in politics and the bloomberg debates. Caroline weve seen another sign of a slowdown in china. Overseas shipments unexpectedly plummeted in the month of march so lets head straight to hong kong where it bond has the latest on the data and a big decline in exports. Yvonne it was a big downsize surprised. Economists were actually expecting an increase in those overseas shipments but we actually saw close to a 15 slump with imports also sliding 12 . They were expecting a 10 decline overall and that brings the surplus just over 3 billion, compare that to back in february at 60 billion. In terms of imports there is the falling commodity price driving down the value of imports. Two things to look at in particular is the stronger yen. If you look at the trade levels of china we can see the currencies are depreciating so you have a week yen and a korean would you want yuan depreciating. This could be the start of the impact on the export numbers. The numbers you have seen recently have been very lackluster. Even some recent data that has been relatively weak. You look at the Bigger Picture policymakers have seen just the latest out of a string of bad data. Weak industrial output investment and consumption data both bad for january and february and now these numbers looking bad for march as well. Policymakers might be needing to take a more serious look at the economy right now. They say this could possibly be speeding up the next Interest Rate cut. Mark it is official, Hillary Clinton announced she will run for the white house in 2016. If successful she will be the first female commander in chief. Lets get the hans nichols, good morning, what is hillary hoping to do by getting in the race this early . Ons there are technical aspects. It is easier to launch a campaign. Really what she wants to do is reintroduce herself and make this more about the voters and less about herself. More about the middle class and less about the clinton dynasty. When she announced four years ago she did it and said i am in to win. This time she is assured to have a rationale for running. Hillary clinton i am running for president americans are fighting their way back from tough Economic Times but the debt deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Ons hillary has a number of advantages, she will be able to raise an incredible amount of money for her campaign and affiliated groups which includes super packs which includes super pac switch can take unlimited donations, but principally she does not have a serious primary challenger. When you look at why democrats have lost the white house it is usually after a contentious primary battle. You saw that with lbj in 1968. He was challenged by the left and as long as they dont have a serious challenge they have an easier task. So hilly hillary will have to run with barack obama in the same room. Her challenge will be, how does she claim the good parts of the agenda and differentiate herself. Republicans will be seeking to exploit that you will see a lot of negative ads about what the world looks like. Is the world a safer place after Hillary Clinton . Mark what are the disadvantages for hillary if any of not having a serious challenger . Hans she could invite one. We dont know how long it will stay like this, joe biden could get in the race and the second part is she doesnt really test herself. She is not really campaign ready. This is somewhat of a fake argument, the idea that you are not prepared for debate until you have a debate gives too much meeting. There will be three to four debates in 14 months. In some ways all the importance of president ial debates is often overestimated. So yes, she has some disadvantages by not being challenged, but in some ways it is easier to run when you have not been hit on the left for 15 months as opposed to what will happen on the republican side which will be entering oldfashioned knife fight. Youre going to see the divide within the Republican Party are party further and further publicized and they will have a very contentious nomination battle. Manus nothing to fear from labor. That is the message from the british billionaire. The chairman of the group tells bloomberg in an exclusive interview that he doubts labor will implement tax policy in such a way that it would deter wealthy foreigners from coming to britain. Firstly, i want to clarify nondom makes no difference to me or my family because we are structured in such a manner in all 38 countries of the world. It is all well taken care of. As i mentioned earlier, i like to analyze things when someone issues a statement or someone comes up with something where the worlds attention is drawn. Firstly, i would like to complement mr. Miliband by coming up with this bright idea at the time of elections, which definitely gives hope to him. But again i have met him personally and he is very sensible. And a person with depth. He may not look like a visionary but he has fire in his belly and each and every one who wants to come to the election and disappointed to become the leader wants to be there. So at the time of election, each and Everyone Wants to see what are the points that can make the most sense. Once that he or she is in the chair they start analyzing that london is a beautiful city. You have a good Financial Center , it is easy to do business you have beautiful parks and we have beautiful restaurants and beautiful concepts characters operas and everyone in the world, whether a taxi driver or barber or a rich man or a poor man his desire is to come. Do you think that mr. Miliband, with all of his wisdom would like this to disappear . You think he doesnt know about it . A statement has come. How is he going to implement it . And knowing what i know i got him, im sure that the way i am looking at it to see that the importance always remains, he will also think carefully and get it analyzed property by experts and see what is best. Manus you can catch the full interview online. Caroline u. K. Election campaigning gets serious this week. The labour party is set to unveil its manifesto this week and ed miliband has the following every single twist turn and development. Anna we are expecting the launch of the manifesto and they will be talking about fiscal sponsor ability. They want to narrow the u. K. Budget deficit in excluding Capital Spending every year and reach a surplus on that measure by 2020. If you want to cast doubts about some of the pledges they have made over the weekend, no specific source has been identified for the 8 billion pound amount of money going into the nhs but we will also hear a little bit more about some of the detailed policy around Capital Gains tax and some of the policies we have heard before about energy bills childcare, mansion tax and the tobacco company. It is a really busy week tomorrow we have the manifesto launches from the conservative party and the green party. Wednesday it will be the liberal democrats and ukip so it will be a busy start to the week. In the polls we are no closer to working out who will win. Popular said that we are locked in the marginal ever. That none of us knows where we will head really, both parties are very close. Weve learned quite a lot over the weekend about inheritance tax and what the conservative plan around that woody. The green party also gave us an update saying they would introduce a 60 toprated tax. We have a big week here typing in with the manifesto launches. Bloomberg politics tomorrow will bring you a fascinating conversation and i will be quizzing clinical parties in the business election debate, life on Bloomberg Television. Then at 11 00 in the morning, we will be broadcasting a special debate that examines the impact of the election on the city of london. If you want to be in the audience for that i will tweet out the details of how you can be there. Caroline and tweet out the discussion as well. You are trending on twitter. Mark Jordan Spieth became the second youngest champion of the masters tournament. His total gave him a four shot they tree matched tiger woodss goal for the lowest score of the event in history. More ministers from the russia, ukraine france and germany met in berlin today to discuss the ceasefire agreement. The folks accuse each other of violating the accord and european leaders say easing economic sanctions in russia depends on full compliance. After the chief executive was publicly criticized by porsches cousin and ferdinand he told a german paper that he was keeping himself at a distance from winter corn and porsche said those comments were his private opinion and the content of his statement had not been coordinated with the family. Markets in cyprus and greece are closed as the country celebrates orthodox easter and greece continues to wrangle with creditors over the terms that will release the bailout. Officials hope to do a deal ahead of the eurogroup meeting. Manus join the conversation, it is monday morning and what are you focused on . I have tweeted a little bit on currencies the pound is hitting a fiveyear low against sterling. Were all there. Caroline coming up, earnings season upon us in the United States, we will get an investors take. Manus welcome back the u. S. Earnings season is almost upon us. Companies reporting firstquarter results. Global equity profits this year are set to rise by over 5 , that would be the third year of gains and apple is set to deliver 34 . Are you part of the party or a skeptic. The risk reward ratio for tech in the u. S. Peaked in october. It has been getting steadily worse month on month, there was a little blip three weeks ago as apple had this massive pr campaign. I dont think i have seen a bigger Product Launch ever. That boosted the needle for a couple of weeks and since then it has started falling again. Apple is a lot of old tech, i wouldnt like to be a Semiconductor Producer or doing anything with pcs. In the Database Technology is actually quite old and these Large Companies with large caps and i think the valuations are a bit rich given the fact the dollar is putting such pressure on. Caroline were not looking at u. S. Equities at the moment where is it more favorable . All about europe . Guest you cannot get away from the european story. We are traveling in hope but 60 billion euros a month of hope and that is quite a lot. I would actually tell you also that japan, the Corporate Governance story is consistently underrated in europe, it is not the economy that will lead the corporate sector out of trouble that will lead the economy out of trouble. Dividends will probably double over five years show me a market where it is doubled in five years it doesnt go up a lot. That is japan. We were talking about it off air, fiscal tightening is not traditionally that good. Mark when will it be priced in . Guest partly the ftse 100 should be starting from higher up. It has lagged quite badly for most of last year. And then you get into this will the u. S. Invest in short sterling and go long on ftse as he is done in the nikkei nikkei. I dont know. But i certainly wouldnt try to make my fortune in the u. K. Manus that wouldnt really work given the income level, dollar income levels for example. It is not sterling. Guest i agree with that, but that shorts the currency and has worked very well in the initial stages in the runup to japan. So the question is what they try it . I dont know. I would like you say it is probably not a big driver. Manus i was leading the telik reading the telegraph yesterday and blackrock warns of the complacency of investors and warns of the evaporation of liquidity and warns of a generation that has never linked through a tightening cycle. Do you share those concerns . Guest absolutely. You have to go back to 1994, the last time that bond markets did something really nasty. Manus i live through it personally. So did i and it was unpleasant. But that is very nearly 20 years ago and that is a problem. My particular worry is shared by many other people which is the liquidity of fixed income investment. Equity indices have been around are widely available. Fixed income indices are still largely secret, there is still there is not a wide body of knowledge. They dont have they do not have the same underlying liquid that the liquidity that the market still. When everybody wants to sell there will be a problem in corporate, highyield or both. So i think there is a real potential issue and one of the things were pointing out recently is actually, the way in which the standard market optimization process works in the last three years youve only needed u. S. Treasury investmentgrade debt and u. S. Equities and portfolio constructions of those three assets dominate all other portfolios. Even commercial property, and that must stop and when it does, everything goes into rest. Caroline so youre trying to show the concern. What about flags in china, where there is money flowing in the chinese stocks, when will that burst . I dont know. Dont ask me for a time, we know it will happen and my only interest is whether it happens before the previous alltime high or not. I think the question here on china is what that does for other emerging markets. I will be slightly contrarian and say that as soon as china busts, that is the signal to go in and buy lots of emerging markets, because this is the event we have been discounting and once it is over, let the market clear and there is your major one. Your once per decade buying opportunity. Mark russia . As Foreign Ministers meet today and discuss matters in the ukraine . Guest is sanctions. Mark based on the sanctions. Guest we are noticing in our sector work that the Energy Sector was just starting to tick up. People were bottom feeding and as i was saying if you want to bottom feed in energy why not go to gazprom when you can bottom feed on the ruble and Energy Prices all at the same time . So, it is a high risk strategy. Mark is Stanley Druckenmiller said we are being pushed along the curve and we are doubling down on the same policy that got us here. He is worried about what happened in 2004. Are you with him . Guest absolutely. One of the really interesting calls on that is health care which again defies fundamental analysis on many occasions, but i think the message which is that biotech and health care survived 2000 and 2001 extremely well and then had a problem in 2002 2004. That message is a good one. Manus lots to think upon. The ceo cio at harlan research. Thank you very much. Just because im away from my desk doesnt mean im not working. Comcast business understands that. Their wifi isnt just fast near the router. Its fast in the break room. Fast in the conference room. Fast in toms office. Fast in other toms office. Fast in the foyer [pronounced foyyer] or is it foyer [pronounced foyyay] . Fast in the hallway. I feel like ive been here before. Switch now and get the fastest wifi everywhere. Comcast business. Built for business. Manus welcome back to countdown. Where were you on may 15, 2009 . Six years ago is when the aussie dollar was at this particular level, it is at a new freshly plucked low. The export story from china is down 14 , exports down, imports down 12 . Iron ore at 50 and citigroup says iron ore could hit 30. Iron ore is under pressure because of the resource story. The banks say get ready for 73 double low. The six year low could indeed go lower. Pimco says it is note slam dunk that the reserve bank will cut rates at their next meeting, a lot of estimates are not there, almost 75 of risk or probability on the rate cut according to the economists that we have surveyed areas pimco warns it is no slamdunk. So aussie dollardollar making new fresh sixyear lows in the market and the ball or is up by 2 10 of 1 . That will be again expected to be the strongest and almost a year. The market according to set of the analysts say there are structurally short dollars. It means if cut their holdings down and have only just begun to rebuild and restock their store of dollars. Two other points to note is that both pimco and Morgan Stanley say it is time to sell u. S. Treasury bond so that yield will rise. If you think this market had a little bit of a tear, youre a 10th of 1 away from an alltime high. Pimco have reduced their holdings of u. S. Treasury bond. So get ready, if you buy into that, treasury rates go higher. And they will hike before the end of the year in december, then that would play into that particular theory. Dollars are higher and yen is lower. The bank of japan says get ready for zero if not slightly negative rates. Mark europe is facing a month of turmoil with greece in a cash crunch and further economic sanctions on the table. One man at the center is the Vice President valdes who joins me now for his first interview of the day. Good morning, how close are we to a deal between greece and creditors . Guest as we know the technical negotiations are ongoing and as you agreed already on the 20th of february, those conversations should go until the end of april so the meeting for the 24th of april will be a good occasion to take stock of how the technical conversations have been going so far. Mark can you give us some sort of clue as to the intricacies of the negotiations, what progress is being made by greece if at all because some would lead us to believe that there isnt progress being made. Can you assure us there is progress being made on the greek side . Guest suddenly, the could be more progress and those conversations had been up for a relatively slow start in the beginning, lots of time was wasted on a relevant topics. Right now, those discussions are gaining speed. Time is also running out so there is still a lot of work to do and a lot of ground to cover until april 20 which is more or less the preliminary date one should have the list of reforms or proposals and how that will clement Bailout Program conditionality. Mark does it mean that the meeting is unlikely we will see the aid being approved, we might have to wait longer for an extra meeting, possibly at the end of april it really depends how the negotiations will go. It was extended by troll for months and now we are only two months later so of course technically speaking there is more time for negotiations but greek authorities themselves are emphasizing that the cash position is getting more difficult therefore is a good reason to stick with this april deadline and try to finalize conversations as soon as possible, but for this it is very important that both sides including greece stick with their commitments. Mark can you elaborate on greeces cash position, is there a risk that greece is in the near term likely to run out of cash . It has been indicated already several times by the greek government itself that the tax position is difficult but there should be a reason really for the greek side to accelerate negotiations to engage more intensively with institutions and to come more proactively with the reforms and measures, greece will implement in order to ensure program conditionality and to ensure the disbursement of funding. Mark are you frustrated personally with greece . It is not happening as quickly as you might like. Certainly there is no secret that the negotiations are very obligated. There was a lot of really unhelpful rhetoric but it is clear from the Institution Side were willing to work with the new greek government and were willing to engage and arrived at a positive result, but all sides must be willing to arrive at that result. Mark is there a risk that you dont strike a deal with greece and greece by accident leaves the euro, how high a risk is that . Guest European Commission is working based on a scenario that greece is staying within the eurozone and that is a scenario we are working on but as i have been saying already before to ensure the successful conclusion it is important that all sides reserve commitments. That has been the clear position from the beginning. Mark on the unhelpful comment made by greece you could throw in unhelpful actions, such as Prime Minister tsiprass visit to moscow last week. Was this an act of desperation or do you see it as a politically shrewd move echo move . The European Commission does not have much to comment certainly it is the right of heads of state and government and eu Member States to meet with leaders of third countries and many leaders are doing this so there is not much to comment from the European Commission point of view moreover, as we know there were no discussions or some kind of alternative or something. Mark we can talk about the russian four ministers meeting to discuss the ukrainian situation, lets talk about the impact of economic sanctions on russia, give us enter update on how much it is hurting eu countries right now, preliminary Analysis Shows actually the impact of sanctions or rather to satan russias embargo on the eu is relatively limited. But it is not evenly distributed among Member States and sectors there are certain sectors and certain Member States which are more affected like finland and holland, certain agricultural sectors like gary and fruit and vegetable and indeed the eu has already made some specific support measures to support those agricultural sectors in those countries given the difficulty posed by the russian embargo. But all the impact on the eu economy has been quite limited. Mark the question that everybody once answered is if the sanctions will be renewed in june or july, what do you think . The eu position in the last summit was quite clear, that the key is implementation of minsk agreements. So if russia starts to play a more constructive role and if these agreements are being implemented, we can start discussing reducing the sanctions. If this is not happening it can also be the prolongation of sanctions and even stepping out of sanctions if there is further escalation. So it really depends on how constructive a role russia will play in the coming months and whether all sides will stick with the minsk agreements. Mark do you expect greece to support the implementation of ongoing sanctions . Might that prove tricky . We know that greece supported in the nation of the first wave of sanctions and it was done already by the greek government certainly it is for the Member States to discuss but apparently we dont have any indication that the unity of the eu might be endangered in this position if we follow the discussions already on sanctions against russia which took place in previous consultations. Mark lets finish with your purpose, you in rome to meet with the italian finance minister in the labor minister and the bank of italy. How do you rate the reform process taking place in italy right now . Too little being done, too slow, is italy lagging on the necessary structural reform process . Certainly the purpose of this visit to rome is to discuss with the Italian Government and social partners the economic and financial developments in italy the italy reform process. I must say that right now the Italian Government has ambitious targets in terms of the budget deficit and is also engaged in quite ambitious reform agenda. It is really important that those reforms are actually implemented because according to the European Commission analysis, italy is still in excessive economic imbalances which comes from low productivity developments and deteriorating noncost competitiveness, high debt burdens both public and private so there are a series of challenges for the Italian Economy to address but when we see their fiscal effort and structural reform effort it seems be going in the right direction. Mark thank you for your time Vice President at the European Commission. Caroline great interview, and join in the conversation on twitter and let us know what you thought about marks interview tell us the stories that you want to hear more about. Plenty trending on twitter whether you are a gold friend or watching game of thrones, follow us on twitter. Mark up next it is our chart time. Global stocks with a rather record 17 trillion. Stay with us. Mark global stocks are worth a record 70 trillion. They passed yet another milestone with a market capitalization crossed 70 trillion on friday, that is a new record. Already this year the green circle of your screen, Global Equities have added 5. 2 trillion in valuation as Central Banks continue to pump liquidity into the system. That is the yellow circle right there, that is when stocks autumn after the financial crisis. Global equities were valued at 25. 5 trillion which means 45 trillion of equities have been added from their until there. Just a put that figure in perspective, the market half of u. S. Equities right now is 24 trillion. China at seven join dollars, japan at 5 trillion and the u. K. Is worth 3. 7 trillion, so the amount of value that has been added from their to their is equal to the value of Global Equities the u. S. Market, the chinese market, the japan market, the Hong Kong Market and the u. K. Market. From the red circle through to the yellow circle the Global Equities lost roughly 37 trillion and another mind blowing stat. 14 out of 47 National Equity benchmarks have reached alltime highs this year. China denmark, portugal germany. The country world index which encapsulates developing World Markets is trading at 16 point times 16. 9 times estimated earnings yet with god yields in europe, the u. S. And japan hitting record lows, investors are shifting access to stocks as a source of returns which may mean the 70 trillion Global Equity market capitalization figure could get bigger by the end. Caroline certainly the emerging markets continue to rally within that and lets talk about that the government has changed the face of india but there is more to be done. More on what was an exclusive interview over the weekend, what was the interview like . Guy great house. We had breakfast and sat down and kicked it around and then had a fantastic interview. So much of his time was given to this that it was amazing. The second thing to say is he has interesting things to talk about when it comes to india. He obviously has huge historic links with india, his company is mumbaibased he knows what has the potential to do and knows what he has done thus far, and he was talking about modi and saying yeah the Indian Economy is really on the right foot right now but here is the thing, it is down to the oil price and a bunch of factors. Mr. Modis government has taken the place of india. He has a good vision and he is moving in the right direction but we should not expect things to happen overnight it is going to take time we have to have patience they are running at 7. 4 gdp and it may implode, but the gain as i told you, i like to analyze things, is it all because of him, no . The voices of consensus have changed also prices have gone down to the 50s. The inflation has come down, the economy has moved so when the earlier government was there, inflation had gone out of control there was no implementation, no decisionmaking the government had become a lameduck now this government was intelligent and they picked up all the weak points they were able to get absolute majority and with this majority and the good intentions and the vision of what he has he has created a Good Environment for investment, so everyone is running. Earlier governments wanted to come out and showcase india. Now each and every leader of the world wants to go to invest but i want to alert india, if they lose this opportunity if they are not ready at home, again this opportunity will be lost. Guy he thinks modi is doing great things but he does talk about the fact that maybe stepping up to run the whole economy is maybe more difficult than mr. Modi thought it was. We have these talks between merkel and mr. Modi taking place today, we now understand the talks will be tomorrow. Manus we look forward to finding what that was about. Thank you very much, the markets are getting set to open off of record highs as we go to the clock open. Caroline on the move, is next. Jonathan good morning and welcome to on the move. Im jonathan ferro. Minutes away from the start of european trading. Record highs on the ftse 100, on the dax and alltime high. Chinas exports plunged. Overseas shipments dropped 15 last month a year earlier. Gdp growth is poised to come in at its weakest since the global recession. The shanghai, adds another 1. 2 . Here in europe, we start with stocks topping 17 trillion. The chairman of volkswagen publicly criticizes the ceo. We ask the question, whose driving . Coming up on the show we will bring you more of that exclusive interview with one of britains richest men. His thoughts on u. K. Politics and London Property coming up in about 20 minutes. We have got futures pretty much dead flat. Euro stoxx futures up about a point. Dax futures down about four points. Some pretty lofty levels over at the touchscreen. Manus thank you very much. 70 trillion worth of equities it is the bart chart. Just go to bloomberg. Com to pick up the nuances of that. 14 of 47 hit alltime records around the world. The question is, will shanghai continue its momentum . We get ready for that growth data to come out on wednesday