Rishaad going to bring you up some history. Another record for the s p 500 recordht good 2017s year does not necessarily mean that 2018 is going to be a bad one. Lets bring up for two to three. Ityou have a great year, means quite often that you will get not a good year the following. Thats the synopsis we have going back to 1938 todays game, not tomorrow spain. The s p 500 on track for a 20 increase last year. It was matched 20 times in the last 80 years. Higherck market was three quarters of the time averaging 89 return here in averaging a 9 return. Haidi what is incredible is that we are not seeing a rotation. Were seeing a continuation of the tremendous tech rally. Here in asia, we are picking up on that positive energy. Not just for the s p, but also records for the nasdaq. Depressing 7000 points. Tokyo still off until thursday. Asia markets feeling this positive start to the year. Japanese investors can enjoy their holiday a little bit longer. We do have docs continuing to gain at record highs across the board. Be. The tech heavy cost extending gains for a fourth straight day. The taiwanese dollar is asias test currency so far. Levels, there is the consideration that investors might begin to assess whether or not the strong currency gains will undermine stocks in the region. We are seeing a bit of weakness coming through for the korean won. Were seeing a little bit of stock. There read joining the party after the stumble we saw on tuesday. Singapore stocks are seeing gains for the fifth straight day. Samsung eight getting the biggest boost. The tech rally we are seeing continue into asia. Leading the gains in that sector when it comes to the korean session. Posco jumping to a september 2014 high after golden raised to buy. Theyre looking to extend energy and material industries. And bhb in sydney, at its high. Money journal has reported that are. Nd balle a good play and 2017, but metals are bringing some alarm bells. The 14 day relative strike index for the Industrial Metals has stayed above 70. A level signaling overbought territory. Metals were mixed. Sinceggest annual day 2009. Copper showing signs of stalling. This rise that we have seen for metals, that may be under threat. Rishaad going to get you to u. S. Regulators. Lets get that story with first word news. Alibabas and merger. Offered 18 per share, valuing any deal at 1. 2 billion. Aboute prompted warnings National Security. The two Companies Issued a statement saying they will now Work Together in remittance and digital payments. Bitcoin bound back from new years. Saysall street journal that has spread across several of the funds firms. Bitcoin is one of its first investments. Befores started buying december. It is not clear if it has sold yet. Gold is starting the new year on the front that. Advancing for an eighth session to head for the longest stretch of gains since mid2011. Even as u. S. Stocks surged to records. Days with a 17. 34. The asset may be set for decline. Bloomberg has been told that europe Trading Volume fell. Traders are bracing for one of the most big regulatory shifts in history. Any transaction completed on tuesday would have to be settled after the directive comes into effect. Global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. There is continued unrest in iran. Russian calling for emergency meetings of the Security Council and the Human Rights Council of the Trump Administration says it may him pose new sanctions on tehran. What is going on exactly, where are we with this . It looks like the Trump Administration is ramping up threats to reimpose sanctions. They have about 10 days and they have to renew or decide whether or not to give a waiver as part of the nuclear deal. That is the deadline coming up. The white house says the options are open. Trumps involvement in weighing the benefits of that are questionable. There are a lot of people in iran who are not happy with the way trump has treated the country. Whether that is helping or hurting the situation is unclear. Rishaad lets talk about iran. Is, could sanctions really be something on the table to how far would that get Donald Trumps goal of renegotiating the nuclear deal . Certainly hoping to take advantage of the latest unrest to push his role of getting rid of this deal or renegotiating it. Europe has not wanted to do that. Congress has not done much of anything either. It is unclear whether he is going to do. It provides them a good excuse to reimpose sanctions. Its opportune timing for him in a way. Had donald we just trump tweeting in the last 20 minutes. The north Korean Leader just stated the Nuclear Button is on his desk at alltime heard will someone his please inform him tell him i have a Nuclear Button. My button works. It looks like we are starting off the year perhaps not with sophisticated diplomatic exchanges, but personal insults again. This is trump being trump once again. My Nuclear Button is bigger than yours. Said, look ieech want to have talks with seoul but i am not giving up my weapons. This will be the intention going up forward. The question will become how the u. S. Response. We saw overnight, the first sanctionsrump saying and military pressure is working to get him to the table, but on the other end, deeply skeptical about this. Never recognize north korea as a nuclear power. He idea from the u. S. Is that we are still not backing down at all. On our threats. Butcan talk if you want, whether that will lead to a solution remains very unclear. Haidi dan, thank you so much. One of the great themes of last year the tensions in the gran peninsula. Continuing to be a major theme as we go into the new year. Take a look at the impact on investors and brokers right here in asia. Rishaad should we act more of the same this year . His outlook is next. This is bloomberg. Rishaad this is Bloomberg Markets. Haidi a quick check at the business flash headlines. A sixmonth extension at a golden copper mine. We talked to the transfer of majority ownership. Untilberg will operate june. Freeport will give up its Majority Holding it in return for a deal to upgrade the project through 2041. Rishaad no sign of a pause. The nymex. On the weakness of the dollar help to produce alternative investments. December, it caps a fourth straight annual decline. That is the longest streak since 2000. Haidi gst alliance has agreed to buy a coal mine to feed the steel operations there. Agreementd a binding parent. He glencore gst says it key element it plans to expand production at still works in south australia. Japanese markets remained closed through thursday. Making some cautious gains after this rally we saw for u. S. Tech companies. We saw some up to fresh record highs. Us is sean darby. I put up a chart at the beginning of all this. It showed if you had a good plus, you see the following year a gain of 9 . Why are you bearish . We feel the Global Economy is doing really well. A lot of other markets are starting off from a very low basis. Evaluations are a lot more attractive. The earning cycles are much more appealing. You do get some of the benefits from the tax cuts going through for the s p 500 and also a lot of international flavor. But europe is going gang busters at the moment are at. Is running reallys strongly. It is a bit like a horse race. The u. S. Is lagging just a little bit. Rishaad just to clarify it is 20 times in the last 80 years. To be fair its not a market to be sure to of. Too many people were ultra bearish on the u. S. Over the last 18 months. Some of the work we did over the last couple of weeks to show that if the isn manufacturing returns a positive, we have also been showing a gain with the yield curve flattening. That is not a sign that the s p is going to be weaker for the next 12 or so months. A lot of the backdrop for the u. S. Is similar to the rest of the world your real Interest Rates on everywhere. We see this sector rotation taking place until the end of 2017. We did not see that yesterday in the session. Overall, it does seem late stage. One days trading to save things that are going on. It seems classic. It does. At the end of last year, we had the revenge of the underperformers. Some of the sectors rallied on the fact that they lagged so much. Not because of the earning cycle but because they were not in the winners group. I still feel that we have got a breadth. Re when you look at parts of europe on the banking stocks and also on the em. There are a lot more upside than the s p at the moment. You see particular opportunity what it comes to this rally continuing in japan . Yes. I think the paradox is japan just about ticks all the investment boxes. It has still got at least 50 in stocks trading around 1. 25 times book. This is still a very strong earnings drop here in. Lastoj is going to be the central to do any tightening. You also had record profits in 2017 in japan. Means the global japan comes out the best on that ettrick. The besting to find winner of a thai population of indices at the moment. Haidi it is hard not to feel a bit of vertigo. U. S. Stocks at record highs. Asian stocks at record highs. What could potentially derail this story . Two risks. E we could get back inflation, the very thing that is for years ago the banks wanted. High wage growth and higher push pressures coming into the Global Economy. Certainly there is evidence even in japan that wages have been growing. That is evident in germany. Risk for8 has a tail one part of a higher inflation story. The second one has in an insatiable demand for yield which has pegged the 10 year bond at 2. 4. Really, that anchoring of the 10 year has allowed a massive inflation to occur. The risk is actually that we get a normalization in yield curve. That is something we would be looking for toward the end of the second half of this year. The Global Change to growth story by way of trade on your radar . Thats a good question. I think longerterm, the type of econationalism that mr. Trump is promoting wills dart to will start to curb global trade. Although are getting a rebound at the moment, it is less than what we saw over the last decade before the crisis. Still not as strong as what we would have expected since 2000. But longerterm, that team perhaps has run its course. Again, when you start to have this type of selfpromotion of domestic investment spending, fdi flows will dry up as well. It is not a two to threeyear story. It is a five to seven your one. Haidi sean come a pleasure to have you on. Sean darby there. Getting that line out. Referenceng the u. N. At the highest level since may 2016. Coming up, another chinese steel inning shot down by the Trump Administration. Details bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Markets asia. Alibabas financial has turned down a merger. Money gram shares have plummeted. For an of a blow is this financial . The money gram deal was supposed to be a signature move. With this happening, the company will have to focus much more in the asia region. 30 million asd part of the termination agreement. Rishaad how could this change Investment Strategies for Chinese Companies wanting to get into the u. S. . The money gram deal was a tester for trumps at it to attitude for deals coming from china. Along with the shutdown of an earlier deal for an enterprise company. The two deals together sense a strong signal to chinese countries that they have to be much more cautious Going Forward if they want to invest or by u. S. Companies. Haidi where does and go from here . Well placedprettys in asia. They have investments in all of these regions. T will have to and t focus on asia instead of the u. S. Rishaad ultimately here, what does ant financial do elsewhere in the world. Global . T see them they are part of the supporting function of payments for alibabas going abroad strategy. For them themselves in china, they started from the payments as this but gradually expanded into wealth management. On the credit finance, and you probably expect that to happen in all of these other asian regions that they invested in. Rishaad think you for joining us. Counting down to the start of trading day here in hong kong and shanghai. Adding to the gains we saw in this session tuesday. Looking at that up to half of 1 . We are seeing equities generally higher in this part of the world. Oil also having a bullish start of the year. We will see how long opec can sustain their highs. That is next. Retail. Under pressure like never before. And its connected technology thats moving companies forward fast. Ecommerce. Real time inventory. Virtual changing rooms. Thats why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent Network Speed across multiple locations. Every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. Leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. Comcast business outmaneuver. Rishaad 929m. Here are at here in hong kong. Records in the s p and nasdaq providing us with a tailwind. Technologies stocks rose in america. U. S. Futures are also high ahead of fomc. It did weigh on european equities. Yuan up. Go we had the haidi absolutely, it is a short week as far as asian markets. A lot to get through on the agenda during. Certainly a picture of oil and see to start the trading. To shanghai and hong kong. They have just open. Sophie is taking a look for us. We are seeing marginal losses or the shanghai composite. We are seeing i. T. And real estate duke it out in terms to which is the biggest driver this morning. Gaining a 10th of for percent. My comes to the mood in hong kong, we are seeing the hang se ng up. Getting about 4 10 of a percent. Oner the q1 strengthened atsday, we did see the pboc the highest level since may 2016. Offshore yuan trading at a four month high. Developersa theme of leading gains for Chinese Markets. Real estate stocks are on the move again in hong kong. Chinese estate is climbing for a third day after disclosing its holdings in ever grant. That is extending its tries its rise after tuesday. Jinmao up almost 4 . Checking to other stocks. Aac tech was upgraded to overweight. Ony were raided and hang of sevenonal is one Chinese Super stocks set for a 20 rally in 2018. When you take a look at what movers are leading gains. Rising for all or take her gaining over 5 this morning. Rishaad thank you so much for that. Getting you to singapore to get a look at the first word News Headlines. Thank you. The Trump Administration says it may impose new sanctions on the run as the number of people arrested in street protests nears 1000. The white house says it is heaping its options open after the president tweeted the people of iran are finally acting against a brutal and corrupt regime. U. S. Ambassador rice says has no international plants. She wanted and emergency session. It takes great avery for the to use the power of their voice against the government especially when their government has a long history of murdering his own people who dare to speak the truth. Singaporebased Traffic Group is denying any involvement in the illicit transfer of fuel to north korea. They owed aid cargo. The shipment had been sold to a littleknown Hong Kongbased company. Which then sold it on. New research from the markets say Driverless Cars are set for lift off. First in the u. S. And then around the world. Fueled by the growth and increasing chance of abandoned human operated vehicles. Autonomous car. 33 million in yearly sales by 2040. 2017 proved tough for hollywood. Moviegoing falling to its lowest level in a generation. Admissions in north america slumped to 6 . The lowest since 1992. Its a different story in china wo brokerld warrior t world records. Reflects chinas strength. Global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. Rishaad the fight against debt is continued this year. They will make modest increases in money market. How many rate hikes can we expect . Lets get to jeff black. Atone hand, we are looking three, but it is not quite as simple as that when it comes to ratesetting in china . Its not quite as dramatic as three rate hikes in the u. S. Is because what we are talking about here is pboc guiding the price of money in the money market slightly higher. That is not a dramatic tightening. To make it clear, what we are not doing here is raising the cost of arlington across the economy. Pboc is keeping its benchmark. Keeping it on hold until 2020. Rishaad so they have other tools. Thats what were getting at. You alluded at some of them. To tweak the Financial System in the manner they are. About managing the price of money in money markets through their liquidity operations and the volume of liquidity. Stable and secure is what they are aiming for. Prudent and neutral is the word there. That means keeping liquidity pretty much stable in guiding the price higher through the price of those sevenday operations. Haidi how much of this is a reflection of what is going on with the fed . We did see them reference in the u. N. Today. It comes back on the bloomberg dollar index hitting a 14 week low. Are they trying to tweak its own policy to make sure its not too much behind with the Federal Reserve is doing . A certain element of that. It is about managing the risk for example accelerated capital outflows would materialize. But that is not an issue right now. The situation at the u. S. The weakening dollar, that is giving the pboc a little bit of space to conduct its to mester priorities without having to worry too much about what is going on in the Global Capital markets. Thank you so much for that. Taking a look at the outlook when it comes to the pboc. That last money market tweak took a l