This is Bloomberg Markets asia. Rishaad lets have a look at the big one. 189s bring up this chart, on the bloomberg terminal. What does the show . Unemployment rate. I refer to that because it is the big yoelater. At unemployment, Holding Steady at record lows, or decade lows, i should say. Seasonably adjusted. 4. 1 here. Wage, wet the annual ratehe unemployment go down. We go back to 2008, and wages are pretty high. Then, they plummeted at the Unemployment Rate went up. Around the 10 level. This is a fine line. Unemployment versus wage growth. More wage growth needed to engender some sort of inflation to take the inflation rate in the u. S. Higher. Likeng at that, something 8 30 hong kong and beijing time. Dont hold me to that. Im not sure. [laughter] haidi here in asia, it is pretty data light when it comes to the inflation. Reserves looking m at the impact. Global synchronized growth story. 30 minutes out from the open in china and hong kong. Singapore, thailand, malaysia, joining a set of asian stocks heading towards the best week in six months. Whatever way you cut it, we just keep hitting new records, and the exuberance is continuing into the weekend. One has to wonder where the spanner in the works comes from. Risk on mode. We are waiting on malaysias at noon. Ures, due. 2 . S in kuala lumpur, sixthstraight day. Flirting with the handle. In singapore, the sti slaps its sixday event. April hide. G at the shares in taipei opening. 1 higher ahead of inflation data. Check on apple suppliers, after the tech giant that all ios devices like iphones and ipads are exposed this week. We are seeing a mixed bag for apple suppliers in taipei. On the data front as well, australia posted a surprise trade deficit. Checking in on the aussie, a session low on the back of that data. November exports were little changed from the previous month. We are seeing currency traders take that on the chin this morning. Shares in sydney remain on course for a third day of gains. Minas tracked the broad rights we have seen in Commodity Prices of late. The asx 200 is set to begin the year at eight year decade highs. When you take a look at the bigger picture, we are mostly seeing gains across the board. Come in to the green after starting the year on a weaker footing. We do have japanese stocks continuing their early 2018 rise. Helped along by the tech rebound not only in tokyo, but around the world. Blue on thisne in chart, could be set for a two day advance. Not a bad start for japan this year. Rishaad thanks for that. It has been called the bomb, these weather conditions. But get to the first word news headlines. Paul allen. Paul. Paul a fastmoving snowstorm has grounded almost 4000 flights and promoted states of emergency in parts of new york and new jersey while closing schools from washington to boston. The National Weather service says manhattan could get nine inches of snow by late thursday. In some places will feel like 30 degrees below zero. Ande now says all its mac ios devices are affected by the revealed processes. There is no exploit impacting customers at this time. Security experts say highly regulated sectors are most at , andfrom a security floor chips made by intel and others. Asset management eyeing westinghouse for 4. 6 billion. Canadas biggest asset manager agreed to buy what remains of the former nuclear powerhouses at u. S. Business as well as the long bankrupt european business. Says the deal ceo will transform the company into a stronger, more streamlined expected tot is it tha close. Californias attorney general says the state is considering its options after the Trump Administration proposed opening almost all u. S. Coastal waters to oil drilling. The department of interior plans 47 possible options of drilling rights across more than 90 of the u. S. Continental shelf, activistswaters where have fought for decades to spared delicate ecosystem from oil spills. Global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Im paul allen. This is bloomberg. States ande united south korea will not be holding their annual drills during the Winter Olympics next month. Moon jaein saying he and President Trump agreed during a phone call that the games and should be kept peaceful. More from jodi schneider. What does this tell thi us about the state of negotiations . A bit of wiggle room . Di it does appear this way, because south korea has been pushing for this. President moon said he wanted to try to deescalate tensions with the north, and this has given him an opportunity to do so since the north said they would be willing to at least talk about the olympics. Looks like the u. S. Is saying we will allow that to happen, although no indications whether the u. S. Would really go for any talks themselves. Haidi trump is of course taking the credit, saying his tough stance or tough tweeting led to that dialogue between north and south. Has that actually helped . There has been dialogue before. Whether whatnclear is exactly behind this. Obviously, these things tend to happen because of a number of factors, but it is hard to see that the u. S. Can take credit for this. They. S. Has not even said would be open to talks. A lot of back and forth. Secretary of state tillerson, as you recall, said he would be willing to have back channel talks. The white house shut that down pretty quickly through the condition for talks would be that the north is up its nuclear ambitions. Kim has made very clear that that is not going to happen. Its hard to see that the u. S. Is behind the spirit it seems the u. S. Is allowing there to be wiggle room. They are not saying that are canceling the drills, just postponing them so talks can occur in the olympics can occur. Rishaad jodi, great stuff. Jodi schneider, our bloomberg editor. Will 2018 be the year that japan wins the war on sluggish inflation . Joining us, our guest, later on. Ubps head of, Asia Equity Research and why he remains bullish on emerging markets. This is bloomberg. Mark friday will the first report in 20 18. It is a report for the u. S. Jobs picture for the last month of 2017. A survey of economists expect 193,000 jobs to be added to the month of december, down from november. Watch includeto the Unemployment Rate come expected to stay at 4. 1 , along with average Hourly Earnings growth. This report could provide important clues as to whether a moderate acceleration in Economic Growth will translate into a faster pace of hiring. In addition, it may offer early clues as to whether a strong jobs market for the first year President Trumps term will continue. Ahead of that report, stocks rallied, with the dow crossing 21,000 for the first time as all three major averages put in new record highs. In new york, Abigail Doolittle, Bloomberg News. Haidi that was Bloomberg NewsAbigail Doolittle on why the official u. S. Job numbers will be closely tied to the eyed today. Over policyivided makers as to have slow Interest Rates need to rise. Rish. Rishaad despite these signs of tighter centralbank policy, we will continue to extend the strong start to the year. Let us get to singapore. The head of Equity Research. Kieran, you are overweight emerging markets. You must be very happy with that call now. Kieran it has gone the right way so far. We have been overweight emerging markets through the course of last year with a focus on asia em, and we continue that into 2018. Rishaad the question Everyone Wants answered is does this go on . Nothing goes in a Straight Line. Are we going to be in line for a bit of a gutcheck at some stage or the other . Ouran so, i mean, from point of view, from the markets point of view, almost Straight Line we saw over the course of last year, it was really driven by the earnings recovery story that started in the Fourth Quarter of 2016, and which has continued throughout the course of until now. As long as the earnings picture continues to look good, and we expect the earnings picture to brought about a little bit to include more sectors, then we should be looking at a positive trajectory from here. Will there be a shortterm correction . Of course, possible. But we still think the underlying earnings the mix of p. M. And asia em look good for the first half of this year. Haidi taking a look at your top three contrarian calls, overweightjapan, asia em, as well as the Global Commodities story, they are not exactly contrary and. What is unique about your strategy . Is there a risk that these are starting to get crowded . Kieran so, you are right. Those are not a gently contrary in place. Onbe a more positive view Global Commodities is early story. But actually, i think the overweight japan view is a little bit contrary and. If you look at the earnings recovery story in japan, its. Ven stronger than we have seen the market is only up about 20 over the last year compared to a to japan. We have seen multiple compression in japan despite a strong earnings picture despite multiple expansion. We have seen strong growth there. Got the prospect of tax incentives tog increase, and the real test of this is meant to come with the spring Wage Negotiations in japan, so we think the isrweight japan story perhaps a little bit of a contrary and call, certainly from a market point of view. Haidi what about the impact or the lack of impact to the yen . We have seen this the correlation decorrelation. That has not played out. It has been pretty benign. We got some calls from morgan stanley, seeing dollar trading at 105 this year. At what point do we see this weighing on sentiment . Kieran we think that we are much more likely to see a weaker yen over the course of this year , predicated on two things. One, the u. S. Fed continuing to increase rates come and secondly, the boj continuing its yield curve control policy, where they are trying to keep the jgb tends at zero, so that weaken the yeny if nothing else happens, which we think can be a bit of a tailwinds for japanese stocks, and certainly for the japanese market. There tends to be more of a relationship between foreign inflows into japan when the yen is weak versus anything else. Haidi kieran rishaad kieran, more from you in a little while. Head of Equity Research. A quick look at the bi business flash headlines. Amazon to bid forlans streaming rights for the premier league in an upcoming auction. They pledged to pay for three seasons. Live sport as a way to get more people to subscribe to it by memberships. Haidi alibaba says the chinese. Iant plans to open more the additions would expand alibabas presence in the capital to 35 stories from the current five outlets. The china daily said alibabas main rival, jd. Com, will open more than 1000 fresh foods doors within five years, after cutting the ribbon on its first store in beijing on thursday. Haad sources saying it is a deal that could be worth 2. 5 billion. We are told this mumbai listed company made a nonbinding offer through its american division. The owner moves to expand his overseas operations. Sell ther agreement to higher based solaris. That was structure your security concerns. U. S. gas prices in the running hot at a time of the winter freeze. We will be assessing when the rally is likely to cool. This is bloomberg. Rishaad were back with Bloomberg Markets. And Rishaad Salamat in hong kong. Haidi im haidi lun in sydney. Natural gas has surged to 60 times the going rate as blizzard conditions stoke demand. The market mayhem is having a knock on effect even in regions far away from the stormy weather. Lets get over to our energy reporter. It must be strange to be looking at these pictures of the blizzard. How long does this distortion last . What are the widespread impacts we are seeing . For this distortion, the good bombis the storm, this cycle, is moving pretty rapidly. Meteorologists are forecasting that by january 8, monday, past the weekend, we are going to see affect the northeast. It is a shortterm dislocation in the market. In new york, people are paying gas,for thermal units for compared to three dollars for the u. S. Benchmark, and it is trickling all the way down into the appellation areas, priceshia areas, where have doubled. The impact is widespread, but hopefully, it is just going to be a short one. Rishaad this is the traditional period where Heating Oil Consumption goes up, and when you get really bad weather, the demand goes through the roof here. Does that not matter as much as it used to . Dan it really doesnt, rish. You are hitting it right on the head. Heating oil has been replaced by natural gas as heating fuel in most of the u. S. Northeast. Similar to what we have been seeing in china where people are placing coal for natural replacing coal for natural gas. The diesel industry is not really as effective as it would have been 10 years or 20 years ago, where this would have created a big run on those petroleum fields. Rishaad thanks to dan murtaugh. Kieran, a lot of people had bullish calls on oil. Some have gone so far as to say we might be looking at 100 per barrel. The thing is, even at 62, we got into the range where a lot of those refiners, shale refiners in the u. S. , can really come in and kick in their production. Kick in their production. At 65. Is that the line to defend, or has something changed materially . Kieran the one thing that has kind of changed since oil prices started to recover at the end of last year, we have not seen rig counts go up, which is theously a positive for supply side, and at the same time, we have seen quite a few disruptions and potential disruptions on the demand side, so what is going on with the weather in the northeast right now, we have also got geopolitical potential issues with iran at the moment. We think all of these sort of are generally supportive of at least of the oil price not moving lower, and moving higher from here. We saw the news overnight, potential of more offshore drilling. And thats in all of the offshore areas of the u. S. That would take time to implement, about the potential negative. Like always, in oil, there is a lot of issues with demand and supply, but generally, the trend seems to be up at the moment. Rishaad that is reflected on your call for Global Commodities, suggesting that this fiveyear to secure bear market is about to change in the sense that this is a long cycle turn. Kieran yeah, this is something we introduce at the end of last year. We think the commodities complex in general, including oil, has really had, you know, a long, bad period in terms of price over the last five years. We think we have probably seen a bottom in it, so we would expect a slow increase from here. Oil is probably the one commodity that has moved pretty quick compared to what we were maybe expecting, but in general, we are pretty positive on energy and commodities from a sort of longterm point of view. Haidi in terms of the commodities, longerterm prospects for the rally, how much is reliant on the u. S. Dollar staying lower this year . Kieran from our point of view, it is not really a factor. We think that probably the , it will be about where it is by the end of the year. If you look at the dxy, we dont have any strong view of it moving higher or lower from here, nor do we have a strong view that that will affect commodities prices. Herein, thank you so much for that. Kieran calder, head of Equity Research asia. Lookg up, we will take a at the sustainability of hong kongs skyhigh property prices. Men the citys richest with all the opening numbers out of hong kong, shanghai, and shenzhen, on the other side of this break. The sky is the limit, not just for property prices, but certainly, for asian stocks at those record highs as well at the moment. This is bloomberg. Rishaad we looked out towards the peak in hong kong, and it is 9 29 in beijing, and singapore as well as in hong kong. Counting down to the start of the session. What have we got . Equity markets in the u. S. On an absolute tear. Reaching and the dow, that is what we have. The asia pacific basking in the optimism, up. 4 . Pmis came out of japan, services and composites the same, showing expansion. Looking ahead to the payrolls report out of the u. S. , the most important data point of the month, arguably, and optimism as out as the adp figure came yesterday showing also better than expected job creation in the u. S. 62 per barrel. Haidi after a bit of brief the u. S. Dollar, it feels like the same theme. Everything that was driving this rally in the previous year, certainly, we are going back to these stories in the first trading week of the year. If the sox on the edge of the best week. Are seeing we are looking to see whether it can sort of take out the 52week high in todays session. If there is any session to see the exuberance today, it would seem to be a pretty good one. Japanese equities looking the highest since 1991. Lets get it over to sophie, who is taking a look at the shanghai and Hong Kong Market to see whether they are doing this celebratory, festive mood. It is a happy friday. If you take a look at mainland markets, the shanghai composite gaining. Slight losses for the gauge and the shenzhen sharemarket down about. 1 , but shares in shanghai did clock a five day event, so this is something we should keep an eye on to see if th theyt push for a six have gains. A nine day advance to the home saying the hang seng. The eight share index the hshare index climbing. The offshore yuan picking up the handle your the australia is now coming online, trading at 6. 4825. Checking on other stock movers, lets check in on sunny optical, after they cut the price target while keeping a buy rating on this stock. They did trim the profit forecast reflect anticipated slowdowns in the smartphone industry. Just in time for friday happy hour, chinese immigrants. A fifth they and hong kong on the news that chinese brewers have upped prices by 10 to 20 becau