Isas the local suggests, it five minutes to midnight in the Global Climate emergency. Carbon pollution must stop rising in 2020 and start following to keep the Paris Agreement goals within realistic reach. Very long way behind, but there is still reason to believe we can win the race. He reiterated that the paris climate agreement provided a framework to get the job done and that the agreement needed to be put to work fully. The egyptian president is calling for strong action against countries that support terrorism. His comments were an apparent. Eference to turkey and qatar the three countries also support imposing factions on the wartorn libyan region. He made the comments at a twoday forum on peace. French officials are trying to calm down nationwide protests against pension reforms. The government said that the full retirement age will be increased for the youngest, but offered a series of concessions, including their first ever minimum pension that would replace a complicated Pension System that included dozens of special privileges for some sectors. The announcement came a day after more than 300,000 protested across france. Global news, 24 hours per day, on air and on quick take by bloomberg, powered by 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. Im mark crumpton. This is bloomberg. Shery ahn live from bloomberg World Headquarters in new york, im shery ahn. Amanda and im amanda lang in toronto. We have the top stories from around the world. The fed is in focus. Investors await the fomc decision in just a few minutes. Plus a big week for trade negotiations while the u. S. Mexico Canada Agreement could live the cloud over north american trade relations. Uncertainty over trade and tariffs are still front and that front and center for investors. Ken griffin, billionaire, has a lucrative money machine, more so than you might think. Check lets get a quick on the major averages here at and,of the Federal Reserve perhaps, more importantly, a sense of where it might be headed. Saudi Aramco Trading for the first time today, up 10 on the day. Broadise you are seeing markets trading sideways ahead of the action. A couple of stocks getting attention, including home depot down on the forecast. Boeing trading on news that the planes might be grounded longer than some had hoped. Loomingts are still over the markets and we have a wait and see approach for most of them. Otherwise, sideways. A quick check on the pound, here is one that could well be influenced by events, but we have seen a continued rise in the pound ahead of the u. K. Elections. As you can see, we continue to see strength as the day goes on. You cant blame investors for being on the sidelines this week. One place we are seeing a lot of activity is the average loan etf with figure b k l. This is after four Straight Days totalings targeting 340 million. Yesterdays fight was the biggest oneday increase since february and we have seen loans climbing to their highest levels in months this december as we continue to see signs that the fed might now maintain rates after three cuts since july. Closely watching the fed decision, about half of an hour away, for more on what to expect, lets welcome john barlows, from pasadena. John, great to have you with us. They are mostly waiting for the fed to hold rates. What will be the more interesting part of this meeting . John i think that the headlines are unlikely to be very interesting. The fed thinks that it will be unchanged policy for 2020. There is Something Interesting going on in the background, the fed is increasingly concerned about low target inflation and are looking for ways to prevent inflation from falling further. Thats a big factor in their decisions this year and going forward. We are going to hear more about that in the press conference, i think. Amanda still concerns, though we may have seen enough of a turn and positive data that we may not be here to talk about recession any longer, but there are concerns that some point you might need a larger response to a weaker economy. It was recently made as a case to me that we need the fed to set itself up to have the ammunition in the event of an eventual downturn. John the first observation is that the interesting thing this year is that growth will hold a round trend as they cut rates. That tells you that what the fed is doing is not really about growth, not really about Financial Markets and instead more about inflation. That was the point i was trying to make earlier, the focus on inflation is new and that is the novel change in the fed this year. If you were to get to an environment for growth is weakening at the same time, i think the fed response would be straightforward, cutting rates even more aggressively than what we saw this year. Y have been given at it and accommodative stance and if you layered on top of that concerns about growth, you would get an even bigger fed response. But that is not where we are right now. Where we are right now is growth as a round trend with inflation driving it. Again, inflation is too low, the fed is concerned about that and i think we will hear about that today in the press conference. Shery could we see more action given the repo operation with those Corporate Tax payments, which really wreck havoc back in september . Yeah, september was a real outlier. I think there was a fair criticism that maybe the fed should have been on top of that or ahead of that. You also have to point out that the fed response has been very strong afterthefact and they have expanded their Balance Sheet meaningfully, both in the repo operations overnight and now through a tbill Purchase Program of 60 million a month. The fed response has been very strong. You know, i think you are hardly going to get it right every day. Probably not. But over time the strength of the fed response will provide stability for the markets and i think that is the right way to think about this going forward. Amanda when you think about the focus on inflation, when we had that strong jobs data from friday, 3. 1 is an inflationary number, you could argue. What will satisfy the fed, given that there is a lag effect on the actions already taken . You always need to be cognizant of those, but the thing that strikes us right now is the feds referred measure of inflation is at one. 6 cpe. Today we got cpi data that doesnt really suggest an upward risk going forward. Whats notable is how far below 2 it is. You could see a move up and inflation. 1. 6 to 1. 7 or 1. 8 and you are still below the fed to. The starting point matters and that is that we are a long way from the fed target. The other thing i would highlight is that the fed is increasingly welcoming of over 2 inflation. I dont know if we are going to get that but if we did, i dont know that the fed would be that concerned. When you think about the , you think about the level that we would have to get to to see the fed concern at 2. 2, 2. 3, even 2. 5 , we are a long ways from there in the take away from investors is that we are a long way from having the fed hydrate hike rates from inflation. The point is low and the hike is high. You put that together and the chances of the fed being concerned about inflation in the near term is very low. Amanda john, great to have you with us, appreciate it. John very good, thank you. Bloombergreminder, will have special coverage of the fed decision today at 2 p. M. Eastern time. The fed will certainly be keep an eye on trade talks and the markets as President Trump secured his first major win on tuesday after democrats signed off on the u. S. Mexico canada trade agreement and announced plans to vote on the neil the new deal next week. The timing could prove more difficult in the republicanled senate. John donovan covers trade for Bloomberg News in washington. Sean, good news to get some kind of motion on it, every country saying we won, which seems like an unlikely kind of scenario that everyone came out ahead. Canada calling it a better deal than it was. You wonder what will come of the fine print and how we have these signatures on it, which are great. How far are we from ratification . As you said, the vote in the senate, looking to be the final vote before it goes to the president for his signature, slipping into next year. Magic Mitch Mcconnell saying that we will probably have to wait for the impeachment trial, tying the fate of the usmca to the democratic insistence on impeachment. So, we should see, as we will see next week in the house, a vote on impeachment and then a vote on the usmca. In the senate, trial over impeachment and then a vote on the usmca. Everyone is claiming a victory here. Democrats and republicans here in the united states. One of the really interesting things here is how donald trump is going to carry this into his reelection bid in 2020. Already signed, he claimed this is a promise delivered, election promise from 2016 delivered to renegotiate nafta. He is hoping that voters will take that on board and make it to the ballot box next year. The bigger question emerging here right now is what is going to happen with china. I was just with jamie dimon, the ceo of jp morgan, who said the trade remains the selfinflicted fly in the ointment for the u. S. Economy and these tariffs they go up love a big impact on markets. Shery does this make it less likely that the u. S. Will be willing to compromise on the china deal . Thats an interesting question. You can look at it both ways. The more disruptive event potentially for markets in the u. S. Economy is what happens with china. We have seen that in recent weeks, where news related to china moves the markets much more than even some hopeful news on the usmca. I think the real question is whats happening with Economic Growth going into 2020. Donald trump needs to make that calculation. Does he want to take a slowing economy into a Reelection Campaign . Or does he want to try to shore things up and remove that uncertainty that has been hanging over the u. S. Economy as a result of the trade war with china . Moments weust a few will get some clues as to the fed decision. Coming up, ken griffins other money machine. We take a closer look at his trading empire. This is bloomberg. This is bloomberg markets. Time now for the bloomberg quick take. The wtos most critical function as a trade referee is paralyzed. They lost their ability to rule , meaningspute cases President Trump can retaliate against american trade partners without fear of the view tl oversight. They are the second tier that determines whether members are abiding by the rules of International Trade and have the in billions of dollars of commerce. In the last two years the u. S. Has refused to sign up on nominees to fill vacancies on the panel. The terms of two more members of the panel expired yesterday, meaning there arent enough to sign off on wto rulings. The u. S. Says that the panel has overstepped its mandate. [no audio] money machine that rivals his hedge fund. Digital securities, sometimes dismissively referred to as the Digital Trading arm, actually referred actually more lucrative than you might imagine. Tom maloney is with us with the details. This is fascinating. People seemed to be dismissive because they thought it wouldnt work as well as it is today. For people not familiar, this is the Market Making arm of six adell and it is making a lot here, its a big player. Much bigger than anybody was expecting. This is the first time we have really been able to dig into the financials. Its a privately held company. 3. 5 billion in revenue in 2018. Massive venture and ken griffin might have made more last year than he made in his hedge fund. Shery to your point, this rich go function, you can see that according to bloomberg calculations, his wealth is estimated at 10. 3 billion, making him number 86 on the ranking. How has this sifted all securities, his firm, been helped by not only technology, but also regulation. Like the volcker rule . Wealth,jump back on his its up to 15 billion now because of the addition of sifted out securities. Regulation has played a big part in the growing of citadel securities. Theknow, globally after financial crisis, regulation was put in place to try to reduce the risk that banks were taking and it is creating an opportunity for nonbank dealers to increase market share in a variety of different markets. Me,da which kind of led and maybe you are going in the same direction i am, these big nonbank players, one of the big unintended consequences was they became big and top frequency trading, massive and the settlement of things that used to be done bilaterally but now are done on exchanges. Is it increasing or reducing the risk in the system that they are now a major player . It depends on who you ask. The citadel position denolly reduces risk. Know, trading on an exchange, you could make the argument that it reduces risk and increases transparency. You have less of that in the system. At the same time thanks would say that nonbank dealers dont have access to the same kind of liquidity as a bank. If there was another financial crisis, you might not see them respond in a way that a bank can. You, tom. Nk coming up, the fed decides. Moments away from the federal Bank Rate Decision and we will get a preview of what to expect. This is bloomberg. Amanda this is bloomberg market. Power, wentdown to are on the minutes away from the Federal Reserve rates decision. Our chief economist is here with a preview of what to expect. Karel, we are not expecting them to move on rates, per se, but are we going to get more clarity on whether those three rate cuts are going to work . Karl we will hear the boilerplate language that things are not on a boiler on a set course, but it has been abundantly clear that the hurdle is high for the fed to shift off their perch. We are watching and waiting for their mechanism to enact a significant delay. A jobs report that was disappointing might show revitalization in the economy, looking for revitalization to support that. The hurdles are high. Its higher for a defense move back into hiking mode to be sure with further accommodation unless trade talks break down and certainly tomorrow through sunday will be key in that regard. Defendants going to stand pat for the time being. The longer they stay on hold, the more they will be forced on to staying on hold because of the election next november looming over all of this policy. Amanda we heard from our guests earlier that inflation was the focus for the fed. Would you agree with that . If you do, what does that suggest the fed might say to guide . I would this carl i would disagree with that. The fed has performed more poorly in terms of the inflation side of their mandate, so you could make the case that there is more of a focus on that, but at the moment the greater focus is on the degree of the economy slowing down. If the economy is slowing excessively, we dont have to worry about inflation at all. Similarly if the economy is rebounding, then in 2020 we will start to drift back towards watching the inflation mom numbers. Activity basic metrics and focus at the moment, if its at 2 the inflation story will be relatively benign over the medium term. Speaking of benign, we have green shoots suggesting we are not headed for a recession towards the end of the cycle. Topped for federal Bank Reserves here, what do you think they are more closely watching to know . What are they looking at . Consumer activity in particular. Consumers have accounted for the lions share of Economic Growth in the last several quarters. Stripping consumers out of the picture, the remaining parts of the economy have been in contraction. The fed and economists are very much focused on whether low creates the resilience and consumer activity needed to propel the economy through into 2020 or beyond, when other elements of the economy can engage more forcefully, like Capital Spending and business investment, broadly, which has been largely absent. We need to get beyond trade uncertainty and, with the election looming in november, Political Uncertainty as well. I think they will both hold back business spending next year. I would take issue with your description of the late cycle, even though we are here beyond the 10 Year Anniversary of the cycle, looking at economic fundamentals it does not look like an economy in the eighth or ninth inning of the ballgame. Low inflation, accommodative rates, consumer driven, suggesting that it is a midcycle economy even 10 years out. Shery always great to have you with us, carl. Getting a check on the markets, a bit of a mixed picture. Can you blame them . There are so many news events the u. S. , fomc, acb, china trade tensions ongoing. You can see treasuries extending. This is bloomberg. Decides. The fed im scarlet fu. Keepomc is expected to things unchanged after three straight cuts this year. We await the announcement at the top of the hour in just over 30 minutes. The here with me, jason kelly and carol massar. Are we in a good place again question or jason it feels like it, right . Carole coleman and whats the bar to raise rates at this point . No one is expecting movement today, but what happens down the road . Scarlet joining me now, the guggenheim cofounder, as well as the blackrock fixed income senior portfolio manager. Jeff, what are you listening for . Jeff the last time that we were are was the big story of symmetry. Meaning that this is very much willing to seek inflation rise and will be very quick to act on any signs of inflation falling. I think he is going to reiterate the message. Its an Important Message for investors, it really underlies the importance of bonds as a motive. In 2018, your question from a second ago, that this would be a very different fed and it will be interesting to see if they tip a hat at all towards average inflation targeting. That is a new regime, what were the fed is much more able to see inflation run. Scarlet we have been carol we were talking about 2018 when jay powell said things that really disturbed the market. Scott i think he