Good spirits. This hour brings earnings for samsung. A crucial report amid the virus disruption will show how the chip industry is weathering the global storm. Shery lets start you with breaking news out of south korea. We are getting become your current account balance. Right now, the surplus coming in at 6. 41 billion. Also for the goods trade surplus ining in at 6. 58 billion february. Both numbers are a significant rebound from the plunge that we saw in january when it hit the lowest level in seven years. Exports have been stabilizing after that hit from global trade spats and the double chip industries downturn. For the month of february, we are seeing an update and a rebound with a current account surplus at 6. 4 billion. The goods surplus at 6. 6 billion in february but of course we are headed to seymour economic fallout from the coronavirus outlet, so we will keep an eye on those trade figures out of south korea. For now, lets get you a quick check on markets. He restocks at the moment gaining ground after it lost ground in the previous session. Right now, up 2. 7 . This after wall street gained the most in almost two weeks. You are seeing u. S. Futures at the moment under a little bit of pressure along with nikkei futures which are down. 5 . Also a rebound for oil. Wti up 2. 4 percent, about 26 per barrel level after we saw the first loss in three days and the rise coming despite the signals that a glut is growing at the u. S. Some of the u. S. s biggest storage hubs. Not to mention concern at the meeting that producers will not yield any significant production cuts. The riskon rally you were just talking about being powered by numbers that show the coronavirus death tolls are easing in some of the worlds major hotspots, as you said. The likes of france, spain, italy. Thats turn to our Bloomberg Opinion columnist, who covers health care. You heard President Trump earlier. The markets gripping onto this narrative that we are seeing, if not a flattening of the curve, at least some sort of stabilization of numbers from these hardhit places like new york and like italy and on the european hotspots as well. Is that actually what we are seeing . More it is is better to say that about europe than it is to say it about new york or the United States as a whole at this point. There have at least been a few days out of europe where we have seen a flattening or at least a declining growth rate in a number of places but theres inviously been sort of a dip data. We will see if that trend continues. What we really want to see conclusionsg firm about anywhere is multiple consecutive days of decline of whatever metric you are looking at and the knowledge that as that happens, social distancing measures are continuing. The last thing you want is for good data to come in, people to change their behavior and then you end up with a resurgence in a week or two. Shery President Trump saying most of the critical medical needs are being more than met right now. Is that true . Know, it depends on who you talk to. Need nothe ventilator at this moment. Still time before we hit the peak in terms of demand for medical equipment. When people go on a ventilator, it is more often than not, a day or two, it can be a week or longer. As these beds get taken, they dont get they do not become immediately available for some time so there is absolutely still a chance that we will start to see more critical shortages and that is before you get towards the peak in some of these other areas of concern throughout the United States when you start having to not just worry about new york, this place of rapid growing demand with other places as well. That is when you really have to start juggling and producing and get to the high numbers to avoid serious shortages. How much progress is being made on the development of the vaccine which we know will still be many months if not over a year away . President trump spent his conference offering treatment to Boris Johnson the u. K. Wanted it and also, again, saying he was displeased about india putting in these curbs when it comes to the exports of Heico Corporation hydrochloric win. He spent hydroxychloroquine. It has been faced on small pulmonary studies. I would say what you are saying is just about accurate. It is perfectly reasonable to have hope. These hopes are not backed up by much in the way of hard data yet. You always have to split therapeutics and vaccines into different categories. You have these existing treatments that are being repurposed and you can certainly hope those are being tested right now, and i am still waiting to see any confirmatory data. These rapidly, newly developed antibody therapies, those, you might start to see data at the earliest in the fall. The vaccine after that. And everything still needs data before it can be said to be truly safe or effective in this virus yet. Still waiting on data, still se have see that the efficacy. Shery how cooperative have American Companies been during this pandemic . President trump has invoked the defense production act a couple of times already. The president does seem to kind of pixies intermittent fights with specific companies and a few days later, it is resolved with some kind of deal. I have not seen a tremendous amount of evidence that anyone haveeen so intransigent to taken this authority to get them to do something specific. They were the entire american supply chain. Anything that can be switched over to production of ventilators or ppe is going to need to these tools are necessary. I very much hope that they are used. Mass, there has been so much criticism when it comes to chinas reporting methodology. We supported reported underreporting of initial numbers of deaths. Are we also seeing that in other countries as well . It seems like an inevitability, when testing was pretty limited, that we would have had a lot of respiratory illness fatalities that probably were coronavirus in terms of the timing, but wouldnt it come under the county . . Is that something we are seeing for the data in other countries . Absolutely. It has been pretty conclusively reported in certain European Countries that because of how debts are classified and counted. Just because of sheer volume and the fact that you have these guidelines, it suggests many people stayathome unless they feel really severe symptoms. You are likely to miss some or undercount and it will be some time before we can really catch up to all of those. It is the unfortunate reality of the virus that you hear over and over when you speak to positions. Quite rapidlycost in some cases. It is because of the sheer scale , inevitable that we are undercounting in the United States and that the same thing is happening elsewhere. Haidi the latest headline on the bloomberg is the u. S. Could have millions of antibody virus tests by may. Does Research Back the reasoning that perhaps we could get some people with shortterm immunity for the virus and have them come back to the workforce and that they really would not get reinfected . On, you know, our experience with other similar viruses, there is likely to be some form of shortterm immunity , once you have antibodies for a reason. You develop them against the virus. But the extent to which they are protective, how protective they will be, how much that varies between people, severity of infection, that is something we do not know yet. That is something that really should be repeated as you hear the antibody tests hyped. We need to follow people, gather testsefore once those are available on a largescale, based on every other testing timeline we have seen in the United States. I would not take that one take it with a grain of salt. We need to know that before we use that for the basis of reopening the economy to a certain subset of people. Shery thank you so much for your insights. Max neeson in new york. Lets get to Karina Mitchell with the first word headlines. Karina boris is in intensive care in a London Hospital after his coronavirus condition worsens. He was admitted for tests on sunday after spending 10 days in south isolation in downing street. He became more seriously ill monday afternoon although he remains conscious. Meanwhile, virus cases continue to slow in italy with the Lowest Reported increase in 20 days. However, italy still has the highest number of infection related deaths in the world. Germany is planning what it calls in the madness Financial Aid for Small Businesses as part of its response to the virus. Angela merkel is warning the e. U. Faces the biggest challenge since its foundation. The European Central bank has dived into the fight against the coronavirus with bond purchases worth 32 billion this week. Most of the buying comes under its new Pandemic Emergency Purchasing Program with an existing scheme. It is skewed towards hardhit in me more than up hardhit in italy. Consumer confidence in japan has slumped to its lowest levels since the financial crisis has rising coronavirus cases prompt government to consider a state of emergency. Retail sales have collapsed as the pandemic hits incomes and keeps people at home. The abe government is planning a stimulus package. Osaka, and other regions of focus. Global news, 24 hours a day, on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. I am Karina Mitchell. This is bloomberg. Haidi. Haidi thank you. Still ahead, we will be watching out for samsungs Earnings Report coming up later in the hour. We will be bringing those numbers, the impact of the coronavirus and chip demand as soon as we get them peered out with franklincome templeton fixed income Group ExecutiveVice President and cio. This is bloomberg. Haidi Political Sentiment in the u. S. Has turned against Share Buybacks during the coronavirus disruption. This led to a 2 trillion stimulus plan prohibiting companies from seeking government aid from repurchasing stocks. Joining us now to discuss what this means is Franklin Templeton fixed income Group ExecutiveVice President and cio how much of a game changer is this in terms of how expected would you imagine these kind of restrictions and these unprecedented times in these unprecedented times . I need to preface everything i say by noting i am not an i would sayt but there are varying degrees of beliefs as to how much of a role inre buybacks have played the s ps meteoric rise in the market. I think almost regardless of whether or not Share Buyback played an Important Role in that rise in equity prices is purchasing and the extent to which the company the countrys mood, the political againsts squarely equity buyback i think there will be a protection. To the market going forward. Until that changes again. In terms of the volatility we considered new continue to see and we will continue to see across fixed income in the bond space, where are you seeing opportunities in terms of the dislocation . The main areas we have been focusing on for several weeks, actually, is to look at Higher QualityInvestment Grade. Way we have meteoric drops in the equity price and equity crisis. We also have dramatic declines in debt prices. It is not the time to just jump in. In terms of looking, certainly, at Investment Grade corporates, i think there is it is a good time because there have been moments over the past several weeks where bonds, which were trading at 10 basis point spreads, the first week or second week of february. You can tell that, truly, there was a level of panic, and while in the are seeing Economic Perspective is uncharted territory, some of the places perhaps want to far. We are looking at to be very selective, looking for Higher Quality, trying to stay quite liquid in all of our portfolios. Also looking at areas like the bond space, areas where you did have some leverage sales where the unwinding of leverage led to fairly in discriminant sales in some cases of bonds. Our Portfolio Managers are safer to buy. Leverage,o not take we were actually in a very good we have seenwhat in the markets. We are now coming off a very dismal employment numbers out of the u. S. When you look ahead to some ecodata out later this month in related are u. S. Rates with Economic Data . For some time, they lost all correlation. I would say that if i look at u. S. Rates, they are actually uncorrelated now from the Economic Data. Say profit foresight in terms of how the Economic Data cannot improve while the country is actually on lock. This is not perhaps too surprising and it should not be surprising as the lockdowns have extended across the country because certainly, there are many industries, white Collar Industries all of us on the phone right now, we can all do our jobs from home, however, if you are an hourly worker at a restaurant, you are clearly a uniqueay that it is and interesting kind of unemployment that we will first, deepsee, but and staggeringly difficult cuts will come to those who are much more vulnerable in society. Much more fiscal packages put into place. Will needobably more to be done. They dont have savings. I think that is the most critical piece to look at. The Human Element of the economic shutdown. There is the big Human Element to it. When i look at rates, rates are being driven by the fed. It is a little bit independent, i would think. Rates have been driven down and it is most likely they will be range bound. I do not see them fighting anytime soon. The fed is controlling the market right now. Shery thank you very much for joining us. Franklin templeton income. The u. K. Prime minister is in intensive care. This is bloomberg. Boris johnson is in intensive care for this coronavirus after his condition worsened. However, foreign secretary says it is business as usual for the government. The governments business will continue. The Prime Minister is in safe hands with a Brilliant Team at st. Thomass hospital and the focus of the government will continue to be making sure the Prime Ministers direction, all the plans for making sure that we can defeat coronavirus and pull the country through this challenge will be taken forward. Haidi Rishaad Salamat it has the very latest. Salamat has the very latest. What do we know . The Prime Minister being taken into the hospital for intensive care. He is on oxygen but he is not on a ventilator. He is admitted to st. Thomass hospital just south of parliament. We heard about his virus symptoms not clearing up and perhaps getting worsened on monday afternoon here. Apparently, he is conscious, and he needs he does not need a ventilator, but he is in intensive care. He might need ventilation to help him recover. That is what we know this far. Donalddo know that trump coming out and saying he is a fantastic person. We have had David Cameron wishing him well and the family well. Ian duncan, former leader of the conservative party, saying likewise. This is coming at a time a critical time for the u. K. As well, naturally, as it tries to covid19 at athis time where perhaps things are not looking that good for the u. K. , dealing with this crisis. Coming less than a month since the u. K. Tried to shoot for herd immunity. There is a lot of pressure on the government right now in how it has been handling the crisis. Rishaad absolutely. Countries,ome other where the United Kingdom has not been conducting widespread testing to get reliable data on infections, they have been advising people to just stay at home, selfisolate, as it were. Medical experts including the who and johnsons own conservative colleagues have been questioning the governors records, already criticized for taking too long to impose limits on socializing. The thing is, for several top officials in the u. K. , to actually selfisolate in recent weeks, and the chief medical officer for england, and of course, jared johnsons influential advisor, dominic cummings. Johnson ordering a lockdown with schools and shops and public venues closing and people only being allowed out of their homes if they could not work from home or if they had vital needs or emergency reasons to get out. Rishaad salamat, thank you very much for that. Lets get a quick check of the latest business flash headlines. Airbus is causing production at two sites in germany and at its factory in alabama as it looks to adjust to a slowdown in demand and supply issues associated with the coronavirus peered operations will shut down for about for part of this month while production where a320s are made will close until at least the end of april. Itsng is suspending work at 787 dreamliner plant in south carolina, shutting down the last of its commercial jet factories. Duction will stop on april 8. The Company Closed its seattle area harb on march 23 and said it will remain closed indefinitely. Boeing has been hit not only by a global slowing demand for air travel but also by the grounding of its bestselling we will have plenty more ahead. Do not miss