August 15 but also continuing down. 7 the nikkei and the futures in the u. S. Are looking lower as well. Data expected out of the u. S. Later today. And in terms of looking at some of the currencies in the region, we talked about the bloomberg dollar index. Down about. 10 . Dollar weakness is essentially beneficial to equities in this part of the world and currencies as well. Aussie, thats what youre looking like, essentially flat and new zealand had jobless numbers that came in less bad than expected. The kiwi dollar up. 2 . Lets move on to some of the commodities, gold again looking strong and well, above 2000 an ounce, a little bit of weakness in the last hour or so, down about. 2 . Terms of oil were looking at the beirut story, the port explosion there and there was concern that have geopolitical tensions emanating from that. Thats the yield picture in the points. St over 10 basis rally washe dollar rather short, and then weve got gold, the inverse correlation back at the moment. The reason for the dollar to continue going down a really getting quite stark here. Theres clear concerns that investors fear some kind of easement going on with the u. S. Dollar. The latest projections for treasury refining in the United States next quarter is close to trillion dollars. These numbers are starting to get a little bit meaningless because every country is borrowing lots of money. But when youre borrowing close to a trillion dollars a quarter and got the central bank eating up as many securities as it can, people will suddenly be afraid that youre not taking your currency seriously and thats partly why were seeing the u. S. Dollar fall. Theres also significant change in the funding costs as well. But we saw in march, part of the reason why the u. S. Dollar was stronger was that there was the demand for shortterm funding in the u. S. Dollar that pushed up shortterm rates relative to other currencies. That has completely evaporated. For currencies like the euro and the yen, the cost of holding those has gone down so much, theres almost no deterrent at euro andfor being long thats a first time in a while that people dont have to talk think about is their cost to holding the currency. But the funding picture together in the way the u. S. Is finding it isnt really that good. Its a wonder that it rallied at all at the end of july it is probably going to have a pretty rough summer as we go through to the u. S. Elections. Given that funding picture you outlined, how to set feed into the story around gold . Weve been covering it quite extensively and weve got a story this morning suggesting that gold could go to 2300 as the next major target. Theave other writers saying reasons are widespread for the support of gold and its partly because real yields are heading downward. Also look at the retail space as well. Even though there were a lot of people involved in gold etfs, the numbers are still getting bigger and bigger, at the current level the number of people involved in gold etfs actually is bigger than germanys official reserves. So you can see how big that is. Another one of our colleagues did a Google Search for the phrase by gold. It came back with the highest readings theyve had since 2011. Which is the last time that gold set a record high and we are well above that now. So you can see the interest in people looking to acquire gold has never been higher. So people are not being put off other 2000 price threshold at all. Rishaad even though we havent actually got an agreement between them between both sides of the house, has it been priced in . To some extent, thats partly why equity markets have held up pretty well in the United States. You wouldve thought that would be a bit more cautious, considering that the deadline was missed for the end of july to extend those Unemployment Benefits, but i suspect people in the market always thought that some deal would have to come together, and never thought everybody would completely back away, its just too important. With the u. S. Elections coming up, both sides of the house would be considered to be villains if they dont they know that something has to be cobbled together. It might not be a perfect deal, but you can expect that a deal will go through. Even then, the market will probably be looking for the next one. Whatever packages agree, its not going to be enough to sustain the United States through the end of the year when they still havent got the coronavirus situation under control. Shorttermely things, but ahead of the election, everybody wants to get something on the table. This is one deal, and there will be another one coming down the track pretty soon. Thank you for that breakdown. More on this story and all the days trading on our markets live on the bloomberg. Get a market run down in one click. Fromxpert analysis bluebirds bloombergs expert editors. Lets get the first word news with Karina Mitchell in new york. A massive explosion has killed at least 70 people in beirut and left thousands more wounded at the capitals main port. The blast was so powerful, a shadowed shattered windows even in cyprus. They havent said whether it was in accident or and the or a deliberate attack. Concern about the coronavirus in australias prompting queensland to close its borders with New South Wales and the Capital Territory from early saturday morning. The State Governments at all travelers will be denied entry. Xcept for rare exceptions queensland residents returning home must pay for a mandatory 14 day quarantine at a hotel. And while the defect told leader two forhas filed elections in september. She was barred by the previous military constitution for becoming head of state. Shes credited with ending decades of armed rule in myanmar but has faced International Criticism for failing to stop attacks on minority rohingya muslims. Virgin galactic is pressing ahead with plans to offer passenger trips into space. They are working with rollsroyce to build a plane that can carry up to nine passengers. Initial picture show a close similarity to the concorde which rollsroyce also worked on decades ago. 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. Im Karina Mitchell. This is bloomberg. Breaking news coming from manila at the moment, gdp contraction from from. 2 in the Second Quarter, talking about the First Quarter, gdp contraction to. 7 , it was. 2 contraction before. And the Central Bank Governors saying gdp growth will be recovering, but recovering next year, they will be deploying all measures needed. Thats just coming through. Ahead, shining light on inequality in singapore. Will speak with an author about how that might threaten the ruling party. Next, the state of the u. S. China trade deal hangs in the balance. Senior officials are planning to assess the situation amid rising tensions. We will have the latest. This is bloomberg. Tom welcome back. Tim just tensions between the u. S. And china are set to rise even more after the white house announced a visit to taiwan by Health Secretary alex azar. He would be the most senior american official to visit taipei since 1979. According to the administration, the triple take place in the coming days. Derek, what do we know at this point about the trip . This will be the highest level visit by u. S. Cabinet official in decades and decades. As are is supposed arrive in , then in the coming days trip is billed as a trip,related coronavirus where a czar in the country that has experienced the covid19 pandemic worse and may anywhere else on earth is going to taiwan , one of the places that handled it the best, to take stock and talk with people and it all on the surface level makes a lot of sense. He said that taiwan has been a model of transparency and cooperation in Global Health during the pandemic. Obviously this is set against all the washington ivan beijing tension, it certainly is not going to go over quite so well in beijing. Im sure when they saw that there was a lot of thought they had on it that we will probably find out about in the coming hours. Im sure they have a very big response here. This is not something thats going to be viewed as good news on the beijingwashington front, but certainly washington is willing to push taiwans case in the wake of the covid19 situation and their response, so this is sort of a natural followup there, too. Got china state media getting into this whole tictoc affair as well, with them saying the tictoc sale would amount to smash and grab. Its just one more thing added on to a lot more which is causing disruptions. Thats really true. I think that a lot of people in china might not of been happy with the u. S. Demand to divest the u. S. And other related parts tok. K the idea that donald trump has put out there that there needs to be some form of finders fee, those are my words for it, not his, but some sort of finders fee paid by microsoft or tictoc in the if u. S. Are divested to microsoft. I think that has rubbed a lot of people in china very much the wrong way. That was derek in singapore just breaking down the latest beijing andween washington. Mr. As are traveling at some point in the next few days with the delegation. Azar traveling in the next few days. Some technical issues there but thats the latest in terms of these tensions with beijing in washington. Theres a line crossing the terminal we want to bring your attention to. The state of victoria and australia reporting 720 five new covid19 cases overnight. The government theyre also saying thats that 50 more people have died in the state of remains, so clearly it a serious concern as they attempt to try to control the virus. We know that melbourne and other victorian states are being locked down. Rishaad in the situation in melbourne and therein victoria comes as the race for a vaccine continues. We will hear exclusively from bill gates about the quest for something to stop this pathogen. This is bloomberg. Rishaad your back on Bloomberg Markets. Bill gates warned of the threat of a Global Pandemic years before it happen, but he says were going to be ok. He talked about the race for a vaccine, and what happens next. Innovationely, the in diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines will get us largely out of this by the end of 2021. The therapeutics will start to cut the death rate, but the true naturals when between infection of the vaccine we have this herd immunity. For rich countries, sometime next year, ideally in the first half. So we are going to be ok . Is that what you are saying . I do think this time we will samettention, and have the types of practice in preparation. Some countries did very well. The u. S. Did not. So your foundation has given more than 350 million now to fight covid. You are backing a south korean vaccine in particular david why that vaccine . In particular. Are there any other vaccines that look promising to you . One of the few things that , wedone to help be prepared are behind a lot of different vaccines. We are finding manufacturing capacity at many different sites, particularly for astrazeneca, johnson johnson, and novavax. Those are the ones that are most scalable, low cost. We are trying to make sure we can ended not just in the rich countries but also in the developing countries. In that benefits everyone if we achieve that. We are asking the u. S. To contribute like theyve done and other Global Health crises, which so far they havent gotten around to that. Emily one vaccine in particular, is there something that stands out about that one to you . No, that is just in a list. I would say it is not as early to come as some of the others. We have really whole portfolio where some of the later ones probably will be even more effective. Looked quitene above some of the others. To really stop the virus from going into your upper respiratory tract and block transmission. Its easier to block to reduce sickness than to block transmission. Emily how confident are you that we will have a working vaccine that can be distributed in mass quantities by the end of 2020 . Is it going to be a one and dine kind of thing, or will it be a seasonal vaccine, like the flu shot . Terms initial vaccine, in of its effectiveness against sickness and transmission wont be ideal. Primary point is for 50 effectiveness, and it may not have the Long Duration that one of the later ones will. The more expensive ones will mainly be used in the rich countries as a bit of a stopgap. We would be lucky to have launched before the end of the during the first half of next year a number are likely to get approved. Then we need to scale up. We need billions of doses to get to places that have a hard time doing sheltering and are already so poor that the economics are quite dramatic. Challengee biggest the Global Health community has ever faced. I think we will rise to it, even though the right investments were not made, and in the case of the u. S. At least, the lack of organization around testing and trials has been very disappointing. And that was bill gates, microsoft founder and cochair of the bill and Melinda Gates foundation. The biggest fast food chain in the philippines has reported a 200 million loss in the Second Quarter. Lockdown into a strict and restaurants were closed. Bad,eo calls the loss very but says he expects a return to profit by the Fourth Quarter as the covid19 restrictions ease. Virginal strata has outlined restructuring plans under new ownership, as it looks to survive the coronavirus downturn. They will cut 3000 jobs from the workforce of around 9000. Brand will be discontinued and International Flights will be suspended until the Global Market recovers. Virginal study collapsed under 5 billion of debt in april. Sony is offering of gorgeous forecast for the rest of the year, despite porting earnings that beat estimates. Operating profits came in at 2. 1 billion dollars, compared with the average forecast of 1. 3 billion dollars. Sony is preparing to launch the latest version of the playstation console, anticipating Strong Demand and asking suppliers to double production. An electric truck maker offered a bumpy First QuarterEarnings Report with analyst trading barbs and shares tumbling in late trade. Saying it lost more than 86 million in the Second Quarter, a five times greater shortfall than a year ago. Expectations. At not surprisingly, the analyst disagree. Hsbc is looking to hire up to 3000 wealth planners in china to turnaround flagging profits, even amid rising political tensions between beijing and the west. The first 100 or so have already started work in wenzhou and shanghai. The rest will be added over the next fourars years. Hsbc is in the process of cutting 35,000 banking jobs worldwide. Rishaad lets get to the markets as we had to the china lunch break. Sian stocks mixed at the nikkei down , and looking also at whats going on with the yen because it is coming back, the yen strength ways on equities. The Broader Market down by the same amount against the backdrop of whats going on with the dollar. ,he dollar index turning down and dollar weakness here as well. Thats currently where we are. Democrats aiming for a virus relief bill by the end of the week. Way. Ls are on the this is bloomberg. Andaad 10 29 in hong kong beijing. This is Bloomberg Markets. China fighting back over the bottles of tiktok the battles of tiktok. State media describing orders for the up to be shut down next month again, quote, theft. They indicate beijing may block any sales. The strongest supporter yet of bytedance. Microsoft remains interested in a deal. Tiktoks troubles are proving a relief for rival instagram. It faces ames range of concerns in the u. S. Mark zuckerberg says it threatens chinas position and the influence over the internet and social media. The u. S. Health and Human Service secretary alex azar is to lead a delegation to taiwan. Due to arrive in the coming days to talk about the response to covid and to deliver medical equipment and technology. China views the island as part of its territory. Reports from washington say the ted states planning dow jones saying the two sides have agreed to open highlevel discussions. Beijinge assessing compliance with the phase i deals. The umass has the u. S. Has been hammering china over trade, hong kong, human rights and tech. Lets have a look at some more signs of recovery in china with auto sales rising for a fourth straight month. Delivery of passenger cars and commercial vehicles rose 15 from a year ago. We had the sales topping 2 million. Easing the coronavirus shut down allowing car buyers back into showrooms, reading hopes the three years sales slump maybe coming to an end. Big picking up some of the stories in terms of tiktok and trade and taiwan. We are looking ahead for the bank of thailand. You have the r. B. I. Tomorrow. Lets check in in terms of the benchmark. It is flat. In the mainland, shanghai composite is down for 10th of 1 . Services coming in below the estimates. Still an expansionary territory around 34. Japan, and big day for earnings. The nikkei is down 6 10 of 1 . Futures in the u. S. Are flat. In terms of the tech story, there have been reports from a news agency in china suggesting it will be more support for some of the Software Makers and chipmakers. That is leading to a rally as you can see. The likes of National Silicon up more than 6 and troy information up 8 . We can move on to the next board. The Southeast Asian indexes. We did have that line coming out from the philippines in terms of First Quarter gdp revised to a contraction of 0. 7 from 0. 2 . We will have secondquarter gdp on thursday. We also have cpi for