We are 30 minutes away from the open in china and hong kong. Asiabergs southeast markets, singapore, malaysia coming online, joining this session which has been positive. Japanese market leading and gains after getting a arrest by it on the dollaryen. They are ahead of the key speech from President Trump. Sophie is tracking the markets for us. To the respond in the dollaryen strength, we are seeing japanese shares higher about six or send following the rally on wall street. Take a look at some movers on the nikkei. Gaining. 5 . This Company Makes jet engines. It also builds refineries and Nuclear Power plants. It is said to have booked a onetime gain on a Properties Sale in tokyo. Toshiba following about 2. 6 , using the earlier drop. We did have a japan ceo saying it does face a risk. One of the reasons including this liability could exceed assets. We are seeing a gain of about. 1 . Earlier we did have australian stocks open weaker, now up about. 33 . Helped driveally the seller profit season we saw for australian equities. I want to take a look at the currencies base with the dollar base with thees dollar gathering strength ahead of trumps speech. We are seeing the strength soften somewhat and the u. S. 10 year yield come down to about 2. 35 . The yen gathering a little bit of strength but still above the 100 day average. The dollaryen still off the session lows. I want to show you a chart to show you what is going on given this lowball utility environment we are in, which some investors are promoting for being too dollars. We are seeing volatility in the yuan giving way to a sense of calm. It does show that offshore yuan volatility is set for the largest monthly drop since 2005 after a january marked by aftermathves and the of stricter capital controls and rising money market rates. A stable dollar has helped narrow fluctuations in the yuan. Lets take a look at the offshore yuan. Ahead of the fixing today. Offshore yuan volatility tumbling to a 15 month low as investors turned less bearish. Said the economist yuan is no longer a safe bet as capital outflows become more balanced, helping firm up the currency. Person says the yuans oneway depreciation has ended. It is of great interest to trumps newly confirmed wilbur ross. Haidi certainly that is going to inform some of the statements we may or may not guess get on it comes to the chinese currency and threats of a currency war. Airbag maker takata has pleaded guilty to wire fraud related to its potentially lethal product, linked to the death of at least 17 people. The Company Must Pay fines and compensation worth 1 billion despite victims trying to force a delay in the settlement. Ramy inocencio has the details. What more do we know . Aroundhis all centers the pleading of guilt around the wire fraud, the one fraud allegation that basically they said they did admit to falsifying data to carmakers, and that did cause these debts, at least and that did cause 17, theaths, at least airbags causing shrapnel to explode. 1 billion is the settlement. Lets break that into its three parts. Million goes to the automakers themselves. That is to cover the cost of the recalls to reimburse those automakers. ,125 million, a smaller chunk goes to the victims and their families. Another chunk, 25 million, for the criminal fine as it centers around the department of justice investigation. The detroit federal judge who heard the case and allowed the pleading of guilt, came out and said he could have had an even bigger payout of more than 1 billion, the judge saying the destruction of the corporation would probably be a fair outcome. He also said it would not be fair for the victims and would put takata out of business. Also, the pleading of guilt was not actually sure whether it was going to be accepted by the judge. Victims had said the wording of the settlement maybe they werent open to that because it could shield the automakers from some of the accident victims getting paid out. On monday, a new lawsuit saying the five automakers may be potentially were buying faulty airbags in order to save money. Nissan,g toyota, honda, ford, b w bmw. Takata is under probation for three years and subject to a compliance monitor. Haidi this is not over for the company. They are saying the settlement results in a Justice Department investigation the sentiment result is from a Justice Department investigation. Ramy that is potentially put to rest, but there are lawsuits takata is facing from consumers and states. Takata has already been sued by dozens of drivers and passengers. Those lawsuits allege that there are complaints of Excessive Force with regards to those exploding airbags, but minus the shrapnel. Takata is also facing a desire by the u. S. To extradite three of its executives in japan. One possibly good thing is this potentially removes a major obstacle to the sale of takata. Onential buyers include from sweden as well as key Safety Systems in china. Haidi a long way from being resolved. Thank you for that. Lets go to first world news. Sources are telling bloomberg best softbank is in talks to merge with intel set. We are told a deal is conditional on setting aside money to purchase bonds from investors at a price higher than they were trading at last week. That would value a transaction at about 18 billion. They are also said to be talking to ses. The south Korean Special prosecutor may indict jay y. Lee on tuesday along with several other executives. They are being investigated over the influence peddling scandal that put lee in detention and impeach the president. Samsung denies making donations to win government support. The Group May Announce reform plans on tuesday afternoon. President trump will propose raising defense spending by 10 . In his first Budget Administration officials spending by 10 in his first budget. Officials say it will be offset by cuts to federal agencies, state department and epa hit the hardest. He has promised not to hot social not to cut Social Security and medicare. The plan has to pass through congress. Another of President Trump steam has been given the thumbs up. The senate has confirmed wilbur ross as commerce secretary. He becomes the richest member of the trump cabinet with bloomberg estimating his worth at almost 3 billion. The president has said he will leave the u. S. Will lead the u. S. In trade negotiations. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 reporters and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. Haidi thanks for that. With agns of strain brokerage dismissing 90 Staff Members and shutting down its u. S. Equity research operation. Our finance reporter laura kellog joins us. What do we know so far . Laura what we know is that in the u. S. , we have cut about half the people who work here. It is a shutting down of the u. S. Equity operations so all the analysts and support staff, as well as a few traders. Again, that is half of the u. S. People that work here. Haidi how has the company been doing recently . Is this an indication of a weak performance . Laura they have been doing poorly in asia, but also in the u. S. , i am told it might be better than asia. If you look back through a couple months ago, in september, the company told people globally , 15 hundred people, we would like you to take an unpaid vacation of 10 days because we are trying to save. That was something very unusual for any brokerage firm. It is something the brokerage has done in the past three different times when they have experienced trouble. 2013, 2008, 2009 to save on costs. It is pretty drastic. Haidi one of the most high profile elements of the story is that mike, a high profile analyst, was terminated. Do we know much more about that . Laura i spoke with him a few moments ago. This is happening on the night of one of the most important investor dates. Jpmorgan is going to be in new york presenting to its investors everything they want them to know for the coming year. Mike mayo is going to be attending this event tomorrow. He let me know that is something he will be going to. We should be hearing from him as he normally is, a sort of thoren in the bankers a sort of ,horn in the bankers sides asking what they are doing for investors. Story is this a broader about the trying market conditions, the tough situations faced by small brokerages . Have they been faring well . Laura a lot of problems, especially in the u. S. , for smaller brokerages. I remember looking back, to peek at capital into mind, topeka capital was one that came to mind. It is because of change in the equity markets. If you are not a big shop and you dont have the traits coming through, for smaller firms it is quite difficult even if you have prominent analysts. Whether it is mike mayo and banking, or a lot of Technology Analysts who were prominent. Even if you have those Good Research ideas, it is difficult to get some clients to continue to give you flow because of the electronic training. Difficult, too, for some smaller firms. We have really seen issues here in the u. S. Haidi that is playing out with the clsa story. Laying off more than half of its staff in the u. S. Today. Still ahead, we speak to a danish Robotics Company helping to drive automation across the asiapacific region. Plus, the worlds biggest agricultural Trading House tells us about asias growing appetite for meat and fish and how that is helping its push into the reason region. This is bloomberg. Fori oh weaker demands a commodities has hit profits among bigger players. Lets take a look with Haslinda Amin with us in singapore. How are the big names in the industry reacting to the is swings in the market . Haslinda they are focusing their strategy and diversifying. ,f you look at cargo cargill the largest agricultural Trading House, it has looked into meat processing, fish. A representative joins us this morning. It plans tosaid grow in asia more than the rest of the world. Give us a sense of what investments you are looking at. Just for people who are not aware, we are a private company in the u. S. We have been involved in food and agriculture for many years. We are involved in Food Ingredients like cocoa and chocolate, starch and sweetener oils. Basic processing, trading, animal production as well as animal nutrition, as well as trading of financial and industrial products. We are doing something of similar note in asiapacific. We certainly have opportunities to grow here. Theou look at the growth in marketplace, whether it be population, gdp growth, changing diets, all of these play into the things we do. Haslinda what exactly are you investing in in asia . There is an increasing demand for protein given the rising middle class. What are you doing about that . We are adding animal nutrition capabilities. For example, we have recently built a factory in vietnam and north india. We have recently built a cocoa processing facility to serve a growing demand in that region. We have recently opened a new soy facility in north china. Those are examples of organic growth. We are also looking at how we can partner. A couple of examples we have recently partnered in the philippines with a company on valueadded processing of chicken for their business. We have done a Similar Partnership in indonesia. Haslinda are you looking for acquisitions now . Certainly. We see all of these tools haslinda where . Are you in talks . We certainly have things going on. A recent example is we doubled the size of our Palm Plantation in indonesia. That is something we are interested in. We certainly like china, important geography for us. In some cases, Partnership Might make sense, in some cases acquisition. India, certainly, if you look at south asia, a huge population. It has got a rapidly increasing middleclass. All of these things are driving demand and looking at ways we can either partner or acquire. Haslinda 16 investment in asia. That seems pretty low. And you are pretty much understaffed and quite a number of markets. Can we expect you to be ramping up your investments . That is our intent. When you look at 60 of the population lives in this part of the world, if you look at food and agriculture, over a third of global trade occurs in the region. Our goal is to be a leader in the market we are serving. Haslinda double your investment . That is an in vicious that is an ambitious target. We would like something in 20 . Our aspiration is to be the Global Leader in nourishing the world safely and sustainably. You can do that if you are not the leader in asiapacific. We are going to be active in this area. Haslinda you have talked about getting into frontier markets, the likes of pakistan, myanmar. Where are you . Interesting journey. When you look at south asia, it is a huge population, rapidly increasing middleclass, changing dietary preferences. All of these things play two things we do, and we are underrepresented. We are not as big as we would like to be in india, very small in pakistan. We currently sell to bangladesh and myanmar, but we dont have a physical presence. We have different projects underway. In some cases, the markets are still quite small. Haslinda i need to jump in. Can you quantify the increase in investments . 20 , 25 , 30 . I cant be specific, but in some countries where we have limited presence, it is going to be a very large percentage. In other countries, for example china, where we currently have 68 locations, 9000 employees, a 5 or 10 improvement is significant in terms of scale. Haslinda we will leave it there for a moment. We are going to a short break. Stay with us. This is bloomberg. Haidi we continue our conversation with alan willis, cargills asian boss. Give us a sense of where prices are headed this year . I would say the best descriptor of the markets today is one of abundance. We have been fortunate to have really good growing conditions in the northern hemisphere. We are currently facing good growing conditions in south america, and that is being felt by the markets. We have seen a decline in Commodity Prices. It is also important to point out that while we have had record production, we have had record consumption and record trade. Haslinda all seeds are headed at this point, there is certainly ample supply but we are in the middle of the growing season in south america. We are early and about to enter weather concerns or whether markets in the u. S. It is too early to tell. The important thing is, we do have haslinda can you put a price . I cant. The world is volatile. A year ago, we had a problem with brazilian corn. This most recent year, we had a problem in indonesia with palm oil. Currently it is really warm with winter crops in india. We need to continue to have Large Production because trade is continuing to grow and the overall size of demand continues to grow. Haslinda traders seems to be the big issue here and it impacts your business in a big way. With trump pulling out of tpp, countries becoming more isolationist, protectionist, what are the prospects and how is that impacting cargill . Trade is something we are very passionate about. As you mentioned, we have seen an increase in trade barriers, whether it be tariffs or nontariff trade barriers. Effectively that is a tax on both producers and consumers, a concern. As i mentioned, the growth in Global Demand for food and agriculture is largely in south and southeast asia. In this part of the world, there is limited arable land, so for food security, we need to have open trade. It is concerning seeing those tariff and nontariff barriers coming into place. The fact is we have a Global Portfolio of assets. When shifts in trade occur, we are resilient, so we are not dramatically impacted. It is a concern in terms of food security. We are very active in those discussions. Haslinda you are a global company, 150,000 employees, one quarter of whom are in the u. S. They include the immigrants. With trumps immigration policy, which he is likely to implement, how are you preparing . We are very happy to work with the Trump Administration and other Key Stakeholders in a bipartisan manner. There is a number of issues very important to us. We mentioned trade. Certainly Immigration Reform is an important topic. Haslinda can you expect some operations to be moved out of the u. S. . I cant speculate on that at this point. The important thing is that we are interacting in a meaningful dialogue with the administration on these issues that are important for the u. S. And the world. Haslinda we thank you for your insights today. There you have it, the asian boss of cargill. Haidi good one. Coming up next, President Trump promising Something Special when it comes to health care. Later on tuesday, we take a look at the policies and Spending Plans he could announce. The markets in hong kong and shanghai are getting underway shortly. We will have the opening numbers. It is an upmarket they are joining. This is bloomberg. Haidi it is 9 29 a. M. In hong kong. We are counting down to the open of markets in shanghai and shenzhen. Im haidi lun in sydney. We are looking at the market trading in positive territory today. Uncertainty on the horizon. We have janet yellen speaking towards the end of the week. All of the focus is on the speech, the first joint session of congress that President Trump is going to be speaking in front of on tuesday night asia time. We are getting hopefully some more details about the infrastructure spending. He has hinted it is going to be big, really impressive. Markets are getting some buoyancy at the moment. It is also being helped by a rebound in the u. S. Dollar index , falling last week for the first time in three weeks. A recovery today giving respite to s