why show among the biggest learners with shrinking subscriber numbers. david: in the middle of earnings season, broadly speaking, this is the theme for hong kong. yvonne: it's seem to be digesting it a dovish type. they say they will be managing over time so perhaps they will hike now and manage later. david: we will see. as you mentioned, equity markets under pressure. dollar a little bit higher on the bloomberg dollar index. the south korean currency, which we will get to in a moment, whipsawed earlier. commodity markets partially

missed, still 3% up in terms of iron ore. this is something we are tracking as well. i mentioned the bank of korea. if you take this chart much longer back, we are pretty much at floors. we may see a little bit of a pickup, which might matter to some traders here as we approach jackson hole and what we might hear out of the world's preeminent central banks and what they signal over tapering. yvonne: it seems right now they are still pretty cautious about the situation when it comes to covid. they talked about how they are still under a bit of a cause i lockdown in the country, so there are questions about how it plays out, how it will weigh on growth, so at least for today, instead of choosing between household debt and delta, household debt is the narrative, and they are shifting toward at least reigning in some of these financial risks they are seeing in the economy now that we have

seen borrowing surge on the back of held low these rates have been. rishaad: the country has had a bit of an issue with domestic debt and household debt in particular as well, and even going into covid, this is a bit troublesome for the central banks during covid. very low interest rates encouraging further borrowing, and they do not really want to be indebted quite this much. just 25 basis points make a huge difference? david: yeah. also worth noting is them pumping up the inflation forecast. prior to this, the be ok forecast was at 1.8%, one .9 percent. it is now above 2%, which in a way sort of justifies this move. just to say a bit quickly, when we talk about central banks, and we are not hearing from the central bank governor of the bfc , talking about the bfc keen on

keeping support as long as needed. as far as that is concerned, the risk of cpi's broadly balanced, he says. inflation slightly above target in 2021, but i guess the broader theme here is they will be prepared to keep support for the economy at these levels for as long as possible. yvonne: yeah, pretty much what the governor told us a few weeks ago. for more on the be ok decision, go to tliv to get commentary and analysis from our expert editors as we count down to that press briefing. rishaad: absolutely. we will be getting that later on from the be ok governor, holding that briefing at the capital seoul, and you can watch that life and you can also watch on the terminal be live go. yvonne: we are getting more now

on why they decided to hike. kathleen: this is kind of an historic move. not only the first asian central bank to move, you could say it is the first big major economy -- advanced economy to move. yes, iceland has raised their key rate, but korea is a large, influential country in the region, in the world, and in 15 months of a record low rate, i do see a headline from img -- ing economics that bank of korea chooses debt over disease. when asked about the impact of the virus, he said we have to have permanent flexibility here. it is not binary, do we or don't we have cases -- it is here now we have to deal with it. of course, it is also interesting from a policy statement, we know so far ahead

of the presser, bank of korea, degree of promulgation to reduce gradually, ok? clearly, they have made their first move, but it's not like they are saying full speed ahead yet. david: we are looking ahead to the press conference which should be starting in about 20, 20 five minutes from now. what would you say we should be paying attention to? kathleen: i was there. i was asking questions. i would want him to elaborate more on what will determine the pace of tightening. if virus cases suddenly start slowing down, can you speed up? are you behind the curve? look how much debt has risen. a lot of people blame those superlow rates, cheap money. why not borrow? are you going to have to be more aggressive than you would have been? this is a chart for the federal reserve, so let's put that down

for a minute. the real question is the virus itself, how does that factor into consideration for everything going on? they raised their forecast for inflation, but it has done nothing but rise the past few months. they had to increase it, so these will be such interesting answers we will get from the head of the bank of korea shortly. rishaad: kathleen looking ahead to countdown starting for the symposium in

friday. folks will no doubt also be looking at covid.

-- >> no longer super stretched, as was the case back in february. korea, taiwan, these are markets who insignificantly allowed flow already. if you talk about some of the more fragile countries which took a big hit back in 2013, i would say the external senses is relatively better. this entire debate about tapering, unlike 2013, i think this is s thi

telegraphs quite well. you might see some immediate reaction, but i don't expect it to be lasting or very disruptive for the asia stocks this time. yvonne: is it the fact that they are divorcing the whole fact that they are going to taper first and rate are something separate they could be doing down the line? does that provide a distinction, help risk assets buildup more? >> the prospect of rate hikes, i suspect it is a risk for probably the second half of next year. the process of tapering will be gradual. most likely, the announcement will happen in december. we are not expecting any strong signal from chair powell that the tapering is imminent. beyond that, rate hikes, we are penciling that in starting 2023 onward. from here until the middle of next year, a lot of things can go bad, so i don't think the stocks will start extrapolating

the opinion to potential rate hikes. i think that is something we need to start worry about some -- worrying about some time in the second half of next year. rishaad: has the inflation discussion been put to bed? where are we with it? >> i'm sorry, come again. i did not catch you. rishaad: i was asking if the inflation discussion had been put to bed. it does rumble on, actually, and what is your take. >> we are of the view that inflation will be evaluated but will eventually fade out. we are in the camp expecting inflation to be temporary, and that is one of the reasons we are not expecting the process of tapering to be aggressive. it will be a gradual process. we are not really worried about

significant repricing in rates market which would impact equities. yvonne: holger thought. we will have more after the break. rishaad: thanks are proposing to set up a $10 billion fund to plug the financial gap in the global healthcare system exposed by the pandemic. it is part of efforts by the g20 finance ministers to boost financial capacity to respond to future pandemics. global health security is dangerously underfunded. biontech seeking approval from

u.s. regulators. the company announced they had already submitted an application to the fda for a third dose. pfizer and biontech say they plan to compete for permission by the end of the week, bringing them one step closer to clearance. bloomberg has learned the latest soon to be released intelligence report on the origins of the virus is inconclusive as beijing warns of retaliation against those questioning if the virus leaked from its labs. u.s. secretary of state anthony blinken says about 1500 -- 50 and hundred americans are still

in afghanistan. evacuations are about to end within the next few days. the plan is for remaining troops to pull out by president biden's a deadline of august 31. >> it is hard to overstate the complexity and danger of this effort. we are operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the taliban with the very real possibility of an isis attack. yvonne: still ahead, the world

economy's supply chain problem is getting worse. up next, we talk about chinese equities in the outlook there. this is bloomberg. ♪

david: just to update our viewers here, we are looking at shares of an ev specifically

here. that is just over the last five days. from four months ago, the stock is down over 90%. rishaad: what we have is a company which the predicament it has found itself in means it will find itself difficult to raise money which becomes a vicious circle. this is looking ahead to those earnings as well, which are not looking pretty. yvonne: nope. they're supposed to report first half results. they have said here eight 8 billion renminbi in that period, so that is quite a loss -- 8.8 billion renminbi. xi jinping saying beijing is determined to hit its major economic and social development targets. data shows that these crackdowns

are beginning to hurt the economy. steel output, decarbonization, infrastructure and the like, there is certainly some impact now. it is difficult to quantify, but we are seeing some signs of it. rishaad: against the backdrop of beijing trying to level of power level society and make it more egalitarian. you have been looking at this as well. david: yeah, it is easier to quantify, say, if they are doing something that you can measure them. if you look back a couple of months on how much steel output has come down, but that said, it was more difficult, and yvonne and i were talking about this earlier. this is about something else, by the way. when you start targeting property, that makes up such a big part of final demand for the

economy. we are not saying that is the big risk, but if that goes wrong, then 8% consensus target for this year, it is a worthless point. >> and equity strategist joins us now. what do you make of this crackdown regulatory overhang as well, and how does this play into your strategy, and how do you then look at china? is it a game of two halves, one where we have national champions of industry groups, which the chinese government is trying to at the moment support in the place where you have to go? >> that is indeed the way we are looking at the struggle right now. quite honestly, the area where you want to be, the so-called areas where we have quality

tailwinds, these areas are also not cheap. in fact, some of these areas are quite expensive, right? the number one question is if i want to be positioned on china, there are two parts. one is so-called cheap or attractively valued sectors with a lot of policy headwinds. on the other side, the policy tailwinds, so what do i do. it is a very tricky situation to be in. our view is that from a portfolio position, you need to have both. even if you look at some of the sectors which have these policy headwinds, some areas from that space may seem quite attractive, but the bottom line is that when you see negative moves flow, and that is when sentiment will improve. some of these sectors are stocks adhere to some very long-term investment themes. these areas will eventually go

back to the size of the economy eventually. anyone who wants to take a view on these sectors will have to wait for some near-term volatility because i think we have to get used to this constant recurring flow on regulation, which will obviously not help. david: for those who might choose to just wait this out, i'm sure depends on the risk profile, and i'm sure you talk to your clients, i guess this is more a practical question because these stocks are such a big part of almost every asian equity out there, how do you actually get exposure to asia, for example, without necessarily getting exposure to that part of the market? >> the other theme now is people

are rotating away from china to some other interesting areas, so we have quite a few interesting companies in korea. there are a few other in india. i think that is one area where potentially clients can look past. a couple of them are already listed. clearly some bit of rotation is already happening, so money is moving out, but i suspect some time in the next few weeks or months, people will come back to china. short-term, we are a bit cautious on china. you need to be a bit cautious on asian equities, but medium-term, we are quite constructive. evaluations will look very attractive. we are not of the view that chinese equities are indigestible. at the end of the day, it is all about greed.

yvonne: a lot of analysts like yourself are looking at this rotation. there was a lot of hype. the price right now has basically dropped close to 20% since the peak we saw when it listed. are there risks to going into these parts of the market because of the fact that even before we headed in here, the valuations people were saying could not be sustained? >> i can find quite a few examples of companies in the past which had a bump, and weeks down the line -- weeks down the line, stocks were 20%, 25% down. it is a good u.s. example that

had a good debut and for weeks and months, the stock did not do anything. i think we should start focusing slightly on medium-term to longer-term. some of these areas -- for example, there will get listed in indonesia and india as well, and those could make for even better opportunities. david: on that note, let's leave it there. thank you so much. very quickly in case you missed it, he might have seen this already, they are out with a note, still bullish on global stocks. 735 the target, internet year, 820, double digits from where we stand at this point in time. i will leave you with that fairly positive number. we will be back. ♪

yvonne: sources told bloomberg that western digital is in talks to merge in a deal potentially worth $20 billion. shall me is driving a self-driving startup for over 77 billion dollars -- xaomi is buying a self-driving startup. david: blade and something is the name of that new game that is really disappointing investors. we talked about jeffrey's coming out with iron ore earlier and cutting the price target for

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rishaad: 10:29 here in hong kong. we have the governor holding a news conference and a briefing in the capital. the question will be where the trajectory of future rate increases will be. comments from the bank governor. maybe we'll get to them live. whether that was unanimous, we don't know yet. yvonne: the won his paring

back against. so this is looking like they are interpreting this as a dovish hike. what this means for the future of rate hikes is the key question. leave it there. for bloomberg subscribers, you can continue watching at liv . you can also find analysis of all the event you may have missed earlier. we are looking at ever grand, just plummeting in hong kong. have a grand was down, but it is more about the e.v. section, and the properties. nev's down 16%. we are getting closer to 50% losses in the past four days on the profit warning we got yesterday. let's bring in one of our market correspondence. we were not surprised we were going to get a profit hit, but i think the numbers showed that this was worse than expected.

>> yeah, the key concern is not just that the nev unit is losing money, but the property unit. 4 billion yuan is about one billion u.s. dollars. if ever grand cannot make money from what it is supposed to make money from, then where is it going to get that cash? if you look at the profit warning statement, the reason ever grand did not post a loss for the first half was because another company that it owns, the tech unit that is publicly traded in hong kong, it is because it sold a stake in june. that share price of that company rocketed in the first half. had that not happened, we would be looking at a loss in the first half for ever grand, which has not happened in of very long time. already the smallest profit that it is had. rishaad: the debt position it

finds itself in means they need to raise money but they will be not be able to do that easily given the rating they have. it becomes a vicious cycle. does it have the future? that is the question. guest: that is the question, where will they generate that cash. remember, ever grand is not allowed to sell any debt. it is unlikely to be able to sell equity because look at where the stocks are trading today, who is going to buy that? the chairman has his poker pals who tend to step in when the company is in serious danger, but where are they now? we have the lockout expiring next week. that will be interesting to see because cornerstone investors who bought into the property services unit will be able to ll we see more selling credit market that will be key to

watch. david: we have started to see a bit, comparatively speaking, a pickup in shorts. the quadruple three tic kers. if short positions come in at these levels, is this a problem that ever grand can solve on its own? guest: shorts, it is quite dangerous. historically too short ever grand. remember in 2018, the most painful short. but there has been a good trade in this quarter. where ever grand -- where are they going to find the cash? that is the key question. there is more pressure from beijing, as we saw with the latest, what was said last week from the securities regulator and the pboc, it needs to address those debt concerns.

it cannot raise cash from the debt market or the equity market. are we going to see more fire sales? the key concern also is that the property it is selling is at a loss. yvonne: sophie yea, thank you. we want to bring you the latest headlines out of seoul, the governors saying it was not a unanimous decision to a rate hike today. one member opposed. so there what one person thinking that maybe we need to hold, given the situation with delta there and how that outbreak has been weighing on the economy. so you are seeing, not much move on the won here, but you have a raised of the gains we saw at the start after that decision. they mentioned that when it came to the consumption side of it, it will improve on vaccines and that extra budget. so they are still talking potentially that they will have to see the economy improved, the

outlook is still looking good, but right now they're still very cautious when it comes to the rate hike. rishaad: absolutely. first word news now, this rate hike has been grabbing headlines as the country becomes the first major asian economy to start tightening. the bank of korea's decision to raise its repurchase rate was seen by just nine of the analysts surveyed by bloomberg, and it was not a unanimous decision. . the move shows that the bank is shifting. winning covid infections are help doing a beaten-down economy. residents are flocking to tourist spots across the country on planes. domestic airlines our

getting more sales, leading to the biggest increase in jet fuel sales in the year. japan's prime minister has moved closer to being reelected as the ruling party's leader and remaining as premier. a powerbroker says his group will support suga. that is good news for the prime minister, whose public approval rating in recent weeks had fallen below 30%, considered a make-or-break level for a leader, also coming against the backdrop of japan's covid cases surging. to the middle east, israel's new prime minister will oppose u.s. led efforts to revive a different iran nuclear deal during his meeting with president biden at the white house. . he said he will assert his country's intention to continue attacks on tehran's atomic program. he also said his government will not reach a peace agreement with

palestinians. the european union may impose travel curbs on visitors from america as u.s. covid cases sore. slovenia holds the highest cases -- a move to a bar visitors from the world's biggest economy will deliver a blow to transatlantic recovery efforts. that is a look at the first word headlines. david: a little more out of korea, in terms of why most of them decided to raise rates. the key point yvonne was making earlier, it was not a unanimous decision. they were not talking about the housing market. it shows the doubling of the housing market, 20% of the index is up in the last 20 months or so. the rate hike, according to the governor, was to ease the increase of household debt. household prices were moving up on what they're calling mixed

reasons and that those are not the only factor that they have put into the equation. in setting interest rates. yvonne: more lines coming through from governor lee, saying he is not concerned that possible debt trap. but he did mention they are seeing this property market on the tear and they had to focus it. take a look at other key stories were watching, the singapore exchange started marketing its billion-dollar bond offering today and made rising competition from the hong kong exchange, to push to diversify away from equities. malaysia leads growth downgrades by economists, as the delta variant forces the country to reimpose restrictions. and we continue to follow vice president kamala harris's visit to singapore and vietnam. she spoke yesterday on raising pressure on china.

>> we need to find ways to put pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, and beijing to abide by the united nations convention on the law of the sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims. david: since we have been talking supply chains here and the challenges contribute to the shortage for autos, as it pertains to other devices, that is not so much the story, but also delta. you are looking at parts of malaysia where a lot of suppliers for apple, for example, have halted production. you can see some of these companies and where those production facilities are, on the back of the outbreak situation there. if this starts to become a problem, it could mean a loss of future revenue. you might not get that iphone in the next couple of months if we start to see this crunch move up , guys. rishaad: what you are witnessing here is some of these supply

chains, the way they have been, i suppose, re-jigged because of covid, some of them might be permanent moves, and some people have been forced to get into bidding wars on ships for components. dry bulk, container shipping, it has gone up exponentially. let's have a look at this in more detail with cindy wong, who joins us from type a. give us a sense of how all of this is playing out. >> thank you for having me. as we all know, the pandemic leads to disruption in the global supply chain,, and now the supply chain crunch contributing to record high rates. people thought it would be temporary, but this disruption is not getting any better, only worse. we are seeing that the

costs for moving containers is 10 times higher than it was in 2020. from shanghai to los angeles, the cost has grown six times. both rising to record highs. the global supply chain has become so fragile that even a small accident could easily have its impacts compounded. for example, this meant we have seen that the chinese government and poorly closed its third busiest container port for two weeks and that was only after a single dockworker was found to have the delta variant. in xinjiang, it was idle after the discovery of a case of the coronavirus. the surging delta variant fx production in asia and disrupt shipping. it will pose more shocks to the world economy. yvonne: cindy, we talked yesterday, now that the covid

situation is looking better in china, does it help alleviate the bottlenecks in the port congestion we are seeing across the board? >> yes. it will definitely alleviate this pressure for the time being , but the problem is the unpredictable nature of the delta variant. will there be another accident somewhere in china or the rest of the world that will contribute to another disruption ? yvonne: we are losing cindy wong. out of type a, thank you for joining us. we have been talking about when it comes to shipping rates, we're seeing that, they are just skyrocketing. david: yeah, as rishaad was pointing out, the bulk index is the highest since 2000.

a big part of that are the biggest and largest ships. that is vertical. high in at least -- highest in the seven years. rishaad: 10 times, some of these shipping rates, taking times before what you were paying in 2019 for getting a good container across the pacific. yvonne: i think they were talking to some of these shipping companies like evergreen marina in taiwan, and they are thinking that this shortage of capacity and port congestion is not likely to be resolved until the fourth quarter, or even maybe 2022, so this could be going on for a while. coming up, an exclusive interview with airlift technologies ceo. they recently raised the highest amount of money in their funding round for that pakistani startup. this is bloomberg. ♪

yvonne: online shopping delivery from airlift technologies scored the single largest funding round in pakistan has three. it raised $85 million in financing ahead of its fans to ask and it overseas market. rishaad: the cofounder and ceo usman gul joins us exclusively from johannesburg. thank you for joining us. what do you do that is different

from anybody else, to begin with, and what are you going to use the money for? [laughter] usman: thank you for having me. we deliver household essentials in about 30 minutes. what we're are doing differently is we are streamlining the supply chain, which is obviously a topic of retention right now in the markets. we deliver household essentials within 30 minutes and we are looking to transform the regional industry in the next few years in asia and in africa. rishaad: tell me, what does this represent for the startups in pakistan itself? you are not the only ones, but are you seeing more cash coming in, given that people are perhaps not willing to invest that much money in china, as they were? usman: that is exactly the right trend here, we are seeing a lot of attention and influx of capital in emerging markets.

that includes pakistan, but also other emerging markets that historically have not been the focus of attention for participants in capital markets. . it is definitely part of a larger trend of more capital flowing into emerging markets. yvonne: i was curious about the story behind your company. you started off selling air-conditioned bus rides. that went to boston with the pandemic. then he emerged with this fast delivery service. what was your thought process when getting into this part of the market, and do you see any competition? usman: very good question. amid covid-19, we sat around the table and very quickly realized that we didn't believe in our own product of selling air-conditioned bus rides through a mobile application, so we quickly asked ourselves, what

was a big problem? the biggest problem with lockdowns in pakistan was getting groceries and house essential very quickly and seamlessly. i ordered groceries and had to wait six hours for that. so we decided to. solve that problem by setting up stock stores in different neighborhoods, consolidating inventory from suppliers to deliver to consumers within 30 minutes. that was the defining moment of how we started in the middle of the pandemic. we were trying to solve the problems we experienced. the rest is history. david: and how long do you see this money lasting new before we start talking about --? usman: we get that question a lot. in terms of our runway, we are holding more than two years of

cash runway. however, we are already getting pursuit of series c financing and i anticipate that will happen much faster. this space is moving very quickly. we anticipate our next round of financing in three to 12 months. rishaad: i know you're not going to answer this question, but i will ask this anyway, the valuation of airlift technologies. let's go to the second question, what does it tell us about the scene there, but tell me also how it is against a backdrop of an economy that is floundering a bit. usman: yeah, that is a fine point. what we have seen in the past three to four years is that the economy, like pakistan, england

--, for technology companies, these are phenomenal markets. the pakistan market is underserved. for entrepreneurs with the right experience, this market presents a huge opportunity regardless of the macrolevel environment. in some ways, the macrolevel environment, because these markets are so underserved and because there is such a large population that you conserve with a product that works really well, i think wearing an opportunistic hat, these markets are primed for entrepreneurship. you will see more of that in the years to come. yvonne: usman, thank you so much, cofounder and ceo of airlift technologies. more lines from the back of the bok rate hike. we are seeing some movement in the won.

the key concern here as they start this rate hiking cycle. the governor expects when it comes to the economic hit from the latest virus wave, much weaker than the first. they said the uncertainty related to the virus, though, is still high, but they mentioned that the virus resurgence will not affect the fundamental recovery of south korea. rishaad: and they said the latest virus wave has not been as bad as the first one. all of this, against the backdrop of uncertainty. why are we talking about this? they raised rates by 25 basis points, the first major asian central-bank producer. yvonne: and when it comes to the won, first we strengthened, we erased all that, now we are weakening -- where are we now. david: is it a dovish hike, is it a hawkish hold?

[laughter] here is one for you, the yellow line was when the decision came in, that is when they hiked rates. this was in between the rate position and the press conference. and all those commentary from the statement, fairly under dovish side. we are now at the lowest point on the day on the south korean currency. gives you a better indication of where markets think policy goes from here given those comments from the bok. plenty more ahead. this is bloomberg. ♪

yvonne: let's do a quick check of the latest business flash headlines. delta airlines will impose a $200 monthly fine on employees were not vaccinated against covid-19, becoming the first major u.s. company to announce such a levy. 79% of the workers are already vaccinated, but increasing variant cases are driving the push for all employees to get shots. this company plans to resume international services by the end of this year. australia's flagship carrier reported a loss of $1.3 billion, slightly better than estimates. qantas expects international travel in the first half of 2022 to fall to just 15% of pre-covid levels. rishaad: we will be talking with the qantas ceo about those results at 2:15 p.m. sydney

time, just past noon here in hong kong. also going to be looking at the founder and chairman of the renewable energy provider avaad a, about the company's role in india's energy industry. earnings also in focus. we are expecting from petro china, xpeng, they are the ones to watch when talking about supply chains. and don't forget bloomberg's coverage of the jackson hole symposium. jerome powell speaking on friday. analysts will be pouring on every word. >> a lot of investors are getting ahead of what may be a slightly more dovish tone. >>. >> the fed will be hard-pressed to want to do anything in advance of seeing how labor markets turnout in employment turns out. >> if it is very dovish in its remarks, which is more likely, given that there is this continued surge in deltek cases

in the u.s.. >> we are not expecting any strong signal from chair powell that the tapering is imminent in the next september federal open market committee. david: all right, a head of jackson hole, volatility is up. risk-all across the region. plenty more ahead. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> from the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide, in silicon valley and byond, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. ♪ emily: i am emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." coming up, president biden sits down with the ceos of apple, amazon, alphabet and more