Pace in over 20 years. Industrial output and retail sales fall short. Jay powells happy place. He says Monetary Policy is where it should be as he sees monetary growth continuing. I think Monetary Policy is in a good place. If developments emerge that cause a material reassessment of the outlook, then we will act appropriately. Anna less than half an hour to go until the start of the equity trading day in europe, this is what the futures look like right now. They look weaker across the equity markets. And for the u. S. Equity markets, we have the ftse 100, the cac also weaker. Expectations for a weaker start being paired back a little bit by some reassurance from the german data. Lets not overdo that because the global story around growth is not a positive one. Lets have a look at u. S. Futures. They also have been pointing to the downside. Lets see if they still do. They do, but not by an enormous amount. German data offering reassurance, but the state of the German Economy is still weak. Add to that the weakness we have seen elsewhere. Week data out of china. We can see some of that in the Asian Session coming through on the gmm. Asian equity markets firmly in the red. We have Chinese Markets reacting to a sort of trilogy of week data points, whether it was investment at the slowest pace since 1998, factory output and retail sales looking week. It was not just china, the japanese story also week. Australian jobs data coming through weal. Reacting domestically into the chinese data. The Hong Kong Market down by 1 . The talk in hong kong is of the possibility of a curfew over the weekend, which would be another step in the direction of ratcheting up of the pressure on that hong kong protest situation. Lets get to the markets now. Our Bloomberg Markets strategist joins us from singapore. We are also joined by our economy reporter from frankfurt. Lets talk to you first. What drove the growth that allowed germany to avoid a recession . Lets start with the brighter spot. Likeght, it looks consumption growth in the German Economy. It has come as a surprise, but the overall picture has not quite changed despite the positive news this morning. The government advice has downgraded the forecast for this expansion next year and given how export reliant the German Economy has come any further tensions in the u. S. China trade could do away with what little growth we are seeing at the moment. Anna the domestic growth has short up the economy a little bit from the global tensions that you mentioned. Let me ask you about what this means for fiscal policy and the ecb. We have heard from the ecb and Christine Lagarde quite keen for some european economies to do more fiscaling. Yuko that has been the ecbs hope. They kept up the call for fiscal policy to step up. Today iscoming out likely going to see more dragging from german politicians. The german finance minister, his assessment has been that the German Economy is stable. This mornings data is likely to be further indication of that for the present. It is likely that while they will keep on doing what they can , it is not likely that we will surprised expansion in german fiscal policy. Anna thank you very much. Lets get to the asian growth story. Mark, lets come to you. I know you have been asking about what kind of impact the hong kong tensions are going to have. That remains epic story for you. Lets deal with the weakness in the data. It is not just china, it is japan, australia. Are we starting to ask questions about whether we are really seeing a bottoming out in the manufacturing cycle, for example . , it is kind of a long bottom here. There is no gray signed it is making a major turnaround. Possibly, we are closer to the end of it than the beginning, but it is may be stabilizing at a very low level. The indication from the china data in particular is that there is some growth in china, but it is relatively soft. They certainly do need to have some help, probably from an official level. There is already talk that there would be more reserve ratio cuts this week. That would be more targeted lending as well. Maybe moving toward more Beneficial Interest rate cuts. Certainly not very encouraging signs. There was also talk that china is beginning to realize that is also goingar to be a 5 area rather than a 6 area which they have managed to achieve this year. Certainly, everything is pointing toward even a slightly weaker period of growth in the year ahead, not going into recession or anything like that, but just pretty soft growth compared to what they have been used to for many years in china. Can what kind of response we expect from the pboc . You mentioned maybe the possibility of some kind of cheaper money Interest Rate cuts , but at the same time inflation is being pushed considerably higher by domestic food prices. Even the factory gates prices show a weaker picture. Indeed. They have this rather unusual situation in china. Pork, which isto a major part of the chinese diet. Because of the cutting of pigs, pork prices have gone through the roof. ,s you say at the same time they have been in contraction. You hear mostly from china is they are beginning to look through the cpi part as though it is something relatively temporary. At some stage, that will start to come through. Related toot more the slowdown. Do with the tariffs situation in the United States. They have been very targeted and start withres to small companies. They have three or four different levers. For now, they have not done an official Interest Rate cut. They seem to be holding that back, but it is getting closer and closer and perhaps we will see china go for the big rate cut which people have been waiting for. Around the hong kong protest story, how much will protest style hurt . On asian stocks or hong kong stocks and if a discount should be applied . Mark indeed. Probably this queue is slightly toward people isolating hong kong as being a bit of a special case. When you have some of the headline things, rumors today headline, butle people see this more about being a local issue. This is really since the middle of the year. This week is beginning to pick up again. We are beginning to see hong kong trade at a discount and especially those stocks which are in most of their income from hong kong specifically. Tourism is down dreadfully. Things are really pretty bleak. Seele are mostly willing to something that does not affect the whole region. Of course it sends a shudder across the whole region, but mostly it is a question of hong kong underperforming the rest of the whole world. Anna thanks very much, mark. Mark cranfield with the latest on the hong kong story and the we did a picture out of asia. If you want to get in on the debate and ask answer the question of the day, reach out to us. Use the function in your bloomberg. Up next, a close shave. Germany narrowly avoids a recession by surprise growth in the Third Quarter. We also have the numbers out from merck, the drugmaker and the business goes beyond life sciences. We will speak to the cfo of the german mark. Mark. Anna welcome back to the european open. 17 minutes or so to go until the start of equity trading. Futures points downward. Germany not in recession, it turns out. Asia weighing down the markets. Lets get a first word news update. Germany has dodged a technical recession. Europes biggest economy reported growth in the Third Quarter. Analysts have expected a contraction. Trade tensions, weaker Global Demand in the key car making sector. Announce as to curbing of chaos. All schools will be suspended until sunday. The Financial Hub has been suspended when a protester was shot. Boris johnson is back in Election Campaign mode after a difficult visit to floodhit areas in Northern England where his response was criticized by local residents. The u. K. Prime minister said getting brexit done would trigger a wave of investment. Jeremy corbyn pledged he would not allow a referendum on Scottish Independence in a first term of his government. Bloombergs latest five paul average put johnson some 11 points ahead of labour with the antibrexit liberal democrats in 16 . The first day of public hearings in the formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump heard from the acting ambassador to ukraine and a Senior State Department official. Both said they thought Rudy Giulianis efforts in ukraine were intended to dig up dirt for political ends. The u. S. President says he plans to make public his summary of an april phone call with the ukrainian president. Trump has said the call was perfect and he denies any wrongdoing. Is chairman Jerome Powell pushing back at President Trumps calls for lower interest that does not fit the u. S. Economy at the moment. He did not signal he is ready to act if the outlook for growth falters. His commitments largely echos message last month when he noted continuing threats to the economy. Global news 24 hours per day on air and on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts. This is bloomberg. Anna thanks very much. , the german version, is rating its fullyear forecast. The rating guidance to do with factoring in the numbers. Lets speak to the sea feet cfo. Very good to speak with you this morning. Can i ask about the performance of the lifesciences business described by some of my colleagues at very strong. It is now the three of your biggest divisions. Having ever thinking of it separately . Marcus good morning. The life science business is doing very well at the moment. Spinning off that business is not on our minds. Anna are you satisfied your three divisions are the right size . Health care, life science, Performance Materials as equals, youve talked about. Are they the right size . Marcus we do not have a fixed portfolio ratio. That is a percentage number in mind. However portfolio should look like. What we believe is that the current three pillars structure is the right one with what we want to go into the future. Breakwe now take an m a and focus on the successful integration and delivery of the synergies. After that period of about two years, we would then be open again to look for further strategically relevant and financially attractive, Day Opportunities to develop our opportunities to develop our group portfolios. Anna the multiple sclerosis drug that you offer, we have seen sales falling. Is there a bottom to the sales declined that you have in mind . When and at what level do you expect sales to stabilize, if that will happen . Marcus the bottom is zero. No, just kidding. The decline will continue. That is something that we have already told the markets. Older, off patent product. It is a very attractive safety profile, so we believe that the decline will be moderate and under control. However, we expect to see over the next couple years it continuation between 10 and 15 eventually. That is our current estimate for the future. Have, in this year now, got ms approval now for another drug that we have launched in 70 countries, in europe and also in the United States. In the Third Quarter for the first time in years, the neurology and immunology franchise is growing again. That means sales are in out overcompensating are now overcompensating and we expect this to continue into the future. Anna let me ask you about another drug. It did deliver better than estimated sales this time around, but has not had a great year. What expectations should investors have around this product . Marcus we are still in front of having a couple important readouts. So, we have guided for this year we have renewed our guidance slightly to increase the roughly expected sales of about 100 million. We are looking forward to the next data readout of these bigger indications in 2020 and then lets see where we stand. Briefly, the German Economy dodging a recession. I know it is the Global Business you run there. Does it feel like an economy running at a very weak level . Marcus at a moment, we actually dont. Many of the markets are in good shape. Health care is pretty independent from Global Economic developments, the life science markets are still in very good shape. We do not expect this to change in the near future. In thesome weaknesses outer market. Where the Surface Solutions business is affected somewhat. That 2020not believe will be a heavy recession year. Anna thank you very much for your time. Marcus kuhnert, the cfo of merck. We will get your stocks to watch coming up next. Reports of a bid over in the u. S. This is bloomberg. Anna welcome back to the European Market open. Six minutes to go until the start of equity trading. Lets look at the stocks we are watching. Nokia and ericsson. Burberry. Dani burger is focused in on thomas, lets go to the Telecom Equipment makers. Cisco posted weaker than expected earnings. This is something to look at for nokia and ericsson. They are different companies, but close enough to look at. Nokias terrible mark three weeks ago, this suggests there may be broader challenges. Anna interesting stuff. Burberry. The headline is out the headlines out of this particular luxury goods company. There are some encouraging signs. Held up well in the first half. In spite of the hong kong protests. The collections are finally in the stores. The message remains cautious for the Third Quarter always because of hong kong and the protests. Anna absolutely. Absolutely. That is something we focus on daily. Ini already trading up 11 trading. Thermo fisher sciences is considering a bid according to people familiar. Other bidders could emerge. These will not necessarily lead to a purchase of the Molecular Testing company, but their american deposits rallied 10 , so look for something similar. Anna you can find all the stocks our team is covering in your bloomberg. , they are daimler talking about cutting personnel. Seeking more than one billion euros in personnel savings at mercedes by the end of 2022. European equity markets set to open weaker this morning. This is bloomberg. 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S p 500 futures to be a little bit weaker at the start of the u. S. Trading day. Interesting to see the eurodollar jumping a little bit. Something worth bearing in mind. German datahat coming in better than anticipated. The markets have been expecting we would see a drop for the gdp number. 0. 1 in then of German Economy. Dodging the recession. Lets look at the markets. Undeniably, the growth story out of germany still looks weak regardless of the line side of the line it came out. Good news that we did not see the German Economy going into a technical recession. The ftse 100 down. Euro stocks fairly flat. We have a lot of markets to open up and we dont see many of them open at this point. The chinese data, there were three data points that really disappointed. After that, the australian jobs data, gdp numbers out of japan also looking week. The dutch market opens and it is a weaker picture, down by 0. 2 . We will get gdp numbers out of the netherlands later today. That is the picture for the European Equity markets. The french market, a little bit more resilient. Lets break things down from a sector perspective. We have a number of areas and green. Financials have divided themselves. We have some financials up and down. , a mixeddiscretionary picture. Things looking pretty mixed in this European Equity session. Fairly flat. The stoxx 600, entirely flat. 257, 254, that is the number of stocks going up versus down, so we are not really very convinced. Individual corporate reporting is not moving these numbers around. To the upside. Numbers better than expected out of veltis altisse. Altice. A decent performance coming through from henkel. Lets move to the downside. Or faller. Ll sainsbury also falling. Ses, we talked about the news earlier this week. Some of the Retail Stocks in the u. K. Performing not that well. Marks spencer is down. Shell is a little bit weaker. Quite a bit of a pointsbased move. European equity markets opening almost entirely flat. Narrowly avoided its first recession in six years. Weak data out of china and japan. Joining us now is the ceo of hermes fund managers. Lets ask about the global fund stocks. Then we will home in on some of these individual places. The Global Growth story was that we were in a manufacturing recession and we were