Consumer prices beat forecasts. Shery shinzo abe faces yearend pressure. His popularity is sinking to its lowest in more than a year. Japan is coming online alongside the south korea as well. Lets get straight to the Market Action with sophie. Sophie. Sophie we are in the final stretch of 2019. Japanese stocks did manage to pull through on thursday. The topix with an eight day drop. The topix hitting ground along with the nikkei 225. Today, stocks are trading exdividend today. Lets check in on the open in seoul. We are seeing downside moves for the kospi. We will see what the index can crack 2200 points. Switching it now to check in on the mood in sydney, the asx 200 gaining some ground with gold miners among the biggest advancers. Resolute leading the pack, jumping 7. 5 percent earlier with spot gold on course for the best year since 2010. Jumping into the terminal, that momentum could make for a solid 2020 for gold as traders make attempts to carve out a higher trading range after bully and has added 18 this year and goldman is among the bulls. Prices climbing to 1600 an ounce. Guys. Paul thanks, sophie. Lets check in on the first word news with korea mitchell. Japans National Broadcaster issued a hasty retraction after mistakenly issuing a nationwide alert of a north Korean Missile launch heading over the country. It said it accidentally issued a practice alert morning a north Korean Missile had fallen in 2000 kilometers east of hokkaido. It is the second time they have made a false missile alert following a similar incident in january last year. Hong kongs protests looks at to continue into the new year with gatherings planned for friday and the weekend as clashes over the holidays, with protesters hoping to attract attention by forcing malls to close. Permission for a march on new years day. Widespread protests are continuing in india against the governors new religion based citizenship law. Crowds gathered and marched in new delhi, and other places. Thousands have been detained after the law was pushed through parliament on december 11. Speaking at a rally on wednesday, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi shows no signs of concessions. A cleanup and search operation is underway in the eastern philippines after a typhoon killed at least 16 people and left thousands more stranded. The typhoon made landfall in the province on Christmas Eve and then hit another island on Christmas Day. Several people are still reported missing. Thee were prayers at vatican on thursday. 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. Shery we have the latest lines from the bojs summary of opinions from their december meeting. Ae member now saying that price gold range could weaken the bojs commitment to inflation. Of course, we have seen calls for the boj to loosen that 2 inflation target to actually target arrange. One member saying a range could weaken the bojs commitment. Theyember also saying that can be optimistic about the outlook in japan. Of course, we continue to see Downside Pressure for the japanese economy after that sales tax hike. As a member saying they need to keep monitoring the side effects on banks. This talking about the ultra lose policy prompted by the bank of japan. Unchanged inicies december as well. They have the shortterm policy rate at 0. 1 for the 10 year target around 0 . The japanese yen at the moment, stronger against the u. S. Dollar by. 1 . We have seen the japanese yen within a range in the Holiday Season. Overall, it has been a banner year for stocks and 2019 globally. Our next guest questions whether it can continue. He joins us from San Francisco. Great to have you with us. A very different end to 2019 from what we have seen in 2018, right . The key question seems to be can this trend continue in 2020 if, for example, the market is a forward pricing mechanism . Are we supposed to expect Earnings Growth perhaps next year . That is a good question. It is a question that a lot of our clients are asking. You know, after 30 gains in the s p, can it continue . For now, our base Case Scenario is that, yes, we could see higher gains in 2020, albeit much more modest gains. We will still have some Earnings Growth, albeit most ingle digits , but most importantly, rates will likely continue to remain low in 2020, so those two things combined, you are likely to have a tailwind for stocks still going into 2020. Shery are there any sectors this year that have not performed as well as they could and have more potential going into next year . Siew industrials is one sector that should be performing better, especially if we have the economy continue to chug along. We will miss a recession and if that is the case, the more cyclical sectors like industrials, like materials, should do just fine in 2020. With that said, we also believe that the Financial Sector, although it had a good year in 2019, is likely to continue having a good year in 2020. Paul we have seen gold and gold stocks performing particularly well even though the outlook seems to be quite positive. Is that something you would expect if you continue . King it really has to do with the currency factor for the u. S. Dollar. The dollar has weekend a little weakened a little bit. Gold miners are more sensitive to that, by all means. I think that is the view. I think we will see low Interest Rates. People do not see as much of a tailwind for the u. S. Dollar perhaps going into 2020. The experienc of the past couple of years in terms of how the fed has been does the experience of the past couple years in terms of how the fed has been behaving give the sense that the fed will come to the rescue . That way. Eems i would say just a year ago, it did not seem as if the fed had our backs. Saying weowell was were far below neutral range, and it has been the complete opposite. The communication now is that we are willing to be very patient before we make a move, so i think there is some of that certainly being priced into stocks, which is why i think the last couple of weeks, the market has just been heading north. Shery which also means that it has become very expensive, right . This gtv chart on the bloomberg showing how european large caps are trading at record discounts versus the s p 500, so would it be the right time to perhaps go not only to europe but just to overseas markets given the rally we have seen inside the United States . King you make a great point. We are looking at the International Asset class as perhaps an asset class that is likely to see some version going into 2020. It has been a laggard for the last couple of years versus u. S. Equities, however, as you noted, valuation multiples look very attractive, and you are actually going to see Earnings Growth that is on par if not better than u. S. Equities going into the first two quarters of 20 20, so we think the International Asset class is under owned by Retail Investors and Institutional Investors alike and we would not be surprised to see that asset class performing well going into 2020. Shery are there any markets in asia that interest you at this point . King china looks a lot better to us now that i think we got this phase i deal put aside. You know, markets like vietnam, sort of the smaller east Asian Countries also look good to us. Japan looks attractive to us. Pretty much across the board, we are seeing good value in international markets. Is an expectation, and you touched on this a little earlier in terms of what the dollar is going to be doing in 2020. Does that make em more attractive . King certainly. A lot of the International Performance really does come from currency weakness here in the u. S. Dollar, for u. S. Investors at least. If we do see some u. S. Currency weakness, more pronounced in 2020, we do expect that to be an additional catalyst for International Stocks and em stocks to do well for u. S. Based investors. Paul baker avenue Asset Management skiing let lip will stilling be with us. Sergio ermotti and why he says the bank is extremely wellpositioned. Next, we will continue that conversation with king lip. Aker a chief strategist at avenue Asset Management. That is coming up. This is bloomberg. Ming up. This is bloomberg. Shery this is daybreak asia. I am shery ahn in new york. Paul and i am paul allen in sydney. As we have been discussing, it has been a great year for stocks. Lets get back to San Francisco and our guest, king lip. Huge runup in amazon breaking through that today 100 Day Moving Average twoday, 100 Day Moving Average. It looked like a sluggish 2019. King relative to the rest of the market, amazon was a laggard, being up 24 . It is quite amazing to say that. That being said, the numbers that they had announced in terms of 5 million new prime subscribers, tens of millions of amazon devices being sold, to us, is very bullish. It just means that there is a back intoipes going the amazon shopping ecosystem, so while amazon has been a laggard, relatively, in 2019, we would be surprised to see amazon having a very good year going into 2020. Paul is there a risk in the shortterm that some of these numbers can be subject to revision . Post holiday shopping, a lot of consumers do end up sending things back. King there is some risk to revisions but i do think that overall, it is representative of the overall consumer here in the u. S. , and even internationally, that, you know, a lot of consumers have jobs. Most consumers have high confidence, and their Shopping Behaviors are representative of that. Even though i am sure we will see some numbers perhaps hell back a little bit in terms of returns and such, but overall, it is amazon. The overall consumer is still quite healthy. Shery when looking at the tech sector, we cannot forget the Philadelphia Semiconductor index. It has been rallying more than 60 yeartodate. It is amazing to see those gains. This gtv chart on the bloomberg showing that index just rallying, searching, but then at the same time, pricing coming down, as you can see in that blue line. So what can we expect in this sector when we continue to see chip prices really not bottoming out . King the chip sector is always going to be quite cyclical. It really depends on which chip sector we are looking at. Certainly, it depends on the industry. I would say, overall, names like micron, they are doing quite well. Historically, they have been a canary in the coal mine. If their share prices do well, that means the economy can ch ug along because their chips are in so many different applications across so many different sectors. For that reason, we still think that despite the weakness in some of these semiconductor pricing, overall, the chip sector continues to be quite strong. And what the trade deal, phase one, being done, it certainly provides a tailwind to the sector overall. Shery how much does it help that we could get that phase i trade deal in january . Which of course is yet to be signed. But the fact that we are still potentially going to see a tech war continue between the u. S. And china, as we see those tensions over huawei and national security. Certainly ahat is headwind. There is no question about that. I dont think it is a headwind that is going to go away anytime soon. I think phase i of the trade deal, we can sort of put aside. Phase two, if you will, would probably tackle some of these more thorny issues surrounding technology. You know, in terms of intellectual property, in terms of national security. These issues are not going to be easily resolved, which is the reason why, even though overall, we are optimistic about stocks in 2020, we would not be surprised to see more volatility creep into the markets, especially in the technology sector, given some of these of a trade deal between the u. S. And china. Out, as the 5g gets rolled the trade difficulties notwithstanding surrounding phase two, and new generations of smartphones become available, i want to circle back to those observations you were making about the dram sectors. It is not going to be maybe it is thing that breaks is that going to be the thing that maybe breaks prices free . King a lot of samsungs phones will start to offer 5g here, starting in 2020. Apples new iphone lineups, very likely to have 5g built into their phones. What you are seeing is that the companies responsible for the 5g buildout, like siena, for example, have seen their share prices perform very well in 2019, so it is already happening. Investors are slowly pricing that in and that is why i do believe that, you know, the demand for smartphones, some would argue, have matured, but this may be sort of the second wind for smartphones in general. Paul a little earlier, shery was pointing out the big runup that the Semiconductor Index has had and we had the nasdaq breakthrough for the first time. Where do you found the find value in the tech sector right now . Is there any . King thats a good question. I am not going to be so bold as to say that there is a bubble in the tech sector, but i would say , to classify it differently. You are seeing some of these really high Quality Technology names like apple and microsoft, what have you, a few deviations away from average historic multiples. Frothy valuation multiples, so earnings need to catch up to the stock prices were the stock prices need to come back down a little bit to get more in mind of earnings. If i had fresh cash, probably would not be buying aggressively into the tech sector right now. That being said, there are some names like amazon which despite having a 24 year is actually selling in line with its historical valuation multiples. Companies like salesforce, for example, is another Company Selling in line from its average historical valuation multiple, so despite the overall tech sector looking expensive, there are still some Technology Names we find attractive from a valuation basis. Shery king lip, thank you. Chief strategist joining us from samsung systems. Lets turn to sophie for a check of what is moving in the asian market. Soph. Sophie taking a look at stock movers in tokyo, i want to highlight japan display, which is gaining ground on a nikkei news report that it is in talks to sell its plan to apple. The sales price is expected to come with a price tag of ¥80 billion to ¥90 billion. It is unclear how apple and sharp will split the costs. We have seen shares rise marginally this morning and the company is considering the purchase of japans factory and it is not the source of the pork on that. Awant to check in with Company Rising after they posted a year on year gain in thirdquarter operating profit, bringing its ninemonth profit to ¥20. 3 billion. The operator maintained its fullyear operating guidance, as did j front retail, checking in on that stock, which is jumping as much as 5 after agreeing to buy out a company in an offer which represents a 34 premium to thursdays closing price. The funds are to be raised through borrowing. They say they support the offer. Paul thanks, sophie. You can get a roundup of the stories you need to know to get your day going in todays edition of daybreak. Bloomberg subscribers can go to dayb on their terminals and its also available on mobile in the bloomberg anywhere app. You can customize your settings so you only get the news on industries and assets you care about. This is bloomberg. Paul copper jumped to its highest level of more than seven months as progress on the u. S. China trade deal brightened the outlook for the month. More on the prospects for metals. Our bloomberg reporter joins us. We had quite a bit of movement in the copper market. What is driving that . The trade war, basically. We have had trump say that a deal has been reached. We have had copper reach its highest level in seven months. Suppose,y surprised, i given that copper is very subject to the trade war, so we will see what happens next. Shery what about other metals . Palladium and nickel were the two bestperforming metals. What is ahead . Are looking very positively at both metals archly because of the push in the auto industry. Lookingladium, we are at increased appetite in europe and china due to stricter environmental laws because that helps reduce emissions from gasoline fueled vehicles. Nickel is a material and rechargeable batteries, which is key to electric vehicles, so the other part of that as well, the supply side has been quite prices. So that voids how much we are talking . Reaching, we might be 2. 5 thousand in 2020, which is a big jump, given that last week, we hit 2000 and, according to analysts, and nickel is looking like we might see a 10 increase as well. Abovewe have oil firming 60 a barrel. What is the outlook in 2020 . Sybilla you have the american suppliers. They kind of have to take whatever they can get, but with prices at that point, they are finding it hard to attract investors, so that is creating a supplybit of a finance problem for them, and we may be getting lower production because of that, which would of course have prices on that front as well. Thank you,lla gross, Bloomberg Markets reporter with the latest on the commodities front. Tesla shares gained again to close at a record high on thursday as it confirmed its lineup 1. 6 billion dollars in financing from local banks for shanghai factories. Tesla is preparing to begin deliveries of model three sedans to local consumers. The cars are set to start at 60,000, a slightly cheaper than imported versions. Paul japans second largest brokerage is looking to hire more bankers specializing