Welcome to deborah ghost really a. Markets have just come online. Annabelle going down to asias Major Trading open. To top stories this hour. Stocks under pressure amid concern about skyhigh valuations. Apples china what was deepening with a 24 sales plunge. Haidi bitcoin retreats from its first record high in more than two years as investors take the opportunity to book profits. Annabelle Republican Voters in 15 u. S. States expected to back donald trump over nikki haley in a super tuesday primary. Lets kick it off with breaking data coming out of south korea. We had those Inflation Numbers dropping. At the headline level, you are seeing higher levels than what economist had been predicting. The estimate had been for 3 . Higher food prices. You saw a rising retail price. The dynamic playing into the numbers. When you strip it out, you take away food. You take away energy. The core reading. You saw a gain of 2. 5 . That was in line with what the estimate was shared unchanged from the month prior. The disinflation trend does appear to be in tact in korea. Our Bloomberg Economics team saying the be ok likely to stay on hold until mid 2024. That has been a central bank we have been watching closely in this region. Haidi it is looking like a soggy start to trading in this part of the world. There is general consensus when it comes to japan we are getting a of ourselves. Lets get you to the start of trading in sydney. The staggered open on the downside as futures indicated. Watching miners in particular. We had a couple of reductions by investment houses. Watching how they tradeking the aussie dollar holding steadily at 6502 pit a set of larger options rolling below the 65 set level. Range bound when it comes to how the u. S. Dollar has been trading. That is reflective if we take a look at japanese assets and the yen. Dollaryen down 3 10 of 1 . Hovering at the 150 level after the ism data came through. We will hear from annex official saying the boj needs nine years to normalize its balance sheet. This is a big picture view as to the challenges for the bank of japan even when they do pull the trigger on policy and our lives asian policy normalization. With the muted session in the u. S. , the record market rally being tied to the fortunes of how we see the u. S. Trade. The topix index up 15 . The correlation is one of the highest levels with the s p 500 in history. U. S. Sentiment weighing on where we go with japan. The dollar yen under the 150 level. Also watching a 50 china futures. Can like it is going to be challenging. We sell the Golden Dragon index falling for a second day on tuesday. Likely to see volatility according to the likes of Morgan Stanley with the budget plan. A lot of concerns around how they are going to make the 5 target without stronger stimulus efforts. Annabelle the base effect does seem to be even around 5 very ambitious goal that has been set by officials to in china the theme is playing out in the u. S. Tech spaces. These were the big movers we tracked. You had apple for instance seeing its worst in mainland china. A big sales slump. Tesla is a similar story. Shipments dropped to that country. Amd, more about the race for supremacy in the chip space between the u. S. And china. It has had a u. S. Roadblock in selling and ai chip to china as well. It was the concern around tech stocks that drove the overall sentiment in the session. If you take a look at how futures are coming online, what are starting to concern investors is whether or not tech companies, have they gotten a little too ahead of themselves . They have lofty valuations. U. S. Futures looking steady. Brent crude as well. Wti unchanged. Bitcoin is Something Else we are tracking. It had earlier topped 70,000. But then dropped significantly. Nearly 15 at one point in the session to it is the boom bust cycle we continue to track for that asset. Lets change because it is the biggest day so far in the u. S. Election calendar. Millions of americans in 15 states are choosing their preferred president ial candidates in primaries. Lets bring in jodi schneider. It is pretty much a foregone conclusion in a lot of Different Cases between nikki haley and donald trump. It is perhaps the super tuesday a little less super . I think it is a little less super this year because there is not a whole let of contest. We know joe biden is going to take this on the democratic side. Donald trump is expected to if not win every state on the republican side, at least when most of them. Nikki haley wo the district of columbian. That is the only contest she has won. She has won some delegates but she is not a serious threat. We are going to have to look at other things. A few numbers. 15 states as you said. On the republican side, 874 delegates. 36 of the total delegates with what number donald trump already has. If he wins everything tonight, he will come close. He will not clinch the nomination but he will come very close. Effectively, you have almost your general election matchup set for november and it is only march. That is why people are bemoaning their is not much contest here should we will be looking for other things. Well be looking for the size of the margins. We will be looking with the current president , president biden, will there be a large number of uncommitted voters like there were in the michigan primary last week . Haidi we know that donald trump and joe biden are expected to sweep the contest when it comes to primaries. Else are we watching evan this is the busiest day for congressional primaries . There are some races we are looking for. In this cycle, we could see both the house of representatives and the senate flip as we say. Majority control could go to the other party. In the house, every member has to run except those retiring. In senate, bill a third of the senate is up. The democrats have a much tougher map to defend than the republicans. There are a couple raises interesting on both sides. In california, we have the race for the seat that belong to ted the late dianne feinstein. We have a former representative running. Another representative is running against him. Another democrat. This is adam smith that adam schiff and katie porter. They have put money into the republican race. Hoping that shift will run. Some of them hoping adam schiff will run against steve garvey. Careful what you wish for. That could be an interesting race. Steve garvey is a wellknown name. Another one we are watching is in texas to see who is going to run against ted cruz. Colin aldrich is expected to win in the democratic primary. He could be a threat to ted cruz as colin aldrich has served in the house of representatives. Well be looking for some trends. What we are seeing in terms of voter turnout, voter enthusiasm. That kind of thing that could give us some clues for the general election. Annabelle i think it is not so much a question of whether nikki haley wants to stay in the race but whether she can afford to. Do we know what she is likely to do after super tuesday . That is the question we are all watching. That is the question tonight. When does she drop out . If she cannot win you have to win at some point you have to win some primaries and pick up some delegates. If donald trump has enough to almost become the nominee, you have to wonder what her path is and why she is staying in the race. That is a question. She said she will stay in through super tuesday. She said she will stay in as long as there is good reason for her to stay in. The question is, why and how much longer can she afford to do this . Some of her donors have already started donating to house and senate races instead of to her campaign. She has done pretty well in fundraising should even after she did not do as well as her supporters wanted to see her do in new hampshire. After she did badly in her home state of south carolina. The question is how much longer can that continue. I dont know if it is a matter of hours or days but we are going to be watching to see what she does after what is expected to be a big loss for her. Haidi bloombergs political news director in d. C. Special coverage of super tuesday begins at 10 00 a. M. If you ar watching in hong kong. First, here why and Asset Management says why markets are holding will neared alltime highs and investors are retaining cautious optimism. Coming up next. This is bloomberg. The future is not just going to happen. You have to make it. And if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea, and now becomes the future where you grew a dream into a reality. The all new godaddy airo. Put your Business Online in minutes with the power of ai. J. P. Morgan Wealth Management knows its easy to get lost in investment research. Get help with j. P morgan personal advisors. Hey, david ready to get started . Work with advisors who create a plan with you, and help you find the right investments. So great getting to know you, lets take a look at your new investment plan. Ok, great this should have you moving in the right direction. Thanks jen. Get ongoing advice; and manage your investments in the chase mobile app. Haidi trading gets underway in this part of the world. This is what we saw when it comes to the slide in tech stocks. A lot of caution in the runup to fed chair powells testimony to congress. We are seeing what was not the worst day of the year as it was setting up to be but pretty close. Nasdaq 100 daily performance in that chart. A lot of tech stocks losing traction after these concerns about sky high valuations. Some of the caution starting to pass through. We have seen the selloff lack a bit of conviction. We have seen longterm investors staying at a which potentially some of the holes would say could slow the dissent in equity. Selling off equity futures. We saw some of the big names like apple weighing more broadly across the tech space. Lets ring in the Investment Analyst at motley full Asset Management. Is this a good point for investors to consider they need water exposure to the equity portfolio than just make a cap sand certainly just tech make a caps . Absolutely. When we think about it holistically, you ideally want to have that exposure anyway. Now at this time when we are seeing those specific types of names being a lot more sensitive. We can say they have a higher duration. They are sensitive to any movements in the Interest Rates. If that is your entire portfolio, you are at a risk when we are talking about the market being keen on focusing on economic data. Being out of control of the cost of borrowing which is going to heavily affect the valuation. Definitely want to see diversification in general but now would be the time if you have not pursued it to make sure you are diversified out of the big market tech leaders. Annabelle im curious to get your view when it comes to the state of the consumer. You say the worst is over for the u. S. Consumer. Walmart is one of your top stock picks. Part of that is when we think about walmart, there are a few different reasons. On the operational side, they have incredible operational leverage where theyre able to push and pull on their workforce in a way a lot of retailers are not able to do. The way they deliver to consumer is in high value. While they do sometimes take a hit on gross margin, as most of their peers will also do depending on where consumer appetites are, they are usually able to pull the operational string that allows them to deliver on value. They are also able to start capturing some of the higher income consumer that did not originally have a propensity to order from walmart or walk into a walmart. They are able to deliver across the spectrum. Give them a little bit of an edge. The valuation we see as a little bit rich. There is almost and annuity type of retention level with walmart. We have seen that grow with a little bit of the macro uncertainty. Haidi how do you diversify beyond exposure to tech and the big names . What are you looking for in terms of opportunities within the smallcap space . When we think about small caps it also across the spectrum, we are looking at companies that are going to suit our pillars of quality. The economics of the business. Competitive advantages and trajectory. When we focus on those things and some of those things would you free cash flow, potentials for market expansion, gobbling up market share, that is when you are able to diversify because you are lookers stuck in a corner by industry or sector. You are looking for those qualities. We are often able to find that in smallcap because they are operating in these fragmented spaces. Occasionally find a diamond in the rough that is going to become a midcap and maybe could become a large cap in the investment horizon. We find those opportunities by focusing less on the industry and more on the quality of the business. Annabelle playing devils advocate perhaps a little bit but a lot of analysts would say tech stocks from evaluations, Market Sentiment perspective, these valuations or levels are justified. Is that something you would agree or disagree with . I would say across the entire spectrum if we lump them in as a whole, im not sure i can agree they are completely justified. Part of that is because there is not a standardized valuation or modeling adjustment we have in the industry for impact on ai. It has become clear Certain Companies have much more of a benefit. There is not a way to measure other they are warranted. How we were all modeling and whether it is too optimistic and not fully grounded in the way we might see Interest Rates going. There are different views on that. On the whole, i dont know that it is fairly valued as a whole sector. There were probably a couple companies that are closer than their peers to justifying their valuation. Annabelle annabelle which ones would those be . I would have to say it is tricky because when we think about apple, that gets punished pretty often. Part of it is because it leads so much on hardwares. Even though it is still a bit more rich, we see they face a lot more volatility. On the other cited that when we think about nvidia, they should be on the hook a bit more with the richest of the valuation. But also seem to fly a bit higher for gains we may have viewed as not significant eight in 24 months ago. Just juxtaposing those two, seeing they fly in the same circle but are treated much differently when it comes to reactionary effects on evaluation. Annabelle Investment Analyst at motley fool Asset Management. You can get a roundup of the stories you need to get your day going in todays edition of daybreak. You can customize your settings so you only get news on Day Industries and assets you care about. This is bloomberg. Trading has been by all terms historic. We have gotten to frothy levels. I do still think despite the suggestions there could be a butter case, it is difficult to hone in on that bear case when the facts are so obvious in favor of a bullish case. Net new buyers. Drive more adoption and market cycles. I think the question to ask is who are the new buyers and the net new buyers is the Global Financial system. What we are seeing is these green shoots of demand emerging. The trades are on the smaller side. I think we are yet to see what this demand will look like once the etfs are offered on more platforms. I would not be surprised to see some correction and some consolidation. I am loath to pick a bitcoin high because i do believe this is price discovery. Competing against the s p index. It is competing against real estate. 100 trillion asset class. We believe the capital is going to keep flowing from those Asset Classes into bitcoin because bitcoin is technically superior to those Asset Classes. That was annabelle of our guest on the outlook for bitcoin which notched a fresh record high for the first time in more than two years to a bit of a pullback from those levels. Lets get more on where bitcoin is headed and in our crib to reporter. Ever crypto reporter. Perhaps it is a little bit of profit taking since we had that record. What we sell today was a combination of seldom use and you leveraged. End leverage. Almost all bitcoin buyers who were in profit. After the liquidation event took place to that is evidenced by the record high interest in the swap market as well as extremely high funding rate. Some of the bullish traders were paying 100 on an annualized basis to keep their positions open. I think today with bitcoin alone we saw 800 million worth of liquidation happen in the past 24 hours. Haidi how is futures affecting these prices . Previously, in the futures market, right now it is different but in the past when you are on a Crypto Exchange is, you can put leverage out to 100 times like sort of letting on the bitcoin price to go up or go down. As we are approaching the near alltime high today, we are seeing the open interest on the bitcoin market going up to a record high. There are more traders betting higher prices on bitcoin. When that price drops earlier today and causes messed liquidation, we are seeing an even bigger drop today. Annabelle we have seen so many different bitcoin rallies and pullbacks over the past few years. Is this run up any different to what we have had in previous cycles . It is funny because i was watching the clip the tv show earlier of the investors talking about how bitcoin is going to be an institutionalized asset. I think everyone said because bitcoin etfs lows have been strong and there is no evidence it is going to go lower, meaning that we will perhaps see more demand coming from the bitcoin etfs. With those positive lows, it could mean we could see clint go even higher. One of the traders i talked to said in the past whenever bitcoin reaches a new alltime high, you see prices went four or five times even higher. Right now, we we passed the alltime high from the last bull market. It is possible we are seeing a double price of the current alltime high. Annabelle what do you think about the bitcoin having event. That is set to take place in april around the third week. Typically it has been something that has been a bullish factor for prices but some are saying we could see a pull down to the early 40 k mark. I think it is always a debate whether the bitcoin having is pricing or not. I think this time it is slightly different because bitcoin reached a new alltime high before the event. In the past of the alltime high always got hit after the bitcoin half pick it will be interesting to know whether t