Quiet in the markets with the u. S. Celebrating president s day on monday. Overall, global stocks were mostly higher. It looks like we are waiting for direction. Perhaps we could get it with the fed minutes on wednesday. Live. Eting is lets look at how things are in the asiapacific. Slow going with new zealand stocks down about. 1 . The kiwi dollar unchanged. 80 and beyond is the call from Deutsche Bank sac the resurgence in exports. That is ahead of the rba minutes out in the next hour. Stocks slow going at the stock of the open. The dollar yen has been going sideways. 113. E the dollar yen above back above 120. We do see weakness in yen. It could be a boost for stocks. Lets get to our top story in asia this morning. The austrian Prime Minister has told bloomberg he will maintain a Good Relationship with the u. S. Despite the reported rift with President Trump. Speaking exclusively, he spoke against protectionism and said his government was committed to investing in new infrastructure. Great to see you. I feel like you covered a lot of ground with the Prime Minister. Lets start with the geopolitical matters and what he had to say about donald trump. Haidi we did cover a lot. In terms of what was always going to be the highlight was what he had to say about the new u. S. President , i asked how he felt about him, what kind of man he felt he was and if they had anything in common. He was very cautious. He says he has a big as an alley and a very big job coming into the presidency. They are not changing the way they deal with the white house even though this is a brave new world we are talking about where you have a president that deals in diplomacy via social media. There is a lot of uncertainty and inconsistency when it comes to white house policy and what administration is doing. He said we give very frank advice and frank exchanges with our american counterparts. We dont lecture them through the media. A few days ago, the Prime Minister did give a warning to the war he has waged against the media is a waste of time because it is part of the job, saying a politician complaining about the media is like a sailor complaining about the sea. Lets take a listen to what he had to say about his u. S. Counterpart. It is vital that we maintain the drive towards more open markets and free trade. Trade means jobs. Australia is a trading nation. Our future depends on not simply selling things to 24 million australians, but selling them to the whole world. Year,aid at the g20 last protectionism is not a ladder to get you out of the low growth trap. It is a shovel to dig it much deeper. He stuck a strong tone about the importance of free trade and open trade. Antitradegainst the populist sentiment we have seen spike interims America First in trumps America First policy. In a stroll you, there are some parts in australia, there are parts of the government that would like to see less Foreign Investment. I did ask about that. He said every country has these regulations and rules when it comes to pursuing the national interest. They do that consistently. But we are open for business. He spoke strongly about pushing the agenda when it comes to trade in australias economy being open to deals from elsewhere. He said the t. P. P. Is still very much on the table. Yvonne very much on the table. I like the line about trump, Big Personality with a big job. Talking about the economy in australia, he was cautious. Jason scott was talking about how engaging he was when it comes to Infrastructure Spending. He was quite aggressive in talking about the plans he has put forward while trying to bring the budget back in to surplus. Politicalis a very balancing act for him because it would not be popular pushing back getting the balanced budget to come to fruition. They did say we have the i. M. F. , we have the reserve bank saying given the low borrowing environment australia should be borrowing more to Fund Infrastructure investment. That will boost productivity. It will create jobs. That will help safeguard australias aaa rating which has been in danger. There have been warnings from s they could be downgraded if we dont see a balanced budget. He said australia is to Infrastructure Projects to create growth. They want to invest in good infrastructure and the i. M. F. Is right to point it out that it is a very important driver of growth. He did also say they are focused on bringing the budget back into balance. That is their goal. They have a plan to do that. But also pointing out and agreeing it is important to support investment as well. Yvonne great interview. Thank you. We will be showing more of that later on. Lets get the first word news with Courtney Collins in new york. Euro finance ministers any hopes greece may have made of getting their hands on new a payments quickly. Tax ands are demanding pension and labor reforms before they will sign off on an agreement. Having previously said the talks would be the last chance before elections, the e. U. Agreed to pick up discussions in the coming days. We have to realize there is at this point. It is a good step institutions have enough confidence and a common agreement to go back to athens. Yvonne a new poll suggests Marine Le Pen is gaining ahead of the first round vote on april 23. The Opinion Survey has the National Front leader on 27 with the independent at 20 . The poll found l he would easily defeat le pen in a runoff. The spread between french and the german equivalent widened the most in more than four years. Defense secretary james mattis says the u. S. Is not in iraq to seize oil, despite President Trumps past threats. He met military leaders in baghdad under the shadow of the president s comments and the failed travel ban which included iraqi citizens. He said u. S. Forces would be there for some time fighting the socalled Islamic State alongside iraqs army. The resilience of this army, recognize it took casualties. It has reconstituted itself, both equipment and personnel wise. And as you know, has already crossed the line of departure going because the enemy and west mosul. This was not something that was a foregone conclusion for an army that a year ago many people were questioning. Yvonne russia overtook saudi arabia is the worlds biggest crude producer in december when both countries started restricting output ahead. Pressure pumped almost 10. 5 Million Barrels a day, 30,000 more than saudi arabia. It was the First Time Since march russia produced more oil. The u. S. Was the third biggest producer followed by a rock and china iraq and china. Day. 24 hours a im Courtney Collins. This is bloomberg. Yvonne singapore has outlined a budget aimed at supporting the struggling offshore and construction industries. The finance minister did acknowledge growth would be slow going moving forward. The one thing i thought was interesting is he said singapore needs to go beyond just stimulus. They are laying out the budget targeting specific industries to boost those sectors in the near term while also rolling out the plan for the mediumterm. The finance minister did outline a budget which gave a helping hand to some industries struggling. The marine industry and the offshore industry. He said they were dealing with what he called cyclical weaknesses. They are having levees on Foreign Workers delayed by another year. Infrastructure spending brought forward. Just under 500 million u. S. Dollars of spending projects. Five, thedes terminal airport terminal. He says that will cost tens of billions of dollars. There also be spending for the transit line as well. That will be the billions of dollars as well in the next five years. It included support for skills training, employment eight increasingly the employment age to 67. Will ber, the surplus about 1. 3 billion u. S. 1, whichtarting april is less than half of what it was for this year. Yvonne there were some surprises, especially with the carbon tax announced for 2019. The budget has a birds eye view of the economy for the longterm as well. Yes. Many economists have said incentives for the shortterm are there but in the longterm they are helping singapore to move beyond this unpredictable time. Singapore is very dependent on trade. Two thirds of singapores gdp is generated by external demand. ,t is way above its neighbors even south korea. The finance minister has been saying singapore will need to reposition for the future. The budget outlined ways to do this. Focuseed to diversify and on growth clusters. The focus did stay on mediumterm measures and infrastructure. That carbon tax was a surprise in the budget. Yvonne we will ask the second finance minister about that in the next hour. Thank you. Lets look at the earnings front. 2 after posting an increase in fullyear profit. Lets get over to paul allen joining us from sydney. Another beneficiary of the rebounding energy prices. How were the numbers . Pretty good. 610 million for net profit. That is 469 dollars u. S. The replacement was 524 million australian. Paying a final dividend of . 52 per share. The market responding well. Up to percent now. Up 2 now. Will shares off 2 despite the company returned to profit. Fullyear profit was lower than estimated but does reversed the loss from a year ago. Revenue for oil search also down with a dividend of 3. 5 cents per share. We will have more on that later on with the c. E. O. Joining us. We are hearing about bhp, the strike at the mine. It seems talks between the union and company have failed. Do you expect that to be talked about during the Earnings Call later today when it does report numbers . That will be one of the things to watch for on the Earnings Call after the close in australia and before the open in london. Another thing analysts will be looking for is what line php goes down in terms of reducing debts or paying out dividends. The market expecting great things in terms of the fullyear profit, a sevenfold increase expected. That is thanks to those rebounds we have seen in iron ore and coal prices. Bank expecting an interim dividend of . 28. Yvonne paul allen from sydney, thank you. We will look at why streambank results may be the best or worst depending on which way you view them. Our next guest says global escape velocity for the First Time Since 2010. He joins us next. This is bloomberg. We are counting you down to the asia open. Trading in sydney underway. We are seeing pressure down about. 1 . The aussie dollar hovering. This is daybreak asia. Lets do a quick check of the latest headlines. They are the highest in five months after the Company Approved a 2. 4 billion Share Buyback to improve returns for stakeholders. To buy more than expected. This comes after cash investments welled at the end of last year. Citigroup has agreed to pay a penalty of almost 5. 5 million to settle an antitrust investigation in south africa. The bank was accused of participating in an alleged cartel to manipulate the value of the rand. Citigroup will also make with is available to help prosecute other banks. African investigation is the latest into rigging by banks of products tied to the foreign exchange. Shell and toyota are Building Seven new fueling stations for Hydrogen Cars in california. The state is trying to address the lack of refueling infrastructure and targeting 100 sites by 2024. Toyota plans to use hydrogen to phase out its traditional engine models by 2050. Look for a muted start to the trading day. My next guest says there is evidence the market rally will continue. Joining us is the head of dynamic asset allocations. Great to have you. It has gotten monotonous. We look at the record highs in the u. S. And some parts of the world as well. Is it too good to last . Yvonne it looks like we have some issues. We will get back to him later out of sydney. Stay with us on bloomberg television. Yvonne you are watching daybreak asia. Lets get back to our guest. Hopefully, we fixed the technical issues. I hope you can hear me. I want you to talk about the trump risk overrated. We see record highs. It has got monotonous as i was saying earlier. Is it too good to last . At some ofple, look the executive orders. Immigration and there was a court ruling against that. No checks and balances. Trump is the sole operator. He comes out with a trade were on china. Those risks are overrated. If you look at his attitude towards china, it has changed, for japan. He is taking a more moderate approach based on the advice of some of the moderates on his team. The risk is overrated in the shortterm. Also i should say markets have come a long way. Any shortterm profit taking would not be a surprise, especially as we get closer to the european elections. That will be a buying opportunity in my view. Yvonne interesting you to talk about china quite a bit. I want to show this chart to our viewers. Hopefully you can see it. I know that you like em given the 10 gain in less than two months. It seems like china outperforming most emerging markets. How would you interpret this . Is it more of the bright spot . Can the rest of em catch up . A combination of things. First of all, around february of last year, the expectation was for china hard lining. Shares valuations that down to dirt cheap level. Obviously, china did not fall apart. Things became less bad. Things are improving. When you look at the valuations on chinese shares compared to global, for example u. S. Valuations are a lot more attractive. Also i should say there is always this backandforth between the property and stock market in china. We have seen a heated up is localmarket investors take profit out of the properties, some money will be flowing into chinese local share markets. That will continue to push shares higher. Until we see the same kind of exuberance. Hopefully, we do not see the same we saw in 2015. But for now, it is recovering, taking hold. Yvonne what do you see as the biggest difference between now and 201516 . Is there Something Different that makes you more bullish when it comes to mainland equities now . Is not just china. Get is global. From a it is not just china. It is global. We had the u. S. Recovery. With that, Monetary Policy convergence which put pressure on emergingmarket currencies and brought up inflationary pressures. That put pressure on europe. Because Global Growth was lopsided, there was a lot of pressure on the u. S. Dollar. It had a negative effect to the rest of the world. That has changed. Global growth is broader. The fact that china stabilized, they just pushed away from reform targets to support growth. Some Infrastructure Spending and the easing in Monetary Policy we had from early 2015. Monetary policy works on the lag. The effect of that is still coming true. Real yields are going down. There are a lot of difference between 215 and that makes this recovery more sustained. Yvonne what about for the fed risk . The fednue to hear president saying she is comfortable with more rate hikes. We still see the fed funds futures still around 30 for the month of march. What are we missing . First of all, if you look at the correlation between the u. S. Dollar and the fed rate hike expectations, that is breaking down. As we get more indications for rate hikes, we probably will and the market will catch up. The effect on equities and currencies is not the same. That is because we are past the peak of Monetary Policy convergence. Eden we had the f talking about hikes in 2015, we had other Central Banks working hard to defend growth. That is not the case now. We are talking about europeans tapering. Historically, a third rate hike would not have the same effect. Yvonne thank you. Coming up, we will know more hear more of our exclusive interview with australias with x1 you get the best of the oscars. Youre a funny guy. Funny how . How am i funny . Scorsese finally wins. Could you double check the envelope . Show me best picture. Whats the difference . Show me best actor. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much. Get all the greatest scripted and unscripted oscar moments on xfinity x1. The oscars, live sunday, february 26th 7ea4p on abc. Minutes away 30 from asias first major market open. Hshares resuming the strongest rally of the year. Thisannounces earnings afternoon. I am yvonne man in hong kong. Singapore has announced a series of measures to help the offshore Energy Services with construction. It will extend rebates on Corporate Taxes. The finance minister said the measures were aimed at driving growth between 2 and 3 over the next decade. President trump has picked a new National Security adviser after Michael Flynn resigned over lying about his ties with russia. Trump has selected Army Lieutenant general h. R. Mcmaster for the post. The president met several potential candidates. Robert harwoods rejected the job. The u. S. Vice president has alleged a strong commitment to the eu. Speaking with the European Council president in brussels, mike pence said the Trump Administration will seek ways to bolster relations. Trump at question the eus viability and had called nato obsolete. Told bloombergt that mike pence had helped to reassure americas allies. It was an important speech in terms of reaffirming our commitment to nato. I think though as they talk about it, good speech, those are words. Lets see what the actions are. I think that will generally be the measure in terms of whatev