>> welcome to deborah ghost really a. markets have just come online. annabelle: going down to asia's 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. let's 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. let's 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. dollar-yen 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. let's 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 presidential candidates in primaries. let's 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. we'll 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 well-known 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. we'll 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 don't 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: bloomberg's 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 all-time 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 it's 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, let's 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 run-up to fed chair powell's 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 long-term 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. let's 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: i'm 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 they're 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 small-cap 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 small-cap because they are operating in these fragmented spaces. occasionally find a diamond in the rough that is going to become a mid-cap 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, i'm 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 don't 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 hardware's. 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 today's 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 etf's 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. let's 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 all-time 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 etf's 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 etf's. 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 all-time high, you see prices went four or five times even higher. right now, we -- we passed the all-time high from the last bull market. it is possible we are seeing a double price of the current all-time 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 all-time high before the event. in the past of the all-time high always got hit after the bitcoin half pick it will be interesting to know whether the event is a bullish event for bitcoin. joe: ever crypto reporter -- haidi: our crypto reporter. this is bloomberg. ♪

you're probably not easily persuaded to switch mobile providers for your business. but what if we told you it's possible that comcast business mobile can save you up to 75% a year on your wireless bill versus the big three carriers? you can get 2 unlimited lines for just $30 each a month. all on the most reliable 5g mobile network, nationwide.

wireless that works for you. get the new samsung galaxy s24 on comcast business mobile. save big with up to $500 off an eligible samsung device with a qualifying trade-in. don't wait! call, click or visit an xfinity store.

haidi: we are do to get australia's fourth-quarter gdp numbers in the next hour. bloomberg economics thinks the economy expanded to tens of a percent quarter on quarter. for the growth set to remain subdued. our economics reporter joins us for more. what do we see as being the biggest drags on the economy? >> the biggest drag is consumption. we are seeing consumers have cut back retail sales have in very weak in the past in the three months we are talking about. the last three months of 23. business investment also was weak. it is kind of the impact of the interest rate hikes that the rba delivered over 2022 and 2023. we are seeing that impact feeling in the economy. haidi: which is interesting of the last three months of the year, expect to see a huge amount of spending going into the holidays. does this impact the rba decision? >> the rba has been sounding

quite hawkish. even though they have left interest rates unchanged in december and february. they kept their hawkish stance. the question for march for later this month is whether they drop the hawkish stance and start preparing the market for normal rate hikes but not starting cut yet's but no more rate hikes which they are not ruling out. if today's date it is weak, they might say that we don't need any more interest rate hikes in the economy. if the data is strong because we had strong export in yesterday's reports. if the data is driven by exports, we might want to keep the hawkish stance. haidi: if the data is weak, what is the recession risk? >> there is a possibility. 0.2% is very close to zero or negative.

that is the risk some economists are talking about. on our survey, the lowest forecast is 0%. i think it -- what it might mean is the rba when it raised in november, it was raising an economy that was already in recession. it points to a policy error on their part. if you look on a per capita basis, we are already in recession. the population is growing at 0.6%. on a per capita basis, we will have negative quarter on quarter growth for the fourth consecutive quarter. that just goes to show people are hurting. and the economy is slowing down. that is the impact of the rate hikes. haidi: if those fourth-quarter gdp numbers out later in the day. subdued number expected.

subdued trading when it comes to what we are seeing across australian equities. annabelle: that is the set up we have going on. take a look at the asx 200. just half an hour into the session. he much flat which is better numbers then we had in the wall street numbers. there is the story of weakness that came through. there were three stocks we were tracking. there was apple. there was tesla. there was amd. with the stocks had in common was the china story. apple, tesla, declining numbers for their sales. amd has been blocked from selling technology. that is still a sales story. the general gist of this is there are concerns around tech stocks. are those evaluations looking to too choppy. you mentioned the high correlation we have between the u.s. and japan. the nikkei futures coming online in singapore. you have the drop of 8/10 of 1%.

u.s. futures flat. the change story playing into it should we had the npc kicking off. morgan stanley and already out with their reaction because they are saying there is more volatility to expect ahead for chinese equities. the fiscal support measures that have been announced so far are insufficient to boost the economy. we have been discussing the 5% gdp target. . . quite ambitious and you put the base effects into it. let's get more from our markets reporter. what is really driving that perspective for morgan stanley? >> thanks for having me. a lot of -- morgan stanley is not alone. a lot of economists on wall street think 5% of the target is ambitious. the average over the last two years, the average in china was only 4.1%. if china is to announce large stimulus, this can be achieved.

so far what has been announced is limited. the broad measure of fiscal stimulus only amounts to 11 point 5% of gdp a marginal level of improvement between this year and last year. their concern is the government is not doing enough to get china out of the deflation kind of luke. there worried about investor broad bases may be disappointed. we are going to see more volatility in the equity market. haidi: work reports seem to be the government doubling down on its current strategy. we are getting less access to information. the npc is short could the press conference has been scrapped. the delivery of the work report, his speech was short. does this worry investors on the information and data side it is becoming more opaque?

>> absolutely. that is why we are seeing the last couple of years a lot of the historical norm has been abandoned. for example, the change of constitution, the removal of the -- all these things adding up create a rounded policy uncertainty in china. that is why we see the foreign direct investment have been declining for china. a lot of the outflows from the equity market the last couple of years. the other point to make is the current strategy china is pursuing is doing little to get china out of the deflation loop because china prioritizes all of the industry policies, pouring the resources to the industry that it deemed as strategic in marking geopolitical tension with the u.s.

all of this stuff. that is adding a lot of production and by to the market. while they did very little at least so far, they have done very little to stimulate the demand size of the business. it is why we see the supply and demand mismatch. that causes a deflation problem in china. haidi:haidi: around 5% runs the risk of being a policy mistake to they want to instill confidence but if they don't back it up with policies to most to reach the target, how effective is the national team in this instance? >> the national team, we are talking about the firm's buying equity market and trying to put a floor on the market. that helped from a tactical standpoint. the fundamental issue is the earnings of the chinese companies is not improving. earnings is directly linked to

the nominal gdp growth. the 5% of real gdp just announced the implicit -- there is also nominal gdp target. that has come around to -- 7.4%. the gdp deflator's, broad measure inflation is 2.4% to that is ambitious because a lot of the consensus is expecting very flat inflation numbers to achieve two point -- 2% inflation target needs a a lot of efforts. so far we have seen very limited stimulus. haidi: our markets reporter. can follow more on the story and all the days trading in our markets live blog. you can get a market rundown. there is commentary and analysis

from our team of expert editors. . you can find out what is affecting your investments right now. this is bloomberg. ♪ when you automate sales tax with avalara, you don't have to worry about things like changing tax rates or filing returns. avalarahhh ahhh

get help reaching your goals with j.p. morgan wealth plan, a digital money coach in the chase mobile® app. use it to set and track your goals, big and small... and see how changes you make today... could help put them within reach. from your first big move to retiring poolside - and the other goals along the way. wealth plan can help get you there. ♪ j.p. morgan wealth management. annabelle: china's national people's congress has given a

pledge to increase spending on signs and analogy research by 10% this year. more than $51 billion. it reaffirms the national leadership's goal of being coming self-reliant in chip making and ai. our next guest says china's chipmaking sector is doing better than expected. olivia blanche art is the research director for -- we were just discussing in the outbreak we used to talk about china's chipmaking ambitions as something that was a multi-decade run to try to catch up. the gap has narrowed significantly to just a matter of years. >> good morning and thanks for having me. china is at the economy that used t copy of the united states. china is a very sophisticated economy. they are a very digital economy.

they are trying to catch up. you may recall a few years ago there were a lot of stories about how china was ahead of the united states in terms of ai. i think the u.s. government has been exercising a policy to try to reverse that and has been successful. annabelle:annabelle: when you take a look at the way china is crafting these chips because you say copycat approach they have employed in the past, is that the same approach they are trying right now for chips to copy the likes of nvidia or is it about trying to create entirely new chips instead? >> it is both. what we are seeing is a lot of sophistication and maturing even in the chip market which is fairly new compared to others should look and. their multi-uses. there is a lot of customs look in that going to different use

cases and applications depending on what type of applications you are trying to create. china is still playing catch-up in a lot of these areas. most of china's problem on one hand is on the design side. it is difficult to design and develop these chips. there is a production side issue. the ability to create these chips. it is a complicated process. it is hard to tilled them and get your hands on them. it is hard to build the chips to scale. the united states has a huge advantage. they are to be playing catch-up for a few years. haidi: we saw the u.s. government taken by surprise in terms of the progress huawei had made which is a company that as recently as 2020 was struggling for survival should is this as much of a big deal as we would think it is or is there a big difference in being able to make one of these chips to being able to produce at scale? >> scale is definitely an issue

and huawei is going to be struggling. although huawei has rebounded, it was not quite as dead as some claimed it was, it is still pretty far behind compared to nvidia and amd. it is going to take a few years for them to catch up. what is important here is huawei is not necessarily a threat or the threat people may claim it is. it is going to be hard for them to catch up. export controls are having a huge impact on chinese access to these new ai chips. especially the high end stuff. annabelle: we did see evidence of huawei's stockpiling u.s. stock technology. that does give it some bandwidth as well. >> i think the main goal of the u.s. government's policy against

trying to ship especially high end and sophisticated ai technology to china is on the one hand to deprive the chinese military of a high volume of chips. i don't think we can expect china is completely not getting any u.s. chips and and videos gpu's or amd stuff. it is just depriving them of the volume. trying to create a insurmountable gap between the advancement and the pace of developments in the united states in the united states versus the pace in china. so far it has been mostly successful. the goal is to keep china being three to 5, 6 years behind the u.s. in development. also pushing back or putting the brakes on china's ability to produce the chips at scale.

haidi: deeply frustrating for the likes of amd and nvidia. i do wonder how much of this depends on who the end customer is. do you have any guesses or insight into how different the licensing could be depending on who it is going to? >> i don't think there is a huge difference. i don't think it matters in terms of the chinese market. there is some good news in batteries. the good news for nvidia and in point -- intel as well is demand for these extremely high-performance ai chips is extremely high. nvidia is h 100. take it -- the backlog is six months pretty much. they are not going to be hurting because they cannot access the chinese market matter how many times they create alternates or lesser versions of the chips in

the chinese market. it has been a game of whack-a-mole trying to get around export restrictions. demand is still there so it is good. the good news for the chinese market is because these chips are not particularly available and demand for the lesser version of the chips has not been strong either. why would china, a very advanced economy, settle for lesser chips has spurred quite a bit of investment within china to develop alternatives/what we will see even though there is a gap of several years is a lot of startups combining forces with some established semi makers like huawei for instance creating their own chips. china will eventually be like -- we'll get to where the united states is now. bear in mind that this does not affect the vast majority of a

iced -- of ai chips. pcs and phones. those are not affected. annabelle: i think the point you make about the homegrown champions does underline perhaps the argument against having export restrictions in place. you further put the pressure on china to develop its own industry. the -- are the export restrictions the right approach? no >> there is no perfect solution. mckay stated earlier, the goal is not to completely block china from developing the high end chips. it is to push it back as far as possible. by putting pressure on china to create its own, and i think that is the best way to operate. trying to source them is going to be difficult. developing the ability to build these chips at scale is going to ke time.

there is no stopping it but i think the policy is working if the goal is to slow china's progress as much as possible and could put china behind and six to 10 years. as the primary objective should if the united states can ring maintain the gap, the united states will maintain a five to 10 year advantage over china and that is an acceptable gap for the congress department, the state and the department of defense as well. haidi: great to have you with us. the research director for semiconductors, ev and alto. you can watch us live and see some of the past interviews on our interactive tv function, tv . you can dive into securities or the bloomberg functions we talk about. send us instant messages during our shows. this is for bloomberg subscribers only. it is at tv . this is bloomberg. ♪

welcome to ameriprise. i'm sam morrison. my brother max recommended you. so, my best friend sophie says you've been a huge help. at ameriprise financial, more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. our neighbors, the garcía's, love working with you. because the advice we give is personalized, -hey, john reese, jr. -how's your father doing? to help reach your goals with confidence. my sister's told me so much about you. that's why it's more than advice worth listening to. it's advice worth talking about.

ameriprise financial. annabelle: you are watching daybreak australia. some of the top corporate developments we are tracking. apple's iphone sales in china

have reportedly fallen by 24% over the first six weeks of this year. the figures from counterpart research at pressure on the tech giant which has been struggling to replicate the usual success in the chinese market. apple shares have slumped over 11% this year trailing fellow magnificent seven stocks and you racing over $360 billion in market value. many investors are waiting for it to deliver on recent promises to break new ground in ai. alibaba is leading a financing round of at least 600 million dollars for the chinese ai start up. sources say the funding will value minimax at $2.5 million. we are told sequoia china is among the committed investors. it is alibaba second major deal. it seeks to beef up its ai portfolio. bloomberg has learned the largest u.s. public pension fund is looking externally for its next investment officer.

sources say the short list includes the cio of the los angeles county employees retirement association. the $490 billion fund has had four cios since 2009. haidi: australia's biggest pension fund plans to deploy more than 10 william dollars in the u.k. in a strong on term but on the country. how the fund will look for investments across a range of asset classes. >> we are very optimistic about the u.k. especially in the long term. we are backing it in. we have a good crew here. about 105 people on the ground. we are going to expand our exposure by 10 billion pounds. digital, mixed-use property. infrastructure in general. energy transition. all great opportunities in the u.k. >> is this a bit on the u.k. economic prospects?

the data suggests we are stuck in stagflation slump. or is it a bit on valuations? these assets are looking cheap and you want to add to that. >> we are long-term investors for members. there are 3.4 million members of the fund and they want us to create long-term value. cannot get a long-term value than the u.k. in london. thanking center for 1000 years. great commerce center for 2000 years. we are able to think through to create long-term value. >> are you shifting where you are going to invest? you have invested in kings cross. you have candida water. are you shifting away from cre projects into different types of infrastructure projects? talk me through the mix of the new money. >> that is a good way to describe it. we are quitting long-term value for members. we have to think about, where is the future of society going? it is going to mixed-use, digital infrastructure, it needs trucks. it needs boats.

>> that is not sound like offices to me. are you cautious on offices? >> i think it is reasonable to be cautious on offices post covid and other valuations have seen. offices under the context of a precinct. that is what we like about kings cross. that is what we are excited about in terms of canada water. have a flexible modular type of arrangement. haidi: coming up in the next hour, the anc sharing outlook as china plans to issue $130 billion of ultra long special government bonds in 2024. csis will be joining us to talk about the nation's ambitious gdp growth target. political signaling we are getting from the mpc. the market opens in seoul and tokyo next.

♪

>> this is daybreak asia counting down to asia's major trading opens. direction is set in weakness creeping through in tech stocks. can valuations be justified? haidi: setting up for super tuesday, no big surprises. seeing quite a bit of caution in the markets. annabelle: the wall street session, we saw a pullback in tech and a correlation between japan and the u.s..