monday. potentially subtle confirmation of intervention we saw on the comments from the currency chief this morning. it is also just one part of a story of a big week that lies ahead going into the fomc decision. paul: and interesting coming from the ministry of finance. we will get a chance to see how markets react in a moment. unless the macro picture chains drastically. haidi: it is not just japan but we have seen the impact across asian currencies. we had samsung numbers and it also just mentioned in some commentary of getting positive boost as a result of the policy effect. take a look at the samsung heavy weight will be the name of the game today not just for the korean markets but for some of the regional chipmakers as well. the kospi is not by just over 1%. still waiting for samsung to come online with earnings

surging after chips turned profitable for the first time since 2022. this is part of a much bigger global theme where seeing of the ai development boom that it is turning the cycle after so much of a downturn. we saw the $4.8 billion net income number, so a handy beat. that is about four times samsung's earnings just a year earlier. samsung coming online now. up about .1%. we will continue to watch and wait to see how investors react to that stock even know it is up about 17% over the past year, it has underperformed compared to the likes of sk hynix which has doubled in that period, nvidia tripling in that period. samsung off the april peak, actually down about 10%. seeing a little bit of downside when it comes to trading in samsung. continuing to watch that but the other big story is what has been

going on with the yen. we had remarks pretty measured. they will be getting more information when the data release comes out at the end of may. but a lot of the markets seeing this as tacit confirmation something was done. the disclosure of the results will come at the end of may. we are continuing to watch that particularly as we have yet to get the fomc decision. paul: that will be the big one coming up and it will be very interesting to watch any potential yen moves off the back of that. let's look at our trading in australia. not a lot of action in the early going. we have the staggered open here in australia one stock we have been watching that is trading is bhp, and that is recovering some ground it lost yesterday. right now better than half of 1%. of course we are watching the hp very closely as to whether or not they posed a renewed bid for anglo american after their initial stock offering got

rejected at the end of last week we saw bhp shares recovering by about .5%. elsewhere we have the aussie dollar losing a little bit of ground. the aussie versus the yen looks pretty good though. the oil price backing off a little bit as well. we got the aussie 10 year yield also backing off. let's look at how u.s. treasuries are doing. we heard from the treasury in the u.s. saying they need to borrow more than they thought and more than analysts were expecting. about $243 billion being forecast. the announcement saw yields ease, and that is a trend we are seeing continued into the japanese session. the 10 year just above 4.6%. haidi: let's get more with masa

hero waka suki. what is interesting to you in these numbers? >> samsung just reported their earnings and it has already announced preliminary earnings. if we look at the division profit we think it's semiconductor business made a profit. and that was really good. overall the memory chip market is improving. including the high been with -- high-bandwidth memory chips used for ai. basically we see the memory chip business is improving. so that was an interesting point. it achieved around 8% margin and

we think that business conditions will improve going forward. paul: we have the earnings call coming up in a little under one hour. what are investors watching out for in terms of commentary around these numbers? masahiro: yes, we would like to check several key points. the first one would be the business environment. especially volume growth should be very much closely watched. sk hynix should be expecting some mid-teen volume increase in the second quarter. samsung is forecasting higher than that or similar to that. also we would like to check how they think about overall demand for high-bandwidth memory this year and even next year.

sk hynix is seeing very strong demand and they decided to expand production capacity. so we would like to check how strong demand for samsung electronics is. if demand is strong enough, samsung may follow sk hynix capacity expansion strategy. another point would be that the flash business as well, regarding samsung we have to check if business made a profit in the first quarter or not. we would like to check how that business is improving in the second quarter. who would also like to see the smartphone business for consumer electronics. samsung has a very wide range of products in many countries.

they know very much about the macro economy conditions. so we would like to see how samsung is seeing the global macro economy situation in the second quarter. paul: all right. masahiro wakasugi there. let's look at how samsung is performing right now along with some of the other big asian trip names as well. the reaction is pretty muted. somewhat of a mixed bag. samsung shares had a peak in april but lost about 10% of its ground since. the earnings call we will be watching very closely. the commentary particularly around the ai story. sk hynix losing some ground, off by .25%. tesla suppliers as well, of course we had the story of elon musk making a flying visit to china.

well, that paid off. tesla has approval from government officials to deploy driver assistance in what is the world's now biggest auto market. partnering with baidu on mapping. still questions about how it will handle data security and privacy but we saw tesla shares soaring 15% monday and baidu also closing higher. in australia we have mover for you as well. bhp shares currently gaining by three quarters of 1%. we saw them lose a little bit of ground yesterday off the back of that rejection by anglo american for a $39 billion all stock bid. bhp shares sold off a little monday but recovering pretty strongly at the moment. haidi: let's look at the yen. look, this is the picture as we see quite a bit of sustained weakness.

flat at the moment at the 156 level. as we were talking about earlier this comes before these expectations potentially come to fruition off that hawkish pivot from jay powell. elsewhere we are seeing the bloomberg dollar index holding pretty steady. we heard that no doubt from the bank of australia pushing back its rates. expectations for the rba from september now not expecting a cut until november. let's bring in garfield reynolds who leads our markets live coverage pretty let's start with the post-manic monday situation for the yen. it looks like they did probably intervene. commentary was still kind of ambiguous. if we assume that they did, they are not getting much bang for their buck. garfield: that is one of the things that have you wondering if they did, although from our point of view, if japan did intervene in the yen, they might

have to some extent been forced into it. because you had thin liquidity, the yen almost went through the 160.20 dollar level that was the weakest since 1990. if you go past that, it is than back until the 1980's in terms of how weak the level is, what the scope of the climb is. to some extent it is the kind of territory where a government or a central bank would normally intervene for its currency. it is getting to unacceptably low levels. if they don't step in, you can get a really disorderly retreat. and that is very much about a tactical set up. i stress that tactical set up because you have the fomc and also non-foreign payrolls coming for the u.s.. so there is a big event risk that whatever they did yesterday, if they did do it, could get overwritten by the

impact that those events could have on u.s. yields and therefore the differentiation between u.s. and japanese yields and expectations for those. now, the backdrop is also that even though there is a wide discount between japanese rates and u.s. rates, based on the fundamentals the way those are usually operated, most people would reckon that the yen is weaker than it should be now. so this has become very much a momentum trade, less than a fundamentals trade. the fundamentals got us to the 140, 150 area. momentum has taken us past 150. to to some extent, yen bidders are asking, daring the ministry of finance to come in and drive them back out of it because the fundamentals don't necessarily match where the young -- the yen is at. that means we are all still on intervention watch.

yen volatility and implied volatility. the expectation traders have for swings is still at elevated levels. elevated the most usually seen in the run-up to central-bank meetings. so yeah, we are on watch. you would think there would be the potential for strong yen moves as we get these u.s. data points coming in. paul: the yen story to a large extent overshadowed a lot of other news in the region. hong kong shares rallying 20% off of january lows. seems to be stalling out a bit. at the same time, about some chinese property stocks. how do we square that? garfield: the story for chinese and hong kong equities this year has very much been they are phenomenally cheap. investors had been staying away for them, spurring that cheapness.

of course they had been very cheap for a reason. so the potential reward is there. so is that risk. and we have seen signs that the government is trying to support share market. the government is also trying to turn the property sector around, although it wants to do so without rewarding people who took what they might regard as unconscionable risks. so there's that question, will that be enough? there's also the chinese share market has cried wolf, so to speak, or inverse wolf, so many times and investors have gotten burned. so anybody who has gone in at the bottom and has gotten a 20% return is thinking, might be time to take some money off the table. i can now, without sparking a r out. if i wait for too much longer, the greed and fear and says tips more towards fear as the greed part gets satisfied.

it is still very much a speculators market rather than a buy an dhold one. haidi: garfield reynolds there. still ahead, speaking of chinese stocks, megabanks reporting rare declines in profit margins getting squeezed. we will get some analysis from jeffrey's next. this is bloomberg. ♪ thanks to avalara, we can calculate sales tax automatically. avalarahhhhhh what if tax rates change? ahhhhhh filing sales tax returns? ahhhhhh business license guidance? ahhhhhh -cross-border sales? -ahhhhhh -item classification? -ahhhhhh does it connect with acc...? ahhhhhh ahhhhhh ahhhhhh

get your business online in minutes with the power of ai... ...with a perfect name, a great logo, and a beautiful website. just start with a domain, a few clicks, and you're in business. make now the future at godaddy.com/airo paul: we are going to get china's official factory activity gauges for april coming up in the next hour with economists expecting the recovery to continue but at a slower pace. for more let's bring in our greater china senior executive editor john liu.

we are expecting pmi's to ease off a little in the month of april but there were a few days off in april, some public holidays. so can we explain this away with a seasonal argument or is this part of a trend? john: i think there is a trend beginning to form. in march we got the first positive reading from manufacturing pmi in six months. it was an expansion, 50.8. the consensus market is for 50.3, so a slight pullback. you talked about that vacation. that was actually the first time that spending on a per trip basis increased versus 2019. and so there is some building momentum when it comes to optimism. you talked to garfield about the stock market. there is a little more positive sentiment about real estate. we had chen do removing any

limitations on purchases and that really stoking optimism other cities would follow and we would see a decrease in homebuying. haidi: it comes at a time signs of increased international engagement from chinese leaders and there has been a flurry of high-level meetings with the u.s. and now we are hearing he is headed to europe. are these trade relationships more important than ever right now? john: i think they are extremely important, given how weak the chinese consumer has been. china has a capacity issue. there are factories turning out products, be they toys or shoes or electronics or electric vehicles. there has just not been enough consumption in china to digest all that production. so china needs to be able to ship some of those products overseas to continue that economic expansion. if the relationship that china has with the u.s., the west, is

so tense that it limits the ability of companies to ship those products overseas, that will be detrimental to the economy. we have seen a much more accommodative attitude taken by the leadership here when it comes to dealing with the west. and i think that is what we will see when president xi visits europe. haidi: our greater china senior executive editor john liu there. a big earnings week for china. financial woes continue to mount, the embattled developer posting a net loss for the second straight quarter as it continues to struggle with slumping sales and a cash crunch. vanke was china's second largest developer last year. we are seeing stock and bonds on a slide over concerns over its financial condition. let's get more insight with shujin chen, head of financial that jeffries. great to have you with us.

no signs of improvement for vanke despite a number of measures of support from the government. where does this story go from here, given we know how much of the broader economy relies on property and property adjacent industries? shujin: good question. first we think that china will continue its moderate supportive for the property sector. we have seen quite a lot of cities including some tier two cities started to significantly lose purchase restrictions. on the other hand is while quite a lot of investors are still expecting stimulus, which we think there is a low chance to happen. overall if china continues to support more affordable housing

rather than commercial housing, we actually see that property sales will continue to decline. although the decline could be more moderate in the second half of this year compared to the first half due to the relatively low base. haidi: we have seen a plunge in vanke's cash coverage since 2023. does this give an indication that for a number of these developers that we need to see more urgency and frequency in asset disposals? shujin: we do think that yes, for quite a lot of developers including some regional soe developers, there is more urgency for them to dispose assets in order to boost their solvency. for vanke, we noticed that in the first quarter their monthly sales is around 19 billion per

month. it is short of our estimated cash flow breakeven level. so yeah, they definitely need to sell. it is quite challenging in this environment to dispose assets considering such a weak property market. paul: do you think that vanke can avoid a default or a need for a bailout? and if it did need a bailout, how well-placed is a local government to provide that support? shujin: if the situation has not changed, if it is very hard to see sales and the disposal of asset remains low, then vanke m ay probably need support from either the local government or the central government. for local government, because vanke is 27% held by shenzhen

metro, a subsidiary of the sanjay and government. we've already seen supportive policies from the government. however, if we look -- its own -- it doesn't have a strong profitable business model and its own balance sheet remains quite weak. shenzhen has another regional soe developer default on public debt in february. so the chance of a bailout from the shenzhen government is relatively small. paul: of course china's banks are very exposed to what has been going on in the property market as well. we saw from the results yesterday profit slipping. how well-equipped are china's banks to expand this long winter in chinese property? shujin: first is regarding the china banks property declined it

was mainly due to the net interest margin contraction rather than the quality pressure. in the first quarter banks still reported a ratio quite stable. some even see the improvement quarter to quarter, especially the large soe banks. the margin pressure is the key pressure for reported profits. for banks we still see net interest margin contraction the rest of the year. until the first quarter next year. mainly affected by the cuts, especially the first quarter this year. we still see loan pricing as well as new loan yield will continue to decline due to the very weak credit demand this year. haidi: when do you see the actual ottoman out for erosion? -- bottoming out for erosion? it is hard to imagine the government stop pressing on

these banks. shujin: yes, on the one hand we still see bank's loan growth much higher than nominal gdp growth. especially for sco e banks -- for soe banks. first quarter growth is still around 12%, or at least more than 10% year on year. while nominal gdp growth is still less than 5%. this situation may continue the rest of the year. therefore the overall net interest margin will still decline. the earnings is the time we expect bottoming his first quarter next year due to both weak credit demand and the apr cuts. paul: shujin chen, had i financial and property research at jefferies. plenty more to come on daybreak asia. this is bloomberg. ♪

haidi: take a look at currencies . front and center is still dollar yen print we saw in the overnight session that momentum move in the end driving the dollar towards a two-week low. but we are seeing a loss of momentum now really. if there was intervention, it does not seem like it has had much of a long-lasting impact. more to come. 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 two unlimited lines for just $30 each a month. all on the most reliable 5g mobile network—nationwide. wireless that works for you. for a limited time, ask how to save up to $830 off an eligible 5g phone when you switch to comcast business mobile. don't wait! call, click or visit an xfinity store today.

paul: let's take a look at how crypto assets are tracking at the moment. bitcoin rising again, just shy of $64,000. it has been a good year for digital assets, bitcoin up 50% year to date. of course it is notoriously

volatile, but the spot bitcoin etf's in the u.s. back in january really catalyzed prices to go higher. now, it's going to be hong kong's turn. it debuts today, and that marks a crucial step for the city as aims to build a hub for digital assets. annabelle droulers is with our next guest at the hong kong stock exchange. annabelle: as you said, a really big morning for the city today given we have these three etf issuers bringing not only spot going -- let's bring in our first guest. brian roberts, head of equities product development at hkex. people want to know the level of interest we are going to see. a lot of funds have gone into the u.s. etf's. will we see a similar flow for hong kong, do you think? brian: thank you for having me today.

it is a pleasure as we usher in the next frontier for hong kong etf's. we are excited to welcome the first -- asia's first virtual asset spot etf's with a listing of three spot going bitcoin etf's and ether as well. this will go a long way to enrich our product diversity and further strengthen hong kong's position as an etf's marketplace . for investors as well, this will actually bring out a product that is listed on a familiar exchange for them that really brings a scalable link from traditional finance to virtual assets. and i think with these products it will help reduce some of the burdens of owning virtual assets outright and they will be able to access these products and a little less than one hour now on the hong kong exchange and they will be able to do so in a very familiar wrapper that is liquid,

transparent, and trades during asian trading hours. annabelle: what are you actually expecting in terms of demand? what aum to year end? brian: we don't put any kind of expectations around there. this is day one of the journey. the last couple of years we have been working towards bringing this out into the market. a year ago we brought out the future space spot etf's. today is going to mark the listing of asia's first spot virtual etf's. there is a lot of interest for these kind of ducks in the market. annabelle: futures etf's have not seen great subscriptions so far. would you expect a man to be better than what we have seen for futures etf's? brian: the futures-based etf's have started to gain momentum this year. we have seen a really good increase in trading volume this

year. they are trading about 50 million hong kong dollars a day. they have also raised over 500 million hong kong dollars in assets. i think as the market has kind of turned around for bitcoin and ether and seeing better performance, we are seeing more investors coming into that space. now with the spot etf's, this will just be another addition to enrich the product diversity. i do think there is demand for investors to get this spot asset, the bitcoin and ethereum assets. annabelle: when can we expect perhaps in different structured products to come to market? also what investors want to see in hong kong is anything linked to derivatives. brian: any time -- we're always trying to create a vibrant product network effect. so we will start with etf's and start to build that out. there could be an inverse that

comes down the road, structured products, derivatives. we want to start with the cash products, build up initial demand, and then from there we can expand that product ecosystem. annabelle: you think inverse is what is next for you? brian: i think we can continue to go into the physical spot assets. maybe composite types of products. eventually getting into may be levered and inverse types of strategies. there are needs for investors to be able to get access to inverse types of strategies for hedging needs and different things along those lines. so there are possibilities of that down the road but we need to see how this one develops and matures become -- before we go to that space. annabelle: what could stimulate a lot of demand would be whether these etf's are included into the etf connect program to give mainland chinese investors access. when would that happen? brian: that is a great question. just a couple weeks ago the s rc

and csrc had a joint announcement that is going to reduce the product eligibility. so, lower some of the eligibility threshold. lowering the aum requirement, luring the securities rating. and so now when this goes into effect, and hopefully that will come into effect the next several months, it will allow etf's for the southbound ets in hong kong to hold up to about 40% international securities. i think this is going to be a great source of product innovation. seeing more issuers come into this market, more products being eligible both for mainland investors via hong kong and international investors going into the mainland virtual assets, we can look at that down the road but we are just excited about the new enhancement we are going to have that was just announced a couple weeks ago. annabelle: there are four ets right now on the etf connect program out of 180 or so in the city. how many more will be eligible with a new criteria?

brian: we will go through the review process in a couple of months and we will see where everything kind of calls. -- falls. but i think we will see more etf's included in the north in the south to be included in etf connect. for us it is less about what will be included they won in this initial phase. i think it will allow etf issuers new and -- to bring out new strategies that will help meet demand in the mainland. annabelle: this is a bigger question, but we had the saudi etf listed in the city. what are you doing in the other direction? brian: as you mentioned, late last year we listed the csop saudi arabia etf. that etf has done really well and now has over 8.5 billion hong kong dollars, the largest saudi arabia etf in the world. this is all part of hong kong

and china having better connections with the middle east and vice versa. that was the first stage of it all. we would love to see some of our products in china and hong kong equities go to the saudi arabia etf market. we will work with our counterparts over there, the etf issuers in saudi arabia, to eventually make that happen. again, saudi arabia here is the first step. the next that will be to bring products there in due course. annabelle: brian roberts from hkex. you can probably hear the enthusiasm in the air this morning. we are just approaching that listing ceremony that will spot in the spot bitcoin in either etf's coming lives and about 50 minutes from now. paul: in about drillers at a very vibrant and lively hong kong stock exchange. we are going to have more on that later today.

you can catch our interviews with the ceo's at these times you see on your screen. binance ceo is to be sentenced tuesday after a guilty plea on u.s. money laundering violations. prosecutors want a three year prison sentence for the crypto billionaire. richard anderson joins us now for today's big take. is it likely that he is going to be sentenced to those three years? richard: yes, that is a good question. that is obviously what we are all waiting for. it is important to note it was only a week ago that u.s. prosecutors requested those three years. there are sensing guidelines -- the sentencing guidelines indicated about 18 months. so this is obviously double that length of time. some of the reasons for why the u.s. prosecutors have asked for a longer sentence for those three years is his flippant

attitude. we know that in the past he has told his own employees -- this is according to u.s. authorities -- to break the rules, to wonton late -- wantonly, flagrantly avoid the regulations they should have been following. that is one of the reasons they are looking for a harsher sentence of three years. haidi: has there been much impact, and going forward, on binance itself? richard: there has been very limited impacts from what we can gather. talking to users of the platform. and let's remember that binance is the largest crypto exchange globally. its market share was up to around 60% of spot crypto. that is around 40% now. it did dip in its recovery. that still makes it the world's

biggest. so that is really important. users are still using binance. in terms of its operations, the board is basically packed with a lot of those who are close to him during his time as ceo. his former partner who is the mother of his three children is closely involved in the company's operations. overall it appears that things are going quite well. we saw a 30% increase in users in calendar year 2023. and also in the year to the end of march. estimated revenues from bloomberg estimates are almost $10 billion. so it is a hugely profitable business when very well. and of course we have the backdrop of this boom in crypto assets with bitcoin touching a high back in mark.

paul: so if he does go to prison, what are the chances he can still sleep well knowing he is still a billion or -- still a billionaire? richard: as part of his plea agreement he is allowed to keep a-shares. he has a 99% stake, the value of which is around $43 billion. the ranks on bloomberg's ritualist is number 38. this is one of the richest individuals in the world, and by far the richest prison inmate when he eventually goes to prison. so he will still be wildly wealthy, and will be leaving prison after his sentence a billionaire, given the fortunes of binance so far in this resurgence we are seeing across the crypto world, helped along this year by spot bitcoin etf's

launch in the u.s. and now today in hong kong as well. haidi: cross asset asia reporter richard anderson. subscribers can read the full story on the terminal. head over to bloomberg.com as well. more to come here. 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

haidi: data security is again taking center stage in the intensifying rivalry between the u.s. and china. this is after washington moved to force a sale or ban of tiktok. beijing seems to be embracing firms that play by its rules including tesla. for more let's bring in correspondent rebecca choong wilkins. on the one hand you have the ongoing high-level engagement, yellen, blinken. but at the same time these evergreen areas of tension continue to lay out. rebecca: yes. the tesla, tiktok story is an excellent encapsulation of that. it is a tale of two tech companies when we see tiktok facing this ban bill. it took quite some time to finally get to a framework where u.s. lawmakers felt comfortable actually moving on that

legislation. this is effectively years in the works. versus firms like tesla, with that baidu partnership now announced. and what essentially we are seeing is that as we see increasing obstacles and challenges, it bit more trade friction when it comes to physical trades and access to strategic technologies. but the data is equally moving along these lines of the fragmented world and becoming increasingly disparate and separate. with the u.s. of course taking on some of those qualities of restricting internet access, which china has long been criticized for. paul: as haidi mentioned we have chinese president xi jinping paying on his way to europe. he has not been there for five years. what achievements is he seeking on this trip? rebecca: this is a really interesting one. that kicks off may 5 and we are going to see him going to france, hungary, and serbia.

and even that selection of countries is quite interesting here. his first trip to the european union in five years. france, some really interesting color details coming out from what we are going to expect from that trip. but for president xi jinping, emmanuel macron poses a figure that is perhaps more receptive to his messaging. we know that micron is planning to invite president xi jinping to his grandmother's house in the pyrenees. it is a very reciprocal, personal gesture that in some ways matches the invitation xi jinping extended to macron when he was last in beijing, inviting him to the governor's residence which is where xi jinping's father was posted. we are all seeing this personal touch coming in here. but it will be a challenge. these big issues over ev's is still raining. france of course was one of the

main backers of the eu probe into ev's. and china has also targeted an antidumping probe that essentially looks at french liquor, cognac. so we are expecting macron to raise that issue have cognac at -- at this dinner he is planning for xi jinping. as much as we have warm gestures on both sides, quite a few points of friction. haidi: rebecca choong wilkins there, who will be all across of course that european foray by xi jinping. broadly we are seeing a bit of of sidetracking. the wall street session higher. seeing leadership from japan after that delayed opening with the public holiday yesterday, giving traders in japan the first chance to react to a volatile yen session on monday which sparked suspicion of intervention which may or may not be closer to being

confirmed. seeing quite a bit of upside for the nikkei and the broader topix. a big outperformer when it comes to the topix, seeing a gain of almost 2% as we continue to watch the play out when it comes to the yen. also seeing quite a bit of upside for korean equities. it is a samsung story. the chip division finally returning to profit. a pretty healthy reaction all around. of course samsung has a pretty muted response to given the stock has underperformed the other chip leaders. korean companies when it comes to first-quarter earnings, progress being made when it comes to corporate reform. we are seeing korean equities getting some love from funds that have shunned other asian market peers. the other spotlight we have cast is overtrading cast in japan. we are seeing really robust upside including elliott

management having built a large stake. this is worn -- this is one of warren buffett's favorite trading houses. we have seen elliott previously pushing for government changes at toshiba and reaching a record high last week and extending gains today, up over 7%. you can tune into bloomberg radio to hear more from the days big newsmakers. get in-depth analysis from the daybreak team there. we're broadcasting live from our studio in hong kong. you can listen in via the app, or bloombergradio.com. this is bloomberg. ♪

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to help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make them real. haidi: the top corporate stories we are following, paramount global has replaced its ceo with a management committee headed by three senior executives. the media giant is negotiating a possible merger with independent producer sky dance. separately paramount reported earnings that beat estimates on the back of super bowl ad sales and improving results from its streaming service. we work and its major financial backers including softbank have struck a new restructuring deal, spurning a competing plan from the cofounder adam neumann. they agreed to provide $450 million in financing for

exchange in equity. the deal would see wework exit in the coming months. paul: we heard from samsung earlier and south korea's robust first-quarter earnings and initiatives are fueling faith in their stock market. how has korea's earnings season been so far compared to its peers? ishika: yeah, just for some context, foreign funds have poured about $1.7 billion into the south korean stock market in april. a stronger dollar. looking pretty good for the stock market. most other markets have seen -- the earnings season is a big driver for this optimism. nearly 70% of the companies that have reported earnings so far

have posted better-than-expected results according to goldman sachs analysis. of course this morning we saw samsung adding to that with its big profit beat and returning to profitability for the first time since 2022. you also have industrials and consumer staples firms that have beaten estimates quite nicely. some examples are dim sum -- samsung. the head of the second quarter, goldman has seen i.t. firms in consumer staples firms are seeing positive earnings visions from analysts. it is quite a good trend going on in the market right now. haidi: we are seem to corporate value of trade losing momentum as of late and we know this is a longer-term story. but are traders still positive on the resolution of the so-called korea discount? ishika: absolutely.

the corporate value of traders is expected to see some momentum. hopefully that is what investors are hoping for and that is one of the other reasons foreign funds are getting into the market pick the korean exchange is expected to come out with more concrete measures on the corporate value. a program intended to boost evaluations of companies and improve shareholder returns in the country. they disappointed the market back in february. everyone will be keenly watching thursday when the korean exchange comes out with more details. we are also expecting a value up index to be launched in the country that will track the firms that will benefit the most from any such initiative if implementation is carried out properly. the bellwethers to watch will be the family controlled firms such as samsung these are the ones where change has to happen the most. and lastly policymakers are

looking to table dividends being taxed separately. paul: asia stocks reporter ishika mookerjee there. let's take a quick look at how samsung is doing. we had a beat on some of the headline numbers. the single largest contributor to single -- we have the earnings call starting at the top of the hour so stay tuned for headlines out of that. that is it for bloomberg daybreak: asia. markets coverage continues with the start of trade in hong kong, shanghai, and shenzhen. ♪

and they're all coming? those who are still with us, yes. grandpa! what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly.

>> tuesday morning, you are watching the china show. ivanka: chinese equities in focus. investors welcome a strong start. >>