Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.
Speaker 2: The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves
Speaker 2: in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg data.
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at some stocks on the move
Speaker 1: today in Asia. I'm Stephen Carroll with Caroline Hepker, and
Speaker 1: we're joined by our markets reporter, Anthony Stevens. Anthony, let's start,
Speaker 1: perhaps almost every day, it seems, with technology. Custom chips,
Speaker 1: a big focus with the OpenAI build-out. How's that playing
Speaker 1: out in the Asian session today?
Speaker 3: That's a very interesting combination going into Nvidia earnings. You
Speaker 3: have one of Nvidia's biggest customers coming out with competitive chips. Now,
Speaker 3: OpenAI's chips are supposedly addressing the inference problems around LLM
Speaker 3: models like it has itself. So it's also solving problems
Speaker 3: for other LLMs. And why that's interesting is this custom
Speaker 3: chip trend continues to accelerate even as Nvidia's own chips
Speaker 3: are sold out. So At the moment, there is pretty
Speaker 3: much insatiable demand for anything regarding computing power. But how
Speaker 3: far that runway extends is a big question in the
Speaker 3: Nvidia earnings. But for now, that's enough for investors in
Speaker 3: Asia with the runway in Taiwan and Korea very clear.
Speaker 3: You have the likes of MediaTek up 5.6%, Lagan is up,
Speaker 3: limit up, and Samsung and Hynix continue their two-day rally.
Speaker 3: They started off very weak yesterday and they've rallied around 6%
Speaker 3: in a straight line.
Speaker 4: Interesting. Pharmaceutical shares are also on the rise. What's driving that?
Speaker 3: So this speaks to like a new dawn in terms
Speaker 3: of drug development across a few technologies that's been brewing
Speaker 3: for a while. So you have had that mRNA technology
Speaker 3: that came out during COVID now finally being put to
Speaker 3: use for other things, most notably skin cancer in the
Speaker 3: case of Moderna. Moderna was up 14% overnight and that's
Speaker 3: pretty much got all of the mRNA players in Asia
Speaker 3: flying Most notably, CanSino, who again made the vaccines during COVID,
Speaker 3: that's up 23% to start. And there have also been
Speaker 3: some pretty strong earnings out of the Chinese pharma names
Speaker 3: like Insino BioPharm and Innovant, which are being buoyed by
Speaker 3: the Chinese success in the oncology space. Innovant, for example,
Speaker 3: is up 9% today.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the drop in oil prices is having an effect
Speaker 1: on energy shares across Asia.
Speaker 3: It has been interesting, right? As oil tracked higher, the
Speaker 3: oil shares did keep up because margins on fuel products
Speaker 3: are quite tight at the moment. The production capacity is
Speaker 3: quite tight. So people did pile in to these oil names.
Speaker 3: And now this shock kind of drop in oil on
Speaker 3: the talks of Pakistan and Oman mediating a ceasefire. it
Speaker 3: has really rocked positioning. You're seeing Woodside down almost 4%.
Speaker 3: Ineos in Japan is underperforming the market sharply, down 2%.
Speaker 3: And Eska Innovation is drastically underperforming the Korean bull market.
Speaker 3: It's down 9%.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Very interesting isn't it in terms of all markets i
Speaker 4: mean i'm just kind of going back to the pharmaceutical
Speaker 4: story though that you mentioned um a moderna share price
Speaker 4: last week spiking that that huge number 177 i mean
Speaker 4: it was extraordinary wasn't it the kind of idea of
Speaker 4: personalized vaccines and this in that late stage trial being
Speaker 4: able to maybe uh reduce the recurrence of melanoma of
Speaker 4: this the kind of deadliest skin cancer i mean yeah
Speaker 4: it's hugely significant isn't it um Briefly, Antony, what do
Speaker 4: you think of the Besant story about bond buybacks? I mean,
Speaker 4: this is the big debate in bond markets, isn't it?
Speaker 4: How much of a put is there in markets and
Speaker 4: the size and scale of the US Treasury market? What
Speaker 4: do you think of it?
Speaker 3: There are two separate debates going on here. The first
Speaker 3: debate is how long can you pull this off for?
Speaker 3: How sustainable is it versus the pure fundamentals of the
Speaker 3: US economy? And on that front, you had Stanley Druckenmiller
Speaker 3: saying that it's not long-term feasible and so many others, right,
Speaker 3: who point to the fact that the structural deficit in
Speaker 3: the US is the big problem pushing on yields alongside
Speaker 3: the kind of deluge of AI debt that's coming as well.
Speaker 3: But on the short-term side of things, he is leaning
Speaker 3: into a very crowded trade. So he may be trying
Speaker 3: to just trigger a short squeeze, right? You have very
Speaker 3: extended positioning in ultra long bond futures. You have very
Speaker 3: extended positioning in options on the same trade. While yields
Speaker 3: are quite high and you do have real money that
Speaker 3: needs to be put to work at those yield levels.
Speaker 3: So he may just be needing to trigger a short
Speaker 3: squeeze to get what he wants while the situation with
Speaker 3: Iran is being worked out. So in terms of timing,
Speaker 3: it's very kind of a nuanced thing for people putting
Speaker 3: on this trade. You can put it on structurally, but
Speaker 3: you need to have the risk tolerance to let it
Speaker 3: run for a little while.
Speaker 2: The Stock Movers Report from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with
Speaker 2: us throughout the day for the latest roundup of companies
Speaker 2: making news on Wall Street. And for the latest market-moving headlines,
Speaker 2: listen to Bloomberg Radio Live. Catch us on YouTube, Bloomberg.com,
Speaker 2: and on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business app.