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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: This is the Bloomberg Daybakut podcast, available every morning on Apple,

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Speaker 2: Spotify or wherever you listen. It's Wednesday, the twenty seventh

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Speaker 2: of March. Here in London. I'm Caroline Hepka and.

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Speaker 3: I'm Lizzie Burden. Coming up today the latest on the

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Speaker 3: Baltimore Bridge collapse disaster. As emergency services moved from rescue

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Speaker 3: to recovery.

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Speaker 2: The Japanese yen hits its lowest level against the dollars

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Speaker 2: since the nineties, as Japan moves a step closer to

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Speaker 2: currency intervention.

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Speaker 3: Plus, you can't buy happiness, but you can buy chocolate.

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Speaker 3: But as the price of coco hits a record high,

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Speaker 3: it's likely to cost you a whole lot more.

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Speaker 2: Let's start with a roundup of our top stories.

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Speaker 3: Six people are presumed dead following the collapse of Baltimore's

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Speaker 3: Francis Scott Key Bridge after it was struck by a

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Speaker 3: container ship. More from Boomberg's Dan Schwartzman.

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Speaker 4: Now, the search for survivors at the Francis Scott Key

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Speaker 4: Bridge collapse site in Baltimore, Maryland was suspended overnight, with

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Speaker 4: the six people missing deemed to be deceased. The six

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Speaker 4: were construction workers from a business called Browner Builders, and

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Speaker 4: we're doing repair work on the bridge. Coastguard Rear Admiral

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Speaker 4: Shannon Gilreath explains why the operation was transitioning to a

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Speaker 4: new phase.

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Speaker 5: Based on the length of time that we've gone in

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Speaker 5: the search, the extensive search efforts that we've put into it,

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Speaker 5: the water temperature that at this point we do not

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Speaker 5: believe that we're going to find any of these individuals

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Speaker 5: still alive.

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Speaker 4: That's Coastguard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath. The search for the

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Speaker 4: missing is resuming this morning. Dan Schwartzman, Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 3: The incident also adds pressure to already strained global supply chains,

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Speaker 3: Baltimore being one of the busiest ports on the US

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Speaker 3: East Coast.

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Speaker 6: Now.

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Speaker 2: The Japanese y end slid to its lowest against the

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Speaker 2: US dollars is nineteen ninety, with Japan's Finance minister warning

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Speaker 2: of bold action. The Cauncy's pair slid to one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty one ninety seven in trading this morning, before

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Speaker 2: pulling back when Minister Shinichi Zuki hinted at potential intervention

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Speaker 2: that is past the level that prompted Japan to weighed

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Speaker 2: into markets. In October twenty twenty two, hedge funds and

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Speaker 2: asset managers combined held a near record level of bearish

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Speaker 2: positions against Japan's currency last week.

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Speaker 3: As many as eight million UK workers are at risk

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Speaker 3: of losing their jobs to AI. This according to a

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Speaker 3: think tank, The Institute for Public Policy Research, is forecasting

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Speaker 3: that the new technology could add three hundred and six

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Speaker 3: billion pounds a year to the UK economy or wype

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Speaker 3: out nearly a quarter of its jobs. James Wilcock has.

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Speaker 7: More a job's apocalypse. That's what the IPPR is calling it.

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Speaker 7: They analyzed twenty thousand tasks in the UK across all

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Speaker 7: job types to see how easy they could be to automate.

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Speaker 7: What emerged is a sesaw model. In the worst case scenario,

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Speaker 7: seven point nine million jobs are lost to no economic gain.

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Speaker 7: In the best case scenario, zero jobs are lost to

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Speaker 7: the tune of thirteen percent and your GDP growth. LinkedIn's

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Speaker 7: UK boss Jean Chamberlain is on the optimistic side.

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Speaker 3: This is really important to kind of consider what does

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Speaker 3: AI actually provide.

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Speaker 8: It doesn't replace someone's job.

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Speaker 3: This is just about giving people a helping hend a

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Speaker 3: starting point.

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Speaker 7: But for the IPPR it's a bleaker outlook. They say.

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Speaker 7: The key factor in where on the seesaw we end

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Speaker 7: up is how government plans the labor forces transition to AI,

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Speaker 7: and currently they say there isn't one in London, James Walcock,

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Speaker 7: Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: Meanwhile, more than a quarter of UK tech businesses want

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Speaker 2: to sell their firm abroad. A Berkeley survey of tech

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Speaker 2: founders exit strategies found that sixteen percent want to sell

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Speaker 2: their firms to a foreign buyer and ten percent would

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Speaker 2: sell shares abroad. More than half said that the lack

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Speaker 2: of funding, talent and infrastructure is holding back their company's growth.

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Speaker 2: The data suggests that Prime Minister is she Sunac still

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Speaker 2: has work to do to persuade British companies to stay

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Speaker 2: in the UK as they try to scale up.

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Speaker 3: Coco futures reached a record ten thousand dollars per metric

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Speaker 3: ton this week. The commodity has since raised those gains,

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Speaker 3: taking a break from a historic rally which has seen

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Speaker 3: prices double in twenty twenty four. Poor harvests from West

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Speaker 3: African growers ravaged by bad weather have spurred a third

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Speaker 3: straight annual Coco supply deficit, which has sent prices soaring.

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Speaker 3: Bloomberg's on duro a Ganga says there are a number

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Speaker 3: of factors behind the production slow down.

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Speaker 9: Ghana has also been having challenges with regards to financing

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Speaker 9: and so the government was not able to adequately subsidize fertilizer. Internationally,

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Speaker 9: we are also seeing their new rules incoming in Europe

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Speaker 9: which will block Coco that destroys for US and has

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Speaker 9: child libor in the Coco production Valichin from heating.

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Speaker 3: The market, Bloomberg's on duero Oganga speaking there. Pressures are

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Speaker 3: also building in the financial market, where some traders have

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Speaker 3: sold futures to hedge against the physical holdings.

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Speaker 2: Now, former President Donald Trump's social media startup sort in

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Speaker 2: its first trading day as a public company. Here's the

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Speaker 2: moment that Bluemok's cowl Massa called Trump Media and Technology

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Speaker 2: Group at the.

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Speaker 8: Close uppermost sixty percent. It ties today it's first official

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Speaker 8: day of trading. We know it was a spac and

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Speaker 8: so of course a merger with Digital World acquisition. It's

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Speaker 8: an unprofitable company. This is something that we've been trying

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Speaker 8: to dig into a little bit more today finishing the

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Speaker 8: day with a sixteen percent gain, but soaring. It did

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Speaker 8: also trigger a brief volatively related trading hot but nonetheless,

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Speaker 8: as I said, some outperformance in that one day two

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Speaker 8: will be an interesting trade, no doubt.

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Speaker 2: So Blombog's Carol Massa there She says that the now

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Speaker 2: seven point nine billion dollar valued company has a meme

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Speaker 2: like appeal. It's become the most expensive US dot T

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Speaker 2: bet against. Short Sellers are having to pay up to

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Speaker 2: three hundred times the average cost to borrow its shares.

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Speaker 2: There are a very tiny amount of shares actually available

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Speaker 2: to borrow this according to the financial analytics firm S

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Speaker 2: three Partners. So that on the presence former presidents social

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Speaker 2: media start up behind Truth Social now a search and

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Speaker 2: rescue operation for survivors of the collapse Francis Scott Key

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Speaker 2: Bridge in the US city of Baltimore has been suspended.

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Speaker 2: Officials say that they are now transitioning their efforts to

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Speaker 2: recovery missions. With six people presumed dead, the aftermath of

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Speaker 2: the bridge is collapse throws another spotlight on the fragile

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Speaker 2: nature of global supply chains that have already been strained

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Speaker 2: by the drought in the Panama and missile attacks in

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Speaker 2: the Red Sea. Our trades are Brendan Murray joins US.

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Speaker 2: Now we understand the bridge collapse will cause weeks, if

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Speaker 2: not months of trade disruptions.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I think that the initial and the next

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Speaker 1: steps are going to be a lot of finger pointing

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Speaker 1: at how this happened. You know, how did the ship

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Speaker 1: itself not have a backup system if it's power failed,

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Speaker 1: Why did the bridge pilings not have fenders around them,

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Speaker 1: some protective equipment around them, And how did a bridge

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Speaker 1: collapse so easy and so thoroughly in this situation. The

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Speaker 1: immediate effect on supply chains is going to be the

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Speaker 1: Port of Baltimore has closed indefinitely. They're going to have,

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Speaker 1: you know, weeks or months of salvage operations to clean

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Speaker 1: up the site. All that cargo is going to have

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Speaker 1: to go somewhere else, places like Norfolk, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia.

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Speaker 1: The big ships will have to go to New York

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Speaker 1: and New Jersey. So there's going to be a period

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Speaker 1: where supply chains have these wrinkles that need to be

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Speaker 1: ironed out. It's going to be it's going to mean

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Speaker 1: delays for people and businesses for their parts and their products,

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Speaker 1: and it's going to possibly mean some higher costs in

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Speaker 1: the short term.

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Speaker 3: And BRENDA just give us a sense of the scale

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Speaker 3: of the trade that was going through this port. You

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Speaker 3: had lots of cars and light trucks going through it.

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Speaker 3: How does it compare to other sorts of blockages that

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Speaker 3: we've seen in Maine waterways.

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Speaker 1: So Baltimore has about three percent of the cargo volume

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Speaker 1: on the US East Coast and Gulf Coast, so it's

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Speaker 1: a small amount of containerized cargo that goes through there,

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Speaker 1: but as you mentioned, it's a big auto export and

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Speaker 1: import gateway. So a lot of the companies that ship

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Speaker 1: their cars in and out of their companies like BMW

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Speaker 1: and Volkswagen and Ford and GM, some of them have

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Speaker 1: docks that are not affected by this, they're on the

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Speaker 1: ocean side of the bridge. Some of them will have

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Speaker 1: operations that will be affected. So we'll have to sort

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Speaker 1: of pick through the situation on the ground there to

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Speaker 1: see which ones will be affected and which ones.

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Speaker 3: Won't, And if we zoom out, what's the kind of

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Speaker 3: big picture read through to global trade and the ability

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Speaker 3: of these isolated events to impact global flows.

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Speaker 1: So there isn't going to be a widespread impact, but

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Speaker 1: there will be isolated situations. Baltimore was also a big

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Speaker 1: coal export port, so it's and a lot of that

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Speaker 1: went to developing countries, say India, so you know that

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Speaker 1: still use a lot of coal for fuel. So there

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Speaker 1: will be isolated situations like that. There was a lot

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Speaker 1: of construction equipment that went through Baltimore. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: coming up on spring in the construction season, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of farm equipment went through there. It's you know,

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Speaker 1: a couple month or two from planting season for a

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Speaker 1: lot of farmers in the Midwest. So there will be

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Speaker 1: some isolated industries that are affected, but most of the

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Speaker 1: economs we talked to says it won't really mean much

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Speaker 1: of a blip on the US economy as a whole,

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Speaker 1: or really any more widespread effect on the global economy.

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Speaker 3: Okay, Brendan Murray our trade, So thank you so much

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Speaker 3: for bringing us the trade impact of that story. Of course,

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Speaker 3: it's also had a serious human toll, six people presumed dead,

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Speaker 3: and we will continue to bring you the latest on

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Speaker 3: that story throughout the program.

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Speaker 2: Now let's also turn our attention though to the main

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Speaker 2: market story. This morning, Japan is edging close it would

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Speaker 2: seem to currency intervention, with its strongest warning yet from

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Speaker 2: the Finance Minister, Janezi Suzuki say we will take bold

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Speaker 2: measures against successive moves without ruling out any options. That is,

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Speaker 2: the Japanese yen slid to the weakest level in about

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Speaker 2: thirty four years against the US dollar. So joining us

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Speaker 2: now for more on this developing story. Bloomberg's executive editor

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Speaker 2: for Asian Markets, Paul Dobson, Paul, good morning. Just explain

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Speaker 2: what is behind the slide in the Japanese currency. Firstly, yeah,

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Speaker 2: hi theren thanks for having me. It's quite contrarian kind

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Speaker 2: of a move by the in actual fact, because just

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Speaker 2: this month we saw the Bank of Japan raise interest rates,

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Speaker 2: taking it out of negative territory for the first time

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Speaker 2: in more than a decade. No normally that should lift

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Speaker 2: the currency, and yet we're still seeing more yen weakness.

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Speaker 2: So there's a few things that would explain parts of

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Speaker 2: the reason for that. First of all, while the boj

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Speaker 2: did hikit stressed that it was going to be cautious

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Speaker 2: in moves from here, talking about retaining a commensative stance

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Speaker 2: as well, and that sort of emphasized the still huge

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Speaker 2: gap in relative yields between Japan and the rest of

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Speaker 2: the world and the US in particular, so traders looking

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Speaker 2: at carried trades and where to deposit their money going

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Speaker 2: to earn much higher interest rates in dollars than they

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Speaker 2: are in yen. On top of that, you know, the

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Speaker 2: fact that it was just so well telegraphed by the

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Speaker 2: BJ that we knew that this was coming also in

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Speaker 2: the end help them, you know, move it through without

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Speaker 2: causing too much market volatility, but didn't give them any

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Speaker 2: any boost in terms of yen strength. And so that

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Speaker 2: in addition to some of the currency weakness, and then

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Speaker 2: over the other side of the trade, you've got a

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Speaker 2: stronger dollar as people continue to push back those bets

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Speaker 2: for when the FED will begin to cut interest rates

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Speaker 2: on the other side of things. So those things combined

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Speaker 2: have provided this backdrop for a week a yen.

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Speaker 1: Today.

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Speaker 6: In particular, we heard from one of the BJ's more

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Speaker 6: hawkish members, and he again stressed that kind of a

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Speaker 6: commotative position, and so that was taken as a bit

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Speaker 6: of a red rag to a bull as it were,

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Speaker 6: for the currency market, pushing it through those levels that

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Speaker 6: we've been watching for some time around the one point

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Speaker 6: fifty one ninety five level.

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Speaker 3: Paul can just spell out for us, when the finance

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Speaker 3: minister says that they'll take bold measures against excessive moves,

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Speaker 3: what does that mean.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, well, so there's almost like a traffic light signal

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Speaker 6: system from the finance ministry. Remember it's the government, not

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Speaker 6: the central bank that intervenes in currency markets in Japan,

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Speaker 6: so they have a sort of scale of warnings, and

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Speaker 6: the market is so used to detecting the changes in

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Speaker 6: tone depending on the rhetoric that's chosen by the officials.

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Speaker 6: So this latest comment bold action is another step up

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Speaker 6: in terms of sort of getting the market ready for

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Speaker 6: the possibility that the government would step into the market

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Speaker 6: and begin buying the yen in order to support it.

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Speaker 6: We're not there yet, and there are still perhaps a

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Speaker 6: couple of extra levels on the Richter scale of warnings

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Speaker 6: from the MOF, but we're getting pretty close. So they're

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Speaker 6: telling us that they're serious about this right now.

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Speaker 2: And it can get expensive. I mean, in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 2: Tokyo spent you know, billions in terms of supporting the yen.

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Speaker 6: It can, but I think the view both the government

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Speaker 6: and the Central Bank for that matter, is that a

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Speaker 6: week en from here is not really helpful. Well, in

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Speaker 6: the past, a week een would help Japanese exporters, that

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Speaker 6: would help to counter balance, you know, some of the

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Speaker 6: stresses in the market. At these levels, those exporters don't

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Speaker 6: really stand to benefit that much more. On the flip

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Speaker 6: side of it, the weaker exchange trait makes inflation a

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Speaker 6: little bit more unruly and undesirable, so they're minded to

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Speaker 6: protect it even if it costs. What they say is

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Speaker 6: they don't mind if it's weakening so much. It's not

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Speaker 6: the outright level so much as the pace of depreciation.

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Speaker 6: But I think that probably in the aftermath of that

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Speaker 6: hike from the central bank, the last thing that they

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Speaker 6: want to see is too rapid depreciation of the currency.

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Speaker 6: From here.

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Speaker 3: And Paul, you've seen this powering the nick closing three

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Speaker 3: tenser percent off a record high. How much is that

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Speaker 3: down to the yen and this story about currency intervention

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Speaker 3: the BOJ how much is it about fundamentals in Japanese equities.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, well a little bit half and half, I would say,

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Speaker 6: you know, so, based on what I just said that

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Speaker 6: a week yen from here is that helpful for exporters. Nevertheless,

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Speaker 6: you know does have some supportive function for the equities market,

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Speaker 6: and so you would see a little bit of strength

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Speaker 6: off the back of that. But there's a pretty good

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Speaker 6: news story in the backdrop for Japanese companies in general anyway.

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Speaker 6: They're able to raise prices, which is something that was

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Speaker 6: quite surprising or even on thought of a few years ago.

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Speaker 6: But this inflationary environment is enabling them to widen their

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Speaker 6: profit margins and without fear of driving away customers. They

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Speaker 6: also are taking steps to improve their corporate governance right

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Speaker 6: across the board, unwinding kind of cross shareholdings, getting rid

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Speaker 6: of so much cash that they have pent up on

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Speaker 6: the balance sheet, and looking to expansion as well. So

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Speaker 6: there's quite a good feel good facts are behind the moves.

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Speaker 6: So even if you're looking at Japanese equities measured in

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Speaker 6: the dollar rather than the end, they've still been on

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Speaker 6: a pretty good upward path this year.

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