22/02/2018 Asia Business Report

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Federal reserve, minutes out of.

Will

Federal reserve, minutes out of.

Will the

Federal reserve, minutes out of.

Will the central bank take

Federal reserve, minutes out of.

Will the central bank take a more

hawkish approach on interest rates?

And a global tech consultancy shows

businesses how to play their cards

right in the year of the dog.

Good morning Asia, hello world. Glad

you could join us for this exciting

edition of Asia Business Report, I

am Rico Hizon. We start off with the

US and Federal reserve has released

minutes, giving an upbeat assessment

of the economy and inflation,

changing expectation about interest

rates have created more volatility

in the markets, just like what

happened on Wall Street yesterday,

opening on the plus side but closing

in negative with the Dow Jones down

by 167 point. As for Asian markets,

currently open and it is a mixed

bag. The NIkkei up and the All

Ordinaries down the. Earlier I put

the question to our reporter Joe

Miller in New York.

If you ask the

markets when they had closed at 4pm

the answer would yes but if you ask

the markets just a a few minutes

after the minutes can out it was

anyone's guess and you will know

that usually when these minutes come

out, a few minutes later my inbox

and your inbox I am sure is filled

with comments of analyst and pundits

explain what they mean. There was

stony silence as people try to

interpret exactly what the wording

in the minutes meant and this is the

all sorts of confusion, eventually

the markets settle on the fact that

the words increased likelihood of

further rises meant we would see a

more hawkish Fed and therefore

stocks fell and US bond yields went

up to four-year highs. Overall I

think this is not the sort of market

move that is too alarming. It is not

the sort of thing that would have

happened if there had been even

stronger language suggesting that

perhaps instead of three rate rises

expect in the next year there might

be four. People are still on the

fence about that.

With pundits

decoding the Federal minutes, what

are they generally seen? When will

be the first rate hike from the said

this year?

Everyone now, it seems,

is expecting a much rate rise of

0.25%. The question is really beyond

that. The question is what happens

in the rest of the year? We seek to

make more rate rises or three, how

confident is the Federal reserve

that inflation isn't going to rise

well above its 2% target? The

wording in the report really was a

sort of meddling about this. The Fed

noted that the minutes noted that

inflation was edging towards that 2%

target, but there was no alarm about

that and had there been a little bit

more alarm that have seen a huge

market reaction but because they

were fairly calm about the prospect

of interest rates moving towards 2%,

the markets were not too alarmed.

Overall I think these minutes had

less of an impact that many thought

they might.

Amazon have reached a

new high, stocks rising above the

$1500 mark, a huge contrast to

Walmart, which dropped overnight, a

day after they experienced their

worst day on Wall Street for more

than 30 years. I am joined by my

colleague, eight ten Walmart compete

with Amazon?

They are claiming a

stiff learning curve and are going

as fast as they can but you look at

the earnings report, it is not

moving fast enough. On Tuesday they

came out and they missed their

projection, the first time into a

half years and that new scent their

stock in a freefall. It went down

10%. So what the chief executive of

Walmart is saying that they ran into

operational challenges and that is

because their online sales were

soft. The big test is over the

Christmas holiday, had trouble in

their distribution centre getting

electronics and toys out in time and

this is what Amazon has done

incredibly well. A streamlined the

distribution process and some is the

most efficient system in the world.

They have a long way to go, they

said they want to get their online

sales up 30% by the end of the year.

If you take a look at Amazon stock

price, its market cap is more than

700 Win US dollars, that 1 trillion

mark ever so near. Thank you for

that update. My colleague Monica

Miller. -- $700 billion. WhatsApp is

used by millions of Indians, they

target payments and eating sports

scores without a data connection.

But it is an ambitious plan for a

firm that is burning more cash than

it may. -- makes. Sally bunged up

sat down with its executive.

Hike is

different in the sense that we don't

have logistics, we have a team in

Bangalore and most of our costs are

absorbed. Some marketing costs and

our people. That is not a concern

with respect to Hike.

Others say it

is a concern.

Very unlikely. There

is a concern in the market to shore.

I think at the end of the day,

Internet businesses at such an early

stage of the economy, we are all

looking at other e-commerce

businesses and businesses in India,

they are in investment phase.

Will

you have to raise more money soon?

I

think it is very likely that one

would go for two more rounds of

funding, we are very early in our

journey and have raised $260 million

but it is so early on in its journey

that we still believe a lot of work

has to be done to bring us into the

online.

Have you had any approaches

or people interested in buying your

company?

I can't comment on that.

OK. Having said that, Facebook, we

know they have had difficulties

penetrating the Indian market, so

people will see you as an attractive

option?

To shore. No doubt. I think

that is the case for a wall local

companies doing well. -- all locals

to be when I founded the company

idea was 1 billion people will come

online for the first time in their

lives. A billion people. China, it

hasn't happened, it Japan, it hasn't

happened in the US. Ins will be

different and we believe messaging

could simplify the way people come

online which is why Hike itself is

more than messaging, it has content,

scores, live music. It is different

from the market, which is why we

have Chinese investing in the

company and I think that is where we

are today.

Speaking there to the

BBC's Sally bundled. Technologies

ever-changing, making it hard for

businesses to keep up, which trends

ranging from a chain to the Internet

of things should they focus on? Lisa

caught up with tech consultancy

company damage and data, which

weighed out predictions from a deck

of cards. -- To mention Data. It has

to look at cyber security and help

the chain will disrupt it.

Cyber

currencies like bitcoin are

interesting but the underlying

technology which is an irrefutable

system has a lot of uses.

Altercations and certifications,

land Registry titles, people need to

get those instantly. These can be

online, public and they are

guaranteed to be accurate. There is

a number of uses of the underlying

gene technology which we are yet to

take advantage of.

Is move on to the

next card and what it holds. It has

to do with customer experience and

how that is going to be powered by

the Internet.

The use of new digital

technologies now to improve the way

you work it out there. There are

nine typical channels, I am, voice,

e-mail, social media, that you can

interact. From the voice varies

voice recognition technologies, they

can actually look at your intent,

they can throw up box or guide you.

If you are frustrated with eight

website at playing for a new credit

card. And also potential analysis,

they can predict what it is based on

your speech pattern that you're

trying to look for. Completely

changing the way you interact with

your bank or your telco.

And

finally. Digital business and how

that is going to be disrupted by AI,

machine learning robotics and

virtual augmented reality.

I think

we are still very at the early

stages I think the platforms are out

there, freely available for a lot of

used. We need to encourage and

educate our employees to use these

tools and make sure you have a

record of all the data in the

organisation seek a start to get

inside and make smart decisions.

Thanks Andy for your insight and

predictions, will have to check back

in in 2019. A deck of cards

predicting the future of IT. That is

it for this edition of Asia Business

Report. All of those on Twitter.

Thank you so much for investing your

time, bye