00:00So, Paul, it's tempting going into the weekend to feel full of cheer.
00:03I note that U.S. futures are a little negative, actually,
00:07but we've priced the SpaceX IPO, the Iran deal,
00:10according to President Trump, at least, is making progress.
00:14How do things feel over in Asia?
00:18Yeah, good morning, Anna.
00:19Asia had a pretty good session, all things considered,
00:22with pretty decent gains across stock markets,
00:26across the tech space, as well.
00:31And I think that, you know, even in the last 24 hours,
00:35the negative reaction that we had when Donald Trump was talking about
00:39how hard he was going to hit Iran was not really that excessive.
00:42The market is a little bit wary of this,
00:44but nonetheless, it seems that there's enough for people to hang on to
00:47going into the weekend, the prospects of some kind of a peace deal,
00:50and so people are taking some optimism and cheer from that again.
00:53You know, we know that we've seen this story, and we've been through this.
00:56You know, plenty of times before, I saw a funny tweet that was saying
00:59this has got more endings than the Tolkien's The Return of the King novel.
01:03But at some point, you know, we are getting closer to some sort of a resolution,
01:07and in any case, more of the energy is coming out of the Gulf and feeding markets.
01:11And so with the lower crude oil prices,
01:13that does give investors some sense of reassurance.
01:17Okay, so we're 88.47 right now on Brent.
01:21Does that price a peace deal?
01:24What does Brent do if we get a deal?
01:27Does it go down further from here?
01:29Are we in the 70s?
01:30Are we in the 60s?
01:31Or do we just stay in the 80s?
01:34Yeah, I'd be dubious about prices coming down too far too fast from here.
01:39I think that, you know, it's going to take a long time to get all of the energy products flowing
01:45again.
01:45And I think for the economies around the world and markets as well,
01:48it may be too late for us to get an immediate kind of bounce back as well.
01:51I feel like certainly in our parts of the world,
01:55there's going to be an inflationary impact for longer.
01:57There's going to be an impact on the economy and jobs for longer as well.
02:00So the bounce back, given we had more than 100 days of this sort of curtailed supplies,
02:04it's going to be a little bit more tricky than the idea that we can price back in a return
02:08to normality right away.
02:11You're in India, Paul.
02:13What sense are you getting there?
02:15I mean, India has been very vulnerable, of course, to the energy shock.
02:18What is the sentiment in that part of the world right now?
02:22Yes, Tom.
02:23So I think that across Asia, actually, we've really seen major pushback over the last week or 10 days.
02:30There's been an awful lot of pressure, particularly on currency markets for the energy importers right across the region.
02:35We've seen different approaches.
02:37So, for example, in Indonesia, they're more determined to use interest rates to stabilize the currency.
02:41Here in India, they've gone a different route.
02:43They're trying to lure in a large amount of foreign inflows leveraged up in order to boost the rupee by
02:50sucking in cash from abroad.
02:51And that seems to have gained a lot of favor, at least with the domestic market,
02:54where people are welcoming this as the RBI getting to grips with things
02:58and also not using interest rates, which might not be the best strategy for India,
03:03but finding a different route in order to stabilize the currency.
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