Good morning. It's Tuesday, the twenty fourth of October in London. This is the Bloomberg Daybreak Here at podcast. I'm Stephen Carroll. Coming up today. Hamas frees two more hostages from Gaza as the US sends more forces to the Middle East. Bond bears beware the billionaire investors Bill Ackman and Bill Gross abandon their short position on US treasuries. Plus Bloomberg's list of twenty five UK startups to watch, ranging from the content platform only Fans to a wearable brain scanner company.
Let's start with a roundup of our top stories. AMAS has freed two more hostages from the Gaza strip. The two elderly women were released to the International Committee of the Red Cross, while more than two hundred others are still being held by militants. The move is giving some Israeli officials cause to rethink the scope of a planned ground invasion of Gaza. Bloomberg's Michael Heath says the releases are helping diplomatic calls for astray.
This movement of people coming out encourages leaders to encourage Israel to engage and to hold off in terms of the ground invasion until they can get more people out. Katar and Egypt negotiated this release. So at this stage we're still waiting on the ground operation, and obviously there's still talks going on with the hostages. President Joe Biden has said once the hostages are released, we can start talking about a ceasefire.
Our reporter Michael Heath pointing out that US President Joe Biden appeared to suggest a cease far could be discussed if all hostages were released now. One of the two women FREEDO and Gaza was a British citizen. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told MPs that Hamas must be held accountable.
Hamas is not only a threat to Israel, but to many others across the region. All the leaders I met agree that this is a watershed moment. It's time to set the region on a better path.
The Prime Minister also announced more aid would be sent to Gaza. Only a fraction of normal supplies are being allowed into the territory. That US Chief Diplomat Joseph Burrell says aid is his top priority.
We have to start thinking of how to revive a political crushest, but the priority of that moment, which will make you many Penu in the support going Intobeja.
Joseph Barell, THEEU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, joining the international calls for restraint. China's farm Minister Wangi meanwhile reiterating that Israel must protect civilians and abide by humanitarian law, even as it has the right to defend itself. Some of the bond market's most prominent bears are saying the route in US treasuries has gone too far. Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman says he's unwound his bet against US
government bonds. Bloomberg stern Ali Bassek explains why the reason.
He is taking off this short position now is He says there's too much risk in the world to remain short bonds at current long term rates. The economy is flowing faster than recent data suggests, so that implies worry about a further bid in the bond market, perhaps a haven bid as the economy starts to slow down.
As Chernali bask notes their Ackman's skepticism on the health of the US economy stands in contrast to surprisingly strong recent economic data. Pimco co founder Bill Gross agrees he's predicting a recession by the end of the year, and says he's buying short dated interest rate futures. The Bank of Japan has announced an unscheduled bond buying operation, the fifth since tweaking its yield curve control back in July. The traders are testing the central banks reserves ahead of
next week's policy meeting. The boj's loose monetary policies also contributing to the depreciation of the yen, which is the worst performing G ten currency this year. Chevron is buying a piece of the world's largest oil discovery of the past decade, the oil major agreeing to buy the energy company Hess for fifty three billion dollars. Chevron CEO Mike Worth says that deal doesn't change the company's green commitment.
I don't think you should read this as a lack of commitment to the energy transition, but we need to invest in what the world runs on today. This makes us a stronger producer. It takes two great American companies and brings them together, which is good for national security and economic security. And we're committed. Both of our companies are committed to a lower carbon energy system.
Worth Smegadale is the second in the last few weeks for the oil industry Exon through fifty eight billion dollars into acquiring pioneer assign Both US giants see fossil fuels in the energy mix for decades to come, and the head of Virgin Atlantic Airways says the war between Israel and Hamas is deterring travel across portions of the Middle East. Speaking to Bloomberg, the carriers had said the impact on travel may extend beyond the specific flight restrictions recently put in place.
The situation in Israel, of course after the atrocites of October the seventh, is still unpredictable, so I think there are right now. The major impact has been of course people are flying into Israel and because of that, they're not flying also to the area, into Jordan, into Egypt, into other locations.
The warning from Shai Wai so Virgin Atlantic underscores uncertainty in the air travel market after the conflict led carriers to suspense services to Tel Aviv earlier this month. And if you want to hear that full interview, you can find it on the Bloomberg Talks podcast. All of our
most important conversations in one place. Let's turn back though to the latest that we've heard from the Middle East, those two more hostages released from Gaza, more than two hundred others, of course still being held by Hamas after they were captured during the October seventh attackings on southern Israel. Meanwhile, the US President Joe Biden and Benjamin Nettania who speaking again by phone, discussing US deployments to the region, among
other issues. Let's get the latest now from Tel Aviv and go to Bloomberg's Oliver Crook, Who's there for us this morning? Oliver, good morning. What is the latest on events there overnight?
Yes, as you mentioned, another two hostages free, which is a meaningful development to elderly women taken from a kaboots about two kilometers from these sort of border fence with Gaza. We understand their husbands and their eighties are still being held, and this was brokered by Katar. Yes, but also we understand that Egypt was part of this conversation, and as you say, Benjamin Nyahu and Biden spoke about this on
the phone. There is also the question of aid, which the US has been very active in, and we understand that thirty five trucks crossed into Gaza yesterday, which would be the greatest number to have crossed since the beginning of this crisis. However, still somewhat short of what the UN says will be really minimum of one hundred a day in order to make meaningful progress there.
Okay, let's look then, so as some of the efforts being made diplomatically and what hope that might give to the more than two hundred hostages that still remain captured in Gaza. As you say, two more hostages being added to the two others that were freed over the weekend.
I think it's very difficult to get a read on that, only because everyone who is involved in this is all through back channels and they're not really wanting to reveal a lot of the information that they're getting. We know that it is a top priority for basically every leader who has any citizens being held, certainly for the Israelis, certainly for the United States, and we know that Qatar
is playing a very key role in those discussions. Again, the question also is how does this bear on the potential ground offensive which we had been expecting for a long period of time, and now who's I think nature and scope is certainly being recalibrated or reconsidered on a very active basis from much of the reporting that we're doing partially and is a function of the hostages, but also probably as a function of the international view of the conflict and as well, you know how the Israelis
how much they can achieve basically from the skies, and again the bombardment has very much continued into Gaza and southern Lebanon.
We've also on the diplomatic front, Oliver had the latest for first comments rather from China's pharm Wangi. What should we read into what we heard from him?
Yeah, so it's been interesting this first comments there, well, really the first contact at that level between the Israelis and the Chinese since the conflict began. There has been some discussion with from Wangi with other foreign ministers in the region, but this is the highest level contact we've
had since the beginning of the conflict. And really there there was the notion that every nation has a right to self defense, but there was also sympathy espouse for both the Israelis and Palestinians and really saying that the
number one interest needs to be to protect civilians. However, we had also heard from a readout from a call with the Saudi Foreign Minister between Wangi and the Saudi saying that basically the Israeli's actions had gone beyond self defense and it needs to stop its collective punishment to the people of Gaza. Is what he had said there, and Hjiping himself is called for an immediate ceasefire.
Oliver word Io and what we heard from Israel Central Bank as well, which has been looking at the effect of the war on the economic outlook.
And so we had a raid decision yesterday where rates were left unchanged, but we also had a grow cut to the GDP forecast. Originally Israel had expected to be grow three percent this year three percent next year. They reduced that to two point three percent this year and two point eight percent next year. And again they've said that that is if things remain relatively contained, which is
a big if. And I can tell you from just being here for the last two weeks just in terms of activity on the ground, many many, many businesses have been closed, very few people in circulation, so certainly there will be economic consequences, which is really a discussion that has taken the back burner with the primacy on the military and a word on the Gaza economic situation. I think it's very almost impossible to calculate the damage that's being done there.
Okay, Oliver Crook and tell Avis, thank you very much for updating us on the story there this morning. Well, I turning to other news. Bloomberg has published its list of twenty five British startups to watch, ranging for the digital bank Manzo to the to a wearable brains gunner maker. They've been picked time at Bloomberg's Technology summit taking place in London today. Amy Thompson, who leads our team of
technology reporters in London, joins us now for more. Amy, talk us through how you managed to devise this list. What were the key factors that made a startup stand out for you?
Hey morning, Yeah, So we are looking at companies who are doing something genuinely innovative, companies from all over the UK. The diversity of where they were coming from and the founder's background and the sorts of things that they were working on was really important, and we were looking for companies that could really show us that they had gained some traction with customers or investors. And you know, when
we put the call out back in the summer. I wasn't confident necessarily that we were going to get this because it was such a grim period for the tech industry globally.
That was back when we were seeing sort.
Of all the job cuts from the big tech companies, companies that were able to raise money we're doing down rounds. But we were really really pleasantly surprised. We got more than fifteen hundred applications in the end, and a lot of them were really really impressive.
And look, there are some names in there people will know and some they don't.
Yeah, exactly.
So we've got some big brands like Manzo, We've got some high street brands like l V. And then we've got a lot of really interesting, very sort of scientific companies, university spin outs. You mentioned the wearable brain scanner, Circa Magnetics.
We've got Genomics.
We've got a company that's making chips out of graphene, which is a really interesting sort of material science story. We've got Chemifi, which is digitizing chemistry to do molecule discovery. So we've got a lot of really really interesting, interesting companies.
Now you mentioned sort of the backdrop to this being perhaps the most optimistic. British politicians very keen to talk up the UK's potential to be a tech hub. But what sort of trends did you uncover in these startups to watch?
Yeah, I think, like I said, we see a lot of strength out of the universities in the UK. We saw a lot of great ideas that came from labs in Cambridge and Oxford and Leicester and Nottingham. So it seems like one of the big stories out of this is that the universities in the UK are really great incubators for some interesting companies.
What about the challenges amy that they face and fundraising though it's something we often hear about companies leaving the UK to go to usually the US, to raise more money.
Yeah, I mean it's not been a great year for fundraising. I remember talking to VC's last Christmas and a lot of them were saying, we're going to be really cautious this year, and that has definitely played out. The last pitch book report I saw said that funding was down something like fifty eight percent in the first half of the year, and you know, some only exit strapped.
We didn't see the same kind of you.
Know, IPOs and sales, though it does seem like there is some cautious optimism for next year.
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