| Welcome to your morning markets update, delivered every weekday before the European open. Good morning. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak has topped 1,000, German and Irish politics stand at a crossroads and the EU is getting tougher before the U.K. trade talks fully get underway. Here's what's moving markets. Over 1,000 The death toll from coronavirus has now topped 1,000, with cases still being confirmed globally and steps being take to contain it continuing apace. Flights are still being canceled, economic warnings remain bleak and warnings and companies are pulling out of events for employee safety, though some praise is also emerging for how some countries have dealt with the outbreak. Yet, stock markets are still hovering around record levels and a risk-on feel pervaded Asian stocks, which rose on Tuesday as investors try to decipher whether the outbreak is stabilizing. CDU Crossroads Angela Merkel just had to watch her succession plan go up in flames, as her protege's handling of a regional political scandal forced her to recuse herself from seeking the chancellery. There's no shortage of possible candidates to lead Germany and its center-right CDU party and Merkel plans to take an active role in picking the successor to her successor. They do represent different future directions for the bloc. While the party's deputy leader Armin Laschet stands for a continued centrist path, Health Minister Jens Spahn and long-time Merkel rival Friedrich Merz could steer it back towards its conservative roots. Irish Choice The Irish election not only brings a new twist to the wave of political populist seen in recent years but it leaves the frontrunner for prime minister facing a seismic choice. Fianna Fail is still on track to win the most seats but the nationalist, left-wing populists Sinn Fein are set to get the second-most, amplifying demands for a seat at the table. Micheal Martin, Fianna Fail's leader, therefore needs to decide whether to seek a grand coalition with the incumbent Fine Gael or to go into coalition with Sinn Fein, something which had been ruled out prior to the election. Uncertainty is likely to reign until a government is formed. Tougher Stance The European Union has toughened its negotiating stance ahead of the start of trade talks with the U.K., including stricter conditions on unfair competition, fishing and human rights. Once the negotiating mandate is finalized by Feb. 25, it promises to be a rocky set of talks and hardly the only thing on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's desk. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says the U.K. has fallen behind the EU on the U.S.'s list of priorities for trade talks and the question of Scotland's future within the U.K. remains a pertinent one. Coming Up… The European Central Bank President, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the Bank of England's Mark Carney are all due to speak on Tuesday. U.K. GDP data is on the way and European earnings gets busier again with German carmaker Daimler AG topping the bill. Two others also likely to be closely scrutinized are grocery delivery firm Ocado Group Plc and travel firm TUI AG, which just raised its revenue forecast for the full year. Also, the race to be the Democratic presidential candidate continues with a primary in New Hampshire. What We've Been Reading This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours. And finally, here's what Garfield Reynolds is interested in this morning U.S. equities and bonds are surging relative to peers as investors decide America will be less affected by the coronavirus outbreak. That's undermined what many had seen as a key potential theme for 2020: an end to American exceptionalism. The S&P 500 Index is now pricier than it's ever been relative to Asian peers, and the premium over the rest of the world is the fattest since 2005, based on forward price-to-earnings. U.S. dollar bonds are at the highest relative to the rest of the world since 2002, Bloomberg Barclays indexes show. At some stage, the expectation has to be that the trends reverse. The U.S. accounts for about 24% of world GDP, but its stocks and bonds each sit at around 40% of the market value globally for those asset classes. If markets start to align more with GDP then that would signal a period of sustained U.S. underperformance. But it looks unlikely such a trend will start this year.  Garfield Reynolds is a Markets Live reporter and editor for Bloomberg News in Sydney. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. | 
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