5 things to start your day

Follow Us Get the newsletter Biden's stimulus challenge, more travel restrictions, and virtual Davos begins.  Trillion dollar question A bipartisan group of lawmakers challenged White House economic adviser Brian Deese on the size of the proposed $1.9 trillion stimulus plan in a call yesterday. The package is facing increasing resistance, with even moderate Republicans calling for a smaller deal. Also in Washington today, House impeachment managers will deliver the single article accusing former president Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to the Senate. Arguments in the case will not begin until Feb. 8.  Pandemic  Global coronavirus cases are approaching 100 million, with infections in the U.S. accounting for more than a quarter of that total. President Joe Biden will continue to restrict travel to the U.S. from Europe, with all travelers arriving in the country obliged to produce a negative test result within three days of travel from Monday. With more than 65.6 million vaccines having been administered in 56 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg, investors are starting to make the bull case for countries that have seen the most rapid rollouts.  Paid Post Innovation loves company. Meet the three new members of the  Invesco QQQ family. QQQJ: INVESCO NASDAQ NEXT GEN 100 ETF  QQQM: INVESCO NASDAQ 100 ETF  IVZQX: INVESCO NASDAQ 100 MUTUAL FUND Invesco QQQ Davos online  Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak today at the online "Davos Agenda" hosted by the World Economic Forum. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also slated to speak at the week-long event. For Xi, the speech comes as relations between China and the U.S. hit a low point, with the Biden administration signaling it will continue to hold a tough line on Beijing.  Markets mixed  Global equities are starting the week on a cautious note as investors balance the chances of fresh stimulus against more signs of the damage the pandemic has done to economic activity. Overnight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.9% while Japan's Topix index closed 0.3% higher. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index gave up earlier gains to trade broadly unchanged by 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time after German IFO survey numbers came in below expectations. S&P 500 futures pointed to a gain at the open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 1.08%, oil rose and gold was higher.  Coming up... The December Chicago Fed National Activity Index is at 8:30 a.m., with Dallas Fed Manufacturing for January at 10:00 a.m. The Senate will vote on Janet Yellen's nomination as Treasury Secretary at 5:30 p.m. President Biden will sign an executive order on manufacturing. Stock traders will be watching to see where GameStop Corp. trades at the open after the company's shares more than doubled in early trading this morning. In other corporate news, Kimberly-Clark Corp. and Steel Dynamics Inc. are among the companies reporting today.  What we've been reading This is what's caught our eye over the weekend.  Odd Lots: The story of how TSMC came to dominate the world.  Pandemic-era central banking is creating bubbles everywhere.  Goldman team sees " unsustainable excess" in parts of U.S. market.  The Kremlin misread Navalny's resolve to fight, even from prison.  Bitcoin's return to $40,000 in doubt as flows to key fund slow. The world's top-performing hedge funds of 2020.  The secret ingredient that powers Supernovas. And finally, here's what Joe's interested in this morning It's possible that there's something of a bubble going on. At least in some parts of the market. Whether it's the crazy action in stocks like GameStop or the boom in SPACs, the exuberance around anything related to electric and autonomous vehicles, or the surge in tech companies that haven't posted a profit, there is, at a minimum, a lot of enthusiasm these days for speculative bets. How long some of these trades will last is for other people to discuss. Whether this activity is dangerous is also something people can discuss elsewhere. So I'll just make a brief point here, which is that if you're somehow tempted to blame all this on the Fed for keeping rates at zero, or for pushing real rates to negative, just don't. As a reminder if you look back at the late 90s, when there was (clearly in retrospect) a bubble in all kinds of areas, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury was over 4%, and real yields (as measured by TIPS) were over 3%. Those positive real returns didn't stop an incredible boom in IPOs, unprofitable tech companies, or anything like that. Also if you think about it for a second, the logic of low rates leading to a bubble doesn't make a whole lot of sense. People put forward this idea that because you can't make much money on safe assets, you have to take huge risks. But here we have GameStop surging over 50% again in pre-market trading today. If you're making bets that can get you those kinds of gains instantly, do you really care if Treasuries pay 0% or 4%? It's a rounding error. It's hard to explain when or why moments like this materialize. Some general optimism breaks out. People have spare cash lying around. New technologies give people access to the market (think free options trading on Robinhood), etc. Lots of things have to come together and then it just takes off. Focusing too much on monetary policy, as if there's some iron relationship between where rates are set and what risky assets are going to do, is myopic. Joe Weisenthal is an Editor at Bllomberg.  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. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Five Things newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022