5 things to start your day

Follow Us Get the newsletter Biden gets down to business, Republicans push back on stimulus and another big day for earnings. Unwinding  President-elect Joe Biden will start his term today with at least 15 executive actions that will reverse some of President Donald Trump's key polices. The U.S. will rejoin the Paris climate agreement and the World Heath Organization, and stop construction of the wall on the Mexican border. Biden will also end the travel ban against some predominantly Muslim countries and revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. He will also introduce measures to reduce inequality and ease student debt burdens. The inauguration, under tight security, will see Biden take the oath of office at noon today.  Stimulus  While the policy changes under Biden are certainly a change of tone from the White House, investors are likely to be more concerned in the short term about the progress of a new stimulus package to help the economy still under pressure from the pandemic. Janet Yellen ran into Republican resistance to the $1.9 trillion relief plan during her confirmation hearing in the Senate yesterday. The Biden administration will need 10 GOP senators to vote in favor of the package in order for it to have a swift passage into law.  Paid Post This 15-acre ocean-to-lake estate stands alone in all of the Palm Beaches for its beauty, privacy, amenities and sheer scale. Offering a remarkable combination of 1,200± feet of dune-lined beach on the Atlantic with 1,300± feet of frontage on Lake Worth. 2000SouthOcean.com Sotheby's International Realty Palm Beach Brokerage Earnings  Netflix Inc. soared more than 13% in premarket trading after the company announced that it had added more subscribers than expected and would no longer need to borrow money to build its entertainment empire. The tech sector also got a boost this morning from chipmaker ASML Holding NV's reported strong results. Morgan Stanley wraps up what has been a strong earnings season for Wall Street's biggest banks when it reports before the bell today.  Markets rise  While it's certainly a big day on the political front, global equities are relatively quiet. Overnight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.6% while Japan's Topix index slipped 0.3%. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was 0.6% higher at 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time with luxury goods makers getting a lift from positive China sales numbers. S&P 500 futures pointed to a gain at the open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 1.104%, oil was at $53.50 a barrel and gold rose.  Coming up... Canada's December CPI reading at 8:30 a.m. will be followed by the country's latest central bank decision at 10:00 a.m. where Governor Tiff Macklem is expected to hold policy unchanged. As well as the inauguration of Joe Biden, Washington will also see the swearing in of the Democratic senators who won the Georgia runoff elections. Procter & Gamble Co. and Kinder Morgan Inc. report earnings.  What we've been reading This is what's caught our eye over the weekend.  Trump pardons Bannon, Lil Wayne, Broidy, but not himself. Yellen says she won't seek weaker dollar, wants market-set rates... ...and she gets Wall Street buzzing about 50-year Treasuries.  Merkel's successor has some explaining to do in Washington.  Jack Ma reappears.  Bitcoin rookies admit their source of newfound belief: FOMO. One of the biggest galaxies in the universe seems to be missing its black hole.   And finally, here's what Joe's interested in this morning Bitcoin has obviously had an incredible year, and part of the big narrative that's got so many people hooked is the idea that one day it will be the world's reserve currency. The huge price gains are seen as evidence that it's getting closer to that goal or eventuality. However, even with the incredible gains and a total "market cap" recently exceeding $700 billion, there's no evidence it's making any progress towards that goal. What matters isn't price or institutional ownership or even companies holding Bitcoin in its Treasury. What matters is whether people or companies are taking on Bitcoin-denominated liabilities. That doesn't mean paying for something in Bitcoin, it means having obligations (debt payments, rent, wages) that require a specific amount of Bitcoin. So for example, the football player Russell Okung is getting part of his salary in Bitcoin, but it's not a Bitcoin liability for his team, the Carolina Panthers. Instead a part of his fiat salary just gets automatically converted into Bitcoin. The Panthers don't bear any Bitcoin price risk. In Ohio apparently, you can pay Bitcoin for tax bills. But again, they're just fiat tax bills and Bitcoin is the payment system. This is a key part of the dollar's persistent dominance. People and companies have dollar-denominated liabilities, and in fact that cycle has only been strengthening in recent cycles. With each crisis, interest rates fall and the incentive to borrow in dollars rises -- further cementing the currency's dominant status. Back before the Great Financial Crisis, there was a lot of hype about how the euro was going to replace the dollar, and there was even a famous story about how Gisele Bundchen demanded to be paid in euros. But in the end, there's a difference between a thing that's rising in value and a reserve asset. Bitcoin has gone up a lot and it's worth a lot of money, kind of like gold, but that doesn't mean it's getting closer to a reserve asset. The thing to watch is Bitcoin liabilities. Joe Weisenthal is an editor at Bloomberg. 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