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Welcome to the Business Outlook, I'm Ron Cruz.

And I'm Xavier Duplito.

The Headlines.

U.S. futures little changed while European markets hold steady as the first quarter earning season kicks into high gear.

America's top diplomat arrives in Shanghai in the latest effort to men-freed U.S.-China relations.

Also tonight, a discussion about bitcoins having.

Let's check on European markets first.

Equities managed to stay afloat as the rally in tech stocks keep most markets up despite lackluster earnings in the banking and luxury sectors.

London's FTSE 100 is up by half a percent.

As for Wall Street, futures are higher as traders await more financial releases from corporate America.

The latest was moments ago, airline giant Boeing, which posted better than expected quarterly earnings.

Revenues were at 60%.

It was at $16.5 billion, while earnings per share stood at $1.13.

Here's some stocks to watch out for.

Monitoring shares of French luxury group Caring after it warned it expects a sharp downturn in first-half profits as a result of declining goods sales.

Caring shares sank 8% in midday trading.

Also, in focus shares of UBS, company executives told shareholders,

the bank has major concerns about the Swiss government's plan to hit UBS.

UBS is the country's largest lender with tougher capital requirements.

UBS's rescue of its former rival Credit Suisse in 2023 brought to $1.7 trillion its total balance sheet,

twice the size of Switzerland's annual economic output.

The chairman of UBS insists the bank is not an entity that's too big to fail.

UBS shares last traded in the red, down by 1%.

We're also keeping a close watch on shares of Tesla after it eased some worries.

It's about growth on a promise to roll out more affordable cars.

Tesla shares surged 12% on the news.

Meanwhile, Asian markets ended today's trade higher, also driven by tech and more corporate earnings in the region.

The Nikkei Index was the leader of today's rally on bets of intervention by the Bank of Japan on the weaker yen.

The ASX 200, meanwhile, was flat as Australia's inflation rate cooled for a fifth straight quarter.

Now, here at home, Philippine shares joined the regional upswing as bargain-hunting returns at the local stock market.

After the heavy sell-off in the previous weeks, we're bullish that the market is on its way to an upward trend,

especially as investors are looking to rebuild their portfolio after the index did see itself consecutively drop for like nine days.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Shanghai for a three-day visit.

America's top diplomat will kick off his visit with a meeting with business leaders at the Chinese financial hub.

He heads next to Beijing for talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

A meeting with President Xi Jinping also likely.

Blinken is the latest highest-level U.S. official to visit China as the two global superpowers try to iron out differences on a wide area of issues.

Including trade and security.

Blinken is expected to press China to stop its firms from resupplying Russia's defense industrial base.

A State Department official said Washington is prepared to take steps against Chinese firms that it believes are damaging U.S. and European security.

Here are some local corporate headlines.

Oceana Gold Philippines sets the final offer price for its initial public offering.

The mining firm announced that around $2.8 billion.

Common shares will be offered at 13 pesos and 33 centavos apiece.

OGPI seeks to raise over 7 billion pesos from its market debut on May 13th.

It will become the first IPO listing at the Philippine Stock Exchange this year.

And GSIS saw its bottom line grow 21% in the first quarter of the year.

The insurance system for state workers cites strong revenue growth as it focuses on building efficiencies in its various businesses.

Total assets are now at 1.7 trillion pesos.

The GSIS says its pension fund can now last until 2058 due to sustained investment returns.

The Philippines logs its highest electricity consumption rate of the year amid searing temperatures.

As Alvin El Chico tells us, industry experts are worried the country's power situation may still worsen.

After Luzon and Visayas,

now comes Mindanao.

The National Grid Corporation declared a yellow alert status for Mindanao from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Wednesday,

which means thinning electricity reserve.

Merong malaking planta na nag-out today.

This morning na coal, nasa 138 megawatt siya.

So noong April 17, may isa pang coal na 135 naman.

And of course, yung mga hydro natin,

medyo mababa talaga ang paggawa niya ng kuryente.

Luzon still has some hours of red alert and a longer yellow alert in the evening,

while the Visayas grid has a five-hour red alert during daytime and two hours of yellow alert at nighttime.

Since it's impossible to build power plants overnight,

the energy department has no choice but to resort to demand-side management,

which means appealing to consumers to use energy efficiently.

Hindi naman bawal ang mag-aircon, for example,

pero siguro dapat yung maayos lang ng paggamit ng ating mga appliances.

Halimbawa, sa aircon, sa halip na 18 degrees yung setting natin,

pwede naman tayo ng 25 degrees or even a little lower at 23 degrees.

But it appears that the appeal is not working

as the country posted the highest electricity consumption for 2024 last Tuesday

amid rising temperatures all over the country.

Ito siguro,

ito siguro na na ang naging dahilan kung kaya't nagkaroon tayo ng pag-nipis ng supply ng kuryente,

lalong-lalo na sa ating mga reserba.

None of the industry experts ABS-CBN talked to can categorically declare

that the power situation will be back to normal soon

considering the number of plants on shutdown.

According to NGCP and Meralco, it's possible that the worst is yet to come.

Kailangan natin ang tabayanan araw-araw kung mag-improve ba yung sitwasyon.

At yun na lang talaga ang magagawa natin sa ngayon.

Yun yung kailangan din natin pang pagpahandaan.

Hindi pa ito tapos.

Gusto ko lang sabihin sa ating mga kababayan,

we have not seen the highest demand yet based on the historical data that we have.

Based on NGCP's data,

there are still 20 power plants that are on unscheduled shutdown in Luzon,

20 in Visayas,

and 9 in Mindanao,

which shaved a considerable amount of supply from the three electric plants.

We're taking a quick break.

Up next, PDAX founder Nigel Gaba joins us in the studio

to tackle the impact of Bitcoin halvings.

Stay with us.

Welcome back.

The Bitcoin network completed its fourth halving last April 20th.

Now while this predetermined event is,

expected to affect the cryptocurrency's price,

investors expect bigger gains in the coming months.

Nigel Gaba of the cryptocurrency trading platform PDAX

joins us tonight to dissect halving and its impact on Bitcoin

and other cryptocurrencies.

Nigel, welcome back.

Hello.

Thank you for having me. Glad to be here.

For having me.

This, you know...

Why did I get that?

There we go.

So, before we begin with the serious, hardcore questions

that Ron has in store for you,

we want to give you a challenge

because not a lot of people understand

what halving is and what happens after that.

Can you explain to a high school student?

Yeah.

So, that's a challenge.

Great question.

So, a lot of people think that

halving, what's going to happen?

Will my Bitcoin drop by half?

That's not the case.

The way Bitcoin works

is that there is a ledger called the blockchain

that maintains all the transactions.

All the transactions in Bitcoin.

Now, these ledgers are maintained by what we call miners.

Obviously, they're using a lot of computing power

to maintain the network.

And so, in exchange for giving that computing power,

they get rewarded by the blockchain with more Bitcoins.

Right now, every 10 minutes,

around 6 new Bitcoins are being created.

But since the halving,

it's dropped by...

It's dropped down to 3.

So, 3 and 125.

So, every day, roughly about 400 Bitcoins,

new Bitcoins are being created.

Now, how might that impact the market?

It's obviously, when supply shrinks,

what tends to happen if demand is constant,

price would tend to go up.

What will happen to the miners?

Well, some of the miners who are not able to offer their coins,

quote-unquote, mining services,

at the current hash rate or at the current mining output,

they will probably stop mining.

And the more efficient miners will get more of the rewards.

Because it's not going to be worth it.

Very financially rewarding for them.

Yes, because it's not going to be worth it, right?

They have a lot of expenses, fewer rewards.

In fact, 50% lower.

That's correct.

So, some countries have cheaper electricity, for example.

So, you'll see miners in those countries probably tend to outperform.

But why is there such a system like this that happens every four years?

Why is there a having?

And why is it just Bitcoin?

You know, the great thing about it is the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi.

Who nobody knows where he is now.

He or she or they are, right?

We don't know.

Or whether he's a real person, maybe someone from outer space.

Maybe a real person, maybe a group of persons.

But all we know is that when he wrote or invented Bitcoin,

in 2008 and launched in 2009,

all of these rules for Bitcoin were already inscribed.

So, he had already foreseen that in order to preserve the scarcity value of Bitcoin,

it needed to have this having mechanism.

And the great thing about it is, well, if the output of Bitcoin,

you might ask, if the output of Bitcoin keeps going down by half,

won't there be a half?

Won't there be any miners left?

Well, the beauty of it is, as Bitcoin becomes more scarce,

the price of Bitcoin would also go up, right?

And if it goes up, miners would maybe...

Love supply and demand.

That's never been repealed.

That's right.

That's correct.

Miners would probably come back in to offer mining power.

But why is it that no other coin has done this?

It's just Bitcoin, right?

Everybody's infinite in terms of...

That's right.

A lot of...

So, the other cryptocurrencies obviously follow their own supply dynamics

or what you might call also consensus mechanism, right?

Like, it's not mining, it's not proof of work.

Sometimes, it's proof of stake.

There are other copycats to Bitcoin,

but probably Bitcoin enjoys the most trust and attention

because it's been there from the very beginning.

We don't know who the founder is.

So, I think that also helps.

There's that mystery, you know?

Yeah.

I'm very impressed, by the way.

That's a good explanation.

I mean, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Except, I just don't want to think about what miners actually do now.

That really warps my brain.

Right.

So, please, don't hurt my brain right now by explaining what is proof of work, what

are all of these equations.

Oh, my God.

Anyway.

We're gonna be...

So, after the halving last Saturday, Bitcoin price jumped to more than 66,000, people were

saying, this is very different from the other halvings.

This is very different from the other halving incidents because March, it already jumped

because of the ETF approvals.

And so, now, you're seeing even more jump.

Question is, do you expect that trend to continue after the halving incident?

Yeah.

Definitely.

So, obviously, you know, history doesn't always repeat itself.

But I think with Bitcoin, there's enough precedent to believe that as Bitcoin becomes more scarce,

it becomes more attractive.

And probably, I shouldn't understate also still the impact of the launching of the

ETFs.

A lot of people might think, well, ETFs were launched a couple of months ago and maybe

that's it.

That's not it, right?

Because institutional investors don't make decisions overnight, right?

Sometimes it takes months for them to get board approval, investment committee approval

in order to even make an investment into something like Bitcoin.

And so, I think that the effect of the ETFs, we've not seen its full impact just yet.

And because it coincides with this halving event, I'm very excited to see where Bitcoin

prices will go by the end of the year.

This 2024 halving, did it have any effect on the altcoins, the other cryptocurrencies?

How were they affected?

Yeah.

So, what's interesting in the crypto market is Bitcoin seems to be...

It's not just a currency.

It's a currency.

It's a cryptocurrency.

It's a cryptocurrency.

It's the first crypto asset that a person would buy, right?

And whenever Bitcoin goes up in price, what tends to happen is there's a lot more quote

unquote wealth in the crypto space, right?

And because people are searching for more gains, what tends to happen is some of those

gains move into the altcoins for more speculation.

So in a way, you might say that Bitcoin is the...

It's the tie that lifts all the crypto books.

All?

All?

Maybe more than others, like in your platform, in PDAX.

Except the stablecoins.

Yeah.

So in PDAX, what do you see?

Which coins are being affected positively by the increase in price?

Right.

So we're seeing very strong correlations between Bitcoin and Ethereum, Bitcoin and

XRP.

Bitcoin and Solana, actually, it's the same thing.

It's the same thing.

It's the same thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually, Solana has performed much more strongly than expected.

Obviously, there's a lot of things going on right now in the Solana ecosystem.

There are these meme coins that are driving a trading frenzy.

Generally, most of these coins are very, very correlated.

And what happened to Shiba Inu?

Go ahead.

Okay.

After the halving, Michelle, are there any other maybe new issues?

Any other developments in the cryptocurrency world that you are closely watching?

Yeah.

So I think, well, Bitcoin, having had its first ETF, we probably expect that the industry

is not going to stop there, right?

I'm also looking forward to Ethereum ETFs.

A bunch of them are up for approval in the U.S. and in fact, a couple of weeks ago, Hong Kong approved.

So I think it's going to be an Ethereum ETF.

Locally, obviously, the regulatory environment is always very important to our industry.

You might say that crypto grew very big, very rapidly, and regulations are just having

to catch up.

Catch up.

Right?

So from a regulatory standpoint, I expect the BSP to implement more stringent controls.

Not because they want to do it, right?

But it's because they want to protect the public.

And we also are seeing unregulated exchanges get banned and blocked, not just in the Philippines

but also in India and Thailand and other countries.

Ms. Michelle, I think we're running out of time, but very quickly, if you can explain

whether at what point in the history of our markets will it become more than just an alternative

investment because people are still saying, okay, I don't know if I will buy Bitcoin despite

the ETF trend.

Right?

I don't know if I will buy it.

There's no dividend.

It doesn't do anything.

It just sits there.

And its value depends on people's moods.

You know, I think, I'd like to think that it happened this year.

When ETFs, when the ETFs were launched, it's practically a green light that institutions

can now hold Bitcoin.

It's no longer just something like, you know, NBAs.

Right?

You know, NBA cards or baseball cards or comic books that, you know, hobbyists trade

and sometimes they go up in price.

But it's now something that even banks, insurance companies can trade as part of their portfolio.

Don't forget my Optimus Prime still.

What Optimus Prime are you talking about?

Another question, if that's okay.

What has this done for PDAX?

I suppose, you know, especially the having the jump.

You know, we're talking about the rise in prices this year.

People are more excited.

They're FOMOing again.

Are you seeing more account creation?

How is PDAX business effect?

Yeah, absolutely.

We're seeing a lot more account creations.

We have, currently we have more than 2 million users.

Obviously, with our partnership with GCash, we're seeing a lot more user growth as well.

Everyone probably has GCash, so it's very easy to just pop open the app and buy BTC.

So we're seeing a lot of growth.

And I think, you know, it's not a big deal.

I think, you know, the market is growing.

I think, you know, the market is growing.

I think, you know, the market is growing.

I think, you know, the market is growing.

I think, you know, the market is growing.

So we're seeing a lot of first-time traders entering the market this year.

That's great.

Wow.

Thank you so much, Nigel.

Always, lock time for this interview.

We haven't even talked about peso-dollar, but I suppose you can please come back and

we'll lengthen the discussion.

Okay.

So, for those of you who have a lot of experience with BTC, we would like to know how

your experience is in the market.

So, thank you so much, Nigel.

Always, lock time for this interview.

We haven't even talked about peso-dollar, but I suppose you can please come back and

we'll lengthen the discussion.

Okay.

next time. Thank you so much. It'll be my

pleasure. Thanks. That's your

Mrs. Outlook. I'm Ron Cruz. And I'm

Savvy Duplito. The world tonight comes your

way at the top of the next hour. Keep it

here on ANC.