# Moonshot AI Tells Investors IPO Plans, Oil Outlook Amid Continued US Strikes on Iran

An episode of [Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia Edition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663863437), 20 Jul 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/58e85be7-dbb5-4043-afed-af80014dc0b3/312ac764-aa0e-487b-85ff-b48d0026ba30/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=27143354-63aa-4ac5-965d-af80014dc0d3

Business and finance news from the Asia-Pacific. Oil climbed to the highest level in more than a month and bonds fell as US and Iranian attacks escalated, renewing inflation concerns. Stocks stabilized after a technology-led selloff rattled markets last week. Treasury 10-year futures slipped 7/32, with trading in the cash market shut during Asian hours Monday because of a holiday in Japan. Government bonds in Australia and New Zealand also declined on concern that higher oil prices will stoke inflation. Equities were mixed. Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.2% after Friday’s selloff, as Moonshot AI told investors it plans to go public within six months after its latest model challenged perceptions of US leadership in artificial intelligence. MSCI’s Asia Pacific equity index was little changed, while South Korea’s Kospi index fell 2.8% as traders returned following a holiday on Friday. For a look at the markets, Bloomberg TV Host Avril Hong spoke to Homin Lee, Senior Macro Strategist at Lombard Odier. Brent rose as much as 3.8% to $91.42 a barrel, the highest level since June, with back-and-forth strikes that have expanded beyond military targets. For an outlook of how the oil story is impacting the Asia-Pacific, Bloomberg TV Host Paul ALlen spoke to Illiana Jain, International Ecnomist at Westpac Banking Corporation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Chrisner. South
[0:14] Speaker 2: Korea's equity market is back from a long weekend with
[0:17] Speaker 2: a bit of a shock similar to the so called
[0:19] Speaker 2: deep Seek moment. At the end of last week, China's
[0:22] Speaker 2: AI pioneer Moonshot introduced its Kimmi K three model. Now
[0:27] Speaker 2: this is an open weight model, meaning its parameters are
[0:30] Speaker 2: publicly available and can be customized by the user. Last Friday,
[0:35] Speaker 2: Moonshot said Kimmy K three rivals. Some of the best
[0:39] Speaker 2: offerings from US labs here is Bloomberg's Anthony Stevens.
[0:43] Speaker 1: So there's a lot of software innovation in there in
[0:46] Speaker 1: what is objectively a very large model. So the first
[0:49] Speaker 1: thing is the ambition, and the scale of the model
[0:53] Speaker 1: is a step further and that's probably why it has
[0:55] Speaker 1: caught the US models on the frontier front. But the
[0:58] Speaker 1: second most important aspect is the resource optimization around the model.
[1:03] Speaker 1: It is very memory efficient. In short, there are proprietary
[1:06] Speaker 1: innovations in there to also help with the usage of
[1:11] Speaker 1: HBM and GPUs where China is obviously constrained. And the
[1:15] Speaker 1: fact that this model was trained with those constraints in mind,
[1:19] Speaker 1: is the important aspect to markets here.
[1:21] Speaker 2: That is Bloomberg's Anthony Stevens. And now we are being
[1:24] Speaker 2: told that Moonshot is preparing for a public listing, perhaps
[1:27] Speaker 2: within six months. We're told Moonshot is in the process
[1:31] Speaker 2: of wrapping up a funding round that may value this
[1:33] Speaker 2: three year old startup at more than thirty billion dollars.
[1:38] Speaker 2: Demand for Kimmy K three was said to be so
[1:40] Speaker 2: great over the past forty eight hours that Moonshot temporarily
[1:44] Speaker 2: paused new subscriptions. It appears China is closing the AI
[1:48] Speaker 2: gap with the US, and that's where we begin our
[1:51] Speaker 2: conversation with home In Lee, senior macro strategist at Lombardo DA.
[1:56] Speaker 2: He spoke with Bloomberg TV host Avril Hong and weighed
[2:00] Speaker 2: in on the current market dynamics regarding AI.
[2:03] Speaker 3: So in the long run, the real threat to the
[2:07] Speaker 3: memory bubble like trade in South Korea comes from China,
[2:11] Speaker 3: And in the second half of the year, we're going
[2:13] Speaker 3: to get a bit of narrative shift in favor of
[2:17] Speaker 3: China's AI and semiconductor ecosystem. You know that leads due
[2:21] Speaker 3: to all the mega listings that are on the horizon,
[2:25] Speaker 3: which it now seems the authorities are quite supportive of.
[2:29] Speaker 3: So that's going to support the Chinese story relative to
[2:33] Speaker 3: South Korea. But for South Korea itself, we start to
[2:37] Speaker 3: feel that maybe this levered you know, retail leverage impact
[2:43] Speaker 3: is beginning to you know, progress quite substantially. And the
[2:50] Speaker 3: fact is that the bumble still remains in the near
[2:53] Speaker 3: term and these memory makers have locked up their prices
[2:56] Speaker 3: through long term agreements with the buyers and you know,
[3:01] Speaker 3: US export controls, et cetera still keep the dominant position
[3:04] Speaker 3: for these names. So it is true that this week
[3:08] Speaker 3: we have a confluence of a pretty negative e bench,
[3:13] Speaker 3: but you know, given the valuations and the unwind of
[3:16] Speaker 3: the leverage trade, maybe the trajectory for the rest of
[3:20] Speaker 3: the year keep it despite the volatility that we see
[3:22] Speaker 3: now is maybe a higher before the end of the year.
[3:27] Speaker 3: And that's one of the reason why we're still keeping
[3:30] Speaker 3: you know, constructive view on.
[3:31] Speaker 4: The medium and trajectory of the market.
[3:34] Speaker 3: But China story is definitely something that we're worth keeping
[3:37] Speaker 3: an eye on for the investors in the second half
[3:39] Speaker 3: the year.
[3:42] Speaker 5: How much does it exactly you think sap away from
[3:46] Speaker 5: the South Korean story.
[3:50] Speaker 3: So we have seen the shift from the hyperscalers and
[3:55] Speaker 3: the the AI A service story in North America, you know,
[3:59] Speaker 3: to meymakers in past a year or so.
[4:03] Speaker 4: And and you know, we're.
[4:05] Speaker 3: Not going to get a complete conclusion to this debate
[4:08] Speaker 3: or pendulum swing between the the AI suppliers and AI
[4:12] Speaker 3: themes for the force of the future, simply because no
[4:15] Speaker 3: one has an absolute clarity and who will emerge as
[4:19] Speaker 3: the winner in this ecosystem. But it's quite possible that
[4:24] Speaker 3: you could actually get again, putty, you know, once we
[4:27] Speaker 3: emerge from these headwinds related to HOMUS and the monetary
[4:32] Speaker 3: policy cycles and the capital flows, you're going to get
[4:37] Speaker 3: maybe a part of the market dynamic for both sauce
[4:39] Speaker 3: Korea and China for the investor's perspective, you know, because
[4:44] Speaker 3: simply because China has been a relatively neglected market, maybe it's.
[4:48] Speaker 4: Worth having that as a hedge.
[4:51] Speaker 3: You know, alongside you know, South Korea trade.
[4:54] Speaker 4: Uh, you know that will probably go.
[4:56] Speaker 3: Through a bit of turbulence, but ultimately still you know,
[5:00] Speaker 3: grind upward once these headwinds faked.
[5:06] Speaker 4: Might it not make sense now?
[5:07] Speaker 5: Though, I mean to your point about how far they've
[5:09] Speaker 5: run out to take profit on chips. I mean, we
[5:12] Speaker 5: are also seeing in the background there seems to be
[5:14] Speaker 5: rotation to financials.
[5:21] Speaker 3: So in fact, the financial sector is one of the
[5:23] Speaker 3: sectors that we like. The valuation is quite compelling, the
[5:27] Speaker 3: sector has been able to deliver a fairly substantial recovery
[5:31] Speaker 3: since last year, and the fees you know from the
[5:35] Speaker 3: M and A activities and trading, you know, continue to
[5:37] Speaker 3: be pretty strong, not just in North America but the
[5:41] Speaker 3: markets around the world. So relative to the other sectors
[5:45] Speaker 3: that have seen some froth and the you know, maybe
[5:48] Speaker 3: excessive momentum, this is the sector that probably delivers that
[5:52] Speaker 3: nice combination of slight defensiveness, evaluation appeal, and the earning
[5:58] Speaker 3: stability down the road.
[6:00] Speaker 4: So alongside the other.
[6:01] Speaker 3: Kind of a favorite batch that we have, including emerging markets,
[6:05] Speaker 3: a financial market, a financial sector is definitely the sector
[6:08] Speaker 3: that we like. As we head into the second half
[6:10] Speaker 3: the year.
[6:13] Speaker 5: For the big AI spenders, though it looks like it's
[6:16] Speaker 5: increasingly difficult to justify their valuations. How do you you know,
[6:21] Speaker 5: we've head into your investment thesis.
[6:27] Speaker 3: So when you talk about valuations, it's really you know,
[6:30] Speaker 3: when you talk about software or you know, the semiconductor segment,
[6:35] Speaker 3: actually the valuation has become quite compelling. I mean, if
[6:38] Speaker 3: you look at its hours career memory makers right now,
[6:40] Speaker 3: you know, for the entire silicon layer, due to the
[6:43] Speaker 3: cell of that has taken place in the past few weeks,
[6:46] Speaker 3: now we see you know, four P multiplese trading close
[6:49] Speaker 3: to six or seven for some names, and that's quite
[6:52] Speaker 3: compelling for the medium to long term, especially if you
[6:55] Speaker 3: believe in the the rerating story for some of the
[6:58] Speaker 3: regional markets where these you know, semiconductor stories are concentrated.
[7:04] Speaker 3: So we wouldn't say we see a lot of access
[7:09] Speaker 3: froth in the segment right now, especially because of the CELLO.
[7:13] Speaker 3: But you know, for the North American market, given the
[7:17] Speaker 3: mega IPOs that are on the horizon, maybe it's slightly
[7:21] Speaker 3: trickier to make a very very strong valuation back. But
[7:25] Speaker 3: for the tech hardware ecosystem elsewhere, especially in Asia Pacific,
[7:29] Speaker 3: we think it's quite compelling.
[7:31] Speaker 4: And that's one of the reasons why, you.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Know, especially for the diversified portfolio, it's worth having some
[7:36] Speaker 3: of these exposures and trying to look through some of
[7:40] Speaker 3: these polatilities that are highly technical in nature will likely fade.
[7:44] Speaker 4: In due time.
[7:47] Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I guess to your point also, I
[7:49] Speaker 5: mean we've been seeing the ship makers in South Korea
[7:52] Speaker 5: in terms of the stock action, they've been you know,
[7:55] Speaker 5: pairing some of the early losses, so maybe there's a
[7:57] Speaker 5: dip buying that is emerging. We talk about exports, talk
[8:01] Speaker 5: to us about the recent the back coup, because this
[8:04] Speaker 5: week as well, in terms of tariffs, you know, we're
[8:08] Speaker 5: seeing the one to two expiration. Do you think there
[8:11] Speaker 5: is you know, something on there that we need to
[8:14] Speaker 5: be paying more attention to.
[8:18] Speaker 3: So you're right, you know, over the course of the week,
[8:21] Speaker 3: we could likely get the expiration of the section one
[8:24] Speaker 3: to to tariff and Trump administration will try to replace
[8:27] Speaker 3: that with sector specific and country specific tariffs. Now, our
[8:31] Speaker 3: assumption is that the over effective tariff rate will remain
[8:35] Speaker 3: close to the pre Spring Court ruling level, and that's
[8:39] Speaker 3: manageable for the market. But simply because the mechanics of
[8:42] Speaker 3: replacing the universal tariff with this sector and country tariff
[8:47] Speaker 3: is quite complicated and potentially has you know, some disproportionate
[8:51] Speaker 3: negative impact for significant sectors in different countries, we think
[8:56] Speaker 3: we'll definitely have to deal with some volatilities down the
[8:58] Speaker 3: road due to this dynamic. But it's important to understand that,
[9:04] Speaker 3: you know, from our perspective, it's not going to be
[9:07] Speaker 3: easy for the Trump and illustration to replace, you know,
[9:11] Speaker 3: or actually raise the effective tariff RaSE significantly from what
[9:14] Speaker 3: we had before the Supreme Court ruling. But meanwhile, for
[9:18] Speaker 3: the market, you know, this week we could potentially get
[9:21] Speaker 3: another positive development in China AI space and also more
[9:26] Speaker 3: pro growth and you know, constructive signals from the Polyberal
[9:30] Speaker 3: meeting in China. So there will also be some positive
[9:33] Speaker 3: upsetting e bench and ultimately we simply have to wait
[9:36] Speaker 3: for the uncertainties to clear industry of HUMUSA.
[9:39] Speaker 4: That's another factor that we need to keep an eye on.
[9:42] Speaker 2: That is home And Lee, senior macro strategist at Lombard Oda,
[9:46] Speaker 2: speaking with Bloomberg TV host April Hong, bringing you their
[9:49] Speaker 2: conversation here on the Daybreak Asia podcast. Welcome back to
[10:00] Speaker 2: the Daybreak Asia Podcast. I'm Doug Prisner. Crude oil prices
[10:03] Speaker 2: are higher in Asian trading after the US and Iran
[10:07] Speaker 2: engaged in a series of tit for tat attacks and
[10:10] Speaker 2: for the American military, it was the ninth consecutive night
[10:13] Speaker 2: of strikes at the same time, we know that more
[10:16] Speaker 2: US warplanes are being sent to the Middle East. Now
[10:19] Speaker 2: Tehran is vowing not to allow oil or gas to
[10:22] Speaker 2: pass through the Strait of Horror moves without coordination and permission.
[10:26] Speaker 2: So as geopolitics continues to buffet markets, we checked in
[10:30] Speaker 2: with Ileana Jaane, international economist at Westpac Banking Corporation. Ileana
[10:35] Speaker 2: spoke with Bloomberg TV host Paul Allen about how the
[10:38] Speaker 2: oil story is impacting the Asia Pacific look.
[10:41] Speaker 6: The situation the Middle East seems to be changing every
[10:44] Speaker 6: single week. But one thing we can be certain of
[10:46] Speaker 6: is that any sort of geopolitical calmness, if you can
[10:50] Speaker 6: call it that, or or any sort of indication that
[10:54] Speaker 6: oil supply and energy supply will be normalized, will be
[10:57] Speaker 6: well received by policy neckmakers. Comes to countries like Indonesia,
[11:01] Speaker 6: they are massive energy that they consume a lot of
[11:05] Speaker 6: energy when they're producing a lot of the goods that
[11:08] Speaker 6: they're producing, and for them, energy costs are absolutely central
[11:11] Speaker 6: to how the economy is going. And so if we
[11:14] Speaker 6: start to see a bit more energy stabilization, it's going
[11:17] Speaker 6: to be good news for most of Southeast Asia and
[11:20] Speaker 6: South Asia because we'll see that income squeeze created by
[11:24] Speaker 6: those energy costs start to come down, and again that'll
[11:27] Speaker 6: help support domestic demand at a time where industrial policy
[11:31] Speaker 6: needs to catch up a little bit.
[11:33] Speaker 7: So hard to predict, though, because at the start of
[11:35] Speaker 7: this month the oil was sort of settling around the
[11:36] Speaker 7: seventy dollar mark. I think perhaps a sense of complacency
[11:39] Speaker 7: had set and no more of course in Japan's case,
[11:44] Speaker 7: I mean, we'll get the June CPI numbers, but a
[11:46] Speaker 7: lot are the implications for the Bank of Japan and
[11:48] Speaker 7: the yen as well.
[11:49] Speaker 4: I mean, have we seen a flaw for.
[11:50] Speaker 2: The end yet?
[11:51] Speaker 6: Look when it comes to the Bank of Japan, they're
[11:53] Speaker 6: focusing on a border set of indicators beyond just the CPI.
[11:57] Speaker 6: For them, it's about coming to a place where they
[12:00] Speaker 6: consider is neutral and normal for the economy that they
[12:04] Speaker 6: are inheriting. Right now, we know the Japanese economy is
[12:07] Speaker 6: a vastly different place to where it was prior to
[12:10] Speaker 6: them pandemic, and it needs an interest rate that is
[12:13] Speaker 6: higher than where it was prior to the pandemic and
[12:16] Speaker 6: the baggag. Japan's coming to that end point, that terminal rate,
[12:20] Speaker 6: and so while inflation is important, it's about other things
[12:23] Speaker 6: like how much domestic demand is going to lift and
[12:26] Speaker 6: how much of these inflationary pressures are domestically driven. When
[12:30] Speaker 6: it comes to that CPI preate. The one thing are
[12:32] Speaker 6: we paying very close attention to is that services component?
[12:36] Speaker 6: Is it staying around that one percent mark that it
[12:38] Speaker 6: has been over the last couple of years. That tells
[12:41] Speaker 6: us that there's a lot of domestic pressures within Japan
[12:43] Speaker 6: as well. Aside from that, they'll also be watching closely
[12:47] Speaker 6: to see how wages are responding to the changes in
[12:51] Speaker 6: the economy thus far. And if we see that continued
[12:54] Speaker 6: pressure on wages, if we see that structural tightening in
[12:58] Speaker 6: the labor market ting to feed through two wages, we're
[13:02] Speaker 6: likely to see the Bank Japan height twice more, coming
[13:06] Speaker 6: to a terminal rate of one point five percent by
[13:08] Speaker 6: the end of next year.
[13:09] Speaker 7: In terms of the energy side of things, are you
[13:12] Speaker 7: willing to predict? And it is so hard to predict where
[13:14] Speaker 7: we might be with this conflict later on this year,
[13:17] Speaker 7: because certainly there'd be a political case for Aram to
[13:21] Speaker 7: push this through to the US midterms. Can you see
[13:24] Speaker 7: this uncertainty lasting until then?
[13:26] Speaker 6: Look, it's hard to say, you know, I'm not a
[13:28] Speaker 6: geopolitical analyst, but for the economy, I think sooner this
[13:33] Speaker 6: resolution comes into place, the sooner we start seeing more
[13:36] Speaker 6: stabilization and oil prices, the sooner we start seeing that
[13:39] Speaker 6: closing off the gap between Northeast Asia, which has benefited
[13:42] Speaker 6: from the tech sector and has been able to buffer
[13:45] Speaker 6: against those energy implications for the economy, and South and
[13:49] Speaker 6: Southeast Asia that's been more exposed because of their higher
[13:53] Speaker 6: their higher share of the economy attributing to agriculture as
[13:56] Speaker 6: well as a greater energy It relies on imported energy.
[14:01] Speaker 7: And just to underscore we're talking about, we're just getting
[14:03] Speaker 7: news from Scentcom it's begun conducting a new wave of
[14:06] Speaker 7: strikes against Iran. As of seven o'clock Eastern time today,
[14:10] Speaker 7: this is the ninth consecutive day that we've seen attacks. Now,
[14:14] Speaker 7: look another country in the region that's obviously very dependent
[14:16] Speaker 7: on energy, South Korea, And we're going to get those
[14:18] Speaker 7: second quarter GDP numbers later on this week as well,
[14:22] Speaker 7: in anticipation that we might see some slowing growth here.
[14:24] Speaker 7: But is it a more nuanced and difficult case for
[14:27] Speaker 7: South Korea. Not only is it energy dependent, but we
[14:30] Speaker 7: have this AI story, the enormous volatility we've seen around
[14:33] Speaker 7: that ecosystem. What risks do you see ahead for South Korea?
[14:36] Speaker 6: Look, I just talked about how the region's really bifurcated
[14:39] Speaker 6: between that Northeast tech very heavy sector versus the South
[14:44] Speaker 6: and southeast. Within Korea, it's the same sort of trend
[14:48] Speaker 6: that's playing out. So the Korean economy has been powered
[14:52] Speaker 6: by this tech sector, powered by this strength in tech exports,
[14:55] Speaker 6: and that's really lifted all predominantly the tech industry. But
[15:00] Speaker 6: if you look outside of the tech sector, Korea's economy
[15:04] Speaker 6: is starting to show signs of weakness. Domestic demand is
[15:07] Speaker 6: pretty weak if you compare it to pre COVID. The
[15:10] Speaker 6: labor market outside of the tech sector has been quite
[15:13] Speaker 6: weak as well. And so right now we've seen the
[15:15] Speaker 6: policy makers, particularly the Bank of Korea, are willing to
[15:18] Speaker 6: lean on that strength in that Korean tech sector to
[15:23] Speaker 6: hike rates and help ward off some of those inflationary risks,
[15:27] Speaker 6: but they're also very cognizant about the rest of the
[15:29] Speaker 6: economy that's not functioning as well. So that risk is
[15:33] Speaker 6: definitely there, And if we start to see the tech
[15:36] Speaker 6: brooms start to slow down, both within Korea and outside
[15:39] Speaker 6: of Korea, those weaknesses are going to start show off
[15:42] Speaker 6: even more.
[15:43] Speaker 7: Can we throw another wildcat in there too. Over the
[15:45] Speaker 7: last three days, you know, we've seen new models from China,
[15:47] Speaker 7: you know, the Moonshot Kimmi three QN from Elie Barber
[15:52] Speaker 7: as well. What are the broader implications for that big
[15:56] Speaker 7: ecosystem is growing up around the AI story.
[15:59] Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly.
[15:59] Speaker 6: And look, there are many players and China's one of them.
[16:02] Speaker 6: And we've seen that when China decides to do something,
[16:06] Speaker 6: it does a lot of it. We've seen that excess
[16:08] Speaker 6: capacity play out in China. We've seen that over production
[16:11] Speaker 6: occur in China, and I don't think that tech side
[16:14] Speaker 6: will be any different. But the one thing to note
[16:16] Speaker 6: here is that the advantage of buying Korean technology is
[16:20] Speaker 6: that for a lot of countries, particularly in the West,
[16:23] Speaker 6: it comes with a geopolitical security lens. So that's one
[16:27] Speaker 6: place where career can benefit immensely. They are a more
[16:31] Speaker 6: secure partner to deal with than China, particularly when it
[16:34] Speaker 6: comes to technology, and so when we're thinking about those
[16:37] Speaker 6: risks for career, at least in the near term, they
[16:39] Speaker 6: have that playing for them over the medium term, as
[16:42] Speaker 6: China builds its confidence with the West, this might deteriorate
[16:46] Speaker 6: a little bit.
[16:46] Speaker 2: That is Eleana Jain, international economist at Westpac Banking Corporation,
[16:51] Speaker 2: speaking with Bloomberg TV host Paul Allen, bringing you their
[16:54] Speaker 2: conversation here on the Daybreak Asia Podcast. Thanks for listening
[16:59] Speaker 2: to today's episode of the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast.
[17:03] Speaker 2: Each weekday, we look at the story shaping markets, finance,
[17:07] Speaker 2: and geopolitics in the Asia Pacific. You can find us
[17:10] Speaker 2: on Apple, Spotify, the Bloomberg Podcast YouTube channel, or anywhere
[17:14] Speaker 2: else you listen. Join us again tomorrow for insight on
[17:17] Speaker 2: the market moves from Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia.
[17:22] Speaker 2: I'm Doug Prisner, and this is Bloomberg

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