| Elon Musk becomes world's richest person (again). Banks are blasted for poor savings rates. Hong Kong prepares to scrap its mask mandate. Here's what you need to know today. The banking backlash has arrived. As interest rates soar on seemingly everything except deposits, banks are making big profits on the widening gap between what they charge borrowers and pay to savers. A good example is the UK, where interest rates on instant access savings accounts start at about 0.55%, while the Bank of England's base rate is 4%. The discrepancy is attracting the ire of politicians around the world at a time when rampant inflation is stoking cost-of-living crises. Finally, political and regulatory pressure may be having an impact. Get the full story here. Elon Musk has regained his spot as the world's richest person, after losing the title to France's Bernard Arnault. Musk's wealth has been buoyed by a surge in Tesla's stock price this year, after a steep slide following his acquisition of Twitter last October. It's up about 100% from its intraday low on Jan. 6 as investors pile back into bets on riskier growth stocks amid signs of economic strength and a slower pace of Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes. The company has also benefited from more demand for its electric vehicles after cutting prices on several models. Check out the full Bloomberg Billionaires Index here.  | Hongkongers may later today be told that Covid-era face coverings are no longer mandatory for outdoor trips. Sources say the government may remove almost all indoor and outdoor restrictions, although masks will still be required at high-risk places such as hospitals. Neighboring Macau dropped its mask restrictions on Monday. Meanwhile, after the US Energy Department said it believed a lab leak was responsible for triggering Covid-19, we take a look at where the world's at right now in the hunt for the origins of the virus. Stocks in Asia are set to follow the US higher, after further signs of economic strength buoyed investors there. Futures contracts for equity benchmarks in Australia, Japan and Hong Kong rose broadly in line with the 0.3% advance for the S&P 500. Australian and New Zealand 10-year yields inched lower as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell three basis points to 3.91%. Investors will be keeping a close eye on Adani Group shares as the company continues its investor roadshow in Asia. China is using TikTok to expand its influence around the world, a top Republican lawmaker said, in arguing that the ByteDance-owned video-sharing app should be banned in the US or sold off. Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, chairman of a new House committee scrutinizing China, argued for the urgency of decoupling the world's two largest economies and pointed to the country's bid for more influence overseas as a sign that it must be countered. And he's not the only one seeking to limit the app's operations in the US. Meanwhile, potentially more bad news for ByteDance: China is studying measures to curb addiction among youths to short videos. - This week's MLIV Pulse survey focuses on active versus passive investing. How likely is it that an actively managed fund that outperformed in one year will outperform the next? Would you call the growth of passive index funds a bubble? Share your views here.
Some mixed data and perhaps a burst of month-end rebalancing flows helped Treasuries rebound overnight. But that also draws further attention to just how tough a nut the 4% level is to crack for benchmark 10-year yields. A number of investors and strategists have flagged 4% as the sort of level where 10-year Treasuries become very attractive — at times adding a wry comment about the power of round numbers.  This particular round number may also have some extra oomph thanks to a long-term trend line derived from the workings of Italian 13th century mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, later known as Fibonacci. Traders often use the sequences he described to guide their positioning, and 3.98% or so happens to be the first, 23.6% retracement of the four-decade decline in the yield to 0.31% in 2020 from its 15.84% peak in 1981. That's quite an array of numbers to back up the idea that it may take some strong economic numbers — or stronger words from Federal Reserve officials — to send yields higher from here. And if they do, the likelihood would be some rapid increases after the lines in the sand get erased. Garfield Reynolds is Chief Rates Correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, based in Sydney. | 
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