| Hello and welcome to Davos, where the World Economic Forum’s annual meetings are now in full swing. I’m Craig Stirling, a senior economics editor, and today we’re looking at how Wall Street’s Davos visitors are greeting the advent of Donald Trump. Send us feedback and tips to ecodaily@bloomberg.net or get in touch on X via @economics. And if you’re in Davos, don’t forget to drop by Bloomberg House. Register here. Finance executives working the rooms in Davos are greeting Donald Trump’s return to the White House with varying amounts of elation. A market-focused veteran dealmaker at the helm of the US economy presents a new era of opportunity — with money to be made. “There is a degree of euphoria among clients,” said JPMorgan Chase EMEA CEO and Co-Head of Global Banking Filippo Gori. He partly attributes that to the “pro-business attitude of the administration.” With Trump’s first hours in office already producing a flurry of executive orders on everything from border security to citizenship rules and trade, the sense of a regime shift in the US is palpable. Staff at the bank Gori works for have been up all night in a “war room” to process the implications, according to Mary Erdoes, chief of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management arm. She told a panel that the initial signs are of a “very pro-business environment” and an economy in “go mode.” Jenny Johnson, chief executive officer at Franklin Templeton Investments, echoed that, saying that markets will benefit. “The view is that he’s going to be good for the economy,” she told Bloomberg Television. “That therefore is good for both public and private markets.” She and peers cited two aspects to Trump’s program that may breed animal spirits. One is the prospect of spending and tax cuts, and the other is his keenness to roll back rules, including for banks. “Deregulation, particularly if it’s smart deregulation, will be helpful to lots of businesses,” said Ron O’Hanley, State Street chairman & CEO. “The hope amongst the bankers, all of us, would be that at very least is that there’s not more regulation.” Some of Europe’s bankers are looking on in envy. “The expectation is that the US will be well ahead of Europe in terms of being less regulated,” UniCredit Chief Executive Officer Andrea Orcel said. “That will put us at a competitive disadvantage.” Not everyone in Davos shares the finance industry’s party spirit. Former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Ken Rogoff reckons that, unlike Trump’s first term, a lot of his policies won’t help growth — and higher interest rates won’t help either. “He has a lot of constraints that he didn’t face the first time,” Rogoff said. “I don’t think you can expect quite the boom we got the last time.”  | | | - The global elite in Davos woke up breathing a sigh of relief after Trump concluded his first day in office only talking about trade wars rather than starting any.
- China is still driving growth in global oil demand, the head of Saudi Aramco said, dismissing concerns about peaking consumption in the world’s biggest energy user.
- OpenAI Inc. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar characterized Elon Musk’s legal challenge to stop the ChatGPT maker from becoming a for-profit company as competitive maneuvering.
- UniCredit’s Orcel won’t seek to buy Commerzbank at all costs, while UBS’s Sergio Ermotti is looking at whether to follow Wall Street peers in abandoning a key climate-finance alliance.
- ECB Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said it’s possible the central bank will lower rates at each of its upcoming meetings, and his German colleague Joachim Nagel said inflation should be close to the 2% target by mid-2025.
- Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan sees concerns on Trump’s health policy as overblown.
- Finance executives in Davos hope Trump will push through legislation making it less onerous for their companies to push into cryptoassets.
Larry Summers had some optimism to share today — accompanied by a bit of gloom. “Here’s the big thing. I've been doing this for 45 years now. There hasn’t been a moment when the technological possibilities ahead of the world have been as bright as they are today.”  Larry Summers Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg Speaking to a panel on the future of growth, the former US Treasury secretary, a paid contributor to Bloomberg TV, cited vastly cheaper solar energy, drug innovations and artificial intelligence as what he had in mind. But there’s a catch. “The 20s were a moment of stunning technological possibility — with synthetic fabrics, with the automobile, with widespread electrification,” Summers said. “What followed the 20s wasn’t great.”
Tune in to Bloomberg Television for hard-hitting interviews with JPMorgan President Daniel Pinto, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, Google DeepMind COO Lila Ibrahim and many others. Don’t miss our exclusive sit-down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy too, at 4 p.m. Davos time. At Bloomberg House, the UK’s embattled chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, and Argentina’s polarizing president, Javier Milei will be among the line-up of speakers. In the conference center itself, we’ll be watching Stephanie Flanders quiz luminaries including Gita Gopinath of the International Monetary Fund on the global budget squeeze. Financial Stability Board Chair Klaas Knot, along with UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti will appear on a panel led by Francine Lacqua. Elsewhere in the World Economy | - Trump warned Mexico and Canada of 25% tariffs starting on Feb. 1, but China was spared for now.
- Investor confidence in Germany’s economy fell more than expected before next month’s snap election.
- Falling UK employment is bolstering expectations of BOE rate cut.
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