This week on Moving Markets, oil and gas had a challenging year due to Covid-19 and weak oil prices, but not all Petronas linked to companies with it to storm. Equally, Telecom is a Malaysian work from home winner, and what does it mean for markets now that inflation in the US is nearing the highest levels in a decade? The Petronas linked companies released earnings this week, and it is a mixed picture. Petronas Dagenan, its retail-arm sore core net profit for 61% last year, unsurprising since travel was so limited in 2020. This means jet fuel demand comprising about a fifth of Petronas Dagenanx sales and consumer spending at petrol station stores took a dive. The outlook, however, is more positive as vaccines become more widely available and travel gradually resumes. Its infrastructure arm Petronas gas sore core net profit rise 6% thanks to lower operating costs, and with long-term contracts secured for its main businesses of gas processing and transmission earnings will remain stable for 2021. Meanwhile, Petronas Chemicals Group's core net profit leaped 105% on the back of higher average selling prices, which received a boost from supply disruptions in the United States, Iran and China last year. Since Petronas Chemicals' global inventory levels are close to all-time lows, the company's outlook remains very positive, at least, for next quarter's results. And earlier this week, Petronas affirmed it will be able to pay out the $18 billion dollar ringer dividend as announced on the budget 2021. After all, the Ministry of Finance data assumed crude oil prices of $42 USD a barrel in the budget. It figured that now looks relatively conservative since Brent crude has climbed above $60 USD. One trend catalyzed by the pandemic was digitalization which has benefited telecom Malaysia. Its fourth quarter earnings put the company back in the black. For the financial year 2020, it registered a core net profit of $991 million ringer, about 1% down from 2019. This is partly attributed to record growth from its broadband unit, which was driven by work from home demands. Internet revenue was boosted by strong unified momentum, which resulted in a slight uptake of 3.4% in average revenue per user. Moving forward, telecom will benefit from the government's telecommunication and digital initiatives. This includes the National Digital Infrastructure Plan, also known as Jandela, which is meant to make broadband more widely accessible across the country, as well as the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint, or Mind Digital, which is the country's plan to roll out 5G technology and enhance the usage of cloud services. And speaking of 5G, the Malaysian government revealed that it will build the infrastructure for this technology itself, instead of relying on private telecommunications players. This 15 billion-rigant undertaking is going to be carried out through a special purpose vehicle, and the target is for 5G roll-out to start by the end of the year. What this means is, companies hoping to bid for spectrum allocations will now have to simply become service providers for 5G, effectively leasing the network infrastructure from the government entity. And the US signs of mounting inflationary pressures continue to emerge. The first signs appeared after Democrats secured control of both chambers of Congress in January, fueling expectations of an unprecedented amount of fiscal stimulus. Now coupled with the vaccine roll-out, investors seem to be expecting a recovery on the horizon, which would unleash pent-up consumer demand and drive-up inflation. As a result, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note has hit the highest level in over a year, reaching 1.6% on Thursday. The other sign of inflation is the recent rising commodity prices, because when investors fear a rise in inflation, they typically shift assets into gold and copper as a hedge. Despite this, though, earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stressed that inflation is still soft, and that the Central Bank remains committed to using its full range of tools to support the economy. Still, he did not address the question lingering over Wall Street. When might we see the Fed taper its support and start winding down its bond-buying program? And if it does, could we see the market unleash a tapered tantrum as it did back in 2013? And that's what's been moving markets.