Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Treasuries, Apple, LIV Golf, and Bank Buybacks (Podcast)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Every business day, we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros,
- 0:09Speaker 2: and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moving news.
- 0:14Speaker 1: Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever
- 0:17Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast.
- 0:21Speaker 1: June fourteenth, which for me is Flag Day, but for
- 0:24Speaker 1: some other people it is FED Day. We're gonna hear
- 0:27Speaker 1: from the Fed June fourteenth to get their latest thinking
- 0:30Speaker 1: on interest rates. I want to bring in Ira Jersey
- 0:32Speaker 1: because he actually does this stuff for a living. We
- 0:34Speaker 1: actually pay him for this. Ira Jersey, chief US indust
- 0:37Speaker 1: rate strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence. So, Ira, I guess you
- 0:40Speaker 1: know kind of the new term that I heard here
- 0:42Speaker 1: is is skip. Are they going to skip a rate
- 0:45Speaker 1: increase here? Then maybe kind of re evaluate?
- 0:47Speaker 3: Maybe?
- 0:47Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I think I think they will skip. I
- 0:50Speaker 4: wouldn't be surprised if the skip turned into a proper pause.
- 0:54Speaker 4: But there certainly are a number of people who are
- 0:57Speaker 4: thinking that perhaps the Federal Reserve, if they do skip,
- 1:01Speaker 4: could potentially hike again in July and that's not out
- 1:04Speaker 4: of the question, but I think that the hurdle just
- 1:07Speaker 4: gets a little bit higher and it gets more difficult
- 1:10Speaker 4: to get over that hump, particularly if we wind up
- 1:13Speaker 4: seeing economic data, right, real economic data start to slip
- 1:17Speaker 4: as much as it is. And in fact, if you
- 1:19Speaker 4: look at things like the ISM data that we've recently received,
- 1:22Speaker 4: you know that's already in and near recessionary territories, if
- 1:26Speaker 4: not actually in it.
- 1:27Speaker 5: Iira, I have to get your thoughts on this debate
- 1:29Speaker 5: over the Treasury's flood of bill issueings is basically being
- 1:33Speaker 5: the latest test for banks kind of break it down
- 1:36Speaker 5: for us as far as what the issues are there
- 1:38Speaker 5: and what that could potentially mean for any sort of
- 1:40Speaker 5: volatility that we could see in the bomb market.
- 1:43Speaker 4: Yeah, so I don't think it's a debate. There will be,
- 1:46Speaker 4: and we'll get an announcement actually just in about forty
- 1:48Speaker 4: five minutes for what the Treasury Department is going to
- 1:52Speaker 4: be issuing in terms of four to eight and four
- 1:55Speaker 4: months bills that they're going to auction on Thursday. They
- 1:59Speaker 4: have to increase the sizes to rebuild the cash balance
- 2:02Speaker 4: in the Treasury General Account, which is the checking account
- 2:05Speaker 4: that the Fed keeps for on behalf of the government.
- 2:09Speaker 4: And what happens is when when the Treasury General account
- 2:12Speaker 4: goes up, then other liabilities at the FED need to
- 2:15Speaker 4: go down, and that's either bank reserves, so deposits come
- 2:18Speaker 4: out of the system, and that means that bank reserves
- 2:22Speaker 4: go down, or money market mutual funds, if they purchase
- 2:25Speaker 4: the T bills, might instead not use the reverse repo
- 2:31Speaker 4: facility that's been used quite frequently to the tune of
- 2:34Speaker 4: two point two trillion dollars by money market mutual funds
- 2:37Speaker 4: might move those So if money market mutual funds at
- 2:40Speaker 4: the primary buyer of these tea bills, it's really not
- 2:42Speaker 4: an issue. But I suspect that upwards of seventy percent
- 2:45Speaker 4: of the T bills are going to be are going
- 2:48Speaker 4: to be purchased for cash, and that means that bank
- 2:51Speaker 4: reserves are going to go down. It means bank deposits
- 2:53Speaker 4: go down, and it could see some depositively. Now the
- 2:56Speaker 4: question is there's a distributional issue here where most of
- 3:01Speaker 4: the depositive outflow is probably not going to be in
- 3:04Speaker 4: the medium and smaller banks that were the problem back
- 3:07Speaker 4: in March. I think it comes out of more of
- 3:09Speaker 4: the bulge bracket firms that already have a lot of reserves,
- 3:12Speaker 4: so probably won't be as systemically of a problem at
- 3:15Speaker 4: least not initially. Now by year end that might change
- 3:19Speaker 4: quite a lot. We're working on that now. We'll have
- 3:21Speaker 4: a no doubt tomorrow morning looking at the reserve requirements
- 3:24Speaker 4: and how low they can get in how quickly. But
- 3:26Speaker 4: I don't think it's a June July issue. Could be
- 3:29Speaker 4: something for later in the third quarter or before year
- 3:31Speaker 4: end for sure.
- 3:32Speaker 1: So all right, this is really get into the plumbing.
- 3:35Speaker 1: But in terms of buying US security share, when they
- 3:39Speaker 1: come to auction, international buyers, are they there, how big
- 3:43Speaker 1: are they and who are they?
- 3:45Speaker 4: So foreigners typically don't buy a whole lot of tea bills.
- 3:48Speaker 4: Actually the central banks buy a few, but the primary
- 3:52Speaker 4: buyer are domestic investment funds that means money market mutual funds.
- 3:56Speaker 4: So you know it used to be when and where
- 3:59Speaker 4: this comes from is I don't want to say it's old,
- 4:02Speaker 4: but prior to the global financial crisis, when the US
- 4:06Speaker 4: had twin deficits, there was a lot of buying of
- 4:09Speaker 4: US treasury securities, both at auction and outside of auction
- 4:13Speaker 4: by foreign central banks in particular, that's actually stopped. Most
- 4:17Speaker 4: people still think that, you know, foreigners or massive buyers.
- 4:21Speaker 4: Foreigners have not increased their holdings of US treasury securities
- 4:25Speaker 4: significantly central banks over the last six seven years. Who
- 4:29Speaker 4: has been buying there are private investors. And private investors
- 4:32Speaker 4: typically don't buy tea bills. They buy longer term treasury securities,
- 4:36Speaker 4: you know, thirty years for pension funds and investment and
- 4:40Speaker 4: insurance companies, or they just buy for their portfolio because
- 4:44Speaker 4: interest rates in the US are still higher than they
- 4:46Speaker 4: are in a lot of other jurisdictions.
- 4:48Speaker 3: And IIRA.
- 4:48Speaker 5: We have a story on the terminal from Liz McCormick,
- 4:51Speaker 5: Michael McKinsey, and Craig trur Is talking about how bond
- 4:54Speaker 5: bulls are betting that the FED is right in anticipating
- 4:56Speaker 5: low rates to return. In Fed official's long run neutral
- 5:00Speaker 5: median forecast looking at that is around two and a
- 5:03Speaker 5: half percent. Do you think that's accurate?
- 5:06Speaker 4: So I actually think that ultimately the floor that when
- 5:11Speaker 4: the Federal Reserve starts to cut will actually be below
- 5:13Speaker 4: two and a half percent. I think that they'll wind
- 5:15Speaker 4: up cutting probably closer to two. Of course, you're talking
- 5:18Speaker 4: about twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six, it was
- 5:20Speaker 4: still a long ways off from that. You know, where
- 5:23Speaker 4: I think the market is probably a little bit a
- 5:26Speaker 4: little bit wrong is that the market seems to think
- 5:29Speaker 4: that the Federal Reserve, there's a good chance that the
- 5:31Speaker 4: Federal Reserve is going to start cutting interest rates this
- 5:33Speaker 4: year and January of next year. I suspect that the
- 5:36Speaker 4: Federal Reserve will wind up raining on hold a bit longer,
- 5:39Speaker 4: so regardless of what they do kind of this month
- 5:42Speaker 4: and next month, that once they get to the peak,
- 5:44Speaker 4: that they'll be on hold for the better part of
- 5:46Speaker 4: the year, maybe more than a year. But once they
- 5:49Speaker 4: start to cut, they're going to cut aggressively. They're not
- 5:51Speaker 4: going to cut in twenty five base point increments once
- 5:53Speaker 4: a quarter like some people are thinking. I think that
- 5:56Speaker 4: they cut fifty basis points, you know, every meeting for
- 5:59Speaker 4: four or five meterets, and then they wind up cutting
- 6:01Speaker 4: interest rates down towards two percent. So two and a
- 6:03Speaker 4: half is not outside the range of possibility. But I
- 6:07Speaker 4: do think that there's a floor probably two is percent,
- 6:10Speaker 4: and hopefully we don't go below that, because if we
- 6:12Speaker 4: go below that, that means we have disinflation again, and
- 6:14Speaker 4: it seems like that's not likely given the demographic and
- 6:19Speaker 4: economic dynamics that have developed since the COVID pandemic.
- 6:24Speaker 3: All right, Ira, thank you so much. We appreciate that.
- 6:25Speaker 1: Ira Jersey, Chief US Interest rate Strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence.
- 6:30Speaker 6: You're listening to the team. Can's are live program Bloomberg
- 6:34Speaker 6: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
- 6:37Speaker 6: the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen
- 6:40Speaker 6: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
- 6:45Speaker 1: All swinging down here in Orlando, Florida the b and
- 6:47Speaker 1: Y Insight Purshing Insight twenty twenty three conference where they
- 6:51Speaker 1: got about two thousand and their financial clients down here.
- 6:55Speaker 1: I'm talking about all things on financial services. So some
- 6:57Speaker 1: good stuff down here, Jess. You can spend thirty five
- 7:00Speaker 1: hundred bucks for I don't know vr Apple thing Mejig, I.
- 7:05Speaker 5: Don't think so. I think I'm gonna have to pass
- 7:07Speaker 5: on that one since it's a more than my rent.
- 7:11Speaker 3: Exactly.
- 7:11Speaker 1: I know, I don't know what they're doing, but let's
- 7:14Speaker 1: let's roundtable this with a couple of smart people who
- 7:17Speaker 1: know the text base. No Apple know this whole metaverse thing.
- 7:20Speaker 1: Anurag Rana and Mandeep Sing their senior tech analysts for
- 7:24Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence.
- 7:27Speaker 3: Let's go on. Let's start with you. You cover Apple.
- 7:29Speaker 1: And as does Mandi. But what are they thinking with
- 7:33Speaker 1: this thirty four and ninety nine dollars price point.
- 7:39Speaker 7: See Paul from our site. They're going to try to
- 7:41Speaker 7: create an ecosystem of a new applications, new way of computing.
- 7:45Speaker 7: This is a completely different ecosystem that they're currently the
- 7:49Speaker 7: one that they have with the you know, the iPad,
- 7:52Speaker 7: the iPhone, the air pods. So it is a first
- 7:56Speaker 7: step in it. They really need develop us to build
- 8:00Speaker 7: applications on it. We need new content and frankly speaking,
- 8:04Speaker 7: that's really the game here. This is not It is
- 8:06Speaker 7: going to take years to really build out, so we
- 8:09Speaker 7: don't expect any near time action, but we are fairly
- 8:13Speaker 7: optimistic in the long run.
- 8:14Speaker 5: Man deep, how do we square this away with Meta's headset?
- 8:18Speaker 8: So, actually, what Apple has done is really made it
- 8:22Speaker 8: hard for Meta to go anywhere with their hardware ambitions.
- 8:26Speaker 8: At least, I think what their demo showed was Apple
- 8:29Speaker 8: can build this much better than what Meta has done,
- 8:33Speaker 8: and just take aside the price point for a moment,
- 8:36Speaker 8: but clearly what they showed was something that I think
- 8:39Speaker 8: consumers may want, not at that price point. And for
- 8:42Speaker 8: Meta having invested billions of dollars in developing their own headset,
- 8:47Speaker 8: I mean it leaves them with very little room to
- 8:50Speaker 8: be the scale player, even though they have that eighty
- 8:53Speaker 8: percent share and they have a five hundred dollars headset.
- 8:56Speaker 8: I would be surprised if they continue to pour more
- 8:58Speaker 8: money because now that Apple has entered, they will lower
- 9:02Speaker 8: the price over time. And I think when it comes
- 9:04Speaker 8: to hardware, there's no other company that can build better
- 9:07Speaker 8: hardware than Apple.
- 9:09Speaker 1: So Mandy, what's you know, mister Zuckerberg to do here?
- 9:13Speaker 1: Is he content not to be in a hardware business? Again,
- 9:15Speaker 1: I don't think of hardware when I think of Meta.
- 9:18Speaker 1: But how would they play here just by sybody with
- 9:20Speaker 1: their applications with the metaverse?
- 9:23Speaker 8: Yes, And what Meta has done in the background is
- 9:26Speaker 8: they have invested heavily in AI and large language models,
- 9:31Speaker 8: and they could still you know, build applications for the metaverse.
- 9:35Speaker 8: I think they're better off trying to build it for
- 9:38Speaker 8: you know, all the devices out there. And I think,
- 9:41Speaker 8: going by what Apple has shown us they will be
- 9:45Speaker 8: one of the kind of the leaders when it comes
- 9:48Speaker 8: to the adoption for VR AR mixed reality headset. So
- 9:53Speaker 8: what Meta probably will eventually end up doing is they
- 9:56Speaker 8: will develop applications. They'll use whatever they have built on
- 9:59Speaker 8: the A side to be compatible with Apple, and that
- 10:04Speaker 8: may be a better approach than trying to develop their
- 10:07Speaker 8: own ecosystem entirely.
- 10:08Speaker 5: Hey on Rock, I wanted to jump in and get
- 10:11Speaker 5: your take as far as what could be the potential
- 10:14Speaker 5: next catalyst for Apple stock. It's interesting because Morgan Stanley
- 10:18Speaker 5: is thinking they're actually looking to October for the next
- 10:20Speaker 5: catalyst when they expect to learn more about the headset volumes.
- 10:23Speaker 5: Do you think we'll have to wait that long?
- 10:25Speaker 7: I mean it could be even longer than that. If
- 10:27Speaker 7: the consumer spending starts to slow down, then iPhone fifteen
- 10:31Speaker 7: may not do exactly what all of us are hoping,
- 10:33Speaker 7: which is jumpstart the top line growth rate. You know,
- 10:36Speaker 7: and Paul and I have talked about this a lot,
- 10:40Speaker 7: that this is a company that's not going to go
- 10:42Speaker 7: top line above ten percent anytime soon. And that's because
- 10:46Speaker 7: the scale, the size, the penetration rate of iPhones. So
- 10:50Speaker 7: I think it's going to be a while before if
- 10:52Speaker 7: people are thinking this is going to grow double digits again,
- 10:55Speaker 7: you know, they may have to wait quite a bit
- 10:56Speaker 7: of time.
- 10:58Speaker 3: So, Man, Dave, what do we know now?
- 11:00Speaker 1: It's been I don't know, maybe a year since you know,
- 11:04Speaker 1: Meta kind of you know, more than a year when
- 11:05Speaker 1: they changed their name and they said we're going all
- 11:07Speaker 1: in on this metaverse and then they've kind of paired
- 11:10Speaker 1: back their investment ambitions maybe in that business. What's the
- 11:14Speaker 1: understanding on the street as to Meta's kind of next
- 11:18Speaker 1: one to two to three years in terms of investment,
- 11:19Speaker 1: in terms of how they'll evolve.
- 11:21Speaker 8: I mean, clearly they have you know, made a one
- 11:24Speaker 8: to ady degree turn this year compared to where they
- 11:27Speaker 8: were last year, and that has increased, you know, at
- 11:32Speaker 8: least expectations that they'll focus more on profitability. They will
- 11:36Speaker 8: not lose as much money as they were doing before
- 11:39Speaker 8: on reality labs.
- 11:41Speaker 5: Still.
- 11:41Speaker 8: I think they are investing on building data center capacity,
- 11:46Speaker 8: adding more applications that are metaverse oriented, and I think
- 11:51Speaker 8: the street is okay with that. It's just the hardware side,
- 11:55Speaker 8: which I think where they're losing money on every headset
- 11:59Speaker 8: that they're selling. That may not be a good strategy
- 12:01Speaker 8: because the more you scale, you know, it's a bigger
- 12:05Speaker 8: hole when it comes to your operating income.
- 12:09Speaker 9: An a rog have to get.
- 12:10Speaker 5: Your thoughts also when it comes to this fifteen inch
- 12:14Speaker 5: MacBook Air that's starting around thirteen hundred dollars.
- 12:19Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm actually looking forward to it. I'm a cheap guy,
- 12:22Speaker 7: but I think I'm going to go by that. I
- 12:25Speaker 7: love my MacBook Air. I've had it for I mean,
- 12:28Speaker 7: I think fifteen years, two different models in that tankgame,
- 12:31Speaker 7: and it's just a beautiful machine. I'm very optimistic in that.
- 12:35Speaker 7: But having said that, once again, mathematically as as a
- 12:39Speaker 7: company for Apple, it's not going to have a material
- 12:42Speaker 7: impact over the next twelve months, and that has to
- 12:45Speaker 7: do with very tough comparison the PC market in the slump.
- 12:48Speaker 7: But personally I'm very keen on that machine.
- 12:52Speaker 1: All right on rag Rana men deep seeing our senior
- 12:55Speaker 1: technology analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence helping us break down. You know,
- 12:58Speaker 1: it was a pretty big event yesterday for Apple with
- 12:59Speaker 1: this new virtual reality augmented reality device.
- 13:03Speaker 6: You're listening to the tape Kensur Live program Bloomberg Markets
- 13:07Speaker 6: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune
- 13:10Speaker 6: in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App.
- 13:13Speaker 6: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 13:16Speaker 6: flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 13:23Speaker 3: So the big, big news coming out of Marshton and DC.
- 13:25Speaker 1: Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln plans to visit China in
- 13:28Speaker 1: the coming weeks for talks with top officials, possibly including
- 13:32Speaker 1: President Jijimping. People familiar with the matter said, as the
- 13:35Speaker 1: US looks to resume high level communication despite continued at tensions,
- 13:39Speaker 1: want to get the latest on that. We bring in
- 13:41Speaker 1: Justin Sinky covers the White House and DC for Bloomberg News.
- 13:45Speaker 3: Justin Big News. Give us your some sense of context here.
- 13:49Speaker 10: Yeah, well, you know, the relationship between the US and
- 13:52Speaker 10: China has been strained sort of multiple points over the
- 13:55Speaker 10: last you know, well lots of years, last decade, however
- 14:00Speaker 10: far back you want to go. But there had seemed
- 14:02Speaker 10: to be a sort of warming between President Biden and
- 14:06Speaker 10: President Juhn Ping of China at the sum in Bali
- 14:09Speaker 10: last fall. All of that was sort of thrown off
- 14:12Speaker 10: track when right ahead of the Secretary of Blncoln's planned
- 14:16Speaker 10: trip earlier this year to Beijing, the Chinese Bible balloon
- 14:21Speaker 10: flew over the US, so that led the State Department
- 14:23Speaker 10: to scrap the plans, and since then there's been a
- 14:26Speaker 10: real breakdown in sort of conversations between China and the US.
- 14:31Speaker 10: There's been a number of military drills recently where US
- 14:34Speaker 10: or Chinese aircraft and ships have buzzed in front of
- 14:40Speaker 10: US aircraft or ships, and so it seems like there
- 14:44Speaker 10: was a real tension and Secretary B. Lincoln headed back
- 14:47Speaker 10: to Beijing a signal that things may be warming and
- 14:50Speaker 10: getting back on track.
- 14:52Speaker 5: Justin, do we have a sense of the exact timing
- 14:54Speaker 5: of when his trip to Beijing could happen.
- 14:57Speaker 10: We expect in the next few weeks. The specific dates,
- 15:02Speaker 10: I'm not sure if they're locked in yet or they're
- 15:03Speaker 10: just not being shared yet. The State Department has said
- 15:05Speaker 10: that they don't have anything to announce officially yet. But
- 15:09Speaker 10: my colleagues Jenny Leonard and Marie Horton, who reported this
- 15:12Speaker 10: piece out, till fairly confidence this trip is not only happening,
- 15:15Speaker 10: but happening in the relatively near future.
- 15:18Speaker 1: And justin, I'm not sure how these things work here
- 15:21Speaker 1: when it comes to the diplomacy is typically a high
- 15:24Speaker 1: level visit by a Secretary of State, perhaps a precursor
- 15:27Speaker 1: for getting Present Biden president G together at some point.
- 15:30Speaker 10: Yeah, or at the very least, even President Biden has
- 15:33Speaker 10: said that he expects and hopes to talk to G
- 15:35Speaker 10: on the phone sometime soon. So there are a number
- 15:39Speaker 10: of you know, diplomatic forum again this fall or the
- 15:44Speaker 10: G twenty, it could again be an opportunity for them
- 15:47Speaker 10: to meet. But I would expect, you know, if this
- 15:50Speaker 10: meeting goes well, to two possible things to accomplish setting
- 15:53Speaker 10: up that phone call between Biden and G. And secondly,
- 15:57Speaker 10: the US is really pushed for real opening military to
- 16:01Speaker 10: military communication, which the Chinese cut off after former Speaker
- 16:06Speaker 10: Pelosi went to Taiwan late last year, and so I
- 16:10Speaker 10: think that was the goal of the original Blinking trip.
- 16:13Speaker 10: Then the spy balloon happened, and so there's a hope
- 16:15Speaker 10: that that can kind of kickstart if things go well.
- 16:18Speaker 10: When Secretary Blanking Ghostavision.
- 16:21Speaker 5: Justin talk to us about what this visit would essentially mean.
- 16:25Speaker 5: When we're putting this in context to Presidents Biden's efforts
- 16:28Speaker 5: to really try to restore some normalcy to the relationship here.
- 16:32Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean there Not only did Speaker Pelosi's trip
- 16:37Speaker 10: really kind of strain re license, but there have been
- 16:39Speaker 10: a number of pressure points over the last few years.
- 16:42Speaker 10: Obviously China's reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Biden
- 16:49Speaker 10: administration has been mostly happy with, but has wanted to
- 16:52Speaker 10: push for kind of a stronger breaking of ties between
- 16:58Speaker 10: Russia and China, the situation in Taiwan, the situation and
- 17:03Speaker 10: sort of the South Pacific in general, where China has
- 17:07Speaker 10: been increasingly assertive. And so you put all that into
- 17:10Speaker 10: the context, especially of trade, when you think about the
- 17:13Speaker 10: economy and efforts to sort of counter Chinese manufacturing influence
- 17:21Speaker 10: and post COVID, I think all of these are sort
- 17:24Speaker 10: of sore spots that there's a real hope than the
- 17:26Speaker 10: Biden administration that improved dialogue can help get past.
- 17:30Speaker 1: Hey justin you know, it's interesting we seem to sort
- 17:33Speaker 1: of past several weeks a lot of high profile US
- 17:36Speaker 1: executives heading over to China. Jamie Diamond was there for
- 17:40Speaker 1: big a Jpmorton conference. Elon Musk was there, Tim Cook
- 17:43Speaker 1: from Apple. It feels like maybe the government officials are
- 17:47Speaker 1: kind of behind a little bit of the private sector.
- 17:49Speaker 1: What's the feeling with in DC about what we should
- 17:52Speaker 1: be doing in China?
- 17:53Speaker 10: Yeah, I think that there is. There are sort of
- 17:57Speaker 10: countervailing winds. Right on the one hand, I think there
- 18:00Speaker 10: is a sense among many that they are trying to
- 18:03Speaker 10: repair this relationship to at least make it more functional
- 18:06Speaker 10: than it's been, particularly because you're seeing these military maneuvers
- 18:11Speaker 10: or communication breakdowns, that there's a real concern that it
- 18:15Speaker 10: could bleed inadvertently to something bad happening. At the same time,
- 18:20Speaker 10: we're about to have a presidential election in twenty twenty
- 18:23Speaker 10: four where the issue of China is certain to be central.
- 18:26Speaker 10: Former President Donald Trump obviously made that a sort of
- 18:29Speaker 10: signature campaign issue and has talked a lot about being
- 18:33Speaker 10: tough on China as part of his push back into
- 18:35Speaker 10: the Republican primary. It's something that the Biden administration has
- 18:40Speaker 10: tried to counter by big government programs to return manufacturing
- 18:44Speaker 10: back to the United States. And so it's one of
- 18:47Speaker 10: those tricky things where I think if you talk to
- 18:50Speaker 10: people about is it good for business to improve those ties,
- 18:53Speaker 10: they'll say yes, Is it good for politics to improve
- 18:56Speaker 10: those ties? Maybe no.
- 18:58Speaker 3: I just think thank thank you so much for joining us.
- 19:00Speaker 1: Really appreciated getting the latest air Secretary of State Blincoln
- 19:04Speaker 1: announcing that he intends to travel to China in the
- 19:06Speaker 1: near future, so presumably that is good news.
- 19:11Speaker 6: You're listening to the team Ken's are Live program Bloomberg
- 19:14Speaker 6: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
- 19:18Speaker 6: the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen
- 19:21Speaker 6: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
- 19:25Speaker 1: Let's get a breakdown what's happening with the markets. Billy
- 19:27Speaker 1: Lipschaltzy covers the Markets force. He joins us in a
- 19:30Speaker 1: Bloomberg Inactive broker studio, as does Scarlet Food TV anchor
- 19:34Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Television business sports host as well. So Bailly
- 19:39Speaker 1: gave us kind of the movements in the golf stocks.
- 19:41Speaker 1: Let's go to Scarlett right away here. I mean, this
- 19:44Speaker 1: news shocked me.
- 19:45Speaker 3: Scarlett. I'm a golfer, I follow the business, I follow
- 19:48Speaker 3: the sport of it. I was shocked at this happened.
- 19:50Speaker 11: Totally shocked. Given that the two had really dug in
- 19:54Speaker 11: the two sides live golf and the PGA Tour, there
- 19:56Speaker 11: was a lot of charges flung against each other, suits
- 20:00Speaker 11: between the two. The DOJ got involved because it was
- 20:03Speaker 11: also looking into the PGA for monopolistic antitrust type of behavior.
- 20:07Speaker 11: And then all of a sudden, you have them declaring
- 20:09Speaker 11: a truce in what really was a civil war in golf.
- 20:13Speaker 11: So who caved It's not clear, but I guess if
- 20:18Speaker 11: the PGA Tour has admitted, basically conceded that live has
- 20:23Speaker 11: a role to play, my guess is PGA Tour did.
- 20:27Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactically.
- 20:28Speaker 9: Well.
- 20:28Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting if you look at the Bloomberg
- 20:30Speaker 1: news story, the headline is PGA bows and so I
- 20:35Speaker 1: immediately emailed the editor, which you can do because all
- 20:38Speaker 1: the contact information to the bottom of every Bloomberg story helpful.
- 20:40Speaker 1: And I said, I said, really, because I didn't. I
- 20:43Speaker 1: don't think that, not knowing anything about this deal, but
- 20:46Speaker 1: I thought pg had by far the upper hand here.
- 20:49Speaker 1: Nobody cared about Live Golf, nobody watched it, nobody went
- 20:52Speaker 1: to the events relative to a PGA event. Yes, they
- 20:54Speaker 1: had the money, and that's I guess the big issue.
- 20:57Speaker 11: Yes, they had an investor with bottomless pockets, which was
- 21:00Speaker 11: basically the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia, and my
- 21:03Speaker 11: understanding is the reporting shows that they've already made a
- 21:06Speaker 11: two billion dollar investment in Live, and they were prepared
- 21:08Speaker 11: to spend more on it in the years to come.
- 21:11Speaker 11: The problem with Live was that they didn't have a
- 21:14Speaker 11: US broadcast partnership, right, They didn't have media rights, So
- 21:18Speaker 11: the only way you could watch live golf is to
- 21:20Speaker 11: go in person, and it was hosted at two Donald
- 21:23Speaker 11: Trump owned golf courses here in the US, along with
- 21:26Speaker 11: other places overseas, or you could watch it on YouTube,
- 21:29Speaker 11: streamed on YouTube, or on Live goolf website itself. Unlike
- 21:34Speaker 11: PGA Tour tournaments, which are available on what, NBC, CBS, ESPN,
- 21:39Speaker 11: and Living else.
- 21:41Speaker 1: Live does have a TV deal with the CW Network,
- 21:43Speaker 1: which is a bunch of independently own you know, broadcast
- 21:46Speaker 1: stations that are carried on cable.
- 21:48Speaker 11: Right, that's a good point.
- 21:49Speaker 1: Yes, so they do have some distribution there, but it's
- 21:51Speaker 1: just not nearly and they don't have near the sponsorship
- 21:53Speaker 1: or near any of the prestige. So I'm just shocked
- 21:56Speaker 1: at this announcement, and I can't wait to really get
- 21:57Speaker 1: the full reporting here, because this is the last thing
- 21:59Speaker 1: I know.
- 22:00Speaker 11: I can't wait to get the TikTok on this, and
- 22:02Speaker 11: of course this split the world of golf players too,
- 22:04Speaker 11: right because Live Golf was really led by the former
- 22:07Speaker 11: golf star Greg Norman, and they poached a lot of
- 22:09Speaker 11: the best players, whether it's Phil Mickelson or Dustin Johnson,
- 22:12Speaker 11: Cameron Spait.
- 22:13Speaker 3: Past their prime, all past their prime.
- 22:15Speaker 11: All past their prime, but big names nonetheless, And the
- 22:17Speaker 11: difference was that they got paid these multi year contracts,
- 22:21Speaker 11: large upfront payments. So one big question is what does
- 22:24Speaker 11: this mean in terms of their splashy contracts. Will they
- 22:26Speaker 11: continue to get paid out for this year their second year?
- 22:28Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, what does it mean for all
- 22:30Speaker 1: the people who were not supporting the Live Tour because
- 22:34Speaker 1: of its involvement with Saudi Arabia. Now Saudi Arabia's would
- 22:37Speaker 1: be even more involved of what is left of professional golf.
- 22:41Speaker 1: I wonder how that's going to play with large parts
- 22:43Speaker 1: of them.
- 22:43Speaker 11: I don't know, my guess as money speaks, so in
- 22:45Speaker 11: the end it will work itself out. I mean, there
- 22:48Speaker 11: are a lot of uncomfortable press conferences with the players
- 22:51Speaker 11: that did sign on with Live Golf, or asking golf
- 22:54Speaker 11: players in general whether they would ever sign on would
- 22:56Speaker 11: live golf. They just didn't want to go there and
- 22:58Speaker 11: answer the difficult questions about sports washing and how Saudi
- 23:01Speaker 11: Arabia was using it its heft to get into sports
- 23:05Speaker 11: as a way to really accumulate soft power.
- 23:09Speaker 5: Bailey, you were walking us through some of the stock
- 23:11Speaker 5: moves here. What are some other beneficiaries like Top Golf
- 23:14Speaker 5: that are moving this morning?
- 23:15Speaker 12: It's really Top Golf, Callaway and a Kushna again, the
- 23:18Speaker 12: company that is the home of titleist Scottie Cameron Putters
- 23:22Speaker 12: and Footjoy that are rallying, both again up more than
- 23:24Speaker 12: five percent. But Scarlett, this is coming reading from a
- 23:27Speaker 12: note from Jeffrey saying that this unexpected agreement holds immense
- 23:30Speaker 12: potential to elevate the sport of golf to new heights.
- 23:32Speaker 12: Is that your expectation. Is this really a deal that
- 23:36Speaker 12: is going to be like the AFL and NFL merging
- 23:38Speaker 12: and all of a sudden everyone wants to grab their golf.
- 23:40Speaker 11: I guess it depends on whether the PGA is going
- 23:42Speaker 11: to change up its format or not. Because lif Golf
- 23:44Speaker 11: was very different from the PGA in that they didn't
- 23:47Speaker 11: have a thirty six hole cut, meaning no one goes
- 23:49Speaker 11: home after two rounds. They had team play, they had
- 23:51Speaker 11: shorter events, they had DJ's like the Chainsmokers performing at
- 23:55Speaker 11: their tournament. I mean, it was just a different feel
- 23:57Speaker 11: in general. It was a little hip or a little
- 24:00Speaker 11: so maybe with this merger, the PGA will change its
- 24:04Speaker 11: stripes a little bit and make it, I don't know,
- 24:07Speaker 11: make it more up to date. Because PJ was kind
- 24:09Speaker 11: of the home of you know, this is golf. We're
- 24:11Speaker 11: very traditional and this is how you follow the rules,
- 24:13Speaker 11: and this is what the way we've always done it.
- 24:14Speaker 11: And it wasn't exactly appealing to younger viewers except the
- 24:19Speaker 11: pandemic came along and really helped people rediscover golf. Does
- 24:24Speaker 11: this change it for you?
- 24:25Speaker 1: I mean, will you.
- 24:25Speaker 3: Watch the livie Well no, I mean here's the thing.
- 24:28Speaker 1: I mean, I consume this stuff big time, watch all
- 24:31Speaker 1: the golf all the you know, all the time. I
- 24:33Speaker 1: haven't watched any live For my personal reasons, I don't
- 24:36Speaker 1: support that tour. I have nothing against the players who
- 24:39Speaker 1: went there, because it's a great opportunity for them to
- 24:41Speaker 1: make way more money than they could on the PGA Tour,
- 24:44Speaker 1: So good for them. But you felt at some point
- 24:46Speaker 1: that for the game of golf. Yet they had to
- 24:48Speaker 1: have to get back together at some force in some way,
- 24:51Speaker 1: but I thought it would have been and I still
- 24:52Speaker 1: think it needs to be with the PGA Tour kind
- 24:54Speaker 1: of leading the way. So we'll have to get a
- 24:56Speaker 1: lot more reporting, and I guess you know, I love that.
- 24:58Speaker 1: I can't wait to see the prescott on this.
- 25:00Speaker 11: I know the kinds of questions that they'll be asking.
- 25:03Speaker 11: By the way, we're going to be speaking with Mike One,
- 25:05Speaker 11: who is the CEO of the US Golf Association, which
- 25:09Speaker 11: is kind of the umbrella body that oversees amateur golf,
- 25:12Speaker 11: so lots and lots of questions for him. I don't
- 25:14Speaker 11: know what this means in terms of the DOJ also
- 25:16Speaker 11: looking into the PGA and whether they would approve this
- 25:19Speaker 11: kind of murder as well.
- 25:20Speaker 1: Yep, okay, great stuff, you know, Scarlet Fu, thank you
- 25:24Speaker 1: so much. We appreciate that. Scarlet Fool Supper Television and
- 25:27Speaker 1: Belly Lipscholtz covering all the market stuff and the movers
- 25:29Speaker 1: on this golf news. Belly Lipschultz from Bloomberg News covering
- 25:32Speaker 1: the market.
- 25:33Speaker 6: You're listening to the tape Ken's Are Live program Bloomberg
- 25:36Speaker 6: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 25:40Speaker 6: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App.
- 25:43Speaker 6: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 25:46Speaker 6: flagship New York station Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 25:52Speaker 3: Just checking in here.
- 25:53Speaker 1: I'm seeing on Alson Williams has got one of these
- 25:56Speaker 1: notes that you just have to read because if you
- 25:58Speaker 1: think about you investing in the big band, recently it's
- 26:01Speaker 1: been about, hey, when are they going to start returning cash.
- 26:03Speaker 3: To shareholders and maybe even more cash to shareholders. Yeah,
- 26:06Speaker 3: we had to.
- 26:06Speaker 1: Pay our we were in the penalty box after the
- 26:08Speaker 1: Great Financial Crisis. But time to start paying back some money.
- 26:12Speaker 3: And they were.
- 26:13Speaker 1: But now Allison's suggesting maybe maybe putting the brakes on it.
- 26:15Speaker 1: Alison Williams jorians that she's a senior banks analyst for
- 26:18Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence. I know, Alison, you've got a research note
- 26:20Speaker 1: out today kind of talking about that issue.
- 26:22Speaker 3: So are their banks pulling back on their buybacks?
- 26:26Speaker 9: So I think the banks are taking applause. Hopefully the
- 26:29Speaker 9: strength that we saw in the first quarter is not
- 26:32Speaker 9: a one hit wonder. But what we had seen was
- 26:37Speaker 9: last year. At the June stress tests, we were sort
- 26:42Speaker 9: of surprised. Back in America, JP Morgan and City Group
- 26:47Speaker 9: were also surprised in terms of the results of that
- 26:49Speaker 9: test and pushing up their higher capital requirements. They pulled
- 26:55Speaker 9: back for a few quarters, shrunk their balance sheet, got
- 26:58Speaker 9: their capital ratios, return to buybacks. Wells Fargo also on
- 27:03Speaker 9: pause return to buybacks. Keep in mind they had some
- 27:06Speaker 9: huge legal expenses last year, still relating to some of
- 27:09Speaker 9: their historical issues. So first quarter we had better buybacks
- 27:15Speaker 9: than expected, sort of sort of almost across the board.
- 27:18Speaker 9: But now banks are taking a pause and there's a
- 27:21Speaker 9: few good reasons for that. One is higher capital is
- 27:25Speaker 9: coming requirements, so it's coming for the industry. Part of
- 27:29Speaker 9: that is due to the March turmoil. Part of that
- 27:32Speaker 9: is something we refer to as Basil three endgame, which
- 27:35Speaker 9: the banks have been waiting for for a long time.
- 27:38Speaker 9: So we have that. Nathan Dean thinks that, who's our
- 27:41Speaker 9: regulatory analyst, thinks that could be coming next week. And
- 27:45Speaker 9: then we had the stress tests again, and you know,
- 27:48Speaker 9: the issue is the stress tests set a buffer for
- 27:51Speaker 9: these banks based on the losses that they see and
- 27:54Speaker 9: the extent of the losses and the extent of the decline,
- 27:57Speaker 9: and we have a higher starting point for a home
- 27:59Speaker 9: price is we have a higher starting point for employment,
- 28:02Speaker 9: which means the decline is greater, and we could see
- 28:05Speaker 9: increases related to that test. So we think banks are
- 28:07Speaker 9: going to be conservative. And by the way, we have
- 28:10Speaker 9: an economy that we're very uncertain about.
- 28:13Speaker 5: So if we're more conservative when it comes to the
- 28:15Speaker 5: bank side of things, when it does come to buybacks,
- 28:18Speaker 5: does the broader stock market begin to lose a bit
- 28:21Speaker 5: of a pillar support there to prop it up.
- 28:24Speaker 9: So I think it probably depends across companies. You know,
- 28:30Speaker 9: the one but the one bank that we think really
- 28:33Speaker 9: has the potential toinuous, continuous strong bank. Well, I guess
- 28:37Speaker 9: there's two banks. There's Morgan Stanley, who really is more
- 28:41Speaker 9: of an asset and wealth manager at this point, but
- 28:43Speaker 9: then there's also Wells Fargo. And the reason why but
- 28:46Speaker 9: Wells Fargo is likely to continue buybacks is they don't
- 28:50Speaker 9: have a lot of other options because their bound cheat
- 28:54Speaker 9: growth is restricted, and they also maybe passed the worst
- 29:00Speaker 9: of those legal issues, So we have a special case there.
- 29:03Speaker 9: So you know, looking I think more broadly, and Gina
- 29:06Speaker 9: mar and Adams and her team does a lot of
- 29:08Speaker 9: work on this, but looking more broadly, if the environment
- 29:11Speaker 9: is weaker, does that open up the opportunity for buybacks broadly?
- 29:15Speaker 1: So, Allison, I mean, it seems like the banks are
- 29:18Speaker 1: finding themselves back in the doghouse a little bit from
- 29:20Speaker 1: a regulatory perspective. They it's been almost more than a
- 29:23Speaker 1: decade trying to you know, get themselves out of that
- 29:26Speaker 1: are for the Great Financial Crisis? Is it just because
- 29:28Speaker 1: a couple of regional banks couldn't manage interest rate risk?
- 29:32Speaker 9: So I think, yeah, I think there's a few things
- 29:34Speaker 9: going on there. I think for the for the biggest
- 29:36Speaker 9: banks that I cover, you know, we had sort of
- 29:40Speaker 9: gotten to this really strong period. Then the pandemic hit
- 29:44Speaker 9: that changed some things, and you know, I think that
- 29:49Speaker 9: the one thing that is really difficult to manage is
- 29:55Speaker 9: this process so that we have we've had stress tests
- 29:58Speaker 9: since the Financial crisis, but the process now is every
- 30:01Speaker 9: year we have a test and so every year your
- 30:04Speaker 9: requirement can change. So you're basically having to manage a
- 30:08Speaker 9: business for the long term to a target that moves
- 30:11Speaker 9: every year. And so I think that that is sort
- 30:13Speaker 9: of difficult, and it is set up so that you know,
- 30:17Speaker 9: the higher the starting point, right, the better things you are,
- 30:19Speaker 9: the more conservative you'll be with capital. And so that
- 30:22Speaker 9: was a little bit what I alluded to. That was
- 30:24Speaker 9: a little bit that we saw last year. But I
- 30:25Speaker 9: think that is definitely noise that it's introduced for And
- 30:31Speaker 9: Basil three endgame is another thing that has been coming
- 30:34Speaker 9: for a long time. I mean, you know, Paul that
- 30:37Speaker 9: the Basil three rules came out, I mean how long ago,
- 30:40Speaker 9: and we're still looking to finalize those from the crisis.
- 30:43Speaker 9: And for the regional banks, it is a few banks
- 30:48Speaker 9: that mismanaged risk. But the regulator's job is to say,
- 30:53Speaker 9: you know, could there have been something in place that
- 30:56Speaker 9: would have helped these these banks keep things online? Right,
- 31:01Speaker 9: So you know, sometimes rules are meant to protect someone
- 31:06Speaker 9: like the like the seatbelt law, and you know, the
- 31:09Speaker 9: largest banks have a lot of different regulations banks and
- 31:13Speaker 9: you know, in recent years some of those got rolled
- 31:16Speaker 9: back for sort of the next tier of banks. And
- 31:19Speaker 9: now I think regulators are looking at you know, maybe
- 31:21Speaker 9: that wasn't such a great.
- 31:22Speaker 5: Idea, Allison. As you know, whenever we talk about buybacks,
- 31:25Speaker 5: we also talk about dividends. What are you expecting and
- 31:28Speaker 5: could we see an increase in dividends this year.
- 31:30Speaker 9: So I do think that we will see for select banks,
- 31:34Speaker 9: so Wells Fargo again is one who during the crisis
- 31:37Speaker 9: cut their dividend. They were perhaps more a little too
- 31:41Speaker 9: aggressive before the crisis, just in terms of you know,
- 31:46Speaker 9: part of it is of provisions, which there was a
- 31:49Speaker 9: new accounting that makes that more volatile, legal issues more volatile.
- 31:53Speaker 9: But the bottom line is they're walking back that ratio,
- 31:57Speaker 9: moving that up a little bit, and so we think
- 31:59Speaker 9: that they could be a standout. For JP Morgan and
- 32:02Speaker 9: City Group, it was a real negative last year that
- 32:05Speaker 9: we saw flat dividends that we did not see an
- 32:08Speaker 9: increase again. I think we're going to have to see
- 32:12Speaker 9: what happens over the next month or so. But especially
- 32:16Speaker 9: in the case of JP Morgan generating significant capital, they're
- 32:19Speaker 9: going to beat their profitability targets this year. They did
- 32:22Speaker 9: do the first Republic acquisition that used up some of it.
- 32:26Speaker 9: Whereas for a City Group, I think, you know, they
- 32:28Speaker 9: still have a lot of balls in the air. They
- 32:31Speaker 9: have this IPO that's going to be pushed out now
- 32:33Speaker 9: versus the sale of the Bandamax unit, so they could
- 32:37Speaker 9: keep more on the conservative side.
- 32:39Speaker 1: So Alison, I feel like if I were a bank investor,
- 32:42Speaker 1: a banks investor, I think what I have to do
- 32:45Speaker 1: is just buy the best balance sheet. I can't take
- 32:47Speaker 1: any risk really because I just it just feels like
- 32:50Speaker 1: the pendulum is starting to swing back again against the banks.
- 32:53Speaker 9: I think in general, for banks, you want to buy
- 32:56Speaker 9: the biggest risk manager, right because there are you know,
- 33:00Speaker 9: there's a lot of things you don't know, and it's
- 33:03Speaker 9: you want to be with the team that is sort
- 33:07Speaker 9: of looking at their portfolio of businesses and their portfolio
- 33:09Speaker 9: of risk and managing those risks effectively. Because in general,
- 33:15Speaker 9: financial stocks, you know that all stocks, we know that
- 33:20Speaker 9: the saying goes to, you know, buy into the fear
- 33:25Speaker 9: financial stocks certainly you know fit that. Again, I'm not
- 33:30Speaker 9: making that recommendation since we don't do that at Boomberg.
- 33:33Speaker 9: I'm just saying, like, you know, there's a saying out there,
- 33:35Speaker 9: and certainly financial stocks, you know, when there's fear, people
- 33:39Speaker 9: become very uncertain, right, They become uncertain about the unknowns,
- 33:42Speaker 9: the no nonnwns, unknown nonnwns, and so you really just
- 33:47Speaker 9: want to have someone at the helm and you want
- 33:50Speaker 9: to invest in the bank at the helm who can
- 33:53Speaker 9: manage those risks.
- 33:54Speaker 5: Accordingly, we only have about a minute left. I know
- 33:57Speaker 5: you focus more when it comes to the big banks
- 33:59Speaker 5: instead of the regionals, But where are you looking right
- 34:01Speaker 5: now for any sort of red flags. Obviously have gotten
- 34:04Speaker 5: a couple months out of those bank stresses that we
- 34:06Speaker 5: saw in March.
- 34:07Speaker 8: I think you know that.
- 34:09Speaker 9: So we had some of the surprises, and granted there
- 34:12Speaker 9: were idiosyncratic risks, but these are broad issues. So the
- 34:17Speaker 9: cost of deposits, you know, the funding is going up,
- 34:21Speaker 9: and commercial real estate I think is something that's well
- 34:24Speaker 9: known in the market. So I think we have sort
- 34:27Speaker 9: of a lot of the red flags out there, and
- 34:30Speaker 9: especially with regional banks, you know, with the pricing that
- 34:33Speaker 9: they're they're at, they're they're pricing in a lot of risso,
- 34:37Speaker 9: you know, and maybe another way of looking at it is,
- 34:39Speaker 9: you know, what could be the opportunities Fixed income trading
- 34:44Speaker 9: I think is one area that will continue to benefit
- 34:47Speaker 9: and it's when you look across these banks. You know,
- 34:52Speaker 9: granted markets were very difficult last year. Banking fees, as
- 34:56Speaker 9: we know, our down all up, but trading is a
- 34:58Speaker 9: big source of revenue and some of these capital markets
- 35:01Speaker 9: banks could still continue to benefit from that area.
- 35:04Speaker 3: All right, Alison, thank you very much.
- 35:06Speaker 1: As always, love getting your thoughts there on the big banks,
- 35:09Speaker 1: Allison Williams. She's a senior analyst covering all the banks
- 35:13Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Intelligence. He's also the director of Research for
- 35:16Speaker 1: the US for Bloomberg Intelligence.
- 35:21Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can
- 35:24Speaker 2: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever
- 35:28Speaker 2: podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter
- 35:32Speaker 2: at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three.
- 35:34Speaker 3: And I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
- 35:37Speaker 1: Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at
- 35:39Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.