Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / China's Debt Poses Much Greater Threat Than Trade

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China's Debt Poses Much Greater Threat Than Trade · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Penel Podcast. I'm Paul Sweene. You,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: along with my co host Lisa Brahma Waits, each day
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  Speaker 1: we bring you the most noteworthy and useful interviews for
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  Speaker 1: you and your money. Whether at the grocery store or
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  Speaker 1: the trading floor. Find a Bloomberg penl podcast on Apple
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  Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as
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  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com. Seeking with bond markets and also
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  Speaker 1: just markets in general. I'm very pleased to say John
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Authors joining us right now, joining us from our Bloomberg
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Interactive Broker Studios. John Author, Senior editor for Bloomberg Markets. John,
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  Speaker 1: I want to talk about at least start with a
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  Speaker 1: Bank of America Maryland February Fund Manager survey that came
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  Speaker 1: out this morning that showed, for the first time ever
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  Speaker 1: in the history of this survey, UH investors thought that
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  Speaker 1: long emerging markets is the most crowded trade. Yes, what
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  Speaker 1: do you think that? I find it somewhat surprising. I
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  Speaker 1: think it's probably got something to do with the country
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  Speaker 1: of the blind. The one night Man is king um
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  Speaker 1: on the basis of valuation, plainly, lots of people I
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  Speaker 1: have to admit myself included. I've been making a point
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  Speaker 1: for a long time that yes, emerging markets do indeed
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  Speaker 1: look cheap UM. And the thing that bothers me about
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  Speaker 1: this and why I suspect the people are talking to
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  Speaker 1: be of a m l as as by saying it's
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  Speaker 1: not popular but crowded, is that so much of it
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  Speaker 1: realies on on the dollar. If you have a week dollar,
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  Speaker 1: then this is a really good trade. I did just
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  Speaker 1: check the numbers. The JP Morgan Emerging Markets Effects Index
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  Speaker 1: is the most sort of popular agglomeration of being diseases,
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  Speaker 1: up about five from a crushing horrific low set last fall.
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  Speaker 1: It's still about one above its nady air or nadier
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  Speaker 1: depending on which side of the Atlantic you are. That
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  Speaker 1: it was that it sets early in twenty sixteen in
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  Speaker 1: that very serious growth scared that we had at the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of surrounding China. Uh. Plainly, there's a long way
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  Speaker 1: to recover, but there is still quite a lot of
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  Speaker 1: faith put in UM in the fits to be as
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  Speaker 1: dubbish as it said it was recently, and in the U.
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  Speaker 1: S economy to continue to push the help push the
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  Speaker 1: dollar up. So, John, what else do you think this trade?
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  Speaker 1: This emerging markets trade getting crowded. Does that reflect you
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  Speaker 1: think investors, I guess sentiment that some trade deal with
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  Speaker 1: China will be achieved, tensions will come down, and that
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  Speaker 1: will help EM across the board. I mean, it's certainly
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  Speaker 1: the case that UM people are working on the assumption
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  Speaker 1: that the single most likely scenario is that some kind
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  Speaker 1: of a deal is reached because it's in the interests
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  Speaker 1: of both sides to do so. I think you do, however,
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  Speaker 1: have to call into question whether I'm not saying that
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  Speaker 1: the president done to his team are cynics, but they
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  Speaker 1: have to ask themselves. This goes back to the West Wing,
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  Speaker 1: which I've been binge watching while I wasn't terribly well
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  Speaker 1: over Christmas. The the the whether he wants an issue
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  Speaker 1: or a victory. If he wants an issue, maybe he
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  Speaker 1: pushes ahead and lets uh and and we actually get
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  Speaker 1: a ratcheting up of the trade confrontation with China. I
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  Speaker 1: don't think. I certainly think there is. And this is
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  Speaker 1: one of the points that that that you know that
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  Speaker 1: that the Trump supporters make often and I think it's
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  Speaker 1: probably correct, is that if you want to get China
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  Speaker 1: at a point of weakness, this is the best time
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  Speaker 1: to try to raise this point in quite a long time.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting to me. You talked about the dollar, right,
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  Speaker 1: and then we brought up the trade issue and a
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  Speaker 1: deal with China, which is more important. The thing that
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  Speaker 1: matters most um by far, I think is the underlying
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  Speaker 1: health of China. Uh and everything else is a symptom
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  Speaker 1: of ratchets off it. I like that you say that, because,
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  Speaker 1: in other words, you're not You're not going to just
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  Speaker 1: say trade and some kind of trading room, because that's
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  Speaker 1: kind of facile when it comes to Chin to slow
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  Speaker 1: down in the economy, which goes deeper and had it
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  Speaker 1: was sort of they're regardless. Not so long since the
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  Speaker 1: outgoing head of the People's Bank of China said, are
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  Speaker 1: we going to have a Minsky? We've got to be careful.
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  Speaker 1: We don't have a Minsky moment in China for the
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  Speaker 1: head of a central bank to use language like that.
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  Speaker 1: For readers, the most of the readers old newspaper man
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  Speaker 1: for listeners out there, For listeners out there, I'm still
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  Speaker 1: getting better for listeners out there, a Minsky moment. The
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  Speaker 1: last time we had a Minsky moment was when Lehman
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  Speaker 1: brothers went down. A Minsky moment is a catastrophic loss
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  Speaker 1: of confidence in debt. Uh central bank governors never ever
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  Speaker 1: ever speculate in public about whether there's going to be
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  Speaker 1: a Minsky moment to except the head of the second
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  Speaker 1: most important central bank in the planet did do so
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  Speaker 1: not so long ago. Uh So that's still, it seems
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  Speaker 1: to me, is the greatest concern. There's a very there's
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  Speaker 1: a cartoon that has done. It's done the rounds of
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  Speaker 1: social media many times from HEDGEI where you've seen this,
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  Speaker 1: say this, this guy on a on a on a
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  Speaker 1: the boat from Jaws pointing at this rather pathetic little
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  Speaker 1: shark going with tariffs written on it, shouting shark. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: this giants octopus is surrounding the boat with its tentacles
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  Speaker 1: and pulling it down, and the octopus is marked Chinese economy.
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  Speaker 1: And that I think I've seen that brought up by bulls,
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  Speaker 1: by bears, by people who pathologically hate China, by people
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  Speaker 1: of perma bullish on China. That is ultimately where it is.
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  Speaker 1: I think trade barring real stupidity and nobody given what's
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  Speaker 1: going on back at home, we can't rule that out
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  Speaker 1: by in real stupidity. I don't think trade is as
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  Speaker 1: big a deal as whether China can somehow or other
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  Speaker 1: deal with this huge amount of credit it's got outstanding.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: You mentioned home. I'm assumming that's not New Jersey or
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  Speaker 1: Long Island. Give us twenty seconds on what you think
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  Speaker 1: the latest is on Brexit. The latest I think the
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  Speaker 1: most significant thing that Theresa May said today was that
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  Speaker 1: she thinks it's not going to take them the three
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  Speaker 1: weeks that had it had been thought it would take
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  Speaker 1: to clear any deal that's voted by Parliament. She says
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that it's possible to put it through on a fast track,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: which basically means that she thinks she can wait literally
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: until one week before Britain is due to leave and
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: put it to a vote. So we have the same
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  Speaker 1: tractic as before, which has always been to run out
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  Speaker 1: the clock, taken ever to ever greater extremes as we
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  Speaker 1: get to the end of the clock. So it's a mass. Basically, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it's high it's high risk poker and who will blink first,
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  Speaker 1: But it's a high risk poker game that's going to
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  Speaker 1: take you know, months, years. Well, thank you so much
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  Speaker 1: for being with us, John author A senior editor for
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Market Well, Netflix has certainly validated the pay streaming
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: video model, and now we've got a bunch of other
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: media companies, including Disney, following suit. One of the real
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: questions is is there an opportunity for a free streaming
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  Speaker 1: service and how can that be competitive in the marketplace.
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  Speaker 1: So to help us kind of answer that question, um
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  Speaker 1: joining us as Tara la Chapelle, Deals and media columnists
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Opinion. She joins us in New York here
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio and Sarah How'sick columnist
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg Opinion. She joins us in Washington, d C. Terrence, Sarah, welcome,
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  Speaker 1: uh ter, give us a sense of we we know
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  Speaker 1: how successful the Netflix of the world is. You pay
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  Speaker 1: your ten twelve bucks a month and you get all
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: this great content. Talk to us about the free streaming market.
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  Speaker 1: What are what are some of the opportunities there. So
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  Speaker 1: what we're seeing is sort of a bifurcation of this
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  Speaker 1: streaming market, and it's sort of nascent days where Disney
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  Speaker 1: and A T and T and the companies that think
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  Speaker 1: they have a lot of brand power and pricing power
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  Speaker 1: are basically trying to replicate Netflix with subscription video services
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  Speaker 1: of all different kinds. And then you have on the
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  Speaker 1: other side of the market the Roku channel to be
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  Speaker 1: Pluto TV, some names that may not be as well known,
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  Speaker 1: but they're generating a lot of subscribers, people that are
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: looking to save money their free streaming services, which in
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: media we know free just means AD supported. So you're
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  Speaker 1: the product and they're basically, you know, seeing that consumers,
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  Speaker 1: certain number of consumers are willing to tolerate ads and
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  Speaker 1: have a sort of I guess you would say mediocre
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  Speaker 1: service relative to like a Netflix or an HBO and
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  Speaker 1: be able to watch TV and not have to pay
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  Speaker 1: for cable and just pay their internet fees. So Sarah,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: come on in here to get a sense of some
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  Speaker 1: examples of how companies have gained market share substantially by
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  Speaker 1: a with this free approach while remaining solvent. Yeah. So
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  Speaker 1: I think that the e commerce world provides a really
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  Speaker 1: instructive example. Um, and this is a place where a
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  Speaker 1: lot of retailers have made the bet to that between
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  Speaker 1: when consumers are choosing between free shipping and fast shipping,
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  Speaker 1: that they're going to want to get it for free
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  Speaker 1: that they're going to want to save money. UM, and
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  Speaker 1: Amazon I think is the shining example of how this
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  Speaker 1: has paid off. That was a core promise of the
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  Speaker 1: Prime membership and how they brought people into that ecosystem
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  Speaker 1: to begin with was that people didn't want to have
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  Speaker 1: to pay for shipping on each transaction. And it's really
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  Speaker 1: interesting because an e commerce we've seen all this innovation
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  Speaker 1: around speed. We see same day delivery now even two
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  Speaker 1: hour and one hour delivery available in certain markets, but
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  Speaker 1: shoppers just remain wedded to free shipping. So in a
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  Speaker 1: survey that was conducted this holiday season by Deloitte can,
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  Speaker 1: sumers were asked which of the following two promises is
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  Speaker 1: more important to you in online shopping, free shipping or
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  Speaker 1: fast shipping. Of them chose free, So UM. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's a powerful example to the streaming world in that
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  Speaker 1: we've seen in e commerce consumers are willing to sacrifice
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  Speaker 1: speed in order to not pay money. And I think
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  Speaker 1: with TV we will see a cohort of consumers that's
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  Speaker 1: willing to sacrifice quality programming to not pay money. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I love how you guys kind of woven the whole
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  Speaker 1: concept of how people like free stuff free shipping and
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  Speaker 1: how important it's becoming into the content business because you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's a little bit counterintuitive just given how successful Netflix
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  Speaker 1: has been and even Hulu is having some success when
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  Speaker 1: their streaming in Amazon Prime, um tera. What kind of
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  Speaker 1: programming if I go to this type of service, Like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: let's take a look at Viacom. They just paid three
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  Speaker 1: forty million dollars for Pluto TV. If I were to
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: go onto Pluto TV or something like that, what kind
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of content am I going to find? Yeah, I mean
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: there's some channels you would recognize. I mean, I think
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg TV is on there. Um. But yeah, I mean
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  Speaker 1: you're not going to get everything. And I think that's
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  Speaker 1: the point. You know, some networks, like smaller network owners
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  Speaker 1: like Viacom and Discovery which now owns scripts. You know
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  Speaker 1: that we're kind of feeling a little a little bit
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  Speaker 1: left out of these higher costs uh O T T
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  Speaker 1: streaming products. We're looking to these free streaming options because
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you know, there's their shows do generate a lot of
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  Speaker 1: viewers um which are important to advertisers. And to the
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  Speaker 1: extent that you could have a free product supported entirely
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  Speaker 1: by advertising. You know that serves a certain segment of
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  Speaker 1: the market. I mean, the especially lower income consumers, which
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  Speaker 1: I would hazard to guess is maybe even a growing
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  Speaker 1: segment of the market, so to the extent that you're
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  Speaker 1: trying to reach those people in a world where this
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  Speaker 1: Balkanization of the TV industry is making these services expensive,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and everyone's having to think about, well, if
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I want HBO, I'm going to need a T and
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  Speaker 1: T S product, But I want Netflix, but I also
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  Speaker 1: want this other thing, and well, Tara, just to that point,
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  Speaker 1: I have to wonder, do we see people going to
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  Speaker 1: these free online streaming services in lieu of the cable giants,
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  Speaker 1: the cored types of services, or in lieu of Netflix.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: In other words, who's losing the business to these to
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: these sort of free online services. It's hard to know
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: right now, but I imagine that what we're seeing are
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: younger people or people looking to save money going to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: these free services, which means they likely have an Internet connection,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: maybe they still have cable, or maybe they have Netflix.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: But I did a survey recently, and you know, it
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: was only a hundred or so people, but it seems
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: like people really value Netflix. They don't value it enough
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to be willing to cut the cord and only have Netflix.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: They do want other things. So maybe a Netflix and
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a free live TV streaming service is a is a
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  Speaker 1: good little combination for some people. Um. And at the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: same time, they're also said that they're willing to pay
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: more than they already do for Netflix. The average response
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I got when I asked about that was nineteen dollars
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a month. There's a lot of value in Netflix. And
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: when I think about people trying to navigate this very jumbled,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: confusing marketplace and trying to save money, you know, Netflix
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  Speaker 1: is very simple and easy and that's sort of the
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  Speaker 1: beauty of it, and it's not very expensive. And then
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  Speaker 1: maybe you know, a free service is the way that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: you get your fixed with some reality TV shows. So, Sarah,
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  Speaker 1: what have you guys in your reporting got any sense
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: of the advertiser support for this product? Did the advertisers
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: view this as a viable place to put their dollars? Uh?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure Tera might be a better
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: equipped answer a question about where the advertisers are putting
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  Speaker 1: their dollars, but I do think that, Um, it's interesting
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the ripple effect of people's preferences for free control up
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: in ways you don't even expect, and I think that
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: will be important for the TV guys to keep in
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: mind too. So I think in e commerce, what we've
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: seen is this preference for free shipping has really driven
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: folks to click and collect services where you buy something
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: online and pick up in store. That's the most prominent
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: reason that people choose that, and then that ends up
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: providing this other opportunity for the retailer for what is
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: known as attachment spending, meaning typically when people come in
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: to pick up their online or they ended up buying
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: twenty to four dollars worth of stuff that they didn't
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: even realize they needed. Um. And so I think these
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  Speaker 1: these free programs had the opportunity to become something else
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: for these streaming services in the same way that they
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: did for e commerce. Tara just real quickly. I'm wondering,
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  Speaker 1: what about from the advertiser's perspective, are they willing to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: pay up on for some of these free services, given
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the fact that they funnel so much spending towards uh,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the amazons and the things. I mean, we've got to
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: see what kind of viewership these services get. I mean,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: it's still very early days. But I know via common
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: standpoint with this Pluto deal was that you know, they
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: have a telefay in Latin America, and you know, maybe
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: they could marry some of their Spanish language programming with Pluto,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: which has a younger audience, which has a big Hispanic audience,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and not a lot of advertisers are successfully targeting that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: right now in a very narrow way. So maybe this
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is an opportunity from an advertiser standpoint with this service.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So I think there's like unique ways that they're looking
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: at it and trying to meet those consumers that aren't
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the ones that are going to just pay for every
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: service out there and have you know, already have every
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: device and they've got an Xbox and they've got Apple TV.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of people that don't,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and so I think that's where maybe these mortgage products
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: are going for really really interesting column Thank you so
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: much for being with us, both of you, Tera La
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Chapelle Deals and media columnists Sarah HOW'SAC columnists covering the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: retail sector for Bloomberg Opinion. Both of you, thank you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: for being with us. Well, we are two days away
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: from Valentine's Day. The pressure is building to get that
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: right gift, and flowers always make the right gift for
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Valentine's Day. And who better to help us break down
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the business of the flowers than Chris McCann. And Chris
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: is president and CEO of one flowers dot com. Uh.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: He companies based on Long Island City, but he joins
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: us here in our Bloomberg eleven three studios. So, Chris,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: we are two days away from Valentine's Day, people always
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: fall back on that classic gift of flowers. How big
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: is Valentine's Day? That time period of Valentine's Day to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: your business? Every year? It's such an important day for
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: us because it's so important to our customers, and it's
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a nice spike for us. It's about ten percent of
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: out consumer floral segments annual business, but it's really only
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: less than five percent about total companies business because today
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: half of our businesses come from our gourmet food brands
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like Harry and David and Cheryl's Cookies and simply Chocolate.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: We really built the celebratory echo system. All right, Paul,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: are you buying flowers for your wife? I think I
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: might be buying flowers for my wife. What kind of
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: flowers are gonna be buying. Um, I'm not really sure.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe you know, Chris can give what's the most popular
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: flower rangement right now and not committing. He's also very
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: very traditional guy, so I'll recommend roses. I'll put a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: little spin. Trending this year is hot pink roses, So
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that's really wild. I'm wondering you mentioned about food. You know,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: is food becoming a more popular option chocolate, for example,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: over flowers, or is you know, as that mixed continue
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you just sort of more steadily skewed toward the food offerings. Well,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's instead of flowers. What we find
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: with food offerings, especially from our brands like Harry and David,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: are simply chocolate that they're big around the Christmas season
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and the complimentary to other gifts throughout the year. Okay,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: hold on a second. How much has the average spending
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: on Valentine's Day changed over time? I mean, are people
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: just going crazy and hog wild here? I hope? So
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I know we have a sense of, you know, what
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the direction is of the overall spending. Well and expects
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: it to be up about four or five percent this year,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: about a hundred and sixties six dollars on average Valentine celebration.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I hope most of that includes flowers and chocolates, but
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it's so it's expected to be up again this year,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: which is very nice. And what sixty hundred and sixty
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: six you're looking at me? Okay, interesting, Chris? So what
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: are you seeing? You know, you've been in this business
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: thirty years? Thirty five years? How is consumer? How's the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: consumer change? And how's the consumer perceives gift giving not
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: just Valentine's Day? How the trends changed across the board. Well,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: what we're just seeing is that the consumers are really
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: looking for ways to express, connect and celebrate. And then
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: this technological world that we live in, this interconnected world,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: we're looking to see how do we bring the human
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: back into the process more. And that's what we do
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: as a company, really to help you express yourself, that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: we deliver smiles on your behalf. Now you're using technologies
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: more and more to do that in all different forms,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: whether it be AI capabilities, whether it be voice computing capabilities, chatbots.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So that continues to change and that's our job. Make
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: it frictionless for you to express yourself, all right, So
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: one eight hundred flowers dot com is sort of an
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: example of how the world has changed in and of itself.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: One eight hundred of flowers is the telephone number. But
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: since telephones have got out of style, dot com is there.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: What is the proportion of online sales versus calls and
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: how has that shifted? So the one hundred flowers brand
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and some of our younger customers may not know what
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that means. Uh, really the numbers, the eight hundred is
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: often a toll free number you do not know. But
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: aboutent of that brand's business comes online, and when I
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: say online, more and more of that coming from mobile devices.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: More than half of our traffic this holiday is from
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: mobile devices. So talk to us about the supply of flowers.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Where do you get your flowers? How what's going on
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: with the cost of flowers? So I think about the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: business of one flowers, Your raw material costs, your cost
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: to get sold are flowers? What's going on there? So
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: it's very interesting in flowers as the raw material costs
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: really haven't gone up because of technology improvements on the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: supply chain over the last ten years, cost have remained stable,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: if not down a little bit, and we import product.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: A lot of the flowers come from South America, Columbia
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and Ecuador, so of logistics get better and better. But
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we're also seeing an increase in domestic production over the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: last ten years and more and more flowers being grown
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: domestically here in the US. I'm going to be such
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a debby downer. I'm gonna be made fun of this.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: For years. How has global warming affected that? Oh? No,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: we we haven't seen an effect on global warming on
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: our flour production even where you source them. Most of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the time it's sourced around the equator, which is hot
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to begin with. Uh So, I think we've been fine
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: on that side of it. All, Right, what's what's how
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: big are you guys versus? Just size out the market
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: for me. I don't know if it's US or global,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and how big are you guys in that market? So
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: we're about overall about one point two billion of the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: estimates that we'll do in revenue this year. We're growing
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: nicely with the leader in the floral category, where the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: leader in the gourmet food category, and now we're starting
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to expand into all the product categories as well, listening
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to our customers as to what products they will use
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to express, connect and celebrate. Thank you so much for
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: being with us. Chris McCann Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Valentine's
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Chris McGann as CEO of what eight hundred flowers dot com.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: So it looks like we have a border deal potentially,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: which suggests that the US government will potentially remain open.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: To get a sense of how the credit markets are
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: pricing in these developments, let's chat with our good friend
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Ira Jersey iras a chief US interest rate strategist from
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence. He comes to us from the phone from
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: bi's headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, or I assume it's
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: snowing down there, Ira, does the bond market to what
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: extent does the bond market care about what's going on
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: with the border deal and the shutdowns and all of
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the uncertainty. Yeah, hey, Paul, I'm actually in Washington, d C.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: This week to you know, get a sense of what
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: life is here on the ground in politics, and it
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: does look like that, you know, thanks, that some deal
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: is going to be uh is going to be done? Uh?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: You know that, I think for for fixed income markets
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and for even risk asset markets in general, UM markets
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: don't like uncertainty. And when you have a resolution to
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: something like this, and that's gonna be good for risk assets.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: You see equities up today, you see bond yields up today,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: so so bonds doing doing poorly. So that's that's the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: reaction that you'd expect from an optimistic set of circumstances
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: like like a deal. Um, I think what one thing
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: that I'll be looking for is does this deal also
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: include an extension of the debt ceiling? Because the debt
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: ceiling as we know, winds up expiring on on March one,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and then they the government will be able to use
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: extraordinary measures probably to get into the late summer, maybe
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: September October. It depends on a lot of variables. But um,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: but if that's done, then then you know, quite frankly,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: it's not something it's not a model that I like
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to to have to do all the time and worry
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: about whether or not we're going to see the fault
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: on the US debt, because that is something that is
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: completely man made and not not a UM, it's a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: political problem, it's not that's not a real economic problem.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I love that we can say in all seriousness, I
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: don't like modeling for us to fall to every two
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: weeks because it's just you know, especially since it's totally avoidable,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and this is sort of a serious discussion that is ongoing.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I want to pick up on what you're talking about,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: which is the debt ceiling negotiations that are imminent. Uh,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the latest on the government shutdown is that President Trump
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: still hasn't decided whether or not he'll support the bipartisan
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: congressional agreement, so we don't even know whether we actually
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: have staved off a government shutdown. Is the sign that
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: bonds are not selling off more, in other words, that
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: yields are not rising more and that stocks are not
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: ralling more. Is that a sign that investors are still
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: very concerned about the debt ceiling negotiations and that there
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: is a real risk being priced into the market that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: there could be some sort of more serious gridlock that
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: leads to another government shutdown. Well, I think I think
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: part of it is certainly is certainly the goings on
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: here in Washington. I think the the bigger question for
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the bond market right now is how well this is
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: going to impact confidence and ultimately the ultimately the outcome
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of the economy. You know, we we got some really
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: good data just twenty minutes ago with the Jolts data
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: showing that there's a lot of job openings, that there's
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you know, it seems like at least on the job front,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: things are good, but uh, there is I think a
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: lot of questions to how how confident both businesses and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: consumers are going to be with an environment that's as
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: politically contentious as we have today. Um, and this isn't
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the only the only thing that's that's worrying people, right,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: So even if we get a budget deal and we
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: you know, avoid to shut down, even if we get
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the debt limit uh done, then we still have a
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: lot of trade tensions that that people are going to
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: worry about. You are seeing some of that actually in
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: some of the data where you have seen some um
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: uh some real world data that's uh, that's showing that
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that's having an impact on global trade and and that's
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that's something I think that at least in the corporate
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: boardroom that you're going to have a lot of angst
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: about in the future if if it's not resolved, so
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you're you're done in Washington, d c Uh, I'm sure
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you're gonna wander up to the FED at some point.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But is I guess the consensus in the marketplace as
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: people you know, try to price in everything that's going
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: on in the market, economic, financial, geopolitical, is that the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: FED has you know, maybe one or two rate increases
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: for the remainder of the year combined with a steady
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: roll off of the balance sheet. Is there anything that
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: you've seen, data wise or just discussions with clients that
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: would lead you to believe that that's there's material risk
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: to that kind of scenario. Yeah, So it's so they're
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: going to be very data dependent, and I actually think
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that the um UH that that basically the level for
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: them to have to hike is they want to see
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: additional um UH, an additional inflation impulse. So our wage
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: growth that we're seeing at three and a half percent
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a year, is that going to translate into higher inflation
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: going forward? Um you know, it tends to. It tends
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to lead services inflation by a little by a little bit.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: So if you see an inflationary impulse, we think that
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: that's something that's going to be needed for um UH
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: for the FED to to hike again later this year.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're gonna hike before the third quarter. UM.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I think that they want to be data dependent. They
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: want to make sure that the economy is on stable
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: footing before they take any additional action. On the On
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the other side, if something gets to rail and say
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: equity markets fall another ten percent from here or something
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: like that, UM, that would be something where they would,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe be in more risk management mode, maybe
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: stop the FED to runoff, and then maybe even start
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to talk about cutting interest rates. All right, I read
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: thirty seconds here. I'm looking at ten ten year treasury
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: yields now at two point six eight percent. Where would
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: they be if we did not have the trade negotiation
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: tensions or the prospect of a government shutdown? Yeah, we
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: have fair value closer to three percent, and we actually
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: think that that over time will probably get back up there.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Again that that's our forecast for for year end is
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: three plus or minus a few basis wents. In other words,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: there's a discount of three tenths of one percentage point
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: UH that is being baked in due to the uncertainty
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: around some of these governments. It seems that way right now. Yeah,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: really interesting. I Red Jersey, thank you so much for
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: being with us. Our Jersey chief US interest rate strategist
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us from Washington, d C. Where
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: he's going to try to understand everything that's going on there,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and he'll report back and we'll all make sense of it,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and then it will be complete. Thanks for listening to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the Bloomberg pen L podcast. You can subscribe and listen
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. I'm
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Lisa abram Woits. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Bramwoits. One
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide. I'm
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio