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AppHarvest CEO on Sustainable Infrastructure · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm very excited about
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: this next guest for a number of reasons. Um Number one,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I've always wanted to be a farmer, and it seems
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: like I'm getting a little closer with new technology. Number two,
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  Speaker 1: I'm from Ohio. He's from Kentucky, and I feel like,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of states that are next door
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  Speaker 1: to each other have rivalries. I think Ohio and Kentucky
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  Speaker 1: really compliment each other well. Dwight Yoakum was from Kentucky.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: He moved to Ohio. You know, Sturgill Simpson was from Kentucky.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: He moved to Ohio. Uh and a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: have moved the other way around as well. Jonathan Webb
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  Speaker 1: joins us right now, founder and chief executive of app
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  Speaker 1: harvest Um, which so Jonathan set us set us up
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: as to what your company does as far as I
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  Speaker 1: understand it, you basically are bringing tech into farming and
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  Speaker 1: really solving some E s G problems as far as
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  Speaker 1: food waste is concerned as well. Yeah, Paul Matt, thanks
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  Speaker 1: for having me. And yeah, I'm a huge Sturtle Simpson fan.
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  Speaker 1: And uh yeah, heth Kentucky and Ohio. What well, that's right,
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  Speaker 1: and we're talking to all those East Kentucky artists now
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  Speaker 1: about this. But um, yeah, I've been in d C
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  Speaker 1: the past couple of days talking with senators on both
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  Speaker 1: sides of the aisle, and and what we've messaged is,
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  Speaker 1: you know, controlled environment agriculture is it's inevitable. It's really
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the third wave of sustainable infrastructure. You look, twenty years
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  Speaker 1: ago was renewable energy the world finally caught on. Ten
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: years ago it was electric vehicles the world finally caught on.
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  Speaker 1: Uh And right now you can look at the you know,
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  Speaker 1: at the US, and we are incredibly vulnerable as it
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  Speaker 1: relates to food security in this country. You know, calif
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  Speaker 1: Ornia drought stricken, wildfires, the southwest of the US is
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  Speaker 1: drying up. CBS just did a big piece on the
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  Speaker 1: Colorado River drying up. You know, I'm standing in coal
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  Speaker 1: country eastern Kentucky. And we've talked about mining fossil fuels
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  Speaker 1: for decades. What we've not talked about is we're mining
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  Speaker 1: our water. We're we're extracting our water, uh to a
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  Speaker 1: point to where you know, our our awkwifers are not refilling,
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  Speaker 1: so app harvest. We're building some of the world's largest
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  Speaker 1: controlled environment agriculture facilities. We grow a fruit and fruit
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  Speaker 1: and vegetable with nine less water and get thirty times
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  Speaker 1: more more yield breaker uh, using technology. So Jonathan described
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  Speaker 1: for us, or explain to us, what is a controlled
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  Speaker 1: environment agriculture? Yeah, so I think of you know, anything
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  Speaker 1: you grow indoors and control the environment. So I'm thinking
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: about weed by the way, I'm thinking just about marijuana basically.
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  Speaker 1: But well, well that that that has helped push the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: industry technology wise forward. You look at LED lights, yeah, hydroponics,
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  Speaker 1: you know, climate control, humidity controls. So you know, there's
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  Speaker 1: several companies out there were one of them, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: I personally don't see anybody as competition. This problem is
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  Speaker 1: so big, uh. We as as you know, the US
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  Speaker 1: are not nearly moving fast enough. Uh. The U n
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  Speaker 1: is predicted we need fifty to seventy more food by
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  Speaker 1: twenty fifty, and we would need to planet Earth's the
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  Speaker 1: way we currently grow that food. We've got to use
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  Speaker 1: technology to grow more food with less resource. The point
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  Speaker 1: being you can grow a lot of other stuff besides weed.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is not a little pineapple express barn.
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  Speaker 1: You're talking about big indoor farming operations that can feed masses. Right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's right. And and no, we're we're growing fruits
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  Speaker 1: and vegetables. We're definitely not growing the other stuff. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: We're we're growing fruits and vegetables. But yeah, it's we're
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: at scale. It's massive. So to put this in perspective,
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  Speaker 1: our first facility in Morehead, Kentucky is two point eight
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  Speaker 1: million square feet UH sixty acres under glass. One of
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  Speaker 1: the largest facilities under construction in the world in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of COVID is what we built here in Kentucky.
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  Speaker 1: We have four more facilities under construction. Uh. We just
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  Speaker 1: went public on the NASDAC under a p p H
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  Speaker 1: and raised five million dollars to build out our series
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  Speaker 1: of of indoor UH facilities here here in eastern Kentucky.
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  Speaker 1: So Jonathan explained to me your business per se, do
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  Speaker 1: you go to existing farmers and say, let us kinda
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  Speaker 1: help you get to the future. What what what is
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  Speaker 1: exactly your day to day business? Well, unfortunately, the American
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  Speaker 1: farmers already lost to Mexico. And when I've met with
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  Speaker 1: everybody on Capitol Hill last week, that's what we were
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  Speaker 1: talking about. We implore most of our fruit and vegetables
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  Speaker 1: from Mexico because the US is slowly shutting down for
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and vegetable production. So you know, our competition really an
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  Speaker 1: app harvest, it's it's the imports from Mexico. Four billion
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  Speaker 1: pounds of tomatoes were imported from Mexico last year. That
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  Speaker 1: was nearly one point two billion pounds about fifteen years ago.
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  Speaker 1: So we're app Harvest is building the facilities, we're operating
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  Speaker 1: the facilities. We're selling the Windy's, Walmart, Kroger, uh, some
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  Speaker 1: of the so we're selling directly to some of the
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  Speaker 1: largest grocers and retailers who see the vulnerability and their
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: supply chain. How hard is it to get the human
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you've got the tech side covered and robotics
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  Speaker 1: I know are all are all up and working there
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  Speaker 1: as well, but you still need humans to pick the crop, right,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you get strawberries off the vine?
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  Speaker 1: You've got to have people working. Well, we have robotic harvesters,
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  Speaker 1: but we have a lot of people. And look, I'm
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  Speaker 1: in I'm in eastern Kentucky. I don't think cause I'm
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  Speaker 1: from the state here and I love this state. But
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  Speaker 1: we had some of the hardest working men and women
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  Speaker 1: in the US powering or coal mines for the Industrial
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Revolution and on we hired five for I watched the
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  Speaker 1: news every day. People say people didn't want to work,
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  Speaker 1: and I laugh. We had eight thousand people apply to
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  Speaker 1: work at this company, five hundred and fifty people working now.
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  Speaker 1: So we have a workforce here that's going to drive
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  Speaker 1: high tech forward for the years to come in Eastern Kentucky.
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  Speaker 1: That's a great story. Johnson Webb, founder and chief executive
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  Speaker 1: officer from app Harvest. All right, Matt. When I went
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: on my West Coast marketing trip when I was the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: South Side analysts, and you go to l A, you
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: have to have to lockdown meetings and then you can
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  Speaker 1: book the rest of the day. In l A, one
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  Speaker 1: was Capital Group and the other was Trust Company of
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the West t c W. Just monsters Today, we're joined
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  Speaker 1: by Brian Whalen, Group Managing Director for TCWS Fixed Income Group.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And why did I have to get that meeting? Two
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  Speaker 1: and fifty three billion dollars in assets under management? Brian,
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  Speaker 1: thanks so much for plus the nicest guys. Yeah, my
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: my media guy on the equity I was a great
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: guy and I still keep in touch with them. So um,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: always a fun meeting to go to to see the
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  Speaker 1: folks at tc W Bryant. I'm looking at the ten
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  Speaker 1: year here, I got one point four four percent. If
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  Speaker 1: I'm a fixed income geek, and I say that nicely?
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  Speaker 1: Uh like you where do I go to get some yield? Boy? Well,
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  Speaker 1: first of all, thank you for the nicest introduction I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: think I've ever heard. Um. Yeah, you know it's pretty hard.
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  Speaker 1: I mean you talked about the tenure at one point
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  Speaker 1: four or five percent. That doesn't seem to line up
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: with you know, equities at the all time highs and
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: you know, and there's a story behind that, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: looking for yield, I mean, look, you know, within fixed income,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to define the high yield bond market, generally speaking, the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: highest type of yield you can get three point seven
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: five I mean that that's what you get for generic
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: hi yield portfolio. So, um, the FED has uh you know,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and the fiscal side of things has done their job
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to flood the economy with money, uh, you know, suppressed
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  Speaker 1: interest rates and have you know, investors scrambling to to
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  Speaker 1: put any type of yielding their portfolio sometimes, I think,
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  Speaker 1: regardless of of the risk they're they're they're taking on
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  Speaker 1: the underlying credits. So what's going on? Um, why are
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  Speaker 1: we seeing yields dumped down to now? And how does
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  Speaker 1: this turn around? If not the FEDS hawkish you know, uh,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: change in tone, you know, I think first I'd say, remember,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we don't have a US capital markets, we
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: have a global capital markets. And you think about the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: things going on around the world right now. So first
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: of all, you know, obviously the what's been leading the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: news and the economy and the markets for a year
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  Speaker 1: and a half now is COVID and we've got the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: delta variant going around and while we may have not
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: really see it here so much, it is affecting other
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  Speaker 1: parts of the world. Um. Also, remember that you know,
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  Speaker 1: one point four or five percent sounds really low to
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  Speaker 1: you and I you look at the developed world out there,
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  Speaker 1: one point four looks really cheap. You know, maybe Australia,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: New Zealand, places like Singapore slightly higher. But you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: you go to Germany, you go to Switzerland, you go
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to Japan, you're talking about a ten year yield of
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  Speaker 1: zero or less, you know, minus twenty five basis points.
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  Speaker 1: And then you know, back back here to the US,
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  Speaker 1: I think, and you focus on the fundamentals. One. I think,
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  Speaker 1: you know, investors are starting to you know, realize that
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  Speaker 1: the economy, you know, it may not accelerate in the
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: second half of the year as quickly, you know, as
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  Speaker 1: they were anticipating. Instead of adding a million jobs a month,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to add maybe six D seven hundred thousand
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a month, so that might be slower. Uh. And then
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  Speaker 1: you know, finally, most recently, you know, the Fed, the
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  Speaker 1: Fed just told us, you know, I said, look, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we may let inflation run hot for a little while,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: but we're not ready to turn in our inflation fighting batch. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And so that's why you saw, you know, you saw
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  Speaker 1: this flattener, you saw its long end rates come down,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: you know, as the Fed kind of let everyone know that,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you know, they're not going to let inflation get out
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: of hand or they're gonna try not to. And you
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: saw short end rates go up, meaning that you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the market just started the price a slightly higher probability
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that the Fed may move a little bit sooner with
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: regards to interest rates than the market was expecting just prior.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: So do you put all this together and then a
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: few other factors, and I think it does explain why
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: we're under one. Dude, you had me at negative twenty
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  Speaker 1: points on the BUND. I got you cheap now right, yeah,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: exactly so. But my question then, and I just want
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to get your take on this. The dollar is important
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: then if I'm a euro investor, you know, UM and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the US. You know, from the perspective of a German,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the US budget is like out of control, you know GDP,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that's very on Deutsch. Is that does that bother you
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: at all? I think I think that's a problem for
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: another day, to quite honest with you. You know, we
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: could go on and on about the levels of debt
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: in the economy on the corporate side and as you said,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: on the fiscal side, and the long term ramifications for
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the dollar and whether that will retain a reserve currency
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: or whether others will kind of share that that that title.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I think in the you know, short term, intermediate time horizon,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: given what the Fed just said, you know, the dollar
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: looks fairly stay able lift not will continue to strengthen
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a bit versus these other currencies. And we've seen that
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: reflecting the bond market, you know, almost it feels like
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: for for months now, you know, you come into you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you wake up in the United States and you hear
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: about all this buying of US bonds, whether they be
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: treasuries or corporate bonds from overseas because of just like
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: we talked about before the tenure, just how cheap they look.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: You know, Remember, we're not just starve for yield. The
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: globe is starf for yield. And every night these investors
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: from un from outside the U S. They come in
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: their poor dollars in here because even when you adjust
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: for the currency, it's still the best place to find
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: some yield. I feel you, Brian, thank you so much
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: for joining us. Brian Whale and there group managing director
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Fixed Income and portfolio manager at TCW talking to us
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: about what's going on in markets. By the way, as
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: he was talking, I saw the yen. UM, Well, the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: dollars jump against the end. You can now buy a
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: hundred ten yen for your dollar. Let's get over to
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Everett Millman. He's apprecially med medals specialist with Gainesville Coins.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: He's gonna talk to us about commodities even more broadly.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: We'll get into copper and bitcoin as well, but I
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: want to focus it on gold first. Everett, good morning,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. UM. Why is gold not
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: performing the way? UM? Well, look, we've got rates that
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: are coming down, which I would think means gold goes up.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: The ten year over the last three months goes from
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: one seventy five to one forty five, and we're seeing
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: gold UM that has done a whole lot of nothing
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: at seventeen sixty three. What's what gives? Right? I think
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: part of that is that risk appetite seems to be
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: elevated right now. That's siphoning off some of the normal
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: saife haven demand for gold. But also we're seeing seasonality
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: kind of return to normal for the gold market. The
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: summer months are almost always unkind to gold, and the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: only reason that hasn't been reflected in the price the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: past two years years is some unprecedented circumstances with the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: early stages of the pandemic in tw and some fluctuations
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: in the rebo market in twenty nineteen, So I think
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that's one of the main factors. And also, as you
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: pointed out, with rates um, I think this is a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: knee jerk reaction and overreaction even to the hawkishness by
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the Fed, because if you look at the tenure yield,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it actually fell in response to that, And with inflation rising,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that means that real rates, the federal funds rate minus
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the rate of inflation, is still rather negative. So you
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: would expect that to be a favorable environment for gold.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But I think that risk sentiment and kind of the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: summer doldrums of seasonality are the main factors holding back
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: gold right now. Everard, I wonder if you know bitcoin
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: has is having an impact on how gold is trading.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: You know, the smart folks around crypto are trying to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: convince me that a bitcoin is a store of value,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of typically how folks have you gold?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: How do you think bitcoin is impacting, if at all,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: kind of how how gold is trading. I do tend
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to agree that it is drawing away some of that
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: store of value appeal of gold into the crypto market,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: as it's essentially the most appealing alternative to the dollar
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: right now. And although we have seen the dollar been rising,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that's been reflected in the bitcoin price that we've had
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: this significant pullback. But as you pointed out at the beginning,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that gold have been kind of moving sideways, hasn't done
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a whole lot. We don't often see that from bitcoin.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: The volatility is certainly a feature of bitcoin, and I
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: think that appeals a lot to most investors that if
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: they want to get some exposure to something that is
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: anti dollar or outside of the dollar, then they'd rather
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: have that greater upside with something like bitcoin rather than gold,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: which is fundamental, more boring and sort of a conservative investment. Also,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: bitcoin maybe a little bit easier to use in the catastrophe,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you know. I like, uh the idea of both because
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to some post apocalyptic world when all
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: we have is gold, guns, and water. Right, But you're
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: not going to get a hundred cents on the dollar
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: for your gold and bitcoin. You can just zap over
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to somebody else, isn't it you know? In the end
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: days going to be easier to use digital currency. That's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a fascinating point, and I do agree that I think
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: a little bit of both is ideal because although it's
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: true that the digital nature of bitcoin makes it much
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: more easy to use in those situations. Um, if we're
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: talking about kind of a a end of time scenario,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: you would think that some of our digital Internet capabilities
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: would perhaps be offline. So I think that the physical
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: nature of gold sort of is the backup plan for that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Could be a red dawn, could be a red dawn
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: kind of moment, you know, when the Soviets invade and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: occupy the US and we all have to huddle up
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: with our teenage friends in the Colorado Mountains. Who knows?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Who knows? What could it happened? Yeah? Every aside from gold,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: give it. Where where do you see the best I
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: guess value or opportunities here in the precious metal space? Well,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the precious metals I think are sort of mixed right now.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Silver seems to be tracking gold, but it is much
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: more sensitive to the industrial metals, to what's going on
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: in the broader economy. And although we have seen um
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: some encouraging manufacturing numbers, particularly in Japan and Germany. UM.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: These potential setbacks with the delta variant of the coronavirus
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: may kind of crimp that potential UM, although it's considered
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: a semi precious metal. I'm also looking at copper because
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: some of the UH impediments, some of the roadblocks to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: hire copper demand that we've seen are are pretty well understood.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: The crackdown in China where Beijing and is limiting its
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: exposure to UM, commodity inflation, and also in the housing market,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the fact that new home sales are dropping. That's a
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: major source for copper demand. But UM Chile is far
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and away the world's number one producer of copper, and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: right now their legislature is considering legislation that would impose
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: pretty steep taxes on their copper miners. So if that
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: were to come to pass, it is estimated that about
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a one million metric tons of copper output from Chile
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: would be in doubt. So on the supply side, I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: think that UM copper does have some potential headwinds, and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that these supply concerns would mean that prices won't fall
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: quite as far as many are as expecting. All right, ever,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: thank you so much. We always appreciate chatting with you,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: getting in getting the latest on precious metals. Everett moment,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: he's a precious metal specialist at Gainesville. All coins, Let's
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: talk tech, Let's talk cybersecurity, chip shortages, all that good stuff.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Nicola Marini, chief technical officer for e Y, joins us. Uh, Nicola,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us here. Love to get
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on I'm thinking cybersecurity. We've seen a lot
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: of ransomware hacks, and I was just going to ask
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: myself it doesn't Corporate America or just the C suite
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in general get it that they need to spend money
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to protect their systems. What's the latest? Yeah, so, hi,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Hi guys, good morning. It's great to be here. Thank
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: you for having me. Uh yeah, exactly. I think it's
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a very bizarre situation. I said, on one side, you know,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: cybersecurities on the front page everywhere, right, and then on
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the other hand, we're not seeing, uh, the same type
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of reaction intense of the prioritization of of investment for cybersecurity.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: So I would summarize it as a sort of you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: on one side that is alarmed, you know, exact to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: be almost panic in some some elements and as well
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, with subt of the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: important it's a sense of resignation and say, you know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: this is something that sooner or later it's going to
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: happen to us, and we're gonna sit and wait. So
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: we had done, for example, a survey very recently, and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: we see that, you know, for s the CEOs that
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: we have interviewed, you know, day sacience technology is I consider,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: you know, the base of the future growth. And at
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the same time, only one third of the same CEO
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: ce cybersecurity as as a top priority. So it's kind
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: of puzzling. Well, I guess the ransomware attacks are the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: alarm sounding and and and maybe they're gonna start ramping
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: up spending. By the way, I love Ernst and Young.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: The word for the business that you're in in German
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: is vietshaft's proofunk's gazelle shaft Vshaft's proofunks gazelle shaft. That's
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: one word, thirty two letters. I just thought it was
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: probably I didn't know that it's a professional services is auditing, taxes,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: financials all rolled up into one. And obviously e Y
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: is one of the biggest in the globe and you
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: know you advise businesses from mining to real estate tech,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: you vice finance and government and automotive, the automotive industry.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask a little bit about the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: chip shortage. Um, this affects more than just cars obviously,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: but they're most important to me. How soon do you
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: expect companies to be able to solve this issue? Yeah,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I think the time a rising is still probably between
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: one and two years. Still, uh, the because the systemic issues, right,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: that actually led to that problems almost like a perfect
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: storm of I think a little bit of an obsolete
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: way of planning, right, very localized for for some companies
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: where they look at the supply chain in components versus
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: looking at the supply chain a systemic as a system.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And so that led to you know, compound with the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: pandemic maybe you know, very conservative estimates around potential growth
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: excess that they all contributed to a massive, massive clock.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: This is one almost in a lifetime, you know, a
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: case study for for food planning any way, So explain
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to us the nicol of the you know, digital twin
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: concept and how that might be impactful here. So we
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: think its p what are digital twins. Yes, So the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: digital twin is expectively like a the digital representation of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a system, right, And so it started with dirt in
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the manufacturing space where you know, you could build For example,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I think a General Electric was one of the first
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: ones to actually launch the concept where they were able
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to build the turbine in a in a computer simulation
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and so using that you can understand, you know, what
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: are the impacts of changes in some of the variables
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: that this particular system was experiencing it. So if you
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: take the concept, then you're actually evolved it from a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: very specific sub atomics right into the whole system. I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: think you'll be able to capture, you know, the signals
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: that you're saying in the system itself and be able
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to react even if you don't know exactly how things
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: will play out. But the ability through technology and the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: gathering on data to understand the correlation across the variable
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: state of seeing and how they're evolving time, I think
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: at least raises those red flags that in the case
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of the ship shortage and nobody has seen coming, what's
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the what's the competition? Like, I'm always interested to hear
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: about the Big Four and you guys are truly the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: heavyweights of the world. What's it like coming out of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: COVID competing with the likes of KPMG, pw C, the
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Lloyd An Y. Yeah, it's a it's a fierce competition.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: But you know, I think you're saying, actually very strong
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: growth across across the world for for the professional services business. Okay,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: so lots of new things happening and in a very
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: dynamic world, driving new regulation. Your saying, since so, John
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: is an evolution of the marketplace. I think that is
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: U is the rewarding right And Nicola, thanks so much
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: for joining us. Really appreciate Nicola Marini, chief Technical Officer
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: for Why thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at Matt Miller. Yet on ball Sweeney, I'm
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.