Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Trump’s UN Address Targets Regime Change In Iran: Cohen
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg P and L Podcast. I'm Pim
- 0:08Speaker 1: Fox along with my co host Lisa A. Bramowitz. Each
- 0:11Speaker 1: day we bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful
- 0:14Speaker 1: interviews for you and your money, whether you're at the
- 0:17Speaker 1: grocery store or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg P
- 0:20Speaker 1: and L Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com.
- 0:30Speaker 1: Let's bring Ariel Cohen back in here, senior fellow at
- 0:32Speaker 1: the Atlantic Council. What stuck out to you? First of all,
- 0:37Speaker 1: this was a very strong message against what I would
- 0:44Speaker 1: call the globalists. Uh, this is the world of the
- 0:48Speaker 1: mosaic of independent nations. I think Steve Bannon would have
- 0:53Speaker 1: been proud of this speech. Um. The President is strengthening
- 0:59Speaker 1: the sovereignty against global government. He says, the United States
- 1:05Speaker 1: does not recognize the International Criminal Court, we will not
- 1:08Speaker 1: join the International the UN Compact, and refugees, et cetera.
- 1:14Speaker 1: He is not against cooperating with the United Nations, He
- 1:17Speaker 1: just wants America to do it on our own terms.
- 1:21Speaker 1: Arial Other topics include OPEC and oil prices, as well
- 1:27Speaker 1: as China and trade negotiations. I wonder if you could
- 1:31Speaker 1: comment on the relationship that the President is setting out
- 1:35Speaker 1: between the United States and OPEC as a organization that
- 1:40Speaker 1: he describes as controlling oil prices. Absolutely. I had the
- 1:46Speaker 1: privilege to testify before the US Congress on the legislation
- 1:50Speaker 1: called NOPECK no opec UH and this is something that
- 1:55Speaker 1: is encouraged by the White House. Apparently the President you
- 2:00Speaker 1: OPEC for what it is, the cartel that by opening
- 2:06Speaker 1: or closing this spigot can regulate the prices, and OPEC
- 2:10Speaker 1: is now expanding. Russia and Saudi Arabia are working closely together,
- 2:15Speaker 1: and this was interesting because he mentioned um the Russian
- 2:21Speaker 1: pipeline that goes into Germany, the natural gas pipeline, but
- 2:26Speaker 1: he did not mention Russia. Contrasted what was going on
- 2:29Speaker 1: in Germany and their energy policy with the energy policy
- 2:34Speaker 1: that exists in Poland. He spoke about how OPEC is
- 2:37Speaker 1: ripping off the rest of the world. Well, let's distinguish
- 2:41Speaker 1: between gas and oil. Russia is corporating with ope in
- 2:45Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia on oil. And it was interesting that he
- 2:49Speaker 1: mentioned Saudi Arabia amongst very few US allies. You mentioned India,
- 2:54Speaker 1: you mentioned Israel. No surprises here. He mentioned Poland which
- 2:59Speaker 1: is an important in the election with the ethnic and
- 3:02Speaker 1: Polish American vote. But he did mention Saudi Arabia as
- 3:06Speaker 1: an ally at the same time nashing OPEC and Saudia,
- 3:10Speaker 1: of course is the founding member and the market maker
- 3:13Speaker 1: in Ope. That there was a dichotomy and a paradox
- 3:17Speaker 1: right there. Um I think he will push Opic not
- 3:21Speaker 1: to um diminish oil production. He wants oil prices lower
- 3:27Speaker 1: than they are now. So Ariel, I want to go
- 3:29Speaker 1: back to something that you said initially, that that that
- 3:32Speaker 1: Steven would be proud of this speech and that it
- 3:34Speaker 1: was rejection of globalism. And I'm just wondering if you
- 3:37Speaker 1: can sort of put historic perspective on u N Assembly
- 3:42Speaker 1: addresses by presidents. How instructive have they been about policies
- 3:47Speaker 1: and sort of how seminal are they in signaling sort
- 3:50Speaker 1: of complete see change in in in policies versus just
- 3:54Speaker 1: sort of pomp and circumstance. I think that in this speech,
- 4:00Speaker 1: in particular, we see the strongest language possible about Iran.
- 4:05Speaker 1: The president is hoping that on the fourth of November,
- 4:09Speaker 1: when the sanctions on Iran kick in the second round
- 4:13Speaker 1: of sanctions uh and Iran is driven to lose its
- 4:17Speaker 1: oil exporting opportunities. UM, we will move towards UH. Possibly.
- 4:25Speaker 1: I think they're not saying that, but they're thinking about it,
- 4:27Speaker 1: regime changing Iran because that regime will have UM will
- 4:32Speaker 1: run out of money, and people are already sending a
- 4:36Speaker 1: very strong signal to Tehran that they do not want
- 4:40Speaker 1: to continue like that. So that's the main message UM.
- 4:44Speaker 1: In terms of other things, the terror forwards China, I
- 4:47Speaker 1: think this was very important again in the context of
- 4:51Speaker 1: the elections, to the President's UM core vater base. He's saying,
- 4:57Speaker 1: you lost jobs, Steel industry lost one whatever jobs US
- 5:02Speaker 1: lost sixty seconds. So this is a core UM voter
- 5:07Speaker 1: based message to the American voters. Thank you so much
- 5:11Speaker 1: for being with us, Aero Cohen. We really appreciate your insights,
- 5:13Speaker 1: Aero Cohen. So you're fellow at the Atlantic Council joining us.
- 5:17Speaker 1: Following the speech of President Trump delivered at the UN
- 5:20Speaker 1: General Council, we're broadcasting live from the Bloomberg Interactor Broker's Studios.
- 5:35Speaker 1: I'm Pim Fox along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz.
- 5:38Speaker 1: Our topic now is emerging markets. Our guest Phil Taures,
- 5:42Speaker 1: Global co head of emerging markets at Agon Asset Management.
- 5:46Speaker 1: He joins us here in our eleven three oh studios.
- 5:48Speaker 1: Phil Tours, thank you very much for coming in. Argentina's
- 5:52Speaker 1: paso taking a tumble this coming after the president of
- 5:56Speaker 1: the country's central Bank, Luis ca Puto, resigned. They have
- 6:00Speaker 1: tapped a economist for a replacement. Why would you still
- 6:04Speaker 1: be bullish if indeed you are on Argentina. Great to
- 6:08Speaker 1: be here with you. UM, it's obviously breaking news. We're
- 6:11Speaker 1: trying to figure out exactly what the implications are at
- 6:13Speaker 1: the moment, but markets seem to be taking in stride
- 6:16Speaker 1: at least on the external credit UH and the and
- 6:19Speaker 1: the currency. Again, still trying to figure out exactly implications
- 6:23Speaker 1: and UH and the policy changes that they might come back.
- 6:27Speaker 1: So when you're investing Phil in this market Argentina, Brazil, UH,
- 6:33Speaker 1: how do you factor in the liquidity issues? Because this morning,
- 6:36Speaker 1: right after the announcement came out about the Argentinian Central bankhead,
- 6:39Speaker 1: there was zero trading in the local Argentinian peso market.
- 6:44Speaker 1: That's concerning It's an a liquid market in general, so
- 6:48Speaker 1: this is something we think is generally factored into the prices.
- 6:51Speaker 1: So as investors that take medium to long term, we
- 6:56Speaker 1: can absorb some of the liquidity in some of these markets.
- 6:59Speaker 1: But we try to look through a lot of the
- 7:01Speaker 1: the ups and downs, and this was this was a
- 7:04Speaker 1: steep drop that that the markets reacted. Just to go
- 7:07Speaker 1: back to what you talked about with Argentina, are you
- 7:09Speaker 1: really looking for the International Monetary Fund to come in
- 7:12Speaker 1: with some extra money and then that will help everybody's
- 7:14Speaker 1: investment thesis. No, I think what we're really looking for
- 7:18Speaker 1: is policy change and in a continuation of good ideas,
- 7:22Speaker 1: and if they can deliver on primarily getting to a
- 7:26Speaker 1: balanced budget in the next year, we think that goes
- 7:29Speaker 1: a long way to securing the investment thesis of most
- 7:33Speaker 1: people that like this market. So I want to talk
- 7:35Speaker 1: about what you're buying currently. What was the most recent
- 7:38Speaker 1: sort of position that you took with conviction in emerging markets?
- 7:43Speaker 1: So I'll just rattle off a couple of our of
- 7:45Speaker 1: our favorite trades UM and let's say the last month. UM,
- 7:49Speaker 1: we've liked Senegal, We've liked Ivory Coast, Turkey, Argentina, have
- 7:53Speaker 1: been some some favorites. Those those A've been buying Turkey
- 7:58Speaker 1: over the summer. That was that was one of our
- 8:00Speaker 1: our more interesting favorite traits. Yeah. Interesting. I just have
- 8:04Speaker 1: to wonder, as a company that over sees more than
- 8:07Speaker 1: a hundred billion dollars of assets and you have a
- 8:09Speaker 1: lot of money to deploy, how much can you really
- 8:12Speaker 1: go into a place like Senegal or some of the
- 8:15Speaker 1: countries with less dead or less you know, sort of
- 8:18Speaker 1: smaller markets, considering that you'll be a dominant player potentially. Well, first,
- 8:23Speaker 1: a hundred billion dollars is not our total allocation to
- 8:25Speaker 1: emerging markets, so we're not trying to deploy all of that.
- 8:28Speaker 1: But some of these markets have some reasonable liquidity we
- 8:32Speaker 1: can put We can put money to work fairly easily.
- 8:35Speaker 1: Just looking at, for example, one of the Senegal government bonds,
- 8:38Speaker 1: they are down about six and a quarter percent since
- 8:41Speaker 1: the beginning of the year. Are you buying these things
- 8:43Speaker 1: for yield or for capital appreciation? Capital appreciation, although yield
- 8:48Speaker 1: is going to be a big part of it. UM.
- 8:50Speaker 1: So we got involved in Senegal sometime late summer after
- 8:55Speaker 1: a lot of that, after a lot of that decline,
- 8:57Speaker 1: they had issued some new debt. The market did received
- 9:00Speaker 1: that terribly well. UM as a mix of adding new
- 9:04Speaker 1: debt stock and it was just an unfavorable time for
- 9:06Speaker 1: markets in general. Primarily, what we thought was, it's a
- 9:08Speaker 1: value situation, good economy, stable, kind of a model democracy,
- 9:14Speaker 1: and it got cheap. So I have to wonder. It
- 9:17Speaker 1: sounds like you're taking risk and you're somewhat optimistic about
- 9:21Speaker 1: emerging markets generally. How does the FED play into this,
- 9:24Speaker 1: especially as they prepared to raise rates possibly tomorrow. Yeah,
- 9:28Speaker 1: the Fed historically at least our our view on how
- 9:32Speaker 1: the emerging markets have reacted to FED hiking cycle. If
- 9:36Speaker 1: it's matched with growth, then the emerging markets can typically
- 9:41Speaker 1: do pretty well. If not sideways, which with high yield
- 9:44Speaker 1: is just a fine market. UM. To the extent that
- 9:47Speaker 1: the FED is hiking um too to cut growth right,
- 9:52Speaker 1: to put it into a recession or environment because they're
- 9:55Speaker 1: concerned but inflation, then that's bad. Um. We think we're
- 9:59Speaker 1: in the former ironment and UH and maintain a reasonably
- 10:02Speaker 1: optimistic feed on most of these markets. Really interesting, Phil Torres,
- 10:05Speaker 1: thank you so much for being with us. Philterress, Global
- 10:07Speaker 1: cohead of Emerging Markets and Director of Emerging Markets Research
- 10:10Speaker 1: at a GUN USA Asset Management with a hundred billion
- 10:14Speaker 1: dollars under management three hundred billion dollars under management worldwide
- 10:18Speaker 1: at the Global firm. We are broadcasting live from the
- 10:31Speaker 1: Bloomberg Interactor Broker's Studios. I'm Pim Fox along with Lisa Abramowitz.
- 10:35Speaker 1: Earlier today, President Donald Trump, speaking before the UN General Assembly,
- 10:40Speaker 1: said that China is taking advantage of the US on trade.
- 10:44Speaker 1: Here to tell us more about how companies are responding
- 10:47Speaker 1: to the situation is Richard Chambers. He is the president
- 10:50Speaker 1: and the chief executive of the Institute of Internal Auditors.
- 10:54Speaker 1: They're based in Altamont Springs, Florida. He joins us here
- 10:57Speaker 1: in our eleven three oh studios. Richard Chain, thank you
- 11:00Speaker 1: very much for being here. You've written that US corporations
- 11:03Speaker 1: may have as a false sense of security regarding the
- 11:08Speaker 1: effects of trade uh confrontation between the United States and China.
- 11:12Speaker 1: Explain why you believe that to be so well, you know,
- 11:15Speaker 1: as we've been first of all, thank you for having
- 11:17Speaker 1: me uh today. It's it's great to be here. As
- 11:20Speaker 1: we so often comment, when these risks start to emerge, UH,
- 11:25Speaker 1: there's a there's sort of an initial sense of of
- 11:28Speaker 1: denial that is, oh, this can't possibly get that bad,
- 11:31Speaker 1: and it's not going to create problems for us. Unfortunately,
- 11:35Speaker 1: sometimes that ends up happening. So as we've been surveying
- 11:38Speaker 1: at the heads of internal audit and publicly trading companies
- 11:41Speaker 1: and and other organizations, we're sort of seeing some of
- 11:44Speaker 1: that initial sense of denial, like, oh, well, this is
- 11:47Speaker 1: not going to really have a significant impact on our company,
- 11:50Speaker 1: so we're not gonna worry too much about it. And
- 11:53Speaker 1: that's the problem a lot of times is that you
- 11:56Speaker 1: see the storm approaching, but you don't respond until the
- 11:59Speaker 1: winds are picking up. What gives you confidence that the
- 12:02Speaker 1: storm is picking up in a way that companies are
- 12:04Speaker 1: not recognizing, well, I think there have been plenty of
- 12:08Speaker 1: There's been plenty of articles and other publications in the
- 12:11Speaker 1: past week that have pointed out that, particularly in consumer
- 12:15Speaker 1: products and retail, the the impact of the tariffs on
- 12:20Speaker 1: all the products that are going to be imported are
- 12:22Speaker 1: going to UH have an impact in terms of the
- 12:25Speaker 1: cost of the products. UH will likely impact demand. As
- 12:30Speaker 1: refrigerators get more expensive or dishwashers get more expensive, that's
- 12:34Speaker 1: going to have an impact on the demand. So, particularly
- 12:37Speaker 1: in industries like retail and consumer products, there's certainly plenty
- 12:42Speaker 1: of evidence that this is going to have an impact
- 12:45Speaker 1: and you're not seeing that reflected by the CEOs, right, Yeah.
- 12:49Speaker 1: What we're seeing at this point is, uh, you know,
- 12:51Speaker 1: when we ask chief audit executives, heads of internal audit,
- 12:56Speaker 1: is this a significant risk for your company, we're still
- 12:58Speaker 1: giving an overwhelming response, No, we don't see this as
- 13:01Speaker 1: a significant risk at this point. Now, when when we
- 13:05Speaker 1: ask what what does your company think the risk of
- 13:07Speaker 1: the overall economy would be, almost sixty percent of them
- 13:11Speaker 1: responded to a survey last week that their companies think
- 13:14Speaker 1: there would be a significant risk of the overall economy.
- 13:17Speaker 1: But it seems to be one of those yeah, but
- 13:19Speaker 1: it's not gonna affect me kind of denials. I think,
- 13:22Speaker 1: do they understand that there's a contradiction and trying to
- 13:25Speaker 1: hold those two positions, or do you believe that, perhaps
- 13:27Speaker 1: for competitive reasons, they're just not willing to disclose to
- 13:30Speaker 1: you how worried or concerned or prepared they are. I
- 13:36Speaker 1: think it may be. I think it may be the former,
- 13:39Speaker 1: because we see this. I think one of the last
- 13:41Speaker 1: times I visited with you guys, we talked about the
- 13:44Speaker 1: me too movement and how slow companies were to recognize
- 13:48Speaker 1: the risk that that presents. I see a common thread
- 13:51Speaker 1: here in that when risks begin to emerge, there there's
- 13:55Speaker 1: sort of a reluctance to look at what is the
- 13:58Speaker 1: downstream impact of this risk. So if if in fact
- 14:02Speaker 1: the tariffs are implemented to the extent that it appears
- 14:05Speaker 1: they are going to be, what will come next? And
- 14:08Speaker 1: then what could happen after that? And oh, by the way,
- 14:10Speaker 1: how could that impact our company, our workforce, our investment um.
- 14:14Speaker 1: And that's what I think happens all too often, is
- 14:17Speaker 1: that when it comes to risk management, there's a slow
- 14:20Speaker 1: reluctance to accept that a risk may be very, very detrimental.
- 14:24Speaker 1: I want to shift gears a little bit. We were
- 14:27Speaker 1: talking yesterday with the Harvard professor who said that the
- 14:30Speaker 1: current market resembles something of a bubble in terms of
- 14:33Speaker 1: sentiment anyway, that is when accounting shenanigans are more likely
- 14:39Speaker 1: to happen when capital is flowing freely. To what degree
- 14:43Speaker 1: are you concerned that that is currently going on, where
- 14:46Speaker 1: perhaps when sort of the tide rolls back and credit
- 14:49Speaker 1: isn't as free flowing, we could see some serious problems. Well,
- 14:53Speaker 1: we've seen in the past when the economy started to
- 14:58Speaker 1: show signs of some sort of upheave. Uh, that there
- 15:01Speaker 1: is a lot of pressure and analyst expectations are put
- 15:05Speaker 1: out there. Companies have to meet those analyst expectations where
- 15:08Speaker 1: they get punished in the market. That's when we see
- 15:10Speaker 1: the risks start to rise of perhaps fraudulent financial reporting.
- 15:16Speaker 1: I think since the last major round of scandals where
- 15:19Speaker 1: fraudulent financial reporting was at the route back in the
- 15:22Speaker 1: early two thousand's, we have a lot more regulation and
- 15:26Speaker 1: control in place, but I still wouldn't say that are
- 15:29Speaker 1: still wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility.
- 15:32Speaker 1: And so once again, when likelihood starts to go up,
- 15:35Speaker 1: that's one of the components of risk assessment. That's when
- 15:37Speaker 1: you need to start getting concerned. Are you at all
- 15:39Speaker 1: concerned about the tone that is reflected by the behavior
- 15:43Speaker 1: of people in Congress? And I'm talking about the House
- 15:46Speaker 1: of Representatives as well as senators and even those people
- 15:51Speaker 1: in the government and the way that they relate to
- 15:54Speaker 1: each other and using those as examples, you know, it's
- 15:58Speaker 1: it's interesting. I posted a blog last week about civility
- 16:01Speaker 1: in the boardroom. Uh, it seems to be the only place,
- 16:04Speaker 1: perhaps where there's still a lot of civility. Maybe too much,
- 16:07Speaker 1: and that board members don't challenge each other. But the
- 16:09Speaker 1: point I made is we're living in a society today
- 16:11Speaker 1: where civility seems to be held in much less high regard.
- 16:16Speaker 1: If if, if you can um and so I do think,
- 16:20Speaker 1: and I spent quite a bit of time in Washington
- 16:22Speaker 1: during my days as a federal employee. I do think
- 16:25Speaker 1: that the tone in Washington has definitely deteriorated in the
- 16:29Speaker 1: last few years, and and that comes from all sides.
- 16:32Speaker 1: I don't think that any one party or anyone group
- 16:35Speaker 1: is to blame. I think that's part of the challenge
- 16:38Speaker 1: that we face in society. Just real quick. When you
- 16:41Speaker 1: talk to auditors who are going around and checking out corporations,
- 16:45Speaker 1: is there anything that you've been hearing from them that
- 16:47Speaker 1: we haven't discussed that surprised you ums in terms of
- 16:52Speaker 1: like reviewing companies and sort of their position and whether
- 16:55Speaker 1: they're stronger than they seem or weaker than they seem
- 16:57Speaker 1: or No. I don't think that I've I've I've gotten
- 17:01Speaker 1: any indication from the internal auditors that there's a lot
- 17:05Speaker 1: of miss there. I do think that the internal auditors
- 17:08Speaker 1: sometimes are uh, they get caught up in the culture
- 17:11Speaker 1: of their organization maybe and they're a little slower to
- 17:14Speaker 1: recognize emerging risk. And it's one of the things that
- 17:16Speaker 1: we're always coaching them is that they have to be
- 17:18Speaker 1: able to detect the thunder before the storm, because if
- 17:22Speaker 1: they don't, then once once the real risks emerge, it's
- 17:26Speaker 1: going to be well, where were the internal auditors? And
- 17:29Speaker 1: it's very, very important that they get on in front
- 17:30Speaker 1: of these risks. Richard Chambers, thank you so much for
- 17:33Speaker 1: being with us. Thank you Richard Chambers as President chief
- 17:36Speaker 1: executive of the Institute of Internal Auditors. We are broadcasting
- 17:49Speaker 1: live from the Bloomberg Interactive Studios here at Bloomberg's World
- 17:53Speaker 1: headquarters in New York City. Facebook what is going on there?
- 17:57Speaker 1: Down at three quarters of one percent today after Instagram's
- 18:01Speaker 1: founders left the firm citing disagreements, with Facebook's leader joining
- 18:06Speaker 1: us now Shara Ovid, Bloomberg opinion columnists covering all things tech, Shira,
- 18:11Speaker 1: how bad is this for Facebook? Because frankly, actually, stock
- 18:14Speaker 1: traders are taking it relatively and stride, considering the Instagram
- 18:17Speaker 1: really is a profit engine or potential one for Facebook. Yeah,
- 18:21Speaker 1: I'm a little bit surprised at the relatively modest stock
- 18:24Speaker 1: declined to be honest. The look, the truth is, it's
- 18:27Speaker 1: gonna be hard to know how big a deal this
- 18:30Speaker 1: really is because it's going to be measured in what
- 18:33Speaker 1: doesn't Instagram do or what opportunities this Instagram miss if
- 18:37Speaker 1: it's distracted for a while by this leadership vacuum, or
- 18:41Speaker 1: as in fact, it loses some of its kind of
- 18:44Speaker 1: essential essence of Instagram nous. Well, sure, what exactly is
- 18:49Speaker 1: the problem with the two founders leaving. They've been there
- 18:52Speaker 1: for six years. What do they do on a day
- 18:55Speaker 1: to day basis that someone else can't do? Yeah? Fair enough.
- 18:59Speaker 1: I mean, look it, it's not uncommon right for a
- 19:02Speaker 1: company to acquire another company and then for the CEOs
- 19:06Speaker 1: or the founders of those acquired companies to eventually leave. Um. So,
- 19:10Speaker 1: I don't want to say this is some kind of
- 19:12Speaker 1: you know, criminal matter and things like that, but um,
- 19:16Speaker 1: it's true that both Instagram founders were had leadership positions
- 19:21Speaker 1: inside of Instagram. They had set up Instagram as this
- 19:24Speaker 1: kind of semi autonomous unit inside of Facebook, which I
- 19:28Speaker 1: think was important to the product independence of Instagram. Um,
- 19:34Speaker 1: and you know, they had leadership roles in Shepherd ng
- 19:38Speaker 1: Instagram through this kind of important period of growth for
- 19:41Speaker 1: the company. So yeah, there are plenty of executives at
- 19:44Speaker 1: Facebook who can fill the void. But I don't want
- 19:48Speaker 1: to downplay the importance of of Kevin Susterman Mike Krieger,
- 19:52Speaker 1: the two founders who at least until now had important
- 19:56Speaker 1: leadership roles and Instagram as well. Him is your daughter
- 19:59Speaker 1: on Facebook? Is your daughter on Instagram? Oh? Your strike
- 20:05Speaker 1: two strike too? That means that you're a better parents.
- 20:07Speaker 1: And I I found out the other night that my
- 20:09Speaker 1: son had signed up for Instagram. Who he's nine, um,
- 20:12Speaker 1: and he is not signed up for Facebook. Um. But
- 20:16Speaker 1: he was out there liking photographs and having followers, etcetera
- 20:20Speaker 1: very alarming whole host of other issues. But Sira, it
- 20:23Speaker 1: is notable to me that he signs up for Instagram,
- 20:26Speaker 1: and that's where that's where the actions act. Can you
- 20:28Speaker 1: give as a sense of just how much faster it's
- 20:30Speaker 1: growing and how much more dominant it's becoming as far
- 20:33Speaker 1: as a revenue driver than Facebook's really uh eponymous platform. Well,
- 20:39Speaker 1: we don't exactly know how fast it's growing because Facebook
- 20:43Speaker 1: keeps that data uh private, but it's certainly growing much
- 20:48Speaker 1: faster than the main Facebook social network cap which has
- 20:54Speaker 1: more than two billion users every month. So is there
- 20:57Speaker 1: is a limit to growth when you have you know,
- 20:59Speaker 1: a significant chunk of the world's population already using Facebook.
- 21:03Speaker 1: But it's clear that Instagram is an important growth trajectory,
- 21:07Speaker 1: both in terms of users. UM. We see in North
- 21:11Speaker 1: America the number of daily users on Facebook main Facebook
- 21:15Speaker 1: has flatlined recently, and that's a dangerous development for Facebook.
- 21:20Speaker 1: North America is not where the majority of users are,
- 21:24Speaker 1: but it is where the majority of ad revenue is,
- 21:27Speaker 1: and that's important for Facebook. And we've also seen that
- 21:30Speaker 1: as Facebook Facebook has some user growth issues, Facebook has
- 21:35Speaker 1: dialed up the number of advertisements on Instagram and pointed
- 21:39Speaker 1: a lot of advertisers too, the migration of users to
- 21:44Speaker 1: Instagram and their embrace of this relative still relatively novel
- 21:49Speaker 1: format that's popular on Instagram called stories, which is this
- 21:53Speaker 1: um kind of ephemeral diaries um composed of videos, short videos,
- 21:58Speaker 1: and photos. So Facebook is enormously important to the growth
- 22:03Speaker 1: strategy at Facebook, and losing these founders is not great
- 22:08Speaker 1: for what's been the most important growth asset at Facebook. Okay,
- 22:13Speaker 1: just to set the record right, I mean the two
- 22:15Speaker 1: founders sold Instagram to Facebook six years ago. Facebook paid
- 22:22Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifteen million dollars. At the time, the
- 22:27Speaker 1: company had thirteen employees and thirty million registered users. Now
- 22:31Speaker 1: they've got a billion people using Instagram each month, and
- 22:35Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence analysis said that Instagram is worth more than
- 22:41Speaker 1: a hundred billion dollars. So it's not the same company
- 22:45Speaker 1: they sold to Facebook anymore. It's definitely not the same company.
- 22:48Speaker 1: And look both sides, both Facebook and the Instagram founders
- 22:53Speaker 1: deserve credit for that huge jump in in in assumed
- 22:58Speaker 1: valuation for Instagram. There's no way. Well, I can't say
- 23:01Speaker 1: that for sure. It would have been hard, I think
- 23:04Speaker 1: for Instagram to become such a valuable company outside of
- 23:08Speaker 1: Facebook's corporate umbrella. But at the same time, it wasn't
- 23:12Speaker 1: like Facebook's credit for the growing usage and evaluation of
- 23:18Speaker 1: Instagram under its auspices. Well done. Thank you very much.
- 23:22Speaker 1: Shira over Day are Bloomberg opinion columnists for all things
- 23:25Speaker 1: related to the world of technology. Thanks for listening to
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- 23:42Speaker 1: pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one
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