Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Tesla, Economy, Tech, and Anti-ESG (Podcast)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
- 0:06Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
- 0:11Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
- 0:15Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
- 0:18Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Let's round table what's
- 0:22Speaker 1: going on because there's always an ongoing story with Tesla,
- 0:25Speaker 1: twitter elon Musk, We're gonna do that with man Deep
- 0:27Speaker 1: singh Uh. He covers technology. Kevin, he's in our studio.
- 0:32Speaker 1: Kevin Tynan joins us on the phone. He covers the
- 0:34Speaker 1: auto sector for both of them for Bloomberg Intelligence. So
- 0:37Speaker 1: we're getting our money out of Bloomberg Intelligence this morning,
- 0:40Speaker 1: which is the research department for Bloomberg customers. Be I
- 0:45Speaker 1: go on the terminal. Kevin, let's start with you here. Um,
- 0:49Speaker 1: is there a demand problem for Tesla vehicles out there?
- 0:54Speaker 1: There is, there's probably a demand problem for everybody, all
- 0:58Speaker 1: auto makers. But I think, wait, wait, wait, wait, let
- 1:01Speaker 1: before we get started, Kevin, let's set the scene here.
- 1:05Speaker 1: You're in Vegas. Yeah, Now, the CS is a consumer
- 1:09Speaker 1: electronic show for those who don't know. But it's really not.
- 1:11Speaker 1: It's really the auto show, which has some electronic stuff
- 1:15Speaker 1: around it. It has become that it is unbelievable decade,
- 1:18Speaker 1: which is now why Kevin might not even go to
- 1:21Speaker 1: the Detroit Auto Show, which used to be like the
- 1:23Speaker 1: super Bowl and automakers. So Kevin, just before we get
- 1:25Speaker 1: to Tesla, gives set the set the stage here. What's
- 1:28Speaker 1: going on at CES? What do you expect to hear?
- 1:30Speaker 1: What do you expect to hear from the auto companies? Uh?
- 1:32Speaker 1: This year? Well, most importantly, where are you staying? Do
- 1:34Speaker 1: you have a suite at the Bellagio? Uh? Mike Dean?
- 1:38Speaker 1: Are European guys at the Bellagio? I actually have time share?
- 1:42Speaker 1: So I just come and stay in my league. You've
- 1:44Speaker 1: gotten share in Vegas. My man, pots and pans, as
- 1:48Speaker 1: they say, all right, Michael Dean, he's the class act.
- 1:51Speaker 1: He's got the bags, all right, Kevin, So talk to
- 1:53Speaker 1: us about CS. What are you looking for? Yeah, there's
- 1:56Speaker 1: a hopefully it's a big bounce back from last year.
- 1:59Speaker 1: Last year as a ghost town, c e S was
- 2:02Speaker 1: absolutely dead. Um, just from the people reaching out and
- 2:07Speaker 1: companies reaching out this year. It seems like it should
- 2:09Speaker 1: be much better this year. A lot of still a
- 2:13Speaker 1: lot of autonomous you know light our self driving software companies.
- 2:19Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like it's going to be as much
- 2:21Speaker 1: you know from the O E M s this year
- 2:24Speaker 1: about you know, EV products or I think it's going
- 2:27Speaker 1: to be a lot of that ancillary businesses, infrastructure, um,
- 2:34Speaker 1: you know, autonomous driving. It's gonna be a lot of
- 2:37Speaker 1: things like that this year. Nobody with the final solution
- 2:41Speaker 1: per se, but a lot of the moving parts up
- 2:44Speaker 1: to that. All right, so uh man, deep, where do
- 2:49Speaker 1: your world's collide here? Why are you not in Vegas?
- 2:52Speaker 1: By the way, well, I think the AD companies don't
- 2:55Speaker 1: like to showcase a lot of their stuff when you
- 2:58Speaker 1: look at you know, what alphabet is to wing even
- 3:00Speaker 1: though they have a Waymo unit which is also an
- 3:03Speaker 1: autonomous driving a lot of their AI. When you think
- 3:07Speaker 1: about their capabilities, whether it's on the third side or
- 3:11Speaker 1: add side that they don't talk about it as much
- 3:14Speaker 1: in terms of you know, these kind of shows, and
- 3:17Speaker 1: they are more device driven at the end of the day,
- 3:20Speaker 1: you know, it is um more focused towards devices and
- 3:25Speaker 1: that's why, yeah, not something but there's a lot of
- 3:28Speaker 1: the stuff running on Azure. The cloud. Companies have their
- 3:32Speaker 1: own kind of events. You know, both Microsoft and AWS
- 3:37Speaker 1: have their annual conferences, and they don't. I would just
- 3:39Speaker 1: imagine more and more of uh technology is I mean,
- 3:44Speaker 1: we know more technologies in the cloud. Cars are becoming
- 3:47Speaker 1: technological little you know, driving cell phones. So I imagine
- 3:51Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the stuff that I type
- 3:54Speaker 1: into the like Google Pad in my Chevy Silverado is
- 3:57Speaker 1: stored in the cloud. Well so us because it's stored
- 4:00Speaker 1: in the cloud doesn't mean you know, it's at the
- 4:03Speaker 1: cutting edge that that ship has selled. You know. Now
- 4:05Speaker 1: we're talking about what can you do next? In terms
- 4:08Speaker 1: of open chat, GPTs the new craze. Now, the reason
- 4:12Speaker 1: why people are excited about it is because it kind
- 4:16Speaker 1: of disrupts the Google search dominance around showing links and
- 4:19Speaker 1: clicking you are else. This is more about generative AI
- 4:24Speaker 1: using large language models, and a lot of that was
- 4:28Speaker 1: in the academia for all the longest time, but now
- 4:31Speaker 1: suddenly it's hitting mainstream because of cloud. Cloud gives you
- 4:35Speaker 1: the processing power to do a lot of these things,
- 4:38Speaker 1: and I think that's why we are talking about it.
- 4:42Speaker 1: All right, Kevin, So we just in terms of maybe
- 4:45Speaker 1: not just Tesla, but give us your sense of how
- 4:47Speaker 1: this demand for electric vehicles is going to roll out,
- 4:50Speaker 1: you know, over the next couple of years. Again a
- 4:52Speaker 1: little bit of a disappointment there for Tesla. Uh, most recently,
- 4:55Speaker 1: how do you think about that bigger picture? Yeah, you know,
- 4:59Speaker 1: and I'm and I'm starting to lay out, you know,
- 5:01Speaker 1: the mindset for the next at least year plus. And
- 5:05Speaker 1: you know, the thing I keep coming back to is that,
- 5:08Speaker 1: arguably you know where we are now in terms of
- 5:12Speaker 1: ev discussion, hype, whatever you want to call it. You know,
- 5:17Speaker 1: I feel like it was the germ of the idea
- 5:20Speaker 1: was was from one person, right, and media and markets
- 5:26Speaker 1: and investors and governments and other automakers eventually brudging lee,
- 5:32Speaker 1: kicking and screaming got on board with that. You know.
- 5:34Speaker 1: But I wonder if the you know, the real science
- 5:40Speaker 1: behind the transition completely away from internal combustion completely to electrification. Uh,
- 5:48Speaker 1: if we're not getting the full story right that when
- 5:51Speaker 1: you go from minding of materials for the batteries, who
- 5:55Speaker 1: controls those materials, what those materials cost, all the way
- 5:59Speaker 1: through the process of how we're going to consistently charge
- 6:02Speaker 1: that many vehicles UM to the disposal of the battery
- 6:07Speaker 1: is something that I don't think anybody's really wanted to
- 6:10Speaker 1: talk about. I think the markets and the media is
- 6:14Speaker 1: focused on tailpipe versus no tail pipe, and I think
- 6:17Speaker 1: there's a lot going on in the process that is
- 6:20Speaker 1: just sort of glossed over. And I think in this
- 6:24Speaker 1: market and in this economy, UH, that due diligence and
- 6:28Speaker 1: those questions are gonna be asked more seriously, UM, And
- 6:31Speaker 1: I'm not sure people are gonna like those answers no.
- 6:34Speaker 1: And you know, ironically, well, I never know if I'm
- 6:36Speaker 1: using the the word ironic correctly because I grew up
- 6:41Speaker 1: with a lot it's more a set. But it seems
- 6:42Speaker 1: ironic to me, UM that the Biden Administration's I r
- 6:47Speaker 1: a UH legislation is what kind of pulled the curtain aside,
- 6:52Speaker 1: right all of a sudden, after the Biden administration put
- 6:55Speaker 1: this ira A legislation out that's supposed to give um
- 6:59Speaker 1: tax rebates or attacks incentives to companies that produce in
- 7:04Speaker 1: the US, you know, batteries with components and ingredients that
- 7:08Speaker 1: come from the US. No one really knows what what
- 7:11Speaker 1: that was where they where those things came from, or
- 7:14Speaker 1: didn't ever really give it a lot of thought. And
- 7:16Speaker 1: now the Treasury Department is sitting on this legislation, like
- 7:19Speaker 1: what in the heck are we gonna do? Because nobody's
- 7:21Speaker 1: going to get this tax credit unless we let you know,
- 7:26Speaker 1: all these American producers use Chinese chemicals in their batteries,
- 7:30Speaker 1: right yeah, And I and I think you know that
- 7:34Speaker 1: my concern in terms of ev adoption is that, like
- 7:37Speaker 1: you said, when you pull back this curtain, or when
- 7:39Speaker 1: you start asking real questions, which nobody has had to
- 7:42Speaker 1: do because the stocks just went up, right, and that
- 7:46Speaker 1: you know that that the end justified those means. Is
- 7:50Speaker 1: that now if we start asking real questions or difficult questions,
- 7:53Speaker 1: I'm not sure you know that those answers are what
- 7:57Speaker 1: necessarily we want to hear. I mean, Tesla does its
- 8:00Speaker 1: semi launch. It's a megawatt of power to charge that thing.
- 8:05Speaker 1: Think of a truck stop along the highway. I just
- 8:07Speaker 1: drove sixteen hours straight from Florida over the holiday. You know,
- 8:12Speaker 1: I think I think my longest stop was seven minutes, right,
- 8:16Speaker 1: And but think about those truck stops that I pulled
- 8:19Speaker 1: into that if those are if those are charging electric center,
- 8:23Speaker 1: Like that's a small city in terms of of a
- 8:26Speaker 1: power draw. Um, you know to do yeah, just to
- 8:32Speaker 1: do what we already do now. Alright, alright, good stuff, alright,
- 8:36Speaker 1: good stuff on the auto front, real quick? Uh man deep.
- 8:39Speaker 1: What's the theme for coming out of tech? Thirty seconds?
- 8:42Speaker 1: Free cash flow. Everyone is fixated on free cash freelove.
- 8:46Speaker 1: And that's why you keep hearing about layoffs because investors
- 8:50Speaker 1: want to make sure that these companies are making money,
- 8:53Speaker 1: whether it's a marketplace company, think like AI or VR Juicy,
- 9:00Speaker 1: I think of those big juicy margins. Mandy Sing, senior
- 9:04Speaker 1: tech analysts Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us here in a Bloomberg
- 9:07Speaker 1: interactor broker studio. And Kevin Tyne and senior auto analysts
- 9:10Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence. He's at Vegas. He's at the Consumer Electronics Show,
- 9:14Speaker 1: which is hundreds of thousands of tech geeks get together
- 9:18Speaker 1: in the desert and see what the new toys are
- 9:20Speaker 1: that's coming up. This is Bloomberg. We want to get
- 9:27Speaker 1: a preview here. Three outlook on the big banks, the
- 9:31Speaker 1: investment banks, the asset managers. There's nobody better to do
- 9:36Speaker 1: that with. And Alison Williams. She's a senior global analysts
- 9:38Speaker 1: covering all the financial services companies for Bloomberg Intelligence. She
- 9:42Speaker 1: joins us from Bloomberg's sprawling Princeton, New Jersey campus. Man,
- 9:46Speaker 1: if you've been to the Princeton office, it's great. And
- 9:50Speaker 1: they just and they just redid it, right, Allison, just
- 9:52Speaker 1: did a big renovation. They did all right good stuff.
- 9:56Speaker 1: I mean the little bit of Princeton one time. Really, Yes,
- 10:00Speaker 1: need to get out a little more. There is a
- 10:04Speaker 1: university there right. My buddy Brian Sullivan from a network
- 10:08Speaker 1: that I will not name, lives there. So best hoagies
- 10:11Speaker 1: in the world, Hoghaven. Just a little plug there, Allison.
- 10:13Speaker 1: What's the key theme that you're looking for here in
- 10:18Speaker 1: I mean, I know we're gonna have some bank earnings
- 10:19Speaker 1: coming up in a few weeks, but what are some
- 10:21Speaker 1: of the bigger themes that you and and and big
- 10:23Speaker 1: bank investors are looking at. So so, obviously the big
- 10:27Speaker 1: question is going to continue to be recession, right, so
- 10:30Speaker 1: that the depth of the recession, the length of the recession, um.
- 10:34Speaker 1: But I think what we're focused on is the overall
- 10:37Speaker 1: level of profitability at these banks and just um, you know,
- 10:42Speaker 1: the incredible power that they have to withstand UM even
- 10:48Speaker 1: a deep recession. Keep in mind that the last two
- 10:50Speaker 1: cycles we had were crises, right, So we had the
- 10:53Speaker 1: pandemic UM and before that it was the global financial crisis. UM.
- 10:58Speaker 1: So as we go think about session UM, you know,
- 11:01Speaker 1: that might be sort of in the back of investors minds,
- 11:04Speaker 1: but we think that the cycle looks a lot more
- 11:06Speaker 1: like you know, that of two thousand UM, and we
- 11:10Speaker 1: think that regardless of the provisions, regardless of the change
- 11:13Speaker 1: in accounting that's going to make those provisions very front loaded. UM,
- 11:18Speaker 1: the banks are in a great position to weather the storm.
- 11:21Speaker 1: And then specifically to the investment banking unit. You know, UM,
- 11:25Speaker 1: we're going to hear more and more stories over the
- 11:27Speaker 1: next couple of weeks about some of the head COUMP
- 11:29Speaker 1: cuts and some of the COMP cuts. But I think
- 11:32Speaker 1: that you know, again looking back to the global financial crisis,
- 11:36Speaker 1: you know, we will see some reductions, but nowhere near
- 11:40Speaker 1: what we saw back then. Yet revenue is within that range.
- 11:45Speaker 1: So the profitability UM of these banks is really strong,
- 11:49Speaker 1: and we think that that's what investors should be focusing on.
- 11:52Speaker 1: So UM, basically, the net interest margin works out too
- 11:58Speaker 1: offset the higher loan lost provisions. What if we do
- 12:02Speaker 1: see though a ton of defaults coming up in UM,
- 12:08Speaker 1: what if we see that those loan lost provisions aren't
- 12:10Speaker 1: just provisions but actually you know, necessary. So I think
- 12:15Speaker 1: you know the best way to frame that or think
- 12:17Speaker 1: about that is UM. You know, Jamie dimond Um gave
- 12:21Speaker 1: a great scenary analysis for JP Morgan, the bank that
- 12:26Speaker 1: he runs, on the last earnings called you know, if
- 12:30Speaker 1: we see six unemployment, we could see six billion of
- 12:35Speaker 1: added provisions over a couple of quarters. That number for
- 12:40Speaker 1: UM in the pandemic was closer to fifteen billion over
- 12:44Speaker 1: a couple of quarters. UM. So I think that gives
- 12:46Speaker 1: you a sense of um, you know, sort of the
- 12:49Speaker 1: magnitude there and so UM you know, net interest income,
- 12:54Speaker 1: you know, the growth that we have last year was tremendous.
- 12:57Speaker 1: We're not expecting UM similar growth this year, but it
- 13:00Speaker 1: but again we're at sort of a high level. And
- 13:03Speaker 1: then again, as far as trading goes, we think that
- 13:07Speaker 1: there's still more volatility and fixed income. Could we see
- 13:09Speaker 1: some moderation um, you know, from the extraordinary levels of
- 13:13Speaker 1: this past year, Yes, but we think we remain in
- 13:16Speaker 1: a historically high range The same is true for equity trading.
- 13:20Speaker 1: Equity trading was down over the past year. But but
- 13:23Speaker 1: again historically, high fees are going to be the big question.
- 13:26Speaker 1: And I think that's the one thing that we're going
- 13:28Speaker 1: to be looking at this quarter in terms of setting
- 13:31Speaker 1: a run rate for the year. You know, I p
- 13:33Speaker 1: O s um. We're far in few between last year
- 13:36Speaker 1: after a record We have pipelines that remained sort of
- 13:41Speaker 1: full over the past year, though getting a bit stale.
- 13:44Speaker 1: Can those be executed? We're entering the year. You know,
- 13:47Speaker 1: granted things were choppy in the last fourth quarter, but
- 13:50Speaker 1: we we did. Stocks did end the year higher versus
- 13:53Speaker 1: three Q And will there be companies taking advantage of
- 13:57Speaker 1: that um to do public You know, there's still a
- 14:01Speaker 1: question around UM, you know, pricing expectations. Obviously those have
- 14:06Speaker 1: had to reset compared with a year ago. But that's
- 14:11Speaker 1: what we're looking for in one queue. How much of
- 14:13Speaker 1: that can come to market? Hey, Alice, when I think
- 14:15Speaker 1: about you know, um, the Wells, Fargoes of the world,
- 14:18Speaker 1: the city banks, the Bank of America's I think of
- 14:21Speaker 1: corporate lending, consumer lending and loan growth was something that
- 14:26Speaker 1: has talked about a lot. How is it out there?
- 14:28Speaker 1: Are companies borrowing? Are are people borrowing to grow to
- 14:33Speaker 1: start businesses and things like that. I think, you know
- 14:35Speaker 1: what we'll see in the most recent quarter, um. You know,
- 14:38Speaker 1: a couple of things that so commercial balances um, you know,
- 14:43Speaker 1: really slowed last quarter. But a lot of that UM
- 14:46Speaker 1: was you know, attributed to some of the banks talking
- 14:49Speaker 1: about trying to restrain their bounty because they had to
- 14:53Speaker 1: move up their capital ratios, right, and so the way
- 14:56Speaker 1: that they moved those up is by reducing the denominator
- 14:59Speaker 1: to to look a bit healthier. UM. So they said that,
- 15:03Speaker 1: you know, they expect this quarter that might normalize a
- 15:06Speaker 1: little bit um. So, so we will see the capital markets.
- 15:10Speaker 1: The bond market did open up a little bit in
- 15:12Speaker 1: the fourth quarter, UM, so perhaps some might have gone
- 15:15Speaker 1: a little bit more might have gone to the capital markets,
- 15:17Speaker 1: but we expect to see some growth. I think the
- 15:19Speaker 1: real question is on the consumer side, and especially on
- 15:22Speaker 1: the credit card side in general. Fourth quarter is the
- 15:26Speaker 1: strongest quarter, obviously due to holiday spending. And we'll see
- 15:31Speaker 1: if consumers are borrowing um and then we're gonna be
- 15:35Speaker 1: you know, the one side. Are they borrowing? Is it
- 15:38Speaker 1: healthy borrowing or is it constrained borrowing? And what's happening
- 15:41Speaker 1: on the credit side of things as we head into
- 15:45Speaker 1: alson just real quickly. I know you also follow the
- 15:47Speaker 1: asset managers, the black rocks of the world that hero prices.
- 15:50Speaker 1: What what's the call there for twenty three for those companies.
- 15:53Speaker 1: I mean, I think things still look healthy. You know,
- 15:56Speaker 1: we sort of face our forecast there. You know, it's
- 15:58Speaker 1: all about the It's all about the markets in terms
- 16:01Speaker 1: of the current earnings and our equity strategy team, UM.
- 16:05Speaker 1: You know, things were about flat farish value, so not
- 16:09Speaker 1: expecting much either way um over the next year or so. UM.
- 16:14Speaker 1: But you know, in general, investors want to see flows
- 16:18Speaker 1: and so while their earnings relate to the markets, flows
- 16:21Speaker 1: really can drive evaluations. UM. You know, again, relying on
- 16:27Speaker 1: our strategy team's forecast, value looks like um, it has
- 16:31Speaker 1: the edge. So we expect managers such as t ROW
- 16:34Speaker 1: may continue to see pressure in some of their growth
- 16:37Speaker 1: funds UM, hopefully offsetting that with hopefully for them off
- 16:41Speaker 1: setting that with some of the retirement money. UM. But
- 16:44Speaker 1: in general that the I guess the one exciting thing
- 16:47Speaker 1: will be active versus passive. This is an environment that
- 16:51Speaker 1: favors active uh, you know, higher rates, lots of volatility,
- 16:56Speaker 1: low correlations. Um. So we'll see if that can give
- 16:59Speaker 1: active last All right, good stuff, Allison Williams, thanks so
- 17:02Speaker 1: much for joining us. We always appreciate getting the overview
- 17:05Speaker 1: of the big banks, investment banks, asset managers, jillions of
- 17:10Speaker 1: dollars under management. Allison has been covering those companies for decades. Uh.
- 17:14Speaker 1: And she's the senior global banks and asset Managers analysts
- 17:18Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Intelligence. She's based in our Princeton, New Jersey office.
- 17:22Speaker 1: Lots of good folks down there doing good work. Really
- 17:25Speaker 1: the backbone of some of the global data that we
- 17:27Speaker 1: all depend upon for the Bloomberg terminal. This Chris Bloomberg.
- 17:34Speaker 1: I s M data came in, uh, you know, kind
- 17:38Speaker 1: of mixed data. But the new orders came in lower
- 17:41Speaker 1: than last quarter. We want to get our last month.
- 17:42Speaker 1: We want to get the bottom of all this. We
- 17:44Speaker 1: welcome Tim Fiuri. He's the chairman of the Institute for
- 17:47Speaker 1: Supply Management otherwise known as I s M. So Tim
- 17:51Speaker 1: on the numbers you guys reported this morning, Matt and
- 17:53Speaker 1: I want to start with with the new orders at
- 17:55Speaker 1: forty five point too, was that a big concern for you. Yeah,
- 17:58Speaker 1: I got it. Well, it's a bit surprising. I'm waiting
- 18:01Speaker 1: for for sellers to come back in and negotiate with
- 18:03Speaker 1: buyers to get the new orders flowing again. You know,
- 18:06Speaker 1: I look at I look at demand, new orders, new
- 18:09Speaker 1: export orders back while I was in customer inventories, and
- 18:12Speaker 1: the new orders had the single biggest impact on the
- 18:14Speaker 1: p m I declining month over a month at a
- 18:17Speaker 1: two point loss. So, you know, a bit of a
- 18:19Speaker 1: surprise here at forty five point two. I think you know,
- 18:22Speaker 1: back to your common Paul earlier on the show, that
- 18:25Speaker 1: when things get down to forty five, they get a
- 18:26Speaker 1: little concerning that. That's been my experience on the p
- 18:29Speaker 1: m I overall number. So we're still at forty eight
- 18:32Speaker 1: point four. I've been saying now for several months. Forty
- 18:35Speaker 1: eight to fifty two is probably the range that we're
- 18:36Speaker 1: gonna be running in for quite some time. It feels
- 18:39Speaker 1: like that's exactly where we were in December. I'm makes
- 18:41Speaker 1: us to move into January because December was a really
- 18:44Speaker 1: weird month. We had a lot of seasonal factors. Take
- 18:47Speaker 1: take the numbers up. I think the non seasonal number
- 18:50Speaker 1: would have been about not unusual, but then a lot
- 18:54Speaker 1: of people went home early, A lot of people took
- 18:56Speaker 1: all the vacation. I think people re up for earlier
- 18:59Speaker 1: than they normally do. So yeah, I'm a little concerned
- 19:01Speaker 1: about the new order number. Our prices have come down
- 19:04Speaker 1: a month over month. Here seven percent of the respondents
- 19:07Speaker 1: indicated same of lower prices, same as in November. Uh,
- 19:11Speaker 1: I think there's there's probably a more fundamental here. So
- 19:14Speaker 1: percent of manufacturing GDP is now in contraction. That means
- 19:17Speaker 1: it's nine or less. The alarming numbers that it's contracting,
- 19:23Speaker 1: it's forty five or less. So that's up from six
- 19:27Speaker 1: total in November at less. So we're not on a
- 19:32Speaker 1: good trend here. But we just finished our forecast. You
- 19:35Speaker 1: guys have you know, we believe to each other on
- 19:37Speaker 1: the Business Panel believes is gonna be a lot like
- 19:41Speaker 1: two that the second half of twenty three is going
- 19:44Speaker 1: to be quite a lot of uncertainty here in the
- 19:47Speaker 1: first half. I wondered, Tim, I mean, aside from the
- 19:51Speaker 1: you know, concerning amount of contractions that you're seeing, Um,
- 19:57Speaker 1: is the data less noisy now me than it was
- 20:00Speaker 1: last year? I mean, are we getting back to normal,
- 20:03Speaker 1: even if we're talking about, you know, a normal recession. Yeah, definitely.
- 20:08Speaker 1: I we this is like three or four months, it's
- 20:10Speaker 1: a normality. I think back in September October I pretty
- 20:14Speaker 1: much said, hey, the numbers that we have now, so
- 20:16Speaker 1: it's not a supply constraint expansion that that the suppliers
- 20:20Speaker 1: delivered much better. Prices started to come down, so I
- 20:24Speaker 1: think they're much more normal, but it's gonna take probably
- 20:26Speaker 1: a little time to get there. At this point, I
- 20:28Speaker 1: would say we're in normal economic contract and expansion, meaning
- 20:32Speaker 1: we're waiting for demand to come back. If demand doesn't
- 20:35Speaker 1: come back in the next two or three months, then
- 20:37Speaker 1: you're gonna see a lot of suppliers having to release people.
- 20:40Speaker 1: And nobody really wants to see that. And I think
- 20:42Speaker 1: the reason why the new order level isn't accelerating is
- 20:45Speaker 1: because we still have very long lead times. There's still
- 20:47Speaker 1: thirty five percent above troth Ley times. If we got
- 20:50Speaker 1: fifteen points of those back, I think bars would be
- 20:53Speaker 1: much more inclined to go ahead and negotiate deals because
- 20:56Speaker 1: the pricing has been coming down, has to come down
- 20:58Speaker 1: to the right level, and probably not, but you know,
- 21:01Speaker 1: you got delivering Cronser prices coming down, lead times just
- 21:04Speaker 1: still stopping lee strong. So buyers are saying, hey, I
- 21:07Speaker 1: don't believe these lead times, so I'm not gonna opt in.
- 21:10Speaker 1: Intellers are saying, well, you're gonna need to. This is
- 21:12Speaker 1: all going to get itself resolved in the last couple
- 21:14Speaker 1: of months for sure. All right, Tim, great stuff. I
- 21:16Speaker 1: really appreciate you checking in there on this I s
- 21:19Speaker 1: M data that was released this morning. Tim Fury, he's
- 21:22Speaker 1: the chairman of the Institute for Supply Management. All right,
- 21:28Speaker 1: let's pivot here and talk tech. And we talk tech
- 21:31Speaker 1: for a lot of people. That means you gotta start
- 21:33Speaker 1: with Apple. And I'm looking at the stock here. You know,
- 21:36Speaker 1: it was all twenty nine percent last year. That's up
- 21:39Speaker 1: about one today. But we had you know, people are
- 21:42Speaker 1: definitely calling the question the ability of Apple to continue
- 21:45Speaker 1: to grow through what might be a recession looking likely
- 21:49Speaker 1: in So let's bring in on a rock Ronic. He's
- 21:51Speaker 1: a senior technology technology analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. You know,
- 21:57Speaker 1: the stock down kind of last year, ish, um, that's
- 22:02Speaker 1: another performance for you know, the Apple shareholders that they're
- 22:05Speaker 1: not used to that. What's your call on the Apple story?
- 22:07Speaker 1: These days. So I think, Paul, I think everybody is
- 22:11Speaker 1: getting to a realization that Apple cannot grow in double
- 22:15Speaker 1: digits forever. And I think this is something we've been
- 22:17Speaker 1: hopping on for a while, that this is a company
- 22:20Speaker 1: at best on the top line will grow you know,
- 22:22Speaker 1: somewhere around five and on the bottom line with buy
- 22:25Speaker 1: bags and uh, you know, I would say a little
- 22:28Speaker 1: bit of expansion, you know, EPs somewhere around n I
- 22:31Speaker 1: think I think the world is coming to your realization
- 22:34Speaker 1: this is not a double digits growth growth story anymore.
- 22:38Speaker 1: And I think that the valuation is reflecting that now.
- 22:41Speaker 1: So can I get back to that story? I mean,
- 22:44Speaker 1: what's the great big hope for Apple? Is it a car?
- 22:48Speaker 1: Is it some sort of virtual reality glasses? Can they
- 22:52Speaker 1: sell more of the watch? I mean, what, what's where's
- 22:54Speaker 1: the growth for them? So? I mean, in all, honestly,
- 22:58Speaker 1: if the global GDP somewhere around two and a half
- 23:01Speaker 1: three percent, you know, growing at you know, six to
- 23:03Speaker 1: eight percent is not a bad idea, I mean, in
- 23:05Speaker 1: my in my view, but um, this year is going
- 23:08Speaker 1: to be slow growth because of global consumer spending soda.
- 23:11Speaker 1: Next year there's going to be a rebound on that
- 23:13Speaker 1: but I would say in the long run, this is
- 23:14Speaker 1: still a story that is more of a high single
- 23:17Speaker 1: digit growth story. Now when you talk about specific products, UM,
- 23:21Speaker 1: you know you would see the iPhone installed based growth
- 23:24Speaker 1: steadily over time. UM, air pods is a very big
- 23:28Speaker 1: growth story also. But again you know remember air pods,
- 23:31Speaker 1: air watches and all these things they are they may
- 23:34Speaker 1: grow in double digits, but from a overall you know,
- 23:37Speaker 1: Apple's revenue point of view, they really don't contribute much
- 23:40Speaker 1: because they're very small portion of the overall time. All right,
- 23:44Speaker 1: if if, if this is the stock I'm thinking about,
- 23:46Speaker 1: as you know, an analysts, portfolio manager and investor, and
- 23:49Speaker 1: I'm penciling and high single digit earnings growth And look
- 23:52Speaker 1: at the pe today, looking at it's twenty times earnings,
- 23:55Speaker 1: I mean, I'm paying twice the growth rate here. Is
- 23:57Speaker 1: is that a fair multiple? I think? You know, this
- 24:01Speaker 1: is where this is a marquee name for you know,
- 24:04Speaker 1: other reasons. If you were to put a DC evaluation
- 24:06Speaker 1: on it, I mean, I I think the number you're
- 24:08Speaker 1: going to get is slightly different because, um, this is
- 24:11Speaker 1: a stock that can you know, that should in all
- 24:14Speaker 1: logic continue to grow for many years to come. So
- 24:18Speaker 1: you could argue that over the next seven eight years,
- 24:20Speaker 1: this would you know, be a substantial portion of the
- 24:24Speaker 1: overall you know, take framework when it comes to anything
- 24:27Speaker 1: consumer devices. You you know, we expect a fair fair
- 24:30Speaker 1: larger number of iPhones down the road. So I think
- 24:33Speaker 1: this is more of a value at a reasonable price
- 24:36Speaker 1: rather than growth name. I think the is was treated
- 24:38Speaker 1: as a growth name for the last few years. Um.
- 24:40Speaker 1: I think this is going to be very very much
- 24:42Speaker 1: like a Coca Cola or a Costco, And I would
- 24:44Speaker 1: argue both of them are trade way more than twenty
- 24:47Speaker 1: times earnings Baul, Do they have a Does Apple have
- 24:51Speaker 1: a deep en up bench that you have no concern
- 24:54Speaker 1: about Tim Cook? I mean, he seems very healthy and
- 24:58Speaker 1: he's young, but you know who fills his place if
- 25:04Speaker 1: he needs to go in terms, and has done an
- 25:08Speaker 1: amazing job over the last several years. But I would
- 25:11Speaker 1: I would argue that Apple is one of those companies
- 25:13Speaker 1: that does not need a revolutionary, needed or that big
- 25:17Speaker 1: of a visionary At this point, the installed base on
- 25:19Speaker 1: its products is so wide right now that you know
- 25:22Speaker 1: it needs to figure out how it's going to sell
- 25:24Speaker 1: into that installed base. Most services, more content, more video
- 25:28Speaker 1: and more accessories. So I I really don't think that
- 25:31Speaker 1: we need that level of Steve Jobs kind of a
- 25:34Speaker 1: person at this point for this company. I'll tell you
- 25:36Speaker 1: what they need on or wrong. They need to listen
- 25:38Speaker 1: to my advice here, and my advice is they need
- 25:41Speaker 1: to raise their dividends. I mean, they got a dividend
- 25:43Speaker 1: yield less than one percent. I mean, are you kidding me?
- 25:46Speaker 1: I wanted to They can do both. I want a
- 25:50Speaker 1: two or three four percent of it then yield? Can
- 25:52Speaker 1: you make that happen? Fair? Fair? Fair point, Paul. But
- 25:55Speaker 1: I would argue that they're going to use close to
- 25:57Speaker 1: a hundred billion and buying back their shares. If if
- 26:00Speaker 1: you are a long term Apple chairholders, you know they
- 26:03Speaker 1: would buy close to a hundred billion dollars. I mean,
- 26:05Speaker 1: that's there's no company out there that generates that amount
- 26:08Speaker 1: of free count. They can do both, They can do both.
- 26:11Speaker 1: I don't know why they. I don't know why they.
- 26:14Speaker 1: If you're gonna pay a dividend, now, I guess they're
- 26:16Speaker 1: paying it. If you're gonna be a value stock, well
- 26:19Speaker 1: that's the thing they don't want even be paying with
- 26:21Speaker 1: that brush. But I mean, I guess they pay this
- 26:23Speaker 1: token dividends, So dividend funds presumably can buy and own Apple,
- 26:28Speaker 1: and I guess that's kind of their strategy. But I'm like,
- 26:30Speaker 1: you can afford to do both and put out a
- 26:33Speaker 1: nice dividend out there. I think that would be a
- 26:35Speaker 1: whole new set of investors. But my advice has been
- 26:39Speaker 1: falling on deafit. I'm going to say that Costco pays
- 26:43Speaker 1: less than one percent dividends. Okay, So I'm I'm you know,
- 26:46Speaker 1: I want you to think about Apple not so much
- 26:49Speaker 1: as a technology stock that somebody can come out and
- 26:52Speaker 1: take their business away tomorrow. This is very much like
- 26:54Speaker 1: a consumer um, you know, discriptionary stock where you know something,
- 26:58Speaker 1: You're right, Costco same dividend and yield, same dividend yield.
- 27:01Speaker 1: So you've you're you're you're prepared for that question, I know.
- 27:05Speaker 1: But that's how I think about this company. I don't
- 27:08Speaker 1: think about this company as a Microsoft or something else.
- 27:10Speaker 1: This is something This is a brand that will remain
- 27:13Speaker 1: with us twenty years from now. It is not going
- 27:15Speaker 1: to be a tech company that somebody can come and
- 27:17Speaker 1: take their market share away from them. That's not going
- 27:19Speaker 1: to happen. So the real way to think about this
- 27:22Speaker 1: company is something that is going to be able to
- 27:25Speaker 1: sell into that install base. And I never understood and
- 27:28Speaker 1: when people ask me all the time, why is Costco
- 27:29Speaker 1: trading get such a high marketple And the reason for
- 27:32Speaker 1: that is because somebody like a Costco or a Coca
- 27:34Speaker 1: Cola will be around twenty years from now and and
- 27:37Speaker 1: Costco is at thirty one times elearnings. So you you
- 27:40Speaker 1: want to look at this not so much from a
- 27:42Speaker 1: traditional tech point of view, Paul, but more so into
- 27:45Speaker 1: these brands that will remain with us for a very
- 27:48Speaker 1: long So is that how the market has a market
- 27:50Speaker 1: transitioned from you know, looking at this as a tech
- 27:54Speaker 1: s doctor just a big, big consumer name. No, that's
- 27:57Speaker 1: what that's That is my argument that you have to
- 27:59Speaker 1: think of this in a very different way because a
- 28:02Speaker 1: lot of investors get into this with the idea that
- 28:05Speaker 1: you know, this is a technique. A car is going
- 28:07Speaker 1: to come and completely change the nature of this business,
- 28:10Speaker 1: and they're going, this is not how you want to
- 28:12Speaker 1: think about this. This is a brand that is, you know,
- 28:15Speaker 1: a central to our life as what we do on
- 28:17Speaker 1: a daily basis, and this is going to do you
- 28:19Speaker 1: logically remained with us for a very long period of time.
- 28:22Speaker 1: You cannot say that about any software company. Frankly buying
- 28:25Speaker 1: Microsoft perhaps that it is going to be remained with
- 28:28Speaker 1: you ten years from now. Well, each of them can
- 28:31Speaker 1: be unseated tomorrow by somebody you know, new coming in.
- 28:34Speaker 1: Both Apple and Microsoft are a part of your life. Um,
- 28:39Speaker 1: the differences you enjoy Apple, right? No? I like Microsoft
- 28:44Speaker 1: as well? Like what dude, not Windows? Surely? No? I
- 28:50Speaker 1: mean I'm talking about enterprise application almost almost you know,
- 28:54Speaker 1: they're the heart and lung of every enterprise that's out.
- 28:58Speaker 1: And so I saw Ubs down. It did it today,
- 29:00Speaker 1: and I think in part due to some concerns about Azure.
- 29:04Speaker 1: What's your view of Microsoft here? These days? It will
- 29:06Speaker 1: slow down? I mean once again, I mean I'm not
- 29:08Speaker 1: sure why the stocks start focus on what wouldn't slow
- 29:11Speaker 1: down this year? Give me one metric for any in
- 29:14Speaker 1: the enterprise business that's not going to slow down this year.
- 29:17Speaker 1: So I'm I'm sometimes surprised about the stock reaction because
- 29:22Speaker 1: you know, all companies have said aws said they're going
- 29:24Speaker 1: to slow down, So why why are people so surprised
- 29:27Speaker 1: about it? So, I mean, I I my my two
- 29:30Speaker 1: cents on this entire thing is people, it seems, want
- 29:33Speaker 1: to be short thing, you know, tech going into this year,
- 29:36Speaker 1: and how do they do it. They find Apple, they
- 29:39Speaker 1: find Microsoft. There is no other real way to do
- 29:40Speaker 1: it given the large market gap of it. So if
- 29:43Speaker 1: if there is a multiple compression on this thing, so
- 29:46Speaker 1: be it. And the long run, and I said this recently,
- 29:50Speaker 1: you know, look what happened with Southwest. Do you think
- 29:53Speaker 1: the whole world is done with enterprise spending on technology?
- 29:56Speaker 1: The world is full of legacy applications that are so
- 30:00Speaker 1: old and so behind that they need to upgrade. So
- 30:03Speaker 1: you think there are a lot of I think there
- 30:04Speaker 1: are a lot of Southwest airlines out there that are
- 30:06Speaker 1: big companies that maybe have underinvested in technology that for
- 30:12Speaker 1: whatever reason, they're gonna have to step it up. Yeah,
- 30:15Speaker 1: I can give you Like you you could pick any
- 30:17Speaker 1: industry out there that is so far behind what you're
- 30:20Speaker 1: used to on your iPhone, Audio, Amazon app that is
- 30:23Speaker 1: not the benchmark. If you look at those as the
- 30:25Speaker 1: benchmarks for any enterprises, enterprises would get a grade of
- 30:28Speaker 1: two to three on a scale of one to ten,
- 30:31Speaker 1: whereas your iPhone would get somewhere around our nine or
- 30:34Speaker 1: a ten. You have to invest. There is no way
- 30:36Speaker 1: out of it before We only have a minute left.
- 30:39Speaker 1: But I have to ask you about the Apple car.
- 30:42Speaker 1: It's due out in six which seems increasingly um you know,
- 30:46Speaker 1: around the corner. But you don't seem that pumped about it,
- 30:49Speaker 1: are you? Don't you think this is going to be
- 30:50Speaker 1: a revolution. It's not gonna be a game changer. It
- 30:53Speaker 1: would love to It will increase the market cap quite
- 30:55Speaker 1: a bit. It will be a beautiful car, I'm sure.
- 30:57Speaker 1: But tell me, in honesty and all honesty, if the
- 30:59Speaker 1: price point of this car is fifty how many units
- 31:03Speaker 1: will be sold ever year? Well? Think about math point. Yeah,
- 31:07Speaker 1: but but that's like that's like Rivan Tesla, the Ford Lightning, Uh,
- 31:12Speaker 1: you know, the electric Selverado. These are all gonna be
- 31:15Speaker 1: around there as well. I mean, you can't get into
- 31:17Speaker 1: a night eleven for less than one oh six. Yeah,
- 31:20Speaker 1: but but how many nine elevens do you do you
- 31:22Speaker 1: sell each year? The Tesla to the Model three can
- 31:24Speaker 1: be sold many many models. It's not a problem. But
- 31:27Speaker 1: Apple is not going to make a car forty thousand dollars.
- 31:29Speaker 1: Apple's not going to get into that business. Lamborghini. Apple
- 31:31Speaker 1: gets into a business but has a forty percent margins
- 31:34Speaker 1: forty percent margin. Is only one company out there, Lamborghini.
- 31:36Speaker 1: How many units do you think they ten thousand or
- 31:39Speaker 1: they try, I mean Lamborghini Ferrari, they sell less than
- 31:42Speaker 1: ten thousand. Eleven is about that. Let the answer to
- 31:45Speaker 1: every question, the auto question, he comes right back to
- 31:47Speaker 1: the Lamborghini example. I mean, you've done this once or twice.
- 31:50Speaker 1: They're capped pretty much at a ten thousand. All right,
- 31:53Speaker 1: we're gonna let you go. We're gonna gonna let you
- 31:55Speaker 1: go here. But we'll come back to this. I guess
- 31:57Speaker 1: let's get him back on tomorrow. Let's get him back
- 31:59Speaker 1: onto when when he's in New York. We'll get him
- 32:00Speaker 1: in studio. So that's how we do it, because he's
- 32:02Speaker 1: he's just you know, he's somewhere else, some undisclosed location.
- 32:06Speaker 1: So we'll get back to him. But on a rock Ronda,
- 32:07Speaker 1: he covers all things technology for Bloomberg Intelligence, giving us
- 32:10Speaker 1: his call on Apple. You had a little discussion there
- 32:14Speaker 1: on Microsoft, but I mean, I think he still remains
- 32:17Speaker 1: a bowl on Apple. But I'm sticking with my argument
- 32:19Speaker 1: that they should they don't need to, but they should
- 32:23Speaker 1: raise their dividend give shareholders that maybe a two or
- 32:26Speaker 1: three percent yield as opposed to the zero point eight
- 32:29Speaker 1: percent yield right now. O r f nan Oh yeah,
- 32:37Speaker 1: I think that's like an et F for orphan stocks
- 32:40Speaker 1: or something like that. I don't know, but we got
- 32:41Speaker 1: the guy who's in charge of this stuff, and he's
- 32:43Speaker 1: gonna be ringing the bell the New York Stock Exchange,
- 32:45Speaker 1: which is still a thing. By the way, Um, it's
- 32:48Speaker 1: a good market. Have you ever shot during the bell
- 32:50Speaker 1: the New York Stock Exchange? And I worked on New
- 32:52Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange, but I made money on the New
- 32:54Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange floor. Mark Newman, c io at Constrained
- 32:57Speaker 1: Capital joins us here. Mark Tuck to us about you're
- 33:01Speaker 1: in our Bloomberg and ar actor Brooker studio, so it
- 33:02Speaker 1: gets the gold star. He's usually based in Atlanta, but
- 33:04Speaker 1: he's here in New York today. Mark. What is constraint capit?
- 33:08Speaker 1: What do you guys do? What is O r f
- 33:10Speaker 1: N because I'm putting into my terminal. Yeah, thanks a lot.
- 33:13Speaker 1: So O RFN is the E s G Orphans Index
- 33:16Speaker 1: E t F okay, so E s G Orphans Index.
- 33:21Speaker 1: So this is companies that don't go into E s
- 33:24Speaker 1: G funds. So these sectors, the six sectors that I
- 33:28Speaker 1: quantitatively selected, have been routinely excluded from the e s G.
- 33:32Speaker 1: So this is like a sin so it's like tobacco.
- 33:36Speaker 1: So it is a combination of what I call the
- 33:38Speaker 1: sin stocks, which we would say tobacco, alcohol, and gambling. Firearms, yes, firearms.
- 33:44Speaker 1: But there's a bit of a nuance there in terms
- 33:46Speaker 1: of the size of the company because it's a market
- 33:48Speaker 1: cap weighted index, so the biggest companies make it, so
- 33:51Speaker 1: a Smith and Wesson wouldn't make it because it's so small. Um.
- 33:54Speaker 1: And then on the other side is the woke sort
- 33:56Speaker 1: of I call them the woke shame stocks if you will.
- 33:58Speaker 1: Fossil fuel, nuclear or energy and weapons and these again
- 34:02Speaker 1: all just happing big weapons. So the Lockeed Martins and so,
- 34:08Speaker 1: you know, interesting in the weapons area is like the
- 34:10Speaker 1: Ukraine story. We just gave them forty seven billion, we
- 34:13Speaker 1: gave them fifty billion earlier in the year, and they
- 34:15Speaker 1: turn around and buy you know, battery systems from lockeed
- 34:20Speaker 1: Martin and raytheon. And the ironic thing is that E
- 34:23Speaker 1: s G investors have been excluded from the weapons manufacturers
- 34:27Speaker 1: as part of E s G. They're not E s
- 34:29Speaker 1: G friendly now right now we're defending democracy, right so
- 34:33Speaker 1: it gets very nuanced, and that's you know, a tricky
- 34:36Speaker 1: part of e SG. And for the last year, my
- 34:38Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal up seventeen. You guys have had good performance. Yes,
- 34:43Speaker 1: thankfully we have. UM. The E s G Orphans Index,
- 34:47Speaker 1: which is what the E t F is based office,
- 34:49Speaker 1: returned about twenty two last year, UM, which you know,
- 34:53Speaker 1: obviously the SMP was down about nineteen and the NASDAG
- 34:56Speaker 1: was down over thirty. So I'm pretty happy with that.
- 34:58Speaker 1: And then the orphans or FN launched in mid May
- 35:01Speaker 1: and has done really well. So I mean, you've got
- 35:04Speaker 1: like x on Mobile, Philip mars raytheon Chevron, Boeing and
- 35:08Speaker 1: has a Bush Diagio. Those are names, yes, those are
- 35:11Speaker 1: and you know these there's a lot of recent talk
- 35:14Speaker 1: about the anti E s G if you will, and
- 35:16Speaker 1: there are sector based stocks and e t F s
- 35:19Speaker 1: that do that, but this one actually separated the whole
- 35:23Speaker 1: E s G factor and sort of it's the isolated
- 35:25Speaker 1: E s G factor anti E s G E t
- 35:28Speaker 1: F hence the name constrained Capital. I love the name
- 35:31Speaker 1: of the firm. Is this Your main focus is the
- 35:34Speaker 1: orphan E T F your main focus there, You're looking
- 35:36Speaker 1: to put together other products. What's the story? So thank you? Yeah,
- 35:39Speaker 1: it is the first one out of the gate. And
- 35:41Speaker 1: the idea behind constraint capital a hedge fund legend. Cliff
- 35:45Speaker 1: as Nous of a q R. He wrote a really
- 35:48Speaker 1: interesting white paper back in May of two thousand seventeen
- 35:51Speaker 1: and discussed constraints on capital and how they create, they
- 35:55Speaker 1: cause malinvestment and misallocation of capital, and then opportunities and
- 35:59Speaker 1: these were secure eties that have been excluded under constraints
- 36:02Speaker 1: avoided if you will become high expected return securities. And
- 36:06Speaker 1: it has to attract investors by lower prices over time.
- 36:09Speaker 1: And now it's starting to do that thing because it's
- 36:11Speaker 1: a very uncrowded space and versus And we had Matt
- 36:15Speaker 1: who's the guy we had in with r L. V Ramaswamy, Yeah,
- 36:19Speaker 1: Viva Rama Swanny is another guy dri drive and d
- 36:22Speaker 1: R L L His is his thing. And he's saying, basically,
- 36:25Speaker 1: you know, by the energy companies, you know, drill, drill, drill,
- 36:28Speaker 1: you know, and let don't I don't want my companies
- 36:30Speaker 1: making social decisions from me. I want to maximizing shareholder values. Well,
- 36:34Speaker 1: let's other parts of society deal with those exactly. So
- 36:37Speaker 1: his thing isn't really anti E s G per se,
- 36:40Speaker 1: and I don't think yours is really either. It's just
- 36:43Speaker 1: the maximization of profits. He's also looking to find those
- 36:47Speaker 1: opportunities that have been kind of discarded by the E
- 36:50Speaker 1: s G world. Yeah, So I spoke to the VAC
- 36:52Speaker 1: a few times, and I really like their approach and
- 36:54Speaker 1: their thoughts and the one I call us cousins as
- 36:57Speaker 1: opposed to siblings, if you will. And I find that
- 37:00Speaker 1: they're approaching things from a corporate level. They're gonna approach
- 37:03Speaker 1: the c suite and say, hey, Google, your your ads
- 37:05Speaker 1: are biased or your your searches are biased. I've approached
- 37:09Speaker 1: it from isolating the company's most excluded and really focused
- 37:14Speaker 1: at the investor level and saying here, this diversifies your
- 37:17Speaker 1: portfolio against what's not crowded. And yes, they've been isolated
- 37:22Speaker 1: by the E s G community. And now that there's
- 37:24Speaker 1: that pushback and that has shined a light in the neighborhood,
- 37:27Speaker 1: if you will, UH, taking on black Rock and those
- 37:30Speaker 1: kinds of things, I expect flows to revert and come back,
- 37:34Speaker 1: and and the the the nuance of E s G
- 37:37Speaker 1: become wider, and these malign securities to find more inflows
- 37:40Speaker 1: over time. Where do you think we are in that
- 37:42Speaker 1: whole E s G movement? It feels like it's lost
- 37:46Speaker 1: some momentum, But some of the folks tell me no,
- 37:49Speaker 1: I mean, how do you think about it? So this
- 37:51Speaker 1: is the first year while two thousand two where returns
- 37:54Speaker 1: really suffered, and I think that you have certain sales points,
- 38:00Speaker 1: if you will, calling things E s G sort of
- 38:03Speaker 1: all things E s G. And when I look at
- 38:04Speaker 1: a name like Amazon, for example, that has a huge
- 38:07Speaker 1: carbon footprint, biggest outside the energy space, and it was
- 38:11Speaker 1: down almost what I think, forty five or fifty this
- 38:13Speaker 1: past year. And everyone is in Amazon, even a lot
- 38:16Speaker 1: of big E s G funds own Amazon is like
- 38:19Speaker 1: a top three holding at black Rock and at Vanguard.
- 38:21Speaker 1: And I think that people are starting to realize weight
- 38:23Speaker 1: what do I own and why do I own it?
- 38:25Speaker 1: And is this really E s G? Or is it
- 38:27Speaker 1: a failed objective within E s G. And I think
- 38:29Speaker 1: that we're in the early innings of people realizing that
- 38:32Speaker 1: they've sort of been misled they've paid higher fees, they've
- 38:35Speaker 1: had lower returns, and worst of all is the failed objectives.
- 38:38Speaker 1: And I think as returns people see their returns and say,
- 38:41Speaker 1: wait a second, what just happened here? That's when they
- 38:44Speaker 1: sort of wake up. So I think it's early ends.
- 38:46Speaker 1: But again, if I made for one more second, the
- 38:49Speaker 1: the evolution of E. S G from here will be
- 38:51Speaker 1: three dimensional, not two dimensional. It's not going to turn
- 38:54Speaker 1: off and turn on. The new word is going to
- 38:55Speaker 1: be sustainability. We've seen a lot of that this year
- 38:57Speaker 1: already or in the past few weeks. In a month
- 39:00Speaker 1: or two, I think that's how it evolves, and they'll
- 39:02Speaker 1: be sort of chasing, if you will. I call it
- 39:04Speaker 1: like the greyhound chasing the hair around the track, right though,
- 39:07Speaker 1: he's sort of chasing that thing to find out what
- 39:09Speaker 1: what's the next new thing? So to speak. One of
- 39:12Speaker 1: the big drivers I see big holdings is energy, and
- 39:15Speaker 1: that's had a phenomenal year in two one of the
- 39:18Speaker 1: very few sectors that have really put up some performance.
- 39:21Speaker 1: What's your energy called? Here? Because if energy goes the
- 39:23Speaker 1: other way, obviously you guys are exposed, right And I
- 39:26Speaker 1: think that we have a twenty allocation fossil fuel and
- 39:30Speaker 1: nuclear energy. So that's basket. I think I've always said
- 39:35Speaker 1: you can't get to the future of energy without present energy, right.
- 39:38Speaker 1: We can't do this quantum leap into batteries, into solar
- 39:42Speaker 1: in the wind without using what we have currently. So
- 39:45Speaker 1: I do think in the near term there is some
- 39:47Speaker 1: concern on energy prices. You know, the recession is a
- 39:49Speaker 1: bit of a talk um, but going forward, and I
- 39:52Speaker 1: interviewed an expert, a Nasa Haji, an energy expert, and
- 39:56Speaker 1: he basically said, if you think we're at peak or
- 39:59Speaker 1: you know, basically the oil situation is we we still
- 40:03Speaker 1: need oil to do a lot of things heat our homes,
- 40:07Speaker 1: cool our homes, and over time demand is still going
- 40:10Speaker 1: to be there from developed world along with developing world
- 40:14Speaker 1: in fossil fuel. So I don't think it's going anywhere
- 40:16Speaker 1: in the short term. In the short term, it might
- 40:19Speaker 1: have a little struggle if if the recession comes to
- 40:21Speaker 1: play and demand does shrink. What's the nuclear I mean,
- 40:24Speaker 1: I look at your top holdings. I see Excen, Philip
- 40:26Speaker 1: Morris raytheon Chevron. Where's the nuclear play there? So next
- 40:32Speaker 1: Terra Duke Dominion s O Southern Company, American ap So
- 40:38Speaker 1: these are that that looks like the energy area excuse me,
- 40:41Speaker 1: where I think we really could see some revolutionary change
- 40:45Speaker 1: in the next few decades. Because you know, we tried
- 40:48Speaker 1: it once, we went big into it. Globally, we kind
- 40:50Speaker 1: of backed away from it, some people running scared, some
- 40:52Speaker 1: people still thinking it's cheap if we already built it,
- 40:54Speaker 1: but it's too expensive to build again. Now we're seeing
- 40:58Speaker 1: real technological advances that like, you know, this could be
- 41:02Speaker 1: you know, free power, that's right. And you know, the
- 41:04Speaker 1: interesting thing is over the past year, part of the
- 41:07Speaker 1: constraints on capitol we saw in the EU was Germany
- 41:11Speaker 1: shutting down their nuclear plants and then all of a sudden,
- 41:14Speaker 1: Russia had sort of an advantage and they took advantage
- 41:16Speaker 1: of it. Now we've seen a lot of coal burning
- 41:19Speaker 1: recently in the last few months, last half of the year,
- 41:22Speaker 1: because of the energy situation, the energy crisis, if you will.
- 41:25Speaker 1: And in the end, a ton of coal is more
- 41:29Speaker 1: damaging and pollutant than a marble size piece of uranium.
- 41:33Speaker 1: So that's the whole nuclear nuclear tradeoff, if you will.
- 41:37Speaker 1: And it's um you know, it's a sustainable carbon free
- 41:41Speaker 1: you know, energy source. So I think that, uh, it's
- 41:45Speaker 1: going to be a very big thing going forward. As
- 41:47Speaker 1: you say, Matt, I mean it seems like a you know,
- 41:51Speaker 1: an amazing opportunity for for I wouldn't say limitless energy,
- 41:54Speaker 1: but cleaner and cleaner and and and and sustainable. Well
- 42:00Speaker 1: that's the key, right, the fact that it's going to
- 42:01Speaker 1: be sustainable now that they can power reactors with spent
- 42:06Speaker 1: fuel um and that they don't create the kind of
- 42:08Speaker 1: waste that they did before where we need to find
- 42:10Speaker 1: like a mountain in Utah to stores to all that stuff.
- 42:13Speaker 1: And I think that the part of the image that
- 42:16Speaker 1: nuclear has in a bit of the in a bit
- 42:19Speaker 1: of the media areas is needs a little bit of reworking.
- 42:21Speaker 1: If you have three mile Island was a long time ago,
- 42:23Speaker 1: Yeah it was. I was. I remember Mark Newman, ce
- 42:25Speaker 1: io Constraint Capital, joining us here in the Bloomberg and
- 42:28Speaker 1: Actor Broker Studio. Who'll be ringing in the New York
- 42:31Speaker 1: so Exchange tomorrow. So you'm the lookout for that. Thanks
- 42:36Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe
- 42:39Speaker 1: and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast
- 42:43Speaker 1: platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at
- 42:47Speaker 1: Matt Miller three. Put on bal Sweeney. I'm on Twitter
- 42:51Speaker 1: at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast. You can always catch
- 42:53Speaker 1: us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio