Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Record-Breaking Black Friday Sales, Despite Pandemic
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, along
- 0:04Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
- 0:06Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEO, market pros and Bloomberg experts,
- 0:10Speaker 1: along with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets
- 0:13Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts,
- 0:17Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. Well, I think I just
- 0:21Speaker 1: figured out why Tom Keene was not in today. He
- 0:23Speaker 1: is home with his computer online shopping, and I'm sure
- 0:27Speaker 1: he's got a lot of other folks they're joining him.
- 0:30Speaker 1: It's supposed to be a record cyber Monday here is
- 0:33Speaker 1: more and more people shop online, abandonedents stores and go online.
- 0:38Speaker 1: John Copeland, VP of Marketing and Customer Insights at Adobe
- 0:42Speaker 1: UH he joins US Adobes based in San Jose, California.
- 0:45Speaker 1: So John, give us the early early read here of
- 0:48Speaker 1: a Black Friday going into a cyber Monday, leading us
- 0:52Speaker 1: to the final weeks of holiday shopping. Yeah. So it's
- 0:57Speaker 1: been a record breaking Thanksgiving weekend already with over twenty
- 1:01Speaker 1: three and a half billion dollars in online sales. That's
- 1:04Speaker 1: a increase over last year. Today, Cyber Monday, we are
- 1:09Speaker 1: expecting a day to break all previous records for US
- 1:14Speaker 1: online sales, coming in somewhere between ten point eight and
- 1:18Speaker 1: twelve point seven billion dollars. That will be somewhere between
- 1:21Speaker 1: a fifteen and increase over last year. So it's interesting, Um,
- 1:27Speaker 1: you know, you you think about those numbers that you
- 1:30Speaker 1: just mentioned, John, in terms of you know, the overall
- 1:33Speaker 1: numbers and in some of the growth rates and so on,
- 1:35Speaker 1: it's just extraordinary given what's going on in the world,
- 1:39Speaker 1: given uh, the tough times that many consumers find themselves
- 1:43Speaker 1: in here as a result of the pandemic and unemployment.
- 1:46Speaker 1: Seems like a lot of this unemployment is now chronic unemployment.
- 1:49Speaker 1: What do you make of it? Yeah, you know what,
- 1:52Speaker 1: part of what we're seeing is really people trying to
- 1:56Speaker 1: have as much of a kind of normal Christmas and
- 2:01Speaker 1: celebration as as possible, right, I mean, I've I've seen
- 2:04Speaker 1: a lot of stories about people setting up their Christmas
- 2:07Speaker 1: decorations even before Thanksgiving. In fact, we we did that
- 2:11Speaker 1: in our house this year, trying to have more of
- 2:14Speaker 1: that kind of traditional end of your holiday spirit in
- 2:17Speaker 1: the context of this really really challenging year. And so
- 2:21Speaker 1: people are doing what they can to try and bring
- 2:24Speaker 1: as much of a normal end of your holiday home
- 2:26Speaker 1: as they can. All Right, So, John, we already saw
- 2:30Speaker 1: obviously even before the pandemic, UH a year's long trend
- 2:35Speaker 1: of more and more share of retail sales going to online.
- 2:39Speaker 1: It seems to have been dramatically accelerated here during the pandemic.
- 2:44Speaker 1: Is there any reason to think that post pandemic it's
- 2:47Speaker 1: gonna kind of ebb and maybe go the other way?
- 2:49Speaker 1: Or is or is some of these market shifts that
- 2:52Speaker 1: we've seen, are they more permanent? Yeah, you know, that's
- 2:55Speaker 1: the question everybody is really asking and interested in. We
- 2:59Speaker 1: expect that, you know, a good chunk of this new
- 3:01Speaker 1: digital behavior will probably stick around. Is consumers are finding
- 3:06Speaker 1: out that you know, the convenience of online ordering and
- 3:10Speaker 1: either having it delivered to their home or being able
- 3:12Speaker 1: to pick up in the store. Um, even through contactlets
- 3:16Speaker 1: delivery is just become so convenient for them. It will
- 3:19Speaker 1: probably bounce back, and you know, people will be doing
- 3:21Speaker 1: a lot offline as soon as they can and as
- 3:24Speaker 1: soon as they feel safe and comfortable doing that. But um,
- 3:29Speaker 1: you know, we we've continued to see this digital increase,
- 3:32Speaker 1: certainly during the holidays, for example, a good thirteen to
- 3:35Speaker 1: fifteen percent a year this year is really like two
- 3:37Speaker 1: years of growth packed into a single year um and
- 3:40Speaker 1: that's really going to be hard for people to to
- 3:42Speaker 1: step away from, even when they can. So that kind
- 3:46Speaker 1: of goes to the question, you know, when you talk
- 3:48Speaker 1: about retail, when you ever you have a discussion, maybe
- 3:50Speaker 1: even with the last decade or so, it comes to
- 3:52Speaker 1: the question of to what extent is the US retail
- 3:56Speaker 1: footprint overstored? And then when you get you know, a
- 3:59Speaker 1: period that we're going through right now where we're seeing
- 4:02Speaker 1: um so many people going over to e commerce, it
- 4:05Speaker 1: kind of brings that question to the four Yet again,
- 4:07Speaker 1: what's your thought about that as you look at the
- 4:09Speaker 1: US retail landscape. Yeah, I think this year has really
- 4:12Speaker 1: shown that, I don't know, it's so much about being overstored,
- 4:15Speaker 1: but certainly maybe under digital if you want um And
- 4:20Speaker 1: and that's one of the things that we see a
- 4:21Speaker 1: lot of businesses pushing into accelerating the digital transformations this year.
- 4:26Speaker 1: Retail as well as other sectors of the economy really
- 4:29Speaker 1: pushing hard into digital. And as that happens, we expect
- 4:34Speaker 1: to see even more kind of fundamental disruptions to the
- 4:38Speaker 1: way you know, business models work, and if you're not
- 4:41Speaker 1: in a digital channel, it's going to be really, really difficult.
- 4:44Speaker 1: So John, give us a sense of what's hot this
- 4:47Speaker 1: holiday season from a product perspective, and maybe what's not. Yeah,
- 4:52Speaker 1: so one of the well instead of the what's not,
- 4:55Speaker 1: I can I can definitely tell you, for example, the
- 4:57Speaker 1: electronic game platforms you know, PS five, Xbox and and
- 5:02Speaker 1: all of the games that go with them. So NBA
- 5:04Speaker 1: two K one, Madden, NFL twenty one. Just it's really
- 5:10Speaker 1: hot right now. Um. In terms of toys more generally,
- 5:13Speaker 1: Star Wars toys are really big. Nerve is really big
- 5:17Speaker 1: right now. Control right, Um, we expect to see a
- 5:20Speaker 1: lot with you know, even still continuing successes of like
- 5:24Speaker 1: L O L Surprise UH and hatch Amoles will continue
- 5:28Speaker 1: to be strong this holiday season. So John, you know,
- 5:31Speaker 1: we saw in the beginning of the pandemic some of
- 5:33Speaker 1: these retailers, pair of retailers fought for bankruptcy. Ever, we
- 5:37Speaker 1: can see more of that. That's really tough to say.
- 5:41Speaker 1: I think as as retailers are figuring out how to
- 5:44Speaker 1: make digital work, and they're pushing harder to get more
- 5:47Speaker 1: sales through their Hopefully that will tide them over while
- 5:52Speaker 1: the economy, you know, begins to get back to normal
- 5:55Speaker 1: as we start to see you know, light at the
- 5:57Speaker 1: end of the tunnel and the vaccines become available and hopefully,
- 6:00Speaker 1: you know, things can begin to turn around in it. John,
- 6:04Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciated. We
- 6:06Speaker 1: know you're busy this time of the year. John Copeland,
- 6:09Speaker 1: VP of Marketing and Customer Insights at Adobe, based in
- 6:13Speaker 1: San Jose, California. You know, generally a what we're hearing
- 6:17Speaker 1: here is retail sales here during US a Black Friday,
- 6:20Speaker 1: Cyber Monday, generally pretty healthy when given everything that we
- 6:23Speaker 1: are dealing with. So there's that for the consumer. Let's
- 6:27Speaker 1: switch gears right now and talk about commodities, particularly UH
- 6:32Speaker 1: crude oil. And there's really no one better to do
- 6:34Speaker 1: that with than Ellen Walled, President of Transversal Consulting. She
- 6:38Speaker 1: is also Bloomberg Opinion contributor. So Ellen, love to talk
- 6:42Speaker 1: to you about OPEK. What do you expect for their
- 6:45Speaker 1: upcoming meeting? Here, I'm looking at w t I cruded
- 6:47Speaker 1: at forty five dollars seems kind of range bound here.
- 6:51Speaker 1: What are you looking for? Yeah, so thank you. We're
- 6:55Speaker 1: looking for at this point, we're not looking for any
- 6:58Speaker 1: big resolution, and today it seems like the OPEC group
- 7:02Speaker 1: is going to push that off until tomorrow when larger
- 7:05Speaker 1: OPAQ plus group including Russia meets, But the expectation is
- 7:09Speaker 1: that they are going to have agreed to extend their
- 7:13Speaker 1: current quotas for another three months, so into the first
- 7:17Speaker 1: quarter of one, and that will be a change. Right now,
- 7:21Speaker 1: they're actually scheduled to increase production by two million barrels
- 7:25Speaker 1: per day come January one. And it's interesting because oil
- 7:28Speaker 1: has trended upwards uh recently, mostly on positive vaccine news,
- 7:34Speaker 1: but there are a lot of fears in terms of demand.
- 7:38Speaker 1: There's really a lot of demand weakness in Europe and
- 7:40Speaker 1: the United States that doesn't look like it's going to
- 7:42Speaker 1: resolve itself anytime soon, and so there's a lot of
- 7:46Speaker 1: fears that if OPEC doesn't come through with this three
- 7:49Speaker 1: month extension, that um, we could be seeing an end
- 7:52Speaker 1: to this oil rally. Yeah, it's inter I'm glad you
- 7:55Speaker 1: brought up kind of kind of where the oil is
- 7:58Speaker 1: trading here. You take a look at the equa markets
- 8:00Speaker 1: for example, and there you know, as in the month
- 8:02Speaker 1: of November all time highs, tremendous records for performance within
- 8:06Speaker 1: a month. A lot of that based upon the expectations
- 8:10Speaker 1: that the vaccines in fact are coming, the economies will
- 8:12Speaker 1: in fact open up next year, and you need to
- 8:15Speaker 1: make your bets today. Are you surprised that oil hasn't
- 8:19Speaker 1: traded better. I'm not deprised that oil hasn't traded better.
- 8:24Speaker 1: I'm actually surprised that that this rally has been sustained
- 8:27Speaker 1: for as long as it has, because the fundamentals are
- 8:30Speaker 1: really not very good when you're looking at demand and
- 8:33Speaker 1: also when you're looking at supply. We've got libbyan oil
- 8:37Speaker 1: production coming back on the market, and so that's adding
- 8:40Speaker 1: could add another million barrels a day, regardless of what
- 8:44Speaker 1: Opaque decides. So we've got lagging demand. These vaccines aren't
- 8:47Speaker 1: really going to be uh, you know, in the general
- 8:51Speaker 1: available to people all over the world until well into
- 8:55Speaker 1: so I think oil is really looking at um kind
- 8:58Speaker 1: of a shorter term than the markets are. But so
- 9:01Speaker 1: it's interesting that the rally we saw around the initial
- 9:05Speaker 1: vaccine news has been maintained, and it does seem like
- 9:09Speaker 1: it's up to opeque a bit to keep or sustain
- 9:12Speaker 1: or kind of put a floor on oil prices. So, Ellen,
- 9:17Speaker 1: what do you think or what's what are you hearing
- 9:19Speaker 1: from the folks you talk to in the global energy space?
- 9:22Speaker 1: What does a Biden administration mean and what does it
- 9:26Speaker 1: mean for kind of global oil supply? How do you
- 9:29Speaker 1: think about that? Yeah, this is this is a big
- 9:32Speaker 1: question on everyone's mind. It definitely means more support for
- 9:35Speaker 1: alternative energies, But the big question is what does it
- 9:37Speaker 1: mean for US production because that's really been a game
- 9:40Speaker 1: changer in the oil industry over the past few years.
- 9:43Speaker 1: Right now, the US has backed off of its production highs,
- 9:47Speaker 1: but that really was was expected even before the COVID
- 9:52Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic kind of demolished a lot of production in
- 9:56Speaker 1: uh the shale industry. But I think what we're looking
- 9:59Speaker 1: at our further consolidation in the shale oil industry. There
- 10:03Speaker 1: are big companies out there that are doing production, and
- 10:06Speaker 1: I think they will fare fairly well under a Biden
- 10:09Speaker 1: administration because a lot of the new regulations that he's
- 10:13Speaker 1: looking at will actually be beneficial to them and will
- 10:16Speaker 1: help keep smaller producers from really getting into the game.
- 10:21Speaker 1: But what about shale in general. Here it seems like
- 10:23Speaker 1: it's been, as you mentioned, kind of real game changer
- 10:26Speaker 1: for global supply as the US has become an actually
- 10:30Speaker 1: a net exporter. Here is the expectation that the best
- 10:35Speaker 1: days of the U s shell patch are in the
- 10:37Speaker 1: rear view mirror. I do think that they the production
- 10:41Speaker 1: heydays are definitely in the rear view mirror. But remember
- 10:44Speaker 1: that it was actually under the Obama administration that the
- 10:47Speaker 1: us UH finally ended the oil export ban and became
- 10:51Speaker 1: a player in the global oil market. So I don't
- 10:55Speaker 1: think we're looking to see a reversal of that in
- 10:57Speaker 1: any case. I do think the big question, though, is
- 10:59Speaker 1: what's going to happen with China. Because the Trump administrations
- 11:03Speaker 1: to succeed in getting China to agree to purchase a
- 11:06Speaker 1: fairly large amount of oil and energy products from the
- 11:10Speaker 1: United States. They haven't quite followed through on that, but
- 11:13Speaker 1: they have made a very significant um mark towards that goal.
- 11:18Speaker 1: And so I think that everyone is going to be
- 11:20Speaker 1: really wondering where's the Biden administration going to go with this.
- 11:23Speaker 1: Are we going to to see more? Is he gonna
- 11:25Speaker 1: hold China to this promise or is that kind of
- 11:28Speaker 1: out of the window. So as it relates to China, Ellen,
- 11:32Speaker 1: we've seen them, you know, whether the pandemic. They are
- 11:35Speaker 1: on the other side of of the pandemic. We're starting
- 11:38Speaker 1: to see the economy put up some decent growth numbers
- 11:41Speaker 1: as the economy opens up. Have we seen that in
- 11:44Speaker 1: the global energy markets? Have the Chinese been stepping up
- 11:47Speaker 1: their purchases on the global crude market? Yeah? Absolutely, China
- 11:52Speaker 1: is really I think where a lot in China is
- 11:55Speaker 1: where a lot of the big um national oil producers,
- 11:58Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, you are really focusing their attention because um,
- 12:02Speaker 1: they issued new quotas for the independent refineries, So that
- 12:06Speaker 1: means that those refineries are going to be drawing down
- 12:09Speaker 1: oil stocks, They're going to be taking in more crude oil, refining,
- 12:13Speaker 1: making more products and shipping that out. And um, they're
- 12:16Speaker 1: really looking at China to kind of be a bright
- 12:19Speaker 1: spot in the oil demand picture. So where where do
- 12:23Speaker 1: we see that, Like, do we see that in just
- 12:25Speaker 1: the price of oil? Do we track shipments? And if
- 12:28Speaker 1: we track shipments, do we track them from certain suppliers?
- 12:31Speaker 1: How how do you track that? Yeah, so we definitely
- 12:35Speaker 1: look at um at loadings that go to Asia to
- 12:39Speaker 1: China and how that's going, but also the number of
- 12:42Speaker 1: ships that are actually sitting waiting UH in ports in
- 12:45Speaker 1: Asia to unload their product. Sometimes that can be really
- 12:48Speaker 1: backed up when um, you know, when refineries aren't taking
- 12:53Speaker 1: are aren't taking coil in and so as we see
- 12:57Speaker 1: those stocks decline, that's an education and then usually oil
- 13:00Speaker 1: prices do respond when we get word that these uh
- 13:05Speaker 1: these ships are actually onloading their oil. Hey, Ellen, thanks
- 13:09Speaker 1: so much for joining us. We appreciate that. At interesting
- 13:11Speaker 1: times in the global energy space. Ellen Wild, president of
- 13:13Speaker 1: Transversal Consulting and a Bloomberg Opinion contributor, we appreciate her thoughts.
- 13:18Speaker 1: As always, we've been hearing from the good folks like
- 13:23Speaker 1: Dave Wilson Sarah Ponza this morning about what a record
- 13:27Speaker 1: setting month it was for equity markets in the month
- 13:30Speaker 1: of November. That's all well and good, but the cynic
- 13:33Speaker 1: in me says, Okay, now what do I do well?
- 13:36Speaker 1: Matt MAILEI chief market strategists at Miller Tebeck, and I
- 13:40Speaker 1: found over the mail report. Hopefully he'll have some answers
- 13:42Speaker 1: for me. So, Matt, We've had an extraordinary run here
- 13:45Speaker 1: in November, driven in large part by some really positive
- 13:48Speaker 1: news on the vaccine front, and we had some more
- 13:50Speaker 1: good news today. Um, what is your thought for the
- 13:54Speaker 1: remainder of the year heading into one, given that whether's
- 13:57Speaker 1: pandemic numbers are just getting worse and worse. Yeah, I
- 14:01Speaker 1: mean that's certainly something to be concerned about, no question.
- 14:04Speaker 1: I'm actually more a little bit more concerned about it
- 14:06Speaker 1: next year than I am this year. And from the
- 14:08Speaker 1: main the main reason, Well, first of all, today's pull
- 14:11Speaker 1: back is no big surprise. I mean, we've had this
- 14:13Speaker 1: great run and I mean especially the Russell two thousand,
- 14:15Speaker 1: I mean as up over UH in just a month.
- 14:19Speaker 1: So the fact that it's down in almost about percent
- 14:21Speaker 1: and a half today is not a big deal and
- 14:23Speaker 1: needs to digest those gains in the overall market and
- 14:25Speaker 1: may have to do that for a couple of days.
- 14:27Speaker 1: But the liquidity situation is still very strong, and it's
- 14:31Speaker 1: kind of weird. I mean what we went back whatever
- 14:33Speaker 1: is six or eight years ago and people were talking about, hey,
- 14:36Speaker 1: you know if the if, if the economy starts to
- 14:39Speaker 1: slow down, the FED will add more stimulus or do
- 14:42Speaker 1: more QUI so we don't have to worry if the
- 14:44Speaker 1: economy does better well, that's good. We don't have to
- 14:47Speaker 1: worry about that. So it was kind of a win win.
- 14:49Speaker 1: Now we're looking at that with and it's oddly as
- 14:51Speaker 1: it sounds, the virus UH and the lockdowns that are
- 14:55Speaker 1: going with it, and the concerns about the slowing growth
- 14:58Speaker 1: will I believe ENTI see the FED to keep their
- 15:01Speaker 1: liquidity spick. It's wide open through the end of the
- 15:04Speaker 1: year and into the early next year. Uh, much like
- 15:07Speaker 1: they did last year. For a very different reason. They
- 15:09Speaker 1: did it last year because if we had remember we
- 15:11Speaker 1: had the big repot problem in the fall of last year,
- 15:13Speaker 1: and they needed to keep the liquidity speakers open then.
- 15:16Speaker 1: But I think both will lead into a very similar
- 15:18Speaker 1: year continued here in rally. So, Matt, what we've certainly see,
- 15:21Speaker 1: not just in the month in November, but really since
- 15:24Speaker 1: you know our September ish or so, is that that
- 15:26Speaker 1: rotation trade people kind of lightening up a little bit,
- 15:29Speaker 1: some of those tried and true big tech names, whether
- 15:31Speaker 1: it's an Amazon or an Apple uh, and kind of
- 15:34Speaker 1: rotating into the names that will benefit with the rebounding
- 15:37Speaker 1: the economy. Presumably sometime in cyclical small caps so on
- 15:42Speaker 1: and so forth. So is that a trade you like.
- 15:45Speaker 1: If so, do you still like it here? Heading into
- 15:49Speaker 1: I do, but maybe not as much as I think
- 15:51Speaker 1: a lot of people are. And the reason for this
- 15:54Speaker 1: is is that I think a lot of people seem
- 15:56Speaker 1: to be wanting to throw the baby out with the
- 15:57Speaker 1: bathwater when it comes to tech. I certainly understand why. Technically,
- 16:01Speaker 1: some of these technology stocks that megacap names, um, you know,
- 16:05Speaker 1: without that kind of you know, with the vaccine and such,
- 16:07Speaker 1: we're not saying, well, Jesus, lockdown, stay at home is
- 16:10Speaker 1: gonna stay, is gonna stay with us for a long time.
- 16:12Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna be willing to pay the huge
- 16:14Speaker 1: valuations for these megacap names. But boy, the some of
- 16:18Speaker 1: the you know, especially the chip stocks, they act very
- 16:20Speaker 1: very well, making new highs. You have other stocks away
- 16:23Speaker 1: from a check to sorry the chip names, like a
- 16:26Speaker 1: Cgate Technologies, Western Digital, things like that. So my point
- 16:30Speaker 1: is tech is not dead by any minute, specially the imagination.
- 16:32Speaker 1: So do some rotating into value, but also do some
- 16:36Speaker 1: rotating within technology. I think that will bode well as
- 16:38Speaker 1: we go into into next year. Um, you know, I'll
- 16:42Speaker 1: bring up the dreaded E word energy. We've got w
- 16:45Speaker 1: t I credit forty five dollars a barrel um. One
- 16:48Speaker 1: could argue that if the economy is primed to open
- 16:51Speaker 1: up on a global scale sometime mid next year, as
- 16:54Speaker 1: these vaccines become more widely available, that perhaps that bodes
- 16:58Speaker 1: well for the energy infrastructure, and it's certainly been beaten
- 17:00Speaker 1: down over the last several years. Is that a sector
- 17:03Speaker 1: you have some courage for I do? I mean, obviously
- 17:07Speaker 1: it's had a huge run here over the last you
- 17:09Speaker 1: know to really two months now, uh, particularly in the
- 17:12Speaker 1: last month, but also really for two months. And the
- 17:15Speaker 1: x l E which is the energy E t F,
- 17:18Speaker 1: and of course the XOP which also includes some of
- 17:20Speaker 1: the uh uh sorry uh drilling names. But the point
- 17:26Speaker 1: is that they are overbought. They could pull back a
- 17:28Speaker 1: little bit over a near term, but they're also still
- 17:31Speaker 1: very cheap. And you think about rotation, I mean, people
- 17:34Speaker 1: are gonna need is if this group moves up, especially
- 17:37Speaker 1: institutional players, they're gonna they they are so underweight this
- 17:41Speaker 1: group as it rallies, especially into the new year, if
- 17:44Speaker 1: they're very underweighted, they're gonna have to rewait their their
- 17:47Speaker 1: their holdings. But more importantly, on a fundamental basis, the
- 17:50Speaker 1: last time oil UH, the the x l E, and
- 17:53Speaker 1: the x OP we're trading at these levels. Oil was
- 17:55Speaker 1: at thirty two dollars. Now it's at forty five, even
- 17:58Speaker 1: if it comes in a little bit still chief to
- 18:00Speaker 1: their underlying UH commodity. So I think this is a
- 18:04Speaker 1: group that on both a rewaiting play UH and on
- 18:09Speaker 1: a fundamental basis, is going to do a lot better
- 18:11Speaker 1: than a lot of people think. And if oil can
- 18:14Speaker 1: hold up in the mid forties, it doesn't have to
- 18:16Speaker 1: take off, but it holds up in the in the
- 18:17Speaker 1: mid forties, and especially if it rallies more, it's really
- 18:20Speaker 1: gonna move because the institutions have to pile into the group.
- 18:23Speaker 1: So I'm a lot more bullish on this group than
- 18:25Speaker 1: a lot of other people who need to be careful
- 18:27Speaker 1: and not saying jump in like you went to tech group.
- 18:29Speaker 1: But it's it's a nice play. You have just about
- 18:32Speaker 1: thirty seconds Banks, Big Banks here again another unloved group.
- 18:36Speaker 1: Is it time to take a look at them on
- 18:37Speaker 1: in the anticipation of a better one. Well, it's, you know,
- 18:41Speaker 1: again the very cheap group. So it's I think it's
- 18:43Speaker 1: a good play that the key is what's going to
- 18:45Speaker 1: happen in interest rates. To me, to be honest with you,
- 18:48Speaker 1: for short term traders, I think this thing can to
- 18:50Speaker 1: continue to rally because I think rates will hold up
- 18:52Speaker 1: and I think the YO curve will continue to steep in.
- 18:54Speaker 1: But as we move in the next year and we
- 18:56Speaker 1: get to some of the I think we get a
- 18:58Speaker 1: little bit less stimulant send a lot of people are
- 19:00Speaker 1: hoping for from both the Fed and the and the Congress.
- 19:04Speaker 1: UH that will cause those banks to take a little
- 19:06Speaker 1: bit of hiccup. So long term players that want to
- 19:08Speaker 1: be a little careful short term traders, I think you
- 19:10Speaker 1: can ride the way for for a couple more months.
- 19:12Speaker 1: Matt Manley, thank you so much for joining us. Really
- 19:14Speaker 1: appreciate it. Matt Mailey, chief market strategist at Miller Tabeck
- 19:17Speaker 1: and founder of the Mainly Report. There's time for Bloomberg Opinion.
- 19:23Speaker 1: We're joined today by Chris Hughes, Deals columnists for Bloomberg
- 19:26Speaker 1: Opinion and what deal you may ask, Well, it is
- 19:29Speaker 1: merger Monday, and we've got a big one. SMP Global,
- 19:32Speaker 1: the data company buying another data company I h S
- 19:35Speaker 1: Market for about thirty nine billion dollars in Chris, Thanks
- 19:38Speaker 1: so much for joining us here. This is a big deal.
- 19:40Speaker 1: Tell us about this deal. What's kind of the strategy
- 19:43Speaker 1: be putting these two big global data players together? And
- 19:47Speaker 1: I should note before you go on that Bloomberg LP
- 19:49Speaker 1: does compete both against SMP UH and I h S market. So, Chris,
- 19:54Speaker 1: what do you think is real drivers behind this this deal?
- 19:58Speaker 1: I think it's it's for two or three things. I mean,
- 20:00Speaker 1: one is that this industry is consolidating. We've already seen
- 20:05Speaker 1: some quite interesting combinations already, So think about the combination
- 20:10Speaker 1: of London Stock Exchange UH and Refinitive UH and UM.
- 20:16Speaker 1: So there have been deals happening already, so that the
- 20:19Speaker 1: trend is towards insolidation. And then if you think about
- 20:22Speaker 1: what this combination does, it brings together the SMP brand
- 20:27Speaker 1: which is very strong, with I h S is other
- 20:34Speaker 1: data services. So you end up with a combination which
- 20:37Speaker 1: has got more offer, more to offer and to more customers,
- 20:43Speaker 1: so you can cross fairly offering between the two customer
- 20:46Speaker 1: bases UM and with that scale you've become a much
- 20:50Speaker 1: stronger company, and then presumingly you can do more deals
- 20:53Speaker 1: after that. It's interesting, you know, I've when I was
- 20:56Speaker 1: a research channel. So I spent some time looking at
- 20:58Speaker 1: this industry and for a long time, uh, it was
- 21:01Speaker 1: a very sleepy industry. Investors didn't pay much attention to it.
- 21:04Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of value assigned to it. But
- 21:07Speaker 1: it just seems like in the last decade, as you mentioned,
- 21:09Speaker 1: there's been a lot of consolidation. It's really taken off.
- 21:12Speaker 1: And the valuations we're seeing here just extraordinary. What are
- 21:15Speaker 1: some of the new businesses that these companies are generating
- 21:18Speaker 1: off of their UM this this data that they have
- 21:22Speaker 1: in the analytics that they have and Y scale might
- 21:24Speaker 1: be important. There's a whole plethora of new products. I
- 21:29Speaker 1: mean one of them, of course is in Y s
- 21:32Speaker 1: G environmental, social and governance research and analytics. And you know,
- 21:36Speaker 1: we saw a deal UM the other day in Europe
- 21:40Speaker 1: with Deutsche Burza and I S S. So uh, there
- 21:44Speaker 1: is a whole array of new data points. If you
- 21:49Speaker 1: think about where UH, I H S markets started off,
- 21:52Speaker 1: where markets started off, UM, you know, way about when
- 21:56Speaker 1: it was really just looking at UM. You know, TRID
- 22:00Speaker 1: is in the credit market and that has obviously now
- 22:03Speaker 1: become a much much bigger business. Now. Who say the
- 22:06Speaker 1: valuations put on these companies are much bigger. As it happens. Actually,
- 22:10Speaker 1: these two UM has seen their valuations converge, so they're
- 22:15Speaker 1: they're emerging from a point of parity. But the increase
- 22:18Speaker 1: both in the in the evaluation multiples and the and
- 22:21Speaker 1: the and the site of these companies has been quite
- 22:23Speaker 1: tremendous over the last few years. So, Chris, it seems
- 22:26Speaker 1: like you know you you mentioned that there's been a
- 22:28Speaker 1: lot of consolidation in this space, so fewer and fewer players.
- 22:31Speaker 1: It suggests to me that the regulatory risk here is
- 22:35Speaker 1: not insubstantial. UM. What's what's the view on the street. Yeah, Like,
- 22:41Speaker 1: I think that I think that you have to play
- 22:42Speaker 1: that into consideration because you know that the sheer size
- 22:46Speaker 1: of this combination, complexity of it does is going to
- 22:51Speaker 1: attract regulatory scrutiny, and that in turn, obviously will adds
- 22:57Speaker 1: time and uncertainty to whether it actually completes. Now the
- 23:02Speaker 1: market is giving a cautious welcome to the combination. With
- 23:07Speaker 1: the other possible risk, obviously, is of a counter bid
- 23:11Speaker 1: for I H S markets. So on the one hand,
- 23:14Speaker 1: regulators we want to have a look, but on the
- 23:17Speaker 1: other hand, maybe alternative transactions may emerge, especially as the
- 23:23Speaker 1: price being paid for I S, even though it's a
- 23:26Speaker 1: big number of around about four billion on a debt
- 23:32Speaker 1: free basis, is actually quite a low premium on where
- 23:36Speaker 1: I was trading last week. So that could be in
- 23:39Speaker 1: an invitation to somebody to come in and try and
- 23:42Speaker 1: break it up. So there are indeed quite a few
- 23:44Speaker 1: uncertainties around whether this will actually go from announcement to
- 23:49Speaker 1: to full completion. So, Chris, if I'm an M and
- 23:52Speaker 1: a banker in the space, am I just dialing for
- 23:54Speaker 1: dollars here today telling all my clients, Hey, this industry
- 23:58Speaker 1: you need to get bigger or you to get out.
- 24:01Speaker 1: You expect to see even more deals. Are there more
- 24:03Speaker 1: to be done or is this Are we coming towards
- 24:05Speaker 1: the kind of the later innings of consolidating the global
- 24:07Speaker 1: data business. I think you're probably closer to the mark
- 24:12Speaker 1: um with a former than the latter. Even though we
- 24:16Speaker 1: are now seeing the emergence of some really really large players,
- 24:20Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like you know this is completely done yet.
- 24:24Speaker 1: And as you say, if you if you pass on
- 24:28Speaker 1: the consolidation, the risk is that you end up being
- 24:32Speaker 1: or are the small local player and you don't really
- 24:35Speaker 1: get that scale that enables you to go truly global,
- 24:39Speaker 1: and I think that that might be what we're seeing
- 24:41Speaker 1: in Europe actually, where you know, Europe hasn't really seen
- 24:46Speaker 1: truly global scale operator in this in this industry emerge.
- 24:54Speaker 1: How far does it go? Well, if you think about
- 24:57Speaker 1: the naturally deals that them and going on, hey, we've
- 24:59Speaker 1: seen more and more diversifications, so deals that it would
- 25:02Speaker 1: have raised an eye you just thought, well, that's not
- 25:05Speaker 1: not a logical combination. Now pere logical in terms of
- 25:08Speaker 1: just offering more and more by specification and great variety
- 25:13Speaker 1: of data to a larger pool of end customers. Seems
- 25:18Speaker 1: to be what is driving dealmakers and CEOs in the space,
- 25:24Speaker 1: which means that you could easily see combinations, certainly among
- 25:28Speaker 1: the exchanges. I mean you think about intercomplinental exchange. It
- 25:33Speaker 1: will be very interesting to see how they react to
- 25:35Speaker 1: this combination. So I don't think we're in any way
- 25:39Speaker 1: done yet. Hey, Chris Hughes, thank you so much for
- 25:43Speaker 1: joining us here. Christie's Bloomberg Opinion Deals column is talking
- 25:45Speaker 1: about the S and p I h S deal again,
- 25:47Speaker 1: a huge deal on that data analytic space enterprise value
- 25:51Speaker 1: forty four billion dollars. Just an extraordinary kind of multiples
- 25:55Speaker 1: there that we're seeing and we should know that. Again,
- 25:58Speaker 1: Bloomberg LP compete. It's with both S and P as
- 26:02Speaker 1: well as I H S market in the global data
- 26:04Speaker 1: and analytics business. But again it looks like more consolidation
- 26:09Speaker 1: in that space. Data becoming more and more valuable going
- 26:12Speaker 1: forward in a digital world, and it seems to be
- 26:14Speaker 1: like a lot of markets, it's all about scale. Thanks
- 26:19Speaker 1: for listening to Boomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and
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- 26:26Speaker 1: you prefer. I'm Bonnie Quinn. I'm on Twitter at Bonnie Quinn,
- 26:30Speaker 1: and I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
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