Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / The Fed, Big Tech Earnings, Apple, and Barbie (Podcast)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Every business day we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros,
- 0:09Speaker 2: and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moving news.
- 0:14Speaker 1: Find the Bloomberg Markets podcast called Apple Podcasts or wherever
- 0:17Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and at Bloomberg dot com Slash podcast.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Let's turn to economics because we've got a lot of
- 0:23Speaker 1: eco data this week. We've got a lot of central
- 0:25Speaker 1: banks meeting around the globe. I think the Bank of Japan,
- 0:28Speaker 1: the ECB coming this week, along with the US Bank
- 0:31Speaker 1: of England next week. So a lot to chew on
- 0:33Speaker 1: there from the central bank perspective. Let's break it down
- 0:36Speaker 1: with Liz McCormick, chief correspondent of Global macro Markets at
- 0:39Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, and Michael McKee, international Economics and Policy correspondent
- 0:43Speaker 1: with Bloomberg News, who joins us here in studio. Mike,
- 0:46Speaker 1: just want to start with you. We had the the
- 0:48Speaker 1: PMIS come out. I don't they didn't look that good
- 0:51Speaker 1: to me.
- 0:51Speaker 3: I mean, what do you.
- 0:52Speaker 1: Know, I'm manufacturing service. The composite PMI slowed from last month.
- 0:57Speaker 1: What do you reading to these types of numbers.
- 0:59Speaker 4: Well, the economy is slowing, which we expected. The question
- 1:02Speaker 4: is how fast does it slow. The Bloomberg most recent
- 1:05Speaker 4: Bloomberg Economic survey that just came out last Friday, suggests
- 1:11Speaker 4: that economists think that the US economy is going to
- 1:13Speaker 4: fall off cliff starting in this quarter, but that includes July,
- 1:18Speaker 4: and that's not kind of what the story the data
- 1:22Speaker 4: are telling at this point. Now you look at a
- 1:24Speaker 4: number that's forty nine for manufacturing, the PMI is not
- 1:31Speaker 4: a great number. It's below the level in theory that
- 1:34Speaker 4: is break even. But we still see services above healthily
- 1:40Speaker 4: above fifty, and composite above fifty. So things have slowed down,
- 1:45Speaker 4: but they don't seem to match up with what people
- 1:47Speaker 4: are expecting to happen.
- 1:49Speaker 3: Okay, so you're a glass half full type of person.
- 1:52Speaker 4: I'm wait until the waitress comes around.
- 1:57Speaker 5: Fill it up again.
- 2:00Speaker 4: We got GDP numbers on Thursday, and we get the
- 2:02Speaker 4: latest spending numbers on Friday, so we'll have a much
- 2:05Speaker 4: better view by Friday of where the economy is. Unfortunately,
- 2:09Speaker 4: for the Fed, they're meeting Wednesday.
- 2:11Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 2:11Speaker 6: Well, speaking of that optimism, I wonder Liz, if you
- 2:14Speaker 6: can talk us through this Nirvana scenario that we're hearing about, and.
- 2:19Speaker 7: Is that what we're gonna see?
- 2:21Speaker 8: Well, you know I love ed Yar Denny, but Nirvana
- 2:23Speaker 8: we all wanted show.
- 2:25Speaker 3: That's great.
- 2:26Speaker 8: But yeah, well, I mean clearly there is some like
- 2:30Speaker 8: Mike just said, some of the dire predictions many thought
- 2:34Speaker 8: we might be in a recession already haven't panned out.
- 2:36Speaker 8: So the market is kind of kind of more so
- 2:40Speaker 8: saying hey, there's a possibility we could get through this.
- 2:43Speaker 8: I mean, we've got five hundred basis points of tightening already.
- 2:46Speaker 8: FED says they're going to do some more markets pricing
- 2:48Speaker 8: in a little that could we have this you know,
- 2:51Speaker 8: I call it the nebulous soft landing on that possibly
- 2:55Speaker 8: the market is pricing in some easy next year, but
- 2:58Speaker 8: the FED could ease a bit even if we're not
- 3:01Speaker 8: in a recession, just to get things better in line
- 3:03Speaker 8: to normalize policy. So I would say there's still kind
- 3:07Speaker 8: of a camps out there hard landing policy mistake from
- 3:11Speaker 8: the FED is coming. They should have stopped to the
- 3:14Speaker 8: h Maybe they'll pull this off kind of thing, and
- 3:16Speaker 8: you know, we'll have to talk in maybe six months
- 3:19Speaker 8: in a year.
- 3:19Speaker 3: See it was right right.
- 3:21Speaker 1: All right, So Michael, you're the international guy here. Bank
- 3:26Speaker 1: of Japan this week, ECB this week, Bank of England
- 3:29Speaker 1: next week. How does a market look at some of
- 3:32Speaker 1: these other international national banks visa v what kind of
- 3:37Speaker 1: what the FED does?
- 3:38Speaker 4: Don't forget the Bank of Ghana which raised rates today.
- 3:42Speaker 3: Oh good to know to thirty percent.
- 3:45Speaker 4: Inflation is running at forty two and a half percent
- 3:48Speaker 4: a year there, so they're a little bit above that
- 3:50Speaker 4: two percent target. Yeah, But the FED is driving everything
- 3:55Speaker 4: in the sense that we are the by far biggest economy,
- 3:58Speaker 4: and it's the most influential central bank, and it is
- 4:03Speaker 4: where the US rate settles, is what drives currency trading.
- 4:07Speaker 4: So everybody's watching that, and then they'll be perhaps more
- 4:12Speaker 4: eyes on. At this point the ECB, they're in the
- 4:15Speaker 4: sort of same situation as the Fed. Christine and the
- 4:18Speaker 4: Guard has to and company have to decide whether they're
- 4:21Speaker 4: one and done. They're going to do one more and
- 4:24Speaker 4: then they will hold and wait and see what happens,
- 4:27Speaker 4: or do they promise to do a series of rate
- 4:30Speaker 4: hikes still because they're still concerned about where inflation is
- 4:34Speaker 4: the Bank of Japan, the consensus is that a huge
- 4:37Speaker 4: change is coming the end of yield curve control, but
- 4:40Speaker 4: not now, so it's a question of when do they
- 4:44Speaker 4: get there. What'll be interesting with the Bank of Japan
- 4:46Speaker 4: is to see what their economic forecasts are, because the
- 4:50Speaker 4: reporting from Bloomberg is that what we're going to see
- 4:53Speaker 4: is a big increase in the Bank of Japan's inflation outlook.
- 4:56Speaker 4: They're going to raise their inflation view, which is kind
- 5:00Speaker 4: of the opposite of what the other central banks want
- 5:02Speaker 4: to do, but it's what the Bank of Japan wants
- 5:05Speaker 4: to see happen.
- 5:06Speaker 6: So as we head into this kind of triple header
- 5:09Speaker 6: of central banks, which do you think we'll learn the
- 5:12Speaker 6: most from in terms of where we're heading.
- 5:15Speaker 4: Well, it depends, And this is a good question for
- 5:18Speaker 4: Liz because it's a it's a matter of interpretation. What
- 5:22Speaker 4: everybody wants to know from the FED and the ECB
- 5:25Speaker 4: is what next and how specific are they going to
- 5:28Speaker 4: be about what next? Whereas the Bank of Japan is
- 5:31Speaker 4: not going to really do anything and probably won't say
- 5:33Speaker 4: a whole lot, but if they do raise their inflation
- 5:36Speaker 4: forecasts a lot, that's going to set up a lot
- 5:38Speaker 4: to talk about what do they do next, how much closer.
- 5:42Speaker 4: Are we to the end of your curve control?
- 5:45Speaker 1: So, Liz, again, what's kind of the market. Does the
- 5:48Speaker 1: market feel like this Federal Reserve is still behind the curve?
- 5:52Speaker 1: I mean when you look at the trading week, the week, month,
- 5:55Speaker 1: the month here, it's felt like for a long time
- 5:58Speaker 1: the market wasn't listening to the Fed.
- 6:01Speaker 8: Yeah, I think, well, I think the market has kind
- 6:03Speaker 8: of thought the Fed was behind a curve on both ends.
- 6:05Speaker 8: Obviously late to the party to realize inflation wasn't transitory,
- 6:09Speaker 8: so they were slow to tight and slow to stop
- 6:11Speaker 8: their quantitative easing. And then there are some who feel
- 6:16Speaker 8: like Fed is going too far, like the market is
- 6:19Speaker 8: only priced for one more quarter point hike. We know
- 6:22Speaker 8: the Fed's dots have said two. It'd be interesting to
- 6:24Speaker 8: see if Chairman Powell, which he's been really you know,
- 6:28Speaker 8: kind of doubling down and saying to whoever he talks
- 6:31Speaker 8: to Congress, whomever, there's two more hikes coming. That's what
- 6:34Speaker 8: a lot of our officials are signaling.
- 6:35Speaker 7: Does he tone that down a little.
- 6:37Speaker 8: I think he clearly doesn't want to, just like Christine Legard,
- 6:40Speaker 8: like Mike was saying, they don't want to kind of
- 6:43Speaker 8: gin up animal spirits too much to say we were done,
- 6:46Speaker 8: we've won the battle, because they're pivotal, you know, at
- 6:49Speaker 8: not a key inflection point, but getting there.
- 6:51Speaker 5: But inflation is above both.
- 6:53Speaker 8: Their targets, right, So maybe somebody called it endgame communication, like,
- 6:59Speaker 8: you know, how far are we How do we kind
- 7:01Speaker 8: of gingerly get us into even if it's higher for
- 7:04Speaker 8: longer that they get to wherever and they stay there
- 7:06Speaker 8: for a while. That's the next thing. But I think
- 7:08Speaker 8: that's what they're trying to say. We're getting closer, maybe
- 7:11Speaker 8: more work to do, but we're not for sure done.
- 7:15Speaker 9: You know.
- 7:15Speaker 8: They don't want to signal that, and I think that's
- 7:17Speaker 8: why the market is in price for two hikes.
- 7:19Speaker 4: When you said does the market think the FED is
- 7:21Speaker 4: still behind the curve? I was thinking, well, it depends
- 7:23Speaker 4: on what day of the week it.
- 7:24Speaker 6: Is, right exactly. Well, and it's such a great point
- 7:28Speaker 6: that they were too late to the party and now
- 7:29Speaker 6: people think they're too late to leave. It sounds like, Liz,
- 7:32Speaker 6: based on what we were saying with Mike earlier about
- 7:34Speaker 6: this triple header this week, what are you going to
- 7:36Speaker 6: be looking at the most?
- 7:38Speaker 8: Well, I probably since I live here, have to say
- 7:41Speaker 8: the Fed, because I mean like they do move all boats.
- 7:45Speaker 8: I mean for a while, like Edna Current and I
- 7:47Speaker 8: were talking the other day, for a while we all
- 7:48Speaker 8: thought maybe boj is right the most exciting this week,
- 7:51Speaker 8: and then we had that great reporting from our folks
- 7:53Speaker 8: saying not this time. Like Mike said, that's like a
- 7:56Speaker 8: waiting on GOODO. We keep thinking that you'll curve control, change,
- 8:00Speaker 8: tweak whatever is coming. So I really think it's the Fed.
- 8:04Speaker 8: You know, how do they signal? Does is there a
- 8:07Speaker 8: way they can you know, get the market to price
- 8:10Speaker 8: up a little bit? I think, you know, Pow wants
- 8:12Speaker 8: as much optionality, but this bond market really kind of
- 8:15Speaker 8: wants to rally.
- 8:16Speaker 3: So we'll see how.
- 8:17Speaker 7: He does with that.
- 8:18Speaker 1: And Michael, just for our friends who maybe don't have
- 8:21Speaker 1: a good understanding of kind of inflation in Europe, why
- 8:24Speaker 1: is it so much worse there? It seems like even
- 8:27Speaker 1: though everybody's over there traveling, you know, that's.
- 8:29Speaker 3: Well, it's based on a few different things.
- 8:31Speaker 4: Especially energy has been an issue there, and their indexes
- 8:37Speaker 4: are constructed a little bit differently from ours, so they're
- 8:39Speaker 4: not directly comparable, but they do show the problems that
- 8:45Speaker 4: we've had and they have had much bigger rate increases
- 8:49Speaker 4: with some of the pattern barketing they have that people
- 8:52Speaker 4: are worried about. But can it come down fast? Well,
- 8:55Speaker 4: inflation's coming, I mean energy prices are coming down. So
- 8:58Speaker 4: as long as that happens, inflation should come down. And
- 9:01Speaker 4: when you look at the PMI to take us back
- 9:03Speaker 4: to where we started for Germany thirty eighty for manufacturing,
- 9:08Speaker 4: that suggests you're going to see some price pressures.
- 9:11Speaker 9: Ease.
- 9:12Speaker 1: Okay, great stuff, great having you both in here. I
- 9:14Speaker 1: looked up and Liz was right there. I was expecting zoom,
- 9:16Speaker 1: but Liz was right there. LIZI McCormick, chief correspondent of
- 9:19Speaker 1: Global macro Markets with Bloomberg News, and Michael McKee, International
- 9:22Speaker 1: Economics and Policy correspondent, both the Bloomberg News, joining us
- 9:25Speaker 1: both here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. And on Monday,
- 9:28Speaker 1: by the way, I mean usual on a Monday, you
- 9:31Speaker 1: get the Bloomberg salespeople because they have their big morning
- 9:33Speaker 1: media on Monday, so all the kids are and you
- 9:35Speaker 1: get us and we get some of the economists.
- 9:38Speaker 3: And that's how it works.
- 9:39Speaker 6: Like Liz is doing an incredible Q and A session.
- 9:42Speaker 6: I think tomorrow today I'm.
- 9:45Speaker 3: Going to be front row.
- 9:46Speaker 6: I can't wait for all internally, ask me anything.
- 9:53Speaker 3: Liz McCormick and the benefit of her experience.
- 9:57Speaker 10: You're listening to the team.
- 9:59Speaker 9: Ken's are lying Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern
- 10:03Speaker 9: on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg
- 10:06Speaker 9: Business App, or listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
- 10:11Speaker 1: Madison Mills, Paul Sweeney here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio.
- 10:14Speaker 1: Big big earnings week, technology coming in to focus. I'm
- 10:18Speaker 1: talking Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, a bunch of others, and I
- 10:22Speaker 1: tell you what these com be is better delivered. Nastac
- 10:25Speaker 1: is up about thirty four percent just a year to date.
- 10:28Speaker 1: So anticipation in the market for really strong performance. It's
- 10:30Speaker 1: see if they can deliver. Dan Ives.
- 10:32Speaker 3: He always delivers.
- 10:33Speaker 1: Dan Ives as managing director and senior equities analysts for
- 10:36Speaker 1: web Bush Security.
- 10:37Speaker 3: So Dan, a big week for tech. What do you expect.
- 10:41Speaker 11: I think it's get out the popcorn. I mean, in
- 10:42Speaker 11: my opinion, we're going to see an uptick and it spend.
- 10:46Speaker 11: I think Cloud's going to be strong from the likes
- 10:49Speaker 11: of the behemoths Microsoft as well as Alphabet and I
- 10:53Speaker 11: think it's all about AI spend. We're starting to see
- 10:56Speaker 11: monizations sooner arrive than later. I mean, Paul in my opinion,
- 11:00Speaker 11: Bright green Light, Dome and Tech I think up twelve
- 11:02Speaker 11: to fifteen percent second half of the year.
- 11:04Speaker 6: Wow, Dan, how much are you going to be looking
- 11:06Speaker 6: at capital allocation when it comes to overall it spend
- 11:10Speaker 6: companies that are portioning off a larger chunk of that pie,
- 11:14Speaker 6: specifically to AI. And are there any companies that could
- 11:17Speaker 6: be hurt or dinged because of that allocation?
- 11:22Speaker 11: Yeah, it's a great question. That's why right now the
- 11:24Speaker 11: trophy case at the top of the mountain is in Redmond.
- 11:28Speaker 11: I mean, if you look with Nadella and the team
- 11:30Speaker 11: have done, I mean they are in pole position to
- 11:33Speaker 11: gain more and more share budget. We believe next year
- 11:35Speaker 11: we're hearing eight to ten percent a budget to AI
- 11:38Speaker 11: driven this year less than one percent. And that's that's
- 11:41Speaker 11: the drum roll, that's the super Bowl what everyone's waiting for.
- 11:45Speaker 11: The actual quarters are almost the backstory to really the
- 11:49Speaker 11: forecast and the outlook going into next year.
- 11:52Speaker 1: How about the companies that rely upon digital advertising, Dan,
- 11:56Speaker 1: that's kind of been, you know, a wobbly business even
- 12:01Speaker 1: you know, even amongst all the other key growth drivers
- 12:03Speaker 1: in technology. So we're talking about Meta and you know
- 12:07Speaker 1: Alphabet that really rely up on digital advertising.
- 12:09Speaker 3: How is that's looking right now?
- 12:11Speaker 11: I mean we're seeing upticks. I think stabilization is going
- 12:14Speaker 11: to be the sort of word that we hear from Meta,
- 12:17Speaker 11: from Alphabet, and you combine it all, we're starting to
- 12:21Speaker 11: now see a less cautious spending environment. They'll be you know,
- 12:26Speaker 11: probably toned in terms of how they talk about things
- 12:29Speaker 11: over the coming quarters. But I think digital advertising we're
- 12:33Speaker 11: seeing stabilization, cloud and uptick and overall it spint I
- 12:37Speaker 11: think you saw that from Arvin and IBM. I view
- 12:40Speaker 11: this as sort of a table pounder of view into
- 12:42Speaker 11: tech this week. I do not view the reactions of
- 12:45Speaker 11: Netflix and Tassa as a brahma for what we're going
- 12:48Speaker 11: to see this week. That's why, in my opinion, getting
- 12:51Speaker 11: the popcorn ready, and I believe it will be a
- 12:53Speaker 11: strong week for tech.
- 12:54Speaker 6: Okay, so if it's not Netflix and Tesla, Dan, what
- 12:57Speaker 6: is the bell weather that you've looked into to indicate
- 13:00Speaker 6: how happy you're gonna be able to be this week.
- 13:04Speaker 11: It's tomorrow night. When you look at Alphabet, you look
- 13:08Speaker 11: at Microsoft. That's that's the key. That's that's the messy
- 13:12Speaker 11: moment for earnings for tech because of what we ultimately
- 13:16Speaker 11: see in cloud, in digital advertising, and if you look
- 13:20Speaker 11: going back to the Nvidio guidance heard around the world
- 13:22Speaker 11: the last quarter, Now we start to see the optics
- 13:26Speaker 11: in spend in terms of the forecast, no better. Everyone
- 13:29Speaker 11: will be listening to Nadella and Microsoft's called that is
- 13:33Speaker 11: going to be the one that they not just tech,
- 13:35Speaker 11: but all the street's going to be focused on to
- 13:37Speaker 11: see what we're seeing monization of cloud. We think a
- 13:40Speaker 11: trillion dollars incremental spend next decade.
- 13:43Speaker 3: Hey, Dan, you know the Nvidia results.
- 13:45Speaker 1: I think it was the last quarter that just really
- 13:47Speaker 1: shook the market, reset the market, woke up people like
- 13:50Speaker 1: me who really wasn't paying attention to this AI thing.
- 13:54Speaker 1: How much of the AI budget over the next several
- 13:56Speaker 1: years do you think it's going to be incremental tech
- 13:58Speaker 1: spending or maybe just taken it from all the parts
- 14:01Speaker 1: of the stack.
- 14:03Speaker 11: Why we think about thirty to forty percent incremental. The
- 14:07Speaker 11: rest will be taking from the stack. That's why the ciscos.
- 14:10Speaker 11: You could argue the intels, maybe the hp is obviously
- 14:13Speaker 11: will back in so on the hardware side. But I
- 14:16Speaker 11: think it's incremental because in our opinion, it's a nineteen
- 14:19Speaker 11: ninety five moment. It's an Internet moment. Companies are actually
- 14:23Speaker 11: changing their view of spend and two letters have all
- 14:27Speaker 11: changed in terms of AI and that's why, unless you
- 14:29Speaker 11: have a telescope, you're not seeing a recession out there.
- 14:33Speaker 11: And I think that's gonna be innarratable here in the
- 14:35Speaker 11: next week or two.
- 14:36Speaker 6: So if it is ninety five all over again, how
- 14:40Speaker 6: are you not worried about a bubble?
- 14:41Speaker 12: Dan?
- 14:43Speaker 11: Well, first off, I think if you look at the
- 14:45Speaker 11: actual evaluations, it's we're not talking pets dot com movement.
- 14:49Speaker 11: In other words, these are now the star wards that
- 14:53Speaker 11: ultimately I view. When I look at Microsoft, I could
- 14:55Speaker 11: argue this is a three and a half four trillion
- 14:58Speaker 11: dollar company in next two to three years. I think
- 15:01Speaker 11: the difference when you go back to the bubble ninety
- 15:03Speaker 11: nine two thousand, I mean a lot of that was hype.
- 15:05Speaker 11: This is different because the fundamental and the real business
- 15:08Speaker 11: cases are there. I'm not saying, oh, there's not gonna
- 15:10Speaker 11: be fraud from losers that fall by the wayside. But
- 15:14Speaker 11: I believe this is an AI gold rush. It's real.
- 15:17Speaker 11: And then's why this week I think the Bears go
- 15:20Speaker 11: back into their hibernation mode after how little win last
- 15:24Speaker 11: week to what's been a brutal six months for him.
- 15:27Speaker 1: Hey Dan, in the context of this AI discussion, it's
- 15:32Speaker 1: going to accelerate once again this week with these earnings.
- 15:35Speaker 1: How does Apple fit into an AI discussion.
- 15:40Speaker 11: I mean, they're not gonna be on the outside looking in,
- 15:43Speaker 11: and we've talked about them. I mean, they're spending almost
- 15:45Speaker 11: the equivalent of what Microsoft did with Open Ai in
- 15:48Speaker 11: turn on on AI. This is all the drum all
- 15:51Speaker 11: to what I believe. I'm in German's hand, had a
- 15:53Speaker 11: bit to their They're gonna roll out AI within their ecosystem.
- 15:57Speaker 11: I ultimately believe it's an AI app store for Apple,
- 16:01Speaker 11: which I believe could add thirty to forty dollars per share.
- 16:04Speaker 11: And again Cook continues to play chess while others are
- 16:09Speaker 11: at the kids table playing checkers.
- 16:11Speaker 6: Wait, say more about the AI app store.
- 16:14Speaker 11: What are you anticipating a separate app store that's gonna
- 16:18Speaker 11: be AI driven developers? I believe it started off with
- 16:22Speaker 11: Vision pro in terms of, you know, actually building a
- 16:25Speaker 11: separate almost app store. It's gonna be AI driven health, fitness,
- 16:30Speaker 11: AI apps will be in that app store, and that
- 16:33Speaker 11: for Apple, that's just gonna be a whole nother opportunity
- 16:36Speaker 11: to further penetrate the base that has an unparalleled install base.
- 16:40Speaker 11: And I believe right now the valuation is not reflecting
- 16:43Speaker 11: what I'll call AI multiple and that's why I believe
- 16:47Speaker 11: this is a four trillion dollars markap by twenty twenty five.
- 16:50Speaker 6: Dan, you mentioned the headset, and this earnings call is
- 16:53Speaker 6: gonna be the first time folks have the opportunity to
- 16:55Speaker 6: ask Apple about that headset. Do you think they're gonna
- 16:58Speaker 6: get killed for invent staying in a headset when people
- 17:02Speaker 6: have moved on to focusing on AI.
- 17:05Speaker 11: Because ultimately is not about the headset. Because my view
- 17:08Speaker 11: is that this is really just the start ar v
- 17:10Speaker 11: R to what ultimately is going to be the next
- 17:13Speaker 11: vision around AI, and that's going to be integrated more
- 17:16Speaker 11: and more within that ecosystem for Apple, and I think
- 17:19Speaker 11: ultimately investors who are focused more on iPhone fifteen, we
- 17:23Speaker 11: think ultimately units are going to be higher and this
- 17:26Speaker 11: is a mini super cycle. That's the long game right now.
- 17:29Speaker 11: It's all about developers build out for what I view
- 17:33Speaker 11: is sort of the next evolution of the Coupertino ecosystem.
- 17:38Speaker 1: Hey, Dan, I just want to talk Tesla for just
- 17:40Speaker 1: a moment because Bloomberg News Stephan and Nicola is out
- 17:44Speaker 1: with a great story saying Tesla is lapping Germany's automakers
- 17:48Speaker 1: in the global ev race. And so you know, we
- 17:50Speaker 1: heard from all the big German manufacturers over the last
- 17:53Speaker 1: several years how they're going all in on EI. But
- 17:55Speaker 1: Tesla delivered almost eight hundred and ninety thousand cars in
- 17:58Speaker 1: the first half of the year. That's more electric vehicles
- 18:00Speaker 1: the Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes or Porsche combined.
- 18:04Speaker 3: So how do you think.
- 18:05Speaker 1: About Tesla and just kind of their competitive position as
- 18:08Speaker 1: everybody else tries to ramp up.
- 18:11Speaker 11: I mean, it's Tesla's world, everyone else paying rent. If
- 18:15Speaker 11: you look at electric vehicles and from a scaling scope perspective,
- 18:19Speaker 11: battery technology, super charger, and I ultimately believe the FSDAI.
- 18:24Speaker 11: That's why I think last week you got the knee
- 18:26Speaker 11: jerk sell off after just a parabolic move this year.
- 18:29Speaker 11: I think this is still early to middle innings of
- 18:33Speaker 11: the broader Tesla story build out and this ev green title,
- 18:37Speaker 11: the five trillion dollars green title. There's been many winners.
- 18:41Speaker 11: The three win three are Code GM four, the European
- 18:44Speaker 11: players at the China players. But ultimately, if you look
- 18:47Speaker 11: the biggest beneficiary is gonna be muscling us really quickly.
- 18:51Speaker 6: Dan, are you team Twitter formerly or now x formerly
- 18:55Speaker 6: to Twitter? Or team threads?
- 18:58Speaker 10: Oh?
- 18:58Speaker 11: I stayed Twitter, and again I go back to thread?
- 19:01Speaker 11: Did rathery broccoli from the full data the trench?
- 19:05Speaker 3: Very good?
- 19:05Speaker 1: There you go, Dan, conviction of nothing else. Dan I
- 19:08Speaker 1: was managing director and senior equity analyst at Webbush Securities.
- 19:12Speaker 1: Appreciate getting that roundup on Tech is again a big,
- 19:14Speaker 1: big earnings week here for a lot of industries and
- 19:17Speaker 1: most notably tech and is the biggest sector in the SMP.
- 19:20Speaker 9: You're listening to the tape cats are live program Bloomberg
- 19:23Speaker 9: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 19:27Speaker 9: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com.
- 19:28Speaker 10: And the Bloomberg Business App.
- 19:30Speaker 9: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 19:33Speaker 9: flagship New York station. Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 19:39Speaker 13: Let's talk about some of the industrial companies and because
- 19:45Speaker 13: they're reporting numbers today, but you know, I looked at
- 19:47Speaker 13: the PMIS today for the manufacturing PMI came in at
- 19:52Speaker 13: forty six point two.
- 19:54Speaker 1: That's not good on the number fronts. A. It's below fifty,
- 19:57Speaker 1: suggesting contraction, and it was blowed the concent of forty
- 20:00Speaker 1: nine and it was below just kind of in line
- 20:03Speaker 1: with last.
- 20:03Speaker 3: Month forty six point three.
- 20:04Speaker 1: But I want to start there and then we'll branch
- 20:06Speaker 1: out to some of the manufacturing companies that are reporting
- 20:10Speaker 1: later this week. Brook Sutherland joins us. She covers all
- 20:12Speaker 1: of that industrial stuff for Bloomberg Opinion, and she joins
- 20:16Speaker 1: us here on our Bloomberg.
- 20:17Speaker 3: Interactive Broker Studio. So, Brooke, what did you think when you.
- 20:19Speaker 1: Saw the manufacturing PMI today. I mean, it's a it's
- 20:23Speaker 1: a manufacturing recession. Is that kind of what we're dealing with?
- 20:26Speaker 12: I mean, this is a continuation of a trend where
- 20:28Speaker 12: we have seen numbers from the PMI that have been
- 20:31Speaker 12: indicating a contraction in manufacturing activity. I think the question
- 20:36Speaker 12: is there's a bit of a diversience between those numbers
- 20:39Speaker 12: and what we're hearing from the industrial companies which are
- 20:42Speaker 12: still very bullish on the demand that they're seeing. They,
- 20:46Speaker 12: you know, are talking a lot about sort of structural
- 20:49Speaker 12: tailwinds that will keep people buying industrial equipment for the
- 20:53Speaker 12: foreseeable future. Those include electrification of everything, the sort of
- 20:57Speaker 12: wave of factory investments that we've seen in semiconductors, electric
- 21:00Speaker 12: vehicle and other types of manufacturing. And I think the
- 21:03Speaker 12: question for investors is, you know, whether this slowdown that
- 21:06Speaker 12: we're seeing just reflects a normalization of supply chains because
- 21:09Speaker 12: you had a lot of people that were over ordering
- 21:12Speaker 12: just to get their place in line and to make
- 21:15Speaker 12: sure that they could get some kind of components coming
- 21:17Speaker 12: in the door, and whether we may be just seeing
- 21:19Speaker 12: the other end of that or if we're seeing a
- 21:21Speaker 12: real demand slow down. And I don't think investors have
- 21:24Speaker 12: made up their minds, And I think it depends on
- 21:26Speaker 12: which company is reporting. Honestly, the way in which people
- 21:29Speaker 12: view their order numbers.
- 21:31Speaker 6: It feels like three M is the name to watch
- 21:34Speaker 6: this week. Is that what you would say?
- 21:36Speaker 9: Sure?
- 21:36Speaker 12: I mean, it depends on what you're looking for. We've
- 21:38Speaker 12: got just about every industrial company reporting earnings this week,
- 21:41Speaker 12: so three m is interesting. You know, I don't really
- 21:44Speaker 12: view them that they used to be an industrial bell Weather.
- 21:46Speaker 12: I don't really think of them as that anymore, just
- 21:48Speaker 12: because they have so many idiosyncratic problems, including pfast liabilities.
- 21:53Speaker 12: They have an ongoing legal issue with combat earplugs that
- 21:58Speaker 12: they sold to the US military that veterans are claiming
- 22:01Speaker 12: we're defective, and so, you know, they have a variety
- 22:04Speaker 12: of issues that you know, investors will be looking for
- 22:07Speaker 12: updates on. But they do still have their industrial businesses
- 22:10Speaker 12: and it will be interesting to see what's happening there.
- 22:12Speaker 12: These tend to be early cycle businesses and so they
- 22:14Speaker 12: tend to be on the front lines of economic swing.
- 22:17Speaker 12: So if we are seeing a slowdown, you would see
- 22:18Speaker 12: it hit there first before some of the longer cycle
- 22:21Speaker 12: businesses like aircraft engines or wind turbines or things like that.
- 22:25Speaker 3: This is a Tom Keane kind of trivia question. What
- 22:27Speaker 3: does three AM stand for? You know, I don't know
- 22:30Speaker 3: that Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. John Tucker knows that.
- 22:34Speaker 10: Well, it used to be.
- 22:35Speaker 5: They officially changed the name the three AM two to
- 22:37Speaker 5: three AM.
- 22:38Speaker 1: Yeah, but based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Saint Paul is
- 22:41Speaker 1: a great Town by the way. I love Saint Paul,
- 22:43Speaker 1: a great hotel that I can't think of the name.
- 22:44Speaker 1: But the stock has been brutal trailing, you know, over
- 22:47Speaker 1: the last five years, compounded annual decline of about nine
- 22:50Speaker 1: percent versus the S and P five rounded up up
- 22:52Speaker 1: almost twelve percent.
- 22:53Speaker 3: So that's just a brutal name.
- 22:55Speaker 1: And what's just I mean, it's a fifty eight billion
- 22:57Speaker 1: dollar market cap company.
- 22:58Speaker 3: What's the problem with those guys? What's the story?
- 23:01Speaker 12: You know? And it's you have to somewhat feel bad
- 23:04Speaker 12: for the current management team because the issues largely do
- 23:08Speaker 12: not have to do with decisions that they made. They
- 23:10Speaker 12: have to do with the way in which three M
- 23:13Speaker 12: was managed, you know, decades ago. So the company is
- 23:16Speaker 12: a legacy manufacturer of p fasts, which are known as
- 23:19Speaker 12: forever chemicals because they linger in the environment and in
- 23:23Speaker 12: the body. They've faced numerous legal challenges over p fast
- 23:27Speaker 12: and the uncertainty of what happens there has been a
- 23:30Speaker 12: big drag on the stock. And then, as I mentioned,
- 23:32Speaker 12: there's also the military plugs issue, which was the last
- 23:37Speaker 12: thing that the company needed but remains unresolved. And you know,
- 23:41Speaker 12: we're talking about estimates in the range of several billion
- 23:44Speaker 12: dollars to try to settle that alone, before you even
- 23:47Speaker 12: start talking about p fasts.
- 23:48Speaker 1: All right, three m Minnesota Mining Manufacturing went public. Just
- 23:52Speaker 1: some trivia and get on the Bloomberg terminal with the
- 23:54Speaker 1: dees function October first, nineteen seventy eight.
- 23:57Speaker 3: Who took them public?
- 23:58Speaker 1: Kid Or Peabody, which was an awesome firm back in
- 24:01Speaker 1: the day, some of the best bankers, best analyst, great
- 24:04Speaker 1: m and a practice, really good stuff. All right, ge,
- 24:09Speaker 1: I kind of still consider them a belt, whether I don't.
- 24:11Speaker 1: They're not the belt, whether they used to be.
- 24:12Speaker 3: What are you looking for here? From ge? What's the
- 24:14Speaker 3: What are investors going to be looking for?
- 24:16Speaker 12: Sure? I mean, well, they're a significantly simpler company they
- 24:19Speaker 12: used to be from back in the Kidder Peabody days.
- 24:22Speaker 12: But they so they've already spent off their healthcare business,
- 24:26Speaker 12: and then they are speeding toward eventually spinning off their
- 24:30Speaker 12: energy businesses, and so that includes their gas turbines but
- 24:33Speaker 12: also their wind turbine business and some other myriad assets
- 24:37Speaker 12: that get kind of grouped with that. And once they're
- 24:38Speaker 12: done with that, they will essentially be an aviation company,
- 24:42Speaker 12: and investors are already treating the stock as if you
- 24:45Speaker 12: know that spin off is a good done deal, and
- 24:48Speaker 12: I think it's just a simpler story and people are
- 24:50Speaker 12: better able to focus on that core aerospace business and
- 24:54Speaker 12: the growth opportunities there.
- 24:56Speaker 3: Broke.
- 24:57Speaker 6: One of the fantastic stories that you have for us
- 24:59Speaker 6: on Bloomberger Opinion recently is about ties to China for
- 25:03Speaker 6: some of these names, and you specifically talk about Chinese
- 25:06Speaker 6: ownership of Sirrus Aircraft. I believe can you talk to
- 25:10Speaker 6: me about how the China story is impacting some of
- 25:12Speaker 6: the names that you cover.
- 25:14Speaker 12: Sure, I mean, I think it is a big issue,
- 25:16Speaker 12: and I think the current environment is a minefield for CEOs,
- 25:20Speaker 12: even those who have had long standing relationships with Chinese entities.
- 25:26Speaker 12: And so Sirus makes private planes. These are more like
- 25:29Speaker 12: hobby aircraft or used for charter flights, that sort of thing.
- 25:33Speaker 12: And they were acquired by a subsidiary of a Chinese
- 25:36Speaker 12: company in twenty eleven. Before that, they were owned by
- 25:39Speaker 12: a Bahrain investment arm of a bank there, and so
- 25:44Speaker 12: they've been under foreign control for a very long time.
- 25:46Speaker 12: But the company is getting more scrutiny. I filed to
- 25:48Speaker 12: go public in Hong Kong in June, and that's just
- 25:52Speaker 12: drawing attention to the fact that it is in fact
- 25:54Speaker 12: owned by a subsidiary of a Chinese entity that is
- 25:56Speaker 12: subject to sanctions. And you're seeing this happen in all
- 26:00Speaker 12: types of industrial businesses where long standing relationships are coming
- 26:04Speaker 12: under fresh scrutiny. There was also a report in the
- 26:06Speaker 12: Wall Street Journal earlier this year about a Rockwell Automation
- 26:09Speaker 12: software development center in China and whether that might pose
- 26:13Speaker 12: some sort of national security risk. And I really think
- 26:15Speaker 12: to operate in China, if you are an industrial company,
- 26:18Speaker 12: you need to have a siloed enterprise there, and a
- 26:22Speaker 12: number of companies have already taken efforts to set this up.
- 26:26Speaker 12: Emerson sources ninety six percent but its components for its
- 26:30Speaker 12: Chinese products within that region that with the rest coming
- 26:33Speaker 12: from other East Asian countries. It doesn't run that business
- 26:36Speaker 12: with expaths. It uses all local employees primarily, and I
- 26:41Speaker 12: think you're just going to see more and more of that.
- 26:43Speaker 1: So when we talk to the industrial companies that you
- 26:46Speaker 1: do all the time about China, is it central to
- 26:49Speaker 1: their future as either a source of raw materials or
- 26:53Speaker 1: an end market for consumers? How do they view China
- 26:55Speaker 1: over the next five to ten years.
- 26:57Speaker 12: Sure, I mean I think they're carefully Yeah, that's given
- 27:00Speaker 12: what a political issue it is. But it's a very
- 27:03Speaker 12: important market for these companies. It's the reason why they're
- 27:05Speaker 12: there in the first place. And so, you know, one
- 27:07Speaker 12: of the interesting things about Cyrus, the private aircraft maker,
- 27:11Speaker 12: is that, you know, the entity that owns it has
- 27:14Speaker 12: joint ventures with just about every aerospace company under the sun,
- 27:18Speaker 12: and most of them are focused on the development of
- 27:21Speaker 12: the C nine one nine, which is the Comac challenger
- 27:23Speaker 12: to the Boeing seven thirty seven max in the Airbus
- 27:26Speaker 12: A three twenty. And the reason why those US companies
- 27:28Speaker 12: have those ventures is because they want to compete for
- 27:31Speaker 12: this business that you know, if this is sort of
- 27:33Speaker 12: the future of China aviation, it's an important place for
- 27:35Speaker 12: these companies to be.
- 27:36Speaker 1: All right, Brooke great stuff has always Brooke Suther then
- 27:39Speaker 1: she's a columnist covering industrials and deals for Bloomberg Opinion.
- 27:42Speaker 3: Appreciate gatting a few minutes of your time.
- 27:45Speaker 9: You're listening to the Team Can't Live program Bloomberg Markets
- 27:48Speaker 9: weekdays at ten am Eastern.
- 27:50Speaker 10: On Bloomberg dot Com.
- 27:51Speaker 9: The iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business app or listen
- 27:55Speaker 9: on demand wherever you get your podcast.
- 28:00Speaker 1: All right, let's check in with somebody who really does
- 28:02Speaker 1: this stock stuff for a living. She's been doing it
- 28:04Speaker 1: for a while now, she's got some experience. And Maletti,
- 28:07Speaker 1: head of Active Equity at all Spring Global Investments in
- 28:11Speaker 1: what town here and thanks so much for joining us here.
- 28:17Speaker 1: We're getting into the teeth of the earning cycle here.
- 28:21Speaker 1: What have you seen and heard so far and what
- 28:23Speaker 1: are you looking forward to going forward to a big
- 28:25Speaker 1: tech week of earnings.
- 28:27Speaker 14: It has been a big tech week. Nice and nice
- 28:30Speaker 14: to talk to you again, Paul. Look, so far, earning
- 28:34Speaker 14: for the most part have been pretty strong. But I
- 28:37Speaker 14: think what our teams are looking at is what does
- 28:40Speaker 14: the tail and the burning season look like? And I
- 28:44Speaker 14: think we'll see some volatility this earning season. I think
- 28:47Speaker 14: that was somewhat expected by most investors. You do generally
- 28:52Speaker 14: see some softness this quarter, and that's what we're expecting
- 28:55Speaker 14: to see. But you know, from what we expect it
- 29:00Speaker 14: all year. There will be differences from the bottom up
- 29:04Speaker 14: company by company, and that's why we think it's a
- 29:08Speaker 14: great environment to look at companies specifically and not just
- 29:13Speaker 14: you know, pick a sector, pick an industry, pick growth,
- 29:16Speaker 14: pick value. It's time for individual company selection right now.
- 29:20Speaker 6: So and what is the market going to move on
- 29:22Speaker 6: more this week? The FED decision or some of these
- 29:24Speaker 6: check earnings.
- 29:26Speaker 14: That is a great that's a great question. I do
- 29:30Speaker 14: think it's not going to be on the side decision itself.
- 29:34Speaker 14: I think we all really do believe. And there's kind
- 29:36Speaker 14: of because Hass's opinion that we're going to get that
- 29:38Speaker 14: twenty five basis point increase. But I do think what,
- 29:43Speaker 14: you know, what we don't know is if we're going
- 29:46Speaker 14: to get the interpretation of a hawkish tone or a
- 29:50Speaker 14: dubvish tone from Chairman Powell. And that is the million
- 29:55Speaker 14: dollar question out there. You know, I guess I'm in
- 29:58Speaker 14: the camp that he's still going to continue to be
- 30:01Speaker 14: a little bit more hawkish. And you know, even though
- 30:05Speaker 14: we have seen some signs of weakness in the economy,
- 30:08Speaker 14: the jobs data and the employment data continues to be
- 30:11Speaker 14: pretty strong. And that's going to continue to make can
- 30:14Speaker 14: fairly cautious and want to give them optionality that we
- 30:18Speaker 14: may not be done or that the FED may not
- 30:20Speaker 14: be done raising rates. And so I think the market's
- 30:24Speaker 14: going to move a little bit more on that than
- 30:26Speaker 14: on tech.
- 30:27Speaker 1: Brames, he and you and I have known each other
- 30:30Speaker 1: for a while, so will not surprise you to know
- 30:32Speaker 1: that I missed out on owning those big seven magnificent
- 30:36Speaker 1: seven names. So now I got some work to do
- 30:38Speaker 1: for the remainder of the year.
- 30:39Speaker 3: Do I look it?
- 30:40Speaker 1: Maybe some smaller MidCap names. I mean that acquires a
- 30:44Speaker 1: little bit more homework on my part. But is that
- 30:45Speaker 1: where you think some opportunities might be.
- 30:48Speaker 14: I'm Paul, you know probably put me in the same camp.
- 30:53Speaker 14: I do think there is a really good opportunity for
- 30:56Speaker 14: investors out there, and you know, I think this is
- 30:59Speaker 14: this is something that we've been focused on a lot,
- 31:02Speaker 14: because for investors who want to invest more broadly, who
- 31:07Speaker 14: want to stay in the market regardless of what the
- 31:10Speaker 14: economy is doing, and by the way, history would suggest
- 31:13Speaker 14: that is the right thing to do. If the market
- 31:17Speaker 14: broadens out, and it should, there are real opportunities downcaps.
- 31:22Speaker 14: And if you just look at the fundamentals, what Paul,
- 31:26Speaker 14: you spent a lot of time doing, and I spent
- 31:29Speaker 14: a lot of my career doing. Free cash flow is
- 31:33Speaker 14: a really good metric of qualities. And if you look
- 31:36Speaker 14: at the free cash flow margins and the highest quintile
- 31:39Speaker 14: of free cash Dolow margins in those smaller cap names,
- 31:43Speaker 14: they're trading at a twenty percent discount to the counter
- 31:46Speaker 14: parties and large caps, and that's a historic discount by
- 31:51Speaker 14: any measure. And you know, if you can buy quality
- 31:55Speaker 14: at that big of a discount, and even at a
- 31:59Speaker 14: discount relative to their smaller cap piers, that's the area
- 32:04Speaker 14: of the market that our investment teams are finding some
- 32:08Speaker 14: real value in today. And I think where investors can
- 32:11Speaker 14: be rewarded. There's strong balance sheets there. You know that
- 32:15Speaker 14: pre cast slow will give them protection even if things
- 32:19Speaker 14: get a little bit more challenging in the economy, even
- 32:22Speaker 14: if we head into a recession.
- 32:24Speaker 6: So and how much of the boat needs to be
- 32:26Speaker 6: filled with small caps at this point given what you're
- 32:29Speaker 6: saying about some of the opportunities there.
- 32:32Speaker 14: You know, the allocation decision is really a personal one,
- 32:35Speaker 14: and that's where it's a little bit more challenging for
- 32:37Speaker 14: me to have a personal opinion. I certainly do have
- 32:41Speaker 14: an opinion on my own, but I think for investors
- 32:44Speaker 14: it's you know, small cap can be a little bit riskier.
- 32:48Speaker 14: But again, it's the area. It's just where you want
- 32:52Speaker 14: to invest within small cap. I don't think it's an
- 32:55Speaker 14: area that should be ignored. Growth can continue to be
- 32:59Speaker 14: really good block cap companies even when growth pulls back
- 33:03Speaker 14: within the economy. So it's it's an area that investors
- 33:06Speaker 14: should not ignore. The lead the allocation decision up to
- 33:11Speaker 14: investors themselves. The tactical decision is I would just say,
- 33:14Speaker 14: don't ignore the area at all.
- 33:16Speaker 1: Hey, and do you folks at all Spring have you
- 33:19Speaker 1: are you still talking recession? Is that still in your
- 33:21Speaker 1: outlook or have you kind of tabled that a little bit?
- 33:25Speaker 14: Yeah, you know, I think we're still in the camp
- 33:28Speaker 14: that the recession risks still do linger. And you know
- 33:31Speaker 14: the reason for it is six months ago, you know,
- 33:35Speaker 14: we were only at three percent interest rate, and there's
- 33:39Speaker 14: a lot of great increases that have happened since then,
- 33:43Speaker 14: and there's a big like effect to the impact of
- 33:48Speaker 14: increasing rates. We have yet to see the full impact,
- 33:52Speaker 14: whether that takes six or nine months to fully feel that,
- 33:55Speaker 14: you know, we haven't seen it, and so we're still
- 33:59Speaker 14: cautious about how bad the total impact will be. We
- 34:04Speaker 14: already know we saw some breakage in the system with
- 34:07Speaker 14: what happened with the regional banks earlier. I don't completely
- 34:12Speaker 14: think that is over. And again we're not done with
- 34:16Speaker 14: rate increases. We have one coming this week and then
- 34:19Speaker 14: still a question about what happens after that. So it's
- 34:23Speaker 14: not off the table for us. That being said, you
- 34:27Speaker 14: don't want to be out of the market completely. We
- 34:31Speaker 14: already saw the ramifications of what could happen with that,
- 34:34Speaker 14: and so you know, the economy and the market are
- 34:38Speaker 14: two different things, and investors just have to keep that
- 34:42Speaker 14: in mind.
- 34:43Speaker 1: All right, and thanks once again for joining us and
- 34:45Speaker 1: the Letty, head of active equity at all Spring Global Investments.
- 34:50Speaker 10: You're listening to the tape.
- 34:52Speaker 9: Can to our live program Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten
- 34:55Speaker 9: am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, Tune it up, Bloomberg dot Com,
- 34:59Speaker 9: and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live
- 35:02Speaker 9: on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just
- 35:05Speaker 9: say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 35:09Speaker 1: All right, let's go to Mattel here. This is a beneficiary.
- 35:11Speaker 1: They own the whole Barbie thing. Mittel stock is up
- 35:16Speaker 1: one point six percent today.
- 35:17Speaker 3: Nice move. It's up twenty percent year to date. That's nice.
- 35:20Speaker 1: It's got a market cap is seven point six billion.
- 35:22Speaker 1: Let's break it down with the analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence
- 35:25Speaker 1: who covers Mattel, the company, the stock, Lindsay Dutch. She
- 35:28Speaker 1: is an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. So, Lindsay, give us
- 35:31Speaker 1: a sense of kind of what this means for Mattel. Here,
- 35:35Speaker 1: it's obviously a great day, a great weekend for the
- 35:38Speaker 1: movie and what it means.
- 35:39Speaker 3: For but what's it really mean for the company.
- 35:42Speaker 15: Yeah, thanks Paul for having me. So this movie is
- 35:46Speaker 15: a big deal for Mattel. Barbie is one of their
- 35:49Speaker 15: biggest brands. It peaked at one point seven billion and
- 35:53Speaker 15: twenty twenty one, it was off about eleven percent last year.
- 35:58Speaker 15: There was sort of weak demand for Arbi, so coming
- 36:01Speaker 15: into this movie, there was a lot of uncertainty, you know,
- 36:05Speaker 15: and concerns about demand for the dolls. But I think
- 36:09Speaker 15: Mattel did a really great job in terms of hyping
- 36:12Speaker 15: up the movie, and I think that could be a
- 36:15Speaker 15: catalyst for the second half and really a rebound for
- 36:19Speaker 15: the company in terms of toy sales, but also the
- 36:23Speaker 15: royalties that they're going to get from the movie and
- 36:25Speaker 15: related merchandise and things like that. So there's a real
- 36:29Speaker 15: possibility of strength in the second half, you know, with
- 36:32Speaker 15: this big movie debut.
- 36:34Speaker 6: Lindsay I'm curious about and I know you haven't seen
- 36:36Speaker 6: the movie, but there's definitely a sense of Mattel calling
- 36:39Speaker 6: themselves out a little bit when it comes to some
- 36:42Speaker 6: of the potential what someone view as mistakes they've made
- 36:46Speaker 6: in terms of Barbie's impact on how young women and
- 36:49Speaker 6: girls are viewing themselves, et cetera. I wonder is there
- 36:52Speaker 6: any potential negative impact for Mattel because of some of
- 36:56Speaker 6: those messages, or is the extra dream success of the
- 37:01Speaker 6: Barbie movie just going to be a boom for them?
- 37:04Speaker 7: So I agree.
- 37:04Speaker 15: I mean, I think that the brand has had ups
- 37:06Speaker 15: and downs, you know, throughout its sort of life and
- 37:09Speaker 15: and creation. I think Mattel was going into this movie
- 37:14Speaker 15: they knew it was critical to you know, reinvent the
- 37:19Speaker 15: brand a little bit and and sort of ease some
- 37:22Speaker 15: of those concerns that we've had.
- 37:26Speaker 7: So I think that was you know, it.
- 37:27Speaker 15: Is a pivotalle, a pivotal moment for the company and
- 37:32Speaker 15: whether they can really you know, change the attitude around Barbie.
- 37:36Speaker 15: But there are also so many people who are nostalgic
- 37:39Speaker 15: about the toy, about the brand, and that adult collector's
- 37:43Speaker 15: market is huge and it's growing.
- 37:45Speaker 7: It's a big piece of the toy market.
- 37:48Speaker 15: And so I think that there's a lot more opportunity
- 37:52Speaker 15: than than risk, especially like seeing the numbers coming out
- 37:56Speaker 15: of this weekend and this debut to.
- 38:00Speaker 3: In general, how big is it the toy market in general?
- 38:03Speaker 3: How big is it?
- 38:04Speaker 1: What's the growth characteristics of kind of the toy business,
- 38:07Speaker 1: because now it seems like every kid's got a phone
- 38:09Speaker 1: in their hand.
- 38:10Speaker 7: I know.
- 38:12Speaker 15: So, you know, the toy market in terms of dolls,
- 38:16Speaker 15: if you think about dolls, that's more like a three
- 38:18Speaker 15: to four billion dollar category.
- 38:20Speaker 7: Mattel is a clear leader.
- 38:22Speaker 15: They've always been a dominator in that doll category because
- 38:25Speaker 15: of Barbie.
- 38:26Speaker 7: They also own American Girl.
- 38:28Speaker 15: When we think about dolls, you know, growth was astronomical,
- 38:34Speaker 15: astronomical in the pandemic, and it really started to come
- 38:38Speaker 15: off in twenty twenty two.
- 38:41Speaker 7: You know, there was weak demand.
- 38:42Speaker 15: We had over inventory issues, you know for a lot
- 38:45Speaker 15: of their key suppliers if you think about Target and Walmart.
- 38:48Speaker 15: So there was a huge pullback in the fourth quarter
- 38:50Speaker 15: last year. Really hurt results for Mattel and as well
- 38:54Speaker 15: as other peers, and the beginning of this year, you
- 38:57Speaker 15: know it is going to be challenging.
- 38:59Speaker 7: Their sales were in the first quarter.
- 39:01Speaker 15: I'm expecting sales to be down again when they report
- 39:04Speaker 15: their results for.
- 39:05Speaker 7: The second quarter.
- 39:06Speaker 15: But like I said, this is really a second half
- 39:08Speaker 15: story for the company, and really what can happen with
- 39:13Speaker 15: this growth going into the back half. So in terms
- 39:16Speaker 15: of the category as a whole, you're talking about sort
- 39:19Speaker 15: of like low to mid single digits growth. You know
- 39:22Speaker 15: in this next couple of years, Mattel is typically a
- 39:26Speaker 15: market share gainer, so you know, we would typically expect
- 39:29Speaker 15: a little bit faster growth coming out of Mattel.
- 39:32Speaker 6: Well, and you mentioned American Girl. They've also got Hot
- 39:35Speaker 6: Wheels under the Mattel brand, which has increasingly been taken
- 39:39Speaker 6: up a bigger piece of the revenue pie. Do you
- 39:41Speaker 6: anticipate that allocation changing this coming earning season or earnings
- 39:47Speaker 6: results because of the Barbie movie?
- 39:51Speaker 15: So I think so Barbie has always dominated in terms
- 39:55Speaker 15: of Mattel's revenue mix. You're right, hot Wheels is gaining.
- 40:00Speaker 15: They were about a one point two five billion dollar
- 40:02Speaker 15: business last year compared to Barbie's one point five. I
- 40:06Speaker 15: think that, you know, heading into second half, you know,
- 40:09Speaker 15: success of the movie could really put Barbie.
- 40:12Speaker 7: Back, you know, sort of on top.
- 40:14Speaker 15: I think Hot Wheels is sort of closing that gap
- 40:17Speaker 15: here in the first half.
- 40:20Speaker 12: There.
- 40:21Speaker 15: I think Mattel's history does sort of, you know, skew
- 40:24Speaker 15: towards that doll category. But the vehicles has just had
- 40:28Speaker 15: a couple of really great years and when we saw
- 40:30Speaker 15: growth slow in dolls, vehicles picked up. Also, action figures
- 40:34Speaker 15: has been a really big growth driver for them. It's
- 40:38Speaker 15: much a smaller business, but where we are seeing growth
- 40:40Speaker 15: in that category. But I do think coming into the
- 40:44Speaker 15: end of this year, you know, we'll see Barbie be
- 40:48Speaker 15: still be a bigger business for matel than Hot Wheels,
- 40:51Speaker 15: but that gap is definitely a lot tighter than it
- 40:53Speaker 15: was historically.
- 40:55Speaker 1: All Right, Lindsaya, as a former media analyst myself, I
- 40:57Speaker 1: have to ask this question, is there going to be
- 40:59Speaker 1: a bar Be Seql?
- 41:02Speaker 3: What have we heard from the company? Have they said anything?
- 41:06Speaker 15: They have not said anything, but you know, their CEO
- 41:09Speaker 15: has a background in TV and entertainment, and I think,
- 41:13Speaker 15: you know, he truly believes in sort of that halo effect,
- 41:17Speaker 15: you know, linking entertainment and movies and everything that we
- 41:22Speaker 15: stream today, you know, to physical toys.
- 41:25Speaker 7: So I wouldn't be shocked.
- 41:26Speaker 6: And the return on the investment in the Barbie movie
- 41:30Speaker 6: is going to be considered a positive for them when
- 41:32Speaker 6: history looks back on this moment, right.
- 41:36Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 41:36Speaker 15: So I think there's you know, some element of the
- 41:40Speaker 15: movie baked into guidance which is pretty bleak for the
- 41:43Speaker 15: year when we think about Mattel, But I think a
- 41:46Speaker 15: lot of it is not baked in. I think, you know,
- 41:49Speaker 15: the profitability, the margin on you know, when they license
- 41:54Speaker 15: out that.
- 41:54Speaker 7: Barbie brand, the Bee, the Pink Bee.
- 41:57Speaker 15: You know they had, you know, a partnership with Gap
- 42:01Speaker 15: that they did, you know, all that merchandise sales, all
- 42:04Speaker 15: the licensing out of things like that. It is huge
- 42:07Speaker 15: on the margin and I think that a lot of
- 42:10Speaker 15: that stuff can come in better than expected this year.
- 42:13Speaker 15: But again sort of just rebuilding that love of Barbie
- 42:17Speaker 15: and the brand going forward.
- 42:19Speaker 1: All right, Lindsay, thanks so much for joining us. Lindsay Dutch.
- 42:21Speaker 1: She's an analyst Bloomberg Intelligence. She covers some of the
- 42:24Speaker 1: consumer space, retail as well as the reachs.
- 42:27Speaker 3: But today it is all.
- 42:28Speaker 1: About her coverage of the company. Mattel again is stock
- 42:32Speaker 1: up nice today on the news up twenty percent year
- 42:35Speaker 1: to date. See if they can monetize this Barbie mania
- 42:38Speaker 1: going forward.
- 42:39Speaker 9: You're listening to the tape Cat's are live program Bloomberg
- 42:42Speaker 9: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 42:46Speaker 9: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and.
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- 42:58Speaker 1: One of the names that's actually driving performance this year,
- 43:01Speaker 1: as it typically does, is our good friends Adding Cooper
- 43:03Speaker 1: Tino Apple. Mark German joins us, I don't know why,
- 43:08Speaker 1: because he's a chief technology off and corresponding something like that,
- 43:12Speaker 1: I liked CTO.
- 43:13Speaker 7: He's basically the CTO.
- 43:14Speaker 1: Okay, we'll go with yeah, and he covers all the
- 43:16Speaker 1: tech stuff out there in Silicon Valley. Mark, I haven't
- 43:20Speaker 1: replaced my phone and I don't know how long man,
- 43:23Speaker 1: How does Apple think about me? I've had this phone
- 43:25Speaker 1: for I don't know, three or four years. What do
- 43:28Speaker 1: they have to do to get me to kind of
- 43:30Speaker 1: buy a new phone?
- 43:32Speaker 5: Yeah? So I think your first question is what do
- 43:35Speaker 5: they think of you?
- 43:36Speaker 16: They okay, so they like you a little bit because
- 43:40Speaker 16: you have an iPhone. They like you a little bit
- 43:42Speaker 16: more if you're buying apps and subscribing to things. But
- 43:45Speaker 16: they're not in love with you because you don't have
- 43:47Speaker 16: a new one and you haven't bought for the last three.
- 43:48Speaker 5: Or four years.
- 43:50Speaker 16: What they would prefer is if you were upgrading annually.
- 43:52Speaker 5: What do they have to get you? What do they
- 43:54Speaker 5: have to do to get you upgrade?
- 43:55Speaker 16: Well, I'll just be completely honest with you because I've
- 43:57Speaker 16: had similar thoughts as well. So the iPhone ten came
- 43:59Speaker 16: out in twenty seventeen, that's six years ago. So this
- 44:04Speaker 16: is going to be the iPhone fifteen is going to
- 44:06Speaker 16: be the sixth generation phone since the iPhone ten. God, honestly,
- 44:10Speaker 16: it's not too different. The phone doesn't operate that differently, right.
- 44:15Speaker 16: The big difference would be the overall performance in the speed.
- 44:18Speaker 16: And the reason you would want to upgrade at this
- 44:20Speaker 16: point is because the phone at this point, if you
- 44:22Speaker 16: have an iPhone tent, probably feels really sluggish and it
- 44:25Speaker 16: feels really behind, particularly on the camera, or you've dropped
- 44:28Speaker 16: the phone enough times or you have dents in the
- 44:31Speaker 16: steel band around the phone, you have a crack in
- 44:33Speaker 16: your screen, or maybe you have a big glass crack
- 44:36Speaker 16: or shattering on.
- 44:37Speaker 5: The back of the phone. Right, So that's really.
- 44:39Speaker 16: How they get you to upgrade over time as the
- 44:41Speaker 16: phone feels sluggish and damaged and such. This year is
- 44:44Speaker 16: going to be an interesting year. This is going to
- 44:46Speaker 16: be the first time in maybe three years where they're
- 44:48Speaker 16: doing anything of significance.
- 44:51Speaker 5: Okay, right in my opinion.
- 44:52Speaker 16: So the iPhone fifteen Pro is going to be quite
- 44:55Speaker 16: an upgrade this year. It's going to have a titanium
- 44:58Speaker 16: case around the edges instead of stayingless steel on the
- 45:02Speaker 16: biggest and most expensive phone, the fifteen Pro Macs. It's
- 45:04Speaker 16: going to have something called a periscope camera that allows
- 45:07Speaker 16: for much deeper zoom using hardware. That means the camera
- 45:11Speaker 16: lens can actually move within the phone to get closer
- 45:15Speaker 16: to the image in order to provide better zoom versus
- 45:18Speaker 16: the digital zoom we have today, which you can zoom
- 45:21Speaker 16: in but you get a bit of a blurry picture.
- 45:23Speaker 16: They're also changing the charger to more of an industry standard,
- 45:26Speaker 16: going from the current lightning charger to what's called USBC,
- 45:30Speaker 16: And there's also going to be a much faster process
- 45:32Speaker 16: or in better battery life on the top end phones.
- 45:34Speaker 16: The low end phones will get some of the iPhone
- 45:36Speaker 16: fourteen pro features like the dynamic island, that new area
- 45:40Speaker 16: at the top of the phone, as well as a
- 45:42Speaker 16: better camera on the back.
- 45:43Speaker 6: So how much of everything you're talking about played into
- 45:46Speaker 6: Apple's decision to ask suppliers to keep the production of
- 45:51Speaker 6: iPhone units in line with last year at eighty five
- 45:54Speaker 6: million units, which I found just a little bit confusing
- 45:57Speaker 6: because phone sales have been declining over the past eight quarters.
- 46:01Speaker 6: So what did you make of that decision?
- 46:04Speaker 16: Yeah, so eighty five million would mean flat for the
- 46:07Speaker 16: thirty year in a row. The thirteen was a very
- 46:09Speaker 16: small upgrade. The fourteen was a small modus upgrade. I
- 46:13Speaker 16: would say the fifteen is not a generational upgrade, right,
- 46:18Speaker 16: but it is significant, And so I think if let's
- 46:21Speaker 16: look at it this way, right, if it was a
- 46:23Speaker 16: minor update this year, I think units would actually be
- 46:26Speaker 16: declining given the overall economy and the overall smartphone market
- 46:29Speaker 16: and the tech market in terms of sales and buying
- 46:32Speaker 16: power and such, not the stock market. I think the
- 46:36Speaker 16: fact that it is a significant upgrade across the four
- 46:39Speaker 16: models this year is why they're.
- 46:41Speaker 5: Able to keep it flat.
- 46:42Speaker 16: You know how sometimes Apple says that, you know, the
- 46:45Speaker 16: revenue has gone down, but in a all things current environment,
- 46:50Speaker 16: it actually would have been up. Right, So something similar
- 46:53Speaker 16: to that, where given everything going on, they're able to
- 46:56Speaker 16: stay flat because the upgrade is so significant.
- 46:59Speaker 1: Mark Toktos, I guess the latest thinking coming out of
- 47:01Speaker 1: Kopertino on China. I can't think of a company that
- 47:05Speaker 1: has any more ties both in the supply chain and
- 47:09Speaker 1: source of raw materials as well as an en market
- 47:12Speaker 1: than Apple does with China. What's their latest thinking about
- 47:16Speaker 1: how they're approaching this over the next several years.
- 47:19Speaker 16: Well, I'll tell you one thing and that'll answer your question.
- 47:21Speaker 16: It feels like the rhetoric around China and Apple working
- 47:24Speaker 16: with China and the US China relations, while that's still there,
- 47:28Speaker 16: it feels like it's an idea or a reality.
- 47:31Speaker 5: I guess that has.
- 47:31Speaker 16: Calmed down in recent months. Right, things were really teetering
- 47:36Speaker 16: a year ago, six months ago even, and people were
- 47:39Speaker 16: really pushing for Apple to get out of there. That
- 47:42Speaker 16: is no longer the case now. To answer your question,
- 47:45Speaker 16: nothing has changed.
- 47:46Speaker 5: Over the last year or so.
- 47:48Speaker 16: The idea or the plan is still to diversify production
- 47:52Speaker 16: as much as possible outside of China. They're building up
- 47:56Speaker 16: more lines for the iPhone in places like India. They're
- 48:00Speaker 16: expanding the iPad to places like Vietnam. A lot of
- 48:04Speaker 16: Mac production has moved to Vietnam and Malaysia, right, So
- 48:08Speaker 16: they're doing what they can to move out of China
- 48:11Speaker 16: except for one product. It's the iPhone, the one we
- 48:14Speaker 16: were just talking about. And in order to get the
- 48:17Speaker 16: iPhones in those eighty five million quantity that you need
- 48:22Speaker 16: to ramp up and be built in two months time
- 48:25Speaker 16: and to be deployed globally over a three month period,
- 48:29Speaker 16: you just can't and by the way, at the quality
- 48:31Speaker 16: they need to do so, you just can't do that
- 48:32Speaker 16: outside of Fox Coon in China at this point. So
- 48:36Speaker 16: that's really what's keeping them there.
- 48:37Speaker 6: So Mark, we don't get Apple earnings until next week,
- 48:40Speaker 6: but slew of tech names reporting this week, making up
- 48:44Speaker 6: about forty percent of the market cap of the S ANDP.
- 48:47Speaker 6: In terms of the names we're going to hear from
- 48:49Speaker 6: which name are you going to be listening into to
- 48:52Speaker 6: indicate how the Apple story may evolve or are the
- 48:57Speaker 6: tech names we're hearing from this week completely separate from
- 48:59Speaker 6: the Apple story.
- 49:01Speaker 16: I mean, I know this week we have Meta, we
- 49:02Speaker 16: have Alphabet, we have Microsoft, right, any other big ones
- 49:05Speaker 16: that I'm missing, some of.
- 49:06Speaker 6: The social ones like we've got to snap this week,
- 49:09Speaker 6: some of that stuff, but not necessarily about weather for
- 49:11Speaker 6: no Apple.
- 49:12Speaker 16: I would definitely not include Apple in that group. They
- 49:16Speaker 16: have a way of either outperforming or underperforming that group, right,
- 49:19Speaker 16: So I think they're a bit of an outlier there
- 49:22Speaker 16: in terms of, you know, earning calls that I'll be
- 49:24Speaker 16: paying attention to definitely will be meta, right. I would
- 49:28Speaker 16: like to see how their you know, metaverse play as
- 49:31Speaker 16: they call it, is continuing to go. I want to
- 49:33Speaker 16: see what the losses are like. I want to see
- 49:36Speaker 16: what they have to say about the Apple product. I
- 49:37Speaker 16: want to see if they have any more commentary on that.
- 49:41Speaker 16: I want to see what's coming out of Alphabet in
- 49:44Speaker 16: terms of their hardware sales. I want to see anything
- 49:46Speaker 16: they have to say so far on their new pixel fold.
- 49:49Speaker 10: Right.
- 49:49Speaker 16: That thing is eighteen hundred dollars. I have had one
- 49:52Speaker 16: for several weeks. I don't think it's particularly great. I
- 49:55Speaker 16: also don't think people are particularly buying them up, so
- 49:57Speaker 16: I want to pay attention to see what's going on there.
- 50:00Speaker 16: One other interesting news item for this week is going
- 50:02Speaker 16: to be Samsung Unpacked. That's going to be their new
- 50:04Speaker 16: phone launch event that's happening in Korea and they're going
- 50:08Speaker 16: to be announcing their latest phones there, which obviously we'll
- 50:11Speaker 16: be going up against Apple's new devices in the fall,
- 50:13Speaker 16: so I'll be interested to see how those all compare.
- 50:15Speaker 16: So it's actually going to be quite a busy week
- 50:17Speaker 16: and a lot to pay attention to.
- 50:19Speaker 1: Hey Mark, just real quick twenty seconds. Apple recently completed
- 50:22Speaker 1: their just amazing new headquarters in Koopertino. What percentage of
- 50:26Speaker 1: their employees show up there on a given day?
- 50:29Speaker 12: Ooh?
- 50:29Speaker 5: What percentage show up on a given day? You know?
- 50:32Speaker 16: The headquarters seats about twelve thousand to fifteen thousand people,
- 50:36Speaker 16: and then there was a bunch of peripheral buildings around
- 50:38Speaker 16: there in the Coopertino Sunny Vale its larger Santa Claire
- 50:41Speaker 16: Valley Silicon Valley area. I would say the majority of
- 50:44Speaker 16: employees are coming in three times a week, that's typical.
- 50:48Speaker 16: Most employees are there.
- 50:49Speaker 3: Two They better be happy employees.
- 50:51Speaker 1: The stocks of fifty percent this year on a compound
- 50:53Speaker 1: of basis, up over thirty percent over the last five years.
- 50:56Speaker 3: They got to be happy. I mean, I say, get
- 50:58Speaker 3: your wealthy keister back. That's just me, all right.
- 51:01Speaker 1: Mark German, Chief correspondent Technology for Bloomberg News. He's based
- 51:05Speaker 1: out there in Silicon Valley. He's drinking the cool lad
- 51:08Speaker 1: Why not? I mean, Applestock has just been a just
- 51:10Speaker 1: a tank, just been amazing and it continues.
- 51:16Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcasts. You can
- 51:19Speaker 2: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever
- 51:23Speaker 2: podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter
- 51:27Speaker 2: at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three.
- 51:29Speaker 1: And I'm Faull Sweeney.
- 51:30Speaker 3: I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
- 51:31Speaker 1: Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at
- 51:34Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.