Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / The Latest On Infrastructure And Oil And Previewing Jobs Day
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
- 0:06Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
- 0:11Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
- 0:15Speaker 1: called Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
- 0:18Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. All right, let's bring
- 0:22Speaker 1: in Sophia Song Matt. She's global cities leader for Gensler.
- 0:26Speaker 1: Get a sense of kind of what this big infrastructure
- 0:29Speaker 1: plan means for the cities in this country. Sophia, thank
- 0:33Speaker 1: so much for joining us here again A big, big
- 0:36Speaker 1: number on that bipartisan infrastructure plan. What does it mean
- 0:41Speaker 1: for big and small cities across the United States. First
- 0:48Speaker 1: of all, thanks so much for having me. Uh. I
- 0:51Speaker 1: think the bill is a great first step towards being
- 0:54Speaker 1: really being transformational for for cities. I think the impact
- 0:57Speaker 1: will be seen differently depending on the city that we're
- 1:00Speaker 1: talking about. Um but I think we need to keep
- 1:03Speaker 1: in mind that only only half of the infrastructure bid
- 1:06Speaker 1: is actually new spending, while the other half is what
- 1:09Speaker 1: we've already been spending just to keep it keep up
- 1:11Speaker 1: with maintenance and backlog of projects. And so it's still
- 1:16Speaker 1: not enough to close that two and a half trillion
- 1:19Speaker 1: dollar infrastructure investment gap that's been growing since the seventies.
- 1:23Speaker 1: It won't solve all of our infrastructure problems across the nation,
- 1:26Speaker 1: but it's a great first step to closing, uh, that
- 1:30Speaker 1: massive gap beyond what is what is the answer, Sophia.
- 1:34Speaker 1: You know, I talked to a lot of people, um,
- 1:38Speaker 1: you know Wall Street women and men, but from both
- 1:41Speaker 1: sides of the aisle or even a political and they
- 1:44Speaker 1: all say we need to spend a lot more on infrastructure.
- 1:49Speaker 1: But you know it can't all come directly from the
- 1:53Speaker 1: m Jerome Palell's printing presses, right, There's got to be
- 1:56Speaker 1: another way. Yeah, it's not the feed this infrastructure bill alone.
- 2:02Speaker 1: You know, since the nineteen seventies, it's actually been an
- 2:05Speaker 1: under investment in the US. The you know, in infrastructure
- 2:11Speaker 1: investment in the US has been declining since the seventies,
- 2:13Speaker 1: which is very different from other countries, especially wealthier nations.
- 2:17Speaker 1: We invest less in infrastructure as a percentage of our
- 2:21Speaker 1: GDP than many other first world countries. Um. And so
- 2:26Speaker 1: when we're talking about you know, the impact on these cities.
- 2:30Speaker 1: You know, some cities will see greater impact than others.
- 2:34Speaker 1: You know, our most recent Gunsler City Pulse, which we
- 2:37Speaker 1: actually released just yesterday, it shows that cities, these emergency
- 2:42Speaker 1: cities like Austin, Atlanta, Denver, and Charlotte, these cities have
- 2:46Speaker 1: seen explosive growth but don't have the infrastructure to keep up,
- 2:51Speaker 1: and so that growth is coming out of cost. They're
- 2:53Speaker 1: dealing with traffic congestion, bad roads, bad bridges, and airports
- 2:58Speaker 1: that need to be modernized. And so the bill provides
- 3:01Speaker 1: rising cities an opportunity to address these issues. But to
- 3:05Speaker 1: close that gap, I mean, we're we're going to need,
- 3:08Speaker 1: you know, a lot more investment, but this is a
- 3:10Speaker 1: great first step. Sophia talked to us about a something
- 3:14Speaker 1: like a public private partnership. What's the role for private
- 3:19Speaker 1: enterprise in infrastructure? It can't just be the U. S.
- 3:23Speaker 1: Government kind of doing everything. Kennett, Yes. So, so what's
- 3:29Speaker 1: interesting about this particular bill is that it actually creates
- 3:33Speaker 1: space for private investors UM to join government efforts, especially
- 3:39Speaker 1: projects that are over seven hundred fifty million dollars. And
- 3:42Speaker 1: so when you include the private sector, you actually you
- 3:46Speaker 1: actually build in efficiencies UM where you know, greater efficiencies
- 3:52Speaker 1: than than contracts that where the government is stuck with
- 3:56Speaker 1: greater efficiencies than no efficiency at all. Like, right, exactly
- 4:02Speaker 1: what do you think about? You know? To me? And
- 4:05Speaker 1: I don't I'm gonna get flamed probably on Twitter. Um.
- 4:08Speaker 1: People have been calling me a bleeding heart liberal lately.
- 4:10Speaker 1: But to me, it makes sense to support you know,
- 4:14Speaker 1: something like childcare as infrastructure because you know, working parents
- 4:20Speaker 1: need to put their kids somewhere if they want to
- 4:23Speaker 1: be able to get in a car and drive on
- 4:25Speaker 1: a highway to a job at an airport or whatever.
- 4:27Speaker 1: Does does that make sense to everyone? Or no? I
- 4:33Speaker 1: mean it makes sense to me. But that's not in
- 4:35Speaker 1: the bill. That's in that No, it's in the new
- 4:37Speaker 1: Build Back Better Bill. But I mean there are a
- 4:40Speaker 1: lot of things now that we talk about its infrastructure
- 4:43Speaker 1: that are not just roads, bridges, ports, airports. Right. Um
- 4:49Speaker 1: even goes as far as to say, you know, like
- 4:52Speaker 1: nutrition counts as infrastructure. Yeah, I mean that's what's what's
- 4:57Speaker 1: so unique about this Build Back Better because they are
- 5:01Speaker 1: specifically outlining a social equity infrastructure UM infrastructure bill. All right, Sophia,
- 5:10Speaker 1: thank you so much. We appreciate that. As always so
- 5:12Speaker 1: if your song Global Cities leader for against again, I
- 5:20Speaker 1: don't know what the heck is going on with oil
- 5:23Speaker 1: here up one point three percent today after being down
- 5:26Speaker 1: as much as four percent earlier this morning says some
- 5:29Speaker 1: big big swings. Let's bring in somebody who does this
- 5:32Speaker 1: commodity stuff. Will Ryan, the chief executive officer for granted
- 5:35Speaker 1: chair as Advisors. Well, what's going on with the oil today? Well, um,
- 5:41Speaker 1: I think it's really just a reaction to what we
- 5:44Speaker 1: saw over the last couple of days, which is a
- 5:47Speaker 1: pretty significant down leg on the back of the the
- 5:51Speaker 1: new COVID variant. Um and I think that you know that,
- 5:56Speaker 1: coupled with probably the news out of OPEC plus that
- 5:59Speaker 1: they continue or will continue with their plan to put
- 6:02Speaker 1: the four hundred thousand barrels on the market per month
- 6:06Speaker 1: start in January, gives a bit more stability to any
- 6:09Speaker 1: concern that there might be more barrels put onto the
- 6:11Speaker 1: market than that is there any you know, Critty was
- 6:15Speaker 1: talking to us earlier about a market that looks like
- 6:19Speaker 1: investors will use any excuse to sell, and granted COVID
- 6:25Speaker 1: is very serious. We don't want to make light of
- 6:27Speaker 1: any of the new variants, but it does look like
- 6:30Speaker 1: a very strong reaction to something um we don't know
- 6:34Speaker 1: a lot about yet. No, absolutely, I think that that
- 6:38Speaker 1: was You could arguably say that across the market, but
- 6:42Speaker 1: whether you're talking about you know, stocks, or whether you're
- 6:45Speaker 1: talking about UM commodities. But it was just abroad, I
- 6:49Speaker 1: think rejection of risk um while the uncertainty was there
- 6:55Speaker 1: around news of this new variant. But I think as
- 6:58Speaker 1: we start to get more data on it, and like
- 7:01Speaker 1: you said, you don't want to make light of it,
- 7:02Speaker 1: but the more that I think people get comfortable that
- 7:07Speaker 1: it's not gonna end in a little lockdown. Of course
- 7:10Speaker 1: we don't know that yet, but if the assumptions it's
- 7:13Speaker 1: not gonna we're not going to go back to where
- 7:15Speaker 1: we were, then I think that you know, the oil price,
- 7:19Speaker 1: commodities and the global economy and continue to track on here.
- 7:24Speaker 1: So we'll give us a sense of you know, kind
- 7:27Speaker 1: of opec um again, where is Russia Viasa the Opeque plus?
- 7:32Speaker 1: So there are they still kind of a wild card
- 7:34Speaker 1: out there? Or is Saudi Arabia still kind of really
- 7:38Speaker 1: directing things? Saudi Arabia definitely is the main player. I
- 7:43Speaker 1: think that you know, like I said that the four
- 7:45Speaker 1: hundred thousand barrels that were telegraphed we put onto the market.
- 7:49Speaker 1: This is a gradually increasing production from the record cuts
- 7:53Speaker 1: that we saw last year with they cut ten million
- 7:55Speaker 1: barrels a day from production. And so clearly, you know,
- 8:00Speaker 1: with the prices at these levels, UM not just okay,
- 8:03Speaker 1: but other oil producing countries would like to put more
- 8:06Speaker 1: production on the market, but they've obviously got to balance
- 8:08Speaker 1: that with the demand UM that we're seeing. So right now,
- 8:12Speaker 1: the robust the demand is robust, and you know, we've
- 8:16Speaker 1: gotten to a position where we had eighty dollar oil,
- 8:19Speaker 1: you know, in a world that's still not open. I
- 8:22Speaker 1: mean people forget sometimes that major countries like China other
- 8:26Speaker 1: Asian countries still not open really for all terms and purposes.
- 8:29Speaker 1: So I think if we're talking about getting back to
- 8:32Speaker 1: a world which is looks more like two thousand and
- 8:35Speaker 1: nine team where we could travel everywhere and we had
- 8:39Speaker 1: the same kind of you know, free flowing commerce and trade,
- 8:42Speaker 1: and I think we're talking about an other price that's
- 8:45Speaker 1: materially higher than where we are today. What about the
- 8:48Speaker 1: other moves that we're seeing in UM energy commodities. I
- 8:52Speaker 1: mean I'm here in the heart of Europe where is
- 8:55Speaker 1: getting colder and gas prices are extraordinarily high. Um. Is
- 9:00Speaker 1: that linked to the oil issue or is it all
- 9:04Speaker 1: about you know, nords dream and a lack of electricity generation?
- 9:10Speaker 1: How do you see that? Yeah, it's not so much. Actually,
- 9:13Speaker 1: funny enough, it's not so much linked to oil at all.
- 9:15Speaker 1: It's much more of a UM, much more of a
- 9:19Speaker 1: phenomenon or European based phenomenon regarding supplies and constraint of
- 9:23Speaker 1: supplies UM that are specific to some of these European countries. UM.
- 9:30Speaker 1: You know. Throw in also the move to renewable power
- 9:36Speaker 1: and perhaps you know, some of that happening maybe too quickly,
- 9:40Speaker 1: resulting in a situation where there's just not enough energy
- 9:44Speaker 1: that's been generated from renewable sources and so governments are
- 9:49Speaker 1: having to rely more on fossil fuels. But that's sort
- 9:54Speaker 1: of colliding with this perfect storm of supply not being
- 9:59Speaker 1: there um as expected as as we sort of recover
- 10:03Speaker 1: from COVID. By the way, well, do you you know
- 10:06Speaker 1: ad grant share advisors, Do you like this kind of
- 10:09Speaker 1: volatility because you're in demand as well right now. People
- 10:13Speaker 1: need your advice. That's right. I mean I think that there,
- 10:17Speaker 1: you know, I would say we probably favor volatility up
- 10:21Speaker 1: until a point. I mean, clearly we don't want or
- 10:24Speaker 1: I think for anybody that manages money, you know, I I
- 10:26Speaker 1: don't want anything to be too volatile. But like you say,
- 10:30Speaker 1: I mean that there's a point where the market is
- 10:33Speaker 1: moving around and people do want exposure to these types
- 10:37Speaker 1: of assets, and certainly they do want to know, you know,
- 10:40Speaker 1: what's going on, because understanding you know, what's happening in
- 10:43Speaker 1: modity market, I think that sort of underpinned everything. It's
- 10:46Speaker 1: underpinning the inflation that we're seeing in the global economy,
- 10:50Speaker 1: and so really kind of understanding the direction of travel
- 10:53Speaker 1: is key for not just commodities, but I think for
- 10:57Speaker 1: for everything people are doing. All right, Well, thanks so
- 10:59Speaker 1: much for joining us again. We always appreciate your thoughts.
- 11:01Speaker 1: Will Ryan, Chief investment Officer, Granted Shairs Advisors, Matt, I mean,
- 11:08Speaker 1: for lack of a better scenario analysis, I'm calling it
- 11:12Speaker 1: by the dip. I don't know, yeah, I mean, by
- 11:16Speaker 1: the dip is a strategy that seems to work, but
- 11:18Speaker 1: it looks like sell the news is something investors really
- 11:22Speaker 1: want to do. I think pretty Gooda made a great
- 11:24Speaker 1: point earlier when she uh, when she talked about the
- 11:28Speaker 1: drops that we've seen, the drama of the drops that
- 11:31Speaker 1: we've seen compared to you know, news that seemed to
- 11:35Speaker 1: lack that drama. Again, not to underplay the virus or
- 11:39Speaker 1: the new variant, because we don't know enough about it yet.
- 11:41Speaker 1: It could be you know, terribly damaging variant, but so
- 11:47Speaker 1: far it doesn't look um like something that's going to
- 11:51Speaker 1: affect the global economy that much. And yet we had
- 11:55Speaker 1: a nine hundred points sell off on the Dow on Friday.
- 11:58Speaker 1: We had um a huge turnaround yesterday. So the question
- 12:03Speaker 1: I think is why are investors taking advantage of any headline,
- 12:06Speaker 1: especially you know, yesterday we sold off after the headline
- 12:10Speaker 1: across the Bloomberg terminal at I think it was one
- 12:14Speaker 1: forty two pm New York time, we had a headline
- 12:17Speaker 1: that said, we've discovered one case of omicron in California.
- 12:23Speaker 1: We knew that there would be a case or dozens,
- 12:26Speaker 1: or hundreds or maybe even thousands of cases of oh
- 12:29Speaker 1: macron in the US, and yet mr Market took advantage
- 12:33Speaker 1: of that and sold hard right and then here we
- 12:37Speaker 1: are today and you you mentioned uh, Bloomberg Markets, corresponding, Cretty,
- 12:41Speaker 1: guess what meant? She's back in the Bloomberg Interactive Brooker studio. So, Cretty,
- 12:45Speaker 1: what are you seeing at there? I mean again a
- 12:48Speaker 1: couple I went to business squad, spent a lot of
- 12:50Speaker 1: time on Wall Street, and I got nothing better than
- 12:53Speaker 1: by the dip um Well sometimes, Paul, So I've learned.
- 12:56Speaker 1: This was one of the first lessons I learned when
- 12:58Speaker 1: I was on the Markets Live team e former traders.
- 13:00Speaker 1: They said, sometimes the answer isn't fundamental. Sometimes it's literally
- 13:04Speaker 1: people are trading because they trade, and they want to
- 13:06Speaker 1: trade like and and not to simplify too much, but
- 13:10Speaker 1: it quite literally is by the dip because and here's
- 13:12Speaker 1: why we're not just saying that to get out of
- 13:14Speaker 1: a reason. But your your tell here is going to
- 13:17Speaker 1: be the VIX because you haven't had a spike in
- 13:19Speaker 1: the VIX like this too. I think a thirty two
- 13:21Speaker 1: handle going all the way back to January when they
- 13:23Speaker 1: were starting to see some of those hedge funds getting
- 13:26Speaker 1: really burned by those shorts against the retail trader and
- 13:28Speaker 1: the entire kind of me mania that was happening. And
- 13:31Speaker 1: if you remember going back then or even going back
- 13:33Speaker 1: to March on a bigger scale, is that when you
- 13:35Speaker 1: see volatility, one day it's green, the next day it's read.
- 13:39Speaker 1: This is a very normal reaction on that front, and
- 13:42Speaker 1: especially as we go into the holly season where a
- 13:45Speaker 1: lot of people are essentially closing out their books, they're rebalancing.
- 13:48Speaker 1: You're also waiting for I think about two weeks for
- 13:50Speaker 1: the next FMC meeting, and on top of that, you're
- 13:53Speaker 1: waiting once again for two weeks for more data and
- 13:57Speaker 1: more information on this variant in particular, which we are
- 14:00Speaker 1: still getting contradicting information on. So right now and I
- 14:04Speaker 1: think for the foreseeable future, and I mean for the
- 14:05Speaker 1: next couple of days, you're going to continue to see
- 14:07Speaker 1: this volatility where you see moves in the market that
- 14:10Speaker 1: just don't make sense. But then eventually, when we do
- 14:12Speaker 1: have more information, those correlations are going to come back
- 14:14Speaker 1: together and there will be a very clear risk on
- 14:17Speaker 1: or risk off narrative. Right now, we're just not there.
- 14:19Speaker 1: It was also interesting that the FED didn't react as
- 14:23Speaker 1: devish lee at least in the Q and a portion
- 14:26Speaker 1: of um Jerome pal senate testimony, as maybe the market
- 14:30Speaker 1: had anticipated, right because we got that hawkish pivot at
- 14:33Speaker 1: the same time as the market seemed to be a
- 14:37Speaker 1: little bit on edge about coronavirus. Again. Yeah, and you know,
- 14:41Speaker 1: I actually went back and read the exact wording of j.
- 14:44Speaker 1: Powell this morning, and he used a lot of maybes
- 14:48Speaker 1: and cood's and really a hedged response. He didn't say
- 14:51Speaker 1: we are tapering at a faster pace. He said we
- 14:54Speaker 1: could and we might. And that isn't something that we
- 14:57Speaker 1: didn't know from the last FMC meeting. In fact, we
- 15:00Speaker 1: haven't actually gotten the actual number or the actual asset
- 15:03Speaker 1: purchases for January, so we knew there was always going
- 15:06Speaker 1: to be this question mark that the pace from for
- 15:08Speaker 1: January would completely change, and he's just reiterated that in
- 15:11Speaker 1: his testimony, So once again, it's not new. I think
- 15:14Speaker 1: what is new, though, is the way the bond market
- 15:16Speaker 1: in particular is pricing it. And the biggest part of
- 15:18Speaker 1: that is the curve flattening you've seen really accelerated in
- 15:22Speaker 1: the past couple of days because you saw essentially the
- 15:24Speaker 1: five thirties curve uh kind of come down, kind of
- 15:26Speaker 1: flatten a little bit for the last really I think
- 15:29Speaker 1: two wish months. If you look at the chart. But
- 15:31Speaker 1: if you compare that to what you're seeing and say,
- 15:33Speaker 1: the equity market, this is a really important comparison because essentially,
- 15:37Speaker 1: when for those folks who aren't tuned into the bond market,
- 15:40Speaker 1: the curve flattening just means that you are not paid
- 15:43Speaker 1: as much of a premium for taking on that extra
- 15:46Speaker 1: time risk. If you apply that logic to big tech,
- 15:48Speaker 1: which is also a very long duration asset essentially or
- 15:51Speaker 1: has been trading as such, that's not exactly a good sign.
- 15:54Speaker 1: And right now you do have that disconnect between stocks
- 15:58Speaker 1: in that regard and tech stocks in particular, as well
- 16:00Speaker 1: as the bond market. The question is when those two connect,
- 16:03Speaker 1: is it the bond market that kind of becomes more
- 16:06Speaker 1: risk on more and steepens a little bit, or is
- 16:08Speaker 1: it the equity market that gets dragged down by big tech? Yeah,
- 16:11Speaker 1: and it's interesting to see how the markets are reacting
- 16:14Speaker 1: to that big, big pivot um by FED chairman Powell
- 16:18Speaker 1: earlier this week. Again we had that sell off um.
- 16:22Speaker 1: But again, if you're the market was looking for just
- 16:26Speaker 1: reasonable signaling to get you to a spot of okay,
- 16:29Speaker 1: I kind of have a feeling of how this thing
- 16:31Speaker 1: is going to go. He certainly gave it to you. Yeah,
- 16:34Speaker 1: it really did. And and what's tricky about right now though,
- 16:37Speaker 1: is that And I think this is why there's so
- 16:39Speaker 1: much emphasis on tomorrow's payrolls report in particulars because anything
- 16:43Speaker 1: could happen. And if you start to see the payer's
- 16:44Speaker 1: report come in, the market is planning on interpreting this
- 16:47Speaker 1: as well. This is permission for for J. Powell and
- 16:50Speaker 1: the Fed to just say all eyes are on inflation
- 16:52Speaker 1: and that means tapering, and that means right, Hicks. And
- 16:54Speaker 1: that's a narrative that can spiral very very quickly on
- 16:57Speaker 1: one data point. So that's going to be a spot
- 16:59Speaker 1: where where you might see some pretty drastic moves. All right. Interesting.
- 17:03Speaker 1: We will certainly have wall to wall coverage of the
- 17:05Speaker 1: job report, as we do every month here on Bloomberg
- 17:08Speaker 1: Radio and Bloomberg TV. We live for that kind of stuff.
- 17:12Speaker 1: Pretty Gupta, Bloomberg Markets correspondent joining us here in our
- 17:15Speaker 1: Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. UH and again full coverage tomorrow
- 17:20Speaker 1: of that job's data, which is pretty mentioned, will be
- 17:22Speaker 1: a key data point for this federal Reserve. Let's check
- 17:31Speaker 1: in with a longtime contributor to Bloomberg Markets, Hugh Johnson Chairman,
- 17:35Speaker 1: Chief Economists A Great Point LLC. First of all, you
- 17:38Speaker 1: what is the Great Point LLC? What happened to Hugh
- 17:41Speaker 1: Johnson Advisors for like a gazillion years? Well, well that's
- 17:45Speaker 1: a good question. We merged our company with a company
- 17:49Speaker 1: called Bender Lane, which was a family office business, and
- 17:51Speaker 1: then we decided to have a give it one name
- 17:53Speaker 1: for the two. But we've kept Hugh Johnson Advisors as
- 17:56Speaker 1: a as a division of and I'm sort of the
- 18:00Speaker 1: chairman emeritus of Great Point and the Chief Economists A
- 18:04Speaker 1: Great Point, and I'm also the is the best I
- 18:06Speaker 1: understand it, the chairman of Hugh Johnson Advisors and the
- 18:10Speaker 1: chief economists the Hugh Johnson Advisors, and the chief chief
- 18:14Speaker 1: investment officer a huge Johnsen. Well, all right, we're just
- 18:16Speaker 1: gonna go, chairman. Yeah, we're just gonna go the chairman, um,
- 18:20Speaker 1: and everybody knows you're buying your chairman, Yeah, Mr Chairman, Yeah,
- 18:24Speaker 1: that's good. Mr. So who what do you make of
- 18:27Speaker 1: this world we're living in now? I mean, it's been
- 18:30Speaker 1: such a crazy twenty months here with the pandemic and
- 18:34Speaker 1: the economic disruption and now they reopening. But it just
- 18:37Speaker 1: seems like, you know, there's one monkey wrench thrown in
- 18:41Speaker 1: after another, and it's got to be tough to kind
- 18:43Speaker 1: of forecast where this economy is going. What are your
- 18:46Speaker 1: best thoughts at the moment, Well, the best thoughts are
- 18:50Speaker 1: really number one. As you get some surprises thrown at us,
- 18:53Speaker 1: and that's a part of financial market history. And of
- 18:55Speaker 1: course with the the COVID nineteen is kind of surprised
- 18:58Speaker 1: we've been sent with a macron right now. That's a surprise.
- 19:02Speaker 1: Very causes a great deal of volatility. That's one surprise.
- 19:05Speaker 1: And the second surprise, of course, is some of the
- 19:07Speaker 1: comments made by Gairman Paul which seemed to move up
- 19:10Speaker 1: the time in which is gonna be gin the taper,
- 19:12Speaker 1: and then of course the time they're gonna begin to
- 19:14Speaker 1: start to raise interest rates. These are surprises, create great,
- 19:18Speaker 1: great level of volatility, and I would just urge all
- 19:21Speaker 1: investors to just try to look through all of that
- 19:24Speaker 1: volatility and we'll start to get some real answers on COVID,
- 19:27Speaker 1: we'll get some real answers on monetary policy over the
- 19:30Speaker 1: course of a little bit of time now. But let's
- 19:33Speaker 1: let those things settle out and recognize, and the more
- 19:35Speaker 1: important thing is to recognize, Look, we are in a cycle,
- 19:39Speaker 1: a stock market, economic, interest rate cycle. It's very normal
- 19:43Speaker 1: by past cycles. We're at the twenty month mark. We're
- 19:46Speaker 1: really not far into it, and really all of the
- 19:49Speaker 1: kind of the levers. When you look at leading indicators
- 19:51Speaker 1: for the economy, you look at the yield curve and
- 19:53Speaker 1: what it tells you about what the economy has in
- 19:55Speaker 1: store for the next twelve months. Um, it's still very positive.
- 19:59Speaker 1: The cycle has further to go, and it's gonna have
- 20:01Speaker 1: a little bit of volatility created by these issues, these
- 20:04Speaker 1: exogenous unexpected issues along the way. You just gotta just
- 20:08Speaker 1: gotta put those on the back burner and make sure
- 20:11Speaker 1: you pay attention to the fact the underlying cycle and
- 20:14Speaker 1: where we are in that cycle, and then make your
- 20:16Speaker 1: investment decisions asset allocation on the basis of that. Yeah,
- 20:19Speaker 1: we had a great story by Matthew Bosler a couple
- 20:22Speaker 1: of days ago about how fat corporate profit margins are.
- 20:25Speaker 1: We haven't seen margins this fat since the fifties, and
- 20:28Speaker 1: yet it looks like investors, uh current. So you've got
- 20:33Speaker 1: the pajama investors, the pajama traders who buy the dip
- 20:37Speaker 1: for us every night, but it does look like um
- 20:40Speaker 1: sell first ask questions later is the afternoon mantra. You know,
- 20:45Speaker 1: you get you have a group of investors, there's very volatile,
- 20:48Speaker 1: price sensitive investors, and that's not all of them. That's
- 20:51Speaker 1: really a small group of them. I mean, they were
- 20:53Speaker 1: talking about ten percent of all the investors that are
- 20:56Speaker 1: involved in these markets that are just extremely edgy and
- 21:00Speaker 1: they create a lot of the volatility that you're seeing
- 21:02Speaker 1: because they respond to all of the news that comes out.
- 21:05Speaker 1: And I'm just saying, you know, okay, that's fine. They're
- 21:08Speaker 1: going to be investors like that. There always have been,
- 21:10Speaker 1: there always will be. But I think the majority of investors,
- 21:13Speaker 1: quite frankly of are a little bit more sensible, are
- 21:16Speaker 1: not caught up in that kind of alatili And that's
- 21:18Speaker 1: exactly what they should do. They should, you know, basically
- 21:21Speaker 1: set their portfolios on the basis of what is really
- 21:24Speaker 1: going on or what the underlying fundamentals, the underlying cycle
- 21:28Speaker 1: is doing, and that's really the most important thing. So
- 21:31Speaker 1: don't get caught up in that day to day volatility,
- 21:33Speaker 1: even though I'm sure all of us kind of emotionally
- 21:36Speaker 1: do get caught up in it all right. Here, you've
- 21:38Speaker 1: got more than forty years of experience in this game. Here,
- 21:41Speaker 1: what's your outlook for Uh, it's positive, But you've got
- 21:47Speaker 1: to keep in mind. I think one thing that's sort
- 21:49Speaker 1: of a basic fact, and that is since the bottom
- 21:52Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, the average annualized rate of
- 21:54Speaker 1: return has been over eight. Look, that's just's that's just
- 21:59Speaker 1: a big number, and that's not going to continue. So
- 22:02Speaker 1: my outlook is positive. In other words, I think the
- 22:04Speaker 1: economy is going to continue to expand, although it's gonna slow.
- 22:08Speaker 1: I think the same thing is true of earnings, and
- 22:10Speaker 1: so you should maintain you should maintain a positive view
- 22:14Speaker 1: of the equity markets, in other words, a meaningful allocation
- 22:17Speaker 1: to equities. But recognize one important fact, and that is
- 22:21Speaker 1: we're going from a high return environment that's two thousand
- 22:24Speaker 1: twenty for sure, um, and we're going to a low
- 22:28Speaker 1: return environment. My outlook or prospects for two thousand and
- 22:31Speaker 1: twenty two are quite frankly, a low three to five
- 22:36Speaker 1: percent single digit return. Don't worry about that, because I
- 22:39Speaker 1: think you're gonna be I'm gonna be wrong on earnings.
- 22:41Speaker 1: Earnings are gonna come in higher than I'm expecting, in
- 22:44Speaker 1: which case the market will do a little bit better
- 22:46Speaker 1: than I'm expecting, but don't look for anything more than
- 22:49Speaker 1: single digit returns, and equities will outperform fixed income, so
- 22:53Speaker 1: you should overallocate the equities, all right. You thank you
- 22:56Speaker 1: so much for joining us once again. You Johnson, Chairman,
- 22:59Speaker 1: Chief Economy US, and a bunch of other stuff at
- 23:02Speaker 1: Great Point LLC over forty years in the business. Thanks
- 23:09Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe
- 23:12Speaker 1: and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast
- 23:16Speaker 1: platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at
- 23:19Speaker 1: Matt Miller, three pt on Fall Sweeney I'm on Twitter
- 23:23Speaker 1: at pt Sweeney Before the podcast. You can always catch
- 23:26Speaker 1: us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.