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Supply Chain, Housing, Tesla, and WWE (Podcast) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
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Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
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Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
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Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
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Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. It's a cloud supply chain.
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Speaker 1: We haven't that was the thing in twenty twenty still
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Speaker 1: twenty and I think part most of twenty twenty two.
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Speaker 1: But I don't know if that's the thing anymore. I mean,
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Speaker 1: our ships still sitting out there in the ports. I don't.
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Speaker 1: Let's go to the Let's go to the absolute source.
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Speaker 1: Gene Siroca. He's the executive director of the Port of
0:41
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. He is on our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio.
0:44
Speaker 1: We appreciate it making the trip just to see us.
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Speaker 1: I'm sure maybe look at some ships that are off
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Speaker 1: the coast of Bayo, New Jersey. Maybe Gene talked to
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Speaker 1: us about LA. How are things there? How many ships
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Speaker 1: are waiting off the coast? Are you getting stuff to
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Speaker 1: the trains into the warehouses? How's it going? Yeah, good morning,
1:01
Speaker 1: Paul and Matt. Things that the port look relatively normal.
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Speaker 1: That backlog of ships that started at one hundred and
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Speaker 1: nine almost at this point last year was worked down
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Speaker 1: to single digits by August, while breaking records in five
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Speaker 1: of the first seven months, effectively worried about eighty percent
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Speaker 1: of throughput capacity. Today the dwell times of how long
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Speaker 1: cargo sits before it moves out by truck or rail
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Speaker 1: back to pre pandemic points, not the whole supply chain though, right.
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Speaker 1: I mean, Jean, you guys are doing your job and
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Speaker 1: you've taken care of the mess. You've basically mocked it up. Nonetheless,
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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that the stuff coming in through your
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Speaker 1: ports is still completely full of all the chips that
1:41
Speaker 1: that stuff needs to be full of. Yeah, chips usually
1:44
Speaker 1: take the air freight route. But to your point, Matt,
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Speaker 1: the supply chain has still got dislocations globally and here
1:50
Speaker 1: in the US, for example, the inventory sales ratio for
1:54
Speaker 1: retailers is at about one point three seven from the
1:57
Speaker 1: last report of the Saint Louis FED. That's all all
2:00
Speaker 1: time highs, but still much of a higher level than
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Speaker 1: a lot of folks would see. So if you're like me,
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Speaker 1: you're getting email blasts and techs every day from retailers
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Speaker 1: with deep discounts, And if you're like me, you're still
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Speaker 1: buying right. How about China reopening? I mean, you guys,
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Speaker 1: when the ships leave of China, they come right to
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Speaker 1: your port. Geane, what do you guys, how are you
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Speaker 1: thinking about the reopening of China? You know, it's been
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Speaker 1: pretty steady, Paul. Even when there were so many ships
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Speaker 1: outside of the port of Shanghai back last summertime and
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Speaker 1: folks were saying it's going to be a deluge coming
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Speaker 1: across the Pacific, the central government and the Young Shaan
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Speaker 1: Deep Seaport in Shanghai, along with Ningbo and other ports,
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Speaker 1: prioritized that long leg cargo. So while we may have
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Speaker 1: seen a little bit of a dip, a little bit
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Speaker 1: of a pickup, that was the extent of it, not
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Speaker 1: so much this crush or wave of cargo that's coming
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Speaker 1: across the Pacific, but it will ease pressures there domestically
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Speaker 1: as well, whether it's land, transport, barge, factory subassembly units.
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Speaker 1: All right, So in terms of we'res have you got
3:00
Speaker 1: everybody you need? And in terms of price pressures. Have
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Speaker 1: you seen a lot of them? Do they continue? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: On the worker front, three big segments. As we've talked
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Speaker 1: about before, Matt, the dock workers average six days a
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Speaker 1: week on the job during all of this import surge.
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Speaker 1: They continue to work and the productivity is great. The
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Speaker 1: dock worker contract with their employers, the Pacific Maritime Association,
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Speaker 1: is now being negotiated for the tenth month. We're at
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Speaker 1: the outer edge of where this usually reads some level
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Speaker 1: of agreement, but it's not quite there yet. We've got
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Speaker 1: to get this contract done because the people that control
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Speaker 1: the cargo importers and exporters have shifted their goods to
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Speaker 1: East and Gulf Coast ports. Some of that may stick
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Speaker 1: permanently on the truck driver's side, pretty good shape, but again,
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Speaker 1: you're only running at eighty percent of capacity. Warehouses are
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Speaker 1: still pretty full, and that's where a little bit of
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Speaker 1: the challenge comes in getting workers. How do you so,
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Speaker 1: we did hear stories, and you told us stories over
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Speaker 1: the last couple of years about some of that cargo
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Speaker 1: to East coast ports. How do you compete for that?
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Speaker 1: I presume part of the reason you're in New York
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Speaker 1: is talking to some customers and things like that. How
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Speaker 1: do you compete with the Norfolks, the Savannahs, the Baltimore
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Speaker 1: and of course New York. Yeah, these ports have hired,
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Speaker 1: switched on people, they've aligned with their policy makers, and
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Speaker 1: they're doing huge investments. We've got to stay ahead of
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Speaker 1: the curve. And they have a different union, and they've
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Speaker 1: got a different union, that's correct. The International Longshore Association
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Speaker 1: covering the East and Gulf Coast has their contract coming
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Speaker 1: up for renegotiation next summertime. At this point right now,
4:37
Speaker 1: what we've got to do is continue to add value
4:39
Speaker 1: where people continue to tell me your costs are too high,
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Speaker 1: you've got labor complications, and you're overly regulated in California.
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Speaker 1: So we've got a band together and continue to push
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Speaker 1: the envelope on these issues because we've got to compete.
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Speaker 1: Before the pandemic, forty percent of the nation's imports came
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Speaker 1: through this gateway. Now it's down to thirty three percent.
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Speaker 1: And the big number for the listeners to remember is
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Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, eighty percent of the Transpacific
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Speaker 1: trade came through West Coast ports. Today that's fifty six percent.
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Speaker 1: So what is the state government in California, for example.
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Speaker 1: How do they respond because that's such a natural advantage
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Speaker 1: for West Coast ports with this, the Transpacific sounds like
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Speaker 1: they respond with way too much regulation as usual. I
5:24
Speaker 1: mean you've been there for how many years as now
5:26
Speaker 1: on the West Coast. I mean that's part of living
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Speaker 1: in California, isn't it? You accept that bad if you
5:34
Speaker 1: want to put it that way with the good, which
5:36
Speaker 1: is living in such a fantastic place, right. We've got
5:39
Speaker 1: to capture the moment here. Never in a generation have
5:41
Speaker 1: we seen a linement between the federal, state and local governments.
5:44
Speaker 1: The Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act,
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Speaker 1: and the California Governor's budget all have investment ready for
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Speaker 1: us at the ports. On the regulatory side, we want
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Speaker 1: to get to zero carbon or zero emissions. The technology
5:59
Speaker 1: is just not there yet, So we've got to keep
6:01
Speaker 1: working with regulators and private sector industry to make these
6:04
Speaker 1: investments and encourage create a market maker concept that gets
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Speaker 1: manufacturers enticed to us as a customer. Are the carbon
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Speaker 1: costs at your level or is that on a shippers level?
6:15
Speaker 1: We asked today we saw carbon in Europe go to
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Speaker 1: one hundred euros, which is the highest price we've seen
6:20
Speaker 1: so far. Right, combination of all three things. So we've
6:23
Speaker 1: got a pretty big bucket of money out of Washington,
6:25
Speaker 1: another one out of Sacramento. We've put attacks on containers
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Speaker 1: coming through to incent cleaner trucks. Yet we can't spend
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Speaker 1: the money because the technology is not there yet. We've
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Speaker 1: collected about thirty five million dollars on that new container fee,
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Speaker 1: and we've only spent about one million. We've got a
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Speaker 1: long way to go, both on hydrogen fuel cell electric
6:45
Speaker 1: as well as battery electric trucks. They've got to be affordable.
6:49
Speaker 1: Today the prices on those rigs are eight to ten
6:51
Speaker 1: times more than what the average trucker pays for a
6:54
Speaker 1: used diesel. But you've got a fantastic use case for
6:57
Speaker 1: those kind of I mean, you've got a ship stuff
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Speaker 1: ruck stuff, I should say, rather from the port to
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Speaker 1: the warehouses. That's the first place you need to use trucks, right,
7:06
Speaker 1: and so you don't need to worry about nationwide electric trucks.
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Speaker 1: You can use a number of other alternative sources. That's right.
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Speaker 1: About two thirds of the trucks mat that move the
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Speaker 1: car will come in and out of the port by
7:18
Speaker 1: the third of the cargo goes by rail. But you've
7:20
Speaker 1: got to have duty cycle, you got to have torque,
7:22
Speaker 1: and you've got to run these trucks. You've got to
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Speaker 1: sweat the assets. You cannot waste time charging. The biggest
7:28
Speaker 1: bugaboo that we have is that a battery right now
7:31
Speaker 1: weighs about sixteen thousand pounds, So you either haul the
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Speaker 1: battery or you haul the fright, you can't haul both.
7:37
Speaker 1: And the hydrogen fuel cell electric, while really good performance wise,
7:41
Speaker 1: still very elevated in pre production stage pricing. So we've
7:44
Speaker 1: got to work all this down to the middle. It's
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Speaker 1: not going to happen overnight. Wow. And do the East
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Speaker 1: Coast ports have the similar challenges. No, they're asking for
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Speaker 1: the trucks that we no longer use, wow, as we
7:55
Speaker 1: implement cleaner near zero and zero emissions because they don't
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Speaker 1: have the same regulatory restraints. That's right. A federal standard
8:01
Speaker 1: would be great. California wants to lead the way, they
8:04
Speaker 1: want other states to follow. But we've got to bring
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Speaker 1: all of these folks together. I want nothing more than
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Speaker 1: zero emissions at the port, but we got about be
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Speaker 1: smart about how our focus is on accelerating the technology
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Speaker 1: and finding the funding streams. Do you have like the
8:17
Speaker 1: coolest job in the world. It's always it's always great
8:20
Speaker 1: coming to see you guys, and so many things. I
8:23
Speaker 1: couldn't keep all the balls in the year. I know
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Speaker 1: this whole going green Wait, wait, wait a second. My
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Speaker 1: jobs to get stuff off its ships and get it,
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Speaker 1: but now I have to do it in a green way.
8:31
Speaker 1: But you clearly care about going green as well. I mean,
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Speaker 1: it's obviously something that's top of mind for you, right
8:35
Speaker 1: and as you transition into this greener technology, that means
8:38
Speaker 1: upskilling and reskilling workers for those new jobs. The mechanic
8:42
Speaker 1: no longer works with a wrench sheer, he can work
8:45
Speaker 1: with a computer. Yeah, Geen Saroka, great stuff as always.
8:48
Speaker 1: Jean Stroka, he's the executive director of the Port of
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Speaker 1: Los Angeles. He has our go to source for all
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Speaker 1: things supply chain. He has been during the entire pandemic.
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Speaker 1: We appreciate him taking a few minutes and joining us
8:57
Speaker 1: here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Mixed day. Here,
9:05
Speaker 1: I thought we might get a little bit of a lift,
9:06
Speaker 1: but it's kind of mixed here. We got fed minutes
9:09
Speaker 1: coming up later today. Michael McKee from Bloomberg Television. He's
9:13
Speaker 1: down at DC. He'll have all the details. Let's check
9:15
Speaker 1: it with Efan Devitt, chief investment officer of Moneta Group.
9:20
Speaker 1: She joins us talk about these markets here. If we're
9:23
Speaker 1: kind of at the end of the earning season, which
9:25
Speaker 1: getting some of the retailers coming in here, let's kind
9:29
Speaker 1: of wrap it up here. What are your takeaways from earnings?
9:32
Speaker 1: I know the markets really focused on the FED, but
9:34
Speaker 1: let's put into context what we saw this earning season.
9:38
Speaker 1: The really interesting thing about this earning season was that
9:41
Speaker 1: markets were quite unwilling to punish disappointing earnings where they
9:45
Speaker 1: fell shorts. We saw that with the big tech stalks,
9:47
Speaker 1: with quite a bit of leniency in effect there, and
9:50
Speaker 1: that was surprising. It really reflects that overall, that sense
9:54
Speaker 1: of fomo, perhaps that sense of markets and participants were
9:57
Speaker 1: willing themselves into risk assets and really back to the races,
10:01
Speaker 1: which is where they were for most of twenty twenty one.
10:03
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. The other parallels that I think it's
10:06
Speaker 1: fascinating is that these warnings coming out of retail are
10:09
Speaker 1: almost exactly like the warnings we saw coming out at
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Speaker 1: the first part of twenty twenty two. We remember Target
10:15
Speaker 1: and Walmart's coming out with some forecasts there where they
10:18
Speaker 1: talked about building inventory. This is back in the post
10:21
Speaker 1: COVID era when we just had the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
10:25
Speaker 1: also building inventories, a slacker consumer, and them having all
10:28
Speaker 1: this garden furniture that they needed to sell off, and
10:31
Speaker 1: this was a trigger of a market weakness in twenty
10:35
Speaker 1: twenty two. So we're seeing almost exactly the same pattern
10:39
Speaker 1: play out. Now. We're seeing that these retailers have actually
10:43
Speaker 1: had pretty good results. The results are core positive, but
10:46
Speaker 1: their forecast is negatives. Their expectations are more gloomy. I
10:49
Speaker 1: suspect that is them getting some of this bad news
10:52
Speaker 1: out of the way first, telegraphing this an advance so
10:56
Speaker 1: that they can surprise on the upside later in the year.
10:58
Speaker 1: Under promise over ever, always been a great strategy. Is
11:02
Speaker 1: this is the bad news, mostly inventory related. They're going
11:06
Speaker 1: to have to slash prices. We just heard from Gene Siroca,
11:09
Speaker 1: who runs the ports in Well, the biggest ports in
11:13
Speaker 1: the US and on the West Coast, saying that you
11:17
Speaker 1: know he's seeing dip deep discounts from retailers all over
11:20
Speaker 1: the place, or is the bad news that they want
11:25
Speaker 1: to get out of the way. We're going to see
11:26
Speaker 1: higher rates, business is going to slow down, the consumer
11:29
Speaker 1: is going to be hurt. I think it's the ladder.
11:32
Speaker 1: It's around the consumer being slackered. For the most part,
11:34
Speaker 1: any supply chain issues have been resolved now, their inventory
11:38
Speaker 1: was a little bit around the shifting pattern of demand
11:40
Speaker 1: around COVID, and certainly the home depot numbers may reflect
11:43
Speaker 1: a little bit of that less money being spent on
11:46
Speaker 1: home renovation because of maybe they're being simply more money
11:51
Speaker 1: to spend on services and getting out of the home.
11:53
Speaker 1: So it's around the consumer. We've seen a really stark
11:56
Speaker 1: disconnect between hard data and soft data in recent months.
12:00
Speaker 1: The hard data has actually been somewhat positive. We've seen
12:02
Speaker 1: positive direct direction of travel when it comes to inflation.
12:06
Speaker 1: We've also seen quite a positive story and continuing unemployment.
12:10
Speaker 1: But it's that soft data, that consumer sentiment that actually
12:13
Speaker 1: been depressed for some time. It just hasn't manifested in sales.
12:16
Speaker 1: And we saw January with positive retail tales much put
12:19
Speaker 1: more positive than November and December. So clearly the consumer
12:23
Speaker 1: is still standing, but they're not feeling great about it.
12:26
Speaker 1: So that's where the retailers are trying to get ahead
12:28
Speaker 1: of it, even just kind of broadly on these markets here. Obviously,
12:31
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two in hindsight just such a brutally year
12:34
Speaker 1: for both equity investors and maybe even more to the point,
12:37
Speaker 1: fixed income investors going into twenty twenty three. How did
12:41
Speaker 1: you kind of frame this year for your clients, maybe
12:44
Speaker 1: your portfolio managers or your analys and things like that,
12:47
Speaker 1: or do you see it differently now because it seems
12:50
Speaker 1: like the market changed its mind yesterday. Yeah, well, there's
12:54
Speaker 1: certainly a flip flopping of the narrative that we taught
12:57
Speaker 1: was the case. We were actually quite interested to see
13:00
Speaker 1: US market SIUs perform at the beginning of the year.
13:02
Speaker 1: That was something we expected to reverse to some time.
13:05
Speaker 1: Now that narrative seems to have ever reversed again. We
13:08
Speaker 1: saw a week er dollar. Now it's firming up, so
13:10
Speaker 1: all of those things have certainly changed. So may coming
13:12
Speaker 1: off a year like twenty two, which is clearly somewhat
13:15
Speaker 1: unprecedented in terms of the poor performance of bonds and equities,
13:19
Speaker 1: that balanced portfolio was really on its knees at the
13:21
Speaker 1: end of twenty two. Clearly we don't see the same
13:24
Speaker 1: negativity in the bond market. We're actually quite keen on
13:27
Speaker 1: some of them where we can get those yields with
13:29
Speaker 1: interesting yields even net and inflation available in bonds where
13:33
Speaker 1: encourage our clients not to have their cash set and
13:36
Speaker 1: sweet accounts. You want to see that invested at a
13:38
Speaker 1: higher yield elsewhere, and because of that inverted yield curve,
13:42
Speaker 1: you can get that in pretty short dated paper. So
13:44
Speaker 1: we're certainly not seeing the same leg down lightly in bonds.
13:48
Speaker 1: As all in all, we're not going to see that
13:50
Speaker 1: kind of massive rate hike that we saw on twenty two.
13:53
Speaker 1: The bonds are looking interesting. When it comes to equities,
13:55
Speaker 1: we've always had a very balanced allocation to equities in
13:59
Speaker 1: core so not too much growth, not too much value,
14:02
Speaker 1: just to balance allocation. It's been tough. We would have
14:04
Speaker 1: underperformed when the growth was really strong in specially in
14:08
Speaker 1: twenty one and post COVID, But having that balanced allocation
14:12
Speaker 1: is really key today because when we see things like
14:14
Speaker 1: consumer safe will start to come through, we see those
14:17
Speaker 1: real assets that the some of the infrastructure holdings start
14:21
Speaker 1: to come through because they're more defensive names. That's where
14:24
Speaker 1: our balance comes in. So we're actually not making great changes.
14:28
Speaker 1: What we're thankful to see is fewer inquiries around some
14:31
Speaker 1: of the more sizzle type, more volatile perhaps areas, which
14:36
Speaker 1: is cryptocurrency. We're definitely not seeing the same level of
14:39
Speaker 1: interest in that today. Well, no volatility there. I mean
14:42
Speaker 1: yesterday the NASDAC tanked and bitcoin it's still twenty four
14:45
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. That correlation seems to have been broken. I
14:50
Speaker 1: don't know why, what's behind it, And maybe it's not
14:53
Speaker 1: as interesting to you just because it's not such a
14:55
Speaker 1: huge asset anymore. Even the whole universe isn't as big
14:59
Speaker 1: as it one was a lot of the traditional investors
15:05
Speaker 1: in stocks and bonds seem like they are in kind
15:08
Speaker 1: of a waiting game. They expected a dip in the
15:10
Speaker 1: first half. Now it looks like that's happening and then
15:13
Speaker 1: a recovery in the second half. Are you in that
15:15
Speaker 1: camp as well in terms of the recession on the
15:18
Speaker 1: economic athletes, in terms of in terms of asset prices, yeah,
15:24
Speaker 1: well we we actually were somewhat surprised by the resilience
15:27
Speaker 1: and markets and the strong performance in the first quarter.
15:30
Speaker 1: We wouldn't necessarily agree with JP Morgan that the best
15:33
Speaker 1: is in, that the highest levels are in. We think
15:35
Speaker 1: there will be ongoing strength throughout the year, particularly as
15:39
Speaker 1: some of the clarity emergence on the state of the
15:41
Speaker 1: consumer and on this recession, which you know, we said
15:44
Speaker 1: was widely forecast almost to the points where now it
15:48
Speaker 1: was so discounted in that positive news was well received,
15:51
Speaker 1: so we were not We were a little surprised. So
15:53
Speaker 1: there will be a bit of giveback in asset prices
15:55
Speaker 1: now as we moved to the end of the first quarter,
15:58
Speaker 1: but we're quite optimistic base something the year like twenty two.
16:01
Speaker 1: We've been building in higher expectations for return across the
16:04
Speaker 1: board and our asset class. Where do you go in
16:07
Speaker 1: fixed income here, even fixed income, as I've said, there
16:12
Speaker 1: are number of places you can go, and first of all,
16:14
Speaker 1: you don't have to go into the highest risk areas
16:17
Speaker 1: in order to get a decent yield. As far as cash,
16:21
Speaker 1: staying in cash makes sense today, as long as in
16:23
Speaker 1: the right kind of account and accounts that's actually earning
16:26
Speaker 1: something closer to a short term yields, even a six
16:29
Speaker 1: month treasury yield is interesting today, so that's you don't
16:32
Speaker 1: have to go into the highest end of the spectrum.
16:34
Speaker 1: High yield is interesting, and even high yields itself, higher
16:38
Speaker 1: quality within high yield is still yielding quite meaningful returns today.
16:42
Speaker 1: So we've been looking across the board. Investment grade itself
16:45
Speaker 1: has also had deals that are interesting for the first time.
16:48
Speaker 1: So we also in our clients accounts do advocate introducing
16:52
Speaker 1: some private credit in there besides the public fixed income,
16:56
Speaker 1: just to get that diversification. How do they get that?
16:59
Speaker 1: I mean that used to be the realm of sophisticated investors.
17:04
Speaker 1: Only can your average retail investor get that kind of
17:07
Speaker 1: exposure now if if they are accredited usually that would
17:12
Speaker 1: be that the key cutoff there. We are really enthused
17:15
Speaker 1: by the greater selection we're seeing that are now suitable
17:18
Speaker 1: for credit investors. Obviously, there has to be a full
17:21
Speaker 1: understanding of different liquidity terms that might be in place
17:24
Speaker 1: for something private. It might be quardally liquidity. Acquardally liquidity
17:28
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean easy access in and out. We've seen
17:31
Speaker 1: that with some of the reafs at the moment. But
17:33
Speaker 1: at the same time, as long as there is an
17:35
Speaker 1: understanding and is appropriately sized. We're quite excited by the
17:39
Speaker 1: different level of credit investor offerings today. Then, of course,
17:42
Speaker 1: if the clients has qualified purchase or status, they can
17:45
Speaker 1: move up the spectrum. Again, what about non accredited investors
17:49
Speaker 1: just looking you mentioned to move cash. You know, if
17:52
Speaker 1: if Paul has one hundred grand of cash just sitting
17:56
Speaker 1: in his checking account, do you is there an easy
17:59
Speaker 1: way for him to get at you know, four and
18:01
Speaker 1: a half five percent from that. Certainly, even something like
18:05
Speaker 1: a high grade if we're looking to say and say
18:07
Speaker 1: a mutual funds and the index funds, we can look
18:10
Speaker 1: at something in the short term government bombs or short
18:12
Speaker 1: term investment grade credit, all of that and should be
18:16
Speaker 1: yielding something that's closer to four or five percent. It may, obviously,
18:20
Speaker 1: we have to be health in order to see that,
18:21
Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean that there won't be some volatility
18:24
Speaker 1: along that path, but any of those mutual sound options
18:28
Speaker 1: are quite suitable for that type of level. All right, Evan,
18:31
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Always appreciate getting
18:33
Speaker 1: your perspective, your thoughts there. Ifan Devitt, chief investment Officer
18:37
Speaker 1: for Manetta Group c Suite conversation today, let's talk commercial
18:44
Speaker 1: real estate, and we can do that today with the
18:46
Speaker 1: Hassam Naji. He is the president and CEO of Marcus
18:49
Speaker 1: and Millichap and a Hassam is in our Bloomberg Interactor
18:54
Speaker 1: Broker Studio Live, which is good stuff, so it gets
18:57
Speaker 1: the gold star. It's a publicly traded company New York
19:00
Speaker 1: Stock Change. MMI is the ticker to put into your
19:03
Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal there. Sam, thanks so much for joining us here.
19:07
Speaker 1: You know, we were just talking about I know you
19:09
Speaker 1: guys are a real estate commercial real estate biz. Talk
19:13
Speaker 1: to us about kind of the commercial office real estate business.
19:18
Speaker 1: How do you think about it? Because boy, the world
19:20
Speaker 1: has changed and we have some seven thirty one lex
19:23
Speaker 1: where we're located here. Fantastic building, one of the best
19:26
Speaker 1: buildings in New York City, but it's tough to fill
19:29
Speaker 1: it up. And this used to be the hard of commerce,
19:31
Speaker 1: right We had the Gap downstairs and Jay Crew, and
19:34
Speaker 1: we had Victoria's Secret and H and M and all
19:37
Speaker 1: of that is gone. Well. First of all, it's great
19:40
Speaker 1: to be with you in person, yep at seven thirty one,
19:43
Speaker 1: even though those stores are not here. I love seeing
19:46
Speaker 1: you guys. I love being at Bloomberg it's great to
19:49
Speaker 1: be in person. There is no substitute for it. And
19:52
Speaker 1: that let me just jump start the conversation by saying,
19:55
Speaker 1: is the reason I think the situation with office usage
19:58
Speaker 1: will improve over time. People will come back in the
20:02
Speaker 1: office more than they are today. But I don't believe
20:05
Speaker 1: we are headed for pre pandemic full occupancy anytime in
20:10
Speaker 1: the future. No, you just gave me my stat of
20:12
Speaker 1: the day when you walked in. You said, we're just
20:14
Speaker 1: back to fifty percent, right, Yeah, Nationally, we just crossed
20:18
Speaker 1: the fifty percent daily occupancy rate across office space since
20:22
Speaker 1: the pandemic. That's a national index, if you will see
20:26
Speaker 1: in some markets it's twenty twenty three, right, Yes, so
20:29
Speaker 1: since the problem that erupted at the end of really
20:32
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. It's named for that COVID nineteen. This is
20:36
Speaker 1: the first time we've gotten back to fifty percent office
20:39
Speaker 1: space occupas average. Correct. Now, let's let's take that apart
20:43
Speaker 1: for a moment. Places like Florida, Texas and other growth
20:48
Speaker 1: oriented markets have a much higher daily occupancy rate and
20:51
Speaker 1: didn't fall as much. The urban markets New York, Chicago,
20:54
Speaker 1: San Francisco, Seattle, Downtown, LA are really skewing an average
20:59
Speaker 1: because their occupancies even less than fifty. Well, there's also
21:03
Speaker 1: a big political divide there, so you're what you're saying
21:05
Speaker 1: is the Red States are doing fine. They never left
21:11
Speaker 1: the office, and they're all back. I'd rather think of
21:13
Speaker 1: it more as an urban versus suburban. Okay, Well, you
21:16
Speaker 1: just mentioned Florida in Texas and Paul and I often
21:19
Speaker 1: talk about I wonder how well they did. Well. They
21:21
Speaker 1: didn't leave the office. That's right, they did just fine.
21:23
Speaker 1: So if I'm a commercial I don't know a bunch
21:27
Speaker 1: of commercial real estate, what do I do? Particularly office space.
21:30
Speaker 1: I'm looking around here in New York City and somebody
21:32
Speaker 1: these amazing buildings they just opened up right before the pandemic,
21:36
Speaker 1: Hudson Yards. I think spectacular office space. It is what
21:39
Speaker 1: do I do? Great mixed use? Well, this is a
21:41
Speaker 1: snapshot in time. Real estate is a long term investment vehicle,
21:45
Speaker 1: as you well know, and if you really step back
21:48
Speaker 1: and look at commercial real estate is an alternate investment.
21:52
Speaker 1: Office space is one of many seconds you have self storage, hospitality,
21:56
Speaker 1: retail of all forms, by the way, retail is the
22:00
Speaker 1: comeback hit. Retail right now is the darling of our
22:02
Speaker 1: industry and offices a new retail, which is really kind
22:06
Speaker 1: of an interesting shift. Apartments. Commercial apartments are a significant
22:11
Speaker 1: part of commercial real estate investing, and they've also been
22:14
Speaker 1: the darling of the industry for the past ten plus years.
22:17
Speaker 1: They're having a little bit of a rough go of
22:20
Speaker 1: it right now because of interest rates. The FED, you know,
22:25
Speaker 1: answering your question of the overall view on the business,
22:28
Speaker 1: The FED has always been a solution when there's been
22:31
Speaker 1: a crisis. This time around, the FED became the crisis
22:35
Speaker 1: because we missed the window in twenty twenty one to
22:37
Speaker 1: gradually tighten financial conditions, get out of the post pandemic
22:42
Speaker 1: recovery with an easing back to normal financial conditions with
22:45
Speaker 1: interest rates going up gradually. That missed opportunity meant the
22:49
Speaker 1: sledgehammer had to come out in twenty twenty two and
22:52
Speaker 1: create a spike in interest rates, create a spike in
22:56
Speaker 1: liquidity draw and shocked the industry. That's what industry is
23:00
Speaker 1: absorbing right now, is that shock. And you know, I
23:03
Speaker 1: always think of Jean claud Trichet was ahead of the
23:06
Speaker 1: ECB and twenty years ago he told somebody and I
23:11
Speaker 1: was listening, it doesn't matter the level of the currency price.
23:16
Speaker 1: It just matters how quickly we get there. That's exactly right.
23:19
Speaker 1: And isn't it the same for real estate, Like, it
23:21
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to you if it's six percent or six
23:25
Speaker 1: and a half. But if we got there in less
23:28
Speaker 1: than a year from zero, that's that's a problem, Matt.
23:31
Speaker 1: You just nailed it. Five percent interest rate on the
23:35
Speaker 1: federal funds rate is normal, but going from zero to
23:38
Speaker 1: five percent in less than a year is the shock,
23:41
Speaker 1: and the market just didn't have time to adjust. A
23:44
Speaker 1: lot of lenders have pulled out of the market or
23:46
Speaker 1: their underwriting has tightened so much. Lender spreads have gone
23:49
Speaker 1: up so much because their risk averse to the point
23:52
Speaker 1: where liquidity is there. The capital is there, but the
23:56
Speaker 1: flow of capital is not so qualifying. For a loan
23:59
Speaker 1: where you could get seventy percent leverage sixty percent leverage
24:03
Speaker 1: a year a year and a half ago is down
24:05
Speaker 1: to forty or fifty percent leverage, and you have to
24:07
Speaker 1: put in much more equity and absorb at two D
24:10
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty basis point increase, and that cause
24:12
Speaker 1: to debt at a time when the economy is slowing
24:15
Speaker 1: and the buyers are worried about demand for space. Now.
24:19
Speaker 1: The reason I ask is that you know, there's not
24:21
Speaker 1: a huge difference in people's views on the terminal rate.
24:25
Speaker 1: The Fed may go to five percent or five and
24:29
Speaker 1: a quarter, or some people are saying five fifty, and
24:31
Speaker 1: that's pretty much the upper end. The real struggle, the
24:34
Speaker 1: real push and pull in the market has been are
24:36
Speaker 1: they going to cut at the end of the year
24:38
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four or are they going to hold
24:40
Speaker 1: through the end of the year and into twenty twenty four.
24:42
Speaker 1: And if they do hold, is that a killer for you?
24:47
Speaker 1: Or are you is that going to give you time
24:49
Speaker 1: to adjust to that terminal rate. Our view is that
24:53
Speaker 1: the catalyst for cuts later this year aren't there. Right now.
24:56
Speaker 1: We don't see it. Unemployment is still at a record low,
24:59
Speaker 1: job creation still above the level of the FED wants it.
25:02
Speaker 1: We have five hundred thousand jobs in January versus consensus
25:04
Speaker 1: of one hundred and eighty seven, so we're still creating
25:07
Speaker 1: a lot more jobs than the Fed would like to see.
25:09
Speaker 1: From an inflation easing perspective, I don't see the catalyst
25:12
Speaker 1: for lowering interest rates, But what the market is looking
25:15
Speaker 1: for is three points of clarity one, the FED being done.
25:19
Speaker 1: It doesn't, like you said, it doesn't even matter what
25:21
Speaker 1: the final rate really is. Is that a quarter point
25:24
Speaker 1: higher or lower. It's being done so they can have
25:27
Speaker 1: that clarity. It's answering the question of a recession. Are
25:30
Speaker 1: we really going into a recession? Seems like the odds
25:32
Speaker 1: are less and less that there is a big recession
25:35
Speaker 1: around the corner because of consumer strength, because of employment strength.
25:39
Speaker 1: So even if we just basically slow down to little
25:42
Speaker 1: or no growth for a while, that's clarity. We should
25:45
Speaker 1: know that in the next few months because of the
25:48
Speaker 1: effect of the interest rates, that increases that have already
25:50
Speaker 1: happened are showing up in the market. And lastly, for
25:53
Speaker 1: real estate, it's price adjustment. Sellers always take time to
25:57
Speaker 1: come to reality. Buyers just need those two points of
26:00
Speaker 1: clarity on interest rates and the recession question. The capital
26:05
Speaker 1: is there? Always at an industry event national the Housing
26:07
Speaker 1: Council with a couple of thousand large apartment owners in
26:10
Speaker 1: the audience, and I basically told them there is record capital,
26:14
Speaker 1: but there are a few buyers. We have liquidity, there's
26:17
Speaker 1: plenty of demand for correctly priced assets. We get multiple
26:20
Speaker 1: offers right now. On listenings we bring to market that
26:23
Speaker 1: are appropriately priced. There's no shortage of buyers. You just
26:26
Speaker 1: have to price the asset correctly. All right, great stuff.
26:28
Speaker 1: Hassam Naji joining us here in our Bloomberg Interactive broker studio.
26:32
Speaker 1: Hassam Naji. He's a president and CEO of Marcus and Millichap.
26:36
Speaker 1: They are commercial national brokerage firm on the commercial real
26:40
Speaker 1: estate side. MMI is the ticker they are in New
26:43
Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange traded company. So getting some good thoughts
26:47
Speaker 1: on kind of the commercial real estate business, all facets
26:50
Speaker 1: of it, you know, higher rates, kind of adjusting this market,
26:54
Speaker 1: both on the residential side and on the commercial side.
26:57
Speaker 1: Of course, we appreciate checking in with mister uh Nagi.
27:05
Speaker 1: Looking at our good friends market cap six hundred and
27:10
Speaker 1: sixteen billion as of today. Year to date, this bad
27:13
Speaker 1: boy's up fifty eight percent um so the whole Twitter
27:17
Speaker 1: hangar it's still down twenty eight percent trailing twelve month basis.
27:20
Speaker 1: By the way, in the market where the Dow Jones
27:21
Speaker 1: Industrial average yesterday raised its games for the year to date,
27:25
Speaker 1: did it we had the biggest drop on the S
27:27
Speaker 1: and P and then Nazdak yesterday. This year, the SNP
27:31
Speaker 1: I believe is about four percent option year to date.
27:34
Speaker 1: So so all right, Elon's getting it going. Uh. Matt
27:37
Speaker 1: Winkler joins us here in our Bloomberg Interactor Broker studio.
27:40
Speaker 1: That's always a good thing. He is the founder of
27:42
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News way back in the day. He's now our
27:44
Speaker 1: editor emeritus. UM got a fascinating column out here on
27:49
Speaker 1: mister Elon Musk and Tesla. UM that stock price performance
27:55
Speaker 1: kind of got my tension there, Matt, What are you
27:57
Speaker 1: looking at when you look at Tesla? Always great to
28:00
Speaker 1: be with you and Matt as well. Um. What we
28:06
Speaker 1: look at is what we all should be looking at,
28:08
Speaker 1: which is first thing is sales. And no car company
28:12
Speaker 1: in the world over the past ten years has had
28:13
Speaker 1: the sales growth of Tesla, and more recently, no car
28:18
Speaker 1: company in the world, particularly the top ten the ten
28:21
Speaker 1: largest car companies, have been anything close to the gross
28:25
Speaker 1: margin or profitability of Tesla. UM. And that's saying a lot,
28:31
Speaker 1: which means that, for example, Tesca can turn one hundred
28:34
Speaker 1: dollars of sales if you like, into twenty six dollars
28:38
Speaker 1: of profit at how much production cost. Matt just fresh.
28:40
Speaker 1: I remember how much of that is that the credits
28:42
Speaker 1: they get for the you know, the BV versus the
28:46
Speaker 1: actual profit per they those credits actually weren't there recently
28:53
Speaker 1: in the period that we're talking about. They will come back. Okay,
28:57
Speaker 1: they are coming back because of the um Biden legislation.
29:02
Speaker 1: But um, you know, Tesla has become the most profitable company.
29:07
Speaker 1: So if you look at those two things, sales growth
29:10
Speaker 1: will say a decade, and then profitability over the same period,
29:14
Speaker 1: you see something that is unique. It's it's it's absolutely insane.
29:20
Speaker 1: I mean, having covered the car industry for for you know,
29:24
Speaker 1: ninon twenty years, here this is better than Porsche levels
29:29
Speaker 1: of profitability. And we used to always remember, right, Porsche
29:31
Speaker 1: the most profitable carmaker in the world. I'm looking on
29:34
Speaker 1: the FA page right now for Tesla, and if you
29:37
Speaker 1: click into Ratiosum, Paul, look at the gross margins line,
29:41
Speaker 1: it just climbs up. From twenty eighteen, we are at
29:44
Speaker 1: eighteen percent, then sixteen percent in twenty nineteen, but now
29:49
Speaker 1: twenty one percent, the twenty five percent, twenty six percent.
29:51
Speaker 1: What is happening here is this just because they've been
29:54
Speaker 1: making the product for long enough that they know where
29:57
Speaker 1: to cut costs and they can raise prices in environment.
30:01
Speaker 1: It's a combination of everything you just said, and it
30:04
Speaker 1: should be said right now as we speak, that you're
30:07
Speaker 1: talking about a company that's worth more than Toyota, which
30:11
Speaker 1: sells more cars than any company in the world. It's
30:14
Speaker 1: worth more than Mercedes Volkswagen, BMW, General Motors, Stellantis, which
30:18
Speaker 1: is Chrysler of course, in Pougeot, Citron, and then Ford
30:23
Speaker 1: Motor combined. Okay, all of them put together, all of
30:26
Speaker 1: them put together, and you know, it's what the eight
30:29
Speaker 1: times the value of Porsche which you referenced below. What
30:34
Speaker 1: have they done well? They started out with the models,
30:37
Speaker 1: which people forget maybe was the car of the year,
30:40
Speaker 1: Motor trend car of the Year in twenty thirteen. That
30:43
Speaker 1: was totally unexpected for an ev I remember when Consumer
30:47
Speaker 1: Reports tested it and they couldn't believe how good it was.
30:50
Speaker 1: And then there's you know, not just the S, but
30:54
Speaker 1: the Model three, the Model Y, which is an suv,
30:57
Speaker 1: the Model X, all these models and more recently Tesla
31:01
Speaker 1: has been able to or has decided to discount to
31:05
Speaker 1: the point where Bloomberg News reported it this week. It's
31:09
Speaker 1: selling evs at a lower cost to the consumer than
31:14
Speaker 1: the internal combustion engine, you know, and the Model three,
31:19
Speaker 1: for example, the Tesla Model three is out selling the
31:24
Speaker 1: introductory BMW if you like, pretty much everywhere in the world.
31:30
Speaker 1: So that gives you some example of how competitive it
31:33
Speaker 1: is and just how sticky the product is with the consumer.
31:37
Speaker 1: So night you're you're a Tesla owner? Correct, almost ten
31:40
Speaker 1: years now? Almost ten years now? How is the ev
31:43
Speaker 1: aging versus an internal combustion auto? Well, the only thing
31:48
Speaker 1: I do every year is I switched to snow tires
31:51
Speaker 1: in the winter, which I didn't have to do this
31:53
Speaker 1: winter if we haven't had much snow. And then I
31:56
Speaker 1: go back to you know, regular tires because because I
31:59
Speaker 1: have one of the oldest models, which is a weird
32:02
Speaker 1: wheel drive vehicle. H And by the way, they do
32:05
Speaker 1: that in my driveway. I just I just go on
32:08
Speaker 1: the app and I say this is what I want,
32:10
Speaker 1: and pick a day and somebody comes and switches my tires.
32:14
Speaker 1: I don't do anything else. So the maintenance factor is
32:17
Speaker 1: just almost nine miles and it's the tires that's all
32:23
Speaker 1: I change. That's amazing. I don't do anything, you know,
32:26
Speaker 1: And so uh, we're talking about it, I said, almost
32:30
Speaker 1: a decade. Is there a concern that these sales figures
32:36
Speaker 1: in these margins take a hit after Elon musk Um,
32:41
Speaker 1: you know, not only bought Twitter, but became almost like
32:45
Speaker 1: an outspoken, you know, political activist, and a lot of
32:51
Speaker 1: his values run counter to those of what I would
32:55
Speaker 1: expect his his broader customer base feels Matt. So anyone
32:58
Speaker 1: googling the phrase Tesla failed is immediately inundated with, you know,
33:04
Speaker 1: all these purported shortcomings of the company, whether it's you know,
33:10
Speaker 1: the vehicles themselves, the workplace culture, business practices, occupational safety,
33:16
Speaker 1: and of course the antics of the CEO himself, Elon
33:20
Speaker 1: musk So my colleagueshouldn't pay And I thought, okay, that's
33:25
Speaker 1: where we start. What does the data say that isn't
33:31
Speaker 1: when you google Tesla failed, and the data on the
33:36
Speaker 1: Bloomberg compiled by Bloomberg is overwhelmingly the opposite of what
33:42
Speaker 1: you read the prevailing narrative. It's all there in the numbers,
33:46
Speaker 1: which by the way, explains why last year, when you
33:49
Speaker 1: know Tesla lost something like sixty five of its market value,
33:53
Speaker 1: it's still worth more than Toyota. After the climax of
33:58
Speaker 1: short selling, but Anais, in an unprecedented move, upgraded Tesla.
34:06
Speaker 1: In that whole period, Analysts became more bullish about Tesla
34:10
Speaker 1: for the first time since the company went public in
34:13
Speaker 1: twenty ten last year, at a period when just about
34:17
Speaker 1: everybody was saying Tesla had failed. So I did at
34:22
Speaker 1: a trillion, you love it at three billion. Why did
34:24
Speaker 1: that happen? It happened because you know, they're looking at
34:27
Speaker 1: those things that we're supposed to look at, which is
34:30
Speaker 1: sales growth, and nobody comes close to Tesla sales growth.
34:34
Speaker 1: And they're also looking at profitability and profit margins, and
34:38
Speaker 1: again this is where Tesla shines. So that's what makes
34:42
Speaker 1: it a leader. Yeah, you're talking about the analyst ratings
34:44
Speaker 1: and you can see that on a Bloomberg terminal with
34:46
Speaker 1: the Tesla A n R as a function and right
34:50
Speaker 1: now there's thirty buys, twelve holds, and six cells. So
34:54
Speaker 1: you know, for me, what's different about Tesla today versus
34:58
Speaker 1: prior to its anytime it's history is a competitive landscape.
35:02
Speaker 1: I now have major OEMs around the world going all
35:06
Speaker 1: in on electric vehicles, and that is a twenty twenty
35:10
Speaker 1: two event. I wonder how Tesla's gonna fair in it.
35:14
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I think that Wall streets saying
35:15
Speaker 1: we're pretty comfortable with it, you know, Paul, You know,
35:19
Speaker 1: to put it in perspective, if you go back to
35:22
Speaker 1: just two thousand and thirteen, or actually even more recently,
35:28
Speaker 1: go back to twenty seventeen, Tesla's market share the market
35:34
Speaker 1: was thirteen percent. Today it's twenty percent, right, yea, And
35:39
Speaker 1: everybody is now selling evs and their market share is
35:42
Speaker 1: greater than it was in two seventeen. Interesting. Yeah, that's
35:46
Speaker 1: gonna be the big change. I mean, I think to
35:48
Speaker 1: see how they compete. You know, it's yeah for sure,
35:50
Speaker 1: because you have not only incumbents with a ton of
35:53
Speaker 1: money to throw at the problem, which they're doing right.
35:56
Speaker 1: Mary Barrow was in here last week and she said
35:58
Speaker 1: that business is like a spring that's coiled and ready
36:01
Speaker 1: to But you know, here's the thing, and nobody talks
36:05
Speaker 1: about this. Tesla makes one thing, zero mission vehicles. Everybody
36:11
Speaker 1: in Tesla is focused on that one thing. Everybody else
36:14
Speaker 1: who's competing safe for except for BYD and the Chinese companies,
36:18
Speaker 1: everybody else in Europe, the US is making the internal
36:23
Speaker 1: combustion engine as they always did ye and so that bifurcation,
36:28
Speaker 1: that dichotomy is I think a very big obstacle to
36:35
Speaker 1: catching Tesla. Yeah, because they have to do two things
36:38
Speaker 1: that are diametrically opposed every single day, sell the fossil
36:43
Speaker 1: fuel vehicle and make our numbers for the quarter, and
36:47
Speaker 1: try to come out with something for the future. It's
36:49
Speaker 1: called the EV which is a cross purposes with the
36:52
Speaker 1: fossil fuel machine. Yep. Absolutely, But interesting to see how
36:54
Speaker 1: this plays out of the next decade or so. When
36:57
Speaker 1: we've got Matt Miller right next to us, who was
36:58
Speaker 1: the car guide your head and he was gonna be
37:01
Speaker 1: our peatree dish to see how this all plays out.
37:03
Speaker 1: Matt Winkler, thanks for joining us here. Matt Winkler is
37:05
Speaker 1: the founder of Bloomberg News editor emeritus as well joining
37:09
Speaker 1: us here on our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Are you
37:14
Speaker 1: a wrestling fan like ww Absolutely not. I you know,
37:18
Speaker 1: back in the day when I was a kid, I
37:19
Speaker 1: was big time into a Bruno, Sammartino, all that kind
37:22
Speaker 1: of chief Ja strongbow. But it's savage. What was his name,
37:27
Speaker 1: Randy Andy? I don't know. Randy macho man's right. Now
37:31
Speaker 1: it's just become huge. It's bigger than the movie business.
37:34
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just amazing how big this stuff is
37:36
Speaker 1: has gotten WWE. I think they want to sell themselves
37:40
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know what's he's back and he
37:44
Speaker 1: threw out his daughter, who was like the boss. Ye
37:46
Speaker 1: and now they want to sell it. I mean it was, uh,
37:49
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, but Keith Rung and she's
37:52
Speaker 1: the media analyst. She knows this stuff. Keith, what do
37:56
Speaker 1: we need to know? Like, I don't view you Githa
37:58
Speaker 1: as a w w E. I'm just going to go
38:00
Speaker 1: out on a limb there, But I know you're a
38:03
Speaker 1: world class analyst. So you know what's going on at
38:06
Speaker 1: Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment market cap six point four billion dollars,
38:12
Speaker 1: big company? What's going on there? Yeah? So Vince McMann,
38:16
Speaker 1: as you just mentioned, a controlling shareholder, he has returned
38:20
Speaker 1: to kind of run the company in January, and he
38:22
Speaker 1: basically the idea was to kind of oversee this strategic
38:27
Speaker 1: review where he would explore options to sell the company.
38:31
Speaker 1: And Bloomberg News Lukashaw just broke the story last week,
38:36
Speaker 1: saying that he is looking at a nine billion valuation
38:40
Speaker 1: for the company. Now that dollars, Yeah, nine billion dollars.
38:45
Speaker 1: And you know, so we were just kind of crunching
38:47
Speaker 1: some numbers in terms of what that translates to in
38:51
Speaker 1: terms of multiples. So it's a twenty two x multiple
38:55
Speaker 1: EV to EBITDAM multiple. It's about twice the level of
39:01
Speaker 1: media and media companies. So if you just look across
39:03
Speaker 1: the board across the media landscape, most media companies are
39:07
Speaker 1: trading right now at about ten to eleven times forward EBITDA.
39:10
Speaker 1: So this is obviously a pretty steep ask. Having said that,
39:14
Speaker 1: though they do own some really valuable intellectual property. Um,
39:18
Speaker 1: I mean, if you just look in general, and one
39:21
Speaker 1: of the areas intellectual I mean across the media landscape.
39:29
Speaker 1: I think one of the areas that we're pretty bullish on,
39:32
Speaker 1: or at least most investors seem fairly bullish on, is
39:35
Speaker 1: sports rights. Now, one could argue, I mean, this is
39:36
Speaker 1: really fake sports, right, It's it's scripted, but it's still
39:41
Speaker 1: pretty valuable. Um And and in general, we've seen about
39:45
Speaker 1: you know, seventy percent increase in these rights fees um
39:50
Speaker 1: And you know, so one could argue that any of
39:52
Speaker 1: the current media partners, which is you know, Fox and
39:55
Speaker 1: Comcast could potentially I mean, why would they want to
39:58
Speaker 1: rent the rent these uh content rights in perpetuity, right,
40:02
Speaker 1: It would make just more sense to own it. UM.
40:04
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of you know, some of the
40:06
Speaker 1: thinking out there. But again with Vince McMahon, I mean,
40:09
Speaker 1: he's he's a fairly brash, outsized personalities. I'm not really
40:13
Speaker 1: sure how many people want to get involved here, and
40:15
Speaker 1: I never know, UM when I read stories about Vince
40:18
Speaker 1: and Stephanie, how much of is that is made up
40:21
Speaker 1: drama and how much of that is real? Yeah, I
40:26
Speaker 1: don't know too much either. UM. So obviously, his son
40:29
Speaker 1: in law still pretty much runs the creative part of
40:32
Speaker 1: it UM and I think the the idea is that
40:35
Speaker 1: he will continue to run the creative because what we've
40:38
Speaker 1: seen is ever since you know, Triple H H has
40:40
Speaker 1: been doing the creative process at the company, it's it's
40:42
Speaker 1: done really, really well, UM and investors are extremely happy.
40:46
Speaker 1: Triple Edge. What what's Triple edge or Triple H Triple H. Yeah,
40:50
Speaker 1: that's that's that's the Sun involved, that's the Sun law.
40:53
Speaker 1: Triple H got it all right down with that. UM.
40:56
Speaker 1: So he you know, he's been in charge, um and
40:59
Speaker 1: I I think any any deal will be contingent on
41:02
Speaker 1: him kind of pretty much staying on, you know, in
41:05
Speaker 1: the media space, one of the things that you when
41:07
Speaker 1: investors in media space you're dealing with this is sole
41:09
Speaker 1: transition to streaming. How has Worldwide Wrestling? How are they
41:13
Speaker 1: positioned themselves for the streaming world. So that's a really
41:16
Speaker 1: interesting question. I mean, this was one of the companies
41:18
Speaker 1: that made its foray into streaming, way back before Disney
41:23
Speaker 1: or any of these other companies had even done it.
41:25
Speaker 1: And they created something called the ww E network, and
41:28
Speaker 1: they went out and they got about one to two
41:29
Speaker 1: million subscribers. However, they did hit a wall, and so
41:33
Speaker 1: they realized that after that you know, one and a
41:35
Speaker 1: half million subscriber mark, they were really not able to
41:38
Speaker 1: get much, you know, much more, and so they actually
41:42
Speaker 1: sold all of those streaming rights. They sold the entire
41:44
Speaker 1: WWE network, or at least the rights to the ww
41:47
Speaker 1: E network to Peacock, which is owned by Comcast. And
41:50
Speaker 1: so they have a one billion dollars deal with Comcast
41:53
Speaker 1: for that portion of the streaming business. So really, I mean, again,
41:58
Speaker 1: if you kind of look at where they make most
41:59
Speaker 1: of their money. It is from media rights, both the
42:02
Speaker 1: streaming as well as the core TV rights. Oh that's
42:05
Speaker 1: about eighty percent of their revenue. Stream wow, and the library.
42:08
Speaker 1: I mean, Ken Felio points out they have a massive library,
42:11
Speaker 1: right They've They've still own everything that they've ever bought,
42:14
Speaker 1: everything that they've ever made. They have the video rights
42:17
Speaker 1: to all that, Yes, they do, so you know, basically
42:21
Speaker 1: in a sale, all of that kind of comes into play.
42:24
Speaker 1: I just wonder how they compete with I do love
42:28
Speaker 1: to watch MMA, and I will pay. However, however, much
42:33
Speaker 1: like the pay per view fight costs for UFC, I'll
42:37
Speaker 1: pay it. Really it's awesome, dude. It is brutal and
42:42
Speaker 1: it's real, which is what I like about it. Now.
42:45
Speaker 1: I know that I've seen the Mickey Rouric movie, and
42:48
Speaker 1: my brother is friends with the CULK and kids, and
42:50
Speaker 1: they're all into this WWE. I know it's hard and
42:54
Speaker 1: physically taxing, but it's just not to me at the
42:58
Speaker 1: level of UFC. They have some big competition in those
43:01
Speaker 1: kind of leagues. So, I mean, so here's the big
43:05
Speaker 1: you know, you bring up a great point for the UFCUM.
43:08
Speaker 1: So UFC is now owned by Endeavor, which actually has
43:13
Speaker 1: been a big talent agency, right, Yeah, that's a big
43:15
Speaker 1: talent agency, and that's that's just been such a home
43:16
Speaker 1: run for them because you know, really the idea there
43:20
Speaker 1: was our Emmanuel kind of bought UFC to kind of
43:23
Speaker 1: increase the scope of the talent agency's business to live events,
43:26
Speaker 1: and so it would make sense. They obviously have a
43:29
Speaker 1: lot of interest in acquiring WWE as well, and I
43:33
Speaker 1: think it would be a great fit because if you
43:35
Speaker 1: just kind of look at McMahon, you look at his personality,
43:37
Speaker 1: you look at the relationship between the WWE brand and
43:40
Speaker 1: his own brand, it really fits well with you know,
43:43
Speaker 1: UFC and Dana White. Um. The problem there is, you know,
43:47
Speaker 1: you talked about competition with the UC. I don't I
43:49
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think there's going to be competition as such
43:53
Speaker 1: for viewership. I think there could be in some nice synergies.
43:56
Speaker 1: The problem is, I don't think Endeavor can actually afford
43:59
Speaker 1: the deal because they already have about six billion dollars
44:03
Speaker 1: in debt, you know, the nine billion dollars asking price,
44:06
Speaker 1: it's going to be really really hard. So it's got
44:08
Speaker 1: to be Fox or Comcast or Disney. So you know, yes,
44:14
Speaker 1: potentially that those are what makes most sense. I mean,
44:17
Speaker 1: Comcast makes the most sense just because they're already paying
44:20
Speaker 1: them about four hundred and seventy million a year for
44:23
Speaker 1: the TV rights as well as the streaming right, and
44:26
Speaker 1: in a renewal, they'll probably end up paying them at
44:28
Speaker 1: least six hundred and fifty million per year. So you know,
44:32
Speaker 1: multiply that by five. They're paying them about three billion
44:34
Speaker 1: dollars over a span of about five six years. And
44:37
Speaker 1: so it does it really make sense for them to,
44:39
Speaker 1: you know, rent that when they can just go and
44:41
Speaker 1: buy it out right? But I'm not so sure what
44:44
Speaker 1: you know, whether Brian Roberts would want Vince McMahon to
44:46
Speaker 1: actually continue on at the company. And I'm just not
44:49
Speaker 1: sure how those personalities will mash and with Comcast, one
44:52
Speaker 1: always thinks of a much more kind of transformative deal, right,
44:57
Speaker 1: They're ambitious. So yeah, not really sure how that's going
45:01
Speaker 1: to play out. Well, I can tell I met Githa
45:02
Speaker 1: thirteen years ago. She's a data analyst at Bloomberg, one
45:06
Speaker 1: of the best. Little did she know then that she
45:08
Speaker 1: would be covering a wrestling company thirteen years later. Keithan,
45:12
Speaker 1: thanks so much. For joining us. Keith at Ranganathan. She's
45:14
Speaker 1: the media anna slash wrestling analyst at Bloomberg. Can tell
45:18
Speaker 1: just one of the best out there on the street
45:20
Speaker 1: for all things media WWE. Maybe It's for sale. Thanks
45:27
Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe
45:30
Speaker 1: and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast
45:34
Speaker 1: platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at
45:38
Speaker 1: Matt Miller nineteen seventy three, and I'm fall Sweeney. I'm
45:41
Speaker 1: on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can
45:43
Speaker 1: always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.