Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / SEC Commissioner Crenshaw: We Need To Close Insider Trading Loopholes
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
- 0:06Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
- 0:11Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
- 0:15Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
- 0:18Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Well, Matt, when I
- 0:23Speaker 1: first got to Wall Street in the mid eighties, uh,
- 0:26Speaker 1: you know, insider trading was a big thing. It was
- 0:29Speaker 1: all over the headlines, names like Ivan Bowski, Dennis Lavine,
- 0:33Speaker 1: movies like Wall Street. Um, apparently it is still a thing.
- 0:37Speaker 1: Our next guest is focused on a Caroline Crunchhaw. She's
- 0:40Speaker 1: a commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission based in Washington,
- 0:43Speaker 1: d c Uh. She's out with a Bloomberg opinion Colm
- 0:46Speaker 1: entitled Insider trading Loophole's need to be Closed. Caroline, thanks
- 0:50Speaker 1: so much for joining us here. We'd love to get
- 0:52Speaker 1: your thoughts on kind of where you think the state
- 0:56Speaker 1: of insider trading and enforcement of insider trading rules art
- 0:59Speaker 1: right now? Yeah, good morning, it's great to be here.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Before I start, I do have to say quickly that
- 1:04Speaker 1: the views I expressed today are my own and do
- 1:07Speaker 1: not necessarily reflect the views of the commission uh, my,
- 1:11Speaker 1: the staff, or my fellow commissioners. UM. But as to
- 1:14Speaker 1: your your question, you know, I think, um, you know,
- 1:17Speaker 1: insiders something insider trading is something we always take seriously. UM.
- 1:21Speaker 1: But UM right, you know, recent evidence suggests that some
- 1:26Speaker 1: of the rules designed uh to make sure that corporating
- 1:31Speaker 1: executives who always have insider information or material non public information,
- 1:38Speaker 1: UM you know sometimes uh, they they also are paid
- 1:42Speaker 1: in stock uh and and and to ensure that they
- 1:45Speaker 1: are not uh you know, trading their stocks while they
- 1:48Speaker 1: have insider information. The SEC established about twenty years ago
- 1:52Speaker 1: a rule called B five one. And this rule UH
- 1:56Speaker 1: basically puts in place a schedule, fixed schedule for them
- 1:59Speaker 1: to make trades so that they're not trading on insider information.
- 2:02Speaker 1: But it makes sense, right because they get a lot
- 2:05Speaker 1: of these UM men and women get a huge portion
- 2:09Speaker 1: of their pay in stock. So in order to live
- 2:12Speaker 1: the life of a respectable chief executive, you've got to
- 2:16Speaker 1: you've got to sell the stock occasionally to pay for
- 2:19Speaker 1: your stuff. UM. But I guess the problem you found
- 2:22Speaker 1: is that they set up these schedules commissioner to sell
- 2:26Speaker 1: the stock UM, and then they can cancel the sale
- 2:30Speaker 1: or delay the sale UH to to better position themselves
- 2:36Speaker 1: around an event that they know is coming up. That's
- 2:39Speaker 1: exactly right. UM. The recent academic evidence UH some by
- 2:42Speaker 1: my co author Daniel Taylor out of Wharton Business School
- 2:45Speaker 1: UM has shown that there are there are lots of
- 2:48Speaker 1: red flags with these plans UM, and that they can
- 2:50Speaker 1: be modified, they can be canceled, and that could allow
- 2:54Speaker 1: executives to time trades and thus perhaps to be trading
- 2:57Speaker 1: on insider information ahead of other investors are the rest
- 3:00Speaker 1: of the market. So, Carol, I excuse a sense of
- 3:04Speaker 1: the state of insider trading today, how prevalent is it.
- 3:08Speaker 1: UM has the SEC and other regulators, UM maybe learn
- 3:12Speaker 1: some things from back from those the nineteen eighties that
- 3:14Speaker 1: I that I referenced. You know, I think, UM, it's
- 3:18Speaker 1: always something we are looking at. UM. You know, I think, UM,
- 3:21Speaker 1: there's always going to be insider trading. There's always going
- 3:24Speaker 1: to be UM. You know, folks who are inclined to
- 3:26Speaker 1: break the rules. That's why we have an enforcement program. UM.
- 3:29Speaker 1: They're actively looking at this. But I think UM, to
- 3:32Speaker 1: to the degree. Um, we want to modernize the rules
- 3:35Speaker 1: and and help put stricter parameters in place. Uh. These
- 3:38Speaker 1: ten five one plans are an area that I think
- 3:41Speaker 1: we can really look to modernize and provide much clearer
- 3:45Speaker 1: rules of the road. UH that will help lead to um,
- 3:49Speaker 1: uh perhaps level more level playing field and promote fair
- 3:52Speaker 1: and efficient markets, which is you know what the SEC
- 3:54Speaker 1: is is always thinking about. Have you ever heard anybody
- 3:58Speaker 1: like on a stakeout or something, a blue horse shoe
- 4:01Speaker 1: loves Annicott steel all the time, Because that's a tip off.
- 4:05Speaker 1: I'm just telling you no, seriously, Um, Caroline, do you
- 4:09Speaker 1: worry on the other side at all, on the short side,
- 4:12Speaker 1: because that's been brought up a lot in well the
- 4:15Speaker 1: court of public opinion and in front of Congress as well.
- 4:17Speaker 1: Short sellers have been attacked, and um, maybe there have
- 4:22Speaker 1: been implications that maybe they even banned together to bring
- 4:25Speaker 1: companies down. Well, obviously, in the wake of the activity
- 4:29Speaker 1: area in January, we're we're looking at that behavior. We're
- 4:32Speaker 1: we're looking at the consequences, We're looking at what happened there,
- 4:35Speaker 1: and I think that's something we we are closely looking
- 4:38Speaker 1: at again to make sure that to the degree we
- 4:40Speaker 1: need changes in the market, the degree we need to
- 4:42Speaker 1: modernize our rules. UM that we're doing so. You know, again,
- 4:46Speaker 1: it's the the SEC's mission to promote fair, orderly efficient markets,
- 4:49Speaker 1: and I want to make sure we're preventing a two
- 4:51Speaker 1: tiered market, one where insiders can train and one where
- 4:54Speaker 1: everyone else can trade. And I think this is another
- 4:57Speaker 1: area that we can look at along with some of
- 5:00Speaker 1: the changes perhaps that we're looking at after the January
- 5:03Speaker 1: activity to again to promote this fair and efficient market.
- 5:07Speaker 1: So what's the political support or pressure or environment for
- 5:12Speaker 1: toughening up potentially insider trading rules. UM. Caroline just gives
- 5:16Speaker 1: a sense of kind of what's what what's the mood
- 5:18Speaker 1: within Washington. You know, I think we always want to
- 5:22Speaker 1: make sure the markets are fair and efficient. UM. You know,
- 5:24Speaker 1: there is a Preferrara Commission that's that's looking at this. UM.
- 5:28Speaker 1: I think there's always there's always interest in making sure
- 5:32Speaker 1: that we have the tools we need UH to to
- 5:35Speaker 1: ensure that the markets are level and that the playing
- 5:38Speaker 1: fields are as they should be for both the market
- 5:40Speaker 1: participants and investors. You know, in the last couple of days,
- 5:43Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about UM efficiency improvements that
- 5:47Speaker 1: could be wrought out of the I R s. For example, UM,
- 5:51Speaker 1: people have been telling us if you give for every
- 5:53Speaker 1: extra dollar you give them, they could go out and
- 5:55Speaker 1: collect five more. Do you feel the same is true
- 5:58Speaker 1: with funding at the SEC you had more funding, could
- 6:02Speaker 1: you bust more inside traders? I think our enforcement division
- 6:06Speaker 1: could always do more. Our whole agency could always do
- 6:08Speaker 1: more with more funding. We do have limited resources, UH,
- 6:11Speaker 1: and that results in you know, often trying to decide
- 6:15Speaker 1: what cases over time or are going to be the
- 6:16Speaker 1: most effective, had the most market impact. UM. But we're
- 6:19Speaker 1: always out there, We're always making sure that UM, we're
- 6:23Speaker 1: we're using those limited resources to the degree we can
- 6:26Speaker 1: UH to bring inside or trading cases, to bring fraud cases,
- 6:29Speaker 1: to bring UM the cases that will help ensure UM
- 6:32Speaker 1: that the investors and the markets are protected appropriately. Currently,
- 6:37Speaker 1: what about politicians who engage in trading maybe a head
- 6:39Speaker 1: of legislation or after receiving classified information that seemed to
- 6:42Speaker 1: have been a thing before the the pandemic really hitting
- 6:45Speaker 1: and the market crash. Is that a big issue? You know,
- 6:49Speaker 1: it's certainly it's certainly gotten a lot of attention. UM.
- 6:52Speaker 1: I I know there was some investigations. Uh you know
- 6:55Speaker 1: that that that we're being talked about in the news.
- 6:58Speaker 1: I think to the re individuals are trading with information
- 7:03Speaker 1: that the rest of the investors, so the rest of
- 7:05Speaker 1: the market doesn't have, uh, there there's always going to
- 7:08Speaker 1: be questions around that and whether that's promoting market confidence effectively, UM,
- 7:15Speaker 1: and whether that's going to lead to problems. So I
- 7:16Speaker 1: think that's something that that we are always looking at, UM,
- 7:19Speaker 1: and that that everyone should always be looking at to
- 7:21Speaker 1: make sure that you know, individuals with insider information or
- 7:25Speaker 1: trading at the same time as everybody else and with
- 7:29Speaker 1: this information as everybody else. Commissioner, thanks so much for
- 7:33Speaker 1: joining us. Really fascinating column at say, Caroline Crenshaw wrote
- 7:37Speaker 1: with Daniel Taylor, a great piece and I recommend if anybody, um,
- 7:41Speaker 1: will anybody with access to the Bloomberg go ahead and
- 7:44Speaker 1: search Caroline Crenshaw and you'll find it. I did not
- 7:49Speaker 1: uh know about what seems like a pretty simple loophole,
- 7:53Speaker 1: and Paul I think it's um it's the kind of
- 7:57Speaker 1: thing that well, this is what these people are doing,
- 7:59Speaker 1: this is what they're they're up there for, right, They're
- 8:01Speaker 1: gonna put a stop to this so that markets can
- 8:02Speaker 1: be more efficient for everybody else, including you and me.
- 8:07Speaker 1: So Caroline Crenshaw, thanks very much for your time and
- 8:10Speaker 1: your service. This is Bloomberg going a busy, busy week
- 8:17Speaker 1: in terms of economic data. We had retail sales manufacturing
- 8:22Speaker 1: data today, We've got market moving news tomorrow with potentially
- 8:25Speaker 1: with the Fit and what j Powe will say. What
- 8:28Speaker 1: a great time it is then to speak to our
- 8:30Speaker 1: next guest, Constance Hunter. She's a chief economist at KPMG.
- 8:33Speaker 1: She joins us Constant, thanks so much for your time here.
- 8:36Speaker 1: Let's start with some of the economic data points we
- 8:39Speaker 1: got today. Retail sales UH and manufacturing activity came in
- 8:44Speaker 1: below expectations. A lot of folks are just saying, hey,
- 8:46Speaker 1: it's an aberration. We had a really bad weather across
- 8:49Speaker 1: much of the country in February. Is that your calls? Well, yeah,
- 8:53Speaker 1: I mean there's there's two things as far as the
- 8:55Speaker 1: retail sales um impacting the noise. So the first, of
- 8:58Speaker 1: course is so whether as you mentioned, and the second
- 9:01Speaker 1: is the yo yo effect of stimulus checks that got
- 9:05Speaker 1: spent in January. So of course the January month over
- 9:09Speaker 1: month was up seven point six and we just saw
- 9:12Speaker 1: a pull back from that on a month over a
- 9:14Speaker 1: month basis for February down three percent, and of course
- 9:18Speaker 1: the weather didn't help that UM. But when we look
- 9:20Speaker 1: at the year over year, February still up six point
- 9:23Speaker 1: three percent for retail sales and then for manufacturing. Of course,
- 9:27Speaker 1: it was very impacted by the weather. And it's always
- 9:29Speaker 1: good to look at these data on a three month
- 9:32Speaker 1: moving average just to get a better sense of the
- 9:35Speaker 1: trend when you have some noisy factors like weather and
- 9:38Speaker 1: stimulus checks in there. First of all, I want to
- 9:40Speaker 1: say hello, Constance, Matt Miller here. It's been a long time,
- 9:45Speaker 1: but I want you to know that Paul and I
- 9:47Speaker 1: were invited to Camp Ko talk, so we may see
- 9:49Speaker 1: you next year. That would be fabulous. I hope you come,
- 9:54Speaker 1: you come fishing, and I hope we're all you know
- 9:58Speaker 1: it mass free. Do you believed we're all going to
- 10:00Speaker 1: be vaccinated? Yeah? Yeah, I I we hope so too.
- 10:04Speaker 1: Me and Paul are lined up for the astros Nika shot.
- 10:06Speaker 1: So just as a public service announcement, we'll take it. UM.
- 10:10Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about UM inflation. Of course,
- 10:14Speaker 1: it's the hottest debate right now and A listener earlier
- 10:19Speaker 1: in the program wrote a great question to me. He says,
- 10:21Speaker 1: where does the ten year ago if we see a
- 10:23Speaker 1: minor Rosenberg or Tepper scenario i e. Short lived inflation,
- 10:28Speaker 1: the short sharp shock as uh, that then comes down
- 10:32Speaker 1: as all the Street research maybe has it wrong. What
- 10:35Speaker 1: do you think about that? So basically the idea is
- 10:40Speaker 1: that we would have a short sharp shock due to
- 10:42Speaker 1: base effects, I assume, and then basically saying the Street
- 10:47Speaker 1: is wrong. We're not gonna We're not gonna get anywhere
- 10:49Speaker 1: close to the two percent of that is forecasting, or
- 10:52Speaker 1: even the slightly above two percent. But the inflation year
- 10:54Speaker 1: over year starts to fall once we get past that shock.
- 10:57Speaker 1: Is that's my question? Yeah, exactly, And I mean Scott
- 11:00Speaker 1: Miner told us a couple of weeks ago he thinks
- 11:01Speaker 1: in this scenario the tenure could go negative. It's obviously
- 11:05Speaker 1: an outlier call. But um, I was reading some research
- 11:08Speaker 1: from an economist last year who said, get ready for
- 11:11Speaker 1: the Great Depression. Now we didn't have that. I was
- 11:13Speaker 1: thinking to myself this morning yet, right, I mean, maybe
- 11:18Speaker 1: it could go, maybe it could all go. I don't
- 11:21Speaker 1: know a nice way of saying what I was going
- 11:23Speaker 1: to say, but maybe you could go all go bad.
- 11:24Speaker 1: It could all go yes, it could. I would never
- 11:29Speaker 1: want to rule out the possibility we have a shock
- 11:32Speaker 1: or a black Swan event. Or let's look at some
- 11:34Speaker 1: of these mutated effects from the virus. Look at Italy
- 11:37Speaker 1: has reshut itself down. This this virus, as I said
- 11:41Speaker 1: in the beginning, is very pernicious, and it just continues
- 11:44Speaker 1: to prove to be more and more pernicious. So certainly
- 11:47Speaker 1: we could have additional adverse economic shocks that would would
- 11:52Speaker 1: push us to lower consumption, which would push us to
- 11:54Speaker 1: lower inflation. But let's think about what causes inflation or deflation, right,
- 11:59Speaker 1: There's a too factors. There's overall the demand level, it's
- 12:02Speaker 1: the most important um. And then what influences the demand
- 12:06Speaker 1: level the level of employment wages um uh and in
- 12:12Speaker 1: this case income. Right, so we're seeing income to household
- 12:15Speaker 1: that's not from wages, it's from government uh, supplemental income.
- 12:20Speaker 1: But it's still income that's going to influence demand. And
- 12:23Speaker 1: so it's hard for me to see that scenario playing
- 12:26Speaker 1: out given the current course of events. But given a shock,
- 12:31Speaker 1: if we were to have a severe negative shock on
- 12:33Speaker 1: top of what we've just experienced. Yeah, maybe we could
- 12:35Speaker 1: go negative on the tenure, wouldn't be my base call,
- 12:39Speaker 1: all right, Constance, So given that backdrop, what do you
- 12:43Speaker 1: expect to hear from that Chairman J Pale tomorrow? So
- 12:48Speaker 1: I expect him to talk a lot about sort of
- 12:50Speaker 1: what are the transitory factors and how do they look
- 12:53Speaker 1: through that? And the real question is going to be
- 12:56Speaker 1: how clearly does one communicator does he communicate this very
- 13:00Speaker 1: technical information to the market. Now, there's a good swath
- 13:04Speaker 1: of the market that's already very well read in on that,
- 13:06Speaker 1: but he's communicating to the market participants and the public
- 13:10Speaker 1: at large, and so he needs to communicate that, yes,
- 13:13Speaker 1: we're going to see an increase in demand, that yes,
- 13:15Speaker 1: we're going to have some supply bottlenecks that push up
- 13:18Speaker 1: prices for goods. That yes, on the year of a
- 13:21Speaker 1: year print, we're going to see higher inflation numbers through
- 13:24Speaker 1: the summer, but that as we get more and more
- 13:28Speaker 1: people vaccinated, those supply bottlenecks will dissipate. We're not at
- 13:31Speaker 1: production I'm sorry, we're not at industrial production levels that
- 13:35Speaker 1: would suggest we're out of room to add production once
- 13:38Speaker 1: people are vaccinated. So he needs to explain very clearly
- 13:44Speaker 1: why the said believes this is transitory. All right, Constance,
- 13:48Speaker 1: next time I see you, hopefully we have fishing rods. Well, actually,
- 13:52Speaker 1: now that I think about now, I'm back in the
- 13:53Speaker 1: US hours now, so I hope I can get you
- 13:56Speaker 1: booked back on my television program. So i'll see you
- 13:58Speaker 1: before that. Good, I'm gonna have a producer call you.
- 14:02Speaker 1: I'll see you, um then very soon via satellite. But
- 14:06Speaker 1: next time, me and Paul Cy will be wearing vests
- 14:09Speaker 1: with flies all over the podcast. And don't forget, we
- 14:12Speaker 1: have to ship cases of wine up there, so we'll
- 14:13Speaker 1: be fishing with with wine or beer or the beverage
- 14:16Speaker 1: of your choice. Yeah, well, I'll be drinking wine or
- 14:18Speaker 1: beer while you guys are fishing. Is probably how it
- 14:20Speaker 1: really is gonna work out. Constance Hunter is the chief
- 14:24Speaker 1: economist at KPMG. Let me bring in John Butler right now.
- 14:30Speaker 1: He's a senior telecom analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, and John
- 14:37Speaker 1: um five G has been I guess the idea has
- 14:40Speaker 1: long been there, but we've now heard uh, a swathe
- 14:45Speaker 1: of people, a swath, a swath, a swath of people.
- 14:49Speaker 1: We've heard a slew of people UH talk about getting
- 14:52Speaker 1: into it um, including Mark Andy from UH UM, what's
- 14:57Speaker 1: Tom Barrick's shop called that Marcolin Colony Capital Um this
- 15:02Speaker 1: is he says, where you're going to see the infrastructure
- 15:05Speaker 1: build out in five g Do you agree, John? Yes?
- 15:09Speaker 1: In fact, I'll go as far as to say this, Matt,
- 15:12Speaker 1: I would liken it to what the world looked like
- 15:16Speaker 1: after iPhone versus what it looked like before the iPhone
- 15:20Speaker 1: was introduced. I think it's going to have that kind
- 15:23Speaker 1: of powerful change, But I don't think it's going to
- 15:26Speaker 1: happen in one year. It's going to take time. And
- 15:30Speaker 1: you know, we're in literally like the first inning of
- 15:34Speaker 1: the rollout here. You know, the carriers have sort of
- 15:36Speaker 1: set foundational coverage in the US, but that foundational coverage
- 15:42Speaker 1: doesn't have the kind of spectrum you need to really
- 15:45Speaker 1: offer five G s full feature set or full potential,
- 15:49Speaker 1: if you will. So fast forward two years, three years.
- 15:53Speaker 1: I think we're going to see profound changes. I'm getting that,
- 15:58Speaker 1: you know what I gotta tell you. I gotta tell you, John,
- 16:01Speaker 1: I was so when I first started working as a
- 16:04Speaker 1: young squid here at Bloomberg News in Frankfurt. My job
- 16:08Speaker 1: was to cover the U MTS auctions, so I was,
- 16:13Speaker 1: you know, covering these three G auctions at a time
- 16:15Speaker 1: when three G was like the great pie in the sky,
- 16:18Speaker 1: and it took me a while to realize what the
- 16:20Speaker 1: result of three G was. It really was iPhone. That's
- 16:23Speaker 1: what made iPhone possible. And then they jumped, of course
- 16:26Speaker 1: to forge you with their next model. But uh, that
- 16:29Speaker 1: was a massive shift, a tectonic shift, as Tom would say,
- 16:34Speaker 1: well it was. I mean what three G gave us
- 16:37Speaker 1: texting and limited web access, four G gave us full
- 16:41Speaker 1: web access in the pump up our ham plus streaming video.
- 16:45Speaker 1: Five G for the consumer, for you and me, is
- 16:49Speaker 1: going to provide even a higher speed four K video,
- 16:53Speaker 1: interactive gaming, augmented reality ultimately. But I think the bigger
- 16:59Speaker 1: changes are going to be on the enterprise side for businesses,
- 17:02Speaker 1: because literally five G can replace a lot of wires
- 17:06Speaker 1: in your life. So when I was talking to A
- 17:08Speaker 1: T and T the other day and they said, you know,
- 17:10Speaker 1: we're doing tests in hospitals because hospitals have wires everywhere.
- 17:16Speaker 1: Doctors need to have patient information on the move, and um,
- 17:21Speaker 1: so they're putting five G in a private network in
- 17:24Speaker 1: these hospitals where you can literally cut the cord onto everything.
- 17:28Speaker 1: So there in lies the biggest potential I think for
- 17:32Speaker 1: five G in that enterprise sector. And that's great news
- 17:36Speaker 1: for the carriers because a lot of those services are
- 17:39Speaker 1: very high margins. Hey, John, I see, you know, just
- 17:42Speaker 1: in the last couple of days the big carrier's Verizon
- 17:45Speaker 1: T mobile tapping the bond markets for more billions of dollars.
- 17:50Speaker 1: Here what are they raising the money for? What are
- 17:53Speaker 1: they using it for? So you know, I'll start with this.
- 18:00Speaker 1: The c band auction was way more expensive for the
- 18:03Speaker 1: carriers than anyone anticipated. That's the bad news. I think
- 18:08Speaker 1: the good news is that Spectrum can be used not
- 18:12Speaker 1: only for five G, but six G and seven G.
- 18:15Speaker 1: I mean, those licenses have long lives to them. I
- 18:19Speaker 1: think of them almost as a life lease, and so
- 18:24Speaker 1: it's gonna be very costly up front. I think even
- 18:27Speaker 1: they were surprised at how much they had to spend.
- 18:30Speaker 1: So in the end you're seeing them raise a lot
- 18:32Speaker 1: of debt to meet those payments, which are all due
- 18:36Speaker 1: this month, and then over time the hope is with
- 18:40Speaker 1: some of them to pay off debt with obviously excess
- 18:43Speaker 1: free cash flow, but also some assets sales in the
- 18:47Speaker 1: case of a T and T, and there're sort of
- 18:51Speaker 1: instituting the shrink to grow strategy, and so I think
- 18:55Speaker 1: they can monetize some of the assets that don't make sense,
- 18:59Speaker 1: like a T in T Latin America, the Brio satellite
- 19:03Speaker 1: business in Latin America, and who knows, maybe even Turner eventually.
- 19:08Speaker 1: I've been thinking that might be. That was that was
- 19:12Speaker 1: the harder. It just dawned on me. It just dawned
- 19:17Speaker 1: on me that when uh, you know, when Deutsche Telecom
- 19:20Speaker 1: bought Voice Dream, I flew out to Seattle with Ron
- 19:23Speaker 1: Summer and he threw the first pitch out of the
- 19:25Speaker 1: Mariners game. Paul, were you there? Were we both there?
- 19:29Speaker 1: I don't think so. I didn't know if you were
- 19:31Speaker 1: in on the deal, because this is you're a wheelhouse, right. Yeah.
- 19:34Speaker 1: We did a bunch of deals there, and John's kind
- 19:37Speaker 1: of the the expert on on the kind of how
- 19:39Speaker 1: Telecom has evolved and kind of what is our our
- 19:41Speaker 1: future here with five G So John is it? You know,
- 19:45Speaker 1: if I were an investor, I mean, can I gauge
- 19:47Speaker 1: out who might be a winner and a loser here?
- 19:49Speaker 1: If I want to play five G, because that's what
- 19:51Speaker 1: I hear a lot from all the tech and telecom
- 19:54Speaker 1: FOLKUS is all that five G? How do I play it?
- 19:56Speaker 1: As an investor? So I always look for leadership, right,
- 20:04Speaker 1: and I'd look for leadership and growth in what really
- 20:08Speaker 1: traditionally has been a non growth sector. But if you
- 20:11Speaker 1: look back over the past ten years, T Mobile has
- 20:15Speaker 1: done great, right, and they were the growth name in
- 20:18Speaker 1: the segment, but Verizon was the one that really dominated
- 20:22Speaker 1: in terms of being the early mover and orgy and
- 20:25Speaker 1: then leading over the next ten years, and their reward
- 20:29Speaker 1: was higher margins than the other carriers. I think T
- 20:33Speaker 1: Mobile is now in that position right now on both fronts.
- 20:38Speaker 1: They're going to continue to outgrow a T and T
- 20:40Speaker 1: and Verizon, and I think their margins are going to
- 20:43Speaker 1: expand over time as they get the technology rolled out.
- 20:47Speaker 1: Interesting as always big tech telecom jump, but others seeing
- 20:50Speaker 1: telecom analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence, we appreciate that we're gonna
- 20:56Speaker 1: talk about f X, which already was, you know, one
- 21:00Speaker 1: of the biggest markets in the world and absolutely fascinating,
- 21:04Speaker 1: but it could be set to get even better. At
- 21:07Speaker 1: least that's what Our next guest, says Vincent Delire joins
- 21:10Speaker 1: US global macro strategists for stone X. Vincent. UM, you know,
- 21:15Speaker 1: Ray Dalio was out overnight talking about UM, the dollar
- 21:20Speaker 1: and how he wants to stay away from assets connected
- 21:22Speaker 1: to that as all the stimulus goes into the economy
- 21:25Speaker 1: and taxes are ready to get raised. And he was
- 21:29Speaker 1: even talking about countries limiting capital movements. What do you think,
- 21:34Speaker 1: M well, UM, it's it's possible. I think at the
- 21:40Speaker 1: end of the day, we go back to UM what's
- 21:43Speaker 1: called the impossible trinity that any UM, if you have
- 21:46Speaker 1: the free capital movements, UH, you have to either target
- 21:50Speaker 1: the exchange rate UH or the interest rate in a country. UH.
- 21:56Speaker 1: And it seems to me that UM, as we have
- 21:59Speaker 1: a on the global pandemic. UM, no central bank in
- 22:04Speaker 1: the world is able or willing to let go of
- 22:07Speaker 1: its interest rate to accept the move in interest rates
- 22:09Speaker 1: that would be viewed as as harmful to the economy.
- 22:12Speaker 1: So there's only two consequences from that. UM. The one
- 22:16Speaker 1: that I expect, I we tolerate a much higher level
- 22:20Speaker 1: of currency volatility because we cannot use movements in the
- 22:23Speaker 1: interest rate to cush and that currency volatility or the
- 22:27Speaker 1: one that rate values suggesting, which is eventually imposing capital controls,
- 22:31Speaker 1: which may indeed be possible, but I would expect I
- 22:33Speaker 1: would expect that to come later. The first thing that
- 22:36Speaker 1: I expect to see is what I call the global
- 22:38Speaker 1: macro disorder, the global monetory disorder, where you see a
- 22:42Speaker 1: lot more currency volity to your new regime, very much
- 22:44Speaker 1: like the seventies, where you see huge wins in currency
- 22:46Speaker 1: alatility because central banks have to focus on their domestic
- 22:50Speaker 1: constituencies instead of trying to provide stability to global economy.
- 22:55Speaker 1: All right, So, Vincent, when I start on Wall Street,
- 22:57Speaker 1: the every firm I worked at the a whole floor
- 23:01Speaker 1: dedicated to trading currencies, talk to me about the liquidity
- 23:06Speaker 1: in the global f FX markets here, Um, is it
- 23:10Speaker 1: enough to deal with what you call great monetary to
- 23:14Speaker 1: disorder or is that also a concern on the biggest
- 23:18Speaker 1: pair currency pairs? For sure? I mean it is, you know,
- 23:21Speaker 1: the most liquid market in the world open um. So no,
- 23:26Speaker 1: I don't think there's I mean maybe on the you know,
- 23:29Speaker 1: kind of a smaller emerging current market currencies, of course,
- 23:31Speaker 1: big flows will impact the market. But on the bigger one, um, No,
- 23:36Speaker 1: it will be. It will be very exciting. I think
- 23:39Speaker 1: as m as we see traditional assets are now being
- 23:42Speaker 1: priced beyond perfection, right, I mean you you you have
- 23:46Speaker 1: to expect negative returns on equities. Uh, you know you're
- 23:49Speaker 1: gonna get negative returns on at least you know, intriguents
- 23:52Speaker 1: of bombs that have a negative return, negative yield. So
- 23:55Speaker 1: the world of currency, which is effectively there was some game.
- 23:58Speaker 1: Uh you know, if one goes of, the other goes down,
- 24:01Speaker 1: actually becomes the most exciting gaming town. So I expect
- 24:03Speaker 1: more liqually and more expitement. I think that's over the
- 24:06Speaker 1: next decade the big fortunes will be made in the
- 24:10Speaker 1: currency market. I mean, you can think of the year
- 24:12Speaker 1: of you know, sorrows and drugn Miller as as coming back. Yeah,
- 24:16Speaker 1: except for now they're gonna be out there buying n
- 24:19Speaker 1: f t s of people art works. You know. The
- 24:23Speaker 1: massive fortunes that are sort of being wasted on the
- 24:27Speaker 1: internet seemed to be coming from crypto. What's your view
- 24:29Speaker 1: of the digital currencies? Uh, this is a hard one
- 24:36Speaker 1: and it's a hard question, Vincent, but it's one that
- 24:40Speaker 1: you know, everyone's got to contend with this question. Now,
- 24:43Speaker 1: even people who don't want to talk about it. From
- 24:45Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond to Howard Marks, they have to embrace this question.
- 24:49Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's an element of it that's a
- 24:51Speaker 1: that's the bubble um. One thing that UM, it seems
- 24:57Speaker 1: clear to me is that the more the sector grow
- 25:00Speaker 1: was the bigger threat it becomes for UM governments. Really.
- 25:04Speaker 1: I mean, if you give people the ability to transact
- 25:08Speaker 1: outside the banking sector without supervision, uh, you're really um
- 25:13Speaker 1: taking shipping up an essential element of sovereignty like that,
- 25:16Speaker 1: you know, the ability of governments to issue currency and
- 25:19Speaker 1: money to transaction UM. And I think the next battle
- 25:24Speaker 1: here is going to be between governments and crypto because
- 25:28Speaker 1: I don't think really governments can function uh if um
- 25:32Speaker 1: and I mean I'm not making a more case here.
- 25:34Speaker 1: I have a lot of sympathy for for what crypto
- 25:37Speaker 1: is trying to do, but I don't think that governments
- 25:40Speaker 1: are willing to let that happened. I mean it was
- 25:44Speaker 1: a cool experiment. I think at the beginning it grew
- 25:46Speaker 1: in kind of a dark hole. Regulators were not paying attention.
- 25:49Speaker 1: The technology was exciting it. But now it's getting so
- 25:53Speaker 1: big that I think you'll see a lot more a
- 25:56Speaker 1: lot more government interventions, and that could be maybe the
- 25:59Speaker 1: what ultimate see and still what what is very interesting
- 26:03Speaker 1: and and and and beautiful experiments? Vincent, about thirty seconds
- 26:07Speaker 1: left as the world reopens here, what's the trade that
- 26:11Speaker 1: makes the most sense to you? Um, well, a lot,
- 26:17Speaker 1: I like to say, a lot of cash and very
- 26:19Speaker 1: few good ideas. So most of the reopen trades that
- 26:23Speaker 1: cleek in the US I think have been played and overplayed.
- 26:25Speaker 1: I mean you'll get the wrestle wrest of two thousand
- 26:27Speaker 1: small gap value, all that stuff that has rallied so much,
- 26:30Speaker 1: that is corpus teamage shoes left. Uh. The only place
- 26:33Speaker 1: is where you could find one of the Jews I
- 26:34Speaker 1: think is the maybe Europe, and I like that time.
- 26:37Speaker 1: I like Latin American currencies. You see a huge disconnect
- 26:41Speaker 1: between the performance of Latin American currencies and the performance
- 26:44Speaker 1: of their their main exports. I mean the Brazilian realbus
- 26:47Speaker 1: is the old prices and based ovices copper um and
- 26:51Speaker 1: and over time. These are commodity economies, so it's very
- 26:55Speaker 1: unlikely that divergence remains, so I would expect these two trampthon. Hey, Vincent,
- 27:01Speaker 1: thank you so much as always for joining us Vincent Ward,
- 27:04Speaker 1: global macro strategists for stone X. They're based in San Francisco,
- 27:09Speaker 1: UH talking to us about the global FX markets of
- 27:12Speaker 1: global currency markets, suggesting maybe e M particularly Latin America,
- 27:16Speaker 1: might be some places to find value. Thanks for listening
- 27:20Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen
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- 27:28Speaker 1: I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three.
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