Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Intel Shares Plunge After Outlook Hit by PC Slump, Supply
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios.
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- 0:06Speaker 3: News.
- 0:09Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
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- 0:24Speaker 4: I want to dig into Intel a little bit more
- 0:26Speaker 4: because you look at that move today, down 28%. This is,
- 0:30Speaker 4: of course, after we saw Alphabet lose about a quarter
- 0:34Speaker 4: of its value as well due to disappointing earnings. Kunjan
- 0:38Speaker 4: Sorbani is Bloomberg Intelligence's senior semiconductor analyst, and he joins
- 0:43Speaker 4: us now from San Francisco. And this is not good news,
- 0:46Speaker 4: especially when you consider, Kunjan, that the U.S. government, that
- 0:50Speaker 4: is taxpayers, owns a big chunk of Intel as well.
- 0:54Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, there was a lot of surprises
- 0:56Speaker 3: on the negative side. You know, we didn't expect, most
- 0:59Speaker 3: people are aware PC market does not have like strong tailwinds,
- 1:02Speaker 3: but we didn't expect this kind of a weakness, which
- 1:05Speaker 3: is really hurting them because even as of last quarter,
- 1:08Speaker 3: PC remains the largest revenue segment for the company. And remember,
- 1:11Speaker 3: it's also the highest gross margin, one of the highest
- 1:14Speaker 3: gross margin segments. So any revenue loss there really impacts
- 1:19Speaker 3: the top line as well as the gross margin. The
- 1:22Speaker 3: only sort of good news is that their server CPU
- 1:24Speaker 3: demand continues to stay strong. But however, again, the supply
- 1:28Speaker 3: constraints on the wafer side, on the substrate strides are
- 1:32Speaker 3: really limiting on how much they can ship. So there's
- 1:35Speaker 3: not enough offset coming from data center or not enough
- 1:38Speaker 3: goodness coming from data center to offset all the weakness
- 1:41Speaker 3: in the PCs.
- 1:42Speaker 5: What's going on with the PC market? What's the drivers there?
- 1:46Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so we are all aware about the
- 1:48Speaker 3: memory crunch happening, right? So what's happening is most of
- 1:51Speaker 3: the memory players are allocating their capacity towards the better ASV,
- 1:57Speaker 3: better margin, high growth data center market. So that takes
- 2:00Speaker 3: away capacity from the PC side. Plus, memory prices in
- 2:04Speaker 3: general have just skyrocketed, almost doubled in the 18 months
- 2:07Speaker 3: and are expected to grow at least on the low
- 2:10Speaker 3: level 50%. Some are claiming 70% to 80% next year. So,
- 2:14Speaker 3: you know, PC are a very consumer company. exposed markets.
- 2:18Speaker 3: So there's a lot of price sensitivity there. So the
- 2:20Speaker 3: combination of memory prices being so high makes the bomb,
- 2:25Speaker 3: the bill of materials to build a PC higher, plus
- 2:28Speaker 3: memory makers allocating supply away from PCs. The end result
- 2:31Speaker 3: of all of that is PC makers don't want to
- 2:35Speaker 3: build up inventory. They are worried about it and they
- 2:38Speaker 3: can't push down these prices to consumers because that also
- 2:41Speaker 3: impacts the demand.
- 2:43Speaker 4: Intel, of course, has been trying to move into the
- 2:46Speaker 4: AI business as well, and it has a data center
- 2:48Speaker 4: and AI unit. How did it do there?
- 2:52Speaker 3: That was a segment they did really good. They beat
- 2:56Speaker 3: through the estimates and they've also guided it forward pretty well.
- 3:01Speaker 3: More importantly, despite the PC headwinds, they're still guiding the
- 3:05Speaker 3: company to grow, the total revenues to grow in 2027.
- 3:08Speaker 3: And we believe that is mostly coming from the goodness
- 3:11Speaker 3: in DCAI, which is the data center AI business.
- 3:15Speaker 5: Kunjan, that doesn't sound like there's an easy fix here.
- 3:17Speaker 5: It just seems like maybe it's just time.
- 3:19Speaker 6: Is that where we are?
- 3:21Speaker 3: It is, but I think the reaction you're seeing is
- 3:23Speaker 3: a driver of a couple of things. Look, we have
- 3:25Speaker 3: seen this sort of stumble towards the goal line a
- 3:28Speaker 3: couple of times with Intel. It took them almost four
- 3:31Speaker 3: quarters to get the gross margin going to the levels
- 3:34Speaker 3: that they were in 3Q. And now again, the gross
- 3:37Speaker 3: margins that they're guiding down to almost 500 basis points
- 3:40Speaker 3: per below the street in 4Q. This is like you're
- 3:44Speaker 3: back to last year, right? So we have seen these
- 3:46Speaker 3: tumble in the same stories a couple of times again.
- 3:49Speaker 3: And I think that is where investors are really getting impatient.
- 3:53Speaker 2: Stay with us.
- 3:54Speaker 6: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 4:00Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 4:04Speaker 1: weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android
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- 4:10Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
- 4:15Speaker 5: Amazon shares down about two and a half percent here
- 4:17Speaker 5: today after the company reported greater capital spending than anticipated
- 4:22Speaker 5: and the slowest growth in the core e-commerce business in
- 4:26Speaker 5: three years. Let's break it down a little bit more
- 4:27Speaker 5: with Poonam Goyal, senior U.S. e-commerce and retail analyst at
- 4:31Speaker 5: Bloomberg Intelligence. Poonam, what did you take away from the
- 4:34Speaker 5: Amazon results here?
- 4:35Speaker 7: Yeah, so look, the print looks like things have slowed,
- 4:38Speaker 7: but they really haven't. If you were to look at
- 4:40Speaker 7: 2Q and 3Q collectively, because you do need to take
- 4:43Speaker 7: into account the Prime Day shift, which moved the event
- 4:47Speaker 7: into 2Q from 3Q, things are very healthy. In fact,
- 4:50Speaker 7: I think the e-commerce business is growing very nicely and
- 4:53Speaker 7: continues to show share gains. Where it's most impressive is
- 4:57Speaker 7: on grocery. Now, this is a segment that Walmart, we
- 5:00Speaker 7: would say, has traditionally underperformed, but has been making a
- 5:04Speaker 7: lot of headway to really increase frequency here. And when
- 5:08Speaker 7: you do shop for grocery, you spend two times more
- 5:11Speaker 7: on adjacent other categories.
- 5:14Speaker 4: You look at the Amazon Web Services business, the cloud business,
- 5:18Speaker 4: and that's picked up this year. And normally, I think
- 5:22Speaker 4: that's something investors would really focus on and reward the
- 5:26Speaker 4: stock for. Yet, what does it say about the environment
- 5:29Speaker 4: that they reacted instead to the core e-commerce business?
- 5:34Speaker 2: Sure.
- 5:34Speaker 7: So I think why the shares are down today is
- 5:37Speaker 7: less to do with the artificial slowdown we see in
- 5:40Speaker 7: e-commerce and the strength that we see in cloud services.
- 5:43Speaker 7: It's really to do with the rising CapEx that we
- 5:45Speaker 7: will see next year and in future years to make
- 5:48Speaker 7: room for investments in the cloud business. That's yielding in
- 5:52Speaker 7: cash flow being down. And when free cash flow is negative,
- 5:56Speaker 7: we think it'll continue to stay suppressed because CapEx will
- 5:59Speaker 7: continue to rise. That's the real issue and why the
- 6:01Speaker 7: shares are trading off.
- 6:04Speaker 5: So I am looking at consensus kind of free cash
- 6:06Speaker 5: flow numbers negative for this calendar year 26, negative by
- 6:10Speaker 5: another $ 34 billion next year, and maybe being free cash
- 6:14Speaker 5: flow positive in 2028. Does that seem kind of like
- 6:18Speaker 5: the cadence the company's suggesting?
- 6:21Speaker 7: I think we'll have to see where CapEx comes in, right?
- 6:24Speaker 7: $ 220 billion for 2026. They said it will be higher
- 6:28Speaker 7: for next year, and we expect it to continue to
- 6:31Speaker 7: be higher. So at that rate, you know, you could
- 6:34Speaker 7: argue that free cash flow could stay suppressed. But it
- 6:37Speaker 7: all depends on, Paul, does it go from $ 220 billion?
- 6:40Speaker 7: to 230 or does it go to 250 or does
- 6:42Speaker 7: it go to 300, right? We're not sure where the
- 6:44Speaker 7: number will come in.
- 6:44Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm just looking at the consensus on the FA function,
- 6:47Speaker 5: 220 billion in CapEx this year and 26 going to
- 6:50Speaker 5: 290 billion. next year, and almost 330 in 2028. So
- 6:56Speaker 5: the street's kind of focusing on, these guys are going
- 6:59Speaker 5: to be spending for a while.
- 7:00Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 7:00Speaker 4: And the company did not commit to any kind of number.
- 7:03Speaker 4: They just said it would increase meaningfully in 2027. So
- 7:07Speaker 4: you can interpret that however you want. What does that mean, Poonam,
- 7:10Speaker 4: in terms of how Amazon is going to raise more capital?
- 7:14Speaker 4: Is it going to do so through a stock sale,
- 7:16Speaker 4: through selling bonds?
- 7:18Speaker 7: It could be either. It could be through equity issuance
- 7:21Speaker 7: or through the bonds. They haven't clearly stated what the
- 7:24Speaker 7: intent will be. I think we have seen other tech
- 7:27Speaker 7: companies do the same as CapEx has clearly risen. So
- 7:31Speaker 7: it's definitely something that they will be looking into, we think.
- 7:36Speaker 5: All right. So here we are about to flip the
- 7:38Speaker 5: calendar to November. What's the feeling from all the retailers
- 7:42Speaker 5: you talked to, Poonam, about holiday season? What's the expectation
- 7:47Speaker 5: for the the health of that season.
- 7:49Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 7:50Speaker 7: So, so holiday is going to be strong, you know,
- 7:53Speaker 7: irrespective of everything that we're hearing about inflation, gas prices,
- 7:57Speaker 7: et cetera, consumers are still looking to spend. The industry
- 8:01Speaker 7: outlook is for a roughly over a 6% gain online
- 8:05Speaker 7: and online sales for the holiday season. We think Amazon's
- 8:08Speaker 7: going to grow faster than that. So Amazon is going
- 8:10Speaker 7: to be taking share of, It's going to be about
- 8:13Speaker 7: where do you want to spend? Where do you want
- 8:15Speaker 7: to stretch your dollars? Who's going to get your dollars?
- 8:17Speaker 7: Consumers will buy, but do they buy at Amazon or
- 8:19Speaker 7: do they buy at Walmart?
- 8:20Speaker 2: That's the key question.
- 8:21Speaker 7: We think they buy at both and the middle gets
- 8:24Speaker 7: squeezed again.
- 8:26Speaker 4: It goes back to how if you're organized and you
- 8:28Speaker 4: actually buy things during Prime Day for the holidays, you
- 8:31Speaker 4: can get that out of the way.
- 8:33Speaker 6: Like you, like you were. No, I wasn't at all.
- 8:35Speaker 4: I don't do that at all. How much has Amazon
- 8:38Speaker 4: trained the consumer to do just that, Poonam?
- 8:41Speaker 7: You know, The thing is, Amazon has trained the consumer
- 8:44Speaker 7: to look for deals over Prime Day, over Black Friday,
- 8:46Speaker 7: over Cyber Monday. We know those days are going to
- 8:49Speaker 7: have the greatest discount. But the question is, when you
- 8:52Speaker 7: see something on sale, do you want to wait until
- 8:54Speaker 7: Black Friday or Cyber Monday to get it? And do
- 8:57Speaker 7: you have your list really fully together at Prime Day
- 9:00Speaker 7: and Black Friday? So there will continuously be a flow
- 9:03Speaker 7: of purchasing, but those deal-driven days will definitely have higher volume.
- 9:08Speaker 6: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 9:15Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 9:19Speaker 1: weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android
- 9:22Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 9:26Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
- 9:30Speaker 5: Again, I'm going to go down to Baton Rouge, Galveston.
- 9:33Speaker 5: I'm going to build myself a refinery because those people
- 9:35Speaker 5: are making money hand over fist. Big oil reaped more
- 9:39Speaker 5: than $ 50 billion in windfall profits as conflicts in the
- 9:42Speaker 5: Persian Gulf and Russia drove refining results to record highs.
- 9:46Speaker 5: It's a good time to be an oil analyst. It's
- 9:48Speaker 5: a good time to talk to Vince Piazza. He's a
- 9:50Speaker 5: senior equity analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence covering all the oil
- 9:53Speaker 5: and gas names, which he's done for decades. He knows
- 9:55Speaker 5: all these players. He's seen all the cycles come and go.
- 9:58Speaker 5: Talk to us about some of the earnings. you're seeing here, Vince,
- 10:01Speaker 5: coming out of the big oil companies you follow.
- 10:04Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, the refining side once again coming through
- 10:08Speaker 8: for both Exxon and Chevron for both, you know, utilization
- 10:14Speaker 8: very strong, throughput very, very strong, the spreads extremely strong.
- 10:19Speaker 8: So we're coming close to that part of the cycle
- 10:22Speaker 8: where you ask yourself, how much can things get better?
- 10:26Speaker 8: You have WTI 104, Brent 117 today, both Exxon and Chevron.
- 10:33Speaker 2: Hitting new highs.
- 10:35Speaker 8: Valuations approaching the upper bound of the last five years.
- 10:41Speaker 8: So you ask yourself, does it feel like you're close
- 10:45Speaker 8: to a peak? If we have benchmarks that continue down
- 10:50Speaker 8: this path over 100 bucks, You could see a lift
- 10:54Speaker 8: in 4Q earnings.
- 10:56Speaker 2: But how do things get better from here? Hard to say.
- 11:01Speaker 8: So if you're an investor in these names and you're
- 11:03Speaker 8: reading the tea leaves aside from war.
- 11:08Speaker 2: Where would the benchmark be?
- 11:10Speaker 8: So I think as I scrub the models for 2027,
- 11:15Speaker 8: I'm starting to get a little bit more cautious with
- 11:18Speaker 8: respect to the earnings cadence from here, aside from any
- 11:22Speaker 8: kind of benefits of 4Q. The one thing I would say, Paul,
- 11:27Speaker 8: is that these guys are throwing off a boatload of
- 11:30Speaker 8: free cash flow. $ 19 billion this quarter alone for Exxon.
- 11:36Speaker 2: Net debt is down significantly. The cash is up.
- 11:40Speaker 8: So you wonder what happens for 2027 if share buybacks
- 11:44Speaker 8: are going to be held relatively flat. That's a lot
- 11:47Speaker 8: of firepower to go into a year of uncertainty.
- 11:50Speaker 4: So that brings me to my next question. What do
- 11:53Speaker 4: they do with all that cash? I mean, share buybacks
- 11:55Speaker 4: is kind of an obvious answer. Of course, these are
- 11:57Speaker 4: dividend paying companies, but how else do they deploy it?
- 12:03Speaker 8: So Exxon and Chevron have acquired in the past. You know,
- 12:07Speaker 8: Chevron is digesting Hess after a bruising battle with Exxon. Exxon,
- 12:14Speaker 8: of course, bought Pioneer in the Permian. As you think
- 12:18Speaker 8: about the next growth cycle, what happens as you push
- 12:21Speaker 8: past 2027 and 2028? Is there more LNG to invest in?
- 12:26Speaker 2: Are there other companies here in the U.S.
- 12:29Speaker 8: to a purchase, just given that the relative multiple advantage
- 12:34Speaker 8: and the cash hoard that they have.
- 12:36Speaker 2: You mentioned the dividends.
- 12:38Speaker 8: Yes, they do pay modest dividends, so you could see
- 12:41Speaker 8: some upside there if trends do continue. Again, Exxon held
- 12:46Speaker 8: its share of purchases relatively flat for 2027, so there's
- 12:50Speaker 8: a lot of firepower there for both not only inorganic growth,
- 12:54Speaker 8: via M & A, but also organic growth as well,
- 12:58Speaker 8: as it has other projects it can invest in in
- 13:01Speaker 8: Guyana and elsewhere.
- 13:02Speaker 5: Hey, Vince, we're hearing from over the last month or
- 13:05Speaker 5: two from the Trump administration and from some third party
- 13:09Speaker 5: observers that, you know, quite a lot of oil is
- 13:11Speaker 5: getting through this trade of Hormuz here. If so, why
- 13:15Speaker 5: is Brent at $ 117 a barrel?
- 13:18Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm questioning as well, right?
- 13:20Speaker 8: Because the reality on the ground is things are getting
- 13:24Speaker 8: closer to a more normal cadence through the Hormuz.
- 13:31Speaker 2: But there's also the geopolitical risk of collapse.
- 13:35Speaker 8: Potential strikes after the midterms and what that could mean
- 13:39Speaker 8: for global balances as well. So I think there's a
- 13:43Speaker 8: lot of uncertainty there. And that's why you're seeing the
- 13:46Speaker 8: geopolitical risk premium remain in WTI and also Brent. And
- 13:52Speaker 8: that's why you're seeing these names still have some life
- 13:55Speaker 8: to them as we get closer to the end of
- 13:57Speaker 8: this cycle.
- 13:58Speaker 4: How do you think about the midterm elections and the
- 14:00Speaker 4: risks of a Democratic controlled Congress? What does that mean for?
- 14:06Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I guess it's more of a drumbeat with
- 14:09Speaker 8: respect to a windfall profits and the the excess cost
- 14:17Speaker 8: at the pump for a lot of consumers with these
- 14:19Speaker 8: high prices. The only thing is the refiners are really
- 14:21Speaker 8: going full out. It's not like they're holding back utilization
- 14:25Speaker 8: on the refining side. So they are maxing out. So
- 14:30Speaker 8: that's not the issue. And I think there's going to
- 14:32Speaker 8: be a little bit of uncertainty post and midterms, but
- 14:35Speaker 8: a lot of it is wait and see. And that's
- 14:37Speaker 8: why there is a great deal of uncertainty and volatility
- 14:39Speaker 8: in the overall commodity space for the energy markets.
- 14:43Speaker 5: So as you well know, Vince, I'm an astute viewer
- 14:46Speaker 5: of Landman. I know all things about the energy business,
- 14:49Speaker 5: the oil and gas business here. West Texas doesn't necessarily
- 14:53Speaker 5: like WTI over $ 100 a barrel because that might be
- 14:56Speaker 5: some demand destruction here.
- 14:59Speaker 6: Are we seeing that at all?
- 15:01Speaker 2: Well, you know what?
- 15:02Speaker 8: I think comments from, I think it was BP or
- 15:05Speaker 8: Shell earlier said they are seeing some demand destruction. Look,
- 15:09Speaker 8: $ 100 crude does no one any good because it does
- 15:13Speaker 8: reduce demand. As I think we've talked about in the past, Paul,
- 15:17Speaker 8: you know, $ 100 is right at that level of demand destruction.
- 15:23Speaker 8: $ 60 is no good for the industry. That $ 75 to
- 15:27Speaker 8: $ 80 is that sweet spot where everyone feels that there's
- 15:31Speaker 8: enough profitability and return on that investment and the consumer
- 15:35Speaker 8: isn't hijacked at the pump. We're not there yet. And,
- 15:40Speaker 8: you know, quite frankly, I thought we were going to
- 15:42Speaker 8: get there with tensions being ratcheted down some. But in
- 15:47Speaker 8: the last month or so, we've seen these marks scream
- 15:52Speaker 8: off the terminal here. And that's really a function of
- 15:57Speaker 8: the ratcheted up of tensions as we get closer to
- 16:00Speaker 8: the midterms and after the midterms as well.
- 16:03Speaker 2: Stay with us.
- 16:04Speaker 6: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 16:10Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 16:14Speaker 1: weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android
- 16:17Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 16:20Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
- 16:25Speaker 4: So I look at what's happening in markets, and once
- 16:28Speaker 4: upon a time, Bitcoin was kind of seen as an
- 16:30Speaker 4: uncorrelated asset, something that you could put money into and
- 16:35Speaker 4: find that it would survive downturns in other assets like stocks.
- 16:39Speaker 4: That's no longer the case, it feels like, because when
- 16:42Speaker 4: it's not being stolen by North Koreans.
- 16:45Speaker 6: It trades like crazy. A risky asset.
- 16:47Speaker 3: A risky asset, yeah.
- 16:48Speaker 4: But it's the being stolen by North Koreans part that
- 16:50Speaker 4: I want to focus on because another incident of a hack,
- 16:54Speaker 4: this time into Binance, is shaking the foundations of crypto.
- 16:57Speaker 4: Emily Nicole is our Bloomberg Digital Finance reporter joining us
- 17:00Speaker 4: from London. Emily, what can you tell us about this
- 17:04Speaker 4: Binance hack as we see Bitcoin drop below $ 77, 000 right now,
- 17:07Speaker 4: down 2.7%?
- 17:12Speaker 9: About 6 billion was stolen. That's what we know so far.
- 17:15Speaker 9: But it does seem like things are mostly contained. I mean,
- 17:18Speaker 9: we've all been saying to each other this just today,
- 17:20Speaker 9: you know, normally when the biggest exchange in the world
- 17:23Speaker 9: gets hacked, you'd expect there to be some more fallout
- 17:27Speaker 9: than just Bitcoin sinking to kind of a multi-month flow
- 17:30Speaker 9: and everything else is kind of ticking along. It does
- 17:32Speaker 9: seem to be pretty contained, though, as you kind of
- 17:34Speaker 9: pointed out earlier. So we've seen Binance come out and
- 17:37Speaker 9: say that they can fully cover the losses that have
- 17:39Speaker 9: been mentioned there. They're also looking at trying to recover
- 17:43Speaker 9: some of it through the normal routes, through law enforcement.
- 17:46Speaker 9: Some of it's been frozen, but their company funds could
- 17:48Speaker 9: cover it regardless, even if they didn't recover those funds
- 17:52Speaker 9: the other way. So it's all kind of still moving,
- 17:54Speaker 9: still progressing along, but generally everything seems pretty stable.
- 17:58Speaker 5: It does, actually, given the magnitude here. I've seen in
- 18:02Speaker 5: the Bloomberg reporting blockchain intelligence firms have pointed to North
- 18:06Speaker 5: Korea as behind the Binance heist.
- 18:10Speaker 6: What do we know there?
- 18:13Speaker 9: So several blockchain analytics firms have already kind of done
- 18:15Speaker 9: the work on trying to mapping how the money moved
- 18:18Speaker 9: after it left Binance. And the way that they look
- 18:20Speaker 9: at that, it kind of tells us whether or not
- 18:22Speaker 9: this might have been North Korea. And what they can
- 18:24Speaker 9: say is that some of the patterns that we're seeing
- 18:26Speaker 9: and how those funds are being laundered so far match
- 18:29Speaker 9: what the DPRK has done in the past. And so
- 18:31Speaker 9: they're able to kind of say with a degree of
- 18:32Speaker 9: confidence that this is North Korea behind it. They can say,
- 18:35Speaker 9: you know, oh, well, the funds have been moving through
- 18:38Speaker 9: these particular mixing platforms that help kind of obscure the
- 18:41Speaker 9: transaction paths, make it harder for you to follow the
- 18:43Speaker 9: tokens through the blockchain ledgers. And they can say, you know,
- 18:47Speaker 9: they're doing a certain amount of automation as well, moving
- 18:49Speaker 9: funds automatically back and forth to certain wallets to try
- 18:51Speaker 9: and make it harder to follow as well. So all
- 18:53Speaker 9: of that is kind of painting a picture that North
- 18:55Speaker 9: Korea was behind this.
- 18:57Speaker 4: And this isn't the first time the North Koreans have
- 18:59Speaker 4: been behind some crypto hacks as well. It really raises
- 19:02Speaker 4: questions over how secure owning Bitcoin is. Does this discourage
- 19:09Speaker 4: new entrants from coming into this market?
- 19:12Speaker 9: It obviously, every time this happens, it does discourage new entrants.
- 19:15Speaker 9: I mean, nobody likes to buy something that they don't
- 19:18Speaker 9: think is safe. But from the people I've been speaking
- 19:20Speaker 9: to today, it seems kind of a bit of like, well,
- 19:22Speaker 9: this is just kind of what you get with crypto, right?
- 19:25Speaker 9: Like we're in a moment now where institutions are really
- 19:27Speaker 9: trying to move into the space, thinking about should they
- 19:29Speaker 9: allocate to Bitcoin? If so, how much? You can do
- 19:32Speaker 9: that through various means. If you're worried about touching the
- 19:35Speaker 9: crypto directly and having exposure to things like this, then
- 19:37Speaker 9: you can do things like buying a Bitcoin-tied ETF, for example,
- 19:40Speaker 9: versus the crypto asset itself. That comes with some fees
- 19:43Speaker 9: and some trade-offs, but also feels a little bit more secure.
- 19:46Speaker 9: If you're willing to touch the asset directly itself and
- 19:48Speaker 9: engage with a crypto exchange, like Binance, then that comes
- 19:51Speaker 9: with its own level of risk, but also the promise
- 19:53Speaker 9: of a higher reward. That's kind of what you get
- 19:56Speaker 9: when you buy into crypto. You have to be willing
- 19:58Speaker 9: to make that risk reward trade-off. And that's kind of
- 20:01Speaker 9: what people are saying right now. It's like, you know, well, Yes,
- 20:05Speaker 9: this could be a thing that turns people off from
- 20:07Speaker 9: joining crypto. It might turn off institutions from wanting to
- 20:10Speaker 9: deploy in it in huge size. But it also is
- 20:13Speaker 9: kind of part of part of how it works. You know,
- 20:16Speaker 9: you want that big return. You have to take this
- 20:18Speaker 9: with it as well.
- 20:19Speaker 5: Emily, just 30 seconds left here. What are we seeing
- 20:22Speaker 5: with funds flows to crypto ETFs?
- 20:27Speaker 9: Crypto ETFs, I mean, I haven't actually checked today, so
- 20:30Speaker 9: I'm going to be honest with that. But I mean,
- 20:31Speaker 9: in the last few weeks, they have been on the rise.
- 20:33Speaker 9: So that has been a positive sign for the industry.
- 20:35Speaker 9: I mean, Bitcoin itself has been at lows for the
- 20:37Speaker 9: last few months. It hasn't really been recovering in the
- 20:40Speaker 9: way people would have liked after it sunk a lot
- 20:42Speaker 9: over the summer. So ETFs have been a sort of
- 20:45Speaker 9: bright spot in that sense. Nothing super huge, no few
- 20:48Speaker 9: billion here and there. We'll have to wait for the
- 20:51Speaker 9: end of the week to kind of see what that
- 20:52Speaker 9: looks like for an overall weekly picture. And if the
- 20:54Speaker 9: institutions that were holding ETFs are worried by this today,
- 20:57Speaker 9: but I mean, broadly, you know, they shouldn't be affected.
- 21:00Speaker 9: We know the exchanges that custody the Bitcoin for these ETFs,
- 21:03Speaker 9: Binance is not usually one of them. So typically, I mean,
- 21:06Speaker 9: if it's the institutions who are kind of looking through
- 21:09Speaker 9: and actually making like a full risk assessment, then there
- 21:12Speaker 9: shouldn't be too much happening with it.
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