Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / BI Weekend: Delta, Constellation Brands Earnings
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Intelligence
- 0:11Speaker 1: with Alex Steel and Paul Sweeney.
- 0:13Speaker 2: The real ap performance has been the US corporate high yield.
- 0:17Speaker 3: Are the companies lean enough? Have they trimmed all the fats?
- 0:19Speaker 2: The semiconductor business is a really cyclical.
- 0:22Speaker 1: Business, breaking market headlines and corporate news from across the globe.
- 0:26Speaker 3: Do investors like the M and A that we've seen?
- 0:29Speaker 2: These are two big time blue chip companies.
- 0:32Speaker 3: Window between the peak and cunt changing super fast.
- 0:36Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steele and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:42Speaker 2: On Today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show, we dig inside the big
- 0:45Speaker 2: business stories impacting Wall Street and the global markets.
- 0:47Speaker 4: Each and every week we provide in depth research and
- 0:49Speaker 4: data on some of the two thousand companies and one
- 0:51Speaker 4: hundred and thirty industries our analysts cover worldwide.
- 0:54Speaker 2: Today, we'll look at how drug makers are being impacted
- 0:56Speaker 2: by policy in Washington, DC.
- 0:58Speaker 4: Plus, we'll discuss how one bank is abandoning its net
- 1:00Speaker 4: zero financed emission goals.
- 1:02Speaker 2: At first, we begin with the airlines industry. This week,
- 1:05Speaker 2: Delta Airlines withdrew its full year financial guidance due to
- 1:08Speaker 2: uncertainty surrounding global trade, and this comes despite the airline
- 1:11Speaker 2: reporting better than expected first quarter profit.
- 1:13Speaker 4: For more on this and the state of the airline industry,
- 1:15Speaker 4: we were drawn by George ferguson Bloomberg Intelligence in your Aerospace,
- 1:18Speaker 4: Defense and Airlines analyst.
- 1:20Speaker 2: We first asked George to break down what happened during
- 1:22Speaker 2: Delta's first quarter earnings call.
- 1:24Speaker 5: The call wasn't as bad I think as a lot feared.
- 1:29Speaker 5: You know, A lot of what we heard was the
- 1:31Speaker 5: premium markets are still good. Europe is still good, but
- 1:35Speaker 5: they're watching it very closely. Asia Pacific was a good
- 1:40Speaker 5: market as well. Non premium back of the airplane travel
- 1:45Speaker 5: in the domestic market is poor. And because of all that,
- 1:50Speaker 5: you know, they're gonna cap You're gonna flatline capacity, no
- 1:55Speaker 5: growth for the second half of the year. So it
- 1:59Speaker 5: sounded like things are okay. Maybe they're okay, but we're
- 2:04Speaker 5: watching things very close.
- 2:05Speaker 2: But I remember that Delta and the other US carriers
- 2:08Speaker 2: probably several weeks ago cut their guidance. This was before
- 2:12Speaker 2: I think an investor conference, so they've already cut guidance once.
- 2:16Speaker 2: Here agree, So where are we there? I mean, do
- 2:20Speaker 2: you feel like street estimates need to come down.
- 2:22Speaker 5: Here, agreed. Well, so when I looked at the preliminary
- 2:26Speaker 5: guidance for two Q, it did seem like street estimates
- 2:28Speaker 5: for two Q had to come down, right because Delta
- 2:33Speaker 5: gave some pretty broad ranges. But it looks like capacity
- 2:35Speaker 5: is going to rise five percent when I look at
- 2:38Speaker 5: schedules for them in the second quarter, and they said
- 2:41Speaker 5: revenue could be up to to down two and if
- 2:44Speaker 5: I did my math right, that means that I think
- 2:46Speaker 5: either way fares are softening again. It's we're definitely working
- 2:52Speaker 5: off lower expectations after they cut earnings expectations after the
- 2:57Speaker 5: JP Morgan conference. But so Caesar Trappie here, Georgia.
- 3:01Speaker 2: I know every year you take a boondoggle over to Europe,
- 3:05Speaker 2: either to London or Parish for these air shows, and
- 3:09Speaker 2: this is where these big airlines make place big orders
- 3:12Speaker 2: with the airplane suppliers bowing and airbus principally. Are we
- 3:16Speaker 2: going to get to a period, George where if they
- 3:19Speaker 2: even allow you to go to Paris of the French
- 3:21Speaker 2: late let you in, will European carriers buy Boeing planes
- 3:26Speaker 2: and vice versa. Will European carriers by or you know, Airbus.
- 3:32Speaker 5: I think they will. I think they will because the
- 3:35Speaker 5: queues for airplanes are so long you're not going to
- 3:38Speaker 5: get out of the queue you're in and go to
- 3:40Speaker 5: someone else's queue and wait longer. You'd have to wait
- 3:43Speaker 5: seven eight years for an A three twenty out of Airbus.
- 3:47Speaker 5: I think, as near as we could tell from the
- 3:49Speaker 5: backlog their show. But what I will tell you about
- 3:52Speaker 5: discussions with Ed Bastion about taking Airbus airplanes and who
- 3:58Speaker 5: pays a tariff? And he said he's not going to
- 4:01Speaker 5: pay a tariff, and he's not going to take any
- 4:03Speaker 5: deliveries or sorry, very few deliveries this year. So it
- 4:08Speaker 5: does sound like Delta has a tariff problem and isn't
- 4:11Speaker 5: ready to take new airplanes. Now I know, you know
- 4:14Speaker 5: their flatlining capacity for the back half of the year,
- 4:16Speaker 5: so maybe they don't need them. But if the market
- 4:20Speaker 5: was growing significantly right now, I think he'd have a problem.
- 4:23Speaker 2: So you mentioned kind of the weakness Delta was calling
- 4:25Speaker 2: out in the back of the plane, maybe some of
- 4:27Speaker 2: the more economy prices and seats. So does that mean
- 4:31Speaker 2: the discount airlines they're really going to face some trouble.
- 4:36Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 4:37Speaker 5: I mean the funny thing is again when sort of Delta,
- 4:40Speaker 5: United and American Ad justin earnings a month ago. The
- 4:44Speaker 5: low cost carriers did a little bit, but the moves
- 4:47Speaker 5: weren't as great, and the low cost carriers had already
- 4:51Speaker 5: been cutting capacity, right if you think about it. Spirit
- 4:54Speaker 5: Airlines went bankrupt. They cut forty percent out of their schedule,
- 4:58Speaker 5: or something like thirty percent of their schedule. Southwest significantly
- 5:02Speaker 5: slowed growth, they went close to zero. Jet Blue has
- 5:07Speaker 5: been cutting and now Delta came in today and said, look,
- 5:11Speaker 5: we're going to cut the back half of the year
- 5:13Speaker 5: to flat. So I feel like the full service have
- 5:16Speaker 5: to make up ground here because they had been growing
- 5:20Speaker 5: a little bit too fast. We had seen that at
- 5:22Speaker 5: the beginning of the year, we're going to see an
- 5:24Speaker 5: earning season. Whether or not maybe low cost got ahead
- 5:28Speaker 5: of the curve here. I still can't believe that Delta
- 5:32Speaker 5: can deliver a seat as cheap as a low cost carrier.
- 5:36Speaker 5: So I personally think the low cost carriers still have
- 5:39Speaker 5: a valid business here and they'll fill airplanes and do okay.
- 5:44Speaker 5: But when you get into times of trouble in this industry,
- 5:47Speaker 5: Trouble is big in this industry. Right, there's a lot
- 5:49Speaker 5: of operating leverage and so we're going to see, right, we're.
- 5:52Speaker 4: Gonna jetfield prices are coming down. I mean they are,
- 5:56Speaker 4: That's the thing. Thirty seconds top airline and to manage
- 6:00Speaker 4: all of this right now, what do you think.
- 6:02Speaker 5: I'd go with? Balance sheets?
- 6:04Speaker 6: Right?
- 6:04Speaker 5: And that's going to be companies like Southwest and Delta
- 6:07Speaker 5: that have strong balance sheets and weather storms.
- 6:10Speaker 2: Our Thanks to George Ferguson, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Aerospace, Defense
- 6:13Speaker 2: and Airlines Analyst.
- 6:14Speaker 4: We move next to the consumer goods industry. This week,
- 6:17Speaker 4: Constellation Brands issued downbeat guidance for the year as new
- 6:20Speaker 4: US tariffs im muted demand. Way on the beer, wine,
- 6:23Speaker 4: and spirits maker.
- 6:24Speaker 2: For more, We were joined by Ken Sha, Bloomberg Intelligence
- 6:26Speaker 2: Senior Consumer Products Analyst.
- 6:28Speaker 4: We first asked Ken for his take on Constellation's most
- 6:31Speaker 4: recent guidance.
- 6:32Speaker 7: There's so many moving parts to the Constellation storyline here.
- 6:37Speaker 7: It's really a challenge of analysts to put it all together.
- 6:40Speaker 7: But you touch on the right points, and that is
- 6:43Speaker 7: the near term challenge is facing a Constellation and other
- 6:46Speaker 7: brewers for that matter, is weak demand. A lot of
- 6:50Speaker 7: it is economic. Constellation would also point to their key
- 6:54Speaker 7: demographic is the Hispanic demographic, and they're having a little
- 6:58Speaker 7: tougher time with the employment situation and slow down, but
- 7:02Speaker 7: they have some longer term threats also. I mean, you
- 7:05Speaker 7: have more substitute products. You have legal cannabis. You have
- 7:10Speaker 7: the hemp based CBD THHC products that are now down
- 7:14Speaker 7: main street. You don't have to go to a dispensary
- 7:16Speaker 7: to buy THC anymore, you just go to the local
- 7:19Speaker 7: liquor store. You have the GLP one drugs where people
- 7:23Speaker 7: are Our studies show that are consuming less alcohol because
- 7:27Speaker 7: they're on those drugs. All those things are weighing on
- 7:30Speaker 7: the near term and perhaps longer term sales growth potential
- 7:34Speaker 7: for beer. And that's what the anamals are trying to
- 7:36Speaker 7: wrap our heads around right now.
- 7:38Speaker 2: What is the price elasticity on alcohol? Can these companies
- 7:42Speaker 2: pass along price increases?
- 7:45Speaker 7: Well, it depends on the product pole. The good news
- 7:48Speaker 7: among that other otherwise onerous outlook is that Constellation's Corona
- 7:53Speaker 7: and Medello brands lead the market in terms of growth.
- 7:57Speaker 7: Those products continue to command reamium prices. They're growing faster
- 8:01Speaker 7: than the market, so they're they're generating best in class
- 8:05Speaker 7: operating margins on those products, but you know, they're not
- 8:09Speaker 7: immune to the slowdown, and clearly they lowered their guidance.
- 8:12Speaker 7: Well the fourth their fiscal fourth quarter came in a
- 8:14Speaker 7: little better than expected. Some of the concerns out there
- 8:17Speaker 7: is they lowered their longer term sales growth projections. Used
- 8:21Speaker 7: to be, you know, a high single digit kind of
- 8:23Speaker 7: sales growing segment for many years. They came out and said,
- 8:27Speaker 7: you know, over the next few years, you're going to
- 8:28Speaker 7: see yeah, we're like low single digit. And the analysts
- 8:31Speaker 7: were a little taken aback by that. And to Alex's
- 8:33Speaker 7: question before, how much is that near term you know,
- 8:36Speaker 7: cyclical economic issues and how much is longer term demographic
- 8:40Speaker 7: things weighing on this category? So no one really knows.
- 8:43Speaker 7: So we'll find out.
- 8:44Speaker 4: Nobody knows, right, So then what does Constellation do about that? Like,
- 8:47Speaker 4: do they go build a beer plant in the US,
- 8:49Speaker 4: Do they look for some M and A, do they
- 8:51Speaker 4: pair back?
- 8:51Speaker 6: Like?
- 8:51Speaker 3: What do they do?
- 8:52Speaker 6: Well?
- 8:52Speaker 7: They're innovating. I would argue that Constellation is one of
- 8:55Speaker 7: the more innovative beer companies. So they're taking that that
- 8:59Speaker 7: base of a real good brand family of Corona and Medelo,
- 9:02Speaker 7: and they have Pacific go but they also are extending
- 9:05Speaker 7: into chiladas, which are very flavorful malt based products. They're
- 9:12Speaker 7: getting into the malt based seltzer markets a little bit.
- 9:16Speaker 7: They used to do it, but I'm going to come
- 9:18Speaker 7: back with a better product. Now they have a no
- 9:20Speaker 7: alcohol version Corona, So it's innovation. I think that they
- 9:24Speaker 7: believe can continue to drive sales growth. But there's no
- 9:28Speaker 7: silver bullet. I mean, there's no big acquisition out there.
- 9:31Speaker 7: I don't believe that they're going to make to enhance
- 9:34Speaker 7: their growth. I think they have a good brand and
- 9:36Speaker 7: a good asset to grow. But again, you're not going
- 9:41Speaker 7: to escape the long term headwinds facing alcoholic products, alcoholic
- 9:45Speaker 7: beverage products in general as a matter of fact.
- 9:48Speaker 2: So can you follow the beverages, the tobacco and the
- 9:51Speaker 2: cannabis companies? Is there a place to hide in your
- 9:53Speaker 2: sector here in a world where where you're going to
- 9:56Speaker 2: see potentially slower growth from some of these trade policies.
- 10:00Speaker 7: Well, of the ones you mentioned, Paul, I mean the tobacco,
- 10:03Speaker 7: particularly cigarette company lit cigarettes are some ninety percent of
- 10:06Speaker 7: that business. Still they are pretty much immune to the
- 10:09Speaker 7: tariff situation. It's pretty much a domestic business. Yes, there's
- 10:13Speaker 7: some tobacco leaf imports that come in and so on,
- 10:16Speaker 7: but by and large that's a domestic business. So if
- 10:19Speaker 7: if you're worried about tariffs, perhaps that's a place where
- 10:21Speaker 7: can can go in terms of, you know, beyond tariff threats.
- 10:28Speaker 7: Really the soft drink side of beverages is a good
- 10:31Speaker 7: place to be. I would argue that even the you know,
- 10:35Speaker 7: tried and true carbonated beverage sodas, you know, the diet sodas,
- 10:39Speaker 7: are still performing pretty well. They're innovating well. Cure Doctor
- 10:43Speaker 7: Pepper continues to come out with new innovation that's moving
- 10:47Speaker 7: that category. They're kind of leading that category's growth right now,
- 10:50Speaker 7: but they're doing a pretty good job doing it. So
- 10:52Speaker 7: that's a good place to go in terms of the
- 10:54Speaker 7: universe that I cover. Cannabis is tough. Cannabis. You know,
- 10:57Speaker 7: the regulation on cannabis is not easing. The Trump administration
- 11:01Speaker 7: is not being kind to the acadamist industry, and we're
- 11:04Speaker 7: not expecting much on the way of legalization liberalization near term,
- 11:09Speaker 7: with the exception of some states. Some states will probably
- 11:13Speaker 7: continue to legalize, but from a federal point of view,
- 11:17Speaker 7: I would wait for the next Administration.
- 11:19Speaker 2: Our thanks to Ken Shay, Bloomberg Intelligence senior consumer products analysts.
- 11:23Speaker 4: Coming up a conversation with Workday's chief technology officer on
- 11:26Speaker 4: artificial intelligence.
- 11:27Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
- 11:30Speaker 2: depth research and data on two thousand companies and one
- 11:33Speaker 2: hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via
- 11:36Speaker 2: bi go on the terminal.
- 11:37Speaker 4: I'm Paul Sweeney and a Malex Steel, and this is Bloomberg.
- 11:45Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 11:49Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 11:52Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 11:55Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 12:00Speaker 4: We look at research from Bloomberg n EF previously known
- 12:03Speaker 4: as New Energy Finance. They're the team at Bloomberg that
- 12:06Speaker 4: tracks and analyzes the energy transition from commodities to power, transport, industries, buildings,
- 12:11Speaker 4: and the agricultural sectors.
- 12:13Speaker 2: We recently looked at the effect of President Donald Trump's
- 12:15Speaker 2: policies on clean energy markets. This week, President Trump announced
- 12:19Speaker 2: he's raising tariffs on Chinese goods.
- 12:21Speaker 4: Many critical minerals and energy products come from China and
- 12:23Speaker 4: are subject to these tariffs, and that could have a
- 12:26Speaker 4: big impact on clean energy moving forward.
- 12:29Speaker 2: Separately, a Trump administration executive order said it's exempting forty
- 12:33Speaker 2: seven coal fired power plants from stringent air pollution mandates
- 12:36Speaker 2: and the goal is to revitalize the coal industry.
- 12:39Speaker 4: For more on all of this, we are joined by
- 12:41Speaker 4: Derek flackl b any F, lead US policy analysts.
- 12:44Speaker 2: We first asked Derek what he makes of the executive
- 12:47Speaker 2: order on coal.
- 12:48Speaker 8: Well, the executive order is interesting because this is sort
- 12:51Speaker 8: of a replay of what Trump tried to do in
- 12:52Speaker 8: his first term.
- 12:53Speaker 6: Right.
- 12:53Speaker 8: He had previously talked about increasing payments to or using
- 12:57Speaker 8: emergency powers for preserving existing coal plants, maybe bringing old
- 13:01Speaker 8: ones back online, and as we can see from the
- 13:04Speaker 8: power generation data, that didn't really work out. Coal is
- 13:06Speaker 8: now fifteen percent of generation in the US per year,
- 13:09Speaker 8: down from considerably higher levels before. So there's a lot
- 13:13Speaker 8: of different moving parts to this. You might see more
- 13:15Speaker 8: say coal exports, more long term gathering of coal leases,
- 13:19Speaker 8: which have been sort of moving back and forth from
- 13:22Speaker 8: Obama to Trump one, to Biden and now to Trump two.
- 13:25Speaker 8: But in general it's hard to say that this will
- 13:28Speaker 8: be a huge boon to coal build out or restoration,
- 13:32Speaker 8: especially when you have tariffs weighing on any kind of
- 13:34Speaker 8: big capital project.
- 13:36Speaker 2: All right, so talk about, you know, the energy ecosystem.
- 13:40Speaker 2: Where do we get stuff for the energy ecosystem, whether
- 13:44Speaker 2: it's fossil fuels, clean energy, where do we get the
- 13:47Speaker 2: equipment and is that something that's going to be impacted
- 13:51Speaker 2: by these tariffs?
- 13:52Speaker 9: Oh, very heavily.
- 13:53Speaker 8: Even for fossil fuels, which are often a very domestically
- 13:57Speaker 8: extracted resource, there's reliance on steel, luminum, specialized equipment that's imported,
- 14:02Speaker 8: which is why you saw the Dallas Fed register such
- 14:04Speaker 8: negative opinions about the tariffs coming in generally, more broadly
- 14:09Speaker 8: in terms of say solar equipment that mostly comes from
- 14:13Speaker 8: Southeast Asia, because we've had batteries, we've had tariffs in
- 14:16Speaker 8: China for a long time. Batteries themselves tend to come
- 14:19Speaker 8: from China. Electric vehicles are imported from a variety of places,
- 14:22Speaker 8: but especially you know, it's very domestic, with the fair
- 14:25Speaker 8: amount of Canada and Mexico in there. And lastly, if
- 14:27Speaker 8: you're thinking about say offshore wind, that's pretty dependent on Europe.
- 14:31Speaker 8: The only thing that's really effectively on shore and minimally
- 14:36Speaker 8: dependent on trade is onshore wind in the US.
- 14:40Speaker 4: What is the future of offshore wind in the US?
- 14:42Speaker 4: I mean, if we're talking about ramping up coal and
- 14:45Speaker 4: sort of there's zero love from the administration on offshore wind.
- 14:49Speaker 4: Have we seen sort of I don't know, leases or
- 14:52Speaker 4: any contracts be broken or do you feel like companies
- 14:55Speaker 4: that are still are still committed to the longer term
- 14:57Speaker 4: world of offshore wind.
- 15:00Speaker 8: Well, I mean what the offshore win companies will tell you.
- 15:02Speaker 8: This is a multi year, long term process of building
- 15:05Speaker 8: that's beyond any one administration. We have seen one lease
- 15:09Speaker 8: be canceled by the federal government for an ongoing project,
- 15:13Speaker 8: but generally speaking, we haven't seen a lot more movement
- 15:15Speaker 8: for things that have already been permitted and leased. Now
- 15:18Speaker 8: that's important because the federal government has a lot of
- 15:19Speaker 8: leverage over that process. We're not seeing a lot more
- 15:22Speaker 8: being added to the pipeline. But the real issue is
- 15:24Speaker 8: going to come in the form of costs, inflation, and
- 15:28Speaker 8: also potentially interest rates. We saw a major slowan an
- 15:30Speaker 8: offshore win under Biden, which is a very supportive administration,
- 15:33Speaker 8: simply because the cost of inputs went up and as
- 15:35Speaker 8: inflation went up. The FED height rates and wind is
- 15:38Speaker 8: a very large capital intensive project category and especially sensitive
- 15:41Speaker 8: to those kinds of things. So if the terrorists lead
- 15:43Speaker 8: to those broader impacts, we might see some fairly negative
- 15:45Speaker 8: results for even the offshore win projects that are already
- 15:47Speaker 8: allowed to go forward.
- 15:49Speaker 2: Derek, I think even folks that are you know that
- 15:51Speaker 2: question the value of the economic value of tariff in general,
- 15:55Speaker 2: they kind of recognize that some of this strategically important
- 15:58Speaker 2: stuff maybe that we ourn was strategically important from the
- 16:02Speaker 2: pandemic when they trade the cycles were all disrupted, the
- 16:06Speaker 2: trade routes were disrupted. That makes some sense. Is a
- 16:09Speaker 2: clean energy did they have a focus on bringing this
- 16:13Speaker 2: stuff on shore as much as possible.
- 16:15Speaker 8: There's been a lot of discussion of that across multiple administrations.
- 16:17Speaker 8: The Bide administration was in favor of that. The Trump
- 16:20Speaker 8: administration is in favor of on shory manufacturing generally and
- 16:23Speaker 8: of energy security independence, even dominance, as they like to
- 16:27Speaker 8: say generally, but that's a hard thing to achieve with
- 16:30Speaker 8: tariffs alone. Ultimately, a lot of the solar factories, battery factories,
- 16:34Speaker 8: ev factories that are coming up in the US are
- 16:36Speaker 8: dependent on imports, whether those are imports of upstream components
- 16:40Speaker 8: or of the manufacturing equipment needed to make the final
- 16:43Speaker 8: products solar panels and batteries themselves. And right now we're
- 16:46Speaker 8: seeing costs go up on those across the board. Unless
- 16:49Speaker 8: you have more reliable revenue streams like tax credits, for example,
- 16:54Speaker 8: it's kind of hard to imagine new decisions to build
- 16:57Speaker 8: that stuff out. Even things that are already being built
- 16:59Speaker 8: are facing uncertainty not only from the Trump tariffs, from
- 17:02Speaker 8: other investigations into tariffs being run at the Department of
- 17:05Speaker 8: Commerce and US Trade Representative, but also on the fate
- 17:07Speaker 8: of those tax credits, which is going to help guarantee
- 17:09Speaker 8: their revenues in the long term.
- 17:10Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a great point which leads us to the IRA,
- 17:13Speaker 4: the Inflation Reduction Act, which I mean, clearly President Trump
- 17:16Speaker 4: hates that thing, but there are is a lot of
- 17:18Speaker 4: value in it through the tax credits and subsidies for
- 17:21Speaker 4: companies that supposedly he is a fan of, like the
- 17:24Speaker 4: oil industry for example. When do you think we're going
- 17:27Speaker 4: to know the fate of the IRA and those tax credits.
- 17:30Speaker 8: That's a great question, and I've been wondering at myself. Obviously,
- 17:33Speaker 8: we're seeing a lot of wrangling between the House and
- 17:35Speaker 8: Senate about the top lights on their big budget bill
- 17:37Speaker 8: they're going to try and pass by the end of
- 17:39Speaker 8: the year. Obviously, the end of the year is when
- 17:41Speaker 8: individual tax rates go up, and so that's one of
- 17:43Speaker 8: the big forcing functions. You also are seeing the x
- 17:46Speaker 8: state the debt ceiling occurring somewhere between July and maybe September,
- 17:49Speaker 8: and that's going to be a point where there's going
- 17:51Speaker 8: to be a lot of pressure to pass a big
- 17:52Speaker 8: budget package, raise the debt ceiling, and probably also get
- 17:56Speaker 8: some of this tax material done. But we've seen a
- 17:59Speaker 8: lot of debt lines blown already for when we were
- 18:02Speaker 8: allegedly going to get top line packages, which are a
- 18:04Speaker 8: preconditioned to figure out what's going to happen what tax
- 18:06Speaker 8: credit and we don't even know that yet at this point.
- 18:09Speaker 8: We don't even know if they're going to use this
- 18:10Speaker 8: particular budget commit called current Policy, which would really reduce
- 18:13Speaker 8: the pressures to cut more. And as they're trying to
- 18:16Speaker 8: use that, we're seeing a lot of blowback from physical
- 18:18Speaker 8: conservatives in both the Senate but especially in the House,
- 18:21Speaker 8: and so we'll see.
- 18:23Speaker 4: Thank you so much to Derek flackl bn EF lead
- 18:25Speaker 4: US policy analyst. BLOOMERIG Intelligence recently hosted its fourth Generative
- 18:29Speaker 4: Artificial Intelligence conference and there were some great lineups in
- 18:32Speaker 4: terms of how you apply and make AI for more.
- 18:35Speaker 2: Alex and I were joined by Jim Stratton Workday, chief
- 18:38Speaker 2: technology officer the AI platform. Workday trades under the NASDAK
- 18:42Speaker 2: ticker wday.
- 18:44Speaker 4: We first asked Jim where workday sits in the AI space.
- 18:48Speaker 9: Workday builds and deploys and serves enterprise finance and HR
- 18:54Speaker 9: for major corporations, for state higher ed for large institutions,
- 19:02Speaker 9: and AI really is built directly into the products that
- 19:06Speaker 9: we build. So if you think about the different types
- 19:09Speaker 9: of workflows around running a business, around running a major business,
- 19:14Speaker 9: all of that is right to be infused with AI
- 19:17Speaker 9: for automation, for ease of use, and that's really what
- 19:20Speaker 9: we're building into.
- 19:21Speaker 2: Pointing now, so to what extent, I guess a lot
- 19:24Speaker 2: of US lay people we're trying to get a sense
- 19:26Speaker 2: of this is just the next step in the evolution
- 19:28Speaker 2: of tech or is AI elite a step function? How
- 19:32Speaker 2: do you think about the technology of AI, the compute
- 19:35Speaker 2: that it and the applications coming from that.
- 19:38Speaker 9: It is the next step really the next evolution and technology.
- 19:42Speaker 9: But I think the leverage that we can get out
- 19:44Speaker 9: of AI, it really is a leap in terms of
- 19:46Speaker 9: it's in exponential growth, in terms of productivity, in terms
- 19:50Speaker 9: of enhancing humans and the capabilities of what we have
- 19:53Speaker 9: in the workplace. It really is an exponential leap for
- 19:56Speaker 9: us in the technology space.
- 19:58Speaker 4: So give me a use case. So some of your
- 19:59Speaker 4: client like GE or Visa, right, I come to you
- 20:02Speaker 4: and say, hey, Jim, what are you going to do
- 20:03Speaker 4: for me? And how does it help me and make
- 20:06Speaker 4: me more productive or something along those lines. What does
- 20:08Speaker 4: that use case look like?
- 20:09Speaker 9: So if you think about across I'll give you a
- 20:11Speaker 9: couple examples across HR and finance. So think about the
- 20:15Speaker 9: recruiting space a talent acquisition. You have in many cases
- 20:20Speaker 9: thousands of jobs, hundreds of thousands of jobs that are
- 20:22Speaker 9: open across even just the US. Here within a particular
- 20:26Speaker 9: company you may be sourcing for you know, ten fifty
- 20:29Speaker 9: one hundred jobs or literally thousands of jobs across a
- 20:33Speaker 9: large enterprise, and you're getting in some cases hundreds of thousands,
- 20:37Speaker 9: millions of resumes into those jobs. Literally that many resumes,
- 20:40Speaker 9: it's really hard to go through and source that. AI
- 20:43Speaker 9: is a terrific space, and actually we have a recruiting
- 20:46Speaker 9: agent out in the market now that helps significantly with
- 20:50Speaker 9: that sourcing problem in terms of weeding through who are
- 20:53Speaker 9: the best candidates, what are the best skills, depths of skills,
- 20:56Speaker 9: even some of those skills are hidden. AI is actually
- 20:59Speaker 9: really good at map that into a job requisition and saying,
- 21:02Speaker 9: you know what, these are probably your top ten candidates,
- 21:04Speaker 9: and then handing that off to a recruiter to then
- 21:06Speaker 9: go do the human engagement interacting with those candidates and
- 21:11Speaker 9: finding the best, the best one, the best fit that's
- 21:14Speaker 9: already out in the market. And we're seeing incredible improvements
- 21:16Speaker 9: in terms of talent acquisition efficiency, what the recruiters are
- 21:20Speaker 9: able to source, how quickly they can fill roles. On
- 21:23Speaker 9: the on the finance side, I'll give you a quick
- 21:25Speaker 9: example there as well. Our finance teams and every finance
- 21:28Speaker 9: team at every every major company out there spend tons
- 21:31Speaker 9: of time pouring over contracts to understand the details in
- 21:34Speaker 9: those contracts and how that maps directly into their into
- 21:37Speaker 9: their books, into their financials. AI is fantastic at not
- 21:41Speaker 9: only extracting information off of contracts, but summarizing that and
- 21:44Speaker 9: actually directly mapping that back into the gl of a
- 21:47Speaker 9: company that's also out in the market for us UH
- 21:50Speaker 9: and and we're seeing great gains in that in terms
- 21:52Speaker 9: of efficiency of what the legal and finance teams can do.
- 21:56Speaker 2: So with what love of confidence can you say that
- 21:58Speaker 2: all this money that's being spent on AI is generating
- 22:01Speaker 2: a positive return or will generate a positive return in
- 22:04Speaker 2: a reasonable time.
- 22:05Speaker 9: Actually, it's a great question. There's a huge amount of
- 22:07Speaker 9: money that's being spent just on the pure advancement of
- 22:11Speaker 9: frontier models of really research AI, and we are seeing
- 22:14Speaker 9: incredible gains in terms of those moving to what we
- 22:18Speaker 9: call reasoning models, so the ability to actually think through
- 22:21Speaker 9: a problem in multiple steps and then actually go action
- 22:24Speaker 9: against that. I think that's going to have really broad
- 22:26Speaker 9: application across lots of things, not just enterprise software, but
- 22:29Speaker 9: just how we interact with everything in the world. But
- 22:32Speaker 9: directly within the enterprise world. We're now very much focused
- 22:36Speaker 9: and I spent a lot of my time talking with
- 22:37Speaker 9: CIOs out in the community, and they're thinking about this
- 22:40Speaker 9: exactly the same way. It is, how do we we've
- 22:43Speaker 9: already spent a bunch of money trying to trying things out,
- 22:46Speaker 9: playing around. Now we need to show direct ROI back
- 22:49Speaker 9: in those investments. And that's the part where we are
- 22:51Speaker 9: now is the products that are being built. The problems
- 22:54Speaker 9: that people like Workday, Companies like work Day are focused
- 22:58Speaker 9: on solving are direct ROI. How do we get efficiency
- 23:01Speaker 9: back into the business. How do we reduce risk in
- 23:03Speaker 9: the business. Those are the primary areas where we're going now.
- 23:06Speaker 2: Thanks to Jim Stratton, Workday's chief technology officer.
- 23:09Speaker 4: Coming up on the program, We're going to break down
- 23:11Speaker 4: how drug makers are being impacted by policy in Washington, DC.
- 23:14Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing
- 23:17Speaker 2: in depth research and data on two thousand companies and
- 23:19Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence
- 23:22Speaker 2: via Bigo on the terminal.
- 23:24Speaker 4: I'm Paul Sweeney and am Alex Steele, and this is Bloomberg.
- 23:34Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch the program
- 23:38Speaker 1: live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android
- 23:42Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen
- 23:45Speaker 1: live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station
- 23:49Speaker 1: Just say Alexa play Bloomberg, eleven thirty.
- 23:52Speaker 4: We move next to the drug and pharmaceutical space.
- 23:55Speaker 2: The Trump administration recently rejected a plan to pay for
- 23:57Speaker 2: OBCD drugs for Medicare.
- 23:59Speaker 4: Patients may now need to rely on Congress to expand
- 24:02Speaker 4: OBC drug coverage, with a potential scale down expansion possibly
- 24:06Speaker 4: emerging in a future Republican bill.
- 24:08Speaker 2: For more on this and the latest news in the
- 24:10Speaker 2: obesity drug space, we were joined by Sam Fazzelli, Bloomberg Intelligence,
- 24:13Speaker 2: Director of Research for Global Industries and senior pharmaceuticals analysts.
- 24:16Speaker 4: We first asked Sam how President Trump projecting obesity coverage
- 24:19Speaker 4: impacts that market.
- 24:21Speaker 10: Of course, what happened is that this has been something
- 24:23Speaker 10: that was put together in the Biden era in terms
- 24:27Speaker 10: of trying to get Medicare coverage for these obesity drugs. Remember,
- 24:31Speaker 10: medicare are folks that are over sixty five years old
- 24:35Speaker 10: and more likely to be overweight.
- 24:38Speaker 6: Not necessarily right.
- 24:39Speaker 10: But more likely to be overweight and more likely to
- 24:42Speaker 10: have issues to do with overweight.
- 24:45Speaker 6: So it's a.
- 24:46Speaker 10: Very important group of individuals to have this products available for.
- 24:52Speaker 10: But I think there is a general sense and I
- 24:53Speaker 10: think we had expected this, So this is not an
- 24:56Speaker 10: unexpected outcome that the Secretary of the HHS Human Health
- 25:02Speaker 10: Services in the US is not necessarily a fan of
- 25:06Speaker 10: obesity drugs. However, there's a little aspect here that's important.
- 25:11Speaker 10: These drugs are also covered by Medicare for those who
- 25:14Speaker 10: suffer from sleep apnea and cardiovascular morbidities, those indications, and
- 25:20Speaker 10: that usage has not been withdrawn. It's just the use
- 25:23Speaker 10: for obesity that's been withdrawn or at least is not
- 25:26Speaker 10: being proposed anymore.
- 25:28Speaker 4: So what I mean, can that be real? That doesn't
- 25:30Speaker 4: make any sense to me, And like, the whole point
- 25:33Speaker 4: of these drugs is to help obesity. How are they
- 25:36Speaker 4: going to keep that distinction?
- 25:39Speaker 10: Yeah, but Alex, not that I'd like to necessarily agree
- 25:42Speaker 10: with the kind of decisions that are being made or
- 25:44Speaker 10: disagree with them. If you think about it, if everybody
- 25:48Speaker 10: who has a comorbidity, for example, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease,
- 25:54Speaker 10: sleep apnea, and the only people who are not going
- 25:56Speaker 10: to be able to get it other people who just
- 25:58Speaker 10: overweight nothing else, that's a little bit easier to swallow
- 26:02Speaker 10: than if they were they said, Okay, we're just going
- 26:04Speaker 10: to ban it. Because those elements of protecting patients that
- 26:08Speaker 10: is important for health. Now, if these other obius people
- 26:11Speaker 10: ended up the ones who are now not being included,
- 26:15Speaker 10: just obs and no comobidities having one of these issues,
- 26:19Speaker 10: they would be included.
- 26:20Speaker 6: So I think the.
- 26:21Speaker 10: Issue here is some folks believe that all of these
- 26:24Speaker 10: things should be solved by eating better. Of course, we
- 26:28Speaker 10: all want to do that and not eating too.
- 26:30Speaker 6: Much, et cetera, et cetera.
- 26:32Speaker 10: However, society shows us that that's clearly not possible for
- 26:35Speaker 10: a lot of people, and they end up in a
- 26:37Speaker 10: situation where they gain weight and they put in more
- 26:40Speaker 10: energy and then they spend That's where the problems arise.
- 26:43Speaker 10: But so I don't think it's really as bad as
- 26:46Speaker 10: it sounds when you first look at it.
- 26:48Speaker 2: Novo Nordisk is down. Is that just the obesity play
- 26:53Speaker 2: unwinding for this name.
- 26:55Speaker 10: Well, you would think to yourself, but why would it
- 26:58Speaker 10: for this name and not for Eeli living right. We've
- 27:00Speaker 10: always believed that Lily obviously has a lot more going on,
- 27:03Speaker 10: but we all know that Lily is particularly driven with
- 27:06Speaker 10: the obesity aspect.
- 27:07Speaker 6: We also know that the obesity.
- 27:09Speaker 10: Drug from Lily, zip Bound, has outperformed NOVAL noticsts Bigov.
- 27:14Speaker 10: We also know that Novo Nordics is based in Denmark,
- 27:17Speaker 10: and there's this fight going on between or at least
- 27:20Speaker 10: a heated conversations going on between the US administration and
- 27:25Speaker 10: the and the Denmark Danish authorities. So I think you
- 27:28Speaker 10: can pilo these things up on top of each other
- 27:30Speaker 10: and worry about NOVO more than you would about.
- 27:33Speaker 4: All right, fair enough, what about the rest of the sector.
- 27:36Speaker 3: What are what are some.
- 27:37Speaker 4: Themes that are on your mind?
- 27:40Speaker 10: Yeah, so vaccines continue to be a theme on our mind, which,
- 27:43Speaker 10: of course there there's there's always words that get that
- 27:47Speaker 10: are spoken or statements that are written that seem to suggest.
- 27:51Speaker 6: That vaccines are a good thing.
- 27:52Speaker 10: MMR is a good way of stopping measles, But they
- 27:55Speaker 10: don't say you got to go out there.
- 27:57Speaker 6: And get it. That's what's missing.
- 27:59Speaker 10: On the other hand, we also have an issue with
- 28:01Speaker 10: regards to what I feel like is a I don't
- 28:06Speaker 10: want to call it an attack, but an undermining of
- 28:09Speaker 10: research in areas which are infectious diseases, which I just
- 28:12Speaker 10: do not understand why a tuber closest expert would lose
- 28:16Speaker 10: their funding. These are not diseases that no virus has
- 28:20Speaker 10: been annihilated. Maybe smallpox, but I think if you think
- 28:25Speaker 10: about it, measles, we didn't have any debts.
- 28:27Speaker 6: We have them now.
- 28:28Speaker 10: As soon as you let your guard down a little bit,
- 28:31Speaker 10: it all explodes. So that is I am worried about
- 28:33Speaker 10: that because I love the United States, I love coming there,
- 28:36Speaker 10: and that is something that clearly is a worrisome aspect
- 28:40Speaker 10: for me.
- 28:40Speaker 2: Is it shared to any extent in Europe?
- 28:43Speaker 6: Sam Oh?
- 28:45Speaker 10: I mean, of course vaccine hesitancy isn't a specific US issue.
- 28:50Speaker 10: The thing is that what you don't want is that
- 28:53Speaker 10: hesitancy to be fed from top healthcare efficients.
- 28:57Speaker 6: Over Here we have that hesitancy.
- 29:00Speaker 10: Don't forget the person who put together the MMR study
- 29:03Speaker 10: for and the discredited MMR study and Autism Link is
- 29:08Speaker 10: a UK individual but that's been discredited. But the UK
- 29:14Speaker 10: government and health services have continued to push that this
- 29:18Speaker 10: is the best way to get folks protected.
- 29:23Speaker 6: So it's not. Hesitancy is not just a US issue,
- 29:25Speaker 6: it's everywhere. What you need is health officials to be pushing.
- 29:28Speaker 2: It our Thanks to Sam Fazelli, Bloomberg Intelligence, Director of
- 29:31Speaker 2: Research for Global Industries and senior pharmaceuticals analyst.
- 29:34Speaker 4: We move next to the banking sector.
- 29:36Speaker 2: Wells Fargo recently became the first bank to abandon its
- 29:38Speaker 2: climate goals as political sentiment in Washington, DC shifts.
- 29:41Speaker 4: The firm's abandonment of net zero finance and mission goals
- 29:44Speaker 4: puts around five times of one percent of its market
- 29:46Speaker 4: value held by ESG and climate funds at risk should
- 29:49Speaker 4: investors choose to divest.
- 29:51Speaker 2: And for more, we were joined by Shaheen Contract of
- 29:53Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence. Senior ESG strategist refers to ask Shaheen for
- 29:57Speaker 2: more context on what Wells Fargo did.
- 29:59Speaker 11: So, wes Fargo abandoned its climate financing goal in particular,
- 30:03Speaker 11: So that's the emissions from its loan book. Typically it's
- 30:06Speaker 11: a much bigger emissions chunk than it's sort of operations.
- 30:10Speaker 11: So just to give you a sense of scale, it's
- 30:12Speaker 11: about let'ld say ninety five percent of its total emissions.
- 30:16Speaker 11: So that's what well Fago did. Other banks like HSBC
- 30:20Speaker 11: have delayed their operational emissions. Again that's about five percent,
- 30:23Speaker 11: So that's a much smaller piece.
- 30:25Speaker 4: So how do we distinguish between, you know, headlines where
- 30:28Speaker 4: it's like forgetting climate goals and just sort of changing
- 30:31Speaker 4: climate goals for some of these things.
- 30:33Speaker 11: Well, you have to dig in. I think it's the
- 30:36Speaker 11: difference is again that operation versus financed. It's not as
- 30:42Speaker 11: how do I say this as binary? Binary as like
- 30:45Speaker 11: diversity where they can dilute the language a little bit.
- 30:48Speaker 11: Carbon goales are either there or not there.
- 30:50Speaker 3: It is actually binary.
- 30:52Speaker 2: Are they walking away? Are they saying, we're not going
- 30:54Speaker 2: to restrict our lending to companies that have to fossil
- 30:58Speaker 2: fuel companies. We're not going to do that anyway.
- 31:00Speaker 11: Correct, So that's in a way what they're saying, because
- 31:02Speaker 11: what a finance goal would mean is we're going to
- 31:05Speaker 11: reduce the emissions small loone book from X to Z,
- 31:07Speaker 11: and that would probably come with reducing to these sectors.
- 31:11Speaker 2: Okay, now, what's JP Morgan, whatis City? What's Bank of America?
- 31:15Speaker 6: Said?
- 31:17Speaker 11: Nothing yet so far, so they have exited the nets
- 31:21Speaker 11: zero Alliance. That being said, they've still been on track
- 31:25Speaker 11: with their goals. They've still reduced to missions that is
- 31:28Speaker 11: in line with their targets. What's also interesting is West
- 31:31Speaker 11: Fago has also done that, but it's still abandoned its goals.
- 31:34Speaker 11: So what's to come We'll see.
- 31:36Speaker 4: What's interesting talking about abandoning goals like Airbus was just
- 31:39Speaker 4: saying that they still want to get to that net
- 31:42Speaker 4: zero by twenty fifty, but they're constrained by like infrastructure
- 31:45Speaker 4: and technology, et cetera. How much of that is wrapped
- 31:48Speaker 4: into the conversation, how much of that is aploaded not them?
- 31:51Speaker 11: So west Fago and his statement actually said that they
- 31:54Speaker 11: attribute this to changing custom behavior, to politics, to a
- 31:57Speaker 11: number of things. However, given that they're quite on track
- 32:02Speaker 11: to achieving this goal, which is also an analysis we've done,
- 32:04Speaker 11: we've attributed it to politics.
- 32:07Speaker 2: So the politics in the US are different from the
- 32:10Speaker 2: politics obviously in Europe for example. So are we seeing
- 32:14Speaker 2: any of the big European companies or sectors of companies
- 32:19Speaker 2: walk back some of the ESG goals so in a.
- 32:23Speaker 11: Much smaller way, yes, So again HSBC and UBS have
- 32:27Speaker 11: delayed their operational missions goal. Again, that's I would call
- 32:31Speaker 11: that almost insignificant for a bank. So they have the
- 32:34Speaker 11: bigger pieces of financed mission goals, which we'll see.
- 32:38Speaker 2: So if I'm a shareholder, if I'm an ESG fund
- 32:41Speaker 2: and I own Wells fargar, do I just sell my
- 32:44Speaker 2: position here?
- 32:45Speaker 11: So it could be at risk. Yes, I mean climate
- 32:48Speaker 11: is quite high up in ESG funds agenda, and we've
- 32:52Speaker 11: done the analysis. So for Wells Fargo, about zero point
- 32:55Speaker 11: five percent of its market value is held in these
- 32:58Speaker 11: ESG and climate funds. Honestly quite small, right, So the
- 33:02Speaker 11: risk lies in other more expost peers.
- 33:05Speaker 2: So just give me a sense once again. I know
- 33:07Speaker 2: we've gone over this number million times how much money
- 33:09Speaker 2: is in ESG funds roughly.
- 33:12Speaker 11: So if we look at ETFs, which is the analysis
- 33:14Speaker 11: I've done, it's about I would say, close to six
- 33:17Speaker 11: hundred billion.
- 33:19Speaker 6: Ok.
- 33:19Speaker 11: Now, let me go back. So I did this analysis
- 33:21Speaker 11: two years back. At that point, all ESG label funds
- 33:23Speaker 11: was about two point three trillion. So that's to give
- 33:26Speaker 11: you a sense of scale.
- 33:27Speaker 2: Now that's really fine in funds funds flowing out of ESG.
- 33:32Speaker 11: No, sorry, So I go back to the two point
- 33:34Speaker 11: three trillion number, which is all ESG funds. The atfs
- 33:37Speaker 11: are much smaller share, So I would say that we've
- 33:41Speaker 11: not done that analysis more recently, but it is two
- 33:43Speaker 11: point three trillion is quite large substantial share.
- 33:46Speaker 6: Yep.
- 33:47Speaker 4: When you talk about the amount of assets that are
- 33:50Speaker 4: in broader funds, not just ETFs, which is broader funds.
- 33:53Speaker 3: What the numbers that we're talking about here, So that.
- 33:55Speaker 11: Will be the two point three trillion that I mentioned.
- 33:58Speaker 11: So this is all funds with words, yes, she climate,
- 34:01Speaker 11: et cetera.
- 34:01Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 34:02Speaker 11: I would say a lot of those funds are changing names, so.
- 34:05Speaker 4: Okay, so we don't know if they're going to be
- 34:07Speaker 4: labeled that later on down the road.
- 34:08Speaker 3: Okay, okay, what's your biggest call for this industry for
- 34:11Speaker 3: this year?
- 34:12Speaker 4: Like, what do you think the biggest change is going
- 34:13Speaker 4: to be?
- 34:14Speaker 11: I think, given the recent headlines, I think a lot
- 34:16Speaker 11: of it is divestment tists, which I don't think people realize.
- 34:19Speaker 11: I don't think people realize ESG investor base that is
- 34:22Speaker 11: in a company. So if a company is like State Street,
- 34:24Speaker 11: for example.
- 34:25Speaker 6: They've.
- 34:27Speaker 11: Acts the diversity policyes the example, and three percent, well
- 34:31Speaker 11: up to three percent of their investor base is actually
- 34:34Speaker 11: in ESG funds. So I would say that's quite an exposure.
- 34:38Speaker 4: Our Thanks to Shieting contractor, Bloomberg Intelligence senior ESG strategist.
- 34:43Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
- 34:48Speaker 1: and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each
- 34:51Speaker 1: weekday ten am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
- 34:55Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app.
- 34:59Speaker 1: You can a so watch us live every weekday on
- 35:02Speaker 1: YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal