Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / The Latest On Bond Markets, Fed Strategy And Investment Outlook
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. All right, I think
- 0:22Speaker 1: the topic of the day, slash week, slash month is inflation.
- 0:26Speaker 1: I think the transitory arguments kind of halfway out the window,
- 0:30Speaker 1: all the way out of the window, but the investors
- 0:32Speaker 1: are still trying to get a handle on that. Let's
- 0:34Speaker 1: check in with the professional, get his thoughts on Esta
- 0:37Speaker 1: Ramo's Chief investment Officer b MO Global Asset Management in
- 0:41Speaker 1: the US or now. So, thanks so much for joining
- 0:43Speaker 1: us here. Let's start with inflation because it's everywhere and
- 0:46Speaker 1: we we just got through a big earning season where
- 0:49Speaker 1: it was certainly one of the most talked about topics
- 0:51Speaker 1: on the conference calls. How do you think about the
- 0:54Speaker 1: inflationary environment we're in today and how does that color
- 0:57Speaker 1: your investment look? Thank you for having me um inflation
- 1:02Speaker 1: we believe might actually not be as persistent as some
- 1:06Speaker 1: people expect. There's a couple of reasons for that. Number One,
- 1:10Speaker 1: you have strong base effects. In other words, once you
- 1:13Speaker 1: have inflation ramping up as much as it has by now,
- 1:18Speaker 1: but compares get easier, you can't have I mean you could,
- 1:22Speaker 1: we saw it in the seventies. You can't at ten
- 1:24Speaker 1: temper cent temper cent stacking up year over year unless
- 1:28Speaker 1: something dramatic has changed the economy. We think a lot
- 1:32Speaker 1: of the inflationary pressures we see right now are derived
- 1:35Speaker 1: from COVID and COVID after effects, supply chain disruptions that
- 1:39Speaker 1: are the result of COVID lockdowns, and other things like that,
- 1:43Speaker 1: and all of those will be in the process or
- 1:46Speaker 1: are already in the process of resolving themselves. So I
- 1:49Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if we start to see inflation come
- 1:52Speaker 1: off of these high levels and perhaps into two end
- 1:57Speaker 1: up in the maybe two to four range, which is
- 2:01Speaker 1: a lot lower than received right now. So it actually
- 2:04Speaker 1: might turn out to be maybe the word is not transitory,
- 2:07Speaker 1: but not a permanent six going forward for the next
- 2:11Speaker 1: couple of years to speak, well, it was, I mean
- 2:14Speaker 1: the seventies inflation was transitory. Was just that one decade
- 2:17Speaker 1: pretty much. I'm curious. I'm curious um ernesto to hear
- 2:23Speaker 1: what you think about transitory. I mean, you did UM
- 2:26Speaker 1: your undergrad and something, Matthew, I think at M I T.
- 2:29Speaker 1: And then you studied UM statistics for your PhD at Harvard.
- 2:33Speaker 1: You get PhD in statistics. Well, I think that's pretty cool.
- 2:37Speaker 1: You do well. I had one semester that in business.
- 2:39Speaker 1: One was enough. I loved I loved it. But you don't.
- 2:42Speaker 1: I'm assuming you don't really use words as vague as
- 2:45Speaker 1: transitory or do they mean something different to you than
- 2:47Speaker 1: they mean to the rest of us. What do you
- 2:49Speaker 1: what do you think about? Well, the idea, I think
- 2:53Speaker 1: positial people thought transitory was one or two months or
- 2:57Speaker 1: maybe three months of high print. Uh. I think inflation
- 3:02Speaker 1: as a as a compounding mechanism is not gonna last
- 3:06Speaker 1: more than a few months. Uh. And that's that's basically
- 3:10Speaker 1: our base case. And look, the important thing here is
- 3:13Speaker 1: not so much that inflation is going to be here
- 3:16Speaker 1: forever or not. Is the fact that nobody really knows.
- 3:20Speaker 1: There's so many things right now that nobody really knows
- 3:22Speaker 1: what it's going to look like, inflation being one of them.
- 3:25Speaker 1: Do you have a huge, a very big distribution around
- 3:28Speaker 1: the potential inflation outcomes, supply chain disruptions, fiscal policy and
- 3:34Speaker 1: monetary policy, economic growth, earnings growth, all of these things
- 3:37Speaker 1: that normally people understand or are able to forecast with
- 3:41Speaker 1: some sense of accuracy. Right now, the outcomes are all
- 3:45Speaker 1: over the place. So so what do we tell investors
- 3:47Speaker 1: right now given all of the uncertainties around all of
- 3:50Speaker 1: these potential UH disruptures or positive forces for the for
- 3:56Speaker 1: the markets. The one thing you know is that stocks
- 4:00Speaker 1: are the safest place to be, even though they're richly valued,
- 4:04Speaker 1: because everywhere else you look things are even more expensively valued,
- 4:08Speaker 1: especially bonds and let alone are more speculative assets like
- 4:12Speaker 1: cryptos and so on. So so, at the end of
- 4:14Speaker 1: the day, the one place where you can find refuges
- 4:17Speaker 1: in stocks and within stocks, do you go growth, do
- 4:20Speaker 1: you go value? To use go small cap, do you
- 4:23Speaker 1: go large gap. We're thinking that right now the sweet
- 4:26Speaker 1: spot is quality stocks, and by quality I mean low leverage,
- 4:30Speaker 1: stable learning, profitable companies that are not necessarily your highest growers,
- 4:35Speaker 1: not necessarily your your cyclical place, but companies that are
- 4:38Speaker 1: relatively immune to the to the to the cyclical forces
- 4:42Speaker 1: also relatively immune to interest rates, but will provide some
- 4:46Speaker 1: decent return given all of the uncertainties that I just mentioned,
- 4:50Speaker 1: because the world is really murky right now and we
- 4:53Speaker 1: don't know how all of these forces will resolve themselves. Na,
- 4:57Speaker 1: how do you feel about the valuation in this mark
- 5:00Speaker 1: could place? A lot of people are raising that as
- 5:01Speaker 1: a as a red flag. Yet we just had some
- 5:03Speaker 1: really strong earning, So how do you think about that? Well? Also,
- 5:06Speaker 1: if stocks are the only place to be, do you care?
- 5:09Speaker 1: Do you care? Right? Well, that's the thing. I mean.
- 5:12Speaker 1: Valuations for stocks are rich, but valuation for bonds are
- 5:16Speaker 1: we been richer, So you have to put your money somewhere.
- 5:18Speaker 1: You can't leave it in cash because of the because
- 5:21Speaker 1: of inflation. You have to put it either in bonds
- 5:24Speaker 1: or stocks. And right now stocks seem to be the
- 5:27Speaker 1: least richly values of of these highly valued areas. But
- 5:33Speaker 1: but yeah, that is the biggest risk to see in
- 5:35Speaker 1: in in in the market, in the stock market, and
- 5:39Speaker 1: in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind
- 5:41Speaker 1: of a correction here of five to tem per said move,
- 5:44Speaker 1: because we haven't had one for for quite a while.
- 5:47Speaker 1: So but that is part of investing in the stock market.
- 5:49Speaker 1: You have to put your money there, and and and
- 5:51Speaker 1: put up with occasional correction. But over the next couple
- 5:55Speaker 1: of years, we think you will be much more highly
- 5:58Speaker 1: rewarded for being stocks that for being in bonds. At
- 6:02Speaker 1: this point, what about Westchester? Real estate? Is that safe place? Well?
- 6:09Speaker 1: Real estate, food and anything you talk about has been
- 6:13Speaker 1: so inflated by by your very loose monetary conditions, which,
- 6:17Speaker 1: by the way, we think will persist because whether you
- 6:20Speaker 1: get power or or brainer, you're gonna have loose monetary policy.
- 6:25Speaker 1: So so so that part of the question is good.
- 6:28Speaker 1: But real estate is up through the roof. Alright, thank
- 6:32Speaker 1: you so much. We really appreciate our rama's chief investment officer,
- 6:35Speaker 1: BEMO Global Asset Management. Let's bring she's gonna talk rates
- 6:43Speaker 1: with his managing director and global head of rate strategy
- 6:45Speaker 1: at TV Securities. We had Bill Dudley, former New York
- 6:50Speaker 1: Fed President in current Bloomberg opinion columns. He was on
- 6:52Speaker 1: Bloomberg Television this morning kind of suggesting that maybe the
- 6:56Speaker 1: Fed is falling behind the market. Here's that really late
- 7:00Speaker 1: to rates? How do you think about that? So I
- 7:04Speaker 1: think it all comes down to the expectation of will
- 7:07Speaker 1: inflation slow down or is a being a new normal
- 7:10Speaker 1: of high inflation and labor markets lack going the way
- 7:13Speaker 1: I think Dudley's comments suggests that inflation his expectation as
- 7:18Speaker 1: inflation states high, and so the FED will have to
- 7:20Speaker 1: play catch up because they would start hiking in his
- 7:24Speaker 1: view late. We're actually taking the other side of the
- 7:27Speaker 1: argument that inflation is likely to decelerate, that there's still
- 7:31Speaker 1: plenty of labor market slack. We're dealing with the frictions
- 7:34Speaker 1: of the labor market where people have left and they
- 7:36Speaker 1: have to come back, and and so our views of
- 7:38Speaker 1: the FED hikes only in two thousand twenty three. So
- 7:42Speaker 1: the market is pretty split. I think we have a
- 7:44Speaker 1: bimodal distribution in terms of you know what what what
- 7:48Speaker 1: are the inflation dynamics the labor market dynamics, And so
- 7:51Speaker 1: you've got views of those who say that the FED
- 7:54Speaker 1: is too slow, which is Dudley's argument. We actually think
- 7:57Speaker 1: the markets pricing into early of a FED high first
- 8:00Speaker 1: hike is being priced for July twenty two, right after
- 8:03Speaker 1: tapering in. But we think by then the fiscal drag
- 8:07Speaker 1: will actually start to show up. Both with decelerating inflation
- 8:10Speaker 1: as well as growth, and think that the FED won't
- 8:12Speaker 1: be able to hike next year. So well, it's a
- 8:15Speaker 1: pretty split market right now. I mean, because the economy
- 8:19Speaker 1: doesn't look that strong enough, doesn't look strong enough to
- 8:21Speaker 1: hike into Is that what you're saying. I mean, if
- 8:23Speaker 1: they hike just to stop inflation, that's not great. They
- 8:26Speaker 1: need to have a healthy enough economy in which into
- 8:29Speaker 1: which to do it exactly, And if it's just inflation written, um,
- 8:33Speaker 1: it's not even clear that inflation will decelerate based on
- 8:37Speaker 1: Fed hikes. I mean, the way it would have to work,
- 8:39Speaker 1: if the FED would have to hike, tighten financial conditions,
- 8:42Speaker 1: slow the cormy down, and then bring inflation so through
- 8:45Speaker 1: the demand channel. But there's a lot of evidence that
- 8:48Speaker 1: this is not a demand lead inflation, this is supply lead.
- 8:50Speaker 1: So it's not even clear that FED hikes help. And
- 8:53Speaker 1: to your point, yes, if growth is starting to slow
- 8:55Speaker 1: and we think the market is underestimating the extent of
- 8:58Speaker 1: fiscal drag, go to have been so strong this year
- 9:01Speaker 1: because of massive fiscal stimulus, and even though we expect
- 9:04Speaker 1: the one and three quarters TRILLI and build back better
- 9:06Speaker 1: plan to go through. That's not a next year stimulus,
- 9:09Speaker 1: that's over the next ten years, and so there's going
- 9:12Speaker 1: to be a drag from the fiscal side, which will
- 9:14Speaker 1: start to decelerate GDP. We've got GDP decelerating to two
- 9:17Speaker 1: percent by the end of next year. So it's a
- 9:19Speaker 1: very hard environment for the FED to hike as growth
- 9:23Speaker 1: is slowing and if there's evidence that inflation seems to
- 9:26Speaker 1: have beat. So as we think about inflation, a lot
- 9:29Speaker 1: of folks are saying, you're not going to really see
- 9:31Speaker 1: long term inflation until you get wage inflation. Is wage
- 9:36Speaker 1: inflation something that we need to be on the lookout for, absolutely,
- 9:40Speaker 1: But I think we have to really dig into the
- 9:43Speaker 1: details of the wage inflation numbers. They're high right now.
- 9:46Speaker 1: But we don't think this is indicative of the labor
- 9:50Speaker 1: market slack having gone away. We think this is the
- 9:53Speaker 1: function of the fact that a lot of people left
- 9:55Speaker 1: the labor market because of COVID, because of child care reasons,
- 9:59Speaker 1: summer time ins in there as well immigration. There's a
- 10:02Speaker 1: bunch of factors that are responsible for a small labor market,
- 10:07Speaker 1: smaller labor market than it would have been. But as
- 10:10Speaker 1: the economy recovered, as we moved towards the from goods
- 10:13Speaker 1: consumption to service consumption. We think people return, and so
- 10:17Speaker 1: wage inflation numbers we actually think are going to decelerate
- 10:19Speaker 1: as more people enter the labor force, and that's what
- 10:23Speaker 1: prevents the wage price spiders. So there's a key assumption
- 10:26Speaker 1: to our call that the FED won't be able to
- 10:28Speaker 1: hight next year is that we just start to decelerate
- 10:31Speaker 1: because people return. Now that's making an assumption that there's
- 10:33Speaker 1: no further COVID spike or another variant. But yeah, so
- 10:38Speaker 1: you're right, the wage component cannot be underestimated here well,
- 10:43Speaker 1: and the wage growth that we've seen of late hasn't
- 10:45Speaker 1: kept up with the inflation that we've seen of late.
- 10:48Speaker 1: Of course, there is a time when wage growth was
- 10:50Speaker 1: far ahead of inflation, and it needs to be even
- 10:54Speaker 1: out of bit. What do you think the overall picture
- 10:56Speaker 1: is when we get to the end of this thing
- 10:58Speaker 1: pre two, people make enough more to keep up with
- 11:00Speaker 1: the games and prices. I think in the near term, um,
- 11:05Speaker 1: the real wage growth is negative and and low, but
- 11:09Speaker 1: they've got a buffer through savings. The savings rate has
- 11:12Speaker 1: gone up significantly as well. Now there's a question of
- 11:15Speaker 1: do people really run down their savings. We think there
- 11:17Speaker 1: will be some component of that next year, and so
- 11:20Speaker 1: consumption might hold up okay, even though we just will
- 11:23Speaker 1: not be able to keep up with prices. But once
- 11:26Speaker 1: the savings rate comes back down to a more normal level,
- 11:29Speaker 1: then I think we'll have to settle down into you know,
- 11:32Speaker 1: real wages having to go up. Otherwise consumption is going
- 11:35Speaker 1: to get hit, which might be a twenty three stories
- 11:38Speaker 1: PREA thank you so much for joining us. We always
- 11:39Speaker 1: appreciate getting your thoughts here. Pre A Misra, Managing Director
- 11:43Speaker 1: and global head of Rates Strategy for TV Securities. Taking
- 11:47Speaker 1: more the transitory call as it relates to inflation, and
- 11:50Speaker 1: that is becoming I think a little bit out of
- 11:52Speaker 1: consensus the farther we get into this. Alright, man, I
- 11:58Speaker 1: went away for vacation and the ten years trading right
- 12:01Speaker 1: around one point six percent, and come back a week
- 12:03Speaker 1: later and it's still trading around one point six percent.
- 12:07Speaker 1: But I've got a FED that's tapering its bond purchases.
- 12:10Speaker 1: I've got a FED that's talking about raising rates maybe
- 12:13Speaker 1: next year, Yet not much movement here in the bond market.
- 12:16Speaker 1: Let's check in with somebody who does this for a living.
- 12:19Speaker 1: R J. Gallows, senior portfolio manager for Federator Hermes. R J.
- 12:22Speaker 1: Give us a sense of kind of how you think
- 12:25Speaker 1: the FED is kind of going about its business these
- 12:28Speaker 1: days in terms of tapering, in terms of disclosing, maybe
- 12:32Speaker 1: how it views the in strate structure maybe mid next year,
- 12:35Speaker 1: how do you view their performance? I think they probably
- 12:42Speaker 1: wanted to try to find a way to rewrite the
- 12:44Speaker 1: dictionary definitions of transitory. Right, there's almost no other way
- 12:48Speaker 1: to put it. Um. You know, to the point of
- 12:52Speaker 1: the tenure being at one sixty probably should be higher. Um.
- 12:55Speaker 1: We when it comes to duration, we like to look
- 12:58Speaker 1: at the average yield on market way to average yield
- 13:00Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg US Treasury Index. Now that started the
- 13:04Speaker 1: year at started this calendar year at fifty seven basis points.
- 13:08Speaker 1: It's now a hundred and nineteen hundred nineteen is the
- 13:13Speaker 1: highest it's been since pre covid um. And that's because
- 13:17Speaker 1: the most FED sensitive parts of the YOK curb are
- 13:21Speaker 1: very heavily weighted. If you look at the overall treasury
- 13:23Speaker 1: market to three five, your securities a lot of focus
- 13:27Speaker 1: on the tenure, but they may have actually obscure what's
- 13:29Speaker 1: going on here the Fed has had to inflect because
- 13:32Speaker 1: transitory proved to be an inapt inappropriate description of the
- 13:35Speaker 1: inflation problem. Uh, They're gonna have to tighten more. Uh,
- 13:39Speaker 1: So the short ends moved up quite a bit intermediate
- 13:42Speaker 1: to hang on, do you think they're gonna have to tighten?
- 13:46Speaker 1: Do you think they're gonna have to raise rates? Or
- 13:49Speaker 1: are you saying they're gonna have to um speed up
- 13:52Speaker 1: their UM taper? I think that the probably both To
- 13:59Speaker 1: me eightening tapering may not be tightening, no, but it's
- 14:02Speaker 1: pulling your foot off the gas. Uh. It's a precondition
- 14:05Speaker 1: to getting to the more traditional method of tightening, which
- 14:08Speaker 1: would be raising interest rates. And the market has come
- 14:12Speaker 1: to the realization fairly quickly recently that the inflation problem
- 14:16Speaker 1: isn't transitory. It's it's it's at least problematic if it
- 14:20Speaker 1: may be temporary, but it's not short lived. Um. And
- 14:24Speaker 1: as a result, the Fed will be doing both. The
- 14:27Speaker 1: taper may in fact need to speed up. I don't
- 14:29Speaker 1: think it would be too difficult for them to do
- 14:31Speaker 1: to do that, Uh. And then the liftoff will will
- 14:34Speaker 1: certainly come in two and maybe in multiple steps. Is
- 14:38Speaker 1: there we had pre a miserable on from TV Securities
- 14:40Speaker 1: on earlier r J, and she was kind of suggesting
- 14:42Speaker 1: that a rate increases is not event that it can
- 14:46Speaker 1: be can effect be pushed out there, but you're suggesting
- 14:49Speaker 1: something sooner. I don't think that's very likely. I think
- 14:53Speaker 1: that the Feds, uh, you know, we we have we
- 14:55Speaker 1: now have real interest rates at record lows and economy
- 14:58Speaker 1: that's apt to continue to expand. Um. Yes, there are
- 15:02Speaker 1: problems that are apt to be temporary in terms of
- 15:05Speaker 1: supply chain that are helping to fuel the inflation story.
- 15:08Speaker 1: But the problem for the central bank uh becomes more
- 15:12Speaker 1: complicated if they allow those those temporary inflation bottlenecks to
- 15:18Speaker 1: be reinforced in wage, salary and price expectations. And that's
- 15:23Speaker 1: where we're getting. You're seeing break even north of three. Uh.
- 15:27Speaker 1: The there are wage and salary increases all over the newspapers. Uh.
- 15:32Speaker 1: You can you feel it. The inflation story is starting
- 15:35Speaker 1: to heat up. I don't think this is seventy six,
- 15:38Speaker 1: you know, we're going on our way to nineteen seventy nine. UM.
- 15:41Speaker 1: I do think the Fed, though, has to inflect back,
- 15:44Speaker 1: you know, in a traditional method, which is they have
- 15:47Speaker 1: to raise interest rates they're probably gonna have to get
- 15:50Speaker 1: the FED funds rate, you know, materially above one and
- 15:53Speaker 1: a half, maybe two, maybe even more, they say, to fifty.
- 15:56Speaker 1: The market seems to doubt that the flattening of the
- 15:59Speaker 1: curve is the confusion in the market. Does the Fed
- 16:02Speaker 1: really have to go that much higher in order to
- 16:05Speaker 1: restrain the inflation problem? If they do, then they run
- 16:09Speaker 1: setting off a recession and you get that sort of
- 16:11Speaker 1: twist flattening of the curve. Hence the tenure isn't rising
- 16:14Speaker 1: as much in basis points as we've seen on other
- 16:17Speaker 1: parts of the curve. Yeah, but we do see real
- 16:19Speaker 1: yields down at one negative one twenty right, um, And
- 16:23Speaker 1: that's basically the lowest they've been, right exactly. And and
- 16:27Speaker 1: I don't think real yields would behave would be behaving
- 16:30Speaker 1: that way if people felt that greater Fed restraint to
- 16:34Speaker 1: come in the in the in the future. Here tapering tightening,
- 16:37Speaker 1: um uh comes without risk. It does come with risk.
- 16:42Speaker 1: People aren't sure how high the FED can go without
- 16:45Speaker 1: suppressing growth, and that's why really yields are not coming
- 16:48Speaker 1: off the floor. Um. I think if people had more
- 16:50Speaker 1: confidence about longer term growth trajectories than really yields would
- 16:54Speaker 1: be going up with nominally yields, and that's really not happening. R. J.
- 16:58Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley is out with a piece today saying steer
- 17:00Speaker 1: clear of US stocks and bonds. Is that something you
- 17:04Speaker 1: ascribed to? Um? Well, the chief investment officer of fixed
- 17:09Speaker 1: income of my company, and I have talked about this
- 17:11Speaker 1: for a long time. When inflation finally comes, it's going
- 17:14Speaker 1: to be tough for all financial assets. It's been striking
- 17:17Speaker 1: how the stock market has bucked the inflation concerns. I
- 17:21Speaker 1: think because transitory, temporary, whatever would you want to pick um?
- 17:24Speaker 1: You know, people have bought into that to some degree.
- 17:26Speaker 1: As that becomes more questionable, you wonder when does the
- 17:30Speaker 1: stock markets start to struggle to Right now, there's a
- 17:32Speaker 1: great front page story in the Wall Street Journal about
- 17:34Speaker 1: companies are benefiting from the inflation sturge. They're doing this
- 17:37Speaker 1: like once in a generation price increases. That's all great,
- 17:40Speaker 1: but you can't keep doing that. So a lot depends
- 17:43Speaker 1: in both markets, stocks and bonds on the timing of
- 17:46Speaker 1: inflations return to some more tolerable level. And since that's
- 17:50Speaker 1: yet unknown, I would think risk premiums need to be
- 17:52Speaker 1: installed in bond yields and they should keep going up
- 17:55Speaker 1: the stock market. You know, it seems to be bullethrough
- 17:58Speaker 1: right now. Of surprising, all right, r J, thank you
- 18:01Speaker 1: so much for joining us. We always appreciate getting your
- 18:04Speaker 1: thoughts and perspective. R J. Gallos, Senior portfolio manager manager
- 18:07Speaker 1: for a federator whom he's giving us his thoughts on
- 18:10Speaker 1: these markets. He thinks we're going to get, in fact,
- 18:13Speaker 1: a rate increase from the subtle reserve in two when
- 18:20Speaker 1: Matt Miller can't fill up his Ford F one fifty
- 18:23Speaker 1: truck with a hundred and fifty dollar prepaid card, that inflation,
- 18:28Speaker 1: uh questions is that transitory is not going to be
- 18:30Speaker 1: around for a while. Does he have to think about
- 18:31Speaker 1: going electric? Let's bring in Steve Wyatt, chief investment strategist
- 18:35Speaker 1: for b Okay Financial. Steve, let's start with the inflation question.
- 18:38Speaker 1: It is topic to you're here, uh, in the market
- 18:41Speaker 1: places here today? How do you think about inflation and
- 18:44Speaker 1: how does that impact how do you put money to
- 18:46Speaker 1: work these days? Yeah, thank you, good morning. I appreciate
- 18:49Speaker 1: the opportunity to be back on your show today. It's
- 18:52Speaker 1: the it's the sixty four dollar question for all of us,
- 18:55Speaker 1: and even as we think about the markets and we're investing,
- 18:58Speaker 1: if we're we're going to shift our thoughts on inflation,
- 19:01Speaker 1: which we would say that in the beginning we felt
- 19:05Speaker 1: like the cyclical inflationary pressures would be subsiding a little
- 19:08Speaker 1: bit more quickly than they are now. Uh. But as
- 19:12Speaker 1: we think about if that becomes longer term and the
- 19:15Speaker 1: implications in the capital markets around the bond market, what
- 19:18Speaker 1: that means from a pricing and a yield standpoint there
- 19:23Speaker 1: really make it when you think about managing risk a
- 19:26Speaker 1: little bit difficult, the downside risk and longer term bonds.
- 19:29Speaker 1: If Rache, you're going to move up to any material
- 19:32Speaker 1: amount or almost equity alike at the present time, I will,
- 19:37Speaker 1: first of all, I'll tell you, Paul that I want
- 19:40Speaker 1: an electric truck. But if I put an order in
- 19:43Speaker 1: now for the F one fifty Lightning, or if I
- 19:45Speaker 1: put it in order now for the Rivan or the
- 19:48Speaker 1: cyber truck from Tesla, no matter what, I'll be waiting
- 19:51Speaker 1: years before I get one of those. Your player, I'm
- 19:54Speaker 1: treating which get to the front of the line. So now,
- 19:56Speaker 1: which which kind of which kind of um? I think
- 20:00Speaker 1: reinforces the point that inflation is going to be here
- 20:02Speaker 1: for a while because I'm not going to get my
- 20:05Speaker 1: lightning that I ordered today until three, so I have
- 20:09Speaker 1: to buy you know, uh six point two leaders supercharged
- 20:14Speaker 1: ram t r X. Now UM when you when you
- 20:18Speaker 1: said Steve that it's um. It looks different compared with
- 20:23Speaker 1: the with the fixed income versus the equity market. I
- 20:26Speaker 1: wonder we were talking earlier with PhD from Harvard who
- 20:29Speaker 1: said the equity market is the only game in town
- 20:31Speaker 1: right now. Do you see it the same way? Well,
- 20:34Speaker 1: I would say this look a longer term if sharply,
- 20:37Speaker 1: higher interest rates or inflation are not necessarily good for equities.
- 20:42Speaker 1: But if you're looking for the asset class that at
- 20:44Speaker 1: least has the ability to respond to inflationary pressure and
- 20:48Speaker 1: protect investors capital at least in the short run, that's
- 20:51Speaker 1: that's the equity markets. If you're looking at cash or
- 20:55Speaker 1: fixed income, we just think the downside risk there is
- 20:59Speaker 1: even higher. Now within the equity markets, maybe there's some
- 21:02Speaker 1: parts of the market that certainly do better than others,
- 21:04Speaker 1: the cyclicals, energy materials. The problem is is that after
- 21:10Speaker 1: twenty years a plus of disinflation, they become such a
- 21:14Speaker 1: smaller part of the SMP five hundred that it's a
- 21:18Speaker 1: very narrow beat, to be honest with you, because those
- 21:21Speaker 1: those sectors that benefit from lower inflation have become so
- 21:24Speaker 1: much larger, but they can act as an inflation hedge.
- 21:27Speaker 1: Um is your point. I bought two thousand, fourteen f
- 21:32Speaker 1: one fifty raptor then for fifty eight thousand dollars fully loaded.
- 21:37Speaker 1: I'm ordering a new one now for eight five thousand
- 21:40Speaker 1: dollars fully loaded, and it's only been it's a seven years.
- 21:45Speaker 1: I'm just telling you the same product basically, um, although
- 21:49Speaker 1: frankly not as good because the old one had a
- 21:51Speaker 1: six point two leader narse aspected V eight and the
- 21:54Speaker 1: new one has a three and a half. The same
- 21:56Speaker 1: product costs more a lot more seven years later. So
- 22:00Speaker 1: we do see that inflation, Paul, We do, And so Steve,
- 22:03Speaker 1: if I'm if I'm an investor here, I mean, should
- 22:06Speaker 1: I be surprised that the ten years still at one
- 22:08Speaker 1: point six percent? I thought I would have seen it
- 22:11Speaker 1: much higher, given the taper, given the fact that we're
- 22:14Speaker 1: talking about rate increases next year. Yeah, So here's kind
- 22:18Speaker 1: of how we view this, And I've got to tell
- 22:20Speaker 1: you guys, the fact that the tenure note is remaining
- 22:23Speaker 1: as low as it is from Marlins is really kind
- 22:27Speaker 1: of a really negative message from the standpoint that we
- 22:31Speaker 1: entered this year thinking longer term rates could float higher
- 22:34Speaker 1: as we saw better economic activity and be we're able
- 22:37Speaker 1: to move to a scenario where the economy can operate
- 22:41Speaker 1: without this extraordinary amount of monetary accommodation. Be a quantitative
- 22:45Speaker 1: eas in which I'm glad to see the Fed get
- 22:46Speaker 1: out of that. The concept of throwing liquidity at a
- 22:49Speaker 1: supply constrained economy makes less and less sense over time.
- 22:54Speaker 1: But even as we think about the Fed trying to
- 22:56Speaker 1: raise interest rates off of zero percent, uh, we would
- 23:01Speaker 1: have hoped that the market could move to that, to
- 23:03Speaker 1: that type of an outlook. But as we've seen inflationary
- 23:07Speaker 1: pressures increase as we've as the Fed talks about tapering,
- 23:10Speaker 1: now the long end of the market, the flattening of
- 23:13Speaker 1: the yield curve, it's almost like the long end is
- 23:15Speaker 1: saying the worst inflation is now the lower it's going
- 23:19Speaker 1: to be longer term, because it's going to destroy so
- 23:22Speaker 1: much demand and make growth harder to come by as
- 23:25Speaker 1: we move a longer term. To me, it's just a
- 23:27Speaker 1: really negative message out of the bond market and something
- 23:30Speaker 1: we are kind of worried about. Why, uh do we
- 23:35Speaker 1: see consumer confidence hit so hard? Last week we saw
- 23:39Speaker 1: the U mission numbers at a low ten. You're low,
- 23:42Speaker 1: I think, so good time to buy a car, all
- 23:46Speaker 1: time lows, good time to buy a house, all time low.
- 23:48Speaker 1: It's all price driven. And look, I think you can
- 23:51Speaker 1: come back to kind of the old saw in the
- 23:53Speaker 1: commodities markets over time is the cure for high prices
- 23:56Speaker 1: as high prices. But the downside of that is is
- 23:59Speaker 1: it's becas of that demand destruction that uh that it's
- 24:03Speaker 1: not necessarily good from an economic growth standpoint. Look, we're
- 24:06Speaker 1: still optimistic on economic growth going into next year. We
- 24:11Speaker 1: think the labor market holds a huge key to how
- 24:14Speaker 1: this unfolds. The ability to get labor back into the
- 24:18Speaker 1: labor market one two, increase the productive capacity of the
- 24:23Speaker 1: economy to meet some of this demand that's there, uh,
- 24:26Speaker 1: to help untangle some of the supply change and get
- 24:30Speaker 1: some of the goods that are trapped in transit to
- 24:33Speaker 1: be distributed. But in a in an almost counterintuitive way
- 24:38Speaker 1: that's going to help cap if you will, the amount
- 24:41Speaker 1: of inflationary pressure that we're seeing from kind of what
- 24:44Speaker 1: you were talking about in your comments, and that is
- 24:46Speaker 1: demand that cannot be met. So prices just keep going higher, UH,
- 24:51Speaker 1: and look like they're gonna go higher. It looks like
- 24:53Speaker 1: it's gonna get a little worse before it gets better.
- 24:56Speaker 1: But if the labor market will untangle a little bit,
- 24:59Speaker 1: we start seeing UH people coming back into the labor
- 25:02Speaker 1: force right now, there is no fear of missing out.
- 25:05Speaker 1: You look at the number of quits and the jolts data.
- 25:08Speaker 1: It's almost unbelievable, isn't it so? But when you've got
- 25:11Speaker 1: help wanted signs everywhere you look, if you feel like
- 25:14Speaker 1: the job, Durana, I don't like this. I don't like
- 25:16Speaker 1: this job. Today you quit knowing that you can get
- 25:19Speaker 1: another job somewhere else. But we hope the labor market
- 25:24Speaker 1: unfolds from here in a way that it helps us
- 25:26Speaker 1: UH improve capacity for output and also help cap inflationary
- 25:32Speaker 1: pressure a little bit. All right, Steve, thanks so much
- 25:35Speaker 1: for joining us. We appreciate getting your thoughts here on
- 25:37Speaker 1: this economy rates UH in this market. Steve Why a
- 25:40Speaker 1: chief investment strategist for b o K Financial, and I
- 25:44Speaker 1: guess again, uh as Steve was mentioning, the job market
- 25:47Speaker 1: is certainly fascinating. We look at the jobs claims every Thursday.
- 25:50Speaker 1: We look at the jobs number on a monthly basis,
- 25:52Speaker 1: very very closely here, and the question is will we
- 25:55Speaker 1: get some of those five or six million people back
- 25:58Speaker 1: into the workforce. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast.
- 26:03Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews of Apple Podcasts
- 26:06Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm
- 26:10Speaker 1: on Twitter at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three. Pet On
- 26:14Speaker 1: False Swoeney, I'm on Twitter at p T. Sweeney. Before
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