Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Softer Than Expected Inflation Points to Muted Tariff Fallout
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- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, and Android auto with
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- 0:15Speaker 2: Let's get to the bond market here. So we had
- 0:17Speaker 2: CPI came in better than expected, yet you have yields
- 0:21Speaker 2: lower by two basis points in the front end head
- 0:23Speaker 2: scratcher for me Ira Jersey, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior US Interest
- 0:27Speaker 2: Rates strategist. So in my one plus one equals two,
- 0:31Speaker 2: you get inflation less of a problem. Therefore the Fed
- 0:33Speaker 2: won't have to cut. Why are my yield lower here?
- 0:36Speaker 3: Well that's well, it's not only that the Fed won't
- 0:38Speaker 3: have to cut, but that the Fed can maybe cut
- 0:41Speaker 3: a little bit, right we take Yeah, So you know,
- 0:45Speaker 3: lower inflation and inflation below target or at their target
- 0:49Speaker 3: is a necessary condition for the Federal Reserve to cut.
- 0:52Speaker 4: So so the.
- 0:53Speaker 3: Fact that you only had a zero point two percent
- 0:55Speaker 3: month on month on inflation not a massive surprise. Quite frankly,
- 0:58Speaker 3: it wasn't a huge miss really when you look at
- 1:00Speaker 3: a lot of the details. But it was also a
- 1:02Speaker 3: good sign because people are worried that tariffs are gonna
- 1:05Speaker 3: have an effect. But remember the tariff's only went into
- 1:07Speaker 3: effect last month, so we're not going to see that
- 1:09Speaker 3: on shelf prices until this month and next month. So
- 1:12Speaker 3: I think the market in general like this relatively muted
- 1:16Speaker 3: reaction from the market is something that we're gonna have
- 1:18Speaker 3: to look through, at least on the inflation front for
- 1:21Speaker 3: the next until we get the prints from the next
- 1:23Speaker 3: couple of months.
- 1:24Speaker 5: What's the FED looking at IIRO these days? Is it
- 1:26Speaker 5: focusing more on inflation or more on growth? Because I
- 1:30Speaker 5: think a lot of folks are probably concerned that whatever
- 1:33Speaker 5: inflation levels we get, it's going to kind of hurt
- 1:36Speaker 5: growth more.
- 1:36Speaker 4: So what do you think the Fed's looking at?
- 1:38Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is certainly the conundrum that the Federal
- 1:43Speaker 3: Reserve is going to have going forward, particularly if we
- 1:45Speaker 3: get an increase in inflation and then we see a
- 1:48Speaker 3: significant downshift in growth and certainly the job market. Right,
- 1:53Speaker 3: Remember that growth itself is not what the Federal Reserves
- 1:56Speaker 3: mandate is.
- 1:57Speaker 4: It's really the job market.
- 1:58Speaker 3: So you can have slow growth or no growth with
- 2:01Speaker 3: a job market that's okay but not great, And I
- 2:04Speaker 3: think that that's the that's the potential, you know, big
- 2:08Speaker 3: issues that the FED might go to. So Ja Powell
- 2:11Speaker 3: last week was pretty clear in saying that, look, we're
- 2:14Speaker 3: going to basically focus on whichever of the two parts
- 2:17Speaker 3: of our dual mandate is farther from where we want
- 2:21Speaker 3: it to be. So if inflation jumps to five percent
- 2:24Speaker 3: and unemployment is still kind of, you know, four and
- 2:26Speaker 3: a half percent and not climbing quickly, then they're going
- 2:30Speaker 3: to focus on inflation. But if inflation kind of hovers
- 2:33Speaker 3: two and a half three percent, but it looks like
- 2:36Speaker 3: we're going to have negative job prints and we're going
- 2:37Speaker 3: to have five plus percent unemployment rate, then the Fed
- 2:41Speaker 3: will key on that and cut interest rates and maybe
- 2:44Speaker 3: give up a little bit on its inflation fighting mode
- 2:48Speaker 3: for at least some temporary period of time.
- 2:50Speaker 4: But you know, we're still far away from that.
- 2:52Speaker 3: I mean, our view had been going into this year,
- 2:54Speaker 3: and I think I mentioned it to you guys last week,
- 2:56Speaker 3: is that we always thought that that the market was
- 2:59Speaker 3: priced for the Fed to cut too early. Cutting in
- 3:02Speaker 3: June or July we never thought was a realistic possibility
- 3:06Speaker 3: because of this, you know, dueling economic scenarios that you
- 3:09Speaker 3: just laid out, Paul. So so now we're probably pricing
- 3:13Speaker 3: for something a bit more realistic. You know, fourth quarter
- 3:15Speaker 3: only two cuts this year, you know, you know, that's
- 3:18Speaker 3: kind of where we think the market's going to kind
- 3:21Speaker 3: of find a steady state.
- 3:22Speaker 2: So does that mean that around four percent is the
- 3:25Speaker 2: top for the two year?
- 3:27Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it is unless we wind up getting
- 3:30Speaker 3: some pretty some better economic data, so you know, we
- 3:33Speaker 3: had an upside surprise on next month's employment and we
- 3:38Speaker 3: wind up having decent retail sales data, all of those things.
- 3:41Speaker 3: I don't think that anything above four to twenty probably
- 3:44Speaker 3: on the two year makes sense. Like there's no reason
- 3:48Speaker 3: right now for the two year to be trading above
- 3:51Speaker 3: the federal fund rate, right So why would you sell
- 3:54Speaker 3: off fifty basis points in the two year unless you
- 3:57Speaker 3: really thought the Fed was going to hike, which I
- 3:58Speaker 3: think is not really it's much more likely that they
- 4:01Speaker 3: stay They stay steady for the next two years, and
- 4:04Speaker 3: it is at the increase rates at any time over
- 4:06Speaker 3: the next two years. That being said, just the financial
- 4:10Speaker 3: fair value right now on the two year note we
- 4:12Speaker 3: have at three point eight percent, So maybe the market's
- 4:15Speaker 3: gone just a little bit too far being very close
- 4:18Speaker 3: to four percent right now.
- 4:20Speaker 5: Are international investors still buying US treasures?
- 4:23Speaker 4: Are they still mad at US.
- 4:25Speaker 3: Now they are, And in fact, if you look at
- 4:28Speaker 3: the recent treasury auctions, they have been purchasing just the
- 4:31Speaker 3: same amount that they had been over the past couple
- 4:36Speaker 3: of years. Actually around ten percent of the recent treasury
- 4:39Speaker 3: auctions went to foreign investors, and that's pretty much in
- 4:43Speaker 3: line some of the investors that I've been speaking to say, well, look,
- 4:46Speaker 3: it's an economic decision that we're making. If our choice
- 4:49Speaker 3: is to buy our local government debt or by treasuries
- 4:52Speaker 3: and then hedge some of our currency risk or all
- 4:54Speaker 3: of our currency risk, and we can still pick up
- 4:57Speaker 3: yields compared to our home currency, to our home bond market,
- 5:01Speaker 3: then we're going to keep doing that trade. And so
- 5:04Speaker 3: until that economics changes, or there's real fear that the
- 5:07Speaker 3: US is going to default on its debt or something
- 5:09Speaker 3: like that, I think private foreign investors, in particular, are
- 5:13Speaker 3: you just going to keep buying?
- 5:14Speaker 5: Hey?
- 5:15Speaker 2: I are always good to catch up. I are a
- 5:16Speaker 2: Jersey Bloomberg Intelligence senior US Interest Rate a strategist at
- 5:19Speaker 2: joining us there.
- 5:20Speaker 1: So you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us
- 5:25Speaker 1: Live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarcklay and Android
- 5:29Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 5:32Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 5:35Speaker 5: Pretty solid day after a big, big, big move yesterday
- 5:40Speaker 5: in the equity indices.
- 5:41Speaker 4: Let's see what the professionals are doing.
- 5:43Speaker 5: Sarah Ponzik joins US first vice president of Wealth Management
- 5:47Speaker 5: UBS Private Wealth Management.
- 5:49Speaker 4: She's down there in Boca Raton, Florida. If you care,
- 5:52Speaker 4: eighty two.
- 5:53Speaker 5: And mostly Sonny in Boca today. I mean, if if
- 5:56Speaker 5: that's your gig, fine, enjoy it. I don't know.
- 5:59Speaker 4: We go for the change of seasons here, which Sarah
- 6:02Speaker 4: does not much. Jealous, Sarah, this is all that.
- 6:05Speaker 6: Sarah, You're jealous. No, if I make you feel any better.
- 6:08Speaker 6: We had a really bad storm yesterday. I have palm
- 6:10Speaker 6: fronds all over the house.
- 6:12Speaker 4: So it happens.
- 6:13Speaker 6: Today's sunny and warm and humid. But we are starting
- 6:17Speaker 6: to get some good brain.
- 6:18Speaker 4: Good for our good friends in South Florida. There.
- 6:21Speaker 5: Hey, Sarah, what do you tell your clients? I mean, boy,
- 6:23Speaker 5: you've had a market that just a few weeks ago
- 6:25Speaker 5: was down twenty percent from its peak. Now just year today,
- 6:30Speaker 5: we're back to flat. Are slightly up here, I mean
- 6:32Speaker 5: the volatility has been amazing. What do you tell your
- 6:34Speaker 5: clients these days?
- 6:36Speaker 6: It's been a whirlwind these past six weeks or so.
- 6:39Speaker 6: However long it's been, it feels like it's been a
- 6:41Speaker 6: lot longer than that, I think, I think for all
- 6:44Speaker 6: of us. But the message throughout April, which was really
- 6:48Speaker 6: the month in which we saw the brunch of the volatility,
- 6:51Speaker 6: was that you need to stick with your plan, and
- 6:55Speaker 6: you certainly don't want to be selling out of stocks
- 6:58Speaker 6: at the lows. If anything, if you were someone who
- 7:00Speaker 6: had had a liquidity event, if you had been sitting
- 7:03Speaker 6: on cash for a long time, that was the time
- 7:05Speaker 6: you wanted to start phasing into markets and start deploying
- 7:09Speaker 6: your capital and taking advantage of the volatility. Because, yes,
- 7:14Speaker 6: Liberation Day was certainly a day, I'm sure we all remember,
- 7:18Speaker 6: a very volatile one at that. But the expectation was
- 7:21Speaker 6: that was peak uncertainty, that was peak pessimism, and the
- 7:25Speaker 6: hope was that there would be negotiations, that we would
- 7:28Speaker 6: see come to the forefront between the United States and
- 7:31Speaker 6: other countries, particularly China, and that we would see these
- 7:34Speaker 6: tariff rates come down. Now, thankfully, that is what's happened,
- 7:38Speaker 6: and we've seen markets react very favorably to that at
- 7:42Speaker 6: this point in time, you Alex, you know, you just
- 7:45Speaker 6: ran through the numbers. Really, it says if markets have
- 7:49Speaker 6: made up all of those losses. It's pretty amazing to
- 7:52Speaker 6: think about, considering the sp at a time was almost
- 7:55Speaker 6: down twenty percent at its low, and now we're just
- 7:58Speaker 6: about flat. So sure, at this point the risk reward
- 8:02Speaker 6: doesn't look quite as favorable as it looked when the
- 8:05Speaker 6: market was down ten, fifteen, eighteen percent, But the outlook
- 8:11Speaker 6: is still pretty positive from here, especially with the expectation
- 8:16Speaker 6: that you know, hopefully trade negotiations will continue, and you
- 8:21Speaker 6: know growth is slowing a bit, Inflation you know, is
- 8:26Speaker 6: under control, as we saw this morning. So there's other
- 8:30Speaker 6: reasons fundamentally to continue to think that, you know, twelve
- 8:33Speaker 6: months from now, the market's going to be higher than
- 8:35Speaker 6: where we are today.
- 8:36Speaker 2: So if the calls you were getting a month ago
- 8:39Speaker 2: were what do I do? What's changing? I'm kind of
- 8:42Speaker 2: freaking out. What are the calls you're getting now today?
- 8:45Speaker 6: Well, people certainly feel better. It's really interesting. You know,
- 8:50Speaker 6: typically investors, we all know that you want to be
- 8:53Speaker 6: fearful when people are greedy, and greedy when people are fearful,
- 8:57Speaker 6: but in actuality, you know, people don't don't always act
- 9:00Speaker 6: that way.
- 9:02Speaker 4: You know.
- 9:02Speaker 6: It's interesting that, you know, the calls that we were
- 9:04Speaker 6: getting at the April lows, when markets were down between
- 9:07Speaker 6: fifteen and twenty percent, were more panicky, asking do we
- 9:10Speaker 6: need to change our strategy? What should we be doing here?
- 9:12Speaker 6: Should we be selling stocks, buying bonds, buying gold? And
- 9:15Speaker 6: we did meet some tweaks, but certainly weren't selling stocks
- 9:19Speaker 6: at those levels. It was more so talking about adding
- 9:21Speaker 6: at those levels. Now people feel better, you know, people,
- 9:26Speaker 6: It's interesting you would think that when markets are at
- 9:28Speaker 6: the highs, people are saying, should I take chips off
- 9:31Speaker 6: the table? But that's not necessarily the case. People feel better,
- 9:34Speaker 6: people feel more optimistic now that we're seeing, you know,
- 9:38Speaker 6: countries come to the table and discuss and these teriff
- 9:40Speaker 6: rights come down. With that said, I mean, I'm actually
- 9:43Speaker 6: about to have a conversation with a client who has
- 9:45Speaker 6: a big home purchase coming up over the next couple
- 9:49Speaker 6: of months. That's someone given that we've seen a rally,
- 9:52Speaker 6: that you might want to consider taking chips off the
- 9:54Speaker 6: table if you have a big near term purchase coming
- 9:57Speaker 6: up and you need liquidity. You need cash. Okay, you
- 9:59Speaker 6: probably feel pretty great now you're not selling with stocks
- 10:03Speaker 6: down fifteen percent, you're selling with them flat now on
- 10:06Speaker 6: the year roughly, so that you're someone who has something
- 10:09Speaker 6: like that coming up that changes the parameters. But we
- 10:13Speaker 6: typically like to say, you know, to clients who have
- 10:16Speaker 6: near term events where they need cash on hand, or
- 10:19Speaker 6: if you're someone who is retired and you're spending down
- 10:22Speaker 6: your portfolio, we typically recommend that you have a liquidity
- 10:26Speaker 6: buffer in your portfolio, say you know, for whatever that
- 10:29Speaker 6: project is, or say you know, even two to three
- 10:32Speaker 6: years of expenses, because that way, when the market does
- 10:36Speaker 6: fall and it's going to happen, and it's natural, you know,
- 10:40Speaker 6: we're all going to witness many more of these in
- 10:43Speaker 6: our lifetimes most likely, you know. That way, you're not
- 10:46Speaker 6: freaking out because you know you have the cash on
- 10:48Speaker 6: hand to meet the expense needs that you need in
- 10:50Speaker 6: the near term.
- 10:52Speaker 4: Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Always appreciate
- 10:53Speaker 4: getting a few minutes of your time.
- 10:54Speaker 5: Sarah Ponzek, first vice president of wealth management at UBS
- 10:58Speaker 5: Private Wealth Management.
- 10:59Speaker 4: Down there and book time, Florida.
- 11:03Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast Catch US Live
- 11:07Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Coarclay, and Android
- 11:10Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 11:13Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch US live on YouTube.
- 11:17Speaker 2: All right, well, let's get to one of the most
- 11:19Speaker 2: underperforming stocks within the market today, dragging on the Dow
- 11:23Speaker 2: Jones Industrial Average. Now, I know many people don't look
- 11:25Speaker 2: at it, but nonetheless it's a pretty chunky move, so
- 11:27Speaker 2: it's worth discussing. And that's United Health. Glenn lessev Is,
- 11:30Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence Senior equity analyst joins us. Now, So suspending
- 11:35Speaker 2: the twenty twenty five outlook, naming a new CEO, what
- 11:38Speaker 2: was the biggest surprise here?
- 11:42Speaker 7: So the biggest surprise was suspending the twenty twenty five guidance.
- 11:47Speaker 7: And this comes after the company lowered twenty twenty five
- 11:52Speaker 7: out cloak just about three weeks ago when the company
- 11:56Speaker 7: reported first quarter results.
- 12:00Speaker 4: So what's the problem with this business?
- 12:02Speaker 5: I thought the healthcare insurance business just just rips it.
- 12:07Speaker 7: Well, it all goes in cycles, right, It is surprising
- 12:13Speaker 7: that United is having these problems basically that began in
- 12:22Speaker 7: at the start of twenty twenty four.
- 12:23Speaker 8: If you remember there was a.
- 12:25Speaker 7: Change healthcare attack, and after that, it just seems that
- 12:28Speaker 7: United management was trying to fix things while other things
- 12:33Speaker 7: fell apart and has been on the back foot. And
- 12:37Speaker 7: that's probably one of the reasons that the CEO that
- 12:42Speaker 7: led the company see in twenty twenty one, I believe,
- 12:45Speaker 7: left the company and the chairman and former CEO is
- 12:50Speaker 7: taking the reins to sort of reposition United for you know,
- 12:55Speaker 7: next phase growth.
- 12:58Speaker 2: So, right, well, where is that it's going to come from?
- 13:00Speaker 2: Because there are higher than expected medical costs, right and
- 13:03Speaker 2: some reimbursement struggles. Can you walk us through we learned about.
- 13:06Speaker 8: That, yes, basically.
- 13:09Speaker 7: So basically, the company cited that the medical cost trend
- 13:14Speaker 7: among new members in the unit's medicare portfolio is accelerating
- 13:19Speaker 7: relative to the first quarter trends, which was higher than
- 13:24Speaker 7: expected already. Basically, if it continues, the company can always
- 13:31Speaker 7: sort of try to get more premium per member from
- 13:36Speaker 7: the government as it deals with Medicare, to sort of
- 13:40Speaker 7: to reset the margin expectations or normalize the margins. That
- 13:47Speaker 7: being said, you know, if the medical costs continue to accelerate,
- 13:55Speaker 7: and specifically with the sort of with everything that's going
- 13:58Speaker 7: on in Washington, with the sort of funding overhanging all that,
- 14:03Speaker 7: it may become a problem over the longer term. But
- 14:06Speaker 7: at the same time, you know, managed care companies can
- 14:10Speaker 7: always exit under performing markets. It just may take a
- 14:14Speaker 7: little bit longer than sort of investors would like to see.
- 14:21Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 14:25Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
- 14:28Speaker 1: with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
- 14:32Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 14:35Speaker 5: Another stock in the news Microsoft, So this is cutting
- 14:38Speaker 5: three percent of its employees to reduce management layers.
- 14:41Speaker 4: I'm looking at the stock here. It's pretty much unchanged
- 14:43Speaker 4: on the day. It's up six percent year to date.
- 14:46Speaker 5: But anytime Microsoft does anything, we want to get to
- 14:49Speaker 5: the bottom of it. On a rag rana he does that.
- 14:51Speaker 5: Force's Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology channelst onnurags.
- 14:54Speaker 4: It's just kind of annual culling of the ranks.
- 14:58Speaker 5: Or is this saying something about Microsoft and maybe where
- 15:01Speaker 5: it sees its future.
- 15:03Speaker 9: I think it's a little bit of both, because you know,
- 15:06Speaker 9: and the numbers three percent does not say much. But
- 15:09Speaker 9: at the same time, Microsoft is not hiring at the
- 15:11Speaker 9: same pace that it used to. And I think one
- 15:13Speaker 9: of the areas where it is deploying AI is coding
- 15:17Speaker 9: or you know, R and D. That's an area where
- 15:19Speaker 9: we anticipate productivity to improve because of the tools we have,
- 15:24Speaker 9: and not anticipating headcount to grow up. Second thing, Microsoft
- 15:28Speaker 9: is investing very heavily in AI right now. The capex
- 15:31Speaker 9: is going to be extremely high, you know, as north
- 15:34Speaker 9: those eighty billion dollars for the next twelve months, and
- 15:37Speaker 9: you know that they have to offset some of that
- 15:39Speaker 9: pressure on gross margins with cuts on the operating expense
- 15:43Speaker 9: side so that the net operating margin doesn't get impacted.
- 15:47Speaker 8: So I think I think it's a little bit of
- 15:48Speaker 8: all the above.
- 15:49Speaker 4: Was this a surprise, Not really.
- 15:52Speaker 8: I mean three percent to me does not come as
- 15:55Speaker 8: a surprise.
- 15:55Speaker 9: Three percent is you know, in an environment like right
- 15:58Speaker 9: now where companies are not anticipating the real attrition rate,
- 16:02Speaker 9: so on a normalized basis of a company is seeing
- 16:04Speaker 9: attrition employee attrition between ten to fifteen percent. We're not
- 16:08Speaker 9: seeing that right now, so the company has to do
- 16:10Speaker 9: something in order to get back to the normal range
- 16:12Speaker 9: of their financial planning. So it is I said this
- 16:15Speaker 9: doesn't sound too much to me, but they could be
- 16:18Speaker 9: a little bit more based on you know, who they
- 16:20Speaker 9: are trying to get rid of. If it's higher on
- 16:23Speaker 9: the paychecks, then I think it has to do with,
- 16:26Speaker 9: you know, protecting your margins.
- 16:29Speaker 5: An Rob talk to us about just what the investment
- 16:32Speaker 5: thesis is regarding Microsoft right now. Given some of the
- 16:35Speaker 5: tariff uncertainty, given some of the geopolitics uncertainty, what's the
- 16:38Speaker 5: call on Microsoft these days?
- 16:40Speaker 9: You know, for the last few years we have been
- 16:42Speaker 9: saying this is probably one of the cleanest stories in
- 16:44Speaker 9: AI and software land because it doesn't get impacted with tariffs.
- 16:49Speaker 9: There is some marginal secondary impact because of you know,
- 16:53Speaker 9: if we do get into an economic slowdown. But the
- 16:55Speaker 9: real benefit for them is they are hosting chat GPT,
- 16:59Speaker 9: the most favorite app of consumers right now, and they
- 17:02Speaker 9: get the benefit of that. So if you have let's say,
- 17:04Speaker 9: you know, your user base goes from two hundred million
- 17:07Speaker 9: users to three hundred to four hundred now we are
- 17:08Speaker 9: close to about five hundred million users, it really helps
- 17:12Speaker 9: Microsoft because they are hosting that app, and as those
- 17:15Speaker 9: users use chappid JAGGPT for a longer period of time,
- 17:19Speaker 9: they get to make more money.
- 17:20Speaker 8: So I think that's really one of the bigger.
- 17:22Speaker 9: Benefits where they are offsetting the risk that we are
- 17:25Speaker 9: seeing that other software vendors are seeing because of the
- 17:28Speaker 9: lack of headcount growth across the tech landscape.
- 17:32Speaker 2: So based on that, do we think that we're going
- 17:34Speaker 2: to see other tech companies follow suit in this particular way.
- 17:38Speaker 2: Like if Microsoft is a creme de la creme, as
- 17:41Speaker 2: you see it, who's next?
- 17:43Speaker 9: So Alex, when you look at it, as I said,
- 17:45Speaker 9: three percent does not scare me as much. But if
- 17:47Speaker 9: over the next six months we start companies come out
- 17:50Speaker 9: and say, well, I'm laying off like sevent to ten
- 17:52Speaker 9: percent of my workforce, that is concerning because that's concerning
- 17:55Speaker 9: for two reasons.
- 17:56Speaker 8: One, these companies.
- 17:58Speaker 9: Do buy software from other companies such as a Workday
- 18:01Speaker 9: or a sales force, because these two companies are seeing
- 18:05Speaker 9: some pressure on their seat growth because their end customers
- 18:08Speaker 9: are not hiding as much. So lack of hiding is
- 18:12Speaker 9: concerned not just for the companies or the industry themselves,
- 18:15Speaker 9: but for the software landscape as well, because primarily this
- 18:18Speaker 9: is a seat based monetization.
- 18:20Speaker 5: Model anark before we got all enmeshed in terrors over
- 18:24Speaker 5: the last few months, we seemingly talk to.
- 18:26Speaker 4: You every day about the AI story.
- 18:28Speaker 5: That's kind of follow the radar screen a little bit
- 18:31Speaker 5: here for I think Global Wall Street, not for you guys.
- 18:34Speaker 4: What is the AI story today?
- 18:37Speaker 5: What's the feeling in the marketplace about AI as a
- 18:39Speaker 5: growth story for tech?
- 18:41Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 18:41Speaker 9: One of the things Code one of the things that
- 18:43Speaker 9: deep Seat did for the entire space was divided the
- 18:47Speaker 9: space in two different buckets. One was the AI infrastructure
- 18:50Speaker 9: play and the other one is more on the application
- 18:53Speaker 9: side of it, and Microsoft i think guided them a
- 18:56Speaker 9: little bit towards that framework because when you look at it,
- 19:00Speaker 9: Microsoft is really focused on the inferencing side of it,
- 19:03Speaker 9: which is hosting the applications. Things that are more on
- 19:06Speaker 9: the infrastructure side, whether it's the chip building from Nvidia
- 19:09Speaker 9: or a recent type like code viv, they have not
- 19:13Speaker 9: done as well as some of the other vendors because
- 19:15Speaker 9: people are wondering, why do I need to play the
- 19:17Speaker 9: infrastructure game because it's CAPEX heavy and we do not
- 19:21Speaker 9: know how things are going to shape up in the
- 19:22Speaker 9: next two to three years. One thing is sort of
- 19:25Speaker 9: certain that even after three years, the number of use
- 19:28Speaker 9: cases on AI is going to rise. So you're going
- 19:31Speaker 9: to be on the application or the inference side of
- 19:33Speaker 9: things rather than the infrastructure side of things.
- 19:36Speaker 2: Right, And that's going to be a lot more profitable
- 19:38Speaker 2: going forward, but it also requires something very different at
- 19:41Speaker 2: the end of the day. Right, You're going to have
- 19:43Speaker 2: basically locations that are closer to the actual use point, right,
- 19:47Speaker 2: so closer to where I am and where you are,
- 19:50Speaker 2: versus out in the middle of nowhere. But you have
- 19:51Speaker 2: a huge heavy load. How does that change either investment
- 19:54Speaker 2: or power usage, et cetera.
- 19:56Speaker 9: That's probably one of the most important questions out there
- 19:58Speaker 9: right now. Like a Microsoft is saying, for my training needs,
- 20:02Speaker 9: I will go to those data centers that are out
- 20:04Speaker 9: in the boondogs in middle of nowhere, and that could
- 20:07Speaker 9: be my data center or I could lease it from
- 20:10Speaker 9: somebody like a Corvive. But for the application side, I'm
- 20:13Speaker 9: going to create or lease smaller data centers that are
- 20:16Speaker 9: well connected where I'm going to do the inferencing or
- 20:19Speaker 9: from the user point of view.
- 20:21Speaker 4: All right, Don Ragrana, thank you so much. We appreciate that.
- 20:23Speaker 5: On a rogron it covers all the technology stuff for
- 20:25Speaker 5: Bloomberg Intelligence, getting the latest on Microsoft.
- 20:28Speaker 4: I thank all three percent of their workforce.
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