Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Stocks Rise as Jobs Surprise Spurs Treasury Losses
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- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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- 0:23Speaker 2: Let's get to this job's number.
- 0:25Speaker 3: I mean better than expected, as John pointed out, again, weaker.
- 0:29Speaker 2: From last period.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Let's see what the world of the economists are thinking
- 0:33Speaker 3: about this. So Steve Blitz, chief US economist at TS Lombard. Hey, Steve,
- 0:37Speaker 3: what was your takeaway from kind of the various.
- 0:40Speaker 2: Parts of this job's report today?
- 0:44Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I actually find the market reaction a
- 0:47Speaker 4: bit perplexing because when you look at a lot of
- 0:51Speaker 4: the pieces inside of it, it really shows a weakening
- 0:55Speaker 4: job more trempening one. Right, all the job games really
- 1:00Speaker 4: were in restaurants and healthcare services. The rest of it
- 1:06Speaker 4: was added up to pretty much of a flat number.
- 1:11Speaker 4: A good part of the decline was an employment look
- 1:14Speaker 4: at the households survey was in the sixteen to twenty
- 1:17Speaker 4: four year old, so people who are parents who are
- 1:22Speaker 4: fretting about their children not being able to find jobs,
- 1:25Speaker 4: they're right, it is a bad market for them. But
- 1:30Speaker 4: when I look at a lot of the different things
- 1:32Speaker 4: that diffusion index and stuff like that, I see it
- 1:35Speaker 4: in number that reflects a lot of what ADP was saying.
- 1:40Speaker 4: Even though obviously ADP is typical the number, it's very
- 1:43Speaker 4: off from the reactual number, but it's a weakening trend,
- 1:48Speaker 4: especially against the backdrop of the Bays report.
- 1:52Speaker 5: Right then you have President Trump saying basically Defedcha J.
- 1:56Speaker 5: Powell on social media, saying the Fed's got to go
- 1:59Speaker 5: for a full perconercentage point rocket fuel. Is this an
- 2:02Speaker 5: economy that needs one hundred basis point worth of cuts
- 2:05Speaker 5: and rocket fuel?
- 2:08Speaker 4: Well, first of all, you know, a real estate guy
- 2:11Speaker 4: wanting lower interest rates is neither neither news nor novel. Right, So,
- 2:18Speaker 4: but I think there, you know, the fans betwixt and
- 2:22Speaker 4: between a tough spot here, right, because inflation is higher is.
- 2:29Speaker 6: Running if you look at it from an on a
- 2:31Speaker 6: rolling three month basis, we're still stuck in this too,
- 2:34Speaker 6: and af three percent range on core PC inflation where
- 2:38Speaker 6: it was under two percent you know pre COVID.
- 2:40Speaker 4: So we're still higher. Yet we're seeing lower hiring rates
- 2:45Speaker 4: and things like that and the fans leaning on the
- 2:47Speaker 4: inflation side. Everything that president is doing, all of his
- 2:52Speaker 4: policies are inflationary, not deflationary. And you know how all
- 2:58Speaker 4: of effect has a whole right, So I think that
- 3:02Speaker 4: you know, he knows he's got of a job. In
- 3:04Speaker 4: May's we're into legacy building on his part. And Trump
- 3:10Speaker 4: said a few months ago, though you know it changes
- 3:13Speaker 4: every day with him, but he said, no pay, no
- 3:15Speaker 4: gain on the tariff side. So it's a tough spot
- 3:21Speaker 4: for them. I think though, the we're going to get
- 3:24Speaker 4: a doubsh sentiment coming out of the June meeting, and
- 3:28Speaker 4: I think the chances of a July hike, well, I'm
- 3:31Speaker 4: not I certainly don't think they're gonna cut, not hike.
- 3:35Speaker 4: I don't think they're going to cut in July, but
- 3:36Speaker 4: I think the odds are closely to fifty to fifty
- 3:38Speaker 4: than what the market is priced in.
- 3:41Speaker 3: Steve, is this economy, I mean, how do you think
- 3:43Speaker 3: this economy is going to perform in the back half
- 3:45Speaker 3: of this year?
- 3:46Speaker 2: Here?
- 3:46Speaker 3: Is it a time when maybe some of these tariffs
- 3:49Speaker 3: are going to catch up and we will see a
- 3:51Speaker 3: market slow down?
- 3:54Speaker 4: Yeah, because there's a couple of things here that you know,
- 3:56Speaker 4: we're in a bit of a sweet spot. And and
- 4:00Speaker 4: I look to the third quarter one, firms are just
- 4:04Speaker 4: beginning to find out how much of this of these
- 4:07Speaker 4: tariffs they can pass through to the final price, right.
- 4:11Speaker 4: I mean, we saw the surge of buying, so they've
- 4:14Speaker 4: got a lot of stuff in inventory pre tariff. They're
- 4:17Speaker 4: going to sell it tariff plus their markup. What can
- 4:21Speaker 4: they get through, how much can they get out? And
- 4:25Speaker 4: then once they know that, then there's gonna be a
- 4:28Speaker 4: payroll question, do we now have too many people that
- 4:31Speaker 4: have to shrink my firm whatever, We're gonna find that
- 4:34Speaker 4: out in the next few months. At the same time,
- 4:38Speaker 4: you're getting the debt sealing is going to get lifted
- 4:41Speaker 4: in July either as part of the budget or is
- 4:43Speaker 4: it one off, and then it'll be part of the
- 4:45Speaker 4: budget later a few months later. And that means that
- 4:49Speaker 4: we've got to return to treasury borrowing a treasury borrowing
- 4:53Speaker 4: plus because they're going to borrow for the deficit and
- 4:55Speaker 4: Q three and then they're gonna also have to borrow
- 4:58Speaker 4: to put money back in the in the savings account,
- 5:01Speaker 4: and that's going to put up with pressure on yields
- 5:03Speaker 4: at a time when you don't really have a lot
- 5:05Speaker 4: of sponsorship for the ten year, so it really is
- 5:08Speaker 4: a going to get pushed up. And also what I
- 5:11Speaker 4: found is that there's a tailwind to the economy when
- 5:15Speaker 4: you have a debt ceiling in place, because Treasury is
- 5:18Speaker 4: spending money, they're not raising and you get the reverse
- 5:22Speaker 4: of that in the third quarter. So there's a lot
- 5:25Speaker 4: of things coming in Q three that are more likely
- 5:28Speaker 4: to slow growth than speed it up. And so what
- 5:33Speaker 4: the Fed does in reaction to that, we'll have to see.
- 5:36Speaker 5: All right, Chuck, Sorry, I Chuck, We're going to speak
- 5:39Speaker 5: to Chuck.
- 5:39Speaker 7: Just kidding.
- 5:40Speaker 5: Thanks at We really appreciate it. Steve, Steve Blitz joining
- 5:43Speaker 5: us from ts Lombard. Thank you for breaking down that
- 5:46Speaker 5: jobs number four.
- 5:48Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 5:52Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cock Play and
- 5:55Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand
- 5:58Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 6:02Speaker 5: I feel like yesterday we'll go down in the analogs
- 6:05Speaker 5: of history is where were you when dot dot dot?
- 6:08Speaker 5: The tweet fight between President Trump and Elon Musk. Arguably
- 6:11Speaker 5: two of the most important people in the entire world
- 6:14Speaker 5: started on social media and then erupted overnight into full
- 6:18Speaker 5: public display. Elon Musk Donald Trump's alliance just ended with
- 6:22Speaker 5: that public spat. Now, the latest read is that Musk
- 6:26Speaker 5: has backed down after Tesla's stock price just tanked his
- 6:29Speaker 5: networth crumbled thirty four billion dollars. Matt max Chafkin is
- 6:33Speaker 5: Bloomberger Business Week senior reporter and the co host of
- 6:35Speaker 5: the Elon Inc. Podcast. He joins us, now, who has
- 6:39Speaker 5: the upper hand here? Quote unquote who won?
- 6:42Speaker 8: Donald Trump has the upper hand here? He's the President
- 6:45Speaker 8: of the United States. He controls a lot of aspects
- 6:48Speaker 8: of Elon Musk's businesses. He also is the more important
- 6:53Speaker 8: cultural figure. The fandom around Donald Trump. You know, as
- 6:55Speaker 8: popular as Elon Musk is, the fandom around Donald Trump
- 6:59Speaker 8: is much more intent and he's much more influential.
- 7:02Speaker 2: That said, nobody's one yet.
- 7:04Speaker 8: I mean, this has been just disastrous for Elon Musk,
- 7:08Speaker 8: especially not ideal for Donald Trump. You know, I think
- 7:12Speaker 8: he'd prefer to just have the big, beautiful bill, his
- 7:16Speaker 8: his tax bill, the extension of the tax cuts, which
- 7:18Speaker 8: with a bunch of other stuff swirled in just sail
- 7:21Speaker 8: through the Senate rather than have this very influential, very loud,
- 7:26Speaker 8: rich guy, you know, banging on on Twitter or suggesting
- 7:28Speaker 8: he should be impeached and so on. So so I'm
- 7:31Speaker 8: not sure there are any winners. I will say I
- 7:33Speaker 8: was shocked by this because and I wrote a piece
- 7:36Speaker 8: a week ago basically saying, you know, for all the
- 7:39Speaker 8: talk of a breakup, you shouldn't bet on it, because
- 7:41Speaker 8: there are so many reasons why these two guys need
- 7:44Speaker 8: each other. And of course that's looking like not the
- 7:47Speaker 8: right take on this. And and you know, it just
- 7:51Speaker 8: seems like Elon Musk at his most erratic, most self destructive,
- 7:56Speaker 8: you know, taking the opportunity he had the chance to
- 7:59Speaker 8: exit the White House, you know, gracefully maintain his contact,
- 8:03Speaker 8: his influence with Trump, while also keeping investors happy by
- 8:07Speaker 8: by by spending more time with his companies.
- 8:09Speaker 2: And that all feels like it's out the window.
- 8:11Speaker 8: He's not spending time with his companies, he's spending time
- 8:13Speaker 8: on Twitter.
- 8:14Speaker 2: You know.
- 8:15Speaker 8: Obviously, investors not going to be thrilled with the stock price.
- 8:17Speaker 8: I think they're hoping, against hope that he somehow backs
- 8:20Speaker 8: down and they are able to resolve this.
- 8:23Speaker 3: My personally, I saw this day coming the first day
- 8:27Speaker 3: they got together, said this is exactly how it's going
- 8:30Speaker 3: to end. This is how it always ends when someone
- 8:32Speaker 3: gets closest to President Trump, either in his political life
- 8:35Speaker 3: or in his personal life. That's been well documented. Didn't
- 8:38Speaker 3: Elon what was Elon's thinking? Didn't Elon know it had
- 8:41Speaker 3: to end this way?
- 8:42Speaker 8: You know, Elon Musk is not a man renowned for humility, right.
- 8:46Speaker 2: This is a guy whose.
- 8:47Speaker 8: Whole thing is doing more than anyone can do. I
- 8:52Speaker 8: think the big surprise here for Elon Musk was that
- 8:56Speaker 8: he wasn't able to control Donald Trump in the way
- 9:01Speaker 8: that I think he imagined. And you see that come
- 9:03Speaker 8: out that in that very surreal Oval Office meeting with
- 9:07Speaker 8: Friedrich Murz yesterday where Trump is talking about ev tax credits,
- 9:11Speaker 8: he's talking about the ways in which he wasn't delivering
- 9:15Speaker 8: for Elon Musk.
- 9:15Speaker 2: And I think ultimately that is a big part of this.
- 9:18Speaker 2: Of course, there's also ego.
- 9:20Speaker 8: You know that there is the you know, like kind
- 9:22Speaker 8: of what you're alluding to here, Paul, the two alpha
- 9:26Speaker 8: guys who can't handle, you know, playing second fiddle, And
- 9:30Speaker 8: I think that's that's another factor.
- 9:32Speaker 5: What on the other on the flip side, though, one
- 9:33Speaker 5: can make the argument that the US government really does
- 9:36Speaker 5: need Elon Musk when it comes to SpaceX.
- 9:38Speaker 2: Absolutely without that.
- 9:40Speaker 5: I mean, I realized that Musk is back down on
- 9:43Speaker 5: his threats to pull space SpaceX in the government. But
- 9:46Speaker 5: how important is that to our government? What does it
- 9:49Speaker 5: mean if Musk did pull out?
- 9:51Speaker 2: What would that look like?
- 9:52Speaker 8: I mean, it was that, honestly, was probably the most
- 9:56Speaker 8: shocking thing that happened yesterday. It was Elon Musk threatened
- 10:00Speaker 8: to cancel its Dragon spacecraft, that is the vessel that
- 10:04Speaker 8: is used to bring cargo and astronauts to the International
- 10:07Speaker 8: Space Program. He's effectively saying, I am going to end
- 10:12Speaker 8: the US support for the ISS, which you know, obviously
- 10:15Speaker 8: the ISS is not like a military program. But that's
- 10:18Speaker 8: the kind of thing that I think the Pentagon probably
- 10:21Speaker 8: would react very negatively to. And you're right, there aren't
- 10:25Speaker 8: really any other aerospace companies that can do what Elon
- 10:29Speaker 8: Musk can can do. But but you saw immediately saw
- 10:32Speaker 8: people in MAGA world talking about nationalizing SpaceX, And honestly,
- 10:37Speaker 8: I don't think that is the craziest like I think
- 10:40Speaker 8: I think you would have started, you would have seen
- 10:41Speaker 8: that start to bubble up if if Elon must try
- 10:44Speaker 8: to make good on this threat, because the Pentagon has
- 10:47Speaker 8: like put itself in a position where it really is
- 10:49Speaker 8: dependent on SpaceX. You know, long run, the US government
- 10:54Speaker 8: has a lot of money, and there are other big
- 10:55Speaker 8: defense contractors, and they also have launch vehicles.
- 10:58Speaker 2: So I think you know this.
- 11:00Speaker 8: It's not like Elon can just can just dictate policy
- 11:04Speaker 8: to Donald Trump because of his position in the aerospace market,
- 11:08Speaker 8: in the launch market, but his position is stronger because
- 11:11Speaker 8: of that.
- 11:11Speaker 9: Hey, from the peanut gallery of question, can these companies
- 11:16Speaker 9: survive and thrive someday without Elon?
- 11:19Speaker 8: You know, I've been talking to Tesla investors and one
- 11:22Speaker 8: of the interesting things you hear in the before this happened,
- 11:28Speaker 8: there were people saying, hey, Tesla will be better off
- 11:31Speaker 8: without Elon Musk. But it was really a kind of
- 11:33Speaker 8: a rump coalition, right. It's the basically the people who
- 11:37Speaker 8: are really upset by his behavior, who see him walking
- 11:40Speaker 8: away from evs and the sort of like ROBOTAXI Elon
- 11:45Speaker 8: Musk as a visionary. Those folks really saw Elon as
- 11:49Speaker 8: being one hundred percent linked with the success of Tesla,
- 11:52Speaker 8: like there would be no way for Tesla to.
- 11:54Speaker 2: Succeed without him.
- 11:56Speaker 8: You know, I'm starting to hear little murmurs of hey,
- 11:59Speaker 8: you know, actually, like our robotaxes are pretty good, we
- 12:02Speaker 8: wouldn't necessarily need Elon Musk. I think if Elon Musk
- 12:06Speaker 8: were ousted from the company tomorrow or today, the stock
- 12:09Speaker 8: would instantly plummet, because the shareholder base is really much
- 12:13Speaker 8: is very much behind him. That said, if enough things
- 12:17Speaker 8: like this happens, you know, like crazy things can happen,
- 12:21Speaker 8: and this is an important company. This is a company
- 12:23Speaker 8: with you know, a huge amount of market cap. There
- 12:25Speaker 8: is a lot of money on the line, and anytime
- 12:27Speaker 8: when there's a lot of money on the line, you know,
- 12:29Speaker 8: opinions can change very quickly.
- 12:31Speaker 2: All Right, Max, thanks so much, appreciate it.
- 12:33Speaker 3: Max Chaffian, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Senior reporter and co host of
- 12:36Speaker 3: the Elon Inc.
- 12:38Speaker 2: Podcasters.
- 12:38Speaker 3: Anybody knows what's going on inside the head of Elon
- 12:41Speaker 3: Musk in this building, it would be Max Chaffick.
- 12:43Speaker 2: I appreciate getting a.
- 12:44Speaker 3: Few minutes of his time on our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio.
- 12:49Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch US Live
- 12:53Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 12:56Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 12:59Speaker 1: you get your or watch US live on YouTube.
- 13:03Speaker 3: Looks like Harvard has won a reprieve from some of
- 13:06Speaker 3: Trump's bands, particularly as rates to foreign students.
- 13:08Speaker 2: What's the latest janet?
- 13:10Speaker 9: Yes, So that came last night, a temporary restraining order
- 13:15Speaker 9: from President Trump's latest efforts on international students, and that
- 13:19Speaker 9: was banning them from entering following a couple of weeks
- 13:25Speaker 9: ago revoking Harvard's ability to issue student visas. So another
- 13:31Speaker 9: pause on a second track regarding international students, and in
- 13:37Speaker 9: Harvard filed a third lawsuit yesterday. It's getting hard to
- 13:42Speaker 9: keep track of everything because there's so much going on.
- 13:44Speaker 5: It was hard before, Like now your spreadsheet must be huge.
- 13:48Speaker 5: But if I'm a foreign student, even though it's going
- 13:51Speaker 5: to go to the courts and there's been stays on
- 13:53Speaker 5: it from the court system, why would I want to
- 13:55Speaker 5: go to Harvard anymore? Why would I want to go
- 13:57Speaker 5: to any major US institution.
- 13:58Speaker 9: Yeah, No, it's a good question, and I think the
- 14:01Speaker 9: intention is to as we've talked about before, So uncertainty, confusion,
- 14:07Speaker 9: do I go What if I'm going just for the summer,
- 14:09Speaker 9: if I'm going to go for a four year program?
- 14:12Speaker 9: Is this going to be continuous disruptions? It's it's very confusing,
- 14:18Speaker 9: and if you're an international student, somebody you know, seventeen
- 14:21Speaker 9: eighteen years old starting college, it's it's confusing and it's scary.
- 14:27Speaker 3: Harvard appears to be I guess Harvard recognizes it's being
- 14:30Speaker 3: targeted by the Trump administration. Their strategy seems to be
- 14:33Speaker 3: to fight back. Have they said what their strategy is,
- 14:37Speaker 3: how aggressive they plan to do this. Are they still
- 14:39Speaker 3: in the mode of, you know, we'll work something out
- 14:41Speaker 3: with you the administration, or what have they been saying.
- 14:44Speaker 9: Recently, Well publicly, what they're saying is in their lawsuits
- 14:48Speaker 9: and they they're trying to fight back, And you know, privately,
- 14:52Speaker 9: I'm not sure what's going on. But you know, they
- 14:55Speaker 9: certainly train a lot of lawyers, and they certainly train a.
- 14:58Speaker 2: Lot of people in strategy.
- 15:01Speaker 9: But you know, as we've talked about before, the federal
- 15:04Speaker 9: government has tremendous power and money at stake. You saw
- 15:08Speaker 9: the other day the administration talking about accreditation in Colombia.
- 15:13Speaker 9: What that triggers is issues over federal student loans, which
- 15:18Speaker 9: doesn't affect international students because they can't take federal student loans.
- 15:22Speaker 2: But that's another.
- 15:23Speaker 9: Potential money source that's you know, hundreds of millions of
- 15:26Speaker 9: dollars that you know, that's upping the ante for a
- 15:31Speaker 9: completely different source of revenue that we haven't seen before.
- 15:34Speaker 9: And it's actually not revenue, but it's it helps the
- 15:36Speaker 9: students finance or education. Because a year at Harvard Law
- 15:40Speaker 9: School Columbia Law School is about one hundred and twenty
- 15:43Speaker 9: thousand dollars, So how are you going to pay for
- 15:46Speaker 9: that student loans?
- 15:48Speaker 2: Yep, these are great questions. What else is on your radar.
- 15:51Speaker 5: In the world of higher education? Obviously this Harvard thing
- 15:56Speaker 5: will unfold as it goes. What else is a front
- 15:58Speaker 5: and center for you?
- 16:00Speaker 9: Well, we can talk about secondary sales of private equity.
- 16:05Speaker 2: That's another issue.
- 16:06Speaker 9: We had a story about a month ago that Harvard
- 16:08Speaker 9: had been shopping around about a billion dollars in private
- 16:12Speaker 9: equity secondary sales. We had a story this week about
- 16:15Speaker 9: Yale closing in on selling about two point five billion
- 16:20Speaker 9: in secondary sale.
- 16:21Speaker 5: And by secondary is we mean that they have private
- 16:22Speaker 5: equity investments they can't get out of them, so they're
- 16:24Speaker 5: going to sell them to someone else who's going to
- 16:25Speaker 5: get them because they need the liquidity.
- 16:27Speaker 2: Well, Yale, good question about liquidity.
- 16:32Speaker 9: So when we're talking about forty one billion dollar endowment,
- 16:37Speaker 9: they have roughly, you know, thirty to forty percent in
- 16:40Speaker 9: private equity tied up. Is it a question of liquidity? Possibly? Yes,
- 16:45Speaker 9: certainly for some universities, but as we know, private equity
- 16:49Speaker 9: has not really been returning very much lately. And to
- 16:53Speaker 9: have a huge chunk of your endowment tied up in
- 16:56Speaker 9: an investment that isn't giving you distributions like it had
- 16:59Speaker 9: been before. Or yes, question about liquidity, but perhaps they
- 17:03Speaker 9: wanted to do something else more opportunistic without cash.
- 17:07Speaker 2: So just remind us of your reporting.
- 17:11Speaker 3: What has a Trump administration said to just universities generally
- 17:15Speaker 3: in the US about funding?
- 17:17Speaker 2: Has that been frozen tech efficial? Well, there's a couple
- 17:20Speaker 2: of things.
- 17:21Speaker 9: First off, the bat is the reimbursements for research funding.
- 17:25Speaker 9: Some universities like Harvard had very high reimbursements for research
- 17:31Speaker 9: costs sixty percent. So let's say you get a grant
- 17:35Speaker 9: for a million dollars, then Harvard would get an additional
- 17:38Speaker 9: say six hundred thousand dollars for things like hiring people
- 17:41Speaker 9: in the labs, lab equipment rent and that went down
- 17:45Speaker 9: to fifteen percent, So that was a big change for
- 17:49Speaker 9: most institutions. Then other grants, you know, across the board
- 17:54Speaker 9: affecting lots of universities were frozen terminated over diversity equity inclusion,
- 18:00Speaker 9: so that that affects not just the top universities that
- 18:04Speaker 9: have been targeted. And then at Harvard they have frozen
- 18:08Speaker 9: grants and contracts almost to the tune of three billion
- 18:11Speaker 9: dollars and has said Harvard will not get future grants.
- 18:16Speaker 3: Wow, I mean this changes the generational research and development
- 18:23Speaker 3: strategy of this country.
- 18:25Speaker 2: Yes, in one Well, so what.
- 18:27Speaker 3: I learned my work at Douke is you know, on average,
- 18:30Speaker 3: at these big research universities, including state schools like the
- 18:33Speaker 3: University of Florida, University of Texas, two thirds of the
- 18:36Speaker 3: R and D budget that is used for lab work
- 18:38Speaker 3: and all the stuff that they do is two thirds
- 18:40Speaker 3: is roughly the government. One third is the private and
- 18:43Speaker 3: the university itself and other private funding sources. So that
- 18:46Speaker 3: public private real cooperation or relationship that was really born
- 18:51Speaker 3: after World War.
- 18:51Speaker 2: Two it's really important. Goodbye, Janet Lauren, thanks so much
- 18:55Speaker 2: for joining us. Really appreciate general and covers the higher
- 18:57Speaker 2: education for us. We really appreciate that.
- 19:00Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 19:04Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 19:07Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 19:11Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 19:14Speaker 2: Let's talk to Lululemon Athletica l U. L U is
- 19:18Speaker 2: the ticker.
- 19:18Speaker 3: It's off twenty percent here today, it's off thirty one
- 19:21Speaker 3: percent here to date. Tough, tough quarter tariffs are taking
- 19:24Speaker 3: effect the consumer, all that kind of stuff. It is
- 19:28Speaker 3: a challenge for a lot of these consumer companies. So
- 19:30Speaker 3: we talked to Punham Goyle. She covers all the retailers
- 19:33Speaker 3: for Bloomberg Intelligence. Punham, what's the Lululemon story that we
- 19:37Speaker 3: heard this quarter?
- 19:39Speaker 7: Yeah, it's the guidance. You know, they slashed guidance and
- 19:41Speaker 7: they're expecting margins to fall all largely due to tariffs.
- 19:45Speaker 7: The hardest hit quarter will be too Q because they're
- 19:48Speaker 7: unable to mitigate a lot of the tariff headwinds until
- 19:51Speaker 7: two h and along with that they're going to have
- 19:54Speaker 7: more promotions. They did say that traffic was lighter in stories.
- 19:58Speaker 7: That's not something new, you know, we've heard the story
- 20:00Speaker 7: for quite a few quarters now, and it just means
- 20:03Speaker 7: that they really need to step up their game to
- 20:06Speaker 7: get traffic back to stores. Be the Lululemon that we
- 20:09Speaker 7: knew where you know, the stores would be crowded, irrespective
- 20:12Speaker 7: of what was going on inside the walls.
- 20:15Speaker 5: What does this do for the supply chain? So that's
- 20:18Speaker 5: the consumer part. In terms of their supply part, what
- 20:21Speaker 5: are they dealing with?
- 20:23Speaker 7: Sure, So when you think of Lululemon, the one thing
- 20:25Speaker 7: that I think we should have noticed they don't make
- 20:28Speaker 7: product in China, so they do not have product exposure
- 20:31Speaker 7: to China. They do source raw material from China, for
- 20:35Speaker 7: which there will be some exposure, but the largest hit
- 20:39Speaker 7: that they're going to face is from the other countries
- 20:41Speaker 7: in Asia, where the tariff is a ten percent right
- 20:43Speaker 7: now until early July, so they have that ten percent
- 20:47Speaker 7: headwind and we do think that they'll be able to
- 20:49Speaker 7: mitigate that in two age and they said they would too,
- 20:52Speaker 7: largely through a combination of supplier negotiations, some select price
- 20:57Speaker 7: increases and then internal efficiencies, the.
- 21:00Speaker 3: Ability to pass along cost increases. It sounds like Lululemon
- 21:04Speaker 3: does not maybe have the pricing power that maybe some
- 21:07Speaker 3: of the other retailers you follow have talk to us
- 21:09Speaker 3: about Lululemon in that side.
- 21:12Speaker 7: Sure, so one thing is that Lululemon does have the
- 21:15Speaker 7: more affluent customer, so they can, you know, sell things
- 21:19Speaker 7: at relatively higher prices than other retailers that sell at leisure.
- 21:23Speaker 7: That said, if you're used to paying one hundred and
- 21:25Speaker 7: twenty dollars for a pair of yoga pants, you know,
- 21:28Speaker 7: and you see the price book to one thirty, you'll
- 21:30Speaker 7: be you know, you may start to wonder. The way
- 21:33Speaker 7: to take up prices here for retailers like lul Lemon
- 21:36Speaker 7: is on new product, because you don't have a price
- 21:39Speaker 7: set in mind for what that product should be. So
- 21:41Speaker 7: if they introduce a new lagging, if they introduce a
- 21:44Speaker 7: new siloette, and they price that a little higher, the
- 21:47Speaker 7: customer may not even notice. So I think that would
- 21:50Speaker 7: be the smarter way to do it.
- 21:52Speaker 5: Oh, I see what you're saying, and I'm one hundred
- 21:53Speaker 5: percent not paying one hundred and thirty dollars for a
- 21:55Speaker 5: pair of pants.
- 21:56Speaker 3: I'm gonna sweat in that.
- 21:57Speaker 2: Just can't they look good?
- 21:59Speaker 8: Though? No?
- 22:00Speaker 5: I mean I literally just work out in my bedroom anyway,
- 22:03Speaker 5: Moving on, not about me.
- 22:05Speaker 2: One of the competition.
- 22:06Speaker 5: We were talking earlier about that and I was saying, well,
- 22:08Speaker 5: but now you have Alo Yoga, you have a lot
- 22:09Speaker 5: of other competitors in a way that we didn't have
- 22:12Speaker 5: about ten years ago or so.
- 22:13Speaker 2: So how is that affecting Lulu?
- 22:16Speaker 7: Yeah, competition is definitely getting tough or not just from
- 22:19Speaker 7: the likes of Alo, but also from the traditional legacy
- 22:22Speaker 7: at leisure players like Nike, Adidas. You know, they're all
- 22:25Speaker 7: making a put big push, especially into women's and focusing
- 22:29Speaker 7: on the same segment that lul Lemon sort of made
- 22:32Speaker 7: its money on.
- 22:35Speaker 3: So put them a sense of timing for tariff share?
- 22:38Speaker 3: What are your companies telling you about when they think
- 22:41Speaker 3: they will really start to see their costs increase and
- 22:45Speaker 3: then they're going to have to make a decision. I mean,
- 22:46Speaker 3: is that happening now? Is that something that will happen
- 22:49Speaker 3: maybe even.
- 22:50Speaker 7: Fall, it's happening. It started to happen. Costs are going
- 22:54Speaker 7: up and they can only mitigate so much. If you
- 22:57Speaker 7: have a ten percent headwind and you have to no
- 23:00Speaker 7: exployure to China. I could see you mitigating most of
- 23:04Speaker 7: that for some of our companies, but as soon as
- 23:06Speaker 7: you add China to the mix where you need China
- 23:09Speaker 7: to get product to the US, it's much much harder
- 23:12Speaker 7: and the margins will be pressured. You know, these retailers
- 23:17Speaker 7: all they have margins that are in the single digits.
- 23:20Speaker 7: So even a ten percent increase in costs is a
- 23:23Speaker 7: big increase. We're all thinking ten percents. Okay, you know
- 23:27Speaker 7: it's not that bad when we heart one hundred and
- 23:28Speaker 7: thirty five percent with China, but it's still a big deal.
- 23:32Speaker 7: It's a large increase for them to have to absorb
- 23:34Speaker 7: or deal with.
- 23:35Speaker 5: Put them thirty seconds. Top retailer right now.
- 23:38Speaker 7: Amazon. You know, we like Amazon as a long term play.
- 23:42Speaker 7: We think their cloud business, their advertising business, they have
- 23:44Speaker 7: a lot of runway, even on the retail side, to
- 23:47Speaker 7: really grow. And in this environment, scale matters, scales where
- 23:51Speaker 7: you get pricing power, and we think Amazon, out of
- 23:53Speaker 7: all the retailers that we cover, have the largest scale.
- 23:57Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely goods tough. Put them goil, Thank you so much.
- 23:59Speaker 2: We appreciate that.
- 24:00Speaker 3: Putam Goyle, Senior Retail analysts covering all the retailers for
- 24:03Speaker 3: Bloomberg Intelligence down there in Prince, New Jersey.
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