Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / P&L: Yahoo Security Breach Could Cost Shareholders $1 Billion

Transcript

P&L: Yahoo Security Breach Could Cost Shareholders $1 Billion · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg pim L Podcast. I'm pim Fox.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: you and your money, whether at the grocery store or
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg pm L podcast on iTunes,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: SoundCloud and at Bloomberg dot com. Yahoo shares were down
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: more than six percent after Yahoo disclosed after hours on
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Wednesday that cyber thieves in two siphoned information from more
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: than one billion Yahoo accounts, including users, email addresses, scrambled
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: account passwords, and dates of birth. In other words, all
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the information that they could use to hack into other
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: areas and steal people's information and uh and possibly more.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I want to bring in Shia Overday, my fellow cad
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Fly columnist here at Bloomberg, to give a sense of what, Yeah,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: who could have and should have done to prevent this
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: from growing into such an extensive problem? Sara, Could Yahoo
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: have done anything prevent this? Yeah? I mean the issue
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: is that some of this is ancient history, right. The
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: two now cyber attacks that Yahoo is disclosed in the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: last few months affected more than a billion accounts and
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: then the one day disclosed in September a separate cyber
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: attack also from that affected more than five million accounts.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So in some sense this is a little bit old news,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: but it's very clear from the two hacks, this is
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a company that had a hard time, um, you know,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: securing information on its users, and in some by some accounts,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: they did things that bolstered its business that put its
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: user information in jeopardy and ignored warnings from whose own
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: security staff when they did things that that put the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: information at risk. This also has created or highlights the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: creation of a market for the stolen data. I understand
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: about the price tech about three hundred thousand dollars for
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a complete set of this data that includes personal information,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: as you said, sell security numbers, passwords. Yeah. I mean
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: this is the scary thing, obviously for all of us
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: who live our lives online and have all this personal
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: data online, is that you know, there's a criminal enterprise
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: that makes money from selling stolen digital information to other
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: cyber thieves who can use it to kind of delve
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: deeper into our digital and physical lives. Ransomware, for example,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a recent I were just talking earlier this morning about
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: an attack that occurred in the San Francisco public transit
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: system at the end of November, where it was shut
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: down because thieves managed to get or hackers rather managed
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to get into the electronic technology system. Yeah, I mean
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: this is sort of a cost of doing business online, right,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: is that cyber attacks and the consequence of cyber attacks
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: have become sadly in place. So Verizon has previously had
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: agreed to purchase uh Yahoo. Um, you wrote about how
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: this cyber fail could cut one billion dollars from the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: price tag the Verizon was willing to pay for Yahoo.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Why would Verizons still want Yahoo given how tainted its
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: reputation has become. Yeah, that's a fair question. So just
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to clarify, Verizon is is agreed to buy Yahoo's core
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: internet businesses. The weird thing about Yahoo is that the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: majority of the company's market value is tied up in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: these stakes. It owns in two independent internet companies, Ali
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Baba of China and Yahoo Japan. So the core bits
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of Yahoo, the parts of the company that we all know, um,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: are the ones that Verizon has agreed to buy. Verizon's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: logic here to do the deal hasn't really changed basically,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: what they want to do is create um do two things.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: One is to create a digital advertising company can be
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a real kind of counterweight to Google and Facebook, which
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: right now dominate all of the advertising online more than
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: half of all advertising digital advertising in the US. The
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: dollars are collected by those two companies. So Verizon wants
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to be a third player here. And Verizon also wants
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: content including all you know, Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Email
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and other Yahoo websites that, while they're not as popular
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: as they used to be, still have hundreds of millions
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of users every month. So they think the combination of
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: your Verizon cell phones and UH programming digital programming owned
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: by Yahoo and A O L and other Verizon assets
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: can be a real attraction to their to their mobile business.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: One share, just quickly, you afraid of being hacked? Do
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you put any personal information online? I have become super
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: paranoid about hacking. Yes, I not to invite any thieves,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: but I am aware of clicking on any email. I
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: try not to start accounts with companies that I don't
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: trust online. Our row is basically a bunker. Yeah, firewalls
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: everywhere where. The row of paranoia, the row of paranoia,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: that's a strange rink to it, but I guess it's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: not going to be alone. Thank you very much. Shara
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: over there a Bloomberg gadfly, a technology columnist giving us
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: a lowdown on Yahoo. The US housing market took a
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: little bit of a breather this last month. Housing starts
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: in the United States housing Yes, new housing construction declining
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: more than a forecast. And here to tell us more
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: about the housing industry is the chief executive of Realty
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Shares nav off Wall. No, thanks very much for coming in.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Pim and Lisa tell people what
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: is realty shares just before we get into details. Sure
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Realty Shares is an online market place for real estate
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: investing in capital. We help individual high net worth investors
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: deploy capital into private real estate investments across the US.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: We've helped raise over three million dollars of capital um
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: for these private deals and multifamily projects, single family projects,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and on the other end of our marketplace are underserved
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: borrowers and companies that are looking for more efficient ways
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to raise capital or more cost effective capital and can
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: come to realty Shares and get financing in as little
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: as ten days, so really much more efficient than a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: bank on the one hand, in a more direct way
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to invest in real estate than a public on the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: other hand. So here the peer to peer lender that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of people think will take over the future
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: of lending, and I imagine that you're among those hoping
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: for that. I'm wondering from your perspective, have the applications
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: that have been coming in has it shown a deterioration
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and consumer credit worthiness of late? We noticed in your
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you mentioned in your notes that the pace of foreclosures
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: has ticked up a bit recently. Yeah, we've seen in
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: some markets the pace of foreclosure take up. There's been
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a tremendous amount home price appreciation UM over the last
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: five six years since the Great Recession, and I think
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that's resulted in some consumers over leveraging themselves and markets
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: like Arizona, even in Denver, So there has been an
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: uptick in in UM foreclosures. But you're also seeing other
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: counterbalancing things and happening in the market. You're seeing the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: n h B, which is the home builder UM home
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Builder Index on on housing actually be much higher than
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it was you know too three years ago, and hit
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: an all time high in September. So yeah, you are
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: seeing some deterioration um. And you're also seeing a drop
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: in just home buyer applications because of rising interests. Right,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: so there's all kinds of crazy stuff happen. Well, I
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: want to pick up on that really quickly. I mean,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: do you think that the recent rise in UH mortgage
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: rates is going to substantially slow the market potentially put
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: a whole invaluations. I think the rise in interest rates
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: is definitely going to reduce the number of applications that
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: folks are filing for refinances and new home purchases. We
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: already saw a week over week decline of five and
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: a half percent for refinance and three percent for new
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: new home purchases. UM. So definitely it's gonna it's gonna
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: impact home buyer activity. But I think the bigger impact
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: is home prices um and just supply. There's a lot
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: of supply constraint out there for new home purchases. So
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: despite rising in interest rates, I think those other factors
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: are going to be a bigger impact on the on
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the home buying activity. Is that one of the reasons
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: why you have raised money to do pre funded deals.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: In other words, you're putting your own balance sheet to work. Yeah, well,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: we we really serve the non owner occupied borrowers. So
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: we serve investment borrows. We serve folks that are buying
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: real estate not to live in it, but to for
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: an investment purpose. And that part of the market's very
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: underserved by banks and private equity. So we're really focused
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: on that part of the market. But yes, a part
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: portion of the deals we do we pre fund on
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: our own balance sheet and then we'll then syndicate them
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: out on the marketplace to high net worth investors that
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: want to participate. We also have large institutions using the platform. Uh.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: You know, coming out of the Great Recession, generating yield
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: has been very very differ coal. You have hedge funds
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: looking to you know, return their investors mid team returns,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and they can't do that in the bond market. So
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: we do have a wide variety of investors trying to
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: access an underserved part of the real estate capital markets.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: It's pretty exciting um as as a fintech company right now.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Um I know that some of the more the larger,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: more established fintech companies, peer to peer lenders have run
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: into a little bit of a pause in in their
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: growth trajectory. What have you experience when it comes to
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: fundraising and sort of people's skepticism around peer to peer
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: or acceptance of it. There's a tremendous amount of skepticism,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: and I think that's healthy in any new industry. I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: was at a conference with you with the ubs UH
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the yesterday actually, and there was a half the room
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: was very bullish on the market, and that was the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you know, the maybe the younger population where you were
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: hanging out. But I like hanging around with the skeptics
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: because they bring a tremendous amount of really good information
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: because they've been there, they've done that, they've been in
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the market for a while, and you know, it's healthy
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: to be skeptical of a new industry and technology. UM.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So it's really good to listen to the folks that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: are skeptical and why they're skeptical. Obviously, I'm very bullish.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be running the company, um, but there's a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: very large amount of skepticism still in this industry, and
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: we're just I think education is the best way to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: deal with it. What's the specific skepticism about Well, I
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: think you know, people are thinking they equate this too. Oh,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: this is going to lead to the next great recession.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: It's like the savings and loan industry. So there's so
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: many analogies that are being used to describe peer to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: peer lending. But I think the biggest thing that they
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: say is, you know, banks are they? They are they?
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: They already have this established base of customers. That's going
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: to be really hard for these lenders to compete for
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the largest spend item for like a lending club is
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: acquiring customers right and banks already have these customers, and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: they could at any point in time enter the market
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and take market share away from these companies. But what
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: they don't realize is these tech companies are doing business
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: in a much more cost effective way, so they can
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: offer cheaper credit to otherwise capable borrowers with high ficos
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: because they have lower opera any costs. So I think
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that's the answer I typically give is just there there
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: is a place for these lenders, and I think the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: smart banks are finding a way to work with them
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: rather than to say you're just going to go away
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: in three to five years. Fascinating stuff. Thank you so
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: much for joining us. NAVAF Well, founder and chief executive
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: officer of Realty Shares, which is based in San Francisco.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Really really great, Thank you so much. This is a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: conversation I've been waiting to have. I want to bring
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: in Constance Hunter, Chief Economistic KPMGH. I'm particularly interested in China.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: The bond market's been selling off. The People's Bank of
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: China has been pumping billions of dollars into the financial
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: system in the past few days in order to bolster
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it as the currency continues to decline after the FED
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: rate height. Constants, can you explain why the People's Bank
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of China I have found it necessary to pump so
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: much money into the economy in the immediate aftermath of
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the Federate hike. Well, the China Chinese currency, the REM
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and B is still largely pegged to the dollar. I mean,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of course they'll say it's it's a basket of currencies,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: but the US dollar makes up a far larger portion
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of the basket than any other currency. It means about
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of the basket. So we're looking at a situation where
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: their policy is basically pegged to the U S policy,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and if the FED hikes rates um and they sterilize
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that change, then they're basically experiencing a rate hike. And
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: what they're saying is, we're not quite ready for a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: rate hike just yet, so we're going to increase money
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: supply constance. I wonder if you could tell us what
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you believe that will have an effect on policy in
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: China as much as it depends on exports still to
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: power its economy. Yeah so, um, I mean, insomuch as
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the Federate hike increase is the value of the dollar um,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: and that the rem and by has also been falling,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: that would actually help Chinese exports not just to the US,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: but really to to other countries as well. Um. Uh So,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: so we do see, we do see a somewhat neutral
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to positive impact from from the weaker rem and by.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But but of course there's so many things happening right
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: now within the global economy um, and of course within
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the within within the political economy. So when you think
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: about um some of the potential tax a lot changes
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: here in the US as well as as trump suggestion
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that that he would slap tariffs on China if necessary
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: if negotiations didn't yield better access for US companies, then
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: we really have a lot more going on than just
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the currency situation. You know, constance the idea that China
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: is burning through its foreign currency reserves. We saw the
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: data showing that they've sold a good proportion of their treasuries.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Their treasury holdings are now down to the lowest since
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: uh in more than six years, basically in order to
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: fortify to to have money to fortify their financial system.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Are we looking at a potentially risk your situation heading
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: into and is the potential for some sort of disorderly
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: unwind of of China's boom in the in the first
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: half of next year. So I think people have been
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: worried about this for for years, really that the unruly,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the hard landing versus the soft landing, the unruly unwind
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: um and so um. That isn't to say that it
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't happen next year, but this has been sort of
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: a lingering worry if you were out there looking for
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: things to be nervous about within the within the global economy.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: One thing that I that I will say that that
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I've heard anecdotally is a really big pickup in um
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the amount of money that Chinese are really willing to
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: try to get out of the country. So the way
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: it works is there's a limit on how much each
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: individual can can take out of the country, and so
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: they're effectively or or what I would call money mules
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that the people hire uh to to take out their
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: money and if if if it comes back to them
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in Hong Kong, then great. But people recognize if that's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: risky and the money could get stolen. But but when
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I talk to wealthy Chinese, they are willing to take
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that risk because they want to continue to get money
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: out of the country. And that is never really a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: very good sign that there is faith in the in
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the regime that's in power. So it's interesting to me
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that while Shijipang has has consolidated and increased his power,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: um you see this phenomenon from private citizens. Where is
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: much of that money going. Is it being invested in
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: places like Australia and the United States or in real estate?
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: In real estate it's been it's being it's being left
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: in cash in some cases, but real estate is a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: very very popular investment and in Canada as well, in
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Canadian real estate. So going forward, what are you watching?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: What measures are you watching to figure out whether China
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: is managing their slowdown well or poorly. Well, it's not
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: so it's not so easy. Um. So for example, if
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: if I look at what I did, what I looked
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: at in the run up to the to the US
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: crisis and the UM and the bubble bursting here, we
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: had a lot of great data that the FED collects,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: things like mortgage actually withdrawal statistics which really went through
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the roof UM in the run up to the crisis here,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: things like the rate of change of of leverage. So
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: we have some of that. We can see that the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: corporate um borrowing is still continuing at very significantly high rates.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: We can see that that remany loans are still increasing,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: so we we have some data, but there's also a
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: lot of off balance sheet UM loans that are being created,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: which is more difficult to track. One of the things
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that I think is interesting with China if you look
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: at just something simple like their industrial production statistics. We
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: used to see double digit industrial production statistics and and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: think that that was normal because China was playing catchup.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And now we look at the annual the year a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: year industrial production, it's running in about six percent and
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: it has been for the last six months. So Uh,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: this is this is definitely puts them in a different gear.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So whether or not they get that six point seven
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: percent growth next year, it really depends upon how stable
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the economy is and and so things like industrial production
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: are are interesting to look at. If we see that
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: falling off, it's going to be a flag, a red
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: flag that the the economy is slowing more than they
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: intend constance. Uh, from the perspective of a US investor,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: what assets are most vulnerable to a China slowdown? M
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: That is an excellent question. And you mentioned something earlier
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: which I think people worry about, but it perhaps is
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: an over over or unfounded fear, and that is their
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: US treasury holdings. So you you you noted a really
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: important fact, which is that the treasury holdings are at
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the lowest they've been in six years. So this idea
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that we're going to have a surge up and interest
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: rates when China um withdraw us their support of US treasuries,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that may have already happened, and that could be a
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: big contributing factor to the rising eels we've seen since
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: September and the hundred basis points we've seen since the election. Uh.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: But in terms of other assets. Obviously real estate is
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: a big one. So if if the Chinese, if if
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you really have UM a crash in China's economy, what
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: happens then is that value gets destroyed. So if you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: have a bubble that's been fueled by debt, when that
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: comes home to roost and the debt is no longer good,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: then there really is literally a destruction of cash, a
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: destruction of values. There would be less money to invest
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: in things like real estate and other assets. UM, those
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: other other assets like art wine, UM I would see
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: softness in those those markets as well. And then in
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: terms of forecasting, UM, where the softness comes within the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: equity market that that is across the board. I mean
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: it would, it would. It would depend on individual stocks
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and how much Chinese investment there is in them. Thanks
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: very much. Constance Hunter is the chief economist at a KPMG.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: This is one of the questions that I have been wondering.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: You know, President elect Donald Trump has taken to Twitter
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: with many different announcements of a variety of topics. UM.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: The ones having to do with business, though, particularly targeting
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: companies such as boeing UM have had pretty substantial market effects.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I want to bring in Rob Trick and Elly, senior
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: legal editor for Bloomberg b n A, and with the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: potential consequences of that could be Rob, thank you so
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: much for joining us. So is this something? Is President
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: elect Trump's Twitter activity with respect to corporate America potential
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know, point of investigation for the SEC? He Uh, yeah,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: well thanks for having me first. I think, Um, there's
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: politics involved to write because if the SEC, uh would
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: investigate this, Um, you have to bear in mind that
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the SEC chairman is someone that Donald Trump would have appointed,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and you know, so there is that to consider. But um,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: there's there's really a lot here. Uh. Trump has said
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: he's sold all his stocks, so maybe he's you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: there's nothing for him personally, but maybe you would look
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: to what his if his you know, some of his
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: inner circle are trading on what they know he's about
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to tweet. But I mean you can look at this
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of different ways. But from the SEC angle, Um,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: they are interested in you know, if someone has a
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: duty to keep information confidential and not trade on it
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and they breached that duty, the SEC is interested in
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: investigating that. Rob, If these tweets and these messages that
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: have made public were not being made public by either
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the president elect or a top government official. What would
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: be the SEC stance on something that is moving markets
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: If somebody tweets something or says something in public and
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it changes the value of a stock or or changes
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the direction of the market, what would the SEC say, Well,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you would make an analogy to a company here for example.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So there are SEC regulations for public companies when they
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: introduce new information about what's going on with their business
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that they kind of they have to make that information
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: public and kind of presented in a fair way for
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: for anyone to trade on it. And there are you know,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: there are procedures regulating that for companies, and you also
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: have procedures regulating it for the government too, I mean
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: FED releases, SEC Enforcement actions, Bureau of Labor statistics data.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: They all have to be presented in a way that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: kind of everyone has access to it all at the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: same time. And so if you start having these market
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: moving opinions behind closed doors but people know about it,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: um that that can be problematic too. Is there any
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: precedent for this type of specific corporate UH discussions by
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a president elect or a standing president? I mean has
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: there ever been a president that has specifically gone after
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: companies publicly about certain contracts and uh and policies and jobs. Uh,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I mean is this is there anything? Is there any
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: historical president whatsoever? Uh? Not recently. I mean you would
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have to go back to UM. You know, maybe like
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: President Johnson would would would speak about you know, kind
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of more you know, industry more generally or something like that.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: But it's it's kind of unheard of in recent in
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: recent memory. And it's even if it if this were
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: a common practice, you know a long time ago, you know,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: going after trusts or or something like that, you're dealing
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: with a very different universe now, just with all this
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: technology that allows you know, trading immediately and and this
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: kind of market moving information and so UM. This is
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: new in recent memory, and it is uncharted territory in
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the sense that there's just so many technological and financial
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: um consequences that can that can come from it. You know,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it seems like in general, regulators right now want to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: take the least political action as possible. We're seeing this
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: in a lot of different fronts. UM. That's at least
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: my impression that you just sort of is a desire
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to sort of maintain common maintain a sense of an
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: orderly transition to the next presidential administration. Uh am, I
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: correct in that sort of sense, or or are there
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: signs that that people are embracing sort of a politicization, uh,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: politicalization of the regulatory posts. I think what you're what
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you're going to see is UM. Your intuition is right
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that UM regulatory. A lot of regulatory enforcers don't like
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to wade into political UM issues, and courts kind of
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: don't either, but we're seeing us. I would say one
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: of the first maybe cracks in that that we're seeing
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: is this week you had the you know, the Office
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of Government Essex coming out and saying that, well that
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: there's this law called the Stock Act that prohibits UM
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: federal employees from trading on political intelligence on information they
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: get in the course of their duties. And this letter
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: is out saying that from from the office saying that,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump needs to divest or put everything in
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a blind trust and uh. And you know that that
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: could foreshadow more of a regulatory appetite to examine these
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: conflicts of interest. Rob Trick and Elly, thank you so much,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: senior Legal editor Bloomberg b n A and giving us
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: more details about President elect Donald Trump and the future
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thanks for listening to
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the Bloomberg an L podcast. You can subscribe and listen
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to interviews at iTunes, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Pim Fox. I'm out there on Twitter at Pim Fox.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I'm out there on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.