Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / PGIM's Tipp: Virus Won't Likely Send US To Recession
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Penl Podcast. I'm Paul swing you,
- 0:05Speaker 1: along with my co host Lisa Brahma wits. Each day
- 0:07Speaker 1: we bring you the most noteworthy and useful interviews for
- 0:10Speaker 1: you and your money, whether at the grocery store or
- 0:12Speaker 1: the trading floor. Find a Bloomberg Penl podcast on Apple
- 0:15Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as
- 0:17Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com. I think the big issue here
- 0:20Speaker 1: is we've got equity markets off, you know, roughly fiftent
- 0:22Speaker 1: over the last seven trading days, just an extraordinary trade
- 0:27Speaker 1: down in the equity markets and financial markets. The question
- 0:30Speaker 1: I think now for a lot of investors is will
- 0:32Speaker 1: the central bankers try to come in and stop the carnage.
- 0:37Speaker 1: There's absolutely nobody better to talk to about this issue
- 0:39Speaker 1: than Robert Tip. He's a chief investment strategist in Ahead
- 0:42Speaker 1: of Global Bonds for p G I M fixed income.
- 0:45Speaker 1: He has crossed the river from the Jersey side, joining
- 0:47Speaker 1: us here in a Bloomberg eleven three oh studio. So, Robert,
- 0:51Speaker 1: what will the Fed do? When will they do it?
- 0:54Speaker 1: And will anybody even care? I think people will care
- 0:58Speaker 1: because there is a fundamental situation where uncertainty is rising,
- 1:02Speaker 1: and activity levels, especially abroad already in the world's biggest
- 1:06Speaker 1: driver of growth, China, have been seriously impacted. Uh. You know,
- 1:11Speaker 1: bottom line numbers like GDP and so on, those will
- 1:13Speaker 1: come out much later. But auto sales, for example, we're
- 1:16Speaker 1: down spectacularly, manufacturing, electricity usage and so on, and now
- 1:21Speaker 1: the cases around the world are kind of that a
- 1:24Speaker 1: geometric increasing stage, and so there is going to be
- 1:29Speaker 1: a shock. The FED is away from their mandate, which
- 1:32Speaker 1: is not on the maximum employment side they're find there,
- 1:35Speaker 1: but inflation is persistently away from target. This morning we
- 1:39Speaker 1: had their preferred indicator of inflation, the PC print, and
- 1:43Speaker 1: if anything, that is moving systematically further away from their
- 1:47Speaker 1: target on the downside. So it would seem like there's
- 1:51Speaker 1: a great case for them to make an insurance cut
- 1:55Speaker 1: pretty much at any time. And uh that could be
- 1:59Speaker 1: helpful because what we're seeing now is a tightening of
- 2:01Speaker 1: financial conditions. Granted, financial conditions were very easy a handful
- 2:07Speaker 1: of weeks ago, but you know now it's going to
- 2:10Speaker 1: make a difference going forward. Uh, financial conditions tightening, making
- 2:14Speaker 1: whatever is going to happen that would uh materialize in
- 2:19Speaker 1: terms of a weekend economy weakening, economy worse. So I
- 2:22Speaker 1: think there's a pretty good argument for them to do
- 2:24Speaker 1: that now. Whether this is like that transition where they're
- 2:30Speaker 1: hiking way too late and it took them a little
- 2:33Speaker 1: bit of time to to change the rhetoric around and
- 2:35Speaker 1: they really exacerbated things with that rate hike, or they'll
- 2:39Speaker 1: have a quicker turn. Uh, it remains to be seen.
- 2:42Speaker 1: But the initial indications are are not that good. But
- 2:46Speaker 1: hopefully they'll get the signal from the market quicker this time.
- 2:48Speaker 1: And Jim Bullard coming out this morning and sort of
- 2:50Speaker 1: taking a rather sanguent tone about the sell off and
- 2:53Speaker 1: not necessarily signaling the rate cut that people were expecting. Nevertheless,
- 2:57Speaker 1: you are seeing in the Fed funds futures market to
- 2:59Speaker 1: full rate cut. It's being priced in frankly before June
- 3:03Speaker 1: h and three rate cuts before the end of the year,
- 3:05Speaker 1: four rate cuts by the beginning of next year. So
- 3:07Speaker 1: if the Fed doesn't capitulate, the market just seems to
- 3:09Speaker 1: be moving further and further away from them. I just
- 3:12Speaker 1: want to ask you, though, how much will that loosen conditions?
- 3:16Speaker 1: How much will that entice you as a portfolio manager
- 3:19Speaker 1: to go out and buy risk your debt at these levels, right,
- 3:25Speaker 1: I think it will make a big difference. And when
- 3:27Speaker 1: you look at what happened after August of last year
- 3:32Speaker 1: was the most recent incident of where the market got
- 3:35Speaker 1: way ahead of the fat in terms of expectations for
- 3:37Speaker 1: ease on concerns about downside risks that you know, once
- 3:41Speaker 1: the underlying situation had stabilized, investor confidence returned, and this
- 3:45Speaker 1: time it didn't require the FED. But once that confidence returned,
- 3:48Speaker 1: the market will ease up and we'll take these rate
- 3:52Speaker 1: cuts out of the market after they cut maybe you
- 3:56Speaker 1: know once and you can have a recovery and risk
- 3:58Speaker 1: and so on. So do you expe spreads to retest
- 4:01Speaker 1: their lows the extra yield that investors earned over benchmark
- 4:05Speaker 1: rates on high yield and investment grade credit? Do you
- 4:07Speaker 1: expect a lot of tightening later in the year an
- 4:09Speaker 1: incredible outperformance there. I think that this correction is the
- 4:13Speaker 1: same as the corrections we've had over the last handful
- 4:16Speaker 1: of years. This is this is not going to be
- 4:18Speaker 1: the beginning, I would guess, of a major crisis in
- 4:22Speaker 1: terms of a bear market in that goes on for
- 4:25Speaker 1: a year or two. This is probably something that's going
- 4:27Speaker 1: to be more measured in weeks or months after which
- 4:31Speaker 1: we go back to an environment it's not a feel
- 4:33Speaker 1: good environment for people. It's a very slow economic growth backdrop. UM.
- 4:38Speaker 1: But the down shifting of risk free interest rates around
- 4:42Speaker 1: the world, which is still kind of happening on a
- 4:44Speaker 1: secular basis, it's not been fully priced yet on the coronavirus,
- 4:48Speaker 1: is accelerating that those low discount rates are gonna then
- 4:52Speaker 1: fuel refuel that search for yield, and that is going
- 4:55Speaker 1: to pull the spreads in and UH and boost returns
- 4:58Speaker 1: on higher fixed income. But you have to get past
- 5:01Speaker 1: this first. So I'm looking at the two year, you know,
- 5:04Speaker 1: zero point nine percent, a ten year one point one
- 5:07Speaker 1: six percent or zero percent rates reasonable to discount at all.
- 5:13Speaker 1: I think in the short term that's that's not where
- 5:16Speaker 1: we're headed, unless this turns into a major economic crisis
- 5:18Speaker 1: and the FED is forced to go into panic mode. UM.
- 5:21Speaker 1: But I think that the range has really continued to
- 5:25Speaker 1: shift lower. We have the FED would like to maintain
- 5:28Speaker 1: a zero lower bound. They should be able to do that, UM.
- 5:31Speaker 1: But the top end of the rate cycle has gone
- 5:35Speaker 1: from twenty you know, back in eighty down to nine
- 5:39Speaker 1: three quarters in nine to six and a half in
- 5:43Speaker 1: two thousand to the mid twos last year, and that's
- 5:47Speaker 1: the new high water mark for Fed funds. And it's
- 5:50Speaker 1: going to be a zero to three range on the
- 5:52Speaker 1: Fed funds and probably a one and a half central
- 5:55Speaker 1: tendency for the tenure treasury. Yeah. Well, right now, I
- 5:59Speaker 1: just want to say, we're looking at spreads on Highel
- 6:01Speaker 1: debt for four point six percent and the first two
- 6:06Speaker 1: point six percentage points over benchmark rates. Literally one word
- 6:09Speaker 1: answer Bob Michael of JP morgan As Management saying he
- 6:12Speaker 1: sees them going up to six dred before it's a
- 6:14Speaker 1: buying opportunity. Where's the sort of tipping point you know,
- 6:17Speaker 1: I don't know where that's going to be. I would
- 6:19Speaker 1: guess it's lower and uh and before it turns. But
- 6:24Speaker 1: that you know, it is going to be a bond
- 6:26Speaker 1: pickers market. Right. There will be areas of trouble, but
- 6:28Speaker 1: in the long term, I think spread product is attractive.
- 6:33Speaker 1: Robert Tip, thank you so much as always, and I
- 6:35Speaker 1: wish I had an hour with you. We would have
- 6:37Speaker 1: such a great time. Yes, well, I mean this is
- 6:40Speaker 1: such an interesting market. Robert Tip, Chief Investment Strategies, of
- 6:42Speaker 1: PJIM Fixed Income. Well, that's a coronavirus spreads outside of
- 6:52Speaker 1: China's first to the Middle East and then the other
- 6:55Speaker 1: parts of Asia than uh, the European continent with Italy.
- 6:58Speaker 1: The concerns is how prepared is the US for a
- 7:02Speaker 1: potential outbreak of the coronavirus here in the US. To
- 7:05Speaker 1: help us answer that, we welcome Dr Philip Chan. He's
- 7:08Speaker 1: a CEO and president of Cytosorbents Corporation that trades on
- 7:12Speaker 1: Nastack symbol ct s O. Up thirty six percent today,
- 7:16Speaker 1: up eight five percent year to date. Uh. Dr Chan,
- 7:19Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us here in our
- 7:20Speaker 1: Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Just from your expertise in the
- 7:24Speaker 1: healthcare industry, just give us a sense of kind of
- 7:27Speaker 1: how you think the US is prepared for what might
- 7:30Speaker 1: be an outbreak of the coronavirus. Well, thank you very
- 7:34Speaker 1: much Paul Lisa for having me on the show. Um,
- 7:36Speaker 1: I think to basically put my comments though in perspective,
- 7:39Speaker 1: just to give you a little bit of background about
- 7:41Speaker 1: my company. Citos Orbans is a medical device company that
- 7:44Speaker 1: specializes in blood purification to treat deadly inflammation often associated
- 7:49Speaker 1: with life threatening infection such as influenza, factoral pneumonia, virus
- 7:53Speaker 1: infections potentially like coronavirus, etcetera. UH. Cytosorp is approved in
- 7:58Speaker 1: the European Union, has accumulate more than eighty thousand uses
- 8:01Speaker 1: over fifty eight countries UH and has generated about twenty
- 8:04Speaker 1: three million in sales last year. The cold goal of
- 8:07Speaker 1: Cytosaur is to control the deadly inflammatory response that these
- 8:11Speaker 1: viral illnesses and bacterial illnesses often generate that can then
- 8:15Speaker 1: lead rapidly to organ failure and death of patients from
- 8:19Speaker 1: the failure of organs like the heart, the lungs, and
- 8:21Speaker 1: the kidneys. Now, in the United States, we are not
- 8:23Speaker 1: yet approved. We're still an investigational product, but we are
- 8:26Speaker 1: actually in a process. We're in the regulatory process of
- 8:29Speaker 1: trying to get approved here in the United States. So
- 8:31Speaker 1: in terms of your question about how prepared are we,
- 8:34Speaker 1: I think coronavirus COVID nineteen represents a very unique challenge
- 8:38Speaker 1: because one we've never seen it before, It's a novel infection.
- 8:44Speaker 1: No one has immenity to it. There are no antiviral
- 8:46Speaker 1: agents that are approved to treat it, and there are
- 8:49Speaker 1: no vaccinations approved also to treat it. And the problem
- 8:53Speaker 1: with this virus is that it's kind of an insidious virus.
- 8:56Speaker 1: It lays dormant UH and people remain asymptomatic for up
- 9:01Speaker 1: to fourteen days. They may have it, they may be
- 9:03Speaker 1: spreading it all over the community, but they would never
- 9:06Speaker 1: know that they have it, and so only until they
- 9:08Speaker 1: start manifesting the common symptoms of fever, cough, and and
- 9:12Speaker 1: just UH shortness of breath and fatigue that they know
- 9:15Speaker 1: that they have it. So this is why, all of
- 9:18Speaker 1: a sudden you see these massive outcroppings of virus happening
- 9:21Speaker 1: all over the world, and so in the United States,
- 9:24Speaker 1: I think that we need better ways to prevent the spread,
- 9:28Speaker 1: and I think the initiatives that we heard about recently,
- 9:31Speaker 1: the two point five billion dollars that are going towards this,
- 9:33Speaker 1: will be helpful. But prevention and controlling the spread of
- 9:37Speaker 1: this outbreak is key, but also is controlling the deadly
- 9:42Speaker 1: complications of lung failure and shock and other things that
- 9:46Speaker 1: currently we have no approved therapies to treat today, and
- 9:49Speaker 1: that's what Citosorb is doing our product. Have you had
- 9:52Speaker 1: conversations with the government about expediting UH the accreditation of
- 9:57Speaker 1: your product given what the threat is. Yeah, we've had
- 10:00Speaker 1: a longstanding dialogue with MAY many agencies throughout the US government.
- 10:04Speaker 1: In fact, we've gotten more than twenty nine million dollars
- 10:07Speaker 1: in grants and contracts towards our technology over the years
- 10:10Speaker 1: because of that. But we have been in touch, most
- 10:13Speaker 1: recently with BARDA, for example, that is leading the charge
- 10:16Speaker 1: against developing potential countermeasures against UH coronavirus. We have we
- 10:22Speaker 1: are still in the early stages of those discussions, but
- 10:25Speaker 1: UM our hope is that UH they understand the fact
- 10:28Speaker 1: that there are no approved treatments for this illness and
- 10:32Speaker 1: that one of the hallmark features of what is killing
- 10:34Speaker 1: people is this out of control immune response, and that
- 10:37Speaker 1: is what we are very well positioned to do. Do you.
- 10:40Speaker 1: Are you aware of any patients that may have been
- 10:43Speaker 1: as part of the treatment outside of the US, may
- 10:45Speaker 1: have been prescribed or using your product. So the product
- 10:49Speaker 1: again has been used in more than eighty thousand cumulative
- 10:52Speaker 1: treatments to date, but we don't have any indication that
- 10:54Speaker 1: it's yet been used for coronavirus since it is so new.
- 10:57Speaker 1: I think some of the exciting news that we announced
- 11:00Speaker 1: today is that through a partnership with China Medical System
- 11:04Speaker 1: Holdings Limited in China. UM that we have now UH
- 11:09Speaker 1: that hospitals in the Wuhan, China area have now received
- 11:13Speaker 1: our Cytosaur product and are well positioned to potentially use
- 11:17Speaker 1: this on act on patients with coronavirus infection. We just
- 11:21Speaker 1: did the training just very recently of key physicians in
- 11:25Speaker 1: those hospitals in the United States, So I can tell
- 11:30Speaker 1: you that when we had the swine flu epidemic that
- 11:33Speaker 1: the intensive care units, which receives the sickest of the
- 11:37Speaker 1: sick patients of the hospital and we're cito survice typically used,
- 11:40Speaker 1: were inundated with patients. And UH that is really a
- 11:44Speaker 1: key concern should this uh, should this outbreak turn into
- 11:48Speaker 1: a full blown pandemic. But I think that UM to
- 11:51Speaker 1: put it into perspective. You know, flu this year has
- 11:54Speaker 1: already infected thirty million people in the United States alone,
- 11:58Speaker 1: killing eighteen thousand people. Right, that's one in two thousand
- 12:02Speaker 1: people have died from the flu here in the United States,
- 12:04Speaker 1: And even though it was considered a fairly severe outbreak,
- 12:07Speaker 1: it's not the worst we've seen. One year when the
- 12:10Speaker 1: swine flu outbreak, eighty people died here in the United States,
- 12:13Speaker 1: so compare that to coronavirus. It is still the major
- 12:16Speaker 1: health concern today. Dr Philip Chan, thank you so much
- 12:20Speaker 1: for being with us. Dr Philip Chan, CEO and President
- 12:23Speaker 1: of Psyto Sorbins Corporation. Right now, we are looking at
- 12:39Speaker 1: a market that has been clying back from some of
- 12:42Speaker 1: its earlier losses, although it really is whipping around. NASDAC
- 12:45Speaker 1: now had been briefly positive, now down nine tenths of
- 12:49Speaker 1: a percent. The key, uh, the key issue here is
- 12:52Speaker 1: a lack of conviction, a lack of understanding of the
- 12:55Speaker 1: threat that we're dealing with. Michael Tiedenman joining us now
- 12:59Speaker 1: chief executi of Officer of Titamin Advisers with billion dollars
- 13:02Speaker 1: of assets under management. Michael, there are a lot of
- 13:05Speaker 1: calls saying that recession is now likely in the United States,
- 13:09Speaker 1: if not globally, as a result of the spread of
- 13:11Speaker 1: the coronavirus. Is that becoming your base case? First of all,
- 13:17Speaker 1: thank you for having me on such a quiet week.
- 13:19Speaker 1: We it's not our base case, but there's no question
- 13:22Speaker 1: there's gonna be short term economic impact. What you're really
- 13:25Speaker 1: we think the lasting impact will be on lower quality
- 13:28Speaker 1: higher lever's businesses that had less room coming into this
- 13:31Speaker 1: less room for air. Higher quality businesses with great balance
- 13:34Speaker 1: sheets will obviously have an impact, certainly one they can
- 13:39Speaker 1: sustain and earn their way out of inventories. You also
- 13:42Speaker 1: have to remember, depending on how short this is right now,
- 13:44Speaker 1: things are moving so quickly as inventories run off, then
- 13:48Speaker 1: you're gonna begin in seeing some supply chain issues that
- 13:51Speaker 1: people have been worried about. The big delta going out
- 13:54Speaker 1: to three or four weeks will be if demand people
- 13:57Speaker 1: stop going in restaurant, if it really if there's a shift,
- 14:01Speaker 1: dramatic shift of US service demand and consumer activity. So
- 14:07Speaker 1: one of the things that we've been discussing this morning
- 14:09Speaker 1: is kind of the market seems to be really pricing
- 14:11Speaker 1: in three maybe four rate cuts by the Federal Reserve
- 14:14Speaker 1: over the next twelve months. How do you think that
- 14:17Speaker 1: Fed's going to try to address what has been a
- 14:21Speaker 1: supply issue today but could morph into you know, a
- 14:24Speaker 1: demand issue. There's only so much they can do, but
- 14:27Speaker 1: I think they will, they will be sensitive to it.
- 14:29Speaker 1: I think they're obviously going to be speaking with a
- 14:31Speaker 1: lot of corporations and CEOs and the leven idea of
- 14:34Speaker 1: any pressures that are throughout the economic system. But I
- 14:37Speaker 1: don't think it's that's not that that's a blunt tool
- 14:40Speaker 1: when you need a lot of other tools possibility deal
- 14:42Speaker 1: with something this. How many frantic phone calls have you
- 14:45Speaker 1: fielded from your clients saying should I sell everything? We've
- 14:48Speaker 1: had a few, um, but only a few. I think
- 14:51Speaker 1: there's always an inverse correlation between phone calls incoming from
- 14:55Speaker 1: clients and directions of markets. So this is pretty extreme,
- 14:59Speaker 1: but it's been very quick. You know, it's this really
- 15:01Speaker 1: a five day dramatic sell off, So it's it's coming.
- 15:06Speaker 1: But there's also just a lack of information that everyone has.
- 15:09Speaker 1: That's the real issue is that no one can Investors
- 15:12Speaker 1: won't make a decision until they understand exactly what their
- 15:15Speaker 1: analysis is. Traders have one decision, sell or short, so
- 15:19Speaker 1: you've got this sort of one community of people that
- 15:22Speaker 1: have a very easy decision to make. In longer term
- 15:24Speaker 1: investors are looking in the market that you know, after
- 15:27Speaker 1: a fifteen percent corraction, it's still pretty fairly valued. You know,
- 15:31Speaker 1: we were here a month ago talking about growth expectations
- 15:33Speaker 1: being h we're too high. That seems like a good
- 15:37Speaker 1: protection every day. But so the investing base is going
- 15:40Speaker 1: to sit and watch and wait, and that doesn't help
- 15:43Speaker 1: market short term. So what do you tell those folks
- 15:46Speaker 1: who call you up frantically? Um, is it kind of
- 15:49Speaker 1: just kind of the we're long term investors here, you know,
- 15:53Speaker 1: don't panic, you know, we we do. Luckily, we begin
- 15:57Speaker 1: trimming some of our equity positions in Q four exclusively
- 16:01Speaker 1: because evaluations, and we always have hedges on, but we
- 16:05Speaker 1: actually avalued the hedges not to do the coronavirus just
- 16:08Speaker 1: because cost of protection and evaluations in at the end
- 16:12Speaker 1: of January. So we have some some good narrative to
- 16:15Speaker 1: tell our clients and that there's some protective elements of
- 16:18Speaker 1: our portfolio. But ultimately, quality assets survived periods like this,
- 16:22Speaker 1: lower quality assets are challenged, and the corporate credit market
- 16:27Speaker 1: with gearing and really the high yield market, there's a
- 16:30Speaker 1: big imbalance there that this maybe that's that bears watching.
- 16:33Speaker 1: That would say that's the one thing that we're going
- 16:35Speaker 1: to keep an eye on over the next couple of
- 16:36Speaker 1: weeks and months. So the FED very much in focus
- 16:39Speaker 1: today as people ramp up their rate cutting expectations. Charles
- 16:43Speaker 1: Retzky over at Missoojo Security is putting out a note
- 16:47Speaker 1: talking about the last time the FED actually had an
- 16:49Speaker 1: inter meeting rate cut was February two and eight. We
- 16:53Speaker 1: know what happened after that, UM, But I am wondering
- 16:56Speaker 1: from your perspective, is that a sure bed and well
- 17:00Speaker 1: that support markets? The FED comes out and does what
- 17:03Speaker 1: the what what traders are certainly pricing in, which is
- 17:05Speaker 1: more than two rate cuts by June. I think the
- 17:10Speaker 1: news flow will still dominate markets. It will be helpful, clearly,
- 17:13Speaker 1: it's always helpful. But I think ultimately the the information
- 17:17Speaker 1: that is gathered either incrementally positive information about the virus,
- 17:22Speaker 1: greater understanding new rules UH and maybe containment of spread,
- 17:27Speaker 1: that will have a much more pronounced and back to
- 17:30Speaker 1: markets or the converse. So again, I think a monetary
- 17:34Speaker 1: tool is helpful. It's certainly helpful of corporations or that
- 17:38Speaker 1: are levered and have you know, real interest rates and
- 17:40Speaker 1: all of a sudden they may have a sharp drop
- 17:43Speaker 1: from the demand. But I think the news from this,
- 17:46Speaker 1: it's all about this right now. So how do you
- 17:49Speaker 1: typically in your I mean, you can think back that
- 17:51Speaker 1: the fourth quarter of eighteen or certainly going back to
- 17:53Speaker 1: the financial crisis. But when you see markets falling like
- 17:57Speaker 1: this again in fifteen six, just in seven trade days, um,
- 18:02Speaker 1: it's kind of that falling knife analogy comes here, and
- 18:04Speaker 1: you don't want to be the person catching that falling knife.
- 18:07Speaker 1: Do you wait for a day or two of green
- 18:10Speaker 1: on the screen before you say, okay, I think this
- 18:12Speaker 1: thing might have found bottom. Generally well, from a trading standpoint,
- 18:16Speaker 1: three huge down days, high volume days, that's generally a
- 18:19Speaker 1: capitulation point. Um. And we're we've seen some of that.
- 18:23Speaker 1: I don't think we've seen enough of that candidly, but
- 18:25Speaker 1: we're not traders. In the end of Q for eighteen,
- 18:28Speaker 1: we saw that as a non fundamental We disagreed with
- 18:31Speaker 1: the market analysis that we're entering our session. That's why
- 18:34Speaker 1: we added risk exposure at that time. Today where everyone's
- 18:39Speaker 1: in a huge void of information. Every you know, you're
- 18:41Speaker 1: seeing cancelate this week alone, you look at the news
- 18:43Speaker 1: flow about cancelations and people banning, you know, corporations not
- 18:47Speaker 1: allowing people to fly out of the country, mean, etcetera.
- 18:50Speaker 1: It's expanding. Schools are being getting emails about my kids preschools,
- 18:55Speaker 1: and you know, so all this stuff is very fluid. Um.
- 18:59Speaker 1: It's uh, it's no, this is not what people are
- 19:02Speaker 1: trained analyze. Ultimately, Michael, just lastly to wrap it all
- 19:06Speaker 1: up and put a sort of a bow on the day.
- 19:08Speaker 1: Today is another day to find a haven investment. What's
- 19:12Speaker 1: the best haven big side? Yea, we have such a
- 19:19Speaker 1: negative forward view and treasury, so it's been the best
- 19:22Speaker 1: haven and gold we own gold. We think that is
- 19:24Speaker 1: just but that's not a trade. We think that's just
- 19:26Speaker 1: a generally a good asset to have in the mix.
- 19:29Speaker 1: So you're basically, uh, putting cash in a mattress and
- 19:32Speaker 1: sleeping as well as you possibly. Yeah, I never agreed
- 19:35Speaker 1: with the cash is trash quote that came out a
- 19:37Speaker 1: couple of months ago. Every great long term investor always
- 19:41Speaker 1: has a little liquidity when things like this happen. Interesting, Okay,
- 19:44Speaker 1: Michael Teaman, thanks so much for joining us. Michael Taman
- 19:46Speaker 1: is a chief executive officer for Team Advisors, twenty one
- 19:49Speaker 1: billion dollars under management, so lots of capital in the marketplace,
- 19:54Speaker 1: joining us here in our Bloomberg in Direactive broker studio.
- 20:01Speaker 1: The message to the Federal Reserve today is we don't
- 20:04Speaker 1: care what you say. We are expecting for rate cuts
- 20:08Speaker 1: by the end of January. That at least is the
- 20:10Speaker 1: impression from markets joining us now to discuss. Brian Schappato
- 20:14Speaker 1: is a Blueberg opinion columnist covering all things debt related,
- 20:16Speaker 1: and Brian, I'm looking right now, it's nearly a full
- 20:20Speaker 1: four rate cuts by the end of January currently priced.
- 20:23Speaker 1: And this comes even after Jim Bullard, the Fed's Jim
- 20:27Speaker 1: Bullard came out earlier today and basically said, yeah, I
- 20:30Speaker 1: guess we'll cut if it's a pandemic, but you know
- 20:33Speaker 1: it's too early to know, which wasn't comforting to markets, right. Yeah,
- 20:36Speaker 1: the base case is still for keeping policy on hold
- 20:39Speaker 1: and for the federal reserve. Not from markets. No, from
- 20:42Speaker 1: I mean, I mean markets, like people are hedging effectively
- 20:44Speaker 1: for rates hitting the zero bound, like by mid year
- 20:47Speaker 1: at this point, which is just kind of nuts. I mean,
- 20:49Speaker 1: obviously you've got a hedge, so you don't necessarily the
- 20:52Speaker 1: rates to hit zero by then, but I mean it's
- 20:54Speaker 1: just kind of crazy. Um, the Fed is not willing
- 20:57Speaker 1: to appease the market. It's at least not to this extent.
- 21:01Speaker 1: I think it's just a massive market meltdown in a
- 21:04Speaker 1: freak out right now, and people are just buying things up,
- 21:06Speaker 1: and that's of course causing the pricing to look like
- 21:09Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of cuts. But I
- 21:11Speaker 1: mean people talk about inter meeting cuts like happening over
- 21:13Speaker 1: the weekend or on Monday morning if stocks keep falling.
- 21:17Speaker 1: I just don't see that at all. So but Brian
- 21:19Speaker 1: one could argue with a cynical mind, like we have
- 21:22Speaker 1: some cynics around. He just pointed to who are Wadio
- 21:27Speaker 1: on radio that this is a friend who maybe has
- 21:30Speaker 1: responded to the markets, maybe more than they should have.
- 21:33Speaker 1: Um still though, you think they're gonna be focusing on
- 21:36Speaker 1: the data. Yeah, I mean Robert Kaplan said it's a
- 21:39Speaker 1: Fox Business today. He said, I will make a decision
- 21:42Speaker 1: on a rate cut by March seventeenth, eighteenth, which is
- 21:44Speaker 1: their meeting. And I expect a rate cut at the
- 21:47Speaker 1: March meeting. I mean, I don't unless the markets somehow
- 21:49Speaker 1: rebound tremendously. I think they would lose a lot of
- 21:52Speaker 1: credibility if they don't do anything. But for them to
- 21:55Speaker 1: do something extraordinary right now doesn't seem likely. It's not
- 21:58Speaker 1: like I think pretty much everyone conclude that one rate
- 22:01Speaker 1: cut will not solve the coronavirus, right, and it's unclear
- 22:06Speaker 1: whether it's kind of comical. I mean, I mean, I mean,
- 22:09Speaker 1: it's unclear whether anybody out there who's pounding the table
- 22:12Speaker 1: for a rate cut. I mean, if you've got a
- 22:14Speaker 1: basis rate cut this afternoon, would you be buying stocks?
- 22:17Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Well, this actually is a really interesting question.
- 22:21Speaker 1: What will it take for people to go in buy
- 22:23Speaker 1: stocks by risk or debt? I mean you came into
- 22:26Speaker 1: the studio and you said, you know, people have been
- 22:28Speaker 1: saying they're just waiting for an opportunity to buy the
- 22:30Speaker 1: dip here it is. I'm not going to fall I'm
- 22:34Speaker 1: not going to catch this falling knife. What do they
- 22:36Speaker 1: have to see? What are the people you're talking to saying? Yeah?
- 22:38Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like people just want some clarity
- 22:41Speaker 1: around how uh you know, elected officials are gonna get
- 22:45Speaker 1: their hands around the coronavirus. And there's nothing that the
- 22:49Speaker 1: Fed canoe again. I mean, they have a few options.
- 22:52Speaker 1: They can either go back to quee and they're still
- 22:54Speaker 1: already buying treasury bills. So for all those who said, oh,
- 22:57Speaker 1: you know, they're buying treasury bills and that's causing the
- 22:59Speaker 1: stock market to melt up. I mean, they're still doing
- 23:01Speaker 1: that but doesn't really matter right now, or they can
- 23:04Speaker 1: cut rates, and neither of those things provides any certainty
- 23:07Speaker 1: around the coronavirus front. You see Mick Mulvaney come out
- 23:10Speaker 1: today and say it's possible schools will have to close
- 23:13Speaker 1: in the US and people get really freaked out, like
- 23:15Speaker 1: they don't want their daily lives to be affected by this.
- 23:18Speaker 1: And even if borrowing costs are the cheapest they've ever been, uh,
- 23:23Speaker 1: that's not going to really resolve that concern. So, I
- 23:26Speaker 1: mean that kind of goes to the issue. I think
- 23:28Speaker 1: what we're seeing maybe in some of this accelerating risk
- 23:31Speaker 1: off field, it's just every day is you know, there's
- 23:35Speaker 1: another potentially big shoe to drop, and that is, you know,
- 23:38Speaker 1: a spread within the U S which we really haven't
- 23:41Speaker 1: seen yet. That's the headline risk that I think a
- 23:44Speaker 1: lot of traders probably don't want to deal with its
- 23:46Speaker 1: hold on a second, do you think that the market
- 23:48Speaker 1: that for at the market, that the economy isn't starting
- 23:51Speaker 1: to prepare for that? I mean, how many people have
- 23:53Speaker 1: you known who've been stockpiling food? Answer to your question
- 23:58Speaker 1: is no, I don't think the market is discounted. UM
- 24:01Speaker 1: A spread a material spread in the US. But I
- 24:04Speaker 1: think that potentially what I think that's just kind of
- 24:07Speaker 1: what the market is telling is maybe. And the thing
- 24:08Speaker 1: is is you saw Christine Lagarde yesterday come out and say,
- 24:12Speaker 1: even on the E c B side, we don't see
- 24:15Speaker 1: it necessary monetary policy responses yet, and that you know,
- 24:19Speaker 1: she oversees Italy obviously, and Italy has had quite an
- 24:21Speaker 1: outbreak over there. So even even people who are overseeing
- 24:26Speaker 1: economies that have been hit by this are saying this
- 24:30Speaker 1: is not a monetary policy issue. I don't know what
- 24:32Speaker 1: you want from US, UM. And that's gonna be really
- 24:35Speaker 1: interesting for markets to digest because to the point about
- 24:38Speaker 1: last year's rate cuts, I mean, they effectively backstopped a
- 24:42Speaker 1: trade war, and trade war could have been stopped by
- 24:45Speaker 1: elected officials and this cannot necessarily be so the Fed
- 24:49Speaker 1: used a bunch of ammunition on a problem that could
- 24:53Speaker 1: be resolved by people relatively easily. UM. And this is
- 24:57Speaker 1: gonna be a lot harder branch about it. Thanks so
- 25:00Speaker 1: much for joining us. We appreciate your thoughts. We know
- 25:02Speaker 1: you are busy. Uh here you can read Brian's a
- 25:05Speaker 1: great opinion, work at on the Terminal at O P
- 25:08Speaker 1: I n Go, and on Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion.
- 25:13Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast.
- 25:15Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts
- 25:18Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm
- 25:21Speaker 1: on Twitter at pt Sweeney. I'm Lisa abram Woy. It's
- 25:23Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Lisa abram woits one before the podcast.
- 25:26Speaker 1: You can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio