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Volvo USA CEO on Chip Shortage, EV Market, Polestar 1 · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
0:04
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
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Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
0:11
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
0:15
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
0:18
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Now, my first car
0:23
Speaker 1: was called the Blue Swede. I did about two fifty
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Speaker 1: thousand miles in that two forty g ly station wagon,
0:31
Speaker 1: and then my second car was a Silver Bullet that
0:33
Speaker 1: was a Sedan, also a two forty. My third car
0:37
Speaker 1: was a seven forty. We called it the Red Crash
0:39
Speaker 1: because all four of my brothers crashed it and we
0:42
Speaker 1: still have that car to this day. UM So, a
0:44
Speaker 1: lot of Volvo's growing up, and that's why I'm so
0:47
Speaker 1: excited to talk to Andre's Gustafson right now. He's the
0:50
Speaker 1: head of the Volvo America's region, the president and CEO
0:54
Speaker 1: also a Volvo Cars USA. Anders, thanks so much for
0:57
Speaker 1: joining us. You're here, I guess merely to talk about
1:00
Speaker 1: your new parental leave program UM, which is unique for
1:04
Speaker 1: an American company. You're going to give twenty four weeks
1:08
Speaker 1: of leave too. Is this to either parent who works
1:11
Speaker 1: involved though? Yes. First of all, thank you very much
1:15
Speaker 1: for your great introduction. So happy that you're you're you're
1:19
Speaker 1: a loyal owner of a Yes. Answer to your question,
1:23
Speaker 1: it's twenty four weeks, uh, and it's for for everyone.
1:26
Speaker 1: It's a gender neutral it's the same sex adoptive, permanent
1:30
Speaker 1: care foster and surgut parents, and it's for every mold
1:34
Speaker 1: them to eat. Both from our plants and manufacturing colleagues
1:38
Speaker 1: to headquarters. All right, honors, let's I'd love to get
1:43
Speaker 1: your thoughts here on you know, as we have executives
1:46
Speaker 1: on here over the past year. We really want to
1:48
Speaker 1: get a sense of how the pandemic has impacted your business, uh,
1:53
Speaker 1: the end user, the supply chain, the manufacturing. Give us
1:57
Speaker 1: if you could a snapshot of how the pandemic has
1:59
Speaker 1: impacted business over the last half months. Oh, I didn't
2:04
Speaker 1: know this was a two hour interview. Answer. The short
2:08
Speaker 1: answer is that, you know, Lobi Cars we're doing very
2:11
Speaker 1: very very well. Last year was a record year for
2:14
Speaker 1: us in the US, and this year started in a
2:19
Speaker 1: very very very good way. I think we're the fastest
2:21
Speaker 1: growing premium manufacturer UM, so you have that at least
2:26
Speaker 1: a result. But of course it has been tough and
2:29
Speaker 1: it's it's still tough. We invested in a brand new
2:32
Speaker 1: headquarter in the US in the middle of the pandemic,
2:36
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of discussions if this is
2:38
Speaker 1: the right decision. But for a growing brand, we're supposed
2:41
Speaker 1: to grow upcoming years much we have grown the last
2:45
Speaker 1: five years. So when you work for growth, it's easier
2:48
Speaker 1: to handle a pandemic because we have the momentum in
2:52
Speaker 1: the business and we have the right culture. What about
2:54
Speaker 1: the shortage that that can't help in growth? Right? How
2:58
Speaker 1: much does that slow down your production lines? Yeah? Once again,
3:02
Speaker 1: we are quite lucky. I'm swish a little bit humble there.
3:06
Speaker 1: We have had production issues the last two weeks, but
3:10
Speaker 1: before that we were quite out of that worst scenario.
3:15
Speaker 1: We see it starts to influence our our business in
3:19
Speaker 1: Charleston where we right now we have a stop of
3:22
Speaker 1: the operation and also at some plants in China. But
3:25
Speaker 1: in Europe the two plants are doing quite well and
3:29
Speaker 1: we run the operation based a week per week. But
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Speaker 1: right now it looks good this week and also next week.
3:35
Speaker 1: I unders talking about your growth. It's just extraordinary growth numbers.
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Speaker 1: You were just discussing, is that are you taking share
3:42
Speaker 1: from competing brands? And if so, Hum, I love them all,
3:48
Speaker 1: and I think we fish everywhere right now. I think
3:51
Speaker 1: based on a pandemic, people are more kind of a
3:55
Speaker 1: concern about their safety, and as you know, UM Safeties
3:59
Speaker 1: is one of our strongest brand promises, so I think
4:03
Speaker 1: that that's really helped us to attract customers from our
4:07
Speaker 1: German competitors, but also from American competitors. So I would
4:12
Speaker 1: say we fish everywhere based on our values of safety
4:18
Speaker 1: and focus of sustainability. So I tweeted out a picture
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Speaker 1: of the poll Star one. I think it is one
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Speaker 1: of the most beautiful sedans that you can buy today, Paul.
4:29
Speaker 1: You know on a Ferrari how they have the sea
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Speaker 1: through deck lid you can you can view the twelve
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Speaker 1: cylinder engine through that. In the poll Star, they have
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Speaker 1: a window in the back in the trunk that shows
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Speaker 1: you all the electrical connections. It's just so cool. I mean, Anders,
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Speaker 1: this is an engineer's dream because it's not just the
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Speaker 1: batteries in the back. You've got the two leader T
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Speaker 1: eight engine in the front. Which has both a turbocharger
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Speaker 1: and a supercharger. Um it just gets me pumped. Uh
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Speaker 1: and your only making a thousand, five hundred of those, right?
5:03
Speaker 1: What is the pole Star brand going to do for you?
5:07
Speaker 1: The Postal brand is you know Imer's. I'm responsible for
5:10
Speaker 1: Lobo Cars. The pole Star is owned by Volvo, so
5:15
Speaker 1: it's a unique brand here in the US, but it's
5:18
Speaker 1: really our performance electric company or brand we have in
5:23
Speaker 1: in the global portfolio. And I totally agree what you said.
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Speaker 1: It's a beautiful car right now. My wife is enjoying
5:30
Speaker 1: the p one and I'm always nervous because she's beautiful,
5:34
Speaker 1: but they stopped her everywhere. Um. So it is a
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Speaker 1: beautiful car. And it's really are our start on our
5:41
Speaker 1: segue into electrication for the whole corporation, all right, And
5:45
Speaker 1: it's that's kind of where I wanted to go. We've
5:47
Speaker 1: seen a lot of the traditional automakers in the past
5:50
Speaker 1: and called six months really ramp up the rhetoric and
5:54
Speaker 1: about their ambitions in the EV market. Um, and we've
5:57
Speaker 1: seen reflected in their stock prices. Is the strategy of
6:01
Speaker 1: Volvo is relates to electric vehicles. In a couple of
6:06
Speaker 1: weeks ago, we launched our strategy. It is divided into
6:09
Speaker 1: two important years. So volume is going to be related
6:14
Speaker 1: to full beps, fool electric cars and thirty. We are
6:20
Speaker 1: going to produce on bets in our portfolio and that
6:25
Speaker 1: is a big statement and that is less we worked with.
6:30
Speaker 1: We do we lose him? Oh I'm not sure if
6:32
Speaker 1: we lost unders Okay, we we thought we were scared.
6:38
Speaker 1: We thought you lost you for a second. Um, you
6:41
Speaker 1: know what, let me just pop in a question. I'm
6:43
Speaker 1: not sure if this uh, if this affects you in
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Speaker 1: the US. But here in Germany we have a pretty
6:49
Speaker 1: cool or Volvo has a pretty cool um subscription program.
6:54
Speaker 1: You can just basically like you would with a phone. Um, uh,
6:58
Speaker 1: subscribe to Volvo cars for two years. I think it is.
7:04
Speaker 1: And do you do that in the US as well?
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Speaker 1: Because I know these subscription programs are getting popular. Yes,
7:11
Speaker 1: we launched it two and a half years ago. So
7:14
Speaker 1: we have you know, US, but a country. It's a continent.
7:17
Speaker 1: So we have cab Volvo offering forty three stakes. Uh
7:23
Speaker 1: and it's growing every month even if we I'm sure
7:27
Speaker 1: talk about numbers, but March in US is going to
7:30
Speaker 1: be the best months since we launched Alvo in US.
7:35
Speaker 1: All right, very cool. I just think it's such you
7:39
Speaker 1: guys are always doing things different, you know. I don't
7:42
Speaker 1: mean to steal the Apple uh slogan, but it's just
7:46
Speaker 1: like the design obviously is very Swedish. But I love
7:49
Speaker 1: the x C forty for example, the S ninety I
7:52
Speaker 1: was hoping would bring people back to Sedan's out of
7:55
Speaker 1: the SUVs um and the poll Star is just incredible
7:58
Speaker 1: as well. So honors, go stop send CEO Volvo Cars America.
8:03
Speaker 1: Evolvo America's as well ahead of Volvo Americas as well.
8:05
Speaker 1: He's gonna join me on Bloomberg Television by the way,
8:07
Speaker 1: in about an hour and a half, so you can
8:09
Speaker 1: tune in there if you like. For me and Paul,
8:12
Speaker 1: this is Bloomberg. Well, this next guest I have known
8:18
Speaker 1: for many years, David Field. He's the chairman, president and
8:22
Speaker 1: chief executive officer of Odyssey. I know that David as
8:26
Speaker 1: a chairman, president, CEO of Entercom Communications, but they're rebranding
8:30
Speaker 1: the company Odyssey. They're based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And in
8:34
Speaker 1: the interest of transparency, we should note that Bloomberg Radio
8:36
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C is a local marketing agreement partner
8:40
Speaker 1: of Entercom, rebranded today as Odyssey. Bloomberg Radios also provides
8:44
Speaker 1: business program to Odyssey's forty five markets nationwide on more
8:49
Speaker 1: than one hundred of its radio stations. David, thanks so
8:52
Speaker 1: much for being with us. It's been good to chat.
8:54
Speaker 1: Has been a long time since you and I have chatted.
8:56
Speaker 1: Talked to us about rebranding Entercom, which is an aim
9:00
Speaker 1: everybody in the radio industry knows to Odyssey. What's uh,
9:03
Speaker 1: what's the significant change so well? First, Paul, great to
9:06
Speaker 1: hear your voice and and to connect UM. Yeah, look
9:11
Speaker 1: it's been UM. If you if you look at how
9:14
Speaker 1: the audio space is playing out today, UM audio is
9:18
Speaker 1: experiencing a huge renaissance, and over the last few years,
9:23
Speaker 1: last three years to be specific, we have transformed our
9:26
Speaker 1: company UM to not just build one of the two
9:30
Speaker 1: largest radio broadcasting groups, but also have taken leadership positions
9:35
Speaker 1: and podcasting, digital network, radio, live events, sports, news, etcetera.
9:41
Speaker 1: And uh, the name Entercom just does not We've all
9:46
Speaker 1: run it, and we thought it was time for a
9:49
Speaker 1: rebrand that would also enable us to take our radio
9:52
Speaker 1: dot com B two B B two C platform and
9:55
Speaker 1: marry it to our B two B platform and create
9:57
Speaker 1: a more holistic, compelling UM brand image. So one thing, uh,
10:03
Speaker 1: radio listeners can't see this isn't like James Joyce Odyssey.
10:07
Speaker 1: This is a U. D A C Y Which then
10:11
Speaker 1: makes more sense. It's audible. Why has radio? I mean
10:15
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan, not just I don't just work
10:18
Speaker 1: in radio. I listened to radio like most of the day.
10:21
Speaker 1: Why have radio and podcasts and audible books experience this renaissance?
10:27
Speaker 1: Let's driving it well. Audio has emerged. Is the number
10:32
Speaker 1: one radio is emergence, the number one reached medium in
10:35
Speaker 1: the country. And our company and your company and so
10:39
Speaker 1: many others have such a great depth of incredibly compelling
10:44
Speaker 1: personalities UM and we see that having exploded now across podcasting,
10:49
Speaker 1: which of course it's just added a greater dimension, uh
10:53
Speaker 1: to audio. And Uh there's no medium that connects more,
10:58
Speaker 1: connects more viscerally, and in ages people more deeply than
11:02
Speaker 1: than great audio. And because of technology and innovation, we're
11:07
Speaker 1: now seeing more grade audio available to the public than
11:10
Speaker 1: ever before. And that's really exciting. Hey, David, I know
11:15
Speaker 1: at Entercom, historically you guys have really had some of
11:18
Speaker 1: the leading sports radio stations around the country. I think
11:21
Speaker 1: is something like a w E I UH in Boston
11:24
Speaker 1: as a real leader. And you know when you listen
11:26
Speaker 1: to sports radio, sports betting is everywhere. It seems like
11:29
Speaker 1: more and more states are legalizing sports betting. What's that
11:32
Speaker 1: done to your business? So to your point, we have
11:37
Speaker 1: most of the leading sports radio stations in the country
11:40
Speaker 1: like w f ANN New York, to Score in Chicago,
11:43
Speaker 1: w i P and Philadelphia and so forth. And we
11:46
Speaker 1: have um UH announced major major partnership with Vanduel this
11:52
Speaker 1: fall UM which we believe is the largest radio advertising
11:57
Speaker 1: deal in the history of the business. And then since
11:59
Speaker 1: then we've announced deals with both Rush Street Interactive and
12:02
Speaker 1: today we bet mgm UM. We see that market exploding
12:08
Speaker 1: UH and going from UH going about this year to
12:13
Speaker 1: about thirty million in revenue, and think that our sports
12:16
Speaker 1: betting revenues triple here over the next few years as
12:20
Speaker 1: more and more states legalized mobile sports betting. It definitely
12:25
Speaker 1: has to pick up to match the sports betting markets
12:28
Speaker 1: we see in other countries. I mean in England, you've
12:31
Speaker 1: got you know, five year old kids on the street
12:32
Speaker 1: are already doing spread betting. So it's something that I
12:36
Speaker 1: think Americans will cotton to pretty well. I want to
12:39
Speaker 1: ask about podcasts. Why have podcasts become so popular and
12:44
Speaker 1: and and how do you think the distribution of those
12:47
Speaker 1: is going to change, because right now it's still a
12:49
Speaker 1: little bit clunky. Well, one of the things we announced
12:53
Speaker 1: today is that we are UM for the first time
12:56
Speaker 1: going to start UM presenting exclusive windows UM for some
13:01
Speaker 1: of our content. And we entered the space two years
13:04
Speaker 1: ago the acquisitions of two of the strongest podcast companies
13:07
Speaker 1: in the countries See thirteen and Pineapple Street Studios. UM.
13:12
Speaker 1: We have partnerships with many of the country's leading podcasters,
13:16
Speaker 1: and we also generate and a number of original series,
13:20
Speaker 1: many of which have been critically acclaimed and one awards,
13:23
Speaker 1: and that has made us one of the three largest
13:25
Speaker 1: podcast publishers in the country. UM. We're just really excited
13:30
Speaker 1: about the the growth rates within the industry, and you
13:33
Speaker 1: see more and more people consuming large amounts of podcasting,
13:39
Speaker 1: and I think that you're going to see revenues continuing
13:42
Speaker 1: to expand as more and more brands now are embracing
13:46
Speaker 1: podcasting and recognizing the power of it. Last point I
13:49
Speaker 1: make on that is we also just acquired a company
13:52
Speaker 1: called Podcorn, which is the number one podcast influencer marketplace
13:56
Speaker 1: in the country. They have over forty thou gast creators
14:00
Speaker 1: on their platform and provide the best way for brands.
14:04
Speaker 1: Two UM established native advertising on targeted podcasts that reach
14:10
Speaker 1: their target audiences and we think that is incredibly exciting
14:14
Speaker 1: development UM for the future of add growth on the
14:18
Speaker 1: podcasting platform. Dave talked to us about your core radio business,
14:23
Speaker 1: the outlook there for advertising as you compete with you know,
14:26
Speaker 1: all these new media that are out there for ad dollars.
14:31
Speaker 1: Sure it's it's people forget that radio today is the
14:36
Speaker 1: number one reached medium in America and about Americans listen
14:41
Speaker 1: each week, which speaks to the resilience of the medium
14:44
Speaker 1: from listening standpoint. From an advertising standpoint, UM, we've seen
14:49
Speaker 1: national revenues recovering at a very rapid clip UM towards
14:54
Speaker 1: you know, back to where we were in t and
14:57
Speaker 1: local UM we continue to suffer from the number of
15:02
Speaker 1: local advertisers who are essentially hibernating UM through the obvious
15:08
Speaker 1: UM extraordinary difficulties of the pandemic. And so about our
15:13
Speaker 1: local advertisers. As a December, we're still not advertising and
15:18
Speaker 1: some of that is attrition, but a large percentage of
15:20
Speaker 1: that are just advertisers who are UM waiting to get back,
15:24
Speaker 1: and so we expect there to be a significant recovery
15:27
Speaker 1: here UM as we see some degree of normalization in
15:31
Speaker 1: the months ahead. Hey, David, I want to ask you
15:33
Speaker 1: just quickly here, what are you gonna do with your
15:34
Speaker 1: AM stations. I've noticed that you've you know, transitioned some
15:38
Speaker 1: of them to digital or FM like w f A
15:40
Speaker 1: n IS now you know one oh one nine. What
15:42
Speaker 1: do you plan on doing with some of your AM stations? Well, Paul,
15:46
Speaker 1: it's it's UM. The fact remains that we still have
15:51
Speaker 1: on our company and across the industry a number of
15:54
Speaker 1: really robust A M brands and as long as you're
15:57
Speaker 1: creating outstanding content UM like Bloomberg Radio, people will seek
16:03
Speaker 1: it out. And so certainly FM radio is uh uh
16:09
Speaker 1: it's accessed by a greater share of the public. UM.
16:12
Speaker 1: AM still does really well if you have a strongly
16:15
Speaker 1: branded radio station that is a destination for for listeners.
16:21
Speaker 1: All right, Dave, thanks very much for joining us. Pleasure
16:23
Speaker 1: having you on and really fascinating conversation. Dave Field, Chairman,
16:28
Speaker 1: President CEO of Entercom now Odyssey. The ticker after the
16:32
Speaker 1: name change is a U D. Now I want to
16:38
Speaker 1: get over to Bloomberg senior reporter treat not A Rajon,
16:41
Speaker 1: who has been leading the coverage of the block stock
16:46
Speaker 1: bonanza here. The Archagos failure and um, the drops in
16:53
Speaker 1: the stocks that Archigos had exposure to has been amazing.
16:57
Speaker 1: The banks all around it have had to come out
17:00
Speaker 1: and say whether they had billions of dollars of exposure,
17:03
Speaker 1: like Credit Suite or Wells Fargo just coming across the
17:06
Speaker 1: ticker now saying it has no losses to report from
17:09
Speaker 1: closing its arts exposure three. How much more do you
17:15
Speaker 1: think we have to go in terms of unwinding these uh,
17:19
Speaker 1: these trades, man. The problem really is that no one
17:23
Speaker 1: has a good central database on this situation. We're talking
17:27
Speaker 1: to all the prime brokers out there, We're talking everyone
17:30
Speaker 1: else was involved in the situation, and they may know
17:33
Speaker 1: what is happening at their own institution, but they really
17:35
Speaker 1: don't have good visibility of what's happening elsewhere, which is
17:38
Speaker 1: why when we saw that big block trade mania on Friday,
17:43
Speaker 1: where the estimates were anywhere between twenty billions and thirty billions,
17:46
Speaker 1: perhaps a little more. Even then, senior banking executives were
17:50
Speaker 1: cautioning us that you could still see quite a lot
17:52
Speaker 1: more of them. Open Stanley then came out Sunday night
17:55
Speaker 1: shopping at two billion dollar viacom blocks, and you saw
17:58
Speaker 1: a bunch of training from one's probable yester day. Now,
18:01
Speaker 1: as you just mentioned, well fogs out there saying we
18:03
Speaker 1: had a prime broke reede relationship with doctor Goes. But
18:06
Speaker 1: we were well collateralized at all times, and we will
18:08
Speaker 1: not We don't have any more exposure and we did
18:11
Speaker 1: not experience any loss. That's not the case for MUFG,
18:16
Speaker 1: which overnight Tuesday morning in Japan told us that they
18:20
Speaker 1: had a few hundred million dollars in losses, the MURA
18:23
Speaker 1: that has already said that it has a two billion
18:26
Speaker 1: dollar claim against the big client, which we believe again
18:28
Speaker 1: to be tied to the Bill Hoog situation, and most importantly,
18:32
Speaker 1: the big name credits Wheeze where the most the latest
18:36
Speaker 1: reporting suggests that they are living for lasses that could
18:39
Speaker 1: be a few billion dollars and that is mighty significant. Sure,
18:44
Speaker 1: I love the piece you and your partner Donald Griffin
18:46
Speaker 1: put out earlier today, really taking us behind the scenes
18:50
Speaker 1: of what was going on with some of these investment banks,
18:52
Speaker 1: and I guess last week they were trying to get
18:55
Speaker 1: together at the last second and try to do this
18:58
Speaker 1: in a more orderly fashion. What happened to that, Well,
19:03
Speaker 1: one interesting observation from that pole definitely is you do
19:07
Speaker 1: not want to be the person in the room that says, guys,
19:11
Speaker 1: let's all hang tight and show some unity, because everyone
19:14
Speaker 1: else will smell blood in the water. Our understanding it
19:17
Speaker 1: alarms are already blaring at a lot of these films
19:20
Speaker 1: which saw some of the big positions that Bill Homes
19:23
Speaker 1: firm had start to tank, and they were worried about
19:26
Speaker 1: breaching margin limits and how they make sure that they
19:29
Speaker 1: do not lose much in that situation when all these
19:32
Speaker 1: banks can mean. On the call, we believe it might
19:34
Speaker 1: have been sometime on Thursday, Credit Sweet was actually pushing
19:38
Speaker 1: for a stand still agreement. It was saying, let cooler
19:41
Speaker 1: heads prevail, let the market player for a couple of bits,
19:44
Speaker 1: let's reassess the situation when markets open next week. But
19:48
Speaker 1: it was quite clear that there was a reasonable amount
19:51
Speaker 1: of bickering on that call. No one really reached any
19:54
Speaker 1: sort of agreement on what to do. And you know
19:57
Speaker 1: a few hours after that, banks are already shooting up
19:59
Speaker 1: notices of the fault. Massive finger pointing. It started. Some
20:03
Speaker 1: folks beIN credit sweets, also blame Goldman, Sachs, Blain, Stanley.
20:08
Speaker 1: What we do know was they all broke ranks and
20:11
Speaker 1: was everyone for themselves by the time we were into Friday. Wow,
20:16
Speaker 1: just just an extraordinary story. Uh, we really appreciate you
20:19
Speaker 1: taking us their street not a Rodge and senior finance
20:22
Speaker 1: reporter for a Bloomberg. US consumer confidence rose in March
20:28
Speaker 1: to a one year highest. Americans grew more upbeat about
20:32
Speaker 1: the economy and labor market. Let's dig into those numbers
20:34
Speaker 1: and we have what a pair we have to do
20:36
Speaker 1: that today Lynn Franco, Senior director of Economic Indicators and
20:40
Speaker 1: Surveys at the Conference Board, and Carl Ricka Donna, Chief
20:44
Speaker 1: US Economists for Bloomberg Economist, Lynn, I want to start
20:47
Speaker 1: with you a big number blowing out where Wall Street
20:50
Speaker 1: saw this number? What's behind it? Well, we've seen that
20:54
Speaker 1: not only has spring sprung, but it seems so has
20:57
Speaker 1: consumers confidence. And it's really across the board. We've got
21:00
Speaker 1: a much stronger rating on current conditions both in terms
21:04
Speaker 1: of how consumers see the economy and employment and looking ahead,
21:08
Speaker 1: they're very confident and we're going to continue to see
21:10
Speaker 1: the economy grow and that you know, we're going to
21:13
Speaker 1: begin adding jobs. So it's very positive across the board. Carl,
21:18
Speaker 1: this could change on a dime, right, Um, as we
21:21
Speaker 1: see COVID infection spike around the world. How confident are
21:26
Speaker 1: you of a comeback. I'm fairly confident Matt, that we
21:30
Speaker 1: are on a sustainable track record here, at least as
21:33
Speaker 1: we look at us economic conditions. Certainly there are uh
21:37
Speaker 1: kind of signals pointing in there are wrong directions if
21:40
Speaker 1: we look at the hospitalizations by state and and that
21:43
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But we've had such success uh giving
21:47
Speaker 1: the vaccine distributed, especially among the most vulnerable aspects of
21:51
Speaker 1: the population. About that, you know, I think we can
21:55
Speaker 1: we're certainly in the race against the clock hero with
21:57
Speaker 1: the variants spreading, but I don't you know, see a
22:01
Speaker 1: reasonable scenario where we're going back to extreme lockdown. So
22:05
Speaker 1: there could be a kind of delay or a little
22:07
Speaker 1: bit of backsliding, but not a severe downturn. So this,
22:11
Speaker 1: this recovery I think is very much here to stay.
22:14
Speaker 1: Uh and UH you know what, if you like what
22:16
Speaker 1: you're seeing in Q when, you'll love what you're seeing
22:19
Speaker 1: in Q two, because we're going to see just a
22:21
Speaker 1: dramatic crescendo. Uh And nowhere will that be more evident
22:24
Speaker 1: than as we look at the payroll numbers coming up
22:27
Speaker 1: this Friday. The March jobs report is going to be
22:30
Speaker 1: a real barn burner. Even after February surprise to the upside,
22:35
Speaker 1: March will be stronger still, and the same thing will
22:38
Speaker 1: convey into April and May. And two, Carl, just help
22:42
Speaker 1: us put some bloomerk economics GDP numbers, because these are
22:45
Speaker 1: numbers that we haven't seen any long time. If ever,
22:48
Speaker 1: where do you like your Q two, three and four
22:50
Speaker 1: GDP numbers? Not since you were a young boy. Uh No.
22:56
Speaker 1: We we're looking for a recovery that in many ways
23:01
Speaker 1: resembles the economic rebound after the very deep recession, which
23:09
Speaker 1: to that point had been the deepest trip since the
23:12
Speaker 1: Great Depression. Uh. And so we see lots of parallels,
23:16
Speaker 1: whether it's looking at GDP growth. In fact, you know,
23:18
Speaker 1: we're looking for GDP growth of about eleven percent in
23:22
Speaker 1: the second quarter, ten percent in the quarter after that.
23:25
Speaker 1: That's there's all this stimulus money has just dumped onto
23:28
Speaker 1: an economy that's reopening and benefiting from wealth effects from
23:32
Speaker 1: home prices and equity appreciation and portfolios. Uh and also uh,
23:39
Speaker 1: you know stimulus funds the reopening. Uh really uh, a
23:43
Speaker 1: slew of factors in the one that we shouldn't ignore
23:47
Speaker 1: is the mountain of savings that households are sitting on
23:51
Speaker 1: over the course of the past year, which could be
23:53
Speaker 1: about two trillion dollars. So as they deployed that into
23:56
Speaker 1: the economy, there's really just multiple engines. You're providing very
24:01
Speaker 1: a strong boost to activity. And so that means for
24:04
Speaker 1: the year as a whole, we're looking for GDP growth
24:07
Speaker 1: of about seven point seven percent. The Feds currently at
24:11
Speaker 1: six and a half were kind of at the upper
24:12
Speaker 1: end of the consensus spectrum. But that's all depends on
24:15
Speaker 1: the vigor of the reopening. And today's confidence numbers give
24:20
Speaker 1: me added uh confidence pun intended that you know, we
24:24
Speaker 1: will see an above consensus outcome. Lynn, What what what
24:29
Speaker 1: has driven this? Is it the stimulus checks that are
24:31
Speaker 1: driving this incredible confidence number. It's a variety of factors.
24:36
Speaker 1: I think we've got, you know, fiscal stimulus, which is helping.
24:40
Speaker 1: We've got the vaccine rollout which is accelerating, and so
24:44
Speaker 1: that's a great combination both for confidence and for spending.
24:48
Speaker 1: And we expect that much like Carl said, to continue
24:51
Speaker 1: well into Q two, Q three, and Q four. So
24:54
Speaker 1: we think really that this recovery is here to stay
24:57
Speaker 1: and it's going to gain strength. And while the arians
25:00
Speaker 1: sort of remained a possible head wing, um, you know,
25:03
Speaker 1: it all depends on how quickly we can now roll
25:06
Speaker 1: out the vaccine. All right, Lynn, thanks so much for
25:09
Speaker 1: joining us. Lynn Franco is the director of Economic Indicators
25:12
Speaker 1: at the Conference Board. Again, the US consumer confidence number
25:15
Speaker 1: came into a hundred and nine point seven and the
25:18
Speaker 1: survey was only for six point nine, so really a
25:23
Speaker 1: big beat, a big beat over the revised previous month's
25:26
Speaker 1: number of ninety point four. Thanks for listening to the
25:30
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews
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Speaker 1: with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm
25:38
Speaker 1: Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three. Pet
25:42
Speaker 1: On fall Sweeney I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before
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