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A Closer Look At Commodities · 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
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Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
0:18
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I guess the story
0:22
Speaker 1: of the weekend markets is the Federal Reserve, the FED
0:25
Speaker 1: raising expectations for rising inflation this year as well as
0:29
Speaker 1: rate heights next year and into three. And that's obviously
0:33
Speaker 1: the market is trying to digest that. Markets ares in general,
0:37
Speaker 1: including the commodities market. H we talk commoties. We always
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Speaker 1: like to chat with Will Rynd. He's founder and CEO
0:42
Speaker 1: of Granite Chairs at one point five billion dollars in
0:44
Speaker 1: assets under management, located in New York. So Will, thanks
0:47
Speaker 1: so much for joining us again again. A big change
0:51
Speaker 1: in tone, well, I would say hawk ish, a tone
0:54
Speaker 1: that was probably a little bit more hawkish than the
0:55
Speaker 1: market had been discounting. What did you take away from
0:58
Speaker 1: FED Chairman Pal's comments this week? Well, I think that's um,
1:04
Speaker 1: you know much to what's kind of probably been already
1:07
Speaker 1: said in the market that you know, the expectations have
1:09
Speaker 1: been brought forward in terms of rate rises. So it
1:13
Speaker 1: seems like the the indication is that you know, inflation
1:16
Speaker 1: is rising faster than they expected. Um. And you know,
1:20
Speaker 1: to that end, trying to bring forward expectations of rate rises.
1:25
Speaker 1: There No, there was no specific comments around the tapering.
1:28
Speaker 1: That's the asset purchase program. But I think expectations, obviously,
1:31
Speaker 1: that's the big story in terms of rising rates. For
1:34
Speaker 1: the first time, I did say they're starting to talk
1:37
Speaker 1: about tapering. Previously they weren't even talking about talking about tapering. Um.
1:42
Speaker 1: The thing I found interesting Will is, alright, so rates
1:47
Speaker 1: are gonna rise earlier than expected. What do you do
1:50
Speaker 1: sell gold that makes sense? Rates are gonna rise earlier
1:54
Speaker 1: than expected. What do you do buy bonds? That doesn't
1:56
Speaker 1: make any sense at all? What's going on there? Well?
2:01
Speaker 1: I think, Um, to me, this is all a bit
2:03
Speaker 1: of a knee jerk reaction, because you know, in my mind,
2:07
Speaker 1: if you just look at that in a vacuum and
2:09
Speaker 1: you say interest rates are rising or interest rate expectations
2:13
Speaker 1: of rising cell gold, Okay, that might be fine, but
2:17
Speaker 1: what about inflation and right, now we have the lowest
2:21
Speaker 1: real interest rates by the nominal interest rate minus inflation,
2:26
Speaker 1: that we've had since the nineteen seventies. So in this
2:29
Speaker 1: environment where real rates is so low, inflation is rising
2:34
Speaker 1: much quickly. Even the said saying, you know, Jerome Power,
2:36
Speaker 1: think the exact words that he used was inflation could
2:40
Speaker 1: turn out to be higher and more persistent than we
2:42
Speaker 1: anticipate in that environment. I'm not a seller of gold.
2:45
Speaker 1: I think gold and commodities. To me, inflation is still rising,
2:50
Speaker 1: and in this environment, I think you need to have
2:52
Speaker 1: inflation hedges. All right, That's kind of where I wanted
2:55
Speaker 1: to go. Well, it just obviously you look across the
2:58
Speaker 1: commodities complex, uh, and you see, you know, big gains
3:02
Speaker 1: for most of the commodities of the soft of the
3:04
Speaker 1: herds and obviously oil, uh, you know, pushing higher above
3:07
Speaker 1: seventy on w T I crewed. I guess my question
3:10
Speaker 1: is is there room to grow? And if so, what's
3:12
Speaker 1: what's kind of the drivers there? I think short term,
3:16
Speaker 1: absolutely yes, we're still in this reopening phase. I mean,
3:19
Speaker 1: obviously for those of us that you know, watch the
3:21
Speaker 1: commodities market, we are now just about to enter the
3:25
Speaker 1: notorious or infamous summer driving season, and you know what
3:29
Speaker 1: that means is that, you know, when kids get out
3:31
Speaker 1: of school and everybody takes off for some vacation, there's
3:35
Speaker 1: a lot more driving activity, which you know typically leads
3:38
Speaker 1: to higher oil demand. Now this year, arguably that's going
3:41
Speaker 1: to be bigger than we've seen it a while, because
3:43
Speaker 1: people aren't traveling abroad maybe as much as they would
3:46
Speaker 1: have done in prior years, and so the Great American
3:49
Speaker 1: Vacation is going to be in full swing. And so
3:52
Speaker 1: from that perspective, I think on the short term, you know,
3:55
Speaker 1: I looked at what happened with oil yesterday and it
3:57
Speaker 1: barely moved. Okay, did go down a little bit, but
4:00
Speaker 1: I thought it was very stood up, very well given
4:02
Speaker 1: everything else we were seeing in the market. So to me,
4:05
Speaker 1: that's an indication of the strength right now and short
4:07
Speaker 1: term strength and oil the energy complex more broadly. I
4:11
Speaker 1: think really the only things that got hit and got
4:14
Speaker 1: hit relatively severely were the metals, which you can also
4:17
Speaker 1: trade a little bit risk off when the US dollar rises.
4:23
Speaker 1: Oil special obviously, because you've got this cartel um that's
4:27
Speaker 1: watching the prices. How high do you think OPEC would
4:29
Speaker 1: let it go. Um. Well, I think that they can
4:33
Speaker 1: let it or they would let it go significantly high.
4:35
Speaker 1: I don't think a hundred dollar oil is out of
4:38
Speaker 1: the question. Um. But of course they have their own pressures,
4:42
Speaker 1: as we've seen time and time again, economic pressures and
4:45
Speaker 1: financial pressures, and you know, they've they've tried to exercise
4:49
Speaker 1: restraints in terms of putting more supply into the market.
4:52
Speaker 1: So I think naturally, you know, if the price goes
4:55
Speaker 1: much higher than it is today, they're they're already talking
4:57
Speaker 1: about putting more production on the market. It. But I
5:00
Speaker 1: think we'll see some supply response, a little demand response.
5:06
Speaker 1: I'm I'm there for the demand response. I'm willing to
5:09
Speaker 1: burn as much gas as i can this summer. I'm
5:12
Speaker 1: excited to be summer driving season well or yeah, in
5:16
Speaker 1: um in a number of different vehicles actually, although I
5:21
Speaker 1: promise that my offspring will make this shift to electric vehicles. Well,
5:27
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us, Will Rind. They're coming
5:30
Speaker 1: in from Granite Shares. They have one and a half
5:32
Speaker 1: billion dollars of assets under management, uh and located right
5:37
Speaker 1: in New York City. We are going to continue to
5:40
Speaker 1: watch these commodities because after the moves that we saw yesterday,
5:43
Speaker 1: it became even more interesting than just a one way trip.
5:50
Speaker 1: Let's get over now to Lauren Sour, Associate Professor Emergency
5:53
Speaker 1: Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine UM. Lauren,
5:58
Speaker 1: I was just telling our list nerves that the delta
6:02
Speaker 1: variant of COVID nineteen is spreading quickly throughout the UK.
6:07
Speaker 1: I think there's seventy seven thousand cases this week compared
6:11
Speaker 1: to thirty three thousand cases last week, and cent of
6:17
Speaker 1: the cases that they have tracked down and researched are
6:21
Speaker 1: the delta variants. So is that going to spread now
6:25
Speaker 1: to the US and too continental Europe? Yeah, I think
6:29
Speaker 1: we are going to see delta variant overtaking a lot
6:32
Speaker 1: of the cases, sort of the stronghold, similar to what
6:34
Speaker 1: the alpha variant did UM late last year and early
6:37
Speaker 1: this year. You know, I think we're still all waiting
6:40
Speaker 1: to see UM whether or not we'll see an uptick
6:45
Speaker 1: in actual cases, but I think the cases we do
6:47
Speaker 1: see will start to be that delta variant for sure, Lauren.
6:50
Speaker 1: Here in the States, it's it's obviously a different story,
6:53
Speaker 1: much more positive story in terms of vaccine metrics. UM
6:57
Speaker 1: is it too early to start talking Yeah, it's true.
7:00
Speaker 1: Is it too early to start talking about her community
7:02
Speaker 1: here in the US? Her immunities are really challenging things
7:06
Speaker 1: to talk about in a general sense, And so you know,
7:08
Speaker 1: I think we all want to see her community UM
7:12
Speaker 1: conceptually in the US, and I think we're getting really close.
7:14
Speaker 1: I think that's why we didn't see that sort of
7:16
Speaker 1: spring UM uptick that everyone thought we would see. And
7:21
Speaker 1: the key focus in order to start having that conversation
7:25
Speaker 1: will be to understand what the the sort of overarching
7:29
Speaker 1: coverage of immunity is. So we want to make sure
7:32
Speaker 1: we get rid of those pockets of of communities that
7:35
Speaker 1: have been resistant to or enabled enabled to access vaccine UM,
7:40
Speaker 1: so that we have a really well spread immunity. The
7:44
Speaker 1: picture of community looks similar across the United States, rather
7:46
Speaker 1: than high and low and high and low. And that's
7:48
Speaker 1: where you're going to start to see her community UM
7:51
Speaker 1: broadly across the country. Could we see something in the
7:55
Speaker 1: US happen the likes of which we're seeing in the UK.
7:59
Speaker 1: Could we see another wave of infection start to rapidly
8:04
Speaker 1: spread even though UM the majority of the adult population
8:08
Speaker 1: is vaccinated. I think we could. Um. I think everyone
8:13
Speaker 1: is hopeful that we'll get vaccine coverage that's high enough
8:16
Speaker 1: that we won't see that big uptick like the way
8:19
Speaker 1: the UK has. UM. But the US is has really
8:23
Speaker 1: disparate levels of vaccination coverage, more so than the UK,
8:28
Speaker 1: I would say, and so, UM, you know, it's hard
8:31
Speaker 1: to compare. It's hard to make predictions on what will
8:33
Speaker 1: happen in the US based on what has happened in
8:36
Speaker 1: the UK. I think rather we start to look at
8:39
Speaker 1: the state level and say, Okay, if this state has
8:41
Speaker 1: pretty high vaccination coverage, we're less likely to see um,
8:45
Speaker 1: that sort of picture in that state. Um. And over overall,
8:49
Speaker 1: I'll just remind listeners, overall the UK has more higher
8:53
Speaker 1: percentage of its population fully vaccinated than is that with
8:57
Speaker 1: astra zeneca? Though Um yeah does that, hey, doctor, does
9:01
Speaker 1: that make a difference? Is is it? Are you more
9:04
Speaker 1: likely to get the Delta variant even if you've been
9:07
Speaker 1: vaccinated if you were vaccinated with astra zeneca. Um, I'm
9:12
Speaker 1: not actually sure. I will say that we're just starting
9:14
Speaker 1: to see data back on on the cases, the vaccinated
9:18
Speaker 1: cases from Delta. Most of those cases are people who
9:22
Speaker 1: have not had their second vaccine dose, which would be
9:24
Speaker 1: obviously the MODERNA advisor vaccines. And so the key is
9:28
Speaker 1: to get that full coverage of vaccination, right, don't stop
9:30
Speaker 1: after that first dose. If you're having a two dose vaccine,
9:34
Speaker 1: make sure you're getting the booster if that's what's appropriate
9:36
Speaker 1: and recommended by your doctor UM, and make sure you
9:39
Speaker 1: get through that. You know, you sort of protect yourself
9:41
Speaker 1: and follow those other public health measures until you have
9:45
Speaker 1: you know, full vaccination coverage. And that's going to get
9:48
Speaker 1: the most protection at the individual and at the population
9:51
Speaker 1: level for UM for the delta variant. So I can't
9:55
Speaker 1: speak specifically to astrogenica. I haven't looked close enough with
9:58
Speaker 1: the data, but I do think that we that the
10:00
Speaker 1: vaccines are protective. We just have to make sure that
10:03
Speaker 1: people get the full course of the vaccine that they're
10:05
Speaker 1: getting UM in order to build that protection. Lauren, the
10:10
Speaker 1: Barkley Center where the Brooklyn Nets play their basketball game
10:14
Speaker 1: last night was packed. Does that make you nervous? You know,
10:19
Speaker 1: it's weird right now. Any sort of visible crowd makes
10:23
Speaker 1: me feel nervous. And you know, we're going to be
10:25
Speaker 1: in a place where we have to tease out what
10:27
Speaker 1: is sort of that emotional reaction. Um, And what is
10:29
Speaker 1: nervousness because um, we're still coming out of a pandemic,
10:33
Speaker 1: and we we still have pretty high numbers of cases
10:36
Speaker 1: in a lot of places, and and highly variable vaccination coverage.
10:40
Speaker 1: I'm not sure i'd be comfortable and events at the
10:42
Speaker 1: Barkley Center yet. I think, you know, the CDC's recommendations
10:45
Speaker 1: are allowing for individual choice in a way that you
10:48
Speaker 1: have to sort of look at the data and feel,
10:50
Speaker 1: you know, decide your level of comfort. I think we're
10:53
Speaker 1: all going to have really variable returns to quote unquote normalcy,
10:58
Speaker 1: you know, and and and that's okay. And and I think, um,
11:01
Speaker 1: that sort of slow roll back into what, uh, you know,
11:05
Speaker 1: what your interactions in the public look like is okay? Um.
11:08
Speaker 1: And especially if you're choosing to be more cautious um
11:11
Speaker 1: or more careful, or maybe you have someone in your
11:13
Speaker 1: life who is more vulnerable or susceptible and you want
11:16
Speaker 1: to be cautious and careful for them, that is absolutely
11:20
Speaker 1: okay right now. Lauren Sour, thank you so much for
11:22
Speaker 1: joining us. We always appreciate checking in with you here
11:25
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis, getting the latest on this pandemic.
11:29
Speaker 1: And on vaccines. Laurence Sour, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
11:33
Speaker 1: at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. They're not
11:37
Speaker 1: just lacrosse players. They are there's some world class uh
11:42
Speaker 1: you know, scientists and doctors, and we appreciate their time. Now,
11:47
Speaker 1: let's bring in Downtown's with Director of Equity Strategies at Conning.
11:51
Speaker 1: They have two hundred billion dollars of assets under management,
11:55
Speaker 1: and don let's talk. I guess high dividend equities are
12:00
Speaker 1: what you're looking at? What do you see right now?
12:04
Speaker 1: And what are the what are the valuations? Tell you? Well,
12:09
Speaker 1: in terms of dividend paying stocks, we've really been at
12:12
Speaker 1: a relative discount now for quite a long time. Um.
12:17
Speaker 1: You know, one of the factors that we look at
12:19
Speaker 1: is is growth fears in the market. And growth fears
12:23
Speaker 1: actually tend to drive the growth stocks, the technology stocks
12:28
Speaker 1: that we've all seen rallies so far, it tests to
12:31
Speaker 1: drive them up because they can grow in a growth
12:33
Speaker 1: scarcity environment. And that's left some of these dividend pairs
12:37
Speaker 1: and in broader in broader terms of value stocks behind
12:42
Speaker 1: and so they're their valuations still look relatively attractive even
12:45
Speaker 1: though they've had a recent strong rally. Don It's interesting
12:49
Speaker 1: when I think about dividend stocks, one of the names
12:51
Speaker 1: that really jumps out of me is Apple. I mean,
12:55
Speaker 1: here's a company with a hundred billion dollars of net
12:57
Speaker 1: cash on the balance sheet, then a free cash flow
12:59
Speaker 1: in each the next two years of a hundred billion dollars,
13:02
Speaker 1: yet their dividend yield us less than one percent. That's
13:06
Speaker 1: gonna be frustrating for a dividend investor who would probably
13:08
Speaker 1: love to throw Apple on the portfolio. Absolutely, we would.
13:14
Speaker 1: We would love to have Apple in the portfolio if
13:17
Speaker 1: only they returned more value to the shareholder in terms
13:20
Speaker 1: of dividends. And it's been a big frustration across the
13:24
Speaker 1: whole kind of fraternity of of dividend investors. And you know,
13:28
Speaker 1: we would, we would like them to take some of
13:30
Speaker 1: that free cash flow and distribute it to get their
13:33
Speaker 1: yield up closer to two or two and a half percent.
13:39
Speaker 1: So why, um, why don't they? Well, that's a great question.
13:45
Speaker 1: I think that um, there are many technology stocks, particularly
13:49
Speaker 1: on the equipment UH and semiconductor side, that have for
13:53
Speaker 1: a very long time paid an attractive dividend, and they've
13:57
Speaker 1: done it while growing at a at a fairly good
13:59
Speaker 1: pay eight UM. I can only speculate based upon any
14:04
Speaker 1: company comments and and maybe our our biases here that
14:08
Speaker 1: that they see that cash hoard as an opportunity for
14:12
Speaker 1: acquisitions that they might see in the future, and they'd
14:16
Speaker 1: rather keep it on their balance sheet. But as it
14:19
Speaker 1: grows and grows, one can only imagine that there's going
14:23
Speaker 1: to be a growing pressure along with that that can
14:26
Speaker 1: never make any big acquisition like well, who you know
14:34
Speaker 1: who knows? I wish I knew, and I I buy
14:37
Speaker 1: a lot of that acquisition target myself. Hey, don talk
14:41
Speaker 1: to us about UM tax policy and how that impacts
14:46
Speaker 1: your strategy, your dividends strategy, because the President Biden is
14:49
Speaker 1: talking about some changes to the capital gains taxes and
14:52
Speaker 1: so on. Absolutely UM. Historically speaking, and this is really
14:58
Speaker 1: the thirty years I've been in the business, capital gains
15:01
Speaker 1: tax rates have been lower than their tax rates paid
15:05
Speaker 1: on dividends, which often are our tax at the level
15:08
Speaker 1: of your ordinary income as an investor. With the talk
15:12
Speaker 1: about raising capital gains rates, uh, it means that in
15:15
Speaker 1: relative terms, the go go growth stocks that don't pay
15:20
Speaker 1: a dividend, those stocks are going to become relatively less
15:23
Speaker 1: attractive as them as your tax rate goes up on
15:28
Speaker 1: on on the proceeds when you sell. So we think
15:31
Speaker 1: that that's actually a positive in relative terms or dividend
15:35
Speaker 1: paying stocks. As perhaps the new tax laws equalize the
15:41
Speaker 1: tax treatment of capital games and dividends, that's going to
15:44
Speaker 1: give a boost to the dividend paying stocks because the
15:47
Speaker 1: other guys have to pay more taxes too. I've always
15:51
Speaker 1: found this interesting because um, as the owner of the company,
15:55
Speaker 1: you're paying taxes on the cash that you get paid
15:58
Speaker 1: out that you pay yourself out from profits, but those
16:00
Speaker 1: profits are also getting taxed. Yes. Yes, the question of
16:10
Speaker 1: well I couldn't agree more, I couldn't agree more. Double
16:12
Speaker 1: taxation is a has been a problem for years, and
16:16
Speaker 1: I think that if if more people, if more people
16:20
Speaker 1: thought in those terms, I think that there would be
16:22
Speaker 1: more pressure on on reducing that double taxation load. For now,
16:27
Speaker 1: we're still gonna have a little with it. Yeah, So
16:29
Speaker 1: don how do you guys typically screen for dividends. Is
16:33
Speaker 1: it a certain yield and you do it by industry
16:35
Speaker 1: or how do you do that? Well, we actually do
16:39
Speaker 1: take a look at a certain yield or higher, but
16:43
Speaker 1: Unlike many dividend managers, once a company has met a
16:48
Speaker 1: certain minimum, we actually tend to be agnostic after that,
16:52
Speaker 1: because what we're looking at is companies that have a
16:55
Speaker 1: very manageable debt load and companies that are generating the
16:59
Speaker 1: free cash flow that you referred to before um consistently
17:03
Speaker 1: year after year after year. Uh. Our hidden talent really
17:08
Speaker 1: is that we're UH. We were primarily a fixed income shop,
17:12
Speaker 1: and so we have credit analysts that have decades of
17:14
Speaker 1: experience and they're looking at these same investments for the
17:19
Speaker 1: the safety and credit worthiness of their debt. We take
17:24
Speaker 1: that information and also look at the credit worthy units,
17:27
Speaker 1: if you will, of their dividend payment. Also, how sustainable
17:31
Speaker 1: as the dividend can they grow it? Are they generating
17:34
Speaker 1: excess free cash flow after they've paid their dividend to
17:37
Speaker 1: be That's our secret weapon in terms of finding companies
17:41
Speaker 1: to pay a dividend and raise it. Hey, John, thanks
17:43
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. We really appreciate hearing about
17:46
Speaker 1: your strategy the dividend paying stocks. We don't talk enough
17:49
Speaker 1: about that. I think equity strategy at a Conning they
17:53
Speaker 1: have a two or billion under management, A lot of
17:55
Speaker 1: it focused on dividend paying companies and the income the
17:59
Speaker 1: day and produced for shareholders. This is Bloomberg, you know, Matt.
18:06
Speaker 1: When I came onto the street in eighties six, insider
18:09
Speaker 1: trading was really a thing. You know. We had Ivan Bowski,
18:13
Speaker 1: you know, Drexel, Burnham, Lambert. I mean, some really juicy things.
18:16
Speaker 1: They wrote books and made movies about it. But I don't.
18:19
Speaker 1: It feels like I don't see it, at least not
18:20
Speaker 1: on the scale that that we used to see it.
18:22
Speaker 1: So but actually looking at the Bloomberg terminal today, we
18:25
Speaker 1: have a good old fashioned insider trading report in there,
18:29
Speaker 1: and we have the reporter. And this reporter is a
18:32
Speaker 1: Duke Rad, so double good story here. We're overwhelmed by
18:35
Speaker 1: all these reporters. Being a duke rad is more important,
18:39
Speaker 1: I think than reporting on insider I think. So Bradhaim,
18:42
Speaker 1: she joins us here. She's reporter for Bloomberg News, and
18:44
Speaker 1: so Burtte, thanks so much for joining us here. Talk
18:46
Speaker 1: to us about this case. Give us the background of
18:48
Speaker 1: this insider trading case, because it's got a little twist
18:51
Speaker 1: because it does include an NFL player who lost quite
18:54
Speaker 1: a bit of money. But give us the background on
18:55
Speaker 1: this case. Hey, yeah, thank you so much for having me.
18:58
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to be here. UM. So, like you said,
19:00
Speaker 1: this is a very interesting case. So I've spent the
19:02
Speaker 1: last three days down at a courthouse in downtown Manhattan
19:05
Speaker 1: following this case. And there's kind of two parts that
19:07
Speaker 1: I'll break down for you here. So one is insider
19:09
Speaker 1: trading case. We have Donald Black's dad who's facing charges
19:12
Speaker 1: and prosecutors say that he committed insider trading talking with
19:16
Speaker 1: UM an accountant who worked at Alumina UM all of
19:19
Speaker 1: this well, black dad's based in San Diego UM and
19:23
Speaker 1: so he was talking with this accountant and they say
19:26
Speaker 1: that he used insider information to trade and along with
19:29
Speaker 1: some others, so they say he was the leader of
19:31
Speaker 1: this insire trading ring. They used money to trade UM,
19:33
Speaker 1: including some options related to Alumina, and make millions of
19:36
Speaker 1: dollars doing that over the course of eighteen around the
19:40
Speaker 1: same time that this was going on. They're also saying
19:42
Speaker 1: that he well, he's charged with committing investment fraud as well. Yeah,
19:46
Speaker 1: there was some shady I mean it sounds even shadier.
19:49
Speaker 1: Because I love your story by the way, bree Um,
19:52
Speaker 1: because you you you put some details in there that
19:56
Speaker 1: I think make it more interesting because I can imagine
19:58
Speaker 1: being there. So at the stake house, for example, Um,
20:02
Speaker 1: you know, he gives this football player a prospectus. The
20:06
Speaker 1: guy reads it. He's into it for an energy company
20:10
Speaker 1: that apparently has some kind of storage technology for renewables
20:14
Speaker 1: that is just about to go off the hook because
20:17
Speaker 1: California is going to change the law and this ball
20:20
Speaker 1: er says, all right, I'm in for one fifty. The
20:22
Speaker 1: guy then takes his money. Uh, the investment manager, puts
20:26
Speaker 1: it into a bank account where he keeps also his
20:29
Speaker 1: personal money, and apparently uses that lump sum to make
20:34
Speaker 1: an offer to pick up another company unrelated to the
20:38
Speaker 1: energy company in which the baller wanted to invest in
20:41
Speaker 1: the first place. Yeah, so it gets very complicated, and
20:43
Speaker 1: we're still seeing the prosecution and defense lay out their
20:45
Speaker 1: cases right now. The prosecution is um questioning witnesses, so
20:49
Speaker 1: we haven't actually gotten to um here all the defenses
20:51
Speaker 1: side yet. But um, so what happened here was we
20:53
Speaker 1: have this NFL player corelj who had been UM picked
20:57
Speaker 1: in the first round of the two thousand and eleven draft.
20:59
Speaker 1: He UM pretty high profile UM defensive lineman and he
21:03
Speaker 1: went out to UM dinner at this San Diego steakhouse.
21:07
Speaker 1: UM and Donald Black's dad was there and they talked
21:10
Speaker 1: about this company, mid Continental Petroleum that Black dad UM
21:14
Speaker 1: was hyping up, and later on he sent UM Lug
21:17
Speaker 1: this prospectus that they ended up reading out a lot
21:20
Speaker 1: of parts of in court yesterday, some very technical language.
21:23
Speaker 1: They are going over some of these very specific clauses
21:25
Speaker 1: and talking through UM, you know just what Luge's experience
21:29
Speaker 1: was with this process. And then he ended up wiring
21:32
Speaker 1: UM make Continental Petroleum's account one hundred fifty thousand dollars.
21:36
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where the NFL player becomes involved
21:39
Speaker 1: in this story. And prosecutors are saying that Um this
21:42
Speaker 1: money ended up being used for at least parts of
21:46
Speaker 1: it ended up being used for personal UM purposes. And
21:49
Speaker 1: the defense said in their opening statements, however, that Um
21:53
Speaker 1: Black said was using one account for all purposes. So
21:55
Speaker 1: they're saying that, you know, this was an account that
21:57
Speaker 1: he used for business used for personal purposes, and that
22:00
Speaker 1: he put his own money UM involved in business purposes too.
22:03
Speaker 1: So how much money are we talking about here on
22:05
Speaker 1: this insider trading deal? Again? I just mentioned a man
22:08
Speaker 1: I just haven't seen too many high profile ones recently.
22:11
Speaker 1: How how much we're talking about here, Yeah, that's that's
22:14
Speaker 1: obviously a great question. Um. So we originally saw when
22:17
Speaker 1: prosecutors were first talking about this that a black side
22:20
Speaker 1: his associate, so he had several people involved in this.
22:22
Speaker 1: That's why they're calling it, you know, an inspire trading ring. Um.
22:25
Speaker 1: They initially tossed out the figure of about six million
22:27
Speaker 1: dollars um that was made, and actually what we were
22:30
Speaker 1: seeing in court where they left off at the end
22:31
Speaker 1: of the day yesterday was having an sec economist go
22:34
Speaker 1: over on the very specifics of this trade and talking
22:38
Speaker 1: about the timing around on trades around Alumini announcements. Coral
22:44
Speaker 1: got paid fifty million for a five year contract. I
22:47
Speaker 1: just want to point out, Um, it's better. It's this
22:51
Speaker 1: is the lesson to take away from this. It's better
22:53
Speaker 1: to be a successful NFL star than an inside trader. Yes, absolutely,
22:58
Speaker 1: And it's it's weird. I mean, Brie, it's you always
23:01
Speaker 1: see like as It's another angle to this story is,
23:05
Speaker 1: you know, a professional athlete or celebrity oftentimes they're targeted
23:10
Speaker 1: by some of these scam artists and it's and you
23:12
Speaker 1: know that's why you have these financial representatives and managers.
23:16
Speaker 1: And he was with, he was with, Yeah, I know,
23:19
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's time to get another that
23:21
Speaker 1: I look at these guys are like, why don't they
23:23
Speaker 1: just buy stocks and bonds and mutual funds like the
23:25
Speaker 1: rest of us. Why do they need to go in
23:26
Speaker 1: on these crazy deals? But is this football player going
23:30
Speaker 1: to testify? Do you think? Yes? He actually spent yesterday
23:33
Speaker 1: on the day on the stand and so they had
23:35
Speaker 1: him come in UM and he It's actually interesting because
23:38
Speaker 1: you know, we're still in the air of covid UM
23:40
Speaker 1: and so you go into the courtroom. People are spaced
23:42
Speaker 1: out UM where he masks, and the witness boxes actually
23:45
Speaker 1: UM like witness boxes and there's plexiglass around it. And
23:48
Speaker 1: so he came in and sat down and UM told
23:50
Speaker 1: the jury and UM answered questions from prosecutors in defense
23:53
Speaker 1: about this. And he has he's seen any of his
23:55
Speaker 1: money back? Right? He said he has not gotten any
23:58
Speaker 1: of the money back, and there wasn't Another witnesses spoke
24:00
Speaker 1: yesterday UM Park City, um Utah based general contractor who
24:05
Speaker 1: talked about Heath given a hundred thousand dollars before um
24:08
Speaker 1: pre prior to the NFL player um into mccontinal Petroleum,
24:12
Speaker 1: and they asked for half of that back him and
24:13
Speaker 1: his business partner, and they got half back over the
24:16
Speaker 1: course of this. But yeah, I thought it was cool that,
24:20
Speaker 1: you know, got the prospectus and read it. I mean,
24:22
Speaker 1: it's not like he didn't know what he was doing.
24:24
Speaker 1: He just got scammed. I would be like, uh, here's
24:27
Speaker 1: my financial advisor, give it to him and so and
24:31
Speaker 1: order another steak because they had Wagyu beef apparently twenty
24:34
Speaker 1: six dollars announced there. Well, this is something that they
24:36
Speaker 1: talked about quite a lot. They went over on the
24:38
Speaker 1: specific clauses and you know, um lug as they were
24:41
Speaker 1: reading through this, he said, UM, quite often. You know
24:44
Speaker 1: I I looked at this document. I don't necessarily remember
24:46
Speaker 1: this clause. Um. I'm not quoting him on that, but
24:48
Speaker 1: that was kind of, um, the conversation that they were having.
24:51
Speaker 1: And he said that, UM, yes he had. There were
24:54
Speaker 1: emails and stuff going back and forth between black Stad
24:57
Speaker 1: and all these conversations going on, and a lot of
24:59
Speaker 1: doctor is there that they were showing real quick any
25:03
Speaker 1: ten seconds timing on this when when I think I
25:06
Speaker 1: have a resolution the court. Yeah, Um, the tentative plan
25:10
Speaker 1: that they were talking about potentially um yesterday just kind
25:13
Speaker 1: of in conversations between the attorneys and the judge was
25:17
Speaker 1: trying to get it to the jury by on this
25:19
Speaker 1: coming Friday. But that still seemed a little bit up
25:22
Speaker 1: in there. All right. A great reporting, Bree, really appreciate
25:25
Speaker 1: bringing this story to us and joining us here on radio.
25:29
Speaker 1: Bree Bradam there um a Duke graduate and a Bloomberg
25:34
Speaker 1: reporter talking about NFL star core Leja testifying an insider
25:40
Speaker 1: trading case, um where he talks also about the wag
25:44
Speaker 1: you beef that he got. This is Bloomberg. Thanks for
25:47
Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and
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Speaker 1: listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform
25:55
Speaker 1: you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt
25:58
Speaker 1: Miller nineteen seven d three. I'm Fall Sweeney. I'm on
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Speaker 1: Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always
26:04
Speaker 1: catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.