Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Get Ready For Another Round Of Toilet Paper Panic
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, along
- 0:04Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
- 0:06Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEO, market prows and Bloomberg experts,
- 0:10Speaker 1: along with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets
- 0:13Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts,
- 0:16Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. Let's bringing the amount of
- 0:20Speaker 1: the hour. He is birth looking to your managing director
- 0:22Speaker 1: of Strategic Resource Group Birt's great to welcome your eight
- 0:26Speaker 1: months into this pandemic. Now, we got disappointing data for
- 0:30Speaker 1: Halloween in terms of retail sales. What's the one thing
- 0:33Speaker 1: that really jumps out at you at the moment as
- 0:35Speaker 1: to where we are where the consumer is consumer? Based
- 0:40Speaker 1: on the US Department of Commerce reports today, VANNI disappointing
- 0:44Speaker 1: retail numbers, especially clothing and department stores. What really stands
- 0:49Speaker 1: out is the big box retailer's Walmart, Costco, BJ's Target
- 0:54Speaker 1: all doing really well. And the other key thing for
- 0:58Speaker 1: Bloomberg team members and listeners is stopped at the store
- 1:02Speaker 1: today this week, this weekend to load up on COVID supplies.
- 1:07Speaker 1: We're seeing the worst levels of inventory even worse than March,
- 1:10Speaker 1: April and COVID in terms of paper supplies, paper towels,
- 1:14Speaker 1: bathroom tissue, disinfectant liquids, soaps, disinfectant, sprays, and wipes. It's
- 1:21Speaker 1: a real panic situations because the brand suppliers are doing
- 1:25Speaker 1: a pathetic job supplying the retailers, and the out of
- 1:28Speaker 1: stocks are reaching unprecedented proportions. So what are the retailers
- 1:33Speaker 1: telling you about how bad that aspect of their business
- 1:36Speaker 1: could get? Uh, Paul, it's it's it's gonna get really
- 1:42Speaker 1: bad because companies like Clorox had moved to single site
- 1:46Speaker 1: manufacturing for the total US. My alma mater Proctor Gamble
- 1:51Speaker 1: UH called the number of plants with Booz Allen and
- 1:54Speaker 1: Mackensey studies they have insufficient UH plants too far away
- 1:58Speaker 1: from population center. So as bad as it is, it's
- 2:02Speaker 1: going to get worse, and especially going to get worse, Paul.
- 2:04Speaker 1: And urban areas where you have smaller stores often supplied
- 2:08Speaker 1: by voluntary wholesalers. So the big change have the procurement
- 2:11Speaker 1: power to get what little inventory there is, and then
- 2:15Speaker 1: they're smart retailers Walmart, Lowe's, BJ's Costle are investing extra
- 2:22Speaker 1: working capital and inventory. But for the big change that
- 2:26Speaker 1: ernests well capitalized that can't buy extra inventory up froad,
- 2:30Speaker 1: it's gonna be a real crisis for consumers as well
- 2:33Speaker 1: as and then they've retype change. But Birds, we've had
- 2:35Speaker 1: eight months to solve this. How is it going wrong
- 2:38Speaker 1: all of a sudden or how is it continuing to
- 2:40Speaker 1: go wrong? Why can't Clarok solve this supply chain problem?
- 2:45Speaker 1: And and Bonny it's it's it's Clorox, It's P and G,
- 2:49Speaker 1: It's Kimberly Clark, it's Coldgate, it's uh Record, ben Kaiser, etcetera.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Because they went to the Asian system of justin time deliberate.
- 3:01Speaker 1: So when COVID started, they didn't have the raw materials,
- 3:04Speaker 1: they didn't have the bottles, they didn't have the cases,
- 3:06Speaker 1: they didn't have the truck drivers, they didn't have the warehouses,
- 3:09Speaker 1: they didn't have extra inventory. Sort of put put it
- 3:12Speaker 1: out mathematically. Walmart has a hundred and fifty six major
- 3:17Speaker 1: distribution centers, including six crisis distribution centers. Corox, to proct
- 3:22Speaker 1: and Gamble only have one a few to five on
- 3:26Speaker 1: the supply apply the US. That's completely inexcusable and as
- 3:31Speaker 1: one of my mentors, Phil Robinson, who was director manufacturing
- 3:34Speaker 1: for P and G, cautioned the company about doing this,
- 3:38Speaker 1: but it really got got to be greed. And by
- 3:41Speaker 1: cutting working capital and uh cutting cutting capex for manufacturing
- 3:48Speaker 1: and distribution, they created a crisis which exacerbates public safety
- 3:54Speaker 1: crisis too because in New York City literally some of
- 3:57Speaker 1: the retailers are telling me that, uh see years they
- 4:00Speaker 1: have to go to five to ten chains a day
- 4:02Speaker 1: to try to get safe safety related disinfectants and paper products,
- 4:08Speaker 1: and no matter what store they go to, it's double
- 4:11Speaker 1: os or out of stock. All right, so we'll certainly
- 4:15Speaker 1: monitor that situation. Burt. We've had a lot of the
- 4:17Speaker 1: big retailers report this week and today. What are some
- 4:20Speaker 1: of the takeaways here? The big takeaway is when when
- 4:27Speaker 1: you pay more, you get more productivity per person, you
- 4:31Speaker 1: get higher shop of satisfaction. There's uh the old adage
- 4:35Speaker 1: from my uncle Dave, you pay peanuts, uh and uh
- 4:40Speaker 1: you don't get good results. Costco which pays very well. Walmart,
- 4:44Speaker 1: which went from being the worst in terms of pay
- 4:48Speaker 1: to the one of the better ones ahead of Target.
- 4:52Speaker 1: They have higher retention and so uh Walmart is able
- 4:56Speaker 1: to deliver the ninety of the US Internet sales up
- 4:59Speaker 1: seventy and percent same stores stacked between the Walmart stores
- 5:04Speaker 1: and Stam's Club up approximately seven percent, and a lot
- 5:08Speaker 1: of that retention, A lot of that's investing in working
- 5:11Speaker 1: capital and trying to evolve. From a Bloomberg cover story
- 5:15Speaker 1: co authored by Shannon Petty Peace and David vorriez UH
- 5:20Speaker 1: saying UH Walt Walmart had an out of control of
- 5:24Speaker 1: crime problem. There was a nightmare for the police departments
- 5:28Speaker 1: across America, and Walmart didn't have sufficient security, hence UH
- 5:34Speaker 1: the El Paso tragic loss of life where dozens of
- 5:38Speaker 1: people were gunned down UH in the Walmart store in
- 5:42Speaker 1: El Paso, and Shannon and David reported UH throughout two
- 5:46Speaker 1: hundred violent crimes a year. So Walmart's taking corrective action
- 5:51Speaker 1: to correct the mistakes that the family made from security
- 5:55Speaker 1: et cetera, UH to professional management and Walmart's checked aiding
- 6:00Speaker 1: and gaining on Amazon, and from our field work and
- 6:04Speaker 1: Vonnie's homeland in Ireland, UH Small, Scotland and England. Walmart's
- 6:09Speaker 1: learning from the mistakes it made in in UM, the
- 6:13Speaker 1: EU and in the UK with ASDA and UH divested,
- 6:19Speaker 1: say you this week divested someone's Latin American operations, concentrating
- 6:24Speaker 1: online UH and UH concentrating on flip card in Asia
- 6:29Speaker 1: and doing things right. So it's investing. It's investing in
- 6:33Speaker 1: growth drives UH, profitable market share growth and profitable sales
- 6:40Speaker 1: growth versus the other retailers who are cutting expenses and
- 6:44Speaker 1: cutting expenses at the time at Covid as an r
- 6:46Speaker 1: X with disaster, many bankruptcies to be seen for the
- 6:50Speaker 1: rest of the year. I'm sorry, Vonnie one more time,
- 6:54Speaker 1: please sorry, I have a mask on bankrupt sees. How
- 6:57Speaker 1: many do we see between now at the end of
- 6:59Speaker 1: the year bankruptcy's We've we've had fifty in the last
- 7:03Speaker 1: twenty months, with Francesco's hopefully not but but UH sadly probable,
- 7:11Speaker 1: we'll probably see another five by the end of the
- 7:13Speaker 1: year and another fifteen to twenty in the upcoming calendar year.
- 7:18Speaker 1: And with the bankruptcys and with with Covid and the shutdowns,
- 7:22Speaker 1: the big box operators like Walmart, Costco, BJ's target as
- 7:27Speaker 1: well as Amazon and the hard discounts like all the
- 7:31Speaker 1: illegal really capitalized, while the independence and their suppliers are
- 7:35Speaker 1: still getting squeezed Birt, thanks so much for joining us.
- 7:38Speaker 1: As always, we appreciate your thoughts and insight into the
- 7:42Speaker 1: retail space. Bert Flickinger, Managing Director, Strategic Resource a Group,
- 7:47Speaker 1: joining us again to kind of give us an update,
- 7:49Speaker 1: and it is Vanni. It's just frustrating to see some
- 7:51Speaker 1: of those supply chain problems where you can't get some
- 7:53Speaker 1: of the basic products again eight months after we started this. Yeah,
- 7:56Speaker 1: I mean I personally haven't seen it, but I believe
- 7:58Speaker 1: Bert when he says that he's always turning around to
- 8:01Speaker 1: you know what. I think that they would have built
- 8:03Speaker 1: up inventories throughout the supply chain and anticipation of the
- 8:06Speaker 1: second wave, which everyone certainly has been expecting. But we'll
- 8:11Speaker 1: have to see how this plays out. You're listening to
- 8:14Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets with Bonnie Quinn and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio. Well.
- 8:19Speaker 1: One of the fastest growing areas in the investment world
- 8:22Speaker 1: over the last couple of years have been exchange traded
- 8:25Speaker 1: funds or e t fs. Ben Slaven, global head of
- 8:28Speaker 1: et F s and Assets Servicing at B and Y Melon,
- 8:30Speaker 1: joins us here. B and Y Melon has eight hundred
- 8:32Speaker 1: and sixty billion dollars in assets, through across t fs globally,
- 8:37Speaker 1: and they work with fifty three issuers, so they know
- 8:40Speaker 1: what they're talking about when it comes to e t s. Ben,
- 8:42Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us here. How have e
- 8:45Speaker 1: t s in general performed over this craziness that we've
- 8:49Speaker 1: all been experiencing over the last eight or so months.
- 8:53Speaker 1: Good morning, and thanks for having me on the show. UM.
- 8:56Speaker 1: E t s have shown remarkable resiliency this year. Investor
- 9:00Speaker 1: appetite for e t s keeps growing. US e t
- 9:04Speaker 1: F inflow past four hundred billion dollars this year year
- 9:08Speaker 1: to date, which would put us on the second all
- 9:11Speaker 1: time pace for the industry, with an outside shot of
- 9:14Speaker 1: hitting the all time record. So really, ets have emerged
- 9:18Speaker 1: stronger on the other side of the volatility we saw
- 9:21Speaker 1: this spring, and the e t F ecosystem to support
- 9:24Speaker 1: that growth has also shown remarkable resiliency. Where are they
- 9:30Speaker 1: going for the most part, these assets, well, we've seen
- 9:34Speaker 1: strong flows across the board UM this year. Specifically, we've
- 9:39Speaker 1: seen an increase in fixed income e t F flow,
- 9:43Speaker 1: which are having a very strong year, especially in the
- 9:47Speaker 1: run up to the election. UM. In fact, if the
- 9:50Speaker 1: mix of assets hold, we will see the first time
- 9:54Speaker 1: where fixed income e t F assets have outpaced equities.
- 9:59Speaker 1: Commodity specifically gold are also having a very strong year UM.
- 10:04Speaker 1: We also saw some you know buying and inflow into
- 10:08Speaker 1: those products, especially as the price of gold increased earlier
- 10:11Speaker 1: in the year. So ben what's generally speaking the main
- 10:17Speaker 1: attractive point or selling point for an e t F
- 10:20Speaker 1: in general, Well, there are several things that are driving
- 10:25Speaker 1: the adoption of ets Certainly fees, et f s are
- 10:31Speaker 1: lower cost across the board compared to other structures. Tax efficiency, transparency,
- 10:37Speaker 1: and liquidity are all key drivers of investor adoption of
- 10:41Speaker 1: e t s. We are also seeing a significant growth
- 10:46Speaker 1: in the amount of products that are coming to market
- 10:50Speaker 1: UM due to investor appetite UM also due to regulatory
- 10:55Speaker 1: changes that are making it easier for issuers to launch.
- 10:58Speaker 1: So what you're seeing is an experience into toolkit. And
- 11:01Speaker 1: as the adoption of e t s grow UM and
- 11:04Speaker 1: specifically around the liquidity of e t fs have increased,
- 11:09Speaker 1: especially over the last few years, you are seeing investors
- 11:13Speaker 1: all the way from retail investors all the way up
- 11:17Speaker 1: to large institutional players using ETFs to express their views
- 11:23Speaker 1: in the market, whether they be strategic or tactical. Then
- 11:27Speaker 1: just on a slightly separate note, it's been a very
- 11:29Speaker 1: strange time for custodian banks. Explained to us why why
- 11:33Speaker 1: that is why custodian banks have been maybe suffering more
- 11:35Speaker 1: than others. Well, I think from a you know, from
- 11:39Speaker 1: a custody standpoint, UM, we are a service provider to
- 11:43Speaker 1: the E t F industry and you know, again we've
- 11:47Speaker 1: seen significant volume on our platform UM based on this
- 11:52Speaker 1: increase in e t F adoption, but certainly earlier this
- 11:55Speaker 1: year around some of the market volatility where we were
- 11:58Speaker 1: seeing very high amount of UH transaction volume come through
- 12:02Speaker 1: our platform. All of that business UM has really UM
- 12:08Speaker 1: really been processed in an automated environment UM, which you know,
- 12:13Speaker 1: really is kind of demonstrate some of the resiliency we
- 12:16Speaker 1: saw UM to be able to handle all that volume,
- 12:20Speaker 1: especially in a work from home environment. So it certainly
- 12:23Speaker 1: has put some some strain on the industry to be
- 12:26Speaker 1: able to shift their operating models UM and also adopt
- 12:31Speaker 1: the technology necessary to really support UH the industry you know,
- 12:36Speaker 1: as it's as it's growing UM, and also serve investors
- 12:39Speaker 1: UM you know, who are again increasingly looking to use
- 12:42Speaker 1: these products to to express their views on the market
- 12:45Speaker 1: so been. You know what I like about the et
- 12:47Speaker 1: F space, and when we have an in house expert
- 12:49Speaker 1: here at Bloomberg, Eric Beltunas, who keeps us up the
- 12:53Speaker 1: speed here, there's so many cool sectors and and really
- 12:58Speaker 1: interesting et F structures get put in place to follow
- 13:01Speaker 1: specific parts of the market. What are some of the
- 13:03Speaker 1: et F sectors that you think you're gonna see some
- 13:05Speaker 1: of the most interest uh in the next you know,
- 13:08Speaker 1: year or so well. I think there are several trends
- 13:11Speaker 1: we're going to see into Certainly, I mentioned fixed income
- 13:15Speaker 1: ETFs which had a great and I expect that trend
- 13:19Speaker 1: to continue into especially in a low rate environment where
- 13:24Speaker 1: the thirst for yield will certainly continue by investors. I
- 13:27Speaker 1: also expect to see an uptick in actively managed ETFs,
- 13:33Speaker 1: both transparent active and non transparent active. We're seeing a
- 13:37Speaker 1: significant amount of our clients at b N Y Melon
- 13:41Speaker 1: express interest in launching these kinds of products, and we
- 13:44Speaker 1: expect to see quite a bit of new launches coming
- 13:48Speaker 1: to market, both equities and fixed income. Also, I think
- 13:52Speaker 1: it's worth noting we do see a trend um as
- 13:56Speaker 1: we've seen this year in the adoption and interest in
- 13:59Speaker 1: thematic ets, specifically retail investors which have been driving flow
- 14:04Speaker 1: and DiPT thematic ets this year and they've become quite
- 14:07Speaker 1: popular playing several different types of trends. And also again
- 14:11Speaker 1: maybe finally M E. S. G Um, we've seen a
- 14:15Speaker 1: record high trend this year, and you know, we think
- 14:18Speaker 1: investors are increasingly looking for adding risk factors like climate change, government,
- 14:24Speaker 1: socially responsible stewardship as part of their et F portfolio. Ben,
- 14:28Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining. You say Evan Slaven
- 14:30Speaker 1: his global head of ETF SO noasa's servicing at b
- 14:32Speaker 1: n Y Melon and b n Y is abouts globally.
- 14:38Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Markets with All Sweeney and Bunny Quinn
- 14:42Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. All right, we'll we continue our wonderful
- 14:46Speaker 1: lineup on them by radio this morning with it as
- 14:47Speaker 1: a coupler who is head of global payments for eBay. Elissa,
- 14:52Speaker 1: thanks for joining and welcome. How difficult has it been
- 14:55Speaker 1: to do your job during coronavirus? Good morning, Thank you.
- 14:59Speaker 1: I'm you know, it's definitely led to a tremendous amount
- 15:03Speaker 1: of adaptation. Um. You know, we launched managed payments virtually,
- 15:07Speaker 1: which was not how we planned and not how we
- 15:10Speaker 1: did our first pilots in the US and in Germany.
- 15:14Speaker 1: But UM, you know, we operate a little bit like
- 15:16Speaker 1: a startup inside a large our company of eBay, and
- 15:19Speaker 1: the team has been incredibly adaptive and UM we've successfully
- 15:23Speaker 1: launched and continue to grow. So it's been it's been
- 15:25Speaker 1: a good experience, albeit a little bit different than we expected.
- 15:29Speaker 1: Earlier this morning we heard Anna Boutine, the executive chairman
- 15:32Speaker 1: of Banco sant and there she had an extraordinary statistic
- 15:36Speaker 1: about eighty percent of their transactions in the month of
- 15:39Speaker 1: October were digital. Just extraordinary. So for somebody at eBay
- 15:45Speaker 1: and you think about your managed payments business, first, just
- 15:49Speaker 1: tell us what your managed payments business is and where
- 15:53Speaker 1: you see the growth going forward. Sure. So in Januaren,
- 15:59Speaker 1: UM we shared our engined to intermediat or manage payments
- 16:02Speaker 1: UM and simply that's driven by creating the best experience
- 16:06Speaker 1: for our buyers and sellers UM. Historically, obviously eBay and
- 16:09Speaker 1: PayPal we're part of the same company, UM, and we
- 16:12Speaker 1: we basically outsourced all payment activities to PayPal, and every
- 16:18Speaker 1: seller that came on to list and sell on eBay
- 16:21Speaker 1: needed to establish a relationship with PayPal as well. By
- 16:24Speaker 1: managing payments, we bring that all in house and our
- 16:28Speaker 1: sellers register with us inclusive of payments and get on
- 16:31Speaker 1: their way with selling, and allows us to offer a
- 16:35Speaker 1: multitude of forms of payments to our buyers all over
- 16:38Speaker 1: the world. And as you noted during COVID, so much
- 16:42Speaker 1: has moved online and digital um. So the convergence of
- 16:46Speaker 1: timing for us has been tremendous as we're able to
- 16:49Speaker 1: now control the experience end and for our buyers and
- 16:52Speaker 1: sellers and ensure that our buyers all over the world
- 16:56Speaker 1: are increasingly having the forms of payments that they demand
- 16:59Speaker 1: to shop with. So I'll give us more detail on that.
- 17:02Speaker 1: What exactly are the platforms that you use and a
- 17:04Speaker 1: lot of buyers seem to prefer these days. Yeah, So
- 17:08Speaker 1: historically we were limited by whatever forms of payment were
- 17:12Speaker 1: inside the PayPal wallets, and as we move volume into
- 17:17Speaker 1: US at EVA managing payments, are buyers have access to
- 17:21Speaker 1: not only cards and of course pay Pal as as
- 17:23Speaker 1: a form of payment um, but digital wallets like Apple
- 17:28Speaker 1: Pay and Google Pay, which is we've seen explosive demand
- 17:31Speaker 1: for as more and more not only moves online but
- 17:35Speaker 1: through through mobile applications, particularly with with younger generations, and
- 17:40Speaker 1: as we've launched into Germany, for example, there's a lot
- 17:43Speaker 1: more bank based UH payments that are out there, and
- 17:46Speaker 1: so we've been able to introduce those UM after pay
- 17:50Speaker 1: in Australia, a growing trend UH of folks wanting to
- 17:55Speaker 1: pay over over time, and as we continue to launch
- 17:59Speaker 1: around the world, will be able to introduce those local
- 18:01Speaker 1: forms of payments that UH the shoppers expect to use
- 18:04Speaker 1: anywhere they might be in stage Japan or France or Canada.
- 18:08Speaker 1: We want our buyers to find those local forms of
- 18:11Speaker 1: payments that they are familiar with UH locally across our
- 18:15Speaker 1: platform as well. A Lissa, how big is your managed
- 18:18Speaker 1: payment business within eBay and kind of what are the
- 18:21Speaker 1: growth rates you guys are experiencing. Yes, so we have
- 18:25Speaker 1: been limited by an operating agreement from the separation with
- 18:28Speaker 1: PayPal for the past five years that just expired in
- 18:32Speaker 1: mid July this past summer, as we are limited to
- 18:36Speaker 1: just ten into markets US and Germany. As we crossed
- 18:40Speaker 1: UH that transom in July, we launched across five markets
- 18:44Speaker 1: and we've been feeling very very rapidly. We're over three
- 18:49Speaker 1: and forty thousand sellers as we wrapped to three UM
- 18:52Speaker 1: and we are now processing a little over of our
- 18:56Speaker 1: global on platform gm g m V on the PLAT form,
- 19:00Speaker 1: and we're continuing to add more sellers and more volume
- 19:03Speaker 1: every single day. We will expand into France, Italy and
- 19:06Speaker 1: Spain at the beginning of next year and continue to
- 19:09Speaker 1: roll around the world throughout. We expect to be largely
- 19:14Speaker 1: complete UH at the beginning of two where we will
- 19:18Speaker 1: then represent UM two billion in revenue for the company
- 19:22Speaker 1: and five million and operating income. So UM we are
- 19:26Speaker 1: continuing to charge along very very rapidly, and we're really
- 19:29Speaker 1: pleased with our results. That's pretty phenomenal. What are the
- 19:32Speaker 1: greatest challenges that you see ahead? What are the challenges
- 19:35Speaker 1: to your business? So there's We're we're in a very
- 19:39Speaker 1: dynamic world right now with with COVID and a lot
- 19:42Speaker 1: of uncertainty. We are squarely focused on serving our customers.
- 19:46Speaker 1: When our customers win, we win. We want to continue
- 19:49Speaker 1: to provide them great experiences. Managing payments is a key
- 19:54Speaker 1: pillar UM in a modern manage marketplace, and then our
- 19:58Speaker 1: tech lad reimagination sense to continue to innovate on behalf
- 20:02Speaker 1: of our buyers and sellers and ensure that our our
- 20:05Speaker 1: sellers are having velocity, our buyers are finding what they're
- 20:09Speaker 1: looking for, that great deal, that unique find, and they're
- 20:12Speaker 1: zipping through checkout and getting on with their day. Hey, listen,
- 20:15Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Just a fascinating
- 20:18Speaker 1: story there for eBay unlessa cut right head of Global
- 20:21Speaker 1: Payments for eBay. They're based in San Jose, California, And
- 20:26Speaker 1: you know, Vanni, just I mean, just extraordinarily good timing,
- 20:28Speaker 1: you could argue for really launching a digital fintech business
- 20:31Speaker 1: at a time when people are spending more and more
- 20:34Speaker 1: time online, transacting more and more online and doing it digitally. Yeah,
- 20:39Speaker 1: you'd love to know about the you know, the cutting
- 20:42Speaker 1: up of the pie. So what percentage or portion of
- 20:45Speaker 1: percentage per payment does does this business get? And you
- 20:49Speaker 1: know how much of a middleman is it? Is it
- 20:51Speaker 1: also the middleman where a stripe is a middleman? You know? Yeah, yeah,
- 20:55Speaker 1: it's There are different platforms out there, for sure, but
- 20:58Speaker 1: I think the eBay straight at you here. It's obviously
- 21:01Speaker 1: to tie in the activity on the eBay platform um
- 21:04Speaker 1: with the payments business as well, cut out that third person,
- 21:08Speaker 1: get more that revenue let's bring in our professional, Ira
- 21:14Speaker 1: Josey Teeth, interest rate strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence. I really
- 21:17Speaker 1: let's begin with this morning's retail sales and the impact
- 21:20Speaker 1: it's going to have on the economy. Disappointing Halloween sales. Yeah,
- 21:24Speaker 1: so the retail sales numbers certainly weren't good, and in
- 21:27Speaker 1: particular what we call the control group, So that's the uh,
- 21:31Speaker 1: those are the sectors that actually go directly into GDP.
- 21:34Speaker 1: So the fact that, um that that missed pretty big
- 21:38Speaker 1: by by four tenths and uh and was also revised
- 21:41Speaker 1: down for September, I think just shows you that some
- 21:43Speaker 1: of the optimism and some of the you know, initial
- 21:47Speaker 1: sorts of any kind of V shape recovery have to
- 21:49Speaker 1: go out the window. Hey, I you know, looking at
- 21:53Speaker 1: the tenure treasury here, you know, eighty six basis points
- 21:56Speaker 1: roughly seems if you've been in this pretty tight trading
- 21:59Speaker 1: range in and around ninety basis points. Any reason to
- 22:02Speaker 1: think that that changes in the maybe near to intermediate term.
- 22:06Speaker 1: So I think in a near term, if you get
- 22:08Speaker 1: continued risk off move so we get equities moving lower,
- 22:11Speaker 1: and um, you know, things like you know, maybe gold
- 22:14Speaker 1: prices going up in oil prices, falling that that you
- 22:16Speaker 1: might actually see a return down toward the UM down
- 22:21Speaker 1: towards the sixty five kind of handle on on tenure yield.
- 22:25Speaker 1: So so another twenty basis points. But but basically, broadly,
- 22:27Speaker 1: I think we're gonna stay in this range UM for
- 22:30Speaker 1: quite a while. It's what's going to break us. I
- 22:33Speaker 1: think above h that ish basis points where where we
- 22:36Speaker 1: tested a couple of times last week. UM, I think
- 22:39Speaker 1: it has to be a vaccine. I think it has
- 22:41Speaker 1: to be that, Hey, we're rolling out of vaccine. Here's
- 22:43Speaker 1: the pace and three growth looks like it might be
- 22:47Speaker 1: more um. You know, I don't want to say normal,
- 22:50Speaker 1: but but certainly better than we're currently the market is
- 22:53Speaker 1: currently anticipating so um. And And the other way is is,
- 22:57Speaker 1: you know, we don't get a vaccine right, and we
- 22:59Speaker 1: continue to have rolling shutdowns and reopenings, which makes for
- 23:02Speaker 1: very uneven economy uh continued you know, very slow um
- 23:07Speaker 1: uh slow wage growth, causing inflation expectations to remain very tame.
- 23:12Speaker 1: So so I think I think basically the push and
- 23:14Speaker 1: pull that that we've had the last couple of months
- 23:17Speaker 1: persists at least into the new year. Um, you know
- 23:20Speaker 1: a couple of other things that Paul could break us
- 23:21Speaker 1: out of it. For example, if the if the government
- 23:24Speaker 1: does get together and and Congress and whoever, the new
- 23:27Speaker 1: president is pass a reasonably big fiscal stimulus, I think
- 23:31Speaker 1: then there is the possibility that even with without a vaccine,
- 23:35Speaker 1: you can wind up seeing yields break break one again
- 23:38Speaker 1: on the tenure. I just want to point out some
- 23:40Speaker 1: news coming in the Republican Senator to Grassly says he's
- 23:43Speaker 1: going to quarantine. He's waiting test results after being exposed
- 23:46Speaker 1: to COVID nineteen. But of course this has implications for
- 23:48Speaker 1: the Shelton nomination, which might have happened today. But it
- 23:52Speaker 1: looks like now with Grasslely sort of by the wayside,
- 23:56Speaker 1: her nomination, which would likely fail, won't happen today. A
- 24:00Speaker 1: spokesman has confirmed, and Glassy will not vote today. What's
- 24:03Speaker 1: you're thinking on Judy Shelton, IRA and how much of
- 24:06Speaker 1: an impact you'll have at the FED? It does It's
- 24:08Speaker 1: likely that she will still get nominated at some point,
- 24:11Speaker 1: but it'll probably be in a few weeks time instead. Yeah, so,
- 24:14Speaker 1: so you know, obviously, as a member of the FED
- 24:16Speaker 1: will have some some say and some input. I you know,
- 24:20Speaker 1: one thing that tends to happen is when when a
- 24:23Speaker 1: lot of people who seem to be ideologues one way
- 24:25Speaker 1: or the other, they get appointed to the Supreme Court
- 24:27Speaker 1: or the Federal Reserve, where you don't have to report
- 24:31Speaker 1: to the political establishment, they tend to moderate their views
- 24:34Speaker 1: quite a lot. And and also I think you know,
- 24:36Speaker 1: given that that shall be part of a committee, right,
- 24:38Speaker 1: that it shall be part of both the Board of
- 24:40Speaker 1: Governors as well as the UM the Federal Open Market Committee. UM.
- 24:44Speaker 1: You know, she has a voice, and maybe she'll be
- 24:45Speaker 1: a loud voice, and perhaps she'll dissent occasionally depending on
- 24:49Speaker 1: what policies are suggested by the by the majority of
- 24:53Speaker 1: the committee. But but she is just one member of
- 24:54Speaker 1: the committee. And it's it's not dissimilar to you know,
- 24:59Speaker 1: a chair going in and you might think that the
- 25:01Speaker 1: chair was going to be particularly dubish or hawk ish,
- 25:03Speaker 1: and you realize that all of a sudden that they're not.
- 25:05Speaker 1: And a big part of that is because of the
- 25:08Speaker 1: committee aspect of of the Federal Reserve. And I don't
- 25:11Speaker 1: think that one member in the Board of Governors is
- 25:13Speaker 1: going to change that meaningfully. So there's some talk here
- 25:18Speaker 1: of the Fed expending its bond purchases. What are your
- 25:22Speaker 1: thoughts there. So when you say extending it, I take
- 25:25Speaker 1: it you mean that they're going to but not buy
- 25:27Speaker 1: as much in the front end and buy more, buy
- 25:29Speaker 1: more longer term securities. Yeah. So, so that's something that
- 25:33Speaker 1: we looked at a couple of a couple of weeks ago,
- 25:35Speaker 1: and I think that in the first half of next year,
- 25:37Speaker 1: in the first quarter, maybe the Federal Reserve may considered
- 25:40Speaker 1: doing that. And in particular, they might do that if
- 25:43Speaker 1: um under two circumstances. One is, if bond yields do
- 25:47Speaker 1: go up because you get a big fiscal stimulus, the
- 25:49Speaker 1: Federal Reserve won't won't like the fact that you have
- 25:52Speaker 1: tenure yells up one and a half percent. They'll be
- 25:54Speaker 1: happy that the market is pricing for a rebound in
- 25:57Speaker 1: the economy, but they'll be worried that such a large
- 26:00Speaker 1: move in bond yields might hamper that growth in the future.
- 26:04Speaker 1: So so they could extend out the maturities um. The
- 26:07Speaker 1: the other reason why they might do that is just
- 26:09Speaker 1: because they don't want to buy a whole lot more
- 26:11Speaker 1: of of security. So right now they're buying eighty billion
- 26:14Speaker 1: dollars of treasuries and forty billion dollars months of mortgage
- 26:18Speaker 1: backed securities. You know that that's quite a lot. And
- 26:21Speaker 1: and I think that they're worried that, you know, they
- 26:23Speaker 1: they worry about their impact a market function, how big
- 26:27Speaker 1: their balance sheet gets, they become, you know, worry for
- 26:30Speaker 1: some some people in the political establishment, you know, do
- 26:33Speaker 1: they do they have such a large balance sheet that
- 26:35Speaker 1: they can never ever um, you know, get rid of
- 26:37Speaker 1: it and unwind it. So so I do think that
- 26:40Speaker 1: there are limits and and the easiest thing for them
- 26:42Speaker 1: to do is just buy more market risk, which means
- 26:44Speaker 1: buying more longer term securities. Um so. So my colleague
- 26:48Speaker 1: Angela Manolados put out a piece a couple of weeks
- 26:51Speaker 1: ago noting that even without any new bonds coming into
- 26:54Speaker 1: the market, um that the Fed right now could buy
- 26:57Speaker 1: another trillion dollars of long term securities. Hey, Eira, thanks
- 27:01Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Really appreciate our Jersey chief
- 27:04Speaker 1: he was interest rate strategist for Bloomberg. Can tell just
- 27:08Speaker 1: thanks for listening to Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe
- 27:11Speaker 1: and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever. Podcast
- 27:15Speaker 1: platform you prefer. I'm Bonnie Quinn, I'm on Twitter at
- 27:18Speaker 1: Bonnie Quinn. And I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at
- 27:21Speaker 1: pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us
- 27:24Speaker 1: worldwide at Bloomberg Radio