Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Boeing Cuts Delivery Target, Sending Shares to 18-Month Low

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Boeing Cuts Delivery Target, Sending Shares to 18-Month Low · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios.
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  Speaker 2: Podcasts.
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  Speaker 3: Radio.
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  Speaker 4: News.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 3: Let's get back to the earnings story. We've got coming
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  Speaker 3: fast and furious. Boeing. Talk about an American blue chip company,
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  Speaker 3: one of my all-time faves. A little bit of a
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  Speaker 3: rough spot there. I thought we were back on firm footing.
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  Speaker 3: George Ferguson joins us. Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Aerospace, Defense and
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  Speaker 3: Airlines Analyst talked to us about Boeing and JetBlue as well.
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  Speaker 3: They reported. George, let's start with Boeing. What did we
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  Speaker 3: learn there?
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  Speaker 5: So I think we learned nothing happens fast anymore in manufacturing,
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  Speaker 5: especially aerospace manufacturing. It sounds like the CEO dropped a
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  Speaker 5: bomb right in the beginning of the call and basically said,
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  Speaker 5: Rate 47, they're having difficulty stabilizing at, that's for the 737.
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  Speaker 5: They're working with Wichita. It sounded like some wings issues,
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  Speaker 5: maybe fuselage issues. But essentially, again, the supply chain not stable,
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  Speaker 5: and so they push out rate 52 to the back
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  Speaker 5: half of 2027. We kind of thought rate 52 would
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  Speaker 5: be achieved in the early part of 2027. So I
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  Speaker 5: think there's a bunch of folks that have to go
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  Speaker 5: back and redo their models. That's the most important airplane
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  Speaker 5: for them, right, the 737. When rate gets up on that,
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  Speaker 5: you're going to get the profitability out of Boeing that
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  Speaker 5: you expect, but not sort of pre-pandemic profitability. And, again,
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  Speaker 5: it looks like we're delayed on that. And 787 looks
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  Speaker 5: like there's delays as well, getting the number of engines
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  Speaker 5: they want on that to be able to build that
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  Speaker 5: at a rate of 10. So again, we just heard
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  Speaker 5: manufacturing problems, and that's going to hurt cash flow. I
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  Speaker 5: think CEO Kelly Orberg said it best at the very end.
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  Speaker 5: He's like, everything just got kind of pushed to the right.
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  Speaker 3: For a year. Yep. Stock reacting accordingly. Stock's down 9.6% today,
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  Speaker 3: down 21% year-to-date, 52-week low.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I'm curious. Are we finally at a point
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  Speaker 2: where maybe the bigger problem is the supply chain rather
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  Speaker 2: than maybe just Boeing's own factories? We've been spending a
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  Speaker 2: lot of time talking about that as well.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think Spirit, they bought into the
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  Speaker 5: company because they're having problems. Now, Spirit's history is it
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  Speaker 5: was sold out of the company because they wanted to
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  Speaker 5: find a lower price way to build fuselages. But I
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  Speaker 5: think that, you know, it's just indicative of problems, I think,
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  Speaker 5: throughout U.S. manufacturing industry. and maybe to some extent global manufacturing.
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  Speaker 5: In the US, I think we're really burning through some
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  Speaker 5: heavy demand from other sectors that are pulling away people.
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  Speaker 5: We're seeing retirements that are losing some of the gray
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  Speaker 5: hairs that I think understand how to build airplanes. And
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  Speaker 5: that's all hurting, right? I think you just look at
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  Speaker 5: things like data centers and the amount of GDP they're
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  Speaker 5: responsible for in the U.S. market. And, you know, I
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  Speaker 5: think those companies are willing, the hyperscales are willing to
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  Speaker 5: spend the money to build those facilities. They pull in
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  Speaker 5: people to do the work. They'll pay the most. I
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  Speaker 5: think if you're in the manufacturing world, you're having a
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  Speaker 5: hard time finding workers and getting your supply chain to
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  Speaker 5: work well. And I think this is just indicative of it.
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  Speaker 3: Does Airbus have similar issues with the supply chain? They do.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, Airbus is not, you know, last year, Airbus
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  Speaker 5: had really no increase in build rates for the A320.
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  Speaker 5: They're working hard to get them up this year. One
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  Speaker 5: of the choke points there is RTX, the US engine maker.
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  Speaker 5: But again, I think globally, we just see the supply
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  Speaker 5: chains are having a hard time getting back, aerospace supply chains,
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  Speaker 5: having a hard time getting back to pre-pandemic levels of builds.
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  Speaker 5: It's about people. The equipment's still there. The factories are
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  Speaker 5: still there. It's about people and it's about demand from
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  Speaker 5: other industries, but a large portion is people.
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  Speaker 1: Stay with us.
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  Speaker 6: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android
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  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
• 4:44
  Speaker 7: Big news this morning if you are the New York
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  Speaker 7: Stock Exchange because General Motors is leaving the big board
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  Speaker 7: and is now shifting its stock listing to the NASDAQ
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  Speaker 7: Global Select Market.
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  Speaker 8: Why?
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  Speaker 7: Because it wants to position itself as a.
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  Speaker 6: Tech forward company.
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  Speaker 7: GM's ticker remains GM when it begins trading on the
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  Speaker 7: NASDAQ on November 17th.
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  Speaker 6: Let's bring in David Welch.
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  Speaker 7: He is our Bloomberg Detroit Bureau Chief with more on this. David,
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  Speaker 7: is this something that was expected? Did we know that
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  Speaker 7: GM was moving in this direction?
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  Speaker 8: We didn't. They've been working on this for more than
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  Speaker 8: a month to try to move to the NASDAQ. And
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  Speaker 8: it is part about trying to get a sort of
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  Speaker 8: tech glow that they've been pushing for for a while
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  Speaker 8: as they talk about their self-driving technology, their electric vehicles.
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  Speaker 8: and their software-related services development. I think a bigger piece
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  Speaker 8: of this, though, really is getting into the NASDAQ 100
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  Speaker 8: and getting some shareholders access to that index so that
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  Speaker 8: they can maybe push the stock price up by having
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  Speaker 8: more possible buyers for the shares.
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  Speaker 3: Being part of the Q's. Ah, okay. Sales is wondering.
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  Speaker 3: So is there a cost associated to the company for
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  Speaker 3: doing this, David? Because I mean, other than the psychological,
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  Speaker 3: like we've been on the New York Stock Exchange since
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  Speaker 3: the beginning of time.
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  Speaker 8: If there is, it's not material. They didn't say they
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  Speaker 8: had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to get
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  Speaker 8: on this thing. I think they'll probably be listed in December,
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  Speaker 8: so maybe one of the perks is it can happen
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  Speaker 8: pretty fast and they can get into the 100 when
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  Speaker 8: they do the rebalancing of it next month, or two months.
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  Speaker 8: We're almost in November. Maybe it will help the shares.
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  Speaker 8: I can't see it helping a lot. GM's in a
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  Speaker 8: position where They're kind of trading on the economy right now.
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  Speaker 8: And there are a lot of worries out there with
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  Speaker 8: affordability and inflation and where the health and confidence of
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  Speaker 8: the consumer is. So maybe over time it helps them.
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  Speaker 8: I think it's going to be tough sledding going forward
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  Speaker 8: for auto stocks.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, in the Bloomberg News story that you helped author,
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  Speaker 7: analysts from JP Morgan say that GM's market cap would
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  Speaker 7: make it the second largest NASDAQ 100 non-member after Hilton.
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  Speaker 7: So just something to keep in mind there. So part
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  Speaker 7: of this is about how it's a tech-forward company that
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  Speaker 7: embraces automated driving and EVs. What are GM's plans when
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  Speaker 7: it comes to EVs? Because the Detroit carmakers have really
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  Speaker 7: pulled back on their EV ambitions recently. and put, it
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  Speaker 7: feels like, more emphasis on those internal combustion engine cars,
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  Speaker 7: the SUVs, trucks that we're willing to pay a lot
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  Speaker 7: of money for.
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  Speaker 8: They have. In GM's case, they still... do sell 12 models.
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  Speaker 8: They haven't canceled any of them. That's a lot of
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  Speaker 8: different EVs out there, which means per name plate, they're
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  Speaker 8: not selling very many because they've sold less than 100,000
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  Speaker 8: total through the first three quarters of the year. You know,
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  Speaker 8: in New York last week, they had an event where
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  Speaker 8: they were showing some technology. And one of the things
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  Speaker 8: they talked about was another EV coming with an all
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  Speaker 8: new battery system. So they're not walking away from that.
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  Speaker 8: They just can't sell EVs in this market without government incentives.
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  Speaker 8: And even with those government incentives, American consumers were not
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  Speaker 8: embracing electric drive as much as GM and the others hoped.
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  Speaker 8: So they have to sell a bunch of V8 engine
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  Speaker 8: pickup trucks and SUVs. That's where they make all of
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  Speaker 8: their money. They're still working on this stuff. I think
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  Speaker 8: from a technology standpoint, probably the bigger thing they have
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  Speaker 8: is in 2028, they'll have eyes off the road, hands-free
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  Speaker 8: driving on highways, starting with the Cadillac and then branching
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  Speaker 8: out to other vehicles. And People pay thousands of dollars
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  Speaker 8: a month for subscriptions to that sort of thing. Subscriptions.
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  Speaker 7: Yep. Subscriptions and cars.
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  Speaker 8: Subscription revenue is what every company likes to talk about
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  Speaker 8: to the street, right? So that's where they're going with that.
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  Speaker 7: The idea that you can have heated seats if you
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  Speaker 7: pay a subscription for it, just that feels wrong somehow. David,
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  Speaker 7: what about hybrids? I mean, Americans may not be embracing
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  Speaker 7: EVs without any government help, but they are certainly flocking
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  Speaker 7: to hybrids given where gas prices are right now.
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  Speaker 8: That's right, and GM doesn't have them, unless you consider
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  Speaker 8: the Corvette E-Ray a hybrid. They said at that event
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  Speaker 8: last week that they have some coming, but they've been
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  Speaker 8: very unspecific about it, and GM's never been really enthusiastic
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  Speaker 8: about hybrids. It's always been big V8 engines and then
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  Speaker 8: going all electric. Mary Barra, the CEO, has seen hybrids
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  Speaker 8: as this unnecessary and expensive interim step, but since it's
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  Speaker 8: going to take a very long time for hybrids for
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  Speaker 8: American consumers to embrace EVs, they're going to have to
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  Speaker 8: do it because Toyota and Hyundai are just stealing buyers
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  Speaker 8: at a fast clip in the U.S. Hyundai could pass
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  Speaker 8: for this in sales this year. Toyota's threatening GM sales
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  Speaker 8: crown because of hybrid growth, at least in part because
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  Speaker 8: of that. And both of them offer so many. So
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  Speaker 8: GM now feels they have to get in step. But
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  Speaker 8: when and how many remains to be seen.
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  Speaker 3: Stay with us.
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  Speaker 6: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the bloomberg intelligence podcast catch us live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at 10 a.m eastern on apple carplay and android
• 10:06
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  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on youtube.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: More earnings out there today. UPS, one of the big
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  Speaker 3: names that people like to follow. A, if you follow UPS.
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  Speaker 3: And B, if you just want to get a handle
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  Speaker 3: on how kind of the economy is going, how the
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  Speaker 3: consumer is doing, you can judge that in large part
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: by how many packages are flying around the skies and
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  Speaker 3: on the trucks and everything. Lee Klaskow, he does this
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  Speaker 3: stuff for a living. Covers all the transportation companies and
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  Speaker 3: logistics companies. Hey, Lee, talk to us about UPS. What
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  Speaker 3: did you learn from the company's release? Yeah, it was
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  Speaker 3: a pretty good print.
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  Speaker 4: And they're showing that their execution of, you know, trying
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  Speaker 4: to be better and not bigger is really paying dividends.
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  Speaker 4: You know, when you're looking through the numbers from a
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  Speaker 4: volume standpoint, while volume was down, it's small to midsize
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  Speaker 4: business volumes are up. Its volumes are up pretty strong,
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  Speaker 4: around 30 percent for high tech products, which is really
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  Speaker 4: being driven by demand for data centers. So there's a
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  Speaker 4: lot of things going on there that are showing that
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  Speaker 4: they're switched away from Amazon or relying less on Amazon
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  Speaker 4: and more towards these higher end. yielding packages is really
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  Speaker 4: moving through its income statement down to the bottom line.
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  Speaker 4: And net, you know, it seems like they're really well
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  Speaker 4: positioned as they head into peak season.
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  Speaker 2: And speaking of peak season, we see UPS raising its
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  Speaker 2: outlook heading into the holiday season. What do you think
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  Speaker 2: gave management the confidence to do that?
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  Speaker 4: I think it's really just their execution on becoming a
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  Speaker 4: more profitable company. Like I mentioned earlier, the company has
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  Speaker 4: been really focused on pivoting away from that low margin
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  Speaker 4: business of business to consumer B2C packages. The packages that
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  Speaker 4: we get at our doorstep, working with Amazon while they
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  Speaker 4: promise you a lot of volumes. the margins on each
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  Speaker 4: packages tend to be low because of the higher cost
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  Speaker 4: it is to deliver that. So they're really focused on
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  Speaker 4: higher margin areas, whether it's the data centers that I
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  Speaker 4: mentioned earlier, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, that's another great growth area for them,
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  Speaker 4: as well as automotive has become a growth area and
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  Speaker 4: a higher margin business, just given the fact that service
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  Speaker 4: is really paramount with those kind of deliveries.
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  Speaker 3: Lee, I'm looking at the stock price performance of some
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  Speaker 3: of the competitors. Year to date, FedEx is up about
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  Speaker 3: 30 percent. DHL is up 25 percent. United UPS lagging,
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  Speaker 3: I guess, up about 4 percent. Is that kind of
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  Speaker 3: reflecting that this is still a little bit of a
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  Speaker 3: show me story that they can kind of manage the
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  Speaker 3: change in their business flow?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's a combination of a show me story.
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  Speaker 4: And those other companies that you mentioned are kind of
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  Speaker 4: doing things this year that maybe UPS was doing a
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  Speaker 4: couple of years ago and was getting credit for back then.
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  Speaker 4: So I think it's more of the other companies catching
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  Speaker 4: up to UPS. But I do, you know, would agree
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  Speaker 4: that UPS continues to be a show me story because
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  Speaker 4: they are trying to really restructure their overall business, whether
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  Speaker 4: it's having a smaller footprint, really leaning into becoming more
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  Speaker 4: of a tracking network. There's a lot of things that
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: they're doing to improve the overall productivity. And with that
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: comes some execution risks. They sold a lot of businesses
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  Speaker 4: that really didn't make sense for them, like their LTL business.
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  Speaker 4: FedEx recently did that. This year, they recently spun out
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  Speaker 4: their LTL business. So both companies are really trying to
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  Speaker 4: focus more on the parcel markets.
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  Speaker 2: Lee, what's really been the latest considering the fact there's
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  Speaker 2: still this key overhang as it relates to the union negotiations?
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  Speaker 2: I know that the CEO plans to stick around for
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  Speaker 2: another two or more years to negotiate another labor deal
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  Speaker 2: with its unionized delivery drivers. But what have you been
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  Speaker 2: watching as it pertains to that?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I honestly think it's a little too early to say.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I think the market likes to talk about
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  Speaker 4: it because the last package that was negotiated with the Teamsters,
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  Speaker 4: folks maybe didn't like it so much because it increased
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  Speaker 4: costs by a lot. You know, what I would say
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  Speaker 4: is that, you know, going into this negotiation, the UPS,
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  Speaker 4: there are less drivers needed. There are less people needed.
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  Speaker 4: So I think it'll be a very interesting negotiation. But,
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  Speaker 4: you know, they have to remain competitive if they're able
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: to continue to grow and remain profitable. So I think
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  Speaker 4: it's a little too early to tell. But, you know,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: the one thing I can say with confidence is their
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  Speaker 4: costs are probably going to go up.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Lee, you follow all the trucking companies as well.
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  Speaker 3: And give us a sense of how they've been dealing
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  Speaker 3: with these higher fuel costs. I mean, gasoline, diesel prices,
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  Speaker 3: you know, just brutal for these guys. How are they
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: dealing with it?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're about a third way through earnings season. I'd
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: say about 80% to 85% of the companies that have
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: reported have beat expectations. A lot of that has been
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: their ability to manage higher fuel prices. Most large trucking
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: and railroads, these kind of companies, they're able to pass
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: on the higher costs through fuel surcharges. Truckers, their fuel
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: surcharge usually lags about a week. So it's not a
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  Speaker 4: huge deal. Obviously, you know, they don't get all of
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: that back. They probably get around 70 to 75 percent
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: back from the higher costs. They're able to recoup that. But,
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: you know, the bigger impact that we're watching is, you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: how is this really going to impact demand? You know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: consumers have been pretty resilient here in the U.S. and
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: through my career, I've never bet against the U.S. consumer
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: because they always find a way to spend. But as
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: these prices remain higher, whether it's food or fuel, you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: they're just apt to spend less. So I think it'll
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: be very interesting to see, you know, when you have
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: some of these sentiment indicators that are nearer lows, you know,
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: how the retail industry is going to do and therefore,
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: you know, how transportation companies are going to be able
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  Speaker 4: to do.
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  Speaker 3: All right, Lee, great stuff as always. Lee Klaskow, he's
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: a senior transport, logistics, and shipping analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: He also hosts a weekly podcast, Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: So if you're into that kind of thing, he always
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: gets great guests and a lot of great information. And
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: the reason I like it is, again, transportation gives you
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: just a really good view of how this underlying U.S.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: economy is performing. You see the numbers from the truckers,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: from the railroads. from the shippers, all that kind of stuff.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: If they're busy, they're doing well. That means this economy
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: is probably doing pretty well.
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: One of the tickers that I've definitely put in the
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: terminal over the years is Coca-Cola. KO is the ticker.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: They reported some decent numbers, raising guidance, buoyed by soda
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: sales abroad. How about that? Ken Shea joins us. He
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: covers all the big consumer stocks for now. Ken, thanks
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: so much for joining us here. What did you learn
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: from our friends at Coca-Cola?
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 9: Hi, Paul. Well, Coke, as you mentioned, beat nicely on
• 17:30
  Speaker 9: the top line and bottom line and raised guidance. And
• 17:34
  Speaker 9: a bull would say that's great. And the guidance is
• 17:37
  Speaker 9: very encouraging and trends are really good. Some of the
• 17:41
  Speaker 9: bears out there said, you know, that North America didn't
• 17:44
  Speaker 9: perform quite as well as some would have hoped. You
• 17:48
  Speaker 9: have a looming IRS tax case out there the company
• 17:51
  Speaker 9: could be vulnerable to. But having said all that, it
• 17:54
  Speaker 9: was a good number, good print today. And if you're
• 17:57
  Speaker 9: a bull in the stock, there's no reason to not
• 17:59
  Speaker 9: be after today's report.
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  Speaker 2: And, you know, Ken, we did see a lot of
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: the growth coming from outside of the United States. What
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: is that really telling you about the U.S. consumer versus consumer?
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: maybe foreign consumers outside of the United States?
• 18:12
  Speaker 9: You know, it's a good question, but it's hard to
• 18:14
  Speaker 9: read too much into one quarterly report. One of the
• 18:17
  Speaker 9: things that skewed the results also was the benefit of
• 18:20
  Speaker 9: the World Cup. The company spent quite a bit on
• 18:23
  Speaker 9: the World Cup activations, particularly Latin America. It boosted results
• 18:28
  Speaker 9: to some degree in Europe. It was more of a
• 18:30
  Speaker 9: second quarter event, but it did spill over to the
• 18:32
  Speaker 9: third quarter. And so the North America didn't quite benefit
• 18:37
  Speaker 9: quite as much from that. But to your point, I
• 18:40
  Speaker 9: think some of the softness in North America could result
• 18:43
  Speaker 9: also from a difficult comparison. As the company said a
• 18:46
  Speaker 9: year ago, the 4th of July, for instance, fell over
• 18:50
  Speaker 9: the second quarter. Or I should say the third quarter.
• 18:53
  Speaker 9: This year, it was a second quarter. So it didn't
• 18:55
  Speaker 9: benefit them as much. Also, some of the higher margin
• 18:58
  Speaker 9: products like Topo Chico, Fairlife, for instance, really did really
• 19:04
  Speaker 9: well a year ago, lesser well this year. So unbalanced
• 19:09
  Speaker 9: North America may be a little more difficult, but there's
• 19:11
  Speaker 9: also some near-term comparability issues that weighed on it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: All right. This is what I never would have guessed.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Over the last five years, the S & P 500
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: has had a compounded annual return, 12.7 percent. Coca-Cola, 14 percent.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I would have thought Coke would have lagged this thing
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: big time because you don't see the growth rate there.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: So the stock's up 30 percent here this year to date. Ken,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: why are people all fired up about Coca-Cola?
• 19:39
  Speaker 9: You know, I think it's the geographic balance this company has.
• 19:43
  Speaker 9: I mean, it's in virtually every market, as you'd imagine.
• 19:47
  Speaker 9: And I think that gives it a consistency, which investors... like.
• 19:50
  Speaker 9: It's also more focused. I mean, think about, you know,
• 19:53
  Speaker 9: I don't want to beat up too much on PepsiCo here,
• 19:54
  Speaker 9: but Coke is, you know, very, very focused on selling
• 19:58
  Speaker 9: high margin concentrates and to its bottling partners. And you've
• 20:03
  Speaker 9: got to remember, because the bottling partners are basically third parties,
• 20:07
  Speaker 9: they're the ones that are incurring a lot of these
• 20:10
  Speaker 9: higher costs that PepsiCo and other manufacturers are concerned about.
• 20:15
  Speaker 9: While Coke is not totally immune, the way that it
• 20:19
  Speaker 9: organizes its organization, it really falls on third parties, these
• 20:22
  Speaker 9: inflationary periods. So it's a combination of all those things
• 20:26
  Speaker 9: that I think investors are embracing with Coke.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: You know, Ken, I see that global volume rose about 5%.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You saw price mix contributing to about just 1%. So
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: have we really moved away from this story of beverage
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: companies like Coca-Cola really relying on price hikes and maybe
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: back towards some of the actual volume growth that we're
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: seeing here?
• 20:48
  Speaker 9: And that's been a key theme since the pandemic, really,
• 20:52
  Speaker 9: that Coke, Pepsi, a lot of the consumer product companies
• 20:55
  Speaker 9: in general have been relying heavily on price. And a
• 20:58
  Speaker 9: lot of it is, you know, defendable because costs have been,
• 21:01
  Speaker 9: you know, significantly higher since that time, waning, but still higher.
• 21:07
  Speaker 9: You know, a bull would look at Coke's report here
• 21:09
  Speaker 9: and say, look, you know, price mix was up only 1%.
• 21:12
  Speaker 9: That's far below 6% than it was last year and
• 21:15
  Speaker 9: well below trend line. And so Coke, like many other
• 21:19
  Speaker 9: CPG companies, are doing their best to have more of
• 21:24
  Speaker 9: a balance between price mix and volume. And I think
• 21:28
  Speaker 9: Coke has done a pretty good job in doing that.
• 21:32
  Speaker 9: Looking forward, you would think price mix will still be positive,
• 21:36
  Speaker 9: but far below that that we saw a few years
• 21:39
  Speaker 9: ago when it was more dependent on price. I think
• 21:41
  Speaker 9: that's an encouraging trend.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: How long have you been covering Coca-Cola stock, Ken?
• 21:49
  Speaker 9: See these gray hairs here? More than I'd probably want
• 21:53
  Speaker 9: to admit. I'd say on and off for about 35 years.
• 21:56
  Speaker 9: There you go.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: You've seen the cycles, my man. Ken Che, thank you
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: so much. We appreciate it. Heck of a career there
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: covering all the consumer products companies.
• 22:04
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