Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / BI Weekend: A Preview of 2025
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- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
- 0:09Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steel and Paul'sweeny.
- 0:12Speaker 3: The real app performance has been the US corporate high yield.
- 0:16Speaker 4: Are the companies lean enough? Have they trimmed all the fats?
- 0:18Speaker 3: The semiconductor business is a really cyclical business.
- 0:22Speaker 2: Breaking market headlines and corporate news from across the globe.
- 0:25Speaker 4: Do investors like the M and A that we've seen?
- 0:28Speaker 3: These are two big time blue chip companies.
- 0:31Speaker 4: The window between the peak and cut changing super fast.
- 0:35Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steel and Paul'sweeny on Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:43Speaker 3: On Today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show, we dig inside the big
- 0:45Speaker 3: business stories impacting Wall Street and the global markets. Each
- 0:49Speaker 3: and every week we provide in depth research and data
- 0:51Speaker 3: on some of the two thousand companies in one hundred
- 0:53Speaker 3: and thirty industries our analysts cover worldwide. Today will take
- 0:56Speaker 3: a look at the federal reserves rate path for twenty
- 0:58Speaker 3: twenty five and how the income Trump administration could affect
- 1:01Speaker 3: the economy. Plus we'll take a look at some of
- 1:04Speaker 3: the companies our analysts are keeping an eye on in
- 1:06Speaker 3: the new year. But first we dive into the health
- 1:09Speaker 3: of the retail industry in a price sensitive climate. I
- 1:12Speaker 3: guess host Caroline Hyde and I sat down with Bloomberg
- 1:14Speaker 3: Intelligence senior retail analyst Jennifer Partashis for a look ahead
- 1:19Speaker 3: at the retail space heading into the new year. Here's
- 1:21Speaker 3: a portion of our conversation.
- 1:23Speaker 5: One of the things that we're looking at is really
- 1:25Speaker 5: the consumer is doing well, but it's about where is
- 1:27Speaker 5: their focus. And the focus is on value. And so
- 1:31Speaker 5: what we're seeing is across the entire industry a lot
- 1:33Speaker 5: of retailers trying to re orient them their operations in
- 1:37Speaker 5: a way that presents a value. However that might mean
- 1:39Speaker 5: to their core consumer. So for Nord's dream, you may
- 1:42Speaker 5: see that pivoting in terms of the way they do
- 1:45Speaker 5: their assortment. But for retailers like Walmart and Target, it's
- 1:48Speaker 5: about price and it's about selection.
- 1:50Speaker 3: And there's a great story on that general in the
- 1:52Speaker 3: Bloomberg terminal, Leslie Patton and Jay Won Kang have this story.
- 1:56Speaker 3: The headline is just a great headline Kirkland for Christmas shoppers,
- 2:00Speaker 3: itch logos for store brands. That kind of goes to
- 2:03Speaker 3: your value argument. How do you see that with the
- 2:08Speaker 3: stores you cover?
- 2:09Speaker 5: Yeah, value is as I said, it's of utmost importance.
- 2:13Speaker 5: But private label had a great year in twenty twenty four,
- 2:16Speaker 5: and we actually see that momentum just continuing in twenty
- 2:19Speaker 5: twenty five. So Kirkland is Costco's own brand. It is
- 2:23Speaker 5: over thirty percent, almost thirty five percent of their sales,
- 2:27Speaker 5: and it is just a trusted brand to the point
- 2:29Speaker 5: where consumers no longer think of it as a private
- 2:31Speaker 5: label alternative to national brands. They just see it as
- 2:34Speaker 5: a brand in and of itself. Walmart, Target, Kroger, Albertson's,
- 2:39Speaker 5: these companies have all invested in private label in the
- 2:42Speaker 5: last year couple like the last several years, and it's
- 2:45Speaker 5: really starting to pay dividends because it's value, it's novelty,
- 2:49Speaker 5: and it's something that consumers are really resonating with.
- 2:53Speaker 6: To get that data to understand that it's resonating with
- 2:55Speaker 6: a consumer, they're having to be leaning into all the
- 2:58Speaker 6: data points, largely through digital invest I'm sure, and through
- 3:01Speaker 6: aultificial intelligence. How is that something that they're not just
- 3:04Speaker 6: plowing money in by getting the realwards back.
- 3:07Speaker 5: Yeah, the rise of retail media is really the answer
- 3:10Speaker 5: to that question. And when we look at the industry,
- 3:13Speaker 5: actually last year we made a prediction that retail media
- 3:16Speaker 5: would be up by over twenty percent the revenue associated
- 3:19Speaker 5: with it for twenty twenty four, and it looks like
- 3:21Speaker 5: we're going to exceed that and it's on pace to
- 3:25Speaker 5: continue that kind of momentum into twenty twenty five. So
- 3:28Speaker 5: retail media is really advertising, and it's the selling of
- 3:32Speaker 5: ad space, it's the selling of search results, and it's
- 3:35Speaker 5: the digital products such as you see online as well
- 3:38Speaker 5: as digital screens that you see in stores. And so
- 3:42Speaker 5: retailers have really been unlocking the value of that and
- 3:44Speaker 5: are finding that it's a way to bring a high margin,
- 3:48Speaker 5: very low overhead business into their mainstream core.
- 3:52Speaker 3: You know, Jen, that's a business for better or worse,
- 3:56Speaker 3: I have experienced with Back in my banking days. We
- 3:58Speaker 3: tried to finance a bunch of those companies because we
- 4:00Speaker 3: felt like, you know, just like you said, they're captured customers,
- 4:04Speaker 3: they're at the point of buying. What a great time
- 4:06Speaker 3: for video to be introduced there in terms of advertising.
- 4:10Speaker 3: What does it mean for the big retailers? What are
- 4:13Speaker 3: the economics to the big retailers for this media.
- 4:16Speaker 5: So this media carries a margin of eighty percent and
- 4:19Speaker 5: when you think about when you think about retail staples,
- 4:23Speaker 5: you're talking about operating margins in the three to five
- 4:26Speaker 5: percent range, right, You're talking about gross margins in the
- 4:29Speaker 5: high teens, low twenties. So the ability to have a
- 4:32Speaker 5: revenue stream with such a high margin is very appealing
- 4:35Speaker 5: to these companies. And they have the data. They have
- 4:39Speaker 5: all this first party data that they can monetize, and
- 4:42Speaker 5: so it really is a very effective partnering. And one
- 4:45Speaker 5: of the interesting things that we're finding is that there's
- 4:48Speaker 5: always been historically investment from say, packaged food companies into
- 4:52Speaker 5: retailers for placement on shelves and things like that, but
- 4:56Speaker 5: we're finding that retail media is actually incremental spend that's
- 5:00Speaker 5: actually an even bigger tailwind for these retailers as they
- 5:03Speaker 5: get deeper into this new revenue stream.
- 5:06Speaker 6: In many ways, everyone takes a leaf out of Amazon's book.
- 5:08Speaker 6: In the end, I'm interested in Jan a little bit
- 5:11Speaker 6: more about the pure data side of it and the
- 5:14Speaker 6: forecasting side of it. We go to you to help
- 5:16Speaker 6: us full cost, what the retail looks like. How are
- 5:19Speaker 6: the companies themselves full casting in twenty twenty five.
- 5:23Speaker 5: Well, it's been interesting because what we've really seen were
- 5:26Speaker 5: in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four, we saw
- 5:28Speaker 5: some initial pilot cases of the use of AI, for example,
- 5:33Speaker 5: to help with demand forecasting. And we're seeing that those
- 5:36Speaker 5: pilot programs have been successful and are being more widely
- 5:40Speaker 5: rolled out across organizations at places like Kroger and Walmart
- 5:44Speaker 5: and Target.
- 5:46Speaker 1: And you know what that really.
- 5:47Speaker 5: Means is that they're getting more efficient and smarter about
- 5:50Speaker 5: understanding when they need product and where they need product.
- 5:53Speaker 5: That then goes all the way back up to supply
- 5:55Speaker 5: chain and makes them more efficient as an organization. And so,
- 5:59Speaker 5: you know, the kind of cost cutting initiative is good
- 6:03Speaker 5: from a operational perspective, but it's also good for customers
- 6:06Speaker 5: because that means that what they want will be in
- 6:09Speaker 5: the stores or online available at the time they want it.
- 6:12Speaker 3: Our thanks to Jennifer bartashis Bloomberg Intelligence Senior retail analyst.
- 6:15Speaker 3: She spoke with me and Guess host Caroline Hyde. Now
- 6:19Speaker 3: we pivot to how mortgage rates will impact the health
- 6:21Speaker 3: of the housing market. Alex Steel and I spoke with
- 6:24Speaker 3: your reading Bloomberg Intelligence US home building analysts starting with
- 6:28Speaker 3: his prediction for the housing market in twenty twenty five.
- 6:31Speaker 7: Yeah, so as you can imagine, the direction of mortgage
- 6:34Speaker 7: rates obviously is going to be key in determining how
- 6:37Speaker 7: the spring selling season unfolds and how housing ultimately fares
- 6:41Speaker 7: in twenty twenty five. I mean, if we go back
- 6:43Speaker 7: to September, we were looking at a rate at around
- 6:46Speaker 7: six point one percent. There was a lot of optimism
- 6:48Speaker 7: heading into next year, you know, but that quickly unwound.
- 6:52Speaker 7: We're now looking at rates at about seven zero point
- 6:55Speaker 7: one percent, So monthly payments are that much higher for
- 6:58Speaker 7: buyers out there. So we think it's going to be
- 7:00Speaker 7: hard to build a lot of momentum with the affordability
- 7:02Speaker 7: challenges that are still out there in the market. That
- 7:05Speaker 7: being said, we think that the broader housing space can
- 7:07Speaker 7: still grind higher in twenty twenty five, you know, with
- 7:11Speaker 7: the existing market returning to growth maybe in the low
- 7:14Speaker 7: to mid single digit range, often extremely depressed base. Remember
- 7:18Speaker 7: we're coming off back to back years at around a
- 7:20Speaker 7: four million annualized rate, which is the lowest in more
- 7:23Speaker 7: than a decade, So off of a low base for sure.
- 7:26Speaker 7: In the new home market, we think you'll see similar growth,
- 7:29Speaker 7: but we think the backdrop will continue to favor the large,
- 7:32Speaker 7: well capitalized, publicly traded builders who have access to financing,
- 7:37Speaker 7: access to land, access to the trades, compared to their
- 7:40Speaker 7: smaller private peers who tend to rely on that regional
- 7:45Speaker 7: and local banking for financing. So they've really struggled struggled
- 7:49Speaker 7: with the cost and availability of that capital. So we
- 7:51Speaker 7: think you'll see a bifurcation growth continue to play out.
- 7:55Speaker 3: Drew, I'm going to ask you a thirty thousand foot
- 7:57Speaker 3: question about housing market here in the United States. We're
- 8:00Speaker 3: told that there's a housing shortage. A. Is that true? B?
- 8:04Speaker 3: How did we get there? And what are your building
- 8:08Speaker 3: companies going to do about it?
- 8:10Speaker 7: Yeah? So, I think the issue right now is that
- 8:12Speaker 7: there's a shortage of homes on the market. A lot
- 8:16Speaker 7: of that has to do with the fact that people
- 8:18Speaker 7: are locked into a much lower mortgage rate, so they're
- 8:20Speaker 7: disincentivized to put their house on the market and trade
- 8:23Speaker 7: up to a new home and take on a much
- 8:26Speaker 7: higher rate. At the same time, you have to remember
- 8:28Speaker 7: back in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, when money was cheap,
- 8:31Speaker 7: you had a lot of people going out buying second
- 8:34Speaker 7: and third homes. You saw the boom in the airbnb market.
- 8:36Speaker 7: So I think, you know, the housing stock has been
- 8:39Speaker 7: allocated in a different way than we've seen historically, which
- 8:42Speaker 7: is contributing to that shortage. Now in terms of what
- 8:45Speaker 7: the builders are doing, you know, it's going to be
- 8:48Speaker 7: hard for them to put a lot of new supply
- 8:50Speaker 7: onto the market, particularly as supplying the resale market starts
- 8:54Speaker 7: to heat up. So we think you'll see new home
- 8:57Speaker 7: production maybe increase in the load to mid single digit
- 8:59Speaker 7: range kind of corresponds to what they're seeing from the
- 9:02Speaker 7: demand side. But you know, we don't. We don't see
- 9:05Speaker 7: the issue with housing being solved anytime soon.
- 9:10Speaker 8: I love how we talked about low rates, thanks a lot,
- 9:12Speaker 8: this is my moment where this is your moment.
- 9:13Speaker 4: Two seventy five thirty or fix and then Paul complains
- 9:16Speaker 4: about not being able to refine, and then all those
- 9:18Speaker 4: the really cool conversations. So then we can, you know,
- 9:22Speaker 4: move forward on that convo. The problem is with your builders,
- 9:25Speaker 4: as Paul calls them, is that they wind up building,
- 9:28Speaker 4: but it's still too expensive for people to buy it,
- 9:30Speaker 4: and then they wind up having to give incentives, and
- 9:33Speaker 4: then that winds up hurting their profitability. How long does
- 9:36Speaker 4: that's part of the cycle last for.
- 9:39Speaker 7: That's a great point, Alex. That's actually one of the
- 9:41Speaker 7: key themes for twenty twenty five. Well, we think that
- 9:44Speaker 7: volumes will continue to rebound, it's going to come at
- 9:47Speaker 7: a cost for the builders. The use of sales incentives
- 9:50Speaker 7: is at a multi year high. You know, a couple
- 9:52Speaker 7: months ago, when we were looking out to twenty twenty
- 9:54Speaker 7: five and we had mortgage rates coming down to the
- 9:56Speaker 7: six percent range, I think there's a lot of optimism
- 9:59Speaker 7: that builders were going to be able to pool back
- 10:01Speaker 7: on that use of incentives, which would support margins into
- 10:04Speaker 7: next year. But it's been exactly the opposite. So you know,
- 10:08Speaker 7: we think sales incentives are going to remain elevate it
- 10:10Speaker 7: we think margins will come under pressure next year. And
- 10:13Speaker 7: it's not just incentives. I mean, you have higher cost
- 10:16Speaker 7: land running through the P and L, and you have
- 10:18Speaker 7: the potential for Paris and some immigration policy to add
- 10:21Speaker 7: to the to the margin pressures that these guys are
- 10:23Speaker 7: going to face next year.
- 10:25Speaker 3: All Right, So a home was just constructed right next
- 10:28Speaker 3: to me down at the Jersey Shore. It's being constructed
- 10:30Speaker 3: as we speak, and I'm guessing swarming with workers there.
- 10:35Speaker 3: I'm guessing some percentage of them are illegal immigrants.
- 10:38Speaker 1: What are the what are.
- 10:39Speaker 3: The builders telling you guys about a tighter immigration policy
- 10:43Speaker 3: might mean on the ability to actually get these things built.
- 10:48Speaker 7: Yeah, there's some estimates out there that immigrants comprise about
- 10:51Speaker 7: thirty percent of the entire US construction force, and as
- 10:55Speaker 7: you mentioned, a large portion of those are undocumented. So
- 10:59Speaker 7: in the event that they that we do get some
- 11:00Speaker 7: policy coming through next year that puts a strain on
- 11:04Speaker 7: that labor force. I think what you're going to see
- 11:06Speaker 7: is a pullback in production. I think builders closings could
- 11:09Speaker 7: be impacted because you're going to see cycle times, which is,
- 11:12Speaker 7: you know, the amount of time from start to completion.
- 11:14Speaker 7: You'll see them start to elongate, and I could pressure closings.
- 11:17Speaker 7: At the same time, you know, builders are going to
- 11:20Speaker 7: have to start to fight more to attract that labor.
- 11:22Speaker 7: So you're going to see cost strives as well.
- 11:24Speaker 4: Right, So that says a profitability squeeze. It feels like
- 11:26Speaker 4: on lots of different ends, which companies in your coverage
- 11:29Speaker 4: universe do you feel like are best equipped to manage that.
- 11:32Speaker 7: So there's a couple of things that we're looking at.
- 11:34Speaker 7: One from a geographic perspective, we think that's going to
- 11:36Speaker 7: become increasingly important in twenty twenty five. Some of the
- 11:40Speaker 7: markets that are struggling a little bit, think of Texas
- 11:43Speaker 7: and Florida, where you're seeing a lot more competitive supply.
- 11:47Speaker 7: We think builders in those markets are maybe going to
- 11:49Speaker 7: have to adjust prices or continue with the elevated incentives.
- 11:53Speaker 7: So we think from a geographic perspective, you're likely to
- 11:55Speaker 7: see relative strength in the Midwest, in the Northeast, and
- 11:59Speaker 7: maybe park Its pockets of California. From a product perspective,
- 12:05Speaker 7: you know, with rates rising, you have to think about
- 12:07Speaker 7: who's most impacted by that, and as you would expect,
- 12:09Speaker 7: it's the lower end of the entry level home buyer.
- 12:11Speaker 7: So we think that they could remain under pressure into
- 12:13Speaker 7: twenty twenty five with relative strength and that move up
- 12:18Speaker 7: and luxury segment. So some builders that come to mind
- 12:20Speaker 7: would be a Toll Brothers or a Teller Morrison.
- 12:23Speaker 3: Our thanks to you're reading Bloomberg Intelligence US home Building Analyst.
- 12:27Speaker 3: Coming up, we turned to the fed's rate path for
- 12:30Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio,
- 12:34Speaker 3: providing in depth research and data on two thousand companies
- 12:37Speaker 3: and one hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg
- 12:39Speaker 3: Intelligence via bi Go on the terminal for my colleague
- 12:42Speaker 3: Alex Steele. I'm Paul Sweeney. This is Bloomberg.
- 12:58Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steele and Paul Sweeney
- 13:03Speaker 2: on Bloomberg Radio.
- 13:06Speaker 3: We look next at the macro environment. After the Fed
- 13:08Speaker 3: lowerd it's benchmark policy rate by a quarter percentage point
- 13:11Speaker 3: earlier this month and signaled just two reductions for twenty
- 13:14Speaker 3: twenty five, San Francisco FED President Mary Daly said she
- 13:18Speaker 3: was very comfortable with two rate cuts in twenty twenty five.
- 13:21Speaker 3: She spoke about the Fed's rate path on Bloomberg recently
- 13:24Speaker 3: with hosts Jonathan Farrell, Lisa Bromwitz, and Michael mckeeth. There's
- 13:27Speaker 3: a little bit of their conversation.
- 13:29Speaker 9: We have to remain agile.
- 13:30Speaker 10: I mean, you know, the thing that's got us here
- 13:33Speaker 10: is being resolute to achieve our dual mandate goals. Price
- 13:37Speaker 10: stability was our focus when inflation was very high. The
- 13:40Speaker 10: employment has come into the frame so that we're focused
- 13:43Speaker 10: on both.
- 13:44Speaker 9: But then we also have to be agile.
- 13:45Speaker 10: You know the world is uncertain, so we pencil into
- 13:49Speaker 10: and you know, as that estimate or that projection gets
- 13:53Speaker 10: further from when we made it, the accuracy of it
- 13:55Speaker 10: probably falls. And so we're just going to continually take
- 13:58Speaker 10: in more information consumer and every meeting your listeners should
- 14:03Speaker 10: think about this. Every meeting is live from the standpoint
- 14:06Speaker 10: that you're debating, you're discussing, you're thinking what's the right
- 14:09Speaker 10: level of policy. But my projection is that it will
- 14:13Speaker 10: take many fewer rate cuts next year than we thought.
- 14:17Speaker 10: But I'll watch the economy and see if that works out.
- 14:19Speaker 11: When we went into the cutting cycle, you were out
- 14:22Speaker 11: front and saying you were concerned about the labor market
- 14:25Speaker 11: and that we needed to make sure that we didn't
- 14:27Speaker 11: lose the gains that we had. Now, at least coming
- 14:31Speaker 11: out of Chairman Powell's press conference, it sounds like the
- 14:34Speaker 11: focus has shifted to inflation again. Are you comfortable with
- 14:39Speaker 11: that as this new phase that he's talking about.
- 14:41Speaker 10: Well, I think of it as a new phase as well,
- 14:44Speaker 10: and I characterize it slightly differently. I would say that
- 14:47Speaker 10: for a long time, a persistent amount of time protracted,
- 14:51Speaker 10: we were focused almost entirely on inflation. That's because the
- 14:54Speaker 10: labor market was quite robust and inflation was seven six ' five.
- 14:58Speaker 10: That was the right way to focus. Then the labor
- 15:01Speaker 10: market came into the frame. That didn't mean we turned
- 15:03Speaker 10: our focus totally to it. It just meant that after
- 15:06Speaker 10: a long period of focusing only on inflation, we were
- 15:09Speaker 10: now focused on both.
- 15:10Speaker 9: I think that is still the case.
- 15:12Speaker 3: That's Mary Daily, president of the San Francisco FED, talking
- 15:15Speaker 3: with Jonathan Ferrell, Lisa Bromwoos, and Michael McKee for more
- 15:18Speaker 3: on the Fed's path forward and how the new Trump
- 15:20Speaker 3: administration might impact the economy. Caroline Hyde and I spoke
- 15:24Speaker 3: with Macro Perspectives founder and president and Julia Coronado. Here's
- 15:27Speaker 3: a portion of our conversation, starting on her thoughts on
- 15:31Speaker 3: the messaging at the December meeting.
- 15:33Speaker 12: Their messaging that we got at the December meeting was
- 15:36Speaker 12: a lot sterner than expected, with only two cuts and
- 15:40Speaker 12: just a general tone of concern about inflation. And I think,
- 15:44Speaker 12: you know, when we look at the data that's come in,
- 15:46Speaker 12: it's fair for President Daily to say that, you know,
- 15:50Speaker 12: it's the data have been disappointing on the inflation front.
- 15:53Speaker 12: But this wouldn't have really happened if it weren't for
- 15:56Speaker 12: the risks to inflation in the outlook, and they can't
- 15:58Speaker 12: really pinpoint them or put two find a point on
- 16:01Speaker 12: what's likely to happen. But every major policy prong of
- 16:05Speaker 12: the incoming Trump administration could potentially be inflationary. So you
- 16:09Speaker 12: can see they released their assessment of risks to inflation
- 16:14Speaker 12: and unemployment, and the change in upside risks to inflation
- 16:19Speaker 12: really moved at the December meeting. So we don't know
- 16:23Speaker 12: the specifics on policy. Yes, we have to wait and
- 16:25Speaker 12: see what materializes and how that feeds into the data.
- 16:29Speaker 8: But there's a direction of travel here that's of concern
- 16:32Speaker 8: to the f MC.
- 16:34Speaker 12: Broadly speaking, this was a big move across a lot
- 16:37Speaker 12: of participants and so you know they want us to
- 16:41Speaker 12: be on watch for that.
- 16:43Speaker 6: Have you been running the numbers and with the best case,
- 16:45Speaker 6: worst case scenario. Yes, we don't know the direction exactly
- 16:49Speaker 6: of where policy will go.
- 16:51Speaker 9: But we've been on this rodeo.
- 16:52Speaker 6: Before, and there's been tough talk about taris in the past.
- 16:55Speaker 12: Yes, and we got tariffs in the past and we
- 16:58Speaker 12: did see them flow through into goods prices. The difference
- 17:03Speaker 12: was that we were in an environment in the Trump
- 17:06Speaker 12: the first Trump administration where inflation was running low and
- 17:09Speaker 12: in fact below the Fed's target, so they could be
- 17:12Speaker 12: very sanguine and patient and sort of accommodate the increase
- 17:17Speaker 12: in goods prices that came with the trade war. This
- 17:20Speaker 12: time around, we're in a different environment. They've just re
- 17:23Speaker 12: established credibility, They've just brought inflation back down, not even
- 17:27Speaker 12: to their target yet, and so you know, the threat
- 17:31Speaker 12: of a round of tariffs and an impulse into goods
- 17:34Speaker 12: prices is more meaningful now.
- 17:37Speaker 8: The thing that they're going to have to.
- 17:38Speaker 12: Grapple with, and we saw that also in last trade
- 17:41Speaker 12: war is trade wars also destroyed demand. That spike in
- 17:45Speaker 12: prices isn't good for consumer purchasing power, and it's unlikely
- 17:50Speaker 12: to be accommodated like it was during the pandemic with
- 17:54Speaker 12: a lot of fiscal support to households directly to households,
- 17:58Speaker 12: which helped the economy whether the inflationary shock during the
- 18:03Speaker 12: pandemic and sort of stay on track. In the first
- 18:07Speaker 12: Strump administration, we actually saw the trade war damp and
- 18:10Speaker 12: economic activity put the global manufacturing sector into a recession,
- 18:15Speaker 12: and the FED actually ended up cutting rates in twenty
- 18:17Speaker 12: nineteen to take out some insurance against that manufacturing recession
- 18:22Speaker 12: broadening into the service sector. So you know, very different circumstances.
- 18:27Speaker 12: This could weaken the economy, it could cause inflation, It
- 18:31Speaker 12: could do both, and then the Fed's mandates go in
- 18:33Speaker 12: different directions and they have to make.
- 18:35Speaker 3: A judgment, Julia. So you know, tariffs are clearly an issue.
- 18:40Speaker 3: What I've heard from a lot of folks is restrictive
- 18:42Speaker 3: immigration policies, perhaps forced deportations that impact on the labor
- 18:47Speaker 3: market that might even be even more inflationary going forward.
- 18:51Speaker 1: How do you view that risk?
- 18:53Speaker 12: Yeah, no, absolutely, and I think that is definitely something
- 18:58Speaker 12: we are likely to see. That is one of the
- 19:02Speaker 12: main promises of the campaign, and we can already see
- 19:07Speaker 12: the appointees and the plans being put in place to
- 19:11Speaker 12: implement this policy. And let's not forget that immigration, that
- 19:15Speaker 12: plentiful flow of immigration. While it became a political hot
- 19:19Speaker 12: potato during the election, it's unambiguously positive from a macroeconomic standpoint.
- 19:25Speaker 12: We had abundant labor supply, it helped growth, it helped demand.
- 19:32Speaker 8: So immigration is good for the economy.
- 19:34Speaker 12: And to even just turn off the spigot, let alone
- 19:39Speaker 12: turn around and cast a shadow over the labor market
- 19:43Speaker 12: and deport some workers.
- 19:46Speaker 8: It's going to change the macro environment.
- 19:48Speaker 12: And yes, in areas where the most targeted population, the
- 19:53Speaker 12: undocumented workers are employed, food services, construction. I have conversations
- 19:59Speaker 12: with people here in Texas, people in the real estate
- 20:03Speaker 12: industry that are pretty worried about the availability of workers
- 20:08Speaker 12: as as early as next year, as early as the
- 20:10Speaker 12: spring building season. So this could be very material. It
- 20:15Speaker 12: could bring higher prices. It could also just slow down
- 20:18Speaker 12: building activity because you just don't have the people that
- 20:21Speaker 12: you need. Similarly, for food, availability of certain crops and
- 20:26Speaker 12: the prices of those would likely spike. So leisure and
- 20:30Speaker 12: hospitality another industry that relies heavily on an immigrant workforce.
- 20:35Speaker 12: So yeah, we could see that ripple across numerous sectors
- 20:39Speaker 12: in the economy, and it could be you know, by
- 20:41Speaker 12: mid year, we're seeing some material constraints and some price
- 20:45Speaker 12: increases on the back of that.
- 20:47Speaker 3: You know, and Julie, it kind of goes to that
- 20:49Speaker 3: consumer confidence number we got today came in, you know,
- 20:52Speaker 3: weaker than expected, and the expectations looking forward were weaker
- 20:56Speaker 3: than expected. That actually surprised me because I've been talking
- 20:59Speaker 3: to a lot of our guests since the election about
- 21:02Speaker 3: a palpable sense of optimism in this country since the election,
- 21:06Speaker 3: particularly as it relates to economic outlook, reduced taxes and
- 21:11Speaker 3: so on and so forth. How do you think about
- 21:13Speaker 3: the consumer consumer confidence? And that data surprise you today.
- 21:17Speaker 12: So I was just digging through those details. And of
- 21:19Speaker 12: course the optimism depends on who you ask. So you're
- 21:23Speaker 12: probably talking to a lot of market participants who have
- 21:27Speaker 12: experienced the rally and are looking forward to maybe reduced
- 21:32Speaker 12: regulation in the finance industry, maybe some corporate tax cuts.
- 21:37Speaker 8: But when you look at.
- 21:38Speaker 12: Consumers, well, there's a lot of uncertainty as to how
- 21:41Speaker 12: this mix of tariffs and immigration and is going to
- 21:45Speaker 12: affect more the average consumer. And when I looked at
- 21:49Speaker 12: actually what was interesting you could see a little bit
- 21:51Speaker 12: of a political footprint here when you look at it
- 21:54Speaker 12: by region.
- 21:55Speaker 8: The Conference Board doesn't.
- 21:56Speaker 12: Have the breakdown by political party like the Michigan sent
- 21:59Speaker 12: to measure does, but you can clearly see sort of
- 22:03Speaker 12: the South confidence going up, but in the West and
- 22:06Speaker 12: the Northeast the confidence going down.
- 22:09Speaker 8: So you know, we are a fifty to fifty country.
- 22:12Speaker 8: We always have been.
- 22:13Speaker 12: Some people are feeling better, some people are feeling a
- 22:16Speaker 12: lot worse.
- 22:16Speaker 8: And it really depends on who you ask.
- 22:19Speaker 6: What about stockholders, because boy, twenty twenty four should have
- 22:23Speaker 6: been the year that made everyone feel pretty good. It's
- 22:25Speaker 6: if you've been long AI, if you've been long S
- 22:28Speaker 6: and p as that bigger benchmarks, and then it just
- 22:31Speaker 6: tails off in the last couple of weeks. So how
- 22:33Speaker 6: does sentiment around being an asset holder right now feel?
- 22:36Speaker 12: Yeah, yeah, well that's what was interesting about the numbers,
- 22:39Speaker 12: right it was the expectations component, not the present situation.
- 22:43Speaker 12: We have been on quite a tear in the stock market,
- 22:46Speaker 12: and of course you all know that it's been very,
- 22:49Speaker 12: very concentrated in a handful of names that are related
- 22:52Speaker 12: to the AI, you know, sort of euphoria. But you know,
- 22:58Speaker 12: now we're moving into the the expectations meets reality phase
- 23:03Speaker 12: of change in administration.
- 23:05Speaker 8: So by the end of January, we're going to know a.
- 23:07Speaker 12: Lot more about this mix of policies and yeah, some
- 23:10Speaker 12: are growth positive and some are growth negative, and so
- 23:15Speaker 12: different industries are going to experience that differently.
- 23:18Speaker 8: The tax cuts.
- 23:19Speaker 12: I think one of the things that we just saw
- 23:21Speaker 12: with the budget dog fight is that it's a lot
- 23:27Speaker 12: easier to talk about tax cuts on a campaign trail,
- 23:30Speaker 12: the implement them in a very closely divided Congress, and
- 23:35Speaker 12: even within the Republican Party. While they hold majorities in
- 23:38Speaker 12: both houses, there's a lot of different views on the
- 23:42Speaker 12: right the correct direction of fiscal policy. So we sort
- 23:47Speaker 12: of imagine it's going to take most of the year
- 23:49Speaker 12: to legislate anything meaningful on the fiscal front. They want
- 23:53Speaker 12: to push forward a border a package early.
- 23:56Speaker 8: We'll see how that plays out. I'm sure.
- 23:59Speaker 12: I assume they're going to be able to get a
- 24:00Speaker 12: lot done. But remember, like again, very different from last time.
- 24:05Speaker 12: Budget wise, the US fiscal position is a lot worse
- 24:09Speaker 12: than last time, and so that room for maneuvering is
- 24:14Speaker 12: a little tighter, and their ability to enact something that's
- 24:17Speaker 12: really going to change the backdrop is more limited.
- 24:20Speaker 3: Enjoy about a minute left. How do you put in
- 24:23Speaker 3: Elon Musk into your calculus here?
- 24:25Speaker 8: Elon Musk is going to.
- 24:27Speaker 12: Be a noise generator at a minimum, and certainly will
- 24:30Speaker 12: be as we saw with his budget fight, fighting for
- 24:33Speaker 12: things that are good for his companies. But I think
- 24:37Speaker 12: what we also saw in the last week is that
- 24:40Speaker 12: he's not going to just get his way. He's going
- 24:42Speaker 12: to talk a lot. Do I think he's actually going
- 24:45Speaker 12: to be successful eliminating the VA health care system? No,
- 24:49Speaker 12: I do not, So you know he's going to run
- 24:54Speaker 12: into constraints. He's not an elected official. He actually doesn't
- 24:57Speaker 12: have any sort of direct lever that he can pull.
- 25:01Speaker 12: And these elected officials have a lot of views about
- 25:03Speaker 12: the programs that they want to protect and their constituents
- 25:08Speaker 12: that they want to serve. So I think it's going
- 25:11Speaker 12: to be messy and loud and harder to extract the
- 25:16Speaker 12: signal from the noise.
- 25:17Speaker 3: That's Juia CORNATDO She's president and founder of Macro Perspectives,
- 25:21Speaker 3: speaking with me and guest host Caroline Hyde. Coming up
- 25:24Speaker 3: next on the program, we look at the company's analysts
- 25:26Speaker 3: at Bloomberg Intelligence expect to do well in the new year.
- 25:29Speaker 3: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
- 25:33Speaker 3: depth research and data on two thousand companies and one
- 25:35Speaker 3: hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via
- 25:38Speaker 3: b Igo on the terminal. I'm Paul Sweeney, and this
- 25:41Speaker 3: is Bloomberg.
- 25:50Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steele and Paul Sweeney
- 25:55Speaker 2: on Bloomberg Radio.
- 25:57Speaker 3: As we wrap up twenty twenty four and look ahead
- 25:59Speaker 3: to twenty two twenty five, we wanted to bring in
- 26:01Speaker 3: Bloomberg Intelligence Research Director for Content, Tim Craighead. His latest
- 26:05Speaker 3: piece covers the fifty companies to watch this coming year
- 26:09Speaker 3: using analysis from Bloomberg Intelligence. Let's dive into our conversation
- 26:12Speaker 3: with Tim, starting with how he and his team started
- 26:15Speaker 3: work on picking companies and sectors they think will do
- 26:18Speaker 3: well in the new year.
- 26:19Speaker 1: Across our team, we are thinking both on a bottom
- 26:24Speaker 1: up and a top down perspective about this topic. On
- 26:27Speaker 1: a bottom up perspective, we encourage all of our analysts
- 26:30Speaker 1: to step up with their high conviction ideas where they
- 26:34Speaker 1: feel like they've got something that's out of consensus, are
- 26:37Speaker 1: different from what the market's thinking, and make a focus idea.
- 26:41Speaker 1: And we have a list of focus ideas. There are
- 26:43Speaker 1: about ninety of them right now that are these high
- 26:46Speaker 1: conviction differentiated ideas where we see catalyst ahead that can
- 26:50Speaker 1: bring the market around to our point of view from
- 26:53Speaker 1: a top down perspective looking across those those groups of companies, Yeah,
- 26:59Speaker 1: you can think about it, is that US or European
- 27:02Speaker 1: or Asian oriented and actually this year it's pretty well balanced.
- 27:08Speaker 1: From the standpoint of yes, you'd think the US is
- 27:10Speaker 1: close to fifty percent, and then Europe and Asia are
- 27:14Speaker 1: roughly about the same. And you think about where the
- 27:19Speaker 1: ideas that are positive versus negative, and you know this
- 27:22Speaker 1: is roughly eighty percent positive, twenty percent negative to coalesce
- 27:30Speaker 1: into fifty that are really driven towards twenty twenty five
- 27:37Speaker 1: as we see catalysts play out. And you have to say,
- 27:40Speaker 1: it's really interesting because you compare versus last year, where
- 27:45Speaker 1: there were there were big AI ideas and there was
- 27:50Speaker 1: a lot of focus on negative China, especially with the
- 27:53Speaker 1: property market. This year there's much more orientation towards ideas
- 27:58Speaker 1: about cyclical recovery with a change in interest rates and
- 28:02Speaker 1: sort of clarity on elections, and the China side of
- 28:07Speaker 1: things is also more much more recovery orient and not
- 28:10Speaker 1: so much worried about the property crisis. So we still
- 28:13Speaker 1: get into some of the details, but that's a backdrop.
- 28:15Speaker 4: So we still have AI is still a thing, China, recovery, cycle, goal, recovery.
- 28:20Speaker 4: What are some other buckets or themes that were reflected
- 28:23Speaker 4: throughout the picks.
- 28:25Speaker 1: Now, it's interesting thinking about it this way. There is,
- 28:28Speaker 1: there's definitely an innovation, new product flavor that we should
- 28:33Speaker 1: talk about and get into. There's four new CEOs, but
- 28:39Speaker 1: with those we see a couple that are positive, a
- 28:41Speaker 1: couple that we've got some concerns about, not the CEO themselves,
- 28:45Speaker 1: but the situation of the company that they're in that
- 28:47Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's more work to be done than
- 28:49Speaker 1: the market's thinking about. And you know there there's energy
- 28:53Speaker 1: transition related ideas as well that I cross the globe
- 28:59Speaker 1: not with and policies and whatnot coming from new governments.
- 29:05Speaker 1: So yeah, those are some of the bigger buckets. So
- 29:08Speaker 1: what's the call here on the energy transition? It feels
- 29:11Speaker 1: like here in the States team it's kind of losing
- 29:13Speaker 1: a little bit of a steam, but I know it's
- 29:16Speaker 1: still going strong in other parts of the world. How
- 29:19Speaker 1: do you guys kind of think about that? So a
- 29:22Speaker 1: couple of things here. Number one, AIH we talk about
- 29:27Speaker 1: this too, because we have a little different take this
- 29:29Speaker 1: year than last. But AI is driving energy demand and
- 29:33Speaker 1: there is simply no way that we can we can
- 29:38Speaker 1: fulfill the demand that is going to be required or
- 29:41Speaker 1: even is required today with good old fashioned carbon based energy.
- 29:46Speaker 1: And so If you look at RWE, it's a European utility,
- 29:49Speaker 1: but they've bought Constellation in the US and a lot
- 29:54Speaker 1: of that is oriented towards clean energy growth and demand
- 29:59Speaker 1: that's AI driven. The same thing is true with SUBC seven,
- 30:05Speaker 1: which you know they do. They do construction on offshore
- 30:10Speaker 1: energy projects and instead of good old fashioned drilling for oil,
- 30:14Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff now is oriented towards all
- 30:17Speaker 1: shore wind and even some solar. In TEPCO, Tokyo Electric
- 30:22Speaker 1: Power is a nuclear story where Japan is now turning
- 30:27Speaker 1: nuclear back on and that's going to drive earnings.
- 30:30Speaker 3: Hey, Tim, a lot of great names, and here a
- 30:33Speaker 3: lot of great themes that you guys have held out.
- 30:35Speaker 3: I think one of the stocks that's getting investors' attentions
- 30:38Speaker 3: is Broadcommon. They're calling out their AI exposure. How do
- 30:42Speaker 3: you guys at Bloomberg Intelligence think about AI? What companies
- 30:46Speaker 3: are you highlighting for Bloomberg clients as relates to AI.
- 30:49Speaker 1: AI has five names on our list of fifty, so
- 30:53Speaker 1: you think about it, it's ten percent of the list.
- 30:55Speaker 1: That's a pretty big deal. And it's also interesting in
- 30:59Speaker 1: that it's a different set of names than what we
- 31:02Speaker 1: had last year, where we also had a good bit
- 31:04Speaker 1: of exposure that was bigger sort of core AI names
- 31:09Speaker 1: that you think about with large language models and whatnot,
- 31:13Speaker 1: and some software companies. This year it's much more about
- 31:17Speaker 1: some of the enabling technologies, and primarily in the world
- 31:20Speaker 1: of Simiti inductors, and that's exactly where Broadcom sets. I've
- 31:24Speaker 1: heard you talk to Kunjin a few minutes ago, a
- 31:27Speaker 1: really interesting combination of semi and software in that company
- 31:31Speaker 1: that is providing you know, enabling chips. But Cadence Design
- 31:37Speaker 1: is the software company behind the design of SIMA inductors.
- 31:42Speaker 1: Kla makes test and measurement tools that you can't do
- 31:46Speaker 1: this high end sinitat inductor stuff without Micron is making
- 31:52Speaker 1: high bandwidth memory chips, which again you have to have
- 31:55Speaker 1: to make AI work. And then there's the odd one
- 31:59Speaker 1: out is a company called Vat Group. They make vacuums
- 32:03Speaker 1: and it's like super high end vacuums that create the
- 32:05Speaker 1: vacuum in which you make semic conductors. So lots of
- 32:09Speaker 1: interesting different kinds of plays.
- 32:12Speaker 4: I did not know that either. What about the innovation parts,
- 32:14Speaker 4: So I appreciate that AI dovetails with innovation, But aside
- 32:18Speaker 4: from AI, what are some companies that can really fit
- 32:20Speaker 4: that bucket.
- 32:22Speaker 1: Well, i' tell you there are some really interesting wins there.
- 32:26Speaker 1: You know, we can't talk about innovation without talking about
- 32:30Speaker 1: something in biopharma. You know, last year we had Lily
- 32:34Speaker 1: and we had Noble Anortis. This year we've put Astrozenica forward.
- 32:38Speaker 1: They got a host of new data sets coming out
- 32:42Speaker 1: in cancer and in respiratory REZI disease. You can tell
- 32:46Speaker 1: I've been here in London so long. I say respiratory
- 32:48Speaker 1: as host or respiratory, Yeah, exactly. There's another healthcare win, Insulent.
- 32:57Speaker 1: They have what's becoming the standard of care and wearable
- 33:02Speaker 1: insulin patches, the Omnipod five, And you know that's a
- 33:06Speaker 1: pretty cool story that's growing gangbusters. You got a couple
- 33:10Speaker 1: of car companies and it's because of new products. Call
- 33:12Speaker 1: it innovation because it is. Tesla is going to launch
- 33:15Speaker 1: their low price car at some point in the first
- 33:18Speaker 1: half of the year that we think makes sense. And
- 33:22Speaker 1: Orsia has five cars that are in process, a couple
- 33:26Speaker 1: have been announced, a couple are coming, but importantly they're
- 33:30Speaker 1: hybrid nine to eleven and you know those are gonna
- 33:33Speaker 1: pardon upon drive really important revenue growth, and folks, just
- 33:38Speaker 1: one last thing I would throw out to you. Guys.
- 33:40Speaker 1: We were talking about the business yesterday, the banking businesses
- 33:43Speaker 1: and now the other imax. We all like movies. This
- 33:48Speaker 1: is the theater that you're gonna go and actually see
- 33:51Speaker 1: a real movie at because you've got the monster screens
- 33:55Speaker 1: and there's more American theaters installing them. But they're also
- 33:59Speaker 1: going abroad and talking about dating ourselves in yesterday's conversation.
- 34:03Speaker 1: Actually worked on that back at Goldman in a ninety
- 34:08Speaker 1: four I think when we took them public. So you
- 34:11Speaker 1: know it's been around a while, but there's accelerating story.
- 34:14Speaker 4: So let's start with the cycle gold recovery, because if
- 34:16Speaker 4: I look at the list that you guys have, that's
- 34:18Speaker 4: really the bucket where you're seeing a lot of the
- 34:20Speaker 4: stocks highlighted. Give me an example of what kind of
- 34:24Speaker 4: company would work in this theme of cycle gold recovery.
- 34:28Speaker 1: There's a broad view here of elections are over in
- 34:33Speaker 1: the US and in Europe. There's some clarity central banks
- 34:37Speaker 1: are cutting interest rates at least a little bit for
- 34:39Speaker 1: a while. We'll see how long it lasts. And all
- 34:42Speaker 1: of that should provide some better backdrop in terms of sentiment,
- 34:47Speaker 1: and with that you could see labor markets improve a
- 34:50Speaker 1: bit which plays into Workday which is a human resources
- 34:56Speaker 1: software provider, and a Deco which is one of the
- 35:02Speaker 1: larger placement recruiting companies. So that's an example. There's also
- 35:08Speaker 1: home building that plays into this. So one of the
- 35:11Speaker 1: big UK homebuilders is a company called per Simon. And
- 35:16Speaker 1: then you've got you know, retail and other consumer product
- 35:19Speaker 1: related companies, Saint Tapestry. You know, Tapestry makes coach, you know,
- 35:24Speaker 1: the the great you know, handbag and and other clothes.
- 35:29Speaker 1: And they've also got Kate Spade. And if we start
- 35:32Speaker 1: to see some improvement in the consumer space, then that
- 35:36Speaker 1: plays into you know, a cyclical story in addition to
- 35:39Speaker 1: what Tapestry is doing specifically, so things like that.
- 35:44Speaker 3: Hey Tim, you know, as you well know during your
- 35:46Speaker 3: long career on Wall Street, a lot of what investors
- 35:49Speaker 3: and traders do is try to figure out where the
- 35:51Speaker 3: consensus is and do I have a different view to
- 35:55Speaker 3: than consensus. If I do, then I'll buy the stock
- 35:57Speaker 3: or sell the stock short and so on and so forth.
- 36:00Speaker 3: You've identified some of companies where you think there might
- 36:03Speaker 3: be risk to that consensus. Give us a name or
- 36:06Speaker 3: two there.
- 36:07Speaker 1: Yeah, so this this plays across regions, that plays across sectors.
- 36:13Speaker 1: You know, we just talked about some consumer ideas that
- 36:16Speaker 1: we think can can do better. You've got You've got
- 36:19Speaker 1: estae Lauder, however, that we think is still misfiring in
- 36:23Speaker 1: some of its core brands. So that's on the cautionary front. Nintendo.
- 36:30Speaker 1: You know, I think pretty much everybody knows who they are.
- 36:34Speaker 1: They're supposed to be in the midst of an upgrade
- 36:37Speaker 1: cycle with a new console, the switch to that's been
- 36:41Speaker 1: long delayed. We think the delays continue, and we think
- 36:44Speaker 1: you've got earnings disappointments there that will happen. You know,
- 36:48Speaker 1: there's a lot of AI hype and expectations are huge,
- 36:53Speaker 1: and you know clearly we have AI related names on
- 36:55Speaker 1: this list, but allan Teer is one of those that's
- 37:00Speaker 1: smaller in scale. When it comes to larger language models
- 37:03Speaker 1: and really high expectations. We think the company is very
- 37:06Speaker 1: well placed, but we think expectations are probably too aggressive,
- 37:09Speaker 1: and so we've actually got concerns on that sort of
- 37:14Speaker 1: consensus front. As you rightfully point out, Paul, those are
- 37:18Speaker 1: a couple that come to mind. It's interesting we've got
- 37:21Speaker 1: a lot of China stimulus ideas going on here, and
- 37:25Speaker 1: this might be a little far fetched for some of
- 37:27Speaker 1: the US listeners, but we also have a negative view
- 37:31Speaker 1: on Shanghai airport traffic is coming back. There is a
- 37:35Speaker 1: lot of traffic, but a lot of their earnings actually
- 37:38Speaker 1: come from the duty free sales that happen in the
- 37:41Speaker 1: airports and the rent that they get off of that.
- 37:43Speaker 1: And people just aren't buying as much when they travel
- 37:47Speaker 1: as they used to, especially Chinese. They're buying it online
- 37:50Speaker 1: or they're going to stores, not necessarily in the airports.
- 37:53Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different ways to think about this.
- 37:55Speaker 3: Our thanks to Bloomberg Intelligence Research Director for Content Tim
- 37:58Speaker 3: Craikid for joining us. Find his latest work, Fifty Companies
- 38:02Speaker 3: to Watch in twenty twenty five online at Bloomberg dot
- 38:05Speaker 3: com and on the terminal. That's this week's edition of
- 38:08Speaker 3: Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in depth research and
- 38:11Speaker 3: data on two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries.
- 38:14Speaker 3: And remember you can access Bloomberg Intelligence via Bigo on
- 38:17Speaker 3: the terminal. From my colleague Alex Steele, I'm Paul Sweeney.
- 38:21Speaker 3: Stay with us today's top stories and global business headlines
- 38:24Speaker 3: are coming up right now.