Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Rates, Trump, Banks, CPI, and Consumers
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- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Every business day, we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros,
- 0:09Speaker 2: and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moving news.
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- 0:20Speaker 1: All right, so we had the CPI print today pretty
- 0:23Speaker 1: much I think what most people were looking for. Certainly consensus,
- 0:26Speaker 1: certainly gives some more credence to the argument that the
- 0:29Speaker 1: Fed can pause if it wants to. Let's check in
- 0:32Speaker 1: with somebody who pays close attention to this stuff, Ira Jersey,
- 0:35Speaker 1: chief US interest rate strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence. So, Ira,
- 0:39Speaker 1: what's your takeaway from the inflation print we saw today?
- 0:42Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously, you've know, you guys have talked about it
- 0:45Speaker 3: at nauseum here a little bit. Pretty much as expected.
- 0:50Speaker 3: It doesn't really leave a whole lot of doubt as
- 0:52Speaker 3: to what's going to happen tomorrow. I think that, you know,
- 0:56Speaker 3: if we had seen something where you get a point
- 0:58Speaker 3: five or a point six print on uh on on
- 1:01Speaker 3: the core numbers, then maybe the Fed would would hike tomorrow,
- 1:04Speaker 3: but they've signaled that they're probably going to skip tomorrow's meeting.
- 1:06Speaker 3: I think the bigger the bigger thing that today's data
- 1:11Speaker 3: does for us is really leaves in doubt what then
- 1:13Speaker 3: is going to happen in July, so that you know,
- 1:15Speaker 3: the market was pricing for a near certainty that they
- 1:18Speaker 3: were going to skip June and then hike in July.
- 1:20Speaker 3: But now you know, I think that we have to
- 1:23Speaker 3: reassess that uh, that the certainty that the Fed is
- 1:27Speaker 3: going to go in UH in July, and the market
- 1:30Speaker 3: started to kind of move away at least a little
- 1:32Speaker 3: bit from that possibility at this point.
- 1:34Speaker 4: So irauld talk to us about when we're looking at
- 1:37Speaker 4: this speculation that's happening in the bond market and how
- 1:40Speaker 4: it's at a record when you are looking at treasury
- 1:42Speaker 4: features ahead of the FED meeting, break it down as
- 1:45Speaker 4: far as what is happening with the positioning there.
- 1:48Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of so so there's record short
- 1:50Speaker 3: positioning by speculators and UH in the treasury market basically
- 1:54Speaker 3: everyone short duration. So the so the fact that you
- 1:57Speaker 3: actually have a little bit of a selloff going on
- 1:59Speaker 3: right here right now is a little bit surprising, But
- 2:02Speaker 3: typically what happens is that you know, this positioning data
- 2:04Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily give you a lot of information about what
- 2:07Speaker 3: direction the market's going to go. You know that the
- 2:10Speaker 3: fact that people are very short just means in particular
- 2:14Speaker 3: that as the market sells off that you could see
- 2:16Speaker 3: some short covering, and that it just gets harder and
- 2:18Speaker 3: harder for moves in the direction that the future's positioning is.
- 2:23Speaker 3: But we have to keep in mind too that that
- 2:25Speaker 3: these some of this positioning in a way could be
- 2:28Speaker 3: a hedge to another risk that some of these levered
- 2:32Speaker 3: investors that that are primarily short have on. So for example,
- 2:36Speaker 3: if their long corporate bonds, for example, they could be
- 2:38Speaker 3: short some treasuries as and and treasury futures as kind
- 2:42Speaker 3: of a hedge to that. Or could be that they're
- 2:44Speaker 3: short equities or long equities rather and you know short
- 2:48Speaker 3: rates as well. You know that that's possible too. So
- 2:51Speaker 3: so it's a little bit hard to discern with this
- 2:53Speaker 3: future's positioning exactly what's going on with the overall strength
- 2:58Speaker 3: of the market. But I do think that it means
- 3:00Speaker 3: it's going to get harder and harder to for the
- 3:02Speaker 3: market to sell off on as dramatically as it has,
- 3:05Speaker 3: and you could wind up seeing on a rally, You
- 3:07Speaker 3: could wind up seeing massive rallies because a lot of
- 3:09Speaker 3: these shorts could get covered very quickly.
- 3:13Speaker 1: Shorting US treasures isn't that kind of un American? How
- 3:16Speaker 1: often does that happen? I mean, what who does that?
- 3:21Speaker 3: There's been been a lot of people short treasuries, you know,
- 3:24Speaker 3: for the better part of you know, two years now, really,
- 3:27Speaker 3: you know, just and you know part of part of
- 3:30Speaker 3: the reason is that when interest rates are going up,
- 3:32Speaker 3: you don't want to be long, right, and you know,
- 3:34Speaker 3: there's there's ways to make money. And if you look
- 3:36Speaker 3: at that, even though you know, the Bloomberg Treasury Index
- 3:41Speaker 3: has been had record losses over the last eighteen months,
- 3:44Speaker 3: even worse than nineteen seventies and eighties, even though interest
- 3:48Speaker 3: rates have went up way more back then, right back
- 3:50Speaker 3: during the you know, nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty one,
- 3:53Speaker 3: you actually had interest rates go up ten percent, right,
- 3:55Speaker 3: and we've only seen interest rates go up you know,
- 3:57Speaker 3: four and a half five percent now here. But there's
- 4:01Speaker 3: some bond math involved, because the relationship between the price
- 4:05Speaker 3: of a bond and the yield and yield moves is
- 4:08Speaker 3: much much higher now, so you get a little move
- 4:10Speaker 3: in in a yield of a bond, and it's more
- 4:14Speaker 3: in dollar price today than it was back in the
- 4:17Speaker 3: nineteen nineteen seventies and eighties. So even though we've had
- 4:21Speaker 3: these massive losses, a lot of people have outperformed. So
- 4:24Speaker 3: when you look at active managers in bond funds, both
- 4:29Speaker 3: bond mutual funds and actively managed ETFs, you actually see
- 4:32Speaker 3: significant outperformance compared to disease. Even though you now have
- 4:35Speaker 3: some people you know, still moving to passive. Within the
- 4:39Speaker 3: ETF world, the active managers have have done very well
- 4:44Speaker 3: by being short treasuries or underweight treasury securities in their portfolios.
- 4:49Speaker 4: Hey, Ira, I've had some traders talk to me about
- 4:52Speaker 4: how whenever they're shorting treasuries, especially if you're looking at
- 4:55Speaker 4: the tenure, it was more of the expectations that yield
- 4:57Speaker 4: to move higher, but then the caveat being so extreme
- 5:00Speaker 4: position may have the counter effect and then end up
- 5:03Speaker 4: having to push yield lower. Do you think that's plausible?
- 5:07Speaker 3: Well, I think it has more to do with the
- 5:09Speaker 3: volatility and in the directionality of the market. So, like
- 5:12Speaker 3: I mentioned, if if people weren't as short as they
- 5:15Speaker 3: are now with things like treasury futures, we might have
- 5:17Speaker 3: seen even even a bigger sell off today than we've
- 5:21Speaker 3: seen so far. You know, ten years yields, you know,
- 5:24Speaker 3: higher by five ish basis points on the day. But
- 5:27Speaker 3: I think it's when you go the other way and
- 5:29Speaker 3: you get that short covering that you wind up really
- 5:31Speaker 3: seeing like position squaring and uh and and you know
- 5:35Speaker 3: what would be you think would be a five base
- 5:37Speaker 3: point move can turn into a ten or twelve basis
- 5:39Speaker 3: point move in a hurry. And we've seen quite a
- 5:41Speaker 3: lot of that over the over the last couple of years,
- 5:44Speaker 3: where you get this these extreme positioning and then you
- 5:47Speaker 3: get this massive snapbacks as as the market kind of
- 5:50Speaker 3: recalibrates their their thinking and and you know, again like
- 5:55Speaker 3: if if you know, I think a big part of
- 5:57Speaker 3: the reason why you see some of the short base
- 5:59Speaker 3: and in things like duration is I do suspect that
- 6:02Speaker 3: there's a lot of people who are in interest rates steepeners.
- 6:04Speaker 5: Now.
- 6:05Speaker 3: People were in flattening trades for a very long time
- 6:07Speaker 3: where they were long say ten years or thirty year
- 6:09Speaker 3: securities and then they were short twos and fives. I
- 6:13Speaker 3: think I think that's starting to flip as we get
- 6:15Speaker 3: toward the end of the fed's hiking cycle, because the
- 6:18Speaker 3: next move, and I do concur with this, the next
- 6:20Speaker 3: move is likely to be a very significant steepening of
- 6:23Speaker 3: the yield or un inversion of the yield curve at least,
- 6:26Speaker 3: so you wind up with an environment where people are
- 6:29Speaker 3: going to be buying two year, three year, five year
- 6:31Speaker 3: notes and then want to be short or or underweight
- 6:35Speaker 3: ten year and thirty year securities.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Hira, what would surprise you tomorrow from FED Chairman jpal
- 6:40Speaker 1: As comments, I.
- 6:41Speaker 3: Think if he's I think if he's extremely hawkish, would
- 6:44Speaker 3: would surprise me, you know, given some of the some
- 6:47Speaker 3: of the data that we've received. Yes, the employment data
- 6:50Speaker 3: was pretty solid, but a lot of the other data
- 6:53Speaker 3: that we've seen everywhere, from some sales data as well
- 6:55Speaker 3: as some of the ism surveys and the leading economic
- 6:59Speaker 3: indicator something all been pretty poor and actually are very
- 7:02Speaker 3: close to recessionary type levels. So so so I think
- 7:05Speaker 3: if he was very hawkish tomorrow, that would be a surprise,
- 7:08Speaker 3: certainly if he was more hawkish than he was last month.
- 7:10Speaker 3: So I'm looking very closely at our at at at
- 7:14Speaker 3: our FED sentiment indicator. So after he after J. Powell
- 7:18Speaker 3: gives his opening remarks from the press conference, you know
- 7:21Speaker 3: we're going to run our natural language processing model and yeah,
- 7:25Speaker 3: you know take a.
- 7:25Speaker 1: Look as known as your juniors, Well.
- 7:29Speaker 3: Our data science team will.
- 7:30Speaker 1: Yeah, I know we've got one of those MBA.
- 7:33Speaker 4: How much fun was it to see Ira last week
- 7:34Speaker 4: and the suspenders with the soccer all over?
- 7:37Speaker 6: Great?
- 7:38Speaker 1: He comes out of his cam every once in a while,
- 7:39Speaker 1: so we would be appreciate that, Ira Jersey, thanks so much.
- 7:42Speaker 1: I he covers all the interest rate strategy work for
- 7:45Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence. I got a whole team, uh doing that
- 7:48Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and they've got some serious models. He's
- 7:51Speaker 1: got a model that kind of covers on a day
- 7:54Speaker 1: to day basis the receipts and the spending of the
- 7:57Speaker 1: US government. Amazing, Like I don't even have that for myself.
- 8:00Speaker 1: He's got it for the entire US government. So we
- 8:03Speaker 1: knows when and if the US can afford to pay
- 8:06Speaker 1: their bill. So keep an eye on that.
- 8:08Speaker 5: You're listening to the team Ken's are Live program Bloomberg
- 8:12Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern.
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- 8:19Speaker 5: wherever you get your podcasts.
- 8:23Speaker 1: Jess Matt and Paul Sweeney Here in the Bloomberg Interactive
- 8:25Speaker 1: Brokers studio, Boy attention is going to be this afternoon
- 8:28Speaker 1: down in Miami, Florida, where President Trump will be arranged. Yeah,
- 8:32Speaker 1: we want to get the kind of a roundtable this
- 8:34Speaker 1: discussion here and kind of catch it from a couple
- 8:36Speaker 1: of different angles. So we welcome Wendy Schuler Brown University professor.
- 8:40Speaker 1: She joins us here, as does Kaylee Lines. She joins us.
- 8:43Speaker 1: She is in Miami at the courthouse. Of course, she
- 8:45Speaker 1: covers the White House for Bloomberg Television. We appreciate her
- 8:49Speaker 1: time on a busy, busy day. Wendy, let's start with you.
- 8:53Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't happen every day that former president
- 8:56Speaker 1: gets arraigned on federal charges.
- 8:59Speaker 6: Here.
- 9:00Speaker 1: Do you expect this to mean for President Trump and
- 9:03Speaker 1: potentially another run for the presidency?
- 9:06Speaker 8: Well, good morning. In the short term, it's it's good
- 9:09Speaker 8: for Donald Trump with his base and donations. They expect
- 9:13Speaker 8: they're holding a fundraiser, I believe, even this evening, and
- 9:15Speaker 8: they expect to raise a lot of money off this
- 9:19Speaker 8: and really continue to keep his name in the news.
- 9:22Speaker 8: I mean, there is no publicity that Donald Trump doesn't like,
- 9:26Speaker 8: and so I think in the short run, you know,
- 9:29Speaker 8: he'll benefit in some way from this, But in the
- 9:31Speaker 8: longer run, it's just another or an additional liability to
- 9:35Speaker 8: his candidacy, particularly the broader Republican Party, and I don't
- 9:39Speaker 8: see where it does him any favors with the key
- 9:41Speaker 8: independent voters he'd need to win the general. But even
- 9:44Speaker 8: in state primaries across the country, you can register and
- 9:47Speaker 8: change your party registration from independent to Republican. So the
- 9:50Speaker 8: independents wanted to shape the Republican nomination process. They can
- 9:54Speaker 8: do that and haven't been big fans of the president
- 9:57Speaker 8: in recent the former president in recent elections. So that's
- 10:00Speaker 8: it's a liability. I think that's sort of deep and
- 10:02Speaker 8: persistent for Donald Trump's longer term prospects.
- 10:04Speaker 4: Kaylee, I want to bring you into this conversation set
- 10:07Speaker 4: the scene for us. What are things shaping up heading
- 10:09Speaker 4: into this afternoon.
- 10:11Speaker 9: Well, I'm at the outside the courthouse right now, and
- 10:14Speaker 9: there are dozens and dozens of media tents like the
- 10:17Speaker 9: one I am in for Bluebert. There is a very
- 10:19Speaker 9: high police presence, but there isn't yet at this point.
- 10:22Speaker 9: It seems to be a lot of protesters, but they
- 10:24Speaker 9: are prepared for potentially a lot to be here over
- 10:27Speaker 9: the course of today. The Miami Police Chief is that
- 10:30Speaker 9: it could be anywhere between five thousand and fifty thousand
- 10:32Speaker 9: supporters of President Trump who show out today, as he
- 10:35Speaker 9: had calls on them to do. He of course had
- 10:38Speaker 9: posted on true social over the weekend, I'll see you
- 10:40Speaker 9: in Miami on Tuesday. He had in an interview with
- 10:43Speaker 9: Roger Stone on radio over the weekend as well, so
- 10:45Speaker 9: that people need to come out and keep fully protest.
- 10:48Speaker 9: So we'll be on watch for that. And of course
- 10:49Speaker 9: it's at three pm Eastern time, so about four and
- 10:52Speaker 9: a half hours from now. I think, if my math
- 10:54Speaker 9: is right, that the President will be showing up here,
- 10:57Speaker 9: although we may not see him. He may enter under
- 10:59Speaker 9: grown to be arraigned on these federal charges.
- 11:03Speaker 1: What, Wendy, what do you make of some of the
- 11:06Speaker 1: I guess responses we've had from members of Congress. Some
- 11:08Speaker 1: have come out and supporting the president pretty wholeheartedly, and
- 11:13Speaker 1: some have not supported him. Some have been, like cenatored Romney,
- 11:16Speaker 1: been critical here. How do you expect this to play out.
- 11:20Speaker 8: Well, they're sort of dancing around it, right, They wanted
- 11:22Speaker 8: to can't alienate the Trump base, either whether you're currently
- 11:25Speaker 8: holding office and running or president you're just currently holding
- 11:28Speaker 8: office trying to get reelected, if you're a House member
- 11:30Speaker 8: in particular in twenty four, you're dancing around it. On
- 11:33Speaker 8: the other hand, you see that they're sort of trying
- 11:36Speaker 8: not to talk about the severity of the classification level
- 11:40Speaker 8: of the documents that were badly handled. So these are
- 11:44Speaker 8: really highly sensitive national security documents, and it gets to
- 11:47Speaker 8: the point of do you want this man in charge
- 11:49Speaker 8: of our national security? And then it's a legitimate point
- 11:53Speaker 8: and question to ask. People will get confused about the
- 11:56Speaker 8: number of indictments and the scope of authority, but at
- 11:59Speaker 8: the end of the day, he's got, you know, military
- 12:01Speaker 8: plans and nuclear secrets lying around the ballroom. You know,
- 12:05Speaker 8: that does not say I'm going to be responsible with
- 12:07Speaker 8: national security. And the Republicans want to keep the edge
- 12:09Speaker 8: that they think they have on national security. So there
- 12:12Speaker 8: does come a point, except for maybe through Jim Jordan
- 12:14Speaker 8: of Ohio, where you say, I can't really defend compromising
- 12:18Speaker 8: our national security from my own re election prospects.
- 12:22Speaker 4: Kayleie, how has the Biden administration responded so far?
- 12:27Speaker 9: Well, they really haven't at all. The President has really
- 12:30Speaker 9: tried to keep him his distance from this. When he's
- 12:32Speaker 9: been asked about that, he has set no comment on
- 12:35Speaker 9: the indictment because, of course, one of the narratives that
- 12:38Speaker 9: President former President Trump as well as Republicans have been
- 12:41Speaker 9: pushing is that this is politically motivated, that this is
- 12:44Speaker 9: a weaponization of the Justice Department. President Trump has said
- 12:47Speaker 9: that this is a corrupt Biden administration election interference at
- 12:51Speaker 9: the highest level. So to this point, President Biden has
- 12:53Speaker 9: tried to stay far away from this, let the Justice
- 12:56Speaker 9: Department do its work, and not really try to be
- 12:59Speaker 9: involved in this.
- 13:01Speaker 1: In any way, Kaylee Done in Miami, is there an
- 13:05Speaker 1: expectation that the president will be public here? Will there
- 13:08Speaker 1: be a public I'm not going to say a purp walk,
- 13:10Speaker 1: but will there be some public appearance by the president today?
- 13:13Speaker 1: Is part of this process? Do we know?
- 13:17Speaker 9: It really could go either way. The expectation though, is
- 13:20Speaker 9: that he will not be walking through the usual lobby
- 13:23Speaker 9: of this courthouse, that he's going to enter be an
- 13:25Speaker 9: underground garage and then head into the courthouse, so we
- 13:29Speaker 9: may not actually see him here physically. Where we will
- 13:32Speaker 9: see the president is after he finishes these proceedings in
- 13:35Speaker 9: Miami today. He's going to get back on his private plane,
- 13:38Speaker 9: fly from Miami back up to Bedminster in New Jersey,
- 13:40Speaker 9: and speak at his golf club there this evening at
- 13:43Speaker 9: eight fifteen pm Eastern time, and bold a donor event
- 13:45Speaker 9: as Wendy talks about his campaign is hoping celebrates two
- 13:48Speaker 9: million dollars at that event tonight, just hours after he
- 13:52Speaker 9: made history by being arraigned on federal criminal charges. This
- 13:55Speaker 9: is something we have never seen happen before, but it
- 13:58Speaker 9: could have the same effect as the indictments previously in
- 14:01Speaker 9: Manhattan earlier this year, that what it really accomplishes is
- 14:04Speaker 9: galvanizing his base and ultimately being away for him to thundering.
- 14:09Speaker 4: Wendy, what's the timetable here that we're talking about when
- 14:11Speaker 4: it comes to a potential indictment obviously like this, As
- 14:15Speaker 4: far as how long this could drag out for.
- 14:17Speaker 8: Well, that's a great question just because it gets to
- 14:20Speaker 8: the judge, right, this is the judge that appointed a
- 14:22Speaker 8: special master, you know, to sort of go over what
- 14:25Speaker 8: the Justice barman had done. In terms of the raid
- 14:27Speaker 8: the documents. You know, this judge got chastised for the
- 14:29Speaker 8: way she handled this case before by her you know,
- 14:32Speaker 8: sort of higher level judges on a panel. The question is,
- 14:35Speaker 8: you know, does she go buy the book here or
- 14:37Speaker 8: does she compromise the case in some way and does
- 14:40Speaker 8: she have to be removed from the case. I mean,
- 14:42Speaker 8: there's still a question mark about whether she actually ends
- 14:44Speaker 8: up being the presiding judge. You know, you've got setting
- 14:47Speaker 8: trial dates, you've got jury selection. You you know, these
- 14:50Speaker 8: trials and I mean multiple trials to the former president
- 14:53Speaker 8: will go, we'll move on, and you know they'll take
- 14:56Speaker 8: a long time. They'll drag out, which was good good
- 14:59Speaker 8: for Trump in terms of his ability. As Kelly's you know,
- 15:01Speaker 8: absolutely rightly suggesting, but there's a weariness, particularly among core voters,
- 15:05Speaker 8: and as I said, mechanically in the primaries next year,
- 15:09Speaker 8: you can have a lot of people who aren't core
- 15:10Speaker 8: Trump's supporters actually sign up to vote in the Republican primary.
- 15:14Speaker 8: Since Biden, if he's the nominee, you know, as he
- 15:16Speaker 8: stays healthy and all that stuff that we talk about,
- 15:19Speaker 8: there's not gonna be much of a contest on the
- 15:20Speaker 8: Democratic side. So You're going to see some shifting of
- 15:23Speaker 8: voters in that primary and this, I think this will
- 15:25Speaker 8: become a liability, particularly if he gets a lot of
- 15:27Speaker 8: really rowdy, slash violent people to protest this. That just
- 15:31Speaker 8: reminds people of January sixth, and I don't think that
- 15:33Speaker 8: does anybody good on the Republican side.
- 15:35Speaker 1: Wendy, If I'm running for the Republican nomination, how do
- 15:38Speaker 1: I play this thing that Trump has been in ditona
- 15:42Speaker 1: of federal crimes?
- 15:44Speaker 8: You know, you play it by basically trying and especially
- 15:47Speaker 8: in digital advertising on social media platforms, to saying, look,
- 15:51Speaker 8: I support everything this guy you know did, I'm loyal,
- 15:55Speaker 8: but he's not the guy anymore. It's too chaotic, it's
- 15:58Speaker 8: too disruptive, you can't usin with national security. Try to
- 16:01Speaker 8: get that one in and just really, if they can
- 16:03Speaker 8: get the kind of big money, you know, blanket the
- 16:07Speaker 8: Republican party base in the next couple of months saying
- 16:09Speaker 8: I am really the better alternative and try to sort
- 16:13Speaker 8: of erode that thirty four to thirty five percent base
- 16:16Speaker 8: that we think he has in the Republican primary voting
- 16:18Speaker 8: electorate and steal nine to fifteen percent of that voting
- 16:22Speaker 8: populist elsewhere, and I think that needs to be The
- 16:26Speaker 8: strategy is the slow and steady, but it needs to
- 16:29Speaker 8: happen now, and it needs to say, you know, I'm
- 16:31Speaker 8: the better alternative. You can still like this guy, but
- 16:35Speaker 8: vote for me if you really want to win in
- 16:36Speaker 8: twenty twenty four.
- 16:37Speaker 4: Hey, kayleie, we only have about a minute left. How
- 16:40Speaker 4: does this impact other potential cases that Trump is having
- 16:43Speaker 4: to deal with as well?
- 16:45Speaker 9: Well, that's a really good question, because of course this
- 16:47Speaker 9: isn't the first time that he has been arranged or
- 16:49Speaker 9: case criminal charges that already happened in New York. But
- 16:52Speaker 9: this also may not be the only indictment we see
- 16:55Speaker 9: stemming from investigations by Special Counsel Jacksmith. He is also
- 16:58Speaker 9: investigating Trump's role in January sixth. There is a district
- 17:02Speaker 9: attorney in County Georgia that is also looking at his
- 17:04Speaker 9: attempts to overturn the results of the twenty twenty election.
- 17:07Speaker 9: So this doesn't necessarily mean the end of Trump's legal woes,
- 17:11Speaker 9: and potentially related to January sixth, we could actually see
- 17:14Speaker 9: even more serious charges than the one he's facing here.
- 17:16Speaker 9: And I have to apologize if you hear this rooster.
- 17:18Speaker 4: Guys.
- 17:18Speaker 9: I know you've been talking about there are literally wild
- 17:22Speaker 9: chickens and roosters walking around the courthouse right now.
- 17:25Speaker 1: All right, we'll leave that to you. You're in charge
- 17:27Speaker 1: of that down there. Bloomberg TD anchor Kaylee Lines definitely
- 17:30Speaker 1: on location down in Miami with the chickens in the
- 17:32Speaker 1: Hends and Wendy Schiller Brown University, a professor joining us
- 17:36Speaker 1: to get some just some smart analysis of how this
- 17:39Speaker 1: is all going to play out down in Miami today
- 17:42Speaker 1: and what it might mean for President former President Trump
- 17:45Speaker 1: gung Ford, particularly as we prepare for the twenty twenty
- 17:49Speaker 1: four election. A lot of moving pieces there.
- 17:51Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape Cancher Live program Bloomberg Markets
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- 18:11Speaker 1: Bes min and Paul Swaite here in the Bloomberg Interactive
- 18:13Speaker 1: Broker Studio. Our Inflation Day, Today's CPI Day Today. Here's
- 18:16Speaker 1: a kind of the headline stuff on an annualized basis CPI.
- 18:21Speaker 1: The headline print four percent. That's kind of right in
- 18:24Speaker 1: line with a four point one percent expectation, but it's
- 18:26Speaker 1: down big from last month when it was four point
- 18:28Speaker 1: nine percent.
- 18:28Speaker 4: Eight was talking about those egg prices and the index
- 18:31Speaker 4: for eggs falling close to fourteen percent, the largest decrease
- 18:34Speaker 4: in that index since January nineteenth, big one of that
- 18:37Speaker 4: CPI report.
- 18:37Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a big expedited guy. So that's that's chickens
- 18:41Speaker 1: outside the courthouse. Chickens outside of the court house with
- 18:44Speaker 1: Kaylee Lines, she's in charge.
- 18:46Speaker 10: All right.
- 18:46Speaker 1: Let's so they seem pretty good to me. But let's
- 18:48Speaker 1: go to somebody who does this stuff for a living.
- 18:49Speaker 1: Jeffrey Cleveland. He's a director and chief e commerce that
- 18:52Speaker 1: paid it in regal So, Jeff, you know, the print
- 18:55Speaker 1: seemed good to me. What's your takeaway from our inflation
- 18:58Speaker 1: out local here in the United States?
- 19:00Speaker 11: Well, I'm self interested. So when I look at the
- 19:02Speaker 11: index for food away from home, it's up eight point
- 19:05Speaker 11: three percent in the last twelve months.
- 19:07Speaker 1: Okay, so that's you.
- 19:09Speaker 11: Know, dining now, that's it's too much for me. Food
- 19:12Speaker 11: at home is up six percent year on year and
- 19:15Speaker 11: I think if I remember correctly, I flipped through the
- 19:17Speaker 11: report for the LA area, So the La Metro area
- 19:21Speaker 11: headline CPI was up point seven percent month to month.
- 19:24Speaker 11: So I'm not seeing this slow down in prices that
- 19:27Speaker 11: everyone is so cheerful.
- 19:28Speaker 1: Well, your problem out there, Jeff's gasoline price is what
- 19:31Speaker 1: are you guys doing out there? I mean it's it's
- 19:34Speaker 1: all your taxes also.
- 19:35Speaker 4: Use vehicle prices picked up in the MADE data.
- 19:39Speaker 11: That's correct too. Yeah, I think people drive too much here, Paul.
- 19:42Speaker 11: That's that's the problem in Los Angeles. It's a that's
- 19:44Speaker 11: a driving culture. Taxes and regulations don't help. That's the
- 19:48Speaker 11: short version of the story.
- 19:50Speaker 1: All right, So what does this all mean for the FED?
- 19:52Speaker 1: They're in lockdown. MOAD done in DC today and tomorrow.
- 19:56Speaker 1: We'll hear from the FED chairman Jpal tomorrow afternoon. How
- 19:59Speaker 1: do you think he and you know, the FED board
- 20:04Speaker 1: in general, how are they going to view some of
- 20:05Speaker 1: this data?
- 20:06Speaker 11: Well, I think they've communicated pretty clearly that they would
- 20:08Speaker 11: like to pause so or at least maybe skip this meeting.
- 20:12Speaker 11: So I think that's the plan here. Does this report
- 20:15Speaker 11: give them cover to do so?
- 20:17Speaker 6: Yes?
- 20:17Speaker 11: You know, the headline inflation was softer, coming into point one,
- 20:21Speaker 11: lowest year on year reading in a few years. So
- 20:23Speaker 11: that that's fine. I think, though, when I look at
- 20:26Speaker 11: the guts of the report, all jokes aside about about
- 20:29Speaker 11: food away from home here, I look at that core
- 20:32Speaker 11: CPI number. It has been point four or point five
- 20:36Speaker 11: month to month four by mic count six I think,
- 20:40Speaker 11: six consecutive months now. So to me, that's important because
- 20:43Speaker 11: that that's giving you a sense of the underlying trend
- 20:46Speaker 11: when you when you filter through a lot of the noise,
- 20:48Speaker 11: and that shows no signs of really really slowing down.
- 20:53Speaker 11: I think if you're a policy maker, your hope is
- 20:55Speaker 11: that rents in the al in the shelter component slows
- 20:59Speaker 11: further as the year progresses. But at this point I
- 21:02Speaker 11: think that's more hope than anything. So I would yeah,
- 21:06Speaker 11: maybe they skip, but there there's still there's gonna be
- 21:08Speaker 11: some discomfort here. I think if we keep getting point
- 21:11Speaker 11: four percent core CPI ratings through the summer.
- 21:13Speaker 4: Would we look in the warp function in the terminal
- 21:17Speaker 4: world interest rate probability? Still to your point, Jeffrey, when
- 21:20Speaker 4: you're thinking about that July meeting, a potential skip, maybe
- 21:23Speaker 4: tomorrow but still sixty percent odds there that there will
- 21:26Speaker 4: be a hike next month. What do you think we
- 21:29Speaker 4: need to see happen in the data in particular between
- 21:32Speaker 4: now and then further to maybe continue this pause, or
- 21:36Speaker 4: maybe on the flip side of that, if the data
- 21:38Speaker 4: comes in still a little bit more persistently stubbornly high
- 21:41Speaker 4: on the inflation front, to where they might have to
- 21:43Speaker 4: continue with these rate increases.
- 21:46Speaker 11: Yeah, we think they will, you know, so they'll skip
- 21:48Speaker 11: then in July they could hike, and it's possible I
- 21:51Speaker 11: wouldn't rule it out that they hike even another time
- 21:54Speaker 11: later this year, and it goes down to the I
- 21:57Speaker 11: would say inertia in the core inflation data. You need
- 22:01Speaker 11: a much bigger slowdown. In my view, point four percent
- 22:04Speaker 11: month a month is not going to cut it. So
- 22:05Speaker 11: you need something like point one or even flat readings,
- 22:10Speaker 11: which tend to be pretty rare historically. I think that's
- 22:12Speaker 11: the key takeaway. So I don't really see scope for that.
- 22:17Speaker 11: In fact, we may see rent slow down. I think
- 22:19Speaker 11: there's a lot of forecaster expectation of that, given what
- 22:24Speaker 11: we've seen in house prices and given what we've seen
- 22:26Speaker 11: in maybe some private sector rent metrics, So the investors
- 22:30Speaker 11: or investors and forecast is already expecting that we could
- 22:32Speaker 11: see some offset, though other categories which have been weak
- 22:37Speaker 11: all year could surprise the upsie layer this year. So
- 22:41Speaker 11: one that I would point out is medical care services.
- 22:43Speaker 11: Medical care services have been negative, so there's been a
- 22:45Speaker 11: drag on inflation since last fall. I think a lot
- 22:50Speaker 11: of that has to do with how the CPI is
- 22:52Speaker 11: calculating the health insurance figures. So we've been pretty negative,
- 22:57Speaker 11: dragging down over all inflation. That could change as we
- 23:00Speaker 11: get into the fall, and then it could be a positive.
- 23:02Speaker 11: So all in all, you might get a slow down rents,
- 23:04Speaker 11: but that could be offset by a pickup in medical
- 23:06Speaker 11: care services and then your overall core inflation won't slow
- 23:10Speaker 11: that much at all, and that's going to be problematic
- 23:12Speaker 11: for the Fed in the second half.
- 23:14Speaker 4: Jeffrey, you have to get your take on the recession debate.
- 23:17Speaker 4: If you look at the ECFC function in the terminal
- 23:20Speaker 4: where you can see these projections for economists pulled by Bloomberg,
- 23:24Speaker 4: if you look annually, you aren't seeing that contraction there,
- 23:27Speaker 4: and growth prelate quarter of requard continues to get pushed out.
- 23:30Speaker 4: Now it's just slightly about like five tens of percent
- 23:32Speaker 4: contraction in the third quarter, a little bit around the
- 23:34Speaker 4: same ballpark in the fourth quarter. But it seems like
- 23:37Speaker 4: investors are even economists in particular, still keep being pushing
- 23:41Speaker 4: back those recession expectations. What's your call there, Yeah.
- 23:45Speaker 11: I think you have to push out your recession expectations.
- 23:47Speaker 6: Again.
- 23:48Speaker 11: We've been joking. This is the most forecast in recession ever.
- 23:52Speaker 11: Everyone says it's imminent, and then another month of data
- 23:55Speaker 11: goes by and we see that it's not. I think,
- 23:57Speaker 11: to be fair to my bearish colleagues, you look at
- 24:00Speaker 11: leading indicators, if you look at the yield curve, if
- 24:03Speaker 11: you look at how much the feed is tightened in
- 24:05Speaker 11: the last fifteen months or so, I think it is
- 24:08Speaker 11: it is is correct, you know, or it is good
- 24:10Speaker 11: to be prudent, to be cautious. However, for us, simple,
- 24:14Speaker 11: simple way to look at it. Look at the jobs report.
- 24:17Speaker 11: Look at the spending power that the consumer has. When
- 24:19Speaker 11: you think about how many people are employed and how
- 24:21Speaker 11: much they're earning in aggregate, that's growing around seven percent
- 24:26Speaker 11: year on year through the latest set of data. You
- 24:29Speaker 11: know from the Jobs report that we got a week
- 24:31Speaker 11: or so ago. So right there, that tells you the
- 24:34Speaker 11: consumer still has spending power. That's really key for us.
- 24:37Speaker 11: So that means the recession is not imminent. I think
- 24:39Speaker 11: if you want to push it out in your forecast,
- 24:41Speaker 11: maybe sometime in the middle of next year would be
- 24:43Speaker 11: a better It doesn't seem like it's going to be
- 24:45Speaker 11: a Q three or a Q four occurrence in our view.
- 24:48Speaker 1: Hey, Jeff, we know you hang out with the Hollywood crowd.
- 24:50Speaker 1: What's going on with the writers strike out there? What's
- 24:53Speaker 1: the status?
- 24:54Speaker 11: You know, I don't hang out with the hall of
- 24:56Speaker 11: this crowd. I appreciate you trying to loop me in
- 24:59Speaker 11: with the cool kids, but I don't get those invites.
- 25:02Speaker 11: Somehow they don't want to hang out and talk about CPI.
- 25:04Speaker 1: So that is, uh, that's a real issue for that's
- 25:07Speaker 1: a real issue for that area out there.
- 25:09Speaker 11: Yeah, in the past it has been, you know, I
- 25:11Speaker 11: would say in California in general, we're already feeling I
- 25:14Speaker 11: would say a bigger slowdown. If you look at the
- 25:16Speaker 11: unemployment rat in California, it's already up half a percentage
- 25:20Speaker 11: or more since the lows so and so part of
- 25:23Speaker 11: that could be due to Hollywood I think the bigger story.
- 25:26Speaker 1: Paul right now is tech.
- 25:28Speaker 11: Yeah, we definitely felt the the you know, the very
- 25:32Speaker 11: near effects of the layoffs that you've seen in tech,
- 25:35Speaker 11: especially in Q one. So I think that is a
- 25:37Speaker 11: bigger factor than the Hollywood writers strike a at this
- 25:40Speaker 11: point for me.
- 25:40Speaker 1: All right, all right, well until we start missing our
- 25:43Speaker 1: fall shows and then we're all going to be worried
- 25:44Speaker 1: about it. Jeffrey Cleveland, director and chief economists at Peydon Rigal.
- 25:48Speaker 1: He is based in Los Angeles, with getting some la
- 25:51Speaker 1: color from him when we.
- 25:52Speaker 4: Can, definitely and also bring in the sunshine.
- 25:57Speaker 5: You're listening to the Team Cancer Live program Bloomberg Markets
- 26:01Speaker 5: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the
- 26:04Speaker 5: iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on
- 26:07Speaker 5: demand wherever you get your podcasts.
- 26:12Speaker 1: Chris Whalen, he's a founder whaling Global Advisors. Hey, Chris,
- 26:15Speaker 1: we got the CPI print today. Kind of how does
- 26:18Speaker 1: that inform I don't know your view of what we'll
- 26:20Speaker 1: hear from the FED tomorrow. How does that inform kind
- 26:22Speaker 1: of your view of markets? Any change there?
- 26:26Speaker 6: Well, I think it's given you know, the manager class
- 26:31Speaker 6: reasons to go out and buy stocks. My banks are
- 26:35Speaker 6: running very well, all green other than Deutsche Bank. We
- 26:39Speaker 6: want to pay attention to them. So the managers want
- 26:43Speaker 6: to buy it. They will. You know, people don't realize
- 26:47Speaker 6: that the lesson of the first quarter was it banks
- 26:49Speaker 6: or not really stocks. They're actually heavily levered credit trades.
- 26:54Speaker 6: But it doesn't matter. They want to own them and
- 26:56Speaker 6: they will. I mean, so far is the best performer
- 26:59Speaker 6: last year? Well, the ubs and Discover.
- 27:02Speaker 4: There you were, Chris, what are you buying?
- 27:05Speaker 1: What are you selling?
- 27:08Speaker 6: Well? I did buy a little bit of a New
- 27:10Speaker 6: York Community Bank. We've talked about that because I know
- 27:13Speaker 6: the guys at Flagstar very well. I'm a mortgage guy.
- 27:16Speaker 6: We're going to wait on that one, though, because obviously
- 27:19Speaker 6: rates aren't going to fall for a while, and that's
- 27:21Speaker 6: a bull market housing trade. Even though you think of
- 27:25Speaker 6: it as a New York regional bank, it's now a
- 27:27Speaker 6: national mortgage bank, so you're gonna have to It's funny
- 27:31Speaker 6: they actually use the flag Star name outside of New
- 27:34Speaker 6: York because he can't say New York Community Bank in
- 27:36Speaker 6: California exactly. It wouldn't work. But you know, it's now
- 27:41Speaker 6: one hundred plus billion dollar mortgage specialist, and meanwhile Comerica
- 27:46Speaker 6: is tiptoeing out of the mortgage space. This morning, very
- 27:50Speaker 6: interesting report I saw. So I guess what I would
- 27:53Speaker 6: tell you is the inflation numbers are making people feel better,
- 27:56Speaker 6: but they want to feel better. You know. The bias
- 27:59Speaker 6: of the entire audience in finance in the United States
- 28:02Speaker 6: is long. Yeah, that's how we get paid, so you know.
- 28:06Speaker 1: Chris, I mean, I mean, is it time for me
- 28:09Speaker 1: to go out and buy some quality regional banks? I
- 28:12Speaker 1: don't know, an M and T bank, something like that.
- 28:14Speaker 1: I mean, I felt like so many banks are thrown
- 28:16Speaker 1: out kind of with the bathwater over the last four
- 28:19Speaker 1: or five six weeks. Is it okay to go out
- 28:20Speaker 1: there and buy them or do we still have some
- 28:22Speaker 1: real concerns out there about the sector?
- 28:25Speaker 6: Well, there are real fundamental concerns about the sector. Everyone
- 28:28Speaker 6: knows this. The FED took the pistol out of our
- 28:32Speaker 6: mountains by putting the funding facility out there. That brought
- 28:36Speaker 6: us some time, but it doesn't change the negative cash flow.
- 28:40Speaker 6: I wrote about this in the blog yesterday. The amount
- 28:44Speaker 6: of paper that people are sitting on that they're losing
- 28:47Speaker 6: money on every day is growing. You know, Bill Nelson
- 28:51Speaker 6: at Bank Policy Institute writes great stuff on the FED,
- 28:54Speaker 6: and he talked about the fact that they're losing a
- 28:56Speaker 6: billion dollars a day at the FED because of the
- 28:59Speaker 6: difference between what they earn and what they're paying out.
- 29:02Speaker 6: Same thing with the banks. So depending on who it is,
- 29:05Speaker 6: and depending on your willingness to sit with it all
- 29:08Speaker 6: year until the real fundamentals for banks improve. That's really
- 29:13Speaker 6: the question you got to ask. Are they cheap?
- 29:15Speaker 7: Yes?
- 29:15Speaker 6: US Bank at one time's book my god, But I
- 29:19Speaker 6: just made a decision in twenty to move up the
- 29:22Speaker 6: capital structure into preferreds until I had a little more
- 29:25Speaker 6: visibility on banks because the FED took so much earning
- 29:29Speaker 6: power away from banks during QI, and they're now trying
- 29:33Speaker 6: to readjust their cost structure and what they earn on
- 29:36Speaker 6: their assets for the future. But that means a year
- 29:39Speaker 6: from that. So if you buy banks, you got to
- 29:42Speaker 6: be patient.
- 29:42Speaker 1: How important are management teams when I'm looking at a
- 29:45Speaker 1: bank stock, Oh, very crucial?
- 29:48Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 29:49Speaker 6: Do they understand duration number one? And do they understand credit?
- 29:54Speaker 6: Because if you look at Silicon Valley Bank, these guys
- 29:56Speaker 6: basically shot themselves in the head they kept buying more
- 30:00Speaker 6: mortgage backs, and then half the book prepaid, they bought
- 30:02Speaker 6: more and by twenty one, end of twenty one, that
- 30:06Speaker 6: bank is dead. They just didn't know it yet. So,
- 30:10Speaker 6: you know, credit is the second thing we're going into.
- 30:12Speaker 6: Maybe a recession. I don't know, guys, So we haven't
- 30:14Speaker 6: a recession. I think this economy is going to ignore
- 30:17Speaker 6: the Fed. What do we do then? What do we
- 30:20Speaker 6: do if we just continue to chug along the way?
- 30:22Speaker 6: We are no recession? Think about what the FED has done.
- 30:26Speaker 6: They have increased the cost of credit for the front
- 30:29Speaker 6: end of the economy, the productive part, but the long end. No,
- 30:34Speaker 6: are we going to die because mortgage rates are at
- 30:36Speaker 6: seven percent? No, We're going to do business. So I
- 30:40Speaker 6: think the private sector is incredibly strong in this country,
- 30:44Speaker 6: and maybe those rate cuts during COVID were unnecessary.
- 30:50Speaker 4: Chris coming out just a few months after a lot
- 30:52Speaker 4: of those concerns about some of those regional bank stresses
- 30:55Speaker 4: in March, what are deposit flows telling us at this point?
- 31:00Speaker 6: Well, they kind of came back by the end of
- 31:02Speaker 6: the quarter. In other words, the outflows slowed down. This
- 31:06Speaker 6: was partly because Treasury wasn't selling any paper and The
- 31:10Speaker 6: delay with the debt ceiling now forces them to go
- 31:12Speaker 6: out and basically refund about a trillion dollars, and they
- 31:16Speaker 6: are outflows constantly during this period, so they'll end up
- 31:19Speaker 6: with six seven hundred billion sitting in the TGA. But unfortunately,
- 31:24Speaker 6: every dollar they raise means that a bank deposits going
- 31:26Speaker 6: to disappear because Treasury is indeficit. Every time a bond
- 31:31Speaker 6: on the books of the FED matures, Treasury has to
- 31:34Speaker 6: refinance that bond immediately, So that's why banks are under
- 31:38Speaker 6: so much pressure. Now. We're hoping that the difference between
- 31:42Speaker 6: the reverses that the FED has been maintaining for money
- 31:45Speaker 6: market funds to help them are going to run off.
- 31:48Speaker 6: We're hoping that that problem is going to leave and
- 31:51Speaker 6: the FED is going to be able to simplify policy
- 31:54Speaker 6: going forward by not having to support banks and the
- 31:58Speaker 6: GSS and the money market funds with the reverse repurchase agreements.
- 32:02Speaker 6: That would simplify life a little bit for Chairman Powell.
- 32:06Speaker 6: But other than that, I think they got to run
- 32:08Speaker 6: off the bounce sheet. My hope is they're going to
- 32:10Speaker 6: pause and start selling more bonds. What I would do
- 32:14Speaker 6: if I were Powells is I would tell the FETE
- 32:16Speaker 6: of New York, make sure you hit the cap every
- 32:19Speaker 6: month for the runoff of the mortgage backed security. So
- 32:23Speaker 6: if the natural runoff is half of the cap, that
- 32:26Speaker 6: means they got to sell some bonds.
- 32:28Speaker 4: You're when you're talking about money market funds specifically, because
- 32:32Speaker 4: so much money has been plowed into those, At what
- 32:34Speaker 4: point you can see even more of that money go
- 32:36Speaker 4: toward equities?
- 32:38Speaker 6: Well, that's the thing it was. It was rising over
- 32:40Speaker 6: the last couple of months, so over two trillion dollars.
- 32:43Speaker 6: Now that if half of that money went back in act,
- 32:46Speaker 6: what he's going to be a tremendous boot to the market.
- 32:49Speaker 6: But I think more likely it's going to go into
- 32:51Speaker 6: T bills because these are not risky funds, these are
- 32:54Speaker 6: money markets.
- 32:55Speaker 4: Is it because of just being able to deald more
- 32:57Speaker 4: than five for sure?
- 32:59Speaker 6: Sure? If youre going to pick up thirty BIPs by
- 33:01Speaker 6: going out of money market funds and the T bills,
- 33:03Speaker 6: you're going to do it. Absolutely. I just took a
- 33:06Speaker 6: big pile off the table on a video I had
- 33:09Speaker 6: gone in in twenty twenty one. I was staring at
- 33:11Speaker 6: a one hundred and fifty percent game. I had to
- 33:14Speaker 6: take it I put it in T bills, you know exactly.
- 33:19Speaker 6: And remember if you sell a money market fund and
- 33:22Speaker 6: buy a T bill, but deposit disappears, it's a producery deposit,
- 33:26Speaker 6: but it still disappears. So the system is going to
- 33:30Speaker 6: be running off cash banking system as the FED balance
- 33:33Speaker 6: sheet shrinks. How far can we go?
- 33:35Speaker 7: Yep?
- 33:36Speaker 6: That's the real that's the big question, all.
- 33:38Speaker 1: Right, Chris, Chris, always good stuff. We love, We appreciate
- 33:40Speaker 1: getting few minutes of your time. Chris Whalen. He's a
- 33:43Speaker 1: chairman of Whaling Global Advisors and just one of the
- 33:45Speaker 1: top I think bank analysts out there that like talking to.
- 33:49Speaker 1: And it was just great, you know, over the last
- 33:51Speaker 1: couple three months when we're having those real big stories
- 33:54Speaker 1: about some of those regional banks, he was just critical
- 33:56Speaker 1: for us kind of getting a handle on that. So
- 33:58Speaker 1: good touching base with Chris Wayll and a Whale and
- 34:01Speaker 1: Global Advisors.
- 34:02Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape. Ken's are Live program Bloomberg
- 34:05Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 34:08Speaker 5: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and.
- 34:10Speaker 7: The Bloomberg Business app.
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- 34:15Speaker 5: flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven.
- 34:19Speaker 1: Thirty, Jess Men and Paul Sweeney here in the Bloomberg
- 34:22Speaker 1: Interactive Brokers Studio. Want to get right to our next guest,
- 34:25Speaker 1: because I'm going to talk about markets and where to
- 34:27Speaker 1: go here, because there's a lot of economic data flying out,
- 34:30Speaker 1: flying around out there. It's a big week. I want
- 34:32Speaker 1: to know what the pros are doing and what they're
- 34:34Speaker 1: telling their clients. Tim Pagliarra joins, and he is the
- 34:37Speaker 1: CIO of cap Wealth based down in Tennessee. Our good
- 34:41Speaker 1: friends down in Tennessee. Tim, thanks so much for joining
- 34:43Speaker 1: us here. We're in Tennessee. Are you Franklin?
- 34:47Speaker 12: Franklin, Tennessee?
- 34:48Speaker 7: All right?
- 34:48Speaker 1: You have to answer one question from him? Dying to
- 34:50Speaker 1: know this about Nashville. Why has Nashville become the bachelorette
- 34:54Speaker 1: party capital of the world.
- 34:57Speaker 4: What about Austin? Austin's a lot of fun.
- 34:58Speaker 1: I think, I don't know what. Tell me Nationals where
- 35:01Speaker 1: the youngest leaders are going.
- 35:02Speaker 4: Yeah, that's where the kids go.
- 35:04Speaker 12: I think, because they facilitate it, they'll let them do
- 35:07Speaker 12: just about anything.
- 35:09Speaker 1: All right. I just I went down there on a
- 35:12Speaker 1: business trip and they were all over the place.
- 35:13Speaker 13: You're not wrong.
- 35:14Speaker 12: It used to be Vegas, but now it's what happens
- 35:17Speaker 12: in Nashville, all right.
- 35:19Speaker 1: Good to know. And Franklin is just outside of Nashville,
- 35:22Speaker 1: so hopefully safely outside there. So Tim, you know, we've
- 35:25Speaker 1: had a nice run in this market. But I want
- 35:27Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on. If I look at SPX,
- 35:29Speaker 1: I see a nice story up, you know, eleven twelve percent.
- 35:31Speaker 1: If I look at SPW the equal weighted, it's kind
- 35:34Speaker 1: of flat. So I got the magnificent seven stocks kind
- 35:38Speaker 1: of ruling the day here. Is that a concern for you?
- 35:42Speaker 6: Very much? So?
- 35:43Speaker 12: I mean, it's frothy, and it is a sign that
- 35:48Speaker 12: you know it can't continue, you know, because we were
- 35:51Speaker 12: pushing valuations before, and the seven stocks are accounting for
- 35:57Speaker 12: about ninety five ninety six percent of their turn the index.
- 36:01Speaker 4: I got to ask, though, because looking month to date,
- 36:05Speaker 4: you're starting to see some of these other sectors beginning
- 36:09Speaker 4: to pick up, whether you're looking at industrials, energy, financials,
- 36:13Speaker 4: also small caps auditear up more than eight percent this month.
- 36:18Speaker 4: What do you need to see happen to give you
- 36:20Speaker 4: more conviction that this is broadening.
- 36:21Speaker 12: Out, I think guidance from the Fed about what they're
- 36:28Speaker 12: going to do and how much time they are going
- 36:31Speaker 12: to allow us to get to that two percent inflation target.
- 36:36Speaker 12: Bloomberg had a good survey that was out this week,
- 36:40Speaker 12: and fifty four percent of the respondents felt like it
- 36:43Speaker 12: was going to take a little over two years to
- 36:46Speaker 12: get to that two percent inflation target. About eleven percent
- 36:50Speaker 12: of the respondents felt like it would take five years.
- 36:54Speaker 12: So it's just a question of how much patience the
- 36:57Speaker 12: FED is going to have and how concerned they are
- 37:01Speaker 12: that they may break something if they push too hard.
- 37:04Speaker 12: And there's a lot of signs of stress in the
- 37:06Speaker 12: system right now.
- 37:08Speaker 4: So given that backdrop, how are you positioning very very
- 37:12Speaker 4: defensively really, and even even after eight months, systems below
- 37:17Speaker 4: in October and just have to.
- 37:20Speaker 12: Be you have to be disciplined and this and the
- 37:24Speaker 12: first time in I think it's twelve fourteen years, we've
- 37:28Speaker 12: got a fifteen percent position in treasuries. The FAD, you know,
- 37:33Speaker 12: they've got problems that they have to fix. And even
- 37:37Speaker 12: this past week where you saw the park turned the
- 37:41Speaker 12: keys back over to their properties in Union Square and
- 37:45Speaker 12: walk away from you know too magnificent hotel property. Yep,
- 37:49Speaker 12: that has a ripple effect through the system. It's not
- 37:52Speaker 12: just that property and it's not just San Francisco, and
- 37:56Speaker 12: so those are the things that you have to watch
- 37:59Speaker 12: and be conser learned about in the contagion what it
- 38:02Speaker 12: could cause for the rest of the markets.
- 38:05Speaker 1: You know, we're just looking. Abigail Doolittle, who covers the
- 38:08Speaker 1: markets for Bloomberg, she mentioned earlier today that you know,
- 38:12Speaker 1: this market's starting to broaden out a little bit in
- 38:14Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks, and she point out to
- 38:16Speaker 1: like the Russell two thousand up one point one today
- 38:19Speaker 1: outperforming the S and P five hundred. Is small mid
- 38:22Speaker 1: cap a place where you think people should be looking
- 38:25Speaker 1: to the extent that maybe they missed them that big
- 38:27Speaker 1: cap rally.
- 38:29Speaker 12: Absolutely. I mean we take an all cap approach, and
- 38:32Speaker 12: I think you can find some some great values, you know,
- 38:36Speaker 12: in that sector right now. But it is an individual
- 38:41Speaker 12: stock market, and so people that own individual securities and
- 38:46Speaker 12: that are not you know, dependent on the indexes for
- 38:50Speaker 12: their returns, they're the they're going to be the beneficiaries
- 38:53Speaker 12: of all of us.
- 38:54Speaker 4: What are your top stock picks?
- 38:57Speaker 12: Yeah, and very broadly, we still Likeshire halfaway because of
- 39:01Speaker 12: the cash position.
- 39:02Speaker 4: You know, that's actually getting close class B shares close
- 39:04Speaker 4: to a record, and obviously they have a very hefty
- 39:07Speaker 4: steak in Apple as.
- 39:08Speaker 12: We know, right, But you know, so I would be
- 39:14Speaker 12: I like Berkshire, I like CBS. We like a company
- 39:21Speaker 12: that I really can't mention it because it's below five
- 39:23Speaker 12: dollars and they're in transition, but they're in the they're
- 39:28Speaker 12: in the technology space, yeah, in fighting internet, high speed fiber.
- 39:38Speaker 12: So I think you just have to look at those
- 39:40Speaker 12: companies that have been hit really hard because of maybe
- 39:44Speaker 12: their balance sheet and was overreacting, you know to that,
- 39:48Speaker 12: because we believe it's important to have strong balance sheets
- 39:51Speaker 12: and not have to depend on the capital markets. But
- 39:54Speaker 12: you can also take that a little too far. And
- 39:57Speaker 12: so those are some of the companies we're looking at.
- 39:59Speaker 12: Regional banks. There are some that you know that have
- 40:03Speaker 12: come up on the radar.
- 40:05Speaker 4: Which which regionals do you like?
- 40:07Speaker 12: Well, I'm in an acquisition period on some of them,
- 40:09Speaker 12: so I can't. Okay, I can't say, but but that's
- 40:14Speaker 12: in a general way, that's what I would that's what
- 40:17Speaker 12: I would look at.
- 40:18Speaker 1: So you were.
- 40:18Speaker 4: Buying the dip then on those banks that potential ones
- 40:22Speaker 4: that obviously were seeing their stock prices for all the
- 40:24Speaker 4: last couple.
- 40:25Speaker 12: Of months, we're shuffling the deck. So I like to
- 40:29Speaker 12: compare it to, you know, being the general manager of
- 40:34Speaker 12: a football team and we're trying to improve the team
- 40:37Speaker 12: that we've got on the on the field. So that
- 40:40Speaker 12: might be peeling off some Apple and buying something else
- 40:44Speaker 12: that we like in that space without abandoning Apple.
- 40:49Speaker 4: You know, is it just because a little pricey after
- 40:51Speaker 4: the record run it's been on.
- 40:54Speaker 12: Yeah. And you know, fortunately, when you buy something at
- 40:57Speaker 12: a at a cheap price and it gets to a
- 41:00Speaker 12: client's portfolio and it's up to six or seven or
- 41:03Speaker 12: eight percent, then you you know, you have an obligation
- 41:06Speaker 12: really to to look at what you put seven or
- 41:09Speaker 12: eight percent of a client's money in a single company
- 41:12Speaker 12: to start out, and the answer is generally no. So
- 41:18Speaker 12: then you have to go through the process of selling
- 41:21Speaker 12: and then looking for things that you know represent a
- 41:25Speaker 12: better value and a longer runway for success.
- 41:29Speaker 1: Tim just about thirty seconds this AI hype boy. It's
- 41:33Speaker 1: moving a lot of names. How do you think about it?
- 41:36Speaker 12: I mean, if you know, if you've just used Navidia
- 41:40Speaker 12: as an example. You know, forty times sales is a
- 41:43Speaker 12: you know, it's an alarm bell. And I think what
- 41:48Speaker 12: in the end, at the end of the day, it's
- 41:50Speaker 12: not the chip. It is the software applications. It's the
- 41:55Speaker 12: use of those of that technology that's ultimately going to
- 42:00Speaker 12: have the value. You know, It's like Maverick, it's not
- 42:04Speaker 12: the it's not the plane, it's the pilot, right, you know,
- 42:09Speaker 12: it's going to be the software. You know, company like
- 42:12Speaker 12: paland here for example, is one of our you know,
- 42:16Speaker 12: one of the companies, right, greatly from that.
- 42:19Speaker 1: All right, Tim, thanks very much. Tim Pagley, our CIO
- 42:21Speaker 1: of cap Wealth, giving us his latest. This is Bloomberg.
- 42:25Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape. Can's our live program Bloomberg
- 42:28Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 42:31Speaker 5: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the.
- 42:33Speaker 7: Bloomberg Business app.
- 42:35Speaker 5: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 42:38Speaker 5: flagship New York station, just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 42:44Speaker 1: Let's do retail. What are you consumers buying in terms
- 42:47Speaker 1: of clothing? That's a big part. Yeah, exactly, Dnim, I'm
- 42:50Speaker 1: all in on that. I mean Scott Baxter joints his
- 42:53Speaker 1: Contour brands. That is a publicly traded symbol. Kt is
- 42:57Speaker 1: the ticker.
- 42:58Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, host a six percent today.
- 43:01Speaker 1: So all right, So Scott Baxter joins us, he's the CEO.
- 43:04Speaker 1: He joins us here in our Bloomberg and Active Broker studio.
- 43:06Speaker 1: They're based in where, North Carolina, Greensboro, Greensboro on a
- 43:10Speaker 1: beautiful place down there in Greensboro. Scott talked to us
- 43:12Speaker 1: about Contour brands. You've got the ones. I really know
- 43:16Speaker 1: what everybody knows what is Lee Jeans, Wrangler Wrangler, which
- 43:19Speaker 1: is if you're a cowboy Texas, that's it.
- 43:21Speaker 7: There you go.
- 43:22Speaker 4: If you're all the regulars in Texas, let me tell you.
- 43:25Speaker 1: Justice from Texas. What to Texas, A and M. Cowboys
- 43:28Speaker 1: only wear Wrangler, right, I.
- 43:29Speaker 4: Mean that's the predominant one, that.
- 43:31Speaker 10: Is true cowboys exactly.
- 43:34Speaker 1: So Scott talk to us about these brands you have
- 43:36Speaker 1: Lee and Wrangler and the rest of the brands you're managing.
- 43:39Speaker 13: So so, Wrangler have been around since nineteen oh four.
- 43:42Speaker 13: Lee has been around for over one hundred years. Both
- 43:44Speaker 13: brands global brands, both brands strong in China, Europe, North
- 43:47Speaker 13: America of course, and then we have a few other
- 43:50Speaker 13: brands that are prominent for us, like All Terrain Gear
- 43:52Speaker 13: and also Rock and Republic denim. So we have a
- 43:55Speaker 13: nice portfolio, but the predominant piece of our portfolio is
- 43:58Speaker 13: both Wrangler and Lee.
- 44:00Speaker 4: So you're expanding out to China and other areas in Asia.
- 44:03Speaker 4: Tell us more about that.
- 44:04Speaker 13: Yeah, So we've done some really nice licensing deals around Asia,
- 44:07Speaker 13: and then we have a direct business in China which
- 44:09Speaker 13: is fairly significant, so it's a big part.
- 44:11Speaker 10: Of our portfolio. It's mostly Lee with a.
- 44:13Speaker 13: Little bit of Wrangler, but we have been there over
- 44:16Speaker 13: thirty years, so we have a real strong consumer base
- 44:19Speaker 13: there that know our product really well.
- 44:21Speaker 1: So what's going on over there for your business?
- 44:23Speaker 10: You know, it's opened back up, thank god.
- 44:25Speaker 13: Right, So, we went through a period like everybody did,
- 44:27Speaker 13: where China was closed and a lot of retail was closed,
- 44:30Speaker 13: and it's opened back up here recently.
- 44:31Speaker 10: So for us, it's been how do you so you.
- 44:33Speaker 1: Do you license your you said early? Do you license
- 44:36Speaker 1: or do you manufacture and export?
- 44:38Speaker 13: We license our brand to some parts of Asia, but
- 44:41Speaker 13: we actually own our operations in China.
- 44:44Speaker 10: Okay, and we make our product. You know, in China
- 44:46Speaker 10: face we're comfortable with that.
- 44:47Speaker 1: He you gotta be less comfortable you were of a
- 44:48Speaker 1: few years ago.
- 44:49Speaker 13: Right now everything's okay, okay, So for us right now
- 44:51Speaker 13: is everything's just fine.
- 44:53Speaker 10: And what does this.
- 44:54Speaker 4: Tell us about the consumer more broadly? Not just obviously
- 44:58Speaker 4: we're not talking about just the US nsumer here. Obviously,
- 45:00Speaker 4: when you're looking at these other markets, what is it
- 45:02Speaker 4: telling us about the global economy?
- 45:03Speaker 13: You know, the global economy I think is treading water
- 45:06Speaker 13: right now. You know, you saw some of the news
- 45:07Speaker 13: here out of Europe. Not recently China has opened back
- 45:10Speaker 13: up so a little bit stronger, and I think here
- 45:12Speaker 13: in the US, the consumer is it's tough for the
- 45:15Speaker 13: consumer right now. Right all they're borrowing is a little
- 45:17Speaker 13: bit more expensive than it has been, so that takes
- 45:20Speaker 13: a little bit out of a family's budget.
- 45:23Speaker 1: So the for your you do most of your manufacturing,
- 45:27Speaker 1: right you don't contract that out.
- 45:28Speaker 10: About thirty five to forty percent.
- 45:30Speaker 13: We own our manufacturing in Mexico and then the rest
- 45:33Speaker 13: is outsourced throughout the globe.
- 45:34Speaker 1: And how's that versus your competitors.
- 45:37Speaker 13: We're really the only ones and while we're you know,
- 45:39Speaker 13: we've owned those for so long. We think of it
- 45:41Speaker 13: as a competitive advantage. It's speed to market, it's innovation,
- 45:44Speaker 13: so we can control our own destiny. It's been a
- 45:46Speaker 13: really good deal for us. And think about the time
- 45:49Speaker 13: during the pandemic. Owning our own manufacturing during the pandemic
- 45:52Speaker 13: was clearly a positive.
- 45:53Speaker 4: So having that competitive advantage there.
- 45:55Speaker 13: Oh absolutely, I mean we were keeping our factories open,
- 45:58Speaker 13: we were rolling product in the whole time, So really
- 46:01Speaker 13: good position.
- 46:01Speaker 1: All right, what's the just generic market share? Wrangler, Lee, Levi's,
- 46:06Speaker 1: and maybe other I don't know how many.
- 46:08Speaker 13: Yeah, so Wranglers two, Lee is three, and and Levi's
- 46:12Speaker 13: is number one.
- 46:13Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, interesting, Okay, So what's the growth for I mean,
- 46:16Speaker 1: these are brands, as you said, around more than one
- 46:18Speaker 1: hundred years. How do you grow your brands? How do
- 46:20Speaker 1: you how does how does somebody do that?
- 46:22Speaker 13: In the stand it's new categories, new channels, new geographies,
- 46:25Speaker 13: and that's kind of what we've been doing.
- 46:27Speaker 10: So excuse me.
- 46:28Speaker 13: When we spun off from VF, we were kind of
- 46:30Speaker 13: landlocked in a couple of categories and channels because they
- 46:33Speaker 13: used us for a cash cow standpoint, And now we've
- 46:35Speaker 13: opened that up to across the globe, different channels and categories.
- 46:38Speaker 13: So we're selling the high end boutiques, you know, we're
- 46:40Speaker 13: selling to the Western group, we're selling in China. So
- 46:43Speaker 13: we're doing things like that and also creating new opportunities
- 46:45Speaker 13: like our outdoor line altering gear.
- 46:47Speaker 4: Who do you consider to be some of your rivals?
- 46:50Speaker 13: Oh, Levi's would be a rival of ours, But I
- 46:52Speaker 13: consider anybody that sells denim and or apparel arrival.
- 46:56Speaker 1: So, I mean, you know, I was on wallsterer for
- 47:00Speaker 1: thirty years. We're in a suit now this is a
- 47:02Speaker 1: you know, kind of a dress update for me having khakis.
- 47:05Speaker 1: How's the world changed in God's very academic changed for
- 47:09Speaker 1: you guys helping.
- 47:09Speaker 10: Me out out.
- 47:10Speaker 13: So the world has gotten extremely casual. And if you
- 47:12Speaker 13: see me today in a blazer and a pair of
- 47:14Speaker 13: pair of jeens, it's become the standard, you know, for everybody,
- 47:17Speaker 13: and it's allowed everywhere you go. You can wear this
- 47:19Speaker 13: to weddings, you can wear this to parties, you can
- 47:21Speaker 13: wear this to the theater. Didn't used to be able
- 47:23Speaker 13: to do it, but now it is totally acceptable.
- 47:26Speaker 4: As far as looking more ahead, what is your outlook
- 47:29Speaker 4: moving forward? For the company this year.
- 47:32Speaker 13: I think that we get through this little you know,
- 47:35Speaker 13: shock with the consumer right now. I think things will
- 47:37Speaker 13: get better with time. Interest rates will come down over time,
- 47:40Speaker 13: the consumer will be in a better place, and then
- 47:42Speaker 13: we'll continue to go ahead and do what we've been
- 47:44Speaker 13: doing as far as working through a very difficult time,
- 47:47Speaker 13: but in an elegant way.
- 47:48Speaker 4: From your perspective and how you're viewing things, all of
- 47:51Speaker 4: these recession calls with what you're doing with your business.
- 47:54Speaker 4: Do you think that's actually likely in the next couple
- 47:56Speaker 4: of quarters?
- 47:57Speaker 10: Could be? I do worry about it.
- 47:59Speaker 13: There's no quest about it. So yeah, I give it
- 48:01Speaker 13: a fifty to fifty chance that we could go there.
- 48:03Speaker 13: But for us, our product is used for work in
- 48:05Speaker 13: a very significant way, and right now, as you know,
- 48:08Speaker 13: unemployment is very good, especially in North America. So the
- 48:11Speaker 13: consumer uses our product for a workplace. So we sit
- 48:13Speaker 13: in a pretty good place and we're very value oriented.
- 48:16Speaker 13: You can buy our product at a very reasonable price,
- 48:19Speaker 13: and it's a trusted brand.
- 48:22Speaker 1: E commerce. How does that work for you? How does
- 48:24Speaker 1: that distribution channel work for you?
- 48:26Speaker 13: Big opportunity for us because we didn't capitalize on it
- 48:29Speaker 13: or spend any time and money on it when we
- 48:31Speaker 13: were part of another company. It's been part of our
- 48:33Speaker 13: strategic spin off move and we've been investing in it
- 48:36Speaker 13: heavily since the day we.
- 48:37Speaker 1: Spun When did you spend off?
- 48:38Speaker 10: Four years and one month ago?
- 48:40Speaker 5: Okay?
- 48:40Speaker 1: And why was that?
- 48:42Speaker 13: Wasn't part of the portfolio that the parent company wanted.
- 48:44Speaker 13: They wanted to focus on outdoor and action sports and
- 48:47Speaker 13: we weren't part of that, so we were a logical
- 48:48Speaker 13: spin Okay?
- 48:50Speaker 4: Is there We always like to talk about these. See
- 48:52Speaker 4: with McDonald's it has their fry indicators. One of their
- 48:55Speaker 4: last starting reports, they were talking about how not as
- 48:57Speaker 4: many people were adding that on to their meals planned.
- 49:00Speaker 4: I'm curious when it comes to denim, are there particular
- 49:02Speaker 4: indicators like you like to look at that can give
- 49:04Speaker 4: you a tell?
- 49:04Speaker 7: We do.
- 49:05Speaker 13: We love to look at share data, So NPD share
- 49:08Speaker 13: data for us is extremely important. Most of our retailers
- 49:12Speaker 13: are aligned and also are part of that process, so
- 49:15Speaker 13: we find out exactly what's rang through the register and
- 49:18Speaker 13: that is really important to us. In our share for
- 49:20Speaker 13: both brands has been growing significantly.
- 49:22Speaker 4: Interesting, Okay, So that would be an optimistic sign.
- 49:24Speaker 13: Right, very optimistic for us. Yes, and it's real data.
- 49:27Speaker 13: It's hard data.
- 49:28Speaker 1: Fourteen thou four hundred employees is what we have for you.
- 49:31Speaker 7: Guys.
- 49:31Speaker 1: Talk to us about the labor market for you. How
- 49:33Speaker 1: tough is it? How because we've heard from every CEO
- 49:36Speaker 1: and every line of business over the last several years,
- 49:38Speaker 1: really tough to get and keep good people.
- 49:39Speaker 13: Yeah, it's tough in certain areas. So it's tough in
- 49:42Speaker 13: our retail environment, in our stores, it's tough in distribution,
- 49:45Speaker 13: it's tough in it So there are pockets that are
- 49:47Speaker 13: tougher than others. But remember Warren Greensboro, North Carolina, one
- 49:51Speaker 13: of the biggest publicly traded companies. We've been there for
- 49:53Speaker 13: one hundred years. We have a very loyal base, and
- 49:56Speaker 13: we're a very good proposition for people that want to
- 49:58Speaker 13: work for a publicly traded big company.
- 50:00Speaker 10: But in Greensboro, right, and what.
- 50:02Speaker 1: Are the alternatives?
- 50:03Speaker 10: I mean there aren't. There aren't nearly as many as
- 50:05Speaker 10: some other large cities.
- 50:06Speaker 7: Ye.
- 50:06Speaker 1: All right, So you know you're sitting front of a
- 50:09Speaker 1: group of investors. What's the number one question you get
- 50:11Speaker 1: these days?
- 50:12Speaker 13: Mostly about whether we're going to go ahead and pop
- 50:14Speaker 13: into a recession or how are things going in China.
- 50:17Speaker 13: That's an example of two of the most recent ones.
- 50:19Speaker 1: How do you keep a pulse on China? Really?
- 50:21Speaker 6: Oh?
- 50:21Speaker 13: We have We have a sourcing office in Hong Kong,
- 50:23Speaker 13: and we have a front end office marketing, sales and
- 50:25Speaker 13: design in Shanghai. We have a leaders there, we have
- 50:28Speaker 13: a general manager. They report right into US, and we
- 50:32Speaker 13: travel and move back and forth with people. Were there
- 50:34Speaker 13: a lot and they come here a lot?
- 50:36Speaker 1: And Chinese like their denim.
- 50:38Speaker 13: Oh love it, absolutely love it. And it's and it's
- 50:40Speaker 13: a big marketplace too.
- 50:42Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it is a big I mean. And are
- 50:44Speaker 1: the local competitors there?
- 50:45Speaker 6: Oh?
- 50:45Speaker 10: Absolutely?
- 50:46Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, local and also global, right, because everybody's in.
- 50:49Speaker 4: The market, right, So not just Texas with the wranglers, Paul, No.
- 50:53Speaker 1: I guess that's how watch that Yellowstone. Yes, all those
- 50:57Speaker 1: guys are wearing the ranguage.
- 50:58Speaker 10: Huge win for us.
- 51:00Speaker 13: Yeah, number one rated show on cable TV. Most of
- 51:03Speaker 13: the characters are wearing our product. But also the show
- 51:05Speaker 13: is centered around rodeos and the cowboy culture. Our brand
- 51:08Speaker 13: is in all those rodeo venues. You see our signs.
- 51:11Speaker 13: We've gotten advertising that way. But the single biggest win
- 51:14Speaker 13: for us is if you follow the show, you know
- 51:15Speaker 13: Landy Wilson's or country artists on there. Well, we just
- 51:19Speaker 13: signed her as our global spokesperson for women women Wrangler.
- 51:22Speaker 13: Huge wen for our first our first ever global spokesperson.
- 51:27Speaker 1: For really Brian a few years ago, and that's talented
- 51:30Speaker 1: and got back to the superstars. She's great. Scott Baxter,
- 51:33Speaker 1: thank you so much, CEO of Contour brands, Think Wrangler
- 51:36Speaker 1: and Lee gens Fro.
- 51:37Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape Cat's our live program Bloomberg
- 51:40Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 51:44Speaker 5: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and.
- 51:46Speaker 7: The Bloomberg Business App.
- 51:47Speaker 5: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 51:50Speaker 5: flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 51:56Speaker 1: Let's continue our C suite conversations today. We're now we're
- 51:59Speaker 1: gonna talk about it, the distribution of electronics, huge huge business,
- 52:03Speaker 1: Global business. Sean Karens joins us. He's the CEO of
- 52:06Speaker 1: Arrow Electronics symbol a r W. The stock is up
- 52:11Speaker 1: thirty two percent year to date, up about one point
- 52:14Speaker 1: six percent today, all time high for the stock. Sean,
- 52:18Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. Why is ARW at
- 52:21Speaker 1: an all time high today?
- 52:23Speaker 14: Well, thank you, Paul, thanks for having me. You know,
- 52:26Speaker 14: i'd say that the long term outlook for electronics is
- 52:29Speaker 14: very promising. You know, not long ago, the use cases
- 52:32Speaker 14: for electronics were pretty narrow. It was things like compute,
- 52:36Speaker 14: maybe personal electronics including your smartphone. But today, you know,
- 52:40Speaker 14: we talk about the electrification of everything, and so you're
- 52:43Speaker 14: seeing all walks of life and homes, cars, factories, you
- 52:48Speaker 14: name it. They're all becoming electrified and they all require
- 52:52Speaker 14: more and more semiconductor and electronic technology.
- 52:55Speaker 4: So we like that Sean talk to us more about
- 52:59Speaker 4: what aero electronics does in your global reach.
- 53:04Speaker 14: So, Jess, we live in the middle of the electronics
- 53:07Speaker 14: and the information technology supply chain, which basically means we
- 53:10Speaker 14: help the makers of all those technologies get to market,
- 53:13Speaker 14: and then we help the commercial customers of those technologies design, build, supply,
- 53:20Speaker 14: and even manage the products that embed them. You know,
- 53:23Speaker 14: we like to say it Aro that if it takes
- 53:25Speaker 14: an electronic charge, we probably had something to do with
- 53:29Speaker 14: designing it, provisioning it, getting it to market.
- 53:33Speaker 1: So you know, whenever we talk to folks in a
- 53:35Speaker 1: technology supply chain, we have to just ask about the
- 53:38Speaker 1: chip business, where are we Are we back to quote
- 53:41Speaker 1: unquote normal in terms of the supply and demand of
- 53:43Speaker 1: chips out there.
- 53:45Speaker 14: You know, I'd say, Paul, the lead times are improving,
- 53:49Speaker 14: but we're certainly not back to pre pandemic levels. The
- 53:52Speaker 14: improvement has been fairly broad based, but there's still a
- 53:55Speaker 14: handful of categories that are in shorter supply in lies.
- 54:00Speaker 14: The you know, the golden screw dynamic that I'm sure
- 54:03Speaker 14: you've heard the industry talk about on many occasions.
- 54:06Speaker 4: When it comes to the different markets and industries that
- 54:09Speaker 4: your company is heavily involved in, which can you talk
- 54:13Speaker 4: more specifically if it's a automotive and and D industrials,
- 54:16Speaker 4: things like that, and how they're being impacted by the
- 54:19Speaker 4: trajectory of the economy.
- 54:22Speaker 14: So just I'd say the markets are broadly mixed, and
- 54:25Speaker 14: it does vary by region throughout the world, But you know,
- 54:28Speaker 14: we compete very heavily in the industrial markets, which means
- 54:32Speaker 14: you know, lots of manufacturing. We have significant exposure to
- 54:37Speaker 14: the automotive and transportation industries more broadly, and that obviously
- 54:41Speaker 14: puts us right in the middle of the transition to
- 54:44Speaker 14: electric vehicles. But we also participate in aerospace and defense, medical, compute,
- 54:53Speaker 14: and a good handful of others. And i'd say, you know,
- 54:56Speaker 14: we're seeing relative strength in industrial and automotive and maybe
- 55:00Speaker 14: aerospace and defense. They're faring better at the moment than
- 55:03Speaker 14: what we see happening in the world of compute, communications, infrastructure,
- 55:08Speaker 14: you know, mobility, and even things related to the Internet
- 55:10Speaker 14: of Things. I think those demand trends are temporary. I
- 55:14Speaker 14: think again, the long term outlook is going to get better.
- 55:17Speaker 1: So you know, we can't talk to anybody again within
- 55:20Speaker 1: the technology stack without talking about AI, because it seems
- 55:23Speaker 1: like every company in the world feels like they're a
- 55:25Speaker 1: play on AI. But how does artificial intelligence impact you,
- 55:29Speaker 1: your business, your outlook, your customers. How do you guys
- 55:32Speaker 1: think about that?
- 55:34Speaker 14: So, like most companies were paying very close attention to it,
- 55:37Speaker 14: I'd say we're in the early days of the hype cycle,
- 55:41Speaker 14: as with many other big tech transitions you know, throughout history.
- 55:45Speaker 14: But there's no doubt it represents a compelling opportunity for
- 55:48Speaker 14: us and for the industry, And so we think about
- 55:50Speaker 14: it on two fronts. One is internal because it will
- 55:53Speaker 14: certainly help, you know, help us redefine work and workload
- 55:57Speaker 14: and streamline a lot of processes that today you know,
- 56:00Speaker 14: require lots and lots of effort. But more importantly, I think,
- 56:05Speaker 14: you know, as we speak, there's a whole ecosystem developing
- 56:08Speaker 14: around AI and generative AI, and so back to you know,
- 56:12Speaker 14: our role in the middle of the you know, the
- 56:15Speaker 14: electronics and the IT supply chain. We're going to help
- 56:18Speaker 14: bring that ecosystem to life and will help the makers
- 56:21Speaker 14: of all those related technologies get to market. And so
- 56:24Speaker 14: we think it's just one more of the bigger demand
- 56:26Speaker 14: trends that you know, make the long term outlook as
- 56:29Speaker 14: promising as it is.
- 56:30Speaker 4: This bounce back that we've been seeing more broadly in
- 56:34Speaker 4: chip stocks this year. Looking at the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index
- 56:37Speaker 4: ticker Symbole Socks SOX, that's a paul almost fifty percent.
- 56:41Speaker 4: It's a forty six percent year to date after that
- 56:43Speaker 4: index lost clover thirty five percent last year. So sean
- 56:48Speaker 4: from your view, and obviously given a large part of
- 56:51Speaker 4: your business is tied to obviously the design and building
- 56:55Speaker 4: of these chips and it comes to the semiconductor sector,
- 56:58Speaker 4: what's your tell and you're reading on what this means
- 57:01Speaker 4: for the global economy, because if you see ship makers
- 57:03Speaker 4: performing well like this, wouldn't that be more of an
- 57:06Speaker 4: optimistic sign?
- 57:08Speaker 14: You know, I would tend to agree with you. We've
- 57:09Speaker 14: been you know, talking amongst ourselves for some time now
- 57:13Speaker 14: that we're you know, there's an argument to be made
- 57:15Speaker 14: for a softer landing. As you might know, there's a
- 57:17Speaker 14: cyclical nature to this industry, and so when demand is strong,
- 57:21Speaker 14: you know, supply rants up to serve it, and that
- 57:24Speaker 14: all works great until demand softens and that leads to
- 57:28Speaker 14: you know, a build up of inventory throughout the industry
- 57:31Speaker 14: that takes a little bit of time to sell through.
- 57:33Speaker 14: I'd say the industry is right in the middle of
- 57:35Speaker 14: that now. However, you know, backlogs are still fairly significant
- 57:40Speaker 14: due to all the shortages over the past couple of years,
- 57:43Speaker 14: and I'd say demand has softened, but it's not you know,
- 57:46Speaker 14: falling sharply. You know, I think we're in the midst
- 57:49Speaker 14: of a market that's moving sideways, and hence we sort
- 57:51Speaker 14: of feel like, you know, a software landing is in store,
- 57:54Speaker 14: and I think, you know, the market is probably reflecting that.
- 57:58Speaker 1: So shaw I see aout a third of your revenue
- 58:01Speaker 1: comes from Asia, Pacific. I don't know what's your exposure
- 58:04Speaker 1: to China, what's your either as a customer or supplier,
- 58:07Speaker 1: and how are you guys dealing with that.
- 58:09Speaker 14: Well, we serve the Asia Pacific market, of which you know,
- 58:13Speaker 14: China is the biggest piece. Like in the West, we
- 58:16Speaker 14: tend to focus on the transportation and industrial markets and
- 58:20Speaker 14: so you know, demand in China is software at the moment,
- 58:24Speaker 14: but you know, we do anticipate that that will improve
- 58:27Speaker 14: at some point in the near future.
- 58:30Speaker 7: You know.
- 58:30Speaker 14: We we like that market, we like our position in
- 58:32Speaker 14: that market, and we think that there's still a lot
- 58:36Speaker 14: of good opportunity for us in store. Having said that,
- 58:38Speaker 14: we're a global company and we have lots of relative
- 58:42Speaker 14: strength throughout the West. So regardless of how the you know,
- 58:46Speaker 14: the semiconductor industry shakes out, I think we're well positioned
- 58:50Speaker 14: regardless of how that how that looks.
- 58:53Speaker 4: When we have about twenty seconds left. Other areas in
- 58:56Speaker 4: the global economy that you want to push into, well.
- 59:00Speaker 14: We certainly like all the trends in transportation and industrial
- 59:03Speaker 14: and medical as I mentioned, we certainly see great opportunities
- 59:09Speaker 14: in our IT business for the notion of information technology
- 59:13Speaker 14: as a service and We're certainly going to play an
- 59:16Speaker 14: important role in helping you know, customers benefit from it.
- 59:19Speaker 1: All right, Hey, Shan, thanks so much for taking the
- 59:21Speaker 1: time to check in with us. Sean Karns, he's the
- 59:24Speaker 1: CEO of Arrow Electronics, the New York Stock Exchange. Tickers
- 59:28Speaker 1: a RW to put into your Bloomberg terminal, and what
- 59:31Speaker 1: you'll find when you put up the prices stocks an
- 59:34Speaker 1: all time Hi, so participating in that tech move.
- 59:40Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can
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- 59:47Speaker 1: Podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller.
- 59:49Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three.
- 59:53Speaker 1: And I'm Faull Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
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