Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / BI Weekend: Deere, McDonalds Earnings
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Intelligence
- 0:11Speaker 1: with Alex Steele and Paul Sweeney.
- 0:13Speaker 2: The real app performance has been the US corporate high yield.
- 0:16Speaker 3: Are the companies lean enough?
- 0:18Speaker 4: Have they trimmed all the fats?
- 0:19Speaker 2: The semiconductor business is a really cyclical.
- 0:22Speaker 1: Business, breaking market headlines and corporate news from across the globe.
- 0:26Speaker 4: Do investors like the M and A that we've seen?
- 0:29Speaker 2: These are two big time blue chip companies.
- 0:32Speaker 4: Window between the peak and cunt changing super.
- 0:35Speaker 1: Fast Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steele and Paul Sweeney on
- 0:39Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:42Speaker 3: I'm Alex Steele and I'm normal Linda filling in for
- 0:44Speaker 3: Paul Sweeney.
- 0:45Speaker 4: On today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show. We're going to dig inside
- 0:47Speaker 4: the big business stories impacting Wall Street and the global markets.
- 0:50Speaker 3: Each and every week we provide in depth research and
- 0:52Speaker 3: data on some of the two thousand companies in one
- 0:54Speaker 3: hundred and thirty industries our analysts cover worldwide.
- 0:57Speaker 4: Today, we'll take a look at it TD Bank because
- 0:59Speaker 4: exiting it's in Charles Schwab.
- 1:01Speaker 3: Plus, we'll discuss why sales at the fast food giant
- 1:03Speaker 3: McDonald's improved last quarter.
- 1:05Speaker 4: But first we take a look at earnings from the
- 1:07Speaker 4: farm machinery leader Deer.
- 1:09Speaker 3: This week, Deer said that North American sales are expected
- 1:11Speaker 3: to be down thirty percent this year for Maura.
- 1:14Speaker 4: And Nora and I were joined by Christopher Chiolino, Bloomberg
- 1:16Speaker 4: Intelligence Senior US machinery analyst, and we first asked Chris
- 1:19Speaker 4: for his take on this week's earnings report.
- 1:22Speaker 5: We knew going into the quarter that was going to
- 1:24Speaker 5: be a pretty ugly print, but these results were really
- 1:27Speaker 5: well below even some of the most bearish expectations. The
- 1:31Speaker 5: company really continues to underproduce retail demand across the board
- 1:36Speaker 5: to bring down some of the excess inventories that the
- 1:39Speaker 5: industry has been plagued with. We also sounds like some
- 1:43Speaker 5: products there were some timing issues, so products got pushed
- 1:45Speaker 5: out to subsequent quarters, which which weighed on the one
- 1:50Speaker 5: Q performance. Now, Deer did reaffirm its twenty twenty five
- 1:54Speaker 5: net income outlook, and it certainly seems that we are
- 1:57Speaker 5: approaching a cyclical trough this year.
- 2:00Speaker 4: But just our.
- 2:01Speaker 5: Concern lies that you know, earnings may not be fully
- 2:03Speaker 5: de risked here. You continue to see further softness on
- 2:06Speaker 5: the largeag side used equipment inventories remain somewhat of an overhang.
- 2:11Speaker 5: Currency headwinds are going to be more pronounced in the
- 2:13Speaker 5: back half, and really we still have this uncertainty around
- 2:17Speaker 5: what the US trade policy is going to be and
- 2:19Speaker 5: what and what those retaliatory actions are going to be
- 2:22Speaker 5: as well.
- 2:22Speaker 4: Well, I was going to say, if they sound relatively
- 2:25Speaker 4: confident they'll be at trough, but then you add on tariffs,
- 2:28Speaker 4: how well does that confidence hold up?
- 2:31Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's the million dollar question, right, I mean,
- 2:34Speaker 5: I would say that AG historically has had a tremendous
- 2:37Speaker 5: amount of pricing power and deer in particular, this is
- 2:42Speaker 5: a company in a market that even gets positive price
- 2:45Speaker 5: in down markets. You know, this quarterly sales were down
- 2:48Speaker 5: over thirty five percent, earnings down significantly, and we were
- 2:52Speaker 5: still up on pricing. It will add costs, but they
- 2:55Speaker 5: have a history and the track record of being able
- 2:57Speaker 5: to pass those through.
- 2:59Speaker 3: What has really been concern for investors out of this
- 3:01Speaker 3: report as they're looking forward?
- 3:04Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there's two big concerns here. One is,
- 3:07Speaker 5: you know, the expectation is that yes, twenty five is
- 3:11Speaker 5: trough and that we should start to see that this
- 3:13Speaker 5: recovery build into twenty six. But I still think there's
- 3:16Speaker 5: a lot of uncertainty out there as to what the
- 3:18Speaker 5: recovery trajectory looks like, just given the uncertainty around trade
- 3:23Speaker 5: and tariffs, you know, I think we're probably looking at
- 3:26Speaker 5: a lower for longer type cycle. So maybe we don't
- 3:29Speaker 5: get that typical acceleration in the first year after a
- 3:32Speaker 5: cyclical trough. So I think investors are still trying to
- 3:35Speaker 5: digest that. And then too, you know, the costs side
- 3:39Speaker 5: of the equation. It certainly seems that costs are going
- 3:41Speaker 5: to go up. How are they going to mitigate that
- 3:43Speaker 5: through some of their you know, internal initiatives or even
- 3:46Speaker 5: from shifting some production around with their footprint.
- 3:49Speaker 4: I also am wondering where we are in terms of
- 3:52Speaker 4: the cyclicality of equipment, Like are are farmers operating on
- 3:57Speaker 4: older stuff that they're going to have to replace or
- 3:58Speaker 4: did they already do that during the pandemic. So they're
- 4:01Speaker 4: good for a while, and it's going to take like
- 4:03Speaker 4: really new high tech products to get them to fork
- 4:05Speaker 4: over that kind of cash.
- 4:08Speaker 5: I think we're good for a little bit a little
- 4:09Speaker 5: bit of time here. I mean, you have to remember,
- 4:12Speaker 5: up we had you know, three four strong years of
- 4:14Speaker 5: growth up to the twenty twenty three peak. Yes, twenty
- 4:18Speaker 5: four was a down year. We were down, you know,
- 4:20Speaker 5: fifteen sixteen percent in terms of units on high horsepower equipment.
- 4:25Speaker 5: We're looking at somewhere of a twenty five to thirty
- 4:27Speaker 5: percent decline in volumes this year. So that's going to
- 4:31Speaker 5: put us, you know, att lows of you know, over
- 4:34Speaker 5: the last two decades where we haven't seen before. So
- 4:38Speaker 5: from these levels, we think there's probably limited downside risk.
- 4:41Speaker 5: But you know, farmers still have the ability to you know,
- 4:44Speaker 5: push out some of these replacement purchases at least for
- 4:47Speaker 5: another few years, we think.
- 4:49Speaker 3: Our Thanks to Christopherciellino, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior US Machinery analyst,
- 4:53Speaker 3: we moved next.
- 4:53Speaker 4: To the energy sector. This week's shares of the British
- 4:56Speaker 4: oil giant BP surge the most is twenty twenty.
- 4:59Speaker 3: This came after news of the activist investor Elliott Investment
- 5:01Speaker 3: Management said it built a stake in BP.
- 5:04Speaker 4: And this comes as Elliott seeks to end years of
- 5:06Speaker 4: underperformance at BP by pushing for significant change for more.
- 5:09Speaker 3: Alex and I were joined by Will Harris, Bloomberg Intelligence
- 5:12Speaker 3: Global Energy analysts.
- 5:13Speaker 4: We first asked Will what all of the problems are
- 5:16Speaker 4: that Elliott wants to fix.
- 5:17Speaker 6: I think there's too many to really go through, given
- 5:21Speaker 6: there our time constraints here, but I think they can
- 5:23Speaker 6: really boil down to a significant moment, which was the
- 5:27Speaker 6: original rollout of their twenty twenty energy transition strategy. This
- 5:32Speaker 6: is the quickest, most risky energy transition of all the
- 5:36Speaker 6: energy global energy majors, and it sort of it depicted
- 5:40Speaker 6: a pretty quick drop in their upstream hydrocarbon production, a
- 5:44Speaker 6: really rapid rollout of their renewables portfolio. And obviously this
- 5:50Speaker 6: has not been taken well by the market. It's undermined
- 5:54Speaker 6: the sustainability of their distribution, it's hit their returns, and
- 5:58Speaker 6: especially now when we are seeing a sort of backlash
- 6:01Speaker 6: against ESG, we're seeing a slowing of energy transition paces
- 6:06Speaker 6: across this sector. It hasn't gone down well for BP's
- 6:10Speaker 6: financial performance or share evaluation.
- 6:13Speaker 4: So well, if we go back to that moment in
- 6:15Speaker 4: twenty twenty, and I was there when they laid out
- 6:18Speaker 4: this new strategy. Was that a bad strategy or is
- 6:21Speaker 4: it bad timing or some combination.
- 6:25Speaker 6: There is some part of me that has a little
- 6:27Speaker 6: bit of sympathy for BP because because I think they
- 6:30Speaker 6: were trying to do the right thing, and then of
- 6:32Speaker 6: course Russia's invasion of Ukraine sort of up ended the
- 6:35Speaker 6: global energy sector pretty materially. I also think that they were, yes,
- 6:42Speaker 6: trying to do the right thing, but doing the right
- 6:45Speaker 6: thing isn't isn't always what's best for investors, And I
- 6:49Speaker 6: think just comparing it to some of their their peers,
- 6:52Speaker 6: particularly Shell, which has taken a much much more capital
- 6:56Speaker 6: discipline approach, they have a very high bar for acquisitions.
- 7:00Speaker 6: They've been very prudent in their energy transition rollout, and
- 7:05Speaker 6: we can just see in the financial performance and how
- 7:08Speaker 6: the market is valuing them, which has been the more
- 7:10Speaker 6: successful strategy over the last four or five years.
- 7:13Speaker 3: As we think about BP in particular, what really can
- 7:18Speaker 3: they do in this moment? What are investors really looking for?
- 7:21Speaker 6: So I think I think I'll touch on what Elliott
- 7:26Speaker 6: is I think going to try and do. There's four
- 7:28Speaker 6: levers that I think Elliott might try and pull here,
- 7:30Speaker 6: and the first is transition business spin off, so this
- 7:34Speaker 6: can remove debt and capital intensity of these businesses off
- 7:37Speaker 6: the balance sheet. We think they'll push to focus on
- 7:41Speaker 6: growing their oil production. More, the current oil production is
- 7:44Speaker 6: supposed to be declining about ten percent to twenty thirty.
- 7:47Speaker 6: We can hope to see that flatten or increase over
- 7:51Speaker 6: that same time period, and I think there could be
- 7:54Speaker 6: a push for a board change. The chairman of the board,
- 7:58Speaker 6: helgat Lund, has overseen VP since twenty seventeen and compared
- 8:03Speaker 6: to peers, there's been pretty underwhelming performance there and then
- 8:07Speaker 6: finally a primary US listing. I think that this could
- 8:10Speaker 6: be a big game changer. It has not only been
- 8:13Speaker 6: discussed at BP, but amongst the other European majors. It's
- 8:17Speaker 6: seen as a major hurdle to starting to close that
- 8:21Speaker 6: valuation gap with Chevron and exon our thanks.
- 8:24Speaker 3: To Will Harris, Bloomberg Intelligence Global Energy Analysts, we.
- 8:27Speaker 4: Move next to the leisure sector. Bloomberg Intelligence recently gave
- 8:30Speaker 4: his twenty twenty five outlook on cruises and theme parks.
- 8:33Speaker 3: And for more. We were joined by Jody Lori, Bloomberg
- 8:35Speaker 3: Intelligence Senior Credit Analysts.
- 8:37Speaker 4: We first asked Jody what she expects to perform well
- 8:39Speaker 4: for cruise lines this year.
- 8:41Speaker 7: I will say that the most fascinating thing is the
- 8:44Speaker 7: momentum continues for the cruise lines. The booking rates continue
- 8:47Speaker 7: to be very high, and we're seeing that Royal Caribbean,
- 8:50Speaker 7: we're seeing that Carnival, and that's what management is communicating.
- 8:53Speaker 7: Whether or not that continues into twenty six is the
- 8:56Speaker 7: question that we're grappling with. But at least for twenty five,
- 8:58Speaker 7: it's very very positive moment.
- 9:00Speaker 2: Jody, it seems like demand out there for experiences is
- 9:03Speaker 2: still very strong. How about for a family that's thinking
- 9:05Speaker 2: about a theme park trip versus maybe a cruise, how
- 9:09Speaker 2: does that kind of shake out?
- 9:12Speaker 7: Yeah, So, Paul, I think you hit on the major
- 9:15Speaker 7: issue is that we're seeing these sort of two sets
- 9:19Speaker 7: of consumers, right the lower end consumers that are pairing
- 9:21Speaker 7: back or they're still doing experiences, but maybe not as
- 9:25Speaker 7: lavish an experience. And then you have the high end
- 9:27Speaker 7: consumers that are still doing very well. High end hotels
- 9:31Speaker 7: are doing well, high end cruise lines are doing well,
- 9:34Speaker 7: anything that's higher end. If you put that in the
- 9:36Speaker 7: perspective of theme parks, one thing that we saw in
- 9:39Speaker 7: our survey that we ran in November is that for
- 9:41Speaker 7: theme park vacations, the average consumers income level is a
- 9:45Speaker 7: little bit lower than the average consumer that's planning to
- 9:48Speaker 7: do a cruise vacation this year. So I think that's
- 9:51Speaker 7: pretty telling when you think about the cost of admission,
- 9:54Speaker 7: when you think about who the target audiences and what's
- 9:58Speaker 7: going to continue the cash flow generation for the cruise
- 10:02Speaker 7: lines versus what might be a little bit of a
- 10:04Speaker 7: sticking point for the theme parks.
- 10:06Speaker 2: Jody.
- 10:06Speaker 8: One of the earliest memories I have of the very
- 10:09Speaker 8: earliest days of the pandemic was these cruise lines rushing
- 10:12Speaker 8: out to the bond market. They're raise cash because they
- 10:15Speaker 8: knew that their business was in for a tough haul there.
- 10:18Speaker 8: How are the balance sheets of some of these big
- 10:21Speaker 8: cruise companies theme park companies, How are the balance sheets
- 10:24Speaker 8: these days?
- 10:26Speaker 7: So we're going to break it out to the cruise
- 10:28Speaker 7: versus the theme parks in terms of their balance sheets.
- 10:31Speaker 7: So for the cruise lines, you know, particularly Carnival and
- 10:33Speaker 7: Royal Caribbean, they are dead set on getting to investment
- 10:36Speaker 7: grade level metrics. Norwegian says that they want to as well,
- 10:39Speaker 7: They've never been investment grade rated. But Carnival and Royal
- 10:43Speaker 7: Caribbean are really set on keeping leverage very low. They're
- 10:46Speaker 7: focused on that. Carnival's targeting three point five times by
- 10:49Speaker 7: the end of next year, so twenty twenty six, Royal
- 10:53Speaker 7: is targeting below three times this year. What we've modeled
- 10:57Speaker 7: out is that they can both get there and their
- 11:00Speaker 7: relatively comfortably. I mean, they've been pretty aggressive in terms
- 11:03Speaker 7: of de leveraging bringing down the debt load. Viking is
- 11:05Speaker 7: pretty happy where it is, so we don't see them
- 11:08Speaker 7: improving much. But they also have a low leverage. Now,
- 11:10Speaker 7: if you think of the theme parks, they repaid their debt.
- 11:13Speaker 7: They had this gravy of a year in twenty twenty two,
- 11:15Speaker 7: everybody rushed to theme parks, regional theme parks. Since then,
- 11:18Speaker 7: it hasn't been as exciting twenty twenty two to twenty three,
- 11:22Speaker 7: I should say, And what we're seeing there is a
- 11:26Speaker 7: little bit more problem now. SeaWorld really doesn't have that
- 11:28Speaker 7: much debt outstanding. So where we're concerned there is that
- 11:31Speaker 7: they start getting creative with their balance sheet again, particularly
- 11:34Speaker 7: if they're finding issues in the business as a whole
- 11:37Speaker 7: and they need to propel sort of. You know, the
- 11:39Speaker 7: equity value improving for six Flags. You know, they had
- 11:42Speaker 7: the merger between six Fags and cedar Fare and that
- 11:45Speaker 7: is resulting in much higher leverage. Management already bumped out
- 11:49Speaker 7: the target of when they're bringing down leverage, and we
- 11:52Speaker 7: already think that it might be a little bit harder
- 11:54Speaker 7: to achieve even pushing it out by a year and
- 11:56Speaker 7: a half.
- 11:57Speaker 3: Our thanks to Jody Laurie Bloomberg Intelligency, your credit analysts.
- 12:00Speaker 4: All right, coming to have a conversation with the chief
- 12:02Speaker 4: financial officer over at Huntington National Bank on the firm's
- 12:05Speaker 4: outlook and opportunities ahead.
- 12:06Speaker 3: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
- 12:09Speaker 3: depth research and data on two thousand companies and one
- 12:12Speaker 3: hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via
- 12:15Speaker 3: b I go on the terminal. I'm Normal Linda, and
- 12:18Speaker 3: I'm Alex Steele, and.
- 12:19Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg.
- 12:24Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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- 12:35Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 12:39Speaker 3: I'm Alex Steele and I'm Normal Linda. Filling in for
- 12:41Speaker 3: Paul Sweeney.
- 12:42Speaker 4: We move next to the banking sector and Huntington National Bank.
- 12:45Speaker 4: Co host Paul Sweeney and I were recently joined by
- 12:47Speaker 4: Zach Wasserman, chief financial officer at Huntington National Bank.
- 12:51Speaker 3: He discussed where the firm's focus has been and how
- 12:53Speaker 3: it's never been better positioned to benefit from significant organic
- 12:56Speaker 3: opportunities ahead.
- 12:57Speaker 4: And Zach began this portion of the conversation by discussing
- 13:00Speaker 4: how the bank is now trying to expand beyond lending
- 13:02Speaker 4: to small businesses.
- 13:03Speaker 9: The business has been performing exceptionally well recently, and one
- 13:07Speaker 9: of the reasons is because we're driving expansion both geographically
- 13:11Speaker 9: and in our commercial business, expanding in a number of
- 13:14Speaker 9: special divertical areas and national business lines. Just this year,
- 13:17Speaker 9: we've launched into three new states, North Carolina, South Carolina,
- 13:21Speaker 9: and Texas, and we've also established eight new special verticals
- 13:25Speaker 9: that are national, for example of funds financed vertical that's
- 13:28Speaker 9: supporting private equity clients, one that's focused on the mortgage ecosystem,
- 13:33Speaker 9: and other national commercial areas.
- 13:37Speaker 10: Talk to us about loan growth. What I do know
- 13:39Speaker 10: about the bank business. That's an important driver. So talk to.
- 13:41Speaker 2: Shot loan growth, where it's coming from, where you're seeing it,
- 13:44Speaker 2: and is it kind of in line.
- 13:45Speaker 9: With what you were expecting You know, we've actually had
- 13:47Speaker 9: very strong loan growth of the last two years. If
- 13:49Speaker 9: you take a step back, much of the industry has
- 13:51Speaker 9: been in a pretty neutral position, not actually growing. Huntington
- 13:55Speaker 9: has grown outperformed that by about ten percentage points. And
- 13:59Speaker 9: for us, the growth is coming from both our core business,
- 14:01Speaker 9: which is consumer small business and then mid corporate typically
- 14:06Speaker 9: private commercial clients, and then also these new initiatives that
- 14:09Speaker 9: I just mentioned before launching into three New states, a
- 14:12Speaker 9: number of specialty businesses.
- 14:14Speaker 10: So we're seeing a nice breadth of growth.
- 14:16Speaker 9: Actually, one thing that's actually, you know, a nice indication
- 14:20Speaker 9: of the economic strength is we're seeing strong demand from
- 14:23Speaker 9: small businesses from our regional banking business, typically in the
- 14:27Speaker 9: kind of smaller middle market client sets. So it's a
- 14:29Speaker 9: it's been a healthy dynamic we've been.
- 14:31Speaker 4: Seeing before you were in this position. You also was
- 14:35Speaker 4: chief financial officer to Visa, and I know that Huntington
- 14:37Speaker 4: is trying to get into the payments business in a
- 14:40Speaker 4: particular way too. What's the what's the market for that
- 14:44Speaker 4: and how do you guys play and compete in that?
- 14:46Speaker 9: You know, the market for payments is incredibly broad, and
- 14:49Speaker 9: if you think if you took a step back.
- 14:50Speaker 4: To categorize it actually, like is that zell or like
- 14:53Speaker 4: what is that?
- 14:54Speaker 9: You know, it is so broad, the one that really
- 14:55Speaker 9: needs to zoom into it. You know, we have a
- 14:58Speaker 9: number of card based payment products, so think consumer cards,
- 15:03Speaker 9: commercial cards, but also importantly treasury management, and that's really
- 15:07Speaker 9: the biggest driver right now. We're seeing in payments growth
- 15:10Speaker 9: supporting commercial clients with the ability to accept payments and
- 15:14Speaker 9: then make payments in essentially every form you can imagine, Alex,
- 15:18Speaker 9: so big big growth driver there. One of the things
- 15:21Speaker 9: that we've done recently is invest to expand our merchant
- 15:24Speaker 9: acquisition capability. Merchant acquiring is when a company accepts payments electronically,
- 15:30Speaker 9: and it's often the lynchpin of their business. Saw the
- 15:34Speaker 9: lifeblood of the company is how they accept payments. So
- 15:36Speaker 9: we launched a merchant acquiring business just in October and
- 15:40Speaker 9: it's been going incredibly well. So, you know, kind of
- 15:42Speaker 9: almost every area there's growth in payments for sure, but
- 15:46Speaker 9: for us, treasury management and commercial payments in particular as
- 15:49Speaker 9: a major growth driver.
- 15:50Speaker 2: Talk to us about your long portfolio, specifically your exposure to.
- 15:54Speaker 9: Office, yeah, real estate, you know, office and commercial real
- 15:58Speaker 9: estate generally for Huntington is.
- 16:00Speaker 10: A very small exposure.
- 16:01Speaker 9: Actually, typically for large regional banks, the average commercial real
- 16:06Speaker 9: estate within the loan portfolio might be fifteen or twenty
- 16:09Speaker 9: percent of the loan book.
- 16:10Speaker 10: For us, it's nine percent, so.
- 16:12Speaker 9: We're relatively smaller and an office is only one percent
- 16:14Speaker 9: of that nine To give you a sense. With that
- 16:16Speaker 9: being said, you know what we're seeing in that commercial
- 16:19Speaker 9: real estate environment is this is gonna this is gonna
- 16:21Speaker 9: be a situation that.
- 16:22Speaker 10: Plays out over multiple years.
- 16:24Speaker 9: Thankfully, we are seeing a fairly orderly process of refinancing
- 16:29Speaker 9: and generally seeing pretty sound ability for our commercial real
- 16:34Speaker 9: estate developers to maintain their financing and to successfully.
- 16:40Speaker 10: Roll through maturities. But it'll take a while to run through.
- 16:44Speaker 9: To give you a sense, something like twenty percent of
- 16:47Speaker 9: the portfolio matures any given year, so this will be
- 16:50Speaker 9: you know, on average, it'll take five years to really
- 16:52Speaker 9: roll through. So I think that's a kind of an
- 16:54Speaker 9: industry dynamic we're seeing, which this is a dynamic that
- 16:57Speaker 9: will play out over quite sometime.
- 16:59Speaker 4: What part of this is encompasses any kind of m
- 17:01Speaker 4: and as is organic yees.
- 17:04Speaker 9: You know, for us we're focused on organic growth m
- 17:07Speaker 9: and A. It can be a tool for banks to grow.
- 17:10Speaker 9: Certainly we've seen m and A in the industry over time.
- 17:13Speaker 9: With that being said, it can also be distracting to
- 17:16Speaker 9: the progress that the company is making on organic growth.
- 17:19Speaker 9: And for US Alex, we're seeing so much progress on
- 17:22Speaker 9: our organic growth initiatives, both acquiring customers but also importantly
- 17:28Speaker 9: putting more and more focus around the value added fee
- 17:30Speaker 9: services that come around that come to them, namely payments,
- 17:33Speaker 9: wealth management, and capital markets, and so, you know, just
- 17:36Speaker 9: the customer acquisition. We're seeing the success in those businesses.
- 17:40Speaker 9: That's where our focus is. To give you a sense
- 17:42Speaker 9: in the fourth quarter just that we just closed a
- 17:44Speaker 9: ten percent year of year revenue growth, really driven by
- 17:47Speaker 9: those organic strategies.
- 17:49Speaker 8: What's a typical corporate customer for you guys?
- 17:51Speaker 9: You know, often, Paul, they are middle market companies that
- 17:55Speaker 9: are private.
- 17:56Speaker 10: That's the most typical company.
- 17:59Speaker 6: You know.
- 18:00Speaker 9: You know, the regional banks serve a really important niche
- 18:03Speaker 9: within the overall US economy because you know, the client
- 18:06Speaker 9: set that we are servicing are typically you know, focused
- 18:10Speaker 9: on their local market.
- 18:11Speaker 10: They want a bank with a company that.
- 18:13Speaker 9: Is deeply embedded in the community and knows them personally.
- 18:17Speaker 9: But importantly can bring down to them the power of
- 18:21Speaker 9: a large bank in terms of specialized capabilities. It's actually
- 18:25Speaker 9: one of the reasons why we've been so successful in
- 18:27Speaker 9: these new geographic launches.
- 18:29Speaker 10: How about private credit?
- 18:30Speaker 2: Is that a competitor to you?
- 18:32Speaker 9: You know, it's funny we get this question all the time,
- 18:34Speaker 9: and the answer generally is no, okay.
- 18:37Speaker 10: You know, private credit.
- 18:38Speaker 9: Is looking for the sort of you know, the kind
- 18:42Speaker 9: of loans that they finance are typically where there's more leverage,
- 18:45Speaker 9: where there's more yield to be had. Because of the risk,
- 18:49Speaker 9: that's not the core client for Huntington, and so our
- 18:52Speaker 9: head of Commercial Business mentioned that only in two cases
- 18:55Speaker 9: last year across our entire business did we see commercial
- 18:58Speaker 9: borrowers actually go to a price a credit facility away
- 19:01Speaker 9: from our own lending facility.
- 19:03Speaker 3: Art thanks to Zach Wasserman, chief financial officer at Huntington
- 19:06Speaker 3: National Bank.
- 19:07Speaker 4: I'm staying in finance. This week, Canada's TD Banks that
- 19:10Speaker 4: it's offloading its entire ten point one percent stake in
- 19:12Speaker 4: the financial services firm Charles Schwab.
- 19:14Speaker 3: And this comes as part of a corporate overhaul. In October,
- 19:17Speaker 3: TD Bank reached the settlement with the US Department of
- 19:19Speaker 3: Justice and bank regulators over its failure to catch money
- 19:22Speaker 3: laundering at several American branches.
- 19:24Speaker 4: For Moura and Nora and I were joined by Paul Goldberg,
- 19:26Speaker 4: Bloomberg Intelligence senior equity analyst.
- 19:29Speaker 3: We first asked Paul why TD Bank would offload it's
- 19:31Speaker 3: full stake in Charles Schwab.
- 19:33Speaker 11: I don't think it's necessarily strategic Cox. I think it's
- 19:36Speaker 11: partially to simplify the business. Also, TD got hit with
- 19:40Speaker 11: AML investigation and was fine, then got an asset cap
- 19:45Speaker 11: in the US, so they can really grow in the
- 19:47Speaker 11: US much larger on the bank inside. Sounds like they
- 19:51Speaker 11: trying to simplify the business, having the ability to buy
- 19:54Speaker 11: back some stock, have some extra capital in handhand.
- 19:58Speaker 3: Where does TD's business currently if you were to give
- 20:00Speaker 3: us a broader perspective, how is it lining up against competitors?
- 20:04Speaker 11: Well, I think that you have to look at it
- 20:06Speaker 11: in two different areas. One in Canada. So in Canada
- 20:09Speaker 11: with the one of the largest banks across personal and
- 20:12Speaker 11: commercial banking. In the US, they again one of the
- 20:15Speaker 11: largest banks, but they very much personally focused all over
- 20:19Speaker 11: the east coast of the US.
- 20:21Speaker 4: So what is going to take for them to get
- 20:23Speaker 4: their asset cap raised in the US.
- 20:25Speaker 11: I think it'll take a long time.
- 20:27Speaker 4: But what's the problem that the FED highlighted, Well.
- 20:30Speaker 11: The FEED highlighted is they mL deficiencies which they trying
- 20:33Speaker 11: to fix. It costs them a lot of money they
- 20:35Speaker 11: invested in it, but it can take years. So if
- 20:38Speaker 11: we'll look at what's happening to Wells farga we're in
- 20:41Speaker 11: eight years and they're still trying to get out from
- 20:43Speaker 11: under that.
- 20:44Speaker 4: Yeah, and it always seems like nebulous. It's like we
- 20:46Speaker 4: have an asset cap, but it's not like you check
- 20:47Speaker 4: these three boxes and it's gone. It's sort of like,
- 20:49Speaker 4: at least for Wells Fargo, because it's like risk management.
- 20:51Speaker 4: It's controls that's making sure that you know everyone's on
- 20:54Speaker 4: board doing the right thing at the right time, which
- 20:55Speaker 4: can be very difficult.
- 20:57Speaker 3: What do you take away from this idea of the
- 20:59Speaker 3: repurchasing of its for.
- 21:01Speaker 11: TD or for swap. They both do so for TD.
- 21:05Speaker 11: I think they repurchasing on the fraction of that. So
- 21:07Speaker 11: they's take in Canadian dollars is about twenty billions. That
- 21:10Speaker 11: fourteen billion they repurchasing only eight So the impact on
- 21:14Speaker 11: TV shares from this sale of from the sale of
- 21:17Speaker 11: Schwap shares is about seven percent of the earnings. They're
- 21:20Speaker 11: going to repurchase back six so mostly neutralize that kind
- 21:23Speaker 11: of impact. The rest is going to add a whole
- 21:26Speaker 11: point of capital to them so that they can be
- 21:29Speaker 11: invested in other sides of the business. But because they
- 21:31Speaker 11: kept in the US, which makes it very challenging because
- 21:34Speaker 11: they have they'll have to figure ways to invest adding
- 21:37Speaker 11: to capital markets, which they're doing right now, or domestically Schwab.
- 21:42Speaker 11: They only bind one percent of the ten percent stake
- 21:46Speaker 11: that's being sold, but TD is still keeping the depository relationships,
- 21:51Speaker 11: so I think it's strategic more on the TD's side
- 21:54Speaker 11: rather than having any impact on Schwap side.
- 21:56Speaker 3: Is this bad news for the Swap side of things?
- 21:58Speaker 11: I don't think, so that's what I'm saying. It's a
- 22:01Speaker 11: strategic decision on t D side to simplify their business.
- 22:04Speaker 11: They're still keeping the deposits relationship, which clearly says that
- 22:08Speaker 11: they're working well with Schwab and the TD is going
- 22:11Speaker 11: to put a decent gain on sale and this kind
- 22:13Speaker 11: of thing. So I think that's nothing wrong with the
- 22:15Speaker 11: schwab its, just big stake of the company's going up
- 22:18Speaker 11: in the open market, right.
- 22:19Speaker 4: Totally switching to TD and their actual Canadian business. How
- 22:24Speaker 4: are they doing there?
- 22:25Speaker 11: They're doing pretty well, right, So the second largest bank domestically,
- 22:30Speaker 11: right after the RBC. They've been very consistent right on
- 22:35Speaker 11: the mortgage side, on their commercial operations and everywhere, so
- 22:40Speaker 11: they've been doing well. But it's an extremely competitive market.
- 22:42Speaker 11: That's why the concern is that they're going to have
- 22:44Speaker 11: this all extra capital that they're going to try to
- 22:47Speaker 11: invest domestically into a super competitive.
- 22:49Speaker 3: Market and breakdown in Canada. There's fewer banks than we
- 22:52Speaker 3: have a million over here, so like, how do they
- 22:55Speaker 3: shake up in terms of their competition in Canada? How
- 22:59Speaker 3: do they line up the well.
- 23:00Speaker 11: Their competition there are six largest banks, or some people
- 23:03Speaker 11: call it five plus one because National Bank is a
- 23:05Speaker 11: little bit smaller, even though they just finalize in the
- 23:09Speaker 11: closure of Canadian Western Bank, that's going to expand them
- 23:12Speaker 11: a little bit. But some people describe that market as
- 23:16Speaker 11: a competitive monopoly between these banks. So there's some smaller
- 23:19Speaker 11: banks and credit unions, but these banks control ninety plus
- 23:22Speaker 11: percent of deposits and loans in the country, so very
- 23:26Speaker 11: very concentrated, and they compete very aggressively against everything, so
- 23:31Speaker 11: the market shares when you see them shift. We're talking
- 23:34Speaker 11: about basis points here and there from period to period.
- 23:37Speaker 4: All right, thanks to Paul Goldberg, Bloomberg Intelligence and your
- 23:39Speaker 4: equity analyst, you're.
- 23:40Speaker 3: Listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in depth
- 23:43Speaker 3: research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred
- 23:46Speaker 3: and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via b
- 23:49Speaker 3: I go on the terminal. I'm normal ind and I'm
- 23:52Speaker 3: Alex Steele, and.
- 23:53Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg.
- 24:01Speaker 1: You were listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch the
- 24:04Speaker 1: program live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple car
- 24:08Speaker 1: Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You
- 24:11Speaker 1: can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship
- 24:14Speaker 1: New York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 24:19Speaker 3: I'm Alex Steele and I'm normal Linda filling in for
- 24:21Speaker 3: Paul Sweeney. We move now to earnings from the fast
- 24:24Speaker 3: food giant McDonald's. This week, McDonald's reported that its sales
- 24:27Speaker 3: rose in the fourth quarter, and this comes after growth
- 24:29Speaker 3: in the chains international business made up for a decline
- 24:32Speaker 3: in the US.
- 24:33Speaker 4: For Maura Nora and I were dorma Michael hallon Bloomberg
- 24:35Speaker 4: Intelligence and your Restaurant and food service Analyst, and we
- 24:38Speaker 4: first asked Michael for his broad read on these latest results.
- 24:41Speaker 12: You know, the most important piece of the report really
- 24:43Speaker 12: is the US recovery post e Coli, and we got
- 24:47Speaker 12: some good news on that front. So traffic was actually
- 24:50Speaker 12: positive in December, so I think that was much better
- 24:53Speaker 12: than anyone had expected. They cited kind of a choppy
- 24:57Speaker 12: January here, but the only the only region still impacted
- 25:02Speaker 12: by ECOLI seems to be the Rocky Mountain region where
- 25:05Speaker 12: the outbreak occurred, and they expect a full US recovery
- 25:08Speaker 12: by the beginning of the second quarter, which is good news.
- 25:11Speaker 4: What about the rest of the world versus the US,
- 25:14Speaker 4: It was the rest of the world that really performed well.
- 25:16Speaker 12: Yeah, yeah, And a big part of that was just
- 25:19Speaker 12: lapping like pretty weak year ago results, right, so we
- 25:23Speaker 12: wrapped the start of the of the Israel Hamas war,
- 25:26Speaker 12: and so the Middle East was stronger. Countries with large
- 25:30Speaker 12: Muslim populations were also stronger. And then also China lapped
- 25:34Speaker 12: a very weak result last year, and management cited some
- 25:37Speaker 12: stabilization in that market, which is encouraging for them. So
- 25:41Speaker 12: the easy comps was what really fueled international sales. You know,
- 25:46Speaker 12: we're kind of more bullish on the US moving forward
- 25:49Speaker 12: than international, you know, because outside of the Middle East,
- 25:53Speaker 12: in China, Europe is we think is going to continue
- 25:55Speaker 12: to kind of be an issue for them. The Arizona
- 25:59Speaker 12: is experienced it's seeing much higher inflation than the US
- 26:03Speaker 12: and that's really crimping low income and family spending on
- 26:07Speaker 12: the continent.
- 26:08Speaker 3: Are people still buying the Big Mac.
- 26:11Speaker 12: They don't break out Big Mac sales, but they cited
- 26:14Speaker 12: pretty strong results out of the Chicken Big Mac, which
- 26:17Speaker 12: I was kind of surprised about. You know, my associate
- 26:20Speaker 12: tried it, he was not a big fan. But but yeah,
- 26:24Speaker 12: they cited, you know, pretty strong results out of the
- 26:26Speaker 12: Chicken Big Mac in the United States and other markets.
- 26:29Speaker 12: I think France was who they called out specifically and
- 26:33Speaker 12: to the point where they're going to continue to you know,
- 26:36Speaker 12: bring it back as a limited time offerre.
- 26:38Speaker 10: In the future.
- 26:39Speaker 4: So I was actually talking to an ib user, a
- 26:42Speaker 4: Bloomberg user about this. Why are McDonald's franchises elsewhere like
- 26:48Speaker 4: at rest of world so much better than in the
- 26:50Speaker 4: US and that like you can get like super good
- 26:53Speaker 4: food that doesn't taste like fast food. Why is that?
- 26:56Speaker 12: Yeah, Jonathan Farrowe asked me the same thing, said he
- 26:59Speaker 12: wants them all to be like the you know McDonald's
- 27:02Speaker 12: in Italy, you know. And the answer I had there
- 27:04Speaker 12: was just more discerning tastes, right, that.
- 27:10Speaker 4: Might be it, No, but really, like is it? I mean,
- 27:12Speaker 4: does it affect margins? Like what are the margins like
- 27:14Speaker 4: in the US versus the rest of the world.
- 27:17Speaker 12: We don't We don't have that information, you know what
- 27:19Speaker 12: I mean. It's a franchise business, right, so.
- 27:25Speaker 6: You know what I mean.
- 27:26Speaker 12: So, so we don't have a ton of color on
- 27:28Speaker 12: all the different franchise markets and what kind of margins
- 27:32Speaker 12: they pull in. You know, the US generally is a
- 27:37Speaker 12: lower margin for the franchise business, just because they have
- 27:42Speaker 12: a lot more franchisees and need a lot more oversight.
- 27:47Speaker 12: The international franchise business tends to generate wider margins.
- 27:52Speaker 3: So I always used to think about McDonald's is a
- 27:54Speaker 3: really cheap place, a discount fast food place, but prices
- 27:58Speaker 3: are getting higher. Are we still seems demand from lower
- 28:01Speaker 3: income consumers for the brand.
- 28:04Speaker 12: You know, it continues to be the weak spot at
- 28:07Speaker 12: McDonald's and for anyone that has a lot of exposure
- 28:10Speaker 12: to low income consumers. So the entire QSR space, right,
- 28:13Speaker 12: Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Burger King. You know, a
- 28:17Speaker 12: lot a lot of chains, you know, struggled last year
- 28:19Speaker 12: because of their inability to draw low income consumers. You know,
- 28:23Speaker 12: they're impacted most by inflation.
- 28:25Speaker 2: Right.
- 28:25Speaker 10: We've had four plus years.
- 28:28Speaker 12: Of restaurant price hikes and higher costs across the board, right,
- 28:33Speaker 12: and so you know, chains that are exposed to low
- 28:37Speaker 12: income consumers are going to continue to press on value
- 28:39Speaker 12: to try to bring them into the fold. You know,
- 28:43Speaker 12: it seemed like it didn't seem like restaurants sales did
- 28:47Speaker 12: improve for a quick service in the fourth quarter, and
- 28:49Speaker 12: we think a big part of that is just a
- 28:51Speaker 12: re establishing of their value proposition.
- 28:53Speaker 2: Right.
- 28:54Speaker 12: McDonald's early last year got a lot of shade about
- 28:56Speaker 12: the eighteen dollars big Mac meal in Connecticut, and so
- 29:00Speaker 12: they decided to push hard on value, and prior to
- 29:03Speaker 12: the E Coli outbreak, you know, October.
- 29:05Speaker 10: Had some really good results.
- 29:07Speaker 12: They were drawing customers in with that five dollars meal
- 29:10Speaker 12: deal and traffic was positive for the first time during
- 29:14Speaker 12: the year. So value pushing on value has been successful
- 29:18Speaker 12: for McDonald's. That's not good for their competitors because McDonald's
- 29:22Speaker 12: has the most scale, right, But we think this is
- 29:24Speaker 12: going to continue throughout twenty twenty five in the quick
- 29:27Speaker 12: service industry.
- 29:28Speaker 3: So just to confirm, you're saying there was a meal
- 29:30Speaker 3: that came up to eighteen dollars.
- 29:31Speaker 4: She totally missed this. She totally missed this one.
- 29:34Speaker 10: Yeah.
- 29:34Speaker 12: Yeah, it was one franchisee in Connecticut. No comment, No,
- 29:44Speaker 12: fair enough, fair enough. But he was he was pushing
- 29:46Speaker 12: back because he, you know, he was dealing with a
- 29:49Speaker 12: lot of inflation and he was just, you know, he
- 29:52Speaker 12: wanted to make some money on the big McNeal. He
- 29:54Speaker 12: was trying to make a point.
- 29:55Speaker 3: Our thanks to Michael Halen, Bloomberg Intelligence senior Restaurant and
- 29:58Speaker 3: food service analysts.
- 30:00Speaker 4: Each week we look at research from Bloomberg n EF
- 30:02Speaker 4: previously known as New Energy Finance. They're the team at
- 30:05Speaker 4: Bloomberg that tracks and analyzes the energy transition from commodities
- 30:08Speaker 4: to power, transport, industries, buildings, and agricultural sectors.
- 30:12Speaker 3: This week we looked at the energy sector and how
- 30:14Speaker 3: it's being impacted by Donald Trump's presidency in the United States.
- 30:17Speaker 3: For more, Alex and I were joined by Derek Fletgall
- 30:20Speaker 3: b Any F lead US policy analysts.
- 30:22Speaker 4: We first asked Derek, where we stand today with the
- 30:25Speaker 4: energy transition.
- 30:26Speaker 13: Where we stand today is at a point of uncertainty
- 30:29Speaker 13: and early consolidation. At this point, we've heard a variety
- 30:33Speaker 13: of conflicting reports about the release or lack thereof, of
- 30:37Speaker 13: obligated federal funding for climate grants. We've heard reports that
- 30:40Speaker 13: EPA has released some others that are implicated by some
- 30:43Speaker 13: of the presidents DEI related orders, anything with an environmental
- 30:47Speaker 13: justice or a community benefits component have been more affected.
- 30:51Speaker 13: And meanwhile, at the executive level, we've seen some people
- 30:55Speaker 13: at Brook Rawlins the USDA, Doug Bergham at the Department
- 30:57Speaker 13: of Interior, and Chris Wright at the Department of Energy
- 31:00Speaker 13: get into place and put forward their formal priorities. So,
- 31:03Speaker 13: with that early staffing up in place and continued uncertainty
- 31:08Speaker 13: about the release of funds, we are kind of looking
- 31:11Speaker 13: at a wait and see period, seeing how things shake
- 31:13Speaker 13: out in the courts and in the executive branch itself.
- 31:16Speaker 3: Well, it definitely has been a massive makeover that Trump
- 31:19Speaker 3: has been planning to do and it is continuing to
- 31:21Speaker 3: do right now in terms of federal agencies. But are
- 31:24Speaker 3: there any areas in particular that you're keeping an eye on.
- 31:26Speaker 3: I know that there's things going on in terms of
- 31:28Speaker 3: EV charging funding right absolutely.
- 31:32Speaker 13: I mean sectors that were specifically named in Trump's executive orders,
- 31:36Speaker 13: oil and gas. They're supposed to be four momentum on that,
- 31:39Speaker 13: as well as electric vehicles and electricfical charging and offshor win.
- 31:42Speaker 13: In particular, EV charging saw a pause on existing dispersements
- 31:47Speaker 13: of funds from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program. That's
- 31:50Speaker 13: about five billion dollars if I recall correctly from the
- 31:52Speaker 13: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, what about one billion dollars
- 31:55Speaker 13: if that had been allocated, So it's clearly a disruption
- 31:59Speaker 13: to those on going disbursements. Keep in mind that there's
- 32:02Speaker 13: also something called the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Program, which
- 32:05Speaker 13: was not as directly targeted by that, that's obligated rather
- 32:08Speaker 13: more funding. So there's still some full momentum so far
- 32:13Speaker 13: to the EV charging sector. But what this does is
- 32:16Speaker 13: throw a bit more sand in the gears that continued
- 32:19Speaker 13: forward movement.
- 32:20Speaker 4: Do we know what the Republican's energy plan consists of,
- 32:24Speaker 4: versus just rolling back certain things, like I know, we
- 32:27Speaker 4: know that it's energy independence and we want more oil, Like,
- 32:30Speaker 4: I get that. But in terms of dismantling Democrat policies
- 32:34Speaker 4: versus their own support for different.
- 32:36Speaker 13: Industries, I don't think we do. And there's two different
- 32:39Speaker 13: reasons for that. Firstly, on the executive side, my sense
- 32:44Speaker 13: is that they are reviewing and looking to see which
- 32:46Speaker 13: aspects of existing policies are worth keeping in place for
- 32:49Speaker 13: goals like national security, energy independence, and so forth. Certainly,
- 32:53Speaker 13: we've seen emphasis that subsidies for nuclear critical minerals manufacturing
- 32:57Speaker 13: those should continue, and to the degree that renewables can
- 33:01Speaker 13: help meet new load for new factories for data centers
- 33:04Speaker 13: that might also be somewhat protected. We've seen these reversals
- 33:07Speaker 13: quite rapidly, even in the renewables permitting space. For example,
- 33:10Speaker 13: within the same day our colleagues at Bloomberg News reported
- 33:13Speaker 13: that federal permitting was paused and then unpaused by the
- 33:17Speaker 13: US Army Corps of Engineers. That's just the federal side,
- 33:20Speaker 13: executive side. On the legislative side, we are still waiting
- 33:23Speaker 13: for the Senate and the House to come together on
- 33:26Speaker 13: one core plan for the big tax and reconciliation bill
- 33:31Speaker 13: that's going to come later this year. They need to
- 33:33Speaker 13: find a lot of pay force to extend Trump's tax
- 33:35Speaker 13: cuts from twenty seventeen. And other than being sure they
- 33:38Speaker 13: want to sell more oil and gas leases and cut
- 33:41Speaker 13: back taxes on methane, they're not really consolidated around one
- 33:45Speaker 13: common plan of movement. The House wants to do one
- 33:47Speaker 13: big beautiful bill. The Senate wants to have an early
- 33:50Speaker 13: energy measure, And of course, the earlier you move on
- 33:52Speaker 13: some of these big unifying factors like the border or
- 33:56Speaker 13: increasing supplies of fossil fuel energy, the harder it will
- 34:00Speaker 13: be to have consensus on doing some other, maybe more
- 34:05Speaker 13: controversial things like pulling back clean energy subsidies that have
- 34:09Speaker 13: mostly benefited Republican districts and states. So we're really waiting
- 34:12Speaker 13: to see where these negotiations land. And I think the
- 34:15Speaker 13: more that businesses can continue to engage with the Trump
- 34:17Speaker 13: administration to make the case with their priorities in Trump's
- 34:21Speaker 13: own terms, the more we'll see clarity around where this
- 34:23Speaker 13: administration will land.
- 34:25Speaker 10: Ultimately, so with a.
- 34:26Speaker 3: New administration in power, where do things stand with Biden's
- 34:29Speaker 3: Inflation Reduction Act, particularly tax credits.
- 34:33Speaker 13: Right, So, the key thing about tax credits is that
- 34:36Speaker 13: these are a bit more of a complicated instrument than
- 34:38Speaker 13: simple grants and loans. Right there's legal obligations that are
- 34:42Speaker 13: associated with those, but there's also a lot of sort
- 34:46Speaker 13: of intervention points to try and keep that money back
- 34:49Speaker 13: with taxes. That's a thing that you file to the IRS,
- 34:53Speaker 13: the IRS eventually gives back to you. And further complicating this,
- 34:57Speaker 13: the IRA created a sellable tax credit mark. So right
- 35:01Speaker 13: now there's a lot of businesses that effectively have anticipated
- 35:05Speaker 13: getting tax credits from the government later and use that
- 35:08Speaker 13: to sort of set up some transfers with other businesses
- 35:11Speaker 13: in advance. Everything is kind of moving along before tax
- 35:15Speaker 13: day comes and before IRS disbursement needs to come back.
- 35:19Speaker 13: But because of all of that, there's a lot less
- 35:21Speaker 13: certainty right now about whether tax credits are affected by
- 35:25Speaker 13: this alleged funding freeze, and of course that it's sort
- 35:28Speaker 13: of like you know, the roadrunner running off of a
- 35:32Speaker 13: cliff in a cartoon. As long as you don't look down,
- 35:35Speaker 13: maybe there's not as much fall as you would expect.
- 35:37Speaker 13: We're going to see later on what real implications this has. Now,
- 35:41Speaker 13: from what I've read of legal analysis, it's going to
- 35:44Speaker 13: be particularly hard to try and hold back tax credit funding,
- 35:46Speaker 13: even if you know there's a longer wait on that.
- 35:49Speaker 13: But that level of uncertainty has yet to affect the market.
- 35:53Speaker 10: To my knowledge.
- 35:54Speaker 13: Later on though, we'll.
- 35:55Speaker 3: See our thanks to Derek flake Hall be an eapp
- 35:59Speaker 3: lead US pol analysts.
- 36:01Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Intelligence podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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- 36:09Speaker 1: weekday ten am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
- 36:12Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app.
- 36:16Speaker 1: You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
- 36:19Speaker 1: and always on the Bloomberg terminal