Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Amazon Cancels Some Inventory Orders from China
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. You're listening to the
- 0:10Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am
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- 0:23Speaker 2: Alex Steal here alongside Paul swe Need this Bloomberg Intelligence Radio.
- 0:27Speaker 2: You can check us out on YouTube as well, just
- 0:29Speaker 2: go to YouTube dot com. One story that broke a
- 0:31Speaker 2: couple hours ago is Amazon canceling orders for multiple products
- 0:35Speaker 2: made in China and other Asian countries, thinking things like
- 0:38Speaker 2: beach chairs, scooters, air conditioners and things like that. Joining
- 0:42Speaker 2: us now is the reporter who broke that story. Spencer
- 0:44Speaker 2: Soper is Bloomberg News Technology and e commerce reporter. How
- 0:49Speaker 2: does how does all of this work? For Amazon? So
- 0:51Speaker 2: they place orders how many months in advance? And then
- 0:53Speaker 2: what's the ripple effect here?
- 0:56Speaker 3: That's a that's a great question. And a lot of
- 0:59Speaker 3: this stuff, you know, the kind of have like a
- 1:00Speaker 3: target of how much they'll need and then they'll place
- 1:03Speaker 3: orders maybe monthly or that sort of thing. And so
- 1:07Speaker 3: these cancelations affect what are called direct import orders. This
- 1:11Speaker 3: is where Amazon tells vendors, hey, look, you're making this
- 1:13Speaker 3: stuff in China or some other country in Asia. We
- 1:17Speaker 3: can actually transport it to the US cheaper than you
- 1:20Speaker 3: can because we do so much volume. Why don't you
- 1:22Speaker 3: let us just buy it from you in the source country,
- 1:26Speaker 3: will import it, We'll pay the tariffs and pass those
- 1:29Speaker 3: savings onto customers. That makes a lot of sense previously,
- 1:32Speaker 3: but now with tariffs in the mix, it gives Amazon
- 1:35Speaker 3: a lot of exposure to tariffs, and that's why they've
- 1:38Speaker 3: they've abruptly canceled a bunch of these types of orders.
- 1:41Speaker 4: All right, so Amazon captured, canceleles the order. Presumably the
- 1:44Speaker 4: vendors left with in your story, five hundred thousand beach chairs,
- 1:49Speaker 4: What does that vendor do?
- 1:53Speaker 3: You know?
- 1:53Speaker 4: You scramble.
- 1:54Speaker 3: So a lot of this can basically just reset negotiation.
- 2:00Speaker 3: I mean, first, let's say a lot of these purchase
- 2:03Speaker 3: orders should be binding. But but these these folks don't
- 2:06Speaker 3: want to get tied up in court with Amazon. So
- 2:08Speaker 3: Amazon is kind of flexing its muscle a little bit here,
- 2:12Speaker 3: and then you know, they can renegotiate with Amazon on
- 2:14Speaker 3: different terms to still sell them through Amazon, but obviously
- 2:17Speaker 3: share some of the pain of these tariffs, and then
- 2:20Speaker 3: other options are going to other marketplaces, and this is
- 2:22Speaker 3: an opportunity for folks like TikTok Shop, Walmart, UH team
- 2:27Speaker 3: move to stand out as alternatives. So they do have
- 2:31Speaker 3: some options, but Amazon's still like the main, the main
- 2:34Speaker 3: show in town when it comes to US online sales.
- 2:37Speaker 2: Was this move unusual or expected?
- 2:41Speaker 3: Very unusual and definitely unexpected? Most of these folks said
- 2:45Speaker 3: they were, you know, completely caught off guard by it.
- 2:48Speaker 3: You know, like like I said, what the beach chair
- 2:52Speaker 3: vendor has been selling for more than a decade on
- 2:53Speaker 3: Amazon and actually had the stuff made. So it's not
- 2:56Speaker 3: like they said, hey, this this order way out. Let's
- 2:59Speaker 3: cancer that this is stuff that he's already you know,
- 3:02Speaker 3: had had a factory make and and is on the
- 3:04Speaker 3: hook to pay for so with with with no communication
- 3:08Speaker 3: or real explanation. So this is definitely showing how these
- 3:11Speaker 3: uh these tariffs are are, you know, basically disrupting a
- 3:16Speaker 3: lot of a lot of relationships and and forcing h
- 3:19Speaker 3: partners to negotiate with one another.
- 3:22Speaker 4: Have we heard anything from Walmart about kind of how
- 3:25Speaker 4: they plan to navigate these tariffs?
- 3:30Speaker 3: I I haven't spoken specifically to Walmart. But a lot
- 3:33Speaker 3: of these companies are just in the same game. You figure,
- 3:36Speaker 3: you figure Walmart has an advantage of selling predominantly grocery
- 3:41Speaker 3: and so if there is a pullback, you know, people
- 3:42Speaker 3: still need groceries, so so they'll still do well there.
- 3:46Speaker 3: But then, you know, in terms of like these large
- 3:49Speaker 3: diversified retailers like Amazon and Walmart, you're you're just likely
- 3:54Speaker 3: to see shift in a mix of products like more consumables,
- 3:58Speaker 3: more everyday needs that peopleeople need in their daily lives,
- 4:02Speaker 3: and less of this kind of discretionary stuff like the
- 4:05Speaker 3: beach chairs we mentioned, or scooters or that kind of thing.
- 4:09Speaker 2: How many more levers like this does can Amazon pull?
- 4:14Speaker 3: Amazon's has many levers and knobs, but so do its partners, right,
- 4:18Speaker 3: so this is kind of a gamble. So if Amazon's
- 4:22Speaker 3: pulling back on its orders, you know, then that said that,
- 4:25Speaker 3: the knock on effect of that is some of these
- 4:27Speaker 3: folks that sell on Amazon and rely on Amazon for
- 4:29Speaker 3: sales might have to pull back on ad spend. You know.
- 4:32Speaker 3: So it's you know, the Amazon can turn one now,
- 4:34Speaker 3: but then someone else turns another. It's like popcorn popping
- 4:38Speaker 3: in a kettle.
- 4:40Speaker 4: What if we heard Spencer from some of the Chinese
- 4:43Speaker 4: players like Ali Baba, like Timu, how are they planning
- 4:47Speaker 4: on navigating the new environment.
- 4:50Speaker 3: I haven't heard much from Ali Baba. And then on
- 4:53Speaker 3: Timu has basically been kind of anticipating a lot of this.
- 4:57Speaker 3: A bigger issue for them was this deminimous loophole and
- 5:00Speaker 3: they've been kind of forward deploying more inventory into the US.
- 5:04Speaker 3: So that was another thing, is folks just trying to
- 5:06Speaker 3: get ahead of this and get get inventory into the
- 5:09Speaker 3: US before these tariffs take effect. And then another option
- 5:12Speaker 3: for for folks like Timo or Amazon or any vendor
- 5:15Speaker 3: selling anything is just looking for countries not affected by
- 5:20Speaker 3: these tariffs, and so that this is making places like Canada, Australia,
- 5:25Speaker 3: other other markets much more desirable, especially if you've got
- 5:28Speaker 3: to unload inventory and want to want to avoid these tariffs.
- 5:33Speaker 2: Does any of this yet? Did you have a sense
- 5:35Speaker 2: just in your reporting how demand is holding up at all?
- 5:38Speaker 2: Like we talked a lot about the supplier side, et cetera,
- 5:40Speaker 2: But are we seeing sort of stockpiling ahead of the
- 5:44Speaker 2: tariffs in terms of consumer behavior?
- 5:46Speaker 3: That's that's the million dollar question right now. And there's
- 5:49Speaker 3: there's definitely a lot of cross currents. And that's the fear,
- 5:51Speaker 3: right is like, you know, a lot of a lot
- 5:53Speaker 3: of companies analysts everything they can get real time data
- 5:57Speaker 3: from sources that track like credit card transit actions and stuff.
- 6:01Speaker 3: And so that's a big concern right now. Is there
- 6:03Speaker 3: like almost like a false flag that the consumer's safe
- 6:08Speaker 3: if in reality they are just like stockpiling on things
- 6:11Speaker 3: getting ahead of the tariffs and then and then demand's
- 6:13Speaker 3: going to drop off a cliff in several weeks, you know.
- 6:17Speaker 3: So that's something that people are actively monitoring and scratching
- 6:20Speaker 3: their heads about right now.
- 6:23Speaker 4: All right, Spencer, thank you so much. We appreciate that. Spencer, Sooper,
- 6:25Speaker 4: Bloomberg News Technology and e Commerce reporter.
- 6:29Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 6:33Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarclay, and Android Auto
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- 6:43Speaker 2: Let's take a broader look now at the relationship of
- 6:46Speaker 2: US and China. It's not good. What's the off ramp
- 6:49Speaker 2: at this point? Joining us now is Leland Miller. He
- 6:53Speaker 2: is a CEO of the China, beij book Leland. You
- 6:57Speaker 2: are deep into the China, I mean China US trade relations, etc.
- 7:02Speaker 2: What levers does China have to pull to help support
- 7:05Speaker 2: its economy in the middle of a trade war.
- 7:10Speaker 5: Well, you know, markets have been expecting there to be
- 7:12Speaker 5: some sort of giant stimulus response for years, and they
- 7:15Speaker 5: were always disappointed because it wasn't in Chijiping's interest to
- 7:19Speaker 5: sort of reduce the economy after they've gone through maybe
- 7:22Speaker 5: not deleveraging, but certainly a tightening of credit to areas
- 7:25Speaker 5: of the economy outside of the priorities like advanced manufacturing,
- 7:29Speaker 5: et cetera. We're entering a very new era here, and
- 7:34Speaker 5: so depending on how severe geopolitics and the trade wars
- 7:38Speaker 5: get going forward, they're going to start looking at these
- 7:41Speaker 5: levers more seriously. Obviously, one of the big one is
- 7:44Speaker 5: fiscal spending. They don't want to do a Bazuka like
- 7:45Speaker 5: two thousand and eight, and they've already done a lot
- 7:48Speaker 5: of monetary easing over the course of the past couple
- 7:50Speaker 5: of years, so there's not that much oomp there. But
- 7:52Speaker 5: there is spending they can certainly do. And in our
- 7:54Speaker 5: latest data, we have actually seen our proxy for infrastructure
- 8:00Speaker 5: structure spending, uh start expanding, it go up by transportation.
- 8:04Speaker 5: Construction firms are borrowing more, they're investing more, They're hiring more.
- 8:07Speaker 5: So they are they are readying the AMMO gun in
- 8:10Speaker 5: case they need to use it. But I think they're
- 8:11Speaker 5: trying to figure out whether this is going to be
- 8:13Speaker 5: a short term problem or whether this is the new norm.
- 8:16Speaker 6: So Leland, nobody knows this better than you. But where
- 8:20Speaker 6: is a capacity for China and the willingness for China
- 8:23Speaker 6: to really go toe to toe with President Trump in
- 8:26Speaker 6: the US on these tariffs.
- 8:28Speaker 4: What is their capacity there?
- 8:29Speaker 5: Do you think? Well, their capacity and their willingness are
- 8:32Speaker 5: two different things. I think their willingness is very high.
- 8:35Speaker 5: I think we're already seeing a you know, there was
- 8:37Speaker 5: a signaling before it happened, and then now that it's happened,
- 8:40Speaker 5: you see there was a you know, the message was always,
- 8:43Speaker 5: if you do something to us, we're gonna respond. You
- 8:46Speaker 5: do something else to us, again, we're gonna respond. Now,
- 8:48Speaker 5: the problem here is that China doesn't have the capacity
- 8:51Speaker 5: to go one on one in the trade field with
- 8:53Speaker 5: the United States, simply because the United States is a
- 8:55Speaker 5: massive importer and China is a very weak importer by comparison,
- 8:59Speaker 5: So if you just talking about trade, the US has
- 9:02Speaker 5: much more leverage and can put much more pain on China.
- 9:05Speaker 5: This is why, once you get to a certain point,
- 9:07Speaker 5: and to the extent that Beijing is willing to risk
- 9:09Speaker 5: an escalation, you're going to see things expand outside the
- 9:12Speaker 5: purely trade realm. It's not going to be just a
- 9:14Speaker 5: conversation about tariffs. Already we're moving outside of it, but
- 9:17Speaker 5: you can expand it more dramatically to other areas and
- 9:20Speaker 5: even punishing US firms on the ground in China.
- 9:24Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, we already heard the headline that China's
- 9:26Speaker 2: you know, telling students that want to study in the US,
- 9:28Speaker 2: like think twice, for example, before you do that. In
- 9:31Speaker 2: terms of levers that can pull, I know you mentioned
- 9:33Speaker 2: helping domestic capacity and sort of pumping money into the
- 9:36Speaker 2: system for consumers might not be the best. But in
- 9:39Speaker 2: terms of the un evaluation, for example, how orderly can
- 9:43Speaker 2: China keep that?
- 9:46Speaker 5: I think they can keep it pretty orderly because they
- 9:48Speaker 5: want to keep it orderly. You know, it seems like
- 9:50Speaker 5: every time there's any kind of geopolitical tension to the
- 9:53Speaker 5: US and China, any trade tension, there's anything going on
- 9:56Speaker 5: in terms of just a weak Chinese economy. There's people
- 9:59Speaker 5: screaming to this guy the yuan devalue it to value it.
- 10:03Speaker 5: They really don't want to do this. It's not that
- 10:05Speaker 5: it's not a tool in the in the box to use,
- 10:08Speaker 5: but it's for break the glass emergencies. It doesn't mean
- 10:11Speaker 5: they're not going to blow off steam against the USD.
- 10:13Speaker 5: It doesn't mean they're not gonna, you know, have a
- 10:15Speaker 5: signaling purpose from just from moving it incrementally. But they
- 10:18Speaker 5: really don't want to do one of these one off devaluations.
- 10:21Speaker 5: It would be a massive escalation. It would be seen
- 10:23Speaker 5: very poorly, not just the United States and around the world.
- 10:26Speaker 5: But you're also you're also sitting in a situation where
- 10:29Speaker 5: you are going to you're going to create a lot
- 10:31Speaker 5: of stress inside the Chinese economy. You're going to put
- 10:33Speaker 5: pressure on having more capital outflows, You're trying to increase consumption.
- 10:37Speaker 5: By weakening the yu want you're gonna hurt consumption even further.
- 10:40Speaker 5: So this is not just some piece of a trade
- 10:43Speaker 5: artillery that they can use willy nilly to go there
- 10:47Speaker 5: in a big way. They need to really have a
- 10:48Speaker 5: substantial escalation.
- 10:50Speaker 4: Hey Leland, does chind of view this US nationalism from
- 10:55Speaker 4: President trumpet administration, from a global trade, from a global
- 10:59Speaker 4: mill military political as a real opportunity to expand its influence?
- 11:05Speaker 4: Did they view this as a once in a lifetime
- 11:07Speaker 4: opportunity to do that.
- 11:09Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of voices in China. I
- 11:11Speaker 5: think that they don't like some of what's happening. I
- 11:13Speaker 5: think other things they see as an opportunity. Certainly, if
- 11:15Speaker 5: US allies and partner relationships are breaking down, either in
- 11:19Speaker 5: the region or around the world, they'd love to take
- 11:21Speaker 5: advantage of that, and not necessarily by replacing the US,
- 11:25Speaker 5: by just simply just saying stop helping the US, stop
- 11:27Speaker 5: stop buying into what they're doing. So so there are
- 11:31Speaker 5: opportunities in here if it's played wrong by the US government.
- 11:35Speaker 5: But you know, I think that we're in a We're
- 11:37Speaker 5: in such a dramatic place differently from you know where
- 11:41Speaker 5: we were a few months ago. They're trying to digest this,
- 11:44Speaker 5: just like the rest of us.
- 11:46Speaker 2: Will this move China to make connections and trade deals
- 11:50Speaker 2: and more economic ties with the rest of the world,
- 11:51Speaker 2: And is the rest of the world open to that?
- 11:55Speaker 5: China would love lots of trade deals, but China wants
- 11:57Speaker 5: them on their terms, and what they want to be
- 11:59Speaker 5: able to do is not import on other countries' exports,
- 12:03Speaker 5: and they want to just shove their exports down everybody
- 12:05Speaker 5: else's throat. So to the extent that they can strong
- 12:07Speaker 5: arm countries or there's unique advantages to having some sort
- 12:11Speaker 5: of bilatter relationship, then you know, maybe these proceed. But
- 12:15Speaker 5: keep in mind, to the extent the US shuts itself
- 12:17Speaker 5: off from Chinese goods, we import a lot of Chinese
- 12:22Speaker 5: goods and have for a long long time, then they're
- 12:24Speaker 5: going to have to send these goods somewhere else. So
- 12:26Speaker 5: in addition to all the overcapacity problems you already have,
- 12:29Speaker 5: you have simply a need to replace the demand for
- 12:32Speaker 5: Chinese exports elsewhere. They're going to be flooding Southeast Asia,
- 12:36Speaker 5: they're going to be flooding Europe, They're going to be
- 12:38Speaker 5: flooding South America. So this is going to have to
- 12:40Speaker 5: demand a policy response from all these other countries. And
- 12:43Speaker 5: the question is, you know, do you really want to
- 12:44Speaker 5: do a trade deal with the Chinese if you're not
- 12:47Speaker 5: getting anything back in return.
- 12:49Speaker 4: Leland Millo, thank you so much. We appreciate your time.
- 12:51Speaker 4: As always. One of our go to voices and all
- 12:54Speaker 4: things China, all things Chinese Economy, Leland Miller, CEO at
- 12:57Speaker 4: the China Facebook. One of the things we'd like about
- 13:00Speaker 4: chatting with Leland because at the Beige Book they have
- 13:02Speaker 4: really unique data. They have boots on the ground they
- 13:05Speaker 4: get They don't rely upon the government data because that
- 13:07Speaker 4: historically has been not quite reliable. So again they have
- 13:11Speaker 4: their own data sets there that they rely upon to
- 13:13Speaker 4: give them a sense of ware the Chinese economy.
- 13:15Speaker 3: ASTs.
- 13:15Speaker 4: We find out from Leland that he's usually ahead of
- 13:18Speaker 4: this stuff, so I appreciate getting his time.
- 13:22Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 13:26Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Coarclay, and Android
- 13:29Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 13:32Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 13:37Speaker 4: Joining us in studio, How about that, Christina Hooper, Chief
- 13:41Speaker 4: Global market strategist at Invesco. We usually do the Zoom thing,
- 13:45Speaker 4: but we've got her in our studio here in NewYork.
- 13:46Speaker 4: That's great, Christina, You've got perspective, You've been around. This
- 13:51Speaker 4: isn't your first Rodeo, What do you make of the
- 13:53Speaker 4: last three, four, five, six trading days.
- 13:57Speaker 7: Well, this is an environment in which there is just
- 14:01Speaker 7: a super high level of uncertainty and that is causing
- 14:06Speaker 7: all kinds of wild swings in all different corners of
- 14:10Speaker 7: the market. And I think this is not that dissimilar
- 14:13Speaker 7: to what we saw in the early days of COVID.
- 14:16Speaker 7: Now that was a time when there was just an
- 14:19Speaker 7: incredible amount of uncertainty and markets reacted with an enormous
- 14:26Speaker 7: amount of fear, wild swings. And the other similarity is
- 14:33Speaker 7: that it's all about policy. That it's going to the
- 14:37Speaker 7: outcome of this crisis will be dictated by policy, and
- 14:41Speaker 7: so in some ways that's helpful because you can you
- 14:44Speaker 7: can do a scenario map and ask yourself, you know,
- 14:49Speaker 7: if this effex happens, we think, why will happen? But
- 14:52Speaker 7: it is. It is a very very unusual environment, just
- 14:56Speaker 7: punctuated by just an incredibly high level of uncertainty.
- 14:59Speaker 2: Speaking of that, Amazon canceling orders that affect multiple products
- 15:04Speaker 2: and vendors after China tear effs. They're citing trade disputes
- 15:08Speaker 2: as risk factor and this coming out in the annual report.
- 15:13Speaker 2: The difference and obviously is that this is a self
- 15:17Speaker 2: inflicted policy. This is not what happened in COVID and
- 15:20Speaker 2: we shut down and then we had to help to
- 15:22Speaker 2: go specifically to the treasury market. Are you seeing are
- 15:26Speaker 2: you hearing? Are you worried about the treasury market not
- 15:29Speaker 2: functioning properly like we saw back in twenty twenty.
- 15:33Speaker 7: So I certainly think that's a concern. Right now, I
- 15:37Speaker 7: don't think we're seeing that, but we do know that,
- 15:42Speaker 7: you know, our trading partners know some of our big vulnerabilities,
- 15:47Speaker 7: right and one of them is that we spend an
- 15:49Speaker 7: awful lot servicing our debt, and so one way to
- 15:52Speaker 7: punish us would be to sell US treasuries. So I
- 15:55Speaker 7: certainly think we you know, we should, We are aware
- 15:58Speaker 7: of the vulnerabilities, and we would be following it closely
- 16:01Speaker 7: at Investigo.
- 16:02Speaker 4: What is your I guess economic forecast? Do you have
- 16:05Speaker 4: a recession in your forecast?
- 16:08Speaker 7: My base case is that if we see terroriffs remain
- 16:12Speaker 7: at these relatively high levels, we're more than fifty percent
- 16:16Speaker 7: probability of going into a recession this year. It doesn't
- 16:19Speaker 7: mean that it's going to be a deep recession, but
- 16:21Speaker 7: I think that certainly the odds are in favor of
- 16:23Speaker 7: recession if we see tariffs remain at relatively high levels.
- 16:28Speaker 7: But if we were to see a de escalation, we
- 16:30Speaker 7: could easily see a risk on environment with US assets benefiting.
- 16:35Speaker 7: So it is very much in the hands of policymakers.
- 16:38Speaker 2: And then to that point, you just look at delta right,
- 16:40Speaker 2: pulling guidance. If a company pulls guidance, you would assume
- 16:43Speaker 2: the stock would sell off and that would be really
- 16:45Speaker 2: bad news. And the stock is up. It's like it's
- 16:47Speaker 2: not going to take much to maybe move the needle.
- 16:50Speaker 2: Where is safety though?
- 16:52Speaker 4: Now? As you wait?
- 16:55Speaker 7: So safety clearly is in gold, and that's what many
- 16:59Speaker 7: investors are articulating through their purchases. But there is also safety,
- 17:05Speaker 7: of course in Japanese yen, in the Swiss frank some
- 17:09Speaker 7: of the traditional safe haven asset classes x US. I
- 17:12Speaker 7: don't know if there's as much safety in treasuries or
- 17:14Speaker 7: the usd Wow.
- 17:16Speaker 4: That's a statement. International rest of world stock markets been
- 17:21Speaker 4: out performing the US pretty well, and that doesn't happen
- 17:24Speaker 4: very often. Is that a trade? Is that a longer
- 17:27Speaker 4: term trend? Do you think is our international markets may
- 17:31Speaker 4: be more attractive from an equity perspective.
- 17:34Speaker 7: Well, certainly from evaluation perspective, and for some markets from
- 17:39Speaker 7: a dividend yield perspective, they are more attractive. And you
- 17:43Speaker 7: have to recognize a very significant catalyst, which is the
- 17:47Speaker 7: potential for fiscal stimulus material fiscal stimulilus coming from Europe
- 17:53Speaker 7: and from China, and I think that can be a
- 17:55Speaker 7: countervailing force to the headwinds that come from these.
- 17:59Speaker 2: Terror counterbailing force. Could that also come in the US
- 18:03Speaker 2: in the form of tax cuts. Would that be enough?
- 18:08Speaker 7: That's a good question. I'd have to see exactly what
- 18:10Speaker 7: those tax cuts look like, because keep in mind that
- 18:12Speaker 7: it's lower income households that are going to be hit
- 18:15Speaker 7: the hardest by these tear wars. Of course, all consumers
- 18:19Speaker 7: will be hit to the extent that the wealth effect
- 18:22Speaker 7: is impacted, but I think lower income households the burden
- 18:26Speaker 7: is higher for tariffs. So what will the tax cuts
- 18:29Speaker 7: look like and will it benefit lower income households? So
- 18:32Speaker 7: when I know that, then I can answer that question.
- 18:34Speaker 4: Another headline China issues warning for students studying in the US.
- 18:39Speaker 4: So there you go, ripple effect. I guess you'd call it, yeah,
- 18:42Speaker 4: fixed income. What's the play here? Christina in fixed income
- 18:45Speaker 4: for you guys.
- 18:47Speaker 7: So I think there's certainly potential in a number of areas. Again,
- 18:53Speaker 7: a lot of it has to do with one's time horizon,
- 18:56Speaker 7: but certainly floating rate. I don't see the Fed cutting
- 18:59Speaker 7: rates anytime soon. I know four cuts are priced in.
- 19:02Speaker 7: It's hard to believe that's going to happen in this
- 19:05Speaker 7: environment where we're seeing market based inflation expectations go up
- 19:08Speaker 7: and where we're seeing consumer based inflation expectations go up.
- 19:13Speaker 2: Aside from I guess from where you sit, what would
- 19:18Speaker 2: certainty look like? Because to some extent we know what
- 19:22Speaker 2: stuff is like, we know what tariffs are, we know
- 19:26Speaker 2: that we don't know necessarily what all the response will be.
- 19:29Speaker 2: So what would it take for you, as someone who'd
- 19:33Speaker 2: been in the market for a long time to feel confident?
- 19:36Speaker 7: So I hearkened back to the first Trump administration, definitely
- 19:39Speaker 7: harken and how that played out. Twenty eighteen was a
- 19:45Speaker 7: really difficult year. The S and P five hundred was down,
- 19:48Speaker 7: we saw some foreign markets down much more, but just
- 19:53Speaker 7: a smodest alleviation in tariffs helped and gave markets confidence.
- 20:01Speaker 7: So something like that I think is enough in this environment.
- 20:05Speaker 7: There's really a bias towards optimism, especially in the equity market.
- 20:09Speaker 7: So there's hope. Even if we were to get some
- 20:14Speaker 7: kind of reduction, some negotiation, some deals negotiated with some countries,
- 20:18Speaker 7: I think that could be helpful. That doesn't give us
- 20:21Speaker 7: the extreme certainty that I think we crave, but it's enough.
- 20:25Speaker 4: Christina, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Christina Hooper,
- 20:28Speaker 4: Global Chief Global Market Strategist for Invesco joining us live
- 20:31Speaker 4: here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio, which is a
- 20:35Speaker 4: good thing.
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