Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / The War’s Impact On Global Markets And Oil
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
- 0:06Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
- 0:11Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
- 0:15Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
- 0:18Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. All right, in the
- 0:22Speaker 1: wall of worry, we've got Slovan growth, rising interest rates,
- 0:27Speaker 1: UM and valuation are some concerns, and now you have
- 0:30Speaker 1: geopolitical risk to add into the um. The whole panoply
- 0:34Speaker 1: of issues for this market to navigate. Let's check in
- 0:37Speaker 1: on the economic outlook underpinning all of this. We can
- 0:40Speaker 1: do that with Pete Earle. He's the economist at the
- 0:42Speaker 1: American Institute of Economic Research. Pete, has your economic outlook
- 0:47Speaker 1: changed at all given what we've seen coming out of
- 0:50Speaker 1: Ukraine over the last week or so. Good morning, Gentlemen's
- 0:54Speaker 1: good to talk to you. It's great to be back. Um, yeah,
- 0:57Speaker 1: it certainly has. Um. When we last folk in October November,
- 1:03Speaker 1: we had oil Brant and West excess between say fifty
- 1:06Speaker 1: five and seventy dollars a barrel maybe consumer demand was high,
- 1:11Speaker 1: but it was being blunted a bit we think by
- 1:13Speaker 1: supply chain pressures, and inflation was running about five And
- 1:18Speaker 1: I seem to recall that I mentioned that the ugliest
- 1:20Speaker 1: word in economics, which is siflation, was back, but I
- 1:24Speaker 1: didn't think it was where. I didn't think it was
- 1:26Speaker 1: really reasonable concern because there we had inflation, but there
- 1:28Speaker 1: was no real stagnation happening. And I think at this point, uh,
- 1:34Speaker 1: we we've pivoted, and the last two weeks and perhaps
- 1:37Speaker 1: the last few days, things have changed quite a bit.
- 1:40Speaker 1: We see commodities across the board rising pretty precipitously, even
- 1:44Speaker 1: with COVID slipping to the back burner. Now we have
- 1:47Speaker 1: consumer sentiment falling. Consumer it fell in January, consumer competence
- 1:52Speaker 1: fell a bit in February, and there's a host of
- 1:54Speaker 1: other signs that we may we may actually see rising inflation,
- 1:59Speaker 1: rising general price level with slowing growth. There's a few
- 2:02Speaker 1: other issues embedded in there. But the answer is yes,
- 2:04Speaker 1: I do think we are turning a corner here. Do
- 2:07Speaker 1: we need um the Fed though too? Well? Is the
- 2:11Speaker 1: market going to rethink whether the Fed hikes six seven
- 2:14Speaker 1: eight times this year? Even if we're looking at rising prices, UM,
- 2:19Speaker 1: they're not rising for any reason the FED can put
- 2:22Speaker 1: a stop to other than demand. So the only way
- 2:25Speaker 1: the FED can really slow UM inflation is by slowing
- 2:30Speaker 1: economic growth. Yeah, so I think that they are. I
- 2:35Speaker 1: think all the talk about a hundred seventy basis point
- 2:38Speaker 1: moves are completely off the table, certainly for March. UM.
- 2:41Speaker 1: I don't think the FED will move any greater than
- 2:43Speaker 1: SAPs this year, but I will go out on a
- 2:46Speaker 1: limb and say that when James Bullard of the St.
- 2:49Speaker 1: Louis FED said he would like to see rates on
- 2:51Speaker 1: hundred basis points higher by July, I don't think that
- 2:55Speaker 1: will happen. But I do think he was sort of
- 2:56Speaker 1: paving the way for unconventional not unconventional, but unusual monetary
- 3:00Speaker 1: policy measures. So what I see are maybe not seven
- 3:04Speaker 1: or eight UH hikes of basis points this year, but
- 3:08Speaker 1: I see the heightened possibility of intermeding hikes, for example
- 3:13Speaker 1: between the FO and C meeting, such as we haven't
- 3:15Speaker 1: seen since UH two thousand eight or so, and before
- 3:19Speaker 1: that since long term capital collapsed supply chain. That's another
- 3:23Speaker 1: economic issue that has been with us as a result
- 3:26Speaker 1: of this pandemic um. You know, initially we thought it
- 3:29Speaker 1: would be relatively short term, but here we are beginning
- 3:32Speaker 1: year three. Here, how do you think about the global
- 3:35Speaker 1: supply chain? And maybe the events in Ukraine may exacerbate
- 3:39Speaker 1: some of those issues, but how do you think about
- 3:40Speaker 1: that as you think about your economic outlook. It's it's
- 3:44Speaker 1: it's complicated, because I see some signs that the supply
- 3:47Speaker 1: chain morass is actually easy. UM world container rates have
- 3:51Speaker 1: leveled off. The Baltic Exchange dry index is half of
- 3:54Speaker 1: what it was in October, although it's up a little
- 3:56Speaker 1: bit on the Ukraine conflict, and the cast freight index
- 4:00Speaker 1: is at levels we haven't seen since the start of
- 4:01Speaker 1: the pandemic um. Even at the port of Los Angeles,
- 4:04Speaker 1: which has sort of been the focal point um the
- 4:06Speaker 1: number of containers ship and and by the way, the
- 4:08Speaker 1: counting convention was changed, we have to bear that in mind.
- 4:11Speaker 1: But even so, the number of container ships is down
- 4:13Speaker 1: to the seventies from well over one hundred six or
- 4:15Speaker 1: eight weeks ago. So the components in the rise of
- 4:18Speaker 1: prices that I think we impute to um UH supply
- 4:22Speaker 1: chain issues, I think is starting to to to to
- 4:25Speaker 1: um to sort of dissipate. However, kicking a number of
- 4:29Speaker 1: Russian institution institutions off of swift UM introduces entirely new issues. Uh.
- 4:36Speaker 1: We could very easily see new supply chain issues or
- 4:40Speaker 1: I should say new price pressure zoning to scarcity arise
- 4:43Speaker 1: as a result of kicking a bunch of those institutions
- 4:45Speaker 1: that deal in say oil, natural gas and grains off
- 4:48Speaker 1: of swift So uh, it could be exit frying pan,
- 4:51Speaker 1: enter fire. I wonder what I wonder what happens now
- 4:57Speaker 1: in Europe as a result of mean, do they need
- 5:00Speaker 1: to stop buying gas, oil, aluminum from Vladimir Putin? Are
- 5:06Speaker 1: they going to have to do that? And then what
- 5:08Speaker 1: happens to their economy for for some amount of time
- 5:11Speaker 1: they may have to, But I think we are at
- 5:13Speaker 1: a point right now where um, we will see um
- 5:18Speaker 1: a real gut check of ideology where many nations are
- 5:24Speaker 1: buying from from certain resources, especially UM carbon based uh
- 5:30Speaker 1: uh you know, energies and and petroleum and things like
- 5:33Speaker 1: that from nations because they don't want to do it
- 5:35Speaker 1: at home because of the green wave we've seen. But
- 5:38Speaker 1: I think, UM, this this incident, especially if it drives
- 5:42Speaker 1: prices sizeably higher, but we're still really looking at you know,
- 5:45Speaker 1: ninety five dollar oil. If we get prices one for barrel,
- 5:50Speaker 1: that sort of thing in the next few months, um,
- 5:51Speaker 1: we may see a real reconsideration of the ideologies which
- 5:55Speaker 1: led many nations to pursue more costly, in some cases,
- 5:59Speaker 1: less tested green energy at the cost of ignoring. Okay, Hey, Pete,
- 6:06Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us, taking the time. We
- 6:08Speaker 1: appreciate it. Pete Earle economists at the American Institute of
- 6:12Speaker 1: Economic Research, giving us his outlook. Take a look a
- 6:18Speaker 1: Bitcoin up ten percent trading today forty two hundred up
- 6:23Speaker 1: ten point one per cent, So a huge move there
- 6:26Speaker 1: for bitcoin. I'll call that out for for Tom Keene.
- 6:28Speaker 1: All right, let's talk commodities, guys. I have my g
- 6:31Speaker 1: l c O screen up Global Commodity screen on the
- 6:33Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal. All of energy higher, metals higher, most of
- 6:38Speaker 1: the big aggs higher, wheat, soybeans, cotton higher. So commodities
- 6:42Speaker 1: definitely moving higher. We want to get a sense of
- 6:44Speaker 1: kind of what's moving this market, so we turned to
- 6:46Speaker 1: Everett Millman, chief market analyst at Gainesville Coins. Everett, what's
- 6:50Speaker 1: your call across commodities here at a time when we
- 6:53Speaker 1: have rising geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe. Right well, appears
- 7:00Speaker 1: that gold has certainly held up its bona fides as
- 7:03Speaker 1: a faith haven asset UM. It has certainly rallied amid
- 7:06Speaker 1: all this conflict, but also the economic sanctions that the
- 7:10Speaker 1: West is imposing on Russia UM will almost certainly drive
- 7:14Speaker 1: up the prices for many of these other major commodities UM.
- 7:17Speaker 1: Even though the Russian economy makes up less than two
- 7:20Speaker 1: percent of global GDP, they are one of the largest
- 7:24Speaker 1: exporters of a lot of these really important commodities like nickel, aluminum,
- 7:29Speaker 1: cobalts UM. As you mentioned obviously the key energy commodities
- 7:32Speaker 1: like oil and natural gas. The fact that energy is
- 7:35Speaker 1: rising is just going to make it more expensive to
- 7:37Speaker 1: get all of those resources out of the ground, and
- 7:40Speaker 1: even agricultural commodities. Russia exports more than ten percent of
- 7:44Speaker 1: the world's fertilizer. They're a major exporter of grains like
- 7:47Speaker 1: wheat and barley. So everything in the commodity space is
- 7:51Speaker 1: really connected to this, and we should expect to see
- 7:53Speaker 1: higher prices going forward. So what's the margin or what
- 7:57Speaker 1: are we really waiting for for a reversal of this
- 7:59Speaker 1: is this p puarly on geopolitical tensions. Because these prices,
- 8:03Speaker 1: these commodities, they were rising before the Russian invasion, before
- 8:06Speaker 1: the onset of the geopoliticals What are we watching for
- 8:09Speaker 1: for reversal of some of the action. Do we have
- 8:11Speaker 1: to wait for demand destruction? I think so. I mean,
- 8:15Speaker 1: that's an excellent point that prices were already rising, we
- 8:18Speaker 1: were already dealing with elevated inflation. I think the real
- 8:21Speaker 1: reversal possibility would be a de escalation of this proposal
- 8:27Speaker 1: to band Russia from the Swift system. I think that
- 8:29Speaker 1: is a very potent um sanction. And really the direction
- 8:33Speaker 1: of how long this goes on, all the disruptions and
- 8:36Speaker 1: markets I think will be based mainly on that if
- 8:39Speaker 1: the West is continue to be that aggressive with sanctions.
- 8:42Speaker 1: All right, let's given this environment, given this backdrop here, ever,
- 8:46Speaker 1: what are the two or three most common calls you're
- 8:49Speaker 1: having with your clients? What are you telling them? Where
- 8:51Speaker 1: are you telling them to be exposed here? Well, obviously
- 8:55Speaker 1: gold it's always a safe place during on certain times
- 8:58Speaker 1: like this, especially given at the Russian ruble has been tumbling,
- 9:02Speaker 1: so that may force the Russian Central Bank to liquidate
- 9:06Speaker 1: some of its gold. It's large stockpile of gold in
- 9:09Speaker 1: order to support its foreign exchange value. UM. I'm also
- 9:12Speaker 1: looking at platinum and palladium UM. Russia is far and
- 9:16Speaker 1: away the world's number one exporter of palladium and an
- 9:19Speaker 1: annual basis that's somewhere between and of the global supply.
- 9:24Speaker 1: So if there is more difficulty in getting palladium out
- 9:27Speaker 1: of Russia and it being one of the only sources UM,
- 9:31Speaker 1: that is certainly an area that investors are going to
- 9:34Speaker 1: want to be exposed to, because really the only the
- 9:36Speaker 1: path of least resistances for palladium prices to continue to
- 9:39Speaker 1: climb U due to that supply shortfall. We could see
- 9:43Speaker 1: you mentioned gold in particular. This is interesting to me.
- 9:46Speaker 1: I've been saying this all morning, the fact that gold
- 9:49Speaker 1: and the dollar are up higher together that it's usually
- 9:51Speaker 1: a sign a very very acute stress. Talk to us
- 9:55Speaker 1: a little bit about what turns gold around. In particular,
- 9:57Speaker 1: if you continue to see it, I mean gold, after
- 9:59Speaker 1: the end of the day, it's priceton dollars. So does
- 10:01Speaker 1: the currency mean nothing right now for the metal or
- 10:03Speaker 1: is this purely a matter of haven demand? I think
- 10:08Speaker 1: it really is haven demand, and only in these extremely
- 10:11Speaker 1: high stress times do we see that both the dollar
- 10:14Speaker 1: and gold and the Japanese end would all be rallying
- 10:18Speaker 1: at the same time. UM. I think that the major
- 10:21Speaker 1: kind of pivot point here between gold and the dollar
- 10:25Speaker 1: is whether or not we're going to get any kind
- 10:27Speaker 1: of quick relief for de escalation or for diplomacy to
- 10:31Speaker 1: prevail here, because until then there really is no reason
- 10:34Speaker 1: for investors to to sell their safe havens to get
- 10:37Speaker 1: out of those assets that they really are the only
- 10:40Speaker 1: game in town in terms of weathering the uncertainty. UM.
- 10:44Speaker 1: Gold is always good across borders, so there is even
- 10:47Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, with Russia possibly selling its gold,
- 10:50Speaker 1: there is some evidence that gold bars minted in Russia
- 10:54Speaker 1: have been ending up in vaults in London. So there's
- 10:57Speaker 1: already some indication that perhaps we will be gold used
- 11:01Speaker 1: in international trade or um to bolster the Russian central
- 11:05Speaker 1: banks form reserves. Everett Milman, thank you so much for
- 11:09Speaker 1: joining us. We always appreciate getting your take on the
- 11:12Speaker 1: commodities market. Everett Milman, chief market analyst at Gainesville Coins.
- 11:20Speaker 1: Right now, let's switch over to the markets. The market outlook,
- 11:23Speaker 1: Lots of bricks in that wall of worry. Now we
- 11:26Speaker 1: have to include geopolitical risk. Uh, and the markets are
- 11:29Speaker 1: trying to digest that we have. Markets are mixed today
- 11:32Speaker 1: off the bottoms, but again investors are trying to get
- 11:34Speaker 1: a sense of how they price this Outlet's checking with
- 11:36Speaker 1: Brett Ewing, chief market strategists for First Franklin Financial Services. Brett,
- 11:41Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us here. Kind of what
- 11:42Speaker 1: are you telling your clients here over the last five days. Well, first,
- 11:49Speaker 1: thanks for having me on today. Um, Yes, there's been
- 11:52Speaker 1: a lot of turmoil, a lot of concern out there
- 11:54Speaker 1: in the recent weeks with the volatility in the markets,
- 11:57Speaker 1: and certainly our clients are talking to us and wanting
- 12:00Speaker 1: some insight, and what we're trying to convey to them
- 12:03Speaker 1: is we are still put the FED as one of
- 12:06Speaker 1: the biggest risk into the markets for two and we're
- 12:11Speaker 1: also guiding them to look a little out past these
- 12:14Speaker 1: geopolitical risks. And you can go back over the last
- 12:17Speaker 1: eighty years and really look at every geo political event
- 12:21Speaker 1: and it's really a short run phenomenal in the market,
- 12:24Speaker 1: meaning that the average raw down is around about four
- 12:27Speaker 1: point five with the recovery rate around forty two days,
- 12:32Speaker 1: So an event like that, we're trying to look past
- 12:34Speaker 1: that and look out over the next eighteen months really,
- 12:37Speaker 1: and so what we're doing here is positioning. We're taking
- 12:40Speaker 1: advantage of this volatility and specifically looking at the small
- 12:44Speaker 1: and MidCap sectors. So talk us a little bit about
- 12:48Speaker 1: I mean, you said that you want to look past
- 12:50Speaker 1: the geopolitical tensions, but isn't there a commodity read through
- 12:54Speaker 1: that then kind of hits essentially the American recovery story.
- 12:59Speaker 1: Is that perhaps worth making a bigger deal of over
- 13:04Speaker 1: the FED. Well, I think the commodity spikes that we're
- 13:09Speaker 1: seeing right here are most likely going to be short lived.
- 13:14Speaker 1: I think that when we look at the oil markets
- 13:17Speaker 1: right here, of course it's all it's reaching multi year
- 13:20Speaker 1: highs UM. Again, we think it's closer to the peak
- 13:25Speaker 1: than it than it um than most people realize UM.
- 13:29Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, last week we actually sold
- 13:32Speaker 1: a lot of our oil stocks into the strength and
- 13:37Speaker 1: we just feel there's on a relative basis, there's a
- 13:40Speaker 1: lot better asset classes that have just been decimated, whether
- 13:44Speaker 1: it's growth, tech or other all MidCap stocks out there,
- 13:49Speaker 1: so we feel there's better places to park that capital
- 13:52Speaker 1: going forward. All Right, let's talk about tech, because a
- 13:55Speaker 1: lot of folks have, you know, the last twelve months
- 13:58Speaker 1: as the as the rotation trade as works so well,
- 14:00Speaker 1: they've been kind of rotating out of some of those
- 14:02Speaker 1: big tech names. Now you get some folks saying, hey,
- 14:04Speaker 1: I like tech, just I need the tech that actually
- 14:07Speaker 1: makes money um as opposed to some of the more
- 14:10Speaker 1: high flying revenue growth stories. How do you think about
- 14:13Speaker 1: tech and allocating capital there? Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, look
- 14:20Speaker 1: is going to be a stock pickers year. There's a
- 14:22Speaker 1: lot of great technology companies that have you know, it's
- 14:25Speaker 1: the baby with the bathwater syndrome here just been thrown
- 14:29Speaker 1: out and decimated here in the short run. But we're
- 14:32Speaker 1: taking advantage of that. I think there's a lot of
- 14:34Speaker 1: great opportunities within tech. There's a lot of tech companies
- 14:37Speaker 1: out there that have wonderful moats around their business model,
- 14:41Speaker 1: and those are the areas that I would be um
- 14:43Speaker 1: advising people to take advantage of. We'll talk to us
- 14:48Speaker 1: a little bit about perhaps the value rotation. I think
- 14:51Speaker 1: a lot of people started off two thinking was going
- 14:54Speaker 1: to be kind of a continuation of what we started
- 14:56Speaker 1: off in one, and yet it doesn't seem like that
- 15:01Speaker 1: strong kind of conviction essentially for the value at the
- 15:04Speaker 1: start of the year has really persisted in the last
- 15:07Speaker 1: six weeks or so. Do you think it can really
- 15:09Speaker 1: revive itself. I think there's there's certainly a few areas
- 15:14Speaker 1: within value that I would we would continue to look at. UM.
- 15:19Speaker 1: I do think that the areas that I feel have
- 15:23Speaker 1: a lot of upside is more of an asset class
- 15:26Speaker 1: story within the small mid cap stocks. The valuation on
- 15:32Speaker 1: those asset classes is the spread between large cap and
- 15:36Speaker 1: small MidCap right here is those is the widest dating
- 15:40Speaker 1: back twenty years. You have to go back to two
- 15:43Speaker 1: thousand one. UM. Typically the small MidCap areas of the
- 15:48Speaker 1: market are are you know, their four ps well above
- 15:51Speaker 1: the large cap and right now it's quite the opposite.
- 15:55Speaker 1: All right, Brett, thanks so much for joining us. We
- 15:57Speaker 1: appreciate your time. You in chief. Market strategy is for
- 16:00Speaker 1: First Franklin Financial Services. Let's get the latest here on
- 16:08Speaker 1: some of these sanctions. I'll probably focus on what we're
- 16:11Speaker 1: seeing from the global banking system and the impact that
- 16:15Speaker 1: may have on Russia. Shinalie Bassik Wall Street Border for
- 16:18Speaker 1: Bloomberg News drains us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker
- 16:21Speaker 1: studio and she like, can you help me here, Just
- 16:24Speaker 1: tell me what's SWIFT is and why it's important. Yeah. Well,
- 16:28Speaker 1: it is a cooperative that serves as a global messaging
- 16:33Speaker 1: system to the global financial system. So that's more than
- 16:36Speaker 1: eleven thousand entities across more than two hundred countries, and
- 16:40Speaker 1: it's governed by the G ten banks and incorporated in Belgium.
- 16:43Speaker 1: So when the globe comes together and say they want
- 16:46Speaker 1: to ban Russia from SWIFT, what you really saw at
- 16:49Speaker 1: the end of the day is the US announced moves
- 16:52Speaker 1: and other countries announced moves to really cut off a
- 16:54Speaker 1: number of Russian banks and entities from that payment system.
- 16:59Speaker 1: Here's the thing, Paul, there's a lot of questions around
- 17:01Speaker 1: what the ultimate impact of this will be. The reason
- 17:04Speaker 1: that a lot of countries did we're opposing this. Germany
- 17:07Speaker 1: in particular, was uncertain of doing this for at the
- 17:09Speaker 1: beginning is because if you cut off payments, then all
- 17:13Speaker 1: of a sudden, do you start to make it very
- 17:14Speaker 1: difficult to make transfers among energy companies and counterparts? For example?
- 17:19Speaker 1: Will it have an impact that has a backlash on
- 17:23Speaker 1: the energy trade between Russia and Russia and Germany, and
- 17:28Speaker 1: really what is an ultimate economic impact on the countries
- 17:31Speaker 1: that are pushing the band themselves. So let me just
- 17:34Speaker 1: dumb this down for me, um, because I really needed.
- 17:38Speaker 1: My understanding of this system is kind of like, I
- 17:41Speaker 1: guess the only way I can describe it as back
- 17:43Speaker 1: in high school, when I worked for the high school newspaper,
- 17:45Speaker 1: we had a rule that when you send an email,
- 17:47Speaker 1: you have to send a goded email back the idea
- 17:49Speaker 1: that you have confirmation, right, And that's the way I
- 17:52Speaker 1: think of about the system, right. It's a payment confirmation
- 17:54Speaker 1: system that essentially, if you don't get that confirmation, that
- 17:57Speaker 1: payment isn't necessarily being delivered in a kind of trustworthy way.
- 18:01Speaker 1: Am I getting that right? Here's the thing. Ultimately, it
- 18:03Speaker 1: doesn't control the payments, You're right. It only oversees the messaging.
- 18:07Speaker 1: And by the way, it's not really led to go
- 18:08Speaker 1: into the messaging. But any bank and any entity that's
- 18:12Speaker 1: involved in the system being able to store those messages
- 18:16Speaker 1: and track those messages helps those banks comply with sanctions rules,
- 18:20Speaker 1: which is why swift is important even in an era
- 18:22Speaker 1: of sanctions. One of the things that people worry about
- 18:26Speaker 1: and remember since two thousand fourteen, Russia and China did
- 18:29Speaker 1: try to create alternatives. It didn't really take off to
- 18:32Speaker 1: such a massive degree. But can Russia and China create
- 18:35Speaker 1: bigger alternatives to swift That was one concern. But the
- 18:38Speaker 1: reality is this is the central This is a central
- 18:41Speaker 1: way to communicate across banks across the world. So even
- 18:44Speaker 1: if they left this and an alternate system is being made,
- 18:47Speaker 1: then how do you transact with the normal global financial
- 18:50Speaker 1: system as you know? It's it is a little bit
- 18:53Speaker 1: meta alright, So yeah, I guess the way I'm thinking about,
- 18:56Speaker 1: it's just gonna make it much more difficult for Russia
- 18:58Speaker 1: to do business and putting increasing to pressure on them.
- 19:02Speaker 1: Um another thing, another angle. I wanted to get your
- 19:05Speaker 1: sense from its like the JP Morgan's of the world,
- 19:07Speaker 1: the Bank of Americas, these big global the cities, these
- 19:09Speaker 1: big global institutions, what are they saying about their business
- 19:13Speaker 1: in Russia with Russia? All that kind of thing. So
- 19:15Speaker 1: remember again, since when there were more restrictions kind of imposed,
- 19:20Speaker 1: over time, a lot of banks have really stepped back.
- 19:23Speaker 1: So most US banks don't have a meaningful explosion Russia,
- 19:25Speaker 1: which is why those sanctions on those Russian banks themselves
- 19:28Speaker 1: is so important. Suburb Bank and the v TB are
- 19:31Speaker 1: fifty of the country's global assets. And then you know,
- 19:35Speaker 1: all of the five banks combined are like sevent So
- 19:38Speaker 1: if you take City Group, it's like a couple of
- 19:40Speaker 1: billion dollars of exposure of assets in Russia, not meaningful
- 19:44Speaker 1: to the bank itself. But with that said, remember how
- 19:47Speaker 1: entwined the global financial system is. City Group and JP
- 19:51Speaker 1: Morgan are big global transaction banks, which means they're effectively
- 19:55Speaker 1: the banker to other banks that help these payments from
- 19:58Speaker 1: one country to another happens. So what we're hearing right
- 20:01Speaker 1: now is a lot of bankers in talks with the
- 20:03Speaker 1: Treasury Department to figure out what the actual rules are
- 20:06Speaker 1: because that has not been made clear to the bankers
- 20:08Speaker 1: themselves yet. And so now all these banks basically have
- 20:11Speaker 1: to figure out how to entangle entangle themselves from any
- 20:15Speaker 1: transactions that may involve any of these sanctions entities, and
- 20:19Speaker 1: remember there are many. Now, well, let's talk about the
- 20:21Speaker 1: energy piece of this, right because I believe, and correct
- 20:24Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, but I believe there was discussion
- 20:26Speaker 1: among the White House about how you actually kind of
- 20:29Speaker 1: separate the energy payments from the entire metric, And one
- 20:33Speaker 1: of them was simply you can have them denoted or
- 20:36Speaker 1: have some sort of marker um, which is having me
- 20:38Speaker 1: give me horrible biology DNA flashbacks, um. But the other
- 20:42Speaker 1: piece was if they're all kind of going through one bank,
- 20:45Speaker 1: can you just target that one bank? Any update on
- 20:48Speaker 1: how they're going to target the energy piece of it, Well,
- 20:50Speaker 1: that's the big question here, right If they wanted to
- 20:52Speaker 1: target the energy sector, why don't they just target the
- 20:54Speaker 1: energy sector? Why is this all being done through financial mechanisms? Interestingly,
- 20:59Speaker 1: and just as important, and I'm sure you guys have
- 21:01Speaker 1: been talking about it as the band with the central bank,
- 21:03Speaker 1: the Russian Central Bank. So if you're going to target
- 21:05Speaker 1: Russians economy right now, the way they are doing it
- 21:08Speaker 1: is absolutely by targeting Russia's financial infrastructure, and they're doing
- 21:12Speaker 1: almost every means to do that and do it effectively.
- 21:16Speaker 1: But if you're going to target the energy system, then
- 21:19Speaker 1: why don't you just do that by means of the
- 21:22Speaker 1: companies and the people that own them. I think that's
- 21:24Speaker 1: the next leg of this story that has a lot
- 21:26Speaker 1: of big question marks that are rolling rolling into it. Yeah. Interesting,
- 21:31Speaker 1: it's far and wide. It's been a weekend. We're just
- 21:33Speaker 1: sanctions and you know, pull business out of Russians. Just
- 21:36Speaker 1: it's just incredible news flow and continues today. And I'll
- 21:39Speaker 1: point out there's a Bluebird editorial written by the Editorial
- 21:41Speaker 1: board on the terminal entitled Wielding Swift against Russian banks
- 21:45Speaker 1: is a big risk um and it's a great explainer
- 21:49Speaker 1: for how swift works in the real world and how
- 21:52Speaker 1: there could be some negative repercussions um by the nying
- 21:55Speaker 1: Swift to the entire Russian economy. So I recommend that
- 21:59Speaker 1: Snelle Basset, Wall Street reporter Bloomberg News joining us here
- 22:02Speaker 1: on our Bloomberg inter active Brooker studio. She does every
- 22:04Speaker 1: Monday giving us the latest from Wall Street, which is
- 22:07Speaker 1: her beat. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast.
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- 22:18Speaker 1: on Twitter at Matt Miller and on Fall Sweeney I'm
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- 22:25Speaker 1: always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio