Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Perry's Coal Subsidy Is a Solution in Search of a Problem, Denning Says

Transcript

Perry's Coal Subsidy Is a Solution in Search of a Problem, Denning Says · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm Pim Fox.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa A. Brahmowitz. Each day
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: for you and your money, whether you're at the grocery
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: store or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p m
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: L Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and Bloomberg dot com.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Looking at proposals from the Energy Secretary Rick Perry, has
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: it tries to reform the power markets? Is it nuts? Well? So,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: says our next guest, Liam Denning. He is our Energy,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Mining and Commodities column. This for Bloomberg Gadfly, Liam, a pleasure,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here at the Monaco Government Tourism's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: sustainability focus the luncheon here at Bloomberg World headquarters. Is
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: this really a plan of reform or is it a
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: plan of relief? I mean, I think you have to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: put quote marks around the words reform and maybe even
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: plan here that was that was something else? Love it? Okay,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: go ahead, then back up, and you've got to tell
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: us what is it? What? What? What are the proposals?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So ostensibly this is all about keeping the power market
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: quote unquote resilient, and the general thrust of it is
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: we had the polar bortex a few years ago. Um
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: some gas power plants during that shut down because they
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: couldn't get enough gas because it was being diverted to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: heat people's homes, and um Rick Perrus sees the pond
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: this to try and institute a subsidy for coal fire
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: power plants which have been struggling, as you may or
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: may not know, And it's being done under this pretense
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that they basically need to keep a bunch of coal
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: lying around so that if we get an other, uh,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: polar ortex, they've got coal on hand to generate power. Now,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: this is something of a solution in search of a problem,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: because all sorts of studies and all sorts of companies,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: including the operator of the regional grid that we're talking about,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: which covers about seventy million people, have said that this
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: really isn't a problem. Um And in fact, if you
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: look at what happened in the polar vortex, a lot
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of coal fired power plants shut down as well because
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: it was too cold for them to to run their systems.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So it's really just a cold subsidy. So liam um
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I love just trying to imagine where you have air
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: quotes as you speak now, and I'm going to be
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: doing that for the rest of the segment. Actually every word, Yeah,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: pretty much, you're putting every word into air quotes. Um,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the plan calls for for a subsidy for unregulated power
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: plans holding ninety days worth of fuel on site. This
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: talks specifically to the fossil fuel companies, right, who else
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: keeps that kind of sort of physical resources is on hand.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I'm just wondering that you know, you you raised an issue.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: This isn't a conservative principle. In fact, this is somewhat radical.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: So if this, if this particular administration adheres to her
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: or says that they adhere to conservative ideas, this kind
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of flies in the face of that, right, I mean,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: it's it's not conservative in any form. In fact, I
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: mean it's not conservative on on a couple of fronts.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So one is, Um, you're rolling back twenty or thirty
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: years of power market deregulation, which the last I heard
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: conservatives generally favor that sort of thing, you know, markets
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: prices supply and dimand that sort of thing, So you'd
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: be rolling that back. It's also it's it's just sort
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: of fundamentally intellectually dishonest on a couple of levels. I mean,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: we're talking about pricing what economists will call an externality.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So so this resilience thing apparently isn't captured in power prices.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Therefore we need a subsidy. And the energy market is
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: full of all sorts of subsidies, but generally expect conservatives
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: trying to take subsidies out and regulations. So can you
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: just give us what the defenses of this? I mean before,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: but just like, what is the argument for why Rick
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Perry is calling for this, you know, aside from we
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: want to finance core companies. Is it purely the sort
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of pullar of voritex or is there something else about
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: that that they're saying here? No, I mean it really
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: does rely on this argument that power prices as they
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: are currently set do not reward um certain types of
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: power plant for just being there in case we need them.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: And you know, the market operator has said there is
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: there is a problem with the way power is being priced,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and we are perhaps setting ourselves up for a problem. However,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the market operator has also instituted other market based ways
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: of doing this and has talked about some other things.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: What they certainly haven't done is said, let's just abandon
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: power pricing altogether and shove a bunch of money towards
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: these qualified power so they can buy more coal, so
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it can sit around in a big pile. I've been
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: taking a look at the value of coal stocks. Console
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: energy is just one stock has not sort of grabbed
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: any fabulous attention. I mean, stocks down more than twelve
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: so far this year. So it doesn't look like the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: coal stocks have gotten a pop from uh, from any
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of these efforts, right, I mean, okay, right, okay, So
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the political vortex, right from the polar
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: vortex to the political uh vortex. I was on the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: impression that the grid needs upgrading and that natural gas
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: is the wave of the future because it's inexpensive and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of it. Why doesn't the money
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: go to those things? The money is going to those things.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: So that's precisely why Perry wants a subsidy for cold
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: because everyone should. So the way, well, no gas gas
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: is getting money because it's competing because it's very cheap.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's why we're seeing gas fired power
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: plants get built and coal fire power plants being retired.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: The fact is, who at this point is going to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: invest in a new coal fired plant that won't even
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: begin operation operations for three or four years, by which
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: time the political landscape could be looking different. In general,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: no one is going to invest that money because these
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: plants run for thirty or forty years, and everyone expects
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that over time we're going to see things like carbon
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: pricing or at least tighter regulations on call. I mean,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the market is only really going one way. Liam Debting,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Liam Debting is
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: energy mining and commodities calumnist for Bloomberg gad Fly talking
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: about quote Cole, thank you so much for joining us. Well,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: we're starting to get a sense of how much money
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: US Congress is putting aside to recover from the very
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: active hurricane season. We're talking about Hurricanes Harvey and Maria
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and others that have battered the South as well as
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the Caribbean islands. Here to look at it from the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: private side is Jonathan Adams, senior insurance industry analyst from
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: We're starting to get some earnings reports from reinsurance companies.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Excel Group, for example, reported last night, Access Capital reports tonight,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Ballads Holding reports tomorrow, and there are others that come
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: next week. Are we getting any greater insight into just
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: how expansive the damages are going to be for reinsurance
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: companies and what the costs will be. Well, the costs
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: are so far largely in line with what had been
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: expected by those companies, so I don't think we're going
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to see major surprises in terms of the individual company costs.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: They do a pretty good job of um estimating and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: what that is. So for the example for Excel, the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: net cost was one and a half billion dollars, which
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: is white significant and probably about one and a half
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: percent of the total industry loss. So I think on
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: that score, um the the industry has done pretty well
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in in estimating what those losses will be for them.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: The big question is what to do next? Well, and
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: maybe go go into that because maybe you could describe
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: what happens in a typical cycle after a catastrophe or
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a hurricane, and what might happen this time that's different. Absolutely,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you look at the price increases that were put through
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: after Hurricane Katrina, which is a normal, normal response because
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: you need to recover those losses, and they were upwards
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of or more for US catastrophe reinsurance UH. This cycle,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: it's unlikely to be anywhere near that. And even though
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: UH management teams are talking about double digit increases, those
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: are going to be pretty low double digit increases. And
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the problem here is that we have an ample supply
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of capital that is willing to take this risk, and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: because of that, you simply can't pass on the kind
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of steep price increases that we're passed on a decade
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: ago with Hurricane Katrina, because there'll be someone else willing
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to take that risk for less money. And this is
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: this is super important. I mean, this is a huge
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: issue because if reinsurance companies and others are not able
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to demand high enough risk premium from investors, from from
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: clients who are taking out these policies, then they're that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: much more exposed. I mean, does this make the reinsurance
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: company is more fragile going forward because they've got that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: much lower of a buffer If there are a bigger
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: than expected number of catastrophes, it could. I don't think
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: we're at a point so far where there's a heightened
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: risk of eating into their capital base. But I do
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: think that there's clearly high risk of those individual companies
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: in that industry having much lower returns, and it could
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: ultimately get to the point that you've indicated where you
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: begin to have a more fragile industry and a more
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: fragile capital base. At the moment, we do have investors
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: from the capital markets willing to buy catastrophe bonds and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: that's been a major source of competition for the traditional
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: reinsurance companies, and that's really what has been um driving
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the influx of capital and what I think will be
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a depression on price increases going into eighteen. As we
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: know with how the capital markets act, it certainly could
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: be the case that they pushed that too far, and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: in fact you do have a more fragile industry sometime
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: in the future. Hey, Hey, Jonathan, wondering if indeed this
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: new capital continues to flow into the insurance industry, You're
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: going to find that a lot of people who have
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: never been in the insurance industry are going to be
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: kept evated by whatever yield is sort of dangled in
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: front of them. Right. Uh, is there a question, or
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: is there something you would suggest to them newbies in
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the industry that they need to ask the sponsors or
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: any of the people putting these deals together a question
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that they should ask before they jump in in an
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: industry they don't know a lot about, absolutely, and that
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: question is, UM, how do you understand volatility? Because it's
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: really um For many bond investors that that are looking
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: at credit, they think they may have a loss, but
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: there's always some kind of recovery with catastrophe bonds. UH.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: If you have a full loss, you can go from
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: UH an expectation of receiving all your capital back to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: getting half of it back or none of it back.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And it's really that volatility that should demand a higher
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: return and isn't always getting it because we don't see
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that volatility year to year. You only see it over
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a decade or more. So that's the key question, Jonathan,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Just real quick, who are these other investors who are
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: pouring into these this industry? Well, um, it's a broad
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: smattering of UM individuals. They want somewhat higher returns and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: some diversification, So it could be anywhere from individual hedge
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: funds that understand the insurance market to pension funds that
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: have less of an understanding but certainly want to diversify
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: their UM, their investments UM or other traditional UH fixed
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: income investors. But those two um you know, stand out
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: as as individuals that have been buying this type of asset.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks very much for spending time with us. Jonathan Adams
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: as our senior insurance industry analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. The
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: bond market at the government by market to sell off
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: at the long end, a little bit of buying at
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the short end, something that seems to have been going
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: on for quite a while, turning that teeter totter perhaps
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: into a flat board. Here to tell us more. Scott Dorf.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: He is a Bloomberg Profit and managing director at AMers
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Pierrepont Security. Scott, thanks very much for being with us.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Your latest column is called by
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the dip is a losing strategy in the bond market. Why, Well,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: we've had a situation where the fundamentals for the bond
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: markets have been deteriorating pretty steadily, but we didn't really
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: see that in the prices until starting about a month ago,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and ten ure yields actually hit the two oh one
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: level in early September, and I think that was a
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: cathartic stop out for a lot of a lot of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: traders in particularly speculative investors who you know, had been
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: betting on higher rates through the summer. Those positions got
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: taken out, and over the last month we've moved up,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you know, forty basis points and yields with a pretty
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: consistent and not really significantly changing economic and inflation picture
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: in the UF. Yeah, Scott, thanks so much for joining
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: us today. There are a lot of people saying that
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: we're reaching kind of a sort of moment of truth.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: That was what Jeff Gunlock said, a moment of truth
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: for the US Treasury market yields crossing that to two
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: point four percent threshold and just continuing on up. How
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: high can they go at this point with no fundamental
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: change in the backdrop? I mean, yes, the ECB mayn
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: NodD some kind of tapering. Uh, that's more hawkers than
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: people are expecting tomorrow. Yes, potentially inflation could pick up,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and yes there could be a more hawkish FED chair.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: All of that does not negate the trillions of dollars
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: of cash slashing around the financial system. Well, I think
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: you know, It's probably a bit of a triple whammy
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: in terms of a number of you know, kind of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: in the background events occurring. I mean, the largest one
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: being you know, the taper and you know the shrinkage
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of the fet balance sheet, which SET has told this
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: is going to be very much in the background and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: we're not going to note us. But I think you know,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: they protest a little bit too much, and you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: by certainly over two nineteen they're gonna have the Treasury
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: is going to have to find four hundred billion dollars
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: extra that if the paper wasn't occurring, that the SET
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: would have absorbed. That comes on top of a huge
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: increase in the deficit already this year, where eight you know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: we were eighty billion over for this fiscal year, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: some of the estimates are that the deficit and the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: numbers are going to be fifty to higher in terms
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: of what the Treasury has to raise in net new
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: money next year. And that comes at the same time
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: that we have very solid two and a half three
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: percent growth in the second half of the year. The
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: one outlier has obviously been these core CPI inflation numbers,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and I think that is what prevented people from you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: betting too too aggressively on you know, on higher rates.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: But the set is made it clear they're going to
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: look through that core CPI and they see signs, you know,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: certainly was an unemployment rate at four and probably headed
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: under four percent next year. They see signs that you know,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: inflation is going to be more of a problem ongoing. Okay,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So since you think that by the dip is not
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a strategy, it's going to work with this treasury sell off,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Where do you think the tenure yield is heading by
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a year end? Well, the first target for certainly for
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the people who look at charts is the year to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: date highs in the in the two and two sixty
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: two sixty five area. Uh, you know, I don't think
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that's necessarily, you know, a stopping point. This has not
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: been been a panicky sell off by any sense. And
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: while the a lot of measures show that the leverage
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: world is extremely short the futures you know, in in
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the two to five year sector, it doesn't anecdotally, it
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel to me like the a lot of the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: shorts are you know, are overdone here. So I think
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: it will be more a little bit more of an
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: order continue to be an orderly. It's been a low
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: volume sell off. You know that you have not seen
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: signs of panic at all yet. Well, well, Scott, you know,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: just maybe just a little bit more, because if you're saying,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: all right, yields are going to go higher, despite what
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: we read about inflation, despite what we hear about any
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: effort on the part of the U. S. Treasury to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: reign in spending, which clearly doesn't seem to be working out.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Is there a possibility that there'll just be a lot
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of buyers who come in because people don't want to
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: take any risk and they want to just match their
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: future liabilities and they want to hold on to their job. Well,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it's you know, with a kurve this flat um. You know,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of people view the level of rates in
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the long end as something of a conundrum that has
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: been supported by massive flows from overseas because their markets
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: are incredibly unattractive yield levels due to quantitative easing. And
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but we're going to be looking at the end of
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: that program. There obviously behind the US in terms on
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the calendar, in terms of removing that access accommodation, but
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it's coming in tomorrow with the ECB, we should get
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, some clarity there. So you have
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: global central banks in coordination raising rates worldwide, a massively
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: expanding deficit, very solid growth, an incredibly tight labor market. Um.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I think that combination will keep the pressure on the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: back end of the of the treasury market. Yeah, I
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: can imagine. So going forward, A quick question about John Taylor.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Yesterday President Trump asked the Senate if for a show
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: of hands for who they would support as the next
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: FED share nominee. John Taylor was their selection. What would
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: that mean for for bond markets? Well, you know, I
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: think no matter of who we get in there, assuming
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: that we don't get a renomination of Janet Yellen, I
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: think you'll have a more hawk is FED next year.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, the markets are aware that, but I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people are very unwilling to bet
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: on it given the you know, the randomness of the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: selection process. Um in Washington, d C. Do you think
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that you think a show of hands as random? Is
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that so? But I think that a show of hands
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: won't necessarily affect the decider on the issue. Well, thank you,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Scott Dorth, Thank you so much for joining us and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: for your insightful columns as always. Scott Dorf is a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg profit and managing director at amerst pure Pont Securities,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: also a longtime trader in the bond market. With a
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: lot of insight into what we should be expecting. We
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: turned now to the world of Apple and smartphones. Alex web,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: technology reporter for Bloomberg, joins us now from San Francisco,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and Alex, I wonder if you could just tell us
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: about the supply chain that it currently exists and how
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: it has changed in order to bring these new iPhones
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to market. So whenever Apple brings a new phone to
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: market and they have a headline new technology, often that technology,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the core of it is not really designed by Apple.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: They take components from all over the place, piece them together,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and then they say, look at this thing that we've
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: come up with. Well, the technology in the new iPhone
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: ten is written as an x but the iPhone tent
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: is um is actually very similar to what was in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the original Microsoft Connect. You know that that censor which
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: went on top of an xbox and detect movement. What
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: they did was they took that right the way down
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and made tiny, tiny versions of it just a few
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: millimeters by centimeters across rather than the size of say
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a small book, and that's been a bit of a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: challenge for the for the suppliers to really meet those
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: standards in time for the production. Alex, you know what
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: struck me with the piece that you wrote today which
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: was fascinating, is this tension between Apple wanting to push
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the envelope and come up with newer and more groundbreaking
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: technologies and the supplier's inability to really mass produce those
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: at the same level. And I'm just wondering, I mean,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: is this going to be a pretty big pitfall for
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Apple as it tries to meet very high expectations from
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the market about its ability to evolve and to continue
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to sell its iPhone. So as we've seen, the stock
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: hasn't taken a massive power ending on on this kind
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: of drip drip of news over recent months about the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: supply chain problems. But because the expectation is that once
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: those supply chain dromas are ironed out, it will feed
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: into a product cycle of maybe two years. But then
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: comes the question what comes after those two years? How
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: much more can they really innovate and deliver the sort
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: of new technologies which will drive customers to keep buying
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: new phones. There's a widespread fear that the smartphone market
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: is now saturated. This is one of the reasons why
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Tim Cook, CEO starts talking a lot about augmented reality.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And we've reported that Apple's working on smart glasses, for instance,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and those sort of new products are going to be
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: crucial in the it's sort of mid to long term,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: you know, Alex, I'm wondering if you could tell us
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: about the individual pieces of the supply chain that have
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: been the most problematic for Apple. Is it the three
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: D sensor unit, the one that recognizes your face and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: unlocks the phone. Yes, absolutely, so there's one particular component
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: in that. The way this technology works is one of
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the components Flashy is thirty thousand laser dots onto the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: user's face and uses that to map it and work
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: out who's who is in front of it and whether
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to unlock the phone. Now, that component has a very
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: very small margin of error in the micron range that's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a fraction of the breadth of a hair, and so
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: if it's placed slightly awry, the technology doesn't work, and
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: that's created huge problems for the assemblers them the companies
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: who take all these disparate components, piece them together, then
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: ship them to Fox con to to to build into
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the phone itself. And these are companies like lg inn
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Techer Korean Company, and Sharp of course, the Japanese company.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: In fact, timing with our story today just coincidental. Lg
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: inn a Tech admitted on their call that they've had
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: problems making these modules and that it will affect supply
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of the iPhone ten come November the third, when it
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: hits stores. There will be supply constraints. Alex, can you
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: just give us some perspective about how unusual this is
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: for Apple to have supply chain challenges, because you know
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it hasn't it's not unheard of for Apple. But are
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the I Phone ten or the challenges here much greater
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: than usual. Yes, basically they are. The It's always the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: case that Apple has a very effective supply chain management system.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: They do not want to have too much supply. They
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: do not want to have millions of iPhones sitting in
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: warehouses around the world getting dusty, so they often constrained
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: supply a little bit means they can create some more
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: appetite amongst the consumers, and also they can tell investors
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that way, we've sold out of iPhones on first weekend
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: or whatever it might be. So the but in this
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: case it seems not to be something of Apple's own creation.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: They are they cannot meet the demand that they had
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: hoped to be able to meet, and that is the
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: sense going into it. Nonetheless, they will be iPhones available
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: next week. It's just that analysts locally in Asia seem
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to expect it will be between twenty five and thirty
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: million in the whole quarter, rather than perhaps the fifty
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: sixty million which which might typically be expected. Alex, are
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: you going to get in line for your new iPhone? Personally?
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not no. I mean it may maybe you can
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: write all that it's my editors tell them to pay
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: me a little bit more. But the the uh, I honestly,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not that. I think Touch I D work just fine.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that it's a different kind of three
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: D sensor, the one that gets you the race. I
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: don't have that on my phone, honestly, Alex, I love it.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: The public appeal for a raise, We're we're all there
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: with you, Alex web. Thank you so much for joining US.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Alex Webb is our technology reporter for Bloomberg News. Coming
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: to uh to, coming to us from our nine sixties
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: studio in San Francisco, and uh this is a little
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: bit different than usual, and it is fascinating and it
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: raises a question to me whether eventually it will create
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: more demand for the iPhone eight, which has had trouble
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: selling because people realize they're not going to get their
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: iPhone ten so quickly. Right now, let's see you online.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Let's see you online for this. Thanks for listening to
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox, I'm on Twitter at
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: pim Fox, I'm on it, or at Lisa Abramo. It's
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio.