Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Apple, Google AI Talks, TikTok Bill Latest, Market Outlook
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- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 0:05Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Car playing Android
- 0:08Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 0:11Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 0:16Speaker 2: So here's the story of the day. First of all, John,
- 0:19Speaker 2: I know you're the AI expert here at the Sloomberg Radio.
- 0:22Speaker 2: But some nice news out of here. Some dude we
- 0:24Speaker 2: got at Bloomberg News. He's out in California's somewhere, Mark Armern.
- 0:27Speaker 2: He's pretty good on this Apple thing, which is a
- 0:30Speaker 2: pretty good career move for him. And he just creates
- 0:34Speaker 2: a story. You put Apple in a story with Google.
- 0:36Speaker 2: This is an alphabet free zone. Apple and Google in
- 0:39Speaker 2: a story that's gonna be big news. That's a lot
- 0:42Speaker 2: of market characture, that's a lot of market app. Then
- 0:45Speaker 2: you throw in AI. Then you got something. Then you
- 0:48Speaker 2: get something that's called a green bee, which I think
- 0:49Speaker 2: is good for if you're one of those reporter geeks. Right, absolutely, okay,
- 0:53Speaker 2: very good, Tom Jow Speaking of reporter geeks, he joins
- 0:56Speaker 2: us here. He heads up all of our technology news
- 1:00Speaker 2: coverage at Bloomberg News. Huge, huge job. He's got a
- 1:03Speaker 2: great team of reporters working for him.
- 1:04Speaker 3: I time my visit well exactly, I time my visit
- 1:07Speaker 3: around Mark German scoop Mark.
- 1:09Speaker 2: German scoops Tom. What do you make of this reporting
- 1:11Speaker 2: coming out of mister German here about Apple, about Alphabet
- 1:16Speaker 2: and about AI. What do you think is happening here?
- 1:18Speaker 3: This is Apple recognizing that it needs to weave artificial
- 1:22Speaker 3: intelligence more deeply, more intelligently into its products, into the iPhone.
- 1:29Speaker 3: It already has this really long standing, deep, very lucrative
- 1:33Speaker 3: relationship with Google in terms of putting Google's search, making
- 1:36Speaker 3: it very paramount on the iPhone. This is let's take
- 1:41Speaker 3: it to the next step. Let's take this relationship further
- 1:45Speaker 3: and let's weave your generative AI tools into what we
- 1:50Speaker 3: have on the iPhone and make it better and make
- 1:51Speaker 3: it smarter. Let's leverage this relationship. Also, it's important to
- 1:56Speaker 3: note that Apple is seen as a laggard when it
- 1:59Speaker 3: comes to artificial intelligence. Everyone's got something big. Every big
- 2:05Speaker 3: tech company has a big AI story. Apple is seen
- 2:10Speaker 3: as a laggard in that.
- 2:12Speaker 4: And this is an admission in some way that AI
- 2:16Speaker 4: Apple can't do it by themselves.
- 2:17Speaker 3: That's right, You don't get why.
- 2:19Speaker 4: Would the stock be higher.
- 2:21Speaker 3: You don't get to build this from scratch. I think
- 2:24Speaker 3: there's a few things that work here. One is regulators
- 2:29Speaker 3: are already looking at the relationship between Apple and Google.
- 2:33Speaker 3: They don't like aspects of it. DJ is looking.
- 2:36Speaker 2: Hard at that.
- 2:37Speaker 3: The FDC is already looking at the relationship between Microsoft
- 2:41Speaker 3: and open AI. The concern is there's innovation happening in
- 2:46Speaker 3: artificial intelligence, and if you have combinations between the biggest
- 2:51Speaker 3: players in tech, the most powerful players in tech, is
- 2:54Speaker 3: that going to thwart innovation? And is it going to
- 2:56Speaker 3: thwart competition?
- 2:58Speaker 2: So how do we think the regulators might look at
- 3:01Speaker 2: something like this.
- 3:02Speaker 3: I think they need to figure out whether the talks
- 3:06Speaker 3: are going to come to fruition first and foremost. We're
- 3:09Speaker 3: definitely sending out feelers throughout the Bloomberg organization to figure
- 3:13Speaker 3: out to figure out what the next step is and
- 3:16Speaker 3: to assess what the argument would be for and against.
- 3:20Speaker 3: If you're a regulator, but if you're ready to think
- 3:22Speaker 3: about it, if you're at the DJ, if you're at
- 3:24Speaker 3: the FTC, do you want to see more concentration, more
- 3:29Speaker 3: collaboration between the two most powerful companies in the world,
- 3:33Speaker 3: or do you want to say to them, Apple, go
- 3:35Speaker 3: and build your own.
- 3:37Speaker 4: How long does this relationship last? If Apple finds a
- 3:40Speaker 4: better partner, could they drop Google like a hot rock.
- 3:44Speaker 3: We know, as we reported, Apple held talks with Open Ai.
- 3:48Speaker 3: We also know that the talks that are existing now
- 3:52Speaker 3: are the ones between Apple and Google. Could you kind
- 3:55Speaker 3: of rekindle something? Could you start something up with somebody else?
- 3:58Speaker 3: I think the sky's the limit here. Apple needs something big.
- 4:03Speaker 3: They need something new. They need the app. The iPhone
- 4:06Speaker 3: has been around, as we all know, since two thousand
- 4:09Speaker 3: and seven. They need a big new thing. They need
- 4:12Speaker 3: that next big thing. Remember they were working on a car.
- 4:16Speaker 3: As Bloomberg told you a couple of months ago. That
- 4:19Speaker 3: project is actually it's just been a few weeks. That
- 4:21Speaker 3: project is now being put being being being killed. They're
- 4:27Speaker 3: going to redeploy some of those people into AI initiatives.
- 4:30Speaker 3: But they need that next big thing, and weaving AI
- 4:33Speaker 3: into your iPhone could be one of them.
- 4:37Speaker 2: So Apple also has a developer conference. I believe in June.
- 4:41Speaker 2: Tom and a lot of folks think that maybe that's
- 4:44Speaker 2: the time Tim Coast can get up on stage and
- 4:47Speaker 2: say here's our AI play. Is that is this part
- 4:51Speaker 2: of it? Is this It seems like, as John was suggesting,
- 4:55Speaker 2: this is kind of admission, we don't have that big
- 4:58Speaker 2: a wow moment for you. How are you thinking about that?
- 5:01Speaker 3: It takes a lot of time, It takes a lot
- 5:03Speaker 3: of people. It takes a lot of resources to build
- 5:07Speaker 3: these large language models upon which generative AI tools are based. Right,
- 5:11Speaker 3: open ai was not created yesterday. You know, they've made
- 5:16Speaker 3: a big splash in the last year, but that was
- 5:19Speaker 3: years in the making. Microsoft's relationship with open ai works
- 5:23Speaker 3: to their advantage. Google has been working on its own
- 5:26Speaker 3: generative AI technology for many, many years. That was not
- 5:31Speaker 3: top priority for Apple for all this time. They've been
- 5:33Speaker 3: working on the phone, They've been working on the watch,
- 5:35Speaker 3: they've been working on the car, They've been working all
- 5:37Speaker 3: these things that we use and are very lucrative for
- 5:40Speaker 3: them and are making them one of the biggest and
- 5:43Speaker 3: most valuable companies.
- 5:44Speaker 5: In the world.
- 5:45Speaker 3: But this was not the biggest area of concentration for them,
- 5:48Speaker 3: at least not as much as other companies. It takes time.
- 5:51Speaker 3: My sense is you can you can, even if you
- 5:54Speaker 3: haven't nailed down all of your details on a relationship
- 5:57Speaker 3: what like this, you can still use your developer conference
- 6:01Speaker 3: to drop hints, to say, here's what's coming down the pike.
- 6:05Speaker 3: Here's a taste of it, even if it's not completely
- 6:08Speaker 3: They like to have stuff that's pretty baked before they
- 6:10Speaker 3: start talking about it publicly. So I don't think they're
- 6:14Speaker 3: gonna jump the gun here, but it would be nice
- 6:16Speaker 3: to have this in your back pocket to at least
- 6:19Speaker 3: drop some hints.
- 6:20Speaker 4: Okay, so what does it do to my iPhone? And
- 6:23Speaker 4: do I now have to go out and buy a
- 6:25Speaker 4: new model iPhone? What does it do for sales? And
- 6:27Speaker 4: you know, what's the practical impact for an iPhone user?
- 6:31Speaker 3: Look, we're already using our phones for virtually everything throughout
- 6:36Speaker 3: the day. These are like, it's the one thing that
- 6:39Speaker 3: you would take if you're running out of the house
- 6:42Speaker 3: with the fire right you know, it would be things
- 6:45Speaker 3: like creating images, writing essays, the things that we are
- 6:49Speaker 3: already using tools like open AI for. Could you more
- 6:55Speaker 3: easily incorporate those into your iPhone so that you don't
- 6:58Speaker 3: have to fire up the laptop, so that you don't
- 7:01Speaker 3: have to delve into a different app. Could you weave
- 7:06Speaker 3: this into the tools that you already have right on
- 7:09Speaker 3: your phone It's.
- 7:10Speaker 4: Not like five G like everybody told me I had
- 7:13Speaker 4: to upgrade my phone to go to five G. I
- 7:15Speaker 4: don't even notice it. It's like, I don't know what
- 7:18Speaker 4: this is different.
- 7:18Speaker 2: All right, Tom Giles, thanks so much for joining us.
- 7:20Speaker 2: Tom's based in San Francisco. We got him in your
- 7:23Speaker 2: four weeks. We pulled him into the studio here, Tom Giles,
- 7:25Speaker 2: Bloomberg News, Senior executive editor for Global Technology. There we go.
- 7:28Speaker 2: He's got a whole bunch of great technology reporters on
- 7:31Speaker 2: his team, and they're doing some good stuff.
- 7:34Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 7:38Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple card Play and
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- 7:44Speaker 1: listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station.
- 7:47Speaker 1: Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 7:52Speaker 2: Let's talk fixed income, shall we Let's go from skiing
- 7:54Speaker 2: to the bond market. Ur J Gallow he could do that.
- 7:57Speaker 2: Senior portfolio manager for fixed and fixing. It's Federated Hermes
- 8:01Speaker 2: joining us via zoom here. Hey, you know RJ. Since
- 8:05Speaker 2: the last time we spoke to you, yields are moving higher.
- 8:08Speaker 2: Here I guess the market's kind of losing its enthusiasm
- 8:12Speaker 2: for I guess aggressive rate cutting. What do you make
- 8:15Speaker 2: of this market?
- 8:17Speaker 6: Well, it's good to see you again on YouTube. I
- 8:23Speaker 6: would say that the market ended twenty twenty three, which
- 8:27Speaker 6: seems quite a while ago, but it wasn't that long
- 8:29Speaker 6: ago when the markets were priced for almost seven eases
- 8:33Speaker 6: in the calendar twenty twenty four, and the markets had
- 8:35Speaker 6: just gotten way ahead of themselves. There was excessive confidence
- 8:39Speaker 6: at the time that the dubvish tone of the December
- 8:43Speaker 6: FMC meeting opened the door for the following argument. Inflation
- 8:47Speaker 6: will continue to fall. Therefore, the Fed must ease nominal
- 8:52Speaker 6: rate targets so that real rates, real policy rates don't
- 8:56Speaker 6: inadvertently or undesirably rise. For that to work, you needed
- 9:01Speaker 6: inflation to continue to fall, and that just hasn't happened.
- 9:05Speaker 6: The inflation data has been sticky or buoyant at well
- 9:09Speaker 6: above target levels. The economic data, both jobs and growth
- 9:14Speaker 6: data have been pretty good. Not as good maybe as
- 9:17Speaker 6: some prior quarters that were stronger, but still nowhere near
- 9:22Speaker 6: probably a sufficient slowdown to get the Fed to be
- 9:24Speaker 6: concerned that we're heading towards harder landing.
- 9:27Speaker 7: Or something.
- 9:28Speaker 6: So since the data didn't cooperate with the argument that
- 9:31Speaker 6: the FED had to ease to prevent real rates from rising,
- 9:35Speaker 6: the Fed didn't have to ease, and that came out
- 9:37Speaker 6: of the markets.
- 9:38Speaker 7: Now we've got a.
- 9:39Speaker 6: Little less than three eases priced in cumulatively up until
- 9:42Speaker 6: the December twenty twenty four meeting, very consistent with the
- 9:46Speaker 6: Fed's dots, just in time for the dots to maybe change.
- 9:49Speaker 4: Okay, what you got to explain to the dummies out there,
- 9:53Speaker 4: including me, the real rate? Just how significant that is
- 9:56Speaker 4: in terms of doing some or all of the heavy lift.
- 10:02Speaker 7: It's a good question, you know, real rate.
- 10:04Speaker 6: Simply take a nominal yield or a nominal rate target,
- 10:08Speaker 6: use the upper end of the FED funds rage right
- 10:10Speaker 6: now at five point fifty, and subtract off, you know,
- 10:13Speaker 6: a four percent inflation rate, you've got a one point
- 10:16Speaker 6: five percent real rate. If you subtract off a three percent,
- 10:18Speaker 6: you've got a two point five percent real rate. If
- 10:20Speaker 6: inflation keeps going down to two and you don't move
- 10:23Speaker 6: your five point fifty upper end of your FED funds target,
- 10:26Speaker 6: you know, the Fed now has a three would end
- 10:28Speaker 6: up having in that scenario a three and a half
- 10:30Speaker 6: percent real FED funds rate, that's historically pretty hot. That's
- 10:36Speaker 6: the kind of constrictive or restrictive policy that could precipitate
- 10:41Speaker 6: a real economic downturn, a recession that the FED doesn't want.
- 10:45Speaker 7: But again, they don't need to move. If inflation itself
- 10:48Speaker 7: is stuck.
- 10:49Speaker 6: In the threes, you know, generally, looking whether at the
- 10:52Speaker 6: CPI or the or the PC deflator, then the Fed
- 10:57Speaker 6: might not need to be in such a rush to
- 10:59Speaker 6: reduce rates to prevent that real rate from rising. Secondly,
- 11:03Speaker 6: I think it's important to note that, you know, the
- 11:05Speaker 6: Fed doesn't really know where the equilibrium Fed funds rate
- 11:08Speaker 6: is the long term dot, and of course we're going
- 11:10Speaker 6: to get updates on the dots this week.
- 11:12Speaker 7: Is it two and a half percent?
- 11:14Speaker 6: The market if you look at so for futures out
- 11:16Speaker 6: three to five years, the market seems to think that
- 11:19Speaker 6: the that the long run equilibrium FED funds rate is
- 11:22Speaker 6: more like three and a half or three seven maybe.
- 11:25Speaker 6: So the Fed isn't going to ease based upon a
- 11:28Speaker 6: model if the data is still strong, labor markets tight,
- 11:32Speaker 6: and inflation not falling rapidly.
- 11:35Speaker 2: All right, So r J, given that kind of background, top,
- 11:39Speaker 2: how are you positioning your portfolio, what are you telling
- 11:41Speaker 2: your your teams to really look for sure?
- 11:45Speaker 6: Sure, so first of all, looking at sort of the
- 11:47Speaker 6: different lever levers than an active manager, which is what
- 11:50Speaker 6: we are can can do in a fixing income portfolio.
- 11:53Speaker 6: On duration, you know, once the market started to get
- 11:58Speaker 6: sort of disabused of the notion that we were going
- 11:59Speaker 6: to get seven eases, you know, we waited and took
- 12:04Speaker 6: a tactical long at times, we've gone back to neutral.
- 12:08Speaker 6: We went back to neutral before the most recent selloff.
- 12:12Speaker 6: We took a little bit of profits on what we
- 12:14Speaker 6: had as a very you know, temporary long position.
- 12:16Speaker 7: So that's worked.
- 12:17Speaker 6: We're at neutral now heading into the f MC meeting,
- 12:20Speaker 6: we're apt to stay there. I think the Fed there
- 12:23Speaker 6: is some risk that the Fed will move the dots
- 12:25Speaker 6: up a little bit. Abgail was mentioning that could be
- 12:28Speaker 6: a challenge for risk assets. We think that could be
- 12:31Speaker 6: a challenge for rates to get a little lifts to
- 12:34Speaker 6: the rates market. So that's on the duration front. On
- 12:37Speaker 6: other levers that we can push and pull and fixed income.
- 12:40Speaker 6: When it comes to credit sector allocation, we're overweight mortgages.
- 12:44Speaker 6: We think they still look cheap we'd like the extra
- 12:47Speaker 6: carrier given us. We're much more cautious and underweight high
- 12:51Speaker 6: yield corporates. We think that the spreads are very tight there,
- 12:54Speaker 6: compensation for the risk isn't so great. The fault risk
- 12:58Speaker 6: still rising incrementally. That's not to say that we're underweight
- 13:02Speaker 6: high because we think a recessions coming. It's really a
- 13:04Speaker 6: question of valuation and compensation for risk at the current levels.
- 13:10Speaker 7: We're a little more.
- 13:11Speaker 6: Constructive on ig Yes, we're a little underweight, but not
- 13:13Speaker 6: as much so, and we've added to emerging markets. I
- 13:18Speaker 6: think it's true that the market's base case of a
- 13:21Speaker 6: soft landing has become more compelling. If the FED walks
- 13:26Speaker 6: back tightening easing expectations aggressively, then I think that could
- 13:31Speaker 6: be a challenge for risk assets and it would start
- 13:34Speaker 6: to raise questions about whether or not the Fed can
- 13:37Speaker 6: ease into that soft lanning. What we think the Fed
- 13:39Speaker 6: is going to continue to signal easing just less than
- 13:42Speaker 6: they have been, and it's quite possible that they might
- 13:44Speaker 6: be considered the long run dot right now with the
- 13:47Speaker 6: way the markets are priced, that might be an opportunity
- 13:50Speaker 6: for them to walk through that door and maybe move
- 13:53Speaker 6: it from two to fifty median, maybe a little.
- 13:55Speaker 7: Higher two seventy five or something like that.
- 13:57Speaker 6: So we're watching that more of an academic exercise maybe,
- 14:00Speaker 6: but that affects expectations in the market.
- 14:02Speaker 4: Why has the last mile been so difficult to get
- 14:04Speaker 4: to the target?
- 14:08Speaker 6: I think the inflation problem which was so challenging, which
- 14:12Speaker 6: caused the FED to completely abandon the transitory argument and
- 14:15Speaker 6: get very aggressive, historically aggressive in the pace of tightening.
- 14:19Speaker 6: That inflation was born of a surge in aggregate demand
- 14:25Speaker 6: amid numerous supply problems, supply shocks, supply chain kinks, inadequate
- 14:31Speaker 6: labor supply.
- 14:32Speaker 7: So when demand rose for many things coming.
- 14:35Speaker 6: Out of the pandemic, especially services, travel and things like that,
- 14:38Speaker 6: and we had such constrained supply, including labor supply, the
- 14:42Speaker 6: only answer in any normal economic model is price must
- 14:45Speaker 6: rise to invite entry, to get people back to work,
- 14:49Speaker 6: to get firms to work out the kinks. So that
- 14:52Speaker 6: supply response is the first order aspect of the improvement
- 14:57Speaker 6: that brought the inflation down that has been addressed.
- 15:00Speaker 7: Now.
- 15:01Speaker 6: I think we're in a world where inflation expectations are
- 15:04Speaker 6: relatively well contained and benign, and that's because the Fed
- 15:07Speaker 6: acted as aggressively as they did.
- 15:09Speaker 7: Had they not done so, inflation expectations might have release searched.
- 15:12Speaker 6: This last mile of getting inflation back to target is tougher.
- 15:18Speaker 6: It's we have a better functioning economy, we have a
- 15:20Speaker 6: tight labor market. Sort of more traditional non dislocation models
- 15:25Speaker 6: of economics would suggest that maybe the economy does need
- 15:28Speaker 6: to slow down in order to get inflation to continue
- 15:32Speaker 6: to fall. The argument that the first mile was successful
- 15:36Speaker 6: on supply is very true, but the last mile might
- 15:39Speaker 6: require more of a slowdown, and that suggests the FED
- 15:41Speaker 6: might not ease as aggressively as once thought.
- 15:43Speaker 2: Ye all right, r J. Great stuff. Has always really
- 15:46Speaker 2: appreciate getting some of your time, r J. Gallow He's
- 15:48Speaker 2: a senior portfolio manager Federator Hermes. Joining us via.
- 15:51Speaker 1: Zoom You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us
- 15:56Speaker 1: live weekdays at ten am Eastern on fo car Play
- 15:59Speaker 1: and then with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand
- 16:02Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 16:08Speaker 2: John, I know you're not on TikTok.
- 16:11Speaker 4: Can you just imagine, like the intersection of John Tucker
- 16:14Speaker 4: and TikTok? What a disaster. That would be stop laughing, Lisa.
- 16:19Speaker 2: Are you aware that there is this thing called TikTok.
- 16:21Speaker 4: Yeah, Charlie Pellett in the office shows it to me
- 16:23Speaker 4: all the time, so it's great, look you want videos
- 16:27Speaker 4: of I'm like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen.
- 16:29Speaker 2: But the big issue here for a lot of folks
- 16:32Speaker 2: is the ownership of TikTok owned my Byte Dance, which
- 16:35Speaker 2: has Chinese ownership. So now there's a whole thing about
- 16:38Speaker 2: do you want these TikTok company and Byte Dance having
- 16:42Speaker 2: so much consumer information for Americans? And that's kind of
- 16:45Speaker 2: the big issue here. So Matt Sheltenhelm he joins us.
- 16:49Speaker 2: He's a mediate litigation analyst, so he kind of does
- 16:52Speaker 2: all the legal side for all this stuff in the
- 16:55Speaker 2: media telecommunication space. He's a Bloomberg intelligence. He spaced down
- 16:58Speaker 2: in Washington, DC. Where else? Hey, Matt, give us the
- 17:01Speaker 2: latest on what's coming out of Washington, either from a
- 17:05Speaker 2: regulatory standpoint or maybe some movements up from Congress about
- 17:09Speaker 2: either forcing Bite Dance to cease operations here or you know,
- 17:15Speaker 2: maybe force the Chinese to sell it. Where are we?
- 17:18Speaker 8: Yeah, Paul, So some surprising momentum here on this issue.
- 17:21Speaker 8: This first came up about a year ago in March
- 17:24Speaker 8: when you when you'll remember, Congress had had a big
- 17:27Speaker 8: hearing with with TikTok. CEO showed Chew. It was really
- 17:31Speaker 8: a tough hearing, and I think a lot of people
- 17:34Speaker 8: thought it might lead to some drastic action sooner rather
- 17:38Speaker 8: than later. And then everything slowed down. But then sort
- 17:43Speaker 8: of out of nowhere, about ten days ago, the House
- 17:47Speaker 8: introduced a new bill, then quickly passed that bill out
- 17:52Speaker 8: of committee, and then passed it through the on the
- 17:56Speaker 8: whole House floor by a huge bipartisan majority. And basically
- 18:02Speaker 8: what this bill would do, if it were to clear
- 18:04Speaker 8: Congress and President Biden were to sign it, and if
- 18:07Speaker 8: it were to get through the courts, is to say
- 18:10Speaker 8: that unless Byteedance divest TikTok to a less sensitive owner,
- 18:18Speaker 8: that the application couldn't be be hosted by Internet hosts
- 18:23Speaker 8: in the United States, it couldn't be on app stores
- 18:26Speaker 8: in the United States, and there would be significant financial
- 18:30Speaker 8: penalties not for TikTok, but for those companies that would
- 18:33Speaker 8: host it or that would include it in its app
- 18:36Speaker 8: store if they were to ignore the legislation.
- 18:40Speaker 4: Well, we'll put on your Congress watching half for a moment.
- 18:42Speaker 4: What's the hold up in the Senate? What's the objection there?
- 18:46Speaker 8: Yeah, So, I mean it's amazing to see the bipartisan
- 18:51Speaker 8: support this has. You don't see legislation move three hundred
- 18:55Speaker 8: and fifty two to sixty five like we saw last
- 18:57Speaker 8: week in the House. You've seen on both sides say
- 19:02Speaker 8: they want this. You've seen Chuck Schumer in the past,
- 19:06Speaker 8: the Senate majority leader, say he likes the idea of
- 19:09Speaker 8: requiring a change in ownership of TikTok. So that's exactly
- 19:14Speaker 8: the question now. I think the hold up, though, is, Look,
- 19:17Speaker 8: this is an election year, and even though you've seen
- 19:20Speaker 8: President Biden say, look, get it. You know, if it
- 19:22Speaker 8: comes to my desk, I'll sign it, he also has
- 19:25Speaker 8: one hundred and fifty million Americans using this app, many
- 19:29Speaker 8: of them young people, at a time when you have
- 19:32Speaker 8: an election coming in November, when every vote matters, in
- 19:36Speaker 8: particular young people to President Biden. So I think this
- 19:41Speaker 8: legislation has a chance. I only give it a thirty
- 19:45Speaker 8: percent chance though this year, and that's exactly because of
- 19:49Speaker 8: the political risks of November. At a time when President
- 19:53Speaker 8: Biden doesn't want to risk a potential backlash from those
- 19:57Speaker 8: young voters. The Senate is controlled by Democrats. Senator Chuck
- 20:02Speaker 8: Schumer is the majority leader. He decides how quickly this moves,
- 20:06Speaker 8: and I think the looming election is a reason to
- 20:09Speaker 8: move slowly. But after that, after this election is out
- 20:13Speaker 8: of the way, I'd be a little more nervous if
- 20:15Speaker 8: I were TikTok.
- 20:16Speaker 2: So do we have any clear sense of what TikTok
- 20:20Speaker 2: and Byte dance, how they're approaching this at this point,
- 20:23Speaker 2: like what would they presumably do?
- 20:25Speaker 8: Yeah, so that's a great question. I think we've seen
- 20:29Speaker 8: indications from from China that it would not be willing
- 20:34Speaker 8: to support a divestiture. Now that could be could be
- 20:38Speaker 8: posturing on that end, but I think there's the possibility
- 20:43Speaker 8: that if the US passes this legislation that requires a
- 20:47Speaker 8: divestiture or else there's an effective ban, there's a real
- 20:51Speaker 8: possibility that China wouldn't allow any sort of divestiture like
- 20:56Speaker 8: that to happen. So you're inevitably in the result of
- 21:00Speaker 8: of a band. Of course, you're also in courts as
- 21:04Speaker 8: soon as Congress passes this, and you saw Montana pass
- 21:08Speaker 8: the TikTok ban last year it got tripped up in court.
- 21:11Speaker 8: You saw President Trump before he was against this, he
- 21:14Speaker 8: actually signed a band of TikTok that was tripped up
- 21:19Speaker 8: in the courts. So once this passes, you still have
- 21:21Speaker 8: a tough court challenge coming. And so TikTok's first line
- 21:26Speaker 8: of defense is going to be to see over this
- 21:29Speaker 8: all right.
- 21:29Speaker 4: So if this ultimately goes to the courts, You've got
- 21:33Speaker 4: to explain to me, what's the legitimate national security threat
- 21:38Speaker 4: of me going posting pictures of myself or a video
- 21:42Speaker 4: of myself, you know, redoing my bathroom or Lisa putting
- 21:46Speaker 4: on her mas scare.
- 21:48Speaker 8: That's exactly the question the courts are going to be asking.
- 21:52Speaker 8: And one of the curious things about when the House
- 21:54Speaker 8: voted on this in committee by that fifty to zero vote,
- 21:57Speaker 8: is that they went into closed second law.
- 22:00Speaker 2: Some audio, Matt Shuttingham, we lost some audio, young man.
- 22:03Speaker 2: This is when one of the first things I did
- 22:06Speaker 2: with Matt, we were seeing clients six seven, eight years ago,
- 22:09Speaker 2: we found out he had no cash in his pocket
- 22:11Speaker 2: and say, why do you have no how do you
- 22:12Speaker 2: walk in you live? You're up in DC, says nobody
- 22:16Speaker 2: carries cash?
- 22:18Speaker 5: What?
- 22:19Speaker 2: Yeah, everything's on your phone. I'm like, so you don't
- 22:21Speaker 2: have it was just crazy. That's when I first kind
- 22:23Speaker 2: of came into this. The kids don't have cash anymore
- 22:26Speaker 2: so so anyway, so that's kind of my ment shutting
- 22:30Speaker 2: holm story. But again, this is a big thing for
- 22:31Speaker 2: TikTok because.
- 22:33Speaker 4: Oh he didn't go away. Oh is either so your
- 22:35Speaker 4: I think your earpiece cut out. Oh you're being hacked
- 22:38Speaker 4: by the Chinese apparently. But Matt pickup, you were talking
- 22:41Speaker 4: about the I was asking about what in God's name
- 22:44Speaker 4: is the national security threat that's posed here that the
- 22:47Speaker 4: courts are ultimately going to have to look out and
- 22:50Speaker 4: determin We've got about a minute.
- 22:51Speaker 8: Left, absolutely so. So the House went into closed session
- 22:54Speaker 8: in committee you when it talked about this, so so
- 22:57Speaker 8: they kind of they were secret on the concerns that
- 23:00Speaker 8: motivated this. But then after they had that closed session,
- 23:03Speaker 8: all of a sudden it was fifty to zero voting
- 23:05Speaker 8: and support. So we don't exactly know. I think the
- 23:08Speaker 8: concern is that if this data is you know, not
- 23:12Speaker 8: just you looking at your you know, cat videos or
- 23:15Speaker 8: whatever it is, but you know, one hundred and fifty
- 23:17Speaker 8: million Americans everything that they are looking at all of
- 23:22Speaker 8: this flow of data going to China's let's China take
- 23:26Speaker 8: a look at it. There's also a concern on the
- 23:28Speaker 8: propaganda side that if China can impact sort of the
- 23:32Speaker 8: flow of videos, can they start to shape thinking, and
- 23:37Speaker 8: in particular in young people. So there's two sides of
- 23:41Speaker 8: the concern here, looking at the data about how we're
- 23:45Speaker 8: using it, and also influencing thought potentially by you know,
- 23:50Speaker 8: framing messages, by using an algorithm to promote certain ideas.
- 23:55Speaker 4: I know I'd like to shape the thought of young
- 23:57Speaker 4: people at this point, especially that time is pan the
- 24:00Speaker 4: youngsters in my house.
- 24:01Speaker 2: So Matt, following off on my story, how much cash
- 24:03Speaker 2: do you have in your pocket? Today?
- 24:05Speaker 8: Oh? Man, I see, I'm not walking around New York today.
- 24:08Speaker 8: You taught me when I'm there, I'll be ready today.
- 24:11Speaker 8: I'm still I still just got my credit He's.
- 24:13Speaker 2: Got the credit cards and the phone. So that's how
- 24:15Speaker 2: I do good. All right, Matt, thanks so much on this.
- 24:17Speaker 2: Matt is our go to guy and all this litigation
- 24:19Speaker 2: stuff about anything on the media entertainment front, and there's
- 24:23Speaker 2: a lot of litigation out there, and Matt's the attorney
- 24:26Speaker 2: that follows that. For Bloomberg Intelligence. He's based down in Washington, DC,
- 24:29Speaker 2: and investors really value his research on some of these big,
- 24:33Speaker 2: big issues, and TikTok is a big, big issue.
- 24:37Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 24:41Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple card Play and
- 24:44Speaker 1: royd Otto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also
- 24:47Speaker 1: listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York
- 24:50Speaker 1: station Just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 24:56Speaker 2: Another way to play. I'm still going to broadcome sucks up.
- 24:58Speaker 2: You know, it's doubled in the last year. I mean,
- 25:00Speaker 2: that's another way. Maybe next guests can shit some late
- 25:02Speaker 2: on that. Michael Cogino joined US president and portfolio manager.
- 25:06Speaker 2: The firm is a permanent portfolio family of funds, joining
- 25:09Speaker 2: us from San Francisco via zoom This West Coast things. People.
- 25:14Speaker 2: They know what's going on out there and with the technology.
- 25:16Speaker 2: All right, Michael, give us your view here. You've been
- 25:19Speaker 2: doing this for a while. What do you think when
- 25:21Speaker 2: you see a company like in Vidia and the growth
- 25:25Speaker 2: is its experience and the stock price performance. What is
- 25:28Speaker 2: an old pro like you think about that?
- 25:31Speaker 5: Yeah, good morning guys.
- 25:33Speaker 9: Well you know, it's funny you mentioned in Video and
- 25:35Speaker 9: Broadcom because we own both, and look, I think there's
- 25:40Speaker 9: a reason investors are coming to these companies, you know,
- 25:43Speaker 9: the Magnificent seven four, whatever you want to call them.
- 25:47Speaker 9: Profit growth is there, revenue growth is there. Outlooks are strong,
- 25:51Speaker 9: There's a lot of demand in these places. And so
- 25:54Speaker 9: in an environment where there's some uncertainty with the broader
- 25:56Speaker 9: equity market, it makes sense that investors are going to
- 25:59Speaker 9: gravitate towards companies that are showing results Facebook, I mean,
- 26:04Speaker 9: you know whatever, And so what that has resulted in
- 26:08Speaker 9: is a little bit of upward concentration, obviously, and it
- 26:12Speaker 9: really is named specific as to valuation. I mean, some
- 26:16Speaker 9: would argue in Vidio certainly is not cheap, it's above
- 26:18Speaker 9: a market multiple. Same thing with Broadcom. But in the
- 26:22Speaker 9: tech world, you know, given the growth rates, given the
- 26:25Speaker 9: execution on the growth rates, they're not that unreasonable. Maybe
- 26:30Speaker 9: a little expensive, but in tech, you know, you're looking
- 26:34Speaker 9: to grow into a multiple overtimes. So it really depends
- 26:37Speaker 9: on the investor and how much they're willing to pay.
- 26:39Speaker 4: All right, to stretch a metaphor in terms of your
- 26:42Speaker 4: investment philosophy, you're driving a car in the winter, you
- 26:46Speaker 4: put snow tires on. If you're in the rain, maybe
- 26:48Speaker 4: rain tires. You're more of an all weather kind of guy,
- 26:52Speaker 4: aren't you.
- 26:54Speaker 9: Yes, yep, that would describe us. We're very diverse. I
- 26:58Speaker 9: mean we run for strategies and equ strategy and two
- 27:00Speaker 9: fixed income strategies, but we're most well known for our
- 27:03Speaker 9: all weather multi asset permanent portfolio, which is a big
- 27:07Speaker 9: diversification play. It assumes the investor can't predict the future accurately.
- 27:12Speaker 9: It wants exposure in a number of areas so that
- 27:14Speaker 9: the investor doesn't have to predict the future, and so
- 27:17Speaker 9: we invest in not only US and non US equities
- 27:20Speaker 9: in a variety of sectors, but also commodities, real estate,
- 27:23Speaker 9: precious metals, and like I said, fixed income US and
- 27:28Speaker 9: non US.
- 27:29Speaker 2: So, Michael, given that broad exposure to different asset classes,
- 27:32Speaker 2: what's kind of your allocation these days in that fund
- 27:35Speaker 2: in terms of the various asset classes, and maybe how
- 27:37Speaker 2: has that changed over time?
- 27:41Speaker 9: Well, we have target weights in six broad categories twenty
- 27:45Speaker 9: percent gold, five percent gold, and silver twenty percent five
- 27:49Speaker 9: percent silver. Two equity sleeves, a hard asset sleeve with
- 27:54Speaker 9: natural resources, commodities, energy, et cetera, fifteen percent, growth stocks
- 27:58Speaker 9: fifteen percent, thirty five percent, and what we call dollar assets,
- 28:02Speaker 9: which is investment grade debt, treasuries, agencies, other high quality debt,
- 28:06Speaker 9: and ten percent in Swiss frank assets typically the currency
- 28:09Speaker 9: or the bond.
- 28:09Speaker 5: As a non US play.
- 28:11Speaker 9: We are currently and we stay fairly close to those targets,
- 28:15Speaker 9: but we're never right on them.
- 28:17Speaker 5: It's not an indexing methodology.
- 28:19Speaker 9: We're currently overweight gold by a couple of percentage points,
- 28:23Speaker 9: We're overweight equities by several percentage points, probably a little
- 28:27Speaker 9: bit underweight fixed income, and in a nutshell, that's and
- 28:32Speaker 9: precious metals. I mentioned gold, Yeah, silver, we're probably right
- 28:35Speaker 9: around target weighting.
- 28:37Speaker 4: How much of that is downside protection.
- 28:42Speaker 5: Depends on your perspective.
- 28:43Speaker 9: I mean, some would argue that the precious metals, probably
- 28:47Speaker 9: the Swiss currency and Swiss government bonds, maybe some equity
- 28:51Speaker 9: names would be considered defensive.
- 28:53Speaker 5: So from our perspective, we look at it.
- 28:55Speaker 9: More as a broader, comprehensive, comprehensive definition of wealth. So
- 29:00Speaker 9: you know, the average investor their four O one K,
- 29:03Speaker 9: maybe they got a brokerage account. Their residents maybe a
- 29:06Speaker 9: second residence. But what we're trying to do is give
- 29:08Speaker 9: exposure beyond that commercial real estate and a variety of sectors,
- 29:13Speaker 9: for example, commodities, industrial metals, energy, precious metals. In that way,
- 29:18Speaker 9: the definition of wealth is broader, and we believe that
- 29:21Speaker 9: the investor is kind of under exposed in a broad
- 29:25Speaker 9: definition of wealth if they don't have exposure to some
- 29:28Speaker 9: of these asset classes, because they all do impact the
- 29:31Speaker 9: financial and economic system and thereby asset prices. So, you know,
- 29:35Speaker 9: we would argue that this sort of comprehensive diversification is
- 29:39Speaker 9: a great addition to somebody's already existing typical you know,
- 29:46Speaker 9: definitions of wealth.
- 29:48Speaker 2: So what's the biggest driver of your portfolio? What are
- 29:51Speaker 2: you looking at the most? Is it defed and what
- 29:53Speaker 2: they're going to do over the next uh cover several
- 29:56Speaker 2: cycles or what else kind of impacts your portfolio?
- 30:00Speaker 5: Well, it varies from time to time, but right now,
- 30:02Speaker 5: certainly it's the FED.
- 30:04Speaker 9: You know, I think the consensus is they're done, if
- 30:07Speaker 9: not close to done. The big question seems to be
- 30:10Speaker 9: when will they start cutting by how much? Or even
- 30:13Speaker 9: you know, with the data recently in the last couple
- 30:15Speaker 9: of months, here will they cut at all, and I
- 30:18Speaker 9: think there's smart people on all sides of that debate.
- 30:22Speaker 5: We would sort of take the position that.
- 30:23Speaker 9: We're not going to try to predict the outcome, but
- 30:26Speaker 9: we're going to have investments in a variety of areas
- 30:29Speaker 9: so that regardless of what happens, we've got some winners
- 30:31Speaker 9: and maybe mitigating losses. So my own opinion on this
- 30:36Speaker 9: is that, you know, the the economy is growing, we're
- 30:39Speaker 9: not in a recession. We may have a soft landing
- 30:41Speaker 9: or no landing, or we may be inching to some
- 30:43Speaker 9: sort of slow down. We just can't tell. The growth
- 30:46Speaker 9: numbers at the moment, and the low unemployment with consumer
- 30:49Speaker 9: spending allow the FED to be cautious and they don't
- 30:53Speaker 9: have to start cutting rates right away, and we could
- 30:56Speaker 9: exist in a higher for longer environment and still grow.
- 31:00Speaker 9: Go back to the nineteen eighties, you know, when inflation
- 31:03Speaker 9: was coming down from really high levels, we still had
- 31:05Speaker 9: a period where the inflation rate was mid single digits
- 31:08Speaker 9: coming down, and the economy still grew during a large
- 31:12Speaker 9: part of that decade.
- 31:13Speaker 5: So it is possible now.
- 31:15Speaker 9: Circumstances are different nowadays, and the rates now from a
- 31:20Speaker 9: perception standpoint, are a lot, how higher relative to what
- 31:23Speaker 9: we lived with in the last twenty years, so you
- 31:25Speaker 9: got to.
- 31:25Speaker 5: Take that into consideration.
- 31:27Speaker 9: But the current economic factors are allowing the FED to
- 31:30Speaker 9: probably watchful weight. Obviously growth employment is a big factor
- 31:35Speaker 9: we're looking at, because if that falls over, I think
- 31:37Speaker 9: you do move very quickly towards a slow down. You've
- 31:41Speaker 9: got the presidential progressional elections coming up, We've got geoptical
- 31:44Speaker 9: uncertainties in several areas around the globe. So we are
- 31:48Speaker 9: looking at a lot of issues and there are a
- 31:50Speaker 9: lot of questions that need to be answered which argue
- 31:53Speaker 9: for a diversified approach.
- 31:54Speaker 2: All right, Michael, thank you so much for joining us.
- 31:56Speaker 2: We really appreciated. Michael Cogino, President, portfolio manager of the
- 31:59Speaker 2: Permanent Folio family of funds.
- 32:03Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 32:07Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apocar playing and Broud
- 32:10Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 32:14Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 32:18Speaker 2: NYCB New York Community Bank down another seven and a
- 32:22Speaker 2: half percent today, down sixty five percent year to date.
- 32:27Speaker 2: Is it an NYCB problem or do we have some
- 32:29Speaker 2: more systemic problems for some of the regional banks. For
- 32:33Speaker 2: that return to Herman Chen. He covers all the regional
- 32:36Speaker 2: banks for Bloomberg Intelligence. Let's start first, Herman with any
- 32:39Speaker 2: jointions here in our studio. NYCB, what's the news today
- 32:43Speaker 2: pushing the stock down?
- 32:44Speaker 10: Yeah, so NYCB caught and analyst down grade earlier this
- 32:47Speaker 10: morning excited ongoing credit issues with potential losses in regulated
- 32:55Speaker 10: and apartment commercial real estate really hampering the earnings power.
- 32:59Speaker 2: For the bank.
- 33:01Speaker 4: So let's get back to the forty thousand foot view.
- 33:06Speaker 4: The smaller banks like New York Community Bank in trouble
- 33:10Speaker 4: because of real estate, whether it be commercial or other
- 33:15Speaker 4: types of housing. Explain how that all works. They lend
- 33:19Speaker 4: out money to a building a commercial real estate, and
- 33:23Speaker 4: you know it looks like they don't have tenants anymore,
- 33:25Speaker 4: so they the loan doesn't get paid back or what. Yeah,
- 33:29Speaker 4: that's right, Talk to me like I'm your German Shepherds.
- 33:32Speaker 2: So there's two issues you can look at that.
- 33:34Speaker 10: Look at all these Class B and C type office
- 33:38Speaker 10: buildings here in New York City has a good example
- 33:40Speaker 10: where the work from home phenomenon has left a.
- 33:44Speaker 2: Lot of them has not.
- 33:47Speaker 10: Brought a lot of cash flow in for these owners
- 33:51Speaker 10: of these properties, right because there some tenants are leaving.
- 33:55Speaker 10: There's retail space that's leaving, so that's exacerbated some of
- 34:01Speaker 10: the issues with cash flows for these borrowers as they
- 34:08Speaker 10: refinance over the next few years. And you've seen that
- 34:10Speaker 10: already where higher interest rates and the lower cash flows
- 34:14Speaker 10: is a bit of a double whammy for them. So
- 34:16Speaker 10: it's harder to refinance and they don't have a lot
- 34:19Speaker 10: of cash coming in, so it's difficult to repay these loans.
- 34:22Speaker 4: And it can in some circumstances they just walk away
- 34:25Speaker 4: from the building.
- 34:26Speaker 10: There's some circumstances that we've seen, like larger property owners
- 34:30Speaker 10: like Brookfield and Blackstone have walked away from buildings that
- 34:33Speaker 10: just aren't tenable anymore. If they didn't walk away, there
- 34:37Speaker 10: would be more losses going forward. So they make a
- 34:41Speaker 10: calculation and say we're giving the keys back because it's
- 34:44Speaker 10: better for us economically to do that rare than supporting
- 34:48Speaker 10: this building that has wee cash flows.
- 34:50Speaker 2: So I'm looking at this spider s and p Regional
- 34:52Speaker 2: Banking ETF. It's off one percent today, off nine percent
- 34:55Speaker 2: year to date, but up thirteen percent from a trailing
- 34:58Speaker 2: twelve month basis, they did kind of come off the
- 35:01Speaker 2: very very bottom. I guess is NYCB. It sounds to
- 35:06Speaker 2: me it's specific to NYCB okay right now. But on
- 35:11Speaker 2: the flip side, I also understand from smart people like
- 35:13Speaker 2: you that if there to the extent there is commercial
- 35:16Speaker 2: real estate exposure, it is primarily with small and mid
- 35:20Speaker 2: sized lenders as opposed to JP Morgan's or the Bank
- 35:23Speaker 2: of Americas of the world. That's right, Okay.
- 35:25Speaker 10: So there's two issues that we have pointed to in
- 35:28Speaker 10: our research, the actual office and commercial real estate exposures
- 35:34Speaker 10: for the largest banks like JP Morgan, and you can
- 35:36Speaker 10: throw in the largest regional banks like a US Bank, PNC, Trust,
- 35:40Speaker 10: Fifth Third.
- 35:41Speaker 2: Et cetera.
- 35:43Speaker 10: There their exposure to commercial real city is much smaller
- 35:46Speaker 10: compared to smaller regionals and community banks, and growth in
- 35:51Speaker 10: commercial real estate since the pandemic has been largely focused
- 35:55Speaker 10: on the smaller banks, and for the largest US banks
- 35:59Speaker 10: it's grown about two or three percent since the pandemic,
- 36:02Speaker 10: whereas it's upwards of twenty percent for a lot of
- 36:05Speaker 10: the smaller banks. So the concentration risk is more focused
- 36:08Speaker 10: on the smaller banks and you've seen that the uptail nicely.
- 36:13Speaker 10: If you compare the performance of the BKX, which is
- 36:16Speaker 10: the index for the largest banks, versus the KRE, which
- 36:19Speaker 10: is the index for the regional banks as a whole,
- 36:23Speaker 10: there's been a divergence over the past year today.
- 36:26Speaker 4: So as the situation gets worse, do the regulators who
- 36:30Speaker 4: oversee the banks, do they increase the regulation, therefore making
- 36:34Speaker 4: the situations spiral even further.
- 36:36Speaker 10: What you've seen some tougher regulations, at least proposals come
- 36:41Speaker 10: out since the SVB first Republic signature failures last March,
- 36:47Speaker 10: and that's still going through, you know, the sausage making
- 36:50Speaker 10: process at the Federal Reserve, and there's been pushed back
- 36:53Speaker 10: by the largest banks because they think the regulations.
- 36:56Speaker 2: Are too onerous.
- 36:58Speaker 10: So there and Palace talked about saying that as it's
- 37:02Speaker 10: currently proposed and may not pass, muster for the Fed,
- 37:06Speaker 10: so there's not one hundred percent buy in from the
- 37:10Speaker 10: top of the Fed. So that means that there could
- 37:12Speaker 10: potentially be some watering down of those regulations.
- 37:16Speaker 2: So if I'm an analyst, is it fairly easy for
- 37:19Speaker 2: me to look at a bank and say how much
- 37:22Speaker 2: commercial real estate or how much maybe office real estate exposure.
- 37:25Speaker 2: It has visibly everybody else and I can mark that
- 37:28Speaker 2: stock down or up accordingly though we are Are we
- 37:31Speaker 2: already there?
- 37:32Speaker 5: Yeah?
- 37:32Speaker 8: We are.
- 37:33Speaker 10: I think we've seen that in the trading action since
- 37:39Speaker 10: NYCB reported their fourth quarter results that really surprised the
- 37:42Speaker 10: street that the industry has been pretty resilient, and I
- 37:47Speaker 10: think everybody has started to realize that not every office
- 37:51Speaker 10: and not every apartments lender is the same, and so
- 37:56Speaker 10: there's been more discerning trading for a lot of these
- 38:00Speaker 10: regional banks, which is good because last March it was
- 38:05Speaker 10: all regional banks are going to fail, and now we're
- 38:08Speaker 10: not in that sort of scenario any longer.
- 38:11Speaker 4: Unless we heard it was Steve Minution to the rescue
- 38:14Speaker 4: with the billion dollars from other investors. Right, where's that stand?
- 38:19Speaker 4: And is a billion dollars that not for?
- 38:21Speaker 10: Yeah, that's that's the ultimate question, right. So the billion
- 38:26Speaker 10: dollars injection capital injection really and stilled a bit more
- 38:30Speaker 10: confidence of the bank. It brings their capital ratios back
- 38:34Speaker 10: to peer levels after the loss in the fourth quarter.
- 38:38Speaker 10: It gives them some room to build up their bad
- 38:41Speaker 10: debt reserves for future loan losses in their apartment lending business.
- 38:47Speaker 7: But is it enough.
- 38:49Speaker 10: It's still up in the air. The downgrades sort from
- 38:53Speaker 10: an analyst today pointed to there's going to be credit losses,
- 38:56Speaker 10: and there's there's a lot of uncertainty with their earnings
- 39:00Speaker 10: because there's going to be higher expenses. Their margin is
- 39:03Speaker 10: going to be compressed over the next several quarters, and
- 39:08Speaker 10: they're not going to grow their loan portfolio, they're actually
- 39:10Speaker 10: shrinking it. So lots still lots of questions and really
- 39:14Speaker 10: it will depend on where interest rates go and how
- 39:18Speaker 10: their credit quality holds up, and not a lot of
- 39:20Speaker 10: answers at this point.
- 39:21Speaker 2: So for the quality smaller regional sized banks are, is
- 39:26Speaker 2: there smart buying in those things at the moment, longer
- 39:29Speaker 2: term buying or just that trade off the bottom or.
- 39:31Speaker 10: Yeah, I think you've seen some stability for a lot
- 39:36Speaker 10: of the banks, the smaller ones that still have room
- 39:39Speaker 10: to perform and outperform with credit qualities is going to
- 39:44Speaker 10: be the keynot the bank. Investors aren't really focused on
- 39:48Speaker 10: growing the balance sheet at this point. It's more do
- 39:51Speaker 10: you show stable credit performance not a lot of charge offs,
- 39:56Speaker 10: and banks that have historically had strong credit on the
- 40:00Speaker 10: that front, like a Western Alliance, M and T Regions,
- 40:06Speaker 10: et cetera. Those banks seem to be better positioned for
- 40:10Speaker 10: the current bathroom.
- 40:11Speaker 4: How many people do we know who are looking for
- 40:14Speaker 4: housing in New York and can't find it and you
- 40:16Speaker 4: look across the street, Oh there's a vacant building. Well,
- 40:19Speaker 4: there's a vacant building, whether.
- 40:21Speaker 7: There's something not good.
- 40:22Speaker 4: You know, it does not compute.
- 40:24Speaker 2: I know, can you convert retail space and office space
- 40:28Speaker 2: into residential And what the experts tell me is for
- 40:32Speaker 2: some of it you can, But.
- 40:35Speaker 4: I mean you just think about every apartment would need
- 40:37Speaker 4: its own plumbing. In a commercial building, maybe there's like
- 40:40Speaker 4: one or two bathrooms on each floor.
- 40:42Speaker 2: So I don't know, I don't know, but that's an infrastructure.
- 40:45Speaker 2: It's a lot tougher, all right, Herman Chan, thank you
- 40:47Speaker 2: so much. We appreciate it. Hermit Change. He covers all
- 40:49Speaker 2: the regional banks force for Bloomberg Intelligence NYCB getting a
- 40:53Speaker 2: downgrade from Raymond James today that stocks off seven percent,
- 40:57Speaker 2: adding to the woes there NYCB.
- 41:00Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast, available on Apples, Spotify,
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