Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanovk. We're here every day bringing
Speaker 1: you the latest news from the world to business and finance,
Speaker 1: plus technology, politics, economics, all partnising the power of Business
Speaker 1: Week reporters and editors, not to mention our journalists and
Speaker 1: analyst in more than one twenty countries. You can download
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week and iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com.
Speaker 1: You can also listen to our radio show at two
Speaker 1: pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on
Speaker 1: YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Let's get some thoughts on
Speaker 1: where we are today regarding the global health pandemic. Dr
Speaker 1: Shantown new Nandie is chief medical officer at the private
Speaker 1: healthcare data and solutions company Accolade. His former health technology
Speaker 1: advisor to the World Bank. His new book, Here After
Speaker 1: COVID with the Pandemic Revealed, is Broken in Healthcare and
Speaker 1: How to Reinvent It. He joins us on this Tuesday
Speaker 1: on the phone in Washington, d c um, it is
Speaker 1: so nice to have you here with us. Dr Nundee.
Speaker 1: Tell us, first of all, how are you and what
Speaker 1: are you seeing when it comes to COVID and the
Speaker 1: vaccine rollout and kind of where we are so far. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. Thanks so much for the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be here. UM and uh yeah, I mean absolutely, uh
Speaker 1: you know, incredible times we live in. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing is, you know, certainly so
Speaker 1: I still get a chance to practice UM at a
Speaker 1: small safety net clinic outside of d C, largely serving
Speaker 1: a pretty vulnerable and uninsured population, and it's it's been
Speaker 1: really promising, I would say, you know, increasingly, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: seeing patients who have been fully vaccinated. UM. I think
Speaker 1: hesitancy has come down significantly. UM. And I think it's
Speaker 1: we're seeing many more people coming back for routine medical care,
Speaker 1: which has been good to see. UM. And my other
Speaker 1: hat at Accolade, where we work with employers large and
Speaker 1: small all around the country. I think real major topic
Speaker 1: of conversation right now is Okay, well, what's next, Like,
Speaker 1: what do we have to do now to safely get
Speaker 1: our employees back in the office and how do we
Speaker 1: start to loosen the reins on what's been a pretty
Speaker 1: strict UH control up until now. Well, Dr Nundy what
Speaker 1: do we have to do Because we know that the
Speaker 1: US will not reach vaccinations for many reasons. One, it's
Speaker 1: not a proof for kids, but to there are still
Speaker 1: adults who are hesitant. The President does plan to announce
Speaker 1: today that he's targeting seventy of US adults getting the
Speaker 1: vaccine shot by July fourth. How is he going to
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah, I mean, I think what we've seen
Speaker 1: around the country is that really that hesitancy and access
Speaker 1: are heavily correlated. Right if we can make it too
Speaker 1: dead simple for people to get the vaccine, that itself
Speaker 1: moves a significant portion of the population board to wanting
Speaker 1: to get vaccinated. And so I think the idea of
Speaker 1: taking sort of mass vaccination sites that in some places
Speaker 1: aren't needed anymore and sort of deconstructing them and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: how do we actually just push this out into communities
Speaker 1: and maybe directly into holp um so that you have
Speaker 1: so much showing up in your doorstep saying hey, I
Speaker 1: have the vaccine right now if you want it. I
Speaker 1: think that's going to help us get to that next
Speaker 1: sort of uh, you know, five percent that we need
Speaker 1: to to continue to push forward. Sounds like a Jane
Speaker 1: J one shot would be the perfect vaccine for that. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think you know that. It's really interesting that you
Speaker 1: say that, because I think the science of the Jane
Speaker 1: J vers the other vaccines are are somewhat similar. But
Speaker 1: I think from a delivery perspective that's sort of blast
Speaker 1: mild perspective. I think Jane J would be a really
Speaker 1: powerful tool in our tool hit. So okay, so what
Speaker 1: do you think we need to do to get those
Speaker 1: people who are hesitant? We've made a lot of progress
Speaker 1: in a relatively short period of time in terms of
Speaker 1: getting vaccines into American's arms. So what is the thing
Speaker 1: that is ultimately holding it people back at this point?
Speaker 1: Is it access or is it just discomfort? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a good question. It's it's definitely multiple things. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think access is still an issue, you know, I think, um,
Speaker 1: particularly when you think about you know, for some people,
Speaker 1: particularly those are more residents, where they want to learn
Speaker 1: about the vaccine, where they want to get it, frankly,
Speaker 1: is what their primary here doctors are an healthcare setting
Speaker 1: and still you know, like my clinic as an example,
Speaker 1: we actually have community partnership. We can we have a
Speaker 1: sort of a large vaccination side at a church that
Speaker 1: we have. But if you see me today in clinic,
Speaker 1: I can give you a flu shot, I can get
Speaker 1: to a shingle shot. I cannot give you the COVID
Speaker 1: vaccine in the course of a normal clinic visit. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's one piece of it, um for sure.
Speaker 1: I think another pieces we needed to make the incentive
Speaker 1: of getting vaccinated much clearer for people. I think we've
Speaker 1: been cautious. I think that's been good, but I think
Speaker 1: we need to make much clearer if you get vaccinated,
Speaker 1: here's what that's going to mean for your life, whether
Speaker 1: that's your work or your personal life. We need to
Speaker 1: sort of up to the annie on the benefits for
Speaker 1: those who are vaccinating. Do you think the CDC has
Speaker 1: been too hesitant to do that? With messaging like this
Speaker 1: would have been more effective had the CDC from early
Speaker 1: on come out and said, hey, when you are six
Speaker 1: weeks past that first shot, when you're two weeks past
Speaker 1: that second shot, you are free to go back to
Speaker 1: living your normal life. Yeah, I think they've been more
Speaker 1: I think they've been a little too cautious, and that's right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the exact guidances is is what
Speaker 1: you're saying, But I think it's right. What I'm saying
Speaker 1: is like should should they? Should they be doing that?
Speaker 1: Should they be? Or or some sort of closer return
Speaker 1: to normalcy and something sooner. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Uh And and I think part of the messaging too
Speaker 1: is it's got to be just much more understandable for
Speaker 1: people about what it means for the things that matter
Speaker 1: to them. There's sort of a design element, if you would,
Speaker 1: how we're communicating that I think is also been missed
Speaker 1: as well. So I want to talk about your book,
Speaker 1: if we may, because it's called Care after COVID with
Speaker 1: the pandemic revealed? Is broken in healthcare and how to
Speaker 1: reinvent it? And safe to say that we've had a
Speaker 1: lot of conversations about disruption we have left for you know,
Speaker 1: reporting after the close, like they disrupt transportation and kind
Speaker 1: of the driving world, if you will. What's interesting is
Speaker 1: healthcare has been I think one of those areas that
Speaker 1: most people would agree it's taken a while for it
Speaker 1: to be disrupted and still has a long way to go.
Speaker 1: You talk about in this book that if the health
Speaker 1: care system were an Emperor COVID nineteen tragically review that
Speaker 1: it had no clothes. So what do we learn from
Speaker 1: these past twelve thirteen months. Obviously telemedicine, that's the obvious one,
Speaker 1: and I'm guessing it's going to stay with us. But
Speaker 1: what else? How do we move towards a more transparent, efficient,
Speaker 1: productive healthcare system? Yeah, so I think there's two elements
Speaker 1: of what we learned, right. I think one is just
Speaker 1: this idea, this sort of magnification of the longstanding failures
Speaker 1: of the health care system. Right. I think it's hard
Speaker 1: to find people these days that don't deeply understand how
Speaker 1: inaccessible health care is, how inequitable health care is, how
Speaker 1: inefficient it is. And I think that matters because I
Speaker 1: think what was a reality for pockets of Americans for
Speaker 1: a while, you know, those with multiple chronic conditions, those
Speaker 1: who are lower income. I think now is a shared
Speaker 1: lived experience of nearly all of us, Right, We've all
Speaker 1: had that experience of you know, how do I get
Speaker 1: a vaccine um and navigating that, how do I get
Speaker 1: a task? And and I think that that actually matters
Speaker 1: in terms of the sort of public being able to
Speaker 1: move forward to better care models. The second thing we
Speaker 1: learned is that actually health care can be way more
Speaker 1: flexible in a crisis than we thought. Right. I think
Speaker 1: even the most sort of expert folks didn't expect that
Speaker 1: clinics like mind, in the course of two weeks would
Speaker 1: go from never doing any virtual visits to nearly virtual
Speaker 1: um within a two week span. Right. I don't think
Speaker 1: we expected that we'd be able to spin up drive
Speaker 1: through testing. Right. We've for for decades now we take
Speaker 1: people that are sick, coughing and sneezing on each other
Speaker 1: and we put them in a waiting room to cope
Speaker 1: on each other. And now we have a better way
Speaker 1: to do that. We scale that. We're also using data
Speaker 1: in new ways. Right, So in my clinic, we've had
Speaker 1: an electronic record for a long time. This is one
Speaker 1: of the first times we've taken data out of there
Speaker 1: and used it to proactively call people who are who
Speaker 1: are sicker or higher risks that needed a vaccine. And
Speaker 1: so I think that that's a huge part of what
Speaker 1: we've learned too, is that change is possible, and I
Speaker 1: think that the demand for that change is greater than ever.
Speaker 1: And I have to say that having experienced a virtual
Speaker 1: visit with a doctor and I thought, this isn't gonna work.
Speaker 1: How is he going? You know? And it was pretty
Speaker 1: comprehensive and incredible, And as a result, I was much
Speaker 1: more involved because I had to do things that he
Speaker 1: would have been normally doing to be without getting too specific,
Speaker 1: but it but it was interesting that I was much
Speaker 1: more involved and thoughtful in my questions as a result
Speaker 1: because I was understanding what was going on. It's been
Speaker 1: I mean for me, it's been hit or miss. It's
Speaker 1: been really good. Yeah, from a pediatrician perspective. Being able
Speaker 1: to connect with our pediatrition has been really good. But
Speaker 1: for for you know, I thought I hurt myself riding
Speaker 1: my bike over the summer, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: the doctor couldn't like actually check to see if I
Speaker 1: was heard by pressing on all the areas that he
Speaker 1: would normally press on. Right, it's not perfect. So so
Speaker 1: what is the next iteration of this? Dr Nundee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we're healthier needs to go and I think
Speaker 1: we one of the things that we're missing is a
Speaker 1: clear vision of where we need to go. And what
Speaker 1: I've sort of described in the book is that I
Speaker 1: think healthier needs to become just pributed. It needs to
Speaker 1: become digitally enabled, and needs to become decentralized. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is distributed means care is is
Speaker 1: care happens, where health happens. It's closer to where patients
Speaker 1: are at home, in the community, increasingly on their phone.
Speaker 1: To your point, it can't just be about virtual only.
Speaker 1: That's an important one, but that sometimes you're going to
Speaker 1: need to see a doctor in person. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that care can't start closer to home. And then
Speaker 1: in some cases maybe home visits that makes sense. In
Speaker 1: some cases that may mean employer on site clinic, So
Speaker 1: that's sort of distributed. Digitally enabled is really thing. Look,
Speaker 1: the real role of data and technology and healthcare is
Speaker 1: to extend the relationships that are central to care. Right.
Speaker 1: We think we've all learned during the pandemic that trust
Speaker 1: is essential and that trust between a patient and provider
Speaker 1: is ultimately what drives a lot of the outcomes. But
Speaker 1: up until now, a lot of the technology investments you've made,
Speaker 1: it's frankly been neutral to negative on that relationship. The
Speaker 1: e m R, the Electronic medical record being the best
Speaker 1: example of that. And then decentralized. We need to put
Speaker 1: way more resources in the hands of frontline health workers
Speaker 1: and patients. Right. So, one of the things I advocated
Speaker 1: on early on was, you know, when everyone was concerned
Speaker 1: about testing, testing, test, and they said, well, we said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't Why can't patients just test themselves at home?
Speaker 1: Because a lot's absurd, you know, the patients can't do that,
Speaker 1: and and and and so we had these stories of
Speaker 1: people saying hundreds, sometimes over a thousand dollars just to
Speaker 1: get a test for COVID. Today, you can walk into
Speaker 1: a CBS from Walgrain and for for fourteen dollars, you
Speaker 1: can get two kids of fourteen dollars of kids, and
Speaker 1: in fifteen minutes on your kitchen table, you can test
Speaker 1: yourself for COVID and get a pretty accurate answer. That's
Speaker 1: the direction I think we need to go. So, so,
Speaker 1: what are the permanent changes that you would like to
Speaker 1: see in order for us to be prepared for what
Speaker 1: we not affectionately, not so affectionately called the next pandemic? Like,
Speaker 1: do we need to have the vaccination infrastructure already in
Speaker 1: place so we can respond right away? Do we need
Speaker 1: to have the testing infrastructure already in place so we
Speaker 1: can respond. Do we need to change the way we
Speaker 1: do emergency use authorization with the FDA so they can nimble? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, it's all of the above, I think.
Speaker 1: In addition, I think a lot of the ones that
Speaker 1: you just suggested or from a public health perspective, I
Speaker 1: think about it also from a healthcare deliveries perspective. Right, So,
Speaker 1: for example, if we can distribute more care to people's homes,
Speaker 1: what that means. It's like the classics, you don't want
Speaker 1: to put all your eggs in one basket. It's when
Speaker 1: you rely on a hospital and that hospital, funnily is overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Guess what happens? Like you can't do elective care, you
Speaker 1: can't safely hospitalize people. And we saw that too, and
Speaker 1: so actually sort of spreading out where care happens into
Speaker 1: more sites would actually enable us to be much more
Speaker 1: resilient when those things happen. UM. A big part of
Speaker 1: this is about data. I mean the fact that we
Speaker 1: couldn't even answer simple questions like at any given day,
Speaker 1: how many people in this country are hospitalized with COVID,
Speaker 1: let alone, how many of them are or African American
Speaker 1: or Latino or let alone what your outcomes are. It
Speaker 1: is an absolute travesty, especially given that we've just spent
Speaker 1: billions and billions of dollars on taking health information and
Speaker 1: making a digital and so we absolutely need finally solve
Speaker 1: this interoperability issue for many reasons, but one of them
Speaker 1: is so that you know, we can be much more
Speaker 1: responsive so that when we have a pandemic, we're seeing
Speaker 1: the data, we're understanding the complications, and we're being able
Speaker 1: to understand what treatment are and are not working. Isn't
Speaker 1: the endgame here in terms of what we've learned over
Speaker 1: the last year that if you're a healthy individual, no guarantee,
Speaker 1: but you're much more likely to be able to fight
Speaker 1: a virus or some other disease or ailment. You've got
Speaker 1: a chapter and here about patient directed empowering people to
Speaker 1: guide their own care, and you talked about being a
Speaker 1: third year medical student going through the hospital and how
Speaker 1: you kept seeing patient after patients suffering from health problems
Speaker 1: that were completely preventable. And are we ready for a
Speaker 1: wellness health care system that's about keeping people away from
Speaker 1: doctors out of hospitals, which, as you know, is quite
Speaker 1: the financial and business Jugger not right now, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I Mean one of the other stories in the book,
Speaker 1: and one that's really close to me because involves my
Speaker 1: own mom, is the fact that you know, my mom
Speaker 1: is that diabetes types of diabetes for twenty years and
Speaker 1: on inflant for ten she kept hearing all these reports
Speaker 1: that hey, you have diabetes, your risk of COVID higher
Speaker 1: to your point, right, and she said, I can't, I
Speaker 1: can't handle this anymore. And so she signed up for
Speaker 1: a program that got her seven help coach, connected her
Speaker 1: with the peer someone else who also has diabetes and
Speaker 1: comes from the same culture that we do, got our
Speaker 1: virtual care doctor, and within a month, my mom went
Speaker 1: from being on influence for ten years, never having your
Speaker 1: sugar control, to being completely off of influence and and
Speaker 1: and achieving a state we call diabetes reversal. And so
Speaker 1: I think that you know, with the third wave of
Speaker 1: digital help that we've seen, um, some of these models
Speaker 1: that are coming out, I think are exactly the direction
Speaker 1: we need to go to say, we don't need yet
Speaker 1: necessarily another drug for diabetes that's one percent better for
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred times the cost, but we need
Speaker 1: to start putting our investment from an ni AH perspective,
Speaker 1: from a payer perspective is and the idea of actually
Speaker 1: preventing disease or or actually reversing or controlling disease. So
Speaker 1: where does that education start though, because it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: we don't want it to take a pandemic for for
Speaker 1: that to happen yesterday, right, absolutely not, absolutely not. And
Speaker 1: where does it start? I mean, I think it starts
Speaker 1: in a lot of places. But I think at least
Speaker 1: the world that I think a lot about is is
Speaker 1: the employer world. I think employers are are are heavily
Speaker 1: incentivized to manage the health of employees, not only because
Speaker 1: they manage their medical costs, but also because that that productivity,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, missing uh, you know, work for appointment,
Speaker 1: whether it's mental health, those things affect their bottom line significantly.
Speaker 1: And but I think that, you know, there's been a
Speaker 1: little bit of a lag in that world where you know,
Speaker 1: some of the solutions that they're that they they're supporting
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily the ones that are getting to that. There's
Speaker 1: this whole cottage industry of people that are still saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, by fit for all your employees, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's not really been proven to work, and so I
Speaker 1: think that's where I think some education needs to happen.
Speaker 1: It's actually unlocked in scale. Well, I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: interesting conversation. Interesting book you talk about checklist for every
Speaker 1: decade of life you know of just how to keep
Speaker 1: yourself healthy so that you don't get to a situation
Speaker 1: where you're ill. Really great conversation. Dr Shantau Nandie. He's
Speaker 1: chief medical officer at the private health care data solutions
Speaker 1: company Accolaid, former health technology advisor to the World Bank.
Speaker 1: And that book that we talked about care after COVID
Speaker 1: with the pandemic revealed is broken in healthcare and how
Speaker 1: to even invent it. My guesses will continue the conversation
Speaker 1: he has here in his book in the future. Look,
Speaker 1: one thing that I was thinking about the entire time
Speaker 1: Dr Nundie was speaking is about education and thinking about
Speaker 1: how healthy lifestyle starts at such a young age in
Speaker 1: the connection between mortality, comorbidities, and um. Well, we need
Speaker 1: to do as Americans in order to make sure that
Speaker 1: we become healthier as a whole in order to be
Speaker 1: because look, it's all about being on the defensive when
Speaker 1: it comes to our health. We do with driving, we
Speaker 1: do with other things, and it makes sense with healthcare.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Yes, Bloomberg terminal
Speaker 1: readers and users are reading this big time. It's the
Speaker 1: most read story about the bank. But bosses who are
Speaker 1: looking to say so long to remote working, Tim, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, It turns out that the bosses wanted
Speaker 1: the underlings don't really want it as much. Jenny Serena's
Speaker 1: finance reporter for Bloomberg News and joins us on the
Speaker 1: phone from here in New York. Jenny, Okay, what is
Speaker 1: the disconnect between management and employees. Management wants people back,
Speaker 1: but employees are saying, hey, not so fast. I think
Speaker 1: the disconnect really comes in that employees are, um, just
Speaker 1: wanting more flexibility on a more permanent basis. So even
Speaker 1: if they're open to coming back, and even if they
Speaker 1: you know, are wanting to see their colleagues and be
Speaker 1: in the office again, they want the ability to work
Speaker 1: from home, um, you know, one or two days a
Speaker 1: week and kind of decide when that is an option
Speaker 1: for them. Um, I think a lot of the web
Speaker 1: just comes from the fact that we've had obviously this
Speaker 1: really terrible hard years. Thanks process have been you know,
Speaker 1: storing through the roots. People are obviously productive. Um, so
Speaker 1: they're just like, hey, we've we've done our best, We've
Speaker 1: done a great job. Can't you trust us with this decision?
Speaker 1: This is like I could see a toddler. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: little little Johnny, I need you to do this? Why
Speaker 1: well because I need you back? Why well, because I
Speaker 1: need you back? Um well, we're productive, so why do
Speaker 1: you need me back? Like I could, like, you know, profitable.
Speaker 1: The banks have done really well. We know that you
Speaker 1: know that, Um, it's working. We heard from a lot
Speaker 1: of these big bank execs early on are saying listen.
Speaker 1: I think I remember James Gorman work in Stanley saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is kind of working. Maybe we reduce our real
Speaker 1: estate footprints. So do they need to make the case
Speaker 1: to the underlings in order to get them back and
Speaker 1: you know, or does it not really matter that underlings
Speaker 1: ultimately you've got to come back. No, I think it
Speaker 1: definitely matters. I mean, I think these these executives are
Speaker 1: realizing that a lot of this just messaging and kind
Speaker 1: of making it clear you know, why they want folks back,
Speaker 1: not just you know, this is the day we expect
Speaker 1: you to be here. Um. And I think a big
Speaker 1: thing that's driving that actually is um. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not that they really think that every single person needs
Speaker 1: to be in the office so that they can monitor
Speaker 1: them and track them. I think a large thing is culture.
Speaker 1: You know, these thanks that really are seeing their cultures
Speaker 1: kind of break down and degrade, um young people. You know,
Speaker 1: there's so much training that happens kind of in person.
Speaker 1: They haven't really been able to replace that in the
Speaker 1: remote world. So I think that those are things that
Speaker 1: they're trying to kind of align people around and make
Speaker 1: them realize like, hey, someone did this for you, you
Speaker 1: kind of need to pass it on to the next generation. Um.
Speaker 1: But so much of that is just the messaging, and
Speaker 1: I think these like be handed memos that come out
Speaker 1: that's really where the rob is is kind of um
Speaker 1: you know taking place. Hey Jenny, where does burnout come
Speaker 1: into this? And to what extent can can burnout be
Speaker 1: tied to remote work? Yeah? I think I mean that
Speaker 1: is a huge one. I think, especially given the burnout
Speaker 1: that we're seeing among junior bankers. UM. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of bankbots just seem to think that that is
Speaker 1: really because there's no outlets for these guys, um you know,
Speaker 1: on the weekends or anything like that, and so they're
Speaker 1: just always working and always on, always logged in. And
Speaker 1: for some reason, I'm just thinking of the show industry.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I mean it's very it's very Hollywood.
Speaker 1: What what we're hearing and seeing out there is. I
Speaker 1: think these guys are tired, and they've been working super hard,
Speaker 1: super long hours. And I think banks think that um
Speaker 1: you know, having that office environment, having a way to
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of camaraderie in terms of
Speaker 1: working with others, but then having a way to blow
Speaker 1: off team after work, whether that's the gym or going
Speaker 1: out for drinks or doing dinners or whatever, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think their their hope is that that will, um
Speaker 1: you know, really help on the burnout front. I thought
Speaker 1: it was really interesting your story. You guys cite um
Speaker 1: an accent or survey a for inn North American financial
Speaker 1: services executives and you and the survey kind of points
Speaker 1: out a little bit of the disconnect between what bosses
Speaker 1: want for office work and the reality, uh they're expecting
Speaker 1: because we have heard from a lot of employers financial
Speaker 1: sector or others right about reducing their real estate footprint,
Speaker 1: which to me sends a different message potentially. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. One of the other things I think is
Speaker 1: driving this and um and will be interesting to kind
Speaker 1: of see how it plays out, is just over the
Speaker 1: course of the last year, we've all done so much
Speaker 1: more digitally than we ever had before. Um So, banks
Speaker 1: as they're able to like invest more in technology and
Speaker 1: people are comfortable with doing all of this digital stuff,
Speaker 1: they're able to I think, cut a lot of jobs.
Speaker 1: And so I think some of what we're going to
Speaker 1: be feeling seeing on the real estate front is just
Speaker 1: the fact that they're you know, able to reduce their
Speaker 1: their actual headcount as well, just because so many, so
Speaker 1: much more is happening, you know, in an automated digital way.
Speaker 1: Um and it's happening much faster because the pandemic has
Speaker 1: just made us all that much more comfortable with that stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you anticipate that there will be some sort of
Speaker 1: hybrid environment with these banks and you know, I mean
Speaker 1: even I don't want to say permanently because We don't
Speaker 1: don't know what it's going to look like, but every
Speaker 1: return to office kind of has this asterisk right where
Speaker 1: it's where it's hybrid, where it is not every person
Speaker 1: every day because of social distancing, Like, what does that
Speaker 1: look like a year from now? Yeah, it's a really
Speaker 1: good question. I mean, I think, to be honest, I
Speaker 1: think the banks that offer more flexibility, it sounds like
Speaker 1: they're going to be the winners in terms of the
Speaker 1: war for talent, especially with women. We had that in
Speaker 1: the story today that just women are really craving that flexibility,
Speaker 1: especially after being given it for much of the last year.
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, the banks that offer it
Speaker 1: will probably have a little bit of a leg up um.
Speaker 1: But then you know, we've got two really vocal banks
Speaker 1: out there, JP Morket and Goldman Sachs saying no, we
Speaker 1: believe in the future of the office and we want
Speaker 1: you guys back in. So I think there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of kind of war. Are the world's happening here? Um,
Speaker 1: And it'll be kind of interesting to see how it
Speaker 1: all shakes out. Yeah, I do wonder where we're going
Speaker 1: to be, like a year from now with all of
Speaker 1: this that's hard to say. Great story, Jenny Seraine, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. It is among our most read on
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Today. Jenny Seraine, of course, Bloomberg News finance reporter,
Speaker 1: joining us on the phone from New York City. You know,
Speaker 1: good questions you pose, and I guess time will tell
Speaker 1: about how this plays out. I think there's also some
Speaker 1: sort of element of like a self fulfilling prophecy here.
Speaker 1: Right when one bank does it, other banks do it.
Speaker 1: And then when you start to see people back at
Speaker 1: the office, more and more people hopefully want to get
Speaker 1: back to the office there or the bank gets back
Speaker 1: that gets the big deals that isn't Yes, it comes
Speaker 1: down at that journal. Yeah, but you let me drive
Speaker 1: all night, please, I want to drive, just drive the
Speaker 1: question drying job. This is the drive to the globe.
Speaker 1: Commun Thanks, we'll drive us. Jonadn on Bluebird Radio. So
Speaker 1: just about tennant that happened. It's left today's trading session.
Speaker 1: Time for the drive to the clothes with Anne Miletti,
Speaker 1: head of Active Equity over at Wells Fargo Asset Management
Speaker 1: billion dollars in assets under management. She joins us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On this Tuesday, and how
Speaker 1: are you I'm kidding we Carrol, how are you doing okay?
Speaker 1: Hanging in there? Um, talk to us about the trade today,
Speaker 1: because we are saying, listen, it's all driven by some
Speaker 1: of those big tech names and that's what's dragging down
Speaker 1: certainly the NASDAC, but just kind of the overall tone.
Speaker 1: How do you see it? Well, we've seen this change
Speaker 1: in leadership happen right where you see the value rally
Speaker 1: and then you see the growth rally, and it keeps.
Speaker 1: You know, the market teams to be changing its mind daily,
Speaker 1: but I think overall, you know, what we've had so
Speaker 1: far this year is a relatively strong market, and the
Speaker 1: economic picture looks even better. I mean, the news that
Speaker 1: we continue to get is surprisingly strong. But you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of that's priced in. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we've all been at the party for a very long
Speaker 1: time and we're just getting a little tired out. They
Speaker 1: feel like that's what the markets acting like. It's it's
Speaker 1: more about what are we going to see in the
Speaker 1: next six to nine months. That's what the market cares
Speaker 1: more about, um right now, and I think that's what
Speaker 1: it's trying to price in and it's difficult when there's
Speaker 1: a lot of uncertainty in the in the future. So
Speaker 1: what does that mean for the rest And what we've
Speaker 1: heard from c e O S has been, Hey, we're
Speaker 1: not even at a point where we can actually tell
Speaker 1: you what we think we are going to sell this year.
Speaker 1: I mean some companies aren't even giving guidance still, and
Speaker 1: investors don't like that. Yeah, No, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a great point. It's um when when our portfolio
Speaker 1: managers are listening to the earnings call one, they're hearing
Speaker 1: surprisingly great news. Right. We have companies that are surprising
Speaker 1: to the upside at a substantial amount, right, But the
Speaker 1: key things that they're listening to are also things like
Speaker 1: there's bottlenecks in the system, there's rising input costs, the
Speaker 1: transportation costs are increasing as well, and so those things
Speaker 1: are kind of the micro level things that companies are
Speaker 1: used to dealing with. But there's macro issues to like
Speaker 1: policy changes, tax increases, other things that CEO CFOs no
Speaker 1: are changing, but they can't quantify them yet, and um,
Speaker 1: they don't know how they're going to manage their business
Speaker 1: around them. And that's why there is hesitancy around giving
Speaker 1: broader guidance and and so you know, investors in the
Speaker 1: market are trying to price you know that in and
Speaker 1: they're trying to measure risk versus reward, and fundamentals I
Speaker 1: think of each individual company are becoming more and more
Speaker 1: important to investors. So the big tech names that are
Speaker 1: dragging down the trade today that we're seeing an UM
Speaker 1: had a list somewhere Applied Materials and Video, a lot
Speaker 1: of chip names, Apple, PayPal, IBC, I p G, Photonics.
Speaker 1: UM is another semiconductor company. So what you're thinking on
Speaker 1: some of the big tech names that have provided so
Speaker 1: much momentum for this market over the past year or so, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we never look at just one day of
Speaker 1: trading and get too worried about what one day says.
Speaker 1: But certainly, UM, when you look at it over a
Speaker 1: long period of time, you kind of, you know, it
Speaker 1: does it does make you pause. Look, I think there
Speaker 1: are certainly companies in there that you mentioned that still
Speaker 1: have very very good fundamentals and more importantly, that have
Speaker 1: pricing power. And if you think about UM, you know,
Speaker 1: the world as it may look the months from now,
Speaker 1: I think pricing power is going to be something that's
Speaker 1: extremely important if you worry at all about inflation, whether
Speaker 1: it's transitory um or if it's going to get worse.
Speaker 1: Pricing power is extremely important for companies, so investors should
Speaker 1: focus on that um And then also you know, if
Speaker 1: you have changes in tax policy again, you're going to
Speaker 1: be able to have to to to transition that cost
Speaker 1: over to the consumer. And so that's what our managers
Speaker 1: are focused on, is how do you transition that off
Speaker 1: to the consumer because margins will be compressed over time
Speaker 1: and and and you haven't had to worry about that
Speaker 1: revenue top line growth has been so strong, you know,
Speaker 1: margins haven't been a problem. But we expect that that
Speaker 1: could change towards the yur end well and kind of timely.
Speaker 1: In a day where commodities jumped to their highest in
Speaker 1: almost a decade, and you know, we have seen the
Speaker 1: rebound and in particular the developed economy around the world,
Speaker 1: so demand from metals, food, energy are all up. We've
Speaker 1: also seen some poor weather harming crops and transportation bottlenecks,
Speaker 1: which you just talked about curbing supplies. Is it transitory,
Speaker 1: like we've heard from the Federal Reserve, So that we're
Speaker 1: going to have maybe some discomfort with some prices taking higher.
Speaker 1: We've seen that already until these bottlenecks and these supply
Speaker 1: chains kind of get back to quote unquote normal. Well,
Speaker 1: I do think a lot of it is transit. Transitory.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of pent up demand in the system
Speaker 1: and we all know that, right. You can see it
Speaker 1: nor everyday live. Um. You know, you just look at
Speaker 1: the auto numbers and what we've seen in all time
Speaker 1: high since July of I think in July about five, um,
Speaker 1: you know, amazing numbers. But that's because you know, the
Speaker 1: economy was almost shut down for a year. So some
Speaker 1: of that is transitory. But it's transitory until it's not.
Speaker 1: And I think, do we get that to do that
Speaker 1: and get to that point where it's not transitory anymore, Well,
Speaker 1: that's you know, I don't know that for sure, and
Speaker 1: I'm not an account of and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: practice being one, but um, but what we're doing is
Speaker 1: watching the data very carefully, you know, as is the
Speaker 1: set right and I think they've been quick to adjust
Speaker 1: and change when the data changes, and I think that
Speaker 1: they'll do that this time around, and so our portfolio
Speaker 1: managers and analysts are certainly watching it on a micro
Speaker 1: level at the company level and paying very very close
Speaker 1: attention to what all the input put costs look like.
Speaker 1: What's that specific moment for you though, when you say
Speaker 1: to yourself and you say to your colleagues, okay, this
Speaker 1: is not transitory. Well, I think you know again, there's
Speaker 1: all of the measures that we're looking at on a
Speaker 1: micro level, company by company and for a long you know,
Speaker 1: for long only in equity investors. It's measuring risk rewarding,
Speaker 1: picking the companies that really have that pricing power and
Speaker 1: who can weather the storm better. And there will be
Speaker 1: companies there always are that can actually do well during
Speaker 1: inflationary periods. Deflationary periods, unfortunately, are what we always want
Speaker 1: to avoid. And so does the said so, um, it's
Speaker 1: not good for the economy long term. Um, and we
Speaker 1: know that. But but but we're trying to manage around
Speaker 1: what we what we're delivered. Hey, just have about a
Speaker 1: minute or just under a minute left here, and um,
Speaker 1: you would not be surprised to see a correction tend
Speaker 1: to twelve percent, but for the second half is over,
Speaker 1: that's right, Um, I think you know again, given the
Speaker 1: returns that we've seen, not just this year, but certainly
Speaker 1: last year. A ten to twelve, even fifteen percent correction
Speaker 1: would not be surprising to us. In fact, in some
Speaker 1: ways that it would be welcome because it would give
Speaker 1: us the ability to buy focks at a much more
Speaker 1: attractive Yeah, that's what's gonna say. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: have you made put cash on the sidelines in order
Speaker 1: to bounce on that opportunity when it arises and we
Speaker 1: only have about fifteen seconds left. Yeah, yeah, there are
Speaker 1: buy lists on everything. One of our investment teams waiting
Speaker 1: to react to anything like that. All right, is that
Speaker 1: kind of normal though? I mean, isn't it normal? It is?
Speaker 1: It is, but it changes, right, it changes with price. Ye. Well,
Speaker 1: interesting day. Good to get your thoughts and good to
Speaker 1: get some macro thoughts on you. And I think you're
Speaker 1: among the first that have been talking to us about
Speaker 1: some kind of correction formal correction this year, so um,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that specificity. Time to uh say goodbye unfortunately
Speaker 1: to Amalet, because we're getting close to the closing bell here. Amaletti,
Speaker 1: head of aquid Active Equity at Wells Fargo Asset Management,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, to Bloomberg Business Week, download the podcast
Speaker 1: on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can
Speaker 1: also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube. Search to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Global News