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Speaker 2: you'll find us. Geopolitical news coming out of Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 2: Russia is willing to discuss a temporary Trucian truth in Ukraine,
Speaker 2: provided there is progress toward a final peace settlement. That's
Speaker 2: according to people familiar with the matter in Moscow. Let's
Speaker 2: come more reporting on that. Ross Mathis and joins us
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa,
Speaker 2: Ros What do you make of this news coming from
Speaker 2: mister Putin?
Speaker 3: How significant could it be?
Speaker 4: Well, it is significant, As you were saying, we've had
Speaker 4: the exclusive information that Vladimir Putin has indicated is open
Speaker 4: to a short term truce on Ukraine with conditions, and
Speaker 4: that this offer has been in fact conveyed to the Americans.
Speaker 4: It was conveyed that meeting that was held in Saudi
Speaker 4: Arabia last month, and it comes before there's talks between
Speaker 4: the US and Ukraine also in Saudi Arabia early next week,
Speaker 4: and the possibility after that of a direct meeting perhaps
Speaker 4: between the presidents of the US and Russia. So what
Speaker 4: this really indicates is that Vladimir Putin does is amenable
Speaker 4: at least.
Speaker 5: To looking at a sea spa in Ukraine.
Speaker 4: He just wants to understand how that fits into the
Speaker 4: broader trajectory towards a longer term piece in Ukraine. And
Speaker 4: so he's got some conditions there that we've reported in
Speaker 4: our story just out a short time ago.
Speaker 6: So we just spoke quite a bit about potential peace
Speaker 6: in Ukraine with no mention of Zelenski. So where is
Speaker 6: Zelenski and Europe been on this potential seaspire.
Speaker 3: Well, that's right.
Speaker 4: Again, this may serve to feed concerns that Ukraine is
Speaker 4: really a recipient in this case in terms of being
Speaker 4: told this is what we're all talking about when it
Speaker 4: comes to their own country, and that's been a concern
Speaker 4: for weeks for Ukraine. But also for many a leader
Speaker 4: in Europe, and the hope is that by having you know,
Speaker 4: Zelinsky express regret for how things went down in that
Speaker 4: recent Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump, that they can
Speaker 4: reset a bit, get towards that minerals deal that was
Speaker 4: supposed to be signed and wasn't signed, and then get
Speaker 4: Ukraine back in the room in the conversation about a ceasefire,
Speaker 4: because again the concern is, does this get driven very
Speaker 4: much by the US and Russia and then Ukraine essentially
Speaker 4: gets told what the parameters of this are and that's
Speaker 4: got to be still a concern for Ukraine at this point.
Speaker 3: Hi, Roz, thank you so much. We appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Roz Matheson, Bloomberg News Director for Europe, the Middle East
Speaker 2: and Africa, on President Putin said to be ready to
Speaker 2: agree to a Ukraine truce with canitions want further reporting
Speaker 2: on that round.
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Speaker 2: These markets are up there down and that's just in
Speaker 2: the morning and trading. We've got yields coming in here,
Speaker 2: the tenure Treasury four point two five percent yields are
Speaker 2: moving as well. So again another volatle day for a
Speaker 2: volatile week as the market tries to discount a lot
Speaker 2: of policy coming on.
Speaker 3: Washington, DC. Emily Rowland, she.
Speaker 2: Gets paid to do this stuff, co chief investment strategist
Speaker 2: at John Hancock Investment Management up there in Boston. Emily,
Speaker 2: how do you kind of put all these cross currents?
Speaker 2: How do you keep them straight and try to keep
Speaker 2: the eye on the prize, which is longer term performance
Speaker 2: for your funds.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's tough right now. The macro is really in
Speaker 7: the driver's seed and investors are largely ignoring the fundamental
Speaker 7: backdrop in particular of course, drivings a lot of the
Speaker 7: cross asset action.
Speaker 5: So it can be tough, you know, right now.
Speaker 7: Admittedly, the US is experiencing a bit of a soft
Speaker 7: patch economically speaking.
Speaker 5: The data haven't been great.
Speaker 7: But there have been some bright spots, certainly ism services
Speaker 7: on Wednesday coming in at fifty three and a half
Speaker 7: and the US Jobs report this morning coming in at
Speaker 7: one hundred and fifty one thousand, very modest provisions.
Speaker 5: To the last couple of months, so for now, the labor.
Speaker 7: Market is actually on pretty solid footing. Of course, the
Speaker 7: DOGE announcements around government layoffs haven't been factored into the data,
Speaker 7: so we might need to sort of enjoy it while
Speaker 7: we can, But the US labor market continues to be
Speaker 7: the bright spot here as it relates to the economy.
Speaker 6: What's interesting though, is today we have the Treasury Secretary
Speaker 6: speaking on CNBC saying that there's going to be a
Speaker 6: detox period for the market, that the market, the economy
Speaker 6: has become hooked and we just got addicted to government
Speaker 6: spending and now we're going to detox it. If that
Speaker 6: indeed is the plan, right, we spending off of government spending,
Speaker 6: put it on the private sector, lower rates in order
Speaker 6: to incentivize spending, and then lower taxes as the kicker.
Speaker 8: Do you need a transition for that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean it's a pretty remarkable shift from the
Speaker 7: relentless amount of fiscal spending that we've done over the
Speaker 7: past couple of years. So, Alex, the starting points is
Speaker 7: really high if you look at the jobs have been added.
Speaker 7: Nancy Lazar's got some great statistics on this from Piper
Speaker 7: Sandler about ninety five percent of the jobs that have
Speaker 7: been added over the past year have been in government
Speaker 7: and healthcare.
Speaker 5: That's a massive amount.
Speaker 7: So we're starting from a really tricky point here as
Speaker 7: we impose some of this fiscal austerity, and you're seeing
Speaker 7: it happen really across markets. Meanwhile, overseas, you've actually got
Speaker 7: policy makers in areas like Germany that are proposing.
Speaker 5: Spending measures there.
Speaker 7: So we're seeing a bit of an opposite day play
Speaker 7: out here in terms of less fiscal support in the
Speaker 7: US and more fiscal support and areas that have previously
Speaker 7: been very austere so Emily.
Speaker 2: We had Gina Martin Adams from Bloomberg Intelligence on earlier
Speaker 2: talking about she's seeing some rotation from the US equity
Speaker 2: markets into Europe for just those reasons, concerns about growth here,
Speaker 2: maybe some better expectations for your How are you guys
Speaker 2: thinking about allocation geography geographically?
Speaker 7: I mean, it is just remarkable to see some of
Speaker 7: the moves that we've seen and the huge capital shift
Speaker 7: to areas overseas. International markets just on a tear this year,
Speaker 7: the European you know, the euro surging, so it's quite
Speaker 7: notable we always don't look for a fundamental catalyst right now.
Speaker 7: I think a lot of these moves are based on
Speaker 7: political developments that we talked about. They're based on momentum
Speaker 7: short covering potentially kind of sentiment and optimism driving those moves,
Speaker 7: And when we look underneath the surface, we're really not
Speaker 7: finding a meaningful shift in terms of the earning narrative.
Speaker 7: Analysts are penciling in about twelve percent earning growth in
Speaker 7: the United States this year. It's a little bit off
Speaker 7: fifteen percent that was penciled in a couple of months ago,
Speaker 7: but it's still pretty darn good. Meanwhile, you look overseas
Speaker 7: at EFA and emerging market estimates, they're.
Speaker 5: Not that great. They're in the low single digits.
Speaker 7: So we're just not finding that catalyst from a fundamental standpoint.
Speaker 7: You know, European markets right now, we're pricing in just
Speaker 7: exceptional economic growth and exceptional earnings growth, and we just
Speaker 7: don't see things looking that exceptional.
Speaker 6: So does that mean that the amount of spending that
Speaker 6: Germany is going to do you don't buy it or
Speaker 6: you just don't see it to be immediate?
Speaker 5: I think some of both.
Speaker 7: I mean, we always come into this with a little
Speaker 7: bit of skepticism, and its actual size of the spending
Speaker 7: is still much less than what we spend here in
Speaker 7: the United States, especially from a defense perspective. So we're
Speaker 7: going to need to see how this plays out. We're
Speaker 7: going to need to see if Germany can come out
Speaker 7: of the slump that it's been in for some time
Speaker 7: based on these measures once they get put into place.
Speaker 7: But for now, we've got to focus on the fundamental trends,
Speaker 7: and they're better here in the United States, especially for
Speaker 7: US value stocks, where we're seeing meaningful acceleration in terms
Speaker 7: of earnings estimates into twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: All right, so back here in the US here, talk
Speaker 2: to us about opportunities and fixed income. I'm hearing more
Speaker 2: and more people say, boy, with this uncertainty out there,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to go clip a coupon, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'll come back in six or twelve months.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we really like the income that's available in high
Speaker 7: quality bonds right now, with the aggregate bond index yielding
Speaker 7: about four and a half percent, it's really competitive versus equities.
Speaker 7: So you know, we're sitting at elevated valuations around twenty
Speaker 7: one and a half times forward earnings on the equity market,
Speaker 7: I mean, still not terrible, but not great. And meanwhile
Speaker 7: you're getting a discount on bonds. We saw a pretty
Speaker 7: meaningful backup this week as bonds traded in sympathy with
Speaker 7: German boons, which just saw the big about a forty
Speaker 7: basis point increase over the course of the week, which
Speaker 7: is the biggest over twenty years.
Speaker 5: But we would look at.
Speaker 7: Those backups as opportunities to lean in if the economic
Speaker 7: data continue to disappoint at the margin, if this soft
Speaker 7: patch continues, we think US bonds here get a bid
Speaker 7: they can benefit. And listen, the dividend yield on the
Speaker 7: S and P five hundreds like one point three percent
Speaker 7: right now. So equity income ain't what it used to
Speaker 7: be as it relates to finding income and the equity market,
Speaker 7: we prefer to do that in bonds. We think there's
Speaker 7: more relative value there as we head into the remainder
Speaker 7: of the year.
Speaker 6: All right, Emily, great to catch up. Thank you so much,
Speaker 6: Emily rolland Co, Chief investment strategist for John Hancock Investment Management.
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Speaker 2: Also in studio on Fridays. This is getting It's not.
Speaker 2: We're seeing more and more people in on Fridays. I
Speaker 2: guess is what I'm trying to say, what you are
Speaker 2: seeding this?
Speaker 3: It's but I think it's happening.
Speaker 8: Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Catherine Dugherty Joint is a financial reporter Bloomberg News joints
Speaker 2: us again here in studio and a story that quite
Speaker 2: frankly concerns me. Nastak joins Exchange is seeking to offer
Speaker 2: around the clock trading.
Speaker 3: I don't know, is it tell us about this, Paul, I.
Speaker 9: Don't know if you need to be concerned right away.
Speaker 9: They made this announcement about their intention to extend their
Speaker 9: trading hour, so it.
Speaker 6: Would tend to go on vacation at some point exactly.
Speaker 6: But let's take a step back to say that these
Speaker 6: plans are far out.
Speaker 9: So Nasdaq gave some indication that they don't expect this
Speaker 9: to actually start happening until the second half of twenty
Speaker 9: twenty six, So this is not even a twenty twenty
Speaker 9: five story, but specifically for the exchanges, and the reason
Speaker 9: being the numbers that we're seeing right now, anything that
Speaker 9: is trading actively on any of the public exchanges, that
Speaker 9: data is all going to one feed, and feed cannot.
Speaker 8: Accommodate overnight trading right now.
Speaker 9: So in order for this to actually move forward in
Speaker 9: a meaningful way and for Nasdaq, Nicey, Cebo, any of
Speaker 9: the exchanges to offer overnight trading, that data feed needs
Speaker 9: to be updated and they need to work together to
Speaker 9: make sure that it can.
Speaker 3: All all right, this is this, all right?
Speaker 2: This is the way it works. When I was on
Speaker 2: the trading desk, you get in at seven, that's the
Speaker 2: bed is a little early, particularly you're out late the
Speaker 2: night or four with client.
Speaker 3: Trading starts at nine point thirty.
Speaker 2: Bell goes off at four o'clock four fifteen year at
Speaker 2: Faros across the street.
Speaker 3: Sure, having a couple of cocktails. That's the way it's
Speaker 3: supposed to be. None of this like stay late in
Speaker 3: trade late kind of thing.
Speaker 6: Right, So, okay, great point. So why do they want
Speaker 6: to even do this?
Speaker 9: So they are saying that the demand for US stocks
Speaker 9: that they see, particularly abroad, is enough to start offering
Speaker 9: this to their clients. But when you talk about the
Speaker 9: actual demand and who it is that's actually behind these trades,
Speaker 9: a lot of it is coming from retail investors. It's
Speaker 9: not the big institutional block trades that are coming through
Speaker 9: at four in the morning. Particularly for the instance that
Speaker 9: you're describing Paul of showing up, you're at your desk,
Speaker 9: those parameters are likely to stay in place, but you
Speaker 9: want to have some flexibility. If you're have an office
Speaker 9: that's in Asia, I think what's going to happen is
Speaker 9: that the staffing is what's going to change.
Speaker 8: So you might not have the trader in New.
Speaker 9: York that has to stay much past four o'clock like
Speaker 9: they normally do, but you might have to hire another
Speaker 9: trader in Asia. Maybe you're hiring a team in Europe
Speaker 9: to accommodate for the earlier hours in the US.
Speaker 8: There's ways to do this.
Speaker 9: That doesn't mean those of us in the US and
Speaker 9: particularly in New York, are going to have to stay
Speaker 9: stay late or wake up earlier.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 6: Okay, that's fine, but we can. But the funds they
Speaker 6: don't do this trading though, right It's like big funds
Speaker 6: like the CTAs of all controlled funds, like they don't trade,
Speaker 6: They wouldn't trade overnight right now they can't, But would
Speaker 6: they if usually just trade in the cash market.
Speaker 8: That is the big question.
Speaker 6: So once that would be something, Once Nasdaq and NICY
Speaker 6: and all them start to offer this, the question is
Speaker 6: who's going to take the advantage per se, who's going
Speaker 6: to actually be the ones that are trading overnight and
Speaker 6: who is a first because when one person starts and
Speaker 6: then they all have to go right right, and really
Speaker 6: what is the There's a lot of speculation that.
Speaker 9: The retail trades that are being made there's not enough liquidity,
Speaker 9: so therefore the experience and the price that they're actually getting,
Speaker 9: the execution quality suffers because of that. But if there's
Speaker 9: more trading that happens, that could start to improve the quality,
Speaker 9: and thus there might be even more trading that starts
Speaker 9: to happen because of that would.
Speaker 8: Just be like no closing bill at four o'clock. That's
Speaker 8: something that the industry needs to decide on.
Speaker 9: It could because I think about it, think about it,
Speaker 9: if they're spiting opening or closing bell, you need to
Speaker 9: actually decide at what point are we into the next
Speaker 9: trading day?
Speaker 3: Bitcoin doing blown. I don't know. I don't know how bitcoin.
Speaker 8: It's a different market structure. But it's funny.
Speaker 9: I saw a lot of posts on x today from
Speaker 9: the crypto community saying, oh, nice of you to join
Speaker 9: us equity exchanges.
Speaker 8: We've been doing this and come along. The water is warm.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we'll see it's progress. You can't stand
Speaker 2: in the way progress, Alex.
Speaker 6: You need to shows the guy who doesn't want to
Speaker 6: do it anymore in the same way. All right, Thanks
Speaker 6: so much, Catherine, really appreciate Katherine already Bloomberg Finance reporter
Speaker 6: joining us, the nastak joining an offer to.
Speaker 8: Go around the clock.
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Speaker 2: Hey, Alex Deal Paul Swiney live here in our Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Inner broke the studio, streaming live on YouTube as well.
Speaker 3: Ola Lou Aganga joins us. She is the US chief.
Speaker 2: Investment officer for Mercer, joining us via zoom. Ola Lou
Speaker 2: John and I were just talking about this. Boy, things
Speaker 2: have changed in the last couple of months here in
Speaker 2: terms of the outlook here. When you see a trillion
Speaker 2: dollar market cap loss for a company like Nvidia, boy,
Speaker 2: that gets your attention, does it?
Speaker 3: How do you feel about these markets?
Speaker 10: So the concentration in the equity markets has been a
Speaker 10: problem for some time, and problem meaning like it's hard
Speaker 10: to be able to distinguish yourself when you have a
Speaker 10: benchmark that is moving in that positive direction. We're seeing
Speaker 10: a swing in the opposite way, right, but the concentration
Speaker 10: is still the same. So when you have a key
Speaker 10: handful of stocks that are driving markets in either direction,
Speaker 10: you know, it does create challenges now, you know, with
Speaker 10: that said, we're in a situation now where we're kind
Speaker 10: of back to pre election type of markets. But with
Speaker 10: all of the macroeconomic data that's coming up, we're looking
Speaker 10: at it. As you all mentioned on your show, economic
Speaker 10: data was okay this morning, so no surprises from an
Speaker 10: employment standpoint, but it hasn't factored in the cuts yet.
Speaker 6: So how do you manage the volatility at the end
Speaker 6: of the day. Is it defensive, is it offense?
Speaker 5: Is it cash?
Speaker 8: Is it treasuries?
Speaker 10: So the a lot of flow and it all depends
Speaker 10: on the client portfolio objective, So or some of the
Speaker 10: longer data clients, the pension clients, they're heavier in fixed
Speaker 10: income anyway, they've always, you know, historically been, so this
Speaker 10: is a boon for them. We're seeing what four or
Speaker 10: five basis points decline and yields this week last week
Speaker 10: was a pretty dramatic move, especially in longer dated bonds,
Speaker 10: and if you think of the liabilities the pension clients have,
Speaker 10: that is something to be to be mindful of. Then
Speaker 10: if you were talking about the shorter data aspect, so
Speaker 10: the yields on two year money mart like those have
Speaker 10: come down, so if you're trying to earn returns that
Speaker 10: may not necessarily be you know, the best with regards
Speaker 10: to that point. But there is a more defensive environment, yes,
Speaker 10: that has been created and some uncertainty around it. The
Speaker 10: facts are tariffs, no matter which way you look at them,
Speaker 10: are higher input costs, and input costs for corporations a
Speaker 10: fact them in one of two ways. It's either lower
Speaker 10: margins so you have to either absorb that, so we'll
Speaker 10: see that play out in the next few earnings report
Speaker 10: maybe or if you pass it on to consumers, then
Speaker 10: you run the risk of potentially lower sales. So the
Speaker 10: drawback and the drawdowns that we're seeing in the market
Speaker 10: is almost you know, by the rumor selby news. So
Speaker 10: it's proactively moving in that direction because of those two
Speaker 10: potential things that can happen as a result of higher
Speaker 10: input costs for corporations.
Speaker 11: But we have to see it in the earnings.
Speaker 2: Well, since the market started moving higher there in mid
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, a lot of folks have said, boy,
Speaker 2: we just haven't seen that ten twelve, fifteen percent pullback
Speaker 2: in the market that oftentimes can be healthy for a
Speaker 2: longer term bull market. Do you think we're approaching that
Speaker 2: now or or is it maybe even something more problematic.
Speaker 10: So, yes, we haven't seen a pretty big draw down
Speaker 10: in quite some time. But if you were to analyze
Speaker 10: post financial crisis, even when we have and if you
Speaker 10: of course we all remember the COVID period where were
Speaker 10: saw even bigger drawdowns, the rebound on that it was
Speaker 10: actually fairly dramatic and fairly swift. So the challenge with that,
Speaker 10: you know, really focusing on the draw downs is because
Speaker 10: you can't time the markets.
Speaker 11: We can have it could happen Monday Tuesday, right, we.
Speaker 10: Could very much see the potential of that occurring. But
Speaker 10: positive news that could occur could cause it to move
Speaker 10: very very swiftly. So for us as you are thinking
Speaker 10: of investing and not trading, right because there is day
Speaker 10: trading and you have to be able to move with
Speaker 10: the volatility cycle if you're day trading or moving that quickly.
Speaker 10: But if you are investing, the goal is to be
Speaker 10: able to cut through the noise and go through more
Speaker 10: sustained themes.
Speaker 11: As we just talked about something like.
Speaker 10: Corporate earnings, how will that play out if we see
Speaker 10: higher input costs? So that is what we're doing a
Speaker 10: lot of work around to make sure that we can
Speaker 10: look past today, tomorrow and go.
Speaker 11: Through a quarter, two quarters, three quarters type of thing.
Speaker 8: Where does this leave then corporate credit?
Speaker 12: So she laughs at me as well, No, it's it's
Speaker 12: you know, the corporate credit just like equities, right, so
Speaker 12: two sides of the same coin, for for the corporate
Speaker 12: entity is not immune.
Speaker 10: So there we've seen a tightening of corporate credit just
Speaker 10: you know recently, but now as as we're going through
Speaker 10: a period now we're starting to see some widening that's
Speaker 10: occurring in certain pockets with rates where they are, and
Speaker 10: we're just seeing the volatility. It is difficult with regards
Speaker 10: to issuance now. When rates were much higher, it's expensive
Speaker 10: for corporations to be able to fund.
Speaker 11: So if you're issuing new debts, you're issuing them at
Speaker 11: higher and higher levels.
Speaker 10: If we see a situation whereby the environment becomes a
Speaker 10: lower rate environment from here, then for corporations and corporate
Speaker 10: credit it's a tighter environment and that's good to some degree,
Speaker 10: but it means you're not necessarily earning the yield and
Speaker 10: call it investment grade credit. So there's the potential for
Speaker 10: clients moving out their respectrum, but right now, not really
Speaker 10: right now, it's it's sort of weight, but lots of
Speaker 10: volatility in corporate credit, the similar thing that we're seeing
Speaker 10: even in treasuries.
Speaker 2: All right, all well, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Ololu Aganga, US chief investment officer at Mercer.
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