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Speaker 2: US hiring falling short of forecast in August downward revisions
Speaker 2: to the prior two months, a development likely to fuel
Speaker 2: ongoing debate over how much the FED should cut interest rates.
Speaker 2: Here are the numbers, non farm payrolls rising by one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty two thousand last month. The three month
Speaker 2: average is at the lowest since mid twenty twenty. The
Speaker 2: unemployment rate, though edged down to two down to four
Speaker 2: point two percent. It's the first decline in five months,
Speaker 2: reflecting reversal in temporary layoffs. In remarks after the release
Speaker 2: of the jobs numbers, FED Governor Chris Waller said the
Speaker 2: latest batchup data quote requires action, adding that he would
Speaker 2: advocate for front loading rate cuts if that is appropriate.
Speaker 2: We got a great roundtable on what you need to
Speaker 2: know about the latest data and what it means for
Speaker 2: the FED and the economy. We got with us in
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg Studio, Michael McKee's Bloomberg News International Economics and
Speaker 2: Policy correspondent. Also Sophia Carney Letterman, senior economists for FAHN.
Speaker 2: She joins us from New York. Mikes, you reminded us
Speaker 2: yesterday this was the most important payrolls report since the
Speaker 2: last payrolls report. It did come in shy of the
Speaker 2: media and forecast in that Bloomberg survey of forecasters. Does
Speaker 2: front loading rate cuts mean fifty basis points in September?
Speaker 3: I don't think so, okay.
Speaker 4: I think what Chris Waller was saying is that he's
Speaker 4: open to doing more in later meetings if the data
Speaker 4: come in that way. Because there's not a lot of
Speaker 4: data between now and September eighteenth that would convince you
Speaker 4: one way or another. So I think the Fed's default
Speaker 4: at twenty five basis points. The numbers came out today
Speaker 4: without giving you any reason to really move away from that,
Speaker 4: and so because we're not getting a strong signals of
Speaker 4: fifty at this point, I think that twenty five is
Speaker 4: probably the best guess.
Speaker 5: Sophia, let's bring you in here. What's your reaction to
Speaker 5: the jobs report and do you still think that the
Speaker 5: FED will only cut twenty five basis points.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I got to
Speaker 6: totally agree. You know, we are still in the twenty
Speaker 6: five basis point camp. You know, that's sort of what
Speaker 6: the FED has been teeing up. And I think exactly
Speaker 6: what you heard from Waller this morning suggested that should
Speaker 6: subsequent data. That's the term that he used. He said,
Speaker 6: it's subsequent data, so it's increased weakness in the labor market.
Speaker 6: He'd be prepared to make a bigger cut. But to us,
Speaker 6: that suggests that that means future employment reports, if you
Speaker 6: see either further weakening, that that might encourage the FED
Speaker 6: to go more than twenty five. So we are looking
Speaker 6: at twenty five basis points at September. That's what we
Speaker 6: thought before this employment report today, and that's what we
Speaker 6: still think will expect to see in a couple of
Speaker 6: weeks from the Fed.
Speaker 2: Hey, Mike, help us understand the unemployment rate going down.
Speaker 2: What exactly does that reflect? This in the month of August.
Speaker 4: Well, it's sort of a payback for what we saw
Speaker 4: in July where it went up because a number of
Speaker 4: things reversed themselves. We had a much smaller rise in
Speaker 4: the labor force. We had more people hired than were
Speaker 4: let go. In the household survey, we also saw things
Speaker 4: like the number of people who were on temporary layoff,
Speaker 4: which had boomed in July and contributed to the rise
Speaker 4: of the unemployment rate.
Speaker 3: That fell back.
Speaker 4: So you'd say this was a decline for all the
Speaker 4: right reasons. And it's one reason that the Fed doesn't
Speaker 4: feel a sense of urgency about this, because it's not
Speaker 4: suggesting that all of a sudden, people are losing a
Speaker 4: lot of jobs.
Speaker 3: Companies are getting rid of people.
Speaker 4: This really tracks with what we saw in the Beige
Speaker 4: Book of companies aren't hiring, but they're not firing people either.
Speaker 5: So then, Mike, how do you square the reaction that
Speaker 5: we're seeing in the bond market with yields fallowing off
Speaker 5: Traders pricing in for that fifty basis point cut in September.
Speaker 4: Well, they're not really pricing fifty anymore. They've kind of
Speaker 4: moved it down back down to twenty five, because I
Speaker 4: think the reality is set in that the Fed is
Speaker 4: not setting us up for fifty, but we are seeing
Speaker 4: yields fall because basically, you've had confirmation not only in
Speaker 4: the numbers, but in what Waller and John Williams have said,
Speaker 4: joining the crowd of people who've said we're going to
Speaker 4: cut rates at the next meeting. So you're seeing that
Speaker 4: reaction there, and people are anticipating that the FED is
Speaker 4: going to be moving the short end lower and that's caused.
Speaker 3: The yield curve to uninvert.
Speaker 4: We'll see if it stays that way, but at this
Speaker 4: point it's kind of a natural reaction.
Speaker 3: I don't know why equities are.
Speaker 4: Doing what they're doing, but if I mean, you're the
Speaker 4: person who covers that, if.
Speaker 2: You can ever explain to me why, well, Fortunately Abigail
Speaker 2: Dolittle is coming in in just a few minutes and
Speaker 2: she's going to help explain the equity market reaction. So
Speaker 2: if yeah, I do want to go back to you
Speaker 2: to get an understanding of what type of data we
Speaker 2: could see maybe over the next few weeks to change
Speaker 2: your view that the FED well, actually, in less than
Speaker 2: two weeks could cut rates by more than twenty five
Speaker 2: basis points. What would you need to see? What would
Speaker 2: the FED need to see to convince them between now
Speaker 2: and then?
Speaker 6: You know, I don't think that there's really that much
Speaker 6: time and that much data that's going to come out
Speaker 6: in the next two weeks that really could necessarily push
Speaker 6: the needle. I mean, the really big thing would be
Speaker 6: next Wednesday CPI report, Right, I don't think that you're
Speaker 6: going to see anything really unexpected there. I think you're
Speaker 6: going to continue to see progress towards two percent inflation
Speaker 6: that we've been seeing, and so that I think won't
Speaker 6: be something that could push the needle. If there was
Speaker 6: an incredible upward surprise and inflation, maybe, but I don't
Speaker 6: think so, right. I think between now and the September
Speaker 6: eighteenth meeting, we kind of have the majority of the data,
Speaker 6: and then you also factor in the FED blackout period
Speaker 6: starts tonight, so we won't hear comments from any FED officials,
Speaker 6: and we've heard from the Howell FED for this whole
Speaker 6: tightening cycle that they've been very communicative ahead of time,
Speaker 6: and so I don't think they would want a surprise market,
Speaker 6: So we don't have a ton more data. That being said,
Speaker 6: I think the further meetings, the November the December, it
Speaker 6: totally becomes data dependent, and a lot of it's going
Speaker 6: to be that focus on the employment side. Right. The
Speaker 6: employment report is yet again like it used to be
Speaker 6: pre pandemic. The big market driver inflation has sort of
Speaker 6: fallen to the wayside now that it's doing what it's
Speaker 6: supposed to do well.
Speaker 2: We may not be getting a lot of data between
Speaker 2: now and then, but we're at least getting quite a
Speaker 2: few FED speakers today thud A Reserve Bank of New
Speaker 2: York President John Williams said it's now appropriate for the
Speaker 2: FED to reduce interest rates given progress on lowering inflation
Speaker 2: and a cooling in the labor market. Here's what he
Speaker 2: said in a speech prepared for an event held by
Speaker 2: the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Speaker 7: The current restrictive stance of monetary policy has been effective
Speaker 7: in restoring balance to the economy and in bringing inflation down.
Speaker 7: With the economy now and ecuopoise and inflation on a
Speaker 7: path to two percent, it is now appropriate to dial
Speaker 7: down the degree of restrictiveness in the stance of policy
Speaker 7: by reducing the target range for the federal funds rate.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was Federaliserve Bank of New York President John
Speaker 2: Williams Equipoise, Mike McKee. We're always parsing the words that
Speaker 2: we hear from J. Powell and other Federal Reserve officials.
Speaker 2: This is this is one that I haven't heard.
Speaker 3: He's just showing off.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's arriving in the sports car and you know,
Speaker 4: spinning around as you arrive. Equipoise basically means in balance,
Speaker 4: and he's talking about the labor market is and inflation
Speaker 4: are in balance now, so we're we're in equipoise.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: It's not even what I would call FED or economics
Speaker 4: nerd word or code word. It's just a fancy way
Speaker 4: of saying in balance.
Speaker 2: So don't read too much into it.
Speaker 3: Don't read too much into it.
Speaker 4: I think he just wanted to be clever and get
Speaker 4: some attention and have people like you.
Speaker 2: Asked what I was gonna say, Emily, it's working because
Speaker 2: I'm talking about it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly, I'm impressed.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Hey, go ahead, Emily.
Speaker 5: I know you're gonna think, oh, well, I was just
Speaker 5: gonna I wanted to pivot to the inflation report because
Speaker 5: now we have this, I guess signal that the FED
Speaker 5: isn't as focused on that part of their mandate. So then,
Speaker 5: how Mike are you thinking about the data that we're
Speaker 5: going to get next week on inflation? Doesn't move the
Speaker 5: needle at.
Speaker 3: All, doesn't move the needle.
Speaker 4: I think Sophie's right that at this point, when you
Speaker 4: look at what's forecast, it's basically no change from what
Speaker 4: we saw in July. Headline goes down some on base effects,
Speaker 4: but it doesn't tell you that things are getting worse.
Speaker 4: And all of the Fed officials who've spoken recently in
Speaker 4: including Waller and Williams today say we don't think we're
Speaker 4: going to get inflation out of the labor market. So
Speaker 4: at this point it's just kind of confirming that they
Speaker 4: can go ahead with what they're doing, and I think
Speaker 4: we move away from it being the indicator every month.
Speaker 3: We'll stick with jobs. I'll see you guys October fourth.
Speaker 4: But it's not going to be inflation unless there's some
Speaker 4: sort of surprise, especially with the oil prices going down now,
Speaker 4: who knows.
Speaker 2: Hey, Sophia, I want to give you the last word here.
Speaker 2: Is it fair for j Powell to declare victory at
Speaker 2: this point?
Speaker 6: Was this?
Speaker 2: Is this a soft landing? Has the plane been landed?
Speaker 6: Oh that's a tough question. I think it's too soon
Speaker 6: to declare victory, but I do think the window for
Speaker 6: a soft landing is there. We are definitely slowing. The
Speaker 6: US economy is definitely slowing, right, Hiring is slowing. But
Speaker 6: sort of what John Williams said, right, reducing the restriction
Speaker 6: right now is definitely the right thing to do, with
Speaker 6: Swaller saying as well. So I think it's too soon
Speaker 6: to take a victory lap, but I think they can
Speaker 6: still hold their breath and maybe they can.
Speaker 2: All Right, A big thank you to both of you.
Speaker 2: Michael McKee, Bloomberg News International Economics and Policy correspondent. Here
Speaker 2: in our studio, Sophia Carney, a Letterman Senior economist. Over
Speaker 2: at FHN.
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Speaker 2: Well, we are all in on the implications of this
Speaker 2: morning's payroll's number, non farm payrolls rising by one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty two thousand last month, the three month average
Speaker 2: at the lowest going back to mid twenty twenty. That
Speaker 2: unemployment rate did edge down the four point two percent.
Speaker 2: It was the first decline in five months, reflecting a
Speaker 2: reversal in temporary layoffs. Somebody who's got a great view
Speaker 2: of the labor market as Becky Frankowitz. She's chief commercial
Speaker 2: Officer and president of North America over at Manpower Group.
Speaker 2: It's a company that sources and manages talent and manages
Speaker 2: employees for more than four hundred thousand clients. Becky joins
Speaker 2: US from Milwaukee. Becky hiring was weighed down by job
Speaker 2: losses in manufacturing, retail, trade, information, education, and healthcare, boosted
Speaker 2: headcount by the least since going back to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Does this match what you're seeing at Manpower Group?
Speaker 9: Yeah, so, I'd say Tim, it's another example of what
Speaker 9: we're calling the great waiting game. We have employers waiting
Speaker 9: to do big hiring until they see some proof of
Speaker 9: economic improvement. And we see employees waiting to change jobs
Speaker 9: because the quick rate held waiting has changed jobs until
Speaker 9: they get proof that the economy is proving. And so
Speaker 9: both sides have a waiting game. The other thing I
Speaker 9: would say is this, while it's less than we expected,
Speaker 9: Tennis isn't a bad report, but the revisions in July
Speaker 9: month over month, it's an improvement. It's definitely not a blockbuster,
Speaker 9: But I would say another indication of everyone's just holding
Speaker 9: it's quite stable out there.
Speaker 5: You talk about this waiting game, what would be the
Speaker 5: catalyst that would then propel employers to start hiring more
Speaker 5: extensively than they are right now.
Speaker 9: Emily, I asked that all the time to leaders across
Speaker 9: our country, and I hear two things. One, the Fed's
Speaker 9: decision in September is pivotal, very very important to employers
Speaker 9: to give them a proof point, not a forecast, not
Speaker 9: a suggestion of improvement, but a proof point that things
Speaker 9: are going to improve. So that's important. And we're also
Speaker 9: increasingly hearing companies, you know, wanting to wait and see
Speaker 9: what happens with the presidential election. So I would say
Speaker 9: on the employer side, definitely, the first position is the
Speaker 9: FED decision in September.
Speaker 2: What are companies waiting for with the presidential election?
Speaker 9: I e.
Speaker 2: What decisions are they holding off on? And how would
Speaker 2: a Harris administration differ from a Trump administration in terms
Speaker 2: of how they're thinking about hiring.
Speaker 9: Yes, the second part of that's not my air of expertise,
Speaker 9: but I definitely can address the first part of it
Speaker 9: in terms of why are they waiting on this. It
Speaker 9: is another signal of uncertainty to you know, American companies.
Speaker 9: They want to know what is going to happen in
Speaker 9: the future. They want to answer the question you're asking,
Speaker 9: how is this going to look different under either administration?
Speaker 9: But this holding spending on the sidelines tim isn't new.
Speaker 9: We've seen capital expenditures really being held waiting for big
Speaker 9: tech investments. I would say, now we're starting to see,
Speaker 9: you know, the surprise. You know, I like to look
Speaker 9: at the good in the report, the surprise and the
Speaker 9: report and the watchouts. You know, the good in the
Speaker 9: report is relatively steady. Unemployment, wages, workforce participation, a little movement,
Speaker 9: but relatively steady. The surprise is the way work is
Speaker 9: getting done is changing now. Is this long term short term?
Speaker 9: I don't know, but I can tell you that those
Speaker 9: working or holding part time jobs increased to seven point
Speaker 9: nine percent. It's the highest percentage we've had since October
Speaker 9: of twenty twenty one. And back to your question on
Speaker 9: what are employers waiting on. They're looking for flexibility while
Speaker 9: they're waiting, and so they're looking for part time workers,
Speaker 9: bringing in new talent, those who are retired those who
Speaker 9: are doing caregiving and need flexibility, and employees also waiting.
Speaker 9: As mentioned, they're looking for some reassurance in their income
Speaker 9: and they're also looking for flexibility. So that was one
Speaker 9: of the surprises in this report that hasn't really been
Speaker 9: been talked about, and I have you others.
Speaker 5: So, Becky, when I look at the gains in this
Speaker 5: report for wages, we saw pay gains beat forecast, average
Speaker 5: hourly earnings rising zero point four percent compared with a
Speaker 5: point three percent median estimate. From your view, do you
Speaker 5: feel like workers feel like those wage increases are enough?
Speaker 5: Is that helping them kind of combat higher interest rates
Speaker 5: and higher inflation? Do they feel like they are seeing
Speaker 5: those wages kind of keep up with the rise in inflation.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Emily, they answered, that's definitely not. But again that's
Speaker 9: not new. So when you hear me saying stability, it's
Speaker 9: also stability of mindset, Like zero point four percent versus
Speaker 9: point three percent. When we're looking at you know, inflation
Speaker 9: starting to starting to level off, we're still seeing that
Speaker 9: talent is sitting tied. They're a little anxious about making
Speaker 9: any big moves. Again, they're they're waiting as well, but
Speaker 9: we've seen a real change in wage composition. So during
Speaker 9: the cry, we were paying significant increases for people who
Speaker 9: would change jobs. In fact, it hit about sixteen percent
Speaker 9: increase versus on average at the time, it was about
Speaker 9: seven percent for job stayers. Now we're seeing it back
Speaker 9: to pre pandemic levels where we're seeing job stayers get
Speaker 9: anywhere from three to five percent and job movers get
Speaker 9: anywhere from six eight percent. And so that's really stabilized
Speaker 9: as well, and so we're not really incenting people to
Speaker 9: make moves, whether it's through wages or whether it's through
Speaker 9: new job offers.
Speaker 2: FED certainly likes to see data like that, Becky, because
Speaker 2: it means that wages aren't going up, and it means
Speaker 2: that it's you know, FED friendly in terms of inflation.
Speaker 2: I do wonder about what other normalization you're seeing at
Speaker 2: Manpower Group, because this idea of this imbalance has that
Speaker 2: has been here in the wake of COVID. I think
Speaker 2: it's still is still there for in a lot of
Speaker 2: different places. Where else are you seeing a normalization at TIM?
Speaker 9: I just had this discussion yesterday with one of the
Speaker 9: big CEOs in our country and asked me the question
Speaker 9: from a permanent employer angle, which is, hey, is talent
Speaker 9: shortage gone, is it's stabilizing. Talent shortage is still here
Speaker 9: and likely will extend and expand as we start seeing
Speaker 9: those investments come off the sidelines, mainly into tech. And
Speaker 9: you know, all companies are tech companies. I'm not just
Speaker 9: talking about the Googles and the Microsofts of the world.
Speaker 9: The number one higher of AI and those kind of
Speaker 9: skills is actually a bank and capital one, and so
Speaker 9: all companies are tech companies. But what we're seeing is
Speaker 9: there's this pent up demand for these specialty skills, and
Speaker 9: right now employers are moving talent around to fill gaps
Speaker 9: versus bringing in those net new skills, and so talent
Speaker 9: shortage is here and it's going to even you know,
Speaker 9: be a bigger consideration as we go forward, is we
Speaker 9: see those tech investments happen and the need for skills
Speaker 9: that have been talking about for you know, years now
Speaker 9: or year and a half at least, those will actually
Speaker 9: come to come to reality.
Speaker 2: Well, what are those skills that are actually needed? Because
Speaker 2: we've been having this discussion quite a bit over the
Speaker 2: last few months about the role that AI will in
Speaker 2: this and the idea that Okay, well, people who were
Speaker 2: told to go learn to code, some of those folks
Speaker 2: might be out of a job because these lms can
Speaker 2: do a pretty good job coding themselves. What are you
Speaker 2: seeing as the jobs that will actually be needed in
Speaker 2: the coming years.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so, Tim, you asked me in the right horizon,
Speaker 9: the coming years, I don't see. You know, business developers, coders,
Speaker 9: they're still in the top three jobs open in the
Speaker 9: country today, software developers. That's still a very important skill.
Speaker 9: As you look out and AI starts to take hold.
Speaker 9: It's less than two percent of total jobs in demand
Speaker 9: by the way AI machine learning jobs in the country today,
Speaker 9: but as we look out it will accelerate. And those
Speaker 9: the skills around capability for analytical assessment, you know, the
Speaker 9: neatest one I think of these prompt engineers because basically
Speaker 9: that's a fancy word for saying, ask the computer the
Speaker 9: right question in the right way. And so this idea
Speaker 9: around natural language models and how do I ask a question?
Speaker 9: Those will be very accessible jobs, which you know, to
Speaker 9: your point, the coders, they're not going away tomorrow. They'll
Speaker 9: evolve into something as well. But I think the accessibility
Speaker 9: of tech will really come into play as we look
Speaker 9: across the horizon. But I think the other kind of
Speaker 9: interesting thing that we're seeing as we go through the
Speaker 9: summer is you heard me talk before about this cost
Speaker 9: conscious consumer that's really driving consumption in our country. What
Speaker 9: we saw and what we're seeing in real time, we
Speaker 9: saw it starting with the jobs report, but we see
Speaker 9: what's happening today. We're seeing really a decline in those
Speaker 9: retail segments big hires, great clips that I talk about frequently,
Speaker 9: Walmart starting to see decline in their open jobs. And
Speaker 9: at the same time, we're seeing an increase now in
Speaker 9: registered nurses, which you know has been depressed, but also
Speaker 9: in mental health support. So we're seeing new entrants in
Speaker 9: the top twenty five hires. A company honestly I hadn't
Speaker 9: heard of called LifeStance is now moved in the top
Speaker 9: twenty five hores and it's a mental health support company.
Speaker 9: So we're seeing a change in the composition, yes, on
Speaker 9: the specialized skills that you ask about, but also on
Speaker 9: the general skills in the economy today, which is you know,
Speaker 9: good news.
Speaker 5: I actually did want to talk a little bit more
Speaker 5: about the composition of what kinds of jobs are being
Speaker 5: added when you look at the jobs report that we
Speaker 5: just got. Job growth was led by construction and healthcare,
Speaker 5: while manufacturing jobs saw declines. And I wanted to know,
Speaker 5: what does that tell you about the trajectory of the
Speaker 5: US economy.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so, you know, I said, I like to talk
Speaker 9: about the good, the surprise, and the watchouts. My number
Speaker 9: one watch out, Emily, is what's happening in manufacturing. Specifically,
Speaker 9: we saw what the numbers were on durable goods that
Speaker 9: was down. That has broad reaching supply chain considerations. So
Speaker 9: that's one of my watchouts. I am pleased to see
Speaker 9: the resurgence of health again. Registered nurses have been quite
Speaker 9: volatile coming out of the crisis. In fact, a lot
Speaker 9: of declines now not net declines, but declines month over month.
Speaker 9: Given the surge and demand, we're seeing that start to
Speaker 9: come back. And again there's a whole new segment of
Speaker 9: healthcare that's truly emerging, which is mental heal health support,
Speaker 9: which really truly gave birth coming out of the crisis.
Speaker 2: Before we let you go, Becky, we have about a
Speaker 2: minute left. Are we in a recession or approaching a recession?
Speaker 9: I don't believe that. I believe we're in a bit
Speaker 9: of an air pocket. You know, we get encouraged and
Speaker 9: then we hit an air pocket and we come back
Speaker 9: down a little bit. And so I do not believe
Speaker 9: we're heading into a recession. We're also not heading into
Speaker 9: a resurgence, tim and so I think we're going to
Speaker 9: see a bit of steady as she goes. I'll also
Speaker 9: be watching what the FED does mid September in hopes
Speaker 9: that jump starts some of the spending that's on the sidelines.
Speaker 2: Are we heading into a normalization?
Speaker 9: I would say right now, the indications are we're heading
Speaker 9: into a fairly steady state. You know, with these levels,
Speaker 9: I don't know if anyone would call that normalization, but
Speaker 9: I would say we're not seeing big surges or again
Speaker 9: big layoffs either. We're seeing fairly steady steadiness at every corner.
Speaker 2: Okay, steady as she goes Becky Frankowitz, she is Chief
Speaker 2: commercial Officer and President at North America for a Manpower Group. Reminder,
Speaker 2: they source and manage employees for more than four hundred
Speaker 2: thousand clients, So we always like to check in with
Speaker 2: her on these payrolls day because they have a great
Speaker 2: view of what's going on around the country when it
Speaker 2: comes to hiring and firing.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
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Speaker 2: Next guest has a great view of global commerce. He
Speaker 2: runs companies that have more than two dozen ships in
Speaker 2: the ocean that transport at any given moment things like wheat, corn, steel, copper, oil, coal,
Speaker 2: and more all around the world. Stamatis Santanas is the
Speaker 2: chairman and CEO of the publicly held ship owner Senior
Speaker 2: g Maritime traded on the NASDAC under ship, as well
Speaker 2: as the CEO of the publicly traded shipping company Maritime UNS.
Speaker 2: I did ticker us e A. Stomatis here in the
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Welcome, how are you?
Speaker 10: Thank you very well and thank you for having me.
Speaker 10: It's yeah pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us. I want to start with the
Speaker 2: economy because you have an understanding of what's moving where
Speaker 2: and when. How would you describe the global economy right now.
Speaker 10: Well, it's not in such a bad shape as everybody
Speaker 10: is saying. I mean, it's it's it's it's actually quite good.
Speaker 10: I mean we see the United States, you know, running
Speaker 10: at very good growth trades. China has always been into plane.
Speaker 10: We do a lot of China trades because China is important,
Speaker 10: a lot of iron ore and coal that we transported
Speaker 10: to them. And it's it's not in bad shape at all.
Speaker 10: I mean we feel that, you know, the the economic
Speaker 10: global is doing quite well. I cannot say the same
Speaker 10: for Europe. I mean, you know, Europe has been lagging
Speaker 10: a lot, but as far as the US and China
Speaker 10: is concerned, I'm pretty bullish.
Speaker 2: Do you see the lagging continuing in Europe?
Speaker 10: Well, yes, because the biggest victim of you know, the
Speaker 10: Russia Ukraine War has been Europe actually from its energy needs.
Speaker 10: So unfortunately Europe, it's going to take a while before
Speaker 10: we see early bound. And also in Europe we have
Speaker 10: this political instability. You have all these governments changing all
Speaker 10: the time, and you know that doesn't create any vote
Speaker 10: of confidence as to what the growth rate is going
Speaker 10: to be. If you have so many political instability in a.
Speaker 5: Place, you know, I want to get to geopolitics, but
Speaker 5: first I want to also zoom out on the shipping industry,
Speaker 5: because I'm sure shipping has been front and center for
Speaker 5: you whole career, but for many of us, it really
Speaker 5: came into focus during the pandemic. We were talking about
Speaker 5: supply chain snarls, prices for shipping costs just absolutely skyrocketing.
Speaker 5: Do you think now where we are in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: would you call this a normalization of the industry.
Speaker 10: Well, yes and no. I mean that's actually a great point.
Speaker 10: Shipping came into focus during the pandemic where suddenly people
Speaker 10: realized that they cannot get the product's goods you know
Speaker 10: that they were used to in the supermarkets or you know,
Speaker 10: whatever they buy it from. So unfortunately, you know, shipping
Speaker 10: came into play with all these disruptancies you know that
Speaker 10: happened globally. Yes, we have things stabilized since the pandemic
Speaker 10: a lot, but there's still a lot of disruption. And
Speaker 10: that is a result of the Red Sea. As you know,
Speaker 10: you have the hoodies they're bombing ships all the time.
Speaker 10: You know, you have the Resian invasion into Ukraine, and
Speaker 10: that has disrupted the European energy market a lot, So
Speaker 10: you still have a lot of disruptions. Panama Canal, that
Speaker 10: was a big disruptor because of the reduced rains and
Speaker 10: the water levels, is now coming back into normality. But
Speaker 10: you still have a lot of global disruptions unfortunately, and
Speaker 10: it's going to continue to be like that for the
Speaker 10: immediate future, I believe.
Speaker 2: Is that why we're seeing just over the last few months,
Speaker 2: the cost of moving a shipping container increasing so much.
Speaker 2: I mean, we don't hear about that as much as
Speaker 2: we did during the supply chain snarl of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: But why are we seeing costco up in recent months.
Speaker 10: Well, that's a great question, and that happens mostly because
Speaker 10: of the Red Sea closure. I mean, you know, when
Speaker 10: you cannot access Europe and you need more ships to
Speaker 10: take the commodities from let's say, Chime.
Speaker 2: That's been happening, that's been more than a year.
Speaker 10: It's been at a year. But that creates like a backlock.
Speaker 10: It's like the accordion effect. I mean, you don't notice
Speaker 10: it in the beginning, but you know, over a course
Speaker 10: of like three because you have the stock right, things
Speaker 10: are being you know, stocked up in places and warehouses.
Speaker 10: But once you have the real disruptions, and disruptions last
Speaker 10: a bit longer than the year that you mentioned before,
Speaker 10: then it starts to bite. And unfortunately, you know, we
Speaker 10: have conflicting interests. I mean, shipping freight rates usually go
Speaker 10: higher when you have disruptions, and you know, I'm proud
Speaker 10: to say I'm not so proud to say that. Unfortunately,
Speaker 10: we want normality and we want things to be cheaper
Speaker 10: for the consumers, but you know, you always have something
Speaker 10: going on.
Speaker 5: I also want to talk about stocks here. There's a
Speaker 5: number of dry bulk shipping stocks that have really done
Speaker 5: well with the last year. I'm looking at an ETF
Speaker 5: the breakwere Breakwave dry bulk Shipping ETF taker bd R
Speaker 5: Y over the last year has returned over one hundred
Speaker 5: and ten percent. Does that momentum continue?
Speaker 10: The answer is yes. And our stock, which is ship,
Speaker 10: is highly correlated to BDRY because we tend to follow
Speaker 10: the bigger ships of the dry bull vessels. So what
Speaker 10: we do is that we transport araw materials from the
Speaker 10: production areas into the places where they turn into steel
Speaker 10: or aluminum. So we're very critical in the global logistics saying,
Speaker 10: because you know, if you look at infrastructure globally, whether
Speaker 10: that is in the United States or Africa, or Europe
Speaker 10: or the Middle East, you need steel still is something
Speaker 10: that you cannot replace very easily. I mean, you can
Speaker 10: argue about oil, and that's whether that's going to be
Speaker 10: replaced by natural gas and stuff is still it's kind
Speaker 10: of difficult to replace, you know, a very critical component
Speaker 10: in infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Right stimatus. Let's talk politics a little bit, because certainly
Speaker 2: front and center for US as we enter the final
Speaker 2: stretch of the presidential campaign, and I imagine you're watching
Speaker 2: it very closely given that you hear a lot about tariffs,
Speaker 2: especially from former President Trump, who says he wants to
Speaker 2: bring back and increase tariffs US on goods coming from
Speaker 2: certain countries. How do you look at this as from
Speaker 2: your position to CEO of a shipping company.
Speaker 10: In order to have the tariffs make any sense, you
Speaker 10: need to have things produced in your country or in
Speaker 10: countries that are your allies. How do you put like
Speaker 10: stell tariffs when fifty six percent of the global still
Speaker 10: production comes from China. You don't see any blast furnace,
Speaker 10: you know, production of steel, anything being built in Europe
Speaker 10: or the United States, Right, it just doesn't happen. So
Speaker 10: the world still is highly relied and on the Chinese steel.
Speaker 10: So no matter how many steel tariffs you put on
Speaker 10: or ev tariffs, things will still find its way. You
Speaker 10: just make it more expensive for the consumers. I don't
Speaker 10: agree with tariffs so much. I mean only when you
Speaker 10: have that competition, and only if there is any dumping
Speaker 10: takes place. But in this particular event, you know, you
Speaker 10: don't produce still here, it's a given production. You need
Speaker 10: additional steel, not just in the United States but also
Speaker 10: in Europe. So it's going to find its way to
Speaker 10: the consumer. It's only going to be more expensive, and
Speaker 10: that's bad.
Speaker 5: How do these tariffs help with congestion at all or
Speaker 5: do they make that worse?
Speaker 10: Well, congestion is mostly word driven and weather driven. Yah,
Speaker 10: So tariffs do not create any you know, big congestion
Speaker 10: effect on anything. Congestion is always a problem in our
Speaker 10: trade because ships get congested in areas and that creates
Speaker 10: a lot of backlog and makes things again more expensive.
Speaker 10: But it's mostly word driven, like you know, Russia, Ukraine
Speaker 10: and the Middle East, and weather driven. You know, when
Speaker 10: you have a typhoon or a cyclone or a hurricane
Speaker 10: or something that creates congestion in areas.
Speaker 2: You're the CEO of two publicly traded companies. From a
Speaker 2: shareholder perspective, how do you make sure that you're giving
Speaker 2: enough time to different companies?
Speaker 10: Well, thank you. Both companies are quite similar, so the
Speaker 10: management company is consolidated into one that provides management services
Speaker 10: for both companies, and the philosophy, the investment philosophy of
Speaker 10: each company is completely different. Synergy, for example, owns a
Speaker 10: pure play fleet of cape sized vessels.
Speaker 2: Cape size. Remind everyone what that is.
Speaker 10: Cape size is the largest conventional ship that transports iron
Speaker 10: or coal and box side. That's about one hundred and
Speaker 10: eighty thousand tons of cargo cutting capacity and it's about
Speaker 10: one thousand feet long, so it's like three hundred yards.
Speaker 10: It's a big ship, and we have twenty of those,
Speaker 10: so we're quite big in what we do. So Synergy
Speaker 10: is mostly buy and hold and generates a very significant
Speaker 10: return and it's a cash flow thing that we distribute
Speaker 10: to our shareholders and we have increased our dividends substantially.
Speaker 10: United Maritime is we buy, hold and sell. So when
Speaker 10: we find the opportunity to buy an asset low. We
Speaker 10: buy it, we keep it, and then we sell it
Speaker 10: and we usually you know, we have been very successful
Speaker 10: in creating some amazing profits in both companies.
Speaker 2: Should note that U S Energy shares this year. Ship
Speaker 2: is the checker up about thirty four percent animially.
Speaker 5: Performing markets and the S and P five hundred. In
Speaker 5: the lead up to the show, Tim said that we
Speaker 5: were going to discuss how ports are becoming pawns in geopolitics.
Speaker 5: Talk a little bit about that in the last couple
Speaker 5: of minutes that we have.
Speaker 10: Well, it's about infrastructure. You know, there are not sufficient
Speaker 10: ports in the worser world to accommodate all these additional
Speaker 10: changes in energy. I mean, for example, Europe was reliant
Speaker 10: on the natural gas coming from Russia in the form
Speaker 10: of pipelines. That doesn't exist anymore. You need to create
Speaker 10: the infrastruck to bring in natural gas through the poord
Speaker 10: facilities and make it into distributed into the households. How
Speaker 10: are you going to do that? I mean, the infrasexual
Speaker 10: was not in place, and people have been pushing the
Speaker 10: cant down the road a lot in infrasection because they
Speaker 10: were reliant on things that were like thirty or fifty
Speaker 10: years old, like these pipelines in Europe, and the same
Speaker 10: thing happens in the United States. People do not accommodate
Speaker 10: for that.
Speaker 2: Very briefly, one minute left. Concerns about your out especially
Speaker 2: with regard to the Panama Canal. We saw some issues
Speaker 2: there earlier this year. How are you thinking about that?
Speaker 10: It has recovered a lot, So I'm not so concerned
Speaker 10: about a lot. It's recovered lot. I'm not so concerned
Speaker 10: about Panama. I'm concerned about that at sea. The sea
Speaker 10: will continue to be critical and it affects the United
Speaker 10: States a lot because you export a lot of coal
Speaker 10: to India, for example, from Baltimore. Now those ships need
Speaker 10: to go around the Cape of Good Hope. You need
Speaker 10: twenty to thirty percent more ships to do that. You know,
Speaker 10: it's critical. So I'm more concerned about that at sea,
Speaker 10: you know, both from a safety as well as the
Speaker 10: you know, the energy infrastruction.
Speaker 2: The Stematis Santanas chairman and CEO of senor Get Maritime
Speaker 2: and also the CEO of the poly traded shipping company
Speaker 2: Maritime United joining us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch US
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Speaker 2: Well, as I was preparing for this story, I producer
Speaker 2: Elizabeth asked if I'd ever placed a bet on a sport,
Speaker 2: have you, Emily?
Speaker 5: I have not.
Speaker 2: You have not.
Speaker 5: I was I was technically under the athletic department in college,
Speaker 5: so there were a lot of strict rules around like
Speaker 5: what we could.
Speaker 2: But I think now you're I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Actually, but now.
Speaker 5: I'm not really interested in that because aren't there some
Speaker 5: rules around Bloomberg journalists.
Speaker 2: Oh maybe I shouldn't tell people. Then what I found
Speaker 2: out really cautious. Yeah, I am too.
Speaker 5: We were just talking about how all I buy is
Speaker 5: the S and P five hundred.
Speaker 2: Well that makes sense. I mean we're allowed to buy
Speaker 2: index funds. That's like the only thing we can buy.
Speaker 2: Another colleague, though, who shall remain nameless, said that she
Speaker 2: placed a bet last night. Check out this bet that
Speaker 2: she did. She did a multi leg same game parlay
Speaker 2: on last night's Ravens Chiefs game. She put down a
Speaker 2: whopping fifty cents. It would have netted her a few
Speaker 2: hundred dollars if she won.
Speaker 5: Who was this.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell you she didn't win. Okay,
Speaker 2: she did not win, but fifty cents down the train.
Speaker 2: That said, the proliferation of mobile betting apps like FanDuel
Speaker 2: and DraftKings, plus betting kiosks at stadiums across the country
Speaker 2: have made it so that even small bets make for
Speaker 2: big business. The US sports gambling industry has seen more
Speaker 2: than two hundred and twenty billion dollars wagered in the
Speaker 2: five years since the Supreme Court essentially legalized what was
Speaker 2: long in underground aspect of fandom. Claire Valentine is Bloomberg
Speaker 2: News personal finance reporter. She writes about how financial advisors
Speaker 2: are on high alert. She joins us from New York City. Claire,
Speaker 2: good to have you with us. What are financial advisors
Speaker 2: telling you about the two hundred and twenty billion dollars
Speaker 2: that's been wagered over the last five years. What are
Speaker 2: they seeing from their clients.
Speaker 8: Well, they're telling me that they're really worried, you know,
Speaker 8: maybe not their clients in particular, but just about sort
Speaker 8: of the industry as a whole where so many people
Speaker 8: can bet money so easily. We're seeing these mobile apps
Speaker 8: and these usually young people, a lot of male that
Speaker 8: are able to just sort of bet money at the
Speaker 8: touch of a button, and it's become such an intrinsic
Speaker 8: part of watching games that is just exploding and growing continuously.
Speaker 5: Claire, you've written a lot about retail investors buying anything
Speaker 5: from crypto to meme stocks. How much of this trend
Speaker 5: now of these people using their maybe pandemic savings to
Speaker 5: bet is just another example of the fact that those
Speaker 5: savings still exist and that there is still some liquidity
Speaker 5: in the market here in a propensity to spend.
Speaker 8: I think you're right that it's all kind of tied together.
Speaker 8: There's sort of been this gamification of trading and investing.
Speaker 8: You know, it's fun, it's easy, it's quick and flashy,
Speaker 8: and people are able to sort of have this community
Speaker 8: around it. And I think it's the same thing with
Speaker 8: sports betting. It's taking this activity watching sports that people
Speaker 8: love to do and then combining it with the ability
Speaker 8: to sort of have some skin in the game and
Speaker 8: bet money on it. And you know, I think it's
Speaker 8: a great question about how This leads to questions about
Speaker 8: the consumer health and how much money people have to spend.
Speaker 8: I think it's a really interesting gauge into the average
Speaker 8: American consumer right now, and definitely we're seeing people still
Speaker 8: have the money to make some of these bets.
Speaker 2: You talk to some folks who've been placing bets. What
Speaker 2: did you find in general about the people you spoke
Speaker 2: to who are actually spending money on these apps.
Speaker 8: Yeah, what was really striking to me was just how
Speaker 8: these people are sort of justifying it to themselves. You know,
Speaker 8: they're saying, oh, it's just five dollars here and there.
Speaker 8: You know, it's five dollars for a game, it's ten
Speaker 8: dollars here. Feels like a really low amount of money.
Speaker 8: But then you sort of add that all together and
Speaker 8: you think about how many football games there are in
Speaker 8: the fall, and it starts to become kind of worrisome.
Speaker 8: Just to consider also the fact that most people lose
Speaker 8: their bets and they lose money. So it's pretty striking
Speaker 8: to me how the mentality is sort of around this
Speaker 8: and sort of the justifications of it.
Speaker 5: The financial advisors you spoke to, what was the advice
Speaker 5: that they're giving to their clients. Did you speak to
Speaker 5: advisors who don't want anyone, you know, betting or I'm
Speaker 5: wondering if there's maybe a safer way to participate in
Speaker 5: sports gambling.
Speaker 8: You know, I think financial advice would always rather their
Speaker 8: clients not gamble than gamble. But I think, you know,
Speaker 8: it sort of relates to what a lot of advisors
Speaker 8: say about stock trading. It's like, Okay, if you're gonna
Speaker 8: you want to bet some money on you know, meme stocks, cool,
Speaker 8: just make sure it's only a set amount, that you
Speaker 8: don't go over that amount, that you think of it
Speaker 8: as you know, fun money, discretionary spending and not part
Speaker 8: of a long term investment strategy. And I think it's
Speaker 8: the same here. You know, I don't think anyone's saying
Speaker 8: you shouldn't sports bet at all, but it's just continually
Speaker 8: having that sort of check and making sure you're not
Speaker 8: going over your budget.
Speaker 2: I'm certainly interested to keep following this in c Emily,
Speaker 2: whether or not we're going to start to see pushback
Speaker 2: in the coming years. You always do here when these
Speaker 2: products and services are advertised, that you know, if you
Speaker 2: have a gambling addiction, called this number and here the
Speaker 2: resources that the state offers, so certainly interesting to see this.
Speaker 2: Take Claire Valentine, Bloomberg News Personal Finance reporter, joining us
Speaker 2: from New York City.
Speaker 8: I'm brother mark.
Speaker 6: A journal Now about you?
Speaker 5: Let me drive?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, who's going to drive?
Speaker 8: Alright?
Speaker 3: Please, I'll do gravels. Let's wait, I want to drive.
Speaker 8: It's the question that.
Speaker 1: This is the drive to the clothes.
Speaker 3: Trim well, round, fold it down.
Speaker 1: On Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 5: All right, it's time for the drive to the clothes
Speaker 5: and now. Yes, it is three forty and this has
Speaker 5: been a brutal week in the market.
Speaker 2: Time to close the market, time to close.
Speaker 5: Let's shut it down, shut it down. We're joined now
Speaker 5: by Lauren san Filipo in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio,
Speaker 5: senior investment strategist for Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank.
Speaker 5: Help us understand what is going on in stocks right now,
Speaker 5: because we are poised for the worst week in the
Speaker 5: S and P five hundred since the Regional Banking christ
Speaker 5: Is in March of last year.
Speaker 11: Yeah, let's close it out right. I think that makes sense.
Speaker 11: The labor market jobs report, I'm sure you guys have
Speaker 11: been talking about this all day right. In our view,
Speaker 11: this is a cooling. This isn't a labor market that's
Speaker 11: really stalling out. I don't think much has fundamentally fundamentally
Speaker 11: changed since the beginning of August, so that's important to note, right,
Speaker 11: It's just been a little bit of positioning, just what
Speaker 11: I'm seeing in semiconductors as the example, and textually selling
Speaker 11: off taking on the chin.
Speaker 2: Is this what the FED wants to see? I'm not
Speaker 2: talking about the market reaction because we're told the FED
Speaker 2: has a dual mandate, and then that mandate doesn't include
Speaker 2: the equity market. But is this what the FED wants
Speaker 2: to see when it comes to the labor market.
Speaker 11: I think so, and I think this gives them more
Speaker 11: reason to cut by twenty five basis points. That is
Speaker 11: our base case. I know those odds have been oscillating
Speaker 11: today between twenty five and fifty, but again we're in
Speaker 11: that twenty five basis point camp. I think the inflation
Speaker 11: print that's going to come out on the eighteenth, it's
Speaker 11: not time to call the all clear. I actually think
Speaker 11: on inflation, and it wasn't It was only what two
Speaker 11: months ago when we got inflation print that actually triggered
Speaker 11: a massive rotation in markets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're actually set to get CPI next week on
Speaker 2: the eleventh, and that's set according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg,
Speaker 2: thirty two of them two point six percent. And again
Speaker 2: it's not the preferred measure of inflation Emily, but that's
Speaker 2: a two point six is getting closer to two?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I'm wondering, you know, when you think
Speaker 5: about the August that we had, there was some fear
Speaker 5: that that sell off was the beginning of a broader
Speaker 5: unwinding in markets. Do you agree with that framing, especially
Speaker 5: now that we're getting this data that the Fed kind
Speaker 5: of likes and kind of is pointing to more of
Speaker 5: a soft landing, Right, I think.
Speaker 11: All that data actually probably bolsters the case for a
Speaker 11: soft landing. We saw basically at the beginning, right, some
Speaker 11: chop around, some mechanical yen care trade. For sure, it
Speaker 11: was a growth scare at best. And then I think
Speaker 11: we got a revised Q two GDP report that told
Speaker 11: you actually the consumer was in better shape than initially thought,
Speaker 11: and a GDP at for Q two at three percent
Speaker 11: that's very healthy. The Atlanta Fed GDP for Q three
Speaker 11: now is saying two percent. I mean, again, this is
Speaker 11: a moderation in growth, but this is by no means
Speaker 11: a recession, and we think the FED is embarking on
Speaker 11: a non recessionary cutting.
Speaker 2: Cycle, So non recessionary cutting cycle. You don't think we're
Speaker 2: in a recession or headed to a recession.
Speaker 11: No, And I don't think that there's a lot of
Speaker 11: data out there to sort of suggest that, right, particularly
Speaker 11: dating that data that's leading and not lagging like we
Speaker 11: saw today with the jobs market.
Speaker 5: So then where are you finding opportunities in this market?
Speaker 11: So unfortunately this takes a little extra leg room here,
Speaker 11: but I do think you have to look under the
Speaker 11: index under sectors, right, It's tough to make broad sector
Speaker 11: calls in this environment, like, for example, industrials would not
Speaker 11: be a sector right now now that I would be
Speaker 11: recommending or overweighting. But I still like the aerospace and
Speaker 11: defense industry, right, and I think there's a lot of
Speaker 11: legs there. So unfortunately, this is about quality, This is
Speaker 11: about earnings growers. In Q two, we saw for earnings,
Speaker 11: we saw five out of eleven sectors growing their earnings
Speaker 11: by double digits. I mean that's earnings, that's broadening so
Speaker 11: I'm tracking earnings into Q three to see sort of
Speaker 11: where we see opportunity.
Speaker 2: Have clients been calling this week?
Speaker 11: Yes, and then they tell you how much they have
Speaker 11: in cash, because it's almost like a I told you
Speaker 11: so a moment A little bit, right. I mean, there's
Speaker 11: a lot of uncertainty out there, and that's what I'm
Speaker 11: hearing from clients.
Speaker 2: So they do have a lot of cash and they're
Speaker 2: ready to jump on opportunities when they see the time
Speaker 2: is right. Do they feel like things are still too
Speaker 2: high right now?
Speaker 11: Unfortunately, there are a lot of clients that think there's
Speaker 11: more to come on this like downside pull back, just
Speaker 11: given the confluence of issues that.
Speaker 2: We have ahead of us, right, do you think there's
Speaker 2: more downside to come?
Speaker 11: I think, you know, we could definitely see more of
Speaker 11: this pullback. I mean there's all the election cycle in
Speaker 11: front of us. We have a debate next week and
Speaker 11: again CPI who knows where that's sort of gonna bring.
Speaker 11: So yeah, I do think that there could be more
Speaker 11: to this pullback.
Speaker 5: Do you do anything particular in portfolios to prepare for
Speaker 5: the election, because I think it was yesterday we were
Speaker 5: talking to Abigail Doolittle, who was pointing out that when
Speaker 5: you look at the Vicks futures curve, which is getting
Speaker 5: into a little wonky territory, but it looked like traders
Speaker 5: were not really bracing for a lot of volatility around
Speaker 5: the election, and so that could be seen as maybe
Speaker 5: an underppreciated risk.
Speaker 11: I mean, maybe we're pulling forward some of that uncertainty too.
Speaker 11: This has been an unusual election cycle. But when it
Speaker 11: comes to portfolios, I mean, we're thinking about corporate profits,
Speaker 11: the sort of that underlying strength, and that's really the
Speaker 11: north Star policies. We're not going to start positioning portfolios
Speaker 11: sort of around where we think candidates are going, but
Speaker 11: we are thinking about gridlock or not, and it's just
Speaker 11: getting the polling just getting tighter, particularly in the swing states.
Speaker 2: Good luck or not is more important to you than
Speaker 2: who's in the White House.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you know, just in terms of what the market's
Speaker 11: looking for, I think the market would be more nervous
Speaker 11: about like a Republican or Democratic.
Speaker 2: Suite then the policies actually get done, correct you. Okay, Lauren,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining us. Thank you here in
Speaker 2: the studio too. Always good to see you. Laurence and Filippo,
Speaker 2: senior investment strategist for Merril and Bank of America Private Bank.
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