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Speaker 2: One of the big news items out there in today
Speaker 2: is China. Over the last twenty four hours, AT's say
Speaker 2: China saying we're not going to buy any more Boeing jets.
Speaker 2: So just another escalation in the trade war between the
Speaker 2: US and Canada. I'm looking at the Boeing stock today,
Speaker 2: it's off about nine tenths of one percent. George Ferguson
Speaker 2: joins us. He's a senior Aerospace, Defense and Airlines zentos
Speaker 2: for Bloomberg Intelligence. George talk to us about China and Boeing.
Speaker 2: How big of an issue is this for Boeing?
Speaker 3: So I don't see it as being a big issue, right.
Speaker 4: So this is one of those things that the relationship
Speaker 4: has deteriorated over a period of time. You know, we
Speaker 4: were basically writing right now a focus idea on.
Speaker 3: Boeing we'll publish in the Bloomberg Terminal.
Speaker 4: And as we're doing that research, we took another look
Speaker 4: at when we saw orders from the Chinese airlines for Boeing,
Speaker 4: and there's been like fifteen or sixteen this decade. I
Speaker 4: think fifteen came in I think last year of two
Speaker 4: hundred and forty two orders.
Speaker 3: From China that are on the books right now.
Speaker 4: The last real material size and orders from the big
Speaker 4: Chinese airlines we saw back in twenty eighteen. So this
Speaker 4: is a relationship that's been broken for a while. Frankly,
Speaker 4: the Chinese haven't really been, like I said, ordering from Boeing.
Speaker 4: So the bigger issue here, I think is Boeing delivering
Speaker 4: some of the airplanes they've already built for the Chinese.
Speaker 4: Like I said, there's some two hund forty of them.
Speaker 3: Sitting in the order books.
Speaker 4: I suspect a bunch of them are already made and
Speaker 4: Boeing would like to get rid of them. Part of
Speaker 4: the shadow factory elimination they're trying to do to streamline
Speaker 4: operations is the pain in the neck to have an
Speaker 4: airplane on the tarmac that's sold that you've got to maintain,
Speaker 4: but the customer isn't taking delivery of.
Speaker 3: It'll slow that down.
Speaker 4: I think it might hasten some of Boeing's push to
Speaker 4: sell some of those airplanes. The Indians have bought a
Speaker 4: bunch of them, maybe they're game for more, But I
Speaker 4: just don't This is China admitting what they've already been doing.
Speaker 5: Frankly, So, George, what exactly is the goal here? I mean,
Speaker 5: to your point, and also Jeffrey's analysts, they're noting that
Speaker 5: Boeing has largely de risked from China, they said of
Speaker 5: the country contributing roughly about five percent of the skyline
Speaker 5: over the next couple of years. But also a source
Speaker 5: of upside. What do you think the goal is here
Speaker 5: if there seems to be marginal impact here to Boeing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think.
Speaker 4: It's splashy right for the Chinese to make this kind
Speaker 4: of commentary. And look, I do think there's potentially some upside.
Speaker 4: So look, there's a couple of things that's been going
Speaker 4: on right China. One is growing a lot slower since
Speaker 4: the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, China would take in
Speaker 4: three hundred narrow bodies a year, more than half of
Speaker 4: them would be Boeing. And so you know, since the
Speaker 4: pandemic last year, we saw about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: deliveries of narrow bodies in a China. They were Airbus airplanes.
Speaker 4: So and look, you know, in a global trade battle,
Speaker 4: China could see a diminishing GDP. Right this is a
Speaker 4: country grown eight percent last decade, fourish percent this decade.
Speaker 4: But if they get that, you know, if they decide
Speaker 4: they're going to negotiate with the US, they get some
Speaker 4: of that growth back on the rails. I think inside
Speaker 4: some of that negotiation you could see a requirement to
Speaker 4: order Boeing airplanes. Donald Trump cut a similar deal in
Speaker 4: his last administration, So there is some silver lining. And
Speaker 4: like I said, I think the Chinese sort of they
Speaker 4: know that the Boeing is at one of our biggest exporters.
Speaker 4: They know they'll get some good headlines out of saying
Speaker 4: we're not going to take any more bowing airplanes. But
Speaker 4: again I think this is already this is a microcosm
Speaker 4: of the US a kind of beginning uncoupled from China
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 5: So this isn't a major headwind here for Boeing Boeing,
Speaker 5: But what do you think are some headwinds that they
Speaker 5: could be facing? What are some near term hurdles.
Speaker 4: You know, I think Boeing has been down for so
Speaker 4: long that I think most of the hurdles are clearing
Speaker 4: and you're going to see a pretty good year. I
Speaker 4: think the big issue this year is they've really got
Speaker 4: to get Spirit Aerosystems bought and integrated into Boeing. I
Speaker 4: think that's well underway. I'm hearing good news from people
Speaker 4: I know in the industry about quality coming out of Spirit.
Speaker 3: They've got to get rid of that shadow factory.
Speaker 4: These airplanes already built sitting on the tarmac that they're maintaining.
Speaker 3: You know, that's just a huge dragon expenses.
Speaker 4: They got to get them delivered out to customers, sold
Speaker 4: off to new customers. And it's all about in the
Speaker 4: back half of the year building more airplanes in the factory.
Speaker 4: We've been watching it in the first quarter of the year.
Speaker 4: I think they're getting about twenty twenty five through the
Speaker 4: factory month. They got to keep building on that cadence.
Speaker 4: That's going to generate the cash and the profitability they need.
Speaker 4: And oh, by the way, they added twenty six billion
Speaker 4: dollars to inventory since I think twenty eighteen we have
Speaker 4: it and supported some five hundred equivalent to five.
Speaker 3: Hundred and seven thirty sevens.
Speaker 4: As they start building from the inventory on hand, their
Speaker 4: cash generation is going to be super charged. They could
Speaker 4: have a really nice back half of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: George Ferguson, thanks so much for joining us. Always appreciate
Speaker 2: getting a couple of minutes of your time. George Ferguson,
Speaker 2: Senior Aerospace, Defense and Airlines Centers to Bloomberg Intelligence covers
Speaker 2: all the aerospace companies and all the airlines. He sees
Speaker 2: it from the entire three hundred and sixty degree picture
Speaker 2: the whole global aerospace business.
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Speaker 2: Bank of America reported today, City Bank reported today. I
Speaker 2: worked for both of those services back in the day,
Speaker 2: Merrill Lynch, which is now part of Bank of America
Speaker 2: and Solomonbros. Which is not part of City, So I
Speaker 2: always pay attention to these two names both trading up
Speaker 2: here today. So that's a good news. Let's get Alison
Speaker 2: Williams in here. She'll tell us the details here. She's
Speaker 2: a senior alist. She covers all the banks for Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 2: She's been working super hardless last four or five days
Speaker 2: as all these big banks put out their numbers. Also,
Speaker 2: what she like when I think of BFA and I
Speaker 2: think of City, I think is the corporate investment banks
Speaker 2: making loans for big global corporations and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: as well as going down to the local branch level.
Speaker 2: What are they telling us today?
Speaker 6: So on the capital.
Speaker 7: Markets side of things, so your your friends, the traders
Speaker 7: and bankers, you know, really good quarter for trading across
Speaker 7: the board. We've had sort of everyone come in equities
Speaker 7: trading better. You know, City did a little bit better,
Speaker 7: and Fick and banking, so that was a key positive.
Speaker 7: But generally we're seeing strength and trading that's helped by
Speaker 7: volatility and fees stalling, so which we know kind of
Speaker 7: as a pause. So that's broadly across the banks. The
Speaker 7: other thing is, you know Q one was good, but
Speaker 7: of course we have not seen the impact of the
Speaker 7: last couple of weeks, but banks are preparing for that
Speaker 7: in perhaps different ways. Bank of America kept their interest
Speaker 7: income guidance stable. But the positive thing there is that
Speaker 7: they are factoring in the four interest rate cuts that
Speaker 7: they're factoring in what we've seen in April, So I
Speaker 7: think that is generally helpful to the shares. You're seeing
Speaker 7: them respond today. Also on the credit provision, you know,
Speaker 7: Bank of America always provides these extra slides. As you
Speaker 7: talked about, there's all different types of businesses. There's concerns
Speaker 7: certainly on the consumer business tends to be higher loss
Speaker 7: in Bank of America showing a slide the shift in
Speaker 7: their portfolio over the long term, but also making the
Speaker 7: point that look, they're reserved at about a six percent
Speaker 7: unemployment rate. That's similar to what we heard from City.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, that's similar to what we heard from JP
Speaker 7: Morgan and Wells. We're going to hear more from City
Speaker 7: on there call in a bit, but their losses tend
Speaker 7: to be lower. This, you know, responsible growth is something
Speaker 7: that moynihan has championed, championed. Some have been critical when
Speaker 7: things are better, are you taking enough risk? But in
Speaker 7: a period like today, when we're worrying about risk, I
Speaker 7: think that gives the.
Speaker 5: Cushion Allison so up today we're seeing shares up today.
Speaker 5: But if you look here today, we've got Bank of
Speaker 5: America down fourteen percent, City Group down eight percent, Broader
Speaker 5: Financials down about you know, one and a half percent.
Speaker 5: But that being said, what do you think has really
Speaker 5: been the drag for them as of late? Because I mean,
Speaker 5: this sounds like pretty decent news, but you know, on
Speaker 5: a broader scale, that's not necessarily the case.
Speaker 7: So I think that what we saw was a big
Speaker 7: rally in these shares after the election. People were very
Speaker 7: excited about less regulation under the new administration, and we
Speaker 7: saw evidence of that this quarter in terms of buybacks.
Speaker 7: Buy backs were bigger than expected for everybody except for
Speaker 7: Morgan Stanley, a huge announcement by Goldman Sachs and so
Speaker 7: capital return. Being able to return more capital is one
Speaker 7: of the positive benefits that is coming through and that,
Speaker 7: you know, So we had the big rally on less regulation.
Speaker 7: M and A being helped by less regulation was part
Speaker 7: of that. We did get the buybacks. M and A
Speaker 7: is not coming through because there's so much uncertainty in
Speaker 7: the environment. That goes to some of the comments we
Speaker 7: heard earlier just in terms of you know, pipeline are
Speaker 7: they broken or bent. So I do think it does
Speaker 7: depend like if we can get things, you know, changing course,
Speaker 7: if we get some level of certainty, that can improve.
Speaker 6: But if there is more volatility, perhaps not.
Speaker 7: And it really comes down to the economy. So if
Speaker 7: there is a weaker economy, if there is a recession,
Speaker 7: not good for financials.
Speaker 5: So City Group in particular, Jane Freezer, she's about a
Speaker 5: little over halfway through this five year plan for a
Speaker 5: turnaround for the bank.
Speaker 6: How's that going?
Speaker 5: Are people liking what she's doing?
Speaker 6: I think people are.
Speaker 7: She's making progress, So we saw some of that this quarter.
Speaker 7: It's certainly a very long term story, and a lot
Speaker 7: of that has to do with, you know, to some extent,
Speaker 7: when you're fixing things that the regulators want you to fix,
Speaker 7: that can take some time and it's not fully within
Speaker 7: your control.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's within your control to deliver on things.
Speaker 7: But it's it's a negotiation and you have to you know,
Speaker 7: sort of meet those standards as we've seen it Wills Barger.
Speaker 7: That can take a seriously long time. But I do
Speaker 7: think for City Group it's the best thing that could
Speaker 7: have happened to them, because really, you know, the City
Speaker 7: Group is the house that Sandy built and has all
Speaker 7: these different businesses, and I think finally taking the steps
Speaker 7: to nationalize and integrate things and improve the risk management
Speaker 7: systems are good thing in the long term, even though
Speaker 7: there's some pay in your term.
Speaker 2: Brian Moynhan of BIAVE on the conference call this morning,
Speaker 2: did he acknowledge the uncertainty and the decline and consumer
Speaker 2: sentiment just in the last several weeks, in corporate sentiment
Speaker 2: as well. We've seen polling on that. You look at
Speaker 2: the University of Michigan data, people concerned about things. Did
Speaker 2: he acknowledge that and maybe think about how they might
Speaker 2: impact their business?
Speaker 7: You know, he did talk about sort of the pivot
Speaker 7: since a quarter end. He talked about that, especially with
Speaker 7: regard to the reserve build. So again, I think that's
Speaker 7: one of the things that we're seeing a little bit
Speaker 7: different at banks JP Morgan taking.
Speaker 6: A big preserve. Of course, they had a game.
Speaker 7: That helped to fund that whiles doing very little, but
Speaker 7: they were already pretty well conserved. And Bank of America saying, look,
Speaker 7: we do our reserve at the end of March. But
Speaker 7: then there are different factors. We can use judgmental factors
Speaker 7: and different factors to sort of shore up that reserve.
Speaker 6: A little bit.
Speaker 7: And so even though the headline numbers don't look like,
Speaker 7: you know, they're taking big reserves, their credit is good,
Speaker 7: the charge offs are good, and so the fact that
Speaker 7: you know, even just kind of keeping those reserves stable,
Speaker 7: you know, when your credit is improving, shows a level
Speaker 7: of conservatism.
Speaker 5: So big being earnings kicked off on Friday, we're sitting
Speaker 5: here Tuesday. You've gotten so many names that you're kind
Speaker 5: of parsing through right now. But of course, to your point,
Speaker 5: this is a really uncertain period. So what is a
Speaker 5: general expectation. Do we expect that investors are going to
Speaker 5: punish companies harshly if they were to miss or does
Speaker 5: it seem like people are kind of just going along
Speaker 5: with the flow and seeing what's going to happen given
Speaker 5: the you know, tumultuous time period.
Speaker 7: I think it's you know, for for investors, like so
Speaker 7: many other stocks out there, right there's a level of uncertainty.
Speaker 7: And I do think that as you said that, so
Speaker 7: the stocks have come right down, they're factoring in a
Speaker 7: level of risk, but investors have to feel more comfortable
Speaker 7: that they have a handle on those risks or clarity,
Speaker 7: so that that could stop people from from getting involved.
Speaker 6: But in terms of you know.
Speaker 7: It depends on what happens for prere do things get
Speaker 7: worse at the risk of recession rise. You could see
Speaker 7: bigger provisions in the second quarter, and so investors were
Speaker 7: wondering what we see banks being conservative, and I think
Speaker 7: what we saw was back to really saying like, look,
Speaker 7: we're going to wait and see. Okay, you know, as
Speaker 7: of March things are good. We recognize that things are getting.
Speaker 6: A little weaker, but we're going to wait and see.
Speaker 2: Allison, thank you so much, as always appreciated. Alison Williams,
Speaker 2: Senior Alice covering all the global banks for Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 2: City Bank of America.
Speaker 1: Today, you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 2: One of the big stories that's getting a ton of
Speaker 2: readership on the Bloomberg terminal is Harvard has hit with
Speaker 2: financial retribution after rebuffing Trump. So Harvard University President Alan
Speaker 2: Garber rejected the Trump administration's demands to combat anti Semitism,
Speaker 2: saving concerns over academic freedom and government interference and higher education.
Speaker 2: Let's break this story down with Janet Lawren. She's a
Speaker 2: higher education financial reporter for Bloomberg News. She joins here
Speaker 2: in our Bloomberg in Active Brokers studio. Janet, Harvard seems
Speaker 2: to be one of the few institutions or entities openly
Speaker 2: defining presidential peer what's the view from Harvard's perspective.
Speaker 8: Well, it's true, Harvard is the richest university in America.
Speaker 8: They have a fifty three billion dollar endowment. No one
Speaker 8: comes close. Seventy percent of that money is restricted, so
Speaker 8: it doesn't appear as massive as it seems. But in theory,
Speaker 8: you know, they could afford to try to spend some
Speaker 8: of that endowment. Last year, the endowment contributed two point
Speaker 8: four billion dollars to Harvard's budget of about six point
Speaker 8: five billion. But you know, the federal government has, you know,
Speaker 8: get a lot of money from the federal government, and
Speaker 8: I guess the question is are they willing to risk it?
Speaker 8: And you saw President Trump on True Social just a
Speaker 8: few minutes ago saying, well, he's perhaps going after their
Speaker 8: tax exempt status, so's it's unclear.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just actually had some experience over the
Speaker 2: weekend on this at a place of higher education about
Speaker 2: the finances there and for top research universities. And this
Speaker 2: is a private public relationship that really started after World
Speaker 2: War Two, which is when the America said we need
Speaker 2: to be the leader in key key industries, technology, healthcare,
Speaker 2: so on and so forth. We think the best way
Speaker 2: to do that. This is the US government after World
Speaker 2: War two is a public private kind of relationship. And
Speaker 2: right now the relationship is about two thirds federal funded,
Speaker 2: one third private funding, including the universities themselves. That's big
Speaker 2: money for a lot of these universities.
Speaker 8: It is big money. And you know we've written that
Speaker 8: many times. And you know the federal government also gives
Speaker 8: students millions of dollars to attend universities in the form
Speaker 8: of federal student loans and pel grants and other grants.
Speaker 8: So colleges are quite dependent on the federal government, and
Speaker 8: they're exercising their their views and saying, look, we give
Speaker 8: you a lot of money, and if you don't make changes,
Speaker 8: we have the right to take that away. If they say,
Speaker 8: if you don't follow the law and in talking about
Speaker 8: you know, their their issue in some ways, DEI, if
Speaker 8: if you don't follow the law of their saying discrimination,
Speaker 8: we can we can yank your moneyway.
Speaker 5: So what the sources that you're speaking to, Janet, is
Speaker 5: the expectation that Harvard will remain resolute in this this
Speaker 5: you know where they are right now? Or do people
Speaker 5: think that they're gonna essentially cave. I mean, I saw
Speaker 5: you wrote a story earlier last month about the Columbia
Speaker 5: president stepping down, and I remember that they had initially
Speaker 5: been kind of trying to stand their ground as well.
Speaker 5: So what are you hearing from sources about what people
Speaker 5: are thinking Harvard might do?
Speaker 6: Well, I don't think it.
Speaker 8: Really matters what people think. It matters how they're going
Speaker 8: to get through this because they are dependent on the
Speaker 8: government for a lot of money. Now, if you look
Speaker 8: at Columbia, Columbia is poor compared to Harvard. They only
Speaker 8: have fifteen billion dollars. So it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 8: uncertain what happens next. I mean, the ball is in
Speaker 8: Harvard's court. Are they going to litigate? That could take
Speaker 8: quite a long time. What happens if labs are closing
Speaker 8: or there. You know, from past experience, we're going to
Speaker 8: get stop work orders. You know, we've sort of seen
Speaker 8: this already with a couple of schools getting stop work
Speaker 8: orders and getting money frozen.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are some of the alumni? Is there
Speaker 2: a is there a consistent reaction from the alumni, either
Speaker 2: in support of Harvard or maybe not supporting them.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I think I think some alumni have
Speaker 8: posted on various social media's people are happy that somebody
Speaker 8: has stood up to Trump. But you have to remember
Speaker 8: the federal government has a lot of power. Yes, and
Speaker 8: perhaps fifty three billion dollars seems like a lot of money,
Speaker 8: But I mean, how much does it? How much money
Speaker 8: does the federal government go through in one day?
Speaker 2: So what our next steps here? I mean, I see
Speaker 2: that the Harvard has officially rejected the administration's demands here, So.
Speaker 6: We're in unchartered territory.
Speaker 8: Okay, if you asked me to predict any of this,
Speaker 8: I know it's hard to know.
Speaker 5: I see in your story you say that former Harvard
Speaker 5: president Larry Summers says that the statement drew support from him.
Speaker 5: He said that he hoped other universities would adopt a
Speaker 5: similar stance to defend academic freedom. Is he alone in
Speaker 5: that or are you hearing other people on the same side.
Speaker 8: I think there is an interest in having entities try
Speaker 8: to stand up to Trump. We saw this with some
Speaker 8: law firms. But in some ways, the federal government holds
Speaker 8: all the cards.
Speaker 2: What are other universities doing? Have we heard from anybody else?
Speaker 2: Has anybody been in a target like Harvard Princeton has?
Speaker 8: Princeton's president has been outspoken. But keep in mind Princeton,
Speaker 8: while they've produced many Nobel Prize winners, they do not
Speaker 8: operate a medical school. Most of the grants are NIH
Speaker 8: funding grants to medical schools, grants for scientific research.
Speaker 6: You know, there's only a.
Speaker 8: Handful of schools that are receiving the kind of money
Speaker 8: that Princeton. Stanford MIT also does not operate a medical school,
Speaker 8: but there had also received cuts in Department of Energy,
Speaker 8: in Department of Defense. So remember, you know, NIH is
Speaker 8: one federal agency. It's the biggest, but there's a lot
Speaker 8: of them out there. I believe Cornell had frozen funding
Speaker 8: from Agriculture.
Speaker 2: Interesting. I mean, and again, these are grants from the
Speaker 2: US government in most cases to fund research and development. Correct, right,
Speaker 2: they're not these aren't we're giving you money just to
Speaker 2: give you money. They're they're investing in research, their buying research.
Speaker 6: That is correct.
Speaker 5: And earlier in the conversation you mentioned DEI, how has
Speaker 5: Harvard been really viewing the pushback from the government on that?
Speaker 5: How have they been responding? In about thirty seconds or less.
Speaker 8: Well, we did a big story earlier this year about
Speaker 8: the decline in black freshman first year law students at
Speaker 8: Harvard Law School, and you know they they have to
Speaker 8: follow the law.
Speaker 2: All right, Very good, Janet Lauren, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining us. Sir Jena Laurren. She's a higher education
Speaker 2: finance reporter again talking about Harvard and its discussions and
Speaker 2: I guess differences with the US with the Trump administration
Speaker 2: and the financial risk associated with that. So I'll have
Speaker 2: to see how that plays out.
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