Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanovk. We're here every day bringing
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Global News. Let's get up to date though when
Speaker 1: it comes to COVID. We do have US Public Health
Speaker 1: advisors meeting today to talk about booster shots, with the
Speaker 1: White House eager to get a nationwide rollout going by September.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind the number of US COVID nineteen fatalities
Speaker 1: in this month in August already at the highest monthly
Speaker 1: total since March. You've got EU countries voting to reimpose
Speaker 1: restrictions on non essential travel from the US. There is
Speaker 1: a lot going on, so let's get our daily check
Speaker 1: on COVID dot or La Lufa and you. He is
Speaker 1: doctor of medicine at the publicly traded Oak Street Help.
Speaker 1: There a network of primary care centers taking care of
Speaker 1: Medicare patients and they've got about eleven billion dollar market
Speaker 1: cap give or take a few, he joins us on
Speaker 1: the phone. And Toledo, Ohio, they are opening up another
Speaker 1: clinic clinic. Drf and you good to have you here
Speaker 1: with us. UH. Tell us about what you are seeing
Speaker 1: when it comes to COVID currently. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me today. UM on the front
Speaker 1: lines here in the communities, we are seeing more cases
Speaker 1: of folks, mostly younger people who are now presenting with
Speaker 1: COVID cases. UM, there are still where only as a
Speaker 1: nation about fully vaccinated, so there are still a lot
Speaker 1: of folks out there who are still vulnerable to the infection.
Speaker 1: At Oak Street, we've been working really hard to get
Speaker 1: our patients vaccinated. We work with mostly older people, older
Speaker 1: adults on Medicare and Medicaid vulnerable population, so we've been
Speaker 1: focused on this since the very beginning. Since the first
Speaker 1: vaccines were available late last year, we've been able to
Speaker 1: vaccinate a hundred eighty five that we've given out a
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty five thousand doses across the United States.
Speaker 1: And that's a combination of fives and MADERNA and J
Speaker 1: and J vaccines UM, and we care for over a
Speaker 1: hundred and ten thousand people in our three centers across
Speaker 1: the country. So we we know that taking care of
Speaker 1: this population and during this time is is mission critical
Speaker 1: for what we do. Are those people this population, the
Speaker 1: medicare population? Is it largely UM? I'm assuming right older
Speaker 1: folks and that they are more inclined to take the
Speaker 1: vaccine or is that not the case. It's a mixed bag.
Speaker 1: You know, I work here in Ohio UM and some
Speaker 1: of our and I see patients UM with our staff
Speaker 1: across the state. UM. In some communities, you know, there
Speaker 1: is strong support for the vaccine and conversations are usually
Speaker 1: very straightforward. Would you like a vaccine? Yes, and we
Speaker 1: go ahead and vaccinate. Sometimes we have to have some
Speaker 1: more involved conversations with some of our patients about UM
Speaker 1: their hesitancy about getting vaccinated, and others are adamantly against it.
Speaker 1: So you know, we we we're making progress. UM. It's
Speaker 1: slow but steady progress at getting everyone vaccinated. And what
Speaker 1: about when it comes to minority members of the medicare community.
Speaker 1: Are they even more hesitant? You know, it's interesting I
Speaker 1: would say that amongst some of our patients there's hesitancy.
Speaker 1: I'm not at the point where I'm willing to say
Speaker 1: that this is something that is defined by our minority communities.
Speaker 1: There's certainly hesitancy. Much of that born from or that
Speaker 1: comes from historical precedents around distrust of the health care system.
Speaker 1: Um And so as an African American physician, I know
Speaker 1: that I'm in a unique position to help people understand
Speaker 1: that one this vaccine has been produced under some of
Speaker 1: the most the highest scrutiny probably in human history. UM
Speaker 1: that it is that it had has been developed with
Speaker 1: a mind around ensuring that this is a vaccine that
Speaker 1: works for all people. UM. So I continue that we
Speaker 1: continue to educate on this and we're changing minds, were
Speaker 1: changing minds amongst our our communities that we serve, and
Speaker 1: we're getting folks vaccinated, which is very fulfilling and edifying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting when you say that, because You're right, the
Speaker 1: difference has been we have been seeing the development process
Speaker 1: roll out really in front of our eyes. So all
Speaker 1: of the you know, problems which often happen with any
Speaker 1: kind of vaccine development or even any kind of medication development.
Speaker 1: But maybe it's not so front and center, at least
Speaker 1: among the mass public. But we are seeing the vaccine
Speaker 1: development and process happening in front of our eyes. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting because of that, As you say, there's probably
Speaker 1: heightened scrutiny on every single step along the way because
Speaker 1: of it. And that's and that's not a bass thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's good that we have a transparent process
Speaker 1: of development, that people are learning more about how we
Speaker 1: um through vaccines. You know. An area that's oftentimes been
Speaker 1: a point of contention has been the distinction between an
Speaker 1: emergency use authorization and quote unquote full FDA authorization. There,
Speaker 1: while the two terms are not the same, the same rigor.
Speaker 1: The rigor that has gone into making vaccines um available
Speaker 1: under our eu A processes the FDA is incredibly high.
Speaker 1: The rigor is very high. The quality of that process
Speaker 1: has been very, very clear and transparent, and it helps.
Speaker 1: It has helped us as frontline physicians, delivered this vaccine
Speaker 1: with the high degree of confidence that it's effective and
Speaker 1: that if more people get vaccinated, we can we can
Speaker 1: turn the tide here. You know, with the delta variant
Speaker 1: um now the dominant strain in the United States, we
Speaker 1: have to get everybody vaccinated, especially as we are approaching
Speaker 1: um flu season, and you know, for my pediatric colleague,
Speaker 1: r s V is another major virus that can impact kids.
Speaker 1: We need our folks vaccinated because the prospect of having
Speaker 1: another winter like the one we had last year is
Speaker 1: quite frankly frightening, right exactly. UM, We're gonna leave it
Speaker 1: on that note. Thank you so much, really great to
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on this. Dr la lufay on Jo,
Speaker 1: he's medical director of Oak Street Health, joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Toledo, Ohio. UH speaking with him on
Speaker 1: a day where global COVID case is top two hundred
Speaker 1: sixteen point six million deaths passing four and a half million,
Speaker 1: and as it as it UH pertains to the actual
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine given out, more than five point twenty two
Speaker 1: billion doses have been administered across the world. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes
Speaker 1: Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. The Category four storm Hurricane Ida,
Speaker 1: now a tropical storm, could cost insurers at least fifteen
Speaker 1: billion dollars, packing some of the most powerful winds ever
Speaker 1: to hit the New Orleans area and as it lumbers north,
Speaker 1: Ideas unleashing a catastrophic amount of rain that could total
Speaker 1: two ft when all is said and done. Let's get
Speaker 1: an update on the storm it's impacts so far with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Houston bureauchief Joe Caroll. He is on the
Speaker 1: phone from Houston. Hey, Joe, great to check in with you.
Speaker 1: So what is the latest that we know about the
Speaker 1: impact of this storm. Well, we still got more than
Speaker 1: a million households and businesses without power in Louisiana alone.
Speaker 1: The numbers come down slightly, but but it's going to
Speaker 1: be it could be weeks before the bulk of those
Speaker 1: are restored. There's there's been really catastrophic damage done to
Speaker 1: the transmission system. There's one of the main cables is
Speaker 1: actually in the Mississippi River and along with the tower
Speaker 1: that was holding it up. So there's there's really a
Speaker 1: massive model of work to be done well and an
Speaker 1: evil I just you know, kind of an evil twist
Speaker 1: of fate or Mother Nature kind of with her own
Speaker 1: evil take on timing. Right, it happened on the sixteenth
Speaker 1: anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which made us all we would
Speaker 1: have probably anyway compared this storm to hurricane Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 1: What were the similarities, Joe? What were the differences? Katrina
Speaker 1: was actually a larger storm geographically. The chilling thing about
Speaker 1: this last night, when when everything was blowing and going
Speaker 1: was was structures like transmission towers that withstood Katrina actually
Speaker 1: came down last night. And so that's, uh, that really
Speaker 1: shocked a lot of folks who didn't think a physically
Speaker 1: smaller storm would actually do more damage. The upside is
Speaker 1: that the levee system, which was reinforced after Katrina in
Speaker 1: New Orleans itself, has it held, and so for that
Speaker 1: reason we're not seeing the sort of horrific flooding and
Speaker 1: mass deaths that we saw in that storm in two
Speaker 1: thousand five. Well, and you know, was storm. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: about the wind. Sometimes it's about, as you said, you know,
Speaker 1: the geographic impact. Sometimes it's about the water. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: about all of that. This storm in particular, was it
Speaker 1: about the winds. For New Orleans proper, it was a wind.
Speaker 1: It was about the wind when you go into outlying areas.
Speaker 1: Black minds Parish and and say St. James Parish, these
Speaker 1: more rural and distant, isolated places. Uh, it's the water
Speaker 1: is how homes are inundated. Uh, it's a search and
Speaker 1: rescue mode. UM. We still don't know how bad the
Speaker 1: damage is out there. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: we keep reading about, as you well know, UM our
Speaker 1: team and you and everyone reporting that there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of fires after this storm has passed through. What
Speaker 1: do we know about that? There was an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of lightning came in with when the storm rolled ashore.
Speaker 1: We believe it's it's not been investigated, but that lightning
Speaker 1: started a lot of these building fires. And then the
Speaker 1: problem was there was no water pressure. Firefighters couldn't drive
Speaker 1: their trucks because the wind speeds are too high, and
Speaker 1: even if they could get there, there was no water
Speaker 1: to put the fires out. And you know, water scarcity
Speaker 1: is still still a big problem in a lot of places. So,
Speaker 1: you know, Bloomberg and our teams have often reported about
Speaker 1: some of these low lying areas, and I think you know,
Speaker 1: the questions are out there about whether or not we
Speaker 1: need to remove people from these areas, especially with climate
Speaker 1: change and rising sea levels. Or the frequency of storms,
Speaker 1: whether or not we need to maybe relocate people. Um,
Speaker 1: it does seem like the areas that always get hit
Speaker 1: the hardest continue to get hit the hardest. What's the
Speaker 1: thinking about that? Yeah, it's a really that that is
Speaker 1: the toughest question to answer, because even in the case
Speaker 1: of this storm, when folks are told you need to
Speaker 1: get out there, there's no uh, there's no way to
Speaker 1: to to withstand this and to just hunker down, a
Speaker 1: lot of folks still stayed. Um. And then the other
Speaker 1: side of that we're seeing today is the mayor of
Speaker 1: New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana are both asking
Speaker 1: those who did evacuate. We had a big rush of
Speaker 1: folks come here to Houston, uh day for yesterday. They're saying,
Speaker 1: don't come back yet. It's not safe. We don't know
Speaker 1: if your house is still standing. There's no power, there's
Speaker 1: no water, and so you do have we don't have
Speaker 1: a number four, but it's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are we're sort of stuck in this limbo waiting to
Speaker 1: see what's gonna happen. How long will did it take
Speaker 1: for for some of the repair to to be good enough? Um,
Speaker 1: for people to come back. Are we talking weeks? Are
Speaker 1: we talking months? They don't know yet. The poet, like
Speaker 1: I said, the power is going to be out in
Speaker 1: a lot of places for weeks, but they really don't
Speaker 1: know even how long it's going to take to clear
Speaker 1: the high ways. And we're not done yet with this storm,
Speaker 1: right because I have a radar app on my phone
Speaker 1: and the storm is now coming making its way up north.
Speaker 1: What's what's the expectations? They are the forecasts? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: and and the surprising thing is that that it's still
Speaker 1: so powerful. You know, it's it's not a hurricane anymore obviously,
Speaker 1: but like you said, when you look at the radar,
Speaker 1: this is a monster storm. Still. The bad news for
Speaker 1: for New Orleans is that all that water that's moving
Speaker 1: up in Mississippi and Tennessee that still has to come
Speaker 1: down the river system. So so it's going to arrive again. Unbelievable. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just amazing. And I know some of the flows
Speaker 1: I think was that the Mississippi River actually the floes
Speaker 1: actually went in the opposite direction because of all the water.
Speaker 1: Hey Joe, thank you so much, really appreciate the update
Speaker 1: on that. Bloomberg News Houston Bureau chief Joe Carol joining
Speaker 1: us on the phone in Houston. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, there are a few economic
Speaker 1: stories on our agenda this Monday. There are some high
Speaker 1: frequency charts out there that specifically show the US economy
Speaker 1: softening from the delta variant. That variant we know is
Speaker 1: certainly on fit Chairman j Powell's radar. We got that
Speaker 1: confirmation on Friday from the Jackson Hole meetings. So here
Speaker 1: with the hypercruncy charts that we're focusing on and why
Speaker 1: you should be as well as Bloomberg News Economics reporter
Speaker 1: Steve Matthews. He is on the phone in our Atlanta bureau. Steve,
Speaker 1: so great to have you here. I love this story.
Speaker 1: So smart by you, Angel Shaw. So tell me about
Speaker 1: the charts that you looked at and what it shows us. So, Carol, Uh,
Speaker 1: what's interesting here is a lot of the official government
Speaker 1: data is lagged and therefore it's less useful. But you
Speaker 1: can find out if you want, how many people went
Speaker 1: through airport checkpoints yesterday. There were one point nine million people.
Speaker 1: You can find out what the hotel occupancy was last week.
Speaker 1: You can find out lots of things from kind of
Speaker 1: looking at anecdotal and survey data that is from on
Speaker 1: official sources. And what we found out is that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe not surprising, but but maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit concerning, UH, is that travel and tourism data is
Speaker 1: all gotten substantially weaker UH people dining out via via
Speaker 1: open table, that data has gotten a lot weaker in
Speaker 1: August than it was in July. UH and even and
Speaker 1: this will be interesting to see how things develop on
Speaker 1: Friday when you have the official government jobs report. But
Speaker 1: there are some signs that the job market might be
Speaker 1: easing back a little bit. Yes, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: demand for workers, and some companies are having trouble hiring.
Speaker 1: But the bookings for jobs, the listings on things like
Speaker 1: indeed have come down a bit, particularly on jobs UH
Speaker 1: that might be COVID sensitive, such as childcare. I mean,
Speaker 1: you you're going to hire UH childcare only, childcare workers
Speaker 1: only if you're comfortable with having your kid next to
Speaker 1: UH childcare worker. You're going dental offices, for example, there's
Speaker 1: been weakening UH for bookings for those type of jobs.
Speaker 1: So all in all, uh, it presents a little bit
Speaker 1: of a story of weakening demand. And it will be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how this shows up in in the
Speaker 1: official data. Steve. It's like working for our hedge fund, right,
Speaker 1: these are the things you look at that might be
Speaker 1: so much more like moment in time to give you
Speaker 1: an idea of what people are doing today, not last month. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And in fact, you get some pushback on this because
Speaker 1: all almost all this data is not seasonally adjusted, uh,
Speaker 1: and there's some uncertainty about it. So it is, it
Speaker 1: is less precise than the official data, but it also
Speaker 1: is stuff that happens yesterday or happened last week. So
Speaker 1: it's like, if you want to know what's happening now,
Speaker 1: you really have to look at the high frequency data.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things I think, Steve, that
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about here, certainly on air, is
Speaker 1: about the number of companies that are rolling back, bringing
Speaker 1: back workers to offices. And if that feels like a
Speaker 1: big one, because that has a trickle down, trickle across,
Speaker 1: triple up. What effact? Because you don't go to work,
Speaker 1: maybe you're not buying lunch, you're not maybe stopping at
Speaker 1: a store to pick up something you're not getting on
Speaker 1: mass transit. It really changes things that that is interesting
Speaker 1: because Castle Systems attracts the number of people who badge
Speaker 1: into an office every week. So it's like, if you know,
Speaker 1: when I go into the Bloomberg office, I have a badge,
Speaker 1: I wave my badge, it says I'm in the office building.
Speaker 1: It says I'm in the office. Uh, pretty much everybody
Speaker 1: does that across offices everywhere. Last week, Uh, the number
Speaker 1: of people badged into offices in ten cities went down
Speaker 1: at every city. And it's like the number of people
Speaker 1: in offices is still around thirty of what it was
Speaker 1: in two thousand nineteen. It's like people talk about back
Speaker 1: to office, it's really not quite happening yet. Well, and
Speaker 1: what's interesting too, And I think it's timely Steve in
Speaker 1: a week where we're gonna get the monthly jobs report
Speaker 1: on Friday, I can't remember it's Larry Summers have to
Speaker 1: create a Google on the and a search on the Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: But there have been folks out there who are questioning
Speaker 1: some of the metrics that J. Powell and Company J
Speaker 1: Pale in particular, are tracking in terms of deciding when
Speaker 1: to start significantly changing fad policy and saying that, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, maybe it's not so smart to track the
Speaker 1: unemployment rate because there have been dislocations in the labor
Speaker 1: market because of COVID and we know it. I know
Speaker 1: people who have retired or said I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go back to work, or I'm gonna work differently, or
Speaker 1: I'm gonna work part time. You know that it is
Speaker 1: a longer term trend and change. And I wonder what
Speaker 1: you're hearing on that front. Yeah, that's absolutely the taste,
Speaker 1: and in fact, it will be interesting really on Friday
Speaker 1: because as j Pal said at Jackson Hole virtual Jackson
Speaker 1: Hole because of it was canceled. Uh, you can't look
Speaker 1: at just the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate may go down,
Speaker 1: but you have to look at things like, uh, the
Speaker 1: employment population, right that the percentage of the population it's employed.
Speaker 1: You have to look at labor force participation because these
Speaker 1: may not recover quite as fast and the fact that
Speaker 1: the unemployment rate is going down may not give you
Speaker 1: a picture that's accurate of what's happening with the labor market.
Speaker 1: If people are staying out of jobs because they're afraid
Speaker 1: to work because of COVID, right exactly, And so we're
Speaker 1: not quite sure all of the impact. And I guess
Speaker 1: we just have to go from data pointing data. And
Speaker 1: if you want to wait six weeks as the FED
Speaker 1: does for meeting the meeting, if you're j Pale, you say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll know more in another six weeks when we
Speaker 1: have the September jobs reports. So it's building the case
Speaker 1: for waiting a little bit longer. Hey, another great point, UH,
Speaker 1: and story on the bloom Bloomberg has to do with
Speaker 1: how the delta variant is starting to ruin trades. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a headline I'm reading Ruined Trades epic run
Speaker 1: on our Bloomberg tracker and basically just tracking global goods
Speaker 1: and how they are trading. UH. And a team of
Speaker 1: our reporters, led by Michelle jem Risco put this out trade.
Speaker 1: What is trade telling us right now? Yeah? This is
Speaker 1: really interesting too, because it's like in the spring when
Speaker 1: you started to have some of these supply chain issues
Speaker 1: with with UH, for example, with auto components and with
Speaker 1: other with lumber and housing and etcetera. Uh, you heard
Speaker 1: the Fed and other economists say, Okay, this is transitory.
Speaker 1: We know there's some supply chain issues economies reopening after COVID,
Speaker 1: but you know, just hold on a few months and
Speaker 1: things will go back to normal. And that is not happening.
Speaker 1: It's like and in fact, you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at what's happening across international trade across the world, things
Speaker 1: are getting worse marginally from the previous month. You have
Speaker 1: UH ports and China closing, you have disruptions basically everywhere
Speaker 1: because of delta. I mean, things are not moving back
Speaker 1: to normal. And that means these supply chain issues and
Speaker 1: these inflation issues are gonna last a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: All right, little patients, I guess is what we all need. Hey, Steve,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. You broke down a lot UH
Speaker 1: and I highly recommend everybody check out Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: or go to the Bloomberg terminal and check out these stories.
Speaker 1: Steve Matthews, Economics reporter at Bloomberg News. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, several things out of
Speaker 1: China again on our radar, including China putting limits on
Speaker 1: online gaming played by miners. Also looking at the steady
Speaker 1: flow of headlines u out of Beijing as it cracks
Speaker 1: down on a growing number of industries and sectors, and
Speaker 1: looking really to spread wealth more broadly, and looking at
Speaker 1: that is our Bloomberg New Economy editorial director Andy Brown.
Speaker 1: He writes over the weekend about what wealthy tech entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: in China are doing to show solidarity when it comes
Speaker 1: to the Chinese government. Andy joining us on this Monday
Speaker 1: on the phone in New Hampshire andya read your column.
Speaker 1: It looks like to me almost a forced yet strategic
Speaker 1: form of philanthropy that's going on in China among the
Speaker 1: tech entrepreneurs. Tell us what's going on? Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: exactly right. This is political theater of the highest order. Um,
Speaker 1: President of the Thing, as you say, is on a
Speaker 1: campaign to promote common prosperity. In doing so, he's reviving
Speaker 1: the modest eras there of egalitarianism, and the country's billionaires
Speaker 1: have got the message. Then they're coughing up billions of
Speaker 1: dollars something like such. Seen billion just in the last
Speaker 1: few months handed over to charity. Great. If you're looking
Speaker 1: at your billionaires and your most dynamic Chinese companies to
Speaker 1: hedge their political risk. If you're a shareholder, perhaps you're
Speaker 1: not quite so happy. Andy, is this the Cultural Revolution?
Speaker 1: Two point oh? In some ways. Look, this is a
Speaker 1: lot of this is a lot of this is about politics.
Speaker 1: And you know, during the Cultural Revolution, people in China
Speaker 1: famed compliance. Um uh, they didn't really mean it. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a penalty to be paid in China to day
Speaker 1: if you go against the party line. And line now
Speaker 1: is egalitarianism um And this means really a an assault
Speaker 1: on the private sector. And that's really where the problem
Speaker 1: comes from. Because so much of China's inequality is baked
Speaker 1: into the system. It's baked into their taxation system. It's
Speaker 1: the billionaires the private sector that are paying the price
Speaker 1: for this. Well, okay, so you know, every time you
Speaker 1: and I talk, I think about, you know, presidency and
Speaker 1: what the end game is. Because on one hand, right
Speaker 1: they do long term planning, China does as a country,
Speaker 1: as a nation, as a government, and they have been
Speaker 1: very open about wanting to dominate major industrial sectors. At
Speaker 1: the same time, some of what they're doing feels like
Speaker 1: they're pushing back on the ability to do that in capitalism.
Speaker 1: Can they do both? Can they be leaders in industries? Um?
Speaker 1: And at the same point, Okay, it's a really good point, Carol.
Speaker 1: I mean, China is playing by a different set of
Speaker 1: rules here. This is not capitalism, where the purpose of
Speaker 1: the corporation is to maximize shareholder value. What companies in
Speaker 1: China are being told now is that your purpose in
Speaker 1: life is to fall into line and support government policy
Speaker 1: when it comes to technolo oology, when it comes to
Speaker 1: the economy, and also social and political objectives. So we
Speaker 1: saw that today with this announcement that online gaming companies
Speaker 1: were going to have to drastically limit the number of
Speaker 1: hours that kids spend in front of their screens three
Speaker 1: hours a week. This is a this is a bit
Speaker 1: to fix a social problem in China, and companies are
Speaker 1: expected to take the lead. And it doesn't matter the
Speaker 1: impact on their profits or indeed especially not the impact
Speaker 1: on foreign investors. It's simply peripheral. So are they putting
Speaker 1: at risk their ability to be a global leader going forward,
Speaker 1: one that's respected by global investors, global business. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand kind of what the endgame. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand the idea of spreading out the wealth and
Speaker 1: making sure that there's no upheavals within China itself. But
Speaker 1: I do wonder about what the future role is then
Speaker 1: as a nation. Yeah, well, you know when in your
Speaker 1: when you're the Communist party, Um, you know, every every
Speaker 1: male looks like it needs a hammer. And UM, they're
Speaker 1: going about this in a really draconian peremptory way. I mean,
Speaker 1: the problems that they're addressing in China are similar to
Speaker 1: problems elsewhere in the world. I mean, inequality in China
Speaker 1: is about the same as inequality in the United States. Um.
Speaker 1: The difference is that you know, the way, the way
Speaker 1: they've decided to go about this is to is the
Speaker 1: scapegoat the country's leading entrepreneurs, including uh Jack mar of course,
Speaker 1: who was the biggest and the most powerful of them all.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I know I asked you this
Speaker 1: a lot because I do think about So. So do
Speaker 1: we have an idea of in five years, does this
Speaker 1: create um, a more comprehensive, wealthier society in China and
Speaker 1: one that also is playing equally the global stage with
Speaker 1: the EU as well as the US. I think we're
Speaker 1: going to have to see whether how this campaign plays
Speaker 1: out and whether or not what we're seeing is just
Speaker 1: the first way the attention getting actions of you know,
Speaker 1: finding film actresses as they've just done for tax evasion
Speaker 1: or bringing down Jack mar a peg or two. What
Speaker 1: you really need to look out for now is changes
Speaker 1: in public policy that will really have an impact in
Speaker 1: achieving paying President Jijimping's mission, which is to make China
Speaker 1: a more equal society. That will mean massive investment in
Speaker 1: Chinese education. It is woefully underfunded in rural areas. It
Speaker 1: will mean investment in health care. It will mean an
Speaker 1: overhaul of the fiscal system structural changes which it could
Speaker 1: be very painful and could in the short term impact
Speaker 1: Chinese grove. Well, it's a fascinating column again, Andy, and
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that we got to check in with
Speaker 1: you about it, Andy Brown. He is our Bloomberg New
Speaker 1: Economy editorial director. Andy, thank you so much joining us
Speaker 1: on the phone in New Hampshire, and highly recommend you
Speaker 1: check out his column that is on the Bloomberg as
Speaker 1: well as at Bloomberg dot com. I'm road mac a
Speaker 1: journal yea, but you let me drive? No, no, no please,
Speaker 1: I'll do the riding drivel. I want to drive just
Speaker 1: drive baby. The question kept drying. This is the Drive
Speaker 1: to the Globe. Thanks well drying us down on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio and just about ten minutes left in today's trading session,
Speaker 1: it is time of the Drive to the close once
Speaker 1: again joining us as Dan Pippatone, co founder Trade zero America,
Speaker 1: joining us on the phone in Brooklyn. Dan, how are
Speaker 1: you fantastic? How are you doing okay? Doing okay? It's
Speaker 1: been a busy summer. We have talked though on some
Speaker 1: days about a slowdown in trading activity in terms of volume.
Speaker 1: What have you been seeing. Yeah, we've definitely seen some
Speaker 1: slowness um, you know, it's weird coming into the summer
Speaker 1: June July. For the first half of July definitely tracking
Speaker 1: well above last year, but once we hit the middle
Speaker 1: of July, it was it was a significant slowdown. Where
Speaker 1: we're starting seeing things pick back up. Towards the middle
Speaker 1: of last week, we've seen, you know, a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids get back to school in Florida, some of the
Speaker 1: southern states, and as as the monthdays progress on into September,
Speaker 1: we're seeing more of that. So we have a lot
Speaker 1: of anticipation built up for September where everyone is quote
Speaker 1: unquote back to work. Um and uh, we're we're really
Speaker 1: excited for what the fall has to bring as it
Speaker 1: relates to volume and attention to the markets. Well, and
Speaker 1: what are the trends that you're seeing in terms of
Speaker 1: particular names, I mean, meme stocks It felt like came
Speaker 1: alive again last week AMC and game Stop among them,
Speaker 1: Support dot Com on Friday, up almost three since August eighteen,
Speaker 1: nearly last week alone. What activity you're seeing in the
Speaker 1: so called meme stocks. Yeah, it's it's interesting because obviously
Speaker 1: January February we saw kind of the advent of this
Speaker 1: and and and real real, real lots of attention. We've
Speaker 1: saw the meme stocks kind of pop their heads up,
Speaker 1: I want to say, about a month ago with AMC,
Speaker 1: games Stop popping back up. And that's we're seeing that
Speaker 1: continue where it's kind of like a game of whack
Speaker 1: a mole every day. Investors are trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what the next meme is going to be. UM, as
Speaker 1: you were, as you mentioned, support dot com seems to
Speaker 1: be the latest. Uh. Well, actually we saw a little
Speaker 1: bit of Robin Hood meme action a few days after
Speaker 1: it I p O uh so you know, while while
Speaker 1: while the overall markets have slowed down a bit, the
Speaker 1: activity in all of these mean stocks is you know,
Speaker 1: continues to thrive, and it's still big among retails because
Speaker 1: the real retail investor. I asked, because last week we
Speaker 1: saw uh some tracking that said waited it had kind
Speaker 1: of shifted, shifted more to institutional investors getting in on
Speaker 1: that play. I think, listen, everyone's in on it. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not right out there is yet And how funny
Speaker 1: is it where you know, for for the longest, for
Speaker 1: you know, the vast majority of my career, it was
Speaker 1: always institutional institutional with retail and you know, in the
Speaker 1: average investor being so the last to know where. Now
Speaker 1: it's kind of been, you know, turned on its side,
Speaker 1: where everyone is trying to figure out where retail's next
Speaker 1: attention is going to be and then hop on that bandwagon.
Speaker 1: So talk to us about some of the breakdowns that
Speaker 1: you do, uh Dan in terms of tracking volume, tracking trades.
Speaker 1: What are the top ten shorts above ten dollars so
Speaker 1: support dot com you mentioned this is coming into last week,
Speaker 1: over seventy three thousand trades in that name uh A,
Speaker 1: m C again t CAT, which is a an n
Speaker 1: f T play UM rounded up by neuro r g
Speaker 1: C s A b A. These are some names that
Speaker 1: people you know have probably heard of before. These are
Speaker 1: stocks that have been you know, supervolatile for a good
Speaker 1: part of the summer and a good part of this year.
Speaker 1: But those are the those are the tops, UH top
Speaker 1: stops above ten dollars that we've seen activity and and
Speaker 1: then the the the activity in the action continues today
Speaker 1: UH into UH spr T and uh r n x
Speaker 1: T is another one, another high high flyer today that's
Speaker 1: being actively short. What about those top ten shorts below
Speaker 1: ten dollars? So below ten we are seeing UH. These
Speaker 1: are obviously less of less household names. Um pect interestingly
Speaker 1: started out below ten UH and now it is trading
Speaker 1: above UM. And you have symbols like d B O
Speaker 1: s A, d t x b p t H which
Speaker 1: which is another bell weather as relates to the small
Speaker 1: cap gappers. UH. This is a stock that's been in
Speaker 1: in play and in favor with our traders for quite
Speaker 1: some time. When you look at the accounts, I mean,
Speaker 1: what's kind of cool about talking to you as you
Speaker 1: can look at the accounts and aggregate and look at
Speaker 1: the trends um our, most accounts up, are most accounts down?
Speaker 1: Can you give us any indication? Uh, coming into the summer,
Speaker 1: people were just really hitting the cover off the ball.
Speaker 1: I think as we've seen kind of coordinated with some
Speaker 1: of the Sloan slowdown in activity and volume. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's if it's hand in hand with with
Speaker 1: losses preceding the slowdown, of the slowdown preceding the launches,
Speaker 1: but we've seen folks really treading water for the last
Speaker 1: six months again, that that has really that tide has
Speaker 1: started to change a bit in the last you know,
Speaker 1: three or four trading days again positions for September. We
Speaker 1: were really excited about where we are and how we've
Speaker 1: weathered the summer in terms of some of the slowdown
Speaker 1: while we've continued to grow. Um, we're excited to be
Speaker 1: to be hitting the fall where everyone is kind of
Speaker 1: back in back in their seats. Dan, you guys have
Speaker 1: been around trades, there has been around I think you're
Speaker 1: founded back in so six years you've seen some different
Speaker 1: market trends. Uh. What do you make especially of the
Speaker 1: impact of the Reddit meme stock frenzy that blew up
Speaker 1: the markets and trading in a few names. But we
Speaker 1: continue to see that trade. Certainly you are seeing it
Speaker 1: in terms of some of the moves and the flows
Speaker 1: and the trends, UM. But what's changed in those what
Speaker 1: five six years since you've been doing this? I think
Speaker 1: you know, to your point read it. You know, the
Speaker 1: democratization of information. UM. You know, when when one person
Speaker 1: knows it, they have the ability to post it and
Speaker 1: share that information with others. So you know, the the
Speaker 1: ability for people, for investors to communicate, uh, and and
Speaker 1: to and to share like ideas and to debate those
Speaker 1: that they may not share. I think the uh, the
Speaker 1: the the perpetuation of these meme stocks really exists because
Speaker 1: of people's ability to share information and amongst themselves. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, without without the connectivity, without the social aspects
Speaker 1: of some of the places that people hang out on
Speaker 1: the internet. I don't think we see this and we
Speaker 1: definitely don't see it to the degree that we've seen it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, there's been a bunch of factors, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: retail investing in the last couple of years, between the
Speaker 1: onset of commission free trading, the democratization of of of
Speaker 1: of ideas and idea generation as well as the ease
Speaker 1: of on boarding, the ease of funding accounts. All of
Speaker 1: these things have made, you know, sort of eliminated a
Speaker 1: lot of those barriers to entry for the retail investor
Speaker 1: and made the markets and investing more approachable where it
Speaker 1: wasn't just for you know, the rich or the one percent.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I think all these things have played apart.
Speaker 1: Uh And the Internet is as as a vehicle for
Speaker 1: information sharing, is really helped perpetuate that. Hey, we love
Speaker 1: talking with you about the meme stocks and some of
Speaker 1: these interesting names that have gotten a lot of attention.
Speaker 1: They don't sell for a lot of money. What about
Speaker 1: any kind of trends that you're seeing among the bigger names,
Speaker 1: those that Manny would argue have a lot of fundamentals
Speaker 1: to trade on. Are you seeing any interesting trades there
Speaker 1: and any interesting trends we're seeing. Obviously today Apple is
Speaker 1: is really um, you know, flying high. We've seen you know,
Speaker 1: there's been, there's been in lots of investor intention in
Speaker 1: some of the larger cap names like Tesla, Apple Um
Speaker 1: to the up side or a little bit about to
Speaker 1: the to the upside, to the upside um, And I
Speaker 1: think that that that that we are now seeing a
Speaker 1: little bit of a rotation back into big tech, back
Speaker 1: into some of the bigger technology names that maybe we're
Speaker 1: out of favor um towards the beginning of the summer.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. What in terms of among the big tech
Speaker 1: or are the well known names, what are you seeing
Speaker 1: that's being sold? Just talenteer big one being sold? Um,
Speaker 1: a m D another one being sold. Uh, we've seen
Speaker 1: people rotate out of a m D and into Intel. Um.
Speaker 1: What others uh? Facebook another one? Um for some reason,
Speaker 1: we're seeing a bunch of people traded on the short
Speaker 1: side as well. All right, good to know. I love
Speaker 1: talking about these trends with you, Hey, Dan, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Enjoy the rest of the summer. Dan pippatone,
Speaker 1: he's co found of Trade zero America, joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Brooklyn. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
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