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Speaker 2: Let's get to the bond market here. So we had
Speaker 2: CPI came in better than expected, yet you have yields
Speaker 2: lower by two basis points in the front end head
Speaker 2: scratcher for me Ira Jersey, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior US Interest
Speaker 2: Rates strategist. So in my one plus one equals two,
Speaker 2: you get inflation less of a problem. Therefore the Fed
Speaker 2: won't have to cut. Why are my yield lower here?
Speaker 3: Well that's well, it's not only that the Fed won't
Speaker 3: have to cut, but that the Fed can maybe cut
Speaker 3: a little bit, right we take Yeah, So you know,
Speaker 3: lower inflation and inflation below target or at their target
Speaker 3: is a necessary condition for the Federal Reserve to cut.
Speaker 4: So so the.
Speaker 3: Fact that you only had a zero point two percent
Speaker 3: month on month on inflation not a massive surprise. Quite frankly,
Speaker 3: it wasn't a huge miss really when you look at
Speaker 3: a lot of the details. But it was also a
Speaker 3: good sign because people are worried that tariffs are gonna
Speaker 3: have an effect. But remember the tariff's only went into
Speaker 3: effect last month, so we're not going to see that
Speaker 3: on shelf prices until this month and next month. So
Speaker 3: I think the market in general like this relatively muted
Speaker 3: reaction from the market is something that we're gonna have
Speaker 3: to look through, at least on the inflation front for
Speaker 3: the next until we get the prints from the next
Speaker 3: couple of months.
Speaker 5: What's the FED looking at IIRO these days? Is it
Speaker 5: focusing more on inflation or more on growth? Because I
Speaker 5: think a lot of folks are probably concerned that whatever
Speaker 5: inflation levels we get, it's going to kind of hurt
Speaker 5: growth more.
Speaker 4: So what do you think the Fed's looking at?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is certainly the conundrum that the Federal
Speaker 3: Reserve is going to have going forward, particularly if we
Speaker 3: get an increase in inflation and then we see a
Speaker 3: significant downshift in growth and certainly the job market. Right,
Speaker 3: Remember that growth itself is not what the Federal Reserves
Speaker 3: mandate is.
Speaker 4: It's really the job market.
Speaker 3: So you can have slow growth or no growth with
Speaker 3: a job market that's okay but not great, And I
Speaker 3: think that that's the that's the potential, you know, big
Speaker 3: issues that the FED might go to. So Ja Powell
Speaker 3: last week was pretty clear in saying that, look, we're
Speaker 3: going to basically focus on whichever of the two parts
Speaker 3: of our dual mandate is farther from where we want
Speaker 3: it to be. So if inflation jumps to five percent
Speaker 3: and unemployment is still kind of, you know, four and
Speaker 3: a half percent and not climbing quickly, then they're going
Speaker 3: to focus on inflation. But if inflation kind of hovers
Speaker 3: two and a half three percent, but it looks like
Speaker 3: we're going to have negative job prints and we're going
Speaker 3: to have five plus percent unemployment rate, then the Fed
Speaker 3: will key on that and cut interest rates and maybe
Speaker 3: give up a little bit on its inflation fighting mode
Speaker 3: for at least some temporary period of time.
Speaker 4: But you know, we're still far away from that.
Speaker 3: I mean, our view had been going into this year,
Speaker 3: and I think I mentioned it to you guys last week,
Speaker 3: is that we always thought that that the market was
Speaker 3: priced for the Fed to cut too early. Cutting in
Speaker 3: June or July we never thought was a realistic possibility
Speaker 3: because of this, you know, dueling economic scenarios that you
Speaker 3: just laid out, Paul. So so now we're probably pricing
Speaker 3: for something a bit more realistic. You know, fourth quarter
Speaker 3: only two cuts this year, you know, you know, that's
Speaker 3: kind of where we think the market's going to kind
Speaker 3: of find a steady state.
Speaker 2: So does that mean that around four percent is the
Speaker 2: top for the two year?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it is unless we wind up getting
Speaker 3: some pretty some better economic data, so you know, we
Speaker 3: had an upside surprise on next month's employment and we
Speaker 3: wind up having decent retail sales data, all of those things.
Speaker 3: I don't think that anything above four to twenty probably
Speaker 3: on the two year makes sense. Like there's no reason
Speaker 3: right now for the two year to be trading above
Speaker 3: the federal fund rate, right So why would you sell
Speaker 3: off fifty basis points in the two year unless you
Speaker 3: really thought the Fed was going to hike, which I
Speaker 3: think is not really it's much more likely that they
Speaker 3: stay They stay steady for the next two years, and
Speaker 3: it is at the increase rates at any time over
Speaker 3: the next two years. That being said, just the financial
Speaker 3: fair value right now on the two year note we
Speaker 3: have at three point eight percent, So maybe the market's
Speaker 3: gone just a little bit too far being very close
Speaker 3: to four percent right now.
Speaker 5: Are international investors still buying US treasures?
Speaker 4: Are they still mad at US.
Speaker 3: Now they are, And in fact, if you look at
Speaker 3: the recent treasury auctions, they have been purchasing just the
Speaker 3: same amount that they had been over the past couple
Speaker 3: of years. Actually around ten percent of the recent treasury
Speaker 3: auctions went to foreign investors, and that's pretty much in
Speaker 3: line some of the investors that I've been speaking to say, well, look,
Speaker 3: it's an economic decision that we're making. If our choice
Speaker 3: is to buy our local government debt or by treasuries
Speaker 3: and then hedge some of our currency risk or all
Speaker 3: of our currency risk, and we can still pick up
Speaker 3: yields compared to our home currency, to our home bond market,
Speaker 3: then we're going to keep doing that trade. And so
Speaker 3: until that economics changes, or there's real fear that the
Speaker 3: US is going to default on its debt or something
Speaker 3: like that, I think private foreign investors, in particular, are
Speaker 3: you just going to keep buying?
Speaker 5: Hey?
Speaker 2: I are always good to catch up. I are a
Speaker 2: Jersey Bloomberg Intelligence senior US Interest Rate a strategist at
Speaker 2: joining us there.
Speaker 1: So you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 5: Pretty solid day after a big, big, big move yesterday
Speaker 5: in the equity indices.
Speaker 4: Let's see what the professionals are doing.
Speaker 5: Sarah Ponzik joins US first vice president of Wealth Management
Speaker 5: UBS Private Wealth Management.
Speaker 4: She's down there in Boca Raton, Florida. If you care,
Speaker 4: eighty two.
Speaker 5: And mostly Sonny in Boca today. I mean, if if
Speaker 5: that's your gig, fine, enjoy it. I don't know.
Speaker 4: We go for the change of seasons here, which Sarah
Speaker 4: does not much. Jealous, Sarah, this is all that.
Speaker 6: Sarah, You're jealous. No, if I make you feel any better.
Speaker 6: We had a really bad storm yesterday. I have palm
Speaker 6: fronds all over the house.
Speaker 4: So it happens.
Speaker 6: Today's sunny and warm and humid. But we are starting
Speaker 6: to get some good brain.
Speaker 4: Good for our good friends in South Florida. There.
Speaker 5: Hey, Sarah, what do you tell your clients? I mean, boy,
Speaker 5: you've had a market that just a few weeks ago
Speaker 5: was down twenty percent from its peak. Now just year today,
Speaker 5: we're back to flat. Are slightly up here, I mean
Speaker 5: the volatility has been amazing. What do you tell your
Speaker 5: clients these days?
Speaker 6: It's been a whirlwind these past six weeks or so.
Speaker 6: However long it's been, it feels like it's been a
Speaker 6: lot longer than that, I think, I think for all
Speaker 6: of us. But the message throughout April, which was really
Speaker 6: the month in which we saw the brunch of the volatility,
Speaker 6: was that you need to stick with your plan, and
Speaker 6: you certainly don't want to be selling out of stocks
Speaker 6: at the lows. If anything, if you were someone who
Speaker 6: had had a liquidity event, if you had been sitting
Speaker 6: on cash for a long time, that was the time
Speaker 6: you wanted to start phasing into markets and start deploying
Speaker 6: your capital and taking advantage of the volatility. Because, yes,
Speaker 6: Liberation Day was certainly a day, I'm sure we all remember,
Speaker 6: a very volatile one at that. But the expectation was
Speaker 6: that was peak uncertainty, that was peak pessimism, and the
Speaker 6: hope was that there would be negotiations, that we would
Speaker 6: see come to the forefront between the United States and
Speaker 6: other countries, particularly China, and that we would see these
Speaker 6: tariff rates come down. Now, thankfully, that is what's happened,
Speaker 6: and we've seen markets react very favorably to that at
Speaker 6: this point in time, you Alex, you know, you just
Speaker 6: ran through the numbers. Really, it says if markets have
Speaker 6: made up all of those losses. It's pretty amazing to
Speaker 6: think about, considering the sp at a time was almost
Speaker 6: down twenty percent at its low, and now we're just
Speaker 6: about flat. So sure, at this point the risk reward
Speaker 6: doesn't look quite as favorable as it looked when the
Speaker 6: market was down ten, fifteen, eighteen percent, But the outlook
Speaker 6: is still pretty positive from here, especially with the expectation
Speaker 6: that you know, hopefully trade negotiations will continue, and you
Speaker 6: know growth is slowing a bit, Inflation you know, is
Speaker 6: under control, as we saw this morning. So there's other
Speaker 6: reasons fundamentally to continue to think that, you know, twelve
Speaker 6: months from now, the market's going to be higher than
Speaker 6: where we are today.
Speaker 2: So if the calls you were getting a month ago
Speaker 2: were what do I do? What's changing? I'm kind of
Speaker 2: freaking out. What are the calls you're getting now today?
Speaker 6: Well, people certainly feel better. It's really interesting. You know,
Speaker 6: typically investors, we all know that you want to be
Speaker 6: fearful when people are greedy, and greedy when people are fearful,
Speaker 6: but in actuality, you know, people don't don't always act
Speaker 6: that way.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: It's interesting that, you know, the calls that we were
Speaker 6: getting at the April lows, when markets were down between
Speaker 6: fifteen and twenty percent, were more panicky, asking do we
Speaker 6: need to change our strategy? What should we be doing here?
Speaker 6: Should we be selling stocks, buying bonds, buying gold? And
Speaker 6: we did meet some tweaks, but certainly weren't selling stocks
Speaker 6: at those levels. It was more so talking about adding
Speaker 6: at those levels. Now people feel better, you know, people,
Speaker 6: It's interesting you would think that when markets are at
Speaker 6: the highs, people are saying, should I take chips off
Speaker 6: the table? But that's not necessarily the case. People feel better,
Speaker 6: people feel more optimistic now that we're seeing, you know,
Speaker 6: countries come to the table and discuss and these teriff
Speaker 6: rights come down. With that said, I mean, I'm actually
Speaker 6: about to have a conversation with a client who has
Speaker 6: a big home purchase coming up over the next couple
Speaker 6: of months. That's someone given that we've seen a rally,
Speaker 6: that you might want to consider taking chips off the
Speaker 6: table if you have a big near term purchase coming
Speaker 6: up and you need liquidity. You need cash. Okay, you
Speaker 6: probably feel pretty great now you're not selling with stocks
Speaker 6: down fifteen percent, you're selling with them flat now on
Speaker 6: the year roughly, so that you're someone who has something
Speaker 6: like that coming up that changes the parameters. But we
Speaker 6: typically like to say, you know, to clients who have
Speaker 6: near term events where they need cash on hand, or
Speaker 6: if you're someone who is retired and you're spending down
Speaker 6: your portfolio, we typically recommend that you have a liquidity
Speaker 6: buffer in your portfolio, say you know, for whatever that
Speaker 6: project is, or say you know, even two to three
Speaker 6: years of expenses, because that way, when the market does
Speaker 6: fall and it's going to happen, and it's natural, you know,
Speaker 6: we're all going to witness many more of these in
Speaker 6: our lifetimes most likely, you know. That way, you're not
Speaker 6: freaking out because you know you have the cash on
Speaker 6: hand to meet the expense needs that you need in
Speaker 6: the near term.
Speaker 4: Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Always appreciate
Speaker 4: getting a few minutes of your time.
Speaker 5: Sarah Ponzek, first vice president of wealth management at UBS
Speaker 5: Private Wealth Management.
Speaker 4: Down there and book time, Florida.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast Catch US Live
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Speaker 2: All right, well, let's get to one of the most
Speaker 2: underperforming stocks within the market today, dragging on the Dow
Speaker 2: Jones Industrial Average. Now, I know many people don't look
Speaker 2: at it, but nonetheless it's a pretty chunky move, so
Speaker 2: it's worth discussing. And that's United Health. Glenn lessev Is,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence Senior equity analyst joins us. Now, So suspending
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty five outlook, naming a new CEO, what
Speaker 2: was the biggest surprise here?
Speaker 7: So the biggest surprise was suspending the twenty twenty five guidance.
Speaker 7: And this comes after the company lowered twenty twenty five
Speaker 7: out cloak just about three weeks ago when the company
Speaker 7: reported first quarter results.
Speaker 4: So what's the problem with this business?
Speaker 5: I thought the healthcare insurance business just just rips it.
Speaker 7: Well, it all goes in cycles, right, It is surprising
Speaker 7: that United is having these problems basically that began in
Speaker 7: at the start of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 8: If you remember there was a.
Speaker 7: Change healthcare attack, and after that, it just seems that
Speaker 7: United management was trying to fix things while other things
Speaker 7: fell apart and has been on the back foot. And
Speaker 7: that's probably one of the reasons that the CEO that
Speaker 7: led the company see in twenty twenty one, I believe,
Speaker 7: left the company and the chairman and former CEO is
Speaker 7: taking the reins to sort of reposition United for you know,
Speaker 7: next phase growth.
Speaker 2: So, right, well, where is that it's going to come from?
Speaker 2: Because there are higher than expected medical costs, right and
Speaker 2: some reimbursement struggles. Can you walk us through we learned about.
Speaker 8: That, yes, basically.
Speaker 7: So basically, the company cited that the medical cost trend
Speaker 7: among new members in the unit's medicare portfolio is accelerating
Speaker 7: relative to the first quarter trends, which was higher than
Speaker 7: expected already. Basically, if it continues, the company can always
Speaker 7: sort of try to get more premium per member from
Speaker 7: the government as it deals with Medicare, to sort of
Speaker 7: to reset the margin expectations or normalize the margins. That
Speaker 7: being said, you know, if the medical costs continue to accelerate,
Speaker 7: and specifically with the sort of with everything that's going
Speaker 7: on in Washington, with the sort of funding overhanging all that,
Speaker 7: it may become a problem over the longer term. But
Speaker 7: at the same time, you know, managed care companies can
Speaker 7: always exit under performing markets. It just may take a
Speaker 7: little bit longer than sort of investors would like to see.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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Speaker 5: Another stock in the news Microsoft, So this is cutting
Speaker 5: three percent of its employees to reduce management layers.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at the stock here. It's pretty much unchanged
Speaker 4: on the day. It's up six percent year to date.
Speaker 5: But anytime Microsoft does anything, we want to get to
Speaker 5: the bottom of it. On a rag rana he does that.
Speaker 5: Force's Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology channelst onnurags.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of annual culling of the ranks.
Speaker 5: Or is this saying something about Microsoft and maybe where
Speaker 5: it sees its future.
Speaker 9: I think it's a little bit of both, because you know,
Speaker 9: and the numbers three percent does not say much. But
Speaker 9: at the same time, Microsoft is not hiring at the
Speaker 9: same pace that it used to. And I think one
Speaker 9: of the areas where it is deploying AI is coding
Speaker 9: or you know, R and D. That's an area where
Speaker 9: we anticipate productivity to improve because of the tools we have,
Speaker 9: and not anticipating headcount to grow up. Second thing, Microsoft
Speaker 9: is investing very heavily in AI right now. The capex
Speaker 9: is going to be extremely high, you know, as north
Speaker 9: those eighty billion dollars for the next twelve months, and
Speaker 9: you know that they have to offset some of that
Speaker 9: pressure on gross margins with cuts on the operating expense
Speaker 9: side so that the net operating margin doesn't get impacted.
Speaker 8: So I think I think it's a little bit of
Speaker 8: all the above.
Speaker 4: Was this a surprise, Not really.
Speaker 8: I mean three percent to me does not come as
Speaker 8: a surprise.
Speaker 9: Three percent is you know, in an environment like right
Speaker 9: now where companies are not anticipating the real attrition rate,
Speaker 9: so on a normalized basis of a company is seeing
Speaker 9: attrition employee attrition between ten to fifteen percent. We're not
Speaker 9: seeing that right now, so the company has to do
Speaker 9: something in order to get back to the normal range
Speaker 9: of their financial planning. So it is I said this
Speaker 9: doesn't sound too much to me, but they could be
Speaker 9: a little bit more based on you know, who they
Speaker 9: are trying to get rid of. If it's higher on
Speaker 9: the paychecks, then I think it has to do with,
Speaker 9: you know, protecting your margins.
Speaker 5: An Rob talk to us about just what the investment
Speaker 5: thesis is regarding Microsoft right now. Given some of the
Speaker 5: tariff uncertainty, given some of the geopolitics uncertainty, what's the
Speaker 5: call on Microsoft these days?
Speaker 9: You know, for the last few years we have been
Speaker 9: saying this is probably one of the cleanest stories in
Speaker 9: AI and software land because it doesn't get impacted with tariffs.
Speaker 9: There is some marginal secondary impact because of you know,
Speaker 9: if we do get into an economic slowdown. But the
Speaker 9: real benefit for them is they are hosting chat GPT,
Speaker 9: the most favorite app of consumers right now, and they
Speaker 9: get the benefit of that. So if you have let's say,
Speaker 9: you know, your user base goes from two hundred million
Speaker 9: users to three hundred to four hundred now we are
Speaker 9: close to about five hundred million users, it really helps
Speaker 9: Microsoft because they are hosting that app, and as those
Speaker 9: users use chappid JAGGPT for a longer period of time,
Speaker 9: they get to make more money.
Speaker 8: So I think that's really one of the bigger.
Speaker 9: Benefits where they are offsetting the risk that we are
Speaker 9: seeing that other software vendors are seeing because of the
Speaker 9: lack of headcount growth across the tech landscape.
Speaker 2: So based on that, do we think that we're going
Speaker 2: to see other tech companies follow suit in this particular way.
Speaker 2: Like if Microsoft is a creme de la creme, as
Speaker 2: you see it, who's next?
Speaker 9: So Alex, when you look at it, as I said,
Speaker 9: three percent does not scare me as much. But if
Speaker 9: over the next six months we start companies come out
Speaker 9: and say, well, I'm laying off like sevent to ten
Speaker 9: percent of my workforce, that is concerning because that's concerning
Speaker 9: for two reasons.
Speaker 8: One, these companies.
Speaker 9: Do buy software from other companies such as a Workday
Speaker 9: or a sales force, because these two companies are seeing
Speaker 9: some pressure on their seat growth because their end customers
Speaker 9: are not hiding as much. So lack of hiding is
Speaker 9: concerned not just for the companies or the industry themselves,
Speaker 9: but for the software landscape as well, because primarily this
Speaker 9: is a seat based monetization.
Speaker 5: Model anark before we got all enmeshed in terrors over
Speaker 5: the last few months, we seemingly talk to.
Speaker 4: You every day about the AI story.
Speaker 5: That's kind of follow the radar screen a little bit
Speaker 5: here for I think Global Wall Street, not for you guys.
Speaker 4: What is the AI story today?
Speaker 5: What's the feeling in the marketplace about AI as a
Speaker 5: growth story for tech?
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: One of the things Code one of the things that
Speaker 9: deep Seat did for the entire space was divided the
Speaker 9: space in two different buckets. One was the AI infrastructure
Speaker 9: play and the other one is more on the application
Speaker 9: side of it, and Microsoft i think guided them a
Speaker 9: little bit towards that framework because when you look at it,
Speaker 9: Microsoft is really focused on the inferencing side of it,
Speaker 9: which is hosting the applications. Things that are more on
Speaker 9: the infrastructure side, whether it's the chip building from Nvidia
Speaker 9: or a recent type like code viv, they have not
Speaker 9: done as well as some of the other vendors because
Speaker 9: people are wondering, why do I need to play the
Speaker 9: infrastructure game because it's CAPEX heavy and we do not
Speaker 9: know how things are going to shape up in the
Speaker 9: next two to three years. One thing is sort of
Speaker 9: certain that even after three years, the number of use
Speaker 9: cases on AI is going to rise. So you're going
Speaker 9: to be on the application or the inference side of
Speaker 9: things rather than the infrastructure side of things.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's going to be a lot more profitable
Speaker 2: going forward, but it also requires something very different at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. Right, You're going to have
Speaker 2: basically locations that are closer to the actual use point, right,
Speaker 2: so closer to where I am and where you are,
Speaker 2: versus out in the middle of nowhere. But you have
Speaker 2: a huge heavy load. How does that change either investment
Speaker 2: or power usage, et cetera.
Speaker 9: That's probably one of the most important questions out there
Speaker 9: right now. Like a Microsoft is saying, for my training needs,
Speaker 9: I will go to those data centers that are out
Speaker 9: in the boondogs in middle of nowhere, and that could
Speaker 9: be my data center or I could lease it from
Speaker 9: somebody like a Corvive. But for the application side, I'm
Speaker 9: going to create or lease smaller data centers that are
Speaker 9: well connected where I'm going to do the inferencing or
Speaker 9: from the user point of view.
Speaker 4: All right, Don Ragrana, thank you so much. We appreciate that.
Speaker 5: On a rogron it covers all the technology stuff for
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Intelligence, getting the latest on Microsoft.
Speaker 4: I thank all three percent of their workforce.
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