Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Penel podcast. On Paul swing you
Speaker 1: along with my co host Lisa Brahmas. Each day we
Speaker 1: bring you the most noteworthy and useful interviews for you
Speaker 1: and your money, whether at the grocery store or the
Speaker 1: trading floor. Find a Bloomberg Penl podcast on Apple podcast
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com. We are broadcasting live from the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: New Energy Finance Summit at the Grand Hyatt in New
Speaker 1: York City, and one of the big questions here Paul
Speaker 1: is how do you develop an infrastructure to allow electric
Speaker 1: vehicles to really gain a popularity that would change the
Speaker 1: fossil fuel emissions of the United States. Joining us to
Speaker 1: discuss that is Pascual Romano. He is President, chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of charge Point, normally based in Campbell Campbell, California,
Speaker 1: but he decided to come here even though it is
Speaker 1: not the weather of Campbell, California. Pasquale, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about this your business, How exactly is it establishing some
Speaker 1: sort of framework network charging stations for those electric vehicles? Um,
Speaker 1: the the key is cars charge where their park most
Speaker 1: of the time, it's a car's about a four percent
Speaker 1: utilized asset. So of the time, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: your cat. It just sleeps all day, and where it
Speaker 1: sleeps is at home while you're sleeping, or at work. Uh,
Speaker 1: and a little bit of retail and around town. So
Speaker 1: the problem seems daunting if you have to populate all
Speaker 1: those parking lots that you see when you're driving around. Um,
Speaker 1: but if you view it, if you create a business
Speaker 1: model like we have that lets each business engage with
Speaker 1: the v charging and pay for their portion of it,
Speaker 1: or each property manager, it's actually a completely tractable problem.
Speaker 1: So that's how how we've done it is essentially using
Speaker 1: businesses to crowdfund a very large network could be charging,
Speaker 1: and we introduce models to make it really simple. So
Speaker 1: pass well, just get let us step back a little bit.
Speaker 1: Where are we in this country in terms of adoption
Speaker 1: of electric vehicles? I see more and more of them
Speaker 1: out there. I see more and more charging stations. Actually
Speaker 1: bloomberg downa Princeton has a charging station. Uh. Just generally,
Speaker 1: kind of where are we and where do you think
Speaker 1: we are? Realtive that tip point to really encourage mass adoption. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So The way we look at it is it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you talk to consumers that own an
Speaker 1: electric vehicle, they'll never go back to a gas car.
Speaker 1: The problem is there are enough makes and models to
Speaker 1: fit all the lifestyle choices and and affordability requirements of
Speaker 1: most of most consumers. Half the US market instructs and
Speaker 1: suvsh So until there's enough choice and trucks and SUVs,
Speaker 1: you have a limited penetration. With all that said, Um,
Speaker 1: it's going about as fast as it can go given
Speaker 1: how fast cars turn over. Uh. So we're super encouraged.
Speaker 1: You know, you had you know, three thousand cars sold
Speaker 1: last year in the US that that had to plug.
Speaker 1: You have more coming this year and uh this and
Speaker 1: next year is a literally a model you're extravaganza for
Speaker 1: most of the O E M s that are really dot.
Speaker 1: What is the cost of filling up a car with electricity? Uh,
Speaker 1: compare with filling up a car with gas? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a great question. Um, if you fill up
Speaker 1: a car, if you charge your car off peak or
Speaker 1: you use commercial rates at work. By the way, most
Speaker 1: employers give the power away, It's about the cost of
Speaker 1: coffee to give someone although we have good coffee. We
Speaker 1: do have good coffee, so that coffee probably is a
Speaker 1: little more exposive. But I do have to wonder though,
Speaker 1: even if somebody is bearing that cost. So if the
Speaker 1: if the company is bearing that cost, then that means
Speaker 1: that they're going to be less inclined to build out
Speaker 1: this network. If the cost is is priviitially expensive, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually not compared to other things. So first of all,
Speaker 1: let's talk about how much it actually costs. It's about
Speaker 1: four three to five hundred bucks a year, depending on
Speaker 1: the utility rate that you're charging the car on to
Speaker 1: basically uh fuel it to the average drive miles a
Speaker 1: year about their car per car. Now, let's look at
Speaker 1: what corporations currently spend. They spend about three thousand dollars
Speaker 1: subsidizing cafeterias. They spend about two per employee. They spent
Speaker 1: about two thousand per employee on health and wellness Jim's
Speaker 1: things like that. So when you eat that sandwich or
Speaker 1: go to that yoga class at work, your employers really
Speaker 1: subsidizing your uh, you know, your benefit there. Um, they
Speaker 1: spend a three to fos a year on coffee per employee,
Speaker 1: and it's that or less to give people both the
Speaker 1: infrastructure on our subscription services for infrastructure, they can fund
Speaker 1: that plus the energy, so it's not that much more
Speaker 1: money than coffee. They've viewed as pretty insignificant. So how
Speaker 1: many clients are customers do you have with your charging stations?
Speaker 1: And well, what's kind of the growth you guys are seeing.
Speaker 1: It's about about eight thousand UH clients and customers all
Speaker 1: over the United States and Canada now in Europe where
Speaker 1: we entered Europe about a year and a half two
Speaker 1: years ago. UM, so it's growing very, very very quickly.
Speaker 1: To give you a stat that's interesting because I think
Speaker 1: it's a leading indicator. fIF of the fortune one d
Speaker 1: are on charge point and obviously we don't have a
Speaker 1: hundred percent market share, so that shows you what the
Speaker 1: large employers are setting as trends for the future game.
Speaker 1: So I'm just wondering. I noticed that Chevron had invested
Speaker 1: in your company. Are there other oil companies big oil
Speaker 1: UH that's investing in in this company or is it
Speaker 1: exclusive to Chevron? It's not. Our investor sets, not that
Speaker 1: there's no exclusivity in our investor set. We have two
Speaker 1: O E M s UH BMW and Dame lad. We
Speaker 1: have two large utility groups in Constellation and and UH
Speaker 1: A ep UM and and we have now Chevron UH
Speaker 1: and there's no exclusivity. And if you see what Shell
Speaker 1: has been doing in our market, not not investing in US,
Speaker 1: but investing in acquiring companies in the space, and also BP,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of motion with oil and gas. Well,
Speaker 1: who are your big competitors? UM. It depends on the vertical.
Speaker 1: So it's hard to answer that question because we're because
Speaker 1: we've been around so long. We're an eleven year old company,
Speaker 1: raised a little over half a billion over that eleven
Speaker 1: and years. We're the only company, regardless of size, that's
Speaker 1: in every single vertical into continents, right, So we're in home,
Speaker 1: multi family, workplace, UM, UH, Metroarria, fast Highway, fast fleet,
Speaker 1: all those different verticals. There's no other company that's doing
Speaker 1: all that. But in any given vertical, you'll see the
Speaker 1: Anil acquisition of the motor works in the home business,
Speaker 1: for example, so they're there. UM. You'll see UH with Shell,
Speaker 1: the acquisition of green Lots, you'll see UH and and
Speaker 1: a few other things. You'll see them in lease Co
Speaker 1: in Europe, you'll see them in a few areas in
Speaker 1: the United States, So depending on the vertical, you know,
Speaker 1: we got plenty of competitors. Very good. Pascual Romano, Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Pascual as a president and chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of charge Point based in Cambell, California, but joining
Speaker 1: us here in New York at the Bloomberg New Energy
Speaker 1: Finance someone at the Grand Hyatt d uh in New
Speaker 1: York City. Electric vehicles obviously, you know, people are just
Speaker 1: wondering where and when is the tipping point for mass adoption,
Speaker 1: and I think it's probably gonna come from Detroit when
Speaker 1: we get the you know, a lot more choice. This
Speaker 1: maybe pay attention to the New York Auto Show coming
Speaker 1: up in April. Well, energy policymakers in Washington are frantically
Speaker 1: drying to keep up with changes in consumer behavior as
Speaker 1: well as new technologies and the energy space. To help
Speaker 1: us kind of dig through some of those issues, we
Speaker 1: welcome Sarah Sarah lattis law director and Senior Fellow Energy
Speaker 1: and National Security Program for the Center for Strategic and
Speaker 1: International Studies based in DC. But Sarah's joining us here
Speaker 1: in New York at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance uh,
Speaker 1: symposium Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we read a lot about in the press U from
Speaker 1: maybe some of the new presidential candidates for about a
Speaker 1: green New Deal. UM, lots of different flavors out there.
Speaker 1: What is your sense of what some of the core
Speaker 1: components of a green New Deal might incorporate. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the Green New Deal is a big idea. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: really important that everybody realized there's not a plan, so
Speaker 1: it's just it's just a proposal. It's a big idea,
Speaker 1: and fundamentally it's about tying together the issue of decarbonizing
Speaker 1: the economy for the purposes of managing climate change and
Speaker 1: UM doing something about inequality and income and those types
Speaker 1: of economic insecurity issues. There's not like a prescribed policy
Speaker 1: behind that. But on the green side of the equation,
Speaker 1: it's broadly about trying to find a way to reduce
Speaker 1: emissions in the electric power sector, to reduce emissions from
Speaker 1: the transportation sector, UM, and to do a lot of
Speaker 1: things to refurbish the kind of infrastructure we have to
Speaker 1: make it a lot more energy efficient. Are there policy
Speaker 1: creators drafters in President Trump's administration right now that are
Speaker 1: working on proposals that could move the United States closer
Speaker 1: to reducing emissions substantially. Yeah, So I think the important
Speaker 1: thing is, uh, you know, transitioning from the Green New
Speaker 1: Deal concept, which is really a debate happening in Congress,
Speaker 1: to the executive branch, which is where the Trump administration
Speaker 1: is doing a lot of their pots happening actually now
Speaker 1: right and where they working on So a lot of
Speaker 1: what they're focusing on is really um trying to do
Speaker 1: two things. One, deregulate the US energy sector, which they've
Speaker 1: made a lot of progress on, so remove the regulation
Speaker 1: that they see impinging on the production of energy at
Speaker 1: large across the board. And then also try to sell
Speaker 1: things like oil and natural gas and coal to other
Speaker 1: countries around the world. Right, they realize we have a
Speaker 1: huge amount of energy resources and they're so they're trying
Speaker 1: to sort of develop those things. Those are not necessarily
Speaker 1: commensurate with trying to reduce emissions. So the on the
Speaker 1: natural gas side, to the extent that we're using natural
Speaker 1: gas in the in the US as opposed to coal,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that they tend to focus
Speaker 1: on when they talk about the success that the US
Speaker 1: has had in terms of emissions productions. Critics of the
Speaker 1: administration would say, you know, a lot of the regulatory efforts,
Speaker 1: whether it's through the Clean Flower Plan or through the
Speaker 1: efficiency measures that they're trying to roll back, are actually
Speaker 1: working against emissions reduction. So it's kind of certainly a
Speaker 1: mixed record in that regard. Well, certainly I'm seeing you know,
Speaker 1: as you as you drive around, you see more and
Speaker 1: more wind farms, You see more and more solar panels
Speaker 1: on just individuals homes as well as businesses. You see
Speaker 1: big farms of solar panels. Is that being driven by
Speaker 1: just the market or is there actually policy behind it,
Speaker 1: driving it and supporting it. Yeah, I think the really
Speaker 1: good news stories you look across the United States, there
Speaker 1: are policies that have driven renewable energy into the market um,
Speaker 1: but increasingly that's aided just by the performance of those assets, right,
Speaker 1: So things like when things like rooftop solar um are
Speaker 1: very cost competitive, utility scale solar cost competitive in a
Speaker 1: lot of different places. Where you're seeing right now is
Speaker 1: state level policies that are looking out and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we've actually been able to increase renewable kinnetration into our
Speaker 1: electric power sector. We think it's been a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's created jobs, it's reduced emissions. There's an industry here
Speaker 1: for this kind of stuff now, and they're doubling down
Speaker 1: on some of those policies. UM particular ones. When you
Speaker 1: talk about deregulation, we focus a lot on oil drilling
Speaker 1: in the United States. We focus less on our relationship
Speaker 1: with nuclear power and some of these issues that might
Speaker 1: affect national security in a way that people might be uh,
Speaker 1: not me as aware of where are we with that
Speaker 1: and how much has deregulation kind of changed the game there.
Speaker 1: So I think in the on the nuclear power side
Speaker 1: of the equation, the administration is focusing on national security
Speaker 1: implications of not having a nuclear sector. And so you
Speaker 1: just saw Secretary Perry go down to Georgia and to
Speaker 1: um announced additional loan guarantees for the sort of ailing
Speaker 1: nuclear plants that are that are being built there. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the reasons why you've seen
Speaker 1: both the administration in the Hills sort of talking about
Speaker 1: how do we support nuclear power so that it has
Speaker 1: a future in the United States. Really, it's relatively cost constrained.
Speaker 1: We don't have a lot of projects that have come
Speaker 1: online that have been under cost or on time. They've
Speaker 1: all been over cost and overtime UM. And then you're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of state level policy that's trying to
Speaker 1: advantage even existing nuclear plants that can't compete in the markets.
Speaker 1: And so I think what's happening is is there's a
Speaker 1: more active dialogue, certainly UM one that this administration is
Speaker 1: engaging in on whether or not having a vibrant nuclear
Speaker 1: industry yields national security benefits for the United States. What
Speaker 1: about exporting the nuclear energy UH technology to other countries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a much more controversial topic. I think in the past.
Speaker 1: You know, whether or not we export nuclear power technologies
Speaker 1: to other countries really depends on the recipient country and
Speaker 1: the level of commitment that we have from them that
Speaker 1: it's going to be safe, that I won't have proliferation risk,
Speaker 1: all of those sorts of things. I think the US
Speaker 1: is really concerned because the US is not as competitive
Speaker 1: internationally as it is anymore, especially relative to people like
Speaker 1: countries like China and Russia that are offering entirely different
Speaker 1: kinds of deals for these other countries, and so, UM,
Speaker 1: the US has really high standards for what it's going
Speaker 1: to export to other countries, and so it's a it's
Speaker 1: a fairly controversial issue as to how to get more
Speaker 1: competitive in that field. Sarah lautus Law, we could spend
Speaker 1: the next hour speaking with you, Sarah lattus Law, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being with US, Director and Senior
Speaker 1: Fellow for the Energy and National Security Program at c
Speaker 1: s i S. The Center for Strategic and International Study
Speaker 1: is based in Washington, d C. But joining us here
Speaker 1: Lave from the Blueberg New Energy Finance Summit in New
Speaker 1: York City. But we're here live at the Bloomberg New
Speaker 1: Energy Finance Summit at the Grand Hide Hotel in New
Speaker 1: York City. And one of the key issues being debated
Speaker 1: here is security, a security of the energy grid, security
Speaker 1: of the US infrastructure. And to help us kind of
Speaker 1: dig down on some of these issues, we welcome edgard Captivil.
Speaker 1: He is CEO of Nozomi Networks, Inc. Based in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: but it got it joins us here in New York.
Speaker 1: And I must note that this morning no Zomy Networks
Speaker 1: was named a twenty nineteen New Energy Pioneer by Bloomberg
Speaker 1: New Energy Finance. So congratulations at Gardener thank you very much.
Speaker 1: So talk to us a little bit about I guess
Speaker 1: the security and industrial securities. We think about more and
Speaker 1: more of industry being automated. That raises the risk for
Speaker 1: cybersecurity issues. What is your sense of the lay of
Speaker 1: the land right now, Um, Paul, that is absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: I think automation is increasing and that dramatic pace. Traditional
Speaker 1: industrial control networks are converging to be more like I
Speaker 1: T networks and that means more exposed, more vulnerable to
Speaker 1: to again exposure an attack. And Um, there are several
Speaker 1: verticals in what we would call critical infrastructure that are
Speaker 1: affected by this. Not only oil and gas, electric power,
Speaker 1: of flavors of power, manufacturing, transportation, chemicals, pharmaceuticals. All these
Speaker 1: articles rely heavily critically on their industrial control networks for
Speaker 1: revenue and production. And again, as we converge and those
Speaker 1: networks get more exposed, we try to get more data
Speaker 1: out of those networks. UM, folks are more vulnerable to attack.
Speaker 1: So Edward, what actually do you do to prevent these attacks? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: we have an appliance that connects to these industrial control networks.
Speaker 1: And first the first thing we do is, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't protect what you can see. So the first
Speaker 1: thing you want to do is provide a layer of
Speaker 1: visibility in industrial control network which traditionally have been under
Speaker 1: instrumented from a bunch of legacy reasons. There were there
Speaker 1: were um a little bit backwards. When it comes to
Speaker 1: technology advancement, there's been um there's been a belief that
Speaker 1: they're isolated. But with this convergence, exposure and modernization is accelerating,
Speaker 1: and again people want to get more out of those
Speaker 1: networks from a data analytics point of view, and therefore
Speaker 1: they're connecting them and that makes in them, makes them
Speaker 1: more exposed. So after we provide that initial layer of visibility,
Speaker 1: we learned about the process behavior being operated in network,
Speaker 1: and we provide anomaly detection will never reality management. All
Speaker 1: the cybersecurity infrastructure that allows you to monitor and protect
Speaker 1: industrial control networks as if they wear I T networks.
Speaker 1: So how about we've seen in the past very high
Speaker 1: profile news stories about financial institutions being hacked and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth, how would you characterize the United
Speaker 1: States industrial plant in terms of cyber security. Cybersecurity in
Speaker 1: general is not too different from the United States than
Speaker 1: than other places. I think the reason you have not seen,
Speaker 1: you know, something like an industrial nine eleven or or
Speaker 1: a major attack. Is that attacks or or these these
Speaker 1: events have to align, you know, vulnerabilities with intent and
Speaker 1: and and an author who is going to do this.
Speaker 1: So when you look at industries in other regions like
Speaker 1: the Least, et cetera, for them, industrial cybersecurity attacks are
Speaker 1: not a theoretical scenario that happens in a fairly significant way.
Speaker 1: Very few of those get get to the press. In
Speaker 1: the US, that alignment hasn't happened of intent, uh, combined
Speaker 1: with the vulnerability aspect, not to a great extent. We
Speaker 1: have a lot of reconnaissance activity happening from different sources,
Speaker 1: and that's been in public information. But we we really
Speaker 1: haven't had a major attack in the U s s
Speaker 1: as that that has been publicly UM that has been
Speaker 1: publishedist has been publicized. That's what I'm wondering. What have
Speaker 1: we not heard about that has happened or at least
Speaker 1: that has been blocked. I'm wondering how big of an
Speaker 1: investment are energy companies making in cybersecurity right now? It
Speaker 1: varies by industry. UM. Some of the industries that are
Speaker 1: more regulator or have tighter budgets obviously make make less
Speaker 1: of an investment. We've seen a tremendous amount investment from
Speaker 1: an oil and gas perspective, even though those those companies
Speaker 1: don't are not necessarily the fast movers. Electric companies from
Speaker 1: downstream to upstream to downstream have also made significant investments,
Speaker 1: both in the US and globally. Chemical plants, mining plants,
Speaker 1: everybody who needs to ensure the reliability of their production.
Speaker 1: If you as you talk to your clients, um, what
Speaker 1: what areas of their industrial operations do they feel is
Speaker 1: most exposed? Is there a common threat or common exposure area?
Speaker 1: It really depends again by by vertical um in manufacturing
Speaker 1: or mining, it's it's primarily you know, kind of one
Speaker 1: business in oil and gas and electric you have upstream
Speaker 1: downstream retail. We don't really get too much into the
Speaker 1: detail because retail side because those are more like I
Speaker 1: T networks. So I'm just wondering, how does this fit
Speaker 1: into new energy, wind and solar. Yeah, absolutely, we call
Speaker 1: that distributed generation like everybody else UM and distribute generation
Speaker 1: has its own characteristics, but but it's absolutely UM part
Speaker 1: of part of the game. So so you know, there's
Speaker 1: industrial controls in a wind turbine, and I was just
Speaker 1: wondering because you won this this New Energy Pioneer Award
Speaker 1: for this year. Congratulations, thank you. And I'm just thinking
Speaker 1: that this security is something that goes throughout every aspect
Speaker 1: of energy, and I'm just wondering, you know, is there
Speaker 1: something unique about sort of the new energy complex when
Speaker 1: it comes to security. Um, new energy is great. From
Speaker 1: the perspective of industrial cybersecurity and exposure is not too
Speaker 1: different other than maybe the cost structure has to be
Speaker 1: different for those remote distributed sites. But other than the
Speaker 1: cost structure required to to serve those from our perspective,
Speaker 1: which is uh to provide visibility and protection, it's it's
Speaker 1: very very similar. Edguard cup Ta Vielle, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being with us. Edgard Captive Villas, chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of Zomi Networks, which is based in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: but he joins us here in New York for the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg New Energy Finance Conference. Well, Bloomberg News is reporting
Speaker 1: this morning that Theresa May is inclined to put our
Speaker 1: Brexit deal to a third vote in Parliament on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: according to people familiar with the matter. Likewise, the EU
Speaker 1: is also saying that is now prepared to handle the
Speaker 1: impact of the UK leaving without an agreement, a scenario
Speaker 1: it describes as quote increasingly likely. So a lot of
Speaker 1: pieces are moving in the Brexit debate. To get the latest,
Speaker 1: we welcome John Author's John as a senior editor for
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets. He joins us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. John,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. A lot of moving pieces.
Speaker 1: As I said, what is the latest coming out of Parliament? Well,
Speaker 1: we've heard from Theresa May in the last few minutes.
Speaker 1: She hasn't said that she's not holding a third meaningful
Speaker 1: vote to use the phrase we will got used to,
Speaker 1: but she has said I'm sure correctly that she doesn't
Speaker 1: yet have enough support to win one. Now what is
Speaker 1: intriguing is, obviously we've also had all this glorious back
Speaker 1: sit back scenes, backstage political maneuvering going on all weekend. Plainly,
Speaker 1: a lot of the most euroskeptic, most pro Brexit MP's
Speaker 1: who've been talking to have suggested that they might be
Speaker 1: prepared to accept her deal as it stands in exchange
Speaker 1: for a copper bottomed promised from her to quit, which
Speaker 1: which is a difficult situation for her to be into
Speaker 1: present mildly sorry at least, no, no, no no, no worries
Speaker 1: it all. Does anyone have like a chance of hard
Speaker 1: brexit ometer? I mean, I feel like that's sort of
Speaker 1: what we're all trying to get at. It's like, are
Speaker 1: we incrementally closer further away from a hard brexit that
Speaker 1: leads to, you know, catastrophe fit. Various people have attempts
Speaker 1: at hard brexit to meters, some of which have got
Speaker 1: us highest fifty percent. I mean, you can, you can
Speaker 1: try to. Unfortunately, I didn't bother to check any of
Speaker 1: them before I came to the studio. So I the
Speaker 1: last I saw you had had them spike as high
Speaker 1: as fifty at one point, most of most versions of
Speaker 1: where you get from the betting on sense on a
Speaker 1: distinctly lower than that. Yeah. Well, I guess I guess
Speaker 1: that the question that also is today move us closer
Speaker 1: towards the higher than or lower. I think we are
Speaker 1: probably probably moving towards lower than fifty, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to swear to it. I suspect um that terraising
Speaker 1: may may have got to the point where her unpopularity
Speaker 1: almost begins to work in her favor. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of ardent Brexiteers who are beginning to think, well, let's
Speaker 1: just take this rather than mess around or take the
Speaker 1: risk of leaving without a deal. We'll just take this
Speaker 1: rotten nowforl deal as long as she goes straight away afterwards,
Speaker 1: and then somebody with a bit more you know, British
Speaker 1: bulldog spirit or whatever where they want to look at it,
Speaker 1: can can take over the negotiations from there. Is there
Speaker 1: sense what's the status of a second referenum? I haven't
Speaker 1: heard that spoken too much in the less twenty four
Speaker 1: I think there's a good reason why you haven't heard
Speaker 1: it spoken very much. It's still very difficult to see
Speaker 1: how we get to a second referendum, given that the
Speaker 1: leaders of both parties are very nervous to actively propose
Speaker 1: such a thing, and that that we still have a
Speaker 1: situation where the well, there are two key points. One
Speaker 1: is that you have a critical block of very energized
Speaker 1: brexities with the Conservative Party and the balance holding Democratic
Speaker 1: Unionist Party from Northern Ireland are plainly not up for
Speaker 1: a second referendum. And you also have a large number
Speaker 1: of labor MPs Labor as a party is largely much
Speaker 1: more pro European these days than the Conservatives are. But
Speaker 1: a lot of Labor MPs are in working class neighborhoods
Speaker 1: where there were huge majorities for leaving and are very
Speaker 1: very mindful of that and don't want to go to
Speaker 1: the go back to their local electorates, having having sanctioned
Speaker 1: the second referendum. I suspect, yes, it's it's being here
Speaker 1: in the Zeit Guist in London. It's it almost isn't
Speaker 1: being mentioned at the moment because it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: get there and so contentious to get there. All right,
Speaker 1: so you could take off your Brexit hat. Now we're
Speaker 1: done with that segment of this. Yes, you're happy to
Speaker 1: take off your Brexit hat put on your weather goal
Speaker 1: global markets and bond yields hat, which is of course
Speaker 1: the big conundrum right now, the fact that we're seeing
Speaker 1: the pool of negative yielding debt surge beyond ten trillion
Speaker 1: dollars of most in September two seventeen. Big question here,
Speaker 1: will this backdrop drop push investors back towards risky assets
Speaker 1: or is this just flashing uh don't go their sign
Speaker 1: I tends it tends to be somewhat barish about this
Speaker 1: intense towards the latter, I would say that the single
Speaker 1: most important indicator we need to look to tell which
Speaker 1: though that is what the answer is, is earnings earnings
Speaker 1: per share. Generally speaking, stock earnings do badly when bond
Speaker 1: yields are falling. Even though a falling bond yields can
Speaker 1: plainly help some stocks, all other things equal, earnings tended
Speaker 1: to do badly. They also tend to do badly when
Speaker 1: we are in a state of yield curve inversion. And
Speaker 1: you have actually seen a very sharp full in earnings
Speaker 1: expectations so far this year that the markets, the stock
Speaker 1: marketers totally ignored. I think that's where the critical point lies.
Speaker 1: If there was still real earning power, earning capacity in
Speaker 1: the corporate sector, then you probably could see through what's
Speaker 1: happening in bonds. You could take advantage of the of
Speaker 1: the fact that money is cheap. But as it stands,
Speaker 1: I think we need more to think of the bond
Speaker 1: marketers giving us a message. It's as good an aggregator
Speaker 1: as any of of prospects for the for the economy,
Speaker 1: as you know very well yourself, and I think it
Speaker 1: probably suggests that that we should be bearish about corporate
Speaker 1: earnings and therefore probably that we should bearish about risky assets. Hey, John,
Speaker 1: I hear from somebody in my ear that you were
Speaker 1: starting a new book club for Bloomberg. Tell us about that. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: imaginatively called author's notes. Can't resist a pun on my
Speaker 1: surname sometimes. So the idea is Oprah style. This is
Speaker 1: this is a big attempt to buy Bloomberg. Were we
Speaker 1: recognize that a lot of our very busy readers wish
Speaker 1: they wish they read far more. And this is like
Speaker 1: any other book club and attempt to try to use
Speaker 1: a bit of peer pressure to actually to actually get
Speaker 1: people to to read the number of people who do
Speaker 1: really start the honestly wanting to read a book a month,
Speaker 1: it's quite serious. So the idea is that Bloomberg is
Speaker 1: designating me initially to to try to be the the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg business book answer to Oprah and nominates a book free.
Speaker 1: There's not many other ways I'm much like Oprah. So
Speaker 1: John authors, hold on a second, you are the Oprah
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg. That is what we're going to introduce you
Speaker 1: as from here on out. John Authors the Oprah of Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: also known as the Senior editor for Bloomberg. Marcus joining
Speaker 1: us from a Bloomberg Atta Active Broker Studios. We have
Speaker 1: been broadcasting live from the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg pen L podcast. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcast or
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Speaker 1: at pt Sweeney. I'm Lisa A. Bram Woods. I'm on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Lisa A. Bram wits one before the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio