Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
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Speaker 1: You can also listen to our radio show at two
Speaker 1: pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on
Speaker 1: YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. We talked about New York
Speaker 1: City receiving its first delivery of the one J and
Speaker 1: J vaccine. But you are seeing Tim vaccine manufacturers facing
Speaker 1: a global shortage of raw materials that actually came from
Speaker 1: the head of the world's biggest vaccine maker and also
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization. So you know here we are.
Speaker 1: You're in. Vaccines are rolling out, but now we're trying
Speaker 1: to find the vaccinators and the places to do it. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've learned over the past few months it is very
Speaker 1: complicated to roll out of vaccine globally, not to mention
Speaker 1: just develop bit in such a short period of time. G. G.
Speaker 1: Grand Ball is Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center
Speaker 1: for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Speaker 1: Joins us right now on the phone from Baltimore. GG,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. UM, what are you watching right now?
Speaker 1: What is the most important thing when it comes to
Speaker 1: the pandemic recovery? To keep an eye on the vaccination rates?
Speaker 1: For sure? UM? They right now we have in the US,
Speaker 1: we have three vaccines with the use authorization. Hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: have more globally. There's a few others. Um. It's it's
Speaker 1: really just about trying to get as many people vaccinated
Speaker 1: so that um, we can Um that plus masks and
Speaker 1: social distancing spread the stop to spread of this virus.
Speaker 1: We're doing a pretty good job though, right, I mean
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. As of yesterday, we hit just
Speaker 1: over two million vaccine doses given per day according to
Speaker 1: the seven day rolling average. That's that's a pretty pretty
Speaker 1: good rollout, right. Oh, it's really so encouraging to see, um.
Speaker 1: And and we definitely it couldn't happen at a better time,
Speaker 1: because you know, we have as you know these variants
Speaker 1: that are that are emerging that we're keeping, that we're
Speaker 1: tracking more diligently now UM, and some of them are
Speaker 1: more transmissible. So we really do need to get people
Speaker 1: vaccinated as well as stick with the other stuff UM
Speaker 1: to be able to stop the spread of this virus.
Speaker 1: So g G, this is what I want to know.
Speaker 1: You guys, you scientists, You understand kind of viruses, what
Speaker 1: they can do, how they can mutate, the variants that
Speaker 1: can come out there, and then you've got on the
Speaker 1: other side the vaccine that's fighting it. So what is
Speaker 1: kind of the mix between how quickly we have to
Speaker 1: get x percentage of our population vaccinated to stay ahead
Speaker 1: of the variants. And I know it's never like black
Speaker 1: and white here and very clear, but tell me kind
Speaker 1: of what you are keeping an eye on here. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who UM, you know, all
Speaker 1: of these things and models because there's so many variables
Speaker 1: to be able to project how many people need to
Speaker 1: be vaccinated to be able to keep variants of bay etcetera.
Speaker 1: And we have the whole population of children that are
Speaker 1: not even right now being planned to get vaccinated UM,
Speaker 1: and so you know it's going to take a while
Speaker 1: before we get anything towards what we've been you know,
Speaker 1: talking about her immunity or anything like that. UM. But
Speaker 1: so I I just UM would like to see the
Speaker 1: demand UM and supply match up a little better for
Speaker 1: a vaccine and UM and so that you know, people
Speaker 1: pharmacies are more aggressively advertising it and trying to get
Speaker 1: those people who are hesitant to sign up, and and
Speaker 1: to show that these vaccines are have a good safety
Speaker 1: record and that they have really amazing efficacy to be
Speaker 1: able especially to prevent hospitalizations and deaths based on the
Speaker 1: current rate on the modeling that you're seeing, When is
Speaker 1: that equilibrium going to to be reached? When is demand
Speaker 1: not going to exceed supply? UM? I I mean, so
Speaker 1: the President UM said that every adult should be able
Speaker 1: to be vaccinated in the US by May. UM. That
Speaker 1: would be fantastic. I'm also waiting, UM. But then we
Speaker 1: were going to have kids, UM, and there are trials
Speaker 1: that are starting up. I'm hoping that that will be
Speaker 1: before the end of the year that kids can start
Speaker 1: being vaccinated UM. Hopefully much neoner than that. UM. And
Speaker 1: then of course kids have to be vaccinated. Forgive me
Speaker 1: for saying that. But I'm just curious. Do we have
Speaker 1: to have kids vaccinated in order to get hurt immunity?
Speaker 1: And it is that is that got to be part
Speaker 1: of the process. Um, I don't I think that that
Speaker 1: disease could be uh stopped in other ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know that we can stop spread of disease with
Speaker 1: you know, good ventilation, masks, etcetera. Um, and and these
Speaker 1: things will change over time. But um, but I think
Speaker 1: it's just pure public health and etcetera. Would be great
Speaker 1: to have kids be vaccinated so that if there are
Speaker 1: any long term effects of the disease, that we're limiting that.
Speaker 1: Um in children? How do you do clinical trial when
Speaker 1: it comes to a vaccine on a on a child?
Speaker 1: I mean these are people who are under eighteen and
Speaker 1: have to get consent from their parents obviously, but how
Speaker 1: does that work? I mean that sounds very complicated and sticky. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: kids participate in clinical trials all the time. UM and
Speaker 1: uh and so yes does involve consent for their parents?
Speaker 1: And um, there are I mean not just this uh
Speaker 1: these vaccines, but all kinds of medical treatments. UM. Where
Speaker 1: the balance are sometimes kids uh, you know, especially older
Speaker 1: kids really enjoy participating in it and UH and giving
Speaker 1: back and participating in the science. So it's something everyone
Speaker 1: can do. UM. I have my one of my kids
Speaker 1: in a in a brain study to study the team
Speaker 1: the teen brain for for ten years, and so it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun and interesting testing. How important is it
Speaker 1: that we continue to do testing for the virus? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really important, and strangely, for a lot of different reasons,
Speaker 1: people are still trying to figure out. Testing has been
Speaker 1: down recently, so UM we need testing to be able
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, not only how many people
Speaker 1: are positive and how how many cases we have, but
Speaker 1: also UM, an increasing number of those positive cases are
Speaker 1: getting sequenced so that we can keep a track on
Speaker 1: the variants so and see which, you know, new ones
Speaker 1: are emerging and which ones are are more present than
Speaker 1: than we'd like them to be. So UM testing is
Speaker 1: really important. But for whatever reason, whether it's bad weather
Speaker 1: or people are sick of this, or resources are devoted
Speaker 1: to vaccines versus testing, it has been down recently. I
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's also because people are seeing numbers
Speaker 1: go down, and maybe it's down also because you know,
Speaker 1: we aren't really around any major holidays like we were
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. UM g D I I do
Speaker 1: wonder when it comes to this, just what things look
Speaker 1: like on the other side. I ran to a friend
Speaker 1: of mine in the lobby of our building yesterday. She
Speaker 1: lives really close to us, she's a neighbor. It's been
Speaker 1: a year since we've gotten to hang out with with
Speaker 1: her and her family. And I was saying, hey, we're
Speaker 1: so close, like you know, just a few months, and
Speaker 1: she looked at me, gave me this look, and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: this is going to be with us forever. UM, where
Speaker 1: do you fall? Well, I think some things will be
Speaker 1: will be different forever and and it'll probably take us
Speaker 1: some time to realize just how much thing have changed
Speaker 1: and what's UM, what's going to stick around? UM? But
Speaker 1: I mean post vaccine and when cases are low, I
Speaker 1: think things are going to be a lot better for
Speaker 1: for most people with UM. I think you know the
Speaker 1: recommendations for people who are vaccinated to continue to wear masks.
Speaker 1: It's because community transmission is still so high. So the
Speaker 1: vaccine doesn't protect you from getting infected, it protects you
Speaker 1: from the combing to that illness and UM. And so
Speaker 1: we're still trying to figure out what that means for everyone.
Speaker 1: But it should really help to reduce bread and when
Speaker 1: spread goes down, then we all benefit and I think
Speaker 1: we'll be able to hang out a lot more. But
Speaker 1: g two Tim's point and Tim's friends point. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a story on the Bloomberg about you know, where
Speaker 1: we are and hunting for the coronavirus's origin. We still
Speaker 1: don't really exactly know where this came from or how
Speaker 1: it came about. At the same time, we have talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of folks too the virus, you know,
Speaker 1: hunters that are out there that said there's another two
Speaker 1: hundred or I don't know how many that are out
Speaker 1: there that can be just as problematic. I mean, do
Speaker 1: we need to then, ultimately going forward, live in a
Speaker 1: world where we're constantly on kind of pins and needles
Speaker 1: and worried about wait a minute, where did you come from?
Speaker 1: Maybe you brought something into this country. Well, I hope
Speaker 1: that we are doing we'll do a lot better job
Speaker 1: of figuring out and responding to pathogens as they emerge
Speaker 1: a lot faster. I mean, the vaccine, it's amazing we
Speaker 1: have I mean vaccine, multiple vaccines in a year. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say that that isn't amazing, that it's
Speaker 1: totally amazing, but UM, you know, the science of making
Speaker 1: sure that we, you know, figure out what things are
Speaker 1: likely to emerge. UM, maybe have a more broad coronavirus
Speaker 1: coronavirus vaccine that can protect against multiple types of strains
Speaker 1: that we think are going to emerge. All these things
Speaker 1: require UM a lot more dedication of resources and thinking
Speaker 1: about all of these health security issues as really a
Speaker 1: national security priority. I mean, this is this is devastating
Speaker 1: to the US and UM, and we could have been
Speaker 1: better prepared. G. We only have like fifteen seconds left
Speaker 1: because MR and A vaccines are are being used now
Speaker 1: and we were able to develop them so quickly. Does
Speaker 1: this mean in the future we can respond very very quickly.
Speaker 1: I hope. So, I hope. So. It's so exciting that
Speaker 1: those vaccines were so quick to develop and that they
Speaker 1: work so well. I think it's going to be a
Speaker 1: new age for for that kind of technology and vaccines
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah. Right. The collaboration too, and the way
Speaker 1: they were able to move so quickly. G. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. UM. G. G. Gronville, Senior scholar at Johns
Speaker 1: Hopkins Center for Health Security at Bloomberg School of Public
Speaker 1: Health on the phone from Baltimore, and just a reminder,
Speaker 1: of course, uh, the school supported by Michael R. Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. Well, the cover story in the
Speaker 1: magazine this week, we mentioned it earlier. It's about fer
Speaker 1: Fightser uh and really kind of their vaccine capitalism and
Speaker 1: going inside Fiser's I love this headline fast fraud and
Speaker 1: lucrative vaccine distribution, and I really feel like they're being
Speaker 1: given accolades, but they're also getting a bunch of heat.
Speaker 1: As we said earlier, Yeah, they are. Look, there is
Speaker 1: no playbook to how a company responds to a pandemic,
Speaker 1: and that's that's pretty much. That's that's what one of
Speaker 1: the things that the piece goes into. Joining us right
Speaker 1: now on the access line is Joel Webber, editor at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week, and Stephanie Baker, one of the reporters
Speaker 1: on this piece, Financial Investigation, senior writer at Bloomberg News. Joel,
Speaker 1: why was was this the the perfect story for the
Speaker 1: cover this week. Well, I think the Fighter um shot
Speaker 1: and vaccine is one of the biggest success stories ever Frankly,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, to go from a pandemic to a
Speaker 1: vaccine in a year is is a wonder and we've
Speaker 1: we've written about that. But what we hadn't ever explored
Speaker 1: UM and with Stephanie and her co author Cynthia drove
Speaker 1: into in this story is is sort of behind the
Speaker 1: scenes UM logistics and distribution challenges and and also keep
Speaker 1: in mind here like the Fighter is a publicly traded
Speaker 1: company that did not take money from the government and
Speaker 1: because of that, they didn't have any strings on on
Speaker 1: how they went about even pricing that, and that I
Speaker 1: thought was a really interesting angle, uh and one that
Speaker 1: you know speaks to also just the legacy of what
Speaker 1: we know about the pharmaceutical industry, which pricing has always
Speaker 1: been an issue with and it was actually the issue
Speaker 1: that Albert Borla, who's the CEO of Fightser, was expecting
Speaker 1: to deal with when he took over the job at
Speaker 1: FISER a year before the pandemic happened. So so Stephanielle,
Speaker 1: I just want to turn it over to you because
Speaker 1: I thought so much of the reporting in this was
Speaker 1: was spot on and really interesting. And tell us, how
Speaker 1: does FIGHTSER going to go about deciding who gets the vaccine? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a pretty opaque process still despite all
Speaker 1: our digging. I think it is a mix of your
Speaker 1: place in the queue, when did you get your order
Speaker 1: in your order size, production, forecast calls from world leaders. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we went into detail about how Israel managed
Speaker 1: to get its hands on so many doses. And as
Speaker 1: you know, Israel is a world leader in terms of
Speaker 1: vaccination rates and that is thanks to FISER because they
Speaker 1: are almost exclusively used in FISER for the vaccination campaign.
Speaker 1: And UH Israel's Prime Minister of Benjamin Netanyah, who spoke
Speaker 1: to UH FISER CEO Albert Bola more than twenty times.
Speaker 1: Um uh. And you know one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: Israel got priority access was well a paid more paid
Speaker 1: about thirty dollars ago, about more than the US did,
Speaker 1: and be it Um offered to use Israel as a
Speaker 1: real world case study for how effective the vaccine is
Speaker 1: and that has UM generated a stream of positive headlines
Speaker 1: about how effective the Fiser vaccine is. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: Israel was vaccinating sixteen to eighteen year olds at a
Speaker 1: time when Europe was still waiting to vaccinate eight year olds.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what we went into is how
Speaker 1: did that happen? Um? Why was Europe so behind in
Speaker 1: terms of Fiser's distribution, and and why did Israel pull ahead?
Speaker 1: And really came down to these few things. Uh, the
Speaker 1: EU European Union of course was late to place their order.
Speaker 1: That was one factor. But um, you know, Israel obviously
Speaker 1: offered a very unique opportunity for the company to showcase
Speaker 1: how great their macnine is. Yeah, exactly. There's a line
Speaker 1: in your story, um, the story that you and your
Speaker 1: colleagues did, Stephanie, where you talk about Fiser not bound
Speaker 1: to serve a global health agenda. Um, but having said
Speaker 1: that that there will come a day where there will
Speaker 1: be an autopsy of the pandemic and that one of
Speaker 1: the main questions will be how a single company came
Speaker 1: to hold such power over so many Because Fiser is
Speaker 1: in that position. Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I think Fiser
Speaker 1: really stands out because it's the biggest player taking a
Speaker 1: commercial approach to COVID vaccines. Obviously, there are other players
Speaker 1: on the market. There's Maderna. They don't really have the
Speaker 1: capacity to produce at the level that Fiser does. UM.
Speaker 1: There's Astra Zeneca, which does have a huge production capability,
Speaker 1: but they've promised to sell their vaccine on a not
Speaker 1: for profit basis for just a few dollars of dose
Speaker 1: during the pandemic UM. So Fiser's really cut a very
Speaker 1: commercial approach to this. And you know, when I was
Speaker 1: looking at vaccine access, who was getting shots, who was
Speaker 1: behind you know, I realized that Fiser didn't really didn't
Speaker 1: finalize their deal with Kovacs this who back to facility
Speaker 1: to distribute vaccines to low income countries until January and
Speaker 1: it was only for about forty million doses. That was
Speaker 1: two percent of visors projected output this year. And just
Speaker 1: to put that into context, Astra did a deal for
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy million doses. Johnson and Johnson has
Speaker 1: a preliminary deal with Kovacs for five hundred million, So
Speaker 1: that really kind of puts it into perspective that they're
Speaker 1: pushing this out on a commercial basis, doing bilateral deals
Speaker 1: with countries. More than sixty countries have signed up and
Speaker 1: we still don't know a lot. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot that we set out to try to find out
Speaker 1: that we didn't we didn't get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: and we're going to continue to record it out to
Speaker 1: try to find out exactly how this system worked. So,
Speaker 1: just on the idea of vaccine capitalism, Stephanie, how does
Speaker 1: Fightser's efforts and money money making abilities and all that
Speaker 1: compared with with other uh, with the other vaccine efforts
Speaker 1: that are out there and staff we only have about
Speaker 1: thirty seconds here. Unfortunately, well you know it it is um,
Speaker 1: it is looking at a commercial approach. It is looking
Speaker 1: at a post pandemic approach as well, where it's updating
Speaker 1: it's vaccine so it can tackle these new mutant variants.
Speaker 1: And I think it's looking at a at a way
Speaker 1: to up the price when and um, we're in a
Speaker 1: post pandemic world. Um, you know, it will still probably
Speaker 1: be you know, charging kind of more commercial rates than
Speaker 1: than Astro Seneca and Johnson and Johnson. So I think
Speaker 1: that's how it stands out. All right, We're gonna leave
Speaker 1: at that. Listen, this is a must read. There's so much.
Speaker 1: As Joel mentioned, the reporting on this is just killer.
Speaker 1: Stephanie Baker, Financial Investigation Senior writer at Bloomberg News or
Speaker 1: thanks to her along with Joel Webber, editor Bloomberg business Week,
Speaker 1: it's the cover story. This is Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So we've got a little check on tech right now
Speaker 1: because Twitter having a plan to fact check tweets. I
Speaker 1: think this is something do you guys talked about on
Speaker 1: Quickcake right? Well, you know, I gotta I gotta be honest.
Speaker 1: We were trying our hardest to get Kurt on the
Speaker 1: show today and I think he was busy, which is okay, Kurt,
Speaker 1: because we got Kurt now. Yeah, but thank god you
Speaker 1: mentioned it. Bloomberg Tech reporter Kurt Wagner joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone. We're gonna talk about Twitter. Were also going
Speaker 1: to talk about Square doing a deal in the music industry,
Speaker 1: but let's start with Twitter fact check tweets. Tell us
Speaker 1: about this and their plan. Is it a good one?
Speaker 1: Because often times when you think of fact can you
Speaker 1: think of the route that Facebook is taking, which is
Speaker 1: they're partnering with you know, outside experts, right. But Twitter's
Speaker 1: idea here, it's called bird watch, and what they want
Speaker 1: to do is turn all of their users into pseudo
Speaker 1: fact checkers. And so if you're on Twitter and you
Speaker 1: come across a tweet that you know looks like it
Speaker 1: needs more context or it needs additional information, you can
Speaker 1: actually submit a note that could be attached to that
Speaker 1: tweet kind of um, you know, fact check it yourself.
Speaker 1: And so they want to turn their entire user base
Speaker 1: into pseudo fact checkers. Okay, So when I think about this,
Speaker 1: I think of Wikipedia, and you know, this is a
Speaker 1: place where where that actually works pretty well on Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't translate to other corners of the Internet.
Speaker 1: It hasn't worked well to stop disinformation from spreading on
Speaker 1: the platforms that that you write about so much. What
Speaker 1: makes Twitter think it will work on Twitter? Well? I
Speaker 1: think that they would argue that they already see people
Speaker 1: doing this, they just don't do it in this exact format, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, how often have you've seen someone reply to
Speaker 1: a tweet and and say, hey, you know this is wrong,
Speaker 1: or hey you you didn't mention x, or they quote
Speaker 1: tweet it right and they had their own commentary that way.
Speaker 1: So Twitter would say, hey, listen, people are already doing
Speaker 1: a version of this. We just haven't really you know,
Speaker 1: built it as its own kind of fact checking product,
Speaker 1: and they think that if they do that, they can
Speaker 1: kind of take all of those inputs that people are
Speaker 1: already providing, which just make them easier for other people
Speaker 1: to find. So one of the challenging things about this
Speaker 1: about fact checking on Twitter as it as it stands
Speaker 1: now is oftentimes the tweet with the misinformation gets retweeted
Speaker 1: and so many more times, and it gets so much
Speaker 1: more engagement than any corrected tweet or any sort of
Speaker 1: fact check that is a reply. How does Twitter handle
Speaker 1: that well in this instance, So, imagine a hundred people
Speaker 1: submit a note for a particular tweet, right Twitter would
Speaker 1: use an algorithm to basically pick the one or two
Speaker 1: most helpful replies to that, and then they would actually
Speaker 1: pend those notes to the original tweets. So, in theory,
Speaker 1: anytime that that tweet is sent around, if it's retweeted,
Speaker 1: even if it's screenshot, at somehow they want those notes,
Speaker 1: you know, those replies to exist with the original tweets
Speaker 1: so that you would see them side by side. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit clunky right now, because again it doesn't
Speaker 1: exist just yet, but at least in sirie, all of
Speaker 1: the notes and the fact checks would kind of ride
Speaker 1: along with the original. You know, it's funny when Tim said, uh, Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: I thought of that too, And I also thought of
Speaker 1: um ways, like this whole idea of community involvement, like
Speaker 1: you know, you're saying when there's a cop ground or
Speaker 1: there's a traffic accident, or you know, like you don't
Speaker 1: have to be a part of it, but you do,
Speaker 1: you like you kind of want to help out. Could
Speaker 1: this possibly set the stage for a model going forward
Speaker 1: for social in terms of policing itself. I think that
Speaker 1: would be the hope if this does work. I mean,
Speaker 1: why not implement this on Facebook right or in Instagram.
Speaker 1: I think that we're looking right now at a bunch
Speaker 1: of regulators in Washington who want to change the rules
Speaker 1: around speech online, and we're seeing companies try to come
Speaker 1: up with creative ways to you know, basically appease them
Speaker 1: without necessarily changing the rules. And so I think this
Speaker 1: is one of those examples where Twitter saying, hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna give this a shot, and in this works,
Speaker 1: maybe this is the best way to sack check or police.
Speaker 1: You know, these big platforms online and and we'll do it,
Speaker 1: and we'll let you know the regulators decide whether or
Speaker 1: not they want to require other companies to do the same. Hey, Kurt,
Speaker 1: I want to hit another story that you filed earlier
Speaker 1: today about the music service title Square buying the company
Speaker 1: for close to three million dollars in a stock in
Speaker 1: cash deal. When I tweeted this out this morning, Kurt,
Speaker 1: somebody replied to me and said, Oh, I had forgotten
Speaker 1: about Title that even existed. This is this is I
Speaker 1: think a head scratcher of a deal for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. What is Square going to do with Title?
Speaker 1: Oh and I'm kind of bearing the lead here. Jay
Speaker 1: Z is joining squares board. Oops. Right, yeah, you may
Speaker 1: have heard of jay Z before. Yeah, going to be
Speaker 1: involved now. Um No, I think it is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a head scratcher on the surface, But all
Speaker 1: kind of explain how Squares thinking of this, right, which
Speaker 1: is that they're saying, listen, we have built an entire
Speaker 1: business around helping entrepreneurs, small businesses, you know, build their business. Well,
Speaker 1: musicians are entrepreneurs as well, and they're trying to build
Speaker 1: a business. They're trying to sell merchandise to trying to
Speaker 1: sell tickets, albums, whatever it may be. And so they
Speaker 1: see this kind of as an extension of what they
Speaker 1: already do, but into a new industry. Now the question
Speaker 1: is did they need to buy a streaming music service
Speaker 1: in order to do that? I would say probably not.
Speaker 1: But when you really think about how much money this is,
Speaker 1: the very small amount of money for a company like Square,
Speaker 1: and if they can get someone like jay Z on
Speaker 1: their board and get someone like jay Z involved in
Speaker 1: kind of this idea of commerce around music, you know,
Speaker 1: that might be a three d dollars well spent. So
Speaker 1: it's a little early to tell um, but it is
Speaker 1: a bit of a head scratcher. But you could see,
Speaker 1: I guess in fury maybe where they're thinking, you don't
Speaker 1: sound convinced just quickly. I'm a little on the fence.
Speaker 1: But you know, I know that you know, Jack Dorsey
Speaker 1: and jay Z are buddy, and so part of me
Speaker 1: wonders how much of this is, you know, one friend
Speaker 1: buying another friends company. But again, it's a small amount
Speaker 1: of money for Squares, so maybe it's the that worth
Speaker 1: taking right right exactly all right, Kurt, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Kurt Wagner, Technology Porter, Bloomberg News joining us on the
Speaker 1: phone from San Francisco. But it is interesting to see
Speaker 1: some of these kind of collaborations for certainly what I
Speaker 1: would consider the new tech tech companies. Also some cool
Speaker 1: pictures that Square released earlier today of Jay z and
Speaker 1: And and Jack Dorsey. I want to be on that board.
Speaker 1: I'm roam a journal. Yeah, but you let me drive?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no no, no, honey, please, I'll do the
Speaker 1: right revel I want to drive, just drive. Good question,
Speaker 1: Let's try the drive to the globe. Thanks Wells on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. All right, just about eleven minutes left in
Speaker 1: today's trading session. We are seeing stocks certainly off their
Speaker 1: loads of the session, but definitely off their highs of
Speaker 1: the session as well. Let's see what our next guest
Speaker 1: has to say. Brian Jacobson is with US, multi asset
Speaker 1: strategist at Wells Fargo Asset Management six hundred three billion
Speaker 1: dollars in assets under management, with us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hey Brian, good to have you here
Speaker 1: with Tim and myself on Bloomberg. Gotta start with technology.
Speaker 1: How do you see the pullback in tech stocks? What
Speaker 1: does it say to you? Yeah? Thanks for having me
Speaker 1: on Yeah, pull back in technology, We actually weren't really
Speaker 1: all that surprised about my way My team has been
Speaker 1: positioning portfolios has been really more favoring in the what
Speaker 1: has been dubbed, you know, the reopening trade. As far
Speaker 1: as you know, people are getting a little bit tired
Speaker 1: of doing their video meetings and things like that, might
Speaker 1: actually want to get out and see people face to face.
Speaker 1: So does that mean selling tech names? Selling tech names
Speaker 1: are just not adding to positions? Well, the our approach
Speaker 1: is to not focus on individual names, but as far
Speaker 1: as like the futures contracts and the broad indexes, and
Speaker 1: one of our favorite trades has been going longer the
Speaker 1: small cap stocks and then shorting larger cap stocks. And
Speaker 1: we did take off our trade, which was long nas
Speaker 1: deck a few weeks ago, and so it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: outright shorting it, except for to the extent that the
Speaker 1: kind of positioning, as far as favoring smaller cap stocks
Speaker 1: over larger cap stocks, is reflecting a short bias towards
Speaker 1: some of those names. Hey, what did you make of
Speaker 1: fitchri Pal's comments today? Said an online event that he'd
Speaker 1: be quote concerned by disorderly markets, but he stopped short
Speaker 1: of offering steps to curb heightened volatility. What do you
Speaker 1: make of it? Uh? Yeah, I think that like a
Speaker 1: lot of people are just a little disappointed. I wasn't
Speaker 1: really expecting him to come out and say, Hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do yield curve control or we're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: actually go out and extend the maturity of our our portfolio.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, his unwillingness to be a little
Speaker 1: bit more I guess forth right, or to commit to
Speaker 1: doing something I think got people a little bit nervous.
Speaker 1: You know, their policy meeting is coming up on March seventeenth,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of people are going to be
Speaker 1: kind of looking or we're looking to this as being
Speaker 1: maybe one of the last opportunities before the meeting to
Speaker 1: get some indication about whether or not they're actually going
Speaker 1: to do something about the rise in the longer term
Speaker 1: yields that we have seen. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on in the treasury market as far as with
Speaker 1: increase in inflation expectations, people getting excited about the growth outlook,
Speaker 1: so that can push up real interest rates. And then
Speaker 1: plus you also have issues going on with the supplemental
Speaker 1: leverage ratio that the THUD still hasn't taken action on
Speaker 1: as far as you know, the lid that banks calculates
Speaker 1: um one of their leverage ratios. That could possibly affect
Speaker 1: the treasury market as well. So there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on there, and so understandably there's quite a bit of
Speaker 1: bond market volatility. There's nothing going on, Brian Jacobson, There's
Speaker 1: there is a lot going on, and I do think
Speaker 1: we're trying to understand, you know, is the treasury market
Speaker 1: kind of catching up to the run up that we've
Speaker 1: seen off of the lows on the equity side of things.
Speaker 1: Is the treasury market getting ready for Yeah, it's going
Speaker 1: to be better in the second half of the year,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's going to be a runaway market. We
Speaker 1: still have millions of people out of work, and I
Speaker 1: do wonder how much you anticipate that holding back economic
Speaker 1: growth or it won't and we'll just continue to see
Speaker 1: even deeper moves and that K shaped recovery and we'll
Speaker 1: see that reflected uh in the financial markets. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully as the economy reopens and with the federal Reserve
Speaker 1: staying very loose for a long time and focusing on
Speaker 1: the the shadow unemployment rate or whatever you might want
Speaker 1: to call it. As far as you know, the idea
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are being misclassified so it's
Speaker 1: closer to ten percent as opposed to the six percent
Speaker 1: that's being published, is that maybe that can help close
Speaker 1: the k a little bit, to make it a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a V for more people. Hey, I
Speaker 1: want to hear your thoughts on international relations right now,
Speaker 1: because you said that big wild cards when it comes
Speaker 1: to the market could be relations between the U S
Speaker 1: and China and the US and iran Um. What could
Speaker 1: happen Let's start with China. Yeah, and maybe this is
Speaker 1: just because just looking at what are some of the
Speaker 1: old fears trying to recycle from those as well, because
Speaker 1: they really haven't gone away. Right. We know that at
Speaker 1: the beginning of two thousand twenty, one of the big
Speaker 1: concerns was the relationships between US and iran UM and
Speaker 1: just under President Biden. Now as far as with the
Speaker 1: rocket launch in Syria, you know, it's like what's going
Speaker 1: to be happening next in the Middle East. It's kind
Speaker 1: of always a wild card there. And then as far
Speaker 1: as with the relationship with China, we know that President Biden.
Speaker 1: Our expectation was that not much was going to change
Speaker 1: except for perhaps the tone and the willingness to work
Speaker 1: through more of the multi national or the um you know,
Speaker 1: kind of in a concerted effort with our allies on
Speaker 1: some of these incredibly important topics. With China, obviously, the
Speaker 1: the economic numbers have been just outstanding, but we do
Speaker 1: think that, you know, that's always one of those things
Speaker 1: that you can worry about as far as what will
Speaker 1: that relationship look like going forward. Um, the US has
Speaker 1: already shown it's willing to impose sanctions, you know, the
Speaker 1: President Biden has shown that he's wanting to pose sanctions
Speaker 1: on countries that aren't necessarily abiding by the rules of
Speaker 1: the road. Well, is there a trade here for you
Speaker 1: on that or concern about it? Well, a little bit.
Speaker 1: One of the ways in which we're positioning our portfolios
Speaker 1: is that we still do like emerging markets. But emerging markets,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a very broad area. Well, China, we
Speaker 1: think that can has done very well. If you think
Speaker 1: about em Asia, uh, you know, is it e m
Speaker 1: Asia x China that is the more attractively priced area.
Speaker 1: If you think about momentum that's been favoring China, but
Speaker 1: from like evaluation, not that valuations always mattered too much,
Speaker 1: but as far as you know the fundamentals with the earnings,
Speaker 1: there are other areas like let's say with India, Indonesia, Korea,
Speaker 1: other places within the Asia Pacific region that are probably
Speaker 1: a little bit more attractively priced for us. All Right,
Speaker 1: gonna leave it on that note. Listen. Thank you so much, Brian,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Brian Jacobson, multi assets strategist at Wells Fargo
Speaker 1: Asset Management. We did cover a lot of asset classes there.
Speaker 1: He's got about or Wells Farger I should say, about
Speaker 1: six three billion dollars in assets on the management. Brian
Speaker 1: joining us on the phone from Milwaukee. Thanks for listening
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