Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Penl podcast. I'm Paul swing you
Speaker 1: along with my co host Lisa Brahma Waits. Each day
Speaker 1: we bring you the most noteworthy and useful interviews for
Speaker 1: you and your money. Whether at the grocery store or
Speaker 1: the trading floor. Find a Bloomberg Penl podcast on Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com. Well, we are so lucky because
Speaker 1: we have a Max needs to be here with us.
Speaker 1: And the reason why Max, we really wanted to talk
Speaker 1: with you was because we love talking with you. You You
Speaker 1: cover healthcare for Bloomberg Opinion, but because Ford is in
Speaker 1: discussions with its union over the cost the the surging
Speaker 1: costs of healthcare. And the reason why this was interesting
Speaker 1: this comes the potential bill is likely going to exceed
Speaker 1: one billion dollars for the first time next year. So
Speaker 1: this is this a huge cost. But it's not alone
Speaker 1: that Ford is dealing with it. This is something that
Speaker 1: a lot of companies are dealing with. Can you just
Speaker 1: first frame the issue of just how big of an
Speaker 1: issue health care is? Using forward as a lens are
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. So it's definitely an issue for for just
Speaker 1: about any large employer. Growing healthcare costs, growing drug costs,
Speaker 1: you know, prices and spending continue to rise, although at
Speaker 1: a slightly lower rate than than people forecast in the past.
Speaker 1: But it's particularly acute for Ford and other companies that
Speaker 1: have large union workforces because those unions negotiated, basically having
Speaker 1: negotiate over time, really incredibly generous health coverage, you know,
Speaker 1: basically more generous than than just about anyone else gets anywhere. Um.
Speaker 1: And then kind of the point of contention this time
Speaker 1: is that while those union workerss gave up on a
Speaker 1: lot of other things back over the financial crisis, the
Speaker 1: other thing that they really held onto, um and kind
Speaker 1: of used as a justification for sacrificing else score was
Speaker 1: those incredibly generous healthcare benefits. So now, of course, um,
Speaker 1: you know, they get things. You know, these things don't
Speaker 1: get cheaper, they just get more expective. People age, and
Speaker 1: as the cost healthcare increases. So you come to another dayton,
Speaker 1: So Max, maybe you can just give me like a
Speaker 1: healthcare one on one here, just because the number I
Speaker 1: see in a Bloomberg News article has really struck me
Speaker 1: that nationwide health expenditures are expected to grow by five
Speaker 1: point five percent annually from seven more than twice the
Speaker 1: rate of inflation. So just real, simply for all audience
Speaker 1: and for me, what are the main drivers of that growth?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the question that depending on which kind
Speaker 1: of actor in the system you you ask, you'll you'll
Speaker 1: get a different answer. But the general kind of the
Speaker 1: biggest thing is always is that it's it's the prices.
Speaker 1: Then the United States, just because of the system that
Speaker 1: we have that's kind of fragmented between employers and the
Speaker 1: government with kind of you know, split negotiating power. Depending
Speaker 1: on what you're talking about, whether it's drugs or hospital services,
Speaker 1: that no one can kind of push back and aggregate
Speaker 1: against those, you get prices that rise at a far
Speaker 1: greater rate of inflation than in everything, not just in
Speaker 1: ugs where we receive all of the coverage, but really
Speaker 1: in hospital services as well, um with just very little restraint,
Speaker 1: and that's set to continue. Five point five is actually
Speaker 1: not as bad as what we've seen at points of
Speaker 1: the past though, which kind of puts the problem in
Speaker 1: perspective of how much the cost health care has gone
Speaker 1: up over time. Alright, So in the US, workers with
Speaker 1: health insurance contribute an average eight of the premium for
Speaker 1: single coverage of the premium for family coverage. How much
Speaker 1: has that gone up over time? I mean, essentially, do
Speaker 1: you foresee a time when companies won't provide health care
Speaker 1: at all? Uh? You know, I think because of the
Speaker 1: tax advantage of providing healthcare. It's basically a way to
Speaker 1: provide more generous benefits, basically the equivalent of higher wages
Speaker 1: without paying as much tax. As long as that tax
Speaker 1: benefit exists and we don't have something like a Medicare
Speaker 1: overall plan, you're still gonna have pretty generous employer coverage
Speaker 1: and incentive to provide it. Okay. So if that's the case,
Speaker 1: then is it a also argument that the rising cost
Speaker 1: of healthcare is the reason why we've seen a shift
Speaker 1: to the gig economy and away from full time employment
Speaker 1: with benefits. I complicated in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: even though that that share of premiums has stayed relatively constant,
Speaker 1: what has gone up is deductibles. Basically that people have
Speaker 1: to pay more out of pocket and face less of
Speaker 1: that premium cost. So just more, you know, the costs
Speaker 1: have been going up just much before. It's just been
Speaker 1: shifted in a different way as opposed to the shift
Speaker 1: to the gig economy. Um, you know, it would be
Speaker 1: one thing if if the A, C. A. We're working
Speaker 1: you know on all cylinders as intended as kind of
Speaker 1: a fairly priced and and stable alternative for people that
Speaker 1: want to work for someone other than a large employer,
Speaker 1: and and to a certain extent, you know, it continues on.
Speaker 1: But if you fall into you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: middle category where you make a fair amount of money
Speaker 1: and don't qualify for subsidies, then it's basically unaffordable and
Speaker 1: you're you're kind of out of luck. So it's it's
Speaker 1: still a system with a lot of compromises, a lot
Speaker 1: of people to get left out. So just real quickly
Speaker 1: on board when they sit down A the U, A W.
Speaker 1: How's that gonna go? Are they going to trade off
Speaker 1: you know, salary increases for keeping healthcare what a company
Speaker 1: is doing these days? I mean, I think both are
Speaker 1: gonna attempt to give away as little as possible. That's
Speaker 1: the point of collective bargaining. You know. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a great success of the unions that they've managed to
Speaker 1: negotiate these these really generous health benefits over time but
Speaker 1: you know you always have the argument on the contrary
Speaker 1: room for that. You know, if we want to stay
Speaker 1: competitive with other countries, UM, we're gonna have to you know,
Speaker 1: labor as in terms of labor costs, We're gonna have
Speaker 1: to see some sacrifices for both sides. So it's gonna be, obviously,
Speaker 1: as always, a really difficult negotiation. Um, and they really
Speaker 1: aren't gonna want to It's I mean, if you want
Speaker 1: to make that comparison that post Americans pay eighteen percent UH,
Speaker 1: cost sharing for auto workers is a fraction to that,
Speaker 1: so very different. Maxson, thank you so much for being
Speaker 1: with us. Max Newson is a biotech, farm and healthcare
Speaker 1: columnist with Bloomberg Opinion. Well, people, when you look around
Speaker 1: the global economies, you certainly have China slowing, although there
Speaker 1: maybe some green shoots, and then we got some data
Speaker 1: last week about how weak things are in Europe and
Speaker 1: how the e c B is responding. Of course, we
Speaker 1: had some data come out today that chose inflation remains
Speaker 1: muted here in the US amid a relatively decent economy here,
Speaker 1: but people still persist in talking about a recession risk
Speaker 1: for the US market at some point over the next
Speaker 1: twelve day months. I think our next guest can provide
Speaker 1: some perspective. Joel Stern. Joel is chairman and chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of Stern Value Management. He joins us live here
Speaker 1: in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Joel, Welcome to Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You just raised before we went on the air. Here
Speaker 1: your thoughts about kind of how the global economic environment
Speaker 1: looks recession risk, that type of thing. How do you
Speaker 1: see it from from your perspective? Recession at all? And
Speaker 1: the people who say they see your recession must have
Speaker 1: different glasses than I do. The major reason for it
Speaker 1: is this. Just last week, Krugman Nobel Prize winner said
Speaker 1: I see a recession on the horizon. I'd like to
Speaker 1: know what his indicator is. Let me explain. Even if
Speaker 1: the number was wrong. Back in December, we had three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand new jobs created. Let's assume it's off by
Speaker 1: even a hundred thousand because of all kinds of seasonal things.
Speaker 1: Do you think businessmen would be hiring people at that
Speaker 1: pace if a recession was just around the corner. No way.
Speaker 1: Not only that, take a look at where long term
Speaker 1: interest rates are thirty year government bonds are yielding three
Speaker 1: what's that all about? You know what that tells us? Also,
Speaker 1: there's no inflation to talk about either. And you know,
Speaker 1: when people take a look at inflation, they're leaving all
Speaker 1: kinds of things out that bring the inflation rate not
Speaker 1: at two percent, down to zero. I'm wondering if we're
Speaker 1: looking at it through the wrong lens, if people are
Speaker 1: looking for another recession big are akin to what we
Speaker 1: saw in two thousand and eight, and if they're looking
Speaker 1: in the wrong place, because that's not what we're going
Speaker 1: to see this time. If instead we're seeing sort of
Speaker 1: rolling recessions through different industries, the oil, the healthcare, you know,
Speaker 1: whichever is poised to go next, could be, could be.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the interesting things about our
Speaker 1: economy is not just what we would call high technology.
Speaker 1: Think about the discoveries that we're learning though from the
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry, industries that we had given up on. People
Speaker 1: would contract that disease, they were finished, there was no
Speaker 1: chance for them at all. I've just been reading about
Speaker 1: what's going on with regard to cancer technology. I call
Speaker 1: it cancer technology because when people contract cancer, they're not
Speaker 1: going anywhere necessarily they're going to get better, okay, and
Speaker 1: those types of things are creating a tremendous amount of jobs. Well,
Speaker 1: how concerned are you about when you think about some
Speaker 1: of the technologies you just mentioned that can out of
Speaker 1: a situation with China. We have trade negotiations going on
Speaker 1: right now. A lot of that, A lot of the
Speaker 1: real hard sticking points are some of those hard issues
Speaker 1: about technology and data integrity and all the type espionage,
Speaker 1: corporate espionage. And it seems like, uh, in order for
Speaker 1: the US to maintain its current position, maybe we need
Speaker 1: some tougher trading. Well, first, the the Chinese situation regarding
Speaker 1: high technology that's been with us for maybe decades. Okay,
Speaker 1: and look where we are. We're doing very nicely, thank you.
Speaker 1: They're not doing well for a different reason. They engaged
Speaker 1: in what the Japanese did back in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: They spent money building cities, building buildings, and there was
Speaker 1: no market for it. In other words, their economy overstated
Speaker 1: how well they were really doing. They were creating monuments,
Speaker 1: they were not creating real business there. And what's happened
Speaker 1: now is they returned to a more normal level for themselves.
Speaker 1: I still think that the six percent figure is way
Speaker 1: too high. I'll make you a if they do revisions properly.
Speaker 1: Maybe our commerce department is doing the calculations, you'll find
Speaker 1: their growth rate as close to the four and a
Speaker 1: half percent, not six and a half percent. So as
Speaker 1: you as you think about managing money that in this environment,
Speaker 1: if you view that the U. S economy is really
Speaker 1: being quite robust and its fears of of our recession
Speaker 1: considerably overblown, is it just US equities all the way
Speaker 1: NASDAC in particular because of Jack advancements, our stock market
Speaker 1: measured by the DOO fell over four thousand points over
Speaker 1: the last year. Remember it dropped down to twenty two
Speaker 1: thousand from twenty six thousand plus, and people said, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, a recession is coming. That's not what was happening.
Speaker 1: We are not accustomed to having the kind of negotiations
Speaker 1: the administration has with China, for example, and the Chinese
Speaker 1: that's dependent on how we're doing well with the North Koreans.
Speaker 1: At the same time, my view on all of this
Speaker 1: is that we we are accustomed to having it our way,
Speaker 1: and we have a president who was certainly accustomed to
Speaker 1: having it his way, and I think his strategy for
Speaker 1: getting them to relax the restrictions they have on our
Speaker 1: trade is going to be very successful. Now that's just
Speaker 1: my guess. Within say, four to five months from now,
Speaker 1: you wait and see, there'll be a major concession by
Speaker 1: the Chinese and of course by the North Koreans as
Speaker 1: a result of them. So do you think that that
Speaker 1: will directly lead to a rally in US equities? People
Speaker 1: are not pricing it right now with our question, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you think that that will just price it in?
Speaker 1: And are you worried at all about some of the
Speaker 1: external factors that FED Chair Powell has been talking about,
Speaker 1: particularly Brexit, especially today as we see Theresa May on
Speaker 1: the brink of losing confidence of of of her constituents
Speaker 1: and possibly losing office sooner than later. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: how much does that bow into the U s econi
Speaker 1: I feel sorry for her, she was sorry for her,
Speaker 1: but not for the U s econtovating. Well, listen, what's
Speaker 1: what really happened here was that the British said, what,
Speaker 1: we're going to have a million refugees coming into our country. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: in my view, Angela Merkel political career is over and
Speaker 1: what cost it exactly what's led to this Brexit issue.
Speaker 1: The Brexit issue is very simple. If you're going to
Speaker 1: have these people a million, say two million, coming in
Speaker 1: like that, what's it gonna do to your job? What
Speaker 1: would you do? How would you want your politician to
Speaker 1: vote for this? Okay, and half half the country voted
Speaker 1: for Brexit, the other half to remain. I agree, they're
Speaker 1: as polarized as we are in this country. They should
Speaker 1: take a look at us and say, oh, we don't
Speaker 1: want to become like those Americans. But it's too late. Well,
Speaker 1: how concerned are you about just the whole European Union issue,
Speaker 1: Brexit as it relates to kind of how you want
Speaker 1: to position yourself globally investing, because it seems like it
Speaker 1: really is an issue for the European Union. I've heard
Speaker 1: money managers say the pe ratios there, their market to
Speaker 1: book ratios are much lower than ours. There's a good
Speaker 1: reason why. Look what it's done to their economy. Look
Speaker 1: what it's done to the prospect I wouldn't be investing
Speaker 1: in in the European Union at all. Okay, there are
Speaker 1: so many other places to invest where other prospects is
Speaker 1: so much better. One place outside the U s that
Speaker 1: you like, Israel the Televisive Stock Exchange and Israeli companies
Speaker 1: where there were over a hundred and fifty Israeli companies
Speaker 1: that are traded on Nazak. You want to buy those companies.
Speaker 1: Joel Stern, thank you so much for being here with us.
Speaker 1: Joel Stern is chairman, chief executive officer of Stern Value Management,
Speaker 1: joining us here in the Interactive Brokers studios. He also
Speaker 1: is an adjunct professor at six business schools, a variety
Speaker 1: of them including UH Columbia University and University of Chicago
Speaker 1: Carnegie Melling. I could go on and on. It is
Speaker 1: so interesting to me all that when we talk about voting,
Speaker 1: and we talked about how the twenty campaign is heating up.
Speaker 1: Certainly a number of candidates Joe Biden is on on
Speaker 1: the docket to decide whether or not to run for
Speaker 1: the presidential election in the United States any day now.
Speaker 1: Question becomes why can people not vote on their phones?
Speaker 1: Why can they not go online and vote? Why do
Speaker 1: we have chad's hanging chad's and people waiting in lines
Speaker 1: to go around the block, and and and you know,
Speaker 1: are we staffed enough at certain places? This is a
Speaker 1: perennial question and uh it's really important to address. Luckily,
Speaker 1: for us, we have Bradley Tusk here. He's chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of Tusk Philanthropies, joining us here in our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Interactive Broker's studios. Bradley obviously has had an extensive career
Speaker 1: on a number of different campaigns as Deputy Governor of Illinois,
Speaker 1: Chuck Shoomers communications director full disclosure, he did serve as
Speaker 1: Mike Bloomberg's camp pay manager and Mike Bloomberg what is
Speaker 1: the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, which owns
Speaker 1: us So, Bradley, thank you so much for joining here.
Speaker 1: So let's just start with what is TUSK for lanthropiece
Speaker 1: and how does it relate to this sort of perennial issue.
Speaker 1: Sure so, uh my family foundation. I got really lucky
Speaker 1: in that. Um when I after I finished working running
Speaker 1: Mike's campaign, I took a chance on this little known
Speaker 1: startup called Uber. I've started working on all their political problems. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and took my fee and equity. Uh so that's done
Speaker 1: pretty well as a result. Now there's to philanthropies. So
Speaker 1: we focus on two things. The kind of easier one
Speaker 1: is hunger, So we fund and run campaigns and states
Speaker 1: around the country to create breakfast after the ballots create
Speaker 1: universal school breakfast. The harder one is mobile voting. Um.
Speaker 1: What I learned from the twenty years that I spent
Speaker 1: in the trenches of politics is, with the exception of
Speaker 1: Mike and I say that, even when I'm not on
Speaker 1: blue brick radio, UM, I've yet to meet a politician
Speaker 1: where every single policy decision is not governed solely by
Speaker 1: the political inputs. Uh. Most politicians just can't live without
Speaker 1: the validation that comes with holding office and be like
Speaker 1: asking us to stop having oxygen right. So, UM, they're
Speaker 1: never gonna do anything that's not in their political edic.
Speaker 1: So let's just say, as an example, your Republican can
Speaker 1: us from for Florida, UM, turn out your primaries twelve percent?
Speaker 1: Because if Jerry manderin the primary effectively as the general
Speaker 1: election and n R A voters make up half that
Speaker 1: twelve percent, you may know that assault weapon band probably
Speaker 1: makes sense, but you're never gonna be for it because
Speaker 1: you're not going to risk alienating half of the people
Speaker 1: who actually vote in your primary. What if turned out
Speaker 1: were all of a sudden, everything would flip and then
Speaker 1: the politics would be that if you didn't vote for it,
Speaker 1: you would lose your job. Um. The reason why turn
Speaker 1: out is so low if we have a system that
Speaker 1: was built, as you were saying, for an a grarian
Speaker 1: economy two hundred and fifty years ago, um, and it's
Speaker 1: never really been updated and so as a result, UM,
Speaker 1: no one really turns out. And the incentives of politicians
Speaker 1: get are really disprit and different from what most people
Speaker 1: actually want. And what I learned we were trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to make rides sharing legal all around.
Speaker 1: The u S for Uber is when you give people
Speaker 1: the ability to advocate from their phone, they'll do it.
Speaker 1: So the millions of people who reached out to regulators
Speaker 1: and politicians and said let ride sharing exist, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't vote in primaries, right because they're not going
Speaker 1: to figure out what random Tuesday is the election and
Speaker 1: where to go and wait on line and deal all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But when I was like, oh, I could
Speaker 1: just press this button from my phone from inside the app,
Speaker 1: they did it. And the final pieces blockchain, which now
Speaker 1: enables you to really move data from point A to
Speaker 1: point B in a secure fashion. So and putting all
Speaker 1: those things together occurred to me, hey, maybe there's a
Speaker 1: way to use all of this to create mobile voting.
Speaker 1: So kicked it off out of my foundation. UM last
Speaker 1: year's started working with the state of West Virginia. We
Speaker 1: did it for deployed military both in their primary and
Speaker 1: in their general election. We kind of put everything together
Speaker 1: and paid for the state's cost so there's no taxpayer expenses.
Speaker 1: Went really well. So we've been talking to other jurisdictions
Speaker 1: and last Thursdays, a couple of days ago, we announced
Speaker 1: that Denver's the next jurisdiction to do this, first sitting
Speaker 1: in America to do it, and we're excited. So it'll
Speaker 1: take place in there, may meet a small elections, and
Speaker 1: then if the run off, will happen again in June.
Speaker 1: So what's really been the gating issue to for adoption?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, for as long as I've been voting,
Speaker 1: I walked into this little booth, I put a little
Speaker 1: you know, uh you know, apron behind kind of put
Speaker 1: pushing the buttons. It's just it's ridiculous. So what really
Speaker 1: is the gating issue? Is it the technology wasn't there?
Speaker 1: Is the technology wasn't there? I think there's sort of
Speaker 1: two problems. So there's the day to day stuff of
Speaker 1: people who say, oh, maybe tested enough, maybe it's not safe.
Speaker 1: Or you have the incumbents in the election industry just
Speaker 1: like you know taxi with Uber hotels of their BnB,
Speaker 1: and they don't want to be disrupted either, so they
Speaker 1: try to fight it. Um. That stuff we can work
Speaker 1: through pretty well. The real problem is going to be
Speaker 1: everyone who has power, it's not gonna want to make
Speaker 1: it easier for them to then lose power. Right, and
Speaker 1: this could be whether you're an alloted official, uh, the
Speaker 1: n r A, teachers unions, whoever, it is. If you
Speaker 1: figure it out how to game the system and how
Speaker 1: you can take these low turnout primaries and use them
Speaker 1: to your advantage. Of that politicians do what you want.
Speaker 1: You're not looking to then give away all that power.
Speaker 1: So then how are you getting this sort of blockchain
Speaker 1: experiment rolling in different places? Totally? So a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One is, you know there are a handful of alected
Speaker 1: election officials around the U s who are willing to
Speaker 1: give it a try anyway, So we just have the
Speaker 1: city clerk in Denver, Secretary State of Wes Virginia before that,
Speaker 1: and we keep talking to more and were people. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: what I've got to do is sort of prove that
Speaker 1: this works and proved that it's safe. What I learned
Speaker 1: in in my experience in tech is when you let
Speaker 1: the genie out of the bottle, you can't put it
Speaker 1: back in. Right. So if I can spend the next
Speaker 1: five years commencing jurisdictions to try it, funding their elections,
Speaker 1: showing the world that it works, I think about my
Speaker 1: daughter who's twelve, when she's eighteen, she won't accept the
Speaker 1: notion that you can't do this. So have you found
Speaker 1: anything interesting at least with the first experimental run here
Speaker 1: as far as what turnout is or how the voting
Speaker 1: actually Yeah, So it's so far been limited just to
Speaker 1: deployed military, because it's really hard to object to the
Speaker 1: fact that people who are literally putting their lives on
Speaker 1: the line to protect the right to vote, right that
Speaker 1: we don't even use um. Their votes never count. You're
Speaker 1: mailing your ballot from Canada, harn it shows us like
Speaker 1: a month later it just goes right in the trash. Um.
Speaker 1: So what we have found so far is people are
Speaker 1: taking advantage of it one. Two, at least in a
Speaker 1: system where we were able to verify who everyone is
Speaker 1: because they already have a military idea, it works really well. Three.
Speaker 1: We ran four step security audits of West Virginia after
Speaker 1: we finished it, and everything came back clean. So what
Speaker 1: that all says is the concept works, keep expanding. My
Speaker 1: hope is at the next constituency we work with a
Speaker 1: disability community because a lot of people who are blind
Speaker 1: or deaf have found that their phones provide a lot
Speaker 1: of things to make their lives a lot easier. So
Speaker 1: we've been talking to these different groups, like the National
Speaker 1: Association for the Blind, who said, yeah, voting is especially
Speaker 1: hard if you're blind. You don't even really have secrecy
Speaker 1: the ballot because you're trusting the person there were flat
Speaker 1: there do what you said, right. So they were thrilled. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm hopeful that in November we can at least
Speaker 1: get one jurisdiction to expand at both military um and
Speaker 1: parts of disability and then come really hit the ground running.
Speaker 1: Well that's fascinating. I mean, this sounds like a technology
Speaker 1: that we've been waiting for for a long time. It
Speaker 1: sounds like technology that should have been available ten years ago. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that the implications are just massive. I think Bradley Tusk,
Speaker 1: CEO Tusk Philanthropies joining us here in Bloomberget I am
Speaker 1: Active Brokeker Studios, thank you very very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Robert L Has with the U S. Trade representative for
Speaker 1: President Trump, who has been representing the nation or helping
Speaker 1: to UH negotiate the trade pact with China, saying now
Speaker 1: today the getting a trade deal with China is a
Speaker 1: big if this headline crossing minutes ago, you could see
Speaker 1: the Dow Jones taking a leg lower near session lows,
Speaker 1: although only down nearly four tents of one percent on
Speaker 1: the day, so not a huge decline and largely led
Speaker 1: vie boing, but still taking a little bit of a
Speaker 1: dip lower. My question is who trades off of these
Speaker 1: and these sort of you know, it's on again off
Speaker 1: again headlines every single day, with trade giving very conflicting messages.
Speaker 1: How does an investor invest around that? Joining us now
Speaker 1: to discuss chat Oviet he's director of investments for Huntington's
Speaker 1: private bank, joining us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studios.
Speaker 1: So Chad, let's start there. I mean what do you
Speaker 1: do with these conflicting headlines on trade? First off, we
Speaker 1: would advise our clients to have a much longer outlook
Speaker 1: than the next five minutes, ten minutes, even the next headline,
Speaker 1: whether it comes tomorrow or the next day, go on.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure that we keep that outlook,
Speaker 1: focus our clients on long term investing, really investing for
Speaker 1: what it is that they're trying to achieve. These these
Speaker 1: intermittent headlines or the news of the day plays into
Speaker 1: our thesis a little bit for though. So what we
Speaker 1: were seeing and what we agree to is that we've
Speaker 1: we've peaked more than likely it was peak for GDP
Speaker 1: and earnings, but we haven't stopped growing. So we have
Speaker 1: a peak, and we're at a point now where we're
Speaker 1: seeing this consolidation, and we're seeing consolidation from a soft
Speaker 1: GDP start in lower earnings estimates for the first quarter often,
Speaker 1: but we ultimately see that kind of troughing this year
Speaker 1: and then rebuilding towards the end of the year. So
Speaker 1: we're constructive for the rest of this year on US equities,
Speaker 1: even with the headlines that come out from time to time. Obviously,
Speaker 1: US China trade deal is a big one and could
Speaker 1: ultimately derail our thesis to a degree or bring some
Speaker 1: of those assumptions down. But currently we still have the
Speaker 1: US with the SMP five ending the year at about
Speaker 1: so I guess in your scenario, no recession risk on
Speaker 1: the horizon from your perspective, we don't. In fact, we're
Speaker 1: only at about risk of recession in our projections, um
Speaker 1: and that's carrying into okay. So if you don't really
Speaker 1: think that these headlines are gonna do anything in the
Speaker 1: long run to affect your thesis, wouldn't you be buying?
Speaker 1: We are? In fact? Okay? So so so during any
Speaker 1: of these dips when people say, oh my god, Robert
Speaker 1: Leitheizer's isn't getting a trade deal with China? Is a
Speaker 1: big if sell that you're saying by we're buyers again
Speaker 1: being situations to the client, and we want to understand
Speaker 1: a situation, understand what they're looking for. But generally speaking, yes,
Speaker 1: we're buyers on dips. Pardon me what in particularly, thank
Speaker 1: you for asking, I was going there. What we would
Speaker 1: be recommending to clients is still the large cap US equities. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's been our thesis through the end of eighteen continues
Speaker 1: to be in twenty nineteen. We like that space from
Speaker 1: an asset allocation perspective. We're not completely absent developed markets
Speaker 1: or emerging market, but we would be at what we
Speaker 1: would consider neutral in terms of our targets for those.
Speaker 1: We made some reductions last year in developed markets and
Speaker 1: e M, so we're still constructive though, with the idea
Speaker 1: of earnings regathering getting better towards the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Again that target on the SMP, we like the large
Speaker 1: cap US equity names. We would be sensitive to those
Speaker 1: that have uh more than fifty of the revenue coming
Speaker 1: from outside of the United States because we recognized there
Speaker 1: is some global slowdown, but generally speaking US large caps.
Speaker 1: So that sounds like So how about tech? Like in
Speaker 1: this studio, we like tech. We like the Fang stocks,
Speaker 1: and we've noticed obviously that during the market run the
Speaker 1: Fang stocks really lad the market. Then conversely, on the
Speaker 1: way down in the fourth quarter last year led the
Speaker 1: market down now having a strong rebound in nineteen. Where
Speaker 1: you guys, in terms of your relative waiting of of
Speaker 1: of tech for our clients, we're pretty much balanced kind
Speaker 1: of at target for tech. We're not overweighting technology We
Speaker 1: do like those big names. Some of the fang stocks
Speaker 1: are in our portfolios, but we haven't moved to an
Speaker 1: overweight position with respect to to really any of the
Speaker 1: major sectors. Here's another way to ask the question, do
Speaker 1: you think that tech will continue to lead shares up?
Speaker 1: Because they've been the real driver? Uh this year on
Speaker 1: the way up? They were driver last year on the
Speaker 1: way down. Are they going to continue to be the
Speaker 1: leader here? Sure? I would agree with that. Yes, so
Speaker 1: they lead down, they're leading us back out. The interesting
Speaker 1: thing about technology and generally speaking about technology for us,
Speaker 1: most of those companies are on the right side of change.
Speaker 1: The companies may have companies specific issues, but they're not
Speaker 1: just leave leading the stock market higher right now. They're
Speaker 1: leading industries and making changes to industries that we believe
Speaker 1: are impactful long term. There again getting our clients to
Speaker 1: think longer term than Yes, absolutely, these technology companies would
Speaker 1: be something to invest in. Very interesting. There's lots of
Speaker 1: lots of places. Given that the markets up eleven percent
Speaker 1: this year, I think people are really trying to figure
Speaker 1: out where to go next. That Chat Aviette, director of
Speaker 1: Investments for Huntington's Private Banking, joining us life here in
Speaker 1: our Bloomberg Interactor Broker studio. It's sort of interesting to
Speaker 1: me how many people are saying that recession is coming
Speaker 1: close to us, and then everybody else saying, what are
Speaker 1: you guys talking about? Everything is just fine? I mean
Speaker 1: the polarization there is really dramatic, and I do have
Speaker 1: to wonder, uh, you know, is there some sort of
Speaker 1: bigger risk that people aren't seeing or are some people
Speaker 1: just so caared of the two and eight financial crisis
Speaker 1: still that they are still unable to see something that
Speaker 1: is positive. Yeah. Interesting, I don't think I think that
Speaker 1: was ten years ago, but yet it's still in people's psyches.
Speaker 1: It was, it was a painful. It was a painful
Speaker 1: event ten years ago. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to
Speaker 1: interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
Speaker 1: Paul Sweeney, I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. I'm Lisa
Speaker 1: Abram Woyds. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abram woos One.
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