Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. This is Masters in
Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ritholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: This week on the podcast, our returning champion, Torston Slock,
Speaker 2: Chief Economists at Apollo. You know, most of the economists
Speaker 2: that you're probably familiar with haven't really had a good
Speaker 2: handle on the state of the economy over the past
Speaker 2: couple of years. They have been expecting recessions, they've expected contractions.
Speaker 2: They kind of missed the search and inflation, they missed
Speaker 2: the collapse in inflation. There aren't a lot of economists
Speaker 2: who got it more right than Torston Slock. Not only
Speaker 2: has he been appropriately bullish about what's going on in
Speaker 2: the economy, why we weren't really in danger of a
Speaker 2: recession anytime over the past couple of years. I disagree
Speaker 2: with his forecast for this year, which is zero percent
Speaker 2: chance of recession. Hey I never put a zero percent
Speaker 2: chance on anything. But still he's communicating how wrong everybody
Speaker 2: else is and how right he's been, and why you
Speaker 2: should be pretty constructive about the state of both employment
Speaker 2: and credit and the stock markets. He has absolutely been
Speaker 2: dead on, and I have to point out what a
Speaker 2: force of nature he is he's got a really fascinating background.
Speaker 2: I m f OECD, Deutsche Bank and now on the
Speaker 2: private by side with a big emphasis on private sector companies.
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to say. I thought this
Speaker 2: conversation was absolutely fascinating. He was just on such a role.
Speaker 2: All I had to do is just kind of give
Speaker 2: him a little nudge and get it out of the way.
Speaker 2: Really an absolutely true to force explanation as to why
Speaker 2: the US and global economy is where it is, where
Speaker 2: it's likely to continue going, and why there are such
Speaker 2: tailwinds for growth in the US and to a lesser
Speaker 2: degree Japan, but why the US is so much better
Speaker 2: situated than Europe or China and most of Asia. I
Speaker 2: found this to be absolutely fascinating, and I think you
Speaker 2: will also with no further ado my discussion with Apollo
Speaker 2: Global Managements Towardsten Slock.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Berrian. It's great to be here instead
Speaker 3: of sitting in a boat to fishing in Maine. I
Speaker 3: say you and I have done together before.
Speaker 2: That's right. That's a mouthful of places where you've worked.
Speaker 2: Before we get into your career. I want to start
Speaker 2: with University of Copenhagen and Princeton University. What was the
Speaker 2: career plan? Always economics and finance.
Speaker 3: Well, I grew up in a small time called Ruskilde,
Speaker 3: which is thirty kilometers to the west of Copenhagen. You
Speaker 3: could see I'm so European still that I speak in
Speaker 3: kilometers rather than miles. And I studied economics in university,
Speaker 3: and then when I started doing my PSD, you have
Speaker 3: to go a year abroad, and I spent a year
Speaker 3: in Princeton in the economics department in ninety five ninety
Speaker 3: six when pen Peneke was the chairman of the economics department,
Speaker 3: and then when I finished my degree, I applied for
Speaker 3: a job at the IMF in Washington, DC. And economics
Speaker 3: has basically been the bread and butter of my life,
Speaker 3: at least my adult life, for the last twenty five
Speaker 3: thirty years.
Speaker 2: So how I'm just I've been to Denmark, beautiful country, beautiful.
Speaker 2: Copenhagen is absolutely beautiful. I'm curious how different studying economics
Speaker 2: is in Denmark versus the United States.
Speaker 3: Well, obviously all the super universities are here, so from
Speaker 3: a publishing an academic perspective, it's really good. But it's
Speaker 3: just a little bit different in the sense that it's
Speaker 3: not of course having the same environment, the same seminars,
Speaker 3: and but that matter, the same people of course.
Speaker 4: That are in the US.
Speaker 3: But that being said, Europe still has some really incredible universities,
Speaker 3: including University of Copenhagen. You learn a lot, and as
Speaker 3: you know European style, your degree is not an undergraduate
Speaker 3: degree in four years. It's a master's degree where you
Speaker 3: start out on day one studying economics, theology, humanities, and
Speaker 3: you do that for five years in a row. So
Speaker 3: you end up doing five years relatively specialized in this
Speaker 3: case in economics for me, and I found it just
Speaker 3: that the environment, everything that I experienced that went through there,
Speaker 3: and still have many good friends at the university and
Speaker 3: of course in Copenhagen that I still talk to to
Speaker 3: this day about economics and what's going on in financial
Speaker 3: markets and.
Speaker 2: Make me a little jealous. Do you pay for college
Speaker 2: and graduate school or does the state cover that?
Speaker 3: So it happens to be the case in Denmark that
Speaker 3: tuition is completely free. In fact, you get a stipend
Speaker 3: which is three four thousand a month.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: On top of that, you also so this is as
Speaker 3: a PSD student you also get, of course, I need
Speaker 3: to say this a free healthcare. And of course all
Speaker 3: this is subsidized and ultimately paid for by the Danish
Speaker 3: tax payers. That's why marginal tax rates and then mark
Speaker 3: are fifty five percent, right and not to thirty seven
Speaker 3: percent as it is in the US.
Speaker 2: Right, it's better to be middle class or lower class
Speaker 2: in Denmark. It's better to be wealthy in the United States,
Speaker 2: at least in terms of net dollars in your pocket.
Speaker 3: Everyone has access to healthcare, everyone has access to free education,
Speaker 3: and then you just have to do your homework, which
Speaker 3: is the hard part, and then of course complete your education.
Speaker 4: But it is absolutely a major difference, of course too.
Speaker 2: But you left before you had to pay those fifty
Speaker 2: five percent taxes.
Speaker 3: Well, so I just got my free education and then left.
Speaker 3: So but I am still both a Danish citizen and
Speaker 3: I'm also a US citizen. So I'm trying to get
Speaker 3: the best and make the most of the both world.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about your career. You start out as
Speaker 2: an economist at the IMF right out of school. I know,
Speaker 2: at a certain point at the IMF, you're the guy
Speaker 2: writing the world's economic outlook and you're covering China and
Speaker 2: Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. Do you start
Speaker 2: out right out of school doing the global outlook for
Speaker 2: the IMF? For you have to work your way up
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 3: Oh, you absolutely have to work your way up. But
Speaker 3: the IMF has this great philosophy that the young people
Speaker 3: who start in the organization throw them on deep water,
Speaker 3: and in this case that means in IMF language, that
Speaker 3: you need to go on a program country, and a
Speaker 3: program country is a country that only has some IMF
Speaker 3: loan or is drawing on some IMF facility. And in
Speaker 3: my case, I was pulled into working on Mongolia. So
Speaker 3: I went to Ulan Paton in January, where it was
Speaker 3: about as cold as it is here in New York
Speaker 3: City today. And it is quite an experience to come
Speaker 3: to an emerging market when you are just around thirty
Speaker 3: years old, and you certainly sit there with the Central
Speaker 3: Bank governor, you sit down with the Minister of Finance,
Speaker 3: and of course there's whole team. I was the most
Speaker 3: junior person, and you try to think about what are
Speaker 3: the macroeconomic problems for this country, how can we get
Speaker 3: this country back on track? Under what conditions should they
Speaker 3: borrow all those things a very critical part of the
Speaker 3: education you get at the IMF, namely learning to analyze
Speaker 3: and understand an economy from a macroeconomic perspective.
Speaker 2: That sounds like it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 4: It was incredible.
Speaker 3: I had never obviously looked at a thought about Mongolia
Speaker 3: too much before. So the fact that you suddenly are involved,
Speaker 3: and also the whole process at the IMF, which is
Speaker 3: very important. You basically have a country that haves some
Speaker 3: macroeconomic problems, then there is a process of them going
Speaker 3: to the Board of the IMF, and the Executive Board
Speaker 3: of the IMF then has to discuss under what conditions
Speaker 3: do we want to give a loan to this country,
Speaker 3: and that process of giving a loan. In some cases
Speaker 3: the IMF says yes, you can have a loan. In
Speaker 3: other cases, the IMF says no, you cannot have a
Speaker 3: loan because you're not willing or able to meet the
Speaker 3: conditionality that comes.
Speaker 4: With borrowing money from the IMF.
Speaker 3: And often countries come to the IMA when they're not
Speaker 3: not able to borrow in public markets. And that's why
Speaker 3: the IMF plays this special role of having conditionality, having
Speaker 3: conditions associated with borrowing. That means that you can borrow,
Speaker 3: but only if you do these things that the global
Speaker 3: community thinks is a good idea and in some cases
Speaker 3: might be politically challenging, But we do this to try
Speaker 3: to get you out of this problem that you're in
Speaker 3: at the moment.
Speaker 2: So now let's compare and contrast. You go from there,
Speaker 2: the OECD in Paris. What's it like being an economist
Speaker 2: in Paris?
Speaker 3: So the IMF has money and gives a loan to countries,
Speaker 3: whereas the OECD is really just a think tank. It
Speaker 3: used to be really mainly more wealthy countries, meaning developed markets,
Speaker 3: meaning the G seven plus a few others, but now
Speaker 3: it has brought out a bit more to also have Brazil, Chile,
Speaker 3: other countries that you will normally categorize as emerging markets.
Speaker 3: But the OECD basically is an organization in Paris that
Speaker 3: lays out best practice across countries. So as a government,
Speaker 3: you think constantly about what is best practice for healthcare policies,
Speaker 3: for pension policies, for all kinds of other policies when
Speaker 3: it comes to climate change, when it comes to really
Speaker 3: all areas of policy making, and the idea is to
Speaker 3: get together in Paris for the OCD countries to come
Speaker 3: and say, what experiences have you made when you put
Speaker 3: together a pension system? What experiences have we made? And
Speaker 3: the IMF the Rights and Reporting says, these are the
Speaker 3: ways that people have done it that work. And other
Speaker 3: sometimes they say other examples are this is word it.
Speaker 4: Has not worked very well.
Speaker 3: To try for you and me and the US and
Speaker 3: Denmark and all other countries in the world to have
Speaker 3: an example of how should we design our pension system,
Speaker 3: how do we make sure that they're enough retirement savings
Speaker 3: for our population? How has it been done in other countries?
Speaker 3: So it's really an organization that really is a think tank,
Speaker 3: but it really is the best practice think tank where
Speaker 3: you get experiences and you get practices from other countries
Speaker 3: that then can be used again in the countries that
Speaker 3: are participating.
Speaker 2: Huh. Really interesting. So the biggest chunk of your career
Speaker 2: was that Deutsche Bank. Did you still art in Germany
Speaker 2: or did you start here in New York?
Speaker 3: So I started here in New York because some of
Speaker 3: my former colleagues from the IMF had moved to Deutsche Bank,
Speaker 3: David Fogustlanta and Pink E Chata and they called and
Speaker 3: asked if I wanted to come to the US and
Speaker 3: work here with him, And this was in two thousand
Speaker 3: and five. It was not our plan. My wonderful wife
Speaker 3: Julie and I had our first son and his name
Speaker 3: is Fleming, and it was a two thousand and three
Speaker 3: and we lived in Paris.
Speaker 4: We all enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: We were actually trying to get a bit closer to Copenhagen.
Speaker 3: But then out of the blue, Binky called and said, hey,
Speaker 3: would you like to come to New York and work
Speaker 3: with us? And my experience from the IMF and the OCD,
Speaker 3: and then this opportunity to be in Deutsche Bank with
Speaker 3: some friends and colleagues that I had known for many
Speaker 3: years and who are still my really good friends today
Speaker 3: of course meant that I said, well, why don't we
Speaker 3: try this? And Julie was up for it. So we
Speaker 3: moved on our family from Paris in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: So brief digression. I don't know who Binky is personally.
Speaker 2: I've never met him. I cannot begin to tell you
Speaker 2: how many people have referenced him as a man enter,
Speaker 2: as an influence, as this is a person who just
Speaker 2: had such a big impact in the world of finance.
Speaker 2: Will get to the mentor questions later. I'm just curious
Speaker 2: how outsized a personality is Binki.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a very important part of your question also
Speaker 3: here is that it is absolutely critical to remember that
Speaker 3: inside organizations such as the IMF and the OECD, you
Speaker 3: establish long term relationships with people that really almost in
Speaker 3: a lot of cases basically last for almost your whole
Speaker 3: career or your whole life. So that means you build
Speaker 3: strong connections with people, you work with them in stressed situations,
Speaker 3: in less stress situations, in good and bad times. And
Speaker 3: I had worked with Binkie, not directly under him, and
Speaker 3: also David Falguslanta, but they were both, of course very
Speaker 3: important employees at the IMF, and when they decided to
Speaker 3: move to Teutsche Bank, I decided to say, well, I
Speaker 3: know these people really will and Binky indeed, even today,
Speaker 3: as you know, he is still the chief equity strategy
Speaker 3: at the Deutsche Bank. He has some incredible frameworks and
Speaker 3: I have learned a lot from him. We'll talk more
Speaker 3: about this later in terms of you need to have
Speaker 3: a framework when you talk about things, and he was
Speaker 3: the first one and still is today. They is telling
Speaker 3: me you need.
Speaker 4: To have a framework. What is the framework?
Speaker 3: Why you are thinking the stock market will go up,
Speaker 3: or the dollar will go down, or the federal high rates.
Speaker 3: All these things came from a discussion from Pinkie and
Speaker 3: David and several others, and who, by the way, also
Speaker 3: have a PSD in economics because they were the ones
Speaker 3: who got me into Deutsche Bank starting in two thousand
Speaker 3: and five.
Speaker 2: Really interesting, So you spend fifteen years at Deutsche Bank,
Speaker 2: that's the biggest part of your career. On the cell side,
Speaker 2: I'm curious, how do you curate a firm view? How
Speaker 2: do you develop Hey, this is the perspective of Deutsche
Speaker 2: Bank US, which is a giant entity.
Speaker 3: Well, as you and I have been talking about for
Speaker 3: many years, different banks have different strategies. So some banks
Speaker 3: have a house view, other banks have a house of use.
Speaker 3: So that means that in this case Doutchr Bank was
Speaker 3: run in a way and I think that does make
Speaker 3: sense where there was no strong house shoe every day
Speaker 3: on everything, because we have to let individuals free in
Speaker 3: the sense that the different people have different types of
Speaker 3: expertise in different areas. So at dB we would sit
Speaker 3: down around the table, think about the Federal Serve or
Speaker 3: the ECP or the Bank of Japan, and we would
Speaker 3: then say, okay, whoever was the main person responsible for
Speaker 3: the central bank, what is your view? Let's discuss do
Speaker 3: we all agree with this? What are the arguments why
Speaker 3: this is right? One are the arguments why this is wrong.
Speaker 4: This gives a healthy debate.
Speaker 3: This gives a healthy way of saying, we have now
Speaker 3: turned every stone and we end up where we published
Speaker 3: the view that Let's say that the FED, for example
Speaker 3: today we'll talk about this later, will be keeping interest
Speaker 3: rates on hold. But that discussion, of course, is a
Speaker 3: very important part of the debate instead of just having well,
Speaker 3: I am having someone in the organization who says, oh,
Speaker 3: the FED will not do anything. But everyone else can
Speaker 3: then sit around and say, oh, I disagree with that view.
Speaker 3: I think the view should be different. So there is
Speaker 3: no easy solution to this problem. But it is the
Speaker 3: case that at Deutsche used to be the situation where
Speaker 3: we would sit around the table and fight it out
Speaker 3: and end up with a view on what do we
Speaker 3: think is the outlook for in this case, the fit
Speaker 3: ECB or the Bank of Japan or any other central
Speaker 3: bank or any other market we were looking at.
Speaker 2: Huh, really really interesting. So you're at a government entity,
Speaker 2: then you're at a think tank, then you're at a
Speaker 2: sell side brokerage firm. Then you end up at Apollo,
Speaker 2: which not only is buyside, but it's more focused on
Speaker 2: the private markets than the public markets. I'm curious what
Speaker 2: led you to Apollo and what was that transition like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so at Deutsche Bank I spent essentially all my
Speaker 3: time on going to clients with sales. So we would
Speaker 3: go to Pimco, Blackrock, Brevin Howard, or the hedge funds
Speaker 3: or the real money managers and we would sit down
Speaker 3: and talk about what is the outlook for rates, equities, commodities,
Speaker 3: everything in the macro world that they wanted to discuss.
Speaker 3: At Apollo, my job is quite different and it has
Speaker 3: some different elements that I didn't have in my job
Speaker 3: with Deutsche Bank. So what was the attraction was that
Speaker 3: after fifteen years of traveling around the world and talking
Speaker 3: about the macro in client meetings, really anywhere you could
Speaker 3: go where anyone was interested in the US economic outlook,
Speaker 3: at Apollo, I spent roughly half of my time still
Speaker 3: doing that on the fundraising side, But the other half
Speaker 3: of my time I spent internally talking to deal teams.
Speaker 3: So a deal team is looking at buying a company.
Speaker 3: At deal team is looking at giving a loan to
Speaker 3: a company. This could be in the US, it could
Speaker 3: be in Europe, it could be in anywhere in the world, Brazil,
Speaker 3: it could be really any type of financing that we
Speaker 3: would be studying carefully. And in some of these cases
Speaker 3: macroeconomics is less important. In other cases, macroeconomics is really important,
Speaker 3: meaning we begin to discuss what is the outlook for rates,
Speaker 3: meaning what are their financing costs? What's the outlook for spreads,
Speaker 3: what's the outlook for even wages? Was the outlook for
Speaker 3: low income wages, middle income wages, high income wages? What
Speaker 3: is the outlook for the dollar? And we also have
Speaker 3: discussions of what is the outlook for politics? So those
Speaker 3: things are not things that we can control, but then
Speaker 3: nevertheless turn out to be really important if you want
Speaker 3: to understand the risks associated with the investment that you're doing.
Speaker 3: So what attracted me to come to Apollo was I
Speaker 3: still am doing to a last degree, many of the things. Again,
Speaker 3: half of my job is traveling around the world talking
Speaker 3: to people about the macroeconomic outlook, but the internal part
Speaker 3: of talking to deal teams for that matter, also talking
Speaker 3: to management about what's going on, what are we seeing,
Speaker 3: what are we hearing? And we have fifty a liberalist
Speaker 3: and fifty portfolio companies talking to the CEOs of these
Speaker 3: portfolio companies. It all gives a very corporate finance addition
Speaker 3: to my macroeconomic thinking, and that was and continues to
Speaker 3: be the main significant attraction that I find so exciting
Speaker 3: about my job naming that is combining the macro world
Speaker 3: with the corporate finance and the deal team world in
Speaker 3: private credit and private equity, and then trying to come
Speaker 3: up with a view what do we think will happen
Speaker 3: going forward now.
Speaker 2: At Deutsche Bank, you were a fairly traditional economic publisher.
Speaker 2: When you move to Apollo, you developed several new platforms,
Speaker 2: new content platforms. I think everybody who's listening is probably
Speaker 2: familiar with the Daily Spark, which is sort of your
Speaker 2: chart of the day, which is always fascinating and niche
Speaker 2: and chock full of information. But you also put out
Speaker 2: full research decks and full the traditional economic data series.
Speaker 2: But then on top of that, is the Apollo Academy
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the idea with the Apollo Academy is there
Speaker 3: are really several different purposes. So first of all, Apollo
Speaker 3: Academy is really the prime place to go if you
Speaker 3: want to understand alternatives, because it is often, of course
Speaker 3: the case that people in financial markets, everyone spends so
Speaker 3: much time on this and p. Five hundred because this
Speaker 3: in p. Five hundred is what we all discuss all
Speaker 3: day long. But if you look at businesses with employment
Speaker 3: in the US, there are six million firms in the
Speaker 3: US that have employment.
Speaker 4: So the fact that we spend time.
Speaker 3: On five hundred companies out of six million businesses, it
Speaker 3: just doesn't make too much sense. So that's why private
Speaker 3: markets and what's going on in private markets, both in
Speaker 3: private equity and also of course in private credit is
Speaker 3: a very important part of the US and the global economy.
Speaker 3: So that's what we try to do in Apollo Academy, namely,
Speaker 3: have various educational materials, white papers about private credit, white
Speaker 3: papers about private equity, white papers about AZEPAC finance, white
Speaker 3: papers about all kinds of aspects of what our private
Speaker 3: markets today and what we also do on the Apolloacademy
Speaker 3: dot com home pages. Of course, that we also produce
Speaker 3: as you just mentioned at Daily spag Email, which is
Speaker 3: a chart that we produce every day, which is some
Speaker 3: interesting topic that we're thinking about, and we also try
Speaker 3: to have by the way, we also have podcasts and
Speaker 3: we also have videos, but we try to generally have
Speaker 3: material so that people and the public out there can
Speaker 3: be informed about what's going on in alternatives and in
Speaker 3: private markets.
Speaker 2: At the moment, I just want to talk briefly about
Speaker 2: the Daily Spark because I'm fascinated both on the subjects
Speaker 2: that you focus on and the process you use in
Speaker 2: creating it. Something recently that showed up New York hotel costs.
Speaker 2: Now that seems so specific. What do new York hotel
Speaker 2: costs tell us about the broader economy?
Speaker 3: This is a really good question, and you're not the
Speaker 3: only one to probably think about that among the listeners.
Speaker 3: Men for those who do subscribe to the Daily Spark
Speaker 3: are probably scratching their hits sometimes and saying why are
Speaker 3: we even talking about this? We also have data sometimes
Speaker 3: that we look at for how many people are visiting
Speaker 3: the Statue of Liberty. We also look at how many
Speaker 3: people go to Broadway shows.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing that, and you may.
Speaker 3: And you and I laugh at it sometimes, and you
Speaker 3: should also laugh at it sometimes and say why.
Speaker 4: Are we're looking at this?
Speaker 3: But in fact it is still the case that, if
Speaker 3: you think about it well, hotel cost important for a
Speaker 3: number of different reasons, not only from a commercial real
Speaker 3: estate investing perspective. It's also important to get some understanding
Speaker 3: of how expensive is it now. The average price for
Speaker 3: staying at a hotel at the moment in New York
Speaker 3: City is more than four hundred dollars. That is really expensive.
Speaker 3: Think about also how much that has gone up, how
Speaker 3: much of that has gone up after COVID. That has
Speaker 3: implications for how you think about what is occupancy rates
Speaker 3: for hotels not only in New York but nationwide. That
Speaker 3: has implications for how well is the consumer doing. That
Speaker 3: has implications for tourism. It has just so many ramifications.
Speaker 3: A lot of these things. Even how many people go
Speaker 3: to Broadway shows also tells you something about is there
Speaker 3: a willingness among consumers to spend on discretionary spending something
Speaker 3: that's a little bit expensive. The average Broadway show ticket
Speaker 3: cost round one hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: But that's a bargain right there.
Speaker 3: But it could be a lot more expensive than that.
Speaker 3: And all that to your question is you say, well,
Speaker 3: why are we looking at this? So without writing a long, long,
Speaker 3: thirty page paper with thirty footnotes, just a simple chant
Speaker 3: saying hey, check this out, this is something we're thinking about,
Speaker 3: you can say, oh, I don't really care about this.
Speaker 3: Why should I worry about how many people again go
Speaker 3: to Broadway shows or how many people who go to
Speaker 3: the Statue of Liberty? Or what is the cost of
Speaker 3: saying oh, and I at the hotel? But it still
Speaker 3: is something that at least is one dimension to thinking
Speaker 3: about a lot of the different things that are going on.
Speaker 3: And that is the benefit And that's what I'm enjoying
Speaker 3: so much of producing one every day, because then I
Speaker 3: I write about something today and tomorrow I can write
Speaker 3: about something else.
Speaker 2: And the fact that you do something completely different every day.
Speaker 2: Someone may say, who cares how many people go to
Speaker 2: the Statue of Liberty, But when you see ninety different
Speaker 2: charts over the course of three or four months, it
Speaker 2: starts to paint a broader picture as to what's going on.
Speaker 2: All these little niche data points. They add up and
Speaker 2: it gives you a perspective on the economy that you
Speaker 2: may not get looking at GDP or unemployment.
Speaker 3: As when you and I always talk about what is
Speaker 3: the economic outlook? And then you can start in some kona,
Speaker 3: but I still need to paint you a picture and
Speaker 3: mosaic that ultimately has some different pieces, And these charts
Speaker 3: are exactly meant to be different pieces in what is
Speaker 3: goinging on in the economy and more broadly, what is
Speaker 3: it in financial markets that we should be talking about?
Speaker 4: And that's relevant?
Speaker 3: And sometimes some of these pieces in the mosaic may
Speaker 3: look insignificant and not very critical, But in other times
Speaker 3: a chart could simply also be what's the trend in inflation?
Speaker 3: Should we expect invasion to go up? Now that Trump
Speaker 3: has been talking about tariffs, now that we may have
Speaker 3: restrictions of immigration, now that we may lower corporate tax
Speaker 3: rates on domestic manufacturers to fifteen percent? Could that be
Speaker 3: a reason why there might be some lift in some
Speaker 3: of the more important indicators, other than, of course, some
Speaker 3: of the more funny indicators that we've been talking about
Speaker 3: up to this point.
Speaker 2: We were talking earlier at the mosaic of different data
Speaker 2: points that create an economic outlook. Let's talk first about
Speaker 2: the US and then the rest of the world. You've
Speaker 2: described the US economy as quote, firing on all cylinders discuss.
Speaker 3: So the backdrop for where we sit today is, of
Speaker 3: course that GDP growth for the last two and an
Speaker 3: years since the FED began to raise interest rates, has
Speaker 3: been remarkably strong. And this has raised a number of
Speaker 3: important questions in financial markets. Namely, when the Fed raised
Speaker 3: interest rates, I would have expected, and the textbook would
Speaker 3: have expected, that home prices should have been going down.
Speaker 4: That's not what has happened.
Speaker 3: You would have expected that when interst rates go up,
Speaker 3: car sales should go down.
Speaker 4: That is not what has happened.
Speaker 3: And you would also have expected that when interest rates
Speaker 3: go up that cap e spending and business spending by
Speaker 3: businesses should also be slowing down, and that is not
Speaker 3: what has happened. And why is it that the economy
Speaker 3: has continued to be so strong? In other words, what
Speaker 3: happened to long and variable lacks that the Federal Serve
Speaker 3: FMC members have talked about for so long? Why didn't
Speaker 3: the economy slow down when interest rates went up? And
Speaker 3: there are three very important reasons why that didn't happen.
Speaker 3: First of all, we have had a much less interest
Speaker 3: rates sensitive economy this time around than we've had before.
Speaker 3: Most importantly, ninety five percent of mortgages outstanding in the
Speaker 3: US are thirty of fixed rates. That when interest rates
Speaker 3: started going up, that meant that mortgage payments did not
Speaker 3: go up for consumers because consumers had locked in low
Speaker 3: interest rates during the pandemic. And this was also the
Speaker 3: case for corporate debt. Net interest payments as a share
Speaker 3: of operating surplus in the US has been going down
Speaker 3: despite that the FED has been raising interest rates, so
Speaker 3: there was also a list interesst rates sensitivity for corporate
Speaker 3: So taken together, the first argument why is the economy
Speaker 3: still so strong? Because FED hikes simply did not have
Speaker 3: a particularly negative impact on consumers and on firms as
Speaker 3: the textbook would have predicted. Secondly, in the US, we
Speaker 3: also have a data center boom. We have an AI
Speaker 3: and data center boom, unlike what we see in any
Speaker 3: other countries. There's six thousand data centers in the US,
Speaker 3: more than all other country countries combined in the world.
Speaker 3: So data center boom has probably been adding around zero
Speaker 3: point two percent to GDP growth for the last several years.
Speaker 3: And third, and finally, we also have fiscal policy. Even
Speaker 3: before we talk about Trump, Chips Act, the Inflation Doarcs Act,
Speaker 3: the Infrastructure.
Speaker 4: Act have also been important.
Speaker 3: Tale So in summary, and sorry for getting a very
Speaker 3: long answer, but why good ants the economy has been
Speaker 3: so strong. It has to do with less interest rate sensitivity,
Speaker 3: a data center and AI boom, and finally.
Speaker 4: Also fiscal policy.
Speaker 3: And that's the reason why even where we sit today,
Speaker 3: the Atlanta FEDGDP now estimate for Q four is still
Speaker 3: at three percent, well above the CBO's two percent estimate
Speaker 3: for long run GDP growth. And that is the reason
Speaker 3: why there is in P five hundreds have done so
Speaker 3: well the last few years. That's the reason why credit
Speaker 3: spreads on ig high end loans are so tight, because
Speaker 3: we never got that slowdown that everyone worried so much about.
Speaker 3: And now we can then start talking about if we
Speaker 3: add Trump policies on top of this starting point, then
Speaker 3: you can begin to worry about that maybe there's a
Speaker 3: ray acceleration both in inflation and in GDP in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five as a result of the starting point being
Speaker 3: just so strong at the moment.
Speaker 2: So there's a couple of things you didn't mention in
Speaker 2: contributing to the strength of the US economy, as well
Speaker 2: as some price support, and I want to throw those
Speaker 2: at you. So you didn't mention the mass of fiscal
Speaker 2: spends during the pandemic of CARES Act one and two
Speaker 2: under President Trump and KARS Act three under President Biden.
Speaker 2: Those were enormous. Is that pig through the python and
Speaker 2: we're still feeling the effect of that.
Speaker 3: So those were also very important reasons why, specifically the
Speaker 3: savings rate went up a lot in the household sext
Speaker 3: or so excess savings you and I have been emailing
Speaker 3: these charts back and forth. Excess savings were really high
Speaker 3: exactly because of those fiscal policies giving a lot of
Speaker 3: money to households, and as households were running down those
Speaker 3: excess savings, this was also a very important tail wind
Speaker 3: to the outlook. So I do agree that those things
Speaker 3: have also played a very critical role in why the
Speaker 3: economic data has continued to be so strong. Even the
Speaker 3: last non fum payrolls number we got was of course
Speaker 3: also very strong. And also again telling you that there
Speaker 3: are some tailwinds, and that pick through the python has
Speaker 3: played at a critical role in keeping the economy strong
Speaker 3: for a much longer period than what your economics textbook
Speaker 3: would have predicted.
Speaker 2: So there's there's so many different questions I want to
Speaker 2: throw at you from that. You mentioned cars, you mentioned labor,
Speaker 2: and you mentioned houses. All three of those sectors have
Speaker 2: a short fall of supply. We stop making cars for
Speaker 2: a couple of years during the pandemic, So now we've
Speaker 2: ramped up enough new car production still means we have
Speaker 2: a short fall of pre owned cars. Housing we underbuilt
Speaker 2: for a decade, there just doesn't and the number of
Speaker 2: homes for sale close to record lows, and it feels
Speaker 2: like the labor pool is as tight as it's ever
Speaker 2: been in our lifetimes. How significant are these supply issues
Speaker 2: to both growth and pricing?
Speaker 4: They are very important.
Speaker 3: And there is this as you and I also have
Speaker 3: talked about before this academic debate about what's inflation high
Speaker 3: because of supply or was it high because of demand?
Speaker 3: But exactly as you are outlining, it's a much more
Speaker 3: complicated situation where you both have supply constraints for housing
Speaker 3: for labor across the board. In autos in many other
Speaker 3: sexes because during the pandemic we were simply not able
Speaker 3: to produce enough of what was needed for the economy
Speaker 3: to go at full capacity. So therefore we did have
Speaker 3: a decline in supply and at the same time we
Speaker 3: had a significant increase in demand, including from the fiscal
Speaker 3: policies that you just mentioned, and those things together were
Speaker 3: a very important reason why inflation went up. So now
Speaker 3: you're asking, looking into twenty twenty five, are these things
Speaker 3: still here? I would say they are still here to
Speaker 3: a very significant degree. And even before we've talked about
Speaker 3: Trump policies and tariffs and restrictions in immigration and lower
Speaker 3: corporate taxes, all these things are still pointing in my view,
Speaker 3: to a situation where we are not out of the
Speaker 3: woods on inflation. The risk is that inflation could begin
Speaker 3: to see some lift simply because the fate is now
Speaker 3: cutting and we still have tailwinds from fiscal policy AI
Speaker 3: data under spending. We also have tailwinds from energy transition,
Speaker 3: and by the way, what we haven't talked about either,
Speaker 3: we also have tailwinds from defense spending, and we also,
Speaker 3: of course have tailwinds from fiscal policy. The chipsacked the
Speaker 3: Inflation Douction Act, the Infrastructure Act, and taken together, all
Speaker 3: these things do point to your question, namely that there
Speaker 3: is still a chance that we might see infasion go up,
Speaker 3: and therefore we might see the Fed potentially race interest
Speaker 3: rates in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: So you've been very constructive on the economy for the
Speaker 2: past two years. A lot of economists were expecting a
Speaker 2: recession in twenty two, twenty three, twenty four. They haven't
Speaker 2: gotten the recession they've been expecting. Why do you think
Speaker 2: the consensus was so wrong? Is it just that's what
Speaker 2: the textbook said exactly.
Speaker 3: I think we've been waiting for Godou for a long
Speaker 3: time and Godau basically has not arrived, and I don't
Speaker 3: think he will arrive, at least not in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: because I think everyone took that textbook out exactly as
Speaker 3: you just said, Barry, and said, wow, when the Fed
Speaker 3: racist interest rates, then the probabidias of recession goes up.
Speaker 4: You actually see that on.
Speaker 3: Your Bloomberg screen if you type ECFC go and look
Speaker 3: in the opper right hand corner, you can see that
Speaker 3: the probabidias of recession immediately when the Fed began to
Speaker 3: race interest rates in March of twenty twenty two, the
Speaker 3: contentus began to lift high, yeah, significantly the probability of recession.
Speaker 3: And it was telling you that all the economies on
Speaker 3: the street who were looking at what is the implication
Speaker 3: if the Fed racist interest rates, they were saying, it
Speaker 3: will absolutely be a recession. And what in my view
Speaker 3: was at least it's clear today and was the reason
Speaker 3: why we didn't get it was because we all underestimated
Speaker 3: fiscal policy. We're underestimated the excess savings, meaning the money
Speaker 3: that you just mentioned came into people's bank accounts, and
Speaker 3: we also under estimated the interest rate insensitivity of the
Speaker 3: Data center boom, and also the interest rate insensitivity of
Speaker 3: energy transition, and also the interest rate insensitivity of the
Speaker 3: fiscal policy from the CHIPSAC and the inflation arcid Act,
Speaker 3: and those tailwinds have just kept the economy a lot stronger.
Speaker 3: So people under estimated that it was not just about
Speaker 3: interest rates going up. That were tailwinds that kept the
Speaker 3: economy afloat and a lot stronger than what really almost
Speaker 3: everyone expected.
Speaker 2: So in twenty twenty four, the Fed finally talking about
Speaker 2: waiting for GOODO finally began cutting interest rates. You're one
Speaker 2: of the few economists who came out and said, Hey,
Speaker 2: the US economy is strong enough, we really don't need
Speaker 2: rake cuts. Explain your thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we said, and we were wrong in the
Speaker 3: beginning of last year that the Fed would not cut rates.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty four, they did cut rates now one
Speaker 3: hundred basis points.
Speaker 4: It is still being debated.
Speaker 3: I know this sounds very academic, whether that was actually
Speaker 3: a good idea or not, but it is clear that
Speaker 3: the Fed did end up cutting interest rates, with the
Speaker 3: main argument that inflation in June of twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: was nine percent, and it had come down to around
Speaker 3: three percent, So the Fed concluded three year is closer
Speaker 3: to our target of two So this allows us to
Speaker 3: begin to cut interest rates. The problem is where we
Speaker 3: sit right now here. Of course, at the beginning of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, that will. In the last few months,
Speaker 3: inflation has proven more sticky, the median CPI measure from
Speaker 3: the Cleveland Fed, the TRIMP Mean, the various measures of
Speaker 3: acyclical inflation, and of course also various measures from the
Speaker 3: inflation from the New York Fed that also looks at
Speaker 3: trends in underlying the uIP measure us saying that inflation
Speaker 3: is beginning to move more sideways and some indicators begin
Speaker 3: to move up.
Speaker 4: So again, even.
Speaker 3: Before we have spoken about Trump policy is potentially giving
Speaker 3: a lift to even as if it's modest lift to inflation,
Speaker 3: the problem is that inflation today is three and three
Speaker 3: is not two. And if I started three and I
Speaker 3: begin to add a risk of a strong economy, and
Speaker 3: I add a risk of both terriffs and restrictions and immigration,
Speaker 3: the risk is not that inflation goes down to two,
Speaker 3: but the risk is that three begins to become higher.
Speaker 3: So that's why we still are in the camp of
Speaker 3: thinking that, well, maybe we are still a little bit
Speaker 3: early in declaring victory over this issue. On hey, inflation
Speaker 3: is no longer a problem, because maybe inflation could come
Speaker 3: back in twenty twenty five and we just don't quite
Speaker 3: yet have it completely under control. And that's what AFMC
Speaker 3: members have been saying in speeches, namely that well, maybe
Speaker 3: we need to go a little bit more slowly, and
Speaker 3: maybe we should even just take a pause and take
Speaker 3: a break and see, well how long time it will
Speaker 3: it take before inflation begins to show more signs of
Speaker 3: it actually continuously moving low.
Speaker 2: One. Well, in the last presser, it's pretty clear Jerome
Speaker 2: Powell wants to take a break. But it raises the
Speaker 2: question if all this is true about the strength of
Speaker 2: the US economy. And I completely agree with you. I've
Speaker 2: been trying to figure out what is their thinking why
Speaker 2: would they cut? And I kind of came up with
Speaker 2: two theories, and I want to bounce them off you.
Speaker 2: One is, the bottom half of the economy really is
Speaker 2: feeling the effects of higher credit, whether it's credit cards,
Speaker 2: automobile loans, to say nothing of new mortgage rates. And
Speaker 2: then second, related to mortgage rates, so many people have
Speaker 2: locked in low rates. It's almost a set of golden
Speaker 2: handcuffs and they're stuck to that house that they can't
Speaker 2: move out of because the financing costs of a newer house,
Speaker 2: a larger house, or wherever they want to move is
Speaker 2: just so much greater than where they are. All the
Speaker 2: supply is frozen place remotely close or what do you think?
Speaker 3: So the argument that the Fed or their firmc laid
Speaker 3: out for why they were cutting interest rates was simply
Speaker 3: that inflation had come down and their goal at their
Speaker 3: federal reserve is the dual meant they're given by Congress, namely,
Speaker 3: they need to have inflation at two percent and they
Speaker 3: need to have full employment. And given inflation was closer
Speaker 3: to two percent, three percent is closer to two than
Speaker 3: nine is to two. They were saying, we can begin.
Speaker 4: To cut interest rates.
Speaker 3: But it's absolutely clear what you're saying that It was
Speaker 3: definitely the case and continue to be the case that
Speaker 3: who is it that is impacted when interest rates are high?
Speaker 3: It is people and balanteed with a lot of debt.
Speaker 4: That is both the case.
Speaker 3: In credit, meaning for firms, but that is also the
Speaker 3: case for households. Households that have a lot of debt
Speaker 3: are more vulnerable when interest rates are high. And who
Speaker 3: are the households, as you were just saying, who have
Speaker 3: more debt? That is by definition young households, because when
Speaker 3: you're young, you have more debt on your credit card,
Speaker 3: on your auto loan, on your student, on your mortgage.
Speaker 3: So if interest rates are higher for longer, it by
Speaker 3: definition has a more negative impact on lower income and
Speaker 3: younger households because when you're young, you're generally also lower income.
Speaker 3: So it is the reality, it's not very comfortable for
Speaker 3: the FED to talk about it this way, but it
Speaker 3: is real reality that FED policy has distributional consequences. It
Speaker 3: hurts those who have debt and it helps those who
Speaker 3: have assets. And that's exactly the distribution across the income distribution,
Speaker 3: across h across fight coss course, namely that if you
Speaker 3: are a low income, low fight call and younger household
Speaker 3: you have been hit harder by interest rates being higher.
Speaker 4: So that's why when interest rates started to go.
Speaker 3: Down, that would likely not that this was the goal,
Speaker 3: but that would likely then be helping these households that
Speaker 3: have been harder hit and more negatively impacted by high
Speaker 3: interest rates.
Speaker 2: So we look at the inflation rate in the United
Speaker 2: States hanging around two and a half percent, little under three. Well,
Speaker 2: it depends on what you're looking at CPI or CORE
Speaker 2: or PCE or whatever. But you look around the rest
Speaker 2: of the world x US, it's like four and a
Speaker 2: half percent. Why does the rest of the world have
Speaker 2: so much higher of an inflation rate than we do
Speaker 2: here in the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So one important answer to that is that Europe
Speaker 3: is unfortunately not in a particularly good situation relative to
Speaker 3: the US. Europe is having the challenge that China is
Speaker 3: slowing down. Remember, China is slowing down for three reasons.
Speaker 3: Slowing down because of demographic problems. Remember, the workforce in
Speaker 3: China is about a billion people, and the United Nations
Speaker 3: is forecasting that over the next ten years that will
Speaker 3: shrink from a billion to nine hundred million. That means
Speaker 3: that we are removing one hundred million people in the
Speaker 3: Chinese workforce over the next decade, meaning one hundred million people.
Speaker 3: Few are working in the service sector, in the manufacturing sector,
Speaker 3: one hundred million people. Few are paying taxes, one hundred
Speaker 3: million people. Few are demanding housing and at different housing needs.
Speaker 3: All those things a Japanese style hit wind to Chinese growth. Overall,
Speaker 3: China is also having at deflating housing bubble. Existing home
Speaker 3: prices are falling nine percent, new home prices are falling
Speaker 3: six percent. And finally, China is also engaged in a
Speaker 3: trade war not only with US, but also with Europe.
Speaker 3: So because of the headwinds to China, we also have
Speaker 3: some headwinds therefore to Germany in particular, but Europe, because
Speaker 3: Europe produces a lot of theirs simply line in China
Speaker 3: and if we don't have that demand from China for
Speaker 3: assembly lines and for manufacturing goods and for capital in
Speaker 3: sensitive goods.
Speaker 4: That means that Europe is also in trouble.
Speaker 3: So the problem which you asked about is Germany, and
Speaker 3: therefore the European economy is not in a good place either.
Speaker 3: And the channels now is that the service sector inflation
Speaker 3: in Europe is driven a lot by wage inflation because
Speaker 3: a lot of wages are basically directly spilling over the
Speaker 3: service sector and therefore that's how it's measured when you
Speaker 3: measure inflation in services. And the concusion is because of
Speaker 3: trade unions and while wage negotiations and bargaining is being delayed,
Speaker 3: we still to this day have wage negotiations that i
Speaker 3: function of what we're in what inflation numbers for the
Speaker 3: last several years, and looking back, inflation was high. So
Speaker 3: that's why with the delay, wage inflation is also high.
Speaker 3: And therefore with the delay, service x inflation.
Speaker 4: Is also high.
Speaker 3: So it's just because of some institutional reasons. Europe just
Speaker 3: has a different wage and price dynamic because of this
Speaker 3: delay in wate negotiations, and that is keeping inflation rates
Speaker 3: more elevated, especially in services. Inflation in Europe right to
Speaker 3: what we're having in the US now.
Speaker 2: I know, the thirty year fixed MORTGAGEES is, you know,
Speaker 2: beloved here in the US most of Europe, it's it's
Speaker 2: a variable inflation. It's a variable rate. How does that
Speaker 2: variable rate impact inflation in Europe? And how significant is
Speaker 2: that to their overall equivalent of CPI.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is really really important.
Speaker 3: I mean, as we spoke about earlier, I started my
Speaker 3: lovely career at the IMF and there s a D.
Speaker 3: And at the IMF and there was a D. Your
Speaker 3: job is actually quite simple. If the US is good,
Speaker 3: Europe is good. If the US is bad, Europe is bad.
Speaker 3: But this is not the case today. And exactly what
Speaker 3: you're saying is a very important reason, namely that the
Speaker 3: interest rates sensitivity of the US economy is a lot
Speaker 3: lower simply because people have locked in interest rates. Whereas
Speaker 3: think about literally, as you mentioned all other OECD countries
Speaker 3: in the UK, in France, Australia, Canada, take the Bank
Speaker 3: of England. When interest rates go up, mortgage payments for
Speaker 3: households go up immediately. So that means that monetary policy
Speaker 3: has a much more immediate negative impact on the European
Speaker 3: and in this case the UK economy than it does
Speaker 3: in the US, simply because exactly the mortgage market is
Speaker 3: much more a function of short term interistrates than long
Speaker 3: term insterstrates.
Speaker 4: And why is that the case.
Speaker 3: That's the case because in the US, and you wrote
Speaker 3: a book about this many years ago, we have decided
Speaker 3: that for Fanny and Freddy, for you to get a
Speaker 3: conventional mortgage, you must show up at their doorstep with
Speaker 3: a thirty year fixed rate mortgage. You cannot show up
Speaker 3: with any other mortgage. Then the government will not guarantee it.
Speaker 3: If you show up with that, they will guarantee it.
Speaker 3: So that means that the mortgage market is ninety five
Speaker 3: percent of mortgage are standing at thirty year fixed and
Speaker 3: that is simply not the case basically in any other
Speaker 3: OECD country. And that means the US this unique feature
Speaker 3: that Central Bank of fit policy simply has less of
Speaker 3: an impact. It's simply less potent relative to what you see,
Speaker 3: especially in Europe, but also again UK, Australia, Canada and
Speaker 3: the rest of their West countries.
Speaker 2: You also drop the data point that I have to
Speaker 2: follow up the billion to nine hundred million shift in
Speaker 2: workers over the next decade. Essentially you're saying China is
Speaker 2: losing a million workers a month for the next decade.
Speaker 2: Imagine if nine non farm payroll came out each month
Speaker 2: and it was negative eight hundred and fifty thousand people.
Speaker 2: That's just an astonishing data point.
Speaker 3: And that is exactly because of the one child policy
Speaker 3: that of course is beginning to catch up with the
Speaker 3: Chinese economy. So if you think about the consequences of
Speaker 3: the one child policy, is of course that if you
Speaker 3: have a small a population, the population will begin to shrink,
Speaker 3: and the consequence, of course is that that you will
Speaker 3: get really what I would describe as Japanese style hit
Speaker 3: wins from a demographic perspective, similar to what we have
Speaker 3: seen in Japan now for many decades.
Speaker 2: So we have a soft China, although Japan seems to
Speaker 2: be getting out of its own way and doing pretty well. Yes,
Speaker 2: Europe is kind of struggling. The rest of the emerging
Speaker 2: market world seems to be doing okay outside of hotspots
Speaker 2: where there are problems. How do you get to a
Speaker 2: two point three percent GDP in the US given all
Speaker 2: that challenging data points around the rest of the world.
Speaker 3: Yes, so there are some very important aspects of this
Speaker 3: name in the US is actually, and I know this
Speaker 3: sounds a little bit academic, but the US is actually
Speaker 3: the only economy in the world that's a close economy.
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is that that's an
Speaker 3: economy that does not depend too much on the rest
Speaker 3: of the world. You always talk about in the literature
Speaker 3: in economics about the small open economy. So Denmark is
Speaker 3: a small open economy, Australia is a small open economy.
Speaker 3: Canada is actually also a small open economy because they
Speaker 3: depend on others. But the US really doesn't depend to
Speaker 3: the same degree on others the West the way that
Speaker 3: others depend on the US. And why is that important here?
Speaker 3: That's very important because if we take the three reasons
Speaker 3: we talked about earlier why the US is doing so well,
Speaker 3: less interest rates sensitivity, we have an AI and data
Speaker 3: center boom, we have strong fiscal policies. These are all
Speaker 3: things that we simply don't have in other countries. Instead,
Speaker 3: we have some significant headwinds to growth in other countries.
Speaker 3: So that means that at the aggregate level, the US
Speaker 3: continues to do well for some very idiosyncratic tailwinds and Europe,
Speaker 3: and the rest of the world is not doing well
Speaker 3: from actually some different idiosyncratic headwinds. And now finally for markets.
Speaker 3: Why is this important Because if you think about it,
Speaker 3: for this in p. Five hundred, suddenly this becomes relevant
Speaker 3: what's going on in the rest of the world because
Speaker 3: this inp. Five one hundred is not the USGDP forty
Speaker 3: percent of revenue and the SNP five hundred comes from abroad.
Speaker 3: So if Apple sells fewer iPhones in Canada, in Europe,
Speaker 3: in Australia, that will have vacations for Apple's earnings. Likewise,
Speaker 3: SMP five hundred companies that sell things up broad if
Speaker 3: the rest of the world is bad, that could be
Speaker 3: one way that this could begin to have negative consequences
Speaker 3: for this and P.
Speaker 4: Five hundred.
Speaker 3: That's not my baseline forecast, but I am getting more
Speaker 3: and more word about this divergence with the US doing
Speaker 3: good and everyone else doing poorly. The consequence of that
Speaker 3: could be that that could ultimately show up in earnings
Speaker 3: because this in p. Five hundred is to a very
Speaker 3: significant degree. Again, forty percent of revenue in this INP.
Speaker 3: Five hundred comes from abroad, and abroad is not doing well.
Speaker 3: Then the revenues from abroad will also begin to have
Speaker 3: a negative impact on earnings for SMP.
Speaker 2: Last international question before we jump to the new Trump administration.
Speaker 2: It's kind of fascinating Japan couldn't get out of its
Speaker 2: own way for decades. Their market had peaked in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, took almost thirty years to set new highs,
Speaker 2: more than thirty years. Why did Japan suddenly start performing
Speaker 2: not just the stock market but their economy. Suddenly it
Speaker 2: looks like Japan is number two to the US and
Speaker 2: everybody else's distant third.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are three reasons why Japan is doing so
Speaker 3: well at the moment. Number one is that the exchange
Speaker 3: rate has depreciated a lot, and Japan is an exporting economy.
Speaker 3: It is again a small, open economy that is definitely
Speaker 3: experiencing a tailwind to economic growth from exports moving higher
Speaker 3: simply because of the depreciation in the exchange rate. The
Speaker 3: second reason is also that in Japan there's actually been
Speaker 3: some quite fundamental changes in governance. There have been some
Speaker 3: quite fundamental changes in the policies set up in terms
Speaker 3: of how at least the government talks about corporates and
Speaker 3: how they talk about finance. There is an increased willingness
Speaker 3: in Japan to give more support to basically people coming
Speaker 3: and buying companies, lending to companies. So that's why private equity,
Speaker 3: private credit has been busy in Japan, simply because it's
Speaker 3: been getting a lot of policy support from politicians that
Speaker 3: want to change the governance in Japanese companies. And third
Speaker 3: and finally, Japan is actually also and this might sound
Speaker 3: a little bit peculiar, but they're actually benefiting from some
Speaker 3: of the problems in China now that suddenly Japan is becoming,
Speaker 3: of course still a big manufacturing nation, but also now
Speaker 3: a place where more investment is taking place now that
Speaker 3: there have been these renewed worries about the outlook for China.
Speaker 3: So the short answer to your question is the exchange
Speaker 3: rate is supporting the Japanese economic outlook, changes in governance
Speaker 3: and changes in corporate finance, and the political support for
Speaker 3: activist investors has also been supportive for the Japanese outlook
Speaker 3: and for Japanese financial markets. And finally, Japan has also
Speaker 3: been benefiting for geopolitical reasons for the tailwinds coming because
Speaker 3: of some of the challenges that we're seeing in China
Speaker 3: at the moment.
Speaker 2: Huh, really really fascinating. So we were talking about the
Speaker 2: state of the global economy. Now we have a brand
Speaker 2: new president. Let's start out just discussing how lucky this
Speaker 2: guy is to inherit for the second time. An economy that,
Speaker 2: to use your words, is firing on all cylinders.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the economy is actually in great shape today. We
Speaker 3: have an U employment rate of four point one percent.
Speaker 3: GDP growth has for the last several quarters been around
Speaker 3: three percent, and that's also what their linefit GDPs the
Speaker 3: mid now is for the fourth quarter. So the starting
Speaker 3: point is a fairly strong economy. The only little macroeconomic
Speaker 3: thing you can worry about is what we have talked about.
Speaker 3: Name the inflation is still a little bit too high
Speaker 3: around three percent on CPI when it comes to both
Speaker 3: core and headline. And that's of course the challenge here
Speaker 3: name me and already strong economy and a little bit
Speaker 3: too elevated inflation. That's the starting point for where we
Speaker 3: sit today.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk about taxes and regulation and tariffs.
Speaker 2: But before we get there, I know President Trump focuses
Speaker 2: on the stock market to a lesser degree, the bond
Speaker 2: market how do you think about valuations for both equities
Speaker 2: and fixed income here in the beginning of twenty five.
Speaker 3: Well, if you there are various ways of looking at that,
Speaker 3: but one simple way of looking at that is to
Speaker 3: go back and look at the Shiller cyclically adjusted PE ratio.
Speaker 3: And this Shiller cyclically adjusted PE ratio is basically, as
Speaker 3: you know too well, a complicated way of saying, let's
Speaker 3: try to take the business cycle out of earnings by
Speaker 3: taking a ten year average of earnings for the last
Speaker 3: ten years and ask the question, where is the stock
Speaker 3: market whereas there in p. Five hundred relative to a
Speaker 3: ten year moving average of earnings, And the answer to
Speaker 3: that is that the Schiller cyclically adjusted PE ratio, which
Speaker 3: is an attempt to try to correct the stock market
Speaker 3: valuations for the business cycle, is currently at a very
Speaker 3: elevated thirty seven.
Speaker 4: That means rember in the long run. The PE ratio
Speaker 4: for this in P.
Speaker 3: Five hundred is sixteen over the last fifty years. So
Speaker 3: Schiller cyclically adjusted so called CAPE ratio at thirty seven
Speaker 3: is and thirty eight and approaching forty is indeed a
Speaker 3: very very elevated level of valuation.
Speaker 2: So so let me ask you two questions about that. First,
Speaker 2: we're not that far apart in age. For most of
Speaker 2: our careers, CAPE has been elevated almost the entire time.
Speaker 2: If you were not inequities because of an elevated CAPE,
Speaker 2: well you missed the hell of a move.
Speaker 3: It just happens to be the case that with the
Speaker 3: Trump presidency, this is the highest level of CAPE at
Speaker 3: the start of any presidency going back in the last
Speaker 3: fifty years.
Speaker 4: Huh So that means.
Speaker 3: That we are starting at an extremely elevated level of valuations,
Speaker 3: at least on the Shillos syclically adjusted level. So let's
Speaker 3: now turn to other things that are going on in
Speaker 3: the stock market. As you know much better than me,
Speaker 3: forty percent of this and P. Five hundred is the
Speaker 3: top ten stocks. You also know that most of the
Speaker 3: returns have been coming from really the Nvidia having great performance.
Speaker 3: And we also know very well that, of course, if
Speaker 3: you have such a high concentration of the Magnificent seven
Speaker 3: and the top ten biggest stocks in your index, this
Speaker 3: goes completely against Page one in my finance textbook. Page
Speaker 3: one in my finance textbook says you must diversify, and
Speaker 3: if you take a hundred fresh dollars and put into
Speaker 3: this in p.
Speaker 4: Five hundred.
Speaker 3: Today, you're not diversified. You are basically betting on in
Speaker 3: Vidia still having good earnings. And I love sitting there
Speaker 3: on a Wednesday afternoon looking at whether in video earnings
Speaker 3: where good or we're bad, and I love the adrenaline
Speaker 3: russ that comes with investing in Nvidia and a lot
Speaker 3: of other Magnificent seven stocks.
Speaker 4: But the conclusion still is the.
Speaker 3: Same that, well, if I'm saving money for the long
Speaker 3: run and I'm trying to do capital preservations, do you
Speaker 3: want to expose myself to the risk that I will
Speaker 3: basically be putting all my money on red, namely on
Speaker 3: in Vidia and for that matter, Tesla and the other
Speaker 3: names that I am in the Magnificent seven still doing well.
Speaker 3: That could be that they will do well. There are
Speaker 3: also some arguments why they will not do well. But
Speaker 3: they're certainly very expensive, and that's an argument in my
Speaker 3: view for definitely being more diversified rather than just having
Speaker 3: exposure in this and p. Five one hundred mainly to
Speaker 3: those major names that have gotten so much attention.
Speaker 2: So could we make that same argument? For a long time,
Speaker 2: it was Intel, and then it was Cisco, and it
Speaker 2: seems like every decade you have this Concer tradtion at
Speaker 2: the top. But since the SMB five hundred is market
Speaker 2: cap way it did when and at one point in
Speaker 2: time twenty five years ago, Cisco was the biggest stock
Speaker 2: in the SMB five hundred and the Nasdaq one hundred,
Speaker 2: doesn't it sort of automatically adjust as the company shrinks,
Speaker 2: you own less of it in the index, and it
Speaker 2: I don't know if self correcting is the right word,
Speaker 2: but it seems that you buy the whole basket, you'll
Speaker 2: have the NVIDIAs along with a whole lot of other dogs.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. I do think that's absolutely correct. But
Speaker 3: that's why where we're sitting today. If we agree, and
Speaker 3: listeners don't have to agree with this, but let's say
Speaker 3: that at least some people think that the Magnificent seven
Speaker 3: are very, very expensive. The trailing PE ratio for Tesla
Speaker 3: is one hundred and eighty. The trailing PE ratio for
Speaker 3: Nvidia is like sixty. The trailing PE ratio for Amazon
Speaker 3: is like forty five. Remember again, the PE ratio has historically,
Speaker 3: on average in the last fifty years been sixteen. So
Speaker 3: if it is the case that these companies are expensive,
Speaker 3: I think that a more intelligent approach, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: would be to say, we're probably going to see some
Speaker 3: of these companies actually begin to fade and other companies
Speaker 3: begin to come in. It's a hard issue to pick
Speaker 3: which ones it is. But maybe at least in this situation,
Speaker 3: let's agree that maybe it may be a better strategy
Speaker 3: at least to buy the s and P. Four hundred
Speaker 3: and ninety three, because that at least I'm not exposed
Speaker 3: to those seven stocks are so expensive.
Speaker 2: But by the equal way, and by the equal way way.
Speaker 4: You're not alternative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in that sense, I of course here and
Speaker 3: I understand what you're saying, and I do know that
Speaker 3: the returns in the last two years have been coming
Speaker 3: to a very last degree from those specific stocks. But
Speaker 3: all I'm saying is that if we all agree that
Speaker 3: this is the case, why not take the consequence and
Speaker 3: then alternatives you can if you have to be in
Speaker 3: public equities, you could buy this in p. Four hundred,
Speaker 3: which is a way to have exposure, not to the
Speaker 3: small cap companies. Remember, in the rust of two thousand,
Speaker 3: forty percent of companies have no earnings. So if interest
Speaker 3: rates are higher for longer and you have no earnings,
Speaker 3: that means that your coverage ratios are low. That means,
Speaker 3: of course that therefore you're going to struck more if
Speaker 3: interest rates are indeed higher for longer. So I don't
Speaker 3: like large cap because I think that's so expensive. I
Speaker 3: don't like small cap because I think they have no earnings.
Speaker 3: That's why I think value stocks of companies in the middle,
Speaker 3: both in properting and private space. But in this case,
Speaker 3: if you have to be in public SMP four hundred
Speaker 3: will be probably doing at least my reading a better
Speaker 3: job relative to the other parts of the spectrum.
Speaker 2: So we hear during an inauguration week, let's talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about the new administration, probably the we can't
Speaker 2: go anywhere without starting with tariffs. How do you feel
Speaker 2: our trading partners are going to respond to Trump's tariffs?
Speaker 2: Is he serious about this? Is this a negotiating tactic?
Speaker 2: How do you put this into your intellectual framework?
Speaker 3: So the Tax Foundation has quantified that if Trump does
Speaker 3: through sixty percent on China, twenty five percent on Canada,
Speaker 3: twenty five percent of Mexico, and ten percent on Europe,
Speaker 3: we will get an overall level of tariffs that will
Speaker 3: go up to eighteen percent, which is the same level
Speaker 3: that we had in the nineteen thirties when we had
Speaker 3: trade walls and the economy was not doing very well.
Speaker 4: So if you do have a complete all.
Speaker 3: In on all fronts when it comes to tariffs, then
Speaker 3: of course we should begin to worry about that. If
Speaker 3: everything we buy you and me in stores goes up
Speaker 3: quote unquote buy sixty percent because now there's sixty percent
Speaker 3: tariffs on China, then a good guess is that that
Speaker 3: means that sales by stores in US is going to
Speaker 3: go down. And if sales start to go down, that
Speaker 3: means that GDP will also be at risk of going down.
Speaker 3: So that's why tariffs of course comes by definition with
Speaker 3: a stackflationary risk that you raise prices and your lower sales.
Speaker 3: So with that in mind, that doesn't mean that we
Speaker 3: will not get tariffs. It doesn't mean that we will
Speaker 3: get all in tariffs. No one really knows exactly how
Speaker 3: much we will get, but we do know that A
Speaker 3: very important aspect of this is that we also don't
Speaker 3: know how the retaliation will be exactly as you're highlighting
Speaker 3: from other countries.
Speaker 4: So that's why tariffs overall and remains. We didn't get.
Speaker 3: Any executive orders on tariffs other than saying that we
Speaker 3: will investigate it here. But we didn't get any executive
Speaker 3: orders on tariffs on day one. So we'll see how
Speaker 3: far we go and what will happen. But at this point,
Speaker 3: it's very clear that if tariff's I imposed, it is
Speaker 3: something that the textbook would tell you that we would
Speaker 3: involve high invasion and at the same time downward pressure
Speaker 3: on GDP.
Speaker 2: And just to clarify that plus sixty percent, that's not
Speaker 2: your forecast as to what's going to happen. That's hey,
Speaker 2: if what we're discussing gets put into place, exactly, this
Speaker 2: is the worst case.
Speaker 3: Scenario exactly because the thing is these are the I mean,
Speaker 3: Trump on the campaign trail talked about this in many
Speaker 3: different ways. But if this were to be implemented at
Speaker 3: sixty percent towards China, think about it. Everything you buy,
Speaker 3: your iPhone, your T shirt, your clothing, toys for your kids,
Speaker 3: everything would go up in theory by sixty percent. And
Speaker 3: that's of course something that would have implications both for
Speaker 3: prices of those things but also for the sales of
Speaker 3: those things.
Speaker 2: What about the restrictions on immigration, both legal and illegal.
Speaker 3: So Pew estimates that there are about eleven million illegal
Speaker 3: immigrants in the US, and roughly half of them probably
Speaker 3: have a job, so that's around six million. Total employment
Speaker 3: in the US is about one hundred and sixty million.
Speaker 3: So if there's a hu nred and sixty million people
Speaker 3: in the US in total that have a job and
Speaker 3: six million of these are illegal immigrants, that means if
Speaker 3: you remove millions of people with through deportations, you will
Speaker 3: remove like two three four percent of the workforce. And
Speaker 3: Pew and others American Immigration Council, they find that where
Speaker 3: do illegal immigrants work, They work in three sectors agriculture, construction,
Speaker 3: and restaurants or services. So the consequence of this is
Speaker 3: up to fourteen percent of workers in agriculture and construction
Speaker 3: who are illegal immigrants. And if this is the case,
Speaker 3: then of course means that you will likely see wage
Speaker 3: inflation in construction, wage inflation in agriculture, and wage inflation
Speaker 3: in restaurants. So that also means that if we do
Speaker 3: get deportations, even if we get restrictions and immigration, that's
Speaker 3: very meaningful in particular because the starting point is a
Speaker 3: very strong economy. The consequence is that I will begin
Speaker 3: to worry again about not only overheating and inflation, but
Speaker 3: maybe also overheating in the label market. If you remove
Speaker 3: workers and suddenly there are fewer workers left to compete
Speaker 3: for their available jobs, and that could exact be why
Speaker 3: you begin to see in the jolts that job openings
Speaker 3: actually begin to move higher, because it could be that
Speaker 3: there's already some issues around what is the labelmar going
Speaker 3: to look like if we are going down a road
Speaker 3: where we may see deportations or some very significant restrictions
Speaker 3: on immigration.
Speaker 2: All right, so those first two are the negative policies.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about potentially positive policies like corporate tax cuts
Speaker 2: and deregulation. How do you see that impacting the economy
Speaker 2: in the markets?
Speaker 3: Yes, So if we rewind just for a second and
Speaker 3: think back to twenty seventeen, where the corporate tax rates
Speaker 3: were lowered from thirty five to twenty one percent, and
Speaker 3: remember household taxes were lower from thirty nine point six
Speaker 3: to thirty seven percent. In twenty seventeen, we saw both
Speaker 3: household taxes came down and corporate taxes came down. And
Speaker 3: now Trump has talked about lowering corporate taxes and domestic
Speaker 3: manufacturers in addition to from twenty one but all the
Speaker 3: way down to fifteen percent. That means that manufacturers will
Speaker 3: now see if this happens, of course, a tailwind to production.
Speaker 3: Just as a footnote, as you and I of course
Speaker 3: also talk about often, manufacturing is actually only about ten
Speaker 3: percent of GDP and ten percent of employment, So it's
Speaker 3: a little bit special that a sexer that's only ten
Speaker 3: percent of the economy continues to get so much attention.
Speaker 3: But nevertheless, the definition of make America great again is
Speaker 3: probably that manufacturing should come back. And if that's the case,
Speaker 3: even though it only makes up ten percent of GDP,
Speaker 3: lowering corporate taxes for domestic manufacturers would indeed also be
Speaker 3: something that's positive, So that policy alone would be a
Speaker 3: lift to inflation and also a lift to GDP. And
Speaker 3: on deregulation, of course, we don't know quite exactly what
Speaker 3: deregulation is going to look like. If it's for financial services,
Speaker 3: if it's for energy, if it's for transportation, we remain
Speaker 3: to be seen what area it will be in. But
Speaker 3: broadly speaking, of course, deregulation would also be releasing animal spirits.
Speaker 3: It would also be boosting GDP growth, and it would
Speaker 3: actually also deregulation normally would be putting downward pressure on inflation,
Speaker 3: at least in the longer run. So those policies exactly
Speaker 3: as you're saying, Barry, would certainly be tailwinds a particulars
Speaker 3: GDP growth.
Speaker 2: We've discussed policy uncertainty as a potential concern because we
Speaker 2: have no idea what the taraffy going look like, what
Speaker 2: the deregulations will look like. At least there's some specificity
Speaker 2: with manufacturing corporate tax rates and exactly where the president
Speaker 2: wants those to go. How do you deal with the
Speaker 2: variability of Hey, we have no idea what this looks like.
Speaker 2: How do you build a model with so many unknowns
Speaker 2: built into it?
Speaker 3: This is indeed very complicated from a forecasting perspective. There
Speaker 3: is no room in my Excel spreadsheet for the US
Speaker 3: economic outlook to stuff in uncertainty. I can have, and
Speaker 3: I do have, various small mickey mouse models where vix
Speaker 3: and the move indicts and volatility measures are included, but
Speaker 3: they are not a central part of the O world outlook,
Speaker 3: simply because as you're saying, we just don't know exactly
Speaker 3: how to quantify that risk. But that being said, it
Speaker 3: is still the case that if there is uncertainty, that
Speaker 3: does all obviously have implications for business planning, for household planning.
Speaker 3: If you don't know what's coming, if you don't know
Speaker 3: exactly what the nature of policies is going to look like,
Speaker 3: then of course it does bring some elevated levels of
Speaker 3: risk that people may be holding back with doing things
Speaker 3: the otherwise would have done simply because of the uncertainty
Speaker 3: of everything from immigration policies, tax policies, tariffs, and all
Speaker 3: the other things that we have talked about. So that's
Speaker 3: why policy uncertainty is something that is holding back investment
Speaker 3: and spending decisions by households and by firms.
Speaker 2: So we talked earlier about CAPEX how significant our administration
Speaker 2: policies to corporate America spending and investing and building out
Speaker 2: what is likely to be the next generation of economic drivers.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that there are two dimensions to that issue. Namely,
Speaker 3: first of all, we already have in place a number
Speaker 3: of important tailwinds to CAPEX and business spending, namely AI
Speaker 3: and data center boom. It doesn't matter what their fitfunds
Speaker 3: rate is doing, we will have an AI and data
Speaker 3: center boom no matter what interest rates are doing, because
Speaker 3: everyone wants to invest and should be investing in AI. Secondly,
Speaker 3: we probably also have energy transition because energy is needed
Speaker 3: to power the data centers. I also think strongly this
Speaker 3: is getting financing, including from US at Apollo, long term
Speaker 3: investments in energy transition, long term investments in data centers,
Speaker 3: because these long term investments are simply needed and this
Speaker 3: is something that needs to be done. We will also
Speaker 3: have a structural and tale went also from probably defense.
Speaker 3: Defense spending has been going up. The rest of the
Speaker 3: world is also spending more on defense. Again, that is
Speaker 3: also something that is humming in the background supporting growth overall.
Speaker 3: Now specifically to different policies obviously with deregulation, obviously with
Speaker 3: tax cuts, obviously broadly speaking, with policies that are America
Speaker 3: first and make America great again, will probably from a
Speaker 3: cyclical perspective, also be giving a boost to cap expending domestically.
Speaker 3: One way of saying the cyclical part of the outlook
Speaker 3: is really that the animal spirits that have been released
Speaker 3: after Trump was elected, now that companies have at least
Speaker 3: a view seems to be that there's a more business
Speaker 3: friendly environment and for that reason, more business spending will
Speaker 3: be taking place, is from a cyclic perspective, adding to
Speaker 3: the other structural things that I just listed.
Speaker 4: So that's a.
Speaker 3: Reason to be actually quite bullish overall on the KAPIS
Speaker 3: and business spending outlook.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned defense, you mentioned energy, what about technology,
Speaker 2: and what about crypto? Seems to have found a whole
Speaker 2: new tailwind with the most recent election.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's of course a lot more complicated and
Speaker 3: more reason we got a coin both from the President
Speaker 3: and of course also from Millennia, and this is raising,
Speaker 3: of course some different questions about the crypto world more generally.
Speaker 3: But I will say that the technology and blockchain and
Speaker 3: investment in AI and investment generally speaking and getting more
Speaker 3: productive and doing things more productively and efficiently is certainly
Speaker 3: something that is here to stay. And I think that that,
Speaker 3: broadly speaking, is also a tail in two the overall outlook.
Speaker 2: Huh, really fascinating. I only have you for a couple
Speaker 2: more minutes. Let's jump to our favorite questions that I
Speaker 2: get to ask all of my guests. It's great having
Speaker 2: that baseline of what everybody else has said, but let's
Speaker 2: just start really simply, what's keeping you entertaining these days?
Speaker 2: What are you watching or listening to?
Speaker 3: So one of my favorite podcasts, of course, is Master's
Speaker 3: in Business. Stop enough, Okay, but that's true. I know
Speaker 3: you ought to more than five hundred episodes. I can't
Speaker 3: believe it's ten years ago since I said with you
Speaker 3: here last time.
Speaker 2: I know when I first began, I had dark hair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I actually had hair, so I take that
Speaker 3: I was perhaps one of your first customers here in
Speaker 3: the studio. But I do so listen to we have
Speaker 3: actually our own review from Apollo podcast. But I also watched.
Speaker 3: One series that I've been watching is The Jacal on Peacock,
Speaker 3: which is basically very very James Bond like the series
Speaker 3: about a guy who's going around Europe and doing all
Speaker 3: kinds of things and and what's.
Speaker 2: The name of that Jackal the chaquelle Jackal or Jackal?
Speaker 2: How are you pronouncing life like the spy novel The
Speaker 2: Jackal exactly? Oh really, I'm trying to remember who wrote that.
Speaker 3: So there was This was originally a movie in France
Speaker 3: in the nineteen seventies. But this is something that's playing
Speaker 3: now on Peacock and I've been watching this is like
Speaker 3: I think it's eight episodes and he's traveling around Europe.
Speaker 3: It's really fascinating. It's actually it's really well done.
Speaker 2: We mentioned Binky earlier. Tell us about your mentors who
Speaker 2: helped shape your career.
Speaker 3: Well, my first mentor was my professor and economics in Copenhagen.
Speaker 3: His name is Neil Tigison. He just turned ninety and
Speaker 3: I celebrated his birthday here in December. But he was
Speaker 3: the one that really put me on track to thinking
Speaker 3: about economics. I did my PSD with him and he
Speaker 3: sent me that year to Princeton and he was the
Speaker 3: one who got me going first. And then when I
Speaker 3: joined the IMF, Binkie was there. There were also several others.
Speaker 3: David Ferguslanda also played a very important role, and there
Speaker 3: was also another actually happened to be Danish guy. His
Speaker 3: name is Fleming Larsen, he's now retired, who was also
Speaker 3: a very important vintor for me. And then when I
Speaker 3: came to the WCD, I worked very closely together with
Speaker 3: the gentleman called Vincent Cohen who's actually still there also,
Speaker 3: and also another colleague elan Is Sayers, who's also still there.
Speaker 3: So they have all been teaching me various ways of
Speaker 3: how do you think about things, the importance of a framework,
Speaker 3: the importance of what are the arguments that we put
Speaker 3: up on the scale for something happening. There are some
Speaker 3: arguments why this stock market may be going up, there's
Speaker 3: some arguments why this stock market may be going down.
Speaker 3: Let's try to have a systematic approach to how it
Speaker 3: is that we talk about things. So that's been very influential,
Speaker 3: and finally on Wall Street, on in Deutsche Bank, and
Speaker 3: of course also had Apollo everyone around me and living
Speaker 3: in the private sector, on the commercial world, and of
Speaker 3: course very importantly also here thinking about investing in private assets,
Speaker 3: not least my current CEO, Mark Rowan, and the inspiration
Speaker 3: in terms of how he is really in my view,
Speaker 3: a genius changing the financial system and moving things in
Speaker 3: in the direction that's the future of finance is playing
Speaker 3: a very important impact. I'm playing a very important roland
Speaker 3: having a important impact on my thinking also.
Speaker 2: Today, Yeah, really really fascinating. Let's talk about books. What
Speaker 2: are some of your favorites? What are you reading right now?
Speaker 4: So I have been reading.
Speaker 3: And I just finished The Two Parent Privileged by Melissa Kearney,
Speaker 3: and that has to do with this, of course, a
Speaker 3: unique discussion around what does it mean to have two parents,
Speaker 3: what does it mean to have one parent? What are
Speaker 3: the differences from a sociological perspective for different types of
Speaker 3: organizing yourself as a family. This has been It's very
Speaker 3: interesting and quite eye opening when you think about a
Speaker 3: lot of different things going on in society today.
Speaker 2: Give us one other, what's one of your all time favorites?
Speaker 3: Well, well, of course there's your book after the dailoud. Okay,
Speaker 3: so now we have just too big sure for that,
Speaker 3: to make sure we have that on the record. But
Speaker 3: I think that broadly speaking, I spend a lot of
Speaker 3: my time as just getting back to square the circle
Speaker 3: here in terms of what we spoke about earlier.
Speaker 4: I do spend a lot.
Speaker 3: Of my time reading the economists, reading newspapers, try to
Speaker 3: come up with ideas for daily sparks. I try to
Speaker 3: think about questions I get from clients, questions I get internally.
Speaker 4: Can we get data with this?
Speaker 3: I ask my team, which several of them are sitting
Speaker 3: in India, hey can you over And I come up
Speaker 3: with a chat on this on that. Can we find
Speaker 3: data for how many people go to Broadway shows? Can
Speaker 3: we find data for all kinds of things that I
Speaker 3: would normally try to say, Well, we can't really find
Speaker 3: any data for this, but let's try to dig a
Speaker 3: little bit deep and see if there is any data
Speaker 3: that can help us. So I do also spend a
Speaker 3: lot of my time on Twitter social media, reading newspapers,
Speaker 3: watching Bloomberg shows, and figuring out what are we talking about?
Speaker 4: What data do we have?
Speaker 3: Is this conversation correct or are there actually ways where
Speaker 3: we should take this conversation in a different direction because
Speaker 3: there are other dimensions that are more important.
Speaker 2: Huh, really really fascinating. Our final two questions, what sort
Speaker 2: of advice would you give to a recent college grad
Speaker 2: interesting career in either economics or finance.
Speaker 3: Well, I think this is of course a very important question,
Speaker 3: but I would say read The Economist, watch Bloomberg, Surveillance,
Speaker 3: listen to podcasts like Masters and Business. Try to do
Speaker 3: the homework that is really really hard, and we have
Speaker 3: all been through this process. You will feel that it's
Speaker 3: quote unquote not rewarded, but you will learn more and more.
Speaker 3: You will get to know and understand more and more,
Speaker 3: and in particular, given how the world is moving with
Speaker 3: private markets becoming more and more important, try to understand
Speaker 3: and get a good understanding on what is private equity,
Speaker 3: what is private credit, what is the evolution in private markets?
Speaker 3: How is that relative to public markets? Try to get
Speaker 3: a broader view on what does finance mean and where
Speaker 3: is finance going? And that can really only be done
Speaker 3: by reading your textbooks, trying to stay up to date
Speaker 3: on recent developments. Textbooks in some cases are a little bit behind,
Speaker 3: but really trying to listen and try to think hard
Speaker 3: about and lean back in your check go for a
Speaker 3: long walk in a green park and think about, Okay,
Speaker 3: what is it that I have just learned, What is
Speaker 3: it that I've just been told?
Speaker 4: And how does that fit.
Speaker 3: In with my view of what is overall the outlook
Speaker 3: for financial markets? And how should I think about how
Speaker 3: the financial system hangs together?
Speaker 2: Huh really really interesting? And our final question, what do
Speaker 2: you know about the world of investing today? You wish
Speaker 2: you knew thirty years ago or so when you were
Speaker 2: first getting started.
Speaker 3: Well, this is something that's very important and close to
Speaker 3: my heart because what I had not appreciated until recently,
Speaker 3: is the very important part that private markets play. So
Speaker 3: there are six million businesses in the US with employment.
Speaker 3: So that's a complicated way of saying there are six
Speaker 3: million businesses that have workers working inside those businesses? And
Speaker 3: why is that important? Because we spend so much time
Speaker 3: on the s and P. Five hundred and we starty
Speaker 3: these companies incredibly in incredible detail, and you then turn
Speaker 3: around and say, Okay, those five hundred companies are really interesting,
Speaker 3: but what about the remaining five point zero nine million
Speaker 3: companies that are not in this?
Speaker 4: In p. Five hundred? How do they get financing? Who
Speaker 4: owns them?
Speaker 3: How do they get financing for expanding if they want
Speaker 3: to build a new factory, how do they get financing
Speaker 3: if they want to hire more workers, how do they
Speaker 3: get financing if they want to expand in another country?
Speaker 3: And private markets and the role of private markets. I
Speaker 3: wish that I, earlier on in my macroeconomic career had
Speaker 3: spent some more time thinking much more deeper around what
Speaker 3: is it that's going on in everything else than in
Speaker 3: the SMP five hundred, Because remember of total employment in
Speaker 3: the US, total employment in this in P. Five hundred,
Speaker 3: companies in very round numbers is about twenty five million people,
Speaker 3: and total employment in the US is one hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty million people, so it is only in round numbers
Speaker 3: around twenty percent of employment in the US economy that
Speaker 3: is in this in p. Five hundred, that's a very
Speaker 3: high estimate because SMP also employs people outside the US,
Speaker 3: so that means that eighty percent of employment in the
Speaker 3: US is outside there.
Speaker 1: In p.
Speaker 3: Five hundred, what do these people do? How do we
Speaker 3: measure them? And what businesses do they work in? And
Speaker 3: do they have the financing? Can they get the financing?
Speaker 3: How do they get growth so that the economy can
Speaker 3: growth also outside this and p.
Speaker 2: Five hundred, Torston, this has been absolutely fascinating. I really
Speaker 2: appreciate how generous you've been with your time. We have
Speaker 2: been speaking with Torston Slock. He is the chief economist
Speaker 2: and partner at Apollo Global Management. If you enjoy this conversation, well,
Speaker 2: be sure and check out any of the previous five
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty we've done over the past ten and
Speaker 2: a half years. You can find those at Bloomberg, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube,
Speaker 2: wherever you find your favorite podcasts, And be sure and
Speaker 2: check out my new book coming March eighteenth, How Not
Speaker 2: to Invest The ideas, numbers, and behavior that destroy wealth.
Speaker 2: How Not to Invest at your favorite bookstores March eighteenth.
Speaker 2: I would be remiss if I did not thank the
Speaker 2: Crack staff that helps us put these conversations together each week.
Speaker 2: Sarah Livesey is my audio engineer. Anna Luke is my producer.
Speaker 2: Jean Russo is my researcher. Sage Bauman is the head
Speaker 2: of podcasts at Bloomberg. I'm Barry Rittoltz. You've been listening
Speaker 2: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.