Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. This week, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get some economic data, particularly some inflation data. We have
Speaker 1: CPI tomorrow, pp I Wednesday, and we also have a
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve which is adamant in fighting inflation. So a
Speaker 1: lot of moving parts here that are gonna play into, uh,
Speaker 1: what we may hear from the Federal Reserve next week.
Speaker 1: And when we talk Federal Reserve and interest rates and policy,
Speaker 1: we need to go to Danielle di Martino, Booth CEO
Speaker 1: and chief strategist for Quill Intelligence, former advisor at the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Danielle, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us here. Again, a lot of inflation data we're
Speaker 1: gonna get today. What do you think the Federal Reserve
Speaker 1: is really going to be focusing on? Well, I think
Speaker 1: that they're gonna go ahead and fade what they see
Speaker 1: in in the headline CPI. I think that that has
Speaker 1: been so well broadcast across so many different channels that
Speaker 1: they're gonna be They're gonna really have their eye more
Speaker 1: on the stickiness of the core and whether that is
Speaker 1: as as if as it's expected ticks up to six.
Speaker 1: Um My buddy, Ivy's Elman, who has been a longtime
Speaker 1: veteran of the housing industry. She sees housing shelter both
Speaker 1: O E R and rent. She sees that peaking at
Speaker 1: seven in the fall year over year. Now, that's that
Speaker 1: is that's a good hundred and fifty basis point above
Speaker 1: what it was. Yeah, Ivy's the best. I used to
Speaker 1: work with Ivy back in today on the housing biz.
Speaker 1: Um So if you're the Federal Reserve, I mean, alright,
Speaker 1: seventy five basis points as we get to next week.
Speaker 1: But I guess that's that that's baked in. Is it
Speaker 1: more just kind of the body language we get about
Speaker 1: whether we pause and see if this stuff actually works
Speaker 1: or whether we just keep moving higher. Well, I think
Speaker 1: what we're going to be focused on are the things
Speaker 1: that are less in the Fed's control, and that would
Speaker 1: be what our food price is going to do. I
Speaker 1: was seeing a report on on the terminal last night
Speaker 1: that really really hot, blazing temperatures out west. That's affecting
Speaker 1: how much we're paying for produce um. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of it is going to depend on on how
Speaker 1: sticky rents are. Rents have begun to peek out. But
Speaker 1: even in a shorter LAG world, which I argue and
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that people should
Speaker 1: be paying close attention to. The effect of LAG has
Speaker 1: been compressed monetary policies working faster. But that being said,
Speaker 1: if Annie May figures, it figures it takes five quarters
Speaker 1: to see shelter inflation move its way through the c
Speaker 1: p I, we still got high housing inflation for several
Speaker 1: more quarters. So I've got a listener writing in Danielle
Speaker 1: and asks is if we get a five percent print,
Speaker 1: is that high enough to get the Fed to continue
Speaker 1: hikeing into a weakening environment? Or or what what cp
Speaker 1: I print matters in terms of the actual numbers? Well,
Speaker 1: and look, until the job is done, I mean, how
Speaker 1: much more explicit can J Powell be? I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think four is going to be acceptable. So
Speaker 1: until we're until we're back headed back down towards two percent,
Speaker 1: which I guess we all interpret as three is headed
Speaker 1: towards two. Right. Yeah, well, I mean that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of what the European Cential Bank alluded to its communications
Speaker 1: last last week, is that three might be the new two.
Speaker 1: And but but in order for us to get there,
Speaker 1: most of the work that's been done shows that you
Speaker 1: have to have an appreciably bigger bump up in your
Speaker 1: unemployment rate. And I think that that's where the focus is,
Speaker 1: and it's it's intriguing that, um that only Layle Brainerd
Speaker 1: so far vice chair has said, you know, there are
Speaker 1: risks if we begin to slow the economy too much.
Speaker 1: You had to pay pretty close attention to what her
Speaker 1: comments were last week, but that's what she said. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: everybody's just a bunch of former dubs who are now
Speaker 1: bowls in China shops. So, Danielle, I mean, aside from
Speaker 1: the fact that we've already had two quarters of negative
Speaker 1: g d P, what is your UH recession outlook and
Speaker 1: maybe what are some of the parameters that kind of
Speaker 1: kick you into recession and maybe keep us out of it,
Speaker 1: or maybe make it deep versus not deep? How do
Speaker 1: you think about that right now? I think about the
Speaker 1: recession in terms of it being long. And what people
Speaker 1: don't appreciate is that the National Bureau of Research Economic
Speaker 1: Economic Research, they they time recessions based on the level
Speaker 1: of GDP. SMP Global came out on Friday. They reduced
Speaker 1: their third quarter GDP as of it two point six
Speaker 1: per cent. I'm getting wonky here, but that means that
Speaker 1: it's not sufficient to offset the negative point eight percent
Speaker 1: they're anticipating we see for the final print for the
Speaker 1: second quarter. What that means is on a level, the
Speaker 1: n b e R could come and surprise investors who
Speaker 1: are like, woo, it's a happy you know, we're seeing
Speaker 1: positive growth. The n b e R could come out
Speaker 1: and say, you know what, we're still in recession and
Speaker 1: surprise people because it gauged off of the level. That's
Speaker 1: what the arbiters, that's how that's how they do it.
Speaker 1: I want to finally ask you about political pressure. How
Speaker 1: much do you think, Danielle, the FED is going to
Speaker 1: feel um if we start to get unemployment at four
Speaker 1: and a half five five and a half percent, or
Speaker 1: I should say, when we start to get unemployment around
Speaker 1: five percent, and how will that affect this independent body. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that the winds will shift violently, um from
Speaker 1: we're concerned about inflation to oh my gosh, our constituents
Speaker 1: are losing their jobs. So it won't take the Beltway
Speaker 1: crowds very long to go from eight point A to
Speaker 1: point B. We saw news out of Goldman that they're
Speaker 1: uh that they're pursuing laughs just this morning. That being said,
Speaker 1: this J. Powell sounds like a different person. And until
Speaker 1: something breaks in credit, and I don't mean just bankruptcies rising,
Speaker 1: our defaults increasing, but until something fundamental breaks that threatened
Speaker 1: systemic risk. I see this J. Powell was pushing forward.
Speaker 1: All right. Danielle, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: once again. We always appreciate getting your perspective. Danielle d
Speaker 1: Martino Booth. She's the CEO and chief strategists at Quill Intelligence,
Speaker 1: and she's a former advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank
Speaker 1: of Dallas. And she brings up that Goldman Sacks news.
Speaker 1: Goldman Sacks prepares for layoffs as soon as next week.
Speaker 1: That's according to the New York Times. Let's check up
Speaker 1: with our next guest, David dts And managing Principal and
Speaker 1: senior portfolio strategist at Peacock Private Wealth Management based in Summit,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. David, thanks so much for joining us here.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get a bunch of inflation data UH this
Speaker 1: week with CPI and p p I, and we know
Speaker 1: our Federal Reserve is paying attention to that. How are
Speaker 1: you going to parse some of this data we're gonna
Speaker 1: get this week? So absolutely, I think that's the number
Speaker 1: one issue is where is inflation uh in America today?
Speaker 1: And of course last month we saw that headline inflation
Speaker 1: was flat. Uh, it still gave us an eight point
Speaker 1: one percent year over year, which is far too high,
Speaker 1: worse than like forty years, and the feder over Service
Speaker 1: is reacting. But remember investors are always looking forward, and
Speaker 1: what we're thinking we're gonna get come tuesday is actual
Speaker 1: actually a dip about ten basis points in the therems
Speaker 1: of headline inflation as we're gonna see softer gasoline prices
Speaker 1: at the pump, some softening and rent with the strong dollar,
Speaker 1: um export prices are coming down to and so that
Speaker 1: will help the narrative that perhaps for past peak inflation
Speaker 1: and things are going to start easy. So what does
Speaker 1: that mean for stocks? Does that mean the S and
Speaker 1: p UM continues this rally that we've seen the past
Speaker 1: few sessions. Yeah, it's a great question, very hard to
Speaker 1: make a short term call. I think the the skeptic
Speaker 1: would say, hey, you know, we've been buying. You know,
Speaker 1: we're at four point one percent since last Tuesday. We've
Speaker 1: been buying on anticipation that this is gonna be a
Speaker 1: better print. And there could be what we say, you know,
Speaker 1: buying the rumor and then selling the news, and people
Speaker 1: take some profits if it just comes in as as
Speaker 1: I mentioned. Having said that, of course it could be
Speaker 1: a little bit better softer inflation, or that could give
Speaker 1: investors greater confidence to continue to push prices higher. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprising, because you know, we're down eight on
Speaker 1: the SMP five since the high point in January. We
Speaker 1: still should seek positive corporate earnings for Q three up
Speaker 1: nearly four percent. We've got strong employment, the consumers continues
Speaker 1: to spend very resilient UM, so the reasons to be upbeat.
Speaker 1: David Cratty Gupta brought up something at the top of
Speaker 1: the program which I thought was really interesting. She said
Speaker 1: that the gains that Ukraine is making in the war
Speaker 1: against Russia, are UM allowing the dollar to kind of
Speaker 1: let some of the pressure out, and the Bloomberg Dollar
Speaker 1: index is down against UM. You know, the euro is gaining,
Speaker 1: the Pound is gaining. You think a positive turnaround for
Speaker 1: Ukraine in this war, a positive outlook would be good
Speaker 1: for stocks as well. Yeah, absolutely certainly. You know, the
Speaker 1: concern of cources with any kind of you just don't
Speaker 1: know where that geopolitical situation is going UM. And the
Speaker 1: recent good news, well we already see now European natural
Speaker 1: gas prices are UM now at a one month low UM,
Speaker 1: the euros starting to gain a little bit of momentum,
Speaker 1: the dollars down three percent from where it was last week.
Speaker 1: That certainly can take the pressure off global inflation. That
Speaker 1: certainly can give investors confidence. Is obviously too early to
Speaker 1: say we're out of the woods. I don't think Putin's
Speaker 1: gonna go down without a fight, but the news is
Speaker 1: good and I think that could provide a tail win
Speaker 1: for stocks going forward. Here I'll just say that I
Speaker 1: do see t t F natural gas down almost eight
Speaker 1: percent just today and UK natural gas down six and
Speaker 1: a half percent just today, So one month low, and
Speaker 1: when we're going lower here on the exact crisis exactly.
Speaker 1: And hey, how about the bond yields, David, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if I want to put my money in
Speaker 1: a ten year bond, I'm getting three point three percent.
Speaker 1: That's nothing to sneeze at. Him. That's actually a kind
Speaker 1: of a return. Well, it is, and it isn't. Certainly
Speaker 1: it's a lot better return than at the start of
Speaker 1: the year. Has been one of the worst years on
Speaker 1: UH in history, for for for bond investors. But you know,
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is with the headline inflation
Speaker 1: last month was eight point one percent year over year,
Speaker 1: three point three percent is kind of something to steeze at.
Speaker 1: And of course, and of course when you look at history,
Speaker 1: three point three percent is not that great. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got the the earnings yield on the SMP about seventeen,
Speaker 1: which is going to give you what five and a
Speaker 1: half percent, So I'll take five and a a half percent
Speaker 1: over three point three percent. I think most retireason I
Speaker 1: worked with they can't live on three point three percent
Speaker 1: for the next ten years. Yeah, but you're happy to
Speaker 1: get any kind of return, especially relative to other bonds.
Speaker 1: Um but do you think we're going to see the
Speaker 1: tenure yield go up or was three and a half
Speaker 1: percent the peak? It's harder to call the bond market
Speaker 1: it is the stock market, you know. It all really
Speaker 1: depends on inflation. If inflation does get out of control,
Speaker 1: if the geopolitical developments worse in um, you're gonna see
Speaker 1: bond investors running for the hills. Bond investors hate inflation if,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, recession concerns come back. Although the
Speaker 1: equity market hates recession, bond investors love it because that
Speaker 1: brings down the inflation. So we're gonna have to see.
Speaker 1: At this point, I still think it's a good deal
Speaker 1: for investors to be in stock drilled to to three
Speaker 1: point on the tenure. I hate inflation too, Yeah, who doesn't.
Speaker 1: I hate it more than you do. Well, you say
Speaker 1: you're fine with a two percent target? Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: zero percents. Not realistic. David Deed's managing principle and senior
Speaker 1: portfolio strategist at Peacock Private Wealth Management. He got his
Speaker 1: undergraded Dartmouth way back in the day, and I'm dating
Speaker 1: Mr d uh and his law degree from Universe Chicago.
Speaker 1: That's not bad. That's a nice combo for sure. Combo. Now,
Speaker 1: folks in our listeners, I am holding a load of
Speaker 1: cash in my hand because that's what I do as
Speaker 1: all street guy, that's what we always does. We came up,
Speaker 1: we had wads of cash. But I am increasingly the
Speaker 1: exception to that rule because everything's going digital now on
Speaker 1: the payment side, and I have to bed over the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot more stuff of financially uh digitally,
Speaker 1: you know. So it says nobody wanted to touch your
Speaker 1: dirty cash. Exactly take exactly, yeah, exactly. Jeff Sloan he's
Speaker 1: at the point of all this. He's the CEO of
Speaker 1: Global Payments. Global Payments is in New York Stock Exchange
Speaker 1: traded company GPN is a symbol you type into your
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Professional terminal like a market cap at thirty eight
Speaker 1: billion dollars. I mean, these guys aren't small. They're based
Speaker 1: down in Atlanta, Georgia employees. Jeff, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: being on our Bloomberg Interactor Broker Studio. Talk to us
Speaker 1: about your business, Global Payments, over the last two and
Speaker 1: a half years of this pandemic. How is your business evolved? Well,
Speaker 1: I think you touched on with what you said with
Speaker 1: your dirty cash example. The first trend coming out of
Speaker 1: the pandemic is really increased digitization. So for many decades
Speaker 1: here in the United States and globally, people have moved
Speaker 1: away from cash and check toward digital, but the pandemic
Speaker 1: really brought that forward by three to five years. Great
Speaker 1: example this is in our business. We do a lot
Speaker 1: of real estate payments. So it used to be you'd
Speaker 1: write out of check to your landlord for the rent.
Speaker 1: You'd walk down to the office or mail it. If
Speaker 1: something was broken, you'd fill out of a form. In
Speaker 1: the pandemic, no one want to touch a pen, a pencil,
Speaker 1: a check. So what you do now is you go
Speaker 1: on your phone, you click pay with your thumb your face,
Speaker 1: You pay the account you know from your bank account,
Speaker 1: and if something is broken and we want to pull
Speaker 1: up your car, you type in the valet thing and
Speaker 1: they put your car around the front. No one touches
Speaker 1: paper anymore. It's a great example of what we've seen.
Speaker 1: So um I've been since I've moved back to the US,
Speaker 1: missing the ability that I had in Germany to do
Speaker 1: that because it's much easier they're used to making payments
Speaker 1: UM digitally. Uh, how do you work with this market?
Speaker 1: And I know you're active in those markets as well
Speaker 1: in terms of avoiding fraud, because if you use Venmo
Speaker 1: or zell or crypto UM, it's impossible to reverse those
Speaker 1: those payments. That's a great question. So um Uh listen,
Speaker 1: we're a technology company. We have six thousand people doing
Speaker 1: nothing but building software all day and actually most of
Speaker 1: the major banks in North America and Western Europe use
Speaker 1: our fraud prevention screens. So we're constantly scanning UM these
Speaker 1: transactions to make sure they're good. We're looking for nominalies
Speaker 1: and kicking them out. But beyond that, if you step back,
Speaker 1: every country is really different. The US is primarily a
Speaker 1: credit and debit card, but increasingly kind of credit in
Speaker 1: the current environment, and they're very active fraud protections, both
Speaker 1: as a regulatory and also as a legal matter for
Speaker 1: use of those cards. So not only are we scanning
Speaker 1: for those anomalies, but the banking regulators, legislators, they're doing
Speaker 1: all the same thing. And I would say by and large,
Speaker 1: consumers are protected UM in those markets from fraud. The
Speaker 1: easiest uh, the ways to transfer money are also fairly expensive.
Speaker 1: I mean PayPal, for example, UM takes a pretty big cut.
Speaker 1: How do you keep costs down? So the United States, interestingly,
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve came out last week with a movement
Speaker 1: towards what's called FED now or real time payments account
Speaker 1: to account transfers, which we saw in Europe as you
Speaker 1: described a number of years ago. UM. I think if
Speaker 1: you have a Federal Reserve UM and a regulatory sponsored
Speaker 1: intervention in the markets where you can provide for faster,
Speaker 1: more reliable payments in a way that's auditable, UM, that
Speaker 1: avoids the type of fraud that you're referencing, that's nothing
Speaker 1: but good news for merchants, for consumers, and really for
Speaker 1: global payments. Were in the business of moving money digitally.
Speaker 1: If you want your money faster now, I actually have
Speaker 1: to borrow to provide that to you. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: have to do that. In the Brave New World, we
Speaker 1: hear a lot more are a lot, most recently about
Speaker 1: buy now, pay later. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 1: By now pay later, and how does that impact your business?
Speaker 1: So by now pay later, or I like to call
Speaker 1: as layaway moway, I'm obviously revealing my age right by saying,
Speaker 1: because I'm obviously not a gen z Er, by saying,
Speaker 1: back in the day, you go to service merchandise, you
Speaker 1: said I want this bicycle, and you put a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a month or whatever until you get it. But
Speaker 1: of course this is you get the thing first. So
Speaker 1: it's more like a credit card, really, isn't it. In's debt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's exactly right. And what I think people
Speaker 1: are worried about here is what we call debt stacking,
Speaker 1: which is taking out multiple bmp L applications and no
Speaker 1: one knows that you have a big pile of debt
Speaker 1: open here doing something else. But to answer your question, um,
Speaker 1: really it's not any different than installment lending. So what
Speaker 1: we're doing is doing it on a very responsible basis,
Speaker 1: meaning we don't balance sheet that's not our decision. That's
Speaker 1: a decision that traditional financial institutions make from an underwriting
Speaker 1: UH and know your customer point of view, and we
Speaker 1: do it through the regulated banking system. So we're working
Speaker 1: with a number of financial institutions that West, for example
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom, as well as Barclays, as well
Speaker 1: as number of retailers where it's an adjunct to your
Speaker 1: bank hard lending. So those banks know you because you
Speaker 1: have an account there, They know your credit profile, they
Speaker 1: know that you have outstanding Um. I would say the
Speaker 1: bnp O guys have done a really good job in
Speaker 1: technology and bringing innovation to the point of sales. You
Speaker 1: go on a website, it's pinging you. Do you want
Speaker 1: to buy this? I'll give you five percent off, picking
Speaker 1: you now while you're shopping, paying you when you're checking out,
Speaker 1: packing you after we brought that kind of technology traditional
Speaker 1: regulated institutions, which is much safer for everybody. How what
Speaker 1: does the competition look like? Because, as Paul said, you're
Speaker 1: a huge business, but a lot of businesses and payments
Speaker 1: are huge. This is kind of one of the most
Speaker 1: popular Wall Street darlings, I guess really globally. So who
Speaker 1: are you going up against? Well, really varies by market,
Speaker 1: and our business has always been highly competitive. I don't
Speaker 1: expect that to change the word technology company. We simply
Speaker 1: build better software and more markets and do a better
Speaker 1: job selling it. That's really, build better software than Klarna,
Speaker 1: than Adin, than a firm, etcetera. Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you get an edge? On
Speaker 1: those guys. Sure. So I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that we're really good at is listening to the market,
Speaker 1: listening what we're hearing from our customers and where they're going.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a great example, so pre Pandemic,
Speaker 1: we do a lot of quick service restaurant um point
Speaker 1: of sale devices as well as online. So pre Pandemic
Speaker 1: we did twenty million remote orders in the United States
Speaker 1: and nine team, which means you buy your burger king
Speaker 1: Hamburger on your phone, pay with your face, it gets
Speaker 1: delivered through Uber Eats. Last year we did those same
Speaker 1: things true in teledocts. So what we've been able to
Speaker 1: do is really identify trends like remote delivery and bridging
Speaker 1: the physical as well as the virtual world, and we
Speaker 1: compeet by way of vertical markets restaurants, quick service restaurants, retail, healthcare,
Speaker 1: real estate. So while there are plenty of people competing
Speaker 1: in things like e com, the answer to question is
Speaker 1: we're very focused on competing in those vertical markets by
Speaker 1: way of GDP that we think are growing more quickly
Speaker 1: than the average and are also lesser penetrated. Financial news
Speaker 1: websites they do, yes, exactly right, Bloomberg dot com. How
Speaker 1: do you look at crypto Because Matt loves crypto, I
Speaker 1: could care less. Well, I think it's fascinating. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's fair to say I love it. I think
Speaker 1: he's fascinating, the earliest, one of the earliest guys in media.
Speaker 1: You know, I bought bitcoin back when it was six
Speaker 1: dollars and promptly lost my passwords. So I understand the
Speaker 1: benefits and the drawbacks to it, um. But the blockchain
Speaker 1: technology is really the biggest benefit. Right do you do
Speaker 1: you use it? Are you going to? We do? So?
Speaker 1: For example, if you buy crypto and your PayPal wallet
Speaker 1: today and you're training it with somebody else, or you're
Speaker 1: using it, that's actually our technology. UM, that's allowing you
Speaker 1: to buy it, settle it, that kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: we do that globally. That's not just a US comments.
Speaker 1: So I think crypto is a series of use cases.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you first where it doesn't work. So
Speaker 1: there's almost no acceptance at the point of sale, a
Speaker 1: physical or virtual point of sale. And the reason for
Speaker 1: that is there's so much volatility and stable coins in
Speaker 1: blockchain maybe the solution, but for right now, there's so
Speaker 1: much volatility and ethereum or bitcoin and like it's very
Speaker 1: hard to procure at the point of Sale'll think about
Speaker 1: a grocery store. How on earth those guys can take?
Speaker 1: But I would say in the case of use cases, um,
Speaker 1: having loyalty points paid in crypto, having payroll if you like,
Speaker 1: paid in crypto, those are good examples of use cases
Speaker 1: where things work. All right, Jeff, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Jeff Sloan, he's the CEO of Global Payments,
Speaker 1: joining us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have more coming up. Got green on the screen where
Speaker 1: you're off our highs, but again still a nice start
Speaker 1: to the week. Let's see what what's going out there
Speaker 1: with pretty Goop to cheese on markets correspond and she
Speaker 1: joins us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Pretty
Speaker 1: what are you looking at? Yeah, well, I wanted to
Speaker 1: take a quick minute and it she's my chart of
Speaker 1: the day actually because I think it's really important bringing
Speaker 1: it back full circle. Um, but it is European. Matt,
Speaker 1: close your ears. Um, this is significant because we're looking
Speaker 1: at a chart nineteen fifty two g hashtag BTV nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two. When you guys get to your terminal um
Speaker 1: at your desks, what's important to note, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to describe it. You're looking at German and French power
Speaker 1: prices over the last two years. Basically they go straight
Speaker 1: up into come back down just a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then this massive parabolic move into well right now, really
Speaker 1: they've come back down from their August peak just to touch,
Speaker 1: but they are still at historically high levels. This is
Speaker 1: something we've talked about a lot. When it comes to
Speaker 1: the European energy prices. They've come down tremendously, tremendously, but
Speaker 1: historically they are still extremely high. And here's why this
Speaker 1: is important. This has everything to do with what you're
Speaker 1: seeing gas prices. And ordinarily for Americans we would think
Speaker 1: that well, electricity has nothing to do with natural gas.
Speaker 1: That doesn't really make sense. But in Europe, the grid
Speaker 1: work so that all the renewable energy sources um the
Speaker 1: gas prices or gas up driven power prices go from
Speaker 1: the highest price right and gas power plants have the
Speaker 1: highest price, so they drive the market and it all
Speaker 1: feeds into this one grid, which is um why gas
Speaker 1: prices are affecting power prices. Um, what's significant here is
Speaker 1: the ripple effects over the weekend. I read these stories
Speaker 1: that now to deal with this, the Eiffel Tower is
Speaker 1: going to close their lights off earlier. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: glittering spectacle will not be that long. Yeah. London Underground
Speaker 1: has been dealing with some really severe delays. Then they
Speaker 1: don't have any uh, they go on strike every couple
Speaker 1: weeks anyway, So true, but severe delays based on power crunches. Specifically,
Speaker 1: basically there's no power to run the actual train, which
Speaker 1: which is which is pretty extreme. Um. So those were
Speaker 1: the two that I thought were really interesting examples of
Speaker 1: people of country that you say that are actively dealing
Speaker 1: with this. And there you're seeing that also in I
Speaker 1: mean in local, in a local way across Germany. So
Speaker 1: you'll have towns like Hanover that previously you know, we're
Speaker 1: doing just half of their lights at night. Now they're
Speaker 1: just no more lights at Berlin forever has not turned
Speaker 1: on the street lights at night, just because I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's super lefty town and they want to
Speaker 1: save electricity and they're also mega mega poor. That's the
Speaker 1: thing about Berlin. The mayor once said, we're sexy but
Speaker 1: poor you know that that was their tagline. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you see it all all over the place, like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the town swimming pool will only be operating
Speaker 1: six hours a day instead of because they want to
Speaker 1: save on power. Yeah, cratty Bloomer Markets carresponding, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. We appreciate it. Speaking Jess Mett and she
Speaker 1: covers equities for Bloomberg News, And Jess, you've got a
Speaker 1: story out talking about corporate America. Is corporate America seeing
Speaker 1: peak inflation? And what do they look at to kind
Speaker 1: of determine that? What do you got? So the big
Speaker 1: thing is looking at and this is data I pulled
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Intelligence was talking to you, right, so taking
Speaker 1: a look at there's some positive signs that have been emerging.
Speaker 1: So it's taking to a Jillian Wolf over there as
Speaker 1: well as Windy Song. And so they were saying that
Speaker 1: in the second quarter, the S and P five hundreds
Speaker 1: free cash flow fell again for the second straight quarter
Speaker 1: on a ruling four quarter basis, but when it came
Speaker 1: to capital deployment, it's actually surging, and that suggests to
Speaker 1: them that companies don't expect that rising costs are actually
Speaker 1: going to continue to last. And also they're taking a
Speaker 1: look obviously, let this inflation distress and how that's been
Speaker 1: picking away at the different cash flows, but they don't
Speaker 1: see that necessarily being a detrimental thing because they're still
Speaker 1: seeing balance sheet cash still above those pre pandemic levels.
Speaker 1: So that could be a positive sign obviously ahead of
Speaker 1: the CPI data that we're going to get tomorrow. But
Speaker 1: ahead of that, we did just get a few minutes
Speaker 1: ago an update from the New York's Fed consumer expectations
Speaker 1: when it comes to inflation projections, so on the longer term, rizon,
Speaker 1: medium term, in short term. Again, those expectations came down
Speaker 1: for the month of August, continuing those declines that we
Speaker 1: did see in July. So that could be an optimistic
Speaker 1: sign ahead of that CPI data that we're going to
Speaker 1: get tomorrow. All Right, what are we expecting tomorrow and
Speaker 1: what does a beat or a miss mean for the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve? Well, that's the crucial thing, right because even
Speaker 1: a slower inflation print seems unlikely that it's going to
Speaker 1: end up swaying the Federal Reserve. And that was something
Speaker 1: that was echoed with They love the pc reportedly, they
Speaker 1: prefer the PCs and tomorrow's CPI, Right, So when it
Speaker 1: comes to and especially looking at the core numbers that's
Speaker 1: going to strip out volatile components. If we're looking at
Speaker 1: food and energy, it's projected to be six point one
Speaker 1: percent on a year over year basis, but then remain
Speaker 1: unchanged at three tents of a percent when you're looking
Speaker 1: month over month. So I feel like that is really
Speaker 1: the core number when you're looking at those month over
Speaker 1: month differences. But then if obviously, if you're going to
Speaker 1: look more on an annual basis, it's projected to rise
Speaker 1: about eight percent in August from your earlier versus about
Speaker 1: eight and a half percent in July. But again, looking
Speaker 1: at those month over month numbers are usually the key
Speaker 1: when I'm talking to strategists. Interesting, I mean, again, we've
Speaker 1: got a nice move in the market here past couple
Speaker 1: of days. You just wonder kind of where are we here?
Speaker 1: Maybe this market just really needs to get a sense
Speaker 1: of where this Federal Reserve is not necessary going to
Speaker 1: go with their next their meeting wednesday, but maybe some
Speaker 1: of the language, the body language about do we wait
Speaker 1: to see how this stuff plays out or do we
Speaker 1: just continue to signal that we're in a rising, great
Speaker 1: move and that big meeting obviously happening next week. It
Speaker 1: begins on Tuesday, but we'll get the decision on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and obviously here from Chairman Pale about a half hour
Speaker 1: after that. But this week is a blackout period for
Speaker 1: the Feds. So last week was the last sort of
Speaker 1: phase of parade of Fed speakers that we were going
Speaker 1: to hear, and clearly a lot of them still sticking
Speaker 1: with that hawk is stance. But what was interesting about
Speaker 1: last week it didn't necessarily when you were hearing from them,
Speaker 1: they didn't change their hawk is tone. But we did
Speaker 1: see a bit obviously of a rebound with the US
Speaker 1: stock snapping three consecutive weeks of declines. But looking more ahead,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because more technically speaking, we're kind of where
Speaker 1: we were if you looked a month ago when we
Speaker 1: were going to get those New York Fed inflation expectations
Speaker 1: right ahead of the CPI numbers, And now we've looking
Speaker 1: at the SMP five hunted a cross back above the
Speaker 1: fifty day moving average, the one hundred day moving average,
Speaker 1: but still below the two day moving average, which is
Speaker 1: about two. So that's really key right now, good stuff.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it. Jess Menten, equities reporter for a Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News Texas, A and M. How did they do this weekend?
Speaker 1: You know, pretty pretty good, as good as one could expect.
Speaker 1: But I am an but a lot of people were
Speaker 1: obviously focusing on what was happening at the University of Texas,
Speaker 1: which they did not beat Alabama. They came close, but
Speaker 1: I feel like that was kind of a big key,
Speaker 1: the fact that they did not win, So that was
Speaker 1: hopeful good stuff. We have Salt in our Bloomberg Interactive
Speaker 1: Broker studio because it's Monday and we always want to
Speaker 1: kick off the week getting a sense of what's going
Speaker 1: on on Wall Street, and Cheese are expert there. I
Speaker 1: gotta start shanally with the Goldman News about cutting some people.
Speaker 1: I guess it's just part of their you know, as
Speaker 1: Matt was just saying, kind of their annual culling of people.
Speaker 1: But it seems like it was just fifteen minutes ago
Speaker 1: when every story coming out of Wall Street was how
Speaker 1: much more do we have to pay these kids to
Speaker 1: take a job on Wall Street? And now we're turning
Speaker 1: around and laying them off. Only the worst ones though, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and this year went by fast because that conversation ended
Speaker 1: last year right when you turned into this year. It's
Speaker 1: a much tough for economic environment. And you have to say,
Speaker 1: I have to say it, you know, if you're there,
Speaker 1: if you're making it to five per cent of head
Speaker 1: count reductions, that's what's typical. If it's less than that,
Speaker 1: which is what we expect, then it's not so bad
Speaker 1: for a year that is facing a significant downturn. Now
Speaker 1: it's still painful because these banks have hired massively last
Speaker 1: year in the year before, and they have not seen
Speaker 1: these types of cuts for two years. So this is
Speaker 1: a return of a strategic review that hasn't really happened
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years. That will be fought
Speaker 1: again now. Alright, So I thought it was interesting when
Speaker 1: I heard you're gonna go to Assault. That is the
Speaker 1: Mooches conference, right, yes, yes, it is right. It is
Speaker 1: in New York, it's at the Javit Center, but they
Speaker 1: also have some around the world, in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: in Europe, and you know, I think you guys were
Speaker 1: talking about it, the idea that they sold of Skybridge
Speaker 1: to x where I was going to go. So okay,
Speaker 1: Anthony Scaramucci, who was who worked for President Trump for
Speaker 1: like eleven days, speaking of stars like a cup of coffee. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: he has a pretty successful conference business. What else? What
Speaker 1: else does salt do? And why does Sam Bankman freed Um,
Speaker 1: the child billionaire who owns f t X, why does
Speaker 1: he want a piece of the movie. He's a millennial
Speaker 1: billion there, but you know, obvious, how old are you?
Speaker 1: Total genius? And he did really well? Um at Jane Street.
Speaker 1: From your point, what does Skybridge do? They they've traditionally
Speaker 1: invested in a lot of hedge funds, a hedge fund funds,
Speaker 1: business alternatives, but they've also recently pivoted very strongly into crypto.
Speaker 1: So about eight hundred million dollars of their two point
Speaker 1: five billion dollars at the end of June were in
Speaker 1: digital assets or digital asset linked companies, including f t X.
Speaker 1: Are you are you going to this car? I am.
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing Wedgewaters Greg Jensen. I'm interviewing Greg Jensen in
Speaker 1: the three pm hour today. You can find it on
Speaker 1: the term at all. Yeah, Greg Jensen, He's from Bridgewater
Speaker 1: Bridge awesome, world's largest hedge fund. And so you do
Speaker 1: still have a lot of traditional investors there. And when
Speaker 1: I talked last week to Anthony Scaramucci about this FTX investment,
Speaker 1: what he told me was two things. He's going to
Speaker 1: be sixty in four in January. The mooch is going
Speaker 1: to be sixty. He looks good. And he told me
Speaker 1: that he doesn't want to be Shakespearean figure looming over
Speaker 1: the firm. He wants to think about the next ten
Speaker 1: years of Skybridge, the next generation, which includes his deputy
Speaker 1: John Darcy, as well as you know, folks like f
Speaker 1: t X and Sam bankmen Freed that can help Skybridge
Speaker 1: get more into crypto and conversely, this is important f
Speaker 1: t X get more intraded into traditional finance. So those
Speaker 1: worlds are emerging and they're certainly gonna merge its salts today.
Speaker 1: Greg Jensen's only I know. I know he's a kid
Speaker 1: snappers seventy four one to Dartmouth good stuff. Loves poker apparently.
Speaker 1: I guess he likes to take risk and read six
Speaker 1: hundred pages a weekend. From what I USPF is a
Speaker 1: good poker player too. You know, I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: him about that today. I want to get in on
Speaker 1: this game, y'all. Want to join. Oh, there's a poker
Speaker 1: game of the players. I think we should have it
Speaker 1: here at ower. Yeah. Also, yeah, I can get you
Speaker 1: into a really really cool poker game because I know
Speaker 1: our friend Mindy Grossman. She has a poker game that's
Speaker 1: like a it's a women's center. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's women women who play poker these days. It's a
Speaker 1: huge thing in finance at it's a big deal. I
Speaker 1: think Caroline Hyde plays as well. She does, she indeed does.
Speaker 1: We well got it all together here, all right, very
Speaker 1: cool looking forward to that. What else is going on?
Speaker 1: When I when I saw you coming into work this morning,
Speaker 1: you were listening to an ethereum podcast, she was listening
Speaker 1: to crypto podcast. Now, but you have you made some
Speaker 1: interesting points about it. I mean, um, I was like, man, crypto,
Speaker 1: what a joke? And you were like, no, there's real
Speaker 1: returns here. There are. And remember, over the last ten years,
Speaker 1: they're having significant returns, even in the crypto winter that
Speaker 1: you see now. But this is a moment of truth
Speaker 1: for theoryum. Remember if bitcoin was the original, Ethereum is
Speaker 1: supposed to be the newer age, eco friendly younger brother's
Speaker 1: about to get really eco friendly right, because they're gonna
Speaker 1: reduce the energy needed um to verify transactions by they're
Speaker 1: going to go to proof of steak from proof of work.
Speaker 1: Now as people put up more, more of their own
Speaker 1: ethereum to steak, because that's how they are validating new nodes.
Speaker 1: As people put up more money to the steak. Is
Speaker 1: this an inflationary or deflationary force for ethereum which does
Speaker 1: not act as bitcoin does? Where bitcoin has a fixed supply,
Speaker 1: Ethereum is not fixed. So by staking more assets, are
Speaker 1: you then able to control kind of that inflationary force
Speaker 1: that's embedded within ethereum. I think it's so fun that
Speaker 1: this kind of new age of technologists are really thinking
Speaker 1: about this in macro terms, and it's a collision of
Speaker 1: the worlds. Whether it works out or not, On Thursday,
Speaker 1: we will see the ethereums block chains much anticipated software upgrade,
Speaker 1: the so called Merge, is expected to take place around
Speaker 1: all Thursday, September fift Sarah Mussouli from Bloomberg she sent
Speaker 1: some stuff out that saved my bacon. Now be could
Speaker 1: have reduces the crypto show. I mean, this explains everything,
Speaker 1: So thank you, Sarah, thanks for listening. To the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews with
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller.
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three. Put
Speaker 1: on Fall Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at p T Sweeney.
Speaker 1: Before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio