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. I want to talk
Speaker 1: energy here, I don't. We'll talk fossil fuels, we'll talk oil, gas,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, but I also want to
Speaker 1: talk solar and we can do that with Rob Barnett,
Speaker 1: Senior analyst. He's a team lead for all the European
Speaker 1: energy stuff that comes out of Bloomberg Intelligence. And I
Speaker 1: initially said earlier the worst haircut on on Wall Street,
Speaker 1: but it could, in the eyes of many, be the
Speaker 1: best haircut on Wall Street. And you haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: Go YouTube summer Rob's cool video clips. Rob, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us here. What are your institutional investors
Speaker 1: want to talk about that they want to talk about
Speaker 1: Brent crude at seventy two dollars I'm sorry, seventies six dollars,
Speaker 1: or do they want to talk about solar and wind
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff. What do your clients want
Speaker 1: to talk about. Look, it's all of the above. We've
Speaker 1: got an investor base that is really excited about what
Speaker 1: the oil market could do in three but solar is
Speaker 1: also really hot, and in our view, at least the
Speaker 1: way we look at it here at b I, there's
Speaker 1: nothing incongruous about the idea that you could perhaps have
Speaker 1: a bull run in the oil market and also have
Speaker 1: solar demand growing like crazy. And so that's really how
Speaker 1: we see the world next year. We've got a very
Speaker 1: strong call on how fast solar demands gonna grow. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be the fastest growing segment of energy by far.
Speaker 1: But the oil space looks pretty tight as well. You've
Speaker 1: got a tight set of supply demand fundamentals, and our
Speaker 1: our team that looks after the oil guys, uh, they
Speaker 1: see a pretty tight market. Yeah. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting rob that, and I can understand why at
Speaker 1: first glance you would think that um solar and oil
Speaker 1: are competitors. But in the now they're not, are they.
Speaker 1: It's pretty easy to see a world where everybody wants
Speaker 1: to invest in solar because it's the future, and we
Speaker 1: still need to pay as much as is necessary to
Speaker 1: get the oil that we that we have to run
Speaker 1: our economy. Now, yeah, that's right. I think they're very
Speaker 1: loosely competitive at the moment. Over time that will grow,
Speaker 1: But right now almost no oil is used in the
Speaker 1: power sector, a very tiny amount. And so basically the
Speaker 1: the extrapolation to how you think about them maybe competing
Speaker 1: would be as electric vehicles. Uh it penetration grows through time,
Speaker 1: perhaps you'll have more e vs being charged with grid resources,
Speaker 1: including solar, and therefore you get a little bit more competition.
Speaker 1: But that's that's the longer future. That's really very marginal
Speaker 1: in the here and now. You know. I was talking
Speaker 1: to Ola Klennius this morning, the CEO of Mercedes Benz
Speaker 1: and Um. One thing that's interesting is, uh, they are
Speaker 1: in a big push to put electric charging stations at
Speaker 1: gas stations all around the world, but gas station owners
Speaker 1: are not. You know. I remember when we interviewed Ben
Speaker 1: Van Burden from Shell and he's like, oh, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: doing it. It's just hard. It's like expensive and we
Speaker 1: gotta find the time and it's on the schedule somewhere.
Speaker 1: But come on, give me a break. You know that
Speaker 1: they don't want to do it, Otherwise it would be
Speaker 1: done already. Why why aren't there electric charging stations at
Speaker 1: every single gas station? Uh, you know in the Western hemisphere.
Speaker 1: I think folks are frankly still trying to figure out
Speaker 1: the business model. When you look at a company like Tesla,
Speaker 1: you've got the supercharger network, and there really just isn't
Speaker 1: an equivalent that has been built out for any of
Speaker 1: the other O E M s. They're essentially relying on
Speaker 1: those traditional businesses, and I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: finger pointing going on, you know where You've got the
Speaker 1: utilities who are wanting to dab away it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean the electric utilities, but you've also got the
Speaker 1: traditional fuel retailers who are also experimenting with it, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't really seem like anyone's found the right formula
Speaker 1: for how to make money at it. And I think
Speaker 1: that's why you see some of the reticence there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't drive five minutes without seeing a
Speaker 1: gas station. That's good when I'm driving six point two
Speaker 1: leader V eight. But the thing is, there's these huge
Speaker 1: networks of those everywhere, and if they could make the
Speaker 1: same marginal electricity that they could make selling you know,
Speaker 1: premium unladed gasoline, they would definitely already have installed them.
Speaker 1: But I but I think that that's this is a
Speaker 1: business model question. It's not something to lose sleepover. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think fuel retailers typically have pretty slim margins on
Speaker 1: the fuel. They make their money when you pop into
Speaker 1: buy the candy bar or the soda to go with it,
Speaker 1: and so there's no reason that you can't have that
Speaker 1: with an electric vehicle as well. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think through time these things will sort themselves out. I'd
Speaker 1: also say most electric vehicle charging probably gonna be done
Speaker 1: at home. You know, you you certainly need lots of
Speaker 1: electric vehicle charging for the long haul trip you know
Speaker 1: that you would take occasionally, but you're daily charging is
Speaker 1: probably at your garage unless you live in a city.
Speaker 1: Cities are the hard part of the problem. Rob twenty seconds.
Speaker 1: How tough is the winter going to be in Europe?
Speaker 1: You're based in London. You know this winter looks okay.
Speaker 1: We're in a bit of a cold snap right now
Speaker 1: and that's pressuring the gas market and power markets. But
Speaker 1: the general view is that we've got enough gas to
Speaker 1: get through this winter. Next winter might be a little
Speaker 1: bit more challenging. Actually, all right, good stuff. Rob Barnett,
Speaker 1: Senior analyst. Uh. He leads our team of energy research
Speaker 1: folks over in London for Bloomberg Intelligence. I gotta see
Speaker 1: this haircut. Oh yeah, you gotta go check it. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: He's out there. Uh. And he is super smart on
Speaker 1: all that energy stuff, including the policy of energy policy
Speaker 1: and the regulation of the energy space. Or fortune to
Speaker 1: have him at Bloomberg Intelligence again, b I go to
Speaker 1: get some of the best research on Wall Street. We
Speaker 1: had some ECO data today. We had the pp I
Speaker 1: coming in hot, and then we had the you missed
Speaker 1: data coming in right after that. If you type in eco,
Speaker 1: go on your Bloomberg or week ago the University of
Speaker 1: Michigan w E c O CO is a great way
Speaker 1: to do it. Uh. And then you can pick out
Speaker 1: by flag um the country for the flag which you
Speaker 1: want to see the data anyway you missed. Uh. Current
Speaker 1: conditions stronger than expected, Sentiments stronger than expected. So um,
Speaker 1: inflation is hot, but so are expectations. Let's bring in
Speaker 1: a Nika Anika treon Um. She is the chief economist
Speaker 1: for Van Lanchet Kat kempin to talk about what this
Speaker 1: data means to us. Annika, thanks much for joining us.
Speaker 1: What do you think first about inflation? I mean, do
Speaker 1: we all agree that inflation looks like it's coming down
Speaker 1: and the FED has to some extent got this under control. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think the point is and this is also why
Speaker 1: markets have had a good time since the second half
Speaker 1: of ox sober. I think one thing we know for
Speaker 1: sure is that we've surpassed the peak in terms of
Speaker 1: rates of increase of prices. So in terms of you
Speaker 1: know that the incremental increases in inflation, if not actually
Speaker 1: the fact inflation inflation of peaks, and the same goes
Speaker 1: from an interest rate perspective. And I think the one
Speaker 1: thing there's a lot of said bashing that's been going
Speaker 1: on because they've simply reacted to late etcetera. But the
Speaker 1: one thing that the Fed does seem to have under
Speaker 1: control is an anchoring of the long term inflation expectation
Speaker 1: and that's very, very important for the market. And one
Speaker 1: of the other issues is in addition to inflation, and
Speaker 1: again we'll get some CPI data next week, is kind
Speaker 1: of recession outlooks. I wonder from your perspective where you
Speaker 1: sit as you think that maybe European economic growth, US
Speaker 1: economic growth, what's your recession call. Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: looks like, you know, economic contractions are inevitable. I think
Speaker 1: it's more of a question of how long, how deep,
Speaker 1: how painful, exactly when, And quite frankly, that's that's more
Speaker 1: of an art than a science because it's very, very
Speaker 1: hard to predict those factors. Clearly, Europe is in for
Speaker 1: a much type of time than the US, given that
Speaker 1: the general strength of the US economy of the European
Speaker 1: economy is clearly a laggered. I mean, let's remember that
Speaker 1: pre COVID, you know, Europe would actually it was almost
Speaker 1: setting into a recession anyway in this big pandemic. Rescue
Speaker 1: plan was very uplifting for Europe, but that was obviously
Speaker 1: a short lived rescue plan by definition. So I think
Speaker 1: that's that's the point. I think that means that, you know,
Speaker 1: with a higher rate environment, which makes economic conditions tougher,
Speaker 1: what we have to do to spend more time on
Speaker 1: is trying to figure out the calculations as to what
Speaker 1: exact impact on the real economy of these interest rates
Speaker 1: having and because they've gone up so quickly. I think
Speaker 1: we saw comes to get to make those calculations in
Speaker 1: terms of the China reopening. Um does that play into
Speaker 1: your calculus of global growth? It seemed like, you know,
Speaker 1: we were all hoping for it for so long, and
Speaker 1: it seemed like we thought that would underpin a huge
Speaker 1: jump in demand, but that hasn't played out in market pricing. Yeahman,
Speaker 1: I guess that The point is that the path of
Speaker 1: reopening for China is not that straightforward because obviously the
Speaker 1: zero COVID policy has lasted much longer than many people
Speaker 1: had expected, and the reopening is certainly with hiccup. So
Speaker 1: that's not a simple straight line that you can just
Speaker 1: you know, open the lid of the box and then
Speaker 1: bam comes this explosion of demands. But that clearly that
Speaker 1: clearly will be a supporting factor. You could argue that
Speaker 1: that could also be you know, a reopening story could
Speaker 1: also be dangerous from an inflationary perspective, because quite frankly,
Speaker 1: we've had an inflation problem without one of the world's
Speaker 1: largest drivers of demand really participating in the economy. So
Speaker 1: what will happen to energy prices once that gets go again.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, that also alleviates and supply chains.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's it's something that we have to
Speaker 1: work our way through. So Anaka, you know, I'd love
Speaker 1: to get a sense of just kind of where you
Speaker 1: think the federal Reserve needs to be. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think you know, again, we're getting some inflation data
Speaker 1: that is, you know, as you suggested earlier, show signs
Speaker 1: that it has peaked at maybe the peaks in a
Speaker 1: rear view mirror, but it's still there. How do you
Speaker 1: in this policy is supposed to have what coming show
Speaker 1: its effects three to five quarters from now? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: So what do you think the feds are gonna do? Anika?
Speaker 1: I think the point that you just made is a
Speaker 1: really valid one. So because the world is of volatile
Speaker 1: things are changing so fast, were forgetting some of the mechanics.
Speaker 1: And to your point, there's a seriously significant time lag
Speaker 1: between third policy action and how the real economy should
Speaker 1: react to that. It's not as if you know, seventy
Speaker 1: five basis points lifts should suddenly impact next month's inflation reading.
Speaker 1: That's not our real life works. And I think taking
Speaker 1: that into accounts, the danger is that you're working off
Speaker 1: the FED is working off a signal board which is
Speaker 1: of actual data versus predicted data. I either FED is
Speaker 1: reacting by definition late to the game, and I think
Speaker 1: the FED has had no choice but to do this
Speaker 1: and to continue to do this, because the biggest issue
Speaker 1: that said had was the credibility issue. And if markets
Speaker 1: don't believe that our central banks can manage inflation, we've
Speaker 1: got a bigger problem to deal with. And that's why
Speaker 1: the fact that long term inflation expectations have been anchored
Speaker 1: thus far is very, very important, and that's why the
Speaker 1: FED will probably rather go on for a little bit
Speaker 1: longer in order to make sure they can maintain that.
Speaker 1: But why go on for I mean, do we really
Speaker 1: need another hudder basis points of tightening at this point? Well,
Speaker 1: I think I think it would be a delicate balancing acts.
Speaker 1: On one hand, you know, to your point, if you
Speaker 1: keep tightening away, you're you're triggering aid into the market
Speaker 1: that's going to take a very long time to correct,
Speaker 1: and why inflict that level of paint. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: the risk of pivoting too quickly and therefore unhinging that
Speaker 1: anchoring of long termslation expectations can be even more dangerous
Speaker 1: because the risk of then having to do a U
Speaker 1: turn because the next semplation reading is actually higher than expected,
Speaker 1: because I don't know, the China reopening has said to
Speaker 1: a bigger certain demandment expected um that couldn't actually end
Speaker 1: up inflicting more danger into the economy. So I think
Speaker 1: it's this awkward, delicate balance, which means probably the FED
Speaker 1: will probably go on a little bit longer than the
Speaker 1: market might expect. The FED pivot might be a little
Speaker 1: bit further out there than people expect. But at a
Speaker 1: certain point, of course, you know, the rate of change
Speaker 1: we've passed that we've passed the peak of the rate
Speaker 1: of increase of rates, that's for sure. Anka, I understand
Speaker 1: that you're based in Amsterdam, Is that right? Yes? Okay,
Speaker 1: So give us the feeling you know on the ground,
Speaker 1: how are consumers, how are companies thinking about kind of
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine, a tough winter ahead in terms
Speaker 1: of energy, what's the what's what's the feeling across your
Speaker 1: based upon kind of the folks that you interact with. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: the sentiment has sort of turned again with regards to energy,
Speaker 1: because obviously we've all had a relatively benign winter and
Speaker 1: all those sort of you know, scary stories as too, well,
Speaker 1: we've got reserves of energy, but is that going to
Speaker 1: be sufficient? So far, so good until the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, right, and now we see, you know, temperatures
Speaker 1: going into minus. It was minus this morning, for example.
Speaker 1: People are waking up and realizing, Okay, I've managed my
Speaker 1: energy bill at home thus far because it's not been
Speaker 1: that cold outside. But while the temperatures dropped, so there's
Speaker 1: definitely nervousness around there. You know, You've have you know,
Speaker 1: some of the local the largest energy suppliers literally pointing
Speaker 1: out to the fact that there's huge percentage of their
Speaker 1: client base who are likely to go through cash flow
Speaker 1: problems from a family perspective, I mean, you have staters
Speaker 1: that are entering the economy into their job market who says, all,
Speaker 1: my energy bill is not that different to my rental
Speaker 1: price of my apartment. So especially for the low energy
Speaker 1: label building, so it's it's it's scary, it's it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Having said that, you've got this sort of juxtaposition I
Speaker 1: think in many in many countries, in many cities where
Speaker 1: you've got all of those concerns and you know, recession
Speaker 1: seems inevitable in Europe and obviously the gas sights, etcetera.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, try and book a restaurant on
Speaker 1: a Friday night, it's pass by in book on all
Speaker 1: the days yourself, it's fully books. So it's this bizarre juxtaposition.
Speaker 1: So Taylor Swift tickets exactly. I'm not sure if you're
Speaker 1: a football fan, but the Netherlands has a football match
Speaker 1: he means soccer in a few hours, and I'm going
Speaker 1: with the football cause I'm speaking with a European Netherlands
Speaker 1: against Argentine. What's the feeling within Amsterdam on the street today?
Speaker 1: How hyped up is the average you know, Dutch fan?
Speaker 1: Very hyped up? I mean this is this is, this
Speaker 1: is a very big thing for the Dutch will be
Speaker 1: orange clofted everywhere and very excited. See I told you
Speaker 1: that Dutch, I mean, id they love and it's such
Speaker 1: a small cuntry but they produced so many good soccer players.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it, but it was
Speaker 1: my pick is my pick in this year's World Cup.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking pretty good here. But we'll see, Argentina
Speaker 1: is gonna be toughly destroyed. The US Yeah, the only
Speaker 1: goal we scored against them looked like it was an accident.
Speaker 1: Kind of well, I don't know. We're coming up there
Speaker 1: on a trey on Chief Economist International, Van launch Shot Kempen,
Speaker 1: based in Amsterdam. Let's talk to Vince Sagnarella. He does
Speaker 1: that market stuff for us. He's a market strategist. He
Speaker 1: spent years on the street trading all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: We don't really want to ask too many questions about that,
Speaker 1: but he's with us now, Vince Sagnarella. Vince, you get
Speaker 1: the inflation print today? UM, I guess that gives the
Speaker 1: Fed some room to continue to be hawk is here.
Speaker 1: What was your take? I don't think so. Actually, it's
Speaker 1: just one number. It's p p I. I put a
Speaker 1: little bit more weight on cp I next week, which
Speaker 1: is expected to moderate if that comes in hot again.
Speaker 1: I think the FEDS still sits um sits where they
Speaker 1: are with fifty basis points next week. UH, potentially fifty
Speaker 1: basis points in February. But as the data I'm looking
Speaker 1: at and a couple of people out and talking to, UH,
Speaker 1: the expectations come January. Buddy of my in South Bay
Speaker 1: Research out in San Francisco, sees jobless claims jumping in
Speaker 1: late January, and that uptick will pull in UH forecasts
Speaker 1: for rate cuts next year. So if he's right and
Speaker 1: we get a jobless claims going higher from now into January,
Speaker 1: that is the feds. Uh, that's what the FEDS watching
Speaker 1: these days. Jobs. I mean, what, how can you claim
Speaker 1: joblessness when there's over ten million job openings out there. Well,
Speaker 1: the point, the point that he makes, and I probably
Speaker 1: would argue the same thing, is that you know, as
Speaker 1: you're heading into a downturn, which is largely predicted, UH,
Speaker 1: employers stop hiring and then that's followed by layoffs. And
Speaker 1: while there's a delay in white college jobs, which are
Speaker 1: obviously the higher paying jobs, uh, they then surge in
Speaker 1: layoffs going into that. So if that trend holds, come
Speaker 1: you know, the middle of the first quarter next year,
Speaker 1: maybe the end of the first quarter next year, we're
Speaker 1: going to see a situation where there won't be that
Speaker 1: many job openings available, or if there are job openings,
Speaker 1: they're probably jobs people don't want them. Let's see, we
Speaker 1: need talk to traders, Vince out there, how concerned are
Speaker 1: they about a recession? And there's a lot of everybody's
Speaker 1: talking about it, everybody is calling for it. But boy,
Speaker 1: the consumers still strong out there. The consumer still has
Speaker 1: a job kind of I don't know, what are you
Speaker 1: what are you hearing? Well? I mean the the ideas.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody thinks there's going to be a recession,
Speaker 1: most of the folks I talked to, But from a
Speaker 1: trader standpoint, whether it's a soft landing or whether it's
Speaker 1: a severe downturn, that they can't predict that, so they
Speaker 1: don't actually price for it. That del price for that
Speaker 1: when it comes. UM. So we could see if we
Speaker 1: have a mile downturn, a nice bid going into risk
Speaker 1: next year. Obviously the opposite is true if we get
Speaker 1: a severe downturn UM. But you know, what they are
Speaker 1: talking about is essentially the feel that we're nearing a bottom,
Speaker 1: that feel that we're nearing a top in rates. UH
Speaker 1: take a page out of the Bank Accounada's book this
Speaker 1: week where they rose, uh rose, where they raised rates
Speaker 1: and and then basically said we're nearing a pause. That
Speaker 1: they've done U, that their work has done its job
Speaker 1: on the economy. And a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: traders here in the States think that we're going to
Speaker 1: see something similar to that coming from the set. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't come next week, they'll expect that they expected
Speaker 1: to come early next year. Surely they're doing Surely this
Speaker 1: is the first of two fifty basis point hikes. Right,
Speaker 1: No guarantees of February. I mean next week I think
Speaker 1: is in stone, but I think February. Um, we'll watch
Speaker 1: the data and and see where it goes. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we're starting to see some things and this
Speaker 1: is in your wheelhouse. Um, use car prices are coming down,
Speaker 1: but um, new car prices have searched, so you're gonna
Speaker 1: see a switch and consumer spending. You know, when when
Speaker 1: beef prices go up, people buy more chicken. When new
Speaker 1: car prices go up, people probably go back to use
Speaker 1: cars or even uh just delay a car purchase if
Speaker 1: they can. So those kind of things from an inflation standpoint,
Speaker 1: when they're way through the economy and take some pressure
Speaker 1: off the inflation scenario. You know who says we won't
Speaker 1: have a recession. Treasury Secretary Janny Ellen. She says the
Speaker 1: US is going to avoid a recession, talking you know
Speaker 1: it would. When was the last time, Vince, you heard
Speaker 1: a Treasury Secretary say we're definitely going into a recession
Speaker 1: next year. Well, I mean talking about talking to your book,
Speaker 1: as a trader would say, I mean, she's she's got
Speaker 1: to be you know, she she's in the Biden camp.
Speaker 1: She has to speak to speak um and and frankly,
Speaker 1: I wonder what it's like to go from you know,
Speaker 1: an academic, uh, you know, an economist too well as
Speaker 1: as the FED chair. She already had a taste of it,
Speaker 1: but really to to to be a politician, you're just
Speaker 1: throwing away all of that data based scientific, you know,
Speaker 1: uh stuff and and going completely to um, you know,
Speaker 1: talking your book. It's gotta be weird. I mean, give
Speaker 1: it to this way the way traders look at it.
Speaker 1: When she was the chair of the FED, she was
Speaker 1: listened to and respected. As the Treasury secretary, no one
Speaker 1: trades on what she says saying because they know that,
Speaker 1: you know, she's saying what she has to say rather
Speaker 1: than what she wants to say. And there was a
Speaker 1: time when she was in the closet for a long time,
Speaker 1: and it's probably because she disagreed with the administration, and
Speaker 1: so they just kept her off the tape because they
Speaker 1: didn't want her to say anything that was that was
Speaker 1: contrary to what the picture they wanted to paint. All right,
Speaker 1: So if I'm a trader here for the rest of
Speaker 1: today and going into next week, do I just wait
Speaker 1: on the CPI datas at the next data point and
Speaker 1: then of course the FED meeting on Wednesday. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you're seeing today and p p I
Speaker 1: is and knee jerk reaction, Um, I wouldn't put a
Speaker 1: lot of I wouldn't put a lot of credit it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, in fact, you know, big sell off might
Speaker 1: be a buying opportunity going into c p I of
Speaker 1: CPI moderates and Vince just on the dollar, still no
Speaker 1: credible bear case out there for the US dollar has
Speaker 1: come off a lot, has come off a lot. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you know what I've been saying,
Speaker 1: it's it runs inverse to the SMP. So you know,
Speaker 1: the day the Fed says, uh, we're pausing for a while, um,
Speaker 1: and the SMP rallies, you'll see the dollar come off,
Speaker 1: probably see a little steeper inversion until the Fed actually
Speaker 1: does begin to cut. But when that day comes, you're
Speaker 1: going to see a massive rally in the short end,
Speaker 1: and the days of the strong dollar will be over
Speaker 1: at least temporarily. Yeah, we were up at Yeah, we're right, Vince.
Speaker 1: Do you look at the Bloomberg Dollar Index because is
Speaker 1: you know, economists say it's a much better measure of
Speaker 1: dollar strength. But I know that you know, traders probably
Speaker 1: grew up with d x Y trainers y Bloomberg Dollar
Speaker 1: Index is a better measure. As you know, they pretty
Speaker 1: much carbon copied my Ball Street Journal dollar index, which
Speaker 1: I created. Uh so I have I do sympathize with
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Dollar Index. It captures way more data. Um,
Speaker 1: the Eyes Dollar index is pretty much a Euro dollar indexes.
Speaker 1: All right, good stuff, we waited that way, all right, Vince,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us there from the confines
Speaker 1: of Westchester, Vince Signorola, global macro strategist with Bloomberg News,
Speaker 1: giving us his thoughts on in a way Marko, creator
Speaker 1: of the Bloomberg Dollar Index by b d X Y index, Yep,
Speaker 1: that's the one I use. Now, I've been told by
Speaker 1: the people in the know and our c suite conversation
Speaker 1: today we're gonna talk a little fintech company is n
Speaker 1: Cino nastack symbols n C n O to type in
Speaker 1: your blue be a professional tournament. The CEO and chairman
Speaker 1: joins us, Pierre not a Pierre, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us here, uh and Sino. Tell us what you
Speaker 1: guys are doing in the fintech space. Yes, good morning,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. We're doing three very important things
Speaker 1: for banks, but it is highly compliance oriented and very
Speaker 1: complex for them, which is we onboard new customers. We
Speaker 1: originate every any loan from the most complex commercial and
Speaker 1: all the way down to a simplistic personal loan un secured,
Speaker 1: and we open accounts. Those things are complex from a
Speaker 1: banking perspective, but should be very useless friendly and be
Speaker 1: able mobile to do it on your phone, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And we automate banks. We were the first one to
Speaker 1: actually take this into the cloud ten years ago and
Speaker 1: today we've got sevent fifty customers around the globe. We
Speaker 1: operate in Asia, pac Australia, Japan, we operate in Europe
Speaker 1: as well as the US and Canada. So what has
Speaker 1: been the pro problem then? In terms of the stock market,
Speaker 1: I mean the shares have just come down pretty steadily
Speaker 1: since from nine to that's correct. You know, we have
Speaker 1: ten quarters that are made and raised and beat our expectations.
Speaker 1: So as a result, I don't really track the stock markets,
Speaker 1: but I'm focusing on my customers and my people, and
Speaker 1: I believe that these market cycles changes, we will get
Speaker 1: the right valuation for the company. We are a growth company.
Speaker 1: We do realize that the market sentiment is changed from
Speaker 1: pure growth into profitable growth, and we emphasized this in
Speaker 1: our last um and it's called it. We are moving
Speaker 1: to for next year to a rout off thirty company,
Speaker 1: which is a twenty plus ten, so we are going
Speaker 1: to do a non gap ten percent of the bottom
Speaker 1: line at least, and I feel very optimistic. It's a
Speaker 1: good time for the company after ten years, to turn
Speaker 1: us from pure growth into a best in class profitable growth. Pierre,
Speaker 1: How's how did the pandemic the last three years? How
Speaker 1: did that impact your business? The pandemic actually was pretty
Speaker 1: good for us because the government gave all this football
Speaker 1: p money, the payment protection plan to banks and said
Speaker 1: distribute this and they have no ways to do it.
Speaker 1: Through Encino stepped in and distributed billions of dollars on
Speaker 1: behalf of the bank because our technology enabled them to
Speaker 1: you can do an online application and get the money
Speaker 1: to you. Part of our growth story was so we
Speaker 1: accelerated through the early stage of the pandemic and then
Speaker 1: towards the end um some of that business went away
Speaker 1: and that's what slowed down our growth rate because year
Speaker 1: over year you had a massive spike and go to
Speaker 1: and then some of the business panned out. So it
Speaker 1: was a good thing for us. It accelerated um digital
Speaker 1: transformation and the awareness of how people want to interact
Speaker 1: with the banks. So I think long sterm it's a
Speaker 1: great thing for us. All right, Pierre, good stuff. Appreciate
Speaker 1: you taking a few minutes to check in with us.
Speaker 1: Pierre and not a CEO and chairman of Encino fintech company.
Speaker 1: It's a star symbols n C n O trades on
Speaker 1: the nastack. We appreciate getting a few minutes of his time. Well,
Speaker 1: the FED has been raising interest rates to combat inflation,
Speaker 1: and one of the areas where we've seen the impact
Speaker 1: most notably has been in the housing market. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: certainly feeling the negative impacts of higher interest rates. We
Speaker 1: want to get the latest on what's going on there
Speaker 1: in the construction business. John Fish, CEO and chairman of
Speaker 1: Suffolk Construction Group up there in the Boston area. John,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. Talk to us about
Speaker 1: kind of your business. How's your business been impacted by
Speaker 1: rising interest rates this year? Yeah, well, man, Paul again,
Speaker 1: thank you very much as an honor just to be
Speaker 1: involved this morning. You know, it's interesting is is we
Speaker 1: all know real estate runs on credit, uh, and the
Speaker 1: interest rates, the higher they go, the more impact they
Speaker 1: have on our industry overall. And what we're seeing right
Speaker 1: now is the interest rates are climbing to six six
Speaker 1: appercent for purchasing a house in today's day and age,
Speaker 1: it's really tamped down the demand for housing. People that
Speaker 1: have a you know, to an episode mortgage don't want
Speaker 1: to move out of a to an episode mortgage into
Speaker 1: a six and appisent mortgage. So my sense to be is,
Speaker 1: I think the more these traits continue to climb, the
Speaker 1: more impact is going to have on the overall economy.
Speaker 1: So what, uh is the focus of the construction you
Speaker 1: do at Suffolk, Well, what we do we work all
Speaker 1: over the country with the different types of educational, healthcare
Speaker 1: and life sciences and a variety different types of work.
Speaker 1: But what we're seeing right now on the residential side
Speaker 1: and the commercial side. One residential it has slowed down
Speaker 1: projects on penciling out like they were say, almost like
Speaker 1: I would say, less than nine months ago, because the
Speaker 1: impact administrates, the cost of funds are driving this almost
Speaker 1: to a stand still in many respects. That on the
Speaker 1: office side, which I think is really crippling right now,
Speaker 1: because we all know what people working from home is
Speaker 1: have a devastating impact on the inner city areas and
Speaker 1: on small businesses as we know. So to me, we
Speaker 1: need to figure out overall how do we get people
Speaker 1: backing the seats in their offices and consuming in the
Speaker 1: small shops, piece of shops, coffee shops, and all the
Speaker 1: of these around America today. So John, kind of where
Speaker 1: where are you seeing it in your business? Because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just looking at your website here. I know you
Speaker 1: do a lot of you know, uh business uh construction
Speaker 1: as as well as uh residential. Where are you seeing it?
Speaker 1: Most notably? I would say right now, it's the areas, uh,
Speaker 1: right right now in the east coast of the country
Speaker 1: and the west coast of country. What was seeing in
Speaker 1: the areas where it's more favorable from a tax point
Speaker 1: of view, I would say Texas in the southeast part
Speaker 1: of the country, there's more economic activity and momentum in
Speaker 1: those particular eras there are in other particular eras. For
Speaker 1: an example, in the Northeast, they just raised what it's
Speaker 1: called millionaires tax that raises four percent on the state taxes.
Speaker 1: And although it's not significant, it is significant because again
Speaker 1: it's piling on top of piling taxes. On talk of taxes,
Speaker 1: what we need to do. We need to open up
Speaker 1: the aperture from a business perspective, because business drives our economy.
Speaker 1: What can we do to put people back in the seats,
Speaker 1: back to work, okay, and generate what I call the
Speaker 1: American dream? All right? So, um, we are in a
Speaker 1: situation that looks like it could get worse economically. A
Speaker 1: recession has been forecast by pretty much anybody. Um uh
Speaker 1: that we that we talked to. What's your outlook for
Speaker 1: the economy, say in three And how does that then
Speaker 1: further affect a business that, as you point out, has
Speaker 1: already been ground to a halt. Well what what? What
Speaker 1: my sense is right now? I look at it like
Speaker 1: a patient. The patient is sick, the medication is interest rates, right, now,
Speaker 1: I think the hiring of interest rates the FED is
Speaker 1: doing on a gradual basis is working. I think the
Speaker 1: fifty basis points are going to produce hopefully next week
Speaker 1: and not I think we'll sort of send this thing up.
Speaker 1: They are slowing the rate rising going forward. And also
Speaker 1: what I see is the rate increase is having an
Speaker 1: impact on softening consumer demand and is driving down the
Speaker 1: demand issue. But what I really think is right now,
Speaker 1: we're always talking about the terminal rate of interest rates.
Speaker 1: I think now we're talking about the duration of where
Speaker 1: these at rates are going to go. Because I think
Speaker 1: the uncertainty driven by the duration is creating a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of concern for the customer and the consumer,
Speaker 1: and that's why they're starting now to put more pile
Speaker 1: up on the sidelines. From my perspective, John, talk to
Speaker 1: us about labor um to build your projects. How has
Speaker 1: it been, how is it now? What are you guys
Speaker 1: trying to do to adapt? You know, it's a great question.
Speaker 1: I would say there's three what I call the three
Speaker 1: eyes in our industry that we really keep an eye on.
Speaker 1: One his interest rates, and again I said, not determinable
Speaker 1: duration together was an inflation, right now with the seven
Speaker 1: point seven percent, and I think that has a lot
Speaker 1: to do with pupping three trillion dollars in the economy.
Speaker 1: And last is, I think we get a significant structural
Speaker 1: issue in America today that I think we need to okay,
Speaker 1: both in Washington and the business we have to come
Speaker 1: to terms with. It's not only lower workforce participation or
Speaker 1: aging workforce where people working from home, it's all the above.
Speaker 1: And my concern is if we don't resolve this immigration
Speaker 1: issue in the United States of America, we are going
Speaker 1: to become to a and still are not able to
Speaker 1: produce because right now our work force today is aged.
Speaker 1: It's different technologically from the tools that they're using. And
Speaker 1: also the sense to me is this lower workforce participation
Speaker 1: we need to come to grips. And I think that's
Speaker 1: probably one of the most important issues government today in
Speaker 1: business has to come together and to try to solve.
Speaker 1: I mean the likelihood of that happening. This is a
Speaker 1: third issue. Right, Well, here's my sense. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, right we had the Gang of Eight
Speaker 1: talking about immigration back you know, two years ago. What
Speaker 1: I think we need to take that playbook out of
Speaker 1: the shelf and put it back on the table and
Speaker 1: start having some significant conversations about how do we get
Speaker 1: people back to work and more importantly, how do we
Speaker 1: resolve this immigration to put people back to work, to
Speaker 1: increase the labor force participation and hopefully increase product give
Speaker 1: you overall inefficiency. So John and I know you guys
Speaker 1: have a big, big business, uh touch about regionality. Are
Speaker 1: you seeing areas of the country that are particularly weak,
Speaker 1: areas that are particularly strong, maybe bucking the trend? What
Speaker 1: are you seeing? What we see? We were about a
Speaker 1: five and a half billion dollar business. We work nationally,
Speaker 1: and what we're seeing, as I pointed out, in the
Speaker 1: areas where it's more of a progressive approach to taxation
Speaker 1: and the overall attitude about business climates is we're seeing
Speaker 1: those particularly areas being more impacted by the heightening of
Speaker 1: interest rates and areas, like I said, the southeast part
Speaker 1: of the country and in the Texas region right now,
Speaker 1: and Okay, what we're seeing is more open to a
Speaker 1: policy to try to make things work. And so we've
Speaker 1: grown our business significantly the seth East part of the country.
Speaker 1: We're growing our business in the Texas region right now,
Speaker 1: and we are very very bullish on a going forward basis. Again,
Speaker 1: everything is relative. Again, we were not really sure what
Speaker 1: exactly that's going to do over the next I would
Speaker 1: say two or three quarters, but my senses demanded will
Speaker 1: slow down. But in the good areas of the country
Speaker 1: with his favorable tax policy, is labor availability like there
Speaker 1: is in Texas in the southeast part of the country,
Speaker 1: You're gonna see a lot more economic bybrancy in those
Speaker 1: areas than you are. Another pic the area is where
Speaker 1: we don't see that because of immigration, well, you know,
Speaker 1: because of the overall business climate. I think you see
Speaker 1: you see a migration of people out of the Northeast,
Speaker 1: especially the New York New Jersey area. I think the
Speaker 1: same thing is going to happen in in the Boston area.
Speaker 1: And I think the same thing from California Arizona. So
Speaker 1: when you take a look at me of the bicoastal
Speaker 1: areas of people moving inland and down south, I really
Speaker 1: believe what's going to happen is those particular areas of
Speaker 1: our country. I'm going to continue to grow grow from
Speaker 1: a driven by business and I think at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I think that is going to be
Speaker 1: really the pocket to grow gover the next decade that
Speaker 1: we need to really focus on, all right, John, great stuff.
Speaker 1: Always appreciate getting your perspective, John Fish. He is the
Speaker 1: CEO and chairman of Suffolk Construction Company UH commercial real
Speaker 1: estate construction on the national scale, giving a sense of
Speaker 1: kind of the the opportunities and the challenges. Of course,
Speaker 1: the key challenge UH and that part of the economy
Speaker 1: is rising interest rates making it tougher to get those
Speaker 1: projects done. All so calls out labor as a challenge
Speaker 1: as well. Getting folks on the site. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen
Speaker 1: to interviews of Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
Speaker 1: I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three
Speaker 1: on Fall Sweeney I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before
Speaker 1: the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.