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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am

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Speaker 1: Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App.

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Speaker 1: Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch

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Speaker 1: us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: FedEx reported some numbers last night. I thought there were

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Speaker 2: some pretty good numbers, given what's going on out there

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Speaker 2: in the world. Sex kind of unchanged on the day.

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Speaker 2: It's up thirty five percent year to date. Let's break

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Speaker 2: it down because we all deal with FedEx almost on

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Speaker 2: a daily basis. It seems like Lee Klasical, Senior Transport

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Speaker 2: Logistics and Chipping analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence. He's also a

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Speaker 2: host of a weekly podcast, Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports. Lee

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Speaker 2: talked to U about FedEx. What did we learn from

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Speaker 2: their earnings?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, Paul, I thought they did a pretty good

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Speaker 3: print for their physical fourth quarter. You know, what they've

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Speaker 3: been able to show is that their car controls, they've

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Speaker 3: had a number of different programs in place that are

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Speaker 3: really starting to pay off, and that kind of helped

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Speaker 3: them with their beat. They also painted a relatively okay

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Speaker 3: demand picture for us. They noted that you know, they

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Speaker 3: didn't see much demand destruction from higher fuel costs, which is,

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Speaker 3: you know, a very good thing to hear. And also

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Speaker 3: they mentioned their B to B business has been benefiting

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Speaker 3: from the built out of data centers and all the

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Speaker 3: stuff that goes into that. You know, they're helping bringing

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Speaker 3: those technologies to the places where they're building those centers.

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Speaker 3: So you know, they pointed to you know, decent top

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Speaker 3: line growth. And also, you know what they also did,

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Speaker 3: which is kind of probably why the stock is down

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Speaker 3: so much of the last twenty four hours, is is

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Speaker 3: you know, they provided their first calendar year outlook because

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Speaker 3: they were on a physical calendar. Now they're going on

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Speaker 3: a regular, good old fashion calendar reporting schedule, and so

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Speaker 3: I think that might have raised some confusion. Also, you know,

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Speaker 3: the guide, which topped out at eighteen dollars and ten

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Speaker 3: cents at the top of the range, I think was

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Speaker 3: slightly below whisper numbers that we were hearing, you know,

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Speaker 3: call it a dime or a quarter. So nothing terrible.

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Speaker 3: So I think, you know, analysts are going to be

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Speaker 3: rejiggering their numbers to probably fit within management's expectations. But

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Speaker 3: what I would note is that management recently has been

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Speaker 3: doing a pretty good job of providing some sort of

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Speaker 3: modest guidance, if you will, and then beating that. And

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Speaker 3: that is something that the street definitely wants to see

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Speaker 3: because prior to i would say, the last couple of quarters,

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Speaker 3: they had a history of doing the opposite, maybe over

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Speaker 3: delivering and under over promising it under delivering.

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Speaker 4: So investors tend not to forget that certainly when it

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Speaker 4: comes to competition. I mean, there's only so much Effetex

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Speaker 4: can do about things like oil prices and tariffs, and

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Speaker 4: demand is tied to how the economy is doing when

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Speaker 4: it comes to competition. And Amazon, of course plants to

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Speaker 4: expands logistics business, how well positioned or perhaps not so

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Speaker 4: well positioned is FedEx and along with its peers for that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, Amazon made an announcement a couple

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Speaker 3: of weeks ago that it was broadening out its logistics

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Speaker 3: services to third parties. This really wasn't new news. They've

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Speaker 3: were kind of doing these services for a while, they

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Speaker 3: kind of more or less free packaged that. Yes, they

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Speaker 3: are a competitor to FedEx, but fed X really doesn't

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Speaker 3: want the same business that Amazon's going after. You know,

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Speaker 3: Amazon first and foremost is starting these business to reduce

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Speaker 3: their overall costs to deliver their packages, and if they

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Speaker 3: can offset that cost by putting other freight in their

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Speaker 3: into their system, They're they're absolutely for it. You know,

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Speaker 3: FedEx would rather have you know, obviously all growth is

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Speaker 3: relatively good growth, but if they had their choice, they'd

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Speaker 3: rather have B to B business with tend to be

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Speaker 3: higher margin business than B two C business.

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Speaker 5: Stay with us.

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Speaker 4: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live

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Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android

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Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: All I know is the weather apps on my phone.

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Speaker 2: They're getting better and better and better. It tells you now,

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Speaker 2: which is so cool, particularly when you're a beach guy

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Speaker 2: when you need weather forecast for boating and fishing. Is

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Speaker 2: rains can start in twelve minutes? Sure enough, twelve minutes

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Speaker 2: later it starts raining.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Gone are the days where you

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Speaker 4: had to stay up and watch the eleven PM news

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Speaker 4: to figure out what things would look like the next day.

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Speaker 2: You would think some guys people actually get PhDs in weather.

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Speaker 2: That's the thing. You know. Our next guest does that,

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Speaker 2: Ryan Ward. He's a weather associate b n EF. Ryan

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Speaker 2: talk to us about AI is hitting all parts of

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Speaker 2: our life. It's got to be impacting your business forecasting

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Speaker 2: weather because it's all about the models and what this

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Speaker 2: model is saying. How is AI being used in the

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Speaker 2: world of weather.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people think, you know,

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Speaker 6: they hear AI and the thinking like Claude or chat

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Speaker 6: GPT or whatever. We have very specific models now that

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Speaker 6: are emerging for a variety of purposes and weather, and

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Speaker 6: I think the one that we're I think really shocked

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Speaker 6: and excited by right now is tropical cyclones. Right it's

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Speaker 6: hurricane season right now. We're expecting probably a lower than

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Speaker 6: average count of hurricanes this year. But surprisingly, you know,

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Speaker 6: last year was basically the first year that AI models

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Speaker 6: were deployed to actually model hurricanes, and they did really

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Speaker 6: well insofar as they did basically better than every model

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Speaker 6: that already exists, models that have been here for thirty

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Speaker 6: plus years.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess the question is how far back do

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Speaker 4: the models go when it comes to data, because I

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Speaker 4: remember how often we hear that this was the storm

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Speaker 4: of the century, or we haven't had this kind of

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Speaker 4: storm in X number of years, And if your data

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Speaker 4: only goes back, say fifteen, thirty, even fifty years, that

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Speaker 4: doesn't take you far back enough.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely, I think this is one of the major

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Speaker 6: concerns is that we're concerned that if AI models are

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Speaker 6: only trained on previous data and storms are getting more extreme,

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Speaker 6: maybe they won't be able to actually predict those future

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Speaker 6: storms that are you know, the most extreme stored on record.

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Speaker 6: And yet last year we had one of those, it

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Speaker 6: was Hurricane Melissa. And yet you know, the Google Deep

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Speaker 6: Mind model, which is an AI based model, did better

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Speaker 6: than every other hurricane model. Basically got its intensity basically correct,

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Speaker 6: and its path you know, where it exactly went, also correct.

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Speaker 6: And it's a storm that it could never have seen

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Speaker 6: in the trading data.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 6: So that was I think really remarkable and exciting for us,

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Speaker 6: as you know, meteorologists, that these models are doing so

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Speaker 6: exceptionally well given they're like, you know a couple of

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Speaker 6: years old.

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Speaker 2: What is El Nino and how's it going to impact

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Speaker 2: hurricane season?

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Speaker 6: This year. Yeah, a lot of people are talking about

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Speaker 6: on Nina right now. It's you know, it's this large

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Speaker 6: scale climate phenomenon. It basically all it means is that

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Speaker 6: the Pacific is warmer than average, But that has a

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Speaker 6: lot of downstream implications for whether across across the world. Really,

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Speaker 6: as far as hurricanes are concerned, we nominally expect that

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Speaker 6: there will be fewerhurricanes than average. You know, if there's

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Speaker 6: maybe average seven hurricanes in the Atlantic that this year,

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Speaker 6: no expects maybe somewhere between three and six something like that.

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Speaker 6: And so you know that basically just results from the

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Speaker 6: fact that the wind patterns change of the Atlantic and

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Speaker 6: it's less conducive for hurricanes this year.

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Speaker 4: And what is a relationship between hurricane season here in

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Speaker 4: North America versus say, the typhoon season in Asia. Does

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Speaker 4: it affect that.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. So what we generally expect is that the

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Speaker 6: relationship between al Nino and what happens in the Atlantic,

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Speaker 6: that's a pretty tried and true impact. We can look

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Speaker 6: over fifty years of date and see usually during al

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Speaker 6: Nino years there's less hurricanes in the Pacific. You kind

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Speaker 6: of see different effects in fact on the Eastern side

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Speaker 6: of the Pacific, closer to the United States, you see

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Speaker 6: perhaps more hurricanes than average. Right, So the way that

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Speaker 6: all Nino impacts globally, hurricanes and the circulation patterns, it's

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Speaker 6: different depending on where you are, and so we may,

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Speaker 6: you know, just because we see less here, we might

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Speaker 6: still see more in the Pacific depending on where you are.

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Speaker 2: So who's is who does who predicts like our hurricanes

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Speaker 2: and tells us where they're going and all that kinds

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Speaker 2: of Is that the government or is that a private thing?

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Speaker 6: Yeah? I think it's a lot of people are So

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Speaker 6: there's there are a lot of government agencies which have

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Speaker 6: these models because the models are.

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Speaker 2: Really the Canadian model, American model.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, hear about exactly exactly. I think as far

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Speaker 6: as tropical cyclones are concerned, American stakeholders are more interested because,

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Speaker 6: you know, the Canada, the Canadians don't really have an

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Speaker 6: incentive to make a really great chopical cyclone model because

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Speaker 6: there's not like a lot of hurricanes in Canada, you know.

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Speaker 6: But Noah, I think is usually the gold standard for.

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Speaker 2: This kind of north Who is it national?

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Speaker 6: Noah, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Speaker 4: Are they are they still funded. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 4: Doage took a you know, cut a lot of jobs,

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Speaker 4: and I'm guessing that you know, something that forecasts weather

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Speaker 4: is not high on the current White Houses list party lists.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. I think we've seen pretty big heights and lows,

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Speaker 6: probably as far as Noah's concerned. You'll see there's hiring

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Speaker 6: pushes very recently to bring back meteorologists because some were

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Speaker 6: you know cut in that you know that of it,

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Speaker 6: all right, and so you know, I think but you know,

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Speaker 6: all that aside, like the media all just started doing

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Speaker 6: Hurricane prediction and general weather prediction are like super important, right,

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Speaker 6: so these feel a little bit more like jobs that

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Speaker 6: have a little more staying power, I would hope.

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Speaker 2: All Right, so we're fewer than average hurricanes.

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Speaker 4: That is good news. That's good news for everyone. Just

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Speaker 4: a quick question. You have your PhD in atmospheric science.

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Speaker 4: When you were growing up, what did you want to be? Like?

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Speaker 4: You knew you loved weather, but like how did you

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Speaker 4: see things playing out?

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Speaker 6: Yeah? I think for me, there was two things. I

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Speaker 6: was always like really interested just like we I grew

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Speaker 6: up in Florida and so Florida is known like it's

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Speaker 6: in this area where like the clouds are crazy. Like

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Speaker 6: I lived in La for five years, there's like no

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Speaker 6: clouds there ever, But in Florida you look up outside

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Speaker 6: any day and just like the scale and scope of

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Speaker 6: the clouds are so crazy. And I was just like

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Speaker 6: always fascinated by that. And then also the BP oil

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Speaker 6: spill was like such a huge impact on like all

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Speaker 6: of our like golf communities, and I think just like

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Speaker 6: that really got me turned on to like, you know,

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Speaker 6: environmental like engineering science.

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Speaker 4: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live

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Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android

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Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: Well in the historical time coming up for ESPN that

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Speaker 2: we definitely want to spend some time talking about Linda

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Speaker 2: Cone Joints, a sports center anchor for ESPN, retiring after

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Speaker 2: thirty four years from ESPN. Linda, thank you so much

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Speaker 2: for joining us. I guess I'd love to just get

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Speaker 2: a sense since you've seen everything in sports television, for

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Speaker 2: better or worse, how has it changed? How has sports

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Speaker 2: television changed? Because ESPN changed everything.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me, Paul and

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Speaker 5: Scarlett really appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a fun time

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Speaker 5: for me. The big shows, the final shows or this Friday,

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Speaker 5: and so I have seen everything, and most of it's

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Speaker 5: been for the great you know. I like telling this story.

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Speaker 5: You know, I started in nineteen ninety two, July nineteen

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Speaker 5: ninety two, for those who can do the math, thirty

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Speaker 5: four years and when they first instituted the Institute of

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Speaker 5: the bottom line, that ticker at the bottom before that,

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Speaker 5: you know, telling the scores before we gave them the information.

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Speaker 5: I share this story because many of us on camera

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Speaker 5: a sports center anchors were horrified about this because we

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Speaker 5: really cared about our writing and telling a story, setting

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Speaker 5: up the highlight of the game you're about to see,

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Speaker 5: but you're giving away the score. And this was I

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Speaker 5: don't even know what year this was. It might have

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Speaker 5: been late nineties or whatever, but it was it was like,

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Speaker 5: you know, Swilight Zone ish for us, so you know

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Speaker 5: what I mean. And it was like and we thought

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Speaker 5: there was a talent meeting and all of us like

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Speaker 5: stood up and made our case how awful this would be.

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Speaker 5: Of course we didn't get our way, and then it

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Speaker 5: turned out to be again one of these things that

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Speaker 5: if we don't see, you know, what's wrong with the TV,

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Speaker 5: there's no bottom line that tells us a store before

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Speaker 5: we talk about it. So that's always the first thing

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Speaker 5: that jumps up. But then technically all the stuff we

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Speaker 5: see when we watch live football get any kind of

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Speaker 5: sporting event, making it easy to watch and all this.

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Speaker 5: But for Sports Center ESPN, yes, we were always ahead

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Speaker 5: of it. And I'm really proud that I, you know,

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Speaker 5: I played a you know, small part of it with

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Speaker 5: my colleagues from the golden era.

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Speaker 4: I feel like you played an instrumental part of it,

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Speaker 4: not a small part of it.

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Speaker 5: And the fact that Scarlett, the fact that.

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Speaker 4: You started in radio that's near and dear to our parts.

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Speaker 4: Of course, because we're talking to you on radio right now,

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Speaker 4: just give us a little bit of background about you,

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Speaker 4: because I'm in chiage by the fact that you played

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Speaker 4: hockey as a teenager with the boys and against the boys.

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Speaker 4: How much did that factor into your wanting to go

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Speaker 4: into sports broadcasting.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and thanks Scarlett for saying that. Yeah, first, I

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Speaker 5: don't want to forget to say this. How you know

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Speaker 5: young women like yourself. All these women have reached out

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Speaker 5: to me that are in the business, and that is like,

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Speaker 5: I'm really proud of that professional legacy of inspiring all

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Speaker 5: these young women who are in kindergarten, first grade, second

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Speaker 5: grade watching the sports in early years before they jumped

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Speaker 5: on the boss, realizing that they too could do it

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Speaker 5: if they saw a woman up there telling them about

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Speaker 5: what happened in the game. Right. So I'm really professionally

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Speaker 5: almost proud of that the most. So getting back to

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Speaker 5: the hockey thing, I was a kid with very low

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Speaker 5: self esteem. I wore very thick glasses. Now the glasses

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Speaker 5: are not as thick, thank god. But I love sports,

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Speaker 5: watched it with my dad. Sports gave me something to

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Speaker 5: look forward to. That's how I always phrase it. Because

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Speaker 5: I didn't really have a lot of friends. I mean,

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Speaker 5: I mean I listened to the Carpenters growing up. I

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Speaker 5: love depressing stuff. It was it was all it wasn't

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Speaker 5: you know, I would don't worry no what happen emailfore

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Speaker 5: your time? Yeah, exactly exactly, Scarlet. So anyway, you know,

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Speaker 5: then I then I started playing street hockey with the boys,

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Speaker 5: and I realized, you know, I'm really good at this

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Speaker 5: goalie thing. And what I loved about that position is

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Speaker 5: that I could determine here's this girl, low self esteem,

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Speaker 5: shy as a as a wallflower, you know, just kind

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Speaker 5: of melted into the wall and playing goalie, realizing that

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Speaker 5: I was good at it. And I got contact lenses

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Speaker 5: by the way, that helped my vision, and you know,

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Speaker 5: and then I was like, Wow, people are noticing me.

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Speaker 5: And it wasn't like, you know, conceited kind of way,

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Speaker 5: but I felt like I was, Wow, I'm helping people,

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Speaker 5: I'm winning games, I'm making the safe at the right time.

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Speaker 5: I'm suddenly like somebody. And so I rode that emotion

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Speaker 5: and I added that to just my love of sports

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Speaker 5: and my sports teams and watching the games with my dad,

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Speaker 5: but being a goalie. I liked telling this story too,

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Speaker 5: because I don't think I ever would have had this

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Speaker 5: career in broadcasting and then onto ESPN, you know, because

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Speaker 5: I start out in radio, like you said, in New York,

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Speaker 5: working seven days a week. Loved it. Then I you know,

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Speaker 5: hosting three hour solo sports talk shows. It's the best thing.

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Speaker 5: People don't get and that has made me a better

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Speaker 5: sports center anchor. Oh, by the way, so about getting

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Speaker 5: back to the goalie story quickly. You know, when I

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Speaker 5: was playing with the boys. When I first started, my

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Speaker 5: mom found a league on Long Island that you know,

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Speaker 5: I was fourteen. I wanted to play ice hockey. I

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Speaker 5: learned to skate with forty pounds of goalie equipment on

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Speaker 5: me and I played. They didn't let me play with

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Speaker 5: fourteen year old boys. That I had to play with

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Speaker 5: eight year old boys back in the day. It was

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Speaker 5: you know, I'm dating myself, but you can just google me.

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Speaker 5: And it was nineteen seventy, nineteen seventy, like mid seventies,

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Speaker 5: five seventy six, this kind of time. And so I

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Speaker 5: heard the moms, like I heard the moms whispering, well,

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Speaker 5: what is that a girl in that? I see a

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Speaker 5: ponytail out of behind her mask? All this kind of

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Speaker 5: and I had to block out the noise. I had

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Speaker 5: to block out the critics. I had to block out

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Speaker 5: the people who are like, what is she doing here?

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Speaker 5: Type of verbiage, type of words that I heard and overheard,

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Speaker 5: And man, if that doesn't prepare you for, you know,

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Speaker 5: breaking into the boys club, like I did. And I

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Speaker 5: wrote a book years ago called Conehead and I kind

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Speaker 5: of put that tagline on it. I don't know what

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Speaker 5: does because I learned to block out the noise. I

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Speaker 5: had my moments, I had my days, I had my

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Speaker 5: crying episodes in ladies' rooms, in various workplaces. I'm only human.

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Speaker 5: But you know what, you just believe in yourself and

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Speaker 5: you get enough validation to keep going, right. You know,

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Speaker 5: we always need a little extra validation like Okay, this, that,

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Speaker 5: this that, but you uh, you know, it's just when

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Speaker 5: I look back, it's been a great, great ride.

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Speaker 2: And now, Linda, I mean your business, the business of

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Speaker 2: sports cable TV. Now it's streaming, it's changing yet again.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, what do you think the future is of

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Speaker 2: ESPN and this new world we're in.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't have that crystal ball. I just know that,

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Speaker 5: you know, full disclosure. I'm glad I'm not starting out

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Speaker 5: on the business now. It would be very things have changed,

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Speaker 5: would be very challenging. We know about AI, we know

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Speaker 5: about all that. I'm not saying they're gonna take the

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Speaker 5: I don't know. I'm not gonna take the play, but

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Speaker 5: not gonna see robots and sports, that or chairs, But

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Speaker 5: I'm not sure what we're gonna see. On one hand,

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Speaker 5: streaming is exciting. On one hand, AI is exciting. Uh.

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Speaker 5: But you know, kudos to ESPN and with all these

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Speaker 5: super in the last five, six, seven years, as you

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Speaker 5: guys have witnessed, it's really jumped leaps and bounds with

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Speaker 5: all these technical changes and adjustments you have to make,

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Speaker 5: and the competition what I love about When I broke

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Speaker 5: in and then, you know, probably the first twenty five

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Speaker 5: of the thirty four years, maybe the first twenty eight

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Speaker 5: of the thirty four years, you know, there wasn't a

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Speaker 5: lot of super competition to ESPN, right and especially the

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Speaker 5: early days that was a big thrill for all of

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Speaker 5: us that we were the only game in town, like

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Speaker 5: meaning that's all you could turn to to see anything.

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Speaker 5: There was, you know, no internet, blah blah blah. So

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Speaker 5: how all are these changes going to affect ESPN? Honestly, guys,

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Speaker 5: I don't I don't know, but I will be watching.

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Speaker 4: They'll be watching as well, we all be, as will

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Speaker 4: all be. One question I do have for you, Linda

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Speaker 4: is that you have always said you approach your job

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Speaker 4: as a fan first, because you are not a professional

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Speaker 4: athlete who then transitioned into becoming an on air talent.

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Speaker 4: Now that most of the commentators on live sports are

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Speaker 4: former athletes themselves, what do normal people like a Linda

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Speaker 4: Cone offer that you know, a Charles Barkley doesn't. I mean,

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Speaker 4: what can you say? What can you bring to the

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Speaker 4: table too audiences that former athletes can't and don't.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and you're right about your observation. And a lot

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Speaker 5: of former athletes have become analysts and that's great. And

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Speaker 5: you know, being in a very lower level a college athlete,

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Speaker 5: you know, I get that, and I always I always

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Speaker 5: been athlete friendly, player friendly, that type of thing. But

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Speaker 5: you know, the young people, the young men and women

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Speaker 5: coming out of college still want to be in the business.

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Speaker 5: There's so many great things that can hone their skills,

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Speaker 5: whether it's YouTube, whether it's TikTok, all these things you

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Speaker 5: know that I didn't have, that many of us didn't have,

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Speaker 5: so there are I would I would really concentrate, even

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Speaker 5: though you know AI is there and all that, and

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Speaker 5: it's all about videos now. But the writing, I mean

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Speaker 5: that is something, the journalistic skill, the writing, you can

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Speaker 5: be way ahead of the former athletes. You can guide

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Speaker 5: them and the way you speak, you know, the one

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Speaker 5: thing I really had to learn, and thank God goodness

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Speaker 5: for radio guys, because I learned to communicate naturally, not

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Speaker 5: feel like I was reading something, you know, because I

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Speaker 5: started out doing updates, and then I started hosting radio

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Speaker 5: shows and then you have a suddenly like, Okay, be conversational,

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Speaker 5: and so that was great and that helped me in

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Speaker 5: TV and that helped me for thirty four years on

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Speaker 5: the Sports Center set. So back to your original question, yes,

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Speaker 5: I mean that's where you could bring it, being conversational,

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Speaker 5: connecting to the fans. Yes, I say I'm a fan

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Speaker 5: first because I am. I'm just as nuts about my

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Speaker 5: teams than they are the people watching me, and I

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Speaker 5: tried to show that. But you can also channel that

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Speaker 5: into Okay, you be smart, you know what you're talking about. Prepared.

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Speaker 5: You have to be prepared. When I'm prepared, man, my

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Speaker 5: confidence boost when I'm not prepared, right, I mean, when

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Speaker 5: I'm not prepared, I'm doing something like I don't know

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Speaker 5: about this assignment. Oh, I'm getting nervous about it? All

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Speaker 5: comes on, you know, right, Linda, exactly scall it.

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