Bloomberg SurveillanceMay 18, 202629m

Iran Oil Sanctions, LIRR Strike, Primary Electiona in Focus

Showing mention at 26:32 — highlighted below

Transcript

562 segments
0:00

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1:33

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcasts See us live weekdays at 7 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay or Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. We continue to... with Francisco Todd Blanche, with Bank of America global research driving all of their commodity coverage.

2:05

And what is fabulous about him is the European perspective. You know, he's been to Texas six times, but he's like, you know, he's in Madrid. And he's doing the European thing. How is the continent of Europe affected right now from this disaster in the Persian Gulf? Hey, Tom, thanks for having me once again. So I think something very important to understand is that this Persian Gulf crisis is really mostly an Indo-Pacific crisis. Not so much an Atlantic Basin crisis. So it's a very different in nature to what we saw during the Russia-Ukraine's war, I guess, four years ago.

2:46

And also, it's a crisis that is mostly oil rather than natural gas and power. So in that sense, Europe is being less affected because it's not the region that is, or not the basin that is most impacted, but also Europe lost all its gas, just as French nuclear power was collapsing due to a lack of water and a lack of maintenance. So I think 2020 is much, much, much tougher for European industry, much tougher for European consumers. This time around, what's essentially happening is European consumers, which are wealthier than global consumers. They're essentially rationing out Asian consumers. So the real challenge, and I know you love, Tom, international economics, the real challenge is for countries that have a large current account deficit, a large government deficit, and a large net energy import position. So we've got Philippines out to 62 here right now, 61 point. seven, three, on a unit basis, will there be, forget about microeconomics in Chicago, Jeff

3:56

Curry Price Theory. Forget about it. Are we just going to lose units? We are losing units because we don't have the units and we need to lose the demand side, right? So, but the demand side is being rationed around the world. And in the meantime, we're trying to use up inventories. So it's a combination of, you know, people ask me, so how are we filling up this gap of 14, 15 million barrels that we have in the market. And I say, well, you know, we're pulling from inventories. Maybe 30, 40% is being pulled from inventories. And the balance is a combination of price, demand rationing, policy, demand rationing,

4:31

because governments are telling, you have Narendra Modi telling Indians don't drive, right? And then we have also just simply availability. If you are a petrochemical plant in Asia, you just don't have the feedstock to run your industrial units and you're not running them. So that combination is what's preventing us from moving much, much higher in prices. But of course, inventories are finite. So if inventory really start running very low around the world, then we'll see another leg up. Where are we in terms of that inventory level globally?

5:05

Because people tell me, yes, we're really running low, whether it's onshore, whether it's floating on the ocean somewhere. Where are we? Do we have a metric for that? We do, and we track inventories very closely. I think we probably could draw another half a billion barrels without the market kind of completely cratering. And I think I'm kind of starting to develop this theory about what's happening.

5:29

There's the last kind of few weeks, last six weeks, since the U.S. imposed a double blockade. One thing we've seen is we've seen China taking down their imports. The Chinese were importing 11, 12 million barrels a day, and then the U.S. imposed the double blockade and the Chinese imports went down to 8. So, and again, what's important to understand is we had the same situation back in 2022, except for it was natural gas.

5:52

The Chinese stopped buying natural gas when prices went high. So we kind of have this OPEC on the one hand on the supply side, but we have this monopsony on the demand side, which is called China. They buy when it's low, and they stop buying when prices go up. And so I think there's an inventory element to what's happening within China that's also keeping prices somewhat steady here. Absolutely fascinating. Francisco Todd Blanche with us with the Bank of America, just incredibly acute analysis out as our head of global commodities on where we are.

6:26

Explain your X-axis. If you've got to go out and guess, which is your job, how hard is it to figure out an X-axis on copper? If you have monopsonic tendencies in China, I don't know how you frame out a timeline. Where's the Francisco Todd Blanche timeline? Yeah, so perhaps this may one of the more puzzling things to pin down, right? There is, we think medium term, there's three main consequences from this war, Tom,

6:56

that we're going to be with us for a very long time, regardless of how long it takes to reopen her moves to normal flows. Number one, we're going to have a major, major restocking cycle for all commodities. I think it's true for oil, but it's also happening in copper. It's happening pretty much in every commodity, because we're going to have a major, have this geopolitical clash between the world's two largest economies. And we saw it in critical minerals. And we're seeing in just metals generally. And in oil, I think every commodity is going to be stored to a higher level than it was. So that stocking cycle is powerful. I think the electrification trends are going to get turbid charged. And that requires a lot of commodities,

7:34

particularly metal. And then the third bit is we are going to have to see some diversification of supply chains and supply sources. which means we're going to rebuild, I mean, we're going to build new factories to cut down dependency on China for a lot of what we buy these days, but also potentially other areas opening for exploration like South America or we are just simply too dependent on the U.S. Gulf and on the Persian Gulf to get our hydrocarbons. I mean, that's the reality today. If we have a hurricane coming into the Gulf this summer, where is oil the gas is going to come from? I mean, I don't know because the person else shut down for now. So if you were advising President Trump, when would you say you need to open this straight like now?

8:21

Is it a week away, a month away, a year away? I think you can stretch it for a little longer. And also remember, the U.S. is going to be the last man standing here. That's true. So America is a net energy exporter. Now, there's going to be certain portions of the U.S. public that are not going to that are not going to have a

8:45

great time as prices go up. I get that, particularly if you're the bottom quintile, bottom quartile of the income ladder. This is a crisis that's really impacting your pocket. And I feel for those people. But I think ultimately as a country, America

9:01

makes money when energy prices go up. And I think what you might have to think about is some way of redistribution. One way is to suspend the federal excise tax, which, as you know, know has been on other discussion, but there's all the things that can be done pretty effectively to cushion, to limit the impact of higher energy prices on lower income households. We did a thing on lithium a couple weeks ago, and whether it's gallium, you know, all this

9:27

rarer stuff, germanium and such. I want to go back to China's monopsonistic power. Does President Trump completely underestimate their power to price at the stock or at the refined level. I think we completely, David Weston was brilliant on this the other day. It shifted. We don't understand Francisco Todd Blanche how China has shifted the debate on who captures price. So if you go back 50 years ago, there's a guy by the name of Wenji Abel. As you remember, was China's prime minister premier back in the early 2000s. And he's the guy in the 70s that really built out the critical minerals industry in China. And so they've taken a very, very long view of things.

10:21

But the way that China operates is they expand production. They kill prices. That destroys the competition. And eventually, prices resettle at a higher level. And that's a process we've seen across many industries. I think perhaps the most interesting one right now in the commodity space. I mean, you talked about lithium. I think also aluminum is an industry that I think is the poster child of anti-involution.

10:46

That's how they call it. Anti-involution is kind of a bit of a funny term, but they basically do that. I mean, they expand production, extreme competition. You see it in the car industry, there's 100 car companies out there. I mean, car sales from Chinese vehicles everywhere. So that's how they do it. So I think it's a very difficult, is a very difficult competitor because, They just don't really seem to care so much about profit over a number of decades.

11:17

Yeah, the power of this folks, and Krugman's been very good on this, but think of a rubber plantation in Singapore where all of the dynamics are controlled by the plantation head. They control the price of all the rubber process. That's sort of the classic undergraduate model here. So what's your model barrel forward? Can you make a barrel estimate or you just throw up your hands? For crude oils? For brand crude.

11:42

No, no, I mean, look, I mean, I think, I think, let's not forget, there's a fair amount of investment in the energy sector. I mean, obviously, a very important question is whether we have more damage to infrastructure in the Middle East, which right now we are not seeing because right now the war is paused. There's disease fire. So I do think that if, I mean, there's probably been some damage and we don't fully. understand the scale of the damage, particularly like oil fields that were shut in rapidly. But I think overall prices should normalize. Maybe not back to $60 a barrel on Brent, maybe $70 or maybe a little higher, 75, or maybe even a little higher.

12:24

But I don't think that we are in a different world order when it comes to prices for Brent. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. Really, really appreciate it. With Bank of America, Francisco Todd Blanche, just definitive here. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg's surveillance coming up after this. Support for the show comes from public.com.

12:46

If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions, buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500, or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index.

13:13

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13:45

Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC registered advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand, but by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement process, We've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. When you own your own business, you own every decision.

14:26

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15:14

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15:32

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app. Or watch us live on YouTube. He has done so much for the city of New York, including being actively involved in the rebuild of Lower Manhattan after September 11th of 2001. Andrew Cuomo, the younger, had him move forward to driving so much of the MTA, where he continues to provide wonderful service across a huge, reach. General Lieber joins us this morning. Geno, I'm not familiar with the LIRR other than the cannonball, Atta, Muntock, and back. That's the fun part of it. This morning is not fun for you.

16:19

What's your biggest headache this morning? You know what, Tom? The services is actually, the system is working. Most people have taken the governor's suggestion to make it a telework day. 95% of Long Islanders telework during COVID and they know how to do it. The turnout at our shuttle bus locations has been pretty light. So people who have to come into the city are getting there. And the subway service from the Queens subway stations where people being dropped off has been fantastic. So far, so good. But it's the first day. And we would like to resolve this issue and restore Long Island Road Road Service, which carries like 300,000 people a day most days. At this point, given what we No, Janow, how long would you expect this strike to last?

17:08

Listen, we made progress yesterday. The talks were productive. It went on until 1.30 in the morning. We're back at the table already this morning. We are hopeful that we can put this to bed, but the union's got to move a little bit further and make sure. And your listeners get it. We do not want to have the outcome of this deal, which is a request for better. wages than the rest of MTA workers receive to result in additional fair hikes or additional

17:40

taxes. That's why we're pushing back a little bit on the strikers. Assuming a deal gets done, what's the ramp up time to get this railroad back up and running to service its customers? Generally speaking, it's whenever we get it done, we think we get service back the next day. And that's because you not only got to move people and equipment into position. We have to perform a lot of federally required inspections, especially of the trains. So there's some of the mechanics that have to be gone through before we can put those trains back on the rails and start to take passengers where they're going. How unified is your system? I mean, you've got 300,000 plus on the LIR. You've got Metro North.

18:27

Four other things, Janow, I'm not familiar with. I'm your worst nightmare, Jan. I have no life. I go nowhere. But I look at you at the system. How unified, like does a driver make the same amount on each system to the ticket people make a same amount? How unified is the system? Oh, in the sense of the, you're right that there are different unions. We have, you know, Tom, we have 80 separate bargaining units. We have 80 separate unions in effect to negotiate with. It is really a complicated labor environment. And there are differences among them. But generally speaking, we do what we call pattern bargaining. We make a deal with the biggest union and then the others have to fit their deals within the economic box that that creates. This group of unions wants to

19:17

go outside the box to get us a special deal and that is the source of the tension and the conflict so far. But as I said, we're trying to resolve it, chop, chop right now. Jana, give us a state of the negotiations right now. Our talks ongoing, are they scheduled? What's the story of the negotiations? Yeah, they're going on right now. They resumed at 7.30 this morning. As I said, folks took a break at about 1.30 in the morning last night.

19:44

I was here with them, and they're back at the table right now as we're speaking. So I don't have an update, but work is going on right now. Aside from the Federal Mediation Board that's helping in the discussions, is anyone in Congress or in? in the executive branch helping the parties reach a deal? Well, I mean, the governor has been, you know, side by side with us throughout, and she has been monitoring the discussions very closely. I've been in touch with her team throughout the night, in fact, as well as the governor herself.

20:16

So she's been the major player. Congress really doesn't have a role here because once these unions were released by, so they could go on strike by Trump's National Mediation Board. there's really no further role for the federal government. Does the Long Island Railroad break even? No way. In fact, the Long Island Railroad is the most highly subsidized of our MTA operations, the Subways, the Metro North, and Long Island Railroad.

20:48

So you're right, Tom. Your question highlights the fact that we can't expect regional taxpayers to keep pumping money for special deals into the Long Island Railroad. Everybody up to 1.30 are John Tucker Carlson wants to know. When will the talks restart? Do you start them this morning? Do you have a one day cool off? Which hotel should Alexis Christophers go protest? No. This is, they're going on right now at the MTA headquarters, a couple floors away from where I am speaking to you from. Jan, can you just summarize kind of where we are right now in terms of what's the differential? What's, is there a bid-ass spread that on wages? What is the real stumbling block right now?

21:31

Honestly, Paul, I don't know if it's productive for me to get into those details because we're trying to iron something out. But, you know, we talked about a little bit yesterday. You know, it's wages and benefits and, you know, basic, basic stuff like that. You know, I look, Janow, is we're getting ready. And I know you've got to get back to your busy day. I'm using artificial intelligence and here, Google Gemini, Geno, on everything I'm dealing with. Here's my question to AI this morning. Was the $150 fare to the World Cup? Was that Geno Lieber's fault?

22:10

And here's the answer from AI. No, you can't pin this one on Geno Lieber. What a mess, Jenno. Discuss just the PR madness of that fair. Well, the PR is the PR, but I'll tell you this, I am sympathetic to the folks who run New Jersey Transit, which, you know, they operate a system where they're running on Amtrak railroads and Amtrak infrastructure that has not been maintained. They have a tough financial situation. And they're trying to make sure that they don't get killed, budgetarily, because there's a, you know, they've got to turn off their system to accommodate

22:52

soccer fans who come from other countries and are paying a thousand dollars a ticket. So I have a little sympathy for the folks at New Jersey Transit. I think it's getting worked out over time. Will the cannonball run this weekend? Come on, Memorial Day weekend. Come on, Janelle. For you, we'll try to make sure the cannonball runs, Tom. Thank you. General Lieber. Thank you. Thank you so much. And is incredibly busy day. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg's surveillance coming up after this.

23:22

show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions, buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the risk. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined.

24:00

An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokridge services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC registered advisor.

24:27

Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand, but by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions slash repetitive tasks and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM.

25:00

When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business Card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel,

25:30

3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits, and more. Make every journey more rewarding with a $300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges, whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for business, make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, member FDIC.

26:10

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app or watch us live on YouTube. Henrietta Trey's briefs now. Henryita, politically, why is Georgia so unusual? Well, Georgia is overwhelmingly unusual, especially now. It's almost like every year it gets more and more interesting.

26:35

I focus on the Senate side because I think it's so fascinating to see not just what's happened in the local races and the Georgia representatives splitting parties and fracturing, but on the Senate side, seeing Jon Ossoff as a, again, candidate that, you know, were surprised to still see on the, on the main stage and is clearly the frontrunner. It's a fascinating dynamic North Carolina as well, where you have a Democratic candidate like Roy Cooper, who's ahead on average by eight points and what should otherwise be a very red state purple at best. Plus eight is not a purple number. Interesting. We also have, I mean, news out of Louisiana as well, President Donald Trump on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr..

27:15

succeeded in their efforts to defeat Senator Bill Cassidy in Louisiana's Republican primary. Tell us about what's going on in your state. Well, I could, yeah, I could tell you that was the topic of conversation yesterday and all the, you know, kids functions. The effort underway to get turnout, really, I mean, Louisiana generally just doesn't vote. So something like 24% of eligible voters turned out yesterday or over the weekend for the Bill Cassidy vote or the Senate seat. But there was an effort to, you know, driven by Washington, driven by the national parties to get Democrats to change parties to Republicans so they can vote in the primary.

27:51

But the president really put his back into unseating Bill Cassidy. And that's exactly what happened. What I'm most interested in is the Thomas Massie seat in Kentucky. I mean, Kentucky, we've talked about this in the past. There's something in the water. I married a guy from Kentucky one time. So I understand these guys do not necessarily want a cut and dry Republican. in. They want an independent candidate. That's what you see in Rand Paul on the Senate side and

28:14

obviously also in Thomas Massie. What's really interesting to me is just how much money Trump is willing to pour into these races. In Indiana, it was $10 million in Kentucky, you know, just one house seat. It's $30 million. They're going, you know, all the way in on these races. Do you extrapolate that to 2008, rather? And then if the president doesn't run for a third term, he will hugely be influential in the Republican process. Absolutely. What I hear from Republican contacts and folks in the Trump universe is very much that there won't even be a primary. That's been, you know, the rumor mill for almost a year now.

28:54

And effectively, the question is, is it going to be Marco Rubio at the top of the ticket or JD Vance at the top of the ticket? As somebody who deals with New Jersey politics, I usually default to the person who's the least unpopular. And there, Marco Rubio is substantially less unpopular than James. JD Vance, and he has, you know, very strong approval ratings, even in the wake of the war, which is broadly unpopular. So I think that bodes really well for Marco Rubio. How about midterm elections here? How are those cards kind of folding right now? The redistricting effort has changed the calculus for sure. So if you were going into this in a wave election year, on average, the minority party picks up 24 seats. Due to redistricting, my metric has

29:37

gone way down. And I think that Democrats and the minority party in this case could be somewhere in the eight to about 18 seat range. So it's going to look very small. But the latest polling that's coming out is showing a generic ballot average of plus 10. And I think in the New York Times Sienna poll that just came out about an hour ago, the Democrats are ahead by 11 points. So it could be larger than that eight to 18 seat window, but compared to prior years, you know, we're not in the Nancy Pelosi, Boehner, Range, when we got, you know, the first Trump administration coming in those big huge 47, 41 seat swings. Henrietta Trace, thank you so much.

30:16

Greatly appreciate it. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg's surveillance coming up after this. Support for the show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions, buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English.

30:43

Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the risk. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. an investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less.

31:17

That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Rokered services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC registered advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com, The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand, but by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work.

31:54

Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business Card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners

32:14

who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising,

32:37

annual partnership credits, and more. Make every journey more rewarding with a $300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges, whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in.

32:55

Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC.

33:13

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app. Or watch us live on YouTube. Amanda Gotti gets started with P.N. See, Amanda, let me look at the home. hyperscale or known as Walmart, as Alexis mentions it. Amanda, I have a forward PE on Walmart of 45. It's like ginormous total return over 30, 40 years. How does a boring retail company making nominal GDP

33:48

revenue growth maybe, how do they garner a 45 price as compared to earnings ratio? Well, it's great to be with you guys. Good morning. That's quite a question to start things off with. I mean, I think the challenge in this environment is nobody really knows for sure what the transformative effects of implementing AI across all these different models is ultimately going to look like. And as you said, for a somewhat sleepy kind of mass retailer, the potential for margin expansion in a meaningful way, transforming the efficiencies of the business, could be really, significant. And so I think investors are, you know, backing up the truck in some of these names because they think that the transformation there is bigger maybe than what we would expect in other parts of the market. As we go along in AI and Paul, I know you were all deep into Claude and Anthropic on the deck this weekend. But the thing that the sheet just said is exactly what I heard two, three years ago. Yeah. We're going to see a margin expansion. Yep. Due to Claude. I'm not there, but that's what they say. Torsten Slok is there,

34:56

our friend from Apollo, he's out with a note here saying AI is penetrating every corner of financial markets. He looks at high grade bond issuance and high yield bond issuance and VC funding, how it's been dominated by AI. Amanda, we had, I guess, a pretty big AI type of IPLS last week, Cerebrus. How are you guys just thinking about how to invest in AI going forward? Well, it's a great question, of course. I think it was an interesting test, one of capital markets activity, right? Capital markets have been fairly sluggish. So everybody was watching this one to see how it would play out, even though it's given back a little bit of the gain since the IPO just a few days ago, I think everyone can

35:40

claim it as a success. And so we do think capital markets activity kind of got the green lights from that, and we expect to see a lot more happening in the second half. But as it relates to AI, I think it's really sort of a signal that there's room for everyone. It's not just about Nvidia, even though Nvidia is really sort of the bellwether of the industry, there's plenty of other exposures out there to play this. And so I think this is just another good example of the potential breadth that investors really have. We're so myopically focused on one name or seven name or even 10 names. But the transformative power is really everywhere.

36:17

We're just not there yet. I mean, I'm there from a thesis perspective, but we're not actually seeing that translate into margin expansion potential. It's all hype and expectation for future returns. You know, I was driving yesterday, Tom, with a young man, 29 years old engineering guy. He quadrupled my knowledge of AI in his one hour car drive. I mean, just how you use it, what you use them for. And for these young folks, it is just a way.

36:45

I was talking to Kelsey Barrow up in the food court. Yeah. She comes in a little chow down. It's not the same at J.P. Morgan. Kelsey goes, I am so dumb on AI. And I go, feel good. I'm dumber than you are. But you got to get there. Hey, Amanda, talk to us about the bond market here. There are some yields here. We haven't seen in quite some time here. How are you thinking about the fixed income space? Well, one, I would say the bond market is really thinking about what's going on in this environment, this macro environment as more of an inflation scare than anything else. As we see yields creep higher, it's very much a reflection of this protracted conflict.

37:21

And time is not on our side as it relates to this clearly. So I think that's an important point to make here. The bond market is signaling what's happening in the macro backdrop and not really giving policy makers a lot of room. I still think even though the yield curve is steepening a bit here as a function of what's going on, it's still pretty darn flat. So from 10 years to 30 years, we don't see a lot of attractive yield pickup. There is a little bit there.

37:48

But from a duration perspective, we're not encouraging investors to go too, too far out. I think the belly of the curve, five to seven years still looks pretty attractive, even in this environment. But how do the matter on a Monday morning, whether it's long-term money or short-term, is a single sentence to your note that you end with Amanda. This is not a frothy market. If we are not frothy, are we buying the leaders or searching for value? Well, I think you can potentially do both. I think you can approach it from a barbell perspective. I mean, I think what's best in this environment is diversification. That's the best diversifier. It sounds like such a snoozer for a Monday morning. But I think in this environment, given there's so much policy uncertainty, so much macro overhang, you really have to really look at things from a diversified perspective. Investors aren't getting paid to take big best. that's in this environment, tactically speaking, because, you know, the market wants the conflict to be over. It's clearly not over, right? It ain't over till it's over. And so I think from a

38:54

portfolio positioning perspective, broader exposure as opposed to just picking one name or handful of names is the right answer right now. Amanda Gotti, thank you so much with PNC, their CIO. This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday. 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the IHeartRadio app, tune in, and the Bloomberg business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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