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- [00:00]
LifeMD Narrator
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- [01:42]
Bloomberg Businessweek Host
Bloomberg businessweek Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stanweck on Bloomberg Radio.
- [02:05]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Now to the latest out of the Middle east and to our live vlog We Go where it's reporting that strikes from both sides continue after President Trump's deadline extension. The US And Israel hit nuclear and steel facilities in Iran. Tehran threatened retaliation against steel plants and stocks are lower as Brent crude is higher, hovering around $212 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed to shipping. I want to bring in Ian Marlowe, Bloomberg News National Security Editor. He joins us from our Washington D.C. bureau. Ian, I want to go back to what we heard yesterday after the market closed from from President Trump, pausing the period of energy plant destruction by 10 days to Monday, April 6, 2026, 8pm Eastern Time. The markets we saw oil fall on that. We saw futures move higher on that news. And then fast forward to today and it seems like things are not cooling down at all in the Middle East. What's with the mixed messages, the mis. Mixed. Mixed signals.
- [03:03]
Ian Marlowe
Yeah, you know, I think they're, they seem to be pretty closely related in the sense that anytime stocks fall too much, oil prices rise too much, you hear signals from, from the Trump administration that talks are going well, negotiations are happening, the war is not going to last very long. And then you see market reactions. At the same time, we know that the market is anxious about unclear US Strategic goals in this conflict. There's not a lot of things the US can accomplish short of opening the Strait of Hormuz now that would have a significant long term impact. And so at the moment there's no, there's no clear rationale or end point for the war short of Iran just exceeding to, to US demands. And the 15 point plan that we've seen put forward by the US seems to have a lot of the demands in it that Iran rejected in the talks leading up to the US And Israeli strikes that opened this war. So it's, you know, we've seen a sort of very obvious interplay between, you know, Trump's comments, administration comments, and, you know, oil and stock moves in the sense of just, you know, Trump trying to calm markets, essentially. And we've got a lot of mixed messages from different officials in the administration and from Trump himself, sometimes in the same day. So there's a lot of confusion and not a very clear end state in terms of where we get to, you know, with this conflict right now.
- [04:42]
Bloomberg Interviewer
So is the US Actually signaling flexibility here when it comes to enrichment and sanctions? And from Iran's perspective, why the hesitation to come back to the table?
- [04:51]
Ian Marlowe
Yeah, I think in the 15 point plan the US put forward, there's all sorts of things that basically go against what Iran has been doing for the last 40 or 50 years. You know, not supporting militant groups across the, across the Middle east, you know, curtailing its nuclear program, curtailing its ballistic missile programs. All of these things are things that they have slowly built up over time, you know, to give themselves a security posture that they feel comfortable with. Obviously, the US and the west don't want Iran to be doing any of these things. But, you know, as we've seen from previous US Administrations, this is a tough thing to get Iran to agree to. You know, we've seen things from former US Officials saying Iran is a problem to be managed, not necessarily a problem to be solved. And the issue here was the US Going into those talks ahead of the war, you know, with these extremely maximalist positions, you know, asking Iran to basically give up everything to get nothing, essentially. And, you know, Trump was the one who pulled out of the Iran deal that the US Struck with Iran before and has bombed Iran twice now in the middle of talks. So you can see from Tehran's perspective that, you know, they don't necessarily see the US As a trustworthy negotiating partner and vice versa, given all of the Iranian attacks on U.S. troops and personnel over the last few decades. So there's a lot of ill will. And right now, one of the key aims of the war seems to be to open the Strait of Hormuz, which was something that did not exist. You know, it was a problem that didn't exist before the war began. So we're in very strange strategic territory right now where the US Is asking for stuff it had wanted in talks that it themselves abandoned in order to start a war, which then created more problems which the US Is now trying to address with talks. So it's a bit of a confusing situation for a lot of us following this on a day to day basis. And you can see the markets just sort of gyrating back and forth here with every utterance from the, from the White House, which may indicate either it's escalating or talks are going well.
- [07:07]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Well, Ian, on the view from Tehran, I want to bring up a post on, on X from Abbas Aragachi, Iran's Foreign Minister, who writes just in the last few minutes, Israel has hit two of Iran's largest steel factories, a power plant and civilian nuclear sites, among other infrastructure. Israel claims it acted in coordination with the US the attack contradicts the President's extended deadline for diplomacy. Iran will exact heavy price for Israeli crimes. Does this contradict that extension? That extension, extended deadline for diplomacy that we heard from the President yesterday. These attacks on infrastructure?
- [07:47]
Ian Marlowe
Yeah, it's not clear. I mean, obviously essentially any attack on any civilian infrastructure in wartime is essentially a war crime. And the deadline that Trump mentioned was specifically related to power plants, presumably that the US Themselves wanted to hit. This is not necessarily the first time we've seen US And Israeli war aims diverge. That's been an issue from the very beginning of this conflict. But, but you're right in the sense that, you know, the US and Israel are in this together. Iran sees them as linked. You know, they are only engaging at the moment with the US side seemingly on talks. And the commentary out of Israel from Benjamin Netanyahu and others is that this war is very much continuing. They have their own goals in Iran that are different from the US and so this is not the first Time this has come up as a problem and if Iran is seeing it that way, you know, it could be, it could be an issue for, for this deadline and the sort of the talks. Although again, this deadline is a bit amorphous in the sense that it keeps getting extended, you know, as Trump kind of seeks off ramps here to a conflict that is just totally rocking markets. Israel has come out and said that they did hit some of these nuclear facilities, but their, their justification for that was that these were plutonium sort of enrichment related facilities, not, you know, civilian nuclear facilities. They were designed for, you know, weapons grade, you know, material.
- [09:33]
Bloomberg Interviewer
Very quickly here we're hearing the 15 points versus 5 ask is there actually any real overlap to work with?
- [09:41]
Ian Marlowe
I think there are things on both of those lists that we know are red lines for both sides. I cannot imagine, for instance, US taxpayers or Israeli taxpayers supporting war reparations for Iran to help rebuild some of Iran's facilities. For instance. That's one of the Iranian asks as is sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, which it didn't have before the war. So you know, there's no way the US is going to agree to those. And so that's why to some degree you're seeing this escalation, this intensifying of the conflict even as we see, you know, Trump repeatedly saying he wants a ceasefire. I think the reality here is that we're not in traditional peace talks. We are in talks between two extremely hostile long term geopolitical enemies. And you know, even as part of the ceasefire deal that Trump is trying to push, there are, you know, massive asks in there for, for Tehran. And so there is basically no way Iran will agree to this unless military in the US mine, unless pressure is brought militarily. So that's the kind of issue we're dealing with right now.
- [11:03]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Ian Marlowe, really appreciate you joining us. Ian is national Security editor for Bloomberg. Joining us from our Washington D.C. bureau. I want to drill down on some of those nuclear headlines that we saw. The Condab heavy water research reactor targeted twice by US Israeli airstrikes. That's according to the semi official Fars News Agency. And Iran said its yellow cake production plant in Arakan Yazd province was targeted by US Israeli strikes on Friday afternoon. That's according to state run Nower News who cited the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. For more on this we're bringing in Spencer Ferregaso, senior fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security. He specializes in Russian Iranian advanced conventional drone systems and nuclear facilities in Iran. And North Korea. Spencer joining us from Washington D.C. spencer, I want to start with those two headlines and you know, you specialize in looking at satellite imagery, understanding the extent of, of damage from attacks and what's actually happening at these facilities. I know it's still early days, early hours at this point, but, but what can you tell us about the yellowcake production plant in Yazd province and the Condub heavy water research reactor that was targeted twice at least according to semi official news agencies.
- [12:14]
Spencer Ferregaso
So the, the Condo research reactor is also known as the Iraq IR40 Iraq reactor. It was a reactor that was built many years ago, possibly for the intention of producing plutonium. And plutonium is one of the key resources that are used in producing different types of nuclear weapons. For example, during the June 2025 war it was targeted, the dome of the building was penetrated and likely the reactor was destroyed. It wasn't operating at the time, so there's no release of radiation, etc. Israel at the time also attacked the heavy water plant. They damaged one of the last stages in the heavy water production. Heavy water is a very important chemical compound that is necessary to operate heavy water reactors. It's also a source of neutrons in nuclear weapon. So destroying this facility is incredibly important to creating bottlenecks in Iran's future ability to create nuclear weapons. What we saw at Artacon is also similar. Artacon was used to convert natural uranium into yellow cake and yellow cake is what's converted into uranium hexafluor fluoride, which is ultimately enriched to higher and higher levels and possibly weapon grade levels. So we're seeing Israel eliminate certain stages and steps and that are vital for Iran to be able to continue its enrichment program and wider nuclear program.
- [13:46]
Bloomberg Interviewer
Are there any key red lines the international community is watching when it comes to this?
- [13:53]
Spencer Ferregaso
Necessarily. It would be the enrichment up to 90% that has been stated to be a massive red line. In mind that if Iran touches that in the past, obviously many past presidents have stated that that would trigger strikes. But the key here is that Iran hasn't reached that yet. But what Iran has been doing, they've been accumulating very large quantities of 60% highly enriched uranium over the last several years. They're the only country in the world that does that, that doesn't have a nuclear weapon. There's no civilian application for that type of enrichment. So there's, there's no justification whatsoever.
- [14:34]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Spencer, can the US and Israel destroy Iran's nuclear facilities without endangering bystanders through the release of Radioactive material.
- [14:45]
Spencer Ferregaso
Yeah. Certainly you wouldn't want to target something like a Bushier style nuclear reactor. That would have very large consequences. You wouldn't want to hit the actual reactor itself. But the other facilities, such as for Dao, Natanz, Esfahan, et cetera, those are relatively isolated facilities. They're a good distance away from populations and the actual risk of dispersion on a wide level is relatively low. It would be very isolated to the facilities themselves.
- [15:16]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Do the attacks in recent days on these facilities, do they call into question the official U.S. assessment or of the damage assessment of the June 2025 strikes? Because we thought, I think a lot of folks thought, okay, well based on the rhetoric and what we heard from the president at the time, the nuclear program in Iran was set back quite a bit.
- [15:37]
Spencer Ferregaso
Yeah. So, you know, we had some issues with that initial assessment. I think you're referring to the assessment that said it was only set back a few months. We had some issues with that. We've, our analysis stated that the program was severely set back. The June 2025 war effectively destroyed Iranians enrichment program. And enrichment is a bottleneck in the ability to produce a nuclear weapon. If you cannot get to 90% weapon grade material, it's very hard to build any sort of usable nuclear weapon. 60% highly rich uranium, technically, theoretically can be used to build a nuclear weapon, but it's not practical, it's very hard to deliver. It'd be a very large device. But what Iran has planned, had plans to do during its Ahmad plan, and that was ended in 2003 explicitly and continued in a more covert form, was to build missile deliverable miniaturized warheads that would fit on a Shahab 3 ballistic missile. And so that's a very different thing. Our assessment was that their program was severely set back and would take years for Iran to recover what they actually lost. But that doesn't mean that Iran doesn't have options. So after the war, there's a few outstanding elements that were left over. For example, obviously everyone's talking about the highly enriched uranium. Half of it, the 220kg of the 60% is likely in the tunnel complex at Isfahan. There's a lot of talk and chatter about that right now. Iran also produced a number of advanced centrifuges that they built but likely never deployed. So there's questions about where is that and then the wider state of, you know, what's the, the, what's the actual counting of all this? You know, the IEA has not been allowed to conduct inspections on the ground. So there's significant questions here and it leaves the wrong option.
- [17:29]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Yeah, Spencer, going to have to leave it there. Have a great weekend. We got to get you back on the program soon. Spencer Faragaso, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security, this is Bloomberg.
- [17:39]
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- [17:40]
Bloomberg News Anchor
More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
- [17:47]
LifeMD Narrator
They told us to expect change. They warned us about the transition, but honestly, they forgot the best part. This is the chapter where we finally focus on us. LifeMD delivers expert menopause and midlife care right from your home. From hormone health to holistic wellness, LifeMD helps you feel your best for the best years of your life. LifeMD it's just getting good. Visit LifeMD.com GoodLife support for the show
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- [20:13]
Bloomberg Businessweek Host
to the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [20:26]
Bloomberg News Anchor
I want to continue our coverage of the latest out of the Middle east in the war in Iran. It's affecting markets with stocks lower, oil higher, a drop in treasury stalled. Suffice it to say there's a lot for global business leaders to digest right now. That's where Angel SARS comes in. He's professor and director of ECD Geo it's the center for Global Economy and Geopolitics at Assadi, the business school in Spain. Also with us, Dimitri Castanita. She's Bloomberg businessweek senior editor. She leads businessweek's coverage of business schools. Angel, good to have you on the program. You are a business school professor, but you're also an expert in geopolitics international business. The macroeconomic backdrop today, higher oil prices, barriers to free trade, increasingly countries looking inward. You teach a global community of business leaders who then become leaders go out in this world. How are you looking at the backdrop today in the context of your research?
- [21:20]
Angel SaaS
Great, thanks. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So I think there are two ways to we are looking at it. So one is to understand where we're coming from and where we are. And I think one of the difficulties of today for business leaders is that we are stuck with global value chains that are hereditary from those decades of open markets. And we are now in an environment which is not that open any longer. So you have many more vulnerabilities and risks around you. The second one is more short term. So what do you do? And I think there you can play with different scenarios. And I think what we were talking about in classrooms and with executives around in to see how they can think about how long we're going to have this crisis. What are the different options? And basically I think it comes down to whether Hormuz is open or not and how much long it can be closed and then try to make sure what are the transmissions that can affect the transmission channels that can affect business strategy. And of course there's oil prices, as you were saying, there's inflation, there might be effects on upstream in your value chain with critical inputs, it can be downstream with your exposure to markets. I think many business schools, for example, were open and doing business in the Middle east and now we are on standby. And so that's and then finally I think what we are seeing is this new economic security paradigm in its full strength, which is, what we're seeing is governments intervening markets to guarantee their energy security. Unfortunately not in a global collective way, but at national level. So all these different companies are seeing how governments are interfering.
- [23:09]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Well, let's just hit on that for a second. Because oil prices, it's visceral. It's something that a lot of Americans see when they drive to work. It's, it's not something Americans are used to. Other parts of the world, high gas prices are just, that's, that's the cost of doing business. The government intervention, it can only be successful to a certain extent. People, you know, countries have strategic petroleum reserves or variations of that you could subsidize like we've seen in Japan a little bit.
- [23:34]
Angel SaaS
What works so well. I think what we have seen in the past is that what usually works is when we have a collective solution to a global problem. In fact, that's why the International Energy Agency was set up back in the first oil shock because countries had to coordinate in particular oil consuming countries to coordinate collectively to make sure that you don't start a war, an economic war among countries by all of them starting to impose export controls and controls on exporting oil, gas and their derivatives. So I think what we know is we need a collective action, otherwise we're going to go into a beggar thy neighbor sort of policies. And this can be a sliding slope.
- [24:19]
Bloomberg Interviewer
And you mentioned the government intervention. It's been increasing even in democratic countries, even in countries where you won't expect. I'm not going to name some. How do you think, is there a threshold there? And I know it can be hard to quantify, but if you use the case study of what's happening today to teach your students, what do you tell them?
- [24:36]
Angel SaaS
Well, I tell them that the, the world globalized because companies, because countries decided that they wanted to globalize and open markets and they wanted to respect markets. And that's how where we were coming from, that's over. Today we have countries that are not that interested in keeping borders open. And secondly, they have given up on the principle of the sanctity of markets for good or for bad. And so what is happening? And even before this very severe crisis, we already had many companies, many countries coming up with two types of policies. One is economic security policies where you start to see how they are affecting markets, companies to check their value chains, make sure they don't get caught up with, with certain suppliers, which means they're really going down into the detail of the corporate, how corporations operate. And the second one has been the way they go after industrial policy. So industrial policy is back in vogue.
- [25:35]
Bloomberg News Anchor
It is. Demetra, come on in here. I see you nodding.
- [25:37]
Dimitri Castanita
Yeah, I was just going to say, I think that's a super interesting part of your research and the work you've done is what we've seen with the way that companies are going after this industrial policy and taking on, for example, lobbying more directly on their own rather than through associations or the way that we've traditionally thought about lobbying. And that's also another piece of this and something that angel has spent a lot of time on.
- [25:57]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Angel, is that. Is that specific to the United States or specific countries? Because when I hear that, I think, okay, you know, lit Bhutan of intel going to the White House and then that intel, you know, over the summer, then the big intel stake that the US Took and critical mining, critical minerals, the ties that the Trump administration has with the business community. Is this happening outside the US Too?
- [26:15]
Angel SaaS
Oh, yeah, I think it's happening across the world. I think it's always happened, for example, in, in China. When China came up with made in China 2025, back in 2015, we were all sort of scandalized. Today, we're all doing our own industrial policy. So I think that that's not Only only the U.S. the U.S. is, of course, very visible, had been a leader of the free market, had been a leader of the west in that sense. So when you see this in the US it's really, really surprising to see certain, certain, certain policies. And then the other thing is that the more industrial policy we are seeing, the more companies need to then get involved to design those industrial policies. Because industrial policy essentially means government going in and trying to affect and design markets in detail.
- [27:00]
Bloomberg News Anchor
It's fascinating stuff. Demetra, I want to end with you because you oversee coverage of Business Week for business schools, for Bloomberg Businessweek, and business schools are in recent years have become so international in recent decades, I should say. What is it like now as countries increasingly turn inward?
- [27:18]
Dimitri Castanita
I mean, we're seeing that sort of trend towards the top. US Programs are still the ones that are most in demand and the most desired globally. But I think that anecdotally and even in terms of the data that we're seeing coming out of certain bodies, there's a lot more happening and movement towards international programs, not just because of what's playing out geopolitically and maybe the type of programs and institutes you'll find in places like esade, but because of the sort of the perception that we are not really the most welcoming place for some of those students and what they're interested in pursuing right now.
- [27:55]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Dimitri Castanedis, Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Editor Angel SaaS, professor and Director, Asadi Geo center for Global Economy and Geopolitics Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily Coming up after this
- [28:11]
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- [29:25]
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- [30:21]
IBM AI Representative
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- [30:50]
Bloomberg Businessweek Host
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [31:05]
Bloomberg Interviewer
Markets remain at the mercy of one headline after the other it's really been a crazy Friday, a crazy week actually. We have the Nasdaq entering correction territory and the Dow is on track for that. We have the S and P down by roughly 1%, down at session lows. It's really a lot of things to digest. We have oil surging triple digits. Even Vix is up some 3030 handle Tim, which we haven't seen in a while. And to help us make sense of all of that, we bring in Mark Lucchini, Chief Investment Strategist, President and Chief Investment Officer of JNY Capital Management. Thank you so much for joining us, Mark. In a climate like this, how are you advising your clients to position themselves? Have you shifted any asset allocation since the onset of the war?
- [31:48]
Mark Lucchini
Isabella we really haven't made any measured shifts in our asset allocation decisions. I think it's really difficult at the moment to have a high conviction in doing anything other than staying the course, which is an old saw doesn't lend itself to any exciting movements one way or another directionally. But right now it seems as though equity prices are trying to probe for a bottom which remains elusive. And at the same time, the safety that you would normally find in bond prices isn't working, obviously because of the inflationary pressures that are being parted on yields. And so as a consequence, until we have some visibility with regard to either a potential diplomatic outcome with regard to the conflict in Iran or perhaps some movement of vessels through the Strait of Hormuth. We're really looking, you know, see opportunities that may emerge as a consequence of the sell off. As you said, certain broader indices are already in correction territory. Certainly certain sectors of The S&P 500 are already in correction territory, giving us some very appetizing looks at stocks we haven't seen at these valuations in some time. But at the same point not believing that perhaps we've seen a durable bottom
- [33:04]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Mark, Facebook Meta platforms, excuse me, down more than 30% from its August highs. Are there bargains out there right now?
- [33:14]
Mark Lucchini
Well, I think we're certainly coming close to seeing that, Tim. I mean obviously in the case of Meta, it's a somewhat idiosyncratic event related to the, obviously the social media settlement that we have seen in the headlines and in the press. And so as a consequence, I think that circumstances yet is completely resolve and its fluidity is going to continue to keep some volatility in the share price of that stock. But look at others that are being sold off indiscriminately in the space, whether you're talking about Alphabet or even the technology sector or tech adjacent companies in areas like consumer discretionary. And so I think we're getting to the point where evaluations are coming in. I mean if you look at the aggregate S&P 500, well, hardly one could declare cheap at this juncture. It's now trading at about 20 times what's expected to be earnings for 2026. And I know obviously those are being jeopardized by how oil prices are going to evolve here over the coming weeks and or months. But at the same time, if you do put some faith in their likelihood of being realized, it would imply a forward PE of again 20 times, maybe even looking into 2027, something less than than that and obviously even subcomponents to the market looking even cheaper than that. So on balance, I do think one needs to be preparing their shopping list for opportunities to begin to leg into. Perhaps if we can find a point at which, like I said, we can see some visibility that would allow for the market to put in a more durable bottom, which I think we've yet to find yet even at levels now down some 7% on headline S&P 500 or more from the peak from late January of 7002. On an intraday basis, we're seeing parts
- [35:06]
Bloomberg Interviewer
of the markets in correction territory. The Nasdaq is one of them. Do you think this is just a healthy reset or is it the start of something more serious? And are you still constructive with regards to your equities view, Isabel?
- [35:18]
Mark Lucchini
We're still constructive right now. At least the fundamentals remain pretty well intact. We still see sturdy economic conditions. The New York Federal Reserve's Nowcast just posted its update for Q1 GDP activity and it's coming in at 2.1%. And the Atlanta Fed's kind of affirming the same number in terms of their GDP now tracker. And some of the other data we've gotten from the S and P Global Manufacturing and Services surveys are still in expansionary territory and jobs claims remain near historical. So there's I think, myriad reasons to believe that the fundamentals haven't deteriorated to the point that we need to sacrifice our conviction that the fundamentals ought to continue to support the environment where equity prices can resume their advance once some of this uncertainty recedes. So as a consequence, I think of this pullback in equity prices as something investors should treat for the moment as normal and customary, given the fact that so many times on occasion over the last 30 or 40 years, we've experienced drawdowns on an inter year basis of about 14%, only to see that the annualized rate of return for the market over the last 45 years has been 10%.
- [36:32]
Bloomberg News Anchor
Yeah, I'm glad, I'm glad you're saying that, Mark. I mean that's, that's always where, where my head goes. Because if you look at, you know, the pullbacks, they seem dramatic in the moment, especially when you're used to a bull market. But, but look, the historical context is a few of these per year even are normal, right?
- [36:51]
Mark Lucchini
Well, absolutely. I mean, again, I think we can be victimized by the cognitive biases known as recency in looking at the returns that have been generated from the S&P 500 over the last couple of years. We had two consecutive years of better than 20% returns. You'd have to go back to the mid-1990s to remember a period like that followed on last year with a 16% price only return. So, you know, investors have become sort of conditioned to believe that stock prices only go up almost in a linear fashion. And that's hardly been the case historically speaking.
- [37:24]
Bloomberg News Anchor
So again, Mark, gonna have to leave it there. Mark Luciani at Janney Capital Management.
- [37:32]
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