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- [00:00]
Tom Keene
So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results.
- [00:06]
Scarlet Fu
At IBM, we work with our employees
- [00:08]
Tom Keene
to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a Global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions.
- [00:16]
Nouriel Roubini
Resolving 94% of common questions, not noise.
- [00:20]
Tom Keene
Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business. Lets create smarter business.
- [00:29]
Scarlet Fu
IBM Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it. That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated. What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person how you need it. Optum is helping make health care work as one for everyone. Learn more@business.optum.com as industries evolve faster than
- [01:02]
Amanda Lynham
ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth. And Michigan delivers on that promise.
- [01:07]
Scarlet Fu
From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan
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Amanda Lynham
offers what executives value most. A resilient, innovative ecosystem, diverse communities that attract top talent and a quality of
- [01:18]
Scarlet Fu
life that supports work life balance with
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Amanda Lynham
our unified Team Michigan approach, businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level. Michigan Pure Opportunity Seize your opportunity@MichiganBusiness.org
- [01:33]
Scarlet Fu
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio News Bloomberg Money.
- [01:43]
Tom Keene
This is the Bloomberg Money Podcast. I'm Tom Keene with Scarlet Fu. Join us each week for a smart look at the forces shift shaping your financial life. On personal finance, on retirement and wealth management, we will explore how people are earning, investing and building wealth. We are live Fridays at noon Eastern on Bloomberg Television. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and as always on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business app. What I want to talk about is the unspoken everything is down in the market. Apple, like a rock on the edge of a $5 trillion company, is personal finance. Apple 20 years ago and just hold
- [02:25]
Scarlet Fu
it well for some people. But increasingly Americans are having a hard time saving for retirement because of rising living costs. They're not putting money into their retirement accounts because they have to pay for the kitty litter.
- [02:34]
Tom Keene
They got to pay for the kitty litter, they got to pay for school and all that. We'll talk about some of those themes today. I think what's fascinating here is Mark Gurman with that story a few days ago on rebuilding the iPad and it's these buy and hold companies. That's what makes a winning retirement.
- [02:49]
Scarlet Fu
That's what makes a real winning retirement. We're going to get into all of that and whether there's room for bonds in that portfolio.
- [02:55]
Tom Keene
But bonds is a big thing. We're going to do that here. We're going to do that in a bit here. We have a wonderful guest for you today, Nora Roubini. Not the Nora Roubini you think you know. Yes. Senior economic strategist, Hudson Bay Capital. But Nora Roubini when he was with Clinton when he was trying to figure out the future of Social Security. We'll talk to Professor Roubini about his crisis that he sees.
- [03:18]
Scarlet Fu
All right, the softer side of Nouriel Roubini. We've also got Amanda Lyneham, chief credit strategist at Goldman Sachs. Fancy title, but we're going to keep our topic of conversation very bas the failure of bonds to produce much in the way of total returns in the last five years.
- [03:30]
Tom Keene
They bounced back. To be fair, it was like a
- [03:32]
Scarlet Fu
5, 20, 22, you know, scarred in our brains.
- [03:35]
Tom Keene
It scarred everyone. The great moderation for years. And then up we went. Let's do this. Let's do a data check right now. And it's on the stock market and it's not so pretty. Apple, as I said, like a rock is really holding on. Well, you wouldn't know it anywhere else, but it is better from when Scar came in the door today at 9:55am Nasdaq down 1%. It was down 2% or more in futures we are to a VIX of 19 and we do better now to take much better in the last two hours.
- [04:04]
Scarlet Fu
Certainly is. All right, let's take a look at what's going on in Cross asset. You have the 10 year yield not doing much of anything basically at four and a half percent after this week's inflation prints show that price pressures are easing. The dollar also not doing a whole lot. But the story for this year is a stronger dollar because the US Economy remains resilient. But the big story is in oil. The bottom of oil prices coincided with the end of the first half. And since the start of the second half, Brent, what you see there has gone from the low 70s to as high as the mid 80s.
- [04:32]
Tom Keene
A little bit of news flow as well. And what will be the new Strait of Hormuz open?
- [04:36]
Scarlet Fu
Well, it's kind of an unanswerable question.
- [04:37]
Tom Keene
It's an answerable question right now, I would say because insight, Vanessa. Okay, here's the reality. Michael Ball, Eric Balchunas the foo and me, we're only here because Vanessa Perdomo has World cup tickets to give us, right?
- [04:53]
Sarah Foster
I don't think so.
- [04:54]
Amanda Lynham
I think that would be quite a price tag for everyone.
- [04:57]
Tom Keene
It's up to $7,000 I saw in that life and that was days ago. We've got a great set of people with us. Eric Balchunas holds a high ground on exchange traded funds. Vanessa Perdomo drives so much of our sports coverage as well. And Michael Ball is with us as well. He's always like nerdo Fed stuff and we're going to talk to him. Some of the basic responsibilities maybe the new chairman has. Eric, thank you so much for joining today. You stopped traffic this week by saying our retirement system is now the stock market. Discuss.
- [05:29]
Eric Balchunas
Yeah, look, it was the Trump account announcement which I had been following. But when you really dig into the numbers, you know, 58% of Americans own stocks. That is by far the most in the world. So we're kind of in an experiment here. Most countries is only the rich people that own stocks. Trump accounts are going to bring in like another 20%, maybe even more, depending on how many philanthropists get involved. And that would be a lot of people who don't even care or know about the stock market are now going to have kind of a vested interest in how it does. So now you've got almost the entire voting public who is going to care what the stock market does. So if the Fed and the government have stepped in multiple times since 2008 with more people interested in it, you really can't let it go, you can't let it fail. It's kind of like a public utility, like the electric grid.
- [06:15]
Tom Keene
Right. I'm in the triple leverage Netflix account that's really working out today. Well, are we learning in the double leverage, triple leverage comedy that it's speculation and not investment?
- [06:26]
Eric Balchunas
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's to a lot of games being played at the same time in the stock market. You know, there's plenty of money going into VU and Vanguard. I call them the Vanguardians. Then there's the degens, you know, and they both buy the dip for different reasons, but they're both playing different games. What some are trading, some are going long term and ETFs. We see both, both kinds. But I'll say that the big blob of money is generally pretty conservative. They're buying cheap beta, both stocks, bonds and maybe some commodities. And they're holding for the long term. And that's the. It's Just boring. You know, they don't get much media because it's like, okay, I'm going to buy Bi vu today. What else can I say? It's the s and P500. We're going to talk about these shiny objects over here, but most of the money is pretty vanilla.
- [07:07]
Scarlet Fu
All right, let's talk about shiny objects because two weeks ago, Space X was a shiny object, but it's now trading below its IPO price. Yeah, it's at about 124 and change. What does that signal Michael Ball about speculative appetite right now? Because we know that there's going to be a lot of volatility. How can you tell when we're just going through normal swings versus there's really a change, an inflection point in whether people chase rallies?
- [07:30]
Michael Ball
Yeah, two things. One, it came in very expensive valuation wise and then also was sort of marketed as a NEO cloud in the sky, literally floating around the planet versus a rocket ship company. So it changed kind of flavor and it's now fallen into this momentum unwind in almost all things AI.
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Scarlet Fu
There are some other big IPOs to look forward to, not just Space X. We've got anthropic OpenAI at some point and Alphabet and other big tech companies are busy selling stock. The setup seems to be there's going to be a lot of supply coming to market. Do you think given the increased role that individual investors play in the market, that there's going to be enough demand to absorb all of this supply?
- [08:04]
Michael Ball
Yeah, that's been the real macro dynamic change this year that finally we're going to have more supply than demand. The buyback story is actually worsened as well. We know free cash flows come off from the hyperscalers and some of the mega tech. So that's even more questionable next year. But to your point, we keep getting new bites of additional paper coming to fund, not only capex in AI, but even elsewhere with other IPOs coming more than expected as people are sort of rushing in and with credit markets now looking a little more wobbly and some of the rejection there from the paper that we've recently gotten, that means a paper may even come more for stocks.
- [08:35]
Tom Keene
I mean, Michael, help me dovetail this in with Eric said, because Scarlet's got to get to Vanessa. She's more important than we are in this conversation. If Chairman Walsh levels or raises interest rates, what does it do to my 401k?
- [08:48]
Michael Ball
Yeah, look, equity financing is actually coming up in the conversation again because this is a lot of balance sheet constraints on the Banks who help not only help the paper come to market through IPOs, but then actually lend to the, you know, not only buy side, but other areas of the market to borrow and basically buy stocks. And that is coming under more pressure.
- [09:03]
Tom Keene
We asleep about any instabilities to come up here? I mean, in personal finance, retirement wealth management, Are we all asleep right now?
- [09:11]
Michael Ball
So right now, as the macro picture stands, with growth and inflation where it is, I think we can expect maybe a reversal of the Powell cuts and maybe a subsequent maybe 75 basis points of hikes just to reset the levels and basically get markets, you know, even. But, you know, I don't see a large hiking cycle coming in. Warsh is certainly not signaling that. So I don't think you need to be surprised by any sort of tail risk.
- [09:33]
Tom Keene
What you should expect is that financial
- [09:34]
Michael Ball
conditions will be, you know, not easing further.
- [09:36]
Tom Keene
Do you have a clue what he just said there?
- [09:38]
Scarlet Fu
Part of it, Some of it. Well, let's bring that back to the World cup and how we spend our money on a daily basis. Because the buoyant stock market of the last couple of years is one big reason why you're seeing so much froth built into the World Cup. I mean, Vanessa, you've been going to the matches not just necessarily in New York, New Jersey, but around the country. And there's all these luxury suites built in. There's these like fast ways for the Uber wealthy to get to these games where they don't have to wait in line and put up with all the inconveniences that people who pony up thousands of dollars do.
- [10:08]
Amanda Lynham
It's interesting because no matter who you are right now, if you're going to the World cup final, you are probably in an upper echelon level of having money. I mean, getting into the World cup final is $7,000 just to get in the average price. And depending on what secondary ticket market you look at, it's 11 to $12,000. So, but, but these ultra rich who are going to the game and they're spending tens of thousands of dollars on helicopter rides, they still have to find their way around the stadium. They still have to deal with a little bit of traffic as well.
- [10:36]
Scarlet Fu
Okay, so a little bit of friction there for even the Uber. The other thing about the World cup is kind of the cultural impact it's having all these footballers that people you know three months ago didn't know who they were. Jude Bellingham, Erling Holland. Everyone knows who they are now, including how they dress off the pitch. Erling Holland has a $50,000 man bag. It's ludicrously capacious, as someone from Succession once said. It's very large. And I know you have a man bag, too, right?
- [11:02]
Tom Keene
I do have a man bag. Yes, I do.
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Scarlet Fu
Okay, so we have man bag experts here.
- [11:07]
Amanda Lynham
$50,000 Birkin bag as well.
- [11:09]
Tom Keene
No, it's not a Birkin, but I did look at the mini. Kelly, continue.
- [11:12]
Scarlet Fu
My point is here is that what we see on the world at the World cup and, you know, the players involved has a huge influence on the rest of the economy. For instance, like the luxury sector. And there's, by the way, Holland's man bag.
- [11:25]
Amanda Lynham
See?
- [11:26]
Scarlet Fu
Ludicrously capacious. Along with some other players, too.
- [11:29]
Tom Keene
I'll just get through at it. Are you kidding me?
- [11:31]
Michael Ball
Where's the raccoon?
- [11:33]
Tom Keene
Where's the raccoon? I have a question. You're legit D1. Serious soccer. Nobody's fallen down at Duquesne and withering on the ground, and then when the ball goes on the field, they miraculously get up. What do you think about this madness where I'm screaming at the screen, get up, get up, get up. Am I wrong?
- [11:53]
Amanda Lynham
No, you're not wrong. And I would also like to just point out that I did play women's soccer, and this is not something we definitely see as much in the women's game. This is a very male.
- [12:01]
Tom Keene
How do you respond to the stupid fall down, the ball goes by, oh, I'm miraculously cured.
- [12:07]
Amanda Lynham
It's a part of the game in a way that I think is one of the reasons why it's not as big in the US I agree. I think, you know, you have American football here and hockey and all these other sports that are very American and we love it here, and. And they're very strong and, you know,
- [12:23]
Tom Keene
free time fix it.
- [12:24]
Scarlet Fu
At least in hockey, they're actually fighting.
- [12:27]
Eric Balchunas
They.
- [12:28]
Tom Keene
She drops the gloves. I mean, it's. She's in the corner in the third period. She's frightening. You should see her, folks. The terror of northern New York City. Well, this is lovely.
- [12:40]
Scarlet Fu
This is fun.
- [12:40]
Tom Keene
This was great. Eric Balchunas. Thank you. Vanessa Perdoma. Thank you. And Michael Boss. Seriously, look for Michael Ball's academics on the Fed. All out through the weekend on Bloomberg and other news sources as well. I mean, coming up here, we got. This is going to be interesting. Nora Roubini, he's senior economic strategist, Hudson Big Capital. We've known each other for decades. I want to know what he thinks. Like with Ted Lieu, the other week. The future of Social Security.
- [13:07]
Scarlet Fu
Yeah, a lot to talk about with Nouriel Roubini. It's a different Nouriel Roubini, Money.
- [13:11]
Tom Keene
He's sensitive. Can you get us tickets? That's all I care about.
- [13:15]
Amanda Lynham
No, I don't even know. I'll sit.
- [13:17]
Tom Keene
I'll sit where I can see Pennsylvania. Can you get us tickets?
- [13:21]
Sarah Foster
Sit here.
- [13:22]
Tom Keene
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Scarlet Fu
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Tom Keene
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Scarlet Fu
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- [13:58]
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- [15:20]
Tom Keene
Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts why
- [15:25]
Scarlet Fu
did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze.
- [15:37]
Sarah Foster
I can clear my search history, but
- [15:40]
Scarlet Fu
I could never unsee that.
- [15:43]
Tom Keene
Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful. Welcome back. It's Bloomberg Money. Tom Keene alongside Scarlet Fu. Both of us were talking about the smoke and the fire from Duluth. I looked at Duluth, Minnesota, today. Just unbelievable.
- [16:05]
Scarlet Fu
Have you been walking around with a mask on?
- [16:07]
Tom Keene
No, I don't do mask thing. But the dogs aren't healthy.
- [16:09]
Scarlet Fu
I mean, no, the dogs don't want that at all.
- [16:12]
Tom Keene
We'll see on that as we go through. They stay with Bloomberg, all of our media for the continued coverage of what we're seeing in the smoke. It is not smoke and mirrors. With Noel Roubini. He's senior economic strategist at Hudson Bay Capital. That barely describes his contribution to the Clinton administration, his years of service to New York University in the books that just keep on coming.
- [16:37]
Michael Ball
One of them.
- [16:37]
Tom Keene
No beef with getting older. Okay, that's fine. And we'll, we'll look at that. I want to talk about that in a minute. Nora, welcome to the show. Ted Lieu was on the other day. What's the sweat on Social Security? Do we really have to risk losing a check on Social Security into the2030s?
- [16:57]
Nouriel Roubini
Well, we know that the trust fund is going to start running out of money and therefore whoever is going to be president after this administration in 2028, he or she will have to figure out together in a bipartisan way what to do about it. You can how to sell into retirement age. You can raise payroll taxes, you can cut benefits. You can do a combination of all those things. But definitely we have to do something about it.
- [17:20]
Tom Keene
It just popped into my puny head. He wasn't picked by a task force for chairman Wash. What is oversight? That was. Let's go to Nora Roubini from I believe it's four years ago. No beef with getting older. In 1960, there were five active workers for every retired and disabled worker in these United States. But, well, it's going to 3 to 1 in 2009, headed towards 2 to 1 in four years. Instead of moving forward. We have slipped backward out of Fortune magazine in 2022. So the clock is ticking. I mean, we're moving on. Do you get the sense the politicians have any understanding of what's going to happen the first Wednesday of November in 2028 when we got to start really fixing this?
- [18:04]
Nouriel Roubini
Well, you know, the politicians always kick the can down the road until something becomes critical, they prefer to avoid it. And as we know, Social Security has been for a long time the third rail of American politics. So we'll have to deal with it like we did a few decades ago by creating commission. At that time was run by Alan Greenspan. This time around somebody else. And they'll come with sensible ideas. We have to increase retirement age. We have to increase payroll taxes or have the corporates that winners pay for the workers or we'll have to cut some benefits. So any combination of those things is going to have to happen at some point down the line.
- [18:39]
Scarlet Fu
Eric Balchunas just pointed out to me that Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia and Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana have proposed a plan to save Social Security by borrowing up one and a half trillion dollars to invest in the stock market, which would grow over 75 years to pay future benefits. Does that sound like something that could work or is that kind of craziness?
- [18:58]
Nouriel Roubini
Well, there are some ideas in the past about unquote privatizing Social Security and in countries that have sovereign wealth funds because they're running fiscal surpluses and current account surpluses can build up net foreign assets like Norway does like in the Gulf they do to create something of a buffer for the future. The problem with the US is we run a fiscal deficit and a large current account deficit. So if you borrow more to invest in the stock market, yeah, you get that margin some returns because the returns on the stock market will be higher than what you pay on debt borrowing. But it's a gimmick. At the end of the day you have to do something else. That's not going to solve the problem. It's a, it's one step in one direction, but it's not going to be enough.
- [19:36]
Scarlet Fu
Okay, not the solution. In the meantime, inflation is getting in the way of everyone's best laid plans. You look at price increases in elderly health care for instance, home health care because of immigration curbs. It's outstripping, far outstripping the rise in college tuition you can see there. Although of course the absolute costs of each is comparing apples with oranges. Nouriel, are Gen Xers and Millennials all going to work until we're 90 years old because we need to pay for six figure college tuition as well as 24,7 care for our parents?
- [20:04]
Nouriel Roubini
Well, in principle, yes. The problem is going to be that we've eventually we're going to have a long term permanent tech. Unemployment is going to happen only slowly, but it's going to happen in the next 20 years. So even if you increase the retirement age, the problem is going to be a large chunk of the population is going to be replaced by AI and robots in the next 20, 25 years. So increasing retirement age is not going to be a solution. It's true that with higher potential growth debt ratio tend to fall because it's debt to gdp. So Our fiscal condition is not as bad as it would be in a situation where growth is lower. But at some point we have to do something. But eventually we need some form of universal basic income for everybody while they work. And once they retire and we're already on the way to it.
- [20:44]
Tom Keene
One evening at Davos, you and I sat at a lovely old German bar. There was a public official down three seats down from us who didn't participate but listened in and you framed out 070809. Can you use 0809 or frankly to 2000? 2001 is an analog for this exuberance we have now in the stock market.
- [21:06]
Nouriel Roubini
Well, I've become more optimist. Of course there is frothiness, there'll be excesses. But I think that these AI revolution is the most important in human history in terms of tech innovation.
- [21:15]
Tom Keene
But you just told us we're going to lose all our jobs.
- [21:18]
Nouriel Roubini
Yeah, but I suppose that growth goes from 2 to 4 by the end of the decade and then it's going to be 6% by 2040 or 10% by 2050 because we're going to get to AGI. Then we've grown to doubling every five years at 10%. You can tax the winner, redistribute everybody to everybody else and make everybody better off. So that's going to be effective. We'll have either expost or distribution. That is universal basic income. Or we'll have it Exactly. Exactly. Means some form of socialism. Essentially. The government's going to take over some fraction of the big tech firms as they're already willing to do 5, 10% of it. We create the sovereign fund that way and we create the Marxian socialism. We're going already in that direction effectively.
- [21:56]
Scarlet Fu
Okay, this is a very gloomy picture that you're painting here. That that rings true with your Dr. Doom kind of.
- [22:01]
Nouriel Roubini
No, he's not gloomy. Is optimist. With 10% growth and machines doing all the work, we don't need to work.
- [22:06]
Scarlet Fu
Do you know all these economic theories inside and out? You understand why things happen the way they do. As an individual, do you manage your finances in a way that aligns with them or is there some element of irrational behavior in how you look at your own finances?
- [22:18]
Nouriel Roubini
I'm reasonably rational. I've never traded in my life. I've never bought any individual security of any sort of I invest for the long term. I have a diversified portfolio mostly of equities. If everything were to go in a severe recession or move some of it into liquid Assets and so on. But I think that most people, they're not sophisticated investors. They should just buy and hold until they retire rather than day trading or maybe stock or crypto or other stuff that makes them lose money.
- [22:43]
Scarlet Fu
So you're very much a buy and hold guy.
- [22:44]
Nouriel Roubini
Yeah.
- [22:45]
Scarlet Fu
You don't touch it at all.
- [22:46]
Nouriel Roubini
Absolutely.
- [22:46]
Tom Keene
20 seconds are in my ear here. Talk crypto. The young one is know about crypto. You and I love crypto so much. 120 to 60. Is it going to 30?
- [22:56]
Nouriel Roubini
Most likely, yes. Most likely, yes. I mean, really. Listen, crypto is not a cryptocurrency. They're not a means of payment. They're not a unit of account. They're not a stable store of value. They're not the single numerator. So calling them crypto currency is actually misnomer. Whatever they are, they're not really neither asset or a currency. It's mostly bubble is a Ponzi game.
- [23:15]
Tom Keene
Most of them scathing this week.
- [23:17]
Scarlet Fu
Oh, he's been scathing on a lot
- [23:18]
Tom Keene
of it was on the edge of Roubini. There's.
- [23:21]
Scarlet Fu
All right, Dr. Nouriel Roubini, thank you so much for joining us today. He is of course, Hudson Bay Capital senior economic strategist.
- [23:28]
Tom Keene
Joining us now, Amanda Lynem, she's chief credit strategist at Goldman Sachs. And I just want to bring up the chart here for you, Amanda, because you're expert at this at Bloomberg, we have the total return indices that are just absolutely exquisite off of all the heritage of Lehman and Barclays as well. And the chart of the week is the, the line of chart here. And it's a great moderation. The bond market price up forever. Forever, forever. Seven standard deviation move. And we've come back. But come on, we flatlined over the last five or six years. Does that mean bonds are of value or does that mean you're still catching up?
- [24:04]
Amanda Lynham
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Good afternoon. If you looked at that chart, Tom, and you maybe you started it at year end 2021, which is just before the Fed started hiking rates and just before interest rates really started their trend upward, what you would see is that bonds are roughly flat. However, high yield bonds are up over 20%. Leveraged loans floating rate are up over 30% over that same time frame. So I think this speaks to the point that we've been emphasizing for a bit and very relevant for your audience as well, is that there's an opportunity cost to being too defensive in this market right now. To answer your question, on do bonds fit in a portfolio? Absolutely, but they just can't be the only part. And that chart you showed tell the great story in terms of what the rise in interest rates has done to pressure bond total returns. But at the same time equities have enjoyed a pretty meaningful upswing. And so that's the point on I
- [24:53]
Tom Keene
never asked this question, how long have they been doing this? It's like seven or eight years. I've never asked this question how much of our 401ks in America are in boring sleepy underperforming bonds versus the high yield magic you just talked about.
- [25:07]
Amanda Lynham
I mean our, our investors that are managing a lot of these 401ks on behalf of of retirees and workers typically will employ pretty diversified portfolios. And then as you know, there are target date funds that become less risky as you get closer to retirement. In general, that's a pretty good way to be invested. I think there's a difference between saving and investing in this market. And I think one of the big lessons is that being invested over the long term is really what is critical. It's hard to time over the arc of a career for any one rate backdrop or equity market backdrop. So staying invested and in a diversified portfolio is key.
- [25:44]
Scarlet Fu
Saving and investing. I like that when my son was born my mother in law gave him a bond. Today when kids are born they have access to a Trump account. Their grandparents can contribute to that. These Trump accounts only invest in stock funds or even ETFs. That's, it's a pretty strong signal about the role of bonds and building a portfolio. A person's, a person's financial future, doesn't it?
- [26:06]
Amanda Lynham
Well, I think it's one part of an overall plan. But from my perspective, when we think about the role of a portfolio and where fixed kicks in, it's really to provide income later in life that's more regular as opposed to waiting for an equity dividend. And then importantly it's to offset periods of equity market weakness like we, we see today. And so while we've had a pretty meaningful uptrend in equities over the past few years, we've known from cycles that those don't go on in perpetuity. And so ideally what you would want to have is some fixed rate exposure across the curve, some floating rate exposure actually we've been, our portfolio strategy colleagues have been emphasizing the role of real assets and kind of inflation protection and then typical equities. And it all fits together.
- [26:47]
Tom Keene
Goldman Sachs fixed incomes recommending gold our
- [26:50]
Amanda Lynham
portfolio strategists so our portfolio strategists who take a multisector view have basically made the point that as you alluded to, the 6040 portfolio isn't as straightforward as it was in the years past. And so given some of the shifts in the market that we actually do have to incorporate things like real assets
- [27:07]
Scarlet Fu
in the stock market. Individual investors are just as influential now as institutional investors. That's really changed over the last few years. I don't know who the dumb money is anymore versus the smart money. That line is blurred. Does that kind of blurring exist in the fixed income and credit world or will this asset class always be the domain of institutions and professionals?
- [27:25]
Amanda Lynham
We have, we have a wide range of investors in our market. I think the really interesting bifurcation that I've seen in corporate credit over the past couple of years, but definitely recently has been this bifurcation between investors who are buying bonds for yield versus investors who are buying bonds for spread and total return. And that is the key. And what we have emphasized is if you are allocating to credit right now, you should be buying for income and yield, not because there's material scope for a total return boost from tighter spreads because they're already tight or from lower rates because our rate strategists are expecting
- [27:57]
Tom Keene
rates to be bond exposure. To a data center in Ohio. Here is Amanda Lynem. She's been burning it up. Zero Hedge is a 30 page article and led with Amanda Lynham of Goldman Sachs. Here it is. A mix of markets will be required. Our equity research column. Expect the five hyperscalers to invest a combined zillion trillion in a capex to now four years out. It would push hyperscalers weights well above the current market conventions in our wealth management. Are we going to be overwhelmed by this tech capex juggernaut?
- [28:32]
Amanda Lynham
This is the main debate in the corporate credit market right now. And just for your listeners, that number is 5.8 trillion that our equity. It's not a zillion, it's not 5.8 trillion. And I think what a lot of investors do is they will look at the hyperscalers balance sheets and expect that that will largely be financed with debt and that a lot of that will come through the traditional corporate credit market. The point that we've made is that the bond market has issuer concentration constraints to a certain degree. And so the key takeaway there is that we expect a portion of that 5.8 trillion to be funded with debt, a portion of which will come through the traditional bond markets. But we also see scope, scope for the private infrastructure market to play a role. We see scope for these new project finance JVs to do some of the heavy lifting. Cash flow from operations from the hyperscalers will contribute. We're also expecting equity issuance. Some of the rating agencies have said that.
- [29:19]
Tom Keene
Afraid I don't.
- [29:22]
Amanda Lynham
I am not concerned about an access to capital constraint. I just think as we progress through what is a multi year investment cycle, that there will be more nuanced conversations around which market I should be accessing and at what price. That's largely a 2027, 2028 event, we think.
- [29:38]
Scarlet Fu
I want to take a step back here because you think about the different generations and Gen Z right now is graduating from college, they're joining the workforce, they're building up savings. They know about meme stocks, they know about crypto, they know about prediction markets. These are all go big or go home kinds of bets. Is there anything within the fixed income credit space that responds to that impulse?
- [29:56]
Amanda Lynham
Well, we're subject to risk sentiment like other markets are in terms of when there's a real risk off tone. Right. We feel it in our market. I would say we tend to be a bit more defensive. We actually put a piece out on this earlier this week my colleague Spencer did, which really emphasized that the credit equity beta has diverged in 2026 in particular, meaning credit hasn't been participating as much on the upside. But it's also been more defensive on risk off tones on the downside. And I think going back to over the arc of a career and investment cycle, just being invested is the key.
- [30:27]
Tom Keene
Okay, I love that we're doing credit beta, but you're, you're at this weekend at some family event or you know, friends and Romans and countrymen and somebody says should I buy a 5 year CD or a 3 year CD? America is still stuck in that question of personal finance versus a lot of
- [30:43]
Scarlet Fu
if they had any money to put in a CD to begin with.
- [30:46]
Tom Keene
Well, okay, but the arch question is on duration. How short should I be right now?
- [30:51]
Amanda Lynham
So we, we, we like being more towards the front, an intermediate part of the curve at the longer end of the curve. So 30 year bonds for example, it tends to be a bit more whippy if I say if your question is, is do we expect the Fed to be kind of cutting or hiking or holding Pat from here, our economists are expecting the Fed to essentially be on hold through 2026. I would say the Middle east conflict has been flagged as an upside risk in terms of inflation, you know, which does provide some risk to that view. But in general, we're expecting rates to, to remain on hold. So staying invested amid an elevated rate environment, you are actually earning some coupon from there as well.
- [31:28]
Scarlet Fu
All right, so staying invested is the message here from Melinda. Amanda Lynham of Goldman Sachs, chief credit strategist. Thank you so much for joining us. All right, coming up on Bloomberg Money, adult Happy Meals, they're a thing and they're pulling in customers across tax brackets. More restaurants are trying to lure diners looking for deals. Sometimes the hours are a little bit earlier, you know, verging on early bird special. Plus, we're bullish on books. Tom and I share what we're reading. How did you narrow it down?
- [31:53]
Tom Keene
Classic. I narrowed it down to the classic Amanda's Reddit three times.
- [31:57]
Scarlet Fu
That's all coming up on Bloomberg Money. Next time, we'll have you come up. Your recommendation.
- [32:03]
Tom Keene
Jesse Livermore had it.
- [32:06]
Eric Balchunas
He's dribbling the ball with everything on the line. He's driving down the pitch.
- [32:09]
Tom Keene
He's facing price hikes and cuts past
- [32:11]
Eric Balchunas
him carrier contracts, tries to block him.
- [32:13]
Tom Keene
Oh, he leaves him in the dust.
- [32:14]
Eric Balchunas
He's at the edge of the the box. He cuts past the non stop group chat trash talk.
- [32:17]
Scarlet Fu
He clears on goal.
- [32:18]
Eric Balchunas
He shoots no unlimited data for $25 a month forever.
- [32:25]
Tom Keene
Visit your local Boost Mobile store today to get unlimited data with a price that never changes. Boost mobile after 30gb, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as
- [32:35]
Scarlet Fu
long as they remain active on the Boost $25 unlimited plan.
- [32:38]
Martha
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products. I said, I'm in now. Let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots, walking through their Kohler, Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel, and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I'm lending my discerning stamp of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler cast iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say long live Cast Iron.
- [33:59]
Tom Keene
Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm, yeah, but I'm not itching to
- [34:10]
Martha
go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm
- [34:12]
Tom Keene
here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful.
- [34:37]
Scarlet Fu
Bloomberg Money is your new destination for personal finance. It's a cross platform effort that extends beyond your television, including our new digital hub at bloomberg.com/money. And Tom, that reminds me of a story that I saw this week. When was the last time that you enjoyed a Happy Meal?
- [34:51]
Tom Keene
Happy Meal? That was a few years ago to say the least. We just went for the toys.
- [34:55]
Scarlet Fu
You just went for the toys? Well, there's, you know, some adult Happy Meals now being offered by restaurants which give you an entree aside an adult beverage of your choice for a flat price. And the reason, of course, is inflation. Bloomberg's Sarah Foster writes. Bundle deals that often include an entree aside and a drink are up 15% from a year earlier across all restaurant segments and 21 21% at fine dining establishments like the ones you attend. They're the fastest growing entree category on restaurant menus. And Sarah joins us now. So what's an example of a restaurant that Tom might deign to go to, not just a McDonald's?
- [35:28]
Sarah Foster
Well, I was doing a lot of traveling around the city to kind of hunt down these adult I'm sure I
- [35:33]
Tom Keene
parked at the red oh said get out the Amex, bring it up.
- [35:37]
Sarah Foster
I will probably be holding off on the red meat for a while, but Anson Steak Easy in Greenwich Village, that was this place that I parked at. You know, what really stood out to me is that these are not your fine, you know, value menu eaters. They are going for these fine dining restaurants. A lot of them work in finance, a lot of them work in tech and they are really drawn to these predictable pricing. You know, you mentioned the toy thing, Tom. It's what's interesting, I think is the adult version of this Happy Meal always replaces the toy with a cocktail. I think that's a toy of a different kind what makes them happy. But a lot of them really do say, you know, they would be interested in a toy too if that adult wants would provide it.
- [36:14]
Scarlet Fu
And these pictures are phenomenal. I think part of this too is when you talk to the restaurateurs is they made sure that they wanted it to be really visually appealing so that people can post it to their social media.
- [36:24]
Sarah Foster
What was really fascinating is that a lot of these adult Happy Meals looked luxurious. I was talking with this one restaurant in D.C. they call it the Lobby Meal. Included in that was a glass of champagne and it was branded with that blow click. Oh, you know, champagne branding. That was really attractive.
- [36:42]
Tom Keene
The people especially. I'll do a shout out to Michaels, which is just iconic and also right. Right across the street from our effort here is, it seems to me, everybody simplifying the menus. It just seems to be easier now to order than 12 pages of choices from years ago.
- [37:00]
Scarlet Fu
Yeah, it makes things easier for the restaurant themselves because they only offer one or two things. Right. There's not a whole lot of things you have to worry about with your supply chain and your players.
- [37:09]
Sarah Foster
It's true. It's easier to offer these curated menus because a lot of the diners who I spoke with, they say that they face decision fatigue when they go.
- [37:17]
Tom Keene
Exactly, exactly.
- [37:18]
Sarah Foster
You know, you see that with line culture, Tik Tok and social media is just proliferating all of these new restaurants to try. And sometimes people, you know, on a busy day, they just want to have the meal laid out for them.
- [37:28]
Scarlet Fu
And some of these deals are hidden too. Right. It's not totally advertised. You kind of have to be in the know.
- [37:33]
Sarah Foster
It's this layer of the prestige and exclusivity. It's like a club that if I spoke with one restaurant that was selling so many adult Happy Meals that they had to kind of pull it away, and now they still sell it to people who ask for it.
- [37:46]
Tom Keene
Stay with us here. This is the acid test. I want to know if you've read my book. We've got two books here on trading. We had a lot of fun with this. We're doing different things. We did Elon Musk. My bow ties a mess. Come on, Scar, tell me when the bow ties out of line.
- [37:57]
Scarlet Fu
It's.
- [37:58]
Tom Keene
We got the trading game here. This is Scarface book. Scott, tell us about the trading gig.
- [38:02]
Scarlet Fu
Okay. It's by Gary Stevenson, who is a trader on the and rates desk at Citi in London just before and during the financial crisis. He grew up in the wrong part of London, but went to LSE because he was a math whiz. He made a ton of money for Citi and himself a £400,000 bonus in his first full year as a trader when he was 23.
- [38:19]
Tom Keene
Right.
- [38:19]
Scarlet Fu
And he had A thesis driving all his trades, which is that interest rates would stay low and inequality would worsen. What's interesting to me is that later on in the book gets into this. He had a come to Jesus moment where he quit the industry and now he has a YouTube channel teaching people about real world economics.
- [38:35]
Tom Keene
This is great. The iconic math exam at the London School of economics. That's what Mr. Jagger who went on to sing.
- [38:41]
Scarlet Fu
Oh, the one Jagger.
- [38:43]
Tom Keene
Mr. Jagger went on after he bombed out of the math exam at LSC years ago. It's a rigorous test.
- [38:49]
Scarlet Fu
I mean, I'm making him sound preachy here, but he's really not because the book is fun with a lot of descriptions of the characters on trading floors.
- [38:55]
Tom Keene
My book is definitive. You read it every five years if you're in the game. This is a book if. Sarah, if you haven't read this book, you're in my timeout share Reminiscence of a stock operator. This book is 103 years old and there is a lesson about every four pages. There's a point in here with Jesse Livermore. It's so stressful in New York, in Boston, he goes to Florida for vacation and he learns more about trading in Florida from the cotton traders than he does in New York or Boston. This is a classic, classic book. It's criminal that it's not part of a job assignment.
- [39:32]
Scarlet Fu
Was the last time you read it?
- [39:33]
Tom Keene
I read about three or four years ago and I'm due to read it again about right now. I think I'll do that. The annotated version is worth its weight in gold. It's a bigger, almost like coffee table.
- [39:41]
Scarlet Fu
Yeah. And it's hardcover to hardcover.
- [39:44]
Tom Keene
Yeah, we only do a hardcover cover on Bloomberg. Oh, you're such a. I'm a terrible snuff. Sarah, have you read Jesse Livermore?
- [39:50]
Sarah Foster
I haven't, but I need.
- [39:51]
Tom Keene
There's your Simon. I'm going to tell Nikki Waller. Sarah's deep into Jesse Livermore.
- [39:56]
Scarlet Fu
All right, it's Friday, so we need to look ahead to the weekend and next week. Just get a sense of how you're going to spend your money. And I'm going to focus in on earnings because it's going to be a pretty light week for data. There's not a whole lot going on on that front. And of course, Fed officials are in a blue blackout period before their meeting. So let's focus on earnings because on Tuesday, we got General Motors. And Tom, you know that all the big carmakers have seemingly given up on hybrids or electric vehicles. They've all put their eggs in the gas guzzling SUV basket.
- [40:24]
Tom Keene
Well, they have and you know, I look at Alphabet moving on and then the following week into technology and it's as big a deal as the bank stock.
- [40:31]
Scarlet Fu
Oh for sure. You know, Alphabet's the first of the hyperscalers to report earnings and people aren't even calling it earnings season season anymore. They're calling it capex season because it's all about what they say when it comes to capital expenditures. And it's really going to be a show me moment.
- [40:44]
Tom Keene
To me, the big thing here folks, to get a little nerd on you is the nominal gdp. Right now the animal spirit of the country is basically, you know, like a third world country like China or whatever, 5%, 5.6% as well. And that's really important. What we do on Bloomberg Money as well is with there's really important breaking news. We're going to stay with that. Scarlet's going to queue it up right now. This on Apple.
- [41:09]
Scarlet Fu
This is on Apple. Apple is in early settlement talks with the US Department of Justice over an antitrust suit from 2024 that alleges the iPhone maker violated antitrust laws. According to Bloomberg reporting by Mark Gurman and his colleagues. The discussions are active. There are no guarantees that the two sides will reach an agreement and no trust trial date has been set in the case. Apple has made multiple offers this year to the DOJ to bring the case to a close. This is according to people familiar with the matter. But the discussions are private and the discussions can end without an agreement being reached.
- [41:41]
Tom Keene
The initial tick up here is a nice move up back to 332. Again, I said earlier in the show, Devin, I think we've got that headline. Apple at 341ish is a $5 trillion company. And what's important here and pulls it back into Bloomberg Money is basically who doesn't own Apple. Yes, because within a 401k portfolio, whatever the mix is, it can be something tech dominated where it's 4 or 5, 6, 8% or maybe less or just individual stock ownership. It's part of America.
- [42:12]
Scarlet Fu
It's kind of like Space X. Even if you didn't want it, you have it because of exposure to for instance the NASDAQ 170. So the DOJ's main allegations here are basically about Apple blocking super apps programs that include many apps within them like WeChat in China. And you know, Apple with its walled garden business model is something that a lot of people have not necessarily complained about, but brought up as something that works against its how it's viewed as a competitive company.
- [42:40]
Tom Keene
It's been a permanent fixture of people going after Apple for, as you say, nicely, the walled garden. What I would suggest if you talk to the sell side of any persuasion, the uber bulls, I think of Gene Munster and Dan Ives and others much more cautious. This app section of the business, the service section just continually grows.
- [43:01]
Scarlet Fu
Well, they have to. It has to. Because the hardware is increasingly a commodity and companies like Apple face increased costs for memory chips.
- [43:09]
Tom Keene
Because everyone in my family is doing Apple movies. Every night I look at my Visa, Apple this, Apple this, Apple that. And the answer is that subset of Apple is so, so important away from the frenzy over iPhones.
- [43:23]
Scarlet Fu
No, that's a really good point. By the way, you mentioned movies on Apple.
- [43:27]
Tom Keene
Yeah, give me a touch here.
- [43:28]
Scarlet Fu
In Odyssey, is it or the Odyssey was released today so you can go see it. It's the first movie, I believe, that was completely made and designed to be made on the IMAX with IMAX cameras. So this is a big one. Matt Damon plays the main character. Anne Hathaway is part of it. Our producer said the reviews from the UK were it could have been better. But I'm excited about this.
- [43:49]
Tom Keene
I've heard very mixed reviews. I mean it's not like Moana. I mean you're the celebrity lodestone. Moana tanked. Right.
- [43:55]
Scarlet Fu
The live action movies, like, I don't know that they really catch on. I'm not sure who wants the live action movies aside from the studios because it allows them to renew the asset.
- [44:03]
Tom Keene
But we can summarize with Warner Brothers, with all the merger friends, he had a bang up year. It's a good year. Is it a good summer for Hollywood?
- [44:12]
Scarlet Fu
And I think it's a good year for Hollywood. Yes. It's no longer resting on the laurels of two movies like Barbie or Oppenheimer. It's a lot more than that in
- [44:19]
Tom Keene
the time we've got here. I think this is really important as we, as we've really enjoyed launching the show and giving you perspective here. For me, the, the major, major thing here is all the marketing of wealth management, all the concepts emerges and we're trying to slice through that, try to figure out, okay, what's really going on, I think with Amanda Lyne and we did a nice job of that today to say, okay, what do you do with Bonds? And her message was all Bonds aren't the same.
- [44:45]
Scarlet Fu
Right. And of course people are scarred from what happened in 2022 when bonds were supposed to be the ballast for your portfolio. The stock market tanked and bonds didn't do it Right. Negative returns.
- [44:56]
Tom Keene
Give me an Apple banner here. I just think it's so important. Apple from 280, 280, the end of June and it's been not a moonshot that over says it but nicely up here it's 331, just below the recent record high and again to 341. $5 trillion company is, is remember. I mean, you don't remember this. You know, Steve Jobs, John Scully, we're all going to die. Lisa is a failure. It's a long way from that.
- [45:22]
Scarlet Fu
It's a long way from that. And of course, this is a company that has been kind of behind the curve when it comes to AI adoption too. But maybe that's a little bit of a saving grace right now as we see some pressure on chip makers and the whole questioning of the trade.
- [45:34]
Tom Keene
All I know is Mark Gurman has the cool orange iPhone.
- [45:38]
Scarlet Fu
Does he?
- [45:39]
Tom Keene
I do.
- [45:39]
Scarlet Fu
Of course he does. He's ahead of everyone.
- [45:43]
Tom Keene
Thank you so much. It's Bloomberg Money. This is Bloomberg. This is the Bloomberg Money podcast bringing you a smart look at the forces shaping your financial life. I'm Tom Keene with Scarlet Fu. You can watch the show live on Bloomberg TV every Friday at noon, Wall street time. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. And as always, on the blue Bloomberg terminal and the Bloomberg business app.
- [46:20]
Amanda Lynham
I love the little everyday moments with my dog, especially treat time. But dental care, not always so fun. Until we found Greenies dental treats. These are more than just tasty. They're vet recommended and designed to support the four areas. Vets check the plaque, tartar gums and breath. Their unique texture cleans down to the gum line and supports cleaner teeth after 28 days when fed daily. It's a simple daily habit that supports their health and gives us another moment to enjoy together. Greenies make health a treat. Shop now@greenies.com it's called soccer.
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Tom Keene
It's called footbol soccer. Foot ball. Domino's Best deal ever. Lets you get any pizza including stuffed
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Scarlet Fu
crack crust with any toppings for $9.99.
- [47:08]
Eric Balchunas
Okay, we can agree on that.
- [47:09]
Tom Keene
Yeah, fully.
- [47:10]
Scarlet Fu
So pineapple.
- [47:12]
Tom Keene
Don't ruin it.
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Scarlet Fu
Get any pizza including stuffed crust with any toppings for $9.99.
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Eric Balchunas
Finally, something everyone can get behind.
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Tom Keene
And if the rest disagree, that's between them and Domino's. Which means the only thing left to fight over is who's ordering
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Eric Balchunas
price is higher for some locations. Excludes XL and specialty pizzas. Select this offer from $6.15 to $7.26 online only.
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Scarlet Fu
Size availability varies by crust tank max 7 toppings 6 for pan and New York style crust. Minimum purchase required for delivery.
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Eric Balchunas
Prices, participation, delivery area and charges may vary.
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Scarlet Fu
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Amanda Lynham
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Scarlet Fu
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