Market Choppiness Ahead of Fed and Earnings

Summary

Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast Summary

Episode: Market Choppiness Ahead of Fed and Earnings
Date: July 28, 2026
Hosts: Tom Keene, Paul Sweeney
Key Guests:

• Amy Wu Silverman, Laurie Kelvin Cena (RBC Capital Markets)
• Jay Hatfield (Infrastructure Capital Advisors)
• Laura Mayfield (Port Washington Investment Advisors)
• Meredith Whitney (Prominent Banking Analyst)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bloomberg Surveillance delves into the uncertainties facing the markets as the Federal Reserve meeting and a tidal wave of major tech earnings approach. The hosts assemble leading strategists and analysts to explore persistent tech momentum, valuation pressures, the psychology of hedging, shifting consumer behaviors, and notable predictions for equity indices and sectors. There’s also a focus on the evolving strategies of US banks and the potential impact of elections and geopolitics on markets.

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Key Segments and Discussion Points

1. Market Structure & Tech Momentum (02:04–06:54)

Guests: Amy Wu Silverman & Laurie Kelvin Cena, RBC Capital Markets

The episode opens with a conversation on market texture, specifically the outsized focus on technology and momentum stocks.

• Tech and Semis Dominate Conversation:

  • Laurie Kelvin Cena notes the persistent attention on semiconductors and the momentum trade, which has extended beyond expectations (02:55).
  • "You’ve hit average valuation levels… the momentum line was late innings, close to done. But it’s gone on a little bit longer, frankly, than I would have thought." – Laurie Kelvin Cena (03:00)

• Client Positioning Pre-Earnings:

  • Amy notes surprising calm in option markets despite the looming ‘big four’ earnings (03:45).
  • "Meta’s implied move on earnings day is about 7%. This thing moves plus or minus 10% the last four quarters. So the fact that it’s an inexpensive move is pretty shocking." – Amy Wu Silverman (03:56)

• Shift in Investor Focus:

  • Investors are looking for opportunity outside of tech and semis but are finding few compelling alternatives (04:29).

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2. Hedging Attitudes and Market Risk (05:04–08:23)

• Hedge Funds vs. Long Only:

  • "There’s a little bit of nervousness…you have a lot of leverage piled onto these ETFs…if you get a burst of correlation, what does that mean to the markets?" – Amy Wu Silverman (05:14)
  • Despite strong earnings, investors remain cautious about new sources of volatility and leverage in the system.

• Market Sentiment and Sectors:

  • Financials are overweight, with strong earnings revisions and notable innovation in customer engagement (08:23).
  • "There’s a lot of really interesting stuff going on in financials besides AI right now." – Laurie Kelvin Cena (09:04)

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3. Fixed Income vs. Equity Market Signals (09:17–10:50)

• Divergence Between Fixed Income and Equity:
  • Amy warns that widening CDS spreads and volatility shifts in rates are not reflected in equity optimism.
  • "Signals in the market, they’re currently not telling you the same things but people are fairly all in on it." – Amy Wu Silverman (10:12)
  • Debt issuance and anxiety in fixed income are “not even whispers…they’ve been fairly loud for quite a long time.” (10:30)

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4. IPO Market, Retail, and New Issues (10:50–11:53)

• IPOs and Market Froth:
  • Heavy new listings like SpaceX are seen as signs of retail froth, but wider positioning and futures data do not overwhelmingly support a bubble narrative.
  • "I'm not seeing reason to panic across a wide variety of indicators." – Laurie Kelvin Cena (11:20)

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5. Election-Year Hedging and the Anti-AI Theme (12:09–13:56)

• Hedging Into Elections:
  • Interest is rising in election-related hedging, but for 2026, the concern is less about usual economic variables and more potential backlash against AI.
  • "What if anti-AI sentiment becomes more than just an election story, it becomes a market story?" – Amy Wu Silverman (12:45)
  • There's a risk of sudden correlation spikes if election rhetoric turns against the tech sector.

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6. Risk Tiers, Flows, and Investor Positioning (13:13–16:21)

• "Tiers of Fear" Framework:
  • Laurie describes her four “tiers of fear” for market risk, from normal pullbacks to recession or worse.
  • Hedge funds recently de-risked but flows are coming back; long-only funds are more about sector rotation (15:41).
  • "If you don’t think recession is on the table, you’re sticking to tier one." – Laurie Kelvin Cena (14:18)

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7. Fed Policy, Inflation, & S&P Targets (19:26–25:54)

Guest: Jay Hatfield, Infrastructure Capital Partners

• Strong Critique of the Fed:

  • "It would be incredibly stupid for the Fed to raise rates this year." – Jay Hatfield (19:37)
  • Argues the Fed is “living in the past” and current indices are outdated and lagging (21:16).

• S&P 500: Bull and Bear Cases:

  • S&P target between 8,000 and 9,000, linked to earnings growth and interest rates.
  • "Earnings estimates are continuing to rise, they’re very robust. And so it is a good market. But because of the war, right now we’re just rotating instead of rallying." – Jay Hatfield (23:41)

• Oil and Geopolitics:

  • Bearish on oil ($80–$100 target); sees potential for declining prices if global trade lanes reopen (24:54).

• Commentary on IPOs (SpaceX):

  • Notes aggressive IPO valuations and potential for volatility upon lockup expirations. "If you’re really smart, you get convinced the Nasdaq to include [the IPO] before the lockups come out." – Jay Hatfield (26:16)

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8. Granular Consumer Spending Behavior (30:04–35:36)

Guest: Laura Mayfield, Port Washington Investment Advisors

• Value-Driven Consumption:

  • "You have consumers overall… seeking value. But that means a very different thing to high income, middle income, low income… and it doesn’t mean they’re not spending." – Laura Mayfield (30:59)

• Scrappy, Resilient Consumer:

  • Lower-income Americans are leveraging buy-now-pay-later, credit cards, and even strategic delinquency to manage cash flow (31:45).
  • "We’re seeing a very scrappy, resilient consumer in problem-solving mode." – Laura Mayfield (32:11)

• Margin Pressures and Asset-Backed Securities:

  • Subprime data show higher delinquencies but not outright charge-offs; performance varies by servicing quality (33:42).

• Paycheck-to-Paycheck Across Incomes:

  • Even high earners are micromanaging spending amid cost pressures.
  • "There’s the emotion of paycheck to paycheck—even among people making six figures… every category just about has raised the threshold…" – Laura Mayfield (34:30)

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9. Bank Stocks, M&A, and Growth (38:37–46:26)

Guest: Meredith Whitney

• Visa as Fintech & Right-Sizing:

  • Visa’s success from demutualization to today’s massive scale. Current layoffs are part of the new push for operating leverage (39:13).

• Bank Strategies at All-Time Highs:

  • Historically, high stock valuations triggered big M&A; post-crisis, it’s been mostly buybacks and dividends. Jamie Dimon/JP Morgan cited as the likely leader in any major new deal (41:54).

• Why Banks Lag Tech:

  • "These guys [banks] aren’t growing—the outliers by comparison to a Microsoft or an Apple that have genuine real earnings growth. The banks just haven’t had it." – Meredith Whitney (43:00)

• Regulation and Bank PTSD:

  • Big banks are largely out from regulatory constraints but carry post-crisis caution: "The M&A that occurred during the financial crisis… left a lot of the banks with PTSD." (44:51)

• Future of Bank Profits:

  • JP Morgan could lead transformational deals; others may follow if given regulatory approval (45:59).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Market Hedging:
  "I try to talk my book and talk about how hedging is still relatively inexpensive... people still remember back to April 2nd... a cohort of retail who likes to step in, they like to buy the dip. It’s changed a lot of the relationships in our market." – Amy Wu Silverman (07:33)

• On Anti-AI Sentiment:
  "What if anti-AI sentiment becomes more than just an election story, it becomes a market story? That’s something to me that can really reflate correlation in the market because it touches all aspects of the markets." – Amy Wu Silverman (12:45)

• On the Scrappy Consumer:
  "We’re seeing a very scrappy, resilient consumer… they’re in problem solving mode." – Laura Mayfield (32:11)

• On Fed Lag:
  "There’s no reason to do surveys that are six months delayed. It’s completely incompetent. It’s as if you gave market updates that were six months old." – Jay Hatfield (21:55)

• On Banks vs Big Tech:
  "These guys aren’t growing…the outliers by comparison to a Microsoft or an Apple that have genuine real earnings growth. The banks just haven’t had it." – Meredith Whitney (43:00)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic / Guest | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:04 | Tech momentum & market focus (RBC: Amy Wu Silverman, Laurie Kelvin Cena) | | 03:45 | Options market & earnings risk | | 05:14 | Hedge fund mentality & leveraged ETFs | | 08:23 | Financials vs. Tech & sector opportunities | | 10:12 | Equity vs. fixed income signals | | 12:09 | Hedging for elections; anti-AI risk | | 14:18 | "Tiers of Fear" — market pullback scenarios | | 19:26 | Fed outlook & S&P targets; Jay Hatfield interview | | 24:54 | Oil, geopolitics & market impact | | 26:11 | IPOs, SpaceX, tech valuation traps | | 30:04 | Granular consumer spending analysis (Laura Mayfield) | | 34:30 | Paycheck to paycheck across classes | | 38:37 | Banking sector, Visa & large-scale M&A (Meredith Whitney) |

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Conclusion

This episode provides a comprehensive, ground-level picture of current market crosscurrents. While the tech sector’s momentum appears to be moderating, risk signals are diverging across asset classes, and investors are positioning themselves for both macro and political uncertainty. From consumer micro-behavior to big-bank boardroom strategies, Surveillance delivers a nuanced look at the forces shaping the second half of 2026.

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This summary omits advertisements and promotional segments, focusing on analysis and interviews only.

Transcript

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[Bloomberg Host]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News. This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 7am 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.

[Tom Keene]

What we love to do is, particularly at a shop like the Royal bank of Canada, when we get two aligned and too highly competent to say the least. It's fun to get them both into the studio, just to get a window into the day to day grind. I mean Paul, I mean you look at Larry Covid, you look at Amy was Silverman, they're talking to two different audiences.

[Paul Sweeney]

They are. If I'm a salesman at RBC Capital, I'm making bank off.

[Tom Keene]

It's a gift.

[Paul Sweeney]

I could sell.

[Tom Keene]

It's a gift anytime. Joining us now for the first time ever, Amy was Silverman, Laurie Kelvin Cena of the Royal bank of Canada. Let me just get this out of the way. Are the two of you on speaking terms?

[Amy Wu Silverman]

Always.

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

We talk all the time.

[Amy Wu Silverman]

It's my work wife.

[Tom Keene]

When you Talk about work from the quant area of Amy Wu over to your incredible PowerPoint showing the texture of the market. What's the number one talking point?

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

I think we've been talking a lot about tech lately. I mean, it's, it's just the conversation you can't get away from. And by that I mean, you know, sort of the, you know, the hyperscalers are mostly in a different sector, to be honest, but the, you know, sort of semis and the momentum trade I think is what we've been largely talking about. And what our work is showing on the semis is that you've hit the average valuation levels. If you look at sort of a 5 or 35 year average. We had been hearing a lot of clients saying they thought the momentum wine was late innings, close to done. It's gone on a little bit longer, frankly, than I would have thought. But I would say that's really the genesis of a lot of the conversations of late.

[Paul Sweeney]

Amy, when you, for your clients, are they, it's a big week for earnings, a big tech week for earnings. How are your clients in the futures and options, are they leaning into these earnings? Are they saying, like as Laurie said, maybe that momentum thing is kind of coming to an end.

[Amy Wu Silverman]

It's so interesting because ahead of this week, you know, big four reporting huge concentration. Tom's favorite word, skew. You know, it's pretty flat, meaning people are not really deciding to hedge in front of any of these stocks. It's actually fairly sanguine. Look, part of that is we already had a big move in sympathy with Alphabet last week, so some of that's taken it off the table. But to give you an example, meta, you know, its implied move on earnings day is about 7%. This thing moves plus or minus 10% the last four quarters. So the fact that it's an inexpensive move is pretty shocking.

[Tom Keene]

The magic of you to as your worker bees, I mean, you're out there hugely seeing clients. Do clients have a bet, Laurie, on the market right now? Are they placing a bet out into 2027?

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

You know what's really interesting, Tom, and this has gone back a couple of months now, is, you know, I go into the meeting and I have my price target and the methodology and the five models and yada, yada, yada. And people do want to talk about the valuation and earnings model because that's fairly unique in our process. But by and large, some people don't want to talk about market direction. They want to talk about, let's look at all the Sectors, where's their opportunity? There's this view, I would say the last couple of months I've had plenty of, I've had plenty of tech, I've had plenty of semis. What else should I be looking at? And frankly a lot of the choices haven't been that interesting to people. So you get kind of stuck in those.

[Tom Keene]

So in the over year world, let's say it's more alternative, more hedge funds, more leveraged bets using mathematics. Do they have the same feeling of let's go?

[Amy Wu Silverman]

Yes and no. There's a little bit of nervousness. For instance, you know last week what we talked about is this whole levered ETF sphere. There's a lot of, you know, what tail will wag the dog because we've had, you know my favorite term the paddling duck on the surface. But you've had these huge multi standard deviation drawdowns in momentum factor. You have a lot of leverage piled onto these ETFs that are accumulating. And then if you get a burst of correlation, what does that mean to the markets? A little bit of nervousness. But when you look at the hyperscaler specifically option sentiment is pretty sanguine.

[Paul Sweeney]

Laurie, these earnings we've been having over the last several quarters, including this quarter have been just extraordinary. I mean it's almost August here. I think I need to start thinking about 2027. Are comps going to be like really brutally tough?

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

Well I think in terms of kind of 2Q versus 2Q there's going to be some wonkiness. But I think the reality is that companies have done a beautiful job of managing through all the challeng challenges we've, you know, as a society have thrown at them so far that doesn't always last. And so one thing we've been highlighting to people is that sort of a risk we see in the coming months is at some point you may need to pull down 2027 earnings forecasts. And that's not so much about the comps but it is the idea that if you look at the Iran war for example, the buffers, the inventories, the hedges, those things that are kind of getting you through the next couple quarters, well, you're going to have to reset those, you're going to have to replenish those. We even heard last week one rail talking about how plastics invent were starting to be rebuilt. Those are going to be done at higher prices. So I think that, you know, kind of the idea of what you were able to manage through this year if you have lingering impact. Next year might just not be so easy.

[Tom Keene]

Across America this morning and in Canada as well, Amy was Silverman. Laurie Kelvin seen it together from RBC Capital Markets. Paul Sweeney with the ladies who they lunch, the dinner. They, they, they're in airplane terminals a lot.

[Paul Sweeney]

Yep, yep, exactly right. I remember those days. Amy, are you surprised that we're not seeing more hedging in your world? I would think on margin we hear about the wall of war, I would think we have had a pretty good year here. Earnings can't get any better than this, can they? Really? Are you surprised maybe you're not seeing more hedging at all in your world?

[Amy Wu Silverman]

I try to talk my book and the talk about how hedging is still relatively inexpensive. I think he there's this element here of people still remember back to April 2nd. They still remember back to Liberation Day. They, they know there's this kind of cohort of retail who likes to step in. They like to buy the dip. It's changed a lot of the relationships in our market. This idea of spot goes up and volatility goes up. You know, that's a little mind blowing for someone like me who's been in the market when that's not true. But there is that hesitancy. I do think as we kind of cross out of earnings maybe into midterms, you start getting more overall correlation pickup risk, maybe some more geopolitics. That does start to change.

[Paul Sweeney]

So I don't know. I mean I'm thinking about this, Laurie, are there sectors here? I got to get away from the AI trade at some point. Where do I go? I mean, do I buy financials, health care?

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

Well, look, increasingly right, AI is penetrating everything. You know, back at our energy conference in June, I went to one day of it and heard a lot about how the energy companies are powering data centers. I mean but look, I do think that if you look outside of tech, we've been overweight financials for quite some time. We've been sticking with that, reiterating that the valuations still look reasonable. I wouldn't say they're cheap. Earnings revisions are very strong. And look, last week, you know, I was sort of responsible on the team for reading the financials companies and I was just really struck by all the innovation that's coming out of certain companies, not necessarily just the big banks, you know, but seeing companies talk about things like prediction markets and how that appeals to their client bases. Seeing the retail brokerages talk about this new retail investor and how we've really Changed who's participating in the market. There's a lot of really interesting stuff going on in financials besides AI right now.

[Tom Keene]

Amy, the people that you talk to like they're all. The difference here is they all drive Maseratis.

[Paul Sweeney]

Yeah.

[Tom Keene]

You know, and fancy cars like that. Lori's talking to people, they got, you know, they get the Range Rover. There's a difference here in terms of cars. The fancy people you talk to like coupe, you know, who's on your Friends and Neighbors on tv. Are they in the market now? Are they cruising through the summer? What's the intensity right now?

[Amy Wu Silverman]

I would say, you know, prior to maybe two weeks ago, there was kind of a positioning clean out and a lot of people felt like that shakeout was good coming into earnings because it gave people clean slate. Now I would say when you look at the flows, people are fairly involved. And I guess one warning signal for, for me is that both credit, both fixed income, both rates, you know, they haven't been flagging the same awesomeness that you've seen in equity. You really see that in CDS spreads against equity.

[Tom Keene]

Exactly.

[Amy Wu Silverman]

You know and that always makes me nervous as an ex fixed income person. I don't know Tom. You decide who's smarter but the signals in the market, they're currently not telling you the same things but people are fairly all in on it.

[Tom Keene]

No, I totally take that. So there's leverage pulled back because they're starting to see whispers in the fixed income market.

[Amy Wu Silverman]

Yeah, I mean I would say they're not even whispers. They've been fairly loud for quite a long time. People in fixed are not happy about the debt issuance. You see that in the widening CDS spreads. You see that in the change in rates, volatility. And obviously Wednesday we got a big one in terms of what Warsh will say even if nothing occurs. So I think that might reprice a few things.

[Paul Sweeney]

Tom, your SpaceX has got a 110 bid pre market. Tom. So you're not happy about that.

[Tom Keene]

She called me up, she said don't take the 8,000 shares.

[Paul Sweeney]

Laurie, what's the market? Just generally speaking when you see a big monster deal like Space X come out, trade up initially but boy, it's been really heavy since then. I mean we got anthropic presumably going to come public in the fall. As a strategist, what's that tell you about just the new issue market, what that tells you about this?

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

So, so look, I would say for me, you know, I sort of relate this question to market froth and When I think about, you know, and unfortun I just can't really get into the IPO dynamics But if you go and look at like a lot of different gauges, we see some evidence that the retail investor has looked a little bit frothy. If you look at the conference board data point on stock market optimism. But if you look at things like a I, if you look at things like CFTC futures positioning, we're not seeing those same signals. I understand the concerns people have but I'm not seeing reason to panic across a wide variety of indicators.

[Tom Keene]

Larry Covid seen in Amy was Silverman with us a special treat in the studio together. I mean you know they have to, you know I think, I think President Mr. Carney of Ottawa is involved as well. They can't be in the same room together. This is a treat, pretty cool treat.

[Paul Sweeney]

Amy, we've got a lot of people that have been telling me for a long time that election years dicey, you got to be careful here. Are you seeing people maybe do you think you're going to see on your desk people trying to buy some hedging going into these elections? Is that typically what you see or not so much?

[Amy Wu Silverman]

I would say yes. This year I'll tell you we have. Laurie and I have been doing quite a few marketing sessions together and one thing that has been coming up in terms of sentiment change is essentially this worry that midterms isn't going to be about gas prices. It's not necessarily going to be about inflation, it's going to be about anti I, I remember in one meeting we step in and the first thing the client asks is, you know, what do you think of this data center moratorium? What does that mean? And so the point I'm trying to make is look, what if anti AI sentiment becomes more than just an election story, it becomes a market story. That's something to me that can really reflate correlation in the market because it touches all aspects of the markets. The surge protector plugged into itself. Right. Like we know a lot of these, these things have tentacles and that's something that we're watching quite closely.

[Tom Keene]

So talk to Laurie now and our audience worldwide. Amy was Silverman what do the left and right tell tales tell you right now that redound over to Lori's world of long term investment.

[Amy Wu Silverman]

So one of my favorite Laurie charts in the whole world is her four tiers of fear. And I can tell you that the left tail.

[Tom Keene]

Let's just have the children to go to bed.

[Amy Wu Silverman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that too. But but you know, we're, we're not pricing in tears of fear on that left tail and we're still pricing in kind of exuberance on the right tail. In particular, when you look at some of the, not semi specifically, but when you look at the hyperscalers haven't changed that much. And to me it's interesting when you see that start to flag, then I think that sentiment.

[Tom Keene]

So Laurie, the fund is, Barry I can read, would call it the financialization of the system, the Amy Will Silverman slice and dice tranches and all that. The foundation is still America's nominal GDP over to inflation and that when you talk to the derivative crews.

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

Yeah.

[Tom Keene]

What do you tell them about the foundation?

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

So, so we do kind of go to this tears of fear page and it's basically tier one is 5 to 10% garden variety pullback, tier two, growth scare, tier three, recession, interest rate shock, tier four. We don't talk about those. We all know those are. And you know, we saw this back in March. We did a round of marketing together and we kept putting that table in front of people. And I said, look, if you don't think recession is on the table, you're sticking to tier one. If you think it's a recession, near miss. This was when, you know, when the Iran war was, was still escalating and markets were still falling. I was like, look, if you think it's a growth scare and we're going to fear recession but not actually have one, you go to tier two. If you think it's actually a recession, you go to tier three. And the hedge funds kept pointing to tier two and saying, I think at worst it's going to get to this. But we're probably in tier one. And that was probably the most valuable thing we learned in March was that people were nervous, they were watching the market fall, but the fast money was not looking to bake in recession. And that helped us sort of really understand when the pivot happened, that it was really the pivot.

[Paul Sweeney]

I don't know either of you two or both. Are hedge funds net long today or are they net short, do you think?

[Amy Wu Silverman]

So I would say there was this clean out prior maybe like a week and a half, two weeks ago. And then I think in terms of flows, most folks have gotten back in and there's a little bit of tentativeness right now because we have a big concentration week. But there was sort of a clean out, I would say a week and a half ago where people had taken a lot of risk off the books.

[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

Really, I think in my world, right, you know, the long only space you're always invested, right. It's a question of whether you're up quality or down quality. I think it's very funny because I do think, you know, as I've been out on the road talking to the long only everybody's kind of talking their book. So the people who need rotation to work are in the pro rotation argument. And the growth funds who are really more all in on the trade, you know, are more sort of talking about that's going to bottom out pretty soon sound a little bit more like the hedge funds. But I do think, you know, kind of going back to the midterm conversation earlier. It's just coming up in more and more meetings and I'm not getting a sense of what trades people want to do yet, but they are starting to want to talk about it. After a year of not wanting to talk about stuff like that, I hope

[Tom Keene]

we could do this again. I'm seeing like post Labor Day. This would be fabulous. Laurie Covid Amy was Silverman together from the Royal bank of Canada. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Surveillance coming up after this.

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[Tom Keene]

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[Bloomberg Host]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10am Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.

[Paul Sweeney]

One of the many reasons why we like our next guest because he does not mince words, he does not pull punches, particularly when it comes to the Federal Reserve. Take this sentence as an example. It would be incredibly stupid for the Fed to raise rates this year. That's our friend Jay Hadfield, CEO, Founder and Portfolio Manager, Infrastructure Capital Partners. So I guess, Jay, tomorrow you're not expecting the Fed to raise rates or you don't think they should? And why or why not?

[Jay Hadfield]

Thanks for having me back, Paul and Tom. Well, what we have right now is essentially the polar opposite of what we had in early 2021. So then the interest sensitive sectors were exploding with inflation. 20% year over year increases, rents up 10 reported numbers too because they're massively flawed. And the Fed did nothing and claimed it was transitory. Here we had the situation where rents are flat, housing prices are flat, the 30 year treasuries at 680. There's no inflation coming from the interest sensitive sectors and we just have solely inflation coming from energy. And we completely 100% reject the expectation. Stereo inflation, really. Expectations are deflationary because they raise long term rates and tighten financial conditions. So we think the Fed is living in the past, at least those supporting increases.

[Tom Keene]

You're the first paragraph I'VE seen that actually think these task forces can get. First of all, we're surprised Jay Hadfield isn't on a task.

[Paul Sweeney]

Yeah, exactly.

[Tom Keene]

But you're suggesting that they can actually change the way the Fed interprets inflation. There's a lot of people that don't agree with that statement.

[Jay Hadfield]

Well, I would be extraordinarily bad bureaucrat. So that's a good reason. I'm not on those task forces. But the main thing that needs to be done is to reform these horrible, horrible indices that get put out that are complete fantasy. They believe that portfolio management inflation is 22% year over year. That is just complete.

[Tom Keene]

Okay, to review this, folks. This all happened in 1947, was codified across the 50s in the 60s, and we're living 40 years on to your point. And you want to see very present sensitive inflation statistics. Right.

[Jay Hadfield]

Which you can easily get. There's other services that do we put out just adjusting for the complete nonsense. And that's really low. It was two. Now it's a little bit above two. But there's even ones that come from pure Internet data that are absolutely real time. There's no reason to do surveys that are six months delayed. It's completely incompetent. It's as if you gave market updates that were six months old. I mean, how long we do be

[Tom Keene]

careful now we do that.

[Paul Sweeney]

So your S P target, you've got a range between 8,000 and 9,000. What's driving that differential there?

[Jay Hadfield]

It's very simple and it's. It's all in the numbers. So earnings estimate. And you. Can I get them on the terminal? And you should get them on the terminal because that's consensus. That's the defined consensus have gone up 15% since the beginning of the year. So we seem like we've been inconsistent because we started with 8,000 target, we raised it to nine. But I remember now I got a C plus in Iranian studies. So I didn't realize the IRGC would fire missiles at the ships right after the peace agreement. I thought we would kick the can down the road and not agree on the nuclear side. And so that's why we normally don't have two targets. But we're at 8,000, which is a 20 multiple. And consistent with Treasuries being sort of here like 475. Every 25 basis points from a theoretical perspective increases or decreases the theoretical multiple. So you're 23 times 9,000, 20 times 8,000, roughly. It's actually 22 and a half now, but. So you Kind of pick your poison. But earnings estimates are continuing to rise. They're very robust. And so it is a good market. But because of the war, right now we're just rotating instead of rallying.

[Tom Keene]

Jay Hadfield, with its infrastructure, capital and management here around presumed economic data wrapped around a Fed meeting tomorrow, wrapped around an earnings season as well. I mean, there's, you know, inventories, advanced goods, I guess. I don't care. Case Shiller will be out here at 9:00am Paul. Paul Sweeney will have Conference Board data at 10:00am but, you know, I'm looking at all this and the answer is there's still stimulus. One stimulus to Olivier Blanchard and others call it the Biden stimulus on the back end and then further stimulus that we've seen with President Trump and company. Does that end? Does it ebb away?

[Jay Hadfield]

Yeah, I wouldn't really call it stimulus because we believe in, unlike Keynesians, in crowding out. So it doesn't actually help economic growth, but there's going to be consistent fiscal irresponsibility. We have a track record of that since Bill Clinton was president. He was not, but since then. And so we assume 5% deficits on an ongoing basis.

[Tom Keene]

Do you assume a 4% nominal GDP plus? The answer is yes.

[Jay Hadfield]

Yes. If we get rates down to the neutral rate, which is 75 basis points lower, should be able to grow at 4% a year.

[Paul Sweeney]

In a previous life, you had a lot of experience in energy. What's your energy call these days?

[Jay Hadfield]

We have been correctly bearish about oil prices. In fact, our target right now is 80 to 100, assuming the street is closed. And it's really closed right now, completely closed, but we're at the bottom of the range. And we had been, unlike most others, saying that if the street reopened, we would rapidly rebuild inventories. And we can already see from the market moves like a straight was open for five days and we got the $68, so we could get the 50 if the straight reopens. And that is super bullish for more of the 9,000 target than the 8,000 target because then rates would start dropping to 4, start to price in rate cuts and then you get flows into the market. It's kind of a frustrating market because one day it's chips, the other day it's the hyperscalers, the third day it's everything else and nothing ever really happens to the overall average.

[Paul Sweeney]

I got to ask you, because it's in your notes and Tom and I are fascinated, SpaceX, what do you make of it? You've been on the Banking side, you've taken a ton of pictures.

[Tom Keene]

It sort of has been infrastructure.

[Paul Sweeney]

Yeah, I'm throwing it at you. What do you make of a company like SpaceX? The fact that it's it priced, it traded and where we're trading today.

[Jay Hadfield]

Well, the key insight is guess how you win IPOs.

[Paul Sweeney]

Okay.

[Jay Hadfield]

You pitch really high valuations and then you jam them onto Wall street, says the former bank. And then if you're really smart, you get convinced the Nasdaq to include it before the lockups come out. Yeah, we add a lot of value in our Qval ETF because we didn't include SpaceX. So you should have a managed QQQ because they don't have a requirement for possibility. But so it's going to actually they have great technology unlike Tesla which has generic technology and they are going to be a valuable company. We have $100 aggressive target and you have a catalyst which is this lockup. Like that's a ton of stock. Like it's one thing to get the deal done, it's another to absorb the 1.5 trillion of stock. Let's come back tomorrow.

[Tom Keene]

Jay hadfield with a CEO infrastructure with 8,9000 on SPX. Really appreciate it. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Surveillance coming up after this.

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[Paul Sweeney]

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 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 of 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 market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com market paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, LLC.

[Tom Keene]

SEC registered advisor complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures

[IBM Representative]

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[Bloomberg Host]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10am Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.

[Tom Keene]

Laura Mayfield with us right now. We talk about granular. I mean this is folks, it's like Econo Babble, blah blah blah. Her notes are exquisite. Value perception is between choosing Dine in Chili's rather than Doordash Chipotle or getting water instead of a budget. A Baja Blast Mountain Dew to wash down those $1 and choritos at Taco Bell. How about that research you did?

[Laura Mayfield]

Lettuce free and cheritos.

[Tom Keene]

Let us free in Choritos. Are the kids asking for water? I doubt it. They want the Baja.

[Laura Mayfield]

They want the Baja Blast. I was going to bring you a Baja Blast Freeze but the machine wasn't was running yet.

[Tom Keene]

That's okay, we're putting them into the food court here. I mean the granularity you do is second to none. What does it tell you about the American consumer?

[Laura Mayfield]

I think you have to have a granular look at the consumer when you're trying to understand what's happening. The aggregate data just doesn't tell the full picture. There are so many disparate storylines within the aggregate data. You have consumers overall they are seeking value. But that means a very different thing to high income, middle income, low income, borrow or low income consumers and it doesn't mean they're not spending. We see in the data they are continuing to spend. But that thirst for value in this, in this environment, it looks very different across the income spectrum.

[Paul Sweeney]

How are people at the lower end? We talk so much about the case shaped economy and the lower end of the case seems to be more and more pronounced. How are they funding the day to day? Is it just paycheck to paycheck? Is it credit cards? How are they doing that?

[Laura Mayfield]

I think it's all of the above. We're seeing a very scrappy, resilient consumer as they always are and they're using all available tools. We've seen an increase in adoption of buy now pay later options which by the way are a great payment method for, for consumers. They don't charge interest. The merchant or retailer covers the cost of that. So in some ways it's a favorable alternative to credit cards for consumers. We're also seeing them, I think use delinquency as a cash flow management tool. We're seeing a lot of borrowers, subprime borrowers in the auto loan space fall delinquent but then live in that state of delinquency. They can't afford to catch back up to current but they're also not flowing through to charge off. So I think we're seeing a very scrappy, resilient consumer that's in problem solving mode.

[Tom Keene]

We are guilty. Paul's not guilty of this. I'm guilty of only talking la di da. You're talking about an America within the phrase flat on their back. What percentage of America is micromanaging the boneless meal deal for two at Wingstop?

[Laura Mayfield]

I think it's probably more than you might expect.

[Tom Keene]

I agree strongly with that. Half of America maybe.

[Laura Mayfield]

I think when you, when you look at the increase in energy costs, when you look at the Bloomberg's got this great data series on very granular real time consumer spending and when you look at weeks where gasoline spending has increased just because of the volatility in prices there you see a direct impact on other categories that are going down, whether that's clothing, sometimes even grocery spending. I've seen offset the increase in gasoline spending. I think the consumer, a lot of the consumer is, they're, they're doing okay, but they're, they're really trouble. They're problem solving on a, on a day to day basis.

[Paul Sweeney]

So in your world of asset backed securities, where do you see that?

[Laura Mayfield]

We see it across, you know, there are prime consumer receivables in our market There are subprime consumer receivables in our market. We see it a lot in the subprime data. We see servicing practices have an outsized impact on loan performance across pools. Some of the higher touch consumers require more servicing to get that cash flow to come through because those borrowers are choosing which bills to pay and which ones to let slide past the due date.

[Tom Keene]

Laura Mayfield with this just exquisite here at Port Washington Investment Advisors Granular Research like nothing. I've seen the phrase paycheck to paycheck. There's like the way we perceive it and there's even paycheck to paycheck of people making six figures. Discuss the emotion of paycheck to paycheck.

[Laura Mayfield]

Yeah, I think again it comes back to consumers trying to solve for the priority of payments, which I think has evolved over the years. If you remember back to the gfc, we saw consumers prioritize car payments over home payments and the notion was you can live in your car, you can't drive your house to work. But I think with the increased cost of living across the board, whether that's housing affordability, rent increases, car expenses, childcare, every category just about has raised the threshold of what it means to live on a paycheck to paycheck basis.

[Paul Sweeney]

The labor market, I guess we're a fully employed economy. So I mean that's a big part of consumer behavior, consumer spending. I guess that's the good news out there as it relates to the consumer.

[Laura Mayfield]

Absolutely. And I think that's the critical piece that has helped encourage the consumer to continue spending in aggregate. That conference board data, which is more a labor force metric, has been stronger relative to the University of Michigan conference.

[Tom Keene]

I got 10 other questions. You got to come back soon. Laura Mayfield, thank you so much. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Surveillance coming up after this.

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[Paul Sweeney]

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, 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 of 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 market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com market paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC.

[Tom Keene]

SEC registered advisor complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures

[IBM Representative]

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[Laurie Kelvin Cena]

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[IBM Representative]

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[Bloomberg Host]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10am Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.

[Tom Keene]

Meredith Whitney with us right now. We're thrilled to have her in here and I should say say shockingly well timed as well. Meredith, I want to go back. This is you were in School back then 2008 but I look at Visa here and I'm sorry, people don't understand. Back almost 18 years is up 21.6% per year and I remember you and your youth standing up on a table screaming by Visa what is the Visa history and management now where they say we got to lay off 7% of the people because the rules have changed?

[Meredith Whitney]

Well, I mean Visa has been A great demutualization story. Right. So the banks owned it, they spun it off. There was a lot of, there's a lot of operating leverage it could achieve and it's just the whole process of cash to to correct to plastic conversion. But like any large company you've got a right size and I think a lot of companies that hat that hadn't right size, that had overhire during COVID have to face the reckoning that you know the only way to achieve operating leverage now is to, is to get rid of, is to, to downsize. And I think you've seen everybody do it. The banks haven't really done it but every tech company has done it. Yeah, that's certainly the, that they're not, they're not an outlier on that.

[Paul Sweeney]

I remember the early days of fintech. Maybe it was you, somebody tell me you want to play fintech, just buy Visa, MasterCard. I mean all this stuff's got a ride on those platforms at some point.

[Meredith Whitney]

They were the OGs of fintech way back when.

[Paul Sweeney]

Exactly. I'm looking at JP Morgan all time high today. I mean what are these banks and all their stocks have been ripping. I'm looking at the year to date and trailing twelve month performance stocks have had great runs. What do bank stocks do? What do banks do when their stocks are trading at or near all time highs? Do they return cash, do they buy stuff? What do they do usually historically pre

[Meredith Whitney]

great financial Crisis, remember the like 90s 2000s when bank stocks valuations were trading at all time highs they would do transformational deals. There was massive M and a massive consolidation this cycle since the crisis they've well once they got out of effectively regulatory prison they started buying back shares. They increased dividends to a certain extent but they're favored route was buying back shares. And you would think that makes sense. In low the stocks are trading with low valuations but the banks have still bought back shares at high valuations close to three times. And it's not as if you know the brokers used to, you remember the days they used to buy back shares to offset their stock compensation. They've done that at exponential levels to their stock compensation. So historically you'd think wow, at all time high valuations, price to tangible book they would do some type of M and A and I'd say they're just pussyfooting around with buybacks and dividend increases. I think the one outlier, the one bank stock that has the temerity, the one bank and one CEO that has the temerity actually do a deal is none other than Jamie Dimon.

[Tom Keene]

So frame an example deal. An example deal.

[Meredith Whitney]

I think when people thought that Jamie Dimon would retire with their new headquarters, that time came and went. He wants to do something big. And by big I don't mean State Street, Northern Trust. I think he does something fintech but major fintech which is over $115 billion valuation of Revolut.

[Tom Keene]

Okay. Of Revolut is an example. Okay. What you do folks, the way we rock on YouTube you can see this when Meredith Whitney walks in the studio. I use the HP 12C.

[Paul Sweeney]

Yeah.

[Tom Keene]

Apple just hit $5 trillion. I went back to the beginning of the boom after you know, Jobs and all that. Just the long Tim Cook log boom of course from Meredith Whitney. I went logarithmic in even one standard deviation below the long term trend In June of 2028 it hit 6 trillion. We don't extrapolate like that, do we? We don't. We're so wrapped up in the day to day go to Cash and all that. We just don't do simple extrapolations of Visa or Apple, do we know or

[Meredith Whitney]

the all time greatest stock is Microsoft, right? In terms of the all time greatest compounder which is Microsoft. I mean I think that we're also short term and the short term, I mean I took a long term view of the, the banks I took over the last few weeks to see what their real earnings power was and what how they were growing or how they weren't growing. Tangible book and most of the earnings growth has been through share buybacks. So if you look at Citi for example, their tangible equity is below what it was before the great financial crisis. So they've just been buying back shares otherwise they would have negative earnings growth. Wells Fargo has barely grown so 10% in terms of tangible equity. JP Morgan again an outlier. These guys aren't growing the outliers by comparison to a Microsoft or an Apple that have genuine real earnings growth. The banks just haven't had it and so they can get it through some transformational deals. But you're sitting, you're predicting basically that

[Tom Keene]

the roll up continues.

[Meredith Whitney]

Well, I'm thinking that the other banks don't have. I will, I will be a lady here. They don't have the, the chutzpah to actually lead and do a deal. Whereas I think JP Morgan is the only bank followed by probably PNC that has the real confidence and confidence of the board to lead doing deals and then others may follow.

[Paul Sweeney]

Where are the banks in terms of getting out of the doghouse that they found themselves in after the great financial crisis, are they completely out? Are they, are we back to kind of pre financial crisis in terms of their ability to return capital, make acquisitions just from a regulatory perspective?

[Meredith Whitney]

Yeah, I think that this is a whole new world. This administration is a whole new world. So JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs got out of the doghouse in 2010 and started buying back. They were the first and then bank of America, Citi Wells, that was 2015 but they've been slow and I think Wells just got over, just got out from under its asset cap. So I think they're out but I think they've got ptsd. The M and A that occurred during the financial crisis and right after that financial crisis left a lot of the banks with ptsd. So so you look at Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns, traumatic for JP Morgan Countrywide, traumatic for bank of America and Green sky, just egg on face for Goldman Sachs. So and you know Morgan Stanley, great E trade acquisition, but it's still digesting

[Tom Keene]

with the bank just we had to go here. But Meredith, within the. Meredith Whitney Five years or even 10 years, do the banks have the profit in free cash flow to still raise dividends and deploy cash to shareholders?

[Meredith Whitney]

I think they do the right thing. I mean I think that if J.P. morgan is an outside, an outlier but it can, it can if it does something big, which I think it will do. Absolutely.

[Tom Keene]

The government constrain them.

[Meredith Whitney]

It's up to the, I think it's more the EU allowing that deal to go forward then the, I don't think the US government's going to constrain them. And, and by the way this administration with just barely two years, you know, just over two years left, the time

[Tom Keene]

is now, we got to run. This has been fabulous. Meredith Whitney, thank you so much for joining us today. Meredith Whitney, that group here really, really interesting on the banks always. And a major shout out to her call on Visa literally a decade and a half ago that has been a juggernaut winner for him.

[Bloomberg Host]

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get. Your podcasts listen live each weekday 7 to 10am Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app TuneIn 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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[Meredith Whitney]

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[Meredith Whitney]

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[Paul Sweeney]

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