Contact Tracing in Workplaces

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. Let's set the Business week agenda, because we need to figure out what's going on in this trade, what's on investor's mind. We've got the perfect team assembled to do that. Uh. In the meantime, just bring you one headline that the FED will begin buying

broad portfolio of US corporate bonds. That certainly is going to play into the discussions today. Let's talk about what's happening, especially on the equity side, with Gina Mark and Adams. That's because she's the chief equity strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence. She joins us on the phone from New Jersey, Dave Wilson, of course, our stocks editor, author of the chart and stock of the Day. Uh, Dave, I want to start with you because you heard Charlie break down the numbers,

the swings that we've been seeing. Take us inside the trade, help us understand what's what what lovers are moving here. Yeah, it looks like things have just kind of stabilized a bit, arguably after you know what we saw on Friday with stocks getting off to a pretty good early start and then not being able to hang on the gains. Today it was kind of the opposite where you had the early losses and markets come back. Uh. You see technology

stocks at the forefront. Today you see communications stocks and there we're talking about the likes of Google's owner Alphabet as well as Facebook. But it's not like anyone group is sort of a standout at this point. It's just interesting to see the kind of reversals that have gone on today's trading. I mean, you know, early on you saw take the travel stocks. I mean, they've certainly been among the more valuable shares out there, and they were down big time early on, and now you look at them.

I mean, Americans up six tents of a percent. You know, Delts is a little changed, and you know cruise lines. You've got Cornable down a bit two point three percent, but roal Caribbeans barely lower. So you know, we we've certainly seen a lot movement in those shares. Uh. Same thing with the biggest banks, which are little changed at this point after having fallen early on. So a lot of recovery going on in today's trading after some early losses. Of look mighty familiar in terms of the kinds of

stocks that we're falling. All right, let's bring Gina Martin Adams. Gina Um, you're writing on the Bloomberg. You talk about the stocks rebound, stocks bounce back, may remain under fire until green shoots emerge. I do feel like we're at this juncture. Jason and I were talking about it last week, about a week ago exactly that all of a sudden, investors were like, wait a minute, like, you know, we've

gotten way ahead of ourselves. Let's see what the economic and corporate profit outlook ultimately is, and we need more data on that. I would totally agree. I think what actually happened is the first few months of this recovery rally was really all about pricing a new Fed policy, a new monetary policy regime. Once we got to the point where we fully priced extremely low interest race for a very long period of time, we sort of lost

our momentum. And and I think now the next phase has to be about, Okay, great, we are willing to pay a lot more for equities given just this permanently low interest rate landscape, But where is the earnings all

going to go? And I do think that that's going to be the next leg of the rally or not rally is sort of the progression of earnings estimates, the progression of economic green shoots while we start to see some growth, and how does that forecast compare to the current consensus expectation, which is sub two percent growth um in the next twelve months following the end of this month.

So expectations are very low, but economic growth is also pretty slim, and I think the market is going to go back and forth trying to figure out, you know, how to pair expectations with reality. So we just got to get comfortable with this level of back and forth, Gina,

I think that's some of it. I think also though, if you look at things like factor leadership and sector leadership, you have seen some rotation back to more stability, more defensiveness, sort of the momentum quality, low volatility trait that really dominated pre crisis does appear to be making a little

bit of headway over the last week or so. And I think that's really just about stuff like high volatility and high bankruptcy risk and kind of low quality stocks really ripped out of the march low so much more than they normally do in the first leg of recovery that I think that segment of the rally got a little bit ahead of itself. And that's the segment where you would normally see, you know, growth prospects start to emerge.

But we're really starting to question that segment. So I think it's going to be a back and forth and kind of choppy your market um for the for the factor and sector leaders as well. Hey just quickly, um, Gina, just about twenty seconds, when can we expect fairly for our companies to start saying, okay, here's our outlook. We have an outlook to give you how much when when should we expect them to be able to do that? Yeah, I think that you'll hear a little bit more of

that in the June at the July quarter. Sorry, So with the next learning season really kicks off only a month from now, a little less than a month from now, shocking, and it at that point, I think we'll hear a little bit more about Okay, at least for June. What did the reopenings from the US look like? What does our do our prospects for growth looks like? You know, how are we going to do in terms of liquidity and leverage? Those types of things are going to start

to eat out I think in the July quarter. Great, all right, thank you so much. Gina Martin, Adam's chief Equity Strategies for Bloomberg Intelligence. Joining us on the phone from New Jersey, Dave Wilson. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, our next guest, Tom Goodmanson is President CEO at the customer experience intelligence company Collabrio. They use AI driven analytics and they use it to track customer behavior and sentiment

and they work with their clients using that information. They're based in Minneapolis. That's exactly where Tom joins us on the phone on this Monday. Tom, Welcome to Bloomberg Radio. Nice to have you here with us. You know, I have to be honest with you. I read your website a couple of times, read a bunch of your press releases and some other information. What exactly do you guys do using ai UM to kind of bridge gaps between

customers and clients. Yeah, thanks, Carol. You know, we we really put it simply, we sit in contact centers and we're listening to what's going on between the customer and the and the agent, and we're helping that it would be a better, better insight. And so we're doing we provide analytic insights by UH record and then and then running it through our engines to do things like predictive NPS. NPS, we do predictive scoring, we do predictive how how agents think.

So we really are trying to get in the minds of the agent in order to give a better UH situation to the end user. And so this plays into one of the terms that we have all started to use and come to GRIPS with, which is contact tracing so help us understand how it fits into that broader effort. Yeah. So if you think about this is a very heated if somebody's calling in and they've got covid um or the other is they find out you know, they get the people that have been diagnosed, and they find out

who they've talked to. You have to have a kind of a bedside manner. And so we're helping those agents train and understand how to how to help. And then the AI is ivan to to maybe see trends. So we're not just taking the word of the person calling in, but we might be able to spot some other trends that are going on in a region in an area. So are you learning anything so far through that work because we're all trying to figure out what happens next here. Yeah.

The work we're finding right now is think about how much we have to to spin up, right, So the work is maybe three to four weeks old in a lot of the regions that are just spinning these up as we start to open up the world a little bit here and so the insights have not started pouring in other than people are are scared when they call and just trying to provide calming. That's probably the number one thing that I'm seeing is just being having a

calming influence for now. Yeah, you know it's interesting too because I think about you guys, you know, play into different worlds. You get to you get you have a certain window that maybe some of us don't, And I do wonder what it says to us about kind of where we are in our world, especially as post COVID nineteen.

We're not done, as many of the doctors we talked to and members of the medical community remind us, you know that we're not anywhere near to being done, but we are reopening and people are making their way back. We're trying to figure out, Okay, what does our world look like, what does the marketplace look like? What does the economy look like? What would you say? You know, that's a good question. And if I had the answer to that, I'd probably have my employees back at work. Um,

you know, where people are, people are really cautious. You're seeing a lot of excitement. They're they're tired of being at home and home schooling and doing all that stuff. But then there's that fear factor. Um, We've got a lot of things that you know, people feel that they've been left out of but they don't know how quite

to go back. And so I think as some programs like this should allow us that confidence that we're going to find UH problems and hotspots more quickly we did early this year, UH and and allow us to maybe give us a little bit of confidence as we go back right and to isolate maybe a little bit more effectively. And to that end, Tom, I mean, what's your sense about who should ultimately be running these types of operations?

Because I think a lot of people candidly are skeptical of the federal government, but we also know that state local governments have different levels of funding. What's the optimal system from your perspective? You know, from my perspective, it's I think it's a public private type UH partnership UM. The public good, the health departments and what have you. I think they have the data and the know how UM companies like ours have the skill to let them

get to work and do what they do best. And then they between the two of us, then spin up and partner with business provider outsourcers so b p o s to get them the bodies that they need. Because this is a body of intensive as you can imagine. The CDC and George Washington University say that we should have thirty tracers for every hundred thousand residents. That's a lot of that's a lot of people to get spun

up to make this work. So the whole idea, right, Jason had and I've had tons of conversations about the importance of testing and tracing and that's how it's going to give the confidence. So you guys are working to kind of help work places get those programs in place. Just got about forty seconds left here. Yeah, we've got you know, we've got We're working really hard to help companies, but also the state governments. We've engaged with many state governments.

We think that that's the right place to put the biggest centers because each state, as we've seen, has had different approaches to and different outbreaks, and so we think that that's the best place to help them. And then companies, of course, if they do the next level to help their employees is a really important step as well. And we should point out that you're partnering with Amazon and Trilio to UM work on those virtual contact trace seeing

operations around the US. UM really appreciated. Excuse me your time. Tom Goodmanson is president CEO at Collabrio. He is based in Minneapolis and that's where he joined us on the phone Jason on this Monday. Yeah. Interesting to see. I mean, these are going to be massive logistical and somethings and almost infrastructure challenges. If you can't offset that with some

machine learning, obviously that would make sense. Interested to hear how this all goes, because through the summer we're going to be the new corporate system that you need you to write, another thing that you have to have in place. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. A big headline crossing this morning courtesy of the Supreme Court, a decision that really was not expected, and I would say even less expected was

the breakdown in terms of how the justices voted. Let's talk about it with Jeff Green, because this is a milestone, it feels like, in terms of rights for workers and specifically uh lgbt Q workers. Jeff tell us about it. Yeah, I mean the thing that a lot of people maybe still don't realize is that in a majority of Americans are not protected um from discrimination in this country up

until well today. Um So if you in many states, a majority of states in fact, if somebody wanted to fire you for being gay or transgender, it was legal. It was little, there was no recourse up until the Supreme Court basically said that the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act can be interpreted to cover LGBT rights as well, which makes us, you know, pretty much on par with

the with the gay gay marriage ruling. You know, it's interesting to Jeff that Greg store To writing about this today and he says more than half of the U s States don't cover sexual orientation and gender identity through their own anti discrimination laws, and more than half of the nation's eight million LGBT workers live in those states. So this is a big, big deal, right yeah, And it's um, like you said, unexpected to some degree, um with the current Supreme Court configuration. And I mean it,

it gets most of the workers now are protected. I mean that the title title seven, as this nineties four laws referred to in shorthand, does not cover people who work at companies that have less than fifteen employees. And that's still probably around ten to fift of Americans work at smaller companies that small majority of Americans worker companies with less than a thousand people, So there wasn't a lot of protection for people who worked at the smallest companies.

Most of the large corporations, like most of the Fortune five hundred SMP five already have some sort of a regulation protecting LGBT workers. So the law was really meant to protect you know that the law really was sort of not covering people who were outside of those big and so what does this mean? You know, Jeff, you and your team do such a great job sort of covering diversity in all of its aspects on the managing university team at Bloomberg, and I do wonder is you

guys have talked about it. What are the practical uh implications for this? Are there sort of economic factors that enter in here? What what does it really mean when we get down to brass tax Well, I mean it means job security, legal protection for a group of and maybe it make it a little more likely that people

will be out at work. I mean. One of the big issues with gay marriage UM was that a lot of companies had been offering benefits same sex benefits UM and when gay marriage was legal in all fifty states. There was this idea that we don't need that anymore because now you can get married and get the benefits.

But a lot of people were concerned that if they lived in a state where it was legal to fire me for being gay, then I really didn't want to betise my marriage or I didn't want to get married, so I would lose my my healthcare, um, unless I got married, and then I could be fired. So there was sort of this catch funny too, and that's now sort of taken away, um, at least when it comes

to domestic implications. There's so global implications to being gay and married in other countries, but as of today, for most Americans, that is not an issue. Yeah, now it's great and uh, we really appreciate you bringing us the details of this. Jeff Green Menjing, diversity reporter for Bloomberg joining us. Uh from Detroit. This felt seismic in anyways. You said it at the top. Unexpected to have, you know, Neil Neil Gorsuch, who's conservative to have also John Roberts,

the Chief Justice, also conservative. Gorsch was the surprise for me. I mean, Roberts has has emerged swing vote this swing vote right, um, and in many ways, uh, you know, seeing Neil Gorsuch not only vote that way but right for the majority, right right exactly. I mean that is really taking a big step in terms of what that

decision was all about. And I do think, you know, we look at the three branches of our government, um, and how they are supposed to kind of checks and balances on one another, and this, you know, shows to me at least that it continues to be an independent Supreme Court, which is such an important part for this

government functioning. And I do think, you know, when it comes to rights of all individuals, I think there was a segment of the population that looked at this that has been rightly agitated at an upset and at least said, all right, here's a little bit of good news as we press forward. Yeah, considering certainly that the recent backdrop This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason

Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. So no doubt about it. What happens from here largely depends on what happens next with the virus, the economy, what type of bounce back we see as the country in the world reopen depends on whether or not people feel safe enough to go back to work and resume economic activities. This is happening on a day when new outbreaks in the US have some

states concerning whether to pause reopening. So in today's Business Week Economics edition, we thought we got to look at where we are when it comes to the virus with us. As Michelle Cortez, health science and medical technology reporter at Bloomberg News, she joins us back with us on the phone from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Michelle, it is good to have you here. Where are we like, you know, people talk about second wave reopenings, Maybe we should pause them. What

are you hearing? What do we need to know? Well? I think that what we're learning is that this virus is a virus when all the other viruses, as we would have expected. The fact that most people in the world are still completely vulnerable to this new new type of a bug. There's no natural immunity to it. People had hoped that because it does fall into this kind of seasonal arrangement of viruses, that we would see a waning of its impact in the summer months. We're not

seeing that. We're seeing it's still going from one person to the next person. As long as there are people to be infected, that virus wants to infect them. And we haven't seen a drop, so we're not going to see a second peak. We might just see an increasing acceleration. But that's what we're looking at, hitting some places harder than others. But it has not gone away entirely from anywhere. And so Michelle and you and your colleagues have done

such a good job of synthesizing this. I mean, this is ultimately the clash that we are seeing, which is public health versus economics and and and economic health. In some ways, different states, different localities are dealing with it in a different way. What are we learning maybe on a on a state by state basis what jumps out at you that it sort of gives us a sense

of where we may be headed. Well, the thing that is really jumping out at me is the extent to which this is is circumfortble circumfortable for all of us. It you have to make your own individual decision. You're going to have to make decisions for your family. You're going to have to make decisions for your city, your account, You're gonna have to make decisions for your states and for your country. You really can't get away from that

when it comes with the situation. Michelle, what do you make about the story about Beijing over the weekend and that about a new outbreak in Beijing that reached nearly a hundred infections over the weekend. They talked about again linked to a vegetable market, you know, linked to a market. Um, I don't know what is what? How do you take that into account? Well, that's exactly the situation right there is no escaping this virus. That's what we have learned.

So we really did think that, you know that they were done in China. They had a terrible outbreak in Muhan. They closed everything down. They you know, they really handled it very aggressively and there was nothing happening there for fifty days. They had no cases. But you just have to let one or two people in, you get that bounding again. And when you still have this completely vulnerable population because they haven't had this virus, and that's it.

Like herd Immunity says, somewhere between six people either have to be immunized and you can't do that because it doesn't exist, or you have to be infected that's only going to give you one outlet. But again, to your point, we can't shut down the world, so we're going to

have to figure out how to live with it. Yeah, and so to that exact point, Michelle, what seems to have worked from a public health perspective, barring complete shutdown, which I think it's safe to say a lot of government officials, state officials especially are really resisting, and certainly we know that that's going to be resisted at the federal level. What seems to be working. It seems like

this virus is actually pretty fragile. If you hit it with any kind of cleaning supplies, it seems to take care of the virus if you wear a mask. The numbers that were sting, I mean, there were studies early on that showed that people who were living with the very first people who were infected, when we knew almost nothing about it, they could live with somebody who was infected in the same household and not pass it along. We saw some cases when it came to the destroyer

and the aircraft carriers. The number of patients who came out of that that it was dramatic. If you wore a mask and tried to social distance at all. You were so much more protected than if you weren't. So we're going to have to drill down and get a little more clarity on that. But it is undisputably true that if you are taking actions to protect yourself, those are having significant effects, and you might have even more

dramatic effects than anyone realizes. So I know that it's you know, our country's kind of come divided about whether you wear a mask, What does that mean? What is that telling other people? But that's the concern I think in some of these places like Florida and Texas, where we have people going to bars and going to beaches and they're not wearing masks, they're not protecting themselves, and we're seeing these surging infections. So it's like wearing a seatbelt.

I mean, it's not going to hurt you to word at this point, right, It's so simple. And I felt like I saw a lot of that over the weekend, Michelle, depending on where I was, where people were really good about wearing masks. Then I saw people, you know, close to one another with their masks kind of half off their face and talking and socializing. So and I saw restaurants where their tables were out and parking lots, and they were well spread out, and they were very clear

about what you could and couldn't do. Um you know, but you're right, it's so simple, Jason. You keep talking about that it's not just about protecting yourself, but it's about protecting your others by wearing a mask. And also, I'm just gonna echo what Michelle just said, wear a mask that had said. And and actually I'm going to steal that line Michelle that you just used, which is it is like wearing a seatbelt. You know, it's partially about your safety, but it's partially about the safety of

those around you. So really appreciate it. Great context. This is the conversation we needed to have to sort of set the table for where we are, especially here at

the beginning of the week. Michelle Cortez Health sign to me Osiense and Medical Technology reporter for a Bloomberg Award winning journalist on this story, She's just been a stalwart on this right and if you want things to get back to normal, in other words, participate in whether you want to be going out to stories, going to restaurants,

or something, going back to your office. You know, it's so simple, wear a mask, and that really reduces your risks dramatically and the risks of others, because this is what it's all about. Yeah, and I do keep hearing that, and I do hope that that continues to build, and that's smarter and smarter people continue to pick that up.

You know, our friends got Galloway. I saw a tweet of his over the weekend where he was citing a study similar to what Michelle was talking about, where if you wear a mask, if you do some basic, very basic social distancing stuff, the chances of its spreading are dramatically, dramatically lower. Yeah. Yeah, and that's worth noting, especially as we're all are kind of just you know, I just

want to get back to normal. I'm just gonna say it. Well, we always love matching up with Andy Brown, and so let's continue our discussion around the world of economics, because this pandemic has really upset in many ways the economic almost ethos of every year that's going on here. Carol Andy, of course, is the editorial director for Bloomberg New Economy Joints on the phone from New Hampshire. So, Andy, as you try and make sense of all of this. We rely on you for your column every week to sort

of set the stage. What were you thinking about this week? So really this week thinking about agenda, um, the new Bloomberg New Economy agenda for the rest of this year. Um, you know, which which kind of acknowledges the central reality that the global economy is now at this turning point, um, you know, and and it faces a whole set of

really stock choices. And you know, my Michael Bloomberg was writing last week in the inaugural edition of Bloomberg Green as Phenomenal magazine, and you know, he said he was talking about the trillions of dollars that are about to be flushed into the global economy, and he was talking about the environment. He said, Look, the choice is clear, right, I mean, we either invest in clean infrastructure to create jobs,

improve public health, or we keep protecting polluting industry. And guess what, you know, the Trump administration has chosen to bail out oil and and and gas companies. Um. You know, but exactly the same set of choices affects area after

area of the global economy. Well, and you know what's interesting too, I do feel like and Andy, we've had some conversations Kathy would over at our investment who you know, consistently reminds us that during times of stress and disruption in our world and our economies, that's when you can

kind of pivot and make some really big changes. And I do feel like, whether it's as you write on the climate, whether it's on finance, whether it's on public health, whether it's on cities, how we look at things right now, we can make some decisions that will really change our course longer term. Right well, we we We've just heard on the news headlines just just just now how the FED is going to invest in a broader range of

corporate bonds. I mean, so you know, the economist Muhamadada Hilarium was writing about this in the Financial Times last week and talking about these unprecedented sums of money that are being used to plug revenue shortfalls in companies, and he said, look, the question is, you know, is it are these funds going to be used for short term financial engineering, share buy backs, padding the pay of of global CEOs, or is it going to be used to shore up the fundamentals you know that the long term

base of the economy. And and surely if you look at it that way, Um, you know, an obvious choice would be to engineer a new deal for workers, right the essential workers who have held the whole thing together during this coronavirus pandemic, the gig workers who are now out of a job, the migrant workers in developing countries all over the world who've been sent back, you know, to their to their villages. We need a new deal.

Are we going to get a new deal out of these out of this massive finance, um that that that is flowing from from the COVID nineteen stimulus. What are

the chances? I don't know, you see, I mean, it's it's kind of depressing because in an area after area, you know, governments seemed to be making the wrong choices if you look at trade, you know, I mean, the question now is do we do we keep going with this multi lateral trading system, which has brought unprecedented global prosperity, lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, has been a ladder to middle class, middle income status for

developing countries all over the world. Or are we going to turn inward and guess what's happening? We see trade tariffs, we see barriers to goods. We see barriers two people even at the risk of precipitating a great depression, you know, coming out of out of the out of the recession. Um. You know, cities, you talk about cities. I was just on the on the phone talking to uh uh dr Oak Cities Barbos, the New York Health Commissioner, looking at the issue of inequality in New York, which is driving

so many of these street protests. And you know, she's from the South Bronx. And in the South Bronx, life expectancy there is literally thirty years shorter than it is in a place like Greenwich, Connecticut. Right of people living in the in the Bronx suffered from food insecurity. You know, they're they're the ones that are carrying around the block in the in the food lines, you know. And and what are we gonna do with inequality and cities? Are we going to wait for these for our cities to

be to be torn apart um? Or are we going to fundamentally re engineers and reinvent the education system, healthcare systems, you know, to to to reduce these these grotesque disparities. That's the choice we face in city, right and as in most things, these are big problems, global problems. Uh. Andy, I know you guys look at it, and we'll see what kind of collaborations we get global collaborations going forward. And I know you guys are gonna you guys are

gonna be covering this, uh in the next year. So we'll look forward to that. Andy Brown, thank you as always, editorial director of Bloomberg New Economy on the phone from New Hampshire. And they're gonna be focusing on those five areas Jason, Climate, finance, trade, public health and cities over the next year or so. So we'll look forward to that continued coverage. It's it's I feel like we're at

a very important moment in time. Absolutely, no for sure, and I think you know, looking at the economy globally is more important than ever and that's what we really rely on Andy for. As we said ROC Journal, Yeah, but you let me drive. Oh no, no, no, no, who's going to dr home? Honey? Please, I'll do the riding drivel. I want to drive, Just drive, baby, the questions trying. This is the drive to the Globe Commune. Thanks,

We'll drive us to dawn. On bloom Bird Radio. It is time for the drive to the clothes back with us. As Mark Travis, He's president and CEO at Intrepid Capital. He joins us once again on the phone from Jacksonville, Florida, and market is good to have you back with us. I gotta ask you first, though, Man, We're seeing headlines out of Florida about virus cases and I'm just curious, what are you seeing. What's it like in Florida right now?

Because you know, safe to say, what goes on in the virus is going to determine our economic outlook, our capital, you know, our corporate profit outlook, business is getting back to normal, and ultimately our market outlook. And I think the pause in the equity markets really showed that last week. So what do you see in Well, interestingly enough, Carol, it's probably not only the heat but the unbearable humidity already.

But in my corner of the Sunshine State, which is northeast Florida, um, you know, Jacksonville, Saint Augustine, that area, then the number of case has been really quite contained relative to Dad and Broward's. So I don't follow on a case by case basis in the community, but we've we've been very fortunate in terms of number of deaths in this part of the state and or cases. So maybe we you know, flattened the curve early, uh to help, but it doesn't seem to be at least geographically to

this region. It doesn't seem to be meaningfully impacted. And so that certainly is you allude to. Mark isn't necessarily the case across the country. And so as you try to get a reasonable and honest economic picture and how that may play through, whether it's consumer spending or business continuity and folks getting back to the office, how do you factor that into your investment thesis? Well, Jason, you know,

I think that um uh. One of my favorite buffet quotes among many is when the tiger goes out, you get to see who's swimming nack it. And I think that what we've done for twenty five years and Trepid is focused on free cash flow, rational business valuation, strong balance sheets, and so that's coming back into focus. Um you know, I think that, um, so we're we're always looking for that and that's um you know, I think

that's really critical as we go through this. To me, who knows if we have a second wave or we have a second lockdown, um and how that affects business. And to me, it comes back to leverage. And I think what's probably helped the market today as you all know the markets, you know, preopening, we're off six or seven hundred doll points and the Fed came in said, oh, they really are going to buy corporate bonds. To me,

it comes back to debt. And you know, whether you're a mortgage holder at a on a mall and you know cheesecake factory says, oh, we stopped paying rent on our two stores, or you know you're a private equity investor with a lot of leverage on top of your equity. Everybody's focused on that leverage and supporting the credit markets step one. But I also think, frankly that's probably where some of the best, better risk adjusted opportunities are for people in the capital markets. Okay, so talk to us

about that. I am curious what kind of moves you guys have been doing. You've got a bunch of funds. I think you're the lead on the interpred Capital fund. There's you guys have a balanced portfolio and you know an income fund. So talk to us about those funds in particular. What kind of adjustments maybe have you been

making in this environment. Well, let's talk about the income fund first, because what we've always done, Carol is we're a short duration, high yield fixed income investors, So our duration has always been short, whether it should be or not. We're really looking for what I call a three foot puts, so we typically don't lend more than about three years.

I chuckle when I thought about this being the drive time because of my next suggestion, I would not suggest you in jest before you try to drive, particularly out of Manhattan, which would be something that produces a marijuana I believe or not. We've found a couple of marijuana bonds that we're excited about. The number of medical marijuana users in the state of Florida has gone up substantially. Uh. There's talk of legislation to allow uh, you know, banks

to bank producers. And so there are a couple of issues here that I think I have merit. One is the purely term loan of one of twenty four and the other one is um true leave, which is a here right in front of me is a also a twenty four issue. It's a nine and three quarter of coupon. So we think these are very well covered. And there's a strong demand for CBD oil and a medical marijuana and so those are something a little bit off the grid UM that we actually own in our income fund.

And so where else do you invest in UH in a place like this. You know, you talked about balance sheets, you talked about free cash flow? Are there? I mean, I think you've invested in some of the dollar stores, if I'm not mistaken you one that's worked out really well. Jason has been Dollar General. You know, as you're probably familiar, KKR took a private years back and then has come back public and it's done well since thence. So that's one that's really worked out. The one that we're still

anticipating improvement on is Dollar Tree. You know, they merge with family Dollar stores, and I think the Dollar Tree management has been excellent trying to kind of rationalize the family dollar older stores, if you will, UM and and refurbish them to the point where they're they're producing like

they had hoped. UM. But you know, Dollar Tree, it's funny if you're for me at all, with UM party City things like UM, you know, helium, the supply of helium effects stores like Dollar Tree and Party City because people go there for for chot skis, for birthday parties and what have you. So, but UM, that type of disc kind of retailer doesn't is not is um subject

to being Amazon. In our view if you if you follow me and it um, it tends to be more impulsive purchase and tends to serve probably a lower income strata that is not UM as you know, Internet centric of buyer as somebody in your neighborhood might be. Yeah, absolutely, all right. Well, as we wrap up, I just gotta have I gotta ask you one more question, which is in your backyard? Are we going to see what was formerly known as the world's largest cocktail party with your

Georgia Bulldogs playing the Gators this fall? What's your protection? You know, it's interesting you mentioned that. I certainly hope so. Because the SEC football is such a large part of

this part of the world. I think the challenge for all the SEC schools is a large majority of the revenue comes from ticket sales and a people in their stadiums, whether it's at the Swamp in Gainesville or in Sanford Stadium and Athens Georgia as you mentioned, um, you know, so whereas say Sean Khan owns the Jacksonal Jaguars is a tv TV contract and I'm not sure they care if you show up, but let's hope so, because it's one hell of a party it is. Yeah, that would

be a fun, fun afternoon for sure. All Right, Really good to spend some time with you. Mark Travis joining us from Jacksonville, President CEO of Intrepid Capital. Thanks so much for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, South Cloud, Bloomberg dot com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course you can always listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News.