Coronavirus Impact on Wall St. Workers & Dealmaking

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com. You can also listen to our radio show weekdays at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio. Six new cases of the virus reported in l A. Ten Americans now have died. According to Vice President Mike Penn's total coronavirus cases while globally topping more than I think ninety three thousands. So our finance team, as we do so well here at Bloomberg, looking at the virus it's impact on the financial sector,

specifically M and A and on Wall Street traders. Here with that the Nan new and she is finance reporter at Bloomberg News, along with Nabila Ahmed Emin a reporter at Bloomberg News. So both of them in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. So let's start with M and A because I feel like, you know, Nabila, M and A is always import and right to kind of get an understanding of, you know, stuff happening in the financial sector, and I feel like when it stops, it's not a

good thing. What are you seeing? What are you hearing? Well, Already, by the end of February, M and A was down twenty seven percent this year, and that has more to do that there are other issues that play here other than the coronavirus. But the timing was already bad, and we're seeing that people are pausing, hitting the paws button on deals. We've got an advisor who has been who is a confirmed Corona virus victim, so that deals on pause. We've got people putting the pause button on poles even

as their deal meetings on the plane. Billion dollar plaus so cultimillion, multibillion dollar deals. Yeah, and so is there any sense of timing? I mean, did they just say we'll pick this up in the next quarter. We're going to try and do what we can buy phone. I mean, we were talking about with Lenan yesterday about this notion of even with recruiting filmaking is a face to face game. You know, you really are looking the other person in the eye in many cases to try and figure out

do I want to enter into this transaction? Right? So how does this play out? Well? Exactly. One of the ones we know that was that was postponed was that they wanted to go and do a site visit into China, and of course, you know with the travel restrictions, that's not possible at the moment. And I think that we won't really know how it's going to play out until we know what's going to happen with the travel restrictions. We're not talking about putting in stricter restrictions, all right.

So M and A folks stuck at their desk, so to our traders, and we often hear that because traders are busy, but it's taken on a whole new meeting. Lean in that's right, stuck at the desk used to me and that you're having a good busy day on the desk. But these days banks are looking at how to move traders off the desk in the event of an illness, and it's really tricky to do that because Wall Street traders are dealing with super fast internet. I don't know how faster internet is at home, but it's

certainly never fast enough when I'm trying to exactly. So if it's not fast enough for homeland, it's not fast enough for high speed trading. On top of which, they have a ton of data all of these internal systems, and also they have to be recorded and monitored by clients. Right. Well, there's that whole security element. And and there's also even with all the machines, there's a human element. Uh, that's there as well. We we talked about that yesterday. So

are people sort of creating workarounds? What are they doing? So it's all happening in progress as we speak. Different banks are trying to figure out, Okay, first of all, who are the critical employees. How do we split them up into different shifts to make sure that not everyone gets sick all at once? Dust off the disaster recovery sides, go to their places in New Jersey or wherever, and

dust off those machines, make sure they work. Um. And but I used to say that that doesn't even become problematic, right, depending on how severe the virus become. That's true. So there is a lot of scenario planning. Right now, we still don't know how it's going to play out, and so there's a lot of thinking about different types of scenarios, whether disaster sites are even affected as well. Maybe a lot you know, come back in on M and A. So let's say we see you're already seeing a slowdown.

I mean, I do wonder again, Jason, I talked about this a lot that once we have a better idea of how big the virus out break is going to be um here in the US, so really globally, until we start to see less cases and we get our hands around it, um you know, until we get to that point, it's hard to predict, like do all those M and A deals that are maybe putting on the shelf right now or on the side, do they come

back in the next half of the year. It's hard to know because it depends with the market and the economic environments are There's a lot of variables out there exactly. And also the election campaign is a big headway they see, and nobody wants to go into that campaign the deal outstanding in front of the regulators. But I will say but that for some deals it's actually proving to be

good news. For example, Thermo Fisher bought kayajin yesterday ten billion plus deal and the only reason to see you told us that they were able to come to an agreement was the market volatility. Uh sort of jolted the share price, and he said they've allowed them to come to a midpoint and do that deal because they'd been

in talks for months. I did wonder about with some of some of the share prices being beaten up, where somebody might say, especially if it's a stock deal, you know, to buy something, it could be cheaper at that point. I don't know if you're buying with your own and if he's been wanting to sell your company but you've been holding out for that last dollar or two dollars, you're probably looking at the market and saying, you know what, I'll just let it go, right, I want to get

this done. All right? What happens next on Wall Street? Linda? I mean, what do you hear from people in terms of either is it a wait and see sort of thing or people sort of moving ahead as if not to be too crazy about it, but like armageddon is upon it? Like what do you want to know? I think it's a precautionary mode right now. So they are dusting off the playbooks trying to figure out where to put people if the virus should spread, um, looking at

what happened in Asia. But at the same time, Asia is a different case because they can always kick things around to London and New York. What happens if this becomes a bigger global phenomenon, where do people go? So there's a lot of planning still being done right now, and it's still very much up in the air. They're also talking to regulators about this. Could we see a part, you know, a scenario where there is no trading or trading volumes are reduced dramatically. I think that's possible, um,

But I wouldn't raise that alarm just yet. I think people are still trying to plan business as usual as possible cases right now. So what can we do to make sure that continuity, continuity continues And so far people are very focused on resilience and continuity rather than that armageddon scenario. And meanwhile, we're gonna talk about this later

on in the show with Heather Prolberg. Steve Schwartzman giving an interview over in India, was like, we're in we're buying here, you know, evaluations down and Carol sent sent me the story this morning and it just said crisis playbook totally right. Funding opportunity, especially with beaten you know, beating up assets. Absolutely, and you know, even if you look at Clorox, for example, that stock is up. Yeah, it's a great story, exactly. Don't touch my Clorox wixact

they're all gone. I used them all. And Collegi's offering ten dollars to that half bottle of hands. We're going to start a bidding war here, all right, Novilla, I'm thank you so much. M and a reporter on the D team here at Bloomberg and Leninuin finance reporter for Bloomberg, keeping an eye on Wall Street and its reaction really in terms of doing its business amid all of this virus worry. And my god, I loved George Harrison's I

just love it. Um Hey, check this out, everybody, because life insurance companies are pursuing wealthy private colleges and yeah, this is what they're doing to loan them money. So what is this all about. Let's get into the details with Janet Lawrence. She's Endowment's reporter here at Bloomberg News made her way into our interactive brokers studio. What's going on here, Janet? So if you think about who's borrowing money,

colleges are very likely to do so. They've got to renovate dorms, they've got to build dorms, they've got to make improvements to classrooms. So why not when the money and they've typically go out to the public markets, you know, tax exempt or taxabow bonds, but life insurance companies, you know, they need to put their money to work. And you know, who wouldn't want to loan money to a school like Princeton And so literally, as you lay out in your story,

they just started calling, like literally tell us about that. Yes, Um, a couple of schools said they decided to take this call and it turned out to be a pretty good deal for them. Um, the University of Richmond said, yet it was the result of a cold call and they liked doing this deal because it was quicker. Um. You know, the question is am I going to lose out on the interest rate that I want? And you know with public deals it typically takes longer. So the question is,

you know, could they have gotten a better deal? In the public markets if they waited. But they like the ease of it. There's also a lot less disclosures, potentially less fees. So you know, they seem to like it. So what are the what's the downside to all of this? Well, it could be a higher interest rate if you you know, if you didn't wait. Um, but they you know, they seem to like it. And are these WhoSay the colleges and as life insurance companies, they've got to put their

money to work somewhere. And are these big insurance companies that we're talking about. Are these sort of mid tier life john hand And so why haven't they done this before? Um, you know, it's interesting. They decided that this could be a good new market for them and they started pursuing it.

Priston did its first deal in two thousand and twelve. Now, keep in mind, they're not going to go to every college because you know, the schools that we mentioned in this in the story are some of the richest colleges out there. Right, Well, it's risk, right, you want you don't want to take on too much risk your insurance company especially absolutely, and they're looking to match their liabilities. Now,

we didn't really find these in in public schools. And you know, probably the reason is they have a different sort of competitive, competitive bidding structure, and you know, the private schools could just do these deals. Is this not you know, Jason, I think about how much time we spend at least salmoys to show you know, about private markets, right, and I do money undercover, money money undercover, But I

do think about it. Is this just another example of being able to rather than kind of in some way tap the public markets go into the private markets. Absolutely financing need or financial need. Absolutely, And you know, the public market deals are all very public and they're all disclosures and the schools have to put out a lot more information. But is that good transparency? Well, um, that's

a very good question. You know, the colleges don't have to disclose things um as, but they do have their public debt, so it is out there what their enrollment numbers are. But if you're saying a struggling small college, you know, chances are these life insurance companies wouldn't want to lend you anyway. But there is less transparency. What does the student deduce the returns for the for the

insurance companies? Right? Because they're thinking about I mean, they need a certain amount of return, right absolutely, And again these are not you know, risky colleges that are going to go under, the little tiny colleges in the Northeast that you know are struggling for students. And so how does this fit in last question, how does this fit into sort of the broader themes that you're seeing in terms of how colleges uh rich and poor sort of

pay for what they need. Well, again, you're seeing a dichotomy between the very rich and the very poor because they can they can take advantage of these kinds of deals. Um, and if you're again you're smaller, you're less wealthy, potentially a bigger risk you're not going to be given these

types of opportunities. All right, Janet Lauren, thank you so much and down supporter for Bloomberg are expert on all things higher education and a really interesting story Princeton Vanderbilt wooed by life insurance companies literally calling up me like, hey, bro, you need to borrow some money. It's a twist in turns though also I feel like of financial companies, insurance companies totally, like I do wonder about exposure and transparency.

I don't know like the risks, but as Janet mentioned, you know they're going after certainly well known, well financed UM and deep endowment UH colleges and universities. So fascinating to see. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, a couple of stories in the magazine this week that you've really got to know about, both timely and in the news. Once about an abortion rights case coming before the Supreme Court.

We're gonna talk with Bloomberg US healthcare reporters Cynthia Coons about that. She's on the phone in New York. The other story, also in the headlines, is of course about the Democratic race for president Super Tuesday, and Josh Green does national correspondent at Bloomberg Business Week. He's joining us

on the phone from Washington to see both stories. As I said in the magazine, hitting newsstands later this week in at Bloomberg Dot comment on the terminal, Cynthia, we do want to start with you tell us about this case. Thanks thanks for having me so. The Supreme Court today hold an abortions piece that involves the law that's around requiring hospital admitting from which is for abortion providers. It's an identical law, nearly identical law to one that day

for about four years ago out of Texas. This time it's out of Louisiana. But the reason this case is really critical is that the court has agreed to hear in Louisiana's argument that doctors shouldn't be able to bring challenges to these laws in the first place. Um. If Louisiana successful with that argument, not only would this law Abyan say did, but it would flow the play offs all the other litigation going on around the country to

challenge laws that are specifically targeted out abortion providers. UM, Cynthia. One of the things that you know you've been working on is actually kind of a series of articles are on this. The first was sort of one that we did also recently about abortion tax and sort of the the business implications that that abortion providers are facing and that's actually even driving them, um a lot of them

to close. And so this is obviously it looks like almost like a two pronged attack on on abortion rights. And so what what is the likelihood that this Louisiana case becomes I mean, it almost supersedes the abortion tax, because if the Supreme Court wigs into this, what could happen. Well, that's an excell one point. These go hand in hand. So the first attack is the legislative one. The statehouses around the country have been passing laws that make it

harder for abortion providers to operate. It started since about two thousand and ten when Republicans took over more and more state houses throughout the country. But that's also led to what's known as the abortion tax, and that's where businesses or vendors that might work with abortion providers become reluctant to do so, or cancel contracts or back out or won't shore them, specifically over concerns that they're riskier

than they may actually be in real life. So running an abortion clinic is particularly hard right now from both a business and legal perspective. But the one avenue that abortion providers have had has have been the courts, and they've been able to challenge these laws that go after their businesses. Specifically, these are laws that say an abortion doctor may need hospital many privileges, but wouldn't necessarily assign a comparable regulation to another provider that provides some sort

of comparable care outpatient care. So these laws are called by the abortion movement, they're called abortion rights movement. They're called trap laws because they're perceived to target these providers specifically and back them into a corner. And so the challenge here is if abortion doctors are not a out to be the ones to represent their patients in these cases, then there really isn't any mechanism for these laws to

be knocked down. It would come down to whether or not you could find a woman seeking an abortion willing to carry out a case. And that's a really challenging prospect. So hearings today, when do we have resolution? Likely by June. We're gonna leave it there. Cynthia Coons, thank you so much. US healthcare reporter from Bloomberg joining us on the phone from New York City. Let's heading down to our ninety and nine went studio in d C. Josh Green Is

they're recovering from Super Tuesday. All right, we've had a lot happen over the last I blacked out, Josh, what happens? Let the heck happen? Where are we now? Where do we go from here? John? I woke up this morning and had to pause from me and think if I dreamed all that right, it actually just happened. Um, but but it actually did happen. The race has been completely upended.

We've gone from a world where Bernie Sanders was the front runner, looked like he would amass a majority, uh, if not a plurality of delegates going into the Milwaukee convention in July, to all of a sudden, Joe Biden comes storming back, wins ten states, has the delegate lead, and is now the clear favorite to emerge as the Democratic nominee to challenge Trump in the fall. Who would

have thought that a couple of weeks ago. All right, so yeah, I think now it's okay, who potentially will be the first the individual who goes up against President Trump? How do you see it between Bernie? I mean, the race isn't over yet in terms of the race and

over and there's a long way to go. In the piece I did in Business Week this week points out that there is an eerie parallel that a lot of Democrats are worried about with where you have an establishment favorite who has a delegate lead, uh, and yet isn't going to wrap this thing up for months and months and months, and is running against an insurgent in Bernie Sanders, whose supporters have already been jilted once. We're very unhappy about it. In now they face the same thing this

time around. And Joe Biden's job, should he emerge as the nominee, is going to be to try and un by a party that is going to have to stick together if they're gonna have any chance of defeating Trump in the fall. Well, the other thing that you point out so well in the article, Josh, is this existential moment for the for the Democrats where one candidate sort of looks like the future and one maybe speaks to

its past. Yeah. I mean the remarkable thing about the way that the race has narrowed since last night, this this is functionally a two man affair right now between

Joe Biden, uh in Bernie Sanders. And if you look at Biden's coalition who supported him last night, it was essentially a throwback to the Obama coalition where Biden one senior voters, he won African Americans, and he won white collar professionals in the suburbs who supported Obama and helped drive Democrats mid term games two years ago whereas Sanders, despite the fact that he's seventy eight years old, really represents the young, rising generation of Democrats, not just young people,

but working class Latino. We saw that coalition in Nevada, which is a good proxy for what the future of America's going to look like. The problem for Biden is that the one part of the Obama coalition he hasn't managed to draw is young people. They are still loyal to Bernie. So what we're gonna have to look for over the next two three months is can he find a way to bring them into his coalition, unify the party, and have a fighting chance against And he was dismissive.

If I remember one of an interviews where somebody asked him about the young population. He said something to the effect that, well, they don't vote anyway, so yeah, yeah, Well you know that's always the politicians move. Why doesn't so and so support you? Oh, that's not important. But inside inside Biden's campaign, I promise you they are acutely aware of the fact that they have a real challenge

in attracting younger voters and exciting younger voters. Hillary Clinton was unable to do so in lost the race, so Biden is well aware that he's going to have to do better. All right, So Michigan, Uh, that is front and center. It feels like next Tuesday. What else are you watching their Josh Well, I think Michigan is your point. I was gonna be fascinating because four years ago Bernie Sanders unexpectedly one Chigan. Now uh you have it looks

like Biden has pulled ahead and polls. I think that's gonna be a good proxy for whether or not Biden has a chance to walk away with this race if he wins, or can Bernie MoU to comeback, you know as delegate as vote totals rolling from California, which can take weeks, Bernie's delegate totally is going to climb should he repeat his win in Michigan. I think then we go through a whole news cycle of is Bernie coming back? Clearly,

Bernie is sacrificing nothing. He just came out and gave a very peevish press conference in which he attacked the establishment in the press and everybody else. So there is no sign whatsoever of the party coming together. I think Michigan will be the first real indicator of which way things are headed. In the post Super Tuesday World. Alright, well, great reporting, as I always Josh, thank you so much. Well, they appreciate and check out Josh's story along with Cynthia

Coon's story. They'll be in the magazine later on this week, of course. Josh Green, who follows politics for us here at Bloomberg Business and our thanks to Joel Weber as well, writing along with us across those two stories. It's really uh,

we get a snink peak. It's a great issue. So as the race for the Democratic presidential nomination narrows, industries and companies and those of us who report on them are thinking about where the candidates stand on issues, and a big one is where they stand when it comes to technology. Writing about that Today's Joshua breustein Tech Writer

here Eppelenberg Business Week in our Interactive Broker Studio. So looking at Bernie Sanders, looking at Joe Biden, and where they stand when it comes to technology, So break it down for us. So, I think the easiest way to look at it is that Bernie Sanders is someone who inspires very strong emotions. He's taken basically the anti tech industry stands on any number of um issues he has said he would absolutely look into breaking the big tech

companies up UM. He wants to ban facial recognition law enforcement. UM wants much stronger lay laws UM in ways that would impact the tech industry. And Joe Biden has sort of criticized the tech companies but hasn't been very hard on them one way or the other. And honestly, I don't think people were thinking about him all that much until frankly last night. Yeah, until now when they really

are UM. And part of that is he's got some ties there and has raised some money from the tech world, right sure, he's He's done some fundraisers from the large tech companies. He hasn't raised a whole lot of money in comparison to some of the other candidates, and he certainly hasn't done as well in raising from tech employees. But he has been a more conventional Democratic candidate. He goes to the big bit, he goes to big businesses and has asked for some money. I know he did

an Amazon UM fundraiser late last year, for instance. Well, and I do wanted to you know, UM, because we are at a juncture where I do feel like there's some really big issues when it comes to technology, whether it's privacy issue is whether or not there needs to be more regulatory oversight over social media companies. But I mean, how much I guess Joshua is can the president do versus? Does it need a Congress on its side to pass rules and you know, a regulatory framework. I think that

that is a very good point. There's there's been a desire, a state of desire to have some new privacy rules for the better part of two years now. But the fact is Congress isn't passing much of anything, and there are very different ideas about how those rules would be approached from the Democrats and the Republicans, and a new president isn't going to come into a very different situation.

Um So, I think it's interesting to look at kind of the rhetorical positioning of the president's presidential candidates that can have a big difference. But yeah, as you said, they're not necessarily going to come and get to do whatever they want. And fair to say, what's would I do here? The relationship greatness coming President Trump the tech industry, It's complicated. It is complicated. Um. Trump has been quite

critical of the tech companies. Uh, he is loudly proclaiming that companies like Facebook and Google have an anti conservative bias. On the other hand, he has um used them very effectively as a megaphone. UM. His he's proven to be a very effective communicator, um based on using the specific kind of tech communications that happened there. Um. He's also you know, his d J is going after anti trust issues. So you see, um, you're seeing it from all sides

with him, right. Well, and it's interesting. You know, there's been a lot written and talked about recently about Brad Parscale, the campaign manager for the president's re election campaign. And I mean, this is a guy who came up through the digital world and so effectively used social media Facebook

specifically to get the president elected. Right Absolutely, the defining characteristic of the Trump campaign was a much more aggressive digital strategy, or I should say one of the defining characters I think, I think you could say define it. I mean, especially if you sort of synthesize the the now president on Twitter, you think about the Facebook strategy, you think about all the different elements and also some of the relationships that the president has managed to cultivate,

be it Peter til Um. You know, we and others have reported that he met with Mark Zuckerberg at the White House not too long ago, I believe when Zuckerberg was in d C to testify on Kevin, you know, and again it is a it's a tortured relationship. Maybe it's the other way to I don't think that's an

option on Yeah, no, right, um Joshua. I I am also curious, you know, is big tech getting smarter in terms of reading the writing on the wall and just saying, Okay, let's figure out how to police ourselves so that we can kind of take it away from UM d C. I think that that's what they would like to do. UM. To be fair, they have seen a lot of public pushback, they haven't faced any real tangible consequences. Yeah, we'll see what happens with these antitrust investigations. I think that those

are a significant threat. But in terms of Congress coming up with some way to put rules on them, you know, I privately a lot of people within the tech industry say that they're not quite as concerned about that as maybe it seems like they would be. One last question, us versus Europe. Yeah, I think Europe is a completely different situation. The you really see a much more aggressive stance from policymakers over there. All right, Joshua Brustine, thank

you so much. Always good to catch up. Tootling right, Well, he's going to back. If you don't know what we mean, you have to go back to our Twitter and you're just gonna have to listen to what we did last week. Yeah, exactly, just listen to the you and if you don't know that joke, you need to lock in. Yeah, that's just sad for you. Yeah, totally. Joshua Brustine, one of the

most read writers here. This is a great story because now there are two and for all intents and purposes, as Elizabeth and how they feel about a different a matter for whether their's healthcare, whether it's big tech. I mean, these are things that Americans should want to know about, right and so entrenched in our daily lives as we know. I'm broc journal now. But you let me drive. No, no, no, no, he's going to drive home. Please, I'll do the right drivel.

I want to drive, Just drive, baby, question trying. This is the drive to the globe. Give me thanks, We'll drying us down on Bloomberg Radio. It is time for the drive to the clothes on this Wednesdays. You just heard from Charlie Equities. We definitely have a rally underway. We're just topping off and coming a little bit lower, but we're still pretty much near our highs of the session.

All Lance is back with us research director at lants Global dot Com President Alan beat Lance and associates, and he's joining us on the phone once again from Toledo, Ohio. Allen, nice to be here with you again. Uh. Interesting week, Jason, I have been kidding. I feel like since Monday, we keep thinking, all right, wait, tomorrow's Friday. Right now, it's still just Wednesday. So tell me a little bit about the market activity that you've seen. We've had folks say,

you know what, it was overdone. It's a buying opportunity. Folks are overdoing it. Other folks who said, you know what, we need to be a little bit more cautious here. How do you see it? Well, as you know, Carol, we we were raising cash as far as uh into

the new highs just two weeks ago. And the way I see it is is that you're gonna have this volatility for for a while, you know, I would be buying and accumulating with limit orders below the market on those um you know, multiple successive down you know, thousand point days and and um you know, if you're overexposed inequities or especially in check or from the high liers, I would be using the strength that we've had, you know as far as today and and Monday to to

to lighten up. I think you're gonna have this volatility in both directions. Uh uh. It's a battle of the uncertainty of the coronavirus, you know versus uh incredible amount of cash on the sidelines and interest rates so low that uh. I think if you're a long term investor, which we are buying high quality, income producing um equities here into weakness and panic selling makes a lot of sense. And so what are specific names that seemed to be

standing out to you amid all of this salon. Well, there's a wide variety of cvs uh as far as in the healthcare area, under under sixty dollars, the yield is three point three uh So, so you know you can have that opportunity uh uh from acid managers. You can buy an invest go under fourteen dollars. It's a

nine percent increasing of it in UM again. Uh. You know, I don't know where the bottom is, but I think if you're buying at those levels and just hold it long term, it's going to be you know, like ten years ago when we were buying Apple and it became an income play UM, and you're gonna have not only followed incomes compared to one percent on the tenure treasury, but you're also going to have some appreciation. Uh, as long as you're looking at it from you know, to

to to three year time frame. Allen. One thing I do want to ask you. I mean, healthcare is our best performing group here in the SNP five hundred among the major industry group, it's up about five point seven. And that is on the big Biden win. Uh. In Super Tuesday. Of course, Bernie Sanders seen as you know, offering you know, medicare you know for all, health care for all. But there is the question and doing a

way with private insurance. So you know, the health care sector has been weighed down as Bernie Sanders has you know, moved up in the polls. That seemed to change as a result of last night's voting. So I do wonder is healthcare play do you see opportunities in that right now or is it too suit it now? We like it, I mean, we we like buying high quality, you know, income producing healthcare. We also like uh, you know, I

think the next step is financials. Uh that they've just been hammered from a standpoint of lower interest rates squeezing their margins and and I think there's some opportunity there and and that's been overdone. So so whenever you have these extremes, Carol, I think it's it's a situation where you want to be on the other side. Pick up quality names that you know you wouldn't get at these prices otherwise, and uh, and be patient with them. What are you avoiding right now? Allen? You know I would

not chase the high flyers. I mean, you know, we we talked about that last time. You know, Apple. I love the company and we've owned it for for decades, but uh, you know, over three hundred you know, I wouldn't be buying it. And and if you own too much,

I would sell it as as it as it moves up. Again, not the whole position, but there's just so many people buying the same uh stocks with with the passive investing and and and that was part of this dramatic sell off we had last week, was just everybody's you know, getting out of the door at the same time. And and uh, I don't I don't think that's over. I think you're gonna see volatility in both directions. So so you know, I wouldn't be chasing these companies that uh,

you know everybody loves. Uh and and again we might miss, you know, some of the latter half of the move, but I think the easy money has been made on Apple and and uh, you know, it's it's it's gonna be an average performer almost like what errture halfway. I mean, he had such great performance and the last ten years he's really you know, underperformed. And I think you're going to see that in some of these companies that are

just uh, you know, almost iconic from evaluation standpoint. Is this a market to load up on shorts with the expectations that we're going to head down again? Yeah, you know, I'd be very careful with the shorts because you're going to see this volatility, you know, uh, continue at least for for a few months, four months, until we get some some bass building. But you know, we we really haven't taken advantage of the shorts like we should. Our first step was to build cash, and we did that

and now we're redeploying that those those profits. But you know, I would be careful on the short side just because of this incredible amount of cash on the sidelines. Uh. But you know, if markets go back to the new highs and and and they're not taking an account as far as the economic slowdown with with this coronavirus, then then yeah, I would look at re establishing some short positions,

but but not yet. All Right, Allen Lands, always good to catch up with you, Director of research at LANTS Global dot com, President of Allan by Lands and Associates, joining us on the phone from Toledo, Ohio. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show every weekday at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio.