Covid Cocktail Could Boost Immunity

You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Well, among the COVID stories that are catching our attention, we've got one about how pharmaceutical exacts are mixing up their own vaccines to get at a higher immunity. So maybe think about a drug cocktail. And then Tim, of course does Maderna headlines. Yeah, the Maderna. The company is saying that it doesn't see signs that

it's shot causes heart issue. The issue myocarditis, as well as a condition called Perry card diitis. The company saying it has not established a causual association with its vaccine. Well, let's get right into it with Dr Ian LUs Bader, clinical Professor of Medicine at n y U Lane Goinges Medical Center, joining us this afternoon on the phone from Long Island. Dr les Beda, how are you on this Friday afternoon? Doing very well? Guys? Hope all is well

with you. Definitely some interesting stories that doesn't seem to end when it comes to COVID and the vaccines. Yeah, it does, and well let's get right into it and talk about the m R and A vaccines Because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention it's identified a total of two hundred and sixteen cases of heart inflammation after the first dose of an m R and A shot and another five hundred and seventy three cases after the

second dose. At the same time, Moderna coming out and saying that it sees no sign that the shot causes heart issues. How are you reading into this, Well, there's definitely an increased incidents, right. We certainly know that myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle and perrycarditis, which is the sack that the heart sits in, can occur.

That can occur at any age. We see viral inflammation of the heart we see UH, usually viral or other infections that caused perrycarditis, but the number of cases, especially in young men, those under thirty, is definitely higher than one would statistically think of in that population. So there's definitely an increased incidence UM, and it seems to be associated with the mrn A vaccines. What we don't know

is are they causing it or how they're causing it. UH. The C d C I think is definitely looking into that. And this raises the question of as we're getting more data, should we be kind of targeting vaccines for certain age groups.

Maybe young men should be thinking more about the J and J vaccine, the single dose, as opposed to young women where we were seeing some perhaps increased clots with astra zeneca, where this tts syndrome with J and J. You know, perhaps young women should be thinking more of the m R and A. We're really just sort of getting that data and at some point down the line of hopefully soon we may be able to say, if you're in this group, this would give you the most

benefit with the least risk. UH. Clearly, these are not a huge number of cases, but obviously higher than we would expect and you always try and reduce a risk whenever you're giving any sort of treatment or prevention. So Dr LUs better are we getting to the point. It was funny. I was having conversation a little parenthetical here earlier,

and someone went went to get the vaccine. They're like, well, wait a minute, because they were going to be given the fires of they can I actually have the J and J and they were able to kind of pick the vaccine they wanted. On the flip side, are doctors getting to appoint the medical community saying, you know what, I've looked at your medical history, I've looked at your age, I've looked at some other factors. I think you should

get this vaccine. There are some patients who say what should I get, and most don't really check in before they get it. And many centers don't have every It's not like a restaurant where you can say this one or that one. I mean, at some point we may get to that, but usually if you go to a particular center, whether it's even a local pharmacy, they will have a limited number of vaccines, you know, due to

storage and other and other ushers. And really for the majority of people, they're all very effective, very very few people actually get COVID. Cleveland clinic study to show that they looked at fifty you know, patients not only who have had COVID previously, but those with vaccines. So UM,

for most people it doesn't matter. But if you are in one of those groups, a young woman or a young man, now that this data is coming through, it may be worth talking with your doctor and saying, hey, based on the data, is there one that may be better for me. Well, let's talk a little bit more about that Cleveland clinic study finding. Um, the idea is that there's not necessarily proof that we should be vaccinating those who have had COVID nineteen take us into it,

exactly right. So that's study and it's from a very reputable institution that Cleveland Clinics looked at about fifty two employees and a certain percent had had COVID previously, and and they looked at those who were vaccinated and those who were not vaccinated, and it turned out that really is zero um people who had had the COVID UH covid infection, the stars COVID to infection and had a proof of having that they did not get a second infection, so you can't get better than zero, you know, out

of fifty two thousands. So that's very reassuring. We have been pushing even people who have had UM, the COVID infection, to say, hey, you take this. Uh, that's exactly why I was so skeptical when I saw this, and they're so surprised when I saw this, because it flies in the face of what we've heard from the CDC. Well, it's an evolving picture, let's put it that way. I think for people who have had it, they should be very reassured. There's some you know debate, you know, in

terms of vaccine availability. Should we be using all these vaccines when other countries may need them? But I think if you've had COVID, your risk of getting it again is very low. We certainly know the vaccines really boost your antibody response. And for new variants like delta that's uh, you know from India, that could be a problem. It may be that a vaccine would be very helpful for that. I would say, you know, right now, if you've had covid um there's no panic to get a booster shot,

although it probably will provide some benefit. Alright, good stuff Hey, we're going to continue this conversation with Dr Ian lust bedaor clinical professor of Medicine, n y U Land, going with us on the phone in Long Island. Tim listen, it's as he said, you know, this is evolving, we're finding our way through this. Yeah, I've said it before, I'll say it again. It's it's like a science experiment, a study playing out in real time. And in a sense,

all medicine is like that. I've learned, right, looking what happened with Alzheimer's in Biogen this week, right exactly, Let's get back right to it with Dr Ian lust Beder, clinical Professor of Medicine, n y U Langings Medical Center. He joins us on the phone from Long Island. Dr

LUs Beder. A story by our own Todd Gillespie that came out earlier today, all about how pharmaceutical executives are kind of the way I thought of it was doing experiments on themselves in in trying to determine whether or not they can get a higher immunity from a mix of their own COVID shots, different vaccines. And it's it's actually something that it's new to me, but it's not new to doctors and people who study this stuff. It's

called heterologious prime boosting. What exactly is it and what are these executives doing and how could it affect the way that we receive vaccines in the future. So we've known for a long time that the heterologous prime boosting, basically giving one vaccine then followed by a different vaccine, really gives you a more robust response. All of the original studies just looked at individual companies doing their own testing.

So obviously you know UH Feiser was three weeks apart, Madurna four weeks apart, J and J just the single vaccine, although there were some studies that show to follow up, but it turns out if you combine these, for example, there are a number of studies that show UH not in UH in a limited number of patients, hundreds of patients.

The studies have been done, but they show, for example, like the astro Zenco which is an ad no virus fact or similar to J and J, if you give that followed by either the Maderna m RNA or the fiser U m RNA vaccine, they had up this seven times higher antibodies and longer lasting and the hope. Yeah, it's it's quite and that that may be the way of the future. That may be UM the standard approach. And certainly patients who say, gosh, I missed my follow up dose. I was away, I couldn't get it. Can

I get a different vaccine? I think the answer is yes, you can, And that may be a good idea actually, But the concern or the reason you may want these higher antibody levels is exactly for the delta you know, Indian variant, which is more infectious, more deadly. Um, it continues to multiply and mutate. I'll be see, You've got a billion people as your substrate of viral replications. So the thinking is that if we combine these will get a more robust response that hopefully would defend the body

better against any variants that come along. That's not proven, but that's the thinking. Yeah, and we continue to find out more and more. Hey, listen, before we go, we have a couple of minutes left, and we've got to ask you about biogen UH and it's Alzheimer's drug. The story one of the stories today. A prominent Harvard Medical UH School professor has resigned from an FDA advisory panel and protest over the agency's decision to improve to approve

Biogen's Alzheimer's drug, And so he announced his departure. He put out a letter, He's the third committee member to quit in the wake of this highly controversial approval and forgive me, this happened yesterday. How do you feel about this or what are you hearing? Well? I think, um, they're trying to be ethical about this. And Alzheimer's is a very tough disease. It's very tough to really prove

beneffort from these drugs. That this particular drug was approved by the FDA because it lowered the levels of amyloid, which is a protein in the brain. Alzheimer's is complicated. There are many biochemical and physical changes in the brain. Amyloid deposits, neurofibrillary tangles, and so the drug did reduce amyloid, but it's very hard to really prove benefit because Alzheimer's is a progressive disease typically, so does it slow the progression,

does it stop the progression? Does it reverse the dementia? You know, it's how do you measure it? And more importantly, so what if you lower amyloid, are you really clinically affecting the outcome of the patient. You know, you may be lowering this protein which is associated. And I think these three professors resigned because I think they felt unconvinced that we're raising hopes of patients that this drug, very expensive drug, is going to help them when the actual

clinical outcome is not well proven. I think that was their key complainte ethical dilemma, Yeah, thirty seconds, Dr Lesi, or does it set a dangerous precedent for the FDA and future approvals. I think you have to listen to your advisory committees and and see if you there are points are valid and I think in this case it probably was valid um and they were going on kind of a different metric, maybe a useful metric that I

think that committee wanted more data. And anybody who's had a family member who's had Alzheimer's or even some other illness, UM, if you can get a couple of months, a couple of weeks, a couple of years out of um A treatment, it means an awful lot. And that's where it's really great and fuzzy. Tim. I think that's perhaps why despite the fact that it's fifty six dollars for treatment plus

plus more. UM investor saw it as something that is tenable, right exactly, And there's a lot of folks out there with Alzheimer's as well. Of course Dr Ian lost Better the best clinical professor of medicine. And why you land going?

Joining us on the phone from Long Island. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio, the Newishuoe Bloomberg business Week, it's in my hands, it's now a news stands, it's in Tim's hands, it's online and on the Bloomberg the domestic cover asked who needs a margarita? Margarita? After this week?

I think we all do that story and a bunch more, including the international cover China Wolves and the New Age vs. G. Let's open up the issue with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber on the access line in Brooklyn. But before we do that, Joel, congratulations, Oh thank you. UM and UH, you're referencing a national magazine award that Bloomberg Business Week one last night for UH, a single topic issue that

we did last spring called the Last Year. UM which if you look at the cover of it, we we used that cover line on the issue that shipped March eleventh, UM, which was as the world was sort of felt like it was falling apart, at least here in New York it did. Um. So it was a huge honor, uh to accept that on behalf of the staff in Bloomberg. Um, and it was I'm just going to say, yeah, it

definitely feels that way. You know, I think I've fretted for most of the year about was it going to be less than a year because that would look bad? Is it going to be more than a year? But it turns out, Um, it was a bold call and and and the right one. And you know, I think the thing that these are kind of the oscars of the magazine world. And um, it means that you know, our peers basically said, um, this was you at your best,

which we felt as well. So again quite an honor. Yeah, and Enjoel, one more question on that, because this is such a big deal and and as Carol imagined it was, it was really impression of you and your team. And I'm I'm wondering what it was that that made you realize, Look, fifteen months ago at this point that would indeed be

a last year. Well, I was in a meeting and being in that meeting and realizing how, um, how so many people were confused and um uh made me realize that that same conversation aation was happening in boardrooms across the country, in the world, frankly, um and as people were just doing complete write offs for what their projections would look like, that would be a pretty devastating gear for the economy. And so that's that was the kernel

of the idea. Um. And I remember walking out of that meeting and not sure if I wanted to do a cover to cover issue. And I walked out of that meeting thinking, not only are we doing a cover to cover issue, but we're calling it the last year. Well, it's kind of a perfect segue into this week's edition, which I think in a lot of ways symbolizes the reopening of New York City. The cover here in the

in the it's exactly right. So the cover story is about Jimmy Buffett, who most of us know as a musician, and I'm quite fine fond of that music for the record, uh, And he actually turns out that he has a business empire uh that basically has uh been the legacy of the song Margharitaville. And and not only has it uh just boomed, it's um expanding. And he's just opening a New York Times Square extension Margaritaville hotel with restaurants and

bars and everything. Um. And the timing couldn't be better because just as New York coming back to life, you've got a place to go have Margarite, Margarite's and dequeries in Times Square. We've been planning a road trip class just like an offsite broadcasting from there. I mean, why not, right yeah? Yeah, or just a meeting even like I'm done with the zoom stuff. Let's just go see each other face to face. But but it's crazy write a song he wrote. It's crazy because it's a song he

wrote what a few minutes? Yeah, and it actually you know, there's so much business wisdom in this story of like he realized he had something, but he couldn't do it on his own. Uh found somebody who became a great partner and realized that they could put their brand on a lot of different things. And I think there's still are growing out what they can put it on and you know, marijuana to dakary machines. They've they've really been able to do it all. As I say, I don't

have a great segue to the next story. But we've talked about this story. Another drink of your that's it. That's it. Well, maybe the Chinese Wolf Warriors need to have among we talk about that one. So so Uh, Peter Martin wrote this story. Uh, he's got a book coming out, so this is technically an excerpt um and

so so congrats to Pete on it on this book. Uh. We obviously know that the Wolf Warriors have become um like a diplomatic strategy of China's and and they're very aggressive and um in expanding Chinese influence and and showing that there's a lot of bark at least um with where China wants to go and and perhaps some bite even and as writes, it's it's a it's a bold strategy. But despite some rhetoric from um the top in Beijing, like we we shouldn't expect any of that to back

down anytime soon, Joel. There's also a story in this week's edition of the magazine Deep Dive into the X on activists, victory MARKETI coming of age for E S G Investing, Take us into it. Engine Number One. This is a Sagel Kashan story. She worked with Joe Caroll on about UM. A thing that I don't feel very many people saw it coming. I mean I certainly didn't when when the name Engine number one was first uttered in the meetings that I was in, it was sort

of like, who who the heck is that? And it turns out that not only were they activists investors, but it kind of shows a new age of activists investors that there, that they're willing not only to take on companies. And you know, as we've written in cover stories in Business Week, Xon ten years ago was on on top of the world. You know, there was no there was no more valuable company than Exon. And how the mighty

have fallen. And as they're falling, we're seeing how activists can come in and attempt to probably work for more change. So it's it's one to watch UM and and one that I think has taken a lot of investors and boards by surprise. So I think definitely more to come UM in this in this vein going forward. Yeah, massive undertaking financially, certainly for Engine number one to take on X on Hey uh Star. We've been also referencing, um the fomo economy. When Stanley, Druck and Miller gets fomo,

you gotta sit up and take notice. Yeah, so this was one that we ended up doing as the international cover story. I thought it was good enough to be global, but that I just had to, you know, give everybody a margarita. The The idea really came from me from just being on the playground and suddenly, you know, watching my my son and having all these people interact that I interact with telling me about how they've struck it rich. And I was like, am I the only one who's

not rich? Right now we're getting rich? Like what am I doing wrong? And and Leone, Leonel Laurent, who's a great contribut in Bloomberg Opinion, wrote a story that basically helps some all that up, whether it's doage coin or housing or meme stocks, and you know, we could go right now we're talking about a m C which was on fire. You know, all of it just feels like a boy. I just feel like I've missed out on everything. And um, if you're if you've ever been taught, like,

you know, sane approaches to investing or index funds. I think you probably feel the same way, which is just like, wow, what's going on exactly? Yeah, you're not the only one, jol Hey, just in fifteen seconds that we have take us down to Florida's Trump Coast with Josh Green. Yeah. The Josh Green story is an epic one. It was just like the moment that we knew mar Lago as

a destination. We said, Josh, can you go down there and just like give us a cultural uh letter from from South Florida and he and he did, and I think he found some really surprising stuff that was shows how strong Trump's hold on the GPS. All right, everybody, there's your weekend reading list. Check it out online, on newsstands and on the Bloomberg. Joe Weber, thank you so much. Congratulations again, it's a great That issue was incredible. I'm

road a journal now, but you let me drive. Oh no, no, no no, no, drive home, honey, please, I'll do the riding. Drivel lets me. I want to drive, just drive, baby, the questions trying. This is the drive to the Globe community. Thanks, We'll drying us down on Bloomberg Radio. What two weeks it has been? This past week. I don't even know what's compared to It's like every week feels like it's kind of wild, but hey, that's why we love what we do. And a had a day and a half

off and it's still feel like two weeks. Let's get to a time for the drive to the clothes and back. With us is David Deets. He's managing principal, senior portfolio strategors are at Peapack Private Wealth Management, nine point four billion in assets under management. David with us once again on the phone from Summit, New Jersey. David, how do

you make sense of a week like this past week? Well, I mean, the key metric this week has been this higher than expected inflation number, the highest in thirteen years. Yet you would think that we'd see a big bond tantrum, yields racing north, but we're not seeing that at all. We're down by about basis points since March, and I think Wall Street discretion their heads trying to make sense of this higher than expect inflation, yet no reaction to

bond market. Well wait a minute, wait a minute, we're all smart here, and we know we went through a pandemic, and we know that everything fell off a cliff and we're still bouncing back. These are still post pandemic coming back numbers. So we're not like, we get it, don't we It was certainly you know, that's one of the reasons that people are giving these high inflation numbers the path. I mean, we saw twelve percent mark up in terms of use car prices and people are saying, well, we're

not going to see twelve percent each year. Uh? Did know when it comes to airfares are not going to be keep going up at this rate and some other things. Having said that, even when you strip out the food and energy, you've got this core CPI. Is that the hottest since the ninety nineties. This is the central question, Carol. Is this transitory because this is just a bump up when you compare it versus very depressed conditions a year

ago during the pandemic. Or is this something a little bit more permanent that the bondmark is going to factor in and ultimately the fens going to have to take action. Well, I think if you know, when we talked a little bit about this yesterday, when we got these figures. The headline numbers were certainly hot, but if you took a peek under the hood and you saw, actually, you know

what accounted for those significant changes. A lot of it had to do with things that were transitory, especially when you take into account the base effect of one year ago and what was happening one year ago. But even things that were month over a month higher, like car rental prices, for example, we know those are things that aren't going to come back down as uh, this pent up demand kind makes its way throughout the summer in the early fall, right, And isn't that what the bond

market is telling us? Well, I think that's what it's telling us. You know. The problem is, of course, is that, um, you know, we haven't gotten now to back to full employment. We know we're making progress. We're seeing each week better or fewer claims for unemployment insurance. Um, we know we're going to get back there as the pandemic waynes more people have acteen and so forth, So we think ultimately there's gonna be some upward pressure on wages and so forth.

And even some of the sticky items uh in the inflation numbers seem to be going up to and we know that once wages and some of those sticks had to go up, they're not going to come back down. So that's what we're bracing for. But you know, again with wages, we're seeing a lot of those increases in hotel workers, the hospitality industry, restaurants. There are things that those kinds of companies and industries are doing to get workers back, Um, who maybe a little bit nervous about

doing so. I mean, to Tim's point, David, the month of a month increases came from six components. Use cars, rental cars, vehicle insurance, I see a trend lodging, airfares, and food away from home. Yeah. Absolutely. So you know, every time there's an inflation cycle, people always point to a few outlets and say, well that's the problem. But but here's what we're up against, Carol, is that, Um, you know, your tenure treasury now is at one point

four five. Yet the implied inflation on tips treasury inflation protection securities for next ten years just two and a half, so real yields are still negative. We know this economy is getting back on its feet. We've got more stimulus prepped us away from an infrastructure bill, We've got the Federal Reserve twitting money into the system, and so eventually interest rate target to go. But isn't it like a pendulum, right? We sweet we just swung so dramatically one way when

everything fell off a cliff. Now we're swinging kind of dramatically the back, you know, back. It's going to settle at some point. But we really won't know, David, right until we are kind of out of this pandemic, what really the economic numbers really are and what the real inflation is for everybodyer there's a seller. But you know, one way I'm looking at it here is that you know, we started the year tain here, treasuries were under one percent, they got up to one seven five. Now they're one

four or five. You could still make a case that we're trending up here, you know, in two thousand nineteen, which will eventually will get back to conditions like that. I think ten your treasurers as highest two point nine. So the question is what do you do now? Do you expect to trace to stay low or do you brace for higher rates higher economic growth going ahead? Okay, how do you brace for it? What do you pick? So we think economically sensitive stocks are the ones that

you want to tilt your portfolio to. These would be financial services. They love higher interest rates, they can charge more for their mortgages, get more on their insurance portfolios. We think materials energy Ultimately, for example, of this upcoming Thanksgiving, people are gonna be hitting the road, people are gonna be flying. There's gonna be tremendous demand. No one wants to drill anymore, so we think things like that will be going up, and that's where you should be tilting. Well,

things like pieces delivery and so forth. We're not going to see that big increase in demand going forward, all right, So what would you be buying here? You know, we love Intel as a way to play both technology and a cyclical upturn. You know, we know there's a chip shortage. We know we have to recreate manufacturing here on our Shore's uh, Intel's got new management with the engineer from Intel returning. Um. There's trading at just twelve times earnings.

They're still at a cheaper price than they were. But when you think of chips, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, internet of things, you've got to think of Intel. We think that's a great way to you know, have a secular trend but also take advantage of the cyclical upturn. Hey what about a T and T. I know that's on your list of companies that you're interested in. Why especially as they go through the sort of recalibration back to a telecom company away from media company. Yeah, so they

got the new man in there, John Stanky. I think he's doing the right thing. He is refocusing the company on telecommunications, getting outside of the content. I think that their announcement just recently to shed their entertainment Warner Media assets, put into a separate company, merge it with Discovery will allow them to better focus on the wireless the five G opportunity. Let someone else deal with the entertainment assets.

Of course, they still have something one percent of that, but the opportunity here is they're paying a certain percent dividends. They have to rationalize that it's going to come back down to fourth percent. So you have the stampede of people out who wanted the big dividends. I think people are gonna come in and say, hey, it makes more sense what the company doesn't pay out to me as a dividend. They keeping the company that benefits my shares That allows them to deleverage. So the start is down,

now I see it drifting up. Hey just got about fifty seconds letter x ON. I'm assuming dividend play is part of the reason you like x On, because it's also been on quite a run more than this year. But the dynamics longer term, most investors would argue it's

definitely changing. So I think the argument for like any energy company here is that the rush to get green is happening faster than consumers can actually wean themselves off from their automobiles, wean themselves off from gas to heat their homes and so forth, and I think ultimately that's gonna push prices up dramatically. X is the no brainer

is the largest publicly treated integrated energy company. I think people are also on pause here because they've looked at three up board seats which have gone to so called um green directors. But guess what those green directors want to make money too? And of course why you're waiting for things. You got that big six percent David and Carol story in the magazine about engine number one. Uh that you talk about what a little engine that definitely did.

David Deeds, thank you so much. Of a good weekend managing Principal senior portfolio Strategies at Pepack Private Wealth man TM at nine point four billion in assets under management, on the phone from summit. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News