Fed Expected to Increase Target Rate

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. This story, it is the Bloomberg Big Take. It is also one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg Today. It's a story that's been two years in the making about how free checking accounts actually haven't really lived up to their name, costing consumers ever eight billion dollars. That's real money, it really is, and it's real profits for the companies. Jenny

Seraine is the reporter on the story. She's Finance reporter for Bloomberg Near She's with us right now in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Jenny I want to repeat this because it's it's such an astounding statistic to me. Customers who pay overdraft fees again and the again are responsible for over half the profits from mass market consumer checking accounts at the biggest US lenders. I thought these companies were trying to get rid of these fees because the

upstart banks are offering accounts without them. Yeah. I think that's honestly sort of what drove us uh down this line of reporting and into this story. Um, we've seen time and time again big banks making announcements. You've got City, You've got Capital One, you know, saying we're getting rid of overdrive fees. Bank of America, JP, Morgan, They've all announced something along the lines of we're distancing ourselves from

this practice. But UM, it's true for the industry as a whole that really these fees are what allows them to offer free checking accounts to you know, wealthier Americans who maintain a certain balance and and um, and it's really these fees that allow them to do that. So UM really wanted to dive in and kind of put a number on a lot of this stuff that we hear so much about. And UM, it was really just

an interesting practice and diving into this data. I feel like going to the story Jenny, and then it's like and the gap just gets wider and why there? Yeah, I think it's interesting because we hear so much time and time again from these banks about UM wanting to solve for inequities and finance wanting to do more for UM lower income Americans, and I think this is a really tangible way that we've seen them maybe flounder a bit,

and so I think it'll be interesting. You know, Washington is paying really close attention to this issue, Regulators, lawmakers, consumer advocates alike, really making a lot of noise, and so I think we're going to see a lot of movement here, especially in the coming months and quarters. How much of this is about regulators making movement versus the upstart banks that I mentioned, these so called neo banks coming after the customers who are the ones who are overdrafting. Yeah, No,

I think it's a great point. The fin techs for sure have a place here, and I think the banks actually they point more often to competition being what's driving them on this versus the you know, Senator Elizabeth Warren's and Maxine Waters of the world. And so I think, um, they definitely point a competition from these up starts, and they really were the first to kind of push the thing,

push the banks on overdraft fees. UM. They also, you know, one of the really unique things that those guys do is, UM, instead of waiting, you know, if Bloomberg pays our our paychecks, for instance, if they send that money on a Tuesday, we might not get it until Friday. What a lot of these upstarts have done is said, Okay, as soon as we get the notification from your employer that they've sent you your paycheck, UM, that will be in your account.

And so they're actually looking for ways to avoid the overdraft fee ever coming. So where a lot of these other banks are like, oh, if you if you overdrafted, will you know, lower the fee or we'll give you like a fifty dollar cushion, UM, these upstarts are actually saying, you know what, no, that's not enough. Let's just like get them their money faster. For folks living paycheck to paycheck, that's what matters, UM. And so wait, wait not benefit

on the flow exactly exactly, um exactly. And so I think that's where these upstarts have gotten you know, their their nimble, they're fast and wall streets paying attention. Can we just break it down. It's a great chart ONMA and and just great kind of interactive I feel like, uh, in terms of the media, that's part of this story.

But overdraft fees in terms of the biggest banks, we're talking about one point to bill for JP Morgan, one million for City, nine for P and C, one point one for b of A, one point four for Wells Fargo. I mean this is real money. Yeah, no, and a lot of what they've announced in recent months in terms of you know, distancing themselves for the from this practice, that's real money too. So they are giving up revenue here are they how much? Though? Like how much do

they get penalized by people who forfeit? Right? Our problems are problem accounts basically. No, it's a good point. I think what the banks like to say is there's a cost of providing overdraft. This isn't you know, a free service that for them, and and people do you know overdraft and never make good on that loan essentially, and so they have to account for that when they're setting up these programs. Um. I think what consumer advocates say, is you know, does it really need to be thirty dollars?

You know, does it really need to be when someone's already literally out of money, that you're charging them thirty dollars on top of the already tough situation they've clearly found themselves in. Um So, I think that's going to be a big, big piece of this. But um but, you know, no think it is real money that they're

giving up. And I do think what will be interesting is a lot of banks, as they move away from overdraft, they're saying, oh, well, there's this other account we now have that instead of charging over draft fees, it comes with the five to ten dollar monthly fee, and so you could just sign up for that instead. Um So, I think we'll see a rise in those accounts. I think a lot of consumers will say, you know what, I don't want this, you know, privilege of overdrafting. I'm

I'm done. I just want out, and and they'll choose to pay those monthly fees instead. Really powerful story. Lots of examples of people who have been affected by this. Check out the story by Jenny Seraine and others on our finance team. Jenny's finance reporter for Bloomberg News and Caroll another really good one to lead to read online because great interactive elements on it, showing you know, in terms of like padding profits and over draft fees is

a portion of non interest income. And no joke, it took a couple of years to put this story together, yes, yeah, and just a long one coming and just to show the amount of reporting in time that was put into bringing this story to life. So it is definitely a must. Rey, Jenny, thank you. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. We've been watching shares of coin based Global because they are

once again under pressure in today's session alone. We're looking at the stock down right now nineteen percent, so we're talking about I think an eighty percent or eight percent plus decline this year. Company facing a US probe into whether it improperly let Americans trade digital assets that should have been registered as securities. According to those, I think it's like about three people familiar with the matter. Yeah.

Max Chafkin is a columnist for Bloomberg Business Week. He's also the author of the book that can try in Peter Tiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. He joins us right now on the phone from Queen's. Max has got a great column. You can read it on the Bloomberg and at bloomberg dot com slash of Business Week, all about what coin based has been doing. When it comes to these you know, so called I want to call them s coins. Okay, that's what I'm gonna call them, Carol, Max,

make us back to September. No, I'm not going to do that. A lot of people, I think would who don't necessarily play in the crypto space, would would recognize coin base because they got a lot of attention almost two years ago when the company's CEO came out in the wake of activism by employees and supported the Black Lives Matter movement. What happened. Yeah, So we've had two things that have happened over the last couple of years

with coin based. As the kind of crypto markets had booms, this company has moved kind of closer into the kind of center of the the cultural right guys, and as they as the company approached a direct listing last year, one of which is that the company kind of embraced. Uh.

This is kind of like culture war thing. It. It basically told its employees that they couldn't you know, protests in favor of Black Lives Matter, which one a lot of um praise from kind of you know, right wing types um uh you know who are sort of into that kind of thing. And at the same time, um, the company was sort of making some some pretty significant changes to its business to allow more of these kind of lightly traded they're sometimes called alt coins if you

want a clean for these. These are basically, um, you know, it's like the crypto equivalent of a penny stock. So so some of them, you know, of course are are are legitimate. Some of them have sort of gone nowhere. Um. But what has happened, um over the last year or so is that coin Base went from being you know, kind of seen as a relatively sober minded, you know, one of the more um, you know conservative of the crypto and exchanges insofar as that's possible, to kind of

embracing a more um edgy, you know, confrontational pose with regulators. UM. Part of that is this kind of like cultural component. Part of it is listing lots and lots more of these um alt coins UM probably most famously dozed, which is like a joke cryptocurrency that that the company added

UM in May. So I do wonder, like I think about this in so many different ways as I think about going back to the tech bubble and you know, and then there are analysts out there pumping things basically that you know, they didn't really believe in those financials behind closed doors. But I also think about, you know, the crypto world, it's like this freewheeling. It feels like

to some extent like let's figure this out UM. And then there's like, what's the responsibility of these companies to investors, you know, in terms of what they are offering up like you know, buy or beware? Like who's responsible at this point? Yeah? Absolutely, Colindys has done some of that. UM. The thing that happened to this company is that, you know, as I said, it followed initially Coinny says a long history. You know, it's been around I think for almost ten years,

backed by some of the biggest names in tech. UM. What happened is that it sort of fell behind the ball on these kind of lesser known currencies. So you have this sort of meme stock moment happened, and and competitors, most notably Binance uh, basically distinguished themselves by allowing a lot more different securities or sorry, we're not I guess we're not allowed to call them securities because because that's

kind of coin business whole position. But um uh, these different digital assets and coin base kind of in this frenzy to catch up, I think, basically allowed a lot more of these things on. And that's kind of where they find themselves today, where you have, um, you have this Department of Justice uh arrest of a former coin based employee who's you know, accused of basically insider trading um.

And then you have the sec saying that some of these tokens that we're being traded are in fact unlicensed securities. The upshot of that is that you know, the sec is is you know, maybe suggesting or interested in the question of whether or not coin bases operating a you know, unlicensed security change, which would be really bad for the business, which is why you know, we've seen the stock price collapse today. And I guess the question is is it

a security? I mean, is it is it insider trading? Max? Because as you know, I think back to when the Amazon announcement happened for for Queens, Uh, there was there were a lot of reports about Amazon employees having brought up real estate in Queens ahead of that, and people are saying, well, it's not really you know, insider trading because you know, we don't look at real estate in that way. And I'm wondering if if we're looking at

you know, all coins in that way. Well, and that's certainly the position of coin Base, you know, they they've put out after these these UM complaints drop the d o J one in the SEC one. And it's important to say that coin Base has not itself been named in any of these complainants. You know, they're not charged, they haven't been sued UM. And although you know Bloomberg has reported on this, you know investigation, you know, the SEC hasn't taken any UM formal action UM. Their position,

the company's position is that it doesn't list securities. These things are digital assets UM and and therefore you know it's it's in full compliance UM. There has been a lot of ambiguity over the last a few years where where you know, where it hasn't been clear what exactly the ethic is going to do what you know is a security, what isn't a security? And again we've seen coin bas and some of these other players adopts maybe what you might think of as um more aggressive poses.

As far as that question, I guess I was wondered too, Max, like, if we find out that there's some internal conversations, you know, basically to the extent of, yeah, we don't really think this is anything, but we gotta put it on our platform because if we don't, somebody else's, like you do wonder like what's the responsibility of a company and its leaders and they maybe they don't believe in something, but

at the same time they know investors are interested in it. Right, And this has kind of been something I think has been kind of whispered about in in crypto circles, but maybe not said publicly until these um you know, to build This happened last week, which is that you know, there are a lot of assets on coin base that are you know, pretty obscure, right, they're not. It's not

like bitcoin and ethereum. It's it's things like pot call, which is a you know, social network for pets, right, lightly traded um and you know you can buy it somepoinment, and and there's a question about what when you when you when you invest in that token, what exactly are you doing? And I think the the kind of coin based position, right is that you're buying a you know, you're not buying a security. You're buying some kind of

token that's going to be useful in this company. But I think that, you know, the reality is a lot of people who are transacting in these digital assets are are basically gambling, right and and and then so there's a question about whether or not that should be regulated. And then there's also a question of whether or not, you know, there's even a problem with that. You know, maybe you know people are going to take take take

these risks and and maybe it's not a problem. Maybe there's gonna be a lot of innovation along the way. So certainly lots for the SEC and regulators to kind of work through. Max. When you were doing the reporting for this column, what was the favorite alt coin that you found? I don't want to say favorite, but you

know what was prohaps the most surprising? I mean to me, you know, does is still and I know it's a satiated answer, it's still the one that I keep coming back to because it was literally founded as a joke. I mean, you know that it was not ever meant to be an asset, It was not ever meant to have any um, you know, any specific utility, and it just kind of clucked on a life of its own

thanks to Elon Musk and meet stock traders. And then you're in a situation where this kind of otherwise pretty sober minded company feels like it's got to offer a mean coin to its investors. Another. Oh, Ellen, apparently haven't heard of the steno, which is really cool in certain circles. All Right, Max Chafkin over Bloomberg Business Week, a columnist. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio.

You know the FEDS interest rate hikes, they are kind of wearing at their welcome in the bond markets. We've seen a measure of the yield curve that Cher J. Palace highlighted as a recession indicator, sending out a warning message.

We're talking about the difference between rates where three month bills are now where they will be in eight team months that's tumbled about nine basis points in like the biggest monthly decline in data starting in We keep watching these relationships and what's happening, so essentially flashing warning signals about a recession. Right, Yeah, we've seen some inversion. Right. Um, so we know the Fed's got a bit of a conundrum yanked down inflation with aggressive rate hikes without creating

a recession. That's not easy. Let's get into it with Dr Stephen Skanky, chief economic advisor at keel Point, also a former US Treasury and White House National Security Council staff member. We love it when Steve joins us ahead of FED meanings to give us an idea of what to look for. Doctor Skanky, how are you. I'm doing well, thanks to him. Thanks for having me on. It's always

great to be with you and Carol. Yeah, well it's it's always great when you join us, um, and it also means that you know we got we got the FED chair coming tomorrow when you join us. So before we get to what to watch for, I want to go to Carol's point about recession concerns, because that's something that we're certainly going to listen to from J. Powell. But what are you watching right now in terms of how you're thinking about the health of the economy. Well,

the health of the economy is actually pretty pretty good. Obviously, growth is declining, but when you look at just some of the fundamentals, first quarter, second quarter industrial production up for all those five percent, a little better than six percent respectively. Unemployment is is below where we started the year. We've averaged more than four hundred thousand new jobs each month since the beginning of the year. Those are all

strong indicators. You know, to be honest, if if this is a recession, uh, it's a sort of condition that we wouldn't mind having from time to time. I was just gonna say, yeah, I'll take this kind of recession going forward. I mean, but you know what exactly right? Well, but Steve, you know what's crazy? Like Tim and I scratch your head. And we do this with our TV colleagues when we talk about the markets and kind of the contrasting views about what's going on, it just feels conflicting.

Whether it's Walmart talking to on their numbers, or McDonald's able to pass higher prices along or UNI leave are being able to pass higher prices along, and you know, consider sentiment and confidence numbers coming down. I'm not quite sure how to read. Is it just the reset of our world post pandemic, although the pandemic isn't over. Is that what's going on and that's why it's so weird. I think that's a good part of it, Carol, I think you've just sort of put your finger right on

the nose of it. Um. Concers are you know, all of the confidence and sentiment servation that they're just glump and get their balance sheets are stronger than ever, they continue to spend their outlook for inflation six and twelve

months out continues to come down. All positive indicators. But when you look at what we've had well over the last twelve and a half years, but even just over the last three years, uh eighteen percent, thirty percent And if so, if you've been looking at your four old one K over the last three years, being down twenty three and a half percent by mid July is is

a real joke. Um, it just feels awful. H Many people have even compared it to being worse than the financial crisis that we had in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, when in unemployment with double digit just all that doesn't make sense to sing, right, I mean, think about where we were just over two years ago. I mean we had what an spirol that in one was up twenty close for the year, and we knew that that was mega performance, Yes it was, but we

got it again in we got in one. We got it in twenty nineteen, right, and even in which was weird because of the shutdown from the pandemic, the sp was still up eighteen percent for the year. So we're gonna watch a couple of you know, it's an interesting week where we obviously have the FED meeting UM steve

this week, and that's obviously their focus tomorrow. But then after that FED meeting, we're going to get a reading on second quarter GDP the first right, and UM, we're concerned about you know what that might tell us about recession not recession. We're going to get the PC eight PC cores, which are also key. Uh. Someone also talked about employment cost index. That's going to be really key

whether we're continuing to see wage pressure. I guess what should we really be focusing on to give us a true indication of kind of where this economy is headed. The numbers coming down on Thursday would be really instructive because we'll we'll see what the components of GDP growth are for the second quarter. UH. And A and a big interest is where we ended up with net exports.

That that's just the big swing here. UH. The the Atlanta GDP now is is still showing down one and a half one point six percent for the second quarter

analyzed rate. But when you when you go through and you you calculate sort of from the bottom up with what consumers are doing, business investment which is negative, government which is is neutral, and then you come to net exports, and the best estimate is that net exports are are up between one and one point two percent, And if that turns out to be the case, then you're going

to have positive second quarter growth. But if there's something that really is different about that, and in fact we do end up with a negative number, it will be really important to figure out why is that is that? Because that's an indicators Why is that such an important one? Well, because uh, COVID, the shutdown and supply change, the belief that my chains are improving, we'll all be reflected in what the actual numbers are a lot of this is UH information the flag that's not real time, So give

end up a negative GDP growth number. The important thing is to figure out what, Okay, what happened here is the problem the economy that's that's giving us that number? What what was it? What was it? Something crazy? And inventories that's happened as a result of better supply chain deliveries from China. So it'll to be honest, it will really be in the in the weeds, UH to figure out what's going to have upen because whatever the top line number, that's that's what the markets and the policy

makers and the general clobe will go with. I think it's really important to keep mind think the FED raises by quarters of the set, which I think everyone believes that they will. That puts US now at the neutral rate of interest, which is J Powell said in UH in his fresh conference after the last meeting, I want to move to the new porative interests at which the pet's policy is neither a commendative nor restrictive, because from that point forward, any increase in interest rates puts US

in restrictive territory. And so what is the narrative that the FED is going to about what they're gonna do next?

Is it too okay, we've arrived at a new rate of interests, now we're going to wait to see or is it you really need to do more of this to move into restrictive charactory which talking to Dr Stephen Skanky, chief economic advisor at keel Point, also former US Treasury and White House National Security Council staff member, Doctor Skinky, if you could ask the FED chair one question tomorrow, what would it be? Um, it would be how much do you think they need to raise interest rates to

uh squeeze out inflation this year? And then uh that that would be the question. I'd also want to know where are they going to start? Which the markets general? Are they to? What is going to happen beginning to when did you say when they're they're gonna when are they gonna stop? What? What? What? What are the how much are they going to racist? And then where are

they going to start? Right? General belief that will happen sometime in just because of the overshoot on the restrictive side, Uh, that may happen to squeeze Yeah, I'm gonna say, is the tone I feel like the negative tone. The drum beat, to me feels a lot stronger than it has in a while. Um, So, I feel like it's not too early to to think about the FED stopping or when it starts to come. We're starting to hear that a lot.

I mean, Vince Cignarella talking about that for weeks. Yeah, exactly. Um, Steve, thank you so much. Dr Steven Skanky, chief economic advisor at kill Point, former U S. Treasury and White House National Security Council staff member. I'm journal now, but you let me drive, no, no, no, please, I'll do the bride gravels. I want to drive. It's a good question. Ride to the clothes on radio TikTok, everybody. Just about

twelve eleven minutes left today's trading the session. We're bouncing around, but we are just off our loads of the session, really taking out the chin is uh the now Zack which is down more than two percent, Charlie talking about that, and we are getting ready for some big tech results, and we're talking about the parent of Google Alphabet as well as Microsoft, both of those names. Microsoft down about three percent. Ahead of that, Google's down about two point

six percent, Carol. We also got Chipole, which is just a little bit lower. We'll see a food prices margins, like, how are they doing point right? And how are they doing in terms of demand. Let's get into it with Bill Page, senior portfolio manager at Essex Investment Management, and Bill this afternoon joining us on the phone from Boston. Bill, how are you good? Jim McCarroll, Great to be with you. Yeah,

great to have you with us. Okay, So is is today's I mean, I mean, I think you know we've been having this debate over the last ten days or so. What's more important when it comes to this week? Is it companies and their earnings reports and the commentary we're getting from them, or is what we hear from FED chair J Powell tomorrow. Well, we're here at Essex, UM we're focused on really pretty focused at my portfolio. So

I would say for us, it's about the companies. We're we're sort of about UM ten through our earning season. For the companies in our portfolios, we're focused on clean energy, clean tech, and so we're you know, not as as far long as we are in a well, I was looking at performance. I mean, so far year to date, you're down about but I like a longer term perspective.

So if I take it back to three years, you guys have been returning on average annually more than eleven percent, putting it into the eighty first percentile in comparison to your peers, according to Bloomberg Data. So you know, we constantly and Bill you probably have heard this and been asked about it a million times about investors who are maybe looking to think about e s G. When E s G you can really measure it, you know, our clean environment, like really invest in companies that are perhaps

doing good and actually there's performance as well. It doesn't seem like it's as much of a trade off as it used to be when you really have transparency on some of these names. Yeah, what's it. There's been a lot of obviously headlines around e s G. What is the E s G? How do you define it? And you know, our focus is really on solutions, so companies that are providing solutions to the world's greatest challenges, and

we're focused mostly on small and MidCap companies. And when you think about clean energy, we define it more broadly across nine themes, so from water all the way through

to renewable energy, offshore, wind, etcetera. So a lot of these companies are older line industrial companies that are really um moving into new end markets, leveraging their core I p SO water companies that are working on metering, electric utility companies, so services that can help electric utilities manage all the disruption for you know, electrons and what's happening with our grid and the need for resiliency, etcetera. So we're we're finding kind of nuts involved right of what's

going on. Well, it's really so when you think about clean tech, it's really been around for twenty five years and listed markets, and now we're in this new realm. I think saluations were a little ahead themselves back in but we saw as you are following, too many listings of companies that should have gone should not have gone public and sort of last eighteen months. But now it's, uh, you know, valuations have come down significantly and the fundamental

drivers for for clean tech are stronger than ever. Well, let's talk about some of those because I think what interests me so much about what you what you work on is the idea that you know, a lot of these companies are really reliant on governments and I wonder what you see in terms of progress here, not just in the US, but around the world for these opportunities, for these companies if if they're in a space that's somewhat slow moving. I mean, look at how long this

energy transition is taking. Well, it's interesting. I mean when you think about the legacy of fossil fuel assets power global economies. You know, fossil fuels have been driving you know, our economies for almost a century. So when you think about, um, the clean technol oologies that were discovered in some cases thirty years ago, we're not really in the early days of this transition. If you think about net new energy additions to the global grid, um, you know, renewables added

more than than coal last year. Was the combined energy supply of renewables last year, so much higher up year of a year. So on the so tim on the on the government incentive side, that's a bit of a misperception, I guess. I guess what I'm saying is like we're still seeing stories about you know, the grid melting down in Texas, you know, two years after that tragedy exactly, and so what we so when we look at global first of over global and then we assess government incentives.

One thing we look at is what's happening on tariff structures, feed in tariffs, governments, sport um in relation of other drivers, and the most important driver, one that eclipses all is does the technology work is a commercially viable on the grid? Yes, indeed, I mean our electrical grid. We're still leveraging technology that's a century old, but I don't think it's really coming

to before. But if you look at what some of the larger utilities have been doing the last several months, is they've been finally starting to invest in the grid and that helps some of the companies in our portfolio help with grid resiliency, in managing electrons. When you put in bi directional charging for electric cars, which is happening at a faster pace, solar panels on the roofs in battery storage, we you have more disruption, more electrons that

need to be managed by utilities. And this is for instance, one of our companies, is I tron providing any good value proposition? Is they really is we digitize our grid um The amount of data that the utilities need to manage is much greater, and obviously they need to bring electrons to their customers at a time when it's getting harder to do so with As you said, Tim, Uh, you know severe weather and welcomes, right, And that's ticker I tron is I t r I. It's based uh

in Washington. Stocks down about so far this year. But that is a name that plays into what you've just been talking about. I want to I just want to draw everyone's attention to another name that you like the tickers E R I I. It's called Energy Recovery, based in California. It's downe about five percent so far this year, but the last three full years stock is up two nineteen percent. Tell us about this because this has salinization excuse me UM in terms of seawater and filtering it

out to produce fresh water. We see that a lot in the Caribbean. But you but this is a company that also plays big time in the Middle East, and that has to do with energy, right exactly. So when you think about UM Energy Recovery, it's not a well known R followed name. And so it's all about harvest being fluid slow in a plant. Right. So they've got they've got the bulk of the market share for what's known as UH S w R O so seawater verse

OSMO is energy recovery. So when you think about a large deesel plant, UM, the greatest input cost is energy, and so their technology can lower the operating costs for deesel plant by over. And then when you think about what's happening in the Middle East, over the water supply is possible water I, meaning it is all deesel and over that is going to agriculture. So they can't operate the Middle East their economies without deesel and so UH e R I has got a lock on global UH

energy recovery technology for decail plants. But then they're moving into industrial water treatment and so industrial water treatment regulations are increasing in the emerging markets. And there's also a need UM as we deploy obviously more on shoring of semi conductor manufacturing here in the US, for US to have really cheaper methodologies and ways to treat our water. And so that's another way. It's equally um UH lowering the input costs for commercial facilities. This is early on

for them, this new end market UM. And the other one is refrigeration that we're UM we're phasing out hfc's refrigerants that are incredibly uh hurtful to to uh the climate change. It's over a hundred times more CEO two intensive than regular greenhouse gases. So refrigerants is another areay're moving to, too, right, and that's certainly where the regulatory side of things can you know, kind of require companies

around the globe, uh necessary to do it. Hey, Bill, we do have to run unfortunately, but this was fascinating interesting, So come back soon. Bill Page, senior portfolio manager at Essex Investment Management, on the phone from Boston. As we mentioned, his parent tree Essex Environmental Opportunities. Fun UM has an averageannal gain over the last three years of about eleven, so putting it in the one percentile. 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 It to pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. H