GameStop Trading and Robinhood’s Fallout

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. Lots of things to cover today. Shares of game Stop. We know Tim raleiged again today, they also fell off some of those highs, but nonetheless we continue to see uh this volatility and it's playing out to some other names as well. She has been reporting NonStop on the market gyrations around game Stop and others.

So let's get into it with Bloomberg News investing reporter Annie Massa. She is on the phone in New York City. Um, Annie, where are we? What do you think our audience at this point needs to know about what it's going out with game Stop and others. What's going on with robin hood? And it has been an absolutely wild week, as I'm

sure anybody listening can tell. I guess yesterday things really came to a head because you started to see brokerages including robin Hood slamming the brakes on new purchase orders for game Stop, am C and some of these other Reddit fueled names that have been going crazy in the past couple of days, and that drew a big backlash online from users and also from some pretty unlikely pairings of people, including AOC and Ted Cruz, both of whom

criticized robin Hood for preventing people from buying new shares of those companies. Jim said it yesterday's like strange bed fellows as a result of the exact Yeah, it didn't last very long. A retweeted his tweet and told him to resign. But you know, that's a conversation for a different day. Um. Look, I'm wondering what we learned about what robin hood did yesterday. There was a lot of confusion about why robin had prevented some basic functions for

its users. What do we learn in the the last twenty four hours and what did Robin have to have to do in terms of getting this lifeline of a billion dollars. Yes, So when you look under the hood, what happened yesterday was there's machinery kind of underlying the market. Yeah, that's

meant to manage risk. And what happened was the central clearing house asked Robin Hood and other brokers to effectively put up more collateral um that day because of all the volatility, because of all the risk in the market, and Robin Hood, as you mentioned, as a result, had to go out and raise kind of an emergency one billion dollar fundraising round from its existing investors. So there was a bit of a scramble for cash amid this

this really really wild training session. So any I guess I'm still trying to figure out is was this a logistical operational problem in terms of clear clearing trades and so on, or was this traders colluding as you know Vince Signorella mentioned kind of at the top of the show. Did people break the law in terms of what you're allowed to do trading or was it again an operational problem in terms of clearing these trades. Well, it's been interesting.

Robin Hood put out a statement yesterday trying to kind of assuage their investors and the people using their app, saying, listen, this was a risk management decision that we made. Um, you don't have to worry that this this decision was made at the behest of electronic traders or anyone else. Now, that wasn't really enough to calm down the wild conspiracy theories that flew around the internet yesterday. Um it was. It was a little too little, too late for that.

But um, robin Hood did try to calm people's nerves and say, um, you know, it was a tough decision, but we had to make it for for risk management reasons. So what does this mean for a company like robin Hood that has really been the darling of so many REATA investors and of course also A venture capitalists. The company's supposed to have an IPO soon, yeah, zooming out.

It really raises questions about how robin Hood can navigate this the hoopla of our current moment, and if it is still looking towards an I p O sometime this year, it's going to have to kind of prove that it can manage all of the reputational and financial strains frankly that this game top episode has has put upon it. So regulators are getting involved. As we said at the top, UM,

where do you think this is going? What are you hearing from the financial community that you're talking to two traders, to observers to I'm sure you're going kind of too academics, you know, what are you hearing about? Kind of where this goes? Well? Now, I mean it's impossible to ignore this in Washington, So regulators have that, like they don't have a full plate or anything. Anny but okay, exactly

exactly add this, add this to the list. Um. But the SEC did say today they put out a statement saying that they are watching, um the kind of insanity not there words, but of what's been happening in the past week or so, and that they will, you know,

seek to identify any potential wrongdoing in the market. I mean it is worth mentioning though that, Um, it's clearly in the terms of service when you sign up for a robin Hood account that something like, you know, the broker choosing to put the brakes on UM trades in a certain security can happen. So and I talked about this, we any problem there, Tim and I were talking about this yesterday because when we were seeing things like being shut down and an account, and we thought there's gotta

be some stuff in the in the fine print. And indeed last night people were tweeting images from from the from the terms of service that like that like highlight that that people don't read those of course, Um yeah, who's ever read the terms of service? I know that you should do it through it, but you want to make that trade any very fly implications for for next week and just taking it like a broader look at this, Um, what are the implications for this as we go into

next week? I think the key thing to watch will be how some of this um, you know, craziness spills over to other names. We're already seeing that the chaos has spun out from just game Stop and am C. Now, um, you know, Bitcoin is having its own you know, an already volatile cryptocurrency is having its own wild day. And there are other stocks that are having uh similar issues too. So I mean, you've just seen a spiral way out

from game Stop into other parts of the market. So as you continue to cover this story, Okay, what are the angles you want to know about? What is it that you're kind of watching for, especially as we are. You know, we're wrapping up this trading week, but we're gonna get ready for a new trading week in a new month next week. What are the angles and stories and you know, issues that you think we need to

be kind of sensitive to. I think we'll absolutely have to watch the strain that some of this has put on the broader financial system. I mean, I think that it's pretty unexpected how we've already seen the stress that you know, the very like nuts and bolts of uh financial markets were put under by this whole episode. So that's one thing, and then the other thing I guess I would watch is how short sellers have been affected. I mean, we saw Citron research put out today that

they are no longer you know, publishing short possess. That was huge, huge, yeah, huge decision and um so not publishing or not taking just not publishing not yeah, I'm yeah. I mean it's kind of up ending their strategy for the past twenty years. It's it's a huge turnaround for them. Well, how does this make other short sellers think about this? Because, as you know, a lot of people point out to Twitter on Twitter today Mark Gangla from Bloomberg Opinion. We

talked about this earlier today on Quick Take. Short sellers have a role. They have a role in exposing fraud and exposing wrongdoing at companies, and they're some great examples of short sellers doing that. I mean, we think and Ron, we think wire card more. That's right. And the format always, you know, the typical format that we think of as a short seller, you know, has a short position and then does a big reveal and then the stock sells off.

But you know, as we've seen when people on Reddit plan out in the open um, you know, to to kind of orchestrate a short squeeze. You know, if if this can happen regularly, short sellers might have to rethink how they go about that. That entire business. Yeah, I mean, it's just pretty amazing and things that just have moved so quickly. Um, and thank you so much, really appreciate it. Bloomberg News investing reporter any Massa check out all of our work on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com,

because um, that's the thing. Like we talked about hurts last year and I think we were like, oh, but now we've seen a lot more names, and it's just the cycle has been happening much more and I think to like more widespread applications totally. I mean, it's really impacting certainly. Uh. I guess we still have yet to gauge the impact on the overall market right um, but we've definitely seen some big institutional, well known, sophisticated investors

feeling an impact as a result. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. We've got a bunch of headlines that we want to mention our thanks again to J and J. Just catching up in terms of their vaccine news today and I thought it was interesting what they talked about the variant they're upscaling already for the South African variant that has started already, so you know, managing the current situation,

but also thinking about kind of where it's going. You need that to that end, Carol, the chief scientists telling us that shots are likely needed quote for the next few years, sort of thinking about it at least in the near term from their perspective of like a flu shot, because as the doctor told us, as virus is here for a while exactly, and we know we need multiple vaccines.

They expect to start delivering shots in March. They told David Weston back in September, a billion shots in one and uh he reiterated at Paul Staffles again today, so uh interesting. But he did talk about the fittest variants will survive, which makes me a little terrified because that means the strong variants. Yeah, I don't like to hear that. But they were already working to adapt their vaccine to them.

All right, So that's going on. We know Mexico overtook India as the country with the third highest number of fatalities after the US in Brazil. New York City can reopen indoor dining at that's going to happen on Valentine's Day. Here's the count everyone global virus cases exceeding a hundred and one point six million deaths near two point two million, with more than eighty seven point one million shots given worldwide. So let's get into it as we always like to

do on our Fridays. Dr Ian Los Padre back with US, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at n y U Landgoing Medical Center. Back with US on the phone in New York City. Dr los Pader, nice to have you here. Don't know if you were able to hear too much of that J and J conversation that we just had. What do you make of the J and J news today? I think overall, by the way, happy Friday Friday to join you guys. So I think overall the J and

J news is encouraging. I think UM people initially in the stock probably suffered a little bit based on that sixty effective against a mild and moderate disease. I think the key numbers that Paul the Chief Scientific Officer talked about UM, and I think the fact that it can be refrigerated at normal refrigeration temperatures, you know, three degrees fahrenheit makes it storable now in your local CVS or

Walgreen's pharmacy, the local doctor's office. So I think it does have the potential to be distributed much more easily. The other thing that we haven't looked at, but people talk about is maybe a second shot of either that vaccine. Even though it's advertised obviously as a one shot, some people feel giving either another shot or even a different

vaccine might really potentiate the antibody response. So uh, if at all her point another vaccine is developed, it could be an m R and A or something else that might really boost people's immunity for longer to come. So I think, um, I think there's a lot of good potential there, obviously, are you no, no, no no. I think the J and J shot is a very helpful addition to the armamentarium. I think if we find any issues along the way, uh, booster shots, so even of

another vaccine may be very helpful. You know, it's talked about theoretically whether or not, um doing two different kinds of vaccines may even be very beneficial at least some scientists you know, talk about that. But overall, I think this is very good news. And the key metric, which is hospitalizations, was really you know that a hundred percent efficacy hospitalization, So it literally doesn't get any better than a right. And again this is not and you know,

we haven't looked at this at millions of people. I mean that number may come down a bit. That was just in the study group. So overall, I think it's very good news, and I think the storage is also

very good news. Um well, I just want to draw some distinctions here between the vaccines that are available right now, the MR and A vaccines from Moderna and fiser Bion Tech, and in this vaccine because I think, I think when we saw this headline number this morning, we we we've kind of been a little spoiled because we've seen numbers in terms of efficacy above nine for the m R and A vaccines. Seeing a number like sixty, um was I think to a lot of people was just like

not as good. But can you kind of go through the pluses and minuses of each one here, because it seems to me the storage issues or lack thereof when it comes to the Johnson and Johnson one and the fact that it's a single shot, plus you have that figure where it prevents a hundred percent of hospitalizations and deaths, Like, that's pretty good. I'm with you, So you know, just to start more at ground zero. Each of these vaccines

has a slightly different technology. The m R and A is really amazing and brand new and probably does provide us some more flexibility in modifying that if we get any mutations, which we're seeing. So we worry about some of the mutations because, uh, some of the evidence of the UK and South Africa strains, you know, make it more contagious. So what does that mean. It does seem that some of these strains bind a little more avidly to the host cells. It also makes it seem that

they have a higher viral count. In other words, the way the virus may adapt is that there are fewer symptoms early on, so it gives a chance for the virus to replicate. Patients don't feel sick yet if they call for sneeze, they have a much higher amount of virus in that. So these viruses, you know, as Darwin, you know, adapt and become more effective along the way. So that's one thing that we do have to be aware of and concerned about. Those m RNA vaccines can

be adjusted to some of the mutations. But I think the key metric really is how do you reduce hospitalizations? And I think the J and J really meets that metric and maybe over time even more effective than that against a severe disease, because that's really what we worry about. And I agree, I think the storage will allow it to be more distributed. I took the glad no please go. I took the two fighter shots. Um, you know, minimal

side effects. I think the mRNA is great. And I think at the end of the day, whether you want, you know, the Cadillac or the or the Buik or the Mercedes. You know, these are all going to be great ways to get you to where you want to be. They're all cars. But do they all have heated seats? I'm just gonna put I don't care as long as it is a seatbelt. If it's a well that exactly it has a seatbelt. Um, now are you feeling more optimistic?

And I am curious though, Ian. I always ask you, I know, Tim, and I ask you, um, what kind of patients are seeing with the virus? What kind of flows are you seeing? Because you know, we see numbers. It feels like the numbers are coming down the cases and so even though there's still at high levels around the country, what are you seeing the firsthand? So hospitalizations are up a little bit, they're nowhere near that we

saw previously. So I think things are overall stable. Part of the problems that we're encountering really is availability vaccine. I think we have to do better to get vaccines to the states, and the states to get it really to the vaccine center. So we are. We're not doing as well as we should be because we really have got to just get these vaccines in people's arms in order to bend the curve. I also see a lot of patients asking me questions, you know, shall I check

antibodies after I get the vaccine? No, the commercial um vaccine. The commercial test look for something called an anti nucleo capsid antibody, so it detects if you've had an infection. It doesn't routinely check for the anti spike, which is really what we're getting antibodies too. So people should not be asking about getting antibody tigers after the vaccine. Most of the commercial essays will really not detected, and people should not worry if they're negative because they're looking at

the wrong thing. So I think we do need to do better with vaccine distribution. I think even one vaccine does provide some additional protection. But I do think we're gonna have to wait a little while for J and J. As we say, March is a long way to go until March, and I think we do have to be careful. But Dining New York is going to open. Can we just go there? Yeah? I was just gonna go there. Is that the right thing to do, because you know,

you talk about bending the curve. It seems like we are getting some encouraging news from the West coast from here in New York, or we're starting to look like we could be coming off that peak. I don't want to say we are, because you know, we just don't know. We can't see the future. Is now really the right time to be easing these restrictions? And this is bear to Blasio saying new COVID variance could take our progress

and reverse it if we don't act quickly. I think I don't know whether he was on CNBC, but like, help us out here, this doesn't make sense. So this is a new pandemic. I don't think we can say that we know are percents scientifically if you open restaurants or twenty six percent, or we just don't have that precision. I do think part of this is political, and I think part of this is keeping our businesses alive. To a degree. We know that eating outdoors and that's worked

fairly successfully. We'll keep a lot of the restaurants and businesses afloat indoors. Does seem reasonable to me. There's always some risk that people take whenever there with other people, But I think if there's adequate spacing and dentilation, that is reasonable. Every restaurant is going to have to sort of do this carefully. But my senses, we're not seeing spikes from school openings, So school certainly is reasonable for

kids for a variety of reasons. And I think restaurants have opened carefully can also work even in the winter withoutdoor heaters and smaller percentages and and kind of thread the needle between keeping businesses afloat that I think we need to do and keeping people safe. Yeah, I have to say that with my own daughter's school. I mean there's an occasional case. We even see it certainly in our office, but it's not like all of a sudden, you know, two cases go to ten, cases go to twenty.

We aren't see that. So there is something, um, you know, I agree with you that we are seeing it more manageable. I guess it feels like I don't know, or we're just all being smarter about wearing masks and social distance. I think I'm looking at I was going to say, I mean, it's almost like masks and physical distancing net work I mean it's as simple as that. Right. The schools and restaurants I think are learning pods, hybrid and so forth. So I think they're doing a better job.

And certainly if they do have cases, they can jump on that for context and maybe closing down that particular class. But overall, I think it's working fairly well. And as the Chief Scientific Officers said, we're going to have to kind of learn to deal better with this. Possibly now we thought it would be a year. I think it's certainly looking like it maybe a few years before globally we really eradicate this because you know, vaccinating um eight

billion people. Uh, it's going to take some time and effort. The logistics of it went yeah, No, I mean it's it's the logistics are just uh we ask you every week, dr lust beder Um expectations have they shifted it all for a return to normalcy given the J and J news, given that we've you know, we've we've been opping o our vaccine roll out of here in the US, I'm still optimistic by end of summer life in the United States should return really two more normal. I think people

will still some people want to wear masks. I think that's totally reasonable to do. It's fine to be safe. Um, I think we've reduced flu shots. Let's also remember flu is only about thirty percent effective, and everyone takes a flu shot every year and we're happy with that. So you know, let's keep it in perspective that, you know, we take the flu shots happily and they're like thirty effective, varies from year to year. Right, that's a really good point. Hey, Ian,

thank you so much. Take care of yourself, Have a good weekend. Dr Ian los Beda Clinical Associate Professor Medicine at n y U Landgoing Medical Center. On the phone in New York City. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio.

So one of our top stories of course following the vaccine, but also the Reddit boards at it again once again bidding up shares of game stop and worn with headphones by seeking out targets such as see it Financial and TWiki make our hostess brands. It continues. SEC meantime is saying it's going to look into potential misconduct and review some decisions by the brokerages to curtail transactions on certain stocks. Read it, We not read it. Um rolling hood, we

saw curtail trading. We also saw it on wee bill. So let's see what the CEO we Bill has to say about all that. Anthony Denier joins us on the phone in New York City. Hey, Anthony, good to have you here with Tim and myself. So, um, why did you restrict trading? Let's just put it out there. Sure, let's get right to it. Um, thanks for having me well, Carol and Tim. We we did not have a say

in the matter. We're an introducing firm. We do not operate our own clearinghouse right, so we do not put any customer, We do not put any collateral on behalf of customers to settle all the transactions that happened on

our platform. We are simply a portal. So our third party clearing house called me at approximately nine eight am and informed me that they may not be able to settle new by orders in three particular names of three most popular ones that were seeing on Reddit, and I had to make the hard decision to send out a message to our users that we are not able to support by orders. Why was that a decision you had to make it. Why was that a decision you had to make? It sounds like it wasn't even a decision

like you had to send that. Well, you're right, I had to send it exactly. I mean I could have. I could have went back to the clearing house and said no, I'm going to keep yours open, and what possibly could have happened is those trades would have failed, which would have cascaded into a much bigger problem. So maybe you're right, I did not have that, did not have a decision to make. Well, So so where what is the issue that needs to be fixed here in order to to to be able to actually make trades

when when when your users want to make trades? What needs to be fixed? Uh? Well, first off, there's a two day to business day waiting period first settlement. Right, The systems that go into settling transactions are very antiquated. To put it lightly, they're working on techno ology that was built decades ago. Right, it used to be T plus three, now it's T plus two. There is talk that they're gonna work till T plus one. That's two

whole days. That massive amounts of capital need to be allocated as collateral to deal with margin requirements as the DTC clearinghouse. So what needs to be done. We need to implement new technology i e. Blockchain, which has been talked about for a long time. But when you're taking an old system and trying to bring it into the new world, that does take time. Um, So there needs to be technology technological advances in order to ensure that

this does not happen again. So that's what we're trying to get to. Like, what's the problem. Was it traders, individual retail investors, you know, doing something wrong or was it just a case that the infrastructure, the logistics just doesn't quite work as you say antiquated systems. Is that the problem? Now that's a that's a loaded question a little bit because on on the surface, I will say that that is the problem. Now, obviously I think what's going on is a little deeper than just the market

mechanics of trade settlement right now. If you if you want to talk about the story of why specific brokerages stopped the new opening positions or i e. By orders of these specific stocks, yes, it was a market mechanic. It was a lack of capital right and fear of counterparty risk that was the reason for that, But more underlying is why are these masses having a populous movement going against what you know they would call, you know, the institutions, right, the hierarchy, you know, um, you know

the suits. There's an unlevel playing field that's been going on for a long time and and furs like weevil have been aggressively trying. We've been trying since we started two and a half years ago, open up the playing field. I don't I'm not even gonna bother using the word

democratization because it gets used too much. We're giving access two uh, not only tools, but access to markets and trading strategies that retail investors had ever had access to, right, or they did have access to they had to have huge amounts of capital at the firm, or they had to pay ridiculous fees a platform for you, subscription fees or commissions. And we removed that and that started, that started the turn. But now they want to play for

level on all levels. Right. Why does what does institutions get the ability to have a ten x leverage capability with portfolio margin where regulation stops a retail investor from two x leverage. Well, you know someone would say, forgive me not my words or my assessment, but smart investor versus dumb investor. Do individual retail investors really understand the implications of that kind of leverage. I think they're really starting to. Okay, And like I said, not, um, hey, Anthony,

give us some numbers from from this week. I mean, what kind of increase in action did you see on the platform? We saw some of these trading apps moved to the top of the iTunes app store, so obviously there was a lot of activity. Yeah, um, a lot of that stivity is probably putting it lightly. Um. We've we've been very fortunate to have to be growing at a at a very fast pace over the course of the past year and a half, in particularly coinciding with

the whole retail trading world going to zero commission. It opened up retail investing to a whole new demographic of user. Most of those users were app based users, right, we are an app based platform. Are demographic tins to skew younger because we are so app specific. Um, so we've been very fortunate to have good growth numbers. Now that this you know, this movement has gone viral, so to speak, it's reopen that it's the new reawakening of zero commission.

It's people realizing that, hey, I can take control, I can make changes, I can improve the system. So we went from you know, I we you know I would look and scroll in the finance category of app on the App Store, whether it's Android or I l S, and you know I was getting I put up a couple of posts. I was really excited did because we

made the top ten in the finance section. We were nowhere near in the top thirty for overall apps compared to like TikTok and Zoom and Instagram and and now if you look for the last couple of days, it's been Robin Hood's number one. We will number two and read it number three, which tells the story of what's going on. So bottom line twenty seconds. It's just made

you even that much more popular. It has increased our popularity. UM. It's also increased our need to make sure that customers are informed, educated, we're transparent about what we're doing, why we're doing it. Um. You know, these are things that that make a successful product. So you've grown. Can you give us a number? Just you get fishing for a number. I appreciate a number number number two in the app stote. That's a big deal. Hey listen, Anthony, thank you so much.

And I hope we can get you back in the future. Uh, CEO of we Bill Anthony Denier joining us on the phone in New York City Journal. Yeah, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no no, no home an please, I'll do the riding drivel. I want to drive. Just drive, baby, it's the questions drying. This is the drive to the globe. Gimmu. Thanks, We'll drying us to dawn on Bluebird Radio. Yet time for the drive to the clothes. Getting ready to wrap up the trading day, the trading week. What a week, man, right,

I mean, I don't even know where to begin. Historic history making one for the history books. One we're going to remember, right, And it ain't over Like there's more to come. So let's get into the market. Talk with Tom Plum. Back with US President, Chief investment Officer Plumb Phones based in Medisone, Wisconsin. He's joining us on the phone from there, And uh, I should put out the

Plumb Balanced Fund consistently a top performer. It's in percent over the past five years, just about all of its U of the other funds in that category, returning on average annually according to Bloomberg Data about a top performer. Tom, Good to have you here, Tim, and I have to start with the week that was. Um. Listen, you you have been investing for years. You know you really think about fundamentals when you, you know, pick a name and

put it in your fund. What do you make of what we've seen with Game Stop AMC, the likes and and the volatility that seemed to have created in the marketplace. Well, you certainly have had something to talk about this week. I remember an old saying that sometimes the dog wigs the tail, and sometimes the tail wigs the dog and

the market activity. I considered the tails. Usually people think of the fundamentals, the economics, the UH government actions and things like that being the dog, and the tail being the market. Certainly, the activities and all that stuff that's been going on in the market has really made people stop thinking about a week when Apple reported, Visa reported, MasterCard reported, Apple reported the new Biden administration had over

thirty executive orders. All of that stuff is pushed to the backside because of this incredible activity that we've seen in game stock and companies like that. Um, this is a brand new one that we haven't seen. The group of people that have been retail oriented caused these shortcovers. Uh. In the past, you would have other companies do that when, especially when there was good news came out on a company that was heavily shorted and you could see some

shortcovering rallies. But this one here is Uh. You know, I've been in the business for a long long time and I've never seen anything like this week. Does it Does it make you tom think any differently about your strategy? And look, I know you're not, you know, participating in anything that we saw this week, but or I would I should assume that. But um, but does it make

you think differently about your overall strategy at all? Well, you know, you do wonder if the markets Obviously there's people talking for years about is the market over extended? And we had a nice round last year with some specially the companies that were in the crypto or the financial tech area being leaders. We're still feeling that we're

in an economic recovery. We're going to have this incredible volatility for a while, but that it's still gonna mean that you want to own good companies that are going to participate in an expanding economy and actually have good business plans that will extend long before, long after the recovery. Well and listen your top holdings read I've said this to you before, like who's who when it comes to brands and big companies. Um. So, having said that, I

mean Apple is on it. They reported earnings this week, Microsoft's reported. Uh, there were a lot of um, you know you talked about Visa and MasterCard. I mean a lot of these have reported. Um anything that you got fundamentally from many of these companies that made you, you know, think about either adding or you know, change the fundamental

story for you on them, I'm guessing not. Well, No, I think that what you had last year where there were some very very good companies that continue to grow even though there's all these challenges that you think might have eliminated, especially when you look at the earnings sort of the overall s and p that it was going

to be a very very tough year. But there is a lot of companies that had growth in Some of the grow that we've talked about in the past has been accelerated by the pandemic and those trends have continued. You know, if you take a for example, a company like MasterCard, which besides being involved in a lot of

cryptocurrency and things now that are pretty exciting. You know, they have had uh fifty one percent now they say, of people in the United States use contactless payments in one form or another, it's up a hundred percent year over year. Those trends are going to continue. They're going

to recover with the economy. A company like MasterCard was hurt last year by business t and a expense going down, by travel going down, by restaurants hospitality going down, but the business of buying online offset a lot of that. And there's still such a well managed company that they were very profitable even if profits were down last year. Hey, what did you make Tom of Apple's earnings in its most recent quarter, a hundred more than a hundred hundred

billion dollar quarter. Uh And I know that Apple is one of your top holdings. Well, you know, Apples are a great example. They've for quite a while now it's been uh sell shortly on news after their report because they've been reporting very good earnings growth the last four quarters. But they also give you this cautionary appraisal of what might happen in the future. They're being a little concerned, and so the stock has typically sold off a little

bit after their report. But I think after that's digested, people are going to look at this company is probably the best benefactor of the beneficiary of the five G rollout. The new generations are going to be strong for them, and they've modified their model to include much more recurring rep to do us from service and and other programs that go through their app store. So I think people are gonna look at it a couple of weeks from

how they're going to digest. It had quite a run last year, but then I think it's still going to be in that same trend, right and accessories and services right, We saw certainly some pickups there. Hey Tom, thank you so much. Have a good weekend. Tom Plow and President and chief investment Officer Plumb Funds joining us on the phone from Madison, Wisconsin. 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. Sarah to Bloomberg Global News,