Inside the Heist Issue

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. We continually, of course, update you here on the Bloomberg about what's going on with the virus. And I gotta say, yesterday was I feel like a turning point once again, as we saw surging new cases in a bunch of southern and Western states.

We had states reopening plans, putting them on hold, hospitalizations are up. And then Anthony Faucci, the US government's top infectious disease specialist, warning lawmakers that virus cases could top and rise to a hundred thousand a day if behaviors don't change, I can't make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing. I will guarantee you that, because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country, even though in other parts of the country

they're doing well, they are vulnerable. I made that point very clearly last week at a press conference. We can't just focus on those areas that are having the surge. It puts the entire country at risk. We are now having a quality plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to a hundred thousand a day if this does not turn around, and so I am very concerned. Yep, that number got

our attention. That's of course Dr Anthony Fauci talking to senators yesterday and hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Jason Dyer absolutely well, from one of the nation stop doctors to our top doctor. Dr I and Les bed are back with us, clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at n y U s Linga Medical Center, joining us once again on the phone from New York City. So Ian, when you heard that from

Dr Fauci. I'm guessing it didn't shock you given how on the front lines you've been on this, but it has to be disappointing and a little bit scary, especially given that you've been on the front lines of this and seeing what's happened in New York City. Hi, Carol and Jason. Yes, I think most doctors that I speak to certainly are very concerned, and hospitals are concerned, as

they should be um to some degree. You know, I think by by not really mandating you know, masks and social isolation, really by giving that as an option, which you know, with multiple states and in a free country, that's certainly one approach. We're really, in a way, uh following the Swedish model, which is letting nature take its course, and when that happens, there's certainly a significant risk. As Dr Fauci says, you know, cases at this point we're

about forty or fifty thousand a day. We know they're really much higher because we're really only picking up about one intent or only diagnosing one intent. There are probably ten times more people who have UH COVID than than are actually being picked up by tests. So we're talking hundreds of thousands a day of new cases, and of course that translates into potentially um higher surge on hospitals and health care facilities. And this is what we're seeing

across the Sun Belt. Yeah, it's not even it's not even just the surge with hospitals, which is a concern, but really ultimately a higher death rate and then what I like to call post COVID syndrome. Even people who get through it often have a lot of other symptoms and ongoing healthcare issues. So it's it's quite worrisome. Ian, let's talk about that. In anticipation of our conversation, I was talking to others about, um, exactly what you're getting

to know. You were the first one, Jason, and I can kind of almost remember the day where you talked about the blood clots, you know, throughout the body, and this was just not something you see often. Talk to us about the implications of that and and the problems that seemed to be maybe staying with some patients even after they recover. Exactly, so this uh and Dr Faucci has said this. He said, this is a virus with

protein manifestations, meaning multiple ways of manifesting. We typically think of viruses perhaps as an ammonia or fever, chills and aches,

but this virus is unique. We we really can't think of something similar where multiple organs are affected, strokes in the brain, and kidney disease, liver disease, very high liver function test g I disease, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and not only that, besides um killing people with blood clots and and so of the latest data show that the virus seems to increase a platelet aggregation or the stickiness of

platelets and platelets. Normally, you know, we need to to cause some clotting when you get an injury or a cut, but when there's a massive increase in platelet stickiness, you get clots everywhere. And that probably explains a lot of the you know, severe consequences that we see as a result of these infections. Well, and presumably that ultimately has an impact on a hospital and doctor's abilities to treat

a whole host of things, including new cases. But also this long tail, as it were, uh inn of COVID exactly right, So we have the you know, the acute UH injury or the the acute illness, and we're still a bit perplexed why there is a number of patients who have mild to to know symptoms and this is that large young group of people who are asymptomatic. They form a reservoir are they're often feel fine and feel invulnerable.

They're not wearing masks. They're potentially transferring this to other people who are older, which is why you know, universal masking is certainly a reasonable request for for all um and then uh, insusceptible patients. You get this really cascade of effects that make people more short of breath, have clots everywhere, and then even if people survive after hospitalization, many have a long term not only psychologic effects but

physical effects. Ian when do you realistically still expect a virus? I mean a vaccine mother? So I you know, I think this is encouraging news. Fightser is one of the number of companies Maderna j and j a Estra Zeneca, you know, who are really moving forward. A lot of these studies are going to go into phase three with wider number of patients. The Fighter study is is fairly small, uh you know, forty five patients or so um, but

it certainly is encouraging. What we don't know is in a larger number of patients, how many will develop antibodies that are neutralizing, how long those antibodies will last, and will the virus mutate. So I think it is encouraging

that we're making progress. It is a unique a way of making UH vaccine with messenger RNA which gets into your own cells and uh UH forms these proteins that are typical of the coronavirus COVID nineteen, typically the spike protein, and then your body forms antibodies to that, so you're not subject to the risk of a live virus. And

we think that this is hopefully a better way. It is a relatively new technology, but again there are a lot of hurdles before not only is it proven effective, but it can be ramped up, manufactured and distributed, and probably there'll be several vaccines using similar technology, hopefully with similar efficacy. So I think at some point UH and I'm thinking early, but I think it can be a very bumpy road until we get there where it where it's widespread, and then you have to see how many

people we'll be willing to take it. But since we know probably twenty five million or more Americans probably have the virus. Based on that one in ten, we know the death rate is certainly higher than the you know, hundred and twenty five or hundred and fifty thousand people as going to climb much much higher. You know, we're gonna have a lot of shocks to the system, the economic system. Uh. And I think it is this is encouraging, but it's it is an early step in a very

long process to to turn things around. I don't mean to be negative. I'm just trying to keep it in perspective. We look to you to keep it real for us. See. And um so speaking of which is speaking of long roads, uh, the road back for New York City. You are there in New York. You saw I'm sure that Major de Blasio and Governor Cuomo said let's slow down a little bit on indoor dining, uh, expansive outdoor dining. This is

a cautious reopening, to say the least. Uh, clearly informed by what we see going on in the rest of the country in New York and New York City specifically, not wanting to fall back. What do you make of it so far? The reopening? All right, this is really unexplored territory. We we it's not like there's a template, UH to follow. And I think New York certainly has done remarkably well compared to the rest of the country.

We dealt with a major hospital surge, and I think everyone is afraid, justifiably of either a second wave or losing ground, and that would be a real strain on not only the economics the hospital system, and so I think we have to be careful. Certainly, we know outside is better than inside. Wearing masks, having some social distance certainly reduces the risk. Um and I think he's trying

to be prudent. It's going to be very difficult to know when is the old clear signal that restaurants can go back, And I think that puts a question on the whole economy and um, yeah, and small business owners, you know they're they're under strain. So I think, um,

we do need to get back. The optimal time for that is unclear, and I think if there's any place to begin that, it appears in New York City is ready to take some some forward steps as long as we track and trace and contact trace and make sure we're not seeing any any recurrence or second wave right and we're getting ready for that Phase three reopening. Come to Lyst six um and thank you so much. Have a great holiday, a safe holiday, and of course we'll

check in with you next week. Dr I and Lost Beat, our clinical associate professor of Medicine at the n y U Landgoing Medical Center. On the phone from New York City. This is Bloomberg business Week with Carol Mazer and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Jason and I talked about this early. It's the perfect beach read, social distancing beach read mind you or stay cation or work from home cation read. Uh, there's lots of from home cation, you know. I think

you've a lot of sleep. I'm throwing a lot of words out there. Um. It has stolen Super Bowl rings, it has corporate espionage, and the most famous art heist in modern history. It is time for Business Week's annual Heist issue. It's a double issue, lots of stories of mystery and things gone missing behind it all. Features editor Max Chafkin on the phone from Queen's New York, along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber on the phone

in Massachusetts. Joel and Max gotta tell you we love this issue, and I feel like it's what everybody needs right now. Well that was why we made it go ahead, Joel. Well, you know, just the third annual Heist issue. It's a huge testament to one Max Chafkin, who has become just

the captain of this thing. And you know, Max and I just like all year long or basically like talking about this issue and like putting together our our works in progress list or whip list, and you know, trying to figure out the ones that are gonna make it or not make it. And you know that this issue is a culmination really of that process and a huge testament to him. And you know, all these UM reads.

You know, we've always said joke that, um, we want to kind of steal your summer with this issue and and boy, um could we have come out at a better moment in time for that. UM. So hopefully everyone can you know, pack this around all summer long and take their time enjoying it because the stories are just tremendously good. Max, what is your favorite? I mean, you know, I love them all, but the this story that Carol mentioned at the top, the Super Bowl Rings pis um

Is is epic and wonderful. It's by Zeeke Fox and I don't want to ruin the whole thing. Um, but it's about a very very very committed New England Patriots fans who decided, uh in basically that thirteen years ago to get revenge on on the Giants, and the way he decided to do that was by sealing their Super Bowl. Now and it wasn't even the biggest heist that he

went math for that, you'll have to read the story. Um. Uh. You know, you guys talked with clear Subteth yesterday, um about her story about the Gardner Museum where this five million dollar mystery remains, this this sort of thing in the art world that no one has ever been able

to crack. Um. My favorite little detail about that is we call it we've called it the case of the Empty Frames because the museum has to keep the frames empty on the walls because otherwise the the entire museum would actually turn over to Harvard and they have to keep things exactly as they were when the eras handed them down and created the museum. Um. So it's like a heist within a heist if they you know, if they act out of line. Um and and the stories

just kind of keep going. There's an amazing one that we just published today by Natalie Obico Pearson Um about Huawei and Canada where there was once a company called Nortel, a mysterious hack um sink that company Whahwei. It coincides with basically the moment in time that Huawei really started to emerge as a dominant force. And actually, uh Huahwei ended up hiring a whole team of Nortel engineers who basically ended up being the ones that built five g

at Wahwei. Uh. So all of these stories, it's a way of talking. And there's another one that we'll talk more about tomorrow. I hope um that make it very of the moment. So it's a way for us to be both timely and and timeless, which is sort of one of my favorite attributes that we try and do it. They're just so much fun. So, Max, I'm just curious about the conversations you guys have in the news room when you are putting this together. You gotta think about

it. It It comes out every year at least for the last four years, so you know what goes on in the newsroom as you get ready, you know, and you plan for this well so I mean these are mostly fun. Really not every story in this issue is what I would call, you know, a hundred percent fall laugh. Um. But but for the most part, we're talking about stories that are fun and entertaining to report and and and entertaining to write and entertaining to read. And so you know,

the reporters in the newsroom like this issue. It's a it's a kind of journalist favorite and um. And so yeah, throughout the year, you know, we're, like Joel said, you know, we're fielding pitches, um for these stories. The Super Bowl one that I mentioned was uh, you know months in the making. I think we first started talking about it

in October and November of last year. Um and uh and and and so it's it's kind of a combination of just sort of over the year, uh, you know, fielding a bunch of pitches, but then also trying to be a little bit imaginative and think about, you know, what are some what are business stories that you wouldn't necessarily think of as a conventional heist story, but that

could be thought of that way. And and and that's one that's like the North Tell story that that Joel mentioned, you know, also by the way Happy Canada Day everybody. I mean, the story is about a Canadian national champion that um was you know, through its own hand, through

the market, and through a hack was destroyed. And so it's not it's not a straight up heist, but it is a story where there where some theft plays a role, and there's also kind of a sort of business theft that is like one company taking another company's market share. So we try to take you know, a a sort

of broader view of heist. And then we and then but of course they have to have some like just classic you know, take the painting type type type stories and and and we actually have two of us issues. So so it's it's a mix Canada Dayay a zoom cocktail party for that one a little bit later on. So Max, just one last quick question for you. I mean, as you odd about this issue, and as Joel pointed out, you know, this is one that you're talking about for

months and months and months of in advance. Obviously the world changed pretty dramatically over the past four or five months. How does pandemic sort of infuse a project like this other than everybody's working remotely and you're probably doing to Carol's point just a minute ago, a lot more zoom calls. But how does it affect it editorially? Yeah, I mean in terms of the process, that's all the usual tough

stuff that everybody's going through. Um. But but in Turm, we we thought a lot about how to how to treat the pandemic because on one hand, you know, maybe maybe people don't want to read anything about you know, an art and art theft or something like that, because you know it couldn't be furthest thing, furtherest from your mind right now. And and our thought was like, look, people need a break where people are ready to obviously that there's there's room for um, there's room for all

kinds of stories and the pandemic. There is a teachy bit of pandemic in this issue. Um. But we just thought, you know, time to give people a little bit of a break, let them let them read some read some news and read some stories that that that you know, don't touch on this mullable thing that we're going through in and hopefully you know, readers will appreciate that. Yeah, I think it's great timing. Jason and I are still talking about the b story. We just love that one

from from last year. Alright, re up that. Go to business week dot com and re up that. Max Chafkin, thank you so much, Features editor for Bloomberg, the architect of the heist issue. Or thanks as well to Joe Webber, the editor of Bloomberg Business Week. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio, and it's time to do a little Business Week economics.

Let's talk about everything that's going on in the world of economics, Carol, because those FED minutes obviously very important in terms of setting the tone. UM. Happy to catch up with Winny Catalano. Yeah, he's a chief market strategist of its Duyveson Capital Management, global investment strategist at Defoe Red Mound on the phone for New Jersey. I'm being nice to have you back with us. How are you.

I'm doing well, How are you doing okay? I'm trying to make sense, you know, and just watching the virus developments, watching the economy, watching the market moves. UM, and of course we have those FED minutes earlier. You have some thoughts about the role of the FED, in which you talk about perpetuating a broken economic system. How so okay, several years ago I had an email debate going on with the then Minneapolis FED president Narayana cut up Coda,

I believe is how you pronounced his name. I asked a simple question, is the Fed back stopping bad economic behavior? Of course, that can happen from time to time, And his response was an interesting one. It was that they are appointed officials and it is not their job to um to do to disagree with say they might disagree with, but it's not their job to implement different policy than

elected officials, meaning politicians. And I just let that thought. Okay, it's sunk in for a while, and then I'm looking at the way the market has how the ft has behaved, and the markets have behaved in the economy and everything else over the years. And a couple of other things sorted to fall into place, which deals with the fact that we're in an economic system which I call neoliberalism,

which is the replacement from Keynesianism. And there are certain dynamics and elements that happened within this economic system of neoliberalism that involved a proactive the central bank. So now if you put those two things together. What you get is you get a proactive FED. Uh, not reactive like it had been in the past. But since the mid nineteen nineties, the FET has been proactive. It's been stepping in, has been um avoiding, doing its best to have the

economy avoid an economic downturn. You know, recessions happen and we end up getting these uh ten year period big hits to the economy because they don't allow the normal process to occur. So the FED is acting in this proactive manner. Elected officials love that idea because they don't have to make the hard choices. And we do need a new economic system because clearly neoliberalism is run its course. Just like Caijianism run its course. Neoliberalism is run its course.

We need something new, but it's not going to happen because I called the FED the monetary uh pueterion guard. Uh. They are the protectors of the emperor, the protectors of the empire. Alright, alright, we got a lot of questions, so you get it. Wait, hold on a second, So so go ahead, James, I think you've got something. Well, I mean, I have many questions, but how much of this is crisis induced Vinny, and how much of this was just going on before and now it's much more apparent. Okay,

everything seems to be a crisis. At least in terms this is a big one. I think we can agree this is a pretty big This is a big one, and this was needed. And this is where the FED traditionally has been reactive. It's necessary to do because of

what's happened circumstances, you know, uh, force the situation. But in prior periods, at the end off and the early part of when they went into the QUEUEI to infinity toolbox, it was at a point in time in which the financial markets were turning down, the economy was getting a little bit weak. It wasn't necessary at that point in time, at least from what I can tell that they had

a step in at that at that particular juncture. So there were points along the way in which they did things that did not allow the economy to go through it's normal creative, destructive process, as painful as that is, and then things build up and build up and build up, and then something comes along a catalyst, So this one was unusual, and then we end up with where we're at now. All right, So Okay, we've only got about two minutes a little bit over. So what what should

be the new economic system? And the other thing that I need to ask you. If the FETE did not come in after the Great Recession, after what's happened with the COVID shutdown, I am worried about what might have happened essentially to our economy, our market environment, um kind of to our system. Are you saying that we should have just let it come undone? No? Not. At those

points in time it was necessary to step in. They did what they needed to do to stabilize the system, to help the economy get out of a bad situation. But then along the way it stepped in repeatedly because of this market centric mentality of what neoliberalism is. And so therefore the FETE is just reflecting back on ideology. What a system that will replace it? I don't know. I don't know what it is. I just know the process. Finny, Jenny, you can't come up and tell me it's this huge

problem and they not have a solution. You're a man of solutions, Vinny, Well, you know that's a great point. What you need is what they call Erik Coffer called a man of words, let's call him a person of words, somebody who writes the economic theory that then gets adopted by the person of action. And if you look at neoliberalism, the person of words was Milton Friedman, Frederick Kayak fifties and sixties. And then along comes roun Oreagan, Margaret Santra Boom,

it gets implemented. Those are the people of action. Listen, I will say, I will say, and we're running out of time, but this is one of those things we could, you know, sit down at a bar, have some good red wine and really talk about it for a long time. But I do agree that there are some things in our economic system that we know, and certainly these crises continue to lay it out for us that we need to look at our system and maybe rework some things

so that it works better. Vinny um, always provocative. Have a great holiday. Nice to check in with you. Yeah, be well. Vinny Catalana, Chief Market Strategy at Stuyveston Capital Management, Global Investment Strategies at the Faux Red Mount, on the phone from New Jersey. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Let's get to our next story. Emily Chason is back with us.

She's talking about what we're all doing, which is working from home, Carol, and she is here to talk about what we do in a green world? Can we be sustainable while we're working from home? I would like to be Emily Jason shed on the phone, tell me what we should be thinking about. Yeah, hi, Green newsletter this week. UM, I was looking at what happened when everybody works from home, and you know, daily US carbon emissions were down in March to early June. So just eliminating the commute with

a huge impact in terms of reducing emissions. Um. But it turns out that's the only part of the story. While all these people were working from home. UM. We also talk to Google, and Google found that the number of people searching for how to live a sustainable lifestyle increased by four thousand five during the coronavirus period. So

people are trying to be more sustainable at home. I love your story because what you say when it comes to as Google searches, people are searching on composting, switching to green energy providers. That has all become populars popular, I mean people. I do agree that folks don't laugh at me, Jason, I'm because I can only see the very top of your head because sorry, I had to

stand up now. But what's interesting, Emily is we've been having this conversation, whether it's talking about sustainability, whether it's about race and diversity, Like we're all at home kind of really looking or you know, what we're eating. We talked about this with Impossible Foods the CFO, like what we're eating, we're really looking, taking a deep dive into our life and looking at kind of our actions and and that plays into what you write about in terms

of sustainability. Yeah, I mean when you're home, all the stuff that's visibility. You know, most people haven't sent that much time in their home or it just kind of come in and out every day, and you know, it's spending all the time really well, what am I really doing here? And it's very visible to you. And the things that you can do to actually reduce your emissions impact or maybe not that obvious, like using the dishwasher

is more energy and water efficient than hand washing dishes. Um, using cold laundry cold water to wash your clothes and the laundry um, says a huge amount of emissions. Like if you talk to practor and Gamble or seven generations, they'll say that that is a huge impact. I do almost all my laundry and cold water really, yeah, forever. And part of it is because it's better on your clothes, because hot water really in terms of the colors and pigments. So I almost always do all cold water and almost

all of my clothes. I'm sorry. And one of the ones today we found the still read this week about toilet paper. Um, I guess the stuff that we were getting in the office is made of more recycled content, and the fluffier stuff you buy at home is made of more virgin wood pulp from trees. Oh my god. We went so deep on that story, Emily. It was actually, I think disturbing to our listeners because we talked at nauseam. Emily.

It was a t m I moment. Yeah, it was just there was so much about buying habits and and I just I'm glad you weren't listening. But it is an important story. It's an important piece of the story. But it's an awareness, right like we had we have had now the soft toilet paper conversation at home and we might have to rethink that. I mean, my husband's like, do you really need that's love stuff? And you know, but but we're thinking about this stuff, right Yeah. Well,

I guess you know. One thing that's interesting about they two is there's a lot more single use classic out there. People are seeing the masks and the gloves on the ground and thinking, oh, well, am I using all the classic And you know, when you limiting your commute, you're actually probably reducing some of your single use plasticause you don't have that coffee cut to go or anything like that. But um, you know, the plastics industry has really pushed

but you know, their stuff is safe right now. And a screen piece just this month put out a piecing you know, usable bags and cups are still safe, Like they didn't want UM people to think that you have to do single use to be safe. You can still wash things and they're still safe from coronavirus. Yeah. I think we need to understand that we're on a mission in our home to get rid of UM. And I'm really sorry Ziplock, but Ziplock bags and things like we've

been buying a lot of those. The new kinds of is its silicone, silicon, um, the plastic and stuff that's supposed to be safer in terms of what the wax paper and yeah, like really rethinking that because you can go through so much of that stuff. Yeah, Well, it's it's interesting to change when people change habits to when you do that or like you know, stop buying straws um, but you do it. It's kind of hard and Sustainbillard

to unsee it. Right. Once you see something and you start doing it, you're kind of not going to go backwards on that behavior. Um. So it's pretty interesting as people adopt it and its they're going to stay home more. Um. That just to be sort of a long term impact. Well, and I will say, and I know you experienced this

to Carol. Kids are a great check on this, especially teenagers who are definitely much more environmentally aware of calling us out on you know, things, whether it's single use stuff for I don't know, I'm just spitballing here printing uh. In any case, Emily Chason, thank you so much, sustainability editor for Bloomberg, joining us on the phone from New York City. I'm bro journal Yeah, but you let me drive?

Oh no, no, no, no, who's going to honey? Please, I'll do the right revel I want to drive ball, just drive baby, questions trying. This is the Drive to the Globe that COMMU Boomberg Radio and it's time for the Drive to the clothes. Let's head south. Check back in with Kara Murphy, chief investment officer for Goldman Sex Personal Financial Management, joining us on the phone from Dallas. Also a proud Hoya I will point out alma of that fine institution. Kara. Great to have you back with

Carol and myself. So what's it like in Dallas right now? Well, it's amazing how quickly we've gone to being relatively unaffected by COVID to a new hot spot. So it hasn't changed too much, but definitely the headlines out So your life hasn't changed that much. Well, we've we've been locked down since mid March. You know, I spend a lot of walking up and down my street, not going to restaurants,

and so you know that really hasn't changed. But driving around, you know recently you had seen definitely more people out and about. Um, I think that's probably starting to change again. But you know, personally we're hold up like every boy else. So what does it mean as we you know, Jason and I kind of kid that, you know, we make a little bit of progress and then we fall back. I mean, that's certainly what we're seeing here in terms of the reopening UM. But it's not just about the reopening.

It's about the implications it has obviously on individuals on the economy. UM. Markets seem to be okay with it, so there is that disconnect, But how do you see it? Yeah, it's interesting because I think we can expect that there are going to be a lot of fits and starts with this virus for quite some time, so we're probably

going to have to get used to this. UM. But when we look very broadly at the market, and it's incredible to say this given all of the volatility that we've seen over the last couple of months, but when we look at the market today, it feels about fairly valued. And one way that we look at it is, you know, on purely evaluation basis, if you compare where we are today to a very long term historical average, we look expensive.

But that if you isolate those periods in history where inflation is low and stable as it is today, we look about in line with those periods, so that could mean that that likely means going forward, we can expect stock returns to be about mid single digits, in line with near term earnings growth. Um. But it feels like we're about where we should be. So that's kind of an amazing place to be here. And I was about to stay June, but it's actually July. So what's an

investor to do? I mean, I I look at this, you know, both from a professional perspective, but also as a guy who as a four oh one k who you know, sort of watched everything really plummet and then come back. But I'm still worried because I see the headlines and everything around the virus as well, you know, I see governors and mayors being very very cautious. Uh, and yet I see a market that's like to do to do? Here we go? So what do you do? Yeah?

And so I think one very interesting lesson that we've had during this downturn. And remember, like we've had a recession in a bear market in the last couple of rods. It's prettyful. But one lesson that I took away from that is that this downturn was in many ways very typical. So the speed at which it unfolded was very atypical. What normally takes months or years took weeks. So it's been very hard to kind of get our arms around that.

But during the downturn, we had risk assets like stocks and hay yield greatly under perform and we had bonds that did a really great job buffering during that period. And then as the market started to to to re um to re accelerate, we had the reverse of that. So, like a lot of these sorts, like classic lessons that individual investors should have, I think we're the right ones.

So you need to have a diverse, fied portfolio. You might be all really excited about stocks, but they're gonna be periods when stocks are going to greatly underperform um and so it's really best to have a mix of both. You sound I just want to break in. You sound fairly enthusiastic, and I just do wonder we're going to head into another earning cycle. Um, what do we need to hear when companies report that support the bounce back

that we've seen in equity so far? Yeah, And it's interesting because even just this morning we got some I s M manufacturing data that was quite optimistic, you know, coming in at the headline number, coming in at fifty two point six UM. This tends to be a pretty good leading leading indicator for the next couple of months. And also some more contemporaneous data that we've seen in terms of UM people getting out on the road, more

consumer spending. So I think what we're just gonna want to see is more on the ground data confirming that, you know, people are indeed starting to open their wallets more, some people are getting back to work. There are obviously some areas of the economy that are continued to go and continue to be really challenged. You know, sing bars are probably going to be really challenged for quite some time. But other areas, like technology are able to operate pretty

well remotely. I mean, my business, everybody's at home and we're just as productive as we were. So not to say that there aren't challenges, but I think we're gonna want to hear from companies that they're continuing to kind of get back to a state of normal. So, Kara, if you can generalize, what's the tone of the calls that you're getting from clients as you talk to them, how are they feeling? Does it depend on where they

are geographically, like what's the tone from them? Yeah, it's very interesting because throughout this period I will say that by and large, our clients felt okay, which again it's remarkable given what we've been through. And I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is, you know, I firmly believe that an investment portfolio, it should be constructed in the context of a financial plan. We have to know what's important to our clients in order to

build that plan for them. So what that means is that we talk a lot about long term goals, about you know, margin of error, and even though we had a significant downturn in the market, our clients knew that they were still on track to meet those goals. And that's really key to sit through volatility, I have to say.

I mean that has been a point of comfort for me at least so far as like you got like, you know, you sort of like squinter your eyes a little bit, like you brace yourself and you look at the formumday you're like, okay, like maybe you know, maybe we're gonna be okay to all of this. Yeah, amazing, all right, Kara Murphy. Great to hear your voice. Good luck down in Dallas, especially at what is certainly an

uncertain time there in Texas. Kara Murphy is chief investment Officer for Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management, joining us on the phone from the Big d. Thanks so much for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, Southcloud, Bloomberg dot com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course you can always listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News