Meta's Smart Watch Revealed to Compete With Apple

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. Also never stopping are the headlines when it comes to the pandemic and the vaccine. Connecticut New York among the ten U S states with the biggest declines in new cases during the week through Wednesday. That's according to the CDC. They put that data out today. Infections in the US Northwest, though Tim they continue rising.

Troubled spot though China, Yeah, Russia also suffering its deadliest September since World War To Denmark, one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, were more than double its testing capacity after a number of virus infections jumped in recent week seeing different things play out in different parts of the world and even different parts of the U S.

Al right, so let's get to it. As he always joins us on Fridays, or at least typically, Dr Ian los bed or clitical professor of Medicine at n y U Land going back with us, and he's on the phone in New York City. Dr los Bed are nice to be back with you on this Friday. The China stuff is troubling to me because it feels like they have been on top of it. We know that they have kind of basically locked people into their homes when

there's outbreaks. They have a vaccine, and yet China we saw intercepting two bullet trains headed Debijing on concerned staff may be infected. They now have cases in almost half of its provinces from the latest flare up China. Does that mean they're vaccine isn't working? How do you see that? Happy Friday guys? Yeah, definitely. Um. We we still are wrangling with COVID and it looks like we will globally still have quite a ways to go, certainly pandemic, perhaps endemic,

but we're not done with viral mutations. Right, as long as there is not really herd immunity, there's the opportunity. We're seeing this in the UK with the Delta plus variant that's about six to that is somewhat resistant and to our alpha vaccines. That's really part of the problem is until you get everyone either infected or or vaccinated, you do risk having these mutations. To data from China has always been a little sketchy. Exactly how many cases,

how well the vaccine works very unclear. It does appear that Sputnik and the Signo vac are not as effective as the uh, you know, M R and A vaccines or even a J and J vaccine that's been used. So I think that is potentially again a global risk, just like India when Delta first occurred, we were like, oh, just a few cases, and now that's a global dominant strain.

What's happening in China could be another risk. Unfortunately, what about what's happening in the UK, Because I think about throughout the pandemic, we've sort of seen what happens in the UK start to happen in the United States a few weeks later. That's sort of how it's play out. Uh NBC is reporting that a sub variant of COVID nineteens delta strain is now emerging in the UK and it now makes up of cases there what's going on?

So that is the a Y four point two variant, and it is a couple of mutations in the in the delta variant from our alpha original strain. Even though it's about ten it does and it appears to be slightly more infectious. It doesn't appear to be any more letho or have any any further complications. So I don't think that at this point is going to be a

serious risk to US or to the UK. But it does show how over time you're just getting more mutations and potentially any one of them could be more adaptable or more um transmissible or more lethal um although over time we tend to see these viruses tend to mutate to be more infectious but less lethal, So that I guess is the good news. Um. I just feel like there's like the same headlines we're dealing with on a weekly basis, but we do get some more information whether

it's mixed and match. You know you've had the virus. I don't need a vaccine. We just talked to him and I earlier about no, you actually still need to get the vaccine. As we all continue to kind of increasingly walk out into the world and start to resume our normal lives, what do we need to keep front and center here Ian when it comes to COVID. So certainly people who have had COVID, and many people don't know they've had COVID, they may be very They could

have had a simple upper respiratory tract infection. Not everyone gets that seck, so we may have better heard immunity than we think. But for the people who do know they've had COVID, they may be able to get what's called hybrid immunity, which really just one m R and a shot. Hopefully there's not a lot of vaccine hesitancy, but you know, to get you to refiser and maderna shot if you've had COVID probably really boost your antibodies and certainly would boost your protection for a long period.

But this is what we're seeing with some of the vaccine mandates, and healthcare workers and cops and firemen saying, hey, I might have had it. Why why you're making me go through a vaccine there's some data that it may be helpful, but there's also some data that if you've had it, you're reasonably protected for a while. But the

CDC still says to get vaccinated even if you've had COVID. Yes, there's no question that getting the hybrid you know, vaccine meaning you've had COVID you most people lose their antibodies over time, even if they have cellular immunity. But getting a booster shot definitely improves um your antibody response and your survivability. So it it is, But do you really need two shots after that? Most people would say no. Probably one shot is all you need to boost your

immunity and decrease your risk of transmission. So everybody should probably eventually get a booster. But that's you just need one booster. You don't need to write exactly. Those are the people who've who have had COVID or who've had antibodies, and it's certainly reasonable for some people to check antibodies. If you're antibodies are still positive, you know, yes you would get a boost, but that's you know, less of a serious concern. All right, really appreciate it, Ian, thank

you have a great weekend. Dr Ian lesbad Our, clinical professor of Medicine at n y U Landgo Medical Center, on the phone from New York City. You know, I was at a point where was it racing to get a booster. I kind of pulled back and just thought, I gotta wait my turn. It's funny. Do you see this play out? My brother who's a teacher in Washington got his. My other brother who works in education, just got his today in California. Right, We're seeing them certainly happen. Alright,

this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio and Facebook Meta platforms is at about two pc as we speak on this Friday. Hey, there's some news out there. First up, we got the name check name change, I should say. Then we got the company going after the Apple Watch. Let's bring in Bloomberg News Technology report of Mark German joining us on Bloomberg Radio and on YouTube.

So Mark, what do you know? Thanks for having me? I mean, who else to talk about an Apple Watch competitor? Then the guy who covers Apple right, So, um, we know we've known for a little bit of time now that Facebook is working on a smart watch. But yesterday we actually got our first look at the device. We obtained a photo or an official render of the Facebook smart watch. H this was this is actually really cool,

this is really interesting. So we found it with the help of a friend of mine and developer named Steve Moser, inside of the Facebook app that the company offers to consumers today to control remember those rayband smart classes and Facebook launch a few weeks ago to troll those. So they did a software update earlier this week for that app called Facebook View and that image if you really deep dive in into the source code, into the file system of that application, it's just hiding in there, and

they added it in there this week. So pretty remarkable stuff. Mark. The first thing that sticks out to me when I saw this image in the story that you published was the camera at the bottom of the smart watch. What is that for? Because that's different than an Apple Watch. There's no camera on an Apple Watch. Oh man, I don't know what they're thinking. So first of all, it's like a notch, right, It's like a little circle at

the bottom of the screen. So they cut into the screen. However, what I will say is that I think people have been clamoring for video chat on the Apple Watch for a few years now. They haven't done it because of battery life concerns. They certainly tested it totally imagine. You're right, but like, imagine being able to do a video chat on your risk, not a one minute chat. I mean that would be kind of cool inspector Gadget style. Right,

I've done the phone call on it. I feel a little bit like a nerd, but it's been kind of cool. But you're right. If we could get a video chat, oh my god, I would be all in. So that's Facebook's portal system. Facebook has this portal kind of like Alexa device that might work with it, right, yeah, I mean that would make sense to me, using the same protocols there is that the portal uses. Maybe they'll brand it as a portal watch or some sort of device.

What's interesting to me is that a lot of the feedback I've been hearing on this product already has been people saying I don't want a camera from Facebook, let alone in my home. You're telling me I would want one on my body, thanks? Right? Um, these are there are real privacy concerns and the Facebook brand was so tarnished in terms of privacy. There's a reason they're Meta now, right, So we'll see how this does. If the ray bands are any indication, I don't think this is going to

be a slam dunk. What I'm told is the Facebook has not made a final decision yet on if they're going to release this product, this particularly particular design. What I'm told they've developed models aimed at and when they decide to launch it, whether that's in twenty two or twenty four, they'll launch that corresponding model. So there's a possibility they skipped the twenty twenty two version and their

first models the twenty three or twenty four versions. So we still may have a few years to go, but maybe some new found competition in the watch base for Apple. Well, that's what I'm wondering. Does it say something more broadly mark about what Meta wants to do when it comes to the wearables market and listen, they've got a great initially user base that they can tap, but I just

I wonder about it. Would it still be if they get into it a niche market for them like it is too Somewhat I guess it's safe to say for Apple, Facebook is never going to win the phone. Sorry, Meta meta is never going to win the phone. It is way too saturated with iOS, Android and some of the other devices you see from Samsung and Google and such. So they're needing to pick up the edges, right, they

need to invent this new category. So they're trying to own video devices with the portal, with this upcoming watch, and of course what they're calling the metaverse with these VR and a R devices. So they're really going for the edges, and they're trying to build up their own

new ecosystem to pull people away from Apple. Right. The goal is is that Apple, that Facebook meta is going to kill the iPhone and Android with these other types of devices, replaced the phone with the metaverse with the watch. I know that sounds all kind of crazy, but this is what they're trying to do. We wait ahead, okay, ten seconds mark? What is Apple trying to do in the metaverse? Apple is going to announce its first mixed reality headset probably later next year. Is Apple going to

rename itself then bring the computer back in Apple Computer Inc? Meat? Maybe look go to Meat. Isn't that what Wayne. Oh, Mark German, you are the best. Have a great weekend, Mark German. He's a Bloomberg News technology reporter, covers just all things Apple, but then when it's something going on that might defect Apple, he's on it as well and then includes that news out of Facebook, or at least speculation not Facebook. Sorry, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week

with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovich on Bloomberg Radio. Let's get to it because one of our reporters writing for Bloomberg Business Week. In the current issue of the Bloomberg Business Week magazine, it's online on newsstands, also on the Bloomberg it's about Facebook now known as Meta, including how Meta needs to change more than it's named, Tim as the competition among the handful of big tech companies really is heating up. Alex Webs, a correspondent for

Bloomberg Quick Take. He joins us on the phone from London. Alexi, Right, for the first time, all five of the U S tech giants are going to keep be competing directly. It's not clear though, that Mark Zuckerberg can't escape his past. How does this change that Zuckerberg outlined this week and subsequent name change, how does that put all five big tech companies competing with one another head to head? Well, I mean it's the name change and all of itself

that renders the new competition active. But you know, we've got at this stage, Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook all developing products in the augmented and virtual reality space. They are on a collision course to be competing with one another. The danger, of course with Facebook that Facebook has into usually is that the name has become quite toxic.

And when you're competing with Apple, which has really forged a kind of cachet as a company that values use a privacy and respects to use a data, that's something that Facebook has to deal with because really it's not something that we recognize faceboofore all staring so stead and giving itself a new name, it's an effort to shed itself in some of that toxicity. Join us also, Plumber business to get her Joe Webber Agel Hi, Hi, Alex, thanks again for this story. Um yeah, it's like this.

It's the great thing of like, are you willing to throw all your cards in the air and just completely pivot? Well, you, you know, your your company, and your brain faces like the the most scrutiny it's ever phased, and the heat just gets turned up and it's like, well, let's just pivot.

So so Alex. Like when you think about Mark Zuckerberg's movie here, like obviously he's been talking about this for a while, how quickly though, Like do people in the technical universe think that he actually maybe pulled all of this together in terms of like, you know, executing it as a masterstroke or attempting them to do so. And this has clearly been in the works for some time, you know, they have. They brought Oculus years ago, Oculus Ripped, which is now all being rebranded out as Meta Um

the rebrand itself. It's hard to know how quickly that came together, but the timing is certainly opportunity and at the moment when the criticism seems to have reached its loudest crescendo to day um. You know, Facebook has been through plenty of crises in the past few years, but it really feels this time, and maybe I'm wrong, it just feels that there is something a bit different. There is real meat on the bones of the things that

they've been doing wrong. There are concrete proposals for what they can fix and what they should fix, and um, there is legislation in the works both here and in the US which gives regulators more power to force them to do stuff. So all those things come together as a perfect storm. But the timing for changing the name

is particularly appropriate. Well, so I think you say regulators too, and I feel like we have just problems getting basic stuff through sometimes in Congress, and I just think how a regulator is going to be able to really keep up with something like this that Facebook meta is working on. It was some point actually made by Nick Clegg, of course, the form of British Deputy Prime Minister who now heads um, you know, corporate affairs and communications on Facebook. He said

that the metaverse is not going to arrive tomorrow. It's going to take perhaps a decade. That means, in his telling, that the regulators have more time to catch up with this than they might do normally. Uh, you know, we know that they tend to be five years behind any technological innovation when it comes to deciding how to regulate it.

Perhaps this time around that won't be the case. That also might just be wished for thinking on our part and indeed his Yeah, so, Alex, let's the set Facebook's opportunity here compared to some of these other big tech players who we also know as you as you wrote, will end up in the same swimming pool. Uh, what advantages does Facebook have and how does that compare with with the other companies since everybody's going to end up

perhaps having multi metaversees. I actually wonder what you know, it's clearly one of the risks with if you're running your own sort of metaverse metavirus and metaverse, then you are going to be having to manage that content and there are going to be content risks in this and for all of the problems that Facebook has had managing content, and it's got a lot more experience doing it than does, for example, Apple, And so that might actually prove to

be an advantage if you find they are running the ecosystem themselves, that they have got people working on these problems already, that might give them a jump starts on Apple. Where they don't have is a distribution network in terms of actually selling devices. Apple and Amazon in particular have incredible sales networks. Um, but Facebook does have an interesting partnership that it is signed with Slow lux Otica. It's not a name that many people know, but it owns

in the US Ray and Oakley Sunglass Heart. It controls of the global eyewear market. And you can imagine that you're going in to buy your glasses and there's also Facebook Smart glasses in there. Then all of a sudden has quite compelling sales channel. That is not, as I understand that, the scope of their agreement with a sort of good just yet, but it is something that could evolve. Hey, Alex, can you talk a little bit about the advertising opportunity

in the metaverse because Facebook is an advertising company. In your story, you talk about the way that Facebook knows what you're doing because of what you're doing on Instagram and Facebook's apps, But how will it track you and then advertised to you in the metaverse? So that is absolutely the potentially really creepy thing in the metapurse right now.

Facebook has pretty granular data on what you're browsing, not just what you click on and the accounts you follow, but what photos you linger on and therefore on Instagram, for example, it knows which things you look at a little bit more and is more likely to suggest that you follow similar content. Now with the Metaverse, they actually showed off technology which is sort of eye tracking m

gauging your facial expressions. It showed them for different purposes to see what you're looking at in order that you could decide to, for instance, turn on a light, um and face tracking in order to show your expressions on Navatar. But it's not hard to imagine how that could also

be used for advertising purposes, engaging your interest. If you're walking down the high street and you see a shop window and you think that Facebook that shot window is more appealing to you than another one, it can target

adds theory to you based on that. I wish Facebook could see my face right now when you're describing this to me, Alex, I'm I'm looking at your face right now, and you look a little dubious, um seeing I was gonna ask you you want to do this program from the metaverse, because is like, I'm just I'm still really curious. Like the last time I really really really use Facebook was to like email a bunch of graduates from my high school class to like we're going to help organize

a reunion. And now I'm like, well, the reunion was terrible anyway, and using you know, drawn back into all these old friends. What about Instagram? No, well, I guess here's the thing that was Like, could you imagine like a reunion that just took place in the metaverse and you didn't actually have to like go back to that high school, Like okay, that could get to be an avatar and look like you did when you're eighteen. Like that sounds better than dealing with reality anyway. Right, It

sounds novel, but it doesn't. I don't know if it has staying power, if it's sticky, right, it sounds cool to do a few times. My dystopian view is that with climate change, we're not gonna be able to go outside, so all we're going to have is the metaverse. Happy Friday everyone, Sorry you would get teased for what we're talking about later on the show, Miss Sunshine. All right, Joe Webber, have a great, great weekend, Metaverse or not.

Alex Web correspondent at Bloomberg Quick Takes. Check out everything and check out the new is shoe of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. This is Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser, and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic

from Bloomberg Radio. All right, so we talked about Ether, second largest cryptocurrency, staring to a record today, about it's backed off of that, but a lot of bullish sentiment around that because of an upgrade of the Ethereum network, and also we've just seen Bitcoin take off big time. In a weekly crypto segment, we've got back with us Matthew Segeal. Matthew Segel as head of digital Assets at van Ack. He joins us on the phone from New

York City. Matthew, October has been a banner months. But for many cryptocurrencies, whether they're meme stock, meme coins I almost said meme stocks, they're meme coins, or more established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or ethereum. What is the next catalyst as we looked the remainder of the year that's going

to continue to send cryptocurrencies higher, Hi can Tim? Hi? Yeah, the story remains the same, which is increased activity on multiple blockchains, Bitcoin and Ethereum and other smart contract protocols UM. So you know, there's going to be close to four trillion dollars of value that's sent across the Bitcoin network. This year. The same goes for Ethereum. That's four times the amount of PayPal growing four times faster. So consumers and businesses around the world adopting this technology as a

way to save costs program instructions into their money. Uh, you know, globally seven it's it's a compelling use case that continues to take market share, and that's the driver of the prices over the last month and for longer. Matt gotta ask you. You're just back from El Salvador, the Latin American nation last month becoming the world's first country to officially adopt bitcoin. Who did you talk with,

who did you meet with? What are you hearing about it and how it's kind of going, because you know, that's a test lab, if you will, or test case for us when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Yeah, I recently returned from a trip there, visited government officials, banks, entrepreneurs, went to Bitcoin Beach, was which was really the initial catalyst for the adoption of bitcoin is legal tender. Uh. They're now more than three million El Salvadorians who have

used the achieve of bitcoin wallet. They're sending two million dollars a day in remittances across the network at zero fees, So if you annualize that, that's close to three percent of GDP because this is an economy that is really dependent on remittances for their growth. Uh. And then the country has also recently begun mining bitcoin from the energy

stranded in their volcanoes. So it's really a remarkable achievement that's allowing a very poor emerging market to essentially manufacture scarce money using stranded energy resources that otherwise would would go to waste. So I found it an incredibly progressive development. I think he'll be hearing more news about this over the next year, whether it's Ukraine, Belarus, one of the

French Central African colonies, or maybe even Brazil. There will be more countries that adopt bitcoin is legal tender because it is a rational counterbound to the dollar who gemony that they've lived under for for so long. Did you actually get to see, Matthew, the bitcoin mining operations that

are harnessing volcanic activity. I did not see a first hand that that will be uh an experience for for a second trip, Okay, because I'm just wondering if they're able to do it yet, and how success how quickly they were able to do that. You mentioned some other countries based on what you saw in El Salvador. What do you think this says about where this happens next,

when or if another country adopts it as legal tender? Sure, you know, well some I think it's five percent of the world economy is currently you know, facing default to the I m F. So you know, countries that have been limited or constrained by rules or decisions that you know, in a way compromise their sovereignty. These are kind of the natural um early adopters to try to create a parallel monetary system that restores them some measure of autonomy.

And the game theory here is that if if one country doesn't do it, another will, And El Salvador was, in our view, you know, the first of a of a tipping point. So it's hard to predict who will be next. But there are a lot of nations that have adopted the dollar, maybe not as their first choice. And what we're learning from El Salvador's experiment is that

it is possible to forge another path. Well, just like to some extent emerging markets, we've seen this kind of skip maybe credit card usage and just go right to using the plane, using your phone, excuse me, from mobile payments, right,

and that becoming your bank and everything financial. I do wonder if there's something to be said with developing nations, um, matt when it comes to crypto use, Will they be the ones the really true, as I said, test sites and really give us the real world usage of this. I think that's spot on. Emerging markets often find it rat sal to skip an intermediary technology, you know, such as the fax machine and going straight to the internet. Uh, and you know that's that's what That's what we're seeing

with cryptocurrencies pretty broadly. Okay. We saw the launch of the first futures back bitcoin et F last week. Yeah, okay, sorry, Okay. Anyway, I'm wondering, Matthew, what we're going to start to see when it comes to investment products that are available not just to retail investors, but from for advisors who want to make this available to their clients. Sure, the institutional

adoption really is the next leg of this story. By our estimates, listed companies own about one percent of outstanding bitcoin, The Great Scale Bitcoin Trust is another four and then with the emergence of these alternative vehicles, such as futures ETFs that will just you know, widen the available vehicles that institutions can you used to get access to this

asset class. Um. So as you may have heard that bitcoin futures have you know, rather consistently underperformed the spot price, right, and so you know, we continue to believe that it's a physical bitcoin ets that will be the best vehicle for traditional investors to get exposure to this asset class and a traditional brokerage account more liquidity, um, you know, better tracking error. But you know the regulators have been

slow to approve that, right. There's been a lot of conversations about underlying asset and when it comes to futures in cryptocurrencies. Um, thank you so much, really appreciate it. Matthew Siegel, he's head of digital assets researcher at Vanneck on the phone in New York City. I don't know what if I thought it was Pico Bett b I T that's one point today. By the way, this month crypto goes one way. Yeah, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no, this is not a toy, all right, please,

I want to dry good. Question is the drive to the clothes on Bluebird radio. So just got about ten minutes left, getting ready to wrap up the Friday tradeing session, getting ready to wrap up the weekend, getting ready to wrap up a month. Time? Where does it go? Where does it go? Time flies when you're having fun? Uh? And we are seeing stucks definitely off their lows, near their highs of the session. Let's get to it. I'm so excited he's back with us. Love talking with Doug Ramsey.

He's chief investment officer over the Louthhole Group, their core investment fund, by the way, beating most of its peers, many of its peers, I should say, a year to date up about almost thirteen percent this year in the past twelve months. Doug is back with us on the phone from Minneapolis. Doug, how are you. I'm doing well. What do you make of the market? Trade? Definitely a different tone this month versus last month. What stands out for you? Well, you know, just the way this market

is absorbing news is really impressive. I mean, you have two titans of industry of technology disappointing uh, yesterday and you know here we have we have them and the stocks aren't up, but the nastack is up on the day and it's up three on the on the week, in a week in which sort of the average stock and a very good measure of that that we scrutinized pretty closely is the value line rithmetic composite. It's sort of obscure, but it's valuable because it's stocks equal weighted

and that's down to percent on the week. So pretty pretty odd action. I mean, clearly renewed focus on just you know, these megacap tech stocks. It's it's it's pretty amazing. Yeah. I think the term that I'm looking for is thank you, Tesla. That's what it's. I mean, that's really what this this week looked like. And we're seeing that offset. We're seeing off that offset losses for UH, for Apple and for

Amazon today. At least duck Um will help us make sense of that a little bit, because you write that we're in the steroids era, wiping out all other yardsticks of excess. And you illustrate this with something that I think a lot of our listeners are familiar with. Anonymous owner of a crypto wol it has made almost six billion dollars on an eight thousand dollar investment since August. What is this is illustrating to you, well, what's interesting.

I mean you've written about it at length, but I mean there's not a lot of widespread commentary on that. I mean, this is a six billion dollar trade. I mean it totally eclipses, uh, you know, the Big short by John Paulson. He personally made four billion dollars back in two thousand eight after elaborately structuring you know, there's

bet against some prime mortgages. And then of course, uh, George Sorrows and stand Druck and Miller made a billion dollars in a day shorting the short in the pound. I mean those stood as like the hallmarks of the greatest trades of all time. And and now we have a no name and who knows, maybe it's not a no name making six billion dollars on an eight thousand dollar investment in two months. Just I mean the comparison, any comparison to the tech bubble, I mean, we've really

blown away most of those. Um, I think this year with just I mean kicking it off with the big short squeeze, you know in game stopped kicking off the year, and things have just gotten progressively wackier. What money is still floating around? What do you do doug to makes sense of cryptocurrencies, Like, as a technician, are there things that you feel like with certain conviction that you can kind of understand this market better more clearly or I don't know. I'm not sure that I do. I think

it's just a function of the environment. I mean, if you think that this mania has got some life left in it, and that's you know, there are a lot of economists that would point to and I mean, this is it's factual. I mean we're only a year and a half into this economic expansion. Now. If you look at environmental indicators, whether it's economic measures unemployment at only four percent, profit margins at record highs, or whether it's more market sentiment measures, I mean, none of that stuff

is early cycle. None of that is consistent with an economic expansion that's only a year and a half old. More of it's consistent with a single economic expansion that's like thirteen years old, being back to oh nine. That's what I wanted to ask you. How are we supposed to assess the pandemic which was fell apart, economy shut down, Everything was fell off a cliff, right, We just stopped and then we bounced back when we started to get

support and we started to get the vaccine. So is it just part of the economic cycle that was happening or do we look at it as a new cycle, especially when you look at the supply disruptions and we're trying to reassess, you know, labor, does the market not go back to where it was pre pandemic? So are we now in kind of a new market cycle era, new economic cycle era? You know, I think it's more productive to look at it is just you know, an extension and an acceleration of a long cycle. I mean,

it was just a temporary interruption. It was a very scary one. But it didn't you do anything to purge prior accesses. I mean, to the contrary, I mean, we doubled down on prior accesses in terms of you know, uh, lobbying on yet another trillion in in corporate debt um. I mean, I'm not saying that credit quality is compromised because profits are so good right now and rates are still low. Why aren't credit? Why is in credit more

compromised in your view? I mean, why do I think it's I mean, spreads are incredibly tight, but you know, with rates this low, Yeah, and cash flow pretty strong. You know, it's hard to see an imminent weakening and credit quality, but I think the risk reward for you from here is very appetizing. Hey, you just got about a minute or so left here. You know, I love talking to you for so many different reasons. But tell us when you look at the market. You're neutral on

the stock market right now? Tell us what you're seeing and how we should be playing it as we take higher here near the close on this Friday. Well, the plane is a good word because it's certainly more speculative

market than one with a lot of investment appeal. I mean, we are one ones as you mentioned, to look to look at the charts and you know, with again sort of the average stock that value line measure making a new high earlier in the week, New York Stock Exchange Daily bread making a new high earlier in the week.

I mean, even though I mean we've rotated back to the usual suspects of things, it's still a broad market, and it would be very unusual for at the top right here with the market as broad as it has been. So despite the fact that we don't like valuations, that's nothing new in our shop of late and that we're leia on the tapering. From a technical perspective, it says there's probably more life left before you have a severe setback.

I think related to the tapering that we gotta run. Sorry, Doug, have a good week, and Doug Ramsey, chief investment officer at the loose Hold Group, joining us on the phone from Minneapolis. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, soundcrowd, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News