Once Upon a Time on Wall Street

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search Bloomberg Global News. There's a lot going on, as there is every day when it comes to COVID nineteen and the vaccine, watching the impact though that COVID is having on public health, specifically Dr Jessica Holzer, Assistant Professor in Health Sciences and Director of Public Health at the University of New Haven, with us on the phone from new Haven, Connecticut. Doctor holds, are nice to have you here, How are you? I'm all right, Thank you for having me.

What's good to have you here? A lot going on is there is always in our world, but in particular when it comes to COVID, and I think we continue you to assess, minute by minute, two steps forward, one

step back, where are we going? How do you see it? Yeah, so I think, Um, even though it might feel like two steps forward one step back, I think it's really important to keep focused on the fact that we are in a much different place today than we were a year ago when we were facing some of these other return to school questions and return to work questions. We do have a vaccine available for people twelves and older. Um,

and that really sets a tone for what's possible. Because we have a vaccine, and because we have enough supply now anyone who can get vaccinated, that creates a really important avenue for an additional layer of protection. Uh. And so I think that really has changed where we are, what dance we're dancing now. Um. It's important to recognize that the delta variant is a different variant than the alpha variant in terms of how the vaccines are effective.

But even though there seems to be some less effectiveness for vaccines, they're still very effective relative to not being vaccine at it. And I think that's an important point for us. But getting more vaccines out there safe to say, is a key activity that needs to be done to make sure that this virus doesn't essentially mutate to a variant that doesn't react or isn't taken care of by

the current plate of vaccines exactly. So, the longer that we have unvaccinated population, So this includes kids, which is why it's still a very high priority for the vaccine distributors and vaccine manufacturers to take into account the kids under the age of twelve. But we see that particularly for that twelve or thirty five population, We see that's a population that still has substantially lower vaccination rates than population is older than thirty five, and especially the sixty

six and above population. And it's important to recognize that they are going to be the students in schools in a lot of cases, um, both in middle school, high school, and in college that are going to be prevented with opportunities to in that communal setting and continue to infect one another and to serve as Petrie dishes who are

new variants. Uh. And so this delta variant has come about in part because of selection pressure, which is just um, you know, which which variant can survive in the environment the most, and a variant that's going to be able to avoid vaccination and be able to um repopulated people who are unvaccinated. That's going to be the variant that's

going to become dominant, as we've seen with Delta. So avoiding future variant Lambda and others is going to essentially depend on us getting as many people vaccinated as possible, getting that vaccine rollout globally, and really trying to reduce the available population who is at risk for developing COVID and therefore would be at risk for COVID replicating into new variants and new variants coming to the floor. What do you say to parents who come up to you

and say, my kids are going back to school. I'm a little nervous, they're too young to get the vaccine. How should we proceed? Yeah, so I am a parent of a child too young to get the vaccine, who is herself dealing with those questions though they are very pertinent, and uh, it's essential to those parents to recognize that the more adults around those children who are vaccinated, the

safer those children will be. So my child is unable to get vaccinated, she just turned for and the way that I'm protecting her is that every single adult she interacts with is vaccinated. I'm making sure they're vaccinated. I'm making sure that they are still practicing safe practices. So even if they're vaccinated, I'm asking questions with respect to where have they've been traveling, what have their activities? Then are they possibly someone who has been exposed to someone

who had the delta variant? Because we are seeing that there are some breakthrough infections for vaccinated individuals. So those parents, you know, advocate as much as possible for masking. UM. Masking your own child is really important, but it's very very essential that if other children are unmasked, like trying to get that you place. I know, this is a source of some real political friction. And so nevertheless, parents have a lot of power to demand masking among their

schools and those sorts of places. UM, and keeping those adults vaccinated is really essential. What are you seeing in communities around the country, UM, some of those less fortunate communities where people are just struggling maybe to you know, keep a roof over the heads of their family and get food on the table. Um, how are you seeing them in terms of the crisis. I think about New

Haven certainly one of those communities. Yeah, sure, Yeah. New Haven had some substantial economic variation and populations that have historically been left out um of economic mobility and a lot of other things, and that's been a key issue, especially for vaccination. UM. It's been both an information in

an access question. What we've seen in New Haven is that we have had door to door vaccination campaigns and I've actually been involved in some of those, uh, and most have been really effective at trying to address some of the homebound issues, some of the education issues, and some of the access issues that have presented themselves. UM. I think now it really depends on leaders in community right and UM at the state level to keep pressing

that out so the individuals art responsible themselves. That focus on community is so important throughout this We've heard that from so many. Jessica, thank you so much. Jessica holds her She's assistant professor program director of Public Health at University of New Haven. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio.

One of the discussions that I think surprised some, perhaps even many, over the past year or so as we often talked about diversity and inclusion, was the lack of just that in Silicon Valley, the epicenter of US innovations. So feeling that deficiency big time are Asian Americans. And that's the subject of a Bloomberg Business Week story that you can find online and on the Bloomberg terminal. Let's get more on it from pre a non She is

Bloomberg Venture Capital reporters. She joins us right now on the phone in San Francisco and on the remote access in Massachusetts. Bloomberg business Week editor Jill WEBARDA, let me bring you in. You did the reporting along with our Ellen Hewitt. Tell us what you set out to find out or what was it that triggered the question that you knew that there was. Okay, I've got to ask and find out more about the story. That's right. So we've known for a while that Silicon Valley is not

great with diversity. And you would assume these companies, you know, um companies crop up every day here. These a lot of these companies are are not that many decades old. You would assume that they weren't sattled with some of the historical issues that other institutions that have been around

for maybe hundreds of years might be saddled with. But one one key thing that we realized was, you know, in the demographic reports that these companies put out Alphabet, Google's parent company, Facebook, etcetera, one bright spot always appears to be that Asian's account for almost as much of the company as white folks and sometimes more of the population. At a company in the US, at least Facebook, for example, Asian people outnumber they're white peers, UM, ever so slightly

in the US. And so we looked at that a little deeper and we realized, you know, there is a gap as you move up the ranks at tech companies, and the data shows this, um, there are far fewer Asian folks in leadership compared to your overall representation at the company. UM. So we noticed that gap, and we thought, you know what is behind that gap. Let's start asking the questions and talking to people. Yeah, and you know, Joel,

I think it is a surprise. You know, we do often cover how tech companies and we talk with tech company executives. They love to say we've got a lot of diversity and inclusion, and yes, sometimes that is the case, but it's not such a clear picture picture. It's a lot more complicated. Yeah, and I think that you know that is was really the thrust of the story. And what pred um I think remarkably well is like there's the data set of the story, ben't then there's the

human one. And so I just wanted to actually like take a moment like these are people who haven't often spoken on the record about sort of the environment that the work environment that they're in. And and there were several themes that um uh stuck out I think in the reporting and and why don't you just talk to us about what some of those were and what people felt. Yeah, and Michel said, so, one of the things that is most frustrating for Asians in the tech industry is that

the racism against them is barely acknowledged. There's this idea. I spoke with someone yesterday who said, thank you for writing this story, because there's been this idea that we shouldn't talk about this because at least we're well represented at these companies, but there are a lot of challenges that come along the ways they're progressing. At a tech company, we spoke with folks who are fairly young and their funnies.

As an intern Um, a woman who moved to San Francisco for an internship was told, you know, um, white men here will love to date you. And so for women in the tech industry, there's this double whammy, right of receiving the gendered feedback and also this sort of feedback that that fetishizes Asian women. The same woman has been told by a manager or by a colleague that, um, you know, you only have succeeded here because someone in leadership has an Asian fetish and this is someone in

their twenties. And this person, you know, has also been told that they lack executive presence, which for someone in their twenties, you know, is this vague kind of coded feedback on what does that even mean? You've never managed anyone in the first place, um, And when you combine all those things together, it's quite a discouraging outlook. And then when folks reach middle management stage, this vague feedback

continues right related to executive pressens. And also people are often told, you know, you don't fit the profile of what we're looking for in this role, and they look at their credentials, they look at um, their successes that they've had in their career. They look at their peers and sometimes only differences. They're an Asian American compared to a lot of their white peers, and they're less wondering whether this big feedback had something to do with their

performance or their credentials, or is it about their identity. So, you know, one of the other elements that I thought was so significant by the story was that we're not just talking about names that you know in the characters that you talked to. I mean, it's all it's it's more. It feels more like rank and file that you guys were able to that you you and Ellen were able to speak with. But there is one person that I think um is more dientful than others, which is Ellen Powe.

And you know that she became famous for the case that she lost in, but it also, um you know, it speaks to sort of what she was able to accomplish in the legacy her legacy a little bit. So what did you learn from talking with Ellen Powe? Yeah, Well, one thing I wanted to shot with Ellen Powe about in particular was when she was interim CEO of Reddit. Firstly, why was it interim right, Um did did the board coming in decide that she wouldn't be staying on forever?

And why it was that? And she says she looks back and wonders the same thing. Why she had that taxed under a title and she let it go at the time. Um. But one of the things that struck me most was looking back on her career while she was running Reddit, there were all these racist memes, but users would post calling her chairman now or chairman pal

after you know now style memes. Um And And that just seemed really striking right to rebel against the changes she was making with not just any kind of meme, but these rates, like frankly very racist memes um calling her chairman pal. So that that was something that I think if that happened now, um, perhaps we look at

even more than it was covered in the past. Um And And Ellen Power is such an example for for folks right of someone who rose and who tried to um push back against the lack of diversity in the tech industry by doing Kleiner Perkins for gender discrimination. And she also feels looking back that a lot of what she experienced was raised related as well. But as a people strategy at the time, where lawyers advised her to

just building for gender. There's so much, so much in this story, including how there are different experiences for different Asian Americans. So highly recommend that everyone check it out. I'll put it out on Twitter. Uh, Priya, thank you so much for bringing it to as Priya Non She's Venture Capital report U Blomberg News on the Phone from San Francisco, written with our own Ellen hughittt Tilweber, Editor

Bloomberg Business Week on the remote access from Massachusetts. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Speaking of updates, we're gonna get one from the Walt Disney Company. They report their latest orderly earnings after the close tomorrow. Ahead of that, a story that is among our most read on the Bloomberg Today. It's about the company's Star Wars experience, a new galactic themed hotel with what some might say is

an astronomic price tag. Here to fill us in and what it may be portends, if you will, when it comes to experiences, especially among the wealthy. His Connorsen. He is Bloomberg opinion columnist founder Peachtree Creek Investments. He joins us on the phone from Atlanta, Connor, good to have you here. I love this story. Cut my attention this morning when I was reading in So, first of all, tell us what Disney is up to? Well, I think people look at the price tag and they think about

what a theme park costs. Maybe Disney World is undred twenty third bucks to day hotels the junior dollars, and then they see a two day experience for two adults that's five thousand dollars, and they're thinking what's going on here? But I think they've they've sort of seen that there's an appetite for this higher end luxury consumption that isn't being met by the marketplace, and they intend to top into it. Right because it sounds a little like what

it's going to be a small audience. But remember when we thought there was only gonna be a small audience maybe for these expensive Apple iPhones, and yet they have created a lot of wealth for that company, and a

lot of people have snapped them up. What do you think is kind of the more significant sign are what we should read into kind of what Star Star Wars is up to not Star Wars and what Disney is up to, well, I think we know that household network, especially at the top, has increased significantly of the past ten or fifteen years, and particularly over the past twelve months. Prices are up a lot, stock portfolio is up a lot. If you work from home, you've probably done just fined

over the past year. And so coming out of this pandemic and say next year, after we get through all these variants, there's gonna be a lot of untapped appetite for sort of luxury consumption, and there really aren't a lot of great ways to do that, at least nothing that's sort of newish, and so Disney says, here's something new, something exclusive, and they think it's going to be a hit.

Do you really believe that there's not a lot of ways for those who are really wealthy to kind of spend their money, because because you know the argument that's out there though that when it comes to consumers spending, it's not the ultrawealthy that really spent all their mon any. Is it really from a lack of things to spend it on? I mean, I think you could look at things like cryptocurrencies and maybe meme trading and some of the stuff as people have money to burn and they're

willing to gamble on sort of crazy things. Just that there's so much cash flown around. Were collectible with baseball cards and what have you. And and so I think when it comes to experiential stuff, a lot of what's out there was out there ten or fifteen years ago, and there's nothing that's that's quite new and novel. Well, and you take us back to the I think it was the early to mid nineteen nineties right when we kind of saw a similar thing happened in terms of

more expensive experiences being offered up. Tell us about that, right, So, sort of between call it, you had sort of the modern Las Vegas popped up with cassine as like the Marrage and MGM brand. You had sports stadiums that really sort of upscaled and let luxury with luxury suites and personal seat licenses, even at movie theaters who have the invention of the megaplex and these stadium seatings or climbing

chairs and what have you. And we haven't had a whole lot of that over the past decade or so. And so people gotten wealthier. There's an appetite for something new and novel, and so you create a price point and experience that people want. So what does this mean then? Kind of bigger broader You know you're an investor, watch the markets. I think about our audience, who are hearing this,

and so what does this mean? Do you think potentially we'll see more uh, costlier experiences being created out there for because because the wealthier ready to spend some money. If if the you know, if there's options out there, like, how do you see it playing out? What's the significance

that especially when I think about the Bloomberg audience. Yeah, I think if you're a corporation and you see the star Wars Hotell be a big head at five thousand bucks for a couple of nights, You're thinking, what can I offer that's a five thousand dollar experience that people are willing to pay And so whether that's Universal Studios, maybe it's more Disney parks, Naked's cruise ships, it can

sort of have even more luxurious events. I think there's gonna be a real land grab to sort of create your own five thousand dollar experience and help people will pay for it. What does it mean in terms of economic amentum too, because I always think about economic cycles often have you know, several lights right and several things that kind of either keep it going or ultimately make

it stop or slow down. Could this potentially provide another uh leg to the economic momentum that we're certainly seeing at this point. Yeah, I think so. I mean, if you have maybe new casinos in Las Vegas get built that are several billion dollars of construction and jobs working claps, jobs sort of also people working at these resorts, and then you know, you see the wealthy spending their money and they're creating jobs for the working class to serve them.

It also helps companies deal with the rising costs they're doing with right now. A lot of ways that you can sort of power new cycle that's not as dependent on maybe tacking what we've seen over the past decade. I did think that was really interesting in your column when you talked about, you know, presumably Disney will be able to pay more than fifteen dollars an hour to staff at its Star Wars venue if it needs to.

So when things cost so much, that gives a company that's offering it potentially more room to either pay its workers or spend on investments. Right on. One part of the pricing power story is just being able to offer new products and services at higher price points that people are wanted to spend more on. Doesn't necesarily mean just charting more for your existing stuff. All right, So are you going to take this galactic star cruiser trip. I'm

gonna see what the rood user like. That's that's pretty steep for us, so we'll see alright. Yeah, and we thought going up into space with one of the billionaires was expensive. Um, and it is, but this is also a pretty high price point. A really fascinating column. Connor, thank you so much, really appreciate it, counterson his Blueberg opinion columnist, the founder Peachtree Creek Investments, joining us on the phone from Atlanta. A reminder that Disney will be

reporting their earnings after the close tomorrow. And I'm just bringing up the stock right now in terms of it's just done about one and a half percent so far here in a journal. Now, but you let me drive, no, no, no, all right, please, I want to drive. Try question. This is the drive to the globe. Thanks, we'll try us down on Bloomberg Radio. It is time for the drive

to the clothes. We have just about ten and a half minutes left in today's trading session, and we are off our best levels, just barely on the Dow Jones Industrial average. Same story for the S and P five records on both of those, we've seen in today's trading session, nast act just down a hair and off its worst levels of the day. So let's get to it with Vinny Catalano. He is Chief Markets Drudges at Stuyveson Capital Management, with us once again on the phone in New Jersey. Vinny,

nice to have you here. Feels like it's a little bit of the dog's day dog days of summer. How do you see the trade right now? Uh, the trade as continuing what it's been, you know, for the better part of the last year. Uh. You know what we have is we have a lot of money, a lot of easy in and easy out for the markets, the publicly traded markets that is. And so you know this. It had been referred to the stock market in situations like this as being a casino being in never never land.

I say it's in whatever land, whatever land, whatever land, whatever number sounds good to you, you know, it's just, uh, that's that's the environment we're in. Money. So when you when you say whatever, land, does that mean you think there's some irresponsible trading going on and over evaluation that

we're saying, yeah, I'm going to say yes, evaluation. Yeah, that's uh, yes, there is a by every measure of evaluation, certainly in times of yore, when the stock market at least made a reference to what the private equity markets and the fixed income markets make a reference to all the time, and that is the present value, the future cash flows and what do we have Now we have

rationalizations for any valuation level that sounds good. We have memes stocks that basically are I don't know what, but there's there's no reference to fundamentals that are there, and so this is going to go on until it stops going on. That's that's the environment we're in. But don't

you also feel it is a market? I mean, if you like, take a look at something like a m C which one above sixty were now back at thirty one, Maybe that still makes no sense considering it was a low of what five dollars and fifty one cents back in February of this year, But Nonetheless, it does seem like, you know, putting meme stocks aside. It feels like investors are having some man individual investors are having some fun

out there. But you feel that way for all sectors of the market, even some of those Okay, yeah, not all sectors of the market, and certainly not all sectors of the investible kid, meaning into the private market area. One of the things that investors might consider, if they have the ability to do it, is to take a look at the private markets, because the private markets offer better value, they're more rooted in fundamentals. Uh, And the opportunity to go public into what is clearly an inflated

stock market viaspacts or other methods is there. So if that, I mean, if you want to find value, that's kind of where the value would be now in the publicly traded space. Uh, it's a heck of a lot harder. I think what investors would do that makes the most sense, besides all of the fundamental things that they should do, like take a look at their portfolios, make sure that everything is aligned with their wants and needs, their risk tolerances, etcetera.

So when you take all of those things into consideration, that's good. That's all good basic stuff. I guess the way to look at it is to look at thematic issues to see what trends and themes that look like they're going to be there for a longer period of time. So that this way, if you're invested in an area and that area doesn't two uh, if it hits the speedbump along the way, then you know you're in something

that you want to be in. But going into issues and areas because everybody else is doing it, well, yeah, that can work until it stops working. So at that point then you then you're stuck with something that you really don't want to home. So when you say private markets, are you talking about private equity specifically, or what else are you talking about? Well, private equity or anything that can be converted into publicly traded equities because they're the

valuation gap. If you look at the statistics over the last and fifteen years and you look at PE ratios of comparables of publicly traded versus private privately held issues, you'll see that the privately held issues remained a pretty constant level in terms of evaluation PE ratios, and so they stayed closer to whatever the interest rate changes might pa whereas in the publicly traded issues, they were all over the lot, you know, significantly above, significantly below, and

that's mainly because of liquidity. You can get in, you can get out, and why not. You know, it sounds like fun. In fact, what I would like to do is for you and I to create UH un offering to Quentin Tarantino, to offering him that we will put together a UH program for him to do a follow up to his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. We'll call it Once upon a Time on Wolf Street. Once upon a time on Wolf Street. The stock market made

a reference for value today. It's like, whatever do you feel Do you feel like it's more out of whack than it was during the tech bubble or during the run up? UH? In real estate and real estate related UH financial instruments. UH. If it walks like a duck, and it sounds like a duck, then most likely it is a duck. Yeah, there are there are different types of ducks, though well there's you know, there's a lot

of similarities in that regardless. You know something John Mayne Kane said it, Hey, markets can remain a rational logan and you can remain solving. You know what's interesting? Well, and do you like SPACs? Do I like SPACs? Yeah? I like private issues that have the opportunity to go through SPACs. Yeah, Okay, that's you know, that's good. SPACs look interesting, but you know there's so many of them out there, and you know, I'd rather do our movie idea with Tarrant Kino and I can tell I can

do well. The reason I bring up spacks is if I look at the um Spack index or one of those back indexes, it's about so what we seem to keep finding is that people make money very early on, but the longer it goes on, that's not the case. So again, for an investor, if you're lucky enough to be in and out, great and if you have access early enough, that's great, but that might not be the

case for most investors out there. That is correct. If you qualify for private investments okay, and you've had on your program in the past, uh, Lawrence Calcano from my Capital Network and it's not a plug for them, but just that that's an area to take a look at if you qualify, to see what I Capital Network has to offer, to see if there isn't something there in

the private space that might make sense for you? Do you get nervous though, and I'm bringing up I'm taking a look at some of the work that Peter Atwater is doing over William and Mary just sending me a note. But you know, concerned about some of the money slashing around though. When it comes to private equity, there's a lot of money chasing a lot of stuff that needs to be put to work otherwise the private equity firms have to give it back, you know, So I mean

you gotta be careful there too. Absolutely, you really have to do your homework in the private space, okay, mainly because once you go in, you're not getting out. You're gonna be a lot getting out anytime soon. That's the polar opposite of what goes on in the stock market. I get in now, I get out later, whereas with the with the private private market, get out later, meaning very very quickly. Whereas in the private market you get in and then you're there and you have to do

the due diligence. You've got to do the research, and that's not an easy thing to do. But that's where the better value happens today. At least you know the way the way it looks compared to the to the public markets. All right, we gotta run. Hey Vinny, good to check in with you. Hope you and your family are well. Vitty Catalano, he's chief market Strategies at Staveson Capital Management, joining us on the phone in New Jersey, and folks, we just have a few minutes left in

today's trading session. 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