Outlook for Gilead’s COVID-19 Treatment

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com. You can also listen to our radio show weekdays at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio. Steve Dennis joins us again, Senate reporter looking after all things Congress for Bloomberg, joining us on the phone from Maryland and a lot of politics happening down there on Capitol Hill today, Steve, bring

us up to date. Yeah, so we're kind of stuck in a stalemate right now for how to replenish this small Business Fund, the Paycheck Protection Program p P p uh. You know, the Minuchan wants an extra quarter of a trillion dollars a S A P. And the Democrats basically said, but we want to make some changes and we want to add more money for hospitals in the States, and

so here we are at an impast. McConnell went to the floor this morning, try to just do a clean two hundred and fifty billion dollar increase for this three fifty billion dollar program. The Democrats objected, added their own proposals. McConnell objected, So now we're sort of in this usual state of Washington of attacking each other, um for blocking things. And the next you know, it looks like this is probably gonna continue for several days over Easter, and you know,

maybe next week they started negotiating something more serious. So politics aside, Steve, So, who's right, I mean, are the Democrats right to include more aid for state and local governments. I've heard from Governor Cuomo and others about the system states are going to need, or you know, the Republicans right, you know, saying we've got to get you know, money

to individual work or those small businesses. Who's right about this in terms of, you know, what needs to be done first and foremost, Well, the point the Republicans are making is that this small business program is already up and running and it's going to run out of money. You know, this this program is supposed to last until Junior last, the last time these loans can go out. But just since they opened the program on Friday last Friday,

approximately a hundred billion dollars has already been allocated. Now that doesn't mean it's going to get to three billion by like Monday or Tuesday. So there is a little bit of leeway here. And the Democrats are saying, uh, look this program has we like it, but it's got

some problems. There are lots of small businesses, uh, that are having a hard time getting their bank or any bank to take their application, particularly if there are a smaller small business who does who don't already have sort of relationship with that inc. And so they want to see the program expanded, make the application requirements a little bit smoother and more streamlined, and say, hey, let's sit down and talk about this. And McConnell's like, look, let's

just increase the money now. We can. We can deal with some of this stuff later. But you know, that's not how Congress tends to work. It's it's it's very hard for a divided Congress to parties in a situation where every single senator in every single House member needs to give consent to do anything in this age of coronavirus where they're not in session to agree on a

quarter trillion dollars and you know, overnight. So this is not unusual that it's going to take sort of several rounds of parts and attacks on each other and saying, hey, you aren't helping out the workers, or your focus too much on the bigger businesses and that sort of thing. So you know, something's gonna get done. It's just a question of when, whether it's gonna be early next week, late next week, or we're gonna wait until they come back.

The schedule to come back the week of April twenties. It's possible they won't even come back that week because people are worried about the virus. Yeah, it's interesting too, I mean, this is coming or we're having this conversation as a couple of red heads acrossing the Bloomberg about lockdowns and not in the United States, Spanish parliament backing and extending locked backing, extending the lockdown excuse me to April, and at the same time, the South African president extending

the nationwide lockdown by two weeks. So governments are also wrestling with this notion of what do we do in the meantime? How long are we essentially going to need to be assisting these companies and the economies, the economy of the country. And Steve Dennis, I do also wonder is Steve Manut in the Treasury sectary He's continuing to sort of be the broker in all of this for

the administration. And and Pelosi did get this done last time? Yeah, I think, Um, the one relationship in town that seems to be working right now is Stephen Manuchin with Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic Leader, and Pelosi. That that trio seems to be able to get things done lately. So you know, if Manuchan is on the phone with those two and and actually negotiating instead of sort of saying, here's our request, take it or leave it, that's when you know things

are getting closer to an actual deal. Um. And you know, while there has been some good news on the virus lately, with the curve starting to flatten and social distancing is helping. I mean that's sort of like another message to people listening this is it's actually helping when you socially distance yourself. We're starting to see some evidence of that. The the

the economic impact is the last a lot longer. We're already up to seventeen million, and there's lots of reports, including on Bloomberg reporting that lots of people still can't even file in a lot of these states. Their systems are so outdated, antiquated. The real number is probably higher.

And you know, all these programs they just passed with a two point three trillion dollar bill, two point two trillion dollars, they're probably all going to be a lot more expensive by the time they're all said and done in the next couple of months. Alright, Steve Dennis, thank you so much, senate reporter at Bloomberg News. Joining us on the phone from Maryland. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio.

We've got Dr Chris Byra with us. He's professor of epidem epidemiology, Epidemiology, thank you very much, and public health and human Rights at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and of course we know the Bloomberg School of Public Health supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder Mberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Dr Byrot, nice to have you here with us. I just want to go we want to get into

because you are specifically looking at prison populations. But I do want to ask you about one of the headlines that we got from Dr Fauci today. Um, the kind of go to person along with you folks at John's Hopkins really think understanding what's going on with the virus. But he's saying, you know, he really slashed those death projections, saying that maybe about sixty people may now die, almost half as many that the White House had talked about

about a week ago, based on models and projections. How should we, as those of us who are still at home still social distancings, social distancing, how should we read headlines like that? Well, I think everybody ought to really feel a sense of pride and of our coming together as a country because the reason that the projections are being the numbers are being decreased is because of the really remarkable success of social distancing, of people taking it seriously,

staying at home. Uh. And I think also we have to say of particularly the leadership, governors and number of states who move quickly and impose social distancing early. Um, we're still of course very concerned. Uh and uh, you know, even the downgraded numbers aren't enormous numbers loss of life for this country and the world. But really this is about the the tremendous response to social distancing on the

part of the American people. And that gives us a nice segue right into you know, where you are spending a lot of your time dr Byroer and that is the fact that this is a human rights issue and in many ways, and part of the reason that the social distancing works is people are essentially able to socially distance themselves. You know, Carol and I and you and and many other people who are fortunate to be able to work from home or you know, sort of live

our lives in a certain way. That one thing. But this virus is exposing just dramatic gaps and inequalities. And certainly nowhere is that more true than than in the nation's prisons. Tell us about what you're finding. Well, first of all, keep in mind that no country incarcerates more of its citizens than the United States. So this is a particular vulnerability for our country. It's about two point three million people currently in jails and prisons, and just

to understand that that's close to a quarter. It's about of all people in the world in prisons and jails, so we're an outlier. We also have between thirty six and forty thousand people in immigration detention on any given day. It's a much smaller number, but the conditions they are

also very worrisome. Uh So, of course, the things that we've all been asked to do to socially distanced, to keep six feet apart, to practice good hygiene, and the hand washing, all of those elements are virtually impossible for people in crowded to ten and facilities. And by people in those facilities, I don't just mean the detainees, I also mean the staff, guards, people who are in and

out of those facilities. That puts everybody at risk. And it also because most of these facilities have three eight hour ships today, means that people are constantly in and out of these facilities, all the workers and staff, and

exposing their families. Uh So, this is this is a very real concern, and we had been concerned about this for a while because I've done work in the past on other prison related outbreaks of other infectious diseases like tuberculosis and m d RTV, MERSA, not the cylinder's staff arius hep C, all of which have been increased in transmission and risk in in prisons. But unfortunately, what we've seen is that the responses have been too slow and too late, and now we already have outbreaks underway in

prisons and jails. The most prominent one is Rikor Island in New York, of course very large outbreak, but there's one underway in Cook County in Chicago. There's a number underway in immigration detention facilities in New Jersey. Those hold many people arrested in New York, UH and UH, and we are really very concerned about those issues. UM. It's very clear that in the first outbreaks, UH, most of

the people affected have been staffed. This was true in Wuhan, and it's true in Rikers, but that changes over time. There's some other things we have to recognize as well. I'm sure both of you have seen that there's emerging evidence about how much more COVID nineteen disease and death there appears to be in African Americans. And Dr Chris Biro, who has been kind enough too and patient enough to sit with us, Professor of Epidemiology, and Public Health and

Human Rights at John's Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Uh, so nice of you to stay with us, Dr vir We were just going to start talking with you about how disproportionately minorities have been impacted by this virus. UM doesn't come as a surprise to me, because I feel like often minorities, when it comes to some kinds of health impact, they often get hit hardest, get hit the hardest. Um.

What are your thoughts about that? How do we make a difference on the other side of this, Well, I think I think it isn't a surprise, unfortunately that we're seeing this. I think we are all surprised by the magnitude of the difference. Doesn't appear to be a modest difference. It appears to be a significantly higher rates of both severe disease and death from COVID nineteen, particularly among African Americans, but also Latinos. And this is emerging as an issue

for some Native American groups, particularly the Navajos. So we're we're very concerned. I think there's several factors we have to pay attention to. So one of the very first is a report actually out of a job's position hum which Charles blown the Times noted, which is that one in five African Americans has a job for which you can telecommute and work from home. So four out of five are lower wage workers out there on the front lines.

So they're occupational situation in this country is an important exposure. It's only one in six Latinos who can stay at home. The second is of course that that means many of these are workers who also are using public transportation, which is emerging of course as a risk. Then we have

the issue of pre existing conditions. So African Americans in particular, we've long known have higher rates of some of the diseases that predispose you to do badly with COVID if you do get exposed, and those include things like hypertension, diabetes um UH, pre existing history of cancer UH and also heart disease, which are all elevated in African Americans.

I think the other reality is something that's more on us as a society, which is of course that they have had lower access to healthcare and lower rates of

health insurance. And if you look across particularly the swath of the Southeast, which has the largest African American populations, we have a lot of red state governors who did not want to extend the Affordable Care Act with Medicaid UH, and did not extend the Health Insurance Ranchise right now, as you may know, that administration did not open another round of a c A sign ups uh and UH.

And so in the midst of this crisis, we're still limiting people's access to health and shure UH and that disproportionately affects low income people, and low income people in

the US is always confounded by race and ethnicity. So I think all of those factors, the their employment and use of public transportation, the pre existing conditions, the lower access to healthcare, the disproportionate lack of access to the Affordable Care Act in the South and Southeast, all these factors are coming together, unfortunately, and what what we call a syndemic. It's it's an interaction of multiple factors. Well,

let's hope that folks take notice. UH, and there is something that we address on the other side of this, because we certainly are having the conversation, but it would be great to see some action as well on the other side. UM, thank you, thank you so much for your time. Dr Buyer, and we really appreciate you awaiting

lest we took that press conference. Dr Chris ban Byer He's professor of epidemiology and public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and of course the Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, Founder, Bloomberg LP, and Bloomberg Philanthropies. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio.

We do want to get to the cover story of the magazine about how everyone is talking about it more notably seems to be using Zoom. Let's get right to it. It is, as we mentioned the cover story story. Drake Bennett is projects an investigations reporter, on the phone in New York along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Webber. He's on the phone in Brooklyn. So Joel, Uh, this is a story. I'm so glad you guys are doing.

It's a story and it's the company everybody's talking about. Yeah, this is one that the moment that we all uh you know, went on lock like wait a second, you guys see what's been going on with Zoom share price and that was actually even before the lockdown, and this was a company that you know has obviously got a product video conferencing, that is really really important right now.

And I think with the beauty of the story that Drake and who co authored the story with Nico Grant, the thing that they realized was like, look, this business model was really great pre coronavirus, and now it's just been consumed by everybody using this product. And that's why we you know, I almost liken it too if this accidental social networks like and they've been growing now almost at a speed at which the pandemic has spread, and with that has come a bunch of challenges. Um, Drake,

what kind of challenges stick out to you? Because the zoom the zoom lash is real. Yeah, I mean what's um, what's a little ironic is that Eric Yuan, the founder of them, was someone who was really, um, kind of paranoid about making sure that he had built in enough capacity for his network to be able to absorb kind of unheard of levels of traffic. So you always have this policy that you always want to have like twice the server capacity of their sort of highest peak use um.

And so in that way, they've done a pretty good job of like managing just the numbers. But the thing that he was not prepared for in the company was not prepared for. It was just um the privacy and security issues that would emerge once you suddenly had the entire world using this and using it in a way that they had not designed it for. You know, people are putting their entire socialized as you put it on this platform which was designed for you know, like work

video conferencing. And I'm just I'm fascinated by the by the Zoom lash here, uh Drake, I mean New York City, it's just been it's just been brutal, uh in terms of the response, and you know, even just talking to people around the neighborhood, you know, folks like, yeah, I want to Yeah, we should do this, But how do they sort of get people back on side, especially sort

of more regulated entities. Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, just in terms of the I think it's helpful to kind of think of the problems in kind of three categories. You know. One is these issues about how what kind of data Zoom gets about you and how they use it. Another category is um security vulnerabilities that that arise um uh, where you know, Zoom can be used by hackers to get malware under your computer, or hackers could use it to take over your webcam

and spy on you. Um And and the third one is is um is these incidents where people are just sort of you know, whether it's sort of board kids who are home from school or kind of white supremacist trolls are using it to kind of invade people's meetings and disrupt them in kind of horrifying ways. And so Zoom, to its credit, has been very quick to respond to almost all of the concerns that have been raised. I mean, they've they've patched these vulnerabilities, they've changed their privacy policy.

You know, they've hired all these consultants. They're getting you know, sort of white hat hackers to come to penetration tests on their system. So they're trying very hard, and I think it's a good, very good faith effort to try to deal with this stuff. Um And you know, as Joel pointed out, a lot of this is just the fact that they've grown at this this kind of time scale that no other social network has had to contend with.

I mean, and to get to get those numbers out there, Drake, what it was like ten million users daily, US million users in December and then two million users, probably more than that now, but when they announced it if from ten to two million, which is just you know, it's like the crazy orders of magnitude growth. And when you really think about that, it's like it's basically critical infrastructure.

That's what we call it in the story, like it is the thing that you know, you're talking to your colleagues with your my kids classroom is using it for their morning check ins, it's and people are going on dates through this, We're having constant hours. It's it's just amazing how it's become sort of the software of the moment. But you know, Drake, I thought, you know, another thing that that you had been able to hit on here

was that this comes from the initial idea. It was a really simple interface and the simplicity of that is actually what allowed it to meet this moment. Well. And listen, everybody needs to go to the magazine, go online to Bloomberg dot com and read the entire story. And we're gonna talk with the CEO and founder of Zoom a little bit later on. So for thanks, to Drake and to Joel. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol

Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. One of the big stories though today we're certainly some action by the Federal Reserve and actually hearing from fedhare J Powell uh in a webcast hosted by the Brookings Institution. Let's start right there, a little snippet of what he had to say at the FED. We're doing all we can to help shephard the economy through this difficult time. When the spread of the virus is under control, businesses will reopen

and people will come back to work. There is every reason to believe that the economic rebound when it comes can be robust. All right, So let's break down with our economics team. We've got them gathered remotely as we do, as everyone does these days. Kathleen Hayes with US Global Economics and Policy Editor from Bloomberg, on the phone from Pennsylvania. Carl Wick, Donna, chief economys for Bloomberg at Economics. He's

on the phone from New Jersey. Kathleen, I want to start with you hadn't heard from j. Pale since he popped up on the today show. A couple of weeks ago, we talked to you about that, uh several times. What did you hear from j pal today? That was most important? Reassurance the set is doing what it can. The FED has done more for the feed. It's not necessarily about spending,

it's about lending. I think he's trying to, you know, quietly address his concern that maybe the FED could pick winners and losers with some of these new programs has put into place, and reassurance that the said knows how bad the situation is for the economy right now, how there's going to be no not even the thought of moving the key rate above zero until it's clear that

the economy is launched into recovery. And finally that he thinks there's he thinks there's a chance, if things go well, that we will see a rebound in the second half of the year. I think that's the kind of reassuring fireside chat that people needed to hear. Right as we at the top of our broadcast, you know, the FED to the rescue again. What we heard, though the exact words from FED Chief j Pale was an economic rebound that will be robust. Carl Ricka Donna, do you agree

with him? Well, Fed to the rescue, here, there and everywhere, We should say, Carol, because it's really unprecedented market action. Uh, not just in treasuries and mortgages, but really across the spectrum. The FED is UH putting its thumb on the scale

and a whole flew of core capital markets. I think that we could see decent economic growth in the back half of the year, but we will still be in a recovery phase because we're going to see a very sharp decline in economic activity in the current quarter, a double digit decline, probably the worst going back over the

entire history to World War two. And so the deeper we go in Q two, the easier it is to get some not so bad numbers in UH in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, but that still will leave us in deeply negative territory for the year as a whole. And so I don't know, Kathleen, like, what do we need to hear next from from the FED? I mean, we you and others have been hearing pretty robustly from a lot of FED speakers over the last a couple weeks. What do we need to hear next?

What else? Can they tell us to continue this reassurance? Well, at this point was all the lending programs they have launched. Presumably what the good news would be for us to hear is them acknowledging them saying, look, these are working, and I think, um, we've already seen evidence that they

have worked. I mean, they actually were able to say they're going to scale back the quantitative easy and the bond purchases by twenty billion in the period they're they're referring to UM because and in presumbly that's because they accomplished one thing they were really worried about in mid February going into March, that a free market it was going crazy. You see more stability, less volatility, So that just that action is reassurance that the FED things that's

going well. It's clear that they're shifting their focus though, going to buy UH corporate bonds below investment grade, some of them three levels into junk tripics. Quote from Mark Futner in one of our Bloomberg stories saying, it's not that they're buying UH, they're buying fallen angels, you know, companies brought down to junk. Statisfy, what's been going on they're not dastrically devils. Right, that's the kind of thing

the FED has to tell us. All right, So while the FED is out there, you know, action after action fed to the rescue. UM, we know the government Congress has past that you know, massive two trillion dollar program that included about half a trillion dollars for hard hit industries. As for the airlines, some headlines just crossing the Bloomberg terminal UH in a phone call described UH, I guess according or folks familiar talking about a phone call that

the airlines I think had with the government. US airlines seeking federal aid told it will be another week. Some carriers told of the delay in that call with the Treasury. And what specifically is at issue is the Treasury Department deciding how to distribute about twenty nine million dollars. So again, this was a call that it looks like some airlines had with the Treasury Department, described to us by people

familiar with that phone call. So you know, I understand the government trying to figure out how to um, you know, uh distribute it ultimately. So Carl, I want to go back to you because you laid out the scenario of what you're expecting in terms of growth or lack thereof

UM going to be some staggering numbers. But do you have some confidence because of some of the massive aid packages coming from the government and probably more to come, and the FED out there doing everything and anything that it can that ultimately, when we do get a recovery, it will be a pretty dynamic one. I I still retain some reserve about that being a dynamic and robust recovery. I think that there's a real risk that we limp out of this very sharp contraction if we're not successful

in containment measures. First of all, if we, you know, undo the lockdown too soon and we see another spike and we're talking about climbing up the curve again and hospitals becoming overwhelmed, that is very much within the realm of possibility. If the lockdown does not stamp out UH, you know, the risk of virus UH spreading again, So that that's something that could slowest down on the recovery. Also, it's a massive stimulus UH package, but it's right sized

if it's delivered swiftly. If we're not delivering it swiftly, then the problem continues to grow and the price take continues to increase, and so things like unemployment benefits, we're working through those. The checks are arriving, the rebate checks should be arriving soon. But the longer folks have to wait for those funds, the more the economic pain intensifies.

And the best example of that, h what was what you just highlighted with the airlines clamoring for the money and having to wait for it, but also with small businesses, the small business loan to grant program is stumbling out of the block. There's tremendous uncertainty. Funds are not being distributed, they don't have enough money in the system. Congress is bungling the passage of augmenting those funds, and so small

businesses are sitting around waiting for the checks. They can only wait so long before they finally have to sow with their hands in the air and uh and give up. And you have the airline sector, Jason, as we know that they're looking at towards summer and they're anticipating cutting, you know, those summer flights up. They're expecting consumers are going to be slow to come back, absolutely, and we're seeing that, you know, in the traffic data already all right,

really good stuff. Thank you so much to Kathleen Hayes, Global Economics and Pulsey editor for Bloomberg Joinis on the phone from Pennsylvania, and Carl ra Kadona, chios economists for Bloomberg Economics. He joined us on the phone from New Jersey. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and

Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, and as the market becomes more enthusiastic and we start to think about coming back, part of what is going to be at the heart of this is testing and treatment therapeutic vaccines, the medical side. Let's understand that piece of it. For that, we turned to Brian Scorney, senior biotech and pharma analysts for Bear Johnnys,

on the phone from New York City. So, Brian, you look at these pharma companies, the biotech companies, they are all scrambling, to say the least, all efforts on the medical side of this. What do we need to know? What's the latest? Yeah, so certainly I think it's I think it's all hands on deck. Um, you can't even count this at this point. How many different companies have announced press releases with throw programs to develop something UM

to handle this UH epidemic that we're seeing. There's a number of things already in development, and there's multiple UM ways that people are thinking about targeting the virus. I think the most promising UM in in the near term for having effect is trying to UH just some of the downstream effects of the disease. So you know, I look at companies like Rossian Regenera on UM with their

their drugstorio aisle six. UM really stops one of the biggest, UM most fatal manifestations of the disease, which is this over response of the immune system. I think those are are very promising. So a number of companies looking to target the virus it self stop stop the viral replication. UM. There's a number of those in clinical development. You know.

I think those are a little more ambiguous because UM, you know, there's a new virus and we really need to kind of understand what it is and where it's replicating to design something specific for right Well, that's what I want to ask you, because if we designed specifically a vaccine for COVID nineteen, if you know it mutates, does that mean we still don't have a vaccine for

you know, the mutation. I mean, so or if a lot of people have ultimately had COVID nineteen, we don't know because we haven't done enough testing Brian, that do we all have immunity and so having a vaccine isn't as important as as it as it once was. Yeah, so I think, I mean, I think that's a great question.

And you know, unfortunately, I think at this point it's really too early in the disease to really know, Um, what's gonna happen you ask, you know what, We're gonna start looking at people to see if they're immune, if they've had um antibody responding to this and and their own immune system can recognize it subsequently, Um, you know, we're still in the very early stages. It doesn't seem like people who have immediately been infected are getting reinfected, uh,

in any large extent. And and just based on kind of classical immunology, we would expect that you would be protected to some extent for for some minimum short period of time. But is it something like chicken pox where essentially one exposure gets you lifelong immunity, or is it influenza where um, you know, see the virus changing and the immune system really can't handle, um, the changes in the virus as it as it goes season after season. We really don't know. I mean, it's it's a much

different virus than either of those. So there's reasons to believe, uh, it can find wind up balling somewhere in between. I think it's very early stage. But that and then the vaccine is you know, it's sort of the same thing. Is it's going to be something where we can develop a vaccine and they'll be something that gets adjusted every year, or is one vaccination going to give lifelong protection? I think it's just way too early to really to really

know the answer to that yet. And Brian help us understand, you know, for those of us trying to get our heads around this more effort on therapeutics, vaccines, testing, like, where are you seeing the most action and where are you seeing the most promise even from an investor's perspective, And I'm going to ask you where do you think with what do you know just attack on to that? Where should the efforts be placed at this point? Is it a vaccine or is it dealing with those who

come down with with the ailment. Well, I think the most near term thing that we're gonna be able to handle is people who come down with the actual ailment, right, And when you think of what happens to these patients, you know, they get pneumonia, they have immunological responses um that you know send them in very frequent cases into

fatal conditions. There's ways to intervene with the downstream effects of what the virus are causing, and we know a lot of those, and like I said, Rocha's actemra is one way. Uh, people are exploring it, right and then you know, the next stage is to actually target the

virus itself. I think we're a little too early for that, but that'll be something um that that that will be able to move relatively rapid UM On a vaccine I think is unfortunately a little bit more of a long termission again because you think about what what you need to do for a vaccine, for a therapeutic, you're willing to take some risk because the patient actually has the disease itself. UM. With a vaccine, I mean you're talking

about to really maximize your your ficacy here. You want to inoculate virtually the whole world, right, So the safety profile has to be really, really very clean. So you really don't want to move too fast with a vaccine. You do very fast with a therapeutic. And I'll just remind everybody Jason some reporting earlier by Bloomberg News just this week, you know that a potential vaccine is still more than a year away. So despite you know, some of what we hear in the optimism, you know, creating

a vaccine is not something that we can expect anytime soon. Yeah. No, it seems like testing and therapeutics are the things that are going to be on the near term horizon. Great context. We really appreciate it. Brian Scorney, senior biotech and pharma analyst Forbeard. He joined us on the phone in New York Journal. Now, but you let me drive. Oh no, no, no, no, drive home, honey, please, I'll do the right drivel ext me. I want to drive all Just drive, baby. It's good

question trying. This is the drive to the globe. Thanks, we'll drive us to dawn. On Bluebird Radio, it is time for the drive to the clothes. We're just mints away from wrapping up us trading in this holiday shortened week. Back with us as Wayne Wicker, chief investment Officer Advantage Point Investment Advisors, twenty nine billion in assets under management. Wayne joining us on the phone from Washington, d C. Man, the market's depending on the day, depending on the week,

We're either up a lot or down a lot. Wayne, how do you approach this type of market environment? Boy, Carl, This is as volatile period of time I've had in my thirty six year career. And uh, I think that it's reflective of the fact that because of the health crisis that's driven this problem, we just don't have a

lot of information, uh, from day to day. Uh. And so you know, I think the best approach to take in a period like this is to have a very long term orientation and anchor to uh a horizon that's probably two or three years out, because you just can't manage this day by day the way the volatility is today. Yeah,

it's interesting. Uh. My favorite code of the week so far, maybe you're going to win the rodeo here, Wayne was from a guesta around this time yesterday who said, treat your four oh one k like you treat your face. Don't touch it, just like leave it alone and just kind of ride this out, and and I do wonder whether enough people are going to follow that advice. And I guess I would ask you, is that the right

advice at this point? Well, I think that folks that have a four O one K plan, which is all of us, so hopefully UM, are in the best position to write out the volatility that we have here. And the reason I say that is because of the systematic way that we continue to deposit money every couple of weeks. So your average in on this volatility over a long period of time, because nobody's gonna know where the bottom

is or if it's bottom is already in. But if you continue to participate a week by week over a two or three or four year period of time, I think you'll be well rewarded. I gotta say there's part of me. I was reading something in about the wealthy you are. Is it selling off assets or or real estate? I think it was on the Bloomberg and then using that to buy stocks and buy into the market right now because you know, names have taken such a beating,

and not everybody has that luxury. Most people do not UM. But I do wonder way and if we do look back at this time and say, boy, it was a great, you know, buying opportunity. I feel like any time things are beating up disproportionately to what ultimately will be the longer term impact, it is a great buying opportunity. Yeah, Carol, I think that that will be true if you have the look back probably two or three years from now,

two or two years. Wow. Well the reason I say that is because over the next few months, uh, you know, we could experience as quickly as we've come up, and you mentioned it earlier, it's you know, we've had gain

in the last twelve trading days. Um, we can get other news that the market could trade on that can take us back down by So I think in the short run, uh, you know, it's going to be a little bit more challenging for individuals to identify names, but clearly, over more than a twelve most time horizon, I think you're right, this is going to be a period of time where, at a minimum, you've been able to upgrade your portfolio in terms of the quality of the companies

that you want at prices that are more attractive than they were just sixty days ago. So, Wayne, having as you said, uh, seen some volatility over your time, seen some crises, I do wonder, and this has been top of mind for Carolin myself, I think, especially today having heard from J. Powell earlier, having seen again the power of the Treasury Secretary in both sort of coming up with a lot of the fiscal side solutions and then executing them. What do you make of the fiscal and

the monetary response from the US government so far? So if we compare this to the O eight oh nine time period, the response by the Fed has been unbelievable. I mean, I think they have come in, They've been rapid in terms of their reaction. Uh. J Powell I think has done a really good job, you know, trying to ensure what he's supposed to be doing, which is

maintaining the financial stability of the economy. And so uh in light of the fact that this is driven not by the same types of factors as O eight oh nine, where we thought, you know, gosh, is a financial industry going to be around. This is a more open ended problem with the COVID nineteen issue, and so they can't help uh that catalyst. But what they can do is provide a significant bridge to help get us to the other side of the unknown duration that we are currently

experiencing and the fiscal side. How do you feel about Minuten and Co. I think they've done an absolutely great job. They have identified a lot of places which are going to be I think very weak coming out of this two or three month period of time, and they've tried to come in to provide a backstop that in the short run, I think is going to be a critical UH for retaining some uster confidence. Now. I think later on, at some point, we're gonna have to figure out how

we're repaying all this debt that's going on. But I think in the short run, UH investors are really enthused about what has been going on. I think later on the reality of the economics that UH the FETE is trying to solve for we'll come back. So it sounds like you're not doing any buying for your clients, and correct me if I'm wrong. Um, is that the case? Well, we're always in the market and uh so, so we tend to run fairly fully invested portfolios. We have a

slight cash buffer. But so what are you buying? So what are you buying right now? Wing? Well, we have thirty one different UH funds, so you can pick your flavor. But I think that in general the tilts in the portfolios are still more growth oriented rather than value oriented. Yield is not actually being rewarded in this environment, or

is low ball types of strategies. When growth goes to negative numbers like we have today, investors are going to tilt towards those companies that have the best growth prospects, and so that has translated into our portfolios to having more of a growth orientations the present time. All right, well, we wish you only the best, Wayne, and hopefully uh, as they say, next time in the Bloomberg Interactor Broker studio, hopefully we'll be seeing you then. In the meantime, stay well,

stay healthy. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show every weekday at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio