SpaceX Sends Civilians Into Space

Bloomberg Business Weekend iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg clovel News. Joining us right now is Dr

William Moss. He's professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center, and of course, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Dr Moss on the phone from Baltimore, Bill, good to have you here with Katie and myself help us make sense as we try to figure out should

we be getting booster shots? Yes, thank you very much for howiving me again, UM, And I realized this has been a confusing issue for folks, UM, and perhaps we should think about it. You know, who should get a booster and when should they get a booster? UM? What we're what we're really looking for, as you were just saying, we want our vaccines to protect us against severe disease, hospitalization,

and death. That's our our primary goal, and the way we're going to achieve this primarily is by getting more people vaccinated. Now. When we when and if we start seeing more breakthrough infections or I should say higher rates of breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated individuals UM that results in severe disease, hospitalizations, and death, that's going to be

our trigger for booster doses. And I think a lot of the discussion we're gonna here tomorrow at the FDA and then that next week with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are do we have the day eat to yet to suggest uh that there's there's increase in breakthrough infections resulting in severe disease? And I think where we may see this, we may see that there's evidence for older adults, perhaps those older than but not yet for

the general population. Dr Moss. I'm curious to hear your opinion on whether the f d A can really feel any public pressure, whether they feel pressure from the public to approve booster shots, because it feels like there is this uh sort of dichotomy emerging where Okay, the people who have been vaccinated got vaccine as soon as they were able to, they do want to get booster shots, and then you have you know, the rest of the

United States, the holdouts who haven't yet gotten their full vaccinations. I mean, does the f d A would they even respond to that? Yes, I think what we can expect from the f d A, and again we'll hear about it tomorrow, is the FDA is going to tell us whether these additional doses UM for people who are fully vaccinated our safe and effective. That's what they're going to be looking for. And they have the data that we're

submitted by fiser UM. Some of that has been released in the in the FDA briefing that that was released UM. And you know those numbers are based on relatively small, uh small sample sizes UM. But the FDA is going to be looking at that safety and effectiveness of an

additional dose. What we have to wait for then is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices UM that will make recommendations to the c d C on who should be, you know, on whether or not we should actually go forward with booster doses and and who should be the recipients of those U. UM, they will not be weighing in on, you know, how do we deal with the problem, uh of unvaccinated Americans at this point in the pandemic.

I guess what I wonder too is do you default and say, let me just go get a third one, let me just got to be safe than sorry? Or are there potential complications by getting a vaccine that you don't need? Yes? So, UM, you know what, this is an important issue. UM. The CDC estimates that perhaps at this point one point eight million Americans have gone ahead UH and that booster dose. Katie knows people who donive Yes,

And I can understand. And we're kind of, you know, feeling this tension between having a rigorous regulatory process and debate UM, and in the midst of a pandemic and and surging case numbers, surging hospitalizations and deaths in the the United States, and and people wanting to feel that that they're best protected. Uh, and so individuals going out and getting those booster doses. We still don't know really that you know, whether there are any safety concerns around booster doses.

I don't expect that we're going to have any surprises there. Um. Fiser did present to the f d A some of their safety data, again relatively small numbers, a couple of hundred people. Um, maybe there was some increase in in swollen lymph nodes after that after the third dose compared to the first two, but in general the side effects seem to be the same, but again against small numbers.

Where it also becomes problematic from a public health point of view is that it just makes it very hard for us to track, uh, the number of people vaccinated in the in the United States. If people are going and getting a third dose and kind of pretending they have never had a dose before, um, it messes up the numbers. And so Dr Moss, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on some pushback that I've or two booster

shots offering them in the United States. Because you have the developed world where you know a lot of people who want to be vaccinated have gotten vaccinated, and then you have, you know, the emerging markets of the world where it's been a really tough rollout, and you know a lot of people still remain unvaccinated. So some of the pushback I hear is that, you know, offering booster shots will basically exacerbate global inequality. I'm curious to hear

your thoughts on that. Right this is it's a very important issue. We've heard from the World Health Organization and the Director General. They're raising this issue. There was a recent report in The Lancet raising this issue as well, UM about the you know, the the ethics of UH booster doses in high income countries when much of the world remains unvaccinated. There's no doubt there they remain glaring

global inequities and vaccination coverage. UM or more of vaccine doses have been administered to people in high and upper middle income countries. Less than point five percent have gone to people in low income countries. UM And as as many folks have said, you know, we're not going to be able to control this pandemic in the United States

until it's controlled globally. The question is, you know, can these doses that are now sitting you know, in the United States, you know, be diverted or or recanneled to other countries. There's no doubt that the United States can and should do more to address those global inequities. But but also, if a vaccinees out at a pharmacy um, you know, there's no way we're going to get that

vack reroute that vaccine dose. So this is a very important issue, but it's also very complex in in terms of the process of how we take vaccines in the United States and get them to other countries where perhaps they're needed more. Yeah, I feel like this is an issue we've been talking about from day one. When we need a vaccine would hopefully ultimately be created, how do we make sure that it gets out to the world.

Having said that, Dr Moss, I think one of the discussions I keep hearing a lot in the US right now is get ready for flu season everyone, because you're all going to get really sick and you need to get a flu shot too. What's your advice to our listeners right now who are thinking, I'm going to need to get a COVID nineteen booster, I'm going to need

to get a flu shot. How do we need to kind of schedule all this playoff for this Yes, well, um, you know these vaccines are are are very important in our public health response and protecting ourselves individually and and protecting people around us. Are our our COVID nineteen vaccines are actually much better than our influenza vaccines. UM. But it's going to be very important with this upcoming respiratory season UM that people get vaccinated against you know, be

vaccinated against COVID nineteen and get their annual flu shot. UM. What we don't want to have happen and say, I'll say, you know, I think one of the real tragedies of this last wave of cases in the United States is that we've allowed our healthcare system, our hospitals are intensive care units, to be overwhelmed with COVID nineteen patients, uh, to the point where sometimes people with other diseases can't

get the care they need. But we don't have happened this this respiratory season is to see our health care system overwhelmed again with both COVID and influenza cases. Right. We're seeing parts of the country already right that are overwhelmed because of COVID absolutely, and I mean Dr Moss, I'd love to get your thoughts on children and vaccinating children. Because school is opening back up. New York City public

schools just had their first day. When will we see the bottom end of the range for who can get vaccinated basically increase? I'm missing metaphors there, But when will children younger than twelve be able to get vaccines? Yes, this is this is a very common question, and uh, I wish I had a definitive answer on this, But what I can tell you is that this will be done in phases. The first group of children for whom we'll see an authorization or approval our children five years

to eleven years of age. It will be with the FISER vaccine. They're they're slightly ahead of of Maderna and having the data being uh you know, collected and and presented to the FDA. We expect FISER to be able to present these data on that age group, perhaps by the end of September or early October. It will then take a couple of weeks for FDA to UH to review the data, and then we'll need a recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices should the vaccine be

deemed safe and effective in that age group. And again I don't expect any any surprises there, so I'm hopeful that will have an approval or authors ation. Uh, perhaps late October, early November. Um, you know, depending upon how

the process goes. But we won't see a vaccine for children younger than five years of age right until first quarter of On some level, you gotta appreciate the measured and careful guidance by regulators on all of this as we move forward, and always appreciate the guidance of Dr William Moss, Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center, Professor in the Departments of Epidemiology, International Health, and Molecular

Microbiology Enemynology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Remember how we keep talking about the push for a fifteen dollar federal minimum wage. We do that well. The move may installed in Congress, but thanks to our current environment, we may

already be there. So let's get to it. Here to explain Bloomberg News Economy reporter Michael s. So he joins us on the phone in Atlanta bureau. Mike, good to have you here with Katie and myself. So tell us

what's going on. Yeah, yeah, good to be here. You know, what we've seen is just kind of a topsy turvy labor market where even though the move to adopt a fifteen dollar minimum wage may have stalled in Congress, it seems that the market as well as let's just just be honest, there's a lot of state and local minimum wage laws going into effects. So those two things combined, are you know, making it so that a relatively small

portion of Americans makes less than fifteen hours as we speak. Yeah, I was amazed that I forgot that the minimum wage still though for a lot of Americans is seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour. Yeah, yeah, what is I forget what the status is at least a decade old. So I have not kept up at all with the way to rave inflation. And there are there are ten states, ten states that have adopted a fifteen dollar minum wage,

not immediately, but kind of ramp up to fifteen. So they're kind of getting ahead of the curve and So, Mike, your characterization of the labor market topsy turvy. Uh, it definitely feels accurate, just you know, after sitting through the NFP release every month. Uh So it feels like we're in this interesting scenario where part of the reason the you know, wages are rising is because employers can't fill

their roles. You had a great stat in your article that the number of job vacancies exceeded new hires by four point three million in July. I'm curious, even with the higher wages, why aren't employees necessarily coming back into the workforce. Well, that's the million dollar question. You know, certainly there has been a lot of women have stayed out of the workforce for child care issues. You know, there's the old question about whether the enhanced unemployment benefits

we're keeping people out of the labor force. Of course those are expired now, but there's I gotta tell us a lot every employer I talked to insist that yes, they those high unemployment benefits were keeping people out, even though even though most economists and a lot of these academics will say that there's no evidence of that. So that's that is a big, kind of a big question. Yeah, I was talking to UM senior EXEXU people who have been in the airline industry for a long time over

the past week. And what's interesting is they're saying people just don't want to come back to work. They just don't want to come back to work. Uh. And this includes things like child uh, flight attendants and you name it. We're seeing that play out. So what does this mean? Okay, if though, because it's a tight labor force, Mike, and so that is forcing employers like a Walmart, like a Target, like a Chipotle Mexican grill to bump up their average

generally paid a fifteen dollars or more. Amazon what you know, looking for some of their logistics jobs eighteen dollars an hour, So we're kind of getting that fifteen dollars in our minimum wage. What does it mean in terms of cost to employers? What does it mean in terms of versus inflation real wages? What does it all mean? Well? Yeah, that and that's the issue. And the inflation pieces interesting.

So it's not as not as if everyone is doing at some of these lower page jobs is just experiencing this. That's absolute windfall. Inflation is running a little over five percent, so to be sure, and over the last now, to be sure, since the pandemic started, wages the wage inflation has has has advanced more so, I'm wage inflation or wages are rising at a greater paste than inflation is.

So that's a good thing for the worker. In the last year, however, that's actually reversed itself and inflation is actually eating up a greater percentage of wages. And so since the pandemic started, you know, things are generally on the upswing, although there's been a blip over the last year, just the last year because of just the cost of

everything rising. All right, So just thirty seconds, So does this mean thanks, you know, we don't need the federal government to get there that we're going to now see the new floor of fifteen dollars that stays with us longer term. Just quickly, Well, I know there's probably some people would say that I will say activists are are having none of that. They're insisting, as somebody told me, fifteen dollars is not the you know, the cap that's fifteen dollars of the floor, and we intend to go

higher than that. Yeah, it's a very different economy that we're certainly seeing come out of this pandemic. Uh, and we're not quite there at the pandemic. Mike Sasso, thank you so much. He is economy reporter at Bloomberg News, joining us on the phone from Atlanta. You do wonder, to Katie, though, these are you know, higher wages, higher labor costs for companies. You know, how much do they ultimately pass along to consumers. I guess that's something we'll

keep an eye on absolutely. I mean, this is how inflation gets built into the economy when you actually see employers raised wages exactly good point, and then had the supply chain problems and yeah, costs go up. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well a Bloomberg exclusive. It's also the Bloomberg Business Week cover story. It's about Peter Teal, you know, the Silicon Valley billionaire investor and disruptor.

Turns out he's kind of just like all the other rich folks out there, so writes Max Chafkin in his new biography of Tell. Let's get more on this Bloomberg Business Week Get or Joe Webber, as I just mentioned in her Boomberg Interactive Studio along with Bloomberg u S Technology Managing Editor Mark Millian. He is on the phone in our New York City bureau. Peter Teal, We've talked

about him a lot in his relationship interesting one with Trump. Yeah, and I'm gonna I'm gonna actually say that he's not maybe like all the other people you know, And I think that's when it comes to Texas, and he's never had a biography of him before. And that is the first and foremost defeat that our own colleague Max Chafkin has accomplished with this book, The Contrarian Next week. Uh,

it's really fascinating you mentioned the Trump thing. That is where the excerpt that is the cover story this week begins this, uh meeting in Trump Tower right in the transition period after Trump had been elected, where Peter Teal, who you may recall was on the stage at the Republican National Convention just a couple of weeks before that, months before that, and and basically he was able to bring a bunch of tech CEOs to Trump and basically

be this bridge between tech and the recently elected president. Uh, in a way that was somewhat unexpected, right, And it speaks to the sort of the power that Teal Weed wields in Silicon Valley. Like obviously he's been real integral part of this PayPal mafia for for years, first outside investor in Facebook, and there's a lot of roads in

Silicon Valley that leads to Peter Teal. Um. And what's interesting was this sort of little marriage that happened between Trump and Teal and that that proved um not great for a lot of people in Trump's circle and and it seemed to have worked out really well for Peter Teal, who we think um more than double misfortune during that During that time, Mark want to bring you into this conversation because it's been really wonderful throughout the Trump presidency

and thereafter. Is you know, exploring these relationships that the former president had with some likely subjects and some unlikely subjects, and Peter Tell seems to fall into that category. Yes, I would definitely agree with that. And one of the spite holding hands at that meeting at Trump Tower, that is a dark image the bro hand holding love best they had their um but yeah, I mean Teal is uh long time technologists from Silicon Valley, foreign born, um Gay.

I mean, there are a lot of things about his background that would suggest that he would not be um part of the MAGA contingent um. And yet he is a contrarian investor above all else. And he's made a lot of bad bets over the years, Um, but he's made some some fantastic ones. Facebook is certainly in that camp, and I think Trump is is in that camp. Yeah, Mark, That's what I want to dig into, because I mean, like you said, this is what TIL does. I mean,

he's a venture capital, is a capitalist. This whole thing is finding you know, startups to invest in. I mean, how much does this Is there a parallel to draw between his m O when it comes to you know, investing, being a venture capitalist and this kind of unlikely relationship he forged with Donald Trump. I think there's a direct line. I think his his entire investment strategy he speaks is the reflection of the title of Max's book, which is contrarian.

I mean he looks at where the popular opinions are and where the where the winds are blowing, and he goes the opposite direction. And oftentimes that doesn't work. Max chronicles in the book his hedge fund Clarium Capital, which was like very early to seeing the housing crisis, but in fact was too early and just went so far down this contrarian path that it it led to disaster. Um. And so this strategy is not bull proof, but when you nail it, I mean, it can really pay off.

And I think um Trump was was an example of of where he saw it early and he went in pretty big and and it did pay off in some ways. Speaking of paying off, the the ultimate uh payoff has been the roth eyray and and that is to to your joke earlier, just about you know, just like other other billionaires. Um. We don't really know if other billionaires have have done this as well as Peter Teel has, but it seems to be that um he has exploited the wrath ira a to perhaps a way that was

never intended. Um. You know, this was invented as really like a way to help middle class Americans retire, and um uh he he seems to be able to pack away some shares uh from PayPal and palinteer uh and others perhaps um all tax free and then watch that grow and and so Max reporting suggests north of five billion dollars all tax free, just like Myra I. Some

reporting suggest maybe closer to ten billion UM. And it's also as as Max reveals in this excerpt in in his book, it's also the thing that's made him quite paranoid that it would not take that much for the I R S to maybe change, you know, have these rules changed take more than the rs. But the I R S seems to be keeping a pretty close eye to make sure everything UH is abided by and it's very textbook and and otherwise you know, the risk there would be that um, you know, you you could have

a pretty sizable tax tax bill in the billions. And and Mark, I mean, it's it's legal, right what he did, but it's all it's all legal. And actually, you know Max's reporting UH indicates that you know, there there was an audit and so it has been looked at closely. And he's not alone, right like this this is something and there's an unrelated story today even by Bloomberg News that you know, there is a small small group of people who seem to have been able to to work

these i RA s to too great great results. Ben Steve Whreman story. We're gonna talk to him a little bit later on. I mean, Matt, as you go through you know, Max's book and this excerpt which is the cover story. Um again, like you said that that picture of the two of them holding hands. I mean, I think for a long time early on, we were all just trying to make sense of this relationship. But in the end, Uh, Peter Teel benefited big time. Yes, I

certainly did. I mean not to the extent maybe he envisioned in as wildest imaginations of sort of remaking government in his image. Um. You know, Max, this excerpt goes into some detail about how he offered you know, a long list of of picks for various administrative positions that the campaign deemed too extreme. Um. So which is something

really says something for sure. But you know the other thing that I think is important, and this is sort of the where Max's excerpt culminates, and and I think it's Uh, one of the reasons that that this this biography um by Max Jeffkin have I mentioned out next week is so important is that what we're really going to be watching here is Peter Teel's transition from from being a Silicone Silicon Valley power broker to something that maybe is more about the GOP and politics going forward,

and that will play out in mid terms. First and foremost, really good point. This story cover on the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week, which is available Bloomberg Business Week, of course, and that's Max Chafkin's book, The Contrarian. We're gonna be talking to Max next week, Joel and more. Thanks. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. All right, Katie Gray felt she's in for Tim Stinovic. Uh, kind of

heard a bunch of people go into space another group. Yeah, I don't know. It's just the Steady, not Tim's Tim. It's not Ed Ludlow either, although I think both of them would love to. I think I would when you know, to get into a rocket ship. No way, I just told you I was referred of votes. You won't even go to the dentist. I'm just gonna put it out there,

of course. Of course, all right, we'll talk about that later. Uh. It did happen though, at a pm Local time yesterday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX sending four civilians on a three day orbital excursion. Who was there was Bloomberg News West Coast correspondent ed Low. Ledlow, he joins us out from Cape Canaveral in Florida. So good to have you here. I would go up. I know you would go up. Tell us about what it's been like. Yeah, I think to be honest, it's been tense because of

the nature of what we're talking about. These are four civilians. They're not professional astronauts. And even though space X is a fantastic trek record they've done so many missions now varying professional antionals to and from the Insational space Station, this mission is so ambitious. They go They are currently orbite in the Earth for three hundred sixty miles altitudes, you know, much further than the Interstral Space Station, much

further than the Hubble Telescope. And you know, the question going into it this was why would they do that? Why would they not just play it safe? But the latest reports we have from space X is the cruise doing well. They've even slept and had meals and things like that. So so so far it's a successful mission, and so I'm really curious to hear what this means for commercial space travel and whether that's becoming closer to becoming a reality. You know, when will Ed Ludlow be

able to get into orbits? Yeah, Sace, they think about this side of the business being supplied and strange right, that there's really great demand there and it outweighs their ability or the number of times that they can launch in a calendar year. They're talking about sort of potentially four missions in two which is still quite a lot,

you know, going from zero to four. I think the big takeaway from the investors I speak to, you know, people that work at NASA aerospace engineers is this mission is so much more of a big deal than what we saw from Bezos and Brandon. You know, what they did doesn't even register. Bess went to sixty five miles

above the Earth for a few minutes. These guys are orbiting the Earth for three days as amateurs, as civilians with minimal training, encountering higher radiation space debris, all aboard a fully autonomous system, and if they're successful, the consensus this really is a big step forward for human space flight in general, and as you said, been more preparation. But nonetheless, these four spent, according to reporting, about nine months in preparation. They had to learn how to intervene

during the flight if necessary. I mean, this isn't just take a seat. You're up for a few seconds basically, and then you're back down on Earth. Correct, So it's a fully autonomous spaceship. However, you know, things happen, and this is what's so amazing. Their entire experiences documented by Netflix. Right, so if the listeners gone to Netflix, you can watch the first four parts of the series, which includes their training. You know, things you'd expect like centrifuges and extreme G

force exposure. And Jared Isaakman, who is actually paying for this entire thing, and the commander of the mission, one of the four inside the capsule, his that his day job is running a fintech company. His passion is being a pilot, and he took all of them on fight age to experience that extreme G pause. They did do this properly, and they are ready in the event that they have to act, and so I know that they went through all that prep. It still blows my mind

that there's no professional astronauts on this trip. But Ed so I mean, this is different, like we've just been talking about. Different from Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which sort of took off and then came back down pretty quickly. This flight is actually going into orbit. And I feel like, you know, at least I've been joking about the billionaire space race for months now, but I'm curious whether we should expect a response from Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson. Well,

we just got it. We did it within the last hour, and all he said was congratulations. As we reached Branson and Elon Musk replied saying thank you to both of them. You know, like this has been the criticism, right that this is a billionaires sport and that it's only open billionaires, and Jared Isaingman himself, he's a billionaire. He's paying the two hundred reported to a million for these guys to

be up there. But he acknowledged it head on, and he basically said, I am bringing exposure to this industry. I'm showing that it is possible and that more investment is needed, and that it is possible and attainable for a civilian to eventually go up. And he kind of went on with that and that's why they are at three hundred and sixty miles and not playing it safe, because he wanted to show that you could actually make

progress and develop the science, developed the technology in that process. Well, it's interesting to uh and you point out too in your story that's on the Bloomberg and Bloomberg dot com about how the missions raising about two hundred million in charity for childhood cancer research. So there's another component to this story. The thing is, you know, add the debate, there are people saying, why are we spending why our companies spending so much money on this? You know, what

do we get out of it? But I'm a daughter of I say this all the time. I know my producers like here she goes again, But a daughter of an engineer electrical aerospace engineer who worked on their early space missions. A lot of what we learned from those missions lead to some pretty significant scientific and technol logical developments. Jeff Bezos says, right, he wants to learn more about space to help Earth. All of this could ultimately lead

to some really important discoveries. That is the logic here very quickly on St. Jude and cancer. I mean, this mission is so high profile the world's media there, and they're going to raise two million dollars. Hailey Arsenal, one of the people on the capsule in space, is a cancer survivor and now works at St. Jude. So that's the link there. One thing I learned in my reporting is SpaceX has agreed to give NASA all of the data generated from this mission for free at no cost.

And it's really detailed data, things like radiation. As I said, space debry, the tests they're doing on board about the human body um and and after they land, if they land successfully back splashed down on the Florida coast, then they're space extually even going to hand over the capsule and let NASA inspect it. So this is all worthwhile as part of a bigger, broader initiative to move forward with human space flight. Just gonna make it a little

bit more affordable, exactly. Put the semi charge card. Well, you've got a supply crunch, you know, it's everywhere, supply crunch everywhere. Ed Ludlow Safe Travel. You gotta get back to Katie so you guys can anchor tomorrow Bloomberg cricktake together. Ed Ludlow, West Coast correspondent Bloomberg News on the phone actually at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Still you don't want to go? No, I'm not there yet, but happy

to watch other people do it. All right. Well, my guess is we're going to continue to see the billionaires and others going up into space. I'm roc journal. Yeah, but you let me drive? No, no, no, dr honey, please the vel I want to drive. Just drive by the questions drying. This is the drive to the globe. Nive me. Thanks well, try US radio. Just about ten

and a half minutes left in today's trading session. We are, as Charlie mentioned, well off our loads of the session, slight gain in fact on the NAZAC as we speak. Let's get to it, the drive to the close. Our guest today is Chris Dyer, director of Global Equity, over at Eaton Vance with us on the phone in London. Chris,

nice to have you here with Katie and myself. You look at the market, you look at the trade today, September not a great month, although when you really look at the percentages, at least for the US trade, we're just down by maybe a percentage point or so, especially when it comes to the large cap names, how do you see the market environment and and feel free to expand it in terms of the global environment. Sure, and

thanks for having me. I think you know, what we've seen in the market over the last couple of weeks is really emblematic of the broader challenge with the equity market. I think the equity market is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate from pure top down perspective, as it had been

over the last several years. If you think back um a few years ago, it was really growth and momentum was driving the market, and then earlier late two thousand twenty and then early the reopening trade really shifted rotation into cyclicals and value stocks, and that's played out now, and so I think the market is really trying to find a direction and there's a lot of tug of war going on between factors that you drive the market potentially higher, but also some challenges and concerns that are

facing the market. And so I think that the bottom line from our perspective is that you really need to focus on stock selection. It needs to be some good bottom up stock specific stories to drive returns, which is a great market environment for active managers. Well, let's talk about that, Chris. I mean when it comes to individual stocks, Uh, what are you keeping an eye on a mix of

different companies? And again, um, you know, I highlight some European names because Europe's sent out of focus for US invest years for many years. Um you know, and we are firm believers, um that you know, the outperformance going forward in the coming years should be driven by Europe. It's time for a geographical rotation. And so a few of the names that you know I would highlight should

be relatively familiar. Atlantis that's the company that it's an auto manufacturer that was created for the merger of Fiat

Chrysler and Pigeau. Um they came together earlier this year, and there's just a tremendous amount of synergies that are going to be delivered by the CEO, Carlos Davars, who we have a lot of respect for and he's a grab a great long term track, traffic track record, and um, you know, this is a company that trades on the mid single digit price to earnings multiple and so there's

a real value aspect of this company. And um, you know, there's a stock specific story, real improvement story to come through. And then on the other side of the equation, a company like Nova Nordisk, which is a Danish pharmaceuticals company. They are the global leader in what they do, which is uh the They basically have leading diabetes drugs, which

is unfortunately been a growing market across the globe. But now it's interesting and you know, the next leg of growth for them in years to come is the release of a new obesity drug, which is called we Govie. And if you just think about the market opportunity for an obesity drug, you know, estimates are that in two thousand twenty five across the globe there could be one billion obese people. Hey hey, so let me just ask you, Chris,

both of those names. If I look at the a d R s, I'm thinking of our audience that might be listening here in the US, it looks like both of those ad r s have been on a tear this year. Stilantis is up almost fort Novo Nordisk is up almost forty seven percent. Still opportunity though, you think for upside momentum, that's right, And and in each of those cases there is something that we think will be a catalyst for further share price moves in the years

to come. You know, we are long term investors and UM, these are companies that we believe, you know, will continue to do well in years to come. They're very different, however, and that sort of goes back to what I said earlier. It's not gonna be one top down factor that's driving the market. So the Lantis is very much in value stock. Uh.

Nova Nordis is a growth pharmaceutical company. UM. It trades on the much higher price earnings multiple, but they have a new drug that we believe will catalyze growth for them in years to come, given the results that they're having in the efficacy of the drug. Just to jump in, though, you did say not one top down factor impacting these names. Having said that, we've had one top down, bottom down or bottom up factor, and that's been Covid, How does

that factor into your thinking. I understand the approach of bottoms up analysis, but Covid is still out there. So does that play into any of your thinking about some of these names. I think that there will for many companies, there will be disruption in the short term. UM. If you think of a pharmaceutical company, not so much UM from that perspective of but within the auto space, we typically have avoided investing in O E M. S UM.

And you know, if you look at the the environment and the challenges that are facing the auto sector in terms of shortage of semiconductor stocks, really impacting the ability to companies to meet demand. Yeah, that is a short term disruption and UM part of that is related to covid um because of the availability of of workers, particularly in UM semiconductor plants in Malaysia. So UM, there there will be continue to be disruption in the short term.

But you know, again we believe the investors should really focus on companies with good long term stories that are

not going to be too dependent on this factor investing. Yeah, and Chris, it was interesting to hear you run through your picks and like you noted, I mean, you have some growth names in there, you have some value names and uh, you know you just said that, you know when it comes to factors, not really relying on that, but what is the common denominator if there is one between some of those individual picks and just got about

forty seconds. Sure, Uh, sustainable business models, Yeah, that is what we look for in the Calvit international equity strategy in which we're managing. Uh, look for companies that we have a good feel for what they're gonna look like in decades to come, and have a good understanding of what earnings and growth opportunities are there for them. That's some sound advice. UM, I like that, sustainable business models. Hey, Chris,

thank you so much, really appreciate it. Chris Dyer, he's director of Global Equity, over to eat in vance, joining us on the phone from London. Uh, you know, the bottoms up approach. We hear that from a lot of folks that you know, if you look at particular names, if you understand their business, understand maybe their growth trajectory,

that's how you can make an investment decision. Yeah. And there's probably a lot of active managers to Chris's point, they're listening to that and saying, bring it on, let's go. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. And you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News m