The Wild West of Cryptocurrencies

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 Global News. Well around the world, COVID cases topping one hundred sixty nine million, deaths exceeding three point five million, more than one point seven eight billion doses of the vaccine have been given, and here closer to home, at least from me New York City.

Past a milestone in the outbreaks easing as the seven day average for positive tests fell below one percent for the first time this year. Let's get into all that and more with Dr Ian lust Bader, clinical professor of medicine at n y U Lango Medical Center. He joins US now on the phone from Long Island. Dr LUs Beder, good to talk to you today. How are you, tim Always a pleasure, Happy Friday, doing very well, Happy Friday.

I'm wondering how you're seeing this play out in in your own experience at n y U. H the seven day average for positive tests falling below one percent for the first time this year. Definitely a dramatic reduction and hospitalizations. There's still a few uh COVID bids UH at n y U, so it's not zero, but as you say, it's below one percent, and certainly the number of new cases and cases that need to be hospitalized are down dramatically, and you know, we're seeing that in the United States,

which just encouraging. Cases coming down, and we have obviously a number of people who've who've had it and who've been immunized, so we're approaching herd immunity, you know, around the world. Definitely, I don't think that this is over yet by any stretch of the imagination. Well, I'm wondering if you think it will will get to the point that that the President has made a goal of US adults having one shot by the fourth of July, and we're just over six at this point. That's a that's

a goal that he's put out. Are we going to make it? You know? I hope so. I think so. We still have a small um group, but a strong group a vaccine hesitant people who you know, watch videos on YouTube and on the internet and uh and or our hesitant based on on a variety of videos and other information they get. You know, we do try and

reassure people. Nothing is a pent for sure. Um, I can tell that we're certainly not going to get to a p with vaccine hesitant people, but I think will be in a much safer zone if we get to that seventy and I think getting that by July fourth is reasonable. Yes, the latest numbers from the CDC telling us that of the population eighteen years of age or old or have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

I'm wondering about how incentives can play into this. As you heard me mentioned earlier in the show, California is just the latest state to offer a vaccine lottery, a hundred and sixteen point five million dollars in prizes available. This seems to be working, doesn't it. You know, it is to a degree. I don't think this has been done before. I'm unaware of any vaccine incentives that we've done in the recent past that I can think of.

But whether it's a New York state with UM free uh university, state university or city university tuition, you know, in in a raffle um or prize money, uh, you know, it is a public health crisis, and I think I think it makes sense to do it. It's certainly going to capture many I don't know if all the vaccine hesitant people, but I think as long as it's um a positive step forward, I I support it. I'm one of the tens of million of people in the United States.

You This weekend we'll be traveling to visit family, and it will be the first time that I've seen my grandmother in since March of last year. She's everybody's vaccinated. We're excited to all see each other. But I gotta tell you, it feels like for me, because we're all vaccinated, that that things are going to be just like they were before the pandemic. And I'm not expecting us to do anything differently. Are we making a mistake by doing that? No, I don't. I don't think so. And by the way,

congratulations on good genes Heaven Griff. Very impressive, I must say, so that's that's a positive UM. But I think the data it really is reassuring in terms of being with vaccinated UM people in groups, even if you haven't seen them for a while. I think it is safe. Ideally, you know, if you can sit outside, if the weather is nice, if you can, you know, still keep that six ft apart, maybe a gentle hug and then and then step back a little bit, you know, just to

be safe. But I think the data is very clear that, uh, staying together with that vascinated groups indoors or outdoors, as the CDC said, is certainly fine to do. And even though we occasionally find a little bit of virus in the naves of parents, you know, with swabs like the Yankees, you know that we've talked about, I think it's going

to be very safe. And I think the emotional positivity of being with family, for your ninety eight year old grandmother to see her grandkids and family, has such a positive energy that I think that that far outweighs the very small risk of of getting an infection. Yeah, we're certainly excited about it our Our two year old gets to see her for the first time, you know, in

more than half his life. Um, Dr les Bader, if we were doing this interview six seven months ago, we'd be talking about the potential spike in cases following Thanksgiving or following Christmas. Just in the last minute that we have, and we'll come back with you. Do you expect to see a similar spike in cases because they are down dramatically, but after this holiday weekend. I don't think we're going to see as big as spike because of the widespread vaccinations.

I think in the US we're on a good trend. Globally, I'm not so sure at all that this is over. I think we're having under reporting of many cases from many countries, but I think we're good in the United States. I don't think we're going to see a meaningful spike after the holiday weekend, but certainly globally it is by no means over. Well, let's get right back to it with Dr Ian LUs beda clinical clinical professor of medicine.

Excuse me, Dr LUs Better at n y U Landgo Medical Center joining us on the phone from Long Island. Dr LUs Better, I want to get to the idea of COVID long haulers. It's something that we started to hear about about a year ago. And those folks you've had lingering COVID symptoms, what do we know about how they can be treated now? Well, it's definitely a challenge. We are seeing a subset of patients who really have the these ongoing symptoms, ongoing chest paint, pok shortness of breath,

brain fog um, heart issues. And we do know the virus effects every organ. In other words, we see uh, myocarditis, cardiac inflammation, kidney certainly long you know, obviously we've had Why most people resolve almost too normal and why other people have these ongoing symptoms isn't completely clear. There are a number of clinics and why you recently has a

new clinic for long bawlers or post COVID syndrome. It's not as if we have a magic pill, but we certainly are really trying to learn about this and and follow those patients kind of study the patient's try a variety of different approaches. There's some evidence that some of those patients um after they get vaccinated, even though they've had COVID obviously and they have long haawl of syndrome post COVID syndrome. If you give them a vaccine, a

subset of those do get better. So that's still another uh motivation for people even if they've had it, to get the vaccine. But there's definitely an ongoing set. I've had patients for a year who have just felt terribly even though they have the antibodies, and even though they've gone through it and their family has gone through it and the family feels better, they do not very hard to tease out exactly what that is or the magic

formula to make them better. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you mentioned the anecdotal evidence that we had seen earlier this year about those who had been vaccinated the symptoms actually getting better. Do we have anything beyond anecdotal at this point? There are no really formal studies. All of those studies are really being done, and there are a number of clinics that are being followed. And typically it's a multi specialty approach. In other words, will have pullman

pulmonologists involved, lung specialists and neurologists involved. Uh. It's really a number of different specialties and they're really analyzed. We try a number of approaches for symptomatic treatment and anti viral treatment and a host of different things, but there is not a consensus. Certainly, it would be interesting to look at some things like ivermectin that that has been

looked at for prevention and treatment. I think we're going to have to explore some unusual or untried approaches since this is basically new and we're really learning trying to learn how to deal with it as best as can be. Fortunately, it's a small group of patients, but they are very intractable. Many are miserable, and many have difficulty really returning to work. Yeah, it's the people who have been affected by it. I

really feel for them. Dr Lustbader. I want to end just talking about the origins of the coronavirus, because over the weekend there was a report in the Wall Street Journal that said three researchers from the WU Hunt Institute of Virology in China, we're sick enough all the way back in November of tw nineteen that they went to

the hospital. The Wall Street Journal sites an undisclosed US intelligence report, And I'm wondering if you think that we are ever going to know from the perspective of this medical community, the scientific community where the virus came from. I think it's really important to to do our best to find out. I think there's mounting evidence that it really was a lab leak. You do think, um, I do. I think transparency in sciences and medicine is what it's

all about. You know, we and that we go to other hospitals, We read papers, labs are visited to be reviewed and see what if whatever findings or scientific breakthroughs are found. It's a very open system, at least in the United States, and I think when you're prevented from doing that, it's very suspicious. And and Rand Paul Senator Paul actually raised some good points about no intervening animal

species being found. And I think, um, we really trust sign in test and I think Dr Faucium might have been too trusting in this case. We really need to keep a lot of research domestically uh and and carefully monitored because all of the lamps in the United States are reviewed by by central agencies to prevent this sort of thing. Well, hopefully we get to a point where we actually can determine the origins. Dr LUs Bader, it's always great to chat with you have a great weekend.

Thank you so much for joining us. That's Dr Ian lust Better, clinical professor of Medicine at n y U Langos Medical Center. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well. In April, the House of Representatives agreed to discuss the possibility of establishing a commission to study reparations. It happened more than three decades after the proposal was first introduced.

President Biden called the resolution a good idea, but full reparations from the federal government probably won't becoming anytime soon. That said, the city of Evanston, Illinois, is already getting started. Joining us today with an article in it a feature in the current issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine, available on newsstands and at Bloomberg dot com. Slash business Week is Joel Weber, editor at Bloomberg News and Susan Burfield,

Projects and Investigations reporter at Bloomberg Business Week. They join us from Brooklyn. Joel Um, I'm I'm wondering about this because reparations are at least how Evanston is defining reparations are a lot more complicated than just giving people money, that's right. And and I just thought this story, um that Susan and her colleague, our colleague Jordan Holman worked on for the magazine was amazing and perfectly timed for

for this week and the events of this week. You know, here we are a year after George Floyd's murder um and and I think the reparation story is one that it has been, you know, one of the most interesting to watch. Evanston is Illinois is particularly interesting because this is the first US city to really promise that that they would take this stuff on. And and boy that's not easy. It turns out even even the the word

reparations can be controversial. So so Susan, can you can you help us understand what Evanston is going through and where it might go from here? Yeah? Sure. So, you know, as you said, there's some kind of two efforts underway throughout the country. There's an effort at the national level, at least to begin talking about a federal reparations program that would probably come to trillions of dollars um for

every eligible African American. And then there are cities like Evanston that are looking at what UM the local cases for reparations for you know, injustice discrimination against black residents that the cities themselves are responsible for and that they can pay within their budget. So that's usually programs of millions of dollars in the case of Evanston ten million dollars and Susan they're doing this through the lens of

real estate. Explain why that is. Yeah, so you know, for a city like Evanston, UM, it's not going to attempt UM to make restitution for something as huge as the years of slavery. But what the city wants to take responsibility for and is holding itself account accountable for, is for housing discrimination UM that black residents tastin Evanston for several decades. UM that contributes, as we know everywhere to UM a racial income gap of almost seven times

between black and white families. And you know, in Evanston, UM, it's pretty well documented the ways in which black residents UM at one point lived all over the city and then over the course of about two decades, we're all steered towards one neighborhood in Evanston now known as the Fifth Ward and Susan can you tell us more specifically about Evanston because the story and story that you write, and you should also add that this is um episode of the Paycheck podcast as well, so there's a whole

podcast version of this same story. UM. I'd just like to understand, like you know, rewind the clock because this goes back actually decades in Evanston. What what happened? Yeah? So you know, um, Evanston can document kind of the first arrival of black residents to the late UM eighteen fifties and sixties. Uh. And over the years, you know, there were increased number of black residents, especially the Great Migration of the nineteen twenties. And as more black residents

settled in Evanston. Uh, there began kind of official and unofficial codes and restrictions on where they could live. And then there came redlining, which was a national policy but also took place in Evanston. UM. That further made it difficult for black residents who now we're all living in this one fairly concentrated area, um to get a fair mortgage and that policy no plus under investment by the city.

The results in a neighborhood where the property values are lower than elsewhere in Evanston, the homes are worth less and families we're lost wealth. Um. In one of the stories that we highlight, UM of Carlos Sutton, his home, his grandfather's home, was actually moved from one part of Evanston to the fifth ward and the home, had it been UM, remained where it was, I'm sorry, would today

be worth maybe five thousand dollars. UM. Where it is now, it's worth about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, not even that far away from from where it was in the nine twenties. UM, susan ten million dollars. How are you that's the beginning? UM. How are they paying for it?

So the money is coming from a new sales tax on UH, the sale of recreational marijuana legalized in Illinois at the start of Evanston has one dispensary and UH the city is collecting a three percent sales tax and estimates that sales will be about a million dollars or so. The sales tax will be about a million dollars a year, and they've dedicated the first ten million dollars of that

to reparations. So it could be a ten year program, you know, if they raise more money through taxes UM, sooner they'll they'll spend that, and they're trying to raise additional funds. Susan, can you talk a little bit about, uh, just the word reparations and why that's why it's getting

pushed back in just the last minute. We have sure so I think that you know, there's a sense among some black rep residents that reparations should really be reserved for the federal government efforts to make up for as best it can compensate for and apologize for slavery and the discrimination that followed UM, and that every black American African Americans should be eligible, and the sense that a smaller program h such as Evanston's and especially this first

step that just focuses on housing, is a bit too limited to be called reparations. Susan Burfield, Projects and Investigations, reporter at Bloomberg Business Week. It's a fantastic feature that you wrote along with Jordan Holman also joining me now Joe Weber, editor at Bloomberg Business Week. A big thank you to both of you for joining us. You can find Susan's story featured in the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's available on newsstands and at Bloomberg

dot com Slash business Week. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, if you've been paying any attention to what's been happening with cryptocurrencies, you know that volatility, at least of late, is the name of the game. If you're keeping track right now, Bitcoin down another twells

thirty six thousand, one hundred and twenty dollars. Joining is now to help us make sense of it all is Pat Laveki, a CEO of Oasis Pro Markets, joining us now on the phone from Darien, Connecticut. Pat, it's great to have you back on a Bloomberg Business Week Radio. How you doing doing great? Tim, thank you for inviting

me back. So so take me back to just a couple of weeks ago when we got that tweet from Elon Musk, that first tweet that that's set off I think fair to say this most recent round of volatility when it comes to cryptocurrencies, and he talked about the energy usage and Tesla no longer accepting bitcoin for purchase of cars. What did you think to yourself, oh boy, to start with, and then um, that's by the way, that's a normal reaction to an Elon Musk tweet. That's right,

that's right, we're on the same page there. Um. Look, we're at the tip of the spear of this whole crypto progression and in ten years digital will be ubiquitous technologies as well as crypto in my opinion. Oh and just in regards to before I get started diving into you know, my views uncertain items, I just want to share these are my views and not the views of

oasis pro markets. Okay, important distinction. Um I do I do want to know about the about energy usage though, I mean, this is this is now front and center. I mean you probably heard me talking with Charlie Pellett about the illegal bitcoin mine that was found in the UK. Iran banning bitcoin mining until September twenty two because of energy usage concerns. How does cryptocurrency get to a place where it's not assuming as much energy? Well, you know

there's a lot of misconceptions about that, tim as well. Um, there is energy usage, but I believe Cathy Wood has also shared the fifty percent while fifty of the mining activity right now is in China. Most of that is supported by renewable and hydroelectric energy sources, just as an f y i UM. So that's on the Bitcoin front, on the East front, which is the second largest cryptocurrency

out there. There are major improvements coming along over the summer, which is called the Berlin Fork, and then eat layer two by the end of the year. And just think about it this way. Today it's a four lane highway for Ethereum, the Ethereum blockchain at the when Layer two is implemented. Now it's a bit controversial because it was supposed to have been implemented a couple of years ago UM, but they've been going through the auditing process and improving it.

Because it's a community of basically coders who have put this all together. That four lane highway will be you know, just as an example of forty eight lane highway. And with that there's much less electricity usage required. Now with Elon's comments, he came out. He did come out a few more about a week later and stated that he had spoken to the North American bitcoin miners and they had committed to publishing current and planned renewable usage as

part of mining. So he started stepping back from that comment from two weeks ago, and I'm sure between us he didn't expect the kind of reaction that is implemented. I want to talk touch on regulation here too. UM, specifically, get your thoughts on what we heard from bank executives yesterday. Earlier this week, Jamie Diamond said to members of Congress UM, when asked about cryptocurrency, it was a buyer beware product and it goes back to how you run a business.

He said, quote, I don't MC marijuana, but if you make it nationally legal, I'm not going to stop our people from banking it. What do you make of his comments around crypto Well, I I think that he you know, the view is UM, uh throughout my conversations with with others in this particular space, that regulation is coming through enforcement rather than you know, along the line, Skindlers asked for a market regulator. UH. That probably won't happen this year.

Over the next couple of years, UH, it may eventually step up, but UM in the meantime through regulation of the u S securities lass. UM, there's this is the wild West him and in the wild West it was an even Wilder West a year ago, and it's you know, a lot of important players are coming into the market. So you've seen several major regulators from the Trump administration, like Brian Brooks and Redfern move over to crypto exchange US. UH.

Redfern was at UM the Securities and Exchange Commission. He ran one of the divisions there. He's now a coin base. Brian Brooks was the acting control of the currency. He's now at Finance. And when you see the regulators making these types of moves, I think that you know, since they were on the inside, now they're on the outside.

They do see the opportunities here in regards to UM, not not only obviously an opportunity for growth for themselves, but the opportunity for the United States for the markets, etcetera. But regulation does need to come. Well, are just in the last thirty seconds that we have pat what does that regulation look like? Uh, fantastic question. I think the crypto exchanges are heading towards being regulated. I run a

regulated exchange for digital securities UM. Right now, there are there's no regulation whatsoever in regards to bid as, spreads, deliveries, etcetera. So it's buyer beware across the board and uh, once regulation comes, you'll see this market take off. Okay, just ten seconds left. Type of volatility that you expect to see with cryptocurrency for the remainder of the year. Okay, uh. In the next week the Bigcoin Fair twelve thousand people

in Miami. Opportunity for bigcoin volatility. There it is Palla Veki, a CEO at Oasis pro Markets, joining us today from Connecticut. Have a great weekend, Pat, thanks so much for joining us talking all about bitcoin and crypto. Bitcoin by the way, at thirty and twenty two dollars. This is Bloomberg Brother Journal. Yeaw, but you let me drive. Oh no, no, no, honey, please, I'll do the right I want to drive, Just drive baby, good questions trying. This is the drive to the close community. Thanks,

we'll try us Dawn on Bloomberg Radio. Yes, indeed it is with just over ten minutes until the last trading day of the month concludes. So we are looking at gains across the board on the DAW, the S and on the NASDAC. We'll joining us now to help make

sense of it. All is John Trainer, chief investment Officer at People's United Advisors that has nine billion dollars in assets under management, joining us on the phone from Bridgeport, Connecticut, John, how are you doing on this uh last Friday before nice three day weekend, And you know, it's nice to see a nice rally in the market. So this is

a great way to end the month and start the weekend. Yeah. Well, you know, unfortunately for us on the East Coast, it seems like the weather is not going to be so great this weekend, which is a little disappointing. But you know that's neither here nor there. Let's talk markets and and and really what you make of them right now.

So here we are at the end of the month, the DAL higher by more than two the s and P five hundred higher by seven tenths of one percent, the NASDAK finishing the month looks like down at least as of right now. About what do you make of it? All? You know, what we're seeing is just a continuation of the themes that we've seen all through this through this year, sort of the give and take, the ebb and flow between growth and value. You know, is the economy going to be too hot or is it is it going

to be you know, a more moderate growth. We have been in the camp that you want to and we started doing this last year. Build your portfolio for the economic rebounds. Start to decrease your growth emphasis, increase the value emphasis and the portfolio because we definitely think we're we're going to continue to see good news on the economy, good news as as the service industries start to reopen.

So you want to position your portfolio there. And you know, I know it's tough with the daily ebb and flow, but keep your eyes focused on the rebounding economy and increase used the cyclical exposure in your portfolios. But to what extent is that priced in right now already? Well, I think you know, with with regard to a lot of the sort of the deeper cyclicals, you know, they've had a nice pop. You've sort of had the bounce in a lot of the stocks that were given up

for dead last year. But you know, one of the things that we've been doing is continuing to take profits in the big texts were now slightly underweight. We were overweighted last year, so we're underweight. I don't think we're we're to the end of that. I still think, you know, there's time to to take profits in the text, So I think some of some of this is factored in. But when you see a lot of the frothiness in the market, I'm not sure that a lot of investors

have positioned their their portfolios for the cyclical recovery. There's still a lot of sort of the the big tech ownership out there that I still think needs to be rotated out of. And what do they rotate into then, specifically, well, we're buying, Well, we like the financials, so we're buying, you know, more of the mid sized banks which are are more focused on the rebounding economy. The money center banks have done very well, but you want to own

more than midsize banks. And then the industrials. We like the industrials. We want to be exposed to that, and we're buying you know, some of some of the industrials that you know definitely did not fall that hard last year, that have good, good cash flow growth, and we we we want to be exposed to them. So financials and

industrials are the two areas were emphasized. Financials and industrials. Well, let's talk a little bit about the eye word inflation and and to what extent, do you believe like the Federal Reserve and officials there we hear over and over again that it's transitory. Yeah, you know, And you know, one of the things we do is we we keep an eye on the bond market, and what the bottom market is telling you is that they believe the Fed.

You know, I mean, look at the look at the inflation news that we've had recently here, um, and the bond market is really not reacting. So investor are giving the Fed the benefit of the doubt. Um. You know. One of the things that we do know though, is you know, we're probably going to get some surprises. We think we will get some surprises on the upside, meaning it's gonna shock the market and they'll think the FED

is behind the curve. Generally, when that happens, you're the value companies tend to do better in that kind of an environment. So again there's another reason why you you probably don't want to own a lot of the higher pe stocks. You want to you know, have cushing your portfolio with with some of the value value stocks. But you know, we we don't think we don't think inflation is going to get out of control, but we think we're going to get some scares coming forward and it's

gonna it's gonna shake the market a little bit. Maybe we'll see it in the bodom market. Well, what's your data, what's the data that that you're watching about that? Um? It's it's is it more? Is wage growth more important? There is that where you're keeping an eye on. When it comes to you hit the you hit the nail on the head, you know, I know, you know, our our economic team keeps it very close on commodity inflation,

but inflation that we're we're most focused on. And again we're going to get the employment numbers next week, so we're going to get some fresh data. But the wage inflation data is really what we're keeping our our eye on. Um. You know, we've seen tremendous increases UH in uh increasing the minimum wage. A lot of employers, a lot of local employers are struggling to hire people that wage inflation.

That if we see that start to pick up, that would tell us, boy of boy, maybe we are getting some more sustainable inflation here, and that would really spook the market. So you hit a nail the head. Wage inflation much more so than commodity inflation is important to us. So if if if wage inflation is most important, what happens if if you'd start to see significant wage inflation,

what do you do to your portfolio? You know, then we start to get a little bit more defensive, because then you know, again, you know, they said policy acts with a lag, and if the FED starts to get scooped, and if the if investors start to think the Fed is behind the curve, again they're giving the Fed the benefit of the doubt. Now if they believe the FIT is behind the curve, we certainly think we're going to see intertrates higher. So our portfolios right now, we're short duration,

we're short the index um. But you know, a concern that we've got would be with the overall market. So I think you could see a little bit of a pullback if confidence in the FED gets shaken, then I think you'd see a pullback in the financial markets across the board. And that would be something that number one we don't think is going to happen just yet, but

we'd have to make some adjustments to portfolios. Hey, John, I think one thing that it's surprising to me is that time flies and that the next jobs report is already coming next week, because it does feel like we we just had that two D and sixties six thousand number that was such a disappointment against what economists expected of a million and the most recent court. Um, what

are your expectations for next week? And do you think that given that we are still not out of this pandemic and given that kids are not back in school full time, we are going to see another disappointment. No, actually, we actually think you're going to see the unemployment rate drop. You know, our forecast is to get down to five point nine percent, So we actually think it's going to be a good number. I know a lot of people were very surprised last month and it was a relatively

weak number. We think that's going to change. Uh, you know, just just from anecdotally what we're seeing on the on the on the small business side. Um, we think you're going to start to see the the rehiring. And really it's that rehiring in the you know, the waiters and waitresses and the lower wage jobs. That's really what the FED is looking for. So we think the FED is going to see some rehiring next week, which would be encouraging and we'll see what how that impacts their their

tapering conversations. So, John, just in the twenty seconds that we have left, does that change how you're thinking about potential wage growth? If if the job's report does look good, if if it if it looks good, and you know, again we're hoping it's a good number. We're hoping that we see rehiring and the lower rage areas. You know, one month is not going to shake us, but that's really what we want to see, rehnoring, and we're gonna have to leave it there. John Trainer's chief investment officer

at People's United Advisers, joining us on the phone from Bridgeport, Connecticut. John, thanks so much for taking the time. 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 to Bloomberg Global News