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This is Bloomberg business Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
We've been monitoring some news when it comes to TikTok.
Yeah, we'll speaking of President Trumpy sign an executive order to extend the deadline for TikTok's Chinese parent Byte Dance to divest the platform's US operations until December sixteenth, So another extension. Also some details about US operations including Oracle, silver Lake, and Intrise and Horowitz. Oracle would keep the TikTok cloud contract. This would be the group that would control the US operations of TikTok. For more, I want
to bring in Brad's Stone. He's the editor of Bloomberg Business Week and the author of Amazon Unbound, Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, among many other books. He joins us from our San Francisco bureau. Brad the latest on TikTok. It's it's not. It's interesting because it's it's one that's sort of faded into the background a little bit until it comes up for deadline and then also comes up as sort of like a tool for
trade negotiations. I'm just curious what you think of this group Oracle, silver Lake Andries and Horowitz, and the idea that US operations would be controlled by a group that you know, you've come to know pretty well in Silicon Valley.
Right. Well, first of all, Tim, how long have we been talking about TikTok.
I can tell you I.
Can answer that question for you. It was during the first longer longer than I've been at Bloomberg. It was during the first Trump administration that we were talking.
Webb in the retirement home one day, analyzing this.
Look.
I mean, i mean, first of all, you know, they're talking about spinning off the US operation into this consortium of Oracle and and recent Horowitz. They're talking about asking TikTok's one hundred and seventy million US users to download a new app. So that's a little bit of friction right there. I mean, frankly, it seems this to me seems like it would be a win for meta and YouTube.
I mean, there's very little that says this new TikTok Us operation that licenses the technology from ByteDance but then recreates the algorithm domestically. It just doesn't sound like an agile company that can adapt to the rapid changes we're seeing in social media and AI. And I just have to question, you know, because we have been talking about it for so long, whether the spinoff will really happen. You know, this has been promised and or threatened many times over the years.
And you know, Brad and also seeing some reporting out I think from the Journal, but said US investors holding a roughly eighty percent stake in Chinese shareholders owning the rest according to those in the know. So like, and I think there's going to be a board in that there's going to be one board member designated by the US government. It just as you say, it just sounds like kind of a strained entity.
And tiptoeing around the law, right because during the Biden administration, you know, Congress passed a law that said that the TikTok algorithm would have to be created and controlled in the US. And yet you know, according to this report, they'll still be licensing some technology from Bytten, So of course the devil will be in the details. And you know, you can also imagine that it's all subject to the next presidential pronouncement and a potential trade deal with China,
and so we'll see, we'll see. But look, I mean this is terrain that as we know in Silicon Valley, everything changes every single day. And the idea of asking one hundred and seventy million users to download a new app with a new algorithm and then to compete with the likes of YouTube and Instagram, that really, over the past few years have copied a lot of TikTok's functionality.
Not doing it, not doing it.
And I'm appt out already, Brad, What I want to ask you about I'd much rather look at some AI slop? Can you talk about AI slap?
I do have to say.
I just have to say, people give AI slop a hard time. Eryl Masser Brad is a fan of this stuff. She's like baby reading the story earlier today and she's saying, I love this stuff.
I've lost many moments of my time watching stuff.
Tell us what it is though, right, Well, so this was my my opening essay for our October issue.
It's our screen time issue.
And I'm looking at and if you use social media, you're probably familiar with it. The AI generated video that has come to Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. So talking dogs with their own podcast, babies being interviewed, Bunny is jumping on trampolines, you know, all sorts of craziness that
has in he feeds right now. It really has been ushered in just over the past few months, in large part Google introducing a new tool, vo three, which you know, as you can see here, does a pretty good job not just with video generation but also audio generation transform transferring a written script that the user inputs into spoken dialogue, and also a sort of realistic depiction of it.
I gotta tell you, I'm watching those dogs. Sorry for those who are listening on radio, But those dogs men, I mean, I believe it.
Do you think they're really talking?
Yeah?
I believe that they have a podcast.
I mean, it's what is the matter with my dog that he's not podcasting?
I don't know.
Yeah, here, here, here.
Here, see more podcasts.
Are people making a lot of money off of this?
You know, a create I've talked to a bunch of creators and you know, all of them alarmingly young. I talked to one thirteen year old who is who is generating videos using Stormtroopers.
So you know Disney ip uh.
He made like a couple of thousand dollars over the summer just putting up these short videos of Stormtrooper misadventures onto Instagram and TikTok. I talked to another set of brothers from Montreal who were supporting their dog, their pet app by producing the dog podcasting videos and it's been a great marketing tool. So yeah, some of the social networks do pay creators for creative content.
It's also a marketing tool.
I don't know that anyone's getting exceedingly wealthy, but certainly the attention and the eyeballs are there.
I'm curious about what this all means for Hollywood and for content creation. And it kind of gets into this a little bit because, as you mentioned, this is the introduction for the screen time issue of Bloomberg Business wee Can. I'll use this as an opportunity to plug the event Bloomberg screen Time October eighth and ninth in Hollywood. Carol and I will be there. I assume, Brad, you will be there. If there's still tickets, you can get them at Bloomberg Live dot com. We hope to see you there.
What does it mean for Hollywood, because there's been there have been a lot of concerns about the ability to create content that has become so realistic and what it means for the folks who are to the south of you.
Brad.
Yeah, I mean, I think I think it just shows how rapidly things are changing. Just a few years ago, during the writers strike, you know, Hollywood writers expressed a real allergy to the use of AI and professional productions, and now we have this ground swell of content that's being created in dorm rooms and in basements that's flooding social media.
It's it's pretty good, it's pretty high quality.
And then we're seeing a little bit of a of a loosening of the restrictions in Hollywood. There was a studio that was aligned with Amazon that recently announced it would be sort of finishing or recovering some scenes from one of the last Orson Wells productions, The Magnificent Ambersons.
Using AI.
So you sort of consense the winds shifting a little bit in Hollywood in a realization that the technology is.
Getting so good it can no longer be ignored.
The one thing I keep thinking about, and you touch upon this is the responsibility of social media companies brought in this column. And you know, we've already seen the difficulties in policing harmful posts and information, and I'm thinking deep fakes and so on and so forth. Take this potentially to a whole other level. So I don't know what are we hearing when it comes to oversight and responsibility and stuff that could be harmful.
Yeah, when a creator uploads a video to Instagram or TikTok, they are asked to check a box as to whether the video has been AI generated.
It's essentially optional. And look, I mean, I think the.
Potential for confusion for deep fakes that defraud deceive viewers is so high that it probably is incumbent upon the companies to label those and to use technology, employe technology to look for you know, hidden fingerprints or other indications of AI, and to do their viewers as service and show when AI is being employed. I use the example and maybe some listeners remember this. If the bunnies jumping on a trampoline a lot of people thought.
That was real.
It was AI generated. It was a video that was popular over the summer. You know, the creator of that video didn't even realize he was being asked to mark the video as AI generated. So it probably the companies probably need to do a little better job telling people what's AI and what's not.
Hey, Brad, real quick apologies to end on a somber note here, but I've been meaning to ask you about this, and we have the opportunity now. Last week, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah gave a press conference following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and he said something that stuck with me.
He said, social media is a cancer. And it made headlines, but it made me question, is this going to be a moment where social media companies take a look at their algorithms or is this just a speed bump or something that isn't even considered when thinking about algorithms.
I mean, Tim, there's no evidence of it. You know, particularly over the.
Last year, they have downshifted content moderation strategies, you know, part partly under pressure from the US administration, and you know, and then you look at services like x over the last week, and everyone is almost their worst sells right and going to battle over what's really undeniably at tragedy. So no, there's no sense that the companies are amplifying or amping up their content moderation strategies. In fact, they might see it as a political danger and so are doing the opposite.
Yeah, it's kind of remarkable this environment. Brad we got to run. Thank you so much, looking forward to talking to you more and looking forward to being there with you on screen time. That, of course, is our Bradstone, editor of Bloomberg Business Week. He's the author of Amazon on Bound, Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, many many other books too, so highly recommend all that he has written on.
Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us Live on YouTube.
Let's get to tim A's trusted voice when it comes to the US Treasury, trade and what the Fed is up to.
Katie Kaminski is Chief research strategist Dan portfolio manager with Alpha Simplex Group. She joins us from Boston. Also the co author of the book trend Following with Managed Features the Search for Crisis Alpha. Katie, good to have you with us this afternoon. First, make the call about the FEDS, not just tomorrow's move, but also the move to the end of the year. We want to put you on
the spot here. What do you think happens tomorrow and then what do you think happens for the remainder of the year when it comes to the path of policy.
Oh, you love to do that.
I get that, So I'd say twenty five tomorrow, but that's consensus. But I do think we will get some more or cuts later this year, and the market has definitely already been pricing that in, particularly in the futures market. What that means is that people are expecting this to be a catalyst a start of a new regime, which is important.
Well, having said that, you know, I'm thinking about your background. You've got a Bachelor of Science and electrical engineering, a PhD in operations research from MIT. Yeah, you're super smart.
We know, we know.
I'm just wondering, Katie, is it easier to kind of figure out FED policy the US fixed income market right now, or is it easier figuring out a complicated electronic schematic. I'm just curious with all that's coming out, investors. I actually think it's equally as complex. And let me tell you why.
Is right now is a very interesting time and history for looking at the FED, and just the amount of dissent is actually is unprecedented. So we haven't seen three descents since nineteen eighty eight, and you're starting to see a much wider range of views on.
The FED itself.
So I'd like to say that this is going to cause a much wider reaction, a range of reaction, or more volatility in the reaction function of markets once those decisions come out and we try to figure out what that means.
Is that descent, in your view, political or is it representative of a lot of things coming out investors and maybe some mixed signals.
Well, I think you know, there's clearly some political leading in terms of.
That type of dissent.
I mean there's but just the fact that you have such wide range of opinions and I think, like I said, we haven't seen this many descents in FED votes for decades, So it kind of suggests a new regime shift, a very different type of FED to try to analyze, and everyone's trying to understand are these descents going to move to a new consensus or are we just going to be in the same scenario for a longer period of time.
I think the FED is is independent right now.
I mean, I think you know it's hard to have nothing is ever one hundred percent independent in Washington, as you guys already noted, you all already noted. But I think the fact that you know, there's definitely influence coming from those that are appointed that has a potential to make independence a little bit weaker than it was before.
And that's definitely the market's sentiment on that. And the things that you see is there's a lot of concern over that, and that could put the bond market at risk.
So when you look at the I mean, what are you now looking and thinking in terms of how low rates can go? O Katie. I mean, we have talked with you throughout the last three to six to nine to twelve months, and there's points where we were talking about what five percent on the ten year. We've gone below four percent on the tenure where right now kind of at it. So I'm just curious what's the smart thinking in your view when it comes to where US rates trend.
So this is a very good point.
We have seen more long pressure in bonds, We're starting to see trajectory towards lower rates. What I get concerned about is if we stay in the middle and we sort of have a smooth and steady ride down in rates, I think that maybe something where nothing, no balance gets tipped.
On the other hand, if we have a very aggressive move downward in rates, we could have some overstimulation, we could be at risk for inflation, and we could risk losing parts of the long end of the bond curve just due to investors being concerned about rates being too low and inflation being too high. So I think for me, it's coasting in the middle will give us a nice trend down in yields.
Right, So did you give me levels.
Exactly? But maybe maybe three?
I don't know.
Really hopefully maybe one. Wait, depends on the time horizon though.
Did you say one?
No, I definitely didn't say one.
Okay, but maybe three? Are you saying three? For like the five?
Three?
Three and a half three, three and a half, perhaps all along.
I mean that six months sofa contract is already trading at a three four, so you know we could get there.
I don't know what.
About when it comes to growth. Should investors be concerned about stackflation?
Well?
I mean I think stagflation is one of those corner cases where you know, if things are calmon, we have a balance in terms of growth is strong enough to withstand, for example, tariffs inflation, then we should be in an
okay position. I think what people really get concerned about is sort of putting the pedal to the metal, right, so you basically cut rates too quickly, try to overstimulate, it doesn't work, and suddenly inflated prices are there anyways, And so I think there is a concern because it is really sort of a very bad economic situation. It's not just low growth, it's low growth when the power
of your purchasing power has gone down. And so I think we love to talk about it because it's sort of like the armagedon.
Of difficult scenarios.
Hey, I just want to get a couple headlines that are crossing the bloomberg right now, silver Lake and Intries and Horowitz in a TikTok investor group. This according to The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal also reporting that TikTok's US consortium would include Oracle. The TikTok deal would create a new entity, and US TikTok users would be asked to shift to a new app. This is
all according to the Wall Street Journal. This comes after we did learn a little earlier that the US has extended the deadline to sell TikTok until December sixteenth.
The White House.
Issued in order earlier just in the last hour on TikTok, extending that TikTok enforcement delay.
Hey kay, before you go, what are you watching out for? Most we get a dot plus tomorrow. We've got a new member on the FED board, Stephen Myron, of course from the FED. Enough from the Fed, excuse me, nominated by the President. So I'm just curious. What's top of mind. I feel like there's going to be a lot coming at US tomorrow.
I think for me, it's the dispersion in the dot plots. Do we see a much wider range and how do we distill that information? And also the size of the cut. Let's just be honest, like, do we get a surprise. I mean, I think that is always an interesting scenario to think about a zero or fifty.
All right, Gonna leave it out there. I'm always always appreciate your time in such a timely interview at that Katie B. L Kati Kaminski. She's chief research strategist and portfolio manager at Alpha Simplex Group. Joining us from Boston, Massachusetts.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Hey over the summer. One of the things that caught our attention Bloomberg News reporting of the world's largest technology companies that we're talking Microsoft, Amazon, Google, all of them planning to spend billions of dollars more than three hundred and forty four billion dollars on capital expenditures, with much of it tim going to data centers for AI models.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Amandy saying, companies have quote basically tripled capex investment in cloud due to AI with executives emphasizing they need to invest quickly to get ahead our next guests. Is helping those hyper scalers scale up when it comes to AI. With us in studio as a dere Fox Martin, President and CEO of Aquinix, the nearly seventy six a billion dollar market cap data center readA trades under the ticker EQIX, down so far this
year about eighteen percent. Dear, welcome, good to see.
You, Thank you so much, Thank you for having me, das.
To have you. So, how's business? Business is very good?
Like the best you've seen it.
Like we're in the middle of a very strong cyclical demand cycle for you know, the products and services.
That we offer.
When you say we're in the middle, help us understand how long that means of a runway there is to go here?
Sure you know, at Equinics, we see a very significant trend from the training of models in the AI economy that we refer to in your opening there with the hyperscalors to the deployment of those models in enterprise systems, and that deployment is called imprints, and we see that opportunity as potentially double the size of the training opportunity and at our company, we feel where we're built for this moment.
Has that happened faster than everybody anticipated, because I do feel like the conversation although we've been talking about AI of now almost two and a half years, well or well into two and a half years, but we are now increasingly talking about all this stuff starting to be put to work.
Right, you can certainly see organizations we have ten thousand customers across the world moving from proof of concepts into production systems and applications of the technology.
One of the things I think we're curious about is, as you know, the news flow is fast and furious from the White House and out of Washington, and there have been some announcements out of Trump administration about AI infrastructure initiatives specifically. So I'm curious that dare have you seen any impact of that on your existing properties leasing effort? And I'm curious how you compete with how does that kind of compete their program with your own development program.
Look, we very much welcome the focus that the current administration has on data centers and the importance and the recognition of data centers and their important role in the infrastructure of any economy, and we certainly are looking at, you know, some of the properties that have been identified as potential for RFPs, and we would choose based on locations that would be accreative to our business because we're very focused in cities in metro areas close to where
humans are who will use this technology.
Are you getting pushed back from cities and humans who don't necessarily want those.
Data interest not? Not hugely.
I mean, we're very conscious of the role that we play and you know, the role that we play with communities where we have data centers, and we're very considered about our approach there.
What makes a good location for a data center because it doesn't actually apart from the construction, it doesn't actually involve that many people to keep it up and running relative to the amount of money that's spent on it and what actually happens in there.
Yeah, it's really interesting because I think you know, when you think about the operations of a data center, you tend in your mind to go immediately to technicians and technology, but actually there's a whole series of onsoung heroes in the operation of a data center, which are the craftsmen and the tradesmen and women, you know, the plumbers, the electricians, the engineers who basically keep the Internet up and running, you know, through this data center infrastructure.
So difficulties in finding those workers. We've done some reporting about that that there's you know, okay, yay, great, the spend and the build, but there's not enough workers to diet.
So I think, you know, the constraints that the industry are facing, you know, are around energy and power, around skilled workforce, and then into the supply chain for the equipment. That's that's part and parwercel of a data center.
Structuring the bill that you guys are trying to do and meet that demand.
It is something that you have to actively manage as you are looking to build. You know, for example, in our case, around some of our supply chain portfolio, we've pre purchased in order to ensure that we can have the delivery dates that we need to bring capacity online.
We talked about the three hundred and forty four billion dollars that some of the world's largest tech companies are planning to spend. When it comes to Capex, it's like the thing we look for now quarterly when a company reports results, how much of hyperscalers Capex budgets actually flow through your company.
We have a very significant approach on a part of the data center industry that we call co location because not all data centers are the same, and so colocation is where enterprise customers, businesses sixty percent of the Fortune five hundred for instance, would locate their workloads or their
machinery with us and the inner shared facility. We have a JV structure that works with the Hyperscalors to build to suit for the hyperscalors, and so that's how we service the Hyperscaler opportunity and maintain that very important partnership that we have with I.
Mean, I guess we're trying to figure out your exposure. I think your top ten customers represent about sixteen percent of monthly recurring revenue, so your exposure to the hyperscalers is pretty big, right idea Is it manageable?
It's manageable.
You know, the hyperscalators, for example, when they operate in our retail facilities, they do so because of the connectivity of equinics. So that's going to be a requirement, you know, for inferencing and for the actual activation of these AI workloads. So it is for us about connectivity. Connectivity is the secret source of as the data center productor.
Means specifically by that, because I think we can use the word connectivity to mean a lot of different things, certainly in the business world. What does it mean specifically for us?
Yeah, so in our world, it essentially means we're located in two hundred and seventy three data centers right across the planet.
Inside those data centers, we have.
Ecosystems of customers, customers whose value chains are connected to each other, and we physically connect them, you know, literally internect interconnect those customers one to the other. That's the first part of interconnection. So that allows for low latency transactions to happen, say, for example, on a trading floor. That allows for that to happen in real time.
Yeah, we're speaking right now with the dere Fox Martin, president and CEO of Aquinix joining us here. In the Bloomberg Business Week studio, you mentioned the difference between training and in inference. Thank you. When you think about this, like a company like core we for example, where does that fit into this, Well, a core.
Weave is a neo cloud.
They're a company you know that provides GPU capability to companies who want to train their models so they fit into the ecosystem in the same way for US as.
Other cloud like a GPU as a service correct, okay, So what are the average lease terms for an agreement with GPU as a service coorganization?
It would depend, you know, they can be relatively short. For us, are leasing in our wholesale side is ten years plus. Okay.
Now, one of the things I think is interesting is I think we're all trying to figure out the boom and bust of all. And today on Bloomberg there was an investor Jack Selby. He is a z VC founder and managing partner his longtime managing director of billionaire entrepreneurs Peter Teele's family office, and he said the euphoria around AI may have led to the biggest bubble yet in private technology investing, and so sounding warning bells that a correction startup valuations is in the cards.
Now.
We understand when you throw AI there's a lot of different players, but behind it all is the data center spend. And we have had a lot of conversations about the hyperscalers making you know, multiple duplicate arrangements with power providers that they're not going to use all of them, but they just want to make sure they've got the power where they need it. Is there any signs to you that there's exuberance that the spend is slowing down, starting
to will start to slow down. Maybe next year you're seeing it. You've got a front row scene.
Yeah, I guess we believe in the enduring nature of the transformation that AI and the technology associated with it can bring and can bring to businesses. I mean, as I said, we support manyfold workloads of our customers, you know, not just AI workloads, but you know, standard business process workloads, and we really are about that being that connectivity engine. So you know, I think in many ways our business model is you know, somewhat protected from any potential.
Before we let you go.
As I mentioned some headlines on TikTok crossing from the Wall Street Journal, the deal would create a new US entity Oracle and recent horror with silver Lake. Are you involved in this at all?
Well, we partner very closely with Oracles, so it would be through that partnership that we would be supporting.
So you think you will support as independent TikTok.
Potentially with Oracle with Oracle, Yes, I very key partner.
One last question, your stocks down? Why if it's so the sp I mean, I know, there's also an incredible spend in what you are doing. You've got to spend in order to meet the demand, you know, and so maybe that is why there isn't some reward from some of your investors. Is it kind of a conflict.
Well, we're very focused on long term value creation for our shareholders, and you know, we announced that we are going to bring on as much capacity in the next five years as we have done in the previous twenty seven years of our operations, and so we're very focused on executing against our strategy. We believe in the opportunity that we see in the market and hope to deliver proof points to that to our investor community very soon.
We have to leave it there. We apologize. There's been a lot going on today, so we hope you will come back and give us that day. Thank you very much for having me. We appreciate it. Dere Fox, Martin Present and CEO of Equinox joining us right here in studio.
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business weekdaily podcast. Catch US live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch US live on YouTube.
The Wall Street Trader is gearing up for the FED decision, refraining from making big bets as they await clues on the path of rates that will shape the outlook for markets over the next few months. On the Outlook back with us as Ali McCartney, Managing director, Wealth Management and private wealth advisor with Alignment Partners at UBS. It manages just over a billion dollars. Ali joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. I want to get to
your outlook everything that you're watching. But when you walked into our studio, you made the point that today's the anniversary or yesterday, depending on how you look at it of the Great Financial Crisis, and you were there, you were part of it.
What was I was on over the counter equity and hedge funder road of desk, So it was at Lehman at Lehman. Yeah, sorry, I should have said that. I sort of thought that was implied. It was a crazy, crazy time and it's interesting because a lot of the conversations now are are we in a bubble? What do we do when the market is at you know, depending on what you look at. The S and P right now is trading at twenty two point three times forward earnings.
You take out the mag seven, the broad based four ninety three is at twenty point two times.
So people are anxious, right.
I think the big difference we have right now has a lot to do with the FED. There have been four other times in history since nineteen fifty that markets have been this highly valued, and in two of those cases the markets have outperformed over the next twelve months, and in two of those cases the markets have corrected. And the difference is very very clear. The markets have outperformed in decreasing FED interest rate environments where earnings are
growing or stable. They have tanked when the FED is tightening and earnings are slowing. So I think we have a little bit of a recipe for We still think the bull market continues, but you have to be cautious. We have to look at volatility, and tomorrow is going to be really meaningful in terms of the summary of economic projections. The dot plot the dissents as your former guest said, and just in general the tone.
How much juice do you think the economy really really needs right now? Because you know, we've got to read on retail sales and consumers are still spending, and I know there's it feels like there's a mixed bunch of data points alley, So how much do you think that the FED needs to do?
There are a lot just for tomorrow. Yeah, so you know it's the right question.
What does this whole tightening cycle and what does the neutral rate look like? So the question is back to what we were talking about initially, is this insurance or is this against a growth scare? The numbers that we have seen have been very mixed. The effect on consumers in terms of tariffs, in terms of dwindling savings, in terms of high interest rates have not really appeared to create issues yet.
I don't think it derails a bull.
Market, a FED tightening cycle and increasing earnings really as a tailwind with AI and increased efficiency. But it's not going to be easy. Right We increasingly have a world that is the haves and the have nots and the have lots are in a really, really tough place. And so I think that some of these interest rate cuts are going to be stimulating the housing market, stimulating main street, allowing people to borrow, and making economic opportunity more uniform.
But I think we go ahead.
Well, yes, because Tim and I talk about so much like with Peter Atworder over at women and Mary of the k shaped economy, right Ithas and the have nots, And I get it. I get why rate cuts will help folks that are having a tougher time right now. But can we do that without those folks who are doing just fine, not leveraging up and doing crazy things.
We're going to see the answer is probably not right.
And think back to the times in the economy where we have had very low interest rates and ultimately what has happened, because what does it do when you lower interest rates? You put people into you push people into risk assets. So what I'm looking to see tomorrow is
exactly that. Are we getting a dubvish fed right? Are they saying this is the beginning of three to five more cuts over the next twelve months, in which case I think markets and risk takers will go all in, or are we getting a hawkish cut, which is sort of the standard Powell response, which is We're still going to be data dependent. We still know there's a lot of risks out there, but I'm looking at the labor market.
I just can't imagine Fetcher Powell making a commitment that far in advance, somebody who has made such a point of emphasizing how data dependent he is and how data dependent the FED is. I can't imagine it's going to be the former. I think it's going to be the latter.
Agreed.
But that's why I think the concept of the sense and understanding who the dots on the dot plots are, because remember, his dot's going away very soon. The other dots and the ones that are going to be the future dots are probably going to be much more politically and partisan aligned. So I think that's really what one needs to focus on in terms of deciding if we're going further north or if it's time to sell and take your games.
Does that concern you though, if the dots are politically aligned rather than aligned with what these individuals think or what economists think the race should.
Be it personally and professionally, it concerns me a lot. I think a politically aligned or said another way, a non independent FED is a really challenging place to be.
Does it make you think differently about deploying assets in the United States?
I think that.
Long term implications yes, but I think that at this point in time, and when I say short term, I even mean throughout this presidency, no one's going away from the dollar.
They may be going more into.
Gold, which is also dollar denominated. They're buying a little less treasuries overseas, but.
Not much so.
I think that we have sixty plus percent of the equity capital markets of the world. The AI trend is one that is internationally recognized as a megacap five as a US silicon valley based phenomenon, both from the current hyperscalers and from the fact that they have so much cash on hand that they're going to buy, not and.
Build everything that's next.
So does this create or is this another warning sign along with the deficit, along with all their polarities of things that might put a chink in the US's armor. Yes, But do I think it's in the next three to five years.
Probably not.
Would that have happened without this current administration At.
The end of the day.
One of the things that as a trained economist I always look at is the demographics?
Right?
So the demographics of this country are in trouble.
Right. We have more people retiring than andying of the first workforce that was before we stopped immigration. The birth rate's gone down. So when you look at US and you look at us relative to let's say India or China, it's a problem.
But again, when does that catch up with us?
And what is the rule of law and the rule of capital in those other places? And they are not as capital or law friendly as we are in terms of attracting monetary dollars or resources.
What is your expertise in kind of understanding some really dark moments in US financial history? Yeah, and maybe the world looking at us like, oh my god, I can't believe like what you did?
Right?
Yeah, but then understanding because I think some would say that it feels a little dark right now in trying to understand how policies are going to impact the US longer term. But showing that we can have dark, difficult moments and then rise again. Yeah, our global investors willing to kind of look at the US and say, Okay, this is a moment in time, and that doesn't mean that the investment environment or the political environment, or the global environment. The US role in it won't change again.
I think that this is a very shocking and emotional time for many people in and outside the US.
I think that this is.
This is more serious than a lot of other points in time in how much we changed about our role as an ally, as the police of the world, as the financier of the world. But again, Russia can't take our place, European Union can't take our place, India can take our place. Africa is developing, China has issues, and their demographics are challenging as well. So I think it's one of those things where a lot of people and
investors have hurt feelings. But at the end of the day, one thing I tell my clients is, regardless of how you feel about the policies and politics of this country, you need to lean into that greed and then decide what to do with your spoils to make the change you want to make. I think that's how other countries look at it.
You have to be quick ten seconds. But if we don't have an independent FED, it changes.
I think it changes because I think that, especially let's go back to the financial crisis, you need independence and balance to get yourself out of tough situations and have disciplined.
Ali McCartney, thank you, Thank you, Managing Director, Wealth Management and Private Wealth Advisor with Alignment Partners at UBS. This is Bloomberg Business WEEKDAP.
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