U.S. Bans Transactions With Russian Central Bank

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. The US taking another step against Russia, you know that, following it's now five day old invasion of Ukraine. We heard President Bines administration earlier today banning US people and companies from doing business with the Bank of Russia, the Russian National Wealth Fund, and

the Ministry of Finance. But then we just heard also from Jamie Diamond, and I've been talking with him about uh Swift specifically, which is that system messaging system used among the global financial community. Billions of messages sent each year using the Swift system. Jordan Fabian is Bloomberg News White House reporter. He joins us on the phone from Washington.

D C. Jordan's where are we with the United States in the in the world where I shouldn't say the entire world, because not every country has done this, but the U S banning transactions with the Russian Central Bank, with the Wealth Fund, and to what extent can can businesses actually do business with Russia right now? The Bondo administration's goal is certainly to make it difficult. It's not

impossible for that to happen. I think by targeting the central Bank in the way that they have, I mean, that's really uh something that you know, even the administration themselves, so they weren't even considering doing as early as last week. So um, you know, they're clearly frustrated. I think by the fact of the initial sanctions didn't convince Putting to pull out of Ukraine's and now they're unleashing some of the harshest measures they can to try and get him

to reconsider that position. But now, as you pointed out, it's going to take the cooperation of allies and countries around the world to take similar steps to try and cut off Rusher's economy. But what did you make of I think both Tim and myself Jordan's kind of sat up straighter a little bit when JP Morgan's CEO and chairman Jamie Diamond just speaking with our Ed Hammond saying that there are a lot of workarounds for SWIFT, and we know the financial system and how you do business

has complicated. There are lots of avenues. So how should we read a comment like that or how would you read it as you continue to report on this situation. Well, first of all, I mean, I think he's right, there are alternatives, like you mean, you can use telephone or fax machine even um there's also been talking about a possible alternative to SWIFT cropping up that you know, possibly China would be involved in that with Russia, and so

he's right that they can get around it. But I and I think that's why U S officials have stressed that these Central Bank sanctions are perhaps even more beautiful and swift, even though the SWIFT has captured a lot of the public's attention over the past week or so, because that would mean essentially what they're trying to do is take all of these farm reserves that Russia has and and prevent the Kremlin from using it to skirt

around the sanctions. So the view of the by administration right now is that that's that's the most important stuff they can say. UH. Credy Gupta, who's the markets correspondent here at Bloomberg, our our colleague Jordans, wrote this email this morning to us all that was really helpful and talked about some American companies that have exposure to Russia and McDonald's for example, Coca Cola, Mondli's International. Uh. Are these companies able to continue to do business in those

countries right now? What is the status of of of that uh? And what would the buy An administration like to see? Well, it's a really good question him and I think, you know, it's hard to tell a company by company what they can and can't do. But what you're seeing, I think our company is deciding to be uncertainty is too great and they want to pull back and look at what VP did by exiting at Steak

and Rosneft. I think Shell Oil anounced today that it's getting out of its partnership with gas from and so these companies, even if they're not specifically banned by sanctions from doing certain things, especially in the energy sector, they just might determine the risk is too great because the US might ratch it up even more, and so we just want to get out of doing business in Russia, and that would obviously be put a lot of pressure on on the Kremlin to uh, you know, try and

keep the Russian economy afloat Jordan. International business, global business is a funny thing. I mean, how much of this is because of where we are right now, and how much of this could change in another week, in other words, the sanctions come off. I mean, how do you do you have any foresight or thought about how this play is longer term? Longer term? Excuse me, I mean it's

a really good question. There's fod administration officials have been getting any indication they planned to put off the gas when it comes to the sanctions, that they would only be looked to increasing penalties. And you know, to your point, uh it is, I think for businesses that what they wanted certainty right that they're going to be able to operate in certain markets. And so when there's so much uncertainty,

you know, we saw the SMP go down today. We saw obviously there's the rule really hitting record lows, and so it's just gonna cause chaos. And I think again a lot of these internation some companies are just going to decide it's not worth it to do business there right now, and it takes time for them to move.

So you know, we might not see if the US snaps back sanction is necessarily going to open up their doors again next week, because who knows what's going to happen next with regard to Ukraine and the sanction situation. That's that's I'm I'm so glad you brought that up, Jordan,

because that's exactly what I was wondering. Is this the type of thing that while the actual public outcry from Americans would be too much for some companies to actually be doing business or being connected with Russia right now or even in the near future. I mean, there is certainly something to that. A good example of that is state governors and state officials in the United States trying to pull Russian or Russian teamed vodka off the shelves

of their stores. And that just shows the depth of the anti Russian sentiment right now among the public, at least the American public, and I know the public in many European countries as well, So it does become possibly a brand issue when uh, you know, these certain companies were operating in Russia. Mean, I think a lot of the reason VP pulled out of the Rosnest steak because they were receiving a ton of pressure from the UK

government do so. So public at pressure only seems to be increasing and hardening against the Kremlin, at least in the West, and we'll certainly have to see how long that public pressure continues. Carol, Well, right, Like I think about different pressure points that we've seen over the last couple of years. What is it that stuck? Think about January six and donations that companies make too politicians who supported, you know, overthrowing the results of the election Middle East. Yeah,

companies went back, yeah, actually making those donations. Jordan Fabian, Bloomberg News White House reporter on the phone from Washington, d C. You are listening to Bloomberg Business We Carroll Master, Tim Stanovic, We are Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio and joining us on the phone in New York, city is catching Glinsky, who, Man, there's a

lot going on over the weekend. She works a lot of weekends she does courtesy of Warren Buffett and Berkshire away because Mr buff putting out his annual letter to shareholders this past weekend. Cat, we are grateful to have you with us, and we're grateful that you worked on Saturday, uh and probably throughout the weekend dissecting. You get a comp day for this. Now, we'll talk about that later. I do want to talk about big takeaways though, infrastructure.

Might the growth plan potentially a little succession uh discussion or maybe not. Let's dive into it though with Catchy Klinsky. Cat. So, so what do we mean when you say, uh, infrastructure assets? What are we talking about here? Well, I think one of the interesting parts that Buffett has increasingly started to put in these letters is how much Berkshire really owns of infrastructure like property and plants. And he gave us an updated figure. It was a hundred fifty eight billion

dollars at the end of last year. And I think it really is interesting because it really speaks to how bersher has changed. You know, people really think of Berkshire and Buffet set this himself as a collection sometimes of financial assets, and yet it's actually really become this industrial behemoth. And that's really underscored by the hundred fifty eight billion

dollars infrastructure assets. I think that speaks to the fact too, that Berkshire can actually really earn some pretty good returns by reinvesting its own money and its businesses such as the railroad and the energy business, which are always going to be kind of steady operations for Berkshire. And so, yeah, you might not have you know, the crazy new retailers that Berkshire snapping up all the time, but you will have sort of these um steady and and and giant

um companies. Hey, tat, so, is this a Warren Buffett play or is this a play um by Todd and Ted. So I would say the infrastructure play is definitely, you know, pieced together by Warren and and and partially because you know, really harkens back to the purchase of the energy business and the purchase of the railroad, both of which was

kind of a Buffet play. And I think it really speaks to the fact that you know, um that yeah, he's reshaped the company over many years and you know he even joked a little bit sometimes not intentionally, but it's kind of built out into a company that is, yes, more industrial focus than it ever has been, and the way it becomes, you know, kind of a steady operation

for even during bumps in the economy. Okay, I want to get to succession stuff, because there was kind of a rare mention of succession in this letter his likely successor, Greg Abele. Um, what do we learn about succession in the letter? And why was it kind of rare to hear from more in Buffett about that? Well, So Warren disclosed last year after a slip up from Charlie Munger, that greg Abel was the top pick and he's never actually named who was going to be the top pic

when he stepped down. So that was huge news last year. And while we didn't get any sense of the timing of when it might occur, what we did get is we got a whole little letter from Greg Abele and it was focused on sustainability, so kind of, you know, a one topic letter, but I think it was really important because not only was Buffett willing to seed some page space to greg Abel, which is kind of key because investors increasingly need to be familiar with him and

his ways of thinking. But it was addressing a topic that's really going to be important for Gregg going forward. I mean, obviously climate change has gathered, you know, a

lot of the tension in more recent years. But if you're taking over as a CEO of a really big company, one that includes the railroad and an energy business and insurance, a came many businesses that are going to be affected by climate change and sustainability issues, You're gonna have to have a good argument for how company is handling it.

And I think that was kind of key for investors that they got a sense of greg able and they got to hear from an an annual letter, which is rare cat I think it's so cool that he actually highlighted that. Considering this weekend, we're seeing alternative energy stocks kind of on a tear as a result of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, and it sounds like Europe is kind of rethinking and it's it's exposure and maybe this is a push more quickly to alternative energy as a result.

Is everybody kind of rethinks where they're getting their energy is energy from from excuse me, and their exposure. Um. The other thing I think was interesting was Buffett conceding that there was little that excites him. That's not what you want to hear, especially when he's got a war chest like he does. Yeah, it's hit. It's so great, and it's been kind of a similar thing for many years now. Is that he's just he's not finding publicly

traded stocks he wants to buy. He's not finding great acquisition. But I do think if you are bullish about him, you're bullish on the sense that he was willing to open up a completely different avenue that he had never pursued before, which was stuffed by back. He opened that up more more deeply in and last year he bought back a record amount of stock twenty seven point one billion dollars. Even a minuted in the letter that it's a mildly attractive option. AK, it's definitely not his favorite.

I'm sure he'd love to strike a big deal, but I think it's really important to note that, yeah, he has opened it up, and he does have another way to put some of the cash to work. And to your point, Yeah, that's what I wanted to just finish on cat is he's essentially by doing that essentially saying, well, that's the most attractive use for our cash, right Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely the most attractive use for his cash right now.

And I think not only that, but he made a hint at like sometimes just reinvesting in their own businesses right now their internal opportunities do that repurchases or yeah, deploying it back into the businesses is better than buying other businesses. And for some shareholders who really support that path, I think that's largely because they think he's being careful at a time when valuation are still relatively high given um despite the tact that recently we've had a little

more market turmoil given the Russian Ukraine complex. Yeah, more of a value play, a little bit more than we've seen in a while. Um Cat, thank you as always, catch a Glenscape financial portter at Bloomberg News, our go to on all things. We're in Buffett in Berkshire. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio, and we want to get to a story that's going to be in the upcoming issue of Bloomberg Business Week. Magazine. In fact, it's

among the most read. It's also the Bloomberg Big Take today, and it's about Wall Streets, risky razor blade trade making a comeback. We're talking leveraged et F s. The story is by Danitzakova, also joining us as Joel Webber, editor at Bloomberg business Week, Danitza's cross asset reporter for Bloomberg News. She joins us on the phone from our London bureau.

Joel is here with us in the flesh in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio Leverage et F Joel, maybe allow somebody to get to three x the gains or losses in a single day of one of these indicas. UM more fun when it's the gains, but the other side can also happen. Well, what could go wrong? Well, that's that's the problem, is that a lot can go wrong. And uh, many retail investors don't really know what they're getting it just so it sounds like something that maybe

they want some exposure to. Um, maybe maybe it promises a quick buck uh and and oftentimes that can happen and successfully. But the downside is also um always at a risk coup. So Deniza walk us through why we should be caring about this and and and reasonably a trade right now? Yeah, of course. So, first, I've seen

a really historic bloom in those products. We're talking in terms of total assets, in terms of volumes UM just as an example for total assets, we've seen a fifty five percent growth just over a year UM in the US. This of course comes as retail traders UM have been entering market more and more, as votility has been rising.

And some people actually say that Volmageddon, which happened in two thousand eighteen with one volatility product, was kind of an infliction point, and a lot of people heard about those products and instead of being concious about it, they're like, maybe we should give it a try. UM. So, definitely retail traders love them. They offer big returns quickly, but UM, as we talk in article, they may be offering big

losses as well if you don't use them carefully. But in terms of regulation um uh and experts, a lot of people worn about the risk of those products first because they're very complex. A second, they're like very sophisticated vehicles that rely on day trading and timing the market, which is such a difficult thing, so obviously a lot of people are failing at that and in the carry costs, which can obviously just eat a way at everything. So there's some interesting tickers and e t f s in

this space. What what are some of the biggest and especially in the era of the meme trader, which one is kind of grew in popularity the most. Yeah, the biggest one for sure are those who bet against the navdack or the performance of the navack so sqq and q q q uh. These are for sure the biggest one in terms of trade, trade volume and assets. But for example, interesting one is uv x y UM that's a very popular one. That's also a votility product, so

these are kind of the most popular one. For example, um our interviewee she bets on small caps. She uses the t c A which is against three times the inverse performance of the Russell two thousands. So pretty much you can bet against any index um and you can have a lot of leverage. In the US it's only two or three times, but in other places of the world you can get up to five and even twenty in case yeah, well uh look good when it goes up or or you know your way on the right

side of the bat, right exactly, uh Danitza. Who who are using these products and who should be using these products? What do experts say? Yeah, well, retail traders are definitely using them a lot, Like we have JP Morgan data showing that among gts this is um their most popular choice. As as I said, um big returns really fast, so that's kind of very tempting. But in terms of who should be using them, when we go to those big providers, whether pro shars or others, they all say they're very,

very sophisticated investors. They've been on the market for a very long time and they should know how to use them, um, etcetera, etcetera. But even the sec when they look at their products, they say they pose risks even for those investors because it's just such a big bet on the market that even if you're aphisticated investor, you can get it wrong. All right, So how likely is it that we get it wrong and this kind leader is a kind of

financial crisis? Well, what do people think? It really depends on on the product. Like with votility, obviously, this this is cost system wide risk with betting on an index. UM. I guess the chances of kind of UH causing a system wide risk UM is very small. But if you can imagine just the basic number of how many active majors UM do better than UH passive index and I don't know what's the number, Maybe just imagine that type

of leverage three times and getting it right. So the chances of being wrong, at least from my reporting, seems to be maybe higher than the chances of getting it right. Well. The other thing to keep in mind here is like there are E t F s and then there are you know, non E t f There's the E t n s and the E t p s which can often be where the where the more of the dangerous

stuff live. You know, maybe you've heard about it, and maybe I can talk about it some more sometimes, but when when investors, you know, forever the distinction between the two has been sort of a concern. And how how risky of that from a regulatory standpoint, UM are are is the industry? Yes for sure, So most of the meltdowns have actually been happening, not necessarily in a TS but other products. UM. In terms of regulation, we haven't

seen too many changes. In two thousand and eighteen, there was a derivative RUSE that kept that leverage at two times for e TFU. But they're often um, they're often addressed. Uh. They say they're enhanced protection, but currently anyone can access those. For example, guestly says that they pose risks to sophisticated investors to the system, but still there there there aren't

too many restrictions for them. All right, we gotta run. Hey, listen, great story and it's going to be in the upcoming issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine, Big Nakedive Denitza Sakova and Joel Webber of Bloomberg Business Week. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. We're getting a little lost with our next guest, Andy Brown, Yeah, because we just have so much He's fresh back from the Olympics. Yeah,

we want to talk to him about that. We also want to talk to him about UM China and Russia and that relationship because Andy wrote about it in his Saturday column China has a big Ukraine problem, Bloomberg New Economy Editorial Director Andy Brown. He is here in our

interactive Broker's studio. Good to have you here. Let's start with Ukraine and Russia first of all, because I feel like every discussion we have andy about the Russian invasion into Ukraine, we bring up China and what the relationship is? How do you see it? So the way I see it from China's perspective is that right from the start,

China has miscalculated and blundered. And it begins with this extraordinary meeting between Sejimping and Vladimir Putin, literally hours ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony, and Putin gets c to sign up to this radical world changing agenda, which essentially declares that that China and Russia have no limits to

their relationship. We've gone back to the sort of Sino Soviet Pact of the early fifties, and Putin hasn't mentioned, apparently to see that he's about to invade Ukraine, and so of course when he does, it looks for all the world as though China is complicit, or at the very least China has given Russia cover for this, and in the interim, China is arguing to the world and convincing itself apparently that there's no way that Russia could possibly invade Ukraine, even though the US is feeding China

all kinds of high level UH intelligence, which suggests that that is precisely what was about to happen. So either way, if they knew, shame on China. If they didn't know, Like, don't you understand the relationship with Russia, right, they kind of couldn't win. They've been gained. They gained the China, China has been game and then they got everything else wrong.

They the embassy of the Chinese embassy in Kiev told Chinese citizens in the country to waive the Chinese flag out the window, which would keep them safe, not understanding of course that the Ukrainians um took a pretty dim view of the fact that China wasn't prepared to condemn the invasion and in fact wasn't even prepared to call

it an invasion. So where does this leave China and Russia in relation to the war in Ukraine and the support that China has for Russia as well an ally well for its thought, it blows apart all of China's most cherished foreign policy principles, starting with the fact that the idea that state sovereignty is Sacre saying, um, and it may actually be that the only way that China can extricate itself from this predicament that it's got itself into is to try to act now as some kind

of a peacemaker. And indeed, with starting to see China making more constructive statements, how much does China need Russian oil and Russian energy access, Well, it certainly wants, it certainly needs Russian oil and and and it needs it even more on these terms because you know, we just saw today that um, Russia and China signed a big gas deal which will involve the construction of a of

a of a gas pipeline through through Mongolia. And of course Russia is now so needy that any energy deal that the two sign a sign are going to be very much on on on China's terms. China may also get some good military technology out of this as well, but at what cost, At the cost potentially of blowing up relations with with the United States and up where does this leave Russia, as a country that was looking to have an ally in this well, very dependent, far

more dependent than ever on China. China comes out of this looking very much like the senior partner and Russia is the junior associate, even though it has to be said that that you know Russian, that Chinese influence on on Russia when it comes through Ukraine is pretty limited, and it's so tricky. Like so, I do wonder Fressia continues to we don't know how this is going to play out, but let's say it goes on a little

bit longer. It's just odd. Does China, though, risk cutting itself off from the rest of the world or is the rest of the world man enough to cut itself off from China if China continues to have some kind of relationship with a very very tricky Russia to the miscalculation in the blundering. I think China was very surprised at the solidarity that the West showed in the face

of naked Russian aggression. I think it was shocked by the scope of this actions, and now it's very worried that it's going to get caught up in secondary sanctions if it if it tries to throw Russia or a lifeline. Part of the discussion last week included the status of Taiwan and what happens in the wake of Russia's invasion in Ukraine. Bring us up to what's your read on that. You know, people will say that, you hear people say things like that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a

warm up for China's invasion of Taiwan. The situation is very, very different. China is not going to be um pursuing a Taiwan strategy based on a Russian timeline. Militarily, the situation is quite different. Putin can roll his tanks across a land border she jumping if he wants. Taiwan is going to move armies across ninety miles of ocean um and it's going to take over an island the size of the Netherlands that's been digging in for the last

seventy years. It's economic suicide as well. All right, we'd be remiss. Sorry. Olympics, your takeaway, You were over there reporting within BC coverage just quickly. Technically, China pulled off a great games. It was a very very weird atmosphere, particularly including for me. I lived in China for twenty years and I went to China. I didn't really go to China because from cage to cage looked at the country through wire mesh fences, you talked about landing in

the Chinese airport. Nobody was there leaving leaving forgive me. We were the only six people in the airport. It had a one hundred million passenger through two thousand nineteen. It's hard to get your head around. Andy Brown, Thank you so much, Editorial director of a Bloomberg New Economy. This is Bloomberg. Yeah, but you let me drive. Oh no, no, no no, no, please, I'll do the ride gravels. I want to drive. It's a good question. This is the drive to the globe down on Bloomberg Radio to make

dinner plans in the break. Let's get to it. Let's get to the drive to the clothes on this Monday. It's been another volatile session. We've certainly seen that play out as we continue to watch, as we are in day number five of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Well, I want to bring in Dan Pipitone, the co founder and CEO of Trade zero America. He joins us on the phone from Brooklyn. Dan's favorite of quick take stock. We have him come on frequently to talk about what's

going on in the Trade zero pavorite of ours. Oh well, he's also a favorite. He's a favorite of our Okay, well we're fighting over let's dead. I want to I want to hear your thoughts on on what you're seeing

on the trade zero platform and the activity that you're seeing. Um, how investors are thinking about the volatility, because we've got a really interesting comment from JP Morgan Chase CEO and share Jamie Diamond which in the day oh well, the one about the volatility not being indicative to the economy. He said, it's still a strong economy. Well, there is.

And and for us, you know, we we we out traders and our customers really look for that InTru day volatility and you know, we've seen some extreme examples of that in January, sort of mid to end of January, beginning of February, cooling off, you know, waiting for some geopolitical events to either happen not happen. And as we've seen in day five of this Russian invasion, Uh, that has definitely created an impetus for you know, for more volatility.

We've seen some some historic swings over the last few days. Uh, you know, right on was it Wednesday or Thursday when they first announced the invasion or they first started Uh, you know, it's it's it's seventeen or eighteen hundred points swing intra day. Uh. And so volatility is definitely back. We're seeing more of it today. Uh, you know, down five hundred points. The mark was actually positive for a minute. Um. So yeah, I mean this is this is this is

the trader's market for sure. Yeah. We had a couple of days where the NAZAC one hundred. I think there's two days where we had like a thousand points swing. I mean it has been tremendous al right, So investors are nervous and we're reacting, you know, like the FED,

we're you know, day to day tracking information right, data driven. Uh. And that's what it feels like the markets about what do you see on your on your platform, Dan, about where people were investors specifically want to be Well, we're seeing them you know, piling a lot more on the short side, especially less week and a half or so. Um.

You know. We that's one of our our ms is facilitating you know, equal access on the long and short side, and so having that extra tool in their belt, folks have been better able to navigate sort of some of these wild swings and not just hoping that you know, you pick the right stock and it goes up. So for us, uh, you know, the names that you would expect, uh,

the names that have been in the headlines lately. We've seen a shift really in January, folks moving away from some of these you know, low price securities and more into some of the larger tech names. A lot of those have really come down a lot in the in January and February. So we're seeing a lot more opportunity on some of these higher priced tech stocks that have come down a bunch, and people are really flocking to those over the last few weeks. We're saying, like who

the usual suspects are? Can you can you? Can you dig a little um meta apple um? Uh to name a few um. Today we're looking at this large cap stock e P a M. There's really been been crushed over the last few worst performing, the worst day ever for the company and shout about half its value. Yep. So you know, in the tide to Russia, get trying to get folks out of Russia and the Ukraine has relates to their development teams. So this has been a

hot one for US today. Folks really participating on the downside. Dan when you say Meta Apple, Are you saying investors piling in on shorts on those names or no. I think they've come and focus more to trade them and short. The volatility on these have been sort of you know, small cap esque if you will. Yeah, Hey, Dan, today's big take here at Bloomberg is all about leverage dtfs.

And I'm wondering if you see and you've seen an uptick on an activity on the platform of leverage gtfs, you not, And you have something that we offer, but and again depending on the depending on the e t F, we may or may not have margin on it, depending if it's two or three x. But this has not been one of the ones that with the lebritytf haven't been in play with us. So last week or so interesting. So okay, I feel like the next couple of weeks

are going to be interesting. We've got J. Powell up on Capitol Hill, Humphrey Hawkins testimony, We've got some big economic reports we're gonna get I think another print, a CPI print coming up, um, and then you've got the Fed meeting. So could we see Dan essentially kind of a trade here and then a trade posts that March meeting that maybe settles things down, and I guess all bets off in terms of it depends also what happens

with Russia and Ukraine. Yeah, it's really gonna depend on what we what we see happened, and how this really shakes out. I think, you know, without Russia, we're looking at we're looking at potentially seven rate hikes this year, which obviously creates some headwinds in the markets generally speaking, but these extra geopolitical events, I think it's more of

a wait and see at this point. Um, you know, with with with with the inflation, with inflation that you know, sort of historic hizes in the last over the last three of over the last month and a half, levels we haven't seen over the last three or four decades. I think that interest rates, you know, rising interest rates is needed, but it's gonna be interesting to see how inflation potentially settles off and what other actions that the Fed will take UH to to help mitigate that. Well,

I'm I'm wondering. I want to end Dan just by talking a little bit about retail investors, because you have a unique you have an unique window into retail investors and what they're doing on the platform and you know, we talked to you a lot last year about meme stocks, and I'm wondering if you're still seeing trading around those names, around the historical memes like the AMC and game stops. You know, there have been flare ups over the last you know, year and a half. I would say those

stocks are still in focus. They're still in play. I think whenever there is any news that gives uh, you know, any one of those meme meme names, uh, you know, any sort of pop, the short sellers are piling in uh. And and likewise, when you have you know, a big drop, you know, folks are betting in on the longside and kind of bringing them back up. Um. So they're still there. But in terms of the the earthquake, if you will, that we saw last year about a year ago right now,

we haven't really seen that happen again. But those stocks have remained sort of in play as as as ideas and trading prospects. All right, I'll leave it there, Hey, Dan, thank you so much. As always. Dan Pippotone he's co founder and CEO at Trade zero America on the phone from Brooklyn and certainly a favorite favorite of ours, And I know for you over in Crickta, we can share, we can show there's enough Dan Pippotone to go around.

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. Sarah to Bloomberg Global News