U.S. Job Growth Slows in Mixed Labor Picture

Bloomberg Business Weekend iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Clobal News. All right, let's get to it and the market Driver's report. Let's set the business week agenda, folks, let's go in on. Kreta Gupta in the house, Bloomberg Markets correspondent here at Bloomberg News. Carlberg and Donna also in the house. Welcome, Welcome back, chief industry economist at

Bloomberg Intelligence, both in our interactive broker studio. Bring out some wine and we'll have a party. But I don't know should we be partying. Well, Carl, I'm going to start with you, because let's start there. The jobs report. I felt like really really smart people were like, m some good news, some questionable news. Remember used to be a really strong jobs report back a long long time ago, disappointing result today this was way below even the most

pessimistic forecast is submitted to Bloomberg. So, you know, in a month when the case count was declining and we thought that folks were becoming more comfortable with returning to the labor force and taking jobs and spending and whatnot, that wasn't the case. And and so what I'm concerned is this looks a lot like November of last year when we had a big disappointment on jobs. Then over the course of November December the case counts skyrocketed. Sounds familiar, right,

and then December was a real bust for payrolls. And so you know, this creates bad optics for a FIT that's trying to accelerate the taper. At the December meeting, when the case counts rising, jobs are disappointing, we do because it's not all bad news. There was some There were there were some silver linings in there. If you call labor force participation running at the same level it

did when Jimmy Carter was president. I'm sure that's good news, but there's a down road to come back here, and you're down a downer based on what demographic group you fall into by age Cohort. So if we look at the very young, the new entrance to the labor force, you know, young kids coming out of college, in high school and whatnot. Um, that has basically fully rebounded. If we look at prime working age population, it's coming back,

but it's still got a ways to go. And if we look at kind of a fifty five plus type of crowd, and I well, I'll just stop there, are you looking? Know? I was gonna say, and I happened to be looking at you, But I'm not tying you into the plus crowd. We know that that you know, we know how old you are and much younger than we but you know, fifty five plus crowd, it's it's how you feel. It's how old you feel, Carol Um. If we look at that demographic, very very little recovery whatsoever.

And so the problem is is it the resignation or that folks still afraid to step off of the sidelines into the labor market. A big concern of the FED is the scarring that could potentially happen to the economy. And when you look at both prime age and older workers, they're not coming back. And if we look at it slightly different way, if we go go industry by industry by industry, almost every single sector is still operating below February. So this is not just at leisure and hospitality story.

This is broad based across the economy. Questions there, heretod to come on in here, and how is this manifesting in today's trade? Yeah, well, first off, I'm just gonna add one eco thing, even though I'm not the eco person in the room here, but November is supposed to be historically a very strong month for jobs, right Carl, And and to see a miss on this particular set

of months data is extra bad. In addition to the miss um why the market selling off that it might be partially because the payrolls report, although it's worth mentioning when the headlines did drop, the initial reaction was the opposite of what you're seeing right now. You saw features higher, you saw the stock market open, all sectors in the green bond yields were dipping, and then you saw the sell off as the market open so a lot of this is tech driven, a lot of this is just

pulling cash off the table. But remember it is Friday. Volume is super low. This looks a lot like what we saw last Friday, where people just aren't at their desk and they're de risking before the weekend. Huh. Jobs came out at eight thirty, the market turned around at nine thirty, right, So you can see that it wasn't really the job's catalyst necessarily that was driving the narrative

in the markets. That's so, are you saying COVID or what. Well, it really made the turn when President Biden had his press conference and so I mean he was coughing in Hill and the you know, the press didn't care about the jobs report and cared more about his health and whatnot. And I'm not saying that drove it, but you know, there was you know, the timing there. So you know, I haven't had the time to review the full press conference yet. Maybe he said some things that the markets

didn't like as well. We should know too that we did hear from the President's physician just does not do doesn't have the flu, he said. The physicians said, this is what's referred to colloquially as a frog and once throat, he's taking over the counter medication. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. We've been talking about it, certainly one

of our top stories on this Friday. Job's Friday. US job growth registering its smallest game this year, while the unemployment rate fell by more than fourcast to four point two percent. That feels pretty low offering, though a mixed picture that may nevertheless push the FED to quicken the wind down a pandemic stimulus. And this is what we're all trying to figure out right now, Really, what does this all mean when it comes to monetary policy in

the US. It's also happening at a time when that survey didn't even cover the first the part of the month where we even knew what the word on the chron met exactly, and you do wonder how that might impact things, which is why the next jobs report could be even more important. All right, Let's get to it, though, because someone who sees a lot in terms of what is going on in the labor force real time, especially when it comes to millennials and Gen z uh individuals.

Let's bring and Katherine Minshew. She's CEO, co founder of the job placement career platform US. She's on the phone in New York City. Catherine, great to have you here. How are you. I'm doing great, Thank you so much for having me. So how do you see the labor market based on what you are seeing the type of activity uh and volume that's going on in your on

your platform. You know, as you mentioned, it was a mixed draw reports with both the payroll increasing by a smaller percentage than forecast, but that dropping the unemployment rate to four point two. And I think, frankly, it's not a huge surprise, right there are a lot of contradictory trends in the economy right now. So I think that that this was broadly as as expected by at least a lot of the folks in my corner of the

labor market. That's so interesting because it wasn't expected by economists. We heard from Carl Rica Donna that the thousand number that we got, that headline number that we got in the change in non farm payrolls earlier today, that was lower than even the lowest number that came from one of the analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That's fair. That's fair. I do think it was a little bit under predictions.

But I think first of all, we did see some additional jobs added to previous hollies in the September and October, which takes away a little bit of that sting. And what we are seeing is that people who entered the labor force in November, um, they were hired really quickly. And so I think we have certain industries and sectors

where there's whitehawk competition for talent. We're seeing that in technology, in warehousing and anything related to e commerce, and then obviously others that that are really struggling to add jobs and struggling to hire, so hospitality, travel, leisure, and even frankly retail as I think a lot of a lot of shopping moves online. Hey, Katherine, you mentioned when we just started going a lot of contradictory trends in the economy right now. How do you what do you see

as contradictory in particular? Well, I think that we're seeing firstly that a lot of newer entrants into the workforce, and particularly Gen Z and millennial job seekers, um, you know, they entered in many cases they've just come out of this really tough employment market. U was a really hard time for a lot of a lot of workers of all types frankly, to get a job, to to stay employed. But at the same time, people are much more choosy right now, and so we're seeing, you know, spikes in

worker pay. We're seeing a lot of people choose to opt out of the workforce unless they find a job or an employer that meets certain criteria. So I think we're seeing, um, you know, both big differences within industries and sectors of the economy, but also um some some very contradictory data coming out of again, particularly the demographic that I spend most of my time with, which is

gen V and millennial. There's a lot of indications they're looking for more than compensation, but also at the same time, you know, salary remains important. A lot of things in the data that I think reflects the fact that there's a lot of uncertainty in the economy right now. What were the similarities that you saw in today's jobs report that you also find in your work and on the

on the platform the muse. Yeah, Well, um, I think the fact that the unemployment rate is so low, as certainly reflected in what we see on the mus um. You know, we have so many employers that just literally cannot fill their roles fast enough and it's causing major disruption to their businesses. I'm sure you're hearing about it from other guests. But some of that is because some

workers are opting out. Some of that is because workers are raising their their standards, like I mentioned, and so you know, we've also been surveying a lot of workers about what factors are they considering when they're thinking about whether to get back into the labor market, whether to change companies or change jobs, um, and people are flagging things like you know, they're looking for better person benefits than they had in the past. They are looking for

companies that are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. There's a lot of bursens on employers that weren't perhaps there too, you know, two years ago before the pandemic started in the same way you know, Um, Katherine, I've been doing a bunch of reporting and research on just the growth of entrepreneurship, people starting up their own business. We saw this coming out of the financial crisis. We're seeing it

once again coming out of the pandemic. Women in particular are kind of I feel like, voting very clearly by saying, maybe we don't want to go to the traditional establishment stay in corporate America. We want the flexibility. You understand that you've started your own business, right and it's a lot of pressure, it's a lot of stress, but you do gain a lot of flexibility. What do you make of those trends and the significance that that maybe having

on our labor environment right now? Absolutely, I think you're spot on. And in fact, when you look at some of the biggest technology companies that have have shaped our lives today, um, you know, a lot of them were started back post the financial crisis between two thousand and eight and two thousand ten. I think, uh, Uber, Airbnb, a number of household names, and so I'm I'm personally excited to see what next massive companies you know, we

see started. And then you also have a lot of people that are not starting high growth Silicon Valley businesses, but are starting small businesses, are going freelance, and I think that you know, it is something that has become easier than it was in the past due to all of the different off the shelf products and services that

are designed to support entrepreneurs, to support small business owners. Um. I I am not at all surprised that a lot of women looked at the way corporations responded to COVID and said, no, thanks, I'm going to set my own hours. Um. But you know, I do think some of those workers will re enter the more traditional labor force in the next few years. But but we will also see a lot of people who this was the push they needed to to get into entrepreneurship. And I think that's really

I'm I think that's really great thing for the broader economy. Obviously, I'm clearly by it. No, but you understand it, you get it. We've often seen and this year alone too, we've seen a lot of female founded companies I p O. So that is sept thing tim that we've seen as well. Hey, Katherine, as as Americans have remained on the sidelines, how concerned are you and how concerned should the federal reserves be

about scarring when it comes to this job market. The idea that people who are out the sidelines for a long period of time will have a lot of trouble returning to the job market. Yeah, that's a it's a it's a really big issue, and I think it's exacerbated by the fact that these skills most in demand by many employers today are not the ones that were taught

or prioritized, you know, ten twenty years ago. You have incredible demand in a lot of digital technologies, data focused roles, UM and so I think that you know, as as a as a society, UM as as individual companies, I hear,

I'm hearing retraining and reskilling. We talked about more and more because I do think that you have both just the natural scarring of people who have been out of the workforce for a while, but also the fact that some of the jargon and the skills that are most in demand change, and if you don't have programs and ways for people to to get that current again, I think you have the risk that a lot of people won't you won't be able to do it without support.

All Right, we're gonna leave it there. Hey, Katherine, thank you so much. Great snapshot on what's going on, certainly among the younger generation when it comes to today's labor force. That's Katherine Minshew. She's founder and chief executive Officer of the News, joining us on the phone in New York City. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, this week, we know, right, it's been all about the latest COVID variant. At least that's been one of our really main stories that certainly has impacted financial markets. In this week's issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine Bloomberg, Cynthia Coon's notes that whether or not it's a game changer, Amikron is COVID's future, and Tim gotta say, timely story considering what we've seen, uh,

and the spread of the latest variant. I mean, we've heard from Anthony Fauci, We've heard from President Biden this week about it. We're gonna hear from Dr Anthony Fauci again a little bit later on. Let's hear from Cynthia Coon's US healthcare reporter at Bloomberg News. She joins us on the phone from New Jersey, as well as Joel Webber, editor at Bloomberg Business Week. He joins us on the access line from Brooklyn. Joel, I want to toss it

over to you. Because if there's one theme that Caroline I have experienced when speaking with with doctors and experts throughout the week about the omicron variant, it's weight and see, we just don't know yet. The data just aren't there. Yeah, that's right, and and I'll say that that goes for reporting as well, because all of our reporting is going to be based on this. So so what we can do, though is talk to as many people as we can in farmland and without about sort of what their approach

is going to be. And that's sort of where where Cynthia came in here is like, look, we've actually seen seen this game before. We've had multiple variants already, and to some extent that is really going to inform how pharma approaches it and everyone else as well. But until we know a little bit more about this thing and in the data, I think everything is a little premature. But Cynthia, based on what we do know, what can

we expect. So the great news is that pharma companies can move very quickly in actually assessing whether not the vaccines that we have taken are going to be effective against O macron. And that's partly because of the work they can do in the lab. They can actually take a look at how the UM variant performs against the vaccine in the lab, and that's that's data we could have soon. That data they've said within weeks, and they

started that work right away. And the reason they were able to start that work right away is that they've done this fire drill with beta with the South Africa variant that was identified in South Africa prior to this one. UM. They also did it with Delta, and they started making boosters that were targeted for those variants previously, and so those actual tailored vaccines are also partly how they know

what to do in this instance. And actually there are some overlaps between O macron and beta that allow Maderna, for example, is going to are going to test their beta targeted vaccine as well to see if it works against this mutation of the virus. But of course the reason everyone's saying wait weeks, if not longer, to see how this actually developed is that we've had scares before. And if you think back to Delta, I mean, Delta took over, but it didn't take over as quickly as

we might be remembering in retrospect. It actually became a vary enough concern in India, and then it took over in India, and then it took over in the UK, and then it came here. So it could actually take some time, and it has to be a mutation that's strong enough to overtake delta, and so we don't know

any of that yet. So I think what a lot of people are trying to glean from a case here, a case there is very premature because it's really a matter of seeing help performs as a virus and a lot of people and that's just going to take more time than I think. You know, people don't want to wait, but unfortunately that's why people keep scientists keep saying you

have to wait. Well, Cynthia, I want to drill in on the idea that the large pharmaceutical companies specifically Fazer and Maderna are working quickly to create vaccines or understand the effect that these are having on VEX on the

vaccines that exist right now. How much of this is about the fact that these are m R and A platforms, not necessarily new technology, but new technology for vaccine delivery that we've seen that you really play out over the last year Yeah, that's the really cool part about having MR and A vaccines. They're able to sort of plug in the sequence once they have it. They don't have to grow the virus, which can take weeks or months, and so in order to actually make a tailor made

vaccine takes much less time. Production is much faster. They have facilities now ready all over the world, so if they're going to have to switch to a new version of the vaccine, they can do it in such a wide scale in much more quickly than if it was a traditional vaccine. Like flu vaccines can take six to nine months to make from identifying what streams of the flu you're going after to actually having a vaccine and put in somebody's arm. And this is just much faster

than that. Feiser has said a hundred days. It's just remarkable how fast they'll be able to do this. But of course, you know, it's it's a matter of not just making it, but also just knowing that you need it and so and also then also how do they industry make the pivot between they a vaccine we have now, does a hiller made vaccine become a booster, doesn't replace the vaccine we have now? These are big questions that need to be answered if this is deemed and necessity.

So we're still really far away from that. But I think the mutation alone highlights the fact that this is going in the direction of the sort of flu vaccine model, and we probably are going to need somewhat different vaccines on a regular basis if coronavirus is going to linger like this in the population. Cynthia. Wonder do we finally have as everybody finally gotten a memo that hey, folks, uh, this was a really bad pandemic. We're probably gonna get more,

and we got to start preparing for things. So even if a micron doesn't turn out to be and you write about this in your story, doesn't turn out to be maybe as problematic which fingers cross legs crossed, everything cross that it it doesn't you know, we are developing method methodologies, approaches, tools that will help us in the future and that will be probably needed in the future.

I hope that's the case. I certainly anecdotally have heard a lot there's a lot of demand for booster shots now, which is great because it's all we have and boosting immunity to what's circulating the community is still really important public health tool, but we still do have a substantial

amount of vaccine hesitancy in this country. And I've heard from some experts that we really need to focus on those completely unvaccinated populations because what we have seen from O Macron is that it can infect someone who's already had coronavirus, and we have parts of this country where vaccination rates are quite low and delta ripped through those populations, and those people might be more vulnerable to OH macron. If that's how this plays out, then you know how

they gotten a vaccine. And I think there is some perception in some parts of the population that having had COVID is how you build your immunity, and unfortunately, with this virus, that just turned out to be the case. So I think there are some encouraging signs, and the booster campaign hopefully we'll continue to gain steam. But I think really focusing as a public health community on that deeply entrenched unvaccinated population and trying to get to more

people is really going to be the answer here. Okay, so what about the global conundrum? Because worldwide there are fewer people who have had access to m RNA vaccines than the other, than the other technologies. There's still like just millions upon millions of people who just don't have the vaccine. As long as those people remain unvaccinated, we're going to continue to see mutations that you know, there will be things long after o MA run, right, And

since they just quick that twenty five seconds, sure. I think one of the really encouraging things so that we don't talking of about is that there are other vaccines coming down the pike that may not require the refrigeration of the mRNA vaccines. And that's really important to get vaccine into parts of the world that may not have the facilities to store the m MARNI vaccines. So I think we do need to keep an active eye on that.

I do think there is a lot more vaccine coming and we do need to support that of the global community. The countries that can afford to donate need to donate more, and I think that's the only way we can get finished with this. You hear it some leaders constantly. It's a global endemic, folks, which needs global solutions and cooperation.

Cynthia Coon's You're amazing US healthcare reporter at Bloomberg News on the phone from New Jersey, Joe Webber, have a great weekend, Editor Bloomberg Business Week on the access line from Brooklyn. Check out the magazine. It's all about the Bloomberg fifty. That story too in the magazine. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanovic on Bloomberg Radio. Are you hosting to Boomberg Business to Week, Carol Master along with Tim Stanovic and

our Interactive Broker studio streaming on YouTube. We mentioned some of the COVID headlines earlier. We are going to be talking our David Weston with Dr Anthony Fauci a little bit later on, so we'll get the latest on how he sees the amicronicron variant. In the meantimes, South Africa's daily number of confirmed COVID nineteen cases almost quadrupling since Tuesday as that variant spreads across the country, and I thanked him. I don't know if this is the latest.

This is the latest. I think according to our measurement, at least six US states have on the KRON cases. Yeah, but I think it's safe to say, given what we know about this virus, that it's likely in other states as well. Carol, Let's get into it with Dr Ian Lustbader. He's clinical professor of medicine at n y U Langnes Medical Center. He joins us on the phone from New York. Dr Lustbader, how are you hey? Happy Friday? Guys, nothing to panic about. Do not do not overreact, please please

go on why so? Uh? You know, in my opinion, I think people are really overreacting to the news on omarcron it uh. In my opinion, this is not going to have any material effect on the stock market, the economy, or likes in the United States unless we overreact with you know, lockdowns and travel bands and so forth, all of which really have been proven not effective. Um Kron

really is behaving like many viruses. Most or many respiratory viruses evolve over time to become more contagious and really less lethal, less virulent, and they adapt that to outcompete, and that to me, it certainly looks like oh, Macron is going to outcompete Delta, both in people who have either been vaccinated or have had Delta, or who have had vaccines, and certainly in the unvaccinated. It's a very efficient virus. The incubation period is longer. It's about attended

incubation period. It's more contagious and less lethal, which is really how viruses evolved. And overall, there are many people who feel this is actually good news because it probably will end the pandemic a little bit sooner, since I think it's going to outrun any of the vaccines that we're going to be able to either develop or try to distribute to the rest of the world. That's my take on it. Hey, listen um Dr Lesbia when you say probably end the pandemic sooner, because what more will

create much more about global immunity. Is that what you're saying. Yes, I think more people this is highly contagious. I think it's as Tim says, it's probably in many places we have not really been testing for it. We don't, especially in the United States. You know, we do testing COVID swabs, but that doesn't routinely distinguish between any of the variants. So for all we know there are many places now

that we're going to test for it. Uh that has it, But it doesn't really change the way you manage it. If anything, it seems like the disease is more mild um and this is really how viruses mutate. You know, they don't want to kill the host because then they die off. Now you know there are some you know, potential risks, meaning obviously there are a lot of mutations

more uh, you know, more contagious. Could this be more like a common cold now where you get reinfection and kind of a seasonal variation and that it doesn't really go away. That is a possibility. So how should you're saying, don't panic? You say it's likely that it could overwhelmed, the world will spread quickly. Should we We've talked to you for We've talked to you for longer than I've

worked here. Okay, that's what I'll say. And I'm wondering as long as the pandemic has been around, probably no even longer, even longer. And I'm wondering Dr Lesbader, if if if we should change our behavior in any way versus how we were behaving let's say, ten days ago before this entered our lexicon. So I don't think so, you know, I think prudence is always good. We certainly know to some degree many respiratory infections are improved with masks.

They're not it's certainly somewhat helpful, don't uh, you know, push the envelope in very crowded, you know, areas. But I think, based on the way Delta behaved in the way this is going to behave, I think everyone sooner or later is going to be coming down with macron. The good news is it's going to be for most people, very mild. It's not going to be lethal. It doesn't seem to be killing more people or hospital atalizing more

people are raising the death rate. Um how that will ultimately spill out when the rest of the world begins to get it is unclear. My sense is, like the common cold virus, the rhinoviruses, you know, people get rhinoviruses and common cold viruses probably several times a year. That maybe what happens with this, But it is not going to affect our life anymore than getting a cold would be. And you don't go into the office if you're coughing

or sneezing. You don't want to infect other people. So I don't think it should affect us in any way more than that. Does that mean we're out of the woods of the possibility of a variant that is more virulent uh and also really contagious. Well, this has over thirty mutations uh, and probably arose in someone who is immuno compromised. You didn't really mount a good immune response.

Could theoretically another variant occur. I think it's possible. This one seems pretty efficient, spreads easily, doesn't kill the host. Most people don't know they have it. It's really almost a very mild you know, caw for tickle in the back of your throat. It does cause some fatigue, so people after they're infect it often are somewhat fatigued. So I don't think we're going to get a son of omicron Darian. But I do think this is going to

spread around the world. And I think the worst thing to do would be to panic or overreact when there's really no change that we need to do in a meaningful way. Dr less better, what changes your mind? Uh? You know. I think if we get more data that this is again changing or killing more people, are hospitalizing more people. Okay, that's a problem. I think by the time we get a vaccine, and it is reasonable to develop the vaccine, that's gonna be a couple of months.

I think we're going to be so far behind the spread that it's not going to be meaningful. We do need to work on vaccines both flu For influenza, right, we do a yearly influenza trying to catch up with the old one. There can be universal vaccines that focus not on the spike protein which mutates all the time. We saw thirty mutations here just in the receptor binding

area of the spike, but in other areas of the virus. Said, don't mutate as much that antibodies to that might be more effective in eliminating this on a more permanent basis. We still don't have a universal flu shot. You take one flu shot, you're good for you know, the rest of your life. We do a yearly flu shot. We may need something like that for COVID unless we develop a more universal antibrites to a different part of it.

All right, kinda run. Hey, have a good weekend. Dr Ian last Beata, Clinical professor of medicine and why you land gown Medical Center. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. All right, let's get to it with Crypto Content creator crypto investor himself in Armstrong. He's founder a bit Boy Crypto and the YouTube channel that goes by

the same name, a self proclaimed crypto millionaire. Because you've got to show me that you are a crypto millionaire. Who jose this on the phone in Atlanta. Um, Ben, just having some fun. Good to have you here with tim of myself. How are you? Yeah? Doing doing great today despite the market drop today? UM, but yeah, doing great. Glad to talk to you. UM. Well, let's talk about what you know you have been doing in this world

that you have developed your bit Boy Crypto YouTube channel. UM. Tell us what it tells us more broadly about crypto investing, who's getting into it and the interest that is out there. Yeah. So we have the largest crypto community, um and all the interwebs as well. So we've got almost six million total followers between YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, a few other social channels. UM. And you know what we see is is we view ourselves as the mainstream channel where the

bridge to get people into crypto. So a lot of times people will come to my community and come and watch our educational videos are daily live streams, are our topical videos. And they'll get real excited and they may decide that they want to delve a little deep into maybe trading, we're deeper into n FPS, or deeper into you know, other spaces, and then sometimes they'll go to

other channels. But most of the people that are coming into crypto today, at least with YouTube and other social media is they're kind of using us to get there. So we're very proud of that. We we've got very beginner friendly content and you know, I think what we're seeing now when it comes to the people who are getting into crypto, uh, is there hasn't been a huge bump in retail interest here in the last few months.

So you know, we're we were continuing to see a lot of the same people in the space that have been in it for a while. Why do you think there hasn't been a huge bump in retail interest, Well, because when you look at the price, um, when you go back to September, kind of like you were talking about with Facebook a little while ago. Um, you know,

September you know started off a pretty good time. In October, we've really kind of evened off since then, and so a lot of people who were came in early last year. They're in big profit and they've been here for a while and they'll continue to be in big profit. But for those people who have came in in more recent times, their profit with bitcoin is either non existent or it's very small, depend on when they got in. So, you know, I think people aren't necessarily looking at bitcoin as the

thing to really pull people into the markets. We've seen n f t s and metaverse talk obviously over the last few weeks really continue to heat up. They have team market is down a little bit, but the metaverse stuff has really been you know, pulling some retail people in. But the average retail investor right now, like bitcoin just doesn't seem like a giant opportunity. What about other cryptocurrencies?

I mean, what can you tell from what's going on in the conversations or the interest or what people are searching on what they want to know about interest in other digital currencies? Right So, obviously, anytime there are projects that continue to move upwards when the market is stagnant, people become interested in those. Like I mentioned metaverse projects, decentraland Sandbox, those are two that people have really been looking at. We go with just some of the more

traditional projects that have been around for a while. I mean, ethereum right now is starting to generate a lot of interest. Again. We're looking you know, one chart I like to look at is the ethereum versus bitcoin pair, and this is the value of one ethereum coin versus the value of one bitcoin. And we finally have seen that break into a really large uptrend and a lot of analysts are predicting it to go parabolic where one ethereum will be

over ten percent the value of one bitcoin. And we're at a place right now where the ethereum market dominance is rising in the bitcoin market dominance is falling. You know, it's kind of a recipe where we could in the next few months the etherium at least temporarily past bitcoin, and I think that's something that's super excited to people. Of course, I'm talking about the market cabin Yeah, not

the price. The prices they're quite different right now. But speaking of price, bitcoin price right now, Ben is really creating today. Uh it's down more than six point five uh at fifty dollars. What do you make of the volatility that we've seen and and how it could potentially scare away people who haven't yet invested. Yeah, so the

volatility is something very terrifying to people. And that's why I'm like, I've really been talking a lot different uh you know, speaking engagements that I've had and talking with different people that you know, there are people that are going to be risk it first. They're going to be scared away from bitcoin because of volatility. You can't really talk someone in to being you know, risky. So there's

people that are risk at first. They're gonna look at the volatility of bitcoin and they're gonna be scared and they're not gonna come into this market for a long time until it stabilizes, maybe fifteen years from now. So the people that are in crypto today and I've reaped all the benefits, they've got a little bit of that risk factor, a little bit of that risk gene and them. So you're never gonna talk somebody into being risky in

my opinion, you know, especially investors or savvy investors. They've already got a plan. They're gonna stick with what works. That's why the newer generation is coming into crypto a little more because you know, when you're younger, you're a little riskier than you know, as you get a little

bit older. So that's one thing we're seeing. But what's really interesting to me about the bitcoin price that we've been noticing over the last you know, a week or so, is that it really has been following the stock market a pretty good and so today we get the jobs report. Bitcoin had actually recovered overnight and was going back up.

I think it was above fifty eight thousand dollars or very close, and then the job report came out and bitcoin shot back down because the traditional markets also felt the impact from that job's report. So I think that that's something we could continue to see for a little bit. But ultimately I do believe that December will be a big month for a bitcoin in spite of this uh, you know drop that we've had today. Okay, we'll talk

about that a little more in just a second. But is a drop like today's where we see bitcoin at around fifty two hundred, is that an entry point for you? Is at a buying opportunity? Well, the fifty three thousand dollar level has been extremely strong, and it has bounced off of that several times. Right now it is hovering right at that number almost exactly. Um, But I do think it is a pretty good price point um to

get in at. We we've seen the fifty two to fifty four thous all arrange, you know, very strong for bitcoin, and I don't think there's especially with the options the futures expiring this morning, you know, I think that's you know, under rive it, which is the world's biggest you know, you know, bitcoin futures and etherorum features exchange. I think that frees up a little bit for us to possibly get some upward movement over the weekend. I definitely think

it is, Uh, it's possible. So um, yeah, it's definitely interesting times for a bitcoin. But fifty three dollars it used to be a good price point. Well, it's interesting too. And I was just looking bitcoins off about from its November ninth high, Ethereum off about from that moment as well. S and p hit a high back on November eighteen. Uh, and it's only down um a few percentage points I think from that forgive me, I was just looking down

about four percent. So we've definitely have seen the cryptocurrency world take it more on it. Chin, who should be investing in cryptocurrencies in your view? Yeah, so you're a biblid Crypto. Our mission is to empower people to find and financial freedom through crypto assets. So, if you're someone who is looking to change your life financially, crypto has shown over and over and over again that over the long term, not over one months, not over two months,

you can find financial freedom through crypto assets. So if you're someone who's already found financial freedom, you know, if you're if you're Jeff Bezos and you made all your money the old way, then why would you switch? Why would you come over? But if you're someone that is looking to change your investment strategy, looking to change your life, looking to get out of that nine to five rat race, crypto offers that the numbers on it are very clear.

While we get caught up in the short term moves of these assets, over the long term they've continued to crush it, continue to set new all the time highs. Almost every project you know in the top one hundred has set new all time highs or is very close to all the time highs this year. So because of that, you know that there is there are a lot of statistics at the point too. If you stay in crypto for four years or more, you will make money in

this space. You will do very well. Oh. I always say, you know, it's very easy to make money in crypto. It's very hard to make money in crypto day to day. I'm just gonna say, Ben, there's some regulators who might say differently, and that you've got to understand too, that there's a lot of risk and not all cryptocurrencies are the same. Ben, come back. We would love to continue in the future. Ben Armstrong, foundering bit Boy Crypto, joining us on the phone in Atlanta. Thanks for listening to

Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News