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Well, US consumer sentiment fell to a more than two year low, and long term inflation expectations jump by the most going back to nineteen ninety three. It does illustrate the growing apprehension about the economic impact from tariffs, the preliminary March Sentiment index dropping to fifty seven point nine. It's the lowest level going back to November of twenty twenty two, from sixty four a month earlier. That's according to the University of Michigan data issued on Friday that
was sixty four point seven. That figure weaker than all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. From where we bringing up Michael McKee's Bloomberg News International Economics and Policy correspondent. He joins us here in the Bloomberg BusinessWeek Studio. So, Michael McKee, consumers, it seems, are paying attention to what's coming out of Washington. I've often wondered if they follow all the stuff that we follow here in terms of
tariff's trade war escalation. It seems like they're paying attention.
It is one of the interesting aspects of this whole thing, because usually they don't pay attention to the details of anything, and really don't pay a lot of attention to much besides the things that touch their lives on a regular basis, like gasoline prices or food prices. And while they're generally aware that something's happening in Washington, they don't focus on it. And in the past we've seen government shutdowns don't move consumer confidence a whole lot speaking of something that is
going to be news for you later this afternoon. But in this case, the whole tariff thing has broken through, and it's broken through in a very big way, because we've seen not just the sentiment numbers go down, but the inflation next spectation numbers go way, way up in a way we haven't well five to ten year inflation expectations at the thirty two year high. And why all this is I'm not really sure, because this is one of those situations where you go to the gas station
and you've got to pay more money. It comes out of your wallet right now. But this is all theoretical down the road, but it has scared people, and now the question is are they going to act on it or is there something going to happen that will reassure them. We're all kind of up in the air about that.
So how are we thinking about this with the FED meeting next week? Is this some expected? Was this that to expect when we think about consumer sentiment here?
I don't think the magnitudes were expected. They had seen a rise in inflation expectations, and we've seen that in break evens in the market expectations as well, but nothing like we got today where one year inflation's seen at four point nine percent, and you know CPI headline CPI is two point eight percent now and then five to ten year inflation three point nine percent. That gets their attention.
But because this is all theoretical and we haven't seen it yet translate into hard data, the FED is going to sit back and watch what's going on. They're not going to rush into cutting interest rates or anything like that until they have proof that this is affecting the economy.
Well, okay, there was this interesting tidbit in the right through of this on Bloomberg News that said respondent said there was a forty eight point seven percent chance that the stock market will increase in the coming year. It's the lowest probability going back to May of twenty twenty three. How do expectations for direction of stocks play into what actually happens in the market.
Well, it's interesting because stock market does play a role in the Michigan numbers because they ask specifically about it, whereas the say, conference board conference numbers are much more based on the job market. But in the Michigan numbers people are worried about the job market as well. The stock market probably had an effect, according to Joe Nshu, who is the director of Surveys for the University of Michigan, because people see it, it's one of those things that
is in their face and it is actually happening. It may not be that they're financially affected so much they think they might be.
I suppose, but.
People don't pay as much unless you're in the markets. You don't pay as much of attention on a day to day basis.
Can't that turn into some sort of self fulfilling prophecy when people are planning out future expenditure. So if they think to themselves, well, I don't feel as wealthy, so I'm not going to plan this summer trip. Maybe we'll drive somewhere closer instead.
Exactly. But this has also been for the last ten days, maybe that the markets have gone down like this, So it's a question of timing and have you already started your planning. Are you going to give up on the idea or do you think, well, you know, the market's been up and down a lot, and we always hear this about by the dip, etcetera. And maybe things will get better. This is just what we don't know at
this point. We're still in that kind of air pocket where there are signs and portents that things could go wrong, but there's no guarantee that they will. So what do you do about it?
For right now?
It probably does mean people cut back on spending a little bit. We get retail sales figures on Monday that will be interesting to look at. But does it mean they cut back to the point where we could see the economy start to really slow.
Well, we did have a story go out on the Bloomberg terminal today, and it said that the FED is expected to cut twice this year. They're hoping that. They're saying that the FED will keep interest rates steady through the first half of the year before delivering two cuts beginning in September. That's according to multiple economists that have
been surveyed here. What are your main takeaways for that when we think about projections and what you're keeping an eye on as we head into the FED meeting next Wednesday.
Well, if that survey we're a milk carton, it would probably have an expiration date on it, because nobody knows what the Fed is going to do. And I've talked to a number of seen fed'lsea makers from the Open Market Committee in recent days who all say, we don't know, because we don't know what's going to happen. They're in the same position we all are with the tariffs and
everything else. The Fed in December suggested that this year there would be two raid cuts, and of course the markets have priced in three right now, but at one point we're pricing in one or none, and it just goes back and forth as people have to guess and we go out and we survey these economists and say, well, what do you think and their answer is, well, right now, I'll go with two because that's kind of where we were.
But you can't really make an empirical argument for two as compared to anything else at this point.
Hey, Mike, before we let you go, you mentioned this conversation out with Joe Anshi a little earlier at the University of Michigan. She directs this survey. You spoke to her this morning. TERMOL subscribers can get that conversation. What were the main takeaways?
Basically, the disappointment or the decline in sentiment was widespread across all income categories. It was across all political parties. There has been some thought that this survey is biased in the sense that the party that's out of power is much more depressed about the way things are going
than the party that is in power. But even Republicans views expectations for what's going to happen to the economy declined precipitously, and so it tells her that there is something going on out there that we have to keep an eye on.
Michael McKee, Bloomberg News International Economics and Policy correspondent, have a great weekend. Mike, good to see you. Hey, I do want to check in on what's going on with Apple, because we got a redhead crossing the Bloomberg terminal. Apple's top executive overseeing its serie virtual assistant told staff that delays to key features have been ugly and embarrassing, and a decision to publicly promote the technology before it was
ready made matters worse. We're talking about Robbie Walker, who serves as senior director at Apple, delivering a start comment during an all hands meeting for the Siri division, saying that the team was facing a bad period. Walker also said it's unclear when the enhancements will actually launch. That's according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the gathering was private. This story on the Bloomberg Terminal by our own Mark German,
who oversees technology coverage around the world, Chicken out. Shares of Apple higher still by just about eight tens of one percent, but they did give up some of those gains after that news came.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five eas during listen on Applecarplay and Android auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
We were just talking about with Michael McKay. US consumer sentiment fell to a more than two year low, and long term inflation expectations jumped by the most since nineteen ninety three. It illustrates growing apprehension about the economic impact from tariffs. Then there's the raid path ahead of next week's FED meeting. Rates and consumer health is very important to Isa Washerman. He's the CFO of Huntington Bank Shares. It's the holding company of the Consumer and Business Regional
Bank Huntington National Bank. It's got locations in a handful of states, including Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Carolina and more. Zach joins us from Columbus, Ohio. Also with us is Nina Trentman, senior editor at Bloomberg News. She's the author of the CFO Briefing newsletter. You got to sign up for it at Bloomberg dot com slash CFO Dash Briefing. Zach, Nina, Welcome to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Zach, You've
got this great read on the consumer. Given what Huntington does for businesses and what Huntington does for consumers big picture, how would you characterize how consumers are doing right now and how would you characterize the economy right now?
You know, consumers continue to perform pretty well in terms of spending, lending activity, credit performance generally looks pretty solid. You know, throughout the course of the last year, there's a bit of a tale of two cities with respect to the consumer. If you look at consumers to above the median income, there's been a lot of strength, strong employment, good spending trends, great underlying activity. Consumers below the median
income have been showing some signs of stresses. For Huntington, that's not really our business, but just characterizing kind of broadly what we're seeing in the industry.
That is certainly the case.
I think fundamentally, employment remains relatively strong, and I think, you know, notwithstanding elements that are going on now that could drive uncertainty, we're seeing fairly healthy trends in the consumer. Of course, that could change, and we're watching it very carefully, but as of right now, looks really relatively good in terms of the economy overall. You know, I've been remarking to a number of people in the last couple of
weeks that. You know, if you were just to look at the results of our business and not read the headlines, you would say, gosh, the economy is performing exceptionally well. Our business continues to drive forward very powerfully into the
first core. We're seeing terrific trends in underlying activity. Of course, there is a lot of headlines coming through and that's causing uncertainty, and so we would potentially see some things coming through later in the year if this continues, but as of right now, remarkable resilience.
Actually.
Yeah, to follow up on that, Zach, thanks for joining us. So you're basically saying sort of the headlines, as you characterized it, that has not really fit into your business, Like we are seeing surveys of businesses declining, we're seeing consumer inflation expectations really changing. So you're saying, basically that is still not showing in your business.
Yeah, I think, I mean, certainly there is the effect on the psyche of the consumer, of the commercial customer. You can't ignore the headlines. The actual activity on the ground, though, is be lying that and we are seeing continued growth, for example, the lending activity, continued deposit gathering strong, a customer acquisition and underlying behavioral trends look relatively normal for this time of the year. I think, you know, you've got to look hard for signs that what's happening right
now could well start to affect the real economy. And there are some harbingers of that, you know, in our commercial segment, where we interact with customers who might be involved with buying goods on a forward basis where they could be exposed to uncertain pricing given tariffs in the future.
We're seeing a little bit of halting.
Activity there other places where there's commitments around capital expenditures in the second half of this year. Most of the first half is fairly well committed, but in the second half of the year seeing some signs of decision making slow down and other things that would what you'd expect to see if.
There was uncertainty in the environment.
So you can see it if you look, but you've got to look hard, and I would say, broadly speaking, in the first order, certainly and certainly the view we've gotten too this quarter looks like not much impact on the real economy.
Yet there's of course a range of indicators that track the economy, and then that we could be looking at in order to gauge where where sentiment is. Probably not stocks, given that they are currently a bit of a turbulent time. But what's the metric that you're looking at in order to really get a sense of where your businesses? You mentioned deposit growth earlier. Is that the metric that you're looking at? Or are there others where you'd say that gives me a sense of where things are headed?
Yeah, of course, not just one. There's there's a lot of them, but I think you know one.
We look at business Live weekdays starting at two pm on Apple You can also listen live on Amazon Alex from our flagship New York stations.
Last year, do you sustain fairly strong, good visibility and long growth into the second quarter?
At this point?
We also look at customer acquisition trends and just underlying activity that would indicate just normal consideration behavior from customers, and that looks pretty good.
You know.
Another thing that we watch very carefully, of course, is credit, and we're not seeing any indications of any move in delinquency rates or more early indicators of credit stress.
Is quite the opposite.
Actually, we're seeing a lot of stability and strength, So those are some of the things we look at a lot, and again, as I said earlier, you're really not seeing anything on the real economy yet.
I want to stress we're.
Not Pollyanna here, and there are a lot of concerning uncertainties being put into the market, and those could cumulate into real effects later.
We're just not seeing that well, Zach.
I know we have the FED meeting coming up next Wednesday, and we have a market that's pricing in two rate cuts this year. I understand that Huntington has already reduced the interest it pays clients in response to lower interest rates. Do you agree with this projection of two rate cuts this year and how far do you see stagflation risk.
It's a great question, and I will tell you I'm not an economist, and we purposely don't make a specific prognostication about the indust rate environment. We rather plan for a range of potential interest rate environments, and we're trying to make sure we can execute our plan and support
our customers under any of them. I will tell you, throughout the course of the last couple of years, we have continually bit of the view that it felt like inflation was pretty sticky and that would likely cause the FED to go slower in actions. But then maybe the forward yield curve had implied at various points in the past and that interest rates would likely stay higher for longer. And so we still see that that is a probable
outcome here. Inflation continues to be higher than the FED target, there's a lot of reasons why they would be on pause for a while.
With that being said, something like two cuts does not.
Seem unlikely to us, and so that's sort of a reasonable default scenario to plan around, and for us, we can execute our plan if that happens or if there's no cuts.
Yeah.
To follow up on one thing that we've talked about in the past, SEC we've talked about potential deal making, the outlook for investments. Wondering, given that you're in the banking sector and the financial sector is one where we're expecting some regulatory changes from the Trump administration, do you think those will be positive for your business?
Well, look, I think we focus on what we can control, and what's happening in terms of that is certainly out
of our control. I do think that that more clarity around the rules for m and A review will cause more activity within the industry broadly, We've been pretty clear for Huntington that we're focused on organic growth and so it's not something that would really have a significant bearing on our business, but certainly the expectation that there could be more consolidation at an industry level, which could be a return. Frankly, just what we've seen for the last twenty years is is certainly likely.
We're trying to get an understanding from executives we speak to about how they're using AI in their businesses. I mean, so much of the discussion about AI is focused on companies that actually create the products and services or actually make the chips that power these things. How are you using AI right now? Specifically when it comes to increasing deposits for example, personalization, take us through that.
It's tremendous actually that there's a lot of energy around it that you know, AI will touch virtually every area of the business over time, and it's already making significant impact. We use AI a lot in understanding customer behaviors and how we can better serve them with additional products and with with with you know, when to reach out to them for products that could be a beneficial to them. So there's a lot of focus or leveraging AI for that.
You know, the other side of the coin is really looking at fraud and potential risks within the system, and so AI is certainly helping us to to look and find those kind of indicators can make our own efforts more efficient to protect our customers.
Well, speaking of the protection, does it make it more complicated that you're in such a heavily regulated industry and you have to be careful about discrimination and internal biases that are created within these algorithms.
You know, it's a very important areas. It's probably the most important place we look before we ever institute any kind of machine learning or AI model is really what is the impact on the customer in terms of fairness, clarity, and adhere it's to compliance and regulatory rules and so it's a huge focus.
So if I say, though, we think we can.
Solve those challenges and really create great tools that can live within the baluands of that, So it's got a ton of promise.
You know.
The other big area that we're putting a major focus is our own internal efficiency and processes. You know, how can we leverage this technology to make us more efficient as an organization? Which ultimately gets fed back into customer value and savings to customers over time.
So it's very promising.
Hey, Zach, in about thirty seconds or less, so your shares are down nearly ten percent this year. How much are you all keeping an eye on share price and how are you thinking about the forward outlook?
You know, we try not to get too wrapped up on what's happening in the equity markets in any given time.
The goal is a long term value creation.
I will say it appears that there's you know, all the uncertainty in the world generally is coming through int equity markets and you're seeing that. But frankly, the profit growth outlook for the industry and for Huntington in particular, it's very strong. So you know, for us, I think if we just keep our heads down and keep driving profitability higher, we're going to see the stock prices respond and see those go up higher over time as well.
So trying to get two wrapped up in it.
Hey, Zach, thanks so much for joining us on at Bloomberg Business Week this afternoon. Zach Wasserman, CFO at Huntington at Banks Shares also a big thank you. Anina Trentman she's senior editor at Bloomberg News. She's the author of the CFO Briefing newsletter. You can sign up for the CFO Briefing newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash CFO dash Briefing.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch US Live weekday afternoons from two to five eas during Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch US Live on YouTube.
Let's talk tariffs because senior members of the European Union's Executive arm in the US and US officials rather spoke on Friday to explore ways to move forward after President Trump's metals tariffs prompted a trade war. This call came after Trump imposed twenty five percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, in a massive escalation of the trade war
between the long standing allies. That decision was shortly followed by the announcement of the European Commission for additional tariffs, targeting as much as twenty six billion euros worth of US products. For more, we bring in Jason Brittany's founder in CIO at Reflection Asset Management. He joins US from Charleston, South Carolina, Jason, in your view, and we know what the uncertainty arou on tariffs has done to the markets
this week. But in your view, so are tariffs and effective way to accomplish the president's goals.
So I don't believe they are.
I think that the what they're going to do is they're going to directly relate raise consumer prices and they're going to continue to give the markets heartburn and not have anybody have any idea which way to be able to place bets. It just is creating uncertainty that I don't think that the global economy needs right now.
Jason. I'm looking at a market that seems that it wants to move higher, but the newsfold keeps overwhelming the market. We had the Nasdaq one hundred hitting correction, territory SMP five hundred doing the same. How are you advising clients during this uncertain time period?
So I think it really is a reflection of the client's individual risk tolerance. I mean, for some folks who are towards the latter half of their career and they're actually potentially moving towards fixed income and they're not in the accumulation phase of wealth. It can be really unsettling, especially when you're seeing the whipsall moments in the market.
We did see today, however, some technical support for the S and P at around the fifty five hundred marks, and we've seen it push higher, almost up to full
two percent today. The reality is is that given the fact that the White House is willing to saber rattle around tariffs, and I mean I had a personal moment last night when I thought Don Perignon was all of a sudden going to be four or five hundred dollars a bottle with the two hundred percent tariff, that we were going to lead into a really unpleasant summer season here.
The reality is is that I think that we have got to get this under control and have to come to the table and really look at this from a fairness perspective. Tariffs and retaliatory tariffs and the saber rattling isn't doing anybody any good. And I think you're right. I think the market is poised to move higher. I think fundamentals are strong. We had a great CPI print. I think that there's this market is ready to run and it's just looking for a reason to do so.
And we just need a little support from Washington.
Well, Jason, I've been talking to different sources that you've spoken about the fact that while corrections are unnerving in the current moment, it's not unusual. So how are you thinking about this the corrections that we been seeing. Is it something that maybe valuations were too high and we're just do for a pullback a little bit.
So I think there's a fair amount of profit taking. I also think there's a fair amount of some of the shorts and the hedges that got squeezed and who are now covering what we're bad bets before, especially on Tesla. I mean, the reality is the market is a living thing and it will ebb and flow, and people are buying and selling for various reasons. I think generally speaking, the vector of the market is up. I think that there's been strong corporate earnings. I think that we're going
to see great things out of American companies. I think that this right now gamesmanship, for lack of a better term, between our neighbors to the north and the south, with some of the most globally intertwined and complex supply chains that exist anywhere in the world, we're just doing ourselves a disservice, and I think we're pounding the drum for the wrong reason.
How are you thinking about small caps right now?
So small caps of the canary in the coal mine right as soon as they bounce back, it usually is a buying indicator that shows you that the large cap part of the market is going to go that we keep an eye on.
Right now.
There are small pockets of promise, but generally speaking, this particular week, and even in some of the trading days last week, it was baby out with the bathwater. So it's really going to be a stock pickers market here on a go forward basis. Find good companies with strong
balance sheets, with products that you can believe in. Think about companies that are sort of domestically focused, right Utilities, healthcare companies that have really strong positions and really strong domestic supply chains are going to be able to weather a lot of this nonsense, and in fact, some of them, I think are going to be able to take advantage of some opportunities to price increase under the shadow of while everyone else is doing it well.
Just to echo what we said a little bit ago, we are currently waiting to hear from President Trump here shortly, How do you think Trump is thinking about the market? Do you think that he's even keeping an eye on it at all?
So, at the risk of exposing myself and painting a target on my back, I would go so far as to say that I believe that the President has a lot of folks who are keeping a deep eye on the markets. I don't know if they're doing it for the same reasons the rest of us are. I think that they think that they're playing three dimensional chess. I'm not entirely sure that they're not the only ones that think that The reality is is that the CPI print was fine, Inflation is cooling, the Fed now has reason
to continue it's easing. Where the market is pricing in something between seventy and seventy five basis points by the end of twenty twenty five, that's going to be good for consumers. It'll be interesting to see if Speaker Johnson and then whatever happens with Senator Schumer and whether they can come to an agreement on the continuing Resolution funding the government and extending the Trump tax cuts. I think
that will be good for American business. But I think most of this nonsense out there is just noise.
Jason, how are you thinking about sectors that are exposed to government spending. I'm always keeping an eye on defense stocks, and of course we know that we have US defense stocks that are pulling back a little bit in comparison to their European counterparts. How are you thinking about the Department of Government efficiency and what that means for investing in US defense equities?
So great question, Nourah. I think that if you're thinking about defensive stocks, particularly those that are what i'll call multi conglomerate defensive, so they're not just making guns and bombs, but rid our parts and various other things that also keep the civilian economy moving, they're going to lag their European counterparts because of the pressure that European counterparts are feeling right now as it relates to NATO and that really big push from the President for them to kind
of quote unquote pay their own way as it relates to their GDP. Spending on defense is a percentage of their overall budget. That's part of the NATO charter. We're kind of asking them to pay their own way, and I do see them looking towards being part of a solution and maybe stepping up on the global stage. I still don't count out American Defense, particularly Lockheed raytheon general dynamics.
Those kinds of companies tend to do extremely well in periods of elatility, especially in periods where there's the potential armament.
Back to your question though, around DOGE and the hatchet versus scalpel cutting of programs or every positive thing that I can say about the defense sector, I have to say, shed a tear and say something sad about the cutting of veterans benefits, the cutting of healthcare to seniors, and some of the other challenges that we're really just seeing out there with the firing and rehiring and firing and rehiring of the same set of government employees within the
same forty eight hour period. Well, Jason, that it really looks I'm sorry, go ahead.
Well, I want to just get some questions in, because we are expecting Trump in the coming minutes. How do you expect the DOGE cuts to hit the economy? And you know we haven't seen it yet reflected in the non farm payrolls, but how do you expect it to be reflected there?
Well, so we know that there's a minimum of seventy five thousand federal employees. They're going to show up in that next print on the non farm payrolls. I think that it is going to continue to be an overhang as it relates to negative news, and right now the market is overreacting to news, both positively and negatively. I think depending on the timing of that next ADP report or the report that comes out of the the Department of Labor, how and what that looks like in comparison
to what the FED does it then next meeting. If those two things come together and they're both negative, I think you could see a perfect storm, and you could probably see another five to seven percent of the downside. If those numbers are what we'll call offsetting, I think you'll see a moment's pause here where people will kind of take a breath at the fifty six hundred to fifty seven hundred point spread range on the S and
P five hundred. If both of those go the right direction and they're positive, I think you could see six thousand or sixty one hundred certainly by the end of the summer.
Which one do you think is more likely to happen.
I think the reality is is that it is going to be a goldilocks environment. I think that you're going to see the FED reaching for a reason to drop by twenty five basis points. But I do think that that there's bloodshed from the just carnage that was the layoff of the federal workforce. That's probably going to be closer to one hundred or one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars twenty five thousand person print, and that that's
going to concern me. The order of magnitude on that is going to, I think send some shock waves.
To the market.
Okay, so then what does the FED do if that indeed happens.
So best case scenario is it's a measured pause with a change in the language. Worst case scenario is that they probably cut twenty five basis points and then make it clear that there are no more cuts coming the rest of the year, and I think that that will really upset the market.
What about next week? Are you?
How are you looking at next week's meeting?
I don't know if there's an I mean, based on the CPI print and some of the other things that are out there, I would expect them to be able to have the political cover to do a small reduction. I think the market right now traders are pricing in like something less than a fifty percent chance of a twenty five basis point drop. It would be in line with the dot plot. Who knows. I mean right now, the President's going to go speak of the Department of Justice.
That could be business as usual, or it could be something going into the weekend on a Friday afternoon, which is a fun part of the news cycle that none of us is going to see coming.
Well. US consumer sentiment fell to more than a two year low, and then we have long term inflation expectations that jumped the most since nineteen ninety three. What do you think that consumers and just broader civilians really need to see in terms of changing sentiment.
So I think the consumers right now really are focused on being hyper sensitive and hyper reactive to the news. They don't know what to believe, they don't know where things are. We're one minute in the Oval Office having a shouting match with the President of Ukraine, where the next minute brokering a peace deal and taking over fifty
percent mineral rights. It really is a challenging environment for someone who's literally just trying to get up in the morning and get themselves and their kids off to school and to work and back again. It's a very challenging environment to sort of get any comfort with the general direction that things are heading. My belief is that by virtue, American consumers are optimists. Right, We're seventy percent of the
spending that is the GDP is the American consumer. I still think that there is hope and reason, but I think they're a little weary.
They're a little if.
You can believe it, just less than three months in battle hardened from what's been going on in Washington.
Well, when we think about just the rally of the last year, last couple of years, we've really been seeing a lot of those MAG seven stocks driving the majority of the broader markets gains. Do you still see them having more room to run? I mean, I know cap X has really been a concern and a sticking point as people think about how much further tech stocks can really drive the rally forward.
So cap X, You're absolutely right, has been a huge issue. And we just saw in the last round of Earning's releases many of them MAGS seven have doubled down on their expenditures around data centers and their chip boarders and so on and so forth. So we're not really seeing
a slowing down there. I think their exposure is to the downside as it relates to a news element where just like we had Deep seek them out right in the earlier part of the year and you saw, however, many eight seven eight hundred billion dollars worth of market valuation wiped away from Navidia wiped away from Apple. Apples had a particularly challenging time recently around Siri and the AI disappointments and some of the functionality. It's still a
strong company. It's still is a great balance sheet. The price gets any cheaper, they're going to accelerate their buybacks. So Bradleie, I'm bullish on tech. I still think the AI story has legs. I still think there's room to run. I still think we don't know that the ultimate amount of efficiencies we're going to see from that, and I generally speaking think it is a very positive time for that particular subsect of the industry.
Jason Brittany's founder and CIO at Reflection Asset Management.
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