Thanks for joining us for this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. I'm Nathan Hager. The US market is closed for the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Coming up this hour, we will look at how the retailers are doing as we approach the holiday shopping season beginning with Black Friday. Plus we'll get an update on some big antitrust cases, including the Justice Department's lawsuit against Google. Also, is there room for seconds at the Thanksgiving Feast? We'll look at the ozampic effect
on the holiday meal. First, though, let's dig into what's driving the market and talk about oil, because crude has been on quite a ride. We've seen about a thirty dollars swing in the price of a barrel this year. There are a lot of factors at play, among them wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and of course, the ongoing recovery from the pandemic. So for more on what's in store for the energy space, we have an expert roundtable set up for you. John Kilduff is with
us on the phone. He is the founding partner at a Game Capital, and Stephen Shork is joining us on zoom. Stephen is president of the Short Group. Thanks to both of you for being with us on this holiday. And I'll start with you, John, because it wasn't that long ago we were talking about the return of one hundred dollars a barrel oil. Now we're quite a ways off from that.
What happened, well, basically, the sum of our worst fears for the market just never materialized. With the initiation of the Ukraine War foot or was thought to put you know, meaningful amounts of Russian supplies of crude oil and refined products at jeopardy to be embargoed by the West, but they wouldn't be purchased. Meanwhile, they found a home almost mediately in China and India and Turkey to a lesser extent. And then you know, from there a similar situation here
with situation in Gaza. Fears about you know, all kinds of a parade of horribles, about the straight of Hormos getting shut ran getting involved, and meanwhile, really the unfortunate situation has been very much contained to Gaza, no regionals still and certainly no threat to any supplies of oil.
So once those geopolitical risk premiums dissolved, we're back to dealing with the relative even or oversupply and the worries about the main other factor in this market, which is demand, and China and the situation with their blackluster economy, their property market situation being deteriorating, and of course even Japan now showing significant economic weakness and demand for oil.
Is that how you see things, Steven? Is risk premium off the table? Is there risk it returns?
Yeah? Absolutely no. I'd never even thought risk premium was adequately priced in for the few days that we actually saw a pop post October seventh, So I am quite perplexed that there is no risk premium and in fact there's now a discount being priced into the market. It is just amazing to me that the market continues to ignore what is going on. This is a war, not between Israel and Hamas. This is not a military conflict, This is not a police action. This is a war.
This is a war between Israel and let's face it, Iran. The Hamas has Belat, the Hutis have all declared war on Israel. I eat the West. So that is Iran. And the fact that we have forty percent of the world's waterborne oil that flows through a forty miles straight of Hormuz, and people refuse to factor that in. I think the market's taking a tremendous risk. So the theme coming into this year was China, China, China, to quote our jam Brady here, and with all of that demand
and you know, China never never materialized. China quite frankly to me, looks like Japan's circuit early nineteen nineties. The curtain is being pulled back on that regime and on that economy. So now going into the new year, there are legitimate concerns whether it's China really the tiger of the Far East or is it now just a paper tiger.
He raises an interesting point, John, is this market underpricing the potential for risk premium to return and what about the fundamentals going into twenty twenty four.
Well, I think you would need to see a real escalation here. I mean for me, and I don't mean to be you know, anything less than you know this is a horrible situation. But look, Hamas kind of got left hanging by Iran and by you know, Hesbala in the north. The Hamas thought that these other parties would come in on their side and really make this the one, make this the situation. And if that had happened then what everything Stephen just said, and I would have been
right on board with that. We would have had material amounts of crude oil at risk. And you know, for whatever reason that the calculation just wasn't there. I don't know whose miscalculation it was. It's saying it sounds like it was Hamas's because they're not getting the support right now that they expected. They're getting pin pricks sort of dust ups in various parts of Syria and other places by Iran which they're getting hit back with, but again
no material amounts of oil. The fundamentals, though, are are interesting, and certainly it's going to it's hard to make an argument for prices to go much lower because of what the Saudi Arabia has been doing with their output policy and OPEC plus overall. Once again, o pech plus has fallen short of their lofty goals, but the Saudis haven't. They have delivered. They're only producing nine million barrels a day. Can you imagine that the United States produces thirty percent
more oil right now than Saudi Arabia does. Yep, that's the case, and Sadi exports are down, so you know there's a potential for relative tightness emerging. But again, without China getting back into a groove of growth, it's hard to see prices materially going higher either.
I think I hear you want to pop in there, Steven. What's your view on whether the Saudis continue with these supply cuts that we've seen over the last couple of months.
Oh, yeah, no, No, I'm certainly on board with John with regard to offers, the geopolitics that it is a wait and see market, right. We know everyone knows that risk there, but for no one's willing to price it in and therefore we're going to have to wait. It certainly is a concern with Saudi Arabia. And let's keep in mind the sunny Saudis and the Shiah Persians don't necessarily agree on I mean, they really hate one another.
I mean, let's be honest here, and the fact that the Saudis are doing what they can to keep prices higher with regard to production. Yeah, I do see that. I agree with John. I do see that going forward that they are sticking to their guns. And I think they're going to continue to stick to their guns because when we look at the spread action of difference between prices in the near term versus prices longer out along
the curve. We're going into a situation where we're pricing on the front of the curve is signaling to the market that it is over supplied relative to demand. I
want to say in crude oil. You're not seeing that dynamic playing out in gasoline, which is very interesting because gasoline demand is strong as we know for this holiday we're looking at one of the strongest holiday seasons since well, certainly in the post COVID start, and so the gas lien spreads of tightening, so there seems to be some concern with regard to supply in that manner, but the overall global market when we see how the spreads have
really started to come down the front end. OPEK watches this stuff, so the formation of the forward curve is very important. I'm friends and I work with OPEK. I do know they put a lot of emphasis on this. Therefore, with the spreads collapsing with Saudi Arabia, if they're going to make any move would probably in the new year. If the spread state their way, they are, they'll probably cut rather than add production. Going into twenty twenty four, is.
That how you see it as well, John? And if Saudi Arabia does continue to cut, does the rest of OPEK plus follow?
The Sadi's have certainly put their shoulder to the wheel here that the energy minister Mahan Bensaman, as you know, delivered lollipops, and they want a higher price. You know, they need to pay for Neome and their other aspirations for their country, and they want oil prices closer to
one hundred. The question I have though, is that are we getting closer to the cycle, the point in the cycle where the Saddies throw a fit again like they did back in two thousand, right before excuse me, twenty twenty, right before COVID hit and flooded the market to collapse the price to try to squeeze out higher cost producers,
which they're kind of suffering from right now. Part of their problem is the United States with the twelve million barrels per day of production and about five million barrels per day we're pushing on it anyway of daily crude oil exports, so we're making their job a lot harder. As the years go by. Here, we'll see if that persists.
But I do believe the Sattis want higher prices, and I do think they're willing to take one or more for the team to succeed in that endeavor, and so yes, and with Stephen on that that they're more than likely to cut right now until they finally throw that fit and collapse the market.
Stephen, what about the impact of central banks and demand? Can prices grind higher when we could potentially see interest rates fall and the potential for a slow and demand depending on how this economy goes into twenty twenty four.
Yeah, that is a really interesting point, and really I'm perplexed. I'm impressed with the US economy when we consider that consumer spending is seventy seventy zero percent of the economy, and we're looking at eighteen consecutive months of credit card debt well over one trillion dollars with interest rates on
those credit cards at twenty two percent. When we look at savings rates that we've all gone through, all of the savings that we are the income or the cash that was printed by the US government, we no longer have those savings. So I don't know where where the juice from the consumer is coming from, but it's there. So certainly if we do seetea of if rate rises have indeed been cut, you know we've seen the end
of it. I'm skeptical on that, but if we have, and to your point, if you do start to see interest rates coming back, well, heck, if the US consumer can spend in a twenty two percent credit card interest environment, you start bringing those down a few hundred bases points, then I can see this certainly being a catalyst that that will be that next trans next demand driver that can certainly propel oil prices higher into the new year.
Thanks for this look at what could be driving oil prices into twenty twenty four. That was Stephen Schork, president of the Short Group, joining us on zoom and John Kilduff, founding partner at Again Capital, with us on the phone on this special Thanksgiving Day edition of Bloomberg Daybreak, and straight ahead we'll get you set for Black Friday. We'll look ahead to the holiday shopping season with Bert Flickinger of Strategic Resource Group. It's eighteen minutes past the I'm
Nathan Hager, and this is Bloomberg. Welcome back to this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. The US markets are closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm Nathan Hager and retailers, well, they're open and entering their most crucial time of the year for many. It has already begun with Black Friday sales underway. And for more on the kickoff of holiday shopping season, we welcome Bert Flickinger, Managing director at Strategic
Resource Group. Bert, this time of year is always big for retail, but how big is this year's holiday shopping season, particularly when you think about companies like Walmart warning about the consumer outlook heading into next year.
Nathan, Happy Thanksgiving Day, and there is some concerns with Walmart and everyone else that while retail sales will be up three to three and a half percent over the holiday season and this Black Friday weekend, overall, adjusted for inflation, sales are flat and on the Bloomberg terminal the University of Michigan consumer sentiments near twelvemonth low and that's all due to inflation and sixty percent of people going paycheck to paycheck and carrying a lot of consumer debt.
So does that have you thinking that a lot of shoppers are going to be going into more of the lower end retail chains as opposed to some of the higher end locations.
Yes, Nathan, the US Department of Commerce is reporting that anything's food based, like you said, Walmart, Costco, Kroger will do well. But the category dominant areas of the business, home improvement, furniture, sporting goods, electronics are all trending down,
even not before they're adjusted for inflation. So the consumer spending, but the consumer's cast in my alma mater, Price Waterhouse Coopers said almost all the spending increases are coming from the top twenty percent of people in the disposable income ladder.
So what does that mean when it comes to the kind of deals that we're used to seeing on Black Friday. If the thinking is that a lot of shoppers are looking more toward the lower end more of the staples, does that mean we're going to see deeper discounts on some of those like consumer tech items that you usually think about selling really well around Black Friday and beyond.
Yes, you'll see better deals because Walmart, Target and others are still carrying ten to fifteen percent more inventory than they were pre pandemic, and all the retailers really started their Black Friday holiday sales programs either right after Labor Day or right after Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day. So the deals have been out there for a long time and a lot of the people's shopping has already
been done. So Price Waterhouse Coopers is saying about forty two percent of the shopping is going to be done online, forty one percent in store, and the remaining seventeen percent click and collect. But a lot of the shoppings been completed, except at Macy's with the Thanksgiving Day parade right near Bloomber's World headquarters doing well, and this is their big day is with the Macy's parade as Thanksgiving Day.
Well, if so much of the shopping has already been done even before Black Friday, what kind of impact could some of these Black Friday discounts even have.
Nathan's your excellent point to minimus impact because we're overstored in the suburbs and understored in the cities or the urban areas. So it's interestingly it's up to the Federal Trade Commission and exhibit A is letting Kroger and Albertson's merge to protect unionized employers and unionize jobs, and it was infirmed by John and Margot Katsmetitis from Cristiiti's and Dagostino after they and teammates gave out ten thousand turkeys.
We talked to Democratic National Committee chair ed Rendell, Governor David Patterson, and Senator Malcolm Smith and John and Margot Katsmatitis, and they said it's really up to the government to let the chains, especially the Krogers of the world that are unionized, continue to operate and expand in the urban areas as well as suburban and rural areas because Walmart and Amazon have been subsidized in the city, and as soon as the government subsidies run out, Walmart tends to
close and exit the urban areas, as they did ignominiously in the South and West side of Chicago before this twenty twenty three holiday season.
Speaking with Bert Flickinger, the managing director of Strategic Resource Group, how do you expect this particular holiday shopping kickoff to compare two years past when we think about so much of the consumer running out of excess savings relying more on credit cards. How is that going to play out when it compares to some past Black Fridays.
As it plays out, Nathan, it's by now pay later. PwC said that fifteen percent of the purchases for this Black Friday weekend and small business Saturday and two days and Cyber Monday and four days, it's going to be buy now, pay later. Fifteen percent of all purchases will be that way. And consumers are still taking on credit card debt, but sixty three percent of consumers will be buying with debit cards, so instant cash to the retailers
and trying to put less on credit. As interest rates of climbed and the average household has seventeen thousand and revolving unpaid credit card debt.
What's the read through to retailer's bottom lines their profit margins. If we do see more consumers relying on buy now, pay later.
The retailer's bottom lines will be under pressure because about three percent of consumers are defaulting on credit card debt of some sort car loans, retail credit card debt, etc. So retailers will have a solid sales season flat adjusted for inflation, profit will be good but not great. But the real concern is the upcoming calendar year going into the election cycle of twenty twenty four.
Yeah, I did want to get into what this holiday shopping season kickoff means in terms of momentum for retailers. Do you see the momentum growing for retailers once we get past this season or are there further headwinds.
The momentums growing? And interestingly, Nathan, part of it is following the Bloomberg terminal. If a company like Bedbath and Beyond files for bankruptcy or Toys r Us earlier filed for bankruptcy and liquidation, who picks up the business? So Macy's and Target have done a terrific job picking up the toy business, especially Macy's, which on the Bloomberg Terminal
reported very good earnings. It's so expensive to feed a family of four for over fifty dollars at McDonald's that for the first first time in decades, more people are buying food at Walmart, Kroger, Costco and cooking and entertaining at home because it's unaffordable to go out. So that shift in terms of consumers regardless of income, are all smart shoppers, and they're shopping more to buy and serve
and stay at home rather than go out. Where our family was one of the largest food service suppliers to the restaurant industry and the food service restaurant industry. Nathan marks up the food about three hundred percent, marks up the beverages about seven hundred percent. First fifteen dollars big mac meal at McDonald's. That same meal could be bought at Kroger, Costco or Walmart for about a dollar per person.
So just quickly, it looks like we're hearing a lot more thinking about, a lot more picking and choosing for this holiday shopping season perhaps than the years past.
Yes, a lot more cautious, careful shopping. But ultimately, retail has gone from four hundred percent overstored fifteen years ago to only about one hundred percent overstored. And in the urban areas we're twenty to thirty to sometimes forty percent understored. So the big opportunities urban retail, and that's where Kroger and the unionized companies to locally, Christie and Augustinos and Morton Williams and fair Way have done it particularly well.
All right, Berd Flick and thanks for this. It's Bird Flick and Jert managing partner at Strategic Resource Group, and still ahead on this Thanksgiving edition of Bloomberg day Break, We'll take the pulse of some key antitrust cases in a busy year for the Justice Department against corporate America. It's thirty five minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager, and this is Bloomberg. Welcome back to this special Thanksgiving edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. I'm Nathan Hager. Us markets are
closed for the holiday. Twenty twenty three has been a very busy year for the Justice Department. It's in the middle of a number of high profile trials aimed at limiting consolidation in corporate America. So who better to get you caught up on these cases than Bloomberg Intelligence Senior
Litigation analyst Jennifer reed. Jen thanks for being with us on this holiday, taking a bit of a break from what has been a very busy time for you, particularly thinking about Google and these cases against that company and its parent Alphabet. Let's start with the one that's been going on for quite a while, with the Justice Department taking on Google over its dominance in search. What are the allegations there? Where do things stand?
Yeah, that is a big one, and some are even calling that one the antitrust trial of the century. I don't know if when all is said and done, all that fanfare is going to be worth it. But this trial just ended November sixteenth, but closing arguments aren't set until early May, so it's going to be some time before Yeah. Really, this judge is taking it very seriously.
There was a lot of evidence introduced in the trial, and I think he's going to carefully parse through it all before making any decisions and having those closing arguments.
But here what the DOJ has accused Google of doing is illegally maintaining a monopoly in search and a couple different search advertising markets because they have these agreements with Apple and makers of Android mobile devices where they're spending a lot of money twenty six billion you heard in twenty twenty two for Google Search to be said is the default. So what it means is that if somebody buys a phone, they buy an Android phone, and you
go right in and you go into Safari. Let's say Google is set as your default, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, and you
do your search and that's what you're using. And so they're able to then get all the revenue from the advertising that comes up from that search, and the DJ is basically saying, look, Google's tied up everything with these agreements, and if being in duc duc go can't get in there, you know they can't improve because you need the data to improve, and you get the data by having more and more people do a search on your service.
And we've had in the course of this case a lot of numbers revealed almost reluctantly by the parties involved in how much has been spent to keep Google at the top of the search list. But when we have so much time between the end of the arguments and the closing ares in this case, what are we expecting from this judge after all this time pouring through all the evidence.
You know, he said himself that he has absolutely no idea how he's going to rule, And I suppose that's what he should say, because he needs to spend the time to look at the precedent and look at all the evidence before he makes up his mind. I mean, my feeling is that I lean a bit here toward the DOJ. I think the DJ introduced really compelling evidence that it is very difficult for other search engines to be able to develop and be able to compete with Google.
Having all of these agreements for default, and even though people can change that, you know, it's not completely foreclosing. You can go in and change your default to BING. But they had these experts in behavioral economics that basically showed that in many instances, people simply don't change a default if they don't know about it, or if they have to do some research or work to figure out
how to do it, they just don't do it. And Google's paying twenty six billions, So obviously there's a lot of value in being the default.
Yeah.
I mean for so many people, Google and Search are almost synonymous. I mean, if the Justice Department ends up winning out in this case, it's going to be a pretty big sea change, not just for the tech industry but for the people who use it, wouldn't it.
Well, you know, it may and it may not. You know, you talk about really these trials being so protracted. We probably won't get a decision given closing arguments in May until i'd say early in the second half of next year. And this is only halfway through this process because the trial that just ended was only on liability. In other words, did Google Elite violate the laws? Did they do something illegal?
If it is determined that it did, there will be a whole second trial on what the appropriate remedy is. So you're looking at possibly not even getting an answer to that question until late twenty twenty four, maybe early twenty twenty five. I doubt a remedy would be so drastic as to do something like break up Google, you know, force it to sell off Google Search, or sell off
Chrome or something like that. I suspect it would be more like something like sharing the data with rivals or creating a choice screen like Google has been forced to do in Europe.
Now, along with this case, with involving the Justice Department, Google is facing another matter, a lawsuit from Epic Games. Tell us more about where that one stands as well.
Right, So, this one just started and it's going to go through toward the end of December. It is just private. We did have state attorneys general involved, but they have settled with Google. Basically everybody who was a plaintiff in
this case except Epic Games has settled the case. And what Epic Games really objects to are Googles policies and strategies to force buyers of the Android mobile devices to download apps through Google's Playstore and not outside of the Playstore, and any kind of app purchases or in app purchases have to be made through the Playstore and Google services that payment. And so what Epic says is this allows Google to charge developers really an unfairly high fee every
time somebody is buying an app. Epic would like access. You know, they tried this with Apple. They want to be an app store themselves and distribute apps on mobile devices. They tried this with Apple. They're now trying this with Google to get in there so that they can be an app store and they can service the payments themselves.
Well, the last time Epic tried something like this with Apple and ended up losing. Why does it think it stands a better chance this time around?
Right?
And it mostly lost. There was one little piece and which Epic one, but really what it was going for it lost. There's some differences. The biggest difference here is that Apple's case was before a jury and Google's case,
I'm sorry, Apple's case was before a judge. Google's case is before a jury, and I think that really could cause a difference because a judge is going to focus on the very technical requirements of what a plaintiff has to prove to show illegal monopoly maintenance, and there are a lot of technical hurdles the plaintiff has to get over. It's difficult to win. A jury may be a little
less focused on that. You know, if the plaintiffs can portray Google as a bully here or doing something unfair, you know, maybe that'll sway a jury and they'll focus less on whether or not Epics met those technical requirements and more on Google's So maybe Epic feels it has a better shot here given that they'll be playing to a jury and not to a judge.
As you mentioned, this one's just getting started, so a lot more to watch there. But let's turn back to the Justice Department. The other big case that it's been pursuing is against Jet Blues purchase of Spirit Airlines under anti competitive argument. Why does the Justice Department see this as anti competitive when you have quite a few much bigger airlines that both of these are competing with.
Yeah, it's so interesting because they really are in the scheme of things in the United States, two small airlines compared to the legacies. But what the Department of Justice is concerned about is that Spirit has a very particular model. It's called an ultra low cost carrier, and it offers very low fares for an unbundled product. In other words, just the fair. If you want to check a bag, if you want to drink, if you want some extra
leg room, you have to pay for all of that. Yeah, that's right, right, right exactly, And some people, you know, rely on that very low fare in order to visit friends or family or go on a vacation. Jet Blue is a little bit different. It's kind of a step up. It has bigger seats, a little more leg room, a few more amenities, and it charges higher prices. And Jet Blue spin made no bones about the fact that it intends once it buys Spirit to change those planes, reduce
the seating, and increase the fares. So what the Department of Justice is worried about is this ultra low cost unbundled option being removed from the market for some consumers that depend on it.
So what is Jet Blue saying to try to assuage the Justice Department that this won't be as anti competitive as insane?
Jet Blue has a good argument too, you know, they say, look, first of all, we're really small, and we're all struggling to fight against compete against the big guys Delta, United American Southwest. We also bring down fares. We bring down the fares of those really expensive airlines, and we'll be able to expand capacity with Spirits planes and Spirits pilots, and we'll pull the fares down when we compete more vigorously against the big legacy airlines. And that's a pro
competitive effect. So this is going to be an interesting trial where the judge is going to have to really look at both have set both sides, you know, the anti competitive side and the beneficial side, and decide which one outweighs the other.
And just quickly, Jen, what do you make so far of the Justice departments pretty aggressive stance in going after what it sees is anti competitive anti monopoly practices.
It's been good to its word.
You know.
When the Biden administration came in, there was an executive order in which the administration really encouraged all of the agencies, not just DOJ and FTC to enforce the anti trust laws, to be you know, to be careful about consolidation and industries and do what they could to make the economy more competitive. And the DJ said Hey, we're going to follow through with that, and you know, it's been good
to its word. Instead of settling cases that the DOJ views as problematic, like was really the primary practice in the past, that DJ has brought quite a few lawsuits and they are trying to stem the tide of m and A activity and to stop what they view as anti competitive conduct by dominant firms. So, you know, they've had mixed success. They've had some success, they've had some failures, but they are doing exactly what they said they would.
Do, and they've given you a feast of topics to take a look at. Thanks for this, Jen, great having you on with us. It's Jennifer Ree, senior litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. Still ahead on this special holiday edition of Bloomberg day Break, we'll take a look at the story that really matters the Thanksgiving feast. How much is that turkey and trimming's really costing you this year. It's fifty minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager, and this
is Bloomberger. Welcome back to the special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. I'm Nathan Hager. US markets are closed for Thanksgiving Day and we now turn to the story. You're really focused on this holiday, your meal, the turkey, the green bean casserole, grandma's pumpkin pie. How much is it really costing you compared to years past? And how much room is there for seconds with many Americans now on appetite suppressing drugs like ozempic and wagovy. For some answers. We're joined by
Dina Shanker, who covers food for Bloomberg News. So this must really be your time of year. Dina, thanks for being with us. So overall inflation is slowing is the Thanksgiving meal following?
That was not the expectation from Wells Fargo Agrifood Institute's report that came out last month. Basically, out of home eating is just still more expensive, even if that inflation has slowed down. Eating at home is just getting more expensive as certain parts of the supply chain remain elevated. We've seen, for example, canned foods are way up, and that could include your canned pumpkin and your pumpkin pie.
It could include canned cramp berries. But at the same time, ham prices are up to all the while the big centerpiece, the turkey. The prediction was for those prices to come down compared to the last year, So that is its own special reason for coming down, because essentially wholesale prices are down from farmers putting too many birds in the barns, and then retailers get to lower their price and consumers
win with lower prices. But we make up for it with the other with the sides and everything else that we want to eat.
So I guess we're getting a little bit of a balance maybe when it comes to the price of the meal compared to years past. But you have to wonder now, with so much attention on these GLP ones o Zepic with Gooviy, we talk about it all the time, is that going to make the Thanksgiving table a little less of a spread that it's been in the past.
So I spoke to a number of people that are taking the GLP on drugs and it was really interesting. Nobody said they were going to serve like less dishes, but some people said they were going to make smaller amounts because they're all eating smaller serving. One woman I spoke to said, basically, she's going to make that sweet potato castrole, She's going to make the green bean castrole. But she barely plans on eating it. It's mostly for her parents the guests, and she's going to send them
home with the leftovers. One woman I spoke to told me that usually in preparation for Thanksgiving, she spends weeks scouring the internet looking for the best recipes, and she's just not thinking about it this year. So she's going to make everything and she's actually going to even skip her shot so that she can enjoy herself after doing
all that work. But all that time that people spend thinking about food and the run up to Thanksgiving, if you're on one of these drugs, chances are you are not doing all that thinking.
And obviously one Thanksgiving isn't going to give you a trend. But I have to think a lot of grocery stores, a lot of these big retailers that sell groceries are keeping a really close eye on what happens if there's going to be an ozembic impact on their bottom lines depending on what we see this Thanksgiving.
Yeah, I mean, we've been talking to food companies and they definitely have their eye on it. One of the most interesting points came from Walmart because they have, you know, a pharmacy division and a supermarket division, so they are able to see the overlap there, and they said that the shoppers taking weight loss drugs were buying a little bit less food.
You know.
Actually, that woman who I just told you about who's skipping her shot, she says her sons noticed that her house doesn't have the same level of snacks that they used to keep around. So it's definitely it really does
have an impact on the people taking it. I think the big question is is how many people are going to be taking it at any given time, considering the high cost, considering the lack of availability of the drugs for everybody who wants them, and then also there are side effects from these drugs, and some people don't want to stick with them through the side effects, so they stop taking them.
And it's going to be interesting to see just how many leftovers there really are after this Thanksgiving. Thanks for this, Dina, great having you on with us. That's Bloomberg News Food reporter Dina Shanker, and thanks as well to Jenniferree of Bloomberg Intelligence, Spurt Flick and Jurr of Strategic Resource Group and our Oil Panel, John Kilduff and again Capital and Stephen Short of the short group special thanks to you as well for joining us on this Thanksgiving holiday. I'm
Nathan Hager. Stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now