This is Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend, our global look at the top stories in the coming week from our Daybreak anchors all around the world. Straight ahead on the program. But holidays are over, so how did the nation's retailers fare. I'm Tom Busby in New York.
I'm Stephen Caron and London, who are asking if peliscal and business leaders can rebuild trust at this year's Wild Economic Forum in Davos.
I'm Brian Curtis in Hong Kong. With Taiwan election results looming, we look at Taiwan Semiconductor at delegate time in the chip industry.
I'm Kavid Lyons in Washington, where we're looking ahead to the Iowa Caucasus.
That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend. The business news you need to wrap up your week, Available on Apple, Spotify, the Bloomberg Business Appen everywhere you get your podcasts.
Good day to you. I'm Tom Busby. We begin today's program with a look at the strength of the US consumer through the lens of the holidays and fourth quarter retail sales, and we take a peek at the year ahead. We're joined today by Poonham Goyle, Senior retail analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence and Molly Smith, Bloomberg News Economy editor. Thank you both for being here. Poonam. It's still a little early, but what we've heard so far about retail sales and
December's numbers. We know the National Retail Federation says sales last month up three percent five percent for all of last year. Master cards spending pulse an increase of three point one not spectacular, but would you say pretty solid?
Yeah, I'd say, you know, the holiday season ring in pretty solid results. In fact, a number that you didn't cite was the Adobe number where they came out with also a slight increase, which suggests that online sales also did well. So we think holiday overall did do well and a large part of that was the strength that we saw in November versus December. So it was a great start to holiday, It ended okay and led the season to be higher than what most expected.
And Molly, I'm going to ask you about what that means for the consumer. We have a very strong labor market, right, unemployment holding steady just three point seven percent last month. What appears to be a soft landing. What does it look like?
I think it's it's maybe a little bit more complicated than that that the jobs report on the surface that we got for the month of December, well, it's great from the headline number in terms of the payrolls, the unemployment figure that you cited, wage growth, but there are a few other things under the surface, like duration of unemployment growing longer, and a few other caveats that made this maybe just not as strong as you might expect.
And it's kind of contributing then to what we're expecting to be a slowdown in consumer spending this year. I know we've been calling for that for a while. There have been people who would have expected us to have a recession already, Like you said, look like that's probably not going to happen, But there has just been this really outsize strength and consumer spending. Given all of these this other macro backdrop, that you would expected consumer spending
to taper off by now. And I think the cumulative effect of the inflation that we've had for the last year and a half plus now, higher borrowing costs and how much longer they're going to stay this elevated level, is probably going to lead to consumer spend tapering off in this year, and you talked.
About the higher borrowing costs. We're consumer spending. We're still spending, but it looks like we're charging more more than ever before.
There is Yeah, definitely has been a pickup in credit card balances. I think important though to keep that in the context of deposits, and those are still pretty high, so when you look at card balances to deposits, it's not as startling of a rise as if you were to just look at card balances in an absolute dollar amount.
So I think that's important to remember. And when we talk about the consumer, obviously like that's you know, millions and millions of people, there's obviously a lot of different income brackets within that, a lot of different spending propensities. So important to keep in mind that this isn't really
a broad, you know, decline in spending power. It's really more affecting consumers at the lower end the most as you would expect, and higher end, you know, higher income earners are still really propping up a lot of the aggregate numbers.
Poon let's starn to you.
Let's talk about some of the retailers that really did benefit no matter who the shoppers are, high end low end. We heard from Abercrombie and Fitch, Lulu, Lemon, American Eagle, all reporting strong sales and strong outlooks. Who else have you heard from?
Well, those are the few that we've heard from, and we'll hear from more as a report earning, but we did see strength and the Amazon numbers based on our own channel checks and what we're hearing, so we do think that's another retailer or web giant that will continue to take share, not just for the holiday but even as we move into twenty twenty four, as spending just
shifts more online. Broadly speaking, the one interesting thing that I will call out, and just to piggyback on Molly's comments on the credit card, you know, part of the reason that we saw such strength in twenty twenty four was the rise of BNPL, which is buy now, pay later, and in fact, from data that we're seeing in four q BNPL spending online was up fourteen percent year every year,
and that's based on Adobe's estimate. So as consumers leverage this new payment option and really use that to stretch their wallets, we'll probably continue to see more of that heading into twenty twenty four too.
And you talked about more use by the lower end consumer. Let's talk about the lower and consumer and where we see some of the big giants like Walmart, Target, Coals another big discounter. What did you see this past season and what do you see ahead Poonam for those big retailers.
Yes, I think the big retailers, you know, it's a double edged sword for them because they are getting spend from people that are trading down or people that want to stretch their dollars further. They're seeing that spend come through, but then at the same time they're also ground with just consumers that don't have enough to spend and also deflation. Right, we saw deflation kick in at least in a lot
of the consumables later in the year. So because of that, you're seeing some pressure on their top line, which we think could continue into twenty twenty four, especially early twenty twenty four.
Now, you wrote a piece, I think it came out just last week about the challenges in retail specific to the retail calendar. What did you tell us about that?
Yeah, so it's interesting, you know, regardless of where consumer spending shapes out to be this year, we're entering the year with fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that's five fewer shopping days. So that means that consumers are going to have to consolidate their purchases in a shorter window, and there's fewer days for retailers to try to sell them more. That's a negative. The other negative
is coming up shortly, which is Easter. Easter this year falls on March thirty first, versus later in April in years past, so that means temperatures will be cooler. It means that consumers maybe spending a little less. Historically, when Easter has come earlier, it has impacted sales of food and clothing, and that could occur again this year.
Molly, where do you see the calendar falling in for consumer spending?
I just always have to like smile a little because, you know, we always say, like the weather one way or the other seems to play a role in this. You know, it was like two cold people didn't shop, it was two warm people wanted to play outside and didn't shop. So there's always some kind of factor and you know, who the heck knows, so it'll it'll play out into time. That's certainly more Punam's specialty than mine to forecast how the weather will factor into spending patterns.
But you know, she raised an interesting point though about how retailers have been seeing deflation for a few months, and that was something that when we just got the Consumer Price Index report last week that was for the month of December, really important moment here where the good sector, you know, this is where all of like the purchases of stuff like cars, furniture, clothing, things of that nature, that sector has been showing price declines, had been showing
price declined, sorry, for six months, and that unexpectedly stopped in December. That was a that's a really key potential turning point because this has been in the broader context of where is inflation going? The good sector has been driving so much of the disinflation that we've been seeing in recent months, and now it's kind of raising some questions, is that running out of steam? How much more can
the supply side continue to help? So that's going to be a really key question going forward for retailers and for the economy.
Unless you're selling houses, of course.
Yes still pretty far. Insurance yes still both of those also still pretty expensive, so also have not really turned out to be the bigger disinflation story that you would have hoped to see in rents. So far those are still pretty expensive.
Now, Molly, one more thing I want to ask you and Poonum, it looks excuse me, it looks like we're not going to see an interest rate cut anytime soon, maybe maybe according to the FED, back half of the year, and that will certainly impact borrowing costs. How do you think that will help consumers?
Well, I think right now, you know, the bets are still kind of coalescing around the earliest being for a March reduction, which FED officials have pushed back on that pretty strongly. But I mean, it's it's still really tough to tell when that is going to come. I mean, I don't think the you know, the reports that we were just talking about, the CPI that we just got, or retail sales coming up, those aren't going to really you know, move the needle in terms of where that's
where when that cut's going to happen. But for I mean, consumers can definitely count on borrowing costs coming down this year. It's more a question just of when rather than if.
And Poonam final thoughts.
Yeah, And I'd say if both borrowing boss do come down, which they are likely too. That is on the note like, it would be positive for consumer spending. Right, Just the idea of boring costs coming down and the rates coming down would be positive to consumer spending this year.
Oh that's great. Well, our thanks to Punham Goyle, She's senior retail analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence, and Molly Smith, Bloomberg News Economy editor. Coming up on Bloomberg day Break Weekend, It's that time of year for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Who's going and what's on the agenda. I'm Tom Busby and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. I'm Tom Busby in
New York. Up later in our program, the Iowa Coxes begin jump starting the Republican presidential nominating race. But first, the globe's political, corporate, and cultural elite gathering in a tiny alpine village in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. For a look at what to expect, we turned to Stephen Carroll in London.
Tom, It's the annual pilgrimage to Davos, for the event that's over the year has been dubbed everything from globalist Glastonbury to speed dating for CEOs. This year's World Economic Forum will be attended by more than twenty seven hundred political and business leaders, including the Chinese Premier League Chung Francis, Emmanuel Macron, the EU Commission President our Slavanda Line, and
the Israeli President Isaac Hertzog. There's plenty to discuss on the geopolitical front, but also the hundreds of CEOs attending will be talking about economic issues as well as new technologies and climate change. Will have full coverage across Bloomberg Radio and television throughout the event. Our editor at large, Francin and Lacort, will be there speaking to some of
the big names. And she's with me now, fran This is, of course, in theory an economic event, but our economic issues this year in Davos being overshadowed by things like the wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine.
One hundred percent. I think there are mainly three themes, and I know it's always mean. The themes that the World Economic Form pick are always I guess the you know, building too. We make jokes about it. Because some of the predictions don't end up actually being the right ones. But rebuilding trust. I think there are probably focused on three things. It is monetary, so it's what's happening with interest rates, Do we have a big pivot from central banks?
What does to inflation and therefore does that help and support governments and companies. Remember twenty twenty three was meant to be the wash out year. We started the year by saying companies will go bus countries will get into very very large debt situations, and it hasn't really played out yet. The second thing, the World Economic Form participants.
I think we'll really focus on is AI and we're expecting number of papers from the World Economic Forum to trying to figure out exactly how you protect yourself for disinformation, for fake news, especially in an election year. And now I'm not only talking about the US. We have the European Parliament. We have I think over fifty percent of world GDP going to the poll, so a lot of the folks will be on that. And then third one
one hundred percent will be geopolitics. So we have two active wars Ukraine, the one between Israel and Hamas, and there's you know, concerns that, of course, the Middle East tensions spill over, so I think a lot of the sessions and the conversations will be around that and what it means for the world economy.
Now, every year of the World's Economic Forum publishers, it's Global Risks reports. Top of the list you mentioned, they're misinformation and disinformation. This year you've been speaking to the forums Managing director Sadi is Ahiti about this. Let's take a listen.
In the two year timeframe, miss and disinformation number one risk. So we put together the views of fifteen hundred experts and that's what they're most worried about, very closely followed by extreme weather, societal polarization, inflation. These are some of the topics that are top of mind. But ten years out, four top risks all about the environment, including for the
first time crossing tipping points for the Earth systems. That's something that is top of mind, and I think the predictions that that could happen in ten years and how severe that could be.
Deeply concerning disinformation, fake news is extremely worrying. In an election year, we have a large percentage of world GDP actually going to the polls this year, how worried are you about the US election?
I mean, depending on how you count it, major economies with large populations, India, the US are going into these elections. And what we found is that at each country level, in addition to the global risk around miss and disinformation, it's usually ranked very high among the top five risks around the world, as is concerns about ourn economic downturn.
So what we're thinking is when these two things come together, the economic hardship being faced by many people and the rise of synthetic content, combined with going into an election year where people get to make decisions about who's going to be leading them, that together can be a very
potent mix. And in particular, if some of those views start spilling over into very different perceptions of reality when it comes to health, when it comes to what people are thinking about education, what people think about specific people, who then becomes the owner of the truth?
And again, do you have a breakdown of Actually this misinformation is its state actors, and Russia has been involved in the past in US elections.
So we're seeing a concern that this could be become much more pervasive. To some extent, it's almost easier to track some of that state sponsored disinformation and misinformation. But now at some point that starts spilling over and it becomes very difficult to track, especially without tracking systems, water marking systems, and especially without the public being well educated about the risks of synthetic content and especially when that is fake news.
Does that have a clear impact on the economy, As I guess, chief executives don't want to spend because they don't know what pans out in the next twelve months.
So there's a lot of economic uncertainty. We're seeing a risk of the lack of economic opportunity, we're seeing inflation in the top ten or we're seeing a lot of concerns around what exactly happens. And that's because of two different situations. One is, of course, there continues to be uncertainty as to what the policy outlook will be. Yes, we are starting to tend towards a softer landing, but at the same time, I think there are new pressures
coming in, supply side pressures that are coming in. There's geopolitical risks out there and that may change what happens over the course of the coming year. And then there's a longer term economic risk and that has a lot more to do with the divergence between developed and developing economies, and that also has a lot to do with the divergence between high income people and low income people across all countries.
That is the World's Economic Forums. Sadiaz Ahdi, managing director there, speaking to Francine Lack where Francine is still with us Fan. You mentioned there the fact that it's a big election year globally, with all those different elections happening. Does that make the conversations in Davos different if some of those world leaders who are going to be attending, we're also going to be face the electors.
I think so. I think if you look at the world economy and what we've been speaking with a number of participants in the markets, is that actually an election year, probably the incumbent will spend a lot more So if you look at the economy, it's probably going to be more resilient this year had we not had elections, because no one wants to go into an election with a week economy.
Now.
I know it's a very simplistic way of looking at it, but it's probably something that gives us a little bit of support for the outlook for a lot of these countries. Longer term, it's a really question mark about what happens. So some of the policies in place. It can be here in the UK, it could of course be the US which changes everything in our relationship with China, climate change, some of the support that a potential for example, President
Trump would give to companies. But if you also listened to what Zadia was saying about the top ten risks, and I don't think we should underestimate this Stephen, is that if you look at the two year horizon, so people that they surveyed worry about misinformation, extreme weather events, social paroles, cybersecurity. Ten years, it's critical changes to earth systems, bidiversity,
extreme weather. But if you worry about what's happening in the next two years, and if you have bigger concerns that are different ten years, then you don't address the longer term concerns. So there's also a real worry of everyone splitting and not really get anything done to managing the longer term risks.
Yeah, and it's part of the sort of dilemma that faces Davos every year is that often there are big long term issues that need to be talked about, but everyone's much more focused on what's happening in the coming months or the coming weeks as well. Much is made every year of the politicians who do and don't go to the World Economic Forum. Here in the UK, we had the opposition labor leader Career Starmer being criticized for attending last year. Is it a bad look any year?
What we're talking about rebuilding trust. If you go to Davos or if you don't go, I.
Think it depends. I think it depends on cultural sensitivities of the country. I think if you're an emerging economy, showing up in Davos and getting deals done on trade is a good thing. If you're Rishie Sunac and you're married to a billionaire, it's probably not a good look, which is why he stayed away last year. He's not
expected to show up this year as well. If you're you know, mister Zelenski, President of Ukraine, then it probably would be a good look, whether it's by video or in person, to show up to make sure that people don't forget Ukraine. So I think it's very personal and whether you show up or not really gives you a glimpse actually of what your country is facing or your company is facing.
Okay, I'm looking forward to hearing the answers to those questions as well. Our editor at large, Fancy and Laqua full coverage from the World Economic Forum in Davos throughout the week. Here a call across Bloomberg Radio, television, and of course online on the terminal as well. I'm Stephen Carolyn London. You can catch us every weekday morning here for Bloomberg Daybreak here at beginning at six am in London and one am on Wall Street.
Tom, thank you, Steven, and coming up here on Bloomberg day Break weekend, we take a look at the geopolitical machinations surrounding the business of computer chip manufacturing. I'm Tom Busby, and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg day Break Weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. I'm Tom Busby in New York. The incredibly complex, high stakes business of making semiconductors has
always been a battle of corporate giants. Now it's also a race among governments, especially between China, the US and Taiwan, with the Taiwan election now underway, an event closely watched by China, we take a look at the chip industry and how the geopolitics play out.
Tom will know the full results of the Taiwan election shortly. In the meantime, we thought it was a good time to take a look at the business climate on the island, especially through the prism of TSMC. Taiwan Semi is arguably one of the most important companies in the world and sits at the nexus of the relationship among the US,
China and Taiwan. Joining US now to look at TSMC and possibly the up and coming challenge from Huawei Technologies is Bloomberg's savov Tech editor here in Hong Kong, so Vlad. Recently we learned that Huawei Technology's latest laptop was running on a chip made by TSMC. This was a five nanimeter chip and it was actually made by TSMC instead of Huawei, and that seemed to head off some of
the talk about a Chinese technological breakthrough. How much did that revelation sort of mean in lowering the temperature in the relationship between US and China and chips.
Well, a good way to think about it is if it wasn't the case, if it was Huawei actually making five and animated chips. This would be the story we're we're talking about for the inside January. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would have dropped everything else. He's got a very busy agenda, but he would have dropped everything else because this would have been a breakthrough that would have
been entirely unforeseen. When you think about the sanctions that the US is imposed on Chinese chip makers, this was what they were trying to prevent, so you can say they've been effective. But the reason we're talking about this in the first place is because of Huawei seven nanimeter, a generation behind breakthrough that happened in August last year that was also unforeseen and unexpected.
It's worth bearing in mind again.
That this chip that Huawei would have stuck part from TSMC way back in twenty twenty is still one or two generations ahead of what Huawei is capable of doing. Where China and manufacturers such a Smick, which is Huawe's domestic partner, our positioned at the moment. So what we
can really say is that Huawei is certainly trying. There are a number of voices, including a video one of TSMC's biggest customers that say that Huawei and a whole bunch of China mainline startups are going to be legitimate competitors. But we haven't seen the evidence this would have been it it didn't happen.
Let me ask a question that may sound political, but it's not really. The sanctions that are in place by the US, is this slowing down the develop and Bismic and by Juawei and others, or in a sense, is it actually speeding it up because now in China domestically they know they need this.
Well, absolutely, it's political, but I keep saying every tech story nowadays a political story. Every political story has attach angle, So of course it is. I think the answer is yes to both aspects of your question. It has categorically slowed down Chinese domestic chip making. You have these key machines which are bus sized and they cost hundreds of thousands millions of dollars each made by ASML in the Netherlands. Because of US and Dutch relations, SMO doesn't ship those
super advanced machines into China. They are the effectively the gateway to get into five ninimeters and beyond. TSMC has a bunch of them, is spent tens of billions of dollars acquiring them. They can't get into China without them. China has to invent effectively alternative methods to get to those super advice.
On manufacturing techniques.
Now that being said again to the latter aspect of your question, because China, Beijing, its government sees no breakthrough, no path to coming to terms and acquiring those machines in straightforward fashion, it is pouring money resources. Like I say, all these startups are effectively state back startups to again invent its way out of its issue or maybe come up with more inventive ways of acquiring the machines.
Can these companies in China catch up or will they always be one or two generations behind?
Well, if you ask the US, they want them a couple of generations behind. That's effective their entire agenda. They don't want to shut down Chinese tech manufacturing altogether. They have repeatedly said that it's tailored sanctions that they have to prevent China's military from acquiring advanced tech. So if
it's two three generations behind, they're comfortable with that. Will they make I mean effectively the answer to your question is we'll try to make a breakthrough that nobody is expecting. We saw some of that again last year from Huawei. Will they repeat defeat? It's open to a member of guesswork.
I suppose.
In recent days, TSMC gave us its fourth quarter revenue. Some of these numbers were pretty decent. They did beat estimates of a decline, but there's obviously a little bit of a slow path ahead. What they said was that demand from AI players offset the slower smartphone and laptop chip sales. Where are we now in terms of full recovery by the chip makers, including TSMC.
Well, one of the things that we did over the course of the year on the terminal is we tracked Taiwanese supplies to Apple, surely the most important tech company in the world, and every month it was red figures. It's TSMC, Fox gone, et cetera. It was always down on the prior year's results. So just having a quarter that was flat that was the same as the prior year is heading in the right direction. TSMC executives, including CEO cc Way, have said that they expect to rebound
in twenty twenty four. Canna lists, one of the market research companies. They said that in the final quarter of the year, the PC market and laptop market were up just by a couple of percentage points, like three percent altogether, But again, comparing that to double digit declines over the previous several months, that's a big upside. So all of it seems to point toward an improvement in consumer demand.
In Ventory glots that used to exist at the start of the year I have gone away, so things are looking up.
You referred earlier to the Huawei May sixty pro and the fact that it had a seven nanometer processor in it. What sort of progress is Smick making in selling that outside of China.
Well, I think whatever Snick is able to make in terms of manufacturing that particular chip, it's probably all going Huawei. When we talk to analysts looking at teas prospects. It has already taken market share back from Apple in the iPhone in mainland China. One of the topics that might actually intensify in importance over the course of this year is the iPhone's fate in China, which has been increasingly down. It was bad to begin with, it was underwhelming, and
then it got worse. So Huawei is reclaiming that market share but when we talk to analysts, they say that its limitation, if anything, on shipments is the amount of chips and devices that it can produce.
So when we look at the diminishing sales of Apple, who's gaining the lion's share of that in China?
Right as I say it is Huawei.
Huawei is number one, But then you have Honor, which is a company that spun out of Huawei in twenty twenty. It's an independent company. It's pursuing an IPO probably in the next year or so. That's what the company has said. Shaomi has done a really good job with over the past few months. The company is Vivo and Appo, who used to be number one.
Two, three.
Every quarter they would shift places. We are actually struggling. The answer really is that the Chinese smallphone manufacturing ecosystem is kind of shifting positions show me and huilbe I would say in the strongest position at the moment, and even worth mentioning, Samsung, which has had a tiny share of the Chinese market for a long time, is making efforts making in roads as well.
Lad outside of China, you mentioned Samsung, what are the prospects for its latest phone?
Well, it's promising us the first AI phone, which is a promise that we've heard actually for years. At this point, the whole idea of branding your phone as an AI device is going to be the theme of twenty twenty four across every smartphone manufacturer, and I'm looking forward to seeing Samsung, which is generally a serious company, try to justify that label.
We can also look forward to Google.
The designer and provider of the Android software and ecosystem, to do more on this front. I expect Google has always been a leader in AI. One of the things that came out of the Sea Yes Trade show just recently is that Google and Samsung announced that they collaborating on a quick sharing function, which is effectively the equivalent to Apple's ed Drup.
All right, Lad, thanks so much for joining us. Bloomberg's Lad Salvov, tech editor here in Hong Kong. I'm Brian Curtis along with Doug Krisner. You can catch us every weekday here for Bloomberg day Break Asia, beginning at seven am in Hong Kong and six pm on Wall Street.
Tom Thank you, Brian. Coming up on Bloomberg day Break weekend to look ahead to the Iowa Caucuses. I'm Tom Busby and this is Bloomberg. I'm Tom Busby in New York with your global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. The official start to the twenty twenty four GOP presidential nominating process, the Iowa caucuses, begins on Monday, with just a handful of candidates on the ballot, one of them former president and clear front
runner Donald Trump. What can we expect to see for more? Let's add to our Bloomberg ninety nine one newsroom in Washington and Bloomberg Sound On co host Joe Matthew and Kaylee Lines.
Yeah. Tom. We spoke with Kyle Condick of Sabado's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia and started by asking him, if we know Trump's probably gonna win in Iowa anyway, what kind of margin matters?
So the Trump campaign has noted accurately that of all the you know, contested, you know, non incumbent Republican Iowa caucuses and over history, the biggest margin of victory is twelve points, and so they're sort of setting the bar like, hey, we win by more than twelve points, that's good. I personally don't you know if they would buy like thirteen or fourteen. I don't think that that's some sort of impressive performance given what the polls are showing now, which
is more like he's up by like thirty points. You know, what is the difference between a good performance and a bad one? I don't know, maybe that's like forty percent or something like that, which actually, you know, given the polls, he's consistently but over fifty forty percent would seem maybe not that great. So there is you know, there are maybe there's maybe a higher bar for Trump to impress in Iowa, but if he matches the polls, he will
have done that. I also think it's probably fair to treat Trump differently than you would a normal non incumbent race because he has sort of like a quasi incumbent, given that he's the you know, he's aiming for a third straight Republican presidential nomination and has already served the
term as president before. So I don't know where I put the number necessarily, but you know, just just matching or slightly exceeding that historical you know, twelve point margin that that probably is not good enough to be impressive. And in fact, I think would probably be disappointing if it's close to that number. Again, given what the polls saying.
Well, of course everyone's banking on a surprise in New Hampshire because it's New Hampshire. Of course it's not a surprise if you're expecting it. But after Chris Christie dropped out of the race, Kyle, I wonder your thoughts on the impact it could have on Nikki Haley. We've seen polls that show Donald Trump and Haley within single digits.
This would make up the different there. But we also heard from Christy himself, hot Mike, she's not up for this, She's going to get smoked, which Christie is right.
Look, I would not be surprised by Haley winning in New Hampshire. I think she frankly needs to win New Hampshire to really to really justify staying in the contest. Frankly, you know, her home state of South Carolina votes like a month after New Hampshire, and so you kind of
enter like a little bit of a dead period. There's there are contests in Nevada in early February, but there's a caucus that's actually awarding the delegates that Donald Trump's probably gonna win easily, and then there's like a beauty contest primary that Haley's competing and she's not competing for the delegates, which she'll probably win comfortably. I don't know what you really do with that. So after New Hampshire,
the focus will really go go to South Carolina. But again, Haley, the coalition Haley is building is kind of kind of centered on more moderate voters. You know, a lot of independence can cross over and vote in the New Hampshire primary. It probably will and probably incline to support a candidate like her, particularly with Chris Crusty out of the race.
You know, if Haley can't win there, and let's say Trump wins Iowa and New Hampshire, I don't know if there's much of a rationale for anyone else to even continue given that. You know, I guess at that point, the only real threat that Trump would be some of these legal matters he's dealing with. But he would have you know, he would have basically stopped DeSantis in Iowa and stopped Haley in New Hampshire. But again, I could definitely see Haley winning New Hampshire. But that's not enough
to make this thing a real horse race. I think Trump would have to lose South Carolina too in order fore Weekness to go on to Super Tuesday and say, hey, this thing is really opened up.
That's Kyle Condick from Savado's Crystal Ball and Tom, the twenty twenty four race is really just about to get started.
Thank you, Kaylee and Joe. And that was Bloomberg Sound On co host Joe Matthew and Kaylee Lines reporting from our Bloomberg ninety nine one newsroom in Washington, and you can hear sound on weekdays one to three pm on Bloomberg Radio and coming up here on Bloomberg day Break Weekend, we take a look at the geo political machination surrounding the business of computer chip manufacturing. I'm Tom Busby, and this is Bloomberg