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This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio where we cover all the top news and economics and finance and business through are a lens of our Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. They cover two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries worldwide. And we're going to go to one right now on BECHP
and Anglo Americans. So BCHP is one of the world's largest metal producers and copper producers are huge, and they have made a third bid for Anglo American, which is another copper producer but has other stuff.
They have some South African assets.
They have De Beer's, for example, the diamond producer, They have a fertilizer, etc. And BHP really want wants to buy this company for its copper assets. Their third bid. The problem is it's complicated. They want to have Anglo Americans spin off all of its South African assets before the takeover, and that makes things a little daisy and Anglo American doesn't really like it. The difference is is that Anglo American is now talking to BHP and they
will talk until May twenty nine. They have not yet talked. So let's get more on this. Grants for Bloomberg Intelligence Global head of Metals and Mining. So this bid, this third bid is almost fifty billion dollars US.
I'm talking about. What do you think?
I must be honest, Hi, thank you for having me on. It's further than I thought BHP would have gone, and it just shows how really keen they are on getting hold of Anglers, particularly the copper assets. There are some other interesting assets as well, but I think it just shows you what value BHP is ascribing to the whole
Anglo portfolio. I must say, when we do a some of the parts valuation, we get to around about twenty nine pounds, which is kind of where the offer stands today on an undisturbed share price basis.
An undisturbed share price means what before the bid was, before the rumor mill got the bid out, and then the price.
Pace exactly, yeah, exactly, So the price is based on the twenty third of April, so before before the news came out. Basically on today's numbers, it's closer to thirty one pounds. That would be today's offer, which which kind of puts it above as some of the parts valuation. If you really want to stretch the valuation, I can get it to thirty eight pounds, but then you have
to do some really interesting things. You have to say the piers is worth what it is on the book which Anglo has, which is around seven point two billion, and given today's diamond market, that's a stretch. And you also have to ascribe positive value to Woodsmith the fertilizer project up in the north of England, which you know many would consider it's still a cost to the business
and and and probably ascribe very little value. So you know, it's a it's a I think it's a it's a decent offer, but as you mentioned, it's the deal structure that seems to be the roadblock for Anglo American.
Yeah, and on that end, if I were Anglo American, I'm like, no, if you want to buy this company, this is the company you guys deal with that afterwards, why make us go through you know all the process of doing it. I mean, is that kind of where Anglo American is right now in term position?
Well, I think two things. One one is yes, you're right. The challenge will be that if if Anglos tries to spin off both Amplats and Cumber, there will be some shareholders who won't be able to hold it in their portfolios. Their mandates just won't allow them. And also they probably may not want to own pure play Platinum or iron Ore companies. So so you know, if you have a lot of force sellers, that puts some of the value
in question for these two businesses. But I would say, look, I mean Angler have kind of opened the door a little bit because they've said, well, you know, we will spin off Anglo Platinum, we will deal with we are going to deal with this issue because you know, we think that a slimmer version of the company without Anglo Platinum is best for both companies. So they've kind of slightly opened up the door in terms of, well, we're
going to do half of that anyway. So perhaps a compromise for BHP would be Tosaka, will you do that and we'll deal with CUMBA that that's possibly the next sort of compromise that may come out.
I mean, that's why it's so funny because after BHP came out with the first offer, then Angler, to kind of fend them off, was like, all.
Right, right, we will divest a couple of these assets.
So they're like weirdly giving approval to the deal, but also not at this same time, it's very odd taking a step back for a second ground.
Why does BHP want Anglo so badly?
I think, I think, well, there are two reasons. One, I think there is a bit of there. There was a bit of opportunism because Anglo share price was relative to every every everyone else there will the diversified miners was under pressure after they cut production guidance and the share price reacted badly on the back of that. So
there was a there is some opportunism. But if you look at the sort of scope and the quality of their copper assets, if you look at it on a margin basis, just a simple margin basis, their copper business actually generates better margins than BHP's overall. Now, in part because BHP has Olympic Dam in South Australia, which has been a challenging asset for them, But nevertheless, the quality is really good and they have a lot of expansion
options within their copper portfolio. So these are really good assets and it would be very difficult to get hold of. So I think, you know, it's I can see that the attractiveness in the whole copper portfolio for BHP.
Grant, are you as bullish on copper as.
The rest of the universe? The rest of the universe.
Let me put it this way, I think the current price has got well away from where we are on a fundamental basis, So I think there's a lot of
speculative interest in the metal. And you know, just as a as a very rough gauge, the amount of interest I'm getting from from more generalists people I haven't spoken to before kind of gives me that rough sense that you know, I think we're very very squarely in a bull market, but there is a lot of speculative interest in the in the metal as well, so you know, yes,
I can see the long term appeal. I just think where we are currently, we're a little bit of drift from where fundamentals should suggest the price should be.
Yeah, that's all cyclical structural thing, right, structural shift We need copper for the long term data centers, for the grid, for the power industry, for the green transition. But it's still cyclical, right, Like it's still going to be about China's property sector is not so great, et cetera. How do you think this plays out? So Anglo is going to talk to BHP until May twenty ninth, what do you think happens in these seven days?
Well, there's got to well, there's got to be a bit of movement. I think the interesting thing if you if you read the Angler response, there wasn't there wasn't you know, it wasn't there that the BHP's bid undervalued the company. So all it's all going to well, I
think it all boils down to the deal structure. Now, you know, as I say, BHP is willing to compromise on perhaps Cumber, they move closer together, or there's some sort of adjustment where bhd's BHP does lift an offer in lieu of the fact that there's this risk that if they have to sell Cumber or spin it off, this this flowback risk. So I think that's that's what
the discussion point is going to be. You know, it depends on how on the willingness of of Anglo and what both parties to compromise a little bit more.
I guess all right, Gram really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Grants for Bloomberg Intelligence, a global head of metals and mining.
On the latest, you're.
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Let's get more on all of those. Jim Bartasha's Bloomberg Intelligence. The senior analyst covers retail, staples and packaged food.
She's joining us, all right, Jennifer, we'll walk us through the Target numbers.
Well, so, when we saw the results today, obviously Target missed on profit, which is really one of the catalysts behind the stock being down today. But they are very optimistic about second quarter and for the rest of the year, and so I think there's a little bit of reticence about how realistic that is when it comes to second quarter in terms of same store sales. You know, Target says that they're going to return to profit, like they're
going to return to growth in second quarter. It's feasible, but remember last year second quarter is when they had the blowback from all of the boycotts, so they have a really easy comparison when you talk about a year over year. So that return to growth, yes, but there's a caveat around it. That means to me that the second half is going to be really important if they're going to reach those goals that they put out today.
Is the Target shopper the same similar, no relation to the Walmart shopper.
Well, historically speaking, the Target shopper has been a slightly higher income household. They tend to be a little bit more fashion forward, fashion focus type individuals, so there's been overlap. But Walmart has slowly been encroaching on what has been Target gets kind of main audience, and Target has seen that their customers are under a lot of pressure because
they're sort of middle income households. There's been a lot of inflationary pressure, a lot of cutbacks and discretionary spending, so there's been kind of pressure from both sides, and so Walmart says they're going to up their private label game, especially in apparel that could be a threat to Target, but it is one of Target's core strengths. So if they can get people to come back and start engaging again, that's really what historically has helped Target drive their success.
So reaffirming their guidance for the full year, I mean, like you mentioned, that means they're going to have to really deliver in the back of what are the levers they can pull to do that.
So from a profit perspective, they have a lot of things that are that they've been doing in terms of cost control, in terms of streamlining their supply chain. Their inventory was down in another seven percent this quarter. Those are all great things because it helps make them more efficient and cost effective. So from a margin perspective, you know, there's still some runway to continue to expand margins. The real question is are they going to be able to
drive sales growth. What's concerning is that the in store sales for same store sales are still significantly lower. And you know, part of the idea behind the discretionary categories is that people come into stores and they browse and they find an outfit or they find an accessory. And it's great that digital sales are reaccelerating, but if people aren't in the store, that's a hard thing for Target to deal with.
Hey, Jen, want to think back to the Walmart releases that I've really paid attention to. I always see double digit, maybe twenty percent e commerce sales growth. How does Target do there?
Well?
Target actually does pretty well in terms of digital sales growth, but there's a very different strategy. Walmart is pursuing a strategy of as many possible items as possible on the Walmart dot com. They do a lot of third party sales. When it comes to Target, they're broader shurtment is much more curated, and so they are very thoughtful about which vendors they bring onto the Target dot com to enhance the offering that Target has. So it's it's there's there're
different different approaches to e commerce. Both are seeing some success, but you can't really compare them, you know, strictly side by side.
What other company, Like, what did you make of then TJX, for example, because in some ways they can be immune from the slowdown, right because everyone me included will go shop. There are we seeing that reflected in the numbers?
Yeah, I mean, I think the strong results from TJX today just underscore that people still like the treasure Hunt, but people are seeking value. And one of the things that Target talked about today is that they need to reinforce that value proposition. That's part of why they've rejiggered their entire Target loyalty program with Target Circle TJX. Everybody knows you can go and you have the potential to find something that is an amazing deal, and that's enough
to draw people into stores. Target has has gotten a little bit away from that.
Yeah, yeah, see paulism.
So Paul's never been in a TJX, so I don't think he truly understands the beauty of this.
I went to my first Walmart last weekend. You didn't, Yeah, I'm having.
So that's like a semi gold star. So they have not only just discounted stuff, but they have the runway and that's the jam. That is designer stuff on some serious sale and you can get that on clearance and you're looking at like a ninety percent off a designer kind of situation.
Do you know beforehanded whether it's going to be there?
No, that's that's that's fun.
Then you add the treasure hunt and you don't know the beauty that will be unveiled as you go in.
Am I selling this appropriately?
Jen?
Absolutely? I mean that is that is some of the appeal. You just you never know what you're gonna find, and so you go as often as you as you can because there's a chance you'll find that amazing deal.
What's the promotional environment out there, Jenner. Are the Walmarts, the tjx's, the targets. Are they putting out a lot of promotions to get people in this show store or to click that button?
Yeah, there's the promotional environment has been escalating, and so we talk you hear Walmart talk about rollbacks that's basically putting things on sale or discounts. Target talked about cutting prices on by the end of the summer up to five thousand items, all for essential So the idea is to try to advertise that there's value proposition there and you know in force that they're they're looking at for the customer, trying to get people to engage in in
coming back and perhaps buying a little bit more. And let's be honest, it doesn't hurt from a public relations perspective when you have the White House talking about retailers not being responsible enough and rolling back costs on essentials. So there's certainly a little bit of a play there to help appease some of that political pressure.
Is but that doesn't make me want to buy the stock though.
No, But but it does, but it does help it, you know, it does help ultimately from a consumer perspective. If you're if you if you think that it's a better value to shop there, or that you're getting more for your money, you're more inclined to shop there, and that ultimately leads to your traffic and your sales, and that is what is appealing to investors.
What are the.
Dollar stores seeing these days? Are they seeing a pickup in traffic? Maybe people trading down from a Walmart or Target.
There's been some trade down into the dollar stores, and we tend to see that every time we go through sort of an economic depression. But one of the challenges for the dollar stores is that people are coming in, but they've abandoned the discretionary spending, even though at a dollar store the discretionary spending is not that expensive, so their consumables mix. For example, a Dollar General is close to eighty percent of their sales are what we could
be considered consumable items. That is good in terms of people coming into the store, but it's not great for the long term mix for the company because those are very low margin sales. They're high frequency, but people have been really watching those, you know, watching their wallets, and so the basket sizes are a little smaller. The mix
is more just you know, more consumable. So we'll be watching for any signs that they're getting some hiring, hiring come households coming in to spend on those more discretionary items, or that the their their core consumers are loosening spending a little bit. But honestly, this quarter is probably not going to be you know, panning out.
No, definitely not.
I'm target falling the most I should say, going back to Target, the mostion is November of twenty twenty two. Does that feel extreme to you, considering that the actual numbers weren't like terrible terrible?
I think the I think there's a you shouldn't dis Target for being Target. I guess this is my response to that. And what I mean, like, what I mean by that is, you know, Target has always been about the fashion, It's been about the discretionary categories. It's been about home decoor, it's been about things you know, of that nature. They've never tried to be, you know, heavy
on the essentials category. And so when you've got consumer weakness and you've got people who aren't spending in those categories, it's hard to beat up Target for being true to what their values are. And so you know, you know what I would say is, you know, if we see some improvement in just the discretionary spending, Target will start to take off again. You know, their sales will accelerate,
people will be coming back. It's it seems more of a waiting game for when the consumer is ready for that at this point.
All right, Jen, thanks a lot. We think you're just awesome. Thanks so much.
Jim Bartasha's Bloomberg Intelligence senior retail, staples and packaged food analysts Paul, So, can you go to a TJX or like a target sometimes, like we just do like one every.
Month space a little bit? Is there stuff for dudes in TJX or? Okay?
Yeah, I mean no, I mean you're definitely gonna hate it, like this is not made.
For you, but here, but go anyway, channel check.
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Let's just be totally clear here.
Nothing's going to matter until today when Nvidia comes out after the closing bill, and then when Future's open later on that night.
That's when we're going to see the action. Okay, let's just be all to be clear.
On Uportunately, we have cow Master Tim Sentovik. They'll be breaking it down on Bloomberg Radio.
That's right, so we'll have that.
Sylvia Jablonski is chief executive officer and chief investment officer over it Defiance ETFs.
She joins us.
Now, Hey, Sylvia, how how will Nvidia move the market? I know that's such a silly question, but in reality, what is its potential to move after hours?
Good morning, Alex, great to see you.
You know, I think it certainly has a huge, huge impact on how markets move, and we'll have a huge impact on markets move on how markets move based on what we hear after ours.
You know, I just like, look back over the couple of years.
I feel like, when you know, we had the tech recession in twenty twenty two, Apple was kind of the darling that was holding up amongst the others. And then you know, last year everything kind of rebounded and then the story was you know, Tesla for a while until it started to crash, and then it quickly transitioned over to chat ChiPT and you know Microsoft and the video now and so the video is the.
Start of the show this year, and whatever Jens M.
Wong says is going to dictate whether or not we have, you know, a rally at.
Least in the short term, or pull back in the short term.
I don't think, you know, I don't think that the result anyone thinks the results are going to be devastating, right, and the stock does tend to move around earnings, but you know, the future outlook here is great either way.
Hey, so be one of the many reasons we like chatting with you as we get a good feel for what's happening in the ETF space. Are we seeing We're seeing some big moves in a commodity space, whether it's gold or copper or chocolate. You know, are you seeing that in the flows in your ETFs.
Yeah, we're you know, we're seeing that.
So we actually we actually have a couple of ETFs that are you know, that are focused on things like hydrogen and things like that, but just generally in terms of the market and in terms of where we think the puck is going, you know, there's just so much interest right now in uranium and in copper uranium.
You have the story of.
The sanctions on Russia, you have this global commitment to go carbon neutral or try to go carbon neutral, you know, the different climate energy committees committed to that, to using nuclear power by twenty fifty to go you know, kind of completely green. And it's in such short supply right now. So the amount of just growth and performance that we see in uranium is absolutely you know, startling at the moment. And then I think another one is copper. And we're
talking about Navidia tonight. Well, in order for Navidia and all of these companies to run their data centers and continue to do you know, supercompute and quantum computing and processing this data and actually just managing the heat that these computers give off, you need copper. So copper is you know, one of the most excellent conductors of electricity.
It's efficient in terms of its ability to absorb heat better and you know kind of run things more efficiently, and so the need for copper is very much on the rise around this navidia Ai story.
I love that you mentioned that, and I also well, I love that Paul mentioned that and then you talked about it. I also wonder if you're seeing something similar, say with utilities and utility ETFs, because as you pointed out, you need copper for all these data centers, but you also need energy. And we've seen utilities really outperform this year, and that's usually defensive trade, but I'm considering if it's
actually a growth trade at this point. And I'm wondering what you're noticing in terms of flows.
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that too, actually, And then to pile on top of that, you know, the energy needed, the different you know, kind of utilities needed to like then we kind of like forget about the nuts and bolts because they tend to be a little more boring than you know, the semiconductors that are
making robots and doing all these things. But you need them to essentially on all of these innovations, but on top of that, I would pile on things like tech and connectivity, right, things like five G and then like six G the next generation of telecommunications.
You know, you need companies like T Mobile and AT.
And T and you know Crown Castle and like these these these cell towers that are in the middle of the country helping to foster low latency, foster smart.
Cities and communications.
Because you can create all of these you know, high tech types of devices and machines and data, but but they actually have to flow through to wherever they're supposed to go, and so you need kind of like the old school telecommunications for that too. So I think that's how you broughten out the AI trade. Right, Like, if if you have Fomo from Navidia, look to that stuff, look to the utilities, look to the copper, look to the the five G stuff. You know, that's where the opportunities still lie.
So but and you've I think you've been pretty consistent Sylvia that you like the stocks in the in that tech space, whether it's you know, yeah, is that still the case, or you concerned that maybe, I don't know, valuations they might be a little bit stretched, or how do you think about those big tech names these days?
So I remind myself every time I feel like a tech stock has gotten too high to buy and I'm looking at like a three to four percent pullback, and I'm thinking about, you know, whether or not I should dive in because of where evaluations are. I start running data, right, I start running like the last forty years, last thirty years,
the last twenty years, the last ten years. And if you just run the NASDAK performance as compared to anything like broad based s and P five hundred, you know, russell doubt whatever it is, the performance is like is like twice over a decade, twice out of the SMP over twenty years, twice out of the SMP and so on. And you know what leads the Nasdaq, it's tech, right.
So I just think that over time, in terms of our ability to actually experience continued GDP growth, to actually experience innovation and you know, make up for population issues, the job worker demand issues, all of these things, you need technology. So I just don't think it's going away. And you know, if you look at things and what they're doing, I mean they're growing to their valuations.
You also talk about if you look at stocks in this space, you look at io n Q, I have no idea what that is.
Yeah, so that's a quantum compute. That's a quantum computing company. And then again this is on my thesis of so we have AI. We're so excited about AI, and like, gosh, don't you wish you held in the video and Microsoft the day before you know, the chat cheapt you know, mania hit the market, let's call it.
So I think that's where we are with quantum computing. I think that that's going to be the next mania that hits the market because people are starting to realize that you have all of this. What does AI need.
In order to work? AI needs data and it needs data that's correct. It needs data that's efficient. It needs data that runs in two different you know, parallels and parameters versus you know, a binary state, which is what the computers we have do. Now you need supercomputers and quantum computers. And then companies like ion Q they do just that, right, They they run data, they run simulations
in two different states at the same time. And so I think that that's necessary for AI to ever be you know, really tangible and impact like all the different sectors out their healthcare, financials, you know, banks, aerospace and defense and all that.
You have to compute this data.
Hey, Sylvia, if you're tech exposure here, how concerned are you about maybe an interest rate environment which is I guess maybe a little bit higher for a little bit longer.
You know, it's there.
I would say I was a lot more concerned about it a couple of you know, like like a couple of months ago. But it does look like in facial inflation is continuing to trend downward. I don't think, you know, the feed is pretty clear on the fact that they're not looking to raise rates if it's higher for a little bit longer. I mean, it's just it's not feeding into their earnings. I think it impacts when we think
about tech. I think it definitely impacts the companies you know that Alex just asks about like ion Q that that are a little bit smaller, they have higher debt levels to service and things like that. But you know, or even like the Tesla's right that that are that you know have kind of like high levels of debt and innovation and whatnot around their AI and the EV's and all that. But I think the large cap companies like Microsoft, Google, it's just been much to do about
nothing for them. You know, they keep performing, they're doing buybacks, that earnings are up offits are supposed to be up twelve to thirteen percent in coming years.
So I'm not that worried about it.
Of course, you know, if it turns the other way, then you know, of course it matters.
Right, we're gonna get a pull.
Back, Sylvia, So good to catch up.
Love chatting with you, Sylvia Deablonski, CEO and CIO of Defiance ETFs.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty Well.
Bloomberg periodically does a poll, a political poll with Morning Console than the latest poll is available, and according to the Pole, half of swing state voters say they're worried about violence surrounding the US presidential election, and many swing state voters also say they're worried about about the growing number or growing presidence of artificial intelligence, and that it could one day diminish privacy and hurt job prospects. So
let's get some more color on this. Jody Schneider joins us. She's a political news director for Bloomberg Television Radio. She joins us in Washington, d C. Jody, I don't think we've ever had this whole concern about violence surrounding an election before, but I guess post January sixth, it's a thing.
Yeah, it is.
And we asked specifically about this because we've been doing this poll now since last fall, as you know, Paul, and we've been asking about the candidates themselves, and we continued to ask about that, but we wanted to ask on some issues as well, and this seemed to be one that's percolating out there quite a bit that we hear a lot from, and so we went and asked the voters themselves, as the you in these swing states, in these seven swing states, and as you noted, about
half say they are concerned about that, and it seems to be pretty evenly split between Republicans and Democrats in terms of that concern.
So that's real and that.
Could affect them in terms of how they vote, perhaps whether they vote, because both parties really need a big turnout. It's going to be, as everyone expects, a close election, close in terms of the popular vote, and of course that affects the electoral college, which is where it comes down to, where the rubber meets the vote.
If you will, Jody does the fear sway how people are going to vote.
Well, I think it more could affect whether they vote, Alex. I really think that's part of it. If you fear that, you know, perhaps there's going to be violence surrounding this, or there's this kind of fear about things, maybe you say. And we've seen a lot of polling around the fact that there isn't a lot of excitement around either candidate. We had at one point polls showing that which there was someone other than Biden or Trump. But this is
who we have. This is who's going to be on the ballots, and so I think it's more going to be a turnout issue. We'll see now. Of course, we do this pulling and we all talk about polls a great deal in an election year like this, but it's still it's still about five and a half months out
before the election. And a lot of people don't make up their minds fully until after Labor Day, so this is still this is an issue that could affect voting, but we still have plenty of time before people actually start voting.
So Jody, aside from these issues, what are kind of the key issues that are polling has kind of illuminated are kind of going to be the key issues for these candidates through the election.
Yeah, so the race is narrowing according to Again, these are seven swing states where we think, you know, a lot of the election will be determined, and we found that six and ten of the voters worry about misinformation, not only violence, but misinformation. Forty six percent I had concerns about perhaps foreign interference in the election. So that's an interesting take. We've seen former President Trump's swing state
lead dipping slightly. He is still ahead in many of these swing states according to our poll, but it has dipped slightly since the last time we pulled about a month ago. So that could be viewed as a little bit of encouraging news for those who support Biden, but those who support Trump say, well, he's still ahead there, So we have that. We also have that Biden gaining ground from April in each of the competitive sun Belt states.
So that's an interesting factor that he's gaining there. The states where he needs to win, he absolutely must win what we're calling those blue wall states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, which he won last time, which Hillary Clinton famously did not win in her race against Donald Trump. We're finding that he is doing a little bit better there. They're separated by no more than two percentage points in those blue wall states, so very close there, Judy.
When you talked about misinformation, how do voters then, what do we have an idea where voters are going to get their information if they're worried about misinformation, Well.
That's a really good question, Alex and so many of them talk about misinformation, but then they go to places where they are, you know, where there's potentially misinformation, and a lot of voters are getting their news from a lot of places that we don't necessarily consider traditional news outlets. So it's an interesting question. We did ask about TikTok. That's been a big issue the US government has under legislation that was passed emergency funding for Ukraine and other
places in the world. It was in there a ban on TikTok if the Chinese parent by dance does not sell it. We asked whether we asked these swing state voters whether they thought it was a good idea to ban TikTok, and almost half said they thought it was. So another interesting wrinkle there in terms of information.
Jody, what is the polling demonstrated about, if anything, about voters feelings about former President Donald Trump? And I guess the current trial that he's dealing with, as well as the other legal challenges for the former president.
Yeah, so we saw that about one thousand respondents mentioned or alluded to that trial in comments given to us as part of the poll, which shows that they're aware of it. They know that it's happening. We didn't ask a specific question. In the past, we had asked if he was to be convicted of a crime, would that affect their decision to vote for him, and that did poll quite high. We didn't ask that specific question now, we asked about their knowledge of this, and again many
people knew this was happening. So that will you know. We will know in the next few weeks whether he will be convicted or not in the New York case, and that will be something interesting to see in further polls, whether his either being acquitted or found guilty. There is something that could affect voters perceptions going into the noveper election.
We may not know this, but is anyone going to watch the debates to really get a sense of who they want to vote for? I just I'm so struck by undecided because both of these individuals have been president before. I mean, usually the debates are for people that nobody knows, like a governor of a state that we're going to have to get to know on a global stage and a federal stage.
What do you think, Yeah, I'm always amazed to you know, these both these people, I mean, have had so much coverage for so long. How could anybody in America not have an opinion about them? Right? But at the same time, people watch the debates both to really to double down in some ways on their opinion. If they feel that, you know, they're very much for Donald Trump and they see him in the debate and they like him, they say, okay, good,
that really validates my decision to vote for him. Or on the other hand, if they're looking, you know, to see whether somebody the person that they don't think they want to vote for, but they do particularly well that night, that may you know, that could sway their opinion. It's a perception kind of thing, but it matters. We found out that debates do matter a great deal to how the elector perceives the candidates. This will be a very
early debate happening in June. We haven't seen this in cycles lately, so that may that may tell us something about people's willingness.
To go out and vote.
All right, Jody, thank you so uch for joining us. Really appreciate getting some of your time. Jody Schneider, political news director for Bloomberg Television and Radio, joining us from Washington, d C. And another question, I was kind of like, are the anybody can pay attention to the conventions in the summer. Yeah, I mean, I think probably just because there might that might be a place where if there's violence and may be there. We certainly saw it in
the past conventions. So I'll be interest to see how much people pay attention to the conventions. Yeah, so we already know we did, We already know who the candidates are.
Yep.
And also particularly I think there was a swing state now swing state, but primary where Nikki Hilly got votes like twenty two percent of the voter or something, even though she wasn't actually running anymore.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecard Play and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
All right, thank you so much, John Tucker, Malex Steel alongside Paul swe Need this a Bloomberg Intelligence Radio. Some breaking news over in the UK SOS according to BBC, but a UK general election will now be held on July fourth. The backdrop for this is that in local elections and also in polling the Labor Party has been gaining a lot. When it comes to say the Conservative Party, which is currently in power with the Prime Minister Rashi Sunak. Now you can make an argument it's hard to govern
if the opinion polls show you so much out of favor. Also, inflation has been high, although it's come down a little bit today to two point three percent was the latest read. Growth has been sort of stagnant. We're waiting for the Bank of England to cut as well, so there was an expectation that Rishisunac would call for early elections. He hinted it would be in the back half of this year,
which could kick off as much as July. The theory was that he would wait until the fall, which was when we'd see prices actually come down in terms of inflation. But it looks like he decided he was going to ramp it up a July election, and also coincides with get this the first flight of asylum seekers that are being sent to Rwanda. This is a very controversial proposal that he touted, allowing the Tories to make their migration clamp down a core focus of the campaign versus say, maybe inflation.
Anyway, that was the best thing. That's all I got. That's great. So let's go somebody who knows a little bit more, shall we, Yeah, let's do this week.
Got the James Wilcock. He's just going to join us here, his Bloomberg Radio senior producer in London. I guess James just reading some of the top live stuff here. A little bit of surprise as to the timing. What do you know over there in London?
I mean your guest is as good as ours, and that you're right to point out the flights to Rwanda. There are also kind of negative sides to that too, in that summer is normally a very good time for boats to start crossing over from France to the UK, so it could be a sort of negative sign there. In some ways, this is a major gamble for SOA. He is basically saying that's two point three percent inflation CPI headline that he's coming out and say could be the best he's going to get, and he wants to
call it thatction gets any work. You've also sort of bear in mind that in the past months two Conservative MPs our lawmakers here in Parliament have defected to the Labor Party. In many ways, the sources I've been talking today says a summer election speaks more to fears things get worse rather than the hope it gets better. And for Labor today, in some ways this has been an outcome they've been looking forward to. They've been saying they
want an election. They are more than twenty points ahead in the polls, and a recent local council election show that that seems relatively solid. So there are a lot of questions today inside his own party about why he's called this so early.
Well to that point, and this is like for the people over here in the in the in the US, why would he call an election at all? Like here we are pulling all the time. You know, people like a president, they don't. No one cares. Every four years, boom, you get to vote, that's it. How does it work over in the UK?
So, I mean you guys have the quirk where you know that that November it's been coming for a very long time and it's all in your calendars and you've all been able to book summer holidays. I don't have that joy in the UK. The way the rules work is you have until five years. So the soon as you get elected, you have five years until the clock is up and you have to leave. That deadline is January twenty twenty five here, and so it is getting closer and closer. And so the UK government and the
Prime Minister holds this power effectively. He can pick when he thinks is best. But what has happened to Sunacu is the longer and longer that goes on as he waits for that best moment, the weaker and weaker, he looks, and then he asked like, is this a prime minister who never has that best moment? And so calling it now is also his way of trying to say, you know,
I still have the power over the situation. Famously, Gordon Brown, lib At Prime minister back in twenty ten, who lost his sort of seat as Prime minister, didn't call it. He bottled it in about two thousand and eight, and he was famously called week in the election campaign that followed two years later because he had his moment when he could maybe have turned it all around and he didn't do it. So to your question, Sinnak is choosing to make this gamble now. Whether he will succeed as
now anyone's guest. But it is worth saying that in most recent political history, in the past forty years, overcoming the pole lead that Labor his opposition party have hasn't been done.
Do we know who the Labor Party will put up against mister Sunak.
Yeah, we do so. The Labor opposition leader Kiss Starmer, he's been in power over in the Labor Party for since about twenty twenty, and the Labor oppoition needer to the person who will run against him. Kir is increasingly well known in the UK. He is putting for quite a centrist platform in comparison to the previous Labor leader back in twenty nineteen, Jeremy Corbyn, who was very left wing by UK standards, and what Kir Starmer is running on is but he put out an election pledge card
last week. That's how much speculation has been going in the UK building up to this. He said his six first steps would be and don't test me here, but stabilizing the economy, reforming the UK health service, protecting the borders, cracking down on crime, and as well as that, he's also looking to reform education. And I think I've been five The sixth one eludes to me, but broadly that is going to be his platform for Sunak. This election
is all about the economy. But both sides here have a story to tell about the economy.
I am.
We're learning now from other news outlets that Richie Sunak, Prime Minister of UK, will make a statement in Downing Street at about five pm so US time, that's about thirteen minutes time, James.
Why are people.
So unhappy with the Tory Party, with the Conservative Party right now.
That is a complex question. I mean to answer it, I have to go back into recent history. There in the past like three years, have been four different Conservative prime ministers and when you look at that, that has become a hallmark of a difficult leadership. Inflation, like in the US has hit double digits and has only recently
come down two point three percent today. And combine that with sluggish GDP growth, a very difficult leading of the European Union and the Conservative Party have also been in power for fourteen years and part of this is just a kind of political exhaustion. Add all that together and
many people here are looking for something different. And it is worth saying although the Conservative Party are beneath Labor Party, the Labor Party the main opposition in the polls, it has yet to be demonstrated there is a real enthusiasm for Labor either. There is just kind of this real exhaustion with the current plittal options in Britain.
Just real quickly for us here at this flight to Rwanda, these people who are they do they want to go to Rwanda? Or are they being no kicked out?
They're being kicked out. So in the same way, I think the parallel for you guys is people crossing the
border from Mexico. In the UK. Our form of illegal migration comes across seeing this channel from the border with France, and so migration has been a core issue, a contentious issue in UK policy four years now and Rishi's big gambit has been to say that we will consider breaking international law and we will deport anyone we catch illegally and send them to a Randa to be processed as asylum seekers and then if that processing is legal, they will then be come back to the UK and if
it is illegal, they will be then fant of dem miranda. This has been an extremely controversial policy which many experts say may not even work. It would deport maybe one percent of those who enter the UK league illegally according to the sort of think tanks to look at this migration stats and it is basically the idea being it would deter the conservative say, anyone from wanting to cross.
But that's the just for time appreciated. James Walkaki is the senior producer for Bloomberg Radio over in London. Give us the latest reporting on elections coming.
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