Chances Are High That Bullish Cycle Extends: Authers

about jobs, but also talking about trade and the implications there. Uh, and I want to really home in there on that. And we have our own car Acadana still with us listening to the interview alongside US chief US economist for

Bloomberg Economics. I just, real quick want to get your reaction to Larry Cudlow's response on whether the US is less incentivized to come to some sort of trade deal with China based on the strength that we're seeing in the U. S economy, especially since we're not necessarily seeing commends or at strength in the Chinese economy. Well, I think if we look back over the last two months or so, we can see that the most progress in trade talks occurred during periods where the market was down,

the economic tone was negative. You know, there were questions about, you know, how weak the U. S economy actually was. Certainly China continues to slow, so they have incentive to come to the table. For the US when we've been in periods of an upmarket and an up tone in the data, Uh, the trade negotiations have been that much more cantankerous. And Larry was very cautious, uh, not to provide any direction to things. And Jonathan is rightly asking,

we really have two levels in the trade talks. One was, uh, do we pick up where we were in October when the tariffs were due to go up to or uh, is October just ancient history. In the next step, if things deteriorate, would be the December fifteen tariffs, which are on about a hundred and fifty six billion of products, many which are consumer goods and things of that nature.

And Larry really didn't and to provide guidance in that direction at all, and instead only talked about the potential for a phase one deal just to put some numbers around that. Very briefly, if we add dusted off October UH and pending December tariffs together that price tag is greater than everything put in place in So we're not talking peanuts here. This is a very consequential levers that are are looming potentially very close UH in the near

term UH that could dramatically impact economic outlook. December fift that's a key date. Carl Wicked Donna, thanks so much for sticking around with this. Carl's the chief US economists for Bloomberg Economics. Let's shift gears a little bit talk about the global markets, including the energy markets. Big meeting just is wrapping up with OPEC in Vienna. Jason Shanker, President Prestige Economics. He's also the chair of the Futurist

Institute and a Bloomberg Opinion contributor. UH. He is in Vienna for the OPEC meetings and also joining us here in our Bloomberg in Active Broker Studios is John Author's and your editor for a Bloomberg Market. So, Jason, let's start with you give us your key takeaway from the OPEC meetings in Vienna this week. Well, I think there's

a couple of things. First, is that the group is concerned about global growth they're concerned that oil inventories could weigh on prices, as we saw the last time there was a Chinese manufacturing recession, which happened between the the December in middle I think that's a real concern. They're looking at the macro, they're trying to come up with a price bullish story and keep the inventories under control.

And I'd say there's extra pressure coming from Saudi Arabia as they're running up to an I p O. So just wondering whether you think these cuts that are going to be implemented are going to make a significant impact in pricing. In other words, should we expect oil prices to rise? Well, other commodities probably give us a hint

as to what we might expect. In the last few months, copper and alumin have been kind of grad Julie rising oil prices could rise a little bit in the first half of the year because of the summer driving season. Right this we look at the jobs number today, the summer driving season in the United States was the big driver of global oil prices. Are gonna be the biggest driving season in history. People have jobs, people have money.

The refineries ramp up in Q one Q two, so oil prices could see a little bit of upside almost regardless of what O Peck does today. At the beginning of Jason, I'm glad you brought that up in John, I want you to come in here. John, author's about the demand side of the picture. How we are seeing optimism grow heading into that we're going to see a re acceleration of sorts. I'll be a little bit more tempered than in the past of the global economy. Do

you think that the data supports that shift in view? Yes, it does support the idea of another reacceleeration after another midcycle slow down or whatever you want. School that we had one of those u in fifteen sixteen, which at that point was the optics certainly were focused on on China. It looks as though we're having another one now, which we might in time come to blame on Germany and

the Eurozone. Certainly, German auto manufacturing is in a horrible states by its own by its own, by its own standards. If you take a look at the latest IM data from the beginning of the week, you do see the beginning, you know, a nascent restocking boom. New orders got cut back, a lot I suspect in large part forget about other aspects of demand. But this was another effect of the

trade war. And the perverse effect is that we're now eighteen months on from people putting their new orders on hold because they were nervous about the trade war, and they've really got to buy something. And the inventories have been winding down during the process, so that the chances of a re acceleration and another move upwards are quite high. Whether that means and therefore an extension for a bit

of the longest cycle we're in. Whether I'm happily going to tell you that we're about to go off on another major, major rally is another question. And you can also make the loaded comparisons to Night, which is another time when the Fed cut rates, when the economy didn't look so bad um and the economy did do very well for a year or so after that. The market didn't unbelievably well for a year or so after that. But we know what's happened next. Jason, want to go

back to you real quickly. There's something news out this morning. The Saudia Minister thinks that the Saudi Aramco I p O or that company will eventually in perhaps and in your term trade above that to trillion dollar market was priced earlier this week at one point seven trillion. What's the latest talk in Vienna about the Saudi Aramco deal

was considered a strong success. Well, I'm not an equity analyst, but I would say that, you know, it's something that's hanging and looming large over the meeting because obviously the Saudis would like to sacrifice maybe have the group sacrifice a little bit of income, uh to prioritize balance sheet as they're looking to do the I p O I mean, yesterday, there's a marathon set of meetings, no decision made. If a bunch of n O C s were doing I p O S in in the next year, you probably

would have gotten a deal pretty quickly. But that's kind of where we're at. And as we look at the year ahead, there are some risks because the p m I s the Eurozone plus us I s M plus scan Chinese manufacturing p m I that's been below a hundred fifty, which would be the break even for that sum for six consecutive months. And even though folks are optimistic about the year ahead, and we've seen that number increase, it's still below one fifty, and the prospects of a

trade deal are still spotty. I mean, we've just heard a long interview about that, and it's ended in tears in the last two throughout the last two years, and in this time it could very well end in tears as well. Jason Schenker, thank you so much for joining us. He is president of Prestige Economics, also a Bloomberg Opinion contributor,

joining us from Vienna at the OPEC meetings. And John Authors, thanks so much for being with us as well, Senior editor for Bloomberg Markets, joining us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. On a very busy morning lista with a strong job's number, seeing a very strong reaction positive just under one percent move in equity indices. Here on the back of that news, let's talk a little Facebook here.

There's a couple of things I want to get to with our guest, Sure Overday, here's a technology columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, joins us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Sure, thanks so much for coming. I want to talk about um, you know, uh, maybe coming to New York and increasing their presence here, which is very interesting. But I also want to get to your column because it's one of the greatest headlines I read today. Mark Zuckerberg isn't always

a colorless automaton. Got to get to that first, all right, coming to New York, Big News going to rent a whole bunch of space. What's going on there? So at least the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook is talking about leasing a very large space here in the fairly the former fairly post office building. Um. New Yorkers will know this as the former and I guess future home

of New Jersey Transit and Amtrak. Yeah, hopefully. Um. But this is a very large and sort of well known building in New York City, and it's just speaks to the expansion of large tech companies, notably Google and Facebook, into New York from their headquarters in the Bay Area. It raises a question. There was another story on the Bloomberg talking about tech companies increasingly eyeing New York as a as another option in addition to Silicon Valley. Why why is New York becoming more of a hub or

is it for tech companies? So I think there's a few things that play here. One of them is that UM the large superstar tech companies you know, Facebook, Google, Amazon, going down the list, they have just grown and expanded you know, revenue and employees both and as they've done so, you know, they in some cases have reached the limits of expansion in the Bay Area. Although if you go to facebooks headquarters in Menlo Park, it basically looks like

a perennial construction zone. They have like armies of construction workers building new buildings, so they're not done there yet. I think also these companies realize that not everybody wants to live in the Bay Area. Some people want to live elsewhere. There's been, you know, an increasing push to um letting people work remotely. So if you live in Montana and you want to work for Facebook or Airbnb,

that's increasingly an option UM. And I think there's also a phenomenon of tech companies looking for talent in other hubs in the United States and elsewhere. So you've seen Seattle, for example, being um particularly fertile ground for a lot of tech companies who want to associate themselves with people coming out of Microsoft or Amazon or the Universe, University of Washington or other places where there's high quality tech talent in New York as part of that too. So sure,

let's get to your column here. Um, we've seen a lot of Markus Zuckerberg. The public has seen a lot of Marcus Zuckerberg increasingly over the last couple of years, oftentimes testifying in front of Congress or others. What's your sense, your takeaway about him as a spokesperson for the industry. Well, I wanted to just point out that there's kind of two different Mark Zuckerberg's. Right, there's the Mark Zuckerberg that we see in media interviews or on occasions when he

gives speeches or testifies before Congress. And I think that Mark Zuckerberg is a little bit uncomfortable when he's asked to talk about issues that are broadly about, you know, the role of Internet in the world, and um, the nature of human trust and economic development and and Facebook's own role in all of those big picture questions. So

that's the one Mark Zuckerberg. The other Mark Zuckerberg that you see less is in private settings or to employees, where he's talking I think very confidently and capably about strategy and Internet trends, and you know, knee camping competitors metaphorically. Um, And I just wanted to point out that there is this dichotomy that the Mark Zuckerberg that we often see in public is not the same Mark Zuckerberg that people

know in more private settings. So do you think this ought to give investors more confidence in the leadership and the understanding that he brings to the company going forward in some of the challenges that it faces. I think that's right. I mean, look, I don't know. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg does not need to prove himself anymore as a capable product and business executive. Right the track record of Facebook in the last ten years speaks fifteen years, I

guess since he founded it somewhat speaks for itself. Um. But I also point out that, look, the role of being a CEO of a superstar tech company is probably different than it was five or six years ago. And that's not only true for Mark Zuckerberg, but all these

other companies. As technology and as the Internet play a greater role in our lives, in our economies, in our countries, in our personal interactions, these people are understandably asked to think bigger than just their companies, just their products, um and business strategies, and really asked to think about the role of the Internet in public life and the world. And those are really difficult questions and probably not what

Mark Zuckerberg anticipated when he started Facebook. Indeed, a lot of people also probably a little blindsided by some of the transformational natures of these technological advancements. And UH and companies share over technology columnist with Bloomberg Opinion, joining us here in our Interactive Broker Studios. Thank you so much for for that. There are a lot of questions around the marijuana industry, namely whether or not the US will

legalize it on a broad level. In the meantime, you have states legalizing the product, which raises a question how do you advertise it, especially since it is not legal in so many places. Joining us here in our Interactive Broker Studios Joshua Otten He has chief executive officer of Ronan, which is one of the largest branding agencies for cannabis

and health help businesses. So, josh we were just talking about the perception of the industry and how do you first of all, go about marketing a company that is not operating in a universally legal field in the United States. Well,

that's a challenge, right. So when we launched rown in about six months ago, our goal was to work with emerging brands who are building products and commodities and helping them to evolve into really real lifestyle and wellness brands and so um, there's a lot of challenges on the cannabis space, specifically because you're only selling in specific dispensaries and local even in a state like California. You know a lot of times you're only operating in Southern California

parts of southern California. So the challenges how do you generate campaigns and advertising that generates an r o I immediately? But a lot of times that's short sighted because the reality is if you're building a brand that isn't just a commodity, you can't just talk about ingredients or strains or t H percentages. Those are just what's in it, right, So you have to be able to build a brand

that can communicate the consumers. So it's really a lot of content content marketing all the stuff that food and beverage does. It's at a slightly smaller scale, but you have to take those same steps. Do we have any success cases in the busy in this right now, if any brand's kind of broken through a little bit and how did they do it? Absolutely, I think that if you want to kind of categorize them into two different buckets, if you want to look at say recreational or adult

use in lifestyle. Cookies is a great example. Uh, it was founded by a rapper named Burner Up in Oakland. Cookies is a lifestyle cannabis brand. They have some really great genetics, but really it comes down to content. And the reason I think they're winning is because they're selling tens of millions of dollars worth of merchandise and T shirts and hats every year. And that's that's what is a brand that's a red bull, right like people who

are creating a self identity around it. And then on the wellness side, you can look at someone like a Doss. They're creating these products that have activity groups. Hey, if you take this, it will help you sleep. We're going to consistently dose you. This will help you relax, this will get you excited. So you kind of have these two buckets activity group outcome and wellness and then lifestyle. So it's almost a kin to a red bull. You know, they kind of allude to what it is. Red Bull,

Monster Energy. You know, you don't really know what's in those things, but will give you energy. And then there's five Hour Energy. It tells you exactly what it's gonna do. And so we I see the people that are taking lanes and picking specific verticals are going to have success.

I got this is this is sort of unprecedented because even with alcohol, there are very few alcohol brands that advertise getting drunk, right, There's there are very few advertising brands that try to sell to that experience of the buzz. And yet you know, essentially you don't take marijuana, you don't, you don't, you don't smoke up to to just taste the flavor, right, I mean it's to get high, So you have to be advertising the high and has ever

been done before? I actually disagree, and I actually take I actually look at the food and beverage, alcohol and beer as the as the way we should go, because alcohol doesn't talk about what their proof is, right. I Mean, you go to a tequila bar and there's a thousand tequilas and they all have varying degrees of taste, but you have your outcome. But you know, if you have four shots, no matter what it is, you're gonna go

home a little loopy. Um. So my point is that cannabis brands that are advertising how high they get you or their t a chia percentages away from an educational sandpoint because you want to know what you're consuming. UM, that's not gonna last in the market. That's not the point necessarily. Um. Just like it, just like drinking wine isn't. The point isn't to get loaded. You can if you drink an entire bottle, you're you're gonna be wasted. You're but one or two glasses and you're fine. So the

same thing. If you smoke half a joint or a couple of hits, depending on what it is, it's going to give you a nice equivalent, um, if you're looking for a recreational outcome. So I guess my point is I think that the cannas industry can learn a lot from from alcohol and beer by not focusing on how high it gets you and focusing on lifestyle. And because because the end of day, it's a commodity, right, wine

is wine. Wine is a commodity, it's grapes. What makes it not a commodity is when you bottle it, put in a really nice bottle and start marketing it. Otherwise it's more low or whatever whatever variety it is. So it's I'm wondering how you would advertise or market or promote your brand because but there's a story out just I think today High Times holdings High Times magazines warning investors that they may not be able to continue operations

after they didn't get their I p O off. So if I can't, the first thing and the only thing that aim to my mind, if I was marketing uh a cannabis brand, would be High Times magazine, how what I do it? So we were actually launching a network. So so we have about a hundred part part of our agency engine is that we have a hundred fifty hours of original content that I've produced over the last three years that has launched. We even have a partnership with Viacom in Pluto TV, so they have a t

C channel. So we have any five or six million minutes watched a month, just owned Viacom and distributed about fifty million homes. And we're now launching another network that's gonna long in January that's going to be in another another forty million homes with about a thousand hours. So our purview is high times has a very specific audience, right, they have in what I call the endemic consumer. These are people who are fans. The product is part of

their self identity. It's not just a product they consume. I'm looking for the wider audience. What's the political risk of putting this industry in the limelight? I mean, because on one hand, you know, if if it sort of is within the community that's already devoted to the industry, it's one thing. If it's another if it's trying to cater to the mat passes. Are you worried about blowback?

The more visible you make some of these companies um personally you know, again not to sound like Gazella, but you know, when you look at it, you compare it to food and alcohol. I'm not food, alcohol, and and and and even tobacco. There are no positive outcomes from consuming alcohol, right, I mean, no one's deluding themselves and thinking that, you know, having beer and alcoholis has some

positive health benefit. Red wine, yeah, but that it's like right, it comes out and then like two months later you guys say it's not so who knows. But but that's not the point. We're consenting adults, and so at the end of the day, we're consuming a beverage that has absolutely been proven to increase domestic violence, have drunk driving deaths, all these terrible outcomes. But that's okay. We're consenting adults.

We consume it. So if you want to compare cannabis to you know again, alcohol and the industry, and we realized we can't prohibit it just because it has a lot of negative side effects, I would absolutely argue cannabis has a tenth of those same you know, possible liabilities while still allowing for consumers to you know again, consumer

safe product. The safety issues I'm sure you as I've heard of it, right, you have all this sort of like oh my god, the CDC came out and all this you know what it was the black market, and everyone inside the cannabis market knew it. And it was frustrating because we knew that it was vitamini ascetate. We

knew that it was coming from illegal operators. And when you have a market like California where two thirds of it two three force is still illegal black market and you have three forces of the city in California, refusing to allow dispensaries and even fighting to allow delivery. All you're doing do You're not reducing consumption, reducing access? Josh Houghton,

really fascinating stuff. Thanks for joining us. Josh Outen, the CEO of Ronan based in Culver City, California, joining us live here on our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio talking about the cannabis industry. Cooper's out with a very interesting report yesterday. They released an eighty four page safety reports seeking to quantify the misconduct and deaths that occur on its system and argue that its service is safer than alternatives. Let's

dig into that a little bit with Eric Newcomer. He's a startup reporter for Bloomberg News, joining us on the phone. So Eric tell us about this report. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, So Uber decided to proactively release data on sexual assaults and fatalities UH in its cars and basically found that, you know, last year there were about three thousand sexual assaults, which it defines in behavior ranging from you know, an unwanted kiss to rape. And then on the fatality side,

found about fifty fatalities a year. So this is you know, pretty unprecedented transparency for a company to sort of proactively, uh, disclose some of the worst behavior on its platform. Yeah, and I'm trying to understand how to view this reports. On one hand, yes, the transparency is a shift, particularly for Uber, which has been accused of being lacking transparency and has come under fire from UK regulators in particular. Uh, and so this would be a nice departure for them

on that. On the other hand, three thousands sexual assault claims, more than fifty row deaths. How can we even frame that in terms of is that worse or better than others? Since this is not a normal report to put out. Yeah, it's stunning. It's hard to process. I mean Uber tries to sort of, you know, position in terms of one point three billion trips that took place last year. But I think it's going to take time for people to

compare this. You know, academics are clearly going to pour over these numbers and compare them to what, you know, subway systems disclosed. But on the side of sexual assaults, I mean, it's always been the case that victim advocates have believed that cases were under reported, you know, college colleges have generally sort of had for reporting, and you know, when they put more pressure on students to report, you know, those numbers have gone up in that that's been good.

So so in a lot of these cases, there's this tension of wanting more reports because sexual assault is underreported, while at the same time wanting to hold you know, whether it's colleges or companies or government accountable when when these numbers are troubling. So yeah, it's hard I think so far to say, you know, where is three thousand. We haven't seen lifts numbers, We don't have taxi numbers, so so it's I think this is a starting data point.

We're gonna have to track it over time. It's interesting about the in the Bloomberg News report, they said here about fifty people have died in uber collisions annually for the past two years. That's a rate about half the national average for automotive automotive fatalities, that's according to the company. So that gives that dynamic a little bit of context

on the sexual assault eric is it. Did they have a sense of you know, sexual assault on the part of the driver versus on the part of the passenger because I've heard, you know, bad stories about both scenarios. Yeah, so, I mean it's our actually pretty even. I think it's you know, slightly slightly more allegations against drivers, but but overall it's it's very close to even. So both riders and drivers, you know, are getting attacked by the other,

and you know, it's it's important to realize that. I think we talk a lot about rider's safety, but you know, drivers are inviting a stranger into their car as well. It's an important thing to remember that they need to be protected. Also, I'm looking right now, Uber shares down two point one percent. Was this a mistake to put out? You know, yeah, it's it's tough. I think Uber committed

themselves to this. You know, they said more than a year ago, I think that they were going to do this, and then they realized how hard it was, you know, and have have really sort of agonized over how to disclose the data. So it's you know, we'll see over the long term if if you know, they want to turn around their reputation, you know, dark Houser show you the CEO said, you know, transparency is you know, on the path to trust basically, So it's a short term harm,

but and it draws negative attention to them. But I think if they want to really be seen as good actor, this is the type of disclosure that they need to be making. Eric Newcomer, thank you so much for being with us. Eric Newcomer is a startup reporter for Bloomberg News talking about this report out of Uber. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. Paul Sweeney, I'm on Twitter at

pt Sweeney. I'm Lisa A. Bram Woit's I'm on Twitter at Lisa Bramwoits one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio