Consumers Will Be Able To Get Paid For Their Own Data: SRAX CEO

the chief executive officer and the founder. They are based in Beverly Hills, California, but he is joining us here in our eleven three oh studios. Tell us, Chris, thanks for being here. First, thanks for having what exactly is Sharks? I understanding that you know the underlying thing right, digital marketing and consumer data distribution management platform, but I have no idea what that means. So what we do is

we aggregate data on specific audiences. So we we work in certain verticals and then we aggregate data around those verticals. So an example is we're in the consumer package good business. We aggregate data on people that buy certain types of products in big box retailers we aggregate the information about those consumers and then we put into put them into silos, and then we sell access to that data back to marketers. We do that. We do similar thing with uh the

medical business. We have every doctor in the United States map down to their cell phone, to their home computers, to their office computers, and then we sell access to that data to big pharma companies that want to reach those particular on colleges, cardiologists, neurologists, and so on. And we have that for around five different verticals that we do. How hard is it for you to access the data? Well, it takes a long time to build specific data sets

because you need to build them over time. So we when we start a particular vertical, we have to slowly start to build them, and we buy a lot of data at first, and then data is we begin to aggregate the data ourselves, and then we own that data and resell it. The reason why I ask because I'm thinking about Facebook and the recent data privacy concern issues

and increasing talk of regulation of the data disclosures. Is that going to make your life more difficult or do you think that that ship has sailed in the contract of people deciding to put their information online for everybody in return for getting free access to some of these services. I think consumers are more aware about the privacy issues now than they ever have been. I think in in the past, consumers haven't minded given up their data in

exchange for free access. But I think now with the Equifax and with the UH the Facebook breaches, people are very aware of the value of their data. And that's why around a year ago, we started working on a platform that's going to out consumers to own their own data. So you, as a consumer will be able to own your own information and then people will access that information and you'll get paid for that data. UM it's called

big Token, so UH big token is a platform. Big token dot com is a platform that allows people to put their information in validate data, and then as marketers want to access that information, they pay to access the data. But instead of the money going to the big oracles experience axioms of the world, it goes direct to the consumer.

Let's say Lisa goes to an automobile showroom and she's interested in a particular car and decides to take a test drive, even goes to an auto show is that information can you connect that information with maybe what Lisa would do online looking at various automobile products very much. So we have a auto vertical, and within our auto vertical, we're providing software into the dealership level where if somebody comes in and takes a test drive, they put in

the name, email address, phone number of that consumer. Once we have that data, we can pretty much find out everything else about the consumer. We can then do a cross map between the cell phone the email address, and that can help us find your browser. We can find multiple devices off of those browsers um and just map you in general, and within twenty four hours you can start seeing ads for the car that you just tested of.

I'm really confused because the Facebook results that we just got seemed to show that people don't care at all about privacy because, uh they showed uh, you know, revenue growth that was the most is two thousand fifteen, and people seem to be uh flocking to the site regardless of any privacy concerns. I'm just wondering, why would anybody uh start to go through extra passwords and extra forms, etcetera.

If they're frankly willing to give away their information and data for free, right now because consumers are not aware about the amount of money that is being generated off of them. How much money per person do you think is generated a good consumer living in New York City? Uh?

And you know you remember, you're being tracked everywhere on your phone, So they're tracking you from where you live to where you work, So they're watching you from the Upper East Side to Bloomberg Studio, and they're tracking everything that you're doing, so anywhere anywhere from just on the digital advertising side, not the not uh consumer marketing research or direct mail or anything like that. Anywhere from two hundred to two thousand dollars a month. So it's a

lot of money. Now, if somebody was going to give that money to you, would you go sign up to do it? That's why we put big Token dot com up and we've had thousands of people sign up to for their data. But then what about Amazon or what about some of these other companies that can gather this for free, They wouldn't then be as willing to pay the additional cost to me. Correct, Then you as a consumer will start to filter out what you're willing to

look at. We're going to give you uh browser plug ins and tools that are going to help you get rid of ads that are not paying to access your information, and you might even get a check. You will you. I just I have to wonder how much I mean, Amazon, Google, these are the Facebook, the data sets that's where they live and die. So they've got to be fighting back now. I mean, you know, we're at the beginning of this.

We've been working on it for a year, and uh, I think that those companies are about to see big competition in this area. They've they've they've owned this data set for a long time. Consumers have not fought back to own their own data, and now they're going to be ready to do that. They they just haven't had the tools to be able to do it. They couldn't go anywhere, sign up and then start getting getting money. Yeah. Well, um, I gotta say I I would love to earn twoth

asand extras. Um. Chris mcglino, thank you so much for joining us. Chris mcgleino, chief executive officer and founder of Sharks, a digital marketing and consumer data distribution company which is based in Beverly Hills, California. But he decided to come to New York to our eleven three, oh Studios. Despite the rain and the clouds and the chilly air, the leaders of North and South Korea have agreed to pursue

a peace agreement in historic talks. Here to tell us more about this is how Brands Henry Kissinger, Distinguished Professor for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, he joins us from Baltimore. How Brands, thank you very much for being with us. What if you could just describe what you believe is likely to

happen next between the leaders of North and South Korea. Well, I think what you'll see is that there may be some effort to put flesh on the bones of the very skeletal agreement that was reached at the summit, which was basically aspirational in terms of working toward a formal end to the war in the Korean Peninsula and the eventual de nuclearization of the peninsula. But those goals are quite gauzy right now, and so any next steps would have to deal with flushing out the specifics of how

those goals might be pursued. So how you know there we need to whip out the scorecard here, because there are a lot of people that are either giving credit to President Trump for navigating or pushing Kim John earned to this point. People are giving credit to the South Korean president. People are giving credit to China, who sort of pushed the leaders of North and South Korea to this point. In your view, well, really it was the leaders of North Korea who pushed the United States and

South Korea to this point. It was the North Koreans who came up with the idea for a meeting between Trump and King Young Lum. And one of the really difficult analytical points in dealing with this situation is figuring out precisely what the North Korean calculus is. There's surely a desire to ease the economic pressure from the U S sanctions, but there may also be a calculation this is simply a smart, tactical way of reducing pressure while

the North completes its nuclear arsenal. Now, in addition, there was a joint statement it's called the Pond John Declaration, calling for the restart of reunions of families separated by the Korean War. Will that accelerate further agreements? Do you think it's useful as an atmospheric and it may lead to additional atmospherics in the sense of suspending propaganda broadcasts

across the border and things like that. It has relatively little connection to the more substantive issues at hand, which would be the nuclear program and the state of war that still exists between the North and the South, but it is perhaps hopeful as a sign of of a

broader thawing between the two countries. You know, Professor, One thing that that struck me, aside from the menu, the highly symbolic menu of the meeting that took place between the North and South Korean leaders, it struck me that the whole procession was not broadcast on North Korean television. I know this is a small point, but to me, it indicated that there was not an opening up of North Korea. Was this significant to you and kind of what can we look at going forward to know whether

this is in good faith or not. I think looking for an opening up of the North Korean political system is probably unrealistic at this point. Uh. The Kim family regime is interested first and foremost in its own survival, and I think it understands any meaningful opening up of the political system would would jeopardize that, and so everything that the regime is doing is a tactical move to

secure its own power. So any opening up of the regime would presumably be something that would come much much farther down the road and would probably be almost against the will of the Kim family. If there is an agreement that is reached, what would this do to relations between the United States and China, Well, it all depends

on what the nature of the agreement is. I think we're having a little bit of whiplash right now because for about a year, the fear of most countries in the region and around the world was that the Trump administration was going to get the United States into a nuclear war with North Korea. I think the fear now is that the United States might conclude a deal that

would have actually be too advantageous to North Korea. And so the critical elements from the United States decide will to be in will be to ensure that any deal with the North doesn't prejudice the US alliance with South Korea or the broader US posture in the region. China obviously would like to see a different sort of deal, one that would lead to a retraction of American presence in Northeast Asia. So can you put this into context

of why then this is so important? Well, this is the single this is the crisis spot that is most likely to lead to nuclear war. Right now, any conflict between the United States and North Korea would be of unbelievable lethality even if it did not cross the nuclear thresh fold. But from everything we know about North Korean military doctrine, it quite easily could escalate into the nuclear realm.

And so if it is possible to negotiate some sort of agreement that would lower tensions, that would be a good thing in and of itself. If it's possible to do so in a way that leads to the rolling back of the North Korean nuclear arsenal, that would also be very useful in terms of reducing the nuclear threat both to the United States and its allies. That that's said, I'm still somewhat skeptical that this is ultimately what will

come out of this process. Can the United States, Japan, and our allies live with a nuclear armed North Korea? We would prefer not to, but yes, I think we can live with it. If if the alternative were, for instance, launching a preventive war to prevent that. The United States has confronted the sort of problem for we worried very much about what it would mean to face a nuclear Soviet Union or a nuclear China during the Cold War, and in both cases we were ultimately able to live

with it, albeit in a very dangerous intense way. And I think if we were put to it, we could probably do that again. So I want to I want to go back to the menu, since it was much parsed over and in mouth watering to read about what they ate. But what was interesting to me was that the menu anger Japan again, the menu that the for the feast that North Korean leader and South Korean leaders eight. What do you make of that? I don't make a

lot of it. I think this is probably about the seventeenth on the list of things that's most important in terms of assessing the prospects of the negotiating process, and and so I I you know, this is a region where history looms very large, and so there are constantly seemingly small issues that are causing frictions between uh, not just the US, and it's adversarious, but sometimes between US allies and sometimes between Japan and North Korea, and so

I I think that is is noteworthy and perhaps worth reporting, but but probably relatively low on the list of things that will determine the success or failure of this initiative. So South Korea's shrimp surprise for Donald Trump last year and the dessert this time around not the biggest thing on your list, How brands, thank you so much for joining us, How Brands. Henriette Kisinger, Distinguished professor at Johns

Hopkins University and a Bloomberg View columnist. Definitely, some of the imagery coming out of the Korean Peninsula is really striking, of the leaders holding hands, taking one step into the north, one step into the south, marking the end to this what is it, seven decade long conflict that has been keeping a lot of families apart on the Korean peninsula. Yes, and that's set to change, at least according to this communication, although unclear whether those families will in fact get reunited

anytime soon. Big tech is driving the train in US equity markets these days. And to talk a little bit about what we've seen out of earning so far as well as what to expect, is Michael Scanlon, portfolio manager at Manu Life Asset Management in Boston. He oversees, among other funds, the John Hand Balanced Fund, which has about nearly two billion dollars of assets. And Michael, I was looking and four of your top five biggest holdings in

that fund Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. As a result of the earnings that we have seen so far, have you decided to either add to your current holdings of any of those companies or pair some of the some of the assets. Well, good morning and thanks for having me. So I think when you look at this earnings period, you know, there's obviously we had a little bit of disappointment out of Google and then essentially very strong results

out of the rest of the players there. I think when you look at the text based you know, whether it's these these newer platform companies like a Google or a Facebook, I mean, they continue to have these enormous secular tail winds. And I think it's also interesting if you look at it some of these more what you would associate with legacy I T names like Microsoft or Cisco. You know, those companies are obviously are also doing quite

well right now. Has they're been able to manage this transition to more of a cloud based can shooting versus on premise type systems. Well, Michael, does this mean that you wouldn't invest really new money in a technology company unless it had a cloud offering? Well, we you know that has been a big part of our holdings is that you do want to have these companies that are aligned with that themes are else you're fighting an enormous headwinds.

I mean, one name out there that's been struggling quite a bit, as Oracle, that's not a name that we own in our portfolio, and that's the name where when you look at their cloud business, I mean, they're just getting laughed by everybody else. So that that that would

be a tough space to get invested in today. But Michael, the reason why I asked is because when we talked to a lot of investment managers and we asked them, you know when most last time that you rearranged your portfolio, they say, actually, we've held it the same for about

a year. I'm wondering, is it the same with you or you know, do you look at these earnings and then decide, you know what, uh, Amazon seems like they're super solid, let's add more there, and you know, what Apple, we're a little bit concerned about the end of the superphone, of the supercycle of the smartphones. We're going to pair back there. Are you doing any of those calculatations right now?

So that's a fair question. I mean, that's part of managing a portfolio as you get these names that will bounce hard after earnings, or they might sell off hard after earnings. And maybe that doesn't justify exiting or entering new positions, but what you do is trade your names up and down in terms of the weight of the portfolio. You know, you look at something like Apple over the last couple of years, you know that stock has been

meaningfully higher than it has been today. Uh, And if you look at the weight of our portfolio, it has moved around in terms of the weight of the portfolio over the last twelve months. Michael, in managing the John Hancock Balanced Portfolio as well as the Balanced Fund, what would you like to see happen in terms of rebalancing Because some of the names in the fund have performed so well, You've got to maintain a balance so that you don't end up with these outsized positions that could

come back and bite you. Yeah, So we initiated an overweight position and energy UH out of the second half of last year, and that proved to be a little bit early. Yet in the last month or so, it seems like that that positioning is starting to come around for us. I've had some really outsized winners there in terms of names like Conico Phillips or names like sun

Core and Shell. So those names have been doing quite well for US, and I still think that, you know, even though they've had a big, meaningful bounce in the last couple of months here, I do still think there's a long runway there. So when you look at the SMP five roughly SMP in the tech sector UH at kind of a mid single digit six or seven percent, I do think that you're going to see energy to continue to work here through the end of the year.

You know, Michael, I'd love to just zoom out a little bit and get your feeling on what the narrative should be for this earning season. By some measures, it's the biggest volume of earnings beats ever. By others, there are huge warning signs that this is perhaps as good as it gets. Where do you fall on the different narratives that are competing for attention right now. Yeah, it's funny. I mean if expectations were very high going into this earnings period, but yet if you look at the results,

I mean, they've blown away the results. I think the earnings are. You know, it's been like an eight percent surprise on the consensus number this quarter thus far. I believe it's the number. And you know, you look at some of the things that are going on that you could frame as a negative right now, with the ten year yield crossing or hovering around three, an oil up meaningfully,

which is attacks on the U S consumer essentially. Uh. You know, I think somebody said it best the other day when they said we're all looking for a silver bullet and exactly why the market has been weaker than would expect. But you know, at the end of the day, it's earnings that drive markets, and you might have these short periods of disconnect where the market doesn't keep up

with earnings growth. But I think the SMP five hundred here at you know, sixteen and a half, a little bit of seventeen times earnings, I think it's very attractive and by the end of the year, I do expect the market's going to finish higher from here. Michael, you mentioned energy, what about other commodities noted investments maybe in countries such as Australia. Yeah, so outside of energy, you know, we do have a small position in Franco, so we

have some exposure to gold. Uh. You know, I think when you look at the commodity space really right now, our focus has been on oil and names that are more associated with it because the disconnects between what the commodity has done since last summer versus what the stock prices have done, and we just feel like that that's that's offering us the best risk reward right now. What's the most contrarian bet right now? Most contrarian bet right now?

I guess in Starbucks is a name which we've owned in the portfolio for over a year now, probably eighteen months or so, and that's the name that reported earnings last night. That's the name that continues to be out of favor with investors. I do think when you listen to the call last night, there was some things that a bowl could continue to be positioned around, and that the last two months of the first quarter they had

north of a three percent comp in the US. You know, as we look forward through the rest of the year, April might be a bit bumpy because it is a difficult comp with the unicorn frappuccino that they had year. But I think that stock has been very out of favor of the multiple is very very compressed to where it's been, and obviously it's still a fantastic brand. Shares of Starbucks down a little bit more than one and a half percent right now. Michael, what happens if a

ten year stays at three percent? Does that change your investment thesis? It doesn't. Uh. You know, it's funny when it's obviously a big psychological factor when you get the ten year yield up to a big round number like three percent that we haven't seen in a while. But as I speak to management teams that we own in the portfolio or perspective companies that we're thinking about investing, I don't hear any of them coming back and saying, well, if if the yield hits on the ten year hits three,

we're doing something different. I mean, it's this is really an environment where stock picking matters a lot more going forward than it has the last couple of years, and you just need to be focused on those companies specific stories. Again, I think three percent is more of a psychological number more than anything. Thanks very much for being with us. Michael Scanlon, Managing Director, portfolio manager, Manual Life Asset Management

based in Boston, of course, home to Bloomberg One. I was six on Boston, Newburyport and thirty and Metro West and the South Shore, helping to manage the John Hancock Balance Fund and the balanced portfolio. Total assets. He's helping be responsible for more than well nearly two billion dollars. We've got much more coming up on Bloomberg Market time pim Fox my co host Lisa A. Bramwoods. This is Bloomberg.

XN posted its weakest first quarter of outputs since Chevron, the other hand, surpassed every first quarter profit and production production estimate out there. As a response, Exon shares down three point four percent, while Chevron shares up more than one percent. Joining us to understand the tale of two gas giants, Fernando Valet, He's oil and gas analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us here in our eleven three oh studios. Fernando, can you explain what Excen did wrong and what Chevron

did right? Sure, hi, guys, good to be here. I think there are two key issues with x On. The first is you had some uh time timely issues. You had the earthquake in Point New Guinea that impacted production. You had higher oil prices actually takes some production away because you have a production sharing contracts where higher prices actually decrease your entitlement volumes. And then part of it is just the investment profile. I mean x Son had

been cartailing investments since the oil price crisis. They cut their capex in twent billion dollars, and I think what the new CEO has recognized is that that is not a sustainable strategy UH and they're they're actually now raising their capex the thirty billion dollars going forward, which is why, for example, they haven't returned to the buybacks Chevron. On the other hand, they had a couple of major projects that they've been UH funding for a very long time

that have finally started to come on stream. Gorgon Look of Financial Gas in Australia, wheat Stone also loqu of Finance or Gas project in Australia. Both of those projects started up in seventeen and they've been ramping and they've been a major contributor to both production and the earning speed for not the percentage of production that is UH that is done by large the large oil companies like x On Mobile like share and isn't that going down?

It was shale was definitely taking UH market share in the global oil market. But as your production, as I mentioned, a lot of these projects that were funded in the twenty uh ten period and they're now coming to fruition, they're actually going to help big oil recapture some market share. UH. Who's actually seating market share in this time in the cycle is OPEC, As you had UH, Saudi Arabia curtail that production, Venezuela falling UH and also non US no

non OPEC. So you had your Columbia as your China's, Mexico's or productions going down because these oil prices have forced them to cut investments and their aging fields are actually going down in production very significantly. Is that why investors aren't necessarily interested in the stocks? Because if you're not giving back the money to the shareholders, and other companies are like Conico Phillips doing a share buy back, why would you buy the shares of companies that aren't

going to reward the shareholder. I think that's that's very fair in the short term. I think though, when you look at what ex One is doing, there's a recognition that their portfolio can't compete with shale, and that's why they've gone out there and they've bought UH more, papoint, New Guinea, more, Brazilian pre salts, uh they bought Permian assets.

And so if you look at all the five pillars at the outlined in March, all those five pillars have been acquired or discovered since their old investments or x t O s your Russian oil and gas, your Canadian oil sands day don't work in this world anymore. So you need to go out and revamp. And it's a painful period of recognition, but it's something that I think it's necessary for you to compete long term, Irman, and

you're becoming a going concern. You know, one thing that we were talking about before the segment, you were noting that it has to do with the composition of the underlying assets between Exon and Chevron. Exxon holds about fifty of its assets as natural gas produced producing UH utilities,

whereas Chevron focuses more on oil. Brent crude rose substantially the first quarter, whereas natural gas actually declined if you look at prices and just wondering has Exon talked at all about increasing its exposure to crude or sort of changing the mix of its business at all. Yeah, that's something. Those five pillars when you look at it, uh, A lot of it is uh deep water so Guiana and

Brazil deep water oil. Uh. And then the other two major projects are um Lique Financial Gas which internationally which are again oil linked, so they'll they'll help that mix.

And then the Permian. Uh. So those five pillars will definitely change the pricing from being more US gas linked into more international pricing and oil and that should help their resilience because as you guys probably know, the Marcellist and the Permian, they're going to keep our our natural gas prices in this country very low for a very

long time. I want to pick up on what Lisa said, having to do with the factors that affect the actual price of oil and the way in which fossil fuel, whether it be natural gas or shale oil or you know, deep water affected. But isn't it also that Venezuela, Mexico to the big oil producing regions. You got Pemmics with cutbacks in potential farm participation, and then you've got the general Venezuela story. Isn't that going to affect the price

of oil? That that certainly has and that's what we were mentioning about OPEC seating market share, uh, with Venezuela being one of the you know, going down from almost three million barrels to under one point seven million barrels a day. Now, UH, Mexico has also had its issues.

But again when you look at this country going from ten to ten point six million barrels a day, there's a lot of production coming online and there is a question mark of what happens in But I think one of the parts that investors sometimes misses that Saudi Arabian Russia have both cartail production and so there is some spare capacity that can come online, although the man could eventually outpaced at depending on oil prices. Thank you very much for being with us for Nada vale Is Oil

and Gas Anithers for Bloomberg Intelligence. You're listening to Bloomberg Markets. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio. Took