Impact of Infrastructure on Copper, Gold and Crypto

precious metals specialist of Gainesville's Coin located in Gainesville, Florida. Everett, Uh, We're out with a little bit of a story. I'm just looking at gold. It's off about one point four percent here to nine dollars and now's but it was off I guess overnight as much as four pent some folks calling it kind of like a mini flash crash. Any idea what happened there? Was that just technicals. I

do think that technicals played a pretty large role here. Um, we have to keep in mind that during the summer trading volumes and gold are rather thin, and just adding onto that and the fact that markets in Tokyo and Singapore were all for holiday, so the technical movements would have a much larger effect in that low volume area. But I think the approximate cause was the strong employment data from Friday and sort of a carry over and

that as Asian markets opened overnight. UM. That definitely knocks some of the luster off of gold. And we also have to keep in mind that sentiment in the gold market was already pretty low. UM. All of that seemed to kind of pile on in a quick technical sell off, but I think that's short term speculative activity. UM. Partly because of the swiftness we've seen the gold price recover this morning as well. Square with me to what feels

like competing factors here. You mentioned the jobs report on Friday really strong, and yet overnight it seems like Goldman amongst others started downgrading growth out of China on that delta variant. How much of China is a headwind in terms of future lower growth yet some strong growth here in the US. Rights That is a very interesting dynamic where we see a divergence possibly between the direction the

Chinese economy is going and where the US is. You would think that a weaker Chinese economy if the delta variant really is an under control there, that that would be rather bad for gold, given how much gold demand comes from China. But I think the overall sentiment or the overall narrative of the economy improving of things opening up that just overall reduces safe haven demand for gold.

So between those two competing trends or forces. Um. Right now, the focus does seem to be on the US recovery, but in the on the horizon, I think that the China issue is certainly something there that gold traders should be watching. All right, Let's uh talk a little bit about some of the you know, copper was one medal that was really rallying earlier in the year, and I guess you know a little bit of a you know, demand driven there as it relates to, you know, maybe

a reopening the global economy. UM, when's your thought on copper? Well, copper is somewhat interesting, interestingly in a crossroads right now, similar to what we're saying with the divergence between the US and China. UM, we did see Beijing sell some of its strategic copper stockpiles in order to try and quell prices and bring down that commodities inflation. But then on the supply side, we have potential strike in Chile and that um, the Chilean strike possibility, even though it

hasn't actually happened. Um, that would have a major effect on how much copper is available in the market, Chile being the world's largest producer of copper and exporter. So I think that those two competing forces kind of us copper stuck in neutral right now. Um. But if I think inflation also plays a role there if we get sustained inflation. Um. We talk so much about that gold

being an inflation hedge. It is, but copper and some of the industrial commodities even more so factor into that equation. What is not stuck in neutrals? Bitcoin and Everett. It's funny, I you know, started on my career covering Muni bonds. My co anchor in the afternoon, Caroline loves crypto, and we were finally able to get our worlds to collide with the infrastructure bill, with crypto sort of being the big hold up. That being said, I'm taking look at bitcoin,

which is up to forty thousand. What are the sort of indications that you look at to get us back up to fift k Well, I think that it hinges largely on, as you pointed out, with the Infrastructure Bill, what is the regulatory framework or environment for bitcoin and crypto is going to look like going forward. We have seen some mixed messages about whether Congress wants to sort of enshrine proof of work cryptocurrencies like bitcoin as being

something that is regular did like other securities. UM. I think that would be rather positive if that was the final outcome. But of course there are those competing voices in the political realm who think rather differently that cryptos represent this major threat to the US dollar UM and to sort of finance as a whole, of the legacy systems of the financial UH framework. So I think that with that being said, UM, we'd like to see Congress

make some sort of move on regulations. So this isn't just a question up in the air that the crypto market is constantly in fear of a major pullback like we saw about a month or two ago. UM. To get us back up to those highs, I really would like to see some clarity on on the regulatory outlook for bitcoin. All right, every thank you so much. We appreciate it. As always Everett Millman, precious metal specialist of

Gainesville Coins. Well, the United Nations, they backed a group of the world's top scientists to study climate change, and a new report came out from these folks, and it warns that the planet were warned by one point five degrees celsius in the next two decades without dramatic, drastic moves to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution. The question for a lot of investors is, oh boy, that sounds big. What do we do? How do we position ourselves? Abraham all Hussain,

he joins us. He's a founder managing partner at Full Cycle private equity firm UM and they finance companies that create positive social and environmental change. So when you see a report like this, Ibraham, what does it make you think? Well, it makes me uh re emphasizes the point that we've been saying since two thousand and thirteen, which is, you know, we need to increase the pace of rolling out low

carbon infrastructure as fast as possible. And I'm glad that the scientific community is generating these types of reports so the investment community can understand how critical it is to the stability of our markets, our economy, our health our civilized nation, that we accelerate the pace of which we are transitioning to a low carbon future. One of the best things about what you do is you are scouring the landscape right to find investments that are focused really

on sustainable infrastructure. What changes in the last few years have you seen about the types of new inventions, the types of new products, and really the amount I feel like, really just in the last few years, we've seen a huge surge in this topic. So one of the things that full Cycle focuses on is I've been I've been in this space before. Even a lot of the vernacular and nomenclature has been invented, mostly because I used to be a scuba diver in the nineties and saw the

degradation and the quality of the marine life firsthand. And a lot of what was obvious what is now obvious above sea level was obvious underneath the surface of the water early on. I mean, all the droughts and the floods and the hydrocycle trans transform in front of our eyes and you know, uh, diminished crop yields, etcetera. What it looked like underneath the surface of the water was was bleaching corals and floating plastic where life was used

to be abundant. So we've been fine tuning this nuanced approach to how we can transition to a low carbit economy and a risk adjusted return profile that any investor would be proud to be to participate in. And what we found is and what is one of the things that the kind of climate industry doesn't speak too much about, is that one percent of atmospheric greenhouse gases are actually responsible for over of the warming because not all greenhouse

gas molecules are equal. For example, a methane molecule is eighty six times more heat trapping than a CEO two molecules. So what we do is we focus on what these molecules are called. There it's a it's a poorly chosen uh mis gnomer called short lived climate pollutants and things like methane and nitrous ox side and refrigerants. And when you focus on that, you produce something called a higher

cr o I carbon return on investment. And we even invented our own metric called c r o I twenty which frontloads the warming abatement in the first twenty years to make sure that we are doing our part to minimize the warming cycle because, as you can imagine, warming receives more glacier melts more ice, which which creates less reflectivity to the solar radiation back into space, which creates

more warming. So the more we can frontload our impact, the higher the more time will buy ourselves long term. So Abraham with the Biden Infrastructure Plan includes more billion dollars to boost clean energy and promote climate resilience. Is it enough? Is it a start? How do you view it?

So it's definitely not enough. We literally need trillions of dollars, about two point three trillion dollars a year just an energy infrastructure investment alone, let alone all the other areas that contribute to warming, because it's not just an energy play. Our food systems are water systems or agricultural systems. They all contribute, and they contribute substantially. So we need a much higher number than what this plan is proposing. But

it is a start. We're now talking about this, and I'm glad that the market understands that this is a massive job creation opportunity. It's a massive investment opportunities, probably the largest investment opportunity in human history. Because everything has to be upgraded. All the nineteenth century and twenty century is infrastructure technology that we rely on all has to be upgraded to their twenty first century counterparts. So and this is these are all um technologies that make us

a better, faster, more cleaner society. So this is a natural transition, and I'm glad that we now have to do it, and we can't you no longer just can you know, kick the can further down the road any longer. We have to do it now. And I'm proud of this administrations for leading the charge in putting it out there and investing these close to a trillion dollars on it. We only have about thirty seconds within this bill. There's been a lot of talk about those e V charging stations.

A lot of people have said that batteries aren't always clean in and of themselves. Are the EV charging stations and the push to EV is that a good enough goal to have as we think about getting away from

traditional gasoline. So, I mean, the the energy infrastructure in the US is all being upgraded, you know, maybe albeit slowly, to a clean, clean sources and a new upgraded grid, which is there's a lot of money for upgrading the grids between that we can now treat forward energy from places that are efficient when it comes to wind and solar to areas that are less efficient. So yep, all right, Abra, We're going to leave it there. Thank you so much

for joining us. Ibraham al Husseini, founder and managing partner of a full cycle, joining us from Los Angeles. Let's get the latest on the investigation into the harrisment claims against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. I guess one of the most recent pieces of news on that is Cuomo's top aid, Melissa de Rosa, resigns mid harrassment claims against the governor, raising to some the question of you know

who shares in some of this liability here. Let's get to that question with Ronnie said Home, managing partner set Home Law Group based in New York City. So Ronnie, thanks so much for joining us here. I thought it very interesting that again, this top aid Melissa de Rosa resigned. What do you thinks behind that and what are some of the I guess legal risk for those in the Cuoma inner circle. Thank you so much for having me

on the show. First and foremost, well, you know your guess is as good as mine on why she resigned. But most individuals do not resign from a a job that pays them upwards of two and seven thousand dollars

a year for no reason. But from a legal perspective, there's something called aider and a better liability, And very briefly, it means that even if you are not the person who is accused of sexual harassment in this case, you're not Governor Cuomo, you may still be found to help have helped him uh with his pursuits, and therefore you

may be found liable. So in this case, perhaps Mr Rosa was an aider and a better Your guess is as good as mine should I mean, have we seen examples of this aid aider and a better in business cases or just your corporate cases that you've seen. I mean, there there is certainly a lot of discussion about aid or and a better liability, but in my opinion, there is not enough of a discussion. We always focus on

the individual who was sexually harassing somebody. Of course, that's important, but when you have someone here uh with who is accused by several women, not just one woman, it's likely that there's a whole litany of people who who are helping the protagonist, and therefore, I think we should have more cases that discussed this aid or and a better liability. But yes, you do see it oftentimes with banks in

law firms. Unfortunately, there have been several of the news I'm sure you've touched on the subject, and in larger corporations. I mean, should there be It seems like it's extraordinary difficult for the victims to to move forward with their cases. Here. Is there some belief within the legal community that maybe there should be some standard le google protocol to maybe manage this whole process better, to give uh the victims maybe more rights or make it a better process to manage.

I think that while there is a lot of training, you know, it was made mandatory, you know, relatively recently having sexual harassment training on annual basis in New York State and New York City prior to New York State, I don't think that the training goes far enough in

helping people with their investigations. I don't think that there is enough information and communication around the fear that some people may have and that's why they're not coming forward, whether it is because they were harassed or because they're helping uh this person sexually harassed somebody. It can be something as small as you convince someone to go into a room alone with another person, or it can be

uh more subtle. But the point is there's generally, in my experience, multiple people involved when there are multiple victims involved Cisco. I mean, you think about this, and there's been some very high profile cases coming out of the media industry, for example with Harvey Weinstein and maybe you know some other executives in the media industry. It seems like unless it gets to the board level, it doesn't

really get the attention it needs. I mean, is it something that board members need to be held accountable for for the workplace of the company. Uh. That's a tough question, and to me, it would really depend upon how often this board is meeting and what information gets to the board. I don't think you should hold someone accountable simply because

they're part of an organization. In fact, recently, I think there was a good decision that said that your boss, Mr bloom berghers himself cannot be named as a defendant simply because somebody in the organization may have harassed somebody. So I don't think it's fair to attack the owner. I don't think it's fair to attack the board members

if they had nothing to do with it. However, in my mind, it doesn't matter to me whether the aid or in a better was a high profile person or you know, a lowly low rank individual or someone who's not even part of the company. Anyone who is involved in this kind of behavior needs to be punished, and

no one is really discussing that. Instead, uh, people are allowed to resign or they just disappear, But we need to go after those individuals also because I don't want there to be a culture of approved, condoned, or any other word you want to use sexual harassment in the workplace. What what are you looking forward to as next steps? With Governor Cuomo in this whole situation, would what should we be looking forward to as next steps? I mean, I would really uh like to hear both sides of

the story. I'm an attorney, so I do believe in, you know, the system of justice that we have here. I I think that we need to hear both sides. But at the same time, I think that the inquiry that the Attorney General was making into non Governor Cuomo employees is a good one and I really want to monitor that and see where that goes. How I mean, this is something that would go potentially outside of his inner group, or do you think this is they're going

to try to keep it pretty close. I think they're going to try to keep it relatively close. I mean, just putting the law side for a second and using logic, it's easier to get somebody who's a confident of yours. It was personal loyalty to you to help you with whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. Exactly. So, all right, very good, Ronnie set Home, thank you so much for joining us. Roddy set Home, managing partner for set Home Law Group based in New York City, giving us some

added context to these investigations of Governor Cuomo. Looking at the markets here again, kind of a bye day in the markets. SMP essentially no change, the Dow off about two tenths of one percent, and NASDAC up just slightly up about one tenth of one percent. The Russell the small cap stocks, they are off about two tenths of one percent. Looking at the treasury market here to ten year treasury trading off three UH off about three basis points, putting the yield up I'm sorry, to one point three

percent a ten year, I'm sorry. The third years still below two percent on the tenure at one point nine five H so just extraordinary. We've had some rates moving back up over the last several days, but still historically low. Of course, as we have a Federal Reserve talking about continued low rates UH and really talking about tapering perhaps late this year, but more likely into next year. So that's kind of what we're getting out of the Federal Reserve.

And of course Jackson Hole coming up later this month. That'll be another data point or another opportunity for the Fed to UH lay out some scenarios here. Looking at the uh VIC for Tom Keane, it remains low at seventeen. Looking at the dollar Index d x Y nine two point nine at d x y slightly higher here this morning, balance of power with David Weston that is coming up in just moments. He will drive the conversation forward and have the latest on the infrastructure package. On Paul Sweeney,

this is Bloomberg. Like most people, my TV viewing is going more and more from the lineal traditional UH television broadcast cable networks more towards streaming. More and more content is going towards streaming, and a lot of that streaming is advertising supported. And we talk about advertising, you have to count that audience, and that historically has meant a c Nielsen in company getting those Nielsen ratings. But not everybody thinks Nielsen is doing a good job with the

streaming world. Disney, I'm sorry to Discovery CEO David Zaslow he hopes the industry leaves Nielsen in the dust after ratings blunders. Let's get to the bottom of that with Mark Douglas, founder and CEO of m N t N pronounced Mountain based in Los Angeles. Mark, thanks so much for joining us here. You know, Nielsen, it seems like you know they've been the gold standard for advertising, television advertising. Um, that's the metric that billions of dollars of ads spending

is bought and sold every year. But they've had a hard time keeping up with the new technologies. Where are they VISA V streaming? Well, the way they think about Nielsen is, in my view, they're an analog company and we now live in a world. So the way they measure audiences is they literally asked people what they watch using panels, and you know, when you had cable television,

that was the only way to do it. But now we live in the world where everything is delivered direct to your home and it can be precisely measured, and Nielsen is not yet doing that, and that's the problem, and you know, some big money is being spending. We talked about advertising streaming on demand a s v O D. I think that's Peacock, right, is that is Peacock an example of that, absolutely, so Peacock. There's what's called Crimson streaming,

which everyone knows is Netflix and Disney Plus. But the bigger the market that's going very quickly is ad supported. So that's Peacock and Bravo and Discovery Channel, any of the things you watch like on your your Roku or you Apple TV, any of those apps that's that's generally most of that now app supporters. So how did those companies, like again the Discovery CEO publicly saying, you know, we're leaving you know, a lot of money on the table

because Nils is not capturing that audience. Do we know how much money in fact is being left on on the table. Well, I think the way to think about that is is last year or even this year, there was a lot of talk about shows that were under performing big ones like The Ochsters and things like that, and some of that probably definitely had to do with the audience losing interests are being preoccupied with the pandemic.

But increasingly people think it was just literally Nielsen couldn't measure it or didn't measure it, and so that costs those companies a lot of money because the ad rates are based on the size of the audience, and so if Nielsen doesn't measure the entire audience that someone like the CEO of Discovery, that's a really, really big issue.

It left a lot of money on the table. Also for advertisers, they want to know how many people they're reaching, and so if Nielson can't tell them um accurately, then that's a problem. But luckily we're moving into this world where it is to be accurately measured, just not by Meilson. What is Nielsen's response to these criticism, because historically it seems to me they've always been three or four years behind where the industry was in terms of how people

are consuming the video. I'm not sure Nielsen has a response. Look at other forms of advertising. If you look at Google with paid search, or you look at Facebook with

paid social, um, they don't need a Nilsen. Google can tell you exactly how many ads they served in how many people and the and so can Facebook, and so can every other company in the digital ad industry like Mountain we do we do ads on on streaming television, and so Nielsen there's not necessarily room for them, and and it's not needed, and there's no other form of what you can think of a digital adverage tiking, which is what streamingsion is when Nielsen plays a role, and

I don't think they're going to play a role in streaming at all going forwards, certainly not a role they played on cable. On cable television the path I think the best days are behind them. Well, who is the replacement for Nielsen er or what is the technology or what is the solution here to capture this this viewing right, So when you're at home and you're watching, you pick the show you want to watch. Even though it feels like a television experience, it's more like going on the

internet and just picking a video to watch. It's more like YouTube, you know, just selecting the video and so that's called that's that direct streaming is done through technology called in add server and and any time that add server streams any time that shows just like if YouTube, you play a video off YouTube, YouTube is able to count it um anyone streaming those shows like Discovery like you know and a peacock, they are counting the number

of views themselves and they can report that data directly to the advertiser and to variety and you know, all the sources that are interested in them. So there's no there's not a need for this end. The company that estimates the number of people watch you know, all of these TV network now can just tell you exactly because the streaming one point is the whole point in was it was an independent measurement. Will advertising dollars be transacted on something that you know Discovery tells me or CBS

tells me, Well it is. Now there are ways of auditing that you can as an advertiser demands audit rights. That's pretty common, but you know that's what everyone does now. You know, Google sells more than a hundred billion dollars a year of advertising, Facebook over eighty billion, dollars a year, and for the most part, those same advertisers trust the data that Google shares them and trust the data that Facebook. But the advertisers can get smart and they can ask

the ways to audit the data. And I don't think you know, Google or any TV network wants to and caught up in the scandal of you know, overestimating their numbers. All right. Fascinating story, market developing story for the world of digital advertising and some of these streaming networks to get their fair share. Mark Douglas, founder and CEO of Mountain based in Los Angeles. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews

at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three on Fall Sweeney, I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.