SpaceX Sends Civilians Into Space

I grew up with the Apollo program and all that kind of stuff. My mom, who is she's older than you, though, Paul, but she gets terry when she watches it. There's this big nostall jobund it and I think, I know, I think there's value, but anyway, it's it's it's very cool. But this is completely commercial flight, so very cool. Ed Ludlow, he's our West Coast correspondent. He covers rockets and all that kind of stuff. I don't know what he does

for a living, but apparently he's in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Ed. What can you tell us about this flight? I'm talking this is really a commercial flight. There's no astronauts or anything. Yeah, this is an all civilian crew. Um. The mission commander is a chap called Jarediazingman, who's the CEO of a thin tech company shift for payments, and he's a billionaire, so you know, we're kind of continuing this theme. He's

funding the mission. But the other three crew members are genuine civilians, you know, they're not professional astronauts, and they're currently orbiting Earth at altitude of three hundred and sixty miles. You know, that's further than the International Space Station, is further than the Hubble telescope even and it's actually the furthest that SpaceX has ever sent. It's Dragon spacecraft. So this is kind of a real landmark mission for not

just commercial space flight, but human spaceflight. You know, you don't have to be a decorated astronaut with a with an Air Force back history to make it. You can go to space now being an everyday joe. So let's talk about the everyday joe. And when will this officially really start to ramp up and is it monthly, quarterly, weekly?

What can we expect that's the top question. You know, SpaceX are really supplied and strained Benji Reid, who's one of the directors of the company, spoke to me about this the day before the launch, but that you know, they have around four to six flights potentially in um. But the demand is there, they say, you know, there is a list of willing, paying customers. I think there's still massive question marks about the economics of this. You know,

on this occasion, you have one billionaire. Okay, guys, he's a modest billionaire, just a couple of billions, but he's paying for it with his checkbook. And and that's really the question that SpaceX has not been able to answer. In fact, they haven't answered me. I've asked going forward, who pays for this? You know, does it rely on philanthropy? Does it rely on SpaceX kind of discounting trip? Is this done through lotteries? You know, things like that, And

we really don't know for now. It does really seem like a rich man's sport. What are these four passengers, I guess, I guess I don't call them astronauts. What are these passengers doing up there for three days? Yeah? Well, what I always say is this that they Dragon Capsule is Philly autonomous. You know, it's in orbit, but you know, largely it powers itself and can be controlled from ground

control by SpaceX. But if something goes wrong, they have had five to six months of intense training, two different scenarios to react and deal with that. But you know, largely they're up there to the experience. I don't know if you guys remember the image, but when they send Dragon up to the International Space Station, the nose cone opens up, and that is this the zone that docks with I S. S. But they don't need to dot

with BASS. So when the nose cone opened this time around, it revealed this beautifully curved, thick glass window, so they'll be taking time to look out of it, look back down at Earth, look out into space. One of the passengers, or one of the civilian astronauts, is somebody called Haley after No. She is a cancer survivor who went on to be a physicians assistant at St. Jude, who are

actually this mission is raising money for St. Jude. The aim is two million, but she is technically the medical officer on this trip, and she'll be doing biological physiological experiments on her crewmates while they're in orbit for three days. You know, they'll be moving around the cabin. And and as you know, I've been telling people, Chris Ambroski, who is the mission specialist, he won his seat because his buddy won the seat in a lottery or a wrap

or lottery. He didn't want to go, so he gave his his seat to Chris. And Chris has taken a ukulele with him, so he'll be discovering what it's like to play a string instrument in space and rootcap for us here there. And you know the inner workings of the top three you mentioned Virgin Clactic and SpaceX and Blue Origin and the inherent maybe friendly competition though if

one succeeds, then we all can succeed. Where are we in wanting to be the first, wanting to be the best, but also knowing that multiple players in this market in the end actually could be better. Yeah, I think you know the main voice in all of this is NASA. Right. SpaceX is success today was born out of the commercial crew program, which NASHA put in place a decade ago because simply the public sector funded space programs weren't working.

You know, the Shuttle program ultimately was shut down. And NASA's view on this is that competition is good, and the private sector is good. They had no involvement in this mission, They did not fund it, they did not take part in the training or the risk assessment. But they think that it's a really substantive step forward. So that's one part of it. But to be completely frank, SpaceX is so ahead of the game compared with the

rest of the players. Um, you know, basically SpaceX sends two thirds of all payloads sent from all of it that includes everyone, private sector, government payloads. You know, they dominate that industry, not because they have some kind of monopoly, but because they simply are just the best at it. You know, they have they can fly with such regularity because their technology is the best. And the final thing I would say is that it's unequivocal across the investment community,

NASA aerospace engineers. This mission is such a much bigger deal than what we saw from Bezos and Branson. It is an order of magnitude more difficult and risky. What they have done real quickly, how did they get back? Did they splash down in the ocean? Allah the Apollo astronauts, how did they get back? Yeah, exactly. So there are

several target zones off the coast of Florida. It's completely weather dependent the timing and exact location, but the dragon capsule can orient itself so that the Earth's gravitational pool brings it back down through as atmosphere. The flat bottom slows it down with air resistance, and then it uses a series of parachutes and by the time it does splash down is just a few miles an hour. Nice and gentle Edla Low, thank you so much for joining us.

Nice and gentle Ed La West Coast corresponding for Bloomberg News. He is down in Cape Canaveral bringing us live reporting on this really really cool space mission SpaceX. And I like how Ed framed aft force order of magnitude more difficult than and then what we saw from just recently from Richard Branson and uh and uh Jeff Bezos. Yeah, no, Ed is great. He he knows the stuff inside it

out and always brings us some perspective along with some humor. Well, we have read on the screen, but it's been an odd week, you know, one day up, the next day down, the next day up. So no real direction here at least uh for this week. As people come back and kind of get focused on this market in September. Let's bring in David coudla Uh. He is founder, CEO, and chief investment strategists at main Staate Capital. We have about

three point eight billion dollars under management. David, thanks so much for joining us here. You know, market feels a little directction lists here. Where do you think the next five to move is a lot of folks feel like it's to the downside. Good morning, Paul. Yeah, it definitely seems like the market is uh just uh mandering, meandering sideways. We've had seven of the last nine days have been negative days for the index, but Pete de trough intra

day that's only a little over two percent declined. So it's not the extreme volatility that some mighty expect in September October or we've been waiting for for so long. H this has been a very non volatile year for the market, indexes, for stocks in general. I think that though that as we worked through this, I think the direction for the market through year end is higher um and higher by as much as another four or five six.

And is that based on fundamentals or fomo? Well, certainly fomo has been uh an important factor and in this boolmarket all the way through certainly, um, you know by this time last year as we came off the bear market lows in March. But you know, when we when we look at where we're at in the cycle, uh, and there is questions about the economy, there's questions about what. You know, we've had downward revisions by the Fed, Atlanta Fed and their GDP forecast, by a lot of the

big banks in their GDP forecasts. But we've still got an economy that's growing. We've got the risk of inflation. But our latest number, uh, the inflation was down a little bit. Import prices came in down three tenths of a percent. That's the lowest in a year, or the first decline in a year. So we're importing less inflation.

So uh, you know that when we when we net that all out, though, I believe that we we still have hired for the market to go based on fundamentals, based on also our belief, not the consensus belief, but our belief that FED tightening or FED tapering is not coming as soon as as many might expect. Because it seems like, you know, again we did get some hawkish views on tapering from the FED recently. Yet the as you know, as you just mentioned, the markets only off

a couple of percent from it's high. So if you're a bull, you could take that as a pretty decent sign. Is that how you think about it? Yeah, And the other thing that we're maybe at a non consensus view on also is the UH where we are with COVID UH and where we're going. You know, we I've probably heard five times over the last five weeks that that the delta variant has peaked, but yet we've got the news UH here this week that the state of Iowa

is rationing hospital beds. Who would have thought at this point in the pandemic any where in the US we'd be rationing hospital beds deciding who's going to get treatment or not. So, you know, the way we look at it is we're only another variant away from that having even further economic impacts, impacts on the supply chain, and you know, those are things that the FED will consider and when they do or don't taper, and there's just so much so with the amount of liquidity that's out

there billion a month, there's so much liquidity. I think that's why we haven't seen any significant downstrokes, downside volatility of the market, and the trend continues to be higher. I am curious what queues you're taking from the bond market with spread still so tight relative to historical standards? Again, does that sound like fundamentals or is this excess yield taking? Well, you know, the question is what kind of signals can we take from the bond market at all these days? Uh?

You know, how can we have a tenure yield tenure treasury yield trading around one point when inflation is at five point three or five point four percent? Use the tailor role, use any role. Um We've talked about a lot. Uh you know that doesn't that doesn't make sense. Uh. So you know, bond yields are so much influenced by uh the artificial factor, the intervention of the ft. We think it's more telling of what the fet is doing than what it can give us in terms of good

signals about the economy. Valuation, where are we are you concerned? Valuations are stretched, but they're stretched in a low interest rate environment. As I said, the tenure trading down around one point three percent, So we think we can still have multiple expansion in the US. But you know, one thing that we're looking at is is uh is. We're looking abroad because what we've seen now is if we look at the M s c I All Country Index,

x US basically has developed countries. We're um that index is trading at a thirty point five pc discount to the S and P five hundred. That's the highest ever. So we're also looking abroad to foreign opportunities in Europe, in Japan to both diversify our portfolio for overall risk mitigation and as a tactical opportunity for our performance going forward. Interesting. All right, David, thank you so much for joining us again.

We always appreciate getting your thoughts. David Coudla, founder, CEO, and chief investment strategist of Mainstay Compital Management. Interesting takeaway, they're kind of looking at the outside the US for opportunities and seeing evaluation play there. Let's talk crypto here. I guess one of the issues for a lot of folks that I talked to, you know, just kind of cocktail conversation, is I hear all about this crypto stuff bitcoin, How do I get exposure to it? How do I

invest in it? Let's check in with Ian Billina founder and CEO of Token Metrics uh In. You're also the author of the book Crypto Investing Guide, How to invest in Bitcoin, Defy n f T S and more so Ian. When people come up to you at a cocktail party and say, how do I invest in crypto? I feel like I should have some percentage of my portfolio in crypto. What's your go to response? I'll throw all thanks for having me good to responses. Because it is a new

asset class, it is riskier than other asset classes. However that there is an opportunity for more upsite. What I typically till that is, start by investor with what you're willing to lose, whether that's one percent of your net worth, whether that's five percent of your net worth, but whatever you invested to crypto, make sure you're willing to lose this because um outside but there's also lots of downside with crypto investing, and just then that's why we haven't

book published recently. As you mentioned, see if we can, and I think we're we've got a kind of a choppy line there, so we're gonna see if we can improve that. Uh And if we can, we'll come back to you I'm just looking at bitcoin here. Today XPT is the symbol forty seven thousand, three and sixty eight dollars or three seventy dollars per token off about one point one percent today dig up to fifty two tho uh.

And it's got a support tailor, I mean for the technical folks out there for bitcoin of about thirty thousand dollars per token that's been tested several times, but it bounced really nicely off of that thirty thousand the last time I got up to dollars per token. Yeah, and

there's been a lot of interesting conversations. We spoke with Eric Balcunas are pretty expert yesterday Bloomberg Intelligence, and he twice now was pretty strongly put his money on a bitcoin or a crypto et F by around mid October or so, that sec Gary Gensler, and I'm not going to get into all the craziness that Eric valtun Is can do so well, but the Securities Act of thirty four versus forty, and Eric was saying, Gary Gensler prefers one, and so this way they can get through the e

t F this way, and you know, that could be a huge catalyst for this market as well. Eric was saying, Yeah, that's gonna be really interesting. We have in Billina back, founder and CEO of Token Metrics, So and again you kind of start off by saying, how do you invest in this and you do it carefully. How important do you think getting an e t F, a bitcoin et F or crypto e t F will be to the growth of this market. I think it will be huge because it will be an avenue for people to slowly

passively invest in to crypto assets. And I think it would be really the welcoming of institutional investors and people with the full one case the pension funds being able to investen to crypto without having to become experts in crypto. Can you talk to us about institutional investors when they come in. Does it help legitimize the market? You've had Steve Cohen, I think, say that he's getting in because

his son told him all about it. Ray Dalio said that cash is trash and he's sort of dipping around lightly in crypto. Do all of those headlines help legitimize the market. Yes, absolutely, because see if I look at institutional investors for guidance in terms of where it go for new asset classes. So when they see smart money entering the space because a validation, because people comfort that crypto assets are here to start a long term of

smart money is entering the space. Alright, So again Ian, you know, we have actually on the Bloomberg terminal c r yp is a functions kind of the monitor for all things crypto and what trades out there right now, it seems to be you know, one of the it's bitcoin,

it's ethereum. Is that kind of where people should be focused on at this point as they wait for potentially in et f Yes, but what's really been taking off recently you have been layer one protocols essentially new block change similar to etherium and bitcoin, but with different use cases.

So as of recently, projects like Avalanche, Salona, algorand all these different projects, I've been getting lots of interest from smart money from instance, from our institutions, and these could be a possible ahead versus bitcoin and ethereum, although there's still pretty nascent as as technologies. What did El Salvador a few weeks ago the first country to adopt this as sort of a legitimate currency, if you will, What

did that teach us? If anything? It taught us that it's possible, it's possible for a country, a government, a central bank too to bring in bitcoin, a new, a new particular currency into its economy. And it's really now building out the model for other countries to follow. So, for example, parag lines in other countries are looking to possibly replicate what what what has been done by El Salvador.

But even with the volatility, mean, did they show us it really like a currency is the right way instead of a store of value, even with all the volatility. I think why now is still an experiment. Uh, A lot of means to be seen in terms of what happens next. UM. For example, I was speaking to to the minister of finance of a country in Africa and they're saying they're funny challenging to bring in the currency

to Represa Entrency. However, there would be open to bringing in digital assets and seeing how they um are taken on by the country while still having control. So I think right now other countries are seeing what's going on over there and trying to learn and see if that can be replicated in their own economies. All right, and thank you so much for joining us there. Ian Billina, founder and CEO of Token Metrics, kind of getting a

update on kind of this crypto market. Again, a lot of folks are thinking about how they should get some exposure, and Ian suggesting, you know, very small percentage, one or two percent. Perhaps your portfolio be prepared to lose that all given the volatility that we're seeing in these early stages of crypto. But again, a lot of interest out there and a lot of folks are really waiting for that e t F to come, So we will certainly stay on top of this story. More to come. This

is Bloomberg. Some pretty good retail sales numbers we got this morning. Let's break them down with Angie Slonki uh, National director US Retail for Collier's joining us on the phone from San Francisco. Angie, thanks so much for joining, sir, love to just get your thoughts here. Uh, you know your knee deep in all things retail. What did you take away from this morning's numbers? Oh it was I

was more than thrilled. I have to say. The retail positivity and the momentum that we've seen from the beginning of the year has been great, but we are starting to normalize. One thing to know every person is spending an additional two sixty dollars as of last month, so quite a bit of spend. So I'm excited to see these trends. Is the spend sustainable? We all know that the data show us the consumer most consumers got more wealthy in the pandemic. You think about the savings, So

is that sustainable going forward? I don't think it will. We'll start to see some sort of normalization towards the end of the year, although positive. Um, as we we hit the end of exit, we'll start to see a normalization. I think what will happen is things will start to reset and it will start to flatten out. I think our biggest concern right now in terms of retail is the slow down in terms of global manufacturing, and that

will hurt us. So we're already seeing challenges in retail where retailers are starting to face a lack of merchandise in stores. So of course that will automatically also take place online as well. So and you here in New York City, Bloomberg HQ here on Elecington Avenue, uh all the retail shops between fifty eight and fifty ninth Street on Lexington with the exception of one small little Swiss chocolate store, they're all empty. And we were talking some

big box retailers. Give us a sense of how you think physical retailing will come back here as we get to the other side of this pandemic. Definitely. You know, we've actually it was interesting to um, we've done some research in house. What we've actually seen from a big box perspective is actual growth, but growth in secondary markets.

UM in the suburbs. As we've all been hearing in the reports lately, they work from home mindset continues to you know, pretty pretty much be stable, and therefore a lot of these big box operators are looking at, you know, identifying locations pretty much outside of some of the denser city So the recovery will come back to Lexington, to you know, Union Square, San Francisco. It's just going to

be a slower recovery. Yeah. Interesting. We certainly are hoping, at least for our neighborhood here that that is the case. Talk to us about some of the seasonality that we might see in these numbers. A lot of this was anticipation of back to school. I was speaking with the executive director of the Port of Long beach yesterday saying that you have to start shopping now for Christmas because your fifty ships off the coast and we can't stalk

shelves fast enough. How were the shelves on back to school? How do you see that plane out during the holiday season coming up? Yeah, that's the real challenge, UM. And we're already hearing from many of our retailers that we work with that these the supply chain, the merchandise that's still sitting out UM is delaying product delivery and it is being delayed anywhere from three to four to five months, which is causing you know, this kind of pent up demand.

But yet this frustration from the customer's point of view. So their challenge with oh my goodness, how how early do I need to buy from my holiday shopping? UM? I just read this, which is really fascinating to me. Apparently the disruption and supply chain UM as it relates to artificial Christmas trees is causing pricing to skyrocket up by So we're seeing this across every level of merchandise,

whether it's shoes, apparel, you name it, furniture. The delays are just exponential and are people going to sit back and wait. This is they're they're forced to at this point about the labor Aie, it seems like every restaurant you walk by or go into says we need workers. Um, how are the restaurants dealing with the labor shortage. It's really challenging. Their limiting their menus, they're shortening their hours

and due to the purely because of labor issues. They're also you know, at this point, some of the smaller restaurant groups that are more I would not you know, not your nationals or regionals or st writing to not only increase their hourly wages beyond the minimum wage, but

also giving bonuses in order to attract um. We're also starting to see people tap into high schools and asking, you know, the sixteen year olds to see how they can intern slash learn a new skill set in order to help the labor issues out we're faced in pretty much most markets. Yeah, we're seeing that across the Boarder hearing that across the board as well from a lot of industries. Angie Solanki, National director US Retail for Colleige Or, thank you so much for joining us, Thanks for listening

to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews of Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three. Put on false Sweeney I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio