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But it's hard to understand, at least for me. The ISM Services index. John was just saying comes in a bit light. Price is paid coming in light, employment coming in light, and new orders coming in light, but like some of them are still over expansion. So we've got to get to the guy behind the data. Anthony Yavis is chair of the Ism Services Business Committee, and he is here with us to help break down this data. Is this a good report or is this a slowing bad report?
I look at it as being a good report, and the reason being, as we know the baseline being fifty, we're still experiencing growth month over months. So even though we had this pulled back of one point two percentage points to the fifty one point four from fifty two point six, activity still looks fairly strong. It's up point two percentage points and new orders, which tells us what's in the pipeline. Did come down one point seven percent,
but again we're north of the fifty baseline. It's a fifty four point four, which indicates that we'll have continued growth. As you mentioned in the prelude, that we see employment and deliveries of what's pulling down the composite index here.
So again, as we think about the services part of the economy, the major part of the US economy, again just for our listeners and our viewers, anything above fifty is expansion, So that part of the economy is still expanding, is that the way that you think about it.
Absolutely, And we're measuring change month over a month, So what we're seeing is just a slowing in the rate of growth. And the employment picture is continues. As I've been saying for several months now, it's a mixed bag. Forty eight point five, it's down point five percentage points.
And what the respondents are indicating is that, you know, they're very cautious and it's a controllable expense for them, and so interesting some of the respondents indicated in their comments that even though business activity is still going good, that they're not hiring. They're holding back, waiting to see how things materialize. In the upcoming months, because as you mentioned about pricing, pricing still shows increases month over month.
It's strong, but it's somewhat stabilizing from where it was in the past. And well we see the most volatility continues to be in the food items.
Do you get the impression when you talk to the respondents that they're going to have to look at layoffs or is it just more about hiring more.
It's a combination, and it depends on the industry. It varies by industry within the sectors within this sector, i should say, and you know, certain industries like accommodation and food services is continuing to hire, whereas we know with the slowdown that we experienced in the past with real estate rental and leasing, there you're not hiring.
All right, Anthony, thanks a lot, We really appreciate it. It's always good to get the details here. Anthony Javis share of the Ism Business Services Committee again that overall index still an expansionary territory, but definitely still slowing down just.
A little bit.
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This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio. We bring you all the amazing work from our Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. They cover over two thousand companies and one hundred and forty industries all around the world. And one of them is named Tim
Craighead Bloomberg Intelligence Research Director for content fancy title. And the reason why is because he came up with a really great list along with his teammates about fifty companies to why in January they came up with that and that was the ones you got to watch for this year. And they're now back with ten specifically just for the
second quarter, based on scenarios from Bloomberg Intelligence. You want to get the good apples from the bad apples, cross sector, cross regions, and he's here now to help us break it down. Hey, Tim, thanks for joining. Okay, so what are the top ten?
So Alex, thanks for having me on a couple of things to keep in mind here. Top ten for two Q. These are part of a broader set of focus ideas that we've got there's roughly seventy five to eighty of them right now, across sectors, across regions. These specifically have important catalysts coming up into Q that we think can
bring the market around to our perspective. All of these focus ideas have really strong, high conviction fundamental views that we think are different from the market, and these catalysts should bring that awareness around. It's it's a group of US companies. There's four of them. Uh, there's three in Europe, three in in Asia, and they span the gamut from healthcare, med tech products to big financials to tires. So interesting group.
And Tim one of the ones that you know, I've been kind of thinking about. I just think these Olympics in Parish are going to be just huge, and I'm thinking that ways to play it. You guys have one of them in the lodging space. Talk to us about that opportunity.
Yeah, we do. Acor it's a big French hotel company. You might not know Acor, but you probably know some of their underlying brands. And you know, anybody who's made a hotel booking as of late knows that the prices seem to be really high. Surprisingly so that's feeding Acor's rev par They're they're pricing, which is playing through into profit margins, and the catalyst for these guys is, in fact,
the Paris Olympics. We should start to see early booking data over the course of two Q heading into Summer Olympics. Now Paris is only one part of their portfolio. They're across Europe and Asia, and we're seeing a strong sustained travel recovery story that we think is better than consensus expects.
But apparently they have to like clean out the send. Did you read that that there's so much to you, Like can you imagine being an Olympic swimmer and like there's garbage hitting you in the send? I mean they're working on it.
They're definitely working on it.
Okay.
Your second one is in retail chow Tai Fuk. No one's going to know this company here in the US, So tell us about it and why this makes the outlook.
Yep.
So that and the next one on the list from an alphabetical perspective, are both sort of interesting twists on the same underlying theme, and that's China. We all know that there's problems in China. From the standpoint that the property market, and now that's playing through in terms of sentiment, uh with the wealth effect on spending plans, et cetera.
Child Tai Fook is arguably the best known Chinese retailer when it comes to jewelry, and it's a big market historically for tourists and travelers coming into Hong Kong and to make those purchases. In fact, what we're seeing right now is Hong kongers are going out of Hong Kong across the border in the mainland China to shop for
pretty much everything because it's cheaper. So you combine that with negative sentiment, we think Hong Kong retail sales are going to disappoint, and Child Tai Fuk is a poster child.
The other one, CSC Financial is one of the largest Chinese brokerages you know, good old fashioned, you know, wealth management, and they are the investment banking business we think is set for disappointment because I POS and other new new stock listings are way under way, underwater, and you know, we think you're going to see investment banking revenue disappoint You know.
I was looking through the list here, Tim, and I was looking for a name from Michael Dean and the European Autos team, and I think I found one in Perelli Tires.
Yes, indeed, I started to say, if you're an F one fan, but that's more from a European perspective than NASCAR in the US. But Perelli is a well known tire maker and what they're doing is twofold Number one, upgrading their mix. They're getting rid of some of their lower end products. And number two, they've taken on a pretty big initiative to shift production from core Europe to places like Romania over here in Mexico over there, all
of which is driving better margins. And we think that this is going to continue more than what consensus currently bakes in.
Plus, it's from one of my favorite analysts over in our London office, Gillian Davis, doing some good work there, so good stuff.
Home Building Morrison made the list.
That's not normally the company you think of when you think of like a homebuilder, right, you're thinking Lenar, KB homes, et cetera. How does one make a list?
Yeah, I mean they're they're continuing to expand, specifically in some larger developments in Florida and Texas, and it just seems to be a case of good old fashioned running the numbers with those expansion plans feeding through and their order book coming through better than anticipated, where we think their positive surprises d but it certainly is you know, it is a classic story from the standpoint of expanding order books, expanding volumes.
You know, one name that's onnor that surprising, but I think it's a potential rule opportunity. Is Tencent talks about big Chinese e commerce because for a lot of people tim as you well know, China's kind of taboot right now. From an investment perspective.
It is, especially when it comes to technology and regulatory concerns, and you know, beij focusing in on you know, what the big tech companies are doing. You know, historically these have ten cents driven by online gaming and that growth rate is still somewhat muted. But there's more video that's coming through. There's AI assisted advertising that is that is growing. Both of those are drivers of their income statement that we think are underappreciated. We think it's mid teams of
growth going forward. But if you do the math, the market seems to be discounting basically static to maybe low single digit growth rates and so there it's just a it's just a case where we think the market doesn't realize that they're back to having good, solid forward growth.
Yeah, it's gonna be I mean it could be a really interesting story. A lot of folks again really not sure how to play that part of the market. Tim Craig, thanks for joining us. Always appreciate getting your thoughts. Tim craigett Research director for Content. He has also got a day job European Equity Streates just and we're appreciating some
of his times from Bloomberg Intelligence. He's based in our London office, the Queen Victoria Street offices, which are just awesome right in the City of London, right near the Bank of England. You can't get more city of London and heart of the financial system in London than the Bank of England, and that's where Bloomberg has their offices.
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Intel disappointing outlooks, dock down seven percent. It's one of those chip makers that's really bucking the trend here. It's down nineteen percent a year to date, while you got some of the others, Nvidia Broadcom putting up just extraordinary gains. So it feels like it's Intel's missing that. So let's break it down a little bit more for Intel, the chip names, tech, the markets overall. We can do that
on our next guest, Kim Forest. She's the founder and chief investment officer at Boca Partners, I believe, located in Pittsburgh, lovely city, big fan of Pittsburgh. All right, Kim, on your list on your notes, top picks continue to be Intel, A and D mu Let's start with Intel. What is Intel just not getting right here?
Sure? Well, a couple of things.
They are coming up a very steep hill from where prior CEOs left them, and what happened was they kind of fell behind the curve in making sure that they could make the very fastest, best chips they could, and their technology just floundered.
That's pretty much the short answer.
Now. Pat Gelsinger was a long time Intel employee, went over to run VMware, came back to Intel, and he's been trying to write the ship. But more than that, he's been trying to make them into a foundry for other company companies that designed chips. So this is a long and arduous process. Becoming a foundry is they've they've done that for specific companies in the past, but they want to make it more broad like akin to what Taiwan's Semiconductor can do. And they're just going to have
to come up the curve and spend some money. So they have the one two Pine ship spending money and then not having that hot AI chip, which is what is driving everybody else in the world apparently.
Yeah, exactly.
So let's I love to just get your your AI AI call if you will. How much do you believe in it? How big can it be? And how are you guys maybe playing it?
Sure? Well? A couple of things.
You have to understand that before I came over to this side of the world finance, I was a software engineer doing AI.
Like how lucky is that? Okay?
I know how Right's super Yes, it's nerd girl right here anyhow. But moving on, So I believe in AI and I think a couple of things that are going to drive it forward.
First, we have enough data.
We didn't have enough data in the nineties when I was doing it to be able to meaningfully understand the world through the lens of AI problems. The second thing is we have cheap fast computers. Again, we're spending a lot of money on these computers, but for the compute power back in the day. These are incredibly fast machines
that are incredibly cheap. And the third thing is, and I always look through technologies with technology with this lens, is we can actually make AI be productive, right like help humans out. And I think putting those three things together, I'm a strong believer in it. But the caveat is this, it's not going to happen in the next fifteen minutes
or even next year. It's probably going to take seven to ten years for this really to play out and to change the world in fundamental ways, much like the rollout of the Internet was so kim.
How do you play that?
Then?
Like, is it not an Nvidia play? Is it going to be a different kind of play?
Well, I think you're going to have to cast your net a little wider than in Nvidia. I love Nvidia, but they do have a reputation for making the fastest chips at the highest prices, and that's why I'm a believer still in Intel, even as it rolls that rock up the hill to correct itself. I think that it
can do that. And I also think AMD is a good supplier as well, and people building aid data centers aren't going to want to spend the bucks for Nvidia in perpetuity, and I think that's just what is going to drive those two names.
Micron, Micron, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Okay, yeah, and I love to be cool like nerd girl, cool but still cool. Okay, but I'm back so Micron, I can't under estimate or understate this or overstate this enough. That's what I mean is that AI needs a lot of data, like tons and tons of data, and I won't get into it. That's beyond here. There are really good reasons why. But you're gonna need tons of data and you're gonna need to store it in duplicative ways, and so any bet on storing data is a good
bet right now. And I think Micron is among the leaders of land storage, which is kind of non volatile chip storage and not a spinning disk.
So that's the shortest answer. I can get for that one.
Kim, I have an ancillary This is totally talking my own book here. What about power plays in relation to AI? Just because if you want to run all the stuff, you need a ton of power and the amount of money that these companies are gonna be willing to pay for it has got to be astronomical concerning that we haven't seen power demand grow at all in twenty years.
Are you playing this derivative play at all?
Not yet, because I don't really see a good way to do it. You know, there you can by like certain power companies that are probably physically well positioned, that have assets that are somewhat cheaper where the companies will build their data centers. That's one way to do it. It's too long of a play, Like, I'd rather stay back in the AI kind of direct space rather than that or even you know, the the data center providers.
You could play it that way too, But again, I like my margins a little higher than those end markets.
Yeah, hey, it's interesting Kim thinking about Tesla. I'm just I want to want to get your opinion on if you have one. I mean a stocks down thirty two percent year to date. Boy, has the tide turn on that name, the sentiment turned on that name. Do you have an opinion on Tesla here?
I've never invested in Tesla because I like my CEO is more focused than Elon must But that being said, like it is a battery storage play, and your other question, Alex was on power plays. Maybe batteries are going to be one of the ways that we allow for, you know, the build out of electric power. So I think they have more than one product there. I think evs have also been overrated and people didn't do enough use case scenarios,
Like I have family that lives in North Dakota. There's no way they could ever have an EV it gets to negative twenty three. There a lot, right, you can't charge them. There aren't enough towns where you could pull over and you know, recharge. It's just like it's like I look at use cases like that, and I know that not everybody lives in North Dakota, but enough people, do you know, like, and enough people live in the North that these things are not necessarily ready for it
to be your only car. And I think that's a little bit behind it. I think they make a good automobile, and I'm not sure, people are just dying for that Chevy Vault or whatever they're making, So I think they they still have a product, and they still have a certain cachet, and they were a good first mover in evs, so I wouldn't throw them out necessarily.
But funnily enough, my work car's recently all been Teslas.
I don't know what that means, but that I mean something.
Maybe they're as you're talking about Ed Ludlow, like, there's actually more teslas now because no one's actually buying them.
So then you can tree hugger capital of the world.
Yes, I live in parks that, yeah, but not necessarily. My drivers don't necessarily live there.
Bar's not taking a EV from eastern Ohio here.
I'm from Pennsylvania. We are a lot of pickups stack Yeah.
Kim, before we let you go, do you care if the FED cuts rates or not? And when they do it?
Oh? Sure I do.
Heck yeah, I mean I think we're signed up for a rate cut, and I'll say it even crazy relatively soon, I'd say before July. And I do think that they need to cut. The dollar is awfully strong relative to other currencies, and that might be able to cool us off a little bit more on that, and I think that's important because even though I'm a generalist, I love technology. We sell technology to the rest of the world at the price of a dollar, and we have to have that in mind.
Kim, thank you for joining us, as I always appreciate
getting your views there. Kim Farest. She is to founder and chief investment officer Boca Capital Partners in Pittsburgh, a former software person, a tech geek by her own admissions, So good stuff there talking about AI and boy that Intel news that John was reporting earlier having problems with this the founder here, it's one of those chip stocks that is not participating in the whole AI rising tide thing like it is for Nvidia and Broadcommon others.
We'll talk about a long play, right, because if they can get the founder of business really going, it could really help them either make chips for themselves and then also make it for others, and it could be a nice driver. I mean, just look at the revenue that TSM is minting. But you got to get it there, right, and it's just not quite there yet.
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Matt Winkler joins us here in studio. Matt Winkler is the founder of Bloomberg News, as he editor at Meritis right now Bloomberg News. He joins us here in our studio and he's been doing a series of opinion pieces about key swing states in the upcoming election and give us the latest on county how the economies are doing in those key states. We started with Michigan ethic and then we did California by looking at La San Francisco.
Now heading down to the great state of Georgia. Matt, what did you find in Georgia.
I love Georgia.
It seems like it's been growing for I don't know, twenty thirty years.
It's a great story.
Well, great to be with you, and you're right. Georgia population of more than eleven million makes it the eighth largest state, and it's booming right now like it never
did before. Joe Biden became the forty sixth president and we know this because not since data was initially collected in nineteen ninety has there been a three year period when growth in the Peach States manufacturing payrolls came close to matching the eleven point nine percent increase in jobs since twenty twenty one, or its rate of employment gains compared with the US overall. And that's according to data
compiled by Bloomberg. So we are seeing a manufacturing boom job boom in Georgia the likes of which Georgia has never seen. And by the way, this is counter to the trend in the twenty first century. Every presidency in the New century except Biden's has seen a decline in manufacturing jobs. So this is a departure.
So how much of that do you attribute to the Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, Because something that gets lost in all this messaging is with the IRA for example, So much of that money is actually going to Red States because they have the space to build stuff.
Well, there's no question that actually Red states are a big beneficiary. But it's not just the American Rescue Act of twenty twenty one. It's also the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, the Chips and Science Act again, the Inflation Reduction Act, all of which have helped Biden make a legitimate claim, which is he created close to eight hundred thousand manufacturing
jobs since he took office. And we know this is not an idle boast because those very careful fact checkers called PolitiFact actually took a look at this claim and they showed that the nation's manufacturing rebound is the strongest at this point after a recession since nineteen fifty one.
You weren't around.
There wasn't either.
I'll leave it there.
I'm not sure.
So is Georgia per se doing anything right versus I mean, is this all just the largest of the federal government met or does Georgia have just better incentives, better tax and centives?
Are they doing something?
Maybe some other states aren't doing well.
Well, There's no question that some of the credit has to go to, as I said, these acts, because the investments include, for example, South Korea's Hanwa Solutions Corp. Expansion of solar panel and manufacturing. They were already there. They got incentives to do a lot more than what they were doing. The same thing with Hyundai with EV vehicles,
They're already there. They're doing more. And then there's this battery company from Norway, freyer Or Battery, which is going to make clean battery manufacturing in Koeda County in Georgia. So those things are definitely tied to the incentives that come out of these acts. There's no question state and local officials have been supportive. But interestingly enough, the governor of Georgia voted against or would have voted against, the
Inflation Reduction Act. All of the Republicans in Congress voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a big part of why George is doing well. But they're not ready to give the money back. They're very happy that it's all happening.
We have seen with some of these acts that we get all excited about the money that's being spent, but then getting the shovel in the ground and actually doing the hiring and the manufacturing gets delayed a little bit and gets pushed out, or the plans get scaled back a bit. Are we seeing any of this in Georgia or is the outlook particularly rosy.
It's more of the latter, you know. And then again the proof of that is that if you look at the unemployment rate, uh in. In Georgia it actually declined most recently and is several percentage points, you know, less than the national average. So you know, unemployment in the US actually is ticked up a bit. In Georgia it's gone the other way. And that's an example that the boom is very much underway and shows no signs of abating.
You know, you have to remind yourself, I mean, how the economy in the South has really changed from you know, agricultural textiles, you know, very low technology touch types of venggees to now it seems like every new auto plant that you know, international automakers, they want to build them in.
The movie studios.
So much investments going to the Southeast. And that's again been a twenty third thirty year story. What's next on your state?
Yeah?
What state is?
Next year?
We'll probably get to Nevada. So we've done Pennsylvania and Michigan, now Georgia, and we're working through the list.
So if you were advising President Biden his campaign about the messaging here, what would you say in terms of because I would argue that the messaging has not been effective, that this message of economic success has not been told well.
I'd say actually their messaging has been pretty good. A lot of this data that we've compiled at Bloomberg is available in various announcements from either the White House or the Treasury. But the saying is, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't get the horse to drink. The horse in this case is our profession, the media, and it's pretty much ignored what's in front of its nose, which are the fact. So unless reporters find this relevant, I do.
It.
You know, they'd rather focus on poles. And so that's perception not reality.
Before we went on the area, you made a comment about California. How big is that economy now? Because I used to to me it was the seventh or ay largest economy.
It's number four. It's now numbers and it's poised to overtake Germany. And that's because you know, you keep talking about the Magnificent seven on this show. If you look at corporate California, Corporate California just dwarfs corporate Anywhere, dwarfs Corporate Texas, It dwarfs corporate Germany. Corporate California is still a juggernaut. And you know who those companies are, but it's not just the big companies, big and small companies alike.
In the Russell three thousand, Yeah, that make California unique.
It's yeah, it's just extraordinary, all right, Matt, thank you so much for joining us. Matt Winkler, he's the editor in chief emeritus. He is the founder of Bloomberg News for and he's now part of Bloomberg Opinion, and he joins us here in our office talking about the great state of Georgia and the strong economic performance our friends down there are seeing, particularly you know, manufacturing and employment, and for my media business, they've long been a destination.
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So here's a.
Stop for you.
At Vander it's up about ten percent so far this year, done pretty well. The top on the street is that it wants to be really a mini Thermo Fisher. So part of its business is a supplier of R and D labs for the global farmer industry, and now it's trying to make a big push into bioproductions. That's basically the equipment of manufacturing biologic and biotech drugs. Luckily, we have the CEO and president with us to help understand what this company does, what's the opportunity, what's the margin,
what's the growth. Michael Stubblefield is president and CEO of A vand Or and he joins us now from Allentown, Pennsylvania. Michael, thanks for joining walk us through dumb down what you guys do for people like me and Paul.
Yeah, Alex and Paul, thanks for having me. Really happy to be here today now. I think it's a great place for us to start the conversation today. We're probably one of the bigger companies that a lot of people have never heard of, and we are really ubiquitous in the biopharma space. I would say we enable innovation across the life sciences and events technology industries, and we really embed ourselves with our customers. We support them every step
of their scientific journey. We were in virtually every research lab around the world, more than three hundred thousand locations, and we have a really robust portfolio, an e commerce platform, and a whole host of productivity enhancing services that really help our the scientists that our customers, you know, develop the new therapies that you're referencing, and as those innovations advance to development and production, our materials and technologies become
embedded into our customers applications, everything from biological therapies to medical plants to electronics.
So, Michael, give us a sense of maybe who you're you know, a common customers, an average customer of your company. Who are your customer rebase and what did they really look to you guys for.
You're really not going to be able to find too many customers that are doing work in the biopharma or the biotech space that we wouldn't be serving in some capacity. I think that's one of the more interesting aspects of our of our business model, is that we are deeply embedded across this space. So it's everything from you know, the traditional large pharma you know, the Johnson and Johnson's amjen No Artist's of the world all the way through to you know a lot of the startups and you
know biotech companies that are out there. We have an exclusive relationship with one of the bioconsortiums here in the in the US that you know, literally thousands of how tech startups you know, uh, access our products and services across that platform. So we're extremely well positioned to serve this space.
And so basically they come to you for stuff, right like, Hey, I need this ingredient do this thing, or I need this piece of equipment to do this thing.
Right Yeah, I'm not sure we would call it stuff, but.
We break it down for you here, so talk about it.
So we have you know, you can almost think about, you know, there's nothing in a laboratory that a scientist would need that we don't supply. We have over six million products. That's everything from chemicals and reagents, to equipment and instruments to you know, plastic wear and glassware consumables. Think about just what a scientist needs in order to conduct their research in a laboratory they would be able
to procure from us. We look to be a one stop shop to meet all of our customers needs within that laboratory environment. And one of the things that we really focus on is you know, bringing efficiency, you know, to our customers. A lot of the discussion in our space is how do we return time to the scientists so that they can really focus on, you know, pushing forward these breakthrough therapies that are really game changing for
patients around the world. And so we have, in addition to the products, a whole host of services and digital capabilities that we deploy really all meant to improve the efficiency of how a lab works.
I like to ask, you know, when we talk to healthcare companies anywhere within the space, I like to ask this following question, how is your business impacted by the pandemic? And maybe how is it different today than it was before, because it just seems like that whole corner of the you know, that the healthcare space really had to adjust.
Yeah, certainly interesting time from a lot of different aspects. And you know, I think it's important to point out that we did play a really important role in you know, helping address you know, the pandemic. A lot of our materials were being used to produce you know, the vaccines and as well as a lot of the materials that needed to go into produce the tests to detect COVID. But you know, there's probably a couple of different dynamics that that I would point out that we experienced during
the pandemic, first, really unpredestant, unprecedented supply chain constraints. There was shortages you know, throughout the value chain that made executing our supply chain you know, rather challenging. We had you know, significant step up in demand to support you know, some of these COVID based workflows. And then as things started to normalize, of course, you know, our industry has been facing some of the headwindes associated with just uh
normalization of procurement and supply chain trends. So it's been a really dynamic time. But I think we've we've weathered the storm well, and you know, we've offered a lot of value you know, during that process to focus on executing our growth strategy, and we're really pleased with how we're positioned coming out of all that.
So, as I mentioned, the stock up ten percent so far this year, zero cell ratings, six holds and fifteen buys, with a twelve month price target of about twenty seven, we're almost there, or like a stone's throw away from that.
Now.
I was talking to Jonathan Palmer, he's our Bloomberg intelligence guy who covers your company, and he was saying that the debate now on the street is when you can really return to growth and show some profitability improvements.
When is that?
Yeah, So, you know, one of the things that I really like about our business is just the exposure we have to some really attractive end markets. You've reught ferenced bile pharma and biotech and healthcare space, which is more
than sixty percent of our revenues. And when I look at the health of those end markets, you know, I think we're quite excited about the long term positioning of the space, really driven by record levels of new drug approvals, pipelines that are as robust as they've ever been, and new therapeutic platforms, whether that be you know, selling gene therapy, you know, GLP ones that have been getting a lot
of attention. And so I would say the fundamentals for our space are are really robust, and you know, as some of these headwinds that have been plaguing the industry that we just talked about, whether it be supply chain or you know, just some of the normalization coming out of covid is, as those things subside, you know, I think we're really well positioned to, you know, for a strong setup and to be able to leverage the momentum that's that's in our end markets.
So one of the I guess, just what's one of the bigger headwinds that you are facing here that you need to get you know, your your hands around to kind of move this forward here. I mean, again, Stock's done well, but what's a key challenge for you guys these days.
Yes, when we looked at, you know, some of the things that have impacted our growth in our industry over
the last years. So it's things like inventory d stockings as our customers are normalizing their inventory, is you know, some of the supply chain constraints, whether it be access to raw materials or even just our own production capacity that we've been able to you know deep bottleneck with with investments, or you know some of the funding constraints in biotech and things as the capital markets have you know, been a bit challenged here over the last year. So
you know, those things have largely normalized. When I look at the instability of the business in the back half of that last year and into the early you know quarter here in twenty twenty four, you know, I would say that things have largely stabilized and you know, the business I think is poised for you know, a nice recovery trajectory here as we move, you know, through this year and into next year.
Before I let you go, we got jobs Friday coming up. You got a blood ADP. We had a super strong manufacturing ism data. We got a good jolt number. How's your hiring front?
Are you hiring?
Are you not?
What is it like to get and retain talent?
Yeah?
I mean you mentioned a lot of you know, leading indicators there that that I think we look at, and you know, we also look at a whole host of other you know, levels of you know, activity and laboratories, funding, capital markets, you know, the pipelines. I think we just kind of put all that together and it does certainly signal you know, I think strong momentum in our in our space, and you know, has this incredibly optimistic about
where things are headed. Talent is is critical to us, and you know, we're we're proud of the fourteen thousand plus associates that we have around the world that are focused on, you know, growing our business and serving our customers and helping enable some of these breakthrough therapies that are that are being developed, and you know, We're continuously in the market, you know, adding capabilities, whether that be you know, new new capabilities to serve some of the
new modalities like selling gene therapy or you know, some of the digital capabilities around AI and automation. But you know, we've got a global footprint. We're in one hundred eighty countries around the world, and so you know, this is the heart of our business ours and we continue to lean in to make sure that we have the right capabilities to serve our customers.
All right, Michael, thanks lot.
We really appreciate Michael S. Doublefield.
He's a ban Tour CEO joining us from Allentown, Pennsylvania. That stock is up by one point two percent today, up ten percent plus for the year. As I mentioned, zero cells and five hold with seventeen buys, sixteen buys something like that, a lot of buys there on the stock with an average price target of the next twelve months or about twenty seven dollars.
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