Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple CarPlay and then broid Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
And let's get more on housing store Paul us Economists with Bloomberg Economics. It joins us now. So those mortgage apps, let's start there for a second, up eleven percent. So talk to about the refinancing that we saw here, because I gotta say refinancing with a six handle. That does surprise me. I thought we would have waited until we got a lease down to the fives.
It's interesting. So there are folks who just had to buy homes, they had to make moves for jobs, They had to end up taking out mortgages over seven percent, and those folks now have the opportunity to refly, right, I mean, mortgage rates are now down about one hundred and fifty basis points from the high post COVID even just in the last month, or down about thirty basis points. So for folks who bought a home because they had to post COVID, there is some more enthusiasm about refinancing
if you unpack mortgage backed securities. Though overall, and this is totally to your points, Alex, the average rate being paid on existing homes, the average rate being paid by homeowners is still a touch under four percent, so there is still more room to run for refinancing. This I think is probably, you know, just a little bit of enthusiasm for folks who had to take out those long term mortgages when rates were significantly higher than they are today.
It's interesting because we were just talking about KB Home. Even though it's down today. Xhb's the ETF that tracks the home building index, it's still up trading around records, up around twenty eight percent year to date to outpacing the broader SMP five hundred. But Bank of America actually was talking about how in the three months before and after the Fed cuts rates, homebuilder stocks have outperformed the S and P five hundred and three of the last
five period. So wondering what particular level when it comes to say mortgage rates, when you're because you're obviously covering this very closely, do you feel like you'll see more consumers come back in to try to refinance.
So it's a little bit tricky when you're thinking about home builders versus when you're thinking about refinancing, right, because you have a few different dynamics that are at play. For people like people like Alex or people like me who have low mortgage rates that are locked in, you're not gonna end up seeing a rush to refinancing.
You know, we saw a rate to move is quite high.
Your hurdle rate, well, your hurdle rate to move is like close to four yeah, right, So there's still a a there's still a ton of room to run if you think about home builders though, because nobody's rushing to refinance, because nobody's rushing to move if they're an existing homeowner because they've locked in that low rate, there is room for home builders to sort of fill the gap for new households that are being formed, young people who are trying to buy their first home.
And like lack of inventory that was such a big problem even before COVID, but then was exacerbated so much that obviously that they were able to pick up that side of it.
Extraordinary lack of inventory, especially for existing homes for sale. The thing that I find shocking, and you'll probably have more color on this. For home builders in particular, there is still just a massive inventory of new homes new construction and units that are currently under construction that are available for sale. I mean levels unseen since early two thousand and eight, when housing was obviously frothy. So that's one thing that we have. These two forces that are
diverging for new homebuilders. One is just this earth of existing homes for sale, but you do have this mounting inventory of new homes for sale that I think is going to keep home prices new home prices under pressure for quite some time.
Which also spakes a question like the transmission policy mechanism from the FED, when you have sort of these structural issues that have nothing to do with what the FED actually does, and that's an interesting sort of dynamic.
There was an early there was a question, maybe it was in the March press conference JPL March press conference following the FOMC meeting, where somebody asked, they said, look, you cut rates to the bone during COVID, everybody refines sub four percent, and now the transmission of monetary policy while you're trying to tighten rates is really really slow. Do you regret doing that? And he basically said, no regrets, but yeah, I mean interest rate policy has been moving
very very slowly through the real economy. Housing is the number one sector for monetary policy and rates policy to move into the real economy. Instead, you're seeing communication tools moving into financial markets actually really quickly. The second somebody shows their hand just a little bit, you see a monster move in two your eelds, for example. So different policy tools moving at different speeds into different parts of the economy.
It's really interesting. All right, Thank you so much, Stewart, appreciate it. Stuart Paul Us economists with Bloomberg Economics.
On that.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am EAS. You're on applecar Play and androuid Otto with the Bloomberg Business Act. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
I want to take a moment here and get dive into geopolitics to take a look at what's happening with Israel and Hesbela. Israel stepping up its heaviest air attacks on Hesbela targets in Lebanon since two thousand and six, after shooting down the first missile ever fired by the militant group at Tel Aviv. Joining us now in studio
is Bobby Gosh, Bloomberg News Senior editor. Bobby, can you walk us through the sequence of events in the recent week that got us here and what things you're looking at over the next day forty eight twenty four hours.
Yeah, it started, you remember with those those pages that went off, the thousands of pages exploded, most of them belonging to hesbe law operatives and fighters. The suspicion is that Israel was responsible for them. Israel as neither confirmed nor denied it, which is there very much in the Israeli m A. The following day there was a whole bunch of walkie talkies, again many of them belonging to
Hisbellah commanders and fighters, that went off. Israel also then began targeted attacks against top level Hisbella commanders, the types of people who would be very important in the event of an all out war between Hesbellah and Israel. Simultaneously, Israel has been essentially attacking targets across its borders with Lebanon, specifically targeting missile bases, rocket launching facilities. It's all designed
to reduce Hisbellah's ability to strike at Israeli targets. Israel says that the objective is to allow Israelis who had been living close to the border and who for many months now were forced to leave their homes. It's that this entire campaign is designed to allow those Israelis to go back to their homes and live in relative peace. But depending on how you want to look at it, this can also seem like an attempt to soften up Hezbelah for a larger campaign by Israel, whether that is
a ground campaign or a campaign from the air. It can't give that impression.
What has the Biden administration said about these latest earstrikes? Because I know that Joe Biden just gave his final address to the UN General Assembly this week.
Well, the Biden administration for months and months now has been saying pretty much the same thing. On the one hand, it continuously repeats the chiboulette that Israel has a right to defend itself as it does, but at the same time it says that Israel should not escalate tensions in the region with its neighbors, and it has been warning against the risk of a larger war that will draw in Iran, which is Hisbella's main patron, which might draw
in the United States. The problem is, of course, that all of that rhetoric from the Biden administration does not seem to be moving the needle. Prime Minister Natanya, who of Israel, seems to be operating on his own agenda, pursuing his own interests and paying almost no heed at all to the American president, which is not a good look for the United States.
Well, I thought it was so interesting because as we were President Biden was speaking yesterday at the UN, we were also getting headlines on the terminal about Netanyahu and some things saying he was saying that was not peace and unity and ending the.
War in Gaza.
So it was very striking. What do you think, how do you think the election impacts this in terms of what Hesbal and Israel are thinking with six weeks to kind of go.
Well, there's a school of thought in Israel and in some quarters in this country that Bibi Natnia was holding out for the election, that he's not going to change tech until there's an election. Until there's a new president in the United States. And according to this school of thought, he's betting on Donald Trump to return to the to the presidency on the assumption that Donald Trump will be
more permissive and allow him a freer hand. I don't buy that, for one thing, more permissive than what It's not like Biden has really been restraining that Yahoo, There's only been rhetorical attempts at restraining him. That that's not working. And also I don't think necessarily that Donald Trump wants to come to the office with a major conflict in the Middle East to deal with. Remember, the big part of his message to his voter base is America first.
The United States should not get involved too much in foreign affairs, should get out of the old conflicts, particularly in the Middle East. So if that is indeed bb Netniaho's calculus that Donald Trump would be better for him than Biden, I think he may have to calculate again.
Such a pleasure to talk to you. You are always such a great reporter and you definitely help paint a picture for us. Bobby Goes Bloomberg, new senior editor, joining us on the latest between Hesbula Israel, as well as Goza.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on fo Cardplay and then broyd Otto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
I'm Alex d alongside Jun Tuck Gerndis Menon. Paul Sweeni is off today. This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio and we are broadcasting to live from Interactive Broker Studio right here in Midtown Manhattan where Gridlock reigns. Want to get a take on the market.
Here.
Nothing's going on, so it's a good time to kind of recalibrate. What do you do as yields kind of come down the back end, though still stays a little bit higher. How do you position yourself for that when tech also is still outperforming. Nancy Dowd, a private wealth advisor at Americpriz Financial and CEO of Opus, joins us now to discuss her take on the markets. Nancy, we've sort of gotten through a seminal moment with the Fed. How do you need to rethink what your portfolio looks like?
So it was a big surprise.
We all bet on a quarter of a point cut, but I guess the FED decided to frontload the rate cuts, although overall the plan is still the same is to you know, to get to a certain target or by
three percent by midyear twenty twenty six. So it was a bit of an enigma as to why they front loaded this rate cut, But in digging deeper in the details, the justification really had to do largely with the inflation numbers not being quite where they really want them to be, at least two out of the three that they watch, and also the employment numbers are weakening, and that gave a little bit of concern to the FED, so they just cut more aggressively. So now this is what we're
dealing with. And I think the biggest impact was mortgage mortgage applications. I think that's probably the biggest impact in the last two weeks.
So what do you think the playbook is as far as what you're advising clients to buy, what you're advising them to sell, because traditionally, I mean, every rate cutting cycle can be very different, but normally you would see safe for instance, bond proxy sectors like utilities outperform and
tech underperform. The first six months after rate cut. But you've already had sectors like utilities taking off a lot of that's tied to the AI store and this sector is the second best performer in the S and P five hundred so far this year. So where do you put your money.
Well, if you're fully invested, clearly stay the course. But I think that the reaction over the last six weeks and certainly over the last two weeks is way overdone in the stock market, and I would err on the side of caution that I think we are probably due for a pullback or even a correction or more. It wouldn't be so unreasonable at this time because it's this is just overdone.
So would you use them to add to you know, use that as a buying opportunity.
Well, yeah, absolutely, that's the best time because longer term prospects obviously are very good. So if there is this correction or pull back, it's a grand opportunity to buy in or rebalanced, reconsolidate how you're allocated according to your timeframe and your risk tolerance. But certainly the sectors that you mentioned are very attractive. You know, defensive stocks will be a good play right now, such as materials, industrials, utilities.
The big enigma really is energy. You know, I still look into energy, but the big enigma has been why, with all the geopolitical risk that we are experiencing, and more and more so in the last week or so, why energy is down. That's a enigma, but I would I would still buy it.
When you take a look at, say, if you don't get the draw down, one part of that story is like, hey, there's over six million dollars sitting in money market funds that belong somewhere. Does it go into the equity market, does it go into the bond market? Do you think that that is part of this story that we're going to see?
Well, clearly, broader diversification is highly indicated at this time. When you're too concentrated in one sector, you feel the volatility and the pullback will be felt significantly more, especially in the technology sector because that tends to be significantly more volatile. But diversification is very good right now, especially in the fixed income side, still maintaining shorter durations because
it's still very iffy with the rate cuts. And I do believe that the geopolitical risk is just being ignored and is not factored into the market, and when that does happen, it could be significant.
I know that you've previously used a four percent inflation assumption in your financial plans the past few decades. I'm sure just given where the dynamic inflation was prior to COVID, maybe your clients didn't appreciate it as fully until recent years. But with inflation have been closer to that two percent target. How does that impact how you construct your portfolio models. Is that something that you'll still include or are you going to adjust that now?
No, I will not be adjusting it because by using a more conservative inflation rate it has really helped my clients achieve their outcomes much better. Because remember, you know, the overall inflation rate is not the same as the day to day inflation rate. I'm talking about food, gas, electricity, and heat, which is these are the non negotiables of
everyday living. You may give up buying, going to go around out to eat, to travel, or discretionary spending, but you're never going to give up food, gas, and electricity. So these are the things that matter the most, and in fact, those are the things that go up the most over the last three to four decades that I've been advising clients.
All right, thank you very much, and see we really appreciate Nancy Dawd joining US private wealth advisor at Maryripri's Financial and CEO of Opus. On the markets.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio. We cover all the top news in business, economics and finance. And right now in New York City, what's happening is you have the You and General Assembly, and you have Climate Week. So the benefit is we get a lot of companies now coming in that are involved in the energy transition. Then we get to talk to them about the really cool stuff that they're doing. And one of them is a company called a MSc. Now you just look at a chart
of its market cap. Over the last five years, it went for about two hundred million dollars to now almost a billion dollars. It's been a tremendous rise.
It stocks up one hundred and sixteen percent year to date.
What does it do? I'm not really sure. It's called American Superconductor Corporation or CEO is here to break it all down for us. Dan McGann joining us. All right, Daniel, what do you guys do? Break it down?
We basically provide resiliency equipment for the grid. Today, we help bring more renewables onto the grid and we have a nascent business that's starting to grow pretty rapidly supporting ships in the fleet to protect them from harm's way.
So do you like make the stuff that helps a solar farm plug into the grid?
Are you like we're the big equipment that sits on the grid that allows that power to be able to come on and make sure it harmonizes with the grid in the way that the grid can accept it and take it.
There's been a shortage of this stuff, right, like a huge backlog and shortage of the stuff that you make.
Yeah, we just had a record quarter where we delivered new orders about one hundred and twenty seven million. Just to put it in context, we're about one hundred and forty six for the entire year. We grew last quarter thirty percent versus the year ago period, and we just guide it for thirty percent growth quarter on quarter, so we're kind of hitting it out of the park on all levels right now.
And you've also made some recent acquisitions. I read about how and WL. It's a private company based in New Jersey that provides power supplies in industrial and military customers. But then also you're getting into the wind turbine electrical control systems with some recent deals as well. So how much do you expect those types of deals to help bolster your revenue growth moving forward?
Yeah, we think that the backlog continues to grow. I think we went up from about one forty last quarter to about one sixty for the twelve month backlog. Total backlog for all time is even higher than probably two hundred or so, so we're in well positioned to kind of grow quarter on quarter here. That's what we just updated our guidance for the current quarter, which we'll end here in a week or so, and we think we're well positioned. I mean, the past year has been fantastic
for us. We went from being really excited about reaching thirty million per quarter on a revenue basis to now we just goid it to fifty, So the business is really taking off. It's very healthy, and then the backlog is very deep along all product lines.
What's the biggest constraint that you have in delivering the key product that everyone needs to then connect.
To the grid.
I think if you'd asked me that question a couple of years ago, I would say supply chain was part of it, just to be able to deal with the speed. Now it's really we're scaling, we're scaling production, we're hiring, So it's really typical type business challenges on how do you manage that growth and how do you remain effective for your customers as you grow?
And what are some of the top questions or concerns you're actually hearing from your customers at this point. What do you think that tells us about the direction of the economy.
I think the good signs we've seen as we've seen lead times on our pum drop, so our lead times at one point we're approaching eighteen months on some products, and now we have stuff today we're delivered in four or five six months. So wow, the demand is growing and the demand for products sooner is growing as well, and that's really a competitive vantage for us. In the market.
Do you have a better way to move electrons? I mean the name implies, you know, superconductors.
So at the heart of what we do, particularly on the ship business, is about superconductors. So we move electricity in a much better way.
But you've got to keep that really cold.
For super cold. Yeah, we do that as well. So that's part of our scope and what we that's very cool. We do a fully integrated system for the US Navy and we just got a contract nexcess to seventy five million dollars for the Royal Canadian Navy, so we're going to be on Canadian ships as well, and that's all superconductor.
So with better lead times, is that just due to the supply constraints with the chain just they're not as bad as they would have been.
Because they're not as bad, we've done more to be able to plan what we're seeing as customers not buying a few, but buying many, which allows us to be able to better plan our production and be able to plan our supply. So part of our growth has been larger projects, larger orders, and multiple units of the same type, which has been great for us for our business.
So let's Broughden out for a second. We've had a couple of AI data centers and energy deals. Amazon went the way of like, here's my own little power center that I'm going to use and connect directly to it. Microsoft went more of the way, Hey, we're going to buy contracts from Constellation Energy. Constellation Energy is going to re up at one of its nuclear facilities and connect that to the grid. How do you foresee these partnerships moving forward and how does that affect you guys?
I think it affects us because the rising tide lifts all boats. There's a huge investment in making the grid more resilient. There's more demand, be it from data, be it from AI. We see a huge potential boom coming for us because we provide power control solutions for semiconductor fabs. There's a huge move in our country to reshore that capability.
Each of the chip makers I think individually of an so at least twenty billion dollars a capital investment in new fabs, and that's all going to benefit for us as well, because we're building the substation level equipment. These are big pieces of equipment. They're ten twenty some cases sixty tons they're like big mobile home type size, which we love.
A little confidence it all gets built because even Intel had to pair back some of those plans.
Yeah, they build a fraction of it. It's going to be a home run for us. So I know, you know what people talked about. We have a play in electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles because we supply the power control equipment for the people that make the feedstocks that go into those. I think that if we're even able to get to a fraction and what people hope and desire, I think it's a It's a big deal for our business.
So what's next?
Any other potential acquisitions you want to maybe tell us about it.
We have a lot of people that approach us. We've done over a few year period here, we've done a number of acquisitions. They've all worked really, really well. You know, we focus on good people with a good product, so you know, we find that there's a lot of inbound traffic our ways. You know, would this be a good fit for where we are. We think we can continue to grow organically and in organically the business. We have
a wonderful platform globally to be able to sell. We have a great brand in the market and we want to continue to leverage that. Really, at the end of the day, we want to serve what our customers need and try to be there ahead of them before they really need it.
All right, Daniel, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much for stopping by. Daniel McGahn amsc CEO joining US American super Conductor. It's a great name, it is.
I was looking at the A in our function in the terminal there's three buys A zero hold zero cells right now.
I mean, when you have the broader thesis, it's hard to kind of find ourselves there at the end of the day. I think it just depends also on where we go, say with the presidential election. That's obviously a conversation that percolates right now during Climate Week. If we get a different administration, like a Trump administration, does all of this wind up changing. I mean, many are going to say no, because the jobs are already in Republican states.
For example, there's a great piece out from Jennifer Dooley that sort of looks at that shows that a lot of the jobs at of from clean energy are in Republican states.
Yeah, it's really fascinating to see kind of where this is headed. But what a run for the stock, over one hundred percent gain here to date.
Yeah, you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Act. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
All right, well, let's get more on this nep and market here. Alex Steel just mentioned John Tucker Bloomberg Intelligence Radio Michael Kugino as president and portfolio manager at the Permanent Portfolio family of funds, to discuss the latest on the market. So there's really nothing happening today under the hood. There's some fun stuff. You are seeing a sell off in the bond market, so this is a great time to talk about the individual stocks. Michael, that float your boat.
He good morning, Alex. We're pretty diversified with respect to our equity holdings. I mean, when you look at the stock market, the S and P five hundred today, it's rating about what twenty one twenty two times earnings earnings yield about four and a half, four and three quarters percent as compared to the Fed funds rate right now with the Feds move last week of roughly four seventy.
Five five percent.
So you have this rough earnings yield equivalent, and it becomes a question of what kind of an investor are you. Are you growth oriented in which case it's a reasonable return for equities plus you get the growth kicker, or if you're more conservative, you want to take that sort of interest yield and not take on a lot of risks. So for us, we actually own both. We're in bonds and we're in stocks. On the equity side, we have
a diversified approach. Like I mentioned, names that come to mind would be a Lockheed Martin and aerospace and defense, a costco in terms of retail, Freeport Macmaran in terms of copper and natural resources, and a mix of energy which has been beaten down lately with Chevron and Exxon on the integrated side, and then some smaller, uh, you know,
producers as well. Then we do have technology. We're an investor, you know, we're an investor in video and meta and so you can see that's not one theme playing there.
You mentioned stocks and bonds. Another area that I know that you had exposure to you earlier this year was gold and it's had a banner year if you looked at those spot prices up more than twenty percent. So obviously on the back of those record highs there with ray cup bets and a week er dollar. Earlier this year, you had around twenty percent target weight in gold. Do you still have a weight like that and what's your highest asset class as far as what your current holding is.
Yeah, our weighting right now, our target remains around twenty percent, but were slightly overweight our target. We're probably a little less than almost twenty three percent gold, and that speaks to again being diversified. We see the gold market as being a long term positive. Even with the run up all the I would say there may be some profit taking and consolidation. Investors may want to wait for a
better entry point. However, if you're a long term investor, when you look at the landscape out there right now, the FED being done and cutting on the interest rate cycle, likely that's better for real returns and it reduces the opportunity cost of investing in gold versus earnings yielding investments.
You look at geopolitical risk all over the world.
You look at the development of alternative currency payment systems around the world to the US dollar. You look at the US dollar declining after almost really multi decade highs, and you look at a general fear or malaise with respect to economic growth worldwide, and all these things add up to a good environment for an investor to have something in gold as a portfolio enhancer or a protector.
When you talked about the portfolio and the mix and all that, is there still value in just ta bill and chill and when does that narrative change.
Well, you know, for our cash and cash equivalents, that's exactly what we're doing. There are opportunities with gyields coming with rates coming down, there.
Are opportunities to incrus duration.
We're doing that very selectively in our portfolio, but for our shorter term cash needs for liquidity and even as part of our diversified approach, we're still taking that. You know, now it's five percent versus five and a half, and it may them down a little bit further, but you're still talking, you know, risk free earnings.
I don't think the Fed's gonna cut that drastically, you.
Know, in the next year, year and a half or so all the way down to you know, three percent, three and a half percent the terminal rate.
I think they ought to maintain a sort of.
Slight tight bias personally, so you're still getting risk free money for your cash, you know, at worse three and a half percent, maybe in the fours, maybe closer to five. And so as part of a diversified approach, it makes sense for us if you're an if you're an investor, that that's the only thing you're doing. I think you may be selling yourself short unless you're very, very risk urse. I think you can make more by being more broadly diversified in a number of different areas.
What about when it comes to the reed side of things in the equity market, when you have reads coming down, what's your broader outlook for real estate and do you own those corner of the market with those stocks.
Yeah, we do own some reads, and I probably should have mentioned that is one of our asset classes that we focus on. And you are right that with rates coming down, reads generally are attractive in that environment, and so I see that as being a good long term area as well. And we're spread out among a number of different industry subsectors within real estate, and so I think the one thing you do have to be careful of a little bit here in reachs would be the
balance sheets. Even though it appears that the markets may have sidestepped the big credit crisis due to a major refinancing of some of the debt at these higher yielding debt deals, especially if rates are coming down, I think you still need to focus on the balance sheet to make sure your companies are not unduly exposed.
To credit risk. That you know, so asset quality is something you always look at.
It reads anyway, So no nothing new here, but investors should be careful in that part of the red sector.
Hey, Michael, super appreciate it. Thank you so much. Michael Cougino, President portfolio Manager, Permanent Portfolio Family of Funds.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple card Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa playing bloom eleven thirty.
One.
Other story that really caught my eye today was about colleges and how basic other some higher education systems here in the US. It is crazy, right, like Kinston so expensive, they compete Harvard the whole thing. But apparently other universities now like Northeastern, are trying to tap a Wall Street playbook so they can rival Ivy's on admissions. This obviously caught everybody's eye. It's one of the top reading stories
on the Bloomberg terminal. Francesca Maglione is personal finance and higher education reporter and she joins us now in the Bloomberg Interactive broker's studio. Okay, can you just walk us through the premise here?
Yeah. So, Northeastern University has been known for years as a commuter school mostly attended by local students, and since twenty eleven they've kind of been expanding their brand. They now have fourteen campuses across the world, with three campuses abroad.
What we thought was interesting is that since twenty nineteen they've been buying up other strugglings schools, kind of tapping in that private equity playbook and m and a. Yeah, like they've been merging with They've merged with three different schools so far and kind of embedded the Northeastern brand on these schools. And now can offer to students like, hey, you can study for a semester in California, you can
do a semester in New York. And this is very different from those schools like Princeton and Harvard, which just want to stay small and delete. They want to expand their brand as much as they can.
Because there's a lot of schools, especially in the South where I'm from, where you had a lot of magnet schools and then satellite schools, whether it was like the University of Texas or Texas A and M, so you'd have not just the main campuses, say in Austin, Texas, you had ones in SA Dallas and outside of that.
So I'm wondering, is this is there a particular playbook when it comes to kind of like them and a type of feel it comes to something like this, or is there different not apples and apples.
I guess yeah, I guess. What's interesting with the Northeastern is that Higher rid is going through a very hard time. There's a lot of smaller schools that are closing all over the US, and so Northeastern is growing at a time when all these other college are shrinking. Colleges are competing for students. The number of students across the US is going to drop by ten percent, the number of students going.
To college, and so why what's the driver there?
It's just a demographic cliff and the costs and it's extremely expensive as well. COVID was really bad for the college enrollment numbers as well. And so Northeastern is kind of growing at a time when all these other schools are shrinking. And when looking for schools, they want valuable real estate. The latest acquisition that they have is in New York. Now they have three buildings in Manhattan.
Did they buy Marymount or was this part of Yes.
They don't call it buying because.
Still has its own brand.
They just like swallow their liabilities and their assets. There's no exchange of money that changes hands.
Is it working? Like, yeah, is this playbook actually helping Northeastern? Yeah, it's working.
Northeastern last year had almost one hundred thousand students apply to their university. They've seen their enrollment increase by fifteen percent since twenty nineteen, and they've gone from being just a local, little known brand to being known worldwide.
Does it.
Does it help? But part of the college thing is like the experience, right, Like you go there and you live there, like maybe you take a semester abroad or something, but like you stay there and it feels a little weird and disjointed, and then all of a sudden be like you're here, and then you're there, and then you're there.
Yeah, for sure. That's one of the things that Northeastern will say is changing within higher ed and that's why they've been successful in this moment. They think that students no longer or some students no longer want to, you know, spend four years in one place with a small community, and they're looking to get new experiences and be more practical in terms of their four years. How can this
translate into career after college and things like that. So that's another way that they're different from other colleges.
Are there other potential universities or colleges that are eyeing this type of model and they may try to do and replicate something similar.
Yeah, for sure. Northeastern told us that they've heard from almost fifty schools that have reached out kind of interesting and either merging with them or learning about their business model. We saw that Vanderbilt has now a campus in Florida. That's kind of a school that's trying to do something a little similar, not at the scale that Northeastern is doing it, but there's a lot of schools watching what they're doing right now.
Yeah, so is what they're doing also though different from that Marymount thing, Like I can still go to Marymount here, say in New York City versus Northeastern, and then I go spend a semester in California.
Yes, so the Merrymount is part of their whole plan.
Okay, so that that is part Right now, they're.
Still Marymount because the merger was just announced, but eventually it'll be Marymount at Northeastern or whatever brand they decide to go with.
Ye, so then I can go to Northeastern and then be like I'm gonna spend a year in New York going in to Marymount. Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, that's just so interesting. It's just such a different college like experience. I would think that you go to college, you learn how to like be by yourself, do laundry by yourself, debt by yourself, to brink beer by yourself, and then like that's it, not like jet setting off to different locations, you know, Frantessca, thanks that it was a really great piece,
really appreciated. Francesca Maglione, personal finance and higher education reporter at Joining Us.
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on apples, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday, ten am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal
