Bloomberg Surveillance TV: March 18, 2025 - podcast episode cover

Bloomberg Surveillance TV: March 18, 2025

Mar 18, 202531 min
--:--
--:--
Listen in podcast apps:

Episode description

- Peter Tchir, Head of Macro Strategy at Academy Securities
- Ed Mills, Washington Policy Analyst at Raymond James
- Pierre Ferragu, Head: Global Technology at New Street Research
- Stephanie Roth, Chief Economist at Wolfe Research

Peter Tchir with Academy Securities talks about whether the market will stabilize amidst a growing global trade war. Ed Mills of Raymond James talks about the geopolitical and economic policies of a second Trump administration, how Republicans and Democrats in Congress are responding, and other Washington-related headlines. New Street Research's Pierre Ferragu discusses the outlook for Big Tech amid market as well as political uncertainty. Stephanie Roth, Chief Economist at Wolfe Research, discusses recent eco data, inflation in the US, and whether the US economy is slowing.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

Speaker 2

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Jonathan Ferrow, along with Lisa Bromwitz and Amrie Hordern. Join us each day for insight from the best in markets, economics, and geopolitics from our global headquarters in New York City. We are live on Bloomberg Television weekday mornings from six to nine am Eastern. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen, and as always on the Bloomberg

Terminal and the Bloomberg Business App. Peter cheerf Academy Securities in the recession camp, Aliskalou of Bank of America on a cautious global fund manager survey, and Kidjigs of salt Gen looking for the big Euro rally to continue. We begin this sour with stock steady as the Fed kicks off a two day meeting. Peter cheerf Academy Securities, writing, I don't see the Fed acting in a big enough way to what set the risk that I see the convergence of so many policies seems to risk a recession

before any probability of seeing the benefits. Pete joins us now for more. Pak mourned makes me sound so various. You've got to say you're sounding incredibly bearish. Are you saying you're not?

Speaker 3

No, I actually am.

Speaker 4

I think one thing is even the prior discussion. I think a big part of the change is we are trading capital flows for trade benefits.

Speaker 3

Right, so we're going after trade.

Speaker 4

I think we're seeing capital outflows and it spent a perfect mix for taking.

Speaker 3

Capital outside of the US.

Speaker 4

All of a sudden, you have yields up in Japan, you have yields up in Germany, so you can actually get some return on that side. And when you look at equity valuations, all these other markets had lower evaluations.

Speaker 3

So I think one of the big problems.

Speaker 4

With our strategy so far has rather than having people come to the table begging for mercy, it's actually pulled money out of the system. It's made people rethink things, and they're not rethinking things in a way that really involves the US. I think people are trying to rethink things away from the US, and that's the negative.

Speaker 2

That was not the objective. These are unintended consequences, and for the market, the consensus view was that some of these policies would lead to dollar strength, they've led to dollar weakness. That speaks to the capital flows story. Do you see this turning around soon?

Speaker 4

You know, yesterday was the first day we really went the full day without any big tariff headlines. People have seemed that maybe there is a trumpet. Maybe you realize, hey, bashing on tariffs every single day, bashing our allies is not a good strategy, and you keep looking at it. We've been searching for where's all this excess capacity. So one, there isn't a ton of access capacity. So if we just make things more expensive coming in here, it will

flow through a little bit. And then you have China. China's the one with access capacity. Their pricing is so cheap that twenty percent tariffs that we've added don't really make them uncompetitive. So I think we have to rethink this and do some sort of holistic strategy that has a one to sort of three year plan.

Speaker 3

How do we build steel plants in the US.

Speaker 4

There's so many things that need to be done to make this effective, and we just dumped everything in day one and it's been a mess.

Speaker 5

There's shifts in capital flows that are easier to see than others.

Speaker 3

One of them is just.

Speaker 5

Looking at the euro versus the dollar. One of them is looking at stocklocase and shifting to the euroregion rather than the US. You've raised a point about boycotts or basically withdrawing from American brands overseas. Any signs of that other than say Tesla, which is somewhat idiosyncratic, It's.

Speaker 4

Hard to tell, but I think you are seeing a little bit of evidence that people are okay at the margin shifting away from American brands. And I think American brands represented so many positive things, and I really think the administration is at risk that there were so many intangible benefits from what the US does, from the presence that we had kind of this benevolent superpower, and as that goes away, I think we lose some of the

reputation and that hurts. And unfortunately too, I think the way we've thrown out all these tariffs, even if you didn't like China, you kind of have to come knocking a China's door and say, hey, maybe we should be doing business.

Speaker 5

Is there a risk that people are getting over their skis with all this pessimism that if you take a look at the actual policies. We haven't seen the more positive sides of things. Not all of the people are in their seats yet. In terms of executing these we haven't been through April. Second, and if you actually look at growth, it isn't that bad. Even the airlines, which everyone uses the example of a slowdown, are still booking at pretty healthy rates.

Speaker 1

What's that risk?

Speaker 3

So I think the risk is where we're headed.

Speaker 4

I think the things that Doge has been doing so one, we're cutting some spending that does flow through the economy. I think you're seeing that it's very difficult to get jobs for those people who are getting left behind. But then more importantly to me is there's so much uncertainty. It's putting plans on hold. So you normally like to do things that pull demand and you know, hiring forward. If anything, I were pushing it further away.

Speaker 3

Right. There's no one that we talk to really.

Speaker 4

That's saying, well, I have to bring my construction back to the US from say Canada or Mexico because I don't know how long these terrafs last.

Speaker 3

They might only last a month.

Speaker 4

That would be silly for me, and it's going to take months and months if not years to do this, so I think there's a lot of hiring on you know, freeze. So unless the Fed does something tomorrow, which they might, but I don't think they will. When we see a real change in messaging, I think we resume the sell off and I think we're going to head to bear market territory down at least twenty percent.

Speaker 1

Are you saying that the tariff uncertainty can tip the US into recession just that alone?

Speaker 4

I think that combination of the spending cuts that we're doing, the firing in that sector, it was already I think I look at the quits rate, right, the job market wasn't that great. I think the official data tends to get overstated in January February because they're still miscalculating a bunch of the seasonals. So if we tip over into weak employment, people on hold no one quite understanding the cost of goods, which I.

Speaker 3

Think will go up to some degree.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I think we tip into recession far faster than people think, And maybe we're already at that sort of stage.

Speaker 1

We're an inflection point. This morning. You have a bunch of generals you consult with at the firm, What do they make going into this phone call between Trump and Putin.

Speaker 3

You know, so one to take a step back.

Speaker 4

I think one thing they were all very positive on was the actions in the Middle East to clear up shipping.

Speaker 3

I think that's the right sort of thing. It puts pressure.

Speaker 4

I think we've argued under the Biden administration that we lost to terrence as a tool, and to get to terrence, you actually have to be aggressive periodically. You have to put some fear. So that I think we are very positive on. I think we're all trying to figure out what exactly the endgame is with Russia and Ukraine. I think that's an opportunity maybe for the President to come

out looking good. I think if Putin offers a really bad deal and the President accepts it, and I think that will cause US further divide, see more of this. Any sort of piece deal, though, we really think was always going to benefit Germany and Poland. Poland is going to continue to be the big winner in this whole realignment of Europe. So continue to be positive for stocks whether or not there is a deal. Right now, we're

head of that direction. And I think a bad deal though, would really push people away from the US again.

Speaker 2

Unfortunately, how would up pet You see a situation where US snquities could be in a band market down twenty percent and German equities could stay this high of twenty percent.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I think one you look at valuations, they're so somewhat cheap. People are pulling their money back to their own home base. They are doing spending, They're doing things that are going to be clearly constructive for their businesses. I think they do have some access capacity, right VW is trying to figure out no one wants to buy a VWEV supposedly, what do we do with that? Okay, can we make military equipment? And I think that's going to be interesting And normally that sort of spending would

fall heavily into the US. Right, Germany would be spending a lot of their money on US equipment, US things. They feel very like them to do that given the current term. That could change, But as long as that's going, we're getting the separation, you get those valuations picking up.

Speaker 3

There.

Speaker 2

Does the great thing not concern you? Over in Europe?

Speaker 3

Right now?

Speaker 2

Overwhelmingly there is a huge consensus celebrating germany rearmic. Does that not concern you?

Speaker 3

In which way?

Speaker 4

I don't think it's a bad thing for people to have their own ability to defend themselves. What I do think, though, is Trump's been pushing for this, you know, two and a half three percent whatever spending required he wants.

Speaker 3

But I think that was all done in the.

Speaker 4

Way that well, we're still going to be the big person in NATO, will still tell NATO.

Speaker 3

What to do.

Speaker 4

And I think this spending is now okay, we're actually going to spend this, but maybe we don't need the same US.

Speaker 2

I just want to approach this logically because at the one point earlier this year, we were confident that for European equities it was a good story. If the United States push for a quick peace agreement. Part of that story's happened. But Germany rearming Europe spending on defense doesn't screen they're pushing for a quick piece deal by the House. They're pushing for something very different to what President Trump is pushing for.

Speaker 4

Well, I think this all comes down to what sort of deal is put in place, right. I think the fear is that if and I'm probably on the European side, I think most of our generals would be that if you do not put some sort of protection in place. This is just a temporary rearming for Putin to go back in and take a bigger bite. And I think that's the big disconnect right now is I think when we were looking at this and we figured we'd get some sort of peace, we did not think would be easy.

We do believe that Ukraine's going to have to give up some land. We do think that they will get a lot of money from this. The whole key is like, whether it's security agreement, how do you stop Russia from just rearming and coming back in.

Speaker 3

And that's I think what Europe's preparing.

Speaker 1

For the German rearment. Basically Europe trying to set de terms with Russia.

Speaker 3

Yes, I think that's even if they're.

Speaker 1

Willing to have gas deals once again.

Speaker 3

You know they will try and do both. I think alsode again.

Speaker 4

It's like this is going to be this mad panic where everyone's trying to rearm them.

Speaker 2

He doesn't add up. Something about it doesn't add up.

Speaker 4

Well, none of this is added up when we look at what the US was doing with Iran, right we were allowing Ranian oil to go through Russia continues to sell your oil into natural gas into Europe. Right, everyone is so scared about energy, and that's a crazy thing. Right, If you went back five years ago, everyone's about green energy, green energy, green energy, and even the US every energy self sufficient.

Speaker 3

We realize all it takes.

Speaker 4

Is one oil price shock to realize we are not that energy and self sufficient. Inflation is scary. So I do think I love the energy market.

Speaker 3

Again. My strategy for the.

Speaker 4

US where I do like the US is I'm continuing to invest in anything that national production and for national security's sake, so anything that has a security element. I do think we are going to see more and more production that.

Speaker 3

I think things like.

Speaker 4

Chips are very important, medical equipment, those things are actually going to be really part of what gets driven by this.

Speaker 3

You'll see some growth. That's where I'm headed.

Speaker 4

I'd like to see more done though by actual legislation.

Speaker 3

The executive order.

Speaker 4

Thing, I think is not going to work particularly well. If it takes four or five years to build a plant. No one's sitting there saying, based on some executive orders that may be turned over in four years or may be turned over in two months, I'm not investing.

Speaker 2

It's going to say a parish very barrassed US sequities paid a chant that of account of Securi. Let's talk about the April second date. Conversation we've had around this tangle a few times now, is how misleading that date might be. What actually happens on April scond, How long before these tariffs would actually.

Speaker 6

Hit in some ways, nobody knows. But what I'm expecting at Raymond James is that we will get some announcements that are immediate, but will also get some announcements that set in place a series of new kind of investigations.

And what you hear with Jamison Greer trying to take control of this is there's a real concern within the Trump administration on some staff that if you were to try to do all of this on April second and use emergency powers, there's huge legal risk and it's going to get struck down.

Speaker 3

And so what can you do on.

Speaker 6

April second that goes into effect immediately, that can be held in the courts, And what can you do that sets in motion maybe a worldwide Section three or one investigation that can be defe in the courts, but ultimately still have a very high teriff rate that goes on basically every single piece of equipment and goods that come into the United States. That's still a very high probability.

Speaker 1

John so Howard Lutnet, the Commerce Sectory actually outlined that to us as well. You could see some on April second, and then some might be weeks or months down the line. So if they go on April second, they're likely using IEPA. What could we see them use IEPA for and say, actually, this will hold up in court because there's national security concerns.

Speaker 6

Yeah, so Amory, I would say there are some IEPA stuff, and I think that the Mexico China on IEPA probably holds up. If there are other national security items, they could say semiconductors, you know, clear things within our supply chains. But I would look back to the first Trump administration. They had a Section two thirty two investigation on autos. They could kick that in pretty immediately. They've already done

some investigations on semiconductors. Generally under the Biden administration. Use that there was a investigation into France on digital service taxes. They almost put in place a set of tariffs on France back in twenty twenty. When Trump was in office, they could reactivate that. And there was also an investigation into currency manipulation in Vietnam, which could go into effect immediately.

So take things off the shelf you've already done that are legally defensible and put that into effect on April second. Seems like a pretty reasonable expectation.

Speaker 1

Ambassador of Jamison Greer is very methodical. He flies under the radar. He's a lawyer. Mark Shore had this to say, if you had people in the first one, you had people in the first Trump white House who fundamentally disagree with trade policy. This time around, they don't disagree with him on trade, they disagree with the implementation.

Speaker 3

Do you view it like that?

Speaker 1

Who's potentially holding Trump back from potentially his most aggressive policy proposals on tariff?

Speaker 6

So I think they have a team of rivals again, I think it is Team Economy versus Team Tariff. Team Economy is Scott Besson. I think the kind of overall kind of team Tariff is Jamison Greer is Howard Lutnik is kind of Peter Navarro pushing.

Speaker 3

For it as as much as possible.

Speaker 6

And on team of Tariff right now is Donald Trump and so and he and he alone gets to the side exactly.

Speaker 5

What happens there are two dueling articles I thought were really interesting. New York Times had an article yesterday about how Donald Trump is serious this time around plans to put these tariffs on and how to call with some of the auto manufacturers saying, guess what, guys, this is for real. You need to get used to it. Twenty

five percent tariffs. There was an article by Bloomberg talking about all the people around him saying, hold on a second, we need to understand what the corporate concerns are, and I actually try to mitigate this with pro growth policies, etc. Do you have a sense of how much this White House, and I mean everybody in the White House actually does care about markets and what companies are saying.

Speaker 6

Yeah, I think they care about markets, they care about the economy. I think what I hear from them is that this is a process that they have to do the deregulation, get the tax cuts, do the tariffs, break down non tariff barriers around the globe, and then you get the positive market reaction. What I'm hearing this time in Trump two point zero is wait for it, we have to put this all in place. If I get some pushback, is the process right now is too Chaotus.

Speaker 5

Well, that's what I was going to ask. Is there a process or is it a concept? Is it concepts of a plan or is it actually a plan.

Speaker 6

I think it's more concepts of a plan, and I think that there is a lot of disagreement. Folks on Team ECON are not okay in which the way in which this is being put out. But Team Tariff felt that they went too slow in Trump one point zero. If you go back to Trump one point zero, it was March twenty twenty before they signed the Phase one trade deal. We've already in the first couple of months done more on tariffs than Trump did in four years

the first time around. They say their biggest mistake in one point zero was taking too long, so they almost don't care.

Speaker 2

I just want to fit in this final question some breaking news. About five minutes ago, we know this call was going to take place lightster on this morning at nine Eastern time, President Putin demanding a suspension of a weapon deliveries to Ukraine during a ceasefire that could come up on the coal we expected to lates on this morning. Between the two leaders, what do you think the outcome of all of that's going to be.

Speaker 6

I think that's a realistic goal of this. However, I do know that Donald Trump likes to have any phone call come with a bold announcement, so I would expect him to talk up the opportunity of a cease fire.

Speaker 3

But Putin is doing a good job of.

Speaker 6

Trying to reset the goalpost, because Donald Trump always resets the goalpost, and a lot of world leaders know if you can get him one on one, he usually agrees to more than what staff would agree to.

Speaker 2

That's the question with God this morning. I guess we got into the phone call. Will we get a one on one mating in person? Off the back of this, my.

Speaker 1

Reporting weeks ago was that Trump and the Trump administration wanted a meeting with Putin and Saudi Arabia by the end of February. Well, guess what where in March It's Ramadan, then there's need Potentially I would say you could see one. If this phone call goes well in the.

Speaker 2

Next month, it's going to see you away. I appreciate it, Thank you ed most. If Raymond James, let's send to another Mac seven nine, let's talk about in video. Shares slightly lower in the pre market ahead of CEO of Jensen Wyang's keynote speech at the company's develop A conference. We're down by zero point five percent per Pharowgho of New Street has a by writing on the stock with a two hundred dollars price target Perre joined just now for more Perre. Welcome to the show. We'll get to

Tesla in just a moment. Let's start with Nvidia. What do you expect from Jensen Wang later.

Speaker 7

On, well, from Yensen specifically this morning, I think the focus is going to be as always on the product proadmap. You know, while other chips coming through there has been like a fairly high amount of fleaks, so we have good visibility. There is a black Well three hundred that is going to start shipping towards the end of this year, where like the black Well two hundred is shipping now, so you have this shrinking you know, time between between

product and the next generation Rubin products. And as always, what Jensen is going to do is going to showcase on this giant screen in front of like fifteen thousand people, like twenty five thousand people even probably this year. The scale of the data centers these chips are going to

are going into power. You remember last year if he presented the Envy seventy two, it was a shock to see like a single server with seventy two GPUs with seventy two like thirty five thousand dollars GPUs, And we expect this year that he's going to announce like the next stage of the super super Allaredhiluster for very high performance in terance, the NBA two hundred and eighty eight, So with two hundred and eighty eight GPUs that are going to cost even more than sety five sidand dollars.

That's probably going to come with the B three hundred dollar the Rabbi architecture, Pierre, is that enough?

Speaker 5

And I say this at a time where people are worried about the potential blockade on Nvidia selling chips to China and questions about technological advancements made elsewhere, and frankly a real existential questioning of just how much the big tech players can keep spending on chips without showing some real advancements that can move the needle.

Speaker 7

Yes, you're totally right, this is what Jansen is going to talk about. But yesterday, during the first day of the conference, that's not what people are talking about in you know, at the cafe and in meeting rooms and in the corridors. People are talking a lot about China, of course, and like on two fronts, like this idea of a blockhead, of course, that has been lingering now for our years. But there's also the question of how China is contributing to AI developments. And one of the

buzz words this year in the show is distillation. You know, how does this industry do well if Chinese players like dipsy An com In and like produce a model that is ten or twenty times more efficient for a similar performance to what has been there in the US with like multi billion dollar data centers. So that the focus is not so much on Envygate itself. Like I think investors understand that Nvidia has a very storm market position and we'll probably defend it even if some of the

clients are developing their own ASICs. But the question is more like people investing these now hundreds of billions of dollars in data centers, are they going to make a living if the Chinese can copy what they do or easily with small ads. So that's that's really like the number one focus.

Speaker 3

So I would say.

Speaker 7

Of investors as much as industry practitioners on the on the.

Speaker 5

Fair today, there's a question about whether this effects in video, but there's probably a bigger question about how this has ramifications for the likes of Apple and Tesla. We we're just talking about if China truly is getting to a technologically advanced point, or they can produce products that are competitive and even supersede the technological abilities of the United States products.

Speaker 3

Does that engage.

Speaker 5

With a new paradigm which not only threatens the sales of some of the Apple phones or Tesla cars in China, but more broadly internationally, How does that affect the competitive landscape.

Speaker 7

Yeah, it's not something new, to be completely honest. You know, we could have had this conversation forty years ago about trained technology, We could have had this conversation twenty years ago about car technology. And today we have this conversation about electric car technology for Tesla sheep manufacturing and cheap design, and also algothmic design and AI AI development. So China has always been like a very very very fierce competitor.

I think the key change today that in the past China used to leverage US and Western technology in order to be a competitor in the technology sphere, so they having access to mostly like the manufacturing technology the IP developed in the West, and now the West is kind of like throttling access to that technology. So it's very visible on manufacturing the Chinese can't access like the most leading edge manufacturing tools and they're lagging behind still very much.

So today we see that now with chips where the Chinese can't access like the most advanced chips Nvidia is producing. And now the debate it is how can we protect our IP from the Chinese leveraging it's to compete against us. And you know that in the in the terms and conditions of the use of use of charge DIPTY, you can't use churgipety to develop a competitor to charge repty.

Speaker 3

And so now the question mark.

Speaker 7

Is, okay, can we enforce that kind of protection to protect Western grown AI. So the way forward is that it's very very difficult to know how things are going to evolve. It's a balancing act between keeping the market open because of course US and Western technology companies like to sell in China, and also limiting sales to China in order to prevent China from making progress, and it's you know, I just talked about the past forty years.

It's going to keep playing over the next forty years because for China to catch up on advanced chip manufacturing, for instance, we're talking about projects that are probably going to take decades. It is going to take decades for China to be able to develop their own tools and.

Speaker 3

Things like that.

Speaker 7

So we'll be here in a year from that still talking talking about it. It's not going to be another night change. That competition is mounting. And of course what we see is, you know, the risk of polarization of

the world. Like that's what we call in our research the silicon world, this idea that if the West becomes more and more protective with their technology and China is becoming more and more like driven towards developing independent and competing technology at all levels of the supply chain, then what you'll see potentially is like this market polarizing and the China being dominants on the area of inter in the West keeping China out of their area of dominance.

That's that's really you know, one of the direction of evolution of the situation that you want to watch.

Speaker 2

Shop for Pierre it's one for the catch up with the next time you're on, and it spends more time on Tesla. Pierre Fardagud of New Street Research talking about Nvidia Tesla for Pierre Farago still has a buy, writing on the nine four sixty five price target. It's definitely. Roth of Wolf Research joins us now. She says Washington is shaking up our economic forecast, writing, we revised down our US growth forecast from two point two percent to one point six on the back of three surprises out

of the White House. Those cuts early tariff implementation and economic uncertainty. Stephanie joins us now for more. Stephanie Goimnic, Good morning. That is quite a cut to GDP growth from two point two to one point six. Is the federalser of easing in that world or standard pat in that world they are that they're.

Speaker 8

Not using for good reasons or using this growth is weakening and then they have to restart. But that's not something that they're going to to their forecasts right now. There are base cases that they're gonna call for two cuts in their dot plot, and we'll try to get out of that meeting as quickly as possible as you.

Speaker 5

Said, how much are they can really signal that they can provide some sort of ballast to the time when people think some sort of economic downturn that induces job loss has a sort of prolonged scarring effect on the economy.

Speaker 8

I think they'll say what they typically say is they're going to respond to respond to the data, and of the data weekend, then of course they're going to respond, but they can't really promise that much more in advance, especially because this is an environment where they're likely to take the growth numbers tomorrow, but they're likely to take up.

Speaker 3

Their inflation numbers.

Speaker 8

So this is a really difficult environment for them because they're going to have to wait until unemployment rates starts to rise more materially for them to actually be able to cut, as opposed to the idea of them being able to cut because inflation is low.

Speaker 5

You know, I'm always struck by sort of the mass moves on Wall Street. Everyone seems to be downgrading their growth expectation to the US for the US GDP over the past couple of weeks, and part of it is this belief that this uncertainty isn't going to go away, and that tariffs are here to stay. Is there anything that could make you revise it back? Is there any kind of caveat to that that you're waiting for.

Speaker 8

Yeah, So the April second deadline is a big one. So this is where we're expected to get the sectoral tariff information as well as reciprocal tariffs. Our base case is that he'll do something country bay country and he won't incorporate a significant VAT. But if he does just that, then at least that's a positive sign. And if he doesn't do some significant thing on the sectoral side, then that provides a little bit less of the GDP head when then we're forecasting. But base cases, he's not gonna

go light on on on that day. He's been talking about tariffs in a big way. If he wants to do this sectoral things, he believes that that's gonna help us manufacturing and wants some right size trade from a country by country perspective, and has been talking about that if they incorporate that, that could be a one point four percent GDP headwind in addition to w to to all the the sort of the the negative numbers that we've talked about.

Speaker 1

You think that April second is a key risk event that investors aren't a paying enough attention to. We have reporting that Jamison Greer, Uh, President Trump's new USTR chief is trying to really drive the narrative when it comes to April second. This is someone who is a thoughtful trade lawyer. It's pretty calm, cool, collective compared to some other individuals. Let's say, in the Trump orbit, does that make you more encourage about what we can see?

Speaker 8

I mean, I think it all comes down to what Trump wants to do. Trump believes that the tariffs are gonna be beneficial. He's gonna do what he wants to do. And if that means doing sectoral tariffs, which find there's arguments to do it and country by country, that's fair. But what we've gotten so far has been a substant

headmund on GDP and that's fine. If this is the direction of travel, it's just a negative GDP shock and one point six growth is you know, if we end up with that, that would be a decent scenario.

Speaker 3

Realistically, at the.

Speaker 1

End of the day, Trump will make the decision. It's an individual that's been speaking about tariff since the nineteen eighties, let alone before he entered politics. If that's the case and it's such a hit to GDP, what does the Fed look like do it one time inflationary shock of tariffs are actually growth slowing.

Speaker 8

So back in twenty eighteen, if you look back to their tuebook, they said there were two scenarios that they could go about. This one would be exactly what they did was looking through the tariffs. They ultimately cut because it hurt growth. Scenario two is where they have to hike and cause a recession, and the deciding factor between

the two is inflation expectations. So this is gonna be the main thing that they're gonna be looking at is INFLA if inflation's expectations stay anchored, and as of now it's a little bit mixed. Some of the surveys are showing them to king up, some of them are a little bit more noisy than others. So this is gonna be the main thing. If inflation expectations and people feel okay about the inflation backdrop, and the Fed can look

through it and ultimately cut as a result. If not, they're gonna have their plain threshold is going to be a lot higher in order to do so. The main driver of inflation expectations, at least over the long term is past inflation. So this is different than where we were in twenty eighteen because twenty eighteen people don't really remember inflation, most semesters didn't really experience it. This time

is very different. Our inflation expectations over the past ten years are very have been shaped over the COVID pandemic, where it's been a different backdrop, so expectations might react differently this time. Plus the terraphy likely be a lot bigger.

Speaker 5

You were talking about the statement of economic projections and whether they'll signal a greater willingness to look at the weakness and growth versus something that we have seen with inflation expectations. How much do you see as sort of an increase in worries about inflation at the same time of potential weakness.

Speaker 8

Yeah, So what's gonna be There's a couple things that are gonna be interesting. One, what do they do with their GDP forecast for twenty twenty five, What do they do with inflation? What do they do with the Fed funds?

Right at the end of the year, so base cases, they take down on their GDP something like one to eight take up inflation to something like two seven, and then what we're going to look for is within the SEP you're going to see the risks around growth, growth and inflation, and they're both going to be to higher inflation and lower growth. So that's a back job where you know, it's a very tough situation for them. And right now I think they're probably going to keep the

two cuts and kind of see how this plays out. Ultimately, they'll probably be forced to cut a little bit more than you know within the in the.

Speaker 5

Dots, you know, I keep getting struck by what Tom Becker of Black Rock said, which I thought was really interesting, this idea that everyone's exceptional in this new era where fiscal spending is taking off in places like Europe and places like China at the same time that, yeah, on the margins fiscal straight in the US, but not really later on where you're gonna get further fiscal expansion as well.

How much are you looking at a structural shift upward in inflation globally that's going to also rebound on the United States in a new way with a lot of debt slashing around and a lot of debt financed funding.

Speaker 8

You know what they all plays out the way it works, we're sort of forecasting for this year, you're gonna end up with a FED funds right that was lower than would otherwise be the case. That is, we have a material slow down in the economy because you know, it's more about growth and inflation, and then you ultimately have

lower rates as a results. So I don't necessarily believe in this big structural shift up in inflation temporarily, of course, because of tariffs and some of the fiscal Perhaps you're one slightly above two percent, but I don't think we're talking about anything two and a half to three percent.

Speaker 2

It's definitely free share, it's definitely Roth there of WOLD three search. This is the Bloomberg Sevenance podcast, bringing you the best in markets, economics, angiopolitics. You can watch the show live on Bloomberg TV weekday mornings from six am to nine am Eastern. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen, and as always on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business app.

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file