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She's more important than the Secretary of Treasury. Constance Hunter joins now from EIU Concerts, you take your inflation guestimate to two decimal points? Can you do that? Can we actually guess to two decimal points on a change in inflation?
Well, you bring up a really great point, Tom, And especially with regards to goods, what we've discovered is that we really don't know the price elasticity of demand of a number of these goods that are going to be impacted. So we're triangulating all sorts of different data sources and really kind of trying to get under the hood. But your point is well taken, right, What is even the point of going out to two decimal points if you, uh,
if you have this level of uncertainty. Nevertheless, we try to be as precise as possible so we can learn from action.
Do you see substitution of products going on because of tariffs.
Oh absolutely, I mean, and I think what will be interesting to see is is again how price sensitive are consumers once these price increases really start to feed through. Let's remember we had an extraordinary amount of front loading in the in the beginning of the year and really at the end of the fourth quarter last year, where consumers pre bought and suppliers pre bought ahead of these tears, right, and so we're still waiting for that pig in the python to move its way through Constince.
What do you think we'll see that? Is that something that we're going to see maybe today or we're not going to see any inflation impact if there is any, and a lot of folks say that there may not. Is that something that we may have to wait to the fall to see maybe in the data.
You know.
I think you're right, Paul. I think it's I think it's taking a lot longer. And what we see from some alternative sources like Cavallo for example, which really it does work on real time prices and they gather information from four different retailers. We can guess who some of
those retailers are Amazon, Walmart. And when you think about Amazon and the tros of PhD economists they have working on how to price goods, right, they probably have better information about the price elasticitute than anybody else right now in the US economy. And what they show is actually that domestic prices, while they increase in the beginning, have
really leveled off. So domestic suppliers are aware of that price sensitivity, I think, and are keeping their prices competitive so that they can gain market share.
Cons it's just to get narrow here. Forty five seconds. Auto insurance is three percent of our inflation picture. Is there anybody listening who's paying less and auto insurance? I don't think so.
Constance, No, And you talked earlier about all the flash floods and rain that you know, the New York area experienced over the last twenty four hours, and that destroys automobiles. If you get stuck in a flash flood, your car is totaled, right, And so we look at the incidents of perils and they're increasing, and then what happens is
that that gets transferred to the entire auto market. Right, everybody auto insures price so that they make up losses in areas where they're experiencing higher catastrophes.
We're trying to give constance thirty two seconds here to look at.
The Yeah, plenty of.
You in the ninety second glance. You've had Constance. What do you see.
Well, it's not showing up in goods, right if you go to the commodities less food and energy. You're not seeing it in apparel, which was down month over month. You're not seeing it in new vehicles, which you know it was also down. Used cars and trucks have a little more complicated pricing in them. Medical care commodities were up zero point six month over month, but you're.
Really not seeing it.
Tobacco and smoking products are up zero point eight, but I don't know if that constitutes a trend. And I you know, I don't know how much we import of.
The dancer is before we let you go, I don't mean to interrupt, but this is too important. After hearing from bestent than Hunter, the President's going to come out and say, show me the inflation in tariffs.
Right, of course he is, Yes, that's that is the issue, and the reality is it is not in the current data. We do know, of course, that inflation is somewhat of a lagging indicator.
Right.
If you're a firm, You're going to wait as long as you can to raise prices because you don't want to lose market share. So we just need to keep in mind this is a lagging indicator.
Is there a scenario where the companies actually buy and large do ticket in the margin and we don't see it necessarily at the consumer level. Is that a scenario. I know a lot of folks are suggesting that might be the case.
Well, there was an interesting article I think it was in the Wall Street Journal from my morning scan of the news how Levi's is reducing the number of skews in order to manage their costs so that they don't have to pass on the price increases, right, So they're
reducing the variety of things that they're producing. And so I think firms are really you know, when you think about the data and analytics that's been deployed over the last six years in companies have a lot more capacity to control their supply chain and to control their product mix. And we're seeing some of that protivity game from that those data enhancements coming to bear as firms try to manage through this keas.
So thank you so much, just wonderful to have you here at eight thirty for the National inflation for a constance hunter with Ei.
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We turned to banks. It's been a helter skelter today with the Treasury Secretary. This is a more important conversation for Global Wall Street. Allison Williams joins us with Bloomberg Intelligence. Allison, the way I read it as a complete hack is we go there's four big banks. No, there's JP Morgan and there's these three other banks. Am I off the mark?
Well, there's JP Morgan. I always say covering JP Morgan is like covering you know, four big companies, right, or you know, depending on how they they've done their division. I guess it's three big companies now, so you know, really the net interest income guidance very strong, about six hundred million upside to the course shy sick.
I went back and forth with Valerie Titell London. They did a tangible equity of twenty percent plus. Am I right? City Groups half that.
Uh, you are right, I mean if you look at you know, so if you look at City Group, it's a very different story. Right. So City Group is still in a story of transition. We've been talking about that transition, as we say, ever since Sandy built the house. It's been being taken apart. And I think Jane Fraser is making a lot of tough decisions there and really solid quarter out of City Group as well. You know, they're
upping their net interesting income guidance. They're fixed income trading up twenty percent, so that's a that you know, JP Morgan and Wells were up thirteen to fourteen percent. You know, City Group has an amazing rates and currencies trading business, as you know, Paul, and that is really where the strength is this quarter. That's where the volatility is and they are really executing in that business. Again, Corn at
interest income going up for both of those banks. Wells Fargo a little softer, but Wells Fargo is looking at the overall number. Keep in mind that there is corenet interest income and then there's a number that includes trading. And so the trading that interest income tends to be off set in fees. I think, but from a headline perspective, people are sort of going to be less positive on those Wells Fargo results. Wells Fargo also not getting this
huge benefit. So as I said, they saw some growth and fixed income trading, but well, you know JP Morgan and City much stronger in those businesses. JP Morgan delivering a billion dollars of upside in their trading and fee you I haven't done the calculation yet for our City group, but the trends also better for City are.
What are the banks saying about loan origination? Are they writing loans? We're just talking to christ Van seen us at all relinement about private credit, and I just think back to my Chase Manhattan days.
We were killing it.
They're on the leverage loan business, making money upfront, making money on the spread, syndicating by risk out to every other bank around the country. What are they making loans these days?
So they are making loans, I mean you know that that the card business, which is probably not your concern back then or now, but the card business is very profitable for these banks and that's where the loan growth has been. And again that's benefiting City and JP Morgan. We have seen a little bit of pickup in the commercial numbers in uh, you know, in the FED data. We're going to hear what Bank America says tomorrow on that. I think with regard to privates, you know, it is
a change. But I think if you look at, for example, Goldman's business, So Paul, you know Goldman, you know their merchant banking business. You know that they, you know, back in the day, made a lot of money from making these proprietary investments. Vulgar rule came along and said, please
don't do that on your balance sheet. By the way, investors don't like the balance sheet, right because when you make those kind of investments and you're recording gains, people don't really give you a lot of credit because they view them as violatil et cetera. But you have someone like Goldman who's now said I'm going to be an alternative asset manager, and now instead of putting my balance sheet we're at risk, I'm gonna take the client's money
so and I'm going to earn fees. And investors like that. They like asset management. It's a high multiple business and so it's a higher return on equity business. And that's been a long term story at Goldman. So I think the banks are fine, and so that's a Goldman specific but I think all the banks are doing that.
Okay, I want to go to the gossip of the moment. Folks on the Hampton's over a beverage for choice. Allison Williams is getting hammered by fancy people over the reorg under Mary Erdos at JP Morgan. First of all, I'm going to say they're the most successful bank asset manager, the only one really competing with black Rock and the others. So Mary's built a franchise and now they're saying geography doesn't matter anymore. The Wall Street Journal had this great
summary of it. Explain to us how JP Morgan and Mary Erdos is blowing up asset management private wealth.
Well, I think that you know, Mary Aerdos is first and foremost thoughtful about the talent across her business, and you know, is consistently talking about the strength they have
as an active manager. But one of the more interesting things that Eric Belchunis is, as you know, who's the expert on eats, has been talking about, is that they are really gaining share in the active etf business and so so that's not your that's not your question, but that is something that I want to highlight that I think is something happening.
We're in a bull market, they're minting more money than God, and JP Morgan is saying, we got a problem. We got to blow up private Wealth Management. Why are they blowing it up and what's the goal?
Well, again, I don't know. I think that Mary Erdos is a very thoughtful leader, and I think that again, it's it's sort of like as we're as we're going through the future. We've been through a long period of what we call us exceptionalism. But I think that JP Morgan has always focused on the world at large, focused on emerging markets, focused on these different growth opportunities, and I think it's just a way and by the way, JP Morgan, I think is always as I alluded to earlier,
you know, looking at things differently. When you're a global organization, you have products and you have regions. I think sometimes you have to find a way to focus on both. And again I just I go back to the fact that they're very focused on talent, and I think that you know, they're thoughtful about the way they run their business.
We're seeing so many good results coming out of these US global banks. It just makes me think next week we're going to hear from the European banks and they're just nowhere, nowhere relative to where the US banks are. When will Europe say we need to allow consolidation here? I mean, they fall so far behind every single year, it seems is it.
Not an issue for them?
They do?
And I think that. I mean, I think the biggest change Paul over the last you know, let's let's call it a decade or a couple of decades, right time flies, is that you know, first of all, the US has benefited from a virtuous cycle of having sort of a better economy for a long period of time. But really, you know, they've they've been from the virtuous cycle of investment. They had the money to invest, they invested the money, so that's led to better revenue, better market share, et cetera.
Whereas I think for the Europeans, you know, they try to sort of cut their way to profitability and that ended up you know, as you know, investment, banking and trading these are not businesses where you should go bargain shopping, right, and so I think that they didn't invest that hurt them. They've had to exit businesses, et cetera. But it's difficult because each of the everyone agrees we really should consolidate, merge some of the best ones together. But no one
wants to be the seller. Everyone wants to be the buyer. Everybody wants the champion in their home market. That's that's the difficulty.
Are we at the point where the shock of that later this year quickly here Allison, as we get one big industry roll up because they find price, and as the sellers say enough, let's go.
I mean, you know, we could have had this conversation fourteen a million.
You know, I just.
Think that those political sensitivities, it's it's very difficult and it's hard to say whatever would would change their mind makes that makes sense on paper, you know, politics get in the way.
Ten seconds tomorrow, Golden Sacks, Morgan Stanley, they do better than.
Good I you know, based on the training and feed members we saw today, based on all the trends we saw in the quarner, we think that it's going to be a solid quarter for trading. We're going to want to hear what their what their CEO clients are saying in regard to the thank you.
So much for this brief, particularly on you know where we are on the reorg of JP Morgan in private management, and of course over to the other banks, particular City Bank.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Apple Corplay 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 where you get.
The private credit here with Hu von Steinas. Paul's going to bring that in, but I got to first do an audible here, folks, it's a surveillance audible in a two hour conversation with Hugh von Steinas. You go, Okay, where did this guy come from? And it's not Oliver Wyman or it's worked with the Bank of England with at the time Governor Karney Or he did this as
ubs No Da da da da years ago. I think Queen Anne Hugh von Steinas was at Morgan Stanley and he was absolutely definitive on EU finance joining us now with Oliver Wyman, Hu von steinas audible, I saw the French Trustsaur, not the Oat, Hugh, the Trustsaur roll over yesterday with acceleration. How fragile is French debt given mister Trump Shenanigans.
Oh, Tom, thanks for having me on again. Look, I think there's a lot of pressure from invests for on the on the French situation. A lot of fixed income investors are struggling with the lack of debt consolidation. And look, you know, let's play the history here, Tom. You know, I think the French shrout the last thirty years have
somewhat struggled with reigning and public debt. In fact, if you go back to nineteen eighty one eighty three, you know, actually Meterol had to do a huge pivot because he just wasn't controlling the public debts back there. And so I think there's there's real pressure here. And look, the fact that Spread's already trading outside Portugal and Spain and there's a lot of debate about whether they trade outside lately in Greece tells you how stress and unnervous folks are.
The Jurgon he's our jargon. I mean, he was a state dinner and he brought the conversation or Holt with his jargon. What he's saying there is French credits, trading worser Folks and Portugal, Greece and all here. One final question on this and beginning to see real yields inflation adjusting yields in Europe come up as well, can President Trump, with his tariff debate pull up e who really yields to bring Europe to a standstill?
It's a great question. It's certainly possible. I think, look, isn't the issue with taris at the moment that the short term pain is not there, and it's a question more about how it impacts investments and the longer term business.
And just like you've seen the resilience in the States, you're seeing real resilience in the European earnings and particularly the opening of the fiscal that so I'm not sure that it would necessarily drag it up immediately, but I think that tension over a one to three year period, that's where you're going to start seeing, is they're going to be more friction in the system from lack of competitiveness, and let's hope certainly by then we're going to see
a deal. So I'm not as convinced on that, but you know, anything's possible.
You were starting to hear from the big banks today in one of the areas of questioning for the banks will be kind of how they view private credit visa v. Their core lending business. How do you guys view what has been just a phenomenal growth story and global wallstree, which is private credit.
Look, so, I think the private credit train continues, and as we've discussed many times, you know that sector is growing twenty to twenty five percent compound because it's not
just about leverage lending and mid market lending. It's also now about replacing investment grade, either through asset back lending, so you know, so like private securitizations, or it's going for these jumbo deals, you know, these really large complex deals, and under current bank regulations, if it's risky, if it's very large or very complex, it goes to the private markets rather than the public. So I think there's two
games here. I think the first is the banks are clearly fighting back, and you saw the news from one of the big banks yesterday which you ran showing a new group to try and come up with solutions for more complex deals. Maybe the bank takes part. Maybe it's sliced up and gives part to private credit, but the
banks are very much back. But I think the other story, and I think you'll see it through this earning season, is banks love steep yield curves, and so the interest income for the banks I think will continue to beat and beat and beat because these steep curves will transferrate through to higher earnings. And therefore, even though they're seeding ground to private credit, the core engines are still doing really well.
So for the private credit business, are there opportunities for retail investors to get exposure to this asset class?
Yeah, this is a great question. So we've been digging into this. So there's been a two and a half fold increase in the investments by wealthy in private credit in the last three years. That's four times faster than from traditional institutional investors. We think something like three hundred and fifty billion dollars, or about twelve percent of private credit assets now come from the wealthy. Now the wealthy,
though it's still it's the ultra wealthy. And one of the biggest areas of innovation in partnerships and new products is trying to think about expanding this to a much broader range of clients through Evergreen Funds, and you know, just once at Evergreen Funds are probably the single fastest growing part of the investment universe at the moment, interval grums are growing seventy percent from a low base. So I think this is a narrow where there's there's quite a lot of room to run from here with.
Us, Hugh van Stinas, with Oliver Wyman, he's too madest. Let me put it to you. It's a it's a really I hate him. There's a twenty one page document Oliver Wyman. Private credit is reshaping wealth portfolios. Get it through Oliver Wyman. We do protect the copyright of all of our guests, Hu von Steinas, Ben Phillips, Laura Watkin and parth Aggerwall as well. What's the risk factor here? A wise one? Is it too much money chasing too few private credit opportunities? Is that the quiet quality is
going to go down? Is the ir ar GONFC? I did that. It's impressive, so I'll get out here. What's the major risk factor here?
Look, it's great, well, I'd say so. In the net so neartum. The biggest threat is just too much money chasing, and credit spreads continue to depress and compress. And look, we've already gone from you know, if you were trying to buy a single a private credit bond two years ago, you might be getting two percent more than a public single A last year, it's probably one hundred and fifty one hundred and seventy five bases over basis points. Over
today it's probably only a point. So it's probably the excess spread is probably halved in less than twenty four months, and so there might be if there's a lot of money coming through. So therefore the constraint is really about originating more assets, and so you're seeing more deals with private credit team up with banks for partnerships, but also looking to generate their own assets. And I think that's the gate for me. If they don't originate enough assets,
then the spreads will compress. I think longer term, clearly there's always going to be a credit cycle and so that you know, and there'll be some good decisions and bad decisions. But I think at the moment it's the weight of money Q.
I mean, the dollars are getting just really substantial there. Over the last decade or so, we're starting to get more and more retail exposure there, so there need to be some type of regulation on the private credit business, do.
You think.
So?
I think it depends what kind of regulation. So I don't see the sector as systemic. I mean, let's remember banks get regulated partly because they hold everyone's deposits, but also they're very leveraged. And so when credit leaves a bank, which it may be is ten times levered, maybe going to an institutional account, which may be zero to one times levered, less leverage means it's less risky when you
hit a speedbump. So I don't see a systemic But the more you put private credit into retail portfolios, the more that then, you know, the sec and regulators looking at the products and protecting investors will need to think about is this the right product? Have we got regular marks?
You know?
And I think we discussed this last time I was in New York, the pricing conventions, So the way you think about pricing private credit, you can't just do it once a quarter every month, and if not more frequently. So there's a lot of regulatory stuff which we need to play.
I promise Dan Tannebaum, I'd read your private credit report here, I'll get a PIMS in my hand and read that this weekend, huvon Stein is definitive on private credit with Oliver Wyman.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Apple Corplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal.
If we're not going to turn this into a history lesson, but the bottom line is at LC in the fifties, Carl Popper sat with a young student named George Soros and said, the way we think about history, the way we digest past tense data, is maybe not as productive as it could be with something called reflexivity, which is a different approach. If AI is about a large language model data dump, how are we going to move artificial intelli eins onto what Soorrols and Popper we're talking about.
That's a great question. First of all, thank you for having me on the show. I think as what we're seeing currently, what is really exciting about the technology that we're witnessing right in front of us is that it has this capability to digest huge amounts of data and start to make sense of it, help us make sense
of it. And I think that we have always looked to the past to try to understand the future because that's the only data that we had right And what is different this time versus before is that we seem to have been accumulating more and more data but didn't have increased bandwidth to process it. In my mind, AI is going to resolve this.
Okay, it's going to resolve it, but it's just nothing more than a richer, deeper back test. Everybody did beck to us on a difference equation. We went back to T minus one or T minus twenty. Whatever is AI going to change? How Global Wall Street, the pros listening to the show.
How they back test it is going to change it? Because actually, I'll let you know that the experience that we have had so Reflexity platform is used by a number of top head truants and what we have found as they start to incorporate this into their workflow is that they are amazed by the speed with which the system is able to answer their questions by going straight
to the data. In fact, often they run out of questions because you were not used to being able to tap into the data so powerfully and so quickly, and so we seem to now be limited only by our imagination. So the way I think about AI helping investors on Wall Street is giving them this superpower where they can keep thinking about scenarios that can unfold and have the AI back that.
Up or dispute it through the data.
It's a very objective arbiter.
Can you give us, and this is so new to so many of us, our listeners, our viewers, what is a typical query that you would get from an investor client that maybe AI could be helpful with.
Well, it started with things that were extremely basic in nature. Somebody might just say like, oh, you know, I'd like to really understand when somebody talks about the inverted yield curve, how accurate has that actually been in predicting recessions. It then became a lot more complex when you might say, look at all of financials for a specific company, be a Tesla, Microsoft, jpm organ, whatever, tell me what is the market not appreciating? And suddenly it's pulling together things.
It's able to glean from endless reports, news outlets and financials and say, well, actually here are some parts of the business that are growing extremely fast but get no mention from the analysts, and so you could have a rebrating the dream here is that And this is what Reflexivity reports to do. Is if you were the first to know that AWS was going to be a big deal for Amazon, you would have made a lot of money.
Wow.
So this is such an amazing part of the investment process. How are your clients using it today? I mean, how is that evolving? Because I'm assuming this is an education process for some pretty smart investors, some savvy investors, but maybe they don't understand the logic behind artificial intelligence. How are they using it today? And how do you want them to use it?
Honestly, our first advice to the pioneering clients have come to us and start using it, and there have been an increasing number in the past few weeks, is just dip their toes into a try it. I think trial and error is very important because I think working with AI is unlike any other software that you would have used before. Right, where does it get data, how does it calculate, how does it reason?
And so on?
Once you get the hang of it, however, it becomes extremely exciting, and you can see people just get engaged with it.
Okay, you grew up in a milieu of Harvard, MIT and all the fancy people up in Boston. Black Shoals came out, and I never met Fisher Black, to my great regret, he died tragically early. But what a joy I've had in discussing myrone Shoals and picking up the pieces of nineteen ninety eight. How does a modeling that's new, wrapped around reflexivity, How does this tested model work given substantial leverage shocks the discontinuities that are brought out by leverage, as a pro would.
Use So again, I think here the calculations that the system will do do fall back on the traditional statistical methods. It's not reinventing the way you're calculating things or the way you're calculating correlations. What it's able to do, however, is understand the analysis that you're trying to achieve and then potentially do that analysis in three or four different ways.
Which side of the log normal curves aside. I can see you with slide fern Rogoff in some PhD belllet going Gaussi into lognormal toplasson distribution on a vanilla log normal distribution, Kyl, and I'm doing this for you. It's jargon. On a log normal distribution, the short side's more difficult to manage alongside. Do you get better alpha pickup short in the market versus a long market?
Actually, I think it's quite symmetric. It's true that generally when you look at how investors perform in buying versus getting out of positions, they're generally worse at getting out of positions. They're quite good at picking them, but not so good at getting rid of them. They typically do it when they have to. So here the AI can be helpful because it's able to actively This is what
reflexivity does spot something in the market. Let's say that interest rates are starting to move much faster than they have been, and you'll point to your banking stocks and say you should pay attention to this because it could be that there is a lot more downside races than you realize.
This is great, thank you, So please don't be a stranger. Yan Silagi with us with reflexivity. This is a tool that's being used for a lot of sophisticated investors to get out front of mind create an edge. His work in academics with Ken Roe Gough Harvard is loaded.
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It's a truncated version day. She came in a little parched. I think you out, I mean what I should say? Yeah, after the floods yesterday, Lisa Matero Trooper made it into work today. If you serious floods in New Jersey? What do you got?
Okay, Paul, you have to still had that big European trip coming up, right, Okay, Okay, So this one's for you. I saw this on the Wall Street Journal. It stood out American travelers have less buying power this summer because of the weekening dollar. So the Wall Street Journal said the dollar week in thirteen percent against a euro this year six percent against the Japanese yen. But the thing is, it's not stopping travelers from booking trips, as you know. Okay,
people say they just might buy less while they're there. Probably, I don't know if you plan to buy less while you're there.
I may go down a little bit lower on the wine list. Maybe when I'm in Italy, I might not go for the highest end. But we'll be fine, We'll be fine.
Yeah, And then they to also point out to you on the bright side, it's made kind of exports cheaper, open up opportunities for Americans to invest in those foreign stocks as well. But an interesting take on the weekends.
And I'm hearing, you know, hear from the airlines. I mean that, you know, the airlines took up their guidance and reintroduced their guidance, saying that the air travels strong, including us to Europe. So you know, if you talk to our friends in London or Paris, they're like, they're Americans everywhere. I'm not sure they're happy about it.
I mean, I looked at the Bulgary menu with lots hurras of the deck. They're overlooking the famous new monuments. They just reopened the Carpaccio di Spignola on Alio Lemon. I can't read the rest. Twenty two euros. I mean, well, that's that's what you expected the bulgari that's going to cost you a couple dollars more.
I know it is.
We'll be there, We'll be there.
Do you cut back on the Sylvan years? Maybe you don't get presents for everyone?
Right?
Exactly, there's a you come down to Spanish steps and there's a a souvenir stores called like Gucciz. It's a that's a you're looking at next.
Okay, Starbucks corporate managers who are working remotely currently, they're gonna have to pack their bags relocate. They have one year to do it. They have to go to Seattle or Toronto within twelve months. So they put out this back to Starbucks plan. Corporate employees are now having to come back four days in the office a week, up from three days starting September twenty ninth.
But what's iron days they were still on?
I know they were still on.
The three days.
Yeah.
Actually, But the thing that was ironic to me too was that Starbucks CEO Brian Nicol like he wasn't required to really when he first started, but the company says he does have a residence and an office in Seattle now, so so yeah, so he has come back.
Are they are we still doing Are they doing well?
I mean no, they're not.
The thing is like sa else they posted five consecutive quarters of safe store sales.
Line stock has going nowhere during the pandemic.
Essentially, he's trying like they're trying to overhaul the cafes, make them more welcoming, trying different things.
But I mean I have seen a change. I mean they're actually writing on the cups again. Yes, yes, that's a big I have a sophisticated analysis there, so you know it's not just but people are just the drive through line is out the and there's nobody in the store.
I could tell you they do Costa's ben wall. They're not right, exactly where do you go the next one?
Okay, you're gonna have to help me with this.
Okay.
So the NC double A right, they want to expand March Madness, but the tournament might not be enough to pull in more money by growing it. So they have another option on the table, and that is going to booze. We're talking beer, wine, alcohol. These are things that the NC DOUBLEA has kind of steered away from. But here's
where it gets a little confusing for me too. But the NC double A can't sell those sponsorships themselves, so they have to persuade the broadcasters CBS and Turner to do it and then increase their own annual payment to the NC double A. So it's this weird position that they're in.
So we're going to have I mean, Paul Dricks Budweiser folks. Yeah, the seventeen year old new superstar do cass. They have a Budweiser and a magic patch.
So I guess CBS will you know, start taking ads for booze and stuff like that they're on.
It's weird because they're tied to this contract through twenty thirty two, you know, fixed payments.
So but I think they're going to expand the NC DOUBLEA. The march men is to like more teams and everything.
So they're going to go to be on sixty four teams.
They want to go to seventy six was what they're saying from this article.
But does it, Paul help me here? That doesn't sound like a dumb idea. I mean, well it's not. I don't know what the right numbers like the NHL or MLB, but yeah, just more teams. I mean, I guess, I guess.
Any more exciting. I don't. I think it kind of waters it. I don't know.
Yeah, I like it at the beginning, am I right? Well, I like it at the beginning of the tournament because I haven't been thrown out. Right. I never watched a final four because I don't know there's nothing in it.
But that first weekend is what it's all about. You know, all the team's playing, and that's what makes March Madness great.
Lisa, you can be able to get home. We get rain tomorrow, rain Thursday.
I just got to keep checking myself. Pumped.
I go to the basement and is it still working?
Kick that thing, make sure it's still going.
The newspapers thank you so much this morning.
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