Market Risks ahead of Fed Decision and Turkey's Political Crackdown - podcast episode cover

Market Risks ahead of Fed Decision and Turkey's Political Crackdown

Mar 19, 202536 min
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Watch Tom and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Bloomberg Surveillance hosted by Tom Keene & Paul SweeneyMarch 19th, 2025
Featuring:
1)Sebastien Page, Head of Global Multi-Asset and Chair of the Asset Allocation Steering Committee at T. Rowe Price, talks about repositioning portfolios as geopolitical and trade risks continue to rise. Investors are likely to remain on edge ahead of the Fed's announcement, which is expected to hold interest rates steady but could offer clues on the outlook for the economy and monetary policy.
2) Jane Foley, Head of FX Strategy at RaboBank, talks about the Turkish lira nosedive and how it's impacting stocks. Turkish markets plummeted after the detention of President Erdogan's rival, Ekrem Imamoglu, sparking concerns of a political crackdown and potential reversal of investor-friendly economic policies. The lira hit a record low, stocks dropped sharply, and borrowing costs surged as investors sold off government debt.
3) Dean Curnutt, CEO and founder at Macro Risk Advisors, joins for an extended discussion on market volatility, the Fed, and how traders are managing all the market uncertainty. Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference today will be scrutinized for his views on the potential impact of Trump’s trade tariffs and how much support the central bank could offer to the slowing economy.
4) Erin McLaughlin, Economist at The Conference Board talks about tariffs, inflation, and declining consumer confidence. Investors have slashed holdings of US equities by the most on record while cash levels jumped, according to Bank of America Corp.’s latest survey.
5) Lisa Mateo joins with the latest headlines in newspapers across the US, including President Trump's hostility toward Canada hurting NYC tourism and why companies are opting for 'Dexit' and moving to Nevada.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast.

Speaker 1

Catch us live weekdays at seven am Eastern on Apple CarPlay or Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 3

Sebastian Page joining us right now. We have three things to talk about with him, and of course with Tierro. Price had a multi asset chair of asset allocation, and you know that's the focus of the discussion. We got to talk about his Canada so much in the news right now. But I got to put this book up. This is out in a couple of weeks, This book of the Month Club Readers Digest, The Psychology of Leadership coming out Bonus Round, Weekend Readable. It's got the right

length to it. But what completely separates this book is you have you know, we're about the book of the year. Maybe it is, maybe it's not even read it yet. You have the forward of the year. How did you get Larry kaulp to give you the forward to your book?

Speaker 4

Nine enough to accept to participate. Larry was on the board of directors for a while for Tiro Price and I use every connection I could get to try to get to him to ask him for this favor.

Speaker 3

What are the cast practices of mister Caulp at Tiro Price, at danaher in the Miracle? He's wrought a generous electric What are the cult best practices?

Speaker 4

He's really into the Japanese approach to quality and kaisen, and he's really into listening to the customer. I remember, Tom, I had to present to the board once about my business and the stories in my book. But I presented a range in terms of my growth forecast for our business, and the range was pretty wide. Let Reculp would not have it. They said, what is your goal? So there's a lot of discussions around that.

Speaker 3

Our goal right now is mental stability with their portfolios. Least is medicaid. But what do we do with this uncertainty out there right now? How do you approach that?

Speaker 4

We're not panicking, Tom, I think market's the economy. I think we're going to be okay. We're looking at a slow down. The data for the consumer is showing that things are slowing down and the markets is selling off. But it's not just because of tariff headlines. It's because of the growth slow down. It's because we had extremely high valuations going into this, and yes, the word of the hour uncertainty. So it's a combination of all these things.

But I don't think we're getting a recession about the consumer.

Speaker 5

We've seen some University of Michigan data last week which is a little concerning. We had the airlines take their guidance down, forward guidance down with a big broad departments or like coals take its guidance down.

Speaker 6

How do you think the consumer's doing these days?

Speaker 4

So I don't like the last two retail sales prints. The last one was positive but still below expectation. The one before was revised minus one point two percent month over month. Those two data points are not good and they're showing some slowdown overall. The economic surprise index in the US is in negative territory, but I'm not counting the US consumer out yet. Unemployment at four point one

percent is a low number for unemployment. Wages for the last twelve months are growing at four percent and inflation's at three percent. This means that wages are growing faster than inflation. And I know it's completely it's really not distributed equally, but the aggregate shape of the consumer is quite good. The level of household debt to GDP is nearer twenty year low. Again, not every not every segment of the consumer is healthy, but in aggregate it's I'm not counting it out.

Speaker 5

You had a global multi asset, so you can go anywhere. Where are you going these days? What are you talking to your portfolio managers about?

Speaker 4

You know, going into this, we had been adding to europe to international stocks in the on the value side. It turns out right now it's maybe, aside from gold, the best performing asset last year. Today it's up thirteen percent, and we're likely to continue to add. European banks, for example, used to trade at two times their book value prior to the global financial crisis. They're at one time there

are but one ex their book value. So we think there are opportunities there with positive interest rates.

Speaker 5

So as we think about these, a ten percent pullback, let's called an eight percent pull back in the SMP, maybe a twelve percent pull back in Nasdaq.

Speaker 6

Buying opportunity buy the dip, be caut what are we doing here?

Speaker 4

So we've been de risking, but we're at kind of neutral on risk assets right now. We're waiting it out. If the vis goes to thirty and stock sell off fifteen to twenty percent, we're more likely to buy than to sell. So that's what we're kind of watching right now.

Speaker 6

I'm kind of hearing that a lot.

Speaker 5

Like you know, we had Stewart Kaiser from City Group on from the trading desk there at City. He's not buying here, but he's like, we're close. I mean, but to me, it seems like it's kind of all about the earnings out there. If the consumer's pulling back, if there's a lot of uncertainty out there, I'm not sure I can depend upon those earnings numbers that I see out there on the street.

Speaker 4

You know, it's interesting to compare the US with Europe right now, because the earnings estimates in Europe are trending up and the surprises are looking good, better than in the US. And then you look at profitability of European stocks, it's on the way up, whereas in the US it's stabilized.

Speaker 3

It's stabilized, Like we got a couple things to do here. But Sebastian page to ask this right now, there's so much uncertainty out there. All my radars says, that's a massive opportunity to find the opportunity that comes out of any given uncertainty.

Speaker 4

Uncertainty up stocks down usually and historically when they're hispanic in the market. I know, Tom, you like to watch the vis When the vix hits thirty, historically, it's a good time. It's a good time to look for opportunities. We like non US value stocks because you have evaluation advantage, you have short term momentum, and that short term momentum is supported by fundamentals.

Speaker 3

Okay, so you knew Paul years ago that you looked at Canton, which was the best school in northern New York. You can literally hear the Saint Lawrence River whatever up north there, or Clarkson, which is sology one hockey and they'd have six ringers from Quebec on there. You don't know those folks with Sebastian Page looks like that left wing we hated on the other team. He spoke perfect English, but when he stepped on the ice he only speaks French.

So you're even more intimidated by him. You grew up in the heart of it. You go from Victoriaville down through Windsor to the land of hockey stick Sherbert Quebec. Is your Quebec going to be on board with Mark Kearney in this battle with the United States.

Speaker 4

You know, I started playing ice hockey at the age of five.

Speaker 7

That how you have to do that in Quebec.

Speaker 4

I'm kind of conflicted because have dual citizenship US and Canada. I think things were normalized. We just have to be patient, wait some of it out and just go along with a good faith negotiation. And again I'm kind of my heart is in both places.

Speaker 3

So what do you do in the hockey game here? The other day US Canada? It was great?

Speaker 4

Well there, yeah, well you know when I swear and I watched hockey, I swear in French.

Speaker 6

Yes, there you go.

Speaker 3

Well in French when I missed, when I missed my cue, I got asked, we got to get the Jane Foley here. But this is too important. Victoriaville CCM five stripe or did you go with the local Sherwood?

Speaker 4

The local Sherwood. Yeah, I had the best hockey stole.

Speaker 3

I had the Victoriaville toe curve. It was the only thing I'd pay a lot of money.

Speaker 4

Now, yeah, we used to heat it up. He curved exactly with the writing.

Speaker 3

You get the blowtorch out here, your mother would be like toll part up the basement. Sebastian. Jane Foley's in London going what did we got? Stay with talking about Sebastian Page, Thank you so much. Book The Psychology a Leadership is the book. This will be out so you can't get it today. Lawrence Kopp with the introduction to the Psychology of Leadership.

Speaker 2

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast.

Speaker 1

Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Apple Corplay.

Speaker 8

And Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.

Speaker 1

You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Speaker 3

Jane Foley, she is an Robert Bank. We really appreciate her coming on on short notice. I don't want to do you know, international relations bit Jane Foley on Turkish Lira out two big figures thirty six to thirty eight. But it's destabilizing within an emerging market disaster, idiosyncratic disaster. What does it signal that the people of Turkey to see such an abrupt weakening.

Speaker 9

Well, of course this is related again to the idea that Ergon is reassearching a more authority rule. Certainly over the last few weeks I suppose that there has been a lead up to this, not a huge surprise, but of course Erigon needs to have an early presidential election if he wants to win again, and it looks as if he's taken out some of his main opposition. From the markets point of view, of course, there is a fear that this could be at learned to unorthodox policies.

But of course for Europe there's something else as well, and this is all related back to Turkey's want potentially to become a member of the EU, but also what we've been seeing this year in terms of NATO, Europe of course having to step up in a much bigger way for its own defense, and Turkey putting out there the possibility that it, with its second largest army within NATO, could play a greater function in that defense if perhaps it had a little bit more power within the EU.

So that is something which I think has created more uncertainty in politics in Europe.

Speaker 3

Pass has enough talk on Turkey. Paul wants to know what the euro is going to do for travels this summer. Are we going to actually model out of euro to one fifteen stronger.

Speaker 9

Euro Well, we've got one twelve as our.

Speaker 7

Cancel that exactly.

Speaker 9

But you know, I would say that, you know, you know, when you know, with your previous guess you were talking about US stocks, I think you know, to put it in context, you know, one of the biggest changes for the markets this year has been the news regarding German you know, fiscal policy, and that the movement higher in terms of GDP that we've seen for some German big forecasters now not for this year, but for next year and the year after. That's a real sea change for Europe.

And of course we've seen a big sea change in China too, and that of course with deep seat but also the BYD battery system that we've heard about this week too for for autos, and I think these two things are really created, you know, a lot of change in terms of what investors are looking at in terms of investment opportunities. Last year it seemed to be just about the US. Now people are thinking, you know, did

I overlook Europe? Did I overlook China? You know, there are opportunities there in which I didn't realize were potentially their last year. So this is this is really significant and that is why you know, the europe is the euro is looking a lot better, even though some of that money may not be be spent immediately, it is coming in Germany and that's a huge difference.

Speaker 7

Pound.

Speaker 5

Sterling's had a nice kind of run here this year as well. Here what's driving.

Speaker 7

That jain and kind of how do you think about that going forward?

Speaker 9

Well, you know, the cable certainly had a jitter's right at the beginning of the year, partly related of course to US eels dragging guilt eels high, but also the poor growth outlook which doesn't look good for government finances, which of course the strainer in the UK. Now cable has gone higher since then, but that's largely related to the weakness of the dollar. To be honest, I think the euros story has meant that Sterling is going to struggle now to win more ground back against the euro.

But there is a statement, a budget statement to the spring statement, I should say, on March the twenty six and the government really going to have to come back on spending in order to play by its fiscal rules. But you know, I think ster is out of the limelight that the news has been so much about Germany within Europe this year.

Speaker 3

Jane Foley on short notice, we really appreciate a team surveillance. Appreciate your effort. This morning with Rabobank Jane Foley in London.

Speaker 1

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from seven to ten am Eastern Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 5

Our next guest Joints is sar Dean, currenty CEO and founder of Macro Risk Advisors.

Speaker 6

What's going on with gold? I mean I get it safe haven kind of thing, but is something else going on here?

Speaker 7

I think there's a number of things.

Speaker 10

I mean, first sort of stepping back and thinking about this idea of diversification and you know, it's a time honored pursuit in markets.

Speaker 7

And it's it's elusive.

Speaker 10

And what I mean by that is you can try to pick stocks that zig and zag with one another, but it turns out that when there is a risk off, that's when correlations, you know, really rise. So you have got to find assets that are just unlike equities. And what I would say is gold is truly unlike stocks. If I look at the last twenty odd years of both returns and correlations in the S and P and gold, the realized correlation of daily returns is five percent.

Speaker 7

That is absurdly low.

Speaker 10

And you just can't find something like that in the equity market. If you just chose even two random stocks, you're going to get correlations in the forty to seventy percent. So gold, first and foremost is a diversifier. And second it's a limited supply asset, and I think that's critical as well.

Speaker 7

An asset that does not have limited supply is.

Speaker 10

Treasuries, right where a wash in treasuries And I think right now you want to find those assets that are disciplined, and gold is a disciplined asset, and that there's just not a supplier of it.

Speaker 3

I want to come back to gold. But and this is too important a question. Is persistent free cash flow a scarce item right now?

Speaker 10

I think in some ways yes, I would say that as well. The market, of course, has been pricing this gigantic capex spend growth. Growth in capex has obviously been a big part of what's empowered the MAG seven. You know, compare compare the sort of top of the S and P the MAG seven to where we were twenty five years ago. And you know, just to use this word discipline again, profitability in these companies currently is much higher

than it was back then. The PE ratios, while they're high, are much more modest than the Cisco and the Intel, you know, the pe boom that was that was the two thousand. So free cash flow is an important aspect of markets. But I think, you know, right now we're in this period where the markets taking a good look at future earnings and also you know, rerating the the pe.

Speaker 3

The water's coming out. Who's wearing no clothes as the tide pulls out? Right now? Where's the exposure that could be embarrassing in the next six months.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I think that it's.

Speaker 10

No, I don't I don't necessarily think that that's as big an issue. I mean, I think, if anything, folks are excited about the you know, the big change in in debt trajectory, at least potentially in Germany.

Speaker 7

We'll we'll see how that plays out. I think the question.

Speaker 10

Around valuations is always going to be an important one. And at some point this US exceptionalism theme got to be I believe, reasonably overdone. You know, when a market outperforms to the extent that the US has. Any allocation to foreign stocks, for example, has proven to be, you know, taking away from your return. And I think people just crowd into a winner, and I think that's where the risk is.

Speaker 3

Let's talk, Paul. The arcane language of Dean kerrent Vall on Bitcoin and assets related to it. MSTR miners is getting hit hard one month implied on ibbit is just forty seven. And that's what's in English. The rest of it's in Greek. I mean this pro derivative stuff, folks, is it's sort of like in the third season and Game of Thrones. It's, you know, just a little arcane to.

Speaker 5

Say this loss the rails a little bit. Dean, what are clients doing in terms of this year? In twenty twenty five, we've had of a higher degree of economic policy uncertainty, which has impacted financial markets pretty significantly. What are your clients doing in the derivatives market to try to I guess play that if you will.

Speaker 10

Yeah, so, I think our major call and our conversations with clients have focused on this idea that the stock market was diversifying itself.

Speaker 7

In a way that is unsustainable and what do I what do I mean by that?

Speaker 10

So if we just look at the MAG seven and we look at the way in which its movements are relative to the rest of the market, zigging and zagging, a lot of diversification even within the MAG seven, unsustainable levels of diversification.

Speaker 7

And what that did was it reduced the overall level of.

Speaker 10

Volatility at the index level for the for the S and P and so as the Trump administration came in and of course there was a lot of enthusiasm for a pro growth agenda. I think that the stop start of the tariffs has been very, very difficult for folks to handicap.

Speaker 7

And so you know, earlier this year we really pushed people to say.

Speaker 10

Okay, look, let's buy some insurance. And you know, insurance is something you have to pay for.

Speaker 7

It's not free. Nothing, nothing like that is free.

Speaker 10

But there was an opportunity to do relatively basic trades in the S and P that allowed you to defray your risk for what we thought was a really reasonable cost.

Speaker 7

That's worked quite well in.

Speaker 3

Your morning community across the Nation, Good Morning ninety ninety one FM in Washington, Bloomberg eleven three Z on New York, ninety two nine FM in Boston, and all the digital process that we have Good Morning Sirius XM on YouTube as well. Dan current Macro risk Advisors. What are the cross moments tell you you're right about Skew, Folks, here's the Greek one month, twenty five day call ball is up three from a week ago, and twenty five day

putball is up four point four. Translate the cross moments, particularly Skew right Now, well.

Speaker 10

Let's just step back and look at this ten percent drid on that we had, you know, in the S and P. There's only a handful that you can find over the last twenty five years. Some of them are the doozies of the GFC COVID. You have the VIX event in twenty eighteen. This one has been unique in the combination of the speed of it, which has happened over just twenty odd days, but a relatively low level of realized volatility twenty percent realized volatility, and it's really

the absence of very large moves. So if I look at my subset of ten percent draw downs. I always see at least two three percent down days in the SMP. My biggest move on this draw down is just two point seven percent. So it's the sequencing of down a percent, down a percent and a half that has led to, you know, a pretty good destruction of wealth at the S and P level. That of course has lifted the VIX, but it's been a controlled demolition, as one client put it, and I think that's a I.

Speaker 7

Think that's well said.

Speaker 10

So the cross moments I don't think are flaring in a big way. It's not like we had a VIX of ten that went to thirty. We had a VIX of fourteen or fifteen that climbed its way into the low twenties level. So it's, like I said, very controlled. And I think the handoff here is okay. The pods for the big multi strat hedge funds have had to de risk. That's caused a lot of factor volatility, a.

Speaker 7

Lot of rotation.

Speaker 10

But the big handoff now is what is the impact on the real economy. I took real interest in the piece on the Bloomberg terminal yesterday, quoting Morgan Stanley's president saying deal making has really gotten frozen here. Yep, right, So it does feel like corporate America has been stymied by the start.

Speaker 7

Stop of the tariff negotiations.

Speaker 5

If I mean again, we've had a straw down the SMP roughly eight percent here, the peak to trough was roughly ten percent. If I want to buy downside protection here, how much more expensive is it today versus a couple months ago.

Speaker 7

Yeah, certainly.

Speaker 10

You know they say you can't trade the VIX, and that's true.

Speaker 7

The VIX is a calculation agent.

Speaker 10

It sort of dutifully takes in all option prices of the S and P and pops out a number.

Speaker 7

But really what it represents is the cost of insurance.

Speaker 10

And so when you move the VICS from fifteen to twenty, you're popping the cost of insurance up kind of thirty percent one month insurance. I like using what they call put spreads, which is what I would call a modified insurance policy. If the market truly crashes, that put spread is going to get me some insurance back. I'm going to get paid back to some extent, but not a GFC style insurance right where I would have needed a gigantic amount of insurance. So we like using put spreads

here because you know the VIX is at twenty. It's not as if it's a steal. But I do think, you know, continuing to maintain some insurance is important.

Speaker 3

So translate the pro put spread structure over to someone like Lisa Matteo with a five oh one K. She's killed it on the tech play. She's not going to do a put spread on a five oh one K. How do you be defensive within a.

Speaker 7

Retirement right, And this is where I come back to.

Speaker 10

You know, insurance is costly. We don't ask Geico to sell us car insurance and not expect them to make money. You shouldn't expect Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to sell you financial market insurance and not to make money.

Speaker 7

Insurance is costly. Over time, that cost can add.

Speaker 10

Up, and so where our focus at Macro Risk Advisors has been has been on diversifying assets like gold. And gold is acting really nicely defensively even as it trends higher. So it's not a tail risk hedge that you can

truly count on. There is some basis risk, but because it's got this limited supply profile, and this is the most important part it occupies a space in the sort of collective intelligence of how people think about markets that it benefits from chaos and sadly, I think the world is having to confront a lot of uncertainty here and so as we try to price in the what ifs of Russia, Ukraine, of terror, riffs of monetary policy, that's

a lot to take in. And gold benefits from this sort of widening of you know, what we have to handicap in terms of potential outcomes.

Speaker 6

Clients you talk to, do they think there's more another leg down in this market?

Speaker 10

Yeah, I'd say it's very easy to paint pictures of, you know, further downside. I think it comes, you know, back to how much is the real economy truly affected by the tariff uncertainty?

Speaker 3

I got to get this in. I mean, it's cruel and unusual punishment. You actually bring your children in to see Bloomberg surveillance. Can we say good morning to mister Thompson really appreciate his attention to the show. My young kids even want you on YouTube while they eat breakfast night before school. Okay, I would back and said, well what do they eat? I figured it was like fruit loops or you know, and it's like Alisa Matteo breakfast.

They're having like gluten free this and you know the oatmeal and you know, come on, So we say, mister thomp said, this is cruel and unusual. Punishment is, well, you didn't bring your offspring in today, did you.

Speaker 10

She could not make the five thirty wake up calls either.

Speaker 3

Either, could I. That's a separate story. Dean Kurtit thank you so much with Macros. Can't say enough about his research. Now you've got to get that through Macro Risk Advisors.

Speaker 2

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast.

Speaker 1

Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Apple Coarplay.

Speaker 8

And Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.

Speaker 1

You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Speaker 3

This is a real bias that I have, folks, Which is it? We like people with prodigious engineering chops. We get some wonderful pedigree in here. Aaron McLoughlin joins us now with a conference board, and I mean the road interview is what's the FED gonna do? But underneath it all is shocking competent and transportation, Urban studies, and engineering. So we're doing a massive audible here with Aaron McLoughlin on her massive unique wheelhouse.

Speaker 11

Good morning.

Speaker 3

Why does it take so long to build anything? Paul Sweeney is out there every day looking at the tunnel over the New Jerseys. Why in America does it take so long to build anything?

Speaker 11

Permits, land acquisition, environmental regulations not in my backyard?

Speaker 2

Or do they have all of those things?

Speaker 3

Do they have not in my backyard in Switzerland?

Speaker 11

I imagine they must, although I just went to Switzerland a couple weeks ago actually and learned that it's smaller than my home state of Massachusetts my population, so you know, there's a lot more homogenious thought perhaps in other places in the world as we know. I think it's really interesting that the current administration is going to speed up federal permitting, federal regulations, but we still have state permitting and regulations and lots of other bureaucracies that will slow

things down. And our supply chain is physical. So this is all really relevant conversation as we talk about reshoring.

Speaker 3

Well, we get one more thing in here. Whether they're building an Intel factory, somewhere sem a conductor and all that. Do we have the labor to do the infrastructure, whether you're expert at or do we have the labor to actually run the companies better than you do three miles west of Hong Kong.

Speaker 11

It's very interesting and that sort of lends itself to the big uncertainty. Construction labor has I believe, the highest percentage of foreign born workers. So my friends that are directly in the construction industry right now are seeing labor shortages be exasperated by some of the policies.

Speaker 3

And yes, yes we go to surveillance construction expert Paul Sweeney, or how about that bathroom redo right now?

Speaker 6

Look looking solid, all those things.

Speaker 5

Just talking about Tom talking about construction, the gateway project, the coming into the the what's going to be the new Lincoln in the new tunnel, the railroads, unbelievable what they've built in just this couple year's time. Really again, the progress that they've made out there building that new railroad thing in North Jersey's pretty cool.

Speaker 6

What we've been dealing with over the last couple of.

Speaker 5

Months, Aaron, has been economic policy coming out of Washington that we're hearing across the board, whether it's talks of tariffs or changes in immigration policies, creating a level of uncertainty out there for everybody. How do you guys reflect that in your data at the Conference Word? What are your companies that you talk to?

Speaker 11

What are they saying. So our companies are members of the Conference Board, what we're hearing from them is of course uncertainty, but it is creating I don't want to use the word paralysis, but it is creating an extreme slowdown in decision making. And that slow down we think will ripple into the economy and cause an economic slowdown.

Speaker 5

And Tom was just calling out the UBS chief executive. He's over in London. He's saying, Hey, basically their MNA stuff is frozen. I mean, you know, because people don't know what to do. How about consumer confidence? Because here in the US that's seventy percent of our economy is kind of the consumer. What's your data showing.

Speaker 11

So the Conference Board is very well known for our consumer confidence index, and it sort of dipped for the first time into what we would consider recessionary possible territory. We are not calling for a recession, but consumers are seeing what's happening around them, and they are cutting back on spending that maybe discretionary.

Speaker 9

You have four.

Speaker 3

Degrees in the Act author Education and Infrastructure, including Oxford University's wonderful infrastructure development and finance effort. Aeron McLaughlin the congestion text. Do you have an opinion that won't get you in trouble with the General counsel of the conference Board?

Speaker 11

Well, I know you all were watching outside the windows, as was I since I'm based here in mid tois Manhattan, and it certainly did ease up on it. It seemed to work, you know, like anything else. After a while, it would probably have less of an impact. Folks would get, you know, accustomed to sort of pain the fee. But congestion weighs down our economy. So there's you know, there's both sides to the conversation.

Speaker 3

Okay, they're in my ear. Ask her one question about the FED. Oh yes, What do we say is the consumer is a consumer in this shutdown so broken that the FED has to do an audible today and say we're going to wait, wait wait.

Speaker 11

I think the FED will wait wait, wait, yes, and I think it will be interesting going forward to keep an eye on labor inform labor data will increasingly be more important this year.

Speaker 3

Now, when you leave the building, if John Tucker or Michael Barr tackle you, I know to look for a parking garage north of sixtieth Street. Just run. I will call security. Aaron McLaughlin, thank you so much for the conference Board Senior economists, and we're going to get our back on this whole infrastructure debate where everything takes forever to build.

Speaker 2

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast.

Speaker 1

Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Apple, Corplay.

Speaker 8

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Speaker 1

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Speaker 3

It is the newspapers, and they've really been something. You know, we'd like to do some lighthearted stuff here, folks, but I'll tell you just newspaper to newspaper right now. Absolutely unreal the jumble that's out there with an unreal report today, Lisa matel what do you have.

Speaker 12

Well, we always hear different stories right about President Trump's hostility toward Canada, how that's affecting different things. Now it's actually could be hurting New York City tourism. So this was in the New York Times. They say were more than one million Canadians visit New York City last year, they spent about six hundred million dollars. Only the British visit more than Canadians the New York City.

Speaker 6

I didn't realize that.

Speaker 12

So now a lot of them are canceling their trips since he imposed the tariffs on Canada, threatened to make it the fifty first state. So the data shows last month the number of Canadians flying to three airports in around the city fell eleven percent compared with twenty twenty four that same time period. And the New York Times

they spoke with different tourism guys. They said, school groups, they're calling off those end of the year trips, retirees, newlyweds, friends, families, and they say that tourism boycott could extend because now people are planning twenty twenty six trips, so they might be canceling those as well.

Speaker 3

Because I'm afraid of what I'll said.

Speaker 6

No, it's just it's it's it's sad.

Speaker 5

And again, you think about Florida, and I think I know a lot of Canadians go to like you know, the Phoenix area in the winter time for all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6

So it's not good.

Speaker 3

I would say more than anything here, I'll just opine, it's just talk about fifty first state. I grew up in basically southern Toronto which is called Rochester and across Lake Ontario. I think, like the airplane flight is eighteen minutes or serving. And it's this talk of a fifty first state.

Speaker 6

It is just it hurtful.

Speaker 3

Yeah, next, you got something lighter than that place.

Speaker 6

Shoot, how about this?

Speaker 12

More companies leaving Delaware for Nevada.

Speaker 8

Okay, And it's a move.

Speaker 12

It's called dexit, that's what they're calling it. U So Delaware's new governor, he's just warning. He's saying they're rolling the dice by leaving to Vegas. But the reason why they're doing it, they say Nevada offers as much safer bet than Delaware and it's recently become easier to move because Delaware Supreme Court changed recently they cleared companies to

leave the state. So they agreed with Nevada's argument because Nevada says it should be the companies and not the courts that should conduct those costs benefit analysis.

Speaker 6

Over what state offers that better deal. So they have had a few more.

Speaker 12

You had a Bill Ackman's Pershing Square, drop box, the trade desk. They've gone from Delaware over Toll.

Speaker 3

It's a huge franchise.

Speaker 6

You go down, ye next is definitely okay.

Speaker 12

So the next time any of you please go to the Taco Bell to drive through, okay, especially those late night runs, AI could be taking your next order. We have young brands, they owned Taco Bell, Pizza hut KFC.

Speaker 6

They're partnering with Nvidia.

Speaker 12

To build these AI driven services in the restaurants. So some of them are AI powered voice ordering it the drive through. So now AI, you won't be talking to a person, you'll be talking to I guess a computer and it's going to be using about five hundred it's locations. But they're saying they're saying they're saying it's going to help boost sales doing that instead of you know, going with the regular humans. But they're saying that the humans

are not going to disappear. They're still going to be there.

Speaker 6

They're just going to be.

Speaker 12

Focused more on customers service and helping the customers instead. But they're using it in different ways. You know internal things too. But McDonald's too has been you know, talking about the different technology that.

Speaker 7

Number two with a coke?

Speaker 6

How hard does that?

Speaker 3

Ordering that?

Speaker 6

Since I was fifteen?

Speaker 3

Well, what percentage of their business is like seamless, DoorDash, grub Hub.

Speaker 8

That's a good question.

Speaker 12

I know in my house it's Ginoi.

Speaker 6

Not in my house.

Speaker 3

I picked up the bag of McDonald's. I said, why are we ordering McDonald's.

Speaker 4

Who are we?

Speaker 3

What have we?

Speaker 12

Well, it's different when you walk in. I truth be told. I went to a McDonald's last week, and you go there and it's just a computer screen.

Speaker 6

You can't go up to the person anymore.

Speaker 12

So you're sitting there and I'm confused. I'm sitting there pressing like fifty million buttons. I'm like what I could have just gone to the person, told them what I wanted, and we've done like this.

Speaker 6

They made it so easy. I was so confused figured it out.

Speaker 12

But technology things are changing.

Speaker 3

Lisa Mateo the Newspapers.

Speaker 1

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast, available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday seven to ten am Easter and on bloom 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

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