Pressure on Fed Independence Is Ramping Up, Broaddus Says

Find Bloomberg Surveillance on iTunes, SoundCloud, Bloomberg dot Com, and of course on the Bloomberg And Brian Levitt now he is a senior investment strategist at Oppenheimer Funds. Joining us here in the studio in New York. B Great to see you. Good morning as always, and let's start with the Central bank news we can we can pick up on what just happened here from the Bank of England. Of course, we had to FED the vision yesterday. Let's start there. Uh, how did you react to what we

heard from from the Fed? Um is march on the table? Are you looking farther ahead to June? What? What did you make of the statement that we got from the FED chair in her colleagues yesterday? I don't think there was anything particularly that exciting about the Fed statement. UM, I don't think we are going to see a rate

hike in March. I think the Federal Reserve is going to UH show the market well in advance of what their intentions are, and then the the interest rate probabilities right now are somewhere between one and five and one and three percent probability of a rate hike in March, So that's not gonna happen. Usually you'll see the Fed closer to six percent probability. I mean, the Federal Reserve is in a in an interesting place, and that we

are closer to our dual mandate. Although inflation UM has improved on the base effects of energy core inflation you know, close to one seven, one eight, but not you know, not this high pressure economy well above two percent and climbing. So we've been in a very prolonged de leveraging, weak growth environment. We're getting good signs of inflation, good carry through into wages. To raise interest rates significantly now when we still have a lot of political uncertainty does not

seem like uh an appropriate path forward. So March likely off the table. Perhaps we'll see we'll see you one before the mid half of the year. You mentioned that dual mandate. You look at that statement for commentary on the labor market. We had this big a DP beat yesterday. We've got the job support coming out tomorrow. Were you surprised that there wasn't more emphasis on our commentary on

the labor market in the statement yesterday? I think there was some speculation going into it that we were, if not nearing full employment and full employment, and perhaps that the Committee would be willing to say so. Well, I think the Federal Reserve wants to be data dependent on this, and they, you know, Yelling in the past has talked

about a high pressure economy. Perhaps she walks back from that a little bit, but this idea that we we still have, um, you know, the U six unemployment rate is still elevated, and those are people that are temporary for economic reasons. So perhaps we'd like to see, uh, you know, better move it down in that before we think about significantly raising interest rates. But one of the things that the FOMC did mention was business confidence, consumer

confidence and all that is appropriate. You are starting to see some animal spirits, but you know, David, this is what we've hoped for this is what we've hoped for for a lot of years. Um. And you know, I think the Fed could have a couple of rate hikes on the table this year, but to aggressively raise rates into this is probably not appropriate. There's a piece on the Bloomberg this morning I read with with interest that is the contours of a debate over the unemployment rate

are shaping up. Tomorrow will be the first job's report under a Donald Trump presidency. Are calling michaelmckeeson a couple of days ago, it's still an Obama jobs reported with the survey was taken while he was still in office. But what do you make of that debate as it shapes up now that you have an administration that is not, let's say, embracing the straight unemployment rate. Um, how messy

is that going to be? Potentially, well, it's disconcerting. I hope somebody sits down with the administration and sits down with President Trump and explains that the Bureau of Labors TOSTIS issues a number of unemployment rates. You one through U six. You to my favorite one red Hill mining town where the streets have no names, right, but you know you one through you six? They we and the headline number we release what the media focuses on is U three, but the administration or the citizens as a

whole doesn't necessarily have to focus on you three. What I always tell clients is picking unemployment rate and stick to it. Don't bounce back, because they tend to move in unison. And you know, if you think about in two thousand nine, the the U six again, which is includes temporary workers for for economic reasons that peak, it's now down below ten. The U three, which does not include those disenfranchised or temporary workers, peaked close to ten percent,

is now below five. So they've both been halfed again. Picking unemployment rate and stick to it, and I hope uh, President Trump's economic advisors can get that through to him. Let's move to markets here a little bit. We'll come back with you after the break. But a lot of people at the end of last year told us this was going to be a very earning driven market. Uh. In two thousand seventeen, we're in earning season. Now, what do you make of what we've seen thus far? Well,

it's a little bit of a mixed bag. I mean, I think the the expectations for earnings is that Um, you are going to see things that are beneficial corporate earnings, which is perhaps lower corporate tax rates, deregulation of industry. UM, you know, stimulus in the United States. So all of that has favored the more cyclical names in the United States, or at least had heading into the beginning of the year UM and favored small and mid caps. And and

I think that that's appropriate. This consolidation we're seeing now in market's is we're dealing with some of the political uncertainties and all of this, I mean very quickly here, when you look at all this, do you change your allocation to your four oh one? Kay? Do you just assume lower bond prices, higher yields? And I can't be traditional, well, I think we should be cautious. Um extrapolating interest rates

going up substantially in the United States. That now, that doesn't mean that you know this, this recent backdown in rates is going to sustain. And I think you know cyclically you will see rates move higher in the U S but not substantially. This idea that we're going to break through three on our way to six percent is

in my opinion, widely overstated. There are secular forces that are likely to keep rates low in the United States and around a lot of the developed world, not the least of which is aging populations and and and high savings rates in Asia. So, um, you might want to reduce the interest rate sensitivity of your portfolio. You probably at this point in the cycle want to look to

credit senior loans. Um. But UM, I don't think that you need to extrapolate that we're going that we now because we're in a forty year whole marketing bonds and now have to go into a forty year bear marketing bonds. We're here with Brian Levitt, senior investment Strategies at Oppenheimer Funds, David Gura, and Tom Keena in New York, and as Michael Barr mentioned, brunched a few moments ago, Donald Trump

tweeting this morning. We're not gonna go through all of the tweets that he fired off, but it makes me wonderous sort of how this has changed your investment calculus. How much do you have to pay attention to that, how much you paying attention to the to the political news, and does it change the way that you strategize. Well, we've spent years telling investors that hating the government or

loving the government is not an investment strategy. And I think that played out as you watched the futures come in when Trump looked like he was about looked like he was gonna win, and then the rally that you had in the aftermath of that. I think that there's a base case, and a base case says that this should be good for cyclicals in the United States, and

this should be good for smaller and mid sized companies. Um. But I think there's some tail risks in all of it, and we've got to be mindful of the tail risks, not the least of which is that, you know, protectionism or trying to support US is strong dollar, and that could lead to a slowdown in US economic activity. Nicely said about terrorists. And one of the things Brian that is in everything we do is we've forgotten what an all American correction is and also an all American bear market.

It's been ages, hasn't it. It has been ages that we've We've been in a secular bull market that began on March nine, two thousand nine. And despite the fact that investors have fought, kicking and screaming the whole way, um, and a lot of American households are still not participating it at this point where we are today in February seventeen, this is among the longest in duration and one of the biggest in terms of advance that we've seen in US history. But that doesn't mean it has to be

over anytime soon. You had a note about doubt twenty thousand. We marked that here on surveillance with a cold duck and some flat champagne, but warm, warm, and cold duck. I went to Gourmet magazine to prepare warm. What was your takeaway from it? We we we've moved on loow those couple of days ago. We have what was the

significance of it? As you saw? Well, I think we we kind of wanted a blog about it in a way to sort of make joke about how we celebrated in March ten thousand and then we had to do it again in two thousand nine when we crossed ten thousand again. Um. But at the point being is that in the season and of themselves don't tell us much.

They're they're not mean, we're verting um. As Tom showed on the on the television program earlier, that you know, industries reflected improving human condition and improving condition for for businesses, so they don't have to mean revert as you all know, far more interesting to compare the price level of an index to a fundamental characteristic of a business, whether you

want to use book value, sales earnings UM. You look at valuations, they're they're above fair value but but but not but not significantly, particularly when you compare them to the interest rate environment. Can we look, Brian a sharp ratio again? Are we getting back to bob normalcy where we actually have a risk free rate? I'm not sure it's out there somewhere. We we do, we have a risk free rate UM. And you know investors are you know, always looking for what the you know what how they

can get the best sharp ratio in their portfolio. I always think I can't eat sharp ratio, right, I can eat returns um. But you know, for investors that are looking for returns um for the with the more reasonable level of volatility, it certainly isn't a reasonable approach UM. And you know, equities UM generally offer pretty good, uh you know, risk adjusted returns compared to most other asset classes outside of equities what are you looking at? What

do you like at this point? Well, as I mentioned earlier, we we like UM senior loans, and we like bonds outside the United States, particularly in the emerging markets. UM. You know, for investors that are trying to generate income, it's difficult when ten years only around two four UM inflation is not all that far away from that. There's not a lot of real yield, and you're worried that interest rates rise and the Treasury is gonna issue new

bonds and nobody's gonna want your paltry yielding bonds. So senior loans as credit exposure, we think we're still in a good place in the credit cycle. UM. Those loans adjust to keep pace with short term interest rates, so not a lot of interest rate sensitivity. And you know, very interesting is looking outside the United States and some of the emerging markets, places that were in recession or recovering UM, where you can still get attractive real yields. Brian,

thank you so much. I thank you very generous of your time today. Brian. Love it with us who that there's still points higher and we've heard that from a number of guests, uh this week right now, someone that knows presidential comments. Um Al brought us joining us a former president of Richmond fed a wonderful to speak to you as we juggle between Governor Carney and the President. Take us back as only albrought us can to a

strong dollar discourse. There was a time where every other day, someone besides the albrought us was talking about strong dollar policy. Is that a good thing to have officials jab owning the dollar ever higher? Well, I think you know the first good morning, Tom. I think, uh, it depends to some extent on the context, in the and the tone. I mean maybe often uh, senior officials, often the Treasury Secretary have made sort of generic uh comments. Uh in

the same way. Our policy is to have a strong dollar, but that has often been interpreted as we are not going to try to We're going to try to follow economic policies that result in a strong dollar, as opposed to try to manipulate the dollar, either verbally or through

some sort of intervention. And I think that's a good thing when you but but you know, as a stand line here, and if you begin to move in on arena where you're doing something more than that that it then it can be upsetting and I think that's what has been going on at currency markets most and most recently. David Garrow jump in here with Albros. I just want to point out the president sitting now at the breakfast. I believe he's having first squeeze Mexican origin this Australian marmote. Yeah,

he is going to eat before he speaks. Again, we're continuing to monitor that. Let me ask you about the political pressure on the FED right now. There was so much commentary about the Fed Reserve on the campaign trail. Now we see the contours shaping up of a fight on Capitol Hill over control of the Federal Reserve more more control over its actions. Uh. Is this a new kind of pressure? Is this something that you saw when

you were there at the Richmond Fed. Well, we had you know, the FIT has had pressure from the political pressure in one form or another throughout much of its history. Certainly it's recent history. I would say it's sort of ebbs and flows. Uh, in many that I looked back. Uh. I was in the FIT for thirty some years, but actually I remember the f o MC and at the senior level of the organization only between n two thousand

and four and through most of that period. Uh, I thought that pressure was was moderate, I guess in the early part of it, when during part of the H. W. Bush administration there was some pressure, and there was always a little bit of pressure after that, but nothing nothing too extreme. Now currently it seems it seems to me that, uh, that it seems to be ramping up. You've got several pieces of legislation in Congress that would uh would impend you, I think on the fred veg independence is a lot

of talk. Of course, we don't know what it's going to lead to about the Chairman Yellen or chair Yellen. Her term is up next year, about a year from now, and so there's obviously speculation about whether she will be able to stay or whether she will be replaced. So a lot of a lot of political talk about the FED now more than normal, I think, and frankly for me at least a little bit concerning I'm a matter

of personnel. We we got worried that the Jeffrey Lacker, your successor, is going to be stepping down from that job. And when we got that news, Tom and I talked about the special quality of Richmond Fed presidents. There there is some something of regional importance to the folks who have been in that job. You're from Richmond, yourself, Jeffrey Lacker from Lexington. Who would you like to see in that jobs? There's something special about the Richmond Fed president? Well,

you know, I don't know that there's anything. Well, we UH like to think that we've had. I think we've had I hope you would agree strong presidents over a period of time. Jeff has done a very fine job in my view. I may we don't always agree on everything, but necessartainly I agree on much of of his UH program.

I would like I think one thing that has hopefully distinguished the FED, the Richmond FED is we've always had people with good grounding and economics UH and who have felt that UH the policies that we advocate in the positions on particular policy questions that we support a well grounded in UH economics and in economic research. I think it's been the case, at least for the last three

presidents that we have maintained a strong research department. For example, when I was president, had been part of the Jeff's UH presidency. We had a Marvin good Friend UH distinguished monetary ecommerce was at the Bank. He was my chief advisor. He's now at Carnegie Mellon University. Dave and I felt I had really high quality uh advice and UH he was able to form solid positions. I hope that that

tradition will be continued. Okay, you're way too kind. The Richmond Fed has a research depth and particularly on zero sum economics, like nobody forget about algebraic production functions and their uses before Cobb Dougles one Thomas M. Humphrey, who I've read everything he's ever read, spring In He wrote this for President Trump al Merk and Chillis in classicals Insights from Doctrinal History. Do we have a president who wants to hearken back to the mercantilism that Thomas Humphrey

owns within this research, I don't. I don't think any of us want. Oh you mean, do we have a president of the United States? Yes? Do we have a president? Yes, the President United States. Look, even though I'm no longer at the FED, I do try to be careful not to get too deeply involved in political commentary. But uh, the short answer that I would give you is that it is a concern for me anyway defined for our audience. What's wrong with saying America first? Uh. I don't think

there is anything wrong with saying America first. You know, the different people will mean different things when they say America first. Uh. And I can't speak for President Trump. I can only speak for myself. I want America to be first among a group of very strong nations and training partners, so that our strength contributes to the strength of other economies and and vice versa. And this is you know, it gets to the point of a mutually

beneficial trading regime. You mentioned Tom Uprey. I think he would support what I'm saying pretty strongly. So that's that's the world that we have been moving towards, I think throughout the post war period. I hope that we continue to do that. Uh. And we'll just send to see the current administration evolves. Uh. Against that that kind of criterion. It's a lot of talking Capital Hill about making the FED more data depending, having more rules based Federal Reserve.

You you sat in the echoes building around that giant table. How difficult would that be as a policymaker to be more tightly tied to two rules? Well, I think that there's something to be said. Well, first let me say this that there are we we use something called the

tailor rule as a guide to policy. Uh. And my own view is that that is often beneficial and I think uh uh, you know, continuing in in that vein and conducting policy would be a good thing if we were if if a particular monetary policy implementation operational rule we're mandated H. I would have some concerns about that. To put it mildly that I think the key first of all, you need to know what the rule is.

If it's rigid, doesn't allow any discretion, uh, in in particular situations that could be that could get a problem. I think for the fifth let's go al brought us. Thank you so much for the Premier and to get a major shout out to the work of the Richmond fed on Mr brod us is watch and to get him back here. It was great. They are in search of a new president, I believe on Tuckers on the shortlist.

There is well brought you by Bank of America Mary Lynch, dedicated to bringing our clients insights and solutions to meet the challenges of a transforming world. That's the power of Global Connections, Mary Lynch Pierce Federan Smith Incorporated Member s I p C. Anytime we speak with Craig Maffata Maffata Nathanson, there's forty five to seventy themes that we can work on today, We're gonna focus on one on one theme, Craig Moffatt on Verizon. Is my cell phone bill too high?

Is it? Is it a dwoppoli or triapoli where we're all getting taken to the cleaners every month. Well, I'll tell you if if this is a duopoly or triopoly, it's not working very well for the triopoli UM Verizon right now is struggling with UH mid single digit negative revenue growth and its wireless business. A T and T is struggling with mid single digit revenue declines in its wireless business. Sprint is struggling with revenue declines in its

wireless business. The only operator that's growing in wireless right now is T Mobile UM, which is a very price competitive and aggressive competitor. So UM by all outward signs. If this isn't a competitive industry, then I don't know what is. Can you overlay what we learned from Apple this week onto that Apple announcing they sold three point five million phones to new customers. Where are these new customers going for wireless service? Well, remember, the short answer

is not the United States. UM. Interestingly, UM, the the upgrade cycle, that is how quickly people are replacing their their smartphones in the United States is still lengthening. UM. When there's a new I phone that tends to shorten it temporarily. But there's no question that the trend has been people keeping their phones longer. UM. And there are

two a couple of obvious reasons for that, right. One is the real innovation in smartphones today is coming from the software, not the hardware, so people are able to upgrade the software relatively easily. UM. But also the change in the way phones are paid for, with the elimination of the old subsidy plans and replacement with people buying their own phones, gives people a natural incentive to say,

I want to keep my old phone longer. I mean, David, to Craig's point, I love the sense this is professional security analysis, folks. A T and T S results were nearly impenetrable. I mean, that's just bizarre. With organic revenue growth, that's it's negative single digit. I mean that's grim David, Yeah, it's grimm and and uh Craig, I want to know what the path forward is for A. T and T is as you see it, of course, is the ongoing merger discussion, all of the antitrust stuff associated with it.

But what's your sense of where this company's headed. Well, you know, it's interesting. Let's compare and contrast A T and T and Verizon for a second. Um, A T and T has made some very clear bets on media at large, right They They first acquired Direct Tv in an in an acquisition that sixty seven billion dollars including debt that UM that took him in the direction of the traditional pay TV business, and now they're buying Time Warner UM. By most accounts, they're really diversifying away from

the wireless business. Verizon has made very small little moves UM first A O L and Yahoo, big big brand names I suppose in some people's minds, but tiny little moves in the grand scheme of things, UM and So they've really stood pat and they're they're investing more in the wireless business. They're big transaction was a couple of years ago where they bought in the other half of Verizon Wireless from to phone. Um, you couldn't have two

more diametrically opposed strategies. And the market right now is very enamored with A T and t s boldness in making a big move and wants Verizon to do the same thing, do something big, whatever it is. Um. But it's easy to imagine how that narrative will get turned on its head if it turns out that the big bold moves that A T and T made, particularly direct TV,

it turns out to have been the wrong move. Um. What if it turns out that what A T and T really needs, for example, isn't a satellite TV business in a in a declining pay TV industry, but instead is a bunch of wires to support their next generation wireless business. Have you ever been more uncertain? Quickly here, Craig, Have you've ever been more uncertain about the wireless monopoly and the wireless certitude of cash flow? Well, I've never

seen it as a monopoly. Um. But and to be fair, I've always had real reservations about the structural attractiveness of the wireless business. Um. And so to me, this is this is exactly the outcome that anyone would have expected, which is you have a relatively unattractive industry structure um that was papered over for a long time by the fact that you just had rapid growth in the category.

But once the category hit a wall, like it really did in about the end or so and everybody had a smartphone, this industry has been has been a very very poor place to make returns. You were way out front of the Craig Morfatt, Thank you so much. Mofatt. Nathan said, why don't you bring in Jordan right now? We're waiting for the president there. It's it's it's a

lengthy introduction. It's a lengthy introduction. It is interdenominational, inter religious event of the National Prayer Breakfast, which has been going on for the better part of half a century. Uh. And so we have we have various religious leaders speaking. Now the President there on the dice. He'll be speaking soon. And as Tom said, we'll bring that those comments to you live as soon as they begin. Until then, there, let's talk to Jordan Rochester. He's for Extragist at number

joining us on the Specium Enterprise phone line. Specium Enterprise nationwide fiber based network and i T Infrastructure Solutions and join. Let me start just by getting your reaction to what we learned from the Bank of England this morning. There's the no move, no change to policy, some revision to the to the forecast commentary about inflation. Give us your take on what we saw this morning. Hi, good morning,

thanks having me young guys. So I'm gonna say to Mr Mark Karney at the banks being well done, sir. They managed to upgrade their GDP forecasts from what was a very low level in November at the last update we had to what is you know, a pretty healthy number for the UK. You know, the train growth is around two cents year and year in the UK, and provided the forecast to just you know, around on that level. But the main thing for markets was will the Bank

of England raised their inflation forecast profile. What they did, though, was they lowered the natural rate of unemployment estimate in their modeling, which allowed them more slack in the labor market. So therefore, in fact their inflation forecasts rather than going up as some had hoped for, and the rates market was hoping perhaps for a bit more of a hawk's tone from that front, they revised them lower in the

long run. What is it? On that note, we have these revisions and we have Mark Arney saying today the Governor of the Bank of England and saying the Brexit journey is really just beginning. How much credence do you place in these forecasts amid all the revisions, amid all the changes the midd all the uncertainty about what happens

to the UK economy. Um. I think the reporter in the Q and A of that press conference, after a very good questions, they asked, Mark Kearney, look at the forecast you made when you cut interest rates in reaction to Brexit have im proven so far to be wrong. How can you have any conference in the forecast you're making today to be right. He didn't really answer that

question in any way around it. But of course there is a lot of uncertainty and what the market is struggling to do, and it's the same as the US and what's going on with Donald Trump is we know how to trade and price for what rates market is going to do to typical economic indicators, but we are

not so great at forecasting the impact of politics. So the uncertainty of all of everyone's forecast from the fair, the Bank of England's and Bank Japan, anyone their their forecast a mercy to the political developments going on, and Brexit is a very good example of how things go pretty well or in fact, that you could go quite badly. Ebody asked this question, well, Jordan, Frankly, folks, we should ask it once a week, once every two weeks. What's the bet now on the street? You can look at

the positioning of investors. There's a lot of fancy calculations done in this, folks. But Jordan Rochester, what is the foreign exchange bet right now? In terms of starting whichever way you want to go? What is what is the most extended bet that's out there. I'll tell you what It's got to be. The long dollar view. After Donald

Trump's victory, I think that is starting to turn. And the conversation we're having with clients is we're talking about how actually protectionism from Donald Trump is actually a negative for the dollar. And whilst the good stuff about tax cuts and tax reform will probably take place during this this year, it's more of the second half of the year story and it might not be as good as the market thinks. It's going to be and the protection is um. It's something that Donald Trump can do a

lot faster. The President doesn't need permission from Congress to throw tarifs on China, for example, and that's actually against the consensus. We believe that's a dollar negative. So for now we're actually short dollar in We think that could definitely get down to one ten in the next couple of sessions, and even even lower perhaps if Donald Trump

keeps going down the way he's going. And to the clear folks, when Mr Rochester says short dollar year and you're implying a stronger year and a weaker dollar, right, that's right. I love the life. Your note that super Tuesday might be better renamed average average Thursday, super average Thursday. What's your what's your outlook for Stirling at this point? What do you think it could test? So a lot of the recent movement sterling, Sterling is headed higher against

the dollar, for example, and against the euro. A lot of it was not due to any fundamental change in the UK outlook. It was for positioning reduction. A lot of people got very short and sterling and we're hoping for like parity from some on the street I've seen against the dollar. Um, what what's happened now is the Bank of England has said, look, we revised lower our assumption of the unemployment rate. We're not hiking this year, and that removes that a bit of that uncertainty from

the market. So I think sterling had lower from here. Really I'd like to I'd like to play it by buying the euro and selling the pounds rather than against the dollar, because again, like I said, I think there could be a weak dollar policy co from the Trump administration any day. Now you mentioned the change here, you're having to pay more attention to politics. How's that change of the dynamics of for X Generally a lot of pressure here to get a better sense of the pulse,

the political pulse. How are you doing that? How's that changing? Just the way that you and others operate. How's it changing? I guess we spend a little bit less time on tracking the data and a little bit more time on updating on Twitter feed to put it bromptly. Four ye he tends to tweet between three am and four m in London time, so whenever we wake up we find

out what's going on. I mean, this morning was the tweets of Australia, for example, Um, and yeah, that's the sort of change in the way we have to operate again, are you from Australia? Jordan's no, I can do a great Australian accident. Okay. I just was gonna what's your thought of the news like that? For another having a great time, Tom, you talked about strong yet We're okay enough, come on, crackodile, calm down. Jordan helped me. R was

strong Yen. Where does strong Yenn impinge? Mr? Abbe? So if you get below a hundred and ten, it's still okay. It's down to a hundred five against the dollar. When you start to get a bit more noise, however, typically what would happen is when the dollar end gets to one oh five, but currently around one twelve, the officials in Japan start talking about currency moves are unwarranted, or they just start verbally interveneing, which is just nothing. It's

just commentary. One oh five against the dollar used to be the level where people said this is our Bay's line. But I think with the Trump administration's focus on currency manipulation, you may see less of that. So if our babe. It's if you get below ninety five when people start to say the Albanomics trade is over. Help us with the with the strength of the dollar. We're having a conversation throughout the week really about the comments that Peter

Navarre made to the FT. Peter Navara, the head of the new Trade Council, White House Trade Council. How did you interpret those What does that say to you about the degree to which this administration is going to regard or talk about the dollar. So they got to talk it down and that's pretty clear. It's something we were expecting anyway, and it's it's starting to bear fruit in terms of against the Euro and the German manipulation of

the currency points. Let's remember when we talk about the ECB, for example, who is the you know, the one side of the NPC committee he's always talking about the upside risks to inflation. It's Germany. So if you're talking about Germany manipulating the euro to that benefit, it's just incorrect. Um. The Germans are the ones who are the more more

hawkish members of the ECB Council. So Um, what it does tell me about the Trump administration is they will be very protectionist at the same time one a week of that. Put that simply, and they can do it if they impose Paris on any of their trading partners. That's a clear way to do Jordan. Thanks for the update, Jordan, and the accent, and it was a good accent. It was Jordan Roch to this morning. Thanks for listening to

the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen to interviews on iTunes, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm out on Twitter at Tom Keene. David Gura is at David Gura. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio, brought you by Bank of America Mary Lynch. Dedicated to bringing our clients insights and solutions to meet the challenges of a transforming world. That's the power of global connections.

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