Peak Recovery

We'll get into it with a global market strategist in London, but first, Charlie Pellett tell us who this week's mystery co host is. This week's mystery co host is Eric Weener. Weener is a markets editor for Bloomberg in New York who actually wrote a history of modern Wall Street called What Goes Up. He claims he's not bitter at all that Mike Reagan stole the name for this podcast. His hobbies include watching hockey and informing Reagan of all the

things he was wrong about. You know, Eric, I had hope you actually had other hobbies, But I think that's pretty much it right that those two that that pretty much covers the whole thing. Um, basically sit around watching hockey and then wondering what you're saying wrong. And I managed to do both quite well. That's that you do, you do, that's uh, you know. And I'm also I'm conflicted about Charlie getting a promotion for your book into that intro. I don't know how to feel about that.

As you know, one of the risks of being a financial journalists is so many of your friends end up having books and you have to sort of pretend like you you've bought them and read them. But I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna buy your What Goes Up? Book? Um. I might even buy there's a collector's version of it on Amazon that's actually cheaper than the regular version. I don't know how that works, but I might buy that. Go go just spend money, man. Uh. But whatever you

can possibly do. Because you did rip off my title, which is how I sold the book. Um when the original it was funny. I did it during the dot com era, and the original title had a question mark. Uh. And then as the whole thing fell apart, it just became What Goes Up? Because at first it looked like things were never gonna stop going up and well then it stopped there you go. Well, without promoting your book atty further, I will say it's a it's a very

interesting concept. You basically talked to a bunch of sort of titans of Wall Street, and it's the whole history of Wall Street told in their words, which I find interesting, not because I don't find your words interesting, but I'm I'm already a big consumer of your commentary, so I would be interesting to see how how you did this. So I'm excited. I'm excited to get that Amazon purchase one of these days. Yeah, it was. It was actually fun,

but hard to do. I mean, you got to track down, like, uh, thousands of the richest people in the world who are very busy and really don't want to talk to you. Um, But getting it in their words is very different than having US journalists kind of explain it. So it's much more like the story is being told to you in a room full of all the most important people in Wall Street history, and they're coming at you and sort of telling you their view. So it's unique in that sense.

And it's uh, it's just because our guest this week I recently had a similar experience with her for the Business Week how to issue, where we basically UH reached out to smart people to get in their words, how they would how they would do certain things, and so we talked about how to do sixty forty in in this low interest rate environment, which is a perfect segue to are very important Wall Street titan we have on

the show this week. She is the actually a city of London titan, I guess if you consider Wall Street running through London, which which I very much do. But she is the chief strategy at Principal Global Investors. Her name is Sema Shaw. Sema, welcome back to the show. Thank you very much for having me back. Let's start with that idea that I mentioned in the intro seem in that it seems like this euphoric rally that we've

had uh someone hit the pause button in May. I'm almost tempted to wonder, if you know, the whole reopening of the economy is almost a sell the news event, or at least not a continue to buy with both fist type of events. But I'm curious what your perspective is on this kind of sideways market that we've seen over the last month, especially because it corresponds with really the height of the economic reopenings, as well as some data that's kind of lackluster, you know, uh, some misses

here and there. The city surprise index has come down, but the inflation readings are are still pretty hot, you know, transitory or not being the question on everyone's mind. But I'm curious how you're sort of sizing up the environment right now given that risk assets at least here in the US are kind of sideways. Um, is it changing any of the thinking about the main themes of this year for you to see this pause? Well, I think it's fair to say that the US is probably reaching

peak recovery. And having said that, look, the fundamentals are really really strong. So although it hit a peak and you're seeing activity um no longer probably accelerating as much as it was, it's still resting at a really high level. So I think that's the main thing to remember. So fundamentals are still really strong. I think the key thing here is those you know, when we all came into we all knew or we all hopeful that there would

be an economic reopening. We were all hopeful about fiscal policy. We all knew that there would be some kind of inflatoring pressures at some point in one. But what we've seen happen is that all of those things, all of those factors and those themes were pushed forward to like the Q one and Q two of this year, so much much early, all compressed in a really short time scale. And I think the market has just run out of Steve,

But that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a correction. So when you look at Mike mentioned inflation, Uh, how do you see this sort of reflation playing out? If you're say a stock market investor, how do you respond when, as you say, it's sort of played out in the US, but there could be more coming and it looks like prices are going to rise. Do you rotate into different

asset classes? How do you handle this? Yeah, this is gonna be a really interesting dimension now for investors because what we're seeing is inflation is clearly picking up, but it isn't necessarily related to a continued acceleration and activity. It's really down to those those transitory factors that that policymakers are talking about. But of course as investor, you can't just say, well, look, inflation is going to fade out in the near future, so I'm just going to

sit back and watch it happening. You have to invest for what the current environment is. So we think that you need to have some kind of inflation pool portfolio protection um. And what we've seen is that investors, after a couple of decades of really not having to worry about inflation, just don't have it in their portfolios. So the increasing we have to start thinking about this. So we see a couple of different things. Is so within equities, one of the obvious places is going to be value

because there's still growth. There's still growth, you have rising inflation pressures. That's a steaming yiel curve. So value specifically financials should do very very well in this situation. Same thing with cyclicals. You've got a reopening trade, You've got people are rushing back in to spend. That does well for cyclicals. But the other side of it is also going to be real assets that you know, we hear people talk about commodities all the time, like commodities have

got a tendency of being really volatile. So as an investor, I don't know if that's the volatility that you want to be taking on. So an easy way you're playing this is real estate, and that is typically a good diversifier and it does well in a rising but steady inflation environment. Yes, I'm curious how you know. Obviously, if you're an institutional investor, there's any number of ways to play real estate. That's kind of an average investor, individual investor,

it's a little bit trickier. I mean, you know, one thing you could do is buy a vacation home, say, or buy a rental property, but that entails a whole bunch of other work that you know and risks. So how how could you play a real estate team? Is it something as simple as reets or you know, other equities tied to the real estate space. So reats is a great place to be um. Generally speaking, in real estate you have to be careful which sectors you're looking at.

We've seen a number of themes play out. If you just think about the retail side during the pandemic. Unfortunately, it really has declined from a real estate perspective, So some of those big shopping centers, which were already struggling in the run up to the pandemic, that deceleration just almost accelerated through the last year. Or so what we're

seeing increased strengthen is data centers. If you think all of these companies are ones that are really thrived or even survived in the pandemic, they did so because they used technology to pivot themselves, to pivot their business models. And that's not going to go into reverse, which means that industrial data centers anywhere where they can house a lot of those technology technology centers, that's going to do well. So we would think they look at real estate, look

at reads, but really focus on the right sectors. So the inflation idea is something that's just coming up a ton among our readers and in the newsroom in general. Uh, it's sort of the you know the topic jur as you as you watch prices rise and the FED has used the term transitory, which can mean a lot of things, and to me, it's one thing. It's like with a bubble. It's you can see where the bubble is, but timing when it's going to end, when it's going to pop

is the challenge. Spotting it isn't so hard. The timing of where it's going to play out is what does transitory mean to you? And how transitory is this going to be. You have horned in on the most important point here. With inflation. We all know it's here, it's come. You know, it's going to continue rising, and we, same as the policymakers, think it's going to be short lived.

But as you said, nobody knows how long now coming into this year, the general views it will last through the summer and then come full a lot of those UM inflation pressures driven by supply shortage shortages should fade away. What we're starting to see now actually is a supply shortages are worse than expected, the rising prices going a little bit higher than more higher than expected UM and on top of that we're also seeing inflation expectations increase.

So the key things to what to figure out how long this is going to go on for is inflation expectations and how much of these cost increases are being passed onto consumers. That's going to tell you how sticky inflation is going to be. And I've got to say the jury is really out on that factor. Yeah, it's interesting to me, see me because you you know, explained about the sort of supply bottlenecks and shortages and I hate to use and overuse cliche like a perfect storm.

But it's like this perfect storm for inflation because you have those shortages and supply bottlenecks on the one end, and then on the demand side, you've got the unleashing of what was a bottleneck during the pandemic. Everyone now is ready to spend and go out and travel again and all that. So I'm trying to think of how it looks on the other side when the that transitory period is over, you know, whether it be later this

year or the first half. To me, there's almost a risk of sort of a reversion back the other way and and almost the transitory deflationary period on the other side. Um, everyone seems to be worried about a more prolonged period of inflation after you know, this year, But I wonder if the risk is almost as good, Uh for thinking we could see a transitory deflation period. So tell me if I'm nuts for thinking that, ay, and uh, if I'm not nuts, hopefully I'm not too crazy. How would

how would that play out in the markets? Would that be a sort of about face and try to try to go back to growth again? Uh? You know, how are you thinking about that other side of the transitory period? Of inflation well fastly. I don't think you're crazy. I think that that is a possibility. You know, if we think about that, the supply is they're going to be looking at this unleashing of demand, and they could be ramping up their supply the next couple of months. But

what if they go too far? What if they just go too far? A lot of their demand it's gonna be front loaded. Um as you see, it's it's about unbleashing that demand that has been so contained for the last number of months. So I think there is a chance that supply goes too far, demand just doesn't essentially meet it in the end, and then you get the

disinflationary pressure is coming. Well, what happens to the market, Well, on one hand, I think the market really starts to get a bit worried because ultimately, you've seen Montree policymakers, you've seen fiscal policy makers throw everything they have this problem, and if they still can't create some kind of inflation, which is a healthy type of inflation, So around that two percent level, I think the market will become quite concerned. So I think from that perspective, the Fed is playing

a really difficult game here. They have to get the balance right. Um, and if the market does get freaked then of course we have to be shifting into safer assets. We're talking about growth again. Technology if you're looking at lower bond deals, and technology is typically your your best

place to hide out. So you mentioned the idea of stickiness of inflation, and that that intrigues me just the difference between flexible pricing versus sticky I saying, Um, what are you looking at in terms of the cues for what's a real inflation move, What's a real like hard inflationary move versus you know, so with sticky prices, it's something like the cost of getting your car fixed doesn't change no matter what happens in the economy, whereas you know,

the cost of gas is very very reactive to the economy. What are you looking at in terms of gauging how severe things get or how how how much less we need to be concerned about it. So to us, there's there's a couple of key things to be watching out for, which is going to give us an idea of how sticky, so really how long this higher inflation is going to last?

For um, the first thing is inflation expectations. You've got to be looking at not only market inflation expectations, but all the various surveys, because what we have seen the threat of is as consumers start to see higher prices, they start to expect themselves that they react in that way, and that brings forward or extends that inflation pressures that they've already been witnessing. So then it becomes part of

the system and you're seeing permanently higher prices. But the second thing is is companies, how are they going to respond? Now this is gonna be really interesting because over the last year we've seen savings in the US increased significantly, So you have a new consumer subset who are extremely financially resilient, and consumers and companies are very aware of this. So if companies decide that, look, our consumers are clients

now very financially resilient. We can pass on all of the cost increases that we're experiencing to our consumers, then you are looking at inflationary spiral, not to the kind of five or six percent level, that inflationary spiral in the current term meaning kind of the two to two and a half to three percent level, which of course as we know from the first perspective, is a little bit above where they wanted to be. I just want to read in a little bit and reiterate that Sema said,

I'm not crazy Eric. You know, no matter what Eric says, I've got Sema on my owner said, I'm happy about that. But uh uh see, I want to switch gears a little bit um and talk about the vaccination rates. I know it's something you've kept an eye on. I think everyone you know who's got their eye on global markets is kind of seeing where the sort of advantages are and disadvantages are in vaccination rates. And obviously in the US,

uh we got out to a strong start on that front. Um. Currently now we're at about I think a little bit over fifty of the population has had at least one shot of the vaccines. Um. But you know, as we all know, one of the big growth industries in the US is conspiracy theories and skepticism towards science and experts

and that sort of thing. So there, I think there's this concern that we might plateau out a little bit on on vaccination rates that you know, the people left who are unvaccinated are those who are reluctant to get it for for whatever reason. Um, And I'm curious, you know, if you're seeing that in other countries, is that mainly a US phenomenon. It's it seems like we are sort of the epicenter of that potential issue of skepticism and

reluctance to get a vaccine. But I'm curious if you're seeing it anywhere else or if it is kind of unique to the US. But also, how much does it really matter if we do get say above fift vaccinated. I mean, you know, should the reopening of the economy and the return to normal continue apace even if there is a certain segment of the population that might still be struggling with covid um If there are enough people are vaccinated that, you know, businesses feel comfortable, uh, going

full capacity and and getting back to normal. How much does it matter if if we sort of plateau here in the US on vaccination rates. Well, I think you're right that the U s really is the epicent two of that, but that's because the US is so far ahead with this vaccination process, so you're kind of the guinea pigs here. What we are seeing though, is in Europe, for example, they do have a lot of vaccine hesitancy. UM.

It's really not unusual even for for COVID. Actually you typically see in countries like France, they've always been very reluctant even to take the annual flu vaccine. So this is something that we were expecting, and of course the very side effects that have been reported from a couple of the vaccines haven't really helped the situation. Now. What we are expecting to see though, for example in the US, is that we are hitting we're close to hitting your

peak vaccination numbers. You can have people who are reluctant, you can have people who simply aren't eligible maybe because of age UM, and then those can be the other ones who say, well, you know, everyone else surround us

is vaccinated, so why would we could have bothered? Would come around to when it When it works for us, it doesn't really matter from an economic perspective, in the best case scenario, No, it doesn't really matter, because all the government cares about UM is of course they want to reopen the economy. It's really if those hospitalizations that that they start to get concerns. So if you've got a lot of people vaccinated, then they will continue to

push forward with the reopening. The concern starts to arise though if you get some more of these variants start to circulate UM, and if those various circulate, then it becomes more of a concern for the population that isn't vaccinated, And then you get to a point where maybe the government was to take a bit of a stand still

on that on that factor. And I would point to the UK here on this where although we have vaccinated a very high percentage of people, we have the variant from India is circulating in the UK and they are talking already about stopping the reopening. So when you talk about vaccination rates UM, the FED has pointed to a vaccination rates as something that it's looking at in terms of when to react to QUEI and whatever UM. Are we getting close to a point where the FED would

feel comfortable? I mean obvious there are a bunch of other numbers that go go into that UM, but they've act they've not really been looking at necessarily the whole data and talking about more of this societal function. Are we close to that point where the FED can react based on being comfortable that the population is vaccinated. I

think we are getting close to that point. But what we are increasingly seeing is that policymakers are saying that our country may be pretty healthy, doing pretty well with vaccinations, but they have to look at all the countries and not just even next to them, but all around because there are continued threats coming in from other countries. You know,

we just have to think about India, about Brazil. Um. So I think policymakers will remain pretty cautious until this fight is over, and I unfortunately think that fight is going to continue into So you know, there's kind of this growing I wouldn't necessarily call it a consensus perhaps yet, but growing speculation that, uh, the Jackson Hall meeting in August will be when the FED at least admits their thinking about talking about maybe whispering about tapering. Um. How

are you looking at that meeting? Do you think it's it's a live one that that we're all going to have to keep an eye on, or I guess just wait and see. I think that we have to be watching Jackson Hole very very carefully. You know, when we've talked about the FED, you know, we know that of course with the econom reopening, with the kind of pace of growth that we're saying we're seeing, and they must be talking about tapering behind closed doors. They must be

talking about it. But this is a very very careful process that they're going to take. Where they started, as you said, they start to whisper about it, we start to hear hints, and then at Jackson Hole, hopefully they talk a little bit more openly to the market and prepare the market for the start. So it didn't start in Jackson Hole, but it starts a couple of months later.

And I think over the last number of years we have become accustomed to Jackson Hole being that one event that all market makers, all investors need to watch very carefully. So now that we're talking about Jackson Hole in the FED, UH, if you're a bond investor, how do you view this? Now you've you know, we were at zero or close to it, uh, and now we're coming well off those levels. Uh. And you know, yields are going up, UM, bonds are falling, and it just sort of seems like an inexorable rise.

How if you are a fixed income guy or a woman, how do you position yourself to handle this? If this is going to be ongoing and the FED is actually going to start doing some cube, you know, getting rid of some of that stimulus. Yeah. Absolutely, when we when we think about this, if you think the tapering is inevitable, even if you're worried about the timing, is such as we think is inevitable, in which case there will be

upper pressure on bond yield from here. So what does the fixed income investity will look It is undoubtedly is a challenging environment for a fixed income investor. But what we think you need to do now is be a little bit innovative, start thinking a little bit outside the box. Um, you need to get that additional yield with thinking prefer securities, were thinking emerging market debt, high yield, private credit, anywhere where you can get that additional pickup because increasingly that

is so difficult to find within fixed income. And that that allows me to talk my book a little bit here, Eric too and read Seema's thoughts on in last week's Business Week where she talks about the barbell with em and corporate credit on one side and save treasuries on the other. I think that's ah an interesting way to approach it. Um, see, well, one more thing and then we'll end this interrogation. Sometimes I feel like we were interrogating, uh,

someone like the FBI does. So I apologize for all these questions, but one more and then we'll get to the crazy things. Um. You had a really interesting point in a note recently in which you talked about UM and I'll just read straight from your note. Uh. This has basically been the largest US fiscal injections since World War Two. What's interesting is though it boosts the global economy. UM, And I wonder I think that's a point that that's

lost on a lot of US based investors. Is how you know US prosperity can can be a boom for emerging markets other developed markets around the world. Talk to us about that spillover effect from a really buoyant US consumer. I mean, is is it as simple as a matter of just, you know, going going long on the countries where we run big trade deficits with or is it

is there more to it? How would you how do you sort express a global bullishness based on US consumers with these inflated savings rates and lots of stimulus money slashing around. You know, it's funny because when we do these presentations at global presentations, this year, increasingly we are talking about the US, and the reason is that the

US is it's absolutely reinstating that global reflation narrative. And as you said, that American Rescue Act, as one of the largest government interventions since World War Two, is so significant that the spillovers to the rest of the world actually pick up growth in other countries. So if we look at the o e. C D, for example, has done a couple of studies on this, and they think that the American rescue plan on its own lifts global

growth this year by one percent. And if you're thinking about the closest countries that Canda, Mexico, that's around one to one point to five percent just from that fiscal stimulus in the US, all the way to China to Europe, where it's about nor point five per it. So together this is really important. And you know what we've seen this year in the US is that you have had this perfect conduction of vaccinations enabling that reopening, plus this

incredible fiscal stimulus. So now you have a combination of not just the opportunity to spend because of reopening, but also the ability to spend, and together those two factors create such a strong push into the U. S. Economy

and then leaking out the rest of the world. Yeah, that's it's really you know, it's I think it's a point that a lot of Americans, we we Americans speak, can be very self reflective and we forgot about the rest of the world sometimes, And I think that's a very interesting way to play the sort of pumped up savings of the American consumer and all the stimulus money

going around. So uh, definitely good food for thought. Um as is our next segment, which fans of the podcast, no, Well, the craziest things we saw in markets this week stand clear of the craziest things we saw in markets this week, I'm gonna get things started, um Seman. I got a sneak peek at Eric's crazy things. I will say both of ours involved real assets, which I know you're you're bullish on. Probably I'm gonna go out on a limb and say probably not the type of real assets you're

you would be bullishawn, necessarily, especially Eric's, but mine. Maybe I'll start with mine because I I find it interesting. You know, obviously, for an investor, the biggest nightmare you could ever have is a hundred percent loss, right, would you guys agree with that? Yes? What what could be worse than a hundred percent loss? Well, in Las Vegas, there's some innovation on this where we've got a story about a loss bigger than a hundred and twenty percent

loss on a Las Vegas mall loan. And I'm just gonna read the top of the story by our colleague Adam Tempkin, a loan side to a beleaguered mall outside of Las Vegas realized a loss of a hundred and after the shopping center sold for the same price as a condo, the loan, which had a current bounce of sixty two point two million, was completely written down after the Prism outlets were liquidated for just over four hundred

thousand dollars. When accounting for eleven point five million in fees and reimbursements owned to the Nester services for advances made, the realized loss came out to seventy four millions. So you investors lost seventy four million on a sixty two million dollar loan because of all the fees and whatnot. But seem it's to your point. Someone bought a full shopping center in Las Vegas for four hundred grand the price of a two bedroom condo on the on the

Vegas Strip. So bargains galore in real estate if you have the the ability to pounce on them. It's fascinating. And of course you know there are people short this the credit here, Uh, Carl Icon, I think making a fortune being short the credit index associated with this. But uh uh to your point, seem, I think it talks to it speaks to the the sort of distress real state that that is a great opportunity out there still,

even at this point of the reopening, it is. It is that there are a lot of opportunities, but there's a lot of potholes. So so pick your investment, even in real estate, very very wisely, right right, And Eric's gonna talk to us about another real asset, which which I gotta give it to Terrik first time in the show when you came big with the crazy thing. This is a good one. Well, this was something that actually is near and dear and seem I really hope you

actually aren't tracking this. Uh, this is something that's near and dear to my family's heart. My son is a big animal lover and took classes at the New York Zoological Society and is a major, majorly involved in anti poaching. And what what I noticed, for what we saw was this the rise. It's called the Rhizotope project where uh there's poaching of rhinos for their urns in South Africa.

Last year alone, four hundred were killed illegally um and it's because the horns are used in traditional medicine and have value beyond what the actual animal is, so they'll kill the animal just to take the horns. So what they're doing, or what they're testing, is injecting the horns with radio active material in order to make the horns less desirable. Because if you're using them for medicine and you have radioactive material, that sort of defeats the purpose.

So they're starting to do this in in South Africa where and it's a Russian company and another private organization are literally tracking uh there are a bunch of different trackers that track rhino movements and they're now catching them injecting them with this radioactive material. And the question is whether the material actually gets into their bodies and poisons these rhinos, basically subverting the entire idea of the project, or if this is a way to get people to

no longer by rhino horns. Uh. And I just thought it was a fascinating, you know, damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of story where they're they're trying to save these rhinos and uh, you know, it's like we may have to burn the village in order to save it. Go ahead, see M I know, I, I know you're not investing in rhino horns, but please don't. That is incredible, So you know, I worry. I worry

on many different parts of that. But I just also hope that the material doesn't make them give them super bowers. I have been changed rhino in Kenya before and it was a scary, scary experience, So let's hope they can't run even faster than than they did that that for that was my thought to Semo. I don't know if they showed The Incredible Hulk in in England back in the day, but Eric and I grew up watching The

Incredible Hulk. I think all of us who saw that show realize you do not mess with radioactivity like that. If you do not want an Incredible Hulk rhino on the loose. No, no, nobody wants to. But My other thought is, and I agree with you, Eric Comman, Animal Lover two. I hate the idea of poaching, but as a markets guy, I I like that story. I felt it was lacking in the price discovery aspect though, in

that what does a rhino horn cost? And I feel like, and I hate to I hate to be the guy to say this, but I feel like this project could be bullish for rhino horn prices if they reduce the supply of rhinos that are not incredible hulk radioactive rhinos. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I had not even considered that, what if it's the unintended consequence to see,

This is what economics is all about. These are the externalities that you don't predict, where suddenly, you know, the the idea of uncontaminated rhino horns makes them even more valuable. And now we're going to go after the uh, non radioactive rhinos in order to really to really do this. Yeah, it's freaking and actually, you know, I feel like Jeff Goldbloom in Jurassic Park with all the philosophical connotations going through my head. But all I can tick of is

the bullish price work. As for rhino horns as a reason we were warned. We were alright, Seema, I I know you've been on the show before and you've always delivered with a crazy thing. Eric's I gotta say, Eric is tough, the tough, the top. Despite the nebulous market connection, I'm okay with that as as regular listeners know it. It is a market. There's a market for rhino horns, so so we'll allow. But Seema, what's the craziest thing

you've seen recently? There's a market for everything that. Let's remember that mine is boring by comparison, because mine is playing little markets again, I just want to celebrate ourselves, congratulate ourselves for for not talking cryptocurrency on this one. So in a in an area where we're not you know, governments are no longer worried about deficits, that they're happy

to spend as much as necessary. Let me take you back ten years or so, when when the Greek sovereign debt crisis happened and markets really already cared about how much how much government they had, government debt they had. Well, fast forward to today. You have a Greek government debt over two GDP and yet the spread of Greek tenure yields over butins has fallen to its narrowest level since two thousand and eight. It's just a hundred and seven

basis points. And that is despite having government debt accelerate from from that point ten years ago. So something has turned upside down in markets, and to me, that is pretty crazy. If you have that good memory of ten years ago. I'm completely fascinated with that as well. I mean, what that's spread peak that I don't know what was it, dred basis points or something like that. Way back in two thousands, anybody it was above a temper cent spread. I remember hitting the eight or so at one point

one day. But so I guess the question, and I've asked others on the on the show about this too. To me, that leads me to believe that the whole notion of austerity is kind of dead in Europe now. Is that you think that's true? Or is it people just playing that the temporary retirement of austerity. I think in Europe it's temporary. You know, we talked, we've seen at european ecty markets do really really well the last few weeks, and everyone's very hopeful for the sum which

I share probably the optimism for the summer. But beyond that, I think it returns to its position as perennial disappointment party because it will refer to that fiscal tightening again and it cannot let go of the feeling where they need to hold them to their fiscal purses. Yeah, I tend to agree. Yeah, and I just so I that seems like a rented sort of temporary trade be bullish Greek debt, you know, until until that this phase passes, I guess, yeah, right right, that Greek market as long

as you can. I think Germany isn't going away right then. They're constantly Austerian, So as soon as things level out, I would assume we'll start hearing from them about the need for austerity economics again. Absolutely well, speaking of writing things as far as we can, I think we've written this podcast as far as we can see. It is always such a great pleasure to to catch up with you and hear your thoughts. You know, you're always welcome back on the show, and hopefully we can we can

get you back again soon. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be back with you. Guys, and Eric Weener. You can message me with everything I got wrong on this afterwards. I've been taking I'm just kidding, thank you, but it's been a it's been a real treat. What Goes Up. We'll be back next week. Until then, you can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, website and app,

or wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you took the time to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more listeners can find us, and you can find us on Twitter. Follow me at Reaganonymous. Eric Weiner is at Eric J. Weener one. You can also follow Bloomberg Podcasts at podcasts. I thank you to Charlie Paul to Bloomberg Radio in the voice of the New York City subway System. What Goes Up is produced by Tofur Foreheads ahead of Bloomberg Podcasts is Francesco Levie.

Thanks for listening, See you next time.