About this episode
Lara Rhame, FS Investments Chief US Economist, breaks down today's core PCE price index which showed that both inflation and consumer spending rose in September. Isaac Boltansky, BTIG Policy Research Director, predicts that the chaos in the House will lead to a shutdown later this year. Lisa Shalett, Morgan Stanley Chief Investment Officer of Wealth Management, says that we've entered within 50 basis points of a peak in rates. Poonam Goyal & Anurag Rana, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analysts, discuss a big week in Big Tech earnings. Chris Marinac, Janney Montgomery Scott Analyst, expects banks to set aside reserves to build confidence going into 2024. Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance FULL TRANSCRIPT: This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Lisa A. Bromoids, along with Tom Keen and Jonathan Ferrell. Join us each day for insight from the best in economics, geopolitics, finance and investment. Subscribe to Bloomberg Surveillance on demand on Apple, Spotify and anywhere you get your podcasts, and always on Bloomberg dot Com, the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business App. We're waiting for the PC data. We're joined by Mike Nicky Aron the Deak. So we're waiting for the personal spending, the deflator. Mike, will it be disinflationary? Roll of the dice, that's the question. We're waiting for the numbers to come down on the Bloomberg Terminal. Well, I got about four seconds until that happens. But the ideas we may get a little more disinflation. Let's find out from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and here come the numbers. And we'll start with the inflation numbers. They come in hotter than anticipated, up four tenths of a percent. I don't know month over a month basis. For the headline, the core comes in up a three tenths which is about what was expected, although there was some leaning towards maybe a little lower number year over year. Now we see the PCE headline number at three point four percent, that's down from three to five, and the core comes in at three seven, down from three to nine. Both of those expected. All the people who like to dive into all those numbers and figure out what actually changed will be with us in a few seconds. Personal income up three tenths. That's lower than the prior month of four tenths gain, but also lower than what was anticipated a four tenths gain. Spending up seven tenths, I mean not strong. On the back of that, on the back of that GDP and the connginut well, this number is in the GDP because this is a September number. It was the third month of the quarter, so he kind of sort of backed out the numbers and anticipated that this would be fairly strong. We were up four tenths the prior month. The question is now do we continue to see that spending happen, Because if incomes are falling behind and they have been the spending levels over the last couple of months, that would suggest that maybe there's a pullback ahead. Now I'm not the expert here. There's one more there is, indeed, La Rain chief economists out with us this morning. First take, I think that we continue to see inflation coming down, but it's still uncomfortably It's still unacceptably high from the point of view of the Fed, and I think the conversation as we go into next year continues to the options for the Fed continue to narrow because if inflation stays about where it is and it's going to take a long time for it to get closer to too, their room to maneuver should the economy slow at all, is going to be very narrow. And look by these numbers, it looks like the economy is just still incredibly strong. We know that from the GDP numbers that we already got, but I mean the spending has just by the households that has defied every expectation of it to slow, and it's accelerated so much in the third quarter. That's what's extraordinary. I think savings rate comes in a three point four percent. People have been watching that for some indication of whether or not they're going to run out of money in the American consumer. It's down from four percent and it's been a steady decline. But historically, before the pandemic, we used to say people spend what they make. They don't dip into savings the way people tend to think they do. And so if that's the case, then there's more of a case now for maybe a slow down. People don't have as much to dip into if they wanted to, but they're also not making as much as they were. Well, I had johnat Henry with me this morning from HSBC and she said, actually Americans are more likely to dip into their savings and spend, spend, spend right to the very end. But I want to bring you an idea from UBS, which is Paul Donovan, where he said, you know, when we go to write the history of twenty twenties, do not bet against the headonism of the US consumer. It's very rich. I love it. I mean, there's a there's a brilliant wine place in London called Hedonism Wines. Whole other story the hedonism. You can tell us that later. I could tell you that later, but I want to understand from you laya the hedonism of the US consumer. Is that real or do you think that runs out of mileage as well. Next sure, listen, he's got a point. That's a really colorful way to put it. But that's what the third quarter felt like. Between the headlines about the concerts, Yeah, all of that, and then and all everyone who followed. I think, you know, people seem to be looking for that next experience and looking to pay whatever is required to get it. You know, this issue of savings has gotten so complicated because we of course have the excess savings that accumulated during the shutdown. Is that more you know, bucketed with these you know sort of now the highest quintile of quartile of household that sort of maybe aren't going to spend them as much. We know that that access savings is run out for a lot of the lower you know sort of strata. The other seventy five percent of us, we're not in that upper quintal. I think as we think about it, people, the normal people, I think, and yet you know, we just see the strong job growth I think reinforces the foundation of the household, and we just see this reacceleration is really unexpected in terms of your hedonism. Example, here services spending went up eight tenths whereas goods spending went up seven tents. There was always a story about people switching away from goods, but they still seem to be spending a lot on goods. Services don't go into the retail sales numbers that we got earlier this month, except for bars and drinking places fitting your theme, but eight tenths of a percent to gain for services pretty strong. So it looks like people were spending money during the third quarter on all sorts of things. I do think there's an interesting dynamic here, which is that if you look at consumer confidence, it's still well below where it was before the pandemic, and that's, you know, despite strong growth. So can you tie those two together. You know that the consumer confidence is being a little bit battered, but the spending it remains unabated. To me, it really, I think inflation is something that is still really casting a long shadow over the household, because you know, when I'm not here, I'm the mom at the grocery store and I've got one bag of groceries and it still cost me ninety five dollars and I can't figure out what's in it, you know, So I think you know this idea that your over year inflation is coming down, but the sticker shock is still a very real and present pain point to household budgets. And Coca Cola are raising prices, and Netflix are raising prices, and there are a Whole and Apple TV they're raising prices as well, and we are moderately immune to those. Do you know that you'll still order a Coca Cola? You'll still order You'll still order your Netflix movie. Mike Well, I was looking here to see if we get super Core. I haven't got that number pulled out yet, but that's the one that the Chairman of the Fed says he likes the most. See if we have that number calculated yet, because you got to take out and then the CPI number that had risen the most since you know, about a year, so it had. I think that's going to be a key piece of today's report too. Well, just looking at the bond market, it's virtually flat. I mean four eighty five is where we are on tenure government bonds. So there's a sort of a flat, sort of unknown entity within the bond market. Let's just check in on equities up for tenenths of one percent again, you've got an Amazon recovery and nice kicker there. It was up six percent at one juncture, giving a little bit back. You're looking at ten year years, just still incrementally rising. This morning at four eighty five, we just had Bmo in Lingen here with us saying look, the next three weeks will define where the endpoint is for the bond spike. Use oil is up one point ninety three percent this morning. Again there's more geopolitical anks with military action in Syria from the US side, and that has brought again a geopolitical bid back to the oil markets. But personal income rises zero point three percent. The estimate was for plus point four percent, So Mike this the takeaway from this is the core price index rises to three point seven percent, pretty much in line with the estimates. We're seeing disinflation, I mean O creative inflation is slowing down. It's not slowing down as perhaps fast as people would like. And to Lar's point, especially about the being the moment at the grocery store, prices go up at a slower rate, but they don't come down. So you're paying more for a lot of staples and they're going to just stay at that price. And so people look at that and they're still experiencing inflation, even if inflation is not as bad as it was before. What what happens then to this view in the market that we're going to get right cuts into twenty twenty four does not debate change. It's got to continue. The FED, I think now has to just continue to ring rate cut expectations out of that future's curve. I feel like this is the deal with the devil right now, because if you had told me that we were going to have GDP growth of almost five percent and the FED was not going to cut rates again, I would have just not believed that was a possible outcome. But FED future's markets are not pricing in another rate cut. Markets seem very convinced the Fed is done. And I think the only way that works is if we continue to get this drift higher in long term yields. And there's a room for that because today markets have seventy five basis points of rate cuts priced in for next year, So if the FED is going to kind of stay on hold, there's room for that to continue to come out, for long term rates to continue to move higher. How do you think they look at this in the Fed? In the Fed might give you look at this the top line is pce is it a four month high consumer spending picks up. It doesn't leave them that huge optionality to be very very dubbish, does it. They can just sit on this at the moment because they forecast in September, the last time they did forecast that we would see PCEE core at three point seven percent at the end of the year. Well, I'm with there bang on where we are. So most economists think with a couple of months to go, we're going to come in below that. So the Fed could argue its targets are being hit. And you mentioned Ian Ling, and he had a great note this morning about how we're starting to see more impacts from higher FED rates and that is slowly getting into the economy and we should see more. So the Fed is probably going to sit there and say what we're doing is working. We're at a level where inflation is still coming down. We don't have to go up more right now with all this uncertainty out there about what's going to happen. Well, and unless inflation is a nine percent there really is no emergency reason to raise rates. That's usually you know, not a thing. So they you know, to your point, they have the time and yet. To me, this increase in long term interest rates is the reason that they can be patient, and that is going to continue to sort of pump the brakes on activity. You know, when I look ahead at next year, my forecast is for slower growth. I think these higher interest rates have actually increased the chance of a recession, not decreased. Is that slower growth? No landing, soft landing, not hard landing. I think it has to be as soft landing. I still feel like there is very real risk of recession next year, and we cannot discount that. But all the reasons why we've been saying it might be a mild recession could also mean that you just end up with some sluggish growth. So, Mike, as we go to the close of the year, what's the next piece that you're going to hang your hat on in terms of dead We've got Michigan at University of Michigan. Yeah, I don't think that's going to move the needle a whole lot. But I think what we are going to focus on is all the data next week, particularly the ISM numbers and then jobs at the end of the week. The Fed meets on Wednesday, so they won't have the jobs figures, but at this point to get an idea of where they're going to go, and nobody is less than a two percent chance they do anything on Wednesday, but nobody expects that. But the question is then what happens January December, January, and the jobs report will contribute to that. That's what will be joining us is Isaac Boltanski, director of policy research at BTIG. Can you give us a sense, to Isaac, of just what kind of leader Mike Johnson is going to be? Can he find some sort of consensus within a very fractured party. I think the simple answer to that is now. I think I think that there are lots of folks who are breathing this deep sigh of relief because now there's someone with a gavel and we can begin handling the people's business again. But when you take a step back, you've got to see that the House Republican caucus is still deeply fractured. It's not clear how well they're going to be able to govern going forward. There's no semblance of bipartisanship anywhere on Capitol Hill, and frankly, Lisa I think that people are downplaying the risk associated with a prolonged government shutdown. I still think that is distinctly possible because we are nowhere, and I mean this nowhere when it comes to figuring out a way to fund the government and deal with all the supplemental funding requests that have been sent from the White House. There's a lot to impact there, and a lot of people have pushed backed against that and said that actually, the fact that we have a speaker makes it less likely that we will have a government shutdown. Are you disagreeing with that? Are you saying that basically this is just a window dressing over a pretty big fracture fissure in the Congress. In Congress, though, the unknown right now is how much of a honeymoon speaker the new speaker is going to get. But my sense when you start to look at some of the specific issues here and really hone in on things like Ukraine funded, or you take a step back and you look at the fact that we haven't even agreed on overall spending levels, I think it's incredibly difficult to believe that that this group is going to be able to easily avert a shutdown. My base case is that we are going to see a shutdown later this year. I don't think that's going to be a massive market moving event, but I do think that the getting the gabble to Speaker Johnson has lessened fears in the market, and that that's unfounded at this point. So the President wants a total of what one hundred and sixty two billion dollars from Congress across Ukraine, Israel, supplemental spending, et cetera. How contentious is this going to be? How much of a flashpoint is this going to be? Will it all be cojoin? Will it just be a great dissipation of this request. So first and foremost, they haven't even agreed on basic funding levels yet, right, so we're not even at a point of agreement over the normal funding levels, and that's going to be the fight for the next few weeks when we then dig into the supplementals, where you do have over one hundred billion in different ass I think that there is clearly political support for things like funding Israel and supporting Israel and it's battle with Hamas. I think that fourteen billion dollars is very likely to get done. There's clearly support for more money at the US southern border. I think that that's bipartisan and by Camel on Ukraine, it's going to be a little bit tougher. And note that this is something that the News Speaker has actually fought against in the past. Last night he did suggest that there is a way to move forward on Ukraine funding, but that they're going to have to be conditions attached to that. No one knows what those conditions are yet. Put it all together, and I think that there is a way forward on this spending package. I just think that we're going to have to go through the same type of pain that we were seeing before when Speaker McCarthy lost the gap. How long do you think this speaker lasts or do you think he is there for the duration? So what of the first things he's going to have to do is try to get rid of that motion to vacate which pulled Kevin McCarthy out of the chair. I think that this speaker has a decent runway to get into first quarter of next year at a minimum. My conversation suggests that there's a real focus on at least getting to April of next year. As a reminder, that's when the one percent across the board. Budget cuts will go into effect if Congress does not pass the twelve appropriation spills. So I think that that's the date that a lot of people have circled on their calendar just trying to make it to that point. So, Isaac, how do you deal with the fact that you are in a situation where the interest that the government has to pay continues to go up? Where does that fall in these budgetary arguments? No one seems to talk about it, but it's on the rise. So if we can't cut the budget at all to do what we want to do, how are we dealing with spending that we now are compelled to do. That's one of the most frustrating parts of the past three weeks is that we weren't talking about the real issues. We weren't talking about the thirty three trillion in debt, we weren't talking about the two trillion deficit we're running this year. We weren't talking about the seven hundred billion dollars it costs US just this year to fund our deficits. And so I think that I remain deeply disheartened because we're not having those conversations, and more broadly, no one, no one, No one cares about the deficit when they're in the majority. They only care about the deficit when they're in the minority. And so until we see something that shocks DC tou to the point where it's forced to think about the debts and deficit differently, it's going to be status quo business as usual. How do you force someone to take a look at their own balance sheet and say, your payment next year is going to be double what your payment was this year, and you couldn't afford your payment this year. Why do we not? Why is that not part of the conversation. I know nobody wants to have it when they're in the majority. Nobody wants to not spend because everybody wants they get there, has a million things they want to spend on. But it's sort of like no one is dealing with the elephant in the room, no pun intended, which is the fact that we've got all this spending that still has to come through on this And I find that particularly frustrating in general. So I just how do we get to that conversation? You should run for office, come on down here and try to try to figure it out. But look, We're going to have a real, real fight over this with the Trump tax cuts expiring. You've got trillions of dollars in tax cuts that are coming due in twenty twenty five from the expiration of the Trump tax cuts, and I think that that could be a forcing mechanism for a broader conversation, but it's going to depend who's in power, right and sot. The next hurdle is to understand who's ahead in the elections. How much is Jennet Yellen's idea the mainstream that yields are going to go back down once we get past this blip, and that higher yields in the US is not a reflection of deficits but really just a reflection of how strong the US economy is. Is that the main idea and belief in Washington, DC. It's the hope of many on Capitol Hill. I don't think that there is anyone who has a firm feel for where yields are going, surely not on Capitol Hill. But it is definitely the hope at this point that everything will fix itself. Because our politics are so broken, they're unable to fix the problems, and so there is a hope that that's the direction that's going, Lisa. But I don't think anyone has a firm feeling one way or the other. Hope is not a strategy. I just keep thinking about that. Isaac Boltanski of BTIG, thank you so much for being with us. Joining us now is Lisa Shallatt CIO at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, And Lisa, I just want to start with have we sold off enough? Because I know you've been bearished, particularly on tech. Has this been a big enough sell off for you? Look, we're not interested in getting in here unless you're a trader. What we, you know, tend to point our clients to is being investors, being long term investors. And you know, our perspective is going has been that we're going to continue to trade in this bear market range, which is where we've been for two years. I mean, people have to pull out their telescope and look at where we've been. You look at the s and P five hundred. We were here in the summer spring of twenty twenty one, and so you know, this is a trader's market right now. We don't think we break out of this range of somewhere around forty two forty five hundred really until the middle of next year, and that's when the fog clears on whether or not we're really going to see growth reaccelerate or we're going to see us you know, probabilities of recession increase. And we've been in the camp that we're going to be in that second scenario where next year economic growth, particularly in the second half, disappoints. I mean, look at the third quarter GDP, we're doing nominal eight percent. What kind of a cop year over year is that going to be in the second half next year. It's a great point. You said that this is a trader's market when it comes to equities. Is it also a trader's market when it comes to bonds. You've been bullish on longer term bonds at a time where there's a feeling that maybe this selloff has legs and actually is fundamentally driven, including by how much the US has to finance. Yeah. I mean, look, our perspective is that we are probably within fifty basis points of a peak in rates, and that having clients begin to embrace this market lock in some of these coupons with the potential for rates on a cyclical basis to reset, creates a double digit return with a third of the volatility. So again, as as as UH you know investors, we think that that the buy and hold on some of these bonds UH is a good value proposition. But I think here too, there's a lot of volatility, and that means you've got to be a trader if you're going to be uh, you know, in this market looking for returns on the month or on the quarter. Lisa, good morning, it's manas. I think that's one of the most honest interpretations. You're not prepared to step and buy into this market in a trading market that we've heard in quite a while. But there is the other side, which is you either view that you've got to build some kind of defense, and I'm drawn to your view that you want real assets and you want gold. Gold is nearly a two thousand dollars and so are you actively adding more real assets than if you're not convinced on pure equity. We are adding and encouraging folks to add some real assets here. I mean, one of our themes has been that, you know, the equity markets in particular are just not pricing real risk premiums. And you know, one of the things that has, you know, given us has been heartening to us is the fact not only are we getting higher real rates in the bond market, but that there's a term premium that suddenly people realize that in a new inflation and in a new interest rate regime where the FED is going to be data dependent, there is lumpiness and there is uncertainty over time about how that data is going to come out. Add in all the geopolitical dimensions to what's going on right now, the dimensions of dysfunction in Washington, d C. The fact we're rolling into an election year in the US where I think that the headlines and the developments are going to be extraordinarily volatile. Our view is that real assets, things like commodities, things like real estates, things like energy, infrastructure assets could really, you know, be a source of protection here in stability in portfolios. We just had in Lincoln here from BMO. We talked about a number of different things that could drive the bond market, term premium being one, fiscal deficit's being another. He thinks that the peak, the peak spike in rates could be over the next couple of weeks. Would you agree with that, and if so, what part of the bond market. Would you like to take a portion off or add to if you're adding real commodities, what would you add in duration? Yeah, we're we're looking at Our perspective is that the best value right now is really intermediate, somewhere between four to six. We're finding some value in sevens in the treasury market in fact, but we're looking at investment and great corporate, so you know, we're taking the treasury yield and taking some of that spread. We do believe that there are quality balance sheets out there that can service you know, these coupons. So we're we're enthusiastic that the middle of the curve could produce double digit returns over the next you know, twelve to eighteen months. Lisa, I'm curious about this really different reaction when it's come to this geopolitical these devastating geopolitical events. Normally we would see US yields plunge in the face of this, and we had that reaction. But you know, you blinked and you missed it. We're right back up again. Does that represent a more fundamental reassessment of treasuries as a risk free asset? You know, you were going into this government shutdown again, an episode which historically has given us lower yields, and we sort of shrug it off. Is this time going to be different because people are fundamentally reassessing the dollar as a flight to quality and the result treasures. Yeah, I mean, I love that you're bringing up this issue. I mean, this is one of the issues that we talk about with our clients all the time because it is our sense that something fundamental is going on and that the appetite for US treasury debt is different this time. Clearly, you know, the market is readjusting to not having the FED as a price and sensitive buyer, right, we know that, and and QT is certainly a weight here. But you know, you look at what's going on among Japanese investors. They're facing the realities of a tough currency compare and really tough hedging costs in terms of their ability to buy treasuries in the size that they have been buying really over the last decade. The geopolitical dimensions of this, you know, historically, we know China has has been a big buyer given their you know, trade balances and foreign currency reserves and US dollars. Uh, there's a lot of complexity UH, and a lot I believe to question about why we haven't seen that flight to safety UH manifest as it historically has in US treasuries. I do think that this is something we need to watch and study and really think hard about about whether or not something is changing and whether the US treasury market is vulnerable to geopolitics for the first time, maybe since World War Two. Lisa Chalatte Morgan Stanley Wealth mentioned it is clear cut that when people are spending on clothes, Amazon does well. But that seems to be what we experienced yesterday in the Earth, straining us now to really pass through it. Anor A Karana and Punam Goyle of Bloomberg Intelligence covering the tech and the retail side of things. Anag, I want to start with you, are we basically just learning that Microsoft is taking the lead when it comes to cloud computing and Amazon and Google are falling behind. See I'm a big fan about Microsoft's down over the years, but I would not say that they are leading here. I would just say that in the Genai, you know, Frenzy, they just have a leg up because of their relationship with open Ai. But Amazon is still the biggest cloud out there. They have more, yeah, I would say revenue than anybody else. That's partially the reason why their relative growth rates are not as strong. But last night's comments on the conference call were so positive and I think that's what's driving the stock up here. Before that, the stock was flat, and you know, it was just the positive I would say body language of the management team that you know, the cloud bottom may be here for them. Okay, who's got the strongest who has the strongest cloud offering, and who will win the most market share? Well, Amazon's far bigger in terms of you know, revenue, the revenue boundard is closer to ninety billion dollars compared to Microsoft, which is closer to sixty billion, and with Google somewhere around twenty four to twenty five billion. So Amazon's clearly the leader with the biggest network and biggest footprint. But let's bring you into the conversation here. This has been a brutal week. At one junction, we lost two hundred billion dollars in market cap of some of these biggest and most loved, most owned stocks in the US. As you go to the close of the week, there was a brutalization of stocks that disappointed on Clyde, But the one thing that stood out to me is that there are these tech companies and they are raising prices. How does that play into your thinking? Yeah, I think on the retail side, Amazon actually has done a great job in maintaining its share and even growing it. You know, when you talk about raising crisis, do then in flee. I think it's quite the opposite at Amazon. You're actually seeing them push forward low crisis, especially on those deal days that they have, like Prime Days, and that's driving the consumer spend. We're expecting Amazon to use it scale and speed to really push the pedal on prices even more as we go through the holiday season, and that's going to drive consumers to their platform, allowing them to go gain share over competitors. Plunum advertising revenue has been growing at a double digit clip based on what two hundred million global Prime subscribers were able to get an early WED on that Prime Video ads edition. I think the ad edition is going to take time to build right now. The bulk of that advertising revenue is driven from the retail side, and I think that's really key here that's going to continue to climb. And remember that advertising is a much more profitable business than the retail business and even the cloud business. So as that business scales beyond fifty billion, which it's trending to right now, it's going to drive the bottom line for Amazon. And that edition of the ads that you're talking about, I think that's just icing on the cake. I mean, that's really going to also help build revenues for Amazon and allow customers to choose do they want the ads or do they want the content without the ads where they would have to pay attlefore that. And you're right, we've now digested earnings from Alphabet, Meta, Intel, IBM, you name it. You know, what are the primary takeaways from you from three third quarter performance? I think if we are not very close to the bottom, you know, we have probably a quarter or two away, and I think that really sets up well for a big rebound in twenty twenty four. And I think this was the biggest fear that we have that what's going to happen beginning of next year with geopolitical conditions getting worse. And I think last night's results and even Microsoft's comments give us some hope that things are not as bad as you know, you know, people are making out to be. It does raise a question though, about the differentiation on rog within the cloud space, within the AI space, and whether companies are being reward for investing in some of the AI intelligence AI programming that could make a lot of money. Did you get the sense that Amazon was rewarded more on that front than Google. See. One of the biggest thing I think it's the scale matters now, And you have to remember most enterprises around the world fortune two thousand companies are going to experiment with this technology over the next twelve to twenty four months. Who are they going to go to. All these companies have the building blocks for people to experiment, So I'm not saying one's going to win over the other. All three of them are going to get their fair share of revenue from the clients. The problem is on the other side, they actually don't have enough GPU capacity to go out and build some of that AI workloads or training models and other things. But I'm fairly confident that over the next twelve for twenty four months, all three of them are going to see some benefit from Jenai. Who's got the ability to deliver the best margins. You note that revenue grew by twelve percent of aws, but the margin jump by third thirty percent. Who else is at thirty percent or beating that? Or is that where the aspiration is to deliver stronger margins? Is that part of the buy thesis. So one of the things we have talked about, think about all the three companies in the long run. Now the long run could be five years or ten years. These businesses have potential to grow operating margins north of forty percent. Now that's the reason why we say that is if you look at you know, processing companies and other things, when they reach maturity stage, these are highly scalable business Once you you know, go through the cycle of capax, you don't really require that much money to maintain them. We are confident in the the long run all three of them will have great margins. The other two companies don't really disclose it at the cloud level, at that infrastructure level, but to that extent, I mean, I mean, frankly, alphabet is still losing money in their cloud portfolio. But there is a lot of different things that go into that. Put on what's the takeaway that we've gotten in terms of these earnings about how much retailers in the US continue their hedonistic tendencies. Yeah, I thank you for the retailers. It's going to be mixed. As we moved through holiday, there is going to be clear winners and losers. And we do think that the consumer is really focused on value and that trend isn't going away for the holiday season, so they're going to have to suction the pedal on price and inventories aren't as high as they were last year, so it's really going to depend on their ability to bring product in to drive demand and really keep prices well the holiday season. Un I'm Gail on our grounda both of you. Thank you so much for being with us. One aspect of the market that's kind of flown under the radar is the regional banks in particular, especially as we talk about the big banks and the successors and all of that, and we could see that so far you're to date the BKX, the KBX KBW index is down twenty five percent, close to the lows that we saw during the crisis back in March. Now is Chris Marinac, director of research at Jenny Montgomery Scott. And I know Chris that you've been really bullish on the banking sector and I want to get your take on what you make of the selloff that has persisted. Well. I think, Lisa, there's been some continued struggles about the fears of credit quality getting worse in twenty twenty four. I think that there's been some passive flows against the banks. I've heard of a lot of folks shorting the KRX and the KRE and then going along in the Nasdaq one hundred, So that has been a challenge in terms of incremental selling. I think to some extent, the banks are not sexy here and they're not doing anything from a growth perspective that causes investors to dive in. And I think most of the fun flows has been to other growth areas and other areas that are kind of avoiding anything that's economically sensitive and perhaps recession recession proNT So have you gotten less bullish on this area because we have seen a bit of underperformance versus expectations, particularly in the regional space, and there isn't a clear pathway to growth. Well, the stocks have an opportunity to trade back to forty five to forty seven on the KRE. I think the question is can we get investors to pay attention to what really matters, which is cash flow. The operating cash flow for most banks is only down about ten percent from the August estimate's pre third quarter earnings, and so I think the other ninety percent of PP and R is actually very strong to allow banks to earn through the cycle on credit issues and anything that comes their way. I think their capacity to absorb losses is extremely good, and that's one of the reasons I've thought the stocks have opportunities to do better. I don't think we'll go back to where we would have been on the KRE pre Silicon valley, but I do think we can be better than we are, and I think we have to get through this recession discounting that the market is doing at the moment. Yeah, we are pretty obsessed with the recession dis kind in it just hasn't come home Durus yet, Chris good Morning. Provisioning was something that stood out for me as being on the low side in this reporting season. Of course, if there is no dramatic slow dying and there is no hard landing, then that's all justified that The acinting reason, do you think twenty twenty four is going to be madred by an increase a material increase in provisioning, and if so, word does it hurt the most. So I think that the provisions will rise in twenty four primarily because I think charge offs will go up. We have a lot of companies who are writing off fifteen to twenty basis points of charge offs, which is very very low. So going back to thirty or forty basis points for most mid sized banks is normal. I think your large national companies probably right off between forty five and fifty, so that's a little higher than the forty range that they are today, So that will cause provision to rise. I think generally most banks are going to set aside reserves to kind of build confidence with themselves. Clearly, the accounting on SECOIL has led banks to actually limit their reserve growth this quarter, less than I would have fought. I think to some extent it is driven by unlimited balance sheet growth and also the Moody's forecast that a lot of banks use has actually pushed out the recession, and that is also tamped down the reserve calculations. I mean, you think the consensus is obviously JP Morgan just keeps getting bigger. It's just like this juggernaut that just swallows everything and moves everything out of its way. You've listened to the conference calls, You've listened to a couple of these CEOs. Who's under most pressure in the banking sphere? I know I have my target list, But who do you think is under the most pressure as the CEO at the moment? Well, I think there are regional banks who have capital ratios that are depressed when you take the mark to market for all securities, both for the available for sale and held the maturity, So that issue has to be resolved. I think to some extent, banks will work out of their issues on their own because securities are going to start maturing in four and twenty five and to some extent these marks start to flatten out. We don't have to see FED policy chains for the marks to get better. I think somebody think that some of the payoffs of securities coming due at maturity will help. I think the pressure is on the regional banks who are going to have these new FED accounting rules, which basically means who ratios are lower than they're reported, And even though it's phased in over a three year period, the market just perceives that they have to adopt those capital rules today, so to some extent, I think we have to fight through that. The good news is the banks are profitable, they can pay dividends. There's no changes happening on some of those major items like common and preferred dividends. So I think the attitude for the investors should be better than it is. But I think the pressure is really on the regional banks where the definition is changing on capital. I do think will work through it, but that continues to be the pressure point at the moment. So does that mean that we have to extend the BTFP and do you believe that they will extend that we don't have to extend it. It It would be nice to extend because it simply takes one issue off the table. The use of BTFP has been very limited. It's hovering around one hundred and nine billion for weeks and weeks, and so the banks who have used it have used it. Some may renew if given the opportunity, but if they don't, I don't think it's a big problem. It would be nice to do that. It would be nice to have some FDIC deposit insurance reform to be able to buy insurance on uninsured depositors. I'm not sure the FDIC is going to go there, so that would be my thought on that. So it sounds like the regional banks have a maturity profile that's not as dire as I think some of us were worried about. But I think about some of the assets that are sitting there. Are the regional banks kind of stuck like utilities where I'm in a flat yield curve, so I don't have a lot going on there. I have some things I may have to write off, but I just don't see a lot of growth ahead of me. And they don't have the diversification of some of the money center banks. Well, I actually think the diverse location is actually very good. I mean, you have office real estates very limited, even commercial real estates very limited. Within the C and I space, there's a lot of different mid size and small businesses that regional banks and even community banks do and provide a great service for that. The economy is healthier than I think folks realize. But even if it changes, the ability for companies to earn through is very good. What we see happening is actually less balance sheet growth but more turnover old loans that are at low yields, renewing at high yields. A new loan today is going on the books at eight percent, and that actually is very attractive, and it's going to cosset the mix to shift on netatrist margin. We think margins may actually bottom in the first quarter, if not sooner, and that will help the stocks. I think catch a little bit of a bid. Chris, just real quick here, final word on Ted Pick the idea of some of the succession at Morgan Stanley. Is it significant in terms of the direction of that bank or do you think that it's basically going to be a continuing of the guard. Well, the investment banking business is the highest margin business of these large international firms, so it didn't surprise me at all that he was the choice. I think that his leadership inside the company has been very well thought of for a long time, so it seemed to make sense. I think to some extent they want to put the best foot forward, not to be negative on the wealth management space, because it's certainly a huge driver. They picked up a lot of new customers from the First Republic failure in April and May, so there's a lot happening there. But it seemed to be kind of continuing on the investment banking Angela Chris Marrinac of Jenny Montgomery Scott. Thank you so much. Subscribe to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live every weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can watch us live on Bloomberg Television and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. Thanks for listening. I'm Lisa Abramowitz, and this is Bloomberg See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.