The Outlook for Markets, Rates, and a Second Trump Term

Published Dec 18, 2024, 3:35 PM

Watch Tom and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Bloomberg Surveillance hosted by Tom Keene & Paul SweeneyDecember 18th, 2024
Featuring:

  • Alicia Levine, Head of Investment Strategy and Equities at BNY Wealth, discusses her 2025 outlook, the Fed, and volatility and risks in 2025
  • Jason Furman, Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard University, discusses President-elect Trump's second term economic policies and whether or not he believes they will be inflationary
  • Jason Trennert, Chief Investment Strategist at Strategas, talks about the big picture in markets, what's next for the Fed and inflation, and the path for rates
  • Lisa Mateo on newspapers

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at seven am Eastern on applecar Player, Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube. It has been far too long.

Alicia Levine of B and Y brings an absolutely prodigious mathematical almost cross mathematical skill into investment analysis. We go Euclidean with it right now. Ben Ladler's talking about third year? Could we go up twenty percent again? Can you be that bullish about three years of big double digit growth?

So in theory I could be. But in our twenty twenty five outlook, we're up about ten percent for next year simply because it is the third year after the bottoming of the bear market, and typically in that third year you just don't have those huge gains that you see in the first year out from is it.

A multiple expansion and earning, So it's earning.

So we're as you know, we're twenty two times forward earning, so we're looking for we're looking for earnings to really carry it because we the multiple was up about three times in the last year there was you know, okay, earnings growth about eight percent and the rest was the multiple. So you need earnings now to really kick it. And that's what we see. And you're not going to be up twenty percent in earning.

I'm sorry, I'm coffin. I choked in my tang. Excuse exactly, Alicia.

We haven't had a pullback and I can't remember how long. I mean, I guess you go back to July and it was eight or nine percent, but in two days, yes, exactly. That's not healthy for a longer term bull market, is it.

So the average draw down, even in years where you're up twenty percent, is actually about twelve percent. Okay, So this year the most we got was about eight percent, So it's very easy, steady year of gains. I think next you're going to see more volatility. We do think the year ends higher, and we're at sixty six hundred for the end of the year. But I just want to take everybody to the wayback machine and think about the late nineties when the FED cut into a soft landing, when there was no recession. We had five years in a row of twenty percent plus growth. Okay, So if we're really thinking about it, you know, we're Our view is we're not heading towards the recession. The FED this year alone is cutting one hundred basis points. Even if they can't cut as much as they projected back in September, we think with the inflation picture they're not going to be able to The growth picture is better than expected. You could see another a third year of really nice returns in the SMP. There's historical precedent for it. We just think it's more volatile with different policies coming through with the new administration.

Did you guys change your outlook for investing in twenty twenty five given what we saw in the elections just last month?

So we we've been bullish for about almost twenty to twenty two months. Here we took back.

I thought you're going to say five years but continue.

Well, you know, we look we like everybody else, you know, given history, thought when the Fed's cutting this quickly, they're balance or break something. But really it was the Silicon Valley, the saving of the depositors from the Silicon Valley crisis and the standing up of all those lending facilities at the FED that sort of stopped the financial crisis that would lead to a recession. So after that we got bullish. We've been positioned overweight, you know, US large cap for a long time. You still are, We still are and we you know, two years ago we underweight by we went to a large underweight on international and emerging markets, and we've kept that because we think in a world where the FED can't cut as much.

Stop it, you're not playing fair rules. You've got Jeff for you.

I mean, I did well.

It's all you know, just it's all you gotta know. You don't have to think about this, Jeff, what do we think? Thumb upper, thumb down. That's the real world.

That's the Yeah, how about it here we speak all the time.

You're too young to remember this.

But the late nineties, folks, there was a modest technology overlay.

Sweeney and I woke up in March.

Of two thousand or two thousand and one and said, oh, there's no profit.

What a shock.

We have the same technology overlay right now, but we've got profit with it.

Is that the theory.

The theory is the profit is better. Let's go back to the late nineties. Starting in the late nineties, you saw a steady increase in the operating margins of the SMP, which created a higher multiple regime for the SMP. If you just go back in time and you get your average of sixteen times forward earnings, well, your margins were also nine to ten percent. Now we're looking at thirteen and a half percent for next year, and that's because it's being driven by the cash flow of tech, and so the companies are healthier. It's not just earnings, it's free cash flow. Margins are better, keeping the multiples higher. You've got a healthier market, and the pricing of tech compared to the rest of the market on a relative basis, is actually lower than it was in twenty twenty one, nineteen ninety nine and other periods where there was a tech boom or you know, a technology change where the market got excited about a technology change. So it's relatively less expensive given free cash flow margins and earnings.

Alicia, you've concerned about the I think a lot of the lack of breath in the market. S and p SPX versus SPW, the equal weight a real divergence there, which is actually widened down a little bit here in the last few months. Someone with your experiences that concerned.

You. Look, it's a risk. It's a risk because then you need those top ten companies to keep on performing. I also think, and we've talked about it in the context of well, you know, why do you still like us large cap? There's a lot of talk about, you know, overweighting small cap because of FED cutting and a boom and of cutting regulations. That's all true. There's sort of a safety trade. And we've really seen this in the performance of NASAC versus the Dow. You know, over the last let's call it ten days, the Dow's down three percent, Nazex up three percent. These stocks are safety stocks because there's turning.

Okay, this is really this cream up with the dining room table over a beverage of my choice?

Is Apple a utility?

Now?

It's not Dominion Electric from a few years ago or even.

Con Ed, but is Apple?

Does Apple have utility characteristics in terms of persistency of cash flow?

Yes, and they pretty much like the tops of the magnal force, they have an inertial force. It's the safety play. When rates, when rates, when raids get to four and a half and five percent, what are you buying? You're buying large cap tech because it's relatively immune because they don't have to borrow to grow. And you see it. I mean, think of what happened yesterday. Small Cap was terrible and Nasik was down, but not that much. And that's what you're going to see in these rate fears that you're going to get because of rate volatility, the inflation reads and the FED statement today.

For usyet ten seconds this B and way, let you put an SPX target out.

Yees sixty six hundred end of twenty twenty five.

But is that going to go up here in the next eight seconds so we can make some news.

Yes, it's good. Yes, Look I think I think the first quarter actually could be very good. There'll be a lot of liquidity in the market.

You're going to be in New York the first quarter.

You to wonder by I'm going to be here all the time living on airplace.

Alicia Levin, thank you so much with B and why just brilliant. Her mathematical construction, the geometry of her constructions on market is just well, yeah, she got eight degrees in math and there you know she took like differential equations.

She's found them at the dining room table with her kids, her husband's looking at her, going would you shut up? I don't need diffy Q at the dining room table.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Catch us live weekday after noons from seven to ten am. Easter. Listen on Apple car Play and Android Auto with a Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.

It is FED day, and we're not going to drown the moment in FED chat with Jason Furman, Professor of Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard Teaching C ten and great on policy making as well.

I can't say enough about his.

Contribution to the zeitgeist over the last year or two with his ecumenical study of our inflation rate. It's the number one value add out there. I retweeted out always and today we're going to do a conversation with the ecumenical Jason Furman. Jason, I was talking to Chairman Bernanki at one point and we talked about hockey stick charts or Olivier Blanchard Aea a number of years ago after Great Financial Crisis with a jump condition to lower growth and then the.

Glyde bath back.

Your language right now is that we're at a hinge moment in the American Economic experiment, discuss what that is, what's a hinge moment and why is it now?

Yes, it's great to be with you, as always know. The plane was coming in, it looked like it was landing, and it is still just sort of hovering above the landing strip. It's not that far away, you know. All in I think I'd be quite happy about where we are in the economy, but we're not making progress anymore towards the Fed's two percent goal. And so the question is, are we gonna, you know, cut inflation by a couple tents, in which case everything is happy, soft landing, interest rate cuts, you know, champagne everything, or do we go up a few tents, in which case maybe the FED has rate increases back on the table and right now you know what happens. Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue will have some effect on this as well.

That's kind of where I wanted to go, Jason. I wondered just kind of if your view of this US economy, maybe even the world economy, did it change at all after the US elections last month.

Look like a lot of people and like the markets, I mostly was discounting President Trump on tariffs, thinking they were negotiating tactics that yes, we're going to get more tariffs on China, but we're not going to get something broad based on other countries. With each passing day, he's either a better and more credible negotiator than I realized, or actually believes what he's saying and is likely to follow through and do it. So I've gotten more nervous about the actual possibility of tariffs. I think some things like the FED, he's been better about Scott Descent and Kevin Hassett. We're very reassuring his picks. But I think the big one is the tariffs, which he has a lot of ability to do all on his own.

Tariffs go into just I guess, a broader conversation of internationalism. I mean, I kind of came up in this business where it was increasing globalization across the board. The world got a lot smaller, in large part thanks to technology. But boy, the last you know, six seven, eight, nine years, not just in the US but around the world, it seems like nationalism is replacing internationalism. Is that something that is a plus or a minus or how do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean one remarkable thing. I you're absolutely right in your diagnosis. But one interesting thing is for the last ten years, wages have been growing more at the bottom in the middle than they have at the top. We've actually had a compression of wage inequality. We've had, you know, pretty decent income growth over the last decade, with some serious ups and downs, especially in the inflationary period. Productivity growth in the United States at least has actually picked up. So in a lot of ways, things are working. They're working perfectly. They're never working perfectly, but they're working pretty well, which makes the turn away from globalization and the timing of it, at least in the United States somewhat surprising.

Jason, let's clear the area here, and I think it's really really important.

Paul's good question.

And the future with the Trump administration, Kevin Hasset maybe is going to drive the economic boat for President Trump.

Will see on that.

He's out of pen with Alan Auerbach. You're at a Harvard with Greg Mankew as well on the then diagram of Hasset Firman Firman Hasset. How much do you and Kevin Hassett agree upon in economics and policy?

We agree on an awful lot. I'd say the main place we disagree is taxes. He would like lower taxes, especially on corporations and capital, and I place more of an emphasis on productivity, and I'm more skeptical about some of the larger growth numbers. I can't he would believe it, although I think taxes do matter for I.

Can't emphasize enough Paul, how this is misconstrued in the media. They want has to to be completely opposite or Furman.

And it's just not the case.

They got a substantial overlayer around the things we discuss each day.

And Jason reasonly I did a thing with him where he was defending the fans fifty basis point cut and I was saying they should have done twenty five, you know, back in September. So you know, sometimes the positions are and even what you might predict.

And Jason just you know, on the text front here, it seems like that likely is going to be something that this administration is going to want to extend the twenty seventeen tax cuts. How do you think that could play out, should play out, will play out?

Oh?

Look, I think they're going to extend them. The question is for how long I think that's a real shame. There's a number of people that think you should use what's called the current law baseline, that you shouldn't add to the deficit as measured by CBO. If you extend those tax cuts, you're basically locking in deficits of at least percent of GDP, probably eight nine or ten percent of GDP over the coming years. And that's just not a place we should be now. In twenty seventeen, I didn't think we could afford the cost of the tax cuts. In twenty twenty five, it will be even less affordable, given where the debt is, given where interest rates are.

Matt Winkler, our Emeritis Center in chief, Jason Furman just did a summary of the facts of the Biden administration, and you know, it was very much pro Biden, and of course you've got a Democratic Party shingle out as well. Is President Biden's legacy completely overwhelmed by the growth of the debt and the deficit.

And that's a part of the legacy, and that, by the way, played into things like the higher interest rates we have now in higher mortgage ratements. By the way, we're probably part of what was going on in the election in November. There was a very strong economic recovery. That's on the plus side. I think we overdid it and got too much inflation. That's on the minus side. And the inflation, I think it's underappreciated how it's eaten other parts of the legacy. For example, the cost of infrastructure has gone up more than spending on infrastructure, and so in real terms, it appears that we're investing less in many every infrastructure than we were before.

One final question, are you the grinch? And you gave holiday reading? Forced hundreds of pages of reading to X ten in Harvard.

I gave them their their final grades for the courts and sent them away. There was listed some optional reading, but no one's going to ever check on.

Okay, great inflation.

Guy Man Q was brutally dealt out seas like they were French mints. Did you give out any ce's, Professor Furman.

There are We did give some c's. You can give some ds.

Uh.

I don't want to talk about anything below that, but we tried it. We tried to roughly match the average grade and comparable courses. I don't want to penalize people for taking economics compared to something else, because I think.

Oh, that's the whole story itself.

Was Jason Furman, of course, and I can't say enough again about his work in describing inflation away from the blatherer, with his ecumenical analysis of inflation, Professor Furman doles outseas at Harley.

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty joining us right now.

It has been way, way too long.

In a different conversation, Jason Trenner, his chief investment strategist at Strtigous, He's just been wonderful over the years of a belief in America, a belief in capitalism, and you participate any equity markets, Jason, for a part of this discussion, this conversation, I have to change the dialogue, and I'm gonna blame it at one's see Gas Sparino over at the New York Post. Jason, are you under consideration or are you in discussions with the Trump administration with mister Lutnick about serving the future president of the United States.

Well, I've been down to Pon Beach and I've been I've talked to the transition on a number of occasions, and to be honest with you, that's about all I know. But I'm very much willing to serve, you know, given the right opportunity, and certainly a very supportive of the new administration. And so it would be an honor, you know, if asked, but you know, nothing has been asked yet. So we'll see how We'll see how that goes. And for the record, by the way, you'll never see me wear birkenstocks.

Yeah, we knew that.

I'm more of a I'm more of a wingtipy, you know. But anyway, that.

Was a safe ground there.

Yesprino goes on to say, you would be quote a leveling force. What is the leveling force? Jason Trennard that President Trump needs to hear from the Treasury Secretary and from a potential trendet at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania.

Yeah, I'm sure if I were offered something, I wouldn't exactly be a heartbeat away, by the way, and I'm not sure President Trump needs any leveling force because I'm very much in agreement with many, if not all, of his policies, particularly with regard to trade. And I also think certainly in terms of rationalizing the size of federal government. So in my opinion, you know, I don't think any leveling force is needed, but I would be a strong defender of the policy.

Oh.

I know that you've talked about.

Oh, I know, Paul is if Jason dessendant Trentant joins the Trump administration, you're going to hear President Trump talking about Italy is the fifty second state.

Continue.

So, Jason, what do you what would you advise the president as to economic policies in terms of a kind of a to do list or maybe a uh, you know, step one, step two, step three type of recommendations.

Well, listen, I think again, it's you know, it's and I don't want to be overly. Uh. I don't want to be presumptuous. Uh. President has a great economics team there right now. But in my opinion, I do think President Trump was elected for two reasons. Largely one is I think that there's a sense that the immigration policies of this country have gotten out of control. And have have hurt just average Americans. And I think he's right about that. And I also think that inflation was another big issue. And as you know, we've created something called the Common Man CPI, which looks at things. It's the opposite of supercore, which which excludes food, energy, and housing, which you know, in my opinion is all those things are pretty core. We go the other way and we just focus on things people have to buy. And I do think that certainly deficit production would be a good way to start to try to rationalize prices. It's hard to run deficits six to seven percent of GDP continually and then expect to make real progress on inflation, in my opinion, So I think he's got those things right where that's worth for him, and that's, in my opinion, that's very very likely to be where he starts, and that's why he was elected.

Paul.

This is important what mister Trentett's doing with inflation, like the real inflation. Hearkens to Lawrence Cudlow, And this is something Larry Cudlow's.

Really really been right about. Is this insistence to core. It's not the real world after all.

Yeah, So at Jason, Ted extent that this incoming administration would like to reduce deficits from six percent of GDP to three percent.

How do you do that?

What's the way forward?

You think, well, listen, it's not and I don't think you know, to be very realistic about it, and would I would greatly suggest that we don't try to throw the thing in reverse. You know, you didn't prison Trump didn't create deficits of six to seven percent of GDP. I don't think he should be expected to reduce them to three percent in a year or two years, but he does have four years. And I do think DOJE is a very in my opinion, it's a very very powerful concept. And now you're dealing with twenty percent of the budget that isn't you know? That is discretionary. But I do think that sets a tone for everything else. And I do think there's a certain sense in which you worry about the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves. But the best way obviously, So not only is it is it reducing wasteful government spending, but it's also a big focus on growth, right. It is encouraging capital formation, encouraging capital vestments so that you can grow your way. You can grow the numerator so that the deficits are not not the nominator rather, so the deficits are not really as big a deal to me. That's that's where I would I would focus more than anything as economic growth. And then also, you know, just stop doing dumb things. You're not always easy.

Jason Quickley, you're in the meg seven? Are you still long long long our tech vision?

Listen. I think it's really difficult. It can work, it's not cheap, but it's really difficult to fade these companies because they have the cash flow with which to continue to invest in artificial intelligence. And I would say your average, your average CEO of a company in the United States is more at risk of being fired by not spending enough on these new technologies than spending too much at least now. And I think, you know, the most of the companies have this ability to they have the cashloads to do that, so there's not a big risk to it. At a certain point, there's going to have to be They're going to have to be some sort of proof concept that these investments are actually resulting in productivity. But I think you have some time before those expectations get too high.

Jason Trent and one of my heroes, William Priest, was in the studio yesterday definitive book on free cash flow and shareholder yield. What is the quality of the MAG seven free cash flow?

Well, it is quite good that. One of the things though that is changing that I think people have to kind of keep in mind, is that these are no longer really capital light industries because of their investments in AI. Right, so if you look at let's say capital expenditures as a percentage of sales, the MAG seven is actually more capital intensive than let's say the energy sector, right, that is a difference. And so I you know, the good news is these companies are throwing off tons of cash. That means that they can make their own luck as far as stock prices are concerned. Generally speaking, they could buy back stock or increased dividends or what have you. But a lot of the cash flow now is being is being directed towards towards capital investments, and so that means that sooner or later those capital investments are going to have to bear fruit or they're going to have to retrench, and they'll be a repricing of those of those stocks. So the good news they have the money, you know. The bad news is, you know, eventually the clock will be ticking to see whether those were good investments or bad investments.

Jase, can you talk to us just broadly about these markets as we head into twenty twenty five. It feels like sentiment levels are really stretched here. I mean, valuations are one thing. Maybe you know, the market can earn its way into the evaluation, but boys, sentiment seems pretty stretched. He is that a concern for you?

Hey, it's definitely a concern. I mean, and I think financial can conditions. In my opinion, it's ironic because financial conditions if you're rich are quite easy. Financial conditions if you're not rich, are quite tight. And this is one of the issues. Right, So you have some guy buying a banana tape to a wall for six and a half million bucks, and then there's you know, there's other folks that can't get a mortgage.

Right.

So, but I, in my opinion, sentiment is getting kind of frothy out there. There is a lot of excitement about things like DOGE, there's a lot of excitement about deregulation. All of those I think are worthwhile. The thing we're watching very closely to determine when to get more concerned about equities really is the tenure treasure yield we've seen since this bull market started in October of twenty twenty two, there have been three major corrections since then in the bull market. Two of them were associated with tenure treasure yields above four and a half. The third was associated with an end to the end carry trade in August. So, in our opinion, four and a half to five percent is a little bit of the red line for risk on and if yields rise to four and a half to five, we're going to start We're going to start to lighten up a little bit, not necessarily to get bearish, but maybe get a little bit more defensive and raise a little bit more cash.

Jason, what do you need to hear from your Federal Reserve chairman this efnoon?

Well, listen, I would like to hear that they are very aware that there is not an insignificant chance of another wave of inflation. I know that kind of ruins the party a bit, but I also believe that to be true. And tenure treasure yields are up seventy basis points since the FED first eased. Mortgage rates are up since the FED first east, and there is a fair amount of historical precedent. Don Rismoler, or chief Economist, did some great work on waves of inflation, and what he found was that once you had one wave of inflation over six percent, the chances of getting another wave are about nine to ten. And he looked at about two dozen countries over one hundred years. Part of that is because wages. There are pent up demand for wages, and you're seeing that with let's say Boeing machinists getting thirty eight percent over four years long short and getting sixty two percent over six years. Part of that is to make up for the fact that their standard of living declined when inflation rose the first time. So once the toothpaste is out of the tube, inflation is kind of hard. It's harder to get it back in than you think.

If we have an inflation old Georgetown microeconomics, there's an ambiguity Jason Trennard, and that will sustain nominal GDP. So which way does it cut if we have sustained or even a bit higher inflation, does that help General Mills, Colgate palm Olive and Nvidia.

Well, it helps profits, right, So because profits are profits are nominal, revenues are nominal, it tends to hurt multiples though, right, at least before q E, higher inflation would lead to higher long term interistrates, which would lead to lower multiples. That relationship has weakened meaningfully since we started using the using the balance sheet like you know, some sort of plaything, and with a seven trillion dollars balance sheet, that relationship is a little bit weaker. Having said that, higher long term interistrates tend to hurt the multiple, so Tim, you're right, it hurt, it helps, it helps profits. And equities are not a bad hedge against higher inflation. You know, they're a better edge than fixed income. But it's not like it's free, right. It comes with a cost, and that's the willingness of people to pay up for those earnings, Jason.

Some folks are suggesting that, as we think about some of the potentially inflationary pressures from President like Donald Trump's economic policies that we know of to date, that deportations might be more inflationary than say, tariffs. A.

Do you believe that?

And B?

How would you advise I guess the president on that.

Yeah, no, I think and I actually think that's right. We've spent a lot of time on some of these issues. I say, you know, remember President Trump raised tariffs in his first term. When you look at the data carefully, what you find is really the tariffs went up meaningfully really only against one country, and that was China. There were certain there were other countries like South Korea and Taiwan where President Trump actually cut tariffs during his administration, and I would say this time around, China still is in the in the crosshairs. I agree with your assessment though about about let's say mass deportations. And Peterson Institute came out with a study. Doesn't mean it's correct, but they found that the relationship between inflation and mass deportations is higher than it would be for what's being forecasted for tariffs. And so, which is to say, let's say you let's just pick a number just at random, we deport a million people here that have had some run in with the law or here illegally. I don't think that would have a big impact on inflation. If you start deporting eight, nine, ten million people, that's going to have an impact on the labor markets, right, and then we have to make decision as a country whether that cost is worth it. But I am very sympathetic to this idea that that's maybe part of the economic plan. It's not part of the economic plan, but it's part of the policy mix that is for inflation at least is something we have to keep an eye on.

Jason got to leave it there, Jason Trender, thank you so much. Mister TIGA's a lengthy conversation this morning on his American stock market and economic experiment.

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal.

The Daily Look at the front pages, the Lisa Matteo Show, Lisa, what do you got?

Okay?

More protests surrounding the Paramount and Skydance merger. Now you have the Center for American Rights. It's filed a petition with the FCC. They're citing potential foreign influence and bias. What am I talking about?

Okay?

So this said that an investment in Sky dance by the Chinese company Tencent. It raises questions about foreign influence over the US media, And then they're saying that Paramount CBS News division has a track record of ideological bias and also lacks diversity and its hiring practice. But I don't know is this merger going to be approved by the FCC. I mean, they're saying most of it likely.

It is my personal opinion, having found the media industry for thirty five years, zero risk here of it not being I mean, sky Dance is just is.

It a real estate play?

Like you know, they show the Paramount studios, it is a great lot. That's like if they bulldoze it, it's worth it.

It's worth a lot of money, it is. I mean there's that as well.

We saw that with the Fox a lot when disneyball twenty first century Fox. A lot of value allocated to that. But it's just, you know, it's it's a sky Dance looking to get into the media business. It's the son of rich guys exactly exactly end. It's still that way and at Cherry retch done looking to get out as quickly as she possibly can to anybody that'll write a check and that's how the steal came about.

Did it change the industry? Did it change streaming? Did it change Warner Brothers Discovery's discussions?

Know that this new company, this new paramount owned by sky Dance, is now going to have to think of that. Okay, now what do I do? I probably can't stand alone. I probably need to talk to Warner Brothers Discovery. I probably need to talk to some media companies about getting bigger.

Tim Cook out yesterday with the lead actress I think her name is Ferguson. Excuse me, I'm so sorry. I don't know it.

The show Silo I watch on Apple.

They extended it for season three, season four, and they have the lead actress and Tim Cook. I think they're sort of on this set of Silo and she's thanking him for the gazillions of dollars Apple spent on this show, and he said he's addicted to it.

I mean, it really helps if the head is addicted to your product.

Exactly exactly, Tim, I mean, Apple's got the money and.

Who green lit the red one with the red Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm still trying to get through that one. Okay, holiday party season.

Right, So how do you behave Please tell them?

The Wall Street Journal has a whole detailed a few examples of what you should and should not do. So they're saying, a work party is another day from work. You're not kind of off duty, so just be careful. Yes, the drinking, the dancing, the flirting, and you can get fired for some of that because it is a work function. What you where expect the usual office dress code, if slightly less formal, bow ties included. Okay, And it says he the hierarchy make a point to acknowledge, perhaps thank the boss. So if you're going around, say hey, thanks for you know, for the great year. Mingle. Here's the thing mingling, right, don't linger and don't like.

Hover, can't start sending you the bar.

No, and you can't be on your phone. That's the other thing.

You can't isolate yourself. You have to mingle.

Okay, you're good at that. You can dance, you can't. Don't get carried away, tom Okay, now can.

I say something about this? The guy that wrote The guy that.

Wrote the article at the Wall Street Journal of Party Times is one of the smartest guys ever met. Paul Podowski was I think it fleet my mind's you know, this is like back when they were throwing tea into the harbor. But Paul Podowski was there with two other guys, Greg Anderson at the bank and they wrote a morning memo that was so smart you stopped at seven oh two am when they released that memo. He was legendary for writing cross asset smart memos. Paul Poldowski at Cake Capitol, good morning, and he's the one.

He's a party monster. Have you ever gone to parties in one evening? Noyes, that's like work.

You take the you take the beverage. They all want to give me a martini and you touch it to your lips.

Oh you pretend, you pretend.

Yeah, you can't get through the evening If you don't, I wouldn't get out of the first party.

But you know it's it's yeah, you know, it's very difficult. Next what do you go? Oh?

God, okay, so we did that. So we were talking yesterday about the malls. You were asking me, you know, how are the malls?

Are they crowded?

Are they not crowded? So apparently this from Women's Wear Daily. They spoke with the head person over at Simon Property, they own a lot of the malls, and they said how their recent traffic figures shows that they're starting to see growth. How basically what they're doing is they're turning malls into more like a community. So they're adding luxury apartments, hotels, they're adding gyms like a Lifetime Fitness, They're adding grocery offerings, more food and beverage, more restaurants because they want more people to go. And also they said, you know, it's all about the quote experience, so family and kid play areas, Mommy and me, yoga.

You're a seventeen year old play area.

Remember your parents screaming you and you're not going to the mall.

At Lisa, you were there? How many days a week were you hanging out at the mall? That is it still the place to be, But.

It's a lot of the kids, like the teens, did parents just come drop them off and enjoy the day. Yes, enjoy the day, enjoy the apple pay and have fun at it. But it's about becoming a community and that's how they're keeping the malls alive.

The interview we had yesterday, I'm going to make it up. Burt Crouch, was it Invesco was brilliant. Ye, he was brilliant.

Yeah, he just said the gloom is not as bad as people think. Right, you got one more for us, last one.

Oh, yesterday we told you about the Amazon return to work five days a week policy that starts next month. Now AT and T they're saying their policy kicks in in the new year five days a week.

A comedy.

They've been doing the hybrid schedule for about a year. So the thing is is that now there's talk. You have Reddit users on the AT and T subreddit they're saying that, well, you know what, there's not going to be enough room for all these workers to come back. The same issue that Amazon is having is that they're bringing all these people back and there might not be enough room. So that's one of the issues there for Amazon. But a lot of people saying it's even harder to find.

A job that's a huge employer in the state of New Jersey.

That means, you see how that plays out.

Interesting.

I have no idea how this plays out. It's one of the great mysteries. Yeah, Lisa Mateo, thank you so much.

The newspapers.

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