I am Katie Greifeld in new york. Welcome to Bloomberg Markets. It is a down day in markets right now. Take a look at the s p 500, down about. 4 . Even more so if you take a look at big tech. April was the worst month of 2024 and 30 minutes into the trading session, it does not look too high. I put bitcoin up just for fun because digital gold is not doing so hot right now. We are below 60,000 but we do want to get to some breaking data crossing the terminal right now. Mike mckee has all the details. Mike we have some numbers making the fed bank, what is going on here . Contraction territory. The forecast was down from 50. 3, so a much bigger drop than anticipated. This is not good news for the fed. We are seeing a resurgence in inflation, in the manufacturing area. The employment number goes to 48. 6, slightly higher from 47 point four, but it is still below contraction. We do see another decline in job openings. So, at this point, we are seeing fewer job openings and fewer people quitting. First drop in five months. Fewer people quitting and fewer job openings. Also, less progress towards Economic Growth from the ism numbers. The fed will definitely take note of that. Katie a busy day. Thank you to mike mckee. Lets turn to the markets. Joining us is the cohead of investments. A great to see you in person. Lets talk about sentiment because it feels like it has soured. Off by 4 last month. Even though you have amazon up 3. 5 . A continuation of what you have seen for years. The fed itself has a problem because they have to pivot. The underlying economy continues to run high. What stocks are picking up on our that there are signs of weakness. We saw the ceo talking about consumers pulling back and being more cautious, given the underlying currents that we are seeing. Katie you saw that from some of the corporate results we got, say you make the point that we are talking about another pivot. The one we are talking about this time might be back to a more hawkish bias . It was a policy mistake and they pivoted to the idea of rate cuts. They will take that off the table and returned to a stance of higher for longer and letting the current stance do its work. Katie who needs to make cuts . Some of the other Big Tech Companies do not need rate cuts. Where in the market really needs those rate cuts . I would say some of those do need rate cuts and it is sentiment that is running high. I had of a slowdown, markets are overly zealous in their belief that it will continue forever. What we see is that consumers have a challenge today. They are over consuming button able to do that, they are taking on debt and where i some of those consumer cyclical type names, those names i do not know the economy needs higher rates. We just need to let the Business Cycle play out. Katie climbed down 15 today. You added it altogether. How do you position in this market . Are you just picking and choosing . It is easy on a fixed Income Portfolio to go back to basics. Higher yields is your total returns will come from. You can shorten credit duration and really have a robust portfolio that serves the place of fixed income, negative inflation. Katie where does cash fit in . The problem is it will always be cash. It serves a place in the portfolio but is serves alongside duration treasuries as the world becomes a laissezfaire place. Katie does not extend to stocks that have payouts . Im thinking dividends. They have been a hot topic. You have the likes of 3m cutting. Broadly with dividends, it is individual, company to company, but it is a space that we really like. There are Many Companies that have a significant moat around their surroundings. Companies like they are in the midst of an inflection point. They have expended a lot and now, they are just sitting back and letting it accrue. It trades at a relatively depressed multiple. Katie it sounds pretty good. Im taking a look to your notes. You brought up citigroup before. What is the appeal of financials right now . We have to march the consumer very carefully, but overall, they have christine Balance Sheets and we are continuing to see strength in their earnings. A 7 dividend trading at a relatively depressed multiple. If we come home domestically, there are Companies Like jp morgan. A relatively stronger side of the market. It is a space that we are constructive on. Katie does the fed actually cut rates this year . Baidu think that they cut once. Now that it is on the table, i think the bias is high, but i think they will continue to follow through. It will not reintroduce. It is something that market will be watching carefully for. Katie we appreciate your time on this fed day. Lets take a look at what is happening underneath the markets now. We will do that with bailey. You have three showstoppers today. Tell me what is going on with amazon. Blowing past what they were looking for. The stock is in the red modestly. Some risky assets in the red, but the big thing when you take a look, best cloud sales and more than a year, but secondquarter revenue expectations modestly below what they were looking for. No real update in terms of pushing out a dividend. Dabbling into a strong expectation, but a lot underneath the surface. Katie currently about 3 on the day. It is really impressive when you take a look at what the rest of the market is doing but bailey, break my heart. What is going on with starbucks . Worst day since 2020. When you look at the sales, one of the worst Quarterly Results in more than two decades. Sales are weaker than expected. They saw weakness along among reward members. You are seeing investors shunning the company with uncertainty. Some reactions about what they can do to right the ship and go back into the sales. Looking at a market like china, it did not seem very strong, so a number of issues for the company. That is why it is seeing the worst day since 2020. Katie i feel like we have to from the numbers on how to companies we have heard called this a transition year. I feel like that is turning into the word of this earnings season. West especially when you have the scorched earth from a business perspective, so much excitement around generative ai and agonizing Companies Like starbucks exposed to the consumer. It is kind of concerning and we have seen that happen a number of times. Maybe that is the kitchen sink excuse. Katie they need to make ai chips or something. If you thought starbucks was having an ugly day, tell me about cvs. Do not look at it on that basis. Really, worse than expected outlook. We saw them with their guidance. North to the high 70s. I was with a health care trader that i have talked to for a number of years. If you had a bingo card of everything you did not want to hear, cvs checked all those boxes, blaming medicare and utilization rates were higher than expected. Even their retail and pharmaceutical services coming in well below what wall street was looking for. A now 70 billion company plunging but that is the case. Katie an ugly day for cvs. Coming up, beating earnings estimates. We will speak with mark bristow. This is bloomberg. Hey you, with the small business. Whoa. Youve got all kinds of bright ideas, that your customers need to know about. Constant contact makes it easy. With everything from managing your social posts, and events, to email and sms marketing. Constant contact delivers all the tools you need to help your business grow. Get started today at constantcontact. Com constant contact. Helping the small stand tall. Katie gold topping estimates when it reported earnings earlier today. Earnings at . 19 per share. It generated is a nearly 4 jump yearoveryear. Here with more, we have mark bristow. Mark, good earnings overall. We can see that reflected in the shares. There was a hit to Gold Production but reading to your earnings release, it seems like some of the production issues have been resolved. Good morning. We ended up last year just missing our guidance because we had a Conveyor Belt fail. We spent the First Quarter rebuilding that. We recently commissioned a. We have guided the ramp up on back taking that backlog away. Lots of projects to go. Looking forward to larger margins throughout the year as we drop the cost and expand production. Katie take a look at gold trading year 2300 an ounce. You have several billion dollars of cash at hand. Are you looking to make any acquisitions given how hot the gold market is . We have an organic portfolio that will deliver about 30 growth in the Production Profile through to the back of the decade. We want to spend some of that on capital to deliver on those plans. Of course, with a bigger margin, we have a very clear return policy as far as share buybacks and growing our dividend. It can be part of our Capital Allocation strategy. Katie spending more time on the price of gold, it is up 11 or so in 2024. How are you thinking about it . Do you see gold as overbought . Do you think they have more room to run . It is measuring the complexity of the global economy, as well as the geopolitical situation that we are facing across the globe. It is interesting that you see the old price though up. The equity is lagging. We have seen the etf. People are very nervous about paper currencies at the moment. Of course, it is a year where most of the Major Economies are holding elections. And people are propping up the economy. So i think that is what can be seen. On top of that, the geopolitical situation is very, extremely dynamic. Gold is a measure of uncertainty. And economic risk. That is what i think we are seeing. Katie im glad you brought up the disconnect between the shares and what we are seeing. I take a look at your share price and i think you have one of the best out there. It really gets the point across, but shares are down 7 . You have a similar situation with your competitors as well. Why havent the gold miners kept up and participated . I do not really know, but i can hazard a guess. What i think is happening is that we all ask against significant impacts to cost. The investors relied more on the physical, but as we have gotten on top of our business is and we are at a point where we are growing production again, that drives the cost down irrespective of inflation. We start growing the margins and once you get returns visible in the equity, gold does not pay interest. You should see rotation out of the equity, out of the physical, back into part of the equity. With the big expansion in margins, i am absolutely convinced that he will ca bigger interest in the equity, Going Forward throughout the year. Katie that would cause the gap to shrink. Appreciate the color around that. Lets talk about copper a little bit. You talked about your organic portfolio but it is interesting. Some of your competitors have said it is better to build a copper mine then to buy one. And curious as to where you stand on that question. Absolutely. Many of my peers in the gold industry are wannabe gold miners. I was very clear that we would build a copper portfolio. To complement the assets. We have done that. You saw bhp make a bed last week. To put it into perspective, our portfolio that we are now delivering against by the time we finished the expansion, almost the same size as Anglo American copper portfolio. Bhp is billing for. That is a valuable portfolio, as you have seen. We are excited about our business and we are definitely on that delivery path to be able to become a significant copper producer as we are gold. Katie eu brought up the takeover and im wondering, are there any anglo assets that you might be interested in, if that bhp takeover proceeds . Bhp is the ultimate 5000 pound gorilla in the mining industry. Is the determined company. Right now we are focused on organic growth. Katie we appreciate your time. Still ahead, people take a look at the company is making the most social buzz in our social climbers segment, next. This is bloomberg. Sandals jamaica sale is now on with rates from 199 per person per night. Visit sandals. Com or call 1800sandals how am i going to find a doctor when im hallucinating . What about zocdoc . So many options. Yeah, and dr. Xichun even takes your sketchy insurance. Xichun, xichun, xichun youve got more options than you know. Book now. Katie time for social climbers. Look at the stocks making waves on social media. Pfizer leading expectations and hiking its fullyear profit outlook. The defendant from cost cuts and strong sales of noncovid products. Pfizer trying to regain their footing after the rapid decline of its covid business. Finally playing catchup. The maker of heinz ketchup and Kraft Mac Cheese says man for products is softening banks to higher prices and reduced food stamp benefits. Estee lauder lowering its revenue outlook for the rest of the year thanks to continued weakness in china. Sales in the u. S. And canada were flat in the third quarter. You can follow all the latest company buzz on your bloomberg terminal. Take a broader look at these markets right now. It is a down day ahead of the fed. More so if you take a look at the nasdaq 100. Despite the rally by seeing in amazon, it is not enough to lift the broader indexes with some pretty ugly earnings on the rest of the companies that took the stage. Below 60,000. Coming up, a weightloss drug that you can swallow. We will talk about and obesity drug pill. That is next. This is bloomberg. People couldnt see my potential. So i had to show them. Ive run this place for 20 years, but i still need to prove that im more than what you see on paper. Today im the ceo of my own company. Its the way my mind works. I have a very mechanical brain. Why are we not rethinking this . I am more. Im more than who i am on paper. Katie the weight loss boom helping to boost the bottom line of big pharma, revenues rise as demand shows no signs of slowing. We are joined by abigail doolittle. Abigail if we look at the shares of eli lilly and novo nordisk the huge gains over the last few years. Novo nordisk up 200 . Eli lilly up more than 300 . Not as much for astrazeneca. Pfizer is down although they did put up a good quarter of guidance, but over the last three years that stock underperforming. One area of potential growth in the future for these stocks be Medicare Advantage. Right now its not covered but the fda did approve will go ovi to improve the risk of heart attacks and stroke in overweight people and this could clear the path for approval from medicare for at least will go ovi and maybe the other loss drugs. Take a look at the number of people this could bring to these drugs potentially in 2020 4 Million People are expected to be enrolled in Medicare Advantage and the numbers only go in the right direction. Lets take a look at those stocks in perspective once again here we have the s p 500 and the Health Care Index both higher over the last three years. Take a look at eli lilly it is clearly the big winner, outperformance for some of these weight loss drugs. Katie that is a huge gap on the screen and feels like its only getting bigger. For more on the weightloss market we are joined by George Hampton the ceo of trex which makes a in pill form. The glp ones are all the rage. Yours has been around since about 2014. It is not a glp one. Can you tell us what the difference is . Sure and good to be with you this morning. A glp1 works in the gut. It works in your g. I. Contrave works on the reward system of your brain. Many people when they eat they get this dopamine high and this helps reduce, we can work on both cravings at the same time. Katie it makes sense when we are talking about obesity we are talking about two things. Talking about your brain and with that in mind should contrave be in combination with glp1s to address both sides of the coin. There has not been a study of any of these products in combination. I think as the medical Community Learns more about how to treat this multifactorial chronic complex disease called obesity i think we will see all types of new formulations and different treatment approaches. Katie i would imagine theres different types of side effects that come along without trade we know abigail s can cut glp1s can cause troubles. When it comes to side effects for contrave, tell us about the side effects and how to mitigate that . George the product has been around since 2014 so it is incredibly well known at this point. Over 640,000 patient years of experience with the medication so its incredible he welltolerated. If you look you can find some g. I. Distress, some anxiety. Physicians who are prescribing this or familiar with how to balance the side effects. In regard to side effects it does not matter what medication you are on you will have to Pay Attention to them. In the United States we are good at doing that across the board. Katie i want to talk about the obesity treatment boom we are experiencing right now. Youve been around since 2014 here we are a decade later and this is the hot topic. Have you seen overall demand increase because it feels like awareness is so much more than it was. George demand for people asking to be treated for obesity. Last year it grew 50 . Internationally grew 30 based on the increased demand and the rapid expansion to new markets worldwide. We are participating in the expansive market in a significant way. What effective shortages had on that demand because the narrative out there has been demand is so high for some of these drugs from eli lilly and novo nordisk that they can make enough and im wondering if youve seen any sort of runoff benefit from that. George we picked up a little bit of benefit from that. Two of the largest world the World Largest pharmaceutical companies cannot keep up with demand shows how much there is for treating this disease. I think more patients are showing up to their physicians being willing to talk about being treated for obesity, we are stirring to break through the bias of obesity in patients are more comfortable talking with physicians. And the physicians are becoming more sophisticated treating obesity. We are benefiting from that, we work differently, we are a far more affordable option and in such your picking up a lot of new business. Katie lets talk about affordability. As abigail walked us through, weight loss drugs are not covered by medicare which i would imagine takes out some of your total addressable market. Do you see that changing and you think these drugs will be covered by medicare . George i do. Its the first chronic disease is a country or society we have ignored and as a result we now have the worlds number one u. S. Is the number one, so theres a bill in congress right now and we are working very hard with congress to make that on the floor a bill to be passed. I see cvs covering cms covering this in short order. Right now youve got maybe 1 5 or one fourth of the commercial brands offering obesity care. Its a tough spot if you have obesity. Katie we will stay in touch as that progresses through the halls of congress but lets also talk about the stock market. The reception for eli lilly and novo nordisk has just been really something to watch. You are a private company, have you considered going public and seizing this moment . Weve created a lot of optionality for ourselves the way we positioned the business. Its accelerating yearoveryear. We are now in 48 countries so i think theres a lot of options we could certainly go public with this story at this point and theres other things we could be doing as well. This is becoming a very good story. Katie just before we let you go, talk to me about what that decision process could look like . Its something i wonder about with private companies who could be public companies. What are some of the questions you are laying . George we would like to see the macro improve to a certain degree, the obesity story obviously is selffulfilling and we have a little bit more work to do on our side with that type of event but its certainly something we could see in our future in the next years if the markets are up to that. Katie really appreciate your time today, appreciate this conversation. The ceo of trex. Spiking curex. The ipo price is 24 for viking holdings. We will keep an eye on it. Lets get a check on these markets. We will do that with abigail doolittle. Abigail this is really a piece weve been trying over the last few weeks, last high that weve had for the s p 500 going back towards march at least at this point the s p 500 down 4. 2 , of the lows down a bit more. All of this ahead of todays fed decision, unlikely they make any sort of real move but investors and strategist will be scouring that policy statement along with the press conference for indications of what could be next. Will 2024 still be the year of the cut. Stocks going back to 1999 this is sort of counterintuitive only relative to more recent movement around cuts and hikes but if you go back to 1999 and a lot of this has to do with the big bubbles, the tech bubble and housing bubble and financial crisis. When rates are held stocks go up nearly 18 on an annualized basis at a low rate. At a high rate of a little bit less, this is interesting because this is not the dynamic we are in right now but back in the day a cut signaled that the economy was slowing so much that stocks went with the economy. That six month crystal ball factor of the s p 500. I think this is not as much the dynamic today but really super interesting. Going into todays fed decision we have the vix and a 16 handle. While historically low that is the highest weve seen for the vix during the fed meetings the last year since last june. You can see that on an equal weighted or comparative basis its been lower so investors are nervous of what the fed will say today. Katie all the action starts at around 2 00 p. M. Today. Abigail do little thank you so much. Before we get to the fed we will talk about the race for ai chips. We will speak to the chip war author and Tufts University professor of International History. This is bloomberg. When you automate sales tax with avalara, you dont have to worry about things like changing tax rates, exemption certificates or filing returns. AvalarAhhh Ahhh Ahhh ahhh abigail coming up, pinterest ceo joins bloomberg tv at 11 30 a. M. New york time. This is bloomberg. Katie its time for our daily wall street week conversation and today we are looking at the growing demand for ai chips. Joining us we have the chip wars author and Tufts University professor of International History along with david westin. This is one of the most Competitive Industries yet you have one huge david the question is do they have the chips they can buy other than from nvidia. We had earnings out of and, i vestment bait i guess my basic question is there anyone who can narrow the gap with nvidia in terms of buying chips. They have an extraordinary lead and it looks like they are maintaining it. We see all the big tech firms each quarter building out their data capacity. The lions share of that money is going to nvidia who is producing almost all of the key chips both for training ai systems but also deploying them. Katie when it comes to taking on nvidia or growing in this industry is this about taking shares from nvidia or is the overall pie growing as well . Chris the pie is going to grow dramatically no matter what youre looking at there we much more spend on Ai Infrastructure over the last five years then there is today. Theres different types of ai workload, Training Systems like the gpt systems that openai has, theres also running ai across different types of devices and its possible as we deploy more ai we will have different types of chips that optimizing different domains. It looks like the training and deployment is in a strong position. David what is the supply and what is the demand because every time you turn around theres a big outfit saying we will invest a lot more in ai. Chris last year there was a really severe constraint in terms of supply for ai chips, one of the challenges that remains is next to every nvidia and gpu process you can alter highpowered memory chip produced by samsung or micron and these chips are still in pretty tight supplies of the entire system remains hard to get access to even for the Big Tech Companies. So these ai memory chips are still relative to our demand is. Katie is this a question of increasing supply or will we see bigger capex spends to trying get some more chips . Chris all of the worlds big chipmakers are trying to increase their capacity to produce these chips. The memory chipmakers have set this up as fast as they can. Tsmc in taiwan which produces most of nvidias chips bringing online new capacity over the past couple of years so we are seeing the chipmakers invest more in bringing this ability online. The key factor on the demand side is whether it is metaor microsoft or amazon their capex keeps ramping up and its being driven higher because they want to buy more relative to their entire expectation so unless ai demand slows. We will see very tight markets for chips. David we certainly have the chips and science act in the United States. Got a fair amount of money although given the size of the pie im not sure its material. Will it make a difference . Chris the chips and science act is going to impact the market in the medium term. The money is being allocated this year and take several years to build a chipmaking facility so its not can it be until towards the end of the decade we start to see meaningful shifts in terms of what types of supplies are online and where that supplies being built. We are certainly seeing more investment in chipmaking facilities in the United States. Those facilities are to be up and running. Katie these are long conversations about when we will see the u. S. Manufacturing industry, but just put some numbers on the chips act its going to divvy up about 39 billion we are talking about 75 billion in loans and thats among several different companies. Is that enough money to turn the tide here . Chris i think what you find is those Government Funds have catalyzed a larger increase in private sector investment. So you look at the data in the amount of manufacturing investment in computing which is where you find 15 times increase over the past couple of years relative so there is a meaningful uptick. Its not going to dramatically transform on the industry structure. Its alluding to substantial facilities in the United States and that matters because today almost all ai chips are produced in taiwan. The geopolitics which you cover in your book chip war, we talked with Neil Ferguson recently and he emphasized how big of a problem that chokepoint in taiwan would be. The current Ai Investment boom, the mania we have seen since openai revealed chatgpt assumes that tsmc, the most sophisticated Semiconductor Manufacturer will continue to be able to make those things for nvidia and ship them to the people doing ai. That would immediately be disruptive. I think the economic implications of what would be the Taiwan Semiconductor prices would be much larger than the economic implications in 1962. How big of point is taiwan and is it getting better. Today it is a most all ai chips made in taiwan so its a huge chokepoint today. If you look down the roads new factories are getting online you see the almost monopolistic position of taiwanese manufacturers is going to be reduced somewhat. We see intel building a series of new facilities in the United States and catching up in terms of its manufacturing capabilities. Tsmc is Building Three new plants producing ai processors. A third of the most advanced chipmakers when it comes to processor chips is building a vast facility in texas. So we are going to end up in five years time with a much more diversified landscape when it comes to manufacturing. Including the chips that are critical for ai implications. Katie our thanks to chris miller, the author of chip war. Who else do we have . David tomorrow we have josh easterly and we will talk about private credit but also the big move in investing in sports. Katie this is bloomberg. Lets look at shares, the stock of over 30 after reporting earnings that were better than feared. You also of executors outlining the plan to transition the company into a more diversified bank. The ceo took over leadership of the company at the beginning of april and needless to say has been an intense time but some needed good news today coming up almost 33 . You take a look at its performance yeartodate. It still down about 65 so still a lot of wood to chop. Lets take a quick look at some of the stocks hitting highs and lows outside of new York Community bank hitting a 52 week high after reported firstquarter earnings that surpass estimates. And 3m hitting highs after jp morgan to overweight falling earnings report. Meanwhile you flip up the board, cvs hitting a 52 week low. After it cut its annual earnings outlook for the Second Quarter in a row. Analysts say its a stunning mess and the worst set of results of any Large Company so far this quarter a lot of shock and all that the starbucks currently down about 16. 5 . Bloomberg technology is up next. The pinterest ceo and ed ludlow. That does it for Bloomberg Markets this is bloomberg. Caroline im caroline hyde. Ed im ed ludlow in San Francisco per this is bloomberg technology. Caroline amazon posts the biggest cloud sales growth in a year. Details to come. Ed ful