Johns hopkins universitys big moments ago we have now hit 3 million in the u. S. That is reflected in the sector composition. We see it is technology outperforming, up 1 . It is those more cyclical growth sensitive sectors, industrials, energy, materials, a very hard in todays session. David which takes us back to the coronavirus, which makes sense. Gold has been climbing. Where is the dollar . Kailey the dollar is weaker. We are getting mixed messages from each of the asset classes. A weaker dollar indicates more risk appetite, more confidence about growth. Youre not seeing that reflected in gold. Gold is at its highest since 2000 10 since 2010. Clearly there is appetite on the part of investors to hedge some kind of rest if the markets are moving higher. At the same time, the fixed is relatively modest. The vix is relatively modest. Kailey we are right around 29. It is all relative when we talk about volatility. We are not where we were in march, but we are still elevated relative to history. Right now the vix would indicate we are expecting swings for nearly a month. Swinging 5 was not out of the question. Today the market is not seen as swinging that month that much , but relative to history that is still elevated, a lot higher than it has been historically. David thank you very much for that report on the markets. That is kailey leinz, one of our colleagues. Lets go back to the subject of the coronavirus and how states are fighting against it. We are welcome to welcome back lamont,berg ned governor of the state of connecticut. It is a good day for you to go on. Last time i saw you you reported zero fatalities for the first time in march. But you opposed phase three opening. Why the caution when the numbers seem to be doing so well for connecticut . Have about 95 of our economy open. When it came to bars and nightclubs and bake entertainment venues, i listen to the governors from florida and texas and they said they did whent they open their bars they did. That was an opportunity for super spreading. An abundance of caution, we will not open them yet. How concerned are you about outside connecticut, certainly in the south and southwest, there are concerns about people coming from those locations into the state in the northeast. How concerned are you about that . I know you have a quarantine in place. Is it advisory, or can you enforce that . Gov. Lamont i am very concerned. Thankfully we have good neighbors. Massachusetts, new york, rhode island, they have low infection rates. If people are flying up from miami and houston, coming in unchecked, that is a problem. You need one or two people infected. If you have a quarantine in place, it is voluntary, that is. Rue david some people are going mandatory masks. Where are you as governor of connecticut . Gov. Lamont we have said for indoor use, you have to wear the mask spirit i am interested reading that the Retail Association says i am tired of having 50 different rules when it comes to the masks. Say masks are required inside stores, that make our lives much easier. David most Public Health officials agree that is one of the things we could do to save lives. What is the hesitancy . He talked with federal officials about a federal standard on this. Reluctantt they are to have federal guidance on things like that. You have to ask them. We has governors in the northeast like to speak with one voice so we can have a consistent message. Doid i saw report having to with connecticut that says you could retest 95 of people infected but only 40 would agree to participate in Contact Tracing. Is that a problem for the Contact Tracing to be effective . Gov. Lamont that is a problem. We now have the infrastructure in place to reach out to everybody. We do it by telephone, we do it by text. You care about the people we have been in contact with, please let us know who they are. There is some hesitancy. Wrong people at the party do not want other people to know who was at the party. We are working with communities to impress upon people how important it is you share this information. What is your policy at this point on schools reopening. Yesterday President Trump said he would urge governors like you to open your schools. We had again today. We had mayor de blasio new york city saying if we do this it will be about two days a week kids will go to school. Where are you in connecticut . Gov. Lamont because we have an infection rate less percent less than 1 , because we are beating all of the metrics, we are planning on opening our school on time in late august and september. A Normal School day. Not some days on, some days off. It is better for the kids and better for employers. Are you going to test employees, if not students, before they go back . Is. Lamont right now that not the cdc guidance. Testing Centers Available free of charge. For those teachers that want to be tested, we want to make sure they have that opportunity. David we all hope this goes smoothly for connecticut and the rest of us. At the same time, you have contingency plans that you could cut back in some schools if there are problems and go to Remote Learning . Gov. Lamont i am afraid we do. We have seen how fast this flareup can spread. K12 make sure thinking hard about having to move back to Online Learning if there is a flareup in the residence hall. I think it is terrible you will not let foreign students into our great universities in connecticut if it involves distancelearning. That is sending the wrong message. That is coming out of washington. David as you suggest, pretty big import universities in the state of connecticut. What are they doing . You both increase cost and perhaps reduce revenue. Gov. Lamont they are losing money in Residence Halls in particular. Some distancing. Right now i believe all of our oncologist all of our colleges are going in august. They will start with distancelearning to get people up to speed, move people into the dorm slowly overdosed go to three weeks so there is not a mad rush going on. They plan to have a mix of online as well as in person knowing that may have to take a turn if there was a flare up. You said you thought perhaps the days of the routine five days a week commute from connecticut to manhattan may be over. What patterns have you seen since then . Has it reinforced your view or you have a different view . Gov. Lamont it has reinforced our view, especially in southern connecticut are a lot of people would get on the train to get on the subway. There is a lot of reluctance about getting on the subway. People have found you can have a suburban lifestyle or maybe live does go to three days a week, and if you have to get into the big apple to take care of business, you can do that, but you do not have to. David what longerterm changes besides the commuting issue are you taking a look at . There are a lot of reports of people in manhattan looking for housing in greenwich and southern connecticut. What is going on with the Real Estate Market . Gov. Lamont the Real Estate Market is very busy. People coming from york, people coming from boston. If you have a house with little backyard it can get a couple of extra rooms at less cost, it is a good place to be. I think you will see a dynamic change. For the last 20 years young people wanted to be in the major metro centers. Now there will be balancing out. David adam smith would say when there is increased demand prices will go up. Are you seeing home prices go up in connecticut . Gov. Lamont i think you are seeing some of that. We have been pretty flat for the last 15 years. Forl a deep discount connecticut compared to new york city, but you are right. Theres a lot of demand and you can see that reflected in the prices. David lets talk about what, if anything, the state of connecticut needs from the federal government. There is talk of another phase of stimulus or investment. Thinkve said you do not that 600 dollars supplemental unemployment claim why is that . Trying to doi am everything i can to get people back to work. That is how we will get our economy going, that is how i will stabilize finances in our state. I thought there other ways you can use those federal dollars. Example, we have lost hundreds of millions of dollars from not just our income tax revenue but our sales tax revenue is down a lot due to covid restrictions. We have to be prepared for that. Thankfully we have a big Rainy Day Fund, so we can power on for the near term. If this lingers on for another year, we are in big trouble. If the federal government to step up and help out the state local governments and give us more guidance on education as well. David is great you have a Rainy Day Fund that will tide you over. If you do not get direct support from the federal government or the connecticut budget, when you start having to cut cost, that is often laying off people . Gov. Lamont we are already trimming. There is no question about that. Connecticut is in good shape through this calendar year, may be beyond that depending on what the balance is. We are assuming as our economy gets back towards normal or close to normal by the end of , if there isyear another big flareup in november, we will see what happens. , this pandemic in the economic problems that have followed our big crisis. We have also had a crisis of having to do with systemic racism following on the heels of the killing of george floyd. Tell us what is going on in connecticut cured i understand you may be calling the General Assembly to address at least the policing issues. Gov. Lamont we are definitely going to do a Police Accountability bill as part of our special session in the next couple of weeks. We try to lead by example in our state police and make sure when it came to community policing, take out the militarization, focus on community policing. That duringd important protest in and around the george floyd mortar the george floyd murder, our state police were often arm in arm with the protesters. Very little arrests, very little violence. The police and protesters were aligned in terms of goals. David what about the more fundamental underlying issues, economic inequality, income and wealth we have across the country. You have a version of it in connecticut. What can we do to address some of those that perhaps set up the police for failure . Gov. Lamont two big focuses for we have one of the biggest achievement gaps. Extraordinary suburban schools and some of our city schools that we have to make investments and more social workers, more social support as well as coding. We are making a big update to update the opportunities for those kids, especially in the cities. We put a lot of money into new business startups, especially for people of color, making sure they get that opportunity. We have a 45 million fund, i think 38 went right to people of color making sure they can power through the start of their business. Ask youinally, let me about photo you november. We have a big election. About voting in november. What is the situation in connecticut on absentee voting, mailin voting . Gov. Lamont why is it so controversial . A majority of states do it. Red states, blue states, it is not particular partisan. In this environment it is getting partisan. In our state, im telling people over the age of 60, im telling people to stay safe, stay home. That means we have a primary and august, that means we have an election in november, i want to make sure they exercise their right through absentee ballot. We have push and pull on that. David you need something through the General Assembly to get that done and when will it get connected . Enacted . Ill it get gov. Lamont i have Emergency Powers so i can do it for august, but in the november election i would need the legislature to step up and say if you have some health risk you do not have to wait a long line in a voting booth, we will do absentee balloting, no questions asked. Says the same. Dc we have a question from a viewer i want to ask you. The viewers that house the Financial System doing it connecticut how is the Financial System doing in connecticut . Gov. Lamont we need some work. Politicians make big promises and do not put money into the pension for 40 years. That said we are pushing through reforms. We have a number of people retiring in a year or so and we are managing. The thing im trying to do is. Old down the increase in cost david is a great pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for your time. Ned lamont, governor of connecticut. This is bloomberg. David this is balance of power on Bloomberg Television and radio. Time for first word news. Go to mark crumpton. Mark a grim milestone in the United States. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins university, and the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States has top 3 million. More than 131,000 americans have died. The u. S. Accounts for more than a quarter of all covid19 cases globally. President trump is speaking out against the cdc. Saystweet, the president he disagrees with the centers for Disease Control and prevention very tough and expensive guidelines for opening schools. Askingd the cdc is schools to do very impractical things. He is threatening to cut funding to schools if they do not reopen before the november election. Brazils president says he is confident he will quickly recover from the coronavirus thanks to treatment with hydroxychloroquine. President bolsonaro says he tested positive for the virus on tuesday. He has been downplaying the severity of the illness while deaths in brazil sword. He said today his fever had subsided, something he attributed to hydroxychloroquine. The drug has not been proven effective against covid19. Global news 24 hours a day, on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. I am mark crumpton. Is bloomberg. David this is balance of power on Bloomberg Television and radio. Time for a market check. We go to scarlet fu. Tack is on a tear today. Scarlet you look at the nasdaq 100 and the nasdaq composite, they are at session highs. The s p 500 has pulled back as well. That is the bright spot in markets across different asset classes. When you look at the different asset classes, it feels like there is a note of caution in the air. The dollar is lower versus g10 currencies. We see gold prices above 1800 an ounce. A showcase there is a lot of demand for safe haven. I want to focus on technology. The make a cap tech names have been driving the advances and we are seeing names like amazon, like apple, like facebook all at record highs. That has been the trend for a a while. David the interesting thing to me is there was a time not long ago where the tech names went up or down based on relations with china. Those have gone by the way. Now it feels like lets bet on tack because even if the coronavirus comes back we will still need tech. Scarlet tack has become a safe haven because of their catchword in the undiminished demand for their product and services that has held up so well during the pandemic and during the lockdown. 24n i look at the s p 500s index groups there are three tech subsectors above the best performers. You have software, hardware, and semiconductors. I bring this up because nvidia is now the biggest you have is now the biggest u. S. Chipmaker. It has soared past intel. There is no specific catalyst today but we know there has been growing demand for intels graphics chips in data center and ai, whereas intel has been more reliant on pc as its main source of business. Now with nvidias recent advanced, it is the third biggest chipmaker and the world after tsmc of taiwan and samsung of korea. David i did not know that about nvidia. That is fascinating. Scarlet fu reporting on the market. Coming up, we will talk to rufus yerxa about the usmca, trade with china, and a need for a new head of the wto, somewhere roof is used to work. Can they get it done by august . That is coming up on balance of power on Bloomberg Television and radio. David this is balance of power on Bloomberg Television and radio. Im david westin. The president of mexico is arriving at the white house today is the usmca goes into effect. We welcome now rufus yerxa, president of the National Foreign trade council. He served as the Deputy Director general of the world trade organization. It is great to have you. Lets talk about the usmca, will it make much of a real difference as a practical matter . Rufus it is good to be with you. As a practical matter, it is important because it reduces uncertainty about whether this agreement, this north American Trading relationship, which has been in existence for 25 years, will change dramatically or continue. There are some marginal improvements in it, but the most important aspect is it increases at the degree of certainty that we will keep an open north american economy. There is less risk now of a president or congress turning its back on this agreement, although there are still threats, as you know even today on aluminum from the Trump Administration to impose new restrictions, but it does create certainty and we are hopeful it settles the situation. It will not make a dramatic difference in imports or exports, immediately, but over time it will strengthen trade. David its it really going to create much more certainty, because as you said that Trump Administration has continued to threaten tariffs on aluminum, and at the same time you have the minority leader of the senate saying this does not take care of the agricultural problems either. President trump has shown he is willing to impose tariffs, no matter what the agreement say. Rufus that is the biggest concern, how much will the Trump Administration, you know, abide by an agreement they just negotiated. The president hasnt shown a pension in the past for imposing has shown a penchant in the past for imposing rejections on deals