All Episodes

May 1, 2024 15 mins

Your morning briefing, the business news you need in just 15 minutes.

On today's podcast:

(1) Federal Reserve officials are poised to keep interest rates steady for a sixth consecutive meeting and signal no plans for cuts in the near future after higher-than-expected inflation.

(2) Japan likely conducted its first currency intervention since 2022 to prop up the yen on Monday, according to a Bloomberg analysis of central bank accounts.

(3) Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has warned the UK's financial watchdog over its plans to name firms it's investigating at an early stage, a rare political intervention against Britain's top finance regulator. 

(4) New York City police officers surged onto Columbia University's campus late Tuesday, breaking up an escalating protest and arresting pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had barricaded themselves in a building. 

(5) Rishi Sunak urged Conservative Party faithful in a pre-election speech to take part in "the greatest comeback in political history," a tacit admission of the long odds the prime minister faces in local votes across England this week. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the Bloomberg Daybake podcast, available every morning on Apple,
Spotify or wherever you listen. It's Wednesday, the first of
May in London. I'm Caroline Hipkip.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Stephen Carroll. Coming up today. Expectations grow that
the Federal Reserve will today signal a delay to rate cuts.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Japan's yen tovention fizzles in the face of dollar strength.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Plus Sunak's comeback bid. The Prime Minister does his best
to avoid a catastrophic result in tomorrow's local elections.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Let's start with a roundup of our top stories.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
The Federal Reserve is expected to hold rates today and
signal no plans for cuts in the near future. Bloomberg
Economics also believes Charge your Own Pal will adopt a
notably more hawkish tone in his comments following the decision.
The expected hawkish pivot comes after a series of hotter
than expected inflation and economic data led traders to unwind

(00:55):
bets on multiple cuts in the coming months. The former
Reserve Bank of India governor Ragor and Rajan says FED
policymakers got ahead of themselves at recent meetings.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
The fact that we are in a very uncertain world
that we've switched from soft landing to hard landing to
no landing and back. I think that would suggest a
little bit of caution when the FED tries to predict
the future, and it should, I mean, with hindsight, have
basically stayed with the We will know when enough is
enough and we can start cutting, but right now we're

(01:29):
not going to make strong predictions.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Ragora Rajan also hinted that the FED may need to
raise rates in future if data continues to come in
hotter than expected. We'll bring you the right decision live
here on Bloomberg at seven pm London time, with chargerown
Pals press conference thirty minutes later.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Interest rates remaining high in the US will continue to
drive strength in the dollar. On Monday, that appears to
have forced Japanese authorities to intervene to pop up the
yen for the first time since twenty twenty two. Bank
of Japan accounts analyzed by Bloomberg suggests intervention did take place.
Bloomberg's Garfield Reynolds says failing to step in could have

(02:09):
left authorities with a number of problems.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
With the reverse argument would be what they hadn't intervened,
and you were starting from one hundred and sixty or
more yen per dollar, then who knows where you could
end up. One hundred and seventy would come into play
pretty rapidly, and that's the sort of thing that would
have a lot of impact on Japan's economy, on the
political situation.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Garfield Reynolds, speaking there on Bloomberg Television, recent yen swings
might be an indicator of worse to come, as the
Federal Reserve looks unlikely to cut interest rates during today's
policy setting meeting. Pressure on the currency could build even
further if fedchaed your own power takes that hawkish tonally
mentioned this evening, New.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
York City police serage down to Columbia University's campus overnight,
arresting pro Palestinian demonstrators who'd barrow caided themselves into a building.
According to reports, dozens of people were detained and loaded
onto busses as chance continued, sir, who do you protect?

Speaker 5 (03:13):
Sir?

Speaker 6 (03:13):
Who do you protect? Sir?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Those were protesters at the scene, chanting. Their university leaders
said in a statement that they were left with no
choice but to call authorities. After Columbia's own security personnel
were forced out of the building. The police action capped
two weeks of rising tention at the university, which some
more than one hundred arrests. On April eighteenth.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has publicly criticized the UK regulators plans
to name and shame companies that it's investigating in a
rare political intervention. Hunt said that he hopes the Financial
Conduct Authority will relook at their decision after an industry backlash.
The Financial Watchdog says that firms and consumers would benefit

(03:56):
from knowing which issues are in the watchdog's sites, but
the FCA says that plans are still at the consultation stage.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Amazon's cloud unit posted its strongest sales growth in a year.
The first quarter results are assigned. Businesses are starting to
spend more on tech projects, partly driven by AI demand.
Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow explains.

Speaker 7 (04:18):
The strategy is basically to be a place where other
companies who are interested in AI can build whatever software
it is they want on aws's platforms.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Ludlow ads are the company's fifteen point three billion dollar
operating profit is also down to CEO Andy Jase's cost
cutting program. Despite that Amazon's main e commerce business slightly
missing analysts estimates as consumers tried to save money.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And here in the UK, Isshsunak has urged supporters to
take part in the quote greatest comeback in political history,
as he trails badly behind in the polls. Bloomberg understands
that the Conservative leader attempted a rallying speech. Party campaign
is ahead of local elections tomorrow. Bloomberg's James Orcock has.

Speaker 5 (05:04):
More since the nineteen nineties, if the opposition had been
ahead in the polls by more than five percentage points
a year out of the general election, they've taken over government.
Labor are currently twenty points ahead. So when Rischie Sunak
talks about the greatest comeback, that is the political gravity
he's trying to overcome. His remarks are also a tacit

(05:25):
admission of the electoral clobbering is expected to take in
Thursday's local elections, which some Conservatives think may then be
used to try and to seat him in London. James
Orcock Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Well, in the moment, we're going to look ahead to
the federal reserve rate decision and also to tomorrow's local elections.
In England and Wales that James was discussing. But of
course there's always a few stories that have caught Ri
on the Bloomberg terminal this morning, and I think this
one's quite close to home for you, Stephen.

Speaker 7 (05:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
As of today, Ireland has no listed companies with the
female CEO. That's after the CEO of Irish Residential Properties
Reach PLC, margaretsween You retired yesterday, so she's been replaced
by a man. There are only thirty one list of
companies on your next exchange in Dublin, but now none
of them are led by a woman, and that makes

(06:13):
Ireland among you member states, only joining Luxembourg as having
no female CEOs of public firms. Now, the levels across
the EU aren't particularly high, or should we say across
the world. Europe is an underperforming in this level either,
but the lack of gender equality at the top of
companies listed on Ireland Stock Exchange is, according to the

(06:35):
thirty Percent Club, exacerbated by the fact that it's dominated
by traditionally male heavy industries like construction. Now it's worth
saying that representation on boards is improving. At the end
of November twenty twenty three. Female board representation was at
thirty nine percent in Ireland, which is up from eighteen
percent just five years previously. That's after a number of
government level steps that have been taken, and there are

(06:57):
other areas of the Irish economy that do seeta representation
of women, particularly the startup scene in particular. But then
Ireland also has the same listings problem that lots of
other parts of Europe have as well. Out of these
companies aren't choosing to list on the Stock Exchange in
Ireland when they are going public, They're choosing to do
so in the US, a story that we see in
lots of other parts.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, I think it's a very fascinating story and it's
a really interesting one also about you know, how much
the goals of government actually seep into business or not.
So Yeah, a very good story to have a look at.
On the Bluebig Tunnel this morning.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well that's turned back to the Federal Reserve decision. Later,
officials expected to keep interest rates on hold, but markets
will be watching to see how your own paler as
colleagues are reacting to the recent higher than expected inflation data.
Bloomberg TV anchor Critty Group tos with us to help
us look ahead to that morning, Critty, can you remind
us first of all of the key data the FED
will be considering going into this meeting.

Speaker 8 (07:48):
Well, it's so funny because we should be considering the CPI,
that's the no brainer rate, even the PCE which kind
of takes out some of those core costs as well.
Now they have other pieces of data that they have
to take into account. This isn't They can't blame it
on just anomalies. And I think the greatest example of
this is just within the last twenty four hours, the
employment costs index over in the States coming in really
really hot. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar

(08:09):
with kind of this data set, it's what the name's just.
An employment cost index is quite literally the kind of
amalgamation of what costs look like from a more wage
perspective across the fifty states. Now, this number came in
hot because wages are rising in the States, and we
know that we kind of knew that was going to
happen with a lot of these minimum wage decisions that
have been made across I think like twenty five states

(08:31):
or so out of fifty, So we knew that there
was going to be this push anyway. The problem is
the numbers came as significantly hotter than we'd expected just
from those minimum wage increases. So that's where you're starting
to see a little bit of kind of spooking in
the markets. And then you saw a real market reaction
off of that data because it suggests that some of
the inflationary numbers that we're seeing are not one offs.
You are seeing the spread across the economy. You're seeing

(08:52):
it spread across regions more importantly, and that's a really
important piece of this equation because now the Federal Reserve
can look at the state and say, this is not
just goods driven inflation, services driven inflation, and this is
wage driven inflation, when for years they were really trying
to combat the inflationary story because weges weren't keeping up.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay, So how likely is that then to play into
the press conference and into the statement and the decision making.

Speaker 8 (09:17):
Well, I imagine he'll be asked about that in the
press conference, specifically in terms of what the data points
he's actually looking at.

Speaker 6 (09:23):
Caroline.

Speaker 8 (09:24):
The very ends, even the very first questions that you
guys asked me, simply because they are known famously to
only kind of really zero in on that PCE deflator number.
So now that they're seeing different pieces of it, is
this still a commodity driven story? Is this a kind
of labor market story still? Or do we need to
look at other pieces of the policy tools? So if
we're not looking at rate decisions, do we need to
look at QT for example? Do we need to look

(09:45):
at what's going on with the treasury? Is election risk
even relevant to the Fed? They'll say no, but I
imagine they'll be pressed on it regardless.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Anythink as that markets'll be watching that.

Speaker 8 (09:54):
For Definitely, the story on the QT is important, but
I think the treasury may be more important. And there's
a lot of questions about the deficit story. There's a
lot of questions, But how that's kind of seeking or
I should say creeping up? I think is the worth
of looking for creeping up? The coffe hasn't quite hit yet,
Bear with me creeping up on a lot of investors
simply because it has a lot to do with treasury

(10:15):
supply and it has to do with these buyback announcements. Remember,
before we get the FED decision, we also get that
refunding announcement. From the Treasury literally thirty minutes prior. So
you're going to see the markets be very bouncy this
morning in terms or this afternoon you say, in terms
of how they are reacting to what the government is doing.
But we actually had a guest onm Blomber TV said
this very eloquently that it might just be Janet Yellen

(10:35):
who may be more in charge of policy.

Speaker 6 (10:38):
Than j Powell.

Speaker 8 (10:39):
And that seems to be the going concern at least
in terms of what investors are really watching.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah. Absolutely, and another piece to that, big reaction expected
potentially in the s and P at least Film City,
biggest FED day move, that's the expectation. So it's really
going to be hotly watched. The decision at seven pm
London time, the press conference half an hour later, Pritty
groups of Bloomberg's TV and can thank you so much
for being with us.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Well here in the UK, voters will be going to
the polls tomorrow in England and Wales in local mayoral
and police and Crime commissioner elections tomorrow, some of which
are seen as a bellwether for the Conservative Party's prospects
at a general election. We're expecting later this year with
the details, We've got Bloomberg's UK correspondent Lizzie Burden with
us in studio Morning Lizzie. So for the Conservative Party, then,

(11:25):
what are the key goals that they'll be hoping for.
What are they going to be looking out for when
it comes to what could inter be interpreted as a
win or a big last for them?

Speaker 9 (11:35):
Will you talk about these local elections as a barometer
for the general There are two elements that define the
point at which Sunak's team around him and the wider
party will lose hope of staying in power beyond the general.

Speaker 6 (11:49):
First of all, do the Conservatives.

Speaker 9 (11:51):
Lose half of the just under a one thousand seats
that they won in twenty twenty one across local councils?
And secondly, do they hold on to Andy Street, the
Tory mayor in the West Midlands and Ben Houchin, the
Tory mayor in Tees Valley, because those two mayors really
represent the party's ability to compete in labor facing areas. Now,

(12:13):
the latest yug of polling actually suggests that bit Street
and Houchin are going to cling on and that would
be a major victory for Rishi Sunak because it would
calm the nerves about the general election being some sort
of extinction event.

Speaker 6 (12:27):
But on point one, this could still be a bloodbath
for the Conservatives. M okay.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Will the local election result then put Labor on course
to win the general election? How much of a kind
of wind in the sales of what is already a
pretty speedy Labor boat.

Speaker 6 (12:43):
Yeah, very much on that course already, aren't they.

Speaker 9 (12:46):
Sunak's really failed to put a dent in Labour's twenty
point pole league, despite the fall in inflation and the
turnaround in growth.

Speaker 6 (12:56):
His advisors say.

Speaker 9 (12:57):
That last week was his best in off, But the
problem is he hasn't been able to sustain a positive
news cycle since getting the keys to number ten, and
therefore he's failed to placate the right wing of his party.
Even when he's been preaching to the choir, you know,
with policies like deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, he still

(13:18):
hasn't managed to keep the likes of Penny Mordant happy.
And while he's had this ongoing failure to launch, at
the same time, the opposition Labor leader Kirs Starmer, has
just had another boost because Scotland's first Minister Humsa Yusuf
has resigned. Now north of the border, Labour's only managed
to get one seat in the.

Speaker 6 (13:39):
Twenty fifteen and twenty nineteen general.

Speaker 9 (13:41):
Elections, but now with the SMP pretty much rudderless, things
are looking up for Labor in Scotland and it means
that the path to Downing Street for kir Starmer looks
even clearer, and it seems it's going to run through Scotland.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Could these local election results be a cat lists though
for the Tory Party actually ousting Richie Sunak as their leader.

Speaker 9 (14:04):
Well, Sunak's critics on the Tory right are really going
to use any bad result in these local elections as
evidence to argue the only way to win the general
is to change leader, because otherwise they'll have a total wipeout.
But even if he does get hammered in these local elections,
he could actually stay in number ten because remember, there's

(14:27):
no obvious candidate to replace him and the Conservatives are
already on their third prime minister since Boris Johnson won
the twenty.

Speaker 6 (14:35):
Nineteen general election.

Speaker 9 (14:37):
The thing is, Conservative party rules mean that the rebels
only need just over fifty letters from Tory MPs to
trigger a no confidence vote in the party leader, so
Richie Sunac cannot take his place for granted.

Speaker 6 (14:51):
This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
You're morning brief on the stories making news from London
to Wall Street and beyond.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Look for us on your podcast feed every morning, on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
You can also listen live each morning on London Dab Radio,
the Bloomberg Business app, and Bloomberg dot Com.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Our flagship New York station is also available on your
Amazon Alexa devices. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
I'm Caroline Hepka and.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
I'm Stephen Carol. Join us again tomorrow morning for all
the news you need to start your day right here
on Bloomberg Daybreak Europe
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC
Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

The Nikki Glaser Podcast

The Nikki Glaser Podcast

Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2024 iHeartMedia, Inc.