June 2, 2025 • 23 mins
Watch Alix and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Bloomberg Intelligence hosted by Paul Sweeney and Alix Steel
Today’s Podcast Features are:
Susan Spence, Chair of ISM Manufacturing PMI at Institute for Supply Management, discusses ISM Manufacturing data. US factory activity contracted in May for a third consecutive month and a gauge of imports fell to a 16-year low as firms pulled back in the face of higher tariffs.
Sam Fazeli, Bloomberg Intelligence, Director of Research for Global Industries and Senior Pharmaceuticals, discusses the latest Biotech news. Sanofi agrees to buy Blueprint Medicines Corp. for at least $9.1 billion to expand in rare immunological diseases. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. will pay BioNTech SE as much as $11.1 billion to license a next-generation cancer drug. Moderna won FDA approval for its second-generation Covid vaccine for all adults over 65 and anyone over 12 who has at least one risk factor for severe disease.
Shana Sissel, President and CEO at Banríon Capital Management, joins to discuss her outlook on the markets. Wall Street investors are parsing economic data, tariff, and geopolitical developments, causing stocks to waver and the dollar to head towards its lowest since 2023.
Michl Binderbauer, CEO of TAE Technologies, discusses the company's latest funding round. TAE Technologies (“TAE”), the leading fusion energy company developing the cleanest and safest approach to commercial fusion power. Today it announced that it has raised more than $150 million in its latest funding round, exceeding the company’s initial target for the round.
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):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am
Eastern on Applecarclay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App.
Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch
us live on YouTube's.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Gonna right to Susan Spence. She's the chair of ISM Manufacturing.
Susan talk to us about this. ISM Manufacturing came out
at forty eight point five. The consensus was forty nine
point five. Tell us what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Good morning, Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
You know, unfortunately we have another month of contraction abouzero
point two percent lower than last month, so forty eight
point five.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
We are absolutely under consensus.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
What we're seeing and what our panelists are telling us,
of course, is a continued issue with uncertainty in the
market driven by terrorists. So this month, if I can
talk about demand, outputs, and input, it's demand which is
new orders, customer inventory, backlog, and new export orders. Three
of those four indicators continue to contract. Backlog and new
(01:09):
orders contracted a bit slower this month at a slower rate.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
New export orders.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Not surprisingly took another plunge in an accelerated reduction at
a three percentage points lower. So, in our view, the
lack of new orders driven by that uncertain demand from
the marketplace demand, the conflicts of who's going to pay
for the tariff costs. The customer index for inventories does
(01:36):
remain low.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
We always consider that positive.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
At some point customers have to reorder, and so we're
hoping to see that.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
But that continues to contract.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
So our in our survey, eighty six percent of the
general comments from our panelists were about the terriffs.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
It was eighty two percent last month. It just continues
to grow. It's not gotten any better, and certainty is
even worse.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Susan, Susan, do you get the sense that if some
of the tariff headwinds were removed, things get better quickly
or is this sort of permanent confusion in the manufacturing sector.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It's not permanent, but it's not quick.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
So we think if tomorrow everything was settled, and of
course it won't be.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
We think we're in this for at least the summer.
It's going to take some time. We already have.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Some inventory at the higher prices customers, again, is indicated
by the survey results.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Are hesitating to order, and so that is driven down. Production,
backlog is down, and I'll talk about production and employment
as well. So we're in it for a bit. The
best thing that could happen is certainty.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And then my personal belief is it's still going to
take a few months for folks to not wait for
the other shoe to drop.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
If you will, Susan, thank you so much for give
us a couple of minutes of your time. Susan Spence,
Chair for Ism Manufacturing PMI, the Institute for Supply Management,
joining us here. Weaker than expected manufacturing numbers coming out
this month.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The last time we saw Sam Fazzelli, who's the director
of research and does some of the healthcare stuff for
Bloomberg Intelligence, he was here in New York and he
was on his way to Chicago to some conference where
a lot of these healthcare folks get together and they
talk about new drugs and new therapies, and he said,
watch out, there's going to be some deals coming out
of there.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Boy was he right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Santa Fe buying immunology biotech Blueprint for nine point one billion,
Bristol to pay buy in Tech up to eleven billion
dollars for a cancer deal. Moderner is getting some new news.
So we got to get Sam here. He's still in Chicago.
He's at our Chicago office there, Sam, thanks so much
for joining us here. We've had some deals today in
the healthcare space. Help us think about this centi feed
(04:02):
deal here. Nine point one billion dollars. That seems pretty substantial.
Speaker 7 (04:07):
Yeah, well it's more than I have in the back
of my sofa if you like, and you know the
little change that you find there. But this sector needs these.
I mean, we've had a drought of deals since Johnson
and Johnson did interest Sellular Therapeutics, and then we've got
this deal now. And the sector, as I'm sure you've
talked about we've talked about, has been under pressure because
(04:30):
of all the new issues that are being created for
them with the current administration, and that really slowed down
deal making. So it's nice to see this deal happen.
Not the biggest premium in the world twenty seven billion dollars.
But still, it's nice to see some of these deals happen,
and I think, assuming we don't get another round of
(04:51):
tariffs for farmer drugs and most favored nation conversations turning up,
it might be the beginning of a little renaissance in
deal making.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
What was the absolute coolest thing that you learned over
the weekend?
Speaker 8 (05:04):
I mean, I was.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Floored yesterday I was sitting and thinking of you and
reading all these amazing articles coming out about these amazing
new drugs that could have tremendous effect on cancer.
Speaker 8 (05:14):
For example, what was the coolest thing you heard?
Speaker 7 (05:16):
Yeah, so, Alex, there's been some continued evolution an increase
in opportunities in breast cancer. So AstraZeneca had two presentations
yesterday at what they called plenary sessions, and that's one
of the key areas where I mean the room gets
packed with ten thousand people or whatever the number is.
So they had an update on a breast cancer drug
(05:37):
which is continuing to further expand the options that patients
when it gets approved. If it gets approved, patients have
in treating that disease, which has become something that a
lot of people as long as they're lucky and don't
get the worst kind of it, it can live with
for quite a long time now. And then we had
one also from them on gastric This the guest stories
(06:00):
of digital junction disease, which is not one of the
is a bad one and there's not been many therapies there,
and so that was a really good, very good data set,
I have to say, practice changing. And there's a whole
host of phase one, phase two early stage drugs that
look really good. So I'm going to be coming to
this conference for I don't know how many more years
(06:22):
because it's going to keep developing.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Bristol paying Buy and Tech up to eleven point one
billion dollars for cancer deals. What's going on there?
Speaker 7 (06:31):
Yeah, up to is the operative word. The actually guaranteed
cash is about three and a half billion dollars, so
about one and a half billion right up front, and
then when the deal closes, and then by twenty twenty
eight another two billion. That's not contingent on any there
are just anniversary payments, payments. So that's pretty good given
that they acquired the asset, amongst the whole host of
(06:51):
other stuff from a Chinese biotech company acquisition by a
theist only a few months ago, and it's in a
new class of drugs that people have got excited about.
There's Mark that did a deal, There's Summit and Akiso.
Fizer just did a deal on last week, paying one
point two billion dollars for a drug in development, which
(07:13):
we quite like. The data for that was presented here.
So these are drugs that are trying to push the
barrier of what we've been able to achieve, which with
what's called immunotherapy, can you do better? Can you push
more patients to survive longer using these drugs?
Speaker 8 (07:29):
What about Oh wow, I just lost my train of thought.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Oh it was there, it was so brilliant, and then
it went away.
Speaker 8 (07:35):
Oh I know. Funding, here's my brilliant point.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Government funding for universities that have big medical units.
Speaker 8 (07:42):
Like did What were people saying about that?
Speaker 7 (07:45):
Yeah, they're not happy. I've talked to a lot of
people here and you know, even my interestingly an uber
driver that I had who does double just doubles up.
She works in a lab that does genomic analysis for
scientists at Northwestern University in Chicago. She said she's noticing
a palpable slowdown in the request she's getting to do
(08:08):
analysis of you know, laboratory analysis because people are uncertain.
It's even got to yuber driver, which is which is
sad now it is it is a problem. People are
worried and will We'll have to see whether philanthropists can
fill the gap.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sam, So from your conference there in Chicago, what's is
the key focus still cancer or is there other parts
of healthcare that are getting as much I guess attention.
Speaker 7 (08:37):
Yeah, but so this is a cancer conference. This is
the biggest cancer conference in the world. People come from
and I have to say there's a palpable increase in
the number of presentations by Chinese scientists, real and companies. Yeah,
every year's got more and more, which is expected. They've
been funding research significantly for the past fifteen twenty years
and this is the fruits of it. The X conference
(09:00):
that's coming up is a also. I don't think it's
in Chicago, but it's over here somewhere in the US.
Is the American Diabetes That's where you get all the obesity,
liver disease kind of data that that we're also looking
forward to.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All right, Sam, thanks so much for joining us. As always,
Sam Fizzelli, Director of Research for Global and Industries and
Senior Pharmaceuticals Anels for Bloomberg Intelligence. He's based in London,
but he's in our Chicago bureau todays. He spent the
weekend Eddie as he was just mentioning a cancer conference
and where you know, a lot of the latest science
is presented, so and in for investors, it's really important
(09:36):
to think about how you know which things which I guess,
therapies and drugs you want to finance?
Speaker 7 (09:41):
Mean work?
Speaker 8 (09:42):
Does Sammon have the coolest job? Like media is really
cool to one of the people.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
Energy is really cool. We all love it, but like
his stuff like changes the world and.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
He actually understands the science and can explain it to
people like us.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube at alex.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Deal and Paul Sweeney live here in our Bloomberg and
Arrector Broker Studio streaming live on YouTube as well as
John was just reporting SMP at fifty nine hundred. I mean,
after all ups and downs this year, pretty much year
to date, we're unched on the S and P five hunderd.
It feels like a lot of effort for not a
lot of payoff there. Shane Sissel joins US president and
(10:29):
CEO of ban Rion Capital Management from Chicago, Shana. How
do you put twenty twenty five year to date into
context for your clients, because boy, we were down twenty percent.
Now we've retraced most of that from the recent highs.
How do you position the twenty twenty five Well, I.
Speaker 9 (10:48):
Went into twenty twenty five thinking it was going.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
To be volatile.
Speaker 9 (10:50):
It lived up to my expectations, so we positioned portfolios
for volatility and did quite well as a result. Ultimately,
what come down to is as more and more information
gets out. We have this twenty four hour news cycle,
and people get information in real time. The markets are
(11:10):
able to respond to news quickly. But more importantly, we've
seen that the retail advisor has been eager to jump
into the market when it turns downward, which is unusual.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
That's not normally the case.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
It's typically the institutions, and we've seen that kind of
reversed where the institutions are holding off while the retail
investors are jumping in, and ultimately that's kept the markets
from getting too far down and they're able to rebound
pretty quickly.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Basically.
Speaker 9 (11:41):
You know, if you look in the past, normally we
look for the capitulation of the retail advisor, and we
just haven't seen that. So for those reasons, that's why
I think there's been such great volatility.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
But on the flip side, you have to wonder, then
who else is left to buy the rally? So where
how our funds positioned institutional investors. Clearly retail has been
buying the dip, so as you mentioned, there may not
be an extension of that.
Speaker 9 (12:05):
Yeah, but the institutional investors have sat on the sidelines,
and presently they have the bigger money to put to
work and more likely to move the market when they
jump back in. There's still very much on the sidelines,
so I think there is some opportunity to drive the
market higher. It's just not how we normally would expect
it to be.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
It's also a little bit concerning.
Speaker 9 (12:24):
Obviously, the institutional investor tends to be the more informed investor,
so the fact that they have stayed on the sidelines
can mean a lot of things, but it's not for
lack of information on their end and lack of analysis.
But you know, if we talk about analysis paralysis all
the time, there's a lot of uncertainty related to tariffs,
(12:44):
related to the administration, related to monetary policy, and I
think that in many ways the institutional investor is a
little paralyzed by the uncertainty and for those reasons unwilling
to jump into the market, which I think might be
to their peril.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Shana, I know you do a lot of work with
alternative investments. When you speak to independent advisors, how are
they using alternatives these days when volatility both in the
equity markets and the bond markets are pretty pronounced.
Speaker 9 (13:13):
Well, that's exactly where they use alternatives. If advisors or
individuals where to jump and allocate twenty percent of their
total portfolio two alternatives, they would have actually done quite
well through the volatility, as these are low to no
correlation or even in some cases negative correlation assets. And
so if you look at the most volatile parts of
(13:36):
the last five months, you look at March, some of April,
some of February, you'll see that like a BTL, which
is the AGF anti beta market neutral fund. That fund
largely outperformed the S and P by a substantial amount,
was very positive during that period of time. So even
a small five percent allocation made a huge difference in
(13:58):
client portfolios. And then you start to pair that with
other low to no correlation assets like CTA and CBLS
and MRSK, and then you have Bob Elliott's unlimited multistrat fund,
and you have a number of these alternative funds that
all did really well through the volatility. So when equities
(14:18):
and fixed income were down, they were up, and so
that actually helped you through the volatilities. So advisors that
we work with that implemented those portfolios actually wrote out
that period of time quite well.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
I know that where you look at in the tech
market isn't necessarily broad strokes or you know, buy AI
or buy the telecoms or whatever, but the mag seven
have really helped to lead that rally over the last month.
Does that continue or do you continue to see value
in different types of names?
Speaker 9 (14:46):
Well, obviously I see value in different types of names
as they haven't participated and they are looking more attractive on.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
A valuation basis.
Speaker 9 (14:54):
But the tailwinds really do sit with those tech companies
because the biggest tailwind to business right now is AI,
and so anything related to AI, anything incorporating AI wins.
And so we saw with the mag seven, with the
most recent Nvidia earnings report that the demand for AI
(15:15):
is strong and the move to from learning and to
the next phase of AI is there, and so the
Blackwell chips, the greater need for computing power. All of
those things are real and very much in their infancy
and the sense of that there's no infrastructure there, and
(15:37):
so there continues to be substantial tailwinds, and so that's
why they continue to lead. You know, other areas of
the market have headwinds. So if you look at say energy,
you know, we have increased supply coming on, but we
have you know, declining demand from Asia. So that is
great if you want oil at forty bucks barrel, but
(15:57):
not great if you're an oil investor or an enery
G investor. You look at healthcare and we've seen a
lot of headwindes there but also some tremendous breakthroughs, and
especially in oncology, so you know, there's pros and constant everything,
but some of the cyclicals are starting to look cheap,
and that's definitely a place that I would be looking.
Speaker 8 (16:15):
All right, Shanna, I really appreciate. I appreciate it. Always
good to get your perspective.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Shane sissel As, President and CEO of Benryon Capital Management.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarclay, and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
This is Boomberg Intelligence. Alex Steel here alongside Paul swe Need.
This is Boomberg Intelligence Radio. We cover everything you need
to know in business, economics and finance, a lot of
media and also a lot of energy. So I don't
know that much about fusion power. I'm the first one
to say it. John Tucker apparently knows a lot about it.
But we're going to discuss this right now. It could
be a really good source.
Speaker 8 (16:56):
Of clean fuel.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
And for this we bring in tay Technology CEO Michael Binderbauer.
Just the company, Tay Technology is just closed one hundred
and fifty million dollars sin its latest funding round. The
whole point of this company is to develop a commercial
fusion power Michael, if I knew nothing about fusion, which
is highly likely, tell me.
Speaker 8 (17:16):
What it is, how hard it is to do.
Speaker 10 (17:20):
Yeah, So it's basically what nature does, based right, It
gives us our life and energy here on the planet
from the sun. So any star you look up suffusion
reactor basically, right. So what we're trying to do is
to replicate that, terristrially, to make essentially copious power, carbon free,
clean and sustainable for the future of humanity.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Where are you in the process at tay So we're
very close.
Speaker 10 (17:45):
We're just one machine a way to get to a
point where we actually harvest more energy than what we're
putting into the facility. This has been obviously a long journey.
It's hard to do, terrist Really, the stars have a
lot of gravity.
Speaker 8 (17:56):
We don't have that.
Speaker 10 (17:57):
We to use other means, magnets and all sorts of things,
and as you've probably seen over the last few years,
has been a playthrow of news inching really really close
to the goal and across multiple efforts on the planet.
So we're about a three year way to get tonate
energy and somewhere early twenty thirties, we hopefully have a
power plant online.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
What would be if you're able to achieve it and
have a power plant? Like what is that? Is that
just tremendous amount of energy with like no footprint.
Speaker 10 (18:26):
Yeah, it's very small footprint. So it's the highest energy
density fuel you can have, by the factor of five
to ten, higher than fission. Even it utilizes hydrogen or
light species that are ubiquitous, So there's infinite fuel supply
if you will, and you would harvest clean energy out
of that at probably starting at a scale of a
gas fired turbine, so something like four or five hundred
(18:48):
makawatts per plant, and it would literally be able to
distribute wherever you needed it in the grid.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
Is there?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Can you talk about the economics surrounding this technologlogy?
Speaker 8 (19:00):
Who would be the who would be the users.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
The buyers, the developers of this technology?
Speaker 10 (19:05):
Yeah, so I think what we're seeing and this gets
to what we just announced today. Aside from raising capital,
we really have a long partnership with Google and they've
been deep with us on machine learning and tools to
help make this more efficient and more economic, and in fact,
they would be a great first off taker for that right,
all the hyperscalers. Everybody that has high energy intens applications
(19:28):
growing at tremendous rates, right with a gap between supply
and demand developing, is looking for electrons and particularly green electrons.
So those would be probably the first off takers for
the technology.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Oh, I got to ask you, John Tucker, he likes
his fusion.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
What sets you apart from ETR in terms of the
reactor itself, the containment that's a fusion reactor or what?
Speaker 10 (19:51):
Yeah, so good question. So Eater and others are working
on tokmacs, we actually are not. We're working what you
see if you have a visual we have a compact machine,
not the size of gas turbine that can make about
the same output as those other plants. It's much more
efficient uses smaller magnets. There's various tricks in the physics
that allow you to do that, and that brings something
(20:13):
that's more compact, cheaper to produce, of course, more economic
to deploy, easier to maintain, etc.
Speaker 8 (20:19):
And you can.
Speaker 10 (20:20):
Essentially it's centralize these. We think we can build those
sort of cookie cutter in a factory and deploy on site.
And the other thing I should add is that sighting
on this compared to the other nuclear cousin, which is fission, right,
it is a lot easier. There's no meltdown possibility, there's
no sort of nuclear accident of substance that people would
have to worry about. It's truly clean and benign, and
(20:42):
so you can deploy it where you need it in
a much more straightforward way.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
There's no use of beryllium in that reactor.
Speaker 10 (20:50):
No, no. In fact, ours is using hydrogen and boron,
both of which are light and super ubiquitous.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
Well deterium as the fuel, right, So the terium.
Speaker 10 (21:01):
Atridium is one fuel cycle that's used by some of
us in the fusion community, and we can burn that too,
but we're really focused on hydrogen and boron. Ultimately, that
turns out that only makes helium, so you have no neutrons,
you have no radioactivity to speak of. It is just
a nirvana of energy. Essentially, you get ubigulous fuel in
no radioactivity or pollution in the process, totally sustainable, and
(21:24):
we think it will be competitive from a cost perspective.
It will be probably starting out midfield in current generation
asset costs, so you're not as cheap as you know
gas or renewables, but you're not as expensive as fission
is today is somewhere in the midfield and then trending down.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Okay, let's pretend that neither of us understood what any
of you guys were talking about in terms of brilliant.
That's why we have him, right. He knows a lot
about a lot of different things. Before we let you go,
just how hard is it to have gotten to where
you are?
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Like?
Speaker 8 (21:53):
What has been like the biggest hurdle?
Speaker 10 (21:56):
Oh gosh, it's been an enormous journey. I mean, I've
aged I started this out high school. I'm said, I
started out out of graduate school with my brilliant PhD mantur,
and then it took us about twenty plus years to
amalgamate the technology around it. There's a lot of esoteric,
absolutely extreme things you got to master. Power supplies, accelerated technology, diagnostics,
(22:17):
feedback loops, you know, use a lot of machine learning
in AI, a lot of we developed together with Google
in the last decade that can react on the blink
of an eye to make changes in what happens inside
and do that reliably and consistently. And so those are
all the technologies we now have, so now we're putting
in the last machine. So it's been a long journey
and developing lots of technology to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
All right, Michael, thank you so much for joining us.
Michael Bindebauer, CEO of Tay Technologies, joining us there with
some exciting new technology on the energy front that John
Tucker's all into, which.
Speaker 8 (22:49):
Is now like insanely impressive.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
Questions were like even nobody understood them, so love it.
Speaker 8 (22:56):
Make it all commercial break, that's true.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each
weekday ten am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
and always on the Bloomberg terminal.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am
Eastern on Applecarclay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App.
Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch
us live on YouTube's.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Gonna right to Susan Spence. She's the chair of ISM Manufacturing.
Susan talk to us about this. ISM Manufacturing came out
at forty eight point five. The consensus was forty nine
point five. Tell us what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Good morning, Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
You know, unfortunately we have another month of contraction abouzero
point two percent lower than last month, so forty eight
point five.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
We are absolutely under consensus.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
What we're seeing and what our panelists are telling us,
of course, is a continued issue with uncertainty in the
market driven by terrorists. So this month, if I can
talk about demand, outputs, and input, it's demand which is
new orders, customer inventory, backlog, and new export orders. Three
of those four indicators continue to contract. Backlog and new
(01:09):
orders contracted a bit slower this month at a slower rate.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
New export orders.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Not surprisingly took another plunge in an accelerated reduction at
a three percentage points lower. So, in our view, the
lack of new orders driven by that uncertain demand from
the marketplace demand, the conflicts of who's going to pay
for the tariff costs. The customer index for inventories does
(01:36):
remain low.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
We always consider that positive.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
At some point customers have to reorder, and so we're
hoping to see that.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
But that continues to contract.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
So our in our survey, eighty six percent of the
general comments from our panelists were about the terriffs.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
It was eighty two percent last month. It just continues
to grow. It's not gotten any better, and certainty is
even worse.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Susan, Susan, do you get the sense that if some
of the tariff headwinds were removed, things get better quickly
or is this sort of permanent confusion in the manufacturing sector.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It's not permanent, but it's not quick.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
So we think if tomorrow everything was settled, and of
course it won't be.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
We think we're in this for at least the summer.
It's going to take some time. We already have.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Some inventory at the higher prices customers, again, is indicated
by the survey results.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Are hesitating to order, and so that is driven down. Production,
backlog is down, and I'll talk about production and employment
as well. So we're in it for a bit. The
best thing that could happen is certainty.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And then my personal belief is it's still going to
take a few months for folks to not wait for
the other shoe to drop.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
If you will, Susan, thank you so much for give
us a couple of minutes of your time. Susan Spence,
Chair for Ism Manufacturing PMI, the Institute for Supply Management,
joining us here. Weaker than expected manufacturing numbers coming out
this month.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The last time we saw Sam Fazzelli, who's the director
of research and does some of the healthcare stuff for
Bloomberg Intelligence, he was here in New York and he
was on his way to Chicago to some conference where
a lot of these healthcare folks get together and they
talk about new drugs and new therapies, and he said,
watch out, there's going to be some deals coming out
of there.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Boy was he right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Santa Fe buying immunology biotech Blueprint for nine point one billion,
Bristol to pay buy in Tech up to eleven billion
dollars for a cancer deal. Moderner is getting some new news.
So we got to get Sam here. He's still in Chicago.
He's at our Chicago office there, Sam, thanks so much
for joining us here. We've had some deals today in
the healthcare space. Help us think about this centi feed
(04:02):
deal here. Nine point one billion dollars. That seems pretty substantial.
Speaker 7 (04:07):
Yeah, well it's more than I have in the back
of my sofa if you like, and you know the
little change that you find there. But this sector needs these.
I mean, we've had a drought of deals since Johnson
and Johnson did interest Sellular Therapeutics, and then we've got
this deal now. And the sector, as I'm sure you've
talked about we've talked about, has been under pressure because
(04:30):
of all the new issues that are being created for
them with the current administration, and that really slowed down
deal making. So it's nice to see this deal happen.
Not the biggest premium in the world twenty seven billion dollars.
But still, it's nice to see some of these deals happen,
and I think, assuming we don't get another round of
(04:51):
tariffs for farmer drugs and most favored nation conversations turning up,
it might be the beginning of a little renaissance in
deal making.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
What was the absolute coolest thing that you learned over
the weekend?
Speaker 8 (05:04):
I mean, I was.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Floored yesterday I was sitting and thinking of you and
reading all these amazing articles coming out about these amazing
new drugs that could have tremendous effect on cancer.
Speaker 8 (05:14):
For example, what was the coolest thing you heard?
Speaker 7 (05:16):
Yeah, so, Alex, there's been some continued evolution an increase
in opportunities in breast cancer. So AstraZeneca had two presentations
yesterday at what they called plenary sessions, and that's one
of the key areas where I mean the room gets
packed with ten thousand people or whatever the number is.
So they had an update on a breast cancer drug
(05:37):
which is continuing to further expand the options that patients
when it gets approved. If it gets approved, patients have
in treating that disease, which has become something that a
lot of people as long as they're lucky and don't
get the worst kind of it, it can live with
for quite a long time now. And then we had
one also from them on gastric This the guest stories
(06:00):
of digital junction disease, which is not one of the
is a bad one and there's not been many therapies there,
and so that was a really good, very good data set,
I have to say, practice changing. And there's a whole
host of phase one, phase two early stage drugs that
look really good. So I'm going to be coming to
this conference for I don't know how many more years
(06:22):
because it's going to keep developing.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Bristol paying Buy and Tech up to eleven point one
billion dollars for cancer deals. What's going on there?
Speaker 7 (06:31):
Yeah, up to is the operative word. The actually guaranteed
cash is about three and a half billion dollars, so
about one and a half billion right up front, and
then when the deal closes, and then by twenty twenty
eight another two billion. That's not contingent on any there
are just anniversary payments, payments. So that's pretty good given
that they acquired the asset, amongst the whole host of
(06:51):
other stuff from a Chinese biotech company acquisition by a
theist only a few months ago, and it's in a
new class of drugs that people have got excited about.
There's Mark that did a deal, There's Summit and Akiso.
Fizer just did a deal on last week, paying one
point two billion dollars for a drug in development, which
(07:13):
we quite like. The data for that was presented here.
So these are drugs that are trying to push the
barrier of what we've been able to achieve, which with
what's called immunotherapy, can you do better? Can you push
more patients to survive longer using these drugs?
Speaker 8 (07:29):
What about Oh wow, I just lost my train of thought.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Oh it was there, it was so brilliant, and then
it went away.
Speaker 8 (07:35):
Oh I know. Funding, here's my brilliant point.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Government funding for universities that have big medical units.
Speaker 8 (07:42):
Like did What were people saying about that?
Speaker 7 (07:45):
Yeah, they're not happy. I've talked to a lot of
people here and you know, even my interestingly an uber
driver that I had who does double just doubles up.
She works in a lab that does genomic analysis for
scientists at Northwestern University in Chicago. She said she's noticing
a palpable slowdown in the request she's getting to do
(08:08):
analysis of you know, laboratory analysis because people are uncertain.
It's even got to yuber driver, which is which is
sad now it is it is a problem. People are
worried and will We'll have to see whether philanthropists can
fill the gap.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sam, So from your conference there in Chicago, what's is
the key focus still cancer or is there other parts
of healthcare that are getting as much I guess attention.
Speaker 7 (08:37):
Yeah, but so this is a cancer conference. This is
the biggest cancer conference in the world. People come from
and I have to say there's a palpable increase in
the number of presentations by Chinese scientists, real and companies. Yeah,
every year's got more and more, which is expected. They've
been funding research significantly for the past fifteen twenty years
and this is the fruits of it. The X conference
(09:00):
that's coming up is a also. I don't think it's
in Chicago, but it's over here somewhere in the US.
Is the American Diabetes That's where you get all the obesity,
liver disease kind of data that that we're also looking
forward to.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All right, Sam, thanks so much for joining us. As always,
Sam Fizzelli, Director of Research for Global and Industries and
Senior Pharmaceuticals Anels for Bloomberg Intelligence. He's based in London,
but he's in our Chicago bureau todays. He spent the
weekend Eddie as he was just mentioning a cancer conference
and where you know, a lot of the latest science
is presented, so and in for investors, it's really important
(09:36):
to think about how you know which things which I guess,
therapies and drugs you want to finance?
Speaker 7 (09:41):
Mean work?
Speaker 8 (09:42):
Does Sammon have the coolest job? Like media is really
cool to one of the people.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
Energy is really cool. We all love it, but like
his stuff like changes the world and.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
He actually understands the science and can explain it to
people like us.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube at alex.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Deal and Paul Sweeney live here in our Bloomberg and
Arrector Broker Studio streaming live on YouTube as well as
John was just reporting SMP at fifty nine hundred. I mean,
after all ups and downs this year, pretty much year
to date, we're unched on the S and P five hunderd.
It feels like a lot of effort for not a
lot of payoff there. Shane Sissel joins US president and
(10:29):
CEO of ban Rion Capital Management from Chicago, Shana. How
do you put twenty twenty five year to date into
context for your clients, because boy, we were down twenty percent.
Now we've retraced most of that from the recent highs.
How do you position the twenty twenty five Well, I.
Speaker 9 (10:48):
Went into twenty twenty five thinking it was going.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
To be volatile.
Speaker 9 (10:50):
It lived up to my expectations, so we positioned portfolios
for volatility and did quite well as a result. Ultimately,
what come down to is as more and more information
gets out. We have this twenty four hour news cycle,
and people get information in real time. The markets are
(11:10):
able to respond to news quickly. But more importantly, we've
seen that the retail advisor has been eager to jump
into the market when it turns downward, which is unusual.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
That's not normally the case.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
It's typically the institutions, and we've seen that kind of
reversed where the institutions are holding off while the retail
investors are jumping in, and ultimately that's kept the markets
from getting too far down and they're able to rebound
pretty quickly.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Basically.
Speaker 9 (11:41):
You know, if you look in the past, normally we
look for the capitulation of the retail advisor, and we
just haven't seen that. So for those reasons, that's why
I think there's been such great volatility.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
But on the flip side, you have to wonder, then
who else is left to buy the rally? So where
how our funds positioned institutional investors. Clearly retail has been
buying the dip, so as you mentioned, there may not
be an extension of that.
Speaker 9 (12:05):
Yeah, but the institutional investors have sat on the sidelines,
and presently they have the bigger money to put to
work and more likely to move the market when they
jump back in. There's still very much on the sidelines,
so I think there is some opportunity to drive the
market higher. It's just not how we normally would expect
it to be.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
It's also a little bit concerning.
Speaker 9 (12:24):
Obviously, the institutional investor tends to be the more informed investor,
so the fact that they have stayed on the sidelines
can mean a lot of things, but it's not for
lack of information on their end and lack of analysis.
But you know, if we talk about analysis paralysis all
the time, there's a lot of uncertainty related to tariffs,
(12:44):
related to the administration, related to monetary policy, and I
think that in many ways the institutional investor is a
little paralyzed by the uncertainty and for those reasons unwilling
to jump into the market, which I think might be
to their peril.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Shana, I know you do a lot of work with
alternative investments. When you speak to independent advisors, how are
they using alternatives these days when volatility both in the
equity markets and the bond markets are pretty pronounced.
Speaker 9 (13:13):
Well, that's exactly where they use alternatives. If advisors or
individuals where to jump and allocate twenty percent of their
total portfolio two alternatives, they would have actually done quite
well through the volatility, as these are low to no
correlation or even in some cases negative correlation assets. And
so if you look at the most volatile parts of
(13:36):
the last five months, you look at March, some of April,
some of February, you'll see that like a BTL, which
is the AGF anti beta market neutral fund. That fund
largely outperformed the S and P by a substantial amount,
was very positive during that period of time. So even
a small five percent allocation made a huge difference in
(13:58):
client portfolios. And then you start to pair that with
other low to no correlation assets like CTA and CBLS
and MRSK, and then you have Bob Elliott's unlimited multistrat fund,
and you have a number of these alternative funds that
all did really well through the volatility. So when equities
(14:18):
and fixed income were down, they were up, and so
that actually helped you through the volatilities. So advisors that
we work with that implemented those portfolios actually wrote out
that period of time quite well.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
I know that where you look at in the tech
market isn't necessarily broad strokes or you know, buy AI
or buy the telecoms or whatever, but the mag seven
have really helped to lead that rally over the last month.
Does that continue or do you continue to see value
in different types of names?
Speaker 9 (14:46):
Well, obviously I see value in different types of names
as they haven't participated and they are looking more attractive on.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
A valuation basis.
Speaker 9 (14:54):
But the tailwinds really do sit with those tech companies
because the biggest tailwind to business right now is AI,
and so anything related to AI, anything incorporating AI wins.
And so we saw with the mag seven, with the
most recent Nvidia earnings report that the demand for AI
(15:15):
is strong and the move to from learning and to
the next phase of AI is there, and so the
Blackwell chips, the greater need for computing power. All of
those things are real and very much in their infancy
and the sense of that there's no infrastructure there, and
(15:37):
so there continues to be substantial tailwinds, and so that's
why they continue to lead. You know, other areas of
the market have headwinds. So if you look at say energy,
you know, we have increased supply coming on, but we
have you know, declining demand from Asia. So that is
great if you want oil at forty bucks barrel, but
(15:57):
not great if you're an oil investor or an enery
G investor. You look at healthcare and we've seen a
lot of headwindes there but also some tremendous breakthroughs, and
especially in oncology, so you know, there's pros and constant everything,
but some of the cyclicals are starting to look cheap,
and that's definitely a place that I would be looking.
Speaker 8 (16:15):
All right, Shanna, I really appreciate. I appreciate it. Always
good to get your perspective.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Shane sissel As, President and CEO of Benryon Capital Management.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarclay, and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
This is Boomberg Intelligence. Alex Steel here alongside Paul swe Need.
This is Boomberg Intelligence Radio. We cover everything you need
to know in business, economics and finance, a lot of
media and also a lot of energy. So I don't
know that much about fusion power. I'm the first one
to say it. John Tucker apparently knows a lot about it.
But we're going to discuss this right now. It could
be a really good source.
Speaker 8 (16:56):
Of clean fuel.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
And for this we bring in tay Technology CEO Michael Binderbauer.
Just the company, Tay Technology is just closed one hundred
and fifty million dollars sin its latest funding round. The
whole point of this company is to develop a commercial
fusion power Michael, if I knew nothing about fusion, which
is highly likely, tell me.
Speaker 8 (17:16):
What it is, how hard it is to do.
Speaker 10 (17:20):
Yeah, So it's basically what nature does, based right, It
gives us our life and energy here on the planet
from the sun. So any star you look up suffusion
reactor basically, right. So what we're trying to do is
to replicate that, terristrially, to make essentially copious power, carbon free,
clean and sustainable for the future of humanity.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Where are you in the process at tay So we're
very close.
Speaker 10 (17:45):
We're just one machine a way to get to a
point where we actually harvest more energy than what we're
putting into the facility. This has been obviously a long journey.
It's hard to do, terrist Really, the stars have a
lot of gravity.
Speaker 8 (17:56):
We don't have that.
Speaker 10 (17:57):
We to use other means, magnets and all sorts of things,
and as you've probably seen over the last few years,
has been a playthrow of news inching really really close
to the goal and across multiple efforts on the planet.
So we're about a three year way to get tonate
energy and somewhere early twenty thirties, we hopefully have a
power plant online.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
What would be if you're able to achieve it and
have a power plant? Like what is that? Is that
just tremendous amount of energy with like no footprint.
Speaker 10 (18:26):
Yeah, it's very small footprint. So it's the highest energy
density fuel you can have, by the factor of five
to ten, higher than fission. Even it utilizes hydrogen or
light species that are ubiquitous, So there's infinite fuel supply
if you will, and you would harvest clean energy out
of that at probably starting at a scale of a
gas fired turbine, so something like four or five hundred
(18:48):
makawatts per plant, and it would literally be able to
distribute wherever you needed it in the grid.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
Is there?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Can you talk about the economics surrounding this technologlogy?
Speaker 8 (19:00):
Who would be the who would be the users.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
The buyers, the developers of this technology?
Speaker 10 (19:05):
Yeah, so I think what we're seeing and this gets
to what we just announced today. Aside from raising capital,
we really have a long partnership with Google and they've
been deep with us on machine learning and tools to
help make this more efficient and more economic, and in fact,
they would be a great first off taker for that right,
all the hyperscalers. Everybody that has high energy intens applications
(19:28):
growing at tremendous rates, right with a gap between supply
and demand developing, is looking for electrons and particularly green electrons.
So those would be probably the first off takers for
the technology.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Oh, I got to ask you, John Tucker, he likes
his fusion.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
What sets you apart from ETR in terms of the
reactor itself, the containment that's a fusion reactor or what?
Speaker 10 (19:51):
Yeah, so good question. So Eater and others are working
on tokmacs, we actually are not. We're working what you
see if you have a visual we have a compact machine,
not the size of gas turbine that can make about
the same output as those other plants. It's much more
efficient uses smaller magnets. There's various tricks in the physics
that allow you to do that, and that brings something
(20:13):
that's more compact, cheaper to produce, of course, more economic
to deploy, easier to maintain, etc.
Speaker 8 (20:19):
And you can.
Speaker 10 (20:20):
Essentially it's centralize these. We think we can build those
sort of cookie cutter in a factory and deploy on site.
And the other thing I should add is that sighting
on this compared to the other nuclear cousin, which is fission, right,
it is a lot easier. There's no meltdown possibility, there's
no sort of nuclear accident of substance that people would
have to worry about. It's truly clean and benign, and
(20:42):
so you can deploy it where you need it in
a much more straightforward way.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
There's no use of beryllium in that reactor.
Speaker 10 (20:50):
No, no. In fact, ours is using hydrogen and boron,
both of which are light and super ubiquitous.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
Well deterium as the fuel, right, So the terium.
Speaker 10 (21:01):
Atridium is one fuel cycle that's used by some of
us in the fusion community, and we can burn that too,
but we're really focused on hydrogen and boron. Ultimately, that
turns out that only makes helium, so you have no neutrons,
you have no radioactivity to speak of. It is just
a nirvana of energy. Essentially, you get ubigulous fuel in
no radioactivity or pollution in the process, totally sustainable, and
(21:24):
we think it will be competitive from a cost perspective.
It will be probably starting out midfield in current generation
asset costs, so you're not as cheap as you know
gas or renewables, but you're not as expensive as fission
is today is somewhere in the midfield and then trending down.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Okay, let's pretend that neither of us understood what any
of you guys were talking about in terms of brilliant.
That's why we have him, right. He knows a lot
about a lot of different things. Before we let you go,
just how hard is it to have gotten to where
you are?
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Like?
Speaker 8 (21:53):
What has been like the biggest hurdle?
Speaker 10 (21:56):
Oh gosh, it's been an enormous journey. I mean, I've
aged I started this out high school. I'm said, I
started out out of graduate school with my brilliant PhD mantur,
and then it took us about twenty plus years to
amalgamate the technology around it. There's a lot of esoteric,
absolutely extreme things you got to master. Power supplies, accelerated technology, diagnostics,
(22:17):
feedback loops, you know, use a lot of machine learning
in AI, a lot of we developed together with Google
in the last decade that can react on the blink
of an eye to make changes in what happens inside
and do that reliably and consistently. And so those are
all the technologies we now have, so now we're putting
in the last machine. So it's been a long journey
and developing lots of technology to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
All right, Michael, thank you so much for joining us.
Michael Bindebauer, CEO of Tay Technologies, joining us there with
some exciting new technology on the energy front that John
Tucker's all into, which.
Speaker 8 (22:49):
Is now like insanely impressive.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
Questions were like even nobody understood them, so love it.
Speaker 8 (22:56):
Make it all commercial break, that's true.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each
weekday ten am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
and always on the Bloomberg terminal.
Popular Podcasts
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 Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.