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00:00The most crucial moments in the trading day. This is Bloomberg Markets the close with Caroline Hyde Romaine Bostick Taylor. It is 2:00 p.m. in New York 7:00 p.m. in London and way of life. OMXS headquarters. This is Bloomberg Markets the close Caroline Hyde. I'm Romaine Bostick. I'm Taylor Riggs and we are Rascoff After a wild week. Stocks lower bond yields plummet as investors stay cautious as we watch war unfold into the weekend. Remain on commodities march higher. And Taylor on Treasury's reaction to the payrolls data and watching the ferocious moves in Europe escalating Covid. And later in the hour we'll have more on the situation in Ukraine as we head to the Oval Office. But President Biden will sit down with the president of Finland. That is the White House considers a ban on Russian oil imports. Plus we'll bring you full coverage of the February jobs report with former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez. And dig into the unequal recovery with general economists critical Roy pipeline. All that and so much more coming up this hour. And we did see oil prices hit the session highs just a few seconds ago on the back of that headline that of course a potential ban on Russian imports of U.S. imports of Russian oil is now on the table at least something being discussed. But the overall risk sentiment of course is lower. It's dower. We saw that reflected of course in the futures market last night when those headlines crossed about the situation at that nuclear plant in Ukraine. That's pretty much been the tone from the open to the point we're at right now. The S & P down about one point four percent here on the day a massive down day over in Europe. The stock six hundred down three and a half percent on the day now down about 15 percent from that record high. And setting up for what's going to be one of its worst weeks over there in Europe in more than a year. And of course commodities we're going to have so many superlatives today about the moves that we see not only on the headline commodity indexes but really on a lot of the individual commodities wheat palladium aluminum nickel. We were talking about record highs or multi decade ISE right now. That's having huge reverberations right now across the board for autos for plants airlines as well Taylor Riggs and big superlatives as well in the bond market. You're now seeing one of the biggest weekly decline in bond yields and we haven't seen now since March of 20 20. So despite all the topsy turvy ness it is again a day when it is risk off sentiment bonds catching a bid price higher yield lower. Really interesting on a very good jobs day. Caroline where the focus really has been geopolitical events and that is indeed taking front and center but you change it. Gordon it really has been this inflationary stories the backdrop of what Romaine was mentioning of everything behind the scenes that is putting pressure on this Federal Reserve to move. I bring it again a two year break even again at a record high. And my question to you and probably to all of our guests today is what impact can a Fed rate hike have on a chart like that. Right now what I keep hearing is demand destruction is the only way to stop that. I don't know if that's going to be the end result but I'm not sure. And we're still in QE. Let's ask our next guest. Yeah. Daily reminder the Fed is still buying bonds. David Bianco is with us chief investment officer of the Americas at D W S Group. But one trillion dollars in assets under management. Can the Fed effect this inflation which is inherently coming as a supply. Shock. Shock. David. The simple answer is no. And the Fed knows that the Fed knows well not to hike aggressively into any kind of supply side shock and this conflict certainly is a supply side shock. But in general central banks they're tolerant of high inflation. Wenders wartime. And this is wartime. So we do think the Fed will try to follow through with its intentions. We all make plans and then they're disrupted by by by other events. We do think the Fed will hike March 16th by 25 basis points and the Fed will attempt to put several more hikes through over the course of the year. But despite this we do think inflation stays very high in large part because of commodity prices and supply chain disruptions and European economic disruptions in general owing to this really shameful attack on Russia upon Ukraine. When we talk about the idea here that the Fed may I guess take a gradual approach as a lot of people expected but now they're doing so in the face of not only rising commodity prices David but the real prospect the serious prospect here of slowing growth growth that would slow down to a stage where we can have a legitimate conversation about stagflation. Does gradualism work in that environment. Well it's hard to know what the alternative to gradualism is. Again I don't think it helps the US economy or the world economy and it certainly wouldn't likely help the European economy if the Fed was aggressive in hiking and driving the dollar stronger and driving the euro thus likely lower which would make oil and energy all the more expensive to Europe which finds itself being held hostage by by Russia. So look the US and the Fed need to think about what the right policy is for the United States. But monetary policy out of the United States does lead the world and that right now is not the best time to be fighting in Asia. We're confronted with grave threats or our lives are. And at this time inflation might not be the biggest problem we're facing. How there will be a time to adjust that. How do you think in the meantime the role of bonds in the portfolio when you're worried about inflation but full faith and credit is also the classic safe haven and bond yields fall 11 basis points on the day. Exactly. So what you're seeing with long term treasury bonds a nominal asset the yields have declined on flight to safety flight to U.S. safety the dollar treasury bonds. But that's not the real story. As you know this modest decline in long term yields is occurring despite a surge in short term and even longer term inflation expectations and real interest rates both short term and long term. All right. Near record lows again in terms of negative territory. And our view is it's very unlikely even with hopefully some degree of de-escalation here. It's very unlikely to see positive real interest rates anytime soon. Probably not this cycle when you've got some 1 trillion dollars of assets under management. David are you moving money around the edges. Are you looking at putting more in cash. How's your allocation changing at the moment. Of course we're a global firm across active passive and alternative strategies. We have portfolio managers in every major financial center of the world. Most of these decisions are made by our lead portfolio managers. But when it comes to our asset allocation portfolios we've taken a more defensive stance. What's interesting as you've pointed out it's difficult to be defensive with your conventional defensive assets like bonds. When we're confronted with this inflation risk. So we're looking for the more defensive real assets if you will. This includes commodities but this also includes equities equities or real assets equities or long duration real assets. Right now even though the S & P 500 and the U.S. equity markets under pressure it is being fled to as a relative seat and even things within the U.S. equity market like domestic defensives utilities real estate infrastructure looking very good right now. The health care sector looking very good right now. But I'd also point out something else the S & P 500 its dominance of the technology and communication companies within it. This decline in interest rates the way digital businesses don't have commodity inputs do not have the physical challenges of the real economy. Many businesses would be facing. I think what you'll find is people appreciating the quality and the growth of the digital businesses in the S & P. Valuations really not a concern at this moment. And the valuations are reasonable giving given these interest rates. Last question here David and this is more of an existential question about sort of the global order right now and sort of what the conclusion or what the outcome is of the Ukraine war do investors need to prepare themselves for the idea that the globalization that has marked our financial markets our economy now for generations that that might now be fractured that might now be splintered in such a way that people now need to start to segment off some of their investments. It might be. I hope not. I think the world of global order is still very much in tact. And I think what you'll find is that in many countries as well as institutions the private economy the public policy setters. I think what you'll find is that they'll be taking sides and very few will be willing to take the side of Russia on this. What has changed. Because this is an outrage and it's unforgivable and it won't be forgotten. Russia's out. Russia is out of the global water. It is out of the modern global economy until it changes its course of action. But I believe that the rest of the world will recognize the importance of the world order cooperation peace and prosperity not just it's not just a hope with investors. It's a hope of all the world. All right. And of course overseeing a lot of corporations move in that direction. The S & P Dow Jones indices of course suspending the listings of Russian stocks here in the U.S.. David Bianco of TWX Group giving us a nice little insight here about maybe what investors can expect coming up here overshadowed of course by what's going on in Ukraine. We did have a jobs report here in the U.S.. There was a good jobs report. We're going to hear from the former U.S. labor secretary. Tom Perez is going to be joining us in just a minute. And we're going to continue talking about that labor report labor force participation particularly when it comes to women. CAC Roy of Pipeline Equity also going to be joining the program. And we're going to hear from an exclusive interview with Nicola Mendelsohn vice president of global business over at MetLife platforms formerly known as Facebook. We have to talk about how that company is taking action to counter the disinformation stemming from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Don't go anywhere. This is Bloomberg. All right secretary of State for the United States Anthony Blinken speaking right now at a press conference reiterating the Biden administration's position here that Russia remains isolated in his words says Russia has never been so isolated. Blinken also says that he is asking Russia to immediately cease nuclear plant attacks. And of course that has to be a reference to what I think a lot of the headlines we saw yesterday evening. Here are Elise on the East Coast about the conflict. This fact effectively an attack. I guess we can call it that on that nuclear facility there in Ukraine. And when we talk about Blinken in isolation here you have to talk about some of the decisions by S & P Dow Jones to remove. You are Russian stocks that are listed in the U.S. And now of course new headlines coming out about Russian oil and imports into the U.S.. And Caroline all of this is really interesting. I know earlier this week when we were talking about the Footsie Russell MSCI their indices and they were looking at cutting that global allocation of Russian stocks down to 0 percent. They said that they'd interviewed a majority of their members. They had said that quote there was a big agreement that everything was on investable over there. And so they sort of echoed similar comments of these sort of big indices makers. If you can't included if it's under investigation isolation takes many forms of course whether or not it's their own financial markets that are isolated but also isolating themselves from further information sources. Russia blocking Facebook as we understand as they continue to crack down on their own media group outlines. So this is going to be an information void that's going on within Russia at the moment. Certainly we're getting further information from our own U.S. leaders. And you were talking about Anthony Blinken that also the Defense Department spokesman John Kirby speaking to that nuclear plant plant attack. He says it was a Russian attack and it wasn't even reckless. And you know we talk about the isolation here. I mean there's a big read today on the Bloomberg terminal about President Putin's relationship with Xi Jinping and the alliance between China and Russia and whether China is willing to sort of back off Russia at this stage. Lots of big questions and know that those are questions. We're going to dive into it about 430 p.m. Eastern here. In the meantime let's get back to some of that breaking news about the White House really sort of considering a ban on Russian oil imports to the US. We're going to do that with our very own Bloomberg's Anne-Marie Horton. And Anne-Marie look you'd had calls from Joe Manchin. You even had Nancy Pelosi saying come out we'll ban it. But it's sort of getting the White House on board as well. Right. Yeah it certainly is. And we should note this is an exclusive scoop from our Bloomberg News colleagues here in Washington that now this is very much so on the table and they are kind of considering this ban of Russian oil imports. We should mention Russian oil imports when it comes to hardcore just straight crude it's 3 percent. When you start to factor in some of those other petroleum products it's about 8 percent. It ranks third behind Canada and Mexico just ahead of Saudi Arabia. But really the issue the administration has had with trying to ban oil export import since United States is the fact that they just don't want to get rid of that supply in the market. They don't want to see a spike in prices. This all comes down to what is it going to mean for the average American filling up their tank at the gasoline pump. Yes. Suddenly worried about the price implications. We saw oil prices just take that a little bit higher on the back of that news. But this seems to be symbolic in nature. But it's going to have impact if there is retaliation on the front of Russia. What does it mean for Europe and its supplies of most notably oil and gas is getting even more expensive if you're paying in euros. Yes. Certainly more. That's a great point where the euro is trading today. It's gonna be a really hard hit. And those inflationary pressures. But potentially if the United States was to do this does then President Putin start to use his own fossil fuels as political weapons which Russia has flirted with in the past. We saw that last year when it came to natural gas exports into Europe. The United States has said time and time again when they've been dealing with Russia and implementing these sanctions that they want to do it in lockstep with their allies. So if the United States is going to be doing this I imagine this discussion is also happening in European capitals. All right. Annmarie Horden and outside the White House there over that breaking news that we had the scoop here at Bloomberg News at the White House now considering a potential ban on imports of Russian oil. We should point out that WTI crude not far off the highs of the day. And of course the real feed through at least for consumers is into gasoline prices. Gasoline prices at least in the futures market up 28 percent this week alone. All right. If you are looking for some good news you can turn to the job market here. We did get those February employment numbers and well it looks like the job market is booming. U.S. U.S.. Former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez is joining us right now. He's also the former chair of the DNC and currently the co-chair of the American Bridge. Twenty first century six hundred seventy eight thousand jobs created last month. And I guess what most people seem to think is a relatively broad based gains that we saw in February here. When you look at the numbers we have for February. Combine that with the numbers we've had over the last few months here. Are you generally satisfied here that the US economic recovery is on track. This is not only a good report for last month. The trend data I always look at three month trends. The trend data is moving in the right direction. We are on pace by the end of 2022 to recover all the jobs that were lost. Pre pandemic and the job growth is broad based. And that's something I always looked at when I was labor secretary. And the unemployment rate can go down for good reasons and it can go down for bad reasons. Last month the unemployment rate went down for good reasons because more people had jobs and were in the workplace. In January of 20 21 we saw the lowest rate of female labor force participation that we've seen in 30 35 years. It's inching up still have more work to do and we need to do a better job in the public sector employment numbers that will help tick up the female labor force participation rate. But this this economy is resilient. There's a lot of uncertainty to state the obvious. And yet we see things moving in the right direction. And I applaud the president's doing. Jump in Sara quickly. When you look at though the negative real wages that a lot of the progress that has been made it's been wiped out because of inflation. How do you tackle that. Well inflation is a very real issue for people. And and the challenge that we have to understand to put this in context when I first became labor secretary the issue that we were confronting front and center was the plight of the long term unemployed because the stimulus program in 2009 wasn't muscular enough. We had literally hundreds of thousands millions of people who had been unemployed for more than a year. And frankly they had lost hope. This recovery because of the American rescue plan because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill has enabled people to get back on their feet fast. Yes. Do we have inflation. Of course we do. Right now. And we need to manage that. And the president in the State of the Union the other night outlined a host of measures to bring down the cost of prescription drugs to ask child care and the like. But I think it's important to understand the historical context. I am so glad that we are not having a conversation right now about the long term unemployed because that is a very nasty issue Tom. But it is. And still I have to say there is inequality within the jobs data and suddenly the people of color. But I'm also interested in your perspective of when we are looking at a geopolitical risk and a supply chain headache that continues to impact the U.S.. I'm looking at call car part manufacturing lost 18000 people off the payrolls second month of declines. How much more does the administration need to do to enable certain manufacturers to be able to provide and make what they want to make right now unemployed the people they want to employ. Well that's that's a very good question. And the president certainly talked about that in the State of the Union the other night. And we're we're managing through an unprecedented level of uncertainty right now. And I think what we have been able to see in this jobs report and through the actions of the president and the American rescue plan and the bipartisan infrastructure bill that this these efforts have really paid dividends in terms of getting people to work. Now we have to continue and the supply chain issues. If if we want to make more electric. Cars. We obviously need a number of component parts that are going to be in short supply. And the president is well aware that we're working with our allies to address that working with the large businesses with suppliers across the country and around the world. This isn't simply this isn't a challenge limited to the United States of America. This is a challenge that we will are and must confront together with our allies. Tom Perez thank you for your time. U.S. labor secretary of course former and now rocking still within the Democratic Party for years the American Bridge 21st century co-chair. We thank you. This has been. Neiman Marcus a close. As we approach commodities clothes we see the greenback commodity index was at a record high remain record high. Here we're talking about the highest level since 1960 basically since the creation of the index palladium. Over 3000 aluminum at a record high. You name it. It's higher. Inflation is the name of the game. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Markets to close it off after two thirty here in New York. Let's get you caught up on what's happening in the commodity space what settlement right now of time. Crude futures which have pushed higher year to session highs right around settlement. Looks like we're gonna settle above one hundred and fifteen bucks a barrel up about 7 percent here on the day. We should point out Brent crude camped out right around one hundred seventeen bucks. And we should point out gasoline prices at least in the futures market 28 percent higher today than where they were a week ago. You're seeing natural gas futures. They're over in the U.K. Those are U.K. prices up 20 percent. And just on this day we should point out they have doubled this week. And of course that's after almost Sept doubling last year here. So you're seeing a huge effect there for folks in Europe and of course worldwide we're seeing all types of metals either hit new highs or get towards new highs. Nickel at least on in London markets was at one point above thousand still just shy off of that record high. Similar story for palladium and aluminum and wheat. I think the big headline I saw in the terminal was this is going to go down as probably the most momentous week for wheat in history. You're looking at over 12 bucks here and 6 percent higher here on the day for wheat in Chicago. And of course Paris milled wheat hitting a record high end rally. Moffett Bloomberg's senior energy and commodities editor joining us right now to talk a little bit more about what's happening not just with commodity prices but really what's driving them. And this is obviously a supply shock is the supply because no one's producing the stuff or it can't get shipped. Well great great to be here. And you're right it has been a busy week to cover the sector to say the least. Russia is really the story. I mean you're taking a large supplier out of a market in an already tight market. Russia is a huge exporter of aluminum nickel fertilizers grains precious metals. You're just about everything in the global supply chain. It's especially apparent in the wheat market. Like you mentioned Ukraine and Russia together account for about a quarter of global trade. So if you thought food and plane was already bad it's about to get worse. We're seeing it on the oil side the gasoline side. So Russia is the name of the game here that's really behind these. Crazy crazy. What are you hearing about some of that logistics as well shippers going into ports and maybe not taking the commodity because they're not sure if it's going to be able to make it back. What are some of the logistical challenges that you're hearing about that. That's absolutely right. Shipping is a huge part of it. It's getting very difficult to transport commodities like metals that are shipping containers. Ukraine's ports are closed and almost half of the world's container ships say they'll no longer go to and from Russia even if they're allowed to. And their civic sanctions that prevent you from taking out things like metals. On the other side we have dock worker dock workers at global ports for starting to say that they will not load or unload Russian owned or controlled vessels in some places. That's just adding to the stress. You know what's so interesting here is we're not seeing official sanctions passed yet on Russian commodities. There is a de facto sanction in place because if companies don't want to touch this stuff it's essentially a sanction. And so we're seeing a lot of U.S. refiners say well we won't order anymore. Russian crude know just to be safe even though nothing officially has passed yet though that may change self sanctioning clear and evident. We await to see what the White House decides in terms of clear sanctioning on it. And but what about some countries that still are taking in wheat and they need oil and indeed some of the exports. And what does it mean for how we see trade flows change in the course of weeks if not months. Yeah. Well Shell is the big name that we've reported is still buying Russian crude oil. Almost every other big name company has said we're not touching it right now or if we already ordered it will still take it but we won't place more orders. Shell has really gone against the grain there. You just bought a shipment at a record discount. And you know sources say sources say if the governments come forward and say you must stop it it will comply. But until then I think it's taking advantage of these low prices. So I think it'll be very interesting to see what shareholders think about that what consumers think about that or if that proves savvy in the long term. I mean we heard from the secretary of state just a little while ago and he was talking about this idea that yes they are maybe considering this but they don't necessarily want to go down this road here. There's also a big question here that if the U.S. were to actually move forward with the ban here whether they would be doing this in coordination with European leaders European leaders who have a lot more to lose than the U.S.. Yeah. That's a great question. And it is too early to say you know even though we reported about 30 minutes ago that the Biden administration is weighing a possible ban on U.S. imports of Russian crude. It's still in the early talks stage. So we don't quite know yet what's going to happen in the US on the oil side. Only about 3 percent of all crude oil we imported last year into the U.S. was from Russia. Know that's not a huge chunk. When you include some more finished products like fuel oil that uses feedstock for gasoline Russia accounted for 8 percent of 2021 U.S. imports. That's not nothing. You know and that's something that we might feel in markets. Gasoline is already at nine year highs in the U.S. You don't need any other shock. At the same time we do produce a lot of oil in the United States. And so I think there's also this open question of you know will the Biden administration who has already asked OPEC plus to help more you know could he turn to U.S. shale producers and ask for some help. And I think all these shale CEOs are kind of waiting by the phone wondering if there's going to be some call with a lot of oil in the Permian Basin in Texas. You know so far I think executives have said they will be disciplined. They're kind of waiting on the U.S. government to say they're going to back fossil fuels for a longer term before they really start pumping more. But you know that could be a solution as well. Devon Energy CEO that mystified as he said earlier this week county oil at session highs as we saw that scoop coming from our White House correspondents and Ronni Moffitt. Great to check in with her. Thank you so much. Well meanwhile we'll get you up to speed with why the market is moving as we see risk off towards the weekend. The Supreme. All right the headline a little while ago a Bloomberg scoop is that the Biden administration here in the U.S. is weighing a ban on U.S. imports of Russian crude oil. Of course no decision has been made on this. This according to people familiar with the situation. Nevertheless reverberations around the market here. Rob DUMBLE joining us right now. He's taught us portfolio manager and managing director toward us as an energy asset manager with about nine billion dollars in assets under management. Rob thanks for doing this today. You know I think back to where we were towards the end of 2021 we were 60 something 70 bucks a barrel on WTI crude. And there are a lot of predictions that we would hit 100 bucks a barrel in 20 20 to here. Of course we're already settling at 115 68 on this day. You have J.P. Morgan saying we can hit one eighty five a barrel this year. Goldman saying we could hit 150. Does that seem realistic to you. Well we're made probably the short term anything's possible at this point. Oh wow. How we got here was effectively that global demand for oil is actually back to pre coded level back to 2019 levels. Yet the global supply just has not kept up. U.S. production is still well below where it was in 20 19. OPEC productions is below where it was at 19. And now we're talking about reducing supply even more taking more global supply off the market here either long term or short term. And that's the net result of that is lower oil inventories and higher prices. So anything's possible. But in the short term in terms of the prices rising what sort of price impact though do you see on the margin. If we did stop imports from Russian oil. That's a good question. So so Russian oil is replaceable. I think that's important to know. We do have inventories in the US both oil oil inventories as well as refined product gasoline diesel inventories. So there is there is supply available for four months. But we'd have to fix and replace that that 500 600000 barrels a day of both gasoline and as well as oil and sort of that come from well a couple places. Plus can still CAC in particular actually can still produce more U.S. producers can produce more. But also if you as you all know there are two countries out there that can produce a lot more of the current have currently have sanctions that the largest being Iran. Right. In Iran could return a significant amount of oil back to the market the global market come and help it balance fairly rapidly. And we saw that effect yesterday when oil actually pulled back for the first time as we had talk of the Iranian supply. Is there a cap therefore on oil when we talk about the rest of the supply that's potentially there. All really does. Do we still see a crescendo in effect until we get some clarity. Yes that's a good question Caroline Hyde. What we're on is that what I would say is eventually consumer demand will will wane with high oil prices. Right. I mean I think gasoline is over six dollars in some areas in the U.S. that you know obviously consumers will react and effectively potentially reduce the demand temporarily for oil globally because of the high price. And so so that that does create a cap as well. But what is that cap. Is it 120 130 140. I think it's probably somewhere somewhere in that range. Longer term though longer term there's still hope that oil prices aren't going to be this high forever. There are plenty of supply sources that we'll be adding to production. It just takes a little bit of time. The U.S. is that business is the first place. If the U.S. was producing 13 million barrels of oil in 20 19 producing 11 and a half today it would maybe a little bit more than that. You can't increase production. You just have to get workers back to the field. You have to drill more wells and then the production will follow. And that's going to take six months six to 12 months to have that happen. Well and that's assuming that the political climate also shifts. I guess we have a president a little bit more focus on climate change or some other issues that would be anti ethical I guess to that push. Let's say Rob we do end up going down that road here. Talk about some of the refined products out there. I mean we've already seen the damage on gasoline for cars. Jet fuel prices are up like 40 percent this year so far as well here. Do you think that if we are able to sort of get the low crude oil component of this under control that prices would snap back on some of the refined products in due order. You absolutely remain so. So gasoline and diesel and jet fuel prices that you and I pay as a consumer are tied and correlate very strongly with the direction that crude oil moves. So we could get crude oil stabilized and start to see a decline a bit by adding to the supply. You would definitely see I think a drop in crude oil. We'd also see a corresponding drop in in refined products including gasoline diesel and jet fuel. And I hope that we can get there sooner. Right. Obviously we're coming at it as the summer driving season is not that far away. And I don't want to give those prices more manageable for. For consumers you know across the U.S. as the summer approaches summer. We thank you so much. Joining us today taught us portfolio manager our managing director. Have a good weekend. Meanwhile coming up we got so much more to cover this commodities this breaking news the scoop from Bloomberg when it comes to of course potentially a sanction being focused on Russian oil. We'll how Stephen Schork a little bit later. Meanwhile let's have a look at what's happening with Facebook. It has been blocked in Russia by the country's communications regulator Interfax. That's well. Well Interfax is reporting that the latest sign of force of Moscow's pushback on new sources not sanctioned by the government. We understand perhaps Twitter is next in the line of fire. But the watchdog that this is as Facebook as parent company that's Metta says it's uncovered Russian efforts to undermine trust in the Ukrainian government. And today I spoke with Mendelson. She's met US vice president for global business about the measures the company has been taking. Everybody's thinking about those affected by the war in Ukraine I don't think any of us expected to see something like this at this time. We are taking extensive steps across all of our apps to ensure the safety of our community and also to support the people who are using our services both in the Ukraine and all over the world as well. We've established a special operations center. It's working round the clock. It's responding to activity that we're seeing on our platforms in real time. And we're really closely monitoring the situation. We've added several safety features including the ability for people to lock their Facebook profile removes the ability to view and be able to search friends list an encrypted one to one that's available on Instagram for all adults in the Ukraine and Russia as well now. And as you said we have restricted access to Russian state media were globally demoting their content from Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. And we're also giving people more information on you know to be able to decide what to read trust and show by adding warning labels on content that's rated as false. Could you could you hold all ads in Russia do you think. Well it's something that we are continuing to monitor very closely. We have already banned ads from Russian state media and preventing them from monetizing on our platforms anywhere in the world. Adhering to the sanction requirements. But it's this is fast evolving. And as a company we are actively looking at this at the moment and fast evolving for your clients too. How are they. What is their willingness to advertise at the moment. Because many might shy away when in fear of looking insensitive. But look it's this is such a heartbreaking situation. So what we're seeing and what advertisers are thinking about businesses I think at the moment just thinking about what they can do to help how they can be helping to keep that you know that people safe on the ground. And as I said that's very much what we're focused on as well at this time. It is of course jobs. Take a look at this. We have a chart of course showing unemployment by race overall making some general improvements more people as well entering the labor force. And you see that with the participation rate taking up. But some of the gains as we've seen here you guys are not always equal. You've also had the participation rate for women declining as well. The first time in five months an unemployment rate for black women also rising. So this really highlights the inequities that still continue to exist. Let's discuss all of this with Gattaca Roy CEO and gender economist at Pipeline Equity. It is a company that uses a to help address gender biases. And what do you make of the overall improvements. But of course always more work to be done. Exactly that. There is a lot more work to be done. So if you look we're now at the 2 year point from the beginning of the pandemic and we still have one point one million women out of the labor force since the beginning of the pandemic compared to we have four hundred forty five thousand more men in the labor force. So now two years and women make essentially all the levers if you will in the labor force. And that should be a concern to us not only from an equity perspective that we currently have a four point sixty three million person gap between the number of jobs that are open and our labor force. So it's an investment that we should be making in terms of getting more women back into the labor force to at least reach pandemic levels. But they continue to grow CAC again. What gets us that. Is it CAC. Is it more certainty around schooling and child care. Is it more better benefits better pay. What is it that draws more participation. It's two things. One is equity of opportunity in pay. So pay obviously will be a hot topic because a March 15th will look at the aggregate equal pay day in the United States which is essentially the two and a half months that on average women work for free each and every year. But the other is opportunity. We still have almost a 40 point gap between women's labor force participation there the percentage that they make up for the labor force and their CEOs in the Fortune 500 companies. So there's that. But also equitable skilling. There's a huge focus on infrastructure. President Biden talked about that in his State of the Union address this week. And what we need to be focusing on is skilling women equitably so that they can take advantage of those jobs as well. What about you know we talk about women entering the workforce staying in the workforce. What about the mobility within that workforce here the idea that now can you make a career but you can have an upward trajectory on that career. Has that improved at all. No that's that. That's the short answer and what we find is that actually in that on average men are promoted at a rate of 21 percent greater than women. And when you look at that through the lens of gender class race and ethnicity that gap actually doubles for black women. So men are promoted at a rate of 42 percent greater than black women. Here's the good news that we actually have a technology like Pipeline the company that I run that can actually close those gaps and catapult us toward equity. So we do have tools at our disposal to not only improve our economy but increase our labor force. Cathcart Can you if you can give us of how America is doing better or worse views of the rest of the world. What are these numbers synonymous to elsewhere. There are two things that make a difference in terms of women's labor force participation during the pandemic. Where some of the social safety measures in terms of things like paid leave and child care and the other that made a difference was in terms of protection. So labor force protection. So you look at women. They're more likely there's 62 percent of all minimum wage workers which are less likely to have protection than the labor force. The more that countries actually have protections for part time workers for hourly workers we actually see more women stay in the labor force. All right. CAC Roy Pipeline Equity CEO and gender economists they're helping us continue that conversation here about what was a very impressive jobs report today. Of course a lot of that being overshadowed by the situation in Ukraine which continues to worsen here now set to enter a second week. And of course stocks now continue to move lower. The S & P 500 right around the lows of the day. You're seeing commodities prices right around the highs of the day. And I don't know what's going on with yields now but I see a bid coming into those eight. She was interesting. There was a note from Ealing and a female who I know that I often quote on this program saying that all of this sort of inflationary reflation very positive news from the jobs day of course being overshadowed by the geopolitical issues. And that's of course the bond yields at least today are reacting to seeing the euro. Yeah. Yeah about 0 8. I mean unintentional parity. What does that mean when a gas price is going up 20 percent. You know as I said nineteen dollars Caroline Hyde or pounds give effects this remark. Go down to Bloomberg's comprehensive. Coverage ahead of the US marketplace starts right now. This is Countdown to the close. Just 60 minutes left in your trading session. Your trading week Caroline Hyde. Romaine Bostick. Taylor Riggs. Joined now by CAC Carol Massar and Tim Centric. We welcome our audience as cross radio TV and YouTube to discuss volumes pushing higher stocks pushing lower yet again. We are risk off towards the weekend Carol. Yeah definitely risk off trade overall here Carolyn. I've been looking at the defense stocks so they have been on a tear. Really not only this past week but the last couple of weeks. They're up about three and a half percent this week. We've got a chart. The defense an aerospace group within the S & P 500 but up about seven and a half percent. We know why. And that has to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But nonetheless when you're looking for some outperformance that's why you're seeing it. Well if you're looking for underperformance look no further than the Jets ETF Aerospace. I should say airlines seriously under pressure not just today but this week as well down close to for more than 14 percent this week down about 6 percent today. The pressure is really threefold has to do with inflation and rising costs but also of course the disruption caused by a global conflict or potentially global conflict. The geopolitics front and center. Let's look at what happens over the course of the week. We're off by three point three percent on the Nasdaq or off by two point two percent on the day. We're currently seeing 300 points lost on the Nasdaq. You're seeing 63 points less than the S & P 500. That's what almost one point five percent lower volume is up 15 percent Wolf by one and a quarter percent on the Dow. That's equivalent to 425 points lower. The Russell as well small caps like big tech once again hand in hand off by more than 2 percent. And really inflation and yields are what's the driver behind these markets. Energy again you guys up for the year. Thirty four percent for the day. You're up about 2 percent or so. Everything else remain is all about utilities and real estate which are also some of the other two sectors in the green here as those do benefit when bonds really CAC bid and yields are. I mean it's unbelievable. You're down 12 basis points on the day now on the 10 year and you've got a 7 percent jump in crude oil on the day with a 20 percent on a weekly basis. That's a big part of the reason why you continue to see these bids come in to a lot of the oil stocks oil and gas stocks here in the U.S. Occidental Petroleum up 17 percent this day alone. A lot of speculation now not only about the potential for banning Russian imports but whether the Biden administration might actually loosen up its stance with regards to drilling the expansion of drilling here in the U.S. not on the table just yet but the speculation is there. Airline stocks on the back foot once again all travel stocks on the back foot. Again we should point out we talk about the rise in crude oil. We talk about the rise in gasoline. You know what else is higher this week. Jet fuel in fact is up 43 percent just this year alone 20 percent since this war started. And keep in mind the U.S. airlines most of the U.S. airlines don't hedge their fuel. American no hedges at the end of last year. United. No hedges at the end of last year. JetBlue. No hedges at the end of last year. They're eating these costs. Still Qantas this is a big company that owns Chrysler Jeep Brands. Course they made that big name change. No one ever really knows what they are here. They've been making a lot of comments here. There's a lot of concerns here about the supply chain where the CEO was on a call with the reporters today talking about some broader strategic initiatives that the company might take those shares down 10 percent and we work shares down 12 percent. You want to know why why you're looking to raise fresh capital new equity. We work everything old is new again right. Are everything new. Is old is new again. How do you do that. Yeah it's a flashback anyway. But we work what we shot down and 38 cents back. Yeah. What would they want. So that's high. Yes. A lot more than that. Well check out what's a lot higher this week. Extraordinary. The biggest move we've ever seen on a weekly basis the bring back commodity index since January 15th 1960 when this index goes back to in terms of data. We're up 13 percent over the course of five days. A meteoric rise. We talk inflationary pressures. What can the Fed do about it. How. Yeah. Well and this is really important. And we're all watching and I've heard Gina Martin Adams or Yolanda Charlotte give a talk about that. When oil starts to hit or when you go to the gas pump and you're paying five dollars a gallon you know. That's when consumers are going to start to really start thinking about how they're spending money and maybe pull back because they'll start to feel it in a big way. So much going on this week. We have job sanction and the filling in the grocery store to get no apps. And that's going to get worse. You got wheat prices up. Yeah. How much wheat prices up this week alone. How much. Sixty percent. Wow. Yes 50 percent. That's just in the U.S.. Even worse for European for the milled wheat out of Paris. Yeah. You start to make decisions. Right about where you're spending. All right. So a lot going on this week. And we had our Joe Matthew catching up on Bloomberg TV earlier with Cecilia Rouse the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. She talked a lot. Specifically though about sanctions the impact on the U.S.. Here's what she had to say. We're in a global economy and there may be some costs for Americans but we are focused on trying to impose sanctions that will be really targeted at Russia. And we will have to see we are working with partners and allies in terms and we're coordinating our response accordingly. But we know that there is some uncertainty as we go forward that the the the Russian economy is in shambles. And the question is how long will Putin continue this war. Well there you have it Cecilia Rouse share the White House Council of Economic Advisers talking about how Russian sanctions will affect the global economy. We talked about things being intertwined Romania. You talked about the decline that we're seeing in automobile stocks today and of course in travel stocks as well. When consumers are not just hit at the grocery store and hit the pump they pull back on spending in other areas. Yet when we start to see that pullback on spending and that's when companies really start to get concerned about the bottom line and absorbing costs but about the top line as well. Yeah. Anyway I should point out too that sentiment plays a big part in all this. And we've seen the Fed talk about this idea. People believe that things are bad or they believe that things are going to get worse and they adjust their habits accordingly. And that could actually have a bigger threat and maybe what shows up immediately in that headline. But what's stronger. Is it prices paying more or is it that I've got a job I am getting paid more like this is I feel like are you getting paid more than inflation. Well maybe not but I do. People really calculate it. We do because we talk about it incessantly and I get that. But does somebody else who you know Caroline they get a little bit of an increase. They feel like they've got more money to spend. I don't know. Well when we saw the flatlining of wage increases that jobs report almost overshadowed by the geopolitical politics of the day but extraordinary growth in jobs but not extrusion extraordinary growth in wage growth. What does that what does that mean is that people in the lower end of of the spectrum in terms of the amounts that they're paid and are not being able to increase their value so much. Or is it the people over any rushed back into the overall work employment system. Is this a sign of health or is this a sign of us rolling over a little bit. It was interesting that Karl Rick Adana could weigh in on this. We have a great terminal. It's hard. I know that. We'll tweet out later. That shows that Caroline Hyde majority of the influx that we've seen in jobs were from the lower end sort of service jobs. And that may be in part what is contributing to that flatline. Maybe it also provides a little bit of a relief from the Federal Reserve that we're not seeing massive spiral in wage inflation. Tim but certainly the long term trend is still higher. Yeah it's interesting. We had Becky Franco it's a manpower group on earlier in the program. And she said that the lack of wage growth that we saw today in the jobs report really just a blip. And she echoed similar comments that that Carl and Yolanda made earlier as well. Yeah. One month report. Let's keep that in mind. All right folks we're going to run. We'll continue this coverage. We're waiting for some comment from President Biden which we'll carry on radio and TV. But nonetheless we're going to come back in less than an hour and take you down to the closing bell on this Friday. Now we are going to go to President Biden. Moments ago he was meeting with the president of Finland. Let's just take a listen. Tack on the security Europe and the global peace and stability. And Finland is a critical partner in the United States a strong defense partner and well a partner to NATO especially in strengthening security in the Baltic Sea area. And we're committed to helping Ukraine defend itself and its support of humanitarian needs the Ukrainian people. And we're coordinating everything from sanctions to export controls and broader global issues of energy security climate. Human Rights Watch I thank you for making the trip Mr. President are a vital part of our race. The relationship is vitally important. The United States and I think you see it the same way. And this is another opportunity for us to further strengthen our relationship. So thank you for being here. Welcome to the Oval Office. The floor is yours. Thank you Mr. President. Thank you very much for the opportunity to have this discussion with you. We are really leaving very difficult times. I want to thank you also for the leadership you have showed. We need it now. Our thoughts today and ultimately are with the Ukrainian people who are fighting bravely. For their country. And we do our best to help them. Like you Mr. President said we have a long lasting partnership. Very good relations. And I hope that during this meeting a discussion we can strengthen them more between the United States and Finland and the Nordic countries. We'll look at it. Thank you Mr. President. Brazil my predecessor sat in his seat. President Obama used to say we'd be alright if we left everything to the Nordic countries. Be. Well we were sure they don't start wars. Well thank you very much. Thank you all for being. He was just listening there to the president of the United States Joe Biden alongside of course the president of Finland. They're a very key strategic partnership not only between the U.S. and Finland but of course Finland very exposed right now to what's going on with Russia and Ukraine. Of all the European nations out there the European Union nations Finland has the longest border with Russia. So a lot of talks here about their participation in NATO and of course the potential of any additional activity that that country may have to take to defend its borders. We're going to talk about this. We're gong to talk about some of the other issues moving the market right now. Let's bring in Alina Hernandez. She's a principal overage interest just about three billion dollars in assets under management. And Alina let's talk about market sentiment of volatility right now and how you sort of prepare yourself psychologically for what at least right now is unknown. But we do know that at least for the moment it's not good. Yeah definitely. I agree with you and with the comments that were done prior to President Biden just speaking in regards to your analysis through there. So obviously the volatility we've seen rain and that we probably will continue to see depending on how the conflict or the war in Russia Ukraine develops. I think the key here is to have had right. Have position yourself in a diversified portfolio because that's the way to navigate this. You know unforeseeable events raid as where we are. I think going forward we have to continue. And obviously this conflict has taken front and center for markets but we have to also continue not forgetting about the other risks that we're kind of behind the scenes and almost this has pressured even forward which are the big inflation risks that we still have. We continued seeding the data. Can you hold in some of those risks. Right. Rising inflation a Federal Reserve that needs to move. But also as you mentioned the role of diversification in a portfolio and needing full faith and credit may be in there. Yeah absolutely. I mean I think at the end of the day. Right. We we have an inflation problem. I think the market has started repricing right before the Russia Ukraine conflict. A little bit more of that you know inflationary pressure that we have seen because of structural factors changing race such of the globalization shrinking of the labor force. We could also include their the move to cleaner energy which now you know front and center again et cetera. Yeah. On that are you changing your perspective as on the transition on investments in if we're suddenly seeing these moves to push out Russian oil and the return focus on oil and gas. Yeah. No. We had incorporated batting portfolios or continue to hold them in portfolios could we do think. We saw the trend of course we couldn't foresee the Russia Ukraine conflict but you could see the trend towards cleaner energy. So we have kept it in portfolio you know alongside our kind of overweighting real assets and underweight in risk factors and lower duration in portfolios that we went into this crisis with. When you talk about real assets you're talking about hard commodities you're talking about real estate. What are you talking about. We're talking about all of the above. Romain thanks for clarifying that. So everything from agricultural metals mining and also some real estate et cetera. Again we put it in portfolios in the premise of rising inflation environment. We feel even though I think you will. I myself everybody is talking about inflation more and more steel five year five year forward inflation expectations are trading up to 20 area. We're hoping that most closer to the 3 percent area. So that's how we went into this crisis with and obviously this crisis just elevates although things slipped inflationary pressures further. We'll have to see more detail on what the administration wants to do regarding this talk about potentially banning you know Russian oil imports. But but you know in whatever way like you mentioned romaine wheat prices you know all these agricultural and other prices are rising just because of all the issues that David brings to the table further. Certainly say though that given the big increase we're noticing energy up 34 percent now for the year that it feels too late to get in. How are you telling clients about timing versus time in the market. Sure. We usually and that's a good clarification. Taylor we usually tell clients it's very hard to predict timing but timing the market obviously pays off again. We position these portfolios ahead. We are monitoring the situation. If anything changes drastically of course we'll make the appropriate changes. But we're not kind of picking and moving especially with the volatility that we have seen. And we might see ahead depending on what happens and what's announced and how this sad conflict develops. Well certainly hedging. From your perspective is that just something you get through diversification. Is it something you will actively trying to find new ports of call for. Yeah I think you can really try to get ahead of this markets right. Specially with the volatility. I think that's something that you absolutely always do with diversification and positioning your portfolio to navigate different market scenarios. That's what we have done it for all these four years and we continue to encourage clients and investors to do that. It's always great to catch up with you. Been too long. Happy we can stay. Well Linda Hernandez. Oh Jen Trust. Meanwhile it's time to talk about hedging a little bit particularly with this volatility. Just about 40 minutes to go until that all important closing bell. And in a moment we're going to be of course speaking a little bit more in terms of Abigail Doolittle was focus similarities of 2022 to 2008. Let's talk options. Yes indeed. Caroline Beats Chris Murphy of Susquehanna. And I have earlier this year in January we're talking about how this year reminded both of us of 2008 in terms of the tremendous volatility. And really it started last year with the higher lows and the VIX suggesting that those vol buyers were becoming a little bit more anxious. Chris what do you think of this theme right now. Do you think that we're going to continue to see volatility. And do you see reason to think that march could be a little bit easier. Because March actually in 2008 was an up month. Abigail how are you doing. Yeah we are continuing to see that. I mean you can slice it in a lot of different ways. One thing that we've seen. If you think back to on last Thursday when the market had that giant reversal from being down in the Nasdaq more than 3 percent to being up more than 3 percent. And that was great. It was good to to to to rally off the lows and closed higher. That certainly feels better than closing on the lows. But we went back and we looked when is this happened historically. And 2008 was popping up for us. You know those kind of major volatile reversals seem to cluster around time periods like the great financial crisis not necessarily towards the end of 2009 but during it. So you know we are seeing and then falling on Friday the big 97 percent of the S & P up on the day. That's pretty rare as well. When you look back that seems to come more in times of extreme more market stress more of a symptom of volatility than necessarily a bottoming sign. So those were just two of the similarities but there's a lot of them. Yeah volatility uncertainty confusion. So many different factors that investors have to take a look at in terms of vol indications that you're making an interesting point and one that we're actually looking at yesterday right here on Options Insight which is the idea that the VIX or the VIX for the VIX it's relatively subdued to the VIX. So do you think of the VIX follows the VIX higher or do you think that the VIX there's a chance that it goes back below that 30 and maybe towards 20 or somewhere at some level lower. Yeah it is interesting we haven't pointing that out as well. The VIX has been has not really moved up with the VIX this and this most recent move higher. I'd also point out that the VIX intraday highs have been lower and lower as well. So that could be a sign I would think of. The VIX is more of a leading indicator. Another two leading indicators the VIX that's the NASDAQ fixed and the RTX. That's the Russell IBEX. Those are also a bit more subdued compared to the VIX as well. Those all could be pointing towards you know the volatility has worked its way through the higher beta sectors through the VIX options and now it's finally working its way through the S & P options. You know troughs in the VIX of the VIX VIX and RTX VIX ratios can mark a bottom as well. So I think that is a good point. So any chance that March came in like a lion and it certainly has come in like a lion but that it could go out like a lamb. You know another parallel would be two thousand and 18. If you remember we had that kind of Fed induced pull off before the markets bounce for a little bit and ultimately rolling over again on growth concerns. So that would line up with that timing. You know maybe the Russia situation dying down. U.S. economic numbers have been still pretty strong. Not pointing towards recession. March overhang passing. Those could all come together to to have a bounce. You know I'm not sure that's going to be the bottom. But certainly were lining up for a potential balance. This sentiment is so poor right now. Yeah sentiment is very poor. It'll be interesting to see if there's some sort of a reversal or consolidation of these massive moves across the different asset classes. Chris Murphy thanks so much as always for joining us on Options Insight to talk all things volatility. Caroline back to you. Miguel thank you. Let's check in on that sentiment. Remain S & P 500 off by one point three percent. Nasdaq down by 2 percent at the moment. And the euro just obliterated this week. Yeah well we're down to 1 2 8 1 0 9 right now here. Interesting too. We're going to talk a lot about of course the moves that we saw on commodities because that feeds right through into the affects market here all around. This is basically Rascoff. I mean we sometimes heard that phrase around I think maybe a little too loosely. That's clearly what we saw this week. You really see it when on days like today strong jobs number inflation front and center and full faith and credit even dollar big dollar strength relative to euro weakness really highlights sort of that risk off tone. Used to what you were looking at the two year yield as well. I mean just the. What are the size and scope of those moves. Is this the biggest weekly drop in to your yields that we've had since March of 2020. I mean that is that's big. Yeah. I mean there's a lot of superlatives entered what Abigail was talking about too. And options inside is really the volatility that we've seen really does harken back to the financial crisis here definitely in commodities. And I think we've had the wider swings in oil since 2008 at the peak of the financial crisis. And even in some of the other areas I have some good size and scope for you. The biggest daily increase in the cost of gallon of regular gasoline since September of 2005. History lessons upon us as bring back. We are getting comments of course from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen talking a lot about you know sort of acting further if Russia further invades Ukraine. Speaking a lot about any tools of course that we have here in the US some of the tools as well has been a lot of the energy markets. We have been hearing from the White House that they are potentially looking into banning that. We did hear of course from the U.S. deputy secretary of treasury while the audio talking a lot about the invasion. He spoke earlier to Bloomberg. Take a listen. We are sanctions on the financial industry that we can continue to deploy sanctions on their defense industry. We can continue to deploy it. We have a number of options that we can do that will allow us to meet the president's objective which is maximizing the costs on Russia and reducing the cost of the United States and on Europe. Our goal is to make sure the energy market remains well supplied because that's important to the American people. But by making sure that energy prices stay low it stars President Putin that the resources he needs to continue to fight the war in Ukraine and also to destabilize the region. Mr. Secretary how important is it to then get more production domestically to encourage the domestic oil and shale producers to actually increase output to create a buffer to give you more tools. What I can say is that the most important thing to do is make sure that the market today is well supplied. And we're doing that in the United States. We're also doing that with our allies and part. Mr. Secretary forgive me. Let's go back to the question. Are you reaching out to domestic suppliers of crude in America. Have you spoken to them. Devon Energy said to us this week the CEO was mystified that you haven't reached out to boost production at home. Have you done that. Have you spoken to domestic suppliers. So as you know well the domestic supply of crude right now is at a peak and that it will take time for more supply to come online. We're focused on making sure that the energy markets are well supplied today because we want to make sure our costs are reduced for American people today. And we're depriving President Putin of the resources it needs to fight the war today. Overtime we need to do more to make sure that the energy market as well supply. And we're also focused on that as well. You separate a peak at eleven point six million barrels of oil a day back at the start of 2020 north of 13. Just looking at that of the Bloomberg terminal. What what you mean we're at a peak. My point is that at the moment we are producing a great deal of energy in this country. It will take time for additional energy to come online. We want to make sure as that as it takes as that energy comes online we're well supplied today because we want to make sure that Americans who are going to the pump today are paying the lowest possible cost. While the of there U.S. deputy secretary of the treasury here in the US talking about the sanctions imposed now and any potential sanctions going forward of course we have to talk a lot about I guess quote unquote shadow sanctions a lot of corporations going out on their own to restrict their operations in Russia. LVMH of course the owner of the Louis Vuitton Christian Dior and Don Berry on brands said is now going to suspend its retail operations temporarily in Russia. That's a big deal. A big deal because thus far we've seen the luxury players actually not make a comment about whether they be doing in terms of their opening. In Russia. We had of course had that great story from Flavia Rotunda over in Italy interviewing the Bogart's CEO who said look we're not political Russia. We're that for the Russian people not for the political world. He said they weren't shutting. But now LVMH the parent company taking a stand. A lot of companies coming out mostly on either side remain bombarded. Also suspending activities. The most crucial moments in the trading day. This is Bloomberg Markets the close with Caroline Hyde Romaine Bostick Ken Taylor Ray. Less than 30 minutes go until this market closes and the risk off Tony continues here Taylor as we get closer to the closing continues for the day and it continues for the week as well. Take a look at where we are on some of the sector level as well. And it doesn't look great with still technology financials at the bottom of the screen you would typically see that at least within the financials off about two point seven percent when yields in that yield curve continues to flatten up on the top of the screen remain unbelievable energy. It's up two point seven percent for the day. For the year. Thirty four percent. Yeah. Well best performer in the S & P 500 this week is Occidental Petroleum second best performer that belongs to Kroger. In fact Rover having its best weekly gain going back to 1988. Shares up six and a half percent just on this day alone. Third biggest performance. That's a B 500 mosaic. The fertilizer maker having its best day are going back to mid 2020. Shares higher by about 7 percent your highest level that we've seen going back to 2013. Remember there was a news out of Russia saying that Vladimir Putin was prepared to order a halt in exports of all fertilizers. You're seeing mosaic nutrients and all the fertilizer makers worldwide rally on this idea that prices are going to move higher. Meanwhile American Airlines having one of its worst weeks going back to mid 2020 down 8 percent today still. And a similar story one sound like a broken record probably one of the worst weeks we've seen. A scientist going back to March of 20 20 shares down 9 percent just on this day along the sizes the scopes the 1980 best performance of progress. Extraordinary. And I bring you another extraordinary chart remain because this is Europe on the week Guy Johnson did a beautiful summation at the close of just how ugly it was. Look autos of 18 percent over the course of five days banks of 16 percent over the course of five days. The only area of green of course is going to be a mine is of course it's going to be those that are impacted by the increasing cost of commodities and the fact that some of these miners that are bringing out the aluminium in this while bringing out some of those metals that are at record highs are going to benefit. But absolutely nothing else is. In fact even your energy providers in Europe are on the downside just tale of woe in terms of the economic repercussions of the investing repercussions a 7 percent drop. And of course this is not even factoring in the fact that the euro is down so hard to Taylor. Certainly Caroline. And when you think about size and scope and it's sort of the huge moves that we've seen it also doesn't even begin to discuss some of the latest scoops that we've had here at Bloomberg. When you think about the oil markets the ramifications on the oil markets we are now hearing of course that the Biden administration is weighing a ban on U.S. imports of Russian crude oil. This of course all amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Joining us now Stephen Schork principal of the Schork Group a provider of price range forecasting and analysis on the energy industry. Stephen I think what's interesting is people have said look it's only 3 percent of imports anyways but 3 percent is. While that's still money right. Going to Russia on the margin what does 3 percent or whenever the general ranges of U.S. imports from Russian oil. What does that do on the margin if indeed that is cut out. Yeah absolutely. We're talking about still 3 percent but it's still a significant amount of oil that is coming in. More importantly Russian petroleum products are crude oil and petroleum products are imports. Last year jumped 24 percent of Russian oil and gasoline and so forth coming the United States to a record 245 million barrels. So last year the United States imported a quarter billion barrels of Russian crude oil and petroleum products. Now of course without pricing. And without money going into the Russian war chest we have the situation that we have now. What does this mean for the consumer. Obviously it means extremely higher prices from here with the way Brooke. Brent crude oil is trading at this point right around one hundred and eighteen dollars a barrel by the end of next week. There's a statistical probability we could be as high as 160 dollars a barrel if the situation in Ukraine gets any worse. Stephen from a market perspective do you think that there's anything that the Biden administration or the government in general can do at this stage that would I guess temper some of the pain that Americans would feel from a move like this. The biggest move would be the change the rhetoric with regard to domestic oil and gas production in the president's State of the Union address. He talked a lot about renewables and that's certainly not going to answer the question especially in the short term. But in that one hour long speech 7000 words he did not mention domestic oil and gas production once and still in follow up questions over the days pass. There are still not addressing this issue. So throw out an olive branch to domestic production and try and get domestic production from where it is now eleven point five million barrels a day of crude oil to where it was pre Covid thirteen point one million barrels a day. That is the quickest short term response that. Government can do. The only response the government could do that would have an impact. Okay. Interesting. What about the refining of that and some of the infrastructure that goes around. How realistic is it that we can start making that an efficient use of oil. Well it certainly was prior I up through 2019 when we were rising and we had a meteoric rise in crude oil production beginning in 2019 and through 2020 and through through the start of the Covid mitigation protocols. So the capacity certainly is there. The concern now of course is that perhaps pent up demand will even exceed what's been demonstrated capacity to the market. That is to say the Covid mandates have essentially gone away. So you're going to see a tremendous amount of demand. Once the weather warms the travel season begins. Demand for gasoline begins. We've already have gasoline that's trading well exceeding retail gasoline. That's upwards of three dollars and 73 cents. If prices remain crude oil prices remain this high. National average is going to be pushing up for dollars going through the summer. Then add another 30 cents to that because in the summer the market has to be supplied with some great gasoline which is a blended gasoline which is more expensive the more expensive gasoline. Greater demand. We're looking at higher prices not lower prices in the months ahead. Is the capacity there though. I mean I was looking at at some of the capacity data we have in the Bloomberg terminal earlier this week and it looked like generally we're running cut in the high 70s in terms of our current capacity utilization here. If that is where we stand at the moment here where does I guess an extra 20 percent capacity get us with regards to keeping prices in check. Yes. So with capacity now we're in what's called the turnaround season. So this is the maintenance season. So this is the time that the refiners ramp down production. They go ahead they refuel they retool and so forth. But in the months ahead that capacity utilization rate will go up and we've seen it as high as 95 percent. So right now we we are at a seasonal low. And you go into a seasonal love as far as manufacturing oil because demand is at a seasonal low. But as we both go. Go ahead. Once we get in and the refiners have to start buying more crude oil to run that to ramp up that capacity into the 90 90 percent range that's a lot more demand that's going to be coming to the market as we approach the Fourth of July holiday. Are there strategic petroleum reserve releases doing anything on the margin. No. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve never did anything and because it was never designed do anything. This was a pure gimmick. The S P R was not designed to manipulate gasoline prices. It was created after the 1974 Arab oil embargo. In all it is meant to do is to supply the market. When there was a temporary disruption to the flow of oil. So when we had the release in in November it had no impact. In fact crude oil prices have nearly doubled since November. And the latest SPRO release will do absolutely nothing. We're talking a day and a half's worth of U.S. crude oil demand. It is just a meaningless prospect that we're we're selling oil into the market. Hey you were getting a great price for it. But that oil is going to have to be replaced at some point. So no it's had anything it's had a detrimental effect on pricing action. All right. Stephen great insights. Great to catch up with you. Stephen short of the short group up. Ryan a little bit of insights here. Of course looking at a WTI sitting at 115 you're paying a 353 for gas in the futures market. And I guess at the pump on average three eighty three are actually and those based on prices from yesterday guys we're approaching four dollars off a gallon here in the U.S. Would you be the first time we've hit four dollars on average. Going back to guess when 2008. Have you not told me about backwardation yet today. How many how many was that. It was a record amount of backwardation in commodities and CARNEY I think Dan Curtis 21 and 28 contracts in backwardation with the sector breakdown at the moment. Yeah. So as of right now we're looking at just major disruptions right now in the market. We are counting down to the closing bell is 18 minutes away on this Friday afternoon. We'll be back in a moment. This is Boomer. NASDAQ your underperformer of choice in the benchmarks today down by 2 percent off by 3 percent on the week volume spike higher remain. But look at it all country world index I mean off by one point nine percent. Yeah. Yeah. Glad you bring it out because this really is a global sell off. You saw the huge drop of Dow Jones stocks 600 early today and emerging markets also on the back foot and the ramifications of huge dollar strength. We've talked about euro weakness dollar strength now since July 20 20. This is coming on to the close of Caroline Hyde. I'm Taylor Riggs and I'm Romaine Bostick and we're looking at a week that is hard to surmise. A wild week for many a humanitarian crisis that we continue to see unfold war. As we head towards this weekend and the volatility it brings to the markets. The ups and the downs the sudden push higher is of course on Wednesday we will focused on the Federal Reserve on Jay Powell on the 25 basis points and then suddenly back down as we become more risk averse to mete out the week to June of losses about 3 percent on the Nasdaq which is your white line. Yeah. And we talk about I guess aware money has moved. You've seen money move into energy and utilities energy sector higher on the day by about two and a half percent. That's true. Gainer of course on a weekly basis as well up about 9 percent on the week. You're still seeing a lot of movement into railroad stocks like CSX and UNFPA. The idea Union Pacific. The idea here that with some of the supply chain disruptions that this could actually benefit railroads. I'm not exactly sure how that works if we can't get stuff from overseas. But nevertheless that's the bet that some traders are making. Bank stocks continue to be on the back foot as yields are just all over the place. And of course concerns as well about exposure to Russia exposure to just the cut off of certain payment systems here and just governments consumer discretionary stocks also on the back foot down 2 percent as a group. Joining us of course do some pride Glenn Mehta Private Wealth CIO. Jason I think the big question that we've been asking everyone today is what do you do with higher inflation on the horizon and yet maybe slowing growth and really unknown geopolitical ramifications that maybe we haven't even seen the worst of. I think there's a couple of things that you have to take into account here and try to figure out. Number one is if you go back and look at past geopolitical events the question the key question to be asking is whether this one precipitates a recession or whether it ends up being something that causes a lot of fear and panic at the moment and transitions into a non recessionary event if it ends up being a non recessionary event. Then one thing you generally want to be doing is thinking about at what point in time you actually stage into this market. Now having said that we're not there yet. We haven't seen fully seen the way of the ISE. We're still seeing the fear kind of creep in incrementally off and on again through this period. So we think we need to be patient buyers at this point in time. What you also need to do is you need to recognize that when you're when you're dealing with geopolitical events one of the best things to do is figure out ways to economically insulate your portfolio against it without necessarily taking a lot of risk off the tank somehow. Talk to us about that insulation. Talk about the hedging. Sure. Sure. So one thing that you can do is just think about your geographic exposure. Right. Europe is closest to the issue. Obviously Russia is very central to the issue. Russia is by far the dam down the most. Now now now hold to this point time yet to reopen. Europe is down the most of the big major regions. Right. The places that are more safe havens not to say they're complete safe havens but they're doing better than than what you see European markets do. Are things like Japan. I am Asia and even the US. And then perhaps another way that you can think about in terms of your risk asset bucket. This is one of the ways we're dealing with it is you look at real estate you know real estate. This is this is a above average inflationary environment. Real estate by itself is a store of value. And in some way you're getting rental income very unconnected from your typical supply chain concerns you have surrounding this environment and therefore theoretically economically insulated and showing that it has better returns to this period better downside protection during this period than than broad equity index. Did you anticipate though that there could be a splintering off here with regards of the economic synchronicity that we started to see at least prior to the war in Ukraine and that that could up in some of the I guess some of the strategies that a lot of investors had laid out just a couple of months ago. So I would love to say that we had a perfect game. Just patient. There's absolutely not. No. Nobody can really arguably predict geopolitical events with any sort of certainty. They're going to pretend that they can't but they absolutely can't. Cannot. One thing that we did do is we basically realize that as this was starting to unfold we looked at our portfolios look to our recommendations. We were already sitting overweight Japan. We were already sitting overweight real estate for other reasons. And we thought through the scenario and said well actually this makes a lot of sense to sexually provide some kind of natural hedging in our portfolio and allows us the opportunity to stay with or or longer term investment themes a little bit longer without having to make the on again off again uncertain call of geopolitical events which we still think nobody has a true information in advance to be able to predict coming into this. And as we think about a Federal Reserve that's getting ready to act. The path forward was almost a consensus yield higher and then geopolitical events happened in the last 10 days and we're reminded of the volatility and the safe haven that full faith and credit provides. How do you think about the role of bonds in a portfolio if the path indeed is yields higher. So I think number one you need to take into account is is the Fed is not like operating in a zone by itself. In fact I think Fed Chairman Paul's commentary this week basically represents that they need to increase rates because of where inflation sits because there is a certain amount of that inflation has actually come from their actions and overstimulating the economy driving consumers to buy more goods and that actually prompting prices to rise. Some of it though is due to higher energy prices and supply chain constraints are completely outside of their control. And now with a with a Russian Ukraine conflict on the horizon they're going to step back and say you know we don't need to be an added factor shocking the markets. So instead what we'll do is we'll settle on a more conservative path for raising rates to get to our ultimate goal but not do this 50 basis point hit on one meeting or inter meeting rate hikes that would cause the market a little bit more panic. You can expect them to be raising rates but doing so slowly. And bonds were never a big recommendation of ours given just low yields from a return perspective. Jason I'm a clown. I'm calling up and I say I want to pay my mom. I want in cash. What do you say. Well I think one thing is to make sure that that client originally has the right allocation for them geared so they can. Whether. Through any sort of major downturn if that for some reason or another perhaps because you other brand new client that hasn't properly rebalance the portfolio yet you evaluate that situation make sure that they have the staying power to make it through it. That requires some cash and fixed income within portfolios to be able to do that. But if not then the typical approaches is going to be to sit down with them and walk through the reasoning of how much cash how much fixed income is they are sitting on available to them to tap into to pay for their current spending habits to allow them and buy them time. Until that point in time when equities do come back and we know even from the worst geopolitical conflicts economics and markets do eventually come back. Jason great to have some time with you stay well. Have a good weekend. Jason Pride. I mean private wealth CIO meanwhile I mean I'm sure this week you haven't known whether to get into cash or not. The spikes higher than the pullback lower remain. Well it's going to be interesting to see some of the outflows. I mean we had some of the data through Wednesday which showed a lot of money moving into a lot of those money market instruments and more importantly out of equities into some of those bond like investments. We're going to count down to the close here keeping an eye on what's going on in the equity market. We're off the lows of the day. We're going to the bell and be on. Beyond the Bill Bloomberg's comprehensive cross platform coverage of the U.S. market includes starts right now. Right now we are two minutes away from the end of the trading day. Romaine Bostick Caroline Hyde Taylor Riggs Countdown to the closing bell. Here to help take us beyond the bell it's our global sample gas partners. Carol Massar a.m. it back. We welcome in our audiences across Bloomberg Television Radio and YouTube appear on another wild week a week of volatility not only in equities but of course in every other asset class out there. Yeah absolutely. And I've been watching just a few minutes ago watching the uptick in to the close. We are still in the red across the board. We know it's going to be a down week for equities but nonetheless to see that we are seeing investors come in and doing some buying time in these last few minutes of trading. Yeah not doing much buying in bitcoin though. Down 6 percent. Romain you said sentiment down across the board certainly hitting bitcoin today actually moving with equities like it did yesterday. What do you want to be exposed to heading into this weekend. Commodities are going to be exposed to outside. All right. Well commodities right now of course are setting up for what they're going to be a lot of superlatives here. You've got WTI at 115 bucks a barrel. Most of the soft commodities if they're not at record highs they're at multi decade. ISE aluminum nickel palladium also hit flirting right now with record highs. I think you bring up a good point. A lot of analysts have said it's tough being long into the weekend when geopolitical events clearly can take a turn when markets are closed. You think about sort of the moves that we've also seen. We've been highlighting this superlative on the two year yield now looking at its biggest weekly drop since March of 2020 and Romania as you've been all over crude. Now having the best weekly gain ever on record ever. It is just unbelievable. And we should point out a lot of the volatility metrics at least for commodities now are basically the most severe that we've seen. Believe it or not since 2008 it's hard to believe but that's what Bloomberg data shows. Here we are getting the closing bell here on this Friday afternoon capping another down week here. The Dow Jones Industrial Average down about five tenths of a percent here on the day. Go on to finish the week down by a percent. Similar story for the S & P down eight tenths of a percent down one point three on the week. The NASDAQ composite down one point six six percent right now on the day down almost 3 percent on the week. Let's take a look at the Russell 2000 which is going to slide here by about one and a half percent right now on the day down more than 2 percent on the week. We should point out bank stocks as a group down 8 percent and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down 6 percent on a weekly basis Carol. Yeah. And that's what I'm looking at is some of those weekly moves right. Energy at the top of the list. We understand why. Financials at the bottom. We understand that. Why certainly to Taylor as yields have moved down. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about that yield story. Carol of course front and center is energy which just continues to be amazing when you think about a sector that's up 34 percent on the earth. Certainly some would say no signs of slowing. The energy index again up two point seven percent on the day yields Carol is where the story really gets interesting. Utilities are also up about one point seven percent. Typically they benefit when yields climb. You're also getting transportation. You're thinking about higher logistical costs and higher input costs. The transportation companies along with maybe some of the food and beverage companies are those that are some of the big green on the screen at least for today. Let's go to the bottom of the screen for the radio audience as we do Carol. And it is while frankly some red and it is classic risk off its autos its software its technology its banks and semiconductors those are sort of the areas where investors want to get out of at least for today. You're off as much as 4 percent. All right. Want to talk about some of the gainers in today's session. What was an overall downward market. Kroger up another 7 percent after about a 12 percent gain yesterday. It is up more than 30 percent in the past six trading days hitting an all time high. And we know what's going on. The company unveiling a profit forecast that signaled more gains to come on top of what we've seen. A two year surge as Americans during the pandemic have been big time buying groceries and it looks like it's going to come. We also saw some price target moves to the upside by BMO Capital. It tells the advisory in Barclays. Broadcom on I mentioned we talked about the earnings after the close yesterday. It did rally today up about 3 percent. Analysts really impressed by the guidance and really putting that out there. Some positive comments and do want to mention Sweet Green courtesy of my co-host Tim Steinbeck. That stock was up 25 percent rallying big time after the fourth quarter in 2022. Revenue forecast beat street estimates. So Americans are apparently eating salads or at least investors upbeat about what the company had to say. Keep in mind it's still off about 50 percent from that November 2021 high. Hi. Yeah I know that you guys have this sweet green CEO on TV in just a few minutes. So looking forward to that interview. As far as DAX Decliners go. Among the notable ones there were many to choose from today PBF Peavey H. Corp the parent company of Calvin Klein Tommy Hilfiger and more. We saw demand concerns emerge today inflationary concerns sentiment concerns really hitting the apparel sector today. PVH falling the most since. April of 2020 United Airlines finishing the day down by 9 percent. Ramon you talked about the increase in spot. Jet fuel prices up double digits this week up more than 50 percent so far this year. Airlines certainly got hit hard today. There's also the inflationary concern. People are paying more for food and for gas than are they going to spend as much on air travel. And certainly how is that going to hit margins too for these companies. And then Bumble I wanted to hit this one again yesterday. Today it was yesterday one of my decliners falling nearly 16 percent. Concerns still over its exposure to Russia not just due to the business that it has with Baidu but also employees and engineers that it has bumble hitting another record low today down another 7 percent. We just mentioned to I mean there was a big announcement by S & P Dow Jones that basically all of the Russian stocks the ones that are either domiciled in Russia or listen to Russia that are also listed in the U.S. of course they're going to be taken out of the indices effectively suspended. Most of those shares were halted today. But the damage on a lot of those names is done. Let's talk about exposure to Russia and let's look at the cross asset move that's happened because the euro we are starting to talk about parity for the euro at the moment. We haven't seen that sort of discourse in decades. Euro 120 down one point. That's pretty amazing right. I mean we're a spot 1 spot 0 9. We're now talking. This could go flat with the U.S. dollar went off by one point two percent Carol. The moves in European stocks the pain that we see across the financial sector that impacting on the effects it's based on the most liquid short is what people are now saying. And that is why you're seeing such an offensive against the euro. You're also seeing of course strength in the U.S. dollar. People wanting to get in there as the jobs start to look strong as we look towards the Federal Reserve. And you want to be long commodity exposed currencies into this weekend many going long Aussie dollar versus euro many getting into the Kiwi. I'm looking at that up nine tenths of a percent. And let's go across the commodities because just extraordinary moves. I'm looking at Brent crude up seven thousand one hundred eighteen dollars a barrel for Brent crude. Using gas will push higher. Talking about how it's affecting airlines and the like are heating bills WTI crude at 7 percent 115. But this isn't a metals story. This is aluminium near record highs. Steel at one point six percent on or up more than 2 percent. This is inflation we had when when you see it across agricultural products as well. Wheat at 2014 highs. Of course impacting mainly Middle East rather than here in the U.S. but it will be felt at home. And I'm looking also at a search for safety. We've been on again off again in terms of this bond trade today very much on yields just plummeting in Germany up by 13 basis points in Norway off by 10 basis points here in Canada off by 12 basis points. And Taylor. I know you have the U.S. picture. And you know Carol it is pretty incredible when you get a huge jobs day like today inflationary numbers on a CPI print for next Thursday that increasingly continued to be revised higher. And yet bond yields are rallying on the day because everyone all the analysts notes I read said everyone is shrugging off the jobs data. It is all about these geopolitical events. That is what is front and center. You've a two year yield now below 150 at a one forty eight and a 10 year yield that we've migrated north and 2 percent just two weeks ago where all the way back down to a 174 really coming down 10 basis points on the day. And I think what is so fascinating is when you think look at all the estimates for CPI as we push forward next week they're accelerating on at least headline inflation on a month over month. It's not slowing from last month. So we'll see whether or not investors pay attention to it. I'm glad you took us to other data points. Next week CPI is a big one and this is going to come. What is it a few days or a week before we've got the Fed meeting for March. So we'll see how the Fed reads into that. But you know I mean you talk about consumer sentiment. We'll get a read on that. We'll get the JOLTS survey. That is also a sign of how much strength that workers feel about leaving their jobs because they can find better ones elsewhere. How much will we pay attention to that if the war in Ukraine continues. Yeah. And I think right now you have to now even look even a little bit further afield to that Fed meeting. You have to wonder what's the decision process going to be. Is it tamp down inflation or protect economic growth. Can you do both with monetary policy change at this stage. Well the inflation story I think has really shifted in recent days. And it went from 1 4 months that policymakers talked about being you know a supply demand shock to the economy. Right. That idea of stimulus actually getting people to go out and buy different things supply chain issues. Well now it's one of supply of supply shock as well. If you think about what we've seen with wheat prices and the fact that we we could actually be cutting off Russian oil coming to the U.S. what is transitory. We had on a long I've already Bloomberg Economics saying what is one hundred and twenty dollars oil actually. Can you look through that. Europe's going to many feeling that the ECB is going to protect the growth story rather than fight the inflation story where they have gas prices up 20 percent on the day when they have gas prices up 100 percent on the week. That's real. DAX are Doug yoga I should say. Of course our capital partners said we are back at pre pandemic valuations of the S & P and yet earnings growth rate is stronger than it was pre pandemics. Who do we at some point go back. You know fundamentals guys or when can we get there. I don't know. Well we're not there yet. Just yet. We're not. We're not. All right. Have a good weekend. It's going to probably be another heavy one. Everybody stay safe. All right. That's going to do it for our cross platform coverage. We are on radio. We are on YouTube. We are on television. We will see you again Monday. Same time same place. Meanwhile more markets coverage coming up right here. Well we're going to be talking a little bit more about oil for you because it's just been extraordinary in loose change. Lucy is coming with us Capital Alpha Partners managing director. You don't want to miss it. This is Bring Back. Investors once again cautious. Into this weekend we watch and we wait and we look on the war in Europe. We look at eight tenths percent lower on the S & P 500. We saw a little bit of algorithm buying towards the end of trade but really this was a down day and big tax felt the brunt of it down by one point seven percent. The small caps also feeling lower. We're at the lowest level in a year on the old country world index. So global stocks feeling the pain. Europe having its worst week since March 2020 in terms of stocks. And when you look at effects euro off by one and a quarter percent you're now seeing it trading at 1 dollar 0 9. That is basically people talking about parity level the most liquid short. We're looking at the British pound off by eight tenths of a percent. Even though we're still looking at the Bank of England maybe hiking we're looking at a story of the dollar strength. Dollar index pushes higher by 5 10 percent. Money moves into bonds just finding a haven today in Europe and in the US. And you're looking at commodities just on a tear. This is a story we wanted to paint because the Bloomberg Commodities Edge DAX the story of the week because we have never seen such a move 13 percent higher the biggest weekly move we've seen on record since going back to 1960. Taylor. Let's stick with commodities Caroline Bloomberg of course learning in just the last few hours that the Biden administration is weighing a ban on U.S. imports of Russian crude oil. To discuss the potential impact we want to bring in James Lewis the capital Alpha Partners of course managing director there. He leads analysis of energy and climate policies in Washington. I think what was interesting about your note is I received it and saw that you're actually putting odds on it about 70 percent odds now that Congress will suspend Russian crude oil. What there were the political ramifications that you see with this. Well first things say this is virtually a done deal in the sense that we are already seeing a virtually U.S. embargo on shipments of Russian that then certainly not taking off from tankers. We have a virtual embargo on wheat exports right now. But the key thing to realize about Congress is that they are in a bidding war. They are in competition to see which members of Congress to be most aggressively contain Russia. This is an unstoppable force. The administration is very easy not to get this. They'll work instead of trying to stand the front of it. And it looks like they are trying to just join the train by the end of the day. Yeah and it looks like they're definitely being nudged in that direction. James I am curious the other direction that some members of Congress also are trying to nudge. Other administration is to actually expand or at least drop some of its restrictions on oil drilling to allow if not temporarily maybe even permanently an expansion of drilling here in the United States. Well that's true. The conflict in the Ukraine has overshadowed much which have to be in Washington. But what we're seeing is a very early and very intense vision of the competition between the domestic energy transition agenda which is ultimately to phase out oil production to phase out gas production to phase out LNG exports. And at the same time to use LNG exports and to see the real exports suspicious luggage. The two were in conflict. We saw that in the Senate Energy Committee this month. And it's going to get worse from there. Absolutely. Plus the sanctions bill that's so cute. Must pass bills and sanctions have passed bills in Congress that are moving like a freight thing. This is going to turn into this mystery just about everything. Whether or not deal related provisions get good on it it's going to carry a number of things I would suspect. James. Can you talk about the impact of all of this on Europe. Because we know that the U.S. is that willing able potentially to draw more oil out. Shale comes to the rescue but Europe doesn't have that sort of luxury when it comes to gas when it comes to oil at the moment. And how much is there any sort of support system that the U.S. can provide that. Well I think having a long term livability to supply helps for that. That supply comes from the U.S. although it's the other or else frankly Europe is moving to develop some of its infrastructure. The German move on LNG imports terminals was there and also Russian gas is not really to to European supply. So you know over time markets can send signals to suppliers encouraging supply. And that's really where it is right now. I mean obviously Europe pumps produce much more gas than they do now. And you know they may have to revisit that. But I suspect that this would have to double down on the energy transition and also position by the supply stations do what they can to increase infrastructure and to rationalize its full segments in European gas markets. James great to have some time with you. Thank you. Have a good weekend. James Music Capital Alpha Partners managing director. Now we want to keep you up to date with the news from around the world. So his best work for Mark Crumpton. Caroline thank you very much. Russian President Vladimir Putin is being denounced for what's being called recklessness after Ukraine sent Russian forces had attacked a nuclear power plant. That as Kiev said it is still warding off a potential landing of Russian assault troops near the Black Sea city of Odessa. Ukraine's defense minister says their navy had sunk its own flagship to avoid possible capture. A top Russian diplomat insisted today that his country will not occupy Ukraine. The goal was very clear day not a vacation and demilitarisation. That according to Gennady Gatto off Russia's ambassador in Geneva. He said of the invasion it was a special military operation. And U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met in Brussels today with European foreign ministers where he again strongly criticized the war. It's also about an assault on some very basic principles that we established together. After two world wars to make sure that we wouldn't see another one. Principles that are the heart of an international system that has a responsibility to preserve peace and security among nations. From Brussels America's top diplomat will travel to Moldova Poland and Baltic states to express American support for the countries in proximity to Russia's military. Here in the United States the University of California at Berkeley is set to slash student enrollment after the state Supreme Court refused to grant the school's request to pause a lower court order that capped student enrollment. A neighborhood advocacy group had claimed a growing student population was fueling housing issues including low income tenants being pushed out globalise 24 hours a day on air and on Bloomberg Quicktake powered by more than twenty seven hundred journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. I'm Mark Crumpton. This is Bloomberg. Big rally today for shares of Sweet Green. This is after the salad chain's revenue outlook for 2022 came in ahead of estimates fourth quarter revenue was up 63 percent as well compared to a year ago. This was of course the company's first report since going public back in November. Pleased to say that the CEO of Sweet Green Jonathan Neiman joins us now. And Jonathan I am curious on our side of things. You've been hearing a lot about food inflation. Consumers really has often given high prices of food that are coming our way and that we're all seeing and feeling it. But your revenue suggests that customers are still buying and they are still buying a lot of salad. Well first of all thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you. In terms of inflation it's definitely something that the whole industry is seeing and really the whole world. You know we see inflation to major places one from a wage perspective for us it's very important to pay competitive wages to our members. They really are the ones that bring the sweet green vision and mission to life. So you know we've definitely seen some inflation from a wage perspective but again important to take care of them. Secondly we've seen some inflation from a commodity perspective around food costs. Luckily we're relatively protected compared to much of the industry largely because of our plant forward menu and not serving fees. We also have a very regional and local supply chain. Again that insulates us some some from some of those impacts. Having said all that we're not immune and we have seen some of that inflation. And we have had to take a little bit of price to make up for that. Now the company is very judicious and disciplined in how we take price because we do want to make sure our food is accessible. So one thing that we've always maintained is entry you know low entry point. We got menu items specifically in every market that we operate in. We have a meal under 10 dollars and we think that's really important. So you know food inflation is real but we also want to make sure that you know people I think people do understand the value and what they're getting which is food that is locally and response by sauce made from scratch and then made really convenient by a lot of digital innovation that we put. So John let's talk a little bit about just overall business here because I mean for a lot of us I mean our sort of introduction to Sweet Green was walking out of the office down the street and getting the salad for a lot of folks. A current company excluded a lot of folks who of course haven't been in the office for a couple of years now. How did that affect your business. And have you seen a sort of a return I guess to pre pandemic levels. Yeah. So you know sweet green to your point. When we started the company we did open many stores in urban areas. So office you know people eating sweet green while they were while they were in the office was definitely a huge part of our business as the pandemic. It in some ways we were super well positioned given the digital channels that we had with our own made delivery channel as well as our pickup channel. But in other ways our footprint was very much. So the past two years were very challenging for us. I want to just give a huge thank you to the test. The minute the resilience of our team for me that we started to be a huge recovery. To your point in our urban areas and saw pre on recon an amazing recovery in our urban areas obviously armed recon dampen that recovery but as that is as fast as it came. It has gone away and it's really begun to really begun to see some green shoots and recovery now. Jonathan so much of the green shoots that you reported as saying there's a clear runway for a thousand restaurants to be added by the end of the decade. You're adding thirty five. I think it is in two to three new markets in 2022. How do you get to a thousand and what are the issues there. Is it. When I think of lumber costs I think labor costs when I think of just getting the people. How do you envisage that working. Yeah. So you know sweet green. We believe that there's a massive opportunity and it really speaks to a lot of the tailwinds there are around people wanting to eat healthier food a connection purpose driven brands and people are people interacting with companies with a strong digital connection. You know we've seen success in all markets around the country in both urban and suburban areas and have a very strong pipeline this year. As you mentioned at least 35 openings heavily leaning towards more suburban. And we look to accelerate that each year to hit our goal of 1000 openings by the end of the year. And again that's just the first the first milestone. We're going to continue to grow from there to build the restaurant brand and the fast food brand of our generation. All right Jonathan great to catch up with you. The Sweet Green CEO there Jonathan Neiman. There are very broad based discussion here. We do turn our attention back of course to the situation with the war in Ukraine and a lot of the Russian assets now that continue to face issues. With regards to the big question are they an investable. Right now we're learning here that the Vanek ETF the R S X would attract a lot of those Russian stocks that has been altered for regulatory concerns here. We've seen similar issues on individual stocks as well as other ETF. So something to keep an eye on. And we should point out of course Russian markets have effectively been closed off domestically over there by Vladimir Putin. This ETF is interesting. It's down 10 of the last days. It was at 30. Now with it a five handle. And you think about locking the creation of new shares. So effectively it said we can't accept new money. But I was always curious at some analysts and said at the time it effectively becomes a closed end fund instead of an open ETF. But then if you pull your money out who is the buyer on the other end. I couldn't figure out how you even sell. There was a great story on the Bloomberg terminal today about all these funds that shorted Russian stocks and made a lot of money on paper. But the problem is they can't get out because I mean you. I mean if you're shorting you've got to get those shares back and you just can't do it right now. It's extraordinary the element of isolation that we currently see from a political perspective from a financial perspective and indeed whether this rectify ISE itself longer term. I mean the next few steps as we try to understand what how we mapped this out over the next months May next year. How long are people how left holding the bag basically. Well when we talk about the isolation that moves us to the next question and it moves up store triple take which is coming up next after the show which is I guess what kind of friends as Putin have in his corner right now. A lot of people of course we're looking to China. The relationship between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin we know has been relatively close at least prior to this. We're gonna dive a little bit deeper into what's going on in China how their position right now in this new world order. Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute. Miller MILLAR the China Beige Book.

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The Close Full Show (3/4/2022)

Caroline Hyde, Romaine Bostick & Taylor Riggs bring you the latest news and analysis leading up to the final minutes and seconds before the closing bell on Wall Street and tackles the jobs report, the White House weighing Russian oil import ban and price pressures on Sweetgreen Guests Today: David Bianco of DWS Group, former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez. Rob Thummel of Tortoise, Katica Roy of Pipeline Equity, Elena Hernandez of GenTrust, Stephen Schork of Schork Group, Jason Pride of Glenmede, James Lucier of Capital Alpha Partners. (Source: Bloomberg)

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