>> welcome to "bloomberg markets ." i'm sonali basak. let's get a quick check on the markets, because you have the s&p on a winning streak. it has been a winning week for the s&p 500, up .1%. we are flirting with the 4900 level. semiconductor index not having the same kind of day. it is way down by intel shares. you have the yield cure feeling arise across the curve here. two-basis-point change, and the 10-year yield standing at 4.13, not preaching the 4.15 level.

tons of issuance announced last week. new york crude, we have hit the $76 market it is down 1.4% on the day, but still standing above $76, and at the highest level in two months. i am looking at mid-day movers on the equity side. intel dropping on a weak forecast, down more than 11.4% on the day. we had american express boosting its forecast with shares up 7% on the day. jetblue warning about the spirit deal. a lot of question about the termination and when it would happen and whether the two sides agree. you have spirit airlines down 12.2% on the day as prospects look dimmer about this deal, given the moods we have seen from the government itself as well as jetblue that is now up about 2%, more than that a little on the day. we will shift gears and talk about the biden administration halting approval of new licenses to export liquefied natural gas while it is scrutinizing how

shipments affect climate change, the economy, and national security. abigail doolittle has more on the market reaction. abigail: let's look at well because it is hard to know how much of it has to do with what you were just talking about. we have had gains for oil the last two weeks. oil is getting more than 4%, adding to its best week since the middle of october and not only is there that action from the biden administration you were just talking about, there is the fact that inventories this week came in lower than expected, and in addition, you have the prospect of government stimulus from china. china is the world's largest user of natural resources, so the idea if money is pumped into the economy, maybe there will be more demand for oil. as a result of all of these factors, plus tensions in the middle east, we do have oil heading up for a second week in a row to its best week since october 2023. as for the day, we are looking at mixed moves.

taking a look at this board, energy for the first time in quite a long time is the best sector on the week, up with and for present. -- up more than 4%. halliburton, phillips 66, and valero up seven to 8%. refiners in particular doing very well on the prospect that maybe the oil prices going to be a bit higher and stay higher. as for the inflation look at oil, you go into the bloomberg terminal and you take a look at oil and the u.s. 10-year, we have lots of data coming out on inflation suggesting it is cooling. this chart supports this because we have oil coming down and the 10-year yield coming down. take a look around december 15 or so. both of these markets are heading up ever so slightly. the inflation fight -- different way of looking at inflation. oil is having its best week since october 2023.

thank you, abigail. we will discuss the moves with kailey leinz in d.c. talk is to the political calculus for the biden administration. kailey: it's a difficult one, because on the one hand this move is aimed at appeasing environmentalists, those who are pushing the president to consider the climate when he is making decisions. the fact that these approvals have now been halted for the time being for this process is reflective of that. effectively what officials are saying is that this is not an approval process that has had new assumptions and it since 2018. there is evolving information about methane and how it affects global warming. that is the part they will try to review. it will not affect current exports of lng. the projects approved will continue to go forward. our analyst a bloomberg intelligence say this affects the outlook into 2028 and beyond and they said that only one of the projects will be approved in 2024, an election year. all of that is to say that there

are pressures from the right to not consider climate at the expense of or the american economy. you are seeing some perspective this decision. it is not just about domestic politics, but geopolitics, considering the u.s. has been helping europe offset the gas it needed from russia due to the war in ukraine by exporting lng. if those are not going to be as robust as they would have been otherwise in the future, they are going to have to look for external sources -- think qatar or other countries doing this work. sonali: you have senator joe manchin vowing a hearing to investigate the export freeze. talk us through the pushback that the biden administration is facing and how that might play out in its decision-making. kailey: senator manchin is a democrat from west virginia and he is probably the loudest voice in opposition on the democratic side, but he is important because he is the chairman of the senate energy and natural resources committee.

essentially what he is saying is the administration owes it to the people to explain their thinking, but if it were to be found that this is only politically motivated, he would do everything he can to essentially stop this pause from taking place. on the other side of the aisle, the republican site, a lot of pushback, including speaker of the house mike johnson, who released a statement about an hour or two ago essentially saying that this is outrageous, he says the administration is asking american taxpayers to spend billions to defeat russia while forcing allies to rely on russian energy. he says this gives vladimir putin an advantage, which comes back to the point that is not about domestic politics, this is about geopolitics as well. sonali: i want to talk about some thing else. we have been talking all day about cooling inflation data, but there is oil prices with the biggest weekly advance we have seen since october. how is the conflict in the red sea complicated this idea about the direction of inflation and also just the geopolitical

conflict that could come front and center now that we are out of the immediate center of the politicking storm? kailey: it's a really good point. of course the biden administration has been heavily focused on making sure that energy prices stay low, considering prices at the pump are such a visible sign of inflation to the american voter, especially in the election year, they definitely are keeping an eye on energy prices. all that to say that even with a conflict we are seeing in the red sea, the ongoing conflict between russia and ukraine, there is not much of a geopolitical risk premium in the oil price as you would expect. and the u.s. is doing everything it can in this alliance it has formed in the red sea to make sure the flow of energy is continuing, that is much trade can happen in the waterway as possible, as the u.s. has been pursuing these director strikes against the who these -- houthis in yemen and hitting their infrastructure to limit their capacity to connect these activities. but it is a risk the biden administration is paying attention to.

as to monetary officials, when they look at inflation they tend to x out food and energy because of how volatile it is. unclear the direction it will mean for monetary policy. obviously it is a risk everyone will pay attention to. we know the president has a great interest in keeping energy prices down. sonali: as you have been saying, kailey, the american people do not x out energy. thank you for your time. also moving markets, the so-called core pce, personal consumption expenditures, indexed, increased in december from a year earlier. it caps a year that's on inflation retreat at a much faster rate than economists anticipated. the white house deputy secretary of the treasury discussed this on bloomberg. >> we know there is more we need to do in terms of making sure we put more money in the pockets of the middle class in america, and that is exactly what the secretary is committed to doing. we are not declaring victory.

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sonali: this is "bloomberg markets," and i'm sonali basak. it is time for the stuck in the hour. american express shares are at a record high after the credit-card company forecast earnings per share for 24 that beat the analyst estimate. analysts showed a net income increase of 11%. caroline hyde spoke to the ceo and joints me now. is this all the platinum card here? caroline: this is the effluent purchaser -- affluent

purchaser. they are the users of the platinum, they are able to pay down their debts, and that momentum is strong. that is why they have got record of numbers when it comes to fiscal 2023 and shares are at a record high. he did tell me that they feel great about the 2023 year, they feel great about the momentum going into 2024, and this even within the last two weeks of the fiscal year a $100 million hit from the argentine peso devaluation. that is a big number by any stretch. basically he was saying this just shows the resilience of our business model, that we can take a hit like that and have such great results. sonali: how do you make the expense line make sense as well? how extensive is going to be to invest in the future of mx moving forward -- amex moving forward? caroline: marketing is front and center. marketing is where he's going to

be putting money to work. but also technology, and that is the line of questioning i'm going to go when i'm in the technology chair. he did say that they continue to invest in artificial intelligence, which they've been doing for years when it comes to fraud adept action and the like, but generative ai is where it is that, and they are looking about itinerary when you are traveling and help with cyber maybe it saves money on people. colleagues are going to be flat. it will not be hiring more people. they will rearrange people in their business, but notably as you saw in that quote, we are not going to lose jobs because of generative ai we might slow hiring. he can get a better customer experience without having to hire more people then do it through the generative ai context. investing in a tech come investing in marketing. sonali: we're going to discuss this further with a senior analyst who has a strong buy rating on the stock could -- buy rating on the stock.

the thing about reaching record highs is can you keep it up? do you think they can? >> we definitely think the answer to that is yes. within this quarter showed their resilience and diversification. there has been talked about spending coming down a little bit. we did see that with american express discount revenue, associated with that, 5% versus 7% last quarter. other parts of the business are firing really well right now. net card fees, high teens growth, and net interest income, over 30% growth. it shows you that when one part of the business isn't necessarily doing that well, other parts are. we have seen a lot of traction with millennials and gen z, which is really important. these customers come if they can get them early with the low acquisition costs, and you think about revenue growth going forward, these clients tend to spend more over time than potentially a bloomberg, their incomes go up. even if they are not getting

customers -- which they are -- but if they are not, the revenue growth can still do well. sonali: the thing about younger customers as potential cracks in the consumer. how worried about you about spending falling off as some of the stimulus starts to wane? these young people have student loans, after all. alexander: yes, this has definitely been a concern. honestly it is not showing up in results. american express, they deal with younger graduates, yes -- younger customers, yes, but they deal with the high end of the demographic. there credit quality is 10% better than pre-pandemic. their customers are defaulting 10% last vs. their peers, defaulting 15 to 30% more than they were pre-pandemic. there was a big divergence there. that's not just with american express's older customers. that is with younger customers as well. american expense has said younger customers are in line with boomers in credit-quality

trends. sonali: speaking of the quality trends, do you think they will be permanently insulated? how hard to do things have to turn for them to feel the pain? alexander: they are not permanently insulated. we expect to charge-off to rise, but it is important to note that that is only 20% of their business. most of their business is spending, whereas their peers, it is almost all their business -- you think of capital one or discover. credit quality has been declining generally since 2021, but american express earnings keep hitting all-time highs. we saw all-time high earnings this year vs. their peers, earnings down 25, 50%. yes, there credit quality will likely decline, but it isn't that much of an impact to their earnings versus the others. sonali: how do you stack them up vs. other card companies and the ability to rise of this point? you saw capital one surge in the market last year and we are starting to see some of that it

american express as well. how do you choose at this point when you are thinking about credit, consumer credit? alexander: if you want to stare at the latest economic headline, some of the other players could be good choices. if you think about the end of last year when we saw economic projections improve, some of the other players did outperform. but if we are talking about a long time frame, it is best to stick with quality, and american express has proven through and through that when times get tough, they perform well. like i said, because only 20% of their revenues are around that interest income aspect, which resulted in the defaults, they have less charge-offs. for the long-term it is a safer bet, although volatility will be a little bit less. sonali: who was most exposed to this cycle? alexander: who was most exposed to the cycle? definitely the lower end of the spectrum. lower end consumers tended to charge off more.

but when we compare to 2019 levels of the same companies, we are seeing other players, larger charge-offs. capital one and discover, their charge-offs are worse than 2019 levels. previously they were expected to be worse than that, and that is why we have had outperformance as of late. but generally speaking they would be likely underperform if we did see economic deterioration next year. sonali: cfra senior analyst on my favorite topic, consumer credit. we will talk about the ipo market. it is finally back, sort of. healthcare services company goes public but with valuation 20% lower-than-expected. this is bloomberg. ♪

sonali: this is "bloomberg markets." i am sonali basak, and it is time for our wall street beat. we will talk about the ipo market. a number of major players in tech, finance, and apparel are working on deals to go public, but one coming going public today, health care provider bright spring, have been twice 20% lower-than-expected. it is indicated to open lower after pricing lower-than-expected. we will discuss this with amy or, who covers the ipo world. when you look at how the expectations changed for brightspring and kkr, what does this say about the market for ipo's? >> the market is still very jittery. we have cg oncology, which listed yesterday and had a stellar start. rightspring is -- rightspring

healthcare services and we have not seen healthcare services ipo's in two years or so. despite having a longer period of time to do the testing, i kind of feel like investors are jittery, and given the fact that the company -- it is not the sexiest sector and it does not have the highest growth when it comes to tech companies that are growing 20, 30% each year. these are not the companies. these are the companies that the slow and steady is tapping the health care and aging population in the u.s. generally. it is slow and steady. we will see how well it does. sonali: what about the private-equity sector in general? what is it safer private-equity firms like kkr looking to take the bodies public? can they find exuberance they're looking for? amy: this is the first

private-equity-backed ipo this year. they are in the pipeline for a very long time. have not really seen those companies being brought out, and definitely the urges for them to bring companies out, because at the end of the day you need to recycle the money. there is a strong pipeline out there, but there is also, do you want to bring companies out when they are not ready or when they are not -- we have to think about companies that are brought by private equity. generally more levered than just potentially average companies. they have to address investors' concern as to how to bring the leverage down and have a clean and a nice book to show investors. sonali: what is in the pipeline? what are the companies people are most excited for the coming weeks and can they make it through? amy: next week, a maker of rackets and sports brands, that is going to be a very nice one to look at. remember the last prop of ipo's

-- birkenstock, also a household name, but after that nothing happened. there are quite a few tech companies being lined up. reddit is going to be one of the most-watched companies. we'll see whether it is going to come on. sonali: amy or, we will have you back on. a lot to keep our eye out for in the ipo market. let's look at the markets, because even if the ipo market is still trying to find its footing, the s&p 500 at least this week has found it. we are looking at it jittering a little on the day, shaking off those gains on the date, but still certainly up on the week. we are seeing a lot of billability in other markets. new york crude, $76, almost 1% lower on the date, reaching $77 yesterday, back down to 76. the dollar index flat on the day. 10-year yield now at 4.14,

really try to hit that 4.15 level. that does it for "bloomberg markets." stick with us. this is bloomberg. ♪ when you automate sales tax with avalara, you don't have to worry about things like changing tax rates or filing returns. avalarahhh ahhh

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announcer: from the world of politics to the world of business, this is "balance of power." ♪ live from washington, d.c.