>> we are 30 minutes into the u.s. trading day on this tuesday and here are the top stories we are following. merger monday, a day late. capital one agrees to buy discover for 35 billion dollars, greeting the largest u.s. credit card company. that is the biggest deal of the year so far. retail earnings ramping up with results from home depot and walmart providing fresh insight into the u.s. consumer and selective is the keyword. microstrategy's bitcoin -- now

worth $10 billion since the company certain -- started stocking bitcoin. saylor's founder in just a bit. ♪ >> i'm katie our foot in new york. take a look at these markets right now and it is pretty quiet, but it is lower. the s&p 500 currently off by 6/10 of 1%. as we get through fed speak and earnings, not too much movement. a little more movement if you take a look at the likes of big tech with the nasdaq 100 currently off by more than 1%. nvidia reports tomorrow. we will see what that does. i did what to highlight capital want to highlight capital one -- i did want to highlight capital one, buying discover.

for more on that deal,, sonali basak joins us now. we are looking at the biggest deal of the year. sonali: one of the biggest since the financial crisis. discover shareholders will get 40% of the combined capital and they will become the number one card company by volume in the country. this is a deal expected to close at the end of this year or early next year and in the meantime they will face regulatory approvals in that process. we know many of those regulators have already started to tighten up. the way they look at these large deals, these are both companies by the way that are subject to federal reserve stress tests. already under intense regulatory oversight. but have very different consumer bases so you have capital one, that does have fica score consumers of 660 and other -- and under at a greater rate.

by buying discover, gives them a wider client base and allows them to go more upscale. more importantly, it gives capital one access to a credit card network company. that competes more heavily with the likes of visa and mastercard, which currently discover is a much lower -- a much smaller company. katie: you think about that customer mix, maybe capital one moving more into those prime type customers but let's talk about who needs who more because you take a look at discover. the company said in january that fourth-quarter profits dropped 62%. they halted buybacks last year. talk about how much discover needs this. sonali: if you waited to buy discover, we mentioned shareholders get 40% of the combined company in this deal. an interesting point was made by bloomberg opinion that had this deal been done before discover hit a series of regulatory issues last year, the discover

shareholders would have gotten closer to 50% of the combined company. this is a sweeter deal for capital one today than it would have been a year ago. capital one in the last year or so was one of the most -- one of the best-performing financial stocks in 2023. delinquencies were not as bad as expected. they have outshone the rest of the financial industry. when it comes to discover, getting past those very little reissues, they are hiring hundreds of people to deal with compliance costs, being under the umbrella of a much bigger company mix those costs much more bearable for both of these companies. plus a pretty impressive 16% return on invested capital. both companies get something here. capital one shares down on the day but discover is soaring. katie: flying right now, up almost 12%. sonali basak, thank you so much.

joining me now for a broader conversation is the blackrock head of investment strategy in the americas. i won't ask you about the deal but take a look at the s&p 500. we managed to close above 5000 last week. currently we are wiggling around that area. what do you make of markets at this juncture? what is the main thing that investors are focusing on with earnings almost in the rearview? >> it is great to be here. thank you for having me. i think the main thing that investors are focused on or what we are taking from the first six weeks or so, earnings growth and -- especially if you are looking at the quality parts of the market. despite a slightly softer retail sales number last week, growth in the u.s. continues to be very strong and that is another big driver of earnings growth

sentiment -- sentiment. there is still continues to be a fair amount of cash on the sidelines. investors want to get invested. they want to move away from the sidelines, to not have the same experience they did in 2023. all eyes are on how growth will move over the remaining of the year. katie: i'm glad you brought up cash on the sidelines. there was a great piece over the weekend talking about that $6 trillion wall of cash in money market funds. take a look at just this year alone. $128 billion has already been added to u.s. money market funds. what is the firing gun to get that money off the sidelines into the markets? are we just -- are we just waiting for the first rate cut? gargi: a couple of points. about $6 trillion in cash but

one of the pieces i saw that was encouraging last week was that it was the first week, the largest week of money moving out of money market funds. i think what investors usually look for when they are looking to invest their cash is a little bit of comfort around the prospect of bonds and stocks. having your money market rates at a pretty high level has been a source of comfort but we know that is not going to last. at the same time, you know that economic growth as well as earnings growth is going to continue to be pretty solid, that's a good reason to step out of cash into the quality parts of the equity markets and also to clip some coupons in the bond markets. we are beginning to see that turn. we discussed this on your show before. we wrote our year ahead outlook, one of the things we showed was how much better -- are for bond

and stock investors as opposed to those investors that wait for the rate cut. if you wait until the cuts in june, you have given up some pretty hefty returns and we already see that in november, december, january and so far this year as well. katie: that's right. if you wait, you are probably already late. let's enter hypothetical land, let's say i had a whole lot of cash burning a hole in my pocket. coming back into these markets, where should i go? are we looking at broad -- broad-based index tracking funds or should i be thinking about sectors? gargi: all of those, sector industries and looking into active areas of the market as well. we've talked about in the equity markets, thinking about quality companies, we about quality etf which gives you those strong balance sheet companies that have low leverage, stable earnings, so continuing to focus on that but then also moving to what we termed the lovable

laggards which we highlight as health care and financials. looking at pretty strong earnings growth as well, and earnings revisions for the second half of 2024. having quality at the core of your portfolio and moving some -- moving to some of those laggard sectors. on the fixed income sectors, we've talked about owning coupon and the belly of the curve, owning what we call the 3% sector but looking at active management, that give you that incredible coupon, especially in the emerging markets with european credit and high-yield where there are some really compelling opportunities to be found if you can be patient and active. katie: a bank managed by rick rieder. that launched last may. talk to me more about financials. you talk about the shape of the yield curve. is betting on financials or coming into financials essentially a fed wager as well?

gargi: a little bit of a fed wager, also thinking about the macroeconomy and what are some of the facts that are going to drive the financials. one of the big ones is the shape of the yield curve and we did see a little bit of steepening and then some of that got taken out but as i think about what we might get for the remainder of the year, i think a yield curve steepening is likely to continue and one of the other factors that we watched carefully is where investors are positioned, i think financials have long been an area of the market where investors haven't really been looking at their sector flows across etf's, investors have not really moved to financials and they have begun in health care, but financials have been so far, not as loved and i think that if you get the combination of the macro where you see that yield curve steepening, or you have the combination of the micro, you get the earnings coming back into the marketplace, then you

combine all of that with the positioning where investors have for perhaps for svb reasons or other reasons, just shied away a little bit. i think you can see ebola bit of that lovable laggard move catching up -- see a little bit of that lovable laggard move catching up. katie: gargi chaudhuri, you're going to be sticking with us. we will talk about that with emily griffey a. walmart coming out with earnings. taking a look at the stock right now, up 6%. it is an all-time high. the forecast was a little downbeat. emily: that's right but the analyst on wall street seemed not to be focused on that forecast. rbc saying the forecast look slightly better than anticipated but the actual earnings for the fourth quarter were pretty good, the adjusted eps beat versus estimates.

same-store sales excluding fuel, which i'm told is what retail investors really pay attention to, that beat estimates coming in at 4%, versus estimates of 3.1%. it was also interesting, walmart after -- i've been following their journey to online and their e-commerce sales beat estimates. the chain was at 17% versus estimates of 15.5%. showing resilience in terms of trying to compete with other e-commerce companies like amazon. katie: that is the battle they are trying to compete against amazon. emily, i know you have a theory that we will test out. we were talking about it before the break. how do you think the fed will receive this? emily: i am not the fed and i am not a wal-mart expert. however, i think powell would like this report because if you think about what the fed is trying to do here, they want consumers to pull back just a little bit. if you look into what she

financial officer john rainey was saying of walmart, he said consumers -- chief financial officer john rainey was saying of walmart, he said consumers were spending less per trip but shopping more frequently. of course walmart wants people to buy the big ticket items every 10 they shop but consumers are still fairly resilient, looking for deals, spending less but that theoretically should take some air out of the economy but not too much to tip us into a hard landing. my theory is that the lamar report is giving us a soft landing vibe -- the walmart report is giving us a soft landing vibe. katie: consumers are being choice full but still spending. i will test that with gargi after the break. emily graffeo, good to see you. home depot shares are down after the company reported a fifth consecutive sales drop. what that says about the consumer. where they are spending and

where they are not. this is bloomberg. ♪

katie: let's talk about home depot. shares are down after reporting weak demand. high mortgage rates and a slowdown in new homebuilding hitting sales. turning is now, we have drew running, bloomberg intelligence senior analyst for homebuilding. what we heard from management, do you think this is more about a tired consumer or a frozen housing market? drew: i think it has to do with both. results were pretty much in line with what we were expecting but there is a pretty low bar coming

into the quarter. home depot continues to grapple with consumers who are pulling back on big-ticket discretionary purchases. thinking of categories like flooring, cabinets, countertops, and they are seeing relative strength in smaller projects. we are seeing bigger projects be deferred. if you go back to the laid -- the last quarter, the debate has been on how 2024 was going to shape up. they offered guidance suggesting a 1% decline in same-store sales which was a little softer than what we and a lot of the street was looking for. we heard from a handful of suppliers calling for more flat markets. it surprised people a little bit. the way home depot has gone in the past, this could prove to be a little conservative but we think appropriately so. katie: maybe trying to set expectations so they could then surpass them. we talk about these factors.

how unique are these to home depot versus lowe's for example? drew: the pullback we are seeing in the broader home-improvement space is hitting both of the retailers and it is that pullback in big-ticket discretionary categories. home depot on a relative basis has benefited from exposure to the professional customer. they generate about 50% of sales from that buyer compared to lowe's which is about 25%. that has been the driver of outperformance. the industry as a whole is still battling with the fact that spending within the category is normalizing. if we go back to the pandemic, the share of spending by consumers on goods and in particular, household durables was significantly elevated. we've seen that reversion happened since the first half of 2021. there was little more reversion to come. -- there is a little more

reversion to come. all of the things are starting to moderate. it is a cumulative effect that is impacting them. katie: home depot shares down about 1.2%. we really appreciate your time, drew reading of bloomberg intelligence. still what i stashed still with us is gargi chaudhuri -- still with us is gargi chaudhuri. we've got home depot and walmart this morning. let's talk about how the fed is probably receiving these reports. as emily graffeo just told us, consumers are still spending, they are just spending less. how does that fit into the soft landing narrative? gargi: i think emily mentioned the term choice full. when i listen to what emily and drew were saying, what comes to mind is consumers being more concerning -- being more discerning. they are spending, they are pleased with how they are feeling and i say that because i

took a look at the fed consumer survey that came out last week and again, the results that we are seeing, they become a little more discerning, they are expecting to see inflation continue to normalize which is good news. they are expecting to see that their jobs and their incomes continue to do well but at the same time they are not going to accept higher prices like they did in the course of 2022 and 2023. this is exactly what the fed wants to see. they should be quite pleased. i know emily was talking about that. these are all signs of normalization. i hope that 2024 will be a year of normalization and i think this is a sign, the idea that the consumer will not accept much higher prices across every siegel category, -- every single category is exactly what the fed needs to see. the consumer is still in a strong place but we don't see any consumer led recession.

a soft landing is still on the cards but excepting lower inflation while at the same time a solid labor market is what the fed wants to see. katie: so good news for the fed when it comes to some of these corporate earnings but the new thick about the inflation data we got last week. i was in miami at a conference and even still, i saw those higher inflation numbers. now you have some people on wall street saying that the next move, maybe it is not a cut but a hike. how are you thinking about how the fed takes this together? drew: one month's data does not make a trend. one swallow does not make a spring. however, this is one month's data. january historically has had some quirks in the data, given a lot of contract negotiations happen in january. what i will say is we have to

remember the trend over the last six months. pce for this month will be released at the end of february and is -- and is expected to be stronger, we still have to look at the six month annualized. to the extent that those are still converging towards that 2.5% by the end of the year or even by the summer, i think that very much keeps the fed exactly where they want to be, to start cutting rates for the second half of this year. i will say if we continue to see a rise in oer, much like what we saw this month, something like a .65, we continue to see that diversions between rent and oer and if it was not a one-time thing, i think that calls into question how many rate cuts we can get, but i don't think we are there yet. katie: two important points. one swallow does not make a spring. i haven't heard that before.

oer, deftly some thin to keep ane ye on. gargi, we have to end there. gargi chaudhuri, blackrock head of ishares investment strategy, america's. still ahead, we will take a look at the companies making the most social buzz today. this is bloomberg. ♪ thanks to avalara, we can calculate sales tax automatically. avalarahhhhhh what if tax rates change? ahhhhhh filing sales tax returns? ahhhhhh business license guidance? ahhhhhh -cross-border sales? -ahhhhhh -item classification? -ahhhhhh does it connect with acc...? ahhhhhh ahhhhhh ahhhhhh was also the first time you heard of a town named dinosaur, colorado. we just got an order from dinosaur, colorado. start an easy to build, powerful website for free with a partner that always puts you first.

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advice worth talking about. katie: it is time for social climbers, and look at the stocks making waves on social media. first up we have intel making the social rounds after the biden administration is in talks to give over $10 billion in subsidies to the chip giant. that would be the largest award

yet under the 2024 chips and science act. next up we have the british bake -- british bank barclays saying they will go on a major cost-cutting drive, same bill reorganize the reporting structure and return at least 10 billion pounds to shareholders in the coming years. finally, we do have medical device maker venture on it, boosting sales -- medtronic, boosting sales and banking on higher demand for heart and diabetes devices. you can follow all of the latest buzz on tre. the biggest news today is in the credit card space. capital one coming out, saying that they are going to buy discover in the largest deal yet this year. capital one shares under pressure but not too much given the price tag but taking a look at discover, absolutely soaring, up 12%. taking a look at mastercard and

visa, under pressure, when you think about the behemoth that would create. coming up, microstrategy's bitcoin bet is paying off in a big way. we speak to the company's executive chairman and cofounder, next. ♪ how am i going to find a doctor when i'm hallucinating? what about zocdoc? so many options. yeah, and dr. xichun even takes your sketchy insurance.

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katie: let's talk crypto, because the price of bitcoin has tripled since the start of 2023. that is music to the ears of microstrategy executive chairman michael saylor. in 2020 he invested his company's cash in bitcoin. that is now worth over $10 billion thanks to crypto's recent rally. joining me now is the my own -- is the man behind that bet, michael saylor. we are going to get to the $10

million bet, but let's get to your earnings call. he said microstrategy is a bitcoin development company. help me understand what that means. michael: you know, the great majority of our enterprise value now is based upon bitcoin. what makes us unique is we are an operating company, not an investment trust. we are the largest public holder of bitcoin and have been able to issue securities like secured debt, convertible debt, and equity in order to buy bitcoin. just like a real estate development company would issue securities to invest in real estate, we are a bitcoin development company, and we are going to tap the capital markets do use intelligent leverage in order to benefit our shareholders, acquire more bitcoin, and help the bitcoin network. katie: i want to talk about what that means in practice. when it comes to development does that mean funding development on the blockchain, or is this focused on microstrategy? michael: we have three real

strategies. one is the finance strategy. raise billions of dollars in order to buy bitcoin, and do it by exploiting the most efficient capital markets. the second is the technology strategy. we are a software development company, and we develop business intelligence software that is boosted by ai. and we are also working on some bitcoin applications right now that we think will be interesting to our enterprise customers. of course, that company generates cash flow. we can sweep the cash flows from our software company into bitcoin acquisition. our third engagement, our third leg of our strategy is advocacy. we have been very, very active in advocating bitcoin as you -- as an asset for corporations, working on initiatives like the fair value accounting initiative, and then just to educate corporations on the benefits of bitcoin. katie: i want to get to those

new accounting rules, but let's talk more about the strategy of buying more bitcoin at microstrategy. last i checked you have just under 200,000 bitcoin. you take a look at the new spot bitcoin etf, all told they own over 700 thousand. a lot of that is the grayscale trust, but a lot of that too is from the nine etf's on the market. with this new competition, is he going to be harder to source new bitcoin for microstrategy to buy? michael: i think it is a very virtuous cycle. the spot etf's have opened up a gateway for institutional capital to flow into the bitcoin ecosystem. the demand for the spot etf's, especially the new ones, has been far in excess of the supply from them -- from the minors every day -- miners every day. this is a rising tide that is going to lift all boats.

microstrategy has got a levered operating strategy for bitcoin, but if you look at what the spot etf's are doing, they are facilitating the digital transformation of capital, and every day hundreds of millions of dollars of capital is flowing from the traditional, analog ecosystem into the digital economy. katie: to your point, actually gemini co-founder cameron winklevoss, he tweeted that the demand for the new bitcoin etf is 10 times as much as the number of new tokens being minted by those miners. let's talk about your existing holdings. as i mentioned, now worth around $10 billion. you have paper gains of about 70% or so, which a lot of people like to see that sort of return. at any point would you sell? when would it make sense to take profits there? michael: i have famously set i'm

going to be buying the top forever. bitcoin is the exit strategy. it is the strongest asset. so, what we see right now is that bitcoin has emerged as a $1 trillion asset class. and it is alongside names like apple and google and microsoft. but the difference between bitcoin and the magnificent seven is, bitcoin is an asset class. it is not a company. there is not enough room in the capital structure of those companies to hold $100 trillion worth of capital. so, bitcoin is competing against gold, which is 10x against what is right now. it is competing against real estate as a store of value. we believe capital is going to keep flowing from those asset classes into bitcoin, because bitcoin is technically superior to those asset classes. that being the case, there is no reason to sell the winter to buy the losers. katie: let's talk a little bit

more about microstrategy, the business. especially taking a look at the share price, this is treated as a bitcoin proxy, but you do have that underlying software business. sales declined 6% year-over-year. what two conversations with the board sound like? are there any concerns that this strategy of buying bitcoin, that strategy will harm its focus elsewhere? michael: we think the bitcoin strategy has been very accretive to our software business. we continue to generate healthy cash flows in the software business. we are enthusiastic about our ai initiatives, and we have a healthy migration from on premises to the cloud in the software business. we will continue to develop software. we will continue to exploit ai and work in our bitcoin application initiatives. having said all of that, the real story here is trillions of dollars of capital flowing from real estate, or the s&p index,

or gold into this new asset class called bitcoin. katie: i actually have a question from a terminal customer when it comes to that acquisition strategy. they point out that a lot of the bitcoin buying was financed by convertible debt issue months, with a very low coupon. we are in a different world now. i don't need to tell you that. it's -- is that strategy still viable? michael: the nice thing about our bitcoin holdings is that they are driving volatility in the stock and driving trading and liquidity. they have driven our market cap -- our market cap has been driven up by a factor of 10 since we embarked on this strategy. our enterprise value has been driven up a factor of 20. our stock has been driven up by a factor of five. that volatility, and the fact that we are unique because we have a rich set of options as well as the converts, as well as

the spot security training. what that means is, we expect we will be able to go back into the market in the future and explore ideas like either future equity issue months for future convertible debt issue months, or preferred shares, or some other securities. so, the bitcoin itself is the asset, and the volatility is actually a benefit to us as an operating company. katie: before i let you go i promised we would talk about accounting. let's talk about accounting, because there is new accounting rule changes that will require bitcoin to be valued at market prices. we have heard from coinbase saying in a shareholder letter that he plans to adopt those new accounting rules in the first quarter. when does microstrategy plan to do the same, and what factors are you thinking about as you decide on that timeline? michael: we are still evaluating how we are going to approach this. and there are a number of different considerations. in general we feel like fair

value accounting is a really important step forward, and is going to facilitate the institutional adoption of bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset. we think this opens the door for other corporations and other entities to consider bitcoin alongside investments in sovereign debt or other cash instruments on their balance sheet. katie: always enjoy speaking with you. really appreciate the time. that is michael saylor, microstrategy executive chairman and cofounder. let's go from crypto to the equity markets. you're going to get a check on that with abigail doolittle. abigail: it is a bit bearish right now. the nasdaq at or near session lows. just a bit of a risk off tone as investors weighed the idea that the fed may not be cutting anytime soon. some are even talking about the possibility that the next move could be a hike. that is weighing heavy on the markets. the s&p 500 down about .7%.

the 2-year yield -- this is interesting, because while we had that idea at the fed might not be cutting all that soon, we have yields down, bonds higher. that is a bit of a risk off bid. something to keep an eye on for sure. crude oil down .7%. again, a risk off tone for the day. some of the individual movers, take a look at nvidia. down 5.7 percent, the worst day since october of last year. they report tomorrow, and there is the possibility they are modeled to grow 700% year-over-year on the bottom line. investors may be growing nervous about that. in addition, the last couple of quarters have been spectacular. can they keep doing that? the stock today up 230%, so a bit about christ to perfection. tesla down 4.2%. apple has been sliding not just

all year. it is down on the year, but it seems to have put in some kind of the peak. if we go into the bloomberg terminal and take a look at apple relative to the s&p 500, this is a diversions worth noting. in blue we are looking at apple. it appears to have put in this peak in december. take a look at the s&p 500, going higher. we have talked about this bearish divergence many times. some of this could be apple. apple, down 5.7% one of the big questions is whether or not as apple goes, so goes the market. will that be the case here? katie: abigail doolittle, thank you so much for that. coming up, we will take a look at incentives to improve u.s. infrastructure and how they help u.s. cities. paige cognetti is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

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katie: time now for wall street week daily. we are looking at the impact of the latest infrastructure bill on u.s. cities. david westin is with me now, and joining us is paige cognetti, mayor of scranton, pennsylvania. which is the hometown of president joe biden. david: i have heard rumors to that effect. he has mentioned that once or twice. mayer, thank you for being with us. give us a snapshot of where scranton is. and with respect to what we heard from katie, how does infrastructure development fit into your future growth plans? paige: scranton embodies the

opportunity of small city america. we are 2.5 hours from new york city, but we are in these beautiful mountains. i can ski 10 minutes away from my office. we have seen a lot of new folks coming into town, retirees, knowing their retirement income is not taxed in pennsylvania. entrepreneurs wanting to start a business but still be able to access the city and surrounding area. we have families wanting to buy a home that is a fraction of what they would pay in northern new jersey or new york. so we have a lot of opportunity here because of our geographic location, our industrial history. we still have a lot of that base. we have 11% of our jobs manufacturing, so that has not gone away completely. have a lot of defense manufacturing, and we are seeing that grow. there was a quarter of a billion dollars investment in a munitions plant last year. so, scranton is growing. our whole region is growing. we are primed for that growth.

the infrastructure funds coming through the bipartisan infrastructure law are helping us to make sure we are ready for that. our roads, our bridges, our stormwater, those mundane pieces. we are also looking for to putting online a rail line from new york city. david: i'm glad you went there. i want talk -- i want to talk about that bipartisan infrastructure act. are you seeing the money yet? are you developing projects, building things in scranton? if not now, when? paige: the amtrak corridor, we got the award in december. that is coming along. that is funding through the $66 billion for amtrak in that bill. we are seeing lots of progress on the streetscapes. want to redo all of the streets in our downtown with traffic-calming measures. we are waiting for some of the matching, but over the next one to three years we should be able to get that project done.

the state are going to do lots of our bridges. to the point where i have been laughing with some of my other mayors that my city is going to be shut down because all of the bridges are getting done. so it is be careful what you wish for. you are going to have complaints about the residents from the traffic, but these are wonderful things. have an electric vehicle fleet for our code enforcement. they are all over the city. they are showing what electric vehicles can do, and they are branded and showing all of the great work we are doing across the city. the infrastructure bill is touching scranton, and there is more to come. especially on broadband. we have had a lot of interest from -- i think it is six or more broadband companies wanting to get that they could as internet here. because of our size and 80,000 people, we are a good test case. have had these companies test us -- pitch us to be the test case, how to get this ubiquitous internet. they want to be able to build that in a place like scranton,

and then get into some of the larger cities. that is something we will be able to offer not just to our residents, but the small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to build up their base here. katie: the broadband point as fascinating, especially when you think about scranton as a test case. i want to talk about infrastructure and that potential amtrak passenger line. if that comes through him want to talk a little more about funding. would you be looking to private sources of funding as well when it comes to actually completing it? paige: the rail line itself in those stations would be publicly funded. all of the amenities around that we would be looking for private funding. for example, we used to have this line. this line existed until 1970. my ancestors took a train from scranton and settled in montana. here i am pitching to get passenger rail back to scranton. but that infrastructure exists, but we need to reimagine it for the modern day. our entire westin of our city,

we would be looking for investment on the amenities around the train platform. we would be looking for hotels. we would love to see a soccer stadium here. we like to bring more sports and tourism and entertainment to scranton. we would be looking for private investment around the train coming online. david: everything you describe sounds like there is real promise for scranton. what about the short-term? do the voters give the biden administration credit for some of the things you are describing? certainly the administration wants that credit. we do have an election going up -- coming up. paige: we work hard to make sure our residents know the investments we are making through the rescue plan are made possible by president biden. this is his hometown. he rode his bike around when the coal mining was still going on here. he knows what it is like to be part of a family who has to pick up and move because a father loses a job. that is a ways on his mind, and we have been able to tailor

programs, from childcare support to ged programs, we have been able to support the boys and global -- boys and girls club. then we have done things like wage boost with our small businesses, as we help small businesses eat that gap between what the market is paying and what they are paying. we have been helping them do that. that is the beauty of the american rescue plan. president gave those funds directly to the cities. we are able to make the programs work for our residents. do as much as we can to make sure our residents know that is coming from the president. we have a great team working on that. it is important to tell those stories so people know where that funding is coming from. david: to ask the political question, pennsylvania is a key state in the upcoming presidential election. do you think it will actually go democrat? from what you know of your voters in scranton? paige: i do think so. we are a little biased. the president is from just up the street that city hall is on. senator casey is also from here.

he has lived here all of his life. so, we are slightly biased in that way. but when it comes down to the economy, i believe voters at the end of the day vote on how they are feeling in that moment. how they are feeling is usually tied to their pocketbook. they realize that the types of programs the biden administration supports, the child tax credit senator casey is supporting, those are things that help people get by. as has been a difficult few years for folks, and inflation pressures are still very much alive. we have a water rate increase we are fighting in scranton. these are real issues that president biden and senator casey understand, and i think the voters will get that at the end of the day. katie: that is a good place to leave it. paige cognetti, mayor of scranton, pennsylvania, thank you so much for your time. david, what else do you have coming up checkup david: tomorrow we have jason furman. friday on wall street week we are going to talk to paul romer,

about growth and what is going on with productivity in the united states. that is coming up at 6:00 p.m. on friday on "wall street week." katie: all of that coming up on "wall street week." this is bloomberg. ♪

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katie: wall street, racing for nvidia earnings tomorrow. nvidia already the best performer on the s&p 500 this year. that is after a blockbuster 2023. mandeep singh joints me now. talk about high expectations. what are you going to be watching for tomorrow? mandeep: the guide, really. data center revenue is expected to double from about $50 billion run rate to $100 billion over the course of the next two years. the 2025 number is close to $100

billion. given how far nvidia has come to my you have to ask what would drive that revenue? we know that the hyper scalars have told us they are raising their capex by 20% to 40%. probably explains happened -- half of it. the other half is government subsidies that are going to drive that spend on gpu's. or the enterprise is ramping up. they have levers to paul. there is demand, but you want visibility into what is driving that. katie: i only have about 30 seconds left with you, but how much has nvidia become a bellwether for the chips industry? mandeep: look at what sam altman is asking for, right? $7 trillion in ai infrastructure spend. if that is the number everyone is anchoring to, this is nothing. $100 billion in data center revenue. clearly the levers they can pull and the demand visibility, whether it is near to warm or long term, that is what you want to hear from nvidia. katie: i'm sure i'm going to be

speaking to you very soon. that is mandeep singh of bloomberg intelligence. coming up next, brad garlinghouse joins bloomberg technology with caroline hyde. that does it for us. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ personalized financial advice from ameriprise can do more than help you reach your goals. -you can make this work. -we can make this work. it can help you reach them with confidence. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 of our clients

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>> from the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide, in silicon valley and beyond, this is "bloomberg technology," with caroline hyde and ed ludlow. caroline: i'm caroline hyde at bloomberg's world headquarters in new york. ed ludlow is off this week. coming up, wall street eagerly

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