>> welcome to bloomberg markets. traders are getting relief from the latest pce data that came in line with estimates and erases the fear of another disappointing inflation report for now. let us get a check on the markets because the s&p is struggling to stay in the green. about .1%. the nasdaq 100 seeing a little bit more love, about .3% higher and a little bit higher. the two year yield has been

interesting to watch after the inflation print. we are standing around 4.62, and moving one basis point lower. we were at 4.60 today and you have seen moves of more than 10 basis points this week. we started above 4.70. bitcoin above 62,000 darling towards record highs. we were only thousands of dollars away and it has been quite parabolic. some midday movers on the equity fund ash equity side. we are looking at good news and bad news. snowflake is falling by the most ever by delivering a disappointing sales forecast, and then announcing their ceo is stepping down from the role. we are watching shares at best buy rising on an up earnings outlook and now up more than 3.6%. the company has been struggling with soft demand and seeing the biggest gain since may of 2000 after the meat producer announced its biggest

earnings-per-share meet since 2013. bath and body works falling after disappointing sales and profit views in the current quarter, even as results from the holiday quarter beat estimates. the pca data showed inflation rose in january at the fastest pace in nearly a year, helping explain why the fed has been so patient in its approach to interest rates. earlier today david westin caught up with the san francisco fed president, mary daly. mary: the way it works is you raise the interest rate and that raises borrowing costs and that slows people's spending and the economy settles down to a sustainable pace and that is how inflation goes down. what is different this time is that consumers have just stayed in the game. they continue to spend, they want to participate in the economy and that is spurring ongoing growth and that has kept inflation a little bit higher for longer than we would have thought.

i think overall the news is good. yes, we absolutely see the challenges that families face when they have to pay higher borrowing costs, that they know what they really want us to do is to bring inflation down. there is no place i go, i have a really big district that if you travel anywhere in the united states you will hear the same thing, what is your number one problem? inflation, that is a focus and what our job is. sonali: let us talk about more with the prime generation and head of capital at citigroup. when you look at the interest rates changing so drastically, how are hedge funds navigating? >> one thing that everybody agrees on is that is backdrop is uncertain. you have had some surprises all along and this is exciting because uncertain metric -- macro economic backdrops create opportunities and dislocations.

on the opportunities side it is about paying closer attention to the numbers and fundamentals and on the dislocation side it is about risk management, looking at correlations, being nimble. both the opportunities and dislocations are something that create excitement among the client base. one thing that is refreshing is that we do not have a view on how everyone is positioning. there are opportunities for different ways of expressing sentiment which creates opportunities for the markets as a whole. sonali: when you are thinking about the macroeconomic view, you have had them come into vogue in recent years, some of them with massive games and some of them struggling. are you finding more interest when it comes to macro strategies these days or the regular equity market? mithra: from allocators of capital there remains an interest in the macro strategies although there remain some interest in 2021 and 2022. that has come up the peak

because 2023 was a tough year. it is about demonstrating the opportunity to differentiate themselves from -- from and not crowd the same trades and the opportunity for sound risk management and not having big drawdowns but that is off the peaks of 2022. sonali: how do you think about that as it attained -- as that pertains to the equity market. i had something shared about single names crowded from retail traders, so what is that fast? mithra: there is a big concern about crowded trades and there are a lot ofo tools to monitor for crowding and to a power -- account for that as part of outside of the sectors dominating headlines we would also see clients in biotech, real estate and financials that do not make the headlines as much and that is where they are

finding elsa. from the stand fund -- from the standpoint of the funds what is -- sonali: you had the nasdaq 500 past 25%. where are they finding the alpha? mithra: funds are under pressure to generate alpha and not just returns that are beta. alpha generation and stockpicking is key. it is an -- in areas where looking at short interest is an area and that is something clients are focused on. we talk about differentiated sectors and transitioning the per for leo. do you have a more concentrated or diverse portfolio. our private -- are privates an opportunity? and that is how do you generate alpha beyond passive aggressive -- passive investing.

sonali: you look at the names that some of the short-sellers have targeted and you see the parabolic rises that they have had in the past year. our people a little afraid to bet against the herd. mithra: the skilled short-sellers are finding opportunity in the space. there is no question that you have to pay attention to factors such as retail investors and technical factors. however, people are looking at the fundamentals and sexual trends that will -- secular trends in the short term. we are seeing short-sellers coming into the marketplace. sonali: what are some of those trends? mithra: industries that will not be relevant to the pursuit to the consumer. industries that cannot innovate as easily and industries that will be affected by inflation that is higher for longer. looking through those and then

it really comes down to company by company and name by name and paying attention to the technicals. what are the memes saying. sonali: people think that they are gone but they are under the surface. the philadelphia index is up 1.8 percent. use have -- you have seen a stalling out. how are funds feeling about the ai boom? under the surface some people feel like they are lucky sitting in the names and some are nervous. what are you hearing? mithra: i think it comes down to what is the valuation as it relates to long-term investment thesis. for funds who view ai as part of a secular trend that will continue to the alpha -- contribute to the alpha generation, they are into it. for those who are saying i wish i had participated as a market

gain, they are realizing they are not getting paid for beta. the fundamental analysis and what is your view and how does this contribute to the overall investment thesis and how are you generating investment returns for your investors? sonali: how do you think about the multi-strat dynamic, and it is exciting to talk about individual strategies because for so long the multi-strats have been sucking the air out of the loop -- out of the room. mithra: i checked. they are about 20% of the overall hedge fund. this compares to 30 or 20 years where less than 5% are under management. you cannot ignore them. they are here to stay. you could -- some people think that the assets and fundraising might have peaked but they continue to be highly relevant. one of the reasons that they are that is if you look over time, a consistent return stream multi-straps continue to do so. you are seeing capital looking

for access to hedge funds places like the middle east, agent -- asian family offices and alternatives. multi-strats are a great alternative. sonali: you have seen some high talents been out. you think bobby jane not raising as much as initially hoped that one of the largest announced in years. todd barker as well. how much money is there to contribute to funds right now? mithra: as i mentioned the middle east is an area with a lot of interest in allocating hedge funds. we talked about family offices coming out of asia and looking away from china and to invest capital in the united states. and in the private wealth state -- space and wealth management you have an increased sophistication and investors that want to allocate travel -- capital. you still see strong interest in hedge funds. sonali: there is still money to

be raised this year. we appreciate your time. a conversation on the deal market with one of the top names, melissa sawyer. what will head of mergers and acquisitions at sullivan and cromwell advising on some of the megadeal's. ♪ investment opportunities are everywhere you turn. do you charge forward? freeze in your tracks? or, let curiosity light the way. at t. rowe price, we ask smart questions about opportunities like advances in healthcare and how these innovations will create a healthier world tomorrow. better questions. better outcomes.

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godaddy airo. creates a logo, website, even social posts... in minutes! -how? -a.i. (impressed) ay i like it! who wants to come see the future?! get your business online in minutes with godaddy airo sonali: this is bloomberg markets. activity in the m&a space is generating a lot of buzz and getting the attention of washington. democrats want an overhaul for merger reviews to get a hand on tieups. lawmakers like maxine waters

wrote in a letter -- house representative maxine waters writing "for far too long these procedures have been equated by experts to be a rubber stamping process where virtually all applications are approved while industry consolidation continues. we strongly encourage your agencies to put away the rubber stamp and probably finalize robust merger review procedures." and this could make things more challenging for law firms and banks alike. they are -- he is the global her head of mergers and acquisitions. you've worked on some of the largest deals of the yearly -- of the year so far. when you look at the tone coming out of washington there is a lot of question about how much that wrangling will make a difference when it comes to the review of these deals. melissa: there has been a lot of rhetoric anti-merger in washington in the last couple of years. i think there is a gap between

the rhetoric and reality of deals getting approved. the rhetoric is coming out within 24 hours of deals being announced. we are seeing politicians like elizabeth warren making statements like deal should not be approved. we have seen the ftc and doj promulgate new guidelines and tighten up the procedures for getting transactions approved making the process more expensive and cumbersome. the reality looks different. if you look at the data about what has happened during this administration compared to prior. the percentage of deals that are getting second requests, which are investigations or being blocked through litigation is not higher than it was they under prior administrations. sonali: what does that mean for certain deals like capital one and discover. something that struck me is that the deal announcement came after the occ and doj came out with new guidelines on what to expect. what that tells me these

companies know what to expect. in some ways do they have more clarity on what is allowed and what is not? melissa: i think companies are more sophisticated and how they are rolling out deals and anticipate this negative reaction and plan for it. as dealmakers, we are spending more time in the negotiations allocating the risk of that rhetoric and thinking about how the parties should react once that kind of public fervor comes out against the transaction and what their obligations are to use efforts to get the deal cleared nonetheless even if there is a negative reaction initially. sonali: there is an aspect of just because the government or the agency sues does not mean the deal will get done. is there an aspect where the ftc might come forward and companies are ready to sue anyways? melissa: we have seen only about 50% of the litigation efforts bear fruit.

a lot of those deals are getting cleared or passing through anyway. i think that means that parties have to really buckle their seatbelts and be willing to be in it for the long haul. time is the enemy of deals so getting hung up in a lengthy antitrust process in some industries is a deal killer, which is why we are seeing a chilling effect because of all of this rhetoric and the long time period to get deals approved. sonali: how does that shape up for the pipeline. are there deals being considered right now that instill fear and in certain ceo's because they do not want to deal with washington? melissa: there are a few areas particularly sensitive, one is megadeals. by their sheer size they tend to attract attention and the parties to those deals tend to be strategic. and they are parties more likely to have competitive overlaps and in the same industry and more

likely to be dominant players because they are so big and international. sonali: how do you define megadeal these days? 10 or $20 billion? melissa: $50 billion or greater. the other categories are spec -- are sector specific. tech and health care are places where regulators are focused on. companies that historically grew through acquisitions are having hesitation. sonali: it seems like energy has been immune from that dynamic. why? melissa: to some degree. i believe that the regulators have not had the same interest in oil and gas regulations as they have the data privacy issues and other things that come along with tech. sonali: at the end of the day if you are advising a client and ask them to lay out their consideration for dealmaking, what is the biggest concern you would have as their lawyer. vertical versus horizontal? the impact on the consumer?

melissa: it is very deal specific. right now we know that agencies are focused on the impact on labor markets. they are looking at the individual impact on employees' ability to earn a wage and the impact on unionization, which is a high topic. -- hot topic. in other sectors they might be focused on data privacy. we saw that in the amazon and irobot situation. it varies. sonali: think about private equity firm minute. one thing that i five find interesting -- find interesting is that they have all of this on the sidelines and the american public has a concern that if private equity takes over what does that mean for jobs? does not have the same concern when it comes to washington at the end of the day as they do not have to face as many antitrust issues? melissa: when we ran sell side

prophecies we would like -- processes we would like to have private equity in the process because i did not have competition. that is not the case anymore. the agencies have been focused on private equity portfolios and looking if they have other companies that might have overlap. everyone is treading lightly in the sphere of private equity and starting to look at the broader fund complex for potential competition issues that was not the case 10 years ago. sonali: that was fascinating when you think that how rollup strategies have been a traditional way to go. you alluded to an interest in washington around international buyers. explain where the brunt of the problems are coming from. there are specific areas that regulators and lawmakers in particular have been concerned about. melissa: it goes both directions. washington is worried about it but other countries are worried about investment from the united states.

to give a couple of examples. chinese investment is at a standstill right now because washington has been hyper focused on chinese investment. in europe, they recently adopted the european subsidies regulation which is really looking at non-european investment into europe by companies who have benefited from governmental subsidies in their home, countries. in every jurisdiction you are looking at a proliferation of regulatory regimes that extend the timeline to get deals cleared and harder to be approved. big deals that touch a lot of different countries now have to pass through a really extensive process to get cleared. sonali: certainly getting complicated. to the point we have been making. just because you face scrutiny does not mean that you do not get a deal done. thank you very much. we should also say named one of the top 10 at lawyers and m&a in the world. still ahead, more about deals

and leverage finance. how the head of global credit finance at global -- at goldman sachs is assessing risk in the deal market. this is bloomberg. ♪ get help reaching your goals with j.p. morgan wealth plan,

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sonali: this is bloomberg markets. it is time for the wall street beat. goldman sachs head of credit finance, christina minnis is seeing a deal interest. i spoke with her last night and asked her what she was watching the deal market. chistina: it is not surprising to me but i chuckle a bit when folks who were born a few decades after me look at this cost of capital and does so expensive. it is expensive compared to a very unique period in history but not on historic basis. sonali: even though you've seen

m&a coming back, but you have not really seen come back yet is the return of the large lbo. chistina: it is starting. there is a deal announced last week, $15.5 billion. and about 9 billion dollars in financing. is it back to where it was for ukraine? what we are starting to see signs of sizable transactions coming back to markets. i think it will be gradual, that it is definitely coming back. sonali: there is a question of what stops the party. if it is high interest rates or investors setting off guard? chistina: i think investors might be expecting a soft landing and perhaps correctly so. it starts with the economy and if we have seen some nervous signs in the economy globally

that would concern us. i also agree that the geopolitical situation of 2024 will take center stage. many clients have tried to move their transactions in the first and second quarter which is one of the reasons we have had such a robust first quarter, and i expect that to continue until the summer. people are quite concerned about the fall. sonali: that was the head of global credit finance speaking at the bloomberg new voices. that is do a quick check on the markets because we are looking at an smp wavering on the day. we are up .10%. we are watching the nasdaq gained some steam with the nasdaq 100 up more than .4%. the yield movement is interesting. you did see a drop of yields and you are back up to 4.63. the traders are digesting that as well as thinking through expectations for rate cuts and

parsing through all of the fed speak. 10-year yields hanging out about 4.23. coming up we discuss the crypto rally, macro and more. this is bloomberg. ♪ when i was your age, we never had anything like this.

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sonali: this is bloomberg markets, i am sonali basak. let us look at the s&p 500 breaking further into the green up about .1%. it has been wavering. the nasdaq 100 gaining steam at .3%. the two year yield also losing the bed that it had. -- the bid that it had. we did see more of a bid. the 10-year yield down to 4.24. mid-day movers to talk about. c3ai shares surging after the

last -- large sales suggesting that the new bet on ai abscess paying off. an paramount beat expectations and predictions. coinbase is recovering from the in lots of traffic during the recent bitcoin rally, putting users off. marathon digital plunging following a murder -- a meeting but analysts learning how new accounting rules boost the results. marathon digital down .8 -- down more than 17%. spot bitcoin etf's are paying off. that coin nearing an all-time high. why did the demand -- the demand for the a trope in attracting 7 billion net inflows in less than two months. and now we have the galaxy digital sign -- founder and ceo joining the night now -- joining

me right now. mike, talk about what you are seeing. people are seeing bitcoin go parabolic and wondering who is driving the flow? mike: listen. this is probably the first time in the history of bitcoin that we have two prices -- true prices. this is the first time anyone who wants it have easy access. baby boomers have $85 trillion of wealth. the wealth is for the most part manage through registered investment advisors who now at least half of them or some portion of them can just buy the etf. you are seeing a step function in new owners of bitcoin, which is driving a frenzy and the whole crypto ecosystem. bitcoin gets bought and they try to play catch-up and the altcoin. i think we have got a very frothy level. you can see it in the funding rates of the altcoin market.

how much you get paid to lend out coins. and ethereum and all of the alts. you sought in the public -- public equity markets and all of those kinds of public equity bellwethers. they went parabolic along with bitcoin. i would not be surprised to see correction and consolidation. but, i am very loath to pick a bitcoin hi because i do believe this is priced discovery. will we test the old high? likely. we will probably have consolidation but we will end the year higher. sonali: it is interesting to coming with some caution in the middle of euphoria. it begs the question, what is the new low? mike: you know, we broke out from 45,000, and so that would be probably what holds us if there is a real correction.

corrections happen and peoplesea lot of people who bought recently. i do not think it will get there. i think if it corrects to the mid-50's before taking off to the new high, the first old high at 68 or 69,000 where we got close. i do think that we will see, and partly this is if you look at fidelity or any of these big platforms that have so much baby boomer wealth, shifting one to 3% of the assets can encourage customers to shift bitcoin over time which has been amazing. it is a monster number. think about $85 trillion of baby boomer wealth, 3% of that is $2.5 trillion. the whole market cap is only a little more than $1.2 trillion. and so, again, we will see a step change function and we are

in the process. i like to call it price discovery. a good friend mentioned that and i was like that is dead right. sonali: even if you are worried that we will not hit the new highs, where do you think bitcoin will be a year from now? mike: much higher. how do you put yardsticks around something? gold is a $12 trillion asset and bitcoin is 1/10 of gold. could it be half of gold at one point? it could and it will be. and at one point it will be larger than gold. again, for every shargh monger who passed away, that money is finding its way to gen z and millenials. and they feel much more comfortable than digital -- with digital gold stand clunky gold. i like a little of both. i have some gold coins that we give out during our podcast because you can touch it. but i own a lot more bitcoin than gold. sonali: what does this mean for

the new people getting in. do you worry that a lot of these retail investors in particular are buying at highs? mike: listen. in every media and every excitement people are buying at the wrong level because it feels easy and that they are going to get washed out and then they will sell at the wrong level and it will go back up and they will be like i cannot believe i sold. that is part of speculation. and it is part of investing. can say the same with nvidia or tesla or anything that has monster moves. everyone has fomo. some investors will buy at the wrong level and then stop out at the wrong level. what has been unbelievably oppressive about the bitcoin community is just how resilient that they have been. i remember doing an interview with you a year ago, at 18,000. and the core bitcoiners took

pain. i do not think the core group of people who have promoted it, microsoft -- michael seller ain't selling. so, the new people are going to ease in. i do not think you are buying it into your 401(k) and then selling it. most of this new money will be sticky money and crypto terms. in retail, the young speculation that is happening on all of the apps, robinhood and coinbase and everywhere else. that will have blowoff tops and bottoms and people will get chopped up like they always do in speculation. sonali: if you think about what is happening you have to wonder with having around the corner, how much is already priced in. mike: again, paul tudor jones

taught me year three of my wall street career, prices are set at the margin. when we have more marginal buyers and sellers prices go up. there is a new army of buyers and salespeople. what blackrock is doing his breath be -- breathtaking. that is an army of salespeople saying this is important. we did not have that six months ago. i do think like it will be hard to figure out where equilibrium is in the next six to 12 months. sonali: say that the demand stays constant. we have seen more demand with these etf's. you have where you will have the new coins minted daily dropping. we know that miners do not control the market. there are a lot of large holders. what do you think the flow looks like? mike: think about it. before that having, 60 thousand

bitcoin about $54 billion a day of new supply. we have one customer who is one of the retail apps that pretty much buys 30 to $35 million a day just with us and i am not -- and i'm sure they are not buying just from us. there is a global demand for bitcoin. when you see what is driving the market data day is at 8:00 at night all the etfs talk about how much they bought or sold and it was $500 million or $400 million. as long as you see them staying positive they are selling bitcoin and the first day they go negative people will sell because the fund will slow. that is kind of like the insider's way of looking at this in the short term. that is a little myopic. let us look each month at what the total flows in bitcoin is from the atf -- atf community and other communities. after having the $54 million it

goes to $27 million. that is a big spread right now. there is not a lot of supply. this is one of the least inflationary assets or most deflationary assets it is. it is why when you see the government spending so much money people are drawn to this narrative. sonali: so, what do you think about certain features of the market? you think about liquidity and leverage. do you like where both of those things stand or are any of those things out of whack? mike: there is a tremendous amount of liquidity, shocking amounts. i was looking at the volumes of the stocks that traded. forget the etf trading record volumes, look at microstrategy's or a marathon or riots. the u.s. equity market has volumes in crypto. you are seeing on the exchanges and the crypto exchange is. plenty of liquidity meaning that lots of people are getting

leverage. they think the market is too leverage. it happens after huge runs. you have leverage at the max and there will be a washout, i do not know when it is. it will be -- you know, i hate to call things healthy washouts because it never feels healthy when you lose money and when there is a washout the price will go down. but there will be a washout. people cannot sustain this much leverage. remember, a lot of the offshore trading platforms can give you 50 to 70 and leverage and a lot of millenials and gen z will yolo it. sonali: how do you describe the difference between the leverage in the system versus 2021 that caused a lot of levered players to go bankrupt? mike: i think the institutional players have less leverage. you know, very few people are

buying an etf with leverage. and the broker-dealer community or -- they learned a lot of lessons. and so i always said we do not take a lot of leverage. why would you take a lot of leverage on an 80 ball asset. in some ways it is the definition of insanity to lever that up. retail still loves leverage. and you are going to see this boom-bust in the short run with an overall really positive trend as people keep deciding to allocate some of their portfolio to bitcoin. sonali: do you think there is a bad idea to have them levered on that note? mike: i do not. the libertarian side of me says a 2-1 levered, people are big boys and they know what they are doing. we have products all over the place. i do not want to be telling

people how much to bet or where they should. if i see someone betting 15-1 to someone -- on something as volatile as bitcoin i will say you need to think about your strength. that is a recipe for disaster. but i think small amounts of leverage and anything is fine. sonali: given the run-up to bitcoin, what do you think about the crypto assets particularly with the prospect of an cerium etf? mike: that is a big question for the community. will a theory get --etherim get through. it does not feel like it is easy. the same logic that the bitcoin etf went on and if you believed in that how dare you not believe in a cot -- in a cash etf holds for this. my biases that it will get through sometime this year. gary gensler has been very

careful about not declaring it a security. and you can have your own idea of why. not declaring if they are not a security. and then you can have your own hypothesis why or why not. i will say that it opens the gate if one proof of stake, crypto protocol is not a security, but what about the and the next one. and so all of a sudden that his argument that these are all securities would go out the window. i am sure that there is a lot of internal to and fro around the question but the reality is that we have a futures etf and that was a logic that got the bitcoin etf approved. and so, my bias is that happen. sonali: his galaxy digital -- is galaxy digital going to go public? mike: you can call the sec and ask them when they will

accelerate a group of companies that have been trying. we have had a very regulatory unfriendly regime over the last four years. we are seeing some thawing of that and it does not really fall until after the election -- thaw until after the election. if the republicans when it will thaw fast and even if the democrats re-win the presidency, you will see turnover pretty quick. my sense of the congressman and senators in d.c. is that they know we need to do something, and it is not politically the right time, but i think it will happen as soon as we get a fresh start. sonali: how do you see other crypto related stocks, and you think about coinbase and yesterday. a lot of people talking about how you can still trade etf's, but there was trouble trading on

coinbase. mike: it is a good news-bad news. they were so busy and they had so much business that the circuit breakers went off. i am sure that brian armstrong is a very smart guy and they have a huge engineering team and they are working hard that that does not happen again. it just tells you that they are in poll position in this country and market. and if i am candid, it is un-american and unfair that some companies got through under the j clayton regime and are able to access the capital markets and a score of others did not. you know, they traded higher multiples and with great volume and so it is a big advantage being on a u.s. publicly listed company. sonali: do you worry about missing the boat. why would someone buy into a crypto related stocks when you can buy into crypto?

mike: we do a lot of different things. galaxy has an access management business and then the small access management business made out of 4 million in the last two months. we are now over $8 billion. we have sales and trading derivative business that is booming. we have our own mining business that is having an amazing run. and so, and i look we are very diversified, and it feels really good right now. it did not feel really good a year ago. it was survival and chasing loose balls environment. and now it is hire more people and keep building. you know, tokenization is coming. will it happen this year or the following year and my guess is this year. that will be the next thing in crypto. and so, this transition, it did not happen as fast as we thought

it might in 2017. but we are moving towards a tokenized and digital world and we are seeing more decentralized systems, not supplanted but integrated with them. and so this is not a two year sprint. it is a 10 year forced march. but this idea of crypto pipes and transparency and identity being -- and is -- and digital computers. when ai computers talk to each other they will talk to each other in a digital language. stablecoins will be bigger and bigger and galaxy is trying to be part of that ecosystem. it is a very different play. of all of the stocks are correlated with bitcoin because it is so early in the cycle, but

in the long run you will see differentiation. sonali: we are getting some questions from viewers and the question i'm getting is similar to what i was thinking myself. if the narrative around bitcoin was for an inflation hedge or store of value and then being asked if it is not used for commerce what is the purpose, what is the narrative about bitcoin? mike: it has always been the same and it is a report card on fiscal prudence and a store of value. it is a debasement of currency, a hedge. i say this all of the time, a house in america in 2011 cost $190,000 and today it is $400,000. we have debased our currency and we had inflation, asset and goods. when you are printing as much money as we are printing if you have five or 6% of budget deficits hard assets go up and bitcoin is a hard asset for the new generation, digital gold.

if you just keep on digital gold this is why people are buying. that narrative is powerful. what would change that narrative? well, we have a new president and he gets congress to pass a balanced budget amendment and we start trying to take that 130% of debt to gdp down to 80. right now it is headed to 250. that is literally at. look at the grafted debt and gdp in america and other countries and that is a lot of enticement for bitcoin. sonali: what are your favorite trades right now? mike: you know, like i said it has been a great run. so trees do not go to the sky and the hardest part of managing risk is to went to put chips on and off. we are really long this space. we are using this uptick to hire

people and build galaxy for the future. so being long my own stock is my favorite trade. sonali: thank you so much for joining us. thousands of dollars away from a fresh hi and bitcoin. coming up we will talk about a down story. snowflake is melting out of a surprised exit. we will take a look at that next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ (upbeat music) ♪ an ever-changing landscape comes with challenges. from our vantage point, we see opportunities. as a top-ten real estate manager, principal asset management harnesses the power of a 360° perspective, delivering local insights and global expertise across public and private equity and debt. our experienced teams are uniquely positioned to uncover

compelling opportunities in today's market, giving our clients an exclusive advantage. principal asset management actively invested. sonali: this is bloomberg markets and i am sonali basak. it is time for the stock of the hour. snowflake falling after it

delivered a disappointing sales forecast and announcing the ceo exiting. for more we are joined by brody. what a start by the issue of the ceo leaving and the vice president of ai taking over. what is the significance of him stepping down and why is it happening at this point? brody: he is one of the most famous software ceos of all time. he is a tough guy. he says things like the ceo has to be insanely confrontational. he has known as a hardcharging sales leader. that has taken three companies public and is a very influential figure in the software community. he felt like it was his time or someone else felt like it was his time to go because i need to double down on ai products. they see him as a sales leader. his replacement is much more of a product visionary and he has known for making google search projects go from one billion to

100 billion. he left that to start nai search engine, got acquired by snowflake. this is being read as snowflake needing to double down on the product line to be able to evolve for the ai world. sonali: can they sell themselves as an ai competitor nai money is going to so many rivals? brody: it is a great question because every software maker says that ai will benefit us and it cannot be true for all of it. snowflake's argument that there is no ai strategy without a data strategy. they will organize your data and get it ready for large language model use. the jury is out on whether investors are buying the vision as we see in the share price reaction. sonali: what about the existing path. we have one minute left and the idea that businesses might be spending less in this environment on software.

how long will that be a problem? brody: there is a big question that as companies spend more on ai tools, is that new spending or coming from applications and traditional vendors. snowflake is interesting -- interesting because there was a notion that it was a novel product. over time the big software companies like aws or microsoft azure have offered services that do similar things. there is an increase in competitive concern. it is unclear on whether they will grab the wallet share in this competitive market for time to organize your data. sonali: thank you to brody ford. snowflake shares down about 19% on the day after a large announcement. a very popular ceo in the technology world. a quick check on the markets before we let you go. we are looking at an smp roughly flat on the day. up a little more than before. .2% higher.

the nasdaq up .5%. we will keep an eye on these markets through the close. i am sonali basak and that does it for bloomberg markets. this is bloomberg. ♪ hey you, with the small business... ...whoa... you've got all kinds of bright ideas, that your customers need to know about. constant contact makes it easy. with everything from managing your social posts, and events, to email and sms marketing. constant contact delivers all the tools you need to help your business grow. get started today at constantcontact.com constant contact. helping the small stand tall.

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>> from the world of politics to the world of business, this is balance of power.