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tv   The Exchange  CNBC  December 6, 2023 1:00pm-2:00pm EST

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>> joe? >> we have lennar up there. you can have any of the home builders up there. >> marcus, going the wrong way. dow is about to give up its gains, up ten points or so. you see the averages there. there's the s&p, a fractional loser, as is the nasdaq. i'll seal you in a couping hours. "the exchange" is now. ♪ ♪ thank you very much, scott. welcome to "the exchange." i'm kelly evans. noted short seller carson block revealed his latest short position in london today. the name, blackstone mortgage trust. the shares are down about 4% right now. but the stock had a 3% gain for the year before the news hit. it's now turned negative. and block is warning shareholders, here comes the cliff. carson block himself joins us now, fresh off the stage in a cnbc exclusive to make his case. carson, thanks for joining us, and welcome.
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>> thanks for having me. >> let me just start with the fact that a lot of people will hear the name blackstone and maybe reminded of some problems with b-reit a year ago. explain a little bit about your short against blackstone mortgage and any similarities or differences that it may have to that experience, you know, that maybe first told us there could be brewing problems with the real estate sector. >> sure. well, blackstone mortgage trust is separate from the b-reit. but basically, blackstone mortgage trust lend money to commercial real estate owners and developers. so some portion, reasonably significant portion of blackstone's book is office. but there are other areas of the book, as well. now, it's pretty well known that office is facing a lot of headwinds. this is really the perfect storm for office landlords. but for commercial real estate
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in general, because as interest rates have gone up, the values of the real estate have gone down. but here's what we see is going to happen to blackstone, and we don't think that there's really any way that they can maneuver out of this. we think starting next year, their business and cash flow will be under significant strain. we extrapolate that about 70% to 75% of their u.s. borrowers are unable to cover interest expense without interest rate swaps that they put in place several years ago. now, blackstone's total loan book is about $23 billion. and we estimate that next year, swaps on $16 billion of that book are going to come off, and basically expos these borrowers to having to pay market rates. when we have looked -- so the way we analyzed this, we looked at these clos, these are these debts, these debt securities that blackstone is sponsored,
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and the loans that are in the clos we understand are representative of blackstone's larger u.s. balance sheet. and when we're looking at these clos and looking in detail at the data, we see that 70 plus percent of these borrowers -- so north of 25% of these borrowers can't even cover what's called sofer, which is the base rate. and almost half of the borrowers can cover the base rate but can't cover the spread that's on top. now, the big problem then becomes, eventually these are interest only loans. so eventually they have to refinance these loans. but the collateral values, the values of the assets look to be significantly under water. so for the group that can actually cover the base rate but not the interest, it looks to us like most of those assets are under water basically below the loan values by about 20%. and then when you look at the group that can't cover the base
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rate, that's about a 50% haircut from the market data sources that we're using. so it's not like they can get out of these loans by playing them off. so we think what will happen is blackstone's going to have to modify these loans and allow them to make, you know, pick interest payments. so non-cash interests. and because of the huge amount of swaps, again, $16 billion that terminate next year, we think that's when it will show up. bl blackstone's been doing that a little bit. about 4% to 5% of its interest income right now is pick, and it's extended about 6% of the loans on its balance sheet. but i mean, with over 50% of -- well over 50% of the balance sheet, protective swaps terminating next year, they're going to have to face the music. so we think significant dividend cuts are coming back half of next year, and we think they can find themselves in a liquidity
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crisis, as well. >> that's probably the most impactful to investors. so you're warning that's at risk at the back half of next year. you mentioned there is a way out potentially. people might wonder why you say if the overnight rate its 3.5% at the end of next year without the economy slowing, they can kind of avoid these bigger problems. and there are some well-respected economists who say yeah, that's basically a feasible outcome, that we could thread that needle. i also just want to mention, we heard from the company. blackstone says we believe this self-interested and misleading report is designed solely for the purpose of negatively impacting the share price. we will respond in greater detail with the steps we have taken. they mentioned their dividend coverage ratio, 126%, record liquidity and a continued reduction in their leverage.
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>> that's very, very interesting point that you bring up, because as far as they actually in their most recent quarterly presentation, they telegraphed their concern about their dividends. so this that presentation on the slide that talks about that 126% dividend coverage, there's a little footnote in the bottom that reads only 27% of that income is covered by gap income. so this is -- so that looks like classic cya, huh-oh, we need to prepare for this to mitigate the lawsuits. it's interesting they bring that up. i don't think these are horrible people here, but they're self-interested as well. what that's led them to do, that's led them to gloss over these problems, including by understating the risk in the loans. you know, the report that we published, i think we make a compelling case, if you look at
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it, that yeah, they have been absolutely down playing the risk and the problems that exist in the loan book right now. and look, they have to do it, because if blackstone's lendors say, we're concerned and the collateral values have fallen below 80% of the loan values, then blackstone's own lendors can say to blackstone, we're going to call this loan or you have to post more collateral. so that's how blackstone finds itself in a liquidity crisis is when its lenders say we want more cash, and at the same time, blackstone also has $2.7 billion of unfunded loan commitments that it's made, and only $1.5 billion of available borrowing capacity. so when you look at the cash they're going to receive will be sharply curtailed, lenders will probably want more money, and they have a bunch of borrowers to whom they have made loan commitments they'll probably have to fund, that's where you get the liquidity crisis. >> you've been saying blackstone is a short hand for bmxt, but
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any case this trickles back up to be a problem at blackstone itself? >> i mean, that's beyond the scope of what we looked at. >> understood. so for these mortgage types, whatever language you want to use for this product, my understanding is a couple similarly positioned companies might be starwood property trust, latter capital. can you speak to -- given the concerns that you are describing are broad and what effect banks and a whole host of other players, are there other kind of stocks similar to bxmt that could face and run into these same issues with starwood and latter among them? >> so, yes, as a general matter i'll speak to that. of the next two years, '24 and '25, there's $1.2 trillion of commercial real estate debt for u.s. commercial real estate alone coming due. so you're going to have a real
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scramble for cash. now, when we're talking about a moment ago blackstone and down playing the risk, see, this is one of the things. with this group of mortgage reit sponsors, they're all playing the same game of like, well, you know, nobody else is basically marked down the significant number of their loans, so if apollo is not doing it, we're not going to do it, so they can all collectively live in this plusible deniability bubble an the risk and their loan books until these loans hit some sort of final maturity and they have to start recognizing -- they have to start provisioning for these losses. because they're not going to provision for these losses until it's too late. it's like the ratings agencies will tell you that there's a problem, you know, well after everybody has lost money. so i think that's collectively what this group of companies do, because there's no incentive to be out there in front marking these, you know,provisioning
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these loans for these significant losses that are coming their way. >> the shares are trading around $21 today. do you have a price target or an exit price? >> at this point, look, there's some portion of this that depends on rates. we think that ultimately, the losses that blackstone -- that bxmt is going to incur are probably $2.5 on the low end to $4.5 billion on the high end. so relative to the $4 billion market cap, that could basically eclipse the present value of the market cap. some portion does depend on rates, but, you know, it's just there's really no way out of this that they have. they can just try to mitigate the pain some, but at the end of the day, you know, the cash won't be there and the dividend is going to be cut and the losses will ultimately be incurred. >> maybe the flipside way to ask, what would the shares have to hit to abandon the short and
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say maybe it was a soft landing or maybe they figured something out, would it be $25, $30, well above that? >> i think about it more in terms of the timing. you know, through the first half of next year, they might be able to pretend this isn't going to happen. but a year from now, i don't think they're going to be able to pretend anymore. so depending on -- if the market starts looking at this and the shares start pricing this in, then, you know, maybe we look at it like, okay, do we want to lighten the position or what do we do? but if it hasn't really -- this is one where like i said, the reason i use this analogy, the title of it is, off the cliff, and we have wylie coyote in that famous pose just having stepped off the cliff and realize there's no ground underneath him. we think that's how it will go for their business. it will be all of a sudden. if the market doesn't price that in sooner, you know, i mean, i'm cool being short going into the second half of next year.
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so if we're going down to 3.5%, i want to point that out. we might get rate cuts, but the rate cuts usually happen because of economic weakness. commercial land lords are heavily exposed to economic weakness. so just because rates might get cut doesn't mean oh, that's great news. >> carson, i want to ask youn't the fact this is a difficult environment to be a short seller. it has been for a decade, especially so now. and the fact that closing the funds and citing the difficulties really highlights that, i think. would you say -- i even heard it's cheaper than ever for short stocks because so few people are so interested in doing it. i'm curious what your experience
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has been. >> well, it obviously has been tough to fight against what we have experienced since the financial experience. jim's model is somewhat different from hours. i think it has been very tough to take short positions and just sit there and wait. what the shorts have gotten wrong since the financial crisis really the timing. debt was so cheap that companies were able to extend the runways forever. you know, they always were used to seeing their thesis materialize within one or two quarters. but companies strung these things out for years. we're not in that environment anymore, so you know, i don't know jim's reasoning. possibly some of it is personal. i'm speculating there. i do think this is an
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interesting time to have that kind of strategy that jim has run all these years where it's a non-activist strategy. so i don't know, high rates will make companies more honest. it will bring the really bad companies back to earth. so if the central banks don't lose the page again and send us all into emergency monetary policy land, i think that people like jim could do pretty well. >> quick final question. a couple of the stocks you have had short positions on in the past, especially the kind of clean energy space, are those still short positions that you have or are there any kind of comment that you would add about some of those companies that had been high flyers as you mentioned during the covid era with super low rates but now are facing more struggles? >> well, we've been active again in sun run. we spoke about that a few weeks ago at the robin hood conference
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in new york. previously, our issues were, their financial models are telling you what the subscribers are worth. these 30-year models that are just ridiculous. but we have shown that they are exaggerating the number of subscribers they have. they are five quarters ahead of where they really are. and the companies denied this, but have given conflicting explanations. you know, i'm kind of sitting here, i feel like the cat who swallowed the canary here, because i can prove that basically these denials are effectively lies. and i look forward to doing that. but that might be a 2024 thing also, given we're almost at the holidays. >> carson, for now, thanks for joining us and explaining your new position. we appreciate your time today. >> thank you. let's take a broad look at what the markets are doing here, as you heard scott mention. we have given up the gains we
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had on the dow, which is up 15 at the moment. s&p is negative by two, nasdaq by 12. even as bond yields have been falling. and oil is plummeting sharply today, with the wti crude dropping below $70, the lowest level since last june. let's probe it all with new data, raising hopes that inflation pressures are easing to pave the way for the fed to cut. non-farm productivity, 5.2%, up half a point, and the fastest pace in three years. meanwhile, the private sector, adp jobs report showed an increase of just 103,000 jobs last month. greg dako is a chief economist, and cnbc's reporter steve liesman. steve, i just want to kick this off with you, because what carson block was just saying in terms of his bearishness about the economy, he's kind of implicit in his short position in that he doesn't think inflation falls to 3.5% without a significant economic slowdown next year.
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>> yeah, that's not been the right call. one of the extraordinary aspects of the decline of inflation has been amid strong growth. i can't say he's wrong it will continue, but it's been a feature of the rebound in the supply chains, the increase in competition that's been out there, easing of wages. the data so far has been pretty good for inflation, and not too bad for growth. there's an interesting question as to whether or not to follow the adp number at 103,000. the market might be a little surprised if the street consensus, which is closer to 200,000, ends up being right. but so far, he's right over time that that has been the case. but this time, it looks to be so far, keltly, a little bit different. >> maybe i should restate it. what he said is he doesn't think
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the fed will cut rates, that the fed funds rate goes to 3.5%, they won't be doing that unless there's a material slowdown. >> that is -- it is a race right now, and i was interested in that interview. i don't think he's wrong that there are going to be a lot of companies that will have a lot of trouble when it comes time to refie. whether or not that stacks up to a recession is a different question, and can it be isolated to just those particular industries that are having problems. i think the fed cutting is going to absolutely happen if inflation continues to fall. i'm guided by comments by fed governor chris waller who just said hey, of course we're going to do that, because we're not going to be tighter than we need to be. so the fed will come down if inflation keeps coming down, or at least maintaining current levels by this time, say, in the summer or the spring of next year. >> greg, what would you add to that, and what did we learn this morning from the data? >> well, i think we are seeing a
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soft landing in terms of economic data. i think steve is absolutely on point when it comes to the dynamics that have been very encouraging. we have seen inflation come down quite significantly. we haven't seen the type of economic pain that the fed itself was warning us about in this environment. the key question for '24 is whether the runway is long enough to sustain that soft landing, or whether we enter an environment where there is much softer growth. with regards to the fed, i do think the fed is going to pivot. it's not going to announce it at the december fomc meeting, but it will likely quickly pivot towards how to recalibrate monetary policy for next year. that recalibration and communications is likely to occur in the early part of next year. >> all right. and so if we look to the argument, well, hey, fast productivity is -- it's the best -- if there is one best piece of news for the economy, it's strong productivity.
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you can raise your living standards, so should we celebrate the third quarter as a sign that, for whatever reason, we're at the beginning of another productivity boom, like the late '90s, as greenspan recognized at the time, or is this just a one-off? >> i think we have to be a little careful to put too much emphasis on any quarterly reading in terms of producttivety growth. but what i'm encouraged by is the fact that we have seen productivity rise above its 2017 to 2019 trend in level terms. that's very encouraging. we are seeing increased evidence that there may be this pro-cyclical acceleration in productivity growth, driven by this desire that companies have to offset higher labor costs, higher input costs that remain a constraint. we're hearing that from a lot of clients in terms of driving that productivity growth forward. i think gen ai, not tomorrow or next month, but over the next
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quarters and years is likely to be an other impetus that provides that non-inflationary growth outlook. so this may be just what the economy needs right now. >> we'll leave it there. go be productive. we appreciate your time today. we typically think oil brucers, airlines, when it comes to green house gas emitters. and jamie dimon warning of unseen risks and a brewing crisis in the private credit casket. we'll ask a top exec what they're seeing in the space, which they are now covering. and we just heard from carson block on his latest short idea, but he addressed his recent activity in sunrun, saying the company is exaggerating subscriber numbers. shares are higher.
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u.n.'s cop-20. it's a big topic at the climate change conference in dubai, as companies look for ways to green their office buildings. diana? >> reporter: well, kelly, real estate accounts for 40% of global green house gas emissions. that's construction and operation of all buildings. here at the cop, the united states joined at least 60 countries backing a pledge to cut cooling related emissions by 2050. i spoke with the ceo of johnson controls, talking ai and air conditioning. >> it's going to be a huge demand for hvac as heating and cooling continuing to expand. our job is to make sure it's the most efficient equipment, it's got low global refridge rant. and then making sure we're working to deploy the digital platforms so that we can obviously make it more efficient how we put that equipment into
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operation. >> reporter: now, hvac is one part of the puzzle. electrification of buildings is the other. that is the key concern for a california based energy company. >> for california, we still see a need for fossil nefuels in 20, but using negative carbon to take care of the emissions from the remaining fossil. but doing this in a way that ensures reliability is critical. that's why at least the 2045 is a faceout. >> reporter: and reducing the power consumption of cooling equipment would cut 60% off of emissions and save trillioning of dollars by 2050, according to a new u.n. report released right here. >> diana, one of the things you emphasize is, doing it in a cost efficient way. if we've heard anything, especially from tech companies along those at the vanguard of
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big green projects in the past, they're in times of greater efficiency. i wonder what that means for who are going to be kind of the next round of people adopting this technology and kind of driving this trend. >> reporter: yeah, you have a lot of startup companies and new innovation in the area. it does have to be cost efficient. that's what they are trying to do with ai is to lower those costs to get to that cleaner, greener form of energy. >> all right. diana, thank you. we'll check back in soon. our diana olig in dubai. coming up, a look at the most expensive listing in nashville, tennessee. we're tracking the city's post pandemic wealth boom and how it's becoming a big player in the luxury space. just wait till you see the rest of this multimillion dollar me.ho
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welcome back to "the exchange." i'm dominic chu with your market check. right now, markets are about mixed in midday trading. the s&p 500, just about flat on the session. at the highs, we we are up about 23 points. down eight points at the low. so keep an eye on that move. the dow up 0.1 of 1%. the nasdaq, down 0.1 of 1%. big story today, oil prices, now continuing to move lower. you can see u.s. benchmark west texas intermediate, below $70 a barrel. noun firmly below that 200-day moving average. so keep an eye on crude prices. meanwhile, some consumer and spending type names to focus on from the stock side of things.
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campbell's soup, out with their report earlier today. a little bit of optimism about a good start for their holiday shopping season and the holiday dining season. chipotle hit a record high today, it gets a yellow star. dr horton among the home builders that hit record highs in trading today. keep an eye on the home builders. and apple, it's been moving kind of lower today, but still hovering right around that $3 trillion market cap amount. so keep an eye on apple shares. kelly, i'll send it back over to you. >> dom, thank you very much. dom chu. let's get to kate rooney now for a cnbc news update. joe biden today called on congress to approve a new multibillion dollar aid package for ukraine. he warped that if russian president vladamir putin takes ukraine, he won't stop there. the request comes hours before a senate vote where republicans have said that they will block
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that package. joe biden is expected to announce another $175 million in ukraine aid. house republicans filed a resolution to censure congressman bowman for pulling a fire alarm in a congressional building while the house was assembled. republicans allege that he pulled the alarm on purpose to delay a vote on a government spending bill. the democrat from new york says he set off the alarm by accident, thinking it would open a door. bowman pleaded guilty to one count of falsely pulling that fire alarm in october. the new york metropolitan transportation authority voted today in favor of a congestion pricing plan that would implement a $15 base fare for cars entering lower manhattan, with small trucks paying $24 and large trucks paying $36. pricing would apply from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. on weekdays and 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekends. back to you. >> i don't know. we will see how that goes. thank you very much. coming up, jamie dimon
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warning lawmakers on capitol hill about the risks of increased regulation, and a bigger shift to unregulated markets as a result. moody's hoping to bring more transparency to those spaces. that's next. as we head to break, take a look at shares of sentinel one, on pace for their best day ever. shares are up 16.5%. ( ♪ ♪ ) ( ♪ ♪ ) ♪ (when the day that) ♪ ♪ (lies ahead of me) ♪ ♪ ( seems impossible to face) ♪ ♪ (a lovely day) ♪ ♪ (lovely day) ♪ ♪ (lovely day) ♪ ♪ (lovely day) ♪ a bank that knows your business grows your business. bmo.
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♪ ♪ welcome back to "the exchange." big bank ceos are on capitol hill today for their annual state of banking testimony, and many warned of the effects of too much regulation. here's jpmorgan's jamie dimon delivering that warning to lawmakers. >> ironically, a proposal meant to mitigate risk will increase risk. this rule will result in less regulated markets, and this activity will be out of the sight of regulators unable to see the next crisis brewing. >> well, for one, moody's is hoping to shed light, rating
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private credit lendors and products. anna, welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> first of all, we heard that private cred sit bigger than high yields and it's exploded. you tell me there's a couple trillion in size. so this is a recognition of the fact that it is, you know, a major player on the scene today, isn't it? >> yeah, absolutely. it's not as big as high yield, but it's trying to become so. we're talking about the high yield bull market of $4 trillion. they estimate the market is -- the growing potential of $3 trillion a couple years ago, so if you look at where lending has been -- >> when you think about the rule of moody's, basically to assign
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appropriateness to financial products, so that institutions can pick and choose which one fits their level of risk tole tolerance. in private credit, it's so opaque. one of the biggest criticisms, it lags on what's going on in the market to market world. talk to me about what the concerns might be and how you're going to go about applying ratings to this space. >> yeah, we rate business development companies, which i would say they're the most -- we've been rating them for now more than a decade and probably accelerated coverage of the last four, five years, because they raised more capital and become bigger. they need to raise capital in the public capital markets. so that's just one area. and they actually have -- we have relatively good visibility of the loans, around $250 billion of the trillion plus market. and direct lending has been
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basically growing a lot, particularly over the last few years in taking for sure market share. so that's what investors want to know, what is the differential, versus, you know, for the private lenders. they say look, we have better terms. so what we are doing is comparing this, relative to the private credit loans and we want to make sure as the industry is growing -- >> so we heard some warnings, some high profile warnings the last couple of weeks about there being a bubble in private credit and the risks are not transparent and things of that nature. would you say that those remarks are correct? >> it's a trillion plus market and only we have visibility of $250 billion. so there is truth to that. so this is why we have a role to play to point where those risks are. based on what jamie dimon
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mentioned, that is true that this is an opportunity for the private lemnders to step in. broadly speaking, we are raising the question, you know, is there appropriate governance of risk in the private market? i think we can play a role in providing transparency for investors. >> and you came from a financial institution, so you're familiar with the likes of jamie dimon. there is so much of this credit activity happening outside of those channels. >> for jpmorgan, this is really about the leverage finance business. if you look at clos and the sponsor market with this high rate environment, you know, basically the sponsors want a certainty of execution. when you have sort of a rate hikes and don't know where the rate situation is going to end up, they chose to pay extra 150 basis points over what a loan
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agreement is for certainty of execution. that's how this market has grown over the last two years, particularly in the larger sponsored deals. this is really the overlap of the jpmorgans of this world. most of the private credit has existed for a number of years. we're talking up to 150 million companies. jpmorgan and the likes would not lemdz lend to this. now in the larger deals, there are players who raised a significant amount of capital who has taken over the market the last two years. >> and it's intertwined with private equity. >> correct. it's very symbiotic. and because you think about it a $10 trillion for private equity. as private equity grows, that needs to be lechveraged.
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so the banks will provide some of that leverage. the private credit will become increasingly important capital provider. >> and the most forward looking question, we heard analysts come out with big warnings about private credit, saying a lot of these are smaller, highly leveraged companies that have to pay floating rate debt. for now, it's been a good deal for the issuers. but that's going to come home to roost. is that where your attention is going to be? >> absolutely. we've been tracking interest coverage, which has been deteriorating of the last year. think about something like the 2021, with zero interest rates. now we're at 5% base rate. so we're just awaiting for it to see where the cycle ends. >> ana, thank you for joining me today. appreciate your time. we'll be watching for what's happening in this space. coming up, it's no long herb just bachelorettes and blue
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grass in nashville. robert frank has more. >> kelly, music city becoming millionaire city as the number of millionaires in nashville has nearly doubled since 2019. we're going to take you inside the most expensive home in the nashville area. it's got its own secret game room and observatory. we'll tell you how much it costs, coming up after the break. the best advice i ever got was to invest with vanguard for my retirement. the second best? stay healthy enough to enjoy it. so i started preparing physically and financially. then you came along and made every mile worth it. hi mom. at vanguard you're more than just an investor, you're an owner. helping you prepare for today's longer retirement. that's the value of ownership. fresh, warm hot dogs! when i'm not selling hot dogs, i invest in a fund that advances innovations like robotics.
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a few years ago, i came to saona, they told me there's no electricity on the island. we always thought that whatever we did here would be an emblem of what small communities can achieve. trying to give a better life to people that don't have the means to do it. si mi papá estuviera vivo, sé que él tuviera orgulloso también de vivir de esta viviendo una vida como
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la que estamos viviendo ahora. es electricidad aquí es salud. welcome back. nashville may not be the first city that comes to mind when you think luxury, but that market has grown by leaps and grounds in tennessee's capital, especially post pandemic. robert frank is there with all the details. robert? >> reporter: well, kelly, the wealth boom that's happening in nashville has transformed the economy. if you look at the number of millionaires, their population has doubled to over is 16,000
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millionaires in a population of about 200,000 people. that's created demand for luxury products. familiari and lamborghini just opened dealerships and they are sold out of super cars in nashville. all the big luxury brands opening stores here. but the biggest impact has been on high-end real estate. if you look at the number of homes sold for over a million dollars in the nashville area has more than tripled since 2019. >> the real estate market here has changed drastically. it's been mostly because of out of state buyers, out of state families that have settled here in middle tennessee. >> reporter: now, this property, kelly, is called twin rivers farm it's 282 acres outside of nashville. with man made lakes, a pool house with a retractable glass roof with a 10,000 square foot
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main house with five bedrooms, a movie theater, and a secret panel that leads to a secret game room and a wine vault. the price tag for all that luxury, $65 bilmillion. if it sold for that price, that would be more than twice the all-time record for nashville. >> robert, obviously i have some friends from nashville during the pandemic talked to a few people out here who were relocating there. and we had these -- a bunch of financial firms. there's some with big presences out in nashville, as well. so if anything, it was the kind of growth that made people who had lived there for a while wonder about the ongoing availability of real estate. i'm curious what the dynamic is for the rest of their real estate market and whether it's holding up or reversing at all? >> reporter: the overall market, the prices for the median house here is now $450,000.
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it's about 40% higher than prepandemic. prices have softened a little bit. you started to see a little bit of a building in inventory, but the high-end right now for homes like this is being driven by out of state buyers who are paying all cash. so this house, for instance, very appealing to l.a. buyers, people who looked at it and made offers and are interested in this house and others like it are mainly very wealthy people from california who are coming with all cash. so it's kind of a tale of two markets. the top really strong with out of state all-cash buyers. the rest of the market, the prices coming down a little bit, because a lot of people can't afford it anymore. they're moving further outside of nashville. and there's a lot more discussion how to create more affordable housing. >> and they're sold out of luxury cars. amazing. robert, thank you very much. we appreciate it. robert frank on site. don't miss "cities of succsucce
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tonight on kcnbc. 17% short interest now in game stop and dollar general has missed on the bottom line in seven of the past 20 quarters. we'll bring you the action, the story and the trade on all these story and the trade on all these names, next. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire
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brings so much joy to your life. a family trip to the team usa training facility. i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you. welcome back. we will get three different reads on the consumer and on two ryan cohen names after the bell today. we are talking dhuy, game stop, and dollar general in today's earning changes. we have the fip of the hat to lee, welcome. let's start with chewy. the stairs have lost nearly half the values this year. piper sandler is warning on softer profit demand and declining prices in pet food, interesting. jp morgan is bullish on revenue of the autoship subscribers. how would you if you had to play the stock? >> well, the first thing that i
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do is this is a trade. in terms of a longer term investment, i have some problems. number one, management is kind of made analysts only focus on the autoship numbers. will it be 70 or 75%? they are talk about how much sales per customer. that is great but that is not the real story. they have about 27 million customers and they are not growing new people. why will i pay and in the next year it may be 50 or 30. we don't know. unless they can double the amount of people out there, i'm not interested in it. when you talk about where the option interest is and they are making a big move, this is all about what is happening right now. i think my problem with chewy is kind of like a chain store. they can't open any more branches. when you look at the last year, revenue is up 30%. but let's be up, pet food inflation is up 30%. i don't see the growth. i think it is just a trading stock. nothing wrong with that.
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nigh dog loves it so i have to say that. >> you think the pet trade is whimpering out, i see it. we move to game stop which is down to 20% this year. coming off of a retail driven rally at the end of november. it has been levitating. watching the shift from digital to physical download games and softening demand for hardware like the nintendo switch. retail always a factor of the share price. what do you dowith this one, lee? >> i will try to be mature about this stock. look at the last five years, compounded annual growth rate is negative 7%. cost of revenues is going up not down. i have to pay more and more to make a buck. when you look at the only thing that grows about game stop over the last couple years is the collectibles line. the place where they do well is selling more pokemon cards and
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little plastic doll things. you look at the ad and website, it is not about consoles or fortnite or call of duty. it is about little plasic figurines and trading cards. everything else is going down with the ship. did they get a covid bump with the stimulus money? no, they couldn't even do that right. i don't have a lot of faith in this. i'm not saying to short it because it is a main stock. but walk backwards and walk far, far away and find another company to buy. >> you are doing the moonwalk on that one. dollar general is down 40% buff but off of the leafter the ceo was ousted, a big competition from dollar tree and walmart. they are bullish on the return of the ceo and addressing the decline and safety concerns. is this a chance to pick up the shares? >> i think so. i love this at 100 right before vaso came back. it is up a little.
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i kind of regret that i didn't jump in a little earlier a few months ago. here's the thing. they will get the inventories down. i love the pop shelf stores. they have about 300 or 400 of those out. it is about little goods and things to buy. i don't think people understand the company. it is a tough business. however, the pe is so cheap compared to the other competitors. they also have the new ceo back that is making people feel comfortable. this is not something that has a mote. it is the only game ibtown. i live in new mexico and there are a lot of rural areas. a lot of people don't have gas money to drive 25 miles to a walmart. they have $3 ibtheir pocket and they need some necessities and dollar general provides that. people don't understand as long as they can make the stores a little safer, that's an issue. >> we have to go. any parting thought on disney? warming up to it at all? >> not at all. kids didn't want to watch indiana jones. they don't like old white guys in movies.
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my daughter doesn't care about princesses. and it is hunger games. i love disney, go to the park and stream it. find another stock to buy. >> all right. tell us when you are a buyer. let's get one more check on the latest short of money waters. carson block saying they see serious deterioration in the loan book at black stone mortgage which calls it misleading and says lick with wouldty is at record levels. shares are down 6%. that does it for the exchange. john ford is in for letyr and he is getting ready. we will see you on the other side of the break.
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there are some things that go better... together. like your workplace benefits... and retirement savings. with voya, considering all your financial choices together... can help you be better prepared for unexpected events. voya. well planned. well invested. well protected. welcome to power lunch. along with kelly evans, we are pushing the chips tothe middle of the table in the ai race for a big event this afternoon, how

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