♪ taylor: this is "bloomberg technology." the s&p 500 trying to close above 3000 but not quite aching it. said top administration be considering a range of sanctions on china over there effort to crack down on hong kong. markets mostly ending up in the green after this memorial day highlighted the reopening of the economy. rose at theases

slowest increase since going back to march. breaking down all the action is our markets correspondent abigail doolittle. it really seems like a lot of the travel and leisure stocks are outperforming yet, the s&p, not quite at 3000. at 25,000. quite >> it was an interesting day all day long. a lot of people scratching their heads as to whether we had this rally without any major headlines. up to percent, probably something to do with the weak dollar and reopening optimism. you are pointing out those travel and leisure stocks doing quite well. we also had the dow transportation average doing quite well. a huge bullish divergence.

the transportation stocks are supporting the idea that traders and investors are thinking the economy will be reopening. some of the stay-at-home tech stocks leading the way. on nasdaq closing down biotech weakness. right now, this very interesting tension on the year between another pocket of those stay-at-home stocks, the faang index. the transportation index down quite a bit on the year. today was a step in that direction with the nasdaq closing down slightly and the transportation closing up. taylor: the markets are generally trading on hopes of a vaccine. what does that mean now for some of the biotech stocks, which are providing a lot of that hope and optimism on which a lot of the markets are trading? the biotech markets

overall open higher. but as the day went on, they started to go down slightly and actually closed down by 2%. the idea that you have all of these companies can eating around a virus vaccine. we had merck saying it will take at least 18 months to get a vaccine. 16%, not justdown on that but also some of their executives have apparently started to sell shares on the big rally. coming toh index just back to earth a little bit with the idea that a vaccine may take a bit longer. , the vaccine out there for ebola, that took five years. typically, it takes 10 years. a month seems unrealistic. scientists out there pressuring

biotech on the day. the last time i checked, surprisingly, companies that had recently gone public, as measured in one case by the renaissance ipo etf, that has been outperforming. what does that mean for some of the sentiments? abigail: the renaissance ipo index putting up a record high not so long ago. today, down, but you have some high-growth unproven companies trading at record highs. again, today, a down a day. that speaks to the fomo piece of this rally. you can see that index at a record high. overall, tends to be bearish. the nasdaq today i believe was saying something along the lines of, if everything goes well with the opening, there could be

ipo's set for this year. there could be a bit of a reversal. taylor: we will leave it there because that segues nicely into our next guest. the nasdaq coming out and saying that they do see improving prospects for ipo's. nasdaq president nelson griggs told bloomberg tv that he is starting to see new deals pop up. the exchange has hosted about 15 ipo's for mid-march. we are joined by greg becker, the ceo of silicon valley bank. what do you think is the sentiment for ipo's. where do you see some of that activity starting to pick up? greg: breaking it down into two

different areas. one is think about the technology side and the other one is health care. noted, has, as you done pretty well. our investment bank explicitly focuses on health care and has seen some great ipo's with some great aftermarket activity. they have a good pipeline for the balance of the year. we are optimistic that that market will continue to do well. the technology side, that is a market that has needed to see the overall market remain stable period of time before you see these technology ipo's get traction or interest out there. there is still a lot of money in canprivate markets that prompt these companies up. the market has to be more stable, more consistent for the

technology companies to really want to go out in the market. the ipo process, you have to do perhaps more private fundraising. you also have to go on road shows. are you able to do that over skype or zoom, or will there be a backlog? it is a good question. i think there is a lot of things that people assume before we went to the shelter-in-place and work from home that we did not think would happen. thing,t is not the same it is better than what people expected. the same is true for ipo's. because there has been so few in the technology side, i will have to go back and look at the health care area. talking to our team, they have said you can get ipo's done, you can get with investors on these

roadshows. while it is not identical, it is better than people expected. that is why you were able to have roughly 18 health care ipo's so far this year and many have happened while we have been sheltering in place. seen theow i view range of companies you are involved with, the integration of technology and health care? has this pandemic is sped up that process, and is it permanent? are a lot of negative things that have happened from the pandemic and we can't look past that. but innovation tends to thrive in difficult circumstances. of the true with all technology we are utilizing to engage with each other, engage with clients, all built

fundamentally on innovation. i would say that all of those things have accelerated. same is true in health care or health tech. the fact that you cannot as easily visit your doctor, so more doctors are using telemedicine to engage with clients. i believe personally that has been accelerated two or three or four years faster than would have happened if it were not for the pandemic. i think of all of the things we will experience as an economy, as a society. i think technology and telemedicine and all of those things will be key beneficiaries. taylor: today, the floor of the nyse reopened. what do you think of that and how does that translate into some of your plans for a reopening? obviously, watching the

new york stock exchange reopened under these difficult circumstances is one more thing people can point to as hope as people are getting back to normal, whatever the new normal will be. clearly, that will be the litmus test whenever we get back to the new normal. reopening wephased are going to go through over the six -- a lot of companies and ceos have talked about, a lot of interesting things going on. employees that want to come back to work. they literally either don't have the technology, they have roommates and i just want to come back to work.

i can use zoom, other technology we have been empowered with. in fact, i am not going to come back to work until there is a vaccine. we, like all companies, have to come back with a flexible plan that allows for all those things to be true. letting people come back at the right time, having the right protections in place, the right testing, all of those things have to happen. taylor: we are all sort of having those conversations as well. thank you to greg becker, silicon valley bank. coming up, more efforts in the fight against misinformation. this time, the who is involved. we will hear about their collaboration. this is bloomberg. ♪ rg. ♪

taylor: fighting coronavirus misinformation remains on many big tech companies' to do list. a firm is working with the world health organization to provide accurate information when they answer questions into the yext answers bar. joining us is founder and ceo howard lerman. talk to us about what that yext answer bar aims to do. howard: what we have aimed to do is put the official answers out there. we have partnered with the world

health organization. it is a lot different than search, whichte uses links to send people to websites. we use advanced natural language processing to understand a user's question and give them the official answer directly. now you can go to news websites, -- questions about data, and giving people official information from the world health organization is paramount. taylor: it is interesting that you are working with who because they were under some criticism early on. are they -- did they come to you seeking to get accurate information? our fifth pros bono partnership in the public sector.

the u.s. state department also launched an answer bar. we said, any organization that wants to put the official answer out there, we will allow them to have access to our technology. it does not matter if it is the state department, the world health organization come or even if it is the chinese. we will give it to the chinese government. taylor: from a business model perspective, how do you turn that into potential revenue opportunities? what avenues do you see? it is incumbent on any company during a time of crisis to use their platform for good. we said, the first thing we will do is keep our employees safe. platformwill use our for good and put our technology to work to help save the world.

the way we can do that is by combating information, combating all the fake news out there about whether treatments are safe, and really leave it to authorities to put out the official information. what has happened over the past 10 years is that the interaction within humans and computers has changed. that people would type in a keyword and get blue links and web results. now, they ask -- now they have an expectation that when they visit the who, the health department's website, when they ask a question, they can get an answer. we have given these organizations their own google so they can be the suppliers of contents, fact, and control it. islor: your customers, it hotel chains, restaurants,

customers along those lines. what types of businesses are requesting your services most at this moment? see broad demand across industries. some industries are doing great. financial services. we announced a deal with vanguard. they are now live. health care is obviously an industry that has exploded. people have more questions than ever about health care. industries like hospitality. we work with a lot of hospitality companies. people still have questions about, for example, how hotel chains are cleaning their rooms, how restaurants are cleaning their spaces. for the next 90 days, a company can get a 90 day trial. it is our strategy to land with answers and upsell as we expand our platform. it is not totally different from

a traditional freemium model. taylor: i want to ask you, what is your current work from home situation look like and what does a reopening for your company look like? do you imagine a work from home workforce forever? howard: i think of the video of the newscaster giving the speech or whatever and his kids run in and the wife follows them. it sort of went viral. i am here, live on bloomberg news, i look at my four-year-old, two-year-old pounding on my window, trying to come into my office, knowing full well they will begin trouble if they do. i have a relaxed avenue -- relaxed attitude, revised attitude. toby from shop if i said they will permanently working from home. i think the days of, especially in tech, going every day to an

office might be over. that is utilizing a lot of the social capital that has already been built up. they talked about how this is working now because we all know each other. taylor: well said. unfortunately, we have to leave it there. thank you for the comments on work from home as well as some of the answers. coming come out twitter is handling murder allegations made by president trump on his platforms. and a programming note, you can check out the exclusive interview on bloomberg radio and television with new york federal reserve bank president john williams. this is bloomberg. ♪

the winter were of a woman who died in former -- the widower of a woman who died in

former congressman joe scarborough's office wrote to twitter, asking that the tweet he removed. he argued that the president was sharing the conspiracy theory and is largely debunked that the post should be removed. hereexactly is the tension if you are not familiar? >> president trump is basically tweeting out this unproven theory that joe scarborough actually murdered someone who used to work for him. not only is obviously scarborough pretty bothered and upset i the accusation, but the widow were -- the widower of the woman who died is also upset. it has been almost 20 years and now the president of the united states is suggesting that his

wife was murdered in an unproven scenario. situationlly have a where the president is not technically violating any of twitter's rules but given his platform and power, is creating a lot of problems for the people he is throwing accusations at. taylor: what has twitter said in response. kurt: twitter has basically said that they will leave these tweets up. they did not say so explicitly, but the tweets do remain so they did not find these violate any of their current rules. what they did say is they are working on some products that might influence this kind of thing in the future. unlike facebook, twitter has never really combated misinformation. they have simply kind of let that stuff go. recently, they have started adding some labels to misinformation around covid-19

miss info. what they are saying here, it sounds like, is that they may try to expand that project at some point to include other types of misinformation. the fact that they are leaving the tweets up now says to me that they do not see this as a violation of their policy. stand inhere do they terms of their policies? do you feel that they have been caught off guard or proactive enough in combating misinformation? and: i think facebook twitter have probably done a better than expected job when it comes to covid-19. i think a big reason is that when it is health information, it is a relatively clear distinction between right and wrong. they can rely on the cdc, the world health organization, and really put the responsibility on

organizations. where it becomes a lot trickier is when you have opinions that some people believe are right or wrong. certainly, in politics, we see that all the time. aroundng miss info health stuff has been ok for them but not as much on any other friend. facebook uses fact checkers. twitter does not even do that. now, basically everything has been allowed to remain. taylor: a conversation that will certainly continue. turning up the lights. we will check in to see how brightly government antitrust lights are shining on tech. all of that is next. kurt: --this is bloomberg. ♪ staying connected your way is easier than ever.

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we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. this is bloomberg technology. the last year's on increase sawlighting big tech and -- an increase highlighting big tech and antitrust. -- it could make for a long summer for some of these tech giants. joining us to discuss is bloomberg intelligence senior analyst for antitrust litigation jennifer read. everything changes if you step away. where are we in the antitrust privacy lawsuits from state attorneys general and the federal agencies we mentioned? >> thank you.

there is still so much going on. this right -- despite the disruption it has not stopped the investigations that started last year or maybe before of the big tech companies. we know the department of justice is investigating google and is quite a long way through and the federal trade commission is investigating facebook. we know the state attorneys general are investigating facebook and google and the house is doing a study of big tech companies and antitrust laws and looking at whether the laws can deal with the power of big tech and the digital economy. taylor: in your smart research you mentioned ongoing government investigations and hearts of amazon, facebook, apple. i know this is a difficult riskion but who is at most for being found to be liable for

antitrust suit? >> it is a tough question and it is not great all for of them are under -- and it is not. all four of them are under investigation. the only ones we know for sure our facebook and google. they can make it public if they want to but if they have not, the government will not make it public. while we believe apple and amazon are under investigation, that has not been confirmed. for the risk, i see it is google. fined threeeen times by the european commission for violating their monopolization laws. it is called abusive dominance but it is the same as the u.s. monopolization laws. just because that conduct by google violated europe's laws doesn't mean it violates hours but it gets the regulators partway there. it could violate hours. they have a head start with

google. looking at the findings of the european agencies, i would say google and then facebook. but for different reasons. with facebook i think they will be looking carefully at its strategy for its past acquisitions and whether those acquisitions have a legitimate business reason or whether the only reason to buy the company was to kill off or get in the way of threatened competition. taylor: some of this has come on advertising, the pricing power. google is a big leader in how much money they get from advertising. amazon the distant third, slowly becoming a player within the advertising market, is that a risk as well? probablyazon i think not. the advertising focus is on google. while facebook and amazon have

what you have as the closed loop advertising networks, google has products it markets to third-party websites. and to itself. it places search ads or display ads on its website. all of those products it acquired over the years, you can call it at tech, it has rivals, smaller companies. the allegation, what we think the government is looking at is google is foreclosing, blocking out these because it has so much control over that chain from its advertiser to a publisher but it really has the ability to prices it, that flow and and block out some of its smaller rivals. i think that kind of allegation is not one that can be waged against amazon. andor: i want to rewind look at the case of microsoft in

the 1990's. what have we learned from that case that could give us an indication of precedents that were set or the big hurdles to prove antitrust case? >> it is a great example. it shows hurdles and the president. it was the role -- the last really big monopolization case brought by the department of justice along with state attorneys general. i think it is a good case for the doj in an atmosphere where it is difficult import to prove monopolization. they have microsoft was a pretty long list of exclusionary conduct. microsoft was trying to protect its operating system from encroachment, what they called java.ware, netscape and by trying to push these out, it was protecting its operating system and was found to be liable area -- liable.

in monopolization, what has to happen is a plaintiff or the government has to show there is harm to the competitive process by this act. what the company can do is say this act as a valid legitimate purpose. what a court is to do is to weigh the harm against the valid purpose. in microsoft they had little in the way of valid legitimate business purpose. either the court said it was a sham, or they have nothing to say. they did not have some other reason for the conduct of the event harming rivals. for companies like google and facebook and other big companies outside of tech, it showed them where the line is, that what kind of conduct they can do and not cross and antitrust line and when they could -- not cross an

antitrust line and when they could. and you really need strong evidence. what other company we have not touched on is apple. if there were a case, is it against the hardware store? the app store? >> it would be the apps store. they are at least risk in my mind. their complaints are that it went up allies is the app store and is allowed -- monopolizes the app store. it does not allow others. doesn't, under the antitrust laws, in general a company doesn't have a duty to deal with its rivals. apple doesn't have a duty to allow some other entity to distribute apps on his phone. just urging a high price or what is perceived as a high price is not an antitrust violation.

it would not be in the app store. i don't see the government going after apple. taylor: i learn more and more from you every time we have a conversation. launch up for a historic , how nasa and spacex plan to make the united states the new launchpad for astronauts. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: -- taylor: merely nine years after astronauts last launched from u.s. soil, nasa and spacex are teaming up. two astronauts take off on wednesday, marking the first

time spacex will send humans into space. emily chang looks at how elon musk faced exploration -- elon musk's space explorer asian company got to this point -- exploration company got to this point. emily: for the first time ever spacex is sending the most valuable cargo into space, two human ash knots. bob think in -- human astronauts. it could revolutionize how we get to the final frontier. >> more access to space than any point in human history. newy: nasa kicked off a kind of space race with the government agency awarding $3.1 billionto spacex and $4 to boeing, which could save nasa $20 billion to $30 billion. this special program has cost $200 billion. >> we spent 17 years to get to

this point. from 2002 two now. i am emotionally exhausted. ♪ emily: that emotionally charged journey began in 2002 with the creation of spacex. >> stage one propulsion is nominal. emily: designed to make space travel more affordable by making rockets that could launch -- land themselves after a launch. >> i believe in the future of space. it is report and we become a spacefaring civilization -- we become aant spacefaring civilization. emily: the rocket has been going to the international space station since 2012. since then they have been landing rockets on land and sea. >> i always thought we would

fail. it is worth trying anyway. first three launches did not work. the fourth one we scraped together parts and that one worked. that would have been it for us. other milestones included its star link satellite to provide safe internet. the company launched the first recycled falcon 9 in 2017. a review -- a reusable booster to take place in 100 launches. and the phase three falcon heavy and a tesla with a human looking driver on board. it is a mannequin. all of these leading to the first test of the dragon capsule .n 2018 the first launch was unmanned but was successful which is what made the next one possible. 39a, travelingom at 17,000 miles an hour.

and bring them back home hopefully safe and sound, securing elon musk's status as a new kind of space pioneer. bloomberg, san francisco. taylor: garrett is a professor of astronautical engineering and senior advisor at spacex. he was on the space shuttle mission, performed three spacewalks and over 100 straight days among the stars. to say it is deeply personal would be an understatement. you know the astronauts. walk us through the significance of what tomorrow means. >> this is something i have been involved with for a long time. it is kind of emotional. it means a lot. it means a lot for the reasons you highlighted. it is the return of the ability of the united states and nasa to

launch our ash not to the international space station to vehicles.t on our own we have not done that in nine years. it is the new age of commercial spaceflight. one of the things that is different is nasa does not own the falcon 9 and dragon. spacex does. we can use same rocket and spacecraft and take ordinary citizens into space. it is opening up new possibilities. taylor: what does this mean for spacex? you had been at that company in 2018, you oversaw operation of the spacecraft. how does it shift how we view spacex as a company? >> it is taking on increasing level of importance and this possibility, going from the 9, the falconlcon

heavy, international space station missions and geo satellites. we have done a building blocks approach. this is not the last one. it is a huge milestone for nasa and the country, for our company , but it is the next milestone. there will be milestones after this. spacex is working on a bigger rocket and starship. there is a lot of exciting things to come. belor: some of those could commercial spacecraft. how realistic is that in the coming years and decades? >> extremely realistic. we will fly with the thunderstorms. that will shut us down and then after that there will be another question to the space station. the next planned mission of the crew dragon is to fly private citizen. -- 021

that is the beginning of these commercial flights. it is not just spacex. blue origin has a rocket called the new shepherd and virgin galactic. these companies were selling tickets. virgin is right now. the era of commercial spaceflight is literally around the corner. taylor: has this changed at all, the collaboration between public and private sector with nasa and spacex coming together? you have boeing getting involved. what does this mean of the public-private partnerships in the collaboration you are seeing? -- and the collaboration you are seeing? >> nasa always used private companies to build their vehicles. they did not have a factory to build the space shuttle. it was like north of -- north american, rockwell.

the difference is the relationship between the government and the private sector. now it is more of an equal whereas in the past it was the government in charge and the ability of the private companies and intellectual property to own and operate, that is different from what we have done in the past. newoes open up possibilities and it is something that has been affected -- has already in this program billione taxpayer $20 or $30 billion. it is working great. taylor: i want to get back to the specifics about tomorrow. you know the astronauts on a personal level. what will be their biggest challenges? when can you breathe out that side of relief? -- sigh of relief? earth, in are back on

a bar, the pandemic is over. it is always risky when you are going off in a rocket. it is a tremendous amount of energy, chemical energy, connecticut energy and the heat. it is not the safest thing. i think we have got everything we possibly can to make it safe and confident. one of the things that is the same as it always has been is the end-stage certification, the proof and verification that all .f nasa's regulations are met it is extremely rigorous. we are as ready as we can be. taylor: our thank you to their ,t, the former -- garrett former astronaut. we will be watching with you with bated breath. our thanks. still ahead of our continued coverage of the unrest in hong

kong over china's proposed security bill. we will bring you the latest. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: last week china stirred outrage in hong kong by proposing a new law into the city's charter. that national people's congress is expected to pass the bill this week. protesters are back on hong kong's streets and president sanctionsonsidering on china. i want to bring in our reporter who covers u.s. and china tech. there is a lot of new questions around this security law. what is it aiming to do? at big pictureg

things like acts of treason, subversion, the trigger words, but also looking at countering terrorism and foreign interference in hong kong. it is looking at anything and anyone who is looking to inflict any harm on hong kong. that is defined broadly. is very upsetong by this. what has been their response? why are they concerned? shelly: after a few months of relative quiet, there has been a resurgence of some protest and also worries from the hong kong business community. hong kong's lawmakers have tried to pass similar legislation like this before. they have failed because of other large-scale protests. now beijing says we will take

this matter into our own hands, people are worried hong kong could lose the high degree of autonomy that has made hong kong what it is and independent judiciary. taylor: what are the implications for hong kong? we have talked about them losing their status. how are tech companies responding? what does it mean in the future. -- for the future? shelly: hong kong is treated differently from mainland china from a u.s. perspective. a lot of it requires hong kong to be treated as a special status. last year congress passed this bill called the hong kong human rights and democracy act. states the secretary of every year or once a year to set us -- certify whether hong kong warrants that treatment.

pompeo was expected to submit a report to congress a few weeks ago but ended up holding off until after the national people's congress met. part of his kind of us now is with this law, will hong kong still considered as as autonomous as before? if not should the u.s. pulled us that the -- the special status hong kong enjoys like trade, tariffs and more? taylor: what our technology company saying? -- are technology companies saying? shelly: a fair amount have moved to hong kong over the years. they have moved to singapore. one of them that had a big presence in hong kong has moved to singapore. this has been happening, this kind of movement away from hong

kong. but it will be a big blow to these companies now. people in hong kong can use whatsapp, facebook, twitter. iny do like everybody else the u.s. and around the world, whereas those websites are blocked in china. toina: taylor: thank you shelly banjo. where getting reports the u.s. is considering a range of sanctions to punish china for its crackdown on hong kong, all according to people familiar with the matter. that story continues. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." "daybreak australia" is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ shery: we are counting down to asia's major market open. i am shery anh in new york. haidi: i am haidi stroud-watts in sydney. these are your top stories this hour. the u.s. is considering a range of sanctions on chinese officials and businesses over beijing's crackdown on hong kong. the white house doubts the city's tu