past few days and more on the way today. tornados caused heavy damage in parts of mississippi and killed at least two people in georgia. forecasters say storm warnings are up from texas to kentucky. some areas could see 70 mile-per-hour wind and golf ball sized hail. global news 24 hours a day on air and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg.

matt: it is 1:00 p.m. in new york. i am matt miller. welcome to bloomberg markets. here are the top stories we are following from around the world. equities in the red. u.s. treasury secretary janet yellen says interest rates may need to rise modestly to prevent the economy from overheating. volatility grips markets with a big selloff in tech. [no audio] -- a quick check on what is going on in the markets. on the s&p 500 now a more modest drop of 1.2%. we had seen a bigger drive

earlier. at one point, the s&p 500 was down the most since the end of february. the u.s. dollar index is up about .3% now at 1000 -- 1132. gold has come down to $1776. bitcoin down as well. even if you look at cr why pico -- crypgo, ether was down. take a look at the 10 year gip here. yellen made those comments that rates may need to rise modestly and then we saw -- that was on the atlantic, by the way -- the yields come back, but not all the way back. there hasn't been an incredible move in the 10 year yields to keep your eye on this space

however. debate is well underway on capitol hill on president biden's wide range of economic and social programs. we told you that we are going to speak to republican senator marsha blackburn from tennessee. she is standing by with david westin to give us her take on the talk. david: i am pleased to welcome a special guest here in our studio, republican senator marsha blackburn of tennessee. thank you for coming to visit us. great to have you here. let me begin with all these proposals are taxes the president has laid out. what realistically might make it through the congress? sen. blackburn: it will be difficult to get this tax hike through the senate, i have to tell you. after the 2017 tax cuts that republicans and the trump administration put in place, what we heard from so many businesses was we can begin to

invest in our businesses again. what we heard from individuals was we like having an extra couple of thousand, $2500, in take-home pay, and people do not want to see their taxes raised. and if president biden says i am not going to raise taxes on anybody making below $200,000 a year, $400,000 a couple, and then it is the same -- and then at the same time says i am going to take away the trump tax cuts, repeal the cuts, that is you. each and every person will see an increase in their taxes. and i think that is going to be tough to get through. when you look at these green new deal proposals that have been rolled into a so-called infrastructure bill, people are not -- they have not -- they have not accepted, and think it

is ludicrous, to put more money into electric car incentives then it is to put into the -- incentives than it is to put in the roads and bridges these cars will travel on. that is why we have an alternative, our infrastructure bill. david: you said so-called infrastructure bill. suppose you. down to what you agree -- suppose you pare it down to what you agree on. what then? sen. blackburn: senator could -- senator has a great plan. -- which is vital to so much of rural america. also, looking at how you define infrastructure, the more traditional definition that we have had with roads and bridges

and highways and ports and airports and looking at what you do with broadband. we have to close that digital divide, so that is the emphasis. like i said, it is about $600 billion. that is -- if you were to go out across the country or come with me into tennessee and talked to people about what they want to see in an infrastructure bill, that is what they are wanting to see. david: talk about broadband specifically. you are very tech savvy. you have been out there advocating for this. you are in favor of some broadband support. we talked to senator shelley more o, your colleague -- shelley moore capito, and are you in support? >> when we did the farm bill in the house, we put $600 million in broadband expansion, money

well spent because it went into areas that were unserved. not underserved, but unserved. through covid, we have realized that you cannot have 21st-century education, economic development, health care, or law enforcement without access to high-speed internet, and getting this, whether it is fiber, fixed wireless, 5g, different applications are going to work better in different areas, so it is a matter of just getting those out to the public, putting money out there to help the local governments to close this digital divide will be money well spent. david: so, coming back to my original question, is there a real prospect of taking $600 billion, taking that part separately and getting it done? is there openness on the democratic part to that?

president biden? sen. blackburn: there is openness from members of the democratic caucus. leadership, you would have to ask chuck schumer and the president if they would be open to that. but if you were to put roads, bridges, highways, interstates, ports, airports, water, waterways, and broadband together, that is only 38% of the infrastructure bill. people are saying let's focus this in where there is need and pull that out where we can get bipartisan agreement and move forward on that. my hope is that we are going to be able to do that. david: we are talking with senator marsha blackburn of tennessee. thank you very much to our tv audience for joining us. we will continue on bloomberg radio with senator marsha blackburn. matt: always a pleasure to hear

from david westin and the balance of power team, just now speaking to senator marsha blackburn from our studios at 731 lexington avenue. a quick look at what is coming up on the program. andrew rickman is joining us to talk about his health tech company. this is bloomberg markets. i am matt miller. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i am matt miller. a check on the markets here. we saw the biggest drop at one point in the s&p 500 since february. now, it is no longer off that much, down 1.2% at the moment. we see the dollar rising after

yellen's comments that the fed may need to raise rates modestly. she did not say when. risks of the o'connor me -- risks of the economy overheating, she said. that's true. at some point, the fed will have to raise rates, probably more the modestly. gold down. bitcoin down. those things are better investments in a lower rate environment. take a look at the vix. it is interesting that the s&p volatility index is back over 20. if you look at this on a one year basis, it has been above 20 for most of the last 12 months. in fact, since the pandemic began. but if you back out further and look at it on a five-year basis, it was more rare that it breached the 20 level. we will keep an ion these markets for you. i want to get to our

guest. a u.k. medical tech company will go public via a reverse merger. the ceo and founder, andrew rickman, joins us to talk. he is from the united kingdom. also with us from the united kingdom is bloomberg senior deals reporter ed hammond. he is from the united kingdom but not in u.k. as he joins us from our new york studios at 731 lex. let me first get this back issue out of the way, because this has been something that was so popular. specs were not making the fantastic -- spacs were not making the fantastic purchases investors had hoped for, but the idea is they will gain ground when they make solid acquisition. why did you decide to go this back route? -- go the spac route? andrew: hi.

the reason we have gone this route is we want to accelerate our unique position in massively improving personal health and health care with our technology and our company, as a spac, and for sponsors -- and the sponsors behind us, have access to the health care market, so they represent a fantastic group to advance our technology. ed: it takes a huge amount of data from consumers, health care data. how do you manage that, particularly in regards to going into markets that don't have the same transparency around data management as the u.s. or some of the western european markets do? andrew: we certainly view, and our customers view, that data

security is an essential part of success. we have positioned ourselves with the enabling technology that generates the data and the tools that analyze trends associated with that data. it is down to our customers and the consumers at the end of the day how they manage the data, so we have positioned ourselves in a position to buy the enabling technology but not to be at the center of that data security issue. matt: i wonder about the u.k. now, i am a huge lover of london. i have lived there for years and i will never forget it. i also really appreciate the british people, but it does not strike me as the place i would want to start a tech firm, andrew. maybe california would be a better choice for that, not just because of the weather, but also a lot more money as they to

going to firms earlier and you don't have the brexit issue to worry about, it set her up -- about, etc., and so on and so forth. why the u.k.? andrew: we could start this business anywhere and actually the majority of the team is based in california. our operation in pasadena, clinical lab in irvine, and offices in silicon valley as well. california is where you can bring the incredible diversity of expertise together that would be necessary to create this business, but you find around the world pockets of extraordinary expertise, which we have linked into. so we have a team in finland, for example, in ireland, and here in the u.k. so we are truly international company -- we are truly an international company and we have leveraged that hub of activity in california but reached out to other locations.

we are incorporated in the u.k. book are going public on the nyse. ed: investors have come to expect extraordinarily high growth from the companies they do deal with -- do deals with. technology -- we're are talking about it being in wristwatches, but i wonder, going forward, what are there? one of the markets will this company play into -- what other markets will this company play into? andrew: in the consumer market, we enable people to get better insight into health and illness. we look at their diets, and how the foods they eat affect them, exercise, rest, recovery, etc. beyond that, we are working on a profound impact on health care in general. so our mission ultimately is to

have this technology clinically approved and used in, you know, clinical, medical applications, and so there you are looking at the technology delivering predictive analytics and proving disease prevention, detection, detection of diseases, better management, providing helpful trends, alerts and advice in a medical context. all of this will lead to better patient outcomes, reduced trips to the clinic and the hospital, so overall, we think, in the health care industry, this is going to -- this continuous monitoring of vital signs, biomarkers -- revolutionize the health care system. matt: fascinating and exciting. an exciting future. if those things come to market and work well, it can definitely prolong a person's life.

andrew rickman of rockley photonics and ed hammond out of the mothership, thank you. as more people return to the office, we will look at why someone says it may be a great chance to make a fresh start. let's do things differently. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i am matt miller. the move from working at home back to the office is starting to pick up steam. goldman sachs has a plan for u.s. and u.k. employees to return next month while vanguard is pursuing a hybrid plan that would keep workers remote mondays and fridays. jp morgan wants to bring workers back in july.

these announcements are coming fast and the dates coming soon. for more, let's bring in peter coy, economics editor for businessweek. you wrote a story on a return to the office being a chance for a fresh start, talking about a book like katie milkmen. why could this be a fresh start? peter: she is a professor at wharton. the book is on how to change the science of getting from where you are to where you want to be. she says when we get a fresh start -- our lives our chapters. that's how we think of them. our cartilage years -- our college years and so on. we got through the pandemic here. and we hope that the pandemic year is winding down now, so when that happens, when you end one chapter and start another, you tend to be optimistic things will be better. you think now is my chance to

set aside what failed in the past. that was the old me. now it is the new me. let's go. this is a chance to do that recent. matt: it is a chance to hit the reset button, which makes sense, obviously. it is like new year's but even bigger because you have been out of the office for much longer. what are the things people can do to take advantage of this fresh start? what are the actions we can achieve? peter: her key point is you need to be deliberate about it. you need to think to yourself, what worked during my pandemic time, when i was maybe working from home, what didn't work? if there was something that worked, hold onto it. for example, don't be distracted by the day-to-day stuff in your office. if you think it is important to set aside two hours for focused work every morning and it did

well for you at home, keep doing it at the office. or if there are some things you were missing, like the camaraderie and teamwork, now's your chance to be specific and have team lunches on wednesday, for example. matt: what are you working on for the upcoming issue of bloomberg businessweek, peter? peter: i happen to be doing an article about joe biden's tax plan. matt: joe biden's tax plan. we just heard marsha blackburn talk about that. she is not a huge fan. the interesting i think is that if this had happened 10 or 20 years ago, we would have heard a lot of freshwater economists attacking the plan, saying raising the capital gains would kill investment. there are no freshwater economists left. what happened to those milton friedman acolytes? peter: it is interesting you ask because i directly address that in the article.

people have talked to say there has been a leftward shift in the center of gravity of the economics profession. one of the reasons for that is that they always said if you kept tax rates low it would discourage companies from investing, for example, but a lot of the profits that companies like amazon and google make our excess process -- make are excess profits, which is not derogatory. it just means that it is in excess of what they need. and you can that without changing companies incentives. matt: looking forward to it. peter coy is the economics editor for bloomberg businessweek. this is bloomberg. ♪

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mark: i am mark crumpton with bloomberg's first word news. the biden administration is taking steps to make sure

covid-19 vaccines get to states that need them. bloomberg learned that -- vaccine uptake has varied significantly by state, but the u.s. has been allocating supply evenly based on adult population regardless of how many doses are being used. japan's prime ministers reportedly struggling with a decision on whether to end or extend the coronavirus state of emergency for tokyo and greater osaka. the prime minister has told advisors the decision on whether to lift the emergency on may 11 will be tough. he is concerned the number of cases have not been declining. there are signs the covid-19 pandemic in mexico may be starting to ease. the country says daily fatalities drop below 100 for the first time in one year this week. mexico has regularly seen more than 1000 covid deaths each day

with a high of more than 1800 on january 21. a familiar name running for governor of florida again. the former governor made the announcement on twitter this morning. he is the first official challenger to republican governor ron desantis. he served as florida's republican governor from 2007 to 2011 before turning independent in a failed bid for senate. he switched to the democratic party and green again for governor in 2014 -- and ran again for governor in 2014, losing to rick scott. global news 24 hours a day on air and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. amanda: i'm amanda lang. welcome to bloomberg markets.

matt: i am matt miller. welcome to our audience. here are the top stories we are following for you from around the world. u.s. equities in the red. big tech leaves the losses with the nasdaq on pace for its worst day in weeks. wall street concerned about future regulation from the by demonstration. we will discuss potential financial reform with the ceo of finance watchdog group better markets and discuss the state of the housing market as it continues to boom. brittany murphy of house canary joins us to talk about real estate. amanda? amanda: as you mentioned, there certainly some negative sentiment. it is centered squarely on the tech stocks. that has been a theme in recent sessions. the growth stocks of this market

leading us lower. today it has accelerated. the nasdaq down 2.4%. that's true inside the subgroups. only financials, materials and energy higher in the s&p. tech leaves the decline. communications right behind and consumers. when we look at the gains, they are following. apple down, amazon down, nvidia. watch the chips. they are breaking some moving down averages -- moving day averages, down. if you look at the 10 year at the bottom, it says do not read too much into what is driving this, because you would expect that yield to be moving the other direction. this is hardly a massive spike in the yield. matt: that's actually a great point, manda. -- point, amanda. when i saw janet yellen's comments, i figured it would move the market all kinds of ways. it does seem to be -- i would

guess the reason behind the drop in equities, but it hasn't moved the treasury market at all. the former fed chair saying to the atlantic it may be the interest rates will have to rise somewhat to make sure our economy does not overheat. it could cause some very modest increases in interest rates. now, if you take that at face value, she hasn't put any kind of timeframe on it, well of course she is right. at some point interest rates are going to have to rise. the question is when? may be the dumb money sees this a little bit differently than the smart money. amanda: meanwhile, i would file this under obvious. i don't think she said anything extraordinary. the bond market is struggling -- is shrugging it off. and a reminder that these markets, near record

highs, have days where they move lower before grinding higher. matt: it could also be something that jay powell kind of wishes janet yellen hadn't said. it is kind of raining on his parade. it is blowing up his spot to some extent. let's move to the stock of the hour. researcher gardner reported a standout quarter that has its shares at a record. there may be more to come for this stock. dave wilson is here with a look. dave? dave: thanks, matt. how about this? a day where you have technology stocks falling and a technology research firm rising. the ticker shows you whether focus is. they are being rewarded for earnings unlike a lot of other companies. first-quarter results out, beating estimates for the fourth straight quarter by 40%. sales also surpassed estimates

for the seventh quarter in a row. you look at how things shake out and see this company is making a lot of a relatively small increase in sales. there up more than double in net shares and cash flow. on top of that, they are buying back stock. they increased the size of their program last month by $500 million. they pre-purchased more than $600 million of stock this year. you see what they are looking after this year. $6.25. that compares with the previous forecast of $4.1. they are looking for revenue across their business as well. one area that's notable is conferences. they are looking to get back to in person conferences in the second half of the year, anticipating something like 42% revenue growth at least from that business for 2021. amanda: one of the big questions

has been what is the return to office -- what does the return to office look like? what does gardner think? what influence will that have? dave: the way they are anticipating it, it is not just a matter of going back to the office. it is going back to the road, traveling, meeting customers, so they figured -- figure there will be a ramp in travel expenses in the second half. that is one point they made on a conference call following the results. if travel restrictions remain in place, that's a positive for the company. they save on expenses while more revenue is coming in. put it all together and it may be a plus for them either way. matt: i have been working with dave on radio for a few months now. i refer to him as a stocks

boss because he is a springsteen fan and knows so much about the markets, but i might have to start calling you papa, because if you are not the spitting image of ernest aiming way -- i hope that beard -- image of ernest hemingway -- i hope that beard stays. dave: i have heard that said. there is a hemingway look-alike contest coming up. my wife has threatened by compete. matt: there is a documentary on hemingway i just finished up and i love it. six hours. thank you for joining us. coming up, despite the dodd frank act passed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, somethings suggests little has changed when it comes to oversight and accountability in the banking system. we will ask our guest. this is bloomberg. ♪

amanda: i am amanda lang alongside matt miller. recently a lot of attention was paid to the hedge fund collapse of archegos. i want to take you back to a clip of alan greenspan testify before congress in 2008 about what happened and how it went wrong and how surprised he was. he said those of us who look to the self interest of lending institutions to protect equity are in disbelief. we got it wrong in other words. fast, david powell in 2021 -- we are trying to understand the risks they are running and

understand the systems. this would be a failure on that front. is it just me or is that the same clip a couple decades apart? matt: absolutely. but the good news is they are a couple decades apart. i can understand the shock at the archegos losses, the fact that so many different banks were willing to give this guy who already made deals for wire fraud and insider trading so much leverage and put it on their balance sheets, but it is not the kind of thing that happens terribly often, which is why it was such a big story to begin with. also because of the massive numbers that came along with it. terms of losses -- with it in terms of losses. amanda: it gets to the heart of what many investors wonder about -- is the system safer?

dennis kelleher is with a market watchdog group. dennis, do you feel we are in a good place when it comes to making sure that some of the gaps and loopholes will be stopped up? dennis: i think the biden administration and its incoming regulators will pay more attention to the regulatory gaps and gamesmanship being conducted by thomas many in finance. -- by too many in finance. let's keep in mind that there is a significant lack of transparency as to the activities of the financial industry. and how many of these archegoses below the headlines regularly, no one knows. there is created complexity to hide many of these activities. and for four years, we have had regulators and supervisors who

have been awol. they have been, like alan greenspan, with their head in the sands, ignoring all the signs and red flags and warnings we have seen the last few years, and i think the biden administration and its regulators, including the new sec chair, will start paying closer attention. matt: dennis, what did dodd-frank then change, or has the important regulation been unwound by the trump administration? dennis: the trump administration did its darndest to try to unwind as much as possible and it did significantly weaken a number of key regulations but the overall architecture of dodd-frank to reform the financial system, to reduce its highest risk, most dangerous activities, and to limit or at least try to catch its most predatory activities are still in place, but many of them have

been weekend. worse, many now have loopholes. what worked and what did not work we saw last year in march and april when the pandemic caused the economy to shut down. it then caused a financial crash. but it showed us -- it was the first real life stress test of the post dodd-frank financial architecture in the united states, and it showed us two things that were very important and very clear. number one is the banking system held up very well. the biggest banks had a lot of capital and a lot of liquidity. i have to laugh. the ceos were bragging how strong they were, that they would be able to support the economy during this stress that was happening. of course, they were only that strong because regulators and supervisors forced them to have more capital and more liquidity and greater risk management and less exposure to high risk activities, so the banking system worked well. we put out a paper the detail that at better markets.

at the same time, the fed had to flood the financial system with $4 trillion in 60 days to prevent a collapse of the financial system. almost all of that went to the shadow banking system. and the shadow banking system collapsed in 2020 just like it did in 2008 and required massive bailouts, this time only by the fed, not also by taxpayers, but it showed us what worked and what did not work and we now know what we need to do is regulate the shadow banking system as strong if not stronger than the banking system. so that taxpayers, our economy and main street families are not at risk of another financial crash with the devastating consequences we saw after 2008. amanda: everybody here is pro-capital markets, dennis. there's nobody who doesn't think they are not a force for good, however imperfect they are, but if there were one or

two places you would target, what are they? what are the rules he would introduce or reintroduce to make the more system transparent or safe -- and safe? dennis: better markets is pro-capitalism and pro-markets too. we want them to benefit main street. the two big changes is the sec has to get back into the enforcement game, start enforcing the laws on the books, and enforcing them against individuals, including supervisors and executives. that was the predatory behavior. secondly, the banking regulators have to -- and the nonbanking regulators -- start focusing on the shadow banking system, making sure the treasury markets and the whole panoply of shadow banking firms have capital, have risk management, have liquidity and are regulated as robustly as the banks so that they will perform as well as the banks did in 2020.

that will protect the american people. that will give us a financial system that supports the real economy and dried the predators out of the system. -- and drive the predators out of the system. that too will help our markets and main street. amanda: dennis kelleher, founder and ceo of better markets, appreciate it. coming up, some of the pandemic trends in housing are surprising. will they continue post pandemic? we are talking to brittany murphy, ceo of housecanary. ♪

amanda: this is bloomberg markets. i am amanda lang alongside matt miller. one of the surprising things about this pandemic is how trends affected inventory levels of housing and where people want to live.

brittany murphy joins us. in terms of the trends you are seeing that you think might be lasting, are we going to see this boom continue? brittany: we do. i want to talk about the drops in the supply, which is causing the supply and demand analysis we are seeing in the housing market now. over the past year, we have seen a 33% drop with housing supply across the u.s. this sustained drop we are seeing is really what's driving the home price increases, the large, double digit increases we are seeing across the u.s., so when we are focusing on that, we see this sustained housing supply drop due to a number of different reasons. that piece is what we are not seeing subside anytime soon. we think those trends and lack of supply will be sustained. matt: you think they will

sustain. i was thinking this would force construction or or or or real estate businesses to get out and start building more on spec. will we see new -- jumped dramatically? brittany: we won't. we have constraints in the markets, lumber supplies, of which, during the pandemic, not many homes were being built and we will need a lot to catch up from that as well as this decade-long shortage in new home builds, so it is not just a switch we can turn on unfortunately, so this sustained supply drop is something that we unfortunately i think have now settled into and i think it is going to constrict supply and increase prices for the near term future. amanda: meanwhile, one of the

factors on the demand side has been these incredibly low rates for a very long time. how sensitive do you think the market will be to modestly increasing rates that janet yellen has talked about? we think markets will go higher even if they don't spike anytime soon? brittany: we do not think -- we are expecting a drop in demand if we see slightly increased rates, but overall, the buyers coming into these markets are overall well-funded and well-capitalized and willing to purchase homes with money down and skin in the game. matt: they would have to be. brittany: they do. matt: they do. brittany: they would have to be because you cannot get a mortgage now -- matt: you would have to -- they would have to be because you connected a mortgage now either. as far as i know, it is more difficult to get a mortgage, or the big banks are getting --

giving fewer of them. brittany: lenders are now requiring you to be more well-financed and come with money. for those people who are less affected by the pandemic, you have government stimulus checks that helped out. you had loan forbearance, student loan forbearance, so all of these things that allowed buyers to save up money that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to save up, and so these record savings rates we are seeing on the demand-side lead most of our homebuyers to be well-funded. one, because they have to be, and two, because they have been able to save during the pandemic. amanda: just a few seconds here, but if some of the trends we have assumed don't stick around, like work from home, will we see a sharp reversal in the housing trends? brittany: we don't see that and we don't see work from home being a strong change in the market space.

based on survey data that has come out, we think sustained demand and this change in the markets of people moving to places with more space and more land, we don't think we will see that, if there is this kind of complete reversal, that would be very different, but we think the genie is out of the bottle. matt:, brittany thank you -- brittany, thank you for joining us. brittany murphy of housecanary. bad news if i want to move back to the u.s. i think there might be a place coming on the market in washington state. there is a 61,000 square-foot mansion called xanadu 2.0 that may be coming on the market soon, so maybe i will be able to pick that up. for amanda lang, i am matt miller. this is bloomberg. ♪

mark: i markham i'm doing bloomberg's first word news.

-- i'm mark crumpton with bloomberg's first word news. they aim to double their train by 2030. that is following a virtual meeting between boris johnson. an u.k. statement, following, prime minister johnson set a new era had begun with the world's largest democracy. in that britain would consider to support india as it battles the coronavirus pandemic. meanwhile, johnson says there is a good chance that social distancing rules and england will be scrapped on june 21. on the campaign showed today, johnson said the government's lockdown easing remains the plan on track. with the rapid rollout of vaccines. the prime minister says making his case to millions of voters in england, wales and scotland ahead of key elections this week. evan mccarthy says members of his party are questioning whether representative liz cheney can continue in