♪ >> let's take a look at where u.s. financial markets ended the day. three straight days of losses and two straight days of gains. >> the question is, "what'd you miss?" romaine: he had the equity rally today. we did see the dip buyers come back in.

the move is wider toward the weekend. investors now going to take a step back. we had a crazy week with a ton of economic data. next week will be light. with cpi numbers coming in hot as they say. i think people say that. we had those retail sales numbers that came in not hot. what you make of this -- what do you make of this? joe: it wasn't pure goldilocks data. some a little bit hot on the inflation side, week on the retail sales side. consumer sentiment slipping a little bit today. some worried about inflation expectations. but markets seem into it. let's start with retail sales. the actual point is they are very high. you see the chart, well above trend. some of that stimulus aided last month. it is still very elevated relative to trend. you have to keep that in perspective. romaine: we talk about the retail sales data we got today, that is the government number. we are going to get a lot of

retail earnings next week. it will be interesting to see what comes out of the mouths of some of these companies not only with what happened in the quarter, but their outlook going forward. you can see on your screen the radio -- it is an idiot and tragic -- it is an idiosyncratic story here. l brands, i don't think you are a big buyer. of course that's a big turnaround. joe: what do you get across? romaine: i've never set foot in a ross store. joe: -- get in a ross store? romaine: i've never set foot in a ross store. joe: let's bring in ricky to go to -- our correspondent. >> i'm not surprised at all. i don't think the economic data -- we keep waiting for the fundamentals to really show the

traders are paying attention. i think it is the trading on a day-to-day basis. nothing you saw this week, three sessions of red been to sessions of green. -- two sessions of grain. it was a by the dip day. you were reversing with the -- what the day was previously. romaine: i am told fundamentals are not driving this. i'm told now by you that economic data may not be driving it. who knows what jay powell is doing. >> we will find out next week. we have so many speakers coming on. there will be a ton of tradable opportunities and comments that cook -- that could create those moves. what the stock market does is not with the bond market is going to be doing, the commodities are on their own playing field as well. when we are talking about whether inflation or these inflation concerns are really moving markets, i think it is an over arching concern, are they directly impacted by them on a daily basis? i'm less optimistic about that.

romaine: we will catch up with her next week. we will next catch up on inflation, it is back, it is tangible. the question is, is a transitory? i hate that word. micro policy perspective -- are -- our micropolicy correspondent joins us next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ romaine: investors keeping a close eye on any sign of inflation. more importantly whether that inflation is going to bleed over into other areas of the economy. joe: exactly right. today we got the consumer sentiment index.

it felt a little bit. one of the drags was inflation expectations, starting to pick up a little bit. you see the white line, going yellow. some economists put a lot of weight on these expectations. they think it's a very big deal -- they think it's a very big deal. thus welcome the president and founder of micro policy perspectives. i think it's a very good deal, the idea of expectations. the central bankers and such think it's important. when you see there is this rise in inflation expectation on a survey basis, what do you take -- what signal do you take from that? >> there's definitely some signal there. it's one of the key measures we watch. these medium-term inflation expectations by consumers. this is the first half of march -- first half of april, of may,

so we will have to get the final at the end of the month and we will have to see but persists. -- to see if it persists. the fed is trying to increase inflation expectations. they are trying to move to a better wage price regime than we had in the last cycle. so far where it rose to it is not worrisome. if it kept rising, it would be more of a concern. romaine: it's interesting you bring that up. we've seen a couple of major companies like mcdonald's and others make a commitment to raise some of their base wages here. are we going to start to see more meaningful increases like this, not just a dollar an hour? but more meaningful jumps in pay? as part of this inflationary pressure? >> that's the key question. i think we are seeing a lift in wages at the bottom of the earnings distribution for sure. employers are having to do that to get workers back in the door.

again that's good news for those workers. those workers' purchasing power has been stuck for decades. it's great to have been able to afford their lives. whether that leads to an ongoing process of increased bargaining power, broadly speaking in the labor market, and a wage price dynamic, it's very early to conclude that. all we know is that the reopening has brought more reticence from workers, socially facing low-wage occupations. they have to be convinced with higher wages to come back to work. and that is part of the reopening process. but how the labor market functions after reopening, as we settled into the new expansion, that's going to take a number of months for us to get a better sense of that. romaine: we talked about the survey. but we also got inflation data earlier on the week when we got the cpi report.

headline -- pretty hot, but also when you look into the guts, arguably it was out of some specific reopening categories. what is your read overall on the cpi number? >> the report was bananas. first. [laughter] it was a wild ride to process. looking through the details, we knew about the base effects, that is part of it, the weakness of last year drove the annual measures higher. in addition, the monthly increase was very strong. a lot of that looked high to the chip shortage. the chip shortage is feeding through a number of categories, used cars, computers, gaming systems. we see a number of big pops. then the reopening categories, hotel rates. we expected this. it was a lot hotter than expected. it still feels transitory.

these things are not going to keep rising at the same rate. we see the production of semiconductors ramping up. we expect later in the year we will have that market normalized. we see even things like lumber prices coming off. one of your favorite prices. so some of these supply bottlenecks do seem to be easing. it's not going to happen overnight. it's going to take all summer probably to work through some of these things. we will probably get more hot trends -- hot prints. another thing happening as the stimulus will be fading and the couple of months, taking seem out of things. romaine: talk about the demand side. we talk about the supply chain issues and how some of that is being sorted out. starting to be sorted out. but you get to a stage where chips, the semiconductor issue is resolved, the commodity

prices tamp down a bit -- are we still certain the demand is actually still going to be there? >> we are not certain. one of the possibilities is we have more of a boom bust dynamic and consumer spending. a lot of that depends on how well we are able to restart the labor market and get that sort of organic income growth going. we put a lot of money into consumers' pockets. it just so happens at the time the vaccinations were really becoming widespread. so we've got this perfect storm of demand from fiscal support, demand from reopening, people moving around and wanting to enjoy their lives again, and then these supply chain bottlenecks that are partly reflecting the reopening, but also a lot of idiosyncratic stories. we are at this perfect intense storm of inflationary impulses. even then, arguably it's not that bad, so as things move forward, it should settle into a

better dynamic. there is some risk that later in the year, we get more of a cooling then we currently expect. we think consumers are going to spread that stimulus over time -- we think the labor market should take the baton from fiscal support and we should have a very solid second half of the year, but it's not going to be as boomy as it is right now and the shape remains to be seen. romaine: always wonderful to have you on the program, julia coronado. coming up, going once, going twice -- we will talk about -- we were just talking abut inflation. look at your screen. -- talking about inflation. look at your screen. we are going to ask our next guest -- i guarantee you he knows. this is bloomberg.

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romaine: how's this for an alternative asset? we talk a lot about these and fts and -- nft's. now you've got christie's. all these major legit art houses selling stuff off. joe: yes, they are online, they suffer a bunch of millions of dollars. i don't know. joining us now is the ceo of christie's. guillaume cerutti. thank you so much for joining us. i don't get the stuff. you do. why are -- what are people paying this much money for? what are they getting with

nft's? >> we are at the end of a fantastic week of sales in new york. joe: fantastic. >> the market is more resilient than ever. we have recovered from a more challenging year last year. it was more difficult -- the artwork was more difficult to get. we have many top prices for artists, van gogh, -- etc. but also like you mentioned, for nft's, and new artists. what is this? it is a real community of artists, digital artists, that are revealing their work to the world, selling two months ago for $16.9 million. two days ago, and our major sales in new york, we saw again

-- digital artworks sell for $50 million. so this market is about ray ready -- about rarity, about authenticity. joe: talk to us about the type of collector that is dipping their toe into some of these nft's. is that the same collector buying up a monet? >> not for the moment. but that is coming. not for the moment, because for instance, what we saw is two months ago, 34 bidders bid in excess of $1 million. 30 out of 34 were new to christie's. it is collections only accessed in the digital world.

we did not know that. since then, we have traditional clients interested in the crypto art. being interested in the, you know, sometimes cryptocurrencies. it is a new reality in the art market. it started with only the crypto community. the digital community. but it is clear it is now going beyond. we are the very beginning of the process -- we are at the very beginning of the process. joe: i want to go back to the question we asked originally. we know these images, even the people that sold for almost $70 million in theory, someone could go on the website and right-click and download it. it's not the image itself that is being sold. what is being sold? when someone buys a crypto punk, what do they have that someone else doesn't have? >> and the artwork, what makes

the value -- in the artwork, what makes the value is the authenticity and uniqueness of the work. if you can have photos of this work, it is a different story. it is about the idea at that moment. but the value is the authenticity. the fact that today, the block chain, the nft's to provide these features, they make the value of what you buy -- it is about the rarity and authenticity of what you purchase. romaine: we are coming out of the covid crisis. we know there are some disruptions in the art market over the past 12-14 months or so. we did see some of the options that did take place, the virtual ones, still commanded a pretty

high number of buyers here. i'm wondering how much resiliency you saw during the pandemic, and what your general expectations are for demand going forward. >> 2020 was rough on the demand side. at no moment last year we saw a disruption in terms of the buying power of our clients. we have more and more new clients. especially coming from asia, millennials. the challenge last year was not on the side. the challenge of last year was the supply. artists wanted to wait until making a decision to sell their work. this year, it remains clear the demand remains very strong as it was last year. yesterday, we had huge positive news from asia. our clients on the setting

side, the can finders -- confiners, are more confident. they feel the market is ready and strong. so they feel willing to sell. look at the top price we achieved at christie's yesterday. the first time in two years that we have an option in excess of millions. we are back to the market, as it wasn't when he -- was in 2019, particularly after a particularly difficult year. romaine: that was guillaume cerutti, ceo of christie's. we will turn from betting on art to betting on horses.

the second leg of the triple crown. joining us is our in-house horse expert. david, who is going to win? is it going to be clean? >> yeah, i don't have much of a good answer for you on the who is going to win part. if it's going to be clean, let's certainly hoard so that hope so -- let's certainly hope so. last week was a mess with the drug positive coming out. the sport is involved in an ugly scandal right now. joe: you are a horse racing a fiction out of -- afficionado. yet you wrote for the first time you feel like your love for the sport is diminishing a little bit? >> you know, listen -- as these positives came out with the superstar trainers,

one positive after another in terms of drug violations have piled on. it starts to become hard to ignore. you've always got some sort of seemingly viable excuse they come up with. the horse ate the hay in the stall. when you start looking into it more, and i did speak to a very good source of mine who has been gambling in a big way for decades, and he's been a big racehorse owner for 20 years, he told me that he himself, the things he saw as an owner at the highest level, in terms of the way top training outfits were managing horses, it threw him so much he is out of the game entirely. he does not own a single resource. i will tell you, as someone who respects this man quite a bit and knows him well, that gave me great pause. romaine: are you going

[indiscernible] >> i don't know that i am. [laughter] it's awful hard to be -- he's got two horses in here. including the derby winner. i guess exacta box, that's what i would do. romaine: i'm doing it. -- joe: i'm doing it. >> don't do it on my account, joe. romaine: david, with the best title here at bloomberg, our in-house sports expert. joe: that's all he does. that's it. romaine: just a reminder, subscribe to our weekly podcast, it's called "what'd you miss?" enjoyed over the weekend. you have nothing else to do. joe: nothing else to do. that doesn't for "what'd you miss?" romaine: have a great weekend,

everyone. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> from the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide, in silicon valley and beyond, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. ♪ emily: i am emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." coming up in the next hour, crypto markets roiling after more tweets from elon musk's. coinbase finally adds it to its