♪ >> i am caroline hyde. romaine: -- caroline: s&p 500 rattling -- rallying for a second straight day. romaine: the question is, what you miss? airline co. -- caroline: financial numbers taking the focus off concerns about economic impacts of covid. the flareup around the globe. these are real worries about how

variants are causing rising cases as vaccinations failed to keep up with goals set around the world. businesses across the spectrum look to get back on their feet. for one, restaurants in the united states. do you want to go back to the days of extreme shutdowns? to get into that, we start with the delta variant. romaine: there's a lot of concern about this. about a year ago when covid was taking cold over this nation, we talked about how to flatten that curve. you can see how bad it got. eventually, we did flatten. this is a success story of vaccines and social distancing and keeping ourselves apart and healthy. the concern is on the far right of your screen, you can see the curve going up. obviously we are nowhere near where we were in the worst part

of the crisis, but you don't want to see that go back up. the concern known -- now is whether it pushes higher. let's bring on someone who knows more. cynthia koons wrote a great piece for bloomberg businessweek on the terminal. the big take on the terminal every day, it fits into how the u.s. is not actually ready for some of these additional variants. we keep talking about the delta, this is now covid. the delta is it. cynthia: a variance like delta is so infectious it basically dominates. it becomes its -- darwinian. it is so strong and tough it becomes the most dominant variant. the cdc said yesterday, 83% of all new cases now. it has basically squeezed out -- which was doing this prior. alpha was very infectious, delta is more. the risk is that more infections come down the pike. we really don't know. caroline: the beginning of the

edging up is worrying. we are seeing a play out in the u.k. i've just come back from there in the delta variant hit their first and furiously. it has now taken over. the amount of infection is spiking significantly. hospitalizations are not nearly as bad. how much of a fear factor is this? cynthia: it is hard to say. it takes a while to understand these things. it takes a while to even identify a mutation. you need to see it happen in enough places, then you need to see the characteristics in the population. it takes a while to understand. recently, we were getting studies about what alpha really does. it takes a while to understand how dangerous it is. that is why they are focusing on what we do know, the infectiousness. if someone goes into the room with deltek, several more people will get a dan alpert.

we still have unvaccinated people. romaine: you were actually at some pandemic response lab in new york, in queens, explain what that is in what you saw? cynthia: the pandemic response lab was set up to be a covid testing site. they are working for the city and they realized they should do sequencing. they had the scientists and the capability, so they went to seek funding. turns out, there wasn't money for it. what they decided to do because they had the equipment and the brains is they started doing it on their own dime. they have been sequencing the mutations within new york city. new york city has had a good finger on the pulse of what's going on. now there will potentially be city money coming in and there are other ways for them to get funding. that has been a lot of the sequencing. there have been philanthropists like the zuckerberg foundation,

rockefeller foundation, a lot of deep-pocketed philanthropists have funded this kind of work, but that is not how it is supposed to work. we are supposed to have robust surveillance for things like covid and e. coli all the time, not just in and out at the moment of crises. then we are too late. caroline: the u.k. often -- they did the sequencing first, so they sound the variant first, so it got called the u.k. variant, which no one likes when their nation gets put up in these things. the issue of mutations. how highly likely it is we get plenty more mutations, or not, given the number of unvaccinated? cynthia: it is an issue around the world. reticular lien low -- particularly in low income countries. if there is an outbreak and this

would traceroute travelers in nepal, there are countries where this could incubate and there is not enough vaccine. it could get stronger and there are enough people to infect. but they are doing the work. it is true they did the sequencing work, therefore it is the u.k. mutation. other countries like south africa are doing sequencing. brazil. we need a flexible sequencing operation. it is moving in this direction where it gets smaller. people can go to the field. we can get into countries quickly when things are getting out of control and find things faster. otherwise, we are waiting until they are traveling at at that point it is a big problem. caroline: fascinating. cynthia koons. read her piece about what she saw and how covid is still very much in focus. we still have our focus on the state of the recovery in terms

of the housing market. west mortgage applications falling. record high prices. we speak to the ceo of the largest wholesale lender in the u.s.. mat ishbia will be with us. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ romaine: we are focused on the state of the recovery, particularly in the u.s. one of the industries took a lot of people by surprise was the housing and mortgage industry, which was on fire. you're getting new data that suggests things might be slowing down. caroline: or is it that everyone has now got their home?

people are coming back to the cities. overall, we are starting to see a cooldown in purchasing. purchase is down 6.4% after arise. also, mortgage rates take up ever so slightly in terms of pricing. it does feel that maybe we are cooling down. romaine: so many dynamics all the -- in all of this. caroline: let's -- with a man who knows a bit about this, mat ishbia. it is mortgage broker day. i am interested in what you are seeing in the opposing dynamics. we have seen a slight cooldown in applications. is that because prices got too high? mat: we are seeing it across the board. prices are going up, but rates are low. we haven't seen a big slowdown. we think the third quarter is going to be better.

we are excited about what is going on. the slowdown, there is a little lack of inventory. people in forbearance are not selling. i think the market is going to stay hot. romaine: give us a sense as to the breakdown of the types of mortgages you are seeing. are these people coming in and buying a home for the first time? refinancing? what are you seeing? mat: it's a good mixture. . in the second quarter rates came down, but there will be less revamping. you will see a lot less of that. we had an all-time record purchase quarter. purchases -- i won't say cycle proof, but lest six -- less cyclical than refinances. we think the third quarter we will see a lot of purchase. with rates ticking down, fh h tip about esterline --

mat: we might see more than we thought. caroline: why are you so positive on god's heard quarter? -- why are you so positive on the third quarter? mat: rates are very low. the truth is people see homes differently than they saw pre-pandemic. since covid, we are seeing people realize buying a house with a couple extra bedrooms or a little bit of yard mattered. home mean something different. we have seen more purchase than the reports are showing. we work with mortgage brokers, so we have more of an in the weeds approach. purchases have been great. i see it continuing. rates are low. housing is going to be strong. it is not going to go down significantly. we see it being very strong. romaine: let's talk about your business. this has attracted a lot of folks to this industry.

you are one of the dominant wholesalers out there in the mortgage market. quicken is the only one bigger. you've got a lot of competition from wells fargo and others. how is that affecting your pricing power and your margins? mat: we are the leader. we are the number one wholesaler. we are the number two overall. we have control and pricing. we want to make sure consumers gate -- get great deals while also making money. they will see that in second-quarter earnings. there's definitely pressure, as less mortgages are being done, people compete harder. what you will see is a lot of mortgage companies look good when rates are low good we think of -- we are an elite mortgage company. romaine: i didn't mean to shortchange you. but he went to northwestern. i couldn't help it. [laughter]

caroline: meanwhile, talk to us about -- you talk about your technology. what is interesting is the way in which people are trying to disrupt the mortgage industry. what we learned in covid's things can be done differently. it felt really archaic. you had to go in person, sign, give over signing rights to the husband. why can't we do more of this online? why do we still have to gather in an office? innovation needs to keep pace. mat: i think you are just working with the wrong people. it is all tech, -- purchase, refi, our average at the company is seven to 10 days. other people might be archaic, but we are not. mortgage brokers are in the weeds. they have great technology. we have a mortgage business. nobody wants a mortgage, they

want the house. we have to make the process easier. that is what uwm is doing. that is why we are growing so fast. romaine: talk to us about the regulatory environment. obviously a different regime in washington, a regime that talked about potentially tightening regulations for the mortgage industry. are you anticipating significant changes along that front? mat: we are not. i am all for -- people think we don't want regulation, we see regulation as a positive. anything that is good for consumers, helps mortgage investors. it is going to help us win long-term. i don't see anything coming down the pike. we saw a loosening of rates by sandra thompson. that is positive for all mortgage people across the board. it is all good going forward. the first half was an all-time record. we are excited about the second

half and 2022. romaine: did you ring the closing bell today? mat: we had 75 clients out here ringing the bell, having fun. a lot of fun today. romaine: congratulations. that's a wonderful experience to be down there. mat ishbia training us. we're going to talk about restaurants. specifically in new york, it is restaurant week where a lot of -- caroline: month. romaine: it goes on and on. more importantly, a big deal for restaurants trying to get people back in the seats. we talk to the cofounder of the mala project, emily kang. -- amelie kang. ♪

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>> we are focused on the state of the recovery. we were discussing the red-hot housing market. it is a different story with restaurants. they are showing some revival in the u.s., but have somewhere to go. romaine: we talk a lot about this real-time data we get during the pandemic. we are looking at opentable bookings. you can see the drop off in the depths of the pandemic. we have a nice rebound here. we haven't quite clawed our way back, but we have come back a lot. anyone who has walked around new york city as of late know a lot of people want to get back out and eat. caroline: it is impossible to get a reservation. romaine: amelie kang, cofounder of the mala project. that was effective july 20, 2019. that was the first day i was there.

let's talk about the opening. are you up to speed on staffing? amelie: to be honest, staffing has been difficult. [indiscernible] caroline: what are you having to do to get staffing back? is it just that the people you know and trust have returned home? is it that people are not coming back into the industry? amelie: obviously a lot of people of new york city. the restaurant industry after lockdown. unemployment benefits helped a lot of people stay in. [indiscernible]

a lot of people are returning. romaine: talk a little about the customer base. anecdotally you walk around and it looks like people are going back out to restaurants. what type of numbers are you seeing relative to the pre-pandemic era? amelie: because we are in the heart of new york, we definitely see a lot of customers. [indiscernible] i think we are seeing about 70%. that number is going up quickly. caroline: what about, as someone who likes to go out to restaurants, you have such beautiful array of ingredients you use. have you had supply chain

issues? has it been easy to serve the drinks you want? amelie: we had to shape our menu to an extent. costs increased. now it is getting a little bit back to normal. in terms of a lot of spices we source from china, we just have to work around that and find substitutions. romaine: even before covid, there was talk about the economics of running a restaurant. how thin the margins were and how precipitous the businesses. you have a couple of bad weeks and you could be out of business. that was pre-pandemic. in this environment, is there a right -- of that business model where you have more pricing power to be able to create a margin environment that is more sustainable and predictable? amelie: we are fortunate that

the community is supportive enough for us to have -- price increase. we also have to think about what kind of -- we are providing to customers. not because we are increasing price and -- [indiscernible] we have to think about additional value we are creating. i don't want to say that is pricing power because of what's going on but people are supportive and they want us to work it out. [indiscernible] it makes us think how we -- our prices. caroline: from the ashes of

difficulty we saw in 2020 comes joyous innovation. amazing things done by restaurant tours -- creating this new dining environment whether it is delivery services or at home cooking classes. is there anything you have done that you'd keep? perhaps regulations aren't allowing you to do so. amelie: we are lucky to have outdoor dining -- [indiscernible] being able to do takeout and delivery to a lot of restaurants that didn't have that before, that's interesting. we were doing that already. i wish we were able to keep -- and -- but unfortunately that --

in new york. [indiscernible] romaine: look a little more long-term, past the crisis. let's assume we are at the tail end of the crisis, what are your ambitions? i remember when you opened up mala, it got a lot of buzz. most people seemed to think it was a great restaurant. you had the michelin label. any plans for expansion? amelie: we are looking at expansion. we are preparing for a -- store which opened last -- [indiscernible] we are hoping to open that store this year. we are looking for room to grow, and opportunities to -- our locations. caroline: congratulations. we look forward to that opening.

it's restaurant week, and it basically lasts a month. go out and try it. amelie kang with the mala project. you can catch our continuing coverage on the industries road to recovery. oad to recovery. so... i know you and george were struggling with the

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announcer: this is bloomberg technology with emily chang. [please stand by]