matt: i am matt miller and welcome to bloomberg markets. all eyes are on the fed as investors await the crucial minutes from the latest fomc meeting. stocks are near session lows as we get closer to 2 p.m. new york time and that's when the minutes are released. executives from the world's biggest oil companies testify in the u.s. house as politicians and ceos point fingers as to who is responsible for higher prices at the pump. and is herd immunity off the table? the top dr. in the u.s., anthony fancy joins us in a moment to discuss the next round of booster shots and how to approach covid in 2022. let's take a look in the markets. we are near session lows on the s&p 500.

if you look at the index, you can see we are down 1.3%. the nasdaq is leading the way down and tech stocks are lower as yields jump. it shows you the two year and the 10 year. we come out of the inversion and your yields are falling. the 10 year yield continues to rise at 259.56. let's get to something that caught my eye and that's bitcoin. it is falling today. it's down below $45,000. there is a broader drop in risk assets at of the fomc minutes so even more sensitive as to what happens at the fed.

michael nova grad set at the conference in miami that once the fed takes a pause, bitcoin could start to take off again. this echoes what he told me a few weeks ago on the bloomberg creek to show. >> bitcoin went up a lot last year on this story of the fed printing money forever. that's what pushed up all risk assets with an unbelievable amount of the quiddity and it came off because chairman fed i have -- that i have to be more hawkish. we are starting to see a little break down. i don't think bitcoin can rally aggressively until we get a pause. matt: this is what we've been hearing from a number of people in the crypto world. the concern is that the fed will start to ratchet up rates to fight inflation but when it brings the connie into a recession, they will turn tail and run. this kind of fail is what

investors in the crypto world think could used tokens like bitcoin and ether. we are seeing a book boost in infections in some places of the new strain of covid. let's get over to david weston who is talking to dr. anthony fauci. this is bloomberg. david: for our bloomberg television and radio audience wide, and our special guest dr. anthony fouts he is with us, director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. thank you for being back with us. what are the prospects for another wave of this covid-19, whether it be some other sub variant, given the level of immunity we believe we have in the country today? > to accurately predict for the following reason. you are correct that when you combine the immunity that many

people have following infection with the immunity that people have been vaccinated and hopefully boost it have, there is a significant amount of background immunity. we know that the omicron da-2 - omicron is highly transmissible and the da-2 has a transmission advantage. if you look at what happens in other countries, we usually follow their pattern. take the u.k. as an example. they have ba2 and they've done to other things. they have the virus we have in our country, about 75% are ba@. they've had a pullback on many of the mask mandates and restrictions they have had for indoor settings as well as waning of immunity. those conditions are also present in the united states. i would not be surprised if we

see an uptick in cases whether that becomes a surge where there are a lot more cases is difficult to predict but the one thing i hope and i believe that this will not happen is that we won't get very large increase proportionately in hospitalizations because of the background immunity. i think we should expect that over the next couple of weeks, we will see an uptick in cases and hopefully there is enough background immunity so we don't wind up with a lot of hospitalizations. the best way to avoid that as we said in our previous discussions is to get more people vaccinated and if you are vaccinated, let's wind up you make sure you get boosted when your time comes. david: we sort of know who has been vaccinated.

how important is it to have that data available? >> it would be important to know the number of people who have been infected in this country. if you look at the people have either been vaccinated or who have been infected and have called an indication of immunity which could be measured by looking at the antibody response, you are talking about a high percentage of the population. perhaps as high as 90% stop however, one of the things that people need to realize is that immunity wanes. if you measure someone and take a look at their immunity to measles, that last a lifetime stuff the immunity to covid and sars covi2 is something that wanes over month so that's the wildcard in this is to be able

to predict accurately what level of immunity over time will prevent us from getting either a large surge or a search associated with hospitalizations. david: are we getting better as to the curve? i've had three vaccinations and i got covid 2.5 months ago. should i be looking at a fourth shot right now? >> with three shots and an infection, it's unlikely you will need a booster for the immediate future. i wouldn't run out and get your fourth dose right now, having been infected. what you might have to do and this is what the fda advisory committee that's meeting that was looking at, is what about projection, the strategic projection as we get into the fall for all of us who will have

waning immunity? i have not been infected but i've been vaccinated and boosted and certainly over months, is likely that my immune protection will diminish to the point of needing another booster. david: does the fall looks like just look like the last couple of falls? i learned that you have to be careful because we all go back indoors and the transmissibility goes up. we beat bracing for something in october? >> it is likely we will see a surge in the fall. when we talk about these things, these are uncharted waters for us with the virus. if one talks about the flu or other in factions in which you have decades of experience, you can predict with some reasonable accuracy what you might see. i would think we should expect that we are going to see some increase in cases as you get to

the colder weather in the fallenness the reason why the fda and their advisory committee meeting right now to plan a strategy and we at the nih are doing studies now to determine what the best boost would be. should it be in omicron boost or a boost of the original ancestral strain? we don't know but we will try to find out. david: we are speaking with dr. anthony fauci of the nih. when you talk about getting your arms around this, how important is it to have accurate information? a lot of people are doing home tests and i'm not sure we know that that would be put into the model? >> that something i think we need to consider as more and more 15 minute test become

available, what you are going to miss our people who get infected and have no symptoms or have mild symptoms so they don't come to the attention of a health care provider or they don't wind up getting a pcr. when you get a pcr and it's positive, that's get -- that gets recorded where is your home test, you have no mechanism of reporting it unless you go through the health care system. you are right, we are probably underestimating the number of infections we are having now because many of the infections are either without symptoms were minimally symptomatic and you will miss that a people do it at home and it's not reported to a central bank. david: we have all learned an awful lot about epidemiology through this experience.

that includes the cdc. we now see the head of the cdc saying they will look at and try to them what they done. what do you think we have learned that could be helpful to the cdc and change the way they do business doing forward? >> what dr. wilensky is doing is very important and i'm very much in favor of that. she is taking almost a diagnostic look over the next month that the kind of things they feel they can do better. one of the things we are all aware of and dr. wilensky is aware is that the way the system is set up now, which is partly due to our own health care system where we don't have a unified system where you can get data in real time. when you are dealing with and involving outbreak and you need to make real-time and real-world decisions, you need to know data that is one day or one week old, not data that is three months

old and the older systems we had did not allow us to get data in real time. we are getting better at it and the cdc has already instituted mechanisms of being able to get data in a much more expeditious manner. we still need to do much better and that's one of the things they are talking about when they look at how they can make it a better organization. david: the federal government has ponied up a lot of money to fight this disease properly. there is talk of more money now, above $20 billion. even that's being held up. can you give us a sense of how important it is and what the money would go for? >> that's absolutely critical that we get that money for a number of reasons. that way you can work from the bottom up stop the five billion

dollars was taken out of the 15 and that 5 billion was for international covid to get vaccines to people in the developed world and be able to get those vaccines into vaccinations and into people's arms. that is important because if we don't do that, you have a lot of viral demand makes and other parts of the world that leads to the likelihood you will see another variant. that's the first thing. the second thing is we in the next few months will run out of tests, run out of monoclonal antibodies and run out of antiviral drugs as well as the important work that needs to be done to do studies to determine what the best booster should be. should be a combination, a hybrid of different boost? should it be in omicron boost? should it be a boost of another variant? we don't know that and we cannot

do those studies unless we get the money. we in fact will run out in a very reasonably short time. david: you mentioned antiviral drugs and at one point, there was promise for antiviral drugs. how does that fit into the overall strategy? perhaps good part of the program might go for some of the intra-viral drugs. >> they are very important. particularly when you have a virus that is so highly transmissible that even people who are vaccinated will get infected. most healthy people who are vaccinated might get infected but they will get minimal or no symptoms. people who have underlying conditions, particularly the elderly whose immune status often is compromised on the basis of their age as well as people with underlying conditions who if they get

infected, they are at a higher risk of a serious complication. we absolutely need antiviral drugs for those people. it has to be given within the first few days of the infection or at least a recognition of the infection. the short answer to your question is antivirals are extremely important. if we don't get additional money, we will not be able to in the long-range to have enough antivirals to give to people. david: it's always so helpful to hear from you. that was dr. anthony faucher. matt: thanks very much to. dr. fauci and david weston coming up, bnp parable reaches one of the most apprehensive work from home deals among any major bank. we will get back to wall street next. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets, i'm matt miller. lazard says their top two executives are stepping down. this is the kind of thing that happens if you work somewhere for 30 years. sanali basik is here with the details. sanali: people forget they are one of the top and monday and visors but a $2 billion asset manager. they really have maintained a position in the top 10 even with in enormous amount of talent coming in. alex stern used to run the financial advisory business for a while. he became president of the firm in 2019 when peter or zag came in and now he is stepping down

in my sources say he will probably find another act on wall street somewhere. the other executive came about 20 years ago to lazard. a generational change. matt: that's like barbarians at the gate. sanali: it's happening all across wall street but there is also tension. blackstone was poaching from goldman sachs. greg russell who is leaving goldman and going to blackstone was just promoted at goldman. even in a tougher environment, it's a tough ask. matt: and we have the bank of america story we hear from bnc para voc. sanali: it surprises nobody that

the movie starts at a french bank will stop 22 countries across europe have a bank that's going to make it possible to work from home at least 2.5 days per week. let's see the how much that catches on. this is a french bank and they have been making this more possible in the u.s.. it allows a portion of its employees to work from home. still some friction in terms of making the transition. matt: bank of america wants everyone in the office five days per week? sanali: it's an aberration to see wall street firms making time to go home. i asked whether that was held to and they said they are trying to provide flexibility for their top armors and the people who

needed but who needs it and to what extent do you need to do this to retain your talents? matt: very interesting stuff, thank you for catching us up. let's get onto today's bloomberg big take. great anticipation leading up to the republican nomination in the pennsylvania senate race. it's not that far detached from wall street or reality tv which is what u.s. politics liens on these days. everyone will be watching dr. oz as well as david mccormick the former leader at bridgewater. but spring in the national correspondent for bloomberg is this week. great story and fascinating. i recommend everyone goes online to read this. it shows you that people can change quickly because this kite

went from a total transparency, absolute truth environment at bridgewater to politics which is like the opposite. >> that is right and to use your earlier reference, this race is more reality tv than bridgewater. david mccormick is a widely respected bridgewater ceo and left in january to get into the republican race for the open pennsylvania senate race. he's running against dr. oz and i embedded with both of them and what's remarkable is the suddenness of the mccormick transformation from a gladhanding ceo to this completely reinvented trump acolyte who is out there decrying woke liberalism and complaining about immigration on the u.s.-mexico border. the big picture story is it shows just how much of an

influence donald trump continues to have over republican politics because both mccormick and oz are competing furiously to demonstrate their allegiance to trump in hopes he will endorse them or won't stomp on them. matt: he has a connecticut hedge fund manager running for office in pennsylvania worried about the mexican border. not that we are incredibly good at geography but it's very far away. is donald trump's influence waning at all? he relaunched the career of sarah palin as well. >> there is a segment of republicans in washington led by mitch mcconnell of kentucky who were trying to create momentum behind the idea that the trump influence is fading but you only have to look at the senate race to see that he remains the dominant figure. everything they talk about and all the positions they take,

even their style of campaigning and ads are marched to trump. that's what voters want. i got a leaked pole in pennsylvania saying 70% of republican voters think the 2020 election was stolen. mccormick has a phd from princeton in our interview would not say that joe biden was the winner of the 2020 election. that's all you need to know to understand the degree of trump's enduring influence on politics. matt: it's interesting he is not willing to be as transparent now as he was when he was at the hedge fund but that's not what politics is about. we were talking about this earlier, is there anybody in washington who is as transparent or as truthful who acts like rate dalia wants his bridgewater employees to act? >> i don't think there is

especially on the republican side, the fear of courting trumps wrath and paying the political price -- we have seen how he's pushed out certain republican politicians who voted for his impeachment and how he is trying to end the career of liz cheney and how most of the major figures in most of the major races are advertising their allegiance to trump stop if you are truth telling and that involve telling a truth that donald trump could perceive as negative, it's not something most republican politicians are willing to utter. matt: thanks for joining us. he is the writer other big take story today. coming up, we will talk about crude oil prices tumbling for a second consecutive session. take a look at brent crew -- crude, down to 102.87.

that is a level that seems like ti but west texas intermediate is down to $97. i check to 28 hours ago it was trading for 106 so was a pretty big drop. we will dig in to the volatility which is not unexpected. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> the u.s. justice department

is charging a russian businessman with allegedly violating sanctions against the country. u.s. attorney general merrick garland had this message for anyone else who is enabling vladimir putin's regime. >> it does not matter how far you sale your yacht. it does not matter how will you conceal your fx, it does not matter how cleverly you hide your online activity. the justice department will use every available tool to find you, disrupt your plots, and hold you accountable. >> the united states seized millions from an account traced to the russian tycoon. bloomberg has learned that u.s. allies in the international energy agency wilbur luce 60

million barrels of oil from the emergency stockpiles -- will release 60 million barrels of oil from emergency stockpiles. major energy consumers are tapping their reserves to cushion high energy prices. a prime minister of the ruling party resigned, dragging the country back into political deadlock. it makes an impossible -- makes it impossible to pass legislation. it was a desire to unseat benjamin netanyahu after inconclusive elections in two years. global news 24 hours a day, on-air and at quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. this is bloomberg.

john: welcome to bloomberg markets. matt: oil executives testifying to the u.s. house, the hearing coming amid intensifying scrutiny of companies whose stock values have climbed along with the price of crude. plus we are counting you down to the fomc minutes set to come out at the top of the hour. it is a risk off move ahead of the release and jetblue offering to buy spirit airlines, reshaping the landscape for low-cost air travel. it is our stock of the hour and we talk about all of that and more coming up. jon: let us get a quick check of the major averages and building off of what averages are talking about come equities under

pressure today as the bond market continues to have those concerns about the economic road ahead. you saw the building yesterday with the comments from matt alluding to that we are watching the fed minutes later on. the nasdaq's decline of two point 4% highlights the unwillingness to buy technology stocks. we do not have as many tech stocks but we have several and they are under pressure. we are watching the oil price in the canadian market as well. they are actually on an intraday basis at the lowest level since the middle of march. mark was talking about the iea date announcements. we are watching those oil company executives testify in front of the u.s. house today. they are being questioned about soaring gas prices. david, there has been and of dramatic commentary, accusations of energy players keeping supply

down to enrich shareholders. how would you describe what happened so far today? >> not a whole lot of surprises or concrete changes. no changes from the executives themselves. still sticking to the same production plans and regulators are mainly asking what will it take to get more production of it? the answer was streamlined regulations to help drilling more. they also complain about the supply chain being the biggest problem. democrats attacking the industry, republicans being friendly to the industry and the executives saying that their hands are tied. matt: when wall street ceos would do capitol hill, president biden's party was angry that banks were even funding the production of oil. almost acted as if it was a legal. are they asking them to produce

more? >> yes. while at the same time playing to the future to wean themselves off of oil and plan for the energy transition. a lot of companies have talked about how a lot of their pockets will help them find the expensive energy transition in the future. they are being criticized for those profits. that is where executives are having trouble answering these questions, explaining away how much profit they are making here. the best they can say is that they have had a decade of lost profits. matt: for these will executives, in order to put the down necessary -- cappex down necessary, do they need a guarantee that the government will not turn against them again when prices at the he come back down? >> they want to know that the administration will be friendly

to them in the future by streamlining regulations and not making more onerous regulations to make it more costly and timely to get oil out of the ground. they would like to hear a little bit more of a peacemaking from the administration. to make it easier for them. something that the industry points to is the futures curve of oil. which pioneers said oil will be down $25 a barrel over the next five years. that is an indication that there is not this shortage of supply. will prices will go down. why should they add more production right now if they are going to make less money in the future? jon: talk about coordination. you have a lot of canadian energy companies that are paying dividends and buying back stock. some of the lawmakers have been grilling the executives on this today. this is something that many canadian producers have been

doing for several years now, when there is conversations around, can more energy make its way or flow to the united states? many of these producers say that they are tapped out. the story with the energy companies in the united states? >> it stretches beyond the border and that came up in the panel. being surprised that biden would suggest that more production could come from canada into the u.s. without approving the keystone pipeline and wondering how it could possibly happen. raising the specter that canada could end up shipping more oil to places like china, that would give china more energy security hold over canada. matt: really fascinating stuff. bloomberg's david talking about oil ahead of congress. bloomberg spoke with jeff curry

about the factors driving prices in the energy market. >> capex is down 35 percent but yet demand is higher. every producer with the exception of uae and saudi arabia are producing less today than they were asian where he of 2020 -- producing less oil than they were in 2020. matt: analysis, janine, a lot of people are asking who's fault it is. where do we point the finger of blame? why are we seeing such incredible volatility right now? >> we are saying incredible volatility because we are recovering from the pandemic. demand is coming back, we have

less capacity in the world than we used to before. that makes the market more prone to having price shocks. we have the russia-ukraine situation going on, we are going to have more to volatility going forward. matt: i would imagine that is one of the factors with the companies that you cover which have had these big runs already. these energy stocks up anywhere between 30 or 100%. you are still relatively upbeat on them as investments. on a theme of what investors want, that has come up today, things like dividends and stock buybacks. are you getting an indication that they would like to see more production or are they happy to see some of the shareholder friendly moves which are one of the considerations for investors right now? >> that is a great question and we keep our finger on the pulse.

we are not hearing a call from investors that they want our company to add more activity and group oil faster. what we are hearing investors call for is capital discipline, not chasing cyclical growth. they are calling for a lot of cash return in the form of dividends and buybacks. they are calling for balance sheet enhancement. these companies can better prepare for price shocks like we saw in 2020 when the oil went negative. have companies be better positioned. matt: what companies are best positioned? >> we have an hyper inflationary environment in the oil patch. that is one of the main concerns for this year. the companies you should favor are those who are more inflationary -- more insulated on the inflationary environment.

that would be eog or a company that has a high percentage of oil costs locked in for the year. lastly, we think scale matters in this environment, the skill to new shoot well with companies who provide services and diversified portfolios. now would be exxon. jon: we are looking at eog, there are certain stocks that have easily outperformed with capital and crude. some people are going to look at the outlook for oil and make a determination on energy stocks. there are a number of other factors to consider when you are making investments in the energy sector right now? >> supply chain issues and the inflation issues we are seeing is not just going to be hitting operations in the field.

it is hitting cash flow, what goes back to investors, buybacks and dividends, companies that hit production and topics -- and cappex goals. it should be good for the stocks. jon: thank you. barklay joining us on energy stocks. we continue to watch capitol hill, the jetblue purchase of spirit airlines good changed the air skype for low-cost airlines -- landscape for low-cost airlines. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. time for stock of the our. here is jetblue, the airline mix of $3.5 million bid for spirit airlines. it comes after frontier reached an agreement to buy spirit. more on the bidding war. low cost carrier bidding war in

america? >> let us start with jetblue. a pretty great offer when you look at airlines and you saw the shares drop when the offer was made. jetblue was looking at an offer of $32 per share, compare that to frontier, the trick here is the regulatory approval. the agreement was approved but there was regulatory scrutiny. jetblue is also in the limelight. many regulators saying that they are not going to get the approval. jetblue in particular has also been dealing with regulatory scrutiny when it comes to their alliance with american airlines. you cannot merge all of these airlines because it will mean worse prices for consumers. matt: how could they be worse?

i moved back from europe or people are not going to fly if it is more than $100 a ticket. i am talking about longlegs. it is the cheapest airfare i have ever experienced and that is because of the competition that has been allowed in europe. it is not seem like that kind of competition is here. no one is taking it weekend trip to the grand canyon from new york because it would cost you $500. jon: one of the other factors is that we are at a time where a lot of people are very hungry to get out there and for jetblue come from their perspective, bulking up allows them to create capital on the return to travel. you were covering the carnival cruise lines update and they seem to be pretty busy with bookings. >> this comes as the same time as a oil prices and labor shortages.

there is the competition question and if you look at this, you are not seeing a lot of the return to the skies. the concern here from a regulatory point of view that when all of these costs, you start to see the airlines charge more and there is less competition, the temptation increases when it comes to prices. jon: hopeful breakdown on the airline story. coming up, the fed release of the fomc minutes. we speak to when he sees how more hawkish monetary policy affects the credit market -- winnie cisar on how more hawkish monetary policy affects the credit market. credit market.

jon: this is bloomberg markets. with minutes to go before we get

the recent fed minutes we want to do our segment. we are going to focus on the big story of the yield curve and version. barclays has been doing some great work when it comes to what happens in the credit market when you start to have curve inversion. when you look three or six months out, what you start to see is some weakness in the corporate credit market. the challenge right now is what kind of inversion are we talking about? we could be in a period where there is some continued opportunity for investors to look at a fixed income market. historically, you go three-six months out and there is a reason to be concerned. matt: different kinds of conversions and inversions. that happened but it was brief and we are back up now. jon: a lot to think about, about who think about was corporate issuance as we move into

earnings season. winnie cisar is the global head of strategy for credit sites. give us a sense of what is happening in the credit market recently. there is a focus on inversion but there is also people who are looking for opportunity in the market. >> you are right. we have seen a shift away from a very pessimistic risk off tone. we were seeing deals priced at a pretty significant concession. widening out a lot of volatility in credit. that has turned into a cautiously more constructive hill. that has to do with just how far yields have come in a short period of time. investment grade credit investors are looking at yields in the frof the curve and they are able to pick up almost 4% in some cases without having to reach down in readings that

much -- ratings that much. a pretty good carry trade in a company that has stable fundamentals. matt: if inflation comes back down, what is your outlook for that? >> inflation is really tricky because there are a lot of different pressure points right now that are keeping inflation elevated much longer than we have anticipated. clearly, a lot of the inflationary outlook depends still on supply chain issues, on china's dealing with covid, on the russia-ukraine issue. we are expecting an extended period of inflation. we are going to see the peak relatively soon and see deflation decelerate in the beginning of next year. jon: what about the corporate confidence?

march was a pretty busy period of issuance. as we start to move into early -- earnings season, you have these micro headwinds you are talking about as well. >> march was a very busy period. one of the top months on record for the investment-grade market. the high-yield market was much slower and a lot of that has to do with management teams being in the very good position that they could sit on the sidelines and wait evaluation to come back to them. april is a little of a lighter month. you have a lot of earnings blackouts. companies are not able to issue. we have seen a big pull forward in activity in march and in q1 as a lot of bikers were out telling management teams yields are going higher and the event is tightening. we've got to get a deal done today. matt: thank you so much for joining us.

we are looking at the yield curve, no longer inverted. we still see inversions along the threes, tens are inverted. fives, 30's are almost there. there is a lot of volatility in these markets. in term of equity indexes we see drops but not session lows. s&p only down 1% and the toronto dsx is down .7%. technology stocks leading the way down, nasdaq losses are double those of the benchmark indexes. this is boom boxes -- this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: breaking news, we await the news from the march meeting. romaine: we are keeping an eye

on the market. yields are all over the place. your 10 year yield is higher by four basis points, around 2.6. a lot of movement in the commodities space as we await the effect minutes that may provide clarity on what the fed talked about at the last meeting. >> i am michael mckee, we have the fed minutes and we have details on the fed's outlook for the balance sheet reduction and on faces basic -- 50 basis point moves in the future. they anticipate starting balance sheet reductions as early as the fed's meeting in may. monthly treasury caps, they look at a range of scenarios and decided that $60 billion would be a good cap for the