sonali basak -- sonali, thanks a lot. sonali basak and alison williams joining us.rg. ♪ ♪ alix: something i am keeping my eye on, we learned new york city is short about 55,000 vaccines, and part of that is due to the weather, so they may have to cancel some appointments. we are going to get hit with a storm tomorrow. also, we had issues may be getting vaccines from areas that were already hard-hit by an arctic freeze that has really decimated texas. so another hurdle in terms of getting everything out fast. guy: it just makes you realize how connected everything is, even within the united states. it is fascinating to see what is happening. the cold weather we have been talking about hitting texas so hard also impacting a bunch of things. you have been following what has been happening with the energy story. there's also a chip story to emerge, a plant being affected by the cold weather down there, so this story is coming together. even just within the united states, highlighting the complexity of supply chains and how fragile they are once they start to be hit by t

sonali: you have a whole slate of bankers.s into the process here because if somebody doesn't have that kind of capability, how hard is it to get a deal done? i know you are looking at another deal right now for your other spac, atlas 2. ken: well, i don't know how you know that, but you might have better sources than me, sonali. [laughter] sonali: well, you have to. is it a hard deal to do for anybody? ken: what we are viewing this as is really an alternative, a parallel to what i consider an old method of going public. i went public going on six years now, and it took me 12 months from the time i said to my organization let's go public. it was a 12 month process, and it was very nerve-racking. you have your whole organization ready to go, and you don't know what the outcome is until the final day. something could happen in the market. the brilliance of what is going on with this new method of spac is that in a very short period of time, and entrepreneur has certainty. i will tell you, high-growth companies, entrepreneurs, ce

also with us is sonali basak.ow concerned are you about the structure of this market, are there places where the market needs to be overhauled, or is there systemic risk out there? howard: when you short a stock, you can only make a certain amount of money. most people didn't think about what infinite risk means, but you learned what it means. a stock can go up 400 times, and that is pretty extraordinary. the market took one day to figure it out, and that was pretty impressive. all of the clearing corps raise their margins to make sure that people could trade the stocks. you have to have money to pay. the people that by these stocks, they care if they sell it, they get money. the market took one day to figure it out. now, it is good to go. of course there are risks i'm about the system has figured it out. sonali: you have been building up your prime brokerage for quite a bit. what are your clients doing to react to this flush of retail traders that are driving up single name stocks or playing in the market for lon

sonali bostick, thank you as well.up, we dig into the tech selloff as nasdaq hits for its sixth day of loss. mark: i am mark crumpton world news. fed chair jay powell underscore the economy's ongoing weakness, speaking virtually to the senate banking chair powell also suggested the fed sees no need to alter its ultra low interest rate policies anytime soon. >> we expect readings on inflation to move up, that will be a temporary effect and will really signal anything. you can see spending pick up substantially in the second half of the year. that would be a good thing, but it would put pressure on prices. it does not seem likely that mr. powell's comments contrast analysts increasing optimum -- optimism. a potential surge of inflation and long-term -- a sharp increase in mortgage rates. a half million americans have died from covid. the u.s. has reported more deaths than any other in the country. new mexico -- mexico has nearly half as many. even still, that is as hospitalizations have fallen from the peak in january. m

sonali, what did we learn? sonali: hedge funds were hot on technology. lot of that was because market value, big tech names. microsoft was beloved by the tiger cubs we love to watch, the proteges of julian robertson. we saw some selling out of some old school popular tech names through this crisis. zoom, a lot of people selling out. calendar year -- palantir. a more conservative type investor. pension funds selling at a big technology named. today we have jim rossman, thank you for joining us. you are looking at a much broader set of shareholders. what are you looking at? jim: thank you for having me on. we look at over 65 -- we focus on those traditional activist shareholders. we look at occasional activists. we look at market-leading, smart hedge funds and see where they are putting their money to work. we saw the technology by. we are seeing buying in consumer and health care and real estate. why? a lot of those sectors are sifting through winners and losers from the covid crisis. i think in 2021 we will see a lot of focus on who got it right, who was

sonali: i wanted to talk about the u.s.ituation, but you advise governments all over the world. how worried are you about sovereign balance sheets, for ken griffin it was on the top of his list of concerns before covid? peter: for the developed world and those countries that have free access to financial markets and can issue debt, previous concerns that there is an artificial limit. you cannot to more than 60% of gdp in debt -- 90% of gdp, there would be alarm bells. we have just learned those arbitrary thresholds are difficult to define. bob rubin and i did a piece about why those top-down anchors do not work well in the developed world where there is equal access to -- easy access to financial markets. in developing economies were market access might be an issue. you need to separate the camps. for the united states, continental europe and other developed economies there has been artificial concern and made up thresholds. there might be a threshold to summer, we do not know where it is and we are better at predicting whe

sonali: disclosures between wall street and the brokerages are simple thing.er thing is this two plus two idea was -- the idea that trade can be collapsed. that is something that was said what have helped in that middle period of volunteer any -- relative -- volatility. ken griffin said that there could be issues with doing such a thing and that would make sure that it would be something that the industry is not ready for. that is not an immediate answer. the fact that robinhood did not have enough collateral on hand and they forced the brokers, especially companies, every fintech was watching yesterday to have more money on the onset. francine: thank you so much. she had the very latest on gamestop. coming up, representative french hill from arkansas at 8:00 a.m. in new york, 1:00 p.m. in london. this is bloomberg. ♪ francine: this is "bloomberg surveillance: early edition. . when millions of texans lost power, governor greg abbott blamed keep -- clean energy for the greatest blackout, but lost in the narrative is the reality that renewable energy has been a

sonali: let's talk about that risk.note of caution for all these investors pouring into things that may be some of them are not used divine? -- to buying? richard: the marketplace across the board really are counting on a big pickup in economic activity in the second half of this year. believing once we get the summer there will be enough people vaccinated, we will get closer to herd community, consumers will spend and businesses will bring people back to offices and we will have a huge pickup in economic activity. there is a lot of risk in that. the second area of risk is the amount of debt companies in the affected industries had to put on to whether the pandemic. they now have very debt heavy capital structures. you will have to closely monitor those companies. if the economy comes back nicely and they take advantage of the strong equity market and strong m&a market, they will deleverage to the equity market and they will be fine. if they try to ride out the debt stack, they could run into trouble if we don't get a h

have raised eyebrows in the financial world. ♪ sonali: day traders are piling into the stock market major wall street firms are paying lots of money to handle their trade. it has outraged some who feel the relationship to wall street is a bit too close. it is called payment for order flow. and it a key pillar of trading. a brokerage like e*trade or robinhood will direct orders to a market maker like citadel securities. in return, those market makers will pay the brokerage a small fee. those firms are making money on spreads for stocks and options and the sec has traditionally accepted them as a way to transfer some of the market making profits to the brokerages. it helps the market maker in return amass greater volumes of trade. ultimately, bringing them more money. they add up. they reached about $3 billion across the industry in 2020. the schwab organization, robinhood, and e*trade brought in the most fees, with schwab and td taking in 1.4 alien dollars. citadel securities, which handles more than 1/5 of u.s. equity volumes, has paid more than $1 billion for order flows last year.

sonali: this was so much about robinhood. let's start with how they make money.e got color about the fact that they make more than 50% of their revenue from payment for order flow. almost 40% from securities, wolverine securities, all well-known names on wall street. at they took away payment for order flow that would impact them significantly. would it impact can griffin, hard to know. it will be a bigger loss for robinhood. i want to draw your attention to the fix. -- vix. another big issue they said they did not have that $3 billion on hand. it draws attention to whether they will need more capital in the future. another point that is lesser understood, the way that make money from payment for order flow is as a percentage of the bid ask spread. does that mean they are incentivized to have clients taking on credit and profit in times of volatility? another big point brought up was shortselling. gabe plotkin said he and others will take a hard look at shortselling, levels might not be as high as they have seen. the other thing he would take it look at is by usi

also with us, sonali basak.et's talk about the relationship to what we are seeing with the payroll numbers which is disappointing, but points to better things ahead and an equity market that is at record highs. what do you make of where we are at the moment? clearly, the markets have front run the recovery. too much? do we need to talk about bubbles? peter: let's just talk about the labor market. the numbers are somewhat disappointing. trends have been pretty strong. we continue to see labor recovery, unemployment continues to drop. it may not be moving at the speed that we want, but i think you had a guest on earlier and they said it well. if you look at the labor construct today back in march, you would have said, this is terrific. you are continuing to see feeling in the labor force without, recovery in the leisure industry and travel industry and that is going to come later in the year. that gets me back to the market. the market said, i think there is a recovery. i think it will be strong. i think the value

sonali: key question.tions mark rowen had to answer is how are investors sticking with them after the report came out? he said most investors are sticking with them and it is in the money. you see it in the money, aum is higher. they are proving that they can rake in money across different strategies including credit. they have done major insurance deals and highlighted infrastructure and a lot of talk about environmental and social governance. these are areas we hear a lot of talk about from a lot of private equity funds, but the question will capitalize on those things. so far, the numbers are showing that they can. alix: great reporting there. thank you very much. kkr is raising $3 million for its first asia-pacific infrastructure fund, to from 3 million and stop fundraising after reaching the cat -- after reaching the cap. joining us is alisa wood. we heard about apollo raking in the money, what was it like to raise the money in the middle of covid and what was the interest like? alisa: thank you for h

sonali: there will be more changes ahead for you.job, what are the changes you are making, what can we see next coming out of this platform? stephanie: a couple of things. this is a very exciting day for us to launch market and invest, but also an exciting day because we had a new partner join goldman sachs. she joined us from strike, and before that paypal and capital one. it is really having this two-pronged strategy of having the direct to consumer market business and having a large partnership or financial cloud business. i think you can view that as one of the major changes. we have gotten to a point where we have a more wholesome platform. i talk about the fact we have lending and savings and now we have invest and soon have checking. that whole capability allows us to be someone's primary bank. as you mentioned, we will keep looking at other things on the roadmap. the way we think about it, before we launched markets, we talked to thousands of customers. we talked to 10,000 customers and they told us what they wanted. they wan

or real reporter guiding went through or if you go get bin again i'm going to arrest mario again sonali as you are. using. your cloak as soon margery or your staff where i'm not even a spy nia in or we saw the look a passer or get our son for a momentum unknown not where they're going when you've got a 2nd story. 20 minutes is better only about is there. her. 2 hair. i also pointed out that i'm on the you probably wouldn't you go gibson you know that i'm completely element to your subject it let me go look what i want as little golovkin ok downpour for the person you say i want to open so i don't forget almost on a friday or must have been a fair deal you know i believe i was crying when i got any part i'm going to want or do you see that i look and see any here in n.y.c. and yet you have just started going to write not once again but for love not your libido i guess you get there by then yeah i'll progress the moderates and there's more for the years i get a little chuckle off that i was those mothers mothers called i was till she called you and this is my what a good work you're so go

sonali: a good base of support for robinhood.e other thing i thought was interesting is there is the robinhood side and the reddit side. reddit said they would be monitoring software providers more. they had a data science team looking at more message boards for retail traders. i'm really curious here. you have a big hedge fund client base. how are they looking at this retail crowd? how are they scouring to find for where they should be investing next? howard: look, we all learned -- wall street has always said when you short a stock, you only made a certain amount of money. but you could lose an infinite amount. i just don't think most people thought about what an infinite amount means. that is like when gamestop one from four dollars to $400. they lost 800 million dollars, which is unbelievable. i think learning to watch retail investors, learning to understand retail investors. it may be news to these people, but it is not news. what it goes to show is that they have such power and such excitement. with all do respect, why was

officials say it's hard to prove all of dark spur sonali finance human rights abuses russia is threatening to cut ties with the e.u. if any new sanctions go forward with lever off warning russia wants peace but is prepared for war. well ahead of the foreign ministers meeting in brussels german foreign minister heikal mosque gave his backing for fresh sanctions on russia. here in brussels today we will discuss whether to order the imposition of new sanctions on russia in particular as a result of the conviction of alexei navalny and the fact that he has to serve his sentence in a penal colony. i am in favor of ordering the preparation of additional sanctions listing specific individuals let's bring in our brussels bureau chief alexander phenomena with the latest on this story sandra we've heard that sanctions have now been agreed upon tell us what's been decided so is expected foreign ministers were apparently able to agree that now it's time to impose sanctions sanctions alike travel bans and asset freezes sanctions against individuals who are believed to be directly responsible for alexin

officials say it's hard to prove all of dark spur sonali finance human rights abuses russia is threatening to cut ties with the e.u. if any new sanctions go forward with lever off warning russia wants peace but is prepared for war. i'm not joined by brussels brussels verjee so subtle phenomena to shed more light on this alexander you discussing sanctions russia threatening to sever diplomatic ties with the e.u. even using the word war the situation sounds very. yes indeed. serious you foreign policy chief oral stressed before the meeting of foreign ministers started that russia is so moving in a very confrontational direction and some foreign ministers made clear that they are in favor of sanction delay through onion foreign ministers said that now it's not the time to think of our interests in the region now we have to think of our values and the as tanya and foreign minister also supported him by saying that it's important that the e.u. is speaking with one voice here so a serious situation and it's i think fair to say that the e.u. russia relations are at their lowest point in years but

sonali: that is a great question. we no one of the things that regulators and lawmakers are going to look at is the robinhood side. gamification. when it comes to reddit, something a lot of people are wondering is what role does social media play. reddit is not a trading platform by any means. but then again, it is not like we have not seen these questions arise before when it came to twitter or yahoo, especially many years ago. this is not the last time this is going to happen. this was an extreme example, but the role of social media and how people represent themselves online when they are speaking about stocks will be something that's an undertone tomorrow. haidi: sonali basak there. next, the deep-freeze in texas issuing little signs of abasing. that is rippling into a shock for the world's oil markets. we have the latest on that story. this is bloomberg. ♪ this is bloomberg. ♪ shery: half an hour away from trading in japan and south korea. let's turn to sophie for what to watch. sophie: asx 200. the benchmark is

called the golden 5 because that's why the prime minister gave up a product the name calling bag or sonali bag it's recyclable if you dissolve in water you can dry it and make something new with it but. the tsunami back went through a long period of development and testing before to change its present form ringback . if a bag is burnt it doesn't release dangerous chemicals the way polyethylene does. raji waste you are the source materials for the batch they look as if they're made of regular plastic but they're not. like that i'm not the least put it 1st if we preach fraud to you to tell it's white you know should i pick on that cinemas if to put it then we extract cellulose from it but it may soon. be processed the cellulose to make it will to soluble approach him a bit again rather than he will but i don't normally do that i mean for me then we add a binding agent it's at them like that bind them out of them that yields the solution if they don't mr good at the solution to. a solution then it's from that solution we produce the box when you say there is methods to make them. concepts the

shery: sonali ball sock with the latest. sachs diving into the retail investing world, launching a new app for people who want to put in as little as $1000 to work. stephanie: spoke ask -- .. >> we want to be the leading digital banking platform and we are doing that through two different strategies. the one you have been talking about which is our market, direct to consumer strategy. we have had lending's and savings, we have had an insight platform. now we have invest. the idea behind this is we can be someone's ballistic bank. later this year we plan to launch checking. it will not be the end of our product roadmap but we think by adding invest and checking, we can be someone's primary bank. the second strategy is that we are going to take those capabilities and embed them in the echo system -- ecosystem. we have also announced a partnership with gm. we think invest is a wonderful complement, this idea of someone's primary bank. it takes the best of goldman sachs in terms of investing advice and embeds it right into the m

joining us is kristin declark and sonali basak.some serious animal spirits in this market for a long time -- what is the demand takedown? kristin: across-the-board on the ipo calendar, it converts everything across-the-board in terms of the etm product. the ipo's priced this year so far over 40%. every single stack is up trading above issue price. it is a strong market across-the-board. alix: does that mean spac is becoming so much of the volume? kristin: you are seeing investors really piling into the front end of the spac because they are working. even from the investors side, if 20% to 30% of the spacs did not find an acquisition, the returns are strong enough because of the aftermarket trading of the ones that are. we are finding acquisitions and that's getting muddled into the way investors are thinking about spacs. they are forming new strategies to participate in the spac ipo. alix: we know with the immediate calendar looks like. we saw bumble looking to raise more money here. what is your pipeline look like? kristin: i woul

emily: bloomberg's sonali basak with more on the upcoming hearing i am joined by duke law professor gina-gailher. thank you so much for joining us. do you see a problem with payment for order flow? gina-gail: yes. payment per order flow i think is a troubling aspect of the market that has definitely allowed platforms like robinhood and e*trade to gloat -- grow significant a by attracting retail investors with this promise that there is no cost to their trade. however as we always say, there is no such thing as a free lunch. so this is being paid for in some way by the retail traders, these day traders. they are paying for these transactions in some way, and there is some question as to whether or not they are fully aware of the extent to which they are bearing the cost for this supposedly free service. and that is what payment for order flow -- emily: i believe robinhood would say we disclose this to our customers, we disclosed this many time during the process. is that not enough? gina-gail: there is some disclosure going on for sure. this is something that the sec is requiring of these brok

officials say it's hard to prove all of dark spur sonali finance human rights abuses russia is threatening to cut ties with the e.u. its any new sanctions go forward with lever off warning russia wants peace but is prepared for war. well ahead of the e.u. foreign ministers meeting in brussels german foreign minister heikal maskaev his back into new russia sanctions. here in brussels today we will discuss whether to order the imposition of new sanctions on russia in particular as a result of the conviction of alexina vanity and the fact that he has to serve his sentence in a penal colony. i am in favor of ordering the preparation of additional sanctions listing specific individuals let's bring in our brussels bureau chief alexander phenomenon hi alexandra what kind of measures are we likely to see here and against whom. the european union is likely to impose travel bans and asset freezes against individuals that are believed to be directly involved in. these convictions and and incarceration and who is also expected to use its new sanctions regime that allows the block to go after human rig