Witkoff Advised Russia on How to Pitch Ukraine Plan to Trump; Hasset Frontrunner For Fed Chair

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Good morning, I'm Lisa Matteo and I'm Karen Moscow. Here
are the stories we're following today.
Karen, we begin with the latest efforts to end the
warren Ukraine.
A Kremlin official says US Presidential.
Envoy Steve Whitkoff will visit Russia next week along with
other American officials.
Now.
This comes as Bloomberg has learned that Witkoff held a
phone call last month with a senior Kremlin official to
suggest they work together on a plan for Ukraine similar
to the Gods of Peace deal, and that Vladimir Putin
should raise it with Donald Trump now. In in October
fourteenth phone call that lasted a little over five minutes,
Whitcoff advised Yuri Yushakov, Putin's top foreign policy aid, on
how the Russian leader should approach the issue with Trump now.
His guidance included suggestions on setting up a Trump Putin
call before Vladimir Zelenski's White House visit later that week,
and using the Gods agreement and as a way in.
And according to transcripts obtained by Bloomberg News, Witkoff advised
Russia on how to bring up the topic with President
Trump well Lisa.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskoff did not immediately respond to comment. However,
when asked about Witcoff's approach while on Air Force One,
President Trump said he hadn't reviewed the call, but that
he heard it was a standard negotiation.
He's going to sell this to Ukraine. He's going to
sell Ukraine to Russia. That's what he's That's what a
deal maker does. You got to say, look, they want this.
You've got to convince him with this. And I would
imagine he's saying the same thing to Ukraine, because each
party has to.
Give a tick.
In a separate social media post yesterday, he wrote that
there are only a few remaining points of disagreement with
tremendous progress made over the past week in Europe.
Karen UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out her budget
later today as she tries to win over her party,
the public, and the markets. Let's go to London and
get the very latest with Bloomberg's James Wilcock.
James, good morning, Good morning, Lisa, and Karen.
Look elusive economic growth has helped make Rachel reads the
most unpopular chancellor since polling began, with UK government bond
yields also hitting multi decade highs. Today, she's widely expected
to announce a range of tax hikes to fill a
thirty billion pound fiscal hole a year after raising taxes
and promising she wouldn't come back for more. Bloomberg Economic
says the risk for this government is if revenue and
GDP productions are too optimistic, traders will question the credibility
of long term projections and keep demanding a risk premium.
On Gilts in London, James Wilcock, Bloomberg Radio, all right.
James, thank you.
Well.
Back here in the US, the government's latest round and
negotiated drug pricing could save you big bucks, and Bloomberg's
Dan Schwartzman reports.
The US government says it has negotiated a seventy one
percent discount off the list price for both over and
or discs. Obesity drugs are zumping in with GOVI for
Medicare patients. The latest round in Medicare price cuts affect
fifteen drugs in total, with discounts raging from thirty eight
to eighty five percent. That Trump administration says the lower
prices would add up to twelve billion dollars in savings
compared with what Medicare spent on those drugs last year.
Trump has argued that pharma companies have been charging Americans
more for drugs than elsewhere.
Dan Schwartzman, Bloomberg Radio.
All right, Dan, We now turned to the latest on
the race to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has emerged
as a front runner. Bloomberg News has learned the economists
would be a close ally to President Trump and implement
his approach to interest right cutting if he were to
lead the Central Bank. Has it said he would accept
the position.
If he were to ask me to be fed chair,
then of course I would have to say yes because
I want to serve my country and I want to
serve my president.
But we'll see how it goes. There are a lot
of great candidates.
Kevin hasn't made the comments on Fox News. Treasury Secretary
Scott Bessen has run the selection process interviewing candidates to
replace Powell.
Well, let's turn to the markets now, Lisa, where futures
are higher once again after three straight days of gains
on Walls Street. A rebound in tech has led to
a three point five percent gain over the most recent rally.
Nadia Level is senior US equity strategist at UBS.
It's not all about tech, but tech is an important
part of the story, just given the overall weight in
the index. We do expect as we get into twenty
twenty six that we'll start to see a broad in
and out in the market into things like healthcare, which
we're already seeing that's under way. We also like areas
like financials as well as utility, So while tech will
remain important.
It won't be the whole story. In twenty twenty.
Six, UBS senior US equity strategist in Nadia Level and
JP Morgan predicts stocks will head even higher. Strategists expect
the S and P five hundred to trade around seven
five hundred points by the end of twenty twenty six,
and that's about eleven percent above current levels.
At some stocks on the move this morning, Karen Yers
of Dell, They're up almost five percent. The computer maker
is raising its annual projections for the key artificial intelligence
server market.
All shares of HP are down more than five percent.
The PC and printer maker gave a profit outlook for
the current year that fell short of estimates. HP also
said it will cut four thousand to six thousand employees
through fiscal twenty twenty eight by using more AI tools.
And there are also there's job cuts over at Mackenzie.
The consulting firm says it's eliminated about two hundred global
tech jobs in the past week. Mackenzie is joining rivals
and using artificial intelligence to automate some positions on Lisa.
Warner Brothers Discovery has asked potential buyers to submit new
suiteened offers after receiving an initial round of bids. Sources
say the parent of HBO and CNN asked bidders to
provide improved offers by December first. Paramounts, Guidance, Comcast, and
Netflix are looking to buy summer all of Warner Brothers. Well.
Bigcoin on the rise this morning. Right now, it's trading
above eighty seven thousand, but that's well above its peak
of one d and twenty.
Five thousand reached earlier this year.
Whalen Global Advisors founder and chairman Chris Whalen thinks we've
seen the best from bitcoin.
I think this summer was actually the high point in
many crypto assets, particularly bitcoin, which is the leader. Wall
Street killed Bitcoin when we started putting up btfs and
everything else. We correlated these kind of interesting tokens to
Wall Street and that was the end.
Well Whalen Global Advisors Founder and chairman Chris Whalen. Bitcoin
remains on track for its worst month since twenty twenty two.
And finally, Lisa Airlines are racing for what stands to
be the busiest Thanksgiving.
Travel period on record.
Carriers are anticipating more than thirty one million passengers through
December first. The travel period will be affected by factors
such as air traffic, controller shortages, fuel supply constraints, and
tech outages, which may cause disruptions and extra stress for
and time Now for look at some of the other
stories making news in New York and around the world.
And for that we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr.
Michael, good morning, Good morning Karen.
Speaking of extra stress for travelers, how will the weather
across the nation play a role on the roads and
in the air this Thanksgiving holiday? Bloomberg Media relagives Craig
Allen has the latest.
Some of The most disruptive weather today will be across
the northern Plains into the Upper Midwest and then spread
east of the Great Lakes. Rain is going to change
to heavy snow, perhaps a foot or more in Wisconsin
from Madison to Milwaukee, then to Lancing, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland,
and then the heavy lake effects snow off Lake Erie
in Ontario. And the south and east is going to
be warm, but showery. No severe weather like we had yesterday.
A new storm pushing into the Pacific northwest, and that
one could really hamper travel home over the weekend.
Bloomberg's Craig Allen. Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a social
media video urging US troops to defy illegal orders say
the FBI has contacted them to begin scheduling interviews. It
comes a day after the Pentagon announced it is investigating
Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona over potential violations of
military law. Senator Alissa Slotkin of Michigan says that President
Trump is attempting to use the FBI to scare us.
Regardless of whether you agree with the video or don't
agree with the video, the question to me is is.
This the appropriate response?
For a president of the United States to go after
and seek to weaponize the federal government against those he
disagrees with. We're not the first group of people that
he's done that with. We are not going to be
the last group of people to do that.
Senator Slotkin says President Trump's tweets against the lawmakers in
the video has led to death threats against them. The
National Park Service says it is going to start charging
into national tourists an extra one hundred dollars to enter
some of the most popular US parks. The announcement declaring
America first entry fee policies comes as national parks deal
with the strain of the major staff reduction and severe
budget cuts. Global news twenty four hours a day and
whenever you want it with the Bloomberg News Now. I'm
Michael Barm and this is Bloomberg Karen.
Thanks Michael.
A time now for our Bloomberg Sports update, and for
that we bring in John stash Hour.
Thanks Karren. In eighteen team college basketball tournament ends tonight
in Las Vegas. The Players Era Festival Championship game will
be Michigan against Gonzaga and Michigan beat Auburn in a
Battle of Rank teams by thirty Gonzaga beat Maryland by
thirty nine. The Lakers beat the Clippers one thirty five
to one to eighteen. Lucae Donson's forty three points, thirteen assists,
nine rebounds Orlando with a fifty one points second quarter.
The Magic won by forty one in Philadelphia, just the
second win of the year for the Wizards. That's your
Bloomberg Sports Update.
Stay with us. More from bloom day Break coming up after.
This Coast to coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM,
and around the world on Bloomberg dot Com and the
Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak.
It is five twelve on Wall Street and yeah, Karen
just said it. Stocks advancing markets really pricing an almost
certain reduction in borrowing costs. Here to dive more into
the reason why we have Daniel Morris joining us these
chief market strategist BNP powerbaut Asset Management. Daniel, thanks for
joining us. I want to start with eco data. Okay,
so it's finally starting to trickle in after the government shutdown. Yesterday,
we had some weak US consumer data retail sales rosemodestly.
How did the markets digest it?
Well, I guess we're still to be asking ourselves the question.
On one hand, are we going to see a slow down?
Don't forget a lot of people think that this year
next year is going to be a story of stagflation.
Whereas on the other hand, and there are reasons to
think growth could pick back up, and unfortunately we're getting Well,
the little data that we are getting seems to be
telling the mixed stories. So you probably can pick whichever
data that you like to support the view that you have.
So certainly the weakness on the retail sales side wasn't
too encouraging. On the other hand, generally speaking, the labor
market data was positive, so we could use some more
data and addition, used some more recent data. The labor
market data was from September, and I think you're going
to see the volatility therefore in the markets given the
lack of the data, until we get a better sense
of how the economy is doing.
Yeah, Daniel, Daniel, you mentioned that, so the data is, yes,
still blame ketchup a lot from September.
Does that matter to the Fed.
Well, one hopes they have other sources to get a
sense of what's happening with the economy. Certainly it's meaningful
for them and to the degree that their folcus see
now more on potential, more on the labor market than
necessarily on the inflation data. But I think, like everyone
else or other sources, the data that you can look
at to get a sense of how that's evolving. But
you know, without question, it's not ideal to not have
all the data that you can have.
And the market pricing about a ninety percent probability of
a FED cut rate next FED rate cut next month.
Do you agree.
We are anticipating that you're going to get a cut.
I think they keep in mind though, I mean, that's
relevant for the markets in this short term. You know,
let's say that's been priced in and priced out at
different points over the last few weeks, so that would
have an effect on the air creen market, but ultimately
not such a big effect because we think you're going
to get the cuts eventually. If it's December versus January,
isn't going to matter too much for the medium term outlook.
And I think that's what investors need to keep in mind.
And we can't forget a person about Aire's there's been
worries about overvaluations kind of pushing investors as sales shares
earlier in the month, kind of a pullback from riskier
parts of the market.
Is that still a concern for the markets.
Well, it's something you should always be conscious of. Our
view is that, yeah, multiples are above average historically, but
the scenario that we envisioned for next year is that,
on one hand, you get pretty good earnings growth consensus
assessments for nanstac of about fifteen percent earnings growth next year,
but if you get somewhat less price appreciation in the
index are multiple, it is actually going to fall. So
you have an environment where valuations actually do normalize at
the same time that you still get pretty good market return.
So alongside all of that, you're going to have a
volatility that we've seen. But we think the media intern
trend is upward for tech talks.
And what else could spark some new momentum and in
the stock market. I mean, there's geopolitical concerns a lot
going on. What are you keeping an eye.
On, Well, certainly what's going on in Europe. The negotiations
with Ukraine is the big thing. I think we also
want to keep in mind that generally relations between the
US and China seemed to be a bit smoother, so
if that were to change, that can have an impact
on the market. But that's something that we're always keeping
an eye on because hard to predict. Mess to say,
there really does still seem an environment where geopolitics matter
alongside everything else that you're always looking at in terms
of employment and inflation, Healthia the Gayer.
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