Episode summary
Bloomberg Surveillance TV: September 14th, 2026 | Bloomberg Surveillance
Bloomberg Surveillance
· · 24 min · Hosts: Tom Keene, Paul Sweeney, Lisa Mateo, Michael Barr · Guests: Lori Calvasina, Jennifer Huddleston, Christopher Wright
Summary
Stocks came under pressure as the host opened on a potential AI pullback, and a guest from RBC argued that markets are already pricing in more risk. She said RBC has expanded its earnings haircut to 10% from 5% to reflect both non-AI pressures and growing froth around AI, while still seeing capex strength underneath the headline names. Her view was that the top 10 market-cap stocks may be near peak investment intensity, but the rest of the S&P 500 is still early in a broader capex buildout cycle.
She also warned that several forces could combine to produce a 5% to 10% drawdown, including interest-rate risk, the transition to a new Fed chair, election-year volatility, and the unresolved war. Even so, she argued the longer-term backdrop is not broken: GDP growth around a low 2% pace remains supportive, and a 12-month forward lens still leaves room for a bounce once near-term angst passes.
Jennifer Huddleston of the Cato Institute argued that companies should be free to slow AI development themselves, but warned that broad government rules could become too static for a fast-moving technology. The conversation with US Energy Secretary Christopher Wright then shifted to crude, diesel, and Middle East supply risk, with Wright saying flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain high and should keep rising despite disruptions.
Key takeaways
- The RBC strategist said she is modeling a 10% earnings haircut because AI froth and other risks are building.
- She thinks a 5% to 10% market drawdown is plausible as interest-rate, election, war, and Fed-transition risks stack up.
- The strategist said the AI capex story is concentrated in the top 10 stocks, while the rest of the market is still early in the cycle.
- Jennifer Huddleston argued that AI regulation should favor industry norms and self-regulation over broad top-down rules.
- Secretary Wright said oil and product flows through the Strait of Hormuz are running above 10 million barrels a day on a 7-day average and should rise further.
Notable quotes
“we've expanded that to 10% to potentially account for some, you know, froth on the AI side of things”
“we were expecting a 5 to 10% pull down. We thought that those risks had risen”
“I'm still seeing a case for bounce back right now after we work through a period of angst”
“I think that's exactly one of the options. If an individual company wants to not advance with their product, they have the right”
“When we're talking about artificial intelligence, we're largely talking about concerns around specific applications”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news. This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Jonathan Pharaoh along with Lisa Abramitz and Amarie Hordern.
Join us each day for insight from the best in markets, economics, and geopolitics. From our global headquarters in New York City, we are live on Bloomberg television weekday mornings from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen. And as always, on the Bloomberg terminal, and the Bloomberg Business app, we begin this hour with stocks tumbling as a potential AI pullback rattles investors. The anthropic CEO Dario Mod presenting a three-step plan with the goal of pacing the frontier.
Lori Cavsino of RBC joins us now for more. Lori, good morning.
Good morning.
How much earnings risk is building here? So look, you know, one of the things we've been doing in our modeling is just taking the bottom up consensus and haircuting it by 10%. And in previous versions, you know, earlier in the summer, we were baking in, you know, sort of a 5% haircut to account for sort of the nonAI stocks, you know, potentially having some pressures from the Iran war, inflation, etc.
In our last couple of updates, we've expanded that to 10% to potentially account for some, you know, froth on the AI side of things. It's not that we were pounding the table and saying it was going to happen, but there has been some concern building on that front for a few months now. So, we wanted to sort of reflect that in their numbers to try to calm investors nerves a bit.
Do you think there is a slower build out on the horizon here? — So, it's funny if you look at capex data and I will say this has been, you know, a set of charts in our our deck that's been a bit more popular over the last few months and it doesn't necessarily have big, you know, do this, do that conclusions.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- us equity strategy
- economic outlook
- energy policy
- capital markets
- investment outlook
Companies and tickers mentioned
- RY
- RBC Capital Markets
- Cato Institute
Watch the episode
Watch “Bloomberg Surveillance TV: September 14th, 2026 | Bloomberg Surveillance” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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