Episode summary
June CPI and Kevin Warsh | Bloomberg Surveillance
Bloomberg Surveillance
· · Hosts: Tom Keene, Paul Sweeney, Lisa Mateo, Michael Barr · Guests: Constance Hunter, Frances Donald, Marija Veitmane, Dan Tobon, Mark Gurman, Matt Sigel
Summary
A softer-than-expected CPI print drove most of the conversation, but the guests split on how much comfort it should give markets. Constance Hunter argued that the headline relief was mostly an energy story and that geopolitics, especially the Middle East, could keep inflation volatile. Frances Donald said the report was encouraging but not enough to declare victory, stressing that core inflation is still too high, food prices remain elevated, and a tight labor market keeps demand-led inflation alive. She said the Fed should stay on hold, but not relax its focus on consumer price pressure.
The discussion then turned to what inflation means for policy, the dollar, and equities. Dan Tobon said the market has likely gotten ahead of itself on Fed tightening and that the dollar should be more neutral from here, with Brazil standing out as a carry trade idea. Marija Veitmane said weaker inflation helps, but she remains cautious on consumer stocks because companies are struggling to pass through higher costs and the gap between strong and weak firms is widening.
The second half of the show broadened into Apple and digital assets. Mark Gurman said Apple is using its lawsuit against OpenAI partly to deter employee defections while preparing a wave of AI hardware products. Matt Sigel argued that Bitcoin miners are increasingly an AI infrastructure play, and that crypto’s appeal now comes from cash-flowing businesses, low-cost power, and optionality across the broader digital asset stack.
Key takeaways
- The guests treated the cooler CPI as real relief, but not proof that inflation is defeated, with Frances Donald still seeing demand-led inflation in the system.
- Constance Hunter said energy and Middle East risks could quickly reverse the month’s disinflationary tone.
- Dan Tobon said the market has likely priced too much Fed tightening and sees the dollar as more neutral from here, not in collapse.
- Marija Veitmane said equity leadership is narrowing, with strong-margin companies holding up better than consumer-facing names that cannot fully pass through costs.
- Mark Gurman said Apple’s OpenAI lawsuit is meant to scare off defections even as the company prepares multiple AI hardware launches.
- Matt Sigel said Bitcoin miners are increasingly being valued as AI infrastructure assets, not just crypto proxies.
Notable quotes
“what we're seeing this month is entirely the energy drag explaining the headline decline”
“I am still concerned and firstly I don't know that we should be saying inflation is totally solved”
“Leave the Fed on hold”
“we're looking at places like Brazil. Great carry”
“Apple's future, the next 3 years, extraordinarily strong”
How the episode opens
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Constant Hunter with us uh with EIU and their chief economist Constance. Paul just saved me with the worst headlines. My head is spinning.
I'm using Ask B AIM Bloomberg and I can't keep up. Do you feel that way?
Oh yeah. Every day. And and if you layer on what's happening in the Gulf of with the Middle East, which is a big reason why we saw this pullback last month and and a potential reason why the you know, the July CPI may not be as favorable. Um you know, you wake up every morning and there's there's something new.
So let's just walk through this CPI data here. Looks like it's energy really impacted here. What's your takeaway here? We had arguably elevated higher inflation last month. energy impacted kind of a little bit of re reversal here this month it seems like.
Yep. And that's great but when we look forward it really depends upon is the straight of horm going to be open or not. Right.
And and if we look internally within Iran right the a lot of the actions that have been taken have really reversed some of that anti-government sentiment we saw at the turn of the year. So now there is more support amongst the people of Iran for being hardliners against the US and it just doesn't bode well for a settling of that situation.
This deflationary tendency in one report four minutes ago. Can you extrapolate that globally as you do at EIU and say that we're misjudging the inflation and there could be a dampening of prosperity, a dampening of nominal GDP that drives inflation lower.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- june cpi
- inflation uncertainty
- dollar and fx moves
- apple and openai
- bitcoin and digital assets
Companies and tickers mentioned
- RY
- STT
- C
- AAPL
- Economist Intelligence Unit
- RBC Capital Markets
- State Street
- Citi
- Bloomberg News
- Apple
- OpenAI
- VanEck
Watch the episode
Watch “June CPI and Kevin Warsh | 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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