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Bloomberg Surveillance

9 Nov 2026 · 29m · 18 chapters

Episode artwork

Stocks Rise as Dip-Buyers Shrug Off Nvidia Woes

In short

Markets and policy outlook amid AI-driven volatility. The episode centers on why stocks rose despite worries about Nvidia, framing Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang as central to AI financing and supply chains; it also covers U.S. macro (Fed, inflation, consumer strength), investment positioning (patience on AI/data centers), EV design regulation in China, and a political/economic policy outlook after Democrats took Congress.

Guests

Shuli Ren, Bloomberg Opinion columnist; Kathy Bostanchik, Senior VP and Chief Economist at Nationwide; Paul Christopher, Head of Global Investment Strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute; Henrietta Trez, Director of Economic Policy at Veda Partners.

Key claims

Huang is “bigger than Nvidia” via backstopping hundreds of billions in venture financing and investing tens of billions in startups, creating heavy reliance; board succession planning is urgent. AI contributes roughly 0.6 percentage points to GDP growth (direct ~0.2–0.3, indirect ~0.3). AI isn’t a bubble, but expectations must adjust; further downside possible. China’s regulators push physical vehicle controls for safety.

Notable examples

Nvidia’s role as “central bank of AI”; Nvidia results due Nov 17; EV recalls tied to digital controls; CPI week and oil price easing.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

1:25

NVIDIA's Central Role in AI

Discussion on NVIDIA's pivotal position in the AI market and CEO Jensen Wang's influence.

“And one thing you notice is NVIDIA is right smack in the middle of it all.”
2:32

The Importance of CEO Succession Planning

Exploration of NVIDIA's need for a succession plan for Jensen Wang.

“Like when we look at all the security financing, NVIDIA is, of course, the most important chip designer and chip maker.”
4:25

Internal Investigation and Espionage Concerns

Analysis of allegations surrounding Jensen Wang and potential espionage issues.

“Well, last month during a taping for an upcoming episode of The Circle with Emily Chang.”
8:13

The Bloomberg Tech Minute

Update on the evolution of car designs by Chinese automakers towards physical controls.

“If you invest or lead a business, one-sided views aren't enough.”
9:27

Economic Data and Core Inflation Insights

Discussion on recent economic data and predictions regarding inflation.

“You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast.”
14:00

Impact of Energy Prices on Various Sectors

Explore how higher energy prices affect different sectors and the housing market.

“So what we'll look closely at is, you know, what sectors were or were not impacted by higher energy prices.”
16:32

U.S. Consumer Outlook Ahead of Holidays

Insight into the current state of the U.S. consumer and holiday spending expectations.

“More from Bloomberg Surveillance coming up after this.”
16:58

Strategic Insights on Tech Investments

Understanding the current tech market dynamics and investment strategies.

“He's head of Global Investment Strategy for the Wells Fargo Investment Institute.”
18:03

Navigating Bond Market Opportunities

Discussion on strategies for investing in the bond market in the current climate.

“How does this potentially impact how you view the direction of AI and how you're positioning whenever you're talking to clients?”
19:05

The Future of Gold in Investment Strategies

Analyzing gold as an investment amid rising interest rates and market conditions.

“So, I mean, that's still a little bit of ways from where the S &P 500 closed around 7 ,400 on Friday.”
Show all 18 chapters
21:45

Earnings Expectations and AI Investment Risks

Exploring the earnings outlook for companies involved in AI amid current market challenges.

“Interest rates, we think, are going to be on the rise.”
24:21

Client Concerns Regarding AI Investments

Understanding the concerns clients have about investing in AI technology.

“and there's a data center now in every state and in D.C.”
25:27

Client Concerns Regarding AI Investments

Understanding the concerns clients have about investing in AI technology.

“regulators to overhaul the EV industry's potentially harmful design choices.”
27:13

Democratic Strategies in Congress Post-Election

Discussion on the Democratic Party's potential actions and policies following the election.

“You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast.”
28:00

The Democratic Strategy Moving Forward

An analysis of the Democratic Party's potential strategies and challenges ahead.

“What do you think the Dems are going to do here over the coming months and over the next two years?”
29:31

Investigating Pete Hegseth and Bipartisan Challenges

Discussion on the investigation into Pete Hegseth and bipartisan responses to military issues.

“And what sort of precedents do we have for something like this?”
31:28

Debt Ceiling and Reconciliation Bill Prospects

Insights into the challenges surrounding the debt ceiling and potential legislative actions.

“And it either needs to happen with one-party control that is on a path to provide an easy way out for the president to hike the debt ceiling by$5 trillion.”
32:24

Tariff Adjustments and Economic Implications

The implications of potential tariff changes following the recent elections.

“So I would expect for those to get resolved.”
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Transcript

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0:00If you invest, lead a business, or allocate capital, one-sided views aren't enough. Join me, Brad Rogoff, the Global Head of Research at Barclays, on the Flipside podcast. Each month, I go head-to-head with one of our expert analysts on my global team to debate the economic and market issues that matter most. From inflation and AI to equity and credit trends, each debate helps you see what headlines might miss. Find the Flipside wherever you get your podcasts. When you're a business owner interested in expanding to new markets, there's a lot to consider and countless questions to answer before making the call.

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1:16Boomi turns a world of AI pain into a world of AI gain. As Boomi says, we got you. Head to boomi.com. That's B-O-O-M-I dot com.

1:52or watch us live on YouTube. Well, when you think about all that's been written about NVIDIA over the last couple of years, one of the stories that jumps out at me is a Bloomberg story that had a graphic that just showing all the interrelated deals within the AI space. And one thing you notice is NVIDIA is right smack in the middle of it all. Everything seems to revolve around NVIDIA. So this news about Jensen Wong here really raises some questions about the AI space. Shuli Ren, she joins us here, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Shuli, you've got a column out today saying Jensen Wan is bigger than NVIDIA, and that's a problem.

2:32What do you mean by that? So absolutely. Like when we look at all the security financing, NVIDIA is, of course, the most important chip designer and chip maker. But it's also nicknamed the central bank of AI. So Jensen Wan, he yeah, that's right. He's the central bank of AI. He actually has backstopped hundreds of billions of dollars of venture financing to its customers to help them finance the purchase of NVIDIA chips. He has also invested tens of billions of equity financing into startups, especially the so-called newer clouds, the data center operators that lease out NVIDIA chips to AI labs.

3:16All of these financing efforts are what meant to boost Nvidia's chip sales. But on the other hand, all these startups and the customers, they're heavily reliant on Nvidia's financing channel. Well, Jensen's really the only CEO this company has ever had over the past few decades. Do you think that he can survive this? Well, it depends on the board's fact-finding process. And it's perhaps too early for me as an outsider to speculate. But I have to say that Jensen Wang, even though technically he owns like less than 4 % of the company, NVIDIA is kind of a family business. He doesn't have a successor.

3:56He has like 60 people reporting to him. All of them asked to do whatever he decides to do. And his whole family is in it. His son, daughter, his son-in-law. It's kind of a 4.5 trillion company, but it's kind of a family business. And I will say that he's very much a key man in that company and the board will have a tough job. That's a great point, Shulia. That kind of brings up the question, who would replace Wang as CEO if he were forced out? Well, last month during a taping for an upcoming episode of The Circle with Emily Chang. Emily, talk to Mr. Wang about succession plans. Take a listen. I'm responsible for an entire industry.

4:39And so I think the pressure of being the CEO is high and it's supposed to be high. It shouldn't be an it should not be an easy job. It shouldn't be a job that you take for granted. When I decided to be CEO, you know, I didn't didn't realize the magnitude of the pressure and responsibilities. But, you know, look, that's what I that's what I signed up for. And so now that my family and all of the people that are near me see the responsibilities of the job and what it takes, then they just got to ask themselves whether this is the level of sacrifice and responsibility you want. And I'm really hoping that the next CEO of the company is already at the company.

5:23But 20 years from now, I hope I stay healthy and I hope I continue to earn my keep. But so long as I can do that 20 years from now, I hope I hope they're already here and but they have to earn it.

5:40Emily Chang and surely that brings up the question here. If I'm at the board, if I'm a board member at a video, I need to wake up today saying, hey, guys, we need a succession plan like yesterday. What is it? What do you think? How do you think this develops? How do you think this plays out? I guess like NVIDIA is just growing so fast. Like OpenAI didn't really come to market until late 2022. And we have been into this AI field rally for just four years. And the board and senior executives, they haven't really put Jensen Wang to his proper place. And they haven't really come up with a succession plan.

6:19And as you realize that when you listen to his interview with Emily, He basically talked about him being responsible for the entire industry and his family and the other employees should think about what kind of sacrifice they want to put up with. That just sounds like he is talking about his family members being possible successors. So is there anyone in particular that comes to mind that you think could potentially step in? he has a daughter who is quite high profile and she was supposed to go to south korea for a business trip but she canceled that perhaps the daughter i don't know that there's also son involving the company so surely i mean it sounds like here we've have an internal investigation being launched by the company is there any talk for i don't know it seems like if there's some potential spying issues here?

7:14Is there any external governmental review that might come about here? I think it's just a matter of time, especially with the blue wave, right? Like we're talking about espionage here. We're talking about the Nvidia, like Jensen Wang's alleged lover, possibly opening a backdoor for Chinese companies to get access to Nvidia's most advanced chips. These are very serious allegations. I feel like it's not just going to be an internal company investigation. Shirley, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Shirley Ren, she's a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A great, great column on the Bloomberg Terminal and at Bloomberg.com slash opinion.

7:58Check it out, folks. And entitled Jensen Wong is bigger than NVIDIA. It's a problem. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Surveillance coming up after this. If you invest or lead a business, one-sided views aren't enough. Join me, Brad Rogoff, and my team at Barclays Research as we debate what's driving markets on the Flipside podcast. Find the Flipside wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Masser. Chinese automakers have become famous for turning cars into rolling smartphones decked out with large touchscreens and flashy software. Now they're going back to design basics, touting the return of buttons and knobs.

8:44The reintroduction of physical controls coincides with a broader push by Chinese regulators to overhaul the EV industry's potentially harmful design choices. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed updated national vehicle standards that specify certain functions, like those that control headlights or change gears, should be physical rather than digital. While door handles have been the most high-profile change resulting in millions of cars being recalled, screens have also drawn scrutiny because they can pose a safety risk should they lose power or brake. The trend of adding physical controls is not limited to China, with Mercedes-Benz Group also introducing buttons in its new models.

9:24That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChachiPT. Get started at ChachiPT.com.

9:34You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. or watch us live on YouTube. We're joined with Kathy Bastanchik, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at Nationwide. Kathy, we've had a lot of economic data over the last few weeks. We've got a Fed that raised rates once, may raise rates in December here. What's your view of this economy right here, Kathy? What's your key focus when you take a look at this U.S. economy right now? Well, good morning, Paul.

10:14Well, first, I would just say the U.S. economy is quite strong at this point. You know, we came off of third quarter growth over 3 percent. We may get a little cooling in the fourth quarter, but moderate. And what we found out Friday from the employment report is the labor market is still quite buoyant. In fact, we're seeing more demand for workers than the availability of the unemployment rate going down. Wage growth perked up. So that provides some income support for consumers as we're heading into the holiday season. So right now, the U.S. economy seems to be doing quite well, led by the consumer and AI trade, AI investment, as you were talking about.

11:00Kathy, talk to us about how much AI actually contributes to GDP when we've had this latest leg lower in chipmaker shares. Yeah, great question. So there's both, I think, the direct and the indirect impact. It's pretty sizable. So the direct impact when you subtract out imports, we think, is probably around two to three-tenths of GDP growth. And then the indirect, which comes through the wealth effect, as equity stocks and assets go up in value, people feel wealthier and they spend more, save less. That's probably about three-tenths. So you're talking, you know, maybe six tenths of growth, which we think next year will be about 2.3 percent.

11:47So about a quarter of the growth coming indirectly or directly from AI. So have you changed any estimates at all, given the pullback that we've seen in AI and even maybe some of the concerns about AI spending? You know, we haven't done that. I think a lot of the spend that has been planned could go through. We'll have to wait and see, to be honest, to see if there's any abrupt stop to some of the AI build out along different states right after the election. It's a possibility that there's a little bit of a slower growth of capital spending and then how that feeds through to GDP growth, as I just talked about.

12:32And then, yeah, equity values. But they'd have to come down quite a bit. That three tenths impact, that's it's over a full year and it would have to be meaningful. You know, I think we've seen these pullbacks, corrections, you know, five to 10 percent. Any given time, that's not enough to really move consumer spending. So, Kathy, give us a sense here of your view of underlying core inflation. That seems to be job one for this Fed here. We've got CPI coming out tomorrow. We got CPI. It's a big inflation week here this week here. Oil, we got WTI now below$90 a barrel. That's a good thing. But how do you think about core inflation, Kathy?

13:14Yeah, so great question. And that is what the Fed is focused on mostly. I mean, they care about headline. They're worried about spillover effects from higher energy or food prices to other goods and services. But the core number we think will be pretty well contained for tomorrow, for the month of October. And we're looking for a two-tenths increase. Headline's going to come in stronger of three-tenths. Gasoline prices were actually down on the month, but when you seasonally adjust, they were higher. So what we've seen now in the energy complex with oil prices coming down, if that feeds through to lower gasoline prices, that takes a lot of pressure off a headline.

13:54And then it also takes pressure off the fear that we get spilled over to other goodness services. So what we'll look closely at is, you know, what sectors were or were not impacted by higher energy prices. I think that's really the key for poor and also how housing shelter prices play out, because we have seen some uptick there in rental inflation. That had been a disinflationary force. Now looks like it's it's turned and be a little upward. So we have to keep an eye on that, too. Hey, Kathy, a year ago, we were dealing with the U.S. government shutdown. So I'm wondering what ways could the data potentially be skewed year over year numbers at all?

14:34Yeah, good point. We will not, unfortunately, get official year on year growth rates because, as you pointed out, the government was shut down. There was no data collection for October of last year. So we just can't compute it. Now, we can implicitly do that. And what we're expecting, even with some gasoline prices coming off a bit this month and even next month, we still see the year on year headline CPI trending up to four percent. And poor inflation, we think will be a bit sticky here around two and a half percent. But, you know, we will not actually get year on year readings tomorrow. Kathy, how's the U.S.

15:12consumer out there? We're getting into the holiday season. And a lot of the retailers are saying they're expecting some pretty good holiday sales here. How are you viewing U.S. consumer? Yeah, I think the consumers in a pretty solid space here right now, you know, I think key is the labor market. And we just got that latest reading on Friday. That tells us how many people are working and also their wage growth. And it was strong. So we've got decent income implications for that heading into the holiday season. And, you know, there's been a little bit of pullback and uncertainty right after the election in the equity market, particularly with the chips trade.

15:58But I think overall, you know, households are feeling pretty good, right? Home prices are still up quite a bit. Equity prices are up still over, you know, two year period or so. So I think we're going to continue to see pretty good spending. But I do think the key is the labor market. As long as people have a job and if their wages manage to outpace inflation, that's still very positive for the consumer outlook. All right, Kathy, thank you so much. We always appreciate getting a few minutes of your time. Kathy Bostranchik, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at Nationwide. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Surveillance coming up after this.

16:43You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App or watch us live on YouTube. Let's check in with Paul Christopher. He's head of Global Investment Strategy for the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. Paul, thanks so much for joining us here. I'm looking at, you know, kind of NASDAQ. We're down 13, 13.5 % from our recent high here. What's the tech call? What's the AI call here right now? So, hi, good morning. Yeah, the tech call here really is a little bit of patience.

17:22We think this is what you saw last week was some heavy fund selling. Retail investors were less involved, but we think there's definitely possibility and even probability that retail investors will get involved. You're going to see more downside. So we want to wait a little bit here. The problem is AI and data centers, they are really good trends in the medium and long term. But for right now, there are questions about the cost of materials, about the war, and about regulation regarding the data centers. So those things need to be worked out, but they're not game changers. They're not going to block the progress of these trends going forward.

17:59So just be a little bit patient for right now. Paul, I have to ask, the latest developments with Jensen Huang, How does this potentially impact how you view the direction of AI and how you're positioning whenever you're talking to clients? What we're trying to do right now is play the trend without overpaying for the trend. So we went back to neutral or market weight on information technology, that whole sector in the S &P 500, back in early September, excuse me, in later September. And that was pretty good timing for us. What we're trying to do is just buy it when it's cheap and sell it as it gets to be more expensive based on 12-month-ahead earnings.

18:41Right now, we like communication services, we like materials, and we like industrials. Again, playing the data centers over the longer term, but maybe not putting that money to work right away right now. Or, if you like, you could dollar-cost average here. But we do see further downside with support in the S &P around$7 ,000. So if we get down to$7 ,000, that could be a better buying opportunity. That's why we don't want to pour all the money in right now. 7 ,000. So, I mean, that's still a little bit of ways from where the S &P 500 closed around 7 ,400 on Friday. So where specifically within the data center universe would you be looking to buy?

19:17Yeah, I mean, well, that's a really good question. And so for right now, we're going to stay neutral on the data center. We're going to stay neutral on the tech sector. we're going to stay favorable on the the comm services sector but we would put the money to work maybe on a dollar cost averaging basis we just think don't think the downside is done yet paul what are you guys doing in in the bond market here i mean you could sit in a two-year treasury uh get four and a half percent that's not a bad way to make a living here do you is that an option do you take credit risk above and beyond that how do you think about the fixed income yeah we really like the shorter end of the yield curve right now uh and would be basically neutral on the intermediate term, let's say three to seven years, and then unfavorable longer than that.

20:03And so this being November right now, and let's look at a little bit longer term, go back to the beginning of this year, the 10-year treasury are right around 4.1%, 4.2%. So even here in the high 490s or high 480s, you still have lost a little bit of money on that trade. So why not take a little bit of the loss here? You can use that as the tax loss harvesting, set that against some equity gains, perhaps, and then use the opportunity to take those proceeds and put them into the shorter end of the yield curve. So the twos, the threes, those look attractive to us. Where do you think are the biggest opportunities within fixed income right now?

20:45Like, what are you buying? What are you selling? Yeah, so we like investment grade and we're neutral on treasuries. But we also like munis here. You know, and we would buy munis a little bit longer dated munis because you've got that tax exemption that helps blunt some of the duration risk. So possibly, you know, maybe something like a five or a nine year, 10 year municipal all the way out to 15 years. So commodities have been kind of erratic, all kind of all over the place. If you just take a look at gold, we rallied up to fifty five hundred early, early this year. Then we're now back to, you know, 4 ,100.

21:21We were around 4 ,000, even a little bit lower here. How do you think about gold here? Because a lot of folks are saying, I'm trying to hedge my AI risk. Not sure how to do it. Maybe gold is a way to do that. Gold would be, yeah, gold would be one way. But that sounds like a good idea for a longer term investor. Someone with a shorter term horizon, you're going to be a little bit disappointed because gold is going to face some additional headwinds. We still think the trend is higher, but we think the headwinds here are going to be from interest rates. Interest rates, we think, are going to be on the rise.

21:52We're looking for four more Fed rate hikes between now and the end of 2027. And that's really going to put gold on its heels. So, again, the trend over the longer term, higher, but don't expect gold to outperform a lot over the next couple of months. NVIDIA is supposed to report results on November 17th. So the highest implied move for the S &P 500 over the next month would be the following session since it reports after the closing bell on the 17th. So I'm curious, what are your thoughts on how the S &P 500's earnings per share risk is currently when you're thinking about that AI CapEx? The earnings picture does look good to us through 2027.

22:32The problem is the expectations for earnings have to come down a little bit more. Again, those headwinds that I mentioned earlier, the war and energy costs, interest rates, the cost of industrial equipment for AI, anything related to AI is going to be higher. Some of those order books for chips and other industrial components are full all the way into 2028. So you're just going to be facing more headwinds. And so a longer term investor can say, well, all right, I'll play this trend. I'm not going to overpay for it, but I'm not going to expect too much in the short term either. those supply chains really need to ease.

23:08And we are seeing activity on the industrial side to expand capacity, but that can't happen overnight. Paul, you mentioned four rate hikes. I would suggest that's out of consensus. Consensus might be closer to two, maybe three rate hikes. Well, what gets you to four? What are you thinking there? So, yeah, I mean, the thing about the consensus is that it's fickle. It's changeable. You hit close to four rate hikes in September, and now you're down to two, according to the consensus. We really don't see any way that the Fed can do just two and maintain credibility. We think you're going to have enough inflation going into next year, especially in the first half of next year, before energy prices can really ease.

23:50And you're going to have more inflation. And that really leaves the Fed with little choice in those early meetings in 2027. That's where we think you're going to get those rate hikes. After the S &P 500 had its worst week since April 2025, What's the top question that you're getting from your clients right now? So the top question is really how do we play the AI trend? Is this a bubble? We say, no, it's not a bubble. You're actually seeing earnings. This isn't like the dot bombs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. You're seeing earnings. It's just that all of a sudden people are waking up to the fact that if you're going to build that much stuff, and there's a data center now in every state and in D.C.

24:29too, you're going to build that much stuff. It's going to take quite a lot of components, quite a lot of equipment, a lot of cement and a lot of wiring. And then you're going to you're going to see that that trend play out. But it's going to take time to get there. So expectations need to be adjusted. And that's the biggest question that we get from clients. All right, Paul, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Paul Christopher, he's head of Global Investment Strategy at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. He's based in St. Louis. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Surveillance coming up after this.

25:27regulators to overhaul the EV industry's potentially harmful design choices. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed updated national vehicle standards that specify certain functions, like those that control headlights or change gears should be physical rather than digital. While door handles have been the most high-profile change resulting in millions of cars being recalled, screens have also drawn scrutiny because they can pose a safety risk should they lose power or brake. The trend of adding physical controls is not limited to China, with Mercedes-Benz Group also introducing buttons in its new models.

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27:13You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube. Down in Washington, D.C., all right, the Democrats are now in control of Congress. The question now is, OK, now what do you do? Henrietta Trez, she is the director of economic policy at Veda Partners down there in New Orleans. Henrietta, you know, one of the questions I had is, OK, they're in charge now. Do they actually try to enact policy, move this government forward, or do they spend a lot of time on maybe political issues?

27:53And I think it's kind of seems like the latter here. We're seeing a lot of talk over the weekend about going after the impeachment process of Secretary of Defense Hegseth. What do you think the Dems are going to do here over the coming months and over the next two years? Well, I think there's two different periods of time and definitely a lot of different paths that they're going to try to walk at the same time. So as of right now, we still don't know what the full margin is for what will ultimately be Speaker Jeffries on the House side. Some of these races are down to 99 votes and still being counted.

28:26So there's still some waiting. But the good news with a majority of this size, and especially when paired in conjunction with the United States Senate is that they can start to coordinate, hand out different assignments, make sure that when you're investigating something, it starts from the policy perspective of affordability, that they loop into corruption. So one of the most fascinating things about the exit polling data is just how prevalent corruption, grift, graft, all that kind of stuff hit the American voter in a sense that this is their pocketbook issue as well. I saw that firsthand at some of the campaign rallies that I went to.

29:03Some of the loudest cries of the night would be around banning congressional stock trading, for example. So they've got a lot to do. They're gonna take both tracks. We shouldn't expect massive policy change just because even though the wave was enormous, it's not 67 votes that can override a veto. And President Trump, with his new hat, has made it clear that he will institute vetoes as needed. So it's gonna be a little bit of everything. Hey, Henrietta, walk us through what the potential timeline could look like if they're seeking a potential Hegseth impeachment. And what sort of precedents do we have for something like this?

29:39Yeah, on the Hegseth front, I think it's interesting because obviously there are rallying cries from the left about being proactive in being aggressive towards the Trump administration. You know, some people are looking for policy, as you mentioned before, but also looking for accountability. So on the Hegseth front, they've got a deeply unpopular war that Vice President Vance claimed was the reason for the washout in the election last Tuesday. And they're gonna go after Pete Hegseth, which is a very convenient punching bag because so many of the lawmakers on the Foreign Services Committee, on the Armed Services Committee, they have had real problems with the way the Pentagon has conducted themselves for the last two years, especially the last eight months, where they just haven't been getting briefings on Iran, on the strategy, on what they're doing with military veterans now, what they're doing on the shipbuilding front, what they need the munitions for, what the strategy and the end goal ultimately is.

30:35So there's going to be bipartisan support for this. And then compounding the problem is that a lot of members are not going to come back. You get wiped out in an election, you don't immediately want to hop on a plane to get back to DC. So it's looking bad for Pete Hegseth at this point, especially on the House side, for sure, I would say. And then on the Senate side, it's going to be tough for him as well. So on the lame duck Congress here, we still have the Republicans in power for the next several weeks here. What do they do? Well, I'll tell you what, we've talked a lot about the prospects of a reconciliation bill, and I'm afraid my 30 percent odds still stand.

31:13They are not anywhere on reconciliation right now. We mentioned attendance issues. We mentioned the Pete Hegseth investigation. There's lots of other stuff that they're going to need to do. But on the reconciliation front, for investors, I think this is the most important topic. We must get a debt ceiling hike. And it either needs to happen with one-party control that is on a path to provide an easy way out for the president to hike the debt ceiling by$5 trillion. Or we prepare for a knockdown, drag-out fight that could include credit ratings agencies, these downgrades beforehand, even after the fact, as we've seen before.

31:48I don't see immediately that the reconciliation bill is moving. I would encourage everybody to watch the budget committees. I know it's wonky, but if you see Senate Finance and House Ways and Means get added to the budget, that means we will get a reconciliation bill that can hike the debt ceiling. It's not really in the ether, but it's only Monday, so we'll see. Hey, Henrietta, we do have a question from one of our listeners, Richard from DC, And he wants to know, will the new Democratic congressional majority try to cut back on the Trump administration's current tariffs or even try to claw back some of the administration's tariff powers?

32:22Awesome question. The one bright spot I see on the outcome of this election is that there is a unanimous view, near unanimous view on the Democrat side and with some Republicans that the U.S.-Canada tariffs went too far. So I would expect for those to get resolved. I also think that the USMCA was really helped by last Tuesday's event. There's a real chance that the president tried to trigger the nuclear option, which is to say, hey, we're going to withdraw. Remember, as they were escalating tariff rates between August and September of this year. So I think this is really good news for Canada. They were right to wait.

32:58But if you get Canada cleared off the decks, then it opens up that second Section 301 investigation, which is on excess capacity and should be getting global tariff rates back to the 17, 18 percent range that we were in before the Supreme Court ruled on February 20th. So it's a mixed bag on tariffs. More will come on some places, but I do think it's good news for Canada. Henrietta, thank you as always. Always appreciate getting your time. Henrietta Trez, Director of Economic Policy at Beta Partners. This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

33:32Listen live each weekday, 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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The latest in finance, economics and investment.

Watch Tom and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Bloomberg Surveillance hosted by Tom Keene & Paul Sweeney
Monday, November 9th, 2026

Featuring:
1) Shuli Ren, Bloomberg Opinion Columnist, weighs in on Nvidia's probe of CEO Jensen Huang following his admission of an affair with a woman identified as a suspected Chinese spy.
2) Kathy Bostjancic, Senior Vice President & Chief Economist at Nationwide, discusses the state of the US economy.
3) Paul Christopher, Head of Global Investment Strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, on rising volatility and the tech unwind.
4) Henrietta Treyz, Director of Economic Policy at Veda Partners, examines the post-midterm impact for President Trump's policy agenda.

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