Against former National Security advisor john bolton over his book, the room where it happened. Decided to accuse bolden of breaking contract with the government for disclosing classified information. The government sued in june to prevent the release but the book was published and scheduled. Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny blames president of Vladimir Putin for poisoning him. He told a german magazine that the russian leader is behind the crime and, i dont have any other version of events. The kremlin has denied responsibility. It said navalny is taking orders from the cia. Former president jimmy carter marks his 96th birthday. It is the latest milestone for mr. Carter who has lived longer than any other former american president. A spokesperson for mr. Carter says he plans to celebrate at his home in georgia with his wife of 74 years, former first lady carter. He was in office from 1977 until 1981. He has largely receded from public view but this summer he recorded an address for the mechanic National Convention urging the election of joe biden. Global news 24 hours a day on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. I am Mark Crumpton. This is bloomberg. It is 1 00 in new york. 6 00 in london. I am vonnie quinn. Welcome to bloomberg markets. Here are the stories we are following. Toeran bonds manager fights say now that now was not the time to relax. We will get his insight next. So close yet so far apart. Nancy pelosi says major differences remain between the gop and democrats and hammering out a stimulus deal. Speaker pelosi and Steve Mnuchin speaking right now via phone. We will have all the latest. Committeenal rescue president and ceo will discuss how the International Community is dropping the ball when it comes to covid19. Lets get a check of the markets. Surprise surprise, stocks higher. The nasdaq up 2 . Got a free upgrade on its advertising business. S p 500 up. 6 . Amazon up 1. 8 . The fixed trading at 26. Crude is below 40. The chinese yuan offshore flying high. Liquidity, stability perhaps making it a haven according to some of my colleagues in bloomberg. But also the potential that china is further ahead when it comes to virus recovery. Lets turn to the credits markets. Record issuance outflows and concerns about the economy and the election dragging some to their first loss since march. Look at all of the markets when it comes to fixed income and treasuries. Lets bring in dan fuss, Loomis Sayles vice chairman. You are known for keeping a lot of liquidity and being quick to pivot. What have you been doing in recent weeks . Dan right now i would say yeartodate holding all the liquidity has not been overly helpful other than getting a good night sleep. Are really i have more of what might happen when , quitep under the market frankly the fed, not doing all that much but saying they are ready to step in. The same with the other central banks. However, the overall thing here is the changes that we have to make in the portfolios to adjust is a rather rapid Climate Change which is obviously coming shorter. And the increasing stress between the u. S. And china which is escalating. Those two things are really worrying of course for the u. S. Economy also. Is on to have liquidity to adjust to this as things go forward. That the fed will stay with it saying, we are here for most sections of the market and by implication, nearly all sections. European central bank is doing the same thing in europe. But i am worried about the deterioration in the number of credits because of the economy. The economy has been hurt by the slowdown. Even with the hope for added stimulus if congress can ever get this through, even with that it is starting to bite. ,eople are doing layoffs surprising from a longerterm viewpoint. Allstate, disney, people like that. But very understandable. That is the setting we are working with. Vonnie who are the likely winners and losers in the next three months . It sounds like youre concerned for that time period. Dan yes. Winners. List many there are a few that for the time being are doing quite well as evidenced in the stock market. Not so much in the bond market. Once you are looking at the credits, you are looking at this situation and you are saying ok, who is being hurt the most. A lot of the companies that are being hurt are good enough credits, they can access the public markets, borrow a lot of money with a reasonable proportion of it being off of the curves. You can bring down the cost even though the debt goes up. They can borrow at rates that bring the total cost down if they retire some others. You say, ok i am not going to worry about them too much unless underneath their business is deteriorating. Hurt, theare being extreme examples are easy to ,pot, energy and retail certainly with airlines, aircraft producers, etc. You have to analyze each one independently and watch what is going on. It is a very specific risk environment. Specifically, you have to know your credits. Vonnie when it comes to airlines, is it not the same risk for all of them as it is for one . Is there a differentiation you can make when you look at the credits of united versus american . Will they not all get help or neither . An it is hard to make differentiation. Pointtart from a stronger where they have stronger Balance Sheets as they get into it. A lot will depend on what congressf this bill in goes through or not. But the layoffs are starting. So unless something comes through in a hurry, those people will not be on the payroll. Thats an economic aspect. It is also, i would like to stress this, it is also a longerterm negative for the employer who has no option. You cannot pay people if you dont have money. It weakens their position. What they want to do is hang in there as long as possible. Someday when we are all back on airplanes again, they will be there. In the meantime, what is going to happen to the people that have to layoff more and more people. When it comes time to rebuild, will those employees be there . The 64 question. Vonnie can i ask you how you feel about triple c rated bonds . Are you waiting and rubbing your hands to see what happens this month . Anything look like a bargain . Dan there is no rubbing of the hands. It is tragic. There are a few, i cannot discuss individual things. Quite frankly if you want to buy them, you are going to buy them one bond at a time. Market, it is easy to spot the ones you will be looking at because you look at the market prices, they are not selling at 105, 106, they are a double digit number somewhere down the line. Is subject to a variable. The best industry example i can variableis what is the in the relatively large area of the highyield market for the oil and gas industry . The easy one to spot is the price. On the natural gas side, you watch for that price. Heavy on the oil side, you watch that price. But they all, when you look at them, say the price is not helpful for the right now. Lets look hard at individual situations. Sometimes, often times you try to do that and you say there is not too much we can learn. So you back away. , andverage quality rating our portfolio has gone up in this situation. I knowwere saying everything is going to be back. The price of oil is going to be at 60. The price of gas is going to be 320 going forward. You say, that is the right price , do this. I dont know that. We dont know that. There are other factors at play here in addition to the virus and the economy. It is related to geopolitics. In general, it is a general idea that you have to be more cautious. Where we more cautious last february . No. We did not see this coming. Kaboom. There it was. Vonnie final question. How do you hedge against yields rising or the curves steepening because there is asymmetrical risk right now. Dan there is. That is the 64 question. You keep your maturities somewhat shorter. Here is where you get the individual portfolios having somewhat different strategies. Desirable on the majority range for a portfolio. You are very willing to take some Maturity Risk in some cases. In others, you are not. ,n general, the Pension Funds with theirion funds payments to retired employees not tied to inflation, fixed, you can then go out to yield curve. In fact, you normally do. Areas, youinto other bring your maturities in. If you are out after 30 years or whatever, you are very very focused on liquidity. Itnie dan, we have to leave there but thank you so much. Great intelligence from one of the veterans among the community , dan fuss, Loomis Sayles vice chairman. Coming up, pelosi and midocean speaking by focus our secretary mnuchin speaking by phone this hour. This is bloomberg. Vonnie this is bloomberg markets. How Speaker Pelosi saying there are major differences to be bridged in the negotiations over fiscal stimulus. Lets bring in jack fitzpatrick. What are the remaining obstacles . Steve mnuchin and pelosi trying to iron out something. Jack it was interesting. Pelosi told reporters earlier. Sometimes the devil is in the detail but sometimes the angels are there. She talked about how they have gone back and forth on the details so much that if they were to get an agreement on some of the big ask your stuff which really seems to be a disagreement over how much money to spend on this, a lot of the details could come together. The main disagreement is how much money is appropriate. Republicans do not like this 2. 2 trillion measure the democrats call a compromise. Can they meet in the middle . Can they find middle ground for state and local aid . Those are the big questions. There are a number of other smaller fights that they seem to be details that could be worked out if the fundamental questions on how much of a fiscal response is necessary. Aidie the state and local thing is fixed a little bit. Cant they find some kind of middle ground there . Is this one does not want to give the other the win . Is a big gap between the two. That is the case for the whole and the state and local issue. We saw proposals. The democrats original proposal for state and local aid was 915 billion or somewhere around there. In this compromise measure, they could go down to 436 billion. The proposal by republicans was 150 billion. They should be able to meet in the middle. There is a big middle ground that is difficult. I think one of the outstanding questions is if the Trump Administration is on board with a compromise that is meeting in the middle, that does not mean the most conservative senators would. We heard pushback overall early on from the likes of ted cruz and fiscal conservatives who may not be entirely on board with the administrations willingness to spend. That is why it is difficult to say they can meet in the middle. They may see some conservatives peeling support often even if the Trump Administration is willing to compromise. Vonnie your best guess. When does nancy pelosi pull the plug and have a vote . Jack if they dont have a deal today, it appears they will go ahead with a vote on the democratic partisan bill that is there compromise offer largely just to show that they are trying. We could see a vote today that would probably be a sign of failure in the bipartisan talks if that is still the democratic bill that they vote on. Vonnie jack, thank you so much. Excellent summary. Still ahead, the state of the Insurance Industry with aflac ceo dan amos. This is bloomberg. Vonnie this is bloomberg markets. I am vonnie quinn. The economic recovery is stalling. This week companies have announced thousands of cuts with one of the biggest, disney laying off 28,000 employees. We are also seeing all state many employees. Joining us now is dan amos, aflac ceo. The industry is having a difficult time. Toyou imagine you will need lay off employees and if so, in what numbers . Dan no, i do not see us laying off any employees at this time. We are always aware of that. There are other options and opportunities for us to cut expenses which as we sat in the Second Quarter we plan on doing. I dont want to go into all the details because we have not released earnings yet. I think it is important for everyone to know we are focused on expenses, we will be cutting expenses, but we do not see any absolute layoffs. Vonnie have you seen an upsurge in enrollment even fear given fear of covid . Dan our sales have been off. It is predominantly due to our inability to see people at the worksite or to see people oneonone. What we are doing is we are working with a digital experience to accelerate during these times our ability to call on people through the internet to have these types of conversations that you and i are having. Actually we can then enroll people on cell phones in japan and in the United States. Havei would tell you is we been working on that for the last couple of years, but it got accelerated because of the virus. I think longterm it will be very important because the consumer is changing their habits on how they receive a lot of Consumer Products and Financial Services products. Vonnie are you planning in any way or hedging for any potential changes we might see in the aca . Environment in an where in japan it is national healthcare. It does very well for us. And we do very well in the United States and we think we are wellpositioned for any issues because our products are supplemental in nature. People buy them in addition to their existing healthcare surects as a way of making in essence they are able to supplement or take care of loss of income, lack of ability to travel to other places to have healthcare and those things. So i think we are wellpositioned as a company. Roughlycan i ask you what percentage of people at aflac are working from offices in headquarters . Dan certainly you can. Theeve it or not, 97 in United States. When i was on your show back in may my i think it was 95 . It has worked remarkably well. I would give it an a on our ability to run our headquarters. Is it to the level of efficiency that the old way was doing it . No. But will it be better than the old way longterm . Absolutely. So it has been very positive experience from that regard. To 90 or so. T up but in japan we have a lot of work to do that we have been working on the last couple of years with being more digital in nature. Vonnie 97 working from home. That is amazing. Dan amos, thank you. Mark i am Mark Crumpton with bloombergs first word news. Nancy pelosi says there are still major differences to be bridged in the negotiations over a fiscal stimulus package with treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and. In an interview with david westin, the speaker said she will not simply accept ever the white house offers just to get a deal done. Alive, we arel still talking, and im hopeful we can reach an agreement. We are still fighting for more money. We think the administration is coming in too low for our heroes. I think we are close in terms of money, we are yielding on that, but we have to see the language. Talks between Speaker Pelosi and secretary mnuchin continue today. Both sides face increased haveure to act as job cuts received help under earlier rounds of federal support. India reported more than 86 thousand new cases of coronavirus today and another nearly 1200 deaths. Indiases september worst month since the pandemic began. India has had more than 6 million cases. It is expected to surpass the United States as the worsthit country. Indias Prime Minister imposed the worlds most stringent lockdown in march, but began easing restrictions after two months to revive the economy the economy. Bloomberg has learned the eu will send a letter accusing the u. K. Of breaching the terms of agreement. It is the first step in a process that could end up in a lawsuit at the European Court of justice. The vatican is releasing a detailed budget Balance Sheet and earnings statement. It is trying to reassure catholics amid a Corruption Scandal that has exposed it shoddy financial management. It is the First Time Since 2016 the vatican has released any information about its finances, despite pledges by pope francis to be more accountable. Scandal has cost a halfdozen employees their jobs. Global news 24 hours a day, on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. I am Mark Crumpton. This is bloomberg. Live from toronto, welcome to bloomberg markets. Vonnie from bloomberg World Headquarters in new york, im vonnie quinn. Here are the top stories we are following from around the world. Produce offering an alternative to the latest tech ipos as the avocado producer hits markets. We will discuss the trading debut and outlook for their business with founder and ceo stephen barnett. Debtd for sustainable appetite is increasing. We will discuss how bank of america and Deutsche Bank are making the most out of it in the bloomberg green segment. Failure to combat covid19. We will speak with david of thed, Ceo International rescue committee. An organization that helps victims of humanitarian crises about their new report outlining the absence of Global Leadership during the pandemic. Amanda . Is aa you might say there bit of an absence of leadership on the stock markets at the moment. A mixed bag of Economic Modeling over. Slightly better than feared, and while we do have a manufacturing read that is still in positive territory in the sense that is it it is expanding, but not as strong as some had hoped. Slightly off the highs of the session. They have been bouncing around. Energy is the single biggest decliner. Percent at down 3. 5 last check. That demand picture is priced into the commodity, including the continued concern about the supply and Storage Capacity issues. That is in the mix and also weighing on the toronto market. We are getting a respite from tech on our side of the border. Retailers are doing well today, including amazon. Some of the traditional brickandmortar. We have seen some success on the tech ipo front. Pelletier being one example yesterday. Today coming to market we have mission produce. You may know them for their avocados. A distinctly lowtech company. Why is the right time for a business like that to come to market . Stephen barnard is with us now. Lets start there. In terms of the appetite of investors and your sense that the market was reset of was receptive. Stephen we have been fortunate that avocados have been front and center on the plate. It is a healthy food, and nutritious food, a superfood. Consumption has gone up a little bit during this covid because people are eating healthier. We look at the opportunities ahead we see a lot of growth in the category. Not only here in the u. S. , but overseas. He wanted to keep moving and gain ground while we can. Vonnie you are up 20 . Any concern there was cash left on the table . Stephen i can look back. We look forward. We have a huge runway ahead of us. When you look at consumption we have a lot of room. We can probably double what we are doing in the United States. Our per capita consumption in the u. S. Is about 10 pounds. Sicko is 15 and growing. We have led this revolution by selling ripe other condos to retail and food service, which has increased consumption over the last 20 years. Think we can do that globally and i think the time is now to push the accelerator and go faster. You have been able to pivot away from a pretty troubled restaurant sector to some big names, including walmart and costco. There is some concern you have a few very large clients that are disproportionately a portion of your revenue. What do you tell investors . Stephen those are aplus customers. Kroger is our business biggest and it is less than 15 . Everyone elses 10 or below. They move you should volumes. Believe, go to direct retail. Direct restaurant only represented 16 and most of that was fast casual. Stte of that has come back. Most of that has come back. Retail has picked up the ball and we are ahead of budget in terms of volume. People are buying it differently. Butre selling less ripes, more bags. They are looking for deals and volume, so we have adapted our packaging and now we are selling the product to fill the need at this time. Overall it is a healthy food, and people are eating more of it. Vonnie pretty incredible. You sell 1. 5 billion avocados a year. At margins like . Will you ever be able to squeeze more out of each avocado . What about the wildfires . Any danger there . Fortunateo, we were here. All of the avocados here are grown in southern california. In the past we have had that challenge, but we are going to continue to see how to provide a better product to the customer, the consumer. We are adding value by different packaging and providing right avocados Ripe Avocados around by diversifying our supply through mexico or peru and expand that model globally. There is a big runway ahead of us. Way ahead ofere this curve in general, long before many of us were eating avocado toast. You were founding a business based on this. Growth has been phenomenal. Do you see that trajectory . Is it international that keeps it going . Do you see a leveling out now that we are all avocado fanatics . Stephen ive been asked, how did you predict this . I said i didnt, we created it. Every time someone would walk away without eating and avocado, they would say why i would say, why . They would say because its not right. Now we want to do it globally. We are delivering ripes in china. We are looking to korea. There is a lot of opportunity, then when you look at europe they eat a lot of green skins. Which we used to eat here in the u. S. , but they are not as good of an avocado. If we can provide a high quality hass avocado from sources around the world, the right avocado at the right time of year. We are playing with altitudes and latitudes in Different Countries to fill that gap. Stephen, if you would, a quick word on two of the big macro concerns for everybody. One, covid19. Clearly you cannot work from home if you are picking avocados, ripening avocados, and buying avocados. The other is tariffs. Stephen covid, we got hit early march on food service. Retail shut down for a few days because they were not sure this going to happen. Sure what was going to happen. Food white tablecloth foodservice has taken a hit. The fast casual has picked up and they are ahead of where they were on covid, such as some of the fast food where they can take it out. Retail has changed their model on how they are selling it. We are seeing people shop less often, but they are buying more. Our bag business, where they can is way up. 30 higher than it was. The ripe is this is down because it is a little unpredictable on consumer behavior. That, overall, we are ahead of where we were and happy about it. Weve just had to make some adjustments. Tariffs the avocado category, we operate in multiple countries. Can operate around tariffs. We have some issues in certain countries in asia where they are not allowed from certain countries. Supply,tiple sources of so we can work around it, such as russia. We are selling into russia, but it is product from peru. We are very diversified, we can go anywhere. Vonnie stephen, i am sure he will sure you are crushed you are not able to be in new york for the ipo. Is missionhat produce president stephen barnett. Coming up, big banks hoping financing will give the green environment a little used along with their bottom lines. This is bloomberg. Vonnie this is bloomberg markets. Im vonnie quinn. Alongside amanda lang. Leading european banks are going on and offensive in the market for sustainable financing. Deutsche bank announced it would provide financing for 200 billion euros in green assets as demand for green bonds rushes up. A series focused on the development in green finance, we are taking a look at how big banks are financing the shift to cleaner rows. Joining us is jill ward. It is a catch22 situation, because banks announced these programs and people are going to fit their issuance to the green label. How do we ensure that everybody is acting in good faith . Jill thanks for having me. I think it is a really interesting story at the moment, especially in europe. A ton ofe seeing is issuance from corporates and sovereigns. Billion about 55 issued in september alone. And just a huge amount of demand for this. Green bonds issued are oversubscribed. As you have alluded to, there are risks new risks when it comes to rainwashing. It is a new market and standards on what makes a green bond greened are still being developed. What kind of progress is being made on that front. Until you have standards it may be slightly more a Marketing Tool than anything else. Who is developing them and what are we waiting for . Jill exactly. There are two types of greenwashing. There is this marketing where you issue a green bond or two, but as a business or country you dont have a plan for lowering emissions. Policyere is the use of greenwashing. The program is not very climatefriendly at all. Most green bond issuers follow greened green bond sensibles from the Capital Market association or say they are following United Nations Sustainable Development goals. I think what most people in the market are waiting for now is new standards from the european commission. They just finished. They will be closing a consultation on this tomorrow where they have interviewed Market Participants and , overics, Asset Managers these new standards. I think they are expected to be a bit more strict, judging by what we have seen from the eu so far, in terms of what they have published since their Recovery Fund for coronavirus. Have you withto us. That is jill ward. We will hear more about bank of americas esg efforts later. Brian moynihan will be on at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. He will not want to miss that. This is bloomberg. Amanda this is bloomberg markets. Im amanda lang alongside vonnie quinn. In london covid19 seems to be at a tipping point. New crackdowns there to prevent more of a spread. What happens next and what happens to refugees and others . David miliband is the ceo of the International Rescue committee, which aids those in the humanitarian crises. Thank you for being with us. I do want to start with your lens on covid19 and the extent to which it is making Vulnerable People more vulnerable. I am in canada and we know refugee acceptance has ground to a halt. What is the story on covid and those in need . David the picture at the moment is that most of the recorded deaths have happened in richer countries. The u. S. Has 20 of total recorded deaths, but what we know is that the Health Systems in countries in the developing world, those Health Systems are not doing the testing. They have not got the Preventative Health in place and they are not able to cope with a surge in it comes. Fortunately, we know in large parts of africa a lot of the attic,re a symptom mainly because they are amongst young people. We know the potential Health Challenge is huge and that far more needs to be done. At the moment only about four dollars per person of the poorest companies countries in the world has been spent, compared to many times that by the way, that four dollars is since march. 8 trillion has been spent in the richest countries in the world. You can see the mismatch. In africa they are much more brilliant at this because they have more experience dealing with epidemics, right . There is a lot to be learned from that continent. Talk to us about the more developed nations and their Response Rate im thinking britain and the u. S. , for example. David i think the striking thing is first of all, you are right. Africa had to deal with ebola and it has experience doing that. Obviously the Health Systems are much weaker. I think in terms of coping with pandemic, you were talking about asia dealing with sars and mers. In the richer countries it is striking to see a the different approaches, but different success rates. Germany has led in what they have approached things. Much greater fortune, both on the health side and on the economic side. The u. S. , obviously 5 of the total global population, 20 of the deaths, is in a very different position. You can see the corrosion of trust that leads to protest about people wearing a mask, which new york is now basic and essential. I would say 99 of the people do it. I am in new york. In other parts of the country a mask is a rarity. You can see there is breakdown in any sense of consensus. Hierarchy,maslows we understand covid comes before other issues, but brexit is looming large over the u. K. Economy. What is your thinking about how did that unfold . Will it unfold in a way that is orderly enough and keeps the United Kingdom stable . David all of the talk at the moment is overweight there is whether there is a basic trade deal. There is an incentive for both sides to have one. I think there is a good prospect of there being one, however the chances of a no deal are higher than they were six months ago. I think there is a bigger picture. Even if there is a basic deal done between the eu and u. K. , it will be a very thin deal. On the economic front there will be an awful lot of economic work for the u. K. To do. They are i saw is that having to reinvent in the u. K. The regulations of the chemical industry. That is going to cost Chemical Industries have billion pounds across the board. You are seeing reverberations. The other point to make is, negotiations need to cover security corporations, range of Foreign Policy issues we are not at first base on that yet. , think there is a deep concern even in the event of a deal, that there arent the kind of cooperation necessary. Just got a headlines that the Un Security Council is going to resume in person meetings october eighth. The International Community trying to meet again in person. U. K. Is willing to breach International Law with its internal market bill, what does it say about transnational and how we deal with the next even the current coronavirus . David it is very chilling, isnt it . I was in u. K. Government for some years many years. The u. K. Has styled itself as the defender of the rule of law ashley and internationally. I am proud of that. Isis shocking when a bill presented before the house of commons by the government that avowedlydly breached that. You could hear the guffaws from ministers about the importance of International Law. You can also hear the groans from allies of the u. K. Who know that at this time it is especially important. We are living in an world where impunity is on the rise. We see that in our work. Breached whenlaw the civilians or aid workers are targeted. We need stronger adherence to International Law. It the u. K. To step back, obviously is reputational damage for the u. K. If it enters into that, it will weaken the international system. Vonnie david, thank you so much. Andpreciate your time efforts at the International Rescue committee. That is david miliband. From new york and toronto, this is bloomberg. I am Mark Crumpton with bloombergs first word news. Cases of covid19 are on the rise in new york state. Governor andrew cuomo said today new york reported more than 1300 cases of coronavirus, the first since may. It shows a Positivity Rate of 1. 27 . After having been an early center of the pandemic, they had largely resolved the crisis. British secretary matt hancock extended restrictions to several areas around liverpool in northwest england as well as two more towns in the northeast. Secretary hancock says the extra measures with the same as those announced previously for part of northeast england and included recommendations against all social mixing between people in different households except parts parks and outdoor hospitality. This virus continues to spread. Yesterday there were 7108 new cases. However, there are early signs the actions we collectively have taken over the last
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