Bloomberg Surveillance TV: August 4th, 2026

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**Jonathan Ferro** (0:11)
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Jonathan Ferro, along with Lisa Abramowitz and Annmarie 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 to 9 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 app with stocks trading near all time highs as tech concerns continue to ease. David Lebovitz of JPMorgan Asset Management writing hyperscaler earnings results reinforce our positive outlook for corporate profits will maintain a pro risk view in portfolios. David joins us now for more. David, good morning.

**David Lebovitz** (0:52)
Good morning.

**Jonathan Ferro** (0:53)
Since we got those earnings, those hyperscalers have been off to the races. I'm talking about gains of 10% to 25% over the last three or four days for a handful of some of the biggest companies on the planet. What was in the data, the earnings, that has started this move?

**David Lebovitz** (1:07)
Well, so I think what's really interesting is we've seen this over the past couple of quarters, where coming into the earnings announcements, you see this skepticism begin to rise. Maybe profit growth won't be as good as it has been, maybe margins will finally start to come back in, and then they impress. And for the most part, the numbers are good, they may or they may not be. But I think the market is focused on the fact that even if you exclude the equity investment gains from the overall earnings season number, you're still looking at earnings growth of 30%.
And so these are just unequivocally good numbers. I think a lot of it ties back to the point you were just making. You're seeing this AI trade broaden out. You're seeing it show up in the manufacturing economy, the industrial economy, the real economy at the end of the day. And that's what's giving this story legs, right? That's what's making it a more durable trade. It's not just this flash in the pan, we're gonna spend a bunch of money and then move on to the next project. This is really something that's transforming the growth rate and the growth trajectory of the US economy.

**Jonathan Ferro** (2:00)
For much of the year, it was hyperscalers or chips, one or the other, not both. It was chips or software, one or the other, not both. Is that still the story or have things changed?

**David Lebovitz** (2:10)
So I think things are changing and I think last time I was on with you guys, we were talking a little bit about how markets are becoming increasingly discerning between the different players. And so, you know, what I think you're gonna see going forward is within software, who are the winners and who are the losers, within chips, who are the winners, who are the losers. You to an extent saw it in the hyperscalers throughout this earning season, who are the winners and who are the losers. What is the market looking for? They're looking for that ROI, they're looking for that inclination that there is going to be a profit benefit down the road. And I think that you're starting to see that come through in a more durable way.

**Lisa Abramowitz** (2:41)
How much are you seeing discernment and how much are you seeing relief that maybe some of the leverage has been pushed out of the system, either with situational awareness or with the situation over in Korea?

**David Lebovitz** (2:50)
So it's funny, I remember being an analyst like if the market moved 2% in one day, it was a really, really big deal. And now we have these 2% moves and people kind of shrug their shoulders.
We'll do it again tomorrow. I mean, look, clearly there was a technical element of what was going on here in terms of the selling, in terms of the leverage in some of these ETF products. But that's the market that we're in today. And I think kind of thinking about the volatility angle and going back to some of the comments that you guys were making about Kevin Warsh and how the market's digesting everything there, yes, on the one hand, you could say the market is doing the work for him. My question is, how long are markets going to be content doing the work for the Chairman of the Federal Reserve? I think at some point, you get market exhaustion, and that's when they want a little bit of guidance as to what to expect. And so the Fed's walking a very fine line here. And I think that the earnings are really what's bailing them out at the end of the day. The fundamental story is just very good.