Bloomberg Surveillance TV: May 21st, 2026

**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 hour with stocks edging higher as investors digest the latest earnings from NVIDIA and the IPO pipeline is heating up as SpaceX and OpenAI make moves to go public. Peter Tchir of Academy Securities joins us around the table for more. Pete, good morning. Good to see you.

**Peter Tchir** (0:49)
Hey, good morning.

**Jonathan Ferro** (0:49)
You saw that opening exchange that we just had around these IPOs. The tech investment story has changed. We've gone from buybacks to lots of capex. We're moving away from shrinkage towards maybe tons of supply. What does that mean for the investor in this space?

**Peter Tchir** (1:03)
Right now, I think it's all hands on deck. Everyone's growing, everyone's spending the money to do it. And you were asking the question, what's the disconnect? I think right now, there is so much money to be made in the AI space that whether it's 4%, 6%, 8% on interest rates is trivial. Same sort of thing. I think we've been talking about this for the last little while. Electricity prices, right? You and I are being affected, but the AI data centers, they could care less, right? It's such a trivial input relative to what they're making. So I think there was this tale of two economies. You've got the AI data center, growth, it's booming, everyone's trying to get into it, everyone's rushing headlong, you're seeing more and more companies get into it. Just also I think Nvidia's earnings aren't as important because there were so many tells what's going on. But the rest of the economy is kind of languishing, it feels like the jobs aren't there, and the degree of uncertainty I think is hitting spending.

**Jonathan Ferro** (1:46)
We'll spend some time on that in just a moment. Let's just talk about potential constraints. Lisa gave a nod to them. You mentioned energy, that's been widely discussed. Lisa mentioned capital. What are the prospects of capital constraints, given how much money is being demanded right now, both in fixed income and in equity in the coming year?

**Peter Tchir** (2:01)
One thing I think we're seeing is a little bit of a shift where people are much more comfortable owning corporate credit than Treasuries. I think Treasuries have become a very generic asset. I think that's one reason you see some pressure on Treasuries. As far as I can tell, when we're talking to our large asset managers, they're all in on credit. They love credit, it's cheap, you're getting the higher yields from the Treasuries, and you've got a compelling story there. And you're even seeing some of this play out in the super sovereign space, and you know, kind of wonky to even talk about some of the super sovereigns, but they are trading at their closest spreads ever to US treasuries. So you have, I think, this kind of, not a version of US treasuries, but it's just a generic asset, right? If you're in Germany now, buy buns. If you're in Japan, buy JGBs. So I think treasuries don't have as much interest, but people are piling into credit, and they're looking at these opportunities saying, well, maybe I want to own XYZ's bonds. I'm getting extra 50, 60, 80, 100 bips, and I think the risk is better, and I want, and for credit people, it's the only way to play some of these AI stories.

**Lisa Abramowitz** (2:52)
And it seems like right now the bigger risk is inflation rather than any kind of hit to growth. Nobody is pricing in recession, no one's pricing in some sort of serious downturn. Do you agree that credit and equity are better hedges for the inflation risk, and that is where people should be looking?

**Peter Tchir** (3:06)
So I like credit on that perspective. I think it's kind of an interesting place to be. Again, we're not seeing recession, though there is this tale of two economies. Again, I feel like what you're seeing is in the rates market, if you went back three months ago, and I thought before the war started, we could cut. And if we cut, even if it was an aggressive cut, we could control the long end of the bond market. Right now, I don't think we can cut without controlling the long end of the bond market. I think if we cut rates right now, we would lose control over the long end of the bond market. So I think we're higher for longer, and that's here. It's across the globe. Defense spending is ramping up everywhere. So I think you've got some pressure there. But again, I still think we're in that 3-5% inflation period.