Bloomberg Surveillance TV: October 9th, 2026

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This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Jonathan Farrow, along with Lisa Abramowitz and Anne-Marie 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.

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We begin this hour with stocks bouncing back as fresh details emerged about OpenAI's revenue estimates. George Ginkalvis of MUFG joins us now for more. George, what did you make yesterday of the incredible swings that we saw in the tech sector?

I think your points are well taken that we're so levered to the concept and the idea that this profitability swings can drive other markets is impressive, right? I mean, it kind of reminds you of this kind of upside-down pyramid where we're kind of all balancing on the pin of AI or. SI?

Well, we'll stick with AI for this morning, although I'm sure that Mark Zuckerberg has already shifted to SI. A question, though, about how much this undermines the faith that AI can keep trucking and keep kind of supporting the overall market, because that has been the ballast for so much of the strength that we've seen so far this year. Do you think that that's called into question, given the fact that private companies have such a huge influence over this entire sector?

Well, Look, I think the bottom line is it's clearly a growth driver. We see it in the GDP data, the sort of the capex leading to fixed investment. That is clearly happening. So there's a macro kind of factor that I think will be with us for a long time. The question is the assumptions, the valuations, and the profitability.

And that, I think, is going to go unresolved until we actually know the value of these companies and their ability to make money.

Do you think that there is a tell in the fact that the bond market rallied in tandem with the sell-off in tech stocks yesterday?

Is this a sign that U.S.

Government bonds are once again a haven if there is some sort of scare to the narrative of growth that we've seen?

Yeah, that's a great point. And that's the one thing that's been really missing throughout this whole period. We've had this idea that tech is long duration, bonds are long duration, bonds trading as meme stocks. I'm not sure yet. But in tandem with all this, you've had the European bond markets under pressure. And so you kind of had this kind of birds of a feather flock together. And the U.S.

treasury market has been trading poorly with all these other sovereigns. Do we ever get this moment where we get to flight to quality status back? Like when does the treasury becomes like a safe haven? I mean, I'm not sure if yesterday was the start of it. It's good to see. To your point, it was a very tumultuous week, tumultuous last six weeks. It's good to see stability of the bond market, but I don't know if we're there yet to say that the flight to quality trades back on.

How much was that just because of what happened when oil prices yesterday?

Look, I think we've been weighted with bated breath the whole week because of the 10-year auction, the 30-year auction, which, by the way, we do every single month. Just so you know, it's not like this. But the fact that it was such a big focus for broader markets, not just bonds, and the auctions were not only surprisingly strong, they were one of the strongest auctions on record, right?

So you kind of see that there's value at these higher rates.

And then, yes, oil.

I mean, treasuries have been trading like a proxy to oil and vice versa. So as long as oil is doing its thing and at least stabilizes, then rates should stabilize too.

You mentioned that this is global in nature, but isn't it very different why Europe is under pressure versus why the United States is?

Yeah.

So, I mean, the common thread still comes back to the idea of, like, fiscal sustainability. And when you start to really dig into.

It, the U.S.

Has much more capacity than Europe, given the way that Europe is structured, in the sense that these countries don't have their own ability to print their own currency. They have an ECV that can backstop. But the Fed and Treasury is much different, right? So, yes, they've been trading for the same reasons historically. I think largely because of correlation risk. And the same investors buy the same bonds.

They buy European bonds, treasury bonds. If they have to unload risk, they probably unload in the most liquid market, which is treasuries. If we're starting to differentiate that, that's going to be most interesting in Q4.

How does the central bank play into this?

And there are real questions this week with a number of Fed speakers coming out. We heard from Abarta Musalem talking about additional rate hikes coming down the pike. Chris Waller really kind of pushing back that the timing needs to be front-loaded, which is a speculation of a number of people.

How does that factor into your calculus?

How much does this Fed have to engage in hike rates and front-load some of the tightening?

Look, the bond market has tightened for the Fed, so let's just get that straight. And the question then is, do they want to modulate that? Do they want to deliver on what's priced in? And also, the long-term rates are well beyond Fed expectations, right? So the fact that we have that, the longer the rates stay higher, it's doing the job for the Fed. I think that the Fed probably won't be able to deliver as much of what's priced into the market, but we'll see how that all pans out. I mean, I think this is sometimes easy to conflate like Fed driving the bond market. The bond market has been driven more by technical reasons than by actual fundamentals like the Fed, in my opinion.

Expand on that because a lot of people would say the fundamentals don't support this in any way if you take a look at what's going on uh with respect to inflation if you take a look at the fact that growth is expected to.

Slow down you're seeing that in europe as well and.

Potentially uh there's a real question about how much value can get created in the ai.

Trade yeah i know and that's that's the whole point so like when you're you're in this kind of final throes of a higher rate environment which i think we are and i think this week could be the start of a topping process um When you kind of zoom out and you think about, again, the idea of lack of balance sheet, time of the year, it's been a one-way train. You had rates really since, to be honest, you had the first move coming out of the war, and then you had rates stabilize, and then Kevin Warsh taking over, being more hawkish, another rate sell-off, and then September was one of the worst months for the bond market.

Those kind of three steps to get us to where we are now... It felt more like technical positioning, market unwinds, not just fundamentals. And so that's why I'm making that point that the Fed does not have to deliver if it's based on just more idiosyncratic things.

But if the Fed doesn't deliver, what is going to be the market pushback?

I mean, Neil Kashkari was talking about it with us this week, last week, about how actually the market has been right in terms of what is needed for the economy.

I mean, right in the sense that if it's reflecting the current expectations for growth and if those growth expectations change their view on inflation. I mean, the biggest enigma really has been why are real rates so high but break even so low when you have oil prices doing what they're doing? So that to me tells you that you trade what is the most liquid and you can short the treasury market much, much easier versus tips, for example.

So I think that's what's taking place and that's why these technical things give mixed signals.

What's the trade heading into next week's CPI and bank earnings?

I think we are in a topping process. I think let's see what happens with overall risk markets more so than anything else. If risk markets wobble, that benefits Treasury. So it's the belly of the curve.

Stay with us.

More Bloomberg surveillance coming up after this.

Delta falling in pre-market trading after cutting its full-year earnings outlook as the war in the Middle East continues to hammer the industry. CEO Ed Bastian warning it will have to raise fares if fuel costs remain elevated. Sheila Kayalu of Jefferies maintaining a buy rating on the stock.

And she joins us here in studio for more. Great to see you, Sheila.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

So what's your initial take from Delta slash the profit forecast at a time when they say consumers aren't necessarily pulling back in the face of of higher fare prices.

What's your takeaway?

The EPS reduction is in line with our expectations. It's basically eating into profits. The $ 6 billion of higher fuel expense that they're taking in is driving EPS lower, but it's fully embedded into consensus expectations and our expectations.

So I actually really like the.

Delta print in terms of the numbers they printed.

Main cabin demand up 12% year over year.

Premium demand up 18%, loyalty revenues up 18%. So those are great stats in the face of what the consumer is facing with higher oil prices.

There was some surprise that Delta couldn't offset the higher fuel costs more because they own a refinery. And it really raises questions about United and American. How much does this really raise the bar or potentially create a problem for the likes of the other carriers who might not be in the same position as Delta?

Yeah, the refinery has about a billion-dollar benefit to this year, so it is providing a bit of a boost for them. Higher fuels will eventually eat into consumer demand. For this year, we have 15% pricing expansion, essentially. And for 2027, we're only assuming a 2% increase. So with oil, where it started in September, if we were to fully embed that over into 2027, it would be a headwind for certain carriers without that loyalty factor. brand contribution, the corporate strength, and the premium strength.

You talk about how you were surprised that they were able to maintain the same kind of consumer revenues that they had been expecting, that essentially people bought tickets even as they were more expensive. Just on a broader level, how surprising has it been to you that consumers have kept on buying and kept on traveling Even as we were hearing from different guests earlier this morning that the prices are getting, to quote one.

Guest, outrageous.

Yeah, I agree with that. The U.S.

Consumer strength is surprising across the board, whether it's mortgage rates, auto prices, regardless, airfares.

The U.S.

Consumer remains really resistant. We actually have this proprietary data where we're looking at the oldest aircraft globally, so anything older than 21 plus years old, and those engines are still being utilized at the same rate essentially that they were in January, February outside the Middle East. So the US is actually particularly strong, but you're not necessarily seeing cracks in Europe and Asia-Pac as much as one would expect given where oil is today.

I genuinely wish you didn't tell me that factoid, but okay, we'll leave that where it is. I'm looking at average Thanksgiving fares. They're up some 30%.

Yeah.

Is this going to be a very rough Thanksgiving for individuals? Do you think consumers just will step up and buy?

Oil is essentially up 100% since the start of the year when these companies guided and 50% essentially since they guided in the summertime. So the fare increase isn't even fully being absorbed yet by the higher ticket prices. So we really need oil to come in to ensure that demand can sustain itself because at some point there's going to be a crack.

We had one guest on earlier this morning, Christopher Owen.

He was talking about how he was going on a family holiday and used Muse, actually, to set the price limit if he was willing to buy. And then when Muse found that ticket, he bought it. Do you think Muse and maybe some of these other magentic AI players are going to create more competition for pricing within the airline sector?

Potentially.

I mean, I think that there's also a loyalty factor here, which is what Delta really prods itself on.

Ed said a stat this morning that.

A Delta customer, 40% of them have $ 43 trillion more income than they did a few years ago and $ 67 trillion since 2019. So they're really focusing on the high-end customer to say, okay, we're going to keep.

The highest end and continue to push better product to them.

Actually, they just started this quarter a of the business class where you're further segmenting what business class looks like.

So that's really Delta's strategy.

In terms of, I think, the AI plays on lower pricing, you don't want to be an airline that's really catering to that customer because that's a pricing war and that's what's caused... some airlines to exit the industry this year.

Have you seen any reduction in demand when it comes to some of the geopolitics?

We were talking about Riyadh and.

The airport where there were fatalities as a result of ballistic missile that had been destroyed above from the Houthis that was hit, that was shot.

Second time this week. It's amazing.

How does that disrupt some of the flight patterns and potentially profitability, not only in the region, but that's a major hub for a lot of different airlines?

We've seen the reduction in Turkish and British. It's about a five-point reduction for the European airlines that are seeing through traffic through the Middle East. But again, it's surprising how it hasn't impacted, you know, Asia-Pac and Europe as.

Much as one would expect.

Earlier this year, we were talking about how if the war was going on come October, we would be talking about flights that would get canceled because there just would not be enough jet fuel.

We're talking about in Europe in particular.

Why did those prognostications prove to be so incorrect?

You know, it wasn't necessarily a true stat, but yeah, no, the capacity cuts have been not as much as expected. They've been rational in that the lowest consumer has been taken out. The lowest fare has been removed from the mix.

Who is the best when it talks about potentially some of these? You said if you want to play this game, you're going to potentially get wiped out of the market. But who right now is catering to that lower end consumer?

Yeah.

At the lower end, there's JetBlue. Spirit Airways no longer exists. There's Southwest, who's.

Trying to premiumize.

Isn't JetBlue also trying to premiumize?

They are.

All the airlines are trying to in their way, but they don't have necessarily the scope.

They don't have the footprint.

Even American Airlines has a 10-point margin gap to Delta and United. That's because their international routes aren't as expansive. So if you don't have international, like Southwest has essentially zero international, no lounges, it's really hard to catch up to Delta and.

United's margins because of that.

So everyone else, aside from the top two players, is essentially, you know, Americans far behind on the third leg.

I have to ask this question because we're under four weeks in midterm elections. And the airline industry really came under fire under the Biden administration in terms of M & A. Are you expecting any changes in Washington to hit this space?

Not necessarily, as we've seen just an airline go away, right?

So I don't think you'll see consolidation because essentially you want to have better fare. You know, the fares will be what the market deems is right with oil prices where they are.

Stay with us. More Bloomberg surveillance coming up after this.

Fed officials signaling back-to-back rate hikes may not be needed as traders bet on an October hold. Terry Wiseman of Macquarie writing, it will be difficult for the FOMC to avoid hiking in December if they do skip October.

Terry joins us now for more.

And Terry, this really is the point, which is that longer high yields are actually increasingly being priced into markets. And there is this new reality that people are grappling with, which is the new normal is something that doesn't feel normal.

What's your take on what happened this week?

Well, what's been happening for the last two weeks, I would say, not so much this week, is that some of the central banks around the world who had been signaling a hawkish disposition have started to sound a little bit more dovish. So you're seeing it with the Fed because clearly some of the senior staff members have been walking away from the prospect that they will do an October hike. Okay, they may have some reasons to do that.

They've seen the PCE price index after the revisions be lower. They've seen a job market that's a bit weaker, certainly on the wage front. We've seen weaker wages and wage growth in the U.S. So they now have reason to maybe just take a step back and watch things evolve, watch the data evolve, and not hike every meeting, but hike maybe just on the key meetings in which the summary of economic projections are released.

The next one, of course, would be December.

But still, the Fed is still inclined to be hiking. They still have implicitly a tightening bias, but one whereby they express it through skipping meetings. And October is the one they would skip. The ECB as well apparently has stepped back from the prospect of hiking in October.

They've done so a little bit for a different reason.

They see the stresses in France and are realizing that maybe the way to address that, at least for.

The moment, is to not hike.

But this has been the theme for the last two weeks.

Well, just to pick up on that point, there was reporting overnight that Christine Lagarde, the president of the ECB, told a closed-door meeting of finance ministers that the ECB is prepared to use any tools possible to potentially create a calm transmission of monetary policy. Do you expect this to essentially be Operation Save France policy? for the ECB to the extent that they won't necessarily hike rates to combat the inflation coming from oil prices.

Yes.

So the first step, of course, that the ECB could take in the context of a financial stress situation at one of the sovereigns is simply to stop hiking rates, as she's intimated already. If what you're asking about is the special programs, things like the securities market program that they used during the European bond crisis, which eventually transitioned into the outright monetary transmission transaction program, actually, which has a lot of conditionally attached to it, or something like the PEPP during the pandemic or the TPI.

During the pandemic.

These are programs that are extant that they could always revive. The problem with reviving them now, if they were to do so, or can contemplate doing so, is that French yields are just not as high as yields in Greece or Italy or Spain had gotten at the point during the European debt crisis when these programs were invoked. The other problem, of course, is that when you're talking about the programs that were introduced later in the last decade and a half, They require a lot of conditionality, right?

The French have an election in April, and it's not the most opportune time to introduce fiscal austerity, especially fiscal austerity that's imposed from the outside. So we're really actually in limbo here. I don't think that the ECB will be invoking any of these programs, certainly not until things get worse.

They could do it if things.

Get worse before the election, but certainly the election, the political cycle in France is something that's holding everything back at this point.

John has been mentioning this, that TPI just wouldn't work for France if, to reach that requirement, you have to have sound fiscal policy.

Right.

So in that sense, is this just leaking verbal.

Intervention from a guard?

So the conditionality, of course, with regard to the TPI is you're not in an excessive deficit procedure, right? The EDP, excessive deficit procedure, is kind of like probation or secret double probation, if you understand that reference.

Right.

And the French have had a deficit in the last few years that's running close to 5% of GDP. Of course, the Maastricht treaty obligation is 3% of GDP. They are very, very far away from that. Could the European authorities make an exception and just change the rules of the TPI? Yes, effectively they can. I don't see any reason why they can't.

But again, this is not about whether they can or cannot change the rules. This is whether France is at the stage at this point where an intervention of that nature is.

Required, if it's valid, if it's viable, et cetera.

The more we talk about this, the more the dollar seems to be strengthening, the longest strengthening streak going back to 2025.

Early in the year.

Do you expect that to continue just because, again, clean a shirt and dirty laundry bin, et cetera, whatever kind of analogy?

Yeah, so I'm going to make a very contingent claim here, right, which is that the reason the dollar has stayed so strong this year, despite a lot of people, including ourselves, thinking there could be a dollar weakness in 2026 is It's for two reasons, and you need to make reference to those two reasons when you try to understand or project where the dollar's going to be next year. Those two reasons are, one, high oil prices, admittedly something that the U.S. caused, and the other thing is the surprise we've seen in U.S. growth this year because of the AI-driven infrastructure investment cycle.

Those two things, if they continue.

well, then the dollar will stay robust because those are the things that caused the dollar to strengthen in 2026 or at least stay strong. When you ask me, well, are they going to stay robust, I'd say, well, with the case of oil, it's what you referenced earlier. It's whether something happens with the war, and if it ends early or early than expected, oil prices will come down, the dollar would weaken, or if we get some diminishment in the intensity of the AI investment cycles. If that happens, sure, the dollar will weaken again. There, I'm not concerned about things like internal rates of return for these projects, right?

The hyperscalers are making money. That's why they're investing in all their projections. I guess they're going to continue investing. I'm much more concerned about the political cycles implications for AI at this point, right? Will there be a lot of state and local legislation that tries to curtail the build out of data centers, for example?

This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast, bringing you the best in markets, economics and geopolitics. You can watch the show live on Bloomberg TV, weekday mornings from 6am to 9am 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.

Bloomberg Surveillance TV: October 9th, 2026

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