AWS Outage Recovery Drags On, Apple Hits First Record of 2025 | Bloomberg Businessweek
Summary
AWS Outage: AWS, the world's largest cloud provider, experienced a significant outage affecting various sectors, highlighting the risks of dependency on major tech firms.
Amazon's Market Impact: Despite the outage, Amazon's stock rose, underscoring its critical role in global infrastructure and the resilience of its market position.
Apple's Market Performance: Apple shares hit a record high for 2025, driven by strong iPhone demand and an upgrade from Loop Capital, reflecting positive market sentiment.
Apple's Product Pipeline: The company is expected to expand its product lineup significantly, including a foldable iPhone and smart home devices, potentially boosting future revenues.
Regional Banking Sector: Zion's Bankcorp reported strong earnings despite recent credit concerns, suggesting isolated issues rather than systemic risks within regional banks.
Private Credit Concerns: Analysts discussed potential indirect risks from the private credit market to regional banks, emphasizing vigilance in credit risk management.
Rare Earth and Critical Minerals: U.S. Antimony Corp's stock surged amid speculation of U.S. government interest, reflecting strategic importance in securing domestic mineral resources.
U.S.-Australia Collaboration: Potential collaboration between the U.S. and Australia on critical minerals was highlighted, aligning with geopolitical strategies to reduce reliance on China.
Transcript
[Music] Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. >> This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. AWS is the world's largest cloud provider. You know this the company saying issues continuing to plague its operations after a widespread outage degraded services for a range of customers including government agencies, AI companies, and financial platforms. Shares of the company, they've actually traded higher today, up 1.3% right now. We got a great voice on this. >> Yeah, Sarah Frier is with us. Let's head to our Bloomberg News Bureau in San Francisco. She's Bloomberg News big tech team leader. She's also author of No Filter, the inside story of Instagram. Sarah, Sarah, what exactly happened and why are there still problems? Well, when a large chunk of the internet is relying on one service, there are all these cascading effects, right? uh they said there was an issue in a database uh that was loading incorrectly and that just had this domino effect for a large portion of the internet. A third of cloud computing services are on Amazon. So when something is fixed and they do say it is fixed now it does take a while for all of those errors to resolve. Um that is something that is is people will still feel the effects of for a little while. Um, but it's so funny that you said the stock is going up. I mean, this is a moment where you realize how how crucial Amazon is um in our our web infrastructure and our governments and so much about our lives. So, it is a a sign of their power if nothing else. >> But is it also a sign of our reliance on one, two or three really large companies? if if an outage at a single company can disrupt such a diverse array of services that so many people rely on. I mean, we were kind of joking about Netflix and the Ring camera, but you know, government agencies are are experiencing outages as a result of this. Uh there are issues with dispatching uh taxis, for example, in some cities right now as a result of this. Uh what does it say about our reliance on single pieces of technology? >> My my train to work was late this morning. It was like um only one track was working and I was like, "Oh, is this related to the Amazon outage?" Like I I just kind of assumed. I don't think it was, but I I it is it is such a good um good reminder of how how that concentration of power is a is a threat to to things getting done in an economy. Remember Crowd Strike last year went out and planes were grounded and um you know, so many things stopped working. uh that was that was a a huge cost billions of of cost to the global economy when that happened. So I I think that there is um there's really something to be said for the the threat of this kind of problem and it's probably a a cue to you know the hackers of the world that this is this is a a vulnerability right um that's why it's so important for these companies to have really fast response um quickly pinpointing the problem when something goes down. One issue that may be in our future, right, as more code is written by AI, um when when big services like this go down, will the engineers know where the problem is? And if it was written by a a line of code that they didn't actually write. So I I I think that that's sort of like when you think about risk to um these kinds of outages in the future, you have to think about um from the the very beginning when you're building the system, how safe is the system as it grows and and as more services become dependent on it. >> Yeah. Great. Well, happy Monday everybody. >> Hope your Netflix works tonight, Carol. >> I hope so. Actually, >> you got to stop refreshing it from the studio computer. Okay. >> It actually came back. Maybe it's blocked at work and that's what it is. You shouldn't be watching it here. >> Binging. No, this was last night. We did get it finally on and we were able to finish binging a certain series. Okay, >> I'm not even going to ask. >> Don't ask. Don't ask. Sarah Frier, thank you so much. Bloomberg News big tech team leader, author of No Filter, the inside story of Instagram. >> Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this. >> You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5:00 p p.m. Eastern. >> Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App >> or watch us live on YouTube. >> From one mag 7 to another we go. Apple uh shares hitting their first record of 2025 after Loop Capital upgraded the stock to buy from hold, becoming the latest firm to site positive iPhone demand trends. And then team uh Tim, we heard about Apple's latest generation of iPhones. They seem to be selling well. >> Yeah. off to a faster start than usual. Its most basic model surging in popularity with our Monday Apple roundup. Bloomberg News managing editor for Global Consumer Tech, Mark German is with us. He's in the Bloomberg News LA bureau. Mark, I want to start with the stock because it does seem like the optimism that we're seeing with the trade with Apple is is giving some momentum to other companies out there certainly lifting the major indexes. What's your view on Apple hitting its first new record of the year? Yeah, a couple things to to note. One, this is old news. Uh we've known for several weeks now that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have been a hit. Uh we've known for some time now that the base level iPhone uh is a hit. They made major changes on that consumer model. Uh you have the faster refresh display, the better cameras, uh the larger screen size, etc., etc. the Pro models, first redesign in half a decade, got that orange color, which I happen to like. They're doing very well. Second thing I'll say is I just continue to find it fascinating. I know I've been in this space for for a decade now in the financial news space that a firm can come out, they could say, we predict that the stock price is going to XYZ and then the stock follows, right? Stock goes up. anyone could just shout out and say I think the price is going to that and see what happens. Right? So these are predictions. They're they're not set in stone and there's really no way to know how the stock is going to go one way or another. We don't know uh what the different ramifications are of different political policies and what can happen in the world at the drop of a dime. Right? So it's really a coin flip uh to know where the stock price is going to go or really the stock price uh for any company. So that's my take and two cents on that. I I just think it's worth pointing out because I don't think Mark would do this himself, but often times when Mark does report news that nobody knows, it does move Apple's stock price. So, it's not just the analysts who who do that, but Mark's reporting often does that. >> You know, I was going to come back at you, Mark, because you know, we do have uh with this call out from Loop Capital that not everyone is sure that that early momentum for the iPhone justifies Apple's valuation that's out there. shares trading at more than 30 t 32 times estimated earnings well above their 10-year average of 22 times. You are not a financial analyst, but your reporting does move the share price, but you do know what's coming in terms of products, services, fundamentals. >> Well, they all use my reporting to make their reports. >> There we go. I like it. >> What do you say about those that are concerned about valuations? Again, you're not a financial analyst. I'm not asking you to give me a buy so, you know, sell or hold or whatever, but you understand kind of what's coming at us from the company. There are drivers out there, right? >> I think I can give you a pretty good idea actually if you should buy uh hold or sell, but you know, I won't uh give that black and white, but I will tell you that the product pipeline that they have uh is phenomenal. I think the foldable iPhone coming at the end of next year is going to raise ASPs quite significantly. I think you're going from a device right now, a Pro model that costs around $1,000. You're going to see a phone starting at $2,000 from Apple at the end of next year. And I think that's going to do wonders for ASPs and in overall revenue. They're going to expand the product portfolio. That's sort of that other product segment uh with the new slate of smart home devices. They're going to compete with with Ring, their parent company, Amazon. They're going to compete with Google, Ecob, and a bunch of other companies uh in the smart home space uh with this new smart home display coming in March. >> They're going to come out in the following year in 2027 with a robotic smart home display. This is actually a very popular product category right now. It's it's it's growing and and it's becoming increasingly popular, I should say, in China, tabletop robots. Uh, so if you're a smart home user, a robotics fan, this is something that I think is going to be uh, fairly compelling. You've got a foldable 18inch iPad in the pipeline for before the end of the decade. You've got multiple different variations of smart glasses. So, in terms of hardware, you're going to see a pretty rapid and broad expansion of the hardware lineup. >> You have the new Siri coming out this spring. Then you have another update to Siri coming at the end of next year. And then another update to Siri coming the year after trying to get something closer to chat GPT. Uh they're looking at a bunch of of acquisitions. So, you know, we're on a very solid path. Uh in terms of Apple right now, >> a $2,000 iPhone, >> you take your bet based on that. >> Okay. Okay. So, a $2,000 iPhone Mark, I think, would make a lot of people bulk at just the the list price there, that headline price. What does Apple need to do or what do carriers around the world need to do to make that more digestible to break that up so people actually spend the money but don't realize they're spending it? >> Yeah, I think that issue has been solved uh with installment plans with from Apple on their credit card in the US. Uh I think it's also been solved by the carriers in terms of their trade-in promotions. And I think people understand that pricing is going up. You know, one benefit I should say uh with the tariffs is it's given Apple some air cover. Even if they're not being hit by tariffs directly, it's given them some air cover to do price adjustments. And so I think the general consumer understands that because of tariffs, because of inflation, pricing is going up. And so it gives them some air cover there. And they're not going to be the first at this point. When Apple came out with the $1,000 iPhone 10 in 2017, they really were the first to hit that, you know, massive at the time pricing threshold. Now it's sort of whatever. And I think pretty soon the 2000 is going to be pretty whatever. Also, >> you know, we've always talked about Apple and we're always so con concerned about how much exposure they have to one big product and that is their phone. Are we still worried? >> Oh, yeah. I mean, at some point the the iPhone is going to need to be um not replaced, right, by succeeded, right, with the iPhone still sticking around. It's kind of like everyone thought the laptop was going to die because of the iPad >> and then everyone thought, you know, maybe the Apple Watch would cannibalize some things. The only real cannibalization that we've ever seen in the history of Apple, I in my viewpoint, is the iPod where the iPhone killed the iPod, but nothing has killed the Mac. Nothing's going to kill the phone. You're always going to have that pocket device. You're going to see fewer people use the laptop because they've got the iPhone. You're going to maybe see fewer people use the iPhone because you have the smart glasses, but you're still going to probably want and own and buy all of them, right? And so that's the tricky needle Apple needs to thread. But I don't believe the phone is going away. >> Man, I missed that iPad iPod shuffle. >> Wasn't what some parents giving them to their kids so that they didn't have to have a phone, but they could play around with music or something. I thought I saw some story. I don't know. Tim's looking at me like I'm crazy. Cray Cray. Uh Mark German, Bloomberg News getter for global consumer tech. Apple, now a $3.9 trillion market cap company. >> This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2 p.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg 11:30. Just worth repeating, shares of Zions right now up by about 3.9%. Bouncing around, Carol, in the after hours, but steadily uh in the green just after reporting those results. >> Yeah, it was rallying in today's session ahead of earnings. Keep in mind, it lost about 5% for the week overall. But we've seen a two-day rally and it looks like the rally might continue into a third day. Let's get uh to it. Herman Chan follows the regional banks including Zion's Bankorp. He's senior analyst for US Regional Banks here at Bloomberg Intelligence and he's here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Uh, as you reminded us, I messaged him. I'm like, wait a minute, what did they say last week? They talked about the credit losses, right? That's the big number we focus on. So, we had that already out there. What else did we get from the quarter that might be of note you? >> The big takeaway is that outside of the 50 million charge off that that we just talked about, there was really no no credit concerns at all. they only posted 6 million charge offs or about four basis points on average on average loans um outside of the issue that they flagged last week. So credit's benign. We're not seeing any cracks within the credit quality. And so everything's really good. >> So your view idiosyncratic not systemic. >> I would say these are oneoff. I was told in radio not to say idiosyncratic. >> Wait, >> wait, who said that? >> John Taku did. John. >> John. Well, John gets up so early, he's asleep right now. So, it means you can say whatever you want about John talking. >> So, we don't see any any syncratic issues. These seem to be >> because John doesn't know what he syncratic means. >> Maybe he just heard you. >> Did he think you said idiot and and he like got upset or something? I don't know. Uh um we're talking with Herman Chan of our Bloomberg intelligence team. I want to bring David George also into this conversation. Senior research analyst at Baird. He joins us from Nashville, Tennessee. Last week, he upgraded Z to outperform from neutral, saying the drop in market cap of the more than a billion dollars over that 50 million charge off was excessive. There was that 24-hour period where we getting a little concerned that it was regional bank uh scare 2.0. Um David, come on in. We're here with Herman Chan of our BI team. Uh earnings out. Anything new that uh came to light for you here? >> Hey Carol, good afternoon. uh the earnings as as Herman kind of noted the earnings uh and taking a kind of a cursory look at them look pretty good. They despite that $50 million charge they they earned uh over $220 million and uh their pre-provision net revenue which is kind of a key foundation that that we like to think about as it relates to just the earnings power of the banking industry was better than expected. So the core business momentum at Zans uh is is actually quite good and uh I think the market is going to like these numbers and and as Herman mentioned uh this does not seem to be a systemic issue. I think the these numbers this afternoon corroborated that and I think it was a huge overreaction uh in the stock last week and we continue to like it. >> David, you have a $65 price target on the stock. You have an outperform recommendation. Uh, as Carol mentioned, you upgraded it to outperform from neutral just last week. Uh, would you raise your price target based on what you saw today? It seems like you could be doing a victory lap right now. >> Um, I'm not one this this is too hard of a business, Tim, to spike the ball. Um, so I'm not really in that uh I've been doing it too long and and have a lot of scars. But um, the price target thing is something that we constantly evaluate. I I don't think I'm allowed to tell you uh what I'm going to do with it, but just suffice it to say that the quarter is good. Um and we feel pretty good about the the fundamentals at Zans and um the riskreward trade-off and the valuation of Zans. You know, last Thursday after the bell, I think it got I think it was 47 when we upgraded it. It got down I think seven and a half times earnings and five times pre-provision earnings. And that's that's about as low as these tend to get uh absent a really really nasty recession. So, um I think it was just really a lesson in overreaction and and kind of sentiment overweighing uh the the numbers uh in this particular case. >> Yeah, stock was down about 13% on Thursday, October 16th and bouncing back about 6% on Friday and then another 4.6% today and then we're seeing it up in the aftermarket. You know, Herman, one of the things that we were all talking about is, you know, what does this mean for the regional banking uh sector overall? I'm looking at the sector was down about 1.9% uh last week uh overall over concerns about credit uh specifically when it comes to the regional banks. It was up about 2 and a half% today. >> Right. Right. So we've this is sort of the tail end of of earnings for us and last week we had a slew of earnings and outside of one issue that was already flagged by Fifth Third, you know, credit was really strong across the board. we haven't seen really any cracks um from non-performers, criticized loans, those sort of early warning signs. So, I I I do think that these oneoff issues are are digestible and not really reflective anything systemic across the board. Yeah, David, come on back in here and I'm curious if you agree with that and and maybe we can kind of broaden the conversation too and include private credit, which isn't necessarily in the purview of a lot of analysts because it's, you know, exactly what it is, private credit, but I'm curious if you see challenges in private credit affecting regionals. >> Yeah. And so, um, I think that's a two-part question, so I'll try and do it one piece at a time. So, um, I think what Herman said is correct. If you just look at the data, I think, and this is pretty much the tail end of earning season, the cap one comes after the bell tomorrow night. Um, but uh I I I think 75% of the banks we cover had lower levels of non-performing loans sequentially and and and just from a cyclical perspective, we're pretty much close to um an all-time low as it relates to problem loans. So um on private credit that we could have an entire show on that. Um you know from from my perspective um the growth in private credit is very notable. You know in the banking industry any time in my experience in the last 25 years when you have outsized growth is when you can have uh problems and the this is an asset class that has not been through a sustained recession. Um, so my concern as it relates to the banks and private credit is really an indirect I if if I guess said differently, if if we experience problems in the private credit market, um, my my concern would would be that um, liquidity starts to dry up and there's kind of some knock-on effects of just liquidity coming out of the system having an indirect impact potentially on just corporate borrowers broadly. Um it's not something that that I think there would be meaningful direct exposure. Um but it's just a situation where when liquidity slows um that will have an impact on the borrowers within the private credit universe and to the extent they have issues they could have customers that are in the traditional bank market. So it it's a it's an indirect impact something that we're clearly very vigilant on uh Tim as it relates to just thinking about credit risk and so forth. But I think it's an indirect risk rather than a direct one. >> Hi David, this is Herman Chan. Uh just a quick question for you in terms of how you when you talk to management teams, how do you get comfortable with their underwriting, their their monitoring of their credits, their due diligence? It seems like the the overarching thread forricolor and the scanter loans is that a lot of these assets were pledged to different places at the same time. So love to get your thoughts on that. >> Yeah. Um it's it's an excellent question. I think ultimately um bank investors are making qualitative assessments Herman on bank management team's ability to um assess credit risk, interest rate risk and allocate capital and um these are obviously levered companies much le less levered than they used to be. uh but I think the the annual SECAR and stress testing process has made this industry much better with respect to just understanding where the risks come from in terms of exposures and being able to quantify exposures to different industry levels and loan to values and collateral coverage and so forth. So, I I think if it's like if you go to the doctor once a year and you know that you're going to have a very uh rigorous exam, I just think that the behavior coming out of that um has really changed. Um and I think the biggest evidence of that uh emanates from the fact that bank loans are only really growing at 2 to 3%. Um, so it's hard for me to see when when market participants worry about bubbles on bank balance sheets. The growth isn't in there to suggest where that bubble would come from as it relates to bank loan exposure directly. >> Well, just to follow on that, like I do wonder about all the money that's been slloshing around post pandemic. Um, you know, we just have a a massive, you know, bill that was spent that was passed by Congress too that there's going to be more money coming into the system. But I I there has been a fair amount of money. Are we silly to think that there's going to be some kind of bubble um and that there is going to be some financial and bank exposure to it? >> Um no, I don't think at all. I I I think it's just important to to everything every question like this, Carol, is is just is very contextual and it all depends on the context of um where stocks are trading, what is priced into them, what isn't priced into them. And um I think it's fair to say that that there that asset prices are elevated both private and public. And if there is any semblance or any any mean reversion >> or a 20 to 40% haircut in asset prices that is going to leave a mark um on the banking industry. Absolutely. Um but to to it it it it's one of those things that it's it's going to take time. Um, and banks benefit from time in in the form of just these quarterly pre-provision earnings that I mentioned that that that is essentially the lever that this industry has to pay for credit issues. And uh, rest assured that these companies are very vigilant as it relates to credit risk. It is they they've got very extensive risk and credit department functions. That's all they do every day is think about where their risks are and where their losses could be. And you know, as it relates to Zion, say 12 basis points of losses. That means that they're right 99.9% of the time. And um I think that the the industry had deserves some credit, pardon the pun, for how well they've managed credit risk since the GFC. >> All right, going to leave it on that note, guys. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Uh so appreciate that. David George, senior research analyst over at Baird, and of course, our own Herman Chan, who covers the regional banking sector. He's senior analyst for US regional banks here at our Bloomberg intelligence team. Zion's up about 2.6% here in the aftermarket after reporting its latest quarterly update. >> Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this. >> You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App or watch us live on YouTube. Check out uh we heard Alexis talking about this rare earth and critical mineral stocks uh they have certainly been on the move uh rising as William Blair analyst Neil Dingman initiates the companies as outperform as he sees the government potentially taking a stake in them among the stocks name United States Antimony with William Blair's analyst seeing the US government taking a notable stake in the company as the US's only antimony producer. Shares of US Antimony by the way are up nearly 565% year to date. Yes, you heard that right. With about 14% of the float short, we're seeing these stocks on the move today. >> And back with us once again for the first time since August is Gary Evans, chairman and CEO of United States Antimony Corp. More than $1.6 billion market cap mining milling company refineses and sells Antimony products. He joins us from the Bloomberg News Dallas Bureau. So the analyst at William Blair out saying that the US government could take a notable stake in the company is the only US antimony producer. Gary, do you see the US government taking a stake in the company? >> Well, it's something we don't, you know, stay up at night worried about. Um, we've been very fortunate in that the US government has given us an incredible contract. This is the DA, which is the Defense Logistics Division of the Department of Defense. We won a $245 million sole source contract about a month ago. And so, we're working hard to fill fulfill that contract. And what that is is antimony ingots that's used for our defense to hold and stockpile for future wars. >> So could can you fulfill that with the with the capital structure that you have right now? Do you need more money in order to fulfill this? >> We no uh fortunately we've raised over the last um month, month and a half about $und00 million of capital. So we're sitting on a lot of cash. um we have no debt and we actually have revenues, cash flow, EBIDA and net income which is unusual for a small mining company. We did announce though on um uh Sunday yesterday of our attempted uh uh takeover of a company in Australia which is a large antimony as well as gold producer >> Lvado resources uh some new mine starting. Exactly. So uh that's that what that does for us is it it adds additional value. In fact with our reserves and Lvata reserves we'd be in the top five of the world which is something I think both the Australian government and the US government really would like to see. >> Yeah. And I just want to dig a little bit deeper. What kind of tonnage of antimony would this be in terms of this deal that you're making um with uh Lvado? Well, you got to understand Lvata is is just a minor. They do not do the refining end, which is what we do. So, we have a smelter in Thompson Falls, Montana. We have one in Madero, Mexico. So, what we the one in Montana is being expanded significantly, five times greater than what we currently produce. That expansion will be done or first week of January. Uh the smelter in Mexico, um we could expand that probably five to six times as well. So what this resource that Lvata has um we we can bring to our smelters and make a finished product not only for the government but we make products for seven other customers. People don't realize the antimony is used in many many different things and especially with the new AI technology going on. We make fire retardants for roofing materials which all these data centers require and then we make uh it's in typically in most electrical cords to keep them from catching fire. >> Wait. So, okay. So, it sounds like important. Um, and I'm just curious how much you guys are paying. Can you share anything in terms of this company that you're buying? How much? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, that we did make an offer. It's a We already own 10% of the company. So, over the last 30 days, we've been quietly acquiring shares. It's a company we've been looking at for 9 10 months, and we wanted to wait till the appropriate time. So, we bought stock. We get we own 10%. We announced that we're required by the Australian government to do so and then we made an offer to the management of the company and the offer is basically we will give them um um six shares for every 100 shares of their stock. So if you looked at the valuation it's a 400 plus million dollar transaction. >> Okay, good to know. Um I want to go back though to what Tim asked you Gary initially about William Blair's call. I mean, are you guys talking with the US government about them taking a notable stake in your company? Are you working on a deal? Is there anything going on right now? >> Well, obviously, um, those type of discussions I can't really talk about. I will tell you, we've been working with the DoD on a grant. We've talked about that publicly. We're hopefully at the final stages of that. And I mentioned already the contract. So um we the timing of the transaction with Lvata couldn't be better. Obviously the the prime minister of uh of uh Australia was meeting with President Trump today in the White House and I'm pretty certain this deal was discussed. So um anyway, I I think that what what we've got to do as Americans is realize that China has a 100red-year plan and we're not part of that plan. And we as the largest antimony producer in the United States want to build those re reserves and resources and not be dependent upon a country that is not doing things in our best interest. So it's not only antimony, we're involved in tungsten, we're involved in cobalt as other rare earth companies are also moving into the space. So we're trying to step it up and uh we think a collaboration between the United States and Australia is a great way to do it. You just said that you're pretty sure this was discussed between the two leaders today. How are you so sure that was discussed? >> Uh, General Jack Keane uh is uh on our board. So, did that help answer your question? >> It does. Thank you. >> Okay. >> I know Carol had another >> Wait, did they call you? Did they call you to talk even a little bit further about the possibility of this? >> No, no, no, no. But I'm If you look at what the discussions were about, it was about critical minerals. is about rare earths and a collaboration and this is obviously what we're doing. >> Do you want the United States to take a position in your company? >> Not necessarily. Uh we've we've access to capital is not an issue for United States Antimony. Um we want to do what's best for our shareholders and what's best for the country. Right now we think that we can accomplish those goals as an independent company without shareholder ownership. If the government comes to me and says, "Hey, we definitely want an ownership position." Then that's a different story. Uh, you know, I'm not really in a position to talk about that at this point. But you can see the close alignment between the United States antimony and the US federal government and it continues to strengthen. We talk to them almost every day about different things. But do you feel like you need a US investment to maybe, you know, I just feel like do the companies that get US investments in the mineral space, if you will, have an advantage over those that don't? >> I'm not sure what the investment does as an advantage. Um, if if you need capital, that's one thing. We don't need capital. We have plenty of access to capital. Um, as you noted when we first uh came on the air, we've had a tremendous run in our stock and it's because we have uh access to antimony. We started mining our first antimony mine in Montana last week. Brought seven loads of trucks down the mountain. So, we are actively mining. We're the first fully integrated antimony company in the world outside of China and we're happy about that. We think Larvat will definitely add to that equation. >> Got to say we never have enough time with you. Uh, this space is certainly on fire. Gary Evans, chairman CEO of United States Antimony Corporation. Stock is up 15% in today's session. This is Bloomberg. >> This is the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeart Radio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal. [Music]
AWS Outage Recovery Drags On, Apple Hits First Record of 2025 | Bloomberg Businessweek
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[Music] Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. >> This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. AWS is the world's largest cloud provider. You know this the company saying issues continuing to plague its operations after a widespread outage degraded services for a range of customers including government agencies, AI companies, and financial platforms. Shares of the company, they've actually traded higher today, up 1.3% right now. We got a great voice on this. >> Yeah, Sarah Frier is with us. Let's head to our Bloomberg News Bureau in San Francisco. She's Bloomberg News big tech team leader. She's also author of No Filter, the inside story of Instagram. Sarah, Sarah, what exactly happened and why are there still problems? Well, when a large chunk of the internet is relying on one service, there are all these cascading effects, right? uh they said there was an issue in a database uh that was loading incorrectly and that just had this domino effect for a large portion of the internet. A third of cloud computing services are on Amazon. So when something is fixed and they do say it is fixed now it does take a while for all of those errors to resolve. Um that is something that is is people will still feel the effects of for a little while. Um, but it's so funny that you said the stock is going up. I mean, this is a moment where you realize how how crucial Amazon is um in our our web infrastructure and our governments and so much about our lives. So, it is a a sign of their power if nothing else. >> But is it also a sign of our reliance on one, two or three really large companies? if if an outage at a single company can disrupt such a diverse array of services that so many people rely on. I mean, we were kind of joking about Netflix and the Ring camera, but you know, government agencies are are experiencing outages as a result of this. Uh there are issues with dispatching uh taxis, for example, in some cities right now as a result of this. Uh what does it say about our reliance on single pieces of technology? >> My my train to work was late this morning. It was like um only one track was working and I was like, "Oh, is this related to the Amazon outage?" Like I I just kind of assumed. I don't think it was, but I I it is it is such a good um good reminder of how how that concentration of power is a is a threat to to things getting done in an economy. Remember Crowd Strike last year went out and planes were grounded and um you know, so many things stopped working. uh that was that was a a huge cost billions of of cost to the global economy when that happened. So I I think that there is um there's really something to be said for the the threat of this kind of problem and it's probably a a cue to you know the hackers of the world that this is this is a a vulnerability right um that's why it's so important for these companies to have really fast response um quickly pinpointing the problem when something goes down. One issue that may be in our future, right, as more code is written by AI, um when when big services like this go down, will the engineers know where the problem is? And if it was written by a a line of code that they didn't actually write. So I I I think that that's sort of like when you think about risk to um these kinds of outages in the future, you have to think about um from the the very beginning when you're building the system, how safe is the system as it grows and and as more services become dependent on it. >> Yeah. Great. Well, happy Monday everybody. >> Hope your Netflix works tonight, Carol. >> I hope so. Actually, >> you got to stop refreshing it from the studio computer. Okay. >> It actually came back. Maybe it's blocked at work and that's what it is. You shouldn't be watching it here. >> Binging. No, this was last night. We did get it finally on and we were able to finish binging a certain series. Okay, >> I'm not even going to ask. >> Don't ask. Don't ask. Sarah Frier, thank you so much. Bloomberg News big tech team leader, author of No Filter, the inside story of Instagram. >> Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this. >> You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5:00 p p.m. Eastern. >> Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App >> or watch us live on YouTube. >> From one mag 7 to another we go. Apple uh shares hitting their first record of 2025 after Loop Capital upgraded the stock to buy from hold, becoming the latest firm to site positive iPhone demand trends. And then team uh Tim, we heard about Apple's latest generation of iPhones. They seem to be selling well. >> Yeah. off to a faster start than usual. Its most basic model surging in popularity with our Monday Apple roundup. Bloomberg News managing editor for Global Consumer Tech, Mark German is with us. He's in the Bloomberg News LA bureau. Mark, I want to start with the stock because it does seem like the optimism that we're seeing with the trade with Apple is is giving some momentum to other companies out there certainly lifting the major indexes. What's your view on Apple hitting its first new record of the year? Yeah, a couple things to to note. One, this is old news. Uh we've known for several weeks now that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have been a hit. Uh we've known for some time now that the base level iPhone uh is a hit. They made major changes on that consumer model. Uh you have the faster refresh display, the better cameras, uh the larger screen size, etc., etc. the Pro models, first redesign in half a decade, got that orange color, which I happen to like. They're doing very well. Second thing I'll say is I just continue to find it fascinating. I know I've been in this space for for a decade now in the financial news space that a firm can come out, they could say, we predict that the stock price is going to XYZ and then the stock follows, right? Stock goes up. anyone could just shout out and say I think the price is going to that and see what happens. Right? So these are predictions. They're they're not set in stone and there's really no way to know how the stock is going to go one way or another. We don't know uh what the different ramifications are of different political policies and what can happen in the world at the drop of a dime. Right? So it's really a coin flip uh to know where the stock price is going to go or really the stock price uh for any company. So that's my take and two cents on that. I I just think it's worth pointing out because I don't think Mark would do this himself, but often times when Mark does report news that nobody knows, it does move Apple's stock price. So, it's not just the analysts who who do that, but Mark's reporting often does that. >> You know, I was going to come back at you, Mark, because you know, we do have uh with this call out from Loop Capital that not everyone is sure that that early momentum for the iPhone justifies Apple's valuation that's out there. shares trading at more than 30 t 32 times estimated earnings well above their 10-year average of 22 times. You are not a financial analyst, but your reporting does move the share price, but you do know what's coming in terms of products, services, fundamentals. >> Well, they all use my reporting to make their reports. >> There we go. I like it. >> What do you say about those that are concerned about valuations? Again, you're not a financial analyst. I'm not asking you to give me a buy so, you know, sell or hold or whatever, but you understand kind of what's coming at us from the company. There are drivers out there, right? >> I think I can give you a pretty good idea actually if you should buy uh hold or sell, but you know, I won't uh give that black and white, but I will tell you that the product pipeline that they have uh is phenomenal. I think the foldable iPhone coming at the end of next year is going to raise ASPs quite significantly. I think you're going from a device right now, a Pro model that costs around $1,000. You're going to see a phone starting at $2,000 from Apple at the end of next year. And I think that's going to do wonders for ASPs and in overall revenue. They're going to expand the product portfolio. That's sort of that other product segment uh with the new slate of smart home devices. They're going to compete with with Ring, their parent company, Amazon. They're going to compete with Google, Ecob, and a bunch of other companies uh in the smart home space uh with this new smart home display coming in March. >> They're going to come out in the following year in 2027 with a robotic smart home display. This is actually a very popular product category right now. It's it's it's growing and and it's becoming increasingly popular, I should say, in China, tabletop robots. Uh, so if you're a smart home user, a robotics fan, this is something that I think is going to be uh, fairly compelling. You've got a foldable 18inch iPad in the pipeline for before the end of the decade. You've got multiple different variations of smart glasses. So, in terms of hardware, you're going to see a pretty rapid and broad expansion of the hardware lineup. >> You have the new Siri coming out this spring. Then you have another update to Siri coming at the end of next year. And then another update to Siri coming the year after trying to get something closer to chat GPT. Uh they're looking at a bunch of of acquisitions. So, you know, we're on a very solid path. Uh in terms of Apple right now, >> a $2,000 iPhone, >> you take your bet based on that. >> Okay. Okay. So, a $2,000 iPhone Mark, I think, would make a lot of people bulk at just the the list price there, that headline price. What does Apple need to do or what do carriers around the world need to do to make that more digestible to break that up so people actually spend the money but don't realize they're spending it? >> Yeah, I think that issue has been solved uh with installment plans with from Apple on their credit card in the US. Uh I think it's also been solved by the carriers in terms of their trade-in promotions. And I think people understand that pricing is going up. You know, one benefit I should say uh with the tariffs is it's given Apple some air cover. Even if they're not being hit by tariffs directly, it's given them some air cover to do price adjustments. And so I think the general consumer understands that because of tariffs, because of inflation, pricing is going up. And so it gives them some air cover there. And they're not going to be the first at this point. When Apple came out with the $1,000 iPhone 10 in 2017, they really were the first to hit that, you know, massive at the time pricing threshold. Now it's sort of whatever. And I think pretty soon the 2000 is going to be pretty whatever. Also, >> you know, we've always talked about Apple and we're always so con concerned about how much exposure they have to one big product and that is their phone. Are we still worried? >> Oh, yeah. I mean, at some point the the iPhone is going to need to be um not replaced, right, by succeeded, right, with the iPhone still sticking around. It's kind of like everyone thought the laptop was going to die because of the iPad >> and then everyone thought, you know, maybe the Apple Watch would cannibalize some things. The only real cannibalization that we've ever seen in the history of Apple, I in my viewpoint, is the iPod where the iPhone killed the iPod, but nothing has killed the Mac. Nothing's going to kill the phone. You're always going to have that pocket device. You're going to see fewer people use the laptop because they've got the iPhone. You're going to maybe see fewer people use the iPhone because you have the smart glasses, but you're still going to probably want and own and buy all of them, right? And so that's the tricky needle Apple needs to thread. But I don't believe the phone is going away. >> Man, I missed that iPad iPod shuffle. >> Wasn't what some parents giving them to their kids so that they didn't have to have a phone, but they could play around with music or something. I thought I saw some story. I don't know. Tim's looking at me like I'm crazy. Cray Cray. Uh Mark German, Bloomberg News getter for global consumer tech. Apple, now a $3.9 trillion market cap company. >> This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2 p.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg 11:30. Just worth repeating, shares of Zions right now up by about 3.9%. Bouncing around, Carol, in the after hours, but steadily uh in the green just after reporting those results. >> Yeah, it was rallying in today's session ahead of earnings. Keep in mind, it lost about 5% for the week overall. But we've seen a two-day rally and it looks like the rally might continue into a third day. Let's get uh to it. Herman Chan follows the regional banks including Zion's Bankorp. He's senior analyst for US Regional Banks here at Bloomberg Intelligence and he's here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Uh, as you reminded us, I messaged him. I'm like, wait a minute, what did they say last week? They talked about the credit losses, right? That's the big number we focus on. So, we had that already out there. What else did we get from the quarter that might be of note you? >> The big takeaway is that outside of the 50 million charge off that that we just talked about, there was really no no credit concerns at all. they only posted 6 million charge offs or about four basis points on average on average loans um outside of the issue that they flagged last week. So credit's benign. We're not seeing any cracks within the credit quality. And so everything's really good. >> So your view idiosyncratic not systemic. >> I would say these are oneoff. I was told in radio not to say idiosyncratic. >> Wait, >> wait, who said that? >> John Taku did. John. >> John. Well, John gets up so early, he's asleep right now. So, it means you can say whatever you want about John talking. >> So, we don't see any any syncratic issues. These seem to be >> because John doesn't know what he syncratic means. >> Maybe he just heard you. >> Did he think you said idiot and and he like got upset or something? I don't know. Uh um we're talking with Herman Chan of our Bloomberg intelligence team. I want to bring David George also into this conversation. Senior research analyst at Baird. He joins us from Nashville, Tennessee. Last week, he upgraded Z to outperform from neutral, saying the drop in market cap of the more than a billion dollars over that 50 million charge off was excessive. There was that 24-hour period where we getting a little concerned that it was regional bank uh scare 2.0. Um David, come on in. We're here with Herman Chan of our BI team. Uh earnings out. Anything new that uh came to light for you here? >> Hey Carol, good afternoon. uh the earnings as as Herman kind of noted the earnings uh and taking a kind of a cursory look at them look pretty good. They despite that $50 million charge they they earned uh over $220 million and uh their pre-provision net revenue which is kind of a key foundation that that we like to think about as it relates to just the earnings power of the banking industry was better than expected. So the core business momentum at Zans uh is is actually quite good and uh I think the market is going to like these numbers and and as Herman mentioned uh this does not seem to be a systemic issue. I think the these numbers this afternoon corroborated that and I think it was a huge overreaction uh in the stock last week and we continue to like it. >> David, you have a $65 price target on the stock. You have an outperform recommendation. Uh, as Carol mentioned, you upgraded it to outperform from neutral just last week. Uh, would you raise your price target based on what you saw today? It seems like you could be doing a victory lap right now. >> Um, I'm not one this this is too hard of a business, Tim, to spike the ball. Um, so I'm not really in that uh I've been doing it too long and and have a lot of scars. But um, the price target thing is something that we constantly evaluate. I I don't think I'm allowed to tell you uh what I'm going to do with it, but just suffice it to say that the quarter is good. Um and we feel pretty good about the the fundamentals at Zans and um the riskreward trade-off and the valuation of Zans. You know, last Thursday after the bell, I think it got I think it was 47 when we upgraded it. It got down I think seven and a half times earnings and five times pre-provision earnings. And that's that's about as low as these tend to get uh absent a really really nasty recession. So, um I think it was just really a lesson in overreaction and and kind of sentiment overweighing uh the the numbers uh in this particular case. >> Yeah, stock was down about 13% on Thursday, October 16th and bouncing back about 6% on Friday and then another 4.6% today and then we're seeing it up in the aftermarket. You know, Herman, one of the things that we were all talking about is, you know, what does this mean for the regional banking uh sector overall? I'm looking at the sector was down about 1.9% uh last week uh overall over concerns about credit uh specifically when it comes to the regional banks. It was up about 2 and a half% today. >> Right. Right. So we've this is sort of the tail end of of earnings for us and last week we had a slew of earnings and outside of one issue that was already flagged by Fifth Third, you know, credit was really strong across the board. we haven't seen really any cracks um from non-performers, criticized loans, those sort of early warning signs. So, I I I do think that these oneoff issues are are digestible and not really reflective anything systemic across the board. Yeah, David, come on back in here and I'm curious if you agree with that and and maybe we can kind of broaden the conversation too and include private credit, which isn't necessarily in the purview of a lot of analysts because it's, you know, exactly what it is, private credit, but I'm curious if you see challenges in private credit affecting regionals. >> Yeah. And so, um, I think that's a two-part question, so I'll try and do it one piece at a time. So, um, I think what Herman said is correct. If you just look at the data, I think, and this is pretty much the tail end of earning season, the cap one comes after the bell tomorrow night. Um, but uh I I I think 75% of the banks we cover had lower levels of non-performing loans sequentially and and and just from a cyclical perspective, we're pretty much close to um an all-time low as it relates to problem loans. So um on private credit that we could have an entire show on that. Um you know from from my perspective um the growth in private credit is very notable. You know in the banking industry any time in my experience in the last 25 years when you have outsized growth is when you can have uh problems and the this is an asset class that has not been through a sustained recession. Um, so my concern as it relates to the banks and private credit is really an indirect I if if I guess said differently, if if we experience problems in the private credit market, um, my my concern would would be that um, liquidity starts to dry up and there's kind of some knock-on effects of just liquidity coming out of the system having an indirect impact potentially on just corporate borrowers broadly. Um it's not something that that I think there would be meaningful direct exposure. Um but it's just a situation where when liquidity slows um that will have an impact on the borrowers within the private credit universe and to the extent they have issues they could have customers that are in the traditional bank market. So it it's a it's an indirect impact something that we're clearly very vigilant on uh Tim as it relates to just thinking about credit risk and so forth. But I think it's an indirect risk rather than a direct one. >> Hi David, this is Herman Chan. Uh just a quick question for you in terms of how you when you talk to management teams, how do you get comfortable with their underwriting, their their monitoring of their credits, their due diligence? It seems like the the overarching thread forricolor and the scanter loans is that a lot of these assets were pledged to different places at the same time. So love to get your thoughts on that. >> Yeah. Um it's it's an excellent question. I think ultimately um bank investors are making qualitative assessments Herman on bank management team's ability to um assess credit risk, interest rate risk and allocate capital and um these are obviously levered companies much le less levered than they used to be. uh but I think the the annual SECAR and stress testing process has made this industry much better with respect to just understanding where the risks come from in terms of exposures and being able to quantify exposures to different industry levels and loan to values and collateral coverage and so forth. So, I I think if it's like if you go to the doctor once a year and you know that you're going to have a very uh rigorous exam, I just think that the behavior coming out of that um has really changed. Um and I think the biggest evidence of that uh emanates from the fact that bank loans are only really growing at 2 to 3%. Um, so it's hard for me to see when when market participants worry about bubbles on bank balance sheets. The growth isn't in there to suggest where that bubble would come from as it relates to bank loan exposure directly. >> Well, just to follow on that, like I do wonder about all the money that's been slloshing around post pandemic. Um, you know, we just have a a massive, you know, bill that was spent that was passed by Congress too that there's going to be more money coming into the system. But I I there has been a fair amount of money. Are we silly to think that there's going to be some kind of bubble um and that there is going to be some financial and bank exposure to it? >> Um no, I don't think at all. I I I think it's just important to to everything every question like this, Carol, is is just is very contextual and it all depends on the context of um where stocks are trading, what is priced into them, what isn't priced into them. And um I think it's fair to say that that there that asset prices are elevated both private and public. And if there is any semblance or any any mean reversion >> or a 20 to 40% haircut in asset prices that is going to leave a mark um on the banking industry. Absolutely. Um but to to it it it it's one of those things that it's it's going to take time. Um, and banks benefit from time in in the form of just these quarterly pre-provision earnings that I mentioned that that that is essentially the lever that this industry has to pay for credit issues. And uh, rest assured that these companies are very vigilant as it relates to credit risk. It is they they've got very extensive risk and credit department functions. That's all they do every day is think about where their risks are and where their losses could be. And you know, as it relates to Zion, say 12 basis points of losses. That means that they're right 99.9% of the time. And um I think that the the industry had deserves some credit, pardon the pun, for how well they've managed credit risk since the GFC. >> All right, going to leave it on that note, guys. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Uh so appreciate that. David George, senior research analyst over at Baird, and of course, our own Herman Chan, who covers the regional banking sector. He's senior analyst for US regional banks here at our Bloomberg intelligence team. Zion's up about 2.6% here in the aftermarket after reporting its latest quarterly update. >> Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this. >> You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App or watch us live on YouTube. Check out uh we heard Alexis talking about this rare earth and critical mineral stocks uh they have certainly been on the move uh rising as William Blair analyst Neil Dingman initiates the companies as outperform as he sees the government potentially taking a stake in them among the stocks name United States Antimony with William Blair's analyst seeing the US government taking a notable stake in the company as the US's only antimony producer. Shares of US Antimony by the way are up nearly 565% year to date. Yes, you heard that right. With about 14% of the float short, we're seeing these stocks on the move today. >> And back with us once again for the first time since August is Gary Evans, chairman and CEO of United States Antimony Corp. More than $1.6 billion market cap mining milling company refineses and sells Antimony products. He joins us from the Bloomberg News Dallas Bureau. So the analyst at William Blair out saying that the US government could take a notable stake in the company is the only US antimony producer. Gary, do you see the US government taking a stake in the company? >> Well, it's something we don't, you know, stay up at night worried about. Um, we've been very fortunate in that the US government has given us an incredible contract. This is the DA, which is the Defense Logistics Division of the Department of Defense. We won a $245 million sole source contract about a month ago. And so, we're working hard to fill fulfill that contract. And what that is is antimony ingots that's used for our defense to hold and stockpile for future wars. >> So could can you fulfill that with the with the capital structure that you have right now? Do you need more money in order to fulfill this? >> We no uh fortunately we've raised over the last um month, month and a half about $und00 million of capital. So we're sitting on a lot of cash. um we have no debt and we actually have revenues, cash flow, EBIDA and net income which is unusual for a small mining company. We did announce though on um uh Sunday yesterday of our attempted uh uh takeover of a company in Australia which is a large antimony as well as gold producer >> Lvado resources uh some new mine starting. Exactly. So uh that's that what that does for us is it it adds additional value. In fact with our reserves and Lvata reserves we'd be in the top five of the world which is something I think both the Australian government and the US government really would like to see. >> Yeah. And I just want to dig a little bit deeper. What kind of tonnage of antimony would this be in terms of this deal that you're making um with uh Lvado? Well, you got to understand Lvata is is just a minor. They do not do the refining end, which is what we do. So, we have a smelter in Thompson Falls, Montana. We have one in Madero, Mexico. So, what we the one in Montana is being expanded significantly, five times greater than what we currently produce. That expansion will be done or first week of January. Uh the smelter in Mexico, um we could expand that probably five to six times as well. So what this resource that Lvata has um we we can bring to our smelters and make a finished product not only for the government but we make products for seven other customers. People don't realize the antimony is used in many many different things and especially with the new AI technology going on. We make fire retardants for roofing materials which all these data centers require and then we make uh it's in typically in most electrical cords to keep them from catching fire. >> Wait. So, okay. So, it sounds like important. Um, and I'm just curious how much you guys are paying. Can you share anything in terms of this company that you're buying? How much? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, that we did make an offer. It's a We already own 10% of the company. So, over the last 30 days, we've been quietly acquiring shares. It's a company we've been looking at for 9 10 months, and we wanted to wait till the appropriate time. So, we bought stock. We get we own 10%. We announced that we're required by the Australian government to do so and then we made an offer to the management of the company and the offer is basically we will give them um um six shares for every 100 shares of their stock. So if you looked at the valuation it's a 400 plus million dollar transaction. >> Okay, good to know. Um I want to go back though to what Tim asked you Gary initially about William Blair's call. I mean, are you guys talking with the US government about them taking a notable stake in your company? Are you working on a deal? Is there anything going on right now? >> Well, obviously, um, those type of discussions I can't really talk about. I will tell you, we've been working with the DoD on a grant. We've talked about that publicly. We're hopefully at the final stages of that. And I mentioned already the contract. So um we the timing of the transaction with Lvata couldn't be better. Obviously the the prime minister of uh of uh Australia was meeting with President Trump today in the White House and I'm pretty certain this deal was discussed. So um anyway, I I think that what what we've got to do as Americans is realize that China has a 100red-year plan and we're not part of that plan. And we as the largest antimony producer in the United States want to build those re reserves and resources and not be dependent upon a country that is not doing things in our best interest. So it's not only antimony, we're involved in tungsten, we're involved in cobalt as other rare earth companies are also moving into the space. So we're trying to step it up and uh we think a collaboration between the United States and Australia is a great way to do it. You just said that you're pretty sure this was discussed between the two leaders today. How are you so sure that was discussed? >> Uh, General Jack Keane uh is uh on our board. So, did that help answer your question? >> It does. Thank you. >> Okay. >> I know Carol had another >> Wait, did they call you? Did they call you to talk even a little bit further about the possibility of this? >> No, no, no, no. But I'm If you look at what the discussions were about, it was about critical minerals. is about rare earths and a collaboration and this is obviously what we're doing. >> Do you want the United States to take a position in your company? >> Not necessarily. Uh we've we've access to capital is not an issue for United States Antimony. Um we want to do what's best for our shareholders and what's best for the country. Right now we think that we can accomplish those goals as an independent company without shareholder ownership. If the government comes to me and says, "Hey, we definitely want an ownership position." Then that's a different story. Uh, you know, I'm not really in a position to talk about that at this point. But you can see the close alignment between the United States antimony and the US federal government and it continues to strengthen. We talk to them almost every day about different things. But do you feel like you need a US investment to maybe, you know, I just feel like do the companies that get US investments in the mineral space, if you will, have an advantage over those that don't? >> I'm not sure what the investment does as an advantage. Um, if if you need capital, that's one thing. We don't need capital. We have plenty of access to capital. Um, as you noted when we first uh came on the air, we've had a tremendous run in our stock and it's because we have uh access to antimony. We started mining our first antimony mine in Montana last week. Brought seven loads of trucks down the mountain. So, we are actively mining. We're the first fully integrated antimony company in the world outside of China and we're happy about that. We think Larvat will definitely add to that equation. >> Got to say we never have enough time with you. Uh, this space is certainly on fire. Gary Evans, chairman CEO of United States Antimony Corporation. Stock is up 15% in today's session. This is Bloomberg. >> This is the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeart Radio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal. [Music]