Return to Transcripts main page
First Move with Julia Chatterley
Dire Warnings For The United States As COVID Cases Spreads; Germany's Wirecard Files For Insolvency As The Board Scandal Deepens. Singapore's Trade Minister Discusses Their Strategy Amid The Pandemic. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired June 25, 2020 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:11]
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Live from New York, I am Julia Chatterley. This is FIRST MOVE, and here is your need to know.
Spike surge. Dire warnings for the United States as COVID cases spread.
DAX disaster. Germany's Wirecard files for insolvency as the Board scandal deepens.
And Singapore strategy. The nation's Trade Minister join us live on FIRST MOVE.
It's Thursday. Let's make that move.
Welcome to FIRST MOVE. It's good to be with you, as always and it's a day where the handling of COVID-19 and the managing of the process of reopening
are truly colliding.
The stark differences around the world are being fully revealed. Take a look at this. In the United States, some states saw their largest one-day
jumps on record yesterday. In Latin America, meanwhile, cases have tripled in just one month. And in China, Beijing says the recent outbreak is under
control. They actually found just 250 cases after testing more than two million people over the past two weeks. I'll let that hang for a second.
Health concerns weighing on stocks. Yesterday we lost two percent in fact across the board and as you can see, we're lower premarket once again
today. It's the same story around the world.
Europe searching for direction. We've got U.K. stocks underperforming. In Asia, China and Hong Kong, markets were closed for a holiday, but
Australian and South Korean stocks tumbled more than two percent. We've priced a lot of good news in as we keep saying on this show and huge part,
too, thanks to global stimulus efforts. Investors need to accept, I think that therefore, we're going to be vulnerable to anything that disappoints.
And in that vein, we now know more than 47 million U.S. workers have filed for first-time benefits since the lockdowns began, a further 1.5 million
people in the past week alone. More importantly, perhaps, almost 20 million people continue to receive benefits each week, though that number did come
down slightly in the past two weeks or so.
Call it reopening optimism, clashing once again with reopening reality and that's where we begin our drivers. COVID-19 infections surging in the
United States, three biggest states by population, so we're talking Florida, Texas and California all set records in the last 24 hours for the
number of new cases reported in a day.
This comes as research suggests that if 95 percent of Americans wore masks, 33,000 lives could be saved between now and October. Elizabeth Cohen joins
me now.
The problem is, Elizabeth, those mask wearing techniques are not being mandated and the number of cases is simply going in the wrong direction, as
are hospitalizations. Let's be clear.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Julia, and the problem really here is human psychology. Masks, like so many other
things in the United States, have become politicized, and so there's a group of people who feels that wearing a mask is sort of being a sissy, if
you will. It sets a political statement to wear a mask. It means that you're against Donald Trump. It means that you are everything they don't
want to be, and so they don't wear masks.
That's really unfortunate. There is no downside to wearing a mask. In fact, when you don't wear a mask, what you're saying to the people around you is
I don't care if you die. I could have COVID, because any of us could have COVID. I could have COVID and I could give it to you, but I don't care, I
am not wearing a mask.
It's a sad statement, but that's how politicized things have become here in the U.S. -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it is a political statement and that's part of the problem. It's also, to your point as well, there are so many cases here
where people are walking around and we don't know they've got symptoms, so they can be infecting people and they don't feel ill at all, which is also
part of what we're seeing in terms of the spread of this virus and have seen this all the way along.
Who is getting sick, though? It's younger people, too, when you look at the statistics and we're more mobile as well as a result of the reopening.
COHEN: Right. So there, for example, when you look in Florida, when you go back in March, the median age of people getting sick was 65. More recently,
it's more like 35.
Now, most of those 35-year-olds are going to be fine. They're going to either have no symptoms or they're going to be recovering at home. They're
sick, but not sick enough to go to the hospital.
But two things are at play here, Julia. First of all, some of them will be in the hospital. I was speaking to a 29-year-old yesterday who was in the
hospital. I could hear as I was speaking to him that he is short of breath. He has underlying medical conditions. He's got respiratory issues, he has
got high blood pressure, and so that of course contributed to why he is in the hospital.
So some young people will end up getting very sick and unfortunately, some will even end up dying. But the ones that recover at home, first of all, I
think we've sort of made the mistake of saying they're not that sick, they're recovering at home. That's not true.
[09:05:28]
COHEN: I was speaking to one woman who was recovering at home. She is 23. She said that she felt so awful that she was reduced to tears on some days.
She said the body aches were like nothing she'd ever experienced. Was she so sick she needed to be in the hospital? No. But she was miserable.
She has an infant -- I mean, she has a two-year-old daughter. She can't see that daughter. Somebody else has to take care of that child. This 23-year-
old has a full-time job. She can't work at that job.
So there are ramifications even if you're not sick enough to be in the hospital, and so even if you're only mildly ill, you can still spread it.
So first of all, young people are ending up in the hospital. Second of all, even when they're recovering at home, it can be miserable and it costs
money and they're losing money. And third of all, any of these people, even if you're asymptomatic can spread it.
So, for those three reasons we don't want young people getting sick.
CHATTERLEY: And this is part of the challenge, I think as well, with the strain of thought that says that, look, just get younger people in
particular out there, back to work. They'll build up some degree of herd immunity, which was perhaps needed and going to be part of the solution
here, versus those that say actually that's not part of the solution.
If you overwhelm your medical system, you have that happen before you can build up any form of immunity or significant form of immunity among the
population, and we're facing that challenge again with increasingly overwhelmed medical systems in certain states.
COHEN: That's right. So, medical systems become overwhelmed, they can't treat people. They can't treat people as effectively as they want and
people end up suffering and even end up dying because they couldn't get the treatment that they needed.
So, that's obviously a big part of this. The other part of this is that it's not clear that we're going to get herd immunity. It is not clear how
long these antibodies last.
To give you another example, when you get measles, you have immunity to measles for the rest of your life. That is quite clear, that that really
works well. However, that is not the case with coronavirus. There's some serious doubts about how long you have immunity for.
So, let's say you get a bunch of young people sick. They develop antibodies. Maybe they've got immunity, maybe they don't. Or maybe they
only have it for a period of months. That's not going to help us in the long run.
So the plan of just get everybody sick and we'll have herd immunity -- that does not seem to be the way it's working out.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, we've come full circle. End of this discussion, wear a mask. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much for that.
COHEN: Why not? I can't think of a reason not to do it, other than you think it's making a political statement, which is ridiculous. We're talking
about health, we're not talking about politics.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. Get over the politics, wear a mask. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.
Another 1.5 million Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits last week, continuing claims. Those that are already receiving benefits,
which are reported with a one-week lag, stand at 19.5 million in the week ending June 13th. That's down from 28.5 million the previous week.
Christine Romans joins us now. It is down, Christine, but it's just not coming down quickly and we continue to add more people week on week, fresh
claims for unemployment benefits. I mean, these numbers are staggering.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: They really are. New claims are falling, but barely falling, and a lot of economists
had figured they would be falling a little bit faster. The continuing claims number really important. Sure, it was down 767,000. That's a good
sign. But it's still 19.5 million people continuing to get jobless benefits, and that's not even counting the pandemic unemployment insurance.
Those numbers have been really kind of all over the place because some of the states haven't been able to process that really quite yet.
So you still have people who are waiting for their first unemployment check, even as the view from Washington is that things are okay and we're
getting to the other side of this health crisis, which clearly is not the case.
So over the past 14 weeks, 47.2 million people have filed for unemployment benefits, either laid off or furloughed. The number is just so big, it
represents 29 percent of the pre-pandemic labor market. I mean, it is still shocking, three and a half, four months later to be saying numbers like
this. Still very, very big.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, they are. And I think, and I keep illustrating on the show the differences in handling of the virus outbreak and the importance of
testing and tracing. But for me, Disney is at the core of that.
Disney has shown that it can open theme parks. It did it in Shanghai. It managed it in Hong Kong. What we saw overnight was a strategic decision not
to reopen Disneyland in California.
[09:10:06]
ROMANS: Yes, well, California has all of these cases, near peak cases in California and you have some of its employees at Disneyworld in Florida who
are concerned, who have signed on to lobby a petition, to keep that one closed because they're worried about their own health, some 7,000 people
worried about their own health.
Look, reopening will be in fits and starts and that petition, it was so interesting said that you know, going out and having fun with your family
and relaxing at a theme park is not necessarily an essential business in a time of COVID peaking in some of these states like Florida and California.
So, the company is going to be very careful, I think here. They haven't even put a date yet for when they think they're going to have even a soft
kind of date on the calendar for when they're going to think about reopening in California.
Contact tracing -- really important. Imagine how many people will be in those parks when they do reopen, and if you have an outbreak at a park,
just how far that could be spread. So I think, we'll watch here to see how leisure and hospitality will be able to get back up for business.
Reopening in the middle of a pandemic is hard. Reopening when there are peak infection rates in some of these states seems almost impossible to me.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, and all eyes on a decision now for Florida, of course, Disneyworld in Florida. Christine Romans, thank you so much for that.
ROMANS: Nice to see you.
CHATTERLEY: All right, the DAX index star worth $14 billion just a week ago, now effectively worthless. I'm talking about Wirecard, the payments
firm. Shares were suspended just before the German digital firm announced it is filing for insolvency.
Fred Pleitgen is in Berlin for us. Fred, we were talking about this earlier on this week, $2 billion fraud. No surprise I think that now the companies
had to turn around and say, look, we're insolvent here. What a fall from grace.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think you're absolutely right. I think, no one really is surprised by the fact
that they filed for insolvency. In fact, there are some who over the past couple of days since we've been talking about this is calling what is
happening to Wirecard, the German Enron because it just seemed to come out of nowhere.
That all of the sudden it turns out this company is not only in giant financial trouble, but that about a quarter of its assets don't really seem
to exist. And they filed for insolvency now because they said, of course, in general they are over indebted, but there were two major loans that they
were supposed to pay back, I think one at the end of June and one on the first of July that they simply would not have been able to.
We're talking about something in the range of 800 million euros that they would have had to pay back, which obviously they're not going to be able to
do.
So that is a saga that has been ongoing, and as you've noted, their trading of their shares was suspended there on the DAX and that was after their
share prices fell by well over 90 percent over the past week, since all of this has been going on. So clearly, that company has already lost a lot of
its value on top of the fact that it's unclear where large parts of their assets are.
Meanwhile, the investigations against former CEO, Markus Braun continue here in Germany. Obviously, the German investigators looking at him but
then also saying that there may have been others that he was conspiring with, inflating earnings reports and several things as well.
I think the line that we're getting from investigators is that they are actually investigating into several different directions at this point of
possible financial crimes that obviously hurt this company a great deal.
Of course, we know that the COO of the company was also sacked over the weekend. So clearly, there's a lot going on as far as Wirecard is
concerned. But I think one of the things, Julia that you and I have been talking about, which is also really important to note, is that this is a
gigantic company. This is one of the 30 biggest companies here in Germany. The reason why it is on the DAX and German politics is taking this
extremely seriously.
We've heard from the German Finance Minister who called this very troubling and said this needs to be sorted out quickly. The German Economics Minister
also extremely angry about all of this saying this needs to get sorted out very quickly fearing that the image of Germany as a financial marketplace
could be in serious trouble and of course, the German financial regulator itself has come out and said that this is one of the biggest catastrophes
they could think of.
And also, being self-critical as well of saying that they clearly failed with the oversight of this company also -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Absolutely, so many questions here. I mean, pension funds were invested in the DAX index. I don't think they've ever had a business
failure like this. Auditors, regulators, you name it. Those are questions. I mean, one person didn't do this alone. Let's be clear.
Fred, fantastic. Thank you so much for that.
The Softbank CEO says things are looking up for the company after its record loss last month. The comments come on the same day a lucrative
management a partnership with Alibaba came to an end. Kaori Enjoji has the details from Tokyo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAORI ENJOJI, JOURNALIST: Softbank founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son says he is resigning from the Board of Alibaba, marking a milestone in the
relationship that cemented Son as a start-up visionary.
The announcement comes the same day that Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder is leaving the Board from Softbank. The relationship between the two men has
been one for the books.
[09:15:10]
ENJOJI: Son turned a $20 million investment in Alibaba 20 years ago into $60 billion when the Chinese e-commerce giant went public six years ago.
Calling it an amicable split, Son said that he considers Jack Ma to be a friend and a comrade and that before the pandemic, the two used to meet for
dinner every month to talk about business and life.
Son has been on the defensive after his company posted its worst ever annual loss in May and he has been trying to sell assets to free up some
cash, including a recent sale in T-Mobile. He says that 80 percent of that process is now complete.
Son also told a shareholder meeting today that he is taking a pay cut this year to take responsibility for the company's performance. That's all from
Tokyo, I'm Kaori Enjoji.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: All right, we're going to take a quick break here on FIRST MOVE. Plenty more to come on the show. Stay with us. We're back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE with a quick look at U.S. stocks premarket. We're set to fall, in fact, for a second day after another
dismal read on the U.S. jobs market. Jobless claims rising by a further 1.5 million people last week. The economists had hoped it would be below one
million workers filing for claims by now, but clearly not the case.
In the meantime, the number of Americans still collecting benefits remains close to that 20 million workers mark. Today's report suggesting that many
workers who had been furloughed in the spring are now losing their jobs outright.
Plenty of uncertainties and challenges remain, including the I.M.F. who has forecasted a drop in global trade of almost 12 percent in 2020, and warned
that trade tensions could undermine a recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
Export driven economies like Singapore's will be particularly vulnerable. The country has downgraded its 2020 growth forecast three times since the
pandemic began. It now says GDP could contract by up to seven percent this year.
Joining us now is Chan Chun Sing. He is Singapore's Minister of Trade and Industry.
Minister, fantastic to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
[09:20:23]
CHATTERLEY: I want to begin by talking about your growth expectations and those three revisions. Is this the worst case scenario that we're looking
at now, or do you still see risks potentially to growth to the downside?
CHAN CHUN SING, SINGAPOREAN MINISTER OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY: Thank you, Julia. I think at this point in time, we are looking at various downside
risks. There's still quite a number of issues that we have to manage in Singapore.
For example, we are making good progress taking care of the health of our people, but we will have to closely watch how our economy recovers in
tandem with the rest of the global economic recovery. But I think what everyone is concerned with is the possibility, the high possibility of
subsequent and reoccurring waves of the infection, impacting the economy.
And if I may add, at this point in time, we are dealing with a few crises at the same time. There's a severe demand and supply shock to the global
economy, and there's also the breaking down of the global connectivity in terms of air and sea freight.
Many of the small businesses are facing cash and credit crunch and all of this will have a compounding effect on each other.
CHATTERLEY: I mean, so many countries around the world are facing this, too. But a particular challenge when it's a smaller, open economy that is
so externally focused in, in terms of trade. There's also a reassessment in light of trade tensions and COVID on supply chains, particularly on the
resilience of those supply chains.
What changes is Singapore making and where specifically do you look and say, this is an area of particular vulnerability?
CHAN: Well, Singapore, we have always diversified our economy and our supply chains. Our fundamental belief is that we should never be overly
reliant on any particular market or any particular source of supply.
And for us at this moment in time, there's also an opportunity for Singapore, because many global companies are looking for opportunities to
redistribute their production bases across the world in order to look for a more resilient supply system beyond the usual cost efficiencies that they
were previously looking at.
So when the U.S. companies or even the Chinese companies relocate their operations across different parts of the world, particularly to Southeast
Asia, Singapore will be able to play a meaningful part as a business hub, a financial hub and a data hub to support all these operations by the global
multinationals.
CHATTERLEY: That's such an interesting point. I was going to ask you about the elephant in the room there, the U.S.-China trade tensions. So, you're
actually saying that it perhaps provides more of a strategic opportunity than it does a weight on your economy, because we already were seeing your
economy slowing, even before COVID-19 hit. It's an opportunity more than a risk for Singapore in your mind?
CHAN: For us, every moment, there are both opportunities and challenges at the same time. But if we may take a step back and look at the U.S. and the
Chinese trade issues, I would say this.
The competition between the U.S. and China is not a zero sum game. There areas in which the U.S. and China will need to cooperate, this includes
upholding the global trading system, the situation in North Korea and so forth.
But there are obviously also other areas in which the U.S. and China will compete in the areas of market access, in the areas of technologies and so
forth. So I think there are also opportunities for U.S. and China to work together to uphold the global trading system.
At this point in time, I think the relationship between the U.S. and China is not defined just by the current account deficit or surplus. Ultimately,
it is a contest between two models of governance and economic system and it will ultimately hinge on which of these two systems will be more appealing
to the global population, which one of these systems can provide better opportunities to uplift the lives of its people.
And the long-term competition will be defined by which is the more economy, which are the more creative people, which of the countries can provide a
better connectivity and leadership with the rest of the world. So I think there's tremendous opportunities for both U.S. and China to play a
leadership role in the global economy, and as great powers, both will have the opportunity to either demonstrate the power of their example or the
example of their power.
CHATTERLEY: It's fascinating what you say, caught in the crossfire, I think of those two political ideals is Hong Kong, and the risk at this moment
that Hong Kong loses its special trading status with the United States as a result of the challenges over China's national security law.
What will that mean? If that happens and that special trading status is lost, what will that mean for Singapore?
[09:24:34]
CHAN: From Singapore's perspective, we would always like to see Hong Kong continue to try as both global and regional financial center. It is part of
the entire financial ecosystem in East Asia and we wish Hong Kong every success in their onward journey.
CHATTERLEY: But can Singapore benefit and perhaps rival Hong Kong, if necessary? What is the message from Singapore at this moment or perhaps
international businesses that are looking for alternatives welcome in Singapore?
CHAN: I think that obviously there are areas in which Singapore competes with Hong Kong, but there are also areas where Singapore and Hong Kong
compliments each other.
For us, it is important to see Hong Kong to continue to grow and thrive as part of the East Asian financial ecosystem. So I think there are many areas
that Hong Kong can continue to work with Singapore, including with other financial centers in this part of the region, like Tokyo or Shanghai.
CHATTERLEY: Diplomatically put, Minister Chan. I want to talk to you about politics in your own country now. A risky decision, let's call it that, to
hold elections during a pandemic, and with the challenges on the economy. Explain the timing of this decision.
CHAN: Well, Julia, you see, we are not going back to a pre-COVID world and without a vaccine, it is also quite unlikely for us to get into a post-
COVID world. So all of us will have to learn to live in a COVID world, to take care of our fellow citizens, their health, their well-being and their
livelihoods.
And at the same time, we must learn to live in a COVID world while upholding our democratic system and ideals.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, you're right. We all have to recognize that this is the new reality and the new normal. Minister, fantastic to have you with us.
Thank you so much and we look forward to chatting with you again soon. Chun Chan Sing, Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry there. Thank you,
sir.
CHAN: Thank you, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: All right, the opening bell follows this. Plus, we'll be lifting the hood on Robinhood, the founder of the new site, Robintrack will
join us. He'll tell us what stocks millennials are stocking up on, next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:55]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. U.S. stocks are up and running this Thursday and we are softer once again. Health concerns, as we've been
discussing, front and center amid rising cases in key U.S. States like Florida, Texas and California, as well as new signs that businesses are
slowing reopening plans and cutting back operations.
To name just one, Macy's reporting today that it is set to lay off nearly 4,000 workers, some three percent of the workforce. I believe, the market
lower during yesterday's sharp selloff too where sectors like airlines and cruise lines that have been popular with younger retail investors who trade
on popular apps like Robinhood.
These investors have been credited with accurately predicting the market bottom back in March. The timing, in fact, being called impeccable by some.
The big question is what these budding market mavens are buying next and whether they will cash out in times of trouble.
Well, helping us monitor the trading habits of Robinhood's 13 million users is a new site called Robintrack which gathers data on their most widely
held stocks on the Robinhood app and the stocks that are gaining in popularity.
Joining us now is the 23-year-old founder of Robintrack, Casey Primozic. He joins us now.
Casey, fantastic to have you with us. Just to be clear, you're not affiliated with Robinhood in any way, but you are a trader yourself on
Robinhood. Talk to me about the decision to pull this data and display it for others.
CASEY PRIMOZIC, FOUNDER, ROBINTRACK: So I have built a couple different websites in the past to track data from video games and other things and
seeing it in the app, I saw the opportunity. It was back in college.
As you said, I'm a Robinhood trader myself, so I saw the opportunity, and Robintrack was the result of what I did.
CHATTERLEY: And suddenly, since COVID-19, interest exploded. Lots more people joining the Robinhood site to trade stocks, to buy at the bottom, as
we saw. And you've had lots of pretty big names coming to you and asking you questions about your tool.
PRIMOZIC: Yes, for sure. There's been a ton of interest, both from individual traders themselves, looking to see what fellow traders are
doing, as well as some of the bigger institutions, hedge funds and other financial companies looking to try to measure the market and get an edge on
their competitors.
CHATTERLEY: And you make all this available for free, you don't charge. But your website uses advertising to make money?
PRIMOZIC: Exactly, yes. So Robinhood provides the popularity data for free from their website, and to match that, I provide the data freely on
Robintrack as well.
CHATTERLEY: It's kind of the same ethos as Robinhood itself, that was about democratizing access, allowing retail investors, people of all ages access
to shares. You kind of share the same ethos, I guess, with your tool here, too?
PRIMOZIC: Very much so. I'm a big fan of Robinhood as a company and I followed some similar sort of progressive financial companies like IEX,
trying to make the market a more level playing field and get rid of these big barriers that have traditionally been in the way of people being
successful.
CHATTERLEY: Okay, talk to me about what some of these traders are actually buying then. I know, we've got a few charts here. Apple is the one we're
going to begin on. Perhaps no surprise, lots of buying here.
PRIMOZIC: Yes, so Apple is a household name, it's one of the biggest, most pervasive companies that the U.S. consumer will come into contact with.
Unsurprisingly, there's been a ton of people who have bought into it, especially since the beginning of the pandemic. One thing to keep in mind
is that there's been a huge increase in the number of accounts on Robinhood itself, so that kind biases the data upwards a little bit.
But at the same time, since Apple is at all-time highs currently, most of the people on Robinhood have been pretty successful if they've held it for
any amount of time.
CHATTERLEY: I want to show you Slack as well because this is interesting, because you see some of the price gyrations in Slack and an adjustment of
the holdings here. You can see that there with the green line, people pairing their holdings of Slack stock.
[09:35:10]
PRIMOZIC: Yes, so Slack, a lot of people jumped in right when it IPO'd and then there was a big renewal in the popularity due to the whole COVID
pandemic since the work from home movement was such a massive force in the market. A lot of retail investors took note and took the opportunity to
jump into Slack.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, you know, one of the big fears, I think for people is that we're talking about investors that perhaps have less experience than some
of the more professional traders. If we do see a more protracted downturn, do a lot of these people, maybe they're in profit right now, but do they
take profit? Do they hang on in there? Do they lose money?
What's your thoughts on that as someone who trades on this app yourself?
PRIMOZIC: So, if you're investing for the long-term, generally, it can be a good idea to be more conservative in the amount that you trade. Like, if
you're one of the people who bought in during the COVID pandemic with all of the lower prices, it could be a good idea to hold for the long-term.
But if you see yourself more as a day trader or a regular trader, it's important to actually take profits when the prices go up and your trades
become profitable.
So depending on your mindset and attitude, it can depend, but yes.
CHATTERLEY: And Casey, are you encouraged to put things like take profit levels in and stock losses in, in case you are losing money, so that you
can manage exactly how much money you're losing potentially?
PRIMOZIC: Yes, if you see yourself as like a daily trader, using tools like that are very useful. If you're more of a long-term investor and you see
yourself holding these companies for years or decades, that app is important because short-term price fluctuations will come and go.
But if you're buying the company for the long-term, you mostly want to ignore those and keep holding.
CHATTERLEY: Wow, Casey, you're sounding like a very rational trader, quite frankly, and you're only 23 and you're doing this. It is terrifying quite
frankly. Very impressive. Great to have you with us. Thank you so much.
PRIMOZIC: I appreciate it.
CHATTERLEY: And all sorts of people are using this tool now, I know. Thank you, the founder of Robintrack there.
All right, as investors look for value among air travel shares, airlines themselves are fighting for survival. Most shedding jobs and some crying
out for help.
Lufthansa looks set to agree a $10 billion bailout from the German government. Meanwhile, Australia's Qantas is laying off 20 percent of its
workforce and largely abandoning international routes until mid-2021.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLAN JOYCE, CEO, QANTAS: The collapse of billions of dollars in revenue leaves us with little choice if we are to save as many jobs as possible
longer term.
Many of the 6,000 job losses we've announced today are people who have spent decades here and are people we know personally. They are people that
we know for a long time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Richard Quest joins us now. Fight for survival for many of these names, Richard, and actually no end in sight. A return to normality,
at least as far as that's concerned. Let's talk Lufthansa first. What will this mean in practice, this bailout?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Well, Lufthansa is getting a $9 billion bailout from the German government and it was a bit touch and go
as to whether they were actually going to get it, but they have now got the support of the major shareholders and it will look -- it just looks like
it's going to pass.
What's interesting about it is the fact that other airlines, particularly in the United States, have got their financing through the private sector -
- capital markets, equity raising, bonds, all of those sort of things, with help from the government.
In the case of Lufthansa, most of the honey, most of the rescue, is coming from the government. Listen to Carsten Spohr, the CEO at today's meeting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARSTEN SPOHR, CEO, LUFTHANSA (through translator): We know that the consequences of this crisis will affect the company for years to come.
According to everything we can predict and calculate today, we need 9 billion euros of capital to successfully overcome this crisis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Nine billion euros is an extraordinary large amount of money. It's sort of on par with what Air France KLM got. But you're now getting two
groups of airlines. And bearing in mind Qantas also today announced it was taking out of the capital markets, Australian $1.9 billion, $1.3 dollar
capital raising through equity.
So, put it together, and what the airlines are now doing is preparing for a recovery however that might be. And as Allan Joyce at Qantas said, get
ready for opportunities when they occur in the recovery, because opportunities there will be.
CHATTERLEY: It's interesting, isn't it? You've just got to be in a financial -- in a state that actually you can benefit from that, so it's
just about hanging on in the interim. I'm struggling to get my words out. That's because actually there's another story that I want to get your view
on, and that's what came from the Pakistani Aviation Authority in the last 24 hours, about a third of pilots not actually being qualified to be flying
planes.
Richard, what do you make of this story and how prevalent is this elsewhere?
[09:40:38]
QUEST: It's not. It is not. Let me say that clearly, it is not prevalent elsewhere. This is the most extraordinary story in aviation. Dubious
licenses, fake licenses is how the investigators put it in the Pakistan Air crash investigation. PIA is looking to see that perhaps up to a third of
its pilots did not have the correct licensing.
Now, to be clear, the pilots that were flying the crashed plane did have licensing, although there was a raft of other incompetent issues in the way
they were flying the plane.
But the fact that a country is admitting that there are dubious pilot licenses in the commercial airline sector, beggar's belief, and must raise
some very serious questions about safety of airlines in Pakistan.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. I mean, the suggestion was they were getting other people to do the final exams. I mean, fine, you know, you need to get air miles in
order to gain experience, but the idea that they never took the exam is, quite frankly, terrifying.
So, I'm glad you're equally outraged, Richard.
QUEST: Oh, yes, well, we have had cases, isolated cases where pilots have been flying for decades on forged, outdated, whatever, whatever. But
they've always turned out to be very good pilots who just didn't have the right paperwork.
This is not that case. This is a case of wholesale fraud, whatever you want to call it. People flying that shouldn't have been flying. It's a scandal.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it really is. Taking my words away, which actually is quite rare. Richard, always great to have you with us. Richard Quest, thank
you so much for that.
All right, we're going to take a break here on FIRST MOVE. I'll get my teeth back in.
Antibody tests were seen as a touchstone in efforts to get the world back to work, but amid doctors that doubt about their reliability. How can trust
be restored? What is the testing tracing action plan?
The President of Mayo Labs is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:45:55]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. Earlier on the show, we were talking about challenges associated with antibody testing for COVID-19,
especially the strength and length of immunity. The Food and Drug Administration says it has authorized 21 antibody tests now, among them is
the Mayo Clinics test.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visited the clinic in April and described Mayo as a big part of America's solution on testing. He was speaking there
with Dr. William Morice, President of the Mayo Medical Laboratories and I'm pleased to say he now joins us.
Sir, fantastic to have you on the show once again. I know you are consulting businesses, talking to them about the best way to get America
back to work and to do it safely. What is your current thinking on testing?
DR. WILLIAM MORICE, PRESIDENT, MAYO MEDICAL LABORATORIES: Well, Julia, it's a real pleasure to join you again as well. Happy to be here. Where testing
is today is still pretty close to where it was when we last talked in early April. We have two -- really two types of tests. One that answers the
question, do I have the virus right now? And the other that answers the question, have I been exposed to the virus and generated an immune
response?
The challenge is that neither of these test, there is no single test that can say absolutely you don't have the virus and no single test yet that can
say not only have you been exposed, but you are now protected from the virus.
So the real question now is how do we use these tests and the information they can and can't provide to help people go back to life safely, whether
that's particularly going back to work, getting economies restarted, really just restarting social life?
And so that's our focus now at Mayo Clinic, is to really understand how to use the tests to their best effect to guide industries as they look to get
back to work.
CHATTERLEY: And how should we? You've posed the perfect question. Now you can answer it, too, please.
MORICE: So, I guess really what it boils down to is understanding what the tests can and can't do and at the same time using analytics and tools that
can help us understand where the virus is in our society, in the populations and in the areas where the workforce is living and traveling
to.
We can now use data and data modelling, collaborating with our Chief Value Officer, Dr. Henry Ting here at Mayo Clinic. We have developed tools that
we've used for our own hospitals to understand what is the impact of coronavirus in our communities and what will that mean for Mayo Clinic
healthcare facilities.
And now we are using that same -- and how do we use testing to increase our understanding of that, really providing the data and the information that
give us those insights. And now, we're using those same tools and working with industries outside of healthcare, outside of Mayo Clinic to try and
help them answer those same questions, who in our workforce has the virus, who in our workforce is at risk of getting the virus and what can we do to
protect them?
CHATTERLEY: Yes, regular testing, and of course, the point -- those people that actually have the virus but have no symptoms, because this is a
critical part of how it's spreading, too.
Some of the other work I know that you've been doing at the clinic as well was on plasma, actually treatments for people that have COVID-19 using the
plasma from patients who have recovered. Can you give us any insights on what you're finding there and some of the results that you're having with
those studies?
MORICE: So we have been a leader for actually a national program in convalescent antisera which is really again, is when you take plasma which
is the clear part of the blood from an individual who has had SARS-COVID-2 viruses, had COVID-19 and has recovered, you take that and the antibodies
in that plasma and you give it to someone that's sick with the virus as a treatment. It's convalescent antisera.
And so we have now actually administered as part of the program across the U.S. over 20,000 patients have been treated with this convalescent antisera
and we're now collecting the data to really understand is it effective? What can we do to predict that it's going to be effective? And we have a
new test that will help with that.
And then ultimately, is it really helping people that get it? The early results are very, very promising, so hopefully here in the next coming
weeks, next few weeks even, we'll be able to actually start to get enough information to publish the data.
And I would say that's one reason why we need to do as much testing as possible, because the testing that we do really gives us the information to
draw the conclusions that people need us to draw from these tests, namely who has the virus, who is going to get sick with the virus and how
effective are the treatments like convalescent antisera that we are giving to these patients.
[09:50:29]
CHATTERLEY: Yes. We just need more data, to your point again. Though it keeps coming back to the same point, I think. One of the things I think
that's puzzled a lot of people throughout this virus is why some people get incredibly sick, why some people barely have any symptoms at all.
Talk to me about T-cells, because I've been reading a lot about this over the past few weeks and I think we need your wisdom on this. What do we need
to know and understand?
MORICE: Well, first of all, I would just say one of the things that people should take away from this is that our ability to understand SARS-COVID-2
and COVID-19, what has taken us essentially years or even decades to learn with diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, we're now learning over a course of
months with COVID-19. So we know a lot more now than we did even in April.
The immune system is actually a system and so, it has different components. It has B cells, which make the antibodies to SARS-COVID-2 which have gotten
a lot of attention. Those B cells need other cells to help them in that task and one of those cells, very important are called T-cells that you
referenced.
The T-cells are now required and they have proven to actually help the B- cells generate the antibody response. Very interestingly though, we have found that in some individuals, up to 40 percent to 60 percent, if you look
at their T-cells, even though they've never been exposed to the virus, they have some T-cells that can react to the virus.
And these studies were done by actually taking blood from prior to 2019, so there's no way the individuals had been exposed, they still had some of
these T-cells in their immune system that could respond to the virus.
What we postulate is that this might be why some people get sick -- more sick than others, it's that they might have some cross reactivity in these
T-cells that have responded to the more common cold viruses. We still haven't proven that yet, and I think it's going to be really important both
to understand the pathogenesis of the virus and why people get sick, and more importantly, I think, which people need to be treated. It will be very
important in vaccine development as well.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, again, if we can find out who and how many people have these T-cells that might make them a little bit more resilient to fighting
this virus, it changes the game again in terms of the back-to-work plan.
Wow. You guys are doing some work. It's fascinating. Come back and talk to us soon, please, because I know you guys have got a lot going on and
approaching the point where you can talk to us in more detail. Great to have with us. Dr. William Morice there.
MORICE: It's great to join you. Happy to be on anytime.
CHATTERLEY: President of the Mayo Medical Laboratory. You bet. See you soon. Thank you.
All right coming up after the break here on FIRST MOVE, get an eyeful of this. That's nice. One of the world's most famous tourist attractions gets
back on its feet, but how do you socially distance at the Eiffel Tower? We'll explain next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:55:17]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE, and it is Paris in summertime. You are looking at the first visitors to return to the Eiffel Tower, which is
now back open after its longest closure, in fact, since World War II, in the space of three months.
One thing, though, that hasn't changed, long lines and lots of walking, and I have to say, no lift to get to the top, I believe, at least for now. So
you've got to be prepared to do some step walking if you want to go up there.
But what a positive sign coming back to life.
That's it for the show. You've been watching FIRST MOVE. I'm Julia Chatterley. Stay safe and we'll see you tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:00]
END
