Bloomberg Podcasts Sep 20, 2026
With Francine Lacqua, Anchor and Editor-at-Large at Bloomberg Television
Markets are treating war, oil and artificial intelligence more calmly than they would have four or five years ago, Francine Lacqua says, at the same time that shoppers read a shelf that has been empty for two seconds as a systemic problem.
The usual order is that markets move first and the public catches up. Her account of this week runs the other way around, and the reason she gives is that traders are more afraid of missing the upside than of the risk itself.
"And I think, you see the markets kind of being cool about everything, a little bit cooler than maybe they would have been four or five years ago. In AI, also everything to do with oil and the price of oil. And this is partly because there's a fear of missing out. They're worried that actually the trade goes on the other side."
Francine Lacqua, Anchor and Editor-at-Large at Bloomberg Television, on Bloomberg Podcasts, spends this week in New York interviewing heads of state around the UN General Assembly, and is moderating a forum panel with the Goldman Sachs chief executive and the head of the Qatar Investment Authority among the people she is due to question.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 7 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
Her panel is built to get three top investors to say what they actually worry about and where the money goes
The threshold at which people panic has dropped, and a two-second gap on a shelf now reads to shoppers as a systemic problem
Markets are cooler on oil, war and AI than they were four or five years ago, because traders fear being on the wrong side of a rally
Morgan Stanley's head of commodities told her the market prices a deal that has not happened yet
Trade routes have been redrawn since the first Trump administration, into blocs of countries that deal with the ones they agree with
Europe's single objective in New York is to keep Trump from backing away from Ukraine
The new UK prime minister's first meeting with him is the one she is watching
European voters are not arguing about foreign policy, they are worried about the price of milk
Her new season is built on three subjects and six unknowns arriving at the same time
1. Three Panels, Six Investors
Asked what she was aiming to cover on stage, Lacqua said her panel is meant to be a compressed version of what the world is worried about, and named the three subjects: markets, geopolitics and artificial intelligence. She has three top investors on it.
The point of the panel is what the money is actually doing
And so the six of them will maybe give us a glimpse about what they really worry about and how they deploy capital.
Francine Lacqua
She named two of the people she is due to question. The Goldman Sachs chief executive, she said, had already made waves that week on banking. The other is the head of the Qatar Investment Authority.
What she wants from the sovereign wealth fund is where it is building
The QIA chief executive, one of the most important sovereign wealth funds. And so what I really wanna know about him is first what they do in The Middle East. So what does it mean for infrastructure? Are they rebuilding things?
Francine Lacqua
Her reason for asking is that the region is still unsettled, and she wants the same answer about the fund's investments in the United States.
2. The Threshold For Panic
Lacqua said her panels connect to each other, and took an example from a conversation with a trade minister she is also interviewing.
Shortages are the subject, and the panic threshold is the finding
We were talking about some of the shortages and the thresholds for panic.
Francine Lacqua
She put it to him that the level at which people panic is now much lower, and he agreed. What struck her was the range of things it covers: the same reaction applies to artificial intelligence and to a cosmetics aisle.
Any shortage at all now reads as a systemic failure
and that applies even to things like AI or, like, the mascara you're getting at the store
Francine Lacqua
The anchor asked how anyone copes with that, or plans for it. Lacqua's answer moved to the markets.
3. Why Markets Stay Cool
Lacqua on geopolitical risk is a study in two populations reacting to the same news in opposite directions. The market is the calm one.
Markets are calmer than they were four or five years ago, and the reason is fear of missing the move
And I think, you see the markets kind of being cool about everything, a little bit cooler than maybe they would have been four or five years ago. In AI, also everything to do with oil and the price of oil. And this is partly because there's a fear of missing out. They're worried that actually the trade goes on the other side.
Francine Lacqua
The anchor called it market fear of missing out. Lacqua agreed and gave the mechanism she had been given by Morgan Stanley's head of commodities, whose account is that oil cannot price a real geopolitical worry because traders are already pricing the deal they expect to follow it, with the midterm elections as the reason to expect one.
Nobody wants to be short the announcement
President Trump will say, look. Well, I'll give you this in return for this, and the market don't wanna be on the back foot. So this is how the markets are looking at some of the disruptions.
Francine Lacqua
That is the market. The other population is the one buying things.
Consumers are asking about logistics, not about oil
And then you're talking about real people, and they're a lot more worried. They say, well, how do I get my products from a to b? How do I get the mascara or the piece of clothing that we need? Or even water on the shelves.
Francine Lacqua
Her example of how fast it turns is a shelf that has been empty for two seconds and a store pulling stock from the back to calm people down.
4. Trade Routes Redrawn
The structural change Lacqua pointed to runs back to the first Trump administration. Over roughly six years, she said, trade has reorganized itself around political alignment.
Countries are trading with the ones they agree with
you see blocks of countries wanting to deal with more, countries that are friendly to their thinking
Francine Lacqua
The supply chains behind those routes have changed a great deal as a result, on her account, which is the standing version of the shortage problem rather than the episodic one.
5. What Europe Wants
The anchor said he had been talking to Bloomberg's Ben Sills about Europe's expectations for the week, and asked what European leaders want out of New York, who they most want to meet and what they want resolved.
Europe has one ask, and it is Ukraine
So I hear they wanna meet Donald Trump. They wanna get along with Donald Trump. They wanna try and convince him to not back away from Ukraine.
Francine Lacqua
The meeting she is watching is the British one.
The new UK prime minister meets the US president for the first time
And I think there's a lot riding on Andy Burnham, the new UK prime minister. It's the first time that he will meet the president of The United States, and it needs to go well.
Francine Lacqua
Her reason is the last one. Relations with his predecessor, Keir Starmer, produced very harsh words, and the king stepped in with a second invitation to the UK so that the ceremony could do what the politics had not.
He may have taken advice from finance rather than from diplomats
He may have been briefed by certain Wall Street titans on how to deal with him
Francine Lacqua
The rest of the continent she described as weakened by its own calendar. The French president is on his way out, elections are coming, and a number of European heads of state face votes in five or six months, which reduces the objective to getting through the week without damage.
6. Milk, Not Foreign Policy
The anchor made the harder version of the point: these leaders also have domestic populations who dislike the American president, so they have to stand up for their voters without antagonizing the person they need something from.
Lacqua accepted the tension and then said it is not what decides elections. Foreign policy, in her telling, feels lofty next to the household budget.
What European voters are actually worried about is prices
I think most people in Europe worry about inflation. They worry about the price of milk. They worry about immigration a little bit like in The US.
Francine Lacqua
What follows from that is narrow and practical. The job is to avoid extra tariffs, because tariffs are the thing that moves those prices.
7. Six Unknowns At Once
Asked how she is approaching leadership in the new season of her show, Lacqua said she built it around the same three subjects the panels cover.
The season is organized by subject, not by guest
So we decided to do leadership in the three main hot points, which we were talking about
Francine Lacqua
The question she is putting to those leaders is how they handle a set of problems that will not queue up politely.
There are six unknowns and they are all arriving together
If you look at the world, there's, like, six unknowns, and they're all coming at once.
Francine Lacqua
Her image for it is standing on a mountain trying to keep out of the way of the aircraft coming at you. She ended on a trailer for the trade episode.
The trade interview shows a side of the guest nobody has seen
You'll see a side of someone that you will have never seen before.
Francine Lacqua
Bonus Insights
The week is two events, not one
The conversation is set in New York during UN General Assembly week, with an economic forum running alongside it. Both journalists are appearing on panels, which is why the shape of the conversation is one colleague asking another what she is going to ask everyone else.
The immigration line is the running joke
The exchange opens with Lacqua saying she made it through immigration, which the anchor treated as an achievement. She said it was no small thing and that the line was long.
The Qatari prime minister is on her list
Among the sessions she said she was looking forward to was the Qatari prime minister's, alongside the anchor's own panel and hers.
Lacqua's bottom line is that the gap between how markets and households read the same news has rarely been wider: traders are pricing the deal they expect rather than the disruption in front of them, while shoppers treat a two-second gap on a shelf as a systemic failure, and the politics running through the middle of it is a set of European leaders with elections behind them trying to keep the United States committed to Ukraine.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Goldman Sachs (Its chief executive is on her list of people to question, and she said he had already made waves that week on banking)
Qatar Investment Authority (The sovereign wealth fund she calls one of the most important. She wants to know what it is building in the Middle East and what it is buying in the US)
Morgan Stanley (Its head of commodities gave her the explanation for why oil will not price geopolitical risk: the market is already pricing the deal it expects)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Leaders with Lacqua (Her own cross-platform show. The new season is built around artificial intelligence, geopolitics and trade, and she says the trade episode shows a side of its subject nobody has seen)
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