Can Buffett Bets Like Coke, Food Brands Recession-Proof Your Portfolio? - WSJ's Take On the Week

Wall Street Journal

27-04-2025

Have an idea for a future guest or episode? How can we better help you take on the week? We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at t [e-mail] .
This is WSJ's Take On the Week where co-hosts Gunjan Banerji, lead writer for Live Markets, and Telis Demos, Heard on the Street's banking and money columnist, cut through the noise and dive into markets, the economy and finance—the big trades, key players and business news ahead.
Later on the show, Markus Hansen, portfolio manager and senior research analyst of Vontobel Asset Management, joins the podcast to talk about whether the current moment of economic uncertainty is the time for household food and beverage brands, like Coca-Cola and Mondelez, the company behind Oreo, to shine. They also talk about Warren Buffett's legendary investment philosophy and his company Berkshire Hathaway's stake in Coca-Cola. They also dive into diversifying into international investments, and how the technology and luxury sectors are faring.
On WSJ's Take On the Week, co-hosts Gunjan Banerji and Telis Demos start the show by discussing the divergence between consumer sentiment and hard economic data, and whether we'll see any sign of market softening in the forthcoming jobs and GDP reports. Then, all that glitters IS gold. The co-hosts talk about gold's recent all-time highs. They also dig into whether the Magnificent Seven trade may be on the downswing.
Full Transcript
This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.
Gunjan Banerji: Hi everyone. We're back with a Spotify poll question for you. We want to hear what you think about our opening segment featuring analysis of current and upcoming market news. If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description or you can send us an email at [e-mail].
Telis Demos: Hey everyone, I'm Telis Demos. I write for the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street.
Gunjan Banerji: And I'm Gunjan Banerji, lead writer for markets here at the Wall Street Journal. And this is WSJ's Take on the Week where we are giving you a leg up on the world of money and investing.
Telis Demos: Each week we bring you conversations with insiders and from inside the Wall Street Journal's newsroom about stocks, bonds, tariffs, lots of tariffs-
Gunjan Banerji: Lots of tariffs.
Telis Demos: ... Lots of tariffs. Well, you know what? Let's get right into it because we've got a ton going on in the markets right now. The thing I think that will be on everyone's mind to this upcoming week will be economic data. There are three major releases coming up. The first one is of course the jobs report. It's jobs friday this coming Friday. The last jobs report was actually pretty strong. 228,000 jobs were created though the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%. Sometimes those things move in slightly different directions. They're different surveys technically. So we'll be looking for is there still strength there? Then I think the doozy will be the GDP report. A lot of indicators, like for example, the much watched Atlanta Fed Report has been projecting a, maybe, contraction for GDP for the first quarter of this year. In the fourth quarter of last year it was 2.4%. So that would be a pretty significant slowdown. Not all economists though were expecting the economy to have shrunk. The FactSet consensus is actually for 1% growth in the first quarter, so still a slowdown from the fourth quarter, but not contraction. And then of course you have PCE, the Fed's favorite inflation indicator. The last two inputs into that, the CPI for consumers, the PPI for producers, both of those were cooling a little bit, but of course the Fed, Jerome Powell has called this a challenging scenario for the Fed where maybe inflation is cooling, which could support, in theory, a rate cut to just make sure the economy doesn't slide back. But of course you have the big T, tariffs, looming, and the Fed really doesn't know what those are going to do to prices. And so it's put them in a tough spot much to the president's chagrin, he's not very appreciative of the dilemma the Fed feels. He would rather they just-
Gunjan Banerji: Not very appreciative.
Telis Demos: ... Rather they just go ahead and cut interest rates.
Gunjan Banerji: So this is really interesting and this is going to be a huge, huge week for economic data at a time when everyone is freaking out about whether or not we're going to have a recession.
Telis Demos: Is the market poised to be reactive, do you think? Are we going to have an active market week along with that?
Gunjan Banerji: So it's really interesting because so far there's been this really big gap between how people are feeling about the economy and markets and then what the hard data is showing us. The jobs data has held up so far, the spending data has held up so far, but at the same time, consumer sentiment is at one of its lowest levels since 1952. So I think the key thing to watch is going to be do we see some of this hard data falling apart a little bit or is it too soon to tell because that data is actually going to be from before Liberation Day?
Telis Demos: Do you think the market would be reassured by good data or is the market going to look through it and just say, this isn't the show yet, none of this is really reflective of tariffs yet? Which maybe have started to impact the data, but not to the extent that they will once tariffs are really going.
Gunjan Banerji: Right, because people are feeling so gloomy about the economy. So does that eventually start trickling into lower spending, maybe people doing layoffs and things like that? And I think that uncertainty is showing up in some of the market pricing out there. I was taking a look at some of the data in the options market and options traders are betting on a move of 1% or more higher or lower in the S&P 500 index for every session through at least May 23rd. So that means people are poised for some of these crazy swings we've seen the past few weeks to continue.
Telis Demos: Well, let's move on to bonds where there's been lots of crazy swings. I think what we're learning though, as the data rolls in and we'll get more readings on what's going on in the bond market, flows information, who's buying, who's selling and stuff, in the weeks ahead. We'll get another treasury auction kicking off in the next week or so as well. And what's interesting is that the picture so far that we have is not quite as dramatic as, I think, the big swings in the bond market and the sort of the things that we've kind of conjured, are foreign governments selling treasuries as part of a trade war?
Gunjan Banerji: We haven't seen a lot of that yet.
Telis Demos: We haven't no. Actually so-
Gunjan Banerji: And that's what everyone is worried about.
Telis Demos: Thus far, the best information that we have about foreign government holdings of treasuries, we have some data that's going through the first week or so of April, didn't show a major change. In fact, it was up a little bit. Now that's just one proxy. It's hard to know exactly what's going on until in retrospect. We do know that investors were certainly selling treasuries, or actually more accurately, I would say, deleveraging. People were taking risk off the table, and so they were closing out positions. This is especially true of hedge funds that borrow a lot to make leveraged bets that increases their returns. They didn't want to be doing that borrowing anymore. They wanted to de-risk in that way. So we know that's happened. But now though, we're looking at a situation where 10-year treasury yields are not wildly higher. Things have calmed down to some extent. What is going berserk though, I will say, is gold.
Gunjan Banerji: Oh my God.
Telis Demos: All that glitters is gold and it hit more all time highs this past week. I don't know why we wouldn't expect that to happen next week. You see that as a couple of things. Number one, risk aversion, and also it's the flip side of the weakening dollar. It just costs more dollars to get gold as the dollar weakens. And so it's not a big surprise to see that.
Gunjan Banerji: My mom has been telling me to buy gold every single time I've seen her for the past four years-
Telis Demos: Yeah.
Gunjan Banerji: And she has nailed that macro call, let me tell you. I think there's one really big thing to watch, especially in the next few weeks, and that is how this Magnificent Seven trade does. I mean, that has been the hottest trade on Wall Street, on Main Street the past few years. Meta, Nvidia, Tesla, you name it, all seven of them are down this year. All seven of them, as of this recording, were underperforming the S&P 500. So that trade that everyone has piled into, one of the most crowded trades out there, is showing cracks. And I think we'll find out more about how it's faring over the next few sessions with some of the earnings from those big tech stocks.
Telis Demos: Who's reporting?
Gunjan Banerji: We are going to hear from Meta, Amazon, Apple of course. Tesla is down more than 30% because a lot of people don't like how much time Elon Musk has been spending on government initiatives.
Telis Demos: And he said he's going to spend less time with DOGE (inaudible).
Gunjan Banerji: Exactly. We'll see what that means means for Tesla stock moving forward.
Telis Demos: Yes. So I'd say that's seven things you're watching this coming week.
Gunjan Banerji: Yes, exactly. So that brings us to our interview this week because while the Mag Seven aren't doing so well, stocks like Coca-Cola, consumer staples, McDonald's, Walmart have held up really well recently.
Telis Demos: So is that the flip side? If you're not buying tech stocks, you're buying the opposite, McDonald's, Walmart?
Gunjan Banerji: I mean that seems to be what people have been doing lately.
Telis Demos: Well, we brought Markus Hansen on to talk about whether or not now is the moment for household brands to shine. We're talking Coca-Cola; Kellanova, they make things like Pringles, Cheez-Its; Mondelez, the company behind Oreos and other snacks. Markus Hansen is a portfolio manager and research analyst at Vontobel Asset Management. They are an investment firm that specializes in both the U.S. and international equities. They own a stock or two. And they invest across different sectors: luxury, technology and what we're talking about here, which is consumer staples. Those are things like food, beverage brands. The staples, the things that you, regardless of what's going on in your life, you kind of need more than the stuff that you want. We should note that as part of this conversation, we'll talk about stocks that Vontobel owns. That includes Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mondelez, the Swiss chocolate maker Lindt and Sprungli. It also has holdings in tech companies, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft and in luxury brands like Ferrari, Hermes and Richemont. Markus invests in those Vontobel funds that hold those names. So we're going to get into a lot of conversations about these household brands. What does economic uncertainty mean for the biggest names in consumer goods in the world and whether it's the time to diversify into international investments? And how technology and luxury stocks might fare in this time of global turmoil as well.
Gunjan Banerji: We touched on a lot and I'm really excited for this conversation.
Telis Demos: It's a really good conversation.
Gunjan Banerji: Yeah, we will get to that after the break. And if you are enjoying the show, as we hope you are, we're also on video, so find us on YouTube @WSJPodcasts and we'll leave a link in the show notes.
Telis Demos: YouTube. We're YouTube.
Gunjan Banerji: We're YouTubers.
Telis Demos: What should we unbox?
Gunjan Banerji: Welcome back. Today on the show we have Markus Hansen, who is portfolio manager and senior research analyst at Vontobel Asset Management. He's going to talk about what's traditionally known as the recession trade in the market, shares of food and beverage giants. But first, let's zoom out a little bit. Markus, welcome.
Markus Hansen: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Gunjan Banerji: So we are in the middle of a really big earnings season. It just feels like there's so much up in the air right now with this ongoing trade war.
Markus Hansen: Yes.
Gunjan Banerji: It's a really interesting one, and I think everyone is trying to understand how companies and business leaders are going to navigate this moment. We had a guest recently who said that it's future guidance from companies that investors should be paying attention to, but I can't help but think of United Airlines, which issued two sets of guidance.
Markus Hansen: That's an interesting one, right? Yeah.
Gunjan Banerji: How are you thinking about this right now?
Markus Hansen: Yeah, look, every earnings is important because basically it's the guidelines that the market analysts and investors use to navigate the ups and downs of the economy. This is a bizarre one because earnings do matter. The first quarter, based on some of the anecdotal data, has actually been relatively strong from an economic and also earnings perspective. Really what everyone's looking for is we are lacking this visibility right now. There's a term going around, it's called the VUCA economy, which is this volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. And it dates back to a military thinking after the end of the Cold War. We just don't know what's going on. So how do we manage it and how do we guide it? And you hear it from companies as well. Now (inaudible) these companies, a lot of the bigger ones, the global ones, the kind of quality growth companies we look for. And you mentioned for instance, traditionally the recession-proof ones, which happen to be food and staple names. But a lot of those food and staple names also have been around for a long time. If you take the example of, I'll just mention Coca-Cola which has pending earnings in the next weeks, this is a company a hundred plus years old, operates globally, has seen pretty much everything. That's the type of company where you want to hear has seen a playbook. How do you deal with these issues? And it's not just the issues of tariffs, it's also the issues of the secondary effect. What's the impact been on consumers? Are people nervous? Where are you seeing trading move? Value, premium? Exactly the kind of company which along with some of the larger retailers in the U.S., so Walmart's a great example, big, big market share, which really give a lot of credibility to their guidance and how they're navigating and what they're seeing on the ground. So we'll see a lot of headlines on that and those are the ones a lot of people will be paying attention to.
Gunjan Banerji: So is guidance still a reliable indicator of anything right now?
Markus Hansen: Yeah, it's a good question because look, at the end of the day, most businesses don't run themselves on a quarterly basis, but the great companies do have a view. At the end of the day, they're deploying billions of capital. These are true global players. They're operating in multi-jurisdictions. The analyst community, but also the investing community, wants to understand how are you redeploying capital you're earning? Where's your ability to grow the business? At the end of the day, we all want to invest in businesses that can grow over time. Why? Because ... And there's a gentleman in Omaha who's been doing this for multiple decades, will argue that the greatest-
Telis Demos: That's Warren Buffett.
Markus Hansen: Yes, exactly.
Telis Demos: Picked up on-
Markus Hansen: Big, big big. At the end of the day, the ultimate grower of wealth over time is compounding. And you compound that through earnings. Dividends are important as well. I know we forgot about dividends for a while with tech rallying and so forth, but the types of companies we're talking about historically have been the ones to have in your portfolio that reflect that. So again, coming back to your question about guidance, yeah, we love to understand what's fantastic about your business model, your algorithm? How has that navigated periods of volatility in the past? What could be different this time? What could be the same?
Telis Demos: So when we talk about consumer staples, we talk about companies that make things that people need regardless of going what's going on.
Markus Hansen: Correct.
Telis Demos: Maybe they're not going to take a trip, maybe they're not going to buy an expensive new TV that they don't need, but people need to eat. They're going to continue buying cans of soup and soft drinks and things of that nature. What's happening now, it's not just a question of how are people's pocketbooks going to experience the economy, but can things be delivered to them? Companies use inputs from around the world to make these things. They rely on machines that they might not be able to get the parts for, shipping them. So can we say that consumer staples companies are still a recession trade when the recession in question is not just like a business cycle thing, but a very deliberate like we are going to change the patterns of global trade for a political reason. Is that still a recession-proof company in that scenario?
Markus Hansen: Yeah, so this is where it's interesting because part of this is somewhat self-inflicted in the sense that this was a political decision, administrative decision, as opposed to something being forced through. And to be fair, some companies had been preparing for this because remember, this is the second time round for the administration. We've seen tariffs before, by the way, this wasn't new. What has spooked everyone was the nature of the scope of the tariff talk and then also the scale. We are right now in this ninety-day grace period for most things, there is this 10% base tariff. I would argue most companies had prepared for that kind of level because they had been flagged well ahead. What is less unknown is what's above that and more importantly, the nature of the news flow, how the negotiations are happening. And we're talking about 70 countries negotiating. Now, there will probably be four big players in there that set the ultimate playbook, but negotiating 70 trade deals adds complexity and do we have the capacity to handle it? And coming back to your original point, staples, the benefit they have is these are things that you have to find anyway. Generally you'll gravitate to actually the stuff that you know the best. And we saw this reinforced during COVID, the ones and the companies which historically have been the ones that could deliver on time. If we go back 20 years ago, the big push financially was to go asset light, get rid of everything from trucks and warehouses, outsource everything. That was great financial engineering. And ironically, what we saw post-COVID was the realization that that could be actually very damaging in an uncertain time because you couldn't guarantee your supply. And again, I think this is one area that's coming up and whatever we look at in terms of either food, retail or even any supplier, I think this reshaping of the industrial landscape is something that maybe reinforces and works on that going forward.
Telis Demos: So how do you find then companies that have less risk in this environment? Because you can't rely on their guidance. And I want to share one statistic. Big banks, their mentions of the word uncertainty were up over 300% from the fourth quarter to the first quarter. That's a statistics from the banking analyst at-
Markus Hansen: It's replaced AI as the big word, buzzword in everything going exactly-
Telis Demos: Yes, yes. So the banking analysts at Truist tracked this, and yet at the same time they also noted that earnings estimates by analysts have basically not changed since January. So basically banks are saying, and there's just one example, not to pick on banks, "We don't know what's going to happen." The analysts who cover them are saying, "We don't really know either, so we're just going to leave everything intact." So how on earth as an investor, do you find a company that you feel like has some stability going forward?
Markus Hansen: It's actually a great question. And that's the question the market's trying to figure out with the volatility up and down and trying to put a sort of certainty on where that number's going to lie. So the first part of the answer is the estimates. Right now, there will be some damage from this, but the damage is somewhat containable because the timeline has been somewhat manageable. If we don't get some sort of guide to how the trade discussions resolve in the next weeks, and when I say weeks, probably like three, four weeks, and what we need to see is the first one happen. Because what happens is you see the first one and you can say, okay, this replicates with the other ones so let's see what's coming on that. If that drags on, the more time drags on with volatility, the more negative it is for everything from guidance to the valuations of the market, it comes in. Your second question or the original question was how do you find certainty? So at Vontobel, the bank's been around for a hundred years. We've been doing this for 40 years in the U.S. We look for quality growth companies, and one of the key attributes there is predictability of earnings. The predictability comes from three big drivers. The track record of the company in terms of its moat, its franchise, its history. We look at backwards, what they've done and how they can grow going forward. What is it about their business that keeps them to have this predictability of sustainability? Now that can be everything from a slow but steady nice grower to one that can grow maybe high single digit with nice dividends. And remember, in terms of investing, this is where dividends become important. Great companies that are able not just to leave you some earnings growth, but also support your valuation of your company, the yield, the cash return to shareholders, have been dividend-paying companies. These are companies we find in this area. So as I mentioned Coca-Cola, probably great example. Coke actually, which is owned by this very savvy investor also based in Omaha, is a great company. Why? Because it sells something which is a pretty straightforward item. It's a beverage, a flavored beverage, whether it's with soda bubbles in it or it's premium waters and other things. They have the greatest distribution network on the planet. They pretty much operate in every country on the planet. This is a company which has compounded earnings quite nicely, but has also had a sustainable and growing dividend for 60 plus years. So it's got bond-like attributes except even better because the coupon grows and you have some nice earnings compounding. Company like Pepsi, very similar as well. Mondelez is another name we own, which for those who don't know it, this is the sweet and savory businesses that were spun out of Kraft. So the main brands are Oreo Cookies, last forever, great great business. They have Cadbury chocolate and some other things, and also pastries. It's actually more of an international company, two thirds of their business is outside the U.S. And these are great long-term companies that play to the attributes you mentioned. These are things people want to have. There's a convenience factor. It also plays to the food factor or beverages, have pricing power and the ability to navigate. And because these companies have been around a long time, Mondelez was part of Kraft which goes back to historically a long time, they've actually seen world wars, recessions, COVID, before COVID, SARS, lots of other ... Changes of government, inflation. They've seen hyperinflation in the markets they've operated. So a lot of learning and proven management and a lot of playbooks which can navigate. And coming back to that original question about guidance, these are the companies, not just that can give some credibility to guidance, but I think the market we are looking to to understand what's going on. Why you operate everywhere. You get a feel back from the politicians, the economists, what's happening. And what are you seeing from the consumer, the single biggest driver of the U.S. economy, the U.S. consumer? What are they doing? Are they trading down, are they trading up, are they holding back? That's going to be key. Because this is where if there is any damage happening at the consumer level, you'll see it the most.
Telis Demos: There has been a trade lately, which it's been up and down as everything has been, which is really to focus in on Europe again as kind of a hot investment area because it seems like there are some fundamental things changing within the European Union, and there's more potential there than I think people have recognized in a while. And so do you see ... now Vontobel is based in Switzerland, correct?
Markus Hansen: Yeah.
Telis Demos: I know you own a lot of international brands. Lindt and Sprungli-
Markus Hansen: Lindt and Sprungli, yeah.
Telis Demos: Is there a reason why you might want to hold more European stocks even regardless of what ultimately happens with tariff policy specifically, are you overweight or do you feel like it's a good time to be overweight European companies and European brands, to own more Lindt than Hershey's right now just because Europe is changing? Is there anything there?
Markus Hansen: So the short answer, yes and yes in the sense that we don't actually pick by country. We look for the greatest companies. So in international, I think there are great companies you can own. So if we take the example, we're talking about the food companies, but at the luxury good end, for instance, the greatest companies on the planet in terms of pricing power and long-term growth, Hermes, Ferrari, just two to name for ... Ferrari's ... I know it makes cars, but it's a luxury goods company that happens to be on wheels, but it has all the great makeup in its P&L of high margins, high return, investor capital, great backlog of demand, fantastic predictability. Lindt and Sprungli you mentioned. Great chocolate company. The great thing about the food companies is they tend to be local-for-locals. So although they're ... Lindt is a Swiss company, all its U.S. production and chocolate is sold here. There might be some high-end luxury items they ship over, but for the most part they're producing here, producing in Europe, producing in Asia.
Telis Demos: Does that insulate them from tariffs a little bit because they're producing in the U.S. for Americans?
Markus Hansen: Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is where the food companies are interesting. Now, there are bits and parts of their businesses which might be impacted, but this makes them more predictable in this type of downturn.
Telis Demos: So given your relative optimism about the ability of these big companies to weather whatever's going on, to adapt, are you seeing bargains everywhere? Are you snapping up names like Coca-Cola or Mondelez you mentioned? You mentioned a couple of those. What are the things that you've been doing in your portfolio right now?
Markus Hansen: So we own those. So going into this, not that we-
Telis Demos: You own more of them now?
Markus Hansen: We are using the opportunity now to look at things which in the past, so like everything else we do come up with a fair valuation of what we think is a great company. There are great companies, but the market isn't silly. It recognizes a great company. So you have to be disciplined in your sizing what you own. There have been some great companies where there's been a good pullback and opportunity to add. There are areas-
Telis Demos: Can you name any?
Markus Hansen: Right now, I wouldn't like to, but I would say in the technology space. These things were very overpriced, arguably going into the end of the year. And if you remember, we had that spike in January as well. We always figure, have a look at the charts. Charts are always interesting when you go back and remember, okay, this is where we came from, this is why it's down. There are a couple of technology names where we do believe the market maybe has overestimated the impact of what's happening and can see through this as well. Crisis creates opportunity. To use the term, there's a big saying in the U.K. "Keep calm and carry on." But I think even Mr. Buffett's famous, "Be fearful when others are greedy and search for bargains when you can," or "Be greedy when others are fearful," there is an element of fear in the market creating some opportunities. So specific to the names here, we had actually, take the example of Lindt and Sprungli, that wasn't a name that we owned about in the prior quarter, but the stock had pulled back on worries about various tariffs. They had an updated numbers. And we knew having done the work that look, this is a local-for-local, there's ability, their pricing power is fantastic. If you buy one of these nice little lint bunnies, tend to be a higher end chocolate, great quality, and they've managed through various crises in the past, that was an opportunity to add and own. And that one has been performing quite nicely like we figured it would. But there will be opportunities. And this is why I think internationally you need to look as well, despite the pullback in the markets, international stocks are actually still relatively cheap, both from the absolute valuation of P/E, also dividend yields and how they're going to manage through as well. But yes, this is an opportunity.
Gunjan Banerji: Markus is buying the dip.
Telis Demos: Swiss asset manager recommends Swiss chocolate for difficult times.
Markus Hansen: Always take an opportunity to look for great companies that really nothing has changed dramatically in their business. Have they seen this kind of issue before? And this is obviously a combination of a potential supply shock costing side, but the ability to pass through to consumer. And very often there are good examples going back where that has happened.
Telis Demos: All right, we've got one more question from Markus after the break.
Gunjan Banerji: Welcome back. In 30 seconds or less, what investment in the market are you the most bearish on right now in light of this trade war?
Markus Hansen: So I think it's fair to add that some of the areas which have been maybe hyped on the AI chip side are getting a bit of a reset here, which was the market in the U.S. in particular got so concentrated in the Mag Seven. A number of those Mag Seven names had I think been overestimated what their future returns were going to be, were pulled forward. And just as a side joke here, if you're familiar with the original movie, the Magnificent Seven, only three of the cowboys make it out the other side. So-
Telis Demos: Spoiler alert, sorry everybody.
Markus Hansen: ... We're invested in three names in the Mag Seven, which we like, specifically because of the names not the Mag Seven. I think we're seeing the market concentration reset and there's a bit more to go there. So there are certain names in the Mag Seven I would still stay away from right now.
Gunjan Banerji: So do you think the Magnificent Seven will no longer be the Magnificent Seven?
Markus Hansen: So I think, look, we'll have to look for the next anagram, right? Because you remember there was FANG before Magnificent Seven, there was Nifty 50 back in the day. There'll be some new thing on the other side. I would argue a broadening of the market is healthy. I think a diversification of the market outside the U.S. is a healthy thing as well.
Telis Demos: Well Markus, thanks so much for being here and thank you for this great conversation about consumer staples.
Markus Hansen: Thank you for having me. I'd love to come back in. Thank you.
Gunjan Banerji: Yeah, this has been great. Thank you Markus. And that's everything you need to know to take on your week. This show is produced by Trina Mannino, Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle with help from Jess Jupiter. Michael LaValle and Jessica Fenton are our sound designers. Michael also wrote our theme music. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Saloway and Kristen Slee are the deputy editors. And Philana Patterson is the head of news audio for the Wall Street Journal. For even more head to Wsj.com. I'm Gunjan Banerji.
Telis Demos: And I'm Telis Demos, until next time. Are you allowed to invest in non-Swiss chocolate companies? I mean, I know Europeans find American Chocolate gross. Can you own Hershey's in your portfolio? .
Markus Hansen: We have Hershey. Mondelez is the name. They own Cadbury and great British brand, by the way.
Telis Demos: Okay. Good. All right, so you've got global taste in chocolate. That's good.