Interview transcript

Terry Gerton You’ve published some interesting analysis lately. You looked at stock closing prices from January 21st to November 25th for the 100 largest publicly traded federal vendors. Why? What were you looking for?

Paul Murphy Well, what we wanted to do was get an indication of whether all the procurement changes and budget turmoil that occurred during President Trump’s first year affected the attractiveness of the large publicly traded vendors as investments. So what I did was I used Bloomberg’s contracts database, which I’m in every day, I use it to rank all the vendors by their fiscal 2024 obligations, and then I merged this list with Bloomberg’s terminal data. To assign company tickers and pull the historic trading price data to compare closing stock prices in January and December. Then we assign each company to their GICS market. GICs is an acronym for Global Industry Classification Standard. It’s not like the government to define markets like category management or product service code. Wall Street uses its own market definitions. And that’s how we analyze the price differences. We included stocks traded domestically and overseas, and we used the terminal data to convert prices into US dollars. It’s been a crazy year, as you know, for companies. And the last year, we’ve seen spending pauses, agency closures, contract terminations, clawbacks and consolidations, big markets like consulting targeted for reductions, various efficiency initiatives, particularly at GSA and DOD. There’s been an year-long CR and an extended shutdown, even tariffs. So we wondered, you know what’s the impact of all these events on investors?

Terry Gerton Pretty hard to do market planning and business modeling with that kind of turmoil. What’s the big headline? What were the big trends that you found as you looked at the data?

Paul Murphy Well, among the top companies, as you read, the average stock price went up, but let me back up a second and say, even though we have all this data, it’s important to keep in mind that federal contracts are just one indicator of a company’s financial health and its desirability as an investment. Many factors, as you know, contribute to stock price fluctuations, such as state and local contracts, commercial sales, earnings, profitability, debt load, interest rates. So the trend we wrote about broadly aligns with the Trump administration’s prioritization of big defense contracts and cuts to certain civilian agencies. And so what we’re seeing from our year end data, which we have in hand now, and we’re about to come out with a new year end analysis, is despite all of this financial turmoil, fiscal 2025 will go down as a strong year for contract spending. Certain parts of professional and IT services have taken hits, but there’s been steady spending, let me say, across a broad range of sectors, including defense aircraft, shipbuilding, missiles, satellites and surveillance, as well as strong spending by the VA, DOE, NASA, and DHS. So, we don’t want to go into too much detail to give away what we’re about to come out with, but, yeah, it’s been a strong spending year, and it’s not surprising to me that stock prices reflect that.

Terry Gerton It looked like about two-thirds of the vendors that you analyzed averaged returns of 23%, which is significantly higher than the broader market. When you look at the details, kind of, who came out on top as the big winners?

Paul Murphy Well, I think the companies that did the best, kind of looking at it from a broad lens, the companies that did the best were the ones that benefited from these numerous executive orders and directives that we’ve seen, as well as through actual contract spending. I mean, there is multi-year spending that sustains companies year to year without having to endure the ups and downs of the annual appropriations process. But the Trump administration has sent numerous signals to industry, which companies might be attractive as investment targets. For instance, January’s executive order to remove barriers to the deployment of AI, a June executive order to relax cyber mandates, the July triple directive AI action plan to remove regulatory barriers all send signals that companies like Palantir, Oracle, and Microsoft are in the mix for having a strong year. The April executive order about restoring America’s maritime dominance. And the recently successful review of the AUKUS security agreement with Australia and the UK sends signals that companies like General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls, and even Fincantieri, although that’s an interesting company, are, you know, in the mix again for strong spending. But again, it’s important to keep in mind that contract revenue is just one indicator of a company’s investment attractiveness. And a government spending fundamentally is a political decision. So, you know, there’s risks, even as companies are doing well, there’re risks there that, you know, the seats in Congress or the presidency can change, policy and spending priorities can change as a result. So, these equity returns can change quickly, but this has been the snapshot since from January to December.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Paul Murphy. He’s a senior contracts analyst with Bloomberg Government. Paul, you mentioned Fincantieri. Talk to us a little bit more about the shipbuilding sector broadly and what’s going on particularly with that company.

Paul Murphy I think what’s happening broadly in the shipbuilding sector is that there’s a kind of a fundamental shift going on in national security strategy from one focused on land-based war fighting in Europe and the Middle East to a more naval focus covering the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean in order to counter especially China and the Far East. And so you see the U.S. building relationships with countries like Australia and strengthening alliances with Japan and the Philippines. And there’s been big buildouts of base infrastructure at Guam. So companies in the shipbuilding sector, in the sectors that support shipbuilding, you know satellite surveillance, C2, uncrewed drones, there’s a big shift going on in the Navy’s dependence on heavy ships, you know, which can be disabled through the swarms of drones. I mean, there’s a real fundamental shift going on in their thinking. And, so I think companies in these sectors are — you’re seeing spending going there.

Terry Gerton You talked a little bit about the upside, companies that did really, really well. What’s your takeaway from folks who may be underperformed?

Paul Murphy Well, it’s interesting, even in periods of spending growth, and even when you have big companies, you can have, you know, underperforming contracts. I think it helps to be able to dig deep into, you know, company financials and, you know, descriptions of contract performance. And one company, obviously, that stands out as Lockheed. Their stock was down 10.5 percent from January to December. After flagging sales and lower profits mid-year, they were working on the big upgrade, what’s called the F-35, their big fighter contract, the big F- 35 Block 4 upgrade. And they were years behind schedule. They were experiencing difficulties upgrading and integrating the software. And so a pause was initiated in April and Lockheed attributed the decline in stock in part to this pause in F-35 spending. And they worked out a phased modernization approach with DoD and F-35 spending has picked back up as of December. So we may see a reversal of this trend. But even in periods of growth, you can see big companies struggle. And again, you know, with Fincantieri, similar kind of a story, except in shipbuilding. They had four of the six planned Constellation class frigates canceled after they experienced up to three years of delay. And they were three years behind on the second frigate in this six-boat contract. And so the Navy announced it was pulling the plug on the remaining four boats. And so Fincantieri’s stock late in the year plunged in double digits. And interestingly, they blamed their delays and problems in part in the inability to hire enough trained shipyard workers. So I think that’s actually an area, I think, of potential growth, training the workforce in advanced technology, both in shipbuilding but also in other technologies as well.

Terry Gerton Well, your analysis of 2025 is pretty deep as you turn your eyes toward 2026. What will you be watching for?

Paul Murphy Well, of course, we’re going to be watching defense and national security. I think shipbuilding, shipyard infrastructure, related training services, command and control modernization, drones, uncoupled vehicles, satellite communications, you know, they’re trying to build an integrated defense capability that will span  particularly the Pacific — but we’re not going to end relations with Europe, but it’s, it’s going to change fundamentally and I think they’re going try and rely on a lot more advanced technology to interconnect the services and tie more closely to the allies. President Trump just announced he was seeking a big increase in the fiscal 2027 budget, so we’ll see if he’s able to implement that if Congress goes along. Enterprise IT, and cybersecurity, still very resilient. Big emphasis on AI, zero trust, and secure cloud. Expect continued consolidation, I think, in the software licensing under OneGov, and GSA has this big OneGove initiative, and they’re one by one, they’re negotiating enterprise agreements with the big IT companies. And that will, you know, spread their software across the government. And civilian agencies, I think watch for Veterans Health Services, continued strong spending with Veterans Health Service. The VA has reinitiated the electronic health records deployment, Oracle’s big software contract. Space commercialization, we’re seeing in our top 20 every couple of weeks, you know, new elements of NASA’s commercialization of near space and deep space. Moving ahead, there’s, you know, energy plants, mobile energy plants going to be deployed on the moon. So that’s going to involve not only space companies, but energy companies and so there’s a lot of prototyping going on. There’s the national big national airspace modernization initiative by FAA. Right now they’re involved in a huge procurement to replace 600 radars across the country to better protect towers and airports. Border security, obviously a big area of spending. There’s a lot going on, not just in defense. I think it’s important to emphasize that the civilian sector continues to show strong spend signals.

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Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton There’s a lot to talk about, but it strikes me as strange that here we are two weeks before all of the continuing resolutions expire. The Senate is out this week. The House is planning to be out next week. Are they going to finish in time?

Loren Duggan There’s a path for them to do so and unlike other deadlines, when they’re approaching, everyone’s hair on fire — we haven’t felt that dynamic on this one. The House and Senate appropriators, they’re reaching deals, releasing packages, processing them through the House in the Senate, and there’s a way to get this all done by Jan. 30, or if they need a week or something, appropriators are already saying we could do another short-term. But there’s not a panic about this deadline that’s only two weeks away or so.

Terry Gerton Well, let’s recap, which bills are through and who would you say are the big winners in those bills?

Loren Duggan So we had the three bills go through last year. We’ve had another three-bill package get through both chambers this year. The House sent another two-bill package over to the Senate, who can deal with that when they come back. And then there’s this four-bill package, the remaining outstanding ones that they still need to tackle and get through both chambers. So there’s a lot of progress there. The last one’s big — Defense, Labor, HHS — and thorny in the case of the Homeland Security Department, given everything that’s going on there with ICE in Minnesota and concerns about lawmaker oversight there.

Terry Gerton Well, Homeland and Defense both got big chunks of money in the summer that they’re continuing to operate. So does it feel like maybe there’s a little less urgency around those bills?

Loren Duggan A little less urgency on the Defense side, where I think if you put that together with the reconciliation bill, it’s like $1 trillion. Of course, the president wants to take that to $1.5 trillion next year. We can deal with that another time. And Homeland, that extra pool of money has helped. They’ve used that to hire staff, to open centers. But there was a little controversy because DHS said if an ICE facility is funded with the reconciliation dollars, some of the oversight is different there than if it was regular appropriations. So we’ve seen a distinction made there. But definitely having that money earlier, locking that in for the administration, was really key to their plans for the year.

Terry Gerton What are the big controversies that are still on the table that are going to have to be hashed out before that last bill package gets through?

Loren Duggan DHS has been the sticking point. That was initially supposed to be in the last package; it ended up only being two bills instead of three as they worked through some of these discussions. And you could see a deal being made there and getting that through, maybe both chambers. But there could be a fight on that one in either chamber, depending on what you need. What we have seen are very bipartisan packages where the votes have been widespread, some opposition obviously, but they’ve gotten through very comfortably after all the fights that we went through ahead of this point in time.

Terry Gerton It does also seem, at least on the bills that have gotten through so far, that Congress has largely rejected the cuts that the administration proposed for 50% reductions are higher. Most of the reductions are very minor. So since agencies have already been downsized in many cases, what does this mean? How will relative increases, I guess, compared to where they’re operating today — how will that come into effect?

Loren Duggan In some cases, it’s less than they had last year, but still more than the administration wanted and more than House Republicans wanted in their initial versions. So we’re seeing a classic compromise being hashed out here between the House and the Senate, enough money for Democrats to support these bills, not the drastic cuts. And they’ve hastened to say “no poison pills” when they’ve released these different packages. But we’ll see how the agencies respond to more money. That’s been a fight over the course of the administration, where they’ve wanted to impound funds, rescind them, but if you put them back out there the agencies can use them. And even something like foreign aid is going to the State Department now, rather than USAID, after USAID was disestablished by the administration.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Loren Duggan. He’s deputy news director for Bloomberg Government. Loren, outside of the appropriations, what other sorts of legislative discussions are taking place on the Hill these days? ACA subsidies still on top?

Loren Duggan ACA subsidies has been a big driver of discussion. We are now at the end of open enrollment without an answer to what to do with these credits, if they’ll be extended. I assume the senators are still talking this week and when they come back. Donald Trump’s proposal last week didn’t necessarily change the dynamic too much. But one thing that might: We’re going to see insurance company executives brought to the Hill before two different House committees this week. They’ll have to answer some tough questions. Probably get a little beaten up by both sides in this case, because both parties have some concerns with them. So we’ll see how that plays out. The ACA, that’s now a deadline that’s passed; they’re still trying to figure out how to resolve that debate.

Terry Gerton There was also a lot of news last week about the crypto bill in the Senate. Tell us what’s going on there.

Loren Duggan There were markups that had been scheduled in two committees, and then they got pulled back as they continue to work through the issues and deal with the industry feedback. I think it was the Coinbase CEO who was up there weighing in pretty directly with lawmakers. So they pulled back, didn’t move forward, and they’re going to recalibrate the bill. This is the market structure bill, not to be confused with the stablecoin legislation, which is part of the crypto universe. This is a broader market structure bill, who has regulatory authority. I assume they’ll rejoin that debate when they return next week, if they’re not working up while they’re gone. But there’s big interest, big money, big stakes in this legislation.

Terry Gerton All of the things we’ve talked about so far are sort of normal order: appropriations bills, although late, getting through other sorts of legislative activities. Let’s talk about Greenland for a minute, because it seems like it has the potential to really upend all kinds of conversations and agreements that are going on. President Trump made tariff threats over the weekend. We have a congressional delegation on the ground in Denmark. What does this all mean when it comes back to domestic politics?

Loren Duggan We’ll have to see, there hasn’t been a ground swell against this. There are some members of Congress who concede it might be a good idea if Greenland was part of the United States, given its geostrategic importance. But then there’s other members of Congress who have said, maybe we’ll have to impeach Trump if he goes too far on this, so there’s not a consensus. There’s definitely a lot of range of opinions on this one. And it’s something that Donald Trump’s going to hear directly from other world leaders when he goes to Davos, Switzerland, this week and he’ll be side-by-side with some of the people who he’s threatened to tariff or have strong opinions on this, given their proximity to Denmark.

Terry Gerton We usually focus here on domestic politics, but this seems like it will flow over into lots of conversations. What are you expecting to hear out of Davos as that conversation gets started?

Loren Duggan Well, we had expected a domestic announcement with the president talking about his home ownership plan, maybe taking money from 401(k)s to make a down payment, part of his broader affordability discussion, home ownership discussion. So that’s a domestic thing, but we’re definitely going to hear the global things. Not just Greenland, but his “Board of Peace” that he’s talked about, where he wants world leaders to chip in money and be part of this arrangement. I’m sure those discussions will continue and there’ll be lots of feedback, given the compact nature of Davos and everyone who will be there. There’s a little bit of domestic, but it’s more of a foreign play given who’s there. It is the World Economic Forum after all, and the world will be there and talking to Donald Trump directly.

Terry Gerton When everybody gets back, what will you be watching for on the Hill?

Loren Duggan We’ll see if they can wrap up the spending debate and then they’ll be turning to February and eventually the fiscal ’27 process is right there. We’ll just get done with this one and really have to turn the page pretty quickly.

The post Crypto overhaul, Greenland, ACA subsidies, spending bills: Lawmakers’ January juggling acts first appeared on Federal News Network.

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton All right, we’re sitting here at the beginning of January. Do you suppose members of Congress made New Year’s resolutions?

Loren Duggan I’m sure some of them did. They have a lot they want to get done and this is an election year for them, so, you know, they always start out with a fresh optimism when they head toward that.

Terry Gerton Well, let’s talk about what they’ve got on their agenda for the coming weeks, I guess, in January. What’s up in the house?

Loren Duggan Well, I think the overriding thing is going to be the expiration of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that we’ve talked a lot about at the end of the year. Those expired at the end of the year, and there’s still a push to do something about that. One of the cliffhangers from last year was this discharge petition to force a vote that enough Republicans sided with Democrats to do that. So we’ll be waiting to see how quickly they turn toward that debate and trying to move forward on that issue because that’s certainly going to be top of mind for people and they probably got an earful from some of their constituents back at home over the holiday break.

Terry Gerton Even that discharge petition, though, is likely to meet a dead end in the Senate, yes?

Loren Duggan Yes, but it at least moves the ball forward. The House can get a vote and even some of the members who had signed that on the GOP side said they wanted to just advance the ball and maybe force talks, force some more action. We saw the two Senate votes in December that were the Democratic and Republican plans. Neither had the support they needed to move forward. So we’ll see what happens there when they get back in town and look at each other.

Terry Gerton And what do you think the Senate will take up first?

Loren Duggan Senate’s going to do some more nominees. They started work on a few before they broke and said, okay, we’ll do the, the first vote, the cloture vote, if you will, on one side of the new year. And then when they got back, they’ll confirm some of those. So, you know, keeping churning those judicial nominees and other folks trying to move more of Trump’s nominees forward. So that’ll be top of mind for them on the floor, at least, as they try to figure out a bunch of stuff off the floor which could be more interesting like spending and healthcare.

Terry Gerton I was going to say I’m surprised that appropriations wasn’t first on the list in both chambers. Where are we at on those?

Loren Duggan Well, we left with an agreement between the House and Senate top appropriators. That’s representative Tom Cole and Senator Susan Collins. They said they had had a top line agreement and they have to figure out how to turn a top-line agreement into the nine bills remaining to fund the government when they reopen the government after the shutdown, three of the bills were done for the year; nine still had to go on, January 30th is the date circled on the calendar there. So we’re waiting to see what approach the chamber’s take and they get, you know, a few small packages and move those over the line. There had been some talk in the House about maybe doing some minibus votes where you package a couple of those bills, maybe two or three at a time, and move them forward. The Senate had been trying to do a five-bill minibuss package before they left and just kept running into objections and couldn’t get all of those cleared before they left. So we’ll see if they resume those talks and try to move one of those packages forward before that January 30th deadline because that is, to your point, going drive a lot of the discussion.

Terry Gerton And some of the political topics that were left hanging at the end of last year were also in line for some sort of big headline hearings. Do you see those actually getting on the agenda and calendar?

Loren Duggan Probably. I mean, we saw over the holiday break some discussion about Minnesota and how some child care funds were being used there. That’s a hearing they’ve already scheduled for this week where they’re going to bring some people down from Minnesota to answer questions about that. And they want to get Governor Walz, I believe, down there in February to talk as well. So that’s a political issue already hitting the calendar. We’ll probably see a slow start to hearings in both chambers, but they can ramp up a little more quickly than they do in the odd numbers years when they’re forming Congress. This is the second session, things will start moving more quickly, but yeah, I would expect a lot of hearings to start picking up.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Loren Duggan. He’s the deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. Loren, let’s turn our attention to predictions. I’m gonna ask you to get out your crystal ball, maybe your magic eight ball. The first question up is continuing resolution or shutdown at the end of January? What’s your guess?

Loren Duggan I would think maybe a continuing resolution if they can get an agreement on a couple of other things. I do think the ACA could get tied up in there again, but I don’t think there’s the same appetite to have that fight. We’re in an election year now and maybe some people will see those dynamics differently. So I would assume if they could get maybe some full year bills in a CR, maybe that will be the path forward. But that will be a key question because that shutdown was painful for a lot of people and they might want to avoid it again.

Terry Gerton Well, that’s good news. Second question up, any key leadership changes? We’re hearing a lot about members deciding to step down or retire. What does that mean for the leadership of key committees in either chamber?

Loren Duggan It might not mean as much today as it will maybe a year from now, where, you know, there’s a couple of dynamics there, you know, some concern among Republicans that maybe they’ll lose control of one or both chambers, and that would obviously have an impact there. On the Senate side, we know that Dick Durbin (D-IL), who’s the number two Democrat, is retiring and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) has kind of put his name out there as probably the likely successor there, but, you know, Charles Schumer (D-NY) had some leadership pressures last year with some of the way he handled the initial shutdown fight back in March, and we’ll see what that means for him. But yeah, I think we’ll seem more jockeying over the course of the year for some of the chairmanship’s opening up for retirement reasons or otherwise. And we’re also watching to see if anyone else made a decision over the holidays not to run again this year.

Terry Gerton All right. And besides appropriations, there were a lot of legislative priorities that just sort of didn’t get addressed by the end of 2025. So let’s take a couple of those. Do you think we’ll get the longer term CISA, CISA reauthorization through?

Loren Duggan That’s a good question. Well, I’ll have to see what the dynamics are there. There wasn’t a lot of movement so far, but they could go for that. And there are, you know, other things and security questions that maybe they’ll get dovetailed together, but … this one we’ll have to wait and see.

Terry Gerton What about federal workforce protections? It seemed like we were starting to mobilize some interest around protecting the federal workforce at the end of last year. Some of those features got included in the shutdown bill, the continuing resolution that got passed at that point. Do you see a mobilization maybe towards more federal workforce protection legislation?

Loren Duggan We’ll have to see how that pans out because I think you are right. Maybe that could have been the high water mark. Some of the things they got in the government reopening deal, if you will, but there will continue to be pressure on that and watching how things are playing out in different agencies and watching how court cases continue to go. And so if people can call together a majority on some of those things, maybe they’ll move them forward.

Terry Gerton Crypto and banking was another big topic. Lots of discussion around it. Maybe a lot of heat, but not much light. What do you think?

Loren Duggan Crypto will be top of mind. Senate banking committee was working on a plan to meet the House-passed market structure bill. There’s still interest in doing that. One of the top proponents of that in the Senate has been Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), the Senator from Wyoming, who already announced she’s going to retire at the end of the year. So maybe she’ll be even more focused on that, but there is a big push to do something in the crypto space. They passed the stable coin bill last year. Some people even want to change some of the dynamics of that legislation in a crypto package. So, I would think that there’s interest, high interest, in doing something about that this year.

Terry Gerton One more topic, AI regulations. Whether the federal government should do it or the states was a big roundabout. Where do you think that winds up?

Loren Duggan There’s still interest in doing something about that. The president issued his executive order trying to limit state regulation of that. But I think more people would like to see things done, even legislatively. That could be a tough thing to get through. It was part of that One Big Beautiful Bill Act debate and fell out during consideration so that the proponents of that haven’t given up. So we’ll see if that comes up in debates around things like child online safety as well, because there’s a push to do that bill in both chambers and I could see AI regulation coming up in that context as well.

Terry Gerton Alright, so as Congress gets its feet back under it here at the beginning of January, what are you watching for?

Loren Duggan Watching to see how these debates play out and how quickly the FISA debate — that’s something that is a kind of a sleeper April deadline to reauthorize section 702, which I think they put a two-year extension in two years ago. So that’s going to be a big fight about government surveillance powers and one that’s not really party line. Cause you’ve got kind of coalitions across the parties that all take sides on that issue with the administration weighing in. So that a big fight coming early that could dominate a lot of discussion here.

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