Marketplace - What’s next for BP?

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

After a rough 2024, energy giant BP is expected to announce a “fundamental reset” of its business strategy this month. We don’t know for sure what that means, but industry experts expect the firm, formerly known as British Petroleum, to move away from renewables and double down on oil and natural gas. Also in this episode: A trade consultant tells us how her clients are reacting to President Trump’s trade policies, Zelle hit a record $1 trillion in payments last year and Americans are turning to “fin-fluencers” for financial advice.

All right, I'm just going to get right to it. Uh-oh. That's it. That's the open. From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdal. It is Wednesday, today, the 12th of February. Good as always to have you along, everybody.

We have heard over the past year or so that inflation's bumpy, that it's sticky, that the last mile, as it were, to the Fed's desired landing at 2% is the hard part. Inflation is, in fact, turning out to be all of those things and maybe a little bit more too. The January consumer price index came out this morning up half a percent month to month, three percent on a yearly basis, not what anybody wants to hear, obviously. And you can pick your favorite villain, energy, hotels, airfare, they all went up. Shelter has been a persistent source of some of that stickiness. It accounted for nearly a third of that monthly increase in this morning's report.

And yes, that does sound bad. But as Marketplace's Justin Ho reports, rent inflation has actually been coming down a bit lately. The Labor Department's definition of shelter costs includes rents, but it also includes what it calls lodging away from home. Just think of that as basically hotels when you go on vacation. That's Chen Zhao, head of economics research at the real estate company Redfin. She says those lodging costs went up in January, but rents have not been increasing so quickly, according to the Labor Department and Redfin's

own data. What you'll see is that for the last two, two and a half years, rents have been really flat. In some parts of the years, rents have been really flat. And in some parts of the country, rents have even been falling. There are a lot of newly built apartments that are finally coming online, says Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank.

He says this is happening the most in the Sun Belt. Where there's lots of undeveloped land and where home building is cheaper and faster to do. But in other parts of the country, the pipeline of new apartments is still pretty constrained, especially in the Northeast and the coastal West. And there? We're likely to see faster rent increases

in markets that are adding less supply where construction is more expensive. The numbers of new apartment construction projects and building permits have been trending lower. Chen Zhao at Redfin says some contractors don't want to keep building apartments The numbers of new apartment construction projects and building permits have been trending lower. Chen Zhao at Redfin says some contractors don't want to keep building apartments if rents are stagnant. Meanwhile, they're also facing very high financing costs because interest rates continue

to be high. All of that means the supply of new apartments could start to dwindle, says Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide. You know, a year from now, two years from now, we might be back in this similar situation where we're talking about constrained housing supply because we're just not building enough to keep up with the amount of demand in the market.

And that means housing costs could start to put more pressure on inflation. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace. Wall Street today, interestingly, not all that upset by that CPI report. We'll have the details when we do the numbers. It is one short month from today, March the 12th, that the Trump administration's 25% steel and aluminum tariffs hit.

As the president said when he signed the orders on Monday, it's a big deal. What's also a big deal are the additional 10% tariffs the Trump administration has imposed on all Chinese imports, and the threats of 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and Colombia, and various retaliatory tariffs threatened by our allies in response. In short, it has been a month in global trade. Sarita Jackson is the president and CEO of the Global Research Institute of International Trade. That is a trade consultancy. Sarita, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be a part of the program. Explain to me, would you, the life of a trade consultant here in February 2025? Wow. Well, the best explanation I could say is just kind of being in the middle of a storm, if you will, just really staying on top of what those changes are on a regular basis. I would say 24 hours, sometimes it's less than 24 hours. A woman's gotta sleep, right? But look, other than what the heck is going on,

what are like the top three things that people are asking you? Well, the main thing is what does this mean for my product in a particular market? For example, some of my clients are one of the clients, and actually we're scheduled to talk again soon. Toward the end of last year, I had worked with her. I said, hey, why don't you consider having your product

or part of it manufactured in Mexico as opposed to China? Because we've had these tariffs, already the tariffs going on and then we're hearing about more tariffs. So why don't you just shift to Mexico because we have the US-Mexico-Canada agreement. Well, then there was the concern about, okay, what does this mean for me now that I am looking at Mexico for my production and there still are going to be these tariffs. Another issue that has really come up is pertaining to funding.

Some of these clients, and I just had this conversation yesterday actually, is, okay, well, if there's cuts to the funding for the US Agency for International Development, and that's how I'm able to expand overseas, what does that mean for me to still continue to remain globally integrated in 2025? Do you have many or any companies saying that because of the present tariffs and whatever tariffs may come, that they are going to reshore their production and bring it back to the United States? You know, that is one of the interesting things that I was waiting to hear.

And as of yet, I have not heard that what has impressed me, and these are smaller companies, by the way, what has really been interesting, at least with the companies that I've spoken with now, maybe someone else may have a different story, but they still are going global or remaining globally integrated and just saying, well, we just need to adjust and figure out the best strategy with the resources that are available. Right, right. Two more things, and then I'll let you get back to work because I know you have client calls that you have to get on.

The first one is just very broadly speaking, clearly now the United States as a matter of policy is going to be trying to go at a loan in global trade. And I realize that's not going to be ironic because you can't go at a loan in global trade, but we're certainly going to pull back a good deal. What's that going to mean for the American economy? For the American economy,

the one thing I can definitely say is prices will go up. The business owner will have to carry those costs and then guess what? Some of those costs will be passed on to the consumer. And then if you are an exporter, if that's what you depend on to grow your business and you're exporting to countries and then other countries are retaliating, well, that makes it more difficult for you to grow your business and to enter other markets and provide much needed goods or service in that market that has an effect both on the businesses and the consumers. And then finally, acknowledging that it took decades to build a system of international trade that we have had up until recently and also granted that there were deep flaws with it and it did some

level of damage. But rising tide, all boats, how long do you suppose it takes to rebuild some kind of global trade order if we have three and a half more years of american isolationism that is really good question well i something i'd they need to be discussed even more is the role of the international institutions the world trade organization that we see a which you haven't heard mention of

very much at all lately anyway right exactly which just i think people in this yes you see sort of this isolationism or protectionism, but there is this whole international institution that sets rules. So for me, it's hopefully not that the whole system will crash, but just that we are going through a unique period where we have some of these shifts, but that you have this international body that can continue to govern so that trade can continue and be beneficial in this so-called global economy. Dr. Shrita Jackson, president and CEO of the Global Research Institute of International

Trade. Thank you, ma'am, for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. The digital payment network Zelle said today it serviced a cool trillion dollars in payments last year, what the company claims is the highest volume for a peer-to-peer payment app ever.

According to the Atlanta Fed, almost three-quarters of consumers in this economy use mobile payment of one kind or another, Zelle, Venmo, the cash app, and more than 90% of consumers under the age of 25 do. As Marketplace's Megan McCarty Carino reports, what started out as a convenient way to pay your friends back for dinner is becoming an ever bigger part of transactions all across the economy. They're called peer-to-peer payment apps,

but often these days, they're being used peer-to-landlord. This is too convenient. I don't understand why people bother with paper decks anymore. Ziana Bunch rents out a couple rooms in her house in Morgan Hill, California. Several years ago at the suggestion of a tenant, she started accepting rent payments through Zelle and she never looked back. Even if they're out of town they just hit the app and send me the rent and you get a little kaching noise on your phone. Zelle General Manager Denise Leinhardt says the network moved almost $2 million a minute

last year. That's a lot of kachings. We are now partnering with over 2200 banks across the network. And this is enabling their customers to come on and be able to basically go through their daily tasks and be able to pay people that they know and trust. So landlords and babysitters, farmers, market vendors, hair stylists, music teachers. But as the dollar amounts grow, so do concerns about mistakes and fraud, says Lisa Gill at Consumer Reports. There's a lot of onus on the individual to sort out a problem.

The quick, irreversible nature of these apps make it easier to send money to the wrong person or fall prey to scammers, says Gill. And there's little federal oversight. They are not a bank. Last year, the Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau extended the agency's oversight to include payment apps. And it sued several large banks for failing to protect Zelle users from fraud. Zelle called the suit meritless, saying they provide multiple backstops to avoid mistakes and scams.

I'm Megan McCarty-Corino for Marketplace. Social media is basically everywhere now, and you can get inspiration from it, you can use it to just kill some time, or you can use it to decide what you want to do with your money. As Wall Street has become more accessible, there's a growing subset of influencers who offer financial advice to their followers. Isabella Kwai wrote about them for the New York Times the other day. Welcome to the program. Thanksella Kwai wrote about them for the New York Times the other day. Welcome to the program.

Thanks for having me, Kai. Just generally speaking, who are these financial influencers out there? So financial influencers can be really anyone who is online and sharing information about investing or personal finance, or it could be something from a celebrity who has a big profile and is partnering or working with financial services or products. And I think that is something that is really interesting about financial influences or finfluences as we- I'm sorry, finfluencers, is that what we're calling them?

Yes. Okay. It. All right. It's very sleek. People have really combined these words, but financial influences or Finfluencers, they really can be anybody, and I think that is part of the concerns around them. Well, yeah, let's talk more about that because we'll get to the possible upsides, but on the internet, they don't know you're a dog, right? Isn't that the famous're a dog, right? Wasn't that the famous far-side cartoon, right?

So it could be anybody is the point. Right, right. And one of the issues that makes this field quite difficult is it's so vast. There are people who are giving you information who may not be qualified, certified financial planners, and there is potential there for misinformation to spread.

In the most serious examples, you have influencers who've been accused of hyping pump and dump schemes or promoting high-risk assets. It can be really hard for your everyday person or your everyday investor to look at all these different influences online and work out what is going to be handy information for them and what is potentially dangerous information. Right. So let's get the caveat in here that if you're going to follow a influencer, I can't believe I just said that, you have to do some due diligence and find out who they are.

But part of the reason they're so popular is because they're accessible, right? They probably cater to underserved groups, people who might have been shut out of the sort of wealth industry as it were, right? I mean, there's lots of things that are appealing. Absolutely. And what some financial influences are good at is putting it in everyday terms that people can understand. And there are influences out there who I spoke to as part of the story who are certified financial planners themselves or certified financial advisors,

and they do share information that helps people become more literate when it comes to their finances. But whether they are qualified to do that, experts have recommended you really should be thinking about this. Yeah, absolutely. Given that social media is, generally speaking, a vast unregulated wasteland, I imagine there aren't too many regulations protecting people from acting on this bad advice, right? If you act on questionable advice from a Finfluencer, you're kind of on your own.

Right, well, not entirely, but one thing... Well, one thing that is interesting to explore is, well, what's the responsibility here? In the US, the SEC, for example, has pursued some high-profile celebrities for not being honest about whether they were paid to promote an asset or not. Ultimately, one big challenge in this is jurisdiction. People can be following advice from someone in the US while they're sitting like myself in London.

The question being, would this fall under UK jurisdiction? And that makes it difficult for regulators to pursue some people who are perhaps spreading misinformation. Right, totally. No matter where you are, caveat emptor on your finances, I'm telling you. Isabella Kwai with the New York Times. Isabella, thanks a lot. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Coming up.

We had to cut our evening short as the band was screaming profanities. Let's have some control here, people. First though, let's do the numbers. Dow industrial is down 225 points today a half percent 44,368. The Nasdaq ticked up six points that's less than a tenth percent 19,649. The S&P 500 slipped 16 points about three tenths percent 6,051. Door door dash posted first quarter results to beat expectations company said it expects demand for food delivery services to increase as it adds more grocery stores to the business shares up four percent today chevron announced it's going to lay

off up to 20 percent of its workforce it's a cost cutting measure the oil company says it needs to reduce between two and three billion dollars in costs by the end of 2026. Chevron, off 1 and 6 tenths percent, you're listening to Marketplace. No jargon, no hype, just economics you can use. Sign up today at marketplace.org slash subscribe. Hi, I'm Kai Rizdal, the host of How We Survive. This season is all about the institution that shaped me, the US military, and how it could shape the future of climate tech. You've probably heard that 2024

was the hottest year on record, that wildfires devastated Los Angeles, and that the U.S. withdrew from the Paris agreement again. And while all that might feel pretty terrible, the climate crisis is not an inevitable reality. From simulated climate emergencies to micro grids and sustainable aviation fuel, we look at how the military is investing part of its $850 billion budget in a greener, more resilient future. Listen to how we survive wherever you get your podcasts. This is Marketplace.

I'm Kai Rizdal. Crude oil droop today, both benchmarks. Brent North Sea and West Texas off about 2.5% low 70s a barrel for each of them, which I mention because one of the stalwarts of big oil is rethinking things. BP, once upon a time, British Petroleum says it's going to start a quote fundamental reset of its business strategy later this month. Profits were off more than a third in 2024.

And while one might think that that reset would involve renewables, not so. And in point of fact, BP has company. Shell and the Norwegian producer Equinor are doing pretty much the same thing. Marketplaces in the field has more. Just five years ago, oil companies were announcing big investments in renewable energy projects and setting climate goals. Oil and gas companies are trying to make money and they have been following the political wins.

Severin Borenstein at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business says a few years ago those political wins were pretty clearly blowing towards having more emphasis on renewables and potentially restrictions on oil drilling. That's changed. In Washington, the Trump administration is now encouraging more oil and gas drilling and rolling back clean energy incentives. Christopher Knittel at MIT says that's changed the calculus.

These companies are publicly traded companies that have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder wealth, and the profitability of oil and natural gas is increasing. And not just because of shifting political wins. Natural gas prices in Europe are still high since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And oil prices have stayed pretty high too, he says. So these companies can make good money doing what they're good at. Getting oil and natural

gas out of the ground. That's what they've done for the last century. Whenever you pivot to an alternative product, there's a learning curve. You may lose some of your comparative advantage that you enjoy with the old product. That's why Hugh Daigle at UT Austin says policy and public investment matter. When you look at the history of any kind of emerging technology that has gotten a lot of initial government support early on, it takes a long time for it eventually to become profitable. And until it does, for-profit companies don't have much incentive to invest on their own.

I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. 2023 was the all-time high for North American concert ticket sales. Beyonce, Taylor, right? All told, better than $6.5 billion for the top 100 grossing tours, should you be curious. 2024 was good too, and that's one reason the concert promoters are looking to grow the market, expanding into parts of the country that are typically underserved by the big tours. Think midsize American cities. There's a company in Colorado trying to meet that rising demand, and their product is the venue.

Colorado Public Radio's Dan Boyce has more. For a long time in Colorado, to see a big, epic concert, you had to go to Denver, maybe to Red Rocks, an outdoor amphitheater surrounded by sandstone cliffs. But last summer, the state's second biggest city, Colorado Springs, got its own venue. A homegrown band called One Republic was the first to play at Ford Amphitheater. The outdoor concert space has room for 8,000, and it's kind of a boutique concept.

People can sit around gas fire pits while big names play the hits as the sun sets behind the Rocky Mountains. The Colorado Springs company behind the amphitheater, called Venue, wants to bring basically this exact high end event space to dozens of mid-sized cities. Since there haven't been new amphitheaters built in quite some time in general let alone in these areas the company is being very very tactical in terms of selecting where to create something new. Dean Budnick writes about the live music industry for magazines like Billboard and Variety.

Venues pitched to cities is that these outdoor amphitheaters can bring millions of dollars in economic activity. The company often gets tax breaks or other incentives. And Budnick says it's a smart model. Venues are expensive to build? Big promoters like Notes Live and AEG Presents are building new concert spaces too, but they can't build everywhere. While it might be optimal to own the venue, if one had the resources, it's, you know, there's a lot

of value in just operating the venues. And that's the case here. AEG Presents brings in the bands that play the Ford Amphitheater. Colorado Springs was venue's first project, but the company has five more under construction in places like Oklahoma, Texas. But plopping a concert venue in a place that's not used to concert sound can cause problems. My family and I were enjoying our last night of summer with the kids outside before they started school on Monday. This is resident Cherie Hutchison speaking to the Colorado Spring City Council. She lives close to the new venue.

We had to cut our evening short as the band was screaming profanities that were blaring at us at over 70 decibels. She's one of hundreds of neighbors who have protested venues amphitheater. Some residents say they can hear song lyrics loud and clear in their living rooms miles away. Budnick, the concert industry writer, says this is pretty common with new event spaces that it can take some time to calibrate the sound levels at an outdoor amphitheater. Budnick says the venue's decibel levels might be legal, But still could be just absolutely striking to the folks who live around the venue and never anticipated that. And that can become a flash point. Venue is trying to be a good neighbor. The company plans to spend $3 million on sound mitigation measures like additional walls

and speaker system changes. The issue makes headlines in Colorado Springs on the regular, but Venue's CEO, J.W. Roth, says lots of other cities are not so concerned about neighborhood noise. They want my business there and they want us there. And so many of them have gone completely out of their way to make it easier for me, not more difficult. He points out two new hotels have sprung up

next to the Ford Amphitheater and five new restaurants. He's hoping residents eventually get used to the sound of the concerts and appreciate the business they bring. In Colorado Springs, I'm Dan Boyce for Marketplace. This final note on the way out today, that sound you hear is the Federal Reserve's next interest rate cut leaving the station. The central bank was already all but saying it is not looking to cut rates real soon. Today's inflation report pretty much sealed that deal. Chair Powell wrapped up his two days on Capitol Hill today. The relevant quote from the morning's hearing goes like this. We want to keep policy restrictive for now, Powell said.

Our media production team includes Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Jesson Doolan, Drew Jostat, Gary O'Keefe, Charlton Thorpe, Juan Carlos Torado, and Becca Weinman. Jeff Peters is the manager of media production, and I'm Kyle Rizdall. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM.