Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
David Bailin said family offices and ultra-high-net-worth investors have seen cash yields drop from 2.3% to 2.1% despite recent short-term rate increases, and that 9% to 11% of family office wealth sits in cash, which is not treated as an asset class. He argued investors should build portfolios of short-duration securities and ETFs yielding mid-fours, citing a New York City general obligation bond with a 10.1% taxable equivalent yield for city residents. On the Iran war and tariffs, he estimated a $170 billion negative impact on US GDP this year (0.75% of GDP) and said portfolios should stay fully invested, leaning into AI beneficiaries like cybersecurity. He recommended staying growth-oriented in US tech, re-entering international stocks and shorting the dollar, which he said is within 12% of its 20-year high. He favored Asia, including Chinese internet stocks, and retained gold as a diversifier despite recent selling by national treasuries.
Key takeaways
Cash yields for family offices dropped from 2.3% to 2.1% despite short-term rate increases, and 9-11% of family office wealth is held in cash.
The Iran war and tariffs create a $170 billion negative impact on US GDP this year, equal to 0.75% of GDP, and that is the best-case scenario.
Bailin recommends staying fully invested, leaning into AI beneficiaries like cybersecurity, and going growthy in US tech.
The dollar is within 12% of its 20-year high, making it a good time to enter international stocks and short the dollar.
Asia, including Chinese internet stocks, is the best comeback trade once the Iran war ends, and gold remains a solid diversifier.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
2.3% to 2.1%
Average cash yield for family offices and ultra-high-net-worth investors
4:15This is a great moment to re-enter international stocks and to actually go short the dollar, right?
5:40Does that suggest that when you think about non-US equities, about emerging markets, because that had a nice run in 2025 and I'm not sure how much of that was the dollar weakness and how much was that?
6:33I'm going to throw a curveball out there. How about gold here?
See that right? We say good morning folks and Brent crude 102 down from the 118 stress on generic crude yesterday futures up 52 nice lift to the market and exceptionally busy day here culminating in the president's schedule to speak tonight at 9:00 p.m. Bloomberg will give you full coverage. This is an app time. David Bailin does many tasks including calming people trying to invest for a 3-year, 10-year, 20-year perspective. He is a CIO group and course with decades iconically at City at Citibank Citigroup is well. David, you've made a study of cash. Do we just presume a lower yield on cash out there?
Well, that's been the case most of the families and ultra-high-net-worth investors have actually seen their cash yields drop from 2.3% on average to now 2.1%, which is remarkable since we've just seen rates go up in the short term over the last three weeks. And what's really amazing to me is the fact that they're just simply not watching. Between 9% and 11% of family office wealth is held in cash and it is simply not viewed as an asset class.
Wow. Sweeney's all fired up here. Let me steal a question from Paul. Is it efficacious to migrate out to the Sweeney 2-year yield? The Sweeney 2-year yield because there were even things better than that and I don't say that I say that politely but I think the larger point is there are many different ETFs from triple AC low rates to certain mortgage related securities where you can get yields now in the mid-fours and building a portfolio of those which is really not risky is a smart thing to do and it's simply not done by most advisers to these families. Some of it's because they have multiple advisers and some of it's because they simply are not watching. And Tom, the city of New York did a municipal bond, a general obligation bond last week, 1.9 billion dollars. If you were a New York City resident, your taxable equivalent yield was 10.1%. How about that? Right. Pays your parking tickets and 10%.
David, the market seems to be pricing in here looking towards the other side of this war in Iran. To the extent that's a fair outlook, how are you positioning yourself for getting back to normal as normal as you can?
I like to think about this. Let's ask this question fundamentally. Where would we be without tariffs and without the war? Yeah. And we would be in a very, very different position in terms of consumer confidence, investment by corporations, and the like. And that's what's on the other side of these things. That's what would have been had we been there. The difference between the Iran situation and tariffs though is that it's sort of a one-sided trade, which is we've calculated that it's about a $170 billion impact, 3/4 of 1% of GDP negative for the US this year and slightly less next year. And the problem with that is that that's the best-case scenario. Okay. Right. Anything else that happens is not good. And so, when we think about portfolios, we want them to stay fully invested, but we're now leaning back into the AI beneficiaries. Those stocks that really will in our minds get powered by the AI boom, and there's plenty of them. And cybersecurity is a great example of that.
And now, folks, we got an incredible show today. Alan Zentner coming up and all of this is President of the Supreme Court at 10:00 a.m. Here's the most important question of the day. Define David Bailin's value trap. Everybody now is saying, slide back into the market. Look at a value trade of that. I think I just heard you say go growthy.
Oh, I think we still have to go growthy. The best parts of the US market are still going to be in technology, even in software and certain things. And we had a baby out with the bathwater trade that took place, just like the tariff trade of April of 2025, and we have to look through that. You think about where Amazon or Google will be or even Microsoft when they finally put their package of AI together. These are companies investing trillions of dollars in the aggregate and they're doing it for a reason, Tom, which is to make money, right? And I mean, I actually am the second largest user of AI in my company. I found out that I exceeded my quota of tokens the other day.
Bailin, D. (2026, July 20). David Bailin - Bloomberg Radio - Apr 1 2026 [Interview transcript]. The CIO Group. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1103383/
MLA
David Bailin. "David Bailin - Bloomberg Radio - Apr 1 2026." The CIO Group, 20 Jul. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1103383/.
BibTeX
@misc{bailin2026_1103383,
author = {David Bailin},
title = {David Bailin - Bloomberg Radio - Apr 1 2026},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, The CIO Group. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jul},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1103383/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
