BlackRock CEO Larry Fink: We're at the beginning of growing capital markets

BlackRock shares are rallying after crushing earnings forecasts, seeing a surge into exchange traded funds. And I've got to tell you, David, this is one of those companies that is a juggernaut. It's just a juggernaut in fees. I'm really thrilled that we have Larry Fink to break down the numbers, the chairman of the CEO. Larry, look, it's just congratulations. It is just a machine. And I want to know how, when a lot of other companies are faltering or making mistakes in private credit or other companies are guiding down in your area, how you just keep putting up unbelievable numbers? That's a tough question to answer, isn't it? Wow. He deserves it. Do you know how many people I... Man. How are you going to handle that hardball? I know. It's a good law. That's a good law, isn't it? When you miss the numbers, it's a different equation. Okay. All right. If you miss the numbers, it would be, hey, hey, chief, how are you doing? Hey, let me answer that question. Over the last 30 plus years, we have been just meticulously building a platform, trying to stay in front of our clients. But if you just break it down in the last quarter, in the last 12 months, we raised $744 billion over the last 12 months. And much of it has to do with the global position we have, the role we have in global retirement, our role we have in investment technology across the spectrum of passive and active, and now across the spectrum of exchange-traded products to private markets. And so no other organization has our platform, and it's resonating. It's resonating with wealth with over a trillion dollars. It's resonating across countries, as more and more countries are recognizing the U.S. juggernaut. Right. The U.S. juggernaut, a main part of the U.S. juggernaut is our role in the capital markets. Every political leader I talk to, how can we build our own domestic capital markets? Europe is finally waking up to the need of having a capital markets union. So we're winning because we're having these conversations and our role in almost every country is one of the leading retirement managers. And on top of that, I believe we are just the beginning of growing the global capital markets. And I do believe you're going to see the breadth and depth of the global capital markets growing. And BlackRock will be a part of that. And so we're winning share. And I do believe the share that we're winning is not a one-quarter phenomenon, but it's this years and years of building up this platform. I will listen to every bank CEO over the course of today and tomorrow. And the one thing that you never hear because somehow it's considered to be, I think, dangerous is long-term optimism. It's dangerous because if something bad happens, we'll be playing that clip with, no, who cares? You are a long-term optimist and it shines through in everything you do. I think the American public is optimistic, but they somehow have been jaded by everybody. And when I read you, when I read this unbelievable note, it's like, yes, it can happen. People can be wealthier than their parents. They should stop being so pessimistic. Well, the whole concept of that letter was to grow with your country. And I do believe that is if you look at the economic array of results, countries that have more breadth in the retirement system and having more of their citizens grow with their country, these are the bigger winners. If you even look at the United States, 40 percent of Americans do not invest in the financial markets. But the 60 percent have grown dramatically. And the only way this can make sense is a long-term optimistic view. And in almost every period of time in our lifetime, if you bought the dips every time you would have benefited. I mean, think about it. My letter talks about if you invested on January 1st, 2000 and a year later, we had a 40 percent drawdown. We had the dotcom boom. We had the great financial crisis. We had COVID. We had many other things. But you made over eight times your money. OK, you did so much better than a wage earner. And that has to be addressed. And this is why I believe we need to be much more forceful in thinking about retirement and retirement systems. And BlackRock's at the forefront.