In the loop with Betty Liu

Betty Liu, a TV anchor for Bloomberg spends time at home in Millburn, New Jersey.

By Susan Anderson

Bloomberg Television morning news anchor Betty Liu is sitting at the Millburn Diner, talking about the subprime housing crisis while having a slice of carrot cake and a cola when the topic suddenly turns to playdates and pickup times for her 5-year-old twin boys.

For someone who has the opportunity to reach some 240 million viewers around the world each day, particularly in Asia, the popular financial news journalist is strikingly down-to-earth and actually quite taken with Millburn, where she’s been living since August 2009.

“I love Millburn. We spent 10 months house-searching. It took us forever to find a perfect one. My kids love it. It has great schools,” she says. “And nothing can compare to the air quality. Because when I was living in Hong Kong, the biggest concern was the air quality. It was not that great. In Millburn, the sky is blue. In Hong Kong, it was always hazy and gray.”

“In the Loop With Betty Liu,” which runs from 8 to 10 a.m., counts down business news to the opening bell of the stock market. It makes for an early start to the day for Liu, who begins her daily commute into Manhattan at 4:30 a.m.

“You get used to it,” she says in between talking on her cell phone in Cantonese to her nanny. “Now it’s to the point if I wake up on a Saturday at 6 a.m., I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m sleeping in.’ ”

With husband Bill often traveling to Europe for his job and the twins, Dylan and Zachary, needing attention, Liu appears in perpetual motion. She has been working the morning financial news beat since 2005, when Hong Kong-based CNBC Asia made her a correspondent covering the greater China region for “Squawk Box” and later an anchor on “Capital Connection.”

Since coming to Bloomberg Television three years ago, Liu has proven to be a ratings draw. And she is, without question, extremely smart.

At a time when news organizations have scaled back on business news, Liu has managed to carve out a niche.

“I didn’t break into TV the way one usually does,” she says. “I developed an expertise first, which was business news — in particular, being an expert in all things China.”

She is not the only female business news anchor, but has the distinction of being, at 37, one of the youngest to head her own network financial news show. There are only two other female Asian-American business anchors, both on CNBC: Carmen Wong Ulrich of “On The Money” and Melissa Lee of “Fast Money.” (Christine Tan, who anchors “Worldwide Exchange” for CNBC, is from Singapore.)

“It’s a powerful role in the United States to be a reporter,” Liu says. “It’s not like that in other countries. It’s sort of awe-inspiring.”

She attributes her own popularity to the rise of Bloomberg Television through the years. “People see me and say, ‘Hey, I watch Bloomberg TV. I know you.’ ”

While there are many Asian newscasters, few are in business news. And Liu doesn’t mind wearing the label of role model for young Asian journalists.

“I think I do have a lot to offer. I started in print. I’m a working mom and made the transition into television. I’d like to think that I can help the younger generation with that. A younger journalist might wonder: How did you make that career transition? How do you balance motherhood and a career?”

The daughter of an internist, Liu was born in Hong Kong and came to America at age 3. She grew up in Philadelphia and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English. She has written for the Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Liu co-authored her first book in 2006, a financial lifestyle guide, “Age Smart: Discovering the Fountain of Youth at Midlife and Beyond” (FT Press).

In 2007 she began working at Bloomberg, which provided a platform for her intelligence and knowledge of financial markets.

After landing the job, Liu decided to move to New Jersey, where she had spent summers at her father’s Shore house in Ocean City.

“When I used to go there as a kid growing up in Philadelphia, people used to look at me and say, ‘What the hell is a Shore house?’ ” Liu says. “It’s only in Jersey people know what a Shore house is.”

There were other reasons Liu decided on the Garden State, she says. Her sister lives in Edison. And she wanted to raise her two boys in a town with a good school system.

But what really got the business brain going in putting down roots in Jersey was the real-estate market. Liu bought her house in 2009, during the housing market downturn.

“We got a really good deal.”

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