GLITCH IN THE MATRIX (Guests: Paulo Macro & Le Shrub)

Summary

• Market Environment: The discussion highlights the current market resembling the pre-2008 period, termed as the "golden age of grift," where speculative trading and currency debasement are prevalent.
• Investment Strategy: Emphasis on trading opportunities in sectors like critical metals, drones, and AI, driven by government policies and fiscal stimulus, while maintaining a cautious approach due to potential market corrections.
• Market Risks: Concerns about the sustainability of the current market rally, with potential risks from deteriorating market breadth, overextended valuations, and the possibility of a significant correction.
• Currency and Economic Outlook: Discussion on the US dollar's sideways trend and potential for a short-term rally, impacting emerging markets and commodities, with a broader bearish outlook on fiat currencies.
• Commodities Insight: Bullish sentiment on commodities like gold, copper, and agricultural stocks, with a focus on the potential for continued gains driven by underinvestment and fiscal policies.
• Private Credit Concerns: Highlighting the risks in the private credit market, particularly in AI-backed securities and consumer lending, drawing parallels to the 2008 financial crisis.
• Global Market Perspectives: Positive outlook on international markets, particularly China and Japan, due to favorable policy shifts and economic conditions, while European markets show signs of a breakout.
• Investment Caution: The importance of maintaining sensible risk management and being prepared for potential market volatility, especially in overbought sectors.

Transcript

Hit it. It's Friday, October 3rd, 2025, episode 275. I'm Patrick Sesna. And I'm Kevin Mure. This week, we have the great pleasure to welcome back to the show Paulo Macro and Lush Shrub. We have a fantastic discussion about the golden age of grift, how to navigate the current environment, and whether this is starting to resemble 2007. Then Patrick takes the crayons out of his mouth and applies them to his charts to tell us what's happening in talking charts. And uh folks, we might even drink some beers along the way. Like we got ourselves back on track. We all have the same beers. So Danny, what what beer are we drinking this week? So this one is called uh Burst from the Great Lakes Brewery. New England sty New England style pale ale. Now this is one of Kevin's favorites. So maybe I'll let him Well, I'll rate it at the end. Yeah, it's it's rate it. You like pale bottom line. So, we're gonna say, you know, that's where you're going to be the pickiest though because you're because you like them. You're going to be able to rate this one more. But listen guys, I'm uh for for our listeners that don't know, I'm actually broadcasting from uh Cape Town, South Africa. I'm in the beautiful Sepoint overlooking the DHL stadium right out here. And here we're featuring a Canadian beer. And I just said like I can't be out here in South. It's not often that we're going to get a chance to broadcast from down here. So I had to feature a couple of the local things. So in addition to that beer, I'm going to be drinking the Carling Black Label Champions beer. Like this is the this is their kind of key beer. So I'm going to down two beers in the session. But I went to the grocery store and I grabbed a couple of the local things. Now I look you can get jerky everywhere but here in South Africa they have these massive jerky counters like you have like cheese and meat like they have a jerky counter. I want got myself like the ostrich jerky uh out here. So I'm going to be gnawing on a piece of ostrich jerky. But also what I found I've never seen it anywhere. Maybe our listeners can inform me if I'm wrong. But I've never seen it before. I got KFC flavored chips. Chicken flavored chips. and uh and so this this huddle session I'm going full the full South Africa experience out here. So uh so let's go with it. Anyway, uh Kev, why don't you give us a little bit of a disclaimer? Oh, Patrick, that's awesome stuff, buddy. Nothing in this podcast should be viewed as investment advice. Listeners should consult an investment professional before making any decisions regarding topics mentioned in this show. Side effects of too much hidle may include the data delay disorder, the fiscal cliff phobia, and the payroll postponement panic. Yeah. And like very very appropriate for what's going on. All right, let's uh let's get our guests on the show. It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show another double bill. We got Paulo Macro uh the author of the great Substack. Paulo Macro Substack. And then uh we have a Frenchman or not quite a Frenchman but he's got a Frenchman in his name. It is L shrub who writes the shrub stack. Hey guys, welcome to the show. Thanks for being on. Thanks for having us Kev. It's so good to be here. Yeah, this is awesome. Yeah, you guys um for those who don't know, they both uh have a what how often do you guys do your dual kind of crossover uh podcast in on your on your Substacks? It's whenever we need a therapy session, we call each other and we record it. So, we have like daily calls, but whenever we need like a, you know, to open up our therapy session to the other to the outside world, we just do it. Exactly. It's great stuff and uh it's terrific. So, listen, before we start, um we both had you on uh separately and for anybody that wants to learn more about you guys, they I suggest you go both listen to both of their interviews. And Paulo, this might be your third time, right? I think so. I I I remember you were my first. Uh you for years you you were you were on me and I uh I got other offers, but I was like, "No, like the market huddle is going to be my first if I ever do one." Isn't that always the way? You remember your first, but you're the person on the other side doesn't remember that you were there first. Um I thought I was your first. Okay, so let's talk about this market because there's a lot going on. Um why don't we start with um the golden age of grift. This is something that Lrub has nailed. He's been talking about this for a while. Just set the stage. Explain to people that uh you know haven't heard this before what it is and why you think we're in this environment. Yeah. So, um, you know, I I framed that 2024 was going to be the year of Yellen, which I affectionately called Tamakoi Yellen because she pretty much manipulated the market all the way to election. And we gave her thanks because it was a really nice and easy ride thanks to her. And, you know, after the election, I said that 2025 would be the golden age of grift, which we call it affectionately uh an abbreviation gag. So why did we call it that? So it's not like we didn't have grift before. You know, the grift was there before. It's just that now it's okay to talk about grift. So So we're embracing it. And um you know, when I coined the phrase, uh you know, months later, I had friends that told me, "I thought you were exaggerating when you said that, and now I think we were all underestimating it." So, so you know, I I don't even know where to start, you know, like the the Trump coins, the uh all the, you know, tra crypto treasury vehicles, the return of the spaxs, Chamat doing a new spa, um all the US government deals with the with the companies. Um I I mean we have such a long list of from the golden age of Grift. I mean even today we have uh uh PD is trying to launch an AI platform. So it's re so we're really just we're really just going into this max stupid thing which you know I think the difference with the the reason why it's important though to appreciate the golden age of grift and that's why I always bring it up when we talk about market top um and how how this ends I always say you have to be very careful about being bearish everything during the golden age of grift. So we can joke all we want like you know I I make a live I make a living trading off my memes right so if I have a good meme I have a good trade on so the golden age of grift it's a great meme and it's a great trade why because it keeps me invested in a in something so in the golden age of grift there's one key feature out of it and the key feature is currency debasement so once there's currency debasement it means there's something to be long unlike in 2008 for example you know which was very difficult to find things to belong except government bonds. You know, in this case, in the golden age of grift, you don't really want to belong bonds. You want to belong stage one, you want to belong the grift. So, you want to belong uh whatever it is, they are long they in quotation marks. And then in stage two, you actually want to benefit from the debasement trade, which is what precious metals have been doing and commodoris have been doing. sorry, precious metals have been doing so far and commodities might do or keep doing in the future. But because of this setup, it's actually very very difficult to be calling uh market tops during gag aka the golden age of grift. And that's that's how I frame it. Got it. And so Paulo, couple questions for you. First of all, do you feel the same that we can't have a market top during this gag era? And then second of all, what do you think the the kind of consequences of the golden age of Rift is? Like we all laugh about it and joke about it, but to me like I'm seeing uh deterioration of like SEC enforcement and the markets are becoming more and more a joke. And yes, it is funny. It is like light-heartedly when we we laugh about these things. But ultimately, doesn't this have kind of consequence for the long-term health of our markets? For sure. Um, for I I can't disagree with anything uh Shrub says in this and uh, you know, we see eye to eye, but we kind of I I come at this in sort of a more, you know, not ivory tower, but more kind of uh, less meimi. Um, I'm not as successful in in in seeing the humor in all this as uh you know because with Shrub uh it's always um you know once you realize it's all nonsense it starts to make sense. Um but but there are real world consequences to this. I kind of back into his gag with the view that we've seen what's happening uh in history before um not necessarily in the US in a very long time but in other economies and markets around the world we have had these periods where debasement is the foundation of what's happening and in that world you want to be as close to the money as possible the you know in Insidious nature of inflation is that it transfers wealth from savers and the middle class to the politically well-connected. And if you start with that, then it becomes very clear that if we're living in this debasement world, you want to be you certainly don't want to fight. To shrub's point um in avoiding calling market tops, imagine for a moment that the administration holds one of those crowd control fire hoses that knocks people off their feet in a riot. You certainly don't want to stand there with your chest out and say, "I'm going to, you know, stand up to this because, you know, you'll get knocked right over." But you want to be as close to that fire hose as possible if you're thirsty. And uh without getting without getting blown off your feet. So for me, I I talk a lot about how I got the message from David Ter in 2010 wrong, where he said, "It's win-win. The Fed will print money if things get worse or the economy gets better. Either way, stocks go up. And a lot of people had trouble hearing that message, myself included, because many of us coming out of the GFC were looking for Great Depression 2.0, uh, classic wall of worry. And, you know, it took many, many years for people to get the joke that we weren't going to get, uh, plebeflation, as uh, Shrub and I like to say, we were going to get asset inflation. And that was going to benefit the politically well-connected who own assets, whether it's, you know, those bankers on Wall Street and their associated big asset managers or more to the point, you know, upper middle class savers who own a lot of stock, you know, the boomers, the the people who, you know, lucked out in the 70s and 80s buying housing and equities on the cheap. Um, that's where the money is. And fast forward to today, the the game here uh with GAG is they're telling you sort of like what David Ter said in 2010 after Bernanki's Jackson Hole Q2 like they're telling you what they're going to do and like you just need to make peace with the view that like if Trump wants to do something he's at least going to try and he's going to try really hard. So just believe them and if they give you a list of things that they're going to go after, you know, they're telling you what they what they want to do. So you just have to get there first. And for smaller players like ourselves versus big money and I remember you once talked about this uh Kevin on an interview with someone else, I forget who that if if someone maybe it was Chase actually from Pine Cone who said if years ago if you just take a little bit of money out of Mag 7 and try to squeeze it into resources for instance like you can fit the whole oil space uh in the west into one of these names today right and it just it it's the visualization of the elephants through the keyhole phenomenon where smaller faster money can get to a place like mining stocks on the critical minerals list for example faster than big money will even wake up to what's happening as they sit in their 6040 which will progressively become more and more challenged particularly with what Trump talked about in terms of the bond market over time devaluing in real terms. So we end up in the same place. I just kind of back into it um through the fire hose analogy of do what they're saying and doing and just stay as close to the money spigot as possible. I call it the upside down. We live in this world like in Stranger Things that looks normal, but then when you cross into the like scary gray like matter floating in the air upside down, it's like it's all vaguely familiar and it's the world we know, but it's like filled with monsters and and insanity um and dangerous to be avoided. Um, I'm less convinced than Shrub is though about the tops because, you know, when you look at debasement economies over time, you do get corrections at the point though is those corrections only happen when a player either the fiscal or the Fed is offside in the debate the debasement trade. And that's where the real danger lies because uh if you get a moment where risk is really really full and everybody agrees on gag and gets the joke and is speculating like crazy, it doesn't take much uh in the way of like a liquidity restraint that usually actually comes societally to your point where things start to fray around the edges. of we tire of hearing this K-shaped recession for the last few years where the top 10% of Americans are 50% of consumption and are doing fine because they own stocks and they earn interest income on 4% cash. Meanwhile, half the population is in bad shape and we're seeing it in the subprime credit data and upstart and you know buy now pay later loans blowing up and you know you know repossessing you know suddenly filing for bankruptcy and there's fraud everywhere and um this K-shaped is real but isn't that a perfect demonstration of how inflation transfers wealth from the working class to the politically well-connected at the top? Right. Um this creates social stress to a point where at some point there's a reaction uh in either the fiscal, the executive, Congress or the Fed where inflation becomes a political concern again. And once that happens, you need to be really careful. The Fed sleepwalked into 9% CPI in 2021 and nothing happened. But the moment we got towards the end of the year and Powell started to do the pivot of raising rates in early 22, that happened because inflation had become a political concern and top of mind for everyone. So you got to keep your finger on the pulse of society like what people are really complaining about. Inflation still seems top of mind, but it's not acutely so. And Trump is able to ignore it for now. The moment he can't anymore, watch out because bare markets will come. And those bare markets, considering the volatility that we've seen in the past around these markets in the last few years, could be very steep. Um, okay, I'm going to jump in here. Um, shrub, isn't a little bit of the difference between what Paulo is saying and what you're saying a function of your time horizon and the fact that you just trade a little more. I I'm a trader 100%. Right. So, I just put everything outside. I put my biases outside. I'm long. I'm basically my when I come in and I just trade, I want to find trades that are asymmetric, something that has low downside and as much upside, gag upside, like grift upside, I don't care. Like I just want something that doesn't lose me money. So, so when I look at the golden age of grift, do I really care about buying, you know, a quantum stock if I'm not going to lose much money if it goes wrong? I don't really care. So I I think the difference between how I view things versus let's put this way if okay just to step back on the quantum thing. So, you know, if I expected Trump to do an executive order on quantum, I'm going to buy calls on quantum. Like, I expected Trump to do an executive order on drones, I bought calls on drones, right? So, I don't really care beyond that three-month horizon how it plays out now. If I look So, that's my time horizon to be clear. I'm like one Come on, Trev. Don't lie. Three months. Sometimes it's three hours on your trading. Yeah. I just wanted to say like one month to to one year, but to be honest, I'm like if I make the money in day one, I'm going to take the money day one, so I don't really care. But but you know, like if you look beyond gag, so how does uh you know, like if you actually see the top, it's going to be very depressing. So that's why I don't like when I say like the golden age of grift doesn't have a top because once the grift ends it's going to be really depressing. Like I'm way more bearish than you guys if when the when that top comes. I'm actually way more bearish because you know I grew up in you know I've seen socialist countries. I grew up in Cyprus, Greece where you know socialism takes over and these things just I'm going to say like uh as it is they turn to [ __ ] So imagine if like the grift dance that people come out with pitchforks because now you have an unemployment of 4% and 3% inflation supposedly. Imagine like if you get unemployment of not not 15 like we used to have like imagine you get like 6% unemployment plus inflation of like six uh and S&P is not going to be at 6,666 which I coined the number of the shrub. So, so, so that's when the, you know, that's when the grift ends or when the plebs come out with pitchforks. Yeah, dude. That's a that's when things turn bad. So, I don't really care about like a 10% correction. Like, you know, I went through like too many 10% corrections and I can live through them and and make money out of them. I don't really care. But when the gag ends, like everything we're talking about, the bear thing, most people listening to this, they don't understand how bad it could be. But I'm a trader. I try to just trade it as it comes right now. And to be honest, and just going to step back one second, Kev, because this is an important point. I think the important point about surviving as a boomer, which I am in the golden age of grift, is to just realize that you can belong something that works without it being a Ponzi or a nonsense trade. So, for example, you know, the NASDAQ is up 20% this year. Well, Brazil is up 40%. You could have been long Brazil, which we were with Paulo for the last year. That's been a great trade. Or instead of Bitcoin, which is up 20%, you could have been long platinum, which is up 60%. So you would have made more money this year, actually three times, two times more money by just doing simple boomer trades by understanding that there is a debasement trade going on or that there's like or or just just by worrying about your money because once you see recklessness around you, you have to do something about it. And you know in 2008 people were crowding into bonds, government bonds as a safety trade. And we know that now that's not a safe trade. So you have to hide somewhere else. So my point is there's a lot of ways to skin the cat during the golden age of grift. And those ways can be low downside sensible ways instead of going like up the risk spectrum and embracing like every nonsense cryptocoin or Ponzi company that has no earnings uh or trades at like 100 times sales. So, and that's the thing I've learned about your watching you and talking to you about your style. I realize that you say there's no top, but I but I I fully know that you're only kind of saying that, you know, with with a little bit of a smirk and you're saying that right now we're in an environment where there's no top. We're headed this way. The way, you know, to position is this way, but eventually it will turn and at that point you have to change your your attitude. What I worry about though when people are listening to that is they're going to continue to buy every dip and we're going to see like I have a you know we actually all know this fellow. He has this great line. He says I watched a lot of guys go broke in the dot bubble in you know shorting it and then I watched a lot of more guys go broke in the dot bust buying it. And that is the the thing that I worry about the most is that folks are getting so excited about this golden age of grift and then they hear all this talk about how it's going to go on forever and ever and ever and ever and they're not going to get off the the train when it stops. Oh, I agree. So that's why I want to just I tell myself and I write this thing, you know, I write in a funny way as a therapy session as well just to keep myself sane. That's how I started writing. But I also tell myself, look, I'm a trader. So, I'm going to write things as they're working, but when they stop working, you got to be out of things, right? Because the important thing is you cannot have a bias in the golden age of grift. You cannot tell me about valuation. You cannot tell me about politics and uh you cannot tell me about anything else except like just having some sensible risk man risk management as a trader like just have some sensible risk management tools. So for example, you know, if things go up a lot, I trim some. If things are too stretched, I buy some puts. I mean, I just have to make a survival plan. But you also cannot believe anything about your investments. That's a key feature because once you start believing some of your investments, like you believe their quantum stock that you bought or the drone stock that you bought at 100 times sales, that's when you actually get screwed. I'm I'm not kidding. Like that's really when you get screwed because I had so many friends that you know end up with like sizable amounts in a stock that went up 10 times that you know ends up being a fraud and they just write it all the way back down. I mean how many of those do we know from 2021 right? Right. But let me let me tell you like a war story on that part which is very important. So you know that I worked with one of the guys from the big short was actually like I consider him to be a genius uh and a great person. So we we knew people doing this short subprime trade from 2004 and those people were bust by 2006. So they didn't even make it. And you know shorting subprime was actually a lowrisk way because you're shorting credit so you can't really just blow up, right? But they were doing it from 2004 to 2006 and they blew up uh without actually experienc without actually having the gains. And then this is the funniest one. Uh so Michael Bry, which people, you know, they worship him. He actually got lucky, right? Because Michael Bry would have blown up before the subprime thing blew. Like he just got lucky on the timing just holding up. Um my ex boss was smart enough to actually generate yield in other ways that kept him in the trade. Right? That's the key part. I keep saying this thing, but people still don't get it. Like, you need to generate income elsewhere to keep you in your hedge or you're short. Otherwise, you're screwed. So, then the other part, this is this is the funniest one for me. So, the funniest part was when in 2008, one of the guys who were short subprime with us made a fortune and then he went long subprime and then Leman happened and he blew up. Like, he literally had I'm sorry. I can sympathize. I mean, you should laugh because, you know, the guy had like the best trade in the world, made a fortune, and then just pissed it all away being long in like the space of six months. Yeah. So, okay. I didn't realize that that that trade was known in the community for that long ahead of time. Oh, yeah. The smart guys, the smart money started doing quote unquote. You got to put you got to do the quotes while you do the smart money. Smart money like Yeah. Because the smart money started doing in 2004. So, fast forward to today, you know, I wrote this piece said called R&BS 2008 was R&BS 2025 is AIBS artificial intelligencebacked securities right or AI is BS you know so okay we're going to get to we're we're going to get to private credits so do just I'm going to wait but before we do I'm going to go back to Paulo just quickly here because one of the things that I think that is so interesting about this current environment is how different it is in that we saw a situation in liberation day where we had not only stocks selling off but we also had bonds selling off and the US dollar selling off and this is something that hasn't happened in decades. Um it is a very strange relationship. Usually you get bonds going up or the US dollar going up. We had all three going you know down at the same time. And one of the things that I consider myself very fortunate is to be in this group with Paulo and there's some other Brazilians in there or or maybe not Brazilians but Latin American specialists. And I consider myself fortunate because I get to hear all the stories of things that they've experienced throughout the years. And and and by the way, I just actually love the Brazilians because if you look at from a macro perspective, they were the ones who completely got the inflation trade of the, you know, 2002 and because they'd all seen it before. And so bringing this back, Paulo, I I'd love for you to just talk about how your experience in Latin America and uh has helped you navigate the environment that we are currently in and continue to be in. Sure. There's uh you know this meme of Biff Tannon in Back to the Future 2 where he's like the old man in the future and he's sees the same scene playing out in front of him and he goes like there's something oddly familiar about all this and uh every Brazilian or South African or Turk uh right now knows this feeling because we've lived in sort of the bond market is the one that takes the keys away. The currency is usually the release valve for uh fiscal irresponsibility and the uh political economies of a country like Brazil are set up to fail because the government cannot uh continue with a professional political class uh that needs to be reelected on a short-term cycle. You have to promise people goodies uh but uh you have to find a way to pay for it and you can't. So you live outside of your means and because these countries have a long history of defaulting on their obligations whether it's their bonds or their you know doing it gradually through the currency uh especially if they're funded by foreigners uh if that sounds familiar uh which Brazil was intensely so uh until the last 1015 years uh you you see this debasement phenomenon up close and you you you see the pattern and when we went whole ho whole hog in the less on the fiscal in 202122. Um that was the moment for me where I realized there is no going back to precoid there is no normalization here and that co actually triggered uh a narrative shift for what's going to feel like forever uh in the political economy of the US um less so Europe but particularly here in the US to abuse the you know the good graces of foreign funders of our living outside of our means which we've been doing very very gradually uh on the margin for several decades uh and hiding that with our reserve currency status. But now that we've like spinal tap are taking it 211 uh it's it's a very familiar feeling for Brazilians. Um and I spent part of my career I'm Brazilian by background so I I've been there a lot. I have family there, but I've also spent part of my career working in those markets where when you get risk off in a reserve currency or a developed market like the US, you know, you have the Bridgewater all-weather stocks up, bonds down, and vice versa. 6040 works in a straight line for 30 or 40 years flip to risk on risk off where all asset classes go up and down together. and April I think you know we saw some of this in 22 although the dollar was strengthening during the course of that year uh particularly against the yen and some offenders who were um you know keep who were way behind on responding to inflation. So the Fed's rate hike cycle in early 22 when they started doing 75s uh helped restrain the dollar and drive it higher. But we we had that first kind of taste in the first half of 22 of equities and bonds going down together and the bond market having its worst year in decades, blah blah blah. Um, but April really got people to sit up. Um, but since then it's it's if you know it was only six months ago, but it happened so quickly over the course of two or three weeks that it's almost like COVID for people. Like it was a bad dream. Like there was a there was a glitch in the Matrix. You saw the cat go by twice, but was it even really there? you know, and and uh we laugh, but that, you know, the agents are are out there, right, to to drive the point home of the glitch in the matrix. Like the fact that that happened and that you got dollar off, you know, like the three-way dollar off, equity off, you know, treasury off, uh, together shows you a taste of what's to come in the future when we're on the back side of of a cyclical mountain. Um, and it'll be driven by the good graces of foreigners who've been funding this whole thing and the recycling of the net investment position that people have talked to death by now. Um, taking their ball and going home, right? And this is something that Brazilians know very well. Uh in fact, you know, Lula, the president of Brazil, he's uh intellect zero when it comes to economic matters. But there is one point that he understands very well and that's the real the currency. If the currency is detonating, you know, it's like no atheists in foxholes. He gets religion on big government spending real fast and uh I think that everything else sprouts from there. So yeah, it's a familiar feeling. Um but because it happened so quickly, people are viewing it as sort of a a tariff related adjustment and like co we were only in the hole for a few weeks. It was severe. Uh in fact the the the scale of the losses in April rival the subprime crisis on paper in terms of uh notional in fact bigger if you tally up the amount of equity that vanished in a few weeks. But we came out of it so fast on the taco that uh you know for people it feels like uh a glitch in the matrix that uh that now goes away and can we go back to sleep and you know continue to harvest v and you know deploy for carry and what have you. It's people are not paying attention. And this actually, if I can take two more minutes, ties back to what Shrub was saying about guys pulling their hair out in '05 and 06 and07 and uh losing their position or even blowing up while having the right view. Uh I can give you a clear example of having experienced this just in the last month uh with a past focus of mine having been in the commodity world with this news that Freeport's Grassburg mine in Indonesia uh had an accident. Um we knew about this weeks ago. We've been waiting for news. They dropped a presser last week uh where they said, you know, 70%ish of this mine is basically offline this year and next. But we are potentially, and they use the word potentially, looking to have it back at capacity in 27. And having been at, you know, one or two of these giant underground operations, uh, I took one look at that presser and then I saw the sellside reaction immediately just taking management's, you know, version at face value and dropping their balances into minor deficits for, you know, next year, but we'll be back and it's okay. And I'm sitting there thinking, these guys haven't even found the bodies yet and and are unable to get down there. Here's what may have happened. And this thing is such a disaster in terms of scale. Like we saw that and you know bringing this home to Brazil, we saw this twice happen in the 2010s with Valet at iron or operations not underground block caving but where the mountain literally gave way and the big one with Bumachinu about 10 years ago, eight years ago was so stark that they actually had it on Twitter, you know, videos of the whole mountain literally going towards the ocean. And uh Valle, you know, they're lucky that that stuff wasn't nationalized because they are buried under so many fines and will be working out of that problem for so long. But it was a rounding error in the global iron or scheme. Grassburg is over 3% of global copper production on one site. And they just told you that twothirds of it is gone for the next two years, but potentially coming back. And I'm sitting there saying, "So 2% is gone, right? and we have no visibility, but everybody just expects that it's transitory. There's that word. And I'm looking at the screen and Copper's up 1%. And I even call Shrub and I'm like, Shrub, like, did did everybody just lose their brains or or is it because nothing ever happens? You know, fade geopolitical risk, fade event risk at every turn because of the wall of money that gets shoved at risk that nobody wants to step out and actually do the math and believe the math and realize this is a massive stress on the copper market. And this is precisely the sort of thing after the last few years where copper has been kind of coiling around, you know, $10,000 a ton, a little under that we'll send it to redeck the pri, you know, re reack the price deck. Yeah. The way miners have been calling for for the last few years because of the underinvestment that's been chronic and we require the higher price deck to go and find other things. But now the forcing function is, oh my god, we're we're going to be in shortage and it might not come back. And it gets crazier from there because this is Indonesia. They've gone after Freeport in the past there, you know, keep the concentrate and refine it here. Export only matter metal uh refined metal. Like there's so many ways that this will get worse between fines up to and potentially including nationalization because they're having political strife there now as well. Like the they several people were killed in the streets uh on protest in August and September. You know, all is not well in Indonesia. And you you had Nepal where like they lit the palace on fire and the finance minister's wife was burned alive. That neighborhood right now is under stress. And wait a second. I didn't they they lit the the finance. This is in Nepal. It's Yeah. Nepal is had mass protests. Um the palace was set on fire. Um and you know, you're in Indonesia and you see this happening around the region and the social strife. And so the president cracked down in in Indonesia very hard on protesters in the last two months. But now this happens in their backyard. The environmental damage is untold yet. Uh people died. You know, this is emerging markets, man. Like I I've seen this before where the best case for Freeport is they just pay fines up the wazoo and this thing takes years to come back on. The worst case is they lose the asset. Either way, no one is paying attention. Copper's up 1%. Like, so of course we go out and buy, but it's it's it's that hair pulling like do do people not even do math anymore? like, you know, and so I'm sympathetic to what Trump was talking about in the crisis. Imagine going through that for years. Sorry. Yeah. They're too busy doing AI stuff. They don't care. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Let's um let's bring him back to the shrub. Uh he mentioned private credit and how, you know, there's similarities in terms of what he's seen in the AI square funding with 20067. Could you expand? tell us what you're thinking there. Yeah, sure. So, um, so it all started, you know, I coined this, uh, phrase like I was thinking about the R&Bs crisis, the subprime crisis, and then I was like, well, we're going to have artificial intelligence backed securities soon. So, AIBS and it came out of um uh you know the Oracle OpenAI deals, XAI deals or you know these hundreds of billions that are adding up because you know the key thing that got introduced lately in the AI space is the they introduced debt. So, so far we've been having equity funded uh deals and now we're seeing debt being introduced and that's why I introduced this AIBS uh as a as a future instrument that will come out and you know so so because in reality for for this thing to end you want to see a lot of debt being piled in. Yes. So, you know, I'm just thinking always the debt that gets you right. It's the debt that gets you. So I I created this meme that basically says like, okay, so far we had Ponzi plus debasement equals moon. Ponzi plus debasement means we go to the moon. But if you have Ponzi plus debt, well, you're going to have bankruptcy soon, which sounds like a haiku. I mean, it's pretty cool. So it's uh, you know, Ponzi plus debasement, you go to the moon. Pon Ponzi plus debt, you go to you get bankruptcy soon. It's pretty pretty nice uh nursery rhyme. Um so so this is a key thing. So this is this is a part we're seeing now. We're seeing like big debt issuance and we're going to have more debt issuance uh coming up. So for example, you know, Oracle I was looking at the stat today. So Oracle um it's the first time they haven't their their cash flow negative since the 90s which is a crazy stat. So yeah. So I think it was like a one-off adjustment of something but you know it just shows you that this hyperscalers are just burning no sorry they're using their cash flow whereas before there were cash flow machines now they're using their cash flow for the capex and plus there's borrowing going on. For example, think about it this way. So XAI is borrowing at 12 a.5% now. So they're issuing at 12 a.5% to borrow. So that means we're starting already with this AIBS. And I think we're going to get a lot more issuance coming up. And this is the this is the key part to be tracking. But what I want to highlight is how we recently saw cracks in areas outside of AI because I was tracking AIBS but instead of what we're getting cracks in is areas that are uh that are consumer sensitive. So it's we're getting the cracks now in areas that u affect the more v vulnerable parts of the economy. So subprime autos and consumer lending and I'll just list a couple of them. So you know which is a subprime auto lender and used car retailer. So they filed straight for chapter 7 which is like liquidation. They just skipped chapter 11. They went to chapter 7. The key part was that there was fraud allegations there. So apparently it was like the collateral was crap. Like these guys were buying and selling uh uh you know cars without uh third-party uh um estimates. Um, so this, you know, this is, but there's only like two billion worth of asset back securities and, you know, they traded it down as low as 20 cents on the dollar. So let's just say that one was a fraud. Then we got First Brands, which is an auto parts supplier. So that's about 10 billion. So they went to Chapter 11 a few days later and their first lean bonds are now trading at 35 cents on the dollar and the second lean are sixes on the dollar. So that's another 10 billion that just came out of nowhere. Then you got CarMax, which is a used car retailer. Uh, so their sales dropped and their credit losses also jumped by 30%. Um, and then you get like smaller players like Upstart, you know, their securization data came out and uh, their delinquencies jumped to like 11%. total. Um, so my point is you're starting to get like this early warning signals, but those early warning signals have nothing to do with AI. They have to do with the vulnerable parts of the consumer. So the more the subprime things um, and now I link it back to the 2007 crisis because everyone tells me, okay, first brand is tiny. Uh, was a fraud. And I'm like, yeah, sure. I mean, that's why I'm long still. I'm still long because I know this is like just a warning sign. I I I'm not short, but I'm worried. You know what I mean? Like I'm long and concerned. Like, okay, here's the difference between a long and a and a concerned long. Like a long is just oblivious and just buys and holds and thinks that uh you know um we can just you know hold hands and sing kumbaya until we go to the moon. a concern long or a sensible trader is actually going to track for the warning signs such as these ones and keep an eye out if they if the domino escalates into something else. You know, that's why like when you're invested, you actually have to be worried about these things. So, you know, I bring the example of uh the subprime. Um so, the first thing that came up like was New Century, which was a subprime lending read, which filed for chapter 11 back in like April 2007. And back then I remember very well people were saying no it's just a small it's just a small domino and then the bear sterns hedge funds came out in June 2007 then nor the rock came in September 2007 so while all these things were happening guess what was happening to the market straight up all-time high by October 2007 which actually proves a point about you know back then it was grifty as well if you remember so you had all these things lining up you had the warning signs we were short subprime by the way like to the uh to the wazoo, but we were also long some things and that's when we started getting worried. It's like, oh crap, this is going to propagate to other parts of the economy. So my point is fast forward to today, you have to track these things. You have to just keep an eye out of all the cracks because that small little thing can lead to a domino and it can lead to something bigger. And my my thinking is this is where I'm trying to frame it is that the AI debt issuance could end up being so big that it could crowd out or it could like have an impact maybe one or two years down the line. That's when it could become real. You know when once you once you lend out a trillion worth of debt for where you know for data centers that are worth like 50 cents on the dollar that's when you have a real crisis like US shale type crisis you know what I mean like because it's not just reminiscent of the housing crisis it's reminiscent of the shale crisis of the US shale cycle which was debtfueled overinvestment and then it cracked. Um, if I can jump in there, you know, Shreb and I talked a lot about this offline in the last couple of weeks as we kind of sat up and realized that the financial resources behind data center and AI are only very recently really being mobilized on the credit side in the last call it six months, but you you know really just in the last month since the Oracle move um with the insanity of booking Stargate as quasi revenue. Um and you know he he's what we wrestle with is is it 04 where we have to go and do a few hundred billion of this before the money doesn't come back on the data center and then the losses eat up into the investment grade Black Rockck or Vanguard bond fund that is 5% allocated in 2027 to senior you know secured data center debt and then you realize wow like those bonds were supposed to be double A or AAA rated and or investment grade and um the the principal didn't mature uh 100 cents on the dollar and there's like a holy you know cow moment but it's two to three years down the line like so that feels very 20040 but then we're seeing the you know to his point the 2007 new you know HSBC discloses a huge loss in February followed by New Century the Bear Sterns funds and on and on and on Northern Run you know, uh, we were still within 5% of all-time highs after bear, you know, after the bounceback, post bear sterns and 08, right? So these this could take a very long time to sort of mature in full but I question now with shrub like maybe it's both like 2004 and 2007 because this K-shaped is everything and the data center kind of mobilization of financial resources and the credit injection into this now to fund it all is coming out of the top 10% who own stocks and have their mutual funds you know the boomers etc where the money is but the bottom of the A right the the pyramid of you know base uh we know is not only showing cracks but it's worsening. And a big one that I'll inject here that really concerns me is again you know no one is paying attention. I don't think people are paying enough attention to what's happening with student loans and the fact that we kind of slow ruled over the last five years this forgiveness uh and people just stopped paying their student loans and two years ago they started to taper out of that. But what's changed just in the last six weeks, and from my understanding, I don't know how the shutdown actually affects this, so I'm trying to get to the bottom of this in real time now while we while we're doing this, but the wage garnishment of delinquent student loans has commenced across the board in September. And I believe October one is the first month, the first pay cycle for people where they will see on their payub FICA, Social Security, right? Medicare tax and wage garnishment if they've been delinquent. And many of these people haven't paid their loans in so many years because of the forbearance during COVID that they don't even remember they owe money. And and we this is something that we know very well in emerging markets as well. If if someone goes delinquent and you don't cure them within three to four months, they're never paying the loan back. the the you know trying to get the money back is like 98% unpaid over time and uh what's scary is how big the numbers are. So we're right back there in terms of like no one's paying attention. Just give you a few numbers. There are 45 millionish student loan federal student loans in America today. In 2020 in February when right before COVID really hit the delinquency rate on this stuff was already just north of 10%. Okay, like 90 days past due. My data is a couple of months stale, but uh the delinquency rates for the entire pool of federal student loan borrowers today, 90 days or more past due, is north of 30% on 45 million loans. Okay, 15 million loans are just delinquent. What's crazy is you can actually look at this data by age group. Um, so I look at the millennials in particular because we wonder like, you know, where's the avocado toast generation that pays $20 for a burrito bowl at Chipotle? It seems to be falling down the stairs, right? Between Sweet Green and Cava and these other place. Wh why? Well, the 30 to 39y old cohort, their delinquency rate was somewhere around 13% in 2020. Today, it's 25. People in their 40s, 40 to 49 are almost 30% delinquent on student loans. And what's crazy is the the bulk of the loans are there. You know, we have almost two trillion of student loans in this country, 1.8 trillion of federal loans, and 500 billion sits just with people in their 30s. And you're telling me that a quarter of them are delinquent now. So there's over a hundred billion of loss sitting there bringing it to wage garnishment because these, you know, as long as nobody's paying their loans, like who cares, right? But now the government has said, not only do you owe this money, we're going to go and forcibly collect it. And here's the kicker. If you pay your student loan on time, it's a $200 to $300 a month payment, right? It's not it's no big deal. Now, if you look at the people in their 30s, their average income is like 65 70 grand a year. Wage garnishment by law, they can go as much as 15% of your income. So if you do the math on $70,000, $65,000 in annual salary and you take 15% of that, call it 10 grand, and divide by 12, you're now going from being on time if you had continued to pay at 2 to 3000 a month to having $800 a month garnished out of your paycheck and it comes right out of the top. the government calls up your employer and just takes the money like withholding before you even get in the bank. And this shock is hitting now, right now, like not in six months. Maybe they'll get around to it. They just started doing this on mass a few weeks ago and no one is paying attention that the bottom of the pyramid and and the middle because people with student loans actually tend to have somewhat higher income than blue collar, right? So the cracks are not just showing per a shrub's point, they are spreading and the data that you're going to see in the next few months on the consumer side is all but guaranteed to get worse if you follow this stuff. It's actually kind of it's actually kind of shocking because you know you talk to people in the markets and they're all convinced everything's great. This is the best economy. Trump told us so and stock markets are going to the moon. And then when you start digging into the economy and looking at it, you're like, this isn't so good. Like this is just not squaring. And I get it that the economy is not the market, but it just this is such a you know, the K has become so [ __ ] Yeah. I I mean Yeah. So look, I I I think the funniest part about this market is that people are doing zero work even for big things. Like this is why it's sometimes actually easy to make money out of this. Um you know because you know Paulo just told you something that's really visible. I'll just give you another example. So Tesla had a runup into its delivery numbers and Tesla's a one and a half trillion stock. Yeah. So, the delivery numbers come in and they're strong and everyone's like, "Oh, they're really strong. They beat." And then the caveat was, "Yeah, they're strong because the credits on uh uh EVs are falling off." So, people rush to buy before the EV credits fall off. So, so that's why the numbers were strong. And guess what's going to happen in the next quarter? Like, no one's going to buy a Tesla. So, so yeah. So I I reckon like the the stock, you know, the stock was up on the news and then people were like, "Oh my god, the EV credits are falling off." It's like, "Yeah, we knew that." Yeah. So So my point is no one does any work. No one cares. And that's why, you know, let's let's not blame them and let's just say we should just work hard and try to make a little bit of money out of all these inefficiencies while we can. Oh, and I've said that numerous times. I'm like, when people get mad at the markets not doing what they think they should be doing, I always say you should just welcome that. You shouldn't braille about it. If the markets were perfectly efficient, you wouldn't there would be no opportunity to make money. 100%. We should be we should be ecstatic. If we if we're correct and the economy is is bad and that this market is this mispriced, we shouldn't be, you know, like getting mad at folks. We should just be going, "Thank you for making this so mispriced." It's just like on the downside when when stocks are getting sold at unreasonable levels. You shouldn't get mad at the short sellers. You should just be like, "Bring it on. I love it. You're you're giving me an opportunity to buy the stock cheaper than it should be." Exactly. Yeah. Listen, I want to go back though to um you guys talking about the credit. One of the things that you were mentioning, Shrub, is that so far it's a lot of nonAI or non techchnology companies and I've been doing some work on this because I have a piece coming out on it and I've been looking at these BDC's, these business development corpses. So, I started Kevin, it's amazing there that I love that you're bringing it up because a month ago I didn't even know what these were and I remember with me I was the same and we were chatting about I'm like Kevin, have you looked at these things? like a subscriber just put these in front of me and you and I both fell out of our chair. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but No, no, it's I was I felt like such a fool because I mean short the the actual managers, the alternative managers thinking that that was the way to play these um terrible loans that I think are getting created in the private credit space. And I was like, ah [ __ ] I screwed up. I should have been short these things instead of being short the managers. I think the managers still work, but this is a better way. But one of the things I just wanted to highlight is I agree with you that there's a lot of um cracks occurring in nontech companies. But I was actually surprised when I went and started digging in to the one of the bigger ones, this BXSL, which is the back Blackstone secured lending. Yeah. And I went and looked through their portfolio. I was like, "Okay, like let's figure out what's in there." And I realized that their biggest loan is to this company called Medallia, which is some sort of software company that's got AI buzzwords and the whole nine yards and things like that. And I take it it was a funding of a private equity taking this company um private uh situation and they just had to write down their their bonds because it's going so badly. And I think that it's more than just the real economy stocks that are having trouble. I think that these BDCs are sniffing out the problems that are occurring across the board in all these things big time Kevin and actually you know in 2122 in that mania for me uh I joked about this with our friend CPY when I came up with this tiger 30 he called it tiger 40 but the first one to show signs is always the public's right the public equity market is the exit for private it's the most sensitive it's where flow dominates in and about whether number goes up or down. So Kathy peeking out with ARC in February of 21 and then just starting a huge downslide all year while the market continued to make new highs all year was the first tell that all was not well. And by early 22 we could see that chewing through the crossover space like Tiger Global that has publiclix and privates and VC. And once I got that joke, I realized it goes public to crossover to privates. And Masayoshi is kind of the Godzilla big whale that is going to cop to the problems last because he can kick the can down the road on reporting the farthest. And the these BDC's just take me right back to that moment where the the listed market is telling you that private credit in listed form is now a problem. Yes. And that's kind of how I back into this. Now, I don't want to short these things in the hole, especially because they're high yield and but I think about the structural instability of these funds. I don't mean to frontr run your note, which I'm very No, no, no. You go ahead. Go ahead. But as I understand it, these are relatively short-term, you know, not 5 to 10 year kind of paper, but relatively short duration, short-term floaters to small medium-sized businesses, which are that small though, some of them, right? So, but they're just not names that you and I would know, right? Um, and what's interesting is people see the yield and it kind of reminds me of like the mortgage rates like Annalie and stuff going into 0708, you know, that Shrub can talk a little bit about, I'm sure, as well because that was more his wheelhouse then. But these yields look great on paper right now and people like shouldn't confuse themselves that this income is sustainable because there are two things that are happening that are destroying these BDC's every day. And one is that the paper's not maturing as defaults go up in the portfolio. But also perversely as the Fed cuts rates and spreads stay tight in the credit space because we we're not seeing the recognition by underwriters that there are problems and you know blowing spreads out. The Fed cuts rates, you're actually earning less interest income on the new loans uh that do come due as you roll them over. So your income is going down at a time where your losses are going up on the principle of the book. It's literally like the the worst of of all worlds for a vehicle that does this kind of lending, right? Um I'm I'm no expert in it, but at the more I've been looking at it, I just tend to think that like this is giving us a big yellow flag on the field. And so, as someone who doesn't like to short things in the hole, like where does this go next? And it just occurred to me in the last few days that maybe we should be looking at the money center and regional banks again because it's precisely those guys like Key Bank got caught up in the 200 million like you're a lot of these banks might have gone along because they saw JP Morgan had loans out toricolor so like I'm it's probably okay right and then boom it's a fraud. how much lending within the banks was happening around this private credit that these people don't know what they're doing on an underwriting basis. Um, Shreb, what do you think about this? You you know, you were uh at ground zero for the the last time we had SPVS and problems and all these sorts of things. What are your your feelings about the opacity of these markets? Yeah. So I think that there's there's a very key important thing here that's that's in play. So when do when do things turn to [ __ ] Let's just be you know crude about it. Things turn to [ __ ] when there is bad uh underwriting when there is uh easy lending and when there's a lot of it excess right it's a few it's a few elements. So the excess we've had it since co a lot of lending was given out especially like these early ones. Uh um excess also comes when you LBO businesses or one example you LBO business like Medallia which is a software business whereas like 20 years ago you'd be LBOing a utility or something stable. Now you're doing a soft you know you're doing a software company and you think that it's stable. It's like, well, dude, I don't know. Like, open AI is destroying a software company every week. So, you sure that LBO you did be a shame if that LBO you did like two years ago in a software company goes to zero, right? So, so you know, soft software names are getting destroyed. So, obviously that medallia is probably suffering along the same lines. So, that's another example. Um, and then the key thing is the collateral as well. So, what's the quality of the collateral? Well, it's actually it's the same point. Like the collateral in the case of Blackstone is Medallia, but the collateral in the K in the case of Triricolor was Subprime Auto. So, who's checking the collateral? Who's actually um uh rating it? So, 2007, the problem with that was that the rating agencies completely mispriced, completely mispriced and misrepresented the value of that collateral, right? That was a key part. And every investor felt like really comfortable with it because you know S&P told me that this is a AAA subprime mortgage which is kind of like a stupid comment by itself. How can a subprime thing be AAA right? So fast forward to today you you kind of have the same thing like thisricolor thing was a fraud and you had like smart money in this thing. Did anyone check the bloody m you know the bloody assets? No one did. I mean because was doing it for them apparently. So it wasn't even a third party uh uh uh getting involved here. So same thing with this first brands. I mean you see big names getting hit out of it. Did anyone check the the assets? Probably no one did. That's why the second lean is trading at 6 cents. So my point is credit crisis when they happen you know they hit hard when the collateral is bad and when there's excess in the system and you know that's why we have to track these things because there has been excess in the system like so so and this is where it can actually get worse because if you lend out like a trillion dollar worth in the next two years for AIBS a lot of these things can easily turn to poo as well. So yeah, that's that's where it could get nasty because it look here's what I'm trying to say if the geniuses couldn't spot tricolor in first brands, they're the same geniuses who are going to lend out a trillion dollar to open AI and Oracle and Larry and Sam Alman and Mas Ponison Mason. I love and you know it's going to be like a trillion dollar worth of people that don't know how to use a spreadsheet, don't know how to read a balance sheet. they're going to do it in the next 12 months and that's how you know it could turn to crap in like two years as a result. So yeah, maybe even earlier the the market figures it out. Uh that is like just a great line. Uh Shrub, I I completely agree with you. If they if they can't see the other ones, why are we so convinced they're going to be right on this one? Um we're nearing towards the end. Uh I'm going to ask you both uh what question should I have asked you that I didn't? and also what do you think is the best um opportunities? What what are you focusing on in terms of trade ideas for the next little while? We'll start with you Paulo. I think uh as long as the music's playing, you got to get up and dance version of uh this sort of um euphoric moment in the market. um probably top ticket it by even mentioning it, but I think the the small cap mining space is still just so depressed relative to the you know equity markets globally. Um and there's you know there's there's not a lot of ways to play. Um you've got to check valuation and you know the maths at the door. Uh but um I like uh I like the mining space a lot. you know, if there's risk off, you know, even pretty girls get hurt in the bus crash. So, if you think that if you if you think that being Yeah. Um, you know, if you if you think you'll be saved and, you know, when correlations go from basically non-existent to one and VA rear rears its ugly head, like no, it's it's all getting carted out. But um I think looking out over the next couple of years, you know, the the mining space is uh needs the capital or or we're going to run out of uh rope real quick uh and run into inflation really really fast for very basic things. Um kind of feels like win-win, you know, uh in the sense that you've had the underinvestment for so long, the talent left the industry. uh what's left are um are going to, you know, take a long time to redeploy capital, find assets, build mines. Um it's uh and it's such a small space that it doesn't take a lot of money off the top of uh an Nvidia to, you know, to move even some of the mid-tier names. So, I I I I'm biased because I, you know, got uh got the commodity bug early in my career in the 2000s with the whole China super cycle, but I um I think that miners are going to be great. And I think that there's still room for a rotation even though it feels like right now everything's working. So, in the last month or two, but you know, I joke that, you know, oil is to 2026 what gold is to 2025. Change my mind. I love that line. I I I'm I'm going to write that up because I completely agree with you that that is the environment we're in right now. Back it was it was only six months ago that people thought that gold mining stocks could never go up. Yeah. Right. And it's it's the same way with energy. Is there a question I should have asked you in terms of macro or specifics that I missed? Uh what's on your mind? Nothing critical. Honestly, I I um I'm just acutely concerned for risk here. Uh and unapologetically so. I know that we just drift higher every day and the market's asleep, but I think we're especially now that we're out of the sell Rashashana, buy Yam Kapor to the day. Um, you know, I I've seen two surveys, one on Shrubs chat and another one, um, to his credit, uh, Warren Pies on Twitter, uh, with an overunder on where the the market will be at the end of the year, which is 60 trading days away. Okay. Um, Warren Pis's survey came back, 75% of people, when I checked it and commented on it last night, are looking are taking the over on S&P 7,000, which by the way is almost 5% above current levels. That's an 18% annualized return in the next 60 trading days. And 75% of respondents are taking the over on that. Like, so the bogey is 18% up annualized for the next three months. Yeah. Yeah. And it's three to one on the over. And then uh Shrub did something similar like, "Hey, let's uh" to his readership, where's the market going to be at the end of the year? Closest one gets a a free like a prize or whatever. And I think just eyeballing it, nine out of 10 had the market higher than current levels. So I threw like a forehandle out there on the S&P just to just to be the the hedge. Like I said, I started in the business in the backside of the dot mountain. So, I'm forged in the crucible of uh the bare market early in my life. But uh but isn't it worrisome? Like you keep hearing, oh, people are getting sucked in and discretionary managers aren't long enough. It's like Jesus. Well, this is the funny part. So, I actually think like they're max long, but I can also see them just chasing into year end to just, you know, make their bonuses, keep things done, and then, you know, we could crash in January for all I know. You know, you know what I mean? You know what I mean, Kev? you know, they're they're max long, but they just got to keep it together because it's going to be a good bonus year. Could very well be. So, Shrub, I I completely agree. I could like I it's just wild how everyone thinks we going higher. Maybe we will. Maybe we have the ultimate meltup. Um let's go and ask you the same question I posed Apollo. Um what are you trading for the next little while? Like what do you think the opportunities where they lie? And then what question should I have asked you that I didn't? Yeah. So, I'm actually quite busy uh with uh uh there's a lot of event trades, a lot of setups, especially like in I mean Europe has been a great place to make money this year. Um well, as well as Asia, I guess, and commodities. But let's just frame it in the same way as Paulo. So, Paulo is saying the opportunities in commodities. Um, I'm going to take it a step up and just say the opportunity is what in in whatever Trump wants it to be. So that's what I do. Like if he says critical metals, it's like, yeah, I'm going to make a list of critical medals. He says drones, yeah, I'm going to look at drones. So that's what makes this market really exciting for me because there's a lot of rotation in all these things. Um and then and then you you know you add on top of it the Europeans have to re rebalance themselves as well and that gives other opportunities like you know this year European defense European space like serious money coming in from the Germans in a very small keyhole like uh you know they have a trillion dollar trillion euro worth of fiscal coming in from a small hole so that's been a rocket launcher for certain stocks and then in the US you have the same thing like you know just specifically on the commodore side I mean you know it's a very small hole like if if if you want to boost critical metal supply in the US it's a very small hole to put the money to work but it takes a long time to actually get it to work so you know that for for interesting opportunities so I think it's a very interesting event driven market right now um I'm avoiding most AI things anyway uh you know I've you know like I think Nvidia is a sell here, but you know, what do I know? Um, so, you know, I I think it's just a great market to trade uh where we're we're still having some long uh long exposure. So, you know, to to your question, what's the one question to to have asked is probably around the dollar. Um, and that opens up a whole uh new area for next year. So, you know, I I keep seeing about the dollar people say, you know, all the contrarians want to be contrarian say long the dollar, whereas um you know, I kind of think I've been bearish the dollar for a year. And I just want to keep it that way by actually saying I want to be bearish, not just the dollar, but also the sterling, maybe not the euro. Um because in the golden age of Grift, you can't be bullish fiat currencies and that's going to help you a lot in your investments going forward because I think next year it's going to be a monster trade still in Brazil. I mean we're up 40% in Brazil this year which is great. We give thanks. But um you know next year could be a monster trade in Brazil still. Could be a monster trade in Komodori still. I don't think anyone's going to be buying the dollar next year again. like why would you like you have it's not like they're gonna adopt fiscal prudence next year. So that's that's the question um which I I know because you know me well enough that you know we implied between the two of us that this is the case on the on the dollar side but I I think it's important because I see a lot of people trying to time that so as as everyone tries to call the top everyone is also trying to call the bottom on the dollar which I think is the wrong question. because you can't call a bottom on something you can just print as much as you want of. Got it. Okay, that's great stuff. Now, we're going to end with um the traders version of Desert Island. Um and for those who don't know this that we're going to imagine you were placed on a desert island. You have to pick three bands, albums, whatever you want to talk about. And then also some traitor uh a trader throat. You can pick out anyone throughout history. You could pick Jesse Livermore when he was 20 years old or you could pick uh you know uh whoever you want today. It doesn't matter. Anyone you could you can imagine. The only rule is you can't pick someone that's already been picked. Paulo, we'll start with you. What are your three bands or albums? Um it's a good one. I um yeah, I kind of came of age in the 90s, so I'm a little biased. You know, being on a desert island, I'm sure I'd be kind of waxing a little nostalgic. So, I'm going to go with I'm I'm also was a violinist as you know, we've talked about before. So, um I'm going to go with Dave Matthews Band. I know it's a little hokey, but you tuck a violin in a jam band and uh uh but I mean like early Dave, you know, like Under the Table and Dreaming Crash. I'll take him. Um it's 70s all over again. It feels familiar to me. Stagflation. So, I'll take Pink Floyd, you know, The Wall. Okay. Um, and then if I had to bring a third, I'll um I'll bring the king of pop man, Michael. And I, you know, Thriller and uh Dangerous. My god, you can't help but start to feel better when you when you know when that beat kicks in. So, those would be mine. And then for a trader, you mentioned Liverour. I was going to say Livermore, so I won't pick Livermore. Um, I would have gone with Duck, but that's been picked as as well. He's my hero. Just, you know, strong convictions loosely held. So, you can actually, Paulo, I didn't mean to say that. I have nobody is nobody's picked him. So you pick him. If he's your guy, you pick him. I I would pick Livermore for the the stories. Plus, he was a ladies man. You know, like the I would just love to be on an island with him and like hear about what it was like, you know? You just have to be careful. You got to keep the shotgun away from him. Yeah, that's the thing, man. I It ends too badly for me. I I'll tell you what, my other hero besides uh Duck, who I can't pick, would have to be Paul Jones. PT Jones. Okay, that's a good one. I mean, you know, everybody's seen the trader documentary. They know he's high energy. He, you know, real love of the game, right? Like this guy would do it even if money wasn't involved just to solve the puzzle and and and win points. But like what a gentleman he's turned into over the years as well in terms of being a statesman. My favorite story of him is one that most people don't know where some PM from a hedge fund came up to him after an event and said, you know, I've had a killer year. I put up these numbers. Paul, I'm coming for you. And Paul, without missing a beat, turns to him supposedly and says, "Don't forget to give back." I thought like like I wouldn't have thought to say that. You know what I mean? But like that's where the guy's mind is. So, you know, a guy like that who's, you know, one of the ultimate pros, you know, 90% of the game is the risk management and then to like have your heart in the right place to to think something like that and say it in the moment. Um, he he sets a good example for all of us, I think. So, I I couldn't get enough of a guy like that on. Oh, that's a great way of putting it. I'm going to tell a quick Paul Tudtor Jones story. I have a buddy who somehow knows the guy that used to trade with him and they said that he is just a riot to trade with it. It goes something like, you know, and this is I'm hearing this fourth third or fourth hand, but he says like it's something like, oh, you know, go sell 3,000 spoos, right? And then he goes, you know, what what is what do you guys think come for lunch? You thinking sushi? Like, and it's like and everyone's talking about he goes, how's that 3,000 spoos coming? And he's like waiting for the fills. He goes, "Oh, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's actually let's stop it. Stop buying them. I mean, stop selling them. Let's actually buy some. Buy buy buy 2,000 spoos. Like, what do you guys think for lunch? Like, are you thinking maybe like hogies? And like And it's just this crazy banter back and forth and willingness to just flip on a dime. And they said like he just tosses around monster numbers like, you know, you're flipping around five five S&Ps. It's amazing. Yeah, gotta love that guy. Like multiple tracks like all happening at once up upstairs, you know? Just just crazy. Like he literally just trades like that and he's he would be a lot of fun and that is a great pick. Okay, Lrub, what about you? Are we going to get some French or European bands? Oo. Uh, no. No. I know what we're going to get. We're going to get heavy metal. Of course you're gonna get heavy metal. Okay, so let's give me the three heavy metal ones. So, I want to have an album of Man of War, which is an American metal band, because they they do like great workout music. So, if I'm going to be on an island, I want to have like a workout music. So, I'm going to take Man of War with me. Then, I want to have Stevie Nicks because Stevie Nick is going to just put me to sleep. So, you you need Stevie Nicks there on a desert island, preferably in person. And then third has to be like has to be like a you know like a Zeppelin album or like a Hendricks album. So I'm going to go with a Zeppelin album because you need to have like Zeppelin there. Okay, got it. And I don't know what it is about uh financials guys uh from Subprime loving heavy metal like Bur. But yeah, you got to get it out somehow, right? like the anger, the angst, the Yeah. And like you you went uh Shreb you went to see Metallica, right? Like that was a big I went to see uh Oussie Osborne at his last concert, which was a great moment. Yeah. So, no, I've been I've seen Metallica like 20 times, but uh the last concert of Aussie Osborne took place in Birmingham and I just flew to Birmingham, which is like really the last place you want to go on Earth. Uh just to see Aussie play and Metallica played there as well. Uh it was amazing. It was like such a such a great goodbye because he passed away a few weeks later. Bless him. So, Black Sabbath played Aussie played Panta Metallica. It was like a massive lineup. It was insane. Okay. You know what's really funny about this? You guys probably aren't looking, but Daniel is in kind of the backstage there. And I can see his face. And when you said something derogatory about Manchester, all I saw was, you know, this big Daniel, his face just nodding in sympathy. Yep. Yep. Is it really that bad? I can't I can't figure it out. Yeah, dude. Birmingham is a terrible place. Just don't go there. Terrible place. Okay. Who's your trader? Um, I'm going to take Peter Lynch because One Up on Wall Street was the book that got me inspired as a kid in Cyprus that had nothing to do with the stock market. That's the book I read, got inspired uh about trading. So, I'm going to take him. He's a good guy. And you know what I like about him is I know that he's a little bit of a DGEN uh because you know he was buying like dry bulk stocks at the lows and stuff like that PA. So um because you know he retired early on. What I like about him is at the top of his game he retired. So in his 40s he just left. He's like look I'm good. I'm going to spend time with the family. Yeah. So then he was working you know advising Fidelity on stuff. So he left at the top gave thanks moved on. Uh, and then I know that he was buying like uh dry box stocks at the lows and still doing like really great trades, but just under the radar. So, yeah, I like the guy. I've heard that as well. His like he tosses around this monster PA and is isn't afraid to go against the grain and to be buying stuff. He'd probably be buying energy names right now. Yeah. So, he was buying dry at the lows. Like, I know that for a fact. So, he's like um good guy. Seriously. Yeah. We should like try and get him more. I'd love to Peter, if you're listening, open invitation. We'd love to have you on. Otherwise, you're stuck in a desert island with me. That's right. We promise we won't shrub on you. Um, all right. Before we go, let's take a moment to uh for people who have enjoyed this to find out more about where they can learn about your great Substacks. Paulo, why don't you start? Give us the instructions on how they can subscribe to it. Sure. Thanks for all this, Kev. Um, I'm at uh poll macro.substack.com. It's pao the Brazil version p a l o. Um, some people sometimes spell the uh the Italian pa o, but uh yeah, p a lom macro.substack.com and same handle on Twitter. Uh, I'm still occasionally on there, you know, just kind of retweeting one or two things a day. Uh, at Palo Macro on on Twitterx and uh that's me. That's great. And how about you, Shrub? Uh I am uh www.shrubstack.com. So shrubstack and u one word and on Twitter I'm the shrub. So right both of you are active on the uh Substack chats and so for those who are interested they can also go there to learn more about it. Um you're both terrific uh letters. Uh people should subscribe to both of them. Thank you both so much for your time. I've really enjoyed this guys. This is great. Thanks Kevin. It's been great. Thank you so much. Thanks, T. Thanks, Rob. All right, Patrick, talking charts. What do you got for us this week? All right. Well, let's start just talking the economic data that came out and didn't come out. All right. So, like obviously um what's interesting uh we had the Jolts jobs numbers somewhat in line, but the ADP non-farm employment change uh came out negative minus 32,000. Again, uh another negative month. So these jobs numbers were coming in weak and everyone was obviously uh in waiting for the big huge jobs numbers after these big revisions and all these uh uh other things. This jobs numbers was supposed to be a critical one and here we go with a government shutdown and the numbers uh get punted out. We'll see. We'll know when uh in the future when we're going to get them, but we didn't get the numbers. But we did get the ISM manufacturing and the ISM services PMIs and both came in pretty weak. Well, now first of all, manufacturing has been running under 50 for a while. That's been that's not a a surprise in the US at this point. But what is interesting is we had IMS services come in at the 50 line, which is literally the uh the falcrum point of whether there's contraction or expansion. And um and with all of these weak ISM numbers coming below a a thing with the jobs numbers, clearly the economy is grinding to a halt. Not necessarily contracting, grinding to a halt. And um and you know what, the stock market don't give a [ __ ] Yeah. You know, shut down like you know it like literally the stock market has become more teflon than teflon dawn. Like uh literally you can throw any bad news at it and this thing just keeps relentlessly going higher. Now, you know, I want to talk about this, but it's crazy, but like literally the stock market is just pumping higher. Up another 29 points today, where on the S&P futures anyway, very close to 6,800 uh where uh 6750 on cash uh and uh it's up every day, Kevin, you know what? like it that that shutdown uh that that shutdown government shutdown literally caused a 50 SNP point intraday drop. Yeah. And it got bought on dip instantaneously like just boom and the markets ripped higher like uh what what's your take on this relentless rise and and even comment on all the economic data that what what's your take on all of it? Well, in terms of the shutdown, I don't I don't think it's that big a deal. The market's come to realize that this is just part for the course. And I I when people were asking me what I thought, I said, "It doesn't matter." And and if it is going to matter, it's going to matter a week or two into it when they start to realize that maybe it'll go for a month or longer, and then it might matter. But the initial week or two, and I'm not even sure it's going to matter if that's the case. like it's it's really it's it's it's it's nothing to be that focused of you know concerned about. So I've just put that to the side. Having said that so so I want to comment I want to comment uh before you move on to the next point which is essentially uh government shutdowns have become uh almost a annual uh event. Uh and um and the thing is if you look back the stock markets have uh simply not given a [ __ ] in the past and and if anything the stock market uh has a little bit of relief once they're past it and uh and anyone that was kind of holding money on the sideline would put it in and so often yeah there wouldn't be a big down reaction and then a bullish impulse afterwards. The point is the government shutdown was not going to be the big boogeyman. But the reason I was worried about it being a boogeyman was simply just because the market was so overbought and so overextended that it just needs, you know, that last straw that breaks the camel's back. Something that just triggers it. But it wasn't the it clearly wasn't the shutdown. It probably won't be. So anyway, go on with the rest of the data which we're going to comment. Um and then from there I would say that um in terms of the market and like I guess the data doesn't really matter. Like really what you're what you're asking is why is the market not correcting? Like why do we have this just relentless bid to it that just doesn't seem to be going away, right? Is that's really what's driving people. And to some extent it's get almost getting boring, is it not? Like I I I had someone the other day that said, "I wasted a whole day just watching this thing grind higher." And I was laughing. I was like, "Yeah, the market's boring." Um especially on an index level because underneath the surface there's some things happening that are actually more worrisome, but on an index level it's just this grind higher day after day after day. One of the things and Paulo brought this up was that the sentiment is so stretched to the upside that I'm I'm worried. I you know Paulo talked about how he was concerned about the markets and I am I am there as well now. I am concerned and let me just tell you back in 2023 and 2024 when everyone was super bearish and all you know you know like let's remember back to that period we had the the most professional forecasters predicting a recession in the next year that we've ever had through the history of this that of the Federal Reserve you know gathering that data and I think it was the data set was something like 40 or 50 years long it was a long long data set that was the most bearish entity you wanted to be. I I kept telling folks they would be talking about crashes back then and I would say there's probably no reason to worry about crashes because everyone's worried about it. And to me, this feels like just the opposite. Now, everyone is convinced it can't happen. Everyone thinks they're going to be smarter than everyone else and that they're going to, you know, keep dancing because the music's playing. And it just feels to me like everyone is chuck chuck princing it. Yeah. And for the first time in a while, I'm worried about the potential for something really, you know, for for a market dislocation that's larger than I previously would have a market dislocation that I previously would have dismissed as unlikely to happen. I'm more concerned about that. And I know like the vast majority of people are going to say, "Well, you're an idiot. You don't understand. You don't get what I was thinking that." No. No. Yeah. No. No. Like listen, the vast majority of people are going to be saying, "You don't understand. You don't get the AI. You don't understand how it's changing the world." And all I will say to you is that the fact that everyone feels that way is why I am so scared. And they will say, you know, but you you don't you don't get it. And I go, well, everyone gets it. And that's why this is happening. And the more that get in here and the more stretched we become and the more complacent people become and the more, you know, convinced they are that we're going to rally into year end, the scarier the setup ends up becoming. And it's a necessary precondition that nobody is worried about a crash for there to actually be a crash. And the moment everyone is worried about things and asking if there could be a crash is the moment the the moment you should be worrying about it the least, right? like the like when everyone's saying, you know, I think there there's like do you think there's going to be a crash? I go, well, if you think there's going to be a crash, you shouldn't be worried because if everyone's thinking that people have already adapted their portfolios to that and crashes occur out of the blue and and listen, I know that like 90% of the people that are listening to this are going to say, "He's an idiot. He just doesn't get it." And I think I I understand their argument, but I would say that the the the fact that 90% of people think I'm an idiot is why it might actually be something to be worried about. But but it to that point is is that the market actually and if you go back through 20, 30, 100 years of history, the market always gravitates to a pain point which is where is everybody in consensus and then it hits them in the um that whatever the pain point is, the market will inevitably gravitate to that pain point. And um and thinking that it's going to be different this time is foolish. uh and all of these things that we believe to be true, these trends that are um are relentless uh are relentless until a trigger point and then suddenly everyone's on the wrong side and then they violently go the other way and to to your point um you know I think about like the asymmetry of it like uh h how are for instance vault targeting funds now uh positioned they've probably almost fully uh invested to the long side now correct is that fair to say I wrote a piece about that like that you've correctly highlighted. Exactly. How about CTAs uh that are trend following? Would they be predominantly all fully invested at this point? Absolutely. How about uh how about dealersh uh you know there's no gamma flip, no no short uh short gamma situations where they have to be selling into weakness right now. Uh they are probably suppressing a little bit of volatility. all of the Vanna and all of these other effects have really already fully pushed the stock market to the upper boundary. Uh so you have um a lot of these things that were hugely asymmetric in the favor of the market two three five months ago um they have now exhausted themselves and so which way is the asymmetry skewed now which is they really can't contribute a big incremental next push higher not in a meaningful way but if they're ever forced systematically to reverse there would be violence on the other side in terms of the potential volatility Is that a fair way to size it up? Yeah, completely agree. Yeah. Right. So, I want to I want to highlight a couple things on So, first of all, I want to touch on market bread and particularly my one favorite one to always watch is the percentage of stocks in the S&P 500 that are trading uh above their 50-day moving averages. It's just a very clear arbiter of trend and it tells you the breath. And so back in uh May and June and even early July we were at 75 to 80% breath which is that the vast majority four out of five stocks were bullish and participating on the upside which was actually a very healthy market. One characteristic that tends to be visible as a market approaches uh a turn point is the breath the underneath the hood everything is deteriorating yet the price index is holding up along its highs and we're seeing a situation where we spent u just uh last week below 50 and now we're even at 55. with markets here at all-time highs and virtually one out of every every two stocks is downtrending, right? Like uh that's uh this is um immediately like a thing. Now someone could from a bullish spin try to spin and say well that means actually the market has huge potential because if the breath rewidens again that will all kind of drive the next push higher. Yeah, I get it. It's possible. the probability of that isn't zero but a lot of times deterioration of market breath has actually been something that preceded a deterioration that ultimately had a drop. So you know uh anyway it's it's the first observation. The second thing I wanted to observe was uh looking at the financials and uh the financials are in my uh view the quintessential kind of uh beta 1 uh product which is essentially they tend to almost always correlate with the S&P very cleanly and um and so if you look here and I told you that this was a chart of the S&P you'd almost believe me uh in the end it bottomed almost the same day it's corrections were almost the exact same times. Everything is there. Notice what the financials have more or less done over the last five, six weeks, which is dick all like literally they have stopped actually doing any advances. they no longer are participating and this is a just an example of the fact that that breath isn't there like you and now while I would not call this a technical breakdown of the financials they simply are not incrementally actually contributing to uh uh to this rally. Now what's crazy is now let's go through the mag seven. The mag sevens are these mega cap mega market cap waitings in the S&P 500. the generals they basically need to be running in order for the index to make any real meaningful ground if there was not going to be breath right so if you imagine if there was going to uh be only 50% of stocks rallying then it could be well well look at least the mag sevens are all ripping and that's justifiable why the index is rising but let's go through them all in order Apple Apple's been very bullish but Apple has now reached a double double top retest of its previous highs after having a pretty strong epic around and finishing some measured moves. I would argue that this is a stock that is bullish but yet approaching levels where it might start to meet resistance and find it difficult to keep going further. You take a look at uh uh let's say Amazon. Hold on a second. There we go. You take a look at Amazon and Amazon has not participated at all. It double top, retested its uh January high. Uh it more or less failed, rolled over, and we're now spending almost two weeks below its 50-day moving average. It has stopped contributing to the uh to the upside uh of this. Now, let's go to Meta, right? And so, we take a look at Meta. Meta double topped, broke below its 50-day uh and is actually arguably already downtrending. Uh you then take Microsoft. Now, Microsoft chart peaked out uh almost two months ago and um and really in this entire rip higher has literally not been able to leave the 50-day moving average over the last couple weeks. So, uh now where has the move occurred? Well, Google has been one of the hottest stocks over the last month. Yet, after that amazing rip for the last week and a half, it's been correcting. it hasn't at all contributed to the uh to this S&P rally. Uh now Tesla was a huge contributor and you take a look at Tesla big bearish engulfing candle came in yesterday and after it finished the measured move double top retest of its previous high and reversing. So what is the only MAG 7 stock that actually looks good? Well, it is the big behemoth right Nvidia. It consolidated and broke to 52- week highs. This chart is still actually cleanly bullish. I would argue at this moment you have legitimately only one of the MAG7 stocks legitimately bullish and the rest of them are either dragging or into coming into heavy overhead resistance. So you have a period where you have huge um breath divergences, a lack of momentum in financials and like literally uh the majority of the mag sevens doing dick all like so where is the next in incremental gain going to come from the S&P 500 cap? That's some great stuff Patrick actually. Can you do three um more for me because I actually I'm short the New York Fang ones or not the New York fangs the Fang Plus future and there's three more. It's Mag 7 plus Crowd Strike CRWD putting him on the spot with some actually more down than I thought. Why? Hold on a second. I'm getting a huge lag. You see RWD like Thank you. Let's am I where? Okay, this um had a very bullish gap higher. Uh and whenever you have that kind that it actually does reopen the bull side, but it does have a huge hurdle to beat of of its previous high. But the entire pullback was a Fibonacci retrace. So I would actually say this chart is still actually structurally bullish. And you'd want to give it the bulls the benefit of the doubt that this they'll be able to beat it. But it does have to beat its previous high as a huge hurdle. Okay. Um, Service Now, NO, I don't know why that's in there, but it is. Uh, that's pretty shitty price action. Has failed to make any meaningful rallies. No followth through. Can't even make it back to its summer highs. This is a stock that's already being distributed. And then finally, um, what's this? What's the Broadcom? AVGO. Yeah, still a pretty bullish chart lagging formation for a potential bull breakout. a lot some of these semis like in general like even like if you take a look at AMD and the gap that uh that it um that it had uh as well as um well I don't know why I'm getting such a lag here on my keyboard. It's all the KFC chips. Yeah, absolutely. I got to move the KFC chips on the side here. And then after that I'd love to do Palanteer as well but sure AMD still actually a gap higher that could go right so semiconductors are generally still good that's why Nvidia is going so so generally we with the semiconductor even Intel has been running pretty strong uh on that uh and obviously uh PLTR is the Palunteer yeah so let's talk PLTR So, uh, now notice here a big actual reversal day after a direct double top retest. Uh, now again, I wouldn't want to call it a top already, but that's actually a resistance point. And, uh, so with that kind of a reversal candle, it could very easily come down and retest the 50-day moving average. But I wouldn't yet uh want to say anything outright bearish because this thing could immediately reverse on a quick buy on dip and be punching 52- week highs. But you can more or less see though that even these these are not the big market cap behemoth cap. These are uh they're big but uh and they are certainly the kind of where the money is flowing into the kind of arc themes like the arc kind of technology stocks that have been really driving this last leg. But it doesn't actually change the fact in my mind that in order for the S&P to do anything meaningful 7,7300 on the upside there would need to be a a widening of the market breath leadership in some sort of MAG7s and some general um and things like the financials would need to be participating and you know instead of um you know instead of the financials participating Instead the kind of uh things that are are moving are uh are things like uh the healthc carees you know you take a look at the XLV right which is like uh suddenly uh they make a deal with Fizer on lowering drug prices and suddenly the healthc carees which is a defensive sector an area where sector rotation typically goes to hide is suddenly one of the hottest parts of the market right to me uh there's a lot uh like on the surface the S&P is at all-time highs and we can sing hold hands and sing kumbaya and everything looks fine but when you start looking under the surface this is not a healthy patient right like this is this is a market that is actually internally quite weak uh and uh and the fact that everyone's quite cocky about it and confident it is definitely something to be somewhat uh at least you need to be cautious and you know what's the crazy part Kev it's it's actually uh overall not that expensive to buy tail insurance here. Yeah. Right. like if you uh if you uh uh are putting on even if you just start with uh put spreads as so that you you're taking advantage of the uh right tail skew and they have great payoff profiles much smaller capital but it they're literally uh I wouldn't want to say being given away but there's incredibly reasonably priced for where we are in the market for one to to just carry some basic insurance um uh on uh on the marketplace. Yeah, I was looking at like even let's just do three month at the money vault. Like it it's the cheap it's the cheapest it's been in a long time. Yeah. Right. This is uh this is uh let me just look at that. This is a three-month VIX. It's uh and it's trading basic for basically right along its lows, right? Um and and what's crazy is one day V is down like it's it's we've had some ridiculously low in one day like the zero DTE kind of all premiums but still over um overall volatility is very reasonably priced here and um it you know you don't have to bail out on all your investments here which you buy by buying insurance. It's uh certainly a very prudent time to be to be hedged up on your portfolio. So the next thing I want to cover, Kev, is just touching on the dollar. And uh what's particularly fascinating to me is is that it's it's becoming incredibly clear that the dollar is not downtrending anymore. Like if you think about it, back in April during liberation day crisis, the dollar index basically hit the 98 level. And here we are five almost six months later. And where's the dollar index, very close to the 98 level? We are essentially um in a period where the dollar really has found a fair value zone which is it's it's no longer in a downtrend. It's actually been in a sideways trend. But yet the sentiment is so definitively bearish like this thing has just been getting its face ripped off. But the dollar stopped going down a while ago. Now that doesn't make me immediately bullish the dollar alone, but it isn't bearish. It's sideways. It's been one big sideways trade range and it's been a muddle because if you go to the different currency pairings uh like the euro probably one of the more bullish looking uh currency charts could arguably be a bull flag find support at 50day and still punch to a new high like you could still argue and it is the big one. It is in the dollar index the biggest waiting. So it this one matters a lot but the pound sterling has uh peaked out and looks very toppy. uh the US dollar yen surprisingly actually mean but it's been in a awful trade range for basically two uh three months and you take something like the US CAD very definitively the US dollar is rallying against the Canadian dollar here and so um and so you have a scenario where uh the dollar is not clearly bearish anymore but the sentiment is very clearly bearish the dollar and I'm curious like I think about what is it that could make be the pain trade. but could cause the single most amount of pain to the most amount of traders and use that as a base case of what is a scenario that can happen. and a market correction in the uh stock market accompanied by a US dollar rally arguably would be the biggest puke of uh that could hurt the most amount of people is now that and I when I say that a counter trend in the dollar doesn't have to be a new bull market in the US dollar just uh it could be simply a pain trade rip to the upside that c just from you know short squeezing of of some traders But like if you think about the emerging markets trades, uh the short-term commodity trades like the gold rip and all of these things, like what is it that will ultimately cause some profit taking to occur on all of these? And uh a dollar uh uh shocking everyone with a rip to the upside accompanied by a stock market that's correcting in a riskoff cycle would be arguably a very painful thing for all the prevailing trends that have been working so well all year. So I understand where you're coming from. I think for extremely shortterm traders, you are correct that that is the point of maximum pain. But I will push back a little and that I believe that the long-term money hasn't even started really truly unwinding their extra US dollar exposure. And when I think about what would really cause the most pain on a longer term basis would be the thing that Paulo and and uh Shrub and I discussed which is that environment where we had stocks going down, US dollar going down and maybe bonds going down. Now, I happen to think that bonds going down at the same time probably is not going to occur again at this time, but one of the things that I might push back a little bit as well in terms of your argument about the US dollar going sideways and you're viewing that as a positive. Um, not a positive just as I think it's divergent from the center. Well, and so what I might say is that I believe the money going into the US stocks that are chasing the US stocks has kept that US dollar aloft. And if we got a situation where all of the sudden we had a sharp break in the AI type trades and people started selling that off, traditionally that would have been cause a US dollar rally, the old kind of credit destruction and therefore you get a situation where dollars are bit. Um I think that that will be the initial um reaction but I suspect that that rally will be very short-lived and then out of the blue we will get selling because ultimately I believe that US stocks and the US dollar are going to be more correlated going forward than folks expect and therefore we could have a situation where the real surprise is that they both go down together again. But I hear you. I think to me, no. But to me, to me, u you're making a legitimate macro argument that actually I think uh um has something that could play out over a sixmon to a one-year basis. Absolutely. Right. Um the uh the short squeeze kind of uh counter trend rally of uh US dollar could be literally a less than a 30-day event, right? Like it literally could be just it's Patrick to your point. I actually I sorry to interrupt but I just wanted to say this to your point. I think that the US dollar rally could be the catalyst to cause a selloff in the stock market. So it could be that the dollar rallies first stock sell off and we've kind of seen something like this in the past week, right? Like there was some couple of days where it seemed a little iffy. US dollar rally, stocks sell off and then the surprising part is the US dollar eventually follows stocks lower. I don't know. Yeah, just what I'm thinking. Sure. So, uh let's move on and uh and highlight that obviously in the kind of uh financial repression thesis kind of thing. Uh everyone wants to own either gold or crypto. Now we uh tend to be no coiners amongst the the huddle crowd. Uh but there are very large amount of camps that of people that actually uh even argue about owning both. And the thing is is gold has been singlehandedly this year the massive outperformer on a relative basis. Lower implied volatility but yet massive outperformance. Uh what's interesting is literally in the last week uh Bitcoin came alive uh and um and it was basically for three months dead money while gold was ripping another 10 20% and um and suddenly Bitcoin's back. Now we are approaching its previous high. Uh it could always act as overhead resistance. I'm not already like uh hammering the table bye bye bye bull market but three months of consolidation uh unwinds an overbought state of any market and therefore you can consider any breakout if it's real to be in the early innings of a breakout and so one of the puzzles I want to solve in the between now and maybe the next one or two huddle episodes is that is this breakout for real because if it is the first measured moves into the 130 to 135 uh range on the upside uh in terms of uh upper target. But if it if it puts it in motion, maybe uh Bitcoin wakes up again. This is the an interesting chart that I want to keep watching because it's very early innings if it bro it's breaking out. Wow. For the big the Bitcoiners that do listen that are that are open-minded enough to listen to us, be careful. Patrick sounds like he might be a little bit bullish. This the worst thing you had. It was the only only thing would be worse. I'm trying to just I'm trying to look at that chart as though it was a normal stock as opposed to the other thing. The only thing that would be worse the only thing would be worse is if we both got bullish. Like then sell all your Bitcoin, you know, own fiat because the world is ending. World is ending. It's bad. It's bad. Okay. So, uh, let's talk gold. Uh, this trend has been relentless. Now, we talked about this over several episodes that we have measured moves on the upside of 4,000. So, this the this move is in line with uh previous uh lengths of rallies in gold. So, so far this has not done anything like parabolic where it's been, you know, accelerating past the traditional move. So, we're about to get a big tell here in this 3,900 to 4,000 range because uh if gold accelerates through that, then we could uh be arguably transitioning into some sort of parabolic rise. I actually don't like to assume or even try to predict parabolic moves like your thousandpoint update thesis. Um uh but uh the way that I would uh more or less say is that we're about to get a tellt because traditionally when gold finishes a move like this it takes a pause like for instance the last time it made a rip like this it spent three months trading sideways and uh and in the same way if as we approach this level if this is going to be like the consolidations of the past this would be where we put in a short-term high and maybe it trades sideways for the rest of the year. Maybe it gives a little bit back because it's just had so much momentum, but this is going to be a real tell. If we can blow through 4,000 like a hot knife through butter and this thing just starts building momentum, then we can start talking gold going parabolic bubbish. But, uh, we're about to find out like this is this is a a place where traditionally things should start stalling out a bit. And that's not me getting bearish. That's just me talking about the natural eb and flow movement of price action which is you know things uh it's like lungs breathing in and out the market advances and pauses advances and pauses and this is a very typical place where we should see a pause if the market is just uh if gold market is behaving in a very traditional manner. I have nothing to say. I'm okay. The one thing I will say, the one thing I will say though is that if I put it on a monthly chart on the GDX, you know, like what does that look like to you, Kev? Eiffel Tower, baby. Although I don't think so no not Eiffel Tower but that kind of an acceleration is uh like there's no point at any point since the inception of the GDX that we have ever seen this type of price action and fundamentally there's a rationale behind it right like you could the these companies are genuinely making money with gold up here and costs are low like there I'm not trying to argue against that but when you have this type of an acceleration to the upside, these things tend to uh reach an exhaustion point. It's like a a rocket ship being blasted off into into space, like at some point it runs out of fuel and gravity can grab it and pull it back. Like a question here is that even though we can say that by 2028 and 2030, maybe the GDX can justifiably be even 100red and $150 on the upside on the thing. But we're talking about like just the fact that it made this much of a move this quickly this year. Uh will we inevitably see mean reversion, pause, consolidation in this trend? This has just gone insane and everyone is so convinced that this thing can't correct. Uh that it it worries me. Yeah. Listen, it worries me too, but I will say this. Um, so far what's happened is the wise guy kind of gold bugs were the first to buy it. They've owned it for a while. You know, I remember we were talking about how how much we like these things, how they were so cheap. And I remember talking and explaining to you that we're going to get a situation where the numbers are going to start to get better on these things and then the quant guys are going to come for them. And when the quank guys come for them, it's not going to be big enough and it's going to move to the upside quicker than folks expect. And I, you know, it's it was even quicker than I expected. And this is what's happened. But I I just want to say something. Up until now, this is being almost purely driven by quants, meaning that they're just looking at the number. They're just buying the the cheap stocks. Okay? and talking to some brokers that are, you know, speaking to clients, the fundamental like generalist equity folks have only started to buy and it's the tiniest amount and they've missed it. And one of the comments that one of my buddies told me was that a lot of the New York Boston accounts are sending entire teams up to Canada to talk to the managements of these companies. So, what I think you're going to see is even if we do get a correction, and I am completely in your camp, that we're going to get a correction and it's going to come and it's going to be it's going to be quicker and faster and uglier than folks think, but then it will be met with a wall of buying once again because I suspect that this is a story that has long-term legs and that the big money hasn't been able to get in and that they will be there to catch it. So don't you don't have to convince me about the long. So don't be too bearish when it finally comes and it will come and it will be a quick 10 or 20%. I don't know like you tell me on your do your Fibonacci you know what but I'll tell you I'll tell you you say quick 10 or 20%. Yeah, but I want to highlight that I would I generally am as bullish on um as gold miners as I am on let's say for instance uh uranium and uh and when uranium and uran and chemico corrected uh earlier this year before this big rip they were pulling back 30 plus% before they went ripping back to their highs. Um the the point is is it might not be a quick 10 or 20%. Like uh commodity stocks are viciously yeah it might be 30 might be the same. It might and that is but it'll be an epic it'll be an epic buying opportunity. That's come on. I've been using the uranium example as a analog because if you remember back then we had the initial re um kind of wise guys owned it and they owned it forever like it was in all the podcasts and all the smart guy not smart but like value type people were owning it. Then it got a little bit of a rally and it got going and it was some fast money went into it and then there was a disappointment level and it as you say it corrected 30%. And then the big money came and it just exploded. So the only thing I will say is that I'm sorry. Go ahead. So here I just have the chart. So like I will just show Kamico. So Kamico back in 2023 going to 2024 went through an 18-month period where it basically went almost 200%. Like it was went from 20 bucks to 55. And um at that time you could do no harm in owning uranium. This was the future. This was the whole thing. And twice it had these two violent corrections. Look at this. Uh and um this was uh just move it up. This over here was a 36% correction and uh and this drop over here was a uh 44% correction. 44%. Now, where is Kamico in the bigger picture? It still ripped higher. still went to 80 uh you know uh 80 plus dollars on the upside but twice it was a 36 and a 40% correction that happened on its way up and so this is this is what I think that you know one even though the gold story I I quant going up to Toronto all that [ __ ] is true I I I completely believe you that there will be thing but I also think that the market will at some point shake out all the weak hands that are way too levered up. So convinced that this can't pull back that and and the market does what it does best. It has to clean out the margin call margin call out the levered guys shake everyone out and then it'll start up again on the upside. Right. Got it. Uh okay. So uh we have a lot to cover here. So I want to I want to keep going here. Um the the next thing uh what I want we had to talk about is copper and uh up 16 cents today. This thing is just ripping on the upside. Uh, and uh, I'm just going to use actually the LME, the GradeA copper in London because it doesn't have the tariff noise. Uh, it broke to a fresh new high. It's ripping. Obviously, the uh, the supply issues with the uh, the uh, Freeport McMoran mine has suddenly kind of given a new life to copper, brought it to the attention, and certainly now it's gotten some traction. But this copper trade is looks exciting. My only concern is a lot of copper stocks like I'm just going to use the copex uh index. This thing has been running uh uh in uh this thing has been running uh in a parabolic fashion. And you know while Freeport McMoran stock itself hasn't done anything crazy obviously it pulled back in the correction but look at the freaking run these copper stocks are it almost feels very much like the uranium stocks uh at this stage like this this is running hot and um and while I'm so super bullish commodities over the rest of the decade it just feels like if there was going to be a stock market correction that I almost feel like the commodity stocks will participate in the correction. Like I feel like um that there's a real chance that this is a part of that whole when when they everyone runs out of this momentum u then all of these are going to be profit taken all at once. I listen I don't disagree with you. I and this is something I've been saying because people said to me the other, you know, one of my buddies said to me the other day, he said, "I feel like buying gold up here is the hardest trade." And I was like, "Yeah, I get it. It's up on a stick. It's hard to buy up here." But he said, I said to him, I said, "Owning cash, I think here is the hardest trade because there's a huge amount of FOMO across the board. Almost everything has worked. The only thing that hasn't worked that is looks stupid is cash. So to me I I I won't disagree with you and in essence me saying that like owning cash is the hardest trade is in essence agreeing with you implicitly that these things will all correct. Yeah. Now let's move on. Platinum and platium still super bullish looking charts. Uh but they probably will also run with gold and silver which is that they they don't look like they any of them have peaked out yet and they all could have one more leg higher. Uh but the precious metals are broadly rallied. This is no longer even silver was having a great move. This is no longer just like gold moving. Everything is ripping all at once. The uh the other thing I want to highlight was there there was a nice little breakout in natural gas. Um, and you know, we talked about the uh over the last month or two that you you started liking it. I said, "Well, I want to see it form a bottom." And it went for a double bottom retest. And look at this. We got the first close above the 50-day moving average since the uh the summer fake outs. And um and we now kind of bottomed out. This is the UNL, which is the strip. just an easier way to look at it without looking at the term structure of a messy seasonal term structure of nap gas and um this is the first attempt to turn the trend uh in a while and um and you know I just it's sometimes keeping it stupid simple with closing above the 50-day moving average like look when it closed above the 50-day moving average back in 20 late 2024 it stayed above the 50-day moving average during that entire bull rip, right? Like sometimes you don't need to make this technical analysis complicated. And the question here is that have we seen uh this uh term uh one day doesn't make a new trend, but this is the first time we've seen this in a while. And I think you need to pay attention. Got it from your lips to God's ears. Yeah. So you that's we know you're loaded up on. So there you go. uh the uh anyway uranium uh obviously little pullback still generally bullish on it. I'm not going to pull out what it is interesting. I wanted to highlight uh I wanted to look at the A stocks. I'm you know you could take something like the MOO index uh and and play it but I actually like looking at just like some of the bigger ones. Actually let's look at Mosaic particularly. Um uh now Mosaic uh what was interesting about let's say a stock like Mosaic is that it missed on its earnings back uh in uh in this like uh early August period and it immediately got bought and has been ripping all the way back to the highs. But when you step back on a weekly chart and you look at these eggs, we went through a three-year bare market. Now, here's an in here's a basket of stocks that have like zero correlation to the index. Like, these things are in their own little bubble. They don't have any kind, you know, like the S&P uh stickiness. Like, this thing went through a vicious three-year bare market. And look at the way that they're generally behaving throughout the year. It really looks like quietly these A stocks are are actually showing accumulative price action and I'm curious whether the A stocks here are going to break to higher highs and really start to come alive. You know, because uh we obviously have I think the the entire um commodity space can be split up into two groups now. You have those things running hot, copper, uranium and gold and all the precious metals basket. And then you have the ones that have not which is the eggs, energies, n gas, uh all of these that have been left behind. And one of the puzzles to solve is that will we see a changing of the guard in the commodity thing where not necessarily ones have to go down while the other go up. But will we see a period where suddenly these stocks outperform the other ones uh during a period like could we see a scenario where um the trends of the next 6 to 12 months will actually be great moves in the AS and energy names that will outperform uh some of these other uh overextended commodities. um one way or another, it's it's one of the kind of bull things to watch in this kind of commodity thing and whether there'll be some sort of a rotation that way. Thoughts on that? No thoughts. I just uh interesting you bring it up. Not a lot of people are talking about it. It feels like one of those things that you should keep your uh you know eye on because it's one of those under the radar trades that end up working. Yeah. So, I'm going to avoid talking about the stir markets. Uh uh I'm going to cuz you'll poke at me a little bit. I'm not going to poke at you. Everyone loves your Mr. It is. No, no, but listen, it is um it is right now kind of a a very indecisive period. There's clearly not much driving short-term interest rates. Uh, everyone's now priced in the Fed path for the next few months and there is just isn't enough economic data to really push the next incremental kind of will the Fed be more dovish or less or more hawkish in the next cycle. Things might be quiet until Christmas before we get another huge move in the in the sulfur futures. But what is interesting is that the long bond future um went through a clear double bottom retest, a clear basing formation and started making higher lows sequentially and now has spent material period bel above the 50-day moving average. This entire consolidation held to a 50% retracement. bonds look like they're being accumulated, Kev, and we talked about this last episode, but uh to me, uh this still can surprise everyone to the upside on the short term. Like, I get the long-term thesis. Like, you know, we could we could get, you know, the Lyn Aldens and Luke Romans on the thing of long-term fiscal and all this [ __ ] like this and government spending. I mean, yes, there's a reason bonds are probably going to have a vicious another bearer decline into this decade, but on the short term, the remainder of the year, we may actually be going up, not down. I'm not going to fight you, Patrick. I got no position, which for me is as bullish as I get, baby. Like, that is me saying bonds are headed higher. All right. So, let's just wrap up with some global uh indices and then we'll call it. Well, let's just talk Nikkay for a second. The price action though uh on the NK uh had this pullback like I was saying earlier, it could it could have easily been a retest the 50-day moving average. Easily been down to 44,000. Just five days in uh on a very shallow pullback. We have a massive green candle ripping higher. uh the NIK is taking flow very bullish chart I don't have I don't know about your group but I have very few people talking about this but this continues to demonstrate very accumulative and strong positive price action I would not be surprised if we're even at 47,000 or 48,000 on the upside and Nikk uh this is uh this is strong here well I'm glad you're saying that it's my biggest long I love it um if you look at small caps they're even better like Japanese small cap apps. Like it's just unbelievable there. It's a It's a market nobody cares about. It's still cheap long-term. You want to know you you want to know what the market that nobody cares about? That's shocking me. What's that? I was I I've been incredibly bored and I'm generally telling everyone to avoid the European markets and the European markets uh have uh traded sideways for months and hu while all these other global indices were ripping. It had huge overhead resistance, no momentum. Suddenly in the last week, boom, this thing freaking takes off. like is this the start of a new move in Europe? This is something that I have not been paying attention to until this breakout and I don't even know whether to believe it or not, but like uh I mean if if this breakout actually sticks, this is 6,000 on the Euro stock and I have zero position. I wasn't ready for this breakout and um and here this thing goes ripping. Are you bullish Europe here? like what's what's yeah I guess I'm bullish relative to the other other ind you know markets like especially US like so and and you're right it's gone sideways like like like let's face it for the past you know ever since liberation day the US has done very well and it's been rallying and this thing's gone nowhere so or not since liberation day because it had its initial move back up but for the past What? Two months like or three months? Like what is that? Yeah. No, no, it's been since May. Yeah. So, it's been it's been a market that's quiet. Listen, ultimately I'm a bull. And the reason I'm a bull is because it's been starved of fiscal stimulus and with the new environment that we're in, the new global kind of way that it's all working out. Europe is finally spending. So, the surprises will be continue to be to the upside. And that's ultimately what I feel. There you go. So, uh, the next one I wanted to touch, China remains very bullish. I mean, I would not be shocked if we saw 16,000 on the A50. Brazil. Uh, can I Whoa, whoa. Can I talk about China? I think China, and I highlighted this in my uh weekly podcast that I do just to my subscribers. I think China is in a situation that is very akin to the the US in the post2010 period. And I think this isn't my idea. This is actually Louis Vinc. And I believe he was on that show that you cheated on me with. Um but I clipped him from another show where he articulated it so well in that China is putting in place policies that are all prog growth. They're all pro, you know, profitability. There's everything is lining up. And it just reminded me so much when Louie started talking about making this argument. It reminded me so much of the situation David Ter um highlighted in 2010 where he said, you know, you have to buy the stock market because the reality is if the economy slows down, the Fed's going to do QE and stocks are going to go up. If the economy goes, you know, gets better, stocks are going to go up. It's a you know it's a situation where stocks are headed higher and Louis's point is that you know after five 10 plus years of them delevering the system and creating an environment that was you know negative for financial assets China has changed and the policy design is such now that they are going to stimulate they're doing you know record fiscal stimulus the the monetary situation is very easy. And it just feels to me that we could be in a situation where we have a decade of China doing better than everyone expects. Just like in 2010, nobody was bullish on US. People forget, but everyone was so bearish on the US in 2010 because we were coming out of the GFC. There was all sorts of problems. Everyone was super bearish on the US. It ended up being the best world market out there. I think China has a chance of being that sort of environment. There you go. So, look at this weekly chart of China and what we see is that there was uh almost a 4-year bare market. Almost four years. Yeah. Like it peaked out at the start of 2021. And it wasn't until the bazooka was shot at the end of 2024 that we legitimately uh saw things stabilize. And by the way, the bazooka shot in their stock market is actually a reflection and the volatility that ensued afterwards is a very good example and a lesson for our listeners of of like even though that bazooka shot legitimately was bullish and somebody who bought that huge surge to 15,000 um in two in two weeks that that ensued actually it was literally in days not weeks um that that shot happened to the upside. Um, anyone who bought it would still be making money today and arguably will make lots of money in the future, but it didn't change the fact that the thing reverted down to 12,000 before going back up. Uh and in the in in that's a to me a lesson of what could happen to that volatility we were speaking to in gold which is there's an argument to be made that gold and gold miners will be very bullish and they will make a lot of money and over the next years they will probably continue to be in a bull market but the types of volatility that can happen along the way uh always shock investors and uh and that's that that's a great example but after we kept the point I wanted to simply make after a three four year bare market and the thing going through almost a 2-year basing formation uh there's lots of room for it to go up right there is so much room and one last point I'd like to make is I don't think it's a coincidence that ter made that argument in 2010 in the US and ter is one of the most vocal China bulls out there and he is being just steadfast in his bullishness of China. All right, it's been long, so let's go to the finish it up. No, all I wanted to say was that look uh uh Brazil is taking a little bit of profit taking. Uh uh we saw Mexico take a little profit taking. What I'm curious about is that uh whether when you just talk about the emerging markets as an aggregate um they have been such a hot place. The money like like the rip on the upside of the emerging market basket has been huge. uh and they've been a great place to flow money and back to that very thesis that I've said like what could cause these to correct a little bit and that to me uh some sort of a squeeze in the dollar could be a perfect catalyst for mean reversion on all of these kind of emerging markets in the bigger picture remain super bullish on all of these but uh but you know these things are so have made such huge runs you know what the stock market at some point is going to take a breath uh and just pause. You don't understand. Trump's not going to let it go down. You know what? Why didn't you just tell me that at the beginning and we wouldn't have wasted all our listeners timearts go up. It's going to rally right into your end. There's going to be no crime. You're No, you're right. Anyways, you're right. Listen, um I'm gonna I'm gonna sign this off everybody. Bull market, bare market. We're just Oh, wait. Before I sign us off, Patrick, where can they find you and your great service? At bigpicturetrading.com and Kev, where can they find your amazing uh newsletter? Macro.com. Listen, bull market, bare market. We're just happy to have you spend some time with us. So now, stick around for the after show. Okay, Daniel. No, that was we went so long that I'm already uh drinking the uh the black label. The um So, what do we think, folks? go first because you know because I'm the great the pale ale guy. Um yes, I do like pale ales. This isn't the greatest one. I think there was like the Granville Island pale ale is my favorite one for those that are from the West Coast. That's the one I love. I'm going to give this um 79. That's still a pretty good score. Yeah, pretty good. But no Granville Island. I um I uh think it's actually good. Uh I like it, but I I don't think that this is like I don't think it I would go to a grocery store or somewhere and pick some up to drink some more. I'm going to give it a 73. Uh I it's I I wouldn't want to say there's anything wrong with it, but this is not like something that gets me excited. But this uh black label Carling, this is delicious. Wait, wait. It's called Black Label. Carling. Cuz we had a black label in Canada. Yeah. Yeah. O'Keeffe. Yeah. Yeah. This is Carling. Black Label. I mean, is it this is uh I don't think so. No, this is this is their local beer here. How do they spell Carling? Well, same way. Like with a C. Yeah. C A R L L I N G. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I I would I need to put my input in here, guys. Yeah. Okay. Go. because Carling in the UK is actually one of the worst beers ever. So, I don't know whether but that's why that's why you guys sent it down here. You created you you you guys came down here. You uh you put down the the British flag down here in South Africa and and say we're shipping all of this crap beer. So, I I I now listen this is AI so I'm not sure it's correct. Carling Black Label is a popular and iconic logger in South Africa known as Africa's beer and is a staple at social gatherings since 1962. Despite its, wait for it, Canadian origins. Oh, while Carly O'Keeffe was the Canadian parent company that eventually merged into Molson Kors, the brand's significant cultural and market presence in South Africa makes a distinctly South African experience. Interesting. You know what the funny thing about Black Label was? that when I was like 20 years old, we used to go to parties and people would drink your beer and they were bringing back like this black label still existed. nobody drank it and we would drink it so that we would know when people were stealing our beer. And then they had this huge like um media blitz and they I remember cuz it's like these cool like leatherbound parties and stuff like that and they would go and they would there'd be cool music going and it became popular again and we had to quit drinking it because the whole point was we were trying to drink something that nobody was drinking. So then we went back to Labat Sang to Leat's 50. But isn't that amazing though, Patrick? You went all the way to South Africa to drink a Canadian beer. Proud of you, buddy. It's like it's like inherent in your in your your blood. You just smell it like, you know, like a dog that gets dropped off four provinces away and somehow manages to find his way home. Okay. Um, give us your score, uh, and Daniel on the beer and then we're quickly going to go to South uh, speaking of South Africa, we're going to go to Sharks. But tell us your score first. Uh, I like it. sessionable. I would smash loads of those. So, I think that's a a solid eight for me. Sorry. 8.1. Sorry. Oh, there we go. We got himself from his amateur scoring. I have a feeling that that was a bullshit.1 because you just literally, you know, we're like, I can't say added one.1. Okay. So, now we got to talk sharks. Last time we were here, Patrick was saying, "No way was I going to get in the in the ocean with some sharks, and I he was telling me horror stories about sharks jumping into the cage, and I was telling him, that's not that big a deal. They're not going to want to bite you at that point." Um, Patrick, you you shared some video recently. I did. You ended up doing it. I went I went uh uh cage diving with sharks. It it was uh pretty epic, bud. Uh it was uh it was an awesome experience. Danny, maybe uh po put a little footage here in the background. But uh yeah, me and uh like we're down here uh with the big picture trading team cuz uh we're hosting a big mastermind down here and uh so uh so me and um a couple of the guys uh from the team, we went out there and we dove with the sharks. Man, I'll tell you, it's scary as [ __ ] Is it? Like it's uh Oh, yeah. like uh when when these thing because they they come right uh they've dragged them right to the cage and they crash into the cage. Uh and so like you're holding on. It's like you see this thing come right at I don't know if I'll do it again, but uh I I probably had to clean out that wet suit two or three times after I left the left some stains, I'm sure. No, but it was uh it was a some sharks swimming around in your wets suit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, how big do you think they were? Did they tell you how big they were? Uh they were in the 1 to 3 m range. There was one big one. There was one that was just gargantuan. Uh it was it was crazy. Uh but uh when they chum the waters, you even get some baby sharks in there as well. But uh majority of them were in that mid-range around 2 meters. That's crazy. Like they don't know the names cuz like up, you know, they follow them and they tag them up here on the east coast. No, you know what? They um they didn't know the names of the sharks. They know the uh the names of the seals, their sea lions there that are are fighting the sharks for some of this bait. And so they they had names for all the sea lions cuz they know them. They're troublemakers by Don't the sharks eat the sea lions? No. I guess if there's enough food for them, they don't bother. No, they actually No. Like you know what? Okay. First of all, it wasn't great whites. Uh we didn't go great whites. So, it's the great great whites and orcas and [ __ ] like that will go after the sea lions. Okay. Like these were like the copper and uh or um is that bronze? I don't know. Anyway, the they're uh they're huge sharks, but they're not the great whites. Okay. Uh you can do the great white experience, but it was you had to go like way into deeper waters. It was a completely um uh you you'd literally have to make a a day or two of it like as opposed to like a going into the bay and so I we did the kind of just uh more chilled one. Now you got something. Yeah. No, I'm you know what I once was enough. I got some I got some footage. I said I my bucket list is checked off and done. I'm not uh I'm not doubling down on this experience. Daniel, you and I sit around living boring lives and Patrick's, you know, driving Ferraris through the mountains of Italy, swimming with sharks. What's next week going to be? God knows. You got to stay tuned, buddy. He's going to go climb like, you know, um, Kilimanjaro or something or while he's there. Although that's not that that's not that extreme. So maybe he's going to go climb Everest. It's going to be one of those rich tourists that makes puts the the sherpa drags them up the mountain. I made it. And then it's just Yeah, I made it. Forget the fact that two sherpas, you know, carrying on their backs the whole way. Yeah. Did you see, by the way, speaking of which, um, there was a Everest, there was a Polish skier that was the first guy to to climb Everest without oxygen and ski down without oxygen. And one of my buddies is a snowboarder, goes figured a skier would do something so stupid. Very true. Very true. Oh, well. Anyways, you know what? We should probably let everybody go. Yeah. Um, do you have anything exciting you want to share with us? Um, Daniel, uh, no, I'm going to go to the pub. So, yeah, you can wrap. The day ending and why, of course, you're going to the pub. Okay. Well, have a great time and, uh, Patrick, thank you. I'm glad you're still alive. I'm glad you made it through it. And thank you for sharing all that stuff with us. All right. Well, cheers everyone. Have yourselves a great weekend and, uh, we'll see you in a couple weeks. Cheers everyone.